Our Pleas Finally Answered

Psalm 74 is an exemplar of scripture passages where the Lord's people cry out to Him, "how long?" - how long until we are saved?

Here, the psalmist reminds the Lord of how the wicked have overrun the country and destroyed the temple. He also recounts times in the past when God's mighty saving power was evidently manifest. He cries out to God not to allow those who trust in Him to be ashamed. Arise and save us, and don't ignore the wicked's blasphemies.

We always assume that these psalms were written in the middle of trouble, and that God soon enough answered the psalmists' pleas.

But there is no reason to believe this particular psalmist ever saw God's answer to his prayer for deliverance.

Perhaps the psalmist didn't realize it, but his only sure hope lay in his Messiah one day putting all things right.

The same is true today for us. Yet we constantly cast about for a new leader, or a revival, or this or that short-term rescue, and we wonder why God hasn't rescued us yet from our trouble.

Perhaps we are living in a day like King Manasseh, who filled the whole land with violence and bloodshed. Good king Josiah then replaced him, but it was too little, too late.

All our hopes in deliverance by any other than our Lord Jesus will turn out, at best, to be just more Josiahs, unable to rescue us.

Our only sure help is in Christ's coming back one day to set all things right.

We American believers have grown up to assume that we will always live in the glory days, where Christianity is dominant, and we are accepted and protected by the state.

But most saints in most times have lived persecuted, troubled lives. They looked to Jesus for deliverance.