Let’s turn now in our Bibles to the seventy-ninth psalm. This psalm was written at the destruction of Jerusalem, it’s desolation, graphic pictures.
O GOD, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps (79:1).
The Babylonian army came about 596 and totally destroyed the city of Jerusalem. The houses were just left heaps of rubble. The temple was raised and then burned to the ground. That glorious beautiful temple of Solomon, destroyed.
The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heavens, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth (79:2).
The hyenas, the jackals, the wild type dogs were devouring the bodies of the slain. There was not enough people left to bury the dead.
Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them. We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us. How long, LORD? wilt though be angry for ever? shall thy jealousy burn like fire? (79:3-5).
When God’s people were defeated, the city of Jerusalem destroyed, the enemies of God, the surrounding nations of the Edomites, Moabites and Ammonites have been sort of the perennial enemies of the Jews, gloated over the fact of the destruction of the city and the destruction of the city as such. This, of course, brought forth from the psalmist the cry of “How long Lord are you going to be angry”. He was desiring God’s immediate deliverance. The immediate deliverance was not to come. This condition of desolation and captivity was to go on for seventy years.
How long, LORD? wilt though be angry for ever? Shall thy jealousy burn like fire? (79:5).
The Bible declares that God is a jealous God, that he is jealous of your worshiping other gods. God looks upon his relationship with you as a marriage. If you turn from him to try to find satisfaction and fulfillment in other gods, as a marriage partner that has been spurned and deserted, so God is jealous of those other things that have taken your devotion and that have captured your heart.
Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen (79:6).
Lord, wipe them out.
that have not known thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name (79:6).
This was a problem that God would use a heathen nation like Babylon to be his instrument of judgement against his people Israel. In the book of Habakkuk this was the complaint of Habakkuk. First of all he complained because Israel was so bad and it was getting worse. Having an insight into some of the behind the scene episodes that were going on in the government Habakkuk said, “Lord, please don’t let me know anything else of what’s going on because I’m frustrated. There’s such corruption, there is such evil and Lord, you are not doing a thing about it”.
The fact that God would, it would seem, allow and tolerate the evil was a real problem for Habakkuk. So God said to Habakkuk, “I am doing a work that if I should tell you your ears would tingle. For I am preparing the Babylonians and I am going to be using them as my instrument of judgement and they shall come and they shall destroy this place”. Habakkuk said, “Lord, I don’t understand that because it’s true that we are bad but the Babylonians are worse. They are the bottom of the pit. Why would you use a nation that is more evil to bring your judgement upon your people”? He couldn’t understand the workings of God, Babylon the heathen nation being used as God’s instrument of judgement.
You see, those that know the will of God and do not according to it are really judged by a higher standard than those that don’t know. So that some cannibalistic native who has never heard of Jesus Christ, never known of the love of God, grown up in that pagan culture knowing only their pagan customs, he will have a better chance before the judgement of God than a person who has sat in church, heard the gospel, knows the truth of God but who has not walked according to it.
In the twelfth chapter of Luke, Jesus speaks of that servant who had known the will of the master and yet didn’t do according to it. He said, “He would be beaten with many stripes, yet that person who did things that were deserving of many stripes because he didn’t know will be beaten with few. Unto whom much is given much should be required. So a person who stands before God will be judged according to the light of God that he has received. As Peter said concerning many, “It would have been better for them to have never heard of the way of truth than having heard of it, reject it”. Once you have heard of God’s love and his Son Jesus Christ, who because of God’s love, came and took your sin and died in your place, once you know that truth and you reject it you stand in greater jeopardy and you will receive a heavier judgement than the person who has never heard. So God often uses the heathen as his instruments of bringing judgement upon his people.
I really believe that our nation is in a parallel condition to the nation of Israel prior to its fall to Babylon. Those same things that existed in Israel, turning their backs on God, becoming a secular nation and stretching out their arms to worship the gods of materialism are the same things that we see happening in our nation today; a nation that was founded upon God, who printed in his coins “In God we trust” but has turned their backs upon God. I believe that there are parallel conditions and I believe that Vietnam was just sort of a warning of God to the nation that “You’re not strong enough to stand up against a little power like North Vietnam. You’ve become so weak that you cannot win a war against a small little heathen nation thus when the major powers are used by God as an instrument of judgement our hope of survival has to be only in God. I believe that God just let us see there the moral weakness of our nation, the corruption. Unfortunately we didn’t seem to learn the lesson but have only persisted in that same pattern away from God.
The prayer of the psalmist is that God would pour out his wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee but that isn’t really the way of God. He has great mercy towards those who don’t know. But he is upset and he wants to take vengeance against Babylon.
For they have devoured Jacob, and laid waste his dwelling place (79:7).
Because they had so utterly destroyed the land. The plea is that God would not remember the former iniquities. The plea for forgiveness.
O remember not against us former iniquities: let thy tender mercies speedily prevent [help] us: for we are brought ver low (79:8).
That prayer for God’s mercy which is always my prayer. I never pray for justice unless it’s on someone else.
“Why should the heathen now say where is their God?” In that day, in those cultures, a defeat of a nation was tantamount to the defeat of their god. Every nation had their own gods and every nation believe that their gods help them in battle and that their victory over other nations proved the superiority of their god over the other gods. All wars were equated with the gods that they served. Thus, as we read the Old Testament, as we read the history of Israel, it was the Lord who was going forth in battle, it was the Lord who defeated their enemies, it was the Lord who gave them victory, drove out the enemies from before them. They attributed it unto God, the true and living God, the reason for their strength and for their victory.
When they were defeated, to the enemy nations it was a sign that their God was not strong enough to deliver them and to help them. The real reason was they had forsaken God and the god they were trusting in was not strong enough to help them because they were trusting in the flesh. They were living after the flesh, they had forsaken Jehovah and thus the Lord said, “If you forsake me I’ll forsake you”. The enemy nations not really understanding the relationship that God intended between himself and Israel, attributed the fall to the weakness or the inability of their God to help them and to defend them. So he is praying that God would help them.
Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name: (79:9).
Lord, not because we deserve it but just because your name is being castigated because of the defeat of the people.
and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy names sake (79:9).
Now again he is pleading unto God on the basis of God’s nature and for God’s sake do these things. This is not that we deserve them but Lord because people, the heathen, don’t understand.
Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God? let him be known among the heathen in our sight by the revenging of the blood of thy servants which is shed (79:10).
Wanting god at this point to bring vengeance.
Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee; according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die; (79:11).
Even those that have been carried to captive. Many of them were appointed for execution.
And render unto our neighbours sevenfold (79:12).
In other words, give it to them seven times worse Lord than what’s happened to us.
into their bosom their reproach, wherewith they have reproached thee, O Lord. So we thy people and sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks for ever: we will shew forth thy praise to all generations (79:12-12).
Sad and tragic things the psalmist did see the desolation. This whole scene is the background for the book of Lamentations when Jeremiah sat there in the cave looking over the rubble that was once the great city of Jerusalem. He was looking over the ashes and the rubble of the temple and there he his weeping because of the people’s steadfast stubbornness in resisting God and as the result this doom. Even while the Babylonian defeat lasted over a period of several years. Actually it was three different sieges.
The first one should have been the warning. Jeremiah did warn them he said, “God is saying to you look, don’t destroy yourself”. But the people wouldn’t listen to Jeremiah. They had false prophets that were going around saying, “Let’s take them on. God’s going to defeat them”. They were putting these horns on running around saying, “We are going to push Babylon out of here”. Jeremiah said, “No, no, no. Don’t resist them”. Jeremiah was arrested as a traitor they said that he was demoralizing the people saying, “Don’t resist the Babylonians. Surround to them so you could save yourself and so you could save the city”.
They steadfastly refused to obey God. They brought it upon themselves because of their stubborn continued rebellion. So it had to happen.
Psalm eighty, again after the destruction, the casting away. Notice verse thirteen of the previous psalm talks about “the people, the sheep of thy pasture,” psalm eighty begins here “Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel” a tie between the two.
GIVE ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock; (80:1).
The sheep of your pasture.
thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth (80:1).
The cherubim are angelic beings of the highest order of God’s creation. Ezekiel, in chapters one and ten, describe the throne of God and the cherubim that are about the throne of God. John, in Revelation chapter four, also describes the throne of God and the cherubim that are about the throne of God “who cease not day or night saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty which is, which was, which is to come”. It would appear that Satan, at one time, ranked with the cherubim for he is called in Ezekiel “the anointed cherubim that governed”. It could be that in the ranking of the cherubim he was the chief among this high-ranking angelic being.
The tabernacle was a model, we are told, of heavenly things. In the most holy place inside the tabernacle, the holy of holies, that sort of inner-sanctum, that little fifteen foot cubical of gold plated acacia wood. In there was the Ark of the Covenant that was covered by what is called the mercy seat and on the top of the mercy seat was carved these two cherubims. It filled this little fifteen foot cubical that represented the dwelling place of God, there wings touched the walls. It was where the high priest would go into meet with God. A model of heavenly things these golden cherubim on top of the mercy seat. So in the heavenly, God’s surrounded by these cherubim. The psalmist is declaring you that dwell between the cherubim shine forth.
Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh stir up thy strength, and come and save us (80:2).
It is interesting that these three tribes were grouped together. You have the camp kind of like a circle. In the center was the tabernacle and around on four sides were four tribes camped. When they would move this direction these three tribes were behind so they followed after the tabernacle; Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh. They are back here in this grouping of the camp of Israel and thus they are listed together.
Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved (80:3).
The plea of this psalm is that God would turn to them again. It would seem that God had turned away from them. So in verse three, verse seven and verse nineteen you have this prayer that God would turn to us again. Notice though they seem the same there is a slight difference in all three. “Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved” (80:3). “Turn us again, O God of hosts,” (80:7) so there is added there the “of host” and the same “cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved” (80:7). Then in verse nineteen, “Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved” (80:19). You see, “O God, O God of hosts, O LORD God of hosts”.
Now back in numbers God commanded the priest when they came forth from the tabernacle and doing their ministry before the Lord that they were to go out into the people to place God’s name upon the people. God said, “This is the way you are to place my name upon the people. The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord cause his face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee”. So this God turning his face towards you, cause his face to shine upon you…so picking that up out of that blessing he says, “Lord turn again to your people, cause your face to shine upon your people that we might be saved” (80:3).
O LORD God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people. Thou feedest them with the bread of tears; and givest them tears to drink in great measure (80:4-5).
How long are we going to endure this suffering? Now according to the prophet Jeremiah they were to endure it for seventy years. There was a reason for the seventy years. They had been dwelling in the land from the time of the establishment of the kingdom for four-hundred and ninety years during which time they had no kept the law of God in allowing the land to rest every seven years. So God said one year for every year the land was not rested, in four-hundred and ninety years, every seven years it would have been seventy years in which the land would have rested, would not have been planted, tilled, cultivated but just let go wild. This was so the land could replenish itself, so the soil would be replenished and so the food would be fully nutritious.
But the people did not obey this command. They kept planting for year after year after year for four-hundred and ninety years. God said, “Hey the land has seventy years coming to it for rest. Therefore you’ll be captives for seventy years that I might give to the land its Sabbaths”. They were looking for God to bring immediate revenge upon their nation but they were going to be fed with tears for seventy years.
Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbours: and our enemies laugh among themselves (80:6)
That scoffing and ridicule is always hard to handle.
Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved (80:7).
Now he uses a parable of sorts and he likens the nation of Israel unto a vine, a grape vine. It’s interesting that the Nation of Israel is likened to a grapevine in both the prophecies of Isaiah and again in Jeremiah. Jesus used the figure that “I am the true vine and you are the branches, every branch in me” so he uses this analogy.
Thou [the Nation of Israel] hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it (80:8).
God planted the Nation of Israel there in the land.
Thou preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land (80:9).
The Nation of Israel, having been rooted there, began to be established and began to spread out over the whole land.
The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars (80:10).
They became strong, broad boughs.
She sent out her boughs unto the sea, (80:11).
They conquered all the way over to the Mediterranean.
and her branches unto the river [Euphrates]. Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all that pass by the way do pluck her? (80:11-12).
When they would plant their vineyards they would build up rock walls around them to protect them from people just passing by and ripping off the fruit. So every vineyard had these rock walls. Even today you’ll today you’ll see these rock walls all over the area of the Valley of Eshcol where they still grow grapes, you’ll still see these walls. Some of them, no doubt, trace clear on back to this time, the walls that protect the vineyards.
“You have broken down the walls so that all that pass by do pluck her” (80:12). Israel is no longer protected by God but has become prey to their enemies.
The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it. Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven and behold and visit this vine; (80:13-14).
The Nation of Israel has been wasted and devoured but Lord, help us.
And the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that thou madest strong for thyself. It is burned with fire, it is cut down: they perish at the rebuke of thy countenance. Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself. So will not we go back from thee: quicken us, and we will call upon thy name (80:15-18).
This verse seventeen is a very interesting verse. It’s very interesting in light of the fact that it is really a prophecy; “Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand” (80:17). Who is it that is at the right hand of God? What is he called in the scripture? “The son of man” (80:17).
Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself. So will not we go back from thee: quicken us, and we will call upon thy name. Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved (80:17-19).
So really it’s the prayer for the Messiah. It is interesting that today in Israel there is again that prayer for the Messiah. They realize that they are having a difficult time surviving as a nation and many of them realize that their only hope is for the Messiah.
Psalm eighty-one begins with an encouragement to sing unto God aloud.
SING aloud unto God our strength: make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob (81:1).
The calling of the people to sing unto God, a joyful noise.
Take a psalm, (81:2).
That is, one of their songs that they sang.
and bring hither the timbrel, [tambourine] the pleasant harp with the psaltery (81:2).
The harp and the psaltery were stringed instruments that they used to accompany the singers.
Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day. For this was a statute for Israel, and law of the God of Jacob. 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 (81:3-5).
Let’s return to the Lord, sing unto God and bring out the musical instruments. Let’s get together, let’s worship the Lord and let’s turn back to God. Now God in verse six seems to answer and respond as he tells them and reminds them of his past blessings in their history.
I removed his shoulder from the burden: (82:6).
That is the burden that the Egyptians had place upon them. They would put these straps over their shoulders and they would carry these heavy bags of bricks or they would put the yoke that was over both shoulders and on each side where these bags, heavy loads.
I removed his shoulder from the burden: his hands were delivered from the pots (82:6).
They would carry in these large pots the clay to make the bricks. They maybe are carrying two hundred pounds with the yokes and the pots of the end. All day long in the hot sun being pressed on by the slave task masters and God said I delivered them from that.
Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee; (82:7).
So it was that they cried unto God by reason of their task masters and God sent Moses to the Pharaoh to demand the release of the people.
I answered thee in the secret place of thunder: (82:7).
God brought them out by the plagues and the thunder that God destroyed the crops of the Egyptians and by other things.
I proved thee at the waters of Meribah. (82:7).
Twice in their wilderness experience, once in towards the beginning and once towards the end, they came to a place where they were dying of thirst. There was over a million and a half of them making that trek through the wilderness. There are those today who are trying to declare that there was probably only a handful, maybe a hundred at the most, and that the figures are all greatly exaggerated. They say that they can’t find the evidence of such a massive amount of people through the wilderness and so forth and thus they are casting doubts upon the word of God.
Let me say that these kinds of critiques have always existed and they’ve been pounding at the scriptures for years. Every time, when all of the evidence is in, the critics are proved to just a bunch of nuts and the Word of God stands. All of these things that they have criticized in the past have all turned out to be not verifiable when the facts come in. The Word of God proves to be true and all of their theories go down the tubes.
They say that it is impossible that a million and a half people could survive in that wilderness. It’s just a complete impossibility. For man no doubt. It all depends on your concept of God. “They wouldn’t have had food.” Well God gave them manna. “They wouldn’t have had enough water.” Well, God gave them water and God gave them quail. Here even after God them the manna they said, “Can God give us meat in the wilderness”? So God caused these quail to fly in about three feet high and these guys went out with their sticks and took batting practice. Little kids were going around gathering them all up and putting them in a pile. God did take care of them.
When they came to Meribah this was towards the end of the wilderness journey. They had already seen the miracle of God bringing water out of the rock in the beginning but a lot of those were dead now. In fact, most of that generation had died off. They came to Moses and said, “Look, our children are crying for water. We are thirsty and we are going to die if we don’t get some water”. They began to make all kinds of accusations against Moses. Moses was angry and went in before God saying, “What am I going to do? I can’t handle this. I’ve had enough. I can’t take your complaining all the time”. Then God said, “Moses, they are thirsty. Go out and speak to the rock that it might give forth water”. So Moses went out and begin to yell at them and call them a bunch of rebels, “How long are you going to rebel against God, against me? Must I smite this rock again to bring you water”? He took his rod and hit the rock again and the water came forth and the people drank.
“I proved you at the waters of Meribah” (82:7). The proof of God always was to prove to them what was in their hearts. God allows us to go through testing that he might prove to us the things that are in our heart. We think that we are stronger than we really are. So God gives those tests where we fail, where we begin to see our weaknesses, where I realize “God I can’t stand without your help. I’ll never make it without you Lord”. God wants me to be dependent upon him. Every place where I feel that I can do it on my own, I feel that I have that wired, “Lord I don’t need your help anymore. Let me show you what I can do”. I show him but in so doing I discover a lot of truth about me. I discover that I’m not as strong as I thought I was, that my strength comes from the Lord and without him I am nothing.
Think of old Samson, the power of God was upon him. This guy was really wiping out the Philistines until he broke his vow, his consecration to God. When Delilah said, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you” he stood up and said, “I’ll go out as I did before”. He didn’t know the spirit of God had departed upon him. Without God’s spirit he was weak just like anybody else. He was then the prey. He was overcome by the Philistines. Without the strength and the power of God’s spirit you are nothing. If you don’t believe it God will prove you at the waters of Meribah or someplace else. He’ll let you see the perversity of your own heart, the deception of your own heart, in order that you might learn to trust him fully and to trust him completely. I proved you.
Now God is calling.
Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee: O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me. There shall no strange god be in thee; (82:8-9).
You’ve got to get rid of these gods that you’ve been worshiping. You cannot serve God and mammon. What is mammon? Money, materialism, possessions or things that money could by. You can’t serve both God and mammon. They can’t both be the god of your life. It’s got to be one or the other.
There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god (82:9).
Which Israel had begun to do. They were prospered, they were blessed, God made them strong, he had subdued their enemies and they were wealthy. During the reign of Solomon, silver was as common as rocks in Jerusalem. They were a wealthy nation but the began to worship the material things that their wealth could bring to them. In their luxury of their wealth they forgot God, they forsook God, they turned away from God and began to worship the world, the flesh.
I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: (82:10).
I’ll take care of you; I’ll take care of your every need.
open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would [have] none of me. So I gave them up unto their own heart’s lust: (82:10-12).
God called to them to find in him their full satisfaction. In your love for me, in your relationship with me, find that fulfillment that you’re searching for. I’ll fill your life, I’ll satisfy your life and truly serving God completely, giving your life to God complete is a very satisfying experience. God testifies of the fulfilling experience of letting him be the God of your life. God said that they would listen and so God just gave them up to their own hearts lust. If that’s what you want, then take it.
and they walked in their own counsels (82:12).
As the result they became weak as a nation. They became morally weak, spiritually weak and then physically weak and as result they went into captivity and now we are experiencing this horrible bondage again. God had brought them out of the bondage of Egypt but now they are back into bondage again.
It’s a sad thing when a person has experienced the power of God in their lives and had been freed from the bondage of corruption, blessed of God, anointed of God. Somehow, someway they grow cold and turn their backs on God. They begin to worship strange gods and they end up again in bondage. So was Israel. God wept.
Verse thirteen to the end is God’s lament.
Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! (82:13).
If they only would have done that. If they only would have listened.
I should soon have subdued their enemies, (82:14).
They wouldn’t be captives today. I would have destroyed their enemies.
and turned my hand against their adversaries. The haters of the LORD should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured for ever (82:14-15).
God declares the blessing that he would have bestowed upon them had they only been faithful and true to him. Even as God speaks to us today of those things that he desires to do for you as his child. O, if we would only listen, if we would only hearken.
He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee (82:16).
God’s cry, God’s lament, is over the loss of the people. That is what they have lost. The lost blessings, the things that they could’ve known, the things they could’ve experienced, the things that God wanted to do for them but was not able to do for them because they wouldn’t listen to God and follow in his ways.
History repeats itself over and over again. Jesus crying over Jerusalem over the very same thing. He had come to bring them God’s peace, he had come to bring to them God’s salvation and he had come to bring the kingdom of God but they wouldn’t listen, they wouldn’t hearken. As the result, they were to be destroyed; the Roman troops would come in and level the city. They would ravish the women, kill the little children, dash the children in the streets; they would be unmerciful in their destruction. Jesus seeing that wept over Jerusalem.

“Thou that stonest the prophet all that God has sent to you. If you only knew in this thy day the things that belong to your peace. But they seem to be hid from your eyes. Therefore the enemy is going to come and besiege the city and level the city to the ground. Your little children will be dashed in the streets”.

He weeps over their lost opportunity, over their refusal to allow the Lord to do for them those things that God was wanting to do for them. They wouldn’t listen to God. The end result was always instead of victory it was captivity or slaves to their enemy.
So today history doesn’t change, it repeats. We see today so many people that God loves and God wants to bless. God desires to forgive their sins, to wash them, to make them clean, to give them power over sin but they won’t listen to God. They continue on in their own stubborn ways. God weeps over the lost opportunity. He can see that the path that they have chosen is a path that will lead to slavery, it will lead to defeat, it will lead to bondage and you’re just missing out on all that God desires to do. “O,” God said, “if the would only have listened to me then I would have been with them. I would have defeated their enemies. They could’ve stayed in the land. I would have given them the finest wheat”. He wanted to do these things for them even as God wants to do these things for you.
He wants to forgive your sins. He wants to give you freedom over the world of flesh and the devil. God wants to bestow upon you his blessings and the richness of his grace. We try to find it on our own and we turn our backs upon the law of God, we do not walk in his commandments and as a result we go into captivity. We are being destroyed. God stands by and weeps because God won’t violate your power of choice. He won’t force himself upon you. He will do his best by persuasion to turn your mind and heart towards him. If you persist and insist on your way, then finally God will give you up to your own hearts lust. Then he just stands and weeps as he sees you going down the path that’s going to destroy you.
O God help us to listen, to hearken to his voice, In Jesus name.
Father we thank you tonight that you’ve called to us by your word. Lord we thank you that you have left for us this record of history so that we know your ways, your desires and your thoughts towards your people. That they are good and not evil. That it’s your desire Lord to bless your children, to free them from bondage from captivity, to give them the finest of wheat, to satisfy them Lord with the honey out of the rock. O God, help us to listen, to hearken unto your voice, to walk in your ways, in Jesus name we pray, Amen.
Next week we get into Psalm eighty-two, which is an interesting psalm. A psalm that is used by the Mormons to prove that they are going to be gods having their own planets and running their own show one day. Scriptures that are used by some of the modern day television evangelists prove that you can write your own ticket, that you could be sovereign, that you could have whatever you want because after all, you’re a god. Even Paul Crouch has bought in on this and we are going to be showing the folly of it all as we get into the “ye are gods” concept in psalm eighty-two.
The new age movement is coming all around us. Everybody is telling you that you are god. I’m telling you that you are not god and I’m not god and you better be thankful. I would have done you in a long time ago.
According to the new agers who have become very well entrenched in our educational system and in our public life, man is on the verge of the next great evolutionary transition. This next transition will bring man into the god-consciousness for evolution, in reality, the evolution of the consciousness of man. Even as you have a higher consciousness as the ape from which you “sprang” that next punctuated equilibrium of the evolutionary theory is going to bring man into the god-consciousness, the universal consciousness.
Ramtha and Seth and these other sages of the past who are channeling their wisdom through the new age channelers have one basic message. That is, you are god. Of course, Shirley MacClaine and her mini-series on ABC coached by David, standing there on the beach on Malibu, as David says now say it; “I am god”. She says it rather hesitatingly and unconvincingly, “I am god” he says, “No, no, no, say it like you mean it”. So we hear her repeating “I am god. I AM god. I AM GOD” and she goes through this transition where she comes into this universal consciousness and she becomes a god. They point to the scriptures and say, “Doesn’t the scriptures say ye are gods”?
We’ll be looking at that next week and I think you’ll find it rather fascinating when you find out what the scripture really said. I’ll tell you what God said right now. He said, “I am God and there is no other. I don’t know any other”. If he doesn’t know any other then you could be sure there are no other. Who worshiped and served the creature more than the creator, it’s a dangerous trap.
Father, we thank You again for Your goodness, Your blessings, Your love. Lord, we pray Your blessing now upon your people. Even as we have had this privilege of spending this evening together with You, listening to You as You speak to our hearts through Your Word. Help us Lord to hearken, to listen to Your voice. Help us Lord to surrender and submit ourselves unto You, to walk Lord in Your ways. May we make that commitment tonight Lord to be obedient children that You might bless us Lord as You are longing to do because of Your love for us. May we receive Lord Your blessings, Your guidance, Your love, in Jesus name we pray.
Edited & Highlighted from “The Word For Today” Transcription, Pastor Chuck Smith, Tape #7191
PAGE 10

EMBED MS_ClipArt_Gallery.2