The Nation Whose God is the Lord

A long time ago when I was working my way through college, I spent several summers working at the Monsanto Chemicals plant in Lasalle, Quebec. I found working there pretty intimidating at first, because just 6 years previously, the plant had blown up, killing 11 workers. The part that had blown up was the part where I was working – the PVC plant.

There were all sorts of safety procedures in place around the plant. For example, there were safety showers at various strategic locations; each location was marked by a green light. If there was a sudden spill, and you found yourself covered in chemicals, you could run to the safety shower, pull the lever, and be doused with water. I never thought I’d ever have to use the safety shower.

Until one day when my partner and I had a very close call. The PVC plant made PVC in huge high-pressure reactor vessels. There were 4 of these reactor vessels, which we called “kettles”. Each was three stories tall and held several thousand gallons. Chemicals would be piped in, the mixture would be pressurized to about 250 lbs per sq. in. and then it would be cooked for several hours.

My partner and I had just finished cleaning out the interior of one of these reactors. We were down on the ground floor putting the dump valve back in place. The reactor across the room from us was being pressurized at the beginning of a new batch. All of a sudden there was a huge bang, and high-pressure jets of liquid PVC sprayed all over the room. One of them hit me right in the face. The thick rubber gasket on the dump valve of the reactor that was being pressurized had failed.

I found myself covered head to toe in this slimy white liquid, and I could barely see. The only thing I could dimly make out was the green light of the safety shower. So I stumbled over to it, pulled the lever, and stood with my face up under a refreshing deluge of fresh clean water. If the dump valve had failed fifteen minutes later, when the reactor had been fully pressurized, I probably would have been killed, or severely burned. As it was, I suffered no injuries.

The reason I tell you that story is that sometimes, in the process of living, we find ourselves covered in slime. We hear things, and read things that are frustrating; that are discouraging; that get us down. Pretty soon, we find ourselves losing our perspective. The “slime of bad news” clings to us, it covers us, and it blinds us – takes away our ability to see things clearly.

And what we need more than anything is a kind of spiritual safety shower – something clean and fresh and cleansing to clear our vision and restore our sight. Psalm 33 can be that for us, particularly when we have been thinking about the things that are taking place in Canada as a nation.

It would be easy to become discouraged about the spiritual trends we see happening in Canada today. Consider some of these statistics:

• Religious surveys show that only 16% of Canadians attend a religious service once a week. Some researchers believe that the actual number is closer to 10%.

• Over half (53%) of all Canadians attend a religious service once a year or less. 38% said they never attend.

• Only 15% of Canadians believe that there is one and only one true religion – which is about the same number as believe that there is NO true religion (13%). The vast majority of Canadians (66%) believe that there are many true religions.

• 44% of Canadians believe that there is a personal God. 37% said that there is some sort of spirit or life force. Only 6% believe in no god.

• Yet 1 out of every 3 Canadians said that God is very important in their lives, and 2 out of 3 take some time every day for a moment of prayer or spiritual meditation.

When it comes to what matters most in life…

• Canadians rate having a happy family life as their highest priority (55%), followed by good health (52%).

• The lowest category on the survey, with only 6%, said that being faithful to their religion was what mattered most in life.

From the survey handout What Matters Most in Life — Canada data.

Canadians say that they value family life as highly important. But consider the following statistics, which are taken from the 1996 census…

• There are 7.8 million families in Canada

• 27% are what we would call traditional nuclear families

• 47% are blended families (children do not share common parents)

• 14.5% are single parent families

• 11.5% are common law families

If present trends continue, by the year 2002 common law marriages will equal traditional marriages in the Canadian population.

• In 1998, 156,000 couples got married in Canada

• In the same year, 69,000 couples got divorced

• The divorce rate has actually declined slightly over the past few years, but this is probably because more couples are not getting married, simply living together.

It would be easy to get depressed and discouraged by such figures; to say that spiritually speaking, Canada is in pretty bad shape. But that would be the wrong response. That response would be solely on the basis of the trends, and not on the basis of the truth of God’s Word.

Let’s look at Psalm 33 to see what God has for us there.

We can divide this Psalm up into three sections:

1. Resolve – We should all praise the Lord (first three verses)

2. Reasons – Why should we praise the Lord? (middle of the Psalm)

   1. Because of his character

   2. Because of his creation

   3. Because of his control

   4. Because of his concern

3. Re-affirmation – We’re going to put our hope in the Lord (last three verses)

   1. Waiting in hope

   2. Rejoicing in heart

   3. Resting in love

1. We should all praise the Lord – v. 1-3

Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him. Praise the Lord with the harp; make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre. Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy.

Worship is the cure for all ills. You can’t truly worship God without being changed for the better. And if worshiping does not change you, it’s because you haven’t really worshiped.

There’s a great emphasis on worship these days. But I sometimes wonder whether it’s really worship that is going on because I don’t see a radical change in the people who are worshiping. Researcher George Barna says that the attitudes and beliefs and lifestyle of Christians in North America are pretty similar to those of non-Christians. So what difference is all this worship making?

Look at how the Psalmist tells us to worship. Look at the verbs he uses:

• Singing

• Praising

• Making music – with instruments, no less. There once was a time when people thought it was unspiritual to worship God with instruments.

• Playing skillfully – it is appropriate to worship God with excellence – worship is no place for being sloppy

• Shouting for joy (the KJV says “play skillfully with a loud noise”. There are some people who think that worship should be quiet and soft. But the Bible says it should be loud and strong!)

We are to worship God with our whole hearts – none of this apathetic, anemic, ho-hum worship that we sometimes see in church. I think that what’s happening in a lot of churches is that most of the worship is taking place on the stage and not in the audience. The people in many churches are just passive spectators, watching the worship team worship. But that’s not how it was meant to be!

The Psalmist says “Come on and sing, you righteous! Let’s worship God, you upright in heart.” If you know the Lord, then worship Him!

Now he answers the question “Why?” Why should we worship God? And he gives several reasons:

Because of his character… (v. 4-5)

For the Word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.

His Word is right and true. We’re living in a day when the concept of truth has been lost. This is a central feature of post-modernism. Truth is relative – what’s true for you is not necessarily true for me.

This shows up in the statistics about what Canadians believe – when it comes to spiritual reality, when it comes to finding the way to God, only one in six Canadians believes that there is one true way to God. Four out of six believe that there are many true ways, and the sixth Canadian doesn’t believe that there is any true way to God.

So it’s no wonder that our society and our families are becoming increasingly fragmented. We are trying to build a nation on the wrong foundation – on a foundation of sand.

When we abandon the truth of God’s Word, we have no basis for righteousness, for morality, for justice. Look at the decision that was brought down in the Scott Brockie case last week. The court said “We will decide what you can or cannot have a conscience about.”

Christians who are Canadians are going to have to be prepared to stand up and say “the Word of the Lord is right and true” and I’m going to build my life on it. That’s the only sure foundation for righteousness and justice. But look at verse 3 – it is also the only basis for love. The Word of the Lord expresses his character, and God is love. He is full of mercy and lovingkindness. The whole earth is full of his unfailing love. And when we look around us, we see that he loves us, that he provides for us, that he cares about us.

As Christians, we are to represent God’s character – and that means not only his justice, not only his truth, not only his righteousness, but his love – his care for people. In other words, we can’t become crabby Christians, or mean-spirited.

The man who prompted this week’s uproar over the pledge of allegiance in the U.S. is an atheist. He didn’t want his daughter to have to recite the pledge in school. Did you know that he has now received threatening phone calls from so-called Christians? This is not the way to show God’s love!

2. Because of God’s creation – v. 6-9

By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea into jars; he puts the deep into storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.

As I have been working on our series in Genesis, I have become increasingly sensitive to the fact that God is our creator. He is the great Master Designer of the Universe and all that is in it.

And I have become increasingly embarrassed, or taken aback, by the audacity of our claims to the contrary. Although there are many modern scientists who affirm the creative work of God, our modern scientific establishment, our media, and our educational institutions adamantly insist that all this came into being on its own – without any intelligent cause.

That, to me, must be the ultimate insult to God.

Just this week I was in our garden. We have a stand of perennial flowers called “sundrops”. (The scientific name is Oenothera fruticosa). I noticed that the bright yellow blossoms close up at night, and when they’re closed you can see the closing mechanism. There’s a little X-shaped pulley system that pulls the blossoms closed in the evening. Pretty ingenious! And we’re supposed to believe that it just evolved that way through trial and error.

God’s creative work is a reason to worship him.

His sovereign control is another reason to worship him – v. 10-11

The Lord foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.

This past year has been very momentous. The world has become a very different place since last Canada Day.

Many people look at the events of last September and say “Where was God when all that was happening? How could he let that happen?” Well, let me share a few thoughts on that…

What was God doing on September 11?

• He was evidently discouraging a lot of people from taking those four airline flights. Those four flights together had a capacity for over 1,000 passengers and yet there were only 266 people on board.

• To those passengers, God gave the ability to stay calm as the terrible events began to unfold. Not one of the family members who were called by a loved one on one of the hijacked planes reported that passengers were screaming or panicking in the background. On one of the flights God gave the passengers the courage and strength to overtake the hijackers and foil their mission.

• God was also busy creating obstacles and delays for many of the employees at the World Trade Center. After all, only around 20,000 were at the towers when the first jet hit. Since those buildings normally held over 50,000 workers, this was a miracle in itself. Many of the people who were employed at the World Trade Center told the media that they were late for work or they ran into traffic delays.

• And after the planes hit, God was holding up those two 110 story buildings so that 2/3 of the workers could get out. It was a miracle that the buildings didn’t come down as soon as the jets impacted. And when they did fall, they fell inward. God didn’t allow them to topple sideways into the surrounding buildings of Lower Manhattan, because countless more lives would have been lost.

• And in the midst of the disaster, God brought to the people of New York and Washington, DC and Pennsylvania a sense of unity, determination, and selflessness that have rarely been seen. Total strangers reached out and cared for one another, helped each other, and in some cases, even gave up their lives to save others.

No, God was not absent on September 11. He was there. He allows man to make choices – even the most evil of choices. Yet he actively works to thwart and foil the most evil schemes of men.

4. Another reason to worship God is because of his concern for us – v. 12-19

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose for his inheritance. From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind; his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth —he who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do.

No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save.

But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.****

Verse 12 refers to the nation Israel. They are the nation God has specially chosen for his inheritance, because they are the nation through whom the Messiah, Jesus Christ came.

But I believe that history has borne out that God blesses any nation that aligns itself with Him, that seeks to honour him, and that seeks, in turn, to honour His chosen people, the nation Israel.

And I look at Canada today and I only wish that our national leaders would recognize that.

Verse 13 goes on to say that God is concerned for all mankind – for all who live on earth. He’s watching us; he considers everything we do. We are significant to him. He didn’t create us to ignore us.

But we so often ignore Him; we try to live our lives as though God didn’t matter. We pride ourselves on our own strength, our own independence. And yet, not even the strength of a king with his army is enough to save us.

God has made himself responsible for us. He is the one we need to look to for our deliverance. Verse 18 says that “the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him”.

That expression “the eyes of the Lord” occurs 88 times in Scripture. Sometimes it refers to how God sees the evil deeds of men – and it is a warning to the wicked. God sees what we do.

But more often, the expression refers to those who have put their trust in God. And it is a message of hope and comfort. God sees us. He remembers us in our struggles and in our need. He “delivers us from death and keeps us alive in famine.”

So we worship God because of

1. His character

2. His creation

3. His control over events

4. His concern for us

And that leads us to the last three verses:

We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our hope in you.

No matter what happens in the rest of Canada; no matter what other Canadians decide to do – this is what we will do!

We will wait in hope. Not everything unfolds the way we think it should, but we will be patient.

Psalm 27:14 Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

Psalm 37:7 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.

Lamentations 3:24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”

We will rejoice in heart. Waiting in hope doesn’t have to be a grim, grit your teeth kind of experience. The Lord gives joy to those who wait on him.

Isaiah 40:31 those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

We will rest in his love. Look at that last verse:

May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our hope in you.