The Whole World a Choir

Psalm 148 is a summons. Not polite, not optional. It drags everything—angels and old men, whales and beetles, kings and farmhands—into the same chorus: Praise the Lord. The Psalmist doesn’t bother asking if they feel like it. He doesn’t ask if they’re ready. He just calls them to open their mouths and boast in their Maker.

That’s the heart of this Psalm: everything and everyone, everywhere, praising God.

The last five Psalms are sometimes called the “Hallelujah Psalms” because each begins and ends with that word: Praise the Lord. They may have been sung when Israel returned from exile, rebuilding a ruined Jerusalem. Picture the rubble, the smell of smoke still in the stones, and men stacking rock on rock with blistered hands. That’s when these songs rose up. Deliverance had come, but so had the call to build. God doesn’t just rescue—He rules. He doesn’t just forgive, He forms.

That’s how sanctification works. God pulls us out of sin, then He hammers and shapes us into Christ’s likeness. It isn’t neat. It’s more like a carpenter sanding rough wood or a blacksmith pounding metal until sparks fly. Paul says we’re “transformed from glory to glory,” and that through us God spreads “the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere.” Salvation always leads somewhere. Deliverance turns into dominion.

But what is praise? Modern dictionaries give bloodless answers: “warm approval.” That’s Hallmark-card worship. The old Webster’s comes closer: “to extol, to magnify, to glorify on account of perfections.” In Hebrew the word carries the sense of shining, of boasting out loud. Everyone boasts in something. Some brag about wealth, some about power, some about wisdom. But God says: if you’re going to boast, boast that you know Me.

The Psalmist starts with the heavens: angels, sun, moon, stars. All of them called to praise. These things overwhelm us, and we’re quick to bow before them. John, the aged apostle, once collapsed in worship before an angel in Revelation 22. The angel told him flatly: “Do not do that. Worship God.” If John could stumble, so can we.

We’re not past paganism. Modern man bows just as easily. Carl Sagan, the atheist astronomer, practically preached a liturgy for the cosmos: “The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be.” He couldn’t help himself. If you don’t worship the Creator, you’ll make creation eternal and call it god. But the stars don’t carry the glory—they reflect it, dimly, like light off a broken bottle in a ditch.

Then the Psalmist turns earthward: sea creatures, fire and hail, mountains, kings, commoners, young, old. From the depths of the ocean to the halls of power, everything is commanded to praise. And why? Because God’s name is exalted above all, and because He has raised up a horn for His people—a strong Savior. Creation praises by existing. God’s people praise because they’ve been redeemed. One is unconscious glory; the other is conscious thanksgiving.

And this isn’t restrained, golf-clap worship. It’s loud. It’s physical. It’s the kind of praise that rattles the rafters. I’ve seen echoes of it in strange places. Years ago, I went to a boxing match in Las Vegas—Mayweather versus Hatton. Tens of thousands of British fans filled the arena, singing for Hatton like their lives depended on it. The sound was overwhelming, rolling like thunder. You could feel it in your chest. It was worship, only misplaced.

I’ve heard something like it in the church only a couple times. Once, when a million men sang hymns on the Mall in D.C. at a Promise Keepers rally. Another time, in a room of burly men at a retreat, no instruments, just hymnals, their deep voices belting truth with no shame. That’s closer to what Psalm 148 envisions—men and women pouring out praise without fear of looking foolish.

Here’s the order: God delivers, God rules, and His people praise. That praise starts in the heart, spills into the church, and then seeps into everyday life. Paul told the Colossians: let Christ’s peace rule in your hearts, let His word dwell richly in you, and do everything in His name with thanksgiving. The church gathers on Sunday to praise. It scatters during the week to serve. Worship fuels witness.

If you want hallelujahs to echo across heaven and earth, start here. Praise God with all your heart among His people, and then carry that fragrance into the world. And don’t kid yourself: it will smell like life to some and death to others. Either way, it will be unmistakable.

Praise the Lord. Hallelujah.