Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

If you think Psalm 117 is a short chapter, you are right, for it is the shortest in all the Bible.

But it is twice as long in English as it is in the original Hebrew.

It is 33 words in English, but only 17 in the Hebrew.

And it is another of the many paradoxes of the Bible, for small as it is, it deals with the largest subject in the Bible.

All the people's of the world, more even than the United Nations, for it is absolutely universal.

It also deals with the universal love of God and His everlasting faithfulness.

So as small as it is, it is a door that leads us into a Cathedral of praise that is infinite.

I must confess that I have never given it a lot of thought, for it is so short that it seems irrelevant, but we need to see that it is like a modern day chorus.

It is very short compared to a hymn, yet, it can be a powerful tool for praise.

Length does not mean strength.

William Graham Scroggie wrote, "Here, indeed, is a gem, likely to be overlooked because of its minuteness."

It is clearly overlooked, for there are many commentaries and books of sermons on the Psalms that just skip Psa.

117, for it seems to small to bother with.

The assumption is that it cannot be very important if there are only two verses.

The Psalm before it has 19 verses, and the Psalm after it has 29 verses.

So the theory seems to be that more is better, and so a measly 17 words cannot be very significant.

How God must laugh at us, like we do the little child, who goes for the big nickel and leaves the little dime unclaimed.

Most Christians will go through life and never once claim this little gem as a precious part of God's Word.

The Interpreter's Bible says, this little Psalm exhibits ideas that are among the loftiest of the Old Testament."

The basis for world missions is found in this little chorus.

Do you think it is mere coincidence that Psa.

117, 118, and 119 are all located together?

Psa.

117 is very small, Psa.

118 is medium size, and 119 is the longest in the Bible.

The shortest and the longest chapters of the Bible are separated by an average size chapter: Small, medium, and large, in that order.

The very structure of the Bible has a message.

God uses all sizes for His glory.

The size of a song, or anything else, is not an issue.

The issue is, does it help us worship God in spirit and in truth?

The child, the teen, and the adult are all tools that can be used for God's glory.

The small church, the medium size church, and the large church are all part of God's plan.

Size does not matter to God, for His Word is composed of songs of all sizes, and we want to see how even the smallest of them can convey a big and vital message.

I. THE UNIVERSAL INVITATION TO PRAISE v. 1.

This Psalm seems to be going the wrong way on a one way street.

All around it the Psalms are focused on Israel.

Psa.

116 ends with a focus on God's chosen people, and the house of the Lord in Jerusalem.

Psa.

118 is also a narrow focus on Israel with the nations as enemies.

In verse 10 we read, "All the nations surrounded me, but in the name of the Lord I cut them off."

The theme is about Israel as the object of God's salvation.

Now we come to Psa. 117, and it makes me think of an amusing incident that happened in New York City during a transportation strike.

Certain heavily traveled streets were made one-way.

Madison Ave. was one of these, and a man who was not in full possession of his faculties was stopped by an officer when he was caught going the wrong way.

"Where are you going," the officer asked?

The befuddled man responded, "I don't know, but I must be late, everybody else is coming back."

This is the feeling you get in reading Psa.

117, and trying to fit it into the context of the Jewish hymnal.

It is going against the grain, and swimming up stream.

There is no hint of Jewish exclusiveness here at all.

It is so totally inclusive that universal is the only appropriate word.

From the temple in Jerusalem, the very heart of Judaism, this universal invitation goes out to all the world to praise Jehovah, because the God of the Jews is equally the God of all people, and He loves them just as He does the Jews.

This is radical theology that many Jews never really grasped.

They could sing this little song, and then go out and live with prejudice against these very people they just invited to be one with them in their praise to God.

This is true of Christians too, and we can sing theology that is far above the level where we actually live.

"Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to Thee," is a good example.

Listen to the third verse: "Take my lips and let them be filled with messages for Thee: Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold-not a mite would I withhold."

After we sing this we go and use our mouth and our money for that which does not glorify God at all.

There is no ground for finger pointing at the Jews.

They fell short of the glory of God.

They sang beautiful things that they did not let influence their lives and thinking.

Nevertheless, it was a God inspired song, and was true, even if God's people did not take it to heart.

The invitation still stands, and all people of the world are invited to praise God, for they are included in His plan.

God so loved the world-that is all the nations and all the people of the world.

That is the New Testament expanded version of Psa.

117.

There has never been a time when God's plan was not universal.

The idea that there are some people that God does not love is heretical.

A study of the most hated peoples of the Bible reveals that they are included in God's plan of salvation.

This very Psalm could have been the last song Jesus sang before He went to the cross to die for the sins of the whole world.

Let me explain: Psa.

113-118 are called the Hellel Psalms, or the Hymns of Praise.

The Jews had a tradition of singing Psa.

113 and 114 before the Passover, and then after the Passover meal they sang Psa.

115-118.

We read in Matt.

26:30 that following the Passover meal of Jesus and His disciples they kept this tradition and it says, "When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mt. of Olives."

This Psalm was likely a part of that hymn.

Jesus sang this universal invitation just before He made it possible for all people's of the world to be saved because of His sacrifice for all sin.

Most of the Psalms never get mentioned in the New Testament.

But this, the shortest of them all, is used by the Apostle Paul to prove an important point in his letter the Romans.

In Rom.

15:11 Paul quotes this first verse-"Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and sing praises to Him, all you peoples."

He uses this text to show that it has always been God's plan that the Gentiles would be one with the Jews as His people, and as one they would praise Him.

This is what the New Testament church is to confirm and demonstrate as Jews and Gentiles unite in Christ to glorify God the Father.

The littlest Psalm plays a big role in conveying the universal plan of God.

The nations did not really respond to this invitation until Jesus sent His church into all the world with the Gospel.

But we do have some examples even in the Old Testament of pagan peoples who praised the God of Israel.

Darius the Mede, Queen of Sheba, Naaman, are just a few.

We can't look at them all, but let me share a couple of examples.

Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, so famous he is studied by most children in schools as the builder of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world-the hanging gardens of Babylon.

Few know that he became a convert to Jehovah, and we have every reason to believe he will be in heaven.

We have his personal testimony in Dan.

4:35.

"At the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored.

Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified Him who lives forever."

Can a pagan glorify the God of the Bible?

If he becomes a believer, he certainly can.

This invitation of Psa.

117 is authentic when it says whosoever will may come, and praise the God who is the God of all peoples.

Jonah wanted to keep Jehovah as the God of Israelites only, but when he preached that the great city of Nineveh was going to be destroyed in 40 days we read in Jonah 3:5, "The Ninevites believed God."