“The Holiness of God as Universal King”
[Psalm 47]
March 16, 2014 Second Reformed Church
Who rules over us?
The President? The Congress?
The Governor? The Mayor? The Classis?
The Consistory? The Pastor? Your husband?
Your wife? Your children?
Who ultimately rules over us?
Even if you are not a believer, the
fact that you are in a church – and perhaps because you looked at the sermon
title – I suspect most of us would say that God rules over us. God is the Ultimate Ruler. God is the Sovereign King over all. The Holy God is the Universal King.
Do we believe that? Does it make any difference to us if we
believe it or not? Does it make any
difference if it is true?
We are told that the authors of
Psalm 47 are the “sons of Korah.” Other
than that – which tells us very little, indeed, there is nothing in the psalm
to put it in response to any particular event or time, so we turn to what the
psalm itself says.
The psalm consists of two verses, in
which we see:
First, all people of all nations are
called to praise and thank God.
And second, the Holy God is the
Universal King.
And so, let us turn to the first
verse of the psalm, which comprises verses one through four of our text:
First, all people of all nations are
called to praise and thank God.
And lest we say, “What about the
atheists?” Paul reminds us that
everyone knows and believes that God exists:
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown
it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine
nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in
the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they
knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became
futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:19-21,
ESV).
The psalmist begins:
“Clap
your hands, all peoples! Shout to God
with loud songs of joy!”
The
expression that is used in our text means all people, all nations, all of
humankind – not one human who was or is or will be is left out of the
instruction to praise and thank God.
This is a universal command to every human being.
What
are we to do in thanking and praising God?
The
psalmist names two things:
We
are to clap our hands – we are to use our bodies to praise and thank God. And as we saw last week – we are all made
differently – some people are very physical in expressing themselves, some
people are not – and we are to love and work with each other’s ability to
physically respond. What we do should
not be forced – but a natural response to God of praise and thanksgiving. If it is not natural – as a believer, it is probably
not real – not legitimate.
We
are also to sing. We are to sing vocally
– using our voices to the best of our ability.
We are to singing joyfully – with true joy in our hearts as we respond to
God in joy. We are to sing universally –
we are to all sing together in praise and thanksgiving to God. And we are to sing constantly – there is no
pause given for humanity to stop praising and thanking God in song. Now, that does not mean that any one person
has to sing constantly – we would not be able to do anything else – unless we
live in a musical – but the praise and thanksgiving, expressed in song is to
continue around the world day and night – as it will be when we are received
into the Kingdom of God.
Why?
“For
the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth.”
This
God is to be thanked and praised because He is the One God of Israel – YHWH –
the One Who brought them out of Egypt; the One God Who makes salvation for His
people, the Most High God, above Whom there is no other. He is the One True God – the Creator, the Sustainer,
the Savior, and the Judge – of everything that is.
And
since He is that great, you show good sense in being afraid of Him – if you
don’t believe in Him – and by bowing before Him and following Him in humble
obedience if you do believe, because as the One True God, He is the
Self-Appointed and Only King of “all the earth” – over all the created stuff in
existence – including you and me.
Who
would dare to raise a word against the God Who called all things into existence
through speaking? And who would dare to
sin against the One God Who can grant salvation to His disobedient creatures? And who is such a fool to go where angels
fear to tread when God has chosen you and saved you through His Son, Jesus? And who would not take comfort in knowing
that the Creator King, the One True God, YHWH of Israel, is his God and King?
Moses explained to Israel that they
should not fear as they go into the Promised Land to conquer the other nations
and take the land that God was giving them:
“You shall not be in dread of them, for the LORD your God is in your
midst, a great and awesome God” (Deuteronomy 7:21, ESV).
Similarly, we are told the right
place to put our fear: “I tell you, my
friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more
that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has
killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not
five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before
God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of
more value than many sparrows” (Luke 12:4-7, ESV).
The psalmist says that we should
thank and praise God because “He subdued peoples under us, and nations under
our feet.”
Israel would have understood this
immediately, as they reflected back on their deliverance from Egypt and their
coming into the Promised Land. For
example, when Jehoshaphat was going into battle against the Moabites and the
Ammonites, we read:
“Meanwhile all Judah stood before
the LORD, with their little ones, their wives, and their children. And the
Spirit of the LORD came upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, son of Benaiah, son
of Jeiel, son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, in the midst of the
assembly. And he said, “Listen, all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem and King
Jehoshaphat: Thus says the LORD to you, ‘Do not be afraid and do not be
dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God's. Tomorrow
go down against them. Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz. You will
find them at the end of the valley, east of the wilderness of Jeruel. You will
not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the
salvation of the LORD on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.’ Do not be afraid
and do not be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, and the LORD will be with
you” (2 Chronicles 20:13-17, ESV).
In looking back on their history,
this and other examples served as reasons to praise and thank God – because in
the salvation of God’s people, the battle of the Lord was the Lord’s
battle. God did not need the army of
Israel to accomplish His purposes in securing Canaan for them.
Similarly, all we who believe have
reason to thank and praise God for preparing a home for us and for putting all
our enemies under His feet:
Jesus said, “Let not your hearts
be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many
rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place
for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will
take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to
where I am going” (John 14:1-4, ESV).
And the author of Hebrews explained,
“But when Christ had offered for
all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,
waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his
feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are
being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:12-14, ESV).
In
the end, we are told, “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.
This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found
written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation
20:14-15, ESV).
God
is to be praised and thanked for putting down our enemies – and for continuing
to put down our enemies until all the enemies of the Gospel are put down under
Christ’s feet, so that we will have a place with Him, and He would be praised
and thanked and glorified forever.
The
psalmist also tells us that we are to praise and thank God for making us His
people – especially through salvation: “He chose our
heritage for us, the pride of Jacob whom he loves.”
Israel would have remembered that
God chose the biological people of Israel to be His people – as Moses reminded
them: “It was not because you were more
in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose
you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves
you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has
brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery,
from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 7:7-8, ESV).
Yet, the psalmist more specifically
points to those who have been saved by God spiritually – the heritage not
merely being that of being part of the community, but part of the communion –
not merely being born into the Church, but being those God loved to eternal salvation.
As Paul explained, “And not only so,
but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac,
though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order
that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because
of him who calls—she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ As it is
written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated’” (Romans 9:10-13, ESV).
And the answer to why is greater
than our meriting salvation. We are not
to be thankful that God allowed us to do enough good to be part of His heritage
– to be those He loves – no, we are told, “We love because he first loved us” (1
John 4:19, ESV), and “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this
is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no
one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good
works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians
2:8-10, ESV).
We have the heritage God chose for
us, and He loves us as His sons and daughters, because He was pleased to choose
to love us and make us His own. That is
why we should praise and thank Him.
So, the psalmist tells us that we
should thank and praise God as believers in the Savior He sent, because God is
the Holy God and Universal King, He has and will defeat all of His and our
enemies, and He has secured for us a heritage and loves us because He chose us
to be His.
Between the first and second verses
of the psalm, we have the word, “Selah.”
Scholars think that this is a notation for an instrumental break. So, singers of this psalm would sing the
first verse, there would be an instrumental break, and then they would go on to
the second verse.
In the second verse, we see more of
what it means that the Holy God is the Universal King.
“God has gone up with a shout, the
Lord with the sound of a trumpet.”
Worship in Israel was brought to
order with a shout and with the playing of a trumpet – actually a ram’s horn –
a shofar – and the same thing occurs today in synagogues around the globe: the shofar is blown and the rabbi calls the
people to worship with the Shema: “Hear,
O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy
6:4-5, ESV).
The image that the psalmist gives us
is one of God calling the people to worship – God went up – to the Temple,
which was on top of Mount Zion – and God shouted and blew the trumpet. Whether any human being ever calls us to
worship, because we know God as the Holy God and Universal King, there is a
standing call from God to come together and worship Him.
We see this prophetically fulfilled
in Jesus’ Ascension: “Then he led them
out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he
blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they
worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in
the temple blessing God” (Luke 24:50-53, ESV).
Jesus went up after giving what we
call, “The great Commission” – to go and proclaim the Gospel to the whole
Creation -- and the disciples’ first response was to go to the Temple to
worship Jesus.
On the Day of Pentecost, Peter explained
that in Jesus’ going up, He resumed His reign as the Holy and Universal
King: “Being therefore exalted at the
right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy
Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing” (Acts
2:33, ESV).
Since Jesus is the Almighty God, Who
now reigns from Heaven, He asked His Father to send the Holy Spirit to guide
and empower all we who believe, and They sent Him.
The response to God’s going up and
calling all to worship is not unexpected:
“Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises! For God is the King of all the earth; sing
praises with a psalm!”
We notice that the readers and
singers of this psalm are called and call others to sing praises to God – and
that call is repeated five times. We may
remember that in Hebrew, to emphasize something, they repeated it – so Jesus
said, “truly, truly,” and God is sung of as “holy, holy, holy.” Here we are told to “sing praises, sing
praises, sing praises, sing praises, sing praises” – a rather extreme
repetition to emphasize the great importance of praising One Who is worthy of
praise.
Perhaps the psalmist repeated this
because we are so forgetful to give thanks – we’re good at asking for things,
but not so good at giving thanks – perhaps even worse at giving thanks to God
for being God – for being worthy of thanksgiving and praise – showing what
about God is worth being thanked.
Here, the psalmist gives us two
reasons to be ever vigilant in our praising of God:
First, He is our God. The psalm repeated shows us that God is
above, above, above – and worthy of worship due to the God He is – He is the
God Who has chosen and made us to be His people. He is the God Who has promised to give us a
home and a life with Him.
Second, He is King over all of
Creation. He is King not only of Israel,
but of the Gentiles – the non-Jews. He
is not just King over those who believe in Him, but of all people and all
creatures and the entire created order.
Everything that exists does so for His praise – and He is King over all.
So all people and all of Creation is
bid to join together in praise of God
Then the psalmist continues on
telling us about this God and why He is worthy of praise:
“God
reigns over the nations;”
Daniel
said, “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and
might. He changes times and seasons; he
removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to
those who have understanding; he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what
is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him” (Daniel 2:20b-22, ESV).
After
God punished King Nebuchadnezzar for his sin, he said, “At the end of the days
I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and
I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his
dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to
generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he
does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants
of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’” (Daniel 4:34-35, ESV).
And
during Jesus’ trial before Pilate, we read:
“So Pilate said to [Jesus], ‘You will not speak to me? Do you not know
that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?’ Jesus
answered him, ‘You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been
given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater
sin’” (John 19:10-11, ESV).
Who
is Sovereign? Who is the Ultimate
Ruler? If we are doing what’s right and
we are servants of God, the King, is there any reason to be afraid of human
rulers? John Knox, the Scottish Reformer,
said, “A man with God is always in the majority.”
One
thing to note is that the word “reigns” used in our text implies a reign that
continues from the past and into the future.
Unlike any other ruler, God’s reign was and is and will be. We’re told something of this when Jesus told
the Jews, “’Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it
and was glad.’” So the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and
have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before
Abraham was, I am’” (John 8:56-58, ESV).
In this text, we have Jesus’ assertion that He has always been alive,
and that He is God – “I am” – which is the Name that God gave Moses for God.
“God
sits on his holy throne.”
This
God that we give thanks and praise to is not just any god, but He is the Holy
God Who sits enthroned and reigns in holiness.
God and His reign are absolutely pure and unstained in every way.
As
Isaiah saw the seraphim singing before the throne of God, “Holy, holy, holy is
the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:3b, ESV). And against we see the repetition –
“holiness” is given the highest emphasis of the attributes of God – if God is
nothing else, God is Holy.
“The
princes of the peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham.”
The
word “peoples” means “the nations” – everybody who is not a Jew. So, we see the psalmist recognizing that God
brings non-Jews into the family of God.
God makes non-Jews who believe children of Abraham. They are ingrafted into the family of
Abraham.
Paul
uses the imagery of branches being grafted into a vine to explain how it is
that God has received non-Jews into the Kingdom – into the family of Abraham: “Then you will say, ‘Branches were broken off
so that I might be grafted in.’ That is true. They were broken off because of
their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but
fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.
Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have
fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise
you too will be cut off” (Romans 11:19-22, ESV).
So,
God is the King of the Jews and the non-Jews – God is the King of everyone. God is the Holy Universal King. All humans and all of Creation sit under the
Holy Sovereign Rule of God.
And
that is how we who were not born Jews are allowed to come into the Kingdom
through Jesus Christ: “This mystery is
that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of
the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Ephesians 3:6, ESV). Through the Gospel, all people are called to
believe and repent, and God has chosen people from the Jews and the non-Jews to
receive the call and believe and repent – to receive salvation through Jesus.
“For
the shields of the earth belong to God; he is highly exalted!”
God
is Holy. God is the Universal King. And the psalmist ends by concluding that God is
the Sovereign Military Leader of the Creation.
God is high and lifted up and worthy to be followed and hoped in because
He has all the military strength – it’s all His.
That’s
why we shouldn’t worry about humans blowing the planet out of the sky. Jesus said He is coming back to this
earth. Therefore, it is not possible
that we will blow the planet out of the sky.
It
also tells us that we shouldn’t be afraid of human military powers coming
against us or our country, because God can stop them, if He wills to do
so. Remember in the Garden of Gethsemane,
“While [Jesus] was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him
a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of
the people. Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, ‘The one I will
kiss is the man; seize him.’ And he came up to Jesus at once and said, ‘Greetings,
Rabbi!’ And he kissed him. Jesus said to him, ‘Friend, do what you came to do.’
Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. And behold, one of
those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck
the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, ‘Put
your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the
sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send
me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be
fulfilled, that it must be so?’” (Matthew 26:47-54, ESV).
Twelve
legions of angels would have been about 70,000 angels. Jesus was telling Peter that all the power
and all the military might in Creation belong to Him as God. The issue was not who had the bigger army;
the issue was Jesus being exalted and completing the salvation of His people
through His death, resurrection, and ascension.
So, it had to be.
So,
God is the Holy and Universal King Who has all authority and all power and all
military might, and if we believe savingly in Jesus, He is our God. We can trust Him. He will bring everything to pass as He has
purposed.
And
then we are right back to reasons to praise and thank Him, are we not?
So,
let us pray:
Holy,
Universal King, our God and Father, we thank You for being the God Who is
Sovereign, the God Who can be trusted, the God Who saves us, the God Who gives
us hope, the God Who is worthy of all praise and thanks now and forever. Help us to show the world Who You are, no
matter what our circumstances are or what they may look like. And we ask this in Jesus’ Name, Amen.
