With concerns abounding over governments in the western world – concerns that spring from divisions in the wider community and divisions and disloyalty in the body politic – we might wonder what the future might hold.
Psalm 146:3 says: Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs he returns to the earth;… How appropriate is this warning. Those with influence and power will never have the perfect answers to our deepest concerns, our security and our future.
The psalm speaks of the mortality of princes. A deeper layer of the theme is found in Isaiah 32:5 which says that the fool, one who denies God, will no more be called noble. And there is an even more sombre meaning, drawn from God’s words to Adam in Genesis 3:19: “… You shall return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. It is all rather depressing.
But the warning comes in the context of a big picture about God. For Psalm 146 is the first of the cluster of five psalms that conclude The Book of Psalms. Each of these psalms opens and closes with one Hebrew word: Hallelujah.
Hallelujah brings together two Hebrew words: Hallel a verb meaning praise, and Jah which is a contraction of the word for God – Jehovah or Yahweh. Put together they are a command: ‘Praise the Lord’.
This is the context of Psalm 146’s warning. No matter how powerful or how rich, how impressive or influential someone might be, they are still only human. The paths of human power and glory always lead to the grave. Despite the passing of the centuries Psalm 146 has lost none of its relevance. Only one person is worthy of our unconditional trust: the Lord God Almighty.
Which brings us to the second theme of the Psalm: Blessing.
In verse 5 we read: Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God,… We put our trust in the God of good news.
And as the psalm continues to unfold, the focus is on God as creator, his faithfulness and his justice, his love and his commitment to give life and hope.
The notion of a creator God is aggressively dismissed today on social media and by opinion-shapers. Yet, some of the finest scientific minds are agreed that at the very least, we are not here by chance. The universe is the work of a supreme intelligence.
(You may want to read Henry F. Schaefer III, Science and Christianity: Conflict or Coherence (Apollos Trust: 2003) and John C. Lennox, God and Stephen Hawking (Lion, Oxford: 2011).)
Furthermore, God is the God of good news. In verses 7 and 8 we read: …who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free;.. He opens the eyes of the blind. He lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. The oppressed, the hungry, the prisoners, the blind, and the righteous, as well as the sojourners or immigrants, the widow and the fatherless (verse 9), are the recipients of God’s help.
The flow of the sentence tells us that these are not different groups of people, but the same people. They are descriptions of the people of God as a whole. The righteous are those who are righteous by faith. They don’t put their trust in princes. They put their trust in the God who is faithful, the God who has good news to offer, the God of the gospel.
Now the psalmist is not saying that there is no place for human agencies. That’s not his point. The question he is asking is this, ‘Where do you put your trust – in human princes or in God?’
As we consider these words today we have even more reason to be confident in the God of whom the Psalm speaks, for we live on the other side of the birth of a baby whose name is Jesus. This baby grew up to reveal the power and authority we normally associate with divinity. He is the man from heaven. And even when he was struck down to die the most unjust of deaths, the chains of death could not hold him. Indeed, through his resurrection, we have the authentication of the words of the Psalm and the Bible as a whole.
When we open our minds and hearts to God, whose beauty and love are now perfectly revealed for us in this Jesus Christ, God’s eternal Son, we will find Hallelujah will rise to our lips, again and again. We will find that whatever our song of experience was in the past, it can now finish with Hallelujah, the heartfelt song of praise, of hope and of joy, to the one true God.
In the words of Psalm 146:10 – The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the Lord!
And now that the Lord Jesus Christ has come we can truly sing: And he shall reign forever and ever. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Tomorrow Americans everywhere celebrate Thanksgiving. The first official Thanksgiving, held in December 1777, followed a Congressional Proclamation that in part reads: “That with one heart and one voice the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the service of their divine benefactor; and that together with their sincere acknowledgments and offerings, they may join the penitent confession of their manifold sins,…” Thanksgiving and penitence.
‘Thanksgiving’ has a rich meaning within Christianity – not least within the Book of Psalms. In Psalm 107 (the first psalm in Book V) we read: Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! God is not just the great sovereign Lord. He is altogether good.
Four scenes dominate the center of the psalm. It is a celebration of the return of God’s people to Jerusalem in the 6th century BC, after the years of exile in Babylon. And while each scene portrays Israel’s experience and God’s intervention, they are analogous to realities experienced by all men and women, and also God’s acts of mercy.
Lostness. In 586BC Nebuchadnezzar’s army had destroyed Jerusalem and razed Solomon’s great temple to the ground. Dazed, wandering and lost, they hungered for the embrace of God’s love. Like the prodigal in Jesus’ parable, they came to their senses and in penitencecried to the Lord.God in his mercy delivered them. Miraculously, against all historical odds, through the decree of Cyrus in 520BC, God opened the way for their return to Jerusalem.
It is analogous for some in the West today who, though they may have rejected the notion of God’s existence, finding themselves in a world that has lost its way, turn to God with a cry for help. Psalm 107 suggests that God in his mercy can use our distress to awaken us to the real cause of the mess the world is in. It’s not simply because one group has used their position and privilege to abuse and oppress others. It is because we all have an evil propensity within us.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wrote: ‘If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?’
Captivity.Darkness, the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons portray a further aspect of Israel’s exilic experience. It is also a metaphor for our fallen state. Refusing to acknowledge God and learn from him, humanity prides itself in its wisdom and its ways: They had rebelled against the words of God, and spurned the counsel of the Most High (Psalm 107:11).
Malcolm Muggeridge wrote that men and women are …imprisoned in a tiny dark dungeon of the ego, which involves us in the pitiless servitude of the senses. So, imprisoned and enslaved, we are cut off from God and from the light of his love. In our narcissism, hate becomes more dominant than love.
The great news of Psalm 107:14 is: God brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and burst their bonds apart… The even greater news is that through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we learn that God’s nature is always to have mercy and that his passion is to rescue and restore us. In the words of Psalm 107:15: Let us (them) thank the Lord for his steadfast love, …
Sickness. A further scene portrays a self-inflicted sickness, because perversely, people refused to learn from the wisdom of God. An example today could be drug-addiction. In our foolishness we turn our backs on the God who is there. But again, when men and women turn to God asking him for help, he not only hears but responds: He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction (Psalm 107:20). God is willing to love and to serve the unlovely – even at great cost to himself.
Storm-tossed. The fourth scene portraying the plight of God’s ancient people, and humanity’s, shows our smallness in the face of the huge forces of nature – the power of the winds and seas, and the seismological shifts of the earth. Derek Kidner comments: ‘we live by permission, not by good management’ (Psalms, 73-150, p.386). Once more the people of Psalm 107(:28-29) cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. Furthermore, he made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.
Reading these words we share the astonishment of Jesus’ disciples when, at a word, he stilled the wind and the tempest of the waters on Lake Galilee. ‘Who then is this?’ they asked (Luke 8:24-25).
Psalm 107 concludes with illustrations highlighting God’s majestic power and justice. The desert and the farmland (vv.33-38), point us metaphorically to God’s inward and outward blessing – and our need for a humble and contrite heart. The psalm concludes focusing our attention on God. It is he who raises up the needy out of affliction and makes their families like flocks. The upright see it and are glad, and all wickedness shuts its mouth. Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord (Psalm 107:41-43).
Thanksgiving calls for our repentance and our heartfelt gratitude to the wonderful God who in his love claims us. Karl Barth said: Grace evokes gratitude like the voice of an echo. Gratitude follows grace like thunder lightning.
You may want to pray – A General Thanksgiving:Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give humble and hearty thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all people. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life. But above all for your amazing love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.
And we pray, give us that due sense of all your mercies, that our hearts may be truly thankful and that we may declare your praise not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving ourselves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory, now and forever. Amen. (AAPB, 1978)
It is often said that there are two certainties in life – death and taxes. Psalm 90 speaks of a far greater certainty that Western society is rapidly overlooking – the everlasting God. Lord, you have been our dwelling placein all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God, the Psalm begins (90:1-2).
In the same way that Isaiah 40 paints a big picture of a majestic God, so in broad brush strokes verse 2 of the Psalm speaks of the magnificence of the Lord God: He is the everlasting One. Unlike his creation which is subject to constant change, God’s very being, his essence, remains the same throughout eternity.
Written by Moses, who is spoken of as ‘the Man of God’, Psalm 90 is possibly the oldest Psalm. A prayer for wisdom, the opening lines express an assurance that God has been the dwelling place for his people throughout all generations because he himself exists in eternity – he is from everlasting. As the psalm unfolds the significance of God being our dwelling place becomes clear: without God, we are truly without a sure home.
But God’s majestic eternal nature opens up three themes we need to consider: our transience, the depth of our broken relationship with God, and our need for mercy.
Transient. You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!” For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers (90:3-6).
Compared with God, from whose perspective a millennium is but a day, our life is brief. Like new grass we flourish one day and are gone the next. Yet ironically, we tend to live as though we will live for a thousand years.
John Calvin comments: ‘Although we are convinced from experience that men and women… are taken out of this world,… yet the knowledge of this frailty fails in making a deep impression upon our hearts , because we do not lift our eyes above the world’ (Calvin, Psalms).
Broken. The psalm seems to move abruptly to the theme of God’s justice and anger. But there is a logical flow – from the theme of God’s eternity to our all too brief life-span. Drawing from Genesis 2 and 3 Moses refers to the way we were designed as the glory of God’s handiwork and yet we became the shame of his creation. The shadow of death now hovers over us all (Genesis 3:19).
Verses 7 and 8 tell us: For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. Again, this is not said out of bitterness or anger: it is the reality. We have justly brought God’s condemnation upon us. So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom, must be our prayer (verse 12).
Within us all, there is an awareness of eternity. Augustine, the 5th C Bishop of Hippo said, “God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.”
Mercy. The concluding verses become a prayer for God’s mercy. With a boldness that reflects the opening line of the Psalm, Lord, you have been our dwelling placein all generations, Moses prays that God will reverse our situation. In verse 3 he had echoed God’s words to humanity: You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!” Now his prayer is that God will turn back (return) in mercy towards us so that we might live (verses 13-17).
Acknowledging the reality that life is not easy for anyone, Moses boldly prays for a reversal of life’s experience in verses 14 and 15: Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.
The New Testament reveals how God has opened a further dimension in answer to this prayer. In 2 Corinthians 4:17 we read: …This slight momentary affliction is preparing us for aneternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Corinthians 4:17). Outwardly we experience pain and suffering now, but inwardly, through the Holy Spirit working within us, we begin to taste the glory and joy of eternal life.
The unbelieving world whose eyes are glued to the material things of life, will not understand how God’s people cope with life. But God’s people press on because we have the power of Jesus’ resurrection at work within us. We see that the troubles of this world are like a drop in the bucket compared with the greatness of the glory to be revealed.
Moses’ prayer concludes: Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands! (Psalm 90:16-17). Certainty. We have it in Christ the Lord.
It seems that many today in the West are searching for identity – be it in terms of race or ethnicity, gender or orientation. And an outcome of this quest can be guilt and fear, deceit and anger.
In our changing ‘identity-seeking’ world, it is easy to feel the pressure of doubt and the darkness that it can bring. It’s therefore encouraging to meditate on what the Psalms tell us about where our true identity can be found. Let’s consider Psalms 42 and 43 – the two psalms that form the beginning of Book II of the Psalms.
The writer had been forcibly taken from his home city of Jerusalem into exile – probably at the time when king Jehoash of the northern kingdom of Israel, defeated king Amaziah of the southern kingdom, Judah (2 Kings 14:14).
As a deer pants for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God… Psalm 42 begins. The imagery of a deer desperate for flowing water, not a camel or wild animal, introduces the pathos of the psalm – a yearning for the living God. God seemed as remote as water in a desert. Any talk of joy and peace seemed futile.
Far from home and from the temple in Jerusalem where it seems he had led the worship, the writer asks three times: Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you so disquieted within me? (42:5, 11; 43:5).He was depressed, disturbed and vulnerable in his relationship with those around him. They taunted him with the haunting question that we can hear today: “Where is your God?” (42:3)
Many of us know what it is like to move away from the comfort and security of family and friends, or to lose our job or watch someone close to us suffer. A good part of how we respond will depend on whether we believe that a good and loving God has not only made us in his image, but has also rescued us. This understanding will affect our spiritual awareness and our sense of identity – as is happening in these two psalms.
The Psalm writer points us to the beginning of a solution when he says: I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? (42:9). As with most experiences in life, we need to begin by admitting our feelings to God, even asking him questions. This requires honesty and courage.
Furthermore, we learn that we need to address our inner self, our soul. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a renowned 20th century English preacher wrote: ‘The main trouble in this whole matter’ of feeling downcast ‘is that we allow our Self to talk to us instead of us talking to our Self.’ The psalm-writer’s soul has been depressing him, crushing him, so he stands up and says, ‘Soul, listen! I will speak to you: “Hope in God; I shall again praise him, my help and my God”.’ We mustn’t allow the taunts of others or our own feelings to dominate.
Throughout these two psalms we see the movement from darkness, to admission, to self-exhortation, and then to prayer: Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people, the writer says; Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me… (43:1, 3).
Confident in God’s love and mercy, he is assured of the day when, again filled with joy, he will sing songs of praise to God. Psalms 42-43 urge us to move beyond believing things about God, to actually sensing God’s living presence, whoever we are, and whatever our situation in life.
The one true God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, is the source of our true identity – not our race or gender, not our social status or political disposition. Our true identity is grounded in God who is our maker and our redeemer.
When we have this assurance ourselves then we can begin to communicate it to family and friends around us.
Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher wrote: ‘Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is just to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show them that it is’.
It is worth our while considering Psalm 19 which CS Lewis regarded as ‘the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world’ (Reflections on the Psalms, p.56).
The Psalm begins: The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world (19:1-6).
The Psalm speaks of God’s witness to himself in the ever-repeating pageantry of the sky, day after day and night after night. And, as day follows night, they pour forth speech. Although there are no spoken words, these elements of the universe of themselves speak of a God of order who has taken the initiative to put the universe into existence. The very nature of these elements reveal not just the existence of God, but his eternal power and glory.
The opening lines of Psalm 19 tell us that no one can say, ‘I never knew about God.’ ‘Look around you,’ the writer says. In St Paul’s Cathedral in London, an inscription to its architect, Sir Christopher Wren reads: ‘If you are looking for a monument (or testimony), look around you.’
God’s Law. Suddenly, without warning, Psalm 19 speaks about God’s Word (Law):The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple; … (19:7).
C.S. Lewis points out a thematic connection. Just as the heat of the sun reaches everywhere and pierces everyone with its power, so God’s Law is like the all-piercing, all-detecting sunshine. The words of verse 7 are key to understanding the Psalm.
The Psalm-writer uses images showing his delight in God’s Law; it reveals God’s good and pure will, is sure and morally right. ‘True’ in Hebrew has the idea of holding water. God’s Word (Law) is dependable and trustworthy. It revives andleads to wisdom.
Sweetness. So the writer can say – or perhaps, sing: More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb (19:8).We might say this of God’s grace and love, but Psalm 19 speaks thus of God’s Word (Law).
The Psalm is telling us that in God’s revelation we find truly stable, well-rounded directions for living. God’s Law, God’s truth, answers big questions for us about life and lifestyle.
The nations surrounding ancient Israel were pagan. Yet too often God’s people succumbed to the temptations of their neighbors’ religion with its sacred prostitution and child sacrifice. It was only when God provided a wake-up call that their hard hearts were softened and they saw again how appalling these practices were.
Reflection. The Psalm-writer considers his own life before God: Moreover by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. But who can detect their errors? Clear me from hidden faults (19:11).
‘Nothing is hidden from God’, the writer says. He notes that our sins can be hidden to us because they are often part of us (19:12-13). However, in the same way that nothing is hid from the sun, so God’s truth searches all the hiding places of our blinded hearts.
C.S. Lewis’s comment on Psalm 19 speaks into our lives and our world: ‘In so far that this idea of the Law’s beauty, sweetness or preciousness, arose from the contrast of the surrounding Paganisms, we may soon find occasion to recover it. Christians are increasingly living on a spiritual island; new and rival ways of life surround it in all directions… None of these new ways is yet so filthy or cruel as some Semitic paganism. But many of them ignore all individual rights and are already cruel enough. Some give morality a wholly new meaning which we cannot accept; some deny its possibility. Perhaps we shall all learn, sharply enough, to value the clean air and “sweet reasonableness” of the Christian ethics which in a more Christian age we might have taken for granted’ (Reflections, p.57).
In recapturing the ‘exultant sweetness’ of God’s truth, we can show an unbelieving world around us more effectively what Blaise Pascal suggested – namely, we can make our faith ‘attractive’ and so make others ‘wish it were true, and then show them that it is’.
The starting point is with you and me. So, to conclude with the Psalm: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
In our social media driven world that gives voice to ‘my’ feelings one question surfaces: ‘Who or what are we?’
Shakespeare’s Hamlet put it this way: What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! (Hamlet, II.ii)
Interestingly Psalm 8 paints a picture of the insignificance yet the greatness of humanity framed by the words: O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! Between these bookends, the Psalm explores the meaning of God’s majesty together with the meaning of humanity.
Despite the late Stephen Hawking’s pronouncement that ‘science makes God unnecessary’, from the outset the Bible is clear: In the beginning God created heaven and earth… And Psalm 8 speaks of God’s majestic glory throughout creation: When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; (8:3)
Insignificant? Awakened to the greatness and majesty of God, perhaps as the writer looked up at the night sky and saw the myriad of stars etched against the darkness, he voices his response, speaking of the work of the fingers of God. And as he reflects, we can feel the question exploding in his mind, ‘What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?’ (Ps.8:4)
When we honestly reflect on this weighty evidence, we will be even more amazed that the God who put it all together is interested in us, let alone cares for us. For the question of verse 4 is not a question about human greatness but about how something so small and insignificant in the universe could be raised to greatness.
Indeed, Stephen Hawking raised this question in his A Brief History of Time where he wrote: ‘We are such insignificant creatures on a minor planet of a very average star in the outer suburb of one of a hundred billion galaxies. So it is difficult to believe in a God that could care about us or even notice our existence’.
To which Dr. H. Fritz Schaefer III replies: ‘My response to that statement by Hawking, and to others that have said this over the years, is that that’s a silly thing to say. There isn’t any evidence to date that life exists anywhere else in the universe. Human beings, thus far, appear to be the most advanced species in the universe. Maybe God does care about us! Where Hawking surveys the cosmos and concludes that man’s defining characteristic is obscurity, I consider the same data and conclude that humankind is very special’ (Stephen Hawking, The Big Bang and God).
Dr. Schaefer’s words reflect the words of Psalm 8:5-8 where we read: Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
Greatness. In creating us God has placed us only just under the position of the heavenly beings. His intention from the first was to invest in us a royal sovereignty, crowning us with glory and honor.
Psalm 8 takes us back to Genesis 1:26: Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
These words were God’s words to Adam. But as Genesis 3 tells us, we who are the glory of God’s handiwork became the shame of his creation. Because we have failed to honor him in our lives, we lost the perfect dominion he had given us. But, in God’s mercy that is not the end of the story. Psalm 8 is not just a statement of wonder: it is also prophetic.
As we look back with our New Testament glasses on we see that God has potentially restored our rule or dominion through Jesus Christ – the second Adam. Jesus who was and is, man as man is meant to be, set aside his power and glory, and taking on human form gave up his life, thereby conquering the power of sin and death. Now crowned with glory and honor, Jesus will crown all his followers with the same honor and glory.
CS Lewis commented: ‘There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization–these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit-immortal horrors or everlasting splendors’.
