The Great Chain of Praise: Text: Psalm 148:1-6
Introduction: A Universe That Sings
We live in a disenchanted age. Our secularist high priests have taught us to see the world as a collection of mute, meaningless matter, a cosmic accident full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. They look at the sun and see a ball of hydrogen and helium. They look at the stars and see distant nuclear furnaces. They look at the heavens and see a vacuum. But the Bible will not have it. The Bible tells us that the universe is not a silent machine, but a symphony. It is a choir, and it has a conductor. Every part has a voice, and every voice has a mandate: Praise Yahweh.
Psalm 148 is a summons to the entire created order to do the one thing for which it was made. This is not poetry in the sentimental sense. This is not a man looking at a waterfall and feeling inspired to praise God for it. No, this is far more robust than that. This is the waterfall itself being commanded to praise God. The thunder is God's baritone. The stars are a soprano descant. The angels are the tenors and the beasts of the field are the basses. This psalm is a call to worship that starts in the highest heaven and plunges down to the deepest seas, and then calls everything in between to join the chorus.
This psalm is structured in two great movements. The first, which we consider today, is the call to the heavens to praise God (vv. 1-6). The second, which follows, is the call to the earth to praise God (vv. 7-14). The praise starts at the top, with the highest and most glorious beings, and works its way down. It is a cascade of glory. And this is crucial for us to understand. We are not the originators of this praise; we are summoned to join a song that is already in full swing. The universe has been singing since the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Our task is not to start the song, but to find our place in the choir.
This is a direct assault on the idolatry of our age, which is the idolatry of humanism. Man believes he is the center, the one who gives meaning to a meaningless cosmos. But Scripture says God is the center, and He has already filled the cosmos with His meaning and His glory. The creation doesn't need us to give it a voice; it has one. Our privilege is to harmonize with it, to lead it as the redeemed priesthood, and to offer it all up to the Father through the Son.
The Text
Praise Yah!
Praise Yahweh 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 stars of light!
Praise Him, heavens of heavens,
And the waters that are above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of Yahweh,
For He commanded and they were created.
He caused them to stand forever and ever;
He gave a statute and it will never pass away.
(Psalm 148:1-6 LSB)
The Upward Call (vv. 1-2)
The psalm begins with the great imperative, Hallelujah, which means "Praise Yah." It then immediately directs our attention to the highest conceivable point.
"Praise Yahweh from the heavens; Praise Him in the heights! Praise Him, all His angels; Praise Him, all His hosts!" (Psalm 148:1-2)
The summons begins "from the heavens." This is the high dive. We are not starting with our own subjective experience on earth and trying to work our way up to God. The call to worship comes down from God, from the heights, and it begins by commanding those already in the heights to praise Him. This establishes the proper orientation for all worship. It is objective. It is centered on God, not us. Our worship is a response to a call that originates outside of us, in the throne room of the cosmos.
Who is first in this celestial choir? "All His angels... all His hosts!" These are the residents of the high heavens, the courtiers of the Great King. The angels, those mighty spiritual beings who behold the face of the Father, are commanded to praise. The "hosts" refers to the organized armies of heaven. This is not a gentle, sentimental suggestion. It is a military command to the celestial armies. Praise is their joyful duty, their glorious occupation. They are not praised; they are summonned to praise their Commander. This is a polemic against all angel-worship. Angels are not the recipients of worship; they are fellow worshipers, and they are leading the charge.
This tells us that the primary activity of heaven is worship. The central reality of the unseen world is the unending praise of the Triune God. When we gather for worship on the Lord's Day, we are not doing something strange or peripheral. We are joining with the central business of the universe. We ascend, by faith, into the heavenly places and join our voices with that mighty, unseen chorus (Heb. 12:22-24).
The Impersonal Choir (vv. 3-4)
From the personal, spiritual beings in the heavens, the psalmist moves to the impersonal, physical objects of the heavens. The scope of the choir is expanding.
"Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him, all stars of light! Praise Him, heavens of heavens, And the waters that are above the heavens!" (Psalm 148:3-4 LSB)
Now, this is where our modern, materialistic minds can stumble. How does a sun praise God? How does the moon sing? We are tempted to reduce this to mere metaphor, to say that the sun praises God simply by being hot and bright, which in turn makes us praise God. But that is too thin. The Bible insists that the creation itself offers up praise. The heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament shows His handiwork (Psalm 19:1). This is not just about them being evidence for a Creator. They are active participants in the symphony.
The sun, moon, and stars, which were the chief objects of pagan idolatry, are here demoted to the status of choirboys. The sun god Ra, the moon god Sin, they are all dethroned and put in their proper place. They are not deities to be worshiped; they are creatures commanded to worship the one true God. They praise God by their obedient shining, by following the precise paths He laid out for them, by declaring His faithfulness day after day and night after night. Their steadfast obedience is their song.
Then the call goes even higher, to the "heavens of heavens." This is a Hebrew superlative, meaning the highest, most ultimate heavens. It refers to the very throne room of God, the ultimate spiritual reality. And then, curiously, "the waters that are above the heavens." This likely refers back to the created order in Genesis 1, where God separated the waters below from the waters above the firmament (Gen. 1:7). Whatever the precise cosmology, the point is theological: even the highest, most mysterious parts of the created cosmos, things beyond our full comprehension, are included in this command. Nothing is exempt. Every molecule, every photon, every celestial sphere is swept up into this joyful obligation.
The Reason for Praise: Creation and Decree (vv. 5-6)
Having issued the summons, the psalmist now provides the foundational reason why all these things must praise Yahweh. The reason is twofold: creation and preservation.
"Let them praise the name of Yahweh, For He commanded and they were created. He caused them to stand forever and ever; He gave a statute and it will never pass away." (Psalm 148:5-6 LSB)
Here is the bedrock of reality. Why should they praise Him? "For He commanded and they were created." This is Genesis 1 in poetic form. God spoke, and it was so. Fiat Lux. His word is performative. It does what it says. The entire universe is the result of a divine speech-act. Because He made everything, He owns everything. And because He owns everything, He has the right to command everything. His right of manufacture gives Him the right of command. Praise is not an optional extra for the creation; it is the logical and necessary response to the fact of being created by such a God.
To praise the "name of Yahweh" is to praise His character, His reputation, all that He has revealed Himself to be. His name is the summary of His being, and the creation is the theater of His glory, displaying that name.
But He is not a deistic God who creates and then walks away. The second reason for praise is His faithful preservation. "He caused them to stand forever and ever; He gave a statute and it will never pass away." The same God who created the sun and stars by His command also sustains them by His command. He has established them, set them in place, and given them a "statute," a law, a decree that they cannot transgress. This is the foundation of all science. The universe is orderly and predictable because a faithful God is upholding it by the word of His power (Heb. 1:3). The laws of physics are nothing less than the constant, moment-by-moment decrees of God. The sun rises every morning not because of some impersonal law of gravity, but because God tells it to. Its obedience is its praise.
This statute "will never pass away." This points to the stability of the created order. God is not capricious. His covenant with creation is firm. The seasons will continue, day and night will not cease, as long as the earth remains (Gen. 8:22). This eternal decree provides the stability and the stage upon which the drama of redemption is played out. And it is this faithfulness of God in the big things, like holding galaxies in place, that gives us confidence in His faithfulness in the smaller things, like saving our souls.
Conclusion: Finding Your Part in the Song
This psalm confronts us with a fundamental choice. The universe is singing. Everything, from the highest angel to the most distant star, is praising its Creator in obedient joy. The only discordant notes in the entire symphony are the rebellious hearts of fallen angels and fallen men. To refuse to praise God is to be out of tune with all of reality. It is to set yourself against the grain of the universe.
The secularist tries to live in a silent cosmos, but there is no such thing. He must plug his ears and hum loudly to drown out the music. The pagan worships the choir members, the sun and the moon, instead of the Conductor. This is the height of folly, like applauding the violin instead of Bach.
The gospel is the good news that the Conductor has stepped into the orchestra to retune the discordant instruments. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Word who commanded and created all things, we who were rebels can be brought back into harmony. He forgives our rebellious silence and our idolatrous praise of lesser things. He puts a new song in our mouths, a song of praise to our God (Psalm 40:3).
When God saves you, He does not just save you from hell. He saves you for this. He saves you to take up your assigned role as a priest of creation. Man was created to be the choir director of the earthly contingent, to gather up all the praise of the lower creation and offer it up to God with understanding and joy. In Christ, that calling is restored. We are the ones who can look at the sun and praise God not just for its heat, but for the Son of Righteousness who has risen with healing in His wings. We are the ones who can hear the thunder and praise the God whose voice is powerful and full of majesty. We are brought back into the great chain of praise, finding our part in the song that has never stopped and will never end.