In this sermon, the preacher shares a humorous story about a golfer who gets a hole in one despite struggling with his game. The preacher uses this story to illustrate the frustration of having an incredible experience that cannot be adequately expressed or shared with others. He then transitions to discussing the ultimate experience of life, which is having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The preacher emphasizes the importance of sharing this experience with others and encourages listeners to let Jesus fill their hearts and transform their lives. The sermon concludes with a reading from Psalm 146, highlighting God's blessings and the unique relationship He has with Israel.

Oh, let the Son of God enfold you With His Spirit and His love Let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh, let Him have the things that mold you And His Spirit and His love Will descend upon your life and make you whole Welcome to The Word for Today Featuring the Bible teaching of the late Pastor Chuck Smith Founder of the Calvary Chapel Movement This radio program is a verse-by-verse study through the entire Bible And on today's edition of The Word for Today Pastor Chuck will be continuing with God's glorious works As we pick up in the 146th Psalm, beginning with verse 5 And now with today's message, here's Pastor Chuck Great is our Lord, of great power Because His understanding is infinite And so you see, that's where the diffugality arises My understanding is very finite God's understanding is infinite And because of that, I can't understand God I don't understand God I don't understand the ways of God I don't understand the actions of God or the activities of God God's understanding is infinite That is, He knows all things Now, it's rather pitiful and sad that Many times, with my limited understanding I'm prone to challenge God in His activities When He has infinite understanding I sort of think, well, Lord, don't you think you made a mistake? You know, I don't know why you would do that It seems very obvious to me that that was sort of a foolish thing to do Now, if I were in your shoes, this is the way I would have done it, you know And you sort of seek to advise God or to be His counselor And I'm afraid that many times our prayers reflect this Lord, I want you to bow now to my wishes I want you to bend now to my desires I want you, Lord, to do this that I've got all figured out here Because I understand this situation and I know what's going on So, Lord, this is the way you should do it, you know And I'm trying to direct the activities of God through prayer How much better that I say, Lord Work out your will with your infinite understanding And to recognize how limited I am And rather than challenge God, submit And just say, well, Lord, you know best You do what you know is best His understanding is infinite The Lord lifts up the meek Jesus said, blessed are the meek They shall inherit the earth The Lord brings down the proud Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, He will lift you up And so, always, the Scripture extols Meekness over pride The world sees things from the opposite side The Lord lifts up the meek But He casts the wicked down to the ground So sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving Sing praise upon the harp unto our God So, He opens the Psalms by declaring, Hallelujah, praise the Lord Sing unto Him with thanksgiving Sing praises Accompanying on the harp to our God Who covers the heavens with clouds Who prepares the rain for the earth Who makes the grass to grow upon the mountains And so now He's extolling this marvelous work of God In providing for His creatures For He causes the grass to grow on the mountains And He gives to the beast His food And to the young ravens which cry He delights not in the strength of the horse And He takes not pleasure in the legs of the man The most powerful muscles of your body are in the legs And yet, looking for strength God doesn't take the pleasure in the horses or in the legs of the man But the Lord takes pleasure in those that reverence Him In those that just hope in His mercy So praise the Lord, O Jerusalem Praise thy God, O Zion For He strengthened the bars of thy gates And when Nehemiah had come back And he led the people in the rebuilding of the wall They rebuilt the gates And the gates of the city When closed, they had this large bar, a plank That went through these sockets So that the gate could not be opened Without breaking, which was impossible This large plank that was run through these sockets To lock the gates of the city So He has strengthened the bars of thy gates And He has blessed thy children within thee They live in that peace and security again He makes peace in your borders And He has filled you with the finest of wheat God is blessed, God has been good He sends forth His commandment upon the earth His word runs very swiftly And then He gives the snow like wool To cover the earth He scatters the hoarfrost like ashes He casts forth His ice or the hail like morsels And who can stand before His cold? He sends out His word and He melts them He causes the wind to blow And the waters, the streams begin to flow The melt off of the snow and the winter snows He shows His word unto Jacob His statutes and His judgments unto Israel And He has not dealt so with any nation And as for His judgments, they have not known them So God blessed you, Israel He blessed you by making known His laws, His judgments, His statutes Other nations do not know the judgments of the Lord They do not share in that blessing They have not known them Therefore, praise the Lord Hallelujah And thus, the exhortations here at the end of the Psalms And so, these last Psalms are really devoted To the exhorting of the people To praise the Lord Now in Psalm 148 The beginning with the Hallelujah And then praise ye the Lord from the heavens So the Psalmist, first of all He's gonna call really pretty much The whole universe into praise And he begins with the highest order of created beings, the angels Those in the heavens Praise Him, all His angels Praise ye Him, all His hosts These are the heavenly hosts Now, just who they are and what they are Will remain for us a mystery until we're there But just the various hosts of heaven that God has created We know that angels are in various orders or ranks There are the cherubim, there are the seraphim There are the great and mighty angels They are divided into ranks of principalities And powers and mights and thrones and dominions And no doubt is a reference to the various orders And thus, the exhortation for the host of heaven To praise God Still dealing with the heavens, the sun, the moon All the stars of light Praise the Lord The heavens of heavens Now this is probably a reference to the universe as such The Bible speaks of three heavens There is that heaven which is the atmosphere around the earth As God created the birds that fly through the heaven The atmosphere around the earth The second heaven is your celestial heaven The stars, the moon, the planets and so forth In the heavens, we look up into the heavens at night The third heaven is the place of God's dwelling Wherever that may be Paul the apostle, in writing to the Corinthians Said there was a man in Christ about 14 years ago And whether or not I was in the body or out of the body I don't know, maybe I had an out of body experience But I was caught up into the third heaven And there I heard things that were so amazing So remarkable That it would be a crime to try to describe them in human language The glories, the wonder, the awe Of the dwelling place of God So awesome that man hasn't language that can communicate these truths There are not words that can describe them And so there is no way to communicate Now, in the existential philosophy today They talk a lot about truth is what you experience it to be And thus truth is relative It may be true to you but not true to the next person We all interpret things as we see them So you look at the modern art and you try to interpret it What do you see in all of those globs of paint that were thrown at that canvas? Well, it looks like a camel A camel? Where do you see a camel? Well, you see that little hump there And that leg down there, you know And so you try to interpret it Now, as we stand together in the gallery looking at the modern art I look at it and I think, what in the world is that? What were they thinking of when they just put an eye over here And a nose down here And a big toe over here I mean, it doesn't come together It doesn't make sense And it's trying to get across a message but I can't interpret it Just pull yourself together, man Let's not go to pieces, you know What are they trying to tell me? Now, as we stand together looking at the art I am wondering, what in the world do you see in that? And you hear someone say, isn't that lovely? Isn't that marvelous? And I think, what? Now, you see, this is an illustration of the existential philosophy It is you interpreting it as you see it I interpret it as I see it, trash And yet someone pays a hundred thousand dollars for that thing They must see in it something that I don't But that's the idea of existential philosophy Every man develops his own value He sees in it what he sees But what he sees may not be what I see And thus what is true to him may not be true to me Every man develops his own value system What is right, what is wrong And that basically is the idea of the existential philosophy Now, in existential philosophy They talk much of the ultimate experience Because it's searching for that experience That will interpret to you as the ultimate experience of life And what might be the ultimate experience to you May not be to me Now, they have discussed the fact that death May indeed be the ultimate experience of life But you won't know until you experience it But in talking of this ultimate experience If you should ever have it Because it is the ultimate experience It would be impossible for you to describe it to someone else Because there aren't any words in the vocabulary of man That could describe the ultimate experience And thus you would be sort of at a loss of trying to describe it You might have it, but you're gonna have to sort of Just keep it to yourself Because there aren't words that could express or describe it to someone else Now, it's sort of frustrating and all to have An experience that you can't share with someone You know, half the fun is sharing it Relating it to someone else Oh, you don't know what we did last week It was a blast And you like to relate the experiences of life to others I heard of a preacher that got into golf And finally golf got into him He became an addict He was like the fellow who got ready to tee off And this hearse went by with all of the cars following it And the guy took off his hat and stood there at attention Until the whole funeral procession went by And put his hat back on and teed off And his other three fellows who were with him on the foursome said Hey, man, you're old fashioned They don't do that anymore Don't you know that, you know, when funerals go by You don't take your hat They don't do that anymore He said, well, that's the least I could do for my wife They say that golf can really get a hold of a guy And the pastor was one of those Golf really got hold of him So much so That he started sneaking out on Sunday morning Before the first service To get in 18 holes Get up with a crack of dawn Go out and play 18 holes He was just into golf His guardian angel was talking with another angel And telling of the problem that he was having with this minister That he was watching He said he's so into golf He's neglecting his ministry And he's actually going out now on Sunday morning And playing golf He'll be out this morning You watch the crack of dawn He'll be out there playing Before he goes to church And he's not putting the time into studying all that he should Because golf has gotten such a hold on his life So his angel friend said I'll take care of that for you He said, oh, I would appreciate that So he says, come on, let's go down, we'll watch him So the fellow got up at the first tee It was a 475 yard to the green And the minister stood there And he addressed the ball And came off with his swing And the angel grabbed the ball Carried it through the air All the way up to the green And then let it roll And guided it right into the cup Plopped right in And his guardian angel said What in the world are you doing? I told you I was having a problem with this guy And now you give him a hole in one In a 475 yard fairway What's wrong with you? Are you crazy? He said, no Who's he going to tell? It's awful not to be able to tell something like that Something exciting And so if you would have the ultimate experience You wouldn't be able to relate it Because there aren't words There isn't a language that can express it So if you say to a friend of yours, you know Last week I had the ultimate experience of life If they would say to you Oh, that's exciting Tell me about it You would know that they don't know anything at all About the ultimate experience Because if they knew anything at all About the ultimate experience They would know that you can't tell them Because there aren't words that can describe The ultimate experience So you see the world is sort of in a problem With existential philosophy Because you're searching for the ultimate experience But if you have it, you won't be able to share it There aren't words Well, in a sense You might say that Paul the apostle Had the ultimate experience being caught into heaven Because he said It would be a crime to try to describe the things That I heard So The host of heaven Called upon to praise the Lord And then the heavens of heavens The very dwelling place of God Ye waters that are above the heavens This probably is a reference to then To the atmosphere around the earth Referring probably to the clouds that are carrying the water Let them praise the name of the Lord For he commanded And they were created They exist At the word of God God said Let there be light And there was light And God commanded And they were brought into existence By what they called the divine fiat Or by the divine word of God He spoke the universe into existence We'll return with more of our verse-by-verse study Through the book of Psalms In our next lesson As Pastor Chuck Smith continues with Praising God for His creation And we do hope you'll make plans to join us Now, for those of you who would like to secure a copy of today's message Simply order Psalm 146, verse 5 When visiting thewordfortoday.org While you're there, we encourage you to browse The many additional biblical resources by Pastor Chuck You can also subscribe to the Word for Today podcast Or sign up for our email subscription Once again, all this can be found At thewordfortoday.org If you wish to call Our toll-free number is 1-800-272-WORD And our office hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time Again, that's 1-800-272-9673 If you prefer to write Our mailing address is The Word for Today, PO Box 8000 Costa Mesa, California, 92628 And now, on behalf of the Word for Today We'd like to thank all of you who share in supporting this ministry With your prayers and financial support And be sure to join us again next time As Pastor Chuck continues his verse-by-verse study Through the Bible That's right here, on the next edition of The Word for Today And now, once again, here's Pastor Chuck With today's closing comments May the Lord be with you And keep you in His love and grace this week As you walk in fellowship with Jesus Christ And may the Spirit of God work in you As He is conforming you into the image of Jesus I pray that this week you'll see That you'll spend a lot of time In the spiritual development Growing spiritually In the things of the Lord In the ways of the Lord Walking in His path May it be a good week for you Have you ever had a friend who's not a believer And they ask you a question about the Bible And you're thrilled Finally, they want to know more about God But then you go blank Because you can't remember the Scripture That would answer their very question You're not alone It happens to me all the time And I think if I only had a quick Scripture reference That could help me right then and right there That would be perfect Well, guess what I found? Pastor Chuck's Old and New Testament study guides Are available to download as e-books Instantly to your phone or mobile device Now, whenever you need to find the meaning To a Scripture reference quickly, you can Pastor Chuck has written great little Bible commentaries To help anyone come to a better understanding of God's Word To find out more and to read a book preview Visit thewordfortoday.org And click on the link to download The Old and New Testament study guides by Chuck Smith Or, if you would like to order these books in print Call The Word for Today at 800-272-WORD That's 800-272-9673 This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today in Costa Mesa, California