O God
O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.
Psalm 71:17-18
Psalm 71:17-18 contains a clear proclamation of our purpose here on earth – to proclaim God’s might and power to the next generation. But if we are to proclaim God and His power and might to everyone who does not know Him, we must first know who He is. The psalmist proclaims that God taught him from his youth about God’s wondrous deeds. Do you see how God is doing the same for you?
Scripture reveals God’s many amazing attributes in a variety of ways. In Genesis 1 we see God as the ultimate Creator speaking things into existence, existing before time, outside of time. In Genesis 2 we see God communing with humans, caring for them, providing them the blessing of occupation, sharing His existence with them, and even after they rebel, providing for their needs.
In Exodus 3 God reveals His name to Moses saying, “I am who I am… thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14). The name I am is loaded with significance. God is. He is eternally being. He is who He is, always. He does not change. He has eternally existed, and He will exist forever in the future. He sees all. He knows all – He knows everything that has already happened and everything that will happen.
In Exodus 7-12 we see the plagues of Egypt showing God’s power over and continued involvement in creation. We also see spiritual warfare and God’s superiority over Egyptian gods as each plague attacks the domain of a specific Egyptian god.
In Job 38-39 we see God respond to accusations against Him and, speaking through a whirlwind, present Himself as superior to humans and creation and everything in it in every possible way. He alone designed creation and implemented the design. He alone designs snow, rain, hail, lightning, thunder and every form of wildlife. By presenting the intricacies of His almighty power, He implies the question – who is any human to question me?
Isaiah 55 picks up this thought. Through Isaiah, God says,
Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:6-9 (ESV)
Through the course of the Old Testament, we see God as beyond our ability to comprehend. Our intellect is too limited to understand, and our language is too limited to communicate His awesomeness. But even with our limited abilities, we see His love, mercy, provision, and His judgment and wrath, and on occasion we see Him appear in physical form on earth, foreshadowing Christ Jesus’ first coming to earth.
We also see God acknowledge the existence of other gods, and He urges people to worship Him alone because no other is worthy of worship. After wandering in the wilderness for forty years, as Moses prepares the Israelites to enter the Promised Land, he quotes God reciting the Ten Commandments beginning by saying,
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. Deuteronomy 5:6-7 (ESV)
YHWH reminds His people of His mighty acts of deliverance from Egypt – the plagues, the parting sea, and everything else – and acknowledges that other gods exist and that people might choose to worship them and He urges them to refrain from that temptation. He is essentially saying, “Remember who I am and what I have done for you, and know that I am with you now and I will continue working on your behalf. Trust in me and nothing else.”
Throughout Scripture we see God speak through His people acknowledging the existence of other gods and our temptation to worship them, reminding us that He alone is worthy of worship because of who He is. For example, here is a passage from Isaiah 45:
For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me. I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things. Isaiah 45:4-7 (ESV)
God reminds His people who He is and calls Israel by name. While we are not Israel, we are God’s adopted children through Christ Jesus. Through Christ Jesus we have every right to claim His promises and He reminds us that He knows each of us intimately, He equips us, He has all power to do anything and everything, and no other god is comparable to Him. We can never forget who God is. If we focus on Him and who He is, worship will necessarily follow. It is impossible to see His holy grandeur, power, love and wrath and respond with anything less than awe, worship and possibly fear.
Other places in Scripture carry this thought a step further by naming other gods who are capturing people’s attention. Like a shiny lure, they distract people from God. Like with the plagues of Egypt, God contrasts His authority, power and might with other gods who people choose to worship. At the end of 1 Samuel 4 we see an episode when the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant from Eli. In the next chapter, they carried the ark to the temple of Dagon in Ashdod and set the ark next to a statue of their god Dagon. The next morning, the Dagon statue was lying face down on the ground next to the ark. Temple workers restored the statue to its original position, but the next morning it was once again lying face down on the ground next to the ark. This time, the head and hands of the statue had been severed and placed on the threshold. God then afflicted the people of Ashdod with tumors, and they ultimately sent the ark away with a guilt offering to appease God.
God revealed His authority, power and might to the Philistines, He is mightier than Dagon and every other god, and He demonstrated that no other god is worthy of worship. He created all things in the heavens and on earth. Nothing in creation is comparable to the Creator. There truly is none other like Him. He is without comparison. He alone is God almighty, the holy divine Creator of everything. He alone is worthy of worship.
In Isaiah 46, God refers to two Babylonian gods by name – Bel is a reference to the chief Babylonian god and Nebo refers to Bel’s son:
Bel bows down; Nebo stoops; their idols are on beasts and livestock; these things you carry are borne as burdens on weary beasts. They stoop; they bow down together; they cannot save the burden, but themselves go into captivity. “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save. Isaiah 46:1-4 (ESV)
Through Isaiah, God points out that these other gods are unable to even carry themselves. They are housed in statues made by men, relying on animals to transport them. In contrast, God carries us. We were carried by God before birth, and He continues carrying us now and throughout our lives. He created each of us and He carries us, and He saves us. How could we possibly worship another?
Way back in Genesis 3 we see humans desiring to be like God, listening to and believing demonic voices questioning God’s trustworthiness, and in their minds, lifting themselves higher than they are while reducing their perception of God to something far more human-like than He is. God created us in His holy image, but in their imagination some manipulate their vision of Him by recasting Him into an image of their design. By reducing God’s awesomeness to something like us, like just another created being, we lose our sense of awe, fear and worship, and this opens the door for us to begin worshiping other gods.
Brothers and sisters, please do not fall into that trap. Satan is a worthy adversary. Please do not underestimate him, but know always that so long as Christ Jesus dwells in you He bestows upon you authority over the enemy (see Luke 10:17-20, Mark 16:16-18, Colossians 1:13). You are not alone. He is with you, carrying you, sustaining you, empowering you.
Throughout the Old Testament we see God’s people lose their focus on God and begin worshiping other gods. They fall for the lie. God’s chosen nation whom He calls to be a holy nation, set apart as an example so others will know Him (see Exodus 19:5-6), started worshiping other gods almost immediately after God handed the Promised Land to them. As you know, Joshua succeeded Moses and lead the Israelites into the Promised Land (see Deuteronomy 31 and Numbers 27:12-23). Joshua saw the plagues in Egypt, he saw God part the sea, he saw God provide for His people every step of the way through the wilderness, and so long as Joshua lived God’s people focused on God. And after Joshua died, while the elders who outlived Joshua were still alive, God’s people continued worshiping God. However, after the elders died, God’s people strayed and started worshiping other gods including Baal (the lead Canaanite god) and Ashtaroth (a Canaanite goddess) (see Judges 2:6-15). Beginning then and continuing through the Old Testament we see God’s people time and time again straying from God and worshiping other gods like Baal and Ashtaroth.
How could they possibly do that? The only way is they forgot who God is. This happens if we lose our focus on God and fail to tell the next generation about Him. Every generation is at risk of this. I have heard it said that Christianity is continuously one generation away from extinction.
So the psalmist declares, “So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come” (Psalm 71:18). We must keep our focus on God and declare to everyone around us who God is, proclaiming to every generation God’s power to all those who come. May you continue pursuing God and His holy calling. Amen.