God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. 6 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 understanding. —Psalm 47:5-7
“God has gone up . . . with the sound of a trumpet.” The setting of this psalm is one in which the Lord has gone up against the Assyrians and miraculously defeated them (2 Kings 19:35; Isaiah 37:36). In Hebrew, verse 5 would read, “God has ascended with acclamations of joy, or a battle cry.” Most scholars see this as pointing to a yet future event when not only is a wicked army beaten, but also when man’s greatest enemy is defeated: “Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched . . . a cloud received Him out of their sight. And . . . behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:9-11).
There’s another prophetic element in view here, because there is a second ascension ahead that is accompanied by a trumpet blast: “ . . . flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God . . . Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall all be changed. . . . Then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? ’”
Jesus’ ascension pictures for us the defeat of a far greater foe than Sennacherib and his army. Understanding His ascension allows us to “sing praises with understanding.” We could see this as meaning, “In light of what you’ve come to understand about the Great King and His goodness and truth, sing praises!” Why should we sing praises? Well, for starters, the Great King has proven conclusively that there is life after death! Upon His rising from the dead and ascending into heaven, all questions and doubts about life after death were resolved.
All over the world there are groups who promote unproven propositions about life after death through reaching higher states of consciousness or Nirvana or through reincarnation—and some simply believe that death is the end of everything. But there’s one group that has conclusive evidence that all other propositions are false, and that is the true church, the people of God. The proof? In John 14:1-6, Jesus told the disciples that He was going to prepare a place for them in heaven. When the apostle Thomas asked Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?”, Jesus responded, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” So if Jesus had merely said that He was the way to heaven but He was never seen again by anyone after His death, we’d have reason to doubt. But the One who made these claims was crucified publicly, yet seen on many occasions after His burial—in some cases by as many as 500 people! You just might want to pay attention to Him, especially since He ascended visibly into heaven in front of many eyewitnesses, proving beyond question that the Bible’s proposition concerning life after death stands alone as proven truth!
Our response? Sing praises, live a life of faith and trust in Him, “shout to God with a voice of triumph,” for He has defeated the greatest enemy, Death! The Great King has conquered our adversary the devil on a sinner’s cross. Sing praise! And strive to live by faith and trust in His Word, which is the highest praise of all.
Excerpt from “Beside Still Waters” now available on Amazon.
