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Scripture Reading: Psa. 77:7-13; 78:65-66, 68-69; 79:1; 80:14-15, 17-19; 82:8; 83:2-5, 12, 18
In Psalms 77 to 83 we are further impressed with the reason for the desolation of God’s house and the way of recovery. After the desolation God’s dwelling place can only be restored by His people giving the preeminence to Christ. When Christ is given His rightful position, God will be able to take possession of the earth through the local churches.
In Psalm 77 the saints, in the experience of troubles, realize that God’s way is in the sanctuary. In verses 1 to 9 the saints are perplexed by their troubles. The psalmist asks, “Will the Lord cast us off forever, / And will He never be favorable to us again? / Has His lovingkindness ceased forever? / Has the promise come to an end for all generations?” (vv. 7-8). Then he says, “This is my infirmity” (v. 10). To say that the Lord has given us up is our infirmity. “But I recall the years of the right hand of the Most High. / I will bring to remembrance the deeds of Jehovah, / For I will remember Your wonders from of old” (vv. 10-11). He still remembers what the Lord did in the past. “I will meditate on all that You have done / And muse on Your doings” (v. 12). Do not look only at the present situation; we must remember what the Lord has done in the past. Verse 13 says, “O God, Your way is in the sanctuary; / Who is so great a god as God?” By remembering what the Lord has done in the past and by fellowshipping one with another concerning all He has accomplished, the saints realize that the way of God is in His sanctuary; thus, God’s greatness is also realized by them. The way of all that the Lord does is in the sanctuary. It is holy and mysterious. You cannot separate His doings from His sanctuary. Since His doings are mysterious, we must get into the heart, the very center, of all the situations to understand them. The heart and the center of all the situations is the sanctuary of God. Do not be troubled by the present; remember what the Lord has done in the past and learn the Lord’s way — it is in the sanctuary of God, in God’s dwelling place. If you would find the solution, you must forever come into the sanctuary of God. In Psalm 73 the psalmist received revelation in the sanctuary; in Psalm 77 he finds the answer also in the sanctuary. Verses 16 to 20 also tell us that God’s way is “in the sea,...in the great waters.” This indicates that God’s way is hidden. But we can know the hidden way of God by being in His sanctuary.
Psalm 78 tells how God built His sanctuary among His people, in spite of their dishonesty, unfaithfulness, instability, and failures. The first section, verses 1 to 58, which is the main part of this psalm, tells how the people failed God. Verses 59 to 64 record how God forsook the people and even His tabernacle among them. “He forsook the tabernacle in Shiloh, / The tent in which He dwelt among men” (v. 60). This tabernacle was God’s dwelling place before the temple was built. “He also delivered His people to the sword / And was angry with His inheritance” (v. 62). Then verses 65 to 72 tell us how God restored the people and built His sanctuary among them in a better way. “Then the Lord awoke as if from sleep, / Like a mighty man who shouts because of wine. / And He struck His adversaries and sent them back; / He put an everlasting reproach upon them” (vv. 65-66). The Lord had abandoned the tabernacle, His dwelling place, as though He were sleeping; but now the Lord awoke as if from sleep. “He chose the tribe of Judah, / Mount Zion, which He loved. / And He built His sanctuary like the heights, / Like the earth that He has founded forever” (vv. 68-69). This indicates that sometimes, whether we are faithful or not, the Lord will still do something to accomplish His own purpose. The Lord chose a place and built up His sanctuary, exalted as high as the heights of the heavens and stable as the earth.
Verses 70 to 72 say that in God’s restoration He also chose David (the type of Christ) to shepherd His people. With the Lord’s recovery there is always the shepherding, the feeding of Christ.
Psalms 79 and 80 tell us how the house and the city of God became desolate, but that the hope of recovery is in Christ, the man of God’s right hand (80:17). Verses 1 to 3 of Psalm 79 indicate the desolation of God’s house and city. “O God, the nations have come into Your inheritance; / They have defiled Your holy temple; / They have turned Jerusalem into heaps” (v. 1). No doubt this refers to the destruction wrought by the Babylonians. But the hope of recovery is in Christ. “O God of hosts, turn, we beseech You; / Look down from heaven and see, / And visit this vine [the people of Israel], / Even the stock which Your right hand has planted / And the son whom You have strengthened for Yourself” (80:14-15). The psalmist here is crying to God, that God would maintain the stock (vineyard) which His right hand has planted. God had planted the children of Israel as a vine and the nation as a vineyard. The psalmist prayed that God would maintain, protect, and preserve this vineyard. Notice verse 15: “The son whom You have strengthened for Yourself.” Obviously, this must be Christ. We have indicated that many times in the Psalms, in the midst of the saints’ expression, the Spirit of Christ suddenly intervenes and utters something within their utterance. This is just such an occasion. The Spirit of Christ is here uttering something concerning Christ within the utterance of the crying saints. The meaning here is that God will protect His dwelling place for Christ. God will protect, God will preserve, and God will maintain His dwelling place for the sake of Christ. Christ is the Son whom God has strengthened for Himself.
Psalm 80:17-19 says, “Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand, / Upon the son of man whom You have strengthened for Yourself; / Then we will not turn back from You. / Revive us, and we will call upon Your name. / O Jehovah God of hosts, restore us; / Cause Your face to shine, and we will be saved.” In this poetic utterance of the seeking saint, the Spirit of Christ is saying something concerning Christ. It is that the restoration of God’s dwelling place depends wholly upon Christ. We must give Christ the proper position; then the desolated house of God will be restored. By the psalmist’s assertion that the restoration of God’s house depends upon the position given to Christ, we learn the reason for the desolation of the house of God. The house is desolate because the position of Christ has been lost among God’s people. If we would recover the house of God, we must afford Christ His proper position. His position is that of the man whom God has strengthened for Himself, the man who is at the right hand of God. This indicates His preeminence, His first place. The right hand of God is the first and highest place in the entire universe, and God has put Christ there. God has given the preeminence of the whole universe to Christ. He must be in that position, but among the people of God He has not been exalted to that position. He has lost His preeminence, so the house of God has become desolate. Where is Christ in all the so-called Christian churches, in all the denominations? Christ has lost His preeminence; Christ is not in the first position; the people have put Christ aside. Hence, desolation has entered.
In these days we are so happy to speak well of the local churches. But remember, Christ must have the first place among us. If Christ does not have the preeminence, there can be no restoration of the house of God. Desolation has resulted from the loss of His proper position, and recovery will result from our rendering to Christ His due place. He is the man who is made strong for God, and He is the man at the right hand of God. We must give Him this position; we must recognize His preeminence in the whole universe. If so, we will see the house of God restored.
Suppose that two brothers of a local church in a certain city talk together in a critical way about the leading brothers of that church. Do you believe that they are giving the preeminence to Christ? Actually, they are putting themselves in the first place. They are exalting themselves, not Christ. In that place two horns will rise up on the head. When those brothers come together to speak about the situation of the church, instead of criticizing, they must say, “Lord, we give You the preeminence; we are under Your headship. We are nobody; You are the only One, Lord.”
Suppose now that the leading brothers of that particular local church hear these two young brothers speaking in such a way and are deeply offended. They arise to defend themselves and assert their authority. If the leading brothers react in this way, it means that they also are not under the headship of Christ, that they also are not giving Christ the preeminence. They should bow down and say, “Lord, the preeminence is Yours, the first place is Yours. Though we may be the leading ones, we are nobody. The young brothers are not wrong; we are really poor.” Perhaps the brothers and sisters in that place may, in a sense, be poor, but they are giving the first place to the Lord, the preeminence to Christ. There you will see the restoration of God’s house. If they fight one with another, the young people against the leading ones, and the leading ones against the young people, there will only be desolation. The young people will attempt to justify themselves, and the leading ones will vindicate their position. This is nothing but desolation. They are desolating the church. Whenever Christ loses His preeminence among us, the church is wrong. We all must submit ourselves to His headship and say, “None among us is anybody; You are the only One, Lord, who has the preeminence. We give You the preeminence, Lord.” Regardless of how weak we are, regardless of how poor we are, if we take this attitude, there is the possibility for the restoration of God’s house. The desolation will be past; it will be swallowed up by the restoration.
Christ must be afforded the proper position by the people of God. God has already given Him the highest place in the universe. Now every one of us, both the young brothers and sisters and the elder brothers and sisters, must give Him His due place. Never take the preeminence among the Lord’s people in the local church; the preeminence must always be given to Christ. The first secret for us in maintaining the house of God and restoring it from desolation is to give the preeminence to Christ.
Sometimes the sisters in the local churches cause the problem by not giving the preeminence to the Lord. Philippians 4 speaks of two sisters, Euodias and Syntyche, who caused a problem in the church at Philippi. I have never heard of parents naming their daughters by these two names. At the beginning, the situation in that church was excellent, but then a problem arose due to these two sisters. Many times, simply because of two sisters, there is disunity in a church. In one of the local churches recently, I referred to these two sisters in Philippians 4, and on the very next day a sister stood up, weeping, confessing her faults and asking another sister to forgive her. Both of them wept. Some of the brothers said to me later, “When you spoke from Philippians 4, you prophesied concerning the condition here. These two sisters were the problem in this local church.” If any of us, especially any of the sisters, fail to give the preeminence to the Lord, there will be desolation in the church. The church life will be restored if we will always say, “We are nobody; Christ is the only One; we give Him the preeminence.”
We must pray-read these two verses, Psalm 80:15 and 17, and stay with them for some time. “The stock which Your right hand has planted / And the son whom You have strengthened for Yourself. / ...Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand, / Upon the son of man whom You have strengthened for Yourself.” This is Christ, the unique man, the unique Son. This is the One who has been approved at the right hand of God the Father. He has the preeminence, the first place in the entire universe, and we must recognize this. If we as God’s people will give Him such preeminence, the restoration of the church life will take place. The desolation of the church is due mostly to Christ not being given His rightful position.
Psalms 81 to 83 tell how Christ will judge and inherit the earth and how the enemy desires to take God’s habitation in possession.
I must repeat again that the Psalms are written in the style of poetry, and for this reason it is really difficult to understand them. I believe that by this time the Psalms have become a different book to many of you. You thought they were merely a source of consolation, but now you see in them Christ, God’s dwelling place, the house and city of God, and the way God will gain the earth. In order to understand the Psalms we must enter the heart of the psalmists and get into the spirit of all the seeking saints. In the spirit of the saints, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, was uttering something. We cannot just read the Psalms in an outward way. That is why we have spent so much time to see what is in the heart of all the psalmists and what is hidden in all the psalms. It is nothing but Christ and the church as the house and the city of God.
Do not be frustrated or troubled by so many verses and sayings in all the psalms. Years ago in my home province, certain types of crystals were mined from the ground. I saw these beautiful stones on the market for years, but one day I was shown their original condition in the form of a large, rough, and ugly stone. Then I was shown, after a cut was made into the very heart of that ugly mass, a crystal, so transparent, colorful, and beautiful. On the outside there were many unsightly layers, but after these were removed, a beautiful crystal appeared. In the Psalms there are many verses. I would not say that some are ugly, but that many of these verses do not seem so meaningful. Yet we need them. For example, Psalm 78 is a very long psalm concerning the failure, unfaithfulness, and dishonesty of God’s people. Many times when I was young, I grew tired of reading that passage of the Bible. I thought it would be far better to shorten it. But within that psalm, there are at least these four verses, verses 65, 66, 68, and 69, which are as crystals. Verse 65 says that one day the Lord awoke as if from sleep, like a mighty man. Verse 66 says that He struck His adversaries; verse 68 says that He chose Judah, Mount Zion; and verse 69 says that He built His sanctuary like the heights and stable as the earth. These are the crystals. Do not be frustrated and troubled by all the other verses. We must go through them until we hit all these significant verses.
In Psalms 81 through 83 there are not many crystals, but there are two points which indicate that God’s intention is to inherit the earth. Psalm 82:8 says, “Arise, O God; judge the earth; / For You will inherit all the nations.” This is a crystal verse. God’s intention is to possess the earth through Christ. Then in Psalm 83:12 the enemy says, “Let us possess for ourselves / The habitations of God.” By putting these two verses together and comparing them, we see that God’s intention is to inherit the earth, and Satan’s plot is to possess for himself the habitations of God. Can you see the subtlety? Here is the struggle that has arisen. With whom will you stand? With God for the earth, or with Satan to take over God’s dwelling places?
God’s intention is to give Christ His right position throughout the local churches and then, through the churches, to take over the whole earth. Satan knows this, and so his goal is to take over God’s dwelling places and thus withhold the earth from God. But, according to Psalm 83, God will surely do something to show His enemies that He alone is the Most High over all the earth. “That they may know that You alone, whose name is Jehovah, / Are the Most High over all the earth” (v. 18). We have full assurance in these last days that God is going to defeat all His enemies. Regardless of how much desolation the enemy has wrought, regardless of how much he is still working to damage the local churches, God will defeat him. One day through the local churches the whole universe will know that God alone is the Most High over all the earth.
