Psalm 115

“Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Your name give glory, because of Your mercy, because of Your truth. Why should the Gentiles say, ‘So where is their God?’ But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they do not speak; eyes they have, but they do not see; they have ears, but they do not hear; noses they have, but they do not smell; they have hands, but they do not handle; feet they have, but they do not walk; nor do they mutter through their throat. Those who make them are like them; so is everyone who trusts in them.” Psalm 115:1-8 (NKJV)

Whenever I teach a songwriting session at a worship conference, I begin by drawing a skeleton on the whiteboard, the type of skeleton that hangs on a steel stand as you find in a medical school.  I ask my students if any medical student believes a skeleton is an actual person.  Of course, they all say no.  Then I ask if we took surplus human organs, muscles, skin, and hair and affixed them properly to the skeleton so that it was equipped and looked like a person, would it then become a person?  Again, no.  That’s because a person isn’t a person without a soul.  Neither is a hit song a collection of words and ideas.  It must have “soul”.  Man can fashion a very convincing idol, but it will never be a real god.  As long as it depends on you, it can never save you.  The apostle Paul articulated this very idea at Mars Hill.

“Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, ‘Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.  Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.  And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, “For we are also His offspring.” Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.’” Acts 17:22-31 (NKJV)

Many people at Mars Hill laughed when Paul spoke of the resurrection.  But the psalmist of Psalm 115 addressed it as well.  

“The dead do not praise the Lord, nor any who go down into silence. But we will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Praise the Lord!” Psalm 115:17-18 (NKJV)  (see also: Luke 20:37-38)