Zeal for Your House – Psalm 69:4-12

When democratic Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter admitted in an interview with Playboy magazine that he had “looked on a lot of women with lust” and “committed adultery” in his heart “many times,” a firestorm of criticism broke out against him and his evangelical faith.  Reproach fell on evangelical Christians, who made such a big deal of adultery in one’s heart, though, of course, it was Christ himself who made such a big deal of it.  Carter’s opponents made much of his admission and attacked him for it, even attacking him for his zealous desire to follow Christ.

David understood this because he lived it.

More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause; mighty are those who would destroy me, those who attack me with lies.  What I did not steal must I now restore?  O God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.

Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, O Lord GOD of hosts; let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me, O God of Israel.  For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonor has covered my face.  I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons.

For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.  When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach.  When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them.  I am the talk of those who sit in the gate, and the drunkards make songs about me.  (Psalm 69:4-12 ESV)

Sometimes our prayer must be that though we have done wrong and our fellow believers are being shamed by it, we need God to deal with our enemies, who use this as an excuse to hate us even more.  And we ask God to take away the reproach that has fallen on our fellow believers because of our failures.  As we repent and demonstrate our sorrow over our guiltiness, God’s name may be reproached and we may become the talk of the town.  But this seeking of repentance is a proper zeal for God and we must humble our souls.

David’s experience is surely to be relived in the life of the Messiah, except that in Jesus’ case, he had done no wrong, but was still accused of wrongdoing by his enemies.  When he cleansed the temple by overturning the moneychangers’ tables, his disciples remembered David’s saying, “Zeal for your house has consumed me” (John 2:17).  And when Christ did not defend himself before his accusers, as Paul says, the reproaches of those who reproached God fell on Jesus (Romans 15:3).  We too may be called upon to suffer as David and Jesus did, for our zeal for the Lord, and be falsely accused and defamed.