Long Term Affliction
When we look back at the past we often choose to look only at the good things that have happen. However, when we come to this psalm the writer has a completely different attitude as he looks back at a time which was far from good and then asks what he can learn from it. But this is also, due to the call and response structure, a corporate psalm as it reflects on Israel’s state as well as the psalmist and therefore what they should learn from their situation both in the past and also present. The answer is a great deal about the Lord’s attitude to his people!
Even the most casual glance at the first two verses shows that the writer has been going through a pretty dire situation that stretches back to his youth. This probably also acts as a reference to Israel’s time in Egypt. I won’t bore you with the details but I was recently in correspondence with a minister over an important issue. What’s significant is the difference between us lay in their motivation being “that’s the way the world seemed to be going today” as the justification for their actions. Yet it really shouldn’t surprise us if we find, as Christians, that we’re often shunned by the world! The phrase in verse 3: ‘The ploughers ploughed upon my back; they made long their furrows’, due to the nature of the psalm with both its individual and corporate view, is probably best taken metaphorically. Just as a ploughman is systematic in his ploughing of a field, it’s probably speaking of Israel’s times of oppression by other nations and their exile in Babylon. Yet despite this terrible oppression verse 4 shows that the Lord had intervened on their behalf as he had: ‘cut the cords of the wicked.’
Why had he acted in such a way? Quite simply because of who he is. He’s ‘Yahweh’ the Covenant God. In other words, he’s the God who keeps his promises to his people. In Deuteronomy 30:5 Moses reminds the Israelites that despite their rebellious nature, the Lord will redeem them as he will: ‘bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.’ What a great promise that was for the Lord’s people when they found themselves under pressure. The New Testament equivalent is found when Jesus promises that he will build his church: ‘and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it’ (Matthew 16:18). In other words, he will build it come what may! Verse 5 reminds us if anyone picks a fight with the Lord’s people, they’ll be picking a fight with him!
The last part of the psalm encourages the Lord’s people to develop a God’s eye view of things. When I preached this psalm the heating had failed and it was winter. The danger would have to been to see things very negatively as after all it was an evening service, there weren’t many of us and the church was freezing cold! However, as I pointed out, to the few who were there, we are uniquely blessed. We were coming together as a forgiven people in fellowship with the Lord and each other. We were hearing God’s Word and therefore had the chance of being encouraged by it as we have the unique gifting of the Holy Spirit. We have a direction in life and a future most people don’t have. If you asked most people what their ambition was, if they’ve thought about it in the first place, they might say it’s to get the kids through college without exhausting their retirement fund, and that would be the sum of all their ambition and hope for the future! But for believer’s, because of all the Lord has done for us, we are uniquely blessed both now and in the future!
This is not the case with those who are against God’s people. ‘Let them be like the grass on the house stops which withers before it grows up’ (v5). In the Ancient Near East the roofs of houses were made with branches and then covered in mud. When it was damp grass would have grown on them but when the sun was out it would be scorched and then died. The picture is of these people being completely spiritually dead where the Lord was concerned. The conclusion the Psalmist comes to is whatever the difficulties he and Israel have been subjected to ultimately the Lord looks after his people.
The plight of the Psalmist and his conclusions about the Lord’s faithfulness reminds me of what Paul writes to the Corinthians to encourage them. ‘We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies’ (2 Corinthians 4:8-10). What an encouragement for the Lord’s people then, and today when they are facing tough and difficult times. In everything, whatever the circumstances The Lord’s promises to his people remain the same. Why is this? Because he remains the same!
Would you like to hear a sermon on this Psalm? Long Term Affliction.