GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
PSALM 79:5-8
Prayer for Justice
5 How long, O LORD? Will you be angry forever?
How long will your jealous wrath burn like fire?
6 Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge you,
and on the kingdoms that do not call on your name.
7 For they have devoured Jacob
and laid waste his dwelling place.
8 Do not hold the iniquities of our ancestors against us.
Let your compassion come quickly to meet us,
Hurry, for we are brought very low.
In verses 5 and 6, we wonder about the wrath of God, the terrible wrath that condemns sin and which cannot be quenched by anything short of death. But God’s wrath is not quenched merely by the bleeding death of a man, it is quenched by the eternal suffering of the everlasting fate worse than death, which is hell. Yet why does our Psalm plead for an end to God’s wrath in verse 5 and then call for it again in verse 6? This is the life of the Christian: We ask God’s forgiveness for our sins, so that the many ways in which he chastises us will come to an end. But then we call for his wrath to fall on those who reject him. This is not out of spite or revenge, but rather to give glory to God. He is able to work repentance through his word when terror over his wrath consumes his enemies. This is when his gospel has fertile soil in which to work, and faith is able to spring to life through the gracious working of the word. Otherwise, if the heart is hard and the unbeliever will not be turned to faith, then it is still to God’s glory to punish and condemn, since this is what he has promised to do.
The Psalm points to the crushing of Jacob, the whole nation of Israel, which we have seen also points to all who put their faith in Christ. For us who are Gentiles, the iniquities of our ancestors are myriad, from the sins that brought down the Tower of Babel to the corruption of the Greeks and Romans to the many, many sins of our nation today. America is no less vile than Rome under the worst of her Caesars, and we are driven by little else than the same bread and circuses demanded by the rabble in those days.
What a prayer to pray: “Let your compassion come quickly to meet us.” The coming of the Lord is always something man waits for; never something man reaches out to grasp. We prepare the way for the Lord with our repentance (Luke 3:4) but he is the one who leaps across the mountaintops leading his army and bringing salvation (Joel 2:2-5).
When we are “brought very low,” God invites us to turn away from grief and despair and to look up. He is holding out his hand to pull us up, to place us where we need to be, and to fill us up with his grace and with every blessing. Trust in his word, and trust in him.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota