you for being at the house of the Lord. He's worthy of our faithfulness in every area of life. Amen. As we read this you'll see the stark language being used but this is actually a song that is to be sang by the Church. I'll explain this psalm tonight if the Lord will help me and hopefully we can worship Him as we as we hear the Word of Truth. Starting in verse 1, this is a song of Asaph and the theme, How Long, O Yahweh, in the superscription. Starting in verse 1, O God, the nations have come into Your inheritance. They have defiled Your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in ruins. They have given the dead bodies of your slaves for food to the birds of the heavens, the flesh of your holy 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 mockery and a derision to those around us. How long, O Yahweh? 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 abode. Do not remember our former iniquities against us. Let your compassion quickly approach us, for we are brought very low. Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name, and deliver us and atone for our sins for your name's sake. Why should the nations say, where is their God? Let it be known among the nations before our eyes, vengeance for the blood of your slaves which has been poured out. Let the groaning of the prisoner come before you according to the greatness of your power. Preserve those who are doomed to die. and returned to our neighbors sevenfold into their bosom the reproach with which they have reproached you, O Lord. But as for us, as for your people and the sheep of your pasture, we will give thanks to you forever. From generation to generation, we will recount your praise. Let's pray. Lord, these words are powerful words. They stir so many different emotions in us. Lord, we ask that the Holy Spirit would help us to come to understand their meaning, that we might apply the word of truth to our lives and walk in a way that honors you. Lord, may we not be like ancient Israel who disobeyed you, who sinned against you, who grieved you, and that you brought your judgments against them, your correction to them. Lord, may we be a people, Lord, that learn from texts like these that we might not repeat them in the church. Lord, open up our eyes to see, open up our ears to hear the glorious truth of God tonight. And may your church be conformed to Christ, readied as a bride is readied for her husband. Work this in us, in Christ's name we ask it, amen. You may be seated. Psalm 79, as we can see, as we just read through it, is a psalm of lament. It's akin to the 74th Psalm, which was a psalm that grieved the destruction of the holy city Jerusalem. But the difference between Psalm 74 and 79 is the focus of the destruction. In Psalm 74, we saw the focus being placed upon the places that were destroyed by the enemies of God. Now we see in the 79th, the focus of attention is upon the people and the humiliation of God's people. The event that's being described in the 79th is the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 587 BC. This was a time to when the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar marched in and decimated the Holy City. It is estimated 4,200 people died in this overtaking of the Holy City. Interestingly, verse 3 in our text tonight is quoted verbatim in one of the non-canonical books, the book of 1 Maccabees chapter 7 verse 17, and in that context it is describing in the non-canonical an event that took place in the 3rd century by Antiochus Epaphanes. Whenever he came in and decimated the city and occupied Jerusalem, it says in 1 Maccabees 7, and again, these are historical books, but they're not inspired by the Holy Spirit, the flesh of thy saints and the blood they poured out round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them. And it's almost a verbatim account and revised standard version of what we find in our text in verse 3. Interesting. And again, the historical books, the non-canonicals, 1st Maccabees and others like them that are in the Roman Catholic Bible, they are not inspired by a God-willed pastor. How can you know that? Because the time frame in which they were given, there was no prophet given unto Israel. So if there's no prophet, there's no voice from God. And so they're historical books, they do not rise to the level of inspired text, and I want that to be clear, they do not belong in the canon. Amen? They do not belong in the canon. But they do have value historically. I mean, that means we don't throw them away, but we cannot read them as if they are scripture because they are not. What's more, the Psalm 79 is quoted every Friday afternoon at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. It's there at the Wailing Wall that sorrowful Jews weep over the destruction of the temple that took place around 70 A.D. That was a time whenever the Roman general Titus came in to Jerusalem and into Israel and they estimate the death toll to be between 600,000 and 1.1 million Jewish people died in 70 A.D. Interesting, isn't it? Some scholars feel that Psalm 79 is a template for similar kinds of disasters in the life of God's people or in the life of God's church. This is a time that God is disciplining His people for their sin, their waywardness. We know that God would take His people into captivity through enemies that God would bring in, that God would raise up enemies to take them captive for their sin. The people were given to all sorts of sexual sin, temple prostitution and the like. And that God is not like an unfaithful parent that will allow their children to disobey without consequence. Here we see that the sins of the people of God have stirred God's corrective rod, and the fallout of this is nothing short of grizzly. That God has united His glory together with His people's holiness. Let me say that again. God has united His glory with His people's holiness. By that we see and understand that when the church begins to sin against the Lord, whenever the church falls into grave sin and error, that it robs God of His due glory, and this is not inconsequential. When the church falls into immorality. When the church falls into worldliness, we all know that the glory of God is harmed and also the purpose of God can become stifled. But when seasons like this take place, know this, God has not run out of options and that God will vindicate the holiness of His great name and He does this vindicating by chastening His church. entitled my sermon tonight that judgment begins with the house of the Lord and we see that is clearly given to us in the 79th Psalm. It is something that Peter chimes in on in 1 Peter 4 17 and 18 when Peter writes for it is time for judgment to begin with the house of God and if it begins with us first what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God and if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved what will become of the godless man and the sinner. Peter clearly says, for it is time for judgment to begin with the house of God, and if it begins with us first, then what will be the outcome of those who do not obey the gospel of God? So here we see in Psalm 79 that the failure of ancient Israel is preserved in the canon of Scripture to be an example for us. That their wavering ought to be for our warning. Their error ought to be for our education. Their slips ought to be a preventative to keep us from similar sins." That's what the Apostle Paul gives to us in 1 Corinthians 10, verses 6 and then 11 and 12. I quote, now these things happened as examples for us so that we would not crave the evil things as they also craved. That's verse 6. Down to verse 11 and 12 of 1 Corinthians 10, now these things happened to them as an example and they were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the ages have arrived. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. I think it's very clear in Psalm 79 that whenever the rod of the Lord strikes, it strikes powerfully, it strikes painfully. But note this, that the strikes of the Lord, the chastening of God, is not done out of malice. It is not done out of anger. It's not done hastily. Hebrews 12, 6 clearly identifies the blows of the Lord are done out of love, that the Lord disciplines the children that He loves. And that with every strike of God's rod, it's to the end of our redirecting, or His redirecting, you and I to the path of holiness. That every blow of the rod of God trains us to covet or to desire righteousness, that God disjoints us that He might heal us. That's what we see in Hebrews 12, 13, whenever the Hebrew writer is giving to us a tutorial upon the discipline of the Lord, that the Lord disciplines all of His wayward children. I think it would be a great mistake for us to think that the Lord's discipline is light or the Lord's discipline in some way is inconsequential. The text teaches us in Hebrews 12, 11 that His blows inflict pain that result in true sorrow, but it works out in our godliness. We want the Lord to chasten us for sin because if He does not, it only proves that we are none of His own children. The Scriptures are very clear that all of God's children receive discipline because He's good and He does it out of love for us. So this psalm, as though it may seem that the Lord is cruel in this kind of what seems to be a barbaric treatment of the people of God, it does not portray the Lord as a cruel taskmaster. It narrates the Lord as faithful. It narrates the Father as a good Father that turns His erring people back. that Babylon has not encroached Israel as God slept on. This is not the case at all. They encroached Israel as a chastening purpose of God. God summoned them, God commissioned them against his own people, and that in this, the rod of God is laid to the back of his erring people, Israel, who he loves dearly. Who he loves dearly. Verses 1 through 4 show to us Israel's problem. It recounts what is at hand. The picture obviously is very dismal and dark, that the situation is beyond words to describe that life in the holy city has been ransacked. One source called it a terrible crescendo of compressed tragedy. It is though the desecration of the temple was a nuclear explosion spreading death and expanding waves all around. This is a grisly picture of cataclysmic proportions. The first thing we see that the psalmist speaks of in verse 1, we're narrating the problem of Israel, is desecration. Look at it with me. Oh God, the nations, and again this is talking about the Gentile nations, these marauders, these people that do not God, have come into your inheritance, Israel, and they have defiled your holy temple and they have laid Jerusalem in ruins. Now friends, listen, the heart of Israel's theocratic life was the temple. It was the temple of God. This is the place where God met with man. This is the place where prayers were offered on behalf of the people by the priest of the Lord. It's a place in which Israel's sins were atoned for, the blood covered their sin. But now we see in verse one, there's a great desecration that the temple itself lays in a heap of ashes. that these marauders, these Gentiles, have invaded the land. They've desecrated a place of purity, a place of holiness, and that they've left carnage in their wake. And it seems all so very distant to us. All these many thousands of years later, the imagery here is somewhat blurred, but at the heart and soul of Israel's national religious life, we see the temple being destroyed, and this has cut the heart out of their proverbial chest. The sacred has been desecrated. In fact, the Christian Standard Bible uses the word defiled here. It uses the word to mean ceremonially unclean, that they have profaned something that is hallowed in the eyes of God and in the eyes of man. You can go down to verse 9 and read the angst of the writer where he's crying out with a groan that's deep in his soul, deliver us and atone for our sins. This is so emphatic. This is emphatic, but now there's no more temple. Now there can be no more animal sacrifices. The priesthood has been decimated. The sins of the people, how can they now be atoned for? How will prayers be lifted up on behalf of the people? How will the high priest enter the most holy place and sprinkle the blood of the covenant upon the mercy seat? Church, this is utterly devastating. This holy place now has been given to the dogs, given to the dogs. I will say by way of application, This has been my concern with the drift of modern evangelicalism, that the centrality of the cross, where the blood of Jesus Christ, this most holy of truths, has been replaced with humanistic or ideas of man. We've defiled our message in the church. We've talked about everything in the church other than Christ and Him crucified. And the psalmist here reminds us of the travesty of such a loss. Here are the nation of Israel's bemoaning the beloved temple, the very heartthrob of the life of the nation, and it is no more. It's been defiled. That's what we see. Secondly, the psalmist does speak of defilement. Look at verses 2 and 3. They have given the dead bodies of your slaves for food to the birds of the heavens, the flesh of your holy ones to the beasts of the earth. They have poured out their blood like water around about Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them. Here's very clear in this text the brutality that was inflicted upon the nation of Israel, the people of God, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that this invasion by the Babylonians was of unprecedented violence, that these that have been victimized are a vast number. Not only are the unfaithful counted among the dead, but note the language, the faithful are also among the dead. It says here, the bodies of your slaves, those that are faithful to Yahweh. You see here, some translations would say, your servants lie among them. Their dead bodies are in the streets. The idea here in verses 2 and 3 is that dead bodies are heaped upon one another, that the streets are filled with blood, the streets are filled with carnage, that the numbers of the dead is so numerous that burial, proper burial for them, is impossible. The flesh of fallen man has now even become food for the carry-on. for wolves and for birds of prey, that the dead are laying in the streets decomposing. You can only imagine the sight, you can only imagine the smell and how grisly it was to the author and to the people that are yet alive, that these image bearers of God are being defiled, that the blood of the righteous people of God are filling the streets and that the entirety of the whole city has become unclean, that it's defiled, that this is a holocaust of catastrophic proportions. And the psalmist here spares no vividness for our imaginations. And I want you to remember also how this would be such an offense to a Jewish person because they took burial and death so seriously that they cared for the deceased with proper care and proper etiquette. You remember Lazarus and he died and how his body was cared for and it was wrapped with grave clothes and it was It was cared for. It was laid in the tomb very carefully. Even in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and how His body was cared for, that He was taken from the cross and that they put amazing amounts of spikenard and ointment upon Him that was worth a vast amount of money and they cared for His body and they buried Him in a rich man's tomb. But here we see that there is a mass landscape of decaying bodies. This would have been heaping offense upon offense. In Proverbs 26-2, Grace Life tells us that the curse without cause does not come. This defilement has been forecast in Scripture in response to the violations of God's holy covenant law. We know that we read in Deuteronomy chapter 28, the blessings of the law and obedience and the curses of the law that is broken. And we see one of those curses in verse 26, and it says this, if you break the law of God, it says, and your carcasses will be food to all the birds of the sky and to the beast of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away. So we see that God has made good on His promise, that God has brought a foreign enemy in to chasten His people, and that the blows of the Lord, the chastening rod of God, is a tremendous force and that it is to be feared. The third thing we see the psalmist speaking of in verse 4 is of defamation. Not only defilement, but defamation. Look at it with me in your copy of God's Word. We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a mockery, and a derision to those around us. Obedient Israel, as we all know, has been protected by Yahweh. We know that their hostile neighbors feared Israel because they knew that God protected His covenant people. But this kind of a travesty gave rise to opportunity for reproaching the people of God. That Israel's neighbors, the hostile neighbors, came out of their silence only to laugh and to mock at them. We all know that Israel has been and always has been the apple of God's eye, and that these neighboring peoples have witnessed the resilience of God's people, they've witnessed the prowess of God's covenant people, but now these awestruck neighbors are filled with mockery. They see the dead laying in the streets, the reputation has been ruined, the people are brought low, and what's worse, their mock of Israel became a mockery of God. that their dimmed light that was supposed to shine to the nations, their dimmed light has cast darkness upon the living God. Their dishonor has dishonored God because as I mentioned earlier, the glory of God is united to His people. Christopher Ashe said in his helpful commentary, the tragedy of a ruined church is not simply the suffering of believers, it is the mockery of God's holiness. That's the tragedy of a ruined church. It helps me to start thinking biblically that my sin affects you. That sin and the church affects the entirety of the church. It mars the glory of God. We're familiar with the Hebrew writer and what he wrote about how a root of bitterness can spring up in the life of a church, and it defiles many, that our sin affects others in the church. It weakens the church. Sin spreads and begins to contaminate within the context of a church, and it gives cause for others to mock the cause of Christ. That's Israel's problem. Verses 5 through 12 give to us Israel's prayer. This is Asaph. And by the way, I don't think this is the Asaph that lived at the time of David. But as we've learned, as we've been studying the Psalms, that the descendants of Asaph, that wonderful singer, that worship leader, have been also called Asaph because they're in that direct lineage. And so I think that that is what we have here. But this is a prayer. a prayer, and there's powerful truth that is in this prayer about how we are to turn to God even when we are under the most difficult disciplines that are being given to us from God. What do I mean by that? That those that are underneath the most cruel trials of life, those that belong to God, must cry out to the Lord even when the external situations that we find ourselves in seem to be nigh impossible. that we need to turn to the God that can overcome the impossible. That's what Asaph does here, and he prays for three things from God. The first thing we see is in verses 5 through 7, Asaph prays for vindication. Look at it with me. How long, O Yahweh, 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 to waste his abode. Vindication. The song that we love to sing says, when all around my soul gives way, he then is all my hope and stay. We see here in the preliminary that the psalmist is concerned about how long the pain is going to be inflicted. He says, how long, O Lord? And again, this is oftentimes our cry whenever life turns south on us or life becomes dark and the land becomes dreary and weary. We say to God in prayer, how long, O Lord, is it going to be like this? It is clear here in the text that the psalmist understood that it's the hand of God that moves the world. He understood that God is using the Babylonians as secondary causes, but he's asking God to relent. He's asking God. He understands that behind the Babylonian army stands the hand, purpose, and providence of God. So literally, it was God that is striking Israel and that Babylon is only carrying out what God permits them to do, only what God has assigned them to do. And this is not unjust punishment. This is not unjust discipline, that the sins of God's people have risen up as a stench to God's holy nose. Anthropomorphic language. God doesn't have a nose, but that language is given that we might understand him. He doesn't have a body, he is spirit. John 4, amen? But it's the idolatry of the people. We know that all kinds of forbidden sins have entered into the national life of the people, that they have wickedness that's taking place in the temple of God, temple prostitution, sexual sin is rampant, and it's provoked the righteous anger and jealousy of God. And the text does give to that that God has become jealous, and this is an important thing. and that whenever we are in the fray of conflict and difficulty, we are to turn to God in prayer. But let me just say quickly, and this is important that you get this, every event in life is the providence of God, but not every bad time or every difficult season in life means that you're under the discipline of God. And just because life isn't going right for you, it doesn't mean that you're under divine discipline. But if the Lord's hand is continual upon you, and that the Lord is continually crushing you, it probably would be a good thing for you to search your heart, to search your life to see if there's sin that the Lord's trying to deal with in your life. But in this particular case, it is the sin of God's people that have stirred the anger of the Lord. But note this, there is a turn in the prayer. It's not simply a prayer for God to relent. But we note that Asaph now redirects, asks the Lord to redirect his anger upon the nations and the kingdoms that are causing the misery of the people of God. They're inviting Yahweh to fight on their behalf, to act on their behalf. They want vindication. The prayer really turns into imprecation, doesn't it? Asaph here, he's asking the Lord to pour out His wrath upon these nations and kingdoms that have devoured Jacob. And by the way, you know that Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. So he is here, he's talking about God's choice people. These nations, these kingdoms have come, they're devouring Jacob, which is the choice or the elect people of God. And it's stressing an important point. Christians, listen to this, Christians should not call for the wrath of God to come up on other people that have done them wrong. Now listen to me. Jesus plainly taught in Luke 6 and in other places that we're to do good to those that do us wrong, that we're to pray for them, that we're to do good to them, that we're to be kind to them, we're to bless them. And believe it or not, Christian people have a very difficult time doing that. We have to fight our flesh. But Jesus taught us plainly to do good to those that do bad to us, to bless those who despitefully use us. But here it appears that Asaph is calling thunder down upon his enemies. And it is precisely here that John Calvin makes an important observation in his writing in that he expounds the difference between personal enemies and enemies of the gospel and the Lord's church. Let me quote Calvin, "'None may pray in this manner.'" He's talking about these stark imprecations, bringing curses upon the enemies of God. "'None may pray in this manner but those who have clothed themselves with the public character and who, laying aside all personal considerations, have espoused and are deeply interested in the welfare of the whole church.'" In fact, in Calvin's commentary, he spends quite a bit of time cultivating the ground there because of our dispositions to want to vindicate ourselves and to call upon God to curse those that curse us. But when Jesus teaches us that we're to bless them, pray for them, and to do good to them, that there's not a discrepancy between what the Father wants and what the Son wants. for us to do. So Calvin draws a distinction between those who do us personal harm and those that are doing the cause of the gospel harm. And he cultivates that. He spends time narrating that, speaking upon that, that there is a place in the life of the church whenever the gospel is being harmed, whenever the mission of the church is being impugned, that we are to pray these kinds of, as Dale Ralph Davis says, prayers with hair on their chest. these kinds of strong prayers. I mean, if we heard this kind of praying in one of our prayer meetings, we'd all probably look up with eyes this big around and say, what in the world is he praying? But we have this example in Scripture, and whenever the church is being come against and the mission of the church is being crippled This is how we are to pray that whenever somebody does me wrong personally, I'm to bless them, I'm to pray for them, I'm to be kind to them. And there is a distinction for when someone violates me and when someone violates the kingdom and the Lord's church that he purchases with his own blood. Amen. I was hoping that somebody might agree. And I want you to note here, it's clear in the text that Asaph is praying against nations and kingdoms, nations and kingdoms that have desecrated things that are holy unto God, right? Look at the text again with me. Pour out your wrath upon the nations that do not know you, verse 5, and upon the kingdoms which do not call upon your name. This is not somebody ran over my puppy and I'm calling down the wrath of God on them. This, by the way, is not an incentive for you and me as Christians to call down the wrath of God on those that have done us wrong in a personal way. The central thrust of the prayer of Asaph is for God to vindicate His own people, and in so doing, He vindicates the holiness of His own name. The second thing that Asaph prays for is for salvation in verses 8 and 9. Look at it with me. This is very powerful and important. Such a powerful statement, isn't it? By the way, that there is the sin of repentance in this, we've been brought very low. Help us, oh God, of our salvation for the glory of your name. It's not about me, it's about your name's honor. We've been brought very low, that your rod has done its work. We get it, God, we're sorry. Hear their crying out now, but how can we have our sins dealt with? How can we be forgiven? How can we have atonement with our God? Because the means for atonement has been taken away. The temple lays in ruins. The priests have all been slaughtered. All the sacrificial animals have been killed. There's no way for our sins and there's a sense of brokenness here. What can we do? Lord, what will we do? Our sins have piled up against us and there is no blood. He's confessing here how low Israel has been brought. You can smell the remorse in the language that's been given here by the psalmist, that there's sorrow, there's brokenness, there's humility where there was formerly pride, and then there's a turning away from their sins, there's owning their sins. Oh Lord, do not remember our iniquities. They're ours, we did this, but don't remember them. Let your compassion quickly approach us. Lord, come to us in your compassion. These are God's covenant people. These are the descendants of Jacob. This is a people that understand something of the character of God being compassionate. They're asking, they're pleading for help, they're asking for speedy assistance. And as I've already mentioned, the altar has been broken down, the most holy place ravaged, the temple is in shambles, the sacrificial system has been dismantled and trashed, and their sin needs atoned. They need their sins covered. Their sins have separated them from Yahweh. There's relational separation. And their only hope is that their sins would be covered. This is all pointing to Christ. It's all pointing to the blood of Christ, that final sacrifice, as John the Baptist so poignantly said. This is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. This is what they need. to look and to see beyond the sacrificial system and to see the sign that is pointing to the promised prophet that would come, that would bring salvation to the people of God. This is the sinner's hope that they might find atonement in the blood, that they might have their sins washed away. It's my hope, it's your hope when we sin against the Lord that our sins need to be forgiven, they need to be cleansed, covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. And the psalmist here couples the atonement where our sins are covered with the glory of the name of God. The great prophet Ezekiel says, with regard to this new covenant hope and reality, God says, I'm going to act, and I'm going to save you, but I'm going to do it for the glory of my name. That God's primary interest in the redemption of His people is the glory and the renown of His name, is the spread of His fame, is the demonstration of His kindness, and that we're recipients of that. We see here that God's forgiving nature is wound together with the glory of His own name. This magnifies God's grace. It magnifies the mercy of God whenever He forgives sin. Charles Haddon Spurgeon wrote upon this and said, this is masterly pleading. No argument has such force as this. God's glory was tarnished in the eyes of the heathen by the defeat of His people and the profaning of His temple. Therefore His distressed servant implores His aid and that His great name may be no more the scorn of blaspheming enemies. Pardon us, but do it for Your name's sake. Atone for us, but do it for the glory of Your name. We have caused great harm to the glory of Your great name, so vindicate us so that Your holy name might be vindicated in the eyes of Your enemies. Listen, God is motivated by His own glory. We've covered this so many times in this pulpit that He seeks His honor above all else, that whenever we sin against God, We rob God of His due glory, but yet in the kindness and the goodness of the Lord, when we come to Him broken for our sin, as Israel did, seeking restoration, He abundantly pardons. He does this by covering our sins with the blood of His Son. This is what glorifies Him. To be remembered, Grace Life, and I know you know this, but it bears repeating, there is no forgiveness without bloodshed. And it's clearly given to us in Hebrews 9, 22, that the holy justice of God cannot be circumvented, that God must be both just and the justifier of the sinner. We see that in Romans 3, 26. In the Old Covenant, underneath the law, that there was an innocent lamb that bled. There was an innocent animal that gave its life. There was an innocent animal that died and it, listen, and it had done nothing wrong. that that innocent was given for the guilty. It was a substitutionary provision that was made by God. It pointed forward to the Lamb of God, that final sacrifice the Hebrew writer speaks of, the final sacrifice that gave His life once for all time for sinners. It testified to the gracious gift of a holy God that He would send His Son in the fullness of time, that He would be born of a woman, born under law, that He would live a holy life, and then in the fullness of time He would go to the cross and shed His blood for us, and that He was innocent. And because of this, His righteousness can be put to our account on the bases of faith. We call that justification. It's a position of innocency, a legal position of innocency before God, even though the person is natively guilty, intrinsically guilty, that God reckons, considers, and treats them as though they are innocent on the basis of the substitute's actions on their behalf. That Jesus Christ became sin, their sin. He suffered because of their sin. that he lived obedient to the law of God, and he did that vicariously in my place. He's the law keeper, I'm the law breaker, that he obeyed the stringent demands of the law, and he did that for me. And any innocence does not belong to me, it belongs to Christ. And he provides that to us in the new birth. But I want you to note, Grace Life, and take this home with you, the acquittal of our sins is not free. It is not free. Jesus had to pay the high price for it. He did so with his own blood. He died as our substitute. In my place, condemned he stood, sealed my pardon with his blood. Hallelujah, what a Savior. Jonah would say, salvation is of the Lord. So when we come to this text tonight, this prayer for salvation is informed by an awareness of this need for atonement. The word atonement simply means to cover. It can mean in the Hebrew to smear, but it means to cover our sins. Propitiation, these are important words, means to take away the wrath of God. Expiation means to take away the sin. But atonement means that the sin is covered. And Jesus gave his life that we might have atonement by his blood. And by the way, Dr. White will be here in a few weeks and will be teaching powerfully upon this great truth of the atoning work of Jesus Christ. It's Luther that said that it is the soul of the gospel. It is the soul of the gospel. There's nothing more important. The third thing Asaph prays for in verses 10 through 12, he prays for exoneration. Why should the nations say, where is their God? I'm in verse 10. Why should the nation say, where is their God? Let it be known among the nations before our eyes vengeance for the blood of your slaves which has been poured out. 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. It's not difficult to see here this plea of this godly man for exoneration. He wants to see the people of the Ahweh liberated. He wants to see the tormentors brought to justice. He wants God to exonerate His people, but he wants the enemies of Israel to be held in contempt. He sees the reproach that was brought upon Israel as a reproach to the name of the Lord, doesn't he? And those who reproach Israel reproach Yahweh. And now he calls for justice. He asks the Lord to preserve his people. It's not a plea for a perfect world. It's not a petition for comfort and ease. He wants God to preserve Israel through this season. He wants them to be brought through. Dr. Richard Phillip comments upon this. God delivered the Israelites after the destruction of Jerusalem, not by immediately restoring their city, but rather by empowering their faith in the land of idols. It is as a great a miracle for God to strengthen His people's faith in the midst of trials as it is for Him to remove the trials altogether. So many times when we pray to God for deliverance, we're expecting God to miraculously immediately restore our comfort, but the Lord says to us, my grace is sufficient for you. that I'm going to miraculously bring you through this season, through these hardships. God's not concerned about our comfort. He's concerned about our conformity. History makes this very plain. God did indeed leave his people in these hard places for a generation. We're very familiar with the exile. He was not finished at this time, at the time of this prayer, with the work that he was going to bring about in the hearts of his people. But note that the timing of God is never wrong. The timing of God is always right. Seventy years later, After the exile comes to a close, the prophet Daniel, who was God's prophet, realizes the season of chastisement was now coming to an end, and Daniel prays the prayer of Psalm 79. He prays this very prayer. He seeks the Lord for mercy that would result in the restoration of not only Jerusalem, but the temple. Daniel 9, verses 17 through 19, Daniel prays, "'So now, O God, listen to the prayer of Your slave and to his supplications. And for Your sake, O Lord, let Your face shine on Your desolate sanctuary. O my God, incline Your ear and listen. Open Your eyes and see our desolation in the city which is called by Your name. For we are not presenting our supplications before You on account of any righteousness of our own. but on account of your abundant compassion. Lord, listen. Oh Lord, forgive. Oh Lord, take heed and take action for your own sake. Oh my God, and do not delay because your city and your people are called by your name." God's work had been wrought in God's people's hearts. They were a broken people. They understood that they needed a righteousness that belonged to God, not a righteousness that was intrinsic to them, but a righteousness that belonged to another, imputed to them. They looked away from themselves, they looked to the mercy of the Lord for help, and that mercy is found in God's Son, Jesus Christ. And by the way, Old Testament saints, saw through the eye of faith, and they saw the promise that was proclaimed by the prophets, and they believed the promise of the coming Messiah. They did not have the full disclosure. They saw in part. They did not see as we see now. They saw through the eye of faith, and they believed, and God counted them righteous in the same way He counts those on this side of the cross righteous by looking at Christ. There's no distinction in the way that God saved Old Covenant believers versus how God saves New Covenant believers. There's only one way of salvation. There's only been ever and only one way of salvation, that the Old Testament saints were saved by faith in Christ who was to come, and that we look back and we are saved by faith in Christ who has already come. Finally we see Israel's praise as we're closing in verse 13. Look at it with me and then we'll end here. But as for us, as your people and the sheep of your pasture, we will give thanks to you forever. From generation to generation we will recount your praise. It would seem odd that Asaph would be praising the Lord in such a setting as this. Nothing has changed. The scent of decay still fills his nostrils. The grizzled sight of death is still surrounding him and filling his eyes. The holy city remains trampled. The temple remains desecrated. The priests, blood-soaked, their bodies are being fed upon by the carrion. But nonetheless, the psalmist finds reason to praise God as casting crowns will sing in the midst of the storm. He remembers God's covenant love. Israel is the elect of God, are they not? And it's not clearly stated, but I believe that it is implied that Asaph is remembering past deliverances by which God delivered His people. God, now He remembers, has not abandoned His people, that the Lord will not divorce His people. He loves them with an everlasting love. They are His sheep, that language is in Is it the end of the chapter here? They're the sheep of God. He has slayed them, as it says in Job, but they have continued to trust in Him. I want you to note in verse 13, this is a powerful primer on Christian praise. By that, I mean that the praises of the Lord should forevermore be on our lips, not because life is easy, not because the tempests of life have calmed, that His praises should be on our lips because His hand clasps our hand and that we cannot be plucked out of His hand. John chapter 10. Faithful Christian praise is drawn from the deep well of the knowledge of God. It remembers the promise of God on those cold, dark nights. It doesn't lean on its own understanding. It simply acknowledges the preeminence of God in all the torrents of life. And like Asaph, A Christian can overlook ruin and rot and remember the faithfulness of God and praise Him in the midst of a wasteland of tears. A Christian can be surrounded with death and decay, as Asaph was, and remember the promise of God to raise the dead and then begin to praise Him for it. Many of the Psalms, as we've been learning over the last couple of years, end with praise when they go through the torrents of life and the dregs of pain and misery. Some of the Psalms may lay down some of the worst tragedies that there is to experience in life, but at the end of them, we find that the man of God always remembers that God has made a covenant with his people and that their sighs invariably turn into songs. and their woeful pities turn into praises. The most tragic of the events of life can't compare to the cross of Jesus. The Lord Jesus Christ marched to the cross for the joy set before him. He willfully yielded himself to death. He laid himself upon that wooden timber. He welcomed and received the nails suspended outside of the city of Jerusalem between two thieves He received the wrath of God even though He was perfectly innocent. He received the sins that we have committed. He took them into Himself and that He bore in His body the wrath of God that crushed Him, taking our guilt, taking our condemnation, laying His life down so that you and me might take ours up in Him. So I'm saying that to call to our minds that when we are down because of trouble, remember the cross. Remember that the troubles of life are temporary. Remember that our trials will soon end and that we have a kingdom that's incorruptible and wait for us, that Jesus is one on our behalf, and that the song of the redeemed is to be a perennial song. It doesn't end, it's to be perennial. And whereas the recitation by the Jewish people at the Wailing Wall lacks the full story, because they don't have the hope of the cross. The atonement that they seek is not found in the ancient ruins of a temple, nor was it ever found in the animal sacrificial system. The atonement has always been found in the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. 2,000 years ago, our Lord Jesus came Fully obey the law of God, substitutionally gave His life up, shed His blood so that our sins might be atoned. Amazingly, God tore down that system. In 70 AD, it was decimated by the Roman General Titus. God used the Romans to tear down that system once for all time, and it's never been rebuilt. It's never been restored. It's never been recovered. Why? God will not allow it because His Son is the atoning one. That system declared the coming Messiah, God's Son, that would come in the fullness of time, and God will not allow now or ever Another temple to be built, another sacrificial system to be reinstituted for the redemption of His people. Even if it is a representative system, God will not allow it because it would demean and take away from the finality of the blood of the cross of His Son that is atoned for our sins once and for all time. Jesus is the perennial sacrifice. so that the people of God can give perennial praise. Amen? So whenever you're looking at your situation, you're feeling the weight of the burden, you've got the poochie lip, remember that the hand that holds you is the hand of God. and no one will pluck you from his hand, and there are none that is greater than our Father, and that we are to give him the praise that he deserves. Amen? I love how the psalm ends. Boy, it's dark, it's grisly, but it ends with the glorious praise of God, who always comes to the aid of his people. Lord, we're so thankful for every word that comes from the word of the Lord. Thank you for Psalm 79. May our hearts receive it with joy. Lord, may the Word of God be written upon our hearts, our minds, that we might walk in it. Lord, help us to remember that the chastening hand of God is stern, but it's always given in love. It's always given with a purpose of restoration. Lord, help us to walk in ways that please you and help us to remember that whenever we sin against you, we give rise for opportunity for the holy name of our God to be mocked and for the purposes of our God to be stifled. Lord, help us to walk in fear of you and to be obedient. and to have love for you that would cause us to walk in truth and in light and in obedience. Lord, I pray for each one of these precious saints that have come tonight. Lord, may the blessings that are in Christ rest upon them. Lord, may you help them in every season of life. Lord, if there are those that are here that are going through Difficult situations, perplexing, trying situations, may you walk with them through the valley of the shadow of death, and may your rod and staff comfort them as they're going through the valley. Remind them that they're not alone, there's a fourth man in the fire. Help us, Lord, to be a people that pursue holiness for the glory of Christ, where we ask these wonderful things in his precious saving name. Amen.