[0:00] Let us turn again for a little to the chapter we read in the book of psalm psalm 65 psalm 65 and we'll read from the beginning praise is due to you o god and zion and to you shall vows be performed oh you who hears prayer to you shall all flesh come when iniquities prevail against me you atone for our transgressions blessed is the one you choose and bring near to dwell in your courts we shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house the holiness of your temple now a few years ago we looked at this psalm in its entirety but i want us just to home in on this little part at the beginning of of the psalm and this psalm highlights wonderfully different aspects of god's being it shows us god as the the great redeemer it shows us god as the great provider and also the great creator now the psalm opens here and it says praise is due to you or praise waits for you as you have in a in in the other translation praise waits for you or praise is due to you now of course we know that that's an absolute fact it's one of the things that we are commanded to do it's one of the things that we ought to do it should be the response from every heart is to praise god i remember seeing a little i think it was derrick prime i'm not sure who it's a little book and it's called created to praise it's years since i read it's a great wee book but i think that that the heading of that book sums it up we were created to praise you go through the bible and you will find that it's something that god is looking for from us all the time is praising him and i would suggest that it's actually one of the things we find increasingly difficult to do you may say to yourself oh i praise the lord a lot i'm sure that we complain before god far more than we praise him i'm sure that we complain before the lord far more than we give him thanks and it's i think it's something to do with sin something to do with the nature of who we are that so often we we fail to grasp all the good things that god brings into our life and it's often often i have noticed that it's people who have the least reason to thank god and praise god who you often find praising and thanking him because it's often in adversity that we come to discover something of really who god is and when these things happen somehow there's a heart is opened up to praise i've often seen it but praise is due to god and one of the things that we should seek to do is to make sure that we are people who are constantly praising god now again i think this has been i mentioned this before when we looked at this psalm there's another translation which gives silence is praise and that's quite a strange thing in a sense because it shows us that not all praise is loud we tend to think we often tend to think that when you praise somebody or when we we talk about when we begin our worship we we praise god and we praise god as we sing his word and we tend to think that the louder we sing the better the praise now obviously i would want you know i would love and i think we i think we all would we would love don't mean literally to take the roof off but we would love we you know that expression and there's
[4:00] something incredibly uh powerful when you're in a congregation and the singing just this volume that lifts up i often wonder why our singing can can be so sometimes so lacking in the passion and and the inspiration but i think probably it is just often we're i suppose we're shy of one another of singing of letting letting letting rip us it where in song and we tend to sort of maybe hold back a wee bit but i would love that we could get over that but the point is that we're making which is actually the reverse of that yes let us sing with all our heart and we should it's a wonderful thing wonderful thing to hear people singing just really as it were spontaneous powerful singing but this verse shows us actually that not all praise is volume we tend to equate praise with volume that the louder we praise that the more praise we give that the actual there is this hint in the language that it can be silence as well and that shows us that there are times when a person can be so overcome as it were with the awe of god so made aware of the majesty and the glory of god that words are impossible that there is this sense of just a sense of awe in the presence of god where you can't say anything and that's praise as well because god god sees and understands our heart he's able to understand even when we don't put words or any volume or noise he's able to see and he's able to appreciate and understand what it is that's there within us and so we've got to remember that sometimes our praise can be this silent adoration now the the psalm goes on to mention here the the performing of the vow praise to you oh god in sion and to you shall vows be performed now some people think that this psalm was written i don't know but some think that this psalm could have been or at least this the ideas within it could have been when there's the the mention of the vow and all these things is that there's a celebration of renewal of god's favor it's as if god was because it goes on to show of how the lord is watering the earth and of how god is giving in abundance and some people have suggested that this the psalm is the idea where god has as he does at times god withholds things in order that people will cry to him and i i worry about our land because when you read the bible and you see where gospel blessing and gospel favor has been and where god has been worshipped by and large in a nation where there's been a god consciousness in a nation and then the nation turns its back upon god and tries to eradicate god out of the equation you find that god doesn't take that lightly and you look at the history of israel and you will find that happening over and over again that god withdrew as it were god withdrew from a people who don't want him and he says right you don't want me i'm leaving you to your shelves see how you get on and it's there so often we we find that just all kinds of economic catastrophe comes in where there are all kinds of difficulties where there's all kinds of disease where there's all kinds of troubles come and the whole land turns into a mess and god permits us and allows us to the point where the people in desperation where they've tried and gone down every road and tried all the different resources
[8:01] at the end they turn and they start crying to god and god is always faithful because god hears the genuine cry and he responds and you go through the book of judges for instance and you find that happening over and over again and god sent a deliverer god delivered and once again there was a god consciousness and a god awareness within the land and i often worry about our own land a land which was so blessed and a land which had a great god consciousness in it and it's now a land that by and large has pushed god away many of our leaders don't want god in in any shape or form they don't want the idea of god there are many within the land there are many in the land who don't think like that but there are many who do and you know when we the way we're looking at things going just now you wonder and you say to yourself well is god speaking to us i believe he is and it wouldn't take much to bring us to our knees and maybe that's what the lord is doing i don't know where we're going to have to call upon him again and cry to him but some people suggest that this psalm has got something of that idea in it where the the lord has heard the vow now it talks about the vow performed now a vow is a solemn promise to do something or a solemn promise to not do something and these promises to do something or not to do something are promises which they're not things which are bound upon us by life until we make that particular promise in other words we promise absolutely promise to do something it's not something that we have to do but it's something we choose to do and we choose to do it by way of a vow or else we choose not to do something and we make a promise by it now the person making the vow and these of course are vows before god the person making the vow is a person who has a real sense of need many people have made vows in a time of extremity a time of anxiety a time of great pressure a time of great distress some people have made vows when they've been given really bad news maybe about their health and they're saying right if god takes me through this then i promise i will or if somebody sees all of a sudden that their world is just going to be thrown upside down and everything that they were used to in life that it's going to be as it were thrown or broken away people make a promise and they say i promise that whatever and when a person is making this kind of promise or this vow there is a great sense of that they have an awareness of god an awareness that god is the only one who can really help them in this situation there's this dependence upon god now the thing about the vow if you go back to say for instance the mosaic law that the law didn't require a person to make a vow but it also regulated the vow and there were three types of vows there was the vow of devotion where a person promised to give something or to give someone to the lord for instance hannah made a vow remember when hannah was praying for a child she had no child she was praying and praying and she said to the lord lord if you give me a child i will give this child back to you to serve you all the days of his life and of course the lord gave and that was samuel and you remember how hannah brought samuel to the temple and she was saying to to eli for this child i prayed but when she prayed she made a vow now of course she
[12:02] didn't need to the prayer was was the pouring out of the heart but she made that particular vow and then there was a vow of abstinence where a person made a promise that they would in order to devote themselves more to god or or whatever they would promise never again to to do something or that they would stop maybe drinking something or eating something or denying themselves something there was a promise in in in some way that they would do that to to to abstain from there were those like for instance in nazirite john the baptist was a nazirite samson where it was required though i i don't believe that he that he held to that where they weren't allowed to touch wine or strong drink and there were many people made this a a a declaration or a vow of abstinence and it need not be on that it might be of particular food or it might be withholding from from various things where people have made a vow before god that they wouldn't do a certain thing and often you find these things within the bible and there was also a vow of destruction something that was set apart for judgment now let us remember that while vows are not required we've got to be careful when we enter into a vow because we're making a solemn promise before god it's like when i when i last a couple two or three weeks ago we had a bapt we had a baptismal service those taking or receiving baptism for their children they were making vows before god incredibly solemn thing they were promising to bring up and all who have done that have said the same thing they promised that they will bring up their children in the way of the lord when a person gets married that's what we do we are making vows before god and similarly uh often people make vows for different things we've got to be careful when we enter into the vow because you know what the bible says it's better not to vow at all than to vow and not fulfill what you have vowed because i think often people will find after they've made a vow that what they vowed they weren't able to perform it was too difficult for them but in that time of extremity it it made sense to them so that's what we read here praise is due due to you oh god in sion and to you shall vows be performed and then following on from that it says oh you who hears prayer to you shall all flesh come and so it just carries on the theme of the vow being made before god and then this great this great awareness that god is the one who hears all prayer now when it says here i believe it means here in such a way that god will answer that god is going to hear your prayer that when he hears you know sometimes you can speak to people and they're not listening to you you know they're not listening you're talking and you know by their eyes that they're not listening well that's not what has been spoken about here it is a prayer and that god is hearing this in order that he will respond to what you have brought before him now the lord loves people to come to him in prayer and in order for a patient to come to the lord in prayer there has to be faith there has to be faith in order for a patient to come to the lord in prayer that patient has to believe that god is that's what the bible tells us that is the bottom line when a person comes in prayer to god that
[16:09] person who comes to god in prayer believes that god is and that god is the hearer of prayer now there might be people in here today who do not have what we would term saving faith that is that they've never come to trust their lives entirely to the lord jesus christ that they have never accepted christ as their lord and savior but they still have faith in god they still have a faith that believes that god is and a faith that brings them to pray to god brings them to the to places where they they go to god and they ask god and that's a great thing and that is something we've got to encourage and god encourages us but we've got to keep praying until we come to that place and point where we are really seeking him as our lord and as our god so when a person comes to god he believes or she believes that god is and that god is the one who is going to be able to do for them what they are coming to him about and so it says say that all flesh and i believe that simply means that all the ends of the earth it means that people from all the different areas the different nations the different cultures different backgrounds that all will come to the lord and you know it's a wonderful privilege that we have where we're able to come to the lord in prayer and it's one of the things that the bible is always asking us to do to call call upon me in the day day of trouble the lord says and i will deliver you ask and you shall see ask and you shall seek and you shall find knock and the door shall be opened unto you ask and it shall be given to you men should always pray and not faint as a as the lord says and the bible is full of examples of people in prayer we mentioned hannah remember hannah she brought the child you know it was a very very vivid and powerful moment for old eli remember how eli thought hannah was drunk in the temple because he could just see her mouth moving wasn't hearing anything she was saying and she was telling oh she said i've got a broken heart here and she said you know she told him what she was praying that she was busy praying and there she brought that little child when samuel and was bringing him to eli to be brought up in god's house and she said for this child i prayed here is the answer to the prayer that i prayed and it's through right throughout we find for instance jacob wrestling with god we find moses interceding we find elijah praying for rain praying for fire we find the church praying for peter's release we find the battles full of people praying and god answering let's remember that god doesn't always answer the way that we ask or the way that we expect i should say and i believe that if we were to go around here today and spend a couple of hours and everybody was going to stand up and speak for two or three minutes about their god answering their prayer you would be able to speak about it in two different ways first of all you'd be able to say of you'd be able to give an example of where you came to the lord and prayed about something and he answered you far and beyond even what you asked for or answered you exactly as you asked but i also believe that you would be able to talk and tell about times when you prayed to the lord and he answered it took you a while to understand but he answered you in a way completely differently to anything that you thought about in fact sometimes god answers by fearful works in this particular psalm it tells us goes on to
[20:18] tell us by awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness translated in in in in the in the traditional psalms it says by fearful works unto our prayers an answer doth express sometimes that's the way god answers by fearful works but anyway here's this this wonderful privilege you know if you and i were given the opportunity to go and to meet with the queen and the queen said you know i'd like to meet with you for half an hour you'd be saying to people you know this i'm a i'm a way i'm a way to meet with the queen and the queen when you went in to see her she said all right sit down right she said tell me tell me what's what's bothering you what sort of issues have you got in life what are your problems what burdens what you'd be saying to yourself wow this is this is wonderful the queen say to me tell me how it is and you'd go away saying man that that was amazing she was interested in what i had to say and she actually it looked like she's going to try and help me but here's somebody far greater than any earthly monarch this is the king of glory and he doesn't just give us a half hour audience he set before us an open door and he's saying look all flesh come all of you come pour out your hearts pour out your troubles your anxieties your problems tell him tell him how it is with you do you know the lord loves to hear us come and you know how it says it's good to speak well i'm telling you it's good to speak to the lord it's good to speak to the lord just tell him how things are how it is with you and so that's what this is focusing upon the oh you who hear prayer all flesh shall come to you i'll just have to move the time to move on very briefly but we see that there's a problem when iniquities prevail against me you atone for our transgressions here is a great hindrance to prayer our iniquities and this word prevail that we have here the idea there these the of prevail is that they're rising up and they're too strong for us here are iniquities and they're too strong for us have you come to that discovery that your iniquities that your sin is too strong for you you might be saying what do you mean by that well it means kind of that it's you can't deal with it yourself you've often tried to sort things out in your life you can't and nobody can because our iniquities are too strong we cannot deal with it they overwhelm us they overcome us and here we find that the lord has dealt with that when iniquities prevail against me you atone for our transgressions the lord purges the lord pardons the lord forgives and he's only able to do that because of what jesus did let's remember that when you know we come to god in prayer and we come in and through jesus christ we say for jesus sake we come through what christ who christ is and what christ has done and it's what christ did on the cross jesus on the cross is all caught up in our prayer life every time we come to god in prayer we come because of what jesus did jesus made this door open for us jesus provided the way because the great hindrance and barrier between ourselves and god is our sin it's like a great wall and you come up and there's no way over it no way under it no way through
[24:19] it it's there between heaven and earth it's our sin and that wall has to be smashed and got rid of and the only person who was able to do that was jesus and is jesus and jesus did it in psalm in not psalm in isaiah 59 it says is the lord's hand shortened that he cannot save is his ear heavy that he can't hear no the prophet says but your iniquities have separated between you and your god so that he will not hear see our sin and our iniquity is this great barrier between heaven and earth but god says the psalm says here i have dealt with it i am the one who has come to deal with what you cannot deal with yourself and you know when we come in prayer there are two just looking at this psalm there are two things in prayer that we should always have in our prayer one is confession of sin we always ought to confess our sin and the other is that we should always have a spirit of praise and thanksgiving remember sure you all remember when it's one of the things when i was young remembering about a prayer to always use the word acts a cts there should be adoration confession thanksgiving supplication all part of prayer then very briefly verse four it tells us blessed is the one you choose and bring near to dwell in your courts you see not only has sin been a barrier and keeping us away from god but the wonderful thing as we said is god is atoned for it in christ jesus the way is now open and now this is a wonderful thing where we are brought close to god where we're brought close to god blessed is the one you choose and bring near to dwell in your courts it's not just a sort of a fleeting in and out it's living this is talking simply about living in the presence of god and that's what a believer does you live in the presence of god because god is with you everywhere god is with you everywhere and it uses this lovely word we shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house my dear friends there's a satisfaction in god that far too often we do not understand or appreciate when a person becomes a christian a person is brought this is really just what blessed is the one you choose and bring near to dwell in your courts this is what happens when a person becomes a christian they're brought near through the atoning work of christ they are brought near to dwell to live and there's a satisfaction you know when a person becomes a christian things change you even look out in the world in a different way you see things in a different way and i'm sure we can all look back and think of the sort of the newness that conversion brought into our way of thinking sadly we sometimes get used to it sometimes we can lose the thrill lose the anticipation lose the excitement you lose that sense of awe and wonder that we had when we first came to to understand and to realize that the lord was our god it was a great time wasn't it and sometimes you know i often think that's one of the reasons why people who haven't come into the kingdom people who are still outside the kingdom they cannot understand how what is it that people get
[28:21] all sort of how come that people give so much of their life to the things of god to them it's absurd to them they think that's that's so boring but the thing is that once god takes you near things change you change because god has changed you you are seeing things differently and god is with you and there's a satisfaction now you might be here today as a christian and if you're being brutally honest maybe today you are not being satisfied with god in the way that you once were or the way that you want to be well god hasn't changed he is still able to bring a satisfaction into your life that this world can never ever give you but it might require a bit of work a bit of effort from you from me because it doesn't come cheaply god brings us into his courts but you know if we are not in the word if we are not committed to it if we are not seeking him then we're not going to know this satisfaction now there are times that the lord in his mercy and this is one of the wonderful things for his people in his mercy even those who may have drifted every so often he will remind you of the satisfaction it's like he gives you it's like all of a sudden he'll flood your soul again and you'll say ah this is this is where my delight really is this is this is what it's about and you say to yourself right i i've really got i've got my priorities a bit wrong the lord is reminding you of what is there and of how it should be and so we need we need to seek him we need to seek to draw near to the lord that we may come to understand and appreciate more and more and more the satisfaction that is found in him and my friend if you haven't yet ever found the satisfaction in the lord then i would urge you to go to him and find it and say to say to him as we said let's be honest that's what the lord wants not to come in and out of church and sort of say well it's like you come in and mark the card and say well i was there today it's good that you were there but let's i i would hope and pray that your being here today has in some way done you good done your soul good in that god will speak to you in some way that god will touch your heart in some way that there might be a realizing this is real stuff this is not just something that you go through but that this is an opportunity of being being where god is so that god will refocus and re-challenge us and bring us to see the main things the priorities in life let us pray lord our god we we ask thee to help us to appreciate more and more the wonder of what thou has done we thank thee oh lord for thy patience with us and grace towards us we thank thee oh lord for the door that thou has set for us an open door where we're brought in and able to sample from the king's table some of what he has prepared for us where we are to taste and see that the lord is good bless us we pray and have mercy on us guide us in everything we do take away from us our sin in jesus name we ask all amen thank you
[32:38] thou