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.
Praise God in his sanctuary: - The Where of Praise. Understand first and foremost that his sanctuary is that place that has been set apart for His honor and His presence. Now this is extremely important this is the Where of praise. Now I know there are people that will want to jump on this and say this is the church building and say see the Bible tells us that we have to praise God in the church and will immediately go to Hebrews 10:25 and quote “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching”. Since there is often a backward view of church so many times people focus on attendance as a sign of faithfulness and if you are not in attendance then your praise is either effected or non-existent because the focus is church centered and not God centered. “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together” is not talking about church attendance it has to do with desertion or abandonment from the things of God and the people of God, to turn your back upon and leave or backslide. So, when a person is guilted or threatened with a one-way ticket to hell because they did not attend every church service does not prove their love for God and nothing has been accomplished. We are to be people of praise and worship that freely offer our bodies a living sacrifice unto God. Praise God in His sanctuary – 1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own”. WATCH THIS: - His Sanctuary is His dwelling place, Exodus 25:8-10 God tells Moses to have them build Him a sanctuary that He may dwell among them, our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you so praise Him in our bodies, in our everyday lives, in word and deed to the glory of God. Yes, corporate worship is vital but our lives should be filled with praise and not limited to a Sunday church service and midweek Bible study but praise should characterize us at every minute wherever we are.
Praise him in the firmament of his power – the Hebrew word is rakia and it refers to the vast expanse that surrounds the globe which all the celestial bodies of the solar system are included. The firmament is an Old English translation that literally means the sky, the universe, the sun, moon, and stars. The firmament is made up of motion, sight, sound, light, and breath. The heavens declare His glory, the universe is His. I think about the eclipse we just experienced a few weeks ago, and how on just this past week there was a massive meteor shower where hundreds of meteors could be seen, then how the 12P/Pons-Brooks comet also called the devil comet which can only be seen once every 72 years could be seen with the naked eye on this week truly God is being Praised in the firmament of his power.
Verse #2 “Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness.” This is the Why of Praise. Praise Him for what He has done, when we look back and reflect on the great things He has done and who He is. How He made a way out of no way, He keep us from dangers seen and unseen. When in times of trouble and despair He protected us and gave us the strength to overcome. Not only for what He has done should we praise Him but for his excellent greatness when I think of His excellent greatness I think about how the heaven declare His glory, how the oceans can only travel so far on land, how the stars hang in the sky, His power is limitless, His knowledge is unsurmountable, His endurance is limitless, He never sleep nor slumbers, He upholds the world with the word, He has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand and weighed the mountains in a scale yet He has time for me and hears me when I cry out to Him. That’s why we praise Him.
Verse #3-5 says “Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp. Praise him with the trembrel and dance: praise him with the stringed instruments and organs. Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high-sounding cymbals”. Now we can use these verses to stress the importance of musical instruments in our praise and worship services and that is wonderful but go with me on a journey if you will. I like to believe that the mentioning of these instruments was to focus more on the sound of the instrument than the instrument itself and bring back to people’s remembrance of when they heard the sound of them in the past and what they meant and how they responded. When the heard the trumpet, it reminded them of how when the Children of Israel marched around Jericoh and couldn’t say a word but when the Trumpet sounded and the began to shout with a loud voice how the walls came tumbling down, or when they had been camped for a while in a certain area, but when they heard the sound of the trumpet they knew it was time to move again. When they heard the harp they understood how the harp brought God’s presence and would begin to praise Him when they heard the sounds. Praise Him with trembrel and dance this is often interpreted as tambourines or hand drums and dance. I believe this is referring to the exuberant and lively praise. Like David did in 2 Samuel 6:14 “And David danced before the Lord with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod”. Verse 20 says, “Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel to day, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself”. This is not that he was naked but that he put aside all his robes all his clout all his prestige and humbled himself and praised God exuberantly. Understand the beat of the drum, the pounding of the tambourine induces relaxation, lowers blood pressure, and reduces stress among other things. So, the sound of the tambourine should cause exuberant praise.
There should be a sound that you hear that causes you to just praise the Lord. A certain song, the sound of the organ, or the beating of the tambourine should cause you to remember when and just begin to Praise the Lord. When I think about the Lord, when I hear that sound. When I hear the song Total Praise something down on the inside is stirred up because of the sound.
Verse #6 “Let everything that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD”. This is the WHO is to Praise the Lord. All of us where alive and have breath are to Praise the Lord. We have been given a command to Praise the Lord and we cannot take it lightly or water it down to a simple greeting. Because we have breath in our bodies, we must Praise the Lord, because we have been redeemed, we must Praise the Lord.
CLOSING: - Praise is central to our worship of God and it is our praise that makes Him known to the world. When we Praise the Lord, we acknowledge our desperate need for Him and honor His greatness. Through praising the Lord, we extol His goodness to others. When we Praise the Lord, we magnify His name. When we Praise the Lord, our focus is diverted from our circumstances to His awesomeness. When we Praise the Lord, we are humbled by His mighty power. When we Praise the Lord, demons have to flee. When we Praise the Lord, it opens a way for His blessing to enter our lives. Let everything that have breath Praise Ye the Lord. Praise the Lord.
Bishop Melvin L. Maughmer, Jr.
