2 The LORD is great in Zion; and he is high above all the people.
3 Let them praise thy great and terrible name; for it is holy.
4 The king's strength also loveth judgment; thou dost establish equity, thou executest judgment and righteousness in Jacob.
5 Exalt ye the LORD our God, and worship at his footstool; for he is holy.
6 Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among them that call upon his name; they called upon the LORD, and he answered them.
7 He spake unto them in the cloudy pillar: they kept his testimonies, and the ordinance that he gave them.
8 Thou answeredst them, O LORD our God: thou wast a God that forgavest them, though thou tookest vengeance of their inventions.
9 Exalt the LORD our God, and worship at his holy hill; for the LORD our God is holy.
Key Verse:
2 The LORD is great in Zion; and he is high above all the people.
Key Observation:
A millennial psalm with the Lord ruling the earth.
Memory Verse:
3 Let them praise thy great and terrible name; for it is holy.
Devotion:
The Lord reigns in Zion. People are to come worship at his holy will. This did not happen ever in the history of Jerusalem. Some say that it will not happen because Israel did not keep the law. But the testament of scripture is plain. God is sovereign and He did not make promises to Israel without fully knowing that Israel would not keep them. He is the same God of the glorious gospel; his words change not. He tells us over and over that His promises would come true even if we were faithless.
Paul tells us that this is a “time of hardening” (Romans 11), and tells us that “God did not reject his people whom He foreknew”. It never ceases to perplex me that so many can point accurately to God’s sovereignty in the New Testament without making the same application in the Old Testament. Matthew Henry appears to have gone astray here, ascribing this psalm somehow with a gospel fulfillment: “Still we are celebrating the glories of the kingdom of God among men, and are called upon to praise him, as in the foregoing psalms; but those psalms looked forward to the times of the gospel, and prophesied of the graces and comforts of those times; this psalm seems to dwell more upon the Old-Testament dispensation and the manifestation of God’s glory and grace in that.” I know not Matthew Henry’s time, but my time I know, and in the past century mankind has committed tremendous atrocities that do little to show “the graces and comforts of those times.” Arguably I would maintain that mankind has failed in its part; we were to carry the gospel to all creatures, and we have failed. We are to bring peace to a warring world, but sometimes we have made the wars worse. We created a nation under which Christianity might flourish; instead we have founded a nation that functions as atheist. Our sins in no way are less than the sins of faithless Israel. Yet we know that God is faithful!
The same God has a plan for his nation, Israel. In no way has He departed from it. The Lord is coming to reign in Zion, and all of the world will gather there in worship of the King of Kings.
To God Be the Glory
To God be the glory, great things he hath done!
So loved he the world that he gave us his Son,
who yielded his life an atonement for sin,
and opened the lifegate that all may go in.
Refrain:
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
let the earth hear his voice!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
let the people rejoice!
O come to the Father thru Jesus the Son,
and give him the glory, great things he hath done!
2. O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,
to every believer the promise of God;
the vilest offender who truly believes,
that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.
(Refrain)
3. Great things he hath taught us, great things he hath done,
and great our rejoicing thru Jesus the Son;
but purer, and higher, and greater will be
our wonder, our transport, when Jesus we see
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