When our presidential residence was erected in Washington, DC, the stone facade was of a natural color in keeping with the other government edifices planned or already under construction. However, when the British Army visited destruction upon the infant nation's new capital during the war of 1812,, it was necessary to paint the residence to cover over the smoke and fire stains. For this reason, the building has been known ever since as the White House. In spite of continued claims that the building could and should be replaced, the old structure has been rebuilt and redesigned several times over, while maintaining the former facade.

About a year and a half ago, in light of ongoing and never ceasing scandals, I seriously considered sending a gallon of paint in protest and suggest that the sorry state of affairs within be celebrated with a more proper color on the exterior. Since I couldn't make up my mind between red or black paint and because I really didn't want to go through a politically motivated IRS audit, I kept my money and fumed in silence at how low the estate of governmental affairs has deepened in this fair land in my short life time. This low estate is certainly deserving of lamentations, especially since the absolute corruption at the top is so copiously imitated at so many other levels of government as well. While, the interior rot and corruption have increased, providentially there are no immediate foreign enemies capable of invasion, destruction and enslavement. The Lord God of heaven and earth has indeed been gracious to us and tolerated the wide scale decline into paganism and debauchery which the majority of our population would embrace, given an inappropriate opportunity.

With that said, perhaps we can begin to comprehend the dismay, depression and dispirited psalm before us. E Calvin Beisner would tell us that the key verse to this psalm is the twentieth:

"Have respect to the covenant; for the dark places of the earth are full of the haunts of cruelty."

In this plea the psalmist implies that the Covenant God has ignored His personal contract with the people of His choosing - even Judah. Or for all of those who claim that these United States were once a group of Christian States, we too may well wonder what has happened in the course of our own history? In this whole Psalm, we have a national lament for all states undergoing decline. The particular details leading up to this heart-rending plea for an understanding of God's anger may be related to either an Edomite or Babylonian devastation of Jerusalem or even a prophetic looking forward to the defilement of Antiochus Epiphanes.

We may outline the Psalm in five sections:

01-03 Begins with a complaint to God.
04-09 Detailed list of the nation's misery.
10-11 Questioning petition of God's apparent inaction.
12-17 Comforting knowledge of God's past deeds and wonders.
18-23 Humble request for God to vindicate the honor of His own Name.

For our study, we will divide this psalm into two parts as Spurgeon suggests. This week we will consider the first half which asks what God is doing. Next week we will look at the petition for a display of divine power.

In the first part, the Psalmist makes a plea from ignorance. Why have we been rejected? He asks. He begins with a question that should be our own question. In our time we could better phrase this question in these words: "What have we done?" We can sense the grief of the psalmist. There are strange questions here. Some that we would not be bold enough to ask the Lord! We have to remember that in grief, a person can become distracted. And it is common at times of death and destruction for people to say things to one another and even to God that they would not normally say.

The psalmist continues in verse one asking why the Shepherd is angry with the flock. We have to remember that sheep are poor silly and defenseless creatures. Very much like humans! Every once in a while our sheep or lambs would get themselves through or under the fence and run around bleating for a return to the sanctuary of barn and pasture. They were more confused of course than guilty. All they really wanted was a return to their proper place.

Now of course, our innocence is not like theirs, but we regularly suffer under a cloud of unknowing. In this situation, like the psalmist, it is very appropriate to ask: "Lord, what have we done?" We do not need to look very far! There is much for "Christ's" Church to answer for in our day. Also we in our daily lives have become accustomed to very many daily distractions which God's people need to put behind them very quickly! What have we done? We need to make this our regular plea.

Do we deserve an answer to our plea? We see in verses two and three that the psalmist boldly reminds the Lord or His covenant. Now, we are not here suggesting that we in any way follow a popular teleheritic temptation to "Name it and Claim it" school of prayer! Quite, the contrary, the plea here is not based upon ourselves, but solely upon the redemption covenant established by God. The main emphasis here is drawn from Israel's past relation to God. The theme of flock and Shepherd in these verses invoke his tenderness and his honor as they involve the security of His sheep. A reminder of the price paid for redemption and the obligations of ownership is related in the purchase and redemption by blood of Israel. The strongest plea is saved until last - namely, God's dwelling on Zion.

For these reasons, the psalmist asks and expects Him to come with swift footsteps to the desolation's which have endured so long. It may be noted that the psalmist sees as we should see: that there is precious little hope of improvement or restoration except in His return. "Lift up your feet" pleads the psalmist. Just as we noted earlier that we should pray "What have we done?", so also should we pray to God: "Turn Your steps" as the NIV translates the phrase, towards us and tell us the details of our sinfulness.

As we move on to the middle portion of this section we note in passing that the last part of verse three sets the stage for what must follow in detail. See the words there: "the enemy has damaged everything in the sanctuary": There follows a detailed list.

In verse four we see the noise and roar of an enemy presence within God's own sanctuary. Josephus reported that upon the final destruction of the temple, the Romans raised their Battle standards, their Imperial Eagles over the holy mountain and celebrated their victory! In verses five and six God's foes are compared to foresters working through a thicket of trees as they chop down the wooden panels within the sacred precincts of God's temple on Zion. In verses seven and eight we see that God's foes delight in their destruction. The building itself was destroyed by fire and even His name was defiled!

But this is not all, there was a real hope that the "church" of the living God might be completely exterminated. God's foes do not change. The liberal media consorts with the liberal church to demean and deny any efforts of sincere Christians to speak the plain Word of the living God to our generation. As a result, in our own time, just as the time of our Psalmist there is an absence of the proclamation and understanding of God's Word!

Look at verses nine and ten. What despair there is here. There are no signs of the Redeemer's presence. There are no Words from any prophets at all. Do we look around our culture today in vain for any signs of the Lord's own prophet? "How long" O God will this go on? The Psalmist is indeed bold! Does he go too far? Only here at the end of this sad catalog is the misery of the people touched on. And that misery is not inflicted by human foes. That misery is turned to despair by the withdrawal of God's Spirit. The Psalmist knows something that we need to relearn. We as God's people are always losing the battle with the world. Like the Psalmist, we must ask Him, "O God, How long will the adversary reproach?".

Let us be careful, the sense of our question, like that of the Psalmist is not that we demand an answer, or that God must dance to our tune of expectations. One of the dangers of the Christian Nation myth is that God blessed us in America because we deserved and earned it. We forget the facts of history, within a few generations the Pilgrim churches became Unitarian and Universalist - today Salem, Massachusetts is better known for wiccan pagans than for faithful christians. And so it goes across the whole land.

The real sense of the question is that God will end His absence and Go on before us to lead us in spite of our institutions and wandering hearts. This ends our exposition of this portion of Psalm seventy-four. We are left with three petitions to make to our Living God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I would ask that you make these this week regularly in your prayers.

1. Lord, what have we done?
2. Lord, will you please turn your steps towards us?
3. Lord, will you make yourself known for Your sake?

Amen.