Scripture Reading:

Psalm 79

1 O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps.

2 The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth.

3 Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them.

4 We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.

5 How long, LORD? wilt thou be angry for ever? shall thy jealousy burn like fire?

6 Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name.

7 For they have devoured Jacob, and laid waste his dwelling place.

8 O remember not against us former iniquities: let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us: for we are brought very low.

9 Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name’s sake.

10 Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God? let him be known among the heathen in our sight by the revenging of the blood of thy servants which is shed.

11 Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee; according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die;

12 And render unto our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom their reproach, wherewith they have reproached thee, O Lord.

13 So we thy people and sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks for ever: we will shew forth thy praise to all generations. 

The Point:

A desolate and morally compromised people of God cry out for deliverance.

How do we feel in the recitation of this psalm?

As you view a battlefield that is strewn with mangled bodies, your heart is torn by the horror of the devastation. You are sickened as you look upon a scene of destruction and loss. It would be one thing if you could view it in a distant, dispassionate, impersonal way. But this is impossible. As you make out the forms of friends and loved ones on the field, the reality of the loss begins to sink into the very core of your being. What makes the scene portrayed in this psalm particularly galling is that the torn and brutalized body before you is the bride of Christ, the precious saints of the living God. How can the enemies of God get away with this horror? Cries for mercy mix with cries for justice in this psalm.

What does this psalm teach us? 

Verses 1–4. The first verse sets the context for the entire psalm. Jerusalem is devastated. Whether Asaph speaks prophetically concerning what will happen during the Babylonian conquest or he speaks of some other occasion in Israel’s history, we do not know. What is clear is that the temple is defiled and the destruction is complete. Dead bodies are everywhere, and no one is left alive to bury them. So the vultures do the honors. Grief and indignation cause cries of anguish over the fallen people of God, for they have been consumed by heathen nations that do not serve the living and true God.

Jerusalem is a figure of the church of Christ (Heb. 12:22), so this description may be applied appropriately to the Christian church in Europe and America, especially since the 1800s. The world has corrupted the church. The ideas of apostate men who utterly rejected God (Darwin, Nietzsche, Rousseau, Marx, Sartre, and others), now dictate how most Christians think and live. These Christians have attended the pagan schools and universities, and they have drunk deeply of these apostates’ ideas—to the point that now both the evangelical and Roman churches have become powerless to impact culture in any meaningful way. One Christian pollster found that the divorce rate among Christians was even higher than that of atheists and agnostics. In Europe, church attendance has fallen to single digits, and the buildings serve well as mosques for the Muslims.

Devastation is everywhere! Granted, this is the devastation brought about by ideas that corrupt the church from the inside, but the heathen have done their work. Now the churches die and the buildings lie empty.

Also, the little that remains of the local church is torn apart by the vicious enemies of unresolved conflicts, bitterness, deceit, and poor shepherding. Those who have lived through the pain of angry church splits know something of this devastation. Never in the previous five centuries has the church ever been as weak as it is today, and the enemies—the world, the flesh, and the devil—have taken the upper hand in the recent skirmishes.

Verses 5–7. The psalmist rightly blames this ruinous condition on the heathen nations. Yet at the same time the psalmist can’t help but point out that God is also angry with His people. We know that this destruction does not come about apart from God’s sovereign purposes. He is chastising His covenant people, and His jealousy burns hot against them when they persist in serving other gods before Him. Nevertheless, that does not attenuate His wrath and just vengeance against those heathen nations that persecute His people. Israel may be a disobedient people, but they are still God’s people, and Jerusalem is still His dwelling-place. Knowing full well that God sovereignly ordains the bloody onslaughts of the enemy according to His own purposes, we can still say, “Woe to that nation by whom those onslaughts come!” (Matt. 26:24; Jer. 50:9–11) Every nation that refuses to bow the knee to Christ will be destroyed. Certainly the Roman Empire collided with this reality after many centuries of persecuting the indomitable church of Jesus Christ. At the same time that God chose to save many individual Romans, He brought the empire to its knees because it refused to serve the living Christ. It may seem odd to some that God judges nations temporally, but this is a common theme throughout the Old and New Testaments. “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God” (Ps. 9:17).

Verses 8–9. Here is the second cause for the ruin of Jerusalem: Israel has sinned against God. While those heathen influences that corrupt the people of God will bear their own guilt, the ultimate problem lies in the hearts of this people who have rebelled against God. The psalmist pleads for God’s forgiveness on behalf of the nation. Since nations are condemned to hell for their sin, it must be nations that have sinned against God and must repent before Him. But how can God forgive the sins of a whole family, an entire church, or a nation? When He destroys those nations, many individuals within the nation go to hell. And when He removes a candlestick from its place as in Revelation 2, the people within the church represented by that candlestick go to hell. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, where God’s special blessing still remains with His elect, as on Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the land of Babylon.

The sins that have weakened the church in our generation are a failure of the pastors to teach the law of God and a failure to shepherd the sheep. The church is overwhelmed with the idolatry of materialism, an unbiblical egalitarianism, a self-oriented existentialism, intellectual pride, and an education that ignores the fear of God. May God grant that pastors everywhere fall on their faces before their congregations and before God, confessing the sins that have rendered the church powerless! The only thing we can do is cry out to God for His forgiveness and deliverance from the sins that have so utterly corrupted us.

Verses 10–12. Now Asaph turns back to the malicious intent of the enemies that have consumed the people of God. There is no fear of God in the eyes of these enemies. They think they can sin with utter impunity. They assume that God is disconnected from His world, that He is not jealous for His own glory, or that He is disinterested in His own people. The psalmist asks for God’s vengeance upon those who have trashed His people­—not so much for the sake of His people, but because these enemies have reproached the name of God. Asaph’s chief concern is the glory of God. So, as he calls down judgment upon the wicked, the psalmist also begs God for mercy upon the last remaining living souls. There they are! Lying in the killing fields are the wounded bodies of the remnant, fighting for every breath and pleading for God’s preserving mercy.

Verse 13. The psalm ends with a glimmer of hope that one day God’s people will emerge victorious over their enemies, and they will give thanks for that deliverance through all eternity. Though the church may continue to take some serious hits, we can still look back over six thousand years and see God’s preserving grace all along—at the Red Sea, during the Babylonian captivity, and through the Roman persecutions and the relentless humanist incursions of the last nine centuries. The pattern of history plainly shows God’s preserving grace saving His church through it all.

How do we apply this psalm? 

1. Does your heart ache for the plight of the church in the 21st century? Those who see little value in the church of Christ simply will not be able to feel the pain in the words of this psalm. Let us consider each expression of the church of Christ as precious, and, when she is under attack, we should recite psalms like this one.

2. When the wicked attack the righteous, there will always be opportunities for confession of sin. These are not mere random attacks. We must assume that God is involved and that He convicts the righteous in those areas where they have fallen short of His expectations. Yet this in no way justifies the cruel treatment the wicked bring upon the righteous by their persecutions. It is appropriate for us to condemn the wicked and call God’s swift judgment upon them while at the same time humbly acknowledging the sins we have committed against Him.

How does this psalm teach us to worship God?

Worship includes confession of corporate sins as well as individual sins. It is quite appropriate for fathers to ask forgiveness for the sins of their families, even as pastors should ask forgiveness for the specific sins of their churches. In our worship, we should acknowledge that our sins and our enemies are too big for us and cry out for God’s saving grace. But the chief desire of our hearts in these prayers must be the glory of God and the vindication of His righteousness in all the earth. Therefore, this psalm ends in thanksgiving, praise, and worship.

Questions:

1. Give several examples of Deliverance Psalms.

2. What are the two causes that brought about the destruction of God’s people?

3. Did God intend for His people to be routed by the enemy? Why?

4. With whom is God angry in this psalm?

5. What happens to nations that will not repent?

6. What is the psalmist most concerned about in this psalm?

Family Discussion Questions: 

1. What is our heart attitude towards the plight of the church in Europe and America?

2. Give several ways that we could pray for the salvation of our local church.