Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Today we look at Psalm 85, which uses the phrase, “Turn back” five times. 

Verse one says to God, “You turned back the captivity of Jacob”. Verse three says to God, “You turned back your fierce anger.” Do you ever feel it would help if God changed his attitude toward you, if he turned your life around? Perhaps he might turn back his anger toward you, or free you from captivity to guilt and fears and obsessions.  

The next two occurrences of “turn back” ask God to turn us around. Verse four says, “Turn us again, God our Savior, and put away your displeasure toward us”. Verse six says, “Will you not turn us again, revive us, that we may rejoice in you?” Yes, we need to turn a corner in our lives. Perhaps we need revival, a u-turn in our life toward God. Perhaps we need to turn our plodding emotional experiences to a habit of rejoicing.  

The final occurrence of “turn back” is in verse 8: “God promises peace to his people, but let them not turn back to folly.” 

Let’s pray some of the words and phrases from Psalm 85. 

Our father, revive us, turn us, so we may rejoice in you (v. 6). Your gift of new life is not just a package you deliver to our doorstep; it is the gift that Christ himself comes to live within us. As Paul said, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). O Christ, live your life within us, help us to live your life as our own, help us to hear and obey your voice within. 

As the poet says, 
  I will listen to what God the Lord says;
      he promises peace to his people. . .
      but let them not turn to folly (v. 8). 

O Lord, our world resounds with noise and folly, the noise of hurricanes and politics and video games and advertisements. We are deafened by the  noise within–anxiety for family and friends, concerns for finances, stresses about the future, the noise of temptations and obsessions and lust. Teach us to turn down the volume on our noise. Teach us to listen to your voice within. 

In the quiet, we hear you promise peace to your people. As Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you” (John 14:27). O Lord, make us a people of peace. Help us walk in your peace through a winter of COVID-19, help us discern your peace in our conflicted lives, help us knit our families together in peace, to build our communities in the peace of your Spirit. 

As the poet says,
    Love and faithfulness meet together;
      righteousness and peace kiss each other (v. 10).

O Lord, in our war-torn world, in our conflicted lives, how good it is that we do not choose between righteousness and peace. For in your vision of the world, righteousness and peace kiss each other. Love and faithfulness meet together. Help us to be peaceably right and lovingly faithful to you, to your word, and to Christ within. 

Grant us the blessing Psalm 85 promises:
  The Lord will indeed give what is good,
      and our land will yield its harvest.
  Righteousness goes before him
      and prepares the way for his steps (vv. 12-13).. 

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Psalm 84 paints some of my favorite pictures of a good relationship with God. Here are three of them:

First, the poet speaks of God’s temple in Jerusalem as God’s home. Of all the words that touch us, “home” is close to the top. The poet begins:
  How lovely is your dwelling place,
      Lord Almighty (v. 1).

The temple is not only God’s home, for the poet continues:
    Even the sparrow has found a home
        and the swallow a nest for herself,
        where she may have her young–
    a place near your altar,
        Lord Almighty (v. 3).

The birds have a safe place near God’s altar. What a wonderful picture! There where sheep and bulls are sacrificed in a river of blood, the flitting swallow makes her home where she can have her young. God’s presence is safe for all who come home to it. As the poet says, 
    Happy are those who live in your house,
        ever singing your praise (v. 4). 

Psalm 84 presents a second picture, the poet’s journey, his pilgrimage to the temple to meet God. He writes:
  Happy are those whose strength is in you,
      in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
  As they go through the valley of Baca,
      they make it a place of springs;
      the early rain covers it with pools (vv. 5-6).

Travelling a dirt road on the way to the temple in Jerusalem, the writer finds strength and refreshment. Because it’s not just a dirt road for his sandals, it’s a highway in his heart. His heart yearns for God (v. 1) and rejoices at the thought of visiting God’s home and the swallow’s home, because that is also where his heart is most at home.

A third picture in Psalm 84 is where the poet says,
  One day in your courts is better
       than a thousand elsewhere.
  I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
      than live in the tents of wickedness (vv 10-11).
Better a menial task in God’s home than comfortable lodgings with his enemies. 

Let’s pray. 

Our father, when the poet was crushed by powerful enemies and drowning in seas of despair, he prayed psalms of desperation. What a welcome break is this psalm of joy and hope and homecoming. Thank you for shining a light into my darkness, for reminding me of a safe place where even birds can nest, for teaching me that my road to your presence can be a glad highway of the heart. 

We have built other highways of the heart, but today we leave them untravelled. 

One is a highway of fantasy, imagining and longing for easy relationships, wealth, and respect. But that’s a dead end highway, for our reality never matches our fantasies. 

We have built a highway of despair, when we have found life difficult and sad and unendurable. We soldier on in the dark , doing our duty, not daring to hope for the light. This is another dead end, for you are the light of our lives and you lead us on the highway out of darkness.

Some of us have a highway of self-confidence, where we manage our own lives, convinced that hard work and discipline will achieve the outcomes we desire. But that highway leaves us isolated and unhappy, and alone.

Today we choose your highway, the highway of strength. As the writer of Psalm 84 says: 
    Happy are those whose strength is in you, 
       in whose heart are the highways to Zion (v. 5). 
You are our strength, You are our heart’s home. With the poet, we journey from strength to strength. With the birds we rest near your altar.

 Fulfill for us the promise of Psalm 84, our Lord:

    No good thing will you withhold
        from those who walk uprightly. 
    O Lord of hosts, 
        happy is everyone who trusts in you (v. 12).

Amen

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

In Psalm 83, the poet tells about a time of national crisis, when ten nations around Israel conspired to attack and destroy Israel and claim the land. The poet’s prayer is that God will consume these enemies like a California wildfire, that he will terrify them with hurricanes like those that menace the Gulf of Mexico, that he will make them whirling dust like the tornados that sweep south central Alberta. 

But amazingly, the poet’s last petition is that the enemies will come to know God. He prays:
  Let them know that you alone,
      whose name is the Lord,
      are most high over all the earth (v. 18). 

Let’s pray against some of our enemies today.  

Our father, we pray first against the enemies of the world you created. We pray about climate change, though some question whether it is a natural variation in temperatures or whether it is caused by pollution. Either way, it presents a challenge, as famines and water shortages ravage Africa, as uncontrolled fires consume Brazil, Siberia, and the Pacific Northwest, as hurricanes and cyclones become stronger and more damaging, and as Arctic ice melts away. O Lord, order or reorder your creation for the salvation of humankind.

We pray also against the raging of nations. You made us all of one blood, but you separated the people and the languages at Babel, and we have fought each other ever since. Each tribe and nation protects its turf, and uses race and culture and power to expand territory and diminish neighbors. Lord, still the raging nations. 

A third enemy is religion. In your name, we implement crusades and jihads, killing and conquering, unrighteously building our vision of a righteous society, establishing unjust rule in your name. Lord, bring quickly the rule of your son, who will teach us true religion and just government. 

We pray also against the enemies of your church.  

We pray against divisiveness. Since the Reformation, churches and denominations have split unhappily on lines of doctrine, spiritual gifts, politics, and personality cults. O Lord, bring your church to unity of faith and baptism and purpose. 

We pray against the rationalism that constricts your church. Too often, our Bible studies and sermons are mere intellectual exercises to develop a technical interpretation of scripture, to discover the precise meaning of Greek verbs, to find the most illuminating cultural explanation of obscure sayings. O Lord, lead us back to our plain duty, to love you instead of arguing about the Bible, to love people instead of using scripture to bludgeon them into good behavior. 

We pray against complacency in the church and in our own lives. Fill us with yourself, fill us with the fire of your spirit that will refine us and fit us for your service. Fill us with a fire of love that will consume our heart and soul and mind and strength. 

We pray against the enemies of our souls. Drive from our hearts every stronghold of the world, every lust of the flesh, every influence of the devil.

O Lord, help us to walk today as Jesus walked: to do the will of the father, to discern and denounce evil, to help and heal and pray. 

Amen

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

In Psalm 82, the poet imagines a court scene where the God of Israel conducts an enquiry into the competence of lesser gods who look after the nations on earth. God, the presiding judge, castigates the rulers of earth for favoring the wicked instead of dealing out justice for the poor and needy. Clearly, these rulers have failed in their role of supervising the nations, so the God of Israel summarily demotes them from god status to mortals who will die (vv. 6-7). 

Author Robert Alter summarizes the worldview of this psalm by saying: “In the ancient world, the multiplicity of nations is associated with a multiplicity of gods: Each nation has its patron god . . . as well as a variety of gods and goddesses who preside over the various realms of nature. But [in Psalm 82] that order has now proven to be judicially and morally bankrupt, and it is the God of Israel alone Who holds . . . all the nations of the earth.” (Alter, Robert. The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary. W. W. Norton & Company: eBook, Chapter 82.) 

Alter continues, “…this poem is concerned with the infuriating preponderance of injustice in the world . . .God speaks out in the assembly of lesser gods and rebukes them for doing a wretched job in the administration of justice on earth.” Alter says this poem transitions from a mythology of multiple gods to a monotheistic perspective, as God rudely demotes the lesser gods from their divine status.

The apostle Paul echoes some of the same themes when he urges Christians to put on the full armor of God, because “Our warfare is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12). 

Let’s pray. 

Our father, we thought the problems of our world could be traced wholly to the decisions of humans and their rulers. But we see in this psalm an interplay of visible earthly forces and invisible heavenly powers.

In the 1950s when Geoffrey Bull, a missionary to Tibet, was imprisoned for three years in Maoist China, he underwent a brutal program of torture and indoctrination into Marxist thought. But his faith enabled him to believe the abuse and indoctrination were delivered under a false and passing worldview.  His book God Holds the Key describes the battle for his mind and heart, and affirms you, God, as the source of life and truth. 

As you did for him, our God, we invite you to open our eyes to the false politics, the false gods, the spiritual powers that want space in our hearts and minds. Cast down every ruler but Christ, demote every god but yourself, strip away all our beliefs and all our allegiances to any power but you. With the poet we pray,
    Rise up, O God, judge the earth,
      for all the nations are your inheritance (v. 8). 

Amen

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Psalm 81 opens with a hymn of praise, performed with vocals, drums, a stringed instrument (perhaps an ancient ancestor of the guitar) and a unique wind instrument–a ram’s horn. Sounds almost like a modern worship band!

This rollicking celebration at the new moon festival was part of Israel’s constitution–the standard operating procedures given by God when he freed them from Egyptian slavery. God didn’t legislate a culture of dour, straight-laced correctness. He invited people to celebrate, to rock a bit. 

He also wanted a culture that honored him as the God who gives freedom. Author Vernard Ellard in his book, The Mad Morality paraphrases God as saying to Israel, 

   “I’m the God who set you free, right?”
    Right.
  “I’ve adequately demonstrated that your freedom is my prime concern, right?”
    Right.
  “So I’m going to give you 10 suggestions for how to stay free. I’ve dealt with your slavery to Egypt. But beware of other people and other things that offer freedom. Because I’m the only God out there who wants people who are free, not a nation of slaves.” (Paraphrased from Ellard, Vernon. The MAD Morality or the Ten Commandments Revisited. New York: Abingdon Press, 1972. pp. 16-17). 

But the people broke God’s rules and his heart by giving their freedom to false gods. Listen to God’s cry:
    If only my people would listen to me,
      if Israel would only follow my ways,
    how quickly I would subdue their enemies
      and turn my hand against their foes
    I would feed you with the finest of wheat;
      with honey from the rock I would satisfy you (vv. 13-14, 16). 

Let’s pray. 

Our father, we bring to you the false gods that offer us freedom.

Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein worshipped the god of sex, but ended his life hanging in his prison cell. Lord, help us not to offer our freedom to the god of sex. 

We think of the T-shirt that reads, “Don’t mess with my freedom, my firearms, my family, my faith”. Is the wearer confident that if anyone messes with him, he is strong and wise enough to mete out justice with a gun? O Lord, help us not to offer our freedom to the god of individualism, the god of self.

We think of rigid doctrinal purists who are confident they have the right method to interpret scripture, and the right doctrines derived from scripture, and the right morality based on scripture. O Lord, help us not to offer our freedom to the god of rationalism, the god of rigid systems, the god that places our own definition of truth above the command to love you and people and creation.  

We think of people who are slaves to conspiracy theories, waiting anxiously for the next cryptic revelation from QAnon or the next announcement of world-ordering decisions from the Illuminati or the next hint of suspicion about which evil actors developed and distributed COVID-19. Lord, help us not to lose our freedom to anxious thoughts and to fearful imaginings about the great evils that stalk our world.

With the poet we pray, 

• help us listen to your voice.
• help us believe your words more than all the clamor on the Internet.
• help us rest in the fact that it is you, not the Illuminati nor the wealthy nor the powerful, that rule our world.
• help us hope in your soon coming that will set the world to rights. 

Amen

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.