PRAISE BENEFITS THE UPRIGHT

PRAISE BENEFITS THE UPRIGHT
Psalm 33:1-2 : "33:1 Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous. Praise befits the upright.
33:2 Praise the Lord with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings. "

Many stories in the Bible were written in different genres. Many of them are wisdom literature, occasionally using artificially created stories for teaching purposes, having sometimes metaphorical meanings using spiritual speculations. In some other religions we call them myths, in the Old Testament we call them a part of the divine revelation.

In the book of The Genesis chapter 3 we can read a story, that in the beginnings the first humans lived in a Wonder garden called Eden, where it was forbidden for them to eat from a fruit of a particular tree called the tree of knowledge. In the popular view it is considered to be an apple tree and the fruit to be an apple, however, the Bible does not say what kind of tree was this or what kind of fruit was this, which was forbidden to eat other than that the fruit was desirable and the tree was the tree of knowledge.  It is a tale, though carrying serious messages.

Later on Jesus told the disciples about this specific genre of mythical tales and about the so called parables, that whosoever have ears, let them hear and let them understand. In the garden of Eden the first humans made the snake called the serpent.
Of course it does not sound as a scientific recollection about the moral beginnings of the human history, rather a mythical tale about an important development.

In the Hebrew tradition and in many rabbinic opinions from a bit later, the very serpent the first humans met in the garden of Eden, was bipedal. This view is not very unique to the Hebrew tradition, for almost every nation on Earth have some prehistoric memories of intelligent dragons or serpents intervening in human affairs.
The Bible explicitly mentions that there were intelligent species on Earth other than homo sapiens, who lived here and occasionally interbred with humans.

The Assyrian libraries talk about fish like people from the bottom of the Sea, the Hopis from the mezas and the pueblos remember the Ant people, that they lived together with them in underground caves.
The great civilization of the Indus Valley talk about hundreds of millions of years of lost civilizations, also mentioning intelligent apes.
Scientifically speaking, we do not know too much about the dinosaurs, how intelligent were some of them but we do know that some of their species where bipedal.

When the Bible is using distant maybe even a little bit blurry but historic memories, which humanity preserved sometimes in its collective subconscious, it does it in order to create a parable story in a mythical narrative to tell us something important, in a creative and poetic way like the Great epics of old like The Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh. Even this latter epic contains an important message that their early civilization was busy not only to use the rivers to irrigate the land to have abundantly rich harvest in order to feed the population, to create wealth and society, but they aimed their concentrated efforts to reach immortality.

Thus, the Bible story practically informs us, that immortality was once there, but it was lost. So the way to go is not like to invent immortality, but to rediscover it, wherever it is. The Bible says that it is in the Garden of Eden.
According to the Hebrew scriptures immortality as a fruit of an other tree, as it is written in the Book of Genesis at the end of the chapter 3, that " the Lord God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he put forth his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever..." So the Lord drove out the man; and he placed Cherubs at the east of the garden of Eden, and the flame of a sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life."

Nonetheless, the major information, which is also there, tends to be overlooked, because it may seem from the text that a strict or maybe even a non-flexible and bigot God exiled humans over some nuisance. However, it is not exactly what happened in the story, but practically the man and woman exiled themselves from the very sight of God, as it is written in the same chapter, that " They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God among the trees of the garden." Because they were ashamed.

Thus, although it may seem that God banned people from the garden of Eden, even putting two Cherubs with fiery broadswords to guard the gate, still it was the first people who exiled themselves, because, ashamed, they did not want to be in God's presence anymore but they hid themselves.
In order to realize, how the you-shall-not-bear-false-witness commandment made it into the ten commandments, we have to acknowledge, what happened in the garden through the uttered lie of the serpent, as it is written, that " 'You won't surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be as God, knowing good and evil. ' " Practically, the enemy declared God a liar by a lie told the first people.

It was a wicked gossip, a false witness, a blatant accusation. How disgraceful was it of picking up a gossip against God, which destroyed the human nation, and practically they were not exiled from the Garden of immortality, but they themselves ran away from the Father's House.
All happened, because they accepted the word of the Serpent against the Word of God. The Serpent still keeps talking, and usually we blame God for everything. If it's too hot or too cold, if it's rainy or if it's arid. People used to curse God for any inconvenience in life, in fate, in relationships, in their affairs of the community, in the affairs of the world, in peace and in war time.

It is time to realize, that the serpent is our enemy, as Jesus said in the Gospel of John, chapter 8 that " The devil was a murderer from the beginning, and doesn't stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it."

It is time to acknowledge, that the word of God is true. It is time to fight the cursing and lying serpent through the truth and the praise of God. For we have to say thanks to God all the time, to be grateful all the time, to live in God's presence all the time. Praising God equivocally in good times or bad times, in joy and sorrow, in health and in sickness, at birth and at passing is the great divine victory in the soul.

May we call upon the name of Jesus by the Holy Spirit to glorify God, our Rock and Redeemer, whose Kingdom is in us. May your Kingdom come, in truth and in praise, AMEN.