Shall we pray?
Lord be with us now as we open
your word.
Speak to our hearts we pray.
May we have that ear that is opened
to the entrance of thy word that giveth
light.
And this we ask in the name of
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
I want to think with you this morning
about the wonderful works of God.
One could turn to a hundred passages of
scripture but there is one passage above all
others that I want to think with you
about and from and it's the hundred and
eleven psalm.
Psalm 111.
It's very short psalm but it's the hymn
of praise.
It's the great doxology.
Praise to God for his glorious and gracious
works.
And it's in that light that we're going
to think about it this morning.
I got a call on Tuesday evening about
six o'clock from the Toronto telegram asking
me if I would comment on the significance
of man having reached the moon and walked
upon it.
And asking if I felt there was any
significance there that would be hostile to Christian
faith in days to come.
Or did I think that what had happened
was really going to help and further the
Christian faith.
One is always to be very careful when
speaking over the phone with these good reporters.
And one is always to try and be
absolutely exact and try and choose the right
words with the right emphasis.
But my own reply crystallized down into perhaps
just a single sentence was this.
All that happened last Sunday and the events
leading to it should man today think more
of the God of wonders.
And the God who only does wondrous things.
Because everything that has happened has happened because
there are fixed and inviolate laws of the
universe.
And it is because these laws have been
discovered that man has been able to accommodate
himself to these laws and to work together
with them.
And in working together with these laws has
been able to make the amazing technological advances
that he has in our generation.
It so happened that the reporter was greatly
interested and we kept on talking.
It developed really into discussion, far more than
just a simple statement.
And it was very, very interesting to hear
him say himself, though apparently an unbeliever, it
is striking me that there are far more
people than I believed, far more people than
I believed, who really believe in Christian things.
And he said it has been for me
one of the wonders of this past week
to see the way in which one of
the men very definitely took the elements of
his Holy Communion to the moon.
And together with his congregation on earth, in
the Southern Presbyterian Church of which he's an
elder, shared in that act of Holy Communion.
And so we got talking and one thing
led to another.
It was quite evident that he himself, as
I've said, was deeply stirred and willing to
talk.
And in one case at least, obviously the
wonderful works of God, and the way in
which accommodation to these wonderful works, these wonderful
principles of God, had wrought such wonders, had
been, had brought this man, this reporter, to
the place of being willing to think in
a way in which he had not thought
before.
And it's this very thought that is recurring
again and again in the hundred and eleven
Psalms.
I don't know whether you know this psalm
well or not, but in the second verse
it says, The works of the Lord are
great, sought out of all them that have
pleasure therein.
The works of the Lord are great, they
are sought out of them that have pleasure
therein.
And it begins, this psalm, with a tremendous
summons to praise.
Praise ye the Lord.
The simple word in the original is hallelujah.
I will praise the Lord with my whole
heart in the assembly of the upright, and
in the congregation.
Because the works of the Lord are great,
and they are sought out of all them
that have pleasure therein.
And this little psalm elaborates on these mighty
works of God.
For this writer, God was great.
A great God, in a great universe, doing
great things.
And God was great in all his thoughts.
And if you and I are truly to
worship God, if you and I are to
bring to the Lord the worship that is
due unto his name, we must think greatly
about God.
For the beginning of all true worship is
to begin and think greatly about God.
We must have more of the spirit of
our friends in the east end of the
city, who recently, when the God is dead
theology was having a slight currency in this
city, put up on their church board the
notice, our God is alive.
Sorry about yours.
I feel that this is the right note.
Our God is alive.
For far too many of us, God has
become an imprisoned God.
A God imprisoned amid the unbelief of the
century.
For too many of us, God has been,
become so humanized as to be only a
slightly larger version of man.
Possibly a superman, if you like.
But certainly not the high and lofty one
who inhabits eternity.
We must learn to think greatly about God.
And in order to worship God in spirit
and in truth, God must be for us
the altogether other one.
The transcendent God.
The omniscient God.
The sovereign God.
The God whose attributes infinitely transcend our finite
understanding.
And a God whose majesty and mercy are
made known throughout all his works.
Perverted and unworthy notions of God soon rot
the religion in which they appear.
The long history of Israel demonstrates this very
evidently.
Because when Israel turned from the true and
living God and began to set up for
herself idols and to bow down and to
worship idols as she did, it was the
first step down from a high and exalted
worship of God.
And the history of the Christian church demonstrates
this at every step.
The first step downwards for any church is
when she surrenders her high, her exalted, her
transcendent thoughts of God.
And the Christian church will never go into
eclipse unless there has first been a corrupting
of her thought of God.
It is a debasing of the idea of
God that leads to a debasement of life
and worship.
To the question, what is God like?
If we cannot give a strong and worthy
answer, we can be sure that the decline
in our worship has begun.
And this is why it's so essential for
us to think great thoughts about God.
To have in our minds only the God
of whom the scriptures speak.
The works of God who is great, and
who is sought out by all who have
pleasure therein.
The wonderful works of God.
Now we've been reminded of this during these
recent days.
I suppose that in practical Liverpool, but around
the world, there'll be some reference being made
to what has happened in the past ten
days.
And it's right that we should do so.
But I note again, what is the basic
affirmation?
That this that has happened has not happened
because of man's invention only.
Let it be recognized that the engineering techniques
behind the Apollo mission are altogether amazing.
And that the synchronization that has been made
possible by the computerization of so much of
programming and planning and engineering, is a symbol
of our time and the wonder of our
time.
But the computer itself, and we're going to
see more and more of it.
We're going to see more and more of
the wonder of it.
But the computer itself, I say, is there
because of the discovery of certain basic laws.
Laws that were established when the universe was
established.
This is not the result of man's invention.
This is not the creation, this law, are
these laws.
They are not the creation of man.
It is because these laws have been discovered.
Laws that the great and mighty God, who
inhabits eternity, made when first the worlds flashed
into sunlight.
And it's because these laws are increasingly being
discovered, that we are increasingly seeing wonderful things.
Before us, the works of the Lord are
great.
It's the works of the Lord.
Thank God for the works of man.
Thank God for the way in which we
are able to see man touching the edges
of the utmost stars.
And thank God for the way in which
man's intellect, key to highest pitch, and working
in team formation, has been able to do
what it has done.
It has been altogether unique.
Of course it has.
But it has been altogether possible.
Because in the beginning, when God laid the
foundations of the earth, he laid it on
fixed principles.
He laid it on unique and miraculous laws.
And he established that these laws should abide.
And they are as unchangeable as God himself
is unchangeable.
And this is the wonder, that we must
think of, when we think about the works
of the Lord.
Now the psalmist, who wrote the hundred and
eleven psalms, says, that the works of the
Lord are a theme for praise.
Praise ye the Lord.
That's how he begins.
Praise ye the Lord.
This amazing psalm, that starts in this way.
Praise ye the Lord.
I will praise the Lord with my whole
heart.
Praise ye the Lord.
You see, there is only one adequate response
to the revelation of the wonderful works of
God.
And that is praise.
It is, as I've said, the word hallelujah,
that begins this psalm.
Hallelujah.
I will praise the Lord for his greatness.
And in the assembly of the upright, in
the congregation, I will praise the Lord.
Now this is why we have song at
the heart of all our worship.
This is why the Christian sings.
This is why praise is of the very
essence of our worship.
Because only when we see the glory of
God, will we praise.
And when we do see the glory of
God, we cannot help but praise.
Why this amazing psalter, out of which we're
reading, these hundred and fifty psalms, from which
we are reading this morning, and taking up,
lifting up, this one hundred and eleventh in
particular, is the great pion of praise to
the God who only does wondrous, wondrous things.
Praise is at the heart of all our
worship.
And when praise departs from our heart, I
tell you, something else has departed.
There has departed the thoughts of God, the
God who is great.
There has gone from us the realization, the
God, the infinite, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal God.
The God who sitteth upon the throne of
the heavens.
This God is our God forever and ever.
When we lose that, we lose our song.
The only true response to the works of
God, and the revelation of the works of
God, is praise.
Now there are many for whom the world
around, and the mighty acts of God in
history, hold no significance.
You remember what words were said, a primrose
by the river's brim, a yellow primrose was
to him, and it was nothing more, nothing
more, nothing more, impossible, incapable of seeing beyond
the primrose by the river's brim, to the
God who clothes the heavens in their beauty,
and to the God who will clothes you,
O ye of little faith.
This God, his acts are manifold, in creation,
in history, in grace, all alike proclaiming the
glory of God, and all alike summoning forth
our praise.
And so David says, I will praise the
Lord with my whole heart, with my whole
heart, I will praise the Lord.
And I tell you there is only one
adequate expression, that should characterize our worship this
morning as we meet, and it is the
outflow of hearts, filled with gratitude.
I will praise the Lord with my whole
heart, with my whole heart, for all his
works in creation, for all his gifts to
us, his gift of life, his gift of
health, his gift of friends, for the salvation
that he has wrought, for sending his son
to Bethlehem and to Calvary, for the wonder
of Easter and the glory of Pentecost, for
all the promises of God that are yea
and amen in Christ Jesus our Lord.
For today, this very day in which we
live, this day that the Lord has made,
this day, this holy day, there is only
one response, and that is praise.
I will praise the Lord with my whole
heart.
And I tell you there is only one
adequate expression, that should characterize our worship this
morning as we meet, and it is the
outflow of hearts, filled with gratitude.
I will praise the Lord with my whole
heart, with my whole heart, I will praise
the Lord.
And I tell you there is only one
adequate expression, that should characterize our worship this
morning as we meet, and it is the
outflow of hearts, filled with gratitude.
I will praise the Lord with my whole
heart.
And I tell you there is only one
adequate expression, that should characterize our worship this
morning as we meet, and it is the
outflow of hearts, praise the Lord with my
whole heart.
O Lord my God, we sing, when I
in awesome wonder consider all the works Thy
hands have made, I see the stars, I
hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the
universe displayed, but then, then sings my soul,
my Savior God to Thee, how great Thy
glory is.
Thou art, how great Thou art, then sings
my soul, I will praise Thee with my
whole heart.
Praise is the only answer to the revelation
of the works of God.
But now David is very careful to say
a second thing, and he notes it quite
subtly, but very definitely.
Look at verse one, I will praise Thee
with my whole heart, I will praise the
Lord with my whole heart, in the assembly
of the upright, and in the congregation.
And then in verse two, the works of
the Lord are great, they are sought out
of all them who have pleasure therein.
The assembly of the upright, the congregation, the
assembly of them that have pleasure therein.
Now here is a special category of people,
the upright, the assembly, the congregation, those who
take pleasure in God.
And this is a particular fellowship, and it's
right that we should note this too, because
this is a fellowship of revelation.
You see, this has been made known, these
mighty works of God, have been made known
to a special company of people.
Not to a coterie, in any sense of
the term, but to a special company, to
an elect people, to a people of God's
possession, to a people whom God himself has
chosen and called by their name, and said
to them, Thou art mine.
Why look at verse six, he assured his
people the power of his works.
Now what is this, and how is this
possible?
This is possible because of special revelation.
This is possible because God has made himself
known to them that have pleasure in his
commandments.
God reveals himself, the assembly of the upright.
The works of the Lord are great, and
they are sought out by them that have
pleasure therein.
I remember in one week listening to two
men in Britain.
Both of them were in the military forces,
and both of them had returned from India.
I heard both of them speak in the
one week.
One was a Christian, and the other was
not.
There was a question period at both meetings,
and the same man asked the same question
of both men.
Though a week separated the questions.
The question was this, when you were in
India, did you see any real evidence of
the impact of Christianity in India?
One of them said, I've been in India
for seven years, and I can honestly say
that in the course of these seven years
I saw nothing that I could say was
evidence of the impact of Christianity in India.
A week passed, and the second man was
asked the same question.
I remember so well his answer, because when
he was asked the question, it was as
though his face lit up.
And he said, yes, I've been there in
India for a good number of years now.
I think it was nine or ten.
And in the course of that time, I
have met with scores upon scores of Christian
pastors, national pastors.
I've had the opportunity of preaching, or ministering,
I think was the word he used, at
the conventions in the hills.
I have had every opportunity of going from
one end of the country to the other.
And I have seen lives transformed.
I have seen a church emerging.
I have seen a church growing under the
preaching of the living word.
And I would say today, that the strongest
man in India, the man to whom we
can look for hope for the future, are
men who have come under the influence of
the Christian faith.
What an extraordinary divergence of statement.
But look, this second man had sought out
the company of the Christians when he went.
The works of the Lord are great, sought
out by them who have pleasure therein.
Sought out.
Yes, indeed.
There is a special community.
And God's works are revealed to this special
community in nature and in grace.
Above all else, he reveals his wondrous works
in grace to this company of his own,
as he reveals himself God, the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and of earth.
And yet the God who has sent his
only begotten Son into the world, not to
condemn the world, but that the world through
him might be saved.
And this company, this company who have been
called out through Jesus Christ, who have heard
his call, follow me, and have begun to
follow, to this special company, God has revealed
himself.
And you see, special revelation only becomes relevant
within the circle of the church.
It is to the church that special revelation
has relevance.
And that is why we turn to the
Word of God, and we pour into the
Word of God, and we read, and we
study, and we mark, and we inwardly digest
the Word of God.
And as we do so, we know ourselves
part of a great company that no man
can number.
Sought out.
They seek God because he first has sought
them.
And they seek to know the wonder of
his mighty acts, because he has first sought
them.
But special revelation, and oh how we need
to stress this, special revelation belongs and is
prized and is rejoiced over within the assembly
of the upright and in the great congregation.
Those who have pleasure in the law and
in the commandment of God.
Yes indeed, the works of the Lord are
great, and the only response to these works
is praise.
These works are really known only by the
church.
It is to the man who has spiritual
discernment that this becomes known.
But then note this also.
Let's just look through the psalm quickly.
Verse 2, the works of the Lord are
great.
Verse 3, his work is honorable.
Verse 4, he has made his wonderful works
memorable.
He is gracious and full of compassion.
There is the heart of God.
Verse 5, he has given meat unto them
that fear him.
He is ever mindful of his covenant.
The oath that he sware unto our father,
Abram.
The covenant that today again we have observed.
The providence that follows those who seek him.
Providing man in the wilderness and the covenant
abiding forever.
Verse 6, he has showed his people the
power of his works, that he might give
them the heritage of the heathen.
What is this?
This is the work of God in history.
This is the opening of the door of
faith even to the Gentiles.
This is the raising of a people to
be a blessing to the ends of the
earth.
God's church sent out into all the earth.
Look at verse 7, the works of his
hand are of verity and judgment.
All his commandments are sure.
And verse 8, they stand fast forever and
ever.
And they are done in truth and uprightness.
These are the works of the Lord.
But I want you to note that the
works of the Lord are consummated in the
greatest work of all at Calvary.
In the work of redemption.
Because look at verse 9, he sent redemption
unto his people.
He has commanded his covenant forever.
Holy and to be revered is the name
of our God.
The climax of all the mighty acts of
God is the climax that we see at
the cross.
Where he sends redemption for his people.
And where he opens for us the gates
of new life.
And where he offers to you the beginning
of a new life.
I wonder if you have met him at
the cross.
I wonder if you have come unto that
cross where he sent his son to die
for you.
I wonder if you have seen God in
action.
For what is happening at Calvary?
At Calvary, God is at work.
At Calvary, God is revealing his love.
At Calvary, God is meeting this tremendous tidal
force of sin and evil and corruption and
rottenness.
And God is taking it all and pouring
it into the very heart of his son.
And the son of God at Calvary is
absorbing it all.
Because all our sin was laid upon him.
And there at the cross he opened for
us a fountain for sin and for uncleanness.
The works of the Lord, they're great.
They're great.
They are great.
You see what David is saying?
First, the only answer to them is praise.
Second, it's only the true believer who sees
them.
It's only the church that can understand.
Only the church.
As Dr. DeGenge reminded us on Wednesday night,
the words of John Calvin, and let's keep
this within its true context, no man can
truly call God Father who cannot first call
the church his mother.
Within the church these things are known.
But then thirdly, the climax of all the
works of God are seen at the cross.
He sent redemption unto his people.
Is there anything more to be said?
Why, of course.
Let me just say one word more.
The works of the Lord, God's mighty acts,
demand a life of joyful
obedience to his commandment.
I love this word that we have here.
Verse 10, the fear of the Lord is
the beginning of wisdom.
A good understanding of all they that do
his commandments.
I think it would be a wonderful thing
if we could all go home and meditate
this afternoon just on that one phrase.
A good understanding of all they that do.
Remember our Lord said, he that doeth the
will of God shall know of the doctrine.
It is in obedience, it is in obedience
to the word and commandment of our God
that we come to have this good understanding.
But the summons to all who have seen
the works of God and whose hearts have
been filled with praise, the summons to us
all is to serve the Lord with gladness,
to come before his presence with singing and
to do his will.
A good understanding then is given.
A good understanding is given to all who
do his commandments.
Do you know the greatest gift of the
Holy Spirit?
You've read much about this, I'm sure, and
you've listened to many who have spoken about
this, I'm sure.
But I want to tell you that the
greatest gift of the Holy Spirit is spiritual
discernment.
Being able to know God's will.
Being able to discern God's ways.
Being able to advise and to counsel in
the things of God.
Being able.
And here is the way in which this
comes.
A good understanding, spiritual discernment if you will,
is the property of all them who do
the commandments of God.
His praise will then endure forever.
Isn't this tremendous?
Isn't that a perfect psalm to follow the
week that we have known?
The works of the Lord, mighty and great,
let us praise him for them.
Let us rejoice within the congregation of the
righteous over these works.
Let us constantly remember that the climax of
all these works are a calvary.
Is a calvary.
And let us see to it that our
lives in joyful, glad obedience are given back
to the service of the God whose works
are great.
Now a prayer.
Oh Father almighty and all merciful, truly we
marvel at the wonder of your works on
every hand.
We rejoice in them.
We are glad today.
We thank thee for what we have been
privileged to see in recent days.
We thank thee for the emancipation that has
been given and the demonstration of those laws
that abide, immutable, and in the observance of
which there is for us all joy.