Introduction
The
phrase, In God We Trust, has been
part of American history since it was first believed to have been used as a
battle cry during the Civil War at the Battle of Antietam in 1862. It was
approved to be included on our currency in 1865. The phrase became America’s
official national motto in 1956 when then President Eisenhower signed it into
law in opposition to the Soviet Union which promoted state atheism. The motto
was reaffirmed as late as 2011 by the House of Representatives in an almost
unanimous vote. I have no doubt that there was a day when most people here in
America actually believed it. But now it seems more like a memory or the memory
of a memory. Our country is going through tremendous turmoil at the moment as
our political leaders frantically scurry from one lie to the next in order to
retain their power and influence. Greedy corporate executives and power-mad union
bosses are caught in the turmoil of trying to keep their power, influence and
fortunes as they try to navigate the treachery of allying with corrupt
politicians. And all the while, the principle of servant leadership has been
lost as the lives of the people these political, corporate, and union leaders
are supposed to protect and care for are damage or destroyed. And what is truly
sad is that so many of those people put their trust in the very people who have
hurt them. What happened? The same thing that has happened in all of history—Adam
and Eve had God and paradise yet they trusted the Serpent and that was the
beginning of humanity quickly trusting in everything but God. It is a recurring
theme throughout the Bible that people invariable turn from God and put their
trust in other people or the institutions created by those people. Israel
constantly vacillated between putting its trust in earthly rulers; Egypt (Isa
30:2) or Assyria (2 Kings 16:7) or even a king of their own choosing (1 Sam
8:5; see “We Want A King” at: http://seredinski.blogspot.com/2012/08/we-want-king.html).
And always it ends the same way—in cries of oppression, pain and suffering from
the people being ruled. Some things never change; to this day people are ruled
by leaders who have no interest in the well being of the people but only the
advancement of their own interests. Yet they have managed to convince the
people to trust them; that they will be taken care of. And what follows is a
whirlwind of deception, corruption and personal destruction. Even though
America has adopted In God We Trust
as its national motto, it’s hardly a new concept. Its message is scattered
throughout the Scriptures as a reminder; as a map; as a compass always pointing
us toward God. Let’s look at one of them this week and use it, not just as a
reminder, but as encouragement.
Subject Text
Psalm 146:1-10
1Praise the LORD. Praise the LORD, O my soul. 2I will praise the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. 3Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save. 4When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing. 5Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God, 6the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them—the LORD, who remains
faithful forever. 7He upholds the cause of the oppressed and
gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets prisoners free, 8the LORD gives
sight to the blind, the LORD lifts up those who
are bowed down, the LORD loves the righteous. 9The LORD watches over the alien and sustains the
fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the
ways of the wicked. 10The LORD reigns forever, your God, O Zion, for all
generations. Praise the LORD.
Context
Like
many of the other 150 Psalms, this Psalm is anonymous which makes it difficult
to place in the timeline of Israel’s history. Psalm 146 is the first of five
Psalms referred to as the “praise collection” which include Psalms 146-150.
You’ll note that each of them begin with “Praise the Lord” which is where the
collection gets its name. A few scholars attribute our Subject Text to David but there really isn’t any substantive
evidence to support that position. Others attribute Psalm 147 and 148 to Haggai
and Zechariah and the return of the exiles in 538 BC to Jerusalem after the
Babylonian exile. They therefore include Psalms 146, 149 and 150 in the authorship
grouping because of their literary and theological similarities. It’s not an
unreasonable assessment but there really isn’t any concrete evidence to support
that position either. Nevertheless, we are able to draw a theological principle
from the “praise collection” generally and from our Subject Text more specifically that we should praise the Lord for
his sovereignty over all creation and reject the impulse to ignore the
fallibility of humanity and its institutions.
Text
Analysis
This
Psalm is included in the “praise collection” because v. 1 begins with “Praise
the Lord.” Would you like to know the Hebrew phrase for this? It’s Hallelu Yah.
Hallelu is the imperative verb instructing hears to praise and Yah is the
shortened version of God’s name in Hebrew—Yahweh. If you say it as one word,
you’ll probably recognize it immediately as something that you yourself may
have said before. That’s right, it’s—Hallelujah!
We
are mistaken when we think that we praise God only with our voices. There is a
praise that is hard to explain; a praise that may be expressed with voice but
comes from deep within us. More often it is praise that can’t be expressed in
words no matter how hard we try. It’s an eternal praise not an earthly praise.
True believers know this praise although I suspect that not one of them would
be able to explain it to you. It’s a praise that comes from the soul; a praise
that speaks to God with silent words of reverence, love and adoration in the
context of a personal relationship with the Creator of all things. I’m sure I
can’t be the only one that has experienced singing praises to God and suddenly
being unable to continue because the words just can express the depth of my
love for Him. This is the sacred place where the soul sings praises to God. 17th
century minister John (James) Janeway, on his deathbed, said: “Come, help me with praises, yet all is too
little. Come, help me, all ye mighty and glorious angels, who are so well
skilled in the heavenly work of praise! Praise him, all ye creatures upon
earth; let everything that hath being help me to praise God. Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Praise is now my work, and I shall be engaged in this
sweet work now and forever. Bring the Bible; turn to David’s Psalms, and let us
sing a Psalm of praise. Come, let us lift up our voices in the praises of the
Most High. I will sing with you as long as my breath doth last, and when I have
none, I shall do it better.”[1]
Some people think that once a person reaches the point of
belief in God, everything thereafter is rainbows and butterflies as my daughter
would say. But nothing could be farther from the truth. It is so easy to praise
God when the waters of life are smooth but there is a very real danger of
turning away from God when the waters get rough. If the context of our Subject Text is the return of Israel from the Babylonian exile, then v. 2
is not spoken during the smooth waters of life. It’s not like the Israelite
were away on vacation, their nation was conquered by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar
who burned all the major buildings including the temple to the ground. The
Israelites came home from their exile to a pile of rubble and ash. This is when
faith in God becomes real, when continuing to believe is hard. When God is just
as important in our lives in good times and in bad, then we can say with the
Psalmist that we will praise God all our lives. “How to praise God adequately
was a challenge that was met in…a promise of endless adoration…sang the soloist
in Ps 146:2.”[2]
There’s an interesting dynamic that occurs in Scripture
that you have perhaps observed yourself. God never warns us about something He
doesn’t already know humanity will struggle with during every generation. And
He gives us just such a warning in vv. 3-4 when he says that we are not to put
our trust in “princes” who are members of sinful humanity destined to pass away
like the rest of humanity. Whoops! How many have forgotten this warning? The
psalmist refers to “princes” but the principle translates easily to any
governmental structure. But let’s not stop there. This principle extends to any
person or organization in which we place our trust. This is not to say that we
should never trust anyone; a certain amount of trust is necessary in order to
function within the context of any society. However, what the psalmist is
trying to warn against is putting our full faith and confidence in humanity or
structures created by humanity to do for us what; 1) We can and should do for
ourselves, and 2) What only God can do for us. “It is a bad idea to rely on
human beings, on leaders. ‘In the book of Psalms and in the Bible as a whole,
wickedness is essentially a matter of trust.’ The psalm does not specify what
sort of leaders it refers to, and Israel’s experience would provide evidence
for interpreting it in the broadest of senses. It is unwise to rely on imperial
authorities, the leaders of other local peoples, or leaders within Israel or
Judah…‘Rich power brokers, perhaps also heathen despots, radiate a deceptive
power,’ but these leaders ‘have the mark of death on them.’ They may not belong
to the faithless or come short in social or moral values. But however upright
they are, leaders lose their breath…When human beings die, their deliberations
die with them. The plans to effect deliverance get nowhere.”[3]
Instead,
the psalmist says in vv. 5-6 that we are blessed when God takes care of us and
we put our hope in Him. These verses are in direct opposition to the previous
verses. Where humanity is wicked, God is good. Where humanity is selfish, God
is selfless. Where humanity hates, God loves. Where humanity takes advantage of
the less fortunate and the weak, God protects and sustains the disadvantaged. Where
humanity is unfaithful, God is faithful forever. Where humanity is constantly
changing and shifting with the winds of public opinion, God is like a rock and
the same in all circumstances and at all times. And why should we put our
ultimate hope and trust in God? Because God is the Creator (“Maker”) of all
things and if anyone knows the workings and machinations of all of creation, it
is the Creator. “God alone can save us, in contrast to the important people of
this world, who cannot and would not even if they could. God saves us from our
enemies…and ultimately from all human calamities and from sin through the work
of Jesus Christ. Not only does God save us, but he remains faithful to us after
he has saved us…We persevere because God perseveres with us…The faithful remain
faithful to God because God is faithful to them.”[4]
“In
ancient Israel, maintaining social justice was an inescapable royal duty (Ps
72). Even so, responsibility to protect the vulnerable extended beyond the king
to become the obligation of every Israelite; when justice was not done, both
felt the wrath of the prophets…condemnation for failing to do justice falls
upon ruler and ruled in equal measure.”[5]
Nevertheless, the sinful affects of humanity are inescapable. God is the only true
source of faithful help. Because sinful humanity is marked by selfishness and
the systems and organizations of the world are inevitably headed by leaders who
are sinful, God fulfills the role left vacant by sinful humanity. God takes up
the cause of those who are oppressed; He is a relentless advocate of the most
vulnerable among us; He provides for those in need; he breaks the chains
(figuratively) of those who are imprisoned by the actions and systems of a
sinful world; He opens the eyes (figuratively in this case) of those who are
blind to the truth that God is the only one that can be trusted; and God is the
one with the strength to carry those who no longer have the strength to go on.
“The references to…victims of various afflictions and socially marginalized are
descriptions, in part metaphorical, of their contemporary weakness in
political, economic and other areas.”[6]
Vv. 7-9 depict God as the One we should turn to as our Protector, Provider and
Savior, not sinful humanity or any of the world’s sinful organizations or
systems. “Yahweh, whose nature is faithfulness, is ever the answer to the
covenant people’s needs…Yahweh lives up to the highest ideals of kingship as
the source of justice and vindication, giving food and freedom and the blessing
of wholeness. The defenseless can find in Yahweh their royal champion…Such was
the experience of the community of Israel from generation to generation. To
Yahweh they have brought such needs, and from Yahweh they have received
resources in return; so to Yahweh must praise be given back.”[7]
The
final v. 10 includes a triumphal statement that it is God who reigns forever
despite the appearance of our immediate circumstances to the contrary. And the
Psalm ends with the same imperative that it began with—Hallelujah—Praise the
Lord. “One will note with attention to the movement of praise from ‘my God’ [v.
2] to ‘his God,’ [v. 5] and finally ‘[your] God, O Zion!’ The theological
outlook embraces the passion of the individual, extends itself to the holy
people, and crowns this ascension with the hope of universal worship in the
presence of the eternal King.”[8]
Application
Many
of us expend considerable energy everyday contemplating the best way to
navigate the obstacles placed in our lives by corrupt business and political
leaders. We are often frustrated when their corruption creates hardships for us
and/or our loved ones. However, in all our consternation and anxiety, we tend
to forget that God is still on his throne. We are angry and frustrated with
corrupt leaders and organizations because we trust and depend on them to do for
us what only God is able to do for us. We are angry and frustrated when sinful
people sin and hurt us! I know it sounds a little ridiculous when I say it that
way but be honest, isn’t that what we do? This week, let’s try something
different. This week before we become angry, anxious, frustrated or fearful in
the face of sin and corruption, let’s instead do as the psalmist did and praise
the Lord. Take a copy of our Subject
Text and keep it with you to read
throughout the week. When a sinful, self-prioritizing world screams, ‘I can
give you everything you need!’ or whispers in your ear, ‘Trust me I’ll take
care of you,’ take a deep breath, praise the Lord for his faithfulness, and remind
yourself that it is In God We Trust.
Treat yourself for a moment and click on the clip below and close your eyes and
just listen (if you can do that without joining in).
[1]
Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David,
(Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publiscations, 1968), p. 672.
[2] Willem
A. VanGemeren, New International
Dictionary of Old Testament Theology & Exegesis, Vol. 1, (Grand Rapids,
MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1997), p. 1036.
[3] John
Goldingay, Psalms, Vol. 3, (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), p. 709.
[4]
James Montgomery Boice, Psalms, Vol.
3, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998), p. 1261.
[5] Mark
J. Boda and J. Gordon McConville, eds., Dictionary
of the Old Testament Prophets, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2012), pp.
724-725.
[6]
Leslie C. Allen, Psalms 101-150—Word
Biblical Commentary, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2002), p. 379.
[7]
Ibid.
[8]
Samuel Terrien, The Psalms: Stophic
Structure and Theological Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2003), p. 911.
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