Psalm 148
Let’s hear God’s word. This is
the word of God, Psalm 148. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord
from the heavens. Praise him in the heights. Praise
him, all his angels. Praise him, all his hosts. Praise
him, sun and moon, and praise him, all you shining stars. Praise
him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the
Lord, for he commanded and they were created. and he established
them forever and ever. He gave a decree and it shall
not pass away. Praise the Lord from the earth,
you great sea creatures and all deeps. Fire and hail and snow
and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word. Mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars. Beast and all livestock, creeping
things and flying birds. Kings of the earth and all peoples,
princes and all rulers of the earth. Young men and maidens
together, old men and children. Let them praise the name of the
Lord, for his name alone is exalted. His majesty is above earth and
heaven. He has raised up a horn for his
people. Praise for all his saints, for
the people of Israel who are near to him. Praise the Lord. I think all of you know the answer
to the catechism question, what is man’s chief end? Man’s chief
end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. You’ve never
heard the question though asked, what is creation’s chief end? And you could say the exact same
thing. The creation’s chief end is to
bring glory to God’s name forever and ever. The reason we know
this is both man and creation are eagerly awaiting for the
adoption of God’s sons and daughters. That’s what Romans 8 tells us.
Creation is groaning. It’s under the travail of the
curses of the fallen. It’s eagerly awaiting the adoption
of the sons and daughters of men. And so while we, as human
beings made in God’s image, wait for the consummation, we wait
for the new heavens, the new earth, we wait for our bodies
and our spirits to be made new, creation also can’t wait for
the full realization of redemption. And so man’s chief end, creation’s
chief end is to glorify God. And in Psalm 148, there’s a handful
of reasons. The first call to worship is
for heaven. The second call to worship is
for earth. And the reason for creation is God made everything
by his word. He orders everything. There is
natural law and boundaries. He not only made all things,
but he sustains all things. He’s the ruler of it and the
covenant keeper. over it. His name and his majesty
are high. And so all of the earth, men
and women, boys and girls, rulers and peasants, sun, moon, stars,
rain, mist, trees, fruit bearing plants, bugs, and all the rest
are called to give praise to almighty God. And so in Psalm
148, we have this explosion in this third to last or second to last
of the final Hallel’s, the hallelujah’s, the praise Yahweh’s. We have
this burst of praise that gets bigger and bigger as we make
our way to Psalm 150. But in 148, the particular thing
we want to see is that heaven and earth and all created elements
and all created beings are called to praise the Lord. And you might
think of it in parts, parts and then in unison. It’s almost as
if heaven is called on to praise God and then it calls on earth
to praise God. And then earth lifts up its voices
instead of having like a front and back call and response, like
we might have in a church from a choir or the Levites or something.
This is a call from heaven and a response from earth and the
praises mixing together. So we’re going to think of this
in two parts, heaven’s praises, verses one to six, and then earth’s
praises in verses seven through 14. Look again at verses one
through six. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord
from the heavens. Praise him in the heights. Praise
him, all his angels. Praise him, all his hosts. Praise
him, sun, moon, stars, all you shining stars. Praise him, you
highest heavens, you waters. Above the heavens, let them praise
the name of the Lord. Why? for he commanded and they
were created. Why? He established them forever
and ever. And again, why? He gave a decree
and it shall not pass away. So the first call is for heaven
to praise him. This is the place of his rule.
Think about the reality we experience on a Sunday. We’re talking earlier
from chapter 21 of our confession of faith about worship and the
Sabbath. And it reminds me to remind you
of the reality that we experience or should experience and should
be aware of when we come to church. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 18,
for you have not come to what may be touched. blazing fire
and darkness and gloom and a tempest, the sound of a trumpet and a
voice whose words make the hearers beg that no further messages
be spoken. That’s Mount Sinai. They could not endure the order
that was given. Even if a beast touches the mountain,
it shall be stoned. Indeed, so terrifying was the
sight that Moses said, I tremble with fear. So you’ve not come
to that mountain. but you have come to Mount Zion
and the city of the living God. You have come to the heavenly
Jerusalem, to the innumerable angels and festal gathering.
You have come to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled
in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of
the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new
covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word
than the blood of Abel. See to it that you do not refuse
him who is speaking for if they did not escape when they refused
him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we
reject him who warns us from heaven. And it’s a good reminder,
isn’t it, that when we worship on Sundays, our worship is connected
not only to all the saints around the world who call on the name
of Christ, but our worship is connected to the heavenly places,
God’s throne, all the angelic beings that do his bidding and
worship him night and day, but also to the spirits made perfect,
all of our loved ones who have gone before us and worship around
the throne of heaven and we are joining the already worshiping
beings. They’re worshiping night and
day. That’s their job in eternity to worship. Our job is still
to go to the grocery and get the cookies and unplug the toilet
and to cut the grass and to change diapers and to go to work and
do the mundane things of life. And we take a day off. We take
a Sabbath day off. And that Sabbath day that we
get, the one day, is a glimpse of eternal rest where our loved
ones already are. But we joined the already worshiping
beings on Sunday. But notice the command, the call,
it’s to angels. And it’s to the host of angels.
It’s to the sun and the moon and the stars. It’s to the highest
heavens where God dwells, but it’s also to the next highest
heaven, the vapors, the waters. You think of your Genesis one
and two terminology, when God separated the waters of the heaven,
the waters of the earth. And why is it that heaven ought
to praise God? Mainly this, he is creator. And
how did he create? He created by the word of his
power. And when he did so, he established a world. He established systems and ecosystems. He established plants and animals.
He made it so that they could reproduce and that the earth
would continue. Now, I don’t like to get political
in sermons. I don’t think you should. But
on occasion, when something like this pops up, you should take
the opportunity to say, put this in your pipe and smoke it, Green
New Deal and AOC and the squad, because the world is not going
to end in 12 years. Are we down to 10 now? Our theology
trumps politics, doesn’t it? God made the world and everything
in it. He established it and he has
set her boundaries and she will not be moved unless he says move. So when will the earth end? At
the last day, not in 12 years or 10 years or nine and a half
or whatever we are down to. And so we have to run the things
we hear through our biblical theology, don’t we? And we have
great comfort, the world, It’s not gonna end, we don’t have
to sing REM’s, it’s the end of the world as we know it, because
the squad and whoever else says so. We have Psalm 148, a better
psalm, a better artist, a better view. Have you thought about
how our music, music of the ages, reflects the worship of the heavenly
beings? I think of Gustav Holst, the
planets, We sing, Oh God Beyond All Praising, the tune Faxted.
That’s from his work on the planets. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. You hear
the four different seasons. And if you get a particularly
good rendering of it, you’ll hear the thunder, you’ll hear
the rain, you’ll hear the birds tweeting. Maybe you’ve heard
the Flight of the Bumblebee, the violin piece. You’ve heard
all these pieces in modern music, at least the last four. 300 years
or so, the worship of creation is reflected. Maybe it’s a good
thing to think about taking a walk in the park, getting outdoors,
seeing creation and looking at how God made the world useful.
Think particularly of two things he says in the first part of
Psalm 148, the cedars. What were the cedars used for?
Well, the cedars of Lebanon were famous in Israel. Remember the
ruler? of Tyre and Sidon when Solomon
sought to build a house, a house for the name of Yahweh. No longer
would he dwell in a tent. And so they gifted cedars of
Lebanon, these tall, strong trees. Not only was David’s palace built
of them, but God’s house was. These are useful things. And
we ought to praise God when we We live in a home. We have a
stove that works. We have natural gas to heat. We’re not chopping wood. We think
of the modern amenities, the dams and hydroelectricity, nuclear
power. We think of all the things that
in this world we have harnessed for our good. But also it mentions
the fruitful trees. You ask a young kid today, where
does food come from? They’ll probably tell you the
grocery store. They need to go visit a farm and pick berries
and get apples when they’re in season. and those sorts of things.
But it’s good for us to get out in the world of God, the creator,
to look at the heavens, to go out on a clear night, look at
the stars, and to see others that praise him as well. Not
just people, not just beings, but the things of the earth praise
God also. Think about earth’s praises in
verses seven to 14. Praise the Lord from the earth,
you great sea creatures and all deeps, fire and hail and snow
and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word, mountains, hills, fruit
trees, cedars, beast, livestock, creeping things, flying birds,
kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the
earth, young men and maidens together, old men and children.
Let them praise the name of the Lord. Why? For his name alone
is exalted. Why? His majesty is above the
earth. Why else worship? He saved us. He’s raised up a horn. That’s
a symbol of strength. He’s raised up a horn for his
people. Praise for all his saints. For the people of Israel are
those who near him. So why worship God, the heavens
and the earth? He’s the maker. He’s the boundary. giver, he’s the sustainer, but
here he’s the Lord of his people. He’s the covenant-making, covenant-keeping
God who saves his people through a horn of salvation and his name
alone is exalted. There is none like him. Well,
back in the ancient Near East, when this psalm would have been
a new psalm, they would have had a different way to look at
the world than we do. We’re sophisticated. We have
microscopes, we have telescopes, we have history books, we have
science books, biology books. We know too much, right? And by now we think man is God
because we’ve made it through the Enlightenment and we are
now enlightened. But you think about in maybe
primitive ancient Near East, their worldview, their view of
how things came to be. They looked at forces of nature.
They looked at angels. They studied the sun, the moon,
the stars, the planets, the wind, the rain, and the forces. And
they looked at these things and said, these must be gods because
they are mighty and we cannot control them. Well, we remember
over and over in the Bible, God says, no, they do not rule the
earth. I do. I made them. That’s why
Genesis one and two is important. In the beginning, God. What did
God do? He made the heavens and the earth.
He made the stars. He made the seasons. He made
the wind, the rain, the forces that others worship. No, he created
them. They serve at his bidding. The
greatest example where he shows that this is true is in his showdown
with Pharaoh in Egypt, 10 plagues. And 10 times, God says, I am
the sovereign one. I am the creator, the sustainer,
the boundary maker. And so we worship the creator
and not the created things. The created things worship him. And so not only does heaven worship
God, not only do the angelic beings, the created beings and
the righteous ones who have gone on worship God in the heavenly
places. It’s heaven itself, but it’s
also the earth and it’s the people of the earth, young and old,
high, and low, but notice how it zeros in when you get to verses
13 and 14. Let them, who’s the them? Let the people of God praise
the Lord. Why should they praise him? His
name is exalted. Why else? His majesty is above
the earth and heaven. And a very important reason why
else he has saved them. And who is the horn of salvation?
He has raised up for his people. who is the praise of his saints,
it’s none other than Jesus, and they ought to worship him, for
the people of Israel are near to him. God holds us in his heart,
so much so that he sent his own son, the Lord Jesus, to die in
our place. And so heaven and earth ought
to praise the Lord. Now, let’s think for just a moment
about this psalm historically. by many estimations was a Psalm
for after the restoration of Israel from Babylon back to Jerusalem. They rebuilt the walls, they
rebuilt the city, they rebuilt their homes, and they reestablished,
after rebuilding the temple, the worship of God at Jerusalem. And so, that was a little picture
of what we expect at the last day. Martin Luther said it so
well, we are living in a Babylonian captivity now. We are not at
Jerusalem. And so just as God restored Israel
to Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity, we are in a greater
Babylonian captivity. And we are not at the new Jerusalem,
the Jerusalem in heaven. And we remember the promise of
God in the book of Revelation. There is a new Jerusalem that
is above and it’s the heavenly city and it will come down in
the new heavens and the new earth. And so just as God has always
created a people for himself, planted them in a place, whether
it was a garden or a land like Israel, he is going to make his
creation new again, heaven will come down and the pride of his
great love, his people, will surround his throne in great
praises and all heaven, all earth will praise him night and day
forever and ever through eternity. And so Psalm 148 gives us a glimpse
of just that. So let’s pause and give thanks.
Lord, bless the things we’ve thought about May they be encouraging
to our minds, our hearts, and especially our souls as we reflect
on our captivity and our longing to be in Jerusalem. Bless us
as we go this night in Christ’s name, amen.