Psalm 47

Who has the right to give a command to everyone everywhere? Among sinful men, we have learned that the concentration of power in even the best ruler that the earth has to offer is dangerous. He may resist many temptations that come with being lifted up above those around you, but how will the next person do who takes His place?

God is entirely good and supremely powerful. It is safe and right for Him to reign over all. He is the Creator, the Sustainer, and the Judge of all the earth. He calls on everyone, everywhere to worship Him.

“Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy!” Exuberant expressions of praise are called for. When men demand such things of their countrymen or of subjugated peoples, there may be coercion involved, and external force provides the motivation to produce outward signs of adoration when the hearts of those who look like worshipers tell a different story. But the true Lord of the earth is calling upon a willing people to worship Him. He is seeking those who respond to Him with joy in the depths of their souls.

The Lord, the Most High, is to be feared. He is the Creator. He is so far above us in glory, wisdom, and might, that it is inconceivable that we would approach Him without reverence. Yet this fear can be deeply consistent with joy and love in those who are at peace with the One who is the great King over all the earth.

It is a shock to the mindset of natural man that Israel's God would be the one true God, demanding absolute loyalty and the fullest worship from all the nations. But where are the other gods of the earth? Are they not the product of the minds and hands of men? Or are they fallen angels that deceive and destroy people, demanding ultimate worship that is not theirs by right, and suggesting that the Word of the Lord need not be followed? Israel did not make the God of Israel. The one God of all creation chose Israel to be the people from whom the Messiah would come.

That Jewish Messiah has come, and He is a part of the One Godhead. The Lord Himself became Man in order to make peace for His people. Now, because of the death of Christ, who is our peace with God, those who begin with the fear of the Lord, can come before Him with great joy, and discover that His perfect love casts out all fear. We are accepted by the God we worship, and are even called sons of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We have a land that is better than Canaan in Christ. The subdued peoples of the earth have been grafted into the people of the Lord. They bow the knee to the God of Jacob and trust in the great Son of David, and they are marked as the chosen people of God. Together with Jews who have faith in the Messiah, they have a heritage as those who are in Christ. The heritage of their adoption into the line of kings has overwhelmed their birth heritage. No longer should a Jew bother to claim his identity in the tribe of Benjamin or Ephraim. Nor should a Gentile insist that he was first and foremost an Ethiopian. We are in the household of God through a child of Judah and a Son of the living God. This is the new heritage in which we boast.

Our King descended from heaven in order to accomplish our redemption, but now He has returned to the place of highest rule, the Jerusalem that is above. He will come again just as His disciples saw Him go away, on the glory clouds of His divine presence. He has gone up with a shout in His resurrection majesty, and He will return with the sound of the final trumpet, as heaven comes to earth, and God makes all things new.

This is a worthy plan that answers the deepest longings of our hearts. We are not having a bad man hoisted upon us as our ruler and our god. We do not have to pretend to be happy about someone we secretly despise. We have come to see our need for a Redeemer, and are grateful that the Lord has willingly accomplished what only He could do.

Since Adam's sin entered this world, we have lived in a place of misery and death. Everything we try to accomplish faces the wall of futility, and every man feels the grief of brokenness, though some suppress the knowledge of their great need for help.

God has come to rescue us. What is there not to love in Him? Is there something wrong with Jesus that anyone needs to reject Him? Is love to be despised? Is the worship of God through Christ an offense to human dignity? We were made to be image-bearers of God. That image was fatally marred in Adam. But now we have been healed in Christ, and we are sons of God.

Let us then sing praise to our God with all the earth. Let the Jew not be offended that the Gentiles have been saved. Is it offensive for the God of the world to save the world? Rejoice in your God. The same grace that has chosen and saved the Gentile, has also chosen and saved the Jew. Do not reject Jesus, the true Son of David. He is the eternal King of the Jews, and millions from every tribe and tongue and nation have found Him to be a God of love.

Now the princes of the peoples of all the earth gather as the people of the God of Abraham. This is only right, since Israel's God has always been the one true and living God over all. He will be highly exalted forever and ever.