Bless the LORD, O my soul:
Bless means to make someone happy, make someone enviable, and to make someone prosperous. When we worship and honour the Lord we actually make Him happy, enviable and prosperous. Sounds absurd doesn’t it? There is Almighty God, totally self reliant and self sufficient, and yet we can somehow better Him. It is totally ridiculous, but it is also totally true.
How can this be? Well, of course, God is “joy”. But we increase that joy as we allow Him to make evident His Fatherhood over our lives. Already happy, we increase it in the same way as a parent delights in his obedient children. When you worship God you put a huge smile on His face. When you obey His word you also make Him happy. Isn’t that just so awesome and amazing? Here I am, merely a mortal man. A man who has, in the past, been an awful sinner. And yet astonishingly, I can make the Lord God Almighty happy by my good behaviour. As I surrender to His will in my life He rejoices. And he knows how to rejoice. The Bible implies that he throws a party over one sinner that repents. The picture we have of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb is one of a massive celebration for the victory of the Son of God and His beautiful bride. God looks at us, even now, and sees a worthy bride for His Son. He is truly delighted in the choice that Jesus has made. Is that hard to believe? But it doesn’t make it any less true. And, as is the Hebrew custom, it is the Father of the Groom who supplies the bride with beautiful wedding garments, precious jewels and gorgeous perfumes. The Father has made us look good as we wear the garments of salvation and the robe of righteousness. He has removed the awful stench of sin and replaced it with the rich aroma of purity. He has then adorned us with gems to make us, already perfect in His sight, even more astonishing.
Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
We are to be deliriously happy in what we have gained by being united to the living Christ. Worship and praise should “all-person” worship. In other words every part of me should be involved. I should be celebrating; spirit, soul and body. Sometimes I might be silenced because I am awestruck at the absolute brilliance of who God is and what He has done. At other times I will be like David who danced before the Lord with all his might. And remember that when David was confronted by Michal, he responded to her by implying that his worship and praise was not yet everything that it should be. He implied that he was still a learner.
Worship is both personal and corporate. There is something very special about God’s church coming together in worship. It brings an anointing which breaks bondages in some and calls others up to higher ground. It was as the people worshipped and ministered to God that the Lord was able to call Paul and Barnabas into a great area of ministry. (See Acts 13:1)
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:
Benefits mean “blessings”. As you bless Him you remind yourself that the blessing came initially from Him anyway. We love Him because He first loved us. Years ago we sang the old hymn, “Count your blessings, name them one by one.” It was a real classic. And classically it became weak because we abused it. Having sung the hymn the pastor would ask us to name some of our blessings. It was silly because the blessings were usually totally trivial. Actually when you begin to remember all His benefits you should scarcely get past the first one. “In His family!!!!! In His family!!!!!” Just think: You are a child of Almighty God. A child of the King of kings. Think about it. Now, you can shout, jump, sing or sit in silence. (As we British say, we are gob-smacked, or there is nothing else to say is there?”)
But David does us the favour of listing some of His blessings in our lives. Every one of them should stop us in our tracks and make us think.
Who forgives all your iniquities;
This is difficult for those who are judgmental. I know He freely forgives me all my iniquities, but I sometimes find it extremely hard to believe that He forgives you for all of yours! And sometimes these sins are very similar. My immorality is easily forgiven, but you have to pay an extra price. I can manipulate people, but you must never, ever do it. My rebellion is out of a good heart, yours is from the spirit of wickedness. No. This simply does not do it. We need to remember that all sin was awful. And the Lord could not easily forgive it. He could create the heavens and the earth in six short days with just a few words, but He could not forgive your sin with words only. He had to give up His Son to shed His blood to pay the price for our sin. “The wages of sin is death..” You can rewrite it: “The wages of my sin was His death.”
You see, forgiveness is not so easy. It cost a great deal. It is, as they say, “Free at the point of consumption.” But somebody had to pay for it. So, it is not really free at all. People will criticize those among us who preach and teach grace, as if it is something trifling we are talking about. They say we are cheapening the gospel. But that is far from the truth. Grace has never been free. It is the most expensive gift of all. God paid for grace to come my way with the life of His Son.
So, what do we have to do about it? Enjoy it! Sometimes we need to freely receive our forgiveness and then just have a laugh. Being forgiven is just about the most amazing thing you can imagine. There is no more difficulty between God and you. He regarded you as an enemy, but now you are His friend. No. His child.
Who heals all thy diseases;
When Jesus went to the cross He could have been minimalistic in His approach. He could have said, “I’ll do just enough for them to go to heaven when they die.” But, no. Jesus went the extra mile. In fact, He went the extra three or four miles. When asked to give His life, He also gave His back to the scourging so that you and I could live a life of health in this present life. He also took the crown of thorns so that the “dis-ease” of our minds could be healed and that we could live in peace of mind and clarity of thought.
Now, we know that sickness is still prevalent in the world, and in the church. But I have been to churches where sickness is fairly rare. The people have been believing God that healing and health are part of the package. That kind of church is very intolerant of sickness and they aggressively pray against it and demand their covenant rights to manifest among the people.
Nowhere is perfect, of course, and there are still sicknesses and sadnesses to be faced. But let’s be honest, there is often far more sickness in the church than there should be considering we are the ones who have the gifts of healings and the atonement of Christ. When David said that the Lord, our Redeemer, heals all our diseases, he was either telling the truth or he wasn’t. I’d rather believe it to be true. During my life I have received a number of significant healings. Some of them were just about instantaneous. Others were a lot less so, and it would be hard to see the hand of God in them. However, looking back I can say hat healing did come eventually, and to many it could be attributed to natural means, but I consider the Lord to have been behind the healing doing His work, but in a somewhat different way. Why would that be? Maybe, because I couldn’t receive it any other way. And them some may say, “But what about that person who died?” Well, I can hide behind the simple fact: God knows something I don’t know. I can search for answers. I can also ask God. But sometimes He just says leave it alone.
Ultimately, He heals all our diseases because there will be no sickness when we are with Jesus for eternity. That is a blessing!
Who redeems your life from destruction;
The Lord our redeemer. He paid that heavy price to save us from eternal destruction. To be in a condition of being continuously destroyed must be awesomely awful. What an incredible loss it is, to lose your own soul. For your personality to be so shut off from the life of God that you are empty of all decency and hope.
But the Lord has paid the price. We now have hope. We are not even moving into eternal life. We have eternal life. The moment you gave your life to Jesus something far more wonderful happened. You see, you may have prayed “Lord, I give my life to you.” But, He probably laughed! What could the Lord do with your life? What were you really offering Him? No. When you thought that you were giving your life to Jesus, He was actually giving His life to you! Your gift to Him was valueless. There was nothing He could do with it. But, He still said thank you. And then He gave Himself, His resurrection life to you, and everything changed. Yes, you still lived in the same house, slept in the same bed, went to work in the same place. But everything changed. You would never be able to look at that house in the same way. Your sleep was now a time for spiritual ministry. Your work place became a mission field.
Who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies;
A crown is placed on the head. Your soul is now touched by the Lord. The authority that comes from your head is now infiltrated by the things of God.
Mercy is when a person deserves punishment but it does not happen because of a deliberate choice by the one who should be doing the punishing. It usually implies that a price has been paid some other way. It is not a simple “letting off.” It means that there was a cost which has been paid, but not be the guilty party.
Loving kindness is when a person does not deserve reward is rewarded as if they have deserved it. Again there was a price to be paid for the reward. But the reward is going in a different direction.
So, you and I doubly blessed here. We are not punished when we should be. We are rewarded when we should not be.
Who satisfies your mouth with good things:
Many of us would say that this means that God gives us good food. To an extent that is true. We pray such things as “Give us this day our daily bread.” And the Lord supplies our needs. But it is much more important than that. Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” But, actually we live by every word that proceeds from our mouth! It is when the words we say agree with the word of God that we really live.
The Lord gives us good things to say. And when we say them we will be satisfied. Jesus also said, “How can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Well, we are no longer evil. Our heart was a mess. Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” That is how it was. But now the heart is good, “But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;” The abundance of your heart should be the word of the Lord. Psalm 119:11 “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.”
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
As you speak and act in accordance with the will and the word of God, so you will be energized spiritually and live in the Lord’s power to help you overcome the difficulties of life. Yes, there will still be problems, but you will have the resources to deal with them.
The eagle gains strength by sucking the blood of animals. We get our spiritual strength by applying the blood of Jesus.
The LORD executes righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed.
This “all” are His people. And this is whether they were the children of Israel oppressed by Egypt, or the present day children of God oppressed by the devil in one way or another. The Lord will eventually vindicate His people because what is happening is a slight against Him. David, the writer of this psalm, had something of the heart of God when as a young man he heard of the fear that the Philistines, through their champion Goliath, had put into the hearts of the Israelites.
He said to Goliath "You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give you into our hand." (1 Samuel 17:45-47 English Standard Version).
The Israelites had been offended by their enemy, the Philistines for quite long enough. They were “under the cosh.” We often make disparaging remarks concerning their cowardice because there was nobody who would go out and fight Goliath, but we do need to remember some things which give them something of an excuse. They were completely outgunned. They had no swords. There were just two in the whole Kingdom of Israel and they were owned by King Saul and his son Jonathan. The enemy had not let the Israelites have swords. So, even those who may have been brave enough to fight Goliath had no training to fight with the sword. But David had a different kind of sword. He, among all the Israelites, knew about the sword of the Spirit, the word of the Lord. He knew that the Lord does not fight with a literal sword and a literal spear. No, there is another sword that proceeds from the mouth of God. That sword is the word we live by. David knew he had covenant rights. He also knew that God has to vindicate His people.
And so it will be so for His children at this present time.
He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel.
There is quite a difference here. We have a choice to face. We can be like Moses who knew the ways of God, or we can be like the children of Israel who witnessed His acts. To know the ways of the Lord is so important because Jesus is the way. This is telling us that Moses knew the pre-incarnate Son of God in person. Moses and the second person of the Trinity met face to face. Moses knew Jesus! The children of Israel were aware of the outcome of Moses’ relationship with the Lord. They saw the signs and wondered. They experienced the miracles. But they didn’t know the Lord. He had made the offer, but they rejected it. We, too, have that choice. We can know the Lord for ourselves or we can maintain a second-hand relationship with Him. It is all too easy to have faith in another person rather than God, Himself. When that other person fails our faith is really mucked up.
The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.
The Lord is gracious in that He has controlled His power and controlled His anger as He waits for the right moment. Imagine His feelings as he has watched the world try to destroy His people down the centuries. From the Assyrians and Babylonians through to the Nazis mankind has turned on the people of God in hatred towards their God. What is regarded as anti-Semitism is actually anti-God. It is a vehement hatred for God and His people that began when unrighteous Cain despised his own brother because of his godliness.
The Lord bides His time, and we see that even wicked Nebuchadnezzar, who persecuted God’s people, could repent and turn to the God of Abraham. And down the centuries, in spite of themselves, wicked men have turned and received the imputed righteousness of God. Whether it was Roman Emperors, the slave trader John Newton, evolutionist Charles Darwin or some of the oppressive communist leaders of the twentieth century, bad men have become good because of the mercy and graciousness of our great God and Saviour.
He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever.
God gets angry, but as soon as we recognize our wrongdoing and repent He changes His mind about us. It is a very interesting thing that the Lord says that He will never change. “For I am the LORD, I change not;” ( Malachi 3:6) And we use this verse to confirm His immutability. But the Lord then says, “Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts.” (Malachi 3:7) In other words, “Change your mind about Me, and I will change My mind about you!” So, He does change. But what is He actually saying? “I never change they way I change.” “I only ever change in the same unchanging way.”
He has not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
This is the basic truth of the gospel. It is where we begin our Christian life. We used to sing a beautiful chorus, “I get so excited Lord every time I realize, I’m forgiven, I’m forgiven.” That is still the most impressive part of what the Lord has done for each one of us. And we need to remember that this forgiveness comes so easily for us because it was so very expensive for Him.
For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.
When you consider the price which has been paid we do not wonder at the infinite power and complete unreservedness of His great mercy. We do not wonder at how great it is; but we do wonder at the great price which has been paid. We shall probably still be just as amazed, or even more amazed, throughout all eternity.
As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
How far is the east from the west? It is actually an extremely long way. When light was brought into the universe on the first day of creation (Genesis 1:3) it travelled at the same speed as it does now. That is 186,000 miles a second. It has been traveling at that speed stretching out through the aeons of time. So, the east and the west are a further 372,000 miles apart every second. And therefore, we can say that our iniquities are out of our reach and moving away massively each moment.
Like as a father pities his children so the LORD pities them that fear him.
Pity here really means “tender compassion.” It is not sympathy it is empathy. We see this as Jesus came and endured all the problems which man has to face. He identified with us in a tremendous way and continues to do so. “He had to be one of us, so that he could serve God as our merciful and faithful high priest and sacrifice himself for the forgiveness of our sins. And now that Jesus has suffered and was tempted, he can help anyone else who is tempted.” (Heb 2:17-18 CEV)
For he knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.
He knows what we are made of. The Lord recognizes weaknesses and failings in us. He has no truck with us and our sin, but He knows that we are frail, weakly and mortal.
As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.
Life is very short. It is an amazing thought that when you look at an elderly man with a stooped back, failing eyesight and grey or balding head to realize that he was once a young man, a dashing sportsman or a war hero.
However, we have been blessed with eternal life. Our life on this earth is just beginning. We are to rule and reign with Jesus for a thousand years, and then the earth will be re-created. We will then see heaven come down to earth and we will reign here with the Lord forever. Isn’t that great?
But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children;
Fear = awe. God is pleased to share His righteousness with His children. Imputed righteousness now belongs to each of us as a free gift. We did nothing to earn our salvation. All we did was receive a gift. We can do nothing to keep our salvation except to go on receiving. If we earn it, it is no longer a gift. Our responsibility in all this is to enjoy it. God has given us His righteousness so that we can live with a clear conscience and peace in our heart.
And then we can claim, under this new covenant or New Testament, that our children also belong to the Lord. Believe that the Lord’s Spirit is working in the lives of all of your children, even when it does not look like it. He is doing it because He has a blood covenant with you. They will come to Christ for two reasons. Firstly, because Jesus died for them, just as He did for everybody else. Secondly, because He has such a relationship with you that whatever belongs to you belongs to Him. And your children belong to you!
To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.
In the context of the New Testament, or New Covenant, this takes on an entirely different perspective. We have kept the covenant, initially because we gave our life to Lord having obeyed the command to repent. We keep His covenant by sharing communion together, with good motivation. We keep His covenant by regularly attending fellowship with the Lord’s people. We keep His covenant by doing so many other things. But what is really great is that we keep His covenant even when we do not keep it! That is because as the Son of God, our elder brother, Jesus, keeps the covenant for us!
The LORD has prepared his throne in the heavens;
Why would He do so? The Lord already has a decent enough throne for Himself; does He need another one? No, the throne He prepares is for us. It is His delight to share His glory with His church. It will be His greatest joy to enthrone us as joint heirs with His Son. We sing so many songs about enthroning Him. He is singing of when He will crown us as we share the throne of Jesus.
And his kingdom rules over all.
We know that ultimately the Lord will reign over the earth. But, even now he is the Lord. He will allow this age to go only so far before he steps into human history once again. When He does everything will make sense.
It is worth remembering that Jesus is King. In our day to day lives as we listen to so much bad news let’s remember that the Lord is still the Lord. When we hear all the bad news, let’s remind ourselves of the good news of Jesus and His salvation.
Bless the LORD, you his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.
The angels are the Lord’s servants. In one sense, although we do not have the right to order them around, they are our servants as well. They await the voice of His word. They are listening for when His word is spoken to do something. Does it matter whether the word comes from the Lord, or from you? When He speaks they respond. When you speak they respond. When you confess God’s word they can act in line with it. When you believe that your word based payers can make a difference you are enabling the angels of God to act on your behalf.
Bless the LORD, all you his hosts; you ministers of his, that do his pleasure.
The hosts of God are the angelic beings of lesser rank than the angels of God. And as with all things they were created to please Him. As they worship Him they bring Him pleasure.
The David invites us of the earthly creation who serve the Lord to join in the song of worship. That’s us.
Bless the LORD, all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the LORD, O my soul.
David then invites all the creation to worship.
And finally He gives Himself the instruction.
