Psalms

This Psalm is a Psalm of praise.  It was written after a great victory for the nation of Israel.  The scholars and commentaries vary widely in their speculations as to what this victory may have been.  Since there is strong indication that Psalm 46 was tied to the Lord delivering Jerusalem and King Hezekiah from the Assyrian army, some have made a link between Psalm 46 and 47.  But others dispute that strongly because they say David wrote this Psalm which would make it much older; by at least a few hundred years.

What constitutes a victory worth writing a song to the Lord?  What kind of victory in your life would drive you to be so overcome with joy as to sit down and write a song?  You can look throughout the Old Testament and see stories of God's people standing against great odds.  But odds are what we see with our eyes.  The odds are a worldly measure we use to calculate our chance for a favorable outcome.  When we see a 1000 enemies of God and there is just one man of God, the outcome seems obvious to us.  The odds are against him…..unless that man is Samson.  In Judges 15 you can read about the spirit coming on Samson and him killing 1000 Philistines with a jawbone.

So this victory the Psalmist is writing about is probably one in which God worked against what men called great odds.  The victory over the Assyrians would have been one of these instances.  The Assyrians were a great army and no one could stand against them.  They had flattened and destroyed any nation in their path.  After they defeated the northern Kingdom they came to Jerusalem and laid siege to it.  They taunted the people and the King Hezekiah.  This was terrorism and you can imagine the fear of the people.  They were assessing their odds with their eyes and the odds didn't look good.  This great army was on their doorstep.  The Assyrian generals ridiculed the people and their ability to fight or defend themselves.  He taunted them and played mind games to break their resolve and moral.  Then he crossed the line.  This Assyrian general ridiculed the God of Israel.  That night an angel of the Lord went out to fight the battle and killed 185,000 Assyrians in one night.  With that, the Assyrians pulled back and went to Nineveh and Jerusalem was spared.

So, whether it was that battle or another, this Psalm is a perfect Psalm to follow Psalm 46.  If Psalm 46 assures us that God is our rock and salvation and that we can 'be still and know He is God' and that He is still sovereign and in control, then Psalm 47 is the recognition and praise of those facts after the victory was won.  It's recognizing him as an awesome King.  It's praising him as the triumphant King, the victor.  It's praising Him as a great King, the King of kings.  

Psalm 47:1-4

 ¹ Oh, clap your hands, all you peoples!
         Shout to God with the voice of triumph!

 ² For the LORD Most High is awesome;
         He is a great King over all the earth.
 ³ He will subdue the peoples under us,
         And the nations under our feet.
 ⁴ He will choose our inheritance for us,
         The excellence of Jacob whom He loves.  Selah  
This Psalm is a universal call to worship to the Awesome God.  It's for men & women everywhere, of all walks of life to recognize the sovereign God.  It's a call for all of us to lift our voices to Him.  We are to shout to Him, verse 1 says, with a voice of triumph.  When was the last time you shouted praise?  Should we be more apt to shout our praises to God?  The things that God has done for us are everlasting.  By the grace of God, through faith in Christ alone we have been given a great victory.  It's a great victory over sin and death.  Should that not cause us to shout with a voice of triumph?

Now whether you shout verbally or your just shouting on the inside, we should never let the understanding of this great victory grow stale.  For many, when they consider the Lord Most High and try to comprehend how awesome He is and the victory won on their behalf, they end up in awe; amazed, stunned into wonderment.  

To imagine how big He is; to be the King over all the earth is incredible.  These things should humble us.  They should drive us to our knees.  Maybe we are unable to shout for joy in triumph because we are driven to our knees, speechless, choked up and unable to speak.  On the inside, though, our spirit is alive rejoicing and shouting to God in triumph.

The Psalmist sees the Lord God Almighty as sovereign King over all the nations and all the peoples.  He will decide who or what to subdue.  He will decide the rise and fall of nations.  God almighty determines when there will be victory and when there will be defeat, whether as a nation or personally.

We don't like to think about defeat coming from the Lord.  We like to think about victory all the time.  But if a defeat is used to drive us to the Lord, then it's a victory in disguise, isn't it?  Do you spend more time in prayer when things are going well in life or when things are bad?  We naturally come before the Lord when we need a victory.  Unfortunately we don't stay there long after the victory comes.  So a defeat or threat in our life is the thing that brings us closer to the Lord.  Maybe we just need to learn to stay there in the presence of the Lord all the time.  If we've named Him Lord of our life, that's the only thing that makes sense.  Everything is under his watchful eye and ultimately under his control.

For the Psalmist, he is thinking of how God interacts with the nations as they pertain to him and in his time.  God raises these nations and peoples for His purpose.  God will choose.  The choice has always been and will always be His choice.  For us that means God's not waiting to see how things turn out in the world.  Nor has he ever been surprised by the outcome of an American election.  God was sovereign over his creation from the beginning.  He always has been and will remain so. 

In the context of verse 4 it says he will choose our inheritance for us.  For the Psalmist this choice of inheritance is the "excellence of Jacob" which is a reference to the Promised Land, the land given to Israel by God.  The Psalmist says, Selah, think about that.  And that is something we should think about.  As believers, our inheritance is our salvation, our promised land is living a life victorious over sin because Jesus Christ won that victory we get to reap the benefits from it.

As a nation, though what is our inheritance?  The Lord will choose the inheritance of the nation.  There is a correlation between the abundance of a nation and their relationship with the Lord.  Which direction are we going?  What is the inheritance of our nations?  Selah that.

Psalm 47:5-7
 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 understanding.
Verse 5 said that God has gone up with a shout, and with a trumpet.  Then he calls to the people again to sing praises.  Sing praises to our King because he is a triumphant King.  This "going up" to the Psalmist is the picture the Ark of the Covenant on its way to Mt. Zion.  When you were going to Mt Zion, it is always referred to as 'going up' in the bible, no matter what direction you were coming from.  God was going up to the temple, this would be after this victory was won.  There would be a great procession of people, all shouting, blowing trumpets and singing praises.  God had 'come down' and fought for them and dispelled judgment on these enemies.  Now his is 'going up' to rise to his place of majesty.

For us the "going up" is the ascension of Jesus Christ.  After he had "come down" and dealt with sin.  In human eyes, the Crucifixion looked like a defeat.  But the resurrection was a declaration of victory over sin and death.  Then Christ ascended to heaven ……'going up' in majesty to be seated at the right hand of God the father.  That is why this Psalm is read on Ascension day and why it is considered a messianic Psalm.

Although we know God is everywhere, all the time.  This 'going up' is Declaring God is the King of all the earth.  The awesome King, the triumphant King, placed on the throne, in the heavens, above all.

Then the last half of verse 7 is interesting.  It says sing praises with understanding.  The NASB says sing praises with a skillful Psalm.  Either word helps us understand these are not random and meaningless praises.  It's not 'ho hum' worship because if we do understand that He is king and sovereign over all, then our praises will rise from the heart from our Spirit deep within us.  If we come to a full and right understanding of God, we won't be able to resist the praise rising from us.  The Psalm will be sung with understanding.  The words chosen skillfully to do our best to convey our feelings toward Him.  Even though we may not shout verbally our praise will speak in a loud voice in other ways.

In reality though, with all our skill and understanding, with our very best effort, we can't even come close to offering God the praise He deserves.  We can praise Him when things go well.  When we have a victory in our life, we sing and shout and symbolically blow our trumpet.  Yet our understanding is still drastically flawed because it is small, human and limited.  I think that's important to remember because we begin to bring God into the constraints of our mind, dealing with Him solely as He pertains to me and my problems.  Before long, we make God as small as we are.  We should never lose sight of the enormity or our God.  

Psalm 47:8-9

 ⁸ God reigns over the nations;
         God sits on His holy throne.
 ⁹ The princes of the people have gathered together,
         The people of the God of Abraham.
         For the shields of the earth belong to God;
         He is greatly exalted.

God reigns over the nations.  Everyone of them, all the time.  He sits on His throne, over all of creation, all the time.  He is the king of kings.  We see things happen in our world that cause us to question that sometimes.  We ask, "What is God really doing there?"  Or, how is He moving in this situation or that?  Does he not see the pain and suffering that is happening here?  Does he not see the affliction there?

The Psalmist found comfort in the fact that the shields of the earth, those men, nations and armies that fight for God's people, they belong to God alone.  No enemy could come against the people of God and for that He was to be greatly exalted.

Now for us, it's hard to imagine these shields of the earth; these nations and armies that fight for the God's people.  Who are they?  What are they?  Where are they?  Are they nearly all gone? 

Imagine for a minute how things would be if Christ was in the heart of every man and woman.  And imagine if Christ were in the center of every family, community and state.  Imagine what a nation would be like if Jesus Christ was the first and foremost priority of the people all the way to congress and the White House.  I know, that's hard to imagine.  What would our nation look like?  That would be something wouldn't it?  But that won't happen until Jesus Christ returns.

The best we could hope for is something close; something leaning that direction.  That's what America used to be.  When we were a Christian nation we were a shield in the hands of God.  I'm not sure what we are now.  So now you've imagined what it would be like with a Christ centered nation/  We don't have to imagine if that were not the case, do we?  We live in a fallen world that chases after idols and other gods; that relies on humanism and has turned away from God.  It seems we are teetering on the edge.  Instead of One nation under God, we are leaning the other way, away from God.

For our nation, we can call for a revival.  But Godly nations are born in the heart of Godly men and women.  Before we can celebrate any victory as a nation, we have to celebrate victory on a personal level, with each of us.  This is that same test Paul challenged us with at the end of 2^nd Corinthians.  Is Christ found in you?  Jesus Christ won the ultimate victory on our behalf.  That's personal and that's where it starts.  There can be no lasting revival and victory at the hands of God in the land that hasn't first seen a revival and victory in the hearts of each individual.

This Psalmist celebrated victory in the land because the people of that land had already settled in their heart who their God was.  In celebration the Palmist recognized their Awesome King; their Triumphant King; their King was the King of Kings.  But he didn't come to that conclusion because of a national victory.  These matters had long been established in the hearts of the men and women or that nation.