Hallelujah…!

Hallelujah is a wonderful word! It’s a compilation of two Hebrew words: Hallel which means praise and Jah which is a contraction of God’s name, Jehovah or Yahweh. Hallelujah is an exhortation: ‘Praise the Lord’. It’s the word that forms the bookends of the last five psalms.

Hallelujah challenges us to ask, who is God that we would want to praise him? We can only truly worship God when we know something about him. In his conversation with a woman at a well in Samaria that we find in John’s Gospel, Jesus says that true worshippers worship God in spirit and in truth (4:23).

Significantly, Psalm 146, following the opening call Hallelujah, tells us about God. Two themes stand out: False Hope and True Hope.

False Hope. Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish (verse 3).

Psalm 146 was most likely written in the 6th century BC, when the Jewish people were in exile in ancient Babylon. But as earlier prophets had indicated, they were given the opportunity to return to Jerusalem – something Cyrus, the Persian leader decreed in 520BC.

But the psalm warns, Don’t put your trust in princes. Princes is a reference to the powerful and the rich, the elite, the celebrities and influencers, who seem to offer a better world – more often than not, as opposed to God. Even good leaders will disappoint, the psalm warns, for none can offer true, lasting solutions to the world’s problems. They’re not saviors. And their biggest problem is that they all die.

Now, Paul the Apostle in his Letter to the Romans, chapter 13, tells us that God has given us governments for the good order and protection of society. Nowhere is the Bible against governments. In a flawed, troubled world God in his mercy uses governments to provide a framework for justice and peace, and – in most democracies – security, education, healthcare and so on. Furthermore, in his First Letter to Timothy, chapter 2, Paul exhorts us to pray for all in authority so that everyone may enjoy peace and so that the gospel can be promoted.

Interestingly, despite being a global celebrity Taylor Swift acknowledges that she isn’t able to offer solutions to the longings or pain we feel – she is not a savior. She has herself has many issues. In the chorus of Anti Hero she sings, “It’s me, hi/ I’m the problem, it’s me”.

And, to apply the warning of Psalm 146 to my own ministry, I ask everyone to work with a paradox: trust me when I say, don’t put your trust in me. I am in need of a savior to rescue me from my failings before the Lord; also the day will come when I will pass from this world. And even Mary, the mother of Jesus, called God her Savior (Luke 1:46-47).

The warning of Psalm 146 about false hope has lost none of its relevance through the millennia.

True Hope. Where then can we find true hope? In verse 5 we read: Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God,…

I’m sure you have noticed what the psalm is saying: God who made unbreakable promises to the Jewish people, is not only the source of true help in life, but also our only hope.

Who is this God? Verse 6 tells us: The Lord who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever;… The God who created all things, isn’t fickle. He always keeps his word.

And as the psalm continues to unfold, the focus is on God as creator, his faithfulness and his justice, his love and his commitment to give us life and hope.

The notion of a creator God is aggressively dismissed today by opinion-shapers. Yet some of the finest scientific minds agree that we are not here by chance: the universe is the work of a supreme intelligence.

For example, Dr. John Lennox, emeritus professor of mathematics, Oxford University, writes in God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? ‘To the majority of those who have reflected deeply and written about the origin and nature of the universe, it has seemed that it points beyond itself to a source which is non-physical and of great intelligence and power’.

Furthermore, God is truly the God of good news. In verses 7 and 8 we read: …who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free;.. He opens the eyes of the blind. He lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous.

The oppressed, the hungry, the prisoners, the blind, and the righteous, the sojourners (immigrants), the widow and the fatherless (verse 9), are the recipients of God’s help.

The flow of the sentence tells us that these are not different groups of people, but the same people. It speaks of God’s people as a whole. The righteous are those who are righteous by faith. They don’t put their trust in the influential or powerful. They put their trust in the God who is faithful, the God who has good news to offer, the God who offers hope and a future.

Now the psalmist is not saying that there is no place for human agencies. That’s not his point. His question is: ‘Where do you put your trust – in human princes or in God?’

Let me ask, do you truly worship God? Let me urge you to open your mind and heart to him and to the Lord Jesus Christ. Consider God’s unchanging character, his special love and his majesty which one day will dazzle and be seen in all its glory throughout the universe. God’s final triumph will eliminate all evil and rebuild once and for all the paradise of Eden lost.

Friends, when we focus our minds on him and let our hearts be drawn to the Lord Jesus Christ, we will find that whatever our song of experience was in the past, it can finish with Hallelujah, the heartfelt song of praise, of hope and of joy, because God is truly good, loving and merciful. His beauty, glory and love are now perfectly revealed for us in his eternal Son whom we know as the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let the concluding words of Psalm 146 reach into the depth of your soul: The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the Lord!

Now that God has come amongst us in person, the Lord Jesus Christ, we have greater reason to sing with the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel’s Messiah: And he shall reign forever and ever.  Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Prayer. O God, the author and lover of peace, in knowledge of whom stands our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom; defend us your servants in all assaults of our enemies, that surely trusting in your defense, we may not fear the power of any adversaries, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

© John G. Mason