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“Blessed
be the name of the LORD from
this time forth and for evermore.” ~
Psalms 113:2
This whole Psalm is one of pure devotion.
From beginning to end, the Psalmist mingles prayer with praise—a
concoction that sends up a most sweet aroma.
After reading it, one could easily begin to meditate on the thousand
mercies that attend our way every day. Every
point of mercy is a condescension of the Lord who is “high
above all nations, and his glory above the heavens” (Psa. 113:4).
This Psalms exalts the Lord God with amazement: “Who
is like unto the LORD our God, who dwelleth on high, Who humbleth himself to
behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth!” (Psa. 113:5-6).
The first direction in our verse is to bless His name, “Blessed
be the name of the LORD.” A
reference to His “name” exists in each of the three opening verses of this
Psalm. The name of the Lord speaks
to us of power, authority, wisdom, etc. The
mention of His “name” exhorts us to contemplate all of His attributes, all
of His names.
A name is an identifier and a way that God reveals Himself to us.
He is jealous of His name, “I
am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither
my praise to graven images” (Isa. 42:8), and so should we be jealous of
His name. In this regard, may we
have the testimony of Phinehas, of whom it is written, “He
was zealous for his God” (Num. 25:13).
Though a rose may smell just as sweet by another name, we cannot presume
to change the name of God and offer to Him a sweet savor.
To give God a new name would be to worship a false god.
We often give names to the people around us.
These may be derogatory or complementary and usually reflect something
that we presume about the person we have so labeled.
To approach God this way would be for the creature to find out the
Creator rather than the Creator revealing Himself to the creature.
This is man’s attempt to define, and thus limit God.
God is not boxed in by man. He
is the “high and lofty One that
inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy” (Isa. 57:15).
The godhood of God is in His name and anything other than receiving His
testimony concerning Himself is idolatry. This
is discomfiting to the egalitarian feminists, humanists, evolutionists,
postmodernists, et al.
However, they have “set
themselves . . . against the LORD,” and consequently,
“the Lord shall have them in derision . . . speak unto them in his wrath, and
vex them in his sore displeasure” (Psa. 2:2, 4-5).
Except these repent of their idolatry, they will finally be made to bow
at His name and be cast from His presence forever (Rev. 20:12-15).
The direction to bless is set in a perpetually present day—“from
this time forth.” Each day is
the day of blessing the name of the Lord. The
birth of every new day is a reminder of the covenant faithfulness of our God,
who vowed, “While the earth remaineth,
seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and
night shall not cease” (Gen. 8:22). It
should sober us to think of how we cannot today praise God yesterday.
That opportunity is gone, but while it is yet today, we may praise Him. This should be our daily activity. “From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD’s name is to be praised” (Psa. 113:3). “This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psa. 118:24). Let us continue in blessing the name of the Lord “from this time forth and for evermore.” Your Servant For Jesus' Sake, Jeff Short |