Balm for a Troubled Soul

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Our scripture this morning is Psalm 77, which you'll find as you go down this week's bulletin on your smartphone at svrec .org.

00:13

The psalm was written by a man named Asaph. Asaph was one of the

00:19

Levites appointed by King David to lead in song for the worship of God at the temple.

00:26

We find centuries after his death in 2 Chronicles chapter 29 verse 30 that King Hezekiah during his great revival in Israel recovered the songs or the psalms of Asaph.

00:40

And inside that same passage in scripture we find that Asaph is called a seer, a word for prophet.

00:49

And so we know that the psalms have a prophetic voice and that the psalms of Asaph properly included as inspired by God.

00:59

As we read this understand that we have no clue what the trouble is that we'll read about in the first couple of verses that Asaph came across.

01:09

We don't know what chased away the light, what brought him into the spiritual darkness that we're going to speak of this morning.

01:15

But we do have in Psalm 77 something of a spiritual roadmap for ourselves when we find ourselves in this sort of a labyrinth of spiritual darkness.

01:25

And we'll see the way that Asaph leads us through this. So Psalm 77 in its entirety,

01:33

I cry aloud to God, aloud to God and he will hear me. In the day of my trouble

01:39

I seek the Lord. In the night my hand is stretched out without wearying. My soul refuses to be comforted.

01:46

When I remember God I moan. When I meditate my spirit faints. You hold my eyelids open.

01:52

I am so troubled that I cannot speak. I consider the days of old, the years long ago. I said let me remember my song in the night.

02:00

Let me meditate in my heart. Then my spirit made a diligent search. Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favorable?

02:08

Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious?

02:15

Has he in anger shut up his compassion? Selah. Then I said

02:21

I will appeal to this, to the ears of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the deeds of the

02:27

Lord. Yes I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder your work and meditate on your mighty deeds.

02:34

Your way O God is holy. What God is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders.

02:41

You have made known your might among the peoples. You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph.

02:48

Selah. When the water saw you O God, when the water saw you they were afraid.

02:54

Indeed the deep trembled. The clouds poured out water. The skies gave forth thunder.

02:59

Your arrows flashed on every side. The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind. Your lightnings lighted up the world.

03:05

The earth trembled and shook. Your way was through the sea. Your path through the great waters.

03:12

Yet your footsteps were unseen. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

03:21

May God bless the hearing of his word and now its proclamation.

03:28

Says man, this Levite Asaph, he's come into some sort of deep loss.

03:34

He's come into these dark days in his spiritual life and the closest we have of any explanation of what is going on with him is what he calls the day of my trouble and he gives no further detail.

03:48

We don't know if he's being persecuted, we don't know if he's been abandoned by his friends, we don't know if he suffered the loss of a loved one, love of a loved one, and we don't know if maybe he's struggling with some sin that he hasn't quite brought to the surface and confessed to the

04:02

Lord and known his forgiveness. And whatever led to the psalm, it seems that his remedy of prayer, at least in the first few verses, only made things worse.

04:14

That it made him want to faint as he reached out to God. And so he struggles in this prison, if you will, of spiritual darkness.

04:28

And as we go through the psalm, we can ask ourselves, have we ever been there? Have you ever been in this situation where you feel distance from God with whom you had previously felt closeness and warmth and intimacy?

04:45

Have you been in this situation where there's a chasm between you and the Lord and you can just sort of sense it, but you don't know what to do about it?

04:53

You don't know what caused it, and you're trying to work it through even as Asaph did, where he meditates in his heart, where he examines things, where he looks to God and says, why is this?

05:05

What is this struggle about? How do we get out of it? Psalm 77 does give us something of a road map.

05:14

If you this morning are one who by faith in Jesus Christ are a child of God, and yet find yourself feeling a distance from Him, that warmth, that intimacy, that closeness, that joy in the

05:28

Lord has somehow lessened, become further from you. Psalm 77 will,

05:36

Lord willing, bring us through this and show us the way Asaph dealt with it.

05:43

In the first few verses we find him meditating and groaning within himself.

05:49

That's verses one through three. Then in verses four through nine we find him as he meditates even further, and tries to find his way through this, asking these questions about God.

06:04

And then finally there's sort of a breakthrough that begins in verse 10, which we'll come to.

06:11

It's a road map that brings us from that darkness that we have, that inability to see the light of Christ, because of whatever the situation is, and we all have different situations, and bring us finally to the place where once again we can know that intimacy, and that closeness, and that warmth with God.

06:33

He begins with the bewilderment. He begins with bewilderment in the first few verses.

06:39

I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and He will hear me. In the day of my trouble I seek the

06:45

Lord. In the night my hand is stretched out without wearying. My soul refuses to be comforted.

06:51

When I remember God, I moan. When I meditate, my spirit faints. Selah. You see, as he thinks about God, as he remembers what it is to be close to God, it just seems to make things worse for him.

07:08

As he goes to the Lord, he has his hand stretched out without wearying.

07:14

He's reaching out towards heaven. He's trying to worship God, and he finds only that his meditations cause him to moan from deep within, that his spirit is fainting away.

07:31

The very thought of God just brings more distress. If God is able to deliver me as He surely is, why hasn't

07:40

He? If God has delivered others as He surely has, why has He not delivered me? I mean, ought not these kind of thoughts bring us comfort?

07:48

And yet he says, my soul refuses to be comforted. He's troubled by his thoughts.

08:01

He says, I'm so troubled that I cannot speak. You know, he's troubled the way

08:07

Pharaoh was in his dreams. You remember the dreams that led to the promotion of Joseph, when

08:13

Joseph was the only one who could interpret the dreams? It's that sort of a troubling. It's troubling the way

08:19

Nebuchadnezzar was troubled by his dreams, which only Daniel could interpret. And in both cases, the relief of that trouble was so beneficial to these kings that in turn,

08:29

Joseph and then Daniel were promoted to be the second in those kingdoms. They were troubled this way.

08:35

Daniel chapter 2 verse 3 says that sleep abandoned

08:41

King Nebuchadnezzar's eyes. It's not that sudden alarming thought that jolts you out of his sleep.

08:47

This is more of an earthquake starting miles below the surface and rumbling. So as you're walking along, you can just feel a little bit of a shake, but not enough to stop you in your path until a week or a month later.

09:00

All of a sudden there's a major earthquake, and you look back and you say, oh, I remember when

09:05

I got that first hint of it. That's what that slight little shaking was, and that's sort of what is happening here.

09:11

Not that sudden alarming thought that jolts you awake, but deep down, this shaking, this growling, if you will.

09:20

It's something that starts to keep you awake, even if you don't know what it is, until it bursts forth and then does its damage.

09:27

And then you look back and you say, well, I could have guessed. When the earthquake comes, you say, well,

09:33

I did have that hint all those days or weeks or months ago. And sort of like this, as he has this deep down troubling within his spirit that he can't quite articulate, he says,

09:48

I can't even speak. When I remember God, when I meditate, my spirit faints.

09:55

I'm so troubled that I cannot speak. I had a friend who used to say I'm speechless, and then he would add to that,

10:01

I am without words. Asaph is in that sort of a condition. Now on the plus side, what do we find here?

10:10

We find him seeking God. We find him by faith, believing that God is a God who hears.

10:16

Of course, without faith is impossible. Please, God, for those who would approach God must believe what? That he is, and Asaph is in this situation, as we are when we struggle with our own spiritual morass, believing that God is and that God does hear us.

10:34

The impatience comes from God not answering or seeming to not answer. In any case,

10:42

Asaph is affirming that God is a living God, that God is a God who cares. God is a God who listens.

10:48

God is a God who acts upon what he hears, and he acts in perfect accord with his nature. So as we look at this first part of the struggle that Asaph is having, a struggle that I would guess that all of us have had at different times, we find positively that Asaph is trusting what

11:08

Jeremiah preached when he said, you will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all your heart.

11:15

What is Asaph doing? Well, he's meditating in his heart. His spirit is engaged, and this sort of goes on and on.

11:23

He won't give up. He's like Jacob who grasped the angel's ankle and wouldn't let him go until he received a blessing, and it's as if the angel couldn't return to heaven to his duties without touching his hip and forcing him to let go.

11:38

This is to Asaph's credit, as he continually reaches his hand up to God, as he continually meditates within his spirit.

11:48

And brethren, when we have this distance from a God with whom we were once close, we must be as persistent.

12:00

We cannot give up the promise of the Scripture. James says, is drawn near to God and he will draw near to you, but he doesn't tell us how long that takes, does he?

12:14

He says, you draw near to God and God will draw near to you. So positively, on the plus side for Asaph, this is his confidence, drawing near to God, knowing

12:27

God will draw near to him. Now it would be impossible, wouldn't it, to continually raise your hand to heaven, to continually pray to God, to call out to him with my voice, calling out to him over and over, if we didn't think that he heard us and would indeed answer.

12:46

That's on the positive side of this process that Asaph begins for us. On the negative side,

12:53

I would say he's dealing with his trouble on his own. He's seeking no help.

12:58

His hand is stretched out toward heaven. He's holding it there as long, so long it seems like a dead weight, but he refuses to be comforted.

13:05

Now that phrase really caught my eye. I refuse to be comforted. Well, he must mean that he refuses to be comforted from men.

13:20

He's seeking it from God alone, and that sounds good. That sounds very holy and sort of sanctified, and I wonder how often we do the same sort of thing.

13:30

When a brother or sister perceives that we have an Asaph syndrome happening to us and offers help, have you ever said or someone ever said to you something like, well, you know,

13:41

I'm going to work this out. This is between God and me. I'm going to go to Jesus on my own. Thank you very much for the offer, but I'm going to do this my way.

13:54

He refuses to be comforted. He removes himself from the help that the Lord, who

14:00

Asaph seems to seek, the Jesus who we look to in these times, the help that he has ordained as the means of grace.

14:07

He's removed himself from that. My view of those first few verses, he's being very individualistic here, and not seeking any counsel or advice.

14:18

He's on his own, meditating within his heart, crying aloud to God.

14:24

Let me read the verbs again. He will hear me in the day of my trouble I seek, in the night my hand is stretched, but my soul refuses to be comforted.

14:32

I remember God. I moan when I meditate. My spirit faints. So what's happening here?

14:41

All on his own, trying it his way. You're in Charles Dickens' bleak house.

14:49

There is a character named John Jarndus, if I pronounce that correctly, and he was possibly the best character in the book, of high moral character.

15:01

He was a wealthy man. He was an ethical man. He wanted to do good to others. He was just the good guy in this book.

15:09

He had a place in his home, a room he called the growlery, like gallery, but growlery, so growlery.

15:19

Try to say that five times. I tried it twice, and my tongue has already gotten thick, but he had the growlery, and that's where he went there to growl within himself, to work things out.

15:32

And he's such a positive man, such a good man, that one of the visitors of the house, when she found out what it is, said, well, you must not go there very often, because you are always so positive.

15:46

But this is sort of where Asaph was, sort of in a growlery, on his own, the doors closed, working it out himself.

15:55

And I bring this up, and I bring this illustration in, because I think this is where we too often go when we find ourselves in this situation.

16:03

We too often go into our own personal growlery. We close the doors, and we decline the help of others.

16:10

We refuse to be comforted. Perhaps it's because we cannot confess what we know to have caused this.

16:22

Perhaps we need to go to James 5 .16, and confess your sins to one another, and there find comfort, and edification, and help, and someone who will take you out of your growlery, and bring you to prayer, remind you that we confess our sins.

16:39

He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But we too often stay in that room.

16:49

We too often stay with Asaph in his own personal growlery, if you will. Just me and the

16:54

Lord. Me growling, the Lord not answering. Me musing, the Lord silent. Me pouring my heart out, the

17:00

Lord seeming to ignore my every supplication. Have you ever been there?

17:06

Have you ever been in a situation where you have this trouble in your spirit from deep down within?

17:14

You can't work it out. You go to God in prayer. You have your hand raised to heaven. You're not wearying.

17:19

You're doing the things that the Bible would say. You're praying without ceasing, and yet finding no comfort, finding no answer, finding no resolution.

17:38

He goes on, you hold my eyelids open. He's speaking to God here. I'm so troubled that I cannot speak.

17:44

I consider the days of old, the years long ago. I said let me remember my song in the night. Let me meditate in my heart.

17:51

Then my spirit made a diligent search. We'll stop there for just a moment. Who's holding his eyelids open?

17:58

He's getting no rest. He's crying aloud. This is a day and night issue with him.

18:05

You hold my eyelids open. The word for eyelids there is very interesting. It's related to the

18:10

Hebrew word for to guard something. So it's God who's holding the guardian of his eyes, his eyelids open.

18:20

And this is a mercy of God, is it not? You know when we're disturbed in our spirit like this, when we have this distance from God, we just want it to end.

18:32

We just want to be able to sleep well, to wake up in the morning, and get on about our business.

18:39

We would say something like, Lord, right now what I need is a good night's sleep. I'll deal with things tomorrow.

18:45

And then tomorrow comes by, comes around, and some tyrannical need exercises its dominance, and we don't deal with it.

18:55

We'll deal with that whatever it is on another time. We go off to bed again, because we've got to take care of kids, and we've got to get to our jobs, and we have to do these things that are needful now.

19:07

So again we say, well, okay, Lord, you know, I know I'm stirred up in my spirit, and I know I'm growing further from You, and becoming colder about the things of Christ.

19:16

But you know, I've got a big day tomorrow. I have appointments to keep.

19:22

So just a good night's sleep tonight, and I'll deal with this, and you see where this goes.

19:29

And next thing you know, we've taken this trouble, and we've blocked it off. We've compartmentalized it.

19:34

We've put it on a shelf until we forget about it, and yet the issue is still there.

19:42

And having not dealt with that issue, that progress in edification in Christ is denied us.

19:49

We've denied it ourselves. He says, you are keeping my eyelids open.

19:59

The Lord, for the sufferer's own good, is guarding him from shutting out the turmoil. Now we don't like to have this turmoil, do we?

20:08

We don't like to have these issues come up and be unresolved. It makes us uncomfortable.

20:14

It makes us lose sleep. It distracts us. But it is God's mercy that does this.

20:22

Psalm 27 says, so he gives his beloved sleep. I would argue from Psalm 77, he gives his beloved not sleep.

20:31

He keeps you awake because he knows what is good for you. He keeps you awake so you will deal with whatever the issue is that has stirred your spirit the way it's been stirred.

20:41

This is a mercy of God. This is something that only the believer in Christ Jesus can go through. This suffering, this misery, this hard time.

20:51

Why is that? Because by faith in Christ and repentance toward God, you know

20:59

God. Because if you are a child of Christ, having repented of your sin, you have the

21:05

Holy Spirit within you. You know what it is to be close to God. And when your nearness to him seems to widen, you miss something because you once knew it.

21:18

For those who believe not in the Lord Jesus Christ, they have no relationship with God. If you do not have faith in the

21:26

Lord Jesus Christ, if you have not repented of your sin and come to God in Christ's name, you don't have that sort of a relationship with God to miss in the first place.

21:37

If you are a believer in God, don't deny this difficulty to yourself.

21:44

Because only you as a believer in Christ can miss that relationship with God. And only you as a believer in Christ can work things out with the

21:53

Holy Spirit within and come to a better place. Turmoil is a blessing because it forces you to continue the search for relief, to find

22:04

God's answer to the relief. It keeps the eyelids open.

22:14

This is his fault, isn't it? Well, it's not really his fault. It's his mercy. But often we look at something that we think, well, it would have been better if the

22:24

Lord hadn't revealed himself, because then I could remain satisfied with the trifles of this world. If he had not caused his glory to pass by Moses, then maybe he'd have been satisfied to move ahead without his presence.

22:37

No, we wouldn't think that way, would we? No, a turmoil of spirit is to our benefit if it comes from the absence of something precious, which is your previously known intimacy with God.

22:58

So Asaph goes on. He's trying to find his way out of this. We find ourselves in that growlery, working it out ourselves.

23:11

Asaph says in verse six, let me remember my song in the night.

23:18

Let me meditate in my heart that my spirit made a diligent search. He's remembering what it was like to be close to God.

23:33

He's searching within to bring back that flavor so that he can remember it once again and go back to it and have it again.

23:44

He's meditating in his heart, and he's making this diligent search. And I want you to see that once again he's on his own.

23:54

He doesn't seem to be seeking any counsel. He's looking within his own heart. He's remembering his own personal history.

24:00

He's wondering what went wrong, and he asks these questions in verses seven through nine. Now it's gonna be six individual questions, but they're really three questions in pairs.

24:11

Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love forever ceased?

24:17

Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?

24:25

Selah. It's questions like this that make some commentators split over whether this is an individual lament or complaint or a corporate lament or complaint.

24:37

Is Asaph dealing with something personal, something within himself, that this is an individual lament?

24:44

Or is he lamenting because of Israel's situation, Israel's condition? There are many opinions back and forth and supporting their position different ways.

24:56

I would take this still as an individual lament that Asaph is dealing with this personally.

25:03

Israel's history is going to come into play here, but he's asking these questions after having made this diligent search.

25:11

Remember what Jeremiah said, you will seek me and you'll find me when you seek me with all your heart. Here he is seeking, and what does he do?

25:18

He asks these questions. Will the Lord spurn forever? Has his steadfast love ceased forever?

25:24

Has he forgotten to be gracious? What are these questions? Have you ever asked a question like that of God?

25:30

These questions are questioning the very nature of God. God says through the prophet

25:37

Isaiah that he can no more forget his children than a nursing mother could forget her child.

25:44

Will the Lord spurn forever? He's asking has God changed? Has his steadfast love forever ceased?

25:54

Praise the Lord for his steadfast love endures forever, says the psalmist over and over again.

26:02

The apostle John says God is love. Musing within his own spirit, remembering things from his own perspective leads him to questioning the very nature of God.

26:17

And right here we could stop and we could tell ourselves, we can ask ourselves what happens when we deal with these things alone, when we don't go to a brother or sister, a friend or a pastor.

26:29

We end up questioning God. We end up thinking that this is just me. God has rejected me.

26:35

The Jesus who said I will never leave you or forsake you. The Christ who said my father is greater than all and no one is able to snatch you out of my father's hand.

26:44

That must be a promise for someone else. God has spurned forever. God for me has changed his very nature and that's why he's left me in this place.

27:01

This is as to say that it's God's fault and that God has for me become a different kind of God.

27:18

He knows here that the Lord is in the third person. The doubts being spoken by the psalmist are into his own soul.

27:27

He's speaking of the Lord as if the Lord is a distance and distance is what the problem with this psalm is all about in the first place.

27:34

And what does he need? He needs a friend here to say these same things too. How often do we need a friend to steer us back on the right course?

27:44

To tell us no, you've got God all wrong. You are misconstruing what the

27:49

Bible says about Jesus Christ. He can't forget forever. God never would let his love cease and so forth.

28:01

So how do we return to spiritual sanity? How do we come out of this morass that we get ourselves into where we're growling within ourselves and seeking no help and refusing to be comforted?

28:16

That's where he comes beginning in verse 10. Here's how we return. We ponder anew what God has done.

28:22

He says in verse 10, I will appeal to this to the years of the right hand of the most high. I will remember the deeds of the

28:29

Lord. Yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work and meditate on your mighty deeds.

28:35

Do you see the transition? Do you see the transition? He is remembering what

28:41

God has actually done in history. Is he reading Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, first and second

28:50

Samuel and so forth? He's remembering God's wonders of old. What he's going to come to ultimately and most specifically is the

28:58

Exodus. But remembering God's works, remember what God has done. This is what begins to bring him out of it.

29:05

This is what begins to take us away from a self -focus and where we need to be in order to come out of this spiritual darkness that we can get ourselves into, a

29:14

Christ -centered focus, a God focus. Remembering what

29:23

God has done, remembering the mighty deeds that are recorded in Scripture, reading the

29:28

Gospels again and again to see the goodness and the mercy and the kindness of the

29:34

Lord Jesus Christ. And what does this lead to?

29:41

It leads to remembering the very nature of God. If we find ourselves questioning, is

29:48

God going to spurn forever? Has his steadfast love ceased forever? These things that question the very being of God.

29:57

When we look to the Scripture and remember the works that God has actually done in time and space, we finally come to the breakthrough, which is verse 13.

30:08

Your way, O God, is holy. Now stop. What is

30:13

God's most core attribute? His holiness. What does

30:19

God most jealously guard? His holiness, His otherness,

30:26

His separateness from all that is created. Your way, O God, is holy.

30:35

If it is God holding your eyelids open, do not resist it.

30:40

Because His way is holy. It's good. It's righteous. It's just.

30:46

It's all the things that holiness would imply. Your way, O God, is holy. This is the breakthrough.

30:52

What God is a great, what God is great like our God? What God is great like our

30:58

God? Did you see the change in the pronoun? Our God.

31:07

What God is great like our God? What God is great like our Christ Jesus? What God is great who sent

31:15

His only begotten Son, so whoever should believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life?

31:21

What God is great like that? Who is like our Christ? This is where our mind has to go.

31:27

To remember that very nature of God, His holiness. Your way, O God, is holy, which means all

31:33

His works are holy. Your way, O God, is holy, which means His word is holy. Your way,

31:39

O God, is holy. Christ Jesus is called the Holy One of God.

31:47

In the prophet Isaiah, He's called the Holy One of Israel. And now we're ready to come out of this spiritual malaise in which we get ourselves.

31:59

What is the trouble? Perhaps it's relational, economic, spiritual, a sin we have not confessed, a relationship that we need to repair with someone else.

32:16

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus speaks that the man who brings his gift to the altar and has something against his brother, leave your gift and go be reconciled.

32:24

Then in Mark's Gospel, the man who remembers somebody has something against him, stop praying, go be reconciled.

32:32

Your way, O God, is holy. And perhaps it's something like that that has caused God to keep your eyelids open.

32:38

He stirred your spirit. He's not allowed you rest until you come to this conclusion, which is

32:44

His. We need to trust that as we go to God, He will reveal.

32:49

He will show us by His providence. He will bring us to that place. Why and how do we get there?

32:58

Not by looking within ourselves, not by putting God in our box, not by seeing

33:03

Him from our perspective, but from His perspective. When the scripture says, Your way, O God, is holy and there is no

33:09

God who is great like our God. Verse 14, You are the God who works wonders. You have made known

33:15

Your might among the peoples. You remember the grand sweep of what God has done.

33:21

You remember the things that we read about in Scripture. We could go to Galatians 2 20, where the

33:29

Apostle Paul speaks of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me, the

33:35

God who works wonders. Like sending His Son, the

33:41

Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The God who works wonders, who raised

33:46

His Son Jesus Christ from the dead after He died for your sins. You are the

33:52

God who works wonders. You have made known Your might among the peoples. Remember the grand sweep of biblical history.

34:01

Remember what God has done for me. For you personally. That job that you got.

34:09

That education you received. That spouse who you were able to marry. A particular victory over a particular besetting sin.

34:19

And maybe you rescued from the worst consequences of a sin or a sinful pattern. Your way,

34:25

O God, is holy. This is the breakthrough point. This is when we put God into the scriptural perspective.

34:36

You with Your arm redeemed Your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph. Say, La. He goes on,

34:44

When the waters saw You, O God, when the waters saw You, they were afraid. Indeed, the deep trembled. The clouds poured out water.

34:51

The skies gave forth thunder. Your arrows flashed on every side. The crash of the thunder was in the whirlwind.

34:57

Your lightnings lighted up the world. The earth trembled and shook. Your way was through the sea. Your path through the great waters.

35:03

Yet Your footprints were unseen. What is He speaking of there? He's speaking of His history with God's people.

35:13

This is the Exodus. When the waters saw You, O God, when the waters saw You, they were afraid. Well, waters can't really be afraid, can they?

35:21

What does He mean here? That the waters obeyed the voice of God. This is the Red Sea parting so that the children of Israel could walk through.

35:28

When the waters saw You, O God, they were afraid. This is Jesus walking out on the water and saying to the storm,

35:35

Be still. And the waters were afraid to give one more drop of water into the apostle's boat.

35:47

Remember how God has redeemed

35:52

His people. The Exodus that is referred to here in these verses, which is only a picture of the

36:00

Exodus that Jesus Christ accomplished on our behalf, where the

36:06

Israelites went through the Red Sea, and it crashed down again over Pharaoh's army.

36:13

And Moses is able to say, these Egyptians you see now, you will never see again. These are the great works of God.

36:22

What great works of God do we have to look back on? If we say, Your way, O God, is holy. We know it's

36:28

He who held our eyes open. We know it's He who gave us the spiritual turmoil about the resurrection of the

36:38

Lord Jesus Christ. What about that great work by which we know that our salvation is secure?

36:51

I think the reason He goes to the Exodus here is because there's this constant battle between order and chaos.

37:02

The order of God, the order of the Scriptures. God is not a

37:10

God of disorder, but of order. Not a God of confusion, but of decency and orderliness.

37:19

The chaos that we can feel in our souls when we're growling within ourselves is something we need to be able to come out of.

37:28

We need to be able to follow this road map and go from growling within ourself to remembering

37:34

God within our own perspective, and finally saying His way is holy, and remembering the works that He has done, and all

37:39

His works are consistent with His nature. And He will bring us out of the spiritual morass that we get ourselves into.

37:48

God is able to subdue the chaos in our soul. Our deepest yearnings that cause so much distress when they are left naked of any satisfaction bring such soul turmoil as to make you, even a longtime believer, even a novice

38:02

Christian, cry out in this kind of anguish. But we need to take heart here, because if you're in this situation, if you feel this kind of anguish of soul, this kind of confusion, this kind of angst because of the distance you feel from God, know that you feel that because you have experienced the closeness of God, and you want back something that is good.

38:33

Jesus promised to never leave or forsake His people. Our great and good

38:38

Shepherd gave us promises that no one is able to snatch you from the Father's hands, and so it is for you who has wandered from Him, you who feel that distance from Him.

38:52

Do you miss Him? Praise God, because He's worth missing. Are you troubled in the night?

39:02

Praise God, and may we never sleep again until we do business with the

39:09

Lord Jesus Christ and resolve whatever this issue is that is stirring up our spirits.

39:20

You miss Him because you know Him. Missing Him is a sign that you have a true and saving faith.

39:27

That's why your heart breaks to be far from Him, and to feel far from His presence. The psalm ends with verse 20, you led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

39:45

God takes care of His people, and as hard as it may be to go through this sort of a spiritual discipline,

39:54

God is leading you by the hand of Christ. Asaph refused to be comforted until he remembered

40:14

God's holiness, your way O God is holy, and from there he remembered

40:21

God's great acts of redemption for a nation. Yes, for a nation, but for you the

40:29

Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me. If you have this sort of a spiritual darkness around you now, and you're so troubled that you cannot speak, and all you can call it is the day of my trouble, and you can give no more explanation to it, take heart, because the very fact that you're wrestling with it is a sign that you do have a true and saving faith in Christ Jesus.

40:58

And the very fact that you're wrestling with it, with a true and faithful and loving

41:04

God, has to give you hope that He will bring you through. I don't know what the issue would be.

41:12

I don't even know if you're struggling in any way similar to what Asaph describes here.

41:18

And if you are, I don't know if it's a dilemma over work or economics, whether it's a spiritual struggle over sin.

41:27

I do know that if you begin at verse 13, or if you take yourself out of the growlery, and just jump to 13, and say well if God's ways are holy,

41:40

I'm going to stop and think on this. And then remember the nature of God, and all

41:46

He's done for you, that He will finally bring you through.

41:55

So don't resist, don't deny, and don't go so long that you just get frustrated.

42:07

You just decide that it wasn't worth it in the first place, and you set the trouble on the on the shelf, and forget it.

42:14

Because God is doing this for your good. It's He keeping your eyelids open, and it's He who will bring you through.

42:20

Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You again for Jesus Christ.

42:27

We thank You for the power of Your Spirit, and for just the great and sure promises of Your Word, and for knowing,

42:34

Lord, that as we seek You, we will find You. And it is we who have changed, and not

42:41

You. That You are there, that Your loving -kindness has never ended. Father, that Your nature has not changed.

42:49

So I pray that as we draw near to You, You, Father, will continue to draw near to us. For we ask it in Jesus' name.