Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia  |  Text: Psalm 115  |  Date: May 3, 2026  |  Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Psalm 115. After a long time away from the Psalter, we come back to the Psalms today. “To your name give glory.”

I’ll begin reading with verse 1. I’ll read through the entire psalm.

Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness. Why should the nations say, ‘Where is their God?’ Our God is in the heavens. He does all that he pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but they don’t speak, eyes, but they do not see. They have ears, but they do not hear, noses, but they do not smell. They have hands, but they do not feel, feet, but they do not walk, and they do not make a sound in their throat.’ Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.

O Israel, trust in the Lord; he is their help and shield. O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord; he is their help and their shield. You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord; he is their help and their shield. The Lord has remembered us, He will bless us. He will bless the house of Israel. He will bless the house of Aaron. He will bless those who fear the Lord, both the small and the great. May the Lord give you increase, you and your children. May you be blessed by the Lord who made heaven and earth. The heavens are the Lord’s heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of men. The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any who go down into silence. But we will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Praise the Lord.

I’m sure all of you remember perfectly well those months ago when I preached from Psalm 113, that this is a selection of Psalms here, Psalms 111, actually, through 118, are known as the Hallel Psalms. You’ll recognize that word, hallel. It’s related to the word hallelujah. It simply means praise. These are praise psalms. And you’ll see that at the beginning of Psalm 111. You’ll see it at the beginning of Psalm 112, 113. You don’t see it in Psalm 114, but you’ll see it again either at the beginning or the end of the following psalms in this group. This is the Hallel Psalms.

Within this group of Psalms 111 through 118, we have a smaller cluster that is Psalms 113 through 118, and they’re known as the Egyptian Hallel, the Egyptian Praise. And that is because these Psalms focus particularly on the Exodus from Egypt and God’s establishing the nation of, of the people of Israel as a nation. And it lists—it praises God in that context. You’ll see that in particular in Psalm 114, where it recounts for us God’s deliverance of his people from slavery in Egypt.

This collection of Psalms, Psalm 113 through 118, was traditionally sung at the Passover as part of the ceremony, part of the Passover meal itself. There were 4 cups that were observed during the Passover meal. And they were all used rather ceremoniously to signal the singing of these Hallel songs, this Egyptian Hallel in particular. When the second cup was taken, that signaled now the singing of Psalms 113 and 114, and then the meal itself was eaten.

The third cup in that series of ceremonial cups that were taken at the ceremonial, at the, at the, uh, Passover, that third cup is the cup that Jesus famously took at the last Passover when he instituted the Lord’s Supper and says, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. It’s the cup the Apostle Paul referred to in 1 Corinthians 10, when he refers to it as the cup of blessing.

And then we have the fourth cup in this ceremony, and that was drunk at the climax of the meal, after which the remaining Hallel Psalms, or Egyptian Hallels, were sung, and that is Psalms 115 through 118. This is almost certainly the Psalms that Jesus sang with his disciples after the Last Supper when it tells us, Matthew records for us, that they sang a hymn and went out into the Mount of Olives.

We come then to Psalm 115. This is best known for its opening line, which is a petition.

The Opening Petition

Verse 1: Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to your name give glory.

Now, that is a marvelous petition for any occasion at any time. But what’s not often recognized, and this is critical to the interpretation, the really understanding of the psalm, what’s often not recognized is that verses 1 and 2 are a petition with a hint of lament in the background.

The underlying petition in verse 1, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto your name give glory.” The underlying petition is, “Lord, help us.” And there we know that because of the second line, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to your name give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness.” Now there’s that coupling of words that we see often in the Psalms, and actually we see it quite often in the Old Testament, reaches back to Exodus, in the occasion of Moses with his people there, where God is a God of steadfast love and faithfulness. This is a pair of words that becomes an important and actually a massive theme in the Old Testament and particularly in the Psalter.

God’s steadfast love, that’s that Hebrew word that many of you know because it’s become so common, his hesed, his steadfast love. It’s translated God’s kindness, God’s favor, his loving kindness. Those kinds of translations are given pretty consistently in the Psalter. In our version, it’s translated his steadfast love. It connotes the promise of God, his commitment to his people. He’s covenanted with them in love and in affection, but in a pledge to care for them and to keep his promise to them.

And so coupled with faithfulness, as I’ve told you before, it’s almost redundant because steadfast love connotes and entails faithfulness. But these two are brought together. God has promised his loyal love to his people. He will protect them. He will give them all that he has promised, and he’s faithful to keep his word. It’s an important theme in the whole Psalter, in the Old Testament, and actually, it’s just all I can do not to, I could take another 10 minutes and track out for you how this comes crashing into fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ himself, where God’s steadfast love and faithfulness comes to its fulfillment.

But he’s saying here, “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, to your name glory, give glory because of your steadfast love and faithfulness.” That is, “honor yourself by working on behalf of your people just as you have promised to do.”

The petition is grounded in a trusting zeal for God, for sure, but it reflects a weak people, a people looking to God for help, and it is simply, in simple words, “Lord, help us, your people, as you’ve promised to do, and thus glorify your own name” through it.

Verse 2 then supplies something of the background for us with its lament. “Why should the nations say, where is their God?” Now, we don’t know for certain the exact historical setting of this, but this gives us something of a hint. There’s no superscript here that tells us anything else, but verses 1 and 2 seem to reflect circumstances of either the exile into Babylon or shortly afterwards. In verse 2, the people of God are in some kind of minority status. They’re despised. They’re certainly weak. Verse 2, “Why should the nations say, ‘Where is their God?'” Gentiles around us are mocking us.

But then, if you’ll glance down the Psalm to verse 12, it tells us, “The Lord has remembered us.” So, evidently, this is after the exile, perhaps shortly after the return from Babylon, and they’re back home, but Israel is just a shadow of what they were previously. Just a—the former greatness of Israel is just a memory. It’s not what they are at this point. They’re back at home, but they’re mocked, they’re threatened by their neighbors. You read of that elsewhere in the Old Testament.

So that’s their situation when the psalmist says this: Not to us, O Lord, but to your name give glory. That is, for your sake, to exalt your name in the earth, which is the prophetic hope that God will make his name great in the earth. Lord, help us, but not simply for our sake, make your name great in the earth by helping us as you’ve promised to do.

So verse 1 is often cited in times of success. It’s cited as an expression of humility. The context here is anything but success. It’s a context of humiliation. And yet, they believe that God can move on behalf of his people. And so they call not just for help, but they call for help from God for his own sake, for his own name’s sake, and for his honor. And out of zeal for God, they pray at the head of the psalm, not to us, Lord, not just to make us great, but to your name give glory. That is, we’ve heard stories of God’s mighty works for our people in the past, where is it now? “Bring it about and honor your name in the earth. Move on our behalf for your own sake.”

Now, verse 2 reflects both their zeal and their frustration. There’s that hint of lament. “Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” We’ve heard of your work in the past. They’ve heard of it. And now we’re back in our land. We’re under threat from those around us. They’re mocking us, and they throw it at us. “Haha, where’s your God? We’ve heard those great stories too. Haha, where is He now?”

Psalm 114, if you look back just at the last two verses of Psalm 114, we’ll see that the psalmist there calls the whole world to tremble at the presence of the Lord, the God of Jacob. But that faith at this point, because of their circumstances, doesn’t seem to match up with reality. And so there’s their frustration.

And what makes the mocking sarcasm of verse 2 so frustrating for them is that the psalmist himself, and I think we can say for Israel itself who sings, who sang this, what makes it so frustrating is that they know better. Where is your God? And so they say in verse 3, they know that God is not absent.

“Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases.” We might not have a great show of strength right now, but it’s not because our God is impotent. God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. That’s our confession of faith. That’s where we stand. And yet, it doesn’t look like it. It doesn’t seem to match our circumstances.

Now, one of the great values of the Psalms—I’ve pointed this out before in our studies through the Psalms—is that one of the great values of the Psalms is that it expresses the suffering of God’s people honestly and frankly. The laments sometimes are even shocking in that regard. The psalmist, the inspired psalmist, comes to grips with his suffering in such a way, and the injustice that seems so wrong, in such a way that he has to cry out to God and almost complain.

At the same time, another value of the Psalms is that over and again, and particularly in the praise psalms, we have this exalted portrayal of God, this exalted view of God expressed in firm devotion. God is the Creator. God rules over all. He rules over land and sea. He rules over the elements. He rules over the nations. He rules over all the gods. He has interfered in history in miraculous ways on behalf of his people. God is God over all.

And you have these two: frustration of the suffering of the people of God, and yet this firm devotion that God is the God who rules over all. And in some of the Psalms, actually in many of the Psalms, those two come together. And that’s what we have here in Psalm 115.

At the same time, verses 1 and 2, we have this lament of their suffering, their minority, they’re being mocked, they’re—insults thrown at them, “Where is your God?” And yet, verse 3, it glories in the greatness of God. “Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases.”

We make a lot of the doctrine of the sovereignty of God here. If you want a definition of the doctrine of the sovereignty of God, there it is. Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. He’s not subject to anything in the entire created order. He’s the Creator Lord. He’s not frustrated by anything. He’s not cajoled. He’s not coerced, not pressured. He reigns as God over all. He does all that He pleases.

What does God do? Well, the summary answer is He does what He pleases. And notice what it says, “He does all that He pleases.” And that’s all that He does. He does what He pleases. He’s never obligated. He’s never cajoled or pressured. There’s nothing in the entire created order that could ever pressure Him. This is the same, in essence, as Nebuchadnezzar’s famous pronouncement after his time out in the pasture in Daniel chapter 4, when he says that God does according to His will among the hosts of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and no one can stay His hand or say to Him, “What are you doing?” He’s God over all.

So this is their confession of faith in verse 3. God is God over all. He does all that He pleases, and He’s never frustrated by anything down here. But of course, it’s just that aspect of His divine sovereignty that leaves us puzzled and sometimes frustrated. If God is God over all, and if God does all that He pleases, then why do His people suffer? And if He’s promised good to His people, why do they suffer? Why do we find ourselves being the butt of jokes, mocked? “Where is your God?”

In short, why is the rule of God in the earth not more evident than it is? And the answer to that question—why is the rule of God not more evident in the earth?—the answer to that question may leave us with mystery, but the answer is found in this confession right here in verse 3, “Our God is in the heavens. He does all He pleases.” Whatever is happening, we may be assured that God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. His hands are not tied. He’s not caught off guard by anything that happens. There’s never a cultural uprising that catches Him and says, “Oh, I didn’t know that was going to happen.” In it all, God is in the heavens and He does all that He pleases.

Now, God doesn’t always explain for us. In fact, He rarely explains for us exactly why He does what He does and why He allows this or that, or cultural uprising, or the rebellion of our culture as we see today. He doesn’t explain to us why at this particular time that’s being allowed. But that’s irrelevant. When we see that kind of thing happen, all we need to know is that God is in the heavens and He does all that He pleases. He has His reasons. You don’t always need to know them. He’ll always keep His word. He’ll always do everything that He said He would do. But God—and this is the important part—God has never bound himself to your calendar or to mine.

The world seems in disorder like it did for the psalmist here. The world ruining itself in rebellion and pursuing every kind of evil that you can imagine, like it is today. The ground of our confidence is verse 3, “Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases.” In all things and in all events, God is doing all that He has said He would do. Whether or not you understand why at this particular point this or that is happening, that’s irrelevant. What we need to know is that He does all He pleases.

Now, this is interesting, I think, from a historical perspective. It’s difficult for us to imagine now, but there was a time in the ancient Near East—oh, think of North Africa, think of eastern Turkey, Asia Minor as it’s called sometimes, Anatolia, the ancient name of it, think of cities like Nicaea, Chalcedon, Constantinople. These places were hotbeds of Christianity. Hard to imagine now. Hotbeds of Christianity. North Africa, you had the towering theologian Augustine, whatever disagreements we have with him, and we have some, but he was a towering theologian in many wonderful ways. And that whole area of the world, just a hotbed of Christianity. And now, well, it’s been left in spiritual darkness for quite a while, for centuries. You ask, “What was God doing?” The answer is, “He was doing all that he pleases.”

For several hundred years in the West—I’ve said this many times—that we’ve lived in kind of a bubble, historical bubble in the West. For several hundred years, the West—in the West, Christianity has enjoyed a majority status. We had the moral high ground. We had the theological high ground, even if it wasn’t obeyed and adhered to like it should, but we had that ground. If, for example, in our society, even as back when I was a kid, even if you talk to anyone on the outside about God, it was the Christian God that you were talking about, both sides, the God of the Bible. You can’t take that for granted today. Things have changed.

And even in terms of morality and justice, these concepts were largely Christian-defined. There was a recognition on a societal level. It’s Christendom, you see. At a societal level, there’s a consensus that immorality is wrong, adultery is wrong, homosexuality is wrong. Now, it was still practiced, of course, but it was recognized as wrong. And in a, in a, you know, in a Christendom like that, no one would ever think of practicing homosexuality and telling you about it. And no one would ever have imagined that a man could call himself a girl and we’re supposed to take it seriously.

You could even, in Christendom, you could even insist that Jesus is the only way and it was recognized. They may not acknowledge Him as the Savior, but they knew somehow or other that Jesus was the only way to heaven. And all of that in our contemporary time now has been lost.

In fact, for a period of a couple of centuries, that thinking of the dominance of Christianity in culture, in our culture in the West, that dominance of Christianity was understood as so strong that it supported for a couple hundred years what’s called the postmillennial view. Revelation 20 talks about the 1,000 years of peace and all of that. In a postmillennial view, that comes and grows in this age, and then after that, Jesus returns. And they saw the advance of Christianity in the West as something so marvelous, and it was so strong, they said, ‘We’re in the millennium now.’ And even we have some hymns that have survived that we still sing today where that postmillennial hope shows up:

“The darkness shall turn to dawning and to dawning to noonday fair, and Christ’s great kingdom will come to earth, the kingdom of love and light.” It’s that postmillennial thinking that the world is going to get better and better through the advance of the gospel. And through every other means as well. But the world is going to get so Christianized that finally at the climax of it, Jesus will return.

The Civil War was viewed in that kind of light by many. This was the war to end evil and to drive out evil. And some of the hymns of that day reflected that:

“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
He’s trampled out the vintage where His grapes of wrath are stored.
He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword.”

This advance of the Union Army, this is the advance of the kingdom of God.

Well, that was Christendom and that was then. You can imagine postmillennialism has become a minority view today. It’s hard enough to defend biblically. It’s really tough to look at the society and say, “That’s what’s happening. It’s getting better and better.” That’s certainly not what is happening today. In fact, Christians today don’t even have any longer in our culture the moral high ground. It used to be recognized that we had the moral high ground. Immorality was immoral as defined by Christians. Abortion was wrong as defined by Christians. Adultery was wrong as defined by Christians.

Today, if you dare to say that practicing homosexuality is sin, “Why, you bigot,” and you’ve become the evil one. Tables are completely turned. And same with a host of other concepts with regard to morality and justice. It’s been twisted and turned on its head so that Christians in our culture today no longer have the moral high ground that they used to have.

And in that sense, in that sense, the West has become what we call post-Christian. Or to use the biblical language, we have become, we Christians have become exiles. And in that kind of an environment, we can look at it all and it might shake your faith a little bit. You might ask, “What in the world is God doing?” And the answer is, same answer it has always been, He is doing all that He pleases. Infallibly carrying out all the purposes that He has designed for history.

It may not have dawned on you before to think of it like this, but God does not owe Christians a greater standing in this world, not yet. He doesn’t owe us greater clout. He doesn’t owe us greater influence in the world, society. He doesn’t owe us vindication in the eyes of the world, not yet. Now, there’s coming a time the day will come when God’s kingdom will break into history in a dramatic and a climactic way. The Bible is replete with the promise of it. But for today, that is not the promise.

And until then, God is under no obligation at all to give His people the upper hand in their culture. And in fact, in fact, we may be called to suffer. And we may have to learn with Moses that the sufferings of Christ are greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt. I thought of all this this morning as we were singing the hymn, “This Is My Father’s World,” Isaac Watts’ hymn. Good hymn all around, but that third stanza really makes it.

“This is my Father’s world.
And let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
Jesus who died shall be satisfied
And earth and heaven will be one.”

That’s the hope of the church. Psalmist here gives voice to that for his own generation. And he gives it to us to sing together with them. Verse 1, the petition, O Lord, to your name give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness. And that in the context of lament, verse 2, why should the nations say, where is their God? And yet in devoted trust, we affirm, verse 3, our God is in the heavens. He does all that he pleases. This is our song.

Praise by Contrast with Idols

Verses 3 to 8 then, he expands on this with praise. I’ll have to hurry here. And this is largely praise by contrast.

Verses 3 to 8, he contrasts the glory and the greatness of God with the idols and the folly of worshiping false gods. Verse 2, the enemies ask in mocking ways, “Where is our God?” Verse 3, we answer in affirmation of faith, “He’s in the heavens. He does all that He pleases.” And then verse 4 begins this contrast. “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths but do not speak, eyes they don’t see, ears they don’t hear, noses that don’t smell. They have hands that do not feel, feet that don’t walk, they don’t make a sound in their throat.”

There’s a contrast. Now, biblical writers do this quite often. It’s just, in terms of our polite culture, don’t be offensive, and certainly in terms of our pluralistic culture—all religions are viewed as equal and the same, and, well, your way to God is your way to God—in light of that, this can seem very offensive, but the biblical writers just are not polite. When it comes to talking about the pagan religions around them and their false gods, we find that here. This is certainly not the postmodern open-mindedness of pluralism, but they just call it as they see it, and it’s just blistering sarcasm.

They wonder where our God is. Well, we know where their god is. They carved him out of a tree. They gave him ears and they gave him eyes and they gave him a nose and they gave him a mouth. And then they prop it up against a tree. That’s their god. What is that? Isaiah, Jeremiah do that. Habakkuk does this. Isaiah is particularly mocking about it, just as much as what we find here. He’s just a little bit more extended with it. He says, “The guy cuts down a tree and he gets this log, and out of part of the log, he carves an idol.” And he gives it eyes, he gives it ears, and he props it up against the tree and it falls over in the wind. And so he gets a chain and he chains it up against the tree so it won’t fall over. And then he bows down and worships that. And with the rest of the tree, he cuts it up into firewood and cooks with it. And that’s their god. It’s both stupid and it’s pitiful.

Verse 8 adds a fascinating insight to it all. “Those who make them,” that is, those idols, “become like them. So do all who trust in them.” That is, you worship false gods, and in the end, you’re becoming like them. Now, you have to follow the thinking on this. When you devote yourself, he says, to anything in the created order, other than God, you begin to reflect the same attributes as that god you are worshiping. Spiritually lifeless, blind, deaf, dumb, helpless, lame. All of these are the attributes of the gods. When you devote yourself to them, you become like them. You take on the same kinds of attributes.

Isaiah chapter 6 is a famous illustration of this, a good case in point. We find in Isaiah his prophecy in chapters 1 to 5 in particular, but we find the ancient Israel continually tempted to trust the gods of their neighbors. The prophets come and they condemn and they warn and they ridicule. They mock the false gods and so on. And in chapters 1 to 5 of Isaiah’s prophecy, he warns against Israel’s idolatry. Isaiah 2:8, he says, sort of capsulizes the whole thing, “Their land is filled with idols, they bow down to the works of their hands.” And as a result, the people of Israel become blind, lame, deaf, dumb, and helpless.

And so, we get to Isaiah 6, and God says to Israel, “You want your idols? Have them. Bow down and worship them, and then you’re going to become just like them. And I’ll send My prophets to proclaim My Word to you, and you’ll hear it and you won’t hear it. You’ll see it and you won’t see it.” And you’re to become just like the idols that you have worshiped. And here’s the kicker, after it all, you’ll be judged by the God that you have ignored.

Now, in our society, in our culture, we don’t have carved idols and such. Of course, idolatry can take a number of different forms. We have an amazing tendency to devote ourselves to all kinds of things other than God. One of the famous lines from John Calvin is, “Our hearts are idol factories.” It all leaves you, the psalm tells us, becoming just like what you worship, spiritually lifeless, blind, lame, deaf, dumb, helpless. And then that kicker, after it all, you’ll be judged accordingly by the God that you have denied. This is the insanity of devoting yourself to anything other than the God of heaven.

So verses 3 to 8, he gives this praise to God grounded in trust, carried out by a contrast with the false gods.

A Call to Trust

Verses 9 to 11, he calls the people of Israel to trust.

O Israel, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield.

Three times over, “He is their help and their shield. He is their help and their shield. He is their help and their shield,” driving us to see the trustworthiness of God in contrast to those dumb idols that can’t do anything. Our God is a God who can be trusted. He’s the God who’s in the heavens who does all that he pleases. Trust in the Lord. Calm your, your, your heart with these promises that he has made and acknowledge that he is the God who does all that he pleases and he’s a God who therefore can be trusted in every circumstance.

This is always our obligation. The Psalter calls us to this over and over again. Honor God with the trust that he deserves. Whether you can understand the present circumstances, think in terms of the international scale and all the upheavals that are going on. Think in terms of the national scale and what’s going on in our own society, in our own culture, in all of the rivalry that’s going—think in terms of your own personal experience in all of it. The Psalter calls us again and again, “Honor God with the trust that He deserves.”

God doesn’t report to us to explain why He’s allowing this, that, or the other. He calls us to trust, robust faith to honor God with the trust that He deserves. Whatever disappointments, whatever setbacks, God will do all that He said He will do.

The Blessing of Trust

And so, verses 12 to 15, the psalmist calls the congregation to sing of it. The theme here, and you should notice, is clearly blessing. The word “bless” we find five times over in these verses. Verse 14 doesn’t mention the word, but it gives the same sense.

Verse 12: The Lord has remembered us. He will bless us. He will bless the house of Israel. He will bless the house of Aaron. He will bless those who fear the Lord, both small and great. May the Lord give you increase, you and your children. May you be blessed by the Lord who made heaven and earth.

Verse 12, beginning of the verse, says it all in brief. “The Lord has remembered He will bless us.” You gotta love the logic. The Lord has remembered us. He will bless us. God’s actions in the past are themselves a pledge and a guarantee of what he will do in the future. He has said what he will do. He’s demonstrated his faithfulness in the past. And that is the ground of the people’s hope that because He has helped us, He will bless us.

I’ve given the illustration before. You’ve heard it several times before. It’s worth repeating here again. This is not like those commercials that you hear on the radio and television about financial investments. They tell you all that they can do and all the wonderful things, and it gets to the end of the commercial and in a really fast voice, “Past performance is no indication of future results.” And that’s just exactly what the Psalms do not say, that past performance is a pledge of future results.

We have these called the historical Psalms in the Psalter that just recount what God has done in the Exodus, in establishing His people, in the great victories He’s done through Joshua, even David, God has helped us. He will bless us.

All of that to say then, people of God, don’t be discouraged. Let your hearts be assured of God’s promise that He will do all that He has said He will do. He’s still in the heavens. He still does all that He pleases. Nothing will ever interfere. Trust him.

Essential to the Christian faith, essential to the Old Testament faith, is this great big word, hope. A hope grounded in what God has done in the past and grounded in his promise of what he will do in the future. Essential to our faith is this idea of an expectant waiting for God to come good on all that He has said He would do. Faith in terms of verse 12 that looks back to the past and reasons to the future.

A Vow of Unending Praise

And so verses 16 to 18 concludes with a vow to unending praise. Let’s just look at verse 18 here. “We will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.” And then at the end of the verse, there’s this final exhortation to the congregation, “Praise the Lord.”

Psalm 115 was written for God’s people who, because of circumstances, may have become discouraged. Verses 1 to 3, their home, but they feel like aliens, exiles. Verse 2, the world mocks, “Where is their God?” This is like 2 Peter 3, put it in a New Testament setting: “Where’s the promise of His coming? Do you actually believe? You expect me to think that Jesus is actually coming back again.” They mock.

Psalm 115 here counsels along two lines of applied theology. Number one, the greatness and the steadfast love and faithfulness of God. Our God is in the heavens, verse 3, He does all that He pleases. And the second major area of applied theology is not just the greatness of God, number two, the works of God. Verse 12, “The Lord has remembered us. He will bless us.” And on the ground of that, the psalmist calls the congregation to trusting praise. Verses 9 and following, “Trust in the Lord.” He is their help and shield. Trust in the Lord, He is your help and shield. Trust in the Lord, He is your help and shield.

Now, standing on this side of redemptive history compared to them, our circumstances are at the same time very similar and yet very different. Our circumstances are very similar in the sense that we have become, in our culture, a minority, no longer have the upper hand in our culture. Jesus told us, in fact, to expect persecution, told us all of that upfront. There’s no promise in the Bible that makes us expect that the world will become Christianized before Jesus comes. In this age, Jesus tells us, both will grow together, the weeds and the wheat. They grow together. And that’s the mark of this age. But the counsel remains the same. Recall the greatness of God, recall His great works, and trust Him accordingly.

And it’s at that point we see the great difference between our circumstances and the circumstances of those in the psalmist’s day. It’s different, very different, stunningly different in the sense that we stand at a much greater advantage than they have. Our hope is more fully informed. Christ has come. He is the very Incarnation of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness. I’ll demonstrate that sometime, maybe in a Christmas message. A wonderful theme. God’s steadfast love and faithfulness coming to fulfillment in Jesus. He has died for sinners, paid the price of sin, purchased for us a right standing with God. God has raised him from the dead in vindication of his work for us. He’s exalted him. In the words of the Apostle Paul, he has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. He’s been exalted to heaven, to the right hand of God. He’s inaugurated God’s great kingdom. And in fact, he is bringing it throughout this age to its grand culmination through the work of the Spirit and the spread of the gospel to the advance of his kingdom.

And with all of that informing our minds and shaping our thinking, we can sing verse 12 with a much deeper understanding, can’t we? The Lord has remembered us. He will bless us. That, in brief, is Romans 8:32. “He that spared not his Son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not also with him freely give us all things?” God has sent us his own Son who has died in our place and secured our forgiveness, secured our standing with God, our justification. He has given us all things in him.

Do you think for a minute that having given us his Son, in whom we have forgiveness of sins and acceptance and justification and righteousness and life and omnis go. Do you think that having giving us, given us his son and all that comes with him, he would at the end withhold glorification or the grand culmination of his kingdom? You think we would miss that at this point? That’s verse 12. The Lord has remembered us. He will bless us.

And so we can sing verse 13, “He will bless those who fear the Lord, both the small and the great. Not one of his people will be left out.” Every last one of us will see our King usher in the Kingdom of God in its full consummate glory. And you’ve heard me say this throughout these studies in the Psalter, our hearts just swell with the anticipation of it. Sick and tired, sick and tired of the world saying, “Where is their God?”

The Lord Jesus Christ is King over God’s kingdom, and yet in this world, if we hear His name, we hear it blasphemed. We hate it. Sick of it. And so we pray, verse 1, not to us, O Lord, not to us, to your name give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and faithfulness. You’ve told us what you would do. You’ve told us that you would make your name great in the earth. Do it. Come, Lord Jesus, come. Make it today. Show yourself strong and move into this world as you said you would do.

So Psalm 115 then leaves us where the Psalms routinely leave us, singing with a devoted faith, verse 18, “We will bless the Lord.” That’s our commitment. That’s our devotion. We won’t stray from that. We will bless the Lord from this day forth and forevermore. We will bless the Lord today in all of this upheaval and uproar of the pursuit of evil and all that comes with it. In whatever circumstances we find ourselves, we will bless the Lord and we will bless the Lord tomorrow when we see our great King. Bring His kingdom to its glorious climax. People of God, he says in short, be encouraged, trust the Lord. He is our help and our shield. Amen. Let’s pray. Our Father, what a great God we serve. What a wonderful book you’ve given us to tell us over and over and over again, to remind us over and again all the things that you have purposed for us and for history. And Lord, we look forward to that day when you will, as you have said you would do, make your name great in the earth. We pray that it would be soon. Come, Lord Jesus. Till that day, we ask only that you keep us faithful. In Jesus’ name, amen.