OVERVIEW:
Prayer for rescue and blessing; the Lord extolled for His goodness and greatness; praise for the Lord’s help; praise for Jerusalem’s restoration and prosperity; the whole universe and all of creation invoked to praise the Lord; Israel invoked to praise the Lord; everything that hath breath invoked to praise the Lord.
HIGHLIGHTS & INSIGHTS:
Join David today in Psalm 144 in “blessing” and praising the Lord by personalizing His great attributes and power delineated in verses 1 and 2. Notice the psalmist’s beautiful repetition of the personal pronoun “MY” in these verses! May we bless the Lord from our hearts today, recognizing that…
- He hasn’t just “strengthened” us, He IS our “STRENGTH!” (144:1)
- He hasn’t just made us “good”, He IS our “GOODNESS!” (144:2)
- He hasn’t just taught us principles of defense against the enemy, He IS our “FORTRESS”; He IS our “HIGH TOWER”; and He IS our “SHIELD”! (144:2) And…
- He hasn’t just made a way of escape for us, He IS our “DELIVERER”! (144:2)
Oh my, may we allow those blessed personal realities to preach to our souls today!
Based on the realities of how David describes our Lord in 144:1–2, by the time he gets to verse 3, David is essentially saying, “O Lord, in light of WHO YOU ARE, WHO in the world ARE WE?!” (144:3) David cries out, “Lord, what is man that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou makest account of him!” (I love the exclamation points that God has placed in His perfectly preserved word! Note that both statements in verse 3 are actually questions, but rather than being followed by question marks, they’re followed by exclamation points. So, just what are we to make of that? Perhaps the psalmist understood that, in light of God’s incredible GREATNESS and man’s incredible SINFULNESS, there could never be a suitable answer to the questions, so the QUESTIONS actually become major STATEMENTS of just how incredible, wonderful and awesome God actually is!!!!)
In light of God’s unequalled and incomprehensible awesomeness, the Psalm ends with, “…happy is that people, whose God is the Lord.” Perhaps this verse should cause all of us to ask ourselves: “Am I happy?” If not, maybe we should ask ourselves some penetrating questions about the reality of Christ’s “Lordship” in our lives!
May the cry of the psalmist’s heart in verses 1 and 2 of Psalm 145 be the genuine cry of our hearts: “I will extol thee, my God, O king; and I will bless thy name for ever and ever. Every day will I bless thee; and I will praise thy name for ever and ever.” A.W. Tozer’s (American pastor and author, 1897–1963) surmise of the evangelical church in our day was that “worship” is “the missing jewel” that desperately needs to be “rediscovered”. May we allow the glorious words the psalmist uses to lift up his praise and worship to the Lord in verses 3 through 21 become our words today, as we seek to “rediscover the missing jewel”!
Verses 1 and 2 of Psalm 146 are, likewise, great verses to “make our own” as we seek to the express to the Lord the total resolve of our hearts to praise Him, not just for the remainder of our time on earth, but for all eternity: “Praise ye the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. While I live will I praise the Lord: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.” (146:1–2)
Psalm 147:1 reminds us of the reason we praise the Lord: “…for it is good to sing praises unto our God; for it is pleasant; and praise is comely (or beautiful).”
Psalm 148 teaches us about the three “heavens” (148:1 c.f. 2nd Corinthians 12:2) from which our praise is to burst forth.
- The first “heaven” is from the earth to the clouds. (148:7–14) It is where birds and airplanes fly (what we call the earth’s atmosphere).
- The second “heaven” is that which is above the clouds to the “frozen face of the deep” (Job 38:30) that is billions and billions of miles above our heads. (148:3–6) It is what we call outer space.
- The third “heaven” is the abode of God, above the “frozen face of the deep.” (148:1–2) This is what John saw in Revelation 4:6 when he said, “And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal.”
The point of Psalm 148 is that praise is to be jubilantly declared from every place in the entire universe!
How incredible is the glorious simplicity of the psalmist’s exhortation to those of us who have been “beautified” with the precious gift of “salvation” (149:4), that, as His “saints” (149:5a), we make certain of two vital things! (149:5–6) First, that from a “joyful” heart that is bent on giving our Lord “glory”, we “let the high praises of God be in [our] mouth!” (149:6a) And secondly, that while we offer Him that praise, we have “a twoedged sword in [our] hand!” (149:6b. Also see Hebrews 4:12; Revelation 19:15; Ephesians 6:17) As we live in pursuit of God today (and every day!), may those two simple admonitions help us to concise our objective!
Could there be a more glorious way to end the book of Psalms than with the psalmist’s words in Psalm 150? The psalmist exhorts us to “praise the Lord” (150:1) in the place where He dwells (i.e. in His presence,” or “in His sanctuary”), and in all places that His presence and power are found (“In the firmament of His power”), which is to say, everywhere! (150:1) Notice also in verse 2, that we are to praise Him for all that He DOES (“His mighty acts”), which proceed out of all that He IS (“His excellent greatness”)! Notice in verses 3–5, that we are to praise Him with any and all musical instruments in existence, but most importantly, with the instrument of our mouth!
The book of Psalms ends with this final admonition: “Praise ye the Lord.” (150:6) To apply Nike’s popular slogan (coined in 1988), may we all “Just do it!”
CHRIST IS REVEALED:
- As the ONE WHO GIVES SIGHT TO THE BLIND — Psalm 146:8 (Matthew 9:27–30; Mark 10:46–53; John 9:1–41)