This is a prayer ascribed to Asaph (one of the Scribes who could have been
tasked with ghost-writing the king’s thoughts to be shared in worship). There is, in this prayer the beginnings (at
least) of that old saying: Be careful of that
for which you pray…you just might get it!
I am referring to that part where Asaph asks God to pour out wrath on the
nations that don’t acknowledge God, don’t seek His will. Only a righteous person or nation could pray
that kind of prayer with a straight face.
This was a time of trouble, when the Babylonian Empire had conquered
Jerusalem in 586 BC. With the city and
the Temple demonlished, there was a lot of lamenting and praying for God’s
help. But it was little use offering
prayers to God to help them get a little payback on Babylon.[1] That prayer would only bounce-back on their
heads. Israel had sinned just as
heinously as Babylon, just in different ways.
In fact, God was the one who engineered Babylon’s conquest. Jeremiah had prophesied the cauldron[2] of trouble from the North
(Iraq) would flood-down on Jerusalem like a pot of boiling water on their
heads. In a kind of poetic justice, when an unrighteous person
(or nation) prays that God would destroy the unrighteous, it will receive God’s answer, but it
won’t be nearly like the praying person thought.
Following the attack of September 11, 2001, it was common during televised
ball games, to sing God Bless America during a break. Feelings of nationalistic pride would well-up
in tears of millions of eyes of those who hardly (if ever) darkened the
doorstep of a church, or bowed a knee in prayer. We pray, or at least sing our national anthem
with more gusto, when we’re in trouble. And
that is anything but seeking the face of God…it is praying for the ability to
find a plausible alibi when you’ve been caught red-handed with hands in the
cookie jar.
A better word would be hypocrisy. You cannot live every day of your life without
so much as a thought of God’s ways, and then expect God’s kindness, just
because you deserve it, and He is that big vending machine in the sky. God does not change his character, and He has
told us exactly how he will respond to those who have a pretend relationship
with Him. In the final judgment, there
are some who will try to run that game right before the throne; the response of
God will be:
But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me,
you who break God’s laws.’ Matthew 7:23
For You Today
Let’s give the
Scripture the last word today on a better life’s path:
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean
not unto thine own understanding. In
all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Proverbs 3:5-6(KJV)
There
are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library. To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some
of these:
An Empty Lament and Stumbling in Broad Daylight
[1] Images: via Pixabay.com Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
[1]
The city of Babylon, capitol of ancient Babylonian Empire is located 55 miles
south of Baghdad (in modern Iraq)
[2] See Jeremiah 1:11-16
