Rejoice for Heaven and Nature Sing

Serviced Notes

Update from Jordan Cooke about her MMo Trip to Honduras

Prayer for Zachary Patton

“The decisions we make are more important than the days that we live.” - Clarence Sexton

“I am not looking for the Second Return of the Lord, I am looking for the Lord of the Second Coming.” - Clarence Sexton

Bible Reading

Opening Question: Do you enjoy snow? You will notice in this Psalm God places snow right after fire and hail and not far after dragons.

Tonight we will listen as “heaven and nature sing”

First 6 verses call on the heavens to give praise to God based on v.5-6

Second set of verses call on the earth to praise God based off of v.13-14

Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare Him room, And heav’n and nature sing, And heav’n and nature sing, And heav’n, and heav’n, and nature sing.

What groups Psalms 146-150 together is that each psalm begins and ends with “Praise ye the LORD” which is the translation of “Hallelujah.”

Psalms starts with a rather stark landscape of this world: there are the righteous who serve God and the wicked who do not. Psalm 1:1–3 “1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. 3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”

Psalm continues telling us that a key calling of the righteous—and more and more of the entire creation—is to praise God.

This psalm is pure praise. It contains not a single prayer, plea, or petition, only praise.

Psalm is filled with doxologies. Doxologies are little words of praise or commands or exhortations to praise God.

Psalm 148 (KJV)

1 Praise ye the LORD. Praise ye the LORD from the heavens: praise him in the heights.

2 Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts.

3 Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light.

4 Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens.

5 Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created.

6 He hath also stablished them for ever and ever: he hath made a decree which shall not pass.

7 Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps:

8 Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word:

9 Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars:

10 Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl:

11 Kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth:

12 Both young men, and maidens; old men, and children:

13 Let them praise the name of the LORD: for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven.

14 He also exalteth the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him. Praise ye the LORD.

Heaven and Nature Sing

In “Joy to the world” we sing that “fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy” of praise. And also, “no more let sing and sorrow reign, nor thorns infest the ground.”

”In “Angels, from the Realms of Glory,” we sing “all creation, join in praising God, the Father”

A Reminder of Nature’s Power and Danger

The psalm’s poetry invites us to imagine the very heart of a windy, winter storm as the summoning of the Creator—“fulfilling his command”. Psalm 148:8 “8 Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word:”

According to Psalm 104, there is a divinely established order in creation. Psalm 104:19 “19 He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down.”

Bible filled with warnings to not worship creation

Colossians 2:18 “18 Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,”

Acts 7:42 “42 Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness?”

Reason I answer Rhinoceros if someone asks me about my horiscope sign. I live under the authority of the God of Heaven not creation, forces of nature, or make believe aspects of creation.

The world is not now divided between those who worship and those who don't. Everybody worships.

The world is divided between those who worship the Creator and those who worship something else, the creature.

Creation belongs to God and will be redeemed

Biblical teaching that the redemptive scope of God’s work includes the entirety of creation.

In the New Testament, Paul affirms both that the entire “creature was made subject to vanity” that “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” and also that through Christ God renewing creation—in Paul’s words, “delivered from the bondage of corruption” (Romans 8:20-22).

With Psalms being poetry let me share the outline with you in an alliterated or poetic form by Philip Brooks

Praise Him! High in the Glory (148:1–6)

Were God Should Be Praised (148:1–4)

Where the Spirit Resides Psalm 148:1 “1 Praise ye the LORD. Praise ye the LORD from the heavens: praise him in the heights.”

Where the Stars Revolve Psalm 148:3 “3 Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light.”

Where the Sky Reigns. Psalm 148:4 “4 Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens.”

Why God Should Be Praised (148:5–6)

He Originated All Things. Psalm 148:5 “5 Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created.”

He Ordains All Things Psalm 148:6 “6 He hath also stablished them for ever and ever: he hath made a decree which shall not pass.”

Praise Him! Here on this Globe (148:7–14)

The Psalmist Views Our Planet (148:7–10)

The Restless Sea Psalm 148:7 “7 Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps:”

The Raging Storm Psalm 148:8 “8 Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word:”

The Rocky Steeps Psalm 148:8 “8 Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word:”

The Rural Scene Psalm 148:9 “9 Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars:”

The Psalmist Views All Peoples (148:11–14)

The Heathen (148:11–14)

The Call to Praise Psalm 148:11 “11 Kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth:”

The Cause for Praise Psalm 148:13 “13 Let them praise the name of the LORD: for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven.”

The Hebrews (148:14)

The Power They Enjoy Psalm 148:14 “14 He also exalteth the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him. Praise ye the LORD.”

The Privilege They Enjoy Psalm 148:14 “14 He also exalteth the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him. Praise ye the LORD.”

The Position They Enjoy Psalm 148:14 “14 He also exalteth the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him. Praise ye the LORD.”

This call to all creation to praise Yahweh is not an empty wish. Revelation 5:11-13 tells us specifically that it will be fulfilled. “O what a hymn of praise is here! It is a universal chorus! All created nature have a share, and all perform their respective parts.” (Adam Clarke)

Reasons we should join the earth in the praise of God

Praising God is the surest sign that we are enjoying God as we should.

Psalm 148:13–14 “13 Let them praise the name of the LORD: for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven. 14 He also exalteth the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him. Praise ye the LORD.”

God alone is worthy of the worship, honor, and praise that He deserves.

His name alone is excellent. v.13a

The psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about.

All enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise.

God is immeasurably greater and more glorious than anything on the earth.

His glory is above the earth. v.13b

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

- CS Lewis, the Weight of Glory

God is the only one who could have rescued us. 14a

All people are to join with heaven and nature Psalm 148:11–12 “11 Kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth: 12 Both young men, and maidens; old men, and children:”

Don’t waste your God-glorifying life by waiting for it to become something else before it can glorify him.

Caterpillars glorify God before they become butterflies, as well as after.

If a hippopotamus can glorify him, so can you. (Song about animals who say “I just want to thank you father for makine me me)

This speaks of majesty/ Psalm 148:13 “13 Let them praise the name of the LORD: for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven.”

Micah’s famous Bethlehem prophecy speaks of a great ruler arising, from the little town. Micah 5:4 “4 And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God; and they shall abide: for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth.”

God has chosen to draw near to His people. 14b

The book of Job does not end with what you might expect.

You and I want answers. We want a long theological statement on what just happened.

Instead God takes Job and all of us on a world tour.

We go to the zoo, in essence.  Job 12:7–9 “7 But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: 8 Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. 9 Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this?”

We discover that for all the other things God might have to do, he apparently spends a lot of time delighting in watching mountain goats frolic, wild donkeys play, eagles soar, and hippos just being hippos.

Chapter after chapter God goes on and on about storehouses for snow, spectacles of the night sky, deer giving birth to fawns. Job 38:22 “22 Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail,”

Alexander Maclaren wrote that Psalm 148 continues “…a line of thought which runs through Scripture from its first page to its last — namely, that, as man’s sin subjected the creatures to ‘vanity,’ so his redemption shall be their glorifying.”

Pictures of heaven and nature

germs

sea

animal

beach

winter

sky

earth

Explanation

Praise transforms the rebellious, “NO! I want to know good and evil like a god!” of Adam and Eve, with a more humble and relationally proper, “Your name, O Lord, your name is exalted.”

That is, when we praise God, we acknowledge both to God and to others that we are not the lords of our own lives.

When we praise God, we acknowledge both to God and to others that the Lord is lord, and we are not.