Be seated. We'll turn our attention this afternoon to Psalm 135. Out in the pew racks, there are two books. So there are Bibles, and we have psalters. But in reality, these two books are not actually two books at all, though they might be between a set, a different set of physical covers. And some Bibles actually have the metrical Psalms sewn between the two covers, and that's a commendable practice. But has it occurred to you that the Bible is a singing book? And so if you take your English Bible and you do a calculation and you open it to the middle page, it is likely that you are going to open up to the book of Psalms. And just for the sake of argument, I went and took my Greek and Hebrew Bible, Old and New Testament between two covers. I calculated the middle page and there it is. It's in the book of Psalms. So there's a song in the middle of your Bible. And the melody of the Psalter pervades the rest of Holy Scripture. And that is an amazing thing, actually. It is an aspect of evangelical religion. So the Word of God authorizes sinners to make a joyful noise. And Psalm 51 is an example of it. make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones that thou hast broken may rejoice. So imagine being before your judge. And God is our judge. David was before God, dealing with God as an offended judge and pleading for his mercy. Now imagine that you were before a judge and you were guilty. and you were pleading for mercy, and you pleaded with your judge, not only justify me in the sight of the law, but make me sing, make me rejoice. Imagine coming out of a courtroom where you're facing a judge, you're guilty of the crime, and you come out of the courtroom singing like a bird. But this is what God does for sinners. He makes sinners sing. So the Bible is a singing book. And I know that there are those who have their singing books and they have a hymnal. A hymnal is a singing book. You know, we can, there's something we can appreciate about a Christian who, you know, recognizes true gospel Christianity as a religion of singing with joy, and so they have a singing book. But not to say more, I'll just say, well, how much better to have the singing book be the Bible itself? So that the very word of God authorizes you, a sinner, to sing for joy. And it gives you the words by which to sing for joy. We sing for joy in the Psalms of the Bible. It's not a cheap joy. So that also sets the Psalter apart. So in the Psalter, we also lament. And we've got Psalm 6 and Psalm 88 and Psalm 13, et cetera. It's not a cheap joy, not easy. In this life, the joy of the Christian is not unmixed. There is a mixture of sorrow. It's joy amidst sorrows and heaviness. Nor is the joy that the Lord gives and that we express in the Psalter, nor is it an untested joy. because actually the singing with joy, all of this wonderful theme, is going to meet its most severe test, perhaps, in Psalm 137. We hung up our harps. We couldn't sing anymore. So we're building towards something in the Psalms. We're seeing Psalm 134, praise, praise, praise. Same thing in Psalm 135, same thing in Psalm 136. And then a big test. Can we sing? Can we keep on singing when we're taken away to exile? We'll come to that. Now, all that is to say, We're talking about joy, and it's not a naive, untested joy that the Lord gives, but it's a joy that actually endures and stands the test. So, by means of this joyful psalm, we have Christ speaking. We have the Son of David. And in this psalm, joyful and praising psalm, He is actually waging holy warfare. We have Christ with the sword of His mouth going out. That sharp two-edged sword of His mouth is going out. Amidst the joy and rejoicing, He is cutting down enemies. And what? Particularly idols. So notice verse 5, Our Lord is above all gods. Later on we have explicit reference, verse 17 and following, to idols, and as we'll see, other implied references as well. And so we have a battle, and the Lord's teaching us to make this distinction. Gospel religion makes music. False religion makes idols. So make melody to the Lord. Make melody, not an idol. That's the way Christ is seeking to lead us through His Word. So there are five reasons to sing. Five reasons to engage in gracious gospel worship of God with joy as one of its great keynotes. Five reasons to do that rather than to follow a dead religion of idolatry. Let's see them. First of all, first reason is God's gracious election. In verses 1-4, here we have repetition of some things that we saw just previously in Psalm 134 about the servants of the Lord and standing in the house of the Lord in the courts to praise our God. And it's repetition that we need because we need to be trained in the use of the harp, as it were, in evangelical joy before the Lord. And the key words are good, because the Lord is good. We praise Him because He communicates through Jesus Christ His goodness unto sinners. And that is pleasant to us. It's fitting for us to return back joy and praise to such a good God. And the heartbeat of praise here in the first four verses has to do with election. Verse 4, 4, the Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself and Israel for his peculiar treasure. And so here is a discovery of faith and a looking more deeply into the love of God. What is it that's bringing forth this crescendo of praise the Lord? Well, it's we're looking at His love and we're seeing that His love has no cause except for Himself. Why would He privilege us to be in His courts? Because He chose Jacob to be His people and Israel for His peculiar treasure. And that language of Israel, as His peculiar treasure, it is... Well, it's echoing Exodus 19. The Lord brings His people up out of Egypt, out of the land of idolatry, mind you, and He says, you know, the Lord's brought you up out of Egypt on eagles' wings, and if you will keep His commandments, then you shall be to Him a peculiar treasure. And at Sinai there, what is the great thing the Lord tells them? Well, so much emphasis on not worshiping idols, right? At Sinai. And so we, may the Lord give us a sense of this. Praise the Lord because in his sheer mercy, he has severed us out from idolatry and set us apart unto himself. And it should, it should strike us. When we look at the big scope of history, it's not just Israel and what God did for them, but what about ourselves? If we think about generation after generation of the nations of the earth, perishing underneath of idolatry. Or it's, you can, it's a dark meditation in some ways, but if you think about, you know, archeological excavations, and the bones that they're digging up, and the bones are buried in, you know, the temple of whatever false god, and you think, all these generations of people, they went and died and returned to the dust, and their souls went to eternity, and they were under bondage to idols. Why has God given us the truth? Well, we should praise his name. We should think of John chapter four and how Christ says, there to the woman of Samaria, who had a corrupted form of worship. And he says, salvation belongs to the Jews, is of the Jews. of the Jews, and yet it's going forth to all nations and everywhere. Men are going to be praising the Lord, and the Father is seeking such as shall worship Him in spirit and in truth. And so God has graciously chosen to have a worshiping people for Himself, delivered from idolatry. And we have to praise Him every day. We should praise God. For example, for the Protestant Reformation, why did God do that? Simply because it pleased Him. It's terrible, the trend today, to cast a question mark, or worse, over whether we can be thankful to God for the Protestant Reformation. No, praise the Lord, praise Him, because He's chosen a people for Himself out of idolatry. So, God's gracious election. Secondly, reason to praise Him as God's works of providence. Here, verses 5 through 12. So, here we cast our gaze upwards towards the Lord Himself, for I know that the Lord is great and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that And he did. And interestingly, when we're singing here about God's providence, we are singing about his superiority. to all of the idols. And remember this psalm has a sting in its tail, and it's going to sting the idols towards the end, which have ears but do not hear, and so on. But when we're singing about providence, We're singing about how God is not an idol. So, for instance, in omnipresent providence, verse 6, whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places. So the idols, they were local gods, and the temple of Dagon in Ashdod, and then Chemosh is the god of the Moabites, and so forth. But the Lord, the true God, He is not confined to this place or that place. He's the living God. He's working whatever He pleases in the heaven, in the earth, in the seas, and in all the deep places. And so, this gives to our holy religion, actually, a missionary impulse. Because the Lord who's greater than all gods, verse 5, He's reigning everywhere. And so that means we should have an impulse to bring forward the gospel, to take turf away from the idols. We think of John Payton who went to the South Pacific and who notably so many times trusted the providence of God and he was protected. Well, He knew this truth. The Lord is above all these idols. His providence is at work everywhere. Therefore, let's press forward into every place where God's providence is at work. An omnipresent providence. A rain-making providence. Verse 7, He causeth the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. He maketh lightnings for the rain. He bringeth the wind out of His treasuries. Even in those most changeable parts of our world, the air and the wind and the weather, God's in control of all of that. Jeremiah 14, 22, Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? So that's one reason why God is greater than the idols. It's because He controls the weather. I hope you're interested in the weather at some level. It is interesting. But when we... well, it should hurt our ears if we hear the weatherman saying, I'm going to try to bring you some nice weather next week. We should think, whoa, you're setting yourself in the place of God. We should recognize that right now, in our society, there is a kind of religious fervor. And I mean that. There's a kind of religious fervor about climate and weather. So climate is a hot topic. There's a lot of warm air that certain people are exhaling about the temperature of the gas that's all around us. Why are they so bulldog focused on it? There's an idol behind that. God. is the one who's in control of the weather. God is the great climate changer. Psalm 107 talks about climate change. God is in control of it. He uses it for His purpose. We ought to worship Him and exalt Him above the idols of our day. Rain-making providence. Also, idolater-judging providence. So verse 8, just after the weather, he's talking about he smote the firstborn of Egypt, both of man and beast. Now when we compare Scripture with Scripture, compare that verse with Exodus 12, 12, where it's talking about the death of the firstborn, and the Lord says, I'm going to execute judgment on all the gods of Egypt. So the death of the firstborn was a judgment on Egyptian idolatry. It was an act of spiritual warfare. And that's why it makes sense that it's coming in here. Remember, so verse five, the Lord is above all gods. How has He showed that He's above all gods? He smote the firstborn of Egypt. And that was, you know, the culmination of a spiritual warfare against the gods of Egypt, who sent tokens and wonders into the midst of the old Egypt upon Pharaoh and upon all his servants. So we can start to recognize this in the plagues, you know, the serpent, Heron's rod, serpent, swallows up the other serpent, you know, you look at King Tut and his ridiculous burial, whatever, you know, he's got like the serpent there, okay? So God is saying, I'm greater than the serpent God. You worship the Nile, I'm greater than the Nile God, I'll turn it into blood. You worship frog gods, I'll give you frogs all day in your beds. You worship the sun, Ra, I'll turn the sun into darkness. So he glorified himself above the gods of Egypt, praise his name. He still does this in history. God judges idolaters. And when we read the book of Revelation, this should come across to us, because there, you know, we're introduced to a great whore, and she's a mystery, Babylon the Great, she's seducing the... the nations of the earth with the wine of her fornication, she's not the bride, she's the harlot, so this is a false church, she's mystery, she's a spirit, she's a religious corruption, so the idolatries of the church of Rome, and God is saying, I'm going to judge them. I'm going to bring them down. Fall and fallenness, Babylon the Great. So in history, God judges idolaters. So we need to take that on board and recognize, let me be far away. from idolaters, let me be far from Rome. Let me not take part in the judgment of the great horror. And so, well, so there's judgment on Egypt. And then the Lord tells about how he smoked great nations and slew mighty kings, Sihon and Og, and he gave the land of the Canaanites to the people of Israel. Once again, these were idolaters whom God judged, not because Israel picked a fight with them, but because God was letting them grow great in sin and hardening them, and then He swept away these idolatrous kingdoms. And so it continues to be in history that God, by providence, He judges idolatrous kings and kingdoms. And just like Israel, we don't go looking for a fight and provoking people, and we don't try to pull down rulers from their thrones and so forth, but they attack, right? And then when kings become persecutors, like Og and Sihon coming out against the people of the Lord, they're doomed. God is going to destroy them. So, you know, persecuting Prime Minister of India, persecuting President of China. If they don't repent, then the end is destruction for them and for their kingdom. And that's because our God He is king. He's the great king above all gods. He's not going to let anything stand in the way of the advance of His kingdom. He works in providence. Praise His name. Again and again, He demonstrates He's the living God. So, God's works of providence are a reason to praise Him. God's memorial name is a reason to praise Him. Thirdly, in verses 13 And 14, Thy name, O Lord, endureth forever, and Thy memorial, O Lord, throughout all generations. The idols are forgotten, but yet the Lord endures forever. Interestingly, the Lord will judge His people, and He will repent Himself concerning His servants. And so God has compassion. He uses this language in Deuteronomy 32, Song of Moses. They're going to worship idols. They're going to go away from me. But, and I'll chastise them, I'll send them into exile, but the Lord will repent himself concerning his servants. That's amazing. Even when Israel did follow idols, yet there was compassion with the Lord upon them, and He brought them back. This is a God who is worth serving and worth praising. His mercies and His compassions are great in Christ. And He, even when we ruin ourselves by following idols, yet with Him there is mercy. Let us therefore turn to Him and praise Him. So thirdly, praise God because of His memorial name. Fourthly, fourth subject of praise is God's mockery of idols. Verses 15-18. And also the heathen are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not. And so forth. It's interesting, as I got into looking at this, the way that the Lord expresses Himself there in verse 17, in the second part, neither is there any breath in their mouths. It's quite an interesting way that the Lord puts it here. Something like, also, non-existent is the existence of breath in their mouth. So He's saying there's really nothing there. and an idol. And so, the idol is not a breathing God. Interesting. We serve a God who breathes. He breathes forth His Holy Spirit. He can give you life. A dead idol means dead servants. The living God, by His Spirit, He breathes life. There's a warning in verse 18. The servant of idols becomes like the idols. They that make them are like unto them. Next time you read through 1 Samuel. Think about Dagon and Goliath. So the Philistine God and the Philistine champion. Do you remember? Dagon's overnight face plant. The ark of the Lord comes in, boom, down on the dust in front of the ark of the Lord. And then, next night, the decapitation of Dagon. So here comes Goliath, servant of the Philistine gods. What happens to him? Face plant, decapitation. He became like his God. He who serves an idol becomes like his idol. And then maybe you'll say, okay, but how do we take this and apply it to ourselves? Because Dagon is forgotten. No one serves him anymore. Well, there's a key there in verse 18. They that make them are like unto them, so is everyone that trusteth in them. So we serve a jealous God, and he is jealous about trust or faith. So anything you trust, that's not the triune God. That's an idol. In fact, Jesus spoke about mammon and the word mammon. It's one of those Aramaic words that gets across into our English Bibles, and it's referring to what you trust in. And then, when you start to think about it further, he's talking about what these idols are made of. The idols of the heathen are silver and gold. Okay. So, there may not be day gone around anymore. But is it possible for you to be drawn to trust in silver and gold, in money and stuff and mammon and everything that money can buy? In fact, it is. Covetousness is idolatry. So go ahead and use this for your own benefit. help it to mortify idolatry. Okay, an idol, they have mouths but they speak not. Okay, so this vacation that I am turning over in my mind and I'm coveting, it can't speak to me. It has no word to say to me. This new vehicle that if I only had it, I would be moving up in life and things would be nicer. It's blind. It can't see. Your vehicle can't notice if your expression is cast down. It doesn't notice if you're in trouble. It's a blind hunk of metal and plastic. The bigger house that I want to get, okay, it can't hear you. It's deaf. It's sheetrock and wood. If you call out, help, help, your new house cannot help you. A new iPhone has no breath in its mouth. There is a non-existence of the existence of breath in the mouth of a new iPhone. It can't breathe anything into you. The kitchen remodel has no breath for you. It cannot enliven you. It will not give you life. The nice heap of organic groceries has no breath in its mouth. It cannot enliven you or quicken you. So use the Word of God. Be severe towards your idols. Mock them. Kill them. Mortify them. You know, you can't really sing about money. There are some people who do, but we recognize they're pretty kind of crass characters, and they usually flame out and crash pretty quickly. Few people are brazen enough to sing about money, but you can sing about the mercy of our God and sing forever and ever and ever. How good it is! It's pleasant to sing praise unto Him. Our God, He's chosen Jacob. He's chosen a people for His own. An everlasting free love because He was pleased to love. We can sing about that and crow about that. before the whole universe. He does whatever He wants to. He's in control everywhere you go. Heaven, earth, bottom of the sea. He's in control of the weather. He smoked Egypt and all these kingdoms. He's our God. That's something to sing about. You can't sing about silver and gold, can you? But evangelical religion has this wonderful note of joy to it. How refreshing it is. It's pleasant. So we can sing about God's mockery of idols. Fifth reason for praise is God's kingdom of priests. Verses 19 through 21. Bless the Lord, O house of Israel. Bless the Lord, O house of Aaron. Bless the Lord, O house of Levi. You that fear the Lord, bless the Lord. And so forth. Now, Israel was a nation with priests in their midst, and one tribe chosen out of Israel to be the priestly tribe unto the Lord. And instead of the firstborn, the Lord took the tribe of Levi and so forth. And so a nation with priests in their midst, but we have it better than that now. And New Testament, the privileges have been enlarged and increased. We are a kingdom of priests unto our God and Father through Him that loved us and washed us in His blood. What a privilege to be chosen to be near to the Lord for the purpose of giving Him praise. And that implies also that there's a call for holiness for us because the priests were to be holy unto the Lord. Well, we praise God that He again and again speaks to us on this subject of praise. Every call to praise in the Bible is, it carries with it an implied call to faith. You can't do this without faith, can you? Because without faith, We would look upon the glittering silver and gold, we would look upon the great kingdom of what's happening now in the world, and our hearts would be drawn to that. but it actually takes faith to see something more precious than silver and gold, faith to look past the clouds that bring the rain and to see Him who is enthroned upon the circle of the earth and is in control of all of these things. Indeed, it takes personal faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, a sinner trusting Christ, and tasting God's goodness and mercy in Christ. That's the source from which blessing and praise flow up out of the soul. And the fact that this is so abundant in the Bible, blessing or praising God is teaching us that we need to exercise many acts of believing upon the Lord Jesus Christ and tasting and seeing that God is good, that we might come again and again to praise our God. May it be given to us, dear friends, to do so. Well, let's stand then and seek the Lord in praise. O Lord, our God and our Father in heaven, the living and the true God, who came unto Israel, they saw no form, God who is a consuming fire, God who is Spirit, and Thy beloved and only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the brightness of Thy glory, who is the reflection, the possessor of all the perfections of Godhead from the Father, begotten eternally, the Spirit of God, proceeding from the Father and from the Son, giving life We praise Thee, O glorious and triune God, and we do rend our hearts this day to know how prone we have been, and indeed are, to turn from the glorious and living God unto the work of men's hands. But we pray that Thou would draw us, that we might run after Thee, and would Thou put a new song in our mouth, Cause us to rejoice and put more gladness in our hearts than they have when they're corn and wine. Do most with them abound. Give to us that fountain within, springing up unto everlasting life, a fountain of joy and gladness and praise at all times. And we ask it in Jesus' name.