Psalm chapter 47. The title of my message is Clap and Shout. Clap and Shout. I have a heavy
heart. It burdens me for those that
struggle so much with assurance. I have a weight for people that
just worry and fret. all the time. I chose my words
carefully here. They have unmerited fears. Children of God have unmerited
fears and they have baseless weight. It's used a lot these
days. There's a weight on them. The
Lord told Iblis, we've been killing ourselves with all these sacrifices
and he said, I didn't tell you to do that. And there's people
that just, they're so tore up and walked through this world
that are children of God and it hurts my heart for them that
they're just frazzled all the time. And then I wrote this,
we never seem to get tired of looking at ourselves and at others. You ever got tired of looking
in a mirror? I can't wait till tomorrow. Kids
say wise. I get better looking every day.
That's us. We look to ourselves and we look
to others. Good or bad. If they're better
than I am or they're worse than I am or something. That's a problem. That ain't good. That's bad.
That's why that happens. I pray this morning we can be
given eyes to look to our Lord. To see Him. This is going to
be a happy message. It's going to be a good message.
The psalmist begins speaking here of victory in verse 1. It
says, O clap your hands, Psalm 47 verse 1. O clap your hands,
all ye people. Shout unto God with the voice
of triumph. The voice of triumph. We're told
to clap our hands here and shout unto God. I considered that this
week. I thought about clapping and shouting. When do you clap? You think about
that a lot. When do you clap? You clap when
there's a victory, don't you? If you're a big Padres fan, and
they just hit a bunch of home runs, and they're doing well,
you can watch a fan. I don't have to see the TV. If
you're a sports fan, I can tell how your team's doing by how
you react. It's, oh, and they're kicking and, oh, oh, yes. You can tell how they're doing.
That's simple. We understand that. Because there's a victory. We
clap. We clap. There's a victory. And
that's impulsive. Did you know that? This will
be key here in just a few minutes. It's unrehearsed. You don't think
about it. This is now when we will clap
to honor the Padres or whatever. Pick your poets. No, you just
do it, don't you? Team one, you clap for them.
Second time we clap. To congratulate someone on a
job well done. Somebody's going to get promoted
soon, and I'm going to clap for them. They're going to do something
good at work, and they finished a good job, and they got that
big promotion. You clap for them. You clap for them. They accomplished
a big feat. I thought of, I don't know if
you've ever been to Bangor, Maine. Little tiny town, ain't nothing
there, but a big long runway. They got a big airport, itty-bitty
town. And all the planes coming back
from Iraq and Afghanistan, they stop there to refuel. And you
get a touchdown in the States again. These United States, boy,
what a blessing that is. And people line up. Half that
town, they volunteer, and they clap when you walk down that
hallway. Don't matter when, 3 a.m., noon,
doesn't make a difference. There's a hundred of them out
there just clapping. Soldiers come home. They're done. They're back home. They're happy.
They shout for you, don't they? Thirdly, we clap and shout to
show love. My oldest son walked the stage
at graduation. Good, I love him. Happy. Defeat's accomplished. Victory's
won. I'm happy. I love Him. Clap because
I love Him. And you clap a little harder
when there's tears of joy falling down with it. Don't you? It says,
clap and shout unto the Lord. It's not our practice. Heed me. Not somebody else. I ain't sent
nobody else. I'm sent to you all. It's not our practice to
clap and shout in church services. Why? That draws attention to
us. It does. Our old nature, it will
find any way to promote itself. It will. If you know you're being
watched. I look everybody in the eye. But you're the only
one looking me in the eye. I'm the only one looking at you.
Get on one of them Skypes or something. I ain't never seen
anybody fall asleep on a Skype. Everybody's watching. If we were to clap
and shout, it would not, very quickly, it would not be unrehearsed.
This is when we clap. Alright? That's done, so we clap
now. Clap ten times. Give them two
claps. This woman shouted, amen, amen. They said something churchy,
and they said something gracey, and they said election, and like
a trained dog to bark whenever you say to speak, bark at those
things. Real quick, it becomes unrehearsed.
And then it would be a challenge to see who could clap the loudest,
who could shout the loudest, just to show how spiritual we
are. Wouldn't it? We know these things
to be true. That's so. Or quickly, the preacher
gets demotivated. Well, I got a good response on
that. Now, we preach. If I'm talking just to camera,
that's what's the detriment to this society. It's made so easy. People just neglect the worship
of God because they won't go. I can't tell on a camera if somebody's
engaged with me. I'll write something down six
different ways, and I delete it and write it and delete it
and write it, and I say, that's how I ought to word it. And then if I got three or
four people looking at me going, Well, I'm going to word it the
second or third way. I'm going to go another angle. But if I look around and
five or six people go, that's right, I can move on. We preach
Christ in the crucifixion. We see each other. But that preacher
gets some motivation, gets some claps and gets some shouting.
That's a hard thing. It would be a distraction, couldn't
it? Poor Henry preached out here in California and he told the
me and mine and D and Dine, people clapped at that. To him. Now that's a tongue twister. He didn't clap at the message.
It's a parlor trick. Don't clap and shout at the messenger.
What are we supposed to clap and shout to? He says, clap your
hands, all you people. Shout unto God with the voice
of triumph. We don't want to promote ourselves.
I thought my children were entering into this. I can clap really
loud. I clap different than other people
if I want to and it can be overheard over all claps. And I can shout
really loud. But if I do those things, then
it's about me. Boy, I feel I can clap loud. I haven't heard anybody clap
like Kevin. He can clap really loud. Being seen in public, I
may hold the title of the loudest clapper. That's probably why
I can't hear too good. Too much yelling, too much clapping.
Sometimes our hearts spiritually, not physically, but spiritually,
our hearts overflow with just clapping and shouting unto God
and we can't control it. It just gets us happy. We see
who He is and what He's done for us. That's right. Yes. Amen. Good. Brother John Chapman,
me and him was preaching together down in Virginia. And I was just
captivated. I was up on the front row and
there wasn't nobody else in that building but me. John was talking
to me. I've known him my whole life. I used to work for him.
He was my boss and preached to me a lot. And he was preaching.
He was going on about the worst criminal that there ever was,
a scoundrel. He said, I thought a lot about
this. Who was the worst criminal? I knew where he was going. He
said, I'll tell you what, it's John Chapman. And I went, amen. Anybody
say, he don't think much of John Chapman. No, that's me. I couldn't
help it. The Lord saves sinners like me,
and that's good. It makes me happy. For our Redeemer,
unto God, to our Lord, we're just overcome with joy. We're
overcome with love and adoration, with the most reverent I can
say it, job well done. We see this salvation, well done. The Lord's going to look at you
and say, well done my good faithful servant, and that's right. We
clap for that, shout for that, don't we? when we see what we
are. And we see that salvation that
Christ triumphed in us and for us. And that love that was the
motivation of the whole thing. Not begrudgingly, willingly.
And He accomplished the victory. How can we not shout His triumph?
His victory. Clap over the triumph of sin.
Over Satan. Over God's justice being satisfied. Over that grave. Over us. He conquered us. You that believe,
He come to you. He saved you. You didn't even
know what was going on. You was dead. He gave you life. Thank you, Lord. And we shout
to Him. Praise Him. The battles won.
He's triumphant. That's what's wrong with man's
ideas. If we did something for God,
then you won. We clap for you. If I did something,
I'd clap for me. He did it. It's unto Him. He's
the one that's triumphant. I want to give three reasons
to clap and shout here in our text that's laid out for us.
First, He's terrible. Not the way we use the word.
We'll see that in a second. He's the king, the great king,
the king of kings. And this terrible and triumphant
and great king, He saved His people. He saved a people. Look here in verse 1. Oh, clap
your hands, all ye people. Shout unto God with the voice
of triumph, for the Lord Most High is terrible. He's terrible. That's a two-fold meaning of
that. We use the word nowadays, terrible, to mean something that's
just extremely bad. It's extremely unpleasant, or
it's something that causes a lot of terror, doesn't it? It causes
a lot of fear. That's the first root word of
what the word actually means in Hebrew. It's to be feared.
Feared. Our Lord is to be feared. The
God of heaven and earth is to be feared. He will by no means
clear the guilty. He's angry with the wicked every
day. And those that think they'll
stand in front of a holy God on their own merit, they have
every reason to be fearful and not flippant. He needs to be
afraid. Like a father, I've told you
before, like a father with his children. You raise your children up, and
it begins, they're physically afraid of you. You get spanked,
ought to be anyway, nowadays. Make a lot better neighbors if
everybody makes their children mine. You physically spank them,
and they're scared of you, afraid of getting whipped. But then
as that time goes on, that understanding grows, and knowledge grows, and
then they honor their father. They respect them. Don't they? There's no physical fear anymore.
The bulk of people walking this earth are not afraid of the Lord
for two reasons. They have no fear. There's two
reasons why they're not afraid. First off, they're spiritually
blind. They don't know Him. I thought, I'm scared to death
of heights. My family went and rode roller coasters that day.
I videotaped it, called them crazy. That's high, I would do
something. I wasn't going to get up on top
of a tall cliff like here at Yosemite or something. I got to get down
and crawl and I can't get too close. But if you blindfolded
me and I didn't know I was standing next to a cliff, why would I
be afraid? Billions of people walking around blindfolded, unknowing
the true and living God. They're scared of Him. That's
the first reason they're spiritually blind. Don't know any better.
They're left to their own thoughts, their own imaginations, and they
ain't scared of that. The second is it's a little g-god that's
being preached all over. That's no one to be feared. Why
would they? It's a frustrated, weak, helpless,
dependent on you, little g-god that's not to be feared, it's
to be bullied. We're gonna get a big prayer group and get together
and we're gonna gang up on them. We're gonna pray until this or
that goes away or starts happening. They think of God, they can raise
a mutiny against Him. Hogwash! That goes back to being
blind. You don't know who you're dealing
with. That's who's being preached. He's just trying to get everybody
to get along. Can't we all just get along pretty please? That's
nobody to be afraid of. And I'll tell you what else goes
with that. A lot of people get 99% right. 1% poison. Is that good enough
for you? That's deadly, isn't it? Any little G-God that leaves
something up to you If He got you all the way and there's a
little bit left to do, He's not triumphant. And He never will
be. It's not finished. It's not over.
That King hadn't warned you. That's not God. Not to make everybody scared
to death. He ought to be feared. Though, I've been heard it said
a lot, well in the days of old, in the last hundred years, fifty
years ago, fire and brimstone was needed. But we've moved on
to love and compassion and long-suffering in our generation, haven't we?
I think fire and brimstone is needed more now than it ever
was in 1950 or 1850 or whenever. There's a whole nation of people
walking around this whole state that don't know God and they
ought to be scared to death of him. Know who he is and bow to
him and then plead to mercy. Lord, save us. That's called
preaching to them. They'll come hear about him.
First root word of that terrible is feared. The second is reverence. The Hebrew word for terrible
means frightening, but it also means to revere, admire, respect,
worship. Terrible means worship. Did you
know that? We clap and we shout unto God because he's reverend.
That's his name. He's the one that's reverend.
He's admirable. He's worthy of worship. We fail
miserably at it. He's deserving. He's worthy.
Another word for terrible is awesome. I overuse this word
and it's overused in our culture horrendously. He puts us in awe. He's awe-inspiring. He inspires
awe. He's the only one that's awesome. He will destroy any enemy that
stands in front of Him, anyone or anything that's in opposition
to Him is going to fall. And that triumph He shall accomplish,
the death He shall accomplish, it's already done. Wow! That just makes you want
to clap and shout for Him. It's done! It's done! I'm in awe of that. That same
overwhelming power that He has to destroy His enemies and conquer
everything is the same power He used to save His people and
protect His people and guide His people and preserve them.
That's awe-inspiring. Those that are saved by the terrible
Lord of heaven and earth, they reverence Him. You just will. I don't teach nobody to do that,
tell nobody to do it. They will. They'll be in awe of him. In
awe of his love towards sinners. Not just a stoic king on a throne. He came to save sinners. Let
me put that in layman's terms. That's folks you don't want to
sit next to eating lunch. People me and you wouldn't die
for. That's who he came to die for.
Me. I've told you that before. If you knew the inside of me,
you'd quit eating lunch with me. You know what went through my
thoughts every day? That's who He came to save. A willing sacrifice
for those sinners. That's awesome. That inspires
all of them. And we reverence Him for that.
We reverence Him as our prophet. He's the only one that can reveal
God. Without that, we would never
know God. We never would unless by divine revelation. You can't
figure it out. We just ain't that smart. I'm
sorry. You ain't going to lock yourself in a basement and get
you a bunch of commentaries and figure God out. It's going to
be by divine revelation. He's our prophet. That's the
office he stands in. I'm thankful for that. And we
reverence him as our priest. He's the one that intercedes
for it. You go into that place. I ain't going in there. You talk
to the Lord. You make the sacrifice on my behalf. You have to do
that. And we reverence him for it.
He sacrificed himself. He laid down his own life. And
we reverence him as king. That's my second point. First
off, we reverence Him. We're in awe of Him. We clap
and we shout because He's fearful and He's reverent. I'm in awe
of Him. Because that One who is awesome,
who is terrible, is the King. He's a great and mighty King.
That makes me happy. That makes my heart leap. That makes my
heart clap. Shout to Him. We clap and shout because this
terrible God is our great King. It says, oh clap your hands all
you people. Shout unto God with a voice of
triumph. For the Lord most high is terrible. He is a great King
over all the earth. Clap and shout because Christ
is our King. King. King. I love telling people that. God's
on His throne. No, really. He is. No, I'm not joking. He is. He's
the potentate. I love that word. That's the
only authority. Not a authority, not could be
authority of the Tuesday, whenever you see fit. He's the only authority. He's omnipotent. He has all power. That means he's sovereign. He's
on the throne. He's a great king. He does what
he wants. He does what he wants. Anytime
and everything that's coming to pass at all. Every molecule
that's ever moved, every dust particle that light's ever shone
through or in darkness. Wherever. He did it. Because he wanted to. It pleased
him. And it's for our good. That's
a point of contention. Did you know that? Natural man,
you tell them God's on his throne, he did it. Is there evil in the
city and he hadn't done that? Is there a mass school shooting
the Lord didn't permit for His glory and our good? You understand
that? I don't. But it's so. And you
tell people, God's on His throne. God did this. And they don't
clap, they clench their fists. That's one of the two. You ain't
going to straddle this fence. You're either going to clap or
clench. Don't you tell me that. People get mad. They just say
no. They try to ignore it. God's on His throne. We read
that in Acts 2. It said, Him, speaking of Christ,
being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.
The Father permitted all that. What we would call the greatest
atrocity that ever occurred, the greatest horrendous thing,
man put God on a cross. He meant that for good. That's
his determined account. And from love, from before time
for a people. He did that. Now the hands, the
wicked hands is the means that took place. And what'd they do? We're reading Luke 23. There's
a superscription above him in Greek and Latin and Hebrew. The
three main languages. No matter whose you was, you
could read it. It said, this is king of the Jews. That's why
they was mad. We will not have this man reign
over us. He's the king. He's the king. But if we go on
in Acts 2 and read, it says, That's a great king. Great king. I look forward to worshiping.
I thought of another king. I look forward to truly, truly
clapping, truly shouting out unto God as he ought to be in
glory with another king, O Nebuchadnezzar. That's the first message I ever
remember remembrance. And it's magnificent. Oh, my
heart leaps in my chest. The Indonese came to Nebuchadnezzar
and he lifted up his eyes into heaven and his understanding
returned to him after seven years of walking like an animal and
eating grass. He said, I bless the Most High and praise and
honor him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting
dominion. This king has an everlasting
kingdom from generation to generation. This ain't for a hundred years
or a thousand years or... If I had a post-millennial position,
I wouldn't tell you. It's forever. He always has been
king. He is and shall be forever. That's
something. That's a great king, isn't it?
And all the inhabitants of earth are reputed as nothing. He doeth
according to His will in the army of heaven and among the
inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand or say
to Him, what doest thou? What are you doing? Why did you
do that? You hush, you're a man. Why are you talking against God?
Clap your hands and shout. He's on His throne. Be happy. We shout and we clap to our God
in utter reverence and to His kingship, the King of kings,
in good times and bad times, what we call. in storms or still
weather, sunny days. Rejoice in Him. He's the doer of it. He is. Something else too. This isn't
just some despot, just a tyrant, an austere man. This is a holy
king. Holy king. Look here in verse
8. God reigneth over the heathen. God senteth upon the throne of
His holiness. What kind of throne does this
king sit on? A holy throne because he's holy. I just can't believe
a God would do something like that when you don't know him.
What he does is right because he's holy. He doesn't do what's
right, what he does is right. That's a holy king. Because this
great and awesome and mighty king, he saves wretches like
me and he's just in doing so and a justifier. Is that awesome? Do you want
to clap and shout over that? That's right! Good! That's a
question I ain't asking. How could God be just and justify
sinners? He did it! It's His plan. Through His Son,
isn't it? His Son's gonna get all the glory.
All the attributes. This terrible, reverend, awesome
King was pleased to save some people, make objects of His grace
and mercy. Look at verse 1 again. O clap
your hands, all ye people. Shout unto God with a voice of
triumph, for the Lord Most High is terrible. He's a great king
over all the earth. He shall subdue the people under
us and the nations under our feet. Our enemies are going to
be conquered. And that's not with a spirit of mocking. We
don't mock our enemies. The Lord conquers our enemies.
You should have known better. Don't stick our noses up in the
air on this earth nor after. He fights the battle. He fights
the battle. We pity those, don't we? Verse
4, He shall, He shall choose our inheritance for us. The excellency of Jacob, whom
he loved, Selah, Paul's. Soak that in. Think about that.
Think about that. He shall choose our inheritance
for us. This awesome great King who's
triumphant in all things, He saved a people and He's chosen
their inheritance for them. Think about that. Think about
that. What mercy, what wisdom, what tenderness and grace, He
chose our inheritance for us. I thought about that this week.
What if I had to choose my inheritance? The Lord said, I've saved you,
now pick out what you want. You get one thing. Would I consume
it on my love? What if I was left to myself?
He left me alone. That's terrifying. I'd choose
wrong. What's the first thing that went
through your head? We have horrible thoughts, don't
we? He's chose the inheritance. What's our inheritance? No. Who?
We'll go back to that person of our salvation. Christ is our
inheritance. He is capital H, Heaven. It's
not a place of mansions and crowns and little trinkets on your head
and all this nonsense. It's a person. And if that's
in a tent or a tabernacle, it don't make a difference to me.
If it's in a mansion or a... If He's there, that's heaven,
isn't it? That's our inheritance. Look over at Psalm 16. David wrote here, Psalm 16, verse
5. He said, the Lord is the portion
of mine inheritance. and of my cup. This is my cup
runneth over. That's the whole of me. That's
down inside. That's the soul. He occupies
it. He overflows. He's the portion
of my inheritance. Thou maintainest my lot. You
secured my inheritance. The lions are following unto
me in pleasant places. Yea, I have a goodly heritage.
The lions, the reins. Your sovereignty in choosing
my inheritance, it's good. I have a goodly heritage. And
I bless the Lord. I will bless the Lord who hath
given me counsel. He's the one that taught me this. This person,
not a place, not a thing, not stuff. He's our inheritance. And the Father chose this great
and terrible King. He saved the people by Himself
as a Savior. And He said, I'm giving myself
to you. That's your inheritance. I chose it. Yes! I'm in love with Him and
happy. I can't wait to be with Him.
See Him as He is. Have understanding of Him. He's
mine. I'm going to sing a song backwards.
He's mine. He's yours that He saved, that
you're king. He's our inheritance, but we're
His. We sing, I am His and He is mine.
Well, He's mine and I'm His too. That works both ways, don't it?
Turn back to Psalm 2. Psalm 2, verse 1. Why do the heathen rage? Why
do they clinch instead of clap? And the people imagine a vain
thing. The kings of the earth, they set themselves. And the
rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against
His anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder and
cast away their cords from us. Let's not have this man reign
over us, this king. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. the
Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them
in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure." He's going
to conquer the enemy. Yet, have I set my king upon
my holy hill of Zion. The Father set him as king. This
wonderful, awe-inspiring king that saved his people, the Father
set him there. And I will declare the decree,
the Lord hath said unto me, thou art my son, this day have I begotten
thee. Ask of me, the father says to
the son, ask me. You're the king. You're the everlasting
father, the prince of peace, the counselor. You're all these
things. Now you ask me what you want
for an inheritance. Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen
for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth
for thy possession. Who's the Lord's, his inheritance? Who's his possession? A bunch
of heathens. Not uppity, goody-two-shoes church
goers. Heads. Sinners. That's who this
King saved. That's who He come to. This awesome,
mighty God. Laid down His life for it. And
He protects them and preserves them and provides for them and
everything a King does. That's on His shoulders. Us. That's amazing. That's good news,
isn't it? Come to Him. Run to Him. Back
in our text here in Psalm 47. We'll read the whole thing, just
the nine verses. Oh, clap your hands, all ye people.
Shout unto God with a voice of triumph, for the Lord Most High
is terrible. He's a great king over all the
earth. He shall subdue the people under us and the nations under
our feet. He shall choose our inheritance
for us. The excellency of Jacob, whom
he loved, Selah, 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 earth.
Sing ye praises with understanding. Understanding. Do you understand
that? I know you know it. You read
it. Do you understand who He is? That's who we're singing
to. We understand Him, don't we?
He's taught us that. Now we can sing to Him. God reigneth over
the heathen. God sitteth upon the throne of
His holiness. The princes of the people are
gathered together, even the people of the God of Abraham, for the
shields of the earth belong unto God. He is greatly exalted. He's greatly exalted. Oh, that's
good. That makes me happy. I look to
me, I look to this world, I look to the providence that's all
around us, everything else, to see Him. That awesome one, that
mighty King, that Savior of His people. Oh, that's good. That's
good, isn't it? I thought of there in Isaiah
44. The Lord told Israel to remember
these things. He said, I blotted out your sins, your transgressions.
As a cloud, I put it away. It returneth unto Me. And you
return unto Me because I've redeemed you. I've saved you. And it says,
Sing, O heavens, for the Lord hath done it. triumphant, shout
ye lower parts of the earth, break forth into singing ye mountains,
O forest and every tree therein, for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob
and glorified himself in Israel." He's done this and glorified
himself with his people. Does that make you happy? That gets you through to Tuesday,
I hope. I pray we can remember these
things. Let's pray.