Psalm Chapter 111

Psalm 111: The Works That Want to Be Remembered

This is a psalm of holy astonishment — someone who has looked carefully at what God has done and cannot quite get over it. "His work is honourable and glorious." "He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered." That second line is worth pausing over: God did not merely do great things and move on, like an artist who abandons his canvases. He made them to be remembered, which is to say He built memory into the design. The Passover meal, the covenant, the heritage given to His people — these are not accidents of history but monuments erected by a God who wants to be known. And the psalm builds toward its famous conclusion like a cathedral building toward its spire: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Not the end of wisdom, but the beginning — the foundation stone on which everything else is built. To fear the Lord, in the way this psalm means it, is not to cringe but to stand in the kind of awe that makes you want to pay very close attention. And paying attention, as it turns out, is where all real understanding begins.

00:00 Praise in the Congregation
00:20 Great and Glorious Works
00:35 Gracious and Compassionate
00:50 The Power of His Works
01:00 The Fear of the Lord