Psalm 138 – Praise Comes From the Words of His Mouth
By Bunni Pounds
I will praise You with my whole heart;
Before the gods I will sing praises to You.
I will worship toward Your holy temple,
And praise Your name
For Your loving-kindness and Your truth;
For You have magnified Your word above all Your name.
In the day when I cried out, You answered me,
And made me bold with strength in my soul. (Verses 1-3)
This is a short psalm, but in eight verses it describes the greatness of our God in a way that we can understand – in simplicity. Today in our post-modern world we are surrounded on every side by the “gods” of this world. We might not call them “gods”, but these entertainment establishments or industries (music, television, movies, gaming, etc.) are powerful forces in our culture. We also have a media that force feeds us what they think we want to hear when we want to hear it - moves our world in a direction of human worship. We are worshipping at the feet of convenience, entertainment, knowledge, power, and fame – instead of at the feet of our Savior and the true King of this world.
So how do we transition from worshipping at the feet of our “gods” and have the boldness to praise a God that we have never seen with our human eyes with our whole hearts?
There is so much out there that is looked at as important and worthy of our affections, but David told us here what we really need and that our spirits want to say “I will praise you with my whole heart. Before the gods I will sing praises to You.”
How did he get where his whole heart was God’s and not divided? How did he worship God with everything that he was?
There is only one answer to that question and only one answer for us in modern America as well - David saw and experienced God’s loving-kindness and the truth of His Word in his life. He was responding to an experience with the real and all-powerful God. In response to experiencing God’s loving-kindness and His truth, he praised with his whole heart.
It is a powerful statement in verse 3 when he says, “You have magnified your word above all Your name.”
Here is why that statement is so powerful: In a nutshell, the Name of the Lord describes who God is and what He is about. His NAME is His character, His works, and His reputation throughout history. When we call on the Name of the Lord, we are calling on everything that He is. (I have a whole study on the name of the Lord in my book – Kingdom Life Discipleship – Unit 1 - if you ever want to read or study it. Fascinating!) When we “put on Christ” we take on the name of the Lord and the power that is contained in His story. His name is a powerful force that can cause fire to come down from heaven, the lame to walk, and can usher in the glory of God. His name is no small thing, so when he says, “You have magnified your word above all Your name,” we need to realize that a word from Almighty God has amazing power to transform. The truth of His word can change us, move mountains, and shift nations.
Give me a word from God any day over all the words of men. Here in this psalm, it is written that His word can make us bold with strength in our souls.
In our day in time, there is nothing more important than for us to have boldness and strength in our souls – our mind, will, and emotions. We need something to keep us steadfast in faith, not wavering with the winds of the daily headlines. That strengthening factor for our lives is the word of God – spoken through His written Word and revealed to us through the Holy Spirit. His Word is strength to our souls.
There are thousands of promises from God in His Word (especially in the New Testament), but the power is not just in letting them sit there on the page that we never read. The power comes when we appropriate those words – we read them, we speak them, and we believe them for our lives.
David saw the power in the promises of the Word of God and that transformed him where he was not afraid to praise God in front of all the other “gods”. He became a radical person, in the good sense, because he had learned to carry the promises of God into his daily life and he saw the hand of God move there. He proved that the Word of God was true.
All the kings of the earth shall praise You, O Lord,
When they hear the words of Your mouth.
Yes, they shall sing of the ways of the Lord,
For great is the glory of the Lord.
Though the Lord is on high,
Yet He regards the lowly;
But the proud He knows from afar. (Verses 4-6)
No one is anyone in the presence of God. It doesn’t matter what position of authority you are in, if you are an elected official, a CEO of a major company, or the King of England, you are nothing compared to God.
When we stand next to God – we are all the same. We are created beings that was created for His glory – period!
Galatians 6:3 says, “For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.”
Here in Psalm 138, verse 6, it says, “Though the Lord is on high, Yet He regards the lowly.” Being “lowly” isn’t just a matter of position or authority on this earth; it is a position of the heart.
How do we see ourselves? Do we see ourselves as masters of the world? Do we see ourselves as having great power because of the position that has been granted to us in life or do we see ourselves as a created being that is here on this earth to serve our King and the people that we come in contact with? Are we truly operating as “servants of all”?
There is one thing that can humble us when we think of ourselves too high - this is why the Word of God is so important for all of us – the powerful and the weak.
We “hear the words” of His mouth (verse 4).
“All the kings of the earth shall praise You, O Lord, When they hear the words of Your mouth.”
Why do words make such a difference? How can words change anyone?
When the “kings of the earth” hear the pure unadulterated truth, not mixed up with human reasoning but the real wisdom from God, they know that only God could have such clarity and they see His glory in it. God doesn’t water it down. He doesn’t mix or twist words. He just speaks pure power straight to our hearts.
That is why it is so important for every person, no matter what position of authority we are in, to constantly hear and get into the Word of God daily. The Word is what puts our lives into true perspective. Without it, we will become proud, arrogant, and think that we can really accomplish stuff on our own. Without Him, we become deceived - intoxicated by our own glory and human “wisdom”.
The truth is that “all the kings of the earth will praise You, O God,” so we might as well start bowing and submitting now and worshipping the only One who gave us true life and authority in the first place. If we do, we will see the glory of the Lord in our lives today- in the here and now and be even MORE effective than we could have been in our own talents and strength.
Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me;
You will stretch out Your hand
Against the wrath of my enemies,
And Your right hand will save me.
The Lord will perfect that which concerns me;
Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever;
Do not forsake the works of Your hands. (Verses 7-8)
God takes the lowly - holds our hands and walks us through the troubles of this life. He will not leave us without reviving us. In the middle of crisis and great tragedy, we might feel like we are alone, and that God doesn’t care about us, but the promise is that He WILL revive us. We are the work of His hands, and He will not leave us alone to suffer without Him.
Psalm 23 says, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;
For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”
Now back to Psalm 138 - “Your right hand will save me.” (verse 7). The right hand of the Lord is His hand of authority, power, and inheritance. In the Old Testament, the fathers would place their right hands on the heads of their firstborn sons. They were anointing them to take over the family and to take possession of all of their inheritance. So when it says here in this scripture, “Your right hand will save me” – know that this is a powerful hand full of authority. God is able to save. He will deliver. We are His!
God is an all-powerful God who wants to intervene in the lives of His people. “The Lord will perfect that which concerns me”, verse 8 says. He doesn’t want to leave us alone - helpless. His heart is not to watch us suffer and go through things without Him.
I love John 14:16-20 in the Message Bible as He pours out his concern for us as a good Father.
“I will talk to the Father, and he'll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can't take Him in because it doesn't have eyes to see Him, doesn't know what to look for. But you know Him already because He has been staying with you and will even be in you!
I will not leave you orphaned. I'm coming back. In just a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you're going to see Me because I am alive and you're about to come alive. At that moment you will know absolutely that I'm in my Father, and you're in Me, and I'm in you.”
God has our lives in His hands and He cares about EVERYTHING that concerns us. He is faithful to the works of His hands – His creation. That my friends – is US!
Let’s remember the promises of God today in His Word and watch Him work wonders in our lives. Let’s experience God, be content as one of the “lowly”, and praise Him with our whole hearts.
“For great is the glory of the Lord!”
Political Corner: If you want to experience prideful and haughty people – get into politics. I hate to say that, but it is so true. I have watched friends who started as political activists years ago with pure hearts be “taken out” by pride because they began to believe that they were “important” people. They had their picture taken with the Governor or they met the President and in their minds they began to think that they were better than everyone else. They knew more, they had been a part of important insider conversations, someone asked for their opinion and instantly they were more powerful and more important than their family and friends.
It is subtle how pride sneaks into our hearts, but when it takes root – it makes us into ugly people who repel others. Politics – because there is so much power in the system, breeds pride like few activities. We must be diligent to watch over our hearts discerning some of the weeds that are growing there and making sure our fruit continues to be humility.
The Word of God is the exposing cleansing agent that “washes us” daily as we maintain a life before the face of God. If you want to stay free from pride in the midst of political activity – the only way to do that is to expose ourselves to a force that is more powerful than political systems and power – the Word of God. This is how it begins and ends – daily reading, daily meditating, and daily bowing to those precious words – written by the hand of God.