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Turn in your Bibles, please, 
to Psalm 95. Psalm 95. Just before we read the text, 
the psalms come to us in many forms or many different flavors, 
if you will. Sometimes we have psalms of thanksgiving, 
of the psalmist, certainly rightfully, penning words of thanksgiving 
to our great triune God. We have sometimes psalms of lamentation, 
lamenting the condition of the covenant people, lamenting the 
reality of enemies round about, seeking to visit hatred and violence 
upon God's covenant people. We have psalms of praise. We 
have psalms of wholesome mockery. the psalmist deriding and mocking 
the Gentile small G gods who are no gods at all and extolling 
the praises of Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel, the only living 
and true God. Sometimes, like in Psalm 95, 
we have what Spurgeon calls a provocation to worship, the psalmist penning 
words in order to call God's people to worship. This psalm is, Without a title, 
very often we'll see a title to the Psalms. We don't see a 
Psalm of David written here or a Psalm of Asaph. However, Paul, 
in the book of Hebrews, attributes Psalm 95, by inspiration of God, 
to David. David is the author of this psalm. To introduce this psalm before 
we read it, here is C.H. Spurgeon. It is, in its original, 
a truly Hebrew psalm. directed both in its exhortation 
and warning to the Jewish people, but we have the warrants of the 
Holy Spirit in the epistle to the Hebrews for using its appeals 
and entreaties when pleading with Gentile believers. It is 
a psalm of invitation to worship. It has about it a ring like that 
of church bells and like the bells it sounds both merrily 
and solemnly. at first wringing out a lively 
peal and then dropping into a funeral knell as if tolling at the funeral 
of the generation which perished in the wilderness. We will call 
it the psalm of the provocation. So let us read this Psalm 95. This is the word of the living 
and true God. Oh, come, let us sing to the 
Lord. Let us shout joyfully to the 
rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence 
with thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to Him 
with songs. For the Lord is the great God 
and the great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep 
places of the earth. The heights of the hills are 
His also. The sea is His, for He made it. And His hands formed the dry 
land. O come, let us worship and bow 
down. Let us kneel before the Lord, 
our maker, for he is our God. and we are the people of his 
pasture and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you will hear 
his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, as 
in the day of trial in the wilderness when your fathers tested me. 
They tried me, though they saw my work. For forty years I was 
grieved with that generation and said, it is a people who 
go astray in their hearts and they do not know my ways. So 
I swore in my wrath They shall not enter my rest. Amen. Well, let us pray. Heavenly Father, 
we ask now that you would bless this time of preaching. We ask, 
Lord God, that you would send the ministry of the Holy Spirit, 
that he would be active, working with his divine might, with great 
power and by your word. to convict and edify and encourage 
the saints gathered here, and by that same activity, to cause 
those who do not know you presently to leave these two doors, proclaiming 
the riches and the honor of Jesus Christ. We pray, Lord God, that 
the Holy Spirit would edify saints, would save sinners, and that 
all would be done, Lord God, unto the praise of your grace 
and unto the praise of your mighty name. And it's in Christ's name 
that we do pray. Amen. Do you dislike coming to church? Do you lament the idea of having 
to get up and having to drive? Maybe it's five kilometers, maybe 
it's walking seven, maybe it's driving from Abbotsford, maybe 
it's driving from Maple Ridge, wherever you have to drive from. 
Is it a weariness to you to come to church? You see, the people 
of God are marked by, as Psalm 95 and many other texts present, 
worshipful, joyful and thankful hearts. So if you dislike coming 
to church and if it is a weariness to you, might I invite you to 
believe the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and find the mercy 
of Jesus in saving faith. because the people of God are 
marked by such who say, oh, come, let us sing to the Lord. Let 
us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come 
before his presence with thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to him 
with songs. Praise God, though, that he's 
so merciful that for those who are his saints, as we roll out 
of bed and as we stumble to comb our hair, When we get to church, 
we realize that, yes, this isn't a weariness. What a blessed place 
to come into the house of the Lord, where the triune God has 
promised to commune with his people, to send his spirit, to 
edify, to stir up rejoicing, to stir up praise, love, honor 
and all glory rendered back to him. Praise God for his mercies 
to us. Just before, and by way of introduction, 
I want to say and I want to add that do you know what? The closest 
thing to heaven is on earth. Sometimes we'll joke and we'll 
say, you know, the closest thing to heaven on earth is a large-score 
blizzard from Dairy Queen. You know, the closest thing to 
heaven on earth is a good barbecued rib with a side of, you know, 
grilled potatoes. That's just heaven to me. We 
might or we might get more religious, spiritually ambiguous. We might 
say heaven on earth is standing on the Mount of Mount Sham and 
looking down upon, you know, the glory of God's creation, 
looking down upon the majestic, you know, fields and pastures 
and smaller rolling hills, that sort of thing. We might say heaven 
on earth is to cast eyes upon a newborn baby to see the beauty 
of his creation and the gift that that baby is. Those things 
are terrific. But heaven on earth or the closest 
thing to heaven on earth is what is going on right now. It is 
God's people entering into the house of God to worship the triune 
God of Holy Scripture. It is here. It is there in the 
place of worship where God has promised to commune with his 
people, to bless them, to send the living Christ who walks among 
his lampstands to stir up praise to the mighty one who created, 
who sustains, and who redeems. So if we dislike church, if we 
lament church, if coming to church is, oh, what a weariness, repent 
and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ and see this as the closest 
thing to heaven on earth. Because when we get into heaven, 
We will. Of course, it is much perfect, 
much more perfect there, isn't it? The preacher won't sing the 
wrong stanza in the hymn that we just sang because he'll be 
perfect in that bliss of paradise. The congregation of saints gathered 
together in heaven will be, though, gathering before the presence 
of the Lord, just like we do here in a foreshadowing, singing 
the praises of our gracious Christ. of our blessed Father and of 
our powerful Holy Spirit. So let us see church not in lamentation, 
not in dislike, not in a weariness, not in rote ritual, not as something 
we have to do, but by God's grace might we see it as a foretaste 
of heaven here on earth. Let's look at this psalm, excuse 
me, let's look at this psalm under four headings. The call 
to worship, The reasons for the call to worship, the posture 
and position of those who worship and the warning to those who 
do not worship. So first off, the call to worship. Notice first we have an emphatic 
and an eager invitation to worship, an emphatic and an eager invitation 
to worship. Oh, come. Oh, come, let us sing 
to the Lord. Let us shout joyfully. Let us 
come before his presence. Let us shout joyfully to him 
with song. It is an eager, emphatic invitation 
or provocation for the people of God to come and worship the 
Lord God of heaven and earth. This invitation is given with 
great emphasis and with great eagerness. It is the immediate 
need and it is the immediate desire of the Saint of Christ 
to go into the place of worship and render religious homage to 
the God who redeemed him. It is an emphatic and eager invitation. Notice also, this is the necessity 
of the call to worship. Notice the obviousness that God 
is to be worshipped. The obviousness that God is to 
be worshipped. This invitation is given because 
by virtue of God being God, he is to be worshipped. Calvin Calvin 
says in his commentary on this passage that you see, we do not 
need to mount up argument after argument or rather fallacious 
arguments and lies or puffing up and padding the data of the 
Bible in order to stir people to worship. In other words, we 
don't need to present some fake God so that people might see 
the necessity of worshiping. Why? Because God is holy in himself, 
in self-contained and self-glorious beauty and majesty, honor and 
glory. And by virtue of God being God, 
he is to be praised. We don't need to puff up the 
data of the Bible because God has revealed himself in such 
a way where there is nothing lacking in him and there is nothing 
lacking concerning his character, his perfections, his work, his 
being or his nature. By virtue of God being the God 
who he is, that necessitates the worship of the saints throughout 
the Bible, especially in the Psalms. We have the argument 
given. that nature itself speaks concerning 
the glory of God, don't we? Hopefully you remember and you 
know Psalm 19, at least in principle, if not the entire text. But it 
says that the heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament 
shows his handiwork. Day after day, utter speech. 
Night after night, reveals knowledge. The fact and the glory of creation 
presents to man the reality that there is a God, but not only 
the reality that there is a God, but it shows forth his glory, 
his majesty, the perfections of his being and his character. 
Creation sings the praises of the Lord God Almighty. I've said 
this before from the pulpit or quoted it, and it's one of the 
most Glorious quotes on Psalm 19 ever penned. Who else penned 
by but by Spurgeon. And he says this. He says regarding 
Psalm 19 and creation proclaiming the glory of God. He says in 
the expanse above us, God flies as it were his starry flag to 
show that the king is at home. And he hangs out his coat of 
arms bearing shield to show the atheist how much he hates their 
denunciations of him. Isn't that wonderful? You see, 
when the atheist or when the agnostic or when the unbeliever, 
the non-Christian, looks at the stars and looks at the heavens 
and then says that there is no God, Spurgeon says that they're 
writing themselves down as either a liar or an idiot. Because creation 
proclaims the glories of God. The heavens display his majesty, 
his glory. And day after day, utter speech, 
and night after night reveals knowledge. By virtue of God being 
God, that necessitates and that presents the obviousness that 
he is to be worshipped by his people. Also, under the call 
to worship, the necessity of it, The necessity of this call 
to worship is seen in our need to be stirred, reminded, and 
provoked. If you're honest, and I imagine 
this is everybody, but if you're honest, you will say, it is sometimes 
not easy for me, or it sometimes can be a weariness, or I sometimes 
find myself in a languor and a coldness with regards to the 
things of God. We have to be stirred. This is 
the whole thing that the whole point of the psalmist. Oh, come, 
let us sing to the Lord more joyfully. Let us go into the 
house of the Lord. There are times Spurgeon in his 
sermon on first Corinthians 11 on the Lord's Supper. Do this in remembrance of me. 
remarks and comments on his own, the own coldness of his heart. 
Sometimes so many things can distract us. And we want to have 
so many things, our attention being poured on so many other 
things except the worship of the living and true God. And 
so the psalmist calls God's people of his pastor to come and to 
be provoked unto the proper worship of the God because of God, because 
it's only there that we have blessing. We don't We don't derive 
eternal blessings from pouring our attention on earthly things 
and the things of this world. We gain divine and eternal blessings 
from coming to our God, approaching Him joyfully, approaching Him 
with thankfulness, coming to Him and singing His praises and 
being found in His courts. The natural inclination of man 
is not God-ward. And we need, of course, Regeneration, 
we need salvation, but then we need that constant reminder of 
spirit and word to come into the courts and sing joyfully. 
Turn with me to Luke 14 for a moment. Keep our fingers moving. Keep 
us awake, keep us going as we. Observe the worship of God from 
Psalm 95 and Luke 14, there's a parable, there are parables 
that Christ is giving with regards to the reality that the Jews 
are rejecting the sent and promised Messiah and he is now going to 
be given as a light to the Gentiles. And notice that verse 16 of Luke 
14, he begins this parable. Then he said to them, a certain 
man gave a great supper again, Luke 14, 16, and invited many 
and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were 
invited, come, for all things are now ready. But they all with 
one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, I have 
bought a piece of ground and I must go go and see it. I ask 
you to have me excused. And another said, I have bought 
five yoke of oxen and I am going to test them. I ask you to have 
me excused. Still another said, I have married 
a wife and therefore I cannot come. You see, men will make 
up all manner of excuses. Men will make up all manner of 
reasons, the smallest reasons, in order to not enter into the 
worship of God, in order to not come into His courts. But you 
see, for anything else, the worst things can happen to us, but 
we'll make sure we're there. We'll travel three hours to go 
to a beach, but we won't travel 45 minutes to go to church. We'll 
travel eight hours to go to an amusement park, but we won't 
travel 15 minutes to go to church. will mount up before us all manner 
of excuses to neglect the worship of the Triune God of Holy Scripture, 
but have so much energy and so much time for other things. How many things do we do in a 
week that we enjoy, that we love, that we seek to engage in? And 
when it comes to Sunday, that's our day of rest, but our day 
of rest from worship. We are to gather together in 
the house of the Lord No excuses, because there is joy, there is 
praise, there is love rendered unto the one who has called us 
out of the miry pit, out of that hole of the pit from which he 
digged us and from that stone of great hardness and bondage. 
We are, or the natural inclination of man is not Godward. We need 
to be provoked unto that worship. This is what Martin Geyer says 
with regards to this part of the psalm. There is a silent 
hint here at that human listlessness and distraction of cares whereby 
we are more prompt to run after other things than to devote ourselves 
seriously to the becoming praises and service of God. Our foot 
has a greater proclivity to depart to the field, the oxen, and the 
new wife than to come to the sacred courts. Come ye and let 
us go up to the mountain of the Lord. You see, this is so true. Our foot has a greater proclivity 
to depart to the field, the oxen, and the new wife than to come 
to the sacred courts. It should never be among the 
people of God. It should never be among the 
saints of Christ. Give us your fields. Give us 
your oxen. I'll bring my wife. But we're 
going to come into the house of the Lord because therein He 
communes with His people. Therein we are blessed. And you 
need to understand, maybe you already do, but sometimes Christians 
need help with this, that the preacher, the man in the pulpit, 
isn't the end or the be-all of the worship service. Sometimes, 
not sometimes, we are cracked pots. It's what Paul calls us 
in 2 Corinthians. Turn there with me. Because very 
often we can mount up excuses that really aren't valid excuses, 
whether it's the person, whether it's the environment, whether 
it's the color of the pews or the fact that there's no mattresses 
on them. You can bring your own if you like. Sometimes we'll 
make up excuses, we'll have bad notions or reasons why it is 
okay to exempt ourselves from the worship of God, what we need 
to realize is that in the midst of imperfection, in the midst 
of fallible preachers, in the midst of an imperfect and sin-cursed 
world, God shines forth the glory of His name and the treasures 
of His gospel. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 5. It opens with an indictment for 
preachers who write autobiographies. No, not really. But it does say 
that we are the preacher is not to be about himself, but. about 
Christ, notice, for we do not preach ourselves, 2 Corinthians 
4, 5, for we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus, the Lord, and 
ourselves, your bondservants, for Jesus' sake. For it is the 
God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who has shone 
in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory 
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Now notice verse 7, but we have 
this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power 
may be of God and not of us. See, you come to worship in this 
place. You come to listen to a fallible 
preacher with blemishes and with whatever else because that's 
God's designed way to have cracked pots, earthen vessels to proclaim 
the riches and the glories of the gospel and all the truth 
of God so that the excellence of the power may be of God and 
not of us. Have no excuses for worship. 
Have no earthly and cosmetic and circumstantial excuses to 
worship, but come with great joy and with great glory into 
the courts of trying God in order to sing his praises. Now, a qualification. Hopefully you understand. And 
hopefully sometimes we don't have to give the qualification. 
You're providentially hindered because of illness and because 
of other legitimate reasons than You are not, don't be bound, 
don't have your consciences bound improperly from what I'm saying. 
It is though, or in my crosshairs are those who have a hypocrisy 
or a hardness of their hearts who claim to be God's people 
and yet find worship a weariness. We are to come, we are to cast 
off Our field, our oxen and the distractions of family. And we 
are to come to the sacred courts. Come ye and let us go up to the 
mountain of the Lord. Notice, secondly, the character 
under the call to worship. Notice the character of it. The 
character of it, as we turn back to Psalm 95. First off, the character 
of our worship is God word. Well, preacher, that's obvious. Yeah, it should be. It should 
be that our worship is Godward. You see, it's not the saint's 
job to have a litany, whether physically or mentally, of things 
that they want to get out of worship. What we get out of worship 
is to be a byproduct of that primary exercise in worship, 
which is Godward rendering of right and religious homage. Godward 
worship is the character of Old Covenant, and new covenant worship. Notice the language. Oh, come, 
let us sing to the Lord. Let us shout joyfully to the 
rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence 
with thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to him 
with song. Our worship is Godward. We come 
into the church, not in order to get and receive, not in order 
to be seen by men and to have our social standing perpetuated 
until next week. We come into the church. We come 
into the house of the living and true God to render rightly 
Godward worship and homage to the triune majesty of Holy Scripture. It is Godward. It is to the Lord. It is to the rock. It is before 
him. and it is to Him. This strikes 
at the heart of manward worship, obviously. We don't come in order 
to see the preacher. We don't come in order to see 
each other, qualified by the fact that we should not forsake 
the assembling of ourselves together. But my primary reason for coming 
to church, I hope this doesn't scandalize you, isn't you. I love you. I want the best for 
you. I am so happy to be a brother 
in Christ Jesus to you. But I come to church to render 
homage to the Triune Majesty. I come to church in order to 
sing to the Lord, to shout joyfully to the rock, to come before God's 
presence. That is a joy, and it ought to 
be, of our Christian walk. To recognize that we assemble 
together before the One who created the heavens and the earth, before 
the One who has the deep places of the earth as His and the highest 
hilltops of the secret mountains. We come and we worship that One. 
We have access by Jesus Christ to that One who providentially 
upholds all things that He might be magnified by His people in 
His church. We come to worship that One who 
redeemed us, that One who brought us from out of the miry clay, 
We'll get to it in a moment. But the reason for our joyfulness 
and our thankfulness is to be seen in the recollections of 
our former state and the acknowledgement of our present state by virtue 
of the saving work of Jesus. If we're not joyful and if we're 
not thankful, something has to be wrong. Because how can we 
not be, when we've been saved from such a darkness and deadness 
and bondage to sin, to a standing before God as righteous in Christ 
Jesus, sins forgiven? Glorious reality that ought to 
call us to worship, that ought to provoke us unto endless praise 
of our great God. Worship is Godward. Worship is 
congregational. O come, let us sing. to the Lord. Worship is congregational. We 
come to worship together. We don't come as individuals 
or we don't say you go to the house of the Lord and worship. 
You go up to the mountain of the Lord and worship. Let us 
go to the Lord. Let us sing to the Lord. Let 
us shout joyfully. Let us come. Let us shout. It 
is a congregational worship. We come as, yes, individual Christians, 
but we come not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, 
as is the manner of some. But as those bought by the precious 
blood of Jesus, we come in glorious fellowship to sing the praises 
of God together. Worship is joyful. Worship is 
Godward. Worship is congregational. Worship 
is joyful. You see, if we're not marked 
by joy, then... It's obviously something else, 
isn't it? I know that's revelatory, but if we're not marked by joy, 
we're marked by something else. Perhaps it's just liturgical 
comfort. I roll into the doors here and I really like the structure 
of worship. I really like that. You know, 
there's not this, but there is that and there's not that, but 
there is this. And, you know, it's a comfort to me to be locked 
into the scriptures of this liturgical order that we have at Free Grace 
Baptist Church. And then I can go home and have a pastrami sandwich. 
We are to be marked when we come into this church by joy. We'll get to the reason why. 
You probably already know. It's because of Jesus, the precious 
Savior. It is joyful. It is thankful. It is thankful. Worship is thankful. This is against seeking thanks 
and against discontentment. How can we be discontent as Christians? I submit, if we are discontent 
as Christians, it's because we have or we attach a greater value 
to the things of this world and we bring the things of eternity 
down to a place of bad posture where it should not be. We must 
be content and we should be content because of the multitudinous 
reasons that the Bible sets forth to us, all summed up and summarized 
in Jesus Christ, the Blessed Redeemer. We have every reason 
to be thankful because God has pulled us from the darkness and 
the madness of the fictions of our own brain to the religion 
of Jesus Christ and salvation by Him. Worship is Godward, congregational, 
joyful, thankful, and it is retrospective. And this is the reason why it 
is to be joyful, one of the functional reasons why it is to be joyful 
and why it is to be thankful, because Christians are a retrospective 
people. What do I mean by that? I mean 
that we, with recollection, think back to the redeeming activity 
of our Christ. Knowing our former states, knowing 
what we were prior to grace punctuating and coming into our lives, penetrating 
the madness of our sin and the darkness of our activity, God 
in victorious grace comes. He pulls us from out of the mud. 
He takes us from the hole of that pit. And He brings us to 
good standing by Jesus Christ and His perfect Word. Christians 
are to be a retrospective people. The old covenant people were 
supposed to be that way. The psalmists often bring to 
bear the reality of the exodus upon God's covenant people. Remember 
what happened. They're in bondage to Egypt for 
over 400 years and they're redeemed by the Lord God from out of that 
bondage in Egypt and they're brought into their own land. 
Well, the author of the Psalms, the authors of the Psalms often 
point the covenant people back to that and say, sing joyfully 
to the Lord, render thanks unto the covenant Lord for his mercy, 
for his grace and for his kindness. Well, you see, for Christians, 
we have a greater redeeming act, don't we? That physical exodus 
from bondage in Egypt served typologically, that is, it pointed 
forward to that great act of redemption that Christ brought 
out upon Calvary's tree. So if you're not joyful and if 
you're not thankful, if we can't at least figuratively have a 
smile on our face, if we don't have one physically, then there's 
a problem. We're not either we're not saved. 
or were not adequately provoked unto a remembrance of the saving 
activity of Jesus Christ on our behalf. I love Spurgeon's sermon 
on that, Do This in Remembrance of Me, because he calls the reader 
to be reminded of the working of Jesus in this lower world. He starts with the incarnation. 
He says, in a sense, and I'm paraphrasing, Be stirred out 
of your langer and your coldness." Well, think of the incarnation. 
The one who's the praise of angels, the praise of the seraphim and 
the cherubim, departs from heavenly glory to be born in a feed trough. God in a feed trough. Jesus Christ, 
God manifested in the flesh, found in swaddling clothes, wrapped 
in a place where horses would eat hay out of and drink water 
out of. that should, knowing where you 
were, knowing where you are now spiritually, cause your heart 
to dance and sing with joy. That he would leave that glory, 
come into our lower ignominy, and be found in a feed trough 
to go on that march to Calvary and to die for his people and 
rise again. Spurgeon presents the dirty and 
filthy water of the Jordan and indicts the believer who's marked by 
languor and coldness by saying that even the water of the Jordan 
acknowledged Jesus Christ. He says, we have reason to suspect 
that the conscious water trembled knowing that it contained the 
deity. John the Baptist brings Jesus down into the water of 
baptism in the Jordan and brings him out. And Spurgeon says, we 
have reason to suspect that that conscious and filthy water even 
tremble at the knowledge that it contained the deity. How much 
more are we indicted when we can think of everything else 
save for Christ and his redeeming work. When our minds can wander 
upon everything else in our lives and we have to be reminded of 
our Savior. We have to be reminded of his 
glorious redemption. We should have some sort of a 
principle. I don't know what it is, and 
I'm not going to bind your conscience, but perhaps it's reading the 
scriptures daily as often as you can. Whatever it is, ought 
we not daily to raise our heads as retrospective Christians? 
Jesus Christ died for me and rose again the third day and 
ascended in great glory to the right hand of the majesty on 
high. Worship is to be retrospective, 
remembering the perfect redemption brought out by the triune God, 
leading us to joyful praise and to thankful worship. Notice the 
reasons for the call to worship as we find them here in our text. 
The reasons for the call to worship. First off, excuse me. First off, the singular greatness 
and supremacy of God. For the Lord is the great God 
and the great King above all gods. So the provocation or invitation 
to worship is given and the reason for that is clearly given as 
well. For the Lord is the great God 
and the great King above all gods. The singular greatness 
and supremacy of God. He is not a great God. Stay with me, because he is a 
great God. But to clarify and to bring force 
of exclusivity, he is not a great God. He is the great God. You see, we're not pagans who 
have a pantheon of deities for every every subtle thing under 
heaven. We are worshipers of the great 
God, the king of heaven and earth, the high king of heaven, who 
is the only living and true God. We are those who are worshippers 
of the Lord, the great king, the great God. Listen to Calvin 
on this, because it's wonderful. First here, when he writes, for 
the Lord is the great God. First, he extols the greatness 
of God, drawing a tacit contrast between him and such false gods 
as men have invented for themselves. We know that there has always 
been a host of gods in the world. As Paul says, there are many 
on the earth who are called gods. We are to notice the opposition 
stated between the God of Israel and all others, which man has 
formed in the exercise of an unlicensed imagination. Should 
any object that an idol is, excuse me, should any object That an 
idol is nothing in the world. It is enough to reply that the 
psalmist aims at denouncing the vain delusions of men who have 
framed gods after their own foolish device. You see, when we see 
and hopefully you know this, but it's good to rehearse. We 
do have the word gods used in the Psalms and sometimes it appears 
in the text that the psalmist isn't saying that there are no 
small g gods. I mean, here he says, for the 
Lord is the great God and the King above all gods. Well, what 
does that mean? Well, what he is doing is he's 
just marching the gods of the pagan nations before his Old 
Covenant audience, and he's saying, knowing that they already know 
or they should know that these are no gods at all, he says, 
our God, the living and true God, the great God, is the great 
King above all gods. He is high above the imaginations 
of men. Any God that can be manufactured 
in the fictions of our own brains cannot approach the majesty and 
the glory of the thrice holy Yahweh of Israel. Any imagination 
of men, any deity proposed or set forth by men cannot approach 
the majesty of the Lord God. Sometimes in the scriptures, 
though, the word God is applied to judges or rulers in the earth. For example, in Psalm 82, just 
turn there for a moment, just a good theological exercise, 
because believe it or not, you may not have come across them, 
but there are people who reject the inspiration of the scriptures 
because, as they say, at some parts it's monotheistic, but 
at other parts it's polytheistic. That is, it presents many gods. Here in Psalm 82, we have an 
example of the use of God's Psalm 82 at verse one. God stands in 
the congregation of the mighty. He judges among the gods. How long will you judge unjustly 
and show partiality to the wicked, say law, et cetera. But you see, 
the enemies of Christianity and of biblical revelation will say, 
we'll see you there. The Bible is arguing that the 
old covenant people here somehow acknowledge that there were small 
g gods and that Yahweh was the ruler of a pantheon of deities. Well, the text goes on to indict 
these small g gods. for not defending the poor and 
fatherless, for not doing justice as they should, but afflicting 
the needy. And they are to deliver the poor and the needy and free 
them from the hand of the wicked. You see, the Bible uses God there. God by inspiration uses small 
g God in order or to describe the judges of the earth. They 
were gods in the sense that they were ambassadorial people who 
represented Yahweh in the earth to bring his judgments and to 
bring his law to the people and to exercise his wisdom in the 
earth. And as such ambassadors, they 
were ungodly. They were not performing their 
offices lawfully. And so God, by Asaph, indicts 
them. But the point is, is that whether 
it's the fictional gods of the pagan nations, whether it's the 
human ambassadors of God in the lower world, or whether it's 
the majesty of angels in heaven, the great God is alone to be 
praised. The great God of heaven and earth 
is alone to be rendered thanks unto, to be rejoiced in by his 
people. and to be given honor because 
he is the only living and true God, the great God, and he is 
king above all gods. There is no God to be worshipped 
save for the triune God of Holy Scripture. A great passage of 
scripture that speaks to this clearly and brings one of those 
elements of the Psalms before us is Psalm 115. That element 
of mockery of the heathen God. Psalm 115, not unto us, O Lord, 
not unto us, but to your name give glory because of your mercy, 
because of your truth. Why should the Gentiles say, 
so where is their God? Now notice, but our God is in 
heaven. He does whatever he pleases. And this is one of the many multitudinous 
reasons why our God, the only living and true God, is the great 
God and King above all gods, Verse 4, their idols are silver 
and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they do 
not speak. Eyes they have, but they do not see. They have ears, 
but they do not hear. Noses they have, but they do 
not smell. They have hands, but they do 
not handle. Feet they have, but they do not walk. Nor do they 
murmur through their throat. Those who make them are like 
them. So is everyone who trusts in them. But you see, our God 
is in the heavens. He does whatever He pleases. 
The majesty and the glory of God is seen, along with many 
other things, in the folly and the madness and the stupidity 
of pagan deities and human conceptions of God. The God of heaven and 
earth reveals himself in the Bible as the one who is the great 
and only God and king over any conceptions of deity. the singular 
greatness and the supremacy of God, the reasons for the call 
to worship. Secondly, his sovereignty in 
creation and governance. His sovereignty in creation and 
governance. In his hand are the deep places 
of the earth. The heights of the hills are 
his also. The sea is his, for he made it. 
And his hands formed the dry land. You see, contrary to pagan 
conceptions of deity, who are set as one God over the water, 
one God over this element of nature, one God over vegetables, 
one God over whatever. You just have to study the Greco-Roman 
deities of those pagan religions to see the madness and the stupidity 
of human conceptions of God. You have a God, a patron deity, 
if you will, for everything under the sun. God, though, is the 
comprehensive master and owner because he is also the creator 
of all things. His majesty and his rule and 
his ownership extends to the entirety, to the breadth of the 
universe. His sovereignty in creation and 
governance. It's often spoken of, or God's, 
the reality of God and in his sovereignty is spoken of in a 
threefold manner. CPR. Creation, providence and 
redemption. It's a good CPR to remember. Hopefully you can remember the 
other one if anybody's ever choking or needs resuscitation. But a 
more important one is creation, providence and redemption. The 
Lord our God is the master of his creation. He is the glorious 
sovereign over the governance of his creation throughout history, 
which is Christward in its trajectory. And he is the glorious sovereign 
over redemption of his own will. He brought us forth by the word 
of truth, his sovereignty and creation and governance. Thirdly, 
under the reasons for the call to worship, his redeeming love 
and protection. His redeeming love and protection 
as we stand down in the text at verse six. Oh, come, let us 
worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, 
our maker, for he is our God and we are the people of his 
pasture and the sheep of his hand. You see, the the logical 
thrust of the text leads to redemption, which is the crux of the matter. Spurgeon said that the cross 
of our Lord Jesus Christ is the crux of Christianity. It's a 
little bit of a play on words. The cross of Jesus Christ is 
the crux of Christianity. It is the center. That saving 
work upon Calvary's tree, the son of a carpenter ushered to 
a Roman cross, pierced with Roman implements, attached for the 
sacrificial substitutionary redemption of his people. That text, this 
text leads logically creation, providence, redemption. It is 
a theological crescendo to that central work of Christianity, 
which is Christ upon the cross, working out the salvation of 
sinners. The reasons for the call to worship, 
the singular greatness and supremacy of God, his sovereignty and creation 
and governance, his redeeming love and protection toward his 
people. Thirdly, the posture and position 
of those who worship. Notice the text here at verse 
six. Oh, come, let us worship and 
bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, 
our maker. You see, we are to have a posture 
of humility. before our God. We don't march 
into this church like we own the world, sit down in our pew 
and have any sort of posture other than, we don't do that 
first off, but when we enter into the church of the living 
and true God, we are to have a twofold exercise that we do 
in preparation and actually as we engage in worship. A twofold 
exercise of preparation and engagement. That twofold exercise is this. 
First, it is self-acknowledgement. We realize who we are before 
the living and true God. We keep texts before us like 
Daniel 4. Nebuchadnezzar, who's boasting 
in his own prominence, boasting in his own splendor, boasting 
in his own majesty, he's humbled by God, his senses return, and 
he blesses the name of the living and true God, who is sovereign 
over all things in the administration of his deity, in the administration 
of history, in the administration of redemption. We usher texts 
before us, like those biblical texts that speak. to the madness, 
to the depravity, to the wickedness of our own hearts? Who are we 
to come with any measure of pride before the thrice-holy God of 
Holy Scripture without recognizing, without the exercise of examining 
who we were, what we did, and everything that we engaged in 
prior to God punctuating our lives by victorious grace? If 
we don't engage in self-examination and self-acknowledgement, we 
can enter this place not rendering Godward worship, but having a 
self-centered approach to worship and thinking ourselves something 
when it is God who is everything, when it is Christ who has done 
everything, and when we should be having that posture of kneeling 
before the triune God of Holy Scripture in great humility. Spurgeon, or not Spurgeon, Calvin, 
in preaching, in commenting on Philippians 2, 6 to 11, writes 
concerning Jesus Christ coming in the incarnation. He says, 
since then, the Son of Man descended from so great a height, how unreasonable 
that we who are nothing should be lifted up with pride. You 
see, we come into church knowing who we are, and that second part 
of the exercise is the acknowledgment of who God is. Divine recognition. Self-acknowledgement and divine 
recognition. We know who we are. We should. 
And we need to know who God is. He is this one who is the great 
God and the king above all gods, who in his hand holds all of 
the places of the earth, who is the Lord God, our maker, who 
is our God. And we are the people of his 
pasture and the sheep of his hand. We recognize who God is 
in order to prepare for worship and in order to engage in worship. And we recognize who we are before 
his multitudinous perfections and glories, our position, our 
position, our posture is one of humility, our position. It 
is one of being under the caring ownership of God. This language 
ought to light our hearts as we read it. We are the people 
of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Hopefully, Psalm 
23 is close to your hearts. There's a Psalm 22, Psalm 23 
and Psalm 24 go together. Psalm 22, you should know the 
psalm of the cross, right? Psalm 23, the psalm of the crook, 
Psalm 24, the psalm of the crown. We have Jesus going to the cross, 
Psalm 22. We have his resurrected glory 
in his office as shepherd watching over us, his rod and his staff, 
they comfort us. Psalm 24, his glorious majesty 
being given dominion and glory in a kingdom. We have Christ, 
the psalm of the cross, the psalm of the crook and the psalm of 
the crown. In Psalm 23, though, we have 
the stuff of God's great shepherding of his people. Our Great Shepherd, 
the Lord Jesus Christ. What is in the theology of shepherd 
and sheep but a Christ, the Great Shepherd, who gives His life 
for the sheep? John 10. The Great Shepherd gives 
His life for the sheep. Not only does He give His life 
for the sheep, but in one of the most blessed passages of 
Holy Scripture for the heart of the saint, He holds us in 
His inviolable grip until that great day. No one can pluck them 
out of my hand. No one can snatch them out of 
the hand of the great shepherd. We are the people of his pasture, 
the sheep of his hand. Lastly, before we close in prayer, 
the fourth point, the warning to those who do not worship or 
those who assemble in hypocrisy. It's what Spurgeon means here 
when he says, it has about it a ring like that of church bells, 
and like the bells it sounds both merrily and solemnly, at 
first ringing out a lively peal and then dropping into a funeral 
knell as if tolling at the funeral of the generation which perished 
in the wilderness. Notice how it ends. Today, if 
you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the 
rebellion. You see, the message goes out, 
a warning to the people gathered before, assembled before the 
triune majesty of heaven and earth. Listen to him. Don't gather 
together like those of the old covenant who were saved from 
out of bondage in Egypt and 75 days later said, oh, that we 
were back in Egypt or oh, that the Lord would have put us to 
death in Egypt when we had bowls of stew and our bellies were 
full. They had just sung the praises of being redeemed out 
of bondage in Egypt, and then 75 days later, they're saying, 
oh, that God would have killed us in Egypt. What's the point? 
Is that worship your great God and listen to Him. Did He not 
say that He would guide you and protect you from out of bondage 
75 days later, and God's not going to be good on His word? 
God's not going to do what He promised? You see, one of the 
foundational truths that serve our remembrance, that serve our 
joyfulness, that serve our thankfulness is the fact that our covenant 
God is true to his promises. We have Christian hope. You see, 
earthly and worldly hope is that not so abiding hope that the 
Canucks will win the Stanley Cup. I'm convinced it's never going 
to happen, and I kind of really don't care. Because we have, 
there is, true hope, true expectation of the veracity of a promise 
only in Jesus Christ and his perfect work. That's wherein 
we have hope. So why would we harden our hearts? 
Why would we rebel? Why would we sing the praises 
of God and then when hardship and trial comes, say, oh, that 
he would have killed us when we had bellies full of dead animal 
and vegetables? We are to be marked by those 
who either in trial or in affliction or in blessing and great great 
providential smilings. We sing the praises of God and 
we march forward based upon His sure promises. We are to listen 
to the Lord, not only because it is our duty, but because of 
the certainty of His promises. We are not to ignore His mighty 
working. Notice in verse 10, for 40 years 
I was grieved with that generation and said, it is a people who 
go astray in their hearts and they do not know my... Sorry, 
verse 9. When your fathers tested me, 
they tried me though they saw my work. They saw what the mighty 
God had done for them. Nevertheless, they still turned 
away and rebelled from him. They saw what God did in those 
10 plagues visited upon Egypt. If you were a witness to those, 
it's startling how you could say, oh, that we could have been 
back in Egypt with the pagans when you saw God visit with wholesome 
severity those curses upon Egypt. How can you see my ways, God 
says through David, and yet still turn from me? Still test me and 
still try me? How can we do that as Christians? How can we not be manifested 
by joyful and thankful worship? How can we want to get out of 
here when God has done so much for us through Jesus Christ, 
our precious Savior? You see, we gather together for 
an hour and a half I'm going to let you go soon, I promise. 
We gathered together in the morning for an hour and a half. We gathered 
together in the evening for an hour and seven point five minutes, 
give or take. And we have the rest of Sunday 
to do, hopefully, wholesome, lawful activities that God commands 
us and gives us the freedom to do on His Lord's Day. And then 
we have another six days to do, hopefully, whatever God says 
is lawful for us to do. We have a lot of time to do other 
stuff that's lawful. So it should not be a weariness 
and a lamentation and a drag to come into church on Sunday, 
but we should acknowledge the redemption wrought out by Jesus 
Christ, the glorious benefit it is for his people to gather 
together to assemble before the courts of heaven and know that 
God communes with his people, that Jesus walks among his lampstands. We should be marked by those 
who know God's works, who do not reject them and ignore them, 
but acknowledge his mighty workings in glory and therefore gather 
in joyful, humble, and thankful worship. We are lastly two things 
were to acknowledge his wrath and to acknowledge his punishment. 
You see, the fear of the Lord is to stir us unto reverential 
awe and worship. The fear of the Lord. We are 
to come before the Lord acknowledging, or if we are such who are marked 
by hypocrisy, if we come bearing the clothes of whitewashed walls 
and bejeweled sepulchers, We are to know that God is full 
of wrath and He will not allow those who are wicked in unbelief 
to enter His rest. The wholesome severity of God 
visiting upon those who reject Him, His law, and His Son, the 
wholesome severity of God is to drive the unbeliever to faith 
in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to drive the wayward saint 
back to that good way, back to the old path, wherein is blessing, 
and whereupon our walk is guided by our triune God. I swore in 
my wrath, they shall not enter my rest." An interesting way 
to end Psalm 95, which is a provocation to worship, but it is there to 
stir our hearts, which are prone to coldness and languor, to worship 
our glorious God through the Lord Jesus Christ, our precious 
redeeming King. If you know that Jesus this morning, 
I do pray that you can see worship as heaven on earth. I know it's 
hard sometimes when the preacher preaches too long, when it's 
sort of warm outside and when, you know, maybe you have other 
things on your mind. Hopefully you don't. But sometimes 
in our fallibility, in our remaining corruption, in our physical bodies, 
it's difficult to apprehend that the gathered church on the Lord's 
Day is a rehearsal for the bliss of paradise. I pray that you 
would see it as such. We come together, we assemble 
together as Christ's people in the name of our redeeming King 
to gather before the presence of the Lord God, where he has 
promised to bless his people. Let us see worship as we ought. If you don't know Jesus Christ, 
I impress upon you the warnings of Holy Scripture. There is clarity 
to this truth. He who believes the Son has life. He who does not believe the Son 
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Hopefully 
that weighs heavily upon your consciences if you do not believe 
in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is one way of salvation. 
See, all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of 
God. There is no wiggle room. God sees everything. You can 
hide from your parents. You can hide from your teacher. 
You can hide from family members. You can do sin in the privacy 
of your closet. But the flaming, fiery eyes of 
the triune Jehovah punctures through and sees all. But you 
see, that wrath isn't rendered. without the means of escape, 
if I can use that language. God is holy and will righteously 
judge in His wholesome severity all those who are disobedient, 
wicked, and who do not believe His Son, but those who do believe 
the Son. Glorious promise of salvation 
by Jesus Christ. He came into this world to perfectly 
secure the salvation of all those who believe in Him. Believe on 
the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved and hopefully 
with all of us who fallibly worship, you will be marked by joyful, 
thankful worship, being those retrospective Christians who 
dwell upon the majesty and the richness of Christ's saving work, 
and therein find safety and joy. Well, let us pray. Heavenly Father, 
we thank you for the Bible. We thank you, Lord God, that 
page after page, chapter after chapter, it points us to Christ 
upon the cross, working out the salvation of men. We thank you, 
Lord God, for All that it discloses, and we thank you that it discloses 
in certain truth, redemption by Jesus Christ, salvation by 
Him. We pray, Lord God, for those 
of us here who are your saints, that you would help us not to 
be cold, not to be indifferent, but to be marked by joyful worship, 
to have thankful hearts, to know that we come before your presence 
and that we ought to do it with great joy and with great thanksgiving. 
Do help us in this, Lord God. Forgive us our sins. We know 
we have forgiveness, most certainly by Jesus Christ and his precious 
blood. So stir us up to proper worship 
and joyful worship as we come together as a church. We ask, 
Lord God, for those who are outside of Jesus this morning that they 
would have heard something of the gospel, something of your 
holiness and your wrath and your righteousness, and something 
certainly of your mercy and your kindness by Jesus Christ and 
salvation through him. We pray that they would acknowledge 
their sin, that by grace you would impress upon them the weight 
and the gravity of their own transgressions against you, and 
that they would flee to the Savior and in Him find all those spiritual 
blessings in the heavenly places. Just go with us now. Help us 
to worship you. Help us to rightly give you praise. 
Help us to enlighten all of your salvific blessings disposed upon 
us. We pray that we would walk in 
a manner worthy of our calling by grace. We pray in Christ's 
precious name.