Timeless Biblical Truth.
When believers see their places of worship devastated by pitiless enemies, they can only plead with God to fulfill His promises and vindicate His name by delivering them from their enemies, just as He has done repeatedly since the beginning of creation.
- Believers, in times of disaster, will cry out to God to be merciful and keep His promises (1-3).
- Believers may question God about what appears to be His anger against them (1).
- Believers may appeal to God to remember His people as He has in the past (2).
- Believers may appeal to God to rescue them and His work (3).
- In times of disaster, believers may lament the devastation of their places of worship and heaven’s silence to their urgent pleas for deliverance (4-11).
- Believers may experience severe and troubling devastation (4-5).
- Believers may even find that their oppressors will succeed in their stated objective to destroy where believers worship (6-8).
- In these times, believers may find that heaven is silent to their petitions (9).
- Believers may continue to urgently appeal to God for His deliverance (10-11).
- In their appeal for God to deliver them, believers may rehearse to God of His great acts of deliverance in the past [motivating God to act?] (12-17).
- In the time of God’s silence, believers must affirm their faith in the LORD (12).
- Believers remember and remind God’s great acts in the past of His faithful deliverance (13-17).
- In their appeal for God to deliver them, believers may ask God to honor His covenant so that their oppressors will be silenced and they may praise Him (18-23).
- Those oppressing the LORD’S people blaspheme their God (18).
- Believers may earnestly pray for God’s deliverance that they might praise Him (19-21).
- Believers call to God to deliver them from the foolish who speak against Him (22-23).
Questions for Second Milers
- How does the psalmist react to the destruction of Jerusalem (cf. Jeremiah’s Book of Lamentations to see how one reacted to Jerusalem’s destruction)?
- What is the basis for the psalmist’s appeal for deliverance?
- Why do you think God should help you in your times of distress and anguish? Are they as soundly based as the psalmists?
- What is the basic question of this psalm?
- How would you describe how the destruction of the sanctuary looked to the psalmist.
- What does the psalmist know about God’s character? What acts can He give that would prove His power?
- Review some of the things God is and has done for you in the past.
- Contrast the psalmist’s plea for God to honor His covenant with Israelites’ “honoring” or failure to honor God’s covenant with them.
- Give your own short title to this psalm.
Lanny Tanton is the Pastor at The Bible Church of the Lakes in Horseshoe Bay, Texas – just outside of Marble Falls. Pastor Tanton welcomes you to our website and hopes that you’ll enjoy reading these insightful blog posts. Please contact us if you have further questions!!
