Psalm 146
So while you’re making your way
to Psalm 150, let me just ramble a minute about these last five
psalms. I think I got that right, 146,
147, 148, 149, 150. Yes, I do have that right. So these psalms
are sometimes called the Great Hallels. Notice 145 and you can
look at the others. They all have the phrase, praise
the Lord. And that’s translated into English
very often as Hallelujah. So Hallel is a Hebrew verb to
praise. Yah is like a contracted or short
version of Yahweh. So when you have a hallelujah,
it’s the verb tense that means you or y’all praise Yahweh. So anytime you hear the term
hallelujah, it means you or y’all praise Yahweh. And it’s usually,
if not almost always, or maybe even always, I’m not quite a
hundred percent sure, it’s in the imperative form. And y’all
know what imperative means. That’s when mom hollers out the
back door, supper, and that means get in, get washed, get to the
table before it gets cold and she has to slop it to the hogs.
So that’s sort of the context of Psalms 146 through 150. Couple other thoughts or two
before we read. So if you take Psalm 146, one,
which says in verse two, I will praise the Lord as long as I
live. I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Skip all the way to 150, verse
six. And so you take these five Psalms
as a whole. You go from, I’ll praise God
with every, good bit of umption and gumption in me right to let
everything that has breath praise the lord so see see it as a whole
but also see these as a as a as a big closing to the whole psalter
one uh psalm one blessed is the one who does not sit walk or
stand in the way of the ungodly he’s like a tree planted by streams
of living water All he does prospers, the wicked are not so, they’re
like the chaff tossed up, the wind carries it away. The righteous
prosper, the wicked will not. So think of Psalm 1 all the way
to 150. But here in these last five,
God is to be praised because he is praiseworthy. And you’ll
notice in these last five, there’s not a historical context. There’s
not David in trouble. There’s not David being chased
by Saul. There’s not some major sin or issue. These are just
praise God, praise God, praise God. Lots of, lots of fireworks. All that I am, Psalm 146, we’re
going to see all that I am all the day and all of my life. I’m going to praise God, or to
say it in our shorter catechism way, I’m going to glorify God
and enjoy him forever. Now, some will say that these
Psalms were written during the time of the return from exile
from Babylon, so the last 400 years before Christ. And these
would be Psalms written under the pen or under the influence
of Haggai and Zechariah, who did a lot of the prophecy during
the rebuilding of the second temple. Could be true, may not
be true. If it is, great. If not, doesn’t
hurt us in any way. So we’ll start with Psalm 146
for tonight. So look there. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. I
will praise the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praises
to my God while I have my being. Put not your trust in princes,
in a son of man in whom there is no salvation. When his breath
departs, he returns to the earth. On that very day, his plans perish. Blessed is he whose help is the
God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord, his God, who made heaven
and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever,
who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to
the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoner free. The Lord opens
the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are
bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the sojourners. He upholds the widow and the
fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. The
Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord. Well, as we
think about Psalm 146, we wanna begin by thinking about overused
words. And you know what they are? That’s
awesome. Everything’s awesome. But saying,
that’s awesome, should only be used about once a year. So in
2021, you’ve already said the word awesome. You can’t use it
until 2022. It’s overused. Or how about, that’s great. Not
everything is great. We got behind a fuel truck for
a refueling truck that was announcing a certain convenience store. The best coffee on the highway.
Really? I mean, that’s pretty hard to
find. I drank some pretty bad coffee
over the last week of vacation, paid a lot for it, and it was
pretty bad. So I’m a little skeptical. But how about the word hallelujah?
Don’t you imagine that some children across our land, when they got
out of school this past week, said hallelujah? School is out. And their mothers who’ve put
up with them through COVID and affixed laptops and Zoom portals
and whatever did not say hallelujah but said something which probably
could not be repeated. But you get the picture. We overuse
words. Hallelujah should be set apart
because of what it means. It’s the praise command, hallelujah. Praise Yahweh. Praise the divine
covenant-keeping God. It’s a command often disobeyed. How many people, well, I don’t
have to ask the question that way, I can ask it this way. We’ve
been missing a lot of people lately, haven’t we? Our Sunday
nights have dwindled, our Wednesday nights have dwindled, our Sunday
school class, well, let’s perk back up a little bit, but we’ve
missed a lot of people lately. And think about our definition
of imperative. Mom calls us to supper. Opens
the back door and hollers the word supper. That’s an imperative,
right? We fudge a little bit in Southern
English. She hollers supper, that means get in, get washed,
and get to the table. Well, in the Bible when it says
hallelujah, what does that mean? Get in, get washed, get in your
pew and praise the Lord. But church is optional these
days for so many. Last Sunday, we worshipped at
a church that we we’ve probably been to 10 times while on vacation.
A year ago, it was pretty sweet because they just got the Trinity
hymnal, not the Psalter hymnal like we have, but the the other
Trinity hymnal. They had the previous one from
1961, but we were with them last year on their, their new Sunday.
And it was cool. We were excited for them. Well,
this past week when they were there, they were announcing the
arrival of their new pastor. Their pastor, who had been there
for quite some time, maybe 25, 30 years, was retiring, and they’re
getting a new guy, a young guy. It’s a guy whose blogs I read,
whose articles I’ve read. It’s a fellow that’s well-known,
and we were excited for them. But it’s good for us as a family
to go to worship on a Sunday, even when away. Why? Because
it’s the Lord’s Day, for one. But God was good to us all week. And the reason you go to church
is to worship God, to give thanks, to offer him your sacrifice of
praise and all the rest. And it doesn’t matter if you’re
in Burlington 49 weeks out of the year, the other three weeks,
you can find a church. It’s a good thing to do. It’s
good to be with other saints. But church has become optional.
Praising Yahweh has become optional. So this is a psalm that I think
helps us look at what we value. who we value. We live in a world full of troubles,
and sin is not a new problem, it’s an old problem. But don’t
you think we are living in a very troubled era? You read the statistics,
especially in the anti-policing movement of the last year, crime
is up by triple digits. You think about during COVID,
suicide rates are way up. You think about during COVID,
depression and heartache and isolation have really hurt people’s
bodies and souls and spirits. But has it driven people to church?
No, the statistics we read are that churches have emptied out.
And some of that’s because of their woke-ism. Some of it’s
because they’ve been closed. But in an era where we need God
more and more, what have most people done? They’ve just isolated
and entered into more self-help and self-care. That’s the new
religion today, isn’t it? Self-care. I’m going to take
some time for me and some self-care. And yes, you should brush your
teeth. Yes, you should go to the dentist. Yes, you should
probably take a walk every day. You should probably, you know,
Scrub behind your ears and do all those things your mom taught
you to do, those other mom imperatives, right? Self-care good, but self-care
apart from God, not good. And so let’s think through our
trust in God or our trust in man. But before we do, look at
verses one and two and then verse 10. These are the bookends of
Psalm 146. You’ve got the imperative, praise
the Lord, hallelujah. And then you’ve got a repeat,
praise the Lord, oh my soul. And then I will praise the Lord
as long as I live, I will sing praise to my God while I have
my being. Then jump to verse 10, the Lord
will reign forever. Your God, oh Zion, to all generations. And then there it is again, hallelujah. So think about the opening and
the closing here, this imperative. The person who is anchored in
Jesus Christ, the person whose faith is in Yahweh, Almighty
God, their soul, their inner being will praise God. It’s the
first thing to think about there. Then their daily life, as long
as I live, I will praise the Lord while I’m sweeping the porch.
When I’m taking my vitamins, when I’m changing diapers, when
you have a house full of kids and grandkids, when you’re taking
care of a dying mother, when you’re checking people’s eyes,
we could go right around the room, couldn’t we? And we could
say, as I do my daily calling. I will praise the Lord while
I live. So it’s from our soul, it’s all
that we have. It’s in our daily living, but
it’s also, notice, our whole lifetime. I will sing praises
to my God while I have my being. Some of y’all, I think, are in
the class during Sunday school on Samson. And I think in last
week’s lesson, you heard Dr. Godfrey say that as you get middle
age and older, We have a weakened resolve to live for God. Did I hear that correctly? I
think he said that last week. If he didn’t, he should have.
Because it’s a really good statement, but it really struck me hard.
And I think of that with this psalm. Do I show up to church? Do I live my daily life and is
my whole trajectory about glorifying God and enjoying him? And I mean,
as hard as I cheer for the Blue Devils, or as hard as I cheer
for the Packers, or as hard as I cheer for who’s playing in
the French Open, or you’re going to hear Jimmy Buffett in a few
weeks. And you’re probably going to sing the songs in the rounds
with the crowd. Do we? Do we come to church with
that great exuberation? This week, I’ll see some of my
pastor friends who, for various reasons, love the Clemson Tigers
football team. And if you go to Death Valley,
that place is loud. That place is rocking, that place
is shaking. And hopefully this year, y’all
heard the sad news, Coach K is gonna retire at the end of the
season. But when you go in Cameron Indoor Stadium, your life is
forever changed. And I don’t mean that in a trite
way. It is an experience. That place
vibrates with joy. I mean, people are into it there. And you come out of there with
a buzz that takes days to get over because of all the shaking
and all the noise and all the pulsing. It’s like a nightclub
of basketball. But we come to church and we
fill in the Bs and the Ds and the 0s and the 8s. And today
was a little long, wasn’t it? He’s got me beat. My kids told me so. I felt good
about it. But we get a little fidgety. We shift from one cheek
to the other because we get a little worn out in the church. Oh, we sang six verses. Why does
the preacher think we need to sing six verses? Because God
is worthy of it, right? We’re not Baptist. We’re not
half-hearted Christians. We’re going to do the whole thing.
But what does this say about our soul, our inner being, our
daily living? even our lifetime, do we live
and breathe to praise Yahweh? Well, two perspectives to think
about in light of praising Yahweh. The first perspective is trusting
in men. The second perspective is trusting
Yahweh. And there’s just two verses on
trusting men. Look at verses three and four. Put not your
trust in princes, Put not your trust in a son of man in whom
there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns
to the earth. On that very day, his plans perish. I think it was last summer, I
caught a video of a certain church in a certain city, and that certain
church in a certain city, their choir sang an anthem to President
Trump. That will not happen here. but
their choir sang an anthem called Make America Great Again. And
I thought how disappointed God must be that in a church, his
name is not praised, but a man is praised, a man who will return
to the dust. And do you catch that phrase
here in verses three and verse four? Put not your trust in princes,
Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama. Boy, people really trusted in
Obama, didn’t they? Put not your trust in a son of man in whom
there is no salvation. Oh, promises, promises, right?
Lower taxes, better schools. A lot of good that does. When
his breath departs, here’s the promise of Genesis 3 to Adam,
he returns to the earth. There is no living emperor There
is no living president whose life and whose ministry, so to
speak, is perpetual. Where’s King David? He’s resting
with his fathers. Where is Ronald Reagan? He’s
been dead for a decade. Where is you fill in the blank? They’re off to the side or dead
and in the grave. But we put our trust in these
people. Why is it that we in America
think God has selected us as the new Israel? Y’all catch that? You flip on your TV and you would
think God has done a disservice by giving us a Democrat. God
is probably actually doing us quite a service. He’s chastening
us for our wickedness, chastening us for our ways. But we are not
Israel. We are not a theocracy. We are not God’s chosen people.
Yes, there are Christians in America, and that’s wonderful.
But this God and country business is exactly what verses three
and four. You could put in the blank here.
Who’s gonna be at the helm of my Duke Blue Devils basketball
team? I mean, Coach K is gonna be 75. Did we think he would
make it forever? And now they’ve hired a 33-year-old?
And what’s he gonna go through? Well, how are you gonna live
up to Coach K’s standard? And you know what his answer
was? I’m not. But I’m going to show up to work every day. And
there will be a 21st coach, a 22nd coach. There’ll be a 23rd coach.
And you could fill in the blank with, what if my heart doctor
retires? What if my dentist moves to the
beach? you’ll be just fine. That’s why
we saying God moves in a mysterious way. He shakes up the earth and
what is shakable so that what is unshakable and what is lasting
will be put before our eyes. And so we don’t trust in nobles.
We don’t trust in elites. We don’t put our trust in Hollywood.
They will return to the dust and they are mere mortals. I
can’t remember where I heard this story. Uh, But supposedly
at some point in human history, when a man was going to be coronated
or crowned or named and put into office as an emperor, before
the big moment, the big celebration, he was taken to a yard outside
the city where there were slabs of marble and he would choose
his tombstone. He would choose his gravestone
and they would etch his name. And why was that done? It was
to remind him that though you are the king, the emperor, the
ruler of vast lands, it will come to an end. Your tax laws,
your political agenda, your education system, and on and on it will
end and it will die with you. You will return to the earth
and on that day your plans will perish. But think about this. Following men, following mortals,
it leads to disaster. When has following a man on earth
done such good for us? And we think of it in political
terms, we think of it in the sports world. We were talking
yesterday in the car on the way home, where’s this tennis player
that was famous 10 years ago? Where’s that basketball player
that was famous 20 years ago? My kids, they’re not here so
I can say something about them. They said, who’s Michael Jordan
one time? They now know. They’ve been schooled.
They’ve been educated. We’re not revisionist in our house.
They know, even though he was a Tar Heel, he’s a good basketball
player. Supposedly, Michael Jordan was
asked recently, could he and his teammates beat LeBron and
the Lakers? And he said, yeah, I think we
could. He said, how many would you win
by? And he said, well, we could probably, my teammates and I,
beat them by two or three points. Oh, two or three points, that’s
all? And Michael Jordan said, well, you gotta remember, we’re
all getting on up to 60. We put our hope in men and mortals,
but they get old, the twinkle leaves their eyes. I think also, maybe in light
of what we’ve learned in Sunday school about Sampson, every leader
in church history Every leader in American history, every leader
in world history, they failed. Only Christ, only Christ is a
sufficient prophet, priest, and king. Well, let’s think about
putting our trust in Yahweh, verses five through nine. And in verses five through nine,
you’re going to get a picture of what life under Yahweh’s rule,
under his providence, under his, under his leadership, as it were,
what you will get. Every need will be supplied. God is not a mere man. God is
not a weak man. God is not a dying man. And so
you see in verse five, a beatitude. Blessed is he whose help is the
God of Jacob. Blessed is he whose hope is in
the Lord, his God. Blessed is he because Trust in
the one who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them
is. He trusts in him who keeps faith forever. He trusts in him
who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to
the hungry, the one who sets prisoners free, who opens the
eyes of the blind, who lifts up those who are bowed down.
This God, this Yahweh, loves the righteous. He watches over
the sojourners. He upholds the widow and the
fatherless. I think back over the last year,
we’ve said very little about COVID. And we’ve said very little
about social justice. But we’ve just read Psalm 146
for the second time today. We’ve just sung it for the second
time today. And hasn’t it not hit you between the eyes? This
is social justice. This is the God who pities the
weak and the helpless and the fatherless and the husbandless,
the outcast, the blind, the one who is bowed down, the one who
is in prison, the one who is in oppression or hungry, our
God. creates and sustains them, every
need supplied. And so as Christians, when we
have faith in God, we can live with expectation in God’s promises. We can live in patience that
he’s going to work things out in his time and for our good.
But we can also live in certainty. Blessed is he whose help is the
God of Jacob. Who’s your helper? It’s not the
president. It’s not the governor. It’s not
the Republicans. It’s not the Democrats. It’s
not the socialists. It’s not the squad. It’s not the local
school board. It’s not your local friendly
police officer. It’s not even your mom or dad
or the elders of the church. It’s God. It’s Yahweh. That’s who your help is. But also it’s who your hope is.
And one thing to remember about hope is our hope is certain. It is in something that is firm
and fixed. Our anchor that holds is wrapped
around the throne of grace in heaven. And so our anchor is
not down into the sea and into the bottom and to the sand, our
anchor is up and it’s in heaven and it’s attached to the eternal
throne of God, which does not move. We live in a world where
everything moves, it disappears, it has planned obsolescence.
Gemini this week, when we go to General Synod and worship
and deliberate in the sanctuary of First Presbyterian Church,
it’s 250 years old. And guess what, mother of the
bride, their pulpit is made of marble and it doesn’t even get
moved for weddings. It doesn’t matter what kind of
socialite you are. And what does that say of the permanence of
God’s promises, God’s word? Can you, can you imagine what
it looks like when the pulpit gets kind of wheeled out of a
sanctuary and the communion table gets wheeled out and the baptistry
gets wheeled out? You’re, you’re removing the ways
God conveys his grace to his people. And so it’s good for
those things to be front and center. not only in our worship,
but in our minds. Blessed is he whose help is the
God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord. Now look at, there’s
about seven things that give us confidence. Why Yahweh? Instead
of a Republican or a Democrat or a Prince or a horse or a military
movement, he made heaven and earth. He made the sea and all
that is in them. He keeps faith forever. So he’s
the creator. He’s the covenant keeper. He’s
the God of justice. He executes justice. He’s a provider. He gives food. He’s a savior. He sets prisoners free. He’s
a healer. He opens the eyes of the blind. He’s a rescuer. He lifts up those
who are bowed down. He loves the righteous. And if
you’re a poor, oppressed child or widow or fatherless, whatever,
he watches over and upholds you. And we’ve got example after example.
Read the book of Ruth. Read about Hannah and her desire
for a child. Read Mary’s song in Luke. Chapter
1 and 2, look at the life of Jacob, the God of Jacob is mentioned
here. He’s a covenant-making, covenant-keeping
God. But did you catch the glimpse
of the Messianic hope here? You think of Isaiah, Jesus, remember
when he opens the scroll in the synagogue early in his ministry,
and he says, I’ve come to release prisoners. I’ve come to give
sight to the blind. I’ve come to heal those that
can’t walk. But most of all, I’ve come to set you free from
Satan and his dominion and his darkness. And so there’s a creed
here to Yahweh in a sense. Now, there’s another perspective
to think of here. What if these are the great halels
of the ministry of Haggai and Zechariah, exiles returning,
exiles who were captive, exiles who returned and instead of building
the temple and worshiping God, what did they do under Haggai’s
era? They built paneled houses for
themselves while the house of God laid in ruins. And what does
Haggai tell them? You’re growing crops. but they’re
not feeding you. You’ve got these money bags and
they’ve got a hole in them. And so as you walk along to the
marketplace, so to speak, the money is just dripping out because
you’re not faithful to me. And so I am not blessing you.
And so when they read this and they sing this, and maybe we
as a church could think of this in our stretches of unfaithfulness.
We love and walk with Yahweh, he’ll bless us. But when we live
our own way, our own plans, he will not bless us. And so they
were saying, after a stretch of hardship here, this our God
has blessed us. Think of this Psalm in light
of 2021. If you go home and flip on the news channel, whichever
one, conservative, liberal, whatever, at least haven’t they taken down
the death toll? Has that gone off of CNN now?
I sure hope it is. How many COVID cases? How many
deaths? Whatever. I noticed the Alamance News is still printing
it. And over a year and 14 months time, we’ve had 286 deaths in
Alamance County. I would imagine more people died
from the flu and other things during that stretch. And I think
we have an over over-emphasized issue in our land. But think
about 2021, the hundreds of percent crime rate increases, yes, the
deaths and the depression and all. Churches emptying out, 50%
of people not returning to church pre-COVID attenders. Don’t you
think the ones that will make it aren’t trusting in Dr. Fauci? They aren’t trusting in whoever’s
president. They’re not trusting in Pfizer and Moderna and Johnson
and Johnson. They’re not trusting in the science.
We are trusting in the creator, the redeemer, the covenant maker,
the covenant keeper, the God of Jacob. And I think as long
as we resolutely live with God as the focus of our life, God
is the focus of our daily living, and God is the focus of our soul
and our heart’s desire, we’re gonna make it just fine. The
world can go to hell in a handbasket, and it is. but we can continue
to march on that path to the heavenly city. And we can praise
God, not only in this life, but in the life that is to come.
So let’s pause and thank the Lord. Lord, we bless you for
showing us these truths in this Psalm that help us pick you over
mere men, mortals. Yes, they may be handsome and
beautiful and gifted and charismatic, but they are no match for you.
You are God. You live forever. When your mouth
speaks, it is truth. When you make a promise, it is
forever. So forgive us, Lord, for trusting in political platforms. Forgive us for trusting in school
boards or governing authorities, forgive us for putting our trust
in our bank accounts, our doctor’s offices. Yes, these things are
wonderful. These are your people set apart
to minister to us in special ways. But we need to look to
you, the creator, redeemer and provider. So fix our eyes this
night on God and on his promises that are yes and amen in Christ.
And we ask this in his name. Amen.