Final Thoughts

There are 150 psalms in the book of psalms, and this edition only looks at the psalms of Book Four, psalms 90-106. Many of them have worship themes, so Book Four is of particular interest to the author.

These psalms call upon the nation of Israel to remember who God is and what He has done. They frequently recount Israel's history as the basis for extolling His praise, for consistently delivering His people, and for calling those of every generation to not make the same mistakes which were made in the past.

God is unique. There is no other being like Him. He is the eternal King and rules over His Kingdom, which is both seen and unseen. He reveals aspects of His nature and character, yet there is much about Him that is unrevealed and perhaps unknowable. In creating the heavens and the earth, God chose to make Himself known, make His desires known, and demonstrate a plan for His creation. The Psalms call us to reflect upon God's greatness and contemplate His glory and His lovingkindness. 

God has worked in history. God gave His creatures the ability to make choices and then provided the perfect plan for bringing forgiveness and atonement for bad decisions. God created a nation out of Abraham, whom He had chosen. God then led that nation out of Egypt into the land He had promised them. God continued to work through history into the time of Jesus and continues working into our time today. 

We need to do the same things as the original readers - remember who God is and remember what He has done. If we fail to do this, we will commit the same errors as those of the past. However, there is blessing available to us when we walk with God, and there is cursing for ignoring or rejecting Him - not because He has a petty ego, but because He exists, and if we seek to understand the truth of how the universe works, we must recognize the truth about God. To miss the truth about God is to develop a very wrong understanding of reality - the way things really are.

So the psalms of Book Four call us to remember what He has done and respond appropriately to who He is. We sing for joy when we gather to worship Him. We remember His deeds and realize the mistakes we have made in the past and the mistakes we make in the present.

As we worship we sing His praises and declare His glory. The psalms of Book Four gives us God’s words for  expressing the variety and depth of our thoughts and emotions of worship back to Him.

May the Lord use these comments to bring each reader closer to Him to His glory. Amen.

Rev. Thomas R. Shedd