What makes you want to jump up and shout for joy? Perhaps when your favorite team, after years of losing, finally wins the championship. You might feel like doing a little dance when you are told you will get a good raise at work, or you inherited a large sum of money. Many a young man or woman feels like singing when they realize the person they secretly love also loves them. In our short psalm for today, the psalmist feels like singing, dancing, and shouting for joy. Let’s take a quick look.
Our psalmist calls upon everyone to praise the Lord, especially those of us who are believers (vs 1). The psalmist, like the Apostle Paul, calls us believers “saints”. Saints aren’t just those special, holy people from past years. The Scriptures, particularly Paul’s Epistles, calls all believers “saints”. When we gather together with other saints, we should sing the Lord’s praise.
One reason to praise the Lord is that He is our Creator, our Maker (vs 2). Think, for a moment of the wonders of the different systems of our human bodies - all that is involved with digesting, our nervous system, how we see, our brain, our heart. We are fearfully and wonderfully made as another psalmist, King David, proclaimed (Psalm 139:14).
When little children are happy about something they will often sing, skip, and dance around. Their exuberance is overwhelming, and overflows into their actions. The salvation we have through the Lord Jesus is something to be excited about! In verse 3 we are encouraged to dance and make music in our praise. Not everyone is very musically inclined or talented, and playing an instrument and dancing may not come easily. We may not have a voice to sing in a choir, but we can all sing out our praises to Him in our own worship!
Believers are to sing, praise, and delight in the Lord, but did you know that the Lord takes pleasure and delights in those of us who have come to Him for salvation? (vs 4). We know that God loves us, that He loves us so much that He sent His Son to die for us (John 3:16). The Lord also takes great pleasure in His children. Just as a parent delights in, accepts, and is pleased with their children in those happy, joyful moments in a family, so the Lord does in us. Some of you may never have had a parent who delighted in them, but Scriptures here affirms that the Lord does find pleasure in us. No matter what degrading or humiliating remarks people have said to us, we can know that is not what God thinks of us! Those of us who have accepted salvation in Jesus are beautiful in His eyes. This should bring us all joy, and bring a song to our lips (vs 5).
The remainder of the psalm (vs 6-9) looks to end times, not present day. This speaks of the time following Jesus’s return to earth, when all nations and people will acknowledge Him as King. This isn’t calling upon us today to go out and clobber those who have not yet accepted Jesus as their Savior. There is a day, though, after His return to earth, when Jesus will execute His wrath on those who have opposed and rejected Him. However that is not now. The double-edged sword symbolizes the completeness of judgement that will be executed by the Messiah when He returns to punish all evildoers (Revelation 1:16).
Some may feel this day will never happen. “Written judgment” (vs 9) is another way of saying “according to the Scriptures”. God has prophesied the subjection of the nations to Jesus. That day is coming, and it is prudent to give ourselves to Him now, while He may delight and take pleasure in us, rather than never come to Him, and find that double-edged sword pointed at us!
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