In Romans 8:39 Paul wrote that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” What are these forces arrayed against us? In yesterday's study we looked at trouble, hardship and persecution. As we continue with this list, remember that all these forces, though powerful, will bow before the presence of our God.
Sometimes Christians are accused of being unrealistic about life, as if it were nothing but a bowl of cherries for them, but that was not true of Paul. When Paul wrote in Romans 8:39 that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" he was not closing his eyes to reality or shutting his ears to the hostile and destructive forces that surround us. On the contrary, he opens his arms to these forces and invites them to come forward, saying nevertheless that they will never defeat God or succeed in detaching us from his love in Jesus Christ.
What could possibly have caused such disturbances in the natural course of nature—the sea to part, the river to reverse its flow, the majestic peaks of Sinai to tremble? This is what the third stanza of the psalm asks rhetorically:
Why was it, O sea, that you fled,
O Jordan, that you turned back,
you mountains, that you skipped like rams,
you hills, like lambs?
Although it is true that no other nation has ever been constituted a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, there is a people that has, and that people is the church, the people of God. The reason for it is the same, namely the presence of God in our midst. Do you remember how Peter referred to it in his first letter? Thinking of Exodus 19:6, and possibly Psalm 114:2, Peter wrote of the church, "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light" (1 Peter 2:9).
A person who is not familiar with the psalms might suppose that they are very much alike. But as I have worked my way through a careful study of them, the thing that has impressed me most is how unique each psalm is. Some are sad; some are happy. Some deal with national defeats or victories; some are entirely personal. Some deal with sin, others with praise, still others with trying to find the right way in confusing situations. And their structures vary too. Some are lengthy rehearsals of past historical events. Some are short. Some are acrostics. Some are lyrical. Psalm 114 is a little masterpiece.
