Christ is God and our Father, we thank you that we are able indeed to call you our God. You who are sublime in all of your attributes, perfect, righteous, holy, faithful, loving, thou you who have revealed yourself in Jesus Christ, depths of your love and truth and hymn, grace and truth manifested in him, and Father, we pray now as we handle your word, it may be of your spirit, that he who revealed you and he who inspired these scriptures may illumine our hearts, may both the content of what is taught and the manner in which it is taught, be pleasing to you. We pray, Lord, that each of us will be better students of your word, that as a result of our study and having given diligence to handle your word a right, we may be approved workmen in your house, in Jesus name, amen. We have been studying the Psalms of praise, so-called descriptive praise Psalms, that speak of God, usually in two dimensions, they speak of God in His greatness, particularly as seen in His creation, and in His grace not only in His greatness, as seen in His creation, but in His grace as He is working with mankind and moving history forward. This is the two dominant ideas in most of these Psalms that are praises to God and we've been studying several of them. These two notes that our God is both the Creator and our God is also the God involved in history and the establishment of His righteous rule is indicated immediately by the two names for God, the two principal names for God used in the Old Testament, namely the name that speaks of God as the Creator in Hebrew, is that coming through, let me try one of the other pens, is Elohim translated God, and the other word is the Yahweh translated Lord. The Elohim is the transcendent God the Creator, this is God as the Creator and in power, this is the word for God as the governor of the universe, ethics and in covenant with His people. And those two concepts of God, both as the Creator, these dual revelation of God, both as the Creator and the God of ethics and righteousness informs almost all of these Psalms. Now these Psalms we've said normally fall into three parts, there's usually a call for praise and then the cause for praise and then frequently a renewed call. If you look at your notes on page 34, I have most of this put there in writing for you, page 34, where we talk about the elements of these Psalms, there is a call to praise, a cause for praise, namely His greatness, His Lord of creation, His grace, His Lord of history and then specific illustrations with conclusion. And here's a list of Psalms that fall into that category. Last week we looked at two of these Psalms, we looked at Psalm 117 because it is so terse and brief you can see the structure and the ideas quickly. And then we were studying at the close of the last hour Psalm 33. Tonight I'd like to begin with Psalm 33, then move to a more difficult Psalm but foundational for New Testament teaching, namely Psalm 95. And then I want to move into another category of Psalm, namely those Psalms that envision the day when God will rule upon the earth. Now we've been studying Psalm 33 and we've already noted the basic structure that in the first three lines, we have the call to praise. And then in the last three lines, we also have a renewed looking to God, a calling to God. And then that's in verses 20, 21 and 22. And then in verses 4 through 19, we have the cause for praise beginning with the conjunction 4. Just to review briefly, we noted first of all that God wants the righteous to praise him, sing for joy in the Lord, O you righteous ones. And we commented last time that God abhors hymns on the lips of the ungodly and the unrighteous as seen in name is chapter 5 and verses 20 and following. But for those who are in a right standing with God through the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ and through the indwelling power of his Holy Spirit, there is a desire of God that we sing for joy in the Lord, O you righteous ones. And we saw the reason for it is that praise is becoming to the upright. It is the fitting adornment. It is the final jewel of our dress that sets the believer up, namely when we have a song of praise upon our lips, it is that which brings us to our final perfections in our dress in Jesus Christ. I like to think of us as dressed in the white linen robes of his righteousness and the adorning necklace or the adorning bracelet, the adorning ring is the word of praise to our God upon our lips. He wants it to be done with music. Give thanks to the Lord with the liar, sing praises to him with the heart of ten strings. And then he desires us to give expressions to new songs sing to him a new song, namely it should be because of our awareness of a new manifestation of his reality, a new manifestation of his power in our lives that should occasion a new song upon our lips. I hope it's not wrong but I sometimes wonder how it must be to God to hear the same old hymn sung over and over and over again like a record though he looks at the heart but it is interesting he says sing a new song and he wants us to do it with skill. We use we abuse the old one hundredth make a loud noise unto the Lord but he wants it to be done well. He God is a God of aesthetics and beauty. Just think about the laws of cleanliness for his camp because our God is a God of order. He's a God of beauty. Just look at the creation around you. It's symmetry, it's form, it's flow, it's pattern, it's baroque, it's exquisite. And God wants the same from us. He wants it to be done with skill and not only done with skill but he wants it done with emotions. He has no pleasure in a just a monotone, formalistic form of worship. I think he wants a lovely worship but he wants it done with emotion. He wants it done with the whole being of ourselves. We'll see this very clearly. The scriptures are so emphatic that God clearly distinguishes the way we appear outwardly from the way we are in our viscera that is God is not interested in an outward show. God is interested in our deepest emotions. He wants us to be totally involved in our worship for him. And now he gives us the cause for praise and there's a summary statement as to the reason we should praise God as we reflect upon him. There are two reasons. First of all in verse four because he is upright, his word for the word of the Lord is upright and all his work is done in faithfulness. That is because of his greatness. And in verse five it's because of his grace. It's because he is involved in history and in ethical fashion for he loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of the steadfast love of Yahweh. His greatness then is displayed in two ways. First of all it is in his word which he has spoken namely his word is upright or the thought of it is that since it is upright it is firm and it is dependable so we are to praise God because his word is upright or dependable and where to praise him because his work is done in faithfulness. Namely God does not begin a program of salvation and drop it. He will see through his program of salvation to its ultimate consummation. Just as Isaiah reflects upon this and Isaiah chapter 45 toward the end of the chapter when God entered into the work of creation he didn't stop halfway. He didn't create the firmament and quit. He didn't create the dry land and say that's enough. He didn't stop on the third day. It was only when his work was finished that God ceased from all of his works and Isaiah makes the point.