1368. Hallelujah!

Welcome to The Daily Platform. Our program features sermons from chapel services at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Every day, students are blessed by the preaching and teaching of the Bible from the University Chapel Platform. Today on The Daily Platform, Dr. Steve Pettit is concluding a study series from the book of Psalms entitled, Encountering God. Today's message is entitled, Hallelujah from Psalm 150. Well, I'd like to ask you this morning to take your Bibles and turn with me to the last Psalm, Psalm 150. During the course of the semester, we have been working through our study here in Psalms entitled, Encountering God. We started with the first Psalm, and today we'll end with the last Psalm. There are of course 150 of them, and so my encouragement to you is to make these Psalms your friends. When my wife was diagnosed with cancer in 1999, my family had to get off the road traveling, and as we continued, I continued traveling as an evangelist. I spent many, many lonely nights living in our fifth wheel trailer in church parking lots.

And I'll tell you, it's a lonely place to be in a church parking lot in the middle of the night by yourself, and I remember many, many nights crawling up in bed feeling alone. And it was during that time that I just decided each evening before I would go to sleep that I would just read through the Psalms, and I would read through the Psalms to the point where I felt like I got at a point of peace and trust in the Lord. There are 150 Psalms. You say, which ones do I read?

It doesn't matter, they all work. And read them until they just, over your heart and your soul, bring comfort and peace and direction in your life. As we come to the last Psalm, I'd like us to read it this morning because the book of Psalms begins with a promise when we read in Psalm 1, it said, blessed is the man, or happy is the man. And now it ends with a praise. Praise ye the Lord. So let's begin this morning as we read in verse 1 where he tells us to praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him in the firmament of his power. Praise him for his mighty acts.

Praise him according to his excellent greatness. Praise him with the sound of the trumpet. Praise him with the sultry and harp. Praise him with the timbrel and dance. Praise him with string instruments and organs. Praise him upon the loud cymbals. Praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.

Praise ye the Lord. Between the first Psalm and the last Psalm, we have a life that encounters God. And what do you say at the end of a life that has known God and walked with God?

What do you say? You say, praise the Lord. So Psalm 150 is a climactic conclusion to an ultimate end. It is the end of a life that has encountered God where everyone and everything praises God. And so this morning I'd like us to look at this final Psalm and I'd like to look at it in a way where we ask basic questions that sets forth for us a biblical pattern of praise. That God's people should be in the habit and the practice of praising the Lord. So the first question I'd like to ask this morning is what does it mean to praise God?

Look at Psalm 50 verse 1. He says, praise ye the Lord. This is not a command or an imperative. This is called an interjection.

It's a statement with an exclamation point. And then the Hebrew, the word for praise ye the Lord, is one word. And you know that word. What is the word in the Hebrew? It's a universal word used in all languages. It's the word hallelujah. And the word hallelujah comes from first of all the word hallel, which means to praise. And the word yah, J-A-H, is a shortened form of the word Jehovah or the word Yahweh, which refers to the Lord's personal name. And so you can read it this way. Hallel, you, yah, or yah.

Or you can say it this way. You praise the Lord. So what is praise? Well it's like the light that radiates from the Sun.

It conveys the idea of shining. It also has the idea of cheering or shouting or clapping like what you do at the conclusion of a great concert. A number of years ago here we had on the campus the Korean children's choir. They were, they held a concert over in Rodehaver. They were spectacular.

It was, it was incredible. All these Korean children singing and all the songs were in English. And they, they, they did so many different things. And at the end of the concert the entire audience without any cues literally erupted in praise. They jumped up to their feet. They were clapping. They were shouting. And then to top it all out, all the Korean children came out in the audience and it gave everybody a hug.

I mean it was absolutely incredible. We praise them. It's the idea of boasting or bragging about what someone has done. So to praise is to extol enthusiastically the greatness of someone or something with words of excellence. And there are two interjections in this psalm. In the first phrase where he says praise ye the Lord and the last phrase where he says praise ye the Lord.

It's like, it's like the bookends. And in the middle there are ten imperatives that are given. Or if I could say it this way, commandments. Where he says, where he says praise him in the firmament. Praise him for his mighty acts. Praise him. You can count them out.

There are ten of them. And basically what he is saying is praising God is not an option. It's an obligation. It's both something that we delight in doing but it is also our duty. And the greatest truth about God is that he is worthy to be praised. And the deepest truth about ourselves is that you and I have been created to praise him.

We were made for his praise. Praise ye the Lord. So first of all, what does it mean to praise God? Then secondly, where do we praise God? And he tells us in verse 1, he says praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him in the firmament of his power. Number one, he says praise God in his sanctuary. Now in the Old Testament the Jewish people were commanded to praise God by going up to Jerusalem and worshiping him in the temple, the holy temple or the sanctuary. Psalm 100 and verse 4 says we are to enter into his courts with praise.

Now today in the New Testament it's different. Remember what Jesus said to the woman at the well, you've worshipped here in Jerusalem or you've worshipped on this mount but I tell you the truth the day will come where you will worship me in spirit and in truth. Where is God worshipped today? First of all, we know that the Lord's presence dwells in every individual believer. First Corinthians 3, 16, you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you. So first of all, we are God's temple. We therefore are to be worshiping God. Secondly, the Lord's presence not only dwells individually in the life of the believer but he dwells corporately in the body of believers called the church when we gather together for worship. Ephesians 2, 22, in him you also are built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. So we are called to worship God on earth as we meet with his chosen people in church. Therefore we both are to personally worship God on a daily basis. We talk about having time in the morning to read the Word.

What is that? It's actually a time of worship. It is getting my heart tuned up. Our hearts are like instruments. We get out of tune. Sometimes we get flat, sometimes we become sharp. In either case we have to calibrate our hearts to the Lord.

We have to take time to tune up. That's why we read our Bibles because we get our mind and our hearts focused on worshiping God. But then secondly we're to worship God corporately as the church assembles together as the body of believers come together on Sundays.

That is to be a time of worship. So we praise God in the sanctuary. But notice he says praise him in the firmament of his power. God is also to be praised in the vast expanse of heaven. All of heaven is a display of God's power.

Psalm 19.1 the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. And this kind of awesome display means that heaven is a place of praise. If you go to the book of the Revelation you see them around the throne of God.

What are they doing? They are worshiping the Lord. They are saying worthy is the Lamb that was slain. And so we are to praise God up there and we are to praise God down here. Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the Lord from the heavens. Praise him in the heights. Praise him all his angels.

Praise ye him all his hosts. Where do we praise God? We praise God everywhere. We praise God in the classroom.

We praise God when we get our tests back no matter what happens. We praise God out on the field of competition. I remember when I was playing soccer in a secular university I decided that I wanted to use the field as a place of praise because on a soccer field it becomes a place of cursing. And people get mad and they curse. They curse God. They curse each other.

They curse the opposing team. And I decided to respond differently. I've been on a field when a guy said Jesus.

I said do you know him? He's the Lord. You should see his look at me. Or when we scored a goal I praised the Lord. Praise God. Praise God everywhere. Praise him in the restaurant when you bow your head and thank him for the food. Praise him in your car when you're singing to the songs. Praise him at home.

Praise him in nature. Praise him everywhere. Where do we praise God?

Everywhere. There is no limitation to the place where his image bearers should not proclaim his praise. And then number three, why do we praise God? And the Bible tells us here we praise God first of all because of what he does.

Look at what he says in verse two. Praise him for his mighty acts. God's might has been displayed in multiple ways but two ways specifically. Number one, God has displayed his mighty power to us in that he has revealed himself to us. We have his revelation. For example, Daniel praised God because he understood that the ability to interpret King Nebuchadnezzar's secret dream was due to God's wisdom. God gave him the ability to understand.

Listen to what he says in Daniel 2.19. Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision and then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. He praised God for his revelation. You and I should praise God because God has given to us the revelation of himself. And where do we find it?

We find it in the Bible God's Word. This book unfolds Jehovah's mind. This voice salutes in accents kind. This fountain has its source on high.

This friend will all your needs supply. This letter shows our sins forgiven. This God conducts us straight to heaven.

This charter has been sealed with blood this volume is the Word of God. One of the greatest truths of our life is that if we have been saved we have had our eyes open to who God is. The Holy Spirit has come to live inside of us and now we can read this Bible and comprehend it not only mentally but in our whole inner being we can come to know and trust God. Praise the Lord. And I remember as a young Christian sitting there reading my Bible early in the morning and having a sense of the presence of God and the joy of the Lord filled my heart because I could understand God. I could know him, praise him for his mighty acts. But then secondly God's might is displayed and how he rescues his own people through prayer. Listen to what the Bible says in Psalm 20 verse 6. Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed.

He will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand. How many of you have ever had God deliver you from something in your life that was a threat or a danger? In the summer of 1978 I was working at a as an intern in my church in Denver, Colorado. I was living inside the city of Denver serving there but my parents were living south of the city of Denver in a community called Parker, Colorado.

And so I would go out and visit them on the weekend or whenever I had free time and it was about a 45-minute drive to get there. You take the interstate south and you get off in those days on what was known as Lincoln Street. Lincoln Street kind of connected you over to the city of Parker. Lincoln Street was a very narrow two-lane, you could call it a highway but it was more like a road. And in that part of Colorado when they would have floods oftentimes the roads would be washed out. And as I was driving home one day it was a torrential downpour of rain. I was coming down a hill on this very narrow road and be honest with you I wasn't paying attention to how fast I was driving.

I was actually singing in the car and the rain was coming down and I looked up ahead and I saw cars coming and I put my foot on the brake too fast and suddenly the car began to aqua plane. Literally it's like the tires just sort of lift up off the road and suddenly my car started to sort of slide this way with the back end coming to the right side. I saw the own coming cars.

I knew something was wrong when I was doing this with a steering wheel and nothing was happening. And honestly I got to a place where I did not know what to do. The car was coming. There was a telephone pole on my on my left hand and literally I threw my hands up in the car and I said God save me.

And I shot down the embankment between the own coming car and the telephone pole and hit a barbed wire fence and stopped suddenly. And it dawned on me that I was okay. I started laughing. I didn't know what else to do.

I'm not gonna cry. And I lifted my hands. I said praise God. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Now that's a long time ago. 1978.

I mean that's like 44 years ago and I feel like I'm still sitting in the car. How many of us have ever had many times in our life where God has reached down in mercy and he has saved us. Praise God in the way that he has displayed his power by rescuing us. Our generation is called to praise God for his mighty acts.

Psalm 145 verse 4. One generation shall praise thy works to another and shall declare thy mighty acts. You are developing right now and experiences in your life of God's delivering power where you praise him and you will tell the next generation you will tell your children what God has done for you. We're to praise him for what he does and secondly we are to praise him for who he is.

Look at verse 2. He says praise him on the basis of or according to his excellent greatness. We are praising God for who he is.

The word excellent there refers to abundance. The word greatness there speaks of the magnitude of God's glorious attributes. We are to praise God for the greatness of his faithfulness to us. For the greatness of his mercy to us.

His mercy is beyond our thoughts. We're to praise him for the greatness of his daily grace in our lives. For the greatness of his love for us that his love is set upon us in eternity past manifested in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ revealed to us through the Spirit of God coming to live inside of us and he's put his love in our heart. We're to praise him for the greatness of his righteousness in his holiness and we're to praise him for the greatness of his wisdom. O Lord God thou has begun to show thy servant thy greatness and thy mighty hand.

Deuteronomy 3 24. So why do we praise God? We praise God for what he does and for who he is and then number four how do we praise God?

And notice what he says in verses four and five he says praise him with the temporal and dance. Praise him with stringed instruments in organs. Praise him upon the loud cymbals.

Praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. We are to praise God in times of worship with music and singing. These two verses here describe some of the various musical instruments that were used in temple worship by the Levitical priest. Do you realize that the meaning of the word psalm refers to a song of praise that is accompanied by a stringed instrument like a harp. Fact is the idea of a psalm is the plucking of the strings and the singing unto the Lord like David did when he was a shepherd boy out in the fields and here David lists different instruments. There were three types of instruments they used. Number one they used wind instruments he says such as the trumpet or a ram's horn or what they call a shofar. Second Samuel 6 14 David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet. The psalm also mentions what we what it says organs in the King James but they're really piped instruments it could be a flute it could be a penny whistle a clarinet an oboe a bassoon a saxophone all of those are wind instruments. The second are stringed instruments the Bible speaks about the saltry and the harp and the play skillfully on a stringed instrument. The psalm here mentions the harp we know David was a cunning player on the harp we know that the harp along with the pipe are the earliest instruments mentioned in the scripture for example Genesis 4 21 it says Jubal was the father of all those who play the harp and the organ or referring to the pipe so wind instruments stringed instruments and then the third category are percussive instruments that's what a timbrel was it was like a tambourine it's linked to dancing as an expression of joy if you've ever been around Jewish people they always dance and there they have religious dances we're not talking about dancing to you know the latest pop music we're talking about religious dancing it's religious celebration if you go to the city of Jerusalem and go down to a Shabbat service that is a Friday night service and you watch the Jewish men come down their arms are linked behind each other and they're they're they're literally shuffling and dancing and singing as a form of rejoicing the Jewish people had many celebrations where they celebrated with joy during the Feast of Tabernacles it is said that he has not seen he who has not seen the joy of Tabernacles has never seen joy in his life loud symbols high sounding symbols that have whether a sense of a crashing symbols like we use in orchestras today or the smaller symbols like a castanet in either case we know that worship in the temple was sometimes quiet and subdued but oftentimes it was loud and it was noisy there was great rejoicing so let me try to give you a big picture of the music in the temple you can go through the New Old Testament and see this David invented and organized the musical ministry in the temple worship it started with David David had musical instruments made to praise the Lord there were 4,000 Levi Levites who were employed as musicians First Chronicles chapter 28 verse 5 of these 4,000 Levites at any one time 288 were chosen to sing in the Levitical choir not want you to think about that if we combine all the choirs here at Bob Jones University from the you singers all the way up to the corral we don't have 288 people that is a massive choir and this is just not a bunch of people who get together occasionally to sing these are musicians who were considered to be professionals we read in First Chronicles 9 33 and these are the singers chief of the fathers of the Levites who remaining in the chambers were free for they were employed in that work day and night they practiced all the time so that they could have music of the highest and the most excellent quality think about it if we give sacrifices of excellence should we not bring sacrifices of praise with excellence if you work hard to make your music excellent that is music that brings glory to God and the high point of the worship was actually the sacrifice and each sacrificial action had its own musical setting and was specifically selected from the Psalms so for this sacrifice they sang this particular song and the entire intent of the music was to magnify the Lord and a focus on the sacrifice the purpose of worship in music was never intended to entertain now it doesn't mean that it doesn't bless and inspire and uplift and edify us but the purpose of it is always for the glory and the praise of God alone we sing for the audience of one so how do we praise the Lord we do it with song and we do it with music and then finally who is to praise God and notice what he says let everything that hath breath praise the Lord praise ye the Lord God is to be praised everywhere we are because of everything he is with everything we have by everyone Psalm 150 finishes where we started we started with God meditating on his word we become blessed and happy through that and the end result is we sing praise to the Lord and so this great book of Psalms ends with one word and it is the word hallelujah praise ye the Lord from the rising and this of the Sun unto the going down to the name of the same the Lord's name is to be praised so I ask you one simple question are you praising the Lord I'm dead serious do you throughout the course of your day just lift your heart up say God I praise you God thank you God you're so good to me Lord I don't deserve this thank you for this thank you for this thank you for this thank you for this it's the greatest cure for griping it's the greatest cure for complaining it's the greatest cure for the blues don't sing the blues sing the praise of the Lord and it will lift up your heart as you lift it up to God and give him praise and glory let's all stand together with our heads bowed and eyes closed as we dismiss would you take time right now in your own heart to say thank you Lord I praise you I praise you for who you are I praise you for what you've done I praise you Lord for you have revealed yourself to me I praise you Lord for your word that you've given to me I praise you for your salvation that you've placed within my heart I praise you that you have adopted me into your family you've named me as your child you've reconciled me back to yourself you have redeemed me from bondage and sin thank you God for your gifts thank you God for all that you've given me praise the Lord Lord we give you praise and thanksgiving for who you are for your excellent greatness for what you have done how that you have not only revealed yourself but you constantly rescue us in your mercy thank you Lord that you have given to us Jesus Christ the revelation of God to man thank you Lord that you have given us your mercy and help us to be people of praise who praise you at all times thank you Lord that you've given us the book of Psalms that we can know you and understand you and we give you praise for all of these things in Jesus name amen you've been listening to a sermon from dr. Steve Pettit from the study series encountering God which is a study from the book of Psalms thanks again for listening and we look forward to the next time as we study God's Word together on The Daily Platform