In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes that despite man's ability to harness the power of the sun and wind, he is spiritually fallen and in need of God. The preacher references Paul's message in Acts 17, where he declares that it is in God that we live, move, and have our being, and therefore we should glorify and honor Him. The preacher highlights that man may resist the idea of needing God and may be corrupted and depraved, but ultimately, he is weak and in captivity to sin. The sermon emphasizes that all souls belong to God, and as the creator, we are accountable to Him and should always seek to honor Him.

Turn with me to Psalm 57. Psalm 57, man's chief end is to glorify God. Our text this morning is the last verse which we looked at in part last week, but I said there were some things I wanted further to share with you as they've been opened up to me. Verse 11, David says, Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let thy glory be above all the earth. Be thou exalted, O Lord, above the heavens. Let thy glory be above all the earth. David, in one master stroke of his anointed pen, brings the heavens and the earth together beneath the feet of a supremely magnificent God, whom David declared to be in verse 2, you will notice, God most high. The Hebrew name is El Elyon. In verse 1, he says, Be merciful unto me, O God. There it is, Elohim, God revealed in his covenant relationship with Abraham's seed, the one whose word cannot be broken, whose promises cannot fail. This is why David is able to express that strong personal trust in him. He says, My soul trusteth in the Lord, because he is a faithful God. He is a merciful God. But then, more significantly, he draws attention to this other name of God, the most high God, El Elyon, the one who is in relation to all who are not of Abraham's seed. Here is a name that represents him as God of all. He is the one who is God of heaven and of earth. Who is over all. And I was interested to observe that God is revealed in this particular glory in connection with Melchizedek. And if you will turn back to the 14th chapter of Genesis, you will see the context of the incidence of this. Lot, the nephew of Abraham, had made his choice as to where he would live. He was attracted by the outward comeliness of the well-watered plains of Moab. And it tells us he pitched his tent towards Sodom. It wasn't long, of course, before he moved into Sodom. That's why, friends, it's not just how close you can keep to the world and maintain a testimony, but how far you can keep away from it, that you're not brought under its influences. He pitched his tent towards Sodom, but later he is in Sodom. But when you desire the world's material gains and drift into association with the world's philosophy for living, you must be prepared to share in the world's troubles and perils. And soon he was in trouble. He was taken captive by the opposing kings who came and attacked Sodom. And when Abraham received the news that his nephew Lot had been taken captive, he armed 318 of his trained men and he pursued those kings so that he might rescue Lot. The chapter tells us it was indeed a successful mission and Lot was saved. The sad thing to me, of course, is that he went back to Sodom. I recall what Jesus said on one occasion. He said, where your heart is, there will your treasure be also. And so he finds himself back in Sodom. How different to Abraham, because even when the king of Sodom wanted to honor him with gifts, he declined every one of them. Friends, there is nothing this world can contribute to our life and joy and peace. Nothing whatsoever. And when it comes to the church, the world has nothing to offer the church that can make for its progress, its power, its authority, its effectiveness. Not at all. Abraham knows this. But I noticed that before he met the king of Sodom, this man of faith, Abraham, he had an encounter with the king of Salem, Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God, priest of El Elyon. And oh, how he blessed and refreshed Abraham. Lovely to be with people who bless you, who refresh you. And he said to Abraham, blessed be Abraham of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth. And blessed be the Most High God which hath delivered thine enemies into thine hand. So blessing comes down upon man and blessing goes up to God, El Elyon. And when you know his blessing, when you know God's blessing, then the offers of the king of Sodom mean nothing. They are worthless. Listen to this classic response of Abraham to the king of Sodom. He said, I have lifted up mine hand unto Jehovah. And now he says, the Most High God, El Elyon, the possessor of heaven and earth. You can keep your goods to yourself. I'll not take, he said, the smallest token from you. Not from a thread to a shoelace for you to boast that you have enriched Abraham. There you have the true example of an overcomer of this world who knows that the world cannot add the smallest thing to a godly man's wealth or happiness. So when you open up the next chapter, chapter 15, that first verse, after these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision saying, fear not, Abraham, I am thy shield. Mark this, and I am thy exceeding great reward. The knowledge of God, friends, is the most priceless and precious gain. It's not a question of what God would do for Abraham, but of what God himself would be to him. And here is Abraham proving the glory of this revelation that the Most High God is the possessor of heaven and earth. So who wants to trust in the fragile king of Sodom when your powerful El Elyon is the one who possesses all things? Hallelujah. We love him this morning. Our trust is in him this morning. Like the old hymn has it, the arm of flesh will fail you. You cannot trust your own. I cannot trust myself, but our trust can be in Elohim, the covenant-keeping God, and El Elyon, the Most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth. I notice that word, possessor, is a word that signifies that he is the rightful owner of all things because he has created them. That is why we can concur with David when he says, Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens. Why? Because he has made the heavens. Let thy glory be above all the earth. Why? Because he has made the earth. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. He is the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth. Look at what David says in Psalm 24 and verse 1. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. That's why we should be giving glory to him, because he made us. Psalm 50 please, verse 1. The mighty God, even the Lord, has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. Verse 12. God says, If I were hungry, I would not tell thee, for the world is mine and the fullness thereof. See now, friends, the connection with Psalm 57 as David, conscious of the providential care and saving power of the Most High, he proclaims, Be thou exalted, O Lord, above the heavens. Let thy glory be above all the earth. The glory belongs to him this morning by sovereign right. In the church we know also the glory belongs to him by redemptive right. That is why Paul, when he is exalting God's people in the first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 6 and verse 19, he says, Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, which you have of God? You are not your own. You've been bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. They belong to God. So God should be receiving from us the glory. This is what made the fall of Lucifer and a third part of the angels in heaven so tragic. As in Ezekiel 28, we are told that he was lifted up in his heart because of his beauty. And Isaiah tells us in chapter 14 of his prophecy, with the devil being prefigured by the king of Tyre and the king of Babylon, the devil said, I am God. I sit in the seat of God. I just want to turn to those verses in Isaiah for a moment, chapter 14. Yet thou shall be brought down to Hades, to the sides of the pit. How perilous it is, friends, for any being, whether human or angelic, to assume the role of God. Oh, powerful and incredibly clever as man is. And my word, what intelligence, what incredible abilities with man and his mind. The scientist, he can weigh the earth. He can measure the stars. He's able to calculate the movements of planets in their particular orbits. Man was able to harness the sun and the winds. Yet friends, man is a fallen creature, spiritually leprous, palsy, mad, ignorant and blind and subject to the Most High. He thinks he can do without God. He cannot. Paul told those at Mars Hill in his message, Acts chapter 17, it's in God that we live and move and have our being. And because of that, friends, we ought to glorify him. We ought to honor him. We ought to praise him. We ought to give to him what's due to him, our adoration, our love, the affection of our hearts. Commit all things to him. Yes, man will want to remonstrate against such an assertion that he needs God and that he is all corrupt and he is depraved. And in the end, friends, he is weak. His mind is darkened by sin. He's in captivity. But it is true. It's true. Every created thing comes under the holy and sovereign jurisdiction of the Most High God. And that right, he never forgoes. He is and ever will be El Elyon, the Most High God. And he's going to call all beings to account to him. Listen to what God said through Ezekiel. All souls are mine as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine. Then he says, the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Because, friends, he made us. We are accountable to God. Thus it is that we must seek always to honor him. Referring again to Acts chapter 17, Paul was under an obligation to proclaim this when he spoke to those on Mars Hill. Let me just read you a few scriptures from Acts 17. He said, I passed by and beheld your devotions, that is your superstitions, your objects of worship, demon worship. I perceived in all these things you are too superstitious. I found the altar with this inscription, to the unknown God, whom therefore you ignorantly worship, him be declared unto you. God that made the world and all things that therein. Seeing he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwells not in temples made with hands, neither is worship with men's hands, as though he needed anything. Seeing he gave us to all life and breath and all things. As you go down through that passage, he says, listen, there is coming a day when God is going to call all men to a judgment bar, where they will face one who died and was raised from the dead, who has been appointed to be the judge of all. He said, listen, you had better repent, you had better repent and come to God through Jesus Christ. Now I do attention to the significant order of the blessing of Melchizedek, because first Melchizedek blessed Abraham, and then he blessed God. I thought that was rather strange, I thought that Melchizedek would have blessed the most high first, and Abraham afterwards. Abraham is blessed by God, and then God is blessed by Abraham. We used to have a little phrase up here, blessed to be a blessing. Friends, there is something before that. Blessed to bless God. First and foremost, we've been blessed to honor God, blessed to glorify God. I wonder if the truth of the Shorer Catechism, which we referred to last week, is really understood by us. The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Oh, we all desire to enjoy Him forever, but what about the most important prelude to that? Man's chief end is to glorify God. In fact, I asked myself the question this morning, can we hope to enjoy Him throughout eternity if we do not glorify Him now in time? Peter says in his first epistle, chapter four, that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom are all things. Paul says to the Corinthians that whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. There's nothing more common than eating and drinking. There's nothing more regular than eating and drinking. You probably had a cuppa this morning, and you were hoping to have a good lunch when you go home, or preparing a nice evening meal in time to get back to the service. Oh yes, whatsoever you, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, the most insignificant, mundane activity, it'll all be to the glory of God, the glory of God. Do you give thanks when you have your meal before you? Not just at home, I mean when you're in the restaurant, or do you look around to see first if anybody's watching? Why be ashamed? I remember on a motorway, where you're not permitted to stop, on a freeway, there was a man who had pulled his car over onto the shoulder of the road, and I thought he had a problem, and I was just slowing down, but then I noticed, well he had a problem, it was a spiritual problem, and he took out his mat, he got down on his knees, it was time for his prayers, he was a Muslim, he wasn't ashamed, and if the police had come, I don't know what the police would have done, because it's surprising how they can get away with it. One of our former general superintendents of the American Assemblies of God Fellowship was on a journey across the states, he was driving, came into a little township, went into a restaurant to have a meal, sat down, ordered his meal. When it came, he bowed, and he openly and unashamedly gave thanks to the Lord. He finished his meal, and he called for the waiter who came to him, he said, I finished, please could you give me the bill? And the man said, there is no bill for you, sir. He said, the owner has said your meal is free today. He said, but I don't know the owner, I'm a stranger, it's mistaken. No, no. He said, he's a Christian, he saw you giving thanks. So he said, if that man is unashamed to give thanks, I'll give him his meal free. I can see a lot of you will be saying grace in restaurants. Giving thanks, giving thanks. We have met up with believers, because we've been giving thanks in a restaurant. They've come up, they said, you must be a believer, because you gave thanks. Not just as a habit, but because the heart is grateful. We want to glorify God, glorify God. Glorifying God consists of adoration, and worship, and praise, giving all honor to Him. And I want to say this morning, God is jealous for this. He's jealous for this. He'll not give his glory to anybody else. So if we are giving honor and glory to others apart from God, when God is rightly due to that, then He is jealous. He is displeased with that. This must be the ultimate end of all our actions. Having given us our being, He now requires that we give to Him our worship, our praise, our all. Just think on it for a moment. Inanimate creation, it glorifies Him, but it does so mechanically. Psalm 19, verse 1 says, The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament showeth His handiwork. When we look upon creation this morning, it is a natural preacher. No, we don't hear a voice in our tongue, but it shouts at us, it preaches, it tells us that God is. God is. And there is a certain revelation that comes to us by the creation, but it's quite limited. But inanimate creation, it glorifies Him, albeit mechanically. Animate creation, it glorifies Him, but does so instinctively. So the birds upon the tree top sing their song. I used to sing that in Sunday school when I was a boy. The birds upon the tree top sing their song. In fact, in Isaiah, it tells us that the beasts of the field, they praise God. They praise God. Instinctively, there is an honor that God receives from even the animate creation. But listen to friends, man alone is capable of obeying God consciously and willingly, and thus glorify God most fully. And God expects it from us. Keep it ever before you. We exist for God's glory. The purpose of His plan is His glory, the one great motivating factor in all that God has chosen and done. In relation to you and me, He chose us in Christ. In Ephesians 1, 6 and 7, He says that He predestinated us according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He has made us accepted in the beloved. We are to glorify God. Psalm 57 has much to teach us. As David, he discounts the ill will of a jealous soul. He's more concerned about a jealous God. He knows that God most high, El Elyon, possesses all things. He is the sole controller of all destinies. He is the one who has David's reins in His hand. David has no need to fear. David knows that El Elyon holds him in His almighty hand and will deliver him and will direct him according to His eternal purpose. That's why he says in verse 2 or 3, he says, God performs all things for me. God's working for me. Little wonder, friends, that his heart is fixed to sing and give praise and then to make such a plea that God would so act that men must acknowledge, men must admire the greatness of His entire nature, that which is an eternal fact that God is God and God alone above all that is in the heavens and above all that is upon earth. Be thou exalted, O Lord, above the heavens. Let thy glory be above all the earth. Now, I said last week that He must receive glory from us and ask the question in conclusion, does He receive glory from us? And I stated that it will cost you and me to live for His glory. Can I, in just a few moments, consider with you what it requires for God to be glorified in us? For nothing now attributes glory to God more majestically than the church, because it is in the church that He is manifest and does manifest His infinite wisdom and omnipotent power. In Ephesians it says, unto Him be glory in the church, both now and forever, world without end. Amen. Well, how is this practically achieved? May I say first of all that we glorify God when we confess and repent of all that dishonors Him. We glorify God, first of all, when we confess and repent of all that dishonors Him. What we need to know clearly, friends, is that sin dishonors God, whatever be the form. Sometimes we excuse our sins. We think that they are minor. There's no minor sin. It is contrary to His holy and just nature. Sin violates or transgresses God's law. In essence, sin is lawlessness. One of the words for sin in the scriptures means to miss the mark. And so sin is that failure to come up to God's revealed standard, that standard which He has set in His infinite wisdom to uphold, to maintain the moral health of His universe. Take away the law, friends, and what have you got? A society that immediately disintegrates. What if we had an announcement over the television this afternoon or over the radio that all road laws, all regulations are now cancelled? You can do what you like. Follow that through in all other aspects of it. What if there are no laws? The law of the Lord, friends, is perfect. It is that which maintains the very universe, the laws of God. We willfully despise God's law. It does death by then to His holy name. Sin is unrighteousness. The Bible gives us that as another description. It is unrighteousness. It is a failing to live right. A life that lacks integrity and moral soundness. Let me say this, it does matter how we live. It does matter how we behave. It matters. Jesus taught us to pray, forgive us our trespasses. That's another word. A trespass is a false step. It's a blunder. It is not walking straight or keeping to the path of God's revealed will. It's a deviating from the ways of uprightness and truth. Maybe it can be summed up in one word of Paul's in Romans 3, 23, we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now friends, here this morning I have a congregation who are people enlightened. We know something of the holy nature of God and how He hates sin. That glory which belongs to God, we have seen. We understand in a measure something of that glory, of His essential nature. Those who have been justified are said to rejoice in hope of the glory of God. In other words, to sin now friends, is not the believer's habit of life. But when we permit sin, we allow it to defile us. It robs God of glory. It robs us of the glory of God. It brings about spiritual defeat. It dishonors God. What must we do then? There's only one thing. We must confess our sins to God. We must repent of sin. We must plead the atoning merit of that shed blood of Jesus that we might know cleansing from sin. And thank God if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And in that God is glorified. John in his epistle talks about you having received the forgiveness of sins for His name's sake. God is glorified when a person comes and acknowledges sin. Israel was smarting under humiliating defeat and they questioned why. And if you turn back to the book of Joshua chapter 7, you will see Joshua on his face in prayer, wondering if God had failed them. What will you do for your great name, he says to the Almighty? God says, Joshua, get up. There's sin in the camp. And He reveals that the cause of defeat was not in him but in them. Sin through just one person, Achan, had brought such evil consequences in its wake. Not just the defeat of the nation, but dishonor for God's holy name. And mark it, friends, it was only one sin, but it's called an accursed thing. And in Joshua chapter 7, verse 13, maybe I read verse 10 and 11 first. The Lord said to Joshua, get thee up, wherefore liest thou upon thy face. Israel hath sinned. Notice that. Not just Achan hath sinned, Israel hath sinned. And they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them. For they have even taken of the accursed thing, have also stolen, etc. Verse 13, up, sanctify the people and say, sanctify yourselves against tomorrow. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, there is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel. Thou canst not stand before thine enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you. And then down to verse 19, Joshua said to Achan when he had then exposed his sin, he said to him, my son, give, I pray thee, glory to the God, Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto him, and tell me now what thou hast done. Hide it not from me. How does confession of sin glorify God? Because it clears him. It sets forth God as holy and righteous. It vindicates that God's way for man is the true way. It's the way of life. It lays the blame for all of life's maladies right where they belong, at the door of sinful man. Failure, friends, our failures and sins, they dishonor God. They bring His holy name into disrepute. They cause the world to sneer and to scorn and to stumble. That is why if there is a known sin, we must confess it. We must forsake it. Only then can our lives be glorifying to God. Thank God this morning there is forgiveness. Thank God there is cleansing. If we will truly come confessing and repenting, the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin. Praise the Lord. So important, friends, for us to know that as believers, because we think that sometimes we can excuse some of our behavior and think it doesn't really matter. It does matter. Sin dishonors God, whatever it might be and wherever it is found. But we can honor Him this morning by confessing our sin, repenting of our sins, turning to Him and know that He will pardon. But that leads me to another point and I have to conclude because my time really is gone. We glorify God when we bring our whole lives into His holy order. Now this is the positive side of it. This follows on from confession. Loathing sin, we leave it and we walk in the light of God's truth. It is when we are walking in holiness that we manifest the reality of God's work within us. When we are bringing forth those fruits of righteousness, they are to the praise and the glory of His name. When we are living holy lives, we are upholding the integrity of God's law. We vindicate its standard. We reveal how that by Him, by His own grace and power, we are enabled to render obedience. And thank God this morning, friends, whatever God requires of us, He gives us the ability to be able to do it. We can live for Him a holy life. I have heard of people who have made excuses for their sins and say, oh well, we are only human. Oh no, within us there is a divine nature which He has implanted, He has imparted. We can live a holy life to the glory of God. When we live such a holy life, we establish God's rights in the earth. Yes, when we are living according to God's word, we acknowledge that He is our God and everything now is subject to His authority. This becomes the guidebook. From this book we receive our instructions. This is the book by which we live. Only holiness of life can glorify Him. In fact, anything contrary to God is in fact complicity with a defiant, devil-controlled world, the world that crucified the Lord of glory. My appeal this morning is that we live out and out for Jesus, so that our lives might be appraised to Him. To say with David, my heart is fixed. We will say it's fixed to live a holy life in order to glorify Him. We must glorify Him. We do so by confession of sin. We do so by living holy lives. I'll just give you the little outline of what I would have liked to open up more on. But we glorify Him when we engage in service that primarily exalts Him. Oh friends, let's give ourselves for doing that which is going to bring honour to the Lord. Let's serve Him fervently. Paul talks about being fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, and do so for His glory. On this membership Sunday, what an appropriate plea that we all be functioning members of the local body of Christ, fervently serving the Lord, so we might bring honour and glory to His name. We glorify Him when we manifest a sincere and strong faith in Him. And you cannot read Psalm 57 or read the other Psalms of David without seeing David's strong, resolute faith in God. Of Abraham it says that he believed God and gave glory to God by his faith. It's unbelief that dishonours him, but although he might find us this morning, people who trust Him with all of our hearts. And finally, we glorify Him when we maintain a praiseful disposition before Him. David's heart is fixed, and so must ours be. Whatever be the situations of life, the truth is that He never changes. His mercies are ever available. His presence is guaranteed to us. David said on a couple of occasions, when he looked around and saw the situation he was in, he says, Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Hope thou in God, I will yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance and my God. Hallelujah. And in Psalm 50 he says, He who offereth praise glorifyeth me. God says that. Who so offereth praise glorifyeth me. True praise, it sets forth God's honour. It expresses His worth. It proclaims His excellence. It confesses our allegiance to Him as our God. We must praise Him. We must praise Him at all times. We must praise Him with a whole heart. And thereby we shall glorify Him. Remember friends, the chief end of man is to glorify God. Do that in the simple way that we have outlined, and you'll enjoy Him forever. Hallelujah. Remember what Jesus said, Father, I have glorified Thee on the earth. Oh, what an example Jesus gave to us. What a truth that through Him this morning we can glorify the Father on the earth. May we bring our lives into accord with His revealed will and glorify Him. Let's go forth into this further week, if He tarries and we are spared, purposing to live so as to bring glory to Him. And let David's prayer be ours. Be Thou exalted, O Lord, above the heavens. Let Thy glory be above all the earth. He is worthy. He is worthy. Let's stand in His presence to praise His holy name.