I have been fortunate to associate with people and sports teams that have risen to the occasion to experience victory. They have popped the proverbial cork in triumph. Some of these individuals have experienced the joy of victory in various ways: receiving salvation, getting a new promotion, owning their first house or car, receiving a healing report from the doctor, completing high school, or passing the State Bar examination to become a lawyer. Others have celebrated triumph through sporting events, whether it was hitting a walk-off home run, scoring a buzzer-beating shot, or making the game-winning touchdown. Still others have achieved the triumph of successfully completing rehabilitation, allowing them to simply walk again. Throughout life, I have witnessed and personally experienced the joy associated with victory in many forms.
With each victory, there is a noise—a sound, an outcry, a loud exhale, or a lifting of our voices
in praise for the triumphant moment. In Exploring Worship: A Practical Guide to Praise & Worship, author Bob Sorge highlights the simplicity of the praise we express to God. He
explains that praise means “to commend; to applaud; to express approval or admiration of; to
extol in words or in song; to magnify; to glorify.” One of the ways God desires for us to praise
Him is with a shout. To shout means “to cry aloud or break out into a cry, especially a cry of
joy.”
In our passage, the psalmist encourages us to “shout unto the Lord with the voice of triumph.”
As I considered this exhortation, I realized from past experiences that triumph indeed has a
voice—a sound, a noise that, when offered to God in the form of praise, pleases Him. The cry,
the sound, the noise, the voice of triumph for winning a regular-season basketball game and the shout heard for winning the state championship are uniquely different. There is a different shout of triumph between getting a new job and becoming the CEO. The sound from a new mother is different from the sound heard from a mother welcoming home a wayward child.
Notice also that the psalmist’s direction is to shout in a way that already identifies and claims V-I-C-T-O-R-Y! The Israelites in Joshua 6 were commanded to use one of the most peculiar
military strategies in history. They were directed to circle the great walled city of Jericho once a day for six days. On the seventh day, the Israelites were instructed to circle the city seven times while the priests blew the trumpets. When the people heard the sound of the trumpet, all the people were to “shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat…” (Joshua 6:1-5). The children of Israel shouted with the voice of triumph even though they had not yet seen the victory. They still had to move forward and possess the city. They shouted (in advance) unto the Lord; their shout declared the spiritual victory over the enemy before the battle began, and their shout affirmed their faith.
How about you? Will you declare your spiritual victory over your situation beforehand? Will you “shout unto the Lord with the voice of triumph” today to proclaim your victory through spiritual warfare? Will you “shout unto the Lord with the voice of triumph” to acknowledge God’s authority in this region and declare the acceptable year of the Lord? Can a shout break down the walls in our lives—walls of doubt and depression, walls of challenging situations and
circumstances, walls that hinder our vision of the future and our faith? Do you believe that a
shout can achieve victory over the Jericho walls of today? Brothers and sisters, recognize what the Israelites realized when they faced the immovable obstacle at Jericho’s walls. There is victory in our praise! So “… clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of
triumph.”
