Hallelujah means \u2018Praise ye Jehovah\u2019 or, as it is frequently rendered in our Bibles, \u2018Praise ye the Lord\u2019. Hallelujah stands at the beginning of ten of the psalms (106, 111-113, 135, 146-150), for which reason they are called \u2018The Hallelujah Psalms\u2019. It is the privilege of \u2018the Redeemed of the Lord\u2019 to \u2018praise the Lord\u2019. He is a wonderful Saviour, worthy of our praise. He has done all things well.<\/p>\n
Praise is properly an experience of the heart. It is the believer\u2019s new song, the melody of grace, the echo of God\u2019s Spirit in our soul. Paul calls it \u2018making melody in your heart to the Lord\u2019. It is the saints\u2019 expression of gratitude and thanksgiving to God for the Lord Jesus Christ and flows out of a knowledge of our sins forgiven. The greater our understanding of God\u2019s love and mercy in Christ, the sweeter will be our praise to Him for all He has done.<\/p>\n
There was a time when we knew nothing of \u2018Hallelujah\u2019. Our utterances were all self-praise; the boasts of a braggart and the sneers of a rebel. We had no need of Christ and no desire after the holiness and purity of God. Far from seeking Him we were implacable enemies of His truth, wrathful children, opposed to God in our nature and happy to remain so.<\/p>\n
Today we praise the Lord because He graciously came to us when we were dead in sin and without hope in the world. Our salvation, redemption and reconciliation with God is all Christ\u2019s work. He delivered us from death by carrying our sin and bearing our judgment. For this, and so much more, He is worthy of our praise.<\/p>\n
Christ alone has made the difference. He removed our sin, made us holy and acceptable with His own righteousness and brought us faultless into His Father\u2019s presence, there to sing a better song, the best of songs, that, \u2018Salvation is of the Lord\u2019.<\/p>\n
Praise the Lord! He is all our righteousness. He is our justification and our sanctification. He has transformed our taste in music! He has changed our desires, converted our understanding, renewed our nature and put a new song in our heart. Now we desire \u2018the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb\u2019. We sing, \u2018Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints\u2019.<\/p>\n
The New Testament form of hallelujah is \u2018alleluia\u2019. It is used four times in Revelation 19 where the Apostle John reveals the vision he had of the church worshipping in heaven and glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ. It is our highest comfort and happiness in this world that soon our everlasting employment will be the praise of the Lord in heaven.<\/p>\n
In God\u2019s presence, at the throne of His glory, stands the great congregation of the redeemed. There the spirits of just men made perfect gather in eternal adoration and praise. By faith, we hear them sing. Soon, by sight, we shall add volume to their song and together our Hallelujahs shall fill the courts of heaven to everlasting.<\/p>\n