No Kingdom Without a King!
Psalm 47: 1-9
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A PRESBYTERIAN PSALTER - by Pastor Max A Forsythe |
It is becoming increasingly uncommon for people today to hold much respect for those in positions of authority. Part of the reason for that is that the professional public educationists have not only dissed any concept of lawful authority, but have gone on in their leadership seminars to encourage random acts of unpredictable decision sharing. Our first resident in Washington, has also set a public example of arbitrary use and abuse of power whose only certain goal seems to be the protection of that power. And so it goes at all levels of governance, the career bureaucrats are left to shift for themselves and heaven help the hapless tax payer whose votes are increasingly meaningless in a corrupt competition evident in the partyless stage show conducted by tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum. No wonder, we may feel nostalgic for either the Reagan years or the Kennedy years when popular presidents were in the White House. But, we are reminded that even such popular presidents were not finally worthy of our best devotion. One's wife apparently manipulated his schedule in consultation with the stars, the other one was more directly intimate with starlets of a less astronomical kind. Camelot disappeared in some variety of gangland shoot out and even Mr Teflon lost some of his durability towards the end.
Thus, we have to learn the hard way that our devotion to heroes while not usually well thought out is notoriously emotional in its affectation. We, like most of humanity have given ourselves to politicians who do not always hold up to the best expectations. The Germans found this out when they frantically chanted: "Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Furher" to the Nazi spellbinder Adolf Hitler. In the thirties he won their affection when he promised them that once he was through with Germany, they would not recognize it. I have in my collection of bulletin board materials a picture of a burnt out building with Hiter's promise painted carefully on a four by eight wooden sign! Of course by that time, Hitler's body was hidden away by the Russians only to be reburnt and flushed down a sewer drain thirty-some years later.
But, this is the nineties and the scene appears somewhat grim in our day. Who is there to give our heartfelt devotion to? There are the two same old, same old parties and then the outsider conservative and communist holding hands and waltzing down the golden brick road to Kansas! Isn't it time that we relearn the age old lesson that God Himself would be our King in and through Jesus Christ?
Would you like to have a leader you can be enthusiastic about? Would you like to have a King whom you can trust? Would you like to have a Lord to bow your knee before? Then turn with me to Psalm Forty-seven today and consider the invitation of our psalmist to give praise and honor to our very own King and Sovereign Lord - Jesus Christ. "Oh clap your hands, all you peoples!", our psalmist begins. He then invites us to, "Shout to God with the voice of triumph!"
One ancient commentator notes on this verse that it is our deeds not our words, by which God is here to be praised. Our actions in this life out to be imitative of Christ who came to both do and to teach. So it is more than to silent meditative praise that we are called. We are called to demonstrative action. Another contemporary author believes that preachers do not demonstrate their emotions effectively in the pulpit and in their ministry within the Church.
Well, without going to excess, there may be some measure of truth to that. However, every person and ethnic group is somewhat unique within the Kingdom of God. The Scots Presbyterians have long been perceived as the frozen chosen in the Kingdom of Christ. It is widely assumed that we have not the emotional feelings of the common crowd. Perhaps not, but neither do they have the long term staying power to remain constant in good times as well as in bad. The spiritual fire may not burn as brightly or as hotly, but it takes a several generations to burn out. Whatever we in the Presbyterian folk tradition may lack in enthusiasm, I believe is made up in our attitude to the contents of verse two: "For the Lord Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth."
Here is the beginning of wisdom, here is the beginning of fear, here is the beginning of heart felt worship! Yes, enthusiasm is nice if you have the affectation, but a holy awe in the presence of our Creator God is just as important. Have you ever been in the presence of someone who just took your breath away because you were so impressed? This is how we should feel in the presence of our Lord and our King and the next two verses tell us why.
The course of history may certainly be understood hat time after time, God humbles the strong and the powerful. Nations rise, become empires and then just as certainly disappear. Two hundred years seems to be about the maximum span of major influence for the nations of the world. Then their turn expires and God raises up other peoples, other kings to perform His will. Of course, the communists didn't even get a century in the Soviet Union. The socialists must look to corporate solutions to finalize their dream, but even corporate socialism must go the way of Joseph's Egypt where absolute power corrupted the government absolutely and for four hundred years - the Egyptians were barely able to govern themselves.
That is a worldly answer to explain verse three, we need a spiritual one to explain verse four. Spurgeon shares the witness of one William Secker who reported a woman who, being sick, was asked whether she was willing to live or die. She responded by saying - which ever God pleases. She must have had a very modern doctor who insisted that her health depended upon her outlook alone. He insisted that if God should refer it to her, which would she choose? "Truly," she replied, "I would refer it to Him again." Now, there is a profound lesson to be learned there.
"He will choose our inheritance for us." Why should we complain with whatever the Lord gives us? Should we not be content to accept His mercy and grace while He providentially works out His perfect will in and through us?
Our psalmist invites us to pause and consider the pride of Jacob, whom God loved! Remember, how God wrestled with Jacob? Remember what a desperate sinner was Jacob? Hint, there is no natural pride for Jacob to boast of? Selah - pause and consider the pun intended!
Verses five and six transcend the limits of time and place, here we see through the experience of the Psalmist's life the final end of our King's triumph. We begin to understand why He ought to be praised and worshipped. The theme in verse five is explained in the book of Revelation. "God has ascended amid shouts of joy, the Lord amid the sounding of trumpets."
Origen notes that the mention of shouts and trumpets serves to connect the past and future events of the religious history. Thus, our thoughts ought to focus upon the final coming in glory of Jesus Christ. Then we can earnestly applaud the fourfold invitations of verse six because when He comes as King of all the earth, He will reign over the nations. Our understanding of the triumph of His eternal throne should prompt us in our singing. An older translation of verse seven calls us to "Sing ye praises with understanding." This is how we are to give glory to God in our singing. And according to the implication of the verse, we must mind the matter of the words more than the melody of the music. And in that music we are called to use as the Hebrew word maschil would encourage us, to use profound judgment. So let us understand what we sing, so that we may learn the proper praise and glory to give our Father. He alone is King, He alone is worthy of praise. At the final coming, we know well that "every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.' May we affirm that in our confession, our prayers, and in our songs and praise. Amen.
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Resources Used: |
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Kidner, Derek. |
Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries: Psalms. | |
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Spurgeon, C.H. |
The Treasury of David. | |
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The Holy
Bible, New King James
Version. | ||
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047a |
22 March 92 & 14 November 99 | |