Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Want to preach on another psalm.
I'm today dealing with this theme of Thanksgiving.
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I'm you'll hear similar phrases and and
words and ideas that we heard this
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morning on in Psalm one hundred and
thirty six and another passages of scripture that
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we've read and heard, Sung and
prayed today. Let that be a lesson,
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perhaps, the repetition, a reminder
of the things that God really,
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really, really wants us to remember, the things he really wants us to
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pay attention to, to observe and
to sing back to him. We turn
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to Psalm one hundred and eighteen now
and what we hear is a king giving
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thanks to God for sell his salvation. So will reflect on that in a
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moment. Let's hear God's word.
Will give thanks to the Lord for he
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is good, for his steadfast love
and doers forever. Let Israel say his
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steadfast love and doers forever. Let
the house of Aaron say his steadfast love
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and doers forever. Let those who
fear the Lord say his steadfast love endures
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forever. Out of my distress,
I called on the Lord. The Lord
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answered me and set me free.
The Lord is on my side. I
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will not fear. What can man
do to me? The Lord is on
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my side as my helper. I
shall look in triumph on those who hate
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me. It is better to take
refuge in the Lord than to trust in
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man. It is better to take
refuge in the Lord than to trust in
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princes. All nations surrounded me.
In the name of the Lord, I
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cut them off. They surrounded me, surrounded me on every side, and
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the name of the Lord, I
cut them off. They surrounded me like
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bees. They went out like a
fire among thorns. In the name of
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the Lord, I cut them off. I was pushed hard so that I
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was falling, but the Lord helped
me. The Lord is my strength and
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my song. He has become my
salvation. Glad songs of salvation are in
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the tents of the righteous. The
right hand of the Lord does valiantly.
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The right hand of the Lord Exalts. The right hand of the Lord does
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valiantly. I shall not die,
but I shall live and recount the deeds
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of the Lord. The Lord has
disciplined me severely, but he has not
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given me over to death. Open
to me the gates of righteousness that I
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may enter through them and give thanks
to the Lord this is the gate of
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the Lord. The righteous shall enter
through it. I thank you that you
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have answered me and have become my
salvation. The stone that the builders rejected
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has become the cornerstone. This is
the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in
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our eyes. This is the day
that the Lord has made. Let us
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rejoice and be glad in it.
Save us, we pray. Oh Lord,
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oh Lord, we pray. Give
us success. Blessed is he who
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comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the House of
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the Lord. The Lord is God
and he made and he may and he
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has made his light to shine upon
US blind the festal sacrifice, with cords
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up to the horns of the altar. You are my God and I will
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give thanks to you. You are
my God, I will extol you.
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Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for his
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steadfast love endures forever. Amen.
Well, this morning we looked at a
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psalm, we heard a psalm that
covered a vast number of things that it's
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sort of looked from a very high
view at a number of things that God
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has done and and gave us a
number of reasons to praise God for his
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stead fast love. His covenant love, his loving kindness, which guards and
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protects and provides in so many ways. Here we have many of those same
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ideas, but they are a personalized
in a way. There is a person
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who is speaking this psalm and has
a very pers particular perspective, particular history
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which he recounts, and we do
not have any specific details about what it
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happened, about what who that is
or exactly what happened, but he gives
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us a sense of what he was
delivered from and what God did for him.
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So let's take a look at this
psalm and will begin at the beginning.
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Begins with a call to everyone.
He, I think, concludes himself
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when he says will give thanks to
the Lord for his for you is good.
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His steadfast love endures forever. He
reminds us that we are to notice
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God's steadfast love and praise him for
it. Then he calls out to others,
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to Israel, to the house of
Errand to anyone and everyone who fears
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the Lord, as all should do, and he says, let us all
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say together, let his steadfast love
endures forever, his steadfast love and doors
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forever. And then, after this
introduction, he begins and to describe his
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particular reason for saying these things.
I'm there are many different reasons and but
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he describes his own here. He
says in a general way in verse five,
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out of my distress I called to
the Lord. The Lord answered me
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and set me free. He's describes
a situation in which he was in danger.
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He describes that danger. I'm in
verses eleven through thirteen. The nations
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surrounded him. This is one reason
it is perhaps right to think of this
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person as a king. The Nation's
surrounded him. He was in great danger.
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I notice that uses this word over
and over. They surrounded, they
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surrounded, they surrounded me. He
even describes them as bees. I've never
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been surrounded by bees, but I
can imagine perhaps some of you have,
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doing yard work or something like that. I've seen aunts, though. I've
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seen aunts swarm and surround and it
can be a very overwhelming these bees were
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surrounding him, they were buzzing,
they were, I'm scary, but they
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went out like a fire among the
thorns. They went strong, but in
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the name of the Lord, he
cut them off. He cut them off,
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I cut them off. He's he's
excited, he's rejoicing, he's praising
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the Lord for what has happened.
I pushed hard, or I was pushed
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hard, he's says in verse thirteen, so that I was falling, but
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the Lord helped me. He describes
this salvation from something that is very serious,
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perhaps even near to death. He
was falling and yet he lives.
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He decays in verse seventeen. I
shall not die because of the salvation of
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the Lord, but I shall live
and I shall live to recount the deeds
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of the Lord, the really real
reason for living. He reminds us in
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the in between verses here that it
is right to call on the Lord above
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all others. He makes this comparison
verses eight and nine. It is better
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to take refuge in the Lord than
to trust in man. It is better
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to take with refuge in the Lord
then to trust in princes. This is
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a hard thing to do, I'm
sometimes. Perhaps you know this personally.
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I'm it is much easier to trust
in our work, to trust in the
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work of others, to trust other
helpers, than to trust in the Lord
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himself. Now the Lord, of
course, often uses helpers and uses means
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to come to our aid, but
there's a way in which we often look
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past him. Is the source of
our help. We look away from him,
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and especially when he tells us to
do hard things and someone promises an
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easier path drought. The scriptures we
have story after story after story of examples
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of kings of God's people making deals
with foreign nations, making deals even with
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Egypt herself, this place from which
God's people were all rescued, and saying
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save us, save us. As
we've been considering an Ezekiel, this is
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exactly what Zechariah did, this installed
king, installed by Babylon, seeking to
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get out from underneath Babylon's help.
And what did he do? He went
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to Egypt, sought help from Egypt
and did it work. Know, everything
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came falling apart. But when we
see those who are called to lead God's
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people, I'm trust the Lord.
In the Old Testament in particular, I
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haven't mind these kings. We say
many great things, amazing things that the
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Lord does. One of the greatest, perhaps the greatest, King, King
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David himself, at the very beginning
right and we see his character, we
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see his trust in the Lord.
In that great battle with Goliath, he
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knows that the Lord will be the
divine warrior the Lord will, will take
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care of his people, will conquer
this mighty giant, and indeed he does.
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What do we have to fear,
David says, when we have when
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we put our trust in the Lord. There are other great scenes and stories
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and the scriptures of these kinds of
things. One of my favorites is Jonathan
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and his armor bear fighting a garrone
of Philistines. The scripture say there wasn't
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any swords left and no more swords
and all the land except this one that
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Jonathan and his armor bearer had between
them. They go up this crag of
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a this rocky cliff, climbing hand
and foot, climbing, climbing, climbing
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to get to the top. Meanwhile
the Philistines are at the top, this
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position of advantage, yelling down at
Jonathan is armor bear come up and get
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us, and probably other things.
And they come up to the top and
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they slay them all, while the
rest of Israel, including King Saul,
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is hiding away. The Lord can
do magnificent things, powerful things. He
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can cut off his enemies so easily
and when his people trust in him,
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he does exactly that. Through the
stories of the Conquest of Joshua, and
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we read of the victories of Moses
over the Kings as they God led his
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people out of Egypt and then,
of course, Egypt himself. The stories
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they go on and on and on
and on, where we see that it
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is indeed better to take refuge in
the Lord than to trust in man.
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And so when this, when the
psalmist comes to Vorse rourteen after his deliverance,
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he says this. The Lord is
my strength and my song, he
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has become my salvation. So many
times the Psalms speak of singing, of
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lifting up our our hearts to the
Lord in song and in praise. God
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gives to us this gift of music
to move our hearts and express the movements
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of our hearts. This is a
sort of fun passage, at least in
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my mind, when we have a
song within a song, right. So
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Psalm one hundred and eighteen itself a
song, and then verses fifteen and sixteen
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we have reference to a song,
right. So they're singing about singing and
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they give a the the the lines
from a song here. So Verse Fourteen
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says the Lord is my strength and
my song. He is become my salvation.
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Glad songs of salvation are in the
tents of the righteous. Then you
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can imagine people of Israel in their
tense coming back victorious over battle, singing.
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The right hand of the Lord does
valiantly. The right hand of the
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Lord Exalts, the right hand of
the Lord does valiantly. His heart is
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full of praise when he sees what
the Lord has done. When we reflect
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on the things that God has done
for us, when we reflect on the
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salvation that he brings to us,
it fills our hearts with praise and singing.
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Then as we come to verse the
Seventeen and eighteen, continuing to move
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throughs this psalm, we get a
little wrinkle here, a new a new
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level and understanding of things that we
can think about. Here he says,
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I shall not die, but I
shall live and I will recount the deeds
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of the Lord. The Lord has
disciplined me severely, but he has not
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given me over to death. What
we see here, as is was often
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true with the kings of Israel,
is that the enemies that they faced.
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It wasn't a mere political threat,
it wasn't just kings doing what kings do,
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nations doing what nations do. There
was a moral threat and also a
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moral victory. Here the PSALMA says, the Lord has disciplined me severely.
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Something he has done to displease the
Lord. He has sinned in some way
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and the Lord has disciplined him because
of this. Again, in the history
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of God's people we see this many
times. The kings of the Lord,
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these people who are called to shepherd
or be under shepherds for the Great Shepherd,
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leading their flocks into danger, sometimes
into idolatry, sometimes into sexual perversion,
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sometimes into injustice, all kinds of
different things. Ultimately, as we've
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been seeing in Ezekiel, the great
judgment of the Lord will come upon Israel
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for these things. But this king, he doesn't just want to live another
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day, to fight another day.
He wants to live and to live for
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the Lord. He praises God in
verse Seventeen and it says I shall not
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die, but I shall live and
do what. Fight more, he says,
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and recount the deeds of the Lord. He gets to live in this
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blessed state of praise and Thanksgiving,
even though the threat that came to him
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was not just the nation's, but
the threat was the Lord himself. The
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threat was the Lord who was disciplining
him as a result of his sin,
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but by God's grace he has victory
and salvation. This king doesn't just want
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to come home, but he wants
to be in a city of righteousness.
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He doesn't want to just live to
fight another day. He wants to be
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in right relationship and a right relationship
with the Lord and with others. We
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see the expression of that in the
coming verses when he says open to me
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the gates of righteousness, that I
enter through them and give thanks to the
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Lord. This is what he wants. He wants a place of enjoyment in
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God, a place of victory that
is because of God's grace, a place
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that is not characterized any longer by
his sin and the consequences of it,
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but a place that is characterized by
righteousness. Verse Twenty. This is the
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gate of the Lord. The righteous
shall enter through it, and then he
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reflects again on his salvation. I
thank you that you have answered me and
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I become my salvation. A stone
that the builders rejected has become the corner
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stone. This is marvel this is
this is the Lord's doing. It is
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marvelous in our eyes. This is
the day that the Lord is made.
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Let us rejoice and be glad in
it. It's interesting how he describes now
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this salvation, his salvation, in
terms of this stone, a stone that
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the builders rejected, has become the
cornerstone. He describes himself as one who
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has been thrown away, as one
who has been looked at and judged by
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the world, perhaps, and has
said this one is useless, we don't
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need it, a one rejected by
the world. And yet that very stone
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that God takes becomes the cornerstone,
the most important stone, the stone by
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which the whole rest of a building
is built, the corner stone that lays
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the foundations, in the dimensions of
this great thing that God will do.
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How can one who is rejected by
the world becomes so precious and important in
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the work in in become precious and
important? The answer is verse Twenty Three.
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This is the Lord's doing. You
don't take rejected, humble, defeated,
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falling things and turn them into great
things, unless, of course,
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you are the Great Lord. He
describes this work has marvelous and its eyes,
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or in our eyes. When's the
last time you looked at something and
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you described it as marvelous? Clouds, maybe a visit to the Grand Canyon,
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the flowers and springtime, or maybe
some great act of salvation, some
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surprising, amazing, unexpected event which
turns out from something that was so bad
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and some tragic to something that is
so amazingly good you hardly have the words
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to express it. This is marvelous, stunning, a splendid this day of
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salvation, this rescue, he describes
in Verse Twenty Four, is a day
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that the Lord has made, let
us rejoice and be glad in it.
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Perhaps you've heard that verse before.
It's a very common verse and used in
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various different places. A lot of
times when we hear it we think about
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the the the creative work of the
Lord or the providential sustaining of each and
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every day, and certainly that's true. Every day we can wake up and
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say this is the day that the
Lord is made, let us rejoice and
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be glad in it. But here
it had there's another level of meaning.
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This isn't just a day that the
Lord is made yet or as another one
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of the many days that he makes
that we ought to be rejoicing and be
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glad in it. But this is
a day that was very dark. This
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was a day in which death was
at the door. This was the day
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when the nations were surrounding him like
bees, and now everything's okay. Now
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they are gone, they are vanquished. It is a day of salvation,
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so let us rejoice and be glad
in it. He makes all days and
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he made this day a very special
one. In the light of this Thanksgiving
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and praise, in the light of
this great redemptive, saving work of God,
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he now says to the Lord in
Verse Twenty Five, Save Us,
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we pray, oh Lord, oh
Lord, we pray, give us success.
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He has a sense that, as
of the one who has read and
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rescued in the Lord, he is
one who needs to continue to abide in
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the Lord. How often, like
the ten lepers who were healed by Jesus
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and none of them except one,
returned, we're like that. We receive
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a great salvation, we receive these
amazing blessings and then we say, well,
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nothing, we don't do anything,
we don't return and give thanks,
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we don't look at the things that
we've been given the day that we have
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the salvation we have and give though
God thanks for it. We not only
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need to give him thanks, but
we must remember that it's only by His
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grace that we continue. We need
to continue to look to him, not
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just once and now, now and
again, not just when we're in times
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of great trouble, but at all
times. When he says it's better to
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take refuge in the Lord and the
trust and man, he doesn't just mean
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some of the time, means all
of the time. And so this desired
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and continued success must be maintained by
the Lord himself. And so, now,
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knowing that God answer this these prayers, he finishes the Psalm by speaking
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of those who are who receive this
salvation. He says, and he speaks
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to it in terms of worship and
temple worship. Blessed is he who comes
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in the name of the Lord.
We bless you from the House of the
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Lord. The one who is saved
comes into the presence of God and comes
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into the presence of God with others. It's like we look up and we
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look around and we realize that God
hasn't just saved me, he saved a
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whole host of people and we belong
not just to the Lord, but to
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the great family of the Lord,
the House of the Lord on which his
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he has placed his name. We
find that we're not just there stammering out
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our praise all alone, but we
are joined with the angels, we are
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joined with saints, we are joined
with the elders who, as we sang
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earlier, cast down their crowns in
worship of the great king. The Lord
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is God, he says in Verse
Twenty, and he made us and he
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has made his light to shone upon
us. Bind the festal sacrifice, with
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cords up to the horns of the
altar. We come to God and we
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come with all offering and with worship
and with praise, seeking the Lord and
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his presence continually. And then,
finally, the psalmist concludes and he says,
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you are my God, just so
simple but so rich. You are
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my God and I will give thanks
to you. You are my God,
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I will extore you. And then
he turns to all of us and says,
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Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for
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his steadfast love and do hers forever. And we all say a man right,
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we all say Amen, this is
right, and we're here right along
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with you, brother. We're here
as those who have likewise been saved,
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and the salvation that we have received
through King Jesus, this son of David,
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this one who is promised to come
and establish an eternal kingdom forever,
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takes this whole Psalm and moves it
up a register, takes the whole Psalm
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and and gives even more light to
what we have in this God who has
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saved us. Peter Talks about this
corner stone as one who has been rejected,
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and he speaks of Christ himself,
and and rightly so. Jesus is
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a cornerstone who was rejected like no
other has been rejected. The world despised
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him, his own people to turned
on him, his own disciples rejected him
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and betrayed him. From Judas to
Peter, he hung on a cross naked.
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He hung on across a bruised and
bloody hung among criminals, to be
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gawcked at by people, to be
an example of what you should never be
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and to turn away from with disgust. But this one who was rejected,
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became the cornerstone, not just for
a season or a time, but forever,
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to be the glorious king over all
the people forever and forever. Peter
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says that, as he is the
cornerstone, we are like living stones built
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on him into a temple in which
the living God dwells forever. This communion
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and closeness, this these gates of
righteousness, this coming into the House of
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the Lord, all of these images
are fulfilled in the Lord and in us,
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as we are in him. We
get to participate not just as citizens
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of the city but in a way
as the city itself. In some amazing
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way, God unites us with him
and binds us to him and so that
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his light shines upon us, his
glory shines upon us. In the face
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of Jesus Christ, our Savior,
this should result in more praise, more
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rejoicing, more extolling of the goodness
of God. We've not just been saved
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from a monchering nation for a time, until the king disobeys again and we
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find ourselves in more trouble, but
we find ourselves saved forever, because our
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king is not like the human kings
who came before. This human king is
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also a divine king. The grace
of the Lord is steadfast love. That
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is seen in this psalm is amplified
in a great way in Jesus. Jesus
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shows us his steadfast love in this
psalm as the one who disciplines conquers,
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strengthens, obtains victory. He is
the divine warrior. I'm defeating these bees,
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defeating the nations, but he is
also the one who is defeated.
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He is also the one who takes
on our sins, the one who never
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did anything wrong and yet was severely
a disciplined but even unto death so that
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we would not have to die.
Jesus suffers, Jesus endures these things on
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our behalf so that we can have
a kingdom and a king and a priest
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that is forever. We are about
to go and participate pay together in the
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Lord's Supper, sometimes called the Eucharist, a word that means thanksgiving. This
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thanksgiving table is one that is set
in victory. It is called this because
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we have a lot to give thanks
for, as in Psalm Twenty three,
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the Lord says that he sets a
table in the midst of our enemies,
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and this is exactly what he does
in the Lord's supper. He sets a
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table in the midst of a watching
world, in the midst of a world
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that is full of spiritual powers that
would seek to do us harm. But
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we don't come scared, we don't
come worried, we come with Thanksgiving and
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praise, knowing that the Lord is
our host and that as we come,
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we come together. As we come, we come as those who belong to
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the House of the Lord, who
bear his name, is a family of
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the righteous who have been saved even
from death itself. So, as we
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gather around the table now, as
we receive these promises that the Lord gives
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to us by faith, let us
find in him our salvation, let's find
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in him alone our salvation and not
put our trust in the things in this
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world, but take refuge entirely in
him. Let's pray and ask that the
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Lord would grant us these things.
