Sometimes a particular Psalm, or part of a Psalm can be hard to identify with.  Often the writers were going through circumstances unlike anything we have faced or ever will face.  The author of Psalm 116 mentions such a situation in verse 3.  Here are the first 4 verses:

“I love the LORD, because he has heard
            my voice and my pleas for mercy.
Because he inclined his ear to me,
            therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
The snares of death encompassed me;
            the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
            I suffered distress and anguish.
Then I called on the name of the LORD:
            “O LORD, I pray, deliver my soul!””

Have you ever felt like this: “The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me”?  The Reformation Study Bible notes on this that “It was as if ropes came out of a grave, pulling the psalmist into the ground.”  Has death ever felt this imminent?  I can imagine someone who has experienced war or terminal disease can relate to this, but many of us can’t fully understand it.

But even if we have never felt this way, there’s an important part of the image for all of us: evil is not passive.  The “snares of death” do things.  They come after us.  There are forces of evil that actively seek to derail us from following Jesus.  If we’re not actively fighting these forces, we will lose ground.  These battles may take place within ourselves, as we war against the flesh, or the battles may be with external influences in the world around us.

My pastor once referenced a similar idea when during a sermon he said: “the culture is trying to kill you.”  When Proverbs 16:25 tells us, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death,” it suggests that most people believe things that they think are fine, but that actually lead to death.  And when most people in a group believe something, it becomes part of the culture.  Every culture endorses thoughts and actions that should be condemned by Christians, because they aren’t putting us on the path of life, but on the path to death.

But there’s more to it.  Part of American culture that’s trying to kill us is the part that tells us we’re in a war against other people, instead of in a war against sin.  Many aspects of our culture assume that we should love people who are like us and hate people who aren’t.  Maybe we hate those who have a different ethnic background, religion/denomination, or a different political party.  Maybe they have a different economic status, color of their skin, or sexual orientation.  Sometimes all it takes is that someone likes a different sports team.  This hate is a “way that seems right to a man.”  Should we war against the culture, or against sin?  Are those different goals?

In the book of Joshua (1:7b) we are told about the law of God: “Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.”  Why point out the left and the right?  I believe this is like Scylla and Charybdis from Greek mythology.  Scylla and Charybdis were two very dangerous monsters that lurked on either side of a narrow water passage.  Therefore, if you drifted too far left you were killed by one of them, if you drifted too far right, you’d be killed by the other.  And also, trying too hard to avoid one would inevitably put you in the path of the other one.

Sometimes in life we end up too far from the correct path because we define our path as being against the other path.  We go right because we are avoiding going left, and vice versa.  We define ourselves by what we are against rather than by what we are for and end up hating the other side.  And then, either Scylla or Charybdis have devoured us!  The “snares of death” and the “pangs of Sheol” are upon us and we might not even know it.

How to avoid this path?  By defining right behavior and attitudes by Christ’s standard, which includes commands to love our enemies.  Once we think someone is our enemy, we need to reject the instinct to hate them and accept Christ’s grace which enables us to love them.  We define the Christian life by what it is for, not by what it is against.  We love God and love our neighbor, regardless of who they are.  To do otherwise may put us on “the way to death,” where “the snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me.”

“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” – 1 Peter 5:8