We love the old songs, of course, just as we love the old doctrines (Jer. 6:16). But each generation has fresh lessons of God's grace, and new experiences of God's grace call for new songs. Israel had experienced God's goodness in bringing the people back to their homeland and (probably) giving them a military victory. So they composed this psalm.
In yesterday’s study, I concluded with the point that while Christians can serve as soldiers, they are not to try to advance the work of God by killing its enemies.
The peoples of this world are hostile to God's rule. But they need to be taught that God is King in spite of their rejection of him, since it is only in this way that people can begin to understand that sin is rebellion against God and begin to realize how serious sin is. The people who must teach them this are those who have accepted God's rule and praise him as King, which is what the writer of Psalm 149 does.
I have been emphasizing in these final studies of Psalms that worship is a serious mental activity. It involves hard thinking, and it is possible only because of God's prior revelation in the Bible, which means that we must begin by studying that book. In order to praise God we must know who God is, and the only way we can know who he is and what he has done is by God's own disclosure of himself in Scripture.
Psalm 149 encourages us to think about singing and what it means for the people of God. “Sing” is the psalm's first word after "Hallelujah," and what we are told to sing is "a new song" (v. 1).
