War and Peace

DEVOTION

PSALMS

WAR AND PEACE

Ps 120

120:1 A song of ascents.

I call on the LORD in my distress, and he answers me. 2 Save me, O LORD, from lying lips and from deceitful tongues. 3 What will he do to you, and what more besides, O deceitful tongue? 4 He will punish you with a warrior's sharp arrows, with burning coals of the broom tree. 5 Woe to me that I dwell in Meshech, that I live among the tents of Kedar! 6 Too long have I lived among those who hate peace. 7 I am a man of peace; but when I speak, they are for war.

NIV

This is one of fifteen psalms which all bear the title of “A song of ascents”. Some of them include “Of David”. Our scholars have determined these were song by the priests as they ascended the fifteen steps into the temple. It always amazes us how men of the present age can know exactly what men some two, or more, thousand years ago did. We do have historians such as Josephus who lived in the same general period from 37AD to 100 AD and wrote about those times. He was a Romano-Jewish scholar and historian born in Jerusalem and died in Rome. So maybe he made this observation about the fifteen steps and each song for each step. Although this has nothing to do with the content of the song, we just find that it is interesting to note. Who are the lying lips and deceitful tongues the psalmist seeks an answer from the Lord and for the Lord to save him from? It seems the intent of lying lips and a deceitful tongue is to create some form of slanderous falseness about the psalmist. Who can fight against slander? Slander may be the worse form of gossip and it would seem there is no defense against it. We can try to explain away this slander by refuting it and explaining we did not do or say what was said about us, but it is still out there and as gossip is can spread faster than the truth, we simple must resign ourselves to seek the Lord to save us from that slander. It may take some time, but he will punish such lips, such tongues, and such hearts. What comes out of the mouth comes from the heart. As far as the woe about living in Meshech and among the tents of Kedar, may be situational only to the psalmist. In the Hebrew, Meshech refers to the descendants of the son of Japheth, the grandson of Noah. They lived in the northern territory of Israel somewhere around what is referred to as Magog. The Hebrew word for Kedar means a son of Ishmael. To the psalmist these would be foreigners, none true Jewish peoples. There is a representation to the world we live in today. The peoples we dwell among are not real believers in Jesus Christ. They and their world are foreigners to us, they do not speak our language or have the same beliefs and customs we do. How long, O Lord must we dwell among the tents of the wicked? That would be a modern transcultural translation. How long do we have to put up with the slander about Christianity? How long do we have to endure being accused of having a closed mind, or as one ex-governor once slandered us believers by saying that Christianity is simple a crutch for weak-minded people. How long do we have to live among those who are enemies of God and all that he stands for? They slander his word, our word, and our testimonies with lies about equality toward all faiths, that America is no longer just a Christian nation, as one ex-president so stated. The world does not see Christianity as the only truth and thus they slander its validity and our unwavering faith in Jesus. How long will the Lord wait to punish such impertinence, such rudeness, such unbelief? They speak of world peace, the ever spoken mantra of candidates in beauty pageants. But they do not want peace, they want to demolish Christianity from all public forums. They war against God and his word. They war against faith in God for faith in man. They declare man is greater, he has more power in his environment then God. They are a warring peoples who use slander, lies, and falsehoods as their weapons. But we are a people of peace, for we have been given the peace of Jesus. We do not war against them, we do not slander them, we have compassion on them, and we want them to see the light of truth, to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus. We have been told and believe we should pray for them, even as they slander us. Although we live in a world war, we are a people of peace.