Are We Not Them?
Psalm 81
1 Sing aloud unto God our strength: make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob.
2 Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery.
3 Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day.
4 For this was a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob.
5 This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony, when he went out through the land of Egypt: where I heard a language that I understood not.
6 I removed his shoulder from the burden: his hands were delivered from the pots.
7 Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee; I answered thee in the secret place of thunder: I proved thee at the waters of Meribah. Selah.
8 Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee: O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me;
9 There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god.
10 I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
11 But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would NONE of me. (my emphasis)
12 So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lust: and they walked in their own counsels.
13 Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!
14 I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries.
15 The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured for ever.
16 He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.
——————————
There might be a tendency for folks to think that when I reference verses such as vs. 11 & 12 that I’m prejudging and casting all of God’s people into a negative light.
Truth: Nothing could be further from the truth.
When I read a Psalm such as this and especially vs. 11 & 12, I take it all as a positive reinforcement of my Heavenly Father’s love for me. I figure that all of the Word is applicable to all of His people at some point in their lives or otherwise God has wasted a lot of His time and paper for nothing.
——————————
What initially struck me is the word NONE. When I read such a categorically all-encompassing word like NONE , my mind magines what the peoples’ response could have been.
Like:
“What do you mean NONE! That’s not true. I do a lot of what God wants me to do. As a matter of fact I do mostly, much of the time what God wants me to do. It’s not accurate and it’s unfair to say NONE!”
Isn’t that how we would have responded? Isn’t that how I responded? Isn’t that how you did respond?
We think we’re OK with God and others if we’re doing some, most of what God says. Obviously God knows it would be unreasonable to do ALL of what He says. But for God to say NONE, well …
——————————
Once we reject or rationalize away obedience to any of God’s demands on us is to negate them all. We can’t pick and choose. Once we do, we lose. “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. “ Matthew 6:24
Let me quote Spurgeon on verse 11 from this passage:
“His warnings were rejected, His promises were forgotten, His precepts disregarded. Though the divine voice proposed nothing but good to them, and that upon an unparalleled scale of liberality, yet they turned aside. They would not consent to His proposals, they walked in direct opposition to His commands, they hankered after the ox-god of Egypt, and their hearts were bewitched by the idols of the nations round about. The same spirit of apostasy is in all our hearts, and if we have not altogether turned aside from the Lord, it is only grace which has prevented us.” (my emphasis)
My I suggest we all have our own version of the “ox-god of Egypt”? There is always something tugging on us to go back to Egypt. If otherwise, why then did God bother to write about it, right?
I find (as the Psalmist did at the end of 119) that my heart can be, and at times is, prone to “go astray like a lost sheep.”
——————————
I take great comfort in knowing that God’s people before me have successfully traversed the same path I am navigating now. I take great comfort in knowing that those whose hearts yearned to walk with God did it though not perfect.
The difference between them and those in verses 11 & 12 is the honest desire to face and address their hesitancy to yield their bodies in totality. God knows we can’t and, at times, even won’t. That’s part of being human. But it’s not a part of being a regenerated child of God.
Yes, we do and will struggle. We will even lose a few skirmishes; but, we must not ever give up or give in. Let’s make the verses preceding 11 & 12 the place where we live our lives:
8 Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee: O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me;
9 There shall NO (my emphasis) strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god.
10 I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
——————————
A wide open mouth (life) of obedience is the receptacle of God’s fullness. Just be careful what YOU put in it.
And remember:
We are indeed them … are we not?