WHO, WHEN, HOW AND WHY

WHO, WHEN, HOW AND WHY

Psalms 146:1-10 (KJV)

Praise ye the LORD. Praise the LORD, O my soul.

While I live will I praise the LORD: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.

Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.

His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.

Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God:

Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever:

Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry. The LORD looseth the prisoners:

The LORD openeth the eyes of the blind: the LORD raiseth them that are bowed down: the LORD loveth the righteous:

The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.

The LORD shall reign for ever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise ye the LORD.

The last five of the Psalms are all wrapped together into a series usually called “The Hallelujah Psalms” or “The Praise Psalms.”

·   They are brief

·   They are pointed and

·   They are all pleasant to read

I understand that they were originally written to be used to prepare the heart for worship.

The Jews would sing these songs on their way to the Temple.

·   It would be like you playing hymns in your car on the way to church or

·   It would be like the teens singing Christian choruses in the bus on the way to camp

The Psalms help a person prepare 

·   Their mind, 

·   Their soul and 

·   Their spirit

To worship.

Probably too little of this is done in the average Christian family these days.

We think of church as our worship time.

·   We come

·   We check in

·   We worship God and then

·   We leave to do our own activities

Some churches even offer an early service[1]so you can get it a two-hour jump on your Sunday plans.

Most Americans:

·   Stay up too late Saturday nights and

·   --Occupy their minds on poor things

·   Get up too late Sunday mornings so they are

·   --Stressed by the rush to get to church on time

They have probably:

·   Argued with the kids about either eating or dressing

·   Grumped at their spouse because they thought they should have handled the kids differently

·   Pressured one or the other to hurry more getting ready

·   They haven’t spent any time reading the Bible before church.

·   They surely have not breathed a word of prayer before arriving at church and

·   They absolutely have not had the family singing hymns as they drive to church

And they step into the house of the Lord hoping God will bless them.

God had a different plan in mind.

These last five Psalms are all:

·   Easy to find

·   Easy to Read and – for the Jews were

·   Easy to sing

Do these a few times on the way to the Temple, and they would be prepared to worship the Lord.

It’s called a praise or hallelujah Psalm. This one answers several questions about praise.

I. WHO SHOULD PRAISE THE LORD?

Psalms 146:1 (KJV)

Praise ye the LORD. Praise the LORD, O my soul.

Psalms 146:10 (KJV)

The LORD shall reign for ever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise ye the LORD.

Twice the Psalm says “ye.”

It’s a word we don’t use today. Ancient versions of English were much more precise than English is today.[2]

Ye was used as a plural subjective pronoun.

The two keys to help us tonight are the words “plural” and “subjective.”

Plural

More than one, everyone one 

·   reading, 

·   listening to or in any way 

·   in contact with

the message of this Psalm.

Praise the Lord, every one of you.

Imagine then a family on their way to the worship services:

Perhaps the father says to his family, “Praise ye the Lord” and he begins singing this Psalm.

·   Momma Sings along with him

·   Sally sings along with him

·   Bobby sins along with him

·   Suzie sings along with him

But maybe little Jimmy has his mind on other things.

·   Maybe he would rather play with his toy car.

·   Maybe he and Bobby had an argument that morning and Jimmy is sullen up.

·   Maybe he saw a caterpillar along the road and was distracted by it

If dad is paying attention to his family he’s going to stop the family on their travels and deal with little Jimmy.

“Jimmy, I said ‘Praise ye the Lord’ that means everybody, even you.”

Have you ever come to church and not felt like singing?

You know how to get over that? Start singing.

If you had startedbefore you got to church you would have been ready to sing when everyone else got started.

If you had prayedbefore you got to church, you would have been more ready to pray here.

If you had read your Biblebefore you got to church, you would have been more ready to read it here.

The who is everybody.

Praise ye the Lord.

Notice he also says, “Praise the Lord, Oh my soul.”

He didn’t need his father to stop the car and tell him to praise the Lord.

He told himself.

Most of us would do much better in our walk with the Lord and in our life in general if we would just learn to make ourselves mind.

Some preachers call it “Preaching to self.”

If you are saved you flesh does not have to control you. You have the power, through the Holy Spirit, to tell it what to do.

You just have to get enough gumption to do it and to mean it.

The other term is 

Subjective

A subjective pronoun is the one performing the action.

I’m just saying – Get busy praising God.

II. WHEN SHOULD WE PRAISE THE LORD?

Psalms 146:2 (KJV)

While I live will I praise the LORD: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.

The Psalmist says that he will praise the Lord “while [he has] any being.” 

A. My mind immediately sees the man who is in dire straits

The enemy is about to overwhelm him. 

All flesh screams out that this is a moment of pain, a moment not to praisebut to plead. 

And yet he is determined to sing praise to his God until the enemy has expired his consciousness. 

B. Or else the scene is of an elderly soul who has lived for the Lord now many decades

As the life ebbs from the body, what will be his dying words? "I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being."

Maybe a good song for those last days is, 

Psalms 23:1-6 (KJV)

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

He’s not weeping over what might have been, but rejoicing in what he knows will be, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.”

And here is, I think, the wonder of this passage,

C. The believer will always have being

Death is no end but just the beginning of life. 

·   Heaven is such a better place than this

·   Life there is so much grander than life here

That, as much as we want to praise the Lord today, we will truly praise the Lord then.

III. HOW SHOULD WE PRAISE THE LORD?

Psalms 146:3-5 (KJV)

Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.

His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.

Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God:

We praise the Lord by trusting Him and not man.

It only makes sense, doesn’t it?

·   Men are limited in their abilities

·   Men are feeble in their flesh and

·   Men are fickle in their temperaments

The truth is there is no man better than any other man so if you put your trust in man you are no better off than you were before you trusted in them.

God on the other hand, well,

·   He made the heaven and the earth

·   He keepeth truth for ever

·   He giveth food to the hungry

·   He looseth the prisoners 

So that, “Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God:”

IV. WHY SHOULD WE PRAISE THE LORD?

Psalms 146:8-10 (KJV)

The LORD openeth the eyes of the blind: the LORD raiseth them that are bowed down: the LORD loveth the righteous:

The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.

The LORD shall reign for ever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise ye the LORD.

In a segment that sounds similar to the passage I preached last week, we ought to praise the Lord because:

·   He heals the blind

·   He raises up the bowed down

·   He loves the righteous

·   He preserves[3]the strangers

·   He relieves[4]the fatherless and the widow

·   He reigns forever

This God is our Godand He is this and so much more.

Praise ye the Lord, Praise the Lord O my soul.

Praise ye the Lord.

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[1]I do understand that, in most cases, the church’s goal is not to free up more of the attender’s day. But that has become the use of it for too many “Sunday morning saints.”

[2]And we are dumbing it down more and more all the time.

[3]This word means “to guard.” I take it two ways: First in guarding the stranger to protect His own from them. Second to preserve them in the sense of bringing them into His own. God always makes a way for the wanderer to come to home.

[4]The word means “to repeat.” I think the best application would be “to surround.” He protects them and stays with them.