The Apple of His Eye ... commentary of Psalm 74
The Apple of His Eye
… A commentary of Psalm
74
Verse Eleven
Psalm 74:11:
“Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right
hand? pluck it out of thy bosom.”
“…withdrawest…
Funny things happen when the closest of
your friends seem to melt away, and be so far from
you. They are now very distant, and
survive, only as a memory.
A pall of eeriness [a silence] comes over
you once you begin to realize you have done so much
wrong.
Man forsakes, God withdraws.
Check it out!
Turn to the Second book of the Kings,
chapter twenty-one, verse nineteen:
“Amon was twenty and two years
old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years
in Jerusalem.
And his mother's name was
Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah.
And he did that which was evil in
the sight of the LORD, as his father Manasseh did.
And he walked in all the way that his
father walked in, and served the idols that his
father served, and worshipped them:
And he forsook the LORD God of his
fathers, and walked not in the way of the LORD.”
[2 Kings 21:19-22]
Now, Amon was not the only one who had
forsaken the LORD!
The apple of his eye, Israel,
forsook the LORD betimes - over and over
again! Read for this through the Book of
Judges, and see!
·
Judges 10:6: “And the
children of Israel did evil again in the sight of
the LORD, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the
gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods
of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and
the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the LORD,
and served not him.”
·
Judges 2:12-13: “And they
forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought
them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other
gods, of the gods of the people that were
round about them, and bowed themselves unto them,
and provoked the LORD to anger.
And they forsook the LORD, and served
Baal and Ashtaroth.”
And we have these records located in
the first Book of the Kings and the Second Book of
Chronicles:
·
“And they shall answer,
Because they forsook the LORD their God, who brought
forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and
have taken hold upon other gods, and have worshipped
them, and served them: therefore hath the LORD
brought upon them all this evil.”
[1 Kings 9:9]
·
“And it shall be answered,
Because they forsook the LORD God of their fathers,
which brought them forth out of the land of Egypt,
and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them,
and served them: therefore hath he brought all this
evil upon them.” [2 Chronicles
7:22]
Now, if man forsakes, he deserts.
Man is a deserter.
The deserter abandons his
God. The deserter renounces his
God.
Bottom-line: Man is prone to leave
the God he loves.
It’s like the song we sing:
“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it;
Prone to leave the God I love:
Take my heart, oh, take and seal it,
With Thy Spirit from above.”
We forsake, God withdraws!
When God withdraws, he will quietly
leave.
When HE leaves a people, or a
person, HE goes from them.
Open your BIBLE to the book of the Prophet
Jeremiah, chapter nine, verse one:
“Oh that my head were waters, and mine
eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and
night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
Oh that I had in the wilderness a
lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave
my people, and go from them! for they be all
adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
And they bend their tongues like
their bow for lies: but they are not valiant
for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from
evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD.”
[Jeremiah 9:1-3]
Go from them? This happens every time
when a people are not valiant for the TRUTH!
So, God left them!
“Why shouldest thou be as a man
astonied, as a mighty man that cannot save?
yet thou, O LORD, art in the midst of us, and
we are called by thy name; leave us not.”
[Jeremiah 14:9]
They should have remained fastened
to this prayer. Leave us not!
Now, do not miss this one. What God
really desired was to be in the midst
of His people, Israel, the apple of His eye,
but they let sin destroy betimes their
relationship with HIM. They just proceeded from
evil to evil, till as a result, they knew
not the LORD.
SIN had separated Israel from her
God. This is crystal clear, read the book of
the Prophet Isaiah, chapter fifty-nine, verse two:
“But your iniquities have separated
between you and your God, and your sins have hid
his face from you, that he will not hear.”
[Isaiah 59:2]
A person, or a people, that
know not the LORD will not even realize
that God has left them, nor even heard them.
God gave them up!!
You say: Does God give people up?
Yes, God does! Read of it in the
following: God
gave them up!
·
2 Chronicles 30:7: “And
be not ye like your fathers, and like your brethren,
which trespassed against the LORD God of their
fathers, who therefore gave them up to
desolation, as ye see.”
·
Psalm 81:12: “So I gave
them up unto their own hearts' lust: and they
walked in their own counsels.”
·
Acts 7:42: “Then
God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of
heaven; as it is written in the book of the
prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to
me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of
forty years in the wilderness?”
·
Romans 1:24: “Wherefore
God also gave them up to uncleanness through the
lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own
bodies between themselves:”
Turn to the book of First Samuel, chapter
twenty-eight, verse fifteen and sixteen, and we will
see Saul acknowledging that God had left him:
“And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou
disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I
am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war
against me, and God is departed from me, and
answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by
dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou
mayest make known unto me what I shall do.
Then said Samuel, Wherefore then dost
thou ask of me, seeing the LORD is departed from
thee, and is become thine enemy?”
[1 Samuel 28:15-16]
This pall of eeriness came over
Saul. He realized there was just silence
from God. Saul was all alone.
Man forsakes, God withdraws.
Now, what is the remedy?
The remedy for the apple of His
eye is the very same remedy for all of us
living here today in the 21st century, if
peradventure we feel after the
LORD as in the Epistle of James, chapter four, verse
eight:
“Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh
to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify
your hearts, ye double minded.”
[James 4:8]
Now something else needs to be added
here.
1 Corinthians 3:16: “Know ye not that ye
are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God
dwelleth in you?”
Though the believer in Jesus Christ [Christ
in you - Colossians 1:27] has the
indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit [He
will not leave us], we can still grieve
HIM.
“And grieve not the holy Spirit of God,
whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”
[Ephesians 4:30]
This is why we are admonished
and commanded by the Apostle Paul to let
no corrupt communication proceed out of our mouths
[this in verse twenty-nine]. This will grieve
HIM.
When we grieve HIM, we hurt
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
When we grieve HIM, we lose
our fellowship with Jesus Christ.
The Christian forsakes, God’s
Spirit is grieved.
It’s like the song we sing:
“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it;
Prone to leave the God I love:
Take my heart, oh, take and seal it,
With Thy Spirit from above.”