A Study in Psalms - Psalm 147

We have a wonderful psalm tonight, Psalm 147, which called the children of Israel to praise the Lord, and that's what we've done tonight We've answered that call in three songs, and my hope is that by the time you leave tonight, you'll be praising him more, praising him louder, throughout the day, throughout the week Psalm 147 You know, when you look at the lyrics, when you look at the words of the psalms that Tim picks out, they're full of the Bible, aren't they? They're full of the cross They're full of the attributes of God

But a lot of worship songs that are out there now are not that great Let me give you an example There's a proper way to praise the Lord, and then there's this This song says, I will celebrate singing to the Lord. I will sing to God a new song, repeat. I will praise God. I will sing to God a new song, repeat Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. I will sing to God a new song, repeat. I will celebrate singing to the Lord. I will sing to God a new song This is a chorus that's sung in many churches, in Thailand, in India, Myanmar, and it seems to be praising God

It claims to be praising God, but it doesn't The verbs in it say, I will, but the song, in the song, I don't Though God is mentioned as a recipient of my praise and singing, that song never says a single thing about or to God What's the chorus about? It's all about I, not God, but I myself The psalm we're going to read now, Psalm 147, you'll see does not fall into that trap It's a proper way to praise God, a correct way to praise God So if you'll open to Psalm 147, we're going to read that psalm now

Psalm 147, praise the Lord, for it is good to sing praises to our God, for it is pleasant and a song of praise is fitting The Lord builds up Jerusalem He gathers the outcasts of Israel He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds He determines the number of the stars He gives to all of them their names Great is our Lord and abundant in power His understanding is beyond measure The Lord lifts up the humble He casts the wicked to the ground Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving Make melody to our God on the lyre He covers the heavens with the clouds He prepares rain for the earth

He makes the grass grow in the hills He gives to the beasts their food and to the young ravens that cry His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of man But the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem Praise your God, O Zion, for he strengthens the bars of your gates He blesses your children within you He makes peace within your borders He fills you with the finest of wheat He sends out his command to the earth His word runs swiftly He gives snow like wool He scatters frost like ashes

He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs Who can stand before his cold? He sends out his word and melts them He makes his wind blow and the waters flow He declares his word to Jacob, his statues and rules to Israel He has not dealt thus with any other nation They do not know his rules Praise the Lord Let's pray Father, we come before you tonight wanting to give you the praise, the glory, the honor, the adoration that you and you alone deserve We did that with the fruit of our lips with just three psalms Now as we study God's word, may we give you praise

May we leave here tonight knowing more of you and how to praise you even more In Jesus' name, amen. I was originally going to title this psalm, The One Psalm, because as I studied in the Legacy Standard Bible, some of you have that Bible, the new translation from the Master's Seminary They took some of the pronouns he and they changed them Let me give you some examples It says, He is the one who heals the brokenhearted He is the one who covers the heavens with clouds The one who provides rain for the earth The one who makes grass to sprout on the mountains

He is the one who sets peace within your borders The one who sends forth his command to earth But I didn't because a lot of you don't have that new translation Most of us have ESV or NIV or NASB But I thought that was great, the way they call it, the one psalm You know, when we just read Yahweh is mentioned six or seven times, depending on your translation. ESV says laud him, while the NASB might say praise him God or Elohim is mentioned three more times Lord or Adonai is mentioned one time

And then look at the pronouns he, his or him are mentioned, depending on your translation, 28 additional times That is an incredible 46 references to God in these 20 verses Not once is the word I mentioned It's all about God, who he is, the great Yahweh, and his attributes Some of the attributes, mercy and compassion in verses two and three His omniscience in verse four His omnipotence in verse five Justice and wrath in verse six God's goodness in verse eight and nine His steadfast love in verse 11 His sovereignty in verse 14 His truth in verse 19 It's all about God and his attributes

The type of psalm, this has been called the Thanksgiving psalm because praise is mentioned six or seven times The author, we don't know the author The last five psalms, psalm 146 to 150, we call them orphan psalms There's 50 psalms, but the last five, we don't know who the authors are, they're unknown Do we know when it was written? Well, some people speculate based upon verses 16 and 17, which are a reference to a very, very cold storm that maybe was written after a winter storm

But I'm going to try to prove to you tonight that this psalm was written post-exilic when the Israelites came back from the Babylonian captivity and the walls were rebuilt, and I even think they sang it in the book of Nehemiah So probably about 586 Very few psalms, psalms 126, this psalm, were written after the Jews came back from Babylon What's the main idea in this psalm? It's just a hymn, a chorus that celebrates the Lord's sovereign rule over his creation and his love for his covenant people, Israel The outline is very simple Three reasons the children of Israel are to praise God

They're to praise him for God's restoration, for God's provision, and for God's protection And I think we too can learn and pray for those three things There's three paragraphs, as I mentioned, and each paragraph begins with a call to praise the Lord Verse 1, verse 7, and verse 11, there's a call to praise And then the following verses in each paragraph are the cause for praise So you look at your outline, you have a call to praise, and you have a cause to praise Let's begin with paragraph number 1, praise for God's restoration, verses 1 to 6

You notice you have a prologue and you have an epilogue, praise the Lord, or in Hebrew, hallelujah And as I mentioned last week, psalms 146, 147, 148, 149, and 150 are the last five psalms in the book of Psalm, and they're called the final halal psalms or praise psalms And all five begin with the words, praise the Lord, or hallelujah, and end with the words, praise the Lord, or hallelujah They've been called the grand doxology of the psalms, and they teach us how to praise the Lord They teach us how to worship In Psalms 146, it says, praise Him five times

In Psalms 147, it says, praise Him at least six times In Psalms 148, it says, praise Him 13 times In Psalms 149, it says, praise Him five times In Psalm 150, it says, 13 times to praise Him That's a total of praising God 42 times in five psalms So it ends with a great doxology Psalms 146 is the who It says, I will praise the Lord as long as I live The psalm we're going to look at tonight, Psalm 147, is the what What do we praise Him for? That's what we're going to learn tonight Psalms 148, verse one, tells us where to praise Him It says, praise the Lord from heaven Praise the Lord from earth

Psalms 149 is how Sing to the Lord a new song In Psalms 150, verse six, the last verse in the psalms, just says, let everything that has breath praise the Lord Gordon Fee, commenting on the psalms, says, the psalms, like no other literature, lifts us to a position where we can commune with God Capturing a sense of the greatness of His kingdom and a sense of what living with Him for eternity will be like John Piper said, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him

You know, we may not fall on our knees, but when you read these psalms, at least last six psalms, it ought to give you a sense of how to praise God, what to praise Him for, and give God the praise that He deserves Let's look at verse one, the call to praise It just says, it is good to sing praises to our God, for it is pleasant, and a song of praise is fitting Those three words, good, pleasant, and fitting Psalms 92, one says, it's good to give thanks to the Lord Psalms 135, three says, sing to His name, it is pleasant Psalms 33, one says, it is fitting for the upright to praise Him

That's the NIV translation But here in verse one of this psalm, it has all three words It is good, it is pleasant, it is fitting Verse one begins the psalm by declaring that our praise, praising God for believers is not just appropriate, it's right, but it's also delightful and fulfilling God will not share His glory with any other It was that great missionary, Henry Martin, who went into a Hindu temple in India, and he ran out screaming, how can the name of God be so defamed, because the gods of Kali, the goddess of destruction, would have human heads and severed in snakes

And God says in Isaiah 42a, I am the Lord, that is my name, my glory I will give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols So there's a call to praise Him You know, I've been a missionary for 18 years, I've been home now for three years

But why do we do missions? Well, you say we do missions to teach people about God, to save them, to get them baptized, but we do missions so that they will praise the Lord, because once they know God, they will praise the Lord, because what we're not going to be doing in heaven, we're not going to be doing missions in heaven, we're going to be praising the Lord in heaven So that's why we do missions, to get the nations that don't know the Lord to know Him and praise Him Let's look at the cause for praise, verses two to six

Why is praise good, fitting, and pleasant? Well, verse two and three are going to answer that question Number one, it's because He restores His people He restored the nation of Israel Verse two to three says, The Lord builds up Jerusalem, He gathers the outcasts of Israel, He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds Many commentators believe this psalm was written and sung at one of the greatest praise festivals in the Bible or the history of Israel

And that would be the dedication of the walls in Jerusalem in Nehemiah chapter 12. I'm not going to go through all the verses I had for time's sake, but in Deuteronomy 30, Deuteronomy 28 and 29, if you ever read it, pretty dark chapters, God gives the blessings for obedience to Israel, and then He gives the curses, something like 59 verses of the curses for Israel God told them that if you turn away from Me and worship idols, I will scatter you to the far nations of the earth And Israel did just that And God kept His promise, and He scattered Israel

There were three deportations to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar But God also said that in Psalms 51.8, David wrote this, Do good to Zion in your good pleasure Build up the walls of Jerusalem Psalms 102 verse 16 says, The Lord builds up Zion, He appears in His glory God loves Jerusalem He loves the nation of Israel, and He promised that He would bring them back Isaiah 56.8 says, The Lord God who gathers the outcasts of Israel And in Jeremiah 31 verses 38 to 40 says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when the city shall be rebuilt

They were punished for 70 years of captivity, but God promised that He would bring them back at the end of that 70 years And then you come to the book of Nehemiah, and if you want to turn to Nehemiah quickly, Nehemiah is my favorite book in the Old Testament other than Psalms, because there's no miracles in Nehemiah There's no angels visiting God doesn't speak to Nehemiah He's just the cupbearer to the king who has a burden to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls

And notice it says in Nehemiah 1 verses 1 to 3, The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakalath, now it happened in the month of Chislev, in the 20th year as I was in the Susa, in the citadel, that Hananiah, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem And they said to me, The remnant there is in the providence who has survived the exile is in great trouble and shame The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are destroyed by fire And so the book of Nehemiah, go to chapter 6

The first six chapters are all about building the wall, maybe about three miles around the city of Jerusalem The temple had been rebuilt The people were back Ezra was teaching the people So the people had been rebuilt The temple had been rebuilt But the walls hadn't been rebuilt But in Nehemiah chapter 6, verse 15, it says, So the wall was finished on the 25th day of the month of Elu in 52 days And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around it were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God

So the walls were rebuilt Now turn to Nehemiah chapter 12 This is where I believe Psalm 147 was sung And I'm going to read a few verses, but it says in verse 27 of Nehemiah 12, And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, they sought the Levites in all their places to bring them to Jerusalem to celebrate the dedication with gladness, with thanksgiving, and with singing, with cymbals, harps, and lyres And the sons of the singers gathered together from the districts surrounding Jerusalem and from the villages of the Neptuneites Now there's a bunch of words there that are hard to pronounce

Verse 30 says, And the priests and the Levites purified themselves, and they purified the people and the gates and the walls Now jump down, verse 31, I'm sorry Then I brought the leaders of Judah up on the wall and appointed two, not just choirs, but two great choirs that gave thanks One went south on the wall to the dung gate. I'm not going to go through all those names Now go to verse 38

The other choir who gave thanks went to the north, and I followed them with half the people on the wall above the tower of the ovens to the broad wall and above the gate of Ephraim and by the gate of Yeshona and by the fish gate and the tower of Hanala to the sheep gate, and they came to a halt at the gate of the guard So both choirs and those who gave thanks stood in the house of God, and I and half the officials with me. I won't mention all those names Now look at verse 43 And they offered great sacrifices that day and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy

The women and the children also rejoiced, and the joy of Jerusalem was heard far away Most commentators, and I believe they're right, Psalm 147 would have been sung for this occasion and perhaps written at this occasion What a great day it was After 70 years of captivity, the children of Israel are back in Jerusalem The temple's been rebuilt, but mostly the walls have been rebuilt because the city was desolate, in danger from enemies, so they're praising God there Verse 43 there in Nehemiah 12 has rejoiced her joy five times So God promised he would rebuild Jerusalem

He promised he'd gather the outcasts and heal the brokenhearted, and he did just that It was a great time of joy and a time to praise the Lord Now let's look next He controls creation It says he determines the number of stars and gives to them all their names Great is our Lord and abundant in power His understanding is beyond measure So the second cause to praise the Lord after restoration is God controls creation Not only did he create the stars here, he also named every one of them The psalmist exclaims, How great, how powerful, and how full of wisdom is our God in his creation

You know, the ungodly are fretting about climate control, right? Every day you're hearing more and more They're trying to push the panic button now, right? I could care less when they talk because my God is in complete control of creation He didn't just create it and let it control He'll control it to the very end But the ungodly are fretting about, but we don't have to In so many psalms, creation, redemption, and restoration are given the reasons for praise The works of God and all their marvelous details should be enough to inspire us to praise him

Psalms 8, Psalms 19 are probably two of my favorites The emphasis here in these three verses is not that God cares for the stars, which he does, but that the psalmist is reflecting upon the omniscience of our great God The same God who numbers the stars and is infinite in knowledge is so powerful enough to bring back the lowly, humble exiles to Jerusalem He cares much more for his children than the stars Next, he exalts the lowly Verse 6 says, The Lord lifts up the humble and he casts the wicked to the ground

You don't have the word but there, but we talked about contrast last week, didn't we? So here we have another contrast The first part of the verse says something about the upright or the humble, and then the last part about the wicked There's a contrast there Psalms 146, right, verse 9 says, The Lord watches over the sojourners He upholds the widow and the fatherless But the way of the wicked he brings to ruin God cares for the humble He cares for the outcast He cares for the brokenhearted Psalms 34, verse 18 says, The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit

Psalms 30, verse 2 says, O Lord my God, I cried to you for help and you have healed me God cares and loves the least significant people of the earth Not so much the wise, the mighty, the rich, or the powerful, which the world and the media adores. I spent seven years in India and I'm told that 97% of the Indians that come to Christ come from the low caste In India there are four castes So low castes are the lowest They used to be the sewer dwellers, the street sweepers But they're the majority that come to Christ Not the army guys, not the politicians, not the businessmen Very few come

God loves the low caste God loves the low, the poor, the humble The God who made the numbers of stars is a God who cares for you You know, the children of Israel here in this paragraph 1 were called to praise God for their restoration and they did The psalmist also, I think, tells us that we need to praise God for our restoration And I believe a lot of you do that. I won't read all of Ephesians 2 because I'll run out of time But Ephesians 2 says, You are dead in your trespasses in which you once walked in the course of this world

And then you come to verse 4, it says, But God, being rich in mercy and great love, He healed us He raised us up and set us at the right hand of God Positionally, now, even though we're not in heaven, positionally now, we are seated at the right hand of God because Jesus Christ saved us James Boyce says about this psalm, You know, we Christians today do not have a continuing city He's talking about Jerusalem like the Jews do But we praise God for gathering us from His perishing, sinful world, binding up our hearts, healing our wounds, and building up our city, which is the Christian church

Surely it is good, pleasant, and fitting for us to sing and the same kind of praises to our God And I think we need to praise Him for our restoration, and I hope you do that How often do you praise the Lord for your salvation? You know, our restoration from sinful to righteous ought to be a cause to praise Him daily, right? When I was preparing this psalm, I was thinking, We have classes for how to study the Bible here, right? We have classes how to join the church We'll teach you about baptism, and we'll teach you about communion this Sunday in the message

We have a lot of classes, and we're even going to have a class on how to pray next year you can join But have we ever had a class on how to praise the Lord? Where's Tim? Tim, you need to have one Because I think a lot of us, perhaps like me, raised in a Christian family My dad and mom did not sing loud They didn't have great voices They weren't in a choir And I told you, I always had a bad voice. I had to lip-sing in junior choir in church and got an F in music in grade one So I was reluctant to sing and praise the Lord But no more. I'm going to sing loud

So if you're near me on Sunday, I'm sorry. I'm going to sing the songs loud And that's what we should do So I hope this Sunday, you'll open your lips You'll sing loud You'll give God the glory, the adoration, the praise that he deserves John MacArthur said something really great Worship happens when I understand the depths from which I have been redeemed. I think maybe some of us don't understand the depths we've been redeemed Let's go on to paragraph two We praise God for his restoration Now let's praise God for the provision

So the second cycle of praise, praise must be given to the Lord because he makes provisions in nature and delights in those who trust in his love Verses seven to 11 So again, there's a call to praise Verse seven says, sing to the Lord with thanksgiving Make melody to our God on the lyre The lyre is a type of a harp So the second paragraph begins with another call to worship, to praise the Lord And it also says that we can accompany that praise with musical instruments Ephesians two in the Bible, five in the Bible. I'm sorry, Ephesians five

You know, the verse 18 to 20 says, do not get drunk with wine for that is debauchery, but be filled with the spirit And once you're filled with the spirit, you address one another with Psalms, with hymns, with spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ Why do some believers not like to sing? You know, I don't know John Piper said, you can't praise what you don't prize

If you praise God, if you praise his attributes, if you praise what he's doing in the world, you will praise him But let's talk about the cause for praise in verses eight to 11 Number one, the Lord provides for life on earth The Lord here It says he covers the heaven with clouds Notice the he's he prepares rain for the earth He makes the grass grow in the hills He gives to the beast their food and to the young raven by the cause for praise is that is that he provides for his creation He didn't just make his creation He provides for it

Some of the Psalms are about creation. I mentioned Psalms 18 and 19, but Psalms 29, Psalm 65, Psalms 104 and Psalms 139 would also be considered creation Psalms The children of Israel were to praise the Lord for creation, something I don't think we do enough of God sustains everything that he created Now he's going to mention two types of animals here, the cattle and the ravens, and they just represent the realms of all, all the animal kingdom The stanza here is complimentary to verse four, where the Psalmist praise the Lord for space for the stars

Here, the Lord is sovereign and concerned with his creation, not only the magnificent stars, but the lowly creatures on earth You don't know about you, but ravens are not really one of my favorite birds, but three things in verse nine, eight to nine He provides rain He makes the clouds and causes it to rain He causes growth He makes the grass to grow, which provides food for the beasts of the field, the cattle and the ravens The three things God does there Let's move on to point number two, sub point number two, the Lord delights in believers versus 10 to 11

First off, what the Lord doesn't delight in His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of man The Lord takes no delight in the natural abilities of his creatures Now, a horse was a powerful animal in war, but in God's eyes, it was a vain thing How many battles when you go through the Old Testament, did God grant the victory when they were outnumbered? You could spend an hour going through all the battles that God fought. I think my favorite one was in Joshua nine, which says that more people were killed by the hailstones than by Joshua's army. I love that

And there's so many like that Those people who depend, those who depend on the Lord, we know the vanity of military logistical or human power because the strength of the horse or man is nothing in comparison to the power of God In fact, the Lord hates those who depend on human conventions for security, and he will disappoint those who depend on themselves, but he justifies those who trust him Psalms 33, 17 says the war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might, it cannot rescue Zechariah four, six is not by might nor by power, but by my spirit says the Lord almighty

So the Lord does not delight in the strength of the horse or in men who trust in their own power What does he delight in? Verse 11, the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him in those whose hope is in his steadfast love. I don't have time tonight, but I've looked in Proverbs at least 19 times It says, fear the Lord Psalms. I can find 19 times It talks about fearing the Lord So what about us? Israel was told to praise the Lord for their creation They were told to praise the Lord and trust on him for their strength, even though the walls of Jerusalem were now built up

Remember when, when Nebuchadnezzar attacked Israel, it took him two to three years to breach those walls and destroy Israel But for us, we need to praise God for our provision And I, I trust everyone here praise for their food at breakfast, lunch and dinner, right? But is that all we praise him for? You ever just sit back and count your blessings as a song says, you know, I've lived in another country for 18 years and a lot of that, and it forces you to pray a lot more If you were to go on a missions trip to Argentina next July, I guarantee you'll come back and pray a lot more

You'll pray for the pastors You'll be, you know, you're not gonna eat the food you like Maybe there's a McDonald's there, but there's no in and out You're going to pray for things that you're going to be stretched, you know, for, but you, if you lived in another country, you would praise the Lord. I guarantee it for the wonderful things that God provides for you So we need to do that Don't we? Let's move on to the third paragraph Praise for God's protection The praise of the Lord begins with Zion, right? Because the Lord has promised to be Israel's God He's promised to dwell in her

He's promised to rule over her He's promised to build up Jerusalem He's promised to fortify her He's promised to bless her population within the borders And he's promised to prosper her with prosperity So there's a call to praise in verse 12 This is the third call to praise in our song It says, praise the Lord Oh, Jerusalem Praise your God Oh, Zion Lance got up Sunday morning You all here Sunday morning. I trust And he brought up the prayer card for this month. I hope you're getting this prayer card

If you don't come on Sunday and you need one the month of, of August, we're going to be praying for the children of Israel and Jews around the world But it was ironic because we made these about back in November So back in November, when we're making these cards, and originally I didn't even have Israel on the list, but our prayer leader, Gil Saldana says, we got to pray for the peace of Israel So we made one for Israel, but I didn't have Psalm 147 down then We didn't know what Psalms were going to teach then

So it's just the providence of God that the Psalm tonight is all about what Lance was talking about All about Jerusalem, all about Zion, and the need that the children of Israel were called to praise Jerusalem to praise God So even though the walls were rebuilt, there was still much to be done that So Lance mentioned on Sunday that Jerusalem is mentioned 811 times in the Old Testament Zion is mentioned 152 times Lance read that verse from Psalms 48 verses one and two Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, His holy mountain, beautiful in elevation

It is the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion in the far north, the city of the great king You know, if you've been with us at Christ Giving Church for any amount of time, Lance has told you that Israel and Jerusalem is the center of the world, not New York, not Moscow, not anywhere else God loves the children of Israel, and even though we are in the time of Gentiles, and that the nation of Israel is being punished, they turned their back on God, they rejected their Messiah If you're with us through the study of Daniel, God is not done with Israel They will be redeemed sometime

Not all of them, but many of them will And we will rule and reign for 1,000 years in Jerusalem So that's the call to praise The children of Israel were called to praise Him and to call for protection So let's look at the cause to praise In verses 13 and 14, they're going to praise God for four things, four blessings Number one, in verse 13, blessings of protection For He strengthens the bars of your gates This is a reference, I believe, to rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem in Nehemiah 1 through verse 12 And I mentioned in Nehemiah 6, it says they finished the wall on the 25th day

Why was there such great celebration? Because you had protection from enemies You had protection from armies Even if the greatest army came, Zerah the Ethiopian came with one million soldiers, and God killed them all Shnapgarab of Assyria came with 180,000 Assyrians Didn't even shoot an arrow in Jerusalem But a wall was very important So there's blessings for protection There's blessings for your children So when your children are living in protection, He says He blesses the children within you There was safety There was peace for the children within the rebuilt walls of Jerusalem

Number three, blessings of peace It says He makes peace within your borders Not only does the Lord rebuild Jerusalem, He grants peace within its borders When Israel was obedient to the Lord, there was a promise of peace no matter how many foreign armies came, no matter how many powerful there were Only when Israel was disobedient did God allow armies to come and destroy those walls and punish Israel And the verse that we have in our prayer card, Psalm 120 verse 6 says, Pray for the peace of Jerusalem And the fourth blessing is blessings of food He says He fills you with the finest of wheat

Psalms 104 I mentioned was another creation psalm Psalms 104 verse 14 and 15 says, You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that He may bring forth food from heaven. I'm sorry, food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man's heart You know, I'm not an expert, but I looked up, I had read somewhere that Israel is currently today, Israel today is a leader in agriculture and water management

They export many crops around the world and they don't have a lot of water, do they? They don't have any oil, but they are a leader in making food Okay, number two, He sustains nature by His degree In verses 15 to 18, notice the he's He sends out His commands to the earth His word runs swiftly He gives snow like wool He scatters frost like ashes He hurls down the crystals of ice like crumbs Who can stand for the cold? He sends out His word and melts them He makes His wind blow and waters flow So the praise for God is further evoked here about the power of God in the world of nature

All nature is at God's command That's why I could care less about climate change and all the fools talking about it When the sovereign Lord speaks, His word is effective He orders and ordains everything in His created order, whether it be snow here, frost, ice, or water And He does it by His word Genesis 1.3, so let there be light There's light God speaks, it happens And His word is true in nature as witnessed by the powerful effects of the natural elements and the seasonal changes Therefore, God's people have hope because they've received His words and we'll look at that next

So six times it said He sends out His command He sends out His word in nature His word goes forth swiftly It means efficiently It means instantly to accomplish His goal God spoke the creation into existence It was accomplished Isaiah 55, 10, and 11 says, as rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth a sprout, bringing seed to the sower and bread to the eater So God controls nature James Boyce, one of my favorite pastors, he's passed away, but he has a note here about the commentary in Psalms 147 from British war history

And he mentions that the history of England defeating the Spanish Armada, the Navy The Spanish were planning to invade England and an Armada, that's a huge Navy, was launched by the Spanish in the summer of 1588 to defeat the English Navy And then after they defeated the English Navy, the Spanish army would have come to England and conquered it The Spanish Armada consisted of 130 ships containing 7,000 sailors and 17,000 foot soldiers The English had only 90 ships under their command, but they were under the command of Francis Drake

The battle was fought for days, the English maintaining their distance and relentlessly bombarding the Spanish fleet They fought wisely and well, but the decisive factor was not the power or the might of the British Navy It was the fact that a strong wind churned up and pushed the Spanish ships into the English Channel and it drove the Spanish fleet up the channel in the North Sea, where many of the Spanish ships were destroyed The Spanish then tried to return south by rounding Scotland, where even more ships were sunk in storms

In the end, only about half the Spanish fleet made it back to Spain Their attempt to conquer England failed The English victory was complete The Spanish defeat was total The English celebrated by minting a new coin which bore the Latin inscription, Avant desus, which means God blew, and they took that from Psalms 147, verse 18 Back then, at least one nation knew how to praise God for his safety. I hope we do Let's go on to point three

He reveals himself in his word, says he declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and rules to Israel, he has not dealt with any other nation that do not know his rules The children of Israel were to praise him because he gave them his word of revelation His word was first and foremost the law of the Lord, the first five books of the Bible But that was God's distinct gift to the children of Israel at first No other nations got that And God's word was to have the same effect on its people as God's word has on nature as we talked about, right? They were to be responsive to his royal will

In the praise of Israel, there was to be a grateful, responsive heart to reflect the unique status Israel had in it When we come to this final part here in verse 19 and 20, the psalmist is calling Israel to praise the Lord because he established a personal and lasting covenant relationship with them With all the nations of the earth, he only gave it to Abraham Notice it says there was word, his statues, his rules God revealed himself to the nation of Israel and he put it down in writing

Paul would say in the book of Romans, what advantage has the Jew or what is the value of circumcision much in every way? To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God Charles Spurgeon said, Israel had a clear and exclusive knowledge of God while others were left in ignorance Election is the loudest call for grateful adoration The nations were covered in darkness Only Israel sat in the light, the sovereign grace in its fullest noontide of power So we need to, I think, praise God for his protection

You know, you've never been to Myanmar, but if you go to Myanmar, the first thing I noticed when we went to Myanmar, and Tom Mason could remember this too, is that every house has a gate, kind of like Irwindale You ever been door-to-door in Irwindale? You can't go door-to-door in Irwindale because they've got gates But in Myanmar, everybody has a gate But on top of that gate, there's a row of barbed wire Not one little strand, but circular strands On top of that row, there's another row of barbed wire, and then there's a third row of barbed wire

At banks, at businesses, in every house, barbed wire everywhere You know, and I was thinking, today we have ring cameras, right? We have neighborhood watches to protect us Someday we're going to need barbed wire In fact, I want to invest in barbed wire because as our crime is going up, barbed wire is going to be a thing in the future Trust me But we trust in barbed wire We trust in ring cameras We trust in guns But ultimately, it's God we need to trust for our protection And the children of Israel, they sometimes were obedient and trusted him Sometimes they weren't

But each and every day, we need to trust in him Just as Israel is to praise the Lord for restoration, provision, protection, we believers need to praise him for three things So maybe you don't know how to praise the Lord But start with restoration God has saved you And if you know the depths he saved you, you ought to give him praise and glory Number two, praise him for his provision Not just your food, but for everything you have And number three, for your protection Someone has said, worship is basically adoration And we adore only what delights us

There's no such thing as sad adoration or unhappy praise You know, I looked up, there are 11 psalms that begin with praise the Lord And we talked about them last year Psalms 111 says, praise the Lord. I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart in the company of the upright in the congregation Psalms 112 begins, praise the Lord Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments Psalms 113, praise the Lord Praise those servants of the Lord Praise the name of the Lord

And in the New Testament, probably the greatest verses on praise and adoration that we can get is Colossians chapter three, verses 15 to 17 And it says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another with all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thanksgiving in our hearts to God

And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. I don't have a class to teach you about praise, but when you read Psalms 147 and all the final five psalms and psalms, it ought to make your heart praise him more. I told you before, if you read a psalm a day, it's going to change your prayer life It's going to change your prayer life. I'm sorry, it's going to change your praise life and your prayer life And it's done that Next time you read the Psalms, look for the names of God

Look for the attributes of God, not like the cheesy I Will songs that are sung Don't look for Maranatha music, don't look for Elevation music, don't look for Bethel music There's some great worship music out there now and Tim usually picks a lot of it from Sovereign Grace Music is wonderful The Gettys, wonderful music And one group I really like lately because I mentioned City of Light, they're doing the Psalms So there's some wonderful worship music out there that you can follow that will help you worship right

So this Sunday, I know you're the choir because you come on Wednesday, not just Sunday. I want to see you singing loudly. I want to see you sing powerfully, joyfully, exciting, praising the Lord for his restoration, for his provision, and for his protection So I'm going to be watching you Sunday All right, next Wednesday, Psalm 149 What a Psalm that's practical for our day. I'll call it the worthlessness of wealth All about money next week, okay? You are dismissed Thank you very much for coming tonight.