Our scripture reading this evening will come from Psalm 146, not the King's passage, it was my fault and a clerical error there, but Psalm 146. Psalm 146, we will read the entire Psalm. Congregation, hear the word of the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. While I live, I will praise the Lord. I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man in whom there is no help. His spirit departs, he returns to his earth, and in that very day his plans perish. Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, who keeps truth forever, who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The Lord gives freedom to prisoners. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord raises those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the strangers. He relieves the fatherless and widow. But the way of the wicked He turns upside down. The Lord shall reign forever. Your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord." Thus far the reading of God's holy word. Congregation, The word praise is a very familiar word to us. When we praise someone or something, we show our approval. We commend the object of our praise. We admire the objects of our praise. We praise our children for their hard work. We give a pat on the back to the co-worker who just received that promotion finally. We give praise to those who win awards. We applaud and even take our hats off to our national leaders when they accomplish political victories, supposedly on our behalf. These are all examples of praise with a small P. But most importantly, and more fully and truly, we praise the Lord, our true King. He's the only one who deserves deep, true praise with a capital P. We praise Him when we gather twice, every Lord's Day, to worship Him. It's built into our very order of worship. The Lord speaks and we respond. He calls us into His presence and again we respond. We respond to Him with songs of praise. We respond to Him with words of prayer as we bend the knee of our hearts. But congregation, we also praise the Lord as we live our lives. Or as the psalmist put it, with our whole being. Every second that we are alive, we're to be praising the Lord. What a profound statement. It's not just what happens here, it's what happens in the entirety of our lives. With all of our being, every second we are alive. But why? Why do we praise our Lord? Out of mere obligation? Because we have to do it, we're required? Is it because it's tradition? We've just always done it. Well, this evening, Psalm 146 showcases the redeeming work of our God by placing calls to praise both before and after a beautiful summary of our Heavenly Father's, our Lord the King's work. We praise the triune God because of his marvelous acts of power and sustaining and redeeming us. The one who is the creator of heaven and earth is the one who sustains heaven and earth. The Father whom we rebelled against and treated with disdain and hatred has brought us close to his heart. And unlike anything else that we have affection for or praise, He has never failed us, nor will He ever fail us. We can trust Him to sustain us, and we can trust Him to deliver us from our sins. And so this evening we will look at Psalm 146 using the theme that we praise our King because He protects us and because He delivers us. And our three points will be, first, earthly princes provide neither protection nor redemption. Second, our king protects and sustains us. And third, that our king delivers us. There is no doubt that we owe some type of honor to our governmental leaders. and that we submit to their authority. Why? Because they have authority in and of themselves? No, because their authority ultimately comes from God. We know this. God has ordained these governors to keep the order in society, and they are used by the Lord as a restraint for evil, against evil. We hope that they will fulfill their campaign promises. that they will restore justice for the unborn, that they will restore godly governance in the face of a culture that corrupts itself more and more every day. And we look to them, and we hope. I'm sure as you turn your TV on, you've seen enough political ads lately that you're inundated with them. But if we truly put our ultimate hope in these men, we're missing something. Let's go back to verses 3 and 4 of our passage this evening. Verses 3 and 4 of Psalm 146, we read this, "...do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man in whom there is no help. His spirit departs, he returns to his earth, and in that very day his plans perish." John Calvin, we often hear his quote that our hearts are idol factories. Our hearts produce idols whenever we praise something or someone or even alongside of our Lord. Our hearts carve a God of stone when the focus of our praise and the object of our ultimate trust is to no more than a mere son of man in whom the psalmist says there is no help. If we truly understand what many politicians desire and demand, our focus should quickly shift back to our true king. Ask yourself, what kind of kingdom does your favorite politician really desire? Is it truly, first and foremost, the kingdom of the Lord and His righteousness? Or is it the kingdom of self where he promises political accomplishments and victory in return for your contributions and our loyalty? And what is the outcome of their promises so often? Where do they point you? Do our earthly princes point us to Christ or do they more often point us to themselves? Do we hear them saying, put your trust in me because of my political pedigree, and here you will find salvation? This is often what is underlying their words. But it doesn't have to simply be political politicians that we can accidentally put our trust in or intentionally put our trust in. We also do this with sports stars, TV personalities, heroes of history. even church leaders and our favorite theologians. We put them on a pedestal and we say, that's my guy, I'm with him. And yet, even the holiest of theologian will fail you. Moral controversies plague them. Their doctrines take a turn for the worst, or they die, or they're dead. Their plans fail and their memories fade away. Well, this is not a new problem for God's people by any stretch. The Lord predicted in Deuteronomy 17 that when Israel finally entered the Promised Land, which He was bringing them into, that they would desire to have a king set over them, just like all the other nations. And they were God's chosen people. They were set apart, called out. They were different from the nations. They were holy. And yet, their eyes were not looking up to the eternal King, but they were looking to the left and to the right, and they wanted to be the same as the world around them, which they had just been called out of. And so what happened? In 1 Samuel 8, we hear a story of when Israel indeed demanded a king. If you'll turn with me, we'll read a couple verses back in 1 Samuel 8. 1 Samuel 8, we'll read the first nine verses there. And now it came to pass, when Samuel was old, that he had made his sons judges over Israel. The name of his firstborn was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah. They were judges in Beersheba. But his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside again after dishonest gain, took bribes and perverted justice. Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, Look, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, Give us a king to judge us. So Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you. For they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the words which they have done since the day that I brought them out of Egypt, even to this day, with which they have forsaken me and served other gods, so they are doing to you also. Now therefore, heed their voice. However, you shall solemnly forewarn them and show them that the behavior of their king who will reign over them." So even here, the Lord would be merciful to his people. He wants them to know exactly what they are asking for. Israel wanted a king to be like everyone else. But they didn't necessarily want a Deuteronomy 17 king. They wanted a king who was like the other nations. And it's also important for us to keep in mind that this story took place just after the Lord had restored two cities to Israel which had been captured by the Philistines. And not just cities, but also the Ark of the Covenant. He had once again redeemed his people. And yet they ask, they reject him as king and ask for another. Mere years after suffering brutal oppression, they're demanding a king. And the Lord tells Samuel in verse 7 that they have not rejected him, but Samuel that is, they have rejected God. In spite of the Lord's faithfulness to his people, in spite of all that he had indeed done for them, They had rejected his reign, and they desired the reign of a mere son of man, a prince. And this son of man would take away their sons and their daughters. He would rule oppressively. He would force their daughters to be his servants. He would demand a tenth of all their crops. He would rule them mercilessly as he built a kingdom for himself. And yet, this is what they wanted. You see, in Deuteronomy 17, when the Lord made provision for a king, because He knew they would ask, here are some of the things that the Lord said that this king should do. He should write himself a copy of the Lord's law. He should not accumulate horses and chariots. In other words, his might should not be in his army. His might should be in the Lord. He said that this man should exercise justice. Yet the Lord is warning the people that this is not what they are asking for and this is not what they will receive. A king of this manner will return to dust and all of his promises will go with him. So congregation, do we find our hopes dashed to pieces again and again? Are you left sad and frustrated, especially in this political climate that we're now in? We know that Donald Trump cannot save us. Hillary Clinton cannot save us. No, these earthly princes will provide no salvation unless they turn their hearts to the Lord, and the Lord will provide providentially for His people. And so this evening let us shift our gaze together. Let us shift our gaze from the world around us. Let us put our hope in the One who sustains us. Let us put our hope in the One who actually can deliver us. And so we cannot put our trust in earthly princes, so secondly we see this evening congregation, that our Lord, our King, protects His people. In verses 5 through 7, verses 5 through 7 we read this. Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, who keeps truth forever, who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. But we saw in the first couple verses of this explanation, we saw a bleak and depressing picture of where mistrust, misplaced trust leads us. It leads us into destruction. But here we see what happiness and blessedness looks like when we can put our trust in the one true King. First, we see that it's not simply a quote-unquote religious person who is happy. One who believes in a higher power, a generic God, as our culture loves to talk about. No, the man is blessed whose help is this God. This God, the one who is the God of Jacob. This God, the one who called Abraham out of Ur, the God who delivered Israel from the hand of Egypt, who brought them into the promised land, the God of the covenant people, the faithful God who has been true to His covenant promises. We live in a very pluralistic society. Our Christian beliefs must contend with a whole host of other belief systems. People of all religious beliefs are lumped together, and according to our culture, as people of faith. But other religions don't ultimately offer hope. They may offer some type of self-help. They may offer the help of a prince. But they offer no real, true, or lasting hope. We give in to the temptation. We can't find the words to pray. And going deeper into ourselves only separates us further from God. But let us cling to this King, this God, the God of Jacob. The psalmist says that when we shift our gaze from ourselves, when we shift our gaze from ourselves by placing our hope in this God, in this God, the covenant God of Jacob, we will find real happiness. We will find true blessedness. not in a trite way, but in a foundational way. We will suffer spiritual attacks in this life. We will hear of deaths related to cancer. We will be wounded. And yet we can praise the Lord because we can trust in Him. But even before Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God was. Verse 6 tells us that happy is he whose God is the one who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them. And so another foundational reason that we can trust in our God is that He is the one who created us and the world in which we dwell. Every creature in the sea and everything that moves across the ground owes its very existence to God. He's the one who created it. He's the one who created us in His image. And so therefore, God as our Creator is foundational to our hope. If God were only a mere helper, or if God were part of this creation, what hope could we have? He would be in the same plight that we are. But no, this is not the truth. We serve a sovereign God, a Creator God. We are driven to praise our God and to place our hope in Him because we know that He is sovereign over this created order which He has created. We can place our trust in Him because creation itself is completely subject to Him, and that includes the forces of darkness and all that would seek to assault His kingdom. Knowing that God is the creator of heaven and earth means that not only that God promises to be our help, that He tells us He will be, But because He is the Creator and Sustainer, He is actually able to fulfill His promises. He's able to be the Deliverer. And therefore, when tragedy strikes, when the clouds roll in, when we truly are suffering, we can have hope because we know that all things are firmly in His grasp. And that He promises to work them out for our good, no matter how that looks in our lives. Knowing God as Creator not only moves us to hope, but it can move us to praise. We wonder with the psalmist as we consider his mighty creative work, what is man that you are mindful of him, the Son of Man that you care for him? Congregations, see how small we are and see how great he is, and let that move us, each of us, to worship. See that our God is faithful to his covenant, faithful to his promises, because He is able to be. And so the third way that our King provides for us, the third way that we see that He uses His sovereignty, is not just that it's naked sovereignty, naked power which He wields, but our Lord is good. His sovereignty can only be used for good. Psalm 146 verses 6-7 tell us that God, the God of Jacob, is one who keeps truth forever, who exalts justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. And so His sovereignty is used for the good of His creation. He's not a deceiver, but He's one who loves. He embodies and He maintains the truth. Just because He is the grand and glorious Creator of the universe does not mean that He has forgotten us who are oppressed, those of us who are fatherless, who are deprived and hungry, those of us who hunger and thirst for righteousness. How incredible is it that the God who can hold the entire world in the palm of His hand even cares for the smallest grain of sand upon it. Those whom society forgets and overlooks our Lord cares for. And so when we endure critical comments about our faith in the public square, when we are marginalized for our faith in our King, we can have hope because we know that He will execute justice for the oppressed. Our King is just, and while He allows us to undergo trials and oppression, we know that ultimate justice will be served. And so let the happiness and comfort of this knowledge move your heart to praise So thirdly we see this afternoon that our King not only protects His people, He delivers His people. He delivers them. Our King sets prisoners free. He opens the eyes of the blind. Verses 7 through 9 in our passage tell us this, Our Lord is the one who executes justice for the oppressed. He gives food to the hungry. He gives freedom to the prisoners. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. He raises those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the strangers. He relieves the fatherless and the widow. And by the way of the wicked, He will turn upside down. And here we see even more the tenderness of our King, the kindness of our King, the graciousness of our King. He sets the prisoners free, He opens the eyes of the blind, and He picks those who have been brought so low. But it's more than a mere word picture. No, this is a reality. This is each of our condition. Our sin had imprisoned us. Our sin had set us on death row. It had separated us from our King. Even today, our sin gnaws at us. It gnaws at our family relationships. It corrupts us to the core. We struggle against its effects every day of our existence. And ultimately, its wages are death. And that weighs heavily upon our backs. We were waiting in prison for capital punishment to be served. There was no hope. And no earthly prince could rescue us, because each and every earthly prince stands under the same condemnation. He stands under the same death sentence. Each earthly prince sits locked up with us behind the unmovable prison door. All his riches and power cannot deliver him, much less you and I. And if it were not for the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, we would not even notice. That's how dead we were. And yet it's our King who opens our eyes to see our sin and misery. It's our King who breaks the chains and bursts through the prison door. Jesus, the glorified Son of God, came to rescue us from ourselves and from our sin. The sin that we were blind to, the sin that crushed us, was placed upon Him. And through the most unjust trial the world has ever known, ultimate justice was served. Jesus, bearing your load of sin and mine, was condemned to death. He bled on the cross. He died paying your debt and mine, which was owed. 2 Corinthians 5.21 tells us, For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. And in his Sermon on the Mount, our Lord Jesus Christ said in Matthew 5.6, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. And our passage here tells us tonight that those of us who are the hungry, beggars, desiring righteousness, knowing we have none before God, we see here that Christ offers it to us. Those who come to the Lord and Savior with repentant hearts, knowing that they lack righteousness to stand before a holy God, will be given it to this by this gracious and providential God. So when our eyes are truly open to our misery, and when we begin to hunger for this righteousness, we are filled abundantly. Those that we are cut off from our Father, and yet He has again become our Father. And here we read of strangers, and we often think of a stranger simply as a traveler wandering through a land. But when the scriptures speak of strangers, they are more often speaking of someone completely out of their element. Someone who is totally helpless, who is completely at the mercy of others. And that's why we see stranger here listed with the widow and the orphan. So remember that along with being a prisoner, that we were indeed helpless. We had nowhere to get away from our miserable and sinful condition. We had estranged ourselves from our Father, and no husband to provide for our daily needs. No way to secure our inheritance. But our King is the one who watches over the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow. Those who recognize that they have no place left to turn, and they cry out, have mercy on me, O God, a sinner. the princes of the earth who seek to build their own kingdoms. They'll see their reigns end in ruin. Those who trust in them and their own kingdom for salvation will find that their way has been turned completely upside down. They will see that they have been peddled an utter lie. But our trust can truly be in our Savior King, He is the real deal. Earthly princes will end in ruin, but our King protects, sustains, and delivers us. If this is who our King is, this One who is the eternal covenant God of Jacob, if He is the One who has made this earth and sustains the earth, the One who restores the oppressed, the One who sets the prisoner free, If this king is the one who delivers his people by opening their eyes, by setting his people free from prison, the one who lifts them up with his righteousness, how could we look for hope any further? How could we not be driven to praise? The answer is that we cannot. There is no hope in earthly princes. But, brothers and sisters, happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help. This blessed happiness will result in praise. Well, as our passage concludes, we read this remarkable statement. Verse 10 reads this way. The Lord shall reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord. The Lord, our King's reign, is forever. You see, David spoke most of the words of the psalm talking about the king, the Lord, the man, speaking in the third person. But he ends here by saying to the people of God who hear him, praise the Lord, your God. This is our God. There's a personal relationship there, a connection. Congregation, is your God the Lord who reigns forever? Is this the God in whom you have put your trust? Let us praise Him, for He indeed is our Protector, and indeed He is our true and only Deliverer. Amen. Let us pray. Father, so often we place our trust in earthly princes. Our gaze shifts from our heavenly King to the princes of this world who will end in ruin. And so, Father, continue by your Spirit to empower us to open our eyes to see that indeed these princes will do nothing but crumble and fail, but that your reign is eternal, that you are a covenant gracious and caring God, and that you are not only a God who promises our deliverance and salvation, but you are able and in fact have accomplished our salvation and deliverance. May this move our hearts to praise. May we praise you as a loving God, a just God who has shown us immense mercy. We thank you for all of this in the name of your dear Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.