CHAPTER FOURTEEN

BY PRAISING OUT OF
THE EXPERIENCES OF CHRIST

PSALM 68

(A medley of various versions and translations, which when blended give a better rendering of this passage than the King James Version or any other single version.)

1. ¹ Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered: let them also that hate Him flee before Him.
2. ² As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.
3. ³ But let the righteous be glad; let them exult before God: yea, let them rejoice with gladness.
4. ⁴ Sing unto God, sing praises to His name: triumph in Him that rideth through the deserts; His name is JAH; and exult before Him.
5. ⁵ A father of the fatherless, and a protector of the widows, is God in His holy habitation.
6. ⁶ God placeth the solitary in families [and] giveth the desolate a home to dwell in; He bringeth out the prisoners into prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a parched land.
7. ⁷ O God, when Thou wentest forth before Thy people, when Thou didst march through the wilderness; Selah:
8. ⁸ the earth trembled, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God: yon Sinai trembled at the presence of God, the God of Israel.
9. ⁹ Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain, whereby Thou didst restore and confirm Thy heritage [the land], when it was languished.
10. ¹⁰ Thy flock found a dwelling-place in it: Thou, O God, didst prepare it in Thy goodness for the needy.
11. ¹¹ The Lord sendeth the news of victory: great is the host of women that publish the tidings:
12. ¹² “The kings of the armies, they flee, they flee!” And the women that tarry at home divide the spoil,
13. ¹³ though they lie among the sheepfolds: the wings of a dove covered with silver and its pinions with glittering gold.
14. ¹⁴ When the Almighty scattered kings therein, it was as when it snoweth in Zalmon.
15. ¹⁵ The mighty mountain, mount Bashan; the many-peaked mountain, mount Bashan;
16. ¹⁶ Why do ye look with envy, ye many-peaked mountains, at the mountain which God desireth to dwell in; yea, the Lord will dwell in it forever.
17. ¹⁷ The chariots of God are twenty thousands, even thousands upon thousands; the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the sanctuary.
18. ¹⁸ Thou hast ascended on high. Thou hast led captive a train of vanquished foes. Thou hast received gifts in Man, and even for the rebellious, that the Lord God might dwell with them.
19. ¹⁹ Blessed be the Lord: day by day doth He load us with good, the God who is our salvation. Selah.
20. ²⁰ God is unto us a God of deliverances; and with God, the Lord, are the goings forth even from death.
21. ²¹ But God will smite the head of the enemies,...
22. ²² The Lord said, I will bring again from Bashan, I will bring [thine enemies] again from the depth of the [Red] sea,
23. ²³ that thou may crush them, dipping thy foot in the blood, and the tongue of thy dogs may have its portion from [thine] enemies.
24. ²⁴ They have seen Thy goings, O God, the goings of my God, my King, in the sanctuary.
25. ²⁵ The singers went before, the players on stringed instruments after, in the midst of maidens playing on timbrels.
26. ²⁶ Bless ye God in the congregations, even the Lord, ye that are of [Jacob] the fountain of Israel.
27. ²⁷ There is little Benjamin in the lead, the princes of Judah with their company, the princes of Zebulun, and the princes of Naphtali.
28. ²⁸ Thy God hath commanded thy strength: strengthen, O God, that which Thou hast wrought for us
29. ²⁹ out of Thy temple. Unto Jerusalem shall kings bring presents to Thee. [or, From Thy temple at Jerusalem where kings shall bring presents to Thee,]
30. ³⁰ Rebuke the wild beasts of the reeds [in Egypt], the herd of bulls [the leaders], with the calves of the peoples; trample under foot those who lust for tribute money; scatter the peoples who delight in war.
31. ³¹ Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall haste to stretch out her hands unto God.
32. ³² Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth; O sing praises unto the Lord; Selah:
33. ³³ To Him that rideth upon the heaven of heavens, which are of old; Lo, He uttereth His voice, a mighty voice.
34. ³⁴ Ascribe ye strength unto God: His excellency is over Israel, and His strength is in the skies.
35. ³⁵ O God, Thou art awe-inspiring out of Thy sanctuaries; the God... is He who giveth strength and power unto his people. Blessed be God.

In these days so many books, so many chapters, so many verses of the Bible have been opened up to us. This opening of the Word includes Psalm 68. For many years I have been seeking to understand this Psalm, but not until recent days has the whole Psalm been opened. This Psalm is rich in praise out of the experiences of Christ, and that is how we must meet.

We have seen firstly that whenever we come together for a meeting of the church, we must praise. A psalm is the first item mentioned in 1 Corinthians 14:26. Secondly, we have seen that praising is something established by the Lord out of the mouths of babes and sucklings through His incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, glorification, and enthronement. The more we know and participate in these five steps of Christ, the more praises we will have to offer to Him. We need all these steps that the Lord’s praises may be fully and richly established out of our mouths. Why is the praising in our meetings so poor? We do have a heart to praise and a burden in our spirit to praise; yet we do not have the content in our praise; we do not know adequately for what to praise; we do not have the utterance. Why? Because we have too little experience of these five steps of Christ.

The third point in this matter of praising is that Christ sings praises in the church. In the following chapter we will come back to that point. Here in this chapter we need to see something as an insertion into the praises of Christ to the Father in the church. If we do not have this insertion, it is rather difficult to see more regarding the Lord’s singing of the hymns of praise in the church.