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Thanks to all you musicians for leading us in song. What a blessing it is to be able to sing those great hymns. Will you take your Bibles and turn to Psalm 103; we are stepping away from our expositional study of Luke's Gospel. I'd like to address the Thanksgiving season by looking at this great passage of scripture. I am reminded of First Thessalonians 5:18, where we read, "In everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." And I trust that is the attitude of your heart - to give thanks for everything. And my we have so many things to be thankful for. Sometimes life is like looking at a white wall with a few black spots. The black spots are the difficult bad things, but the white is glorious indeed, and we tend to only focus on the black spots rather than all the white. And that's what we want to do this morning, because there's not a person in here that doesn't have some black spots on the wall, right? But, oh my, all that God has done for us and what he is going to do.

So this morning, let's praise the Lord by looking at Psalm 103 a magnificent hymn of praise where David engages actually in conversation with himself, something that I'm sure you do - I do from time to time - and he preaches literally to his own soul. This is literally a personal call to worship. But as you will see, it extends beyond that; and so here, David, as the founder of Israel's choir and orchestra, writes a hymn of praise for all generations to sing. So follow along as I read the text to you.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And all that is within me, bless His holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget none of His benefits;
Who pardons all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases;
Who redeems your life from the pit,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion;
Who satisfies your years with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle.

The Lord performs righteous deeds
And judgments for all who are oppressed.
He made known His ways to Moses,
His acts to the sons of Israel.
The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.
He will not always strive with us,
Nor will He keep His anger forever.
He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.
As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
Just as a father has compassion on his children,
So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.
For He Himself knows our frame;
He is mindful that we are but dust.

As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
When the wind has passed over it, it is no more,
And its place acknowledges it no longer.
But the lovingkindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him,
And His righteousness to children’s children,
To those who keep His covenant
And remember His precepts to do them.

The Lord has established His throne in the heavens,
And His sovereignty rules over all.
Bless the Lord, you His angels,
Mighty in strength, who perform His word,
Obeying the voice of His word!
Bless the Lord, all you His hosts,
You who serve Him, doing His will.
Bless the Lord, all you works of His,
In all places of His dominion;
Bless the Lord, O my soul!

Over the years, I have discovered what I think you would all agree with, and that is, people that tend to be despondent and kind of angry, critical, depressed, are not very grateful for the things that God has given to them. In fact, I find that when I get that way, and my wife will agree that at times I do, discontentment is many times at the heart of it all, which is a wickedness in my flesh as it is in yours. And it's hard to be around people that are sour and sullen, always complaining, criticizing. You know, the arrogant, the angry, the demanding and even the depressed. Now you expect that among the unregenerate, those who are apart from Christ and have never been born again, because they, according to Ephesians two and verse 12, "have no hope," and they're without God in the world. They have no hope. They have nothing to live for, no confident expectation of a future beyond this life. And they're without God in the world, meaning they have no real knowledge of who God is. And how sad that is the majority of the world. No wonder alcohol and drug addiction is so powerful; people trying to find something to anesthetize the pain of life when you are hopeless and helpless without a knowledge of God. How can anybody make sense out of life, with all of its uncertainty, with all of its confusion and sorrow and death?

I was reading a study this last week called "The State of Theology." What do Americans in 2025 believe about God, the bible and salvation. And it was done by a cooperative effort of Ligonier Ministries and LifeWay Research. And they interviewed, a little over 3000 evangelicals; and evangelicals were defined as those that agreed strongly with the following four statements. Number one, the Bible is the highest authority for what I believe. Secondly, it is very important for me, personally, to encourage non-Christians to trust Jesus Christ as their Savior. Thirdly, Jesus Christ's death on the cross is the only sacrifice that could remove the penalty of my sin, and finally, only those who trust in Jesus alone as their Savior receive God's free gift of eternal salvation. So these are the people that are interviewed, but here's what they found, and this is absolutely appalling to me. First of all, 64% of evangelicals believe that quote, "everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God," and 53% affirm that, quote, "everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature." More than half agreed with the statement, quote, "The Holy Spirit is a force, but is not a personal being." Almost half of evangelicals, 47%, affirmed that, quote, "God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism and Islam." And perhaps most surprising is the response of evangelicals to the statement, quote, "God loves all people the same way." 94% agreed with that statement. More evangelicals answered this question, incorrectly than the general US adult population, in which 83% agreed with the statement. You have to ask, what kind of church do these people go to be that staggeringly ignorant of Scripture?

When asked, Did God create marriage to be between one man and one woman, 65% agree and 29% disagree. Christians should not allow the religious beliefs to influence their political decisions - 54% agree and 39% disagree. And it's so sad. These are what Paul called in Ephesians, four, I believe verse 14. These are children that are "tossed here and there by waves, carried about by the trickery of men, deceitful scheming." And you know, when you don't know the truth, you are going to be enslaved by lies. Lies will inform your conscience and your heart and lead you ultimately to misery and despair. Your god will be false. Your worship will be false. Your thanksgiving will be hollow without any substance, bereft of any lasting joy.

But as we come to Scripture, and even now, as we come to this psalm, we will be immersed once again in the magnificent truths that God has revealed to us in his word; because this psalm, obviously, because it's inspired, is rooted in sound doctrine, and it will therefore, greatly increase our thanksgiving to God. In fact, it is my prayer that this psalm will fan the smoldering embers of half-hearted gratitude into a roaring inferno of thanksgiving, a certain cure for depression and a thankless heart. This is a magnificent Psalm, and it seems to rise above all of the other peaks of adoration in the Psalters mountain range of praise.

Now let me give you a little context here before we look at it closely. It's attributed to the latter years of David's life, that time in life when the odious nature of sin bothered him more and more, as it does all of us who know and love Christ as we age; but also a time when the reality of pardon had a greater effect upon his soul, as it does to all of us, as we mature in Christ. And here he lifts his voice in praise, and he sings of the undeserved mercy that is directed towards him. And here he magnifies Jehovah because of his steadfast love, especially for his covenant people Israel. And he will close by summoning all of creation to join him in adoring the Lord, and that's what we will do this morning.

Now I've divided it into three simple categories. We're going to see, first of all, a personal call to worship. Then secondly, a national call to worship. And finally, a universal call to worship. Notice first, the personal call to worship. Beginning in verse one, he says, "Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name.'" Now you must ask yourself, is this the testimony of my heart? Is this the practice of my meditations? "Bless the LORD," is a phrase that is used 23 times in the Old Testament. In fact, seven of them appear here in this psalm. And it's always a call to formal worship where God's people voice with their lips their most sincere adoration for the majesty and the holiness of God. And I fear that that is missing often, especially in evangelical worship services; there is an overall lack of reverence that tends to begin in private worship but then manifests itself in public worship. And primarily this is because evangelicals have a very shallow understanding of who God is, as the study indicates, and this is one of the reasons, too, why I will ask you every Sunday morning to take a moment and call your heart to worship; get focused. But for many people, their spiritual life is as shallow as frost on a pumpkin, and so these things are foreign to them. They do not inform their worship, nor do they animate their will and service to God.

To bless is the opposite of to blaspheme. "Bless" means to acknowledge the Lord in his position of sovereign power and to give him the honor due his name. And who is the Lord? Well, here in the text in the Hebrew, it's Yahweh, the Old Testament name for God, and it appears 6800 times in the Old Testament. And it is derived from the tetragrammaton meaning four “grammaton” letters, the four letters, the four Hebrew consonants actually, transliterated into English as Yahweh, Y, H W, H. And it comes from the Hebrew word for being "hayah." So the name indicates that God is and he wills to be. It implies that he has no beginning and he will have no end. He is ever present, and his being is derived from his own self-determination; his own self determination to be and to be what he is, and he is, therefore eternally, who and what he is.

You may recall that God revealed his name and said, it’s my name forever at the burning bush, remember in Exodus three? And there, God responded to Moses question about his name when he said, "'I AM WHO I AM," and "I AM," verse 14. Which, again, is rooted in the language here that I've just described. It speaks of his eternal and unchanging nature. And Jesus repeatedly claimed to be the Son of God, and he identified himself as the great I AM going all the way back to what he said in Exodus three. Again, the Old Testament divine Name of Yahweh. And so what I want you to understand is Jesus is therefore the pre-existent, self-existent, uncreated, creator, sustainer, redeemer and consummator of all things. And do you realize that 71% of evangelicals do not believe what I just said? According to a Ligonier ministry survey, seven in 10 evangelicals believe Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God. That is pure heresy. In fact, this is the mid-fourth century heresy of Arianism, and this is what cults believe like Mormons. They deny the deity of Christ, that he is the second person of the Trinity who is co-equal and consubstantial and coeternal with the Father. And folks, I want you to hear me say this loud and clear. This means that seven out of 10 professing evangelicals are not saved because they don't know who Jesus is. This is what Jesus warned about in Matthew seven, and this is what happens when you have predators filling pulpits. This is what happens when the true gospel is not preached and when the word of God is not preached in its entirety. So often sermons are, as I say, the 1-2-3, method of preaching; one verse, two, jokes and three stories. And no wonder people never learn anything. This is what happens when so-called Christian people, according to Second Timothy four, beginning in verse three, "will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires." He goes on to say, "they turn away their ears from the truth and turn aside to myths." My friends, if Jesus isn't the God of the Bible, then we are fools, and we have no hope of being reconciled to a holy God.

So David begins here by calling himself to worship, you might say he is preaching the gospel to himself, and that's what we're going to see. And he's doing this as an act of worship and an act of thanksgiving. This Thanksgiving you need to preach the gospel to yourself, and you can go through Psalm 103, and do that, along with many other passages. And he begins by summoning all of his faculties to bless the Lord. In other words, to acknowledge Yahweh in his position of sovereign power over all things and give him the honor due his name. He alone needs to be the object of our praise. He alone needs to be the one in which our soul delights, because he is God and there is no other.

"Bless the LORD, O my soul." Now, the term "soul" in such a context refers to the individual's total being - his mind, his heart, his will - the totality of his being; and this demonstrates his desire to be obedient to the supreme commandment - the foremost commandment - that Jesus spoke of, for example, in Matthew 22 beginning in verse 37 when he said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment." Oh child of God, every sunrise of your life, you need to bless the Lord with all that is within you. Bless his holy name.

Now, how do we bless his holy name? Well, we reflect upon his holiness. Holiness is the all-encompassing attribute of God. Holiness portrays his infinite otherness, his incomprehensible transcendence, his consummate perfections and moral purity. It portrays his eternal glory, the very essence of who he is. It stands alone as the defining characteristic of his person. And throughout Scripture, we read of the trihagaon, the "holy, holy, holy" of God; remember the seraphim in Isaiah six. Holiness being the summation of all of his glorious perfections, all of which are contained within his name. And when we do that, we obey his will. If we're doing that from our heart, naturally, we want to obey him and honor him in our life. And this is why we bless his holy name. I'm reminded of Deuteronomy 28 verse 58 where Moses warned the Israelites quote, "to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, the LORD your God." And in the Psalter, he is referred to as, quote, "the King of Glory" in Psalm 24 verse eight, verse nine and 10; and quote, "the God of glory" in Psalm 29:3. And for this reason, the Psalmist exclaims in 115 verse one, "Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to Your name, give glory." And in Psalm 102, beginning in verse 15, here's why we do this,

"So the nations will fear the name of the LORD and all the kings of the earth your glory.

"For the LORD has built up Zion; He has appeared in His glory."

Oh child of God, don't miss this. God is jealous for his name. He is jealous for his glory. And this is why we are commanded in the third commandment, to not take the name of the Lord your God in vain (Exodus 20:7). And in his model prayer, remember how Jesus commands us to pray, "'Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name" (Matthew 6:9). Now that is a passionate petition. It is not a declaration, it is not a statement of fact, but it's asking God to make his name hallowed. In other words, make it set apart, make it sanctified. We are to pray that he will cause his name to be treated with utmost holiness, that he might be feared, that he might be obeyed and worshiped and glorified.

Now back to Psalm 103, David continues his call to worship, verse two - and trust me, we will get through these verses, okay, we'll speed up a little bit. "Bless the LORD O my soul, and forget none of His benefits." This is a continual exhortation, and never forget this, because, you know, we're prone to do that, aren't we? We're prone to get sidetracked with all the stuff of life that is eternally inconsequential and many times damaging to us, and we lose sight of what is most important. So, "Bless the LORD O my soul, forget none of His benefits." Now, what are these benefits? We're going to see in verse three, he has "pardoned" and "healed." In verse four, he has "redeemed" and "crowned," and in verse five, he has "satisfied" and "renewed." In Psalm 116, beginning in verse 12,

"What shall I render to the LORD for all His benefits toward me? I shall lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the LORD.

"I shall pay my vows to the LORD, Oh may it be in the presence of all His people."

Dear Christian, never forget the benefits that God has given you by his grace. I have spent many hours next to saints on their deathbed, and they will love to reflect upon his benefits, all that God has done, even as we see him here; that he's pardoned and healed, redeemed and crowned, satisfied and renewed. And as you contemplate these magnificent benefits - these blessings - it increases our faith and animates our praise and our longing for heaven.

He says in verse three, "Who pardons all your iniquities," In the grammar, it's in the present tense, the active voice, and it indicates, therefore, that our forgiveness is perpetual. It is a benefit that we currently enjoy and will continue to enjoy. Now, practically speaking, this means we need no priest to mediate our forgiveness. There is no need for absolution whereby some priest gives us a sacrament of penance and frees us from our sin. Moreover, there is no need for purgatory, where we must suffer and be cleansed before we can go to heaven. No. God pardons all our iniquities. Beloved, this is is the fountainhead of all praise. I mean, without this, we would have no cause for thanksgiving, because we would be without hope. We would all be damned. And notice the theme of forgiveness is uppermost in David's mind. It is the dominant theme of his Psalm.

He goes on to say, "Who heals all your diseases." Now, the context here is God's pardon from sin, not the healing of physical diseases. There is no automatic physical healing in the atonement. The forgiveness of sins does not guarantee the healing of our body. All believers will get sick and eventually die, and many passages speak of how God has his purposes in our sicknesses and even in our death. And so this has a a spiritual reference to the healing of spiritual diseases. And without getting too technical, this is indicative of Hebrew parallelism, where concepts rhyme in thought not in sound. And this phrase is another way of expressing the pardoning of our iniquities. And we can even see the disease analogy linked to sin. In Isaiah one and verse six, he speaks of the effect of rebellion even on our bodies. He says, "From the sole of the foot even to the head there is nothing sound in it, only bruises, welts and raw wounds, not pressed out or bandaged nor softened with oil." So again, he heals all our diseases. And this is one of the other reasons why he's saying, "Bless the LORD, O my soul. Forget none of His benefits."

So he has pardoned and healed in verse three, and he now is going to redeem and crown in verse four. He says, "Who redeems your life from the pit." This is a reference to the pit of corruption, a reference to the resurrection of eternal life. He has reversed, shall we say, the sentence of death upon us and oh, what hope we have in Christ. In Psalm 16, verse nine, we read, "Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; my flesh also will dwell securely." And here's why, "For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol; nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. "You will make known to me the path of life; in your presence is fullness of joy; in your right hand, there are pleasures forevermore."

And in Psalm 100, that great psalm of Thanksgiving that I read a few moments ago, David expresses the primary motive for his praise when he says in verse three, "It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves." God has redeemed us and created new life within us. The emphasis here is not so much on God creating us physically out of nothing but rather recreating us - making us new creatures in Christ - as we read in Second Corinthians, five and verse 17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things pass away; behold the new things come." And once again, apart from an accurate understanding of God's saving and regenerating work within us, we would have no basis - we would have no reason - for any kind of thanksgiving. Because folks, apart from grace. All is lost. All is hopeless. All true thanksgiving is anchored in the bedrock of the Gospel. The Gibraltar of what God has done on our behalf.

He not only redeems your life from the pit, verse four, he goes on to say, "who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion." "Lovingkindness" is a term that speaks of his covenantal faithfulness, his, in Hebrew, "ḥeseḏ," the loyal, faithful, steadfast love of God. It's used 250 times in the Old Testament, and it stresses the idea of belonging together of those that he loves and doing this in a love relationship. So David was fully aware, he fully understood, that his salvation was all of grace; all because of his loving kindness. We see this again in David's psalm of repentance. Remember in Psalm 51 where he cried out to God for forgiveness, solely on the basis of God's steadfast love and grace, He says, "Be gracious to me, O God, according to Thy loving kindness"...there it is, "...according to the greatness of Thy compassion; blot out my transgressions." Oh beloved, what a marvelous benefit worthy of our praise. He crowns us with lovingkindness and compassion. How amazing. He removed the sentence of death, and he clothed us with the righteousness of Christ; made us joint heirs with Jesus.

So as we look at it, verse three, he's pardoned and healed. Verse four, he's redeemed and crowned. And finally, in verse five, he has satisfied and renewed. Verse five, "Who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle." You see, the life that is ours in Christ gives us great strength, not just physically - it would include that - but emotionally, spiritually. It fills us with energy because of the indwelling Spirit that dwells within us and we can be likened, therefore, to the majestic eagle that that soars high in the heavens. And I might also add that what is implied in this particular text is that those who live their lives with this kind of worship will find additional comfort and strength to help them recover in the natural aging process; they will continue to be filled with new hope. They will continue to have a new song. They will continue to be to enjoy the presence of God within them. And in many ways, they return to the days of their youth. Isaiah, 40 verse 31, "Those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not get tired. They will walk and not become weary." And beloved, I can tell you from 40 years of ministry experience that it is a joy to be around elderly people who really know and love the Lord. Oh, what a blessing, what a blessing. Their hair may be white, their skin may be wrinkled and their backs bent, but their eyes continue to sparkle with the joy of the Lord; and they will minister to my soul, because they have a Spirit-empowered resolve that grows stronger every day until they enter into glory.

So first, we've seen a personal call to worship. Secondly, a national call to worship. Notice verse six, "The LORD performs righteous deeds and judgments for all who are oppressed." And he does this most notably by demonstrating his righteousness to those who hate him and pouring out his wrath on those who oppress those who belong to him. Notice in verse seven, "He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the sons of Israel." Remember he gave his law to Moses on Mount Sinai. But when Moses descended from the mountains with the tablets of stone, he saw the wickedness of the people on full display. They were worshiping a golden calf and calling it Yahweh; utterly inconceivable. So you remember the story, Moses shattered the tablets of stone that contained the 10 Commandments. You read about this in Exodus 32, and then God judged his people, and upon which Moses then returned to the mount and received new tablets of stone. And it was there where God revealed to Moses that he is filled with mercy. It is there where he describes how he forgives sin in Exodus 34 verses, five through seven, which David now repeats here in verse eight of Psalm 103.

Notice, "the LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness." Then he adds, "He will not always strive," -which means dispute or find disagreement with us - "nor will He keep His anger forever." In other words, he will not continually chide us. He will not continually express his angry disapproval. He will not in any way continue to find fault with us as though he were our enemy, lest he crush our spirit and leave us in despair. I mean, who among us would be comfortable with God relaying every thought and every deed that we even did last week on the screen here for everybody to see? Psalm 130, verse three, "If you, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?" No one. "But there is forgiveness with You that You may be feared."

Look at Verse 10, "He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." My what a testimony of God's grace. I mean, we could never earn it. He had to give it to us as a gift. I mean, beloved, we committed high treason against the Most High God. By nature, we lived in rebellion against him. We deserve the most severe punishment according to his holiness. Instead, what does he do? He forgives. He pardons us. He dresses our wounds with the healing salve of love, and he binds them up with bandages of his tender mercies towards us all because of his lovingkindness. Then he says this, "For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him." How high are the heavens above the Earth? It's inconceivable. That's the point. Then he says, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." Will you notice he didn't say as far as the north is from the south, because if you keep going north long enough, you'll eventually be going south. No, instead, when you go east, you never start going west. That's the point. East and west never meet at an equator. So this passage is literally underscoring the limitless nature of God's mercy toward us that we do not deserve.

Isaiah spoke of this in Isaiah 55 beginning in verse six,

"'Seek the LORD while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near.

"'Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the LORD, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon."

And then he makes this incredible statement,

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,' declares the LORD.

"'For as high as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.'"

Now, unfortunately, that last sentence is often misunderstood and misused as if it's a reference to the mysteries of divine providence; and indeed, they are unfathomable, but that's not what it's talking about here. That's not what he's referring to here. What cannot be explained is not God's mysterious providence - the ways in which he orchestrates all things to accomplish his will for the purpose of his glory - what cannot be explained is God's great compassion for sinners. That's the point of the whole passage. We are invited, therefore, to seek the Lord while he may be found. We are called to forsake our wicked ways, our unrighteous thoughts, and to return to the Lord. Verse seven, why? That, "He might have compassion" on us, and "He will abundantly pardon." Oh, that's inconceivable. What manner of love is this? He forgives all our iniquities, past, present and future. And he does this so thoroughly that frankly, we would be fools to continue to live in sin from which we have been cleansed.

Notice again in Psalm 103, verse 12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us." The background here is the high priest in the Old Testament, it's kind of kind of a summary of what happens on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, that you read about in Leviticus 16. Let me remind you of this, because it's a beautiful picture. On that day, the high priest would take the blood of a bull and sprinkle it on the mercy seat. And he would do that seven times - the Mercy Seat being the place of propitiation. In fact, the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, translates the mercy seat, the "hilosterion," meaning the place of propitiation - the place where the wrath of God is satisfied - it is appeased. It is placated by the sprinkling of the blood. And so there the justice of God would be temporarily appeased, because all sin must be punished, and their atonement would be made for the sins of the people. Atonement always requiring two things: one, substitution and number two, satisfaction. And lots were then cast for two goats to determine which one would be slaughtered and which one would be the scapegoat that would be driven away and loosed into the wilderness. The goat for slaughter, that is, the goat of the people's sin offering, would be sacrificed, and then its blood would be taken into the Holy of Holies, and it would be applied to the mercy seat, as the bull's blood had previously been done. And then the second goat, the one that was kept alive, had the sins of the nation symbolically placed upon its head by the priest, and then was driven from the camp to a desolate place from which it could never return. And Jewish tradition indicates that they would take that goat to a high cliff and push it backwards over the precipice to prevent it from ever returning to the camp. And the two goats symbolized propitiation and expiation. To "propitiate" means to appease the righteous wrath of God against us; because, apart from Christ, as Jesus said, "The wrath of God abides on us" (First John 4:10). God loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sin. And to "expiate" means to remove the guilt of sin, magnificent term. So the goat slaughtered symbolized propitiation, where you have an innocent substitute being slaughtered to appease God's wrath, and the one sent into the wilderness symbolized expiation, which would be the permanent removal of the guilt of our sins. Oh, what a magnificent picture of God's saving merit through Christ our substitute.

And of course, Jesus was the only possible substitute. His death accomplished both pardon and cleansing, and here we see the doctrine of justification by imputation. Jesus Christ offered himself, think about this, to both propitiate - that is to appease the righteous wrath of God against us - as well as to expiate - that is to remove the guilt of our sin. So God alone covers or erases; he blots out our sins, the Scriptures teach. Blots them out from his sight through the blood of Christ. Isaiah six, verse seven, "Behold...your iniquity is taken away." Second Corinthians 5:19, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting our trespasses against us." That's the concept.

So indeed, back to our text in verse 12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us." Verse 13, "Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him." For indeed, it could be translated, "He Himself knows our frame;" the "He" in the Hebrew is in the emphatic so he knows us even better than we know ourselves. "He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust." Now as a father and as a grandfather, and soon to be a great grandfather, there is absolutely nothing I wouldn't do for my kids. I love them. You love yours, and folks, there is nothing our Heavenly Father wouldn't do for us; and this is such a profound, beautiful illustration of his great love for us. We see another one in the context of a loving mother in Isaiah 49 verse 15, "Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands."

Back to the text in verse 15, "As for man, his days are like grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. When the wind has passed over it, it is no more, and its place acknowledges it no longer." Beloved, life is short. When we die, within 50 years most people will never remember you. Certainly, within three generations, it will be as if you never existed, and nobody will really care, except for God. I know that's a depressing thing to think about, but the contrast is stark, isn't it? And that is the reality; our flesh is a fading flower.

Again, in verse 14, it says, "For" it could be translated, "indeed," it's emphatic and the point here is, we don't base our assurance on our character, but on God's character. He is eternal. He's unchanging, while we are transitory, we're always changing. And it's interesting in verse 15, he says, "As for man..." man here in the Hebrew, the Hebrew uses a term "enosh" which often carries the concept of mortality and weakness and even sickness. And it's a fitting term, obviously, in this context. In Job 25, verse six, remember one of his buddies, Bildad, don't ever name your child Bildad, okay? He speaks to Job about man's inferiority, and he says this, "How much less man, that maggot and the son of man, that worm."

But back to our text in verse 17, it says, but in other words, although man's days are like the grass and he's just going to wither away and disappear, "but the lovingkindness of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness, to children's children, to those who keep His covenant and remember His precepts to do them." Note here the recipients of God's unfailing love. They are, first of all, those who fear him, that's true believers. But secondly, those who keep his covenant, that's the faithful believer. And then those who remember his precepts to do them, that's the obedient believer. You want to ask, does this describe me? Sadly, many professing Christians know nothing of these descriptors of genuine saving faith. It's a heartbreaking reality.

So as we wrap it up this morning, we've seen a personal call to worship, a national call to worship, finally, a universal call to worship. Verse 19,

"The LORD has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over all.

"Bless the LORD, you His angels, mighty in strength, who perform His word, obeying the voice of His word!

"Bless the LORD, all you His hosts, you who serve Him doing His will.

"Bless the LORD, all you works of His, in all places of his dominion; Bless the LORD, O my soul!"

What a magnificent Psalm. The psalm began with one person in the first five verses. Then he summons the people of Israel in verses six through 18. And finally, he ends with a crescendo that includes all of creation. Beloved, individual praise will stimulate corporate praise. And if you come here on a Sunday morning and you are sour and sullen, and as some of you were teasing me, lugubrious like Eeyore, it's because you are not doing the kinds of things that the psalmist describes in this text. You may not even understand them, and if that's the case, oh, won't you examine your heart? I challenge you, get serious about your private worship, especially in these dark days of apostasy and rampant immorality and just sheer insanity, and this Thanksgiving season, call your soul to worship and say to it, "Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me. Bless His holy name." Let's pray together,

Father, thank you for these eternal truths. May they truly reflect who we are and how we worship You. Lord, we are craving your glory and your greatness, and you have revealed it, not only in creation, but certainly in your word and even through your people. Lord, may we take advantage of every opportunity we have, to bless you, to know you, to worship you, to serve you. And finally, Lord, if there be one within the sound of my voice that knows nothing of what it means to be united to Christ through saving faith, their only hope of salvation, won't you please move upon their heart as only you can do bring conviction; overwhelm them with the horror of their sin and cause them to see the risen Savior who purchased the redemption of all who will trust in him. I ask this for your glory. Amen.