Psalm 47

Psalm 47 KJV (WS)

1 To the chief Musician, A Psalm for the sons of Korah. O clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph. 2 For the Lord most high is terrible; he is a great King over all the earth. 3 He shall subdue the people under us, and the nations under our feet. 4 He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom he loved. Selah. 5 God is gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. 6 Sing praises to God, sing praises: sing praises unto our King, sing praises. 7 For God is the King of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding. 8 God reigneth over the heathen: God sitteth upon the throne of his holiness. 9 The princes of the people are gathered together, even the people of the God of Abraham: for the shields of the earth belong unto God: he is greatly exalted.

Introduction

We are getting close to the end of this session of 10 psalms.

What a great group of songs these have been.

Over and over we have seen God lifted up.

I hope you aren’t tired of it, because Psalm 47, once again exalts our God.

Let’s all give ear to how great our God is.

Psalm 47 is a war psalm.

It’s meant to be sung as a hymn of praise.

We say that it’s a hymn based off of Paul’s use of the greek word for hymn in the New Testament

Hymns are supposed to be a festive celebration of a hero or deity.

Hymns are meant to focus us on the heroism and victory of the song’s subject.

Psalm 47 meets this criteria.

It was probably written in honor of a recent triumph.

The general consensus is that it was written in honor of Jehoshaphat’s great victory in 2 Chronicles 20.

We rehearsed that event last week, and Bro. Matt preached on it back in February.

God delivered the people of Judah without using their soldiers.

This psalm became an important part in Jewish and Christian history.

For the Jews it is used in the synagogue during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year.

For Christians, it has been traditionally been a part of observances of Ascension day based on vs 5 and 8.

The Psalm has a pretty basic construction.

Vss 1-4 - call for God’s people to praise him before the battle.

Vss 5-7 - are a call to praise God during the battle.

Vss 8-9 - (can you guess?) detail the post-battle praises of god’s people.

Pre-Battle Praise. vss 1-4

Vss 1-4 are like a pre-game locker room mtg.

If you’ve played sports, or you’ve watched a sports movie, then you are familiar with what I’m talking about.

The coach comes in rouses the members of the team.

He gets them pumped and fills them with confidence.

When they march out on the field they feel invincible.

That’s what vss 1-4 are doing.

Only we aren’t being encouraged to have confidence in our talent, our practice, or our scheme.

We are being encouraged to have confidence in our God.

In verse 1, the stage is set.

The psalmist expects a high volume of praise.

To include clapping.

And to include shouting.

The Psalmist expects the people are to show their joy through their gestures and their words.

The voice of triumph literally means a shouting voice or a ringing cry.

The applause is for God not the musicians or the singers.

What if your favorite team went into a game with as much expectation and energy as most church goers enter into a worship service.

No one in the crowd would wonder why they lost the game.

They would wonder why they bothered to take the field at all.

How does the psalmist motivate the praise of the people?

He tells them about God.

He shares 3 different features of God that all of us need to meditate on.

Vs 2 he encourages praise to God based on who he is .

He is terrible.

He is powerful.

He is violent.

He is awesome.

If he was not on our side, he would be the most fearsome opponent we could imagine.

He is on our side though, or better yet, we are on his side.

Remember how confident the Philistines were because they had Goliath on their side?

David knew he had the terrible God on his side and filled him with confidence.

David was celebrating his win before the fight even took place, because his God was awesome.

His rule is universal.

Our God is king of the whole earth.

He is not a weak king, he is a great king.

None can challenge his rule.

He is sovereign and in control of everything.

4x in this psalm we are told that God is the king of the whole earth.

Here, vs 7, vs 8, and vs 9.

If we believe that he is terrible and he rules the whole world, we should have way more boldness than we do.

vs 2 praises God for who he is.

Vs 3 praises God for what he does.

God shares his victory with his people.

His victory is our victory.

God never takes a loss.

He brings the unbelieving nations under the power of his people.

The people are subdued under US

People are ethnic groups.

He brings the nations under our feet.

Nations are political entities.

This is almost comical that we can talk like this.

It’s like when the Texas Rangers finally won the World Series.

I felt like, Yes! We finally won.

Why would I say we?

I had nothing to do with them winning.

God, inspired his word and gave us permission to claim his victory as our own.

We should praise him for what he’s done.

Vs 4 praises him for what he will do.

When we talk about Israel, we realize that it is the grace of God that such a small country was able to survive.

The Ammonites and Moabites had attacked Israel with the intention of driving them out of the land.

By defeating the enemies that sought to drive them out, it will be like the Lord is giving the land to them again.

The psalmist foresee God perpetuating Israel’s place in the promised land.

So sure is he, that he sees this as a future that should be considered historical fact.

Mid-Battle Praise. vss 5-7

Now, what would you expect to find in the middle of the war song?

We’ve seen other psalms that talk about swords and bows and shields.

We’ve seen soldiers on horses and chariots.

In this section of the psalm though, 5x we are told to sing praises.

In vs 6, praise means to make music with voice and instrument.

This is a generic direction.

Make music for the Lord.

Like the sons of Korah did in the battle against the Ammonites and the Moabites.

They followed the action watching God deal with their enemies singing all the way.

At the beginning of verse we a reiteration of God’s reign over the earth.

I believe this is the turning point of the psalm.

This is the moment of victory.

We can see this in the language used.

Neighboring nations wanted to frame God as a local deity.

This victory reaffirms the knowledge of his dominion over the whole world.

Vs 7 breaks from verse 6 by using a totally different word for praise, it means to sing a Maschil.

We’ve seen this word a few times.

It means sing a teaching song.

This psalm is an example of a teaching song.

What is it teaching?

Clearly, God is king of all the earth.

What a majestic theme to sing and teach about.

Which is why it behooves us to sing with understanding.

Singing praises with understanding, means to sing skillfully.

Not just skillfully with musical ability.

Skillfully with the topic we are singing about.

This is the balance to go along with the emotion from verse 1.

It’s not all excitement and energy, there must also be depth delivered skillfully.

Because our God is victorious we have much to teach people about Him.

Post-Battle Praise. vss 8-9

God has gone up from his throne to defend his people in verse 5.

Now, he returns to his throne victorious.

He has subdued the heathen.

He is greeted, or received by the shouts of his people’s praise.

We get a picture now of God’s throne room.

He is seated on the throne.

He is surrounded by the princes of the earth.

They are in his throne room representing their submission to Him.

The various shields of these princes are gathered in God’s house.

The psalmist says that God owns them, indicating the nations including Israel are governed by God.

This verse looks toward a future fulfilment.

It may not seem possible right now.

Earth is on an unstoppable march towards submission to our God.

Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess.

This war hymn begins and ends with praise.

We see this in the last words of the author.

The poet desires that the festive sounds may find an unending and boundless echo unto the glory of God.

He is greatly exalted.

This psalm illustrates that if God reigns supreme over all the earth, then as His followers, we can praise Him before, during, and after the challenges we face in our lives.

Application

I could ask if you are or if you have faced challenges in your life.

Why bother?

We all already recognize that this is the case for each person here.

Let’s put a different question out there.

Do you believe that God really does reign over all the earth?

Nope, stop, reverse it.

I think that question is equally as needless.

Of course God is the God of the whole world.

Most everyone here believes that.

This is the real hard question.

Do you really believe that God is king over your life?

Do you believe that he is sovereign over the challenges in your life?

It’s one thing to acknowledge that God is in control of other people’s battles.

But what about your battles?

When we believe that He is reigns over all things, then we will begin to find the motivation to praise him before, during, and after life’s battles.

Perhaps you’re here this morning, and you are not a part of God’s people.

Rather than having the God of the universe fighting your battles, you are a stranger to this God.

You don’t know what to praise him for, because you don’t know him.

The good news is that he has already fought and won the biggest battle of your life.

The battle for forgiveness of your sins.

Jesus won that victory on the cross.

You can be forgiven of all your sins today, if you will confess and believe.

We will all praise God with you if you were to make that decision this morning.

If you are saved and you are facing another battle today, praise God for this truth.

His victory in your latest battle is as certain as his victory over your first battle.

Just as surely as he saved you, he will be with you in this battle.

Let’s all praise God together!

He is our king.