Sermon: What to Have in Your Mouth and in Your Hand, Psalm 149

Don Ruhl

4 years ago

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What to Have in Your Mouth and in Your Hand

Psalm 149

Don Ruhl • Savage Street, Grants Pass, Oregon • February 24, In the year of our Lord Christ, 2019

Scripture Reader and Reading: Jacob Noveske – Ephesians 6.17–20

Prelude:

The Fourth Hallelujah Psalm: Psalm 149

Persuasion:

149.1a | Ways to Praise the Lord

1 Praise the LORD!
1. There are 35 verses in the Book of Psalms that state, “Praise the Lord.”
2. The last five psalms begin and end with, “Praise the Lord.”
  1. Have you gotten the idea yet that we should praise the Lord?
  2. Do you praise Him often?
3. Psalm 149 shows us different ways of praising the Lord.
149.1bc | Sing

Sing to the LORD a new song,
And His praise in the assembly of saints.
1. Singing is probably the most obvious way to praise the Lord.
  1. How many songs do we have that praise the Lord?
  2. We should have many because we come together to worship Him.
    1. Nothing says worship more than praise!
    2. He loves to hear our singing!
  3. Therefore, let us sing praise to Him whenever we can.
2. Notice two things about the last two lines of verse 1:
  1. Praise the Lord by singing a new song.
    
    3 Sing to Him a new song;
    Play skillfully with a shout of joy.
    (Psalm 33.3)
    
    1 Oh, sing to the LORD a new song!
    Sing to the LORD, all the earth.
    (Psalm 96.1)
    
    1 Oh, sing to the LORD a new song!
    For He has done marvelous things;
    His right hand and His holy arm have gained Him the victory.
    (Psalm 98.1)
    
    9 I will sing a new song to You, O God;
    On a harp of ten strings I will sing praises to You…
    (Psalm 144.9)
    1. That does not mean quit singing the old songs, but
    2. it does mean learn some new songs.
      1. Do not let your love for God become meaningless, but
      2. keep it fresh with a new song whenever you can learn a new one.
  2. Praise the Lord in the assembly of the saints, in the church of the saints.
    1. Is that not the perfect place?
    2. In the assembly are people who agree with you about praising Him.
149.2–3 | Rejoice

2 Let Israel rejoice in their Maker;
Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.
3 Let them praise His name with the dance;
Let them sing praises to Him with the timbrel and harp.
1. The Israel of God should automatically praise their Maker.
  1. What God treasures on the earth more than anything is His people.
  2. We are the only thing on earth
    1. that shall go into heaven with Him.
    2. That should show how much He treasures us.
      1. Jesus died for us.
      2. He did not die everything else.
        He did not even die for angels.
        Let us then give our total hearts to praising Him.
2. We should find joy in our King.
  1. If not, where will you find it?
  2. All other sources of joy will eventually fail.
3. Celebrate God!
  1. That is what I see in verse 3.
  2. No higher reason for celebration exists than our Creator.
    
    4 And he appointed certain of the Levites to minister before the ark of Jehovah, and to celebrate and to thank and praise Jehovah, the God of Israel… (1Ch 16.4, ASV of 1901).
    
    16 O Lord, by these things men live;
    And wholly therein is the life of my spirit:
    Wherefore recover thou me, and make me to live.
    17 Behold, it was for my peace that I had great bitterness:
    But thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption;
    For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.
    18 For Sheol cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee:
    They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.
    19 The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day:
    The father to the children shall make known thy truth.
    20 Jehovah is ready to save me:
    Therefore we will sing my songs with stringed instruments
    All the days of our life in the house of Jehovah.
    (Isa 38.16–20, ASV of 1901)
    1. What do you think we will be doing in heaven?
    2. I do not know everything, but one thing is celebrating God.
      1. Why not then while you are with your brethren in the assembly
      2. praise the Lord with your whole heart?
149.4 | The Lord’s Pleasure

4 For the LORD takes pleasure in His people;
He will beautify the humble with salvation.
1. We can all talk about what gives us pleasure.
  1. What do we each like?
  2. Listen to yourself this coming week and
    1. see how often you say, “I like…”
    2. We need to start asking another question.
2. What gives God pleasure?
  1. His people.
  2. He so takes pleasure in them
    1. that He will beautify them with salvation.
    2. Although they had gone astray from Him,
      1. although they had marred their souls with sin,
      2. He cleaned them up and gave them light.
149.5–6 | Praise and a Sword

5 Let the saints be joyful in glory;
Let them sing aloud on their beds.
6 Let the high praises of God be in their mouth,
And a two-edged sword in their hand,
1. The saints can be joyful in glory.
2. They can sing aloud even on their beds.
  1. When they come to the end of life’s journey,
  2. let praise of the Lord be in their hearts and minds, and
    1. on their lips,
    2. perhaps remembering songs from the past, or
      1. or listening to recordings.
      2. The point being that they do not start praising Him then.
3. Yes, let the high praises of God be in the mouths of His saints, but
  1. let then also have a two-edged sword in their hand.
  2. Why would they have a two-edged sword in their hands?
    1. The psalmist will show us in verses 7–9.
149.7–9ab | Use the Sword

7 To execute vengeance on the nations,
And punishments on the peoples;
8 To bind their kings with chains,
And their nobles with fetters of iron;
9 To execute on them the written judgment—
This honor have all His saints.
1. Israel took a sword:
  1. To execute vengeance on the nations,
  2. To bind their kings with chains,
  3. To execute the written judgment against them.
  4. This is the honor that the saints of God had.
2. The Israel of God now
  1. uses the Sword of the Spirit.
    
    17 …take…the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God… (Ephesians 6.17).
  2. Their weapons are not carnal.
    
    3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10.3–5).
  3. We use the word of God
    1. to battle the evil of the world and
    2. to cause God’s righteousness to grow in the world:
      
      9 With my soul I have desired You in the night,
      Yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early;
      For when Your judgments are in the earth,
      The inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
      (Isaiah 26.9)
3. You get filled up with the word of God and
  1. it will come out in your life.
  2. You will not be able to hide it.
    1. Even if you do not quote it,
    2. people will know that by which you live.
      1. It turn some people off, but
      2. it will attract others.
Praise the LORD!
1. Since Jehovah is our God,
  1. we have blessed privileges.
  2. Think on God all the time and
    1. your mind’s eye will open more than before
    2. to see endless reasons for praising the Lord.
2. That should be reason enough to praise the Lord.
  1. Use the Psalms to get you started.
  2. If you do that, I think you will not be able to stop.

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