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Praise the Lord Now and Forever!
Verse 17:
It is not the dead who praise the Lord, those who go down to silence.
Don Wyrtzen raises the question: "Why don't we sing? The Maker of heaven and earth has given us everything to delight us, but so many people move through the measure of their days like marionettes, with painted smiles and no music in their hearts."
Praise is a major priority to our blessed Lord. That's why in the middle of the 66 books we have 150 psalms for us to use to give praise to our God.
Verse 18:
...it is we who extol the Lord, both now and forevermore. Praise the Lord.
C. H. Spurgeon said: "Though the dead cannot, and the wicked will not, and the careless do not praise God, yet we will shout 'Hallelujah' for ever and ever. Amen"
David Jeremiah says: "For those of a bent 'too serious' for such frivolities as music, the fact remains that there are 575 references to praise, singing, and music in the Bible." (My Heart's Desire, 90)
You can't imagine hell with music or heaven without it!
Kris Lundgaard says: "If your thoughts are prisoners of your flesh or can't rise above earthly needs, you won't be able to hold on to a sense of the love of Christ and its glory. High thoughts of his love can't live in the same mind with sewer-dwelling thoughts any more than a mouse can live in the same cage with a boa constrictor. Just as the serpent devours the rodents, a mind mesmerized by worldliness eats up the first feeble attempt to gaze on the Son." (Through the Looking Glass, 67)
Colossians 3:16: "Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God" (NASB).
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