A Study in Psalms - Psalm 103

We sang a beautiful song tonight, Ten Thousand Reasons. It's one of my favorite modern worship songs, and I don't know if you know the background behind it, but Matt Redman is the prolific songwriter. But Matt Redman was born in 1974 in England, and this little boy was born into a very dysfunctional family.

His father committed suicide when the boy was seven years old. He didn't know about that until many years later when he was about ten, but that left a lot of scars on Matt Redman. His mother remarried to a very abusive stepfather who eventually ended up in prison for abusing the family.

It was a hard life for a little boy in England. Sometime later in his youth, he went on a mission meeting in England where he heard the gospel and he came to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. He's a very good musician, and in wanting to celebrate what Christ had done in his life, he started writing a lot of songs.

But when he came to Psalm 103, he wrote the psalm that we sang tonight. The name of that song is Ten Thousand Reasons. That little boy was Matt Redman, and Ten Thousand Reasons was his expression of 103.

I wonder if I had a background like that. Would I have Ten Thousand Reasons? I had a great background. I had godly parents, a good life.

But maybe if you had a horrible background like that and came to Christ, you'd have more reasons. How many reasons do you have? Do you ever, like the song says, count your blessings? You just sit down someday and count your blessings, name them one by one, count your blessings and see what God has done? The psalmist tonight is David, who gives us not ten thousand reasons, but in our text, at least twenty reasons to bless the Lord. Many weeks ago when we were looking at Psalm 19, I said that Psalm 119 was the Mount Everest of all the psalms, and it is.

But one commentator says Psalm 103 may be the Mount Everest of praise psalms. It exalts the soul to breathtaking heights. G. Campbell Morgan said, It is perhaps the most perfect song of pure praise found in the Bible.

So it's a praise psalm, the language of joy, thanksgiving, and worship. One commentator said, Some psalms are addressed to God. Others are addressed to other people.

But this psalm is addressed primarily to the psalmist himself. He calls upon himself to praise God. Ten thousand reasons was only one hymn that was written or song was written.

You probably don't know all these songs, but of all the 150 psalms, only probably Psalm 23 has had more songs written from the psalm than Psalm 103. In 1525, there was a hymn called My Soul Now Praise Thy Maker. In 1680, there was a song called Praise the Lord, the Almighty King of Creation.

Isaac Watson, 1719, wrote a song, Oh, bless the Lord, my soul, and bless, oh, my soul, the living God. In 1819, James Montgomery wrote a song called Oh, bless the Lord, my soul. And in 1834, Henry Lyle wrote a song called Praise My Soul, the King of Heaven.

And then you all know it is well with my soul, Horatio Spatford, in 1876. Just some of the hymns that have been written from Psalm 103. So for over 500 years, hymn writers have been writing songs after they read and fall in love with Psalm 103.

If you look at it, we have a superscription that just says, Of David. This psalm is located in Book 4. Book 4 is Psalm 90 to 106. Only 17 psalms in Book 104, and only two of them are written by David, and this is one of them.

It's interesting if you look at Psalm 103. Look at Psalm 103, verse 1. We're going to look at the last four psalms in this Book 4 because it's all about praise. Psalm 103, 104, 105, 106.

Psalms 103 begins with, Bless the Lord, oh, my soul. It ends with the words, Bless the Lord, oh, my soul. Then Psalm 104 begins with, Bless the Lord, oh, my soul.

And it ends with the words, Bless the Lord, oh, my soul. Praise the Lord. Psalms 105 is a little different, but still gives praise.

Oh, give thanks to the Lord. Call upon his name. And then Psalms 105 ends with, Praise the Lord.

Then Psalm 106 says, Praise the Lord. Oh, give thanks to the Lord. And Psalms 106 ends with, And let all the people say, Amen.

Praise the Lord. So the last four psalms are all about praise in Book 4. But none is probably greater than this Psalm 103. We have three parts, and then Part 4 is the application tonight.

But Part 1 is the individual's call to praise. This is the personal part. Proper praise begins with an individual's praise.

And you see in Verse 1 and 2 the word, My, twice. So it's about an individual's call to praise. Verses 0.2 and 0.3. It says, Bless the Lord, oh, my soul, and all that is within me.

Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, oh, my soul. Three times in the first two verses, David calls upon himself to render praise to the Lord.

John Piper says, When you see the words, Bless the Lord, oh, my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. That's the way the Psalm begins. David is prodding himself, prompting and urging himself, stirring himself up to bless the Lord.

To bless means to say good things about the Lord in a spirit of admiration and gratitude and wonder. You delight in expressing love and gratitude for all that he is and all that he does. You want to glorify the Lord and please the Lord.

And you notice he uses the word for God, Yahweh. This is the only name of God in this Psalm. We don't have any other name of God except Yahweh, and it's used 11 times in 22 verses.

Yahweh, you know, is the tetragram, the unspeakable name. Jews will not mention this name. The great I Am.

He focuses on worshiping the I Am, which is the eternal one. And notice he says, My soul, my soul. Soul here means an individual's mind, his heart, and his will.

John MacArthur says, For the Christian believer, it is the focus of his life. For a believer, this is true north. There's no mention of enemies, foes, or threats in this Psalm.

There are no requests in this Psalm. There are no complaints in this Psalm. There are no petitions in this Psalm.

This Psalm just has pure worship to God. No clouds on the horizon. No notes of disappointment.

No lines of sadness. It's all joyous, thankful, overflowing, praise rising from the hearts of those who will be given full and eternal salvation. No more pure outbursts of praise exists in all of Scripture.

And this is all in all. And you notice the words all. This Psalm begins with four alls, and we'll talk about them.

It actually ends with, it depends on your translation, three or four alls. So my translation has the word all eight times. Four at the beginning, four at the end.

So the first all says, All that is within me. It begins with the command for one's own soul to speak to God in ways that give him glory and honor. Someone has said that we often come to church, but we leave our minds at home.

The writer here strains with his entire being when he says, All that is within him. He's trying to express his feelings. He loves the Creator intellectually, emotionally, and practically.

This verse here in Psalm 103 is the equivalent of what Jesus says in Mark 12, verses 29 to 30. Actually, Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 6 there when they asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was, and Jesus says the most important commandment is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. So Psalm 103, what the psalmist is saying here in verse 102 is parallel to what Jesus says is the greatest commandment in the New Testament.

If you truly love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, you're going to bless the Lord with all that you have. You'll bless him with your lips. You'll bless him by talking to him in prayer.

You'll bless him with your tithes and offerings. You'll bless him by serving him and using your spiritual gift. You'll bless him with fellowship with other believers and not neglecting the assembly of the saints.

You'll bless him with a holy body and mind, and you'll bless him by proclaiming him to others. Worship is not about keeping an outward facade of rituals, rules, or religion. It's about an inward reality of the living relationship with God through his son Jesus Christ.

The problem is if you don't know enough about God, you aren't going to bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that's within me. Or if your life is filled with sin, you're not going to bless the Lord. You're going to find it really hard to call upon your soul to worship God if you're full of sin and iniquity.

This is from the soul that has deep knowledge of God. This is from David. He knows God.

He loves God. And he loves everything about what God is holy and pure. You may have heard the story of an old pastor who is in his study studying to preach a sermon.

And the door opened, and his little daughter came in. And the daughter asked, Daddy, may I come in? And when asked what she wanted, she replied, I don't want a thing, Daddy. I just want to put my arms around your neck and tell you how much I love you.

You can imagine how good that father felt, that pastor felt. Why not bless the Lord with all that is within you? Now we've talked about that's the rejoicing of praise. Let's talk about the reasons for praise.

The last part of verse 2 says, And forget not all his benefits. Now I don't know about you, but when you start a new job, you get your salary, right? But you hope that that new job comes with a good benefits package, right? You've got a good company. I was blessed to work at some good companies.

And they would give you vacation time. They would give you a pension fund, maybe match your retirement with theirs. They would give you sick days and things like that.

You work for a bad company, you probably don't have a good pension plan. Some companies are good, some are bad. But when you come to knowledge of Jesus Christ, and He's in your heart, and you have Him as Lord and Savior, you're guaranteed a great benefits package.

And David's going to list them here. You're guaranteed a great benefits package in this life and an even greater one in the life to come. So the second all here says, Forget not all his benefits.

They're expressed with the following six verbs. Forgives, heals, redeems, crowns, satisfies, and strengthens. And you know a verb is an action word, right? So let's look at the first six of the 20 that we have.

Number one, forgives. It says, Who forgives all your iniquity. So here you have the third all in the first few verses.

He says, All your iniquity. Not 99% of it or most of it. God forgives because He loves.

You know, the Catholics have a false theology of purgatory. Tom mentioned this a few weeks ago when he was preaching. We don't need a purgatory to purge remaining sins because the Bible says God forgives all our sins.

David didn't have the New Testament like we do. And we understand. And he didn't need the New Testament because he understood that God forgives all his sins.

But the New Testament says in 1 John 1 night that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That means past. That means present.

That means future. You know, in Thailand and Myanmar and some of the countries you work with new believers, they would struggle with this. There are some false teachers that would say that if you have Jesus Christ in your heart and you sin and then later in the day you die, that sin is not forgiven.

That's absolutely false. And I would simply take them to Romans 5.1. And this is a verse that destroys purgatory if you ever share with Catholics. Romans 5.1 says, Therefore, now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

This is the greatest of all benefits and listed first because without it, we could not enter into heaven. We can only receive this benefit because God gave his son to die upon the cross for our sins and that whoever believes in him can have eternal life and the forgiveness of sins. So number two, he says, who heals all your diseases.

The fourth all here is God heals all your diseases. When it says all your diseases, people will argue debate, but I believe it means both physical diseases and of course your spiritual diseases healing. This isn't to say a lot of false teachers, a lot of, we don't call them preachers, we call them faith healers, would try to take this verse and they would say that there's healing in the atonement.

James Boyce says, This verse has played an important but unwarranted role in some systems of theology that stress what is called healing in the atonement, meaning that if you've been saved from sin by Christ, we've been healed or have a right to be healed of any physical affliction too. But of course, this is bad theology because we all know it's simply not true. Many Christians who have Jesus Christ in their heart and are forgiven of their sin do get diseases and some even die.

And ultimate healing is in heaven when we're glorified. Believers do get sick and there are many passages in Scripture, I won't go into them tonight, that talk about why God allows sickness. But God does often heal us.

God heals many of our physical diseases and of course He heals us completely spiritually when we come to Christ by the forgiveness of sins. The third benefit that we should bless the Lord for is He redeems us. The first part of verse 4 says, Who redeems your life from the pit? I think it was a couple of years ago, maybe it was 2021, we looked at Psalm 40 and I called Psalm 40 the horrible pit.

And Psalm 40 verse 2 says, He drew me up from the pit of destruction out of the miry blot. So what kind of pit is it? Is it a pit of drugs and alcohol or pornography? Is it a pit of bad habits, laziness, procrastination, blame game? Is it the pit of broken relationships? Is it the pit of family problems? David had a lot of family problems and didn't deal with them. Is it the pit of loneliness? Is it the pit of hopelessness? Or is it the pit of sin? Some people are caught in the mud of sin.

But here pit most likely refers to the pit of eternal destruction or hell which God redeems us through the resurrection to eternal life. Romans 6.23 says, The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus delivers the repentant sinner into eternal life and from the destruction of hell.

You know, when we get a benefit package at work, we seldom think about how much that benefit package costs the employer. We only care about our salary. But we don't realize that on top of your salary, the employer has to pay workman's comp and vacation days and insurance.

So there's a lot more. When God gave us a benefit package which included redeeming sinful mankind, it cost the life of His very own son Jesus Christ when He died on the cross for our sins. What more could God give? Number four, He crowns us.

The last part of verse four says, Who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy. You know, this psalm is all about praise, but it's also very beautiful because it lists many of God's attributes. Every time you read the Bible, you need to look for the attributes of God.

And here you have the steadfast love, mercy, righteousness, justice, grace, compassion, eternality, just to name a few in this beautiful psalm. And the first two attributes are here are the steadfast love of God and His mercy. My English Standard Version Bible says steadfast love.

If you have the NASB out there, it just says love. The Legacy Standard Bible went with the translation loving kindness. So whether it's translated, it's listed four times in this psalm.

Verse four here, verse eight, verse eleven, and verse seventeen. And this steadfast love or loving kindness is in the Bible over 241 times. Over half, slightly over half, 127 times in the psalms alone, and four times alone in this great Psalm 103.

The Hebrew word has said it's not a romantic, infatuating kind of love. It's a faithful, reliable love. Like when a wife prays for her husband to come to Christ, to know God.

It's like parents loving, caring for an autistic son. Has said it's the faithful, it's loyal, it's love that's put into action. And most importantly, it's the love of the unfailing love that God has for you and me.

Mercy, the Legacy Standard Bible translated compassion, is listed three times in our psalm. Verse four, and twice in verse thirteen. It's in our Bible 100 times, 12 times in the psalms, of which three are in this Psalm 103.

The Hebrew word for mercy, if I can pronounce it right, is rakamim. It comes from rakam, which means to love tenderly, to pity, to sympathize with, to have compassion on. This mercy includes showing kindness to those who don't deserve it, like us, and forgiving those that deserve punishment.

So God crowns us with those steadfast love and compassion. Number five says in verse five, who satisfies you with good. God doesn't just redeem us from the pit, so we can sit around and be miserable.

God satisfies us with good things. Psalm 107, verse nine says, for he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things. James 117 says, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

So when I say we need to just take some time and count your blessings, name them one by one. Do that sometime. Take some time in prayer.

Don't go to God with your shopping list, with your request list, with your needs list. Just name and praise God for all the good things that he's given you throughout your life. Number six, the last part of verse five says, so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.

The body is going to grow old, but the mind can remain young at heart. And you know this verse reminds us of those beautiful verses in Isaiah 40, verse 29 to 31 that says, God gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might, he increases strength. Even youth shall faint and be weary.

Young men shall fall exhausted. But they who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up like eagles.

They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not be faint. So we have six benefits here that we need to bless the Lord for.

Psalm 116, verse 12 says, What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? When was the last time you counted your blessings? When was the last time you named them one by one? So point one is a personal cry to bless the Lord. Then we come to point number two, verses 16 to 18. And this is really all about Israel because David is addressing the psalm to Israel.

So it's a national call to praise. So this section though, although it's first addressed to Israel, you can see the word our, our, our four times in these first few verses. I believe it gives us 14 more reasons on top of the first six to bless the Lord.

But these verses also answer the question for you and me as to what is God like and why we should praise him. These verses may be the greatest reflections of the love and grace of God that we can find anywhere in the whole Bible. So let's go through them quick.

We don't have a lot of time to go through 14 of them. Number one, David says that the Lord works righteousness for the oppressed and justice for all who are oppressed. It's hard to be certain what David's talking about, but David probably has in mind the exodus from Egypt where the children of Israel were oppressed, were slaves in Egypt for many years.

Or maybe David is praising God for all the victories that God gave him in the battle. We won't go there tonight, but if you take some time, Psalm 103 is the greatest praise Psalm in the Bible. A couple more, Psalms 86, Psalm 145 are also great, but I think Psalm 103 is the greatest.

But why don't you look at Psalm 102 when you have the time? I think we'll preach that one next year. Psalm 102 is not about praise. It's about an oppressed man, probably in Babylon in captivity, who's been oppressed.

And if you look at I think it's verse 17, Psalm 102 verse 17 says he regards the prayer of the destitute and does not despise their prayer. So if that man is in Babylon in captivity and crying out to God, God's still going to answer his prayer and work for him. So the Lord does work righteousness for the oppressed.

Number two, it says he may known his ways to Moses. You have to go back here to Exodus 33. And when you go to Exodus 33, God and Moses are having a conversation.

Chapters 33, chapters 34. Wonderful conversation. And in Exodus 33, 13, Moses talks to God and he says, Now therefore if I have found favor in your sight, please show me your ways that I might know you in order to find favor in your sight.

That's Exodus 33, 13. Did God reveal his ways to Moses? Of course he did. After that, David asked to see God's glory.

And you know the story. God said, No, you can't see me because you see me, you die. But I'm going to hide you in the cleft of the rock and I'm going to pass by and you can see my backside.

But then when you go to chapter 34, and this is so important, Exodus 34, write that down, verses 6 and 7, God says this to Moses, The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping the steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sins, but by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. So Exodus 34, verses 6 and 7, David has that in mind for the next points. We'll get that when we get to points 4, 5 and 6. So God did reveal His ways to Moses.

And because He revealed His ways to Moses, number 3, He made known His deeds to the people of Israel. God chose one people to become His nation, the people of Israel. And Deuteronomy 7, verses 6 and 8, it says, talking about the children of Israel, for you are a people holy to the Lord your God.

The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than other people, but that the Lord set His love on you and chose you for you are the fewest of all peoples. But it is because the Lord loves you and in keeping His oath that He swore to your fathers that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

So one of the greatest acts and one of the greatest ways that God showed Himself to the children of Israel was the exodus from Egypt. Now we get into number 4, 5, and 6. David is going to literally quote Exodus 34, 6, and 7. He says, the Lord is merciful and gracious. So we have two more attributes of God here, mercy and grace.

But I put there that He is compassionate to His own. If you just took these six words here, the Lord is merciful and gracious, that would be a summary right there of the entire Psalm 103. Mercy and grace.

Mercy and grace are two vital Christian terms whose meanings are often confused. And the simplest way of saying it is, mercy is God not giving us what we do deserve. Let me say that again if you want to write it down.

Mercy is God not giving us what we do deserve. Grace is God giving us something we do not deserve. Grace is God giving us something that we do not deserve.

So point 4, 5, and 6. David is going to quote Exodus 34, 6 which gives us the perfect character and description of God. This verse in Exodus 34, 6 is quoted in Nehemiah 9, 17 Psalms 86, 15 which I mentioned was a praise psalm Psalms 145, 8 which is a psalm Joel 2, 13 and Jonah chapter 4 verse 2. There was a song I used to love. I don't listen to it much anymore by Phillips, Craig, and Dean when I lived in India.

And they wrote a song called When God Ran. And the song has the lyrics, The only time I saw God run was when he ran to me. And they got that lyrics from Luke 15 verse 20.

And you know the story of the prodigal son, right? And in Luke 15 verse 20 it says, And he rose this is the father, I'm sorry, this is the son. And he rose and he came to his father. But while he was still a long way off his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced and kissed him.

And you know that parable of the father. The father in that story is a picture of our loving father. So God, we didn't run to God.

You didn't choose God. God ran to us. He is compassionate to his own.

Number five says he's slow to anger. David continues quoting Exodus 34, 6 and the last psalm David would write I mentioned is Psalm 140 of the 150 psalms, the last one we have that says David wrote it is the praise psalm 145. And fittingly it's like a praise psalm and it says in Psalm 145, 8 The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.

God is slow to anger isn't he? And good for us, right? Although God is a God of mercy and grace, he's also a God of justice. Verse 6 in Psalm 103 mentions the justice of God. Sin brings separation from God.

Sin always leads to death, right? The wages of sin is death. But for those who refuse to turn from their sin, they will ultimately face judgment. However, God is slow to anger.

God always gives room for repentance and at times his wrath is poured out in righteous judgment, but that's usually only as a last resort. God patiently gives us time for repentance and restoration. God being slow to anger ought to cause us to praise him every day.

As we know, he could have judged us and he could have sentenced us to eternity in hell if he wanted to. Point number 6, he's abounding in love. David continues to quote Exodus 34 6 that God is abounding in steadfast love.

I mentioned the word steadfast love again as mentioned in verse 4, verse 8, verse 11 and 17. So this is the second time he mentions God's love. The word abounding means great or plentiful in a great quantity or supply.

And I can only think of John 3 16 when I read this. That God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. And Romans 5 8 says that God demonstrated his love to us while we were sinners.

Christ died for us. Number 7, let's continue. He's forgiving of sin.

And I know these are all kind of related. They're all kind of related. I could have lumped them up in one point but I wanted to split them out.

He will not always chide us. What does chide mean? Chide means a displeased rebuke when you rebuke your child and yell at them or something. God is going to judge sin and sin has its consequences.

And though the Lord may be justly angry because of sin, he does not keep on criticizing or accuse David. I love it when you read 2 Samuel 12 verse 1 and when Nathan confronted David about his sin, David said to Nathan I have sinned. I have sinned against the Lord.

And Nathan said to David the Lord has put away your sin and you will not die. Even though he committed adultery, even though he got Uriah murdered, Nathan said the Lord has put away your sin and you will not die. So if you go back to 2 Samuel chapter 11 verse 1, you all know that verse I'm sure.

It says in the springtime of that year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Job and his servants with him and all Israel and they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. And then it ends with but David remained in Jerusalem. And you all know what verse 2 happens right? He sees Bathsheba and he commits the sin.

If you go continue in 2 Samuel chapter 11. But I love it when you read the version in Chronicles. In Chronicles chapter 20 verse 1, it's almost the same exact verse as 2 Samuel 11 1. And it says in the spring of this year, that year the time when kings go out to battle Job led the army and ravaged the country of the Ammonites and came and besieged Rabbah.

But David remained in Jerusalem. And what's the next verses? Nothing about Bathsheba and David. Nothing about sins.

Why? Because Chronicles is the story of Israel's kings from God's perspectives. And God has forgiven David 100% of his sins. There's no mention of the sin.

And that's why it says God doesn't keep his anger forever. He forgives. Some of us, some of you perhaps out there, need to realize if you've asked God to forgive you for something in your life, you need to forget about it because God is forgetting about it and live for the future, not live in the past.

Number 8, again these are all kind of related. He is short in anger. It says you will not keep his anger forever, the last part of 9. Isaiah 57, 16 God says, I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry.

There is consequences for sin. God did judge Israel, but He brought them back. God can judge us too.

When Israel or David or we hear sin, God can punish us. But we always have the promise that if we confess and return to the Lord, He will forgive. That's the God we have in the Bible, because God is short in anger.

Number 9, He's merciful towards sin. It says in verse 10, and this is one of just... Every verse in Psalm 103 just seems to get better and better, right? Here's a wonderful explanation of God's grace. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.

It's a gift, right? We cannot earn the forgiveness of sins. It's all a gift of God. And this may be the most important benefit that God is merciful, because He could in His righteousness, in His justice, in His wrath, send us all to hell because that's what we ultimately deserve.

And David knew this very well. David is writing Psalm 103 in the latter years of his life. So he's looking back and remembers that he had confessed his adultery, his murder with the incident with Bathsheba.

Yet David admits here that even with the judgment of God, God punished him and God punished Israel a lot less than their iniquities deserved. And I'm sure you and me, when we count our blessings, could praise God for that God did not judge us according to what we deserve. And David wrote about that incident with Bathsheba in Psalm 51.1 where he says, Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.

And God did that. Number 10, He is great in love. This is the third time that love is mentioned in verse 11 here.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him. It's indescribable, isn't it? It's infinite. God's love is so vast.

David describes the love of God as filling the universe. We sang the beautiful psalm tonight that God's love goes from hell all the way to heaven. And 1 John 4 says anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love.

Number 11, we have to go fast. He is infinite in forgiveness. You have another beautiful verse.

As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. In verse 3, we read that God forgives all your iniquity. Now David is going to elaborate on the scope of forgiveness.

And he uses the illustration from the east horizon to the west that God removes our transgression. This is an infinite, unmeasurable number. You know, I mentioned this before, I'm not sure last year or before, but there's one king in the Bible that drives me crazy.

He's a wicked king named Manasseh. And he's the king, the son of a great king, Hezekiah. You know, Hezekiah was sick and he begged God to give him more years of life.

And in those 15 extra years of life, this little troublemaker, Manasseh, was born. But what always drives me crazy is God gave Manasseh 55 years of life. I don't think there's a king good or bad that lived as long as that.

And let me tell you a little bit about Manasseh. In 2 Chronicles 33 verses 5 and 6, it says Manasseh built altars for the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of God. Got that? He burned his sons as an offering in the valley of the son of Hinnom.

That would be to the god Moloch. He used fortune telling, omen, sorcery. He dealt with mediums and necromancers.

He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking God's anger. This is the worst king in Judah's history. You know, we studied about three weeks ago, Psalm 58, if you were with us, in pre-preparatory prayer.

This is the king that I would ask God to kill. Because not only is he killing his sons, he's killing lots of Israelis. He's a wicked king.

But I'm not God. And I can't understand the mercy of God sometimes. So when you go to 2 Chronicles 33 and you go to verses 10, it says the Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention.

God could have killed him. Therefore the Lord brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks. And when they say hooks, they literally put hooks in him and drug him, bound him with chains of bronze, and they brought him to Babylon.

And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before God and his fathers. And he prayed to him. He prayed to God.

And listen to what it says. And God was moved by his entreaty, and heard his plea, and brought him again to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. And it ends with the words in verse 13 of 33.

Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God. Someday I'm going to get to see Manasseh in heaven. What an example of God's forgiveness.

He could have killed him after year 5, after year 10, but he gave him 55 years. And then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God. Number 12, he's merciful toward his children.

We've already said in verse 4 that God crowns us with mercy. We have the same Hebrew word here, but here it's translated in English as compassion. But the verse ends with a caveat.

It says the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. Now I'll get back to that when we get to the application, okay? Number 13, he's mindful of our frailties. You have these very familiar but beautiful words here, right? Talking about we're dust, and we're like the days of grass and flowers of the field.

Job 14, verses 1 and 2 has these words. Psalm 90, Moses wrote. Psalm 95 and 6. Most of us know it from Isaiah 40, verse 6 and 8. James 1, 10 and 11 quote it.

First Peter 1, 24 and 25. Many, many places in the Bible it talks about. God knows us.

He knows our frame. He knows that we're going to turn to dust. He knows that we're transitory like the grass.

He knows we're temporary like the flowers. God knows that we flourish just for a short time, and then we vanish like grass and flowers. But the love of God cares for us not only in our sinfulness, but also in our human frailty.

God doesn't forget us. We talked about this a couple weeks ago when we looked at Psalm 71. Number 14 and last, he's everlasting in love.

Notice verse 14 begins with, I'm sorry, notice verse 17 begins with the words but. But. So you've got to look back to verses 14 and 16 where man passes from the scene like grass, like dust, like flowers.

But it says the mercy of God, the righteousness of God endures forever because God is eternal and eternal. Let's move on to point number three. So we had an individual call to praise.

Then we had Israel's call to praise, which I think is also applicable to us. But finally, we have a universal call to praise. Here it says, we're going to see four more times the word all.

James Boyce says, when we come to the last stanza, verses 19 to 22, you notice I skipped some verses, but we'll come back to them. When we come to the last stanza of Psalm 19 to 22, we find that the writer is not satisfied with the thought that only the redeemed should praise God. God is so great that nothing but the praise of all creation will do.

So the psalmist cries out first off from his place. The Lord has established his throne in heaven and his kingdom rules over all. When I read that verse, it reminds me of that incredible chapter, Isaiah chapter six, when the Lord is sitting on the throne and he had the above him were two seraphim.

Those are angels. Each had six wings to covered his face to cover his feet as they flew and one called to the other angel and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is filled with his glory.

So his place is in heaven and it says his angels. It says, bless the Lord you as angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word. These are these are warrior angels.

Apparently there are classes of angels. Most commentators feel these mighty warrior angels who surround his throne. Maybe there's a seraphim.

They're urged here. David urges them to praise the Lord and they, you know, they do that 24 hours a day. The perfect obedience of these angels is a mighty example for us, isn't it? Then he says, bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers, you do as well.

Now people argue what does it mean ministers? Could it be his workers us here in earth, but most commentators believe it's just another classification of angels. And if you look at Psalm 148 to the word host definitely means angels. And if you look at Psalm 104 for the word ministers also means angels.

So I think hosts are a different kind of angel. Then we come to his works. The psalmist ends with bless the Lord, all his works in all places of his dominion.

Bless the Lord, all my soul. So the psalm began with one person praising the Lord. It merged with the children of Israel and us praising the Lord.

And here it ends with all creation praising the Lord. It ends with bless the Lord, all my soul. It's a reminder for himself, the psalmist.

What he began, he has to ends with. You know, one person like David here can impact the world with praise to God, can he? So point number four is our application. I put that at the end and we're going back to verses 17, the last part of verse 17 and 18.

And there's three lines I'd like you to know. Verse 18 it says, to those who keep his covenant, those would be faithful believers. Then the last part of 18b says, you can add the words, those who remember and do his commandments, that would be obedient believers.

And then three times our psalm says that those who fear him, those who fear him, those who fear him, verse 11, verse 13 and verse 17. So obedience. Number one is what I want to tell you.

We've listed 20 reasons to bless the Lord with praise God's blessings to Israel and ultimately to us depend upon Israel's obedience to the God's covenant. If they obeyed, they'd be blessed. If they disobeyed Deuteronomy 28, they would be cursed.

And we believers today, we need to be obedient to God's will if we're to enjoy his blessings. First John 2, 3 says and we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. So I'm just going to say, you have to obey.

Number two, you've got to remember the Lord. You've got to remember what the Lord did for you. That's where it says in 18, remember to do his commandments.

And I added the words those. So number one was those who keep his covenant. Number two, those who remember to do his commandments.

You know, if you go back to the book of Deuteronomy at least 14 times Moses admonishes the children of Israel and he says verses like Deuteronomy 32, 18, you were unmindful of the rock that bore you and you forgot the God who gave you birth. So Moses says at least 14 times in Deuteronomy you forgot, you did not remember me. Don't we often forget God's blessings like the children of Israel? Don't we often bless the Lord? Too often we want blessings.

In India, Thailand and a lot of the Christians over there, they're always asking for blessings. If they got a gift of, you know, 500 rupees or 500 baht or some money, they would say, oh, God gave me a blessing. They're always seeking blessings.

But we don't spend enough time just blessing the Lord for who He is and what He does. We need to just sit in prayer sometimes and I've said before count your blessings. Name them one by one.

Count your blessings and see what God has done. Maybe you ought to memorize Psalm 103 and maybe you won't remember all 20 of these blessings but you're certainly going to remember most of them. So number one, we have to be obedient.

That's the key. Number two, we've got to remember what the Lord did for us and count our blessings. And number three, we have to fear the Lord.

Three times in our psalm it tells us the benefits result from fearing the Lord. Three times in this psalm alone it says towards those who fear Him. In verse 11 it says, so great is His steadfast love for those who fear Him.

Verse 13 says, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him. Verse 17 says on those who fear Him. He's talking about believers, not non-believers.

Who are those who fear Him? Believers. Too often the fear of the Lord is described as reverence for the Lord. You know in the lobby there's a sign that says we don't want any drink, we don't want any food in here, right? So maybe some of you got yelled at last week.

But we don't want a Starbucks in our church. When you go to a wedding, when you go to a funeral, you don't walk in with your cappuccino or your latte, sit down with your food, do you? That would be irreverent, right? That would not be showing reverence to the deceased or the family. That would not be showing reverence to the bride and groom.

So why would you do it coming into church? So a lot of people say that the fear of God is reverence for God. And that's partially true. But it's more than that.

This book, we give it out in our new members class. And there's a sign up out there for the new members class. I don't know how many of you read this book.

I don't know when it came out, but recently, because I was teaching new members class, I read it twice in the last month. I actually read it this week again. This is a great book.

And I was out to lunch with a couple in church this week, and they said something so striking about what Lance said in this book. And Lance has a quote here. And it says, the question needs to be asked of your life and mine.

Am I a God-fearing person? We usually ask each other, when were you saved? Instead, we need to ask, when did you begin fearing God? That's a more accurate assessment of man's commitment to Christ. So the next time you're engaged in a conversation about the Lord with someone, ask that person, when did you begin fearing God? They will probably be confused, and that will give you a wonderful opportunity to teach them about the fear of God. And in that book, and I hope you can get it in our tape library and buy it, Lance listed seven reasons.

We fear God by submitting to His commands. We fear God by staying away from sin. We fear God by serving Him.

We fear God by sanctifying our lives. We fear God by sacrificing to Him. We fear God by standing in awe of Him.

That would be the reverence, right? And we fear God by surrendering to Him. And I'll talk more about the fear of God because next week we're going to finish our summer of psalms with Psalm 130. And Psalm 130 says, in verse 4, if God kept a record of sins, you know, how could stand? Therefore I fear Him.

And Ecclesiastes 12, which in two weeks, Lance will be here, will begin the book of Ecclesiastes. The last verse, you probably all know it, the last two verses of the entire book of Ecclesiastes says, the end of matter, all has been heard. Fear God, keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

Verse 14, for God will bring every deed into judgment and every secret thing, whether good or evil. So I hope you'll remember to be obedient. I hope you'll remember the blessings that God has given you.

And I hope you remember to fear the Lord. You know, our children are memorizing Psalm 103. I hope you'll memorize it with our children.

I think they're only about through verse 5 or 6. I was hoping to bring one of our children here and have them say it tonight, but maybe we'll do that later. But Psalm 103 is a psalm that's worth remembering, like the children are doing now. Because we have to be careful not to take God's grace for granted.

You know, the non-Christian does the exact opposite of blessing the Lord. And what's that? Cursing the Lord, right? We need to bless the Lord more and more. And I'll close tonight with a quote from Roy Clements.

He says, we need to ask ourselves whether or not there's any real praise in our hearts. It is so easy to come to church out of habit. It is so easy to say amen without ever really speaking to God.

It is so easy to hear sermons without listening to God. Spiritual lukewarmness is a common disease in a land like ours, where being a Christian is respectable. If that is our condition, then we, like David, need to talk to ourselves.

We need to stir our hearts up to a more appropriate emotional response to the truth about God we know. If you find your heart is cold, then do what David did in Psalms 103. Count your blessings.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for this wonderful, wonderful praise psalm. Father, my prayer is tonight that this would not have been a lecture about praise, but that your Holy Spirit would stir up our hearts to give you the honor, to give you the glory, to give you the praise that only you deserve.

Father, how inadequate my praise is. I know I need to do more. Help me to be more obedient.

Help me to remember the many, many blessings. Maybe there are 10,000 reasons. Maybe we only have 100, but here's 20 here.

20 here in Psalm 103 that David gives us. And we, of all people, New Testament Christians who live in the United States of America, we have more blessings than all the Christians in the world, and we ought to give you that praise. We ought to bless the Lord, O my soul, and we should not forget all his benefits.

May we leave here tonight giving you glory, honor, and praise that only you deserve. In Jesus' name. Amen.