Tags
Christian, conscience, disaster, God, jihadists, martyrs, remembering
Reading: Psalm 74
Verses 18-23
Remember how the enemy has mocked you, LORD,
how foolish people have reviled your name.
Do not hand over the life of your dove to wild beasts;
do not forget the lives of your afflicted people forever.
Have regard for your covenant,
because haunts of violence fill the dark places of the land.
Do not let the oppressed retreat in disgrace;
may the poor and needy praise your name.
Rise up, O God, and defend your cause;
remember how fools mock you all day long.
Do not ignore the clamor of your adversaries,
the uproar of your enemies, which rises continually (NIV).
Reflection
Psalm 74 was born in a time of disaster and distress. The enemies of the people of God had triumphed. The sanctuary had been destroyed and God was openly mocked. If the LORD was all powerful, why didn’t He prevent this disaster? Why didn’t He shelter His people from this violent storm? There are no quick easy answers to such questions.
North Gower United Church — photo by David Kitz
Today many of God’s people are living the reality of Psalm 74. Throughout the Middle East, the birthplace of Christianity, churches have been destroyed. Young Christian men have been martyred. Women and girls have been raped and sold into slavery. The pleas expressed in this psalm are an urgent reality. Do not hand over the life of your dove to wild beasts; do not forget the lives of your afflicted people forever.
But we need not live in a land ravaged by jihadists to feel the sting of the LORD’s enemies. Daily at our universities and through various media the Christian faith is mocked. Believers are treated as imbeciles and those who stand for righteousness are ridiculed. We are not being thrown to the lions, but the wisdom of the ages is being tossed on the dung heap, so the godless can pursue their sin without the voice of conscience nattering in the background.
Over all this dissonance the voice of the psalmist—the voice of the martyr—the voice of the believer—cries out: Rise up, O God, and defend your cause; remember how fools mock you all day long. Do not ignore the clamor of your adversaries, the uproar of your enemies, which rises continually.
The help of man, though it has value, falls short. We need the help of God. The whispered voice of God has more power than the most eloquent spokesman. Know this child of God: He will arise.
Response: LORD God, defend the helpless. Arise and save your people. Show yourself strong by turning back the enemies of the cross. Our hope is in you. Amen.
Your Turn: Are you confident that God will arise and defend His people? Why is our hope in Him secure?
I love the Psalms 
…because if we read the Bible and BELIEVE the stories that God tells us, we know that He saves His beloved children, He overcomes, He reigns. I find great comfort in that – in HIS time, He will come.
Love the picture too, David.
Thanks for your comments and encouragement.
Amen to your prayer, David. And thank God that he always answers prayer, and is working. Evil may triumph for a time. But we’ve read the back of the book, and know who will be victorious!
Yes, amen to good endings!
I find it interesting to read about Hezekiah with his people under threat of destruction. The Assyrian would destroy them if he might. I read in Isaiah 37: Then the angel of the Lord went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.
I read that the Lord will rise up as in Mount Perazim and also shall do as the slaughter of Midian at Oreb. Gives much about which to think. Laws have become so strict, it is almost a crime just to glance someone’s way, anymore. Certainly being an offender for a word has become a part of our daily life. But woe unto them, it is said that make a man an offender for a word. Somebody ought to do something. The land is languishing in almost no freedom due to the higher ups that glory in coercion, manipulation, wickedness, and deceit. They hide, saying, who knoweth us? Who seeth us? And their works are in the dark. But shall the work say of him that made it, he made me not? Shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, he had no understanding? So many pull sin as it were with a cart rope. They cannot, will not do without it. They crush others to keep those sins. They would be much better off learning to respect freedoms, deny themselves forbidden pleasures, and better the planet in which they live. But power provides them the sense of carnal security that they may do as pleasure pleases. That they may perform as willing within their own crooked hearts. They seek not the welfare of Zion.
We live in difficult times when good is called evil, and evil is called good.
Most abhorrent is those that do evil “in the name of good,” justifying the means with the ends, supposing that we are all just computer programs with a glitch to be re-programmed. Hmmm…Whose program, though? Theirs? These are self-righteous hypocrites that want to do “good” for society by denying religion and choice to those who oppose their viewpoints.
Extraodoridnary truths. Exceptional writing. Thanks Dave!
Lyle
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