'The Great Hallelujah', falls conveniently into three major themes.
'A call to Praise God' (Verses 1 - 2),
'A concerto of Praise to God' (Verses 3 - 4),
'The climax of Praise to God' (Verses 5 - 6).
The translation I'm using is partly my own work, but bears more than a little resemblance to that of the New English Bible.

'A CALL TO PRAISE GOD' verses 1 - 2.

What is praise?
Why on earth should you praise God?

"Praise God in His holy place
Praise Him in the vault of heaven
The vault of His power"

Praise is the lifting up of your heart to God. It's a bridge from ourselves to the great stronghold of Gods Presence. We're told to praise God in His 'Holy place' or within 'His temple' (as the Good-News Bible puts it). St. Paul wrote to a church in Corinth, at the beginning of Christian history. "Don't you know that your body is the temple of' the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God?" (1 Corinthians 6:19).

Praise should be as a spring of living water, within ourselves, that flows out from us as we realize the presence of God in our lives. It is not that we bring God down to our level, but that through God's indwelling Holy Spirit, we are lifted up.

Praise is Gods special way of communicating God's self. When the Spirit lifts your heart to God you not only know God, in a fuller way, but also see yourself in a clearer light. Drawing near to God means discovering God's will for your life. Drawing close to God means that you can be strengthened to put the will of God into practice. To be near to God is to be close to the vault of God's power.

Praise should be a powerful force that gives strength to live life to it's fullest potential. Because of that, praise is an offering, which you make with the whole of your life. The more we are prepared to give, the more we will discover the truth of what has been called "The power of praise".

That is not to say we should ever praise God simply for what we can get out of it. Praise is not a magic formula or talisman to bring instant miracles or blessings to be showered down from heaven. It's not a way of trying to get God to do what we want God to. Rather, it's a way of tuning ourselves in to the will of God.

But why should we praise God?
What has God done that's so Praise worthy?
Why does God demand to be honored by praising?

"Praise Him for His mighty works".

Psalm 150 stands at the end of the book of Psalms. It's a doxology to the whole of the book. The author knew only too well what was contained in the rest of the volume. For to the community of Old Testament Israel, for whom he wrote, had been given the special things of God. The deliverance of the nation from slavery in Egypt was indelibly imprinted upon the lives of generation after generation. They knew what it was to see the powerful hand of God upon the nation both in blessing and in rebuke.

It is a psalm written for those who know themselves the people of God; a call for them to let praise of God pour out from them for all the mighty things He has done; that the whole world would be caught up in praising God.

The Old Testament foreshadows the New. We live in the last days bought into being by Jesus Christ 'Son of God', who for a brief time lived an earthly life amongst us, identifying Himself with mankind and bringing the powerful love of God into our world in a dramatic, new, unique and powerful way.

Through the Holy Spirit, we can experience the touch of God within our own lives. We can know Him in a wonderful and precious way. We are people who are capable of knowing what it is to be delivered out of slavery. Through faith in Christ we can be delivered from the drudgery of everyday life, delivered from the slavery of habits that threaten to crush us, delivered from the slavery of fear and the slavery of guilt. Jesus said He came to set people free. When I asked Christ into my heart, He put His Spirit into the midst of my life and gave me a freedom that this world us unable to give, or even understand.

Even death itself is now to be an open doorway to new-life, rather than a fearful destiny or untimely end. Christ spoke of His crucifixion as being for the forgiveness of sins. His resurrection, three days later, conquers, once and for all, the power of death.

"Praise Him for His mighty works" declares the Psalmist. I cannot help myself but to Praise Him for the mighty way He's worked in my life and those of numerous other Christians! For I know I'm nobody special. I know I'm a long way from being the person God wants me to be. That God can touch such an insignificant little life as mine, I feel is a mighty, awesome thing that draws praise from me.

You may be thinking "Well, it's all right for you, but I haven't got that kind of faith". But you can discover it through Praising God. Praise God for what faith you do have. Praise God for the life that is within you, praise God by starting where you are now. God's call to us is that we shall always praise Him. That includes the present moment. A different Psalmist has written "I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall continually be in my mouth".

Why is there such a stress on constantly praising God.
Has God got a problem?
Does God need constantly reassuring that He's loved?
Is it all that He wants, to be told how good and great He is?
In considering these questions, I'd like to consider some thoughts by C.S. Lewis (put far better by Himself in his book "Reflections upon the Psalms"). The next verse of Psalm 150 is particularly relevant.

"Praise Him for all his greatness,
Of which no man can measure".

Have you ever read a good book or watched a film, seen a work of art or heard a piece of music and thought, "Hey, this is good!". Have you ever stood somewhere, lets say, on a beach on a beautiful summer evening and seen a breathtaking sunset? You've said to yourself "Wow, that is really something!"

That response of admiration comes, not because anybody says, "You must admire this", but because truly excellent things, deserve admiration. Admiration is the correct, and often involuntary response that we make to them.

If we don't admire something of great excellence, the only  person who loses out is our self. We imply show how blind, how deaf or how insensitive we are to great, marvelous, supreme things.

Works of art or nature are mere shadows in comparison to the God who made all things and 'Saw they were good'. The most admirable works of Charles Dickens, or the greatest play of Shakespeare, are passing moments of inspiration in comparison to the great drama of salvation in Jesus Christ. If we fail to appreciate the immeasurable great and marvelous things of God then we lose all in the long run. Our life will be incomplete because we will have been blind, deaf and insensitive to the giver of life itself.

Yet praise is a lot more than simply admiration. The whole world is full of Praise. Lovers praise their loved ones. Players praise their favorite games. People praise the weather, praise food, praise wine, praise places and times. Praise flows out of their enjoyment of life. To be around them is infectious.

They urge us to join in with them. "Isn't she lovely", "Wasn't that brilliant", "Wow, that was really something". People can't help praising things that they love and count as valuable.

Instead we feel our appreciation of them is incomplete till it is expressed. Can you imagine what it is like to know a good joke and have no one to share it with? To have composed a marvelous piece of music and have no one to play it to? To be in love yet not be able to let anyone know? Praise should flow out of our enjoyment of life.

The Westminster catechism states that mans chief end is 'to glorify God and enjoy Him for ever'. To fully enjoy something is to praise it. The command "Praise the Lord" is God's invitation for us to enjoy Him. Praise is letting God's Spirit lead us into a deep appreciation of God's love and God's greatness.

Our thoughts will focus upon Jesus Christ. For in Him, God has revealed Himself in a way which all can understand. In His name we are forgiven; In His name we have access to God. In His name we are children of God. It is He who offers prayer for our sake. It is when we are one with Him that we are one with each other and one with God. St. Paul writes in his letter to the Phillipian Church of how it is ultimately in honor of the name of Jesus "... all beings in heaven on earth and in the world below will fall on their knees and will openly proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of Cod the Father". (Phil - 2, 10:1l).
God demands our praise, not because He would be inadequate without it. But because it is ultimately in praising God that the meaning of the world is fulfilled.  In praise our hearts are lifted to God. We  praise God because of the wonderful things that God has done and because the correct response to amazing things is praise. Our lives are incomplete without praising God. To fail to do so is to miss out on something special. Psalm 150 is a call to Praise God.

Does Praise really make a difference?
How can we Praise God'?

'A CONCERTO OF PRAISE TO GOD'      verses 3 - 4.

Simply reading about praise will not convince you of it's value. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Let me offer you two examples of the difference praising God can make. The first is a rather mundane one from my own experience. The second is a dramatic incident recorded in the book of Acts.

CASE STUDY ONE:- 'Bored Adrian's Ordinary Day'.

I worked for a while in the lower ranks of a Civil Service department. To record my days duties in a diary would sometimes read as follows.
"Today I addressed a lot of envelopes".
"Today I answered the telephone a lot".
"Today was special. I answered the telephone and addressed a lot of envelopes".
To say that I found a lot of my work tedious would be an understatement.

Now I know that routine work has to be done. It may indeed be your daily lot. If so then like me you may find it gets you down from time to time.

Trains that are late, buses that miss their connections, even starting the day with burnt toast can further upset the most undemanding routines. So it was one evening, I came home feeling bored after an ordinary day.

As a wedding present I was given a plaque to go on my walls with the words, "Give thanks always" written across it. At the end of a boring day I would come home and sneer at it. But, on this particular evening, two friends called around.

"C'mon, here's your coats Lets go".
"But where are we going?", I asked.
"There's a prayer and praise meeting at the church, C'mon lets go".

I reluctantly agreed to go. Arriving at the meeting the leader said simply that we were to lose ourselves in praise of God, 'to forget about our circumstances and concentrate upon the Lord." To do so meant an effort of the will. But the more I thought about God, the more I praised Him for the love He had shown to me, the less I was able to complain about my own problems. My experience was that my spirits were lifted.

Arriving home, Lives little problems hadn't gone away, but I had a new power with which to face them. For in the meeting, by the power of praise, I had been drawing near to the vault of heaven, the vault of God's power. It was not as if I had any great problems other than a feeling of dissatisfaction with my lot. Yet, through praising God, my simple need was met.

CASE STUDY TWO:- "Paul and Silas' Prison Praise Party"

For the full story of this, take a look at ACTS chapter 16.

Paul and Silas, two of the first Christian missionaries are in big trouble. For preaching the gospel they've been thrown into a jail in the town of Phillipi. Having been threatened by an angry mob, humiliated, badly beaten up by the local police, they now find themselves chained up in prison with their feet locked between blocks of wood. Yet, what do we find them doing?

"About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God". In the middle of all their troubles they just kept on praising God'.  We read that on this particular might there's an earthquake, the doors of the prison fly open and their chains fall off. The jailer thinks everyone's got away so he decides to kill himself rather than face the consequences.
Luckily, Paul shouts to him, "Its allright we're still here". The man is amazed. He wants to know more about this God that they were praising. So Paul and Silas lead him and his family to the Lord. We read: "He and his family were filled with joy, because they now believed in God".

The British gospel singer, Ishmael, has a bouncing chorus that's called 'It's amazing what praising can do". If the example of Paul and Silas is anything to go by, then it really is. It shows us how praise can set our spirits free. It shows that when we start praising God, even if we're in the most unlikely circumstances, then people will start asking questions about the God that we believe in. Praise should be a vital ingredient of every Christian life.

The writer of Psalm 150 gives us a picture of a great concerto of praise in which everybody is called to take an active part. By thinking about some of the instruments he mentions, we are given pointers as to how we can praise God, ways in which we can turn our thoughts into action.

"PRAISE HIM WITH FANFARES ON THE TRUMPET".

The trumpet was the instrument used to summon worshipers to the temple. A fanfare would be used to start many festivals in Israelite worship. If you play a trumpet, it's no good lightly puffing down the mouthpiece. All that will come out of the instrument is wind. You pick it up, tense the muscles around your mouth and blow! Praising God is nothing less than a fanfare within our hearts to be played with strong, strident notes. It's an active affair that we are to throw ourselves into.

"PRAISE HIM WITH HARP AND LUTE"

That's not suggesting praising God is simply making a lot of noise. Harps and lutes are instruments that require skillful hands to play them properly. Our praise of God is not confined to words but should also come through the skill of our hands. Our daily work, done well and in a manner that makes it clear who the "Boss" is, can be an offering of Praise acceptable to God.

"PRAISE HIM WITH TAMBOURINES AND DANCING"

Again, this shows us praise is an active affair. The church that I belong to rarely has tambourines playing as part of worship services and if I danced down the aisle more than a few eyebrows would be raised. Because we are too afraid to show physical expression in our services, our worship loses something. In other churches, rhythm and dance are incorporated. At times, it can be excessive, but such cases are exceptions, not the rule. Again, the Psalmist calls us to be active in worship. A tambourine has to be hit hard. Dance is impossible without movement. True worship is forgetting ourselves and concentrating solely upon God.

"PRAISE HIM WITH STRINGS AND FLUTE"

Praising God should never be self-indulgent. Remember, when you praise, your part of an orchestra playing a concerto. You've got your own part to play, but that part is only complete as part of the whole. God desires people to come together to praise Him. He is referred to in the Lords Prayer as "Our Father", not simply "My Father", or "Your Father". Although, at times it is a beautiful thing to be "On our own" with God, it is vital to join and share in Praising God with others. God calls us to be part of the body of Christ on earth.

The Psalm finishes with a final theme of triumph.

"THE CLIMAX OF PRAISE TO GOD" - verses 5 - 6.

'PRAISE HIM WITH THE CLASH OF CYMBALS
PRAISE HIM WITH TRIUMPHANT CYMBALS"

Like any great concerto the Psalm builds to a climax with a thundering clash of triumphant cymbals.

In the original Hebrew the contrast is between praising God with 'Hearing' cymbals and 'Shouting' cymbals. Praise is not only hearing and acknowledging the call of God, it is shouting it out so the whole world gets to know. Our praise is to be an infectious experience that captivates others.

If you're in a crowd at a football match, or some other event, when people get excited the ripples spread through the crowd. If you start getting excited about God, then it will spread. The more your life is one of praise t God, the more others will be drawn to do the same.

For is not Jesus worth getting excited about?' If we get excited by 22 men kicking a ball around, how much more so should we be overflowing with Praise to the King of Love! Should we not be rejoicing, singing, shouting, joyfully celebrating the Good news that Jesus is alive, that God is a living God and that the Holy Spirit is a force to be reckoned with!

In the view of eternity these are the things that really matter!

"LET EVERYTHING THAT HAS BREATH PRAISE THE LORD, OH, PRAISE THE LORD!"

Everything that breathes is called upon to join in the Praise of God, who as Lord of the world reveals Himself to us in His Power.  The vision of this Psalm involves each and everyone of us. The Psalmist tells us to grasp hold of the amazing power of praise in our own lives. So, let the Spirit Of God teach us to praise. Hear His call to live a life full of praise. Let's not be satisfied with just hearing, let's do something about it. We can praise Him right now if we want to!