Psalm 95:1-6
Topic- Bow Down
There was this rap group called the Westside Connection that was based out of Southern California. The Westside Connection had a popular rap song that was entitled, “Bow Down.” In this particular song(Bow Down), the Westside Connection raps about when they were to come to your town, you ought to bow down. They say that you ought to bow down to them as rappers because they said they were the hardest rappers around. They said that you ought to bow down to them because they said all the ladies loved them, that they made the most money in the rap game, and because they had what you called a superstar status. The Westside Connection also said in their song that if anyone did not bow down to them, they would be crushed and defeated.
Also there was another rap artist that went by the name of KRS-ONE. KRS-ONE made a statement on a show on BET called the “Teen Summit”, and the statement that KRS-ONE made was very disturbing. KRS-ONE told the young people on “Teen Summit” that it did not make sense to him to worship a god outside of himself. He felt that if he was going to worship God, it made sense to him to become what he was going to worship. That is, KRS-ONE said that if he is going to worship God, then he is going to become a god himself. That is, if he is going to worsip God, then he is going to worship himself because KRS-ONE said that he himself is a god.
Now in the light of what the Westside Connection raps about in their song, “Bow Down”, and what KRS-ONE had said about worshipping himself as a god, the question is, “What does the bible says about bowing to man, and bowing to oneself as a god?
Well, in Exodus 20:1-6, this is what God told Moses to tell the nation of Israel as he is telling us the same thing today. In Exodus 20:1-6, God says, “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them; for I , the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.”
And also the Lord says in Leviticus 26:1- “Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear ye up standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it; for I am the Lord your God.”
You see, when a person bow down to another person such as to another man or another woman, friend, boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife, children, relatives, neighbors, celebrities, famous athletes, famous rap stars, or when a person bow down to anything such as a stature, picture, poster, cars, house, money, sex, drugs, alcohol, job, or whatever…………
When a person bow down to another person, or bow down to anything, but yet does not bow down to the Lord God Almight, that person has committed the sin of “idolatry.” Idolatry is a sin when you bow down and worship a person or anything beside the Lord God Almighty himself. And idolatry is a sin that God hates because when you worship someone or something more you worship God himself, not only do you make God angry, but you make God jealous because God is a jealous God, and He will not share His glory as God with anyone else. That means, not only shouldn’t we bow down or worship anybody or anything beside the Lord God Almighty, but we shouldn’t worship ourselves as God because it is God who made us, and created us, and it is God who deserves all of our worship and praise.
Psalm 100:3 says, “Know ye that the Lord he is God; it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.”
And the Lord says in Isaiah 42:8 that “I am the Lord; that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.”
You see, God is not going to share his glory with anything or with anyone else, including ourselves, because God is God all by himself and there is no other God beside him. In Isaiah 40:18, there is question that is being asked and the question that is being asked goes like this: “To whom then will ye liken God, or what likeness will ye compare unto him?”
You see, in the sport of basketball, you can compare Lebron James with Michael Jordan
In the sport of baseball, you can compare Barry Bonds with Hank Aaron
In the sport of football, you can compare Michael Vick with Donavan McNabb
In the world of Rap music, you can compare Snoop Dog with Ja Rule
In the world of R&B music, you can compare Anita Baker with Jill Scott
In show business, you can compare Denzel Wahington with Jamie Foxx
In Comedy, you can compare Steve Harvey with Cedric the Entertainer
In politics, you can compare President Clinton with John F. Kennedy
But when it comes to God himself, you can’t compare anybody with God, because He is the only one who created this universe. He is the only one who can make a cow eat green grass, and that same cow produces white milk, yellow cheese, and yellow butter.
God is the only one who can make a donkey talk, walk in fire and not get burned, make a sea dry land to walk on, make water come out of a rock, walk on water like it is a sidewalk and not drown, heal the sick, raise the dead, give sight to the blind, and hearing to the deaf, make a cripple man walk straight, cast out demons, feed 5,00 with just two fishes and five loaves of bread, and the list goes on and on because the God I am talking about is totally AWESOME!!!!!!! And because God is AWESOME, He is worthy to be bowed down to and worshipped.
The reason why we should bow down, and worship God only, because it is God who woke you up this morning. It is God who blessed you to have food to eat. It is God who gave you clothes to wear. It is God who gave you shelter over your head.
Yes, we ought to bow down and worship God because it is God who healed you when you were sick. It was God who delivered you when you were in trouble. It is God who blesses you to work on a job to earn money to pay your bills and provide for your family. It is God who blesses you to do well in school. It is God who answers your prayers. It is God who makes a way out of no-way.
Oh yes, we ought to bow down and worship God because He is our Creator, our Heavenly Father, our Deliverer, our Healer, our Provider from which all of our blessing flow……
And because it is God who has blessed us with many good and perfect gifts, God is worthy to bow down to and to give worship and praises.
Psalm 95:1-6 says, “O come, let us sing unto the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let is come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hands are the deep places of the earth; the strength of the hills is his also. The sea is his, and he made it; and his hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our maker.”
And if God is to be bowed down to and worshipped, then we ought not bowed down to Allah, Mohammad, Confucious, Joseph Smith, or Rev. Sun Moon because none of these people can save you.
But yet, one must understand that you cannot bow down and worship God without worshipping Jesus Christ because when your worship Jesus Christ, you are worshipping God; for Jesus Christ is God. He is God in human flesh. He is one with the Father, and the Holy Spirit in the Holy Trinity.
John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word and the word was with God and the Word was God.”
And in John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us( and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.”
You see, Jesus was the Word that was with God in the beginning and is God because Jesus is one with the Father. Jesus says in John 10:30, “I and my Father are one.” And in I John 5:7 says, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word(Jesus Christ), and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one.”
And because Jesus is God in human flesh, He is to be bowed down to and worshipped. Not only should we worship Jesus Christ because He is God in human flesh, but we ought to bown down, and worship Jesus because He is the Savior of the world, He is Lord, He is the Son of God, He is the Bread of Life, He is the Good Shepherd, He is the Lilly of the Valley, He is the Bright Morning Star, He is the Resurrection and the Life, He is the Prince of Peace, He is the King of Kings, He is the Lord of Lords
Last, but not least, yes we ought to bown down and worship Jesus Christ because it is He who died on the cross for our sins,and rose from the dead with all power in his hands. And in Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
