Psalm
34:3.
Good morning, exultant
Christian! You do not exalt the name of
any human leader. You do not exalt the
name of any pop idol. You will never
seek to exalt your Pastor, your Sunday-School teacher; your Youth Pastor; your
choir leader, or any other mere sinner, even if they have been gloriously saved
by God’s Sovereign grace. Why? Because only the Name of the Lord is worthy
to be truly exalted, feared, worshipped and praised. Hallelujah!
Let us magnify the Lord together in reverent fellowship.
Dictionary Definitions:
Magnify - (verb transitive) to make great or greater; to enlarge; to cause to
appear greater; to exaggerate; to praise highly… (The Chambers Dictionary, page
967)
Exalt - (verb transitive) to place in a high position (of
respect, reverence, etc.) to elate or fill with the joy of success; to extol or
praise;… (The Chambers Dictionary, page 561)
“O magnify the Lord with me,
and let us exalt His Name together.”
(Psalm 34:3)
In this one verse of Psalm 34,
we find the Psalmist, David, encouraging his readers/hearers to ‘magnify’ and
to ‘exalt’ the Living Lord God, Jehovah - Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
David had been made king of
all Israel by the Lord in seemingly impossible circumstances; circumstances
beyond his wildest dreams! The Lord had
taken a mere shepherd boy from the fields, anointed him for service; given the
Philistine giant, Goliath, into his hands and, eventually, the throne of
Israel.
Wow! Is it any wonder at all that David desired to
magnify the Lord, to publish abroad the Lord God’s absolute Sovereignty, and to
exalt, in reverence, His Holy Name?
Hallelujah! Magnify the
Lord! Uplift His Holy Name!
“For the Lord your God is God
of gods (small g!), and Lord of lords (small l!), a great God, a mighty, and a
terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward (bribes); He doth
execute the judgement of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in
giving him food and raiment.” (Deuteronomy 10:17-18)
“For with God nothing shall be
impossible.” (Luke 1:37) Praise and exalt His Name!
Not only did David seek to
magnify the Lord and to exalt His Name in private worship, no! In this verse of God-inspired Scripture,
David is commanding his people to magnify the Lord with him, in reverence of
the Lord and in fellowship together with the people of God. The Lord God inhabits the praise of His
people. He LIVES within the hearts of
the people who worship and praise Him!
What a wondrous thing!
“But Thou art Holy, O Thou
that inhabitest the praises of Israel (Spiritual Israel, the regenerate
Christian believer and the elect Jew.)
Our fathers trusted in Thee, they trusted, and Thou didst deliver
them.” (Psalm 22:3-4)
“…As God hath said, I will
dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My
people.” (2 Corinthians 6:16)
“That He would grant you
according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His
Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that
ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all
saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the
love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness
of God.” (Ephesians 3:16-19)
The Lord God, Jehovah, elects
(chooses) ‘His people’ for Salvation in Eternity, before we are ever born into
this world; He quickens us, makes us Spiritually alive, by His Word and His
gift of saving faith in Christ; He convinces us of our sin, Christ’s
righteousness, and the judgement to come by His Spirit; grants us His gift of
true repentance and saves our never-dying souls. Then, sanctified by the precious Blood of
Christ the Lamb, and His one-time Sacrifice for our sins; He justifies us by
Christ’s resurrection, and then, and only then, does He see fit to dwell within
us as our Lord and our Saviour God.
Wow!
Surely these miracles of
regeneration blessing are something to both magnify the Lord and exalt His Holy
Name about together? Let me hear
it? Hallelujah!
Verse 4. “I sought the Lord, and
He heard me. God expects to hear
from you before you can expect to hear from Him. If you restrain prayer, it is no wonder the
mercy promised is restrained. Meditation
is like the lawyer’s studying the case in order to do his pleading at the bar;
when, therefore, thou hast viewed the promise and affected thy heart with the
riches of it, then fly thee to the throne of grace and spread it before the
Lord.” (William Gurnall 1617-1679)
Thought: Those of us who ’fear the Lord’ - view the
Lord God at all times with complete reverence, and a desire to be obedient to
His will - study His Word to show ourselves approved of Him. Being approved of Him, we continually seek to
magnify and exalt His Holy, Sovereign and truly gracious Name.
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