It’s amazing how many manufacturers warn their customers to watch out for other, lesser products. Whether it’s an automobile manufacturer urging the use of only OEM parts because replacements may not have the same strict standards of quality or the American Egg Board calling us to “accept no substitutes,”[1] most of us realize that there are products out there that claim to be just as good as the original at a cheaper cost, but prove to be worthless or even harmful. In Psalm 115 the Spirit of God gives us a similar warning: not all gods are created equal, and in the end we become like what we worship.
The psalmist begins with a plea that God would notice what his enemies are doing (v. 1-2). He isn’t so much worried about being proven right—he’s not looking for glory for his name, but he wants everyone to know what kind of glorious God the LORD is. The nations surrounding Israel are pressing in, and as it appears that they are unstoppable, we can imagine the sneer: “So where is their God? If He’s the Maker of heaven and earth, why are we able to trample the people called by His name? Has He fled from our gods?” We’ve heard this mocking call before. In Psalm 42 the sons of Korah had God’s apparent absence rubbed in their faces, and later Jesus Himself would have it cast in His face: “He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if he will have Him” (Matt. 27:43). Many of the early Christians were put to death on charges of atheism because they denied that the gods with statues were real, and put up no statues of their own; how could they possibly believe in a God they could not see?
But Psalm 115 gives the reply. “But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.” No matter that we cannot see Him face to face, or touch Him or carry Him around. He rules above the heavens, above the heaven of heavens, and nothing can stop Him. He’s the real God, because He makes all things happen, and tells what will happen beforehand. Isaiah picks up this theme, as the LORD repeatedly dares the followers of idols to see what their gods can do:
Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods; yes, do good or do evil, that we may be dismayed and see it altogether. Indeed you are nothing, and your work is nothing; He who chooses you is an abomination (Isa. 41:23-24; the same theme runs from 41:21 to 48:22 and beyond).
So how does the competition stack up? They are made by people (Ps. 115:4), while God made men and women. They have mouths, eyes, ears, noses, and hands, but they can’t speak, see, hear, smell, or feel—they are truly senseless. Their beautifully shaped hands can’t carry or crush, can’t reach or rescue. They may have feet, but someone has to carry the poor things through the streets and prop them up in their temples—not like the God who walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden, the one who saved His people out of Egypt by His outstretched arm, the one whose eyes miss no sin and whose ears miss no faint cry for help. These “gods” can’t even mutter or gurgle their commands or their desires (v. 7b); they have to hope someone comes along to speak on their behalf. Compare that to the God whose voice made darkness light and set Sinai trembling! Will we chase after such counterfeit gods? “Those who make them are like them; so is everyone who trusts in them” (v. 8)—those who chase after useless gods will find them useless; those who count on dead gods will end up dead.
What shall we do then? The call comes in verses 9-11: “Trust in the LORD; He is their help and their shield.” Whether it is the house of Israel, or the high priests of Aaron’s line, or all the worshipers singing this psalm together, the only sane response to seeing that imitation gods are worthless is to run to the one and only true God—our help and shield. We ought to be mindful of Him, because He has been mindful of us; He has blessed us, and will continue to bless us as we trust Him (v. 12-16).
As the psalmist points out that the dead do not praise the LORD (v. 17), we hear echoes of Psalm 6:5, but with a vital change. In Psalm 6, David is asking that God protect him so that he can keep praising God. But here, in light of verse 8, the psalmist warns that the spiritually dead—who will end up eternally dead in the judgment of the second death—are those who don’t praise God, but those who praise Him will live forever to do so (v. 18).
As I write this, it’s Good Friday, and Christians all over the world have their attention returned to the cross. And in the cross we have an astonishing application of Psalm 115. The God who is in heaven, the LORD whose name is glorious, came down out of heaven, took on a physical mouth, and eyes, and ears, and nose, and hands, and feet. He talked through a throat with air from physical lungs that the God who is spirit had never used before. He walked, and touched, and saw, and ate. And then those hands were nailed to an executioner’s beam, and He slowly suffocated, slowly became dead like those who trust false gods. The one and only God, the one and only Man who had always faithfully trusted His Father the true God, died for the sake of idolaters. But because He entrusted Himself fully to the Father, and because God always keeps His promises, on the third day Jesus stood back up, alive forever, able and ready to continue blessing His Father forevermore. It is through Him that we, too, are given eternal life to know and love God forever. Trust Him and live—and accept no imitations!
Grace and peace, Mike Yates
[1] American Egg Board website. Accessed 6 April 2012 at < http://www.aeb.org/food-manufacturers/egg-nutrition-and-trends/accept-no-substitutes>. And for the record, I’m not making any claims here pro or con on automobile parts or eggs versus egg substitutes.
Sounds just likea chapter out of a book I have been reading the last few days. The Body by Chuck Colson. In Chapter six in the city of Odessa, Russia was raised during the tine Nikita Kruschev was in power and wanted the country to not believe in the Bible but to accept atheistism as a way of life but God called this ten year old to grow up to be a christian and to be bold in her adult years to bring the christian messge to her peers. Very interesting reading.
It is amazing to me how God calls us out of the darkness all of us were hiding in and offers us a better God than atheism, or money, or whatever we were counting on–Himself. Thanks for your comment, and for the book recommendation.
[…] idols. Here the psalmist turns to one of the classic statements of the pointlessness of idols, Psalm 115, to remind us that nothing created rises above its creator; gods made by men remain helpless, […]