Sermon Tone Analysis

“Praise the Lord!

Praise, O servants of the Lord,

praise the name of the Lord!

“Blessed be the name of the Lord

from this time forth and forevermore!

From the rising of the sun to its setting,

the name of the Lord is to be praised!

“The Lord is high above all nations,

and his glory above the heavens!

Who is like the Lord our God,

who is seated on high,

who looks far down

on the heavens and the earth?

He raises the poor from the dust

and lifts the needy from the ash heap,

to make them sit with princes,

with the princes of his people.

He gives the barren woman a home,

making her the joyous mother of children.

Praise the Lord!”[1]

Speaking of the Last Days, the Master attested: “Many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another.

And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.

And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold” [*Matthew 24:10-12*].

One can only marvel that those times may well be unfolding before our eyes as we witness the increase in lawlessness and the deficit of love among the professed people of God.

It is frequently impossible to distinguish between the righteous and the unrighteous, as the righteous embrace the attitudes of the lost and live as though they were part of this dying world.

Godly individuals are undoubtedly horrified at the boldness exhibited in the perversions that are promoted by the wicked of this world.

I thought that perhaps I was becoming inured to the wickedness of this fallen world as it promotes the dissolution of the home and the slaughter of the innocent.

Like many of the saints, I imagined that I was growing jaded as I watched the increase of wickedness.

Surely, I reasoned, people cannot sink any lower; but I was wrong.

As one example of the depravity of contemporary society, I note that one “religious” organisation promotes abortion as an item of faith.[2] In another instance, a “reverend” has written a series of prayers for a forty-day series of prayers for abortion clinics.[3]

The “prayers” verge on blasphemous; one can only wonder to what deity such debauched “prayers” might be addressed.

Yet another “religious institute” that tacitly despises motherhood through favouring the murder of the unborn released a special Mother’s Day bulletin insert for churches.[4]

Shades of the worship of Baal and Asherah redivivus, this wicked, self-promoting group presents itself as “Faithful Voices on Sexuality and Religion!”[5]

Following the logic of these perverted religionists, one would be compelled to accept that sex is all that God is concerned about, and our gratification is at the centre of His existence.

By their logic, man was created to have sex.

Nothing else matters; and candidly, if the present offerings of television and the advertising that pays for our entertainment is any indication, that is the regnant view for contemporary society.

How far from the biblical ideal we have strayed.

The joy that is promised appears ephemeral for many; it seems as though it is but a gossamer dream that always eludes reality.

Perhaps we need to return to a day in which we believed the Word of God, putting it into practise.

The Lord our God gave us His Word so that we might know Him and enjoy Him forever, and as we do what He commands we will discover joy and peace that now seems to always be just out of reach.

Among the areas that we neglect and which must be addressed is support for the family.

The roles of fathers and mothers, of husbands and wives, are horribly distorted in this day.

Daily, we are re-educated in the new concept that family is any number of individuals cohabiting or living in some form of communal relationship.

Tragically, even professed Evangelical Christians are becoming silent on the issue of family make-up, or on the purpose of marriage.

If we were to endeavour to again seek the mind of the Master on these issues, applying them in our lives, we would undoubtedly discover the joy that He intends His people to have.

As one step toward such a goal, I invite you to witness a godly view of motherhood as witnessed in the one of the Psalms.

The focus of our attention in this brief hour is the 113th Psalm, to which I invite your attention at this time.

*The Focus of the Psalm is the Lord* — My wife questioned me about how I would approach this Psalm.

She confessed that she had difficulty connecting the Psalm to Mother’s Day until she read the final strophe.

That is an accurate observation, to be certain.

However, the final verse does mark the Psalm as appropriate for honouring mothers.

However, if we will truly honour mothers, we must first discover the focus of the Psalm, which is the Lord.

“Praise the Lord!

Praise, O servants of the Lord,

praise the name of the Lord!

“Blessed be the name of the Lord

from this time forth and forevermore!

From the rising of the sun to its setting,

the name of the Lord is to be praised!

“The Lord is high above all nations,

and his glory above the heavens!

Who is like the Lord our God,

who is seated on high,

who looks far down

on the heavens and the earth?”

For the worshipper of the True and Living God, all of life flows from her relationship to the Master.

If her walk with the Lord God is interrupted, she will shortly begin to experience disappointment in every other facet of life.

However, if she remains focused on the King of Glory, she will know perfect peace.

Do you remember Isaiah’s testimony?

“You keep him in perfect peace

whose mind is stayed on you,

because he trusts in you.”

[*Isaiah 26:3*]

What a comforting promise!

Then, Isaiah makes that promise stronger still when he writes:

“Trust in the Lord forever,

for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.”

[*Isaiah 26:4*]

This strain is an echo resounding from the Name Moses ascribed to the Lord God:

“The Rock, his work is perfect,

for all his ways are justice.

A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,

just and upright is he.”

[*Deuteronomy 32:4*]

The point is more important than you might imagine.

We live in a day in which we have subtly been conditioned to believe that we are at the centre of our world.

How we feel, how we react to a situation, the impact of a given condition on us—these are the things that we are trained to believe are vital.

Consequently, the quality of worship among contemporary evangelical Christians is more often than not gauged by how we feel about the experience rather than whether we met with the Risen Son of God.

Among many who worship in modern churches, the music reflects our desires rather than glory to the Living God.

What we feel, whether we appreciate the rhythm or the melody, the ability to lose ourselves in the soothing hypnotism of the notes—these are the elements we look for in worship.

However, that is not the evidence of worship found in the Word of God.

There, the focus is on the One worshipped and not on the feelings of the worshipper.

There, any praise and all the glory are given to Him who gives us life.

Here is one example of worship, as the Psalmist calls on the angels to ascribe to the Living God glory and strength, as is His due.

He is adamant that such ascription of praise, focusing on the Living God, is worship—worship in the splendour of holiness.

“Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings,

ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;

worship the Lord in the splendour of holiness.”

[*Psalm 29:1, 2*]