Pure Praise

Psalm 98

¹Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things! His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.

²The Lord has made known his salvation; he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.

³He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

⁴Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises!

⁵Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody!

⁶With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord!

⁷Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who dwell in it!

⁸Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together

⁹before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.

 

As I meditate my way through this prayer today I am struck by absolute focus of praise upon the Living God. There is no mention of enemies, struggles, or disappointments in these words. This psalm leads us straight into the throne room of God where the only sound you hear is that of praise for Him.

My attention was grabbed by a couple of mental images. First I was transported back 40 years to my days as a camp counselor in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. What glorious summers those were. Never have I seen such a display of God’s creative power and might as I do in those mountains. I can’t tell you how many times I laid on a rock and listened to the magnificent sound of a waterfall. It consumes your whole being by its power and roar. Even then I was certain that each droplet proclaimed the glory of God in a mighty cacophony of praise. Or the sound of relative silence just before the dawn, before the birds began their chirping and the bugs had given up their nightly noises. God inhabited that silence and those were precious moments. This psalm revives all those memories.

Then my mind wandered to John’s description of heaven found in Revelation 4. Here he describes a scene that is almost beyond our imagination.

Revelation 4:1–11

¹After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” ² At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. ³ And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. ⁴ Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. ⁵ From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, ⁶ and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal. And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: ⁷ the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. ⁸ And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” ⁹ And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, ¹⁰ the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,

¹¹“Worthy are you, our Lord and God,

to receive glory and honor and power,

for you created all things,

and by your will they existed and were created.”

Suddenly we are transported into the presence of the Almighty God in His glory and it is a magnificent sight. I have always been fascinated (and maybe slightly terrified) by the “living creatures” who have six wings full of eyes! Full of eyes! They bow before God and as the rise back up again and open all those eyes they are transfixed by yet another revelation of His glory, honor, and power. And that pattern has been on repeat – well, forever, I guess.

We join with those thundering waterfalls, that deep silence, and even those wild creatures with all the eyes in praise for the Living God when we read this Psalm. And He is worthy of every praise-filled thought and impulse. Worthy are You, our Lord and God!