While I am, I Praise

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While I am, I Praise

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Psalm 146, the first of the final hallelujahs of the Psalter. These psalms supply us with the substance of the praise that we will be giving to God forever. In that day, when we stand before Him for the first time to begin never-ending worship, none of us will say, “Lord, I wish the preacher had told me more about how to make money. Lord, I wish the preacher had told me more about how to be successful in this world.” But we’ll never ever regret every syllable we've learned about how to praise God, because we’ll be doing that forever. And the psalmist is so kind to end the Psalter preparing us for something that will never end — the praise of God. So let's look to Him in prayer before we read and hear Psalm…

The Joy of Unity

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Psalm 133. Psalm 133 has been sung at Presbyterian General Assembly for probably close to five hundred years now and if you've ever been to a Presbyterian General Assembly you’ll know why it needs to be sung there because unity is not something that Presbyterians are known for at their General Assembly. It used to be said that if the Scots couldn't find somebody to fight they’d fight one another and that national characteristic has apparently followed Presbyterians historically over the decades and centuries. But perhaps in faith and as an ideal, typically our General Assembly closes every year — it will be next week in Louisville, Kentucky — with the singing of this psalm in a metrical version, an aspiration…

Looking Until He is Gracious

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Psalm 123 as we continue through the fifth book of the Psalms together. And specifically right now, since we came to Psalm 120, we are in those Psalms of Ascent which were used by pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem for festival. As we look at Psalm 123, I want you to notice two or three things and then bear in mind one more. First of all, notice in verses 1 and 2 how the psalmist begins in the singular, “I lift up my eyes,” and he ends up in the plural. Look at the end of verse 2. “So our eyes look to the LORD our God, till He has mercy upon us.” So this is clearly a psalm, and it will become exclusively plural when you get to verses 3 and 4, this is clearly a psalm for the community. The community is collectively…

Praying for the Peace of Jerusalem

Turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm 122. This psalm is well-known to us because I think all, or at least most of us, love it when Bill Wymond and Connie Wadsworth and the choir sing that beautiful excerpt from C. Hubert Parry's, “I was glad when they said unto me, ‘Let us go into the house of the LORD!’” as the choral introit on Sunday mornings here at First Presbyterian Church. It's my favorite introit of all time. I could listen to it multiple times every day and never get…

Shadowed

If you have your Bibles, I’d invite you to turn with me to Psalm 91, as we continue to work our way through the Fourth Book of the Psalms, which runs from Psalm 90-106. Last Lord’s Day, as we began our journey through this great portion of the word of God, we said that the Psalms in large measure answer the question of what a true believer experiences in his or her life with God in this fallen world. Christian experience is a very important subject, and the Psalms are constantly answering…

Balaam’s Prophecy

Wednesday Evening January 2, 2008 Numbers 22:41-23:26 Balaam’s Prophecy (1) Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III Amen. If you have your Bibles, I’d invite you to turn with me to Numbers 22, the last verse of that chapter, and then we’ll read the first twenty-six verses of the twenty-third chapter tonight. It’s been a while since we’ve been in Numbers together. When we last left Balaam, he was talking to a donkey. And we said that throughout this story the sovereignty of God has been…

The Janitors’ Psalm

Wednesday Evening January 18, 2006 Psalm 84 “The Janitor's Song” Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III Some of you, when you hear just the words “Psalm 84”, maybe the first few words of the Psalm itself, “How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord…” immediately go into Brahms…it starts playing in your mind: “How lovely”…Die Leiblich, from the Brahms Requiem. It's the fourth or fifth movement in Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, “A German Requiem.” It's a…

I AM Who I AM

I Am Who I AmExodus 3:13-22 If you have your Bibles, I’d invite you to turn with me to Exodus, chapter 3. When last we were together, God had revealed Himself in this manifestation of the burning bush to Moses, and had announced to him His intentions to make him His spokesman to Pharaoh and His leader for Israel. Moses has already met the Lord with one question. Who am I to do this? What qualifications do I have to do this, Lord? Are you sure that you have the right person? And now we will…

The Deliverer Delivered (By Women)!

The Deliverer Delivered (By Women)!Exodus 2:1-10 If you have your Bibles, I’ve invite you to turn with me to Exodus 2. You will remember from our study of the last two or three weeks that Pharaoh, in his desire to bring the children of Israel under control, and to make sure that they do not become a threat to join with the anti-Egyptians as allies to conquer the land, has attempted several different plans or plots to make sure that Israel is suppressed. He may have genuinely only desired to…

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