Turn Up the Volume!
Wednesday (November 5)
Turn Up the Volume!
Psalm 47:1-2
Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy! For the LORD, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth.
The Psalmist emphasizes loudness here in Psalm 47, which isn’t exactly everyone’s cup of tea when it comes to worship music style, is it? In fact, in some ways, this Davidic exhortation to shout to God with loud songs seems like the kind of thing you’d see posted on the door of a rock-n-roll venue rather than the door of a church sanctuary. On the one hand, a traditionalist who struggles with drums and electric guitars and emotive, strained vocals will shutter upon reading Psalm 47 and move right past it, arguing that the tradition is archaic and no longer applies to modern hymn singing. On the other hand, a pop- worship enthusiast who uses smoke machines and blaring guitars and deafening decibels might exploit this Scripture as a justification to make worship as ear-splitting and performative as possible. Both extremes miss the point. The Psalmist isn’t calling us here merely to make noise, as if God wants to hear us crashing cymbals and shouting at the top of our lungs because He likes the sound; he’s calling us to give God our all. To spill out our lungs and our voices and our hearts in praise to the One Who is worthy of our very best.
Friend, set aside your musical preferences for a moment and let me ask you a direct question: how triumphant is your praise? How resonating is your applause? Whether you’re playing a pipe organ or strumming a guitar or rolling a snare drum; whether you’re singing from a choir loft or from a back pew or from the driver’s seat of your car; whether you’ve got an enormous vocal range or you have a difficult time staying on pitch or you don’t even know what pitch means; put your hands together for your King of kings and LORD of lords! Give Him an enthusiastic applause, even if your family members or co- workers rush into the room to ask what happened! Be loud in your love today! Drown out the noise of the surrounding darkness with the light of your enthusiastic praise!
Remember: light doesn’t stay hidden, and praise doesn’t keep quiet.