Podcast Introduction Today we’re going to read Ps 33-35, and I’m calling the episode “Praise God Always”, and instead of commenting after the reading, I’m again going to give you an introduction to each psalm before reading them.  I’ll tell you the results of the survey today, as promised. And we’ll learn what happened on this date in church history. Comments on Psalms 33-35 Introduction to Psalm 33 What a joyous psalm this is! It is written to all that have called on the name of Jesus to be saved, because it is written to the righteous. And because of our belief in the saving power of Jesus’ shed blood, righteousness is credited to us.  This is a psalm that looks at how good it is to be joyful and praise God in all His goodness and majesty and awesomeness and justice and power. It’s like a wonderfully fresh breath of air on a crisp, clear, sunny blue day from the top of a pristine mountain, where you can see for miles and miles and  miles in all directions, all of God’s good creation.   This is a psalm of celebration and hallelujahs.  Joyfully sing to the Lord, you righteous people! Introduction to Psalm 34 The title of this psalm is “A Psalm of David when he pretended madness before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed.” In 1 Samuel 21:10-22:1 we’re told that David was running from King Saul. He went to Gath, a Philistine city, but found that there was no safe place there. In fact he barely escaped. He went to Adullam (uh-DUHL-uhm) and found a cave, and was joined by others. This psalm may have been written and sung in this cave. Probably to make it easier to learn and remember, the psalm was written as an acrostic, with each verse beginning with a different Hebrew letter, except for the letter vav, the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  Abimelech was most likely a title given to Philistine rulers. According to 1 Samuel 21:10 this specific ruler was named Achish. (AY-kish) In this psalm David teaches us that we can and should praise the Lord even when we are under attack. Even is this cave, David praises the Lord with his mouth. Not only in his heart, but with his mouth, as a way to encourage others to praise the One who delivered them to this safe place. Introduction to Psalm 35 The Psalms can be roughly divided into seven different types. There are psalms of thanksgiving, psalms of lament, psalms of enthronement, psalms of pilgrimage, royal psalms, wisdom psalms and imprecatory psalms.  Psalm 35 is an imprecatory psalm. To imprecate is to call down calamity, destruction, and God’s anger and judgement upon someone. This is not the only psalm like this. We’ve already read some of them. The major imprecatory psalms are Psalms 5, 10, 17, 35, 58, 59, 69, 70, 79, 83, 109, 129, 137, and 140. We need to remember what Paul wrote in Romans 12: 19Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.  The imprecatory psalms were not written with the mindset of getting purely personal revenge. They were written by men (not all of them were written by David) who knew of God’s justice, sovereignty and protection. The Israelites had been persecuted greatly by enemies such as the Hittites, the Philistines and the Babylonians, who hated not only them, but God Himself. Th