Praise the Lord!
[Psalms 135]
We already meditated on Psalms 134 under the heading, “Praise the Lord.” We received the God’s word that God’s faithful servants who live a victorious life with God's faithful help are told to praise God with confession of thanksgiving. Then, as I meditated on Nehemiah 8, I saw Ezra and the Israelites praising God in the revival of God's Word. Why did they praise God? It was because the great God rebuilt the great wall of Jerusalem in 52 days with His great power. What lesson do these words give us? The lesson is we must praise God. Our God is worthy to be praised. We must praise God as we consider the salvation work that God has done in our lives, in the past, in the present and also in the future.
In Psalms 135: 1-3, the psalmist said ‘Praise the Lord’ four times. Why did he exhort us to praise the Lord four times? The reason is given in verse 3: “Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good; sing praise to his name, for that is pleasant.” The psalmist encourages us to praise the Lord because He is good. In other words, we are instructed to praise the Lord because of who He is (more than what He does). And the psalmist confessed that it is pleasant to praise this good God (v. 3). Are we enjoying praising God because God is good and because we taste His goodness? Although we don’t understand all of God's work in our lives, we must believe that God is good and He will accomplish His good will in the midst of all the things that we go through, and we must sing praises to God by relying only God and His goodness.
In Psalms 135:4, the psalmist tells us more specifically why we should praise God. He gives us four reasons (Park). I hope that we realize God’s goodness and taste the joy of singing God through these four reasons.
First, we must praise God because He has chosen us to be His own possession.
Look at Psalms 135:4 – “For the LORD has chosen Jacob for Himself, Israel for His own possession.” The psalmist tells us that God chose Israel for His own possession "for Himself." How could He choose the harden-hearted and sinful people like the Israelites “for Himself” for His own possession? In order to answer this question, we should not look to the Israelites, the chosen ones. Only when we look to God who chosen them can we know the meaning of “for Himself”. Why did God choose such people like the Israelites “for Himself”? The reason was because God loved them. Look at Deuteronomy 7:6-8: “For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the LORD loved you ….” God chose us because God loves us. God chose us as to be His own possession because He loves us. Here, the word “His own possession" means "a treasured possession" (Deut. 26:18). Therefore we must praise God. We, who have been chosen by God as His own treasured possession in His love, must praise God.
Second, we must praise God because we are enjoying the natural grace that God gives.
Look at Psalms 135:6 – “Whatever the LORD pleases, He does, In heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps.” The great God who created the heaven and the earth (v. 5) is God who moves everything in nature. God is in control of all the great and small things of the natural world as He pleases (v. 6). God is in motion to preside over His own treasured people whom He chooses to live on earth. For example, in the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15, God caused “a severe famine” in the county in where the prodigal son was living after he squandered his estate with loose living so that he might return to his father (Lk. 15:13-20). Another example is in the book of Exodus, God brought plagues such as hail, darkness and other plagues to Pharaoh and the Egyptians and delivered the Israelites from Pharaoh. In this way, God moved the nature and He still does in our lives. Of course, God makes or allows us to live in abundance through abundant crops, but He also makes or allows us to dwell in need through drought in our lives. Like God didn’t send rain when Ahab was sinning and made it rain again when He listened to Elijah's prayer, sometimes God moves the nature to bring down the rain that we need and other times He stops the rain. What is important here is that we must acknowledge by faith that there is sovereign work of God in all of these. And we must praise God because we are thankful for enjoying natural grace that God gives us in His sovereign will.
Third, we must praise God because God has given us special grace of salvation.
Look at Psalms 135:12 – “And He gave their land as a heritage, A heritage to Israel His people.” God's grace can be divided into two. One is general grace (also called natural grace) and another is special grace. General grace is God's free grace that brings rain and cultivation to all mankind, even to the wicked. However, special grace is God's grace that is poured out only on God's chosen people. What is this special grace of God? It is salvation. We must praise God as those who are saved by God’s special grace. In Psalms 135:8-14, the psalmist writes of God's great works of salvation of the Israelites, whom God loved and chose and delivered them from Egypt during the Exodus. The psalmist began first with God's tenth plague among the ten plagues (v. 9) that is He smote the firstborn of Egypt, both of man and beast (v. 8). Then in verses 10-11, he talked about when the Israelites entered Canaan, the Promised Land, God defeated the Canaanites with His power. And in verse 12, the psalmist talked about God giving the Canaan, the Promised Land, as an inheritance to the Israelites. And in verses 13-14, the psalmist says that God's work of salvation must be communicated for generations. The reason is because it is a sign of God's love for Israel (Park). Therefore, if we love God, we must share God's special grace of salvation with others. In addition, we must be able to be sure of God's salvation not only in our lives now, but also in the difficulties we may face in the future, without forgetting and remembering and sharing God's saving grace in our past lives. With that conviction and assurance, we must praise God in faith.
Fourth, we must praise God because our God is true God, unlike all idols.
Look at Psalms 135:15-17: “The idols of the nations are but silver and gold, The work of man's hands. They have mouths, but they do not speak; They have eyes, but they do not see; They have ears, but they do not hear, Nor is there any breath at all in their mouths.” Here the psalmist tells us why we should praise God as God's chosen people who believe in the God of salvation and as His treasured possession. That is, the psalmist says that only our God of salvation is the true God (Park). The false idols don’t speak with their mouths, don’t see with their eyes, and don’t’ hear with their ears (vv. 16-17). All of these dead gods who cannot breathe are false. Hence, the psalmist says in verse 18: “Those who make them will be like them, Yes, everyone who trusts in them.” Because worshiping idols is a lie, it serves only as suffering for those who worship (Park). But God who loves us and chose us as His treasured possession saved us. Because of the covenant made in Jesus Christ, we have eternal inheritance, eternal life, as God's covenant people. He is our God and we are His people. Therefore, we must praise the true Savior God.
The psalmist said ‘Praise the Lord’ four times not only in Psalms 135:1-3 but also in verses 19 and 20 as well. Look at Psalms 135:19-20: “O house of Israel, praise the LORD; O house of Aaron, praise the LORD; O house of Levi, praise the LORD; you who fear him, praise the LORD.” In both the beginning and the ending of the Psalms 135, the psalmist exhorts us four times to ‘Praise the Lord’. He exhorts us to praise the Lord because He chose us as His own treasured possession, not only to give us natural grace but also to give us the special grace, the grace of salvation. He exhorts to praise the Lord because He is true God who gives us the grace of salvation. And he concludes this psalms by making this confession in verse 21: “Praise be to the LORD from Zion, to him who dwells in Jerusalem. Praise the LORD.” May we be able to taste and experience the joy of praising God for His goodness.
After praising the Lord's greatness,
Pastor James Kim