"O God, the nations have come into Your inheritance; Your holy tem-
ple they have defiled; they have laid Jerusalem in heaps."
In this particular Psalm (79), Asaph, the author, is bemoaning the fact that the "nations have come into [God's] inheritance." The reason? Be-
cause they came at that time to destroy the temple, and to lay waste the city of Jerusalem. But in the New Covenant, the blessed promise is that the Gentile nations would enter into Christ and His church--not to destroy; but to beautify.
Many of the other Psalms (like Ps. 22:27) actually speak of this hap-
pening. Most of us reading this devotion today are the fulfillment of this promise and prophecy. We, who used to be of the idol-worship-
ping peoples, are now the true children of Abraham, by faith in Jesus. For this blessed fact, may we forever give God praise.
[Puritan quote of the day: "Surely God deals familiarly with men; His condescensions to His own clay are astonishing." --John Flavel, in, "The Mystery of Providence"]
