A Desperate Prayer in Desperate Times Text: Psalm 79:5-8
Introduction: When the World Burns
We live in an age that wants its Christianity domesticated. It wants a faith that is polite, therapeutic, and above all, nice. The modern evangelical impulse is to find the psalms that sound like inspirational posters and to quietly skip over the ones that sound like a declaration of war. We want a God who is a celestial grandfather, always affirming, never jealous. We want a gospel that is all cushion and no edge. But the psalter will not let us get away with such sentimental nonsense. The psalter is full of blood and fire and desperate men crying out to a holy God in the middle of a world that is actively trying to kill them.
Psalm 79 is one of those psalms. It is a corporate lament. The city is in ruins, the temple has been defiled, and the bodies of God's people are food for the birds. This is not a theoretical problem. This is Asaph, or one of his guild, looking at the smoking rubble of Jerusalem and asking the kind of questions that our comfortable age tries to suppress. These are hard questions, directed at a sovereign God who could have prevented it all. And in the middle of this lament, we find our text, which is a hinge. It moves from the agonizing description of their plight to a raw, desperate, and holy appeal to the character of God Himself.
This prayer is profoundly instructive for us. We too live among the ruins of a once-great Christian civilization. We see the heathen rage, and they seem to be winning. They devour the church, they mock our God, and they lay waste to every good thing. And so we must learn to pray like this. We must learn to ask God the hard questions, not in faithless rebellion, but in covenantal faithfulness. We must learn to appeal to His jealousy, to call for His wrath, and to plead for His compassion, all in the same breath. This is not the prayer of a tame Christian in a tame world. This is the prayer of a saint with his back against the wall, and it is a language we had better learn to speak.
The Text
How long, O Yahweh? Will You be angry forever?
Will Your jealousy burn like fire?
Pour out Your wrath upon the nations which do not know You,
And upon the kingdoms which do not call upon Your name.
For they have devoured Jacob
And laid waste his abode.
Do not remember our former iniquities against us;
Let Your compassion quickly approach us,
For we are brought very low.
(Psalm 79:5-8 LSB)
The Covenantal Complaint (v. 5)
The prayer begins with a question that echoes throughout the psalms of lament:
"How long, O Yahweh? Will You be angry forever? Will Your jealousy burn like fire?" (Psalm 79:5)
Notice first that this is a family argument. The psalmist cries out to "Yahweh," the covenant name of God. This is not the complaint of an outsider. This is a son, speaking to his father. He is not questioning God's existence; he is questioning His timing. The "how long" is a cry of faith. It assumes that God will act eventually, but the waiting is excruciating. It is the cry of a people who know God has promised to be their God, and yet everything in their experience seems to contradict that promise.
And what is the root of their suffering? They identify it as God's anger and jealousy. This is where modern sensibilities get twitchy. We are fine with God's love, but God's anger? God's jealousy? We try to explain it away. But the psalmist leans into it. He knows that God's jealousy is not like our petty, sinful envy. God's jealousy is His holy possessiveness of that which is rightfully His. He is jealous for His name, His people, His land, and His worship. Israel's sin was spiritual adultery; they went after other gods, and this provoked the holy jealousy of their divine Husband. The fire of His jealousy is a purifying fire, but it is a fire nonetheless, and they are feeling the heat.
The psalmist's question is therefore a profound appeal to God's covenant faithfulness. He is essentially asking, "Father, has the punishment fit the crime? Have you made your point? Will this anger last forever, or will your covenant love prevail?" He is holding God to His own promises. He knows that God's anger is for a moment, but His favor is for a lifetime (Psalm 30:5). He is asking if the moment is over yet.
The Imprecatory Appeal (v. 6-7)
From the heat of God's jealousy, the psalmist turns his attention to the instruments of God's wrath, and he prays a prayer that would get him kicked out of most modern prayer meetings.
"Pour out Your wrath upon the nations which do not know You, And upon the kingdoms which do not call upon Your name. For they have devoured Jacob And laid waste his abode." (Psalm 79:6-7 LSB)
This is an imprecatory prayer. It is a call for God to curse His enemies. We are taught to love our enemies, so what do we do with this? First, we must recognize that this is God's inspired Word. We don't get to rip out the pages that offend our modern, sentimental piety. Second, we must pray these prayers the way the New Testament teaches us to: in Christ. These are not prayers for settling our petty personal scores. We cannot use the psalter as a voodoo doll against the guy who cut us off in traffic. This is a prayer for God's justice to be done on earth. It is a prayer for the kingdom to come.
The psalmist provides the grounds for his appeal. These nations are defined by two things: they "do not know" God, and they "do not call upon His name." Their ignorance is a culpable ignorance. But more than that, they have acted on their godlessness. They have "devoured Jacob" and "laid waste his abode." These nations were God's rod of discipline, but like Assyria, they went too far. They were a tool in God's hand, but they were a wicked tool, and they delighted in their work. They did not come to serve God's purposes; they came to glut their own bloodlust and greed. They were not just punishing Israel; they were devouring Jacob.
So the psalmist is praying for justice. He is asking God to turn His wrath outward. He is saying, "Lord, your anger against us is righteous. We deserved it. But now, turn your righteous anger against those who hate you, and who hate us because we are yours." This is a prayer for God to vindicate His own name. When the nations devour Jacob, they are mocking Jacob's God. The ultimate prayer here is for God's glory. And the best way to destroy an enemy, as Jim Wilson used to say, is to convert them. So when we pray this in Christ, we are praying first for their conversion. But if they will not be converted, then we are praying for them to be justly removed, so that God's kingdom can advance. Justice is not the opposite of love; it is a fundamental component of it.
The Humble Confession (v. 8)
After calling for fire from heaven on God's enemies, the psalmist pivots to a posture of profound humility and corporate repentance. This is key. You have no right to pray imprecatory prayers against the wicked out there if you are not first willing to deal with the wickedness in here.
"Do not remember our former iniquities against us; Let Your compassion quickly approach us, For we are brought very low." (Psalm 79:8 LSB)
He acknowledges that the root problem is not the Babylonians, but their own sin. Specifically, their "former iniquities." Sin is generational. We inherit the consequences, and often the patterns, of our fathers' sins. The psalmist is not blaming his ancestors in order to excuse his generation. He is identifying with them. This is corporate repentance. He is saying, "We are all in this together. The sins of our fathers are our sins, because we have perpetuated them." This is the prayer of Daniel (Dan. 9) and Nehemiah (Neh. 1). It is the recognition that we are part of a covenant people, and our story stretches back through generations.
Because they have acknowledged their sin, they can now plead for grace. "Let Your compassion quickly approach us." They are not appealing to their own merits. They have none. Their only hope is in God's character, in His tender mercies. The word for compassion here is related to the word for a mother's womb. It is a deep, gut-level, tender love. They are asking for God's fatherly, motherly love to rush to them.
And why do they need it quickly? "For we are brought very low." This is the end of their rope. They have been humbled. Their pride has been shattered. Their self-sufficiency is a smoking ruin, just like their city. And this is precisely the place where God loves to meet His people. God opposes the proud, but He gives grace to the humble. Their utter desolation has become the platform for God's greatest work. When you are brought very low, you are finally in a position to look up. They have no other recourse. They have no strength, no strategy, no hope in themselves. All they can do is cast themselves on the compassion of God.
Conclusion: The Low Place is the Place of Grace
This psalm is a pattern for the church in every age, and especially in ours. We look around and see the abode of Jacob laid waste. We see the heathen devouring everything. And we must learn to pray this way.
We must begin by honestly wrestling with God, asking "How long?" not because we doubt Him, but because we believe Him and long for His intervention. We must appeal to His holy jealousy for His own name and glory.
We must then have the backbone to pray for justice. We must ask God to pour out His wrath on those systems and kingdoms that set themselves against His Christ. This is not vindictive personal animosity; it is a prayer for righteousness to prevail. It is a prayer that what happened at the cross, the great judgment, would be applied in history.
But most fundamentally, we must do this from a posture of humility. We must own our own corporate and generational sins. The church in the West has been "brought very low," and it is largely our own fault. We have compromised, we have been faithless, we have committed spiritual adultery. And so we must confess our former iniquities. We must stop blaming the pagans for being pagans and recognize our own complicity.
It is only when we are brought very low, when we have abandoned all our self-righteous projects, that we are in a position to receive His grace. It is only then that His compassion can "quickly approach us." Our weakness is the occasion for His strength. Our ruin is the construction site for His restoration. And so, let us pray this psalm. Let us confess our sins, let us call for His justice, and let us cry out for His compassion. For when we are brought very low, He is very near.