Psalms 65. I titled this message, Good Reason for Praising God. We can't even rack it up in order. God's mercies. David said, I believe it was David, it's written in the Psalms, that his thoughts to usward cannot be reckoned up in order. God's thoughts of his children, of you, individually, are continuous. They are continuous. There's never a moment that He does not think upon you. David said, I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. I am a poor and needy sinner, yet the Lord, God of heaven and earth, And this is real. I mean, these are the things that I really try to get a hold of. First, that God is. And that He thinks upon me. I mean, there's not a time that He does not think upon me. And the reality of that brings real comfort. It brings real comfort in a world of chaos, what looks like chaos to us. In a world of evil, we do live in an ungodly world. This world that hates God, yet God, as we will see here, chose us out of it, brought us out of it, and made us His. And here we are tonight, praising God in song, and worshiping Him in spirit and in truth. That is a miracle of God. That is the work of God. Now in this psalm, God is praised in Zion, it says here. And He's praised for hearing prayer. "...O thou that hearest prayer." He's praised for purging us from our sins in verse 3. He is to be praised for choosing us and bringing us into His presence, in verse 4. We are to praise Him for saving us from our enemies, in verse 5. And we are to praise Him in His might and majesty in nature. We see it every day. We see the act of God every day in weather, in His creation, we see the hand of God at work. And we are to praise Him for that. And we are to praise Him for His providential care. In verse 9 through 13. Now, in verse 1, it says, Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Zion. Now, over in my margin, it says, the word waiteth means is silent. Silent. In my readings today, I came up with this. Silence is due to God. Silent, submissive reverence is due to God. And when I read that, I thought of this. The heart should be engaged in silent worship and awe before the mouth is engaged to sing aloud His praise. There should be a real silence, a silent worship and awe in our hearts as we prepare to come here, to open His Word, to be allowed of God to open His Word. God has allowed us tonight to open His Word. He's allowed us to come here and sit and listen to His Word, which is the same as listening to God speak, because God speaks through His Word, by His Spirit. And we should, in silence, first, our hearts should be engaged first before we open our mouths, because worship starts in the heart. It starts within and comes out. And unto thee, he says, shall a vow be performed. The vow to praise and worship Him is do Him." From Zion, the church, us. You know, we looked at this not too long ago. David said he'd pay his vow, and that vow was to praise and worship Him. And it's a commitment. We are committed. to the praise and worship of God. We're not committed to selfishness and taking care of self, looking after self. We are committed to following after Him and to be given to praise and worship of Him, our tongue, our mind. Our thoughts, our bodies, are to be engaged in worship and praise of our God wherever we are. Now that doesn't mean you go around town saying, well, praise the Lord, well, praise, because there's a whole lot of people that do that that have no praise of God whatsoever. They don't even know Him. But it does mean that we do pray, you know how we praise God and worship Him even in our conduct. We don't bring reproach on His name. And so in silence, in silence, we wait in silence upon God and then we burst out into praise and worship of Him. Now David gives to us three aspects in which God is to be praised and worshipped in Zion by His people. The first one is this, is for His electing love His electing love. Look in verse 4. Blessed is the man whom thou choosest. God chose you to come into His presence. God chose you and I in Jesus Christ before the world began. You cannot, you absolutely cannot read the Word of God and not know that God chose a people out of this world. They're sinners. ungodly, but God chosen. And it says here, blessed, happy. You know, I've never met anyone that was upset because God saved them. I've never met anybody. Everyone whom God has ever saved are happy that God saved them. And they are happy that God chose them. I've never met anyone who believed the gospel, who believed God, that was mad and upset over God choosing them. I'm glad He chose me. I love the doctrine of election. You know why I love the doctrine of election? You know why you love the doctrine of election? I'll tell you for one reason. One reason why. Because you love the God of election. That's why. You love the God of election. Happy is the man whom thou choosest and causest to approach unto thee. You caused Him to approach. You wooed Him. You drew Him with cords of love. But through the preaching of the gospel, by His Spirit, He drew you. He caused you to approach to Him. in the proper manner through the sacrifice, the Lord Jesus Christ, that He may dwell in thy courts. You know, in a little while, and I was thinking about this today, in a little while, for all of us, all of us who believe, in a little while, we're gonna be with the Lord. We're going to be in His courts. We literally are going to walk with Him. As Job said, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and He'll stand upon the earth in the last days. And he said, though the skim worms eat my body, they destroy my body, yet in my flesh I'll see God. and I'm going to see Him with my eyes and not another's. I'm going to look at Him. I'm going to speak to Him. I'm going to walk with Him. I'm going to talk with Him. I was thinking about that before coming down here for a little while, just the fact that the reality, the reality of seeing Jesus Christ and the reality that God chose me, God chose me, and He saved me in His Son. And I'm going to walk on that new earth. I'm going to live in His presence. I'm going to come into His presence. And He says, "...you cause to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple." It's a happy place. Satisfied. You know, you can't be satisfied and not be happy. I'm telling you, if you're satisfied, you're happy. You're content. That's what that is. Satisfied. Content. You don't want to go anywhere else. It's like my granddaughter. She can't be 20 minutes in the house. I'm bored. You're not going to be bored. You're not going to be bored. Happy place. Good place. Satisfied with the goodness of thy house. Now listen. Only those who are saved by the grace of God, and only those born of God, would be satisfied to be in that place. Heaven would be hell to an unregenerate man, because he could not fulfill the lust of his flesh in that place. It would be misery. But for you who are born of God, you're satisfied. You're satisfied with Christ, you're satisfied with the way God saved you, Oh, you're satisfied with the goodness of thy house. This is the first reason we praise Him. He chose us. Loved us, chose us, called us, redeemed us. And here's another reason why. He hears our prayer. Don't think that God does not hear your prayer because it may not happen right now. God hears your prayer. He hears the prayer of every one of His children. He hears the cry of every one of them. And He says, O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come. That is, you know, God's going to save a people. of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation under heaven, and every one of those people are going to come to the same God. And they're going to come to Him the same way. Jesus Christ, I am the way, the truth, and the life. From all over this earth, men and women are going to come to Him. And He's going to hear their cry for mercy. He's going to hear their cry for forgiveness. And He's going to forgive, because He can forgive through the blood and righteousness of His Son. God can forgive me. God can forgive me through Christ and Him crucified, dying in my place. His blood answers for my sins. And God's able to forgive me. And He will hear our prayer. Prayer for mercy, prayer for forgiveness. Acceptance. He hears our prayer. What encouragement it is to pray, to know that God hears your prayer. Pray. That's why Paul said, pray without ceasing. Pray without ceasing. And then here's another reason we praise Him. He pardons iniquity and transgressions. He breaks the power of sin. Look in verse 3. He says, Iniquities prevail against me. Do you not feel that to be so? You know, until God saved me, sin didn't bother me. I didn't have a guilty conscience. I didn't have a guilty conscience. I didn't like getting caught. And it wasn't because of the guilt of it, it was because of the punishment of it. But now, after God saves, after He saved me, after He saved you, we are very, very aware of our iniquities. They prevail. There are so many. David says, there are more than the hairs of my head. He said, in one place, they go over my head. They prevail against me. Our iniquities are too many and too strong for us to handle. And they are very real. They are very real. And we feel them, don't we? We feel them. But now listen, they're not too much for God. They're not too much for Him. By the blood and righteousness of His Son, He can make the vilest clean. Look over in Hebrews 1.3, in chapter one, Hebrews chapter one. This verse speaks of Christ crucified. Hebrews chapter one. We just read where David said he will purge us from our iniquities. In verse 3, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high, but by Himself He purged our sins. That's why he says in verse 3, Iniquities prevail against me. But here's the good news. Here's the good news. Here's why we praise Him. This is worthy of the loudest praise. As for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away. They're gone. They're gone. Did you hear what Jesus said to me? They're all taken away. Like he said to that adulterous woman, does anybody condemn you? She said, no, no one. He said, well, neither do I. Neither do I. You know, it wouldn't matter if everyone condemned me as long as God does it. As long as he does it. As long as God's for me, everyone else can be against me and I'm gonna end up all right. This is why we praise him. We praise Him for pardon. We praise Him for mercy. We praise Him for redemption. We praise Him for forgiveness. Listen to this in Isaiah 38, 17. Behold, for peace I had great bitterness. This is Hezekiah speaking, I believe it was. But thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption. For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. Let me read that again. Behold, for peace I had great bitterness, but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption. For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. They're gone. They're gone. And then we praise Him because He satisfies the desires of those whom He draws to Himself. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. You know, in God's church, we come, as we have tonight, and we are fed the bread of life and the water of life, and we find it very satisfying. We find it very satisfying. There is nothing out there that's satisfying. Nothing. I realize, as time goes by, that everything outside the gospel, everything outside the gospel is calculated to take you away from God. Everything. Everything. That's why coming here and reading the Word of God and hearing the Lord speak to us, it's so satisfying. And then here's another reason that we praise Him. In verse 5, "...by terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation. God is our Savior. He's the one who saves us. But here, by terrible things in righteousness, by terrible acts of judgment that we see upon our enemies. Let me give you an example of what I think is being said here. Israel is delivered out of Egypt. They saw all those plagues. They saw that. And they go across the Red Sea. And they get across. The next thing you know, here comes Pharaoh's army coming after. And they watch that sea just come together and drown them. By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us. Hezekiah, remember that we looked at last week? He spread that letter before the Lord and he prayed and God sent one angel one angel and slew 185,000 men. And they saw that. They saw that. But the one thing that struck my mind the most as I kept looking at this and looking at this, I thought, for me to have forgiveness of sins, of my sins, for me to stand in the presence of God Almighty spotless, He takes me to Calvary, and there hangs His Son. In an act of righteousness, God's righteousness, God's righteous judgment, it falls on His Son, Jesus Christ, and sets me free. It sets me free. But He had to suffer my hell for me to be delivered from the wrath of God. He had to suffer it. by terrible things in righteousness which wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation, who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea." That word confidence here is refuge. God is the refuge of all who trust Him, wherever they are. Remember, David is writing from, he's over there in Israel, and that part of Jerusalem, that's where he's at. And he's looking out into the, he's speaking here in things to come. Those who are far off on the farthest parts of the sea, or on the other side of the earth, you are their company, you are their refuge. God is the refuge of the Jew and the Gentile. He's the refuge of every sinner whom He saves. He's our confidence. You and I can walk through this life with full confidence because God is our salvation. God has saved us. God is our God. We don't have to walk with our hands and our head hanging down. We can walk with our head up. God is our confidence. He's our God. The Lord Jesus Christ got the job done. He got the job done. Are you confident of that? I'm confident of that. I'm confident that Jesus Christ is God. He's my God. He's my Savior. He's my Lord. He's my King. And He rules heaven and earth. I am confident of that. Whatever goes on with the leaders of all these countries, including this one, I don't see it... The way I see it in my life right now, I look at everything as the Lord Jesus Christ ruling and reigning all things. It may be to bring a nation down. Or it may be to lift it up. But it's in His hands. It's in His hands. And I am confident of that. I take refuge in Christ. I take refuge in Him. At all times and over all situations. Now secondly, The second reason we have to praise God and worship Him is this, He's the God who reveals Himself in nature, in creation. Oh, I tell you, how blessed you are to be able to look at everything in nature and see God first. I mean, you know how many times, how many millions of people has passed by the lily and never, never noticed its beauty? Oh, they notice the beauty of Solomon. They notice the beauty of the rich, the accoutrements of the rich. They see that and they slobber, just water to mouth like, oh, I wish I had that. but to be able to look at everything that God has created and see God, to see His hand in it. When you look at creation, one of the first things that we ought to see is His omnipotence. Look in verse 6. "...which by His strength setteth fast the mountains, He set the mountains where they are. Mount McKinley, the Rocky Mountains. You just name the mountains, God set them there. They didn't just happen. They didn't just happen. You know, the nitwit scientists, you know, 50 trillion years ago we had this, this happened, that happened. I'll tell you what happened. God set it there. and there it stays until earth and time shall be no more." I'm so happy I can see that. I'm so glad I can walk out and I can see God's hand in setting that mountain, God planting the tree, and God making this to grow and that to grow, and God commanding this and God commanding that. My soul. If you can't see that, I don't know you could praise God. I don't think you could praise Him. You'd miss a whole lot there in praising Him. That's for sure. He set as fast the mountain, and it stays there. Now listen. When I read this, I got a little curious. So I googled how fast the earth is spinning. Now you take Mount McKinley or these huge mountains. Now you spin something really fast, you'd think they're gonna sling off, wouldn't you? I know some of you know something about balance. These are the things I think of. I'm gonna give you some things I think of during the day. Not everything, but some things. But I think the balance the balance of the earth, how God balanced the earth so that when it spins on its axis, it's not wobbling all over the place. You know, I worked in a machine shop. We had to balance impellers. If you didn't balance an impeller, it would shake a motor completely off its stand. But if you balanced it perfectly, that thing would just hum. And they do vibration tests in these electric companies when they have turbines and run their big turbines. And it has to be perfectly balanced so that it'll just run smooth. The Earth spins at 1,040 miles per hour on its axis. Its orbit around the sun as it orbits around the Sun is 66,641 miles per hour. Do you feel like you're about to fall off? You'd think you could jump up in the air and a wall would hit you. That it's a way of spinning. But you don't, do you? The wisdom of God the wisdom and power of God Almighty, that He could take the earth, and I forget the circumference of it, I didn't write that one down, but it's spinning at 1,040 miles an hour, and yet we can't even tell it. If we can't think of things like that and praise Him and just stand in awe of such knowledge and such wisdom, and yet some man will create a phone or something and we're like, wow, he's a brilliant person on this earth compared to God. Compared to God. Really. Listen here. He overrules the greatest disturbance of nature and nations. Verse 7, "...which stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people." You know, the sea, when the storms raise, we saw this in the Gospel. We see it in the Gospels as we read it, when He commands the wind and the waves to be still, and it says there was peace immediately. There was peace. God commands that. Man doesn't see that. Man doesn't see that at all. You know that when those disciples were on the ship, and they were out there in that storm, you know there were other little ships with them? They said there were other little ships that left with them? But I tell you what, only those on the boat, only those on the boat heard Him command the waves and the wind to be still. Now those other ships were probably going, whew, I'm glad that let up. I'm glad that storm's over. But those on the ship got the blessing of hearing Him speak in power. Just like you get when you hear the gospel. You have the privilege of hearing Him speak again in power. He stills the noise of the seas and the noise of their waves. He says to the proud waves, Hither shalt thou come and no further. And listen, and the tumult of the people." You know, right now we see a little uprising going on here and there. Well, when He tells us to settle down, that's when it'll settle down. That's when it'll settle down. He maketh wars to cease, it says in Psalm 46, 9. He maketh wars to cease until the end of the earth. He breaketh the bow and cutteth the spear asunder. He burns the chariot in the fire. He does this. Now, God is a God of means. He uses men. He uses what He created. Everything is God's servant. Everything. But people get caught up in the means. and they don't see Him. Don't get caught up in the means. Always recognize Him first. Man is afraid. Look in verse 8 here. Let me show you something here in verse 8. After He calms the sea down, He controls nature. He controls nature and nations. All of them. It's all under His thumb. They also that dwell in the uttermost parts are afraid at thy tokens. Ignorant man is afraid when he sees the weather. You know, we have a storm, a storm coming, and they are afraid, but they don't realize it's the presence of God. They don't realize that. They are also that dwell in the uttermost parts are afraid at thy tokens." You know, storms are a token of God. And they're afraid of the storm, but they're not afraid of Him. They're afraid of lightning, but they're not afraid of Him. The lightning, it says, stands before Him. In Job, the lightning comes before Him and says, Here we are. He can't strike you until He says, hit that one. Strike that one. That's what it says. These are just tokens of His presence. Weather, I'm telling you, weather is watching God in action. It's watching the hand of God. It says, in Job, it says, by His breath, frost is given. Don't just get up and say, well, it frosted last night. God frosted it last night. He frosted it. He snows. He sends the snow. He said to Job, have you entered into the treasure of the snow? Thou makest the outgoings of the morning and the evening to rejoice, or to sing. He owns them. He owns the morning and the evening. He owns them. And then last of all, the third reason to praise, I have all these other reasons underneath those reasons, but the third reason is we praise Him as the God of the harvest. Now we need to really, really understand this. Verse 9, Thou visitest the earth. Oh man, you know, they're just so worked up over global warming and all this stuff. This is His. This is His. Thou visitest the earth. What it's saying here that God is the great husbandman. He's the great caretaker of the earth. We are to take care of it because it's our father's. You know, you take care of where you live because it belongs to your father. This is his. And out of respect and out of love, we take care of it. What he's given us to be over. He's the Great Huggamun. Thou visitest the earth. And that word visit means to oversee. He oversees the earth. Next time it rains, think of it as a visit from God. He prepares and enriches the soil to receive the corn. Thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water." Those clouds, the clouds that float over our head, is a river. You see a dark cloud coming, there's a river floating over your head. It's the river of God. And what a watering system! Let's go back to thinking of God and His hand in nature. Who would have came up with a watering system like that? Pull the vapors up out of the ocean and up out of the water, pull it up into heaven, and then take the wind and send it over where rain is needed. Who can do that but God? And He does it that He may enrich the land, that the land may be fertile. He makes the wilderness and the hills to rejoice with their abundance. Don't you like the way this reads? Let's go back to verse 9. Listen to this. I love the way this reads. It sounds so beautiful. God visits the earth and He waters it, and He greatly enriches it with the river of God, His water, which is full of water. There's nothing more precious than water. There's nothing more precious than clean water. He says here, "...thou preparest them corn when thou hast provided for it." You know, this world are partakers of many of our blessings. This world keeps producing for you, for God's children. This world produces for God's children. And the unbelieving world, they get to taste some of the harvest. Verse 10, Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly, Thou settlest the furrows thereof, Thou makest it soft with showers. You see somebody plow a garden, they plant, and what do they want? We need rain. We need rain. God sends a rain and it just waters that garden and it starts to grow. Thou blessest the springing thereof, Thou crownest the year, with thy goodness. Don't ever complain about a year. I'm talking to myself. Let's not ever look back and say, boy, 19-whatever or 20-something-whatever was a terrible year. No, it wasn't. Not if you know God. Not if you know God. Every year, God's purpose has been accomplished in your life. And every year brings you one year closer to being home with the Lord. Thou crownest the year with thy goodness. You know, when you look and consider the fact that the earth is still standing and that the church is here and we're still being blessed, wow, man, that's the goodness of God. That's the goodness of God. And he says here, in thy paths drop fatness. And one of the translations, well, several of the translations say his chariot wheels drop fatness. And you get the image of the chariot going by, and it's just fatness dropping off of it, and the land being so prosperous. And it's for God's children, that's what it's for. And they drop upon the pastures of the wilderness. The wilderness, where no one is. You know, there's a lot of wilderness still left on this earth, isn't there? Where no man is. And yet God takes care of that wilderness. He sends rain upon that wilderness. And he watches over the, when the hinds do calve, he watches over them. He watches over every minute thing He's created. And He takes care of out there in the wilderness. And the little hills rejoice on every side. This has creation here rejoicing and giving God the praise. But if you put it in a spiritual sense, if you put this in a spiritual sense, You and I, who are out there in the wilderness, and the fatness of the gospel, the blessings that we have in Christ, has dropped upon us. It's dropped upon us. In the pastures of verse 13, we have here the great shepherd of the earth, The pastures are clothed with flocks. Where does life come from, all life? Where does it come from? God. If God did not give life even to the animals, there wouldn't be any. They don't have a hospital to go to. You know, think about it. The little birds out there building their nests. Think of when the deer has its fawn. It doesn't go to the local hospital to have her. She's out there in the wilderness. She's out there among the bears and wolves and all that. She's out there. And she has her young one out there, her young one. And God watches over her. How much more you? How much more you? for whom Jesus Christ died for. How much more you, whom He chose, and whom He loved, and whom He drew you to Himself, that you may be in His courts? How much more you? He said, not a sparrow falls to the ground without your Heavenly Father. How much more you? The hairs of your head are numbered. Do you know how many hairs you have on your head? He does. He does. The pastures are clothed with flocks. The valleys, the valleys also are covered over with corn. You know, you should go to Iowa. I would go out there with Joe Terrell, you know, visit out there and preach out there for him. The cornfields, I mean, just, they go on the same forever. Forever. You see, God blesses those on the mountains, He blesses those in the valley. The valleys also are covered over with corn, they shout for joy. They also sing, and I tell you this, they also sing, but they should not sing us, who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Nothing and no one should out-sing us or praise God more than us who have been chosen, called, redeemed, and loved." We have a lot to praise God for, don't we? The church is never at a loss for praising God from whom all blessings flow.