Please turn with me in the Word of God to Psalm 81, the first part of which we have just sung. Psalm 81 is our scripture reading this evening. We'll read the entire psalm, beginning at verse 1. Psalm 81, let us hear God's own Word. Sing for joy to God our strength. Shout aloud to the God of Jacob. Begin the music, strike the tambourine, play the melodious harp and lyre. Sound the ram's horn at the new moon, and when the moon is full on the day of our feast, this is a decree for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob. He established it as a statute for Joseph when he went out against Egypt, where we heard a language we did not understand. He says, I removed the burden from their shoulders. Their hands were set free from the basket. In your distress you called, and I rescued you. I answered you out of a thundercloud. I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Hear, O my people, and I will warn you, if you would but listen to me, O Israel. You shall have no foreign god among you. You shall not bow down to an alien god. I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it. But my people would not listen to me. Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways, how quickly would I subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes? Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever. But you would be fed with the finest of wheat, with honey from the rock, I would satisfy you. So far the reading of God's Word. I would suggest to you tonight that Psalm 81 is the New Year's Psalm. That probably struck all of you when we read verse 3 of our text. Sound the ram's horn at the new moon and when the moon is full on the day of our feast. Now, all of you careful students of Israel's history and law know that there was only one month in the year when the trumpet, the ram's horn, was to be sounded both on the first day and on the 15th day of the month. And that was the month that was marked by the new year in Israel's history, the first day of the month. Strangely enough, from our reckoning, the seventh day of their month was their new year's beginning. And so this is a psalm in verse 3 that talks about blowing the ram's horn on the day of the new moon, on the first day of the month, which was the new year for Israel. This is a psalm for the new year. Not only for the new year. It was also a psalm for the feast of booths or of tabernacles that was celebrated on the 15th day of the month. that same month, for a week. And so this was a psalm appointed by God to aid the people in their celebration of the new year and of their celebration of this important feast of tabernacles, a feast which remembered the harvest gathered and a feast which remembered that it was the Lord who fed His people faithfully in the wilderness. They dwelt in tents as a sign that all that they had came from God's hand. And so this was a psalm appointed both for the new year and for the festival of tabernacles. And it was a psalm that then celebrated God and encouraged God's people to come to the Lord, to listen to the Lord, to be faithful to the Lord their God. And so this psalm is an important psalm in the calendar of Israel and a psalm that I thought it might be appropriate for us to listen to on this first Sabbath of the new year. But it's also a psalm that is important in the structure of the book of psalms. As some of you will know, the book of psalms is divided into five books, which makes the third book the central book of the Psalter. And this psalm is in that third book. In fact, this psalm is the central psalm of the central book of the Psalter. And so there's a special kind of spotlight that Scripture itself puts on this psalm as the central psalm of the Psalter, not numerically. I can't divide 150 by 2. But central in terms of the way the Psalter itself is divided. And it's further interesting that not only is this the central psalm in the central book of the Psalter, but the central verse of this psalm, the second half of verse 8, focuses our attention on one of the great statements of God's truth. If my people would but listen. If Israel would but listen. And in that statement, there is an echo, a repetition almost, of what Israel regarded as perhaps the single most important book, most important verse in their law. The verse from Deuteronomy chapter 6. Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. And this psalm picks up that theme at the beginning of the new year for God's people and says to them, Israel, if you would but listen, if you would but open your ears, if you would but hear, if you would but follow me, how I would bless you, how I would encourage you, how I would meet with you. And this truth for the new year for Israel takes on a special pointedness, a special meaning for us as we remember that book three of the Psalter is the book of a crisis of God's people. It's a book that particularly focuses upon the exile, upon the destruction of the land, the destruction of the temple, on the loss of the kingship, on the apparent failure of the promise of God that David's sons would ever sit upon his throne. And so in the midst of their crisis, the enemy surrounding, the enemy conquering, the enemy carrying the people away from the land of promise, destroying the temple, destroying the kingship, comes this pointed word from the Lord at the center of the Psalter. If Israel would but listen. And so it seemed to me tonight that we as God's people, as we look forward to a new year before the Lord, that we would reflect upon this call of our God to listen. To listen to His Word. To treasure His Word. To follow His Word. And so in this central psalm, we first of all see the central proclamation that we are called to be a people of the Word, a people who treasure the Word, who listen to the Word, who hide the Word in our hearts, who are eager to study and know the Word and to grow in it. And here that proclamation of the Word reminds us in the first place that the Word of God is a Word of deliverance. God here reminds His people of how gracious He's been to them, how kind He's been to them, how wonderfully He's provided for them, especially in rescuing them from Egypt from the house of bondage. When they were enslaved, when their life seemed so futile and meaningless, when they seemed far from God and from the land of promise, God came to them and He rescued them. He delivered them. He saved them. And He wants His people to listen to that word of salvation, That word of promise, spoken so poetically, so beautifully in this psalm in particular, God says to his people, I remove the burden from your shoulder. I remove the basket from your hands. Israel had labored to make bricks to build Pharaoh's monuments. And the burden on their shoulders and the burden of their hands was heavy upon them. And God came and rescued them. Rescued them from what seemed to be the most powerful force on the face of the earth. But God displayed that He was the great power. It was not Pharaoh, whom Egypt thought of as a living God, who had power on earth. But it was the Lord God of Israel, the creator of heaven and earth, the rescuer of His people, who was the great power. And so the Lord reminds this people, there is a word of deliverance. I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt. And then that word of deliverance says, as I acted to save you and to deliver you and to show you mercy in the past, so I will in the future, if you will, but listen to me. I will subdue your enemies, he says in verse 16. I will feed, or verse 14, I will feed and satisfy you, he says in verse 16. The people who had been hungry in Egypt, The people who had been deprived in Egypt. He says to them now, I will feed you with the finest of wheat. I will feed you with honey from the rock. I will satisfy you. That's the deliverance that I promised to you. It's the deliverance that we see in our Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? He's the one who rescued us from the house of bondage to sin. He's the one who took from us the burden on our shoulders of sin, the yoke of the law. He's the one who freed our hands to serve Him. He's the one who has delivered us. And He is the one who promises a great day of deliverance to come. He is the one who says that there is a new heaven and a new earth that awaits us. There is a place in which righteousness dwells forever and in which we will dwell in glory. If we are a people who listen, we will know that deliverance from sins today and from all sorrow tomorrow when the glory of our Lord is revealed. He wants us to listen, to embrace that word of deliverance. And he also wants us to listen to a word of direction. This psalm reminds us that God gave to his people statutes, decrees, laws, directions for the ways in which they were to live. That direction guided their worship. It guided their calendar. It guided their lives. They were to listen to him and to follow him. They were to follow the God who speaks, who reveals himself, who tells the truth, not to follow the false gods of the nations. And that comes then as a question that we should ponder in our own hearts individually and as a congregation. Do we long to hear God's Word? Do we long to know it and to follow it? Is it the desire of our hearts to live as God would have us to live? I would speak to the office bearers tonight that there is a special responsibility that is yours in this regard, that you are given responsibility of the Lord to supervise and to rule over what goes on here among us to ensure that the Word is faithfully and purely preached as the form reminded us. Especially you as elders and ministers have that responsibility. But deacons also have a responsibility of the Word to know it, to love it, so you can speak a word of cheer and consolation from the Scripture to those in need. And you must examine your hearts. Is it your earnest desire that in the conduct of your office You seek to please God according to his word. There have been some who have argued in the history of the church that the function of elders is to represent the people and their interests and their desires. Well, you have a responsibility to know the people, to know their desires, to know their interests, to care for them, but you don't represent the people. You represent Christ. You represent Him in the exaltation and love of His Word. And so we look to you to lead us in that listening to the Word to which we're called. But the most faithful ministers and elders and deacons will not accomplish their task if we as the people of God do not respond, if we do not listen, if we do not long for the Word. And so as we contemplate this text, let's examine our own hearts. Let's listen to this direction from the Lord that we should listen to him and commit ourselves anew in earnestness to listening to him. There's also at the center of this psalm a somber word, a word of destruction for the enemies of God, a word of judgment. Now, this psalm reminds us that there is judgment coming and that in the day of judgment all mankind will be divided into two. There will be the godly and the wicked. There will be those who have been delivered and those who are lost. There are those who have listened to God and those who have rejected God, those who have worshipped God and those who have worshipped false gods. In the last day, there will only be two groups of humanity, two camps. And this psalm challenges all of us to ask ourselves, where will we stand on that great day? Will we stand in Christ as His people, as those who have listened to Him and served Him and worshipped Him and trusted Him above all things? Or will we stand with the wicked and face eternal loss? That's what this psalm calls us to think about with this word of destruction. but as we see this central proclamation of this psalm, the word of deliverance, the word of direction, the word of destruction, as we consider this central proclamation, we also see a central problem in this psalm, don't we? That God declares that my people have not listened. That's the tragedy of the time in which this psalm was written, verse 11, but my people would not listen to me. Israel would not submit to me. And we know that while that may have been particularly true of Israel at the time of the exile, it had been true of Israel over and over and over again. Moses had prophesied it at the end of Deuteronomy that the people would not listen, that in the days of prosperity the people would be forgetful and lack gratitude, And in the days of difficulty, the people would complain and grumble that they would not listen to God. And so there's a huge problem here, isn't there? The problem is that God promises blessing to those who listen, but the people don't listen. You and I don't listen the way we should. We don't always love the Lord and serve Him. We are too prone to turn aside. One of the particularly powerful ways in which God expresses this failure on our part is in verse 12. Where God says, So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. This is a terrible thing to have happen when we get what we want. When we follow our own wisdom. Think about Israel for a moment as it was coming out of Egypt. What was the repeated desire of their heart whenever any trouble came along? Whenever there was any shortage of food? Whenever there was any shortage of water? What was their counsel? What was their desire of their hearts at that moment? Oh, let's go back to Egypt where we had it so good. Let's go back to Egypt where we had meat in the pot and leeks and garlic. Oh, we had it so good in Egypt. We stand back and say, how could any people be so foolish as to think they had it good in Egypt? But that was the device of their own heart. That was the lie they told themselves. That was the delusion they visited upon themselves. And what a terrible judgment it is for God to give foolish sinners over to follow the devices of their own hearts. May that never happen to us. May we never experience that judgment. But this is the problem of the people of God that over and over again we drift away. We drift away from the truth. We neglect such a great salvation. We grow cold in our love, or at least lukewarm. And this is the great problem we face. If God will bless us if we listen to Him, but as a people we are not inclined to listen to Him, that we so often drift away from Him, what will become of us? In Sunday school, we've been studying recently in the adult class something of the history of revivalism. And one of the things we see in the history of revivalism that no matter how high the Spirit of God raises people for a time, there seems to then follow a coldness and a drifting away and a growing indifference to the things of God. And we have to ask, what will become of us? What is our hope in a situation where God says, if you'll listen, I'll bless you, but that the history of God's people is that we haven't been very good listeners? And the solution, I think, only hinted at in this psalm is that we need someone who will listen in our place. And it's interesting how Psalm 81 begins, isn't it? Sing for joy to God, our strength. Who will fight for us? Who will listen for us? Who will save us? Who will deliver us? Only God, our strength. He's our only hope. And so this people in the midst of a crisis of kingship need to look forward to a king who will be God's strength for his people. It's interesting that Hebrew word for strength is found in the name of one of Israel's kings, Uzziah. Uzziah means the strength of Jehovah. But Uzziah, of course, was a failure as a king. He died a leper because he had not listened to the Lord. but in a real sense we can say that our Lord Jesus Christ is the true Uzziah he's the true strength of God he's the true son of David he's the true one who comes to rescue his people and to be the strength of God for us when we are weak in ourselves and what is the essential one of the essential truths of our Lord Jesus Christ he always listened to his father his father always could say of him this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased it was Jesus Christ who came and said I have come to do your will and he did it perfectly because he always listened we can see that wonderfully can't we in his temptations at the beginning of his public ministry there he was in the wilderness 40 days hungry, weakened and the evil one came to him and tempted him by saying turn these stones into bread he had a right to eat it seemed in some ways like a reasonable request But how does our Savior respond? How does God, our strength, respond? How does the true King of David respond? He says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Jesus in the temptation was a listener to God. And because he stood in that temptation, God also gave him bread to eat. And then the second temptation comes and the devil wants him to throw himself down from the temple and the devil quotes the scripture and says he'll give his angels charge over you lest you dash your foot against the rock. And how does Jesus respond? He responds again by quoting the scripture and saying do not put the Lord your God to the test it's a reference to Israel at Meribah isn't it Exodus 17 referred to here in our text in Psalm 81 verse 7 Israel grumbled against God Israel doubted God's presence Israel doubted God's provision Israel was thirsty and there wasn't any water Jesus was thirsty in the wilderness but he said I will not put the Lord my God to the test I trust God, I listen to God, I rely upon God. And God gave Jesus what he needed to drink, having stood the test. And this psalm, interestingly, promises us something from the rock, not just water, but honey, something better, something more glorious. He will satisfy you, is the promise in our Lord Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ listened. And in the third temptation, the devil said, bow down and worship me and I will give you all the kingdoms of the world. And Jesus once again quoted from Deuteronomy chapter 6 and said, worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Jesus listened. Jesus was faithful. Jesus served only his father. And His Father gave Him the kingdoms of the world. And that's the Savior that you and I have. That's the Savior who has listened for us perfectly and completely so that as we enter the new year, we don't have to be fearful of the Father's wrath against us. Jesus has taken it all. Do you know that between New Year's Day and the Feast of Tabernacles in the Israelite calendar there was another important feast. On the first day of the month was the New Year celebration. On the 15th day of the month began the Feast of Tabernacles celebration. But on the 10th day of the month was the Day of Atonement when God provided a substitute for the sins of His people. When God was the strength of his people. And Jesus Christ is our substitute, is our strength, is our sin-bearer. Now, that doesn't mean that because Jesus listened, we don't have to listen. Because Jesus listened and he is our strength and we are in him, we should desire to listen. We should yearn for the word of God to be more alive in our hearts. But as we listen and as we confront our own dullness of hearing and our own sinfulness of life, we can rejoice in the fact that the imperfections of our listening are covered by the perfection of Christ's listening. And that we face a new year as people who should long to do God's will should be eager to serve the Lord according to His Word. That we should expend our time and our energy to know that Word and to hide it in our hearts and treasure it and live it out in our lives. But as we struggle to do that faithfully let us rejoice that we have a great King who listened perfectly who assures us as His people that we will not be numbered amongst the wicked. but if we are in Christ if we've known him if we've trusted him if we've relied upon him we will know that he has listened perfectly that he was the lamb of God who took away the sins of the world and that in him we have life and hope oh if my people would but listen says the Lord Jesus listened and we must find life in him may God grant that that will be the experience of every one of us here in this new year Amen let us pray O Lord our God how we do thank you for your word in which you have revealed your holy will that will which is so good for us and directs us in the paths of life that word that calls us away from the company of the wicked and the mockers and the scoffers and calls us to be those blessed ones who walk in your way. But we do confess before you, O Lord, that we are often those who are dull of hearing and are inclined to the foolishness of our own ways. And we do so thank and praise you that you have provided for us in our need a great king, a great savior, One who is strong over sin. One who is strong over the devil. One who is strong in his listening and in his faithfulness. We do thank you for Jesus Christ, the righteous. For Jesus Christ, the faithful. For Jesus Christ, our strength and hope. And we pray that in this new year, O Lord, we would be a people who grow in a love for your word. but even more that we would be a people who grow in a dependence upon Jesus Christ, in faith in him, in love for him. So thank you, O Lord, for those who have taught us the word in the past. Thank you for those who teach us the word in the present. Thank you for our office bearers who oversee our life and encourage us in paths of faithfulness according to your word. And thank you for Jesus, our Savior, for it's in his name that we pray. Amen.