I'd ask you to turn in your Bibles this morning to the 115th Psalm. Psalm 115. This is the third in a collection of Psalms that has been historically designated the Egyptian Harel. It's a selection of Psalms that were sung at the Passover. It's likely these are the psalms that were sung by Jesus at the Last Supper, when we're told that they sang at him and went out to the Mount of Olives. It's in this part of the Psalter that they likely were singing. It's also part of a larger collection, sometimes just simply called the Harel Psalms, or the Hallelujah Psalms. All of them have, at one point or another, the word Hallelujah. Now, I've asked this before, and I'm curious to know who remembers. I think our younger people do remember what hallelujah means, right? Who can tell me? Who can tell me? Thank you. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah means praise the Lord. Of course, it's in Hebrew. And all of these Psalms have that note of praise the Lord. Psalm 115 concludes with that note, praise Yah, or hallelujah, praise the Lord. Yah is a shortened version of Yahweh. And these hallelujah psalms really begin with Psalm 111. And Psalm 111, as we studied them a while back, that's an acrostic psalm along with 112. It's also an acrostic psalm. It has the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Every line has the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet in both of them. And one of them talks about the works of God. How God's works are works of majesty, works of mercy, works that are to be memorialized, because you shouldn't forget them, the great things that God has done. And then in the next Psalm, which is also the Crossing Psalm, remember that parallelism there? between the works of God becoming the works of men, the works of believers, the works of His people, also being characterized in some fashion as being majestic, because they're not the things you ordinarily see people ordinarily do, operating with the loving-kindness and tender mercies that God does. God's people are renewed. God's people are made like the God they worship and are seen in the way that they live. Just like it tells us in the book of Acts that they knew that they had been with Jesus when they saw the way they preached and taught. There was something of a reflection of Jesus. In fact, the name Christian means a little Christ. And the image of God is to be replicated in the lives of believing people. That's God's purpose, is to have His image reflected in us, His likeness, that we might live in the light of the Lord, that we might reflect His honor and reflect His glory. But you know, that's true of anything you worship. Anything you worship, you end up becoming like it. I told you before about the guy that I met up in New Paltz when I went to one of Adam's Bible studies one time. And this guy walks in with his hair all greased back, nice little 1950s kind of pompadour. He has this leather jacket on. He has his jeans and he has his sneakers. And I said to him, do you like James Dean? And some of you don't know who James Dean was, but he was a 1950s actor. He was like the biggest thing on the scene at that time. He made three movies, and he died in a car crash. But James Dean had a particular look. The way his hair was, his leather jacket, the jeans, the sneakers. The guy says to me, how did you know? I got James Dean all over my room. How did I know? Because you look like him. You're emulating him. Obviously he is your idol. People don't want to be like Mike. As the old thing said about Michael Jordan. You want to play basketball like him. You want to make his moves. Even with your tongue hanging out in a kind of a strange looking way. You want to be like your idol. The thing that you... You know, when I was a kid I used to try to... Swing a bat like Mickey and Meryl did, because, again, he captivates your mind, your attention. Well, we become like the things that we worship. And that gets recognized in this 115th Psalm. Just like this 12th, 111, 112 shows that relationship between the God we worship and serve and the way His image is reflected in us. So it's true with the gods of the nations. But this cluster of psalms, these praise psalms, do focus in upon the reality of the condition of the people in a way that they stand in need of God to meet with them because they become poor, they become needy, They become decimated, like the picture of the poor, the needy, and the barren woman that's there in the 113th Psalm. The people of Israel had committed covenant unfaithfulness that led to the Babylonian captivity. And now that they have returned, when these psalms were collected for the purposes of public worship, They're looking back at their history. They're looking back at what God did when He led Israel out of Egypt. That's Psalm 114. When Israel went out from Egypt, the house of Jacob, from a people of a strange language. Look at the mighty works of God on behalf of His people. Works that met them in their time. darkest time, their most desperate need, when they were poor, when they were needy, when they were diminished, when they were disregarded, God met with them. God knew their concerns. God brought them out with His power and His provisions and His faithfulness. You know, having rehearsed that reality of Israel's past, there's another part of their past that they need to be clear in their minds they won't go back to. And that's the warnings we read in the book of Deuteronomy. That's the warnings that came through Israel's prophets. That the people of Israel had turned to other gods. The people of Israel, instead of being a blessing to the surrounding nations, began to worship the gods of the nations. Just like when they were in Egypt and they worshipped the golden calf that ultimately they make for themselves to lead them when Moses went upon the mountain. Where'd they get that idea? They got that idea from Egypt. They were doing typical Egypt kind of worship, where they made themselves the golden calf. And so, this was a people that were like the things they worshipped, hard of heart and stiff of neck. I don't know about your cows when they were out here in the field here, but we lived on the farm on Parag Road when there was a how they left the pen, and you see the farmers running down the street looking to corral it. They were stiff-necked. They were not about to be taken back. They were becoming like the things they worship. That's the lesson. You become like the things that you worship. And Israel needed to understand the danger and the folly of the kind of idol worship that they formally had committed. They needed to keep clear of those things. Again, it's the first two commandments that are absolutely forbidden. Have no other gods before Yahweh, and make no graven image to represent any likeness upon earth. This God is unique. This God is incomparable. What should you liken unto Him? Psalm 115 raises that specter of idolatry. raises the specter of idolatry in the fullness of its folly and of its danger. And the psalm begins with a confession of faith and a catechism. The Protestants got that idea. I'm not really sure from where. I think the Catholics. But nonetheless, it does have something of a biblical source. At least I'm looking into the passage in such a way. Because it does begin with something of a great confessional statement. Not unto us, O Lord. Not to us, but to your name give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and faithfulness. Then a catechism. Question. Why should the nation say? Where is their God? Answer, our God is in the heavens. He knows all the places, and that's followed by a castigation of idolatry. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths but they do not speak, eyes but they do not see, ears but they do not hear, noses but they do not smell, they have hands but they do not feel, feet but they do not walk, And they do not make a sound to those who make them, they come like them, so to all who trust in them. And then that's followed by a call to trust in verses 9 to 12. And then the completion of the psalm gives us something of a contemplation of the blessings that God has and designs for His people. So we're going to be going through those five things. First of all, beginning with this matter of the confession of faith. Israel begins in verse 1, a confession of their faith directed to God himself. This is an expression of what ought to be the irreducible faith of the people of God, that they see that the God that they worship and serve really, in a sense, doesn't benefit at all from his relationship to them. They get all the benefits. They don't add a single thing to the full perfections of the God of heaven and earth. It's not with respect to us, O Lord. It's not with respect to us. Your glory is in and of yourself. All glory, praise, and honor belongs to you. If I told you I had a great father, but you still get a son. I'd be tootin' my own horn, wouldn't I? My father's great because I'm great. Right? That's what some people would think. But God is not great because we're great. Because He has a great people. Long before He had a people, long before we were just a matter of eternal decree, but not a matter of realization at all, God was great and all-glorious. the object of the worship of the heavenly hosts, just in and of himself, glorious, as glory seen by the members of the Godhead, as the Father beholds the Son, and the Son the Father, and the Spirit beholding each of the others. They see the glory that they possess. God is all-glorious, apart from us, in Himself. Not because he's associated with Israel. In fact, that's a reason to bring reproach to God. In fact, that's what the nations were doing. That brings us into the Catechism a bit. But I want to just point out before we get there, it's that the glory of God is seen because, he says, of his steadfast love and his faithfulness. God's steadfast love and his faithfulness. That couplet is all throughout the scriptures. We see that couplet, steadfast love and faithfulness. The Old King James would have loving kindness and truth. Loving kindness and truth. This translation has steadfast love and faithfulness. This loving kindness is really weak when you really think of the vigor of this particular Hebrew word. It's the word chesed. And it's a word that means the love that's in it for the long haul. The love that doesn't quit. God's love is a constant. Regardless of the unlawfulness of the objects he loves, his love does not wane or diminish. Then his faithfulness is the reality of his trustworthiness. This is a God who can be dependent upon. And he's made this revelation of himself because this really is definitional of who God is. It defines him. This is his name. Remember back in the book of Exodus when Moses in chapter 33, after the matter of the golden calf, he makes requests of God. Lord, show me your glory. I can't lead this people up into the land without seeing something of your glory. Show me your glory. And God's response was that's something he couldn't give to Moses simply because he is God and he's a mortal man. No man shall see me live. That's how God put it. But he did say, I will give this concession. I'll put you up in a cleft of a rock and I will make my goodness pass before you. And it was God passed before him. Chapter 34 tells us that God declared His name. He declared His name. Yahweh, Yahweh. O God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Can't put limits to this. God abounds. Steadfast love. All the ways of God are steadfast love and faithfulness. Psalm 25 says, an abiding, persevering, in it for the long haul love, and a dependable, never failing care and concern for his people and his promises that is his faithfulness. And God's glory It's in those realities of who He is. His attributes showing forth His perfections. It's His glory. But you see, it's in that reality that God's glorious, but Israel's not. that the nations find the reason to vilify Israel's God, to mock the proposition that Israel's God is the true God. I mean, after all, the Babylonians defeated them, put them into bondage and captivity. Certainly, Marduk is a greater God than Yahweh. He won. He won. That's their reasoning. And so they taught the people of Israel The nation saying, where is their God? He hasn't come on the scene in a long while. 70 years they were taken into captivity. And then coming back to their world, it wasn't their God that brought them there. There was no sea that opened, like in the Exodus. There was no theophany on a mountain. The pagan idolatrous emperor by the name of Cyrus said you can go home. He made the decree that they could go home. Where's their God? Where's their God? The psalmist says, we know where our God is. He's in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. Quite apart from anything that happens on the earth, God is in His holy abode, and all the nations should tremble before Him. And he is a God who is a God of unrestrained power and sovereignty who does all his desires, all his holy will. Nebuchadnezzar came to learn that in Daniel chapter 4. When he's boasting about great Babylon, and God says, well, I'll show you a thing or two, and he makes them like a beast eating grass. His fingernails growing long, his hair growing long, and he's out in the field with the animals. And finally his reason is restored to him. And he came to the realization in Daniel chapter 4 that the Most High rules. He rules in the armies of heaven and amongst the inhabitants of the earth and none can say to his hand or say to him, what are you doing? No one can challenge God. God's will, God's decrees. He does all that he wills. He's not to be judged by victories of war. He's not to be judged by material wealth and power. He's not the god of the prosperity gospel. He's not. He reigns independent of all things. He's transcendent. That picture of the Psalm 113, where he is this transcendent being who looks far down among the things done in the earth. meeting His people in mercy, meeting His people in kindness and love. But He's not diminished when He gives. He never loses anything of His splendor and His power and His might because He expends it on behalf of His people. So the psalmist confesses Israel's faith. God is glorious in Himself. He is a God of steadfast love and faithfulness. And all the mockery of the nations, crying, where is their God, will not deter us from our commitment to Him and our love for Him, our confidence in Him. He is not at all troubled by the things that happen upon this earth. He's in the heavens. And He does all that He pleases. He that sits in the heavens will laugh. Psalm 2 says, When the nations rage, and the peoples imagine a vain thing, and the kings set themselves against Him and say, We'll cast off His reign. We'll cast off His authority. He that sits in the heavens will laugh. The Lord will have them in derision. He's not affected. He does all that He pleases, and none can stay His hand. But then he moves into this matter of then challenging the idolatry of the nations. They say, where's your God? He's told them. He's in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases. But notice the contrast between our God in verse 3 and their idols in verse 4. Let's see a little bit of comparison here. Our God does all that he pleases. What do your gods do? Now, first of all, what are they? They're silver and gold. They're the work of human hands. The material things, the created things. You know what idolatry is? It's an inversion, a reversing of God's creative act. God's hands made us. Remember He formed Adam in the garden, dust from ground, breathed into him the breath of life? God's hands formed us. He made us in His image and His likeness. Idolatry is our hands trying to make him. Our hands trying to make some kind of an image to represent him, or to embody him, or to replicate him. No creative thing is capable of replicating him or representing him. But the interesting thing is man made in his image and likeness does. That's the really cool thing about human beings and our existence and our nature, is that we've been made in the image and likeness of God to be living, visible representations of the living and true God. But these idols are not living. We can't make living creatures with our hands. Only God can. Only God can breathe into the nostrils of Adam the breath of life. So these are just material things, silver and gold. The work of human hands. Yeah, sure. The person that is doing the work of making the idol gives them a mouth. Let's hear the mouth of the idol speak. Let's hear the words of the idols. Let's hear what the idol will say to us. Well, there's nothing for them to say. They don't say anything. They don't see anything. They don't hear anything. They don't smell anything. They don't feel anything. They're insensible. They're powerless. They don't walk. They don't breathe. They don't make a sound in their throat. They're completely powerless to help you. Call upon the name of the idol and see if they will help you. Oh, Bill, hear us. The prophets of Bill cried out, the hour is upon hours. Elijah begins to mock them. He's gone away on vacation. There's no idol to answer. There's no ability for the idols the people worship to grant them the things they desire. They're not living. We have the confidence to know when we pray we're heard. We have the confidence to know when we call upon the name of the Lord, it's an act of worship that is a corresponding reality. We're not just speaking into the air. That the living and true God speaks to us through His living and powerful Word. His Word is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. God's Word pierces through the dividing of soul and spirit, adjoint and marrow, quick to discern the thoughts and the intent of the heart. God is the living God. That means He's active. He's not passive. He works His works in the world His works of providence, his works of grace, his works of salvation. The idols can do nothing, work nothing, create nothing, bring no good or blessing to anyone. That's the folly of idol worship. But there's also a danger bound up on idol worship, and that's that those who make them become like them. What does that mean? They don't become silver and gold. No. But Isaiah speaks of those who have ears but they don't hear. They have eyes but they do not see. They don't feel. God's prophets can come to them and speak words that should delight them, and they have no delight. Speak words that should threaten them, and they don't fear. Speak words that should spark their memory, but they don't care. They're nothing that the prophet says that they have any interest in knowing about or hearing about. When the living God speaks, they don't respond. Why? Because they're dead. Their spiritual faculties don't work. Jesus said, he that has ears to hear, let him hear. That's our problem. By nature, we don't have spiritual faculties that operate. We are worshiping dead, lifeless idols, and we become dead and lifeless sinners. And one comes before us and says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the one who provides living water. I am the one who provides the bread of life. I am the one who is the resurrection and the life. And we come to find life in his name, life through the power of his death and his resurrection, that we are raised to newness of life. That we who are dead in our trespasses and sins are made alive together with Him, are made to sit with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. To worship idols is to become like them. To worship Christ is to become like Christ. Whom He foreknew, He did foreordain to be conformed to the image of His Son. God wants a people like the Lord Jesus. He is the faithful servant. He is the one who is obedient unto death, the death of the cross. And God designs to have a faithful people, a people who will walk with Him. And the only way we become faithful is we know the faithful servant. And we look to Him in faith and obedience and commitment. and we live for Him and have His life in us by His Spirit who comes to dwell in us that we might be made like the Lord Jesus and be conformed more and more to His holy image. So it's on this heels of this castigation of idolatry that we find the call to faith. Makes sense. In verse 9. So they say, OK, now you see the danger here? See the danger of idolatry? See the folly of idolatry? Well, let's get this thing right. Turn away from these idols. Oh, Israel, trust in Yahweh. Trust in your God. Make Him the point of your confidence. Rely on Him. Look to Him. He's worthy of your trust. He's not an idol that's going to leave you in the lurch, leave you empty, leave you with nothing. He is the One who is the help and the shield of His people. He is the Ezer. He gives help. You know, I raised my Ebenezer with the stone of help. God is an Ebenezer. He's the stone of help. He's the one who gives help to his children. He's a shield of His children. He helps us and He protects us. In the midst of the dangers of this world, He is the shield of our protection and He is the helper who helps us on our way. We're not living life on our own. We're not living by our own wits. We have His Word. We have His Spirit. We have His help. We have His people who encourage us and to guide us. God brings us into a world of blessings and provisions that He has authored. He surrounds us with good. He calls us to trust Him and to live in the good of the things that He has given. He is their help. He is their shield. He has remembered us. He will bless us. He will bless the house of Israel. He will bless the house of Aaron. Again, that repeats what's in 9, 10, and 10. Israel, trust in the Lord. He is their help and shield. House of Aaron, trust in the Lord. He is their help and shield. You fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. He is their help and shield. In this matter of the blessing of the Lord, the Lord blesses those who trust in Him. He blesses those who trusted Him. He remembers His dependent people who look to Him in faith. He doesn't abandon us. He never leaves us. He never forsakes us. We might have a sense of forsaking. We might listen to what the Lord says, where's your God? He's never far away. He doesn't show up. And the wonderful thing is, He always invites us to turn to Him. to turn to Him, to draw near to Him. Sometimes the life of faith is just simply recognizing that. We're waiting for God to get cozy with us, to kind of nudge us, slide in alongside with us, and be our co-pilot through life. But the life of faith is not always having that sense that God himself is drawn near. God does that, no question. God draws near with wonderful, palpably real evidences of his goodness and his love. You know, if I think of Peter in the prison when the angel came and the chains fell off. First of all, he woke him up. Then the chains fell off. Then the door opens. The guards are all asleep. He walks out of the prison accompanied by an angel. The text in Acts 10 tells us that the angel walked with him like a street and left. And you read it and you say, why did he leave? What was happening? Wonderful things were happening when the angel was present. Why did he leave? Well, because Peter was not to walk by angels. He was to walk by faith. It's not to walk in the company of angels. They're ministering spirits, but they're unseen. They're spirits. But we're to walk by faith. I know there are wonderful times when God draws near his people in palpable ways that give us joy and confidence and just a sense of the wonder of being a Christian. It's amazing what a couple hours of sleep can do to make us wake up and feel like, oh, was that a mirage? Was that like a distant memory? Did that really happen? Well, it did, but it shouldn't matter. You've got to still, today, walk by faith. You have to, today, look to Him in prayer. You have to, today, consider His words. The call to trust this God, because He's faithful in His promises. He's for the distance in His love. He's the God who blesses His people. House of Israel. House of Aaron, the priestly part of it. Those who fear the Lord. My wife was asking, since the New Testament speaks about God-fearers, these Gentiles are being called upon to praise the Lord. Well, I think that's like a New Testament idea, that they were called God-fearers, but in the Old Testament, every believer is to fear the Lord. All of Israel is to fear the Lord. Again, it's to be definitional of what it means to be a Christian, or it means to be an Old Testament child of God, is to fear the Lord. This will live as if God's eye was upon you in everything. You want to know what it means to fear the Lord? I've told you this before, but there's repeating. It's the passage in Leviticus that says, don't put a stumbling block before the blind, or curse the deaf, but fear the Lord. Don't do this, but fear the Lord. What are you told not to do? You're told not to curse the deaf. Well, why not? He won't hear. But fear the Lord, he does. Don't put a stone on the bar before the bar. Why not? He won't see who did it. But one does. Fear the Lord. He sees. That's what it means to fear the Lord. It's to live before the presence of the Lord. To live in the light of the Lord. To live with the knowledge that the eyes of God are upon you. It's a call to trust. It's a call to fear. It's a call to receive His blessings. And then the contemplation of blessing. It's found in the prayer, verse 14. It begins there. May the Lord give you increase. Again, the nation was decimated. They're likened unto the barren woman in chapter 13. God is able to make a nation to be born in a day, in a moment. Again, the whole principle of God's dealings through the gospel and in the nation of Israel was a principle of multiplication. Be fruitful, multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it was the original mandate of Genesis. God's blessing brings multiplication, brings increase, brings bounty, brings fullness. to our lives, to our families, to our churches, to all of our endeavors, that may you be blessed by the Lord who made the heavens and the earth. And then the reality is that in the creation of the heavens and the earth, There's a clear division between, we might say, God's space and our space. The heavens are the Lord's heavens. He dwells in the heavens. Jesus says, when you pray, say, our Father who is in heaven. There's a heavenly existence. When Solomon built a temple, he told the people, even if they're in a great distance and in trouble, look to the temple and pray. But don't pray to the temple. so that the God who is in heaven will hear your prayers. Face the temple, but it's not to the temple you pray. It's to the God that's seated upon the throne of the universe and the heavenlies. The God who is the object of the worship of the heavenly host. And the reality is that What transpires in the heavenlies, in the presence of God, is to be that which He has given to the children of men to replicate. When Jesus taught us the Lord's Prayer, He tells us to pray to the God who is in heaven, but then when He speaks of what we're to pray for, He says, Hallowed be your name. That's wrong. Your kingdom come, that's two. Your will be done, three. And then those three things, the hallowing of his name, the coming of his kingdom, and the doing of his will, where the praise shall be on earth as it is in heaven. Our prayers are to be to the end, that we replicate the heavenly existence of the heavenly host, the heavenly creatures in their worship, in their service, in their obedience, in their love on the earth. The earth is given to the children of men to replicate the heavenlies. And then when it says in verse 17, the dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any who go down into silence, it's not a statement that's making any comment at all of what happens to us at death. This is speaking about what happens on the earth. Earth is to replicate the heavenlies. And so when we lose people who pray mightily, and people who pray strongly, and people who serve faithfully, they're lost to this earthly scene. And with the project of earthly replication of the heavenlies, this psalm calls us to carry out. Just like the idolaters become like their gods, we are to be like the god we worship and serve. And the earthly scene should replicate the heavenly scene. and the worship we give to God, and the service we give to God, and the obedience that we give to God. And so while we have breath, while we have life in this world, let us commit ourselves to the final words of the psalm, but we will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore while we have breath. Let us praise Him. While we have existence in this world, let us serve Him. While we have strength and enablement, let us obey Him. I know we're all feeling the pressure of age. We're all feeling the diminishing of our capacities. And I feel a lot, because I'm the guy that's called upon to read big theological tomes during the week. And lots of times I don't want to. Let's throw on some Netflix or something. I don't even subscribe to it, but you know what I mean. The point is, let's persevere. Let's continue on. This is what we're called to. And it says we worship our God. We will be like Him. His love doesn't diminish. His faithfulness doesn't end. And our love should reciprocate in some measure of vigor, some measure of strength, some measure of commitment to continue on. And our faithfulness should be forevermore. So let us bless Him with greater and greater resolve, that though the outer man decays, By God's grace and help, the inner man will be renewed day by day. Let's look to him together in prayer. Father, we're thankful for this psalm. We're thankful for the challenge that it gave to the nation of Israel to put away the idols, to make you their God, to be responsive to your word, to be responsive to your commandments, to be faithful, to imitate you, to emulate you, to replicate heaven upon this earth. Lord, that commission or that contemplation of the blessedness that earthly existence should have because your people are the salt of the earth. Your people are the light of the world. Help us not to be weary in well-doing. Help us not to grow skeptical or to grow just feeling that this is a thankless, fruitless task. Help us ever to be looking to you for the grace we need to daily serve you till we come into the presence of the King with exceeding great joy. Hear our prayers as we ask for these mercies coming in the name of Jesus our Lord. Amen.