Author: timritanickel@gmail.com

Psalm 81:7 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.

In Psalm 50:15 God promises: “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” Here the Lord says He did just what He promised to do. When we are in trouble, trouble of any kind, large or small, we are commanded and encouraged to respond to the trouble by calling upon the Lord. Our first response, not our last resort, is to pray in time of need. He says He will deliver and answer.

He has done it before and He will do it again. He delivered water out of the rock at Meribah. Remember His Grace and Power is present for every need. He is a very present help in a time of trouble. The Rock is Christ. He it is who died for us to eternally deliver. And He comes again and again in every day of trouble to answer our call and meet our need.

Psalm 81:1-3 Sing aloud unto God our strength: make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob. Take a psalm, and bring neither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery. Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on the solemn feast day.

God’s people are commanded and expected to worship God exuberantly and praise God extravagantly in response to His awesome power and great love shown unto us. When it is time for music and praise, whether monthly or weekly in the assembly, or daily in private, we pull out all the stops. We sing loudly and joyfully. We use the musical instruments we have: psalm, timbrel, harp, psaltery (lyre), and trumpet. In our day we may use organ, piano, guitar, drums, etc., along with voice. Nothing is too loud or boisterous for God, for He is worthy.

There is a worship life and a life of worship, in which we are “making melody in our heart to the Lord.” Our daily life of constant worship is punctuated with regular public, joint expressions of praise in the great congregation. Exuberance is the believer’s appropriate and normal response to the extravagant love God has shared with us in the person and work of His Son. We are so overwhelmed with love and overcome by the Gospel that we sing aloud.

Psalm 80:18-19 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.

The troubles the nation is undergoing are caused by their own sin and unbelief. The Psalmist here repents and pleads for mercy and salvation. He promises they will not go back from God again. He asks God to give them life (quicken), and they promise to call upon the Lord in faith and worship. He asks the Lord to come among them and smile upon them and they trust Him to save.

We also admit that our own sin is the cause of the troubles we face, and we repent and ask forgiveness. We daily renew our faith and call upon Him. We arise and walk in newness of life. He makes alive, smiles upon us with grace and favor, and saves us. We are overwhelmed with love so that we respond with perpetual thanksgiving in our hearts.

Psalm 80:1, 3, 7 Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock, thou that dwellest between the cherubim’s, shine forth….Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine, and we will be saved….Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine, and we will be saved.

Asaph recognizes that they in trouble again, and it is their own fault. Yet he repents for the people and prays to the Lord to save them. In dire straits surrounded by enemies, he asks God to bring about genuine repentance (turn us again), to bring His Presence to bear (cause his face to shine), and to save them. He trusted the goodness and strength of the Good Shepherd to care for and protect him and the sheep of His pasture.

When life gets difficult and spiritual enemies threaten us, we turn to the Lord to turn us again in repentance and faith and come and save us. And just as the Lord Jesus came among us to save us once before, so He will come again and again to dwell among us and deliver. Thus we respond to trouble and to the promise with daily repentance and faith in the Gospel.

Psalm 79:13 So we thy people and sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks forever: we will show forth thy praise to all generations.

As the people of God and the sheep of His pasture we may believe and thrive under the Lord’s care, provision, covering, and protection. Our spiritual enemies will try to attack us and destroy us, but we have the Good Shepherd guarding us and keeping us safe from the Enemy. Life is difficult and dangerous, and with Sin, Death, and the Devil ever lurking about seeking to devour us we are always exposed to evil.

So we pray: “Deliver us from evil.” And He does, sometimes in ways we don’t even see or know about. We realize that we are always in danger, but we also realize that we are cared for and protected by the strong and loving hand of God. Therefore, we continually give thanks and praise to Jesus for His keeping and caring. We live lives continually thanking Jesus for what He has done and praising Him for who He is. This heart attitude makes for a happy and contented life. And not only will that thanks go on through our lives, but we will spend eternity praising the Lord. In fact, eternity will not even seem like enough time to truly praise God. Praise never ends, for His goodness and mercy never ends.

Psalm 79:9 Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name’s sake.

Asaph writes this Psalm after the people are brought very low. In the depths of defeat and despair, their response is to pray to the God of their salvation to help, deliver, and purge away their sins. God has saved them before; save them now from the present trouble.

Sometimes when we feel down and out, we may turn to God and ask for help in time of need. We ask the Lord to deliver us from the present trouble. And we ask Him to purge away our sins. We do not ask because we deserve it, but we ask for the glory of God’s name, and we receive forgiveness for the sake of the name. For this reason we pray in the name of Jesus. It is for the sake of Jesus and because Christ died for our sins to purge us that God come to help and deliver. Our prayer expresses that faith and the calm assurance of hope. Faith and prayer responds to the time of need.

Psalm 78:72 So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands.

“God chose David also his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds (v. 70).” David responded to the Lord’s call upon his life by feeding and guiding the people of the nation of Israel. David is called a “man after God’s own heart.” David was able to do such an effective and powerful job of feeding and guiding because he trusted in the Lord to give him the wisdom, strength and leadership. God did the work through David, for He found a willing instrument.

We, too, can do a good job of feeding and guiding those we are responsible for with humble trust in God instead of prideful trust in self. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding [Proverbs 3:5].” We need God’s help more than we might like to admit, but when we in humble faith ask for help we believe God will grant it.

Psalm 78:56-58 Yet they tempted and provoked the most high God, and kept not his testimonies: But turned back and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers: they were turned aside like a deceitful bow. For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.

After all that the Lord had miraculously done for His people delivering them in the Exodus and providing for them in the wilderness, yet they still broke the First Commandment of the Covenant over and over. They tempted Him by turning away from the only true God, provoking Him to anger and jealousy by forgetting God, and dealing unfaithfully with the covenant promise.

It is remarkable that saved children of God would act that way, even after rehearsing the Gospel of God’s love and salvation. But we are also incorrigible sinners with embedded unbelief and rebellion seated deep within. We are in desperate and constant need of the gospel of forgiveness and life. Therefore, we remind ourselves regularly of the gospel of grace and continual restoration to God’s favor.

We must admit and confess that we ever provoke God to anger and jealousy by our sin and unbelief. We confess Jesus as Lord and receive forgiveness and life.

Psalm 78:40-42 How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert! Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. They remembered not his hand, nor the day when he delivered them from the enemy.

Too often God’s people forget God and what He did for them. They provoke Him with blame for their condition. They grieve Him with unbelief. They turn away from Him to other gods. They limit God in their minds. They do not remember the works of God for their salvation.

The Psalmist is talking about believers here, redeemed children of God, not pagan unbelievers, whom we do not expect to know the Lord. And the Lord is speaking also to us NT believers who “grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” We who are saved saints are still also sinners, who forget God in unbelief and grieve the Spirit with our sinful words and actions. We need constant hearing and reminding of the Gospel of Salvation, for it is easy to provoke God and grieve the Spirit with doubt, pride and unbelief.

These things were written for our learning. Therefore we respond to the Gospel with lives of daily repentance and faith.

Psalm 78:36-37 Nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues. For their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant.

The hypocrite responds to the Lord by flattering and lying with their tongues, while their hearts are far from Him. Their heart was not right with God, nor were they faithful to His covenant. This is the classic hypocrite that Jesus excoriates in the NT.

We, as outwardly religious people, learn to worship and say the right things, but the heart is not in agreement. We are not steadfast in the covenant He made with us by breaking the Commandments to love God and love neighbor. Yet we know how to act pious for show even though the heart is not right.

God loves the heart that is right with Him through a God-wrought faith in Jesus through the Gospel. The tongue will honestly follow a heart that is cleansed, forgiven and right with God. We are not steadfast in His covenant, but Jesus is. Through the shed blood of Christ God makes a New Covenant with us. When we repent of our own works and believe the gospel our tongue matches our heart. We are still lying hypocrites, but the Spirit is in the process of sanctification by bringing our tongue in line with our heart. Daily repentance, confession, faith and remembrance of Baptism prevents hypocrisy.