FOREVER IS THE LORD
Psalm 92: 4-8
|
A PRESBYTERIAN PSALTER - by Pastor Max A Forsythe |
Time was when our farm lands in Central Ohio were much more tidy and weed free. As amazing as it may seem, there was less of a problem with weeds when small farmers managed their scarce acreage to maximize the profit potential. Weeds were seen as real rivals to the minimal productivity of the more naturally grown crops. So it was that farm families who once lived closer to the soil that produced their wealth took weed control far more seriously than is likely today. The favorite method is one that I shared with my children when they were growing up.
I was reminded of that method when I saw several garden varieties of a popular holiday shirt that read HO3. When I asked one of my students what she was doing with a gardening shirt in the middle of December, she seemed mystified. And she really got confused when I told her that I understood the implied message of what you had to do for a successful garden: hoe, hoe, hoe!
But no more mystified than were my sons in the middle of a hot summer when I explained that Santa Clause method of hoeing down the weeds! Since we had a large population of thistle's I offered to pay a nickel apiece for those that were dug out and burnt before they went to seed. By two year's hard work and the regular pasturage of our sheep flock, our ten acres was virtually thistle free for a few short years.
You know there was a real joy to see the solid fruits of hard work on the farm during those years when our few acres were at their peak of production. Beef, lamb, eggs and garden filled our freezer and pantry to overflowing. That memorable satisfaction reminds me of the satisfaction mentioned by our Psalmist in our five short verses for today:
For you make me glad by your deeds, O Lord;
I sing for joy at the works of your hands.
Think of the far greater vastness of the Lord's ordering of this, His universe. The great gardener and greater astrologer has created visions of beauty in field, forest, mountain and even in the distant galaxies of space. How memorable are the hymns of Christ's Church when they celebrate the visions of grandeur set before us by our Creator God. We by comparison are content with a small yard with several dozen plants, or a few acres of well ordered environment. Did you know that if all of the yard space in this country were gathered together into one lawn, it would barely be larger than the state of Virginia? Try as hard as we might, we have yet to subdivide and subdue the earth to our liking. We have to let the farmers and the government manage the rest of our land. And what of the oceans and mountains, deserts and tundra.
God alone is left with substantial portions of this planet under the control of His animals and agents. If I may, I simply want to compare the best lawn care techniques of our suburban culture with the far greater responsibilities of our God and king.
How great are your works, O Lord, how profound your thoughts!
And in those words we make a greater transition from works to thoughts. Have you been struck as I have this last fall with the absolutely immense concepts shaped by the mind of our God and given to us in a mere ten commandments? Every layer of meaning, every observation of the depths of depravity to which we have sunk are perceived and admonished in the great vastness of God's profound thinking! Perhaps you would like to have been left ignorant of the challenges of the Law of God. Perhaps you would rather not admit how far and wide you have strayed from the beauty of holiness - our Christ?
Would we really rather be ignorant savage pagans? A popular science-fiction movie was made about ten years ago. When a minister of the gospel went to witness to the leader of the Aliens, the Alien leader destroyed him on the spot because she would rather be innocent from knowing the law of God. Well does the psalmist see the secret desires of our human hearts:
The senseless man does not know, fools do not understand,
We have only to look around us in our culture. The vast majority, even of the church, do not see the depth of sin to which mankind has fallen. Not only do the vast majority not appreciate the great works of our God in heaven, neither do they appreciate His righteous holiness, nor their own depravity. Do you think that ignorance is bliss? I saw a bumper sticker on the way home from Presbytery yesterday. It's message was very simple. How would you like your ETERNITY: smoking or non-smoking? Well does our psalmist appreciate the difference between his gladness and the hope of fools:
that though the wicked spring up like grass
and all evildoers flourish, they will be forever destroyed.
This is the reality that we like the psalmist must preach to every man, woman and child whether they mean to hear it or no. Just as the Lord God of heaven and earth has created all things, so will He order the material universe and time as well! One day, that great and glorious Day at the end of Time, Jesus will come again. And at His coming every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. What we see presently, is only a dim mirror of the more pleasant things of heaven.
Sadly, even our churches are corrupted that we can barely see a hint of the greater glory of the Lord. So dim is the present memory of the Church that we are barely brave enough to mention the hellish fury to be unleased forever upon those who know not our Lord! Yes, the wicked flourish, and we set back and envy it, wanting and even coveting the weedy growth. How little do we appreciate that all flesh is grass, the moments that we have are but fleeting and as the Lord speaks, we are no more.
But you, O Lord, are exalted forever.
Do you realize that is why you are here today? To exalt and lift up the Lord before His people. How many of you are old enough to remember Mary Martin in her most memorable role, when she played Peter Pan. The story was silly of course, the very idea that people could live forever as children has infected far too many of her fans. There was a scene in that television special of the fifties where, the tiny fairy Tinkerbelle was near death and Mary/Peter urged the audience to focus their minds on the pagan caricature imaged by special effects. If enough people imagined healing, then Tinkerbelle would grow stronger and stronger. Of course the plot allowed that image to appeal widely, and in similar themes a whole generation of newagers imagined that the gods and creatures of their minds depended upon their remembering.
How sad, that such false gods have so filled the minds of a generation that people actually think that our God is just as easily imagined. And if the reality of His existence is threatening, we only have to imagine Him differently and it is so! Far from that is the reality of our Lord and our God. The real triune God of heaven and earth is not fixed in space by the adoration of His subjects. Instead He is exalted by His own power, holiness and glory. All we have to do is realize that reality by the power of His Word and Spirit, then we can know beyond a shadow of doubt, that He is real, He is Lord and He will be exalted forever and ever. Amen.
|
|
Resources Used: |
|
|
Kidner, Derek. |
Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries: Psalms. | |
|
Spurgeon, C.H. |
The Treasury of David. | |
|
The Holy Bible, New International Version. International Bible Society (1973, 1978, 1984) | ||
|
Psm 092d |
11 January 98 | |