The Fog of War

There is a weather phenomenon that we have all likely experienced. Fog. A lot less common here in Colorado than it is near coastal areas. Fog is literally a cloud that hovers at ground level. And instead of these puffy clouds ambling across a beautiful blue sky, When the water vapor and the temperature are just right, foggy conditions develop. And unfortunately, even though that the presence of fog greatly hinders visibility, most of us have been on the road where other drivers don’t behave accordingly and reduce their speed and calamity soon follows.

There’s a figurative phrase that is used to describe the confusion and misinformation that usually engulfs some military actions. It’s called the fog of war. There are, of course, generals and military experts, strategists, whose actual job it is to engage and prosecute warfare. But in addition to these, there is always an overabundance of experts, critics, pundits, and theorists who readily share their observations and opinions about every aspect of warfare, whether to initiate the conflict or how to conduct some particular action, when and how to conclude the battle. As a result of the overabundance of these unsolicited opinions, a great deal of misinformation develops. Division, conflict, unrest usually follow. That’s the fog of war.

Some analysis and skepticism, even disapproval and ultimately condemnation of human military leaders is understandable. After all, they don’t always even agree among themselves. They have a limited perspective of both the present and the future. But it’s one thing to second guess earthly commanders.

Quite another thing to criticize God Himself in the course of His own military campaign. Make no mistake, the war in focus in Psalm 74 is God’s war. And as 2 Chronicles 20 verse 15 says, the battle belongs to the Lord. psalmist and his respective nation are really but collateral damage. God is the foe and the enemy’s crosshairs. And so Psalm 74 records the psalmist’s challenge to God’s battle plan. He complains. He seeks to educate. And at long last, he appeals for the Lord’s mercy. A well-reasoned argument for God to overwhelm his enemies.

Would God’s people please turn to Psalm 74 this morning. Psalm 74, the next one in our series, is another of the enigmatic Psalms of Asaph. He was known as one of the chief musicians in David’s court, and he may have either written a number of psalms or at least gathered them into a collection. This is one of a dozen or so psalms of Asaph, and the particular psalm is one of the few that are called maskils, contemplative psalms, that upon meditation, savoring them, yield spiritual insight. Psalm 74, we’ll take it in full. Follow along as I read.

Oh God, why have you rejected us forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture? Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old, which you have redeemed by the tribe of your inheritance. and this Mount Zion where you have dwelt. Turn your footsteps toward the perpetual ruins.

The enemy has damaged everything within the sanctuary. Your adversaries have roared in the midst of your meeting place. They have set up their own standards for signs. It seems as if one had lifted up his axe in a forest of trees. And now all its carved work they smash with hatchet and hammers. They have burned your sanctuary to the ground. They have defiled the dwelling place of your name.

They said in their heart, let us completely subdue them. They have burned all the meeting places of God in the land. We do not see our signs. There is no longer any prophet, nor is there any among us that knows how long. How long, O God, will the adversary revile and the enemy spurn your name forever? Why do you withdraw your hand, even your right hand, from within your bosom? Destroy them. that God is my king from of old, who works deeds of deliverance in the midst of the earth.

You divided the sea by your strength. You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the water. You crushed the heads of Leviathan. You gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. You broke open springs and torrents. You dried up ever-flowing streams. Yours is the day. Yours also is the night. You have prepared the light and the sun. You have established all the boundaries of the earth. You have made summer and winter.

Remember this, oh Lord, that the enemy has reviled and a foolish people has spurned your name. Do not deliver the soul of your turtle dove to the wild beasts. Do not forget the life of your afflicted forever. Consider the covenant. For the dark places of the land are full of the inhabitants, habitations of violence. Let not the oppressed return dishonored. Let the afflicted and needy praise your name. Arise, O God, and plead your own cause.

Remember how the foolish man reproaches you all day long. Do not forget the voice of your adversaries. the uproar of those who rise against you, which ascends continually.” As you heard there, this is a rather gloomy psalm, written during a period of war, bloodshed, devastation, uncertainty. Like a seasoned war correspondent, our psalmist makes a series of battlefield observations.

Not all of his remarks are accurate. Not all of them are gracious. Not all of them are beneficial. One of the things that believers appreciate about the Psalms is that they are raw, unvarnished, unedited conversations with God, much like our own prayers.

These are, after all, observations made in the course of the Lord’s battle. And as such, they occur in the context and also contribute to the fog of war. The psalmist isn’t helping things in all of his commentary. The nation of Israel experienced many such attacks by foreign armies. But we have a good possible explanation about the particular context of this psalm. Numerous historians and scholars conclude that the events described in this psalm are almost certainly those perpetrated upon Israel by the Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanes.

He ruled the Seleucid Empire, which encompassed not only the Middle East, but much of Asia as well. He held the Jewish people in particular disdain. He attacked them in an uprise after an uprising, and not only did he conquer them, but he also pillaged the temple treasures, and what they didn’t steal, they violently destroyed or burned. Worse still, Antiochus took it upon himself to try to convert the Jews to Greek life and worship. He sought to utterly destroy all vestiges and practices of the Jewish religion, circumcision, worship in the temple, the observation of the Sabbath. Instead, he forbade the Jews to honor the Sabbath and forced them to violate it, compelled the Jews to worship Zeus, and used the temple grounds as an altar for his own sacrifice to that so-called God. He went so far as to sacrifice a pig on the altar and then force the Jews to eat it.

He forced them to engage in the vile feast of Bacchanalia, a hedonistic celebration that featured the gluttonous enjoyment of food and drink, among other things. During the hostilities, thousands of Jewish people were killed. Thousands more were exiled or sold as slaves.

But we review all of that with great caution. Because if we tie this psalm exclusively to that one incident, then it narrows its significance even to us, psalmist, while describing a particular assault by a foreign enemy, articulates really timeless experiences and principles.

This psalm is as much for God’s people today as it was for God’s people who first read it. We want to look at the fog of war, these blurry observations from the Lord’s battlefield. And the first observation that the psalmist makes is in verses one and two, the complaint of the Lord’s people. The psalmist expresses his initial observation in the form of a complaint.

And like many such complaints in the Psalms, it’s exaggerated. Why have you rejected us forever? We tend to say these kinds of things ourselves, don’t we? If our fast food order takes more than a minute or two, we grumble, it’s taking forever. Psalmist, actually several of the psalm writers, stooped to this kind of hyperbole. Psalm 13, 1, will you forget me forever? Psalm 77, 7, will the Lord reject us forever? Psalm 79 5, will you, God, be angry forever? Psalm 89, will you hide yourself forever? Even though it’s a commonly expressed sentiment, it’s an illogical statement.

If God had indeed rejected them, why would the psalmist even call out to him? Why would he think that God would even hear him? It may seem as if God has forgotten him and his nation. They’re in the midst of a prolonged attack by a ruthless enemy. And they might even feel rejected. But for him to say it’s been forever is grossly overstated because forever hasn’t happened yet. What he means by this question is really something more like, Why has this gone on so long? Even his ensuing argument and the lines that follow contradict his rather melodramatic objection.

He acknowledges that he and God’s people are the sheep of your pasture, your congregation, your inheritance. They are, he says, God’s sheep, his flock, he purchased them. That harkens back to Israel’s Exodus from Egypt, doesn’t it? Where Moses in his song, Exodus 15, refers to his nation as the people whom you have redeemed, whom you have purchased. Israel is, as Jeremiah refers to her, the tribe of his inheritance. They belong to God, by the psalmist’s own admission. God is their shepherd. He is their redeemer. Mount Zion is the perpetual throne, 2 Samuel 7. How would any of that be possible if God had rejected them forever?

It sounds as if he’s saying this in order to remind God of their relationship. but it actually serves the purpose of reminding him. We, too, will have a tendency to exaggerate our circumstances, to overplay our needs. Things are never really as bad as we make them out to be. Even if we die, we’re going to glory. But the Psalmist’s situation is indeed dire.

And he details that in verses three through nine. Would you glance there? In his second blurry observation of the Lord’s battlefield, not only the complaint of the Lord’s people, but the audacity of the Lord’s enemies. Here in verses three through nine, he describes the desolation wrought by this enemy.

An invading adversary may well have devastated his homeland. He says they’ve damaged everything. Verse 3, but through the clearing smoke he is able to see clearly enough that God is his only hope. And he pleads that he would turn his footsteps toward what is left of his nation. What he refers to forlornly as perpetual ruins. Calls on God God’s attention to the fact that this attack was really aimed at God himself.

He calls them your adversaries. He refers to the temple as your meeting place. Place at least where he would meet with his people. It was your sanctuary that these barbarians have burned to the ground. It’s your name that they have defiled. God’s battle. Thomas here uses some powerful images to describe their plight. He begins with the lion’s roar, verse four. Your adversaries have roared in the midst of your meeting place. The sanctuary of God is a place devoted for reverent worship.

The solitude is shattered by the booming and intimidating cry of the army. and he mentions standards and signs, he refers to those practices and symbols, all of the ordinances and sacrifices and the feasts that were instituted by their religion, they were now suddenly forbidden. Imagine all traces of our spiritual life and practice suddenly removed, destroyed, It would be akin to us having our Bibles confiscated, our churches closed, no Lord’s Day worship, no communion, no baptism, no necklaces, no fellowship. When he speaks of an axe lifted up in a forest of trees, he pictures a mighty woodsman swinging a double-edged axe, chopping down trees with every swing. clear-cutting a forest all by himself.

A once lush, green forest is suddenly reduced to stumps. The hatchets and the hammers have been used to smash anything that would not be stolen or carted away. Every brutal swing brings further and irreparable destruction. What they don’t break apart, they burn. Still worse, he says they have defiled the dwelling place of God’s name.

The Jewish temple grounds was a sacred place, consecrated place. It had an outer court for the Gentiles. But beyond that, there was a court for the women. And beyond that, there was a court for the Israelites themselves, all Jewish men. And beyond that, there was a court for the priest. And beyond that, there was the Holy of Holies, into which only the high priest could enter once per year. These heathen conquerors had disregarded all of those rules, and thereby defiled the temple and blasphemed God.

This word subdue used here means to oppress those over whom someone has an opportunity, to utterly put your boot on their throat. Hatred is given full vent here. These armies are no longer seeking to harm these people. They’re looking to completely humiliate and eradicate them.

And in the midst of all this beastly brutality, these poor people find themselves without any help or guidance. Not from their religious practices, not from a prophet, and seemingly not even from God himself. They’ve had no word from God, no comforting words, no strategy, no guidelines for extracting themselves from the invader’s grip. No timeline on its course, when it will end. It seems that they are completely at the mercy of these ruthless heathens.

No matter how sorrowful the circumstance, God knows. The psalmist isn’t informing God of anything here. God knows that we are never in a position to inform Him of our suffering. God is fully aware of the evil inclinations and the injustice in our world. But we must not second-guess his long-suffering. The reality is God is the one who is most offended by the world’s unrighteous blasphemy. But this all leads, essentially, to the psalmist challenging the Lord’s indifference. That’s the third glory observation, not only a complaint of the Lord’s people and the audacity of the Lord’s enemies, but the challenge of the Lord’s indifference.

Verses 10 and 11. Having verbalized his initial complaint and detailing the enemy’s vicious and devastating deeds, he issues a sudden and forceful grievance in verses 10 and 11. Quite the he voiced in verses one and two is we might think of as a almost meek grumbling. Here in verses 10 and 11, it’s an emotional outburst. Like when we demand to see the manager, right? Visibility is near zero. He does not understand it, but he knows that God is there. And he vehemently confronts him. And he basically poses two questions. How long? And why? How long will God allow his adversaries to revile and blaspheme his name? And why have you withdrawn your powerful hand of protection? This hostile action by the foreign invaders has evidently been a long, drawn-out campaign During the course of this protracted assault, God seems to have fallen silent. He seems to be indifferent to what his people are experiencing.

Worse yet, these heathen enemies are engaged in blasphemous mocking of God. They revile against him. They spurn his very name. Such obnoxious conduct is characteristic of the godless. Psalm 10. In pride, the wicked hotly pursue the afflicted, for the wicked boasts of his heart’s desire, and the greedy man curses and spurns the Lord. Likely, during their marauding onslaught through the city, they castigated those who held themselves to be God’s people. Why are they menacing these people and their place of worship? Mocking serves as a scorn that is piled upon that injury.

Where is your God? Is likely their taunting cry. And so the psalmist pleads for God to respond. How long, O Lord? It’s a cry not of doubt, but of frustration. He knows that God will not be mocked. He knows that God has the ability to respond to this evil, but the psalmist, the burning question for him is when? And with that, our writer calls God to action.

Why do you withdraw your hand, even your right hand? Now, Speaking of God’s hands is what we call an anthropomorphism. It’s attributing human traits to God in order to make a point. God’s a spirit. Doesn’t have a body like you and I, and so when the psalmist speaks of God’s hands, he’s referring specifically to God in action, doing something.

And God’s right hand is his hand of power. It speaks of omnipotence. And in that Song of Moses, from which I quoted a moment ago, verse six says, Your right hand, O Lord, is majestic in power. Your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy. Psalm 89 likewise says of God, You have a strong arm. Your hand is mighty. Your right hand is exalted. It just refers to the right hand, the exercise of God’s almighty power.

Now, the translation of that second line, verse 11, is obscured to our modern ear, at least in some translations. The King James, the NAS, several others use the archaic word bosom. I like the ESB here, which, by the way, here’s my annual advertisement for the NIV both the ESB and the NIV, take it, they say, from the fold of your garment. Retract your right hand from the fold of your garment.

I like that. I’ll tell you the image that comes to my mind. You’ve all seen it. It’s that famous picture of Napoleon standing with his right hand tucked into his jacket. It was a gentleman’s pose. It signified dignity and leadership and composure, restraint. That’s essentially what the psalmist here pictures of God holding back his powerful right hand. Here’s another image. It’s as if God is looking on with his arms folded. That would place his hands idly just beneath his arms.

Either way, the psalmist entreats God to act. Pull out your hand. Destroy your enemies. God is a righteous judge. We can trust him in the midst of our sorrow and suffering. He will act in his own time. And instead of scolding and schooling God, we do well To think upon his abundant mercies.

That’s what the psalmist does in verses 12 through 17. Would you glance there? Not only the complaint of the Lord’s people and the audacity of the Lord’s enemies, the challenge of the Lord’s indifference, but the fourth observation here is the recitation of the Lord’s character. Powerful section in verse 12. It’s as if the fog begins to lift.

The despondent writer catches himself and catches a glimpse of God as he really is. He sees God’s character more clearly, and he repentantly acknowledges God as his king, the sovereign one over all the earth. Though he and his nation are in the midst of a devastating pounding, He wistfully recalls God’s deeds of deliverance, how he has powerfully and miraculously intervened on behalf of God’s people in the past.

In the ensuing verses, verses 13 through 17, he enumerates a partial, that is, incomplete list of God’s interventions. These are just a few of the times. He begins in verse 13 with one of the most amazing displays of God’s strength, the parting of the Red Sea.

This one miracle should have been enough to put the psalmist in a right perspective. It should have been enough to engender his people’s trust forever. But there were many more examples. And the writer continues, the second wonder cited, verse 13, is much harder to identify. The sea monsters and the Leviathan. There’s no consensus on what he’s referring to here. Some see this as the inevitable effects on the great sea creatures when the Red Sea was parted. They were deprived of water and they suffered accordingly.

That’s an interesting observation. Not recorded in scripture, mind you, but it’s interesting. Others suggest that the use of these terms monsters and Leviathan are referenced to Egypt and the Pharaoh. Equally interesting. Or it could be referring very generally to the fact that of all creatures, no matter how great, no matter how large, no matter how powerful, they owe their existence to the creator and the sustainer of all. I see it that way.

Verse 15, he mentions two more miracles of God. You broke open springs and torrents. Almost certainly that refers to those occasions when God provided his people water through Moses, striking the rock, Exodus 17. The psalmist remembers that miracle. The second line, he recounts the opposite kind of miracle where God dried up the ever-flowing streams. Just such a fantastic account is recorded in Joshua 3. There, remember, instead of providing water, God cut off the waters of the Jordan so that his people might cross over. Thomas recalls that miracle. And the more the writer thinks about it, The more he remembers how great God is, in verse 16 his thoughts take him all the way back to the first days of creation.

Yours is the day, yours is also the night. In a matter that we can’t even really understand, Genesis 1 and the first day of creation just says, verse 4, God separated the light from the darkness. How would we even go about accomplishing that? God did. Verses 14 through 18 tell us that He placed lights in the expanse of the heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars. He said to govern the day and the night, to separate the light and the darkness.

He also reflects here on the boundaries that God has established in the earth. These refer, these boundaries refer First of all, to the natural result of separating the waters from the dry land. Continents suddenly emerged. Psalm 104 captures this moment of creation regarding the waters when he says, you set a boundary that they may not cross over so that they will not return to cover the earth. Job, chapter 38, verse 10, where God begins to instruct Job, says, I placed boundaries on it, that is the sea, and set a bolt and doors, and I said, thus far shall you come, but no further, and here your proud waves stop. But boundaries, not only water and dry land, but it also leaves room for understanding the establishment of borders between countries. Act 1726, that God has determined the boundaries of their habitation. Finally, he recalls that God is the one who made summer and winter. He points back again to the creation, that the lights would be for signs, for seasons, for days, and for years.

All of these reflections on God’s deeds and acts throughout history serve a purpose. They recall to our writer’s mind that God is capable. With God, all things are possible. And the child of God must do this, especially in the times of trouble. Well, all of these remembrances of God’s faithfulness and His power exercised serves to remind this psalmist that he should appeal to God in prayer.

This he does in verses 18 through 23. Complaint, the audacity, the challenge, the recitation, and finally the appeal to the Lord’s mercy. A troubled friend draws to a close in this psalm, but not before laying his requests before the Lord. And he makes at least seven specific requests of the Lord. There are more than seven here, but several of them are repeated, and so for the sake of time, I narrowed them to seven. Verse 18.

First of all, that God would remember that His enemies have reviled and spurned His name. He’s already made that claim. He’s already pointed it out to God, and now He pleads with the Lord to deal with it accordingly. It’s indeed a self-serving request because God’s enemies are also his own people’s enemy. A writer is concerned, however, for God’s honor, just as he is for his people’s well-being. Verse 19, he makes a second request that God would deliver his people.

We could almost predict that one. We expect it. This has been his primary focus throughout the psalm. It’s a desperate plea. Third, he points out his request that together with that comes the parallel appeal that God would not forget them. Harkening back to that very opening thought, the fourth request that he makes is that he, God, would consider the covenant, the agreement that he made with his people, Exodus 24 and the like, that unbreakable promise, restoring them from the dark places where they are currently, away from God’s glorious presence, He makes a fifth request in verse 21 that he would rescue his people from dishonor. Not for their own ego’s sake, but as those who name the name of the Lord. The sixth request. That his people would instead be led to praise his name. By witnessing once more God’s great power.

Give us something for which to worship you in this moment. And then his seventh and final request, verse 22, that God himself would arise, plead his own cause, defend himself and his people, that he would silence the roar of these arrogant aggressors. Our psalm writer, even in the midst of devastation, makes seven very specific prayer requests.

And that’s comforting to him. It’s reassuring. He verbalizes exactly what he needs. He knows that God is not only able, but that he is desirous of showing mercy. And so he prays very specifically. We have a tendency to pray in such a broad and undefined manner that it would be difficult to verify whether our prayers are ever answered or not. Bless all the missionaries in the whole wide world. Where do you go about verifying that? We should make very specific requests of God. with clarity, naming that which we desire God to do.

There’s a New Testament passage that is a companion to this particular psalm. 1 Peter chapter 2, would you turn there? 1 Peter chapter 2. And while he addresses servants, beginning in verse 18, this really is a passage that is universal in its application to all believers. Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable. Remember that on Monday morning. Verse nine, pardon me, verse 19.

For this finds favor if, for the sake of conscience toward God, a man bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. We’re going to face the hatred and injustice from the world. We’re going to face it. Peter acknowledges that it’s unjust. Verse 20, for what credit is there if when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it, you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. God knows and he extends his grace to us because of this harsh and unjust treatment.

Verse 21. For you have been called for this purpose since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example to follow in his steps. Jesus Christ, our Savior, experienced the same kind of suffering and provides us with the ultimate example for responding to such harsh treatment. Then finally, Verses 22 and following, he committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth. While being reviled, he did not revile in return. While suffering, he uttered no threats, but kept entrusting himself to him who judges rightly. We too, by faith, should look to God in prayer, the righteous judge, trusting that he who care for us.

You humble yourself before. Our merciful King, we thank you for the Psalms that speak sometimes almost shockingly to you. Lord, we thank you because we know that we have all had those moments with you, wrestling with you in prayer, expressing our thoughts, even our frustrations to you. Lord, we do not desire to be irreverent. We do not seek to be dishonoring to you at all. Father, we thank you, though, for this psalm. We thank you for how it captures one of your saints in the midst of great trouble and turmoil, and the observations that he makes along the way, not just complaints, but ultimately, Father, focusing upon who you are and crying out accordingly with very specific appeals.

Lord God, we thank you that Jesus presents to us a complete and open avenue to the very throne of grace, where we are not only bidden, but commanded to come for anything that we need. Lord, we pray that you would grant us wisdom in the course of our own life difficulties, and that rather than lashing out at you in anger, Lord, we would humbly review your character and name our specific appeals to you that you might respond in so gracious a manner as you always have.

Lord, we thank you for this psalm and we pray for any who do not know the Lord Jesus. The great avenue has been opened to those who believe in Christ, to commune with God and to pray, even to unburden their hearts of dreadful life circumstances. Lord, for those who know the Lord Jesus, this is a lifeline between themselves and Almighty God. And we pray, Lord, that If there are any here who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ, that they would be drawn into fellowship with him by faith. The Lord having come into fellowship with him, they would soon discover the throne of grace, where they too can go find grace to help in time of need. We thank you and we praise you. Pray all of these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.