“Sing praises to God, sing praises unto the King, sing praises. 7. For God is the king of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding. 8. God reigns over the heathen: God sits upon the throne of His holiness. KJV
“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 psalm! 8. God reigns over the nations; God sits on His holy throne. ESV These three verses in Psalm 47 emphatically urge us to sing praises to God. When I read this, I began to wonder about our own singing. When we sing in church services, either the old hymns, or the praise songs are we really praising God, or just going through the motions of singing the familiar words? I know most of the old hymns by heart since I have heard them my whole life. (At least I know the first, second, and last verses but not the third, since we don’t usually sing this verse.) Not a day goes by that I don’t sing several of the hymns that I know. (Not aloud, however, for the sake of others.) I will admit that they mean more to me when I sing from my heart rather than from memory – if you get my drift. Why should we sing praises to God from our hearts? First, we should sing praises to God because He is our King – with a capital K. A king is the ruler of his domain. In this case, verse 7 tells us that “God is the King of all the earth…” This means that every place on earth is God’s domain. We cannot go farther than that. God is the king of the universe. We are told that God created “the heavens and the earth.” The “heavens” are what we call sky, or space, and we know that space stretches into infinity. If we could go to the farthest reaches of the universe, we would find God there. The immensity of God’s domain will blow our minds if we let it. In fact, the immensity of God will blow our minds if we let it. It doesn’t blow our minds because we think about it in faith and we praise Him in and for His greatness. Second, we should sing praises to God “with understanding.” The Hebrew term used here, translated “psalm” in the ESV, is a term of praise, meaning that we are to understand the greatness of God when we sing praises to Him. We are to be aware of God’s love for us when we sing praises to Him. We are to be aware of God’s grace towards us when we sing praise to Him. We are to be aware of God’s presence with us when we sing praises to Him. To sing praises with these things, and myriads of others, is to sing praises with an understanding of whom and what God is to us and to the world. In other words, we are not just singing praises; we are singing praises to almighty God. This kind of praise could change our understanding of God’s presence in our lives and cause a spiritual growth spurt that would change our lives for the better. Third, we should sing praises to God because “He reigns over the nations, God sits on His holy throne.” The KJV translates this that God reigns over the “heathen.” This is how the Jews in the psalmist's day viewed the nations- anyone who wasn’t a Jew was a heathen. They would understand that the psalmists, in this case the sons of Korah, were telling them that God’s ultimate reign was not just in Jerusalem, but in the whole world. God reigns in holiness over the whole world. Perhaps the majority of the world’s people would scoff at this notion, but that does not make it untrue. That’s why it is so important for us to go to the nations and introduce them to the God who reigns in holiness over them. When you are singing praises to God this week, think about the three things that this psalm tells us about how to sing praises to Him. Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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