DUNCAN/Good and pleasant praise
If you have your Bible, I’d invite you to turn with me to Psalm 147. Matthew Henry once said, “In singing this psalm, it’s easy to apply it to ourselves both to personal and national mercies. Were it but as easy to do so with suitable affections.” In other words, he says when you read this psalm it’s very easy to see how you could pray it for yourself and pray it for the nation, but can we do it with the right kind of affection of praise to God? It reminds me of something that the great theologian John Owen once said — “It is easier to bring our heads to worship than it is to bring our hearts to worship.” That’s something that I want us to think about as we look at this psalm and it’s three parts, because this exhortation to praise the Lord ought to prompt in us some reflection on our affections in praising the Lord.
Praise the Lord for His Greatness
The first thing that I want you to see, you’ll see especially in verses 1 to 6, and that is, the psalmist tells us that we are to praise the Lord for the Lord’s greatness, and he wants us to notice who the Lord loves. After saying, “Praise the LORD,” after giving that exhortation, if you look from verses 2 to 5, he begins to pile up things that the Lord has done. He says the Lord determines the numbers of the stars and He gives them names. Do you know how many stars there are? You don’t — I don’t — Nobody does! Even with a Hubble space telescope and all of the amazing advances in science, we don’t know how many stars there are. All we can do is guesstimate. Scientists think that there are approximately 300 sextillion stars.
Now your God not only knows the number of the stars — The psalmist says He determined the numbers of the stars, and He names them. That is how great He is. The psalmist is trying to set something in front of your eyes to adequately motivate you to an appreciation of the greatness of the God that you love and serve so that you can praise Him fittingly for His greatness. And then he does the most remarkable thing. Look at what he does in the very last verse of that first section, verse 6. “The LORD lifts up the humble.” That God who made the stars, all of them, and named them, so great He is, loves to exalt the humble.
Praise the Lord for His Provision
Secondly, if you look at verses 7 to 12, the psalmist tells us to praise the Lord for God’s provision and to praise Him for who He takes pleasure in. He’s the provider of all His creation. He gives the beasts what they need, He gives the birds what they need; He provides rain. He is the provider and so we are to praise Him for that rich provision. “His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor His pleasure in the legs of a man, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His steadfast love.” The Lord’s especial delight and pleasure is in those who fear Him and those who hope in His lovingkindness. Not the strong, not the swift, not the great, not the powerful, but those who reverence Him in awe and those who put all their hope in His lovingkindness.
In his little book titled, The Life of God in the Soul of Man, Henry Scougal says this. “The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love.” In other words, you know what a soul is like based on what that soul loves. Is our heart captivated by the greatness and provision of God or do we doubt God and think that He has underserved us? And if we do, what does that say about our soul and the great object of our soul’s love? The largest soul is the soul captivated by the greatness of God, revering, and holding in awe the God Who has condescended to us — The soul that hopes in the provision of God. I am so often tempted to be captivated by far, far less than God, and to think that there’s something out there other than God that can provide the real satisfaction that I want. If that’s where you are, what does that say about your soul?
But I want us to think about it the other way around as well. The fact that God is like He is, what does it say about His soul that He’s so great and yet He loves the humble? He provides so lavishly and yet He takes pleasure in those who fear Him and who hope in His love rather than those who are great in the eyes of the world. What does that say about the heart of your God? I think that if you understand that, it will make you love Him more.
Praise the Lord for His Covenantal Privileges
One last thing, if you look at verses 12 to 20, he gives the third exhortation to praise, “Praise the LORD, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion!” This section of the psalm especially focuses on the unique privileges that God has given to His old covenant people, Israel. Now this is what I want you to see, verse 19. Here, amidst all those other things that He does, all those other things that He gives to His people, the psalmist highlights this especially. He gives His people His word. “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.” In other words, the psalmist is reminding us that God has uniquely given His people His Word. And he’s asking us to praise the Lord for what He has given His people, especially the Word.
Do we think of the Word of God that way and do we praise Him for it? There are billions of people on this planet who have never heard the Word of God read in their own language in a Christian service of worship. Many of us can hear it every week and we’re sort of ho-hum about it — No big deal. The psalmist wants us to praise the Lord for what He gives, especially His Word.
What does the object of your love say about your soul? If your heart is set on praising this great God, Who wants His people to love and treasure His Word, if your delight is in Him, it says that your soul is in a very good place. But if you find your delight in something other than Him, well that too says something about your soul, and I can promise you this — No matter what that other delight is, it will be lesser, and your soul will be smaller than if your delight is in this great God.
Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III is Chancellor & CEO of Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) in Jackson.