Heart of a Psalmist - Worshipping Christ Through The Psalms

“He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cries for help and rescues them. The Lord protects all those who love him, but he destroys the wicked.” (19, 20)

There are three benefits presented here for those who “fear him…” and “love him…”. To not fear him dismisses the fact that he is a King who rules in awesome and holy strength. To not love him misses the reality that he is a tender God whose essence is love itself; all that he does is motivated by this highest virtue. These two attitudes are to exist simultaneously as brothers in our soul. The threefold benefits are rich and fulfilling: • “He fulfills the desires…” • “He hears their cries…and rescues them.” • “The Lord protects…” (19, 20) “But he destroys the wicked…” (20) This is the only blemish on the perfect psalm of praise although it is a necessary one. The underlying reality does exist, there are eternal consequences to rejecting the mercy of God.

“I will praise the Lord, and everyone on earth will bless his holy name forever and forever.” (21)

David understands the eternal purpose of his being; that he was born to praise the Lord forever. There is a desire that burns within every worshiper’s heart to see the whole earth enflamed with people blessing the Lord both now and for eternity. This psalm shines out like a beacon of pure light calling all people to join in the symphony of adoration.

1 Scroggie 2 Spurgeon 3 Keil & Delitzsch 4 Scroggie 5 Keil & Delitzsch 6 Spurgeon

7 Kraus 8 Kraus 9 Spurgeon

PSALM 146: I WILL PRAISE THE LORD AS LONG AS I LIVE The Kingdom of God

Introduction to the ‘Praise the Lord’ (Hallelujah) Psalms

This is the beginning of the ‘Second Hallal’; the last group of 5 psalms (146-150) that all begin and end with the word “Hallelujah” . The ‘First Hallal’ Psalms, 113-118, were sung at the Passover Feast while these were sung in the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. There is a strong tradition dating from the early church that they ‘ …are the “Songs of the Return from the Captivity”, added to the Psalter by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah.’ 1 Spurgeon says of these 5 Psalms; ‘ We are now among the Hallelu- jahs. The rest of our journey lies through the Delectable Mountains. All is praise to the close of the book. The key is high pitched: the music is upon the high sounding cymbals. O for a heart full of joyful grati- tude, that we may run, and leap, and glorify God, even as these Psalms do.’ 2 The word Hallelujah, “ praise be to Yah”, is the most powerful word in the language of worship as it rolls together various meanings for the celebrative, happy side of praise. It combines into one word all the other meanings from the same family of words; ‘thank, glorify, magnify, extol, bless, invoke, rejoice.’ 3 This is an onomatopoetic word, ‘the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound as- sociated with it. (buzz, hiss)’ 4 In simpler words, ‘Hallelujah’ is the very sound of God’s praise itself just as ‘buzz’ represents a bee and ‘hiss’ represents a snake, this word represents the highest sound of Yahweh’s praise! The Hebrew language is a relative with several other ancient languages of the Middle-East and derived many of the meanings of its words from them. These languages also used the same form of ‘hallal’ to express their most jubilant feelings:

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