Praise The Lord

Praise the Lord

Psalm 150

By

Bishop Melvin L. Maughmer, Jr.

QUESTION: - What does it mean to Praise the Lord? The churchy traditional statement has been watered down to a simple statement and greeting. When you see a fellow Christian mainly of the same denomination, we greet each other shake their hand and say Praise the Lord.

Does Praise the Lord mean going to church every time the church doors are open, or praying before you eat or go to sleep, giving to the poor or helping the needy? Sure, all of these are part of Praise the Lord but let’s go a little further and understand that Praise the Lord is about offering our bodies, our hearts, our souls, and our mind and spirit unto God. It is to give God all the best adoration and approval He deserves. We Praise the Lord when we choose to honor, glorify, thank and obey Him.

We must understand Praise the Lord is a command and not a watered down or superficial greeting. Halal the source of Hallelujah is the Hebrew expression of Praise to God and is translated as praise the Lord but the Hebrew meaning is Let us praise God.

Understand there is no one way to offer praise to the Lord, some may be accustomed to organs, guitars, drums, and horns, while others use censors and incense and stand in awe in the presence of the Lord, while some may use banjos and a washboard the style is not important but the adoration of and for the King of kings and Lord of lords is. The only wrong way is not to Praise the Lord at all.

Praise the Lord

PRAYER

SCRIPTURE: - Psalm 150 “Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in the firmament of his power. Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness. Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp. Praise him with the trimble and dance: praise him with the stringed instruments and organs. Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. Let every thing that hat breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord”.

TEXT:- In the church of today the concept of praise and worship has been morphed into singing a few songs, get people emotionally stimulated by the songs and then take up an offering and say stuff like it’s time to praise the Lord in our giving and call that praise and worship service, then the preacher gets up to preach and that is often not even considered praise and worship, it is just called the word or the message. However, when we read the book of Psalm understanding that Psalm is divided into 5 divisions and the number 5 represents God’s grace and each Psalm ends with a doxology which is a praise or glory glorifying God in a song of praise or anthem. Then you also understand that as you read through the Psalms that the earlier Psalms reflect on the difficulties of life, the trials, grief, anxieties, and many different circumstances but as you progress toward the end there is Praise. There is a shifting or a turning from the cry to the praise, for EXAMPLE: - Psalms 61 starts “Hear my cry O Lord attend unto my prayer but ends with so I will sing praise unto thy name forever, there has been a shift a turning of circumstances. You understand that you have moved from faith to faith and glory to glory and you realize that praise is more than just a song, but it is an experience that understands the who, the what, the when, the where, they why, and the how of true praise. In the 150 Psalm we have a Psalm of Total Praise there is no discomfort, no grief, no anxiety, no heartache, or any human difficulties at all, it is ultimate praise to the ultimate God for His ultimate goodness.

The first thing we need to notice about this Psalm is that we are commanded 13 times to Praise the Lord. The number 13 is symbolic of rebellion and lawlessness in scripture so 13 commands to praise the Lord is the reversal or opposite of rebellion and lawlessness. In the Hebrew there is 12 commands, and the number 12 represents Divine Government, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 Apostles, 12 gates to the New Jerusalem. So, Psalm 150 is the opposite of rebellion and lawlessness and is the Divine Government of God in our lives.

So, let’s look at Psalm 150.

Verse #1 “Praise ye the Lord” This is the command, the What of Praise or what we are required to do and we have established the What already and that is Praise the Lord is about offering our bodies, our hearts, our souls, and our mind and spirit unto God. Romans 12:1 says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service”. When we present our bodies a living sacrifice this is praise because Hebrews 13:15 says, “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name”. When our lips join our heart in praise to God our bodies become a living sacrifice of praise.