The Great King of All the World
I want you to imagine a group of travelers, weather worn, tired, ready to settle down for the evening. It’s been a long day of walking and though they can see a city just ahead on the horizon they decide to set up camp for the night, along the roadside, with the aim to reach the city the next day. Sun sets, the stars are out, it’s quiet, this weary group of travelers are quickly asleep.
But the next morning they’re awaken to the crashing of a cymbal, the thunder of drumbeats, the vibration of the ground caused by a thousand marching footsteps along that dry, desert road. What’s all the commotion? What’s all the noise? Is it war? Is it disaster? Is it chaos? Is it catastrophe?
They look up to a sea of people heading toward them, they’re smiling, and they’re singing. Can you imagine the bewilderment you might feel from waking up to such a sight? The slap-in-the-face type startle from opening your eyes to a scene like that? It’d make you want to pause time and just say, “Hold on a second, give me a minute to get my wits here! Just give me a moment to catch up!” And you’re motioning to this smiling sea of people in front to you, “timeout, timeout”, but your voice is crowded out by their own. They’re sound, and their song, is coming your way whether you are ready or not.
That’s, I think, what opening up to Psalm 47 is supposed to feel like. This Psalm seems designed to come firing right out of the gate. It provides you with no warm-up. You open it up and like a current it grabs ahold and pulls you in and takes you along for a journey.
Worship (No explanation Needed)
“Clap your hands, all peoples!” Those are the first words of this Psalm! It’s the wake-up call. “Shout to God with loud songs of Joy!” It’s an on-the-spot command. This Psalm demands your participation. “Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of Joy!” Worship God (period).
As you hear that, you might, like the opening scene with the group of travelers, respond with questions. Why are we clapping our hands right now? Why are we shouting to God with loud songs of joy now? These are context questions. Simply asking what God did that we’re responding to him in such a way? Like what just happened?
It’s like the guy at the football game who leaves his seat in the stadium to go buy a quick hot dog from the concessions. He’s mid-swipe of his credit card and hears the crowd roar and runs out there to take a look, “What’d I miss, did we kick a field goal, score a touchdown, recover a fumble?” That’s what we’re doing here, responding to the command with questions that’s help us get our context.
And it makes sense for us to do so, for often in the Old Testament this kind of worship, especially in the form of song, is done in response to something remarkable that God has just done — like God’s rescue of his people out of Egypt, which prompts the song of Moses. And so we’re asking, is that what verse one here, “Clap your hands, shout to God with loud songs of joy” is referring to, is it referring to some other events, what’s going on?
Asking context questions like these are generally a good thing for us to do as readers of the Bible. We want to look for detail, we want to dig to find out what’s happening in the text. But note how we keep framing the questions, “What did God do?”
This question betrays one of the fundamental ways our sin has messed us up, for we assume that if God is being worshipped, let alone being worshipped with clapping of hands and loud shouts of joy, then that must mean that he did something to elicit such a response. That’s the way we think because that’s the way we, in our sin, often relate to God. God, and who he is as God, is a small thing to us. Stale. Humdrum. Perhaps his God-ness, at times, may stir up a mild form of worship from us, might prompt a mellow current of joy within us, but it’s his actions, his miracles, on our behalf, these are the things that really get us going.
So when we hear this grand call to worship, followed by verse 2, “For the LORD, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth,” We might think, “Oh, is that all? Like the thought of God just falls flat for us… We were expecting something just a bit more attention-grabbing than just him. If that’s us this morning then I believe a good piece of counsel for us would be to go over to Isaiah 6, and see how Isaiah — a human being just like you and me — reacted when he saw God, just God, being there, as the heavens opened to the sight of the one who had told Moses no one shall see my face and live. The one whom the apostle John would see and fall down on his face as though dead, the one before whom the mighty, heavenly Seraphim cover their faces and ever sing for joy, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” if we were to see what he saw we would think ourselves insane and unfit to live for asking such a question as, “What did God do to elicit our worship?” We would be, like Isaiah, every one of us, bowed down to the ground saying, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips” for what? What does Isaiah say next? “Woe is me…for my eyes have seen the king!” He merely saw him. Saw God, just God, being there. — That is the immeasurable awesomeness of our God. That’s the overwhelming power of his mere presence. That’s the other-worldly beauty, value, splendor, and majesty of our King!
And the Psalmist will tell us more about this God, he will retell in the ensuing verses the works of God in our world, but lest the actions of God shine brighter in our hearts than the person of God, the Psalmist writes, “For the LORD, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth.”
That’s why we’re being called to worship him right now. That’s why we’re being called to shout to him in joyous praise. Because he is God. His greatness is immeasurable, his power is uncontainable, his wisdom is unfathomable, and his value is infinite, he is God! He is the LORD, He is the Most High, He is the great king over the earth, and He is to be feared. Worship God for He is God.
The Psalm could end right after that and that’d be just fine. There’d be no problem with that. We need no further explanation or further reason to worship this king.
A Local Turn
As it is, however, having set this foundation — God is King — the Psalmist makes a drastic transition from looking upon God on a scale that transcends the universe, to narrowing the scope to God and his actions in a certain time, on behalf of a certain people. The text reads, “He (God) subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet. He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob whom he loves.”
It’s a reference to the Israelites following their entrance into the land of Canaan. As you might recall, the land of Canaan had been promised to Abraham and his descendants, but following their exile in Egypt, there journey through the desert, and there crossing of the River Jordan, Abraham’s descendants, the Israelites, had arrived in Canaan to find that it was still a land flowing with milk, and honey, and mighty nations. But, as the book of Joshua notes, and this Psalm echoes, God would subdue those nations. He’d place them under the feet of these Israelites. From Jericho and onward the land of Canaan would become the heritage of the people of Israel.
Fast forward a bit to the time of King David, when he brought the ark of the covenant up to Jerusalem. 2 Samuel 6 recounts this event, saying, “David danced before the LORD with all his might. (He) and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting and with the sound of the horn.” Again, the Psalmist now seems to be echoing this event, verse 5 of Psalm 47, “God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet.” You see that. Interestingly enough, The Hebrew of “sound of the horn” in 2 Sam. 6, and the Hebrew of “sound of a trumpet” in Psalm 47 is the same from one to the other.
So the Psalmist has narrowed the scope here, echoed these two major events in the life of Israel — God conquering the enemies of Israel and delivering to them a land as their heritage. God being celebrated as King through the Ark of the covenant and its entrance into Jerusalem.
And you might think, “Okay, I think I can see the connection here, the general claim about God’s kingship in the world has been made in verses 1-2 (Worship God for he is God), and now we’re digging into Israel’s history to see proofs of that claim. We might paraphrase, “Yahweh is the Most High, to be feared, a great king over all the earth…and in case you have any doubts about that, look at the massive victories he won through the previously insignificant and prone to wander people of Israel.” Major idea (God is God) …supporting evidence (Look what he did here). Is that how this Psalm works? Kind of.
We do have here an example, a demonstration, of God’s kingly authority in the world. But that’s only part of what’s going on here. To think of these verses only in the sense of serving as an example, providing proof, would be to, in a sense, make them stagnant. But as we read the Psalm in full, we see that we just can’t do that, for this Psalm has movement to it. This Psalm has a progression. This Psalm tells a story that’s being set into motion.
What is the movement? The Progression? The story? Here it is, and I really want you to tune in here. Here’s the story of the Psalm, and really, it’s almost the whole story of the Bible in miniature. Here it is: God is the God over all the world (period). And God purposed to win worshippers from all throughout the world (2x). That’s the story we’re getting caught up into with this Psalm. And one hint that that’s where we’re heading, is that although we narrow in on this tightly defined people — the Israelites, where do we end in verse 9? The gathering in of the people of the God of Abraham. Narrowed into Israel, but the story culminates with the gathering in of the people of the God of Abraham. Think back to Abraham.
Abraham
Some of you will recall that God said to Abraham back in Genesis 12, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great,…and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:2-3). That was God’s promise to Abraham, and that promise would move forward with the birth of Isaac, then with the birth of Jacob, the changing of Jacob’s name to Israel, the nation that’d come from him, the Israelites, and their sojourn in Egypt, their crossing of the Red Sea, their wandering through the desert and up to Canaan where God would subdue the peoples before them, put the nations below their feet, God would win for them the Land of Canaan their heritage.
God is God over all the world. God purposed to win worshippers from all throughout the world. God’s plan would begin with Abraham, and it’d culminate with the ingathering of the people of the God of Abraham. What was to be the cause of multiplication in between that’d bridge from singular Abraham to the multitude of the people of the God of Abraham? What would be the vehicle that bring us from promise made to promise fulfilled? Israel (2x). Their movement as a people, their conduct as a people, their communication as a people was to result in the growth and ingathering of the people of the God of Abraham.
That’s where this Psalm beings us. Verse 6, It says, five times over Sing praises to God. “Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, We’ve just recalled the movement, victory, and expansion of the people of Israel and the result, or so it seems, it this fivefold call to sing praise to God. It’s as if this call is being sent out from Israel to all the ends of the world: sing praises! sing praises! sing praises! sing praises! sing praises!.
The Psalmist, an Israelite, says sing praise to “Our King.” The Psalmist is an Israelite. He’s saying sing to our king, Yahweh. But then he goes on in the same breath to say, For God is the king of all the earth. See he’s our king in that he’s covenanted with us, he’s the king we uniquely represent. But make no mistake, he is at the exact same time the king of all the earth. see, Babylonians, you think your god Marduk is king, but he’s not. Egyptians, you think your god Ra is king, he’s not. Canaanites you think your god Ba’al is king, he’s not. But, nations, the fact that the god you’ve been worshipping is not king, doesn’t mean you are without a king. The God of Israel is the God over of all this world, including your land and your people. And you, citizens of this world, are being called now to worship Him.
And it’s not optional. Kings don’t make decrees that are optional. if you will not worship this king, he will, as your king, rightfully subdue you and place you under his feet. But if you will worship him, if you turn and worship him. verse 8-9: God reigns over the nations…sits on his holy throne. The princes of the peoples (the nations) gather as the people of the God of Abraham.”
Nations, your blessing has arrived. Your invitation is waiting. Look out at that sea of people approaching on the horizon. They’re comprised of the princes of the peoples, the leaders of the nations. The Emperors, Sultans, lords, Barons, presumably with others of the men and women form their nations. They have heard the invitation to sing praises to God and they have joined in with clapping, shouting, and songs of joy.
And they are gathering together, together, not as a secondary class of worshippers, not as extras on the stage of redemption, but as the people of the God of Abraham.
God is God over all the world. God is to win worshippers from all throughout the world. And here they are. “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!” That’s the story of this Psalm.
What’s the application for us here, today? I have two, both in the form of a question:
Do you see in this Psalm God’s pursuit of you?
Think about it, most of us here today are not Israelites, we have no bloodline reaching back to Israel, and yet, here we are, in this very Psalm. The people of the God of Abraham. I mean read Galatians 3:7-8 “It is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”
God’s pursuit of worshippers, begun with Abraham, carried through the Israelites, this was a pursuit that included you. Don’t push this away. Don’t say, “God wasn’t thinking of me back then. I wasn’t in his mind when he called Abraham, when he led Israel. No? Then do you suppose you got into the family of God apart from his notice? Do you suppose he hadn’t thought this far out in advance? Do you disagree with Ephesians 1, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.” He chose you before the foundations of the world, you are now a part of the people of Abraham, this story, of God’s pursuit of worshippers includes God’s pursuit of you.
Do you see in this Psalm God’s Rightful Authority over you?
If God is king of the world, then that means he is king over you. If the clapping of hands and shouts of joy from all the world are being directed toward him, then they are not being directed to you. This is not the way we, in our sin, prefer things. We’d prefer the crown of human praises to be placed upon our heads. We’d prefer the ability to declare right from wrong within our minds. We’d prefer the authority over what we are allowed to do be placed in our hands. But we are not king of this world. We are not king of ourselves. We are under a king. A great king. The LORD, the Most High, the one who is to be feared. So what area of your life has yet to submit to this king? Your home life, work like, your eyes and where you let them wander? Your mind and where you let it drift? Your feet and where you let them take you? We are under a king. A great king. May it be said that we held nothing back whether thought, word, or deed, from his lordship. Do you see in this Psalm God’s Authority over you?
Table
This Psalm, as great as it is, has a gap. Like a major gap. Because what we don’t see in this Psalm is anything about how this is going to happen. How do we get from Israel in verses 3-5 to this myriad of people of the God of Abraham in verse 9? Because remember, Israel failed. They did not win the nations to God, they went into the nations and were won over by them. Worshipped their gods, took on their religions, were brought into their spiritual families. Following the penning of this Psalm, Israel, after falling repeatedly into idol-worship, were exiled into Babylon, brought back as subjects to foreign nations, and were by all intents-and-purposes lost.
But God’s plan had not failed. For God was to call one man. Not Abraham, but Jesus, an Israelite. From this one man he would make a people who would go out into the world to bless the nations and win the nations into the family of the people of the God of Abraham. This man, Jesus, would pay for the entrance of each and every one of these new members into his family with his blood. His body would break, his blood would flow, so that his righteousness through faith could be counted to them, to us, and so that the Father could look upon me and you and say, “Son” “Daughter” welcome to the family.
That’s what this table is about. That’s what this meal is about. We celebrate that Jesus is the King over all this world. And Jesus, by his life, death, and resurrection, has paid for and won worshippers from throughout all the world. And Jesus will one day come again to take us, the people of the God of Abraham, home, where we will clap our hands, and shout to him with a new song of joy: “Worthy are you for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation…and now To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” (Rev.5:9).
Let’s pray.