Bibles if you were to. Psalm 103. Psalm 103. Name of the message is Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Psalm 103. Excuse me. Excuse me again, sorry. Now we who are the redeemed of the Lord, we praise our great God, don't we? We praise our great God. We praise him for the wondrous things that he's done for us. We praise Him for His goodness and His mercy and His grace continuously to us, even when we don't see it. When we consider the great salvation that the Lord has wrought out for us on Calvary's cross, when we consider Him dying as our substitute on the cross, it causes the redeemed people of God to praise Him. It just flows naturally out of us. It just flows naturally out of us. When we consider that we are totally justified before God, that we can stand in the presence of God, we who are sinners by birth, nature, and choice, that we who have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, when we consider that we can stand and in the presence of a holy and righteous God, it causes our lips to praise God, to praise our great Savior, to praise the Lord for what He's done, for what He's done, beloved. Brother Roy and I were looking at that devotion we do each Sunday night, and the text was, He restoreth my soul. God does that. He does that for us. We're born dead. And he restores our soul, beloved. We have no ability to restore our souls. None. And even after we're saved, we have no ability to keep ourselves, do we? So he restores our soul. We're born again by the Holy Spirit of God, by his power, And then He keeps us all through this life. And what does that cause us to do? Causes us to praise the Lord, doesn't it? Praise Him. Praise Him that He had mercy on us. Oh my, He's done this. This is what He's done. Salvation's of the Lord. And we praise Him for it. When we consider that our great God drew salvation's plan in eternity, that He drew all that, that He planned and purposed our salvation in Christ? Would we consider that He chose us in Christ in that plan? It causes us to rejoice, doesn't it? It causes us to praise the Lord for His goodness and His mercy that we were included in that plan in Christ. Why? When we consider that all our sins are put away, all of them, or look at that a little more in depth tonight, all of them, like I mean all of them, put away in Christ for God's people, when we consider that they're all put away by the sacrifice of Christ, and when we consider that God's law and justice, which in our natural state has a rightful claim upon us, has no claim upon us now. I know we hear that all the time, but when we really, really consider that fact, that we stand before the Lord blameless, What does it cause? It causes us to praise the Lord. It causes us to give glory to the Lord, doesn't it? To praise His mighty name for His goodness to us. My, when we consider that He is ever watchful over us, as Brother Jim prayed, that He's ever watchful over us, ever watchful over us, caring for us, protecting us, guiding us, directing us. When we consider this truth, again, I know we hear it. But it's good to hear again, isn't it? And again, and again, and again. It never gets old. It should never get old for the believer to hear these things. Because what does it cause us to do? Because we get busy. We get busy in the world. We get busy in our lives. And then when we stop and contemplate these things, again, remember these things through the week. They're bringing you great joy. So when we stop and we consider and we contemplate these marvelous truths, it'll cause your lips, the lips of the redeemed, to praise the Lord, to praise the Lord. to give Him all the glory. And our lips will become full of praise for our wonderful, merciful Redeemer when we think upon these things. Now David knew what it meant to praise the Lord. And he, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God, remember these words that we're going to read are penned by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God. Look at these words here in Psalm 103. Again, inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. Look at these verses here. Verse 1 of Psalm 103. Bless the Lord, O my soul. That's the words of a redeemed man. That's the words of a redeemed woman, too, isn't it? Both of us, we both proclaim that. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless His holy name. He alone is holy. He alone is holy. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities. All. Look at that. That little word, A-L-L. All, there's not one left out. Who healeth all thy diseases, all of them, and we'll see that's spiritual diseases, that's sin. Who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfy thy mouth with good things so that thy youth is renewed like the eagles. The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. He made known his ways unto Moses, and he makes known his ways unto all his people, doesn't he? Through Christ. His acts unto the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful. What a statement. He is merciful. And what else is he? He is ingracious, slow to anger. Slow to anger. That's the opposite of us, isn't it? We can get fired up pretty quick. But the Lord's slow to anger. Look at that. And praise God, he is. Oh, look at this. Implenteous in mercy, abundant, overflowing in mercy. He will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger forever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. Hallelujah. Oh, praise God. We'll look at that verse later on. It caused you to rejoice. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass, as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it and is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting." It's eternal. It's eternal, beloved. And remember what Paul wrote. He said, I've obtained mercy. That's the mercy of God. And so is every believer. And that mercy, beloved, is everlasting. It's unchanging. It's unchanging. It's forever towards us. Upon them that fear him, and again, that's not a slavish fear, that's a reverent fear of awe of who God is, and his righteousness unto children's children. To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them, the Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens, it's a set throne, and his kingdom ruleth over all. It rules over all, there's not a maverick molecule, there's nothing out of place. There's nothing that's not under his dominion, nothing. Nothing, even that speck of dust you see in the sunshine in the windows. Nothing. Nothing. Everything is under His control. Everything. The Lord hath prepared His thrones in the heavens, and His kingdom ruleth over all. Bless the Lord, ye His angels, that excel in strength, and do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Bless ye the Lord, all his hosts, ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure. Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul. So we see here in this psalm that this psalm is one continued hymn of praise. One continued hymn of praise to our great God. And it concludes a comprehensive view of the goodness of Jehovah in all the great works of creation, redemption, providence, and grace. He rules over all, beloved. Let's look at verses one and two. We see it's the Psalm of David. Bless the Lord, bless Jehovah. O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Now take note at how beautifully this psalm opens up. It calls the redeemed soul to praise the Lord, to praise the Lord, to praise God. And remember that our hearts in our natural state do not praise God. But in our redeemed hearts, or our regenerated hearts, we praise God. We give Him all the glory. And remember, it's with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. So when we're praising God, it's coming from our heart, beloved. True worship of God, true praise of God comes from our hearts, comes from a redeemed redeemed soul who is born again by the Holy Spirit of God. We see here as Robert Hocker has brought forth that it was an ancient custom in the church at the opening of services to call upon the people to lift up your hearts and let your lips praise the Lord. My, just praise Him. Praise Him for His goodness. Worship our great God and King, Worship Him. Worship Him. Now verse 2, I'd like to spend a little bit of our time on tonight. Look at this. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. One of the best ways for us to begin or end a day is by contemplating and remembering all of God's benefits towards us. Just remember, for that day even. I remember talking to young Jake one time in Colorado, and we were talking. He loves coffee. He loves coffee. And I was saying, well, you know, that coffee's a benefit from the Lord. He's like, what? I said, yeah, it's a blessing. I said, somebody picks it or grows it down in Columbia or wherever they get it from. I said, it's trucked to wherever it's gonna be processed. It's processed and bought by truck to the store where you bought it. And I said, and then you go to the store, you purchase it, you take it home, you brew it, and you enjoy a really nice cup of coffee. I said, that's a benefit from the Lord. See, even the food we have that comes on our table, that's all a benefit from the Lord, beloved, everything. All from his providential hand, isn't it? It is. It's wonderful. So every day we have a reminder of the Lord's provision before us. Every day. Every day we have a reminder of the Lord's provision. Every day. In this world, we suffer through trials and tribulations and we're sometimes prone to complain. It's very easy for us to complain. It really is. It's not hard for us to do that. And we know that's the flesh too. Our worst enemy is our flesh. And we know that. We know that. We are prone to do this. And for natural man, they're very prone to do that. Very prone. And they don't see the benefits of the Lord. So one of the things for us when we get like that, when we start to complain, is to contemplate the Lord's benefits to us. the Lord's benefits towards us. Never forget, beloved of God, as we looked at the nine names of God in this morning's message, that that is who saved us. That's who watches over us. That's who provides for us. Jehovah. And here, David exhorts believers by inspirational Holy Spirit to bless the Lord. Praise Him. That's what it means, praise Him. Praise Him. Praise Him in the morning, praise Him in the day, and praise Him in the evening. He's so good to us, beloved. He's so good to us. Oh my. The psalmist brings forth that we are not to forget the benefits of the Lord towards us. Look at him. Look there in verse two. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Why would it say that? Because we're prone to forget. We're prone to go through the day not even thinking about the blessings that we've received. Do you know that just breathing's a blessing? Our breath comes from the Lord. He gives that to us. It's a blessing. It's wonderful. So David here is exhorting us to not forget all his benefits, to bless the Lord, to praise his name, to praise his name. And I'm not talking about going around in public and going, I'm talking about just having a grateful and thankful heart and praising him. No one else has to know you're praising the Lord, just praise him in your heart. While you're at work, while you're at home, And I'll tell you what, if you have a believing wife and husband, tell them, because they're probably going to get excited and start praising the Lord too, because that's how it works. You start talking about the Lord with your spouse, and next thing you know, you're just rejoicing in your King. Rejoicing in Him. It's wonderful. It's absolutely wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. So many benefits we receive. And he works over to forget not his benefits. Forget not his benefits. And we're seeing this psalm that the psalmist goes on to list some of these benefits. And this is a psalm that we can go to and rejoice in the benefits that we've received from the Lord. Again, because it's good to have these things before us. It's good to have these things before us. They can be a source of great blessing and joy. And there's times in every believer's life when we need to be lifted up by the Lord, when we need strength and grace from the Lord. More times than not. More times than not. So we'll see some of these benefits listed. And remember, These can be a great blessing to God's born-again, blood-washed people. The world don't see these. They don't know them. They've not tasted that the Lord is gracious, but we have as believers. Look at verse three. Right away, the psalmist brings forth, look what the psalmist brings forth. Right away, he brings one of the benefits before the people of God. Look at this, that God has forgiven all our iniquities, all of them, all of them. Marvel at this, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, all of them, from when we were just a little tyke, to when we go home to be with the Lord, when we breathe our last breath, because we know we're sinners the whole way through, aren't we? We're safe sinners, but we're sinners. But look at that, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases. Imagine all our sin in our lifetime, sins of thought. I was thinking about this. All the sins of our lifetime, sins of thought, things that we thought no one else knows about, we thought them, right? Sins of word that come out of our mouth. Sins of deed that we've done. Sins of the heart. Sins of affection, recall. Sins we don't even know that we commit. Right? Because there's some of them too. All against us. They all stand against us. All condemning us in the law of God that's been broken, has been broken by every one of those sins. You ever think of that? It's not a small thing, is it? Every sin that we commit is breaking the law of God. And God's law demands satisfaction. Can you or I pay for one of these sins, let alone the billions that we commit in a lifetime? Augustus Topley sat down and he was good with math and he tried to figure out how many sins a man would commit from their birth till their 80s, and I think it was billions. And Brother Bruce Crabtree got up one time and said, well, I passed that. But it's true. See, we're not even conscious of how much we sin in a whole lifetime. So can you or I pay for one of those sins? No, no. Imagine in your mind the enormous mass of your sin and its great wickedness and see God, God, the just judge of the universe, take his seat to pass judgment upon you and upon me for my sin and for yours. And then hear him say, all is forgiven. This one's sins and iniquities I will remember no more. Oh my Lord, praise your name. And that's what happens to the blood-washed born-again believer. My, marvel, marvel at this truth. Marvel at this wonderful benefit. This wonderful benefit. the benefit of the finished, complete work of the Lord Jesus Christ in our place. And the Scriptures declare about that, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, and that is only in Christ Jesus our Lord. It says here, who healeth all thy diseases. John Gill says diseases here are not bodily ones, though the Lord is the physician of the bodies as well as the souls of men, and sometimes heals the diseases of soul and body at once, as in the case of the paraplegic man in the Gospels. But this speaks of spiritual diseases or soul sickness. We know that it's tied into our iniquities because it's in the same verse. And our sins are hereditary, aren't they? We're born sinners. We're born with a dead nature. And sin is a mortal disease. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. And it's incurable by man. It's incurable by man. This can only be cured by God, and He heals us by His almighty power. We're born again by the power of God, by the means of the preaching of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in the preaching of the Gospel of God's free grace in Christ, peace with God is preached through Christ alone. Pardon of all our sins is proclaimed in Christ. All our iniquities forgiven in Christ. through the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our righteousness is preached, which is accepted by God. And it's proclaimed to be the righteousness of Christ, which it is. And it comes to the believer because it's given to us by our great God. Wondrous. And this the Lord Jesus does freely. Freely. Fully. According to his sovereign will, he bestows his salvation upon those who the Father gave him. Again, we don't know who they are, so we preach the gospel to everyone. God does the same. But my, oh my, what a benefit there. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases. All of them. All of them. Both, it says there, who forgiveth all thine iniquities and who healeth all thy diseases. Praise God. There's not one left behind. Not one. Not one that's not paid for. That's wonderful. What a benefit. Is it any wonder then that God's people praise the Lord? that we praise the Lord, what a wondrous benefit. Another benefit brought forth in this psalm is that our great God redeems our souls from destruction. Look at this in verse four. Who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies. Now you and I know little, very little of what God's wrath is like. In fact, I suppose only those in hell know what God's wrath is. We hear about it, and we read about it, and it makes us tremble in fear, in awe of who our God is. But there is one other who knows, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ who bore God's wrath for God's people. It was poured out upon him in our place, in our place. When he died on Calvary's cross, And because Christ was forsaken and God's wrath fell upon Him as our substitute, then we will never experience the wrath of God. Never. And hence that verse, who redeemeth thy life from destruction. From the wrath of God. From the wrath of God. My. Look at the latter part of Verse four, we see another benefit of our salvation, which had caused the Lord's people to bless the Lord. It says, who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies. Our great Lord crowns us with his loving kindness and mercy. See the word crowneth there? It's translated in the Hebrew, it means encircle or surround. Oh my, He surrounds us with loving kindness and tender mercies. We're surrounded by it. We're encircled by the loving kindness and tender mercies of God. We're protected. We're protected from all eternal harm. Again, this magnifies our great God's sovereignty, doesn't it? It magnifies who our God really is. He's God. He's Almighty God, beloved. All of God's blessings to his people we know flow from his loving kindness and tender mercy through the Lord Jesus Christ to his people. And think of all these blessings, all the blessings of the everlasting covenant, the sure mercies of David, all spiritual blessings, which the saints are blessed with in Christ, the grace given to us, the mercy that we receive, all the things pertaining to life and godliness given to us in regeneration. We are encircled with the loving kindness and mercy of God, beloved. In crowning here, crowneth here, brings forth an application and enjoyment of them. We enjoy these benefits. We enjoy the loving kindness of God. We enjoy the mercy of God. We who are the people of God. We enjoy the abundance of them which has been shown to us. We're surrounded by them. We're loaded down daily with benefits from the Lord, beloved. Daily. Daily he loaded me down with benefits, Proverbs says, daily. Now look at verse five, we see another benefit which will cause the born again, blood-bought believer in Christ to bless the Lord. Look at this. Who satisfy thy mouth with good things so that thy youth is renewed like the eagles. God gives his people full satisfaction. Now the world, the world rushes after its own, excuse me, its own glories, doesn't it? It rushes after its own glories. And no matter how much natural man receives, they're never satisfied. Never satisfied. Always want more. Always want more. Every believer shall be satisfied with Christ. And we are satisfied with Christ. And we'll see Christ in glory one day, but when the worldling dies, he loses all of the earthly things that he calls blessings. But for the believer in Christ, to die is gain. To die is gain. Because then we'll see the one who our soul loveth, who our soul longs to see. And we'll see him face to face. And let's read down to verse 10, where we'll see another benefit of our salvation, which will cause us to rejoice and bless the Lord. Look at this. My, look at this. He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. What a verse. What a verse. He has not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. This verse clearly brings forth that we do not get what we deserve. We don't, we get mercy, beloved. We receive mercy from the Lord. Look at this. He not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. We don't get what we deserve. The people of God don't get what we deserve because we've been redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ. And all our sins have been dealt with by the sinless substitute. He took our punishment, beloved. He took it. He bore our sins on Calvary and He made satisfaction for them before God. So what joy this can bring the redeemed sinner! Our great God has not rewarded us according to our iniquities. What a relief! What a relief this is to the saint of God! If God were to deal with you and I in justice, where would we be? If every transgression we committed had received its just reward, then we must have been sent to hell. The lake burning with fire and brimstone. That would be in our portion as the wages of sin is eternal death. The reason God does not reward His people according to their iniquities, according to our sins, is because Christ is borum, beloved. He borum. The chastisement of our peace is upon Him. And with His stripes we are healed. He made satisfaction to divine justice for all our sins. All of them. So the believer naturally cries out when he hears that or she hears that, Bless the Lord, O my soul. Bless the Lord. This is wondrous. Look at verse, marvel at verses 11 and 12. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us. So these benefits are just being poured out before us, pressed upon each other. Look at this illustration we're given here. And remember, this is by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This great distance, the space between heaven and earth, where our great God dwells is seemingly infinite. Nothing can more illustrate the mercy of God, which reaches to the heavens and is in heaven And this picture here is a representation of the largeness of God's mercy towards us. The largeness, it's vast. It's vast. And that's for every single believer. And what a picture. God's mercy towards us, beloved, is boundless and infinite. Do you see why David said, bless the Lord, O my soul? Note there, as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgression for us. They're gone, beloved. They're gone. There's a great gulf between us and our sins, which can never be bridged. They're gone. They're gone. In God's eyes. To an infinite distance, the great scapegoat carried away all the sins of his people, and they shall never return to be bought against us, to be charged against us. They're gone. Bless the Lord, oh my soul. That's all we can say. That's all we can say, isn't it? Oh my. So what mercy we see here before us in tonight's text. And it fills the believer's heart with joy. And it stirs us up to bless the Lord and to be thankful for all His benefits. What a salvation we have in Christ. And it's all according to the mercy and grace of God. According to His will. that we would be receivers of this mercy and grace. Look at verses 13 to 17 now. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust. Dust, that's what we are. As for a man, his days are as grass, as a flower of the field, flourishes, for the wind passes over it and is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children." Marvel at verse 13 there. Our great God pities us. His eye toward us is not full of wrath as a judge. And this is speaking to his people. No. His eye toward us is one of pity and understanding and the compassion of a father. It's wonderful. It's absolutely wonderful. And here never lay too heavy a burden upon his people. He'll not demand too much of us. He'll not give us over to our enemies. He deals with us tenderly. Why? Because we're weak. Because we're weak. And sometimes we don't remember we're but dust, but we're reminded here in scripture that we're just dust. We're dust. We think we're strong. And you know, I remember when I was young, I thought, oh man, I was strong, could do anything. How quickly you learn as you get older that you just can't do the things you used to do. Our frailty is bought before us, isn't it? It's bought before us. A natural man, they don't even consider their frailty. They think they're invincible. No one's invincible. No one. They don't contemplate that they're but dust. But note here, the Lord remembereth that we're dust. He has compassion on us. He has compassion on us. Look at verse 15 and 16. As for man, his days are as grass, as a flower of a field, so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it and is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more. Before the mower's blade comes, the hot eastern wind has dried up the grass and it's gone. and how a little thing can carry us away, we who are frail. We're here today and gone tomorrow. Our life's like a vapor. In light of eternity, our life's like a vapor. We're coming to that season again where you go, you see that vapor and then it just vanishes. That's what our life is like in light of eternity. I'm always reminded of that in the wintertime. Always brought forth to me, and it's incredible. It's true. That's what our life is like, just like that little vapor. Look at verse 17. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting, upon them that fear him, in his righteousness unto children's children. God's mercy to his people is everlasting, beloved. Let this sink deep in your soul. God's loving kindness and God's mercy towards you and towards me is unchanging. It never changes. Now our circumstances change, don't they? But his love towards us is unchanging. Isn't that wonderful? It makes you want to bless the Lord, doesn't it? It makes you want to just be thankful for His goodness and His mercy and His grace towards us. My! So we see here an endless chain of grace to God's people in Christ as sin is forgiven, it's power subdued, it's penalty paid. And we who are the redeemed of the Lord are supplied in our very nature changed just like newborn children in the household of God. We're adopted by our great God. And we have everything provided for us in Christ. It's amazing. It's amazing. Oh, may we bless the Lord with our heart and soul and our strength. May we praise His mighty name. May we think upon these truths this week. And let we who are the redeemed look upon this world as a place, not as a place for a long stay, but only as a meadow. only as a medal in which we in common with other feeble flowers are blooming for our little hour. Just for our little hour and then we're gone. Now with such blessings as we've looked at tonight, how can we complain? How can we complain? with such an abundance of blessing in Christ, how can we ever consider ourselves anything less than the most blessed people in this world? And we just looked at a few of the benefits. We are the most blessed people in the world. We really are. God's people are the most blessed people in the world. Now we go through things and we don't always feel that way, but we are. That fact is unchanging. That fact is unchanging. Just like our God, he doesn't change. So let us sing with the sweet psalmist of Israel, David. Let us sing, bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. To God be the glory. Amen. Heavenly Father, we thank you again for your mercy, your grace towards us. As we read tonight these benefits, these blessed benefits that we have in thee, O Lord. We know in our hearts that we are undeserving, but yet you bestowed them upon us. You've had mercy on us and we know and we rejoice that your loving kindness and your mercy is unchanging towards us. Despite our sinfulness, it never changes. Oh Lord, what a wondrous salvation we have in thee. Oh, we thank you. We who are your people, we thank you that you included us in salvation's plan and we bless your holy name, Lord. We bless your name. for your mercy and grace towards us in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.