Psalm 34 - A Psalm of Praise and Thanksgiving

Psalm 34 is another of the acrostic psalms. Each of the 22 verses pertains to a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It is likely that it was used as not only a psalm of worship within the liturgy of he Old Testament church but also as a teaching aid or aid to memorization for young Hebrew children growing up in the faith. The Rev. Charles Spurgeon divided the psalm into two parts. Verses 1-10 he saw as a hymn and verses 11-22 as a sermon. I liked that division and used it in my sermon from this chapter, a sermon that is linked below.

Here is an excerpt from the sermon:

(19) Many are the afflictions of the righteous,

but the LORD delivers him out of them all.

"This is a most realistic picture of the Christian life. The righteous in this world suffer, but they have hope in the midst of suffering, because they have a redeemer who came and suffered for them and in suffering made an end of all suffering and guaranteed us a place in a world where suffering would be no more. Do you know sorrow? He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Do you know pain? He knew it well. Do you know loss? He cried out to God, "why have you forsaken me?" He was afflicted that he might deliver us from all affliction.

(20) He keeps all his bones;

not one of them is broken.

No permanent hurt will ever afflict God's people. Here in these verses we see Christ, for John's gospel teaches us to do so. Verse twenty looks not only forward to Christ, but backwards to the Passover lamb which prefigured Christ--the lamb that was slain and consumed and according to the commands of God this was to be carefully done in a way so as not to break even one of the bones. That lamb and this verse point us forward to the lamb of God, whom John the Baptist said was to 'take away the sin of the world.'"

I hope you will take the time to listen to the sermon and that it will be a blessing to you. Just click he link below and it will take you to SoundCloud where you can stream the audio file. God bless you.

Psalm 34 - A Psalm of Praise and Thanksgiving

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^