MLJ- Don't Limit God!

MLJ- Don't Limit God! May 3, 2009

Martyn Lloyd-Jones diagnoses the problem with the people of Israel. His diagnosis also reflects on us today. He is speaking from Psalm 78:41.

The ultimate charge that he brings against them is that they were guilty of “limit[ing] the Holy One of Israel.” Now some translations translate this as, “they provoked the Holy One of Israel,” which comes to the same thing. They provoked Him in this way: In their unbelief and in their failure to receive His promises and to believe them and to act upon them, they stood between themselves and the many blessings that God had offered them and promised them so freely.

Now, that is the essence of the charge that the psalmist brings against these people. It is a very common charge in the Scriptures. In other words, the children of Israel, by their unbelief, because of their state and condition, had not been living as God intended them to live; they had not risen to the heights of their high calling. Rather they were living in a state of misery and weakness and sometimes utter dejection, though they were meant to stand out as the people of God, reflecting His everlasting and eternal glory.

David Martyn. Lloyd-Jones and Christopher. Catherwood, Seeking the Face of God : Nine Reflections on the Psalms, 1st U.S. ed. (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2005), 79.


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