God’s Posse

“Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?”  Psalm 139:7

If any of you are like me, you enjoyed the old westerns that we used to watch on television like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Maverick, Wagon Train, etc.  Unfortunately, if Hollywood produced westerns for television these days, they would be filled with vulgarity, extreme violence, and other things that I don’t really care to watch.  The days of mere entertainment are gone, and we are subjected to woke agendas and the like.  Anyway, in those westerns, whenever desperados would rob the bank, the sheriff would round up a posse and head out after the bad guys to bring them to justice.  In case any of you are not familiar with a posse, it is a band of brave men, armed, and summoned with legal authority to hunt down criminals.  I think maybe we could use an old-fashioned posse in these days of runaway crime.

God has a posse, too.  His is made up of the Holy Spirit, angels, and even humans.  God can use whatever and whomever He desires in hunting down those He desires to punish or to bless.  In Jeremiah 23:24, there were false prophets who were telling the rebellious people of Judah that they could continue on with their idolatry and sexual sins because God wasn’t paying any attention to them.  The prophets claimed that God was so far away in heaven that He could not see what they were doing, nor would He bother to “head them off at the pass”, so to speak.  These prophets were like deists, those men and women who believe that God made the world, but then left it on its own.  If that was true, we would have destroyed ourselves a long time ago.  God asked these false prophets, “Am I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and not a God afar off?”  In other words, God was reminding them that nearness or distance had no bearing on His sovereign reign over mankind.  He also asked, “Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him?  Did not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD”.

King David, in Psalm 139, wrote about God’s posse.  Paraphrasing this Psalm, David said, “LORD, You know everything about me.  You know when I am down and when I am up.  You know what I am thinking.  You set the way before me, everywhere I go, and that makes me overwhelmed by Your care for me.  Where could I go, and You would not be there?  Heaven?  No, You are there.  Hell?  No, Your are there, too.  If I flew to the furthest ocean, You would be there.  Even there You would lead me and hold me up.  I can’t even hide in the darkness of night for Your light surrounds me.  Dark and light are all the same to you.

“LORD, You have been well acquainted with me even before I was born.  I praise You for the excellency of Your creation.  You designed the human body so marvelously.  My soul, too.  You had Your eye on me when I was a mere speck in the womb.  You have knowledge of my every step, even before I could walk.  How grateful I am that I am always on Your mind.  Your thoughts of me cannot be numbered.  If I could count them, there are more of them than grains of sand in the entire world.  When I wake up in the morning, You are still there.  I know You will destroy the wicked because they take your name in vain and say vile things about You.  Those that hate you I have no love for.  They grieve me and are my enemies also.  LORD, look into the deep recesses of my heart, search it out completely.  See if You can find any wickedness and help me root it out.  Lead me throughout eternity.”

David understood the immense value of a God who cared so much about him that He would not let him go.  God would send His posse after David when David slipped and erred because God loved him so much.  God loves us, too, and He will send out His posse to rescue us, help us in our troubles, and bring us back into the fold when we, like lost sheep, have strayed away into the enemy’s territory.  His posse may consist of the Holy Spirit nudging us to follow His direction, or unseen angels clearing a path for us, or other people to come along side us and help us with our burdens and comfort us in our sorrows.  God is never too far away that He can’t hear our cries.  When we have sinned, there is no place that we can hide that He can’t find us in order to bring us back to Him.  He is never too busy to spend time with us.  Since He never slumbers or sleeps (Psalm 121:4), we can call on Him any hour of the day or night.  It is good to know that God will never leave us or forsake us.  There’s not much in this old world that we can count on, but we can count on God.  He is good, all the time.