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November 26: Where is your God?

Psalms 79:1-13:
O God, the nations have come into Your inheritance; Your holy temple they have defiled; they have laid Jerusalem in heaps. The dead bodies of Your servants they have given as food for the birds of the heavens, the flesh of Your saints to the beasts of the earth. Their blood they have shed like water all around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them. We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to those who are around us.
How long, Lord? Will You be angry forever? Will Your jealousy burn like fire? Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not know You, and on the kingdoms that do not call on Your name. For they have devoured Jacob, and laid waste his dwelling place. Oh, do not remember former iniquities against us! Let Your tender mercies come speedily to meet us, for we have been brought very low. Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Your name; and deliver us, and provide atonement for our sins, for Your name’s sake! Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” Let there be known among the nations in our sight the avenging of the blood of Your servants which has been shed. Let the groaning of the prisoner come before You; according to the greatness of Your power preserve those who are appointed to die; and return to our neighbors sevenfold into their bosom their reproach with which they have reproached You, O Lord. So we, Your people and sheep of Your pasture, will give You thanks forever; we will show forth Your praise to all generations.

The psalms that we have been studying, especially this group of psalms that belong to Asaph or his descendants, have a particular theme and it is the pain of the destruction of Jerusalem.
This psalm describes a scene of terror at the invasion of the enemy army, an army that had no respect or compassion for the people of the living God. And it is that God gave them into the hands of the enemy because they had abandoned the Lord for many years.
In the November 22 devotional we studied Psalm 74 and titled this devotional "How long?" In this Psalm 79 Asaph asks again the same question “how long?”, and in this case he refers to the wrath of God and the anger of the Lord with his people.
The psalmist could not bear to see the suffering of young and old, children, women, and the elderly. And not only was it the people's own suffering, it was also the mockery and contempt of the enemies, showing them in their faces that their God was not strong enough to protect them. It really was a very big humiliation when they said to them: "Where is your God? Where is the glory of the God of Moses, Joshua and the great kings? The God of this temple bathed in gold?

Don't miss tomorrow's devotional where we will understand the why of the consequences of the people of Israel and why God did not protect them from their enemies.
The people of Israel accepted their guilt too late. They themselves had caused this calamity and had to listen to the mocking voices of their oppressors. This was very painful because they knew what God could do. They were delivered many times from the hand of the Assyrians, Midianites, Philistines and different armies that sought to invade the Jewish territory.
In this case, the psalmist asked the Lord not to continue punishing them for their sins and to fill them in abundance with his mercies, his compassion and forgiveness. The psalmist wanted the prisoner to be free and that the condemned to death be forgiven; he wished to see the glory of Israel restored again and hear the praises of God from a forgiven and redeemed people.

I hope this lesson teaches us not to forget the Lord our God and not to play with our salvation. That today we can learn from them not to make the same mistake, following our own wishes, ignoring the advice of God's messengers; rather let us...