In the English we read praise you the Lord, but in the Hebrew it is Alleluia it is the very first time in the Bible that the word Alleluia is used in the Word of God and what it really means it means that we are constrained or that we must praise God. We go with the psalmist and we hear what the psalmist has been describing, the glory of God, His wonderful revelation in creation of His glory, of His power, of His goodness. And the psalmist, so he has to say in the end, how can I not help but just say this, hallelujah, praise ye The Lord. And so we must also raise a hallelujah in our hearts tonight. And we have, haven't we? We've raised hallelujahs to the Lord. I remember reading about Handel's Messiah, this great piece of music that Handel wrote. And in 1743, for the first time, it was played for King George II. And he listened, and he listened, and then when the hallelujah chorus began to be sung, and they sang that part of it, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth, even that mighty monarch, and all his, you know, royal heirs, he was compelled Himself to stand in awe of who God is and when he stood everybody else looked around and everybody else stood up to not only in recognition of the Masterpiece of the music but for the message of the music and who it was about and that it was true and it was true and it rang true and their hearts and they were compelled to To what? Raise a hallelujah, right? And so now, every time that piece of music is played, it's tradition and custom, when the hallelujah chorus sits, I mean, when it plays, everybody that's sitting, they stand and rise to their feet. I hope that's the way that we feel every day. Lord, every day, I need to raise a hallelujah to you for who you are, for what you have done for me. So he says, let the sinners be consumed out of the earth and let the wicked be no more. Number one, we want to raise a hallelujah that we have a God that actually deals with sin and with sinners. Amen. We need to raise a hallelujah that we have a God that actually deals with sin and with sinners. Let's go to the book of Isaiah chapter 44 and hear Isaiah echo this hallelujah. You know on a day like 9-11 when we look back and we remember The tragedy, when we remember the evil that men can do. We think of this psalm and it is as the psalmist is looking and he's saying the stars are doing what they're supposed to be doing. And the birds are doing what they're supposed to be doing. But then here's man. Man that was created most in the image of God. And what is man doing? Man is not doing what he is supposed to be doing. But upon of all the creatures and of everything in creation, we have most marred the image of God. We have most rebelled against the God of glory and grace. And it's almost as if the psalmist is saying that the earth would even be better off without man in it. And isn't that what God did? And God said at one time, it's grieved me. that I've made man, and look at what man has done, and I'm gonna destroy mankind off the face of the earth. But what? Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and God had a purpose. And of course, it's not talking about all mankind or just all sinners, but this sinners here are people who are just willful in their sin. They are sinful. They're like the sinners that Brother Andy mentioned about in Romans. They're unregenerate. They're unbelievers. They're the enemies of God. And hallelujah, one day sin is going to be no more. And there are going to be no more sinners in the presence of God or in our presence. And that's something that we should delight in. That's something we should raise a hallelujah for. How do you think it will be, beloved, on that last day when we see Satan bow his knee and say that Jesus is Lord, and God opens up the bottomless pit and says, Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity, for I never knew you. And then for the last time, sin and all that is ungodly and unrighteous will be done away with forever. I tell you, there'll be some hallelujahs raised. Is that moment when that takes place here in Isaiah? Have you turned there Isaiah 44 in verse 22? Here's another beautiful expression Talking about a God that deals with sin and with sinners. I have blotted out as a thick cloud Thy transgressions is that good tonight and as a cloud thy sins return unto me for I have redeemed thee so God has dealt with our sins happening and He dealt with our sins in a point in time at Golgotha, at Calvary. He laid upon Him, our Savior, the iniquity of us all, and He nailed our sins to the cross, hallelujah. He removed them, as far as the east is, from the west. He cast them into the sea of forgetfulness. And so he deals with sin and with sinners. And so the psalmist here says that he desires to see creation be as it should be. And he says, Lord, I long to see sinners be consumed out of the earth and let the wicked be no more. But our desire tonight is we should look within. And our prayer should be to desire to see sin consumed from our hearts. Amen. Consumed. Yeah. To be consumed, uh, from our hearts, from our lives and pray, Oh Lord, as we sang today, help, help me to be holy and let more holiness give me Lord and, and create me a pure heart. Vengeance, though beloved, belongs to God, and he will repay. And our prayer should be for sinners to be turned to saints. Amen. That's what we want to see. We want to see sinners. We should pray for sinners to be turned into saints and to seek to win the wicked to the ways of truth. But I'm glad tonight that we have a God that can deal with sin, and He can deal with sinners, and we should raise a hallelujah to Him. Secondly, we should raise a hallelujah that God can both restrain and remove wickedness. You know, like I said, 23 years since 9-11 today. God has, you think that the extreme Muslim terrorists haven't desired to attack us and hurt us like that again? Don't you believe that they've desired to? We've seen them unleashed in Israel when they had a chance to strike again in Israel, what was in their heart to do, to rape, to murder, to bring people into captivity, to burn, to pillage, to bring terror to the lives of innocents. I'm glad that there's a God that can restrain that, aren't you? I'm glad that there's a God that can even remove wickedness. That's something that we are often to pray every day in our lives. Lord, restrain the wicked. Bring the counsel of the heathen to nothing. Use your power to help right prevail in our day. We love this in Psalm 76 and verse 10. It just speaks so magnificently to the sovereignty of God, to God's great power. Who else could this be said of but the Lord God? Psalm 76 and verse 10. Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee And the remainder of wrath shalt thou what? Restrain. Restrain. Right? We serve a God. We sing hallelujahs. The psalmist, when he comes, and for the first time in the Bible, the word hallelujah is mentioned. It's because he sees a God that's so mighty in creation. He sees a God that's so mighty in salvation and his providence to his people. But he also sees a holy God, a just God who can deal with sin, who can deal with sinners, who can even restrain the wicked and remove the wickedness if he so desire. So he says, hallelujah, bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me. We think about these threats that have come into our communities, these young people that said, I'm gonna bring a gun to school, and I'm gonna shoot up the school. Can God restrain that? Surely He can. Can God remove that wickedness? He surely can. Remember, look in the Old Testament, remember what He did to Pharaoh and to Egypt. Do you remember? Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord? Right. That's what he said. Who is the Lord that I should do what he says? Pharaoh says, I'm a God. I'm a God. Right. But then God hardened his heart and he brought the plagues against him, didn't he? He said, I've raised thee up that I might reveal my power against thee. He restrained him at first and then he removed him. Hallelujah, what power he did let's look at that Exodus chapter 9. Let's just remind ourselves as You know, I know some of you watch the debate last night and I looked on Facebook one of my friends and they said I tried No, I just can't this is just it's too awful, you know it and you see These people that are so anti-Christ, so anti-God, and they're just a step away from having the reins of power. But God can restrain them. God can remove them. They're no more powerful than Pharaoh. Pharaoh was a lot more powerful than these people in his time and in his day. But listen, Exodus 9. Listen to what he says, and how he speaks to power. Verse 15, For now I will stretch out my hand, that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence, and thou shalt be cut off from the earth. And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee my power, and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth. And yet exhausteth thyself against my people, that thou wilt not let them go. I ask you, in the end, did Pharaoh let them go? He begged them to leave, didn't he? He cast riches, all the riches of Egypt upon them and bid them go. Hallelujah, the power of God. We are going to look this Sunday. It's a very sobering passage in Joshua when Achan takes the accursed thing and makes all of Israel to sin and he troubles. Israel, he becomes a dissembler. Of all that generation, there was that one that wasn't satisfied with what God would give them, with the promises of God, but wanted to get for himself. But did God remove that wickedness from Israel? Do y'all remember what he did to Achan and his wife and his children and all of his animals? Beloved, read it. They took them out, they stoned them, they burned them with fire. That's what God had reserved for the enemies. That's what He reserved for Jericho, right? Well, we've got enemies within. and enemies without. But God is a God that can both restrain and then remove wickedness. If God wasn't restrained, what known all the other Israelites, they too would have tried to take things out of Jericho. But hallelujah for God's restraint over us. Think of what we would reach out and do and how we would destroy our own selves, our lives, our marriages, our families, our church, if it wasn't for the power of God. We know that when the end comes, He that letteth, He that restraineth, the scripture says, will be removed and then that man of sin will come in. But we're thankful to live in a time where God is still restraining wickedness and will remove wickedness. It's something that we should pray for. Listen to God's determination when it comes to the wicked. We forget about this sometimes. Go with me. These are some powerful scriptures. I would even encourage you to commit these scriptures To memory you won't hear these scriptures read in many churches in our modern times How how often have you heard a sermon preached on Proverbs? 16 for listen to the power of this The Lord hath made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked, for the day of evil. Now that'll preach, won't it? Who has the stomach and can raise a hallelujah that God has made all things for himself, even the wicked, for a day of judgment, that the wrath, he'll make even the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder he will restrain. Look at 2 Peter. Chapter 2 and verse 12, if that wasn't enough for you, listen to what the Apostle Peter has to say about these evil men, this wickedness that is in the earth. We read here in 2 Peter chapter 2 and verse 12. And he's talking about, listen to the kind of people that he's talking about. Let's go in verse 9. The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations. Hallelujah. and to reserve the unjust until the day of judgment to be what? to be punished, but chiefly them that walk after the what, Brother Andy? The flesh, right? And in the lust of uncleanness and despise government, presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not relegating accusation against them before the Lord, but these as natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of things that they understand not, and shall utterly perish in their own corruption. Let's raise a hallelujah to a God who can deal with sin and with sinners, to a God who can not only restrain wickedness, but when it's in His will, He can remove that wickedness as well. So thirdly, we want to raise a hallelujah that we have the blessings of the Lord. I love this in the psalm after he says that, let the sinners be consumed out of the earth and let the wicked be no more. What's he wanting? He's wanting paradise again. When there was no sin, when everything was as it should be and man was right with God. That's what He's longing for again, and that's what the sons of God are travailing for and waiting in anguish for, and the whole creation for the manifestation of the sons of God again, when it shall be as it should be. But until then, the psalmist rejoices that right now, he says, but, he said, bless the Lord. Bless thou the Lord, O my soul. Right now, aren't you thankful for all the blessings that we have from the Lord? Raise a hallelujah that we, the righteous, the believers, the elect, we have the blessings of the Lord at this present moment. I love what it says in the book of Hebrews chapter 6, if you'll just thumb there quickly and just remind yourself of this. And this he spake to our father Abraham, and we are Abraham's children, and the blessings of Abraham are our blessings, the blessings of faith. And so he said to him, saying, verse 14, surely blessing, I will bless thee, and multiplying, I will multiply thee. Raise a hallelujah for the blessings of the Lord. All the things that you read about in Psalm 104 that we've been hearing preached about before us, His promises to us. Are they precious, beloved? Anybody know what the first commandment with promise is? Close. Honor thy father and thy mother For this is the first commandment with promise. What a blessing to know that the Lord, when we submit ourselves to those that are in authority over them, that the Lord said, obey your parents. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right, that God sees that as us doing that for his glory and his honor. And he's promised to bless those who will do that in their lives. his protection, his provisions for us, his presence. We've talked about so many things in our assembly. God doing this, God doing that, just provided 600 Bibles. Did anybody in here have $6,000 to give for Bibles in Africa? But God knew just how to do that. We prayed, Lord, our people there, they need the Word of God. My heart, when I was there and I asked people to raise their hand, who owns the Bibles? And so many hands go up, and God, would you supply the need? And God has done it. God has done it and received all the glory, His blessings, His provisions, His protection for us as we were talking about praying for tonight, His presence in our lives. Oh, just the wonder of His mercy that He has not destroyed us all. For that's what we all truly deserve. We all truly deserve to be taken like Achan and stoned. and burned with fire. Hallelujah. That will not be our lot. That God has chosen better things for us and he has not decided to destroy us all but to raise us up that we might raise hallelujahs to him. We have much to bless God for. The psalmist says, look at creation. Look at how God has blessed the earth to bring forth herb for us, oil for man's face to shine, bread to bring him comfort. All these things God has done for us, and then we look at what he has done for us in salvation. the great salvation that He has wrought, His great plan, ever before the world began, that has been carried out by the Lord Jesus Christ, that is being poured out into the lives of believers through the Holy Spirit, and then all of His wonderful providences to us. Do you think you're just lucky tonight, Haley? Are we just lucky, guys, to be born into families whose parents love us and took care of us, to be born in America, to have the freedoms, the opportunities, to be born into churches where the truth of salvation by grace was preached and God was worshipped in spirit and in truth, and on and on and on we could go with the providences of God. No wonder the psalmist said at the end, praise ye the Lord. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. So lastly and fourthly, we want to raise a hallelujah that one day, beloved, everything will be as it should be. And Peter mentioned this in his epistle, but it first comes to us from the book of Isaiah. this longing for things to be right again, for everything to be whole as it should be, because, beloved, it is hard to live in a broken world. It's hard to live in the frailty of our flesh as it is now, to want to be holy, to want to not sin anymore, but still struggle day by day. But there's something far better coming for us And this is the prophet seeing that day, mentioning it, of what God is going to do. Verse 17 of Isaiah 65. new heavens, and a new earth. And the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice forever in that which I create. For behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people. And the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. Do you long for that? Don't you long for that day when He wipes away every tear from our eye? And so the psalmist says, I'm raising a hallelujah for a God who deals with sin and sinners, for a God who can restrain the wicked or remove wickedness from us. I'm going to raise a hallelujah Because I have the blessings of God pouring out into my life, and I can be used as a blessing for others. But then most of all, that someday, in one sweet day, everything will be as it should be. You know, there's a lot of reasons I love coming to church. It didn't used to be this way for me. Church was a burden. It was torture, really, for me before I was born again. I was sitting there in church and all I could think about was what I was going to be as soon as church was over that I could get out of there and do the things that I like to do. But now it's not that way for me, beloved. It's the sweetest times in my life. I used to not love to sing praises to the Lord. I thought it was so uncool and weird. Now, I love to sing praises to the Lord. I love to hear the Word of God proclaimed. I love many things about church. But you know, after you're out in the world and you see the way people do and the way that things are, one of the things to me, church is such a place of peace. When I come into church, I know things are going to be right. People are going to treat each other right. People are going to be doing what's right. The word, the message that comes out to us is going to be right. And it's just a snapshot. And even in all that, that's still all imperfect, isn't it? Because all of us are still imperfect. But it's still so wonderful even upon earth. But it's just a snapshot. It's a foretaste of glory divine when everything is going to be exactly the way that it should be. This should give us peace in the tumult of these last days. Ecclesiastes 311 says, and he shall make everything beautiful when in his time. Amen. So this, where we were at, is the very first mention of the word Alleluia. Now let's go to the last mention of Alleluia because the first mention of Alleluia is when the psalmist saw that the wicked were going to be dealt with, that all of that that caused pain and agony and destruction would be done away with. Well, the last time that hallelujah is mentioned in the Bible, let's go to it and see John, the revelator, raise a hallelujah beginning in chapter 19. And after these things, after what things? After Babylon had what? Fallen. Fallen to rise no more. Then the people of God said what? Hallelujah. Hallelujah. when our enemies were put down forever, and death was done away with, and the devil was done away with, and the beast, and the antichrist, all of that put away. Look at this, chapter 19. And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven saying, what? Alleluia, salvation and glory and honor and power unto the Lord our God. For true and righteous are his judgments. For he hath judged the great whore which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. And again they said, what church? Alleluia, raise it up, church. And her smoke rose up forever, and the four and twenty elders, and the four beasts fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen. Alleluia. And a voice came up out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great. And I heard, as it were, here's me and you, the voice of many waters, as the voice of mighty thundering, saying, What? Alleluia. For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Even King George II was compelled to stand and raise a hallelujah to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Oh my beloved, I want to encourage you the rest of this week In the morning when you rise, raise a hallelujah. Throughout the day when you see His blessings and when you feel them in your life, you see His wonderful providences to you, raise a hallelujah. And even at night when you're worried about things and cares and concerns flood your mind, remember, remember your Lord God. and that one day everything will be as it should be. Cast out worry, cast out anxiety, cast out fear, and instead, raise a hallelujah to the Lord. May the Lord bless you and keep you is our prayer.