The time of the writing of Psalm 74 is unknown for its contents fit into almost every situation when the people of God grieved as they saw the temple in ruins. The psalmist described the holy city and how the sin within God’s nation had brought about such dire circumstances.
He described the action of those evil men who entered that sacred temple. “The enemy has damaged everything in the sanctuary” (v. 3). “They seem like men who lift up axes among the thick trees” (v. 5). “With axes and hammers, they have set fire to Your sanctuary…They have burned up all the meeting places of God in the land” (vs. 6-9). Nothing was sacred to those who destroyed God’s temple.
Tragically, we live in a day where much the same has again happened to God’s holy temple. The Jerusalem temple was destroyed years ago, but our God still has a new temple.
Paul described what happened when the temple (the church) came into that Gentile city. “You are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord…a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Eph. 2:19-23). That Old Testament temple was about to be razed, and His New Testament temple was replacing it.
Tragically today, His new temple is suffering the fate of the old. The enemy has entered His holy temple and destroyed much of what Jesus placed there. Far too many of them have destroyed the importance of the Lord’s Supper. The early church gathered every week for the express purpose of sharing His supper (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 11:23-33). In most churches in America, there is a weekly assembly to listen to choral groups or to listen to a message by the head pastor who directs that church. “With their axes and hammers” they have destroyed the purpose how His holy temple worshipped.
Those same “axes” have minimized the baptism which unites us with the death of Jesus and His sacred blood. In its place they have produced “the sinner’s prayer,” which they affirm the moment it is said salvation comes. While the Bible says baptism saves us (1 Pet. 3:21), their axes and hammers are used to say that baptism does not save. While Jesus says, “He who believes and is baptized will be saved,” they use their axes to say, “He who believes and is NOT baptized will be saved.” They destroyed His Old Testament temple, and men are doing the same to the New Testament temple.