Made to Praise

Psalm 150 is the last of the Hebrew songbook. It is the most powerful and striking verbiage of praise we can find in the Bible.


Psalm 150:1–6 (ESV) Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens! 
     2 Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness! 
     3 Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! 
     4 Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! 
     5 Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! 
     6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!

I found out that in the original language, there are no more than 4 words between the Hallelujah's of this powerful song. This song is a climatic conclusion to a life of devoted worship. 

 We are made to praise.

And it tells us where to praise:
"in His sanctuary" 
"in His mighty heavens."

Notice the language of possession. Never deride the Church that preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ - it is God's possession. Never neglect care of the creation - it belongs to God. We are stewards of what He has formed.

The heavens were formed by the Word of Him mouth.
The Church is formed by the Word of His Gospel.

I don't understand Christians who don't attend church and worship in His sanctuary! It's a command of scripture. It was the practice and habit of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is what we do! And I don't understand Christians who look on the Earth and think, "It's all going to burn up, who cares!" That's not the attitude of stewardship. We should love the Church and the Earth - because they are the creation of our God, and they are reasons to praise Him!

And it tells us why to praise:
"for His mighty deeds."
"according to His excellent greatness."

God is always doing something wonderful! We may not always see it, it may take time to recognize it, but God is faithful to bring to completion the work He started in You! Praise Him for what He DOES, it's excellent and wonderful!

And it tells us HOW to praise.
The simple answer is one word: "NOISE!"
Trumpets, lutes, harps, tambourines, strings, pipe, cymbals, loud cymbals... 
... and make sure you DANCE!

Heaven will be noisy. Think of how the world makes so much noise when they have the Grammy's or a Football game. Think of the noise in revolutions! Think of the noise when a crowd gathers for a political speech. Noise moves us, inspires us, infuses us with energy!

How dare we keep the church constantly quiet in the name of reverence! I think the devil loves that. I think he loves the world making noise about anything but the ONE we should make noise for! Let's praise! And let's praise with NOISE!

Finally, the perfect ending: "Let everything that has breath" - this harkens us back to where breath comes from. God breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of life. Do you ever think that the reason God breathed into Adam's nostrils and NOT Adam's mouth was that He didn't want to get in the way of Praise? The sound of our voice loving and blessing our heavenly Father is sweet!

Let's make it happen.

AMEN.

(This Concludes this study of the Psalms)
(Genesis next... I hope you join me!)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

God’s View of You

Sometimes I think we imagine that God is mostly disappointed with us. That He puts up with us and bears with us because He has to (after all He is love), but most of the time our glaring weaknesses weary Him and make His day miserable. Of course, this is the devil’s doing in our minds. The truth of scripture bears out that the world has to get staunch-raving evil before God is totally weary of us. And the stories in the Old Testament remind us with each passing character that God is patient, loving and kind to His very flawed inconsistent servants. Saul is a case study of this. His lineage will not hold the kingdom, that has already been stated from the mishap of offering the sacrifice instead of waiting for Samuel to arrive in 1 Samuel 13. His next great gaff will happen in the chapter to come in 1 Samuel 15 where his own kingship will be taken from him and the anointing placed on one soon to come. Yes, God will regret making Saul king and we’ll talk about that next. But for now...
Read more

The Stain of Slavery

One of the greatest pains in my heart over the history of the church is the fact that many "Bible-believing" Christians used the Bible to promote, continue, and enable slavery in America's past. It may have happened elsewhere, but I'm an American, and I know it happened here. Then, some repeatedly make the claim because of a tiny amount of verses where God informs Israel on how to take slaves, it means the Bible is a pro-slavery document. How absurd. The overarching narrative of the Bible is that God sets the slaves free. The second book testifies to this part of God's character.  Getting to Jeremiah's day, one of the reasons Israel's nation was handed over to exile was because they enslaved each other. This attitude was so engrained into the culture of Israel that they had a hard time giving up slavery even in the face of national catastrophe.  In Jeremiah 34, the king is promised that he will die in Babylon, but he will die in peace. Jeremiah 34:3–5 (ESV...
Read more

Leaders Who Later Fail

Remember Johanan from Jeremiah 41? The man who saved many others from the threats of the murderous coup? He seemed like a noble leader. But time reveals a lot.  Jeremiah 42:5–6 (ESV)  Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the LORD be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act according to all the word with which the LORD your God sends you to us. 6 Whether it is good or bad, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God to whom we are sending you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the LORD our God.” These are the words of the presumptive leaders of Israel in the land while the nation is in exile. The previous chapter saw a hero arise to protect a few remaining survivors. His name was Johanan. On the surface, he seems like a good man, seeking the will of the Lord in his leadership position. Jeremiah returns with directives from the Lord: Jeremiah 42:10 (ESV) If you will remain in this land, then I will build you up and not pull you down; I will plant y...
Read more