Psalm 113:4–9 4The Lord is high above all nations, And his glory above the heavens. 5Who is like unto the Lord our God, Who dwelleth on high, 6Who humbleth himself to behold The things that are in heaven, and in the earth! 7He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, And lifteth the needy out of the dunghill; 8That he may set him with princes, Even with the princes of his people. 9He maketh the barren woman to keep house, And to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the Lord.
Who is like the Lord our God?
That is the question found within today's reading from the Psalms.
It is a question repeated a few times within the Word of God.
Isaiah 40:18 To whom then will ye liken God? Or what likeness will ye compare unto him?
Isaiah 40:25 To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.
As a matter of fact, Michael, the chief angel of Heaven’s name means, “Who is like God?”
Who is like the Lord our God?
Of course, the question is rhetorical, and the answer is obvious,
There ain’t nobody like our Lord!
To answer the question, "Who is like the Lord our God" the inspired author of Psalm 113 answers a couple of others.
1. How High Is Our God?
To answer that question, the Psalmist Points out how high he is!
Psalm 113:4 The Lord is high above all nations, And his glory above the heavens.
How high above us does he dwell? The Psalmist answers that question in verse 6.
Psalm 113:6 Who humbleth himself to behold The things that are in heaven, and in the earth!
He humbles himself to behold the heavens. In other words, he is far above his creation that he must stoop to see the sky!!
That is a lofty position for sure!
He is so high above us that in Genesis 11 some Nimrod got the bright idea to build a tower to God. They constructed it as tall as human ingenuity would allow and notice God’s response.
Genesis 11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
At man’s peak, God still had to come way down to him.
Our God is higher than us and I am glad. Who would want to worship a being that we could look down upon? From our Lord’s perspective, all of our big problems are small and every problem ahead of our path is clearly seen.
There ain’t nobody like our Lord!
2. How Low Does He Go?
I am not surprised at the beginning of this Psalm, since there ain’t nobody like our God then surely, he should be praised! I am however a little surprised by the ending.
Look at the abrupt and seemingly unrelated closing of this passage.
Psalm 113:9 He maketh the barren woman to keep house, And to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the Lord.
Some have called this passage anticlimactic; it begins high above the Heavens but quickly descends to a little momma keeping her house.
Ah, to truly understand the greatness of our God you must understand not only his height but how low he goes.
Psalm 113:7–8 7He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, And lifteth the needy out of the dunghill; 8That he may set him with princes, Even with the princes of his people.
Our big Creator of the universe, who is high and lifted up concerns himself with the poor!
There are politicians that don’t care about poor folk but not our God!
There ain’t nobody like our Lord!
I know churches that only cater to the wealthy but not our Lord!
There ain’t nobody like our Lord!
I find the word dunghill in verse 7 of interest, it could also be translated “ashe heap”. That is what they did with the garbage and human waste, take it out of town and burn it.
Have you ever noticed that in Luke 16 when Jesus compared poor Lazarus to the rich man that only the rich was said to be buried? The reason that poor Lazarus was not said to have a burial was because he was too poor for a funeral and no doubt his body would be burned in the ashe heap of the city. I believe when our Psalm says that he “lifteth the needy out of the dunghill” it is saying that our big God stoops down from Heaven to care for people so poor that they can’t even afford to be buried.
There ain’t nobody like our Lord!
And then there is that last verse that we mentioned,
Psalm 113:9 He maketh the barren woman to keep house, And to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the Lord.
He even cares about the barren womb of a heartbroken lady and hears her heartfelt prayers.
Hannah was such a woman, she prayed and God heard and then she testified to the greatness of her God.
1 Samuel 2:8 He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, And lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, To set them among princes, And to make them inherit the throne of glory: For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, And he hath set the world upon them.
Our Big God cares about the individual concerns of one little lady!
I believe the greatness of my God is best displayed not by the vastness of the universe that he created but the way he bends down to care about our cares and even more came to meet us in our despair.
Who is like the Lord our God?
There ain’t nobody like our Lord!
10/8/20
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