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By Pastor Glenn Pease
1. GOD IS WORTHY OF PRAISE
Based on Psa. 145
2. THE POWER OF PRAISE Based on Psalm 149:1‑9
3. THE PINNACLE OF PRAISE Based
on Psa. 150
4. UNIVERSAL PRAISE Based on
Psa. 117
5. THE PHYSIOLOGY OF PRAISE
Based on Psa. 47:1‑9
6. THE PLEASURE OF PRAISE Based on Psa. 84
7. A PRAYER OF PRAISE Based on
Dan. 2:19‑23
8. THE SACRIFICE OF PRAISE
Based on Heb. 13:15‑21
9. PERSISTENCE IN PRAISE Based
on Heb. 13:15‑21
10. THE PRAISE OF LAUGHTER
Based on Psa. 126:1‑6
11. HEAVEN'S HALLELUJAH CHORUS
based on Rev. 19:1‑10
1. GOD IS WORTHY OF PRAISE Based on Psa. 145
Gilbert a
Becket was a crusader who was captured and made a slave. The tyrant who enslaved him had a daughter
who took pity on him, and that pity ripened into love. At the risk of her own life she helped him
escape. He solemnly vowed to send for
her when he got safely back to England.
But when he got home he became so absorbed in other plans that he forgot
the love of the one who had set him free.
He owed his life to her, but she was far away, and what was near
dominated his life.
She
was still driven by her love for him, however, and so she sold all of her jewelry
and came to England on her own. When
Gilbert saw her and embraced her he repented of his neglect. In her presence he could no longer go the
way of rejecting her love. He reversed
his plans to marry a wealthy English woman, and he took her to be his wife
instead. It never would have happened
in her absence. Only her presence
rekindled his love and restored their relationship.
"Absence makes the heart grow founder for somebody else," is a
true saying, and it is true not only in the romantic realm, but in the
religious realm as well. The sense of
God's absence is the cause for all of the falls, failures, and follies of
man. but the sense of God's presence is
the cause for all of man's virtues, values, and victories. When man is aware of God's presence there is
adoration, and all rivals are abhorred, but when man loses that awareness God
is ignored and other values are explored.
When
Israel lost its awareness of the presence of God, the presence of God was
actually removed, and the temple was destroyed where they could meet with
God. When God entered history in the
presence of His Son, the leaders of Israel were not aware that this was the day
of their visitation. God was present in
their midst, but they rejected Him and crucified Him. Jesus prayed for their forgiveness, for He knew they were so
unaware of the presence of God that they did not know it was God they were
rejecting. Nothing is more lethal than
unawareness. When man loses a sense of
God's presence there is no evil they are incapable of committing. Every sin that a child of God has ever
committed could have been prevented by the awareness of God's presence.
The
Jews have recognized the importance of God's presence all through history, and so
they have developed rituals that stress it.
In The Bar mitzvah Treasury I read of how David Hirsch believed the
Rabbi who taught him that when the congregation bowed in prayer the Shechinah
itself‑the very spirit and presence of God‑appeared on the altar. If anyone looked up with one eye that eye
would be blinded, and if one looked up with both eyes God would strike him
dead. No one could look on the form of
God and live. Even Moses had to look at
God's back. You can imagine the
enormous tension in a young person as they prayed. He longed so to look up and see God, but he did not want to be
blind, or to die. There was a terrific
battle in his mind, but one day he lost control and lifted one eye to look, and
to his shock there was no glory to blind him.
The rest of the story is about his loss of faith and rebellion because
of the loss of even the illusion of God's presence.
The
Jews know they need the presence of God and they are willing to deceive in
order to get it, but such a presence is a fiction. The Christian, however, who has the promise of Christ's presence
can be so unaware of it that they also develop a pretend presence with form and
rituals that becomes empty and equally powerless. The great need of any child of God is an authentic experience of
the presence of Christ. An unknown poet
wrote‑
Of all the prizes
That earth can give,
This is the best:
To find thee, Lord,
A living Presence near
An in thee rest!
Friends, fortune, fame,
Or what might come to me‑
I count all loss
If I find not
Companionship
With thee!
Jesus
said He would send the Comforter to abide with us forever. The name means the one called beside, and so
the idea of companionship is very appropriate.
The relationship of God and man is to be a companionship. We cannot be content with the saying,
"God's in His heaven‑all is right with the world." It is not all right. It is a world of fearful things, and we need
to be able to say, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of death, I will
fear no evil, for thou art with me. We
need to hear the divine companion promise‑
"Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid.
I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to
stand,
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand."
God
the Father has promised His presence in our lives. God the Son has vowed to be ever with us, and the Holy Spirit
makes our heart His temple, and so is ever near. Why then are we so often unaware of God's presence? Could it be that Harry Kemp is right in his
poem called Blind?
The spring blew trumpets of color.
Her green sang in my brain.
I heard a blind man groping,
Tap‑tap with his cane.
I pitied him his blindness,
But can I say I see?
Perhaps their walks close by a
Spirit that pities me.
A spirit that sees me taping the
Five‑sensed cane of time
Amid such unguessed glories
The I am worse than blind.
Jesus
loved to make the blind to see, and our prayer needs to be, "Open my eyes
Lord, I want to see Jesus." The
key to this prayer being answered is for us to develop a spirit of praise. David was a leader in developing the worship
of Israel, and one of the primary characteristics of the worship he developed
was praise. He made it the heart of
worship, for praise opens the eyes to God's presence. Praise involves the intellect as we think of God's majesty, and
the marvels of what He has made. Praise
involves the emotions as we feel the grace and mercy of God in our lives, and
as we are filled with joy. Praise
involves the will as we choose to fulfill our purpose for being, which is to
glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
Praise gets our whole being involved in God's whole being.
The
subject of praise is so vast that when you study it you feel like you are
mining a mountain of gold with a spoon.
There is no way to get the job done.
But as marvelous as it is there are problems with it, and maybe some of
you have the same hindrance to praise as C. S. Lewis did. In his Reflections On The Psalms Lewis
wrote, "When I first began to draw near to belief in God and even for some
time after it had been given to me, I found a stumbling block in the demand so
clamorously made by all religious people that we should praise God: Still more in the suggestion that God
Himself demanded it. We all despise the
man who demands continued assurance of his own virtues, intelligence or
delightfulness; we despise still more the crowd of people round every dictator,
every millionaire, every celebrity, who gratifies that demand. Thus a picture, at once ludicrous and
horrible, both of God and of His worshippers, threatened to appear in my
mind."
As Lewis
gave deeper thought to the matter he discovered that men by nature praise all
that they value and enjoy. They praise
their leaders, their team, their nation, their friends, their favorite TV
programs and their favorite anything or anyone. Life is full of praise, for that is how men communicate their
values and their loves. Where there is
no praise there is no love. Where is
love there will be praise. Songs of
praise revolve around man's love for the opposite sex, and for God, for these
are his two strongest loves. St.
Augustine said many centuries ago, "Singing comes from joy, but if we
observe more carefully, it comes from love, you want to sing about what you
love."
Praise
is a happy love song. It is a rejoicing
because God is present and our relationship is one of love and enjoyment. Praise is itself a part of the enjoyment of
God, and it is often the pathway by which we enter God's presence. Praise and presence are linked together as
one. Lack of praise means loss of
presence. Fellowship is the mutual
enjoyment of one another's presence, which leads to praise. If we enjoy God's presence, we will praise
Him, and if we praise Him, we are enjoying His presence. When C. S. Lewis came to see that our praise
of God opens us up to His presence, he changed his mind. He saw that God does not crave our praise
just for Himself. He wants to love and
guide us, and He cannot do it if we are closed to His presence. By means of praise we open the door of our
minds and hearts to God's presence.
When
you praise someone on a human level you are focusing on them and their values
at that moment and not just yourself.
So when you praise God you are looking at Him, His glory, and His
will. In prayer you are, more often
than not, focusing on yourself and your needs, but in praise you are other
centered, and this is the key to relationship.
Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. You do not get this done by the give me
routine of the typical prayer. You do
this by means of the giving of praise.
Praise
is the one thing you can give God that He can appreciate. Usually we think there is nothing we can
give to God, and so we approach God always as the Giver and seldom think of Him
as a Receiver. What can we possibly
give Him? We can give God the sacrifice
of praise. In Heb. 13:15 we are told,
"Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of
praise." We do not offer lambs,
bulls, or doves in sacrifice, for Jesus eliminated that need forever by His
once for all sacrifice on the cross.
But Jesus did not eliminate the sacrifice of praise. It was a vital part of worship in the Old
Testament, and it is no less vital to the New Testament saint. Praise is something that the saints of all
ages have in common. We need to ask,
what can I put into the worship service that will please God? Worship is to be mutually beneficial to God
and His people, and this will only happen through praise and adoration.
Praise
is the fun and enjoyable side of our relationship to God. Praise is very simply our enjoying of
God. We do not always enjoy God in
prayer. Prayer can often be a
burden. It can be a time of crying out
to God and a pleading for needs to be met.
Praise is an enjoyment of who God is and of what He has already
done. I feel good when I walk into the
home of my grandson Jason. He shouts at
me, "Hi Grandpa Glenn." He
comes running to give me a hug, and he says, "I love you."
His praise of me, and delight in my presence creates
in me a delight to be in his presence, and to be a blessing to him. What is true on the human level is true in
our relationship to God.
We are
weak in our experience of enjoying God because we are weak in our experience of
praise. In Psa. 119:164 we read,
"Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws." In marriage enrichment it is considered a
great aid in your relationship to praise each other once a day. How enjoyable would seven times a day
be? How enriched was the Psalmists enjoyment
of God by seven periods of praise daily.
Such a schedule of praise would guarantee a growing awareness of the
presence of God. We ought not to expect
to leap to this level of perfection and praise God seven times a day, but we
need to learn to praise Him more.
Praise His name, He's the same blessed Jesus!
Praise His name, He's the one I adore.
Praise Him, praise Him, praise Him,
Praise Him more and more and more.
How do
we develop the spirit of praise? We
focus on that which makes God worthy of praise. In verse 3 we read, "Great is the Lord and most worthy of
praise, His greatness no one can fathom."
Then he goes on to speak of the splendor of his majesty, and of the
awesomeness of his wonderful works. In
our expanding universe we need to expand our conception of God. David in Psa. 8 said, "When I consider
your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have
set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you
care for him?" What David did not
know is that the wonders he beheld were a mere fraction of God's work.
On a
good night David could see between one and two thousand stars. Today with binoculars we can see up to one
million stars. But even that is a small
fraction of the 100 billion stars just in our own galaxy. Man has now developed ways to see 60 billion
light years away and find multiplied millions of other galaxies, and all of
this is the work of God's fingers. The
universe is incomprehensible, and as far as man's imagination goes it is
infinite. Unfortunately, as man's
awareness of God's creation grows their awareness of God's nature remains
primitive. Their small conception of
God could not stand the strain, and so they lost their God in vastness of His
creation. The creation became more
wonderful and awesome than their God, and so they began to worship the creation
rather than the Creator. It is
important that we keep expanding in our understanding of God's nature so that
He is always primary in our praise.
As wider skies broke out his view,
God greatened in his growing mind;
Each year he dreamed his God anew,
And left his older God behind.
He saw the boundless scheme dilate
In star and blossom, sky and clod,
And as the universe grew great,
He dreamed for it a greater God. Author unknown.
The
marvels of what we know of space is beyond belief, and there is so much we
don't know. Size comparisons boggle the
mind. If earth was one grain of wheat,
the sun would be 4 bushels of wheat in comparison. And yet the sun is no great object in comparison to Betelgeuse,
the bright red star in the shoulder of Orion.
Our sun is 866,000 miles across, but Betelgeuse is 420 times greater in
diameter. It would take an airplane
flying at a rate of 600 miles per hour 70 years just to fly across it. This is just one of the billions of stars
that God has made, and there is no end in sight of new stars. The universe speaks loud and clear that the
God who made this masterpiece is in infinite.
If
you are part of God's universe, you are a space traveler, for the whole thing
is in rapid motion. The earth spins on
its axis over a thousand miles per hour, so that every day we travel 25
thousand miles, and every year 9 million miles. You wonder why anyone every wants to get on a merry‑go‑round
since we live on one all our lives. But
it is so smooth we do not even perceive it.
But we are slow pokes. The sun
revolves at 4,000 miles per hour, and even it is far from a speed record, for
Jupiter rotates at the dizzying rate of 28,000 miles per hour. We are all space travelers, for our entire
galaxy is also revolving at a rate of about 5 billion miles per year. Dr. Clarence Benson sums up our yearly
journey in God's playground of the universe:
"Each year we travel 9 million miles at one
thousand miles an hour
in the earth's diurnal motion; six hundred million
miles at 18
miles a second in the planet's circuit of the Sun;
four hundred million
miles at 12 miles a second in the journey of the
solar system through
space; and finally, five billion miles at one
hundred seventy five miles
a second in the rotation of the galaxy. The teaming population of the
earth are confined to minute portion of a vast
universe that transcends our imagination but that prison cell is in reality a
passenger coach that travels a little more than six billion miles each
year."
Don't
try to claim this on your tax form, but do claim it as evidence that God is a God
of order and wonder worthy of praise.
The Psalmist knew a mere fraction of what we know of God's wondrous
works, but even what he knew was more than man can fathom. The greatest wonder
of all is that this God of such infinite power and majesty loves us and desires
us to enter his presence with praise.
There
is no question of God's worthiness to receive praise. The question is, are we worthy to offer it? The Bible says that we are. That is one of the purposes of God in having
a chosen people. They are chosen for
praise. It was true of Israel in the
Old Testament, and of the church in the New Testament. I Peter 2:9 says, "But you are a chosen
people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you
may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His
wonderful light." Praise fulfills
our purpose for being as a people, and our personal purpose in glorifying God
and enjoying Him forever. Praise is the
key to God's presence for us, and the key to God's pleasure in us.
Psa.
69:30‑31 says, "I will praise God's name in song and glorify Him
with thanksgiving. This will please the
Lord more than an ox, more than a bull with its horns and hoofs." God's greatest pleasure is in the sacrifice
of praise. Psa. 149 says that when
God's people praise and take delight in Him, God takes delight in His
people. God is not like the Sun. The Sun throws its rays on the earth and
gives this blessing to us. There is
nothing we can do to benefit the Sun in return. The Sun would be indifferent to us if we ever thought of
something we might do. God, on the
other hand, is enriched by how we respond to His gifts, His grace, and to His
being.
God is
ever worthy of our praise, and when we grant Him this gift that we can freely
give, we gain the pleasure of His presence, and He gains the pleasure of love
fulfilled. God is love and love has no
greater pleasure than its expression being met with a loving response. The joy of eternity will be a mutual joy of
God and man. We tend to think of what
it will be for us, but forget how wonderful heaven will be for God with its
endless praise from those whom He has saved by His love. In Rev. 4:11 this is the song that is sung
before the throne: "You are
worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created
all things, and by your will they were created and have their being."
In Rev.
5:12 this is the song to Jesus:
"Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain to receive power and wealth and
wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise." Tens of thousand of poets have already begun
in time to try and utter the songs of eternity, and that is what praise is all
about. Someone wrote,
"From the highest throne of glory
To the cross of deepest woe,
Thou didst come to ransom sinners,
Flow, my praise, forever flow."
If God
and our Savior are worthy of being praise for all eternity, is it not logical
that they are worthy of being praised in time?
Will you join me in practicing the presence of God by practicing praise,
and by joining in the conscious effort to know God better so that we see even
more clearly that He is indeed worthy of praise.
2. THE POWER OF PRAISE Based
on Psalm 149:1‑9
Sometimes
we take the wisest man in history too seriously. Solomon said there is nothing new under the sun, and those who
take this as the last word can become pessimistic. What is the point of being an explorer if there are no new
continents to be discovered. The poles
have both been reached, and all the highest mountains have been climbed. There is nothing new to do, and so we are
born to late. Such is the thinking of
one who takes Solomon too seriously.
The fact
is, the Bible is filled with new things, and one of the most common references
is to the new songs we can sing to praise God.
Not only does our text say, "Sing unto the Lord a new song,"
but this theme is repeated over and over so that it becomes a major duty of
believers to be ever involved with the new.
Psa. 33:3‑Sing unto Him a new song.
40:3‑He
hath put a new song in my mouth.
96:1‑O
sing unto the Lord a new song.
98:1‑O
sing unto the Lord a new song.
144:9‑I
will sing a new song unto Thee O God.
Isa. 42:10‑ Sing unto the Lord a new song.
Solomon
did not realize that the best was yet to be under the new covenant where we
would praise our Redeemer forever with new songs. In Rev. 5:9 and 14:3, we hear new songs being sung in heaven in
praise of Jesus. The fact is, there
have been more songs sung in praise of Jesus than any other person in history,
and for all eternity song writers will be busy coming up with new ones,
for our praise of Him will never cease.
The
message of the Bible is clear: Do not
let your praise grow stale by singing the same songs over and over until they
lose their freshness, and no longer move you to true adoration. I have sung hymns with my mind elsewhere
because they were so familiar that I did not have to think. They were mere memorized rituals that I
could go through with no real praise to God because my mind was not on
God. A new song forces you to pay
attention to what you are singing, and this engages your mind. You can't be day dreaming when singing a new
song, and, therefore, you are more likely to truly praise.
The
implication of the persistent call to sing new songs is that by nature we get
into ruts, and even as God's people we grow stale in our worship. We need constant renewal, or we sink into
dead orthodoxy where we have all the truth, but it makes no difference in our
lives because it has lost its power to motivate us. If we let this happen, it is our own fault, because we are urged
to never cease singing new songs to the Lord, and thus, keeping our love for
Him fresh and alive.
What we
do not realize is that praise is one of the key weapons for spiritual
warfare. You will notice that this
Psalm links praise and the sword. This
sounds strange and shocking to us.
Worship and warfare seem worlds apart in our minds, and it makes a
discord in our minds to put them together as does verse 6: "May the praise of God be in their
mouths and a double‑edged sword in their hands." The reason it does not fit our sense of
harmony is because the subject has been neglected. Warren Wiersbe, one of the contemporary leaders in the study of
worship, wrote in Moody Monthly, "I have read books and sermons on the
subject of worship, and I have yet to find a major work that says anything
about worship as spiritual warfare."
We sing
Onward Christian Soldiers, and Fight The Good Fight, but we do not take the
issue of spiritual warfare very seriously.
The result is we let our weapons be neglected, and they get rusty and
ineffective for the battle. Israel did
the same thing on the physical level.
When she ceased to praise God she fell before the armies of her
enemies. When she praised God she was
victorious. One of the great examples
is in II Chron. 20. A vast army of
Moabites and Ammonites came against Israel.
When king Jehoshaphat was told of it he went to prayer, and in verse 12
we read, "O our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking
us. We do not know what to do, but our
eyes are on you."
God
promised to be with them and so in verse 19 we read that the Levites,
"Stood up and praised the Lord, the God of Israel, with very loud
voice." As they marched to war,
verse 21 says that Jehoshaphat, "Appointed men to sing to the Lord and to
praise Him for the splendor of His holiness as they went out at the head of the
army, saying: Give thanks to the Lord,
for His love endures forever." As
they marched into battle singing, the Lord gave them the victory over this far
superior enemy. It was such a total
victory they called the place the Valley Of Beracah, which means the valley of
praise. They went there to praise God,
then went back to the temple in Jerusalem to praise Him more with harp and
lutes and trumpets. From then on
Jehoshaphat had peace on all sides.
What was
the secret weapon that gave them victory over a superior foe? It was praise. This made them superior, for praise is a weapon far more powerful
than the weapons of warfare made by men.
Praise puts God on your side, because you are on God's side. I suspect that you could study the wars of
history and discover that the side which most often won was the side with the
greater number of praisers of God. When
Israel lost a battle it was because they had ceased to praise God.
Since
physical warfare is not a regular part of our lives as it was with God's Old
Testament people, we need to apply this to the warfare of the spirit. We wrestle not against flesh and blood but
against spiritual powers and forces of darkness. In the whole armor of God, that Paul urges us to put on, only one
is for an aggressive attack on evil, and that is the sword of the spirit which
is the Word of God. It is by the Word
that we take the offensive, and a large part of that sword is praise. By praise we can fight our way out of
battles with evil, and by praise we can push back the forces of evil, and
overcome the territory they hold.
Why
should we bother to teach children Christian songs at a early age? It is because the Bible tells us it is a
child's first weapon against evil. Psa.
8:2 says, "From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise
because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger." A little child singing puts a muzzle on the
skeptic and the critic, and forces them into silence.
Satan trembles when he hears
The songs of children strike
his ears.
The power of music kept the demons out of king Saul,
who was otherwise under their control.
Psa. 52
is all about the two kinds of praises:
Those who praise themselves and boast of their evil. They end in everlasting ruin. The others are the praises of God. They will go on flourishing in the house of
God praising Him forever. Praise is the
weapon that overcomes all the forces that pull us away from God; especially
pride. The praises of God conquer pride
and avoid the fall it leads too. Praise is our weapon of victory. Let it get rusty and you are bound to be
wounded by one of the many foes of the Christian life.
By
praise we bind the enemy. In verse 8 of
our text it speaks of binding their kings and nobles. By our praise we bind the powers of Satan. We are no match for the unseen forces of
Satan. He has so many advantages over
us, but we have a weapon that negates all his advantages, and that is the
weapon of praise. Wiersbe says we have
neglected our greatest weapon for overthrowing empires and changing the world,
and the sad part is, we are content to do so.
Praise is like any other weapon.
You have got to train, practice, and learn how to use it. But since we have not been trained, we don't
want to bother. If someone came around
offering to teach anyone how to use a bazooka, most of us would past, for we
don't see any relevance to knowing how to shoot it. So it is with praise. It
is a powerful weapon of spiritual warfare, but we do not see its relevance, and
so we don't bother with the discipline of training. The result is we go marching into life's battle without our
sword, and it is no wonder that we seldom take over territory under the control
of evil forces.
Neh.
8:10 says, "The joy of the Lord is your strength." This means the lack of joy is your
weakness. When you are not in a spirit
of joyful praise, you are vulnerable to enemy attack. Why do Christians get down and depressed, and even have total
breakdowns? I do not want to be
simplistic as if there are not dozens of different factors, but the bottom line
is, they are unarmed. They are fighting
enemy forces without the weapon of worshipful praise. Study any period of great revival in the history of the church
and you will find a revival of praise, and an outburst of new songs. William Taylor wrote, "He who has a new
song in his mouth is ever stronger, both to suffer and to labor, than the man
who has a dumb spirit and a hymnless heart."
Whatever
you do, praising God will make you do it better. Praise God at work, and you will enjoy your work better, or
tolerate it better. Praise God in your
home, and you will have a better home life.
Praise God as you drive, and it will not be the torture it is for those
who only gripe and complain about all the idiots on the road. Praise is your weapon to counteract all the
ways Satan tries to defeat you in the Christian life. Without praise you are like fish in a barrel to the enemy of your
soul. This Psalm says song and sword go
hand in hand. Worship and warfare are
not world's apart. They are side by
side, and you need the one to deal with the other. You need the song to do well with the sword.
Praising
God is the most practical activity there is, for it is the source of your
strength. The praise Psalms are our
weapons, for Heb. 4:12 says, "The Word of God is living an active, sharper
than any double‑edge sword."
I have had New Testaments with the Psalms in them, but never realized I
was carrying my sword when I had it, for I had no idea of the power of
praise.
I was fascinated
by Judson Conwell's book Let Us Praise.
As a pastor he got all excited about a ministry of demon exorcism, and
he began to focus on casting out demons.
He had services on Sunday for this purpose, and he noticed he was
becoming so demon‑centered that Christ was put on the back burner. He came under the conviction of the Holy
Spirit that he was to praise Jesus, and not get his focus on demons. It was hard to break the pattern, but he
finally did, and when he began to focus on praising Jesus he found he and his
church stopped having so many problems with demons.
Satan is
very subtle. He can get us so involved
in battles of all kinds that we are actually more under his control than that
of Christ. The thing we need to ask about
all we do is this: Is this helping me
to keep my eyes on Jesus, and, is it motivating me to sharpen my focus on
praising and exalting His name? Satan
would love to see us fighting so many skirmishes with various demons of evil
that we have no time or energy for praise.
He is winning, no matter how many minor victories we may win, if he can
keep us from our big gun and most powerful weapon‑the weapon of
praise.
Praise
keeps us power oriented, but lack of praise leads us to be problem oriented. When we do nothing but focus on problems we
tend to be led downward to pessimism and discouragement. Many Christians even get depressed in prayer
because their prayer is almost totally negative, and dealing with
problems. We need to balance out prayer
with praise so we do not become problem centered. The praise‑centered Christian is the most victorious
Christian.
In
Dostoevski's The Brother's Karamazov, Ivan imagines he sees the devil, and a
conversation takes place in which the devil says, "If I could praise God,
I would cease to be the devil." I
don't how theologically correct that is, but it is true for men. If they praise God, they will cease to be
devil‑centered and self‑centered, and become God‑centered. The key to change of character and attitude
is the power of praise. Probably the
greatest power of praise is the power of it to please God. Look at verse 4 which says, "For the
Lord takes delight in His people. He
crowns the humble with salvation."
Praise pleases God, and He in turn blesses those who praise, and this
leads those who praise to have all the more praise. The next verse says, "Let the saints rejoice in this honor
and sing for joy on their beds."
Not all of life is a battle.
Sometimes we just relax on our beds and rejoice in the good life of
being a child of God, and an object of His delight.
As
Americans we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but
this means to most people the pursuit of pleasure, which does not lead to happiness,
except during the moments of
pleasure. Real happiness is found in
one's awareness that he is honored by God.
God delights in him, and loves him as His child. This is an honor that never gets on the
great TV award shows. It never gets a
large gold or silver trophy, but it is life's greatest honor, and it goes to
those who praise God and rejoice in Him,
and ever sing new songs of joy.
This is the life‑style that pleases God, and the reward is His delight and salvation. Happiness is not something you pursue as
much as something you get as a by‑product of pleasing God by being a
praiser.
If God
is happy with you, because you are happy with Him, you are on the highest level
of happiness. Spurgeon said, "The thought
of the Lord's taking pleasure in us is a mine of joy never to be
exhausted." In Psa. 147:11 we read
it again: "The Lord delights in those who fear Him, who put their hope in
His unfailing love." Just as we
delight when our child or grandchild will leap to us from a table in full
confidence that we will catch them, and not let them fall, so God delights in
us when we trust and appreciate Him.
The happiest children in this world are those whose parents delight in
them, for delighted parents are loving, caring, forgiving, and generous in
their giving. So the happiest
Christians in this world are those in whom God is delighted. This Hebrew word for delight is used frequently
to refer to God's pleasure.
If you
get a great deal of pleasure out of one, two, or three children, or
grandchildren, think of the pleasure God gets out of hundreds of millions of
children who praise Him. And why do
they praise Him? Because as verse 4
says, "He crowns the humble with salvation." The KJV has it, "He beautifies the meek
with salvation." The idea of
beauty is more accurate for the Hebrew word here is paar, which means, to make
beautiful. It is used in Isa. 60:13 to
refer to the beauty of the temple.
"The glory of Lebanon will come to you, the pine, the fir, and the
cypress together, to adorn the place of my sanctuary..." Adorn is the Hebrew word paar. God is pleased by trees, plants, and flowers
that beautify the environment where He is worshipped. Beauty, worship, and salvation are all linked in the Bible, and
we add to the beauty with voices of praise.
The flower praises God by being beautiful, and we praise Him by
beautiful sounds.
Beauty is to characterize all that is involved in worship. God is beautiful in His splendor and holiness, and the sanctuary is to be beautiful; the music is to be beautiful, and the people are to be beautiful. There will be nothing ugly in heaven, and the closer we can get to total beauty in time, the closer we get to heaven. The same word paar is used two others times in Isa. 60. One refers to the temple and the other to the people. In verse 7 God says, "I will adorn my glorious temple."