Psalms 148:12

Both young men and maidens.

Happy work for everybody

I. What it is to praise the Lord. Praise is the heart singing. We want the heart that sees and feels how kind our heavenly Father is, and loves Him for everything. One day as I was going along the road I saw a large coil of telegraph wire lying in a heap. There keeping itself all to itself, dull and heavy, it was the very last thing that you would ever expect to get any music out of. Soon afterwards, as we were going that way again, my little girl said to me, “Hark! what is that playing?” I pointed up to the wire--the same wire that lay coiled up in heavy silence. Now it was stretched along from post to post, and was making music the whole day through. And so it is with us. We keep our love in to ourselves and wrapped around ourselves, and then there is no music. But when our love stretches away to Jesus, then it makes the constant music of praise--at home or at school, at work or at play.

II. Reasons why we should praise the Lord.

1. Because He has loved us, and given Himself for us.

2. We are the only creatures in the world that can praise Him. After all, the dragons and great deeps can’t really praise Him, nor the sun or stars. It is like the telegraph wire again. When the wind has come to the wire, then the music comes. The air that is in this chapel is blown into the organ, but it has no sound until it comes through the organ pipes. So all things in God’s great world are dumb until they come to us. We are the harp and the organ by which their praise is to go up to heaven.

3. Praise is the only thing that we can give to the Lord.

4. Loving praise is the only thing that can satisfy our loving Lord.

5. It is the happy work that we shall do in heaven. Let us practise it down here. (M. G. Pearse.)