2 Sam 22:4, "I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; And I am saved from my enemies. 
	Once more we are finding ourselves enthralled with the fact that we can call upon the Lord in the midst of our troubles and circumstances and we will be heard. God works mightily to save all those who call upon His glorious and awesome name. In accordance with this great and magnificent assurance of His open heaven to us, we need to bring before Him the praise and adoration which expresses our supreme gratitude and honor of Jehovah.
	We will continue with that which is so wondrously put before us by the Palmist in Ps 116:12-17. If you would open and read along with me, using not only our eyes, but letting our hearts rejoice together in all the tremendous goodness of Our Lord God Almighty!
	Ps 116:12-17, What shall I render to the Lord For all His benefits toward me? I shall lift up the cup of salvation, And call upon the name of the Lord. I shall pay my vows to the Lord, Oh may it be in the presence of all His people. Precious in the sight of the Lord Is the death of His godly ones. O Lord, surely I am Thy servant, I am Thy servant, the son of Thy handmaid, Thou hast loosed my bonds. To Thee I shall offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving, And call upon the name of the Lord. 
	Two aspects of note need to be highlighted in this passage. The first is the fact that we are to proclaim the glory of the work and the majesty and the power of God in the presence of His people. We are to be gathered together as the physical representation of His Body, exclaiming and delighting with each other in all the accounts of His miraculous and marvelous deeds. Gathered together, we encourage one another in Him, in His Truth, in His wisdom, in His power, and in His provision.
	The second reality is that this passage highlights something which we do not often mention with respect to the working power of God. There are many Christians who feel that they should be immune from earthly persecution, and torture, and torment, and death. They have the idea that if they call out to The Lord with earnest efforts and with loud voices making great claim upon His name, He will not let anything bad happen to them. They believe that their bodies will be healed from all those diseases and afflictions of this age, simply because they are Christians. 
They believe that the attacks from those who harbor hatred and anger and resentment will all be calmed. They also feel that they will not be killed by those raging forces of this age which fume and ferociously attack the earthly representations of the resurrected and glorified Lord God Almighty. Inherent in this, is the idea that all financial burdens and strife will be set apart from us and that we will have all that our hearts desire on this earth.
	This has never been the promise of God in the care of His own. He has fully and absolutely promised to supply all our needs and to envelop us with His loving arms of grace and mercy and comfort and healing. But that does not equate to what those who hold to the above demand from Him, as if He were their heavenly butler instead of their Heavenly Father. 
	Rather, as indicated in this very passage, the death of His godly ones is precious in His sight, but they still undergo that death on this earth. The physical body of a believer is not immune to the illness and the strife and the wounds inflicted by car accidents, robbers, mobs of protestors, and authoritarian powers. Christians die at the hands of those whose hearts are filled with wickedness and with anger. The morgues of hospitals and medical examiners contain countless numbers of the bodies of those who loved the Lord with all their hearts. 
	The hospital wards contain 1000’s of wonderful saints, brothers and sisters in Christ who will never see another sunrise or sunset. Such is the fact of our walk on this earth. This does not mean that each one was disregarded by God. 
	Rather, in His infinite wisdom and unsearchable Omniscience, the time for each of His people has been measured out from eternity. Each one is here only as long as God has determined and not one minute longer or shorter. He, Alone, knows the time of our walk on this imperfect world as the witness of His so great love in Jesus Christ. 
We do not tell God what He needs to do! We ask Him to do His perfect and glorious work in our lives, no matter what needs to happen to this mortal body! The fact is that we are each so very precious to Him. He knows exactly what the cost of our lives entail in the terms of that which will bring about His plan and His purpose in the lives of His people.
	As an aside, I once more give expression to the utter wonder that fills my heart when I consider those early Believers who were suffering the persecution of Rome. They were being martyred in the arenas just for sport in the eyes of the citizenry. Yet, when all was accounted unto the manifested work of God, those saints, as they died horrible deaths at the hands of the Romans, sang the praise and the adoration of their Lord and Christ, Jesus. This was to the point that, eventually, the entire Roman Empire would be turned upside down and become a Christian influence throughout the known world. 
Those Roman spectators could not understand how a people could rejoice in their physical deaths, with their eyes on the eternal and the song of praise rising from mangled lips and slashed bodies. Yet, each one was precious to God. He did not abandon them in their misery. The Holy Spirit was the reason that they could praise God in the highest with the last gasp of their breath. 
The same has happened in innumerable lives as Christians have succumbed to cancer and other diseases, poverty, and all types of human destruction and destitution in the eyes of those who watched. These beloved brothers and sisters, who underwent the torment and strife, gave their lives to Christ Jesus. As they died, the multitudes of spectators witnessed the hope that rose in these saints as they withered and perished from the earth, to arrive at their heavenly home with joy and with eternal thanksgiving. This has caused so many people and even nations to seek to know who the Jesus was, Who could be so loved by these members of His Church on earth.
Next, consider the encouragement of the Psalmist as declared in Ps 148. Ps 148, Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens; Praise Him in the heights! Praise Him, all His angels; Praise Him, all His hosts! Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him, all stars of light! Praise Him, highest heavens, And the waters that are above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the Lord, For He commanded and they were created. He has also established them forever and ever; He has made a decree which will not pass away. Praise the Lord from the earth, Sea monsters and all deeps; Fire and hail, snow and clouds; Stormy wind, fulfilling His word; Mountains and all hills; Fruit trees and all cedars; Beasts and all cattle; Creeping things and winged fowl; Kings of the earth and all peoples; Princes and all judges of the earth; Both young men and virgins; Old men and children. Let them praise the name of the Lord, For His name alone is exalted; His glory is above earth and heaven. And He has lifted up a horn for His people, Praise for all His godly ones; Even for the sons of Israel, a people near to Him. Praise the Lord! 
The entirety of creation is to praise the Lord. Our voices are to join in the manifold praise of God as does the whole of that which is the work of His hand. He spoke and the universe as we know it came into being, with the fullness of that which He put forth onto the earth. The people of God are to be the heralds within the entirety of this realm as to the fact that the Lord is to be highly exalted and praised. 
His word is fulfilled as each day passes into night, and then into day again. The seasons all proclaim the glory of God as do the stars and the other heavenly beings. The deeps and the mountains, the valleys and the sky all exclaim His majesty and His splendor and His glory. Therefore should we with the every fiber of our being because He has brought us near, into a living relationship with Himself through the death and resurrection of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ! 
This is proclaimed for us by the Apostle Paul in Rom 10:8-13, if you would please open to it. We need to search our hearts as to the relationship that we share with God in His Beloved Son, Jesus. There should be that confident assurance, that even when we go through those times of death and destruction in the course of our walk on this earth, we will still honor and adore and proclaim that God, Alone, is worthy of all our praise and adoration. It is in Him that our salvation rests today and evermore!
Rom 10:8-13, But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" — that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed." For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon Him; for "Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved." 
	This highlights the reality that anyone, no matter what the status, no matter what the political affiliation, no matter what the place of birth or economic situation, anyone who calls upon the name of Jesus as Savior and Lord will be saved. This is such an all encompassing promise of God to those who will so believe in His love freely given in Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. 
This is the ultimate and essential calling out to God that is expressed in our morning’s passage. It is in Christ that every need is met and every pain is soothed and every enemy is conquered! 
	Accordingly we turn to the last book of the Bible, the Revelation of Jesus Christ, to read a couple of those detailed passages which highlight the great work of God in the lives of those who do overcome through the power of the Perfect Sacrificial Lamb, Jesus. We begin with the praise and the honor declared unto God as detailed in Rev 4:9-11.
	Rev 4:9-11, And when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, to Him who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying, "Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy will they existed, and were created." 
	There will be that growing recognition throughout the entirety of the universe of that which is declared before the Throne of the Most High. He is absolutely worthy of all the glory and the praise and the honor from all that He has brought into being. Everything is only because He spoke it into being in His tremendous and glorious act of creation. 
Therefore all that exists is only because of the work of His will. As a result, when His creation calls forth to Him, He responds and that response deserves the utmost acclaim and adoration from the recipients of His so great working power.
	Then, in Rev 5:6-14, we bring this consideration to a close with the magnificent and eternal declaration that will fill the entirety of the limitlessness of the eternal ages of ages. There will be that worship and praise and adoration and honor given to God as His redeemed saints proclaim His wondrous working power in the course of all that He has done forever and forever! This is the manifestation of His Only Begotten Son, the perfect sacrifice of redemption for those who will believe and receive the freely offered gift of salvation eternally established through the glorious resurrection power of The Lamb of God!
	Rev 5:6-14, And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth. And He came, and He took it out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. And when He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, having each one a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to break its seals; for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase for God with Thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. "And Thou hast made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth." And I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing." And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, "To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever." And the four living creatures kept saying, "Amen." And the elders fell down and worshiped. 
	So be it and amen!
I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; And I am saved from my enemies. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Ps 51:10. Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Amen.