A Study in Psalms - Psalm 79

I'm going to begin tonight by talking about a New York Times article, and the journalist was Alec Stone, and he tells a story about how the executives at the Houston airport were faced with lots and lots of complaints about long waits at the baggage claim Have you ever been there? In Calcutta, India, you'd wait two hours, but apparently eight minutes at Houston is a long time

But they had so many complaints about the wait time at baggage claim at Houston airport that they hired consultants, and so the first thing they did was they hired a bunch more baggage handlers, and that reduced the wait time to an industry-beating average of eight minutes to wait for your luggage But the complaints continued

So it made no sense until the executive discovered that on the average, passengers took only one minute when they got off their plane to walk to baggage claim, and there they would sit and wait for six, seven, eight, nine, ten minutes, and that was the reason for the complaints The walk time was not the problem It was the remaining seven empty minutes of staring at that baggage carousel waiting for your bags that was driving people crazy and causing them to complain So in a burst of innovation, the executives moved the arrival gates farther away from the baggage claim

Passengers now had to walk much farther to get their bags, but often when they arrived, the bags were waiting for them Problem solved The complaints went down So in the same article, Stone interviewed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology, somebody named Richard Larson, who is apparently the world's leading expert on waiting in lines. I didn't know there was such a person To discover the psychology behind the waiting And what happened at the Houston airport makes a perfect illustration, said Richard Larson The length of our wait is not as important as what we're doing while we wait

Often the psychology of queuing is more important than the statistics of waiting itself Essentially, we tolerate occupied time For example, walking to the baggage claim is okay But unoccupied time, sitting at the baggage claim waiting, that's where we have the problem Give us something to do while we wait, and the wait becomes indurable That is why so often waiting on God feels like unoccupied time

We wait, but what's really happening up there in heaven? What's going on? Is God actually doing anything? Waiting on God implies that we need to develop a new perspective of what God is doing and what we can do while we wait on him Tonight's psalm gives us a new perspective of what to do while we wait You know, when we pray, of course God can answer three ways Yes, no, and wait And it's usually the third category of waiting that can be very, very hard for us Our psalmist tonight, he may have had to wait 70 years He probably was dead before the prayers were actually answered in many cases

So let's read Psalm 79, if you haven't turned there Psalm 79 follows Psalm 78, which is the second longest psalm in the Psalter with 72 verses, but tonight our psalm only has 13 verses Psalm 79 says, a psalm of Asap, Oh God, the nations have come into your inheritance They have defiled your holy temple They have laid Jerusalem in ruins They have given the bodies of your servants to the birds of the heavens for food The flesh of your faithful to the beasts of the earth They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them

We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us How long, oh Lord, will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire? Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you and on the kingdoms that do not call upon your name For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his inhabitation Do not remember against us our former iniquities Let your compassions come speedily to us, for we are brought very low Help us, oh God of our salvation, for the glory of your name Deliver us and atone for our sins for your namesake

Why should the nation say, where is their God? Let the avenging and the outpouring blood of your servants be known among the nations before our eyes Let the groans of the prisoners come before you, according to your great power, preserve those doomed to die Return sevenfold into the lap of our neighbors, the taunts with which they have taunted you, oh Lord But we, your people, the sheep of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever From generation to generation, we'll recount your praise Father in heaven, thank you for this psalm tonight

May we leave here tonight knowing more of you, understanding that sometimes you make us wait, and that we can never completely understand what you're doing up there in heaven In Jesus' name, amen The title of our psalm is How Long, Oh Lord? It's actually a very common theme in the psalms Psalm 6, verse 3 says, And my soul is greatly dismayed, but you, oh Yahweh, how long? And then, of course, you've got the other psalm that's called the How Long Psalm, Psalm 13 Tom Mason preached a message on this in 2000

And four times in the first verses it says, How long, oh Yahweh, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all day? How long will the enemy exalt over me? Psalm 35, 17 says, Lord, how long will you look on? And then Psalm 74, 10 says, How long, oh God, will the adversary reproach? Will the enemy spurn your name forever? Psalm, and of course Psalm 79, 5, which we just read

Psalm 80, verse 4 says, Oh Yahweh of hosts, how long? Psalm 82, 2, how long will you judge the unrighteous? Psalm 89, 46, how long, oh Yahweh, will you hide yourself forever? Psalm 90, verse 13 says, Return, oh Yahweh, how long will it be? And lastly, Psalm 94, verse 3 says, How long shall the wicked, oh Yahweh, how long shall the wicked exult? So there are lots of psalms that deal with waiting on the Lord We have a superscription above your Psalm 79, which just says a psalm of Asap We know that Asap wrote 12 psalms, Psalm 50, and then Psalm 73 through 83

We know he's the worship leader in the temple He may not be one person He might be a series of Asaps who passed down the worship leader in the temple But it's very interesting that he wrote 12 psalms and three of them, Psalm 74, the psalm tonight we're going to look at, Psalm 79, and Psalm 80 are all about the destruction of the temple It obviously left a very painful mark on Asap when he saw the temple destroyed to write three psalms about it So the type of psalm that we're looking at tonight, it's a lament psalm, but it's not an individual lament, it's a community lament

The whole community, the whole nation of Israel is lamenting what Asap is saying here You have an outline, I hope, and there are five types of prayers there. A prayer of lamentation, verses 1 to 4 Prayer of restoration, verses 5 to 8. A prayer for glorification, verse 9 Pray for vengeance, verses 10 to 12 And a prayer of adoration, lastly, verse 13 Let's look at point number one, a prayer of lamentation And I've got three sub-points there The situation is desolate We'll look at that sub-point number one In verse 1, it just says, O God, the nations have come into your sanctuary

They have defiled your holy temple They have laid Jerusalem in ruins So from the opening verse of Psalm 79, it appears that the historical context for this psalm is the time of the Babylonian invasion and the destruction of the temple in 587 BC You know, as the kingdom of Judah declined, their kings and their leaders became less and less devoted to the Lord Now, you know, there were a few godly kings like Asa, Josiah, Joash, Hezekiah But foreign alliances, idolatry, unbelief combined to weaken the kingdom and ripen it for judgment

The sins of the fathers accumulated until God could hold back his wrath no longer So God sent Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian army to destroy Jerusalem What's great about Psalm 79 is we have an historical account with his psalms You know, David, there are 14 psalms about David's fleeing Saul and David's trials So it's always great when you can read the psalm and then go to 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings and read about it But it's really interesting that the Holy Spirit records the destruction of Jerusalem not once, not twice, not three times, but four times in Scripture

In 2 Kings 25, in 2 Chronicles 36, and in Jeremiah twice, Jeremiah 39, 1 to 10, and then the whole chapter of Jeremiah 52 So God is, when he says something four times, it's really important that we look at it But I want to read tonight, not from those four accounts, I want to read to you Lamentations chapter 1, verses 1 to 11 If there was a book of the Bible that you could make a horror movie about, it would be Lamentations Have you read Lamentations? You've got to have a PG rating or an MA rating with that It's brutal It's dark It's dreary So let's look at Lamentations chapter 1

In the Septuagint, the New Testament Greek version, written maybe 200 years before Christ, it says that they have it written before the Lamentations And it came to pass after Israel had been carried away captive and Jerusalem had become desolate, that Jeremiah sat weeping and lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem and said, okay, our Bible doesn't say that, but the Septuagint does But Lamentations chapter 1, verses 1 to 11, we'll read It says, How lonely sits the city that was full of people How like a widow has she become

She who was great among the nations, she who was a princess among the providences has become a slave She weeps bitterly in the night with tears on her cheeks Among all her lovers, she has none to comfort her All her friends have dealt treacherously with her They have become her enemies Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and hard servitude She dwells now among the nations but finds no resting place Her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress The roads to Zion mourn for none come to the festival All her gates are desolate Her priests groan

Her virgins have been afflicted and she herself suffers bitterly Her foes have become the head Her enemies prosper because the Lord has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions Her children have gone away captive before the foe From the daughter of Zion, all her majesty has departed Her princes have become like deer that find no pastor They fled without strength before the pursuer Jerusalem remembers the days of her affliction and wanderings, all the precious things that were hers from days of old

When her people fell into the hand of the foe and there was none to help her, her foes gloated over her They mocked at her downfall Jerusalem sinned grievously Therefore, she became filthy All who honored her despise her For they have seen her nakedness She herself groans and turns her face away Her uncleanliness was in her skirts She took no thought of the future Therefore, her fall is terrible She has no comforter Oh Lord, behold my affliction for the enemy has triumphed The enemy has stretched out his hands over all her precious things For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary

Those whom you forbade to enter your congregation All her people grown as they search for bread They trade their treasures for food to revive their strength Look, oh Lord, and see for I am despised And we could go on and read chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, and chapter 5 And it just gets worse and worse But the situation is absolutely desolate there The extent of the destruction was devastating Remember, this was the third time that Nebuchadnezzar had come and waged war against Jerusalem And this time it took him over two and a half years to conquer Jerusalem

So when they did break the walls down, they burned every building They burned the temple They destroyed everything And they slaughtered most of the people The people that were slaughtered The temple was defiled and burned to the ground And the holy city of Jerusalem was destroyed and left in ruins Subpoint B, verses 2 and 3, the saints are dead It says in verse 2 to 3, they given your bodies to the servants, to the birds of the heaven for food The flesh of your faithful to the beasts of the earth Blood was poured out like water

So even in death, there was no closure for the shame and destruction The dead bodies were for the food for birds The flesh, the beasts of the earth would eat it It says blood was poured out like water But what a statement that is And there was no burial We mentioned in the last few Psalms that if you did not bury the body, that was considered a very, very desecrating thing when bodies weren't buried There just wasn't anybody to bury the bodies You know, when we look at the last, in Jeremiah 52, verses 28 to 31, it tells us that only 745 people went into exile

And then if you take the 597 BC, it said 832 people were taken, including Ezekiel And then if you look at 605 BC, over 3,000 people were taken, including Daniel So if you add up those three numbers, it comes to about 4,600 people that were taken captive But 2 Kings chapter 24 says 10,000 people were taken captive So trying to reconcile how many people were actually taken alive back to Babylon is hard It could be Judah was 4,600 and all Israel was 10,000 Don't know But the point I want to make is very few people were taken captive

Most people were killed or they died of starvation before Nebuchadnezzar even broke through the walls Estimates of Jerusalem's population are anywhere from 75,000 people to 345,000 people So not a lot of people were taken captive Most people were killed, the righteous with the unrighteous At some point, see, the survivors are despised So just a few people that lived were taken captive, probably mostly young, like Daniel and Ezekiel, young men, young girls to be slaves Only the poorest of the land were left The captives that were left were object of reproach and scorn

And we recently, when we looked at another psalm, we read that Psalm 137, that really dark psalm that says, when the captives were by the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept When we remembered Zion on the willows, there we hung our liars For there our captors required us songs and our tormentors, mercy, sing us the songs of Zion So even if you lived, you probably were a slave and you were tormented, you were tortured, you were taken back to Babylon

So what do we learn from this first four verses? Why was this wrath poured out? Why don't we go back to the beginning and think about it for a minute? You know, if we had time tonight, which we don't, to read Deuteronomy 28 Have you read Deuteronomy 28? It's quite an interesting chapter The first 14 verses are all about blessings for obedience If you will obey, God will bless you, your crops, your family, your cows, everything. 14 verses on blessings But then the next 54 verses are about curses for disobedience That's why I can't read it tonight It's a long, long chapter

But those 54 verses for disobedience list the horrors that we read in Lamentations, that if you disobey me and follow idolatry and all those sins, I'm going to do these things to you So Israel was warned in Deuteronomy 28 even before they entered the promised land And then you go to, by the way, it says in verse 45 of Deuteronomy 28, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God So they were warned by Moses in Deuteronomy

Then you go to Joshua and that last chapter, and you all know that wonderful verse, Joshua 24, 15 says, Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness Put away the gods of your fathers served beyond the river and in Egypt and serve the Lord And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods of your fathers served in the region beyond the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord And then the people respond in Joshua 24, verse 18

We also will serve the Lord And in verse 21, but we will serve the Lord And in verse 24, the Lord, our God, we will serve and obey his voice And Israel did obey They obeyed all the days of Joshua and the elders that outlived Joshua But then, you know, what's the next book after Joshua? Judges And in judges, they would begin to obey Then they would serve the idols of the four nations God would let nations conquer them and put them in slavery Then they would repent God would raise up a judge who would deliver them And you had cycle after cycle, judge after judge And then Israel had Saul as king

He was not a good king, but he was followed by two pretty good kings, David and Solomon, although Solomon did not finish well And then we have the split kingdom Judah had 20 kings Eight of them were good So at least 12 that were bad Israel had 20 kings, the southern kingdom, the northern kingdom, and all of them were bad The consequences for Israel's sin was Jerusalem was destroyed The temple was burned to the ground People were either taken captive or slaughtered And it reminds me of what Nahum said in Nahum chapter 1 verse 3

The Lord is slow to anger and in great power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty He was a patient, kind, compassionate God who brought them in the promised land, but they rejected him and God judged Israel Let's look at sub point two, a prayer for restoration And we've got three sub points there And number one, God, restrain your anger toward us And there he says, how long will you be angry? The first part of verse five

And how long will you be jealous? How long will you be angry? And how long will be jealous in verse five? Verse one began with a lament crying, how God, oh God, I'm sorry, oh God Now in verse five, Asep says, as he prays, oh Lord, oh Elohim The first searching question or the first question we have in the Psalm is, how long, oh Lord, will you be angry forever? It's a cry from a wounded person Can't imagine the horrors that Asep has seen Would assume that Asep was captive Asep probably was taken to Babylonian But he saw the slaughter He saw the temple desecrated He saw Jerusalem burned

And what he doesn't know is that the sentence is going to be 70 years But he knows God is angry And he knows God must punish sins But the people here are suffering greatly And he describes God's anger here as a consuming fire When he says the next point, how long will you be jealous? How will you're jealous? Will your jealousy burn like fire? Imagine when he wrote this, that Jerusalem is just on fire Because they burned every building to the ground

Now, can God really be jealous? This doesn't refer to jealousy like you and me. A boy is jealous when his girl leaves him or takes another boyfriend But this is a fervent zeal of God It's jealousy exclusive to God that we don't have God's jealousy is often linked to his desire for exclusive worship and his rejection of idolatry Exodus 25 says, you shall not bow down to them or serve them For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God Isaiah 42 says, 42 verse 8 says, I am the Lord That is my name, my glory. I give to no other nor my praise to carved idols

And Deuteronomy 424 says, for the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God God was jealous for his people He made a covenant with them, but they disobeyed him So Asaph is asking, how long, Father, how long? And in sub point B, God, release your wrath toward them Asaph turns from looking at the people of Israel toward his enemies And he says there in verses 6 and 7, and by the way, Jeremiah quotes Psalm 79 verses 6 and 7 in Jeremiah 10 verse 25 So Jeremiah had a copy of this psalm

So he says, pour out your anger on the nations that don't know you and the kingdoms that do not call upon your name For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste to his abomination So what Asaph's saying here is they've defiled you, God And he's saying, shouldn't your wrath fall on the nations that don't know you? They've devoured us They've devoured your people They slaughtered the righteous with the unrighteous And they've destroyed us

Let me just read three verses from the account of the destruction of Jerusalem in 2 Kings chapter 25, which is one of the four accounts of the destruction of Jerusalem And it says in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, that was the 19th year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon Nebuchadnezzar, the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem And he burned the house of the Lord and the king's house and all the houses of Jerusalem Every great house he burned down

And all the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem You know, it's interesting that here in verses six and seven, he asked God to pour out his anger and God would, but it would be many, many years later It would be in 539 B.C., October 12th And you know the story from Daniel chapter five, right? In one night, Cyrus, the Persian conquered Babylon in one night So God did judge Babylon, but it would be many, many, many years later down the road Let's look at sub point C, God renew your mercy toward us Verse eight, two things here

He asked God to pardon them and he asked God to pity them He asked God to pardon them My Bible says, do not remember against us our former iniquities Your NSAV translation says, do not remember the iniquities of our, against our forefathers The NIV says, do not hold against us the sins of the past generation And the LSB says, do not remember our former iniquities Asaph would write 12 Psalms, as I mentioned And I'm pretty sure he was a godly man to write those 12 Psalms After all, he led the worship of the temple He knew proper worship He knew right worship and wrong worship

And yet here he prays for some confession of sin that God would not remember their sins God is holy and he knows that we are not Asaph asked, how long, O Lord? He didn't ask, why has all this happened? He asked, how long, O Lord? He knows why it has happened, because he knows the sins of his fathers, his grandfathers So I just assume that Asaph being the worship leader was a very righteous man So he doesn't hesitate to say us He knows that he is a sinful nation

And when I thought of that, it reminded me of a message I preached many years ago on Daniel chapter 9. I love to study the prayer, the great prayers of the Bible You know, have you ever, Nehemiah chapter 1 and Daniel 9 There's just David, Saul, there's just.. But Daniel 9, verse 4 to 14 Now you think of Daniel Remember Daniel chapter 6 They could find no fault in Daniel, remember? So they had to do what? They had to pass a law to get Daniel to disobey the law, not to pray And he prayed So Daniel was a very, very righteous man But in Daniel chapter 9, you can turn there. I can read it for you

Daniel 9, verse 4 Listen to Daniel's prayer And it says, I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession saying, O Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments We have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules We have not listened to your servants, the prophets who spoke in your name to our kings, our princesses, our fathers, and to all the people of the land To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us belongs open shame

As at this day to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away in all the lands to which you have driven them because of the treachery they have committed against you To us, O Lord, belongs open shame To our kings and to our princesses and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against you and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants, the prophets

All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice and the curse and oath that are written in the law of Moses The servant of God have been poured out on us because we have sinned against him He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who have ruled us by bringing upon us a great calamity For under the whole heaven has not been done anything like which has been done against Jerusalem

As it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us, yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth Therefore, the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us For the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice And now, O Lord God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and made a name for yourself, as it is this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly

Now, if you were to count all the we's, I think there's nine of them, all the us's, that's seven of them So do we do you pray like that? Do we pray like that? Do you ask God to forgive the sins of the United States of America? I think most of us just pray for our sins, right? Father, forgive me for what I did today But when you think of it, is there a more wicked nation on the earth than the United States of America? We literally export wickedness

Now, I know the Trump administration has cut back, but when I was in Myanmar, I would drive by the U.S. embassy and the U.S. consulate there, and they would have the pride flag up Not only that, they wouldn't be up for a month, they'd be up for half a year But they would also host seminars for LBGQ So your tax dollars were going to Myanmar to promote a homosexual, lesbian lifestyle and transgender and all that, when this is a very devout Buddhist country

So maybe we ought to pray for the sins of our country, the abortions, the same-sex marriages, the transgenderism, all of them in defiance of our holy God and his written word You know, someday, like what happened to Israel, God is going to pour out his wrath on the United States of America Lord willing, we won't be here We'll be in heaven with the rapture But I love Habakkuk chapter 3, verse 2 And Habakkuk heard the story that Babylon was going to come, and he says, O Lord, in verse 2, I've heard the report of you and your work, O Lord Do I fear in the midst of your years, revive it

In the midst of years, make it known And the last four words, he says, In wrath, remember mercy That's what I pray for the United States of America, because the wrath of God is going to be poured out on this wicked nation But right now, God is withholding that wrath God is compassionate and patient, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance But someday, that wrath will be poured out So I pray in wrath, remember mercy Do you pray like that? The psalmist does Let's move on After he says, pardon us in verse 8, the last part of 8b, he says, pity us

He says, let your compassion It's a plural He's plural here, not singular Come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low Asap is about as low as he can go He's about as discouraged, depressed as he can go And so he just makes a desperate plea And he calls upon that God's mercy would come before it's too late that all of God's people will be wiped out Lamentations 3.22 says, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases His mercies never come to an end He cries out for love and the compassion and mercy of God Let's move on to point number three, a prayer for glorification Verse 9

So Asap begins with a lament in verse 1 Oh God, which is Elohim Asap then begins praying in verse 5 Oh Lord, that's Yahweh Asap continues praying here in verse 9 Oh God, that's Elohim And there's a couple of sub points here Deliver us for your glorious name Pardon us for your name's sake So he says in the beginning of verse 9, help us, oh God of our salvation, for the glory of your name Asap is appealing to the greatest motivation of all He's asking God to act for the namesake of his own glory He prayed that God would guard the greatness of his name in the world. G

Campbell Morgan said of this verse, Asap had a passion for the glory of the divine name One commentator said in this psalm, all that God does, he does primarily to pursue and promote his own glory This is the highest end and the chief ambition that stir the passion of God's own heart, namely the magnification of his own most holy name Here is the supreme good for which God acts, the promotion of his own honor If this is the loftiest pursuit of God, then so it must be for man All people must live for what is greater than themselves if they are to be elevated to experience life as God proposes

Many that live for the greatness of God, or they merely exist This is the highest goal and the most honorable aim of man, the passion of pursuit of the glory of God. I read Isaiah 42, 8 verse earlier. I am the Lord, that is my name, my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols In all situations, we ought to pursue the glory of God Asap is hoping for a miraculous intervention here It's not going to come, but he's going to pray for it Matthew 6, 9, when we begin the Lord's prayer, it says, our father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name

The question for today is, have we or have you made God's glory number one priority in your life? I think it was last year We had a men's Bible study on a Monday night And Lance was talking about that verse that you all know First Corinthians 10, 31 Everybody knows that verse So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God And Lance mentioned driving And that hit me like a ton of rocks Like, really? No But the more I thought about it, he's right Driving. I get in my car and I pray

Father, give me a safe drive as I take my daughter to school, to safe drive going home. I pray because it's crazy out there But I never thought about it before It says, whatever you do, do for the glory of God And that kind of changed my perspective. I think I finally understood that verse First Corinthians 10, 31 It's not just eating and drinking It's whatever you do All day, all night, we are to do for the glory of God, including driving So he says, number one, deliver us for your glorious name And then the last part of verse nine, he says, pardon us for your name's sake

He says, deliver us and atone for our sins Why? For your name's sake Maybe your translation says, forgive our sins You know, here we have the word atone And we spent a lot of time talking about that word last week when we looked at Psalm 65 And we said three times it's mentioned in Psalms Psalm 65, you atone for our transgressions Psalm 78, 38 Yet he being compassionate, atone for their iniquity and did not destroy him And I mentioned last week, the word atone just means to cover, to wipe out But think about it Here's ASAP

If the temple's destroyed, sacrifices could no longer be made at the temple, right? So how will Israel make atonement for sins? How will they cover those sins? If sins were really going to be atoned for, God had to provide a better sacrifice, right? And Isaiah 53 verses five and six prophesied 700 years before the Messiah would come says, but he was pierced for our transgressions He was crushed for our iniquities Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace And with his wounds, we are healed All we like sheep have gone astray We have turned away everyone his own way

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all Let's look at number four, a prayer of vengeance. I could have titled it a prayer of imprecatory verses 10 to 12, because that's kind of what we have here Three sub points here, silence our enemies, save the prisoners and seven fold their taunts So sub point number one, silence your enemies Verse 10, it just says, why should the nation say, where's their God? Here we have the second question in the song

The second searching question in the song, where's their God? So in Israel's time, you probably know that when one nation defeated another nation, it was proof to the victorious nation that their gods were stronger than the enemy gods So the Babylonians are taunting the Jews here by asking, where is your God? He's non-existent is what they're saying At least it's what they're implying These two half verses are technically an imprecatory prayer Now, you could also include verse six, where it says, pour out your wrath upon the nations And we have talked about imprecatory prayers a lot

If you remember last year, we looked at Psalm 58 and mentioned an entire Psalm about imprecatory prayers. I hope you remember that And every once in a while in the Psalms that we've looked at, there's a verse here And usually it begins with, let him do this, let God do this So I think you may have talked a lot about imprecatory prayers But, and I mentioned that every day when I pray, I pray two imprecatory prayers One, that God would destroy Hamas and that the remaining hostages would be released

And the second is that God would destroy the five Myanmar or Burmese generals who are destroying the land of Myanmar You know, I'm not asking God. I'm asking God, God, if it's your will, pour out your wrath now Get those hostages released Judge the wickedness of those wicked nations, knowing that God will pour out his wrath later But there's nothing wrong that we can't pray imprecatory prayers against those wicked nations of the world So he's praying that God would judge those nations

He says there in the next part there, verse 10, let the avenging of the outpoured blood of your servants be known among the nations before our eyes This is the second time, verse three and verse 10, that Asaph has mentioned the outpouring of the blood That's how great the slaughter was So the slaughter was great So Asaph's asking here, God, we want the world to see your vengeance upon these wicked nations We want you to display your power to destroy these nations should you choose to avenge them

And I mentioned before that God would destroy Babylon, but it would be many, many years down the road Next, save the prisoners, verse 11 He says, let the groans of the prisoners come before you according to great power, preserve those doomed to die So the one he's suffering, Asaph is suffering here, but he includes a plea to save the prisoners, like I pray for the hostages that are being held by Hamas, because many of these prisoners here would face execution Again, I mentioned they only took a few thousand back to Babylon

Most of the people, thousands upon thousands, maybe 300,000 people were slaughtered So this is the same kind of prayer that we can make today And then verse 12, sevenfold their taunts He says, return sevenfold into the lap of our neighbors That's the wicked nations, the taunts which they have taunted you, O Lord Now, the number sevenfold here in this verse is a concept from Leviticus 26 If you go to Leviticus 26, don't turn there now Verses 21 to 28, God says, I will punish Israel sevenfold for their sins for breaking my covenant

Okay, so here Aesop asks God to punish Babylon sevenfold for their sins After witnessing what Babylon did to the Jews, the temple and Jerusalem, how could Aesop not cry out for God to give retribution to them? So Aesop began with a lament in verse one, O God He began, then prayed in verse five, O Lord He continues praying in verse nine, O God And now he ends verse 12 with, O Lord And then our last point tonight, verse five, a prayer of adoration, verse 13

You know, almost every single Psalm of the 150 Psalms, almost all of them end with praise or at least some type of adoration or some type of thanksgiving There are a few Psalm 88, Psalm 137 that just end abruptly But like most Psalms, our Psalm after 12 verses ends the last verse, verse 13, with a prayer of adoration And it's interesting that what Aesop's been through, what his eyes have seen, what his body has felt Maybe his relatives were taken Maybe his children were taken You know, maybe his wife was slaughtered We don't know exactly But Aesop can still give praise

He can still give thanks to God here in verse 13 This is a powerful lesson for all of us You know, I don't know what tragedy you've had. I don't know what illness you had or maybe going through Maybe the loss of a job Maybe what family troubles are going on And we pray and we ask the Lord, how long, O Lord, do I have to go through this ordeal? But while you wait, we need to give him two things We need to give thanks forever And we need to give praise fervently Verse 13, the first part says, but we, your people, the sheep of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever

Aesop's prayer of restoration wasn't answered Jerusalem was still in ruins Aesop's prayer of glorification wasn't answered Help did not come Aesop's prayer of vengeance wasn't answered for maybe 70 years or many years Yet Aesop could still trust the Lord and give thanks to the Lord Why? Well, he says right there, we are the sheep of your pasture So if you're in Psalm 79, look at verse 13 And I've underlined verse 13. I underline or I circle the sheep of your pasture Okay, underline that Now go down to the next Psalm Psalm 80, verse 1 And what's it say? Give ear, O shepherd of Israel

We are the sheep of his pasture, and God is a shepherd And God knows what he's doing, even though we don't understand, even though we cry out So Aesop knows that we are the sheep of the pasture, but that the shepherd of Israel is God And Psalm 79, God's gonna shepherd his people forever God is always our good shepherd You know, how bad things were Habakkuk, that wonderful little book When you come to the very end, God tells you he's gonna destroy Israel, Jerusalem He's gonna use the Babylonian army There's this debate between Habakkuk and God

Finally, in the end of chapter 3, Habakkuk says, though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit beyond the vines, the produce of the olives fails, and the fields produce no food The flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herds in the stalls That's six different animals or foods he mentions In verse 18, he says, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation God, the Lord is my strength He makes my feet like deer He makes me tread on high places So Aesop in Psalm 79, 13 could give thanks

Habakkuk in Habakkuk 13, knowing the horror of what was gonna happen, would still give thanks and joy Psalm 77, 20 says, you led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron God shepherded his people by the hand of Moses and Aaron during the Exodus And of course, in the New Testament, this theme is greatly expanded in the book of John And we're gonna look at that book on Sundays in just a few months But John 10, 11, Jesus says, I am the good shepherd The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep

And in Hebrews 13, 20, it says, now the God of peace, who brought again from the dead, our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do as well, working in us that which is pleasing his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever, amen So the children of Israel were God's sheep, and we believers in Jesus Christ are Jesus' sheep So we need to give thanks forever like Asap Then the last line of verse 13 says, from generation to generation, we'll recount all your praise

We need to give praise fervently, no matter what the trial, the suffering, the problem is Asap is undergoing the worst crisis in his life But he still, as the worship leader in the temple, was committed to praise God And I believe he probably went to Babylon and would continue to lead worship to the people that were taken there Now, he was committed to praise God, not for the things that God gave him, not for the things that God did, but just simply because God, who he is, deserves our worship He would be committed to teach his children, his grandchildren, how to praise the Lord

So in closing tonight, what can we take away from this psalm? Many things, but I'll give you three things And number one, we mentioned it, the wrath of God is coming It's coming upon this nation, the United States of America It's coming upon the world, and it could happen any day if you've been with us in our study of 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 In our psalm, Israel was warned again and again and again of the consequences for failing to obey God And this psalm is another warning for those who refuse to repent and put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ

And 2 Peter chapter 2 verses 4 to 9, write that down We have another strong warning And I'll read it if you want to turn there, but I'll read it It says in 2 Peter chapter 2 verses 4, for if God did not spare angels, that's number one example, when they sin, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment, if he did not spare the ancient world, that's example number two, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly

If by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, that's the third example, to ashes, he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly So I could go on and read and read, but he gives three examples there that were warned The angels, these are wicked angels, the ancient world and the time of Noah and of course, Sodom and Gomorrah, that God was going to judge him But most of the world ignores that warning But you know, our families, our relatives, even our church, our country, our world has received warning after warning from sacred scripture

And our God is a God of love, a God of great compassion And as I mentioned earlier, his desires that no one should perish If you were to go to the next chapter in second Peter, verse nine says, the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance But God must and will punish sin Romans 6, 23 says, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life So wrath is coming and we need to tell the world that

Number two, I think the glory of his name. I know, you know that we are not to take the name of the Lord in vain, or Hollywood movies, take it repeatedly And people are always, you know, people who don't believe in God use his name as a curse word But one commentator said that a similar supreme passion for God's glory should saturate the heart and focus the prayers of every believer There must be a seeking first the kingdom of God by every child of God before there should be a pursuit of earthly things You know that verse, Matthew 6, 33, seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness

It says in whatever the believer does In every activity, including driving, and that's first Corinthians 10, 31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God This is God's own chief pursuit is his glory And so it should be with believers The greatest appeal to God in prayer should always be the advancement of his name and the spread of fame among the unbelieving nations So I take that apart away And then number three, maybe you feel abandoned by God Maybe you're struggling like Asap was

Are you like, are you a believer like Asap? Asking the question, how long, oh Lord? Now, remember when we studied Psalm 5, which was all about prayer Also, I said, if you're struggling and you don't know what's going on, make sure number one, you are a believer in Jesus Christ And number two, make sure there is no sin in your life that would cause not to hear your prayers. OK, but if you have Jesus Christ in your heart and you don't know of any sin, maybe you cried out to God and you said, how long, oh Lord, for this trial? How long? Maybe you feel abandoned by God

There's nothing more difficult, maybe when God is silent. OK, but what should you do? Well, you should do what Asap does Take your complaints to God in prayer Cry out You can complain to God, not complaints about normal complaints, but complaints about God Why aren't you judging the abortion clinics in California? Why aren't you dealing with this transgender? Why don't you send Jesus today and then pour out your wrath on this wicked nation? We can go to God in prayer God's not offended by our questions, especially when we're transparent like Asap

But while you're crying out to God and saying how long, you need to be in the fellowship of believers. OK, don't stay away from church That's exactly what Satan wants you to do He he wants you as you're going through this trial, as you're going through this persecution, as you're going through the suffering, he wants you to be down and out, not to read your Bible, not to pray and not to be in church But this is the exact place you need to be First Peter, which is all about suffering

First Peter 412 says, Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you And then the next verse, verse 13 says, But rejoice insofar as you share in Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed The trial is small compared to the glory that we will see when we're in heaven So you need to be in the worship service You need to be singing praise songs like the worship leader Asap would do

When you sing songs of praise to God, even when your hearts are hurting, when it seems like God is silent and you feel abandoned, songs of praise clear our hearts and remind us that God has not abandoned us And then another thing, as you're suffering, as you're struggling, serve the Lord Take time to minister to others because that gets your mind off your trial, off your suffering So those are just three takeaways I have from Psalm 79 Wrath is coming We need to do all we can do for the glory of God

And if by chance you're feeling abandoned and wondering why God isn't answering your prayers, search your hearts and just continue to worship, continue to wait That's what Asap did Let's pray Father, thank you for Psalm 79 Thank you that we know the historical account of this Psalm Thank you for this brother Asap We don't know a lot about him, Lord, but I believe he was a godly man and I believe he suffered tremendously But Father, he knows like we know that you're a holy, holy God and you will judge sin because you're a righteous God and you must punish sins for your justice

So Father God, we know that wrath is coming So we pray for our relatives today. I know on the CCC prayer letter, there's at least 25 people in our church asking for prayer for their relatives And so Father, we do pray for all our relatives that don't know Jesus Christ, that we would have another opportunity to share with them that the wrath of God will be poured out and punished And they do not want to be here when the rapture comes and we're in heaven because this tribulation, this world will be even much more worse than it is

So Father, we pray for the salvation of our loved ones who perhaps grew up in this church, who've wandered away And Father, I just pray for another opportunities to share with them the love of Christ and the consequences of rejecting him And Father, we pray for Christ Community Church, that you would use it as a light of salvation for West Camino, Baldwin Park, Irwindale, that the word of God would be preached here that would cause salvation to come to many people And for us who have salvation for sanctification

Father, help us to honor your name, not just with our lips by not cursing, but in whatever we do, wherever we do, at work, at home, whether we're a housewife, whether we're a teacher, whether we drive, whether we're anywhere, may we glorify your holy and great and awesome and mighty name Father, may we lift up anybody who's struggling today, anybody who's suffering, anybody who like ASAP says, how long, oh Lord, how long must I wait? Father, we love the answer of prayer when it's yes

We don't really like it when it's no, but we appreciate the abruptness, but help those who are struggling through whatever situation would be And they might be saying, how long, oh Lord, that they would pass the test, that they would survive the trial, that they would persevere as we are as Christians And we pray that for us, for those of us who aren't suffering, that we can come alongside those who are and help them We ask this in Jesus name Amen.