Just Listen to Me!
SONGS FOR THE JOURNEY • Sermon • Submitted
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MAIN IDEA
In God’s great mercy, our bad decisions may not lead to the end of the road, but to a cul-de-sac of grace where we can make a U-turn!
1. God’s call is both a plea and a command, “If they would just listen to me!”
2. The consequences of our bad decisions are not the final word but God’s call to turn around.
The opening verses of this psalm comprise commands for the people to celebrate God’s great deliverance through singing and instruments (vv. 1-2; cf. Deut 32:43).
The psalmist called the people together to worship the Lord on a feast of the Jewish calendar (the mention of the new moon and the full moon in v. 3 suggests Trumpets and Tabernacles). The Jewish civil year begins with Tishri (our September–October), the seventh month in the religious year, during which the Jews celebrate the Feast of Trumpets (first day, “Rosh Hashanna”), the Day of Atonement (tenth day, “Yom Kippur”), and the Feast of Tabernacles (days fifteen to twenty-two). (See Lev. 23:23–44 and Num. 29.) The first day would be new moon and the fifteenth day the full moon. The trumpets mentioned here are not the silver trumpets (Num. 10) but the “shofar,” the ram’s horn, as was used at Jericho (Josh. 6). This argues for the occasion being the Feast of Tabernacles, although Asaph fuses the language of Passover and Tabernacles in this Psalm, for they go together. Passover celebrated the deliverance from Egypt and Tabernacles the Lord’s care of His people during their wilderness years.
The verbs call for Israel’s loudest expressions of joy, and they’re completely appropriate because God requires them, they commemorate his mighty works, and they’re natural responses from people who’ve benefitted from what he’s done (Perowne, Psalms, vol. 2, 94). The atmosphere described here would characterize the arrival of a king or the celebration of a victory (cf. 1 Sam 10:24; Zeph 3:14). The people were to pull out all the stops in the expression of their jubilation.
The people’s delight isn’t to be merely a testimony about God but expressions “to God,” to the one who is “our strength” (v. 1; cf. 29:1) because he delivers and protects his people by his power. The parallel phrase “the God of Jacob” reflects on the innumerable ways he showed himself strong to his people since the time of the great patriarch (cf. 20:2).
One of the psalmist’s primary points here is that the celebration of worship that characterized the Festival of Shelters was a prescribed gathering, not a suggested gathering. We see this first in the command to “blow the horn” (v. 3)—or shofar—which was the ram’s horn used to convene an assembly, initiate a military attack (Josh 6; Judg 7), inaugurate certain festivals, or otherwise move a group to action. Blowing the shofar marked both the new moon and the month of appointed festivals (v. 3; cf. Lev 23:23-25; Num 29:1-6). It was blown on the first day of the seventh month. Ten days later was the Day of Atonement. Five days after that the trumpet would be blown again to mark the Festival of Shelters.
The regulatory nature of this celebratory gathering also is indicated in that the psalmist calls it a “statute,” “rule” (ESV), and “decree” (vv. 4-5). The use of the name Joseph signifies historic Israel in general; and while the remainder of the verse is a bit obscure, it likely refers to God’s judgments against Egypt when he delivered his people. The summons to exult in God’s great salvation wasn’t an option or a suggestion. It was a binding decision of God that the people didn’t have the freedom to dismiss. It was an appointed time to recall the history of their faith (Ross, Psalms, vol. 2, 707–8).
The people’s praise suddenly is interrupted when God’s spokesman offers an oracle on his behalf. The prophetic voice claims to hear “an unfamiliar language,” which likely is just a claim of God’s inspiration. The first part of the oracle recounts God’s gracious dealings with Israel. While they were weighed down with a “burden,” weary from carrying “the basket” of heavy labor, and “in distress,” God came to their aid with strong help (cf. Exod 1:11; 2:23; Pss 50:15; 116:8). He “relieved . . . freed . . . [and] rescued” them, setting them free from their burdensome toil.
He further reminds them how he disciplined them because of their disobedience. God led them to a place where there was no water in order to strengthen their trust in him, but they rejected the opportunity on two occasions and resisted him (Exod 17:1-7; Num 20:1-13; cf. Deut 33:8; Ps 95:8). If Sinai was where God educated his people by encounter, Meribah was where he educated them by silence and discipline.
This oracle warns God’s people in every generation, including those who call themselves Christians. The reminders here are vivid. Instead of abstractions such as oppression and redemption, we read of shoulder and a burden and hands and a basket. God wants us to be gripped by the reality and emotion of what he’s done for us. Jesus surely had the same purpose in mind when he gave us the Table of Communion. Paul said, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26). Jesus wanted us to be intentional about remembering what he did for us on the cross that we might be saved.
God wants us to act on what we remember. The only appropriate response is unqualified obedience. The Festival of Shelters included a public reading of the law every seventh year (Deut 31:10-13), which provided a potent reminder for the people to obey God fully. So God reaches back into the wilderness wandering and captures some snapshots of what he’s said and done that capsulize his law and compel the people to respond appropriately with obedience.
The psalm reminds us of three different aspects of true worship. We need to:
Praise God! (vv. 1–5a)
1 Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob! 2 Raise a song; sound the tambourine, the sweet lyre with the harp. 3 Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our feast day. 4 For it is a statute for Israel, a rule of the God of Jacob. 5a He made it a decree in Joseph when he went out over the land of Egypt.
The leader called together the people (v. 1), the musicians (v. 2), and the priests to blow the trumpets (v. 3). In the Old Testament Law, you find stated times of worship (the weekly Sabbath, the annual feasts, etc.) as well as spontaneous times of worship (at the defeat of the enemy, for example). Both are essential to balanced worship, and both should focus on the goodness of the Lord. If all worship were personal and spontaneous, there would be diversity but no unity; but if all worship only followed a schedule, there would be uniformity and no diversity. Both voices and instruments were used in worship. The nation is called “Jacob, Israel, and Joseph” (vv. 4–5). Jacob and his wives built the family, and Joseph preserved them alive in Egypt. God gave Jacob the name “Israel,” which means “he strives with God and prevails” (Gen. 32:22–32).
Hear God! (vv. 5b–10)
5b I hear a language I had not known: 6 “I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket. 7 In distress you called, and I delivered you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah 8 Hear, O my people, while I admonish you! O Israel, if you would but listen to me! 9 There shall be no strange god among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god. 10 I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
The last clause of verse 5 could be translated, “We heard a voice we had not known” (niv margin), referring to the message God sent in verses 6–10. At some point in the festal celebration, a priest received God’s message and declared it to the people. The emphasis in this psalm is on hearing the Word of God (vv. 6, 11, 13; see 95:7–11 and Heb. 3). Every seventh year at the Feast of Tabernacles, the priests read the book of Deuteronomy to the people, and perhaps this was one of those special sabbatical years. (See Deut. 31:9–13, and note the emphasis in Deuteronomy on “hearing God” [Deut. 4:1, 6, 10; 5:1; 6:3–4; 9:1].) It is delightful to sing praises to God and to pray, but if we want Him to listen to us, we must listen to Him.
Frequently the Lord reminded His people of their miraculous deliverance from Egypt (v. 6), the power of God that accomplished it, and the love of God that motivated it. He also reminded them of the covenant they accepted at Sinai (v. 7a; see Deut. 5:2–3). The people hearing this message were not at Sinai, but the decision of their ancestors was binding on them and their descendants. God’s message also mentioned their failure to trust Him at Meribah (Ex. 17; Num. 20). At the Feast of Tabernacles, the priests poured out water in the temple to commemorate these events (John 7:37–39). The Lord emphasized that He would not tolerate His people worshiping idols (vv. 8–9; Ex. 20:1–4; Deut. 4:15–20). What could the false gods of the neighboring nations give to them? “Open your mouth wide and I will fill it” (v. 10, nasb).
Obey God (vv. 11–16)
11 “But my people did not listen to my voice;
Israel would not submit to me. 12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels. 13 Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways! 14 I would soon subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes. 15 Those who hate the Lord would cringe toward him, and their fate would last forever. 16 But he would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”
Worship and service go together (Matt. 4:10; Deut. 6:13), and this means we must obey what the Lord commands. But the nation did not obey God’s Word, and He had to destroy all the people twenty years and older (Num. 14:26ff). But this attitude of spiritual “deafness” and willful disobedience persisted even after Israel entered the Promised Land, as recorded in the book of Judges. (See 78:10, 17, 32, 40, 56.) The greatest judgment God can send is to let people have their own way (see Rom. 1:24, 26, 28).
Had His people obeyed Him, the Lord would have kept the promises in His covenant and blessed them with protection and provision (Deut. 28:15ff; Lev. 26:17–20; 27–31). When we disobey the Lord, not only do we feel the pain of His chastening, but we also miss out on the blessings He so desires to give us. The Lord gave Israel water out of the rock, but He was prepared to give them honey out of the rock (Deut. 32:13). He sent manna from heaven, but He would have given them the finest of wheat. The word “if” (v. 13) is small, but it carries big consequences (Deut. 5:29; 32:29; Isa. 48:18; Matt. 23:37).
Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: “It might have been.” John Greenleaf Whittier