Psalm 80: Man’s Enlightened Cries for God’s Mercy 2. The Cause of God’s Anger Psalm 80:4-7

Text: “O Lord God of hosts, how long wilt Thou be angry against the prayer of Thy people?”

Psalm 80:4-7.

“But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that HE WILL NOT HEAR.  For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.  None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.”

Isaiah 59:2-4.

Good morning, under-the-cloud Christian!  We who are blessed with God’s good and Sovereign grace in the Salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ’s Sacrifice at the Cross of Calvary, have been Spiritually enlightened to our sinful state; the absolute righteousness of the Living Christ Jesus; and God’s fearful judgement that is on its way to all those who reject the Gospel of God’s Salvation, in Christ, and in Him and His Sacrifice alone. This is Scriptural truth and cannot be refuted by any other temporal authority or force of argument.

Jesus Teaches us: “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away (to Heaven, after His Crucifixion and Resurrection): for if I go not away, the Comforter (capital C, God the Holy Spirit) will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you. And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement.”  (John 16:8)

Because of this Scriptural fact (God’s truth from God’s written Word), and God the Holy Spirit living within every genuine Bible-believing Christian, we feel a profound grief within our hearts whenever we sin against the Lord God’s Holiness in any manner or degree.  God the Holy Spirit living within us, is deeply grieved when we sin – and because of our sinful failings, we bring ourselves under-the-cloud of committed sin, and our born-again hearts cannot bear our guilty grief.  We are inspired of God to cry out to Him in repentance.

True Christian ‘sheep’ cannot remain long in the mire of committed sin.  On the other hand, the world’s ‘goats’ can wallow like pigs in their sin, with no desire to get out of it and be washed clean.  Scriptural fact!  Check it out for yourself, Reader!

Christ’s Sheep: “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may ministry grace unto the hearers.  And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”  (Ephesians 4:29-30)

The World’s Goats: “This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.  But ye have not so learned Christ; if so be that ye have heard Him, and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus.”  (Ephesians 4:17-21)

Scripture Teaching: Please read afresh Matthew 25:31-46, and Ephesians Chapter 4:

Verse 4. O Lord God of hosts, how long wilt Thou be angry against the prayer of Thy people? That God should be angry with us when sinning seems natural enough, but that He should be angry even with our prayers is a bitter grief. (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 347)

God’s Fearful Anger Against Sin: “God hath not only the chariots and horsemen of Heaven to defend His prophet; but even the basest, the most inducible, and despicable creatures, wherewith to confound His enemies.  If Goliath stalk forth to defy the God of Israel, he shall be confuted with a pebble. If Herod wells up to be a god, God will send His vermin on him, and all the king’s guard cannot save him from them. You have heard of rats that could not be beaten off till they had destroyed that covetous prelate; and of the fly that killed Pope Adrian.  God hath more ways to punish than He hath creatures.  His anger, therefore, seems so much the more fearful, as it is presented to us under so great a title: ‘The Lord God of hosts’ is angry. They talk of Tamerlane that he could daunt his enemies with the very look of his countenance. Oh, then, what terror dwells in the countenance of an offended God.” (Thomas Adams,1614)

“If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me…BUT verily (truly) God hath heard me; He hath attended to the voice of my prayer.  Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me.”  (Psalm 66;18-20)

There shall be no hearing of our prayers – as genuine believers – if we continue on in our besetting sin.  We must repent from sin, and seek God’s forgiveness constantly.

Verse 5. “Thou feedest them with the bread of tears. Thy people ate bread of wheat before, but now they receive from thine own hand no better diet than bread of tears…Tear bread is even more the fruit of the curse than to eat bread in the sweat of one’s face, but it shall, by Divine love, be turned into a greater blessing, by ministering to our Spiritual health.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 347)

God the Father only chastens His own Blood-bought children – and always for our good.

Verse 6. “And our enemies laugh among themselves. They find mirth in our misery, comedy in our tragedy, salt for their wit in the brine of our tears, amusement in our amazement.  It is devilish to sport with another’s griefs; but it is the constant habit of the world (unsaved), which lieth in the wicked one, to make merry with the saint’s tribulations; the seed of the Serpent follow their progenitor and rejoice in evil.” (C.H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, page 347)

Thought: Sin, unconfessed to God, will keep the Christian under-the-cloud of Spiritual grief. Turn us continually, O Lord, to repent of our sin, and cause Thy face to shine upon us!