A few weeks ago I read Psalm 47 and it captured my attention. Psalm 47 was like an unexpected visitor who knocked on the door of my heart and invited himself in. Perhaps I invited this stranger in with little expectation because among all the other psalms this one seems pretty quiet, it uses only nine verses.
However, as I began to listen to this visitor I discovered that he was not shy or bashful. This visitor did not use many words but the ones that were were pretty powerful and they landed upon my conscience with great conviction. As this psalm began to speak its words overshadowed and even drowned out all the other vain voices that had at one time captured my attention. Ever since that day I have often invited this stranger back to speak God’s Word to me.
The words of this Psalm were like Jesus’ words when He spoke to the crowds early on in His ministry in Matthew 5-7. After Jesus had finished speaking to these large crowds we read these words, “...The crowds were astonished at His teaching, for He was teaching as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.” (7:28-29)
Matthew says in Matthew 4:23 these words, “And Jesus went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom”
Mark’s Gospel describes it with these words, “Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God (Good News regarding God’s Son), and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” (1:14-15)
Luke’s Gospel describes this moment in Jesus’ ministry by writing, “And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about Him went out through all the surrounding country. And He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.” (4:14-15)
Jesus’ words made an impact upon these crowds because Jesus was not like any other man and His teaching was no ordinary message. When they listened to Jesus they were listening to their Glorious King who God had promised would come. And when King Jesus spoke His message was about His glorious Kingdom.
As you know, I do not like to jump out of the book that we are studying on Sunday mornings to go somewhere else. However, after reading Psalm 47 I texted Jill and told her I would be speaking on this Psalm on this particular morning.
I chose this particular Sunday because today is the day before the inauguration of our new president; but before that happens I wanted to allow Psalm 47 to have an opportunity to speak to us. It does not use many words but they are chosen carefully. This psalm has a focused message that will help to turn our attention away from all the other distractions in life and get us to consider our exalted King who sits on the throne in glory. Psalm 47 will remind us that Christians can have great confidence because Jesus Christ is the LORD and King over all the earth. He reigns over all peoples, nations, and over all of the leaders in this world.
Psalm 47:1-9: to the choirmaster. Of the Sons of Korah. According to Almaoth. A song.
Clap your hands, all peoples!Shout to God with loud songs of joy!2 For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared,a great king over all the earth.3 He subdued peoples under us,and nations under our feet.4 He chose our heritage for us,the pride of Jacob whom he loves. Selah
5 God has gone up with a shout,the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.6 Sing praises to God, sing praises!Sing praises to our King, sing praises!7 For God is the King of all the earth;sing praises with a psalm (maskil)!
8 God reigns over the nations;God sits on his holy throne.9 The princes of the peoples gatheras the people of the God of Abraham.For the shields of the earth belong to God;he is highly exalted!
I told you that our friend who has been invited to speak to us today is not shy or bashful. The first words out of his mouth in Psalm 47:1 is a call to worship the LORD, and to worship the LORD with loud shouts of joy! He says, “Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy!” This call to worship is not some passing whim. No, the psalmist intensifies this call to worship in verse six when he says, “Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!”
Question: Why does the psalmist have such a passion that all people should worship the LORD?
It is easy to see why all peoples are being called upon to worship the LORD when we consider the structure of this Psalm. In verse one, as we have already seen, there is a call for all peoples to praise the LORD. This praise, however, like all genuine worship and praise is to be based upon certain truths and facts. Therefore verse 2 begins with the word ‘For’ or ‘Because’. Verses 2-4 give us reasons as to why we are to ‘Clap our hands and shout to God with loud songs of praise!’
The first reason that the psalmist gives us for praising the LORD like this is because ‘the LORD, the Most High, is to be feared, He is a great king over all the earth.’ (2)
The message here is simple. The LORD, the Most High, is not some territorial or regional God. No, he is the LORD who is enthroned over all peoples. (Psalm 2). The LORD is not one of many deities who say that they can provide a way to God; no, He is the only Savior of the World. (1 John 4:14; Hebrews 1) Therefore, the LORD is to be feared and all other god’s are to be forsaken. (Exodus 20:1-11)
As we consider the words, ‘the LORD, the Most High, is to be feared’, we should consider them in view of the super-script of this psalm where we read, “To the choirmaster. Of the Sons of Korah.”
This psalmist is a descendant of Korah. Korah was an Israelite who, along with a couple other men, led a rebellion against Moses. Because of this God’s wrath broke out against Korah and we read these words in Numbers 16:32-33, “And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods. So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly.”
On that day when God judged Korah and his entire household and they all died. And yet, after this the descendants of Korah played an important role in Israel’s worship. On that day there must have been some godly and faithful members of Korah’s household who did not stand along Korah. Instead, they removed themselves from their family and forsook all of their earthly possessions to stand alongside Moses. (Luke 14:26) As a result of this act of faith they were saved and the line of Korah was not totally removed from the genealogy of Israel.
The psalmist who wrote Psalm 47 understood from personal family experience what it means that the LORD, the Most High, is to be feared. If God would defend His servant Moses with such a judgment will He not defend the honor of His Son who is enthroned in heaven even more? (Psalm 2:10-12)
This brings us to the second reason to worship the LORD in verse 3, “The LORD subdues people under us, the pride of Jacob whom He loves.” Throughout Israel’s history God has proven to His people that He can subdue all peoples who come against them.
The LORD gave Abraham victory over the four kings who abducted Lot and his family. (Genesis 14)
The LORD displayed His power over Egypt and all of their gods to deliver His people from their hand. (Genesis 7-12)
The LORD delivered His people from the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Caananites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. (Joshua 24:11-13)
Now that Jesus Christ has come Christians have been delivered from our greatest enemies: sin, death, and the devil! (John 10:10) Jesus is enthroned in haven and the Father is in the process of making all of His enemies His footstool. (Hebrews 1) As we read this Psalm today we realize that we are living in a time of tension where there is the ‘Already and the Not Yet’. But we have this encouragement from the Apostle Paul in Romans 16:20, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” Christ is our head, we are His body, and we get to share in the victory that he has achieved. (Joshua 10:24)
The thought of this victory over our enemies should not make any of us prideful. No, “He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob whom he loves.” God’s people are all beneficiaries of God’s sovereign mercy and grace. Psalm 2 reminds us that in our sin the nations rage against God and the peoples plot against Him in vain. In our sin the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against His anointed. (Psalm 2:1-2)
What hope did we have in this rebellious condition? None, except that the Father answered a request by the Son.
We read in Psalm 2:7-8, “The LORD said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations Your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.’”
Or we read of this in Isaiah 49:6, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob (47:4) and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
The LORD chose Israel even thought they were the smallest and most insignificant among the peoples. (Deuteronomy 7:7) Romans 5:6 says, “For while we wee still weak, at the right time Christ died for us.” We can say with the Psalmist in Psalm 16:5-6 these words, “The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.”
After having been given these reasons to support the ‘call to worship’ in Psalm 47:1, is there anyone who will not immediately respond as the psalmist has asked? And yet, the thrust of this psalm is not towards verse 1 as much as it is still pointing us forward to the next verse. As we come to verse 5 this psalm expresses its main point and it achieves its climatic declaration, “God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.” In verse 1-4 we saw the LORD overcome His enemies and now He ascends victoriously to His throne.
I would like you to imagine that you are you are present at this moment and you are witnessing this monumental event- the ascension of Jesus Christ to His Throne. In this great crowd of people there may be some who just want to watch and say they had been there. There may be others who have come to protest? The only appropriate response would be for every person from every nation, tribe, tongue to, “clap their hands and shout to God with loud songs of joy!” (1)
Those who will do this with the most joy will be those who know the Scriptures. For example, they will know Ephesians 2:1-6 which says, “You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” That is the bad news, but listen to the good news, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love which which He loved us, (47:4) even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved-and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” (47:4)
Every four years we watch the inauguration of a new president but every Sunday we gather together to remember the resurrection and ascension of Jesus to the Throne where He now intercedes for us. We also remember that He will return some day to bring an end to His enemies and gather His people unto Himself and this should make us break fourth in praise.
Similarly, the psalmist knows that our worship is not confined to a limited time. Those who worship the LORD are to do this all the time. He says in verse 6, “Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!” Like verse 1, this is another verse which calls God’s people to worship the LORD.
And as if we do not have enough reason to do so we are given even more reasons in the remaining verses. This is how our faith ought to be. We will never run out of reasons to worship the LORD. His mercies are new each morning and with this mercy there are more reasons to praise Him. Psalm 119:17-18a states, “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand.” How foolish it would be for any person to say that they no longer have any reason to praise the LORD. If they at one time had been given just a crumb of a reason that would be enough to fuel their praise for a lifetime. (Matthew 15:27)
Psalm 45:1, “My heart overflows with a pleasing theme; I address my verses to the king; my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe.” Notice here that the psalmist considers just ‘one pleasing theme’ and His heart begins to overflow. As a result, the psalmists heart is made busy composing many verses which will be addressed directly to the King!
In verse 7 we are reminded that God is King over all the earth and He is sovereign over all peoples, all nations, all rulers, and governments. His people are among every nation, every kingdom, and from among every tribe and tongue. And yet, in the midst of this diversity we see that we are made into one people who are ruled by Christ.
One of the reasons I say this because we are told at the end of verse 7 when we read, “...sing praises with a psalm!” The psalmist uses the word ‘maskil’ for the word translated ‘psalm’. Translators use different words when translating the word ‘maskil’: psalm of praise, psalm of wisdom, a skillful psalm, psalm with understanding.
What will unify such a diverse multitude of people? According to this Psalm it is our King and His Word.
We are not free to worship the LORD according to our human traditions, our worldly understanding, or because it is the way we would prefer to worship. No, we are to praise the LORD with songs that teach us, instruct us, and give us God’s wisdom from the Scriptures.
God’s word is to be in our songs. Ephesians 5:19- “...addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the LORD with your heart.”
God’s Word is at the center of our teaching and songs. Colossians 3:16- “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns in your hearts to God.”
Before we read Psalm 47:1-2 I would like you to consider again some things that are found in Psalm 2. At the beginning of that Psalm we saw that the nations raged and plotted against the LORD. We saw that the rulers of this world take counsel together against the LORD and His Kingdom and they say, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their chords from us.”
The LORD had every reason to judge us all for treason and show no one any mercy. But in a surprise move He says in response to these things, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” (6) These words show us that the path to ascend to the Throne would first take Jesus to a cross. The Father had said to the Son, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations Your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.’” (27:7-8), but this would require Jesus to suffer and die for the sins of His people. He did this and then the Father raised Him from the dead and Christ ascended back into heaven.
Since that time the call for repentance has gone out which says, “Now, therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, for His wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him.” (Psalm 2:10-12)
Psalm 47:8-9 is a beautiful picture of the Father fulfilling the request that His Son has made, “God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne. The princes of the peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God; he is highly exalted!”
Tomorrow we will witness the inauguration of the President of the United States and we will pray that all our leaders will be among those mentioned in our text today. Some governments are wicked and some are just. However, every worldly government, even the best of them, ought to always make us look to God and say, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Mt. 6:10) May our desires be in line with our mission as Christians that there may be peace so we can fully devote ourselves to God. (2 Timothy 2:2; Matthew 29:19-20)
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