Shall we now turn to Psalm 33. Psalm 33. And we shall read verse 1. Psalm 33 verse 1. Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright. Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright. And the title I've given this morning is, Praise is Fitting for Royal Hearts. Praise is Fitting for Royal Hearts. Now, I remember being an altar boy in the Roman Catholic Church. The Mass was said in Latin. This was before the Second Vatican Council 1960s and this was way back, yes in 1960s and the priest performed his ritual with his back to the congregation. I don't remember a hymn book in my hand and neither do I remember as an altar boy singing a hymn. during the mass except during the time praying the rosary or during the novena and these were hymns sung to Mary. As years moved on, I went to join the Catholic seminary in the 1970s and I was studying in the major seminary up till 1980. By now, after the Second Vatican Council, hymns were introduced during the mass. We sang hymns and I conducted the worship in a large Catholic church in Bangalore in India, but there was no hymn book. I never held a hymn book in my hand. Hymns were printed on a single sheet of card paper. Now singing hymns of praise and thanks and themes that express the gospel and evangelistic messages was not something that the Church of Rome encouraged or felt it was necessary for its people. The Reformation or the Protestant movement of the 15th century recaptured rejoicing before the Lord, thanking the Lord, singing the glory of the Lord, expressing repentance and asking forgiveness for sins and all this was greatly expressed in the evangelistic hymns. From Martin Luther to Isaac Watts and John and Charles Wesley and so many others, they brought great joy to the worship of God. Psalms were sung to the tune and saints, both men and women, composed deeply moving and hymns filled with godly thoughts. They were very biblical, sound theology in fact. Many of them composed these hymns for the sake of the people, because the people were uneducated in Europe, in England, and so in order that they could pass on the theology, made it simplified, and so that the people would sing them and understand them through singing of hymns, they wrote these hymns for the sake of the people. hymn books abounded from the time God separated millions of men, women, and children from the Roman Catholic Church rituals. Like in the times of the biblical times, people of God began to rejoice before the Lord, give thanks to the Lord, began to praise the Lord. And with the Reformation or the Protestant movement, the people of praise were reborn. Dear friends, please, many Pentecostal and charismatic devotees think that between the New Testament, after the coming of the Holy Spirit, until the 19th century, the Church was dead and came alive only in the 19th century with the Azusa Street revival and later the charismatic movement of the 1960s. I will highly recommend that you take upon yourself to seriously read the history of the Reformation and of the Puritans and of the particular Baptists from the 15th, 17th to the 19th century. To talk about the history of hymns and hymn writers will take many hours, and that is not our purpose this morning. But you can, for your own information, and to strengthen your faith, and to know the truth, and for your own spiritual benefit, look into it. Study it. Let me remind you that hymns were never produced to become popular, nor to gain money. Hymns were not written by these men of God so that they would become famous all over the world and so that they could gain money. There was no Christian music industry as it is today. Now why was there no joy in celebrating the Mass in the Roman Catholic Church? Why was there no singing of praise and giving of thanks and making known the works of the Lord? Why was there no rejoicing among the Roman Catholic Church during the worship? Was it an oversight? Was it Not just possible to praise God because there was no joy of the Spirit of God in the hearts of the people? Was it suppressed by the authority of the Church so that God and His Son be magnified? And as a result, the authority and the headship of the Church is forgotten? Why is it that for centuries after centuries the mass remained a drab ritual? One immediate reason comes before my mind and that is the masses are offered for the dead. They are offered to the dead. You don't rejoice before the dead, do you? Every mass is offered for the dead. Honestly, I never thought of this until I began to prepare this message. And I said, wow, that's true. My mind went back to the days when I was little and I would go up to Mars, go for Mass. We never sang hymns. And so that's the first reason that comes to my mind that Masses are offered to the dead. Secondly, every Mass is believed to be the actual sacrifice of Christ. Christ is actually killed as a sacrificial victim. His blood is actually shed and his body is actually broken. That is what the Roman Catholic catechism says. And that the body and the blood is actually given to the people as a real blood and flesh. So it is very dark, very gory, very gruesome. The vestments that the priests wear are satin red and colourful, there is smell and there is bells, but the substance of the worship is mysterious and dark. What a pity that millions of the faithful were kept in that state of dark mystery. So there was no praise and no thanks on the lips of the people that worshipped Jesus Christ. There was no true knowledge. The Bible says in Hosea chapter 4 verse 6, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because thou has rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that thou shall not be priest to me. You see that? You shall not be priest to me. What do priests do? What do they do? They praise God. They worship the Lord. But I will also reject thee that thou shall not be priest to me seeing thou has forgotten the law of thy God. I will also forget thy children. Now the Bible says that giving thanks and praise to the Lord is the heritage and the inheritance reserved for the saints that are regenerated by God, washed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. And therefore the scripture says, as our scripture was, Psalm 33 verse 1, Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright. What does this mean? The Lord is calling the righteous to rejoice, and that praise is comely, meaning praise becometh, or is fitting, or is beautiful for the upright. Some translations has it this way. Some, that is New English Translation, it is appropriate for the morally upright to offer him praise. Then in New Living Translation, let the godly sing for joy to the Lord, it is fitting for the pure to praise him. And then we have another one. Rejoice, you just in the Lord. Praise from the upright is fitting. And the Good News translation says, all you that are righteous, shout for joy for what the Lord has done. Praise him, all you that obey him. All you that obey Him, praise Him, shout for joy. So singing praise and thanks to God is allotted to only a particular people. It is not for all. Tell me dear friends. Tell me, before you were born again of the Holy Spirit, before your salvation, how many of you praised God as you woke up in the morning? And how many of you praised and thanked the Lord all throughout the day, off and on? How many of you praised the Lord for all the things and thanked Him even when things went wrong? How many? Let us start with myself. Me? No way! I never remember doing that. So I for one did not praise the Lord. That was not what I did. As a young lad going to school, I said Hail Mary and Holy Mary many times a day, a repetitive prayer. But there was no spontaneous praise and thanks rising from my heart to thank God. for coming into this world, setting me free because I was not free. And this is the experience of every soul on earth. At evening family prayer, as a Catholic we never sang hymns or praises to the Lord, never read the Bible, all we said was the rosary and if at all sang a hymn to Mary. But the moment We are born again with delight in the praises of the Lord. Praising and thanking God becomes next to breathing. We praise Him when we pray, we praise Him when we worship, we praise Him when we wake up, or when we walk, when we are in trouble, when we are in success, we praise Him all the time. The Bible says, it is not my saying, mind you, The Bible says, praise is fitting for the upright. Salvation makes a person upright. Salvation makes a person pure. Salvation makes a person a royal priest in the house of the Lord God Almighty. It makes a person filled with gratitude for all that God has done. Suddenly your eyes are open and you see what God has done for you, is doing for you and will do for you. The Bible goes even further to say in Psalm 50, offer unto God thanksgiving, that is verses 14 to 17, offer unto God thanksgiving and pay the vows unto the most high and call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee and thou shall glorify me. But unto the wicked, listen to this, but unto the wicked God said, What has thou to do to declare my statutes? How can you? You're wicked. You're a sinner. You're not related with me. You're outside my domain, my kingdom, my house. You're my enemy. So what have you? And how nicely it fits. Before we are born again, we don't care to praise God. We find it even burdensome to praise God. So God said, but unto the wicked, God said, what hast thou to do to declare my statutes? Or that thou should take my covenant in thy mouth, seeing thou hates instruction and cast my words behind thee. Oh, how well the Bible describes the wicked. You and I were wicked before we were born again. Surely we will. There is no doubt about it. And there are millions outside, dear friends, we don't consider, of course we consider ourselves to be privileged, but not because of our goodness, but because of the Lord. And it is our desire, if at all I'm saying what I'm saying and making it known, it is because so that you who are outside God's kingdom may understand and know that you've got to repent of your sin and enter into the kingdom of God through much humility, through much humility and obedience. Well, moreover, if a person does not read the word of God, has no knowledge about God, about salvation, about Jesus Christ, about sin and hell, he cannot have the Holy Spirit. And such person cannot have the love of God and the desire to praise and thank the Lord. He does not know the commands of the Lord or the way of the Lord. So how can such a person, even though he or she may claim to be a Christian, even praise God? And it is good for you, dear children, or to those who understand that you are not yet born again, ask yourself, I come to church Sunday after Sunday. I come for Sunday school. I attend a Friday meeting. I hear so much about the Lord. Do I praise Him? Do I thank you, Lord? Is it spontaneous? When you love your celebrity, you listen to him all the time. Oh, you talk about their glory. You talk about how he sings, how good he looks, and so on and so forth. It comes naturally. Has it begun to come naturally for you to praise God and thank God? I know that many have now, with the charismatic and the Pentecostal movement, have learned to praise and thank God. Charismatic and Pentecostal movement have popularized praise and thanksgiving. It has even become an entertainment thing to praise and thank the Lord. And some, I have noticed, have added singing, praise and thanks to fitness program. What is it called? I don't know. Some years ago, this was very popular, advertised everywhere. They were dancing to the tune of God's music, praising about fitness, getting fit through this. These have not only popularized praise, but they have vulgarized it. Vulgarized it. So if one has learned to sing praises to God, it does not mean that this person is born again of the Holy Spirit, that they have become upright and the child of God. It need not be the work of the Spirit. It is only an imitation. What happened when the Holy Ghost came upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost? Acts chapter 2 verse 4. We are told in the Bible that the disciples, when the Holy Spirit came upon them, which Jesus had promised that he would send, what the Father had promised he would send, and so when the Holy Spirit came, we are told in the Bible, that they were filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues, meaning other languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And people in Jerusalem heard them speak the wonderful works, the wonderful works of God. They were praising and thanking what God has done through Christ Jesus, and of course about the creation, and about all the prophecies that are told in the Old Testament. These men and women were made right with God. Their sins were cleansed and they were made holy. Without holiness, the Bible says, you cannot see the face of God. If you cannot see the face of God, you cannot relate with God. And to see the face of God means to understand God, who he is, who you are. That you have a relationship with God. So without holiness, you cannot see the face of God. Without being cleansed by the Saviour's blood, no one can come before the Lord. We must seek for God's forgiveness first. We must desire to know Him and love Him and give Him all the glory. Only the One who has created you, you can give Him glory, dear friends. None. The Lord God is ever willing to cleanse a person who sincerely want to make God his all and worship Him. Dear friends, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to downgrade you. I was the same before, as I told you. But please ask yourself this question. Why is it that I cannot spontaneously praise God? Why is it that I don't enjoy praising and thanking the Lord? The Bible says, God dwells in the praises of his people. God dwells in the praises of his people. If God dwells in the praises of his people, then you must have the assurance that you are one of his people. Not one of his fake people, not one of his pretend people, not one of just an imitation, but real. born of the Spirit, forgiven of our sins, made new, made the temple of the Holy Spirit, and made His royal priest. His royal priest. In the temple of God in heaven, as we read in chapter 7 of Revelation, the angels sing praises to God without ceasing. without ceasing. Once God forgives you your sins, he sets his mark in your heart that you belong to him. He makes you his royal priest in his temple. And so Apostle Peter says in 1 Peter 2 verse 9, the Bible says, but ye are a chosen generation a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people that he should show forth the praises of him who had called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. You see that? You become his chosen people. You become his royal priest. What a privilege! Why does the Lord make you his royal priest? So that you and I minister to him by singing and praising him. So that you shout about his marvelous works. For you have now entered from darkness into light. God is light and you and I are now brought into his light. Those who are saved enter into His heavenly courts, into His temple. What happens in the heavenly courts? In the heavenly courts before His throne, the angels praise Him. The angels were there when the Lord laid the foundation of the earth. And in the book of Job we are told, where was thou? Where was thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding. Who has laid the measure thereof, if thou know? Or who has stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? Or who laid the cornerstone thereof? when the morning stars sang together. Who are the morning stars? The angels and the archangels. When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. He shouted for joy. Imagine the resounding shouts of the angels shouting for joy when they saw the marvellous handy works of God creating the whole universe. Now take note, these angels are mighty, they are glorious, yet they praise and thank the Lord. How wonderful and how intelligent and how creative the Lord God is. The Bible reveals the greatness of these creatures who bless the Lord. In Psalm 103 verse 20, it tells us, describing the angels, Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments. hearkening unto the voice of his word. Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts, ye ministers of his that do his pleasure. Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul. They are mighty, dear friends, the angels, they are glorious, and yet they bow down before the creator God and worship him. Why is there so much of praise and thanks in heaven? Is God an egoistic person filled with self-glory that he demands praises from the angels and mankind? Does he have a problem? No. The sovereign Lord God feeds them. with his food. He delights them with his beauty and he informs them with his knowledge. Look, when we see the modern technology, now the artificial intelligence, we see the robots and all kind of things doing all that and we say, Imagine, imagine God is constantly showing them his power and his majesty and his creativity, constantly. What do you think the angels will do? Wow! Great, isn't it? Praise God! You see, so the Sovereign Lord feeds them with his food, with his knowledge. Now you believe. You are what you are and you are what you think and what you hear and what you see. That is what you become. That is what you do. Accordingly, you will bring forth fruits from what you are made of. Your character, your conduct, your thoughts will be what you have received. For example, the Bible says you will be like the idols that you worship. And how true that is. You make certain thing your idol and you will be just like that. So it is with the angels and the heavenly host, praise and thanks flow from their hearts and lips. Why? Because they are constantly fascinated and astonished at what God is doing and as to who He is. So much so, they are constantly praising and thanking the Lord and His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the fruits they produce. Praise and thanks are the fruits of their lips. It is the fruit of their lips. They can do nothing but praise and thank him and worship him. And therefore it should be the same with us, his children. We are now brought into the courts of heaven. We are adopted and made His children. We are seated in the heavenly places. We feed upon His word. We see His beauty. We experience His love and kindness and goodness. We are forgiven of our sins. And that heavy burden of guilt is taken away from us. We are free. We have become His children. And like the angels, we are before Him. He dwells in our midst. We are made into the temple of His Holy Spirit. He dwells within us. So what should be the fruits of our lips? Certainly praise and thanks continually with joy. Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice. And so the Bible says, In Hebrews chapter 13 verses 15, by him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. You see that? Why should we offer the sacrifices of praise to God continually? Because that is the fruits of our lips. That's what comes up. What we eat, that is what we will become. We survive on the word of God. When we come to worship the Lord as a church, we don't offer Jesus Christ as a sacrifice, as the Catholics do at their mass. We don't kill Jesus and shed his blood and destroy his body. No. God allowed that to happen to his son Jesus Christ once and for all. Jesus offered on the cross himself, he bled and died once and for all. That is what the Bible says and we know that. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 9 verse 28, so Christ, listen to this, So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. He was offered only once. You cannot offer him, you cannot kill him, you cannot have his sacrifice over and over again. Imagine there are about millions of priests and they say mass every day. Imagine Jesus being killed millions of times every day. No. Abomination. Romans chapter 6 verse 9. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more. Death has no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once. He died unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Again, lastly, 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 18, For Christ also had once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. When we come to worship the Lord, when we gather together as the body of Christ, we offer sacrifices of praise to God. We offer sacrifices of praise. This is what he delights in. This is what he delights in. We don't sacrifice Jesus all over. We offer sacrifices of praise. Psalm 50 verse 14, offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the Most High. Even in the Old Testament, what are we told? Offer sacrifices of thanksgiving. Psalm 50 verse 23 again, those who offer praise as a sacrifice honors me. Look at that. Those who offer praise as a sacrifice, honour me. To the obedient, I will show the salvation of God. And again Psalm 69 verse 30, I will praise the name of God with a song and will magnify Him with thanksgiving. This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that has horns and hooves. This is all Old Testament, where sacrifices of blood was offered, but look what the Lord is saying, offer to me sacrifices of praise and not the bullocks and ox. Psalm 107 verse 21, let them give thanks to the Lord for His faithful love and His wonderful works for the human race. Let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving and announce His works with shouts of joy. When the saints understood what those sacrifices meant, of the bull and the goat and the sheep or whatever, when they understood that this is not enough to cleanse my sins, but I look on to the Messiah who was promised in Genesis chapter 3. the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. When they understood that, they offered sacrifices of praise to God for sending the Messiah to cleanse them and save them. Let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving. Ephesians chapter 5 verse 19. speaking to yourself in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what we come together for as children of God. Not to kill Jesus and offer his body and blood on the altar by a priest. We come to thank and praise him for what he has done for us on the cross at Calvary. We come with gratitude and with great joy and we come repenting for our sins. God loved us so much that he offered his only son for our sins. so that we might believe in Him and have eternal life. For this, we are utterly grateful, isn't it? Prophet Hosea says in Hosea 14.2, take words of repentance with you. and return to the Lord. Once you understand what God has done to you, dear friends, the Prophet is saying, take your repentance, turn around and go to God so that we may repay Him with praise from our lips. So that we repay Him. with praise of our lips, knowing and understanding that God has sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die for us and set us free. And having had that experience and knowing the truth, we put our trust in him and come to him in repentance and saying, Father, sorry that I've rejected you, that I've never thanked you for your son, Jesus Christ. I never knew that this wonderful thing was done for me, but now I know, and therefore I come to thank and praise you. We repay Jesus by praise, not by killing him again. No. Dear friends, the Bible is full of instructions about praise and thanks, and perhaps you are praising God and thanking God, but could it be, could it be that you are praising and thanking God, but your heart is far from God? Your lips are praising, The words are there, but it could be that you're far from God. And Jesus himself said to the people in Matthew chapter 15 verse 8, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Oh friends, Praise is fitting for the royal hearts, for the upright. It is fitting for the pure and righteous. It is fitting for those who obey God. Praise and thanks is the fruit of the lips of those that for whom God has become their food, their drink, their salvation, their thoughts, their principle, their mind, and their heart. Genuine praise and thanks can be offered to God only when you have come into His heavenly courts, when you have become the heavenly citizen and have been given the royal priesthood. It is given to those that obey His commands and love Him and honour Him alone. You cannot offer praise and thanks to him, and also to another person, like say, to Mary, or to the saints, or to some idols, or whoever. Look, the Bible says in Proverbs chapter 15 verse 8, the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord. The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is His delight. I don't want to discourage you. No, I don't want to discourage you from praising and thanking the Lord. Continue to do this. But ask, ask yourselves, am I dividing? Am I dividing my love for God with someone else? some mother, some angel, some demon, some dead person? Am I cursing people and also praising God? Do I hate people and also love God? Do I desire the destruction of others and also claim to be in the presence of God and His angels, praising Him? Ask this, dear friend. Am I the temple of God and the temple of devil? Do I love the truth but will not give up the lies? We cannot play hypocrite with God. We cannot live a double standard life with God. You can pretend before men, you can pretend before your own self, but God knows it all. He knows it all. All that you are righteous, shout for joy. For what the Lord has done, praise Him, all you that obey Him. Do you obey God, your Creator, dear friends? Praising God belongs to those that obey Him. Proverbs 15 verse 8, as we just read, the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord. with a prayer of the upright is his delight. Psalm 50 verse 16, but unto the wicked God said, what has thou to declare my statutes? Why are you taking my praise upon your lips? Or that thou should take my covenant in my mouth, in thy mouth. Oh dear friends, I want to end here. Maybe you give praise and thanks to God because it helps you emotionally. Maybe you come to the meetings where there is singing and dancing because it makes you feel better and makes you believe that you are better than other Christians. Maybe you want to show others that you are a good person and that God is with you. Look, don't trust in your own ideas. Don't trust in your own ideas. It will not work. God has offered the only sacrifice that is needed for you and me. Consider what he needs from you. He needs you to repent. He needs you to become humble and truthful about yourself. And while praising him, think about what Christ has performed for you and seek for pardon. Beg for His Holy Spirit and only, only fear God, only fear God. Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous, for praise is calmly for the upright. Let us get up, let us stand up and sing this beautiful hymn, Psalm 104 and hymn 73 in Christian hymns.