Psalms 137 – 139
Verse 137:6 reminds us to put God first:
Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy!
The psalmist is asking to be mute if he does not remember God and puts Him in into any other slot that first. How many of us can claim God is number one? I know I can say it, but when you look into my life and heart it appears that is not the case. God ranks high, but I often allow work, family or personal desires to push Him out of the way. I can easily justify it through scripture and say I am serving others or living life to the full as God intended, but I am pushing God to the side.
Verse 138:1 caught my eye, see if you can see why:
I give you thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart;
before the gods I sing your praise;
What struck me was the lower case “gods”. David is writing this and during his reign there are other nations who worship other gods around him. We assume the “gods” are idols and not real beings. Others postulate that these “gods” are the ancients that live for hundreds of years and therefore are not going to die like men. The other idea is they are actually angels and demons. Most of the ones being “worshiped” are considered demons, since an angel would deflect their praise to God. This would make sense that the “little “g” gods” are real since the Ten Commandments tell us to put no other “gods” before him in the first and deal with idols in the second therefore differentiating between the two.
Today we are less likely to acknowledge other gods outside of cults since most of the “gods” have been “science’d” out of our society. This may be the case for gods, but idols now take the form of clothes, cars, homes, spouses, and jewelry. But one could say the “Satanic” cults are doing what they need to do, pushing an agenda of materialistic things to overshadow their “gods” and the one true uncreated God, Jehovah. This makes us dismiss all gods as being figments of early man’s imagination.
Verse 139:8 also caught my eye for different reasons:
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
This is an interesting mention, since Sheol is often considered “hell” in many interpretations. The most common understanding is where all dead go, good or bad. If it is hell, God is there also according to this. Now think about it omnipresent does not mean he is everywhere except this place or that. No omnipresent means he is everywhere including hell.
Most faiths say we are separated from God through our sins and only salvation through Jesus will enable us to be in the presence of God. Now how could God exist in pure evil when he cannot be in our presence because we have not found salvation? You need to think about it, if God is omnipresent, than He is with all the pagans on earth as well. I believe the “wall of separation” is allowing us to enter the third heaven where God dwells.