December 20, 2024 • Pastor Andrew Belt • Psalm 150
Praise the Lord!
Where, why, how and who. Where do we praise God? Why do we praise God? How do we praise God? And who do we praise?
Psalm 150, the final psalm gives us a dramatic conclusion to the Psalter. In it we join everything thought and everything and swallow it up in a resounding Hallelujah!
The Belt of Truth: Psalm 149
December 16, 2024 • Pastor Andrew Belt • Psalm 149
In the penultimate Psalm, Psalm 149, continues the theme of praise of 146-150.
Here God’s people praise their Maker and their King. The idea of King has gone through a transformation and fulfillment in this book. With the rise and fall of David’s line to God himself combining the promise of David’s Son with himself. So that it is God and man who rule. This is Jesus Christ our Lord.
As a result of God’s triumph and gift, God’s people are free to praise God. They, as Paul puts it, will make every thought captive to Christ. Spiritual warfare has been in the background of nearly all these psalms and that continues here. God’s people will reign with Christ and Christ will raise up his lowly people. And our praise is the sword we wield in the present age.
And the day is coming, where Christ will come again in his glory and his people will sit and even judge the angels.
The Belt of Truth: Psalm 148
December 13, 2024 • Pastor Andrew Belt • Psalm 148
Psalm 148 continues the praise of the Lord! Two areas are focused in on. The heavens in verses 1-6 and all that is in them. And then the earth in verses 7-14.
This praise from the heavens is automatic and is styled like how God spoke and they came to be. As the heavens and the angels do their job, they praise God. They are well ordered because God’s Word is holy and true.
The earth and all that is down below praises God as well. But this praise originates in how God reveals himself on earth. He acts in human history. Primarily when he raised a horn of salvation for his people, which all nations can come to. This is the Lord Jesus, whose name is given that is above every name and exalted beyond the earth and heavens.
With this in mind, what our God has done for us, we cry out, “Praise the Lord!” Hallelujah!
The Belt of Truth: Psalm 147
December 9, 2024 • Pastor Andrew Belt • Psalm 147
Psalm 146 brings us back to two concepts we have seen a lot in these psalms: God’s care of creation and his care of the Church.
This gives us confidence to hope in God as we see him ordering the creation and the world around us. We join in the Hallelujah!
This causes us to marvel and be at odd. For though God is high, he uses it for the benefit of his people. He rules all on behalf of his people and also sends his Word to them to call us to faith and hope. Praise the Lord!
The Belt of Truth: Psalm 146
December 6, 2024 • Pastor Andrew Belt • Psalm 146
The final 5 psalms form a 5 part Hallelujah by beginning and ending with that very word: “Praise the Lord! One part for each book of the Psalter.
Psalm 146 reminds us that our life is precarious. And it is a praise to God. With that limited view of life in mind, where do we find hope to praise God forever?
Our help cannot be found with the powerful or any force on this earth. Only with the LORD who has made heaven and earth and who cares for those who are low. This psalm even makes clear the work of Jesus in Matthew 11 clear.
Indeed, blessed is the one who has the LORD as his helper. The final time in the Psalms that we hear the word Blessed.
The Belt of Truth: Psalm 145
December 2, 2024 • Pastor Andrew Belt • Psalm 145
David concludes the psalter in Psalm 145 with an acrostic Doxology to God.
David has come through cross and trial to the side of the resurrection. And we are promised much of the same through our Lord Jesus
David rounds through all the times God has saved or delivered him and this causes us to think back on God’s deeds toward us in Christ.
The psalm ends with a praise of God where on all flesh will praise God forever and ever.
The Belt of Truth: Psalm 144
November 25, 2024 • Pastor Andrew Belt • Psalm 144
Psalm 144 is David pulling from many of the prayers we have heard in the psalter to ties ideas and themes together.
We note that many of the psalms pull us into a conflict. We have enemies as Christians. Sin, death, and the power of the devil. And these are no joking matters. They seek to destroy us.
And so we call upon God to rescue and save us. To stoop down from on high and make his judgment apparent.
The psalm ends with blessing as we recognize and praise God for his gifts of children, cattle and land.
The Belt of Truth: Psalm 143
November 22, 2024 • Pastor Andrew Belt • Psalm 143
Psalm 143 is the last of the seven penitential psalms (6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130).
In this psalm, we pray for God’s mercy. That he would answer us in his righteousness. We have no basis for him to answer, the psalms have all taught us this, and this psalm knows that God answers because of his mercy and righteousness.
Our soul, life is in trouble. We are hotly pursued and the grave is before us and our enemies desire to destroy us.
We are vexed and at the end of our rope.
But as we ponder God’s works and actions before, we find out that God will do what only God can do. Save and deliver. God’s Holy Spirit is given to us and leads us out. Jesus comments on this too in Luke 11 and John 4.
In the end, this psalm reminds us of Jesus in the grave, waiting for resurrection, and in so doing, we are reminded of our own in the morning on that new day.
The Belt of Truth: Psalm 142
November 18, 2024 • Pastor Andrew Belt • Psalm 142
Psalm 142 has its context in David hiding from trouble in a cave. Like Psalm 57 David turns to God. But unlike Psalm 57 where David was steadfast and strong here he is at his wits end.
He goes between low points and high points. He does not see a path forward but he knows God knows the way.
So when David finds himself in trouble with no one to help, he knows that God is his refuge and strength. He cries out to God, asking to be set free from his prison. And the end of the psalm pictures David set free and with the righteous with God dealing bountifully with him.
These beautiful words are also on the lips of Christ, who cries to his Father when abandoned in order to set us free.
The Belt of Truth: Psalm 141
November 15, 2024 • Pastor Andrew Belt • Psalm 141
Psalm 141 finds us in the desire to have pure speech before God.
God hears pure speech and prayer, and so we ask that God would grant that to us.
To that end we need God to cleanse us from sin and to also overthrow those in our world to hinder the cause of truth and purity.
We know that this is quite a challenge then. And evil won’t take that lying down. And so we ask God for those who plot evil to fall into their own trap.
Indeed, death did this when it killed Christ and was destroyed by Christ. In this way, Jesus leads the way and clears the path for us to find God and praise him.
The Belt of Truth: Psalm 140
November 11, 2024 • Pastor Andrew Belt • Psalm 140
David is confronted with his enemies in psalm 140 and describes them. They love violence and evil and want war. They are not just misunderstood. They delight in evil.
Against them, David does not respond as they do. He goes to God in prayer for God to sort it out. Evil is self destructive and so David knows that their cause will fail in the end. And so he asks God for deliverance.
In the end, David focuses solely on the fact that God will come through and he will go from being surrounded by his enemies to being in the Lord’s presence.
In this psalm we can see the life of Jesus against those who were violent to him and this prayer on his lips is one given to us in our trial as well.
The Belt of Truth: Psalm 139:13-24
November 8, 2024 • Pastor Andrew Belt • Psalm 139:13–24
The last half of Psalm 139 turns to contemplating God’s marvel of creating us in the womb. How he fashioned us and sees us intimately even there in the depths of our mother’s womb. Here we even have an image of our graves being a womb of sorts as we wait to come out on the day of resurrection.
God’s knowledge plans out our lives and knows them all even as we are not aware. Such knowledge is very deep to contemplate. The Psalmist even falls asleep trying to meditate on the vast sum of them.
In the end, the Psalmist then shifts from this wonderful contemplation to a cry against the enemies of God. Almost as if they are an intrusion into God’s beauty, opposing it and destroying it. So the psalmist opposes them, seeing that they are an enemy of God and out of zeal implores God to search him and know him. After all, the enemy also exists within us and we wish to have that purged to follow God on the ancient paths.
The Belt of Truth: Psalm 139:1-12
November 4, 2024 • Pastor Andrew Belt • Psalm 139:1–12
God’s knowledge of us is complete and Psalm 139 spells out that in as many verses as it has. This thought is wonderful and glorious as it is terrifying. This puts us in our place, boxes us in, and makes us realize that God is God and we are not.
We also find out that God’s knowledge of the future is as known in the distant past. That before he made us he knew us. We find that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Finally this psalm leads us to a shocking turn. There are enemies that the psalm asks God to slay. Given the context of the psalm it causes us to realize the depth of the treachery of sin and its evil that it could arrogantly think to plot against God.
Confident of the Lord’s knowledge of his himself, the psalmist prays for vindication on the sight of God.
The Belt of Truth: Psalm 138
November 1, 2024 • Pastor Andrew Belt • Psalm 138
Psalm 138-145 is the final set of psalms attributed to David before the final Doxology of psalms 146-150
In this psalm, David debases himself in the sight of all before God, thanking him, and praising his glory through his name and Word that God has exalted above all.
And what is this glory? How is it defined? That God’s glory saves the lowly, but does not know those who consider themselves high. This is Christ on the cross. The one lifted high is so lifted on the cross. The one ascended to heaven is the one brought low. And therefore knows the lowly. That is God’s glory that we come to know and experience through his Word. The Word made flesh.
As a result, David trusts in God’s promises as most of trouble, knowing God will preserve him on the basis of his steadfast love.
The Belt of Truth: Psalm 137
October 28, 2024 • Pastor Andrew Belt • Psalm 137
Psalm 137 is one of the imprecatory psalms. Or a psalm that prays against the enemies.
The image is of God’s people who have seen their homeland destroyed, their loved ones killed and who still have their captors and tormentors mocking them to sing songs of happiness.
It is a bitter psalm. The prayer then turns into a longing for home again and to not forget their home in a foreign land.
And finally for the Edomites and Babylonians to be repaid in kind for what they did.
We see in this psalm that no emotion and feeling is to be left out before God and that we dare not try to wax piety and facades before God.
Neither do we take vengeance into our own hands but rather leave it up to God who has taken out wrath upon his Son. For us all, that is enough and we can indeed pray for our enemies as our Lord now instructs.
