Praise

I was studying for my lesson tonight and was cought with something today. I had read this many times and did not think of this, but for some reason it came to me today. In 1 Sam. 18:7 as Saul and David are returning from a campaign against the Philistines, the women came out and greeted them with a song--"Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands." Now, for me, there has never been anything wrong with this for me. I always looked at it as these people were showing their affection for he who had been anoited as the king of Israel (even though this was not common knowledge, I always assumed that the Lord was just giving the people affection for David, even if they were not sure why).

But today I saw something new in this verse. While I still see that God is preparing the peoples hearts to accept David as king and allowing them to lose their affection for Saul, I think there is more to this. Think of when Moses led the people out of Egypt. He brought them to a place where he then proceded to miraculously part the waters of the Red Sea. Moses had led the people through the Sea on dry land and had saved them from the hands of the Egyptions. But whom did the people give credit to for all that had been accomplished that day. Ex. 15 has the song that the people sang and then in verse 21 Miriam answers in agreement to the people, "Sing to the LORD for He is highly exalted." The people gave credit to He who truly deserved it--Jehovah, the Lord and Sovereign of all things.

But contrast to what the people claim as Saul and David return. Here they give credit to David for his ten thousands and Saul his thousands. No one gives praise to the true "hero". No one gives praise to God. He who had guided the rock that struck Goliath and knocked him down. The people worshiped and praised man over God.

Do we still do this today or are we better than the people in David's day? The answer is obviously that we are still guilty of this sin today. How often do we talk about the singers of songs and not the object of their songs? We give praise to the singer but not He who gave the artist their skill. We put up pictures of our favorite bands and pay a lot of money to go see them in concert and buy their CD's, yet we forget to give anything to our God who has supplied all that we have to us. It is He who owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

How often do we raise up the preacher and not who the object of his preaching is. I find myself doing this with my pastor. He is a spiritual giant to me. I look to him for guidance. I try to emulate him. I do this because I know that he is serving Christ with all that he has, but sometimes it is easier to follow in his footsteps than in the steps of Christ. Sometimes it is easier to look to him than to Christ. Sometimes it is easier to give him praise instead of God who is the only one worthy of our praise.

I am not trying to say that we should not support those who sing and preach about Christ. We definately should. I am not saying that we should not have spiritual leaders that we try to emulate. We definately should. But I am saying that we cannot forget that our praises should always be upon He who truly deserves it. Let us not forget our God. Let us not forget our Lord. Let us not forget our Saviour. May he receive all our praise.

In the service of Christ,

Chris