The secret to a life of rejoicing and thanksgiving lies in maintaining a life that is 'tuned up' to God. This involves presenting our bodies as living sacrifices, with each aspect—heart, ears, tongue, eyes, hands, and feet—dedicated to His service and praise. Just as an instrument of ten strings must be in tune to produce harmonious music, believers must allow the Holy Spirit to tune their lives, ensuring their actions and words bring glory to God. The sermon emphasizes that God's Word is right and His works are done in truth, providing a constant reason for rejoicing and a foundation for trusting His promises, even amidst trials.
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Shall we turn one more to the Psalms, please? Psalm chapter thirty-three. This evening we'd like to look at this lovely Psalm. Psalm thirty-three. Some suggested our theme this evening will be centered around the need of rejoicing and singing. You notice how this psalm begins. Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous, for praise as calmly for the upright. Praise the Lord with heart. Sing unto him with sultry and an instrument of ten strings. Sing unto him a new song.
play skillfully with a loud noise. For the word of the Lord is right, and all his works are done in truth. He loveth righteousness and judgment. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the hosts of them by the breath of his mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea together as an heap. He layeth up the depths in storehouses. that all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in all him. For, he spake, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast.
The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to naught. He makeeth the devices of the people of none effect. The counsel of the Lord standeth forever, and the thought for purposes of his heart, to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. The Lord looketh from heaven. He beholdeth all the sons of man. From the place of his habitation he looketh up upon all the inhabitants of the earth. He fashioneth their hearts alike. He considereth all their works.
And there is no king save. by the multitude of an host, for a mighty man is not delivered by much strength, and horse is a vain thing for safety, and neither shall he deliver any by his great strength. Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them, and that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy, to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waiteth for the Lord. He is our health and our shield. for our heart shall rejoice in him because we have trusted in his holy name let thy mercy O Lord be upon us according as we hope in thee our father again we rejoice that we've been able to gather together and we thank thee for the precious word of God and we desire this evening as we consider it together that the Holy Spirit will touch our hearts, cause us to consider together the importance of knowing that experience daily in our lives of rejoicing in the May
we be concerned, our Father, that our lives, as thy people, bring honor to thyself, and so we would commit ourselves into thy care and for thy direction, thou. We pray in our Savior's precious and worthy name. Amen. As I look at this particular Psalm, the main lesson that comes to my heart and meditating upon it is that of the secret to a life of rejoicing. The secret to a life of thanksgiving and praise. It's rather challenging, is it not, to realize in the Christian life we all have our trials we all have our testing we all have the difficulties that come into light the interesting thing is that as believers that we react differently to those trials and testing we know that in the world you shall have tribulation we know the tribulation work of patience and patience experience but sometimes tribulation seem to work the other way sometimes there are believers who go through
some very deep testing time and because they rebel under those testing they backslide they become bitter many believers have been put aside in their spiritual life because they have reacted wrongly toward the deep waters they've been allowed to go through it's interesting i'm sure you've experienced this that those people that you know who, in your judgment, are the most godly people you have met, how often we're surprised when we talk to them and get to know them and find that they have gone through much deep water.
And in those deep experiences, they have turned to the Lord in those trials. On the other hand, as we just mentioned a moment ago, it's rather sad when you meet believers who are bitter and say, I... have failed or I'm just not going to be involved with God's people anymore because this has happened or that has happened and they become bitter toward God's people, they become bitter toward God. And so our attitude in trial, in difficulty is a very important thing. Certain gentlemen who, and you know how these problems come in a number, not just in one episode, it just seems to be one upon another.
And this dear brother, His business went bad on him and he went into bankruptcy. Just at the time the bankruptcy took place, his wife took desperately ill and she had to go to the hospital. They didn't know whether she was going to live or not. While she was in the hospital, their daughter was in a car accident and they didn't know whether she was going to pull through. And this poor man just was beside himself. But thankfully he got along with the Lord and poured his heart out to the Lord and said, Lord, these things have been allowed. Why? What is the lesson? What do you want me to learn through these experiences?
And as a result, God just revealed certain scriptures to him that just warmed his heart. Scriptures that were old scriptures, but they came fresh and real. And he learned experiences through that time that caused him to rejoice in the midst. of his trials in the midst of his difficulties. We often feel sometimes that we'll rejoice if everything is going fine, but why should we rejoice when things are just not going too well? There's a certain minister who, so the story goes, he was going out to visit for the day, just going off to visit some of the sick folk and going to the hospital.
And he was looking around for his collar button. He wanted to get his collar on properly, and he couldn't find it. It wasn't where it should have been. He hunted through the drawer and looked behind the dresser and so on, and he became more and more agitated. And then he took it out on his wife and wondered what she had done with it. And she said, she hadn't done anything to it. And so they got into the bedroom and they hunted everywhere. And by the time they found... the collar button, his wife was in tears, and he went out in a huff. When he came back, he was just a different man. A great smile on his face, and he said, Ma, he said, how good the grace of God is.
I went to visit Mrs. So-and-so today, and she's going through terrible suffering, but she's just rejoicing the Lord. Just warmed and thrilled my heart to sit down and talk to her, and just to see the grace of God working in her life. And I saw this young man, and he's having so many trials, and my, the Lord is working in his life. And his wife listened rather patiently, and she said, well, she said, that is wonderful how the grace of God works. Isn't it too bad that it doesn't work when you lose your collar button? And there's a lot of truth to that. We talk about how the grace of God works, but when we get into his little situations that we face day by day, God's grace doesn't seem to be sufficient to deal with that little bit of a problem.
Notice what we have here, please, in this situation. Again, we have a connection, I think, between chapter thirty-two and chapter thirty-three, as we noticed, in connection with Psalm one hundred and three that one hundred and two and one hundred and three linked together. So we have two Psalms that link very closely together as well. In Psalm one hundred, Psalm thirty two, we have a psalm that we're well acquainted with, I'm sure. It is that psalm that talks about, Blessed is He whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. And this psalm is dealing with the great salvation of our God in cleansing men and women from sin.
Now, when you come to the end of that Psalm, you'll notice it says in verse eleven, Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, ye righteous, and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart. Now, you remember when in that moment, I trust all have had that experience here tonight, you remember that time when you came to know Christ as Savior and Lord. It was a time of rejoicing. That's what you have in Psalm thirty-two. Rejoicing... knowing that sins are forgiven. Sins are dealt with. I'm right with God. My, what a time of rejoicing that is.
I remember a young woman, married woman, came to our home and she had been involved with the Jehovah's Witnesses and The interesting thing was that a young man met her who was backslidden. And when she started to get enthused about what the Jehovah's Witnesses was teaching, he became rather alarmed and got stirred up and said, Those things are not right. But he couldn't seem to answer her arguments. And so he and her husband brought her along to the home, and we sat and talked, and to make a long story short, she...
eventually came to that place where she said, this is what I need. I need salvation. That is one thing they've left out, and I need that. And she got down on her knees, and her husband got down who was not a believer, and the backslider got down, all in tears as she confessed Christ as her Savior. And she just rejoiced. And the backslider got restored. Well, she started to witness for the Lord. Just a short while ago, a few weeks ago, she got baptized and she got witnessing to her twin sister. And just the day before we left, Ottawa, her twin sister who had been coming out, she said, I want to get saved.
So into the back room we went and she committed her life to Christ. And there was her sister sitting there, tears of joy. What a time of rejoicing when we see the Spirit of God working. What a time of rejoicing when we see this wonderful salvation taking place. But then, beloved, we go on in the Christian life and we meet these trials and difficulties. Somehow or other it's difficult to carry on with that rejoicing. Notice how this psalm deals with the subject. There's basically three points to this psalm, as I see it. From verse one to verse three, we have a reminder to rejoice. in the Lord.
When you come down to verse four to verse sixteen, you have reasons given why we should rejoice in the Lord. And when you come to verse twenty to the end of the psalm, you have the results of rejoicing in the Lord. First of all, there's a reminder, rejoice in the Lord. Isn't an amazing thing that God's people had to be reminded to rejoice in Him? But that's what's happening in this little song. And it begins simply by saying, Rejoice in the Lord. Now that little word, rejoice, is the very same word in the Hebrew language as back in verse eleven of chapter thirty-two where it says, Shout for joy.
And a number of times in the Old Testament that word, rejoice, is translated, shout for joy. So if we shout for joy at salvation, I wonder if in your experience day by day, there's a sense in which you just stop and just have to sort of shout for joy. There's an inner joy within by the Holy Spirit of God that just causes you to say, Lord, I'm just so thankful for all that you are and what you've done for me. And is there just a well-meaning up of rejoicing in your heart? Now that's the way it ought to be. That's the way the Christian life should be. with each one of us. And so the challenge is, the reminder is, to rejoice.
Now notice, the people who are to rejoice, and because we're told here, rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous. For praise is calmly to the upright. So the people who are called upon to rejoice are the righteous and the upright. One in the same person, of course. But remember, the righteous here are the righteous in the Lord. We have no righteousness of our own. The sad thing is notice again, there's so much in these verses, but notice again in this first verse, it says to rejoice in the Lord. There is the one through whom all joy and rejoicing come.
It's occupation with him. Now, obviously, if I feel that I'm righteous without the Lord, I'll be rejoicing in myself. You recall that the Pharisee who got up to pray, he said, Lord, I thank thee that I'm not as others. I give tithes of all I possess, and he went on describing all the wonderful things that he did. In other words, he was rejoicing in himself. But you see, the believer has found that He or she is unrighteous. But a righteousness has been provided. The righteousness of God in Christ has been provided. A perfect righteousness.
And the moment we put our trust in Christ, we enter into this wonderful righteousness and we're clothed with a garment of righteousness. And now as being righteous in God's sight through the work of Christ, we have a right. to rejoice not only initially but day by day in our Christian experience. You notice it says, praise is calmly for the upright. The upright or those who are straight up and down. At one time we were crooked. We've been made crooked by sin. You remember in the book of Ecclesiastes we were told that God made man upright. But something happened with man's uprightness.
Sin. came in. And that disease, sin just crippled us. But when we came to Christ, he makes us upright so that we can gain, lift our eyes and faces toward heaven and bring praise and glory to himself. And so he's challenging the upright world, the believers, those who have been made right with God to rejoice in the Lord. Now notice again it does say here, for praise is calmly. And the word calmly simply means praise is fitting. So praising God is a fitting thing. That doesn't necessarily imply that you go around just constantly saying praise the Lord, praise the Lord.
But it does imply that in each circumstance or all the circumstances of life, you sense the Lord's presence in those circumstances, and there's an inner joy, and there's a rejoicing that swells up in your heart toward him because of his presence, because of his power, because of his goodness toward you. Now notice again, as you look at this passage, not only do we have the people who are to praise the Lord or to rejoice in Him. And the pleasure, it is very fitting, it's very calmly for a believer. You know, it's very uncommonly for a believer to be opposite to praising Him.
It's rather unfortunate when believers are very, very difficult to get along with. It's rather a sad commentary when you hear people say, well, they're believers, but why they're hard to get along with. Well, that's not very fitting. That's not very commonly. What is calmly is a believer who has been so worked on by the Holy Spirit of God in his or her life that the beauty of Christ begins to develop through that life and to become more and more like himself. And don't know this, please. There is the potential in this way of rejoicing.
And the potential comes out, I take it in verse two and also in verse three. Verse two says this, praise the Lord with harp, sing unto him with psaltery, and an instrument of ten strings. Now three times over in the Psalms we are reminded of this instrument of ten strings. Time forbids looking at those three passages, but it'd be interesting for you just to look at those three passages in the Psalms and notice some of the little variations when it talks about using the instrument of ten strings and what we're to do in praising him with those ten strings.
You notice it goes on to say in verse three, sing unto him a new song and play skillfully with A loud voice. Now this instrument of ten strings reminds me of this life of mine. It reminds me of that life of yours. You recall over in Romans chapter twelve, the Apostle Paul says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that ye present your body a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God. which is your reasonable service present your body we often saying take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee and this body of ours in a sense spiritually speaking beloved is an instrument with ten strings and the Lord wants to tune it up he wants from our lives A response of praise and a response of delight to himself through each string of
this life. For example, you do have the heart string. Right? The heart string. My son, give me thine heart. Give me thine heart. And he wants to tune your hearts to sing his praise. I suppose an illustration of that would be over in Luke's Gospel, chapter twenty-four, where you remember the two on the road to Emmaus, and they had slow hearts, and they had sad hearts. And those hearts were not in tune to sing his praise.
The instrument lacked tune. They had received a discouraging news. They were very much disturbed by the fact that Christ had died. They didn't know He was risen. They thought it had been He. They were all just so disturbed that they had put their confidence in Him, and it seemed as though He had let them down, and their hearts were out of tune, out of sorts. And then the Savior came by, you'd remember, and... he decided to tune up the heart strength. What a job he did. You remember how he did it.
He took the scriptures and beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded them and all the scriptures of things concerning himself. And if he went from one illustration and one type to another, and if he brought all the lessons out concerning himself, something happened to that heart or to those hearts. They began to warm up and they began to burn. And they got all tuned up. And their eyes were open, and they knew him. Their understanding was open, and they understood all he was saying. And they got all stirred up, and they ran off to the others that we've seen before. All because the string of the heart got tuned up.
Is that your heart tuned up? Is the old heart rejoicing? What about the... the ears. Two strings there for the ears, right? And the Lord is deeply concerned about having a listening ear as well as an understanding heart. He said, ears have they, but they hear not. They hear not. Blessed are your ears, said the Lord, because they hear. He spoke to the children of Israel or about them and he said, you know what you've done? He said, you've stopped up your ears. They put their fingers in their ears and they wouldn't listen. And you remember Simeon who was waiting for the Lord in Luke chapter two, his name means hearkening.
He was listening. He was attentive. You remember Samuel, he said, Speak for thy servant heareth. He was listening. And the Lord wants to get our ear. He wants to get our attention. He wants to get our ears away from other distracting things and get in tune with himself. We need to have our ears tuned up, beloved. Had they been in tune lately? Have you been in touch with the Lord? Has he been speaking to your heart? an instrument of ten strings. What about that string of the tongue, of the mouth? Boy, that string gets out of sorts so quickly, doesn't it?
Out comes bitterness, sweetness, little member that boasts great things. And we have to keep coming to the Lord to get it tuned up. a harsh word here, a little sarcastic remark somewhere else, and that rejoicing just seems to disappear in the thin air. Beloved, we need to have the tongue string in tune. Then again, if you remember, we have these two strings up here, these eyes of ours. taken up with himself.
Eyes looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. Seeking those things which are above, and then setting our affection on those things which are above. How easy the eyes get out of tune. The strings get kind of loosened and we become involved in things down here. and it puts the whole body out of focus in our producing praise and glory to God. And so we need to have these eye strings constantly tuned up. One way, of course, that has done, and there's so many ways, but one way out of many is by coming to the Lord's Supper, and there we get our eyes on him.
And our hearts are warmed afresh. That warms our hearts as well. That's a great place to... when we come on the proper spirit the great place to get tuned up by the Holy Spirit of God an instrument of ten strings then of course there's the two strings of a hand right those hands that he wants he wants to use Moses what is that in your hand just a rod Lord just an ordinary stick Well, said the Lord, you use it the way I want to use it.
Throw it on the ground. Moses threw it on the ground and came to life. Came to life. And you remember that rod when Moses let the Lord use it his way became known as the rod of God. The rod of God. I wonder if your hands are being used for his glory. I wonder if you're willing to say, Lord, here's these hands of mine, and I want them to bring honor to you. The things that I do, Lord, I want them to glorify your name. Hands tuned up for Him. Then, of course, the last two, making up the ten would be the feet.
And those feet which at one time were swift to shed blood, those feet which have gone out of the way, And it causes us to be unprofitable. Those feet now have been brought back into the path pleasing to him. And you remember in the Word of God how often it challenges us to walk. To walk. To walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. To walk circumspectly redeeming the time. Walk in love. Walk in the light as he is in the light. He exhorts us to walk. Walk as he walks. But we need his power and his strength. Oh, beloved, to be able to take this life of ours and say, Lord, here's this life.
Lord, it's got out of tune lately. Somehow or other Lord, certain strings have just lost their tune. And I'm producing a lot of sound notes. Notice again what it says here. Sing unto the Lord with a new song and play skillfully. Play skillfully. kill boy. Well, you know what it's like to play out a tune, don't you? Maybe you don't do it yourself, but you've heard other people doing it, and you hear those sour notes and you just kind of cringe a little bit.
You know, our lives are often like that. We just seem to have a tune that just doesn't seem to ring clear. I've listened to a number of conversations today, and particularly since last night when the Lee Club was here, and I find that a lot of people say, well, I don't think I can sing anymore after listening to that, and they all seem to be in tune, and why we seem to be out of tune. I remember Mr. Woodhouse was talking about my experience with the man who prayed. The story was a little bit changed the way he described it, but overall it was much the same.
But I recall having a tape recorder and being in a certain place and the people had never seen a tape recorder before at that particular time were involved in radio work. and they used to sing at the chapel and sort of duet he played the guitar and they both sang and he never heard himself sing before but he felt that he sang very well and his wife did and basically they did however he said set that up my wife and I is going to sing for you fine and so they got together and they got their guitar out and they sang a piece Now he said, let me hear it.
I said, fine, we played it back, and we listened. Well, you know, when you play something like that back, it's amazing all the mistakes you hear. And he sat there, and his head kept going down, farther and farther and farther, almost out of sight, and then there was a long pause. And finally he looked up, he said, I'll never sing again. I'll never sing again. Well, maybe we feel that way sometimes. We hear others in tune and we say, my, I'll never get involved again. But you see, beloved, what we have to do is to bring our life into line with the Lord's control, under His control, and allow Him to tune it up.
And you remember it says here to sing a new song. Sing unto Him a new song. Again, it's very interesting. to go through the Psalms and notice the number of times the new song is mentioned. In fact, in the Old Testament the new song is mentioned seven times. Apart from mentioning the new song in the book of Revelation, it's mentioned some seven times in the Old Testament and again there are many interesting things said about this new song. For example, you remember in Psalm chapter forty it says, I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined unto me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of an horrible pit, set my feet upon a rock, established my going, and he put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God.
Now that new song is the song of redemption. And beloved, as we go through life and as we meet people, that song of redemption, we're playing that song of redemption before men and women. They're not reading the Word of God. And they're not listening particularly to messages, if they can get away with it. But they are listening in on your life. And your life is playing a tune. And it's either playing sweet music to the glory of God by the way you talk and the way you act.
For it's bringing discord and dishonor to the Lord. And if you sense it's bringing dishonor to Him, if it's giving out those sour notes, it's time to say, Lord, I need a divine tune up here. I bring my life back to you, and I want you to heal with it. Now I intend to finish this song tonight. I think perhaps at this particular point we might just close with one more thought. May I just read this little poem to you that someone made up?
It says, Two eyes to look to God. Two ears to hear His word. Two feet to serve the Lord. Two hands to wield the sword. one heart to love his ways one tongue to sing his praise take them Savior let them be always busy serving thee notice it says here for the word of the Lord is right and all his works are done in truth.
He loveth righteousness and judgment. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. And that takes into the some of the reasons, or one main reason, beloved, why we should rejoice. There are a number of reasons mentioned here. We're to rejoice because of his word to begin with. And his word is mentioned a number of times in this little section. We're to rejoice in the wisdom of the Lord, and we find His wisdom brought out here. We're to rejoice in the fact that He is constantly watching us and looking after us and hovering over us. And that's brought out in this particular Psalm. There are so many reasons why we should rejoice in Him, but this reason I want to close with is His Word.
His Word. His Word. His Word is true. His Word is upright. His Word is faithful. In fact, in the revised version we're told back in this passage when it speaks about His Word is right or truthful and all His works are done in truth. That is, all His works are faithful. Whatever the Lord sets out to do, He does. We can depend upon His Word. He's never, all the promises of the Word of God are there for us to lay hold upon. And he's never let us down once with his promises. I was just challenged again and reading through Genesis chapter one this afternoon. And my heart was stirred as I noticed how it kept saying, God said, and it was all.
And seven times down through that chapter, God said, and it was all. It was all. when god speak itself and we can lean upon his word that is there to rest upon may the lord grant that we might long to commit our lives of precious and rare to him even this night so we pray gracious father we thank and praise thee for by grace in redeeming us. And we're reminded, our Father, that we are not our own.
We've been bought with a price. And we're to glorify God in our bodies. Oh, our Father, we confess that so often we're out of tune. So often we seek to allow the flesh to control the old nature. Grant our Father that we might long to be a people in tune to sing thy praise. For this we pray, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.