1434 - "Psalm 47, A call to praise..."

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1434. Before we get into today's podcast, I want to encourage you to by all means listen to the podcast tomorrow. I'm going to be dealing with the Book of Galatians and how it relates to Israel and the church, and specifically the passages that are so controversial in interpreting the supersessionism view, that is, replacement theology. And a passage in the book of Galatians, chapter six, is often used as a proof text. Tomorrow I will deal with that and give you the reasons why I believe that in the book of Galatians that Israel is Israel and the church is the church. Now onward and upward. Our reading for today is Psalm forty seven. It is a praise to God. This is to the chief musician, the one who leads the choir. He is the praise leader. And this is a song of the sons of Korah. Oh clap your hands, O ye peoples, shout unto God with a voice of triumph, for the Lord most high is awesome. He is a great king over all the earth. He will subdue the peoples under us and the nations under our feet. He will choose our inheritance for us, the excellence of Jacob, whom he loves. God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. 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 understanding. God reigns over the nations. God sits on his holy throne. 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. Amen and praise the Lord. Years ago in many Baptist churches, not of recent decades, but years ago when I first came to know Jesus in a personal way. If you went into the average Southern Baptist Church or even an independent Baptist church and you clapped, it would have been out of order. As a matter of fact, you would have drawn attention to yourself. And I know for some of you listening, this is hard to believe. It was okay to shout and to give out with some kind of holler, as we call it here in Tennessee, but to say amen too much or to say it out loud in some churches would have been out of order. Certainly to raise your hands in praise to God would have been looked upon with suspicion. Well, thank God we have been delivered from that mostly in the evangelical world. The Bible says that there are certain things that are acceptable forms of praise and worship. One is to lift our hands to God. Over and over again, the Bible says I will lift up my hands unto the Lord. It is with palms open a universal sign of surrender. With palms turned inward and upward, it is the sign of affection, wanting to be hugged, wanting to be embraced by a father. And so the raising of hands is always part of the worship of ancient Israel and should be part of the worship in our lives. It's not that we have to lift our hands every time we talk to God, but it is an acceptable form and posture of prayer. And when we praise the Lord, it is very natural for us to raise our hands when we are singing certain songs or saying certain things as a sign of surrender or a sign of affection. And so it says, clap your hands, O ye people, shout unto God with a voice of triumph. Now this is not a courtesy clap, and everybody's had a courtesy clap. That's when you just barely clap or you clap just out of a sign of courtesy. That's not what this is talking about. This is the idea of clapping like a thunderous clap. It's the idea of praising God because God has done something or he has said something, and he is worthy. And that's exactly what this psalm says. Oh clap your hands, O ye people, shout unto God with the voice of victory. Rina is the word. A ringing applause, a ringing shout. Why? He gives us the four. This is a purpose or a reason clause. For this reason, the Lord, notice it's the personal name of God, sometimes pronounced in English Yahweh. Hashem. For the Lord Elion, not El Elion, but the Lord, the personal name of God, the covenant loving God of Israel, is most high Elion. And he is to be feared. That's what the word awesome here is. There's a word for awesome, but it's translated here awesome, but it's the word for fear. It's a form of the word for fear. Why is it that we need to shout and clap unto God? Because he is the God of eternity. He is the most high God, and he is to be feared. He's to be reverenced. He is to be looked upon with great, great awesomeness. He is the great king. He is Godol. He is the great king over all the earth. And the psalmist goes on to say, because he is king of the earth, he will subdue the peoples under us. That is, he will bring them into subjection. He will rule over them. All the nations will be under his feet. He will choose our inheritance for us, the excellence of Jacob, whom he loves. God has gone up with a shout. Now that's the word for blast. It's a blast of the trumpet of the shofar. It is the tarua. Both the word shout, as in tarua, sometimes it's translated shout. It's the word for a blast, a blowing of the air, like when you shout or when you blast a trumpet. As a matter of fact, the day of the blasting of the trumpet, Yom Tarua, the day of the blowing of the trumpet is upon us, Rosh Hashanah. That's what we call it in our day. But it is the head of the year, it's the first of the year, it's the Jewish New Year, and it happens every fall. It is the civil new year from which Jubilee is calculated and so forth, not the beginning as in spring, Aviv that we call Nisan now after the Babylonian captivity. This is the blowing of the trumpet. God has gone up with a blast of the shofar, the Lord with the sound of the trumpet, the tarua, the blasting of the shofar. Sing praises to God, sing praises, sing praises to our king, sing praises. For God is the king of all the earth. Yes, all the earth, not just of Israel, but of all the earth. Sing praises with words you can understand and that make sense, that are wise, that are prudent. That's what the word means. Now I want you to look at the words of verse six. Sing, sing, sing, sing. Verse seven, sing. God wants us to sing. And for those of you who don't want to sing, who say I'm not good at singing, learn to be good at it. Do the best you can. You say, Well, the Lord just said make a joyful noise. Well, the word's not noise, the word is shout. That's something totally different. I've been talking about that. No, this is the word for sing. It means that men, you need to quit folding your arms and be embarrassed. You need to sing. Sing not because of who you are or what you can do, but sing because of who he is and what he can do. That's right, you need to sing. We don't have problems most of the time getting the women to sing, it's the men. And we need to be leading the way. Men learn to sing. You learn to do other things that are hard, learn to sing. And sing for God. Sing to God. Sing in a way that is the very best you can. Put some effort into it. And don't be ashamed to do that. If you don't have a good voice, that's fine. Learn to sing the best you can with what you have. God commands us to sing. God commands us to shout praises. God commands us to worship him and to praise him. Why? Because he's awesome. He's worthy to be feared and praised. And we need to do it because he's the king over all the earth. He's your king. He's my king, yes, but he's the king of Israel. He is the Messiah of Israel, but he's the Savior of the world. God reigns over the nations. You say, well, it doesn't look like it. Let God be true and every man a liar. God said he reigns, he reigns. God sits on his seat of honor, on a throne. That's the word there. It's the word for a seat of honor. The princes of the people, the nobles of the people have gathered together. The people of the God of Abraham for the shields. That's the word Magan. You know the Magan David, that shield, that star of David, that shield of David that's on the side of the ambulances and so forth, that is on the flag of Israel. That's a shield. That's a magan. That's the star, as we call it, but it's the shield of David. And he is greatly exalted. God is Allah, not Allah as in the Muslim God, but that means He's the one that's exalted. He's the one that's lifted up. Allah is not God. Hashem is God. Yahweh is God. And this is the whole concept. God is high above us. His ways are not our ways. As high as the heaven is above the earth, so high is our God above us. He transcends us. He is transcendent. He is infinite. We are finite. That's the kind of God that we serve. He is above all. The Bible says that one day every knee will bow. That's right, every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess that Jesus, Yeshua, Hamashiach, is the Messiah. He is Lord. He is God of all the earth. May his name be praised. For on the way, this is Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org. Then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.