Tonight, before we go have our prayer meeting, Psalm 33, sometimes is tied to Psalm 32, because if you notice in your Bible, there's no title to Psalm 33. You know, like Psalm 32, you look there, it says, A Psalm of David, Mashiel. Psalm 34, A Psalm of David, when he changed his behavior before Abilette. There's no title to Psalm 33 in the first book of Psalms here. The first part of Psalms, there's only three other Psalms that have no title and most of them are tied to the previous Psalm. It very well may be. I know this, verse 11 of chapter 32, started like this. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous, and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in the heart. And then verse one of chapter 33 says, Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous, for praise is comely for the upright. And we're gonna read this Psalm here in just a moment, but I want you to understand tonight as we get started, by way of introduction, we are never exhorted to be sad in the Lord. You know, you're never going to find a verse in the Bible that says be sad in the Lord. You're never going to see a verse that says be mad in the Lord. You're never going to see a verse that says be down in the dumps in the Lord. But you will find over and over and over again Rejoice in the Lord. We are told to not be sad, not be mad, but be glad in the Lord. We're going to look at this tonight, God being our helper, in Psalm 33. We're going to find about rejoicing in the Lord. Look at verse 1. It says, Rejoice in the Lord. O ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright. Praise the Lord with heart. Sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings. Sing unto him a new song. Play skillfully with a loud trumpet. noise. I'm going to stop right there because I don't know if I'll get any further than this. I've got a whole, I've got an outline of the whole chapter and the whole song here, but man, God started working in my heart in verses 1, 2, and 3, and I titled this portion, The Call to Praise. There is a call to praise. There is a call from whoever this is. Maybe it is David. I lean that way that this is David writing this too. But even if it's not, whoever the psalmist is here is calling. He's inviting people Some believe that this was a congregational psalm. This would be a psalm that they would call to worship. They would gather all the congregation together, and they would bring everybody together. And this is the psalm leader getting out. Everybody would be like me saying, all right, let's all stand and grab a book. and turn to page such and such, let's all sing out to the Lord. This is what, this is what some would say is happening here. The song leader is getting everybody together. And then the middle part is the whole congregational singing. And then at the very end of this thing is the songwriter, the song leader, just kind of encouraging the people about what they've been singing. That sounds, and that may be exactly what's happening here. But we do see a call, an invitation to rejoice. And notice this. In this invitation, it is reserved for a certain group of people. This invitation to rejoice in the Lord is reserved for the righteous and the upright. The righteous and the upright. Now, I know this is elementary tonight, but first of all, before you're ever going to rejoice in the Lord, number one, you're going to have to be saved. You're going to have to be redeemed. You're going to have to be born again to ever rejoice in the Lord. Now I understand, I understand that the rocks can cry out and I understand that you may thank the Lord and you may be grateful for the Lord before your salvation. I understand that. Many of us was raised around the things of God, raised around church, things like that. You were thankful for the Lord and maybe you even sang songs to Him before you were saved. But in reality, you can never rejoice in the Lord until you've been saved. And that's what... The word righteous is described in there, those that are saved. Because we know that our righteousness is as filthy rags. And we're not righteous in our own self. But thank God tonight, I am righteous in the blood of Jesus Christ. Thank God tonight, I am justified by the Lord Jesus Christ. It's as if I had never sinned when I stand before God, not because of my own righteousness, but because the righteousness of Christ has been imputed unto me. So you're going to have to be saved. But then he says there's another group of people, there's a secondary classification of the same group of people is not another group, but a secondary classification is the upright. The upright. Your righteousness is your position in Christ. It's your standing in Christ. Are you saved tonight? But your upright is your disposition in Christ. How are you living tonight? You know, it's hard to worship God when your life is in dishonor to the Lord. It's really hard to worship and rejoice in the Lord on whether we're talking about Sunday, Wednesday, or whether we're just talking about in life. Y'all understand rejoicing in the Lord's not reserved for church time. But it's real hard to rejoice in the Lord when your life is going contrary to his word. And listen, I'm going to tell you something that y'all don't have to tell me what's going on. You don't have to post on social media. I don't have to talk to your family. I don't have to talk to your spouse. I don't have to talk to your children. I don't have to talk to your parents. I don't have to talk to anybody else. But your countenance during the time of rejoicing and the time of worship will tell on you. I'm talking about fast. Now I'm going to understand, sometimes you might not be feeling good. sometimes. But God help a person who's saved by the grace of God to not feel good over and over and over. Hey, listen, there ought to be some rejoicing. There ought to be some rejoicing down in the house of God. Hey, listen, if you're righteous, you're saved by the grace of God, you ought to shout about it. I don't want to get ahead of myself. We're going to hopefully get to the part of the why we ought to rejoice. But we're talking about the who's going to rejoice. Yeah, number one, you ought to be saved. But number two, you ought to be upright. If your life is dishonoring to the Lord in any way whatsoever, it's real hard to rejoice. I'm not saying you can't sing. I'm not saying you can't try, but I'm telling you it's hard, because on the inside, you know you ain't right. Nobody else may know you're not right. Nobody else may know anything going on, but in your heart, the Holy Ghost of God says, you know what? That ain't right. I mean, the Holy Ghost of God says, you know, that's kind of hypocritical of you. You know, you've kind of lived a crooked life this week. I mean, before you walked up in here, you was doing things that you ought not be doing. You was listening to stuff you ought not be listening to. You was watching stuff you ought not be watching. You was talking like you ought not be talking. You was dishonoring your family. You was doing what these only, hey, listen, your life's been contrary to the Word of God and to the life God, you not, and listen, It's different when it's in ignorance. It's one thing for you to sin in ignorance, not knowing better. But I'm telling you tonight, you know better. And God's gonna hold many of us in this room tonight to a higher judgment than those who have never heard before, because we've heard the word of God. We've got the word of God. You've heard preaching, preaching, preaching, preaching about how to live right, to do right, and to be separated from this world. And when your life is dishonoring to the Lord, it's real hard to rejoice in the Lord. in this invitation. I believe he's saying if you're saved, let's rejoice in the Lord. If you're living for the Lord, let's rejoice. But I believe there's also in this invitation a call to salvation. So you got all that in there? Yeah, I believe this. He's saying this, if you ain't righteous, get righteous. If you're not saved, get saved, so you can rejoice. Hey, listen, I'm telling you what I'd be, listen, I don't want to tell, because I don't know who listens to stuff, but one of y'all come in here Sunday, and we talked about this already, and you said somebody showed up at work on Wednesday, and he was happier than he's ever been at work, because of the election. And then I don't know who listens to the stuff, so I ain't going to tell who. And we both said, how sad. But our happiness is up and down based on what happens in our politics. Now, if that's your life, you are a sad individual. I don't mind telling you that. If all of this stuff, if you've been sad and gloomy, listen, listen, I don't care. I don't want this to happen. But if Hitler was to raise from the dead and start running this country, my happiness ain't built on that. I mean, if these communist left and right wingers got what they wanted, they'd all be pushing the buttons and we'd be just marching like a bunch of robots. And if that happens, my happiness doesn't ride on that. God help, if because the stock market's going up a little bit, everybody's sad. I'm not saying there ought not be some carnal things we get inside, but listen, listen, our rejoicing doesn't come from things down here. Ought not, ought not. He's saying this, if you're not saved, you ought to get saved, so you can rejoice in the Lord. Watch this, and now I think there's an invitation, if you're not upright, you ought to get right. You know, that's a shame. There's a lot of people that know they're not right, and they just won't get right. I really think it's kind of, I don't know if it's only, I think it, obviously I know it's a spiritual problem. Sometimes I wonder if it ain't a mental problem. You got to be, I'm not being ugly here tonight. Man, I may get flagged, they may throw me in jail in the next 70 days while we got this liberal measure. Hey, listen, you got to be some kind of mentally challenged to not be right and want to stay that way. Don't you think? I mean, I just, I just, I just, I like being right. I ain't always right. Don't tell my wife she ain't listen right now. I ain't always right, but I like being right. I think sane people like being right. I mean, normal, regular thinking people want to be right. They don't want to walk around being wrong. So I know it's a spiritual thing, but since then, I know what you, but it's gotta be a mental thing too. And he's saying this, if you ain't right, get right. I believe that's what the original say. I believe that's what the psalm leader, how he said it, you know. I think he got up and said, look, hey, if you're saved, y'all to rejoice. If you ain't saved, y'all get saved so you can rejoice. And if you're walking right with the Lord, rejoice. And if you ain't walking right, man, get right. And watch this, this is all happening in verse number one. Here's what I see in this invitation. I'm telling you, I'm out getting on here. I think he's saying, before we start this thing, let's go ahead and get right. I'll tell you what tears a preacher up. Y'all want an inside look, because all the preachers are gone. Earwood's out west, and Brother Ware's down in Carrollton, and that meeting down there. And so y'all know what tears a preacher up? It's people thinking you've got to wait till Friday night to revival me. Or we've got to wait till we get to spring revival. Or let's wait till we get to Jubilee. Or let's wait till we get to Missions Conference. Or let's wait till he has this special meeting. Or let's wait till we go to this camp. Or let's wait till we go to this meeting. You know what the psalmist is saying here? He's inviting, let's, on the first verse, let's get right. On the first verse, let's get this, there's an invitation to rejoice. But watch this. There's the instruments of rejoicing. Look in verse two, verse two and three. There's the instruments of rejoicing. Look what it says, praise the Lord with heart, sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of 10 strings. Sing unto him a new song, play skillfully with a loud noise. The instruments of rejoicing are given in these words. Look, it's interesting to note this. This is the first mention of any musical instruments in the Psalms. We're 33 songs in. We're almost finished with the first book of Psalms. I've not described this like I should, so maybe you don't know. The Psalms is broke down in five different books. Some Bibles will label that out, some do, some don't. But there's five different books in the Psalms. In this first book of the Psalm, we're almost at the end. And now, it's the first time musical instruments are mentioned. And it's interesting to note this, they're all stringed instruments. I don't wanna get in a battle over music this evening, but there's just something about stringed instruments. Amen? I mean, I'm telling you, y'all know this is a stringed instrument, don't you? This is a double instrument. This is the percussion and the string. It's a don't tell them about it's a drum and a harp at the same time. I've got drums. All right. There's a harp in here. This is a string. I'll tell you what, there's just something about a real piano in it. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna break fellowship, nobody having an electric piano. But if God be our helper, brother, Tim, we never have one. And the piano players. I mean, I ain't again, I'm But I mean, I'd rather have an old saloon style straight back piano real one than electric. I just don't like that ain't no scriptural thing. Don't you go off on here black man, there are a bunch of liberals over there in Philadelphia because I got up over the wheels or break fellowship over. I'm as house stuffs get started now. I just don't like them. And I've voiced that pull over there. But but is it something about them streaming? age of something about a guitar. Oh, God, we got my wife got a mandolin. We're trying to hopefully she's gonna learn one day. We'll learn a mandolin. Got one of those. Oh, Nolan, a bass, you're gonna learn that one day. Oh, Maggie's wanting a fiddle or a violin. You know the difference about the file in the fiddle is don't you? Whose porch is whose porch you on? Amen? And one of them's got strings and one of them's got strings. Amen? No. She's want one in. And so we're praying one in. We're praying one in. And we're praying the lessons in, too. And you know what? There's something about them stringed instruments. Something about them. So again, I'm not saying, I'm not going to get into, but it's the first mention. They're all strings. Watch this. Watch this. What they're accompanying, though. This is what I want you to notice. They're accompanying singing. Look in this two verses. Praise the Lord with harp. There's a harp. That's a stringed instrument. Sing unto him with the psaltery. The psaltery is another type of harp, almost like a dulcimer. Have you ever seen a dulcimer? That's what that would be like. And an instrument of ten strings. So he's saying this, there's a harp, there's a psaltery, and there's a ten-stringed instrument, and they're accompanying with, the word with, they're accompanying singing. Watch this, verse three. Here it is again. Sing unto him a new song. Play skillfully with a loud voice. This, this music, these instruments are to accompany singing and watch this. We find the greatest instrument known to man is the voice. And even he lists a harp, he lists a psaltery, he lists a ten-string instrument only one time, but he lists singing twice. God gave you a voice. And you may not be trained. We're going to get there in a minute. I'm just going to preach one, two, three. I'm not going to try to get the rest of it. But you may not have a trained voice. Your voice may not be the best in the world. Your voice may not be as good as so-and-so, whoever your person is, but you got one. And guess what? It's a strained instrument too. Vocal cords. And he says this, these instruments are made to accompany singing, and watch this, this singing, there's some instruments in this, there's some instructions of praise. Y'all see the instruments of praise, or instruments of rejoicing, there's an invitation of rejoicing, Watch this, there's instructions on how to pray. Y'all know how to go to church tonight? God's given us some instruction on the praise and the rejoicing part of our service tonight. See, we don't get to make up what we do here. I understand, in a sense, I do get to choose the songs we sing. In a sense, I get to choose what kind of songs we sing. I mean, in all that kind of, my role as a pastor, I have to filter that kind of stuff. Thank God, I've not had to beat that a bunch around here, but but people respect me enough to say they'll even call sometimes say hey I was thinking about this song. Is that an okay song? I'll get a text message with a YouTube link say is this an okay song to sing in church? Is this okay? And I've never even had to harp on I don't think I've ever even preached that what about that? And so so It's my job as pastor, oversee all of that, make sure that's fine, make sure all that goes well. So in a sense that, but I don't get to just decide how we rejoice around here. Somebody said, why don't we get a praise team and have interpreted dancing? Well, number one, I'd puke. If anything, I mean, I would. I ain't watching no dancing. That's sissified. A dude wanting to watch people dance is either a sissy or a pervert. But even without that, you ain't gonna find that in the Bible. He didn't say, get on the stage with your leotard on and dance around. That ain't what he says, is it? He doesn't say, get you a black light and white glove and do your little hand motions. I remember one time, biggest mess I ever got into at church one time was, was about that right there. Somebody want to get black lights and white gloves and sign songs. I was done. I was 21 year old. I said, I just Yeah, we got deaf people here. We just thought we was gone. We was trying to make a youth group. I was Oh, well, I teach youth group at 10 o'clock on Sunday mornings. I ain't never seen you there. I know that's why you probably should talk like that in private. I'm learning. still learning. And then all of a sudden I got an email about how this was going to do all this it was going to help the services and it was going yeah, yeah, yeah. And I didn't realize I did not know I learned a valuable lesson that day that reply all meant send it to everybody. And I sent my reply to all, and my reply was something like, Peter and Paul didn't have a dance team, and the Psalms don't talk about a dance team, and if we ain't got deaf people, we don't need no sign language, and we don't need no people up, this is out of hell! I got in trouble. I'm not there no more. Obviously, and I didn't they took my youth group away from me on 10 o'clock. No, the Lord moved us out of there. I learned a valuable lesson reply all means it goes to everybody that email sent to don't do that. Unless you really want everybody to read it. Here's all I'm saying that to see if y'all paying attention. Number one, y'all laughing. That's a true story. By the way, that's not evangelism. My wife can testify. She was there. There's an instruction on how to praise the Lord. There's instructions on how we're to rejoice. Notice, first of all, we are to sing and to play these instruments, number one, unto the Lord. Y'all see that? It says this, praise the Lord, who? The Lord, with heart. Sing unto him. Who's that him talking to? The Lord. with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings. Watch this, verse three, sing unto him, who's that talking about? The Lord, a new song. Play skillfully without noise. So the first thing we gotta have right in our rejoicing is when we sing and we play, it is unto the Lord. All right? We are not performing for an audience. We're going to get somewhere in a minute. But we've got to have that first. This is unto the Lord. When I ask you to stand and grab a songbook and turn with me and to sing with me, you are not singing to me or for me. you are singing unto the Lord or not singing unto the Lord. When I asked you to get in the choir and to sing in the choir and to sing the songs in the choir because we practice with people in the choir and it's really hard to have a choir without people in the choir. Y'all get what I'm saying? You're not singing it for me. You may not like me that day. Get a T-shirt, okay? You might be mad at your spouse, but you don't get it right. You might be mad at your kids. I mean, it's like every service kind of thing for us. But I'm not singing for my kids. And I'm not singing for the preacher. I'm not singing for the people out there. Listen, I'm just gonna be honest with you. Sometimes it's hard to sing to y'all. Because I mean, we're wondering, is it they can't hear us or they just don't like it? But we're not singing to y'all. We're singing to the Lord. I hope we are. If we're rejoicing, we are. Now if you're performing, that's a different thing. But we're not talking about performing tonight. We're not talking about a performance. Here it is, there's no room for entertainment there. There's no room for entertainment. That's why we don't do this entertainment business. Listen, we could pack this church out. We could have a Saturday night sang. And I mean, we could get a bunch of diesel sniffers in here. We can pack it out easy. We could. And we could have an entertainment. And there's a place for all that. I mean, there's a place for all that. But we're not talking about entertainment. We're talking about worshiping the Lord. We're talking about rejoicing. We're talking about praising the Lord. And if we're rejoicing, it's got to be unto the Lord, number one. Number two, watch this now. Do it skillfully. Y'all see that? It says this on verse three. Play skillfully. With a loud noise. Skillfully. Here it is. God deserves our best, doesn't he? You know what? I hate when I mess up leading y'all in songs, whether it's congregation or choir. I hate it. And it's not necessarily embarrassing to me. I done got over that a long time ago. I don't look like a fool in front of 1000s of people all all these years of ministry. I mean, it's not new, right? So it's not about that. It's about man, I've messed them up. I've led them wrong. I've messed them up in worship. I messed them up or or this hand. I was trying to sing that to the Lord. I didn't do right. You know what? You know why I messed up on the song I just sang? I ain't I'm telling you, not practicing, not rehearsing. We're not here now, but the Bible talks about rehearsing songs. Hey, can I announce Wednesday night, there's people missing. Choir practice is important. It is important to be at choir practice because we're practicing, because we're not performing for the church on Sunday morning, we're gonna give the Lord our best. It's skillfully. Trying to sing to the best of our ability, skillfully. and playing an instrument ought to be skillfully. I'ma tell you what, we take for granted what we've got here. Man, I'm telling you, I go in churches, I preach in churches where they have a recording of a piano playing. Because I can't get nobody to play a piano. I go to churches where the guy gets up and he says the number and he, 57 Amazing Grace, everybody sing with me? And hopefully some loud mouth in the congregation will be loud enough to carry this song. And I'm telling you, and most, man, what's bad is a lot of those top churches that don't have good music programs, both Tim, you know this, are the ones who sing the most, it seems like. Y'all dragging service out an hour and a half, two hours of that singing, it's about like, man, you want me to preach? But nonetheless, we take for granted what we have around here. We ought to do it skillfully. We ought to rehearse. We ought to practice. We ought to try to do our best. Again, we're doing it to the Lord skillfully, but watch this, with a loud noise. I'll tell you one thing I do wish is we could be louder and we could blame the acoustics all we want, and I hate the acoustics in here, I do. But our voices ought to carry loud noise. We ought to sing loud. Not obnoxiously, obviously. He doesn't say it skillfully. I think that's why he put that first. If he put loud first, then we know that'd be bad. Skillfully, but a loud noise. We ought to sing, here it is, I believe that means with joy, with enthusiasm. I tell you what, I can't stand. I can't stand a song leader. I guess you could call him a song picker-outer, who just opens a book, all right, turn the page, just kind of just watch as everybody's saying and they kind of move their mouth a little bit. I can't stand that. That's not what the Bible says. It ain't just my preference. I mean, I'm just a Bible man. I don't have a clue what I'm doing with this right here. But I'm trying to be joyful in what I'm doing. I have no idea what it means. It's helping me keep in touch. Matter of fact, I noticed me the other day I started singing a solo the other day and I started I had to grab my hand. I realized I wasn't leading y'all. But there ought to be some enthusiasm. I try to tell boys at school and teach them how to lead. Say, hey, lead the song. Lead it. I don't know how I'm doing it. Me neither. I've been faking it for all these years. Joyful, excited. There's a joy about what we're doing. Skillfully. There's enthusiasm. There's God's getting our best. And then unto the Lord. Now remember who he's talking to. He's talking to the saved people. He's talking to the upright people, worshiping the Lord. Now let me say this, last thing, I'm done. I guess it's all I'm getting to. I'll give you one thing in closing, but let me say this. Furthermore, in this instruction, he mentions a new song. There ought to be some freshness to our song. There ought to be some freshness to the rejoicing, to the, you know, can I talk? I guess I'm preaching on the music program. There ought to be some freshness to the music of the church. That's why I try to find songs I can introduce to y'all. That's why we got this new revival book, this revival song book. I want to introduce new songs to you. I really want to introduce you some more doctrinally sound songs to you. Introduce songs you don't hear all the time. They're not new. Some of them are not new. Some of them are old. But they're new to us. They bring a freshness. But you know what? That new song, I thank God for people still writing songs now. I thank God for people still writing songs. And here's that freshness is, it's a new song. Here's what I wrote down. There's always room for a fresh voice to praise the old gospel. The same old story proclaimed in a fresh way. We're not changing the message. Matter of fact, we ought to be singing about the same, I'm talking about the Bible. We ought to be singing about the same God. We ought to be out singing about his wholeness and his glory and his magnificence. And let me say this, our songs ought to be unto him, so they ought to be more about him. Telling you, there's a bunch in that Church of God church channel we so love. more about us or more about somebody else than it is about God. God doesn't get honor from that. I'll be careful. I'll be more about Jesus than anything else. I'll be more like God. But he mentions a new song, there'll be some freshness. What happens is if there's no freshness, we just sing the same songs over and over. And it's just monotone. And we don't even think about what we're saying. And you know what becomes? It's not entertainment. It's amusement. You know amusement means? absent of thinking. All means no use thinking no thinking. You're singing a song you've sung your whole life and you're not even thinking about it. I'm guilty of it. I do it. Sometimes I do it leading. That's sometimes why I mess up leading singing, because I get started musing while I'm leading the song because I've sung it so much. I just don't even think about it. And then I end up messing up. So the instructions, the instruments, the invitation, Let me just give you this in closing, and we'll start prayer time. Why should we praise the Lord? Well, I thank you all to praise the Lord, verses 4 through 19. I'm not going to work through all this, but I want to give it to you. Verses 4 through 19, we see the calls for praise. Why should we praise the Lord? So who's going to praise the Lord? How are we supposed to praise the Lord? But why are we supposed to praise him? Why should we rejoice? Well, because of the character of who God is. His character deserves praise. Who God is deserves praise. Not only his character, but his creation. Verses number six and down, it talks about the creation. By the word of the Lord, he spoke everything into existence. He's worthy of praise for that. He spoke everything into the heavens, to the waters, to the land, and all the inhabitants of the earth. He was created by the power of his word, for he spake and it was done. He's worthy of praise for that. Then he talks about the word of God, the counsel of the Lord. The counsel of the Lord is right. I'll tell you why God ought to be praised is because he, his counsel is still fresh today as it was when he inspired it to be pinned down in the Bible. You understand God sees the beginning to the end and everything in between. And listen, he's not at the beginning looking to the end. He's not at the end looking to the beginning. He is the beginning and the end. So he's right in the middle. He sees everything clearly. He knows everything. And his word is just as true today as it was back then. It's still when the word of men fell us and the word of men fades into irrelevance, the counsel of the Lord standeth forever. He's worthy of our praise because of the counsel. What about this? He's worthy of our praise because of his care for us. It says in these verses that he looks upon all the sons of men. He looks upon all the inhabitants of the earth. Thank God not one thing happens in our life that he doesn't know about. Not one thing happens in our life without the Lord noticing. He considers all of their works. He knows everything going on in our life and he cares for us. I thought about this, he knows the good things and the bad things. If I say Noah, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? Noah and the ark. You think about the flood or the ark? He's still riding. The flood, the ark, and you think about the victory in Noah's life, don't you? What a great victory. I mean, he's the father of the new people, right? He's the old man gets off the boat and now he's all a granddaddy. Praise the Lord for what he done in Noah's life. And that's the more, and watch this, I think about Noah, I just got finished talking about Noah, teaching about Noah for about three weeks in Bible class. And man, we think about the ark, we think about the flood, we think about salvation, we think about him walking with God. Twice in there it says he walks with God. Twice in that, those four chapters tells us that everything God told him to do, that's what he did. About building the ark, getting on the ark, getting off the ark. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. But you know the last seven verses in Noah's life? It's a blunder. He messes up. Some people don't even know that. That's all right. God knows it. God records it. But here's what I saw out of that. I'm not glad he messed up. Man, he messed up bad. Watch this. God marked it down but didn't mark his life with that mess up. I thought about that when I was reading this. God sees everything we do. And God sees all the works of our hands. You know what he still calls us at the end of this thing? At the beginning and the end of this chapter? Righteous. The care that he has for us. What about this? The conquering that he gives us. There's no safety in the host. Verse number 16. There's no safety in the hero. Verse number 16. There's no safety in the horse. Verse number 17. But there's safety in the hope. that you place in Jesus Christ. That's what it says in verse number 18. Only in the hope placed in the Lord will a man be delivered in this life, he says this, he's alive in famine, that's saved in this life, and then saved in the life to come, he's delivered his soul from death. Why should we praise him? Well, because of who he is. because of what he said, because of what he's done. So Timothy, come play softly. Then this last three verses, we find he's our help. He's worthy to wait on. Our soul waited for the Lord. He is our help and our shield. He's worthy to wait on. When you think God's running behind schedule, you better believe he's running right on time. We see that over and over in the Bible. So I know it's true because the Bible, but I also know it's true because the experiences of my life. I thought God was late. I thought God forgot about me. But you wait on the Lord. He's worth waiting on. He's our help. He's our happiness. Verse number 21. For our hearts shall rejoice in Him because we have trusted in His holy name. When everything else around us frowns upon us, He remains the same. When everybody else lets us down, He's never let you down. He ain't never let you down. I promise you that. And if you thought He did, it was you that was mistaken, not Him. He has never let you down. He's our happiness. He's our hope. Verse number 22, let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us according as we hope in thee. That hope's not just a wishful thought. That hope is a confidence anchored in the throne of God, anchored in the rock that is higher than iron, anchored in the throne of grace. I ask you tonight, Have you praised Him in a while? Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright. You know what praise is? It's beautiful. It's beautiful. There's just something about praising the Lord. It attracts Him. It attracts Him. The Bible says he inhabits the praises of his people. It attracts the Lord. You want to get the Lord's attention? Rejoice in it. Have you done that? Do you owe him some back praise? Not back pay, but back praise? He's worthy tonight. He's worthy tonight. Would you stand with me, heads bowed, eyes closed, just for a moment? Think on these things. We saw tonight Who's supposed to rejoice? That's the saved crowd. Are you saved tonight? If not, you ought to get saved. Who's supposed to rejoice? That upright crowd. Are you living for the Lord tonight? If not, why don't you get right with it? The reason you can't rejoice is there's something hindering you and the Lord. There's something between my soul and the Savior. Then we saw how to. Let's do it the right way. Then we see why we ought to. He's worthy. We're not worthy. We're not worthy, but He is. Father, thank You for Your worthiness. Thank You for being our hope. Thank You for being our help. Thank You, Lord, when I put my trust in You, there's a natural outflow of rejoicing and joy in my life. When I think about who it is that I place my trust in, I think about who you are, I just can't help to rejoice. When I think about what all you've said to me in this word, all the promises you give me, all the instruction you give me, thank God for the word of God, there's just a natural outflow of rejoicing. And then Lord, when I think about all you've done for me, how you've cared for me, how you've conquered for me, You've saved my soul from death and hell. I just can't help but rejoice. Father, I pray that I'd be more mindful of that. I'd praise you more openly. I'd praise you more freely. Lord, I pray that I'd rejoice in you. Lord, I pray I can lead this church in rejoicing and praising. Lead my family in rejoicing In Jesus' name I pray, amen and amen.