Sermon(Ps 44): God's education

The original Korean text: https://blog.naver.com/stevision/50025286825

 

>> 1 We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what deeds thou didst perform in their days, in the days of old: 2 thou with thy own hand didst drive out the nations, but them thou didst plant; thou didst afflict the peoples, but them thou didst set free; 3 for not by their own sword did they win the land, nor did their own arm give them victory; but thy right hand, and thy arm, and the light of thy countenance; for thou didst delight in them. .... 9 Yet thou hast cast us off and abased us, and hast not gone out with our armies. ... 11 Thou hast made us like sheep for slaughter, and hast scattered us among the nations. 12 Thou hast sold thy people for a trifle, demanding no high price for them. 13 Thou hast made us the taunt of our neighbors, the derision and scorn of those about us. .... 17 All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten thee, or been false to thy covenant. .... 22 Nay, for thy sake we are slain all the day long, and accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 23 Rouse thyself! Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Awake! Do not cast us off for ever! .... (Ps 44) <<

 

In the book of Deuteronomy (Deut 28:7), God said, "If you Israel obey me, your enemies shall come out against you one way, and flee before you seven ways." God said that, if Israel should obey God, even a small number of Israelites would defeat a large number of enemies, one Israelite beating one hundred enemies. God said he would drive out and destroy the Canaanites living in filthy sins, but would give the land to Israel and make it a nation. However, God gave not only words of blessing but also words of curse. God threatened Israel that they would be defeated by a small number of enemies and be their servants if they did not obey God's words and followed the dirty customs of the former Canaanites, and that he would make them taken captive by the enemies and scatter them among nations if they continued the life of idolatry and disobedience despite God's first punishment. However, God, on account of the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, promised that he, after a while, would bring them to their homeland from the land where they had been deported, and allow them to serve him again there.

 

God's warnings were all actually fulfilled. Israel lived in idolatry, and was destroyed by Assyria, and by Babylon to be captives for about 70 years, and some of the captives returned home, built the temple of God, and served God again. You know 'a field trip', or 'a learning on the spot'. People also say, "백문불여일견(聞不如一見): To see something in person once is better than to hear about it one hundred times." We can know about something clearly when we experience it in person. Israel conquered Canaan and established a nation by God's help, yet they were living under the heavy pressure of large countries such as Assyria to the north and Egypt to the south. Israel began to doubt about God. 'Why is our country so weak?' They began to look at the idols made and served by neighboring powerful countries. 'Obviously, the god whom that powerful nation serves must be stronger than our God Jehovah who brought us here from Egypt!' God took extreme measures when Israel didn't give up idolatry with such a thought. God brought enemies in Israel, destroyed it, took the Israelites to the enemy country by force, and made them see with their own eye what idols were and what the result of the idolatry was. Living for 70 years in another country, Israelites observed the idolatry that was splendid to see but was, in fact, completely empty. Sometimes they were forced to attend the worship of idols by the enemy. So the Israelites thought, 'Oh, no! This is not what we imagined,' while they were bowing to the big stone dolls or to big wood dolls. God let Israelites see with their own eyes how Assyrians who had destroyed (North) Israel were destroyed together with their idols, and how Babylonians who had destroyed Judah were destroyed together with their idols. Eventually, Israelites deeply realized that the idols other countries had been serving were no more than stone dolls or wood dolls. After a long field trip, Israelites returned to homeland and served only their God, not averting their eyes to other gods. The thought of idols and the liking for them were completely washed away from their heads after the hard life of the deportation. What we must admit is that all God's punishment is for the good of his people. When Moses made a fault to God, God didn't permit him to go into the land of Canaan. This was to strengthen Moses' successor Joshua and exalt him before all people, so that he could easily carry out leader's duties. Joshua split the Jordan and entered Canaan. Adam and Eve sinned and were expelled from Eden, but their true love began from that day. In Eden, where no one lacked nothing, Adam or Eve did not desperately need the other, so Adam, giving up Eve like his old shoes, said to God, "I've eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge because of this woman." But when they were driven out of Eden, so that they had to work hard to live, Adam worked hard to bring in things to eat, and Eve assisted Adam and bore Adam's offsprings. Although the two sinned and were to die, they could become one and have their beloved descendants. Outside of Eden was a place where both Adam and Eve would perish if they didn't love each other. God expelled them in order to cause them to love each other. Like this, God's discipline is for the maturity of his people. When beaten, man suffers physically, deeply thinks the meaning of the chastisement, and removes sinful appearances of his nature one by one.

 

God does not treat the righteous and the wicked on the same level. Sometimes God doesn't even punish the wicked to save the righteous. When God appeared to Abraham and said to him that he would destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham asked if he would kill all, the righteous as well as the wicked even if there should be some righteous men there? And God said he would not destroy the two cities but would forgive them if there were ten righteous men there. Even when war breaks out, God permits the wicked and their children to die by the sword, but guards the righteous and their children like the apple of his eye. Think of Daniel, Esther and Mordecai. Their homeland was destroyed, and they were taken captive to another country, yet they gained high positions and lived well. Even when a nation is destroyed and the people become slaves, God will keep those who fear him, and even not a hair of their heads will perish (Lk 21:17). Even if war breaks out, and thousands of people around fall by swords and arrows; the righteous who fear God will save their lives without any hurt, like they take spoils.

 

Consider the writer of today's text, Psalm 44. He has a right faith. He confessed that Israel, in the past, conquered Canaan not by their strength but by the help of God. "Not by their own sword did they win the land, nor did their own arm give them victory; but thy right hand, and thy arm, and the light of thy countenance; for thou didst delight in them. (v. 3)" He thoroughly relied on the Lord. "Not in my bow do I trust, nor can my sword save me. (v. 6)" He respected the law of God and obeyed the will of God all days of his life. "We have not forgotten thee, or been false to thy covenant. (v. 17)" He didn't commit idolatry God hated so much. "If we had forgotten the name of our God, or spread forth our hands to a strange god, would not God discover this? (v. 20, 21)"

 

But this man is bewildered now, for God has made Israel defeated and scattered among nations. That is, just as God drove out the Canaanites from the land, so now he has driven out Israelites from the land. And what is even more incomprehensible to him is whether it would be for God's glory for Israel to be defeated, taken prisoner, and mocked by enemies. The writer thought it would be God's loss for him to allow such a misfortune, because certainly it would not be God's glory that Israelites were mocked and insulted in the land of the Gentiles, and that the Gentiles did not hesitate to utter blasphemous words against the God of Israel. He thought that God had sold Israel to the Gentiles free of charge. "Thou hast sold thy people for a trifle, demanding no high price for them. (v. 12)" The psalmist of the text was clearly a righteous man. He loved God. But his reality was terrible. He was living a hard life day by day, in all kinds of insult and death threat. "Thou hast made us like sheep for slaughter, and hast scattered us among the nations. (v. 11)" "Thou hast made us the taunt of our neighbors, the derision and scorn of those about us. (v. 13)" "For thy sake we are slain all the day long, and accounted as sheep for the slaughter. (v. 22)" But did God really sell his people to the Gentiles without any profit?

 

How do you interpret this case? Is God punishing the righteous now together with the wicked in Israel? God killed all the wicked during the war, but spared the righteous. We call them the remnant. God will bring them and their children to their homeland. But if we think a little more deeply, God is now regarding the righteous who are suffering in a foreign land as 'treasure'. Silver and gold are treasures. Impurities in silver and gold make them less valuable. Silver and gold become more valuable when they are refined in a hot crucible. You can get pure gold or pure silver only when you do elaborate work to make hot fire. We discover that the dross in the writer of the psalm had been gradually vanishing through the suffering he had met until then. First, the psalmist learns that a lot of world's disasters do not spare a man even if he alone tries to live righteously. He learns that, though there were some righteous men in Israel, they also had to bear the sins of the wicked when their country was destroyed because they, the righteous, didn't live as the light and the salt of the society but ignored the sins of the country. You must know that God didn't bless you to make only you happy. If you've received God's blessing, you must live as the salt of the society in order to keep it from spoiling.

 

Next, the psalmist goes through the process of the complete removing of the dross of his pride. He was brought to a powerful nation and met numerous insults there. You can see the world as it is when you are brought to the lowest place. You can never know the feelings of the homeless lying in the park if you have never been poor. You're an arrogant man if you look at the homeless people with contempt, thinking, 'How lazy they are!', those who have failed in all despite all their efforts. You're an arrogant man if you deal with a street vendor as if he were your servant. Such pride is not eliminated just by school education or by reading several books of ethics. Only those who have ever lived a humble life and only those who have ever heard offensive remarks can see the homeless as normal people and the street vendors as faithful responsible persons. The righteous Israelites didn't even regard the Gentiles as normal humans, but their chronic disease, that is, their inveterate sense of pride or of religious superiority, was abandoned when they were taken captive to the land of Gentiles and lived as their slaves there. Wouldn't it be funny to belittle those Gentiles they have served? When such a pride disappeared, people abandon the exclusivity of the pride of the chosen people, and see others in a humble heart. Then they do not rely on their own worthless righteousness but only on the righteousness of God. God chose Israel as his people to give salvation to all nations. The extreme pride of the chosen people can be a stone making men stumble in God's way to salvation of all. Too strong consciousness of God's people is pride. The consciousness of the chosen people can be a bad pride wearing a subtle mask of love for God. The sense of God's people is necessary when you decide to thank God and to live in obedience to his commandments, not it can not be used as a basis for looking down on others.

 

 

Finally, the psalmist removes all his dross of violent personality, or his sanguinity. The foremost sanguinity of humans is to make a plan and to drive it forward obstinately. You know the moles, a game machine. The moment one of the moles pushes up its head out of the hole, you must strike its head with a hammer, then you get one point. I think the fascination of our life is that sometimes things go against our expectations. Of course, it may be a pain to us, but the fact that things sometimes do not work as we wish can mean that the Almighty is in control of our life. The psalmist in today's text says that he is like a sheep to be slaughtered (v. 22). When a death threat becomes a reality to you, you'll withdraw yourself from all your future plans. Then you'll lay all your future in God's hand. In a word, your obstinacy, pride, and sanguinity are broken now. If this condition continues for a long time, you'll be like a sheep to God, that is, will be a man who completely abandons his obstinacy and thoroughly obeys the words of God, like Moses who kept the sheep of his father-in-law for 40 years in the wilderness. The obstinacy in you should be slaughtered. Only then can you become a meek sheep.

 

Today's psalmist, not knowing that such dross in him is being removed, complains to God, saying that God pretends not to see their hard situations. He even says, "Rouse thyself! Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Awake! (v. 23)" But it can not be true that God is sleeping comfortably elsewhere when his people are on the field trip now. God said plainly already in the days of Moses that he would scatter Israelites among other nations if they sinned, and that he would bring them to their homeland again from there if they repented their sins and sought him. How can the psalmist say 'God is sleeping' when God is fulfilling his plans exactly as he has promised? God neither sleeps nor slumbers. If your own eyes are closed, the whole world is in darkness. If your are a Christian, you must keep your eyes of faith open even in hardship.

 

May you neither ignore God's discipline nor lose heart by his punishment. May you trust in God and love him always.

 

Chong Tack Kim

                          - Dongtoma Sunshine Church -