Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Psalm 115 | Date: May 17, 2026 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Alright, we’ve been looking forward to this a long time. He was supposed to come back in March, and then he got sick and couldn’t make it. And so I’m glad that my brother’s finally able to come and preach for us today. He was the pastor here for how many years, Fred? 17 years. He’s now ministering in the Franconia area down in the suburbs of Philadelphia. He’s one of three pastors there.

Or four. Yeah, for now. So, but we always love having him back. I do want to say one thing and there’ll be an offering plate on the chair outside as soon as you leave the auditorium if you’d like to give a love offering for our speaker today. I’m, again, so looking forward. I always love hearing my brother preach. Pastor Fred, would you come?

It’s always good to be back with you folks. I seem to have lost my voice somehow this morning. We’ll make it. As Paul alluded to, it really is always a blessing to be back with you guys. We have wonderful memories of the years here with you all. I think the greatest treat of all is to come back and see many so faithful remaining still.

Psalm 115. I’ll take the time to read through the entire Psalm.

Not unto 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 do not speak. Eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear. Noses, but they do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel. Feet, but 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 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. 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 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.

The Context Of The Hallel Psalms

I’m sure you’re aware that the book of Psalms is a collection of Psalms. It is not a book that is written straight through. It is something of a hymnal. And the collection of the Psalms actually took place in a series of stages. As you are aware, as you read through the Psalter, you’ll see book one at the beginning and then at Psalm 43, you’ll see book two and so on. Five books of the Psalms, representing five different collections of the Psalms, which were finally brought together. Within those five books of the Psalms, there are other smaller collections of psalms, sometimes grouped by author, sometimes grouped by theme, and so on. And we have a grouping of psalms here. Psalm 111 through 118 are known as the Hallel.

That means simply the Hebrew word for praise, the praise psalms. You’ll see that in each of them. The entire Psalter is a book of praises. In fact, the Jews refer to the book of Psalms as the Sefer Tehillim, the book of praises. And there’s a sense in which that’s a right representation of the Psalter. Even in the Lament Psalms it is given to praise. But this grouping of Psalms in particular—there are many psalms given specifically to praise, and this grouping of them does that.

And you’ll see that if you’d like to look back at Psalm 111. You’ll see how it begins in verse 1, “Praise the Lord.” Psalm 112, it begins, verse 1, “Praise the Lord.” Psalm 113, verse 1, “Praise the Lord.” And then it ends in verse 9, “Praise the Lord.” If you look to Psalm 115 verse 18 at the end that we just read, it concludes, “Praise the Lord.” Psalm 116 at the end, “Praise the Lord.” We have it in Psalm 117 given to us in verse 1 and in verse 2, “Praise the Lord.” Psalm 118 doesn’t use the word praise with the same idea: “Oh give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.” And then it concludes the same way.

So we have an obvious collection of Psalms here brought together to serve a common purpose. Within this collection of Psalms, Psalm 111 through 118, there is a smaller collection and that is Psalms 113 through 118, and that’s known as the Egyptian Hallel. It’s called the Egyptian Hallel because it has a particular focus on praise given to God for the deliverance He gave to His people in bringing them out of Egypt. And so it is traditional in Jewish practice, going back at least to the New Testament times, to sing these psalms as part of the ceremonial observation of the Passover meal. These are the psalms, no doubt, that our Lord sang with his disciples at the Last Supper. Psalm 114 doesn’t mention specifically the word praise, but tucked into this grouping of psalms, Psalm 114 does specify that the occasion in view is the bringing of the people out of Egypt.

During the Passover meal and observing of that ceremony, there was a succession of cups that were drunk, filled and drunk then during that meal. At the pouring of the second cup, they would sing together Psalms 113 and 114, and then the meal itself would be eaten. Interestingly, the third cup that was observed during the meal was the cup that our Lord took at the Last Supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is given for many for the forgiveness of sins.” It’s the cup that the Apostle Paul referred to in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 as the cup of blessing.

And then at the culmination of the meal there would be a fourth cup and that would be at the culmination of the meal after which they would resume singing and sing the remainder of these Egyptian Hallel, these Psalms, Psalm 115 through 118. This is almost certainly what is in view when we read in Matthew that after they had sung a hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives. It is almost certain that these are the Psalms that they sung at that time. Psalm 115 is fairly well known today simply for its first line.

Not To Us, But To Your Name Give Glory

“Not unto us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory.” Now that is a marvelous petition at any time, on any occasion. What’s often not recognized, though, is that verses 1 and 2, the petition here, is a petition with a hint of lament in the background. This is not a lament psalm, but there’s a hint of lament in verse 2, and it provides us something of the background to the psalm. And when he says, “Help us, O Lord, Not to us, O Lord, but to Your name give glory.”

Notice the second line of verse 1: “For the sake of Your steadfast love and Your faithfulness.” That is, You’ve made some promises. And for Your sake, for Your honor, Help us! So there’s a hint of lament. You have something of a weakened people in view. They need God’s help and they’re petitioning Him for that. But their aim in that petition is not for their own good merely, but God’s glory is at stake in it. So, not to us, to your name give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and faithfulness.

Now this is a coupling of words here in that line two of the first verse that are massively important in the Old Testament. We find it beginning back in Exodus when God reveals himself as a man, as a God of steadfast love and faithfulness. And that coupling of words we find over and again through the Old Testament, very often in the Psalter itself, these two words are brought together: God’s steadfast love and His faithfulness. The steadfast love—it may be a Hebrew word that you’re familiar with, chesed. It’s become rather common in the English-speaking world to know that word, the steadfast love. It’s translated various ways in the English versions. It’s translated loving kindness, his favor, his mercy, his goodness. The idea of steadfast love is really, as it’s used in the Old Testament, is rather involved, the connotations of it.

It pictures a superior in a relationship with an inferior, and the superior pledges his help to the inferior. And so he pledges it, but not just to help. There’s the idea of love and affection, but also the idea of loyalty. And so often this word is in the connotations of God’s covenant love with his people. He’s made promises to them. And because he’s made promises and pledged his affection and pledged his loyalty and pledged his help to them, you can depend on it.

And so the English translation of this word, we have to use two words to get it all: steadfast love. And once you understand the connotations of that, you see that the next word, faithfulness, is almost redundant. His love is steadfast. Well, then of course it’s faithful.

But these two words are brought together to characterize God’s relationship with Israel. He’s promised that He would help. He’s promised that He would always be their God. That He would make them His people. That He would bring deliverance when they need. And all through the Old Testament we find a reminder over and again through the Psalter and through the prophets as well. God has promised His help.

He has steadfast love and He is faithful—a God of steadfast love and faithfulness. I wish I had time just to expound on that theme as it’s developed through the Old Testament and it comes crashing into a climax in John chapter 1 when we find the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And there these two words are brought together again, that He is the climax of God’s faithfulness and his steadfast love. Well, then the petition then, with that as the meaning and the connotation of these words, the petition of verse one is very simple.

Lord, honor yourself by intervening on our behalf. You’ve made promises to us. Help us. Help us as you have promised. It is a promise or a petition that is grounded in a trusting zeal for God, no doubt, but it also reflects a weak kind of people. They’re looking to God for help. Help us, Lord. Honor yourself by bringing us help. And then verse 2, the lament itself.

“Why should the nation say, where is their God?” We don’t know the exact historical setting of this psalm. There’s no superscript that gives us a historical setting. We have to infer it from some of the details of the psalms. And here we have that verses 1 and 2 together seem to reflect circumstances which of either the exile to Babylon or shortly after, the people are in a weakened condition of some kind and needing help. Verse 2, the people of God are in some kind of weak or even minority status. They’re despised. They’re certainly weak. The people around them are saying, “Where is their God?” They’re being mocked.

And yet, if you’ll glance down to verse 12, you’ll see “the Lord has remembered us.” Though this is likely not the people of God in exile, it’s likely shortly after the exile and the return from Babylon. You’ve read of that in Ezra and Nehemiah, in the weakened condition that Israel was in during that time, and they had to build the walls with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other. They’re a weakened kind of people, and they’re back home, but they’re just a shadow of the greatness that Israel once was.

And they’re mocked, they’re threatened by their neighbors, and their neighbors are able to say, “Ha ha, where’s your God? Doesn’t look like He’s so great.” And so verse 1, most often today, at least in the way I’ve heard it recited, verse 1 is most often recited in times of success. An expression of humility. “No, no glory to me, glory to God.” That’s a great sentiment. But that’s not exactly the sentiment here. The context here is anything but success. The context is that of humiliation.

And by their humiliation, God is being dishonored. And yet, they believe that God can move on behalf of His people still. And so they petition, “Lord, To your name give glory.” Intervene. Step in and fix this problem. So this is not merely a cry for help for their own sake. It is a cry for help for God’s sake. And for His honor. And out of zeal for God, they say, verse 1, “Not unto us, Lord. Not to us. To your name give glory.” The world is wrong. It’s out of order. Your name is being blasphemed. Your people are weakened. For your own glory’s sake, help us.

And so verse 2 then reflects both their zeal for God and their frustration with its hint of lament. “Why should the nation say, where is their God?” So the nations around them, they have a memory too. And they’ve heard these stories of the Lord God working on behalf of His people Israel. They’ve heard of the Exodus and the parting of the Red Sea, and they’ve heard of the conquest of Joshua. And they don’t see anything like that now.

Where’s your God? Psalm 114. If you look at the last two verses of Psalm 114, just before this, the Psalter calls the whole world to tremble at the presence of the Lord, the God of Jacob. Verse 8, this is the God who makes water come out of rocks. He’s intervened in marvelous ways. Tremble before Him. But there’s nothing like that happening today to make the people around Israel tremble before the Lord God. And what makes the mocking sarcasm of these people in verse 2 so frustrating to the people of God is that the people of God know better. Verse 3, they know that God is not impotent. “Our God is in the heavens. He does all He pleases.” We may not have a great show of strength right now, but it’s not because our God is unable. Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases.

And yet, it doesn’t look like it. And that’s the frustration. One of the great values of the Psalms—there are many of them—but one of the great values of the Psalms that has been long recognized by the people of God is that it expresses the suffering of God’s people with a genuine frankness. Sometimes the Psalms are just that. They’re laments, complaints. “Why are things this way? God, why am I suffering this injustice? I’m not a perfect man, but I don’t deserve this that’s happening. God, why are you silent? Why don’t you hear me when I call?”

It’s an unusual kind of frankness that we find with the expression of the suffering of the people of God in their lament. That’s one of the values of the Psalter. Another one of the great values of the Psalter is the contrast, the exalted view of God that the Psalter gives, particularly in the praise psalms. It exalts God as the creator of the world, the God who is over all, the God who made all things, the God who is over the nations, the God who is over the earth itself, the God who is over the elements, the God who is over the gods, the God who is over the nations, the God who can intervene in the lives of His people and bring deliverance. This exalted view of God. And so, two of the values of the Psalter is that on the one hand, it expresses the suffering of the people of God with a frankness that is just, you almost think at times, improper—complaining as they do. And on the other hand, the Psalter gives us this exalted view of God as the God who does all things well. And sometimes, very often in the Psalter, as we have here, those two are brought together. We have the expression of the suffering, and then also the expression of God’s greatness overall. Verses 1 and 2 lament their suffering, and then verse 3, it glories in the greatness of God. Now, I want you to get a hold of that verse 3.

Our God Is In The Heavens

“Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases.” That is the very definition of divine sovereignty. Our God is in the heavens. He’s not part of this created order. He’s not subject to anything here. He’s in the heavens, exalted above all things, transcendent over it all, unthreatened, and He does—you know what he does? He does what he pleases. And he does all that he pleases. There’s never a frustration on God’s part. He does all that he pleases. And that is all that he does. He’s never pressured. He’s never cajoled. He’s never got him over a barrel. He’s never frustrated. “Oh no, what am I going to do now? Look at that terrible situation my people are in. What am I going to do?”

Our God is in the heavens, and He does all that He pleases. This is, in essence, the same lesson that Nebuchadnezzar learned after he’d been out to pasture for a few years. Remember how he said it? Our Lord, the God does—Daniel’s God—He does according to His will among the hosts of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. Well, this is God. And they recognize that. They recognize that God can’t be frustrated. They realize that God is God over all. But it’s just that aspect of divine sovereignty that can leave us puzzled.

If God is God over all, if He does all that He pleases, then why is His name blasphemed so much? If God is God over all, doing all that he pleases, why are his people so often left so weak, so poor, the butt of jokes? Why is it, in short, why is it that God’s rule over all things is not more evident? The answer to that question, “Why is God’s rule not more evident?”

The answer to that question may leave us with mystery, but the answer to the question is found in our basic confession of faith. And that is: our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. Whatever is happening in your individual life, in your experience, culturally, nationally, internationally, globally, whatever is happening, you may be sure that God is doing all that he pleases. Now God doesn’t very often explain to us why he’s doing this or that in our individual experience and on the big scale either. That’s irrelevant. Whether you understand or not why God is doing this or that in this world is completely irrelevant.

All you need to know is that our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. He will keep His word. He will always do all that He said He will do. But He has—and this is the catch—He has never bound Himself to your calendar or to mine. When the world seems in disorder, ruining itself in rebellion and the pursuit of evil of all kinds, the ground of our confidence is, verse 3: God is in the heavens and He’s doing all that He pleases. In all things, God is working out His purpose in history in every detail.

It’s difficult to imagine now, today, but there was a time in the ancient Near East when it was a hotbed of Christianity. Think Asia Minor, present-day Turkey, Eastern Turkey. Think North Africa. Hotbeds of Christianity. Out of that area came some of our great creeds. North Africa—towering theologian. However many disagreements we may have with Augustinian theology, there are some marvelous ways that we embrace North Africa.

But then, of course, God moved on. And that area of the world has been left largely in spiritual darkness. Why? I don’t know exactly why, but I know this: God is in the heavens, and he’s doing all that he pleases. For several hundred years in the West, Christians have enjoyed a majority status, in a sense.

That is, on a surface level at least, we’ve lived in Christendom. If you’re young, you don’t remember it, but even in my lifetime, looking back, you can remember how our world was basically a Christian world. That doesn’t mean everybody was saved, doesn’t mean they confessed Christ as Lord, doesn’t mean they lived accordingly, but they recognized Christianity as the star, the reference point for all things. If you were to talk to anyone, at least when I was a kid, if you were to talk to anyone about God, no matter who you met on the street, the God under conversation was the God of the Bible.

That’s not the case today. Concepts of morality and justice—they were Christian, basically. That doesn’t mean everybody was moral and just, but they recognized it. Concepts of the dignity of life, concepts of right and wrong, morality, immorality, all these were shaped by a broadly Biblical outlook.

People still committed adultery, but they knew it was wrong. People committed immorality of various kinds, but they knew it was wrong. Abortion would have been considered an evil. Homosexuality might have been practiced, but you certainly didn’t come out of the closet and tell anybody. It was just too shameful.

That’s not the case today. And that’s why we’re being told today that we’re living in a post-Christian world. We no longer have the moral high ground. Now we do in an absolute sense, but in the estimation of the world, Christians no longer have the moral high ground. You think Jesus is the only way to be saved?

What kind of bigot are you? And you become evil. You think a woman can’t have an abortion? What kind of an evil person are you? You think a person can’t practice the kind of sexuality that he chooses? You think a man can’t be a woman? A woman can’t be a… What kind of a pestilence are you in our society? You think things have turned over on their head. And you can just possibly let that worry you. And it can shake your faith.

And the answer to it all is, verse 3: Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. You may not have come to grips with this yourself emotionally yet, but the fact is God does not owe Christians a greater standing in this world. Not yet. He doesn’t owe us more clout, more influence. He doesn’t owe it to give us a vindication in the eyes of the world. Not yet. There will come a day when that will all change. The Bible is replete with that promise. Jesus Christ will come and the whole world will acknowledge Him as King. And every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord.

But that’s not today. Until then, God is under no obligation to give us the upper hand. And in fact, He may call us to suffer. Jesus and His apostles warned us of that. It just might be that we have to learn with Moses, the suffering of Christ is greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt.

And so the psalmist here gives voice to his own generation and for us to sing together. The petition, verse 1: “O Lord, to your name give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness.” And then verse 2, with a note of lament: “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.” And having set that in verse 3 as our basic point of reference, our confession of faith, verses 3 and following then expand on the praise. And it’s largely a praise by contrast. I’m sure you noted it as we read through. It contrasts the glory of God with the idols and the folly of worshiping idols.

So verse 2, they say, “Where is your God?” We say, verse 3, “He’s in the heavens. He does all that He pleases.” And then we turn the tables in verse 4. By contrast, their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but they don’t speak. Eyes, but they don’t see. Have ears, but do not hear. Noses, they don’t smell. They have hands, but do not feel. They have feet, but they don’t walk. They do not make a sound in their throats.

Now, you’ve probably noticed this. This wording is repeated exactly in Psalm 135. We find the same concept in the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk. The biblical writers are not very polite when it comes to speaking of false gods. They can speak with sarcasm and bitterness. They can point out the folly of it. Some of the prophets—they go at great length and they pick up on what the psalmist says here, only they draw it out at more length.

Like Isaiah, he’ll say, what is it they worship? Well, this guy cuts down a tree, and he cuts the log in half, and with this part of the log, he shapes it, overlays it with gold, puts in a couple ears, puts in a couple eyes, puts in a mouth, and then stands it over there, and of course it might fall down, so you prop it up against the tree, and of course that might fall down, so you put a chain around it to hold it there in the tree, and then you bow down and worship it. It’s both stupid and pitiful. What a joke.

Our God is in the heavens, and you may wonder why you don’t see Him now, but our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. Your gods—well, you make them yourself. And then verse 8 adds a fascinating insight: “Those who worship them,” that is, those who worship those idols, “become like them. So do all who trust in them.” That is, you worship false gods, and you become like them. It’s a fascinating concept. When you devote yourself to anything other than the God of heaven, you begin to take on the attributes of that which you are worshipping. Isaiah chapters 1–6 is a great illustration of this. It’s a good case in point.

Ancient Israel is continuously tempted to—he used the prophet’s word—go a-whoring after the gods of their neighbors. They follow these false gods. The prophets would come along and they would warn them and they would ridicule the false gods and show the folly of it all. But Israel is continually tempted to go after these false gods.

We read in Isaiah chapter 2, their land is filled with idols. They bow down to the work of their hands. They’re determined to worship something other than the Lord God. And so in Isaiah, chapters 1 to 6, God says, in effect, “OK, you want your idols? You can have them. And you’re going to become like them. Spiritually blind, deaf, dumb, helpless, lifeless.” And God says, “I’m going to send my prophet. And He’s going to preach to you. And when He preaches to you, you’re going to hear it, and you’re not going to hear it. And you’ll see it, and you’re not going to see it. And then you’re going to be condemned by that God for becoming like the idols that you worshiped.”

And in our day, in our culture, of course, there are no carved idols, at least not very often. But of course, idolatry takes many different kinds of forms. One famous line from John Calvin, speaking of humanity, is: “Our hearts are idol factories.” It’s an insightful comment.

We have an amazing tendency to devote ourselves to all kinds of things other than the Lord God. And it all leaves you to become like what you worship: spiritually lifeless, blind, deaf, dumb. And then the kicker is, you then will be judged by the God you’ve chosen to ignore. It’s the folly and the pity of worshipping anything other than the Lord God. Well, verses 3–8 then give us this praise that’s in contrast: our God in the heavens with the gods of the neighbors around them, and this then is their ground of trust. He is a God who reigns over all.

He can be trusted. And so, verses 9 to 11, we have a call to trust. Notice the emphasis here on trust. Verse 9: “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: trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord. He is the God who can be trusted. And then three times over: He is their help and their shield. He is their help and their shield. He is their help and their shield. Trust in the Lord.

That is, the whole emphasis here in these verses then is the trustworthiness of God who is in the heavens and does all He pleases in contrast to the false gods around them. And it is a call then to the people of God: rest in the Lord, calm your heart in His promises, and assure your heart that He is our help and our shield. He will do. He will do all that He said He will do. This, brothers and sisters, is always our obligation. It’s what the Psalms call us to over and again. Honor God with the trust that He deserves. Honor Him with a trust that is worthy of Him.

It is not ours always to know why He is doing this, that, or the other in our circumstances or on the broader scale. God doesn’t report to us. The Psalms throughout call us to a robust kind of trust. You don’t have to know why God is doing this. You don’t have to know when He’s going to fix it. All you need to know is that our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. He’s a good God. He’s a wise God. He’s an all-powerful God. And He will work out His purpose in every detail, just as He has promised. Trust in the Lord.

And so then, verses 12 to 15, the psalmist calls the congregation to sing about it. You’ll note here the theme is one of blessing. We find it five times over in these verses. Another time without the word blessing in verse 14, but the same concept. 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.”

From these verses, verse 12, the first part of the verse says the whole thing in brief: “The Lord has remembered us. He will remember us.” Notice the tense change. The Lord has remembered us. The Lord will remember us. You’ve got to love the logic. God has helped us, therefore He will help us. We find this all over the Psalms. We have some Psalms that are noted as history Psalms, or historical Psalms, where they recount something like the Exodus, or the conquest of Joshua, or something—recount it all. And the whole purpose of those Psalms is to show how God has intervened on behalf of His people, and because He has intervened for us in the past, we may be assured that He will do so in the future.

His past actions are themselves a pledge of what He’ll do in the future. I’m sure you’ve heard those commercials on the radio—commercials for a mutual fund or some investments firm or something. And it goes through the whole thing and tells you how wonderfully they’ll perform with your money. And it gets to the very end of the commercial and you’ll hear somebody in a soft, very quick-paced voice: “Past performance, not indicative of future results.” They don’t want to get hung up on that. Just because we’ve done well in the past doesn’t mean necessarily we’ll do well in the future. And that is exactly not what we find in the Psalter. What we find in the Psalter is: look at what I’ve done in the past. Be assured, I’ll do all that I say.

He has blessed us. He will bless us. And so the call then is, people of God, don’t be discouraged. Let your heart be assured of God’s promise. He will bless us. Essential to the Christian faith is a forward look, anticipating and expecting that big word in the Bible—that hope, that expectation that God will come good on His promise and He will do all that He has said He will do. A faith that looks to the past, reasons to the future: look what God has done.

We may be assured of what He will do. And so verses 16 to 18 conclude with a vow to unending praise. Verse 18: “But we will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.” And then he concludes with a final exhortation to the congregation: “Praise the Lord.” Psalm 115 was written for the people of God, who, because of circumstances, may have become discouraged.

Verses 1–3: they’re home, but they feel like aliens. Verse 2: the world mocks, “Where is their God?” And that goes in the New Testament, remember? 2 Peter chapter 3: “Where is the promise of His coming?” Jesus has been gone already this long. You really think that Jesus is going to come back again? And we become the butt of jokes. Christ is blasphemed.

Psalm 115 counsels the people of God in those circumstances along two lines of applied theology. Number one: the greatness of God. And number two: the works of God. The greatness of God—He is in the heavens, verse 3. He’s in the heavens, He does all that He pleases. Nothing, nothing ever frustrates the God of heaven. And two: the works of God. Look to the past, see what He’s done, be assured He’ll do what He has said in the future. And so, because of that, verse 9, there’s the call to a trusting praise. “O Israel, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield.”

Reflecting on this psalm, it occurred to me that on this side of redemptive history, our circumstances are similar and yet at the same time very different. Our circumstances are similar in the sense that Christians are a minority. We no longer enjoy the upper hand in our culture. Jesus and his apostles told us that this would happen. Told us there would be persecution. There’s no promise in the scriptures of a Christianized world, this side of Jesus’ return.

In fact, Jesus tells us explicitly in the parable of the weeds and the wheat, that throughout this age, both will grow—the weeds and the wheat. There will be an increase on both sides. There will be an increase in advance of the Gospel. There will be an increase in advance of persecution. Both will grow until the end.

And the counsel remains the same. Recall the greatness of God. Recall His great works. And give yourself to trust Him and to praise Him accordingly. Same. Nothing has changed. There is this difference between us and ancient Israel, and that is that we stand at a much greater advantage than they have. Our hope is so much more fully informed.

Jesus has come, the very incarnation of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness. God in His Son has come good on His promise to save and to help His people. Jesus has come. He’s offered Himself in sacrifice to God. He’s offered satisfaction in His sacrifice—satisfaction for our sins so that we may be saved. He’s answered to God on our behalf for all the sins that we have done. God raised Him from the dead and vindicated Him, and we share in that vindication, joined to Him in His resurrection, and we are justified before God in Christ.

God has exalted Him to His right hand. He reigns as King over all the earth. From there He has dispensed His Spirit to make advancement of His kingdom throughout this age, waiting for that climactic day when He comes again and brings God’s Kingdom to its full culmination for all the world to see it. And so we can sing verse 12 with a much deeper understanding: “The Lord has remembered us. He will remember us.”

That’s Romans 8:32, isn’t it? “He that spared not His Son, but gave Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?” If God has given us His Son, and if in His Son He has secured our redemption and the forgiveness of sins, do you think He would withhold glorification? You think He would call for some halt in His program and not bring about all that He’s promised His people? Having sent us His Son and given Him up for us, would He withhold anything else?

We can sing also verse 13. But we can sing it with a greater assurance: “He will bless those who fear the Lord, both small and great.” Not one of us will be left out. Not one of His people will miss it. But every last one of us will see our King usher in the Kingdom of God in its full glory. I suppose you feel about that the way I do. My heart just swells with the anticipation: Jesus is King.

And yet the world blasphemes Him continuously. I hate it. I hate to see it. We grow weary of hearing God blasphemed. “Where is their God?” It seems they do it with impunity forever. And so we pray, verse 1: “Not unto us, O Lord. Not to us. To Your name give glory.” This world is wrong. It’s out of order. Fix it. For Your name’s sake. Bring that day when the world recognizes Jesus as King. And bring it soon.

And that remains the hope of the church. Psalm 115 leaves us where the Psalms routinely leave us. And that is, verse 18, singing with a devoted faith: “We will bless the Lord.” That’s our result. That’s where we stand. We will bless the Lord from this time forth and forever. We will bless the Lord today in whatever circumstances providence brings us. And we will bless the Lord tomorrow and forever in the presence of our great King. God make it soon.

Amen. Our Father, we bless you for the great hope that we have in Jesus. We pray that you would assure the hearts of your people. Give us with it strength, reassurance, comfort, perseverance, to serve our Lord Jesus as you have called us to. In His name we ask. Amen.