Good morning, everyone. It's good to be back in the house of the Lord this morning. Good to see each and every one of you. It's a beautiful day in the Lord, the Lord's Day. We're going to start by telling you that it is a privilege of standing before you and sharing the Word of God. I'm not worthy. So the Lord requested or asked me through our pastor, and here I am. But we're going to do our best to present to you what the Lord has put in my heart. And we're going to start this morning by turning to Psalm 65. It's good to be in the house of God this morning. Turn to Psalm 65. And if I would have a title, I'm learning to put titles on messages, but I would title it, Praise Him. And I always remember and always sing the song, Praise Him, Praise Him, Praise Him, O Blessed Redeemer. And it's a wonderful hymn. Psalm 65, we're going to read 1-4. And the Bible says, Praise waited for thee, O God, in Zion, and unto thee shall the vow be performed. O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come. Iniquities prevail against me, as for our transgressions thou shalt purge them away. Verse four. Blessed is the man whom thou chosest and caused to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts, which shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. I'm going to stop there for a moment. How many of you love the Psalms? How many of you read the Psalms? I usually turn to the Psalms when I don't know where to go to read, but usually I will always find comfort. It is like a balm to my soul when I read a psalm and meditate on what I read. First, I'm going to make a couple of comments on what the psalms are. The Psalms is a collection of Hebrew songs, hymns, prayers, and poems taken from various periods in the history of Israel. It's a little research that I did. Psalm comes from the Hebrew, the word Psalm comes from the word, Hebrew word, mizmor, meaning song sung to the accompaniment of string instruments. They are also called praises. And some writers said, I don't know what they call it, praise it. There's a lot of complaining, a lot of sobbing for their sins, and a lot of other praying for, for to, to take care of their enemies. But nevertheless, they are praises and they were sung with, of course, as we said, there are poetical hymns, scriptural hymns that were sung in the accompaniment of string instruments. Nevertheless, they are the word of God. 2 Timothy 3.16 says that all scripture is given by inspiration of God. All scripture is God breath. 2 Peter, another familiar verse that relates to the word of God, says that for the prophecy came not in old time, by the will of men, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit. And we're going to talk a little bit about this Psalms of Praises collection of Hebrew songs and hymns, prayers, and poems. They are the Word of God script. And they were written not by the will of man, but by the direction of the Holy Spirit. As holy men of God spoke, as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Interesting, one of the first Psalms, I don't know if it's the first Psalm, but I remember in Exodus, there's what they call the Song of Moses. not called Psalm, but it's called the Song of Moses. It is a hymn, but if you turn to First Chronicles chapter 16, and it says the first hymn of David, First Chronicles chapter 16 and we're going to start with verse 7. David is pretty much wrote a lot of the Psalms. Who can forget Psalm 1 and Psalm 23? Very familiar Psalms. Now, 1 Chronicles 16, verse 7. And we're going to read all the way to verse 14 and listen to the words of David. Then on that day, David delivered first this Psalm. to thank the Lord into the hand of Asaph and his brethren. Give thanks unto the Lord. Call upon his name. Make known his deeds among the people. Sing unto him. Sing psalms unto him. Talk ye of all his wondrous works. Glory ye in the holy name, in his holy name. Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord. Seek the Lord in his strength. Seek his face continually. Remember his marvelous works, that he hath done his wonders in the judgment of his mouth. O ye seed of Israel, servant, ye children of Jacob, his chosen ones, he is the Lord our God, his judgments are in all the earth. Be mindful always of His covenant, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations. And if you read chapter 15, 16, you can see that it was a time when they were bringing the Ark of the Covenant, and actually David was singing and dancing while he was singing that psalm. So it's called praises. Psalms are called praises. And we, like I said, we ought to praise Him, praise Him as we come into into his house this morning. Remember that the Lord, He is our God, and that He is worthy to be praised. We're at Psalm 65-1-4. And listen to, as we read, go over it again. It says, Praise waited for thee, O God, Think of yourself waiting to see God and as He comes into our presence. The Bible says where two or three are gathered together in His name. He is there in the midst of us. And surely we're more than two or three here this morning as we come into the presence of God. Praise waited for thee, O God. In Zion and unto thee shall the vow be performed. And again... Praise is good. We worship the Lord, our God, in spirit and in truth as we come before his presence this morning. Let us offer praises, even a silent, silent prayer unto our Lord, our Savior, Jesus Christ. A couple of commentaries that I have on this psalm are very interesting. They're not my words. One is Matthew Henry's. And the other one is Charles Spurgeon. But if you listen to this commentary, it is a commentary mostly in verse four. Blessed is the man whom thou choose it and cause it to approach unto thee that he may dwell in thy courts, which shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. He says, Matthew Henry expresses blessed is the man in these words. He said blessed is the man expressed in his words means the holiness and happiness of a godly man. So a man that is blessed means the holiness and happiness of a godly man. Again, he continues, it says, observe what it is to come into the communion with God in order to blessedness. It is to converse with him as one we love and value. So when we come into the communion of God, he says to come before him as to one that we love and value. Again, he says, observe how we come into communion with God only by God's free choice. So it is God that moves in us so that we may be able to serve him and praise him. And it is by his power. Listen to Charles Spurgeon's commentary on this also. Charles Spurgeon expresses a commentary on verse 4 of Psalm 65. He said, Blessed is the man whom thou choosest and causest to approach unto thee. After cleansing comes benediction, and truly this is a very rich one, It comprehends both election, effectual calling, access, acceptance, and sonship. First, we are chosen of God according to the good pleasure of His will, and this alone is blessedness. Then, since we cannot and will not come to God ourselves, He works graciously in us and attracts us Powerfully, He subdues our unwillingness and removes our inability by the Almighty working of His transforming grace. This also is no slight blessedness. Furthermore, we, by His divine drawing, are made nigh by the by the blood of His Son and brought near by His Spirit into intimate fellowship so that we have access with boldness and are not longer as those who are afar off by wicked works." So all this is God's doing as He moves on us. It is all by grace. It's all by His grace. Nothing in us that we can bring. God, if there'd be any holiness in us, it is because of the holiness and it's all because of the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ, actually redeeming blood. If there's any happiness, it's because God provides that's unspeakable and full of glory in the way that He blessed us. for a while thought that anything that comes our way, I call it a blessing. The world calls it a blessing, but if God's not in it, it might not be a blessing, it might be our own doing. But God is involved in blessing His holiness, His grace in our lives. As we continue, In this study, we are reminded of our standing with God. The Bible says that In 2 Corinthians 5, verse 17, the Bible says that, Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. That's one of the first scriptures that I first learned, and not only learned, but I memorized. Not that hard to memorize. A lot of them are hard to memorize. I'm not very good at that. But a few of them are very easy to memorize because they stayed with me. And it brought me great joy because I didn't know that. I didn't know that the grace of God could do His power that could change a person and make them a new creation. So it was like coming from bankruptcy into a full bank account of blessings and a fate of a new start. You would say, and it is a new start. It is a new creation. We become new. All things, everything has passed away. And the interesting about this is when we become a new creation, all things have passed away true because he forgives all our sins and trespasses. And all our iniquities are thrown into the bottom of the ocean, never to be brought back again. In the eyes of God, we have been forgiven. And we have to believe that because the Bible says that. All things have become new. If you're born again, if I am born again, we are born again by the grace of God, by the work of God and the moving of the Holy Spirit through the preaching of his word. God gives us new desires. Of course, we still live in this flesh, and it still tries to pull us back, but we have new desires that we never had before. We have a desire to pray. We have desires to praise Him. We have the desire of coming to His house. We have a desire of sharing His... in salvation with others in our own words, in your own words, as the Lord leads. And definitely, it's not an easy task. I don't know about you, but I'm not doing very good when it comes to witnessing out there. I try to do it in my own words, but I have two instances. I told the pastor this morning, one of them is trying to answer, there was one I'm trying to answer, I forgot which one it was. I'll remember, but one of them said, my brother-in-law was sitting about twelve people having dinner and he says, I don't know, they try to stub the Bible on me all the time. He knows I'm a Christian, but I don't see him that often. He says, Whoever's God, if you don't go to church, things happen to you. And if you go to church, the hurricane in Mexico fell on top of people while they were praying. I didn't want to get into an argument with him, but I knew he would start a contest of words. It's not the time to, especially if there's 10 people and you're having dinner. I don't want to upset anybody's appetite, but the time will come, I pray, when I may be able to answer his question. So the Lord will be leading in that. Another one was a guy, and this is just brief comments on experiences that have come in Disney, who desires to share God's word. One guy said, He said, maybe, just maybe. Don't you think, Frank? He said, maybe Buddha is God. I said, no, it's not God. He said, because a lot of my friends are married to Orientals. They carry the Buddha chain and all. Dad knows about this, you know. He says, why not? He said, they're people from another country. We believe in Jesus because we're Americans and the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He said, but maybe that's their God, that's their Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that Buddha. I said, no, that fat man is not God. That is a little green guy. It's just a symbol. It's an idol for them. They don't know any better. That's what they think it is, but it's just a symbol. The Bible says that there are three that bear witness in heaven, Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. I can't quote the scripture. I already warned you about that. It's in 1 John 5, verse 3. But it says, and it is the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and those three are one. And that one I did pretty good because I had my phone with me and right away I got the scripture. Nevertheless, those are experiences we go by. We have new pleasures as we become new creatures in Christ. We have new desires, new pleasures. We have new hopes. And we also have new fears. Hopefully, the fears that we have are in reverence to the Lord. I was thinking of that and praise at the same time. But as we continue serving the Lord, I want to encourage everybody to believe the scriptures, to continue growing as the Lord leads and guides you. Sometimes we've got to put effort as our pastor has preached, the physical how to help the spiritual. We've got to lift the Bible with our hands, but I was reading I was reading the scriptures and figure out where to go from this. And first, I want to say that God is in this place when we come together as a church. And I was reading Jacob's letter. If you get into the scriptures and if you read about Jacob's letter, Jacob laid down in the wilderness and he fell asleep, and he dreamed a dream. He dreamed of a letter that went from earth to heaven. Angels descending and ascending around God, or on the throne of God. And he saw God and he heard God speak. And after he woke up, the Bible says, and Jacob awoke out of his sleep, and he said, surely, The Lord is in this place and I knew it not. And he was afraid and said, how dreadful. How dreadful is this place. This is none other but the house of God and this is the gate of heaven. And as we come before the Lord, as we come to our fellowships in church, may we believe that surely God is in this place, that that our body of believers, the Church of God, we are here and believe the Scripture as we quote them and share them. The Bible says that in Proverbs 5 or 6, it says, To trust in the Lord with all thy heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding, In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy path. And we are commanded by the scriptures to keep trusting in the Lord. Delight ourselves in the Lord, the Bible says, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 1 also says, blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth on the way of sinners, nor seated on the way of the scornful. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor seated in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and his law that he meditate day and night." And I was thinking of a word, of an illustration for delight, and I thought about it I thought about delight as when you delight in an ice cream. They just, we just moved, I don't know, Brother Dan might not know, we just moved down back towards Waimama. It's about 25 miles from here, but we used to live over there. We're a little bit more comfortable, got more elbow room out there. And it's not that far, it's, as we say in, In slander talk, it's a stroll to the park for a mountain climber like me. Back and forth. As long as I get in an automobile, can't go any time. We got family on that area, but the best of all, they got a tasty freeze five minutes from my house. The only one we had was this one, when we get shirts, and the one in Brandon. We don't go through there that often. But I saw it open this weekend, and man, I love them, what they called it, I thought I knew the word. Let's say double scoop vanilla ice cream cones with, I forget the type of cone, it's good though. Delight yourself in the Lord as if you were delighting on something you love. Enjoy it and let us have fun enjoying God's Word and growing by it. Another thing is that sometimes we get burdened sometimes with things and we do what the story of Mary. And Martha, and everybody knows the story of Martha. Martha was troubled with a lot of other things, or busy with a lot of things. And Mary was sitting at Jesus' feet. And the Lord said to her, she chose the best of all. We've got to make time for God, which is important. Don't give up in the Lord. Another illustration I heard this week, we got TV running at the dealership. They were, don't give up in the Lord, they were interviewing a boxer. I don't know if anybody watches boxing matches. I don't watch them that often, I just hear about them. Okay? Anyway. But this guy said, how do you guys deal with, after you're all beat up, broken nose, and bleeding all over the place, in the 11th round, don't you just feel like quitting? He said, yeah. He said, but how do you go through all the rounds, even if you're hurt and all that, and getting beat up some more? He said, well, he said, I find a second wind. He said, I can give up on myself. I can give up on my family. I can give up on everybody. He said, but I think to myself, I'm not giving up on this guy right now. He says, I'm going to go through it. He said, I'm not giving up on this guy that's fighting. So he continued. He said, that just gives me a second wind, and I get back on the fight. And do that. Let's do that. Let's don't give up on the Lord. Trust Him in all His ways. acknowledge Him, and He shall direct our paths. Let us just continue in serving the Lord as He allows, as His will allows, and may the Lord add the blessings on the reading of His word this morning. We'll take a break now.