Psalms 120 – 150

Psalm 135 ~ A Call to Worship

The psalmist is saying you become like what you worship. Stop and think about it. The Bible says those who belong to Christ are being developed into the image of Christ because He is the one that we worship and the one we serve. We are going to become like our Master. But those who worship the idols will become like them. They cannot hear. They cannot see. They cannot answer. You pray to them, or you worship them, they cannot do anything for you.

Psalm 139

The word exposed means conviction. To present evidence for conviction in a court of law. If I am practicing evil, I will not come to the light because the light is going to bring about conviction that I am practicing evil. You are going to be convicted by the evidence and it is going to show what is of God and what is not. See, the person that has a heart for the Lord says, "Examine me and see if there is any wicked or pained way in me." They want to find out.

So, if we want to go in the way of the Lord, we have to be able to take it. God, by His Spirit is going to convict us of things that are not of the Lord. If we have a heart for Him, He is going to show us our sin. He is going to show us what grieves Him and what pleases Him. But those who practice evil, they do not want to be around the word of God; they do not want to be around God's Spirit; they do not want to be around God's people, it brings conviction. And they do not want to be around the light. The light uncovers everything.

So if you want the word, you have to want conviction. You have to want all the conviction that we deserve, because that is what corrects us. And God does not bring condemnation. That is what this text is saying, He does not condemn His people. What He does is He brings conviction about what is of Him and what is not. That is what we want. But He does not condemn us.

Psalms 148 – 150

The Lord breathed His life into me. He calls upon me to breathe the life that He gave me back to Him, in praise to Him.  That is what I have been created for.

Now stop and think about all the distractions that are thrown our way, how absorbed we are in this earthly life and all of its circumstances, even ourselves. If God created us to worship Him, and give praise to Him all of the days of our lives, you can imagine how there are times when we do not feel like doing that. That is the effects of sin. That is how this earthly life has bogged us down. We are not here for those purposes, we are here to give praise to the Lord. We are here to worship Him because He is the Creator, because He has decreed all things, all things are under His control. He has done great things and He himself has multiple greatness.

And so it says in verse 6, Let everything that has breath, Praise the Lord!

Hallelu to Yah. All of life was created to give Hallelu to God, to give praise to His name. And that is what the Psalter (which is what the psalms are called) has been created for. Not only to study the expression of the various psalmists and their circumstances. But to now understand that when we read some of the Psalms and they talk about their hard times and their difficult times the reason why they are praying to God is that their difficult times are keeping them from praising the Lord. That is what bothers them. 

Do you ever stop and think about that? Why do we pray? Why do we ask God to help us? Is it so that we can be set free, and at ease and tranquil, and be more comfortable? Or is it because our circumstances have us so distracted that we cannot give the praise and worship the Lord that is due to His name? See, that is something totally different.