Now that we’ve read this Psalm, let’s break it apart and make a sermon out of it. Among other things it is a call to worship. “Praise is comely for the upright.”
For WHOM is praise comely? It is comely for the Upright.
The word “comely” refers to beauty or appropriateness. When Paul and Silas were trying to evangelize the city of Philippi they were being hindered – by the truth. There was a known demoniac who was following them, shouting: “These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation.” Under most circumstances that would be a great endorsement and quite beneficial, but coming from the lips of a servant of Satan this praise was inappropriate.
I can’t say that David was trying to make a negative point; he was probably nothing but positive. Praise and thanksgiving should flow from the hearts of the righteous like fresh, clean, cool water out of an artesian well. “Rejoice in the LORD, O ye RIGHTEOUS: for praise is comely for the UPRIGHT.” But turning that around, it is absolutely true that praise to God is not comely when coming from the wicked. Praise from the man who rejects the gospel of Christ is as logical and practical as a pig quoting the sonnets of Shakespeare or Elizabeth Browning.
But twisting the Psalmist’s words just a little: For the righteous and upright not to praise the Lord, is equally unnatural. If they are righteous it is because they have been made so by the grace of God – praise the Lord! There is none righteous, no not one, in themselves and in their natural condition. And they are upright in their conduct only because they have the strength of the Lord and God’s standard of righteousness implanted in their hearts.
And HOW should these righteous and upright people praise God?
They ought to be HAPPY to rejoice in the Lord. People who are truly joyful have a hard time hiding the fact. They sing, or they smile, or they hum, or they chatter, or they skip around. There are a hundred avenues in which their joy is expressed. And people who are unhappy, have just as many, if not more ways to express their negative emotions. But then there are the rest of us, who are in-between most of the time. The Psalmist tells the saint of God to move out of the doldrums and rejoice.
In verse 2 he says that it’s permissible to use MUSIC and instruments to express our praise to the Lord. “Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings.” But perhaps more appropriately, praising God vocally is better, because it is more easily appreciated by others. And there is nothing wrong with playing and singing loudly. “Sing unto him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise.”
Does verse 8 tell us to praise the Lord REVERENTLY and with a bit of INTROSPECTION? Or is this an exhortation for the wicked to beware of praising God while still standing in their filthy sin? “Let all the earth fear the LORD: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.”
Verse 20 seems to suggest that we can praise God by looking upwards, towards His throne. “Our soul waiteth for the LORD: he is our help and our shield.” When we trust the Lord for salvation, for safety, for sanity, for sustenance, and for supervision, that brings the Lord obvious joy and praise. “For our heart shall rejoice in him, because we have trusted in his holy name.” “Let thy mercy, O LORD, be upon us, according as we hope in thee.”
How should we praise the Lord? Joyfully, with music and singing. And reverently, with faith and hope.
Most of the rest of this Psalm is taken up with REASONS for which we should praise the Lord.
First, because IT IS comely – it is appropriate – verse 1.
And because the Lord always does that which is RIGHT. “For the word of the LORD is right; and all his works are done in truth.” For the word of the Lord is straight, like the flight of an arrow; not crooked, not weak, and not tortuous. When it comes to roads, perhaps the most picturesque and scenic are full of curves and bends, but they may also be dangerous and slow. When we need to get somewhere in a hurry and as safely as possible – we want a straight road, a right road.
Not only are the words of the Lord right, but all of his WORKS are done in TRUTH. The word “truth” in this case refers to “faithfulness.” And without getting into all that this doesn’t mean, it says that what God does is true to His holy nature. What the Lord does from day to day is just, it is honest, it is equitable and always appropriate – comely. And that is true whether we are talking about the Lord’s benevolence or His judgment.
The Lord deserves praise because “He loveth righteousness and judgment” – verse 5. And Jehovah deserves to be praised because “the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.” The world is a place of exquisite natural beauty. It is sustained by natural laws like that of the cycle of water which keeps us alive. With some exceptions, generally speaking, there is food throughout the world, for every kind of creature. And it is all because of the goodness of God. “Goodness,” by the way, is “checed” (kheh’- sed ), and “goodness” is the fourth most common translation. First is “mercy” – 149 times; “kindness” – 40 times; “lovingkindess” – 30 times and “goodness” – 12 times. In other words, the Lord deserves our praise because the world is full of His mercy.
Verses 6 through 10 describe the Lord’s work in Creation, which certainly deserves praise. Remember that God knew before He ever created light that the world would move into sinful darkness. In creating Adam and ultimately you, and then saving you, these things make God’s act of creation extremely praise worthy. The Lord deserves more glory for creating and saving us, than He would for not creating us in the first place.
Next the Lord deserves praise for RESTRICTING the EVIL of the wicked. Verse 10 – “The LORD bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought: he maketh the devices of the people of none effect.” There is no way to know how many times the wicked have plotted or imagined evil against us, but the Lord caused something to come up and thwarted their plans. Maybe it was a gang of drug addicts who saw you alone and vulnerable, but the Lord ordained a stranger, or maybe an angel, to walk by at just the right moment. Maybe it was a potential accident that the Lord turned into a blessing. Probably we will never know all of those occasions when God make the devices of sinners of none effect.
Verse 11 reminds us that the ETERNAL DECREE of God makes Him worthy of praise. “The counsel of the LORD standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.” Isaiah 14 – “The LORD of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand: For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?” “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but” God’s words and God’s will “shall not pass away.”
And praise the Lord for CLAIMING US for himself. “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.” I know that the Psalmist, whoever he was, was thinking about Israel when he wrote this. We don’t blame him or fault him for making that assumption. But we know from dozens of New Testament scriptures that we have every right to apply this thought to ourselves. We are “are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.” There is absolutely no logical reason for the Lord to choose and claim any of us – but He has. It might be argued that this deserves more praise and thanksgiving than any other single thing in the treasure house of the Lord.
Then there are the many attributes of God – like that of OMNISCIENCE. “The LORD looketh from heaven; he beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth.” The wicked might not like the thought of the Lord watching them, but those who are righteous and upright shouldn’t have any problem with the idea. Verse 18 – “Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy.”
The Lord deserves to be praised for His EQUITABLE JUDGMENT. “He fashioneth their hearts alike; he considereth all their works.” I no longer spend much time following the ebb and flow of evolutionary hypothesis, so maybe someone can answer my question. Does pseudo-science today think that there was only one source for human life or more than one? For a while it was believed that somewhere in central Africa some monkey-like creature evolved into the first human-like creature, and the starting gun for the race of man was fired. I never heard for sure if that first humanoid was male or female – but they gave her a girl’s name. But then a few years later I heard that other “first” men were found in other places. This verse of the Bible concurs with a multitude of others, teaching that God created one man with one kind of soul. And now He looks upon all the hearts, which came from that first one, in exactly the same way. For example, a man may do something charitable, but he might do so in order to make points with someone else. A bystander may see a generous man, but the Lord sees the action, the reason and the sin – bribery.
Praise the Lord that He takes particular INTEREST in the needs of His CHOSEN PEOPLE. “Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy; To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.”
And of course, the Lord deserves our praise because He is OUR SAVIOUR. “Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy; To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waiteth for the LORD: he is our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in him, because we have trusted in his holy name. Let thy mercy, O LORD, be upon us, according as we hope in thee.”