Psalm 50:23 Whoever offers praise glorifies me: and to him that orders his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God. I. THE SONG OF THE NEW BIRTH. Every believer has learned some of the notes of this song, for we enter the kingdom singing it. When in the world, the world's songs — songs of merriment and glee — were in our esteem the richest and best; but when we saw Jesus, and heard the music of His grace, then the world's songs could no longer express our joy. In all the miracles of Christ the first act of the healed one was to begin to praise. The leper, the paralytic, Bartimaeus, and all the others. And so with those whom Christ has saved. II. THE SONG OF THANKSGIVING. HOW many of them we have in these psalms, but from some men you never hear them — they are always discontented and complaining. But think of our temporal mercies — our faculties of mind and body are daily mercies. Some never see them because they keep their eyes so fastened on the dark specks of disappointment and trial, and, seeing these only, they fancy these cover the whole of the sky. But it is not so. If God take from us one mercy, think how many we have left. Oliver Wendell Holmes has beautifully said, "If one should give me a dish of sand, and tell me that there were particles of iron in it, I might search for them with my clumsy fingers and be unable to detect them; but take a magnet and swing through it, and the magnet will draw to it the particles of iron immediately. So let the thankful heart sweep through the day, and, as the magnet finds the iron, it will find in every hour some heavenly blessings: only the iron in God's sand is always gold." III. THE SONG OF VICTORY. Listen to that song as it rises from Israel's redeemed hosts on the bank of the Red Sea. No wonder that they felt like singing, for all the fears of yesterday had been buried in that sea. They did not sing thus in Egypt, for there they were slaves. And in the captivity, when a song was required of them by their captors, they said, "We cannot sing the Lord's song in a strange land." There are many psalms of David which are like a full orchestra of praise; but the majority of them are penitential cries, a singing as by the waters of Marah. And so it was with Israel of old, and it is so with the Church of to-day: the lamentations outnumber the praises; the defeats are more than the victories. And yet, though here they cannot be complete, we have our victories, and we ought even now to render praise for them. IV. SONGS IN THE NIGHT. See Paul and Silas in the prison at Philippi. But when we are free from the bondage of the world, we shall be as they, who at midnight sang praises. Let us also sing, so that the prisoners around may hear us. V. THE SONG BEFORE THE THRONE — the heavenly song. What an immense company join in it. And it is a song without tears. Ours here are never that, But there they are tearless and eternal. (A. E. Kittridge, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God. |
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