Psalm 118:19-29

“This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” The psalmist makes that statement in Psalm 118 verse 24. And it’s a statement that we need to hear and to heed when the going is tough. Ah, when you’re having one of those difficult days, a day when the storm is blowing, when the battle is raging, when the burdens are heavy. Days when your heart is broken, when your tears are flowing, days when it feels like everybody’s turned against you including your heavenly Father. That’s the time to make this statement by faith: “This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Now the psalmist said this. When you read Psalm 118, you find that he was not having an easy time. He was going through battles, he was going through difficulties. And yet he was able to say, “This is the day which the Lord hath made; If God put this day together, I’m going to rejoice and be glad in it. Even though I may not see the blessing now, eventually, by faith, I’ll be able to say, ‘it all worked together for good,’ so I’ll say it now.”

Did you know that Jesus also said these words? Psalm 118 is one of the psalms that the Jewish people sing at the Passover. The Lord Jesus sang this song before He went to the cross. Can you imagine? On your way to the suffering of Calvary, and saying, “This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” That’s another way of saying, “Not my will, but thy will be done” (Luke 22:42). This is a messianic psalm; it talks about the Lord Jesus as “the stone which the builders rejected,” verse 22. Jesus sang this song.

And you know, we should sing it also. Let’s accept the day God has given to us. We can’t change the weather; we can’t change the traffic patterns. This is the day God has given to us. Let’s accept it, let’s anticipate what God is going to do today. “We will rejoice and be glad in it.” Oh, we may not see it now, but one day we shall. And let’s acknowledge that He is the One who is in charge. If you want your day to be brighter, just go through the day saying, “This is the day which the LORD has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Psalm 118:10-18

“The LORD is my strength and song, and is become my salvation.” That’s a great statement. You find it in Psalm 118 verse 14, but you’ll also find it in Exodus chapter 15 and in Isaiah chapter 12. Here is a statement that is repeated in three different books of the Bible. “The LORD is my strength and song, and is become my salvation.”

The nation of Israel sang it when they were delivered from Egypt. As they saw their enemy drowned in the waters of the sea, they sang, “The LORD is my strength and song, and is become my salvation.” In Isaiah chapter 12, Israel will sing this song in the future when God restores them and establishes His kingdom. Let’s rejoice today that God is our strength. That takes care of the demands of life, doesn’t it? “The LORD is my strength.”

What is your strength today? Oh, you say, “My experience, my health, my money, my checkbook, my job.” Is that your strength today? All of those things could vanish. The demands of life can be met only by the strength of the Lord. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;” (Isaiah 40:31).

The Lord is our song. That takes care of the dullness of life. Many people have to go through dull experiences in life. Perhaps your job is not as exciting as you’d like it to be. Perhaps you are even a shut-in and sometimes you just cannot get out and do and see what others have the privilege of doing and seeing. Our joy is in the strength of the Lord. “The joy of the LORD is our strength.” He is our song. That takes care of the dullness of life.

He is our salvation. “The LORD is my strength and song, and is become my salvation.” That takes care of the dangers of life. He is there to deliver us and He is there at our side. “The right hand of the LORD is exalted:” says the psalmist in verse 16, “The right hand of the LORD doeth valiantly.” And that right hand is available for us today.

He is our strength, let’s trust Him. He is our song, let’s praise Him. He is our salvation, let’s yield to Him and let Him have His way.

Psalm 118:1-9

“The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?” Well, the psalmist spoke those words in Psalm 118 verse 6 and they are good words. “The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?”

To begin with this is a word of assurance. “The LORD is on my side.” “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). The very God of the universe is on our side. God the Father is for us. God the Son is for us. And God the Holy Spirit is for us. And no matter who may be against us, God is on our side. It’s a word of assurance.

It’s a word of confidence. “I will not fear.” As I look at the past, God has cared for me. As I look at the present, He is here with me. As I look to the future, God is ahead of me. And so as long as God is behind me and around me and before me, I will not fear. “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,” (Hebrews 13:5) is God’s promise and we respond by saying, therefore, “I will not fear: what can man do unto me?”

It’s also a word of defiance. “What can man do unto me?” The idea here is that we fear God, we don’t fear men. Jesus taught that to His disciples. He said, “Now, why are you worrying about what men are going to do to you? Fear God. All that men can do is kill your body but God is able to kill both body and soul. Now you fear God.” (See Luke 12:4-5.) When you fear God, you need not fear anything else. To fear God means to love Him, to reverence Him, to respect Him. We show our fear of God by listening to Him and by obeying Him and by not defying Him or tempting Him.

I need this word of assurance today. No matter how difficult our experiences may be, the Lord is on our side. I want to express this word of confidence today. “I will not fear.” I will not fear the past or the present or the future. I will not fear what anybody can do. I have the Lord at my side. There’s a word of defiance here. “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

Psalm 117:1-2

Psalm 117 is the shortest of the Psalms, only two verses. “O praise the LORD, all you nations: praise Him, all you peoples. For His merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the LORD endures forever. Praise ye the LORD.” What a tremendous little psalm this is. It’s short, ah, but it’s deep. The length of the psalm does not measure the strength of the subject. He’s talking about praise isn’t he? “Praise the LORD.” “Praise Him, all you peoples.” “Praise ye the LORD.” Praise is important in your life today.

Whom do we praise? Why, we praise the Lord! Now we don’t find too much difficulty in thanking people for what they have done. Those who have done things for us, that have been gracious and kind, even the things that we have paid to have done, we still say, “Thank you.” Ah, but we take advantage of the Lord sometimes and we take for granted the things He has done for us. We thank Him sometimes for the beautiful world around us, the world of nature. Do we thank Him for eyes to see? For ears to hear? God is the One whom we praise. 

Now who praises Him? All you nations, all you peoples. Alas, that is not true. There are billions of people who cannot praise the Lord. Why? Because they don’t know Him. They’ve never been told that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. And, alas, there are many Christians who, for some reason, are not concerned. How can all the nations praise Him until all the nations trust Him? How can all the nations glorify His name until they have learned to trust His Son? 

Why do we praise Him? Because His merciful kindness is great, because His truth endures. His kindness toward us is great; lovingkindness that never fails. His truth, His Word endures forever. Today we ought to be a praising people, but let’s remember that while we are praising the Lord, many cannot praise Him. What are you going to do today to help a whole world praise the Lord?

Psalm 116:12-19

Death is a subject that few people really want to talk about and yet Psalm 116 verse 15 says, “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints.” Now this statement is often misunderstood so we better think about it, ponder it, and see what it means to our lives today. Psalm 116 verse 15, “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints.”

To begin with, it does not mean that God enjoys it when His people die. In fact, God doesn’t enjoy it when anyone dies. Death is the wages of sin. God is the Author of life. When God made this original creation, there was no death. Ah, but when man sinned, death came on the scene and today death is reigning like a king. “And it is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgement:” (Hebrews 9:27). No it doesn’t mean that God enjoys a person’s death. “I have no pleasure,” says the Lord, “in the death of the wicked” (Ezekiel 33:11). Certainly God does not enjoy it when unsaved people die because He knows they go out into a Christless, dark eternity.

Nor does God enjoy it when His own people die. Jesus stood at the grave of Lazarus and He wept. What it means is this: the death of God’s children is so precious to Him, it will not be an accident. When you read Psalm 116, you discover that he, the psalmist, was brought low. He almost died, verse 3, “The sorrows of death compassed me, the pains of the grave got a hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.” He was going to die and then he cried out to God. And God said, “Your death is so precious to me, I will not allow you to die just by accident.”

That means that every saint who goes home to be with the Lord, his death is not an accident, it is an appointment. We are immortal until our work is done. That, to me, is a real encouragement. There’s a lot of danger in this world. There’s so much that can come but God says, “Your death is too precious for Me to permit it to just happen.” No no, death for the believer is a precious experience because Jesus bore our sins on the cross. He is our life.

Psalm 116:1-11

We don’t know who wrote Psalm 116 but whoever it was he really went through some difficult experiences in order to give us this psalm. In fact, he almost died. The Lord heard his cry and delivered Him. That’s why he wrote, “I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and supplications.” Well, let’s rejoice today that God hears us. Psalm 116 verse 1, “He has heard my voice and my supplication. Because He has inclined His ear unto me,” That’s a beautiful picture isn’t it? God leaning down to His little child, getting close enough to be able to hear. Now sometimes I have to get close to people who are speaking because my hearing is not as good as it used to be. God can hear just as He always heard but God gets close to us, not just to hear us but to help us.

He tells us that in verse 6, “I was brought low, and he helped me.” God stooped down low to help us! He came right down where we are that He might deliver us and make us all that He wants us to be. Verse 8 tells us that, “For thou hast delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from falling.” None of us wants to go to death. None of us wants to be weeping and stumbling. What do we do? We call upon the name of the Lord. We beseech Him. The psalmist discovered the grace of God. “Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful. The LORD preserves the simple: I was brought low, and He helped me” (vv. 5-6).

He helped my soul by delivering me from death. He helped my eyes by stopping my tears. He helped my feet by strengthening me and guiding me so that I did not stumble. We have all of this through the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s the One who is the source of grace and mercy. He’s the One who died for us. He’s the One who experienced death. The psalmist said, “The sorrows of death compassed me,” but the psalmist did not die; Jesus did.

Let’s rejoice today that God hears us and that God helps us and that all that we need comes from the bountiful hand of God.

Psalm 115:9-18

Some years ago there was a “God is dead” movement in theology and people were telling us that God was dead. Well, God is not dead, He’s very much alive, at least according to Psalm 115. “Our God is in the heavens: He has done whatever He has pleased.” The problem is not that God is dead. The problem is that our faith is dead. We do not have living faith in the living God.

The psalmist says in Psalm 115 verse 9, “O Israel, trust thou in the LORD: He is their help and their shield.” Then he talks to the priests. “O house of Aaron, trust in the LORD: He is their help and their shield.” Then he talks to us. “You that fear the LORD, trust in the LORD: He is their help and their shield.”

In other words, if we’re going to have the kind of relationship with God that we ought to have, if our God is going to be to us the living God with living power and blessing, first of all we must trust Him. That means to rely on Him. To believe that what He says is right and true, that God does not lie. It means to believe that what God is doing is the best thing for us, trust Him. He is our help, He is our shield. He is our provision, He is our protection. He is our security, He is our sufficiency.

Fear Him. Verse 13, “He will bless those who fear Him, both small and great.” The blessing that He gives is the best blessing. He always gives us the thing that is right. To fear God means to show reverence to Him, to respect Him. To respect Him when He speaks and when He acts. To have a heart that does not tempt Him or test Him or dare Him.

And then bless Him. Verse 18, “But we will bless the LORD from this time forth and for evermore. Praise the LORD.” We’re always asking God to bless us but here the psalmist is saying, “We’re going to bless God.”

You know, when you fear the Lord and when you trust the Lord and when you experience in your heart the living blessings that He has for us; He is our help, He is our shield; you cannot help but blessing the Lord. If our relationship to Him is what it ought to be then we’ll be praising Him, “from this time forth and for evermore.”

Psalm 115:1-8
The God whom we love and serve is the living God. He’s not like the idols of the nations. Psalm 115 talks to us about the blessings that we have because our God is the living God. In fact, the psalmist is encouraging us to have a living faith in a living God. Verse 4 says, “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.” How true that is today. Many people have as their gods silver and gold. They think that money can do anything. Money has power, money can help you. Well, we do need money for some of the practical things in life. But what good are the things that money can buy if you don’t have the things money can’t buy?

Now he describes the idols. “They have mouths, but they speak not: [no promises] eyes they have, but they see not: [no protection] They have ears, but they hear not: [no prayer] noses have they, but they smell not: [no praise] They have hands, but they handle not: [no power] they have feet, but they walk not: [no presence] … They who make them are like unto them; so is every one who trusteth in them.”

You see, because we have a living faith in the living God, we have promises, our God talks to us. We have protection. “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, [we have prayer] His ears are open unto their cry” (Psalm 34:15). We can praise Him.

In the Bible, the smelling of the fragrant offering is a picture of praise to God. And we can offer our praise to the Lord. We have power because He has a hand that can do anything. The hand of the Lord is mighty and strong.
Well, you and I are becoming like the God that we worship. Those who worship silver and gold get like silver and gold. Dead, lifeless, hard, the work of men’s hands. You see many people are making a god in their own image. Well, God made us in His image and He wants us to have living faith in the living God. You are becoming like the God that you worship. Therefore worship the true and living God that you might have truth and life.