Psalm 80:4-5
How long, Lord God Almighty, will your anger smoulder against the prayers of your people? You have fed them with the bread of tears; you have made them drink tears by the bowlful.
Yesterday, we delighted in the idea of God turning his face
towards us and shining his favour on us. But as today's verse make clear, that wasn't the palmist's experience. It's what he prays for, but it's not what he currently has. He, and all God's people, are actually experiencing God's right
anger towards them. Perhaps this comes as something of a shock to us. So far in these psalms we've seen people
suffering at the hands of their enemies, who are also God’s enemies. But now we see a nation suffering, and it turns out that their own God has done this to them. The God who fed his people with manna and quail in the wilderness now feeds them with tears. Why?
Back in Deuteronomy, when the people God had rescued from slavery stood on the brink of the promised land, Moses reminded them of the covenant God had made with them, and the blessings that they would enjoy if
they remained faithful to him. But he also warned them of the curses that would come if they turned away. They would lose their land and suffer at the hands of
their enemies ... exactly the situation that this Psalm describes. Deuteronomy 29:25-26 tells us that when the nations see this they will ask 'Why this burning anger?'
and the answer will be 'because the people abandoned the covenant of the Lord ... and worshipped other gods.'
We live under a new covenant. Not all of our present
suffering is the result of our personal sin. The curse we deserve been taken by Jesus at the cross. Will that make us care less about our sin than the psalmist did? Or will our gratitude for our salvation be an even more powerful
motivation to trust and obey our gracious and merciful God? Let’s pray today that it would be.
