Psalm 79: God’s Wrath Works Repentance! (a) A Cry of National complaint Psalm 79:1-5

Text: “O remember not against us former iniquities: let Thy tender mercies speedily prevent us: for we are brought very low.  Help us, O God of our Salvation, for the glory of Thy Name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for Thy Name’s sake.”

Psalm 79:8-9.

Good morning, progressively repentant Christian!  Both you and I have sometimes sinned, often in gross and blatant manners – in word, thought, and deed – AFTER we have been gloriously redeemed by the precious and sinless Blood of Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God. Fact!

We have sinned because we are natural born sinners, possessing an Adamic nature inherited from fallen Adam/Eve that only wants to sin continually, and is therefore constantly, and incurably prone to sin against the Lord God’s absolute Holiness. Fact!  

Mankind’s state, after the Fall: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart.” (Genesis 6:5-6)

“For to be carnally minded is death; but to be Spiritually minded is life and peace.  Because (a conclusion) the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Romans 8:6-8)

Our Holy Lord God Almighty cannot have SIN in His Holy Presence, He must punish all sin in order to remain a Holy Lord God.  There are no small sins, or big sins with the Lord God – all falling short of the absolute Holiness and righteousness of God the Son, Christ Jesus is, and is deemed to be, SIN.  Every person born of woman after Adam/Eve’s fall from God’s grace in Eden, are born natural sinners – we sin every day, in word, thought, and in deed.  That is why we Christians must repent from our sin, confess our sin to the Lord God, and seek fresh sanctification every day.  This is the Bible doctrine of what we call Progressive Sanctification.

The Lord God chastens us, ‘His people’ when we sin.  That chastisement is designed to bring us back into line with God’s great Holiness in our daily state, as Christ’s Blood has made us Holy in our family standing in Him.  God’s wrath works repentance in us continually.

Psalm 79 is a Psalm listing the complaints of God’s people, as the Lord repeatedly chastens them for their sin to bring them to personal and National repentance.  Personal sin, and National sin must be continually punished by God. Invasion, oppression, and National overthrow are the chastisements of our Holy Lord God.

Verse 1. “O God, the heathen are come into Thine inheritance. It is with the eye of amazement at sacrilegious intrusion; as if the poet were struck with horror. ‘Thy Holy temple have they defiled.’ It is an awful thing when wicked men are found in the church and numbered with her ministry. ‘They have laid Jerusalem on heaps’ It is sad to see the foe in our own house, but worse to meet him in the house of God; they strike hardest who smite at our religion.” (Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, page 343)

The Jewish nation, and their great city Jerusalem in particular, have suffered God’s rebuke after rebuke down though the war-torn centuries since Christ Jesus was rejected as their true Messiah, and Crucified to death outside that great city’s walls.

“Pilate saith unto them (the Jewish chief priests and the people), What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let Him be crucified…Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.”  (Matthew 27:22-26)

God the Father said ‘Amen’ (So be it) to this rejection statement – and ever since, the Jewish nation have suffered the consequences of their rejection of Messiah Jesus and felt God’s angry rebukes.  One day a remnant of National Israel will repent, and be graciously saved.

Verses 2-5. “How long, Lord? Wilt Thou be angry forever? Eighteen centuries of exile and woe have not dulled their heart’s affections or deadened their feelings of devotion. Here we see them assembled from the ends of the earth – poor, despised, down-trodden outcasts – amid the desolations of their fatherland, beside the dishonoured ruins of their ancient sanctuary (the wailing wall) – chanting, now in accents of deep pathos, and now of wild woe, the prophetic words of their own Psalmist: ‘O God, the heathen are come into Thine inheritance; Thy Holy temple have they defiled…We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us. How long, Lord? Wilt Thou be angry forever?’” (J.L. Porter, in The Giant Cities of Bashan, (1776-1850)

Verse 5. “…Shall Thy jealousy burn like fire? “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness (‘holy pictures/paintings') of anything that is in Heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them (images/pictures/paintings), nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My commandments.” (Exodus 20:4-6)

Nations like our own British nation, and other once great nations like America, which have been founded and grounded upon the Bible and Biblical laws and principles – have apostatised, gone back into worldliness and gross sin; made idols of fools, fools to be worshipped one day, and mourned the next; due to them having taken lethal over-doses of narcotic drugs, or wrecked cars due to being intoxicated by alcohol.  God is not pleased.  Nor shall He be mocked!  Divine punishments are constantly evidenced in floods, storms, wars, as He rebukes and curses once Christian nations, and heathen nations, for their increased rejection of Christ Jesus.

“As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.” (Proverbs 26:2)

Thought: National and personal repentance from gross sin, a sincere turning to Christ for Salvation: these alone might turn away the righteous rod of God’s Divine anger.

8. Man’s Provocations of the Lord God! Psalm 78:58-72

Text: “For they provoked Him to anger with their high places, and moved Him to jealousy with their graven images.”

Psalm 78:58.

          “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.  Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in Heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My commandments.”

Exodus 20:3-6.

Good morning, Commandment-honouring Christian!  For you, and for me, God’s Ten Commandments are as totally relevant today, as in the day the Lord God Almighty, Jehovah, gave them to Moses on Mount Sinai.  (Exodus Chapter 20.)

Dictionary Definition: Commandment – (noun) a command; a religious rule for living by especially one of the Ten Commandments… (The Chambers Dictionary, page 330)

The first and Second Commandments – written as my secondary text above, are increasingly being, and have been, totally disobeyed by once ‘Christian’ nations now, for almost a century; a century when Britain and America in particular, have fallen down into a quagmire of filthy behaviour and gross and vile sin against our Holy Lord God.  Fact!

In spite of the Lord God’s clear warnings of what has happened to nations - even nations historically favoured by Him - when they provoke Him to righteous anger; Britain and America in particular have continued on in bare-faced provocation of an Almighty Lord God Who must punish all sin, and stamp out all evil.  The state of our nations is an open shame; a clear violation of God’s righteous standards; a sure provocation of His Holy wrath. Fact!

“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.  They are all gone out of the way they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.  Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace they have not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:10-18)

Be honest, Commandment-honouring Christian!  Is this not a close description of how far our, once Christian, nations have fallen from God’s Sovereign grace and blessings?  A brief viewing or listening to a daily News bulletin will immediately confirm what I have written above – there is very little fear of Jehovah God on the streets of our once great Christian cities; heathen religions now dominate media outlets; heathen images and shrines are erected where anti-Christians can worship their pagan deities, in once Christian buildings! 

We are constantly being encouraged to join in the worship of ‘Mary, Queen of Heaven’!  A recent Sports gathering in Birmingham produced a mechanical image of a bull that was being adored and worshipped by a circle of would-be angels!  Shame on us all! Shame on all who would dare provoke the Holy Lord God Jehovah! Provoke Him not! He will not be mocked!

Verse 58. “And moved Him to jealousy with their graven images. This was but one more step; they manufactured symbols of the invisible God, for they lusted after something tangible and viable to which they could show reverence. This also is the crying sin of modern times.  Do we not hear and see superstition abounding? Images, pictures, crucifixes, and a host of visible things are had in religious honour, and worst of all men now-a-days worship what they eat, and call that God which passes into their belly, and thence into baser places still.

“Surely the Lord is very patient, or He would visit the earth for this worst and basest idolatry. He is a jealous God and abhors to see Himself dishonoured by any form of representation which can come from man’s hands.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 342)

So many sound Christians today, come to me complaining that ‘they could not darken a local church door anymore’!  When asked ‘why’, the cause is clear: too much humanism; too much idolatry; too much legalism; too much self-righteousness; too much said from pulpits that has no Scriptural authority to say it; too much false love, and not enough of God’s written truth; too much superficially preached, and to perpetual ‘babes in Christ’; and too many modern versions of the Bible containing a watered down, erroneous, translation!

Can you relate to any of these modernist, legalist, ‘churchianity’ complaints, Reader?

Verse 59. “And greatly abhorred Israel. If Dagon sit aloft in any soul, the ark of God is not there.  Where the Lord dwells, no image of jealousy will be tolerated.  A visible church will soon become a visible curse if idols be set up in it, and then the pruning knife will remove it as a dead branch from the vine.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 342)

Consequences of Open Apostasy: How can regenerate, Bible-believing Christians pray for nations that are clearly provoking God’s Holiness and firmly under His judgement?  This is the consequence of open national apostasy. Nations MUST repent and turn back to God. Our nations have no strength, and our national glory is given into the enemy’s hands.

Verse 61. “And delivered His strength into captivity, and His glory into the enemy’s hand. This was a fearful downfall for the favoured nation, and it was followed by dire judgements of the most appalling nature. When God is gone, all is gone. No calamity can equal the withdrawal of the Divine Presence from a people. O Israel, how art thou brought low! Who shall help thee now that thy God has left thee?” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 342)

Thought: God’s ‘Thou shalt nots’ are His blue-print for Christ’s true Commandment-honouring servants. We shall be blessed by following His Way, in Christ, forever. Rejoice, obedient Christian, and come out from among ‘hireling’ shepherds.

7. God’s Clear and Patient Grace! Psalm 78:35-57

Text: “But He (the Lord God), being full of compassion forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned He His anger away, and did not stir up His wrath.  For He remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again.”

Psalm 78:38-39. 

Good morning, thankful Christian!  Your thankfulness, and mine is, primarily, an everlasting thankfulness and gratitude for being permitted, elected, to be part of God’s Salvation plan Divinely conceived in Eternity – when God the Father chose us as His gift to His Son, Jesus Christ, with the full pre-knowledge that His dear Son would go to the Cross and suffer and die to make a full Atonement Sacrifice for all the sins of ‘His people’ elected to Salvation. 

“All that the Father giveth Me (in Eternity, before the world was Created) shall come to Me; and him/her that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.”  (John 6:37)

However, following this primary cause for great thankfulness and Eternal gratitude, we are also most grateful and eternally thankful for God’s patient grace bestowed upon us AFTER we have been gloriously saved, AFTER we have been redeemed by the precious and sinless Blood of Christ Jesus, God’s only begotten Lamb.  Redeemed sinners are still sinners yet!

God has been so very gracious to us, in tolerating our sin-prone state, and, after granting us continual repentance from our committed sin, and after confessing it to Him - continuing to forgive us our sin, and continuing to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This gracious gift of God to us enables us to continue on in close fellowship with His Holy Self. 

Praise God for His gift of repentance and Progressive Sanctification from our daily sins!  Hallelujah!  What a Saviour we love and seek to serve, in Christ Jesus!

“If we say that we have no sin (after we are saved), we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:8-10)

The Sin of Self-righteousness: One of the greatest sins being committed today within the professing church of Christ, is the sin of self-righteousness, which is in itself, a form of blatant legalism.

Legalism: “A term that is used with various meanings. 1. The dogma of Salvation by works, the heresy that man must earn a place in Heaven by his/her personal righteousness. 2. Neonomianism – the theory that works of obedience are a constitutional part of saving faith, rather than its natural fruit.  In earlier times Neonomianism produced the sterile moralism of moderatism.  Nowadays it has found a place in much evangelical preaching where faith is looked upon as “man’s part” in the plan of Salvation.  It is often popularly expressed, “God has done His part, now it is up to you to do your part.” In the Neonomian scheme, this doing is the condition of Salvation; it is not the fruit of the free gift of saving faith, sovereignly imparted by God to His elect.” (Alan Cairns, Dictionary of Theological Terms, Ambassador-Emerald International, 1998)

Legalism: Sinful man gets all puffed up by relying on his ‘works’, how many times he/she attends church-meetings; how much he/she tithes to the church group; how much of the ‘touch not, taste not, abstain from’ one can personally achieve –  this all leads to the person thinking of themselves as not as sinful as other professing believers all around, and thus promotes within themselves a ‘better than thou’ attitude, which can stifle the grace of Christian humility and thankfulness for God’s free and Sovereign grace bestowed daily. 

Self-righteousness is an ugly characteristic being too much tolerated and practiced within church groups today, as those afflicted by it take on the high look and distaste of one constantly sucking on a sour grape.  Or indulge vain-glorious pride in self: Phariseeism.

“Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth (does, and continues to do) the will of My Father which is in Heaven.” (Matthew 7:19-21) God’s will is found, clearly, in God’s Word.

“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.” (Romans 3:10) We all need Christ’s impeccable righteousness to get into Heaven, and that is imputed unto us by God-given faith.

The Lord God in His Divinity is long-suffering towards sinners such as we, ‘His people’, and necessary so, for honest Christians prove to ourselves every day, the sinfulness of our Adamic, sin-prone, nature.  This is the point in this lesson that the self-righteous and the legalistic professors leave the page in protest.  Please feel free to do so.

Psalm 78: 35-56: This section of Psalm 78 reveals how consistently mankind has provoked our Holy Lord God by our accursed sinful nature, inherited from Adam, but if we are honest, wilfully practiced by ourselves.  This section of Psalm 78 also, praise God, reveals God’s clear and patient grace bestowed upon our forefathers in the wilderness, and ourselves in the increasingly apostate wilderness of this modern 21^st Century social and political world.

State of the Nations: False worship, religious flattery of God, dishonesty, provocation of our Holy Lord God in a host of varied manners; ignoring of God’s Day of grace; taking for granted God’s deliverance from floods, earthquakes, disease; wild storms; the nations have wallowed in diabolical social trends and deep sin that the Lord God has proven to all that He particularly detests. God cannot bless nations or individuals that persist in blatant ignoring of His’ clear and patient grace’. If we deny the Lord God, He will deny us. Time to turn from sin. “But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him/her will I also deny before My Father which is in Heaven.” (Matthew 10:33)

Verse 56. “And kept not His testimonies. They were true to nothing but hereditary treachery; steadfast in nothing but in falsehood.  They knew His truth and forgot it, His will and disobeyed it, His grace and perverted it to an occasion for greater transgression.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 341)

Thought: It is dangerous to ignore God’s clear and patient grace. Judgement is coming.