THE PSALMS – A JOURNEY IN WORSHIP AND FAITH - October 29, 2014 - Day 81 - Psalm 81

Psalm 81 is a psalm of missed opportunities. In it we read of the result of the failure to listen to God when He speaks. The church today and its people so often follow the same path. God has given us His Word, the Bible, and in it He speaks to us as to how to follow Him. Yet the church continues to look for others ways and methods to grow the church. We live in the most medicated nation in the world as we seek the psychology of man and the wisdom of the world in our quest to find happiness. God has spoken. When we don’t listen we miss out on life abundant.

As so often is the case we open in praise.

Psalm 81:1-3
TO THE CHOIRMASTER: ACCORDING TO THE GITTITH. OF ASAPH. Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob! Raise a song; sound the tambourine, the sweet lyre with the harp. Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our feast day.

The psalmist looks back as he praises God in remembrance of God’s deliverance from Egypt.

Psalm 81:4-7
For it is a statute for Israel, a rule of the God of Jacob. He made it a decree in Joseph when he went out over the land of Egypt. I hear a language I had not known: "I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket. In distress you called, and I delivered you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah

The Jews were delivered from the oppressive hand of the pharaoh. This is a picture of the oppressive nature of sin that keeps us in bondage as well. God is speaking in this psalm as He tells the psalmist, "I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket. In distress you called, and I delivered you.” God is mighty to save. We are also in held captive in sin but if we cry out to Jesus in our distress He breaks the chains that hold us captive to our own pharaoh, Satan. Jesus will set you free.

But the Jews spent 400 years in bondage. The murmured and complained which did no good. They cried out to God and he delivered them. It was by a mighty army that God delivered the Jews; it was by the powers which God controls. It was the forces of nature which God used. Flies, frogs, boils, blood, lice, locusts, darkness and death were God’s army. The final defeat came via the supernatural power of the waters as they parted for Israel then swept away the mightiest army of the world. God does not need man’s weapons.

Yet after all that, what happened to Israel? Even Moses fell to his own ways and it cost Him the Promised Land. God told him to strike the rock just once but Moses added a second strike. Hear God’s response.

Numbers 20:12
But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them."

God has spoken to us in His Word. We need not add anything to that. We just don’t listen.

Psalm 81:7-8
In your distress you called and I rescued you, I answered you out of a thundercloud; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah "Hear, O my people, and I will warn you-- if you would but listen to me, O Israel!

God has instructed us clearly about idolatry. He promises us He will provide if we simply listen and obey.

Psalm 81:9-10
You shall have no foreign god among you; you shall not bow down to an alien god. I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.

But we, like the Jews, think we can follow the way of man.

Psalm 81:11-15
"But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. "If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways, how quickly would I subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes! Those who hate the LORD would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever.

Church we do not need anything from this world. We need to hear God’s commands and obey.

Psalm 81:16
But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you."

The rock is Jesus Christ. He will satisfy you. But we must be obedient.

John 14:15
"If you love me, you will obey what I command.”

Sing out in praise today for God has shown us the way. He has given us the rock, Jesus, and told us how to live by abiding in Him. But we cannot keep adding to it our own devices or we end up like Moses, wandering the desert. Don’t wait 40 years. In your distress call out to Him and He will deliver you. Then sing out in praise.