All right, let's open our Bibles
again to Psalm 47. I've titled the message tonight,
Christ the Triumphant. David begins this Psalm in victory. Look what he says in verse one.
He says, Oh, clap your hands, all you people. Shout unto God
with the voice of triumph. David begins telling us to clap
our hands. I thought that clapping our hands
is something that we do in victory. We are just really happy, excited
that we clap. I thought of three times specifically
we clap our hands. One is just a spontaneous show
of joy and appreciation at a ball game. Somebody makes a great
play, everybody stands and claps. Janet showed me a video of Landry. Now, he was watching a basketball
game. I couldn't see the action. All I could see was Landry. But
I knew what was going on on that floor from his reaction. He's
jumping and shouting and clapping. Something good's going on. That's
one time we clap. Number two, we clap to show respect
or to congratulate someone on a job well done. After a play,
people clap. Graduation ceremony, we clap
for a job well done. And thirdly, we clap to show
love. Parents always clap every time their children get done
performing anything. Parents always clap. When our children
were little in school, I was just used to every event she
went to, you ended clapping. No matter what it was, that's
what you did. So we're in the midst of us, that's what we're
living. You know, you're going to clap for your kids all the
time. We were at service one Sunday night and Henry just preached
a message. I mean, I was just engrossed
in it the whole time he was preaching. And he got done, went to sit
down and I started my hands up to clap. I thought, oh, shouldn't
do that. And we don't want to, there was
nothing wrong with it, but we don't want to, to make a show
of the flesh in the worship service so that we draw attention to
ourselves. But we do want to celebrate our Savior, don't we?
At least in our heart, we clap for our Savior, just a spontaneous
show of appreciation and love. How could you not be overcome
at this person, at who he is and what he'd do for the likes
of us? How can we not just clap and
show respect, appreciation for a job well done. I mean, you
think what a job he did in saving his people from their sin. That
should be celebrated, shouldn't it? And while we're clapping,
David tells us to shout unto God with the voice of triumph. Shout for joy. The victory's
been won. The battle's over. Shout about
our Savior's triumph. He's the triumphant one. He triumphed
over every enemy, destroyed them all, sin, death, hell. He won
a complete victory over all of them. That's something worth
shouting about. Now, again, this, you know, shouting
and this show of emotion is not, you know, something that we plan
to do. I'm going to wait till just the right time in the service
so I can do that, you know, show everybody how religious I am.
This is a spontaneous thing that Dave is talking about. You know,
just thinking about our Savior ought to at least in our make
us shout and clap. It really should. Can I just
shout for a moment about the Savior's love for His people?
He loved a people no one else would love. And He sent His Son
to die for them. To put their sin away. Can I
shout about the Savior's blood? His blood is powerful enough
to put my sin away. All I need to be cleansed is
the blood of Christ. Can I shout about the Savior's
obedience to the law? It's perfect. And the reason
I shout about that is His obedience is our obedience. The obedience
that He gave His people, His obedience is our only righteousness
before God. That's all we need because it's
perfect. Can I shout about someone as
wonderful as the Lord Jesus Christ Doing something so wonderful
for somebody as wretched as I am? I believe I can shout about that.
Can I shout about His promises and how He has fulfilled every
one of them? His promise to save His people.
His promise to call them. His promise to comfort their
hearts. His promise to lead and guide and keep them. I believe
I can shout about that. Can I shout? that somebody as
useless and powerless as me is more than a conqueror in Christ
Jesus. See, that's what David's talking
about here. He's shouting and clapping for this victory of
Christ our Savior. And I want to give you three
reasons from our text to clap and shout for Christ the triumphant. Number one is this, because the
Lord is awesome. Verse two says, for the Lord
most high is terrible That word terrible means to cause someone
to be afraid. And it also means to cause reverence.
We might use the word awesome or awe-inspiring in our language
today. Truly, our Lord is awesome and
terrible to His enemies. He ought to cause them to be
afraid. Anyone who stands opposed to Christ will be destroyed. They cannot stand against Him.
It's awe-inspiring. When we talk about shock and
awe of U.S. military might, that's nothing
compared to the power of God. He's awesome. He's terrible.
And He will destroy every enemy. Anyone who refuses to bow, to
surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ and to trust Him, ought to be
afraid. They really should. There's no
other Savior for their soul. There's no other hope of eternal
life. There's no other sacrifice for sin. So everybody who doesn't
bow to Christ and trust Him for all their salvation is going
to be damned. They ought to be afraid. I want
to make this clear. I'm not trying to frighten anybody
into coming to Christ. But this is true. We're not nearly
as afraid of not trusting Christ as we should be. Not nearly.
And I can give you two reasons for that. Number one is our nature. We're just not afraid because
we're dead in sin. And somebody who's dead doesn't
know what's going around them. They just don't know any better
because they're dead. That's why they're not afraid.
But here's a second reason men are not afraid of not trusting
Christ. Because false preachers have
portrayed the Lord Jesus as this pitiful, effeminate person who
could not and would not hurt anybody. He just wants everybody
to love him. Now our text tells us that's
a lie. He is terrible. And if you don't
believe him, you ought to be afraid. You ought to be. He's
terrible. But the Lord is terrible, awe-inspiring
in this sense, too. He is to be referenced. That
same overwhelming power that destroys his enemies is used
to protect and save his people and God's people, people who
are saved by his grace. People are saved by Christ's
obedience and by Christ's sacrifice as their substitute. They do
referencing. They do. God's grace is awe-inspiring. God's grace is free grace for
sinners. That's awe-inspiring. God's love
is awe-inspiring. God loves sinners. Sinners who
we wouldn't love. And we are one. God's holy. And God has the capacity to love
sinners. That's awe-inspiring. God's sacrifice
is awe-inspiring. And look who he sacrificed himself
for. He died for the ungodly. He died for sinners. He died
for us when we were yet his enemies. He's awe-inspiring. God's salvation. is awe-inspiring. You know, the
salvation that free will people preach is not, there's no mystery
to it. There's no awe there, is there?
It's just a decision you made and the only person anybody's
going to clap for is you. You made a decision, we're going
to clap for you. There's nothing awesome there. There's no mystery
there. God's salvation is awe-inspiring. Salvation in Christ makes a sinner
new, makes a sinner perfectly righteous. God's salvation makes
a sinner not acceptable, but accepted by God, accepted in
the beloved. Salvation in Christ is a terrible,
awe-inspiring thing. And that is the very salvation
that I need because I am a terrible sinner. This is the Savior that
I need. So the Lord's people do reverence
him. And it's not just for what He's done, although what He's
done is awe-inspiring. Our reverence starts just with
who He is. We reverence His person. He's
the God-man. He's both God and man. He's perfect, holy, harmless,
separate from sinners. Yet, He came to save sinners
and call sinners to come to Him. And you know they always did?
They always came. were always comfortable coming
to Christ. That was true of His ministry
2,000 years ago and it's true today. Sinners are comfortable
coming to Him because of His person. The Lord's people reverence
Him in all of His offices. We reverence Him as prophet to
reveal God to us. We would never know God apart
from the Lord Jesus Christ. We never know anything about
God if it were not for Christ. He's the prophet that reveals
God to the people. And he's the priest to make a
sacrifice to God for the sins of his people. And we reverence
that. There's no other sacrifice that
saves. No other blood that cleanses.
And then God's people reverence Christ in his office as king.
King to rule over us. And that brings me to my second
point. Clap and shout. because Christ the triumphant
is our king. The end of verse two, Davis says,
he is a great king over all the earth. He shall subdue the people
under us and the nations under our feet. Now, if you could try
to consider for just a minute who God is, I mean, we can't,
we can't imagine who God is, but we know that God is the almighty.
God is omnipotent. That means he has all power.
Nobody else has any power. He has all of it. And since he
has all power, nothing can stop him from doing what he will.
God always does what he will. That's who God is. Now consider
who man is. Man is sin. Man is sinned against
God. Our nature is a nature of sin,
the opposite of God's nature of holiness. And man by nature
hates God, hates the Almighty, hates that Omnipotent One, doesn't
want Him to have all power, wants to take Him off the throne. And
when the Father, in His providence, in His purpose of redemption
for His people, put His Son into the hands of man for just a couple
hours, what happened? Man crucified the Lord of glory.
And here was their accusation that they nailed to the top of
the cross. This is the accusation, the reason
that he must be put to death. This capital punishment is justified
because this is Jesus, the king of the Jews. They thought they
were justified in killing him. They don't want him to be king.
Man by nature hates the kingship of Christ. Now that's the height
of foolishness for man to declare war on God. It's the height of
foolishness to refuse to surrender to Christ. because man has no
power at all. And we refuse to surrender to
the one who has all power. Man has no power, but we declared
war on God who has all power. Now you don't need to be real
smart to figure this out. God is going to destroy every
enemy. Nobody has the power to stand against him. He will subdue
every nation under his rule. Not one of them will ever be
a threat to his throne. Now God is the omnipotent one.
He is the almighty. He is the king of the earth.
He does as he will, and nobody can ask him, why are you doing
that? But God's rule and God's destruction of his enemies is
not the unfair rule of a despot. God's rule is a rule that's done
in holiness. It's right. Everything he does
is right. So nobody can complain about
it. Look at verse eight. God reigneth over the heathen.
God sitteth upon the throne of his holiness. It's only right
that God destroy sin and destroy those who refuse to believe on
his son. He's ruling in holiness. It's only right that he does
away with sin and iniquity and rebellion. God will utterly destroy
his enemies with his power, his holy wrath against sin. But God
uses that same holy power to save his people from their sin.
God uses His power to subdue His people under Him. He makes
them willing to surrender. In the day of His power, they
surrendered. In the power of His grace, they
followed His feet. Now, David says here, us, He
should subdue the people under us and the nations under our
feet. You know, this thing of Christ winning the victory is
not so we can trample our enemies under our feet, you know, and
say, You know, you thought you had me under a heel on earth,
and now I got my heel on you now. That's not what he's talking
about at all. He's talking about the victory
of Christ. Our enemies will only be under
our feet in this way, that we're in Christ. He's going to subdue
people under Him, and we who believe will enjoy His victory.
That's what David's talking about there. So that brings me to the
third point. Clap and shout because of God's
sovereign grace. Clap and shout that Christ is
king. He's king over all nations. He's
king of the heathen and he's king of his people in a special
way. They live in his kingdom. They
live under his dominion. He rules over them and they want
it that way. Christ makes his people willing
to submit to him. His people are willing to submit
to His righteousness and forsake their rags of righteousness.
He makes His people able to do what they cannot do. God in His
sovereign power makes His people believe on Him. He makes them
so that they can't not believe on Him. Now, they can't do that
by nature. They will not do that by nature.
But in the day of His power, they do because it's His power.
And he leads his people as a shepherd. Now, the shepherd is the one
who's in control. It's not like this, you know,
little weakling, little Bo Peep, you know, we see. I don't think
she can control anything. That's not the shepherd we're
talking about here. This shepherd is the one who's in control. And he'd never ask his sheep,
now, do you want to go over here? Or do you want to go over here?
Which is your parents. It should never do that. I see
parents do that. This is just my advice to parents
for, you know, whoever will hear it. Don't ever ask your children,
do you want to obey me? Do you want to do it? No, no,
no, no, no, no. You do what I tell you because
I'm the dad. That's just the way it gets. Parents make that mistake. God
never. The shepherd doesn't do that.
Christ our shepherd leads his people to the green pastures.
And he makes them lie down in those green pastures. He leads
his people beside those cool still waters and he makes them
thirsty. So they'll drink. They're going
to go because he's the shepherd. He's the one who's leading and
guiding and directing them. The salvation of a sinner from
beginning to end, beginning in God's election, beginning in
Christ Going to Christ, dying for His people and God calling
out His people, revealing Christ to them and in them. God keeping
them faithful to the end. All of that from beginning to
end. Salvation is God's sovereignty on full display. It's God doing
as He will to accomplish His purpose of redemption for His
people. I think I can clap and shout
about that. This is sure. Because our God is King. And
this salvation began with God's sovereign choice of a people,
God's election of a people. I know the flesh hates that,
but God's people clap and shout for it. Look at verse four. He
shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob,
whom he loved. Now this great and terrible God
who needs nothing of his will chose to save a bunch of sinners,
a bunch of rebels, He chose to save sinners who never would
choose Him. He chose sinners who would rebel against Him.
God chose to save them. Can't we clap and shout about
that? There'd be no salvation if it were not for God's electing
love. Now look back this inheritance at Psalm 16. God chose the inheritance
for His people. And that inheritance is His Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Psalm 16 verse 5. The Lord is the portion of mine
inheritance and of my cup. Thou maintainest my lot. The
Lord is the portion of my inheritance. Our inheritance is not a thing.
Our inheritance is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the
same inheritance promised Abraham. Christ or God told Abraham, Abraham,
I am your exceeding great reward. And he promised Abraham a son.
But the blessing of the promise to Abraham wasn't Isaac. The
blessing of the promise was that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah
would come through Isaac. That was the blessing. And God
gave that inheritance by promise, by sovereign promise. Look at
first Peter chapter one. Since God promised by his sovereign
will, his sovereign grace, He promised that inheritance to
his people. That is an inheritance that cannot be lost, that will
be enjoyed by all of his people. And it began with God's election.
First Peter 1 verse 2, elect according to the foreknowledge
of God, the father, through sanctification of the spirit and obedience and
sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace unto you and peace
be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy,
hath begotten us again into a lively, a living hope by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance. An inheritance
that's incorruptible, that's undefiled, and that fadeth not
away, preserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power
of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last
time. And no matter what happens, Between
now and then, you're gonna have that inheritance. Look at verse
six. Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need
be, you're in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the
trial of your faith be much more precious than the gold that perisheth,
though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and
honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having
not seen, you love, and whom though now you see him not, yet
believing, He rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory,
receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. See, that's the inheritance,
this promise of salvation in Christ, and you're gonna receive
it, because that's God's promise, his sovereign promise to his
people. Christ is the inheritance of
his people. But now look at another scripture,
Isaiah 29. What's more than that, Christ
chose his people, to be His inheritance. He is our inheritance, but we're
His inheritance. Now that's awesome. That's worth
clapping and shouting for. Isaiah 19, verse 24. And that day shall Israel be
the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the
midst of the land. God's people are a blessing in
the midst of all those heathens. whom the Lord of hosts shall
bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work
of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance." God's elect, spiritual
Israel, that's Christ's inheritance. In Malachi 3, verse 17, the Lord
called His people His jewels, His special treasure. The Lord
counts His people so dear to Him, so precious to Him, He says,
they're my inheritance. They're my special treasure.
He's not going to lose one of them. They're his treasure. He's
stored up. Now, what a wonder to think the
likes of us are the inheritance of the Savior, his special treasure.
That's the inheritance he's chosen for his people. And this is worth
noting. The same thing, this inheritance
he's talking about here is a spiritual inheritance, but This same truth
holds true about all the different paths of this life that we take.
Whatever those paths are, our sovereign chose them for us. He chose them for us in his wisdom
and in his unquestioned love for his people. So whatever course
I take, whether I think it's good or whether it's a trial
that I really do not want to be going through, whichever the
path is, It must be the best path for me. It has to be. Because my Sovereign, All-Wise
Savior chose it for me. If we really get a hold of that,
there'll be some real comfort there. I read a story of a woman. She was very, very sick. Someone
came to her bedside and asked her if she wanted to live or
die. And she answered, whatever God pleases. But, they said,
if God should refer it back to you, what would you choose? And
she said, I'd refer it back to Him. In the study, Wayne read about
Christ our Rock. He said, we want to be settled
there. Wayne, that's settled there.
I'll just refer it back to Him. Whatever He wills. There's comfort
in knowing this. God has chosen the inheritance
for His people. He's chosen every path for them. He's our Sovereign. shepherd.
But here's the eternal blessing. God chose salvation for his people
and salvation of God's elect is sure. Verse nine says 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. Now the people of the God of
Abraham he refers to here are the people that God chose in
the covenant of grace. God, gave that promise to Abraham. This is a token of his covenant
of grace. So the people of God are the
people God chose, or people of Abraham are the people God chose
in the covenant of grace. And the princes are the people.
That's all the people for whom Christ died. That's his people.
Remember in Christ, all of God's elect are made what? Kings and
priests, made princes. These are the people of God.
And they're all gathered together. Their salvation is sure. They'll
all be gathered together under God. Not one of them will be
missing and God will be greatly exalted in their salvation. We can clap and shout about that.
That's sure salvation. Now, someone might wonder, all
right, how do I know Christ really accomplished all this for his
people? How do I know that? Well, the answer is simple. It's
his resurrection and his ascension. Verse five in our text. God has
gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.
And here David's prophesying about the death, the resurrection
and the ascension of Christ. Thousands of years before the
Lord Jesus was even born on this earth. Salvation is the eternal
purpose of the Almighty. He's terrible. He gave the prophet
a vision of that to prophesy of that thousands of years before
it happened. God's not going to fail to accomplish
His promise, His purpose. He told us all throughout Scripture
what it is. It's the salvation of His people
through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He's going to accomplish
it. And when Christ came to this earth, that's just exactly what
He did. As He lived as a man upon this earth, He did it perfectly. Perfect. He was perfectly obedient
to God's law. And that's worth pointing out
and things we want to clap and shout about because that perfect
obedience is the righteousness of his people that he gave. He
didn't do that to make himself righteous. He's already righteous.
He's already, he did that for his people. He is perfectly obedient
to his father in everything. Obedient even under the death
of the cross. Now we say he was obedient under
the death of the cross. That doesn't just mean he died
by being crucified. The death of the cross means
Christ died bearing the sin of his people, bearing the curse
of the sin of his people, bearing the guilt of the sin of his people.
Christ died as a substitute for his people. That's why he was
crucified, to show he died bearing the curse of the law. And since
he died as a substitute for his people, that curse is gone. His people are justified and
they will never die. They will enjoy all of the salvation
that the Father purposed for them and the Son purchased for
them. Now, again, someone might say, well, how do you know? How
do you know that's gonna happen? It's the resurrection of Christ.
See, the death of Christ on the cross didn't end with his death,
did it? No, three days later, he was
raised from the dead. Christ died for our sin, Paul said,
and was raised again for our justification. He is raised again
as evidence, his death, justified his people, wiped out all the
sin of his people. I've lived with sin so long,
all my life, I'm used to sin. And that statement
doesn't thrill me like it ought to. My sin is gone under the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. I, in public, like to maintain
just a calm exterior. I believe I start shouting and
clapping if I really got a hold of that. My sin is gone under
the blood of Christ. And I want to shout Christ's
triumph. I want to congratulate Him and
honor Him and glory Him. What a Savior. And just as a
note, I thought this was interesting. David said God has gone up with
a shout. The Lord Jesus Christ is God. It's not like He's God. David
doesn't say a man went up. Somebody looked like God went
up. He said God went up. The Lord Jesus Christ is God. Our Savior is God. Now that means
He can't fail, can He? God can't fail. Whatever it is
He's done, is perfect because He's God. Now, that ought to
make us clap and shout. If we believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, we've got nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry
about. Now, it says here that God has
gone up with a shout and the sound of a trumpet. Now, men
weren't shouting and playing trumpets when the Lord ascended
back on high, were they? No, the ones that were there,
that saw Him ascend, were just standing there with their mouth
hanging open. I mean, they weren't shouting. They were trying to figure out
what's going on. I'll tell you what, there was a shout and there
were trumpets playing in heaven. Can you imagine the shouts of
joy in heaven? Christ the triumphant returned,
ascended back on high, sat down on the right hand of God. Oh,
how they shouted with joy. And we do too, don't we? We do.
Now, like I said earlier, we don't clap and shout and make
a show of ourselves during the services because we don't want
to draw attention to the flesh. If anybody here is going to get
a blessing, they can't be focusing on me or you or somebody shouting
around. If anybody here is going to get
a blessing, our focus, our attention must be on Christ. And that's
why we don't make those shows of the flesh. But we do like
to sing. We do like, this is a singing
group of people. This congregation likes to sing.
And you know what? We should. It's the right thing
for us to love to sing the praises of our God. David says in verse
6, sing praises to God. Sing praises. Sing praises unto
our King. Sing praises. For God is the
King of all the earth. Sing ye praises with understanding. With understanding. See this
isn't just a you know, hoopty-doo, jump around, shout, and not even
know why I'm doing it, just jump around, shout, because everybody
else is. This is singing with understanding. Understanding
of who God is. We understand something of who
God is. We understand something of the way He saves sinners.
Our God is terrible, awesome. He chose to save sinners by sending
His Son to die for them, to purchase their salvation. And he rose
again. He lives to guarantee that salvation
for him. I believe that would make us
want to sing, wouldn't you? Alright, we'll do that after
we bow together in prayer. Our God, how we thank you for
this portion of your word. How we thank you for being able
to look into and enjoy, celebrate the victory of Christ our Savior.
Father, we thank you for a Savior who truly puts away the sin of
his people, who doesn't try to do anything, who has fully accomplished
his will. He is highly exalted. Father,
I pray that you cause this message to go forth and cause Christ
to be highly exalted in the hearts of your people. Cause us to see
him high and lifted up. Cause this message to comfort
our hearts, to encourage us to victory is won. The battle's
over. Nothing's left in doubt. We don't
have to wonder about the outcome. The victory's won. The outcome
is settled. Christ is King. Father, cause
us to see Him as our King, as our Savior, to bow to Him, that
He might be our all and in all. It's in His precious name we
pray and give thanks.