FBC Morning Light – December 29, 2022

Well, a good Thursday morning to you. Again, we're wrapping up this year and wrapping up this two -year program of reading through the

Bible, and today we're running to look at Psalm 148. And if you read the psalm,

I encourage you to do so if you haven't yet, but if you read the psalm, I'm sure you notice that the psalm begins and ends in exactly the same way.

It says, Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. And that technique of the psalmist, of having the psalm begin and end in that way, gives you a very clear indication of what the psalm is all about.

It's all about praising the Lord. And what lies in between those two statements is the reality that all of creation should be involved in praising the

Lord. That includes you. That includes me. But notice how he develops this call to all creation, to praise him.

It begins in the heavens, the heavenly, heavenly, heavenlies, okay? In the heaven of heavens, where the

Lord dwells, where he dwells with the angelic host. He says,

Praise him from the heavens, praise him in the heights, all his angels, all his hosts.

And that kind of reminds us, doesn't it, of what we've just seen recently. We celebrated Christmas earlier this week, and one of the features of the

Christmas story is that account of the angelic host coming and visiting the shepherds, and the angel announcing to the shepherds the birth of Jesus, and the angelic host praising

God and bringing glory to his name. And that scene that took place on that hillside is one that is to take place in the heavens all the time, where our

God is praised. But he moves from...oh, and it also reminds me of what we saw in Revelation 19.

Remember this the other day, the four hallelujahs, and some of those hallelujahs were taking place among the heavenly hosts.

Praise in the heavenlies, in the heights of the heavens. And then also in the celestial heaven, praise is to occur in the celestial heaven.

He calls upon the sun and the moon and the stars to praise the

Lord. Isn't that interesting? These created objects that have no voice, they have no vocal cords, and they don't utter words of praise, but they're nevertheless called upon to praise the

Lord. How is that? It's because their very existence gives testimony, they speak of the

Lord's power and his authority and his existence and his creative abilities and so forth.

They praise the Lord. And then he calls upon the earth to praise the

Lord. In verse 7 he calls upon all the sea creatures to praise him. Sea creatures in the very depths of the ocean.

Have you seen some of those creatures that exist, those fish that exist so deep in the ocean that there's no light that penetrates?

Some of those are the freakiest looking things. You have to wonder, why did

God make them like that? He made them like that, and they give him praise.

The uniqueness of these creatures give praise to the God who created them, all the sea creatures.

In verse 8 he even calls upon the weather, the different forms of weather, to praise him.

Fire and hail, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy wind. Then he says this, fulfilling his word.

The emphasis there is that these different forms of severe weather actually do his bidding, and in so doing they bring praise to him.

He calls upon the mountains and the hills, the fruitful trees and the cedars to praise him. I don't know if you spend much time in the mountains or if you enjoy the mountains and looking at such landscapes or the hills.

I love them. I love to hike in those areas and just to take in the grandeur of such topography.

It is fascinating to me to go into some of the forests in the

Northwoods and see just the different variety of trees. We used to live in Vermont and would go to the woods and hike, and just a plethora of kinds of trees.

These all give praise to the Lord and his great variety of his creation.

Mountains, hills, trees, and then land animals. He says all beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying fowl, all the birds of the air, all the insects that crawl upon the ground, all the animals, the lizards, and so on and so forth.

All of these things that God has created, he calls upon them to praise his name.

Then finally he comes to people, and he focuses first of all on kings and rulers, princes and judges of the earth.

They are to give praise to the Lord. Finally he settles on us, young men and maidens, old men and children, anybody who didn't fall into any of the categories already given.

All of us, all of us are to praise the Lord. He goes on to say, let them praise the name of the

Lord. That is all that God is, what is in his character. Meditate on his character and you will find ample reasons to praise him.

His name alone is exalted, the psalmist says. His glory is above the earth and the heaven.

There is no one like our God. There is no one whose character is as the character of our

God. There is no name like the name of our God. So whoever you are, whatever your position in life, even if you happen to be a fish listening underwater today, you are to praise the

Lord. Let's do just that. And so our Father and our God, we do indeed praise you today.

We praise you for who you are, we praise you for your power, your authority, your wisdom. We thank you for your grace, thank you for your mercy, thank you for how you have graciously provided for all of your creation through these millennia of its existence.

We thank you and praise you today for who you are. Especially thank you for your saving grace and the

Son that you sent into this world to be our Savior. May you be praised for all that you are and all that you do.

And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, well let's have a good rest of your