God Sings Songs For The ForgottenSample

"God Sings Songs of Justice"

In understanding Psalm 74 we must first understand its context. With the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 587 B.C.  and the exile of Judah, God’s people experienced a national and religious crisis. Not only did they lose physical symbols that marked them as the people of God—the land, the Davidic King, and the temple—but they experienced a feeling of rejection from God, and a seemingly irrevocable injustice on behalf of their oppressors.

This exile and destruction made the individuals and the nation as a whole feel as though God had “cast them off.” God’s people’s enemies seemed to stand around and laugh while the nation of Judah wiggled in pain. To make matters worse, the people couldn’t help but feel as God had turned his back on them and had ignored this injustice.

A ray of hope however glimmers in their soul as the Psalmist pleads to God to “arise, and defend his cause.” The Psalmist in v. 12-17 remembers the Lord from old, and revisits the memory of the Lord’s acts of salvation on the earth in times past. Not only had he created the earth and all its boundaries, but he had put within the earth a sense of justice as well. The writer in Psalm 74 calls to the Lord not only to remember the earth and the people that he had fashioned, but to do so based on the codes of justice he’d also created.

It is a comfort that God does not defend us directly, but first and foremost he defends “his cause!” His cause is his own word and character. He cannot turn his back on himself, otherwise he wouldn’t be perfect, or worth following. Because he secures his promises to his own nature in covenant, we can trust that he will defend the cause of our injustice perfectly.

What injustice are you experiencing today? Know that Jesus has felt every kind of violence, betrayal, and wrong that you have felt and yet he pushed through without sin so that he could deliver you right where you are at now. Listen to Psalm 74 “Arise, Oh God” on our album the Songs of Deliverance, and praise God! If he heard the prayers of a nation that was wronged and enslaved, he assuredly can bring justice to the crimes you are facing.