Psalms 147:1

The Bible says in Psalm 147:1, “Praise ye the LORD: for it is good to sing praises unto our God; for it is pleasant; and praise is comely.” What kind of human beings should we be? What should our lives be like? We should praise the Lord. Praise Him often. Praise Him always. Praise Him for Who He is. Praise Jesus for dying for us. Praise Him for visiting us and saving our souls. Praise Him because He loves us. Praise Him for all the blessings He has given us in our lives. Praise Him for the future that He has planned for us forever in heaven. Praise Him for the Bible and all the promises that He will surely keep. That is a small list of reasons to praise Him: there is more. If we do not praise Him, surely we are terribly forgetful and unappreciative. If we do not praise Him, we are not normal human beings. That is, we are not living the life that we should be living.

We are given some of the reasons to praise God in Psalms 147:2-6. The Bible says in Psalm 147:2-6, “The LORD doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel.[3] He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.[4] He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.[5] Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.[6] The LORD lifteth up the meek: he casteth the wicked down to the ground.” In praising God, the Psalmist mentions Jerusalem. God made a decision about Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the city of the Great King. It was the city of David, and thus it will be the city of Jesus Christ. Jerusalem is the number one city in God’s plan. God loves Jerusalem. Sadly, Jerusalem did not become what it could have been because of the failures of man. Jesus went to Jerusalem, and He was crucified there. Jesus said in Matthew 23:37, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” But where man fails, God succeeds. God makes all things right. When Jesus returns, He will go to Jerusalem again, and this time He will be welcomed. He will come as a conquering warrior after He destroys the armies of the antichrist at the Battle of Armageddon. Jesus will rule the earth from the throne of David in Jerusalem for a thousand years. Yes, “The LORD doth build up Jerusalem,” and He will build it up even more in the future.

The end of verse two and verse three tells us once again how compassionate God is. God “gathereth together the outcasts of Israel.” Hopefully, you view yourself as an outcast. If you do, then you are in a good position because God will gather you together with the other outcasts. Another name for that is a church in the age in which we live. God likes the gathering together of the outcasts who have believed on the Lord Jesus. Christians are reminded in Hebrews 10:25, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”

Verse three tells us that God “He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.” There may be no greater wound than the wound of a broken heart. A heart can be broken by many different things: a lost love, the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, the dashing of a hope or a dream, a cruel attack from another person. If you have a broken heart, God’s heart goes out to you. He cares, and He can bind up your broken heart. God can renew your spirit. He can lift you up out of the pit of despair. God can do anything. He can give you joy and happiness and hope once again. He can give you love once again. He can replace the one that is gone with someone or something or with a great resolve and purpose that otherwise would not have been there. God has a purpose for all things and you can find that purpose because He cares about you.

We can praise God because He knows so much more than we know. Verse four says, “He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.” If found on the internet that scientists estimate that there are about 100,000 million stars in the Milky Way alone, and that there are a billion trillion stars in the observable universe. God has a name for each star. Wow, talk about intelligence. And mere men think they know something. You just might want to trust in the Lord instead of your own thoughts. It says in Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.[6] In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

Psalms 147:5 says three wonderful things about God. God is great. God has great power. God’s understanding is infinite. I think that means that He is worthy of our worship and praise. Knowing the greatness of God, it makes the first phrase of verse six even more amazing: “The LORD lifteth up the meek.” God is not so high and lofty that He cannot be touched with our infirmities. He looks for someone who is cast down, and He loves to lift such a person up through the knowledge of Jesus the Savior. But God also knows who reject Him, and God certainly has the power to be Judge for those who deserve it. “…he casteth the wicked down to the ground.” The judgment is coming.

The Bible says in Psalms 147:7-9, “Sing unto the LORD with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God:[8] Who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains.[9] He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry.” Here is a reason to sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving: He takes care of this old earth that He created and everything on it. He created the earth and everything that is in it, and He also preserves it and provides for it. Jesus referred to this truth and added one more thing to it for Christians. Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” This means that you must have your priorities right for God to take care of you in this way. God must be first, and everything else last. One of the worse things that happens to some people is that spiritually speaking they get their priorities wrong. It is not always so easy to put God first in everything all the time because life can bring many distractions. It takes an effort and a determination to focus on the Lord instead of something else that we might be interested in. But the promise that Jesus made is a great retirement plan, and it is a great plan for any time of life. What would a good plan be in life to have one’s material needs met? 1. Get the best education or training that you can in an endeavor that interests you. 2. Look for opportunities for employment. 3. Build upon your resume and experience so that you have good references because most people change jobs from time to time. 4. Work hard. 5. Be honest. 6. Be dependable. If you live in a country that has opportunities, then you are blessed. These are some of the practical things necessary to having your needs met in this world. But Jesus added one thing that is more important than all of these: putting God first. Jesus promised that if you put God first, everything else that you do will work out for you. He will supply your needs. That is a great promise, and God always keeps His promises.

The Bible says in Psalms 147:10-11, “He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man.[11] The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.” The “strength of the horse” and the strength of the legs of a man refer to that which is physical and material. But God is a Spirit. Jesus said in John 4:24, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” Verse eleven gives two motivations to trust in God through a spiritual contact with Him. The first is based upon the word “fear.” God is the holy Judge who will judge the whole earth. There is a heaven and there is a hell, and everyone will appear before the Christ of God at the door of heaven. Do you fear ending up before God still in the guilt of your sins? If you are still in the guilt of your sins, you should be motivated out of fear to come to Christ for forgiveness. If you do, God will take pleasure in you. His favor will fall upon you. He will pronounce you righteous through Christ. Once a person has “hope in his mercy,” it means that person has admitted his need of the Lord and has turned to Jesus in his heart. This is totally a spiritual decision and a spiritual experience. That is why Jesus called it being born-again. Jesus said in John 3:6-7, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.[7] Marvel not that I said unto you, Ye must be born again.”

The Bible says in Psalms 147:12-18, “ Praise the LORD, O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Zion.[13] For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates; he hath blessed thy children within thee.[14] He maketh peace in thy borders, and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat.[15] He sendeth forth his commandment upon earth: his word runneth very swiftly.[16] He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes.[17] He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold?[18] He sendeth out his word, and melteth them: he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow.” Verse thirteen gives two more reasons to praise God: 1. Stability and security. 2. The blessings of family. It says, “he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates.” If you are prosperous and secure and live in a good place, God did that for you. He could have kept that from happening, and He can take it away whenever He wants. You did not build that: God built it. God created family. He designed men and women, and He brings a man and a woman together in marriage so that they will bring forth a family, and that family often involves children. If you have children, those children are a gift from God. What precious gifts! Some people have children that are even better than children in a family: spiritual children who respond to the Gospel of Christ and who are born of the Spirit. Only God can give you spiritual children too. In other words, God has given you everything that you have that makes up your life.

God provides for us materially, and He also provides for us spiritually. It says in verse fifteen, “He sendeth forth his commandment upon earth: his word runneth very swiftly.” God has given His commandments and His Word so that we can know truth, and so that we can have spiritual food to build up our faith in Christ and knowledge of God and His will. That is why the Bible is the greatest and most important book in the world. And it is why Jesus said in Matthew 4:4, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

Verses sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen mention snow, and wind, and waves of water. God controls everything. Remember that the disciples said in amazement about Jesus, “Even the wind and the sea obey Him.” Talking about the cold, and the ice, and the snow verse seventeen says, “He sendeth out his word, and melteth them.” There is a symbolic meaning here. Many hearts are as cold as ice, but the truth of the Word can melt any heart, and the result will be a new Christian.

Notice that it says at the end of verse eighteen, “he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow.” There is a line in the movie, Portrait of Jennie, that may have come from this verse. The young woman says to Joseph Cotton something like this, “The wind blows, the waves flow, and God knows.” There are so many things that we do not know, but God knows. We definitely do not know the ”whys” of the tragedies of life. We do not know why some things work out well, and other do not. But God knows.

The Psalms says in chapter 147:19-20, “He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel.[20] He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the LORD.” These two verses tell us one of the great privileges that believers have: the Word of God. Many books have been written in the history of mankind. Many of them are good books: interesting, informative, even fun to read. But of course, the greatest book of all is the Book of God: the Bible. The Bible is the truth. The Bible is God’s message to man. The Bible reveals who Jesus is and what He has done for us. The Bible tells us the part of the future that God wants us to know. The Bible is our spiritual food. The Bible tells us how to get to heaven through faith in Christ. The Bible gives us a moral and spiritual foundation. The Bible will keep us from falling into error or false religion. The Bible teaches us to love: to love God and to love our fellow man. The Bible has been given to believers as a gift: a great and precious gift from God.

Why should we pity the world? Why should we care for the world? What is their problem anyway? Verse twenty says it very well: “they have not known” the Word of God. That is a sad state. That is the reason for all the other problems. No one’s education is complete if they do not have a thorough and complete understanding of the Word of God. No one’s life is complete unless their life includes a healthy study and reading of the Word of God. But to understand the Word, you must have the Spirit to teach you; and to have the Spirit you must know Jesus as your Savior. One of the main reasons to go to a church is to hear the Word of God pronounced and taught. If you cannot find a good Bible-teaching church, then start one yourself. Once you learn something from the Word, teach others what you have learned.

___________________________________________________