Well, please take up your Bibles and turn to our sermon text for this morning, which is Psalm 48. So Psalm 48, please give your attention as the word of God is read. A song, a psalm of the sons of Korah. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, his holy mountain. Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion in the far north, the city of the great king. God in her palaces has made himself known as a stronghold. For lo, the kings assembled themselves. They passed by together. They saw it, then they were amazed. They were terrified. They fled in alarm. Panic seized them from there, anguish as of a woman in childbirth. With the east wind, you break the ships of Tarshish. As we have heard, so we have seen, in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God, God will establish her forever. Selah. We have thought on your loving kindness, O God, in the midst of your temple. As is your name, O God, so is your praise to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is full of righteousness. Let Mount Zion be glad. Let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgments. walk about Zion and go around her, count her towers, consider her ramparts, go through her palaces, that you may tell it to the next generation. For such is God, our God forever and ever. He will guide us until death. Well, I'm sure The longer I'm here, the more you get to know about me. And one of the things I like, I like the Lord of the Rings, okay? I've read the books multiple times, I've seen the movies multiple times. And there's this classic scene at the end of the third movie, The Return of the King, in which the city of Minas Tirith is under siege by the forces of Mordor. And it's under siege, this is the last bastion of hope in Middle Earth as this final battle is underway. And Minas Tirith, of course, is the last stronghold of men. It is the only thing holding back the forces of evil from sweeping through the rest of the world. And it's just when all hope seems lost that Aragorn, the great king, the long-awaited king of Gondor, arrives just in the nick of time to save the day. Now, this is a fictitious story about a fictitious king saving a fictitious city. But it illustrates, I think, nicely the theme that we see here in Psalm 48. Because Psalm 48 is another of the Psalms of the sons of Korah. As we've been going through book two of the Psalter, starting in Psalm 42, we're now in Psalm 48. And the string of Psalms up through Psalm 49 is a grouping of Psalms by a group called the sons of Korah. And it continues a series of Psalms of confidence, of Psalms of Zion, of Psalms of the great city, singing to the great city and recognizing that God is at work in the great city. So after the despair of Psalms 42 through 44, we see a series of Psalms that highlight the glory of the great king and the glory of his city, Zion. So after the psalm that we looked at last week, an enthronement psalm, we said, Psalm 47, in which the great king ascends his holy hill, here in Psalm 48, we see now the great king settling down in Zion and establishing Zion, his city, as a fortress. So what we see here in Psalm 48 also, though, gives us a blueprint for how the church is intended to display God's glory for the praise of his grateful people. So as we look at this Psalm, Psalm 48 this morning, we're gonna see four things. We're gonna see first that the Lord dwells in Zion. That's what we see in verses one through three. Then we're gonna see that the Lord delivers Zion. That's what we see in verses four through eight. And then we're gonna see Zion delights in the Lord in verses nine through 11. And then finally, Zion endures in the Lord, verses 12 through 14. And through it all, the theme or the big idea for this morning is that let us praise the Lord for he defends and delivers Zion. He defends and delivers his city. Well, first we see the Lord dwells in Zion, verses one through three. The opening verse is a Psalm 48, resound with a chorus of praise to the Lord. In verse one, great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, his holy mountain. Now we see such praise on the lips of the psalmist in other places in the Psalms. Psalm 96 in verse four, for great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods. Or Psalm 145 verse three, great is the Lord and highly to be praised. His greatness is unsearchable. This is a theme that runs throughout all the Psalms that the Lord God is to be praised. He is great, he is holy, and he is worthy of our praise. Now if you need reasons, In case God being God is not enough for his praise, if you need reasons to acknowledge the greatness of the Lord and his worthiness of praise, consider the following. First, God is the creator of all things in the universe, right? God spoke in the beginning and the universe just leapt into existence out of nothing. God is the giver of life. In him we move and breathe and have our being. He breathed into Adam the breath of life and Adam became a living being. He is the giver of life. God is also the source of all blessing. Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of heaven who is without change and without deception. Essentially, being the creature, that is us, and God being the creator is all the reason we need to worship and acknowledge his greatness and his praiseworthiness. But specifically, as it relates to Psalm 48, the Lord is greatly to be praised in the city of our God. So here, Zion, or Mount Zion, or where Jerusalem was, this is the city of our God. Jerusalem, Mount Zion, his holy hill. So the psalmist encourages the praise of the people of God because of all the places on the earth that God could choose to dwell, he chose to dwell in Zion. As we saw last week in Psalm 47, King David brought the Ark of the Covenant from where it was in Shiloh and he brought it up Mount Zion and it rested finally in the temple that was in Jerusalem. God chose Zion in which to dwell. Zion is the place where God chose to put his name. That's what we see in Deuteronomy 12, verse five, that God would pick a place to put his name, and that place is Jerusalem, Mount Zion, his holy hill. And because this is where God chooses to put his name, because this is where the Ark of the Covenant is, because this is where his house, the temple is, Zion then becomes his holy mountain. Now, in and of itself, Zion is nothing special. Jerusalem city is nothing special. But her worth, her beauty, her holiness comes from the fact that God dwells there. Recall in Exodus 3. Anybody going through the Bible in a year? Anybody decide to do that on January 1st? You might be getting close to Exodus 3, give or take a few days. But if you remember the story in Exodus 3, when God meets with Moses in the burning bush, he tells Moses what? He says, take your sandals from off your feet for the ground that you are standing upon is holy ground. Now where he was on Mount Horeb was nothing special. It was just another mountain area in this area of mountains. But it was holy because God's very presence was there. That's what made it holy. In fact, Isaiah, the prophet, receives a prophecy of the latter days, in which he sees Mount Zion as the highest of mountains. Isaiah 2, verse 2. Now it will come about that in the last days, the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of mountains, and it will be raised above the hills, and all the nations will stream to it. Now Mount Zion, is not the highest of all the hills, okay? It's probably a pretty average mountain, but again, it is holy, and it will be established and exalted because God dwells there. And that's the point the psalmist drives home here. Zion is beautiful in elevation. Zion is the joy of all the earth, all because Zion is what? The city of the great king. Now again, looking at Mount Zion and looking at Jerusalem would have no beauty by the world's standards. In fact, one commentator said the psalmist here was engaging in a good deal of sacred hyperbole. He was sort of exaggerating by the inspiration of the Spirit, exaggerating about the glories and riches of Zion. In fact, at no point in its history, with maybe the possible exception of during the reign of Solomon, did Zion or Jerusalem have a beauty that made her the joy of all the earth. But just as Israel was not special among the peoples of the earth, God delights in choosing the weak. God delights in choosing the foolish. God delights in choosing the lowly things of the world. to put to shame the strong and the wise and the noble. God is great and greatly to be praised because he is within her citadels. He has made himself known as a stronghold. And because Mount Zion is the city of the great king, she too is to be revered. Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, warned his disciples of making rash vows. And in Matthew 5, verses 34 and 35, he says, but I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. Here he is citing Psalm 48 verse two, and the point Jesus is making is when you make an oath, don't swear by these things falsely because these things are sacred. These things are holy because these things have been chosen by God to be holy and sacred. So the lesson for us is that we should respect those things which God has himself called holy. Again, not because these things are inherently worthy of respect or reverence, but because God has laid a claim on them. Things such as the church. Things such as fellow Christians. People such as your pastors, your elders, your deacons. Things such as the Lord's Day, the Sabbath Day, the day that he has set apart for worship. All of these things are holy unto the Lord, and they are to be respected, and they are to be treated with reverence, because God has laid a claim on them. So now moving on to verses four through eight, the psalmist ends verse three by saying, God has made himself known as a stronghold. And as we come to verses four through eight, we see how God has made himself known as a stronghold. Now, these verses here recount an event in Israel's history in which she was under assault by Gentile kings. Because Psalm 48.4 tells us, for lo, the kings assembled themselves, they passed by together. Now, as with many of the psalms that we've been looking at so far, we don't know the precise circumstances that inspired the psalm. Some of the psalms in the superscript will tell you that this psalm was because of the time that David fled or whatever was going on in David's life, but most of the psalms don't give you that information. But whatever it was, it was a time when all hope had vanished. The gathered might of foreign kings had assembled at the city of the great king. Now, one such incident in Israel's history where this occurred was during the reign of King David himself, and it's recorded in 2 Samuel 10. And in that period, the Ammonites and the Arameans had assembled a massive army and had attacked Jerusalem on two fronts. So they were attacked from, you know, in front and from behind, and they were attacked by a massive army. And David's two generals, Joab and Abishai, they defended the city against this horde, and eventually the Lord delivered Israel from her enemies. Another such event would be the deliverance of Jerusalem under King Hezekiah, when the Assyrian army attacked. We see that in 2 Kings chapter 19, and we've looked at that a few times before, because I believe these Psalms kind of allude to that as well. But that was the time when the Assyrian army was there, and King Hezekiah and Isaiah the prophet prayed to God, and God sent an angel and destroyed 185,000 members of the Assyrian army, just laid them out flat with a word. A third such event happened during the reign of King Jehoshaphat, and is recorded in 2 Chronicles 20. And at this time, the armies of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, again, traditional enemies of the Jewish people, they were coming against Jerusalem, and King Jehoshaphat gathered all the people together to pray to the Lord. And we learn in 2 Chronicles 20.22 that the Lord set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, so that they were routed. Now the point of all this, the point why I bring all these examples to light, is that God fights for his people. He is a stronghold and a fortress for Israel. In Deuteronomy 28.1, where God is promising blessings for obedience to Israel and the many blessings they would receive if they would obey his commandments. In Deuteronomy 28 verse seven, God promises that he himself will cause Israel's enemies to flee before you seven ways. If you obey my law, your enemies will flee from you. He says that one will chase away thousands. The Lord also promised that all the peoples of the earth will be afraid of you, Deuteronomy 28.10. And that's what we see here in verses five and six of Psalm 48. They, the Gentile kings who had arrayed themselves, they saw it. Then they were amazed. They were terrified. They fled in alarm. Panic sees them there. Anguish as of a woman in childbirth. So these assembled kings that come up to Zion, the city of the great king, as they're assembled there, they are then amazed and terrified. They are in panic and then they flee in alarm. Again, when the Lord of hosts is on your side, when the God of Jacob is for you, your enemies will flee in fear and in panic. Again, the Lord knows how to protect his people. Now consider the vast scope of redemptive history that we have recorded here in the scriptures, and we find the recurring theme is that God is in the business of delivering his people. God is in the business of delivering his people. In fact, what is one of the first things that God promises to Abraham way back in Genesis 12 where he says, I will bless those who bless you. And the one who curses you, I will curse. God will protect his people. And have we not seen this all throughout Holy Scripture? God delivering his people? As I've said many times before, the greatest act of deliverance in the Old Testament is the Exodus in which God delivered his people after 400 years of bondage and slavery in Egypt. God heard their cries. God rose up and with a strong right hand and an outstretched arm, he took his people out of bondage and delivered them and judged their enemies. And then in this greatest of all Old Testament acts of salvation, it was immortalized in song in Exodus 15, in which the people then exalt the Lord for his deliverance. He is exalted and the Lord is described as what? He is described as a warrior who fights for his people. Bottom line, all of scripture is the record of God delivering his people. And the point of all this is that we, the people of God, can then have faith and confidence in God. Because the God who continually delivered Zion, the God who continually delivered his people all throughout the pages of the Old Testament, is the very same God who delivers us, right? In fact, with the coming of Jesus, God came into this world to fight our most dangerous foe, sin and death. Death is described as the last enemy. Jesus Christ, by taking on human flesh and becoming sin for us and dying on the cross, defeated sin and death for all of us. And then his resurrection from the dead on the third day is the guarantee that we too will walk in newness of life. And so thus we can say with confidence, in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God, God will establish her forever. What can the people of God fear when the Lord of hosts is in her midst? Well thirdly, let's look now at verses nine through 11. So what usually happens after a great military victory is won? Well, there's celebration, right? There is joyous celebration as a great military victory is won. In fact, when Germany surrendered in World War II, that day was commemorated as VE Day, or Victory in Europe Day, May 8th, 1945. And it was a day that was marked with great celebration. You can see pictures of it, images on, you can search on Google and find images of VE Day. And it was just a day of great celebration because the Great War was over. And the same thing is happening here in Psalm 48, verse nine, where we see, we have thought on your loving kindness, O God, in the midst of your temple. So here they are, the people are thinking of God's loving kindness, his steadfast love, his hesed, his mercy in their temple as they are worshiping. And when you reflect on all that the Lord has done for you in Christ, do you worship? Do you respond with praise and thanksgiving when you consider all the ways in which God has delivered you? I think this is one area where we, myself included, as American Christians, are particularly weak, in my opinion. In fact, our American ethos is built on the so-called rugged individual, right? I mean, all of our heroes, whether they're real or fictitious, are men and women who beat the odds, who achieve great things in life, and we extol them, and not to diminish their achievements, and not to cast them down in any doubt or anything, or to minimize their greatness, but think about this, where would any of us be without the loving kindness of God? And then when you add to all this, that every breath we draw is an act of sheer mercy on God's behalf. We were born into this world as sinners and rebels, right? We're born in our sins and trespasses, and that is how we walk in our lives. We are naturally at enmity with God. But God loved us in that while we were still sinners, while we were still at enmity with God, Christ died for us. And as a result of God's great victory and deliverance of his people, his praise is to the ends of the earth. If there is one thing that stands apart as the purpose for everything that happens, it is that praise, glory, and honor be given to God to the ends of the earth. Westminster Shorter Catechism begins with what is man's chief end? Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. The purpose of our praise is that God's name will be glorified. The saving acts that God performed on Israel's behalf was to show to all the Gentile world that God is worthy of praise. And the same thing applies to the church as well. I mean, what is the gospel? What is the gospel? It is the good news that the kingdom of God has come. The gospel is the good news that in Christ, the curse has been reversed. The gospel is the good news that God is gathering a people for himself from every tribe, every tongue, every nation to receive the forgiveness of sins by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ. This is the good news. This is the good news that needs to be shared to the ends of the earth. God in Jesus Christ has won the greatest victory ever So let Mount Zion be glad. Let the daughters of Judah rejoice, all to the praise and glory of his name. Because it is from Zion, the city of our God, that this good news then goes forth. Well, as must always happens with every story of redemption and deliverance, you must tell it to the next generation, as we see here in verses 12 through 14. All throughout Scripture, we are commanded to tell the saving acts of the Lord to the next generation, and why is that? Well, because failure to do so leads to national and moral ruin for people, for Israel in particular. Again, going back to the Exodus, consider what happened to that generation. It was two generations after the Exodus, after the conquest of Canaan, that the people fell into spiritual decay, two generations. Now, here in this church, I see two generations. I see grandparents, I see parents, and I see children. That's two generations. Think about that. If you do not teach your children, if you do not proclaim the saving acts of the Lord, two generations later can forget. It's not a lot of time. And we see this in Joshua 2.10. In Joshua 2.10, Or sorry, it should be Judges 2.10. Judges 2.10, there arose another generation who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which he had done for Israel. How amazing in a bad way is that? Two generations after the greatest act of salvation God has done for his people, two generations later, the people do not know the saving acts of the Lord and what he has done for his people. And we see this in our own generation here in 21st century America, right? I mean, a whole generation of people who do not know the Lord or his saving works. And again, why is that? Because many churches across America have lost the gospel. They've lost the gospel and they've replaced it with what sociologist Christian Smith calls moralistic, therapeutic deism. Moralistic, therapeutic deism. the lie or the belief that there's a God up there who wants to help you and who wants to make your life happy and wise and wealthy and wants to do good things for you and wants you to live a relatively moral life. It's essentially the gospel, in quotes, that H. Richard Niebuhr said, preaches a God without wrath who brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross. And as a result of this, we have a whole generation of youths and adults who do not know the gospel of Jesus Christ. The good news must be passed down. The good news must be passed from generation to generation. And in Psalm 48, the good news is how God delivers Zion. In fact, here the psalmist invites us to walk about Zion, consider her ramparts, go through her palaces. Now normally an exercise like this would be for the purpose of showing off the beauty and splendor of Zion, the city of our God. Look at our great city, look at our walls, look at our parapets, look at our towers, look how strong our city is. But is it the ramparts? Is it the palaces that made Zion splendid and beautiful? It wasn't the defenses of Zion that saved the day. It was the fact that God is in her palaces. It is the fact that God has made himself known as a stronghold for Zion and for Israel. In essence, the result of walking around Zion and considering her ramparts and palaces is that the only way she is still standing is because God has established her forever. And that's the conclusion that is drawn in verse 14. For such is God, our God forever and ever. He will guide us until death. Zion, the city of our God, stands because God delivers her. This is the God we worship. This is the one that defends and delivers his people forever and ever. And because this is our God, not only ought we to praise him, but we also ought to teach future generations to do so as well. and what in reality could properly motivate the praise that we see in verse one, other than the fact that God will guide us until death, or guide us forever. And when I hear this, I'm always reminded of Psalm 23, verse four, where the psalmist there writes, David writes, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. And even though we may be passing through our own personal valley of the shadow of death, we can do so without fear because God, our great shepherd, guides us through the dark valleys of life that we so often find ourselves in. Well, as much as I love the Lord of the Rings and the story of Aragorn saving Minas Tirith, nothing beats the fact that the Lord of hosts defends and delivers Zion. but our hope isn't in an earthly Mount Zion. Our hope is not in an earthly Jerusalem. The author of Hebrews speaks of a kingdom that cannot be shaken, the heavenly Jerusalem. And in Hebrews chapter 12, verses 22 through 24, the author of Hebrews writes, but you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, who are enrolled in heaven, and you have come to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. The safety and security pictured in Old Testament imagery of Mount Zion points to a far greater reality of the heavenly Mount Zion, which is symbolic of the church. As we have learned in past sermons, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, is the church and the kingdom of God. That's what we see at the end of Revelation, right? We see the heavenly Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God as a bride adorned for her husband. That is the church. We are the new heavenly Jerusalem. And just like the Jerusalem of old, the church of Jesus Christ has been besieged by enemies within and without, and yet she has stood firm for 2,000 years because Christ is in her midst. Christ promised all the way back when he was on earth to his disciples that he would build his church. And he said that the gates of Hades will never prevail against my church. But the greatest act of deliverance that Christ performs for the heavenly Jerusalem, his bride, is the forgiveness of her sins through his life, his death, and his resurrection. That's what we see at the end of that passage in Hebrews 12.24. We see that the blood of Jesus speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. What does that mean? Well, if you remember the story of Abel in Genesis 4, Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve's two sons, they quarreled. They both offered offerings to God and Abel's was accepted and Cain's was not. And Cain's face fell, that's what the text says. He became bitter, he became angry because his brother was favored over himself. So he had it in his heart to kill his brother and God even warns him, he says, watch out Cain, sin is crouching at your door and it wants to devour you. But he goes ahead and kills him anyway. And we see that the blood of Abel, God says as he approaches Cain after the fact, he says, the blood of your brother cries out to me. It's the blood that cries out the word of vengeance, the word of judgment. Avenge me, O Lord, for my brother has slain me. But the blood of Jesus. The blood of the mediator of the new covenant speaks a better word than that blood of Abel. It speaks the word of forgiveness. It speaks the word of paid in full. Your debt has been paid in full. The church of the heavenly Mount Zion can stand established forever and ever because she has been forgiven. The enemies of sin and death have been forever defeated. So admire the beauty of the heavenly Mount Zion, the beauty that she has in Jesus Christ, and then tell it to the next generation. Let's pray.