SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 2/21/2012 9:22:48 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: “Worshiping the LORD”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm
47:1-9
Message
of the verses: When we looked at the
introduction of Psalm 46 in the SD a couple of days ago I mentioned that
different commentators that I looked at had different ideas of who wrote that
psalm, and that Warren Wiersbe said that Psalms 46-48 was a trilogy of psalms
that were probably written by Hezekiah after the Lord killed 185,000 Assyrians
that was recorded in the books of 2 Kings, 2Chronicles, and Isaiah. I wish to look at these three psalms with
that in mind.
Dr. Wiersbe writes in his
introduction to Psalm 47, “The promise of Psalm 46:10 is fulfilled in 47, ‘I will be exalted among the nations, I
will be exalted in the earth.’
“If this psalm was written to
celebrate the defeat of Sennacherib (46), then it describes the people of
Israel proclaiming to the surrounding Gentile nations the glorious victory of
their God, a victory won without their having to fight a battle!”
He goes on to say that “This also is
a Messianic psalm with an emphasis on the coming kingdom. As the people of Israel praise their God to
the Gentiles around them, they make three affirmations about Him.”
The people of Israel would use this
psalm on their New Years day celebration (Rosh Hashanah, and the church would
use it on Ascension Day. Verse 5 of
Psalm 47 says “God has ascended with a shout,
The LORD, with the sound of a trumpet.”
Our God Is an Awesome King (vv. 1-4): “1 For the choir director. A Psalm of the
sons of Korah: O clap your hands, all
peoples; Shout to God with the voice of joy. 2 For the LORD Most High is to be
feared, A great King over all the earth. 3 He subdues peoples under us And
nations under our feet. 4 He
chooses our inheritance for us, The glory of Jacob whom He loves.
Selah.”
In Psalm 46:10 we read, “Be still, and know that I am God: I will
be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.” As stated this verse is fulfilled in Psalm
47, but we can also see that the people of Israel went from being still before
the Lord to shouting in praise to the Lord for the great victory that He had
given them. The people of Israel worship
the Lord in an enthusiastic way by clapping their hands and even dancing before
the Lord. Sometime in the 1990’s while
attending Moody Bible Institutes Founders Week I purchased a CD from their
bookstore after hearing an interview on their radio station with the man who
sang most of the music on the CD, Paul Wilbur and he is a Jewish believer in
the Lord Jesus Christ who had a church in Chicago. The name of the CD was “Shalom Jerusalem” and the music on this CD is one of my wife’s and
mines favorite CD. Later on it came out
on VHS and we found out that it was performed in Jerusalem and as we watched we
could see how the Jewish people worshiped God in their singing along with the
music and their clapping and also their dancing. What I could see as I viewed this was
authentic worship to the Lord; these people were truly worshiping the Lord and
each other who were participating with them.
I am not saying that this is the kind of worship that has to happen in a
church service every week, but there was certainly nothing wrong with this kind
of worship for we can see it in Psalm 47 as the people celebrated a great
victory from the Lord worshiping their awesome King.
Our God Is a Triumphant King (v. 5): “5 God has ascended with a shout, The LORD,
with the sound of a trumpet.”
Let us first take a look at Psalm
68:18 and compare this verse with it: “You
have ascended on high, You have led captive Your captives; You have received
gifts among men, Even among the rebellious also, that the LORD God may dwell
there.” The apostle Paul quoted this
verse in Ephesians 4:8-10, applying it to the ascension of Jesus Christ. These verses are very similar and one of the
things that I thought of as I first looked at Psalm 47:5 when seeing the words “shout” and “the sound of a trumpet” was 1Thes. 4:13-18 which says, “13 But we do not want you to be
uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve
as do the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose
again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15
For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and
remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen
asleep. 16 For the Lord
Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel
and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17
Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the
clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18
Therefore comfort one another with these words.” In every chapter of both 1st and 2nd
Thessalonians is the mention of the second coming of Jesus Christ and this is
one of those verses.
Dr. Wiersbe writes in his commentary
on this section that there are times in Scripture when it speaks of the Lord “coming down” and most of those times
when He came down to earth in the OT was to make judgment. We saw this in the book of Genesis at the
tower of Babel in confusing the languages, and in the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah, and also the killing of 185,000 Assyrians. After coming down to judge these events He
returned in great victory.
Jesus Christ came down to earth as a
baby, born of a virgin, and then grew up and for the last 3 years of His life
preached, healed, and chose 12 men to carry out His work on earth after He was
crucified. From the human point of view
His crucifixion was a great defeat, but not in the viewpoint of God. “In
His sacrifice on the cross, Jesus won the victory over the world and the devil
and satisfied the claims of God’s holy law so that sinners could believe and be
saved. What a Victory! He then ascended to heaven, far above every
enemy, where He sits at the right hand of the Majesty on High (Heb. 1:3).” And as we look at the verses in I
Thessalonians we also see that He will descend again at the “Rapture” and take His bride back to
heaven with Him.
Our God Is King of Kings (vv. 6-9): “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 a skillful psalm. 8 God
reigns over the nations, God sits on His holy throne. 9 The princes of the
people have assembled themselves as the people of the God of Abraham, For the
shields of the earth belong to God; He is highly exalted.”
We see in this section of Psalm
47 the kings of all the earth praising the Lord. The psalmist looks ahead to when this will
happen and this is prophesied in different places in the Scriptures and will
certainly happen one day. We must
understand that the God of Israel is God of all the earth, and deserves our
praise and worship. We know that the
people of Israel have been the most persecuted people ever to live and yet God
chose them to be a blessing to all the earth and they have been for they gave
us the Scriptures, the knowledge of the one true and living God that gave us
Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.
Today we see both Jews and Gentiles in the Church, and this will also
happen in the glorious kingdom where both Jews and Gentiles will praise the
Lord.
Dr. Wiersbe ends his commentary on
this section with these wise words, “For God’s people, everyday is Ascension
Day as we praise and worship the exalted and ascended Lord.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I must
confess that there are many times when I get involved in the everyday things of
life that I forget to praise the Lord for being my Savior and Lord, for dying
on the cross for me, and then for ascending into heaven to prepare a place for
me.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Praise the Lord for who He is and
for what He has done for me and for all who have believed in Him as Savior and
Lord.
2. Praise the Lord for the
Scriptures.
3. Praise the Lord for giving me the
Holy Spirit as a down payment, and will someday take me to heaven.
4. Praise the Lord for the presence
of the Holy Spirit in my life to teach me and to guide me, to convict me of
sin, and to led me to confessing that sin.
5. May I not grieve the Holy Spirit
of God.
6. May I continue to learn
contentment.
2/21/2012
10:44:27 AM
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