Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

A few summers ago our family went on a tour of the Gettysburg battlefield during our vacation.

Now, there are a lot of tour companies in Gettysburg!

There are walking tours, bus tours, Segway tours, tours on horseback, tours from the Confederate side, tours from the Union side, “ghost-hunting” tours, church tours, self-guided tours, National Park Service tours—you name it.

But we were looking for something that didn’t require a reservation, and that had room for all eight of us in the same timeslot.

We settled on the “Historic Tours Company” on Steinwehr Avenue.

Their photo featured a vintage 1930’s tour bus that they used for their tours, and they said that their tour was geared towards families with children, so that there would be something interesting for all ages.

So the morning of the tour, we headed off to Steinwehr Avenue to find the Historic Tours Company.

And if you’re familiar with downtown historic Gettysburg, you know how hard it is to get around—especially if you can’t find the place you’re looking for!

Google Lady kept telling us “You have reached your destination”, but we couldn’t see the place anywhere!

Finally we turned down a blind alley, and found what looked like an abandoned service station—a low concrete block building, maybe thirty feet long, with a locked door and a faded poster visible through the window that said “Historic Tour Company”.

After about five minutes of waiting (and trying to decide if we wanted to leave!), our guide showed up with an apology for running late.

He invited us around the back of the building to the bus—which turned out not to be a vintage antique tour bus from the ‘30’s.

Instead it was a vintage antique airport shuttle bus from the ‘70’s—which took a few minutes to get started!

At this point we’re all looking at each other with the same thought: “Maybe we better get out while the getting’s good!”

But we set aside our misgivings long enough to get settled in the shuttle and Glen (our guide) pulled out into the alley to begin the tour.

And for the next two and a half hours, we were treated to one of the most engaging and fascinating tours I’ve ever been on!

Glen was extremely interesting, and told story after story about every facet of the three-day battle—from the first shots fired near the Chambersburg Pike to Little Round Top and the infamous “Fish-hook line”, to the massive artillery bombardment on the third day and the desperate Pickett’s Charge—he knew how to tell stories that made you feel like you were there.

He even stopped at one point and gave the kids muskets so that they could practice loading and firing!

As we talked to him during the course of the tour, we came to find out his story: He had always been fascinated with Civil War history, and would visit Gettysburg from his home in New Jersey every chance he got.

Eventually he moved to Adams County so that he could be a battlefield tour guide full time.

And that was what made him so engaging.

He was all in—he had centered his whole life on studying the Battle of Gettysburg and sharing it with others.

And his enthusiasm and love for his subject more than made up for the dilapidated office and the dingy tour bus!

In some ways, Psalm 48 is a “Tour Guide’s Psalm”.

Look at verses 12-14:

This is the third of the “Songs of Zion” that we’ve seen in the last few weeks, and this one pulls out all the stops in its description of the beauty and splendor and magnificence of the city of God.

And in reading it, you see that the Sons of Korah never tired of giving tours of the splendor of God—they never tired of pointing out the majesty of the citadel of YHWH to the next generation.

You can hear their enthusiasm in verse 8:

They loved giving tours of the glory of God because of what they had seen of Him!

They had not only heard the stories of His mighty deeds, they had seen His power firsthand!

And this is what I want us to learn from this psalm:

A good tour guide in the Citadel of God never gets tired of telling the story of God’s faithful love.

Verses 12-13 give us the map of our walking tour around Zion this morning.

We are called to “number her towers, consider her ramparts and go through her citadels”.

So let’s follow our tour guides as they take us out around the Citadel of YHWH.

The first stop on our tour is:

I.

The Towers : God’s Reign

Look at verses 1-3:

Now, it sounds a little odd at first; almost as if our tour guides don’t know their geography, right?

Mount Zion isn’t exactly “in the far north”, after all!

But if you have a different translation this morning, you may notice that verse 2 reads differently.

The NIV, for instance, renders it:

“Beautiful in its loftiness, the joy of the whole earth, like the heights of Zaphon is Mount Zion, the city of the Great King.”

The original Hebrew here is the word zaphon, which is also the name of a mountain (“Mt.

North”, you might say) that sits on the Syria/Turkey border (about 400 miles or so north of Jerusalem).

It was considered the traditional home of Baal the Storm God of the Canaanites, kind of like the Canaanite version of Mount Olympus (and similar to Mt. Hermon in northern Israel).

So what the psalm is doing here is comparing Mt.

Zion—where YHWH dwells—with Mt.

Zaphon—where Baal dwells!

And the meaning is clear: YHWH’s kingdom supersedes Baal’s!

Baal may have his little fiefdom up there on the Syria/Turkey border, but the real “joy of all the earth” is the mountain where YHWH dwells!

Even though Mt.

Zion is actually about half the height of Mt.

Zaphon (2,500’ vs. 5,600’),

The glory and splendor of Mt.

Zion doesn’t come from how tall it is, but from who reigns from it!

YHWH is the one who humiliated Baal over and over again in the Old Testament—most notably in 1 Kings 18, when the prophet Elijah faced down 400 prophets of Baal on Mt.

Carmel.

When Baal couldn’t manage to set fire to the altar they set up (which, as a god of storms and lightning, should have been easy for him!),

Elijah taunted the priests, saying:

So our tour guides know their history, don’t they?

They know that the false gods of the nations are no match for YHWH!

Baal was humiliated at Carmel, Dagon fell to pieces in front of the Ark of the Covenant, the gods of Egypt were buried in a reign of blood, ash and darkness at the Exodus—there is no so called “god” or “lord” that can even slow down the purposes of YHWH!

And the Sons of Korah themselves understand a thing or two about idolatrous desires.

If you remember the history of their ancestor Korah in Numbers 16, you remember that he was consumed with jealousy over the authority of Aaron the high priest—and his covetous and evil desires led to his destruction when the ground opened up under his feet and swallowed him.

But were the Sons of Korah bound by their ancestor’s wickedness?

Did his idolatrous lust for power and prestige continue to enslave them?

No—they were free, weren’t they?

And so perhaps a little bit of their glee in extolling YHWH’s superiority over the false god Baal comes from their own experience of being set free from their past!

Your bondage to past idols is no match for the power of God to set you free!

From the towers of God’s reign, we move next in our walking tour of Mt.

Zion to

II.

The Ramparts : God’s Victories

Look at verses 4-7:

We saw this same kind of description of kings being put to flight in Psalm 46, and we connected that psalm with the defeat of Sennacherib outside the walls of Jerusalem in 2 Kings 18-19, when the Angel of the LORD went out and destroyed 185,000 of them in one night.

I think we can make a similar connection here in Psalm 48 to another incident in Israel’s history.

Turn with me to 2 Chronicles 20 (p.

372).

In verse 1, we read

So here we have an “assembly of kings” as it says in Psalm 48:4.

In verses 13-17, the LORD speaks through one of His prophets to tell Jehoshaphat and the people,

So, in obedience to the word of the LORD, the king goes out with his army to face the invaders.

But notice how he arranges his forces:

Who did he put in front of the army?

The choir!

And back in verse 19 we are told who that choir is made up of:

The Sons of Korah were right there in the front row, singing and praising God as the invaders approached!

And what did they see?

Verse 22:

And the Sons of Korah watched it happen!

The invading armies never even got close to Jerusalem—

God used the praise of His people as a mighty weapon to defeat His enemies.

And right after that battle, the Sons of Korah came home and wrote a song about it!

And so here they are giving us our our walking tour of the Citadel of YHWH--they stop by the ramparts of God’s victory over His enemies and we see their eyes light up as they recount watching the invading armies self-destructing!

We’re standing there outside the ramparts as they point out to the horizon where the battle took place, not merely describing a battle that they read about or heard about from others, but giving their first-hand account of the way God delivered His people!

No wonder they love to sing praises to YHWH—their praise songs are a mighty weapon in His hand!

And then they turn to us and say, “We’ve saved the best part for last!

We’ve shown you the tower of YHWH’s reign, we’ve shown you the ramparts of His victories—and now we’ll show you