A Word in Season: Arise, O God! (Psalm 74:22)

The People of God’s Concern for the Glory of God

Just as God has a deep and abiding concern for the good of his people, so the people of God have a deep and abiding concern for the glory of God. It is why we exist. It's what we exist for. It's why God has called us into being as his people.

And nothing then more distresses us, nothing more engages our affection and attention than the name of the Lord, especially when it is being blasphemed. That's Asaph's great concern in Psalm 74. From the beginning of the psalm, he's crying out in deep distress because of the way in which God's name is trampled.

It feels to him as if the Lord has cast off his people and the enemy has come in. There's blasphemy, there's wickedness, there's transgression. The sacred things are being profaned. The people of the world are against the people of God and seeking by all means to destroy them.

Prayer in the Face of God’s Silence

In that situation, Asaph feels particularly isolated because he says in verse 9,. We don't see our signs, there's no longer any prophet, nor is there any among us who knows how long. It seems as if not only is God absent, but God is silent.

There's no understanding, no sense from heaven that this is a period that is going to come to an end. And what is Asaph's response? It's not one of despair, it's not one of anger and resentment, it's one of humble and heartfelt prayer.

First of all, there's a general expression of distress, a general expression that God would draw his hand out of his bosom, that he would stop, as it were, resting and show himself mighty, that he would use the power that he's previously demonstrated both in creating the world and in redeeming his people to now act for his own glory.

Pleading God’s Covenant Mercies and Glory

And Asaph begins to build up the arguments with God. He wants the Lord to look, he wants the Lord to remember, he wants the Lord to take into account all those covenant mercies. Now, again, Asaph is not suggesting that God has forgotten these things, that he is ignorant of these things, or that he has abandoned these things, but he is absolutely persuaded that these things being so, they are the best arguments that he has, the best reasons that he can offer for God now to make his arm bare and to act for his glory and for the good of his people.

And so, in verse 22, he brings the pinnacle, really, the absolute centre of his concern before the Lord. He, as it were, spreads the world before God, spreads the people of God before God, spreads the city of God, the temple of God, the altar of God, and he says,.

Asking God to Act for His Own Name

What's interesting is that, in one sense, Asaph has been pleading God's cause all the way through this psalm. But what he now asks God to do is to act on his own behalf. There's a humility here, and there's also a confidence in the God who saves.

And he's asking that the Lord would make himself known, would glorify his name, would overcome his enemies, would establish his people, would magnify his grace, would make his word known. What a prayer for us as we look at the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

For most, if not all of us, how can we be satisfied with the way in which God is honoured or the fact that he is so dishonoured in the world in which we live? How can we see the courts of the Lord trampled down by the wicked without grieving in our souls and spreading before the Lord God the needs, not just that we have, but the need that we see for his name to be magnified and his honour to be vindicated.

So as we pray for the blessing of God on the day of God, on the Lord's day, let's make this our particular cry. It's your people. It's your kingdom. You, O God, you glorify your own great name.