If these become silent...

Psalm 148 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

The Whole Creation Invoked to Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
Praise Him in the heights!
² Praise Him, all His angels;
Praise Him, all His hosts!
³ Praise Him, sun and moon;
Praise Him, all stars of light!
⁴ Praise Him, highest heavens,
And the waters that are above the heavens!
⁵ Let them praise the name of the Lord,
For He commanded and they were created.
⁶ He has also established them forever and ever;
He has made a decree which will not pass away.

⁷ Praise the Lord from the earth,
Sea monsters and all deeps;
⁸ Fire and hail, snow and clouds;
Stormy wind, fulfilling His word;
⁹ Mountains and all hills;
Fruit trees and all cedars;
¹⁰ Beasts and all cattle;
Creeping things and winged fowl;
¹¹ Kings of the earth and all peoples;
Princes and all judges of the earth;
¹² Both young men and virgins;
Old men and children.

¹³ Let them praise the name of the Lord,
For His name alone is exalted;
His glory is above earth and heaven.
¹⁴ And He has lifted up a horn for His people,
Praise for all His godly ones;
Even for the sons of Israel, a people near to Him.                  Praise the Lord!

The title of today’s psalm is:  The Whole Creation Invoked to Praise the Lord.  The psalmist says:  Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens; Praise Him in the heights! Praise Him, all His angels; Praise Him, all His hosts!   Every time, in scripture, that we are given a glimpse into the heavenly realm, we do see that praise is ongoing there. Isaiah 6:1-3 says:  In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!” Revelation 4:8-11 says:  And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and night they do not cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come.”  And when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, to Him who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying,  “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.”  So it would seem that there is no need to invoke praise in the heavenly realm.

The psalmist says:  Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him, all stars of light!
Praise Him, highest heavens, And the waters that are above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the Lord, For He commanded and they were created. He has also established them forever and ever; He has made a decree which will not pass away.   Scientists have actually been able to record sounds from heaven and sounds from things like rocks and mountains. In Luke 19, Jesus was told to stop the people from praising him. In verse 40 He says:  “I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!”   If you have ever listened to the sound of the ocean, the roar of a waterfall, or the gentle soothing sound of a quiet stream, you’ve heard the praise of God from creation. The psalmist says:  Praise the Lord from the earth, Sea monsters and all deeps; Fire and hail, snow and clouds; Stormy wind, fulfilling His word; Mountains and all hills; Fruit trees and all cedars; Beasts and all cattle; Creeping things and winged fowl.  If you’ve ever listened to the sound of songbirds in the morning or the sounds all the animals make communicating to each other, you’ve heard the praise of the creatures for the creator.  All of creation responds to God not only with praise, but also in obedience, doing what God created it to do. So it would seem that there is no need to invoke praise on earth or from creation.

Finally the psalmist says:  Kings of the earth and all peoples; Princes and all judges of the earth; Both young men and virgins; Old men and children. Let them praise the name of the Lord, For His name alone is exalted; His glory is above earth and heaven.  And He has lifted up a horn for His people, Praise for all His godly ones; Even for the sons of Israel, a people near to Him. Praise the Lord!   It is people, God’s highest and greatest creation, we who were given a free will, who must be invoked to praise the Lord. In giving us a free will, we have a choice of whether or not we will praise God. Of all of creation, we alone can choose obedience or disobedience. The tree that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit from was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God’s intention, His desire was that we would only know good, but through disobedience, we also now know evil, and so we must choose between the two. In John 3:16-21 Jesus says:  “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.  This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”  Jesus came so that we who had been disobedient, we who had previously chosen evil, could be redeemed, that we could come to the light and practice truth.

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens; Praise Him in the heights! Praise the Lord from the earth…Let them praise the name of the Lord, For His name alone is exalted; His glory is above earth and heaven. Praise the Lord!   Amen.  I no longer need to be invoked to praise You. I will thank You and praise You forever with all of creation and all of heaven.  Amen.