Psalm 79:8

Psalm 79:8

We are in desperate need!

2 Kings 17 carries a terrible indictment against Israel. They had abandoned God’s ways to follow the practices of the heathen nations. They built high altars and erected Asherah poles. They worshipped idols and rejected God’s decrees and the Covenant He had made with them. They worshipped the stars, and they exalted the pagan god, Baal. They practiced child sacrifice and divination and used omens for spiritual guidance. So, God gave Israel over to plunderers, He abandoned His people.  He was so angry with them that He showed no favours to Judah and allowed Jerusalem to be destroyed and the Temple to be ransacked and raised to the ground. Wicked kings had come and gone, and the situation reached breaking point when the Lord God admitted that “He was not willing to forgive.” 2 Kings 24:3-4. As a consequence, the people must suffer God’s judgements and the curses He pronounced over those who broke His commandments and who abandoned Him.

This did not happen in a week or a year, it gradually built up over decades, hence the plea in this verse of our Psalm, “Do not hold against us the sins of past generations.” The verse also holds an admission of defeat, there is not yet a plea for forgiveness, but that will come. What is described here are the desperate straits of these captives and their need of God’s mercy if they were ever going to survive. 

Too many today ignore the Bible’s warnings about pagan religions. We have embraced them all in the UK in the name of tolerance and broad-mindedness. Churches open their doors in civic services to all and sundry while the high streets encourage the crystal and New Age shops. One, in my own hometown of Halstead, was recently advertising training sessions for would-be witches. And it is all because we have abandoned the Lord God. Judgement will inevitably follow. It always does and it is inevitably brought about by man’s sinfulness, rather than the actions of our Holy God. 

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