FAR ABOVE ALL

Psalms 96-99 speak of God coming to judge the world, just as Enoch foretold before the flood, and just as our Lord Jesus Christ Himself prophesied.

Psalm 96 reads, “Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth … for he cometh to judge the earth”, and Psalm 97 begins, “The Lord reigneth”. Clouds, darkness, fire, lightnings and earthquakes declare the intervention and presence of God, “the Lord of the whole earth”, vv. 2-5. This is the language of faith; soon it will be the language of sight also.

Today the kingdom of God is the moral and spiritual realm in which souls bow the knee to God’s appointed King, the Lord Jesus Christ, Rom. 14. 17. It is a sphere of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, into which we enter by being “born again” (from above), John 3. 3-5.

The prophetic psalms speak of the kingdom set up in manifest glory and power when Christ returns. Here the call is, “Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols: worship him all ye gods”, v. 7. The word “gods” is often used in the Psalms of those “in authority like judges to whom we pay respect and homage”. It is amazing today that the hearts of millions are still set on their idols, whether carved or molten images, or the imaginations of self-centred hearts. According to the psalm, an idol is something that we regard so highly that we boast in it. An idol is someone or something that takes the place that the living God should have in our interests, affections and reverence.

After the mention of Jehovah, the Eternal One, and the warning against idolatry, comes the exhortation, “worship him all ye gods”, v. 7. However great the dignity of the creature, it is not to be compared with the dignity of Him who is “exalted far above all gods”. Worship is the bowing of the heart as well as the bowing of the knee, Eph. 3. 14. It includes both service and boasting.

“Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve”, Matt. 4. 10.