The whole psalter is rounded off by this famous brief and ebullient psalm of praise. The psalm not only begins with hallelujahs but speaks of praise throughout. The word praise appears some 12 times, twice in every verse. After the opening Praise the LORD the call is to Praise God both in his sanctuary and in his mighty heavens. Time is to be set aside to praise God where his people gather but praise is to extend out into the whole world. He is to be praised for his acts of power and his surpassing greatness. The psalmist calls for a variety of instruments to be used in the praise of God. He mentions the sounding of the trumpet ... the harp and lyre ... tambourine and dancing ... strings and flute ... the clash of cymbals ... resounding cymbals. Some want to bring this sort of thing back into worship today. Mostly it is strings and flutes, there is less enthusiasm for trumpets and harps and even less for dancing and loud cymbals. In fact, New Testament worship is to be of a very simple sort and what verses like this teach us today is the continuing need for variety of expression rather than dictating that we use only trumpets, harps and lyres, tambourines, strings and flutes and cymbals but not snare drums or tom toms. It would be very hard to argue for dancing as a New Testament worship practice. His final point is that everything that has breath should praise the LORD. That is how it should be and how it must be and how, one day, it will be.
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