Moving the Heart of the Judge

I’ve been reading and meditating on Psalm 106 over the last few days and my thoughts are still very incomplete, but I’m going to attempt to make sense of them through writing…

They exchanged their Glory
In verse 20 and 21 it says, “They exchanged their Glory for an image of a bull, which eats grass. They forgot the God who saved them…”  This hit me personally and I felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit, for how many times have I had the choice directly in front me to either choose communion with Glory or exchange Him for something so much lesser and I have chosen the lesser?  When I choose to give my time, energy or resources (essentially, my worship) to something other than the Lord, how often do I reflect on the immense, infinite value of what I am giving up in exchange?  I don’t think I have a true revelation of the Glorious One, the God who has worked miracles and awesome deeds on my behalf and who saved me from the most horrific eternal destiny of hell that was my lot. 

I then was listening to a teaching by a woman of God name Shelley Hundley who was “coincidentally” (read “divinely”) speaking from this very same passage and she went back to the telling of this story in Exodus where the Israelites are getting a glimpse of their beautiful and terrifying Glory in a way they had not yet seen.  In 20:18-21 they are trembling in fear as they gaze upon a mountain shrouded in thick darkness, surrounded by thunder, strikes of lightning and engulfed in smoke.  While they had been invited by God to come close, up to the boundaries He had set for them, they shrank back in their fear and remained at a distance instead of embracing this gift of the fear of the Lord that God wanted to give them in order to keep them from sinning and keep them in intimate relationship with Himself.  As a result, in Exodus 32, when Moses takes too long to return from the mountain, Shelley proposed that the reason they created the idol was for the simple reason of boredom!  They had been given the opportunity to gaze upon the Glory of the Lord and be completely fascinated by His power and beauty, yet instead they distanced themselves and grew bored, exchanging Him for a lifeless golden calf crafted in the image of a soulless creature that eats grass!  Again, I ask myself, how many times have I exchanged the opportunity to be fascinated and captivated by my heavenly, eternal Glorious One in order to give my affections to something that is earthly, temporal and fading away?  Too many.

They shed innocent blood
The next thing that pierced my heart was verses 37-43 which starts off by saying, “They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.  They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was desecrated by their blood.”  It doesn’t take a genius to make the connection with this verse and the spilling of innocent blood that is occurring today through the abortions of millions of babies in North America.  While it may seem to some that abortion is only the removal of a piece of tissue, the reality in the spirit is that these living babies with a soul and spirit are being sacrificed to the gods of this age – convenience, selfishness, fear, lust, call them what you like, but there are real demons feeding off the blood of these innocent ones.  I know it sounds harsh, but we must see abortion for what it is – demon worship and murder. 

The passage goes on to describe how the Lord was angry with his people for these horrible acts and brought judgment upon them, yet still they would not turn from their sin and were “bent on rebellion”.  Another reality is that there is real judgment coming in response to our sin.  We are naive to think that we will escape judgment, for even if we die before the end of the age and miss the end-time judgments, we will certainly face it when we come before the throne of God.  I truly don’t mean for this to be a doomsday post, but I want the reality of the Word to grip our hearts!  I don’t want to read this and gloss over the weightiness of what it says - we need to be pained over this and understand what lies ahead if things don’t change!

Moving the heart of the Judge
And yet, while judgment is imminent, there is hope.  When the Israelites built their golden calf, Psalm 106:23 says, “So he said he would destroy them–had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him to keep his wrath from destroying them.”  The Lord is longing for a people, like Moses, who will walk in intimacy and friendship with Him to such a depth that when they stand in the place of intercession on behalf of a sinful and wicked nation, that their weak words actually move the heart of God and turn away His wrath!  He is crying out for this generation to respond to the call of Joel 2:12-14, “‘Even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.’  Rend your heart and not your garments.  Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.  Who knows?  He may turn and have pity and leave behind a blessing…”  I long to have revelation of Jesus as a Righteous Judge who will not allow injustice to go unpunished, yet who is fiercely in love with people and is more merciful than we know.  We must know this so that we will approach His throne of grace with boldness as Moses did and stand in the breach that He might have mercy on us.  The cry of repentance for exchanging our Glory and shedding innocent blood must ascend to heaven, as a people who are friends of the Judge rise up in intercession to move His heart…

“But he took note of their distress when he heard their cry; for their sake he remembered his covenant and out of his great love he relented.”  (Psalm 106:44-45)