Psalm 74:22 Arise, O God, plead thine own cause…
Last week I was near the woods behind one of our buildings on the Bill Rice Ranch. I was looking for a large oak tree that had once been the home of a magnificent tree house. The boys who owned the treehouse had a dad who was a carpenter, so it had walls and a roof. To a six-year-old boy it was like a full-blown house in a tree. It was amazing. Now there is nothing left of the treehouse, which is similar to much of what you read in the Bible about the temple, the palaces, and all these magnificent cities. They are now rubble. Many became rubble long, long ago.
In Psalms 74 the psalmist feels as if the world is laying at his feet. It is just rubble. This is a psalm, but the context appears to be the destruction of Jerusalem. If so, the psalmist wrote sometime after the reign of David. Whenever it was, it does seem as if Zion, Jerusalem, Israel, the sanctuary, the temple, were in ruin. They were rubble. Maybe you feel that way, as if plans you’ve made are rubble at your feet. Maybe you feel like the savings of your life are rubble. Perhaps you feel that some friendship is rubble. What then?
Psalm 74 is full of questions. “O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever?” the psalmist asks in Psalm 74:1.” “Why?” he asks, “How long?” “How long will your people be desolate? God, have You forgotten your congregation?” He asks, “Have you forgotten Your name? Have you forgotten the poor?” Again, “Have you forgotten what the foolish and the enemies of your people have done?” The psalmist is waiting.
For what is he waiting? To be sure, he may have been hoping for rebuilt walls, a rebuilt city, and a rebuilt nation, but ultimately he wasn’t waiting for a thing. He was waiting for a Person. He was waiting on God. We can learn from this that we should stop waiting for happiness. Stop deferring happiness to something down the road. We may think, “Once I get this done, once I have accomplished this, or once I do that, then I will be happy.” You can do that your whole life, then your life will be gone. Don’t do that!
There is more to life than just happenings and happiness, but I do not think that it is a virtue to be miserable. So, stop waiting for happiness and start waiting on God. In the first place, God is ultimately the builder. In Psalm 74:4-7 the psalmist talks about the destruction he saw, “Thine enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations; they set up their ensigns for signs.” The conquerors had unfurled their flag above what was left of God’s people.
In verses 5-6 he seemed to say there was a time when men were applauded for building, chopping down trees and using it to construct something beautiful. It continues, “But now they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers.” Now, men were tearing down what had been beautifully built. He says, “They have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground…they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land.” He is saying, “God, You are the builder. This is Your doing. These are Your buildings and Your people. Consequently, the psalmist realizes that God is not just ultimately the builder; He is the owner.
This is not to say that God came down and physically built Solomon’s temple. It wasn’t just David’s idea. It wasn’t just Solomon’s planning or Hiram’s materials, though there were men who put their hand to the work. It was God Who was ultimately the builder. God is the builder because God is the owner. In verse 22 he says, “Arise, O God, plead thine own cause.” What he seems to be saying, something we find so often in the book of Psalms, is, “God, these are not my people. God, these are not my walls, not my temple, not my problems, not even my enemies. God, we all belong to You, including the trouble.”
I would close by saying, “Be sure God is not the One waiting on you.” Ultimately, what was broken was not a city, a wall, or a building. It was a people. People had broken fellowship with God. The reason for the conquest was because the people had long ago thrown off the authority of God. So, what was broken? God’s people were broken. Who was faithful? God was. He is always faithful. “O God, why has thou cast us off?” It was judgment for sin. But God had not cast them off forever. Like a father pities his children, so God pities us, knows we are just dust and that we need Him. The question is “Do we know that we need him?”
I think you should always have something to which you are looking for in every season. That is good. But, stop waiting for happiness and start waiting on God. He is the builder, the owner, and the finisher of our faith and everything good.