GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
PSALM 71:9-12
9 Do not cast me away when I am old;
do not forsake me when my strength is gone.
10 For my enemies speak against me;
those who wait to kill me conspire together.
11 They say, “God has forsaken him;
pursue him and seize him,
for no one will rescue him.”
12 Be not far from me, O God;
come quickly, O my God, to help me.
The worshiper cries out to God: I have troubles! I am getting old. My strength is going. My enemies are getting more and more numerous, and they are saying that you, O Lord, have gone, too.
Verse 11 and similar verses have been described as a genre called the “monologue of insolence” (Mitchell Dahood, Psalms II, p. 174). It consists of the kind of taunts hurled at the devout by unbelievers, usually in a crowd but sometimes as individual attacks. The world wants Christians to forget about Christ. The world, if it would believe its own lies, is an utter fool for saying what it says, because its lies don’t agree with each other. This is the reasoning of the world:
“Religion is the opiate of the masses.” This means that the elite (of the 19th century) believed that poor and ordinary people used religion to keep from flying into chaos and despair. But the world also says: “Christians need to give up believing in Christ.” But if this would be the case, what would the world replace Christ with? Nothing? What opiate, O World, will you give the teeming millions to stop them from rising up against you and flinging you into war and worse chaos than there is now? Will you supply some other gospel other than the empty despair you offer?
When the world tries to say that God has forsaken you, remember that the world is one of your three great enemies: The Devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh. Turn back to God when you are in despair, like the worshiper in our Psalm. He doesn’t just say, “Come, Lord.” He says, “Come quickly!” We pray that God will put an end to the “monologue of insolence,” and fill us with his good promises: the forgiveness of our sins, the preservation of our souls, the resurrection from the dead, and eternal life with God and all believers forever in heaven.
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