🎤 Psalm 83 Song - Do Not Keep Silence

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Do we Christians, especially those of us in the West, have a persecution complex? Recently I saw a video in which Tim Keller compared the relatively modest resistance we experience in North America to the types of difficulties believers face in countries like North Korea, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Libya, to name a few. I'm not saying that it's easy to be a Christian here, but I think it's always important to balance one's emotion with a bit of reality.

Yes; at one time, Christian faith was a good example of social morality, and today we live in a world where sometimes we are considered immoral for holding our beliefs.

Yes; we have foes. We can use Psalm 83 as a template for our prayers, as we plead with God to break his silence, to bring justice in the midst of our suffering.

As I studied this Psalm, one thing really stuck out to me. It is eighteen verses long, and for the first seventeen, the psalmist appears to be trying to make his case to God, trying to tell God what's happening to His people--as if God doesn't know! He is setting the scene, explaining how God haters are raising their heads, laying crafty plans, conspiring and encouraging one another. The psalmist lists all the countries involved, and then asks God to do to them as He has done in the past. He asks God to destroy them, to make them like chaff, to burn them up, to perish, etc. etc.

However, in my opinion, the most important verse is the last one: “Let them know that you alone, whose name is the Lord, are the Most High over all the earth.”

As we face the challenges of living in an upside-down world, we have little power over the culture. We can get angry about the state of affairs, and moan about our loss of moral status, but we really can't change things by getting angry and calling down fire and brimstone! We can only change things by putting on Christ: we must become like him, and love like he did. We must turn our stiff necks to the left and the right, looking for the overlooked, the lost, the hurting, the hungry, and the outcast, and wash their feet!

Let's pray as Jesus prayed, when he asked the Father that we might be unified, in John 17:15-23. Look at verse 21: “I pray they will be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. I pray that they also will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me.”

That's how we change the world! That's how we face persecution! The world will believe when we start loving the unlovable.

Amen

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Prayer for Judgement on Israel’s Foes
A Song. A Psalm of Asaph.

1 O God, do not keep silence;
do not hold your peace or be still, O God!
2 Even now your enemies are in tumult;
those who hate you have raised their heads.
3 They lay crafty plans against your people;
they consult together against those you protect.
4 They say, ‘Come, let us wipe them out as a nation;
let the name of Israel be remembered no more.’
5 They conspire with one accord;
against you they make a covenant—
6 the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites,
Moab and the Hagrites,
7 Gebal and Ammon and Amalek,
Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre;
8 Assyria also has joined them;
they are the strong arm of the children of Lot.
Selah
9 Do to them as you did to Midian,
as to Sisera and Jabin at the Wadi Kishon,
10 who were destroyed at En-dor,
who became dung for the ground.
11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb,
all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna,
12 who said, ‘Let us take the pastures of God
for our own possession.’
13 O my God, make them like whirling dust,
like chaff before the wind.
14 As fire consumes the forest,
as the flame sets the mountains ablaze,
15 so pursue them with your tempest
and terrify them with your hurricane.
16 Fill their faces with shame,
so that they may seek your name, O Lord.
17 Let them be put to shame and dismayed for ever;
let them perish in disgrace.
18 Let them know that you alone,
whose name is the Lord,
are the Most High over all the earth.

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

#scripturesongs #psalm83