The laws of physics say that what goes up must come down. You pitch a rock into the air and right away it comes down with a thud. Hendricks throws a football in a long arc out over the New York Giant defenders and knows that it will come down, he hopes into the hands of Monk or Clark or Sanders who in turn are pretty likely to come on down themselves, thanks to Lawrence Taylor. What goes up must come down.
Except, sad to say, where gasoline prices are concerned!
And so last week as we worked our way through the 147th Psalm together, we looked at the up side. We found that there were several places at which God’s upbuilding activity was laid out.
We saw that first of all, our God builds up, that He builds up those who feel that they have nothing to offer, that He builds up the nobodies until they become somebodies. God builds up.
And then we saw together that our God binds up; He binds up the wounded and heals their hurts. And we thought quite a bit about how wounded many of us are, but that our God has bound up those wounds and has made us sympathetic to one another, has made us compassionate for one another. God builds up and binds up.
And then we also saw that our God builds us up and binds us up so that we can share in His greatest work, lifting up the oppressed and the downtrodden. There are countless thousands of folks who feel oppressed and beaten, but our God wants these tear-filled eyes to be lifted up in hope, our God wants these tired faces to be lifted up in trust, our God wants these crushed personalities to be lifted up in confidence. And so we learned last week that the reason God has built us up as a church and the reason God is continuing to bind up the wounds of those of us who experience the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune – the reason for that is that He wants to use us to lift up those whose needs have not yet been met.
That was the up side of the 147th Psalm: built up, bound up, and lifted up.
But what goes up must come down. And there is a down side to all of this upbeat stuff I gave you last week. There is a down side, a negative side; and it is that in a world of tremendous need, those of us who have been built up and bound up, if we do not lift up, are going to experience judgment, God does not suffer gladly those of us who have received from Him and do nothing with it.
And so this morning I am going to call your attention to the down side of Psalm 147, and I call it "cast down, scattered down, sent down."
I highlight these verses for you: "The Lord lifts up the downtrodden, he casts the wicked to the ground. He gives to the beasts their food, and to the young ravens which cry. He makes peace in your borders; he fills you with the finest of wheat. He gives snow like wool; he scatters hoarfrost like ashes. He casts forth his ice like morsels; who can stand before his cold? He sends forth his word, and melts them … He has not dealt thus with any other nation."
The image endures and still gets laughter from my family every time we tell the story. Several years ago we were in Ocean City at a
restaurant, one of those that features an all-you-can-eat salad bar. You’ve seen those many times. The thing that was different about this place was that, since it was near the beach, and people tended to want to take their food back out on the sand, this restaurant offered Styrofoam plates on which you could build your salad and then carry it out.
My wife, my children, and I sat and watched in astonishment and then in horrified amusement as one lady, already built to somewhat generous proportions anyway, constructed what has to have been the world’s most ample carry-out salad. On top of the usual bed of lettuce went great heaps of veggies, several ladles of potato salad and pasta, and a couple of dozen olives. Next countless croutons, a big bag of bacon bits, and chock full of cheese.
Clearly such a concoction needs something to lubricate it and, in fact, needs a glue to hold it together, and so on top … well, you’ve seen those pictures of Mount Fuji in Japan, with snow crowning the peak and flowing down the sides? Imagine that with blue cheese dressing! The thing was about eight inches tall by now.
Ah, but you haven’t heard the best; you haven’t heard the part that still sends my family into peals of laughter. When this piece de resistance was completed, this dear soul capped her creation with yet another Styrofoam platter, pressed it into place, and went her merry, waddling way as out from the sides dropped bunches of broccoli and globs of glop, all over the floor.
For me, that picture endures as a reminder of the American habit of consumption. We build ourselves up, we fatten ourselves with all we want; we do not ask, "what do I need?" in an honest way. We ask only, "what do I want?" and consider that it is our right to have all we want whenever we want it. Small wonder, when I think of that spectacle in Ocean City, that Americans complain about subsidies to the poor and about assistance to Third World nations, and then turn around and spend upwards of $5 billion each year on special diets to battle the calories and the cholesterol!
But, I say, whatever goes up must come down. And today, on this World Hunger Sunday, I have to wonder whether we have built up a standard of living and a pattern of conspicuous consumption that must inevitably come down. Let me put it even more forcefully: is it not possible that today our God is judging us and bringing us down because we have so long been invested in being up? Is it not possible that our God is beginning to express the down side to those of us who thought we had the right to be up, climb up, and live it up?
I
After all, the Scripture does remind us that this is what God does whenever He lifts up the oppressed and the downtrodden; He also casts down the wicked. Psalm 147, verse 6: "The Lord lifts up the downtrodden and casts down the wicked to the ground." Where we left off last week.
Our God is a judging God as well as a merciful God. Our God does not suffer evil to go without His attention. And His justice is sure. The Lord lifts up the downtrodden and casts down the wicked to the ground."
Go back to ancient Egypt; stand on the banks of the Reed Sea. Hear the cry of the people of Israel, "Pharaoh has made us slaves. Pharaoh has forced us to build store cities for Him, but will not feed us. Pharaoh is keeping everything for Himself and is pressing us hard." Hear the cry of the people and see God’s response; He lets His people go, but Pharaoh and his army He has thrown into the sea.
"The Lord ·lifts up the downtrodden and casts down the wicked to the ground."
Wherever there are those who have been oppressed, there is an oppressor. And our God will not forever allow the oppressor to stand; those who take from God’s children, those who work against God’s will, those who take food from the mouths of God’s little ones, I believe will sooner or later experience His judgment. For whenever the Lord lifts up the downtrodden, at one and the same time He casts down the wicked to the ground.
In world where perhaps as many as a billion people live in absolute poverty, where do we as a nation get the right to use up a vast share of the world’s resources? In a world in which the best estimate is that 400 million people are so undernourished that they have suffered irreversible brain damage, how long can we justify using up huge amounts of energy and effort just to power our own luxuries? Somewhere, somehow, a just God will judge, lifting up the downtrodden and casting down the wicked – the gluttonous, the selfish – casting them, us, down to the ground. No accident that in the Bible story I’ve just mentioned, the children of Israel were building store cities for Pharaoh, places where he could bank everything he’d received, store it up, all for himself his people, but not for these poor starving slaves of his. No accident at all.
But the witness of the Bible is clear. The oppressor is judged. The glutton does not live to use up his stores. The wicked is cast down.
II
In fact, the Psalmist has an especially appropriate image for this judgment. The psalmist gives us a glimpse of the chilling judgment of God on our greed. "He gives snow like wool, he scatters hoarfrost like ashes. He casts forth his ice like morsels; who can stand before his cold?"
"He scatters down frost like ashes. He casts down his ice like morsels; who can stand before his cold?" This image the psalmist uses to remind us that when the judgment of God comes it’s like a long, harsh winter, in which we become aware of how uncomfortable life can be. When the judgment of God comes, it is like a frosty, icy season, and we can hardly stand it. We can hardly stand it because we have been so used to comfort and warmth and the capacity to have whatever we want, that when it’s not available we panic.
A few weeks ago our president sent troops to the Middle East, responding to naked aggression on the part of Saddam Hussein. Most of us, if we did not exactly applaud that, at least felt we understood. A great power cannot let a small nation be pushed off the map without responding. And we had the backing of much of the world.
But now some other elements are coming out. Now some are finding other motivations for being in the Gulf region. Some are talking about fighting to preserve cheap oil. Some are speaking about preserving our ability to consume and about bolstering our consumption-driven economy. Some are even suggesting that a cynical military and an even more cynical arms industry are pushing this in order to improve their profits.
Friends, I don’t know. I don’t pretend to be a political analyst, able to discern all these things. And you don’t want that from me anyway. But I must say, on the basis of the word of God, that if that is why we are there, then I have to wonder whether our God will ultimately scatter frost like ashes, and we are going to feel the cold, we are going to deserve to feel the cold, because we cannot forever take, take, take, without paying the price for it all.
To put it bluntly, if we are in the Middle East to protect freedom, to restore a sovereign nation, and to stop aggression, all right: then let us pray the blessing of Almighty God on that enterprise and let us continue to pray that it will be done without bloodshed.
But if we are in the Gulf region to prop up the oil companies, if we are there to maintain our luxury, if we are there to stimulate our economy with an infusion of military spending, if we are there to divert attention from the lasting needs of the hungry and the desperate, then hear the word of warning from our God; hear about the lean, chilly times to come: "He scatters hoarfrost like ashes. He casts forth his ice like morsels; who can stand before his cold?"
And I would not want one drop of American or Saudi blood or, for that matter, Iraqi blood to be shed so that my Ocean City lady can feed her habit and package it in Styrofoam, all you can eat for $2.49! When God judges our selfishness, it will be to send us a lean, cold message: you can’t have it all any more. "He scatters down frost like ashes; who can stand before His cold?"
III
But, praise God, this is not the last word. This not the end of the story on the downside. Yes, God has built us up. Yes, God has blessed this nation and this people. Yes, God has given us riches and blessings and abundance beyond compare. And God has given even more.
When I think about God casting down our wicked consumption, and when I reflect on God scattering down some pretty lean, mean times, I must also remember that God is gracious, God is redemptive, and God wants to do something more.
Here it is in His word: "He sends forth his word, and melts them (that is, the ice and the frost) … He sends forth His word, and melts them. He has not dealt thus with any other nation."
The one great inexhaustible resource we have as a nation is the spiritual energy that comes from listening to the word of God and responding to it. The blessings of God are measured not only in amber waves of grain – they will run out – but also in an abundance of I, insight, in a free church that proclaims truth, in a people whose minds are unshackled and who can understand the Scriptures. The one great inexhaustible resource we have as a nation is the spiritual energy that comes from listening to the word of God and responding to it.
And so this morning I’m looking on the downside of current events, yes, but I am looking in the last analysis at what God sends down as His greatest gift, that lively word that calls us to obedience, calls us to new life, calls us to be good stewards, calls us to give and to share, calls and keeps on calling us. And the Scripture says, "He sends forth, sends down, his word, and melts (all that chill, all that doom and gloom). He has not dealt thus with any other nation."
Oh my fellow Americans, God has privileged us as a nation. We must not allow that to turn into judgment and anguish. We need to lead our nation to invest more in food, more in development in the Third World, more in education, more in the things that build up God’s people, so that His word can melt the chill that is cast over so many people’s lives.
And my fellow Christian, God has privileged us as a people. We must not allow that privilege to turn into self-righteousness and self-centeredness. We must invest more in missions, more in ministry, more in others, or else we will find that, building storehouses, when we try to keep our money and our properties and our programs all for ourselves, they will turn out to be chilly and icy and unwelcome. But we can open our hearts to the word our God sends out, that word that tells us that he "gives to the beasts their food and to the young ravens which cry", that word that reminds us that we cannot expect to hear his well-done unless we have fed the hungry and clothed the naked and comforted the sick and the imprisoned. But we can open our hearts to that word, and the downside will not come. Judgment will not come.
Yes, our God casts down the wicked; yes, our God scatters down the chilly frost on selfishness; but, praise God, he also sends down His warming word and calls us to feed a hungry world with bread and with love.
