Psalm 98
I see Psalm
98 as a three-part psalm. It begins with
praise. Then it moves into reasons for
praise. It concludes with evidence of
the praise. What is the theme that runs
through this whole psalm? Praise the
Lord! He is mighty to save and is worthy
of our praise!
The Lord
remembers His promises. The Lord reveals
Himself – even to an undeserving creation such as humanity. His love is steadfast as demonstrated through
His people and through the death of His Son.
He is righteous.
I am
inspired this morning to sit back and think about some of the ways that the
Lord has revealed Himself in my life. So
I have to tell about this experience that happened this past Friday. I texted one of my teens in my current
congregation about the fact that I was just beginning a worship service with
leaders from all across the country. She
replied that it was cool and then she said that she had a song stuck in her
head. It is a camp song that we often
sang together called Romans 16:19. I
texted her back a quote from the song: “Be excellent! Be innocent!”
She laughed and replied. Then I
texted her and I said that my absolute favorite line of the song was “And the
God of PEACE will soon CRUSH Satan underneath your feet.” (Romans 16:20) She replied that this line was
one of her favorites as well. So the
whole rest of the day I had that song – especially that line – stuck in my
head. She reminded me of the song, and
it became lodged in my brain.
Now, what
is really cool about this story is that about 4 hours later as our
denominational meeting was about to close, our final speaker got up to read
from God’s Word and preach. Want to
guess what the reading was upon which he preached? Yup.
Romans 16:17-20. The thrust of
his message? We go forth in ministry and
discipleship knowing that God will crush Satan under our feet and we should
have no fear of him. Only God could use
a teenager half-way across the country to prepare my mind to hear a message
from a man who had no foreknowledge of the role he was playing in the story of
God unfolding Him in my life. Only God
can do that. I give the glory and the
praise and the witness to Him!
It’s
moments like that that I confidently know that I receive witness that there is
a God and He is in total control. It is
then that He reveals Himself.
I am now
reminded of the story of Elijah in the cave.
God was not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire. But God was in the quiet moment with
Elijah. So it was with me and those
around me that day. God did not reveal
Himself in great and wonderful acts of nature.
He revealed Himself in the simple and subtle relationship of two
spiritual people carrying on a texting conversation between Minnesota to South
Carolina.
Why
shouldn’t we praise this God? Why
shouldn’t we lift our voices and sing a new song unto Him? Why shouldn’t we sing to Him with the lyre
and the harp and the guitar and the organ and the piano and the drums? Why should we hold back? No, let us come and worship Him with all of
creation! Let us worship Him with the
grandeur of the mountains and the ever-present bubbling of the streams. He is mighty to save and He promises that
very salvation to us – even demonstrating this power to accomplish His promises
along the way.
Psalm 99
Psalm 99
continues the cry to praise God that we heard in Psalm 98. But to the witness of Psalm 98 we add an
additional means for which we can praise God.
God not only reveals Himself in our present and our future, but also
often most clearly He reveals Himself in our past.
God was
with Moses and Aaron. God was with
Samuel. His witness is strong. His salvation was present in them. If His salvation is present in them, why
should it not be present within us as well?
I can add
to that list. Was God not present with
David? What about with Daniel? Although he did not appreciate it, was God
not with Jonah? Certainly He was present
with Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel. He
was clearly present with Ruth. Ester was
clearly a tool in God’s hand. God
embraced the sacrificial commitment that He received from John the
Baptizer. Certainly God was with Peter
and Paul and James and John and Stephen and Philip and Thomas and all the other
disciples. He was clearly with Joseph of
Arimathea and Nicodemus. He was with
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. He
was with Lydia and Timothy and Silas and Chloe and Phoebe. He was with many of the church fathers such
as Benedict and Francis of Assisi. He
was with Luther. He was with
Wycliff. He was with Jonathon Edwards
and George Whitefield. He has been with
missionary after missionary into China and other places where their witness is
not welcome. He was with Bonhoeffer and
all the other religious people who rose up to try and oppose the evil regime of
Nazi Germany.
Think
about that list. I wrote that in the
course of about 2 minutes. Had I more
space and more time, I could make that list grow far beyond its current scope. Is that not a great witness? God is with them, He is with us who are also
His witnesses. Praise be to God! Let’s go and worship Him!
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