Psalm 47:7 For God is the King of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding
You have probably heard someone say, “Well, praise the Lord!” That is a good thing to say. We ought to praise the Lord. Now, should praising the Lord be automatic. Yes, I think if you know the Lord Jesus, praise to God and God the Son should be an automatic thing. We should also be praising the Holy Spirit for His work in our lives. We should be people of praise. But should our praise be trite? No.
Psalm 47 begins by saying, “O clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph.” This is a psalm or song of praise. Our praise is not about us; it is about our God. What you learn here is that we are to sing praise to God, but there is a certain way in which we are to do that. Verse 7 says, “For God is the King of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding.” So, my praising should be automatic, but it should never be trite of flippant. So, even spontaneous praise should to some extent be deliberate. It should come from a life that is deliberately attributing to God the worth that is due Him. Sing praises with understanding.
Someone may have said, “What is all that noise? Here are all these people clapping their hands and shouting to God with a voice of triumph. What is the reason?” This praise is reasonable. It is able to give reason; there is a reason. Verse 2 gives us the reason to clap your hands and shout unto God. It says, “For the LORD most high is terrible; he is a great King over all the earth.” So, we are to sing praises with understanding. We are to understand two things, have two reasons for this praise.
First, we should praise God for who He is. “For the LORD most high is terrible.” That means “awe-inspiring, worthy of fear.” It continues, “He is a great King over all the earth.” Verses 7-9 reiterate that. Verse 7 says, “For God is the King of all the earth.” Verse 8 says, “God reigneth over the heathen.” Verse 9 says, “For the shields of the earth belong unto God.” In other words, it is not just God who is over His people. God is the Creator of the universe, the heathen, His own people, all the earth. So, we are to praise God for who He is. God is not comparable to anything or anyone else. He is not the “more high” God; He is the most high God. He is terrible, fear-inspiring, King over all the earth.
We are also to praise God for what He does. Verse 3 says, “He shall subdue the people under us, and the nations under our feet.” This is Israel talking. Verse 4 says, “He shall choose our inheritance.” So, God is authority; He subdued. God is a wise sovereign; He chooses. He chose David, His people, Abraham. If you belong to the Lord Jesus, He chose you. I John 4:9 says, “We love him, because he first loved us.” Revelation 1:5 says, “And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.” I am not Jewish by genes, but I am of the seed of Abraham by faith in the Son of God.
So, I am to praise, but I am to have a reason. There is reason to praise God. Sometimes we just haven’t thought about what that is. We should praise God for who He is and what He does. I would say that thanksgiving sometimes takes praise from the abstract and puts it into real life. God is the God worthy of fear, the King over all the earth, but this King, this fearful God, He chose me. When I submit to Him, He chooses what is best. He guides my path. So, my praise is not just abstract; it is practical in that I think about the infinite God and His doing on my behalf. So, should I sing praises? Yes! Better yet, I should sing praises with understanding.