For the word of the Lord is right and true;

    he is faithful in all he does.

5 The Lord loves righteousness and justice;

    the earth is full of his unfailing love.

It has been pointed out that this psalm is a helpful ‘primer on praise’. The verbs are plural, so it envisages a worshipping community.The psalm opens with a call to jubilant, joyful, musical praise – even shouted praise! The praise of God is “fitting.” But why so?

The word “For” introduces two key reasons:

  1. Because of what God’s Word is:
  2. Because of who God is.

As I said yesterday, if we ‘count our blessings’ we will find numerous reasons for praise. But here we arrive at the alpine peak of all motivations. Here’s the pinnacle: the greatest reasons for worship revolve around who God is in Himself, and the Word He has breathed out from Himself (see 2 Timothy 2: 16,17. The Greek word for “God-breathed” there is‘theopneustos’ meaning ‘breathed-out’. This led one preacher to observe that maybe we should speak not so much of God’s ‘inspired’ as His ‘expired’ Word!)

This all causes me to ask:

  • How moved are we by our Bibles? Job said: “I have not departed from the commands of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread” Job 23:12
  • How stirred are we by the truth about God revealed in the Bible?

Warren Wiersbe writes: ‘Of greatest importance is that the worship be scriptural (v.4a; and see Col.3:16). A choir has no more right to sing a lie than a preacher has to preach a lie…When God works, He obeys His own Word; so any worship that is contrary to God’s Word will not please the Lord.’ Old Testament Commentary, p.914.

As we move on through the psalm, we will find that there is a major emphasis on God as Creator. With reference to the last sentence in verse 5 Spurgeon writes:

‘Come hither, astronomers, geologists, naturalists, botanists, chemists, miners, yea, all of you who study the works of God, for all your truthful stories confirm this declaration. From the midge in the sunbeam to leviathan in the ocean all creatures own the bounty of the Creator. Even the pathless desert blazes with some undiscovered mercy, and the caverns of ocean conceal the treasures of love…If earth be full of mercy, what must heaven be where goodness concentrates its beams?’

PRAYER: Lord God, as I consider the beauty of earth, sea and sky, enable me please to look beyond it and revel in the unimaginable beauty of the God who made it all.