Lament, Confession, and Hope in the Ruins

Order of Service

• Scripture Reading — Psalm 79
• Sermon
• Pastoral Prayer

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Sermon Title: Lament, Confession, and Hope in the Ruins

Scripture: Psalm 79

I. A Call for the Lord to See the Devastation of His People (Psalm 79:1–4)

A. The setting is the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by Nebuchadnezzar, c. 586–587 BC

1. This psalm is still recited at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem on Friday afternoons
2. It is also used in the liturgy of Tisha B'Av, the fast commemorating the temple's destruction

B. Psalm 79 parallels Psalm 74 (same event, same author — Asaf, or the line of Asaf, Levites who served in the temple)

1. Psalm 74 focuses on the destruction of the temple itself
2. Psalm 79 focuses on the devastation of the people of God

C. Notice the repeated refrain of your throughout the psalm: your inheritance, your holy temple, your servants, your faithful, your name

1. This is a covenantal prayer — God has placed his name upon Israel and bound himself to his people
2. In their suffering, the covenant people call the Lord to suffer with them and on their behalf
3. This finds its climax in the incarnation — God becomes man in solidarity with his people and dies for them; the new covenant sealed in his blood

D. The language of devastation is heaped up and near-apocalyptic: no government, no social order, no one left to bury the dead, no religious order — fulfilling the prophecy of Jeremiah 7:33

E. The Psalter provides more than enough language for prayer in the midst of suffering; the psalms meet us in our darkest trials

II. The First Question — How Long, O Lord? (Psalm 79:5–9)

A. Asaf voices the common feeling in intense suffering: This is never going to end (Psalm 79:5)

B. Asaf calls for God to pour out his wrath on the nations devouring his people — primarily Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar, and also Edom (descendants of Esau), who scavenged and looted Jerusalem after the Babylonian destruction

1. Edom's treachery is the subject of the book of Obadiah

C. A lesson on the righteous execution of justice

1. Babylon was indeed the instrument of God's covenant curse upon wicked, idolatrous Israel
2. Yet being an instrument of God's judgment does not grant license to execute that judgment wickedly
3. Governing authorities — civil and ecclesiastical — must execute righteous judgments righteously
4. Church history is sadly full of those who committed atrocities in God's name, defaming the Lord they claimed to represent

D. Two confessions of sin close this section (Psalm 79:8–9)

1. Verse 8 — confession of former (past) sins, both corporate and individual
   • Corporate: do not hold against us the sins of former generations (cf. Ezekiel 18:20)
   • Individual: God no longer remembers our former sins — he has thrown them behind his back; our comfort is not in our own memory being erased but in the Lord's promise that he remembers them no more
   • True faith is not when our feelings align perfectly with God's promises, but when, in spite of feelings of despair, we anchor our souls to the sure promises of God
2. Verse 9 — confession of present sins; a plea to "atone for our sins"
   • Notable: the temple no longer exists — there is no high priest to enter the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement
   • This hints at a longing for an atonement made without hands, one that enters the heavenly Holy of Holies — fulfilled in Jesus Christ, as the writer to the Hebrews expounds at length

E. The confessions of sin immediately follow the call for God to judge the enemy — this is not self-righteous vindictiveness but the humble plea of one who knows their own sin is worthy of God's judgment

1. The difference between a self-righteous plea and a humble plea:
   • Self-righteous: a bloodlust plea, calling God to act as I would act — illustrated by Jonah demanding Nineveh's destruction, or the Pharisees' bloodlust for Rome
   • Humble: a plea that rests in God's idea of justice, not our own — ready to be surprised by how justice is meted out, even if it takes the shape of a cross (Romans 3)
2. We ought to be disturbed by wickedness and cry out for it to be crushed — but in accordance with the righteousness of God, not our own finite, sinful minds

III. The Second Question — Where Is Your God? (Psalm 79:10–13)

A. The pagan nations' persecution of God's covenant people was creating the impression that the God of the Hebrews was finished — his temple gone, his city gone (Psalm 79:10)

B. This parallels the modern condition of the West

1. Friedrich Nietzsche in 1882 declared "God is dead" — reflecting the success of post-Enlightenment humanist philosophy in displacing Christ from the center of Western culture
2. Today, as a civilization, we function as though the God of Christianity is irrelevant

C. Asaf's jealousy for the name of God among the nations should characterize the church today

1. An overture has been brought to Presbytery calling all churches in the denomination to set apart a time in September for prayer, fasting, and corporate and individual confession of sin — crying out for the Lord to pour out his Spirit on the churches, pray for the harvest, and revive complacent hearts
2. Fasting and prayer — means the church rarely practices today — are a pathway to a renewed jealousy for the name of the Lord

D. Closing doxology — Psalm 79:13

1. But we your people, the sheep of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise
2. The sheep of God's pasture are to sing doxologies even in the midst of utter ruin
3. Illustrated by the hymn When Morning Gilds the Skies: "Does sadness fill my mind? A solace here I find — May Jesus Christ be praised"
4. He who cried "It is finished" as darkness loomed over him calls us to praise as darkness looms over us — he sets a table for us in the valley of the shadow of death