All Articles For Psalm

“Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” Psalm 55:22 Bearing a burden is a part of living in a sin-cursed world. Burden-bearing is especially the lot of God’s people. David knew burdens. The burden he has in mind when he writes this Psalm is that of being betrayed by his son, Absalom, along with his friend, Ahithophel. The natural way in which our sinful natures react to a burden is to fly away from them (6, 7). But God would have us respond to the burden that...

“. . . . Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbours: and our enemies laugh among themselves. Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause Thy face to shine; and we shall be saved. . .” Psalm 80 O God! Thou shepherd of Israel! Thou that leadest Joseph like a flock! Thou, O God! that dwelleth between the cherubim! In the darkness of this hour we have but one prayer, nay, it is a suppliant cry: Shine forth! If only Thou wilt shine forth within the depths of our hearts and minds, then all will be well with...

“I love the Lord, because He hath heard my voice and my supplication.” Psalm 116:1 No, we do not know who wrote this psalm, but it matters not. If it mattered, the Lord would have told us. Therefore I will not guess who the author may be. We have the psalm. I love the Lord! That is the theme of the whole psalm. He will give us the reason for his love; he will tell us what he is going to do with that love, so that he ends in heaven itself where he will dwell in the courts of...

“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139:23, 24 This Psalm sings of God’s omniscience and omnipresence. And from it the poet infers two things: the overthrow of the wicked, and his own salvation. The close of the Psalm seems superfluous, redundant. Verse 1 stated: “O Lord, Thou hast searched me, and known me.” And we are tempted to ask, why then the “Search me, O God, and know my heart.” The answer is easy:...

O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. Psalm 95:1, 2 Let us begin with a few thought-questions? Do you enjoy singing? How much do you sing? What kind of songs do you sing? Psalms? Hymns? Secular songs? In a similar vein, do you listen to music? To what kind of music do you listen? We are instructed in the passage we consider for this meditation to sing unto the Lord. We...

Rev. Haak is pastor of Georgetown Protestant Reformed Church in Hudsonville, MI. This article is the text of one of the six speeches given at the PR Seminary-sponsored conference, in October of last year, commemorating the 450th anniversary of the writing of the Heidelberg Catechism. The other five were printed in the November 1, 2013 issue of the SB. “I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.” Psalm 116 In Psalm 116, the psalmist David gives...

Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me and know my thoughts: and see i) there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139:23, 24 Search me, O God! What a paradoxical petition. It just doesn’t seem to make sense to ask God to do something that will bring us to grief.

I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving. Psalm 69:30 Many in the United States have come to refer to Thanksgiving Day as “Turkey Day.” We do not want to do this if it is a way to avoid reference to the One to whom all thanks must be given. All thanks is to be given to God, for He made and He sustains the heavens and the earth and all things that are in them. As the Giver, to all, of life and breath and all things (Acts 17:24, 25), He is...

This is the abbreviated text of the Pre-Synodical Sermon that Rev. Key preached on June 10, 2013. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! Psalm 133:1 Psalm 133 is fitting for our consideration as we gather as the Synod of 2013. The Psalm celebrates the unity of brethren, a unity that we enjoy as churches, which unity extends beyond our own denomination even to those of like precious faith with us in other countries, some of whom are represented here. The unity that is our great blessing compels us to thank God. Unity...

Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am. Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Psalm 39:4, 5 We now stand at the end of 2012 and at the beginning of 2013. The time went by so very fast. It seems such a short time ago that 2012 began. One wonders how the days could so quickly pass. But they did. One realizes too that the...