Psalm 133 felt like a theme that could stay with us for the weekend. For a bit of variety, I'm going to read a version that none of you will have heard before. So it'll make it fresh maybe. Just look at that. How good to see it. How pleasant to hear it.

Close relatives together as real friends. Harmony spreads among them like the special oil flowing from Aaron's head to his beard and falling from there to the collar of his robe. It spreads among them like the dew of great Mount Hermon falling on the hills around the city of Zion. For in that setting, The God who is always there has ordered that his family be blessed with life that goes on forever.

There's a film just been issued last week called Raid on Entebbe. I haven't seen it, but it's the documentary or the story of that incredible exploit of Israel in rescuing the hostages from Uganda not too long ago. And I gather that in the film they portray the Israeli commandos in those Hercules planes that made that very daring raid. And the Israeli commandos all the way there sang Psalm 133. How pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.

And it was in that spirit that they carried out that battle and rescued those people. And therefore, in a sense, it's in that same spirit that we'd like to enter this weekend, a liberating spirit, to sing this song. So we're not going to Uganda, but we're going to God.

Now, for King David, the songs came from real life. He wasn't a professional songwriter. He wasn't writing for competitions. He was writing out of real things that happened to him. And it's because of that that the Psalms are so real. You know, whenever the Holy Spirit is moving, song is one of the results.

And in the 18th century in England, when the Great Wesleyan Revival was on, we were talking about this in the car coming here, Charles Wesley wrote 6,000 hymns. 6,000. Most of them have been lost. And one of the signs that the Spirit is moving around the world today is that there are just so many songs pouring out. And people are just wanting to sing.

And I have noticed increasingly that the book of Psalms is being more and more appreciated by those who are renewed in the spirit. Have you noticed that? It's as if song speaks at a deep level. And the book of Psalms is being read more than I've ever known it read.

I've been 26 years in the ministry and I think I hear Psalms more now than I ever did before. And you can go through the book of Psalms and you'll always find somewhere the right Psalm for you at just that moment, however you're feeling, wherever you are spiritually.

You might be right at the top, and there are plenty of Psalms for those at the top, and if you've come here and you're at the bottom, then you'll find a Psalm that's just right for you. But I wanted a psalm that was right for us together. And so I went to these psalms, which are called Songs of Ascent.

They were songs sung as people gathered together to go up to meet the Lord. And it was in that setting that this one was written. And I want you to try and visualize the scene. That's what David saw when he wrote this psalm. He was looking out of his palace onto the main street.

The city of Zion was built on a kind of tongue, a hill, leading up to a plateau. A bit like, what's the street that leads up to Edinburgh Castle? The Royal Mile. Just the Royal Mile, is it? Sorry, I'm ignorant. I'm in a foreign land. The higher street. No. Well, just like the Royal Mile.

And about halfway up was David's palace. And I think he was looking out of that palace and looking at something that he had never really seen before. Something so exciting that he just had to embody it in a song. And I can imagine him running back in for his guitar and saying, let me get that done. Let me get into a song.

Something that made him so happy. Something that had never been seen before in Israel's history, and as I shall say later, rather sadly was never seen again afterwards. At long last, having lived so long, thought so much about it and prayed so much for it, David saw the nation united before the Lord.

That's what he saw. And he was so thrilled and excited that he just had to put this dream come true into song.

Now, first of all, I want to look at verse 1, and I give it the title, Showing Love. Showing Love. And every word counts in the Bible. And the little word, behold, which begins, it's an old-fashioned word. Do you use it in Scotland? We've dropped using it in England.

We now say, look, look, it's the kind of word that you use when you grab someone by the arm and point to something so rare, so unusual, that you've just got to draw their attention to it. Behold, look, just look. You would say it if you suddenly saw an eclipse of the sun or the moon and hadn't realized it was going to happen.

And you grabbed somebody in the streets. Just look. You would say it about something very unusual, something almost unique. So what did David see that day from his palace that was so remarkable? And the answer is he saw just two things.

The first may be a little humorous, but he saw something where good and pleasant went together. And you know, they rarely do. From earliest childhood, we come to associate what is good for us as something unpleasant. Now go on, take it, it's good for you, and that means unpleasant medicine.

And I'm afraid also from earliest days, we feel that what is pleasant is not so good. And it's a rare sight to see something that's both. There are many things in this world that are good and not pleasant. There are many things that are pleasant and not good. But David said, at last I've seen something that's both.

And here is one of the most profound truths that runs through the Bible from beginning to end. And it's this, that holiness and happiness belong together. And that those two things go together and always will. Because they both belong to God.

And what Scotland is waiting to see is a people who demonstrate that those two things belong together. For so often the holy people are miserable and the happy people are the sinners. You know? And the world needs to see these two things getting together. Something that's good and pleasant. A holy happiness and a happy holiness.

Do you get it? That's what David saw that day from the palace. And he said that's something that's really worth seeing, worth looking at. And when people see that in our churches, they're going to come, because deep down that's what they're looking for.

In my hometown of Newcastle-on-Tyne, there lived a man called Davidson. He was one of the most miserable men who ever lived. And he and his wife were just always fighting. They smashed all the best crockery, throwing it at each other. And they really lived a dreadful life together.

It was a marriage only in name and one Sunday afternoon they'd had a real row and he was standing at the window with his back to her she was sitting crying in the chair and he was looking out of the window and he was in a very poor part of Newcastle called Paradise if you know the town you'll know this place.

I tell you, Glasgow has nothing on it. It really is a poor area. And there was a little Methodist church right opposite. And as Davidson looked out of the window, he saw the people coming out. And he saw what David saw in them. And he turned to his wife and he said, why can't we be as happy as they are? So he said, I'm going to find out.

And he went across the road. And thank God there was a man on the door who knew what to say to this man. And he said, he told him why they were so happy. Now Davidson began to back off at that, but the man said, look, we've got a meeting on Tuesday night. I'm going to call for you and bring you to the meeting.

And so Davidson deliberately worked late. He got home and he arrived in his oily dungarees late for tea. And this man from the church called and he said, I can't come tonight. Look, I've just got in and I'm in dirty clothes. He said, it doesn't matter. You can come like that.

Well, I haven't had my tea yet. Have your tea? I'll wait. Come like that. And he went over, finally, and he was converted, ran back, brought his wife back, and it was a men's meeting, and his wife came back, and the men's meeting converted her.

And now if you go to Newcastle, you can meet this man, but you won't hear him called Davidson. You'll hear him called Smiler, and that's his name now. Everybody calls him that. He just looked out of his window, and he saw happiness and holiness going together.

It made him really sit up and say, there's something unusual going on over there. How good and how pleasant it is. Now the second thing. By the way, it's just out of a little bit of interest that the word pleasant there, this is one for Raymond especially, the word pleasant there in the Hebrew means harmonious to the ear.

It's not just something that you can see, it's something that you can hear. You can tell, you know, when human voices are in harmony. I don't mean that they're musically in harmony, but you can tell when you listen to a crowd talking, if there is holiness and happiness in that crowd.

There's a kind of harmonious buzz among them, I can best describe it, that is pleasant to hear as well as pleasant to see. So David says, how good to see and how pleasant to hear. Well, what?

The first surprise is to see something that's good and pleasant, but the second part of the surprise is even more, that relatives are friends. Now that's not something you see too often, is it? It's quite a unique side of that.

People who are physically related to each other, who are also related in real love. You see, some of the deepest rifts in this world are rifts between closely related people. In fact, sometimes the biggest arguments can be between people very close to each other.

This can happen in churches and families. And it's often those who are nearest to you that you have the biggest differences with. That's understandable. One man said to me in church, I extend the hand of fellowship and keep them at arm's length.

And so he was able to keep a reasonable unity and he nodded good morning. It's only when you come really close to each other that you begin to rub each other up and have difficulties in relationship. It's very rare in the world for all those who are closely related to be continually united.

And that's the origin of the rather cynical proverb, where there's a will, there's relatives. And I'm afraid many families have broken up standing around a coffin.

And so to see relatives who are friends, normally when you're drawing up wedding lists, you have two headings, relatives, friends, different groups of people. But to have relatives who are friends. Now consider the Bible up to this point, and this is around 1000 BC when David wrote this song.

Consider the history of the Bible. The very first two brothers in the Bible, Cain and Abel, they didn't dwell together in unity, the very first brothers.

When you turn the pages, you come to Abraham and Lot. And Abraham said to Lot, I think we better live in different places. And you know what reason he gave? He said, because we're brothers. Are we not brothers?

Well, then wouldn't it be better if we lived separately? Striking, isn't it? Brothers.

So let's live apart. And then you get Ishmael and Isaac. And that was the start of the Arab-Israeli tensions of today.

And that relationship between two half-brothers is responsible for the world politics that we have to live with.

And then you get Jacob and Esau. No love lost between those two for years. And then you get the twelve sons of Jacob. And because Joseph was chosen and he wasn't the eldest, the brothers fell out.

In fact, if you go through the Bible, it's just one long history of brothers who didn't dwell together in unity.

And then when they came out of Egypt in the wilderness, Moses just was struggling the whole time to unite those who were physically related.

And he couldn't do it. And he kept having to say, whoever is on the Lord's side, come over here and you lot stay over there. There was division.

And then when you get the settlement of the twelve tribes, they were disunited and therefore constantly defeated.

And then when you get the kings, Saul was official king, David was unofficial. Then when David was chosen by Samuel, I'm quite sure his other brothers, the other six sons of Jesse, didn't like that one bit because he was the youngest.

And it's interesting that he never had relationships, as far as we know, with those six brothers. His closest friend was Jonathan, to whom he was not related.

And that's the history of Israel to this point.

Now David is able to look out of the balcony of the palace and say, look, come and look, brothers in unity. They're living together at last.

You see, David had been a shepherd. I had done a little of that in earlier years. And the shepherd is always bringing the flock together.

And as a former shepherd, David wanted to see his nation together.

He'd fought for it, he'd prayed for it, he'd lived for it. At times he thought he was going to have to die for it. But the one thing he wanted to see more than anything else was those who were related living in unity and real unity.

And now in later life he sees his dreams coming true. One great brotherhood climbing the hill to go and worship God.

And as he looks at their excited faces, he just says, I've got to sing about it. It's just so exciting.

And he gave us this lovely little psalm. He didn't see uniformity. They varied in their dress, in their dialect. They varied in the district they came from. It wasn't uniformity. It was a unity in which a very, very bunch of people were doing something together that they loved to do.

Let's just praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Let's just lift our hands to heaven and praise the Lord.

Their bodies float together up the hill. Now let's come to the second part of this psalm, verses 2 and just the first part of verse 3. I want to give this another label, shining likeness.

At this point, David uses two extraordinary metaphors, two quite extraordinary pictures from two totally different areas of his past experience. One is taken from his recent years as king. The other goes back to his earliest years as a shepherd boy when he lay out on the hills.

And these two pictures have only one thing in common, and that is of falling liquid, falling by drops. And the two pictures are of oil and water, in both cases, drops falling.

And when I read this first, I thought, well, I know it sounds good poetry, but what is the possible connection between oil on Aaron's beard and dew from Mount Ham? I just cannot see any link between those two pictures. It sounds beautiful, but what does it mean?

And I didn't really find out the meaning to this psalm until last Easter in Israel, when we had a Palm Sunday, which I will never forget, all my life.

Palm Sunday afternoon, we gathered at Bethphage, just over the other side of the Mount of Olives, for the Palm Sunday procession, which climbs over the Mount of Olives, down past Gethsemane, into the Kidron Valley, and up into the Gate of Stephen, and into the city.

And the procession was about oh easily a mile long or more and we had palm leaves in our hands but it was the dullest saddest procession I've ever been in and I thought oh dear this is Palm Sunday

And yet one or two dirging chants were being done by Eastern monks. But, oh, the whole thing was so dead.

Now, we had booked a place in the procession and a group of us were number 27, I think, out of about 50 groups of pilgrims who were going to go over.

And we went in there and Father Andrew, a Roman Catholic monk, led us. And he had a great big banner up on a pole, Jesus, you're a wonder.

And we just joined with him and we started singing Hosanna, sing Hosanna and Jesus you're a wonder. Do you know that chorus by the way?

Jesus, you're a wonder. Jesus, you're a wonder. We might learn it. But we were singing this, and the organisers of the procession came and told us we were disturbing the procession, and they moved us from the middle right to the end, right to the back, and they pushed us out.

But that was good, because we were able to bring up the rear, and I don't think I've ever sung so loud or so long or so hard. We sang, I guess, for... Two and a half to three hours as the procession just surely made its way.

We were all horse as horse by the evening. But the crowds of Arabs and Israelis lining the road all the way. It was just lovely to sing to them. And they were responding and clapping with us and joining in.

And then as we came up the last hill, I looked around. And, you know, all the faces were just shining and were covered with little drops. Every face. It was a hot day.

And we'd been up and down the hills. And we'd been singing hard. And the faces were just covered with drops of sweat. And immediately I knew what this psalm was about. Because it looked just like two things. It looked like drops of oil and it looked like dew. And I understood perfectly what David saw from the balcony.

Window that day, he saw just the shining sweaty faces of pilgrims who were singing themselves hoarse and who were just covered with little drops like that. And it reminded him of those two things.

Let's just look at the two pictures. First of all, as he looked at their face, he remembered the last time that the high priest had been consecrated.

And how they took the oil. It wasn't the

Please note that I've kept every word exactly as spoken, without making any changes or omissions.

Here is the cleaned-up version of the sermon transcription:

Ordinary oil used for hospitality. It was a very complex oil. It included myrrh, cinnamon, sweet cane, spices, cassia. Very complicated oil with many, many ingredients. And it was poured over the high priest and it just dropped. And it dropped all from his beard onto his robes. And it was to prepare him to go into God so that God might smell a sweet man.

And as David looked at all these poems coming up, he thought, each person is going to be a lovely, sweet-smelling person to God. Just let that sink in. Because we've been made priests to God, you know. We've been allowed to go right into God. And God likes nice-smelling people. He wants us to be a very sweet savour to him.

And as David looked, he remembered the oil of Aaron, preparing him to go into God. And then his mind went back through the years to the years when he used to lie out at night, watching over the sheep. And in the morning he would wake up. And when he would wake up, he himself and the ground around him would be covered with these fine drops of dew.

The dew in the Middle East is quite unique. The very cold air from the snows of Mount Hermon comes sweeping down to meet the warm moist air coming up from the Mediterranean and they meet on the ridge of the Judean hills where Jerusalem is situated and Bethlehem. And because the cold air from Hermon meeting the warm moist air from the Mediterranean causes this tremendously heavy dew, it's about the heaviest in the world.

You probably know that in Israel, for something like five months of the summer, not one single drop of rain falls. And since the hills of Judea are made of limestone, all the moisture goes straight through it. So how can they possibly get anything from those rocks? How can those vines possibly live which produce those beautiful grapes?

The answer is Israel depends on the dew. Do you know that down in the Negev desert, in parts of it, there are 250 days of dew every year. And it falls so much more gently and so much in such smaller drops than rain. And it's the dew that makes the Judean hills so fertile and produce fruit.

And David remembered that dew, and he looked at these shining faces, and he thought, not only are they being anointed with oil to go in to meet God, they're being anointed with dew to go out and bear fruit. You see the two pictures in his mind? One would make them acceptable to God, and the other would make them fruitful among men.

And he was just so thrilled. United people have both those two powers, to be a sweet-smelling savor to God and to be fruitful towards men. So that was the result.

Now, oil and water don't normally mix, but in Scripture you'll find them together an awful lot, not just in the Old Testament, but in the New. Finally, let me come to the last part of verse 3. It's the logical conclusion from the first part of verse 3, and yet it says more.

Why is it so good and pleasant to see harmony among God's people? The answer is because God has made a law. And just as there are laws in nature that make the dew fall when the hot air meets the cold air, there is another law of God. And it is a law that you can absolutely depend on, and it is this.

That where people are like that, praising God with such harmony, that their faces shine together as they go to meet the Lord, that they're by God's decree and by God's command. Blessing falls as certainly as dew falls in the right conditions. You can bank on it. You don't need to hope for blessing in those conditions. You can bank on it because there God has commanded blessing.

He's commanded it. Not left it to be in doubt. He has said it is bound to fall. It's as certain as the law of gravity. And the word "fall" is the same word all the way through the psalm. As the oil falls from Aaron's beard. As the dew falls from Mount Haman.

There the blessing will fall. And it will come down. Drops on each person. Very gently. Very beautifully, until people together are shining for the Lord. What will be the blessing? Well, very simply, the kind of life that makes you want to live forever.

Fred Hoyle, the scientist and astronomer, once said that he would hate to live forever. He would like to live, he said, for about 300 years, not longer, but 300 years would be about right for him. He said, I would be bored after that. He said, I think I need about 300 years to find out all I want to know about the stars, but then I would be bored.

Well, if all you live for is studying stars, then 300 years would be quite long enough. You see, I'm afraid life is very much related to your relationships and the more loving and united you are, the more you want to live forever, right? The more divided you are, the more lonely that you are, the less you want to live.

And therefore, in that place, God has said, I will reverse the curse in that place where brethren dwell together in unity. I will give life forevermore because that's the kind of life I wanted them to have originally. That's the kind of life that is worth keeping forever. That's the kind of life that's worth continuing.

A life of harmony among people. And if you don't have harmony, then that's the kind of life that God will not want to live forever. That's the kind of life that he destroyed. A life that doesn't fit in.

And so there he'll give the blessing of life that lasts forever. Now the sad thing to tell you now is that this unity which David saw was only for the briefest little period in Israel's history, just for a year or two, not more.

And then it disappeared. And it has never reappeared in the life of Israel. Isn't this tragic?

I've told you what happened right up to this song being written, that this was the first time the entire nation had been really living together, dwelling together, praising together in such harmony, and it was almost to be the last time as soon as David saw it.

His own two sons, Absalom and Ammon, very shortly after this were fighting, and the nation began to break up again. His son put up a magnificent building for all the nation to come to, but in the very building of it he caused such unrest that the moment Solomon died, the twelve tribes of Israel were divided into two nations and they never have got together again.

And they lost the blessing and went into exile. And it has stayed the same way until this very day. The troubles of modern Israel are troubles due to a nation that cannot find unity. They have 16 political parties, and none of them can get a majority, and now Rabin has had to call a new election because he kicked out one of the orthodox religious groups from his coalition government.

Now he's had the Minister of Housing commit suicide over some corruption. And it's chaos in Israeli politics, and one trembles for them. And when you talk to Israelis, they say, oh, what we need, we need this, the Messiah. We need the son of David. We need somebody to come back and do for us what David did.

And they still long for this. And the greatest tragedy of history is that their Messiah came who could have given them this unity and they received him not and they didn't recognize him. My heart bleeds when I... I meet Jews who long for Messiah to unite them.

I went into the artist's quarter in Jerusalem last year and I went into the most beautiful artist's studio and there were paintings up and there was one of Jerusalem. It's the most beautiful painting I've ever seen of Jerusalem. It was in delicate colors and just a misty picture of the city and you had to stand about eight feet away to begin to see the little alleyways and roofs and staircases.

And I said to the artist, how much is that picture? And he looked me up and down and he said, well, you couldn't afford it. I said, all right. But I'd still be interested. How much is it? I said, that's the most beautiful picture I've ever seen of Jerusalem.

Well, he said, I've been offered 40,000 pounds for it. But he said, I keep it for exhibition purposes. He said, I may sell it. But he said, you couldn't afford it. And he was absolutely right. I said, you know, when I look at that picture, I get the feeling that I would sell everything else I had just to buy that picture.

And then I told him a story. You can probably guess which one I told him. And he was very interested. And then, almost as an aside, he said, but of course, if the Messiah came, I'd give it to him. I said, pardon? He said, what did I say? I said, you said, if the Messiah came, you'd give him that picture.

He said, did I say that? I said, you did. And it had just slipped out as an aside. I said, the Messiah is coming. Well, he said, we hope so. I said, we know so. He's promised to. He's coming.

And I said, you know, looking at your picture, I'm sure that he will love that picture when he comes. It's a picture of the city that he wept over. Loved. I said, do you really mean what you said? And he looked very thoughtful and then we separated and the next day some of our party went into the same shop and they saw this picture and they said to him how much is that picture and he said that picture is not for sale and it never will be.

He said I'm going to keep it for the Messiah and he is doing and you know the longing is there. You talk to Israelis and oh, they know that they are so disunited. Even though their backs are to the wall and they're surrounded by enemies, they are still not united.

And so from Psalm 133 right up to that day, there was no unity in the nation. And right from that day, there's been no unity. This is unique. And the amazing thing is that this has become a favorite psalm of Christians because they've found that the Jewish Messiah can do this for the most unlikely people.

A lady used to say to me after most church meetings that we had when the members got together and discussed things, she used to say, the Lord has a funny family. A funny family. And we are, we're such different people from each other. And only the Messiah, only the Son of David can enable us to enjoy the goodness and pleasantness of dwelling together in such unity.

I pray that this is going to happen. You know, the night before Jesus died, he spoke to them about this subject. And I felt that tomorrow, even if some of you have heard me speak on these chapters on tape, I felt that tomorrow I would like to take you through some of the things that Jesus said on the very last night before he died.

For his one concern on that last night from beginning to end was that those who were now related together in him should dwell together in unity. That was his only concern, I think.

And everything he said that night related to this one theme of how you're going to stay together after I've gone. How you're going to be one when I'm gone. How you're going to learn to love one another when I'm gone. That was his concern.

And that will be our concern during this conference. He didn't want uniformity. He wanted unity and he prayed for that more than anything else.

And the day came when they were all together. And they were praising God, and the day came when the Holy Spirit came, and the oil and the water came mixed.

And it's interesting that those are the two liquid metaphors for the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. Isn't that fascinating? Oil and water don't mix, they certainly do. They're one and the same liquid, dropping on people.

And one of the first results of Pentecost was a unity. That expressed itself in the most practical ways, sharing material possessions, but they were of one heart. They were one.

And I believe that one of the fundamental features of renewal in these days is that God is seeking to create a genuine unity. There are many human attempts at it.

But one of the thrilling things to me is that what the Holy Spirit has been doing in the last decade or so is creating links between the most unlikely people who never used to find anything in common with each other, who belong to different denominations, different theologies.

And somehow the Holy Spirit is putting drops of oil and water on people's faces and bringing them together. David Black and I had the privilege of being in Belgium. When was it? June? I think June.

If you'd told me that I'd find myself in a circle of people in a Roman Catholic cathedral dancing with a cardinal, I would have just said, you are crazy if you'd told me that 15 years back.

And while at that conference we had honesty, we were honest enough to face our differences about beliefs in Mary, for example, we really faced those very honestly. What astonished me was this.

I could share with them what a Protestant thought about Mary and have a Roman Catholic priest come up to me afterwards, fling his arms around me and say, thank you for being honest, David. I've never heard that before from a Protestant.

And I just realized that you could be honest about differences and still dwell together in unity. And this is what the Holy Spirit is doing as part of his renewal.

And from the grassroots upwards, he's creating a unity among God's people until the son of David himself can look out of his palace above and say, just look, come and look at this. For the first time I see all my people dwelling together in harmony, in holiness and happiness.

Isn't that beautiful? And so I pray that some little foretaste of this may be our experience. We have differences among us. We're bound to. We've got differences of temperament. We've got differences of outlook, differences of understanding of the Bible.

But the Holy Spirit can pour oil and water. Dew. And both are very gentle pictures. Oil and water aren't harsh. They are gentle. Very gentle. The dew comes down so softly.

You know, I'm not interested in any work of the spirit that is worked up. Do you know what I mean by that? That is the substitute for the real thing. And one of the dangers of a conference like this is that we're determined to work it up, you know, determined to get things going and get the temperature up to here.

And all that's coming up. But oh, how good and pleasant it is when the oil drops down and the dew falls gently. And there the blessing falls. It comes down. Drops on each person. Very gently. Very beautifully, until people together are shining for the Lord.

What will be the blessing? Well, very simply, the kind of life that makes you want to live forever.

Let's read a list of the 24 ingredients of the oil of the Holy Spirit, which anoints us. Like the oil of Aaron, it's a very complex recipe. And here are the 24 ingredients:

Love one another. Be kindly affectioned to one another. In honor, prefer one another. Have oneness of mind, edify each other, receive one another, admonish one another, salute one another, care for one another, serve one another, bear one another's burdens, be forbearing to each other, be kind to each other, submit to each other, esteem each other better than yourselves, forgive one another, abound in love to each other, comfort one another, consider one another, confess your faults to each other, pray for each other, be hospitable to each other, refrain from judging each other, restore one another when fallen.

What beautiful ingredients. Lord, mix those together and anoint us.

During this weekend, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.