# 391 A journey through the Psalms. Psalm 146. A “miniature of our own story.”

On the 18^th April 2015, we began a journey together. It was a “journey through the Psalms,” with all its ups and downs, black and whites and many colours in between, heartbreak and great rejoicing, loud music and quietness, failures and success, repentance and commitment, seeking and finding, faith and doubts, remembering and giving thanks, and the list goes on. (Sounds a lot like real life!) And here we are, 9 years later on the homeward stretch. 145 Psalms completed and only 5 to go! And what a way to end such an incredible journey, with such amazing Psalms of Praise and adoration of the Lord… my God… the God of Jacob… the Lord their God… the Maker of heaven and earth… [the One who] remains faithfuli forever… The Lord [who] reigns forever… [so] Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, my soul. (Psalm 146)

These last “Five joyous psalms of praise, each of them beginning and ending with Hallelujah [praise the Lord], bring the Psalter to a close. So, in this respect as in many others, the Psalms are a miniature of our own story as a whole, which will end in unbroken blessing and delight.” (# 29)  

If you are able, find a place alone and read this Psalm loud to God, worshipping Him who has brought you safely this far in your journey.

Psalm 146

¹ Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord, my soul.

² I will praise the Lord all my life;
    I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
³ Do not put your trust in princes,
    in human beings, who cannot save.
⁴ When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
    on that very day their plans come to nothing.
⁵ Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
    whose hope is in the Lord their God.

⁶ He is the Maker of heaven and earth,
    the sea, and everything in them—
    he remains faithful forever.
⁷ He upholds the cause of the oppressed
    and gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets prisoners free,
⁸     the Lord gives sight to the blind,
the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down,
    the Lord loves the righteous.
⁹ The Lord watches over the foreigner
    and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
    but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

¹⁰ The Lord reigns forever,
    your God, O Zion, for all generations.

Praise the Lord.

Having completed this act of worship, let us now consider the wonderful truths of this Psalm.

vv. 1-2 The psalmist here offers extravagant praise and intends to do this for as long as he lives. Isaac Watts expresses this well in his hymn, “I’ll praise my Maker,” with the words:

“My days of praise shall ne’er be past,                                                                                                While life, and thought, and being last,                                                                                                              Or immortality endures”.

vv. 3-4 Here he makes an emphatic statement about where we should place our trust in this life. Some people have placed their trust in false gods, others in people (or nations) of influence, all to be eventually disappointed. The psalmist reminds us just how futile it all is in the end. Isaiah puts it: “Stop trusting in man., who is but a breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he?” (Isaiah 2:22)

vv.5-9 In verse 5 we find the last “beatitude” in the Book of Psalms [ ⁵ Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God ] which gives the answer to who is worthy of our wholehearted trust. It then continues with the proof of such an assertion as we are reminded that He is the Creator of all things and the only truly faithful One (v. 6) and that it is He (and He alone) who really cares and acts justly towards the “sojourner, widow, and orphan, examples in Israel of the socially marginal and powerless.” (vv. 7-9) (# 2)  

“Like Father, like Son. For us, [all this] may bring to mind the oracle of Isaiah 61 by which Jesus announced His mission.” (# 29) It says:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
² to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor…  (Isaiah 61:1-2, quoted by Jesus in Luke 4:18-19)

 v. 10 And so, the praise of God will continue for all eternity! As John Newton expressed it in “Amazing Grace”:

“When we’ve been there ten thousand years,                                                                                         Bright shining as the sun,                                                                                                                       We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise                                                                                                  Than when we first began.”

Praise the Lord.