All for Jesus All for Jesus Let my feet run in His ways Let my eyes see Jesus only Let my lips speak forth His praise All for Jesus, all for Jesus, All my pain's ransomed powers, All my thoughts and words and doings, All my days and all my hours. Since my eyes were fixed on Jesus, I've lost sight of all beside, So enchained my spirit's vision, Looking at the crucified. All for Jesus, all for Jesus, all my being's ransomed powers, all my thoughts and words and doings, all my days and all. Oh, what wonder, how amazing, James, thus glorious King! let's be All for Jesus, all for Jesus, All my weak, ransomed powers, All my thoughts and words and doings, All my days, all my hours, All for Jesus, all my days and hours. All right, we just missed a little one, so go to class with Mrs. Schwartz. Praise God. Yes, we want to live our life. It's for God's glory. And let them get out. And we can open up our Bibles, please, to Psalm chapter 33. It's on chapter 33. And tonight, we're gonna look at one word as far as a topic, and that is the topic of rejoice, rejoice. Strong's Concordance says about this word rejoice, it's a primitive root, properly meaning to creak or to emit a loud or harsh sound, that is to shout, usually for joy. It's allowed for joy, cry out, be joyful, greatly make to rejoice, cause to shout, for joy, cause to sing aloud for joy, to shout out to triumph. It's like a minor, you get the idea of rejoicing from a minor that back in the gold rush days got out there to California and strikes it rich and he cries out Eureka, you know, and that thrill of that find is made known. shy, not too quiet, not too reserved, but very boldly, again, getting that shout out and excitement and rejoicing in the birth of that child. Probably when it comes to society, the thing that would strike us most about this area of rejoicing is to go to a football tournament. right? Be there as a whole team kicks the winning goal and you're going to see rejoicing, right? That unreserved shouting and just getting excited about what has happened. You know, as you think about those illustrations, we can assume about those people that are exuberant, excited, that their life's not without difficulty. We can assume that they have trials that week. They might have had some suffering that week. They might be in the midst of a trial, but they can set that all aside at that moment as they focus upon that one thing. As they focus upon that one thing, their hearts rejoice in that. You know, today as we gather together tonight, In church, I'm sure that your life isn't without burdens. I'm sure that it's not without trials or without difficulties, but as we come to focus upon the object of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ and our God, truly tonight our hearts can get excited as we think about this precious person who is our God. And so a lot of times I'll have a proposition in my message, you may not catch that, you probably do, and I make that declarative statement about this is what the message is about. That proposition is found in chapter 33 of Psalms, verse one, where it says, Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous. Okay, that's what we're gonna think about tonight, consider tonight that command Choice in the Lord, all you righteous. And there's two reasons given in the first couple of verses about why we ought to obey this command. First of all, it looks good to God. As God sees it, God says, that looks appropriate. It says, for praise is comely for the upright. We don't use the word comely, but it just means it looks good. that situation, you know, do you expect the bride and groom to rejoice when they get married? Do you think something may not quite be right if they're not a little bit excited, you know, and praising and rejoicing in When he catches his limit, it's comely. It's appropriate. It looks good on a fisherman to get excited about catching something. You expect that. You expect a woman to be happy if she bought maybe a new dress or a new outfit. You expect her husband to be happy if she got a good deal. You know what I mean? There's things that are appropriate you look at and say, that's comely in that type of a situation. So what's the Bible saying? It's saying that it's appropriate when somebody is righteous, that they praise God. Why? Because without what we looked at in our Lord's Table observance, without that work of Christ, we couldn't be righteous. Without the shed blood of Jesus, without the sacrifice of the Son of God coming and giving his life for us, we would not be righteous, but praise God tonight, we can rejoice. Why? Because it's appropriate to the fact that we are righteous. It's comely, it looks good on us. And then secondly, rejoice because it sounds good to God. It sounds good to God. Again, rejoicing is not just in our hearts, but it comes out of our mouth. Again, imagine that you're at that football stadium, and the winning goal has just been kicked into that net, and the whole team, the fans erupt by sitting still with a blank stare and looking straight ahead. And you say, they're excited in their hearts. And you go, forget that. They're not excited in their hearts. not unless they're stomping their feet, not unless they're clapping their hands, not unless they're shouting out something. And I'd say this to us tonight. We can say, well, you know, I really am excited about God. I really am excited about the things of God. But if it doesn't make it out of our mouth, if it doesn't show up on our face, then probably it's not as genuine as we like to think it is. But you know what? Again, if it's praise, if it's rejoicing, then it's praise. then it gets out there with some noise. We see that again in these verses. Look what it says. It speaks about God loving. Instrumental praise, it says in verse two, praise the Lord with heart, sing unto him with a psaltery and an instrument of 10 strings. Okay, we've got instruments normally, we don't tonight because Kaylee and Benson are away, but normally we've got instruments and we have a piano and we'll have violin and we have a brass instrument. We use those for God, why? Because the Bible speaks about it. God gives us instruments, why? phrase, verse 3, it says, sing unto him a new song. You know what the new song is? Redeemed how I love to proclaim it, right? It's the fact that before I got saved I was not saved, but now by the grace of God, God has given me everlasting life. There is a new song in my mouth, even praising to my God. Many shall see and fear and shall trust in the Lord. You know, there's always going to be things like this that There's a song of praise that wasn't there before. No believer can't sing that. But as a believer, he's put that new song into my mouth. And then God loves careful praise. play skillfully, okay? We practice music for a reason. We don't just say, you know, give it your best shot to practice. We prepare. Why? Because we want to give something to God that's not just casual, not something that's easy, but something that's disciplined with our kids. We want to get back to youth choir. We had youth choir for years, but since COVID and the change of schedule, we haven't had that. We want to get back to that. Why? God wants us to get it out there. If it's from our heart, I mean, it's gonna have that volume. It's gonna have that sound associated with it of true worship. Psalm 98 verses four through six says, make a joyful noise unto the Lord all the earth. Make a loud noise and rejoice and sing praise. Sing unto the Lord with the heart and with the voice of a song the King. And so tonight, we're looking at that idea of rejoicing the Lord, ye righteous. Can you say from your heart, by the grace of God, I'm rejoicing in God, I'm excited about God, I'm excited about the things of God, that ought to be our part. And I pray tonight, as we look at reasons for that, that the Spirit of God encourage us in our rejoicing in God. Let's pray. And that's a blessing. And Father, we don't just sing at church because that's what you do at church, we sing because it's rejoicing, it's worship, it's praising God. And Father, we desire to do that tonight. Father, forgive us, we're independent Baptists, and as independent Baptists, maybe we're a little too quiet at times. We gotta be more vocal in our praise for God. So I pray, Spirit of God, remind us of the precious reasons tonight that we have to rejoice and get excited about the things of God because of who our God is. Would you bless this message to the hearts of those that hear it? Father, would you give me liberty as I preach, give us grace to be free from distractions, give us grace to attend upon the word of God, and Lord, may you speak to each heart. We pray that, Lord, that's the greatest thing tonight, is the Spirit of God walking the aisles of this church Father, speak into the hearts of God's people, encouraging us in our walk with you. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen. All right, so five points tonight, just to give you an idea of where we're going, but the first one is rejoice because of God's righteousness. And really, we're gonna look at the song tonight, and because I've said that, you understand it's not a small song. We're just gonna highlight things as we go through, but rejoice because of God's Righteousness. You know, if God wasn't righteous, this world would fall apart. If God wasn't righteous, then everything about the future, there'd be nothing to look forward to because it would just be like the God of this world, Satan, being in control for all of eternity. all the ungodliness will be here, all the death, sorrow, sickness, heartache, but praise God tonight, God is righteous, and because of that, everything is held securely together by God. Psalm 97.6 says, the heavens declare His righteousness, and all the people see His glory. Psalm 98, verse two, the Lord hath made known His salvation, His righteousness hath He openly showed in the sight of the heathen. God is a righteous, And so we consider as we come to the psalm, the righteousness of his word, the righteousness of his word. is right. The Word of the Lord is right. Praise God tonight. And I can stand with authority upon this book and say this book is right. This book is true. This book is through and through the very Word of God. It is pure. It is perfect. It is right. As the Bible says in Psalm 19 verse 7, the law of the Lord is perfect. enlightening the eyes those words sure pure perfect right those are precious words when it comes to this book people say to me a lot of times you know well that's good for you I don't believe it but that's good for you listen if it's not true it's not good that's what Paul said Paul said if in this life only we have hope in God we are all men of the word of God. Why? Because God's word is righteous. Consider the righteousness of his word. Consider, secondly, the righteousness of his ways. It says, in all his works. God doesn't get it wrong. I'm a little bit worried about the G7 summit that's taking place and those nations coming together. I have no confidence. I pray for our Prime Minister, I pray for the President of the United States, I pray for these other world leaders as they get together, but you know what? They make a lot of mistakes. We got hacking going on from Russia and affecting a lot of things around the world. We've got the conflict that rose up in Israel, the anti-Semitism that is coming to a head more and more in our day. There's a lot of reasons tonight, but I look at it and I go, I don't trust men. But you know, praise God, I trust God tonight. Because God is not gonna get it wrong. God is not gonna err in any regard. Psalm 85, verse 30. us in the way of the steps. God is righteous. God is marching down through the annals of time and he's doing so perfectly. God is involved in men's lives and God is involved perfectly. Why? Because God's ways are righteous and I can rejoice in that tonight. You know, when it comes to justice, praise God, we have a righteous God. I was witnessing to a man yesterday, just speaking to him about the fact of God. He's had a rough situation in his life. You know, I was able to say to him, I said, if evolution is true, there is no justice. But because the Bible is true, there is justice. There is a perfect God that is perfectly right in his judgment. Psalm 50 verse six says, the heaven shall declare Psalm 96, 13, for the Lord, for he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth, he shall judge the world with righteousness and the people with truth. Praise God, God's gonna get it right. That was the argument of Abraham, even as he pled for the righteous people in the city of Sodom and Gomorrah, specifically for his nephew Lot. As he pleaded with God, he said, shall not the judge of all the earth do right? He said, God is a righteous judge. Does that be it far from you to judge the righteous with the wicked? Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Praise God, tonight, as we stop and think about it, there's a righteous God. Therefore, judgment that's gonna take place is gonna take place perfectly. Again, tonight, we are rejoiced in God's righteousness. The righteousness of his word, the righteousness of his ways, and the righteousness of his justice. But then secondly tonight, Rejoice because of God's creativity. Rejoice because of God's creativity. On the Royal Isle right now, there is a Lego phone booth, I guess somewhere, where there's three phone booths together. There's a fourth one that's there right now. It's made out of Legos. And it's there because of the St. James Center. All right, it's called something else now, St. James something else. a new LEGOLAND that is being put into that property. It's kind of a cool place. They have a LEGOLAND at the Mall of America back when I was in high school. They built the Mall of America about 35 minutes from my house and that was our mall that we go to going up. It's got Camp Snoopy in the center of it, that theme park and roller coasters and things going on part of that camp smoothie was a Lego man. And he saw those incredible Lego creations. I think there was a Lego globe, you know, massive thing and Lego jets, Lego dinosaurs. And, you know, you expect a child as they look at the creativity of the creators with those Lego bricks, you expect that child to be in awe a little bit. That's amazing, right? Look at that. They're making things this big. They're looking at stuff this big. And something's wrong. in the Legoland see something like that and isn't a little bit inspired by that. You just think maybe their observational skills are not quite up to par because they ought to be amazed by it. Listen, as mankind looks at God's creation, there ought to be something that just says, wow, look at what God has done. Something is missing if they can't see that. And so look and see God's goodness. It says again in our verse here, verse five, the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. It's full of it. And praise God, you go out into the sky, highlands, lowlands, moorlands, you see the glens, you see the berms, you see the rivers, you see the heather or the grass, and you see the coast, and you got the cliffs, and you've got the sandy beaches, and the pebbly beaches, and the craggy beaches. I mean, it's just a very awesome thing to look at the locks and to see the massive hills that are up over those locks. There ought to be something in our heart as we look at that and say, you know what? This place is full of the goodness of God. It's full of the greatest thing about our holiday just a couple weeks back as we went up into Highlands. is just coming around that corner, seeing that new view, and just saying, wow, wow. Look at what God has done. God is incredible in God's goodness in his creation. We gotta see it. Verse six says, by the word of the Lord, we're the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. You walk outside at night, you see the stars, you see the galaxies, and you're looking untold distances away, and that is all just put up there by the hand of God as he spoke the world into existence. You know, evolution is so sad, isn't it? Just robbing God of his glory. saying that an explosion made something that's incredibly detailed, incredibly accurate. Ken Ham, this was brought to my attention by Dr. Stedman in an email he sent to the missionaries with our board this past week, but he said Ken Ham brought out the point that in our canceled culture society, you know, they're trying to cast doubt on these statues that have to do with anything they think had to do with slavery or racism. Ken Ham makes the point, why haven't they thrown down any Darwin statues? Evolution is the basis for racism. It says that people evolve differently, that they evolve at different speeds. Some people are more advanced than other people. It's what Hitler used as he sought to annihilate the Jews. There's no way casting that down. Why? Because that's the God, the religion of the ungodly. The last thing they're gonna do is cast down their God. But you know, there's not many people tonight that are walking out here looking at God's creation and saying, God, I just wanna give you glory. I just wanna give you praise. It's amazing. Look at, I mean, if God so clothed the grass and the field, which today ours, tomorrow's cast in the oven. You know, acknowledging There ought to be in our hearts something like that tonight that we say, man, I want to rejoice in God for his creation, his goodness. And then we ought to look and see God's power. See God's power. The Bible here tells us that God maintains all natural resources. It says in verse seven, he gathered the waters of the sea together as a heap. He laid up the dead in storehouses. I don't fathom all of this verse is saying, but surface tension and how that works, you know, is that God can kind of, just put that water there and keep it there and make it go where he wants it to go and sets bounds about it. And then you've got the water cycle and that evaporation and that distribution and that, those channels. You ever stop and think about the fact, I thought about this as we traveled up north, that these rivers just continually flow down until they get to the sea. They don't go, typically they don't go down, lock, down, lock, down, lock. Typically they just float, right? I mean, it's just God has worked that out. In Bilston, you know, we got that housing scheme that's going in, and it took years for them with their diggers to get in there and get it just right, and get it graded, and put it in the sewer, and they had flooding that was there, and I mean, it wasn't going too well, and they're working their best at it, but God just did it all. God set everything in its place. He's the one. that's watching over those natural resources. He's the one that is sustaining it. It says, let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him, for He spake and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. Wow, that's amazing. And God just said, let it be, and it was. And God took care of it. God anchors it with his word. We watched this past week on the telly. We were watching a documentary on a digger company in China. And it was quite impressive, the diggers that are making this plant. And they would finish one, this assembly line, every 10 minutes. They're putting out a digger that was just incredible, with incredible power. And that digger goes out and goes to that place where they need to put something in and it begins to work. But God just goes, hey, let it be. Right, man has to work so hard. But our Lord just said, let it be. was he said let it stand and it stands you know tonight you don't have to join if you want to be the green party that's okay but you don't have to join the green party and panic like you know the world's over it's all going downhill you know we got to save the planet you don't have to join extinction rebellion and think somehow we got to stop man from wrecking evolution because evolution's gone bad and all of a sudden man the highest pinnacle of evolution has wrecked it all No, God's still in control. God's still the one that has said it and it is and it will be. Praise God tonight. and His power. And then thirdly tonight, rejoice because of God's authority. Rejoice because of God's authority. As a church, we're praying about the property, the Bank of Scotland building. And I shared this past week in email that I've shared with our church at different times as we've been praying about that, this building. That is that God has worked in my heart as I prayed about it, specifically with regard to His authority. In other words, if God's in it and God says it, it is because God has that authority. We shared the scripture that we've looked at with regard to that. God gives it to whomever he will. That is what he does because he is in control and he's sovereign over all. And so tonight, as we think about rejoicing in God, we can thank God that the world can't have their way. You've probably noticed that our world is more and more against God, more and more vocal in their casting off of His restraints. It's really what Psalm 2 speaks about when it says, why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves and rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us. And so even the G7, you know, these nations coming together and they're like, we've got this, we've got this and there is no God. We stand together and say there is no God. And really, that's really close to where we're getting in society. Despite that. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall I speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His swordless pleasure. And by the way, if you think, no, we're not that godless yet, just consider this, the pandemic happened. Who prayed? We read in our devotions, if you're reading with the church, we read about the dedication of the temple. And Solomon said, when the pestilence comes, and we get on our knees before God, then spirits. But we're, in our society, we're those people, those leaders that said, hey, time to pray. We understand tonight that they are seeking to cast off the God. But you know, praise God. Again, the world can't have their way because God is not bothered by what they say. Verse 10, it says, the Lord bringeth a counsel. But we're bothered by it. We don't like that legislation, anti-smacking legislation that's contrary to the word of God. Hate crime legislation that's contrary to the word of God. We don't like some of the things that are coming about in our society, the things that our society is saying against God, but God just brings it to naught. God just nullifies it. God just makes it ineffective. You remember the king of Syria, he thought you know let's let's go there we'll take the king of Israel in that place but there was a prophet of God that knew about it and so the king of Syria word against Israel took counsel with the servants saying in such and such a place shall be my camp and the man of God sent unto the king of Israel saying beware that thou pass not such a place within there the Syrians are come down and the king of Israel told him and warned him of and saved himself there not once or twice therefore the heart of the king of Syria was sore trouble for this thing and he called his servants and said unto is for the king of Israel. And one of his servants said, none my word, O king, but Elisha the prophet that's in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber. It's an awesome story. I mean, the king is serious, like, what's going on? Who's telling my secrets? They say, nobody. It's that prophet of God knows what you're saying. And God is going to rule them. You know, again, our world is like, we can plan it, we can say it, but it doesn't matter. Why? Because we can rejoice because God's got it. God's over it all. You know, modern Israel right now is a testimony to the fact that God will have His way. Now, they're not God. But that's the nation that God said is gonna be back in the land. It testifies to the fact that people can say whatever they want, anti-Israel, but it doesn't matter, because God is putting it there. God's not bothered by what they say. And then secondly, God's not bothered by what they do. It says, He maketh the devices of the people of none effect. They make it of none effect. You know, let me tell you, don't worry about the Antichrist. government. Why? Because God's over all that. Right? I mean, we look at that and think, oh, that's bad money. It's not bad because it's part of God's plan. It's part of the Bible. It's part of what the Word of God says is going to take place. But the thing is this, they can join together as much as they want. They can join politically. They can join religiously. They can join economically. They can say, we're going to stand against God. But we understand tonight, it doesn't matter. Why? Because of the people of none effect. And so thank God tonight because of God's authority. They can't have their way, but secondly, God will have his way. God will have his way. Look at what it says in verse 11. What he says will be, will be, what he desires will be. It says, the counsel of the Lord standeth forever. The thoughts of his heart to all generations. It's time that I like security. I mentioned this morning to our church that I got a letter in the post saying that, you know, the FTSE, I forget the letters for it, for the banking, I'm sorry, FSCS, limit for covering your bank Well, because of the buying of the church, we've got much more than that that's in our account. I look at that and I go, that's kind of scary to me that if something defaults, they're not gonna cover us except for that amount. I like guarantees. I like security. And tonight as we come again to the word of God, we've got guarantees, we've got security. And that is this, God has said it, God desires it, therefore it will be. We ought to just rejoice tonight in the sovereignty of God, in the authority of God. And so we do that. We rejoice in his righteousness. We rejoice in his creativity. We rejoice in his authority. But then fourth tonight, we rejoice because of God's oversight. Because of God's oversight. You know, if God was distant, we're in danger. But God is present. If God was just, you know, in one of those distant galaxies and he had to come to see what was happening, we praise God tonight that's not the case, but that God is very near to us. Psalm 46 verse one says, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. And so God is present. And I remind us tonight as we look at the Word of God that we are precious to God as his child. It says in verse 12, happy is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. I just realized All right, normally the clock's down there. It's bad in two ways. I gotta look over my shoulder, and you don't have to look past me. You can just see it right there. That's not maybe as I would like it. But anyway, we are a precious child of God tonight. It's awesome to think, you know, God is thinking about us tonight. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he hath chosen. Okay, in the Old Testament, Israel were the people of God. New Testament, it's the church. And so as a child of God, he ought to look back at the Old Testament and say, well, how did God take care of his people? Well, he fought for them, he defended them, he provided for them, he guided them. Yeah, happy are the people of this, God is the Lord. And that's a blessing thing to think tonight, I've got God and God cares about me and I'm precious to God. We went to a church in Georgia back when we were in Bible college. of the family of God. I've been washed in the fountain, cleansed by his blood, joined heirs with Jesus as we travel to Sod. I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God. You know, the person that is out there on the, you know, away from God, they don't have his care tonight. We praise God again, we have to rejoice, say, you know what? Tonight, I'm a child of God's. And because of that, you're under the watch care In fact, the Bible says you're being observed right now. Verse 13 says, the Lord looketh from heaven. He beholdeth all the sons of men. My God's there, he's watching. Back when I was in junior high or kind of early preteens in school, When the teacher would leave the room, you'd expect bad things to happen. You know, the cat's away, the mice will play, right? And so you expect, you're expecting bad things to happen. You know what? But you kind of felt like, too, the teacher has eyes in the back of their head. Somehow they know, you know? And you don't really understand how that works for the teacher, but you understand tonight how that works with God. And because of that, nobody's gonna get away with something. And as an obedient child, I can rejoice because God's watching. He's going to take care of me even though the bad things might be taking place. God is observing me right now. You're observed, secondly, by one in a position of great authority. It says in verse 14, from the place of his habitation, He looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth. You know, as God is looking, where is God? I mean, understand, we've got Christ in our hearts. Praise God, he's always with us, but it's speaking about the position of his authority, and he's observing from where? Heaven. What's heaven? His throne. I mean, that's the position where he's got absolute authority over everything. You know, the disciples, as they're in that boat with Jesus, they're panicking because they see the waves. They need to be reminded that there's a God on the throne that has authority over those waves. And tonight, as we look, and we've just briefly mentioned it, but wicked governments, wicked agenda, ungodly world, grievous, you know, the waves are crashing about us. We need to be reminded tonight that there's a God that is authoritatively over there, that he is, again, in that position of absolute authority, observing what is taking place. And then third, you're observed by one who knows your heart. He knows your heart. It says in verse 15, he fashioned their hearts alike. and he watches Gabby grow up. And he watches Mac grow up, and he considers all their works, and how things are going, and how things are happening in their life. He's observing us like that. Those diggers that were made in China, one of the kind of almost scary things about the technology that they had is they have technology that goes back to a command center, and millions of these vehicles are out working around the globe. But as they're working in real time, if there's an oil pressure problem on that vehicle, it sends it back to the command center. The command center's able to get on the phone, call the people and tell them they got a problem with their digger before they even realize they've got a problem with their digger because they're connected to them. Now that's a little scary technology, because you think they can hit the off button and they'll stop as well or something like that, but you know, God is watching, isn't he? What problems tonight do you have that God doesn't know about? Whether physical, emotional, financial, mental, I think we ought to rejoice tonight, say, hey, praise God. God is observing tonight. I rejoice in that oversight as we rejoice in his authority, his creativity, his righteousness. And then tonight, as we come to this fifth point, our final point, we rejoice God's protection. So God is not just present. God is not just observing, but God is standing there ready by his grace and his mercy to intervene and to help us. And so we find tonight that we will be delivered by his strength, by his strength. It says in verse 16, there is no king saved by the multitude of a host. A mighty man is not delivered by much strength. A horse is a vain thing for safety. Neither shall I deliver any by his great strength." Now, back in the day, a horse was like a stealth fighter, all right? It was like an army tank. It was like a carrier. I mean, it was the fighting machine. But that wasn't the victory. And the victory wasn't good strategy. The victory wasn't, you know, being the stronger army. What was the victory? The victory was what David had when he fought Goliath. 1 Samuel 17 and 45, David said to the Philistine, thou comest to me with a sword and with a spear and with a shield, but I come in the name of the Lord of hosts. Well, praise God tonight. We don't have to say, well, you know, I got this because I'm really this. No. You know, we're talking about praying this next week, right? I've got this, why? Because my God is great, because my God is powerful, because my God is gonna fight for me as I fight for Him. Praise God. It's His strength. You'll be delivered secondly by His mercy. By His mercy. It says, behold, the eye of the Lord upon them that fear Him, upon them that hope in His mercy to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in family. Do you know there's a special protection for God's people? Now we might go through trials, we might suffer some, but I mean there's plenty of stories in the Bible where God spared somebody as a righteous person. He didn't spare everybody. Got Elijah, the ravens feeding Elijah. You've got the widow woman feeding and providing for Elijah. And God's sparing him and the widow woman and her son because of God's special care in a time of famine. You know, if you're hoping in the mercy of God, you're living in the fear of the Lord, that means you're living a righteous life, an obedient life. You can just have confidence. You know, God's got this. God's gonna take care of this. God is gonna help me. Why? Because God is a God of mercy. We ought to say, praise God. I don't have to be discouraged. I don't have to be disheartened. I don't have to be cast down. Why? Because God has got this. You'll be delivered by his help. It says in verse 20, our soul waited for the Lord. He is our help. He is our shield. Do you like places of safety? I'll just tell you a secret. Human nature likes places of safety. It's called self-preservation, right? We don't want to be exposed to danger. I mean, if I said COVID's on that side, we wouldn't be coming to this side, right? I mean, we want to be somewhere that is safe. You know, the Bible just told us that God is our shield, that's our safety. He's the one that's got us. He's the one that is around us, protecting us. He is our help. somebody's going to reach down he's going to make it okay he's going to meet the need praise God we have rejoiced tonight praise God God is my help and then one last thing about God's protection is that you will be delivered by his faithfulness by his faithfulness as in verse 21 for our hearts shall rejoice in him Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us according as we hope. Indeed. Okay, when it talks about we're trusting in Thee, we're depending upon Thee, what's it speaking about? It's speaking about the faithfulness of God. It's speaking about the fact that He's worthy of trust, that He's going to respond to trust because He is absolutely ready to meet our need. And whether we know it or not tonight, God is watching over us, God's protecting us. I'm reminded of the story of Darlene Dyblo Rose. She was a missionary to Papua New Guinea back when Japan was invading in World War, what was that one, taking place. And there in those highlands, they were put into a prisoner of war camp. And in that place, when the Allies came and bombed, they would have to run into trenches, and they'd have to hide from the bombs that were falling about the camp and on the camp. And there was a time where she jumped into that trench, and in that trench, the Lord reminded her about a Bible that she had borrowed from a woman, and that Bible was in the barracks, and if the barracks burned, and she thought they were on fire, then that Bible would be lost. She ran in there, in the midst of everything, grabbed that Bible, and then went to another place and hid. Afterwards, she was coming back and she saw a woman and the woman was weeping and she was crying because her mattress had been bombed. And she said, well, it's okay, we'll get another mattress. And she said to Darlene, no, no, no, you don't get it. I threw that mattress where you always stay, in the trench. The bomb hit where she would have been if she hadn't gone back to get the Bible that the Spirit of God reminded her about. You know, there's gonna be times in our life we might see it like that. We might understand it like that. You know what? God protected me, but whether we understand it or not, whether we see it or not, we've got a God that is actively helping us. He's watching over us. I'm just saying tonight, we ought to stop and say, praise God. Praise God. And rejoice in God because he is the one that is helping. Again, tonight we understand rejoicing is vocal. It gets you out there, doesn't it? And I just wanna remind us tonight that if we're not praising God, if we're not making a noise, then the truth is tonight we're not rejoicing in God. Now there's some people that can't rejoice in God tonight because they're not righteous. Rejoice in the Lord, you're righteous. They don't know God, they're distant from God. They can't praise God because they don't see God. But you know what, praise God if I'm saved tonight. All these things that we've considered this evening, God's righteousness, his creativity, his authority, his oversight, his protection. We gotta look at that and say, look, God did this. And we ought to stop right then and say, you know what, God, I'd just like to say thank you. I'd just like to praise your name. You know, on Thursdays and Sundays, on Zoom especially, but sometimes in church, we say, hey, anybody want to share a testimony? There ought to be things that come to our mind and say, I just want to praise God tonight. I want to just rejoice in God tonight, because rejoicing the Lord, ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright. It's appropriate. Why? Because of everything that we just looked at in the Word of God tonight. So let's pray, ask the Spirit of God to speak to our hearts. If in your heart the Spirit of God is saying, you know what? You know what? You might think that and rejoice, but in reality, when's the last time you made some noise? Is it vocal? Is it from your heart? You get it out there. Then let's just confess that to God. Say, God, by your grace, we see in the night, Lord God, there's a lot of reasons to rejoice. God, help us, help us to do that. Let's pray. Father, may the spirit of God give us grace to rejoice. Father, we're not of all men most miserable. We are of all men most blessed. Father, I pray that we'd understand, you know what? If it's not vocal, something's not right. We ought to praise God. It ought to pop up in our hearts and minds and out our mouth and say, hey, you know, I just want to say God is good. God is good. Father, whether others hear it or you alone hear it, it ought to be something that is daily a part of our life. I pray, remind us of it this week. Lord, as we go about this week, may the Spirit of God just remind us, rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright. God, help us to do that. It's in Christ's name I pray, amen. Amen, look, we've got a hymn to sing here at the end, a hymn of invitation. If the Spirit of God ever speaks to your heart or services, you're welcome to come up to the front and pray if you like, and pray there at your chair, but do deal with it if the Spirit of God puts something specific in your heart. Let's stand and sing. Oh, what just happened?