- What about me?
Psalm 77The first six verses of this psalm are all about the writer. He:
Cries aloud to God
Seeks the Lord
Stretches out his hand
Find no comfort for his soul
Thinks of God and moans
Meditates and his spirit faints and eyelids won’t close
Is so troubled he can’t speak
Considers and remembers the past
Meditates and searches his spirit
It is all about him and the miserable state he is in. At night he lies awake, his eyes won’t close, in fact he blames God for keeping them open! He tries to find relief or comfort but cannot, he searches himself and his circumstances but cannot find the answers he needs.
The writer’s grief and anxiousness lead him to ask three questions: Will God reject him forever, never to show favour again? Has God’s promise of steadfast love failed for all time? Has he forgotten to be gracious and is so angry that he will never again show mercy? These are honest questions that cone from a person who is in the depths of a spiritual struggle. Here is Asaph the chief musician and prophet, a spiritual leader having a crisis of faith – where was God when he needed him? In an odd way there is comfort in these words and in this prayer. If such a person as Asaph can struggle, then it is probable that so will we. If he cannot find a way out of his despair, then we may have similar difficulties. Thankfully Asaph doesn’t end his psalm here.
Asaph makes a decision, he will appeal to what he knew about God, he would meditate on all the mighty works God had done, he would consider the miracles, the works he had seen and had heard about. He would take his eyes off himself and focus not on how he felt, but on what he knew to be true. The dialogue changes, what began as a self centred description of his personal troubles now is a declaration about God.
His way is Holy
There is no God like him
He works wonders
He has made his might known
He redeemed his people
With this new focus he speaks confidently about God. The waters that threatened to overwhelm him were afraid of God, they trembled. God summoned rain and thunder to do his bidding. The whirlwind blew the oceans apart and lightening brightened the sky as God’s made a pathway through the storm, and even though Asaph couldn’t see the way he knew that God would take him by the hand and lead him through.
When our feelings threaten to overwhelm us, like Asaph we need to focus on what we know to be true and not on how we feel about things. Transformation of the soul begins with the renewing of the mind (Romans 12:1,2)
- How much of your prayer starts with I, or me or my?
- When you are facing a struggle are you able to remind yourself about what God has done in the past?
- When you can’t see the pathway are you confident that God is leading you by the hand?
- Shouting like a drunken warrior
Psalm 78This is a lengthy psalm, and is sometimes called historical, it does summarize the dealings God has with the people of Israel. It is a Psalm that was used to teach the future generations and emphasizes God’s grace and mercy against the background of consistent rebellion and disobedience.
To the Jews the language is familiar but to those who are less acquainted with the history of the people some of the events are more difficult to follow. The writer, said to be Asaph, refers to Jacob in verse 5 as the one to who the testimony was given, and then to Israel as the one who received the law. Jacob, the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham was renamed Israel after an encounter with God and he had died well before the law was given. Israel was then the name given to the people who descended from Jacob/Israel. The nation of Israel comprised 12 tribes descended from each of Jacob’s 12 sons, one of which was Judah, whose name appears later (Vs 68) and another was Joseph (vs 67). Joseph’s share of the inheritance was divided between his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh and beside Judah, Ephraim became the most prominent of the tribes. Israel is often referred to as Ephraim.
The history of Israel was one of constant disappointment. God established them as a nation through a covenant, or promise by which he promised protection and prosperity on the condition of their obedience and acceptance of his law. The people were not able to fulfil their obligations and eventually found themselves in captivity in Egypt. God miraculously delivered them through Moses and by leading them through the Red Sea and the wilderness on their way to the promised land. Once again it was a story of constant rebellion and subsequent restoration through God’s mercy. The actions of the people of Israel resulted in God’s anger on more than one occasion and he responded to them by wiping out many of the people several times. Still they rebelled. As it says in verse 32, “In spite of all this, they still sinned”. However, whenever they turned to him he forgave them and turned his anger away, but they tested God again and again (vs 41).
Eventually the people entered the land promised to them and they began to settle there. But even there, instead of faithfully worshiping God, they rejected him and set up idols and false religions. The Tabernacle that had been set up at Shiloh to worship God was over run and the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines. The armies were defeated, and the priests killed. Now as if God had suddenly woken up he shouted like a drunken warrior heading into battle, fortified by strong drink. He was angry and chased away all his adversaries and put them to shame. It is obvious that God was not drunk or out of control, Asaph uses this as an example to convey the best way he could how angry God was.
He had had enough and so sometime later God chose one tribe to have custody of the promise he made to Israel and that was Judah. He was not the oldest son, who was Reuben or the most favoured, who was Joseph but the fourth son. David came from that tribe and then many years later so did Jesus. It is through Jesus that the promise of eternal life is fulfilled.
This is a psalm which reveals the mercy of God when under the most extreme provocation. It tells us that his promises never fail even though his people continually rebel against him and follow after other gods. His plan is to populate the new heaven and earth with those who faithfully follow him and even when our own activities threaten to derail this plan, he will ensure that it comes to fruition.
- The purpose of the psalm is in part to make sure that history doesn’t repeat itself, does it do that?
- What do you think of describing God like a drunken warrior?
- God’s plans often seem hidden or obscure, how can we be sure we are following them?
3. They have defiled your house
Psalm 79
This is a psalm probably written after the destruction of the temple by Babylon, but it has application to us. Then the Temple was the dwelling of God, the place where the people came to meet God and have their sins forgiven. If there was no Temple, the there was no place for God to live and no place to worship. For the Jews it was also a symbol of God’s deliverance, so long as the Temple stood they believed that they could not be beaten. Since Jesus gave his life on the cross, the Temple and all of its ritual was rendered obsolete. Now those who choose to worship God can do so at any time and in any place. Once Jesus is confessed as Lord the Holy Spirit takes up residence in the believer for all time, and they become individually temples of the Holy Spirit. When those believers come together as his church than they are built up into a dwelling place for God by his Spirit.
The Temple in Jerusalem was invaded by enemy armies and it, and all of its Holy Places were defiled. The priests were killed and the walls broken down, it was not only an outrage to the Jews but entirely demoralizing. They would be taken into exile in Babylon and Jerusalem and its temple would remain in ruins for many years. While today it would be sad if the building we meet in was destroyed, it would not have the same effect. We as God’s people can meet under a tree or in a park and still have confident access to God and worship him. In what way then is God’s house or temple defiled?
The people of God were to be separate or different from the world in which they lived, access to the Temple and its courts was restricted to those who were faithful worshipers. In the days of this Psalm the writer acknowledges that they had failed God, they had sinned, been laughed at and mocked by the nations around them. Instead of being different they wanted be just like the other nations and God had become angry with them. The destruction of the Temple was the result of God’s anger and now the Psalmist has to ask,” for how long will you be angry with us God? Aren’t you supposed to be angry with these pagan nations, not us?” The Church today often seems not to understand why it struggles and is persecuted while nations around them prosper and yet they have allowed themselves to become defiled or tainted by the world.
The Christian community wants God to stand up on its behalf and bring punishment on those around them, but fails to recognize that it has become a subject of mockery. Too many expressions of modern Christianity are derided because of moral failure or financial impropriety. They become targets of ridicule because they too often try to be just like the world around about them. Ungodly influences have penetrated the church and defiled it. God reminded the church at Rome not to be conformed to the pattern or this world but to be transformed (Romans 12:1.2).
Asaph cried out to God for deliverance and salvation, Israel had been brought very low and they acknowledged their sin; their only hope was to return to God and rebuild the Temple. The Temple of God today is being built as the people of God like living stones are made into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood able to offer spiritual sacrifices (1 Peter 2:5). That’s you and me, and he calls us to:” keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:27). In this way the temple is not defiled, the nations marvel rather than mock and people are drawn to his light.
1. In what way has the world entered the church and defiled it?
2. Do you see the church (not the building) as a temple?
3. How should the church act in nations that reject God?
4. Restore us, O God
Psalm 80
When we speak of restoring something, like a piece of furniture or an old car we mean that we want to bring it back to its original condition, or make it like new again. Three times in this the Psalm the writer calls on God the restore the people. It wasn’t that they were showing signs of wear or had become damaged, in the language of our times, they were no longer fit for purpose.
This was God’s chosen people called to be a holy nation, they were going to carry God’s blessing to the world, but they were no longer fit for the task. ‘Faithful Israel ought to be the envy of the Gentiles, drawing them to the light by moral purity, social justice, and political stability’ (ESV.org) but instead of God being glorified he was mocked.
The writer asks how long God would be angry with their prayers; not disinterested or deaf to them but actually angry! What would make God angry at our prayers? When they are offered out of hypocrisy, when they come from an attitude of arrogance, are self serving or unjust; when the sacrifice that is offered was unacceptable or when they are offered from those who oppress the poor and the broken. God did not ignore those prayers, they roused him to oppose those who offered them.
Israel was compared to a specially chosen vine carried carefully out of Egypt and planted in ground cultivated and prepared so that it would bear fruit. It was protected by the shade of mountains and forests and planted next to permanent water supply. A wall was built around the vineyard to keep out predators and the vine flourished. But in anger God broke down the wall and let strangers come in and take the fruit, the vine was destroyed and burned and other predators trampled down what was left. What was to become of the vine, was there any hope for it? Could it sprout again – could it be restored?
This was Israel, once compared to a glorious vine, now a desolate neglected stump. The only hope was for the vine keeper, the Lord of Hosts to restore it to life. This is Asaph’s prayer. “Restore us O Lord God of Hosts, let your face shine on us that we may be saved”. Two things are asked for – that they would be restored, and that God’s face would shine on them once again. The example of the vine is graphic. The destruction of the vine was God’s doing as he responded in anger to the failings and injustice of the people he had chosen. It is not too much to suggest that nations that have enjoyed God’s blessing and protection and then rebel against him may expect a similar fate. They are never beyond the hope of restoration but only if they turn back to him.
What is true for nations is true for individuals and even churches. Have our prayers and religious performances angered God? Are we in danger of him tearing down the walls of our protection, do we need to fall down before him and cry out to be restored? Certainly as a nation we do, it would be folly to presume that the blessing and protection we enjoy will continue if we insist in turning our back on him. God has blessed us, fed and watered us, given us shade and protection and rather than give him the glory, we have rejected him from our governments, our schools and our homes. Our churches as well as our nations have become or are in danger of becoming an object of contention among our neighbours. Restore us O God of Hosts, and shine your face on us that we may be saved!
- What do you think of God being angry at your prayers?
- Will God allow our country to be over run?
- What is necessary for us to be restored?
- Open Wide
Psalm 81“It is to be regretted that the niceties of modern singing frighten our congregations from joining lustily in the hymns. For our part we delight in full bursts of praise, and had rather discover the ruggedness of a want of musical training than miss the heartiness of universal congregational song. The gentility which lisps the tune in wellbred whispers, or leaves the singing altogether to the choir, is very like a mockery of worship.” These words were written by Charles Spurgeon in 1869, the debate about singing at church has been around for a long time!
The Psalmist says a few things about the songs we sing and how we sing them. In the first place they are supposed to be heard – sung out aloud. There is a time to commune with yourself, but this is not it. Talent and skill is not the issue, sing out loud! Secondly they are to be sung for joy. Once again there is space for meditative songs, ballads that tell stories but praise is offered with Joy, visible joy and enthusiasm. Then there is musical accompaniment. The tambourine (or timbrel), the lyre and the harp, the tambourine was usually used to accompany dancing so this may be in the writer’s mind, but even if that is not the case this is not a solemn assembly. The Psalm writer calls the people together for a succession of festivals all of which took place in the seventh month.
On the day of the new moon, the first day of the month, there was the feast of trumpets. The tenth of the same month was the great day of atonement; and on the fifteenth was the feast of tabernacles. The trumpets, or sopar were blown to commemorate the attack on Jericho and Gideon’s battle against the Midianites and also announced the feats that were to take place. God was a great believer in festivals, he commanded: “Also in the day of your gladness, in your appointed feasts, and at the beginning of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; and they shall be a memorial for you before your God: I am the LORD your God.” (Numbers 10:10). As Matthew Henry puts it (paraphrased): “No time is the wrong time for praising God…. But some are times appointed, not for God to meet us (He is always ready) but for us to meet one another, so that we may join together in praising God.”
The feasts were reminders of God’s deliverance of Israel, how he had led them from captivity and through the wilderness feeding and protecting them on the way. He promised them a future but commanded them not to turn from following him, they must not serve other gods. All they needed to do was to ’open their mouth wide and he would fill it’. He proved this by providing manna from heaven and water in the desert, but the complained, would not submit to him and chose to follow their own desires. God’s promise remains, open our mouths wide and he will fill them, but the other side of this promises is that if we do not open our mouths to what he wants to give we will remain empty. God’s desire is to “feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”
We praise God in anticipation of his satisfying us, filling the deepest desire we have in the best possible way. Make your expressions of praise a symbol of the opening of your heart to receive his fullness.
- Do you let self consciousness affect the way you praise God?
- Should the church hold special ‘festivals’ of praise?
- What prevents you from opening your mouth wide?
- The Council of the Gods
Psalm 82This Psalm begins in an unusual way. It describes God as coming to take his seat in the middle of a divine council – a council of the gods where he is going to pass judgement. Who are these gods and on what will he pass judgement? They are not gods of other faiths or religions of equal status to himself. They are not the false gods that the people were forbidden to worship but who then where they?
Two alternatives are usually offered, and one of these may be divided further. The first alternative is that these are heavenly beings, the princes and principalities spoken of elsewhere in the Bible. These authorities have been acting behind the scenes to bring injustice and to oppress the poor and needy. The expression ‘gods’ is not used of men or women although there are times when some individuals were said to be like gods.
Against this view is an alternative that they are human rulers and Jesus words in John 10 are used to support this idea. These may be specifically rulers of the Jews that were entrusted with upholding the law, a broader view extends this to all rulers and judges whether of Israel or not. In both of these cases the judges had acted corruptly favouring the powerful and oppressing the powerless. Verse 7 indicates that having been judged these gods will die just like other men and women and that is given as evidence that they cannot be heavenly beings. Supporters of the idea of them being heavenly beings argue that this means they will fall from their position and be judged with other principalities that have opposed God.
Whichever view prevails, what we read is that God plans to judge these rulers. They have shown partiality; instead of rescuing the weak and the needy they handed them over to their oppressors. They took sides with the wealthy against the poor. They were the blind leading the blind. Everywhere in Scripture we read that God takes the side of the oppressed, he sees this as a mark of righteousness and the evidence of justice. To take sides against the broken is to take sides against God. To set themselves up in opposition to him. The foundations of God’s kingdom are justice and mercy and the behaviour of these unrighteous gods had shaken them.
They may have been gods; they had been entrusted with ruling gods people, but they had failed. They had been exalted above others, but they were going to die, just like those they had ruled. Position and influence would not spare them from God’s judgement they would be treated justly according to his measure of justice. Whether these gods were principalities and gods of a heavenly nature or judges, priests and kings appointed on earth they would all stand before God who would judge them equally.
The Psalm writer asks God to rouse himself and judge all the earth, because he would inherit the earth. His rule would come the downtrodden would be lifted up, the captives would be set free, the hungry fed and the sick healed. Righteousness will rule and peace will reign. This is the inheritance of the saints, all those that believe in the son, while all those that exalt themselves will be swept away.
- If the gods mentioned here are heavenly beings (angels) how do they rule on earth?
- In what way does God judge earthly rulers?
- God tells us that what he requires of us is to “do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). How do we do justice?
- The Threat of War
Psalm 83Israel constantly lived under the threat of war. Many times after they crossed into the promised land they were challenged by competing nations. From the very beginning of human life there was conflict, we see it in the murder of Abel by Cain, the ongoing rivalry within the descendants of Seth and in the life stories of Abraham and his nephew Lot, his sons Ismael and Isaac and then in Isaac’s sons, Esau and Jacob. The rivalry between the 12 sons of Jacob (Israel) ultimately led to their captivity in Egypt. As the people sought under God’s guidance to establish a nation for themselves, many of those old conflicts re surfaced and some others erupted as well. When this psalm was written another serious threat was looming, a conspiracy of ten nations had joined to wipe out Israel.
Asaph, the author of the Psalm calls out to God to speak up. He wants God to declare the future of this conspiracy, that he would do to them what they threatened to do to Israel. These conspirators didn’t just want to win a battle, to capture the cities, they wanted to wipe them out completely, erase them from the history books. Similar attempts have been made to eradicate Christianity, from the days of the Roman Empire until the present day. All have failed and the church continues to grow. As Jesus promised, he would build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. The times and places when and where persecution has been at its most severe are the very soils in which the church has grown most powerfully.
The conspiring nations are identified by Asaph, they notably include the Ishmaelites, descendants of the son of Abraham; Moab and Ammon, the descendants of Lot, Abraham’s nephew and the Edomites who were descended from Esau – Isaac’s son and brother of Jacob. Together with the other nations they threatened to encircle Israel and destroy them completely. There were ten nations against one, the odds were stacked against Israel, but Asaph’s confidence was in God.
Asaph wants God to treat these enemies as he had those that are recorded in Judges 4-8. He speaks about the defeat of the Midianites by Gideon. The victory of a small insignificant army over the might of the opposing King. He relates the defeat of Sisera, the general of the Canaanite army under King Jabin. A victory that was accomplished by Jael, an otherwise unknown woman who killed Sisera, while Deborah and Barak led the armies of Israel. Against overwhelming odds and in miraculous ways, God showed that battle was not won by superior armies but by the command of God. Now was the time to do it again.
Asaph wants these armies destroyed, but more than that he wanted them to be put to shame. But his prayer was not just one of deliverance and vengeance but because he wanted these enemies of God to seek God’s name (verse 16). He wanted them to be brought to their knees so that they would know that God, and God alone is the Most High God over all the earth. We see conflict around us, in many places this is driven by the desire to destroy God. Even in our own nation, perhaps not be using the same type of violence, but through the violence of the media and corruption of the law there are attempts to remove any knowledge of God from our parliaments, judiciary and schools. Like Asaph we call on God to put to shame those who refuse to acknowledge God so that they will submit to him and recognize our God as the Lord God Almighty!
- Do you see any similarity with the battles faced by Israel with those faced by the church?
- Why did God always seem to wait until victory was impossible before he acted?
- Are you facing any battles against overwhelming odds? What should you do?