Praise the Lord!

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The Glory of God as the Chief End of Humanity

As our brother has said, we're in Psalm 148 today. But before we go there, let's go to the Lord in prayer and beseech Him for His help. Oh Father, this is Your time now to work. This is Your time now as we open Your Word to speak to us.

Oh, please let us hear. Please let us see. Oh, how can we comprehend an infinite God, an infinite maker of heaven and earth that is owed all praise by all creation? How can we speak of Your glory and Your praises and comprehend it?

How can any human tongue speak of it and not fall short? Oh, please accompany us now. We believe in Your Holy Spirit. Oh, to come and to make the words on the page go into our hearts. Oh, if anything, please stir us to a renewed and a greater affection and obsession for Your glory that our hearts would be filled with You, that they would overflow for the sake of Your name with worship.

Oh, come and work among us now. Oh, we ask for Your glory and our good. I want to pose a question to you. What is it that you would like to be remembered for one day? For what do you want to be known after your death?

What is your quote-unquote legacy supposed to be? If you were to write your own eulogy to be read at your funeral, what would it say? What would it speak of? That you were a good husband, perhaps? A faithful mother or wife?

That you worked hard? That you were generous? That you were kind? That you were always willing to help others? That you faithfully served in your church? Oh, certainly these are good things. Things we as Christians ought to commit ourselves to.

But I want to challenge us to a higher standard still. And I want to ask you where in your eulogy, in your life, does the glory of God make an appearance? Is it there at all? Are people going to be able to say that one distinctive about you?

That you had a particular focus? That what characterized you? That everything you did was simply an overflow of your heart's devotion to the glory and majesty of God. Especially as it is revealed in Jesus Christ.

Should they be able to say that? Should this be a mark of those who claim Christ as their Lord? I believe it should. You see, we have in our day and age lost the grip that men and women of old had on the majesty of God.

The old catechisms, right? They begin with this great question. What is the chief end of man? And you all know the answer to this. The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. In our day we suffer of a loss of vision of that chief end.

Praising God. His glory and majesty. His being exalted above the heavens and the earth. Overall is thought of very little. To the point that too many, I think, think of worship as an adoration. Only as a half-hour segment on Sundays once a week.

When like-minded people gather together in the same place for two hours. Of course, there's the matter of the flesh still clinging to us, seeking its own praise. So much so that at times we're unsure of our own motives.

Why we did what we did. Why we said what we said. Yet I submit to you that the glory of God is the great theme of all the Scriptures. From Genesis to Revelation. And I want to show you from Psalm 148.

That all of creation, without a single exception, from the highest to the lowest. Is called to praise the Lord God Almighty. That that's what all things were created for. And that the praise and the majesty of God reach their high point in the work and person of Jesus Christ.

And therefore, it ought to be a distinguishing mark of those who call on his name. There to be a people known as worshipers of God in the here and in the now. And not only start to concern ourselves with this when we enter into eternity.

The very reasons that we commit ourselves to being faithful husbands and wives. And work to the best of our abilities and are generous and kind. Is because we're first obsessed with the glory of God in our lives.

That whatever we do, whether we eat or drink, we do it to the glory of God. So I want to break up this psalm for you in two very simple headings. First, I want us to consider the praises from the heavens in the first half in verses 1 through 6.

And we'll look at the who. Who is it that is to praise God as well as the reason. The why ought they to praise God. And then secondly, in verses 7 through 14. We'll look at the praises from the earth that are to sound upwards.

Again, considering the who and the why. And so let us read the psalm in total and then go through it piece by piece. Psalm 148 verse 1. 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. Praise Him all you shining stars. Praise Him you highest heavens and your 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, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling His word.

Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars. Beasts 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. First let us look then at the praises from heaven in 1 -6. The psalm is a psalm of praise. It's actually found in the small section of psalms at the very end of the entire book. Psalm 146 -150 have been collectively called psalms of praise.

They have all been labeled and identified as such. Because every single one of these begins and ends with the phrase, Praise the Lord. We see this in our psalm in verse 1 and then of course again in verse 14.

And that in the Hebrew is one simple word that you all know. Hallelujah. To give glory, to give praise, to give adoration to God. That's the basic overall theme of the psalm. But as it sits in the middle of this small collection, it's interesting that it does not only exhort the individual or a group of people, but it addresses all of creation without exception and calls on it to praise the Lord.

And so between these bookends, if you will, of praise the Lord, the psalmist explains to us who and why. And he begins in verse 1 with, Praise the Lord from the heavens. Praise Him in the heights. He opens immediately with a command.

Every praise in verses 1 -6 is in the imperative, as well as the one in verse 7 later on when he addresses the earth. He commands the heavens and the heights, referring to everything above the earth, seen and unseen.

We know this because he goes on to distinguish through verses 2 -4 between the angels, between the sun and the moon and the waters above the earth before he then directs his attention to the earth. He works his way from the highest place all the way down to the lowest.

And he begins in the place we call heaven, where God dwells as well as the heavens in which the sun and the moon and the stars are fixed in their courses. Every place other than earth is addressed first.

And we do well to consider just that simple fact for just a moment. Because when we do think about praising God, most of the time it is focused on our personal experience of it. Is it not? Here on earth, in the here and now, what we do again on Sundays, we don't always think about him being praised elsewhere outside of that experience.

And that perpetually, without interruption, without break, if for some reason, somehow, all the people on earth were, let's say, asleep or wiped off of the face of the earth, God would still be praised.

He would still be magnified in the heights and the heavens. And too many, probably the majority of Christians today, have reduced God in such a way, that they think of him only on Sundays when they're singing for 20 minutes.

I believe that is an abomination. That is a tragedy and utter nonsense. That is a small God. And I ask you, is this the God of the Bible? Is that the God that you have? Is that even a God worthy of praise?

I hope that's not your God. I hope that's not the one you want to have. Because the one we read of in this book, the one we read of in this very psalm, is one that far exceeds any earthly praise. So it begins not on earth.

His adoration begins not on earth, but the heavens and the heights. And what it does is it echoes down from there. In fact, worship starts in His very presence. In places that our finite eyes cannot see or behold.

Verse 2 makes that clear. It says, praise Him, all His angels. Praise Him, all His hosts. It starts with those who surround Him. Hosts, yes, can refer to heavenly elements. But here in this poetry, in this hymn of praise, in this parallelism that it's used, it refers to angels.

It just expands the idea. And so it makes clear that all the angels, the myriads, the thousands of thousands that we read about in Daniel 7, in Revelation 5, who are gathered around His glorious throne, beholding Him in His unapproachable light.

The whole number of them. The seraphim and the cherubim. Gabriel, Michael, the archangel. Every single one of them is commanded to praise Him. Think about this in terms of how majestic and glorious God is.

Being magnified at all times. In places unseen by beings unseen. I mean, what are angels? These great beings that dwell in the presence of God? They can traverse. They can move from heaven to earth to announce good news and warn of coming judgment.

They have far greater power than any man. They freed apostles from prison. They're special servants of God. They do what His Word commands. They minister to Christ in the wilderness after His temptation.

They stand at the ready for Him. In Gethsemane, when He was about to be arrested, He could have called on them. They have a high status. So much so that Paul charges Timothy in the presence of God and of Jesus Christ and of the elect angels to keep what Paul wrote to him.

Of course, they will be revealed from heaven with Christ when He comes. Yet despite all that, you know what they are? They are creatures still. They're not the Lord. And as part of creation, they are not to be worshipped, but they ought to worship.

And we see this in Revelation. When John hears and sees the great vision, he responds by falling down before the angel who showed him these things and wants to worship him. And the angel says to him, You must not do that.

I am a fellow servant. Worship God. You see, God is so worthy. He is so exalted. He's so glorious. He's so majestic that even angels, the heavenly creatures, even though they're already in His presence, they owe Him praise.

And that's exactly what they do. You know the great chapter. The prophet of Isaiah. Chapter 6. When he sees the six seraphim with their six wings. With two, they cover their eyes. With two, they cover their feet.

With the last two, they fly and they always cry, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. In Luke chapter 2, when the angels appear to tell the shepherds of Christ's birth, tell them that they will find Him in a manger.

But the angel is not alone. Luke 2 .13 says,. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts. What did they do? Praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased.

You see, with them in the very throne room of God begins an outpouring of His praises that simply rains down to cover the rest of creation. And it falls first on the heavenly elements as well. We see this in verses 3 and 4.

Praise Him, sun and moon. Praise Him, all you shining stars. Praise Him, you highest heavens and your waters above the heavens. Oh, we move now from the heaven where the Lord dwells to the heights where He's fixed these elements.

Worship occurs in an unseen place, but it's not isolated to it. It can't be contained there. It has to go forth. His majesty and glory are simply too great. Everything He touches puts Him on display. And so in the same manner, with the same imperative, the psalmist now calls on the heights and the waters above the heavens to praise the Lord.

Of course, reminded by the language of Genesis chapter 1. When God makes the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night and the stars. When He separates the waters above the heavens from the waters under the expanse.

When He created the distant heavens, the universe that which holds the sun and the moon and the stars as well as the heavens that are near in which the clouds are suspended giving rain to the earth to make it fruitful.

Everything above the earth, whether it is far or near, ought to worship God. That's what it was created for. We understand how angels worship Him, as living beings, but how do these inanimate objects do that?

I mean, doesn't the writer know that they have no spirit? Well, in Psalm 19, you can turn there if you like, King David has answered that very question for us. In it he speaks of two ways that God has revealed Himself to us.

First is what theologians call general revelation, referring to creation showing His power and His goodness and wisdom to mankind. He speaks about this in verse 1 -6 in Psalm 19. And then the second half is called special revelation, referring to His law, that is, His word, the scriptures.

It's they that contain what is necessary for us to know about salvation that creation simply cannot speak of. In verses 1 -4 of Psalm 19, David writes this,. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.

Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

These objects, they praise God because they daily, day and night, they speak to all humanity of His infinite power. His power to create, His wisdom in how He has created them, His goodness toward men, that life is even possible here.

That the sun is actually not too far away that we would freeze, or too close that we would burn up. That the moon is keeping the earth at a steady tilt of 23 .5 degrees to stabilize our climate and seasons.

That the clouds pour out rain on the just and on the unjust to make this cursed ground fruitful and inhabitable. For their mere existence, they point us to a creator. Paul writes this later in Romans.

They show God's invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, His intelligence, His creativity. They reflect His glory for all men to see. That's how they praise Him. Matthew Henry put it so well.

He said, There are the sun, moon, and stars, which continually, either day or night, present themselves to our view as looking glasses in which we may see a faint shadow, for so I must call it, not a resemblance of the glory of Him that is the Father of lights.

Creation, from the beginning, has reflected the glory of God for all to see. That's its great purpose. You see, day and night. You can look up at the heaven. You can look up in the heavens in the morning, at noon, at night, anytime.

It doesn't matter where you are in the world and stand in awe of God. And there will never be, there has never been a single person, whether in the wealthiest and most technologically advanced country on earth or in the most primitive, distant place you can think of, that will be able one day to stand before God and say, Oh God, if I would have only seen how glorious You are, if You would have shown me Your glory, I would have believed.

There is not one that will ever be able to say that. He has shown His glory. He is showing His glory that all of you can see it. The heavens, as they show His handiwork, they are divinely called means to witness against man for his lack of ascribing glory to God.

The witness is enough for man to leave Him without excuse before Him. If we return to Psalm 148, that is the who of praising the Lords in the heavens and the heights. But we're also given the why in verses 5 and 6.

Let them praise the name of the Lord. And then here's the reason. For He commanded and they were created. And He established them forever and ever. He gave a decree and it shall not pass away. All the heavens are to praise God by being part of His creation.

Creation must. It must worship its Creator by virtue of having been created. He simply made them. Sun, moon, stars, they did not ignite their own light. God said let there be light and there was light.

It's Him who said let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years. Skip the page. He established them. They stand fast because of His continually upholding them by His power. It's only by His appointment that they stand even today, right now, outside this very moment.

Because they are His servants. And as long as the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, we just sung it, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. He gave them the decree to stand firm and no one, not the heavens themselves and even man, as much as he might think nowadays, can thwart that decree and undo it.

They simply cannot breach the boundaries that He's set for them. They cannot go rogue. They're bound by His Word at all times. And in contrast to man, they obey it perfectly, willingly. The sun does not argue against its maker.

It doesn't rebel against Him by withholding its light and heat. The moon does not choose to stop reflecting the sun or the stars to shine. They always obey Him so that the sun will not strike us by day or the moon by night.

And they will remain in that function until He makes all things new. Adoration echoes down from the heavenly places. But again, it's not limited to it. It must also, or He must also, be magnified in the earth.

Creation's Praise from the Earth

Worship, in that sense, must rise up from the low places of creation. And that's what the psalmist addresses in the second half, verses 7 through 14. Verse 7, he writes, We began in the heights. We're taken to the lower realm.

Slowly entering the territory of man now. Yet the charge remains the same. The imperative from verse 7 is just the same. Praise the Lord. Verses 1 through 6 felt maybe distant to us. It comes much closer now to home.

And the psalmist will go on until he reaches into the very depths of our own heart at the end. But before we get there, let's consider the praise from the earth. He continues again with this theme of creation.

And he addresses the great sea creatures and all the deeps. All the seas that cover the earth. Elements like fire or lightning and hail, snow, mist, wind. Even the mountains and the hills. Trees, beasts, livestock, creeping things, flying birds.

All creation under the heavens. They do exactly what the angels and the heavenly elements do. They put the Lord on display. Do you see the scope? Do you see the breadth of the glory of God here? He's praised in the deepest crevices of the oceans.

Those places unexplored and untouched by men. Even in places hidden away in darkness and cold waters. There shines the glory of God for creatures unknown to man. Large and small and places unseen. Whether it's in the heavens or in the depths.

He is magnified. It doesn't matter if you and I can see it. Everything he has made sings his praise. I mean, go and read about the ocean one day. Its powers. Phenomenon. I'm sure you've seen the videos of these gigantic waves swallowing up ships.

Milky seas. Have you heard of milky seas? A phenomenon where up to 100 ,000 square kilometers of ocean turns a bright glowing blue, green and white in the middle of the night. Even to this day we have explored 5 of the ocean in detail.

There is so much more of the glory of God still out there hidden for us to find, to look at and then to stand in awe of Him. Again, it's not contained to that either. Even fire and hail. The snow and the mist, the wind praise Him because they fulfill His Word.

They do what He commands. No more, no less. They come and go at His bidding. And we see this very thing in the Scriptures, don't we? They show His power and might for blessing as well as judgment. It's the Lord who rained down fire and sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah.

It's the Lord who sent fire, another way to express lightning, and hail to rain down on Egypt in the seventh plague that destroyed all beasts and all the land, every tree, showing His might that the Pharaoh would let His people go.

Yet that lightning and hail, it remained perfectly under His control. How do we know that? Because His people and the land of Goshen were not hit. They were not struck. Even in judgment by these means, the Lord is praised and His justice and His righteousness are displayed while at the same time showing His faithfulness and salvation to His people.

The winds serve His purposes. Think about Jonah. It says that the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea. And even those in the boat with Jonah, they cry out to their individual gods. And the storm continues until the men themselves acknowledge that the Lord has done it and they throw the prophet overboard.

That then stops him from going to Tarshish and returns his way to Nineveh so that he might go there and preach repentance so that the Lord might be praised in that city by displaying His mercy to sinners.

All these elements, they serve His divine purpose. They show you His power. They show you our helplessness. Time serves as a way of judgment. Really, they ought to stir us to greater praise still. That He's mighty.

That He's powerful and wielding these elements that we're, by the way, completely unable to prevent, if you've noticed that. Even with all the tornadoes that we've had this year. Right? All the storms.

They should be a reason for us to fall on our knees in thankfulness and adoration. Because if we understand who He is and who we are, we know that we don't deserve to have it as good as we do. That our sin would be just cause for Him to wipe us off the face of the earth.

And so when these things do happen, we should praise and thank Him that He has been merciful in sparing us and remembered us. Not because we've done anything to be spared, but because we received the mercy that we didn't deserve.

That He's remembered us in our weakness, in our weak and afflicted frame. His praises not only go forth from the lowest places and the so-called elements, but from the highest places on earth. Mountain, through all the hills, every valley sings His praises.

You know this, don't you? I mean, you've been to the mountains. You've driven past them. And you're amazed. The ungodly know it. They drive through it. Some of them travel the world to see all of creation and to post an infinite number of pictures online.

But what they don't see is the one who's made them. They remain blind. As much of creation as they behold, they remain blind to the one that it points to. Everything. Every single thing you can lay your eyes on is made to magnify Him and does magnify Him.

I mean, every tree formed at creation with its various fruits, with a tremendous number of different species and variants. The fruit that is good for food. The cedars that is used to build homes and that was even used to build the temple of God.

You can look at one and be amazed at the simplest things. Its color, its size, the shape of its leaf. Leaf have different colors one time of year and a different color other times of year. And then there are some that don't change color at all.

And on and on it goes, revealing the wisdom and majesty of God. I want you to show me a man who can think up the variety we see at every turn in creation. Down to the very animals. The beasts, the livestock.

Those on land, those in the sky. Insects hiding in different places. Even the ones that seem strange to us at times. The ones that we wonder why they even made it through the flood. The smallest insect being equipped with everything it needs to live.

All of them draw praise to the Lord. You see, brothers and sisters, there is not a square inch in all creation, whether you can see it or not, that does not display the glory of God and cries out to Him.

But why would we have a psalm like this? Why would somebody call on nature to praise God if every created being does it already anyway? Well, we've explored one reason. To give you reason to praise. To incite you to worship because you can see His majesty and the things that were made.

And certainly you have all the more reason to praise Him. Have you not been blessed with the capacity to reason and think having been made in the very image of God? Have you not been blessed by all the things that are made?

Is your life not sustained by them? Have they not been given to you to enjoy? Secondly, I believe that the author is consumed with the glory of God. That this is really a mark of His people. That they love Him.

That they are taking up with who He is. The psalmist here is so affected by the majesty of God that it flows out of him so much that he desires all creation to worship with him. Creation points him to God.

And when he then sees God, the one that it points to, he then cries out to creation to join him. To sing with the angels for the seas, and the sea creatures, and the skies, and the mountains, and all beasts to cry out His praises.

And I want to ask you, are you like the poet here? Are you so infatuated? Are you so taken up with the glory of God? So fixed on His majesty and exaltation that you wish you could sing in unending praises together with everything that's been made?

Is that what occupies your heart, Christian? Is that what you seek to do with your life? Is that why you come here on Sunday? Yes, to praise Him in the singing of songs, but even more than that, to praise Him in praying, in reading His Word, in listening to and by the Word preached.

We don't care about the glory of God. So much so that our hearts are often not grieved. He is not worshipped by every man and woman on the earth. We do not lament that there are people that do not adore Him.

That He's not praised by every man, woman, and child. And I ask you, is this not part of the reason why we go out on Thursdays and missions? Yes, sure, to see sinners saved, but that through their redemption, His praises would ring out from every corner in the city and province, nation, and world.

That He would be known, that He would receive the glory and the honor and the majesty that He is due. I pray, I have been praying that He would give all of us, you and me, a greater longing after His greatness.

That He would take our hearts, that He would fill them and keep them full with true adoration. That He would guard us from praises merely on our lips, because that is no praise. But that that would overflow in such a way that we simply cannot contain it.

That we must worship with every fiber of our being. That we too would cry out to all creation to praise Him with us, because He's worthy. And every creature, every man, every woman, and child ought to worship Him.

Humanity's Universal Call to Praise

And that's how the Psalm closes in verses 11 through 14. Mankind in general is to praise God. Look at verse 11 and 12. Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth, young men and maidens together, old men and children.

Finally, we've arrived at our own race. And this law of praise extends to all. Kings. Those who rule. Those who are in high position. Princes and rulers. In other words, all those who hold authority and are in positions of power.

It doesn't matter how high a man might be among men. He remains man. And as such, He has no right to exalt Himself, but must exalt the Almighty. They are to adore the King of kings and the ruler and the judge of the universe.

The very one who has put them in the position that they're in. They're not exempt because of their position. There's no excuse for them to withhold praise. Young men and maidens. Just like they stand on level ground before God as bearers of His image, both of them owe Him praise.

From old men to children, from the least to the greatest, all are bound without exception to devote themselves to the exaltation of God. Notice that there's no qualification here, by the way. It applies to the wicked and the righteous.

There's no distinction made in verse 11 and 12. And just as the rest of creation, as a creature, the greatest of them in fact, the pinnacle, the diamond of creation, man is not only obligated to obey his Creator, but to worship Him.

It's a general command to all men everywhere at every stage of life, old and young. Some of you here are young. Some of you here are children, teenagers. Some of you are in your 20s. And there is a particular temptation that you face that tells you to trust in your youth and in your strength while your heart is tied to youthful passions that seek to entertain you and draw you away from the Lord.

I want to tell you not to delay worship. Not to withhold from the Lord what He's due. It's foolishness for you to say that you will do it one day when you're older, when you're maybe more mature, that you will serve Him then.

Not everyone lives to be old. And it's true what men have said in the past. That the longer you delay, the longer you refuse Him, the harder your heart will get. The harder it will be to reach out and cry out for Christ.

As time passes, sins grip on your heart only tight. And so please, young people, heed the words of the psalm. Praise Him. Don't wait. Don't delay. Don't wait. Today is the day of salvation. There's also a word for the old ones here.

Don't grow dull. Don't grow lack in your service. Don't let your praises fade as your strength seems to flee from you. The closer you feel you're getting to glory, the more reason you have to offer it to Him.

You've seen His faithfulness and His loving kindness for you over the years, have you not? You've experienced Him take you by the hand when you had to walk through the dreaded valley of shadow of death.

How much time He's given you to know Him and be known by Him and that He still holds you fast despite your sin that you see much clearer now than years ago. Is your Savior not more precious to you now than He was when you first believed?

Praise Him. In closing, the psalmist again gives reason for worship in verse 13. He says, Let them praise the name of the Lord for His name alone is exalted. His majesty is above earth and heaven. There is all here that creation needs to know to be moved to magnify the Lord.

He alone is exalted. He's exalted above the angels, above the sun, above the moon and the stars. His majesty surpasses the great sea creatures. It makes fire and hail and snow and mist and wind appear as nothing.

Mountains and hills and trees and beasts, they cannot touch the exceeding glory and greatness of God. His name alone is exalted. His majesty above the earth and heaven. It's been this way and it will always be this way.

And it's true, by the way, regardless of the existence of creation. Yes, it chose Him for it. But whether the earth would have remained without form and void, He did not gain majesty once He created. He was majestic.

He was glorious. He's always been glorious. He's always been exalted from eternity past and will always be exalted into eternity future. Because His majesty is rooted in His very character. Creation simply grants, as Matthew Henry said, the faint shadow of the two of us.

You see, finite creation and all its beauty and all its intricacies is enough that it should stir all men to pray. Yet it cannot contain its infinite maker. The highest or heaven, the highest heaven cannot contain Him.

If all the things He made would join in unison at the same time, He would still exceed that glory. Spurgeon put it this way, there is more glory in Him personally than is in all His works united. It is not possible for us to exceed and become extravagant in the Lord's praise.