We shall turn now to Psalm 145, and we shall read in verse 18. Psalm 145, and we shall read at verse 18. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of them that fear Him. He also will hear their cry, and will save them. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him. Now, this psalm is praise from start to finish. It is as if wave upon wave of praise poured from the psalmist's mouth. It is a wonderful spiritual state to be in, an enviable state, that praise just pours from His mouth, just wave upon wave, as we have in this psalm. Now, this is one of eight psalms which are written in the form of acrostics. Now, what's an acrostic? Well, an acrostic is really a very simple device in order to help us to remember certain things, to remember a list of things. And if we can have, say, a list of sentences, say ten sentences, and we want to remember them. We will try and arrange the sentences so that the first one begins with A, and the second one begins with a B, and the third one with a C, and so on. And it is wonderful help to memory if you can arrange things in that way. That is what's called an acrostic. And This is one of eight psalms which are written as acrostics in the book of Psalms. The other well-known one, and the best-known one, is of course Psalm 119, the great long psalm. And the way it works is that the first every verse in the first group begins with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and every verse in the second section begins with the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and so it goes all the way through, and it is wonderful that the psalmists were able to compose Hebrew verses and at the same time arrange them in such a way that there were these acrostics built in. There is no doubt whatsoever that the reason that that was done was to help memory, to help them to memorize these psalms, and that points us to something very important. The Lord, in his inspiration of these psalms, these particular ones, has done so in order to encourage us to memorise these psalms. Now it is unfortunate that when we translate these sounds into English, or into any other language, that that acoustic effect is lost. It is really, it would be impossible, it wouldn't be impossible to keep the acoustic, but we have to first of all be faithful, as faithful as we can. to the meaning and translation of the original. And if we were going to force these acoustics into place, then we would find that we would drift a little bit far from the original meaning in some cases. So, the important thing, having said all that, is that there is here a clear pointer from the Lord that these Psalms are meant, particularly meant, to be memorized. Now, why would the Lord want us to memorize certain Psalms? Well, in a sense, we want to memorize all of Scripture. are all of the sounds, but that of course would be beyond their capacities, except for the very few. I believe that there was one man who taught us in the college who had memorised the whole of the sound book, though I never heard that proved, that was said about that man, and that's an amazing achievement. Very few can achieve that. But we can, with a little bit of application, learn a few psalms off by heart. And what a great treasure it is for us, if when we were young and in school, we were taught to learn certain psalms by heart. And the thing is that we never lose these psalms. We still remember them. And what a treasure they are to us, just to have them in that form. Why, again, this particular sound? Well, I don't think the reason is hard to find. The Lord wants us to learn this psalm by heart, or as much of it as we can by heart, simply because the Lord knows that we are short on praise. We know that when we get down to prayer, when we get on our knees, especially in a sacred place, we want to pour out our hearts in praise to God. But of course, we run out of breath very quickly. But if we had psalms such as this, verses from such a psalm as this stored in our hearts then we could do the best thing possible and that is to pour out our hearts using these psalms, this psalm or the verses from it. The deadening of sin deadens our praise. sin deadens our spiritual life and our spiritual vitality, we all know that. Sin in the thought world indeed has its deadening effect on our spirits and particularly on our facility and our fluency in praising God from our hearts and from our lips. So we should aim I would say, for some familiarity with some parts or some verses from this particular psalm. This is praise. Here is a storehouse of praise. Here is a great reservoir of praise. When we are short of praise, and if we have some of this in our hearts, we must never think that the Lord is going to get tired of hearing the same words of praise from us. He will not. And it is wonderful if these phrases and verses from the Word of God, from God's own Word, should feed into our prayers and meditations. Why is that so wonderful? For this great and important and fundamental reason that the best of anything that we can give to God is what He Himself has given to us. It is great for us to say, we give Thee but Thine own. That is what we want to do. We know that that is what is best. If we can give back to Him what He has given to us. So, let's just pick up on one or two points from these verses. First of all, the Lord's nearness to those who call upon Him. Verse 18. we read these words, the Lord is nigh, is near unto all them that call upon him. Why should we call upon the Lord? We call upon him for continuing help and upholding. God's people, God's true children are dependent people. That is God's work in us that makes us dependent people. And that's a change for us because that is not ours by nature. That indicates a change. One of the great changes that comes with conversion, with being saved, with coming to Christ, one of the great changes that comes is that we change from being independent, self-reliant, self-ruling, to being dependent upon God, submissive unto God. looking unto God always for help, and because of that we will be cryers unto God. We will be continually calling upon him. The new heart and the new spirit is there. What was there before, the stony heart, it is gone, and the effect is that it makes us to be like little children dependent upon God, and that is something that we must not resist, because the spirit of the age would tend to encourage us to resist that kind of dependence. We live in the age of individuality, extreme individuality, The idea even of community is fast falling out of society. Everybody wants to be an individual. And the media and the educational system tend to encourage that. And this is something which is utterly contrary to the way that God wants us to live as Christians. takes away from us that independence and he makes us into little children utterly dependent upon him and we must not allow the spirit of the age to rob us of that, to reverse to some extent what God has done, to take us back into the world and the ethos of the age which is independence, self-reliance, and extreme individuality. So, little children, what are they like? Well, they are dependent, and they are creatures that call incessantly, calling incessantly for mum or dad. They have no inhibitions. They don't say to themselves, well, I've called six times in the last five minutes. I can't call again. That never enters their head. They just call and call and call and call. And it is out of that childlike dependence, it is out of there that the call comes. The Lord's people are calling people. We call without inhibitions. We call without limits. We don't set ourselves limits. God doesn't set limits on how much we call. In fact, the more we call, the better. And the parent, in most of the time anyway, is able to accept all that calling and all that crying from mummy or daddy, and sometimes although we weaken we are nevertheless glad that that cry is there and it should remind us to some extent of what we ourselves should be and should be doing in our relationship to God and that is calling, calling, calling upon him. Such calling on God is no hardship to God. In fact, it is the very opposite. It is pleasing to Him. And that calling brings us into a nearer relationship to Him. Why is He far from us? Why is God not drawing near to Why do we sometimes cry, Lord, thou art so far from me? Is it not the case that we are not calling upon Him, that we are not continually, uninhibitedly, and without limitation, calling upon Him? Though when we call upon Him and it brings us nearer to Him, This increases our sense of His presence, and there is nothing that brings enjoyment into the heart that floods the heart, the life, the soul of the true child of God as much as the enjoyment of God. There is no greater pleasure in the world than the enjoyment of God. And that pleasure is only possible to those whom God has saved. only possible to those who are truly His. It is itself a gift from Him to be able to enjoy Him. Secondly, our calling must be in truth. verse 18 again the Lord is nigh to all them that call upon him to all that call upon him in truth and this is the kind of thing which satan tries to set up before us as a barrier we must remember always that satan is an expert at using the word of God The three temptations in the wilderness where he tempted the Lord, in all three cases, it was the Word of God that he used in that temptation. is wily and he is cunning and he will most certainly use the word of God in order to put a snare before us. This is the kind of thing which he will very often raise. He will use this to discourage us from calling upon God. It says, the Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him very good. But then, Satan will say, but hold on a minute. It says, to all them that call upon him in truth. So he puts a defty, begin to ask ourselves, am I calling in truth? Am I sincere in my calling upon God? Well, You have to ask yourself the question. Sorry, I shouldn't say that, but Satan wants you to ask the question. To ask yourself, am I sincere enough? When that word enough comes into our thinking, we are already on rocky ground. because our sincerity can never be enough. Anything that we do can never be enough. You start asking yourself enough in reddit commas type questions. You just are in a fog. You will ask yourself, well, have I believed enough? Have I repented enough? Have I asked forgiveness enough? Have I come to Christ enough? These things, there can never be an enough. And that is what Satan plays upon. Now, the important thing that we must throw back at him is the simple fact that our sincerity can never be enough. It is not on the amount, the quantity, the grade, the point on the barometer that our sincerity depends. It's not up to a certain standard. It is simply this, that we are sincere in heart. None of us is perfectly sincere. and yet there is a sincerity, however small it may be. That is the thing, that it can never be enough. And that is something that we must not allow Satan to taunt us with. question, is your sincerity enough? Is your believing enough? Because if it was dependent on it being enough, then none of us would be any good. We wouldn't be saved, we wouldn't have forgiveness of sins, we wouldn't have assurance of salvation, we would have none of these things. So we must watch the world enough. Make sure that it is not a word from Satan's vocabulary. So, Satan will say, well, you know, if you're not sincere enough, then perhaps you better know how to call. Better know how to call at all than to call insincerely. And so he will work on that. But we must remember that our sincerity can never be enough. And that we have to answer Satan on this question very simply, that by nature we would never call upon God at all. But the fact that we want to call is itself a miracle, and it is a decisive miracle, and it is a telling miracle. That's the simple fact that we want to call, because that is not natural to us. That indicates God's work. We call because God has put it in us. Sometimes we start at the wrong end, to catch the thing by the tail, and we start with ourselves, asking this about ourselves, that about ourselves. When we should start with God, it is He who begins the work, it is He who progresses it, it is He who will bring it to an end. fact that we call at all, the fact that we want to call, no matter how weak the call, no matter how perhaps even insincere that call may be, we must remember that the desire to call is itself a sure and certain sign that God's work is there. So what do we say? Say it and get lost. Get lost. It's not what is in me that matters, it's the fact that God has worked. God has intervened. The pathway of my life is different, altogether different from what it could ever have been. Left to myself. because I want to call upon God, and that itself proves that God's work is in me. And thirdly, our calling is never in vain, though we might question that a little bit. We all do at times, because there are certain things that we've been calling for, for a long time, perhaps maybe 40, 50, 60 years. We have called on God for something, particularly praying for our loved one. These are the things which keep us praying the same prayer again and again and again. Repetitions, but not vain repetitions. They are far from vain, they are full of burden and full of desire that God would hear our prayer. But, the calling is never in vain. He will fulfill the desire. of them that fear him." Verse 19. He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him. Them that fear him. This is a special kind of believer. This is a super believer. The answer is most certainly not. Because true love for God always includes fear. If we have a grain of true love for Him, then it will always be mixed with the fear of God. We disown, we disclaim all kinds of over-familiarity with the Almighty. because we believe that where there is true love of God, that there will be the fear of God mixed with it. The two things are not mutually exclusive, but they are mutually inclusive. Where you have the one in truth, you will have the other. So, the two things, love and fear of God. They are planted together at the same time in us. When God plants the one, he plants the other. And as God nurtures and nourishes and waters the one, he will nurture and nourish and water the other, so that they will both grow together. They are inseparable. Yes, sometimes we tremble as we call upon God, because we become aware of His holiness and of our own contrasting unholiness. And we tremble, and it is right that we should do so. But how does that trembling appear in His sight? while it is something that is pleasing in its sight. Because our trembling is honouring to God, it is giving God his place. Far, far more is that giving God his place than over-familiarity. the realization of His holiness, and the trembling which comes as a result. He loves callers, whether they tremble or not. He loves those who call upon Him. He does not like silence. Sometimes we become aware that there's been a breakdown in communication, perhaps unaware of it for a time, to realise that communication in a relationship has broken down. And, of course, when that happens and silence takes over, then the relationship is under stress. The same between ourselves and God. That silence on our part is not what God looks for. It is not just going on without calling upon Him. very much the opposite. God does not like silence. God loves those who call upon him. He loves to hear it. And he hears it. He hears our call. He hears our prayers. He hears our desires. Even when they are unspoken, Nevertheless, they are heading towards heaven. Yes, just a desire expressed in our thoughts is on its way to heaven. And the Lord hears, and the Lord appreciates, and His promises that He will fulfil. He will fulfil the desire of them that fear Him. Now, of course, that may mean waiting. It may mean waiting. But we must believe the promise of God. I have a great desire that my congregation would become more aware of the promises of God and the importance of the promises of God in spiritual life and in prayer, that we in prayer, that we engage the promises of God. So, I gave you an illustration, I'll give it to you again. one from one of the great writers of the past, about the relationship between the promise and the prayer and faith. And it is like a bow and arrow. The bow is the promise, the arrow is the prayer, and faith is the hand which draws back the bow with the arrow in it. These three things should work together, just like a bow and arrow, to send an arrow powerfully up unto God. We tend to fail in that first step of knowing the promises of God and coming to him with them, reminding him, not that he needs reminding, but bringing to him the promise, Lord according to thy promise will thou hear me and this is all my desire. He will hear our cry and he will say. He also will hear their cry and will save them. Save them from many fixes, out of many corners, away from many traps and many snares. Many traps and snares that we have come past which we didn't even know were there because the Lord just simply took us by them. But He will, while we are here, He will save us from many corners, many tight corners, many difficulties, many trials, and many snares. And above all these things, He will save eternally everyone that He has made to call upon Him. everyone that hath that in him which God himself put there no matter how weak it is every single one of them he will save eternally not a single one of them will be lost not a single grain or scrap of God's work in the believer will be lost there will be no reversal no matter how weak the work may seem to us. There will be no reversal. He will save those who cry to him and whose cry he hears. Our gracious God, we pray that thou wilt bless to us the meditation upon thy Word. help us, Lord, to take the simple things out of thy Word, easily understood things, and help us, Lord, to hide them in our heart, to weave them into our prayers, and to have that great gift. giving unto thee what is thine own. Wilt thou now watch over us as we continue together, fooling our thoughts and our conversation, enabling us, Lord, to honour thee in all that we do? Bless this home in which we are gathered. Bless the children present. And wilt thou remember us and keep us, and forgive our sins in Jesus' name? Amen.