20 Sermon Illustrations on Praise

See you starry host! see the mighty cohorts of cheesaw and scraps! Let men begone, and they shall praise him; let the troops of the glorified cease their notes, and let no sweet melodies ever come from the lips of sainted men and women, — yet the chariots of God are twenty thousand, even many thousands of angels, who always in their motion chant his praise. There is an orchestra on high, the music of which shall never cease, even were mortals extinct, and all the human race swept from existence. Again: if angels were departed, still daily would he be praised; for are there not worlds on worlds, and suns on suns, and systems on systems, that could forever sing his praise? Yes! The ocean — that house of storms — would howl out his glories; the winds would swell the notes of his praise with their ceaseless gales; the thunders would roll like drums in the march of the God of armies; the illimitable void of ether would become vocal with song; and space itself would burst forth into one universal chorus, "Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah! still the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." And if these were gone, if creatures ceased to exist, He who ever liveth and reigneth, in whom all the fulness of the Godhead bodily dwells, would still be praised, praised in himself, and glorious in himself; for the Father would praise the Son, and the Spirit would praise him: and mutually blessing one another, and rendering each other beatified, still "daily would he be praised." Spurgeon.

PRAISE, Anthem of It is said, that, when the sun is going out of sight, the pious Swiss herdsman of the Alps takes his alpine horn, and shouts loudly through it, "Praise ye the Lord!" Then a brother herdsman on some distant slope takes up the echo, "Praise the Lord!" Soon another answers, still higher up the mountains, till hill shouts to hill, and peak echoes to peak, the sublime anthem of praise to the Lord of all.

Praise is the rent we owe to God; and, the larger the farm, the greater the rent. — Bowes. — The Lord has many fine farms from which he receives but little rent. Thanksgiving is a good thing: thanksgiving is better. — P. Henry. — A line of praises is worth a leaf of prayer; and an hour of praises is worth a day of fasting and mourning. — J. Livingston. — Thy love has been as a shower; the returns but a dew-drop, and that dew-drop stained with sin. — Evans.

Let not thy praises be transient, — a fit of music, and then the instrument hung by the wall till another gandy day of some remarkable providence makes thee take it down. God comes not guest-wise to his saints' house, but to dwell with them. David took this up for a lifework: "As long as I live, I will praise thee."

— Gurnall

Praise is the only part of duty in which we at present engage, which is lasting. We pray; but there shall be a time when prayer shall offer its last litany: we believe; but there shall be a time when faith shall be lost in sight: we hope, and hope maketh not ashamed; but there shall be a time when hope lies down and dies, lost in the splendor of the fruition that God shall reveal. But praise goes singing into heaven, and is ready, without a teacher, to strike the harp that is waiting for it, to transmit along the echoes of eternity the song of the Lamb. In the party-colored world in which we live, there are days of various sorts and experiences, making up the aggregate of the Christian's life. There are waiting-days, in which, because Providence fences us round, and it seems as if we cannot march, we cannot move, as though we must just wait to see what the Lord is about to do in us and for us; and there are watching-days, when it behooves us never to slumber, but to be always ready for the attacks of our spiritual enemy; and there are warring-days, when, with nodding plume and with ample armor, we must go forth to do battle for the truth; and there are weeping-days, when it seems as if the fountains of the great deep within us were broken up, and as though, through much tribulation, we had to pass to heaven in tears: but these days shall all pass away by and by, — waiting days all be passed, warring-days all be passed, watching-days all be passed; but

"Our days of praise shall never be past While life and thought and being last, And immortality endures."

— W. M. Punshon

Suppose some one entering heaven were to say to the redeemed, "Suspend your songs for a moment! Ye have been praising Christ, lo! these six thousand years: many of you have, without cessation, praised him now these many centuries! Stop your song a moment; pause, and give your songs to some one else for an instant." Oh! can you conceive the scorn with which the myriad eyes of the redeemed would smite the templer? "Stop from praising him! No, never. Time may stop; for it shall be no more: the world may stop; for its revolutions must cease: the universe may stop its cycles and the movings of its world; but for us to stop our songs, — never, never!" Spurgeon.

It shall often happen, that when thy heart is torpid, and yields not to the action of prayer, it shall begin to thaw, and at last burst, like streams under the breath of spring, from its icy prison, with the warm and genial exercise of praise. The deadness, the distractions, thou deplorest, shall flee away as the harp is taken down from the willow, and strung to celebrate the divine perfections. Dr. Goulburn.

It is said, that on the return of St. Francis from Syria, in passing through the Venetian Lagoon, vast numbers of birds were singing; and he said to his companion, "Our sisters, the birds, are praising their Creator; let us sing with them; and he began the sacred service. But the warbling of the birds interrupted them: therefore St. Francis said to them, "Be silent till we also have praised God;" and they ceased their song, and did not resume it till he had given them permission. On another occasion, as he was sitting with his disciple Leo, he felt himself penetrated with joy and consolation by the song of the nightingale; and he desired his friend Leo to raise his voice, and sing the praises of God in company with the bird. But Leo excused himself by reason of his bad voice; upon which Francis himself began to sing; and, when he stopped, the nightingale took up the strain, and thus they sang alternately, until the night was far advanced, and Francis was obliged to stop, for his voice failed. Then he confessed that the little bird had vanquished him. He called it to him, thanked it for its song, and gave it the remainder of his bread; and, having bestowed his blessing upon it, the creature flew away.

The word rendered praise primarily signifies the irradiation of a luminous body. The high ambition of a penitent soul is that of becoming a reflector, from which the glories of the Sun of Righteousness may be more widely diffused on the world of men and angels. Salter.

The Greeks call this book the Psalter; and deservedly give it many high commendations, as that it is the Soul's Anatomy; the Law's Epitome; the Gospel's Index; the Garden of the Scriptures; a Sweet Field and Rosary of Promises, Precepts, Predictions, Praises, Soliloquies, &c.; the very Heart and Soul of God; the Tongue and Pen of David, a man after God's own heart, — one murmur of whose Michtam, or Maschil, one touch of whose heavenly harp, is far above all the buskinned raptures, garish phantasms, splendid vanities, pageants, and landscapes of profane wits; far better worthy to be written in letters of gold than Pindar's seventh "Ode" in the temple at Rhodes, and far more fit to have been laid up as a rare and precious jewel in that Persian casket, embroidered with gold and pearl, than "Homer's Iliads," for which it was reserved by great Alexander. J. Trapp.