Psalm 81

¹ Sing for joy to God our strength;
   shout aloud to the God of Jacob! ² Begin the music, strike the timbrel,
   play the melodious harp and lyre.

 ³ Sound the ram’s horn at the New Moon,
   and when the moon is full, on the day of our festival; ⁴ this is a decree for Israel,
   an ordinance of the God of Jacob. ⁵ When God went out against Egypt,
   he established it as a statute for Joseph.

   I heard an unknown voice say:

 ⁶ “I removed the burden from their shoulders;
   their hands were set free from the basket. ⁷ In your distress you called and I rescued you,
   I answered you out of a thundercloud;
   I tested you at the waters of Meribah.^[c] 8 Hear me, my people, and I will warn you—
   if you would only listen to me, Israel! ⁹ You shall have no foreign god among you;
   you shall not worship any god other than me. ¹⁰ I am the LORD your God,
   who brought you up out of Egypt.
Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.

 ¹¹ “But my people would not listen to me;
   Israel would not submit to me. ¹² So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts
   to follow their own devices.

 ¹³ “If my people would only listen to me,
   if Israel would only follow my ways, ¹⁴ how quickly I would subdue their enemies
   and turn my hand against their foes! ¹⁵ Those who hate the LORD would cringe before him,
   and their punishment would last forever. ¹⁶ But you would be fed with the finest of wheat;
   with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”

As I have been reading through Psalms certain portions have really stuck out to me and certain ones have just been a read through. Well this would be of the former fashion. 

Going back in time, when I was in Bible school one of the things that really stuck out to me was the reality of our position to God. Being more specific, how we are grafted into the tree of the Jewish line through Jesus. Well with that knowledge my whole perspective on the Old Testament changed. That makes sense though right, like if we are apart of the chosen then the Old Testament is being to and about us. That is sometimes a disheartening thing, because it can be interpreted that we will be mired in the same sin as them. I don't believe that we have to be, but that's another post for another day.

Getting to the text above. The verses that most stuck out to me were 8 - 14. I have often pondered how close we are in America to being put into that position by God. In my opinion we really don't listen to God and there are really nearly zero people that are singularly committed to the Lord. Follow that up with the fact that we are a part of the spiritual nation of Israel and well it doesn't look good for us.

But that's where God displays His grace and love. Even for the disobedience and disrespect shown Him, forgiveness isn't far off. We need to follow His way. If not we will be a new Sodom and Gomorra. In those days God told Abraham that if there were even 10 believers in the city He would spare them, but there weren't. I don't want to put numbers on it because God is the one that knows every individual persons heart fully but I fear that we are on the same course as that city only as a nation this time.

Well there's the ramblings for now.