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[0:00] Let us turn for a little again to the chapter, or the psalm that we read in the book of Psalms, Psalm 145.

[0:15] And we read from the beginning. I want us just to look at a little of this psalm. I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever.

[0:30] Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts.

[0:41] On the glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wondrous works I will meditate. They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds, and I will declare your greatness.

[0:52] And so on. Now, you'll notice that this psalm at the top, it says, a psalm of praise, and it's a psalm we see of David. And of course, this, as we know, is the last of David's psalms in the Psalter.

[1:08] And I think it's very fitting that this particular psalm, it's a psalm that is, you could almost say it's pulsating. It's vibrant. It's a psalm that is just full of praise.

[1:22] It says, that's what it says, a song of praise. And I cannot think of anything more fitting to find David closing or bringing the last of his psalms than this one, because this is a reflection of David's life.

[1:41] There were many things about David's life, but one of the great features of David's life was not only his ability to praise, but his desire to praise.

[1:52] A patient can have an ability to praise whose heart might not be in it. But David had the desire to praise. It was part and partial of his life.

[2:04] And it's such an integral and moving and vibrant part of his life. And it's wonderful as we are here moving towards the end of David's life, that this is how we find David.

[2:18] And indeed, when you look at the life of David and when David is making preparation, if you were to go back into the records that we have in Samuel and in Kings and Chronicles, and these wonderful stories that we have of the lives of these great men of God, you will find that as David is nearing the end of his life, he's making preparation for God's work to continue.

[2:45] He's busy making preparation for the building of the temple. Remember how he himself had wanted to build the temple. It was his desire. And it was initially, it was thought to be a good desire, but God, remember how God spoke to the prophet and said to tell David that while the desire was a good desire, his hands, David's hands were red with blood.

[3:09] But he said, your son, he will be a man of peace and he will build the temple. And David was thrilled with this, that God was going to honor him by continuing the line and that his son would build the temple.

[3:24] And David puts all his heart into the preparation for the building of the temple. And he's not only amassing money from away, but his own personal fortune, he's pouring it in.

[3:41] And it was wonderful to see an old person acting like that. Because that's not always how older people do act. But here is a man who was so full of the Lord, so full of his praises, so persuaded of where he was going, so persuaded of the enduring kingdom that was God's kingdom.

[4:03] And here he is, he's so full of the Lord, and he cannot but praise the Lord. It was this, as we see this wonderful feature of David's life. And so as he moves into old age, we don't find somebody who is morbid and somebody who is filled with nothing but depressing thoughts.

[4:24] Now, don't get me wrong for one moment. We know how there are some people who are prone to that and given to that, and it might be medically so. But the wonderful thing in David's life was David was so consumed with the Lord, and praise had been such an integral part of his life, that as he moves on and he gets closer to the borders of eternity, that the song of praise is vibrant in his life all the way through.

[4:55] And that's how it's wonderful to see, because David had his troubles and traumas in life. There were times David was brokenhearted. Surely his crying, his weeping, his almost uncontrollable sobbing as his son Absalom, the news of his son Absalom's death comes, must be one of the most moving passages in Scripture.

[5:18] And David experienced many harrowing and painful things in his life. But you know, when you go to the Psalms, and it's one of the features, even when David is right in the very depth, so often you will find that the Psalms give way from there, and they end up in praise.

[5:40] This is one of the great features of David's life. And as I say, one of the great things about David's life is that as he moves on and on towards glory, where we could say the environment of perpetual praise.

[5:58] And I would say that for the believer, praise should be an integral part of our life. And I believe that Satan does not want us to praise God.

[6:10] And I will always find, and I'm sure others would agree with this, that so often if you are going to preach on praise, if you are going to preach or focus upon this area, that Satan will try and interrupt.

[6:27] He will try and derail what you're doing. Because you see, the praise of God is glorifying. Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me.

[6:40] And that is one thing Satan does not want God's people to do, is to glorify God. So specifically when we gather together, as we do tonight, a night of thanksgiving to God, where our focus is on praising and thanking God, we can be persuaded that it is something that Satan does not want because we are gathered here with our focus upon God to glorify God.

[7:10] And sometimes, maybe we are, and I don't know, it's probably culture and more than anything else, but sometimes I feel that we might be almost hesitant in sort of being open regarding our praise.

[7:27] in sort of being, I don't mean flamboyant in a bad way, but where we are, as it were, able to throw ourselves into praising the Lord.

[7:42] Because maybe we're too self-conscious. That was one of the wonderful things about David. Self-consciousness, when he was praising the Lord, didn't even enter into his thinking.

[7:52] And there were instances, remember, when the ark was being brought back, that David was dancing before the ark. He was making merry before the Lord. It was a heart of joy and praise to God.

[8:07] And his wife despised him. His wife was looking at him. And she despised him. And she rebuked him. And David told her most clearly that he was honoring and worshiping the Lord.

[8:24] And David, in fact, says that he is prepared to be even more of a fool, as it were, if we were to look at these words in a right way, for the Lord.

[8:34] So that David wasn't concerned about what people would think, as long as he was ready to praise the Lord. Because he did so with all his heart.

[8:45] It was a wholehearted commitment to the Lord as he praised. Now, I suppose we would ask ourselves, what was at the, at the, I suppose, the, the, when we look at David's ability to praise and his, his heart for praise, you say to yourself, well, what was the secret of David being a man of praise?

[9:13] Well, I think very simply, it was at his heart, that his focus in life was upon God. His focus in life was upon God. That he saw God in everything.

[9:28] And, I think that is, really, I suppose, one of the, the integral parts of his life. Because, you see, if our focus is upon the Lord, then, even our problems, our problems, they won't disappear.

[9:47] But our problems will take on a proper proportion. Far too often, our problems can take on a proportion far greater than they should. We can be consumed by our problems.

[10:01] I think we're, we're not talking about that to the young people one day, or we mentioned it at some stage. If a great, big, jumbo jet was flying over, and you went out to look at it, and you say to yourself, wow, that's a monster in the sky.

[10:17] And yet, somebody came behind you and just put their hand, say, a foot from your face. All of a sudden, you couldn't see this huge monster that was passing over in the sky.

[10:31] Now, a person's hand is, it's like a, a tiny flag beside a giant. It's, it's nothing. And yet, it's able to block out this huge monstrosity that's up in the sky.

[10:46] And there are times that our problems are just like that, where we allow them to become so big so that we can no longer see God, and we're focused so entirely upon our issues and our problems, and they take on wings, and they grow, and they grow, and they grow.

[11:05] But this was part of the secret of David's praise. Yes, there were times of problems, and don't let us not minimize the problems David faced, but this was part of what made David the man that he was, is that even with the problems, he would turn and he would, he would look to the Lord.

[11:22] All the time, you're finding him throughout the Psalms, saying, I will look to the Lord. Yes, there were times his heart was breaking. There were times he was barely escaping with his life.

[11:33] There were times he was being slandered and pursued. But all the time, he would then turn and look to the Lord. And when we look to the Lord, we're looking to the one.

[11:44] who is over all things, who is in all things, who is above all things, and who is able to do in us and for us far and beyond anything that we could even ask or think.

[11:57] And so, as we come tonight in this spirit of thanksgiving, we come to this psalm that is surely an inspiration to us towards thanksgiving.

[12:10] And so, David here, we find that he focuses upon the kingly majesty of God and that he tells us that he will perpetually praise his name forever.

[12:23] And then he says in verse 2, every day I will bless you. Now, again, we find in the psalm, if we had sung this psalm in the second version in the Scottish psalter, it says, each day I arise, I will you bless.

[12:38] That's what David says. Now, wonderful way to get up in the morning. I don't know that David is saying literally the moment I rise out of bed, but he's saying every day it's going to be the pattern of my life as when I get up, I will make sure that I begin my day.

[12:55] I will begin each day I rise. And I would suggest that that might be a wonderful way for us to begin the day.

[13:07] Because so often when we get up, particularly in the winter times and the dark mornings, we're maybe more likely to groan and to grunt rather than to praise the Lord.

[13:21] But that's how David began his day. Each day I rise, I will thee bless. And you know, when we begin our day with the Lord, we're able to see, because this is what will happen.

[13:32] When the Lord becomes our focus, we'll say, this is a day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in him. Yes, the Lord's day, we have the specific Lord's day, but in another sense, every day is the Lord's day.

[13:46] And here he has given us whatever abilities and whatever capacities in life. And there is so much in life that we do. And whatever we do, let us remember, the bottom line is, if we are believers, we are serving the Lord.

[14:02] So there ought to be this focus as we go through life, whether you are a mother at the kitchen sink, whether you are a joiner in a building site, whether you are somebody working with facts and figures or teacher, wherever you are.

[14:15] Now I know sometimes life can be mundane, it can be trying, and there are times we can lose our focus and feel bogged down in lots of different ways. things. But all the time we need to get back and say, Lord, give me the focus.

[14:31] Give me the focus to see yourself so that I might be focused and remember that my ultimate aim in this life is to glorify God.

[14:43] The bottom line is not about me, it's about you, oh Lord. and that we may be seeking this heart within us. And you know, if we live like that, we will be living to the praise and glory of his name.

[14:59] We will be living like David lived. And David, remember, was a man after God's own heart. That was the description that scripture gives of him.

[15:11] And so that's what we need. We need to be asking the Lord every day we rise, Lord, please help me. And we need grace. Don't think automatically it's going to happen. And I'm sure as you look back over your Christian life, you will remember mornings when you got up like that.

[15:27] You will remember days when you were focused. And maybe periods in your Christian life when you were focused upon the Lord and his glory and your desire to live in him and for him.

[15:39] But you may also remember periods when that was not your focus. And when it's not our focus, we have to go back to the Lord and confess because actually it's sin. If it's not a faith, it's sin, the Bible is saying.

[15:53] And so we need to get this focus right all the time. And then David goes on and he says, great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable.

[16:09] So David is here talking about the greatness of God. The great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable. And in verse 6 he says, and I will declare your greatness.

[16:23] Tonight, my friends, as we come to thank the Lord, let us think upon God's greatness. He is great. Now, we use that word often in our everyday language about one another, about people, about things.

[16:42] It's a great project. What a great building. We talk about people and it says, boy, he's a great worker. We say, she's a great musician, she's a great singer, he's a great player.

[16:54] We use that expression in everyday language and so we should. And it's quite right to say that. Great. But then, we find, when we come here and look at what we find here, that great is the Lord, we realize that this is a new dimension.

[17:13] This is a different dimension. Because you see, the problem is that our greatness, man's greatness, human greatness, is always flawed. There's always sin marring it, spoiling it.

[17:28] And we often talk about, in our everyday life, about a genius, but a flawed genius. And so many of the great people, the geniuses in life, whether in the world of sport, or the world of music, in the world of art, in the world of architecture, in the world of science, so often, many of the real geniuses, there's a flaw that is quite obvious in our lives.

[17:56] It's very interesting. Not always the case, but often. It's like Naaman. Remember Naaman the leper, the Syrian man. And it tells us, oh, he was a great man.

[18:07] He was a mighty man. And that word great is used in the Bible. Naaman, oh, man, Naaman, he was, what a hero he was. He was a great man, but, he was a leper.

[18:21] He was flawed because of sin. But the Lord is great. And as David reflects upon the Lord's greatness, he realizes it's beyond him.

[18:32] It's unsearchable. It's unsearchable. Because, you see, David, David has a, has a knowledge of God. David will admit it's limited, but he has a knowledge of who God is.

[18:48] You know, there's a lot of people who say they believe in God. But the God they believe in is a figment of their own imagination. There's an awful lot of people bringing God down to their own level.

[18:59] Is it in, is it in Psalm 50, one of the things that God was finding fault with, with his people, was that, that they had brought God down. you thought, these things you have done and I have been silent, you thought that I was one like yourself.

[19:19] You see, they had brought God down to their own way. And they were excusing all the things that they were doing. Because they were saying, oh, well, God, God's just like us.

[19:30] We know who God is. And he'll understand exactly. And he'll overlook. And in fact, it's all right. And that's what they were doing. They were excusing themselves because they had brought God down in their own minds and their own imagination and made him just like themselves.

[19:48] But God is unsearchable. And were it not for the fact that God has revealed to us in his word who he is, we could never truly come to know.

[20:02] Yes, we can see him. The Bible makes that also very clear. God is to be seen in the natural world. It tells us that this very creation reveals to us the glory of God.

[20:15] The heavens declare the glory of God. We read in Romans 1 here of how the world talks to us about his eternal power and Godhead.

[20:28] So there are aspects to the being of God that the very natural world speak to us about so that we are actually without excuse. That's why nobody can turn around and say there is no God.

[20:42] Because the whole creation is as it were screaming out there is a God and he's eternal and he is powerful. nobody can say there is no God.

[20:56] Nobody can say I'm not sure if there is a God. Man is inexcusable because the heavens declare it the natural world declares that God is.

[21:08] But we have this special revelation given to us revealing to us something of who God is. and yet you know the more that we come to see God in the truth the more awesome he becomes and the less in a sense we feel that we know.

[21:30] In Psalm 139 David is dealing with this concept of God and he's looking at his omnipresence and he's looking at his omniscience and he's looking at his omnipotence and David has to say you know when I'm beginning to think down these roads and when I look at God and I see the fact that God is everywhere and that God knows everything and that God is all powerful I have to say such knowledge is too strange for me.

[22:04] It's too high to understand. It's beyond me. I can't I can only go so far I can't go any further. And that's how it always is.

[22:17] The Apostle Paul was saying the very same thing as he looked into the majesty and the glory of God all the depth he says of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out.

[22:37] And then David goes on to say one generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts. Now the thing here when David is talking about the works it is specifically here we believe the redemptive works of God.

[22:55] And it's quite interesting when David says one generation shall commend your works to another. David might have been looking at his own generation as he penned this and he was thinking about how God's word and God's way and God's will had been passed to him in his generation and he would be passing it on to his own family.

[23:20] But I'm sure that David is aware that it's much even bigger than that. David's time yes it was an integral part of God's redemptive history but it was only a part.

[23:36] But I'm sure that great and all who David was and as he was being inspired little did he understand just how huge these words were.

[23:47] And I'm sure David would never have understood even as he penned that that thousands of years later we would be preaching about his life about David's words which of course are the words of God given to us here.

[24:09] But you see David's life and David's generation are as alive and real and relevant to us today because it is all part of God's ongoing redemptive work.

[24:22] It's all part and partial of it. And so generation after generation are caught up and embracing what we have here. and it really goes to show that God's kingdom as it says later on is an everlasting kingdom that it has none end at all.

[24:42] Isn't it wonderful where you are my friend tonight? The generation that you're in and the place that you're in. We're here tonight and we're to thank God and I hope that as even we reflect just in a little upon what the word is saying that it should cause us to thank the Lord because it's him we are to thank.

[25:05] It is him we are to praise. And that is what the word of God does. That is why we should pray with the word because the word helps us to pray, shows us what we ought to pray for and what we ought to pray about.

[25:25] And here we are as we even if we can become personal for a moment and think of where we are. Do we not have reason to thank the Lord? Maybe you're in here tonight, I don't know, there might be somebody in here tonight who does not have Jesus Christ yet as their own personal saviour.

[25:46] You still have reason to thank God. You have reason to thank God that you are here. If you're a young person who hasn't yet come to faith in Christ, maybe you have, but maybe you haven't.

[26:02] Thank the Lord that you are, if you're that, maybe if you're too small to have brought yourself here, that you've been taken here, that you have a family that have such an interest in your soul, that they want you to come to know Jesus Christ as saviour.

[26:19] Thank the Lord for that. thank the Lord that you are hearing about Jesus, and that you are in the place where people hear about Jesus.

[26:38] You might go home tonight and forget all about tonight what you have heard, but you know the wonderful thing is that the seed that is sown, I believe that seed lingers, and one day we pray that it will bear fruit.

[26:56] But thank the Lord, let us thank the Lord for where we have been placed, for being put under the gospel, for every person that takes an interest in your soul.

[27:08] You, my dear friend, if you're tonight converted, or wherever you are, thank the Lord for those who took an interest in your soul, when maybe you didn't have an interest in it yourself.

[27:21] You look back, and you remember these people, some of them you don't know, you knew, but you didn't know they were praying for you, they didn't know their concern for you.

[27:35] But you know, the Lord has his people praying, praying, praying, praying, and it's a wonderful thing, this ongoing work. What a reason we have to thank the Lord, for all his goodness, for all that he has done for us.

[27:54] And he says, on the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate. Just really what we've been saying, the importance of meditating upon God's word.

[28:08] Stop. I've often said this before, but I think it's so important to take even a little bit of God's word, and to stop, and to reflect. Prayerfully ask the Lord, Lord, open my mind to understand what this is saying, so that we chew over that word, that we reflect upon it, that we think upon it in such a way that it will affect our mind.

[28:36] Because it's so easy to just to read God's word and read it just out of habit and gloss over it so that it's not really going in. it's so important for us to feed upon this word and to meditate upon the truth.

[28:51] And that's what we find that the psalmist is saying here. And so it goes on, and the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

[29:02] The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made. We're just going to leave it there, but let me say this. You know, there's an awful lot of people.

[29:15] who complain about God. And they say, you know, they blame God for the suffering and for the carnage and for the misery in this world.

[29:28] You will often hear people putting, as it were, accusations against God. Well, let us remember how it really is.

[29:40] When God made this world, he made it beautiful. in a sense, as God made, he was reflecting his own goodness because God said over everything that he made, it is good.

[29:55] We read about that when we go to Genesis, in the beginning, in Genesis 1 and 2, and God said, it is very good. That's what he said, it is good, it is good, it is good, it's very good.

[30:05] sin, the fall, that's what changed everything. And when sin entered into this world, there was chaos and carnage and pain and suffering and misery.

[30:24] And you know, one of the amazing things when you look at this world, and it's one of the things that people often talk about and people have written about, theologians sometimes write about it, and they are amazed at how much good there is, there is in this world, when we see the evil that is in every human heart.

[30:48] There is a mystery in evil, but were it not for the fact that God is good, and that God is good to all men, this world would be unbearable.

[31:00] God's preservation, God's restraint, God's imparting good into people's lives, into homes, into communities, into nations.

[31:17] There are times where God, as it were, lifts the restraints, and there are times where evil is allowed to rise, and this world becomes a fearful place.

[31:32] Let us thank the Lord tonight for the fact that he is good to all men. Let us thank the Lord for that. However awful this world is, there is yet so much good within it, and all good comes from God.

[31:53] God. So tonight, let us thank the Lord for that, and as we reflect even upon our own situation, and where we are, and yes, maybe the years of plenty, yes, we have known them, may be fading for however long, who knows?

[32:13] We don't know how things are going to go, but the fact remains that the Lord is still the Lord of the harvest, both the physical harvest, the temporal harvest, and also the spiritual harvest.

[32:26] May we look to the Lord of the harvest. May we tonight give thanks to the Lord of the harvest for all his goodness to us.

[32:36]  Let us pray.