Oh, That My People Would Listen to Me

 

Psalm 81:1-16

 

8-3-2022

 

Oh, That My People Would Listen to Me

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.  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 heard 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

Hear, O my people, while I admonish you!  O Israel, if you would but listen to me!  There shall be no strange god among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god. I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.  Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. “But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me.  So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels. Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!  I would soon subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes.  Those who hate the Lord would cringe toward him, and their fate would last forever.  But he would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”

 

Asaph was on target, God is our strength, and He should be our strength today, but so often we ignore Him and turn to ourselves or others.  Judah and Israel He heard their cry remove the burden of Egypt and led them out to a promised land.

 

Now let’s make this personal, If the church of the USA would listen and do as God’s calling, and turn from strange gods the world offers, then would the Lord who does not change, who is the same today as yesterday, not feel us with peace, and joy? “But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me.  I do not believe it would be in error to put the USA in the place of Israel.  And I do believe God has allowed our nation to experience what Israel did; “But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me.  So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice