God's grace and Flattery

Psalm 78

Please read the passage before reading this devotion.

The retelling of the history of God’s care for His people is a recurring theme in the book of Psalms.  Part of that retelling includes the unfaithfulness of Israel and Judah toward God and His dealing with them.  This is the core of Psalm 78.  In this Psalm there is a key theme about God’s grace that we need to take to heart and marvel over.  Sometimes people try to strike a bargain with God.  It is sort of a foxhole religion, “God, if you get me out of this I promise I will do better, turn over a new leaf, etc.”  That is what we see in verses 34-39.  While we may hold this foxhole religion with some distain we see here a picture of God’s superlative grace. 

In the just punishment of Israel’s sin they turn to God.  In the crisis of the moment they find “religion”.  The wrath of God being expressed in the oppression of their pagan neighbors generates repentance and revival.  We all have a tendency to get religious when we are in a fix, suffering or trouble.    It is hard to find the very impious just before life and death surgery.  Piousness is treated like a credit card, it is whipped out and promises are made about future payments (good deeds) in exchange for current purchase.  Get a good outcome to this operation and I will pay with good deeds in the years to come.  In ministry you see this with great frequency, people get really holy when they are about to get the short end of a divorce, a criminal charge, or a medical diagnosis.  Church attendance spiked in the U.S. for the three weeks after 911.  But once the crisis is passed the religious fervor cools; the worship and the change of heart was only flattery aimed at fooling the “old man upstairs”.  We have all seen it, hated it, and perhaps done it.

But here is the marvel.  We all know it is a hypocritical, feigned pile of double-dealing jive, but grace prevails.  Verses 38-39 are almost unbelievable.  For the first 34 verses this Psalm describes Israel’s miserable moral failure in contrast to God’s faithfulness.  Verses 35-37 describe their faith as the crisis variety that was nothing more than flattery and lies that never went near the heart.  Then in verses 38-39 we see God’s mercy and compassion in forgiving and holding back His wrath because His compassion took into account human frailty.  He knew their hearts were divided even as they confessed their sins and turned to Him.  He knew it was lies and flattery and He had mercy anyway.

I once had a conversation with a Christian man who was dying.  He was just days away from his end.  He was tormented by the fears that maybe he was insincere in his faith and God would not accept him.  I was once asked, “How do I know if I really mean it when I repent or I am just saying it?”  I had someone asked if because they didn’t understand all that baptism means when they were baptized if they needed to be baptized again.  When a person looks back at public sin with self-loathing and they wonder if the actions of repentance are God-driven or culturally driven what do we say?  These are not the questions of people looking for a license to indulge.  It is a reminder that we need to stress and address the greatness of God’s grace.  C.S. Lewis put it this way in That Hideous Strength “This is the courtesy of deep Heaven, that when you mean well He always takes you to have meant better than you knew.  It will not be enough for always He is very jealous, He will have you for no one but himself in the end.”

What more can we do than to love the One who so respects and honors us even when we are an alloy of selfish and pious motives?  When we consider this great grace we are bound to want to do right and little by little our motives become more pure.  We may still have doubts about the purity of our motives, but that itself is perhaps a good sign that we mean well and God can take that as very close to pure motives.