Revive Our Hearts

Judy: Hi, my name is Judy, and I'm from Tennessee. One of the reasons I'm a Revive partner is because from the first time I heard Nancy teach on Mary until today, the truths of God's word are taught in a loving, compassionate way that penetrates my heart. Over and over, God has used the teaching of his word to bring healing to my soul and help me fall more in love with my Savior.

Now I hope you will enjoy today's episode of Revive Our Hearts, brought to you in part by the Revive partner team.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Do you ever feel alone? Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth reminds you, God is with you. Don't ever let anybody say to you, where was God when? I'll tell you where God was. He's the same place he was when he sent his son to die on that cross so that those who are down and depressed and discouraged and broken and failures and bound in sin's bondage could be raised up to be seated with Christ in the heavenlies. That's where God is.

Dana Grash: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, co-author of *Seeking Him*, for June 26th, 2026. I'm Dana Grash.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Nancy's continuing the series, Hallelujah, a praise celebration.

We've been looking at Psalm 113 over the last several days, and you remember that this is one of the psalms, the first in a collection of six known as the Egyptian Hallel or the Jewish Hallel. These are the Hallelujah psalms. This is a set of psalms that is particularly used by the Jews around the time of the Passover.

They sing the first two, this one and the next one at the beginning of the Passover meal. They sing the last four at the end of the Passover meal, and we'll see today why that is such a significant thing. These psalms celebrate, they commemorate God rescuing his people, delivering them out of slavery, out of Egypt. They were slaves of Pharaoh, now they become servants of God.

What are God's servants to do? They are to praise him. They are to worship him. Worship the name of the Lord. By the way, when you study God's Word, you don't have to have a PhD in theology. You don't have to go to seminary. You don't have to know original Greek and Hebrew languages. One of the things you can do is just meditate on that passage over and over and over again, as I have been for the last several weeks. Look at repeated words and phrases.

What's the obvious repeated phrase in this psalm?

Audience: Praise the Lord.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Okay, let me hear that a little more vociferously.

Audience: Praise the Lord.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Which in Hebrew is

Audience: Hallelujah!

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Hallelujah. Hallel to praise Yah, Jehovah, Yahweh, praise the Lord. We see it at the beginning, at the end, we'll see the significance of these bookends. Then we've seen the emphasis on the name of the Lord throughout this psalm, who he is, what he has done, what he is like. This is fodder for praise.

If you do not know how to praise the Lord, start looking at his names, study his names and what they tell us about him. Let me read through the Psalm again. We've seen it in three stanzas. Today we will look at the third stanza, but let's, to put it in context, look at the whole psalm. I'll read through it and just give you the sections here.

In the first three verses, the first stanza, God's servants are summoned to praise him. Verse one, praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Praise, oh servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. From the rising of the sun to its setting, from East to West, all around the world, from the beginning of the day to the end of the evening. All the day, everywhere, the name of the Lord is to be praised. So we're summoned to praise him.

Then beginning in verse four, we are told why we are to praise the Lord. First, we see that the Lord is high above. We see his greatness, his exaltation. The Lord is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens. Verse five, who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high? We see that God is high and he is seated. He is exalted.

We also see in verse six that not only is he seated on high, but he stoops far down. Verse six, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth, or as some of your translations say that, he humbles himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth. Another translation says he stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth.

That tells us a couple things about God, we looked at it in the last session. First of all, it's that he is so high, so exalted, so transcendent that for him to see the heavens and to see the earth, he has to stoop down. What you think, oh, of course the earth is far down from God, but the heavens are far down from God. He has to stoop down.

So I think that's part of the meaning, but I think the other part is that he comes down to be with us. He condescends, he descends. He descended in the form of a baby. He would condescend further, he would stoop further, he would go to the cross. We see this suggested here. He stoops down, he looks far down, he humbles himself.

Now, remember that Jesus would have sung these psalms, beginning with this one, before the Passover meal that he served with his disciples there in the upper room, where he instituted the Last Supper that we observe today. He went from that upper room, sang a hymn, went out to Gethsemane, cried out in great agony such that he sweat great drops of blood, was then arrested, sent through six trials in the middle of the night, and the next day sent to be crucified. The Romans crucified him, the Jews crucified him, the religious people crucified him, the pagans crucified him, but ultimately, God put his son to death.

Jesus humbled himself. Here he's praise he sings with his disciples in the upper room. The Lord is high above all nations, his glory above the heavens. Here's the Lord of glory singing this. Who is like the Lord our God? Jesus sings with his disciples. Who is seated on high? Jesus had been on that seat at the right hand of the throne of God for all of eternity past. He will be for all of eternity future. But he had left that seat.

He had left that throne. He had left that high and exalted place. He had come down, he had stooped down, he had humbled himself for 33 years. He had lived our life. Now, in that upper room, he stoops down, who looks far down. He stoops down to wash the feet of his creatures. How awesome is that?

But that's not all. In the coming hours, this God of amazing, awesome majesty, who has to stoop to behold the heavens, who condescended to the earth. This one would marry majesty and mercy and stoop all the way to the cross.

How amazing is that? No wonder we say hallelujah, praise the Lord. Well, that's all review. Now we come to the third stanza today. He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people. He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Hallelujah, praise the Lord.

So we've seen here this God who is high, he's lifted up. This God who humbles himself to look down on what's in heaven and what's on Earth. This God who comes down, who stoops down, who humbles himself in the form of Jesus Christ. Why does he do it? We see it in this third stanza, so that those who are bowed down, those who are downtrodden can be raised up.

He's high and lifted up. He comes down, he looks down, he comes down, he bows down, he humbles himself, he stoops down, so that he can raise up those who are bowed down. Again, hallelujah, what a Savior. Here's a God who is, we've seen in this psalm, is transcendent. He's majestic. Yet he's not a God who is aloof. He's not a God who stays far off. He's not removed from his fallen, broken creation, as so many of these false pagan gods are. You can't get near them. You can't come close to them.

Here's a God who draws near to us as a personal God, who stoops down to be with us, to be one of us, to die our death, so we can have his life. It's amazing. Notice in this passage, God doesn't just favor those who are mighty, or famous, or powerful, or wealthy. God favors those who are least like him. The poor, the needy, those on the ash heap of life. The dung hill, is the King James. It's a place for refuse, for garbage. It's a garbage dump. He was crucified outside the city gate, on Golgotha. He comes for those who are poor and needy on the ash heap of life. He comes for the barren woman. The woman who cries out, Lord, give me children or I die. He comes for the needy, those who have reproach.

One commentator on the Psalms, James Boice, who is now with the Lord. He said, what amazes the psalmist is that this God is exalted so high that he has to stoop low to see not only the earth, but also the heavens. Yet at the same time, he cares for the lowly. He's exalted, but he humbles himself. God doesn't just stoop to look down, but he actually comes down to save the poor and the needy.

God is high, he is lifted up. We saw he's seated, he's enthroned in the heavens. So what does he do for the poor and the needy who are bowed down? He raises them up. He seats them with princes, so they can be with him. Is that amazing? His condescension, his humiliation. Don't ever let anybody tell you God doesn't care. Don't let anybody say to you, where was God when? I'll tell you where God was. He's the same place he was when he sent his son to die on that cross so that those who are down and depressed and discouraged and broken and failures and bound in sin's bondage could be raised up to be seated with Christ in the heavenlies. That's where God is.

Verse seven says he raises the poor from the dust. That's pretty low. Low on the socioeconomic ladder, low on the totem pole. Somebody who doesn't get any respect. People don't come, you know, asking the poor for wisdom or for jobs or for help. These are the poor, the needy. They need help, they don't give help, they need help. They're in the dust. You read often this concept in Psalm 119 when it's talking about your soul being so low, you're just down in the dust. I mean, what's lower than dust?

He raises the poor from the dust. Here's what astonishes me about that phrase. In another psalm, Psalm 22, verse 15, where Jesus, the Messiah cries out in a Messianic prophecy, he says, you, to his father, who has forsaken him in that moment on the cross, he says, you lay me in the dust of death. You see the reason he can raise the poor from the dust is because he went down to the dust of death. He let God put him down in the dust of death. This high, exalted, holy one. He says to his father in Psalm 22, you lay me in the dust of death, and the son says, that's where I'll go. Why? So he can raise the poor up from the dust. So he can raise us up from the dust.

Does that remind you of Ephesians 2:6, that says we've been raised up with him and he seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus? You see, this is gospel here. We were in the dust, the dust of death. We were poor, we were bankrupt, we had nothing to offer a holy God except our sinfulness. He took our sinfulness, our dust, our death, our humanity, our foolishness, our wickedness, took it all on himself. Was laid in the dust of death, so that we could be raised up and seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That's good news. That's gospel.

Verse seven goes on to say, he lifts the needy from the ash heap, or one translation says the garbage heap, the dung hill. Jesus went to the ash heap where he was crucified. The place where you get cast off, where you're cast out. There's nothing of value there, nothing of worth. It's the garbage pile of humanity. Jesus went there, became all our garbage, took all our garbage upon himself. The Father turned his back on his son, because God cannot behold evil. Why? So that Jesus could give us his righteousness. What an amazing exchange is that. He lifts the needy from the ash heap.

He doesn't just save us, he raises us. Verse eight, to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people. Who else is sitting there? God is, Jesus is. He gives us a place in heaven to sit with him at the Father's right hand, to one day be exalted with him and by faith now to be raised up there with him. By the way, you see a very similar passage in 1 Samuel chapter two. Let me turn there a moment. Where Hannah, who had been a barren woman, had cried out for children. God finally blesses her with a son, Samuel, and in her prayer of gratitude in chapter two of 1 Samuel, she says, my heart exalts in the Lord, praise the Lord.

When you've been lifted up from the ash heap, when you've been lifted up from reproach, when you've been poor and needy and God has raised you up, you can't help but say, Hallelujah, praise the Lord. She said, I rejoice in your salvation. There is none holy like the Lord, for there is none besides you. We saw this in Psalm 113. Who is like the Lord our God? Then she says in verse seven, the Lord makes poor and makes rich. He brings low and he exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust. He lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's and on them he has set the world.

You see, God is the God of all power, and he uses his divine power to rescue, to redeem, to lift up those who are outcasts, those who are beggars, those who are poor and needy, those who are nobodies, those who are the invisible people, that nobody cares for, nobody pays attention to. Those sex-trafficked girls in our midst, by the way. Those who have been bruised and wounded by their own sin or by the sin of others, those who have been discarded, those who have been marginalized. This is the gospel we have for those who are poor and needy. It's the same gospel we have experienced as those who were poor and needy and wretched and destitute and bankrupt. He came down, he condescended, he stooped down from his high and exalted and holy place to lift us up. To raise us up. To give us a place with him in the heavenlies. He's lifted us up. He's made us kings and priests to our God.

So how can Christians be down in the mouth people? Tell me that. How can we really be for any length of time overwhelmed, discouraged, depressed? Now, I know there are hard and harsh and difficult circumstances. There are people who suffer greatly physically. There are women in this room who are living in heartbreaking marriages. There are moms in this room or grandmoms who cry yourself to sleep at night because of a prodigal son or daughter or grand. I get that. We're not in heaven yet. This is still a broken fallen world. This is not paradise. But even here in the now, we have this hope of the not yet.

That is ours by faith in Christ. We've been raised up, seated with Christ, and we know where we're headed. We know the best is yet to come. This is material for praise. This is material for worship. Lift your eyes up, put your gaze on Christ and say, Hallelujah, praise the Lord, what a Savior. Well, verse nine, continuation of the same theme, he gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. We talked about Hannah, who longed for a child, and God finally answered those prayers. In his time, he gave not only Hannah a child, he gave Israel the nation, a voice, a prophet, a man who would speak for God, who would lead them to God. It wasn't just Hannah who needed a child, Israel needed that child, and in the fullness of time, God sent that child.

The same for Sarah. Sarah was barren, she was without child. God had said, the promised Messiah is going to come through your line, and Abraham goes, but I have no seed. We're old, we can't have children. God says, no problem for me. You're 100, she's 90, whatever it was. No problem, you're past the childbearing years, your body's are as good as dead. No problem. I bring life where there is no life. He makes the barren woman a home, makes her the joyous mother of children. Rachel, give me children or I die. God gives her children so the promised line of Christ can come through her. Listen, you may or may not have biological children, but God wants every woman to be a mother of children and to be joyous in that responsibility. He's a great exalted God. He's also a personal God, and he cares for needy people. We've seen that, but not just in general, not just as a group, but look at, he cares about individuals, the barren woman.

Who is that? Well, maybe it's Hannah, maybe it's Sarah, maybe it's Rachel. Maybe it's you. Maybe it's not physical barrenness, maybe it is, but maybe it's other kinds of barrenness. He cares about you. In that culture, in the Jewish culture of the Old Testament, the inability to bear children was considered a curse. It was a reproach. Here God pours out his redeeming grace on the least of these, the most despised. That grace that he pours out in the life of that barren woman. He pours out in our lives. One at a time, woman by woman. He changes our lives. He reverses our fortunes by his grace. So the barren woman who was left out now belongs. She was alone, now she has a home. She has family relationships. She was barren, now she's fruitful. She was sad, now she's joyous. She had no reason to live, now she has a seed, she has children. This is the transforming power of God. Charles Spurgeon talked about it in one of his messages. This God who gives beauty for ashes, who turns weeping to joy, who turns death to life, who exalts the humble, who turns poverty to wealth, who turns the dishonored to the exalted. It's the transforming power of God's grace.

So these Hallel psalms celebrated redemption from Egypt. That barren woman in verse nine was a picture of Israel, who was delivered from bondage in Egypt and became fruitful in the promised land. We have a redeeming God, he redeems the hopeless circumstances of his people, who intervenes in their lives, who restores, who rescues, who redeems our losses, who raises up people from the ash heap, all because Christ, our Passover lamb, was slain for us and raised from the dead.

As you look at this stanza, I hope that you're reminded that God knows you. He cares about you. He knows your needs. He knows your poverty. He knows your affliction. He knows how you've been downtrodden, how you've been cast down, how you've been rejected. He knows where you've lost hope. He knows what parts of your life are barren. He cares. He has come down in the person of Christ. He stoops down, he humbled himself, and he is able to meet your needs and to raise you up and to give you a future and a hope and a home. He can turn barrenness to fruitfulness, he can turn despair to joy. He has promised to raise the poor out of the dust, to lift the needy out of the ash heap, and to make the barren woman fruitful and joyful.

So from your heart, cry out to the Lord, oh Lord, I'm that poor person, I'm that needy person, I'm that oppressed person, I'm that barren woman. I need you. Thank you that you have stooped down to meet my need, to meet it with yourself. Remember that as God is doing this transforming work in our lives in this season, there's a greater, even greater ultimate sense in which he is redeeming, intervening, and transforming us so that we can have all eternity to be raised up and seated with him.

Now this psalm ends as it began, with the word Hallelujah, praise the Lord. Those words are bookends. I want to close this series by reading for you what my friend Charles Spurgeon said about that. Praise ye the Lord. The music concludes upon its keynote. The psalm is a circle, ending where it began. Praising the Lord from its first syllable to its last. May our life psalm partake of the same character and never know a break or a conclusion. In an endless circle, let us bless the Lord whose mercies never cease. Let us praise him in youth and all along our years of strength. When we bow in the ripeness of abundant age, let us still praise the Lord who does not cast off his old servants. Let us not only praise God ourselves, but exhort others to do it. If we meet with any of the needy who have been enriched, and with the barren who have been made fruitful, let us join with them in extolling the name of him whose mercy endures forever. Having been ourselves lifted from spiritual beggary and barrenness, let us never forget our former estate or the grace which has visited us. But world without end, let us praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Dana Grash: Oh, that's Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, wrapping up our time in Psalm 113 together. Wow. It has been a joy praising the Lord with you all week. I hope you'll continue on your own, making worship an increasingly prominent rhythm in your daily life. If you missed any of the episodes in this series, visit ReviveOurHearts.com to find those. I think each and every one of them will encourage you. To continue to point your heart toward praise, we'd love to send you Nancy's book, *Dwell: 30 Days With God In The Psalms*. You know the drill. To give and receive your copy, visit ReviveOurHearts.com or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

Next week, Summer in the Psalms continues. We'll hang out with Mary Kassian in Psalm 34. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts. Now, a little something fun and fresh. As a podcast listener, you're going to hear some bonus material we didn't have time to include on the radio version of this episode. Nancy talked with some members of our audience about what stood out to them in our study of Psalm 113.

Guest (Female 1): I just thank God for stooping down and picking us up when we can't bring our own selves up. I just praise him for that.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Amen.

Guest (Female 2): Hallelujah.

Guest (Female 3): I am so glad you touched on the righteousness of Christ. I, I am a counselor at our counseling ministry in our church, and I have found so many women do not grasp their identity in Christ. Sometimes I don't either. I am living that out, and it's just, oh, I just want to meditate on how I am redeemed and justified and chosen and loved and holy and I'm blameless in his sight and free from accusation. It's just a wonderful and it just it forms your life and how you live it out. I don't have to prove myself to anybody. I don't have to prove myself to God. I don't have to fight for his approval anymore. I am free to live Christ's righteousness out. It's not anything that I can do. It's so exciting and I, I just love to share that with women and and the difference that makes in their life.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: That's a beautiful New Testament way of saying what we just saw in the Old Testament. He raises the poor out of the dust, lifts the needy out of the ash heap that he may set him with princes, with the princes of his people, and that's who we are in Christ.

Guest (Female 4): I am a testimony of having been raised from the dust. We were very poor and, um, to the point of not being able to buy groceries to where God has blessed us now that we can bless others. But I, this struck me more that, praise God, I was poor in spirit. Spiritually, and that's the greater gift, is the gift of salvation. Um, yes, I am blessed, but to me, the the gift of of the cross is is much more than money can buy.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Hallelujah. What a Savior.

Dana Grash: This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.