Wilderness Wanderings

Hear, O my people, and I will warn you—if you would but listen to me, O Israel! You shall have no foreign god among you; you shall not bow down to an alien god. I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it. But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. (Psalm 81:8-12)

"Listen. Listen to Me!" God calls out to His people. The people are joyfully worshipping God as the psalm begins, according to what the law of Moses commands them to do at the appointed festival times. But as God tries once again to call His people to attention, it is as if He is talking to a wall.

In Hebrew, 'hearing' and 'doing' are basically the same thing. So, how should the Israelites, and by extension, how should we, respond when God calls us to listen? We must love the Lord our God. Love Him not just with all our emotions, but love Him with all of our strength. All of our "doing." When we love someone, we act out that love in loyalty and faithfulness.

For Israel, to love the Lord meant faithful obedience to the terms of their covenant relationship. Obedience to the laws of God was never supposed to be about legalism or trying to earn God's favour. The people already have His favour. We already have God's favour. Rather, obedience is about love and listening to the voice of God. Read through the beginning of Deuteronomy and you'll find the words "love" and "listen" closely connected throughout because they go hand in hand.

God wants us to open wide our mouth and He will fill it. This statement implies dependency, faith, trust, and obedience to God on our part. On God's part, it implies commitment, faithfulness, and provision.

Just think of a nest full of baby birds. Their mouths seem almost too big for their scrawny bodies as they open them wide and thrust their necks upward in expectation for what tasty morsel will be given to them. Those babies are completely dependent on their parent for regular provision and protection. They have faith that when they open their mouth, their parent will fill it. They trust their parent completely.

Whatever we open in our lives to God, He will fill. We can't open our mouths bigger than He can fill. We tend to open our mouths most often when we are in need. Verse 6 says, "You cried to me in trouble, and I saved you." We know how to come to God when we're in need.

But we also open our mouths wide when we ask God for large things. Larger than life things. We open our mouths wide when we understand the awesome wonder of the God to whom we pray and serve. We open our mouths wide when we ingest the word of God and speak His words in love back out of our, once again, open mouths.

When we open our mouths, our hearts, our love, our loyalty, and our obedience to God, it becomes more than a command that God gave to the Israelites back in the days of Moses. It becomes a relationship with the God who saves us.

And Psalm 81 ends by telling us what He will do for us as we listen to His words, love Him and others, and take action in obedience to that love. "If my people would only listen to me, if Israel would only follow my ways how quickly I would subdue their enemies…you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock, I would satisfy you." (v13,14a,16)

As Jesus said to the Samaritan woman in John 4, "whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life," (14). Let's go straight to the source. Straight to the one who satisfies. Open our mouths wide to Jesus and receive from Him the goodness, and satisfaction which He alone provides.

"Hear us, O Shepherd of Israel... Restore us, O Lord God Almighty; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved" (Psalm 80:1,3).

Our psalm stands in sharp contrast to Psalm 23, the better-known shepherd psalm. Here God is also addressed as a Shepherd. In Psalm 23, David appears to live as close to paradise as one can find in this life. But here, in Psalm 80, Israel is far from such tranquility. Here are no green pastures or quiet waters, only the shadow of the valley of death.

We live more often in Psalm 80 than in Psalm 23, yet we know the 23rd. How many of us are familiar with this psalm? Far fewer! Why is this? Is this avoidance of reality? Do we have a pie in the sky religion? Is it an unwillingness to call God out for the way he runs the world? North American Christians tend to avoid the harsh realities of life and faith.

This psalm helps us sit with Job in the ashes where he offers us a powerful spiritual example. He sat in the ashes until God answered him. As impatient Canadians, we want to get out of this Psalm and out of the ashes asap. But notice that this psalm does not have a happy ending. The prayer is over, but God has not answered.

We want to get to Psalm 23. And we derive many ways of getting there. But Job and Asaph (if he is the author of this psalm) did not find ways of getting there.

They both knew that only God could get them there. Job wanted God's answer. And Asaph composed this refrain, "Restore us, O God; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved." Three times! Verses 2, 7, 19.

This psalm helps us sit in our own ash pit and helps us form our prayers in our pain. It also gives shape to our empathy as we sit around the ash pit of our friends. It keeps us from making useless conversation and accusations like Job's friends. It also gives us words to pray for them.

As we spend time in this psalm, we discover something more. It gives us rich metaphors for our conversations with God. The psalm contains the imagery of a vine: a lush, vibrant, fruitful vine that once covered cedars, mountains, and whole countries.

But now the vine is dying. It's been abandoned and left uncultivated. Anyone can come and pick its fruit. Its gardener has gone. Who is this gardener? He is God Almighty, the shepherd of Israel.

Sometimes, we live under the illusion that if we serve God well, everything will go smoothly for us. Occasionally, someone articulates that because we have given our lives to God in service to his kingdom, we ought to be able to live happily ever after. If we don't get that, we must have sinned greatly, or God is not keeping his end of the deal. Sometimes, that may be true, but it should not be our go to answer.

Here, in verse 4, our psalm mentions God's anger, but in verse 12 it asks why all this tragedy has happened? It is certainly not clear that it is because of Israel's sin. The Psalm is clear about this: if God will not return to His people, she will be lost forever.

The imagery of the psalm gets picked up in the gospels. Jesus reminds us that God is the gardener who is still at work today. He has not abandoned his people or his work of redemption.

More than that, in Jesus, God has turned his faced fully towards us. Yet, for those darkest hours he hid his face from Jesus. In our distress we turn to Him. He can sympathize with our sorrows and weaknesses. He is the bringer of God's face. In Him, God shines upon us.

We wait for Him!

O God, the nations have invaded your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple, they have reduced Jerusalem to rubble.… They have poured out blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there is no one to bury the dead. We are objects of reproach to our neighbors, of scorn and derision to those around us. How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever? How long will your jealousy burn like fire? … Help us, O God our Saviour, for the glory of your name; deliver us and provide atonement for our sins for your name's sake. (Psalm 79:1, 3-5, 9)

The king of Babylon had conquered Judah and destroyed Jerusalem, tearing down God's holy temple and leaving in it nothing of value. Bodies of God's chosen people were strewn in the streets. Blood poured out like water. The city was utterly forsaken.

God had abandoned His people, making them a reproach to all the nations around them. Judah's idolatry and derision of God had become a putrid stench to God, rising up to greet Him. And so God had followed through on His promises of utter destruction, should the Israelites choose to walk away from Him and instead take up the despicable practices of the nations around them. God's jealousy for His people burned like a fire. Both the people and the land of God's inheritance had been invaded and trampled by the enemy.

But life had not always been that way. The prayers of His people had once been as a fragrant incense rising up to God (see Psalm 141:2). The people of His inheritance.

And now we are God's inheritance! Think about that for a moment. God owns everything in the universe. Everything in the billions of galaxies that He created. Yet He has chosen us as His inheritance. "The Lord's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance." (Deut 32:9)

God is saddened because of our deliberate sins yet compassionate towards us when we sin unknowingly. The Psalmist cries out to God "How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever?" It is a cry that we ourselves may have cried out in our hearts or shouted from the rooftops during our times of deepest trial or hardship. But we can be assured that "His anger lasts only a moment, but his favour lasts a lifetime." (Psalm 30:5) Although we may feel like God is showering us with trials or hardships, isolation, heartache, physical or emotional pain, we can know that his favour and blessing are ultimately ours.

Not every hardship in our lives comes from the hand of God, as is the fate of the Israelites which this Psalm laments. But as God's inheritance, He loves us greatly. "He has redeemed [our] soul from going to the pit, and [our] life shall see the light." (Job 33:28) We can rest on the assurance that God has atoned for our every sin through Christ Jesus. In our sin and even in spite of our sin, He helps us, and He delivers us.

Help and deliverance might not always look like what we want or expect, but it will always come, in God's time and in His way. With our deliverance comes the glory of God's name. God will never forsake the glory of His name.

The Israelites were not forsaken forever. They returned once again to the land and rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and laid the foundation of the temple of God. The treasures of the temple were restored. God does not forget His people. He will never forget His inheritance. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16) Surely, God's love endures forever.

"We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord...His decreed statues for Jacob. Then they will not be like their forefathers--a stubborn and rebellious generation whose hearts were not loyal to God... (cf. Psalm 78:4,5,8)

As shepherds outside of Gevas, Turkey, were eating breakfast one morning, they were surprised to see a sheep charge over the edge of a cliff and fall to its death. What followed took away their breath-and their appetite. Most of the remaining 1,500 sheep followed the first sheep and leaped over the same cliff. About 450 sheep died; the others survived only because as the corpses piled up at the bottom of the cliff, their falls were cushioned.

This gives new meaning to the prophecy of Isaiah 53:6: 'All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God's paths to follow our own.' Sheep are followers; so are sinners. God, the Good Shepherd, has his hands full. It's a good thing he is patient, says this psalm.

It is a long psalm. Well, it's a summary of Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and even parts of Joshua, Judges and 1 Samuel. It is a distillation of all that history down to one big lesson, summarized in Romans 5:8, "God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners."

This is a song about God's mercy: "their hearts were not loyal to him; they were not faithful to his covenant. Yet he was merciful; he forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them" (37-38). His kindness is meant to lead us to repentance, not contempt and complacency. Let us pray that our hearts will yield to his mercy.

The psalm also reminds us that there has been no golden age for the people of God. Hebrews 11 selects various men and women of the Bible and parades them in a kind of hall of fame of faith. But most of our history is more like a hall of shame, redeemed only by the boundless mercy of God. We are supposed to learn from all this.

Their story is our story, written in part, to show us how not to live, how not to be. Yet, more than that, its written to shine a spotlight on God's mercy that we might be moved to faithfulness by it. And we are invited to continue the story, to tell the stories of God so that the next generation will not be like our ancestors: stubborn, rebellious, and unfaithful, refusing to give their hearts to God, but moved by his mercy.

What is it that causes people to give their hearts to God? Of course, the right answer is, "the Holy Spirit." Does the Spirit have tools? This psalm would say, "Stories!" I wonder if that is why our appetite for Catechism classes and other forms of teaching has disappeared. They were often about information rather than stories. They aimed at the mind rather than the heart. For many, the way to the mind is through the heart, and the heart is moved by stories.

The psalm builds to a crescendo: one defection after another, one monumental act of divine mercy after another. Where sin abounded, grace abounded even more. God answers the stubborn rebellion of his unfaithful people by giving the greatest shepherd-king they ever had: David, whose lineage would eventually conclude with its own crescendo: the Good Shepherd, the King of Kings, Jesus.

Give thanks for this! Give thanks for God's mercy.

An extended Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text is Daniel 6 from the New International Version of the Bible. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection!

To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it here on YouTube. Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: immanuelministries.ca

DIVE IN QUESTIONS

1. What leaves you feeling insecure today?
2. What ways do you tend to respond to feeling insecure? What ways did Pastor Anthony mention from today's text?
3. The immature law of those seeking to secure themselves is set up against the "law of Daniel's God." What was that law (was it a law)?
4. What does it mean to have a mature relationship with God? What did Daniel's relationship with God look like?
5. Take a look at Daniel 6: how many parallels do you find between this story and the story of Jesus through the events leading up to Good Friday and through Easter?
6. How will you place your trust and hope for security in God this week?

"Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?" Then I thought, "To this I will appeal: the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand. I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. … Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen. (Psalm 77:7-11, 19)

This psalm gives one of the hardest set of questions found in the land of lament. It is a moment when the rug has utterly been pulled out from under the psalmist and where no trace of God can be found.

I think of Kevin. Of Erin. Of Kelly. Of Michael. Of Paul. Of Rianti. These young parents stolen away from their families cruelly by disease and circumstance. And of course, there are others too. Our church and wider community have known so much death and pain in these last few years.

Psalm 77 gives voice to exactly the sort of questions we have asked and demanded answers to from God over these past years. Perhaps they are questions we're still asking for these or any number of other reasons. We each have pain and heartache particular to our own lives.

The beauty of our faith, is that we stand with a community that includes the psalmists, and which not only permits us to shout out our raw, un-sanctimonious questions, fears, and emotions, but actually encourages and teaches to do it through psalms like this!

We often think it's better to not say the hard things we feel to God—that it's better not to question his "plan." But that is a false reverence—our relationship with God demands honesty above all, even when it's raw and painful. The alternative is to lie. Or to avoid God altogether. And neither of those options are good for our soul or our faith. It's best to just get the truth out then. And, God is big enough to handle the hard stuff.

It's only through that sort of raw honesty before God that we are brought back and more deeply into relationship with God. And it's in that place that slowly we begin to remember who he is; how he cares for us; and how the silence that we see and feel from his end may not be the whole story.

The psalmist scours their memory—searching for any traces of God—for any memories to hold on to, experiences of worship, familiar songs or stories of the faith. Slowly the pieces fall back together.

God was the one that made a way through the sea for the Israelites… but no one actually saw God there either. His footprints were not seen. But that doesn't mean he wasn't with his people: saving them, making a way for them even still. And maybe, the psalmist begins to reckon, just maybe that's true in my life right now too. Just maybe God is still present, with me, even here, even though I can't see him either.

Dear friends, be honest with God. Go to him often and always with whatever is on your heart. It is from that place of honesty that we are best able to remember and believe—not just in the work of God in the past—but that this God might also be that same God still in our lives and sorrows today.

"God is renowned in Judah; in Israel his name is great...There he broke the flashing arrows, the shields and the swords, the weapons of war" (Psalm 76:1,3).

Christians continually return to the psalms to help us express both our praise and our anxiety. Through these songs, we give voice to our joy and our pain.

Yet the psalms have a larger purpose then helping us shape our response to God. He uses them to shape us, especially our understanding of the world and history. John Calvin once wrote that we find the entire gospel in the psalms. Psalm 76 shapes our understanding of the gospel in the age of Pentecost, that is, the age of the Holy Spirit between Christ's ascension and his return.

Set in the context of Israelite worship, this Psalm speaks about God going out from Israel as a conquering warrior. As Christians, we generally understand ourselves as the new Israel, the people of God today. So, wherever the church is, God goes out in judgement.

But what does that mean? Should we use this violent language in our worship today? Let us consider several things.

First, this is poetic language that describes the violent evil of our world. It may be difficult for us, 'civilized' citizens of the western world to understand this. But go to the war-torn places of the world and see the results of evil acts: millions of people huddled in refugee camps, thousands of hectares of crops burned, villages looted and destroyed, old men and boys killed, youth recruited as labourers and soldiers, women and girls raped.

Spend a month with a single mother, with two children in a single bedroom basement apartment, trying to hold down a minimum wage job, keep food on the table, her children in school and adequately clothed for a Canadian winter.

Suddenly, a God who comes roaring in judgement and restoration sounds like a very welcome sound.

Second, these psalms are part of communal worship. In that holy place, God dwells with His people and purges away our alien loyalties and our despair. Such worship is meant to be intense and cathartic so that we see reality more clearly. We see God in judgement of the persecutors and exalting the persecuted to a new, glorious existence. Everything is turned into praise.

Thirdly, the reality of divine judgement invites the worshippers to commit themselves to a counterculture world view. Since we believe that God will come to set right the horrible evils of human existence, we commit ourselves to live in righteousness today.

Even while all around us, people pursue a life of self interest, stepping on others to get ahead, worshippers of God seek to live justly, to do good to our enemies, overing evil with good (Romans 12:21), to have mercy on each neighbour God sends our way (Luke 10:37).

The age of Pentecost, between Jesus Ascension and His return in glory, is an age of warfare. As Paul says, Christ must reign until all His enemies are a footstool under his feet. That is the age we live in. Psalm 76 is a poetic expression of this age, which we read through the lens of Ephesians 6: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (12).

And there is also this, "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).

We praise you, God, we praise you, for your Name is near; people tell of your wonderful deeds. You say, "I choose the appointed time; it is I who judge with equity. When the earth and all its people quake, it is I who hold its pillars firm. (Psalm 75:1-3)

I feel like I've been saying this over and over again for the past 3 years. But it sure feels like the earth and all its people are quaking, doesn't it? Still? COVID has exposed so many deep faults and rifts in our world that now continue to fracture into uncertainty, restlessness, division, fear, anger, and all sorts of other things. Our institutions feel fragile and continue to shift under our feet. Our relationships and community may feel oddly distant or fragile too. None of us really have any gas left in the tank, but the world we live in keeps asking for more.

We need saving. Somehow we just can't do it ourselves. We cannot secure our own lives or communities. We cannot control the fate of our institutions. We cannot quell our own restlessness and loneliness no matter the temptations or distractions we turn to. And we just can't catch a peaceful break in which to rest up and be refreshed. God help us. And I mean that quite truly: as people who cannot save themselves and are going to have to rely on someone else to do it—God will need to be the one to step in and help us.

In Psalm 75 we hear God speak. Amidst so much injustice, God declares: "it is I who judge with equity." Amidst so much that feels apocalyptic, as if the end is somehow drawing near, God reminds us: "I choose the appointed time." And when we are simply shaken and shaking in a world that feels like its coming undone, God reminds us: "It is I who hold [the earth's] pillars firm."

Of course, the other side of those declaration of God's work over this world is the implication that we are not the judges, not the ones who get to know or choose the times, nor the ones who hold the world or our lives together. No: this is God's work, not ours. We cannot save ourselves. Only God can do that.

Much of this psalm speaks out against the boastful, the proud, and the wicked who think they can do it all themselves. By their power, their might, their control. But God says no. He bursts our bubble and reminds us that we never could hold it all together ourselves. We have always needed a saviour. We have always needed a God to hold us and help us.

The invitation is for us to humbly submit and to give thanks: because if the weight of the world feels like too heavy a burden to bear, that's because it is. It's time to turn it over to God and let him be God today. May he come quickly to save us.

"Why have you rejected us forever, O God? Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture? Remember the people you purchased of old...Turn your steps toward these everlasting ruins, all this destruction the enemy has brought on the sanctuary (Psalm 74:1-3).

Reading Psalm 74 reminds me of those news briefs coming periodically out of the Middle East a few years ago. Those reports depict a group, such as ISIS, appearing to systematically eradicate the Christian memory from their territory. The fear among Christians in the West was that all evidence of Christian existence and worship of God was being scoured away.

We know from scripture, especially the book of Deuteronomy, that when Israel found herself in this kind of national crisis, there was only one cause. She herself was to blame. God stated very clearly that if Israel abandoned Him, He would let her enemies destroy her.

These things happened to Israel because of God's judgement. St. Augustine, back in the 4th century summed it all up with these pithy words, "If we reject God's mercy we are only left with His wrath."

But that is not the only story. From Scripture, we know that there are other reasons why tragedy strikes God's people. We must not be so arrogant as to imagine we understand the reasons behind adversity. Job never finds out why he experienced his calamity. When Jesus' disciples want to know whose sin caused a man's blindness, Jesus topples their theology, saying this was to display God's work (John 9:3). Many of God's people have found themselves praying from the place of chaos with no knowledge of why!

How do we pray in this void? How do we give voice to God's seeming absence? Psalm 74 helps. It is always good to start with confession and repentance. These should always be in our spiritual arsenal. But this psalm has none of them. It gives absolutely no rational why Israel has been pillaged and burned.

Israel's worship leaders do not ask God to see how real or sincere their repentance is. Nor do they ask God to notice how holy their lives are now. No! There is nothing selfish about there requests for God to act.

They appeal to God's cause and the defaming of His name (22). These words give expression to our groaning when God seems absent. Why is God not doing anything? The distress caused by God's inactivity is heightened as the worshipper's recount some of the great acts of God. He has always been the God of action and power for his people. He came to them as their Redeemer, rescuing them from Egypt.

So why is He so silent now?

We pray to the creating and saving God who has overcome every challenge to His kingship. Christ sits enthroned in heaven, having conquered death. Why does He tolerate the 'monsters' that are destroying his worshippers today?

This is a prayer of desperate faith. The issue for the worshippers is not that their lives are in ruins, but that God's fame and honour and name are in ruins. The redemptive project God began by liberating Israel from Egypt is in jeopardy. If doesn't act soon, his followers will be wiped from the earth.

This certainly challenges how we pray. Such psalms invite us to consider what motivates our prayers. Often, our motives are selfish. The church has long encouraged us to use the psalms to shape the content of our prayers. On our own, we turn inward, self focused. With the scriptures as our guide, we can truly learn to pray, "Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven."

Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. … This is what the wicked are like—always free of care, they go on amassing wealth. Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and have washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been afflicted, and every morning brings new punishments. If I had spoken out like that, I would have betrayed your children. When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny. … Those who are far from you will perish… But as for me, it is good to be near God. (Psalm 73:1, 12-17, 27a. 28a)

That's a long and complicated selection of text that I picked for today. Jesus said it a lot more simply in his Beatitudes from Matthew 5 when he said: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God."

But it is hard to keep a pure heart, and that's what this psalm is all about. The psalmist confesses early on in verse 2 that their foot had nearly slipped—they had nearly given up their pure heart as they envied the wicked.

Why this envy? Because the wicked are carefree, rich, and healthy. They don't follow any rules: they do what they want and they get what they want—they chase their desires and fulfill them with all the money, entertainment, property, sex, and power that they can get their hands on. And it works. Despite the fact that we people of faith believe that doing things God's way is what gets the blessing: it never quite seems to turn out that way. Whereas those who take the short cut, elbowing their way through any way they can get away with, seem pretty successful and blessed!

So why should the pure in heart bother to keep their hands clean? Why should they follow the rules? Why do they keep suffering affliction when they too, could easily just jump the que to grab the blessings they desire for themselves?

Well, it frankly doesn't make any sense at all. Or at least, it didn't until the psalmist stepped inside God's sanctuary. Then he remembered. And that's true for us all: entering into God's presence invites us to remember.

The psalmist may not have had all the blessings his heart desired. He may not have even had much health in his body. But what the psalmist did have that the wicked didn't, was God. Despite all the wealth and health in the world, the wicked remained far from God. And ultimately, God is what makes the difference. God and being near to him is what holds the ultimate value.

This is where the Psalmist ends. "Those who are far from you will perish," for who has any life that's really life without God? But God's people who have had their hearts and hands made pure through the work of Jesus? They are the ones who find life, and blessing, and eventually also that promise of shalom that we heard about yesterday, because they are the ones who have God. The ones that God has come near to. This is true life, life as it was meant to be—life with God.

So says Jesus: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God."