About this sermon
Psalm 79 is a lament by the exiles after Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and its temple, and it asks how long the Lord will be angry. The psalmist pleads for God’s wrath on the nations that do not know him, and he confesses the sins of his own people. He asks for atonement and forgiveness for the sake of God’s name, and Christ provides that atonement. God will judge every persecutor of his people, and the gospel still goes out to the nations in this age of grace.
Sermon transcript
Please remain standing for the reading of God’s word. My sermon text this evening, as we return to our consideration of select Psalms from the book of Psalms tonight, we’re going to consider Psalm 79. Psalm 79. This is entitled, Psalm of Asaph. Friends, hear the word of God. O God, the nations have invaded your inheritance, they have defiled your holy temple, they have laid Jerusalem in ruins. They have given the dead bodies of your servants for food to the birds of the heavens, the flesh of your godly ones to the beasts of the earth. They have poured out their blood like water round about Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them. We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and derision to those around us. How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever?
Will your jealousy burn like fire? Pour out your wrath upon the nations which do not know you. and upon the kingdoms which do not call upon your name, for they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his habitation. Do not remember the iniquities of our forefathers against us. Let your compassion come quickly to meet us, for we are brought very low. Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name, and deliver us and forgive 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 vengeance for 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 doomed to die.
And return to our neighbors sevenfold into their bosom the reproach with which they have reproached you, O Lord. So we your people and the sheep of your pasture. We’ll give thanks to you forever to all generations. We will tell of your praise. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God’s blessing upon the preaching of his word. Gracious and sovereign and holy God, heavenly father, we thank you and praise you that you are a God of justice and righteousness and a God of mercy and grace. We ask Lord God. that as we consider this portion of Holy Scripture, that your Holy Spirit would cause us to hear and receive that which you are speaking to us and teaching us in this portion of your inerrant scriptures.
Lord, we do ask that we would take these truths to heart and we pray that they might bear spiritual fruit in our lives, fruit that brings glory to your name. We ask these things, praying once again for the forgiveness of our sins through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, and all of God’s people said. Amen. Foundation, you may be seated. The title of my sermon this evening is, Where is their God? And as you might notice, if you’re following along in the sermon outline, there’s quite a few key words you can be listening for this evening, but I would suggest a couple of words. Lament, vindication, forgiveness, and atonement. Well, dear ones, what we have in our passage for this Lord’s Day evening is very likely a grievous lament by the Jewish exiles in Babylon as they pray for God’s justice to be manifested against the nations that had defiled and destroyed Jerusalem and its temple.
But in this psalm, the psalmist also prays for God’s forgiveness toward them, his repentant, exiled people. The historical occasion that serves as the backdrop for this psalm is very likely the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Babylonians, followed subsequently by the exile of the Jews into Babylon, events which took place in 587-586 BC. Dr. Willem van Gemmeren sets this psalm in context when he says that this is a lament written most probably on the occasion of Jerusalem’s fall and the subsequent exile of Judah, 586 BC. Its concerns resemble those of Psalms 44 and 74. Central to the psalmist’s prayer is the question of how long the Lord will remain angry with his people. And then it goes on to say the structure of this psalm reflects the characteristic elements of the national lament, elements such as questions, prayer, and hope.
Now as we living as believers under the New Covenant. As we read a psalm like this, we might wonder, well, what is the relevance and the use of a psalm like this for the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ today and for us as individual Christians? I like the comment made in one of my study Bibles, there’s a study note in the Lutheran study Bible that says this, originally written as a lament over Babylon’s destruction of Israel, this psalm remains applicable to all Christians who suffer hardship and struggle at the hands of unbelievers. Christians throughout the world become the taunt of the unbelievers around them as they are either explicitly derided or condescendingly treated. because of their faith and trust in God. This psalm is well prayed by such sufferers as it assures us that God is reliable and his deliverance is trustworthy.
Well, what do we see and what do we learn from this psalm? Well, let’s dive into our passage for this evening. And the first thing I want us to focus on as we focus on the first four verses of our passage tonight, what we find here is a lament over a national disaster at the hands of the heathen. What we have here is a lament over a national disaster at the hands of the heathen. The psalmist begins, O God, the nations have invaded your inheritance. The psalmist cries out to God, and the name Yahweh is not here in this particular verse. The Lord, the name Yahweh, the covenant name for God, is mentioned later on. But in the beginning of this lamentation, this heart-wrenching lamentation, the psalmist simply uses the generic name for God. Oh God, the nations have invaded your inheritance.
Which nations? He’s speaking there about the Gentile nations, the idolatrous pagan nations that had attacked God’s land and God’s holy temple. Oh God, the nations have invaded your inheritance. What is God’s inheritance? Well, ultimately, your inheritance here refers to God’s covenant people, Israel, God’s visible covenant people, and the promised land where they dwell is a secondary application of that. So God’s enemies have attacked his land, God’s land, God’s people. And it goes on to say they have defiled your holy temple. What is God’s holy temple? What is this referring to? It’s referring to God’s sacred dwelling place, the temple in Jerusalem, the temple which served as a symbol of God’s gracious presence and reign in the midst of his covenant people. And here there is a sense of indignancy that the psalmist conveys here as he cries out to God because the heathen, The unbelieving Gentiles have defiled the holiness of God.
It was very significant. The temple was very significant for God’s people living under the old covenant, because, as I said, the temple signified that God had come to dwell as the faithful covenant savior in the midst of his holy people, his set apart people. And by destroying the temple in Jerusalem and laying Jerusalem, the holy city, in ruins, these nations, again probably referring to the Babylonians and their allies who had destroyed Jerusalem and its temple, what they had done is defiled the very holy presence of God himself, Jerusalem being the holy city where God’s palace temple was situated and where the people of God went to celebrate their feasts and to offer their sacrifices, sacrifices that pointed forward to the final sacrifice of Christ on the cross. of Calvary. Oh God, the nations have invaded your inheritance.
They’ve defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in ruin. But then it goes on to say, even worse, verse two, well, not even worse, but part of their desecration of God’s holy space and God’s disregard for God’s people. It says in verse two, they have given the dead bodies of your servants for food to the birds of the heavens. the flesh of your godly ones to the beast of the earth. Not only did the heathen desecrate and defile God’s holy dwelling, but they degraded the dead bodies of God’s people by withholding from them a proper burial and leaving their bodies as carrion for the beasts and birds to devour. And that was regarded, especially in the ancient Near East, as a horrible fate to suffer. As Dr. Van Gemeren points out, the lack of burial was considered a terrible fate. in the ancients near east.
These were God’s people that were slain by the heathen, their bodies left to rot out in the open, their bodies left for the birds, the vultures, the beasts to tear apart and consume. Notice how the psalmist describes the people of God who had suffered this fate. In verse 2, he describes them as your servants, God’s servants, and as your godly ones. Likely here, the psalmist has in view the godly remnant among God’s unfaithful people. You see, God had raised up the Babylonians to go in and be his instruments of judgment against his covenant-breaking people. The people had broken the covenant. They had been disobedient and unrepentant and unbelieving. They had turned away from Yahweh, their God, the true and living God, and they had turned to idols. And God had raised up many prophets, sent many prophets to them to call them back to the Lord, to call them back to bearing spiritual fruit before God, but they had persistently refused.
And so God does finally exile them from his land and he uses the Babylonians and their allies as his instruments of judgment against his unfaithful people. But even in the midst of the unfaithful, there was a godly remnant. And so it would seem that the psalmist here is crying out to God from the standpoint, from the perspective of the elect remnants that God had preserved amongst the unfaithful at that time. You see, God’s judgment against his covenant-breaking people through the Babylonians had impacted not only the unfaithful among God’s visible covenant people, but the faithful as well. Again, to quote from Dr. Van Gemeren, he says, Though famine, war, death, and exile were deserved punishments for Judah’s sins, the people were still spoken of as the people of God. They are called your servants and your saints, or godly ones.
The godly remnants was like leaven by which the whole nation was protected and consecrated. God’s judgments, at least temporarily speaking, impact not only unbelievers, not only the unfaithful among God’s professed people, but even true believers as well. In this current age, this present age, God does not promise that we will be shielded from the providential judgments that he may seek to bring against the wicked. But then in verse three, he goes even further in this lament. He says of these heathen, these unbelieving idolaters who were seeking to destroy God’s people. Verse three, they have poured out their blood like water round about Jerusalem. What a picture. They have shed the blood of your people like water, the blood of the Jews, flowed like water around Jerusalem as a result of this invasion and this horrible desecration of God’s land, God’s holy city, God’s holy temple.
They poured out their blood like water round about Jerusalem and there was no one to bury them. While the Babylonians and their allies were indeed instruments in God’s sovereign hand for bringing his covenant curses upon his faithless, unrepentant, covenant-breaking people. They destroyed God’s people with excessive cruelty and sadistic delight.” This is made clear in the record of Holy Scripture as we read about the events that led to the destruction of the temple and the exile into Babylon. The Babylonians, yes, they invaded Jerusalem. They slew the people of God, but they did so not with an attitude of reverence toward God, but they did so with wicked cruelty and delight. They showed no reverence for God, no respect for the special status of God’s covenant people. And therefore, these heathen ones, by their cruel and vindictive actions, actually bring upon themselves, they bring themselves under the curse that Paul mentions, not Paul, sorry, God mentions to Abraham back in Genesis 12 verse 3.
Remember when God called Abram to journey? It says in chapter 12 verse 3, God says to Abram, and I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you I will curse and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. by their cruel and vindictive actions. The Babylonians were in effect cursing God’s people and the curse was to return upon them. As many truths that we can learn from this lamentation, this grievous lamentation that we read here in the opening verses of Psalm 79, but I want to just make a couple points of application. What we learn, among other things that we learn in this passage, is that unbelievers, like the Babylonians, are subject to the judgment and scrutiny of God for their actions, even when God uses their actions to discipline his people.
Some might say, well, wait a minute, the Babylonians, in a sense, they didn’t know any better. They were pagans. They didn’t know the true and living God. They, you know, they acted according to their pagan nature. So, you know, why is the psalmist being so harsh? Well, while it is true that the Babylonians were indeed idolaters, Gentiles, they too had access to God’s general revelation. All human beings in their heart of hearts, because all men are created in the image of God, we all bear the image of God. Therefore, the works of God’s law are written on their hearts. All people, because of the light of creation, the light of God, the light of general revelation that comes through creation and conscience. All mankind knows that God is and that they are morally accountable to him.
So these Babylonians, even as they were cruelly and with sadistic delight slaying men, women, and children in Jerusalem, they knew that what they were doing was an affront to the God of Heaven. They knew in their heart of hearts that they were sinning against God. And furthermore, no doubt these Babylonians had at least heard second-hand about the amazing God of the Israelites, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who had poured out mighty plagues upon the Egyptians and had brought his people out of Egypt into the Promised Land. That word about God, the true and living God, had resonated throughout that region of the world. And so, though they were pagans, though they were idolaters, what they did was still inexcusable. This reminds us that all people, whether they know Christ or not, whether they have access to the Bible or not, all people are morally obligated to fear and reverence the true and living God, to reverence his holiness, and to conduct themselves with compassion toward others, especially toward God’s people.
Another take away from this is that we learn in this passage, God, the spirit through this passage that he has inspired, assures us that God indeed takes notice of how the world treats his people, and he will vindicate his suffering people sooner or later, either by bringing their enemies to repentance or by bringing them before his judgment throne and executing judgment against them. And so we see here this lament. But next, as we move on to the next section of Psalm 79 verses five through nine, we see here a plea for both vindication and forgiveness, a plea for vindication and forgiveness. The psalmist is crying out for vindication. crying out for God to do something about these wicked heathen who had slain the people of God and destroyed the Holy Temple and desecrated God’s holy presence.
And yet this lamentation and plea for vindication does not come from a heart of self-righteousness, but a heart that recognizes its own sin. Verse 5, the psalmist writes, How long, O Lord? And here, Lord is in all capital letters. He’s crying out to God as the faithful covenant God. How long, O Lord? What’s the question? Will you be angry forever? What does this question assume? This assumes, this implies that God’s people had sinned against him and thus that God’s anger, God is angry with his people. The psalmist wants to know how long God is going to put up with this kind of behavior from the heathen before he acts to vindicate his people. But he recognizes that that he and the people of God, that they are guilty, that they deserve God’s anger. But he says, how long?
And then he asks another question, which is closely related, basically a different way of asking the same question. Will your jealousy burn like fire? It’s interesting that he uses the term jealousy. God’s relationship to Israel is often likened to a husband’s relationship to his wife. And just as a husband feels jealousy when he discovers that his wife has been unfaithful, so Yahweh, the Lord, burns with a divine jealousy when his people go astray, especially when they go astray after other gods. And then verse six. Here is the petition for vindication. Pour out your wrath upon the nations which do not know you. In other words, Lord, why are you pouring out your wrath upon your people who know you? Pour out your wrath upon the nations which do not know you and upon the kingdoms which do not call upon your name.
Notice that language of pouring out just as the heathen, just as the Babylonians had poured out the blood of God’s people around Jerusalem so that the blood of God’s people flowed like water around Jerusalem. May God pour out his righteous wrath upon the unrepentant heathen nations who do not know him. That’s the implication of this petition here. And why? What is the basis for this plea for vindication and and holy vengeance against the wicked. Verse seven, for they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his habitation or his homeland as it’s translated in the NIV. The rationale for God’s wrath here to being called down upon these nations is because they have devoured Jacob like a lion would devour its prey. They have devoured Jacob. Not only that, they’ve laid waste his habitation, his homeland. They’ve shown hostility toward God’s people.
Cruelty, they’ve acted with excess vindictiveness against the people of God. But then notice verse eight. Do not remember the iniquities of our forefathers against us. Let your compassion come quickly to meet us, for we are brought very low. The psalmist here in this verse with repentance, humility, confesses the accumulated sins of God’s people, and he pleads with God not to remember the accumulated iniquities of the forefathers, but instead to do what? Well, look at verse 9. Help us, O God of our salvation. Here the psalmist turns to God as the God of our salvation, speaking for the people of God The psalmist, as the voice of God’s people, recognizes that God and God alone is our salvation. You, O God, are the God of our salvation. Help us, O God, of our salvation, because we are worthy of your help, because we merit or deserve your help.
Does he say that? No. Help us, O God, of our salvation for the glory of your name, not because we deserve it, but for the praise of your glorious grace is the implication here. And that is why God has chosen and why God has redeemed us, not because we deserve it, but for the praise, ultimately for the praise of his glorious grace, for the glory of his name. And then he goes on to plead, deliver us and forgive our sins. Why? Because we deserve to be forgiven? Because we deserve to be delivered? No. God rightly had brought this act of temporal judgment upon his people. raising up the Babylonians as his instruments of judgment to execute the curses of the covenant upon his covenant breaking apostate people. They had been taken into exile, but in wrath, God remembers mercy.
And so this psalmist speaking for the exiled community says, Lord, we need your salvation. Don’t remember the iniquities of our forefathers against us. Let your compassion come quickly to meet us. We are brought very low. We’ve been humbled, O God. God had to send them into exile to humble them, but he did humble them. But he humbled them and brought them down that he might ultimately restore them. Help us, O God, of our salvation for the glory of your name. Deliver us and do what? Forgive our sins for your name’s sake. Again, not because we deserve forgiveness or deliverance, but forgive us for your name’s sake. The term here in the Hebrew could be translated, provide atonement for us. Now, think about that. Atone for our sins. Think about that. The temple where sacrifices, sin offerings and sacrifices had been offered as symbolic atonements for the sins of God’s people, that temple had been destroyed.
So how is it that God is going to provide atonement for the sins of his people when the temple has been destroyed and therefore the ability of God’s people to offer sacrifices has been done away with at this particular time. How is it that atonement is going to be provided? Well, the psalmist pleads for God to forgive and to provide atonement for your namesake. Ultimately, friends, this plea for forgiveness and atonement can only be answered by the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross of Calvary. This passage points us forward to the perfect final, once for all atonement of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That is our only hope. That is our only plea before the Father. We deserve, we like the people of God of old, we deserve God’s anger, God’s judgment, God’s wrath.
We deserve to be cast out, to be exiled. But we, like the psalmist, are encouraged in the scriptures in the gospel to look to God as the God of our salvation and to plead with God to provide atonement for us. And in Christ, he has provided this perfect atonement. And he does so again, not because we deserve it, but for his namesake, because it glorifies him to atone for our sins, to forgive us. Do you know Christ as the one who forgives your sins. Are you resting upon him as the God of your salvation? But finally, in this short song, as we come to the final section of the song versus 10 through 13, we notice here faith filled anticipation of full vindication and restoration. Let me repeat that faith filled. We have here in these verses faith filled anticipation of full vindication and restoration.
Verse 10. Why should the nation say where is their God? You see, the Babylonians and their allies, when they conquered, when they conquered Israel, when they conquered, when they destroyed Jerusalem and tore down the temple in their pagan mindset, they would interpret that event to mean that their gods had conquered the God of Israel. And so the psalmist is concerned that for God’s honor, the nations, the unbelieving heathen nations would look at this and say, Oh, where is where is their God? Their God was absent. He didn’t defend his people. He didn’t defend his holy temple. He must not be a very powerful God. He must not be capable of defending his people. Now, the psalmist says, Why should the nation say this? Why should the nation say, where is their God? And then he pleads, he says, let there be known among the nations in our sight vengeance for the blood of your servants, which has been shed.
In other words, God act in righteous judgment, bring justice to bear upon those who have committed these atrocities so that the nations would know that you are indeed God, that you are indeed the true and living God that you are indeed powerful and able to save. The psalmist in verse 10 essentially pleads for God’s vindication to be carried out speedily in our sight. Let not justice be delayed, in other words, is what the psalmist is saying. And then he goes on to say in verse 11, let the groaning of the prisoner come before you according to the greatness of your power. Preserve those who are doomed to die. What prisoner or prisoners does he have in mind? Well, perhaps this term prisoner, perhaps this is being used somewhat metaphorically for the exiles in general. After all, these exiles as captives in a foreign land would certainly face death if they tried to escape the land of their exile and return to their homeland.
Or perhaps this refers to literal prisoners among the Jews, among the exiles who faced the real possibility of execution, whatever the case may be. God, the psalmist pleads with God, remember those imprisoned. God does not forget those who are imprisoned. He remembers his people, whatever their circumstances may be. And his heart goes out to the groaning prisoner. And then verse 12 return to our neighbors, he’s referring there to their pagan neighbors, the Babylonians. Return to our neighbors sevenfold into their bosom, the reproach with which they have reproached you, O Lord.” In other words, bring your justice to bear against them. What is this reference to sevenfold? What does he mean when he says return to our neighbors sevenfold into their bosom, the reproach with which they have reproached you? Well, in the Bible, as many of you know, The number seven often is used as a symbol for completeness.
And so, sevenfold vengeance means full measure. In other words, visit reproach in full measure against these wicked heathen. Now, again, to our modern sensibilities, we read a psalm like this and we’re tempted to think, well, this sounds awfully harsh. This sounds like a raw spirit of revenge that is being expressed here by the psalmist. But again, this is not a plea that is motivated by a spirit of vengeance, but rather, this is a cry for God’s justice to be displayed. Imagine having a wife, a brother, a sister, a mother or father, a child. Imagine seeing that loved one, brutally slain with the sword by evil Babylonians coming in with cruelty and sadistic delight, destroying your loved ones in your sight and dragging you off away from your homeland. You would cry out for God. You’d say, God, why?
Oh, God, hear my plea for justice. Let there be justice displayed. Dr. Van Gameren writes, in view of the atrocities of the nations against God’s community and in view of the gravity of Judah’s suffering, the psalmist prays for divine vindication for his people. And I think, Dr. Van Gameren, what he says next is very important. He says, there is no spirit of raw vengeance, but rather of justice. Justice must be done because of the conduct of the heathen. But again, this reminds us, brothers and sisters, that God in Christ has satisfied the demands of his own justice. Christ has satisfied the justice of the father for all of those who belong to him. We deserve God’s wrath and judgment to come upon us. But for those of us who are in Christ, Christ has taken that judgment upon himself.
He has satisfied. He’s made propitiation before the father. The wrath of the father is satisfied. God, the father out of love, sent his son to satisfy the demands of his own wrath. Praise be to God for that. The psalmist goes on to pray, return to our neighbors, sevenfold into their bosom, the reproach with which they have reproached you, O Lord. And then verse 13. So we, your people, what will be the result of this? So we, your people and the sheep of your pasture will give thanks to you forever. to all generations we will tell of your praise.” Why will the psalmist and his exiled brothers and sisters, why will they give thanks to the Lord forever? Because if God indeed heeds this cry and pours out his wrath upon the Babylonians, which by the way he did, God did answer these pleas.
The Babylonians were destroyed and brought, their empire was destroyed. But why is it that they would give praise to God forever? Because they delight to see the wicked suffer? No, but because justice will be done. Justice and mercy will be done. Yahweh is the gracious shepherd king of his people. Notice the language here. So we your people and the sheep of your pasture. The psalmist appeals to God as the shepherd king of his people. The shepherd king who leads his people. And again, this points us to Christ. Christ reveals himself as our good shepherd, the good shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep. To all generations, we will tell of your praise. This poem ends on a note of hope and trust that in the end, God will vindicate, forgive and restore his people.
In closing, beloved, God’s word promises us. that in the end, our God will indeed right all wrongs. As we look out into the world today, we see that that even today in many parts of the world, there are brothers and sisters in Christ who are living under horrible persecution, experiencing horrible suffering and atrocities at the hands of the unrepentant wicked. And we cry out to God. We pray, of course, for the conversion of the wicked that they might repent. And certainly we should. This is an age of grace. This is a time where God is holding back the manifestation of his full wrath. This is an opportunity, as he calls his church, to go into all the world to make disciples of all nations, to preach the gospel to all who will listen. We are to do that.
God is holding out an olive branch. The free offer of the gospel is to go forth, and God is able in his sovereign mercy to convert and save even the most wicked of men. But if he chooses not to convert them, we can be assured that those who mistreat and persecute and commit atrocities against God’s people will in the end be brought to justice. The proof of that is the death and resurrection of Christ and his promised future second advent. All of this assures us that our salvation and forgiveness have been secured. It also assures us that Christ will right all wrongs. and will bring both ultimate justice and ultimate mercy in the end on that final day of judgment. Are you ready for that day? You’re only ready for that day if you are united by penitent faith to the Lord Jesus Christ.
May God in sovereign mercy give you, dear listener, the grace to receive and rest upon Christ and Christ alone for your salvation, to cry out to him as the God of your salvation. Call upon the name of the Lord Jesus today. Rest upon him for your salvation and you will be saved and you will stand in him on that final day. Amen. Let us pray. Our Lord and Father in heaven. Once again, these are these are sobering truths that we’ve considered this evening, but also comforting truths. Lord, we live in a very unserious world. a world that is obsessed with things that are trivial and passing. The Lord, your word confronts us with eternal realities. We pray, Heavenly Father, once again, that you would give us the grace to live in the light of eternity and help us, Lord, when we face injustice, when we face persecution, when we face the scoffing and the mockery of the world.
May we not be discouraged, though. May we pray for those who mock us and persecute us, that they might be converted. And may we rest knowing that you, O Lord, will indeed bring all things to rights in the end, that you will right all wrongs and that you will vindicate your people. In Jesus’ name we pray and all of God’s people said, Amen.
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