Aug. 7, 2016 Crying out to God by Pastor Josh Sheldon

Years ago, when I was first coming to this church under Pastor George, I was teaching

Sunday school in the back room, and I had to give a verbal warning to a young lad in a class,

Jesse Volkenauer, one of our students, of course. And what he had done that caused me to give him the warning wasn't a terrible thing, and the sting of my correction,

I think, was meet with the crime, only just severe enough that I had to say something to correct it.

Before I could continue, though, the gospel lesson that we were doing that morning, Jesse's face started to crumble.

And every feature started to show what was stirring in his spirit, and he grimaced trying to hold back tears, and he lost the battle against the tears.

And he finally burst out with this, he said, this is just about the worstest day ever in my whole life, meaning because he had had that one rebuke from the

Sunday school teacher. Now it may well have been his worstest day ever, he was only about seven years old, and I'm sure since then he may have had many opportunities to have much worse days than that one turned out to be.

But the thing about kids is that their perspective is so short. They just haven't been around long enough to know what was meant by this too shall pass.

When they're in trouble, they're afraid it'll never end, and from their limited viewpoint, in a way it never will end.

It's just going to go on in terms of forever because they have so little perspective to look back on.

They don't have the context of life the way we adults do. When they're in trouble, it's just never ending, and from their limited viewpoint, in a way that's true.

They've not seen their misbehavior punished and their parents' love restored so many times as to build up confidence in the pattern and the ebb and the flow of things.

Forever for them is defined by just not knowing when the anger will subside and the relationship made whole again.

We adults, I think, can often relate to Jesse's terror that his teacher's anger would never end.

Not ever. Not never ever. And of course, with us, it's not because we lack experience.

Most of us have seen enough of life that we know these things do pass. There is that ebb. There is that flow to emotions and the pattern of relationships.

We're generally confident that our husband will apologize and make it right in the morning. We've seen our wives mull it over and realize that they overreacted and everything gets better the next day.

But at times, we can feel like Jesse did, can't we? At times, it is so severe that we feel like,

Jesse, this is just about the worstest day ever in my whole life and it's never going to end no matter what.

When is he going to forgive me? When will she accept my remorse? The stronger our attachment, you see, to the party, to the other one, the stronger that bond is, the deeper our love might be, the more time seems to exaggerate and multiply itself so that an hour seems like a day, a day becomes a lifetime.

You see, it's love's depth that makes time stretch into this seeming eternity. We just have to have joy restored because we miss it so much.

Because we remember what we had and we can't stand it when that is corrupted or broken or even lessened, much less to say taken away completely.

And so it was for one of our biblical authors this morning, a man named Asaph, the author of the text for this morning,

Psalm 77. It's a psalm of lament, it's a psalm of complaint. As with our last two psalms, last week and the week before,

Psalms 39 and 62, there's no specific historic incident or context cited.

We don't know exactly what happened. We have some clues what he's wrestling with, but we can't say specifically it was this.

We can't look at 2 Samuel and pull out a paragraph and say, here's what David or Asaph or whoever was struggling against at this time.

It's just not that specific. And like those last two psalms, 39 and 62, the last two weeks, this one was arranged by a man named

Jejuthon, one of the choir masters appointed by David. And here in this psalm,

Asaph struggles with God who has grown distant from him. There's something wrong with the relationship between him and God.

And the psalm was written about his struggle to see that relationship restored. The stirring of his spirit, that is because he can't stand to not be close to God, to have this vibrant relationship he had had before.

He's trying to draw near to God in the psalm, but there's been no movement, at least none that he can perceive, of the divine towards him.

So in desperation, he falls back on what he has left, which is his memories. And so with that short introduction, let us look through this psalm.

We'll look through it in sequence. Here, if you'll open your Bibles to Psalm 77, page 488 in your

Black Pew Bible, if you're following along in those, it's to the choir master.

According to Jejuthon, a psalm of Asaph, it says,

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

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

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

I am so troubled that I cannot speak. At night, his hands are stretched up towards God.

He's in a posture of prayer, a posture of submission before God, and his hands are stretched out to God in prayer, in supplication to him without wearing, without tiring.

It goes on and on. He can't stop praying to God. His soul refuses to be comforted.

He's not looking to self -help books. He doesn't have Job's comforters coming and trying to find out what his problem was.

He doesn't have people coming to him and trying to make it easy, trying to say, oh, just get over it, or you'll feel better in the morning.

He refuses false comfort. He refuses anything that's just a veneer, a facile type of thing.

His spirit is fainting within him. He's becoming feeble. When he thinks of God, he's moaning.

Literally, he's growling. He's murmuring deep within himself. He's saying, what gives here?

Why doesn't God answer? What about my never -ending prayers? I know God can answer, and yet he doesn't.

He refuses comfort. He doesn't mean God's comfort. He's after God's comfort. He refuses man's comfort.

He's declining false comfort. If Job's comforters had come to him, he would have said, away with you, those who would minimize his anguish.

I'm distant from God. How can you treat us so small? Don't you know who it is that I'm trying to reattach to, as it were?

And he goes on and on, and it only gets worse, doesn't it? He says, you hold my eyelids open as God won't even let him sleep.

I'm so troubled I can't even speak. No sleep. Can't speak. He reminds me of Hannah at the temple praying for children, so absorbed in her prayer that the high priest thought she was drunk.

Do you remember this? And she answers him back. No, my Lord, I'm a woman troubled in spirit.

I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I've been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I've been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation.

Does this not sound like Asaph? He's remembering

God. He's appealing to a God who can help. And I think we all do this, don't we?

We call upon the God of all power, knowing that with God nothing shall be impossible.

Knowing that God is powerful, that by the power of his word he spoke everything into existence. That which was not became that which is.

We appeal to a God of miracles. Who for Israel's sake held the earth still so they could finish their battle against the

Amalekites. The God who gave water from the rock. The God whose angel pushed away the stone.

Who raised up Jesus from the dead. We pray to a God who can do anything.

And then what Asaph is doing, he's appealing to a God who can. A God with whom nothing shall be impossible.

We go to God armed with verses like Romans 8 .28. For those who love God, all things work together for good.

Have we been here before? Where we are in distress because of our relationship with God.

And the conflicts that have seemed to have shattered that relationship, if not corrupted it.

It's a hard place to be. And it's because, though, of something good that God is doing that we get so stirred up, is it not?

It's because of the beauty of the relationship that we have with God by faith in Jesus Christ that it hurts so badly when something has gone wrong.

When we don't feel that closeness as when we first got saved. Do you remember what that was like?

When you, like the little child that Jesus called to him and said, let the children come unto me, he sets them on his lap and blesses him.

Wide -eyed, innocent child, completely dependent, completely trusting. And how closely bonded and knit you felt to Christ by the

Spirit of God. And we grow older and things happen. We make compromises and we end up somewhat like Asaph.

There could be two different things happening here at the same time within him. It could be his own guilt, his own personal knowledge of what he has done to corrupt this relationship.

I think more importantly, though, it's God and his mercy stirring us up. Stirring us up in this way, making us groan and growl in our spirit, as I said earlier, so that we might seek after him again.

First John 1 -9, we might repent and be restored to all righteousness. When he remembers

God, he's appealing to this God who can do anything, and he's starting out okay, isn't he?

He's starting out in what sounds like a good way. He's crying aloud to God, certain that his prayer will have an audience.

He's seeking the Lord all night, praying with his arms outstretched. In a position of prayer, a position of dependence, yet God allows him to go on and on in this miserable condition.

We need to stop and ask why. Why would God do this? He's definitely attributed it to God.

He says, you are the one holding my eyelids open, and if that, then the rest of this is attributed also to God.

Why would he do this? Why would he keep us from sleep, knowing how much we need to rest?

He says in Psalm 127, he gives his beloved sleep. Why would he allow us to groan and growl so much that we can barely even speak?

What he wants, though, what Asaph wants, and it's what we so often want, even when we quote that verse like Romans 8, 28, all things working together for good for those who love

God and are called according to his purpose. When do we cite that? It's when things are going wrong, things we don't understand, and we cite that in a way to convince ourselves that this is going to be for my good.

And what he wants here is his circumstance to change. And unlike the

Psalms that we did the last couple of weeks, we don't have this theological excursus about man's impermanence as opposed to God's eternality.

See, Asaph is in a dark eternity right here, right now. He's with a little

Jesse in Sunday school. Just get corrected once, and it's just the worstest day of my whole life, and it's never ever going to end, and I don't care what you say.

I'm going to be miserable forever. That's the seven -year -old perspective. But this could be like that for we who've walked with Christ for a long time, too.

And again, it's that very sweetness of the relationship that we know we can have with God through Christ that makes it so miserable when that relationship is not what it was.

God just seems to let him wallow in his misery. Have you been here before? Are you there now?

Are you all stirred up and begging God in prayer to act? Are you sleepless? Are you speechless?

It's God who's shaking you off your comfortable moorings. It's God who's doing this work.

Don't ignore that pain in your soul. Now understand something here. If man can suppress the truth of God that's painted on the canvas of nature, as Romans 1 18 says, that men suppress the truth.

I love R .C. Sproul's word picture of this. I would never would have thought of this myself. It's the best one

I've heard. What does it mean to suppress the truth? He likens it to a man holding down a spring and pushing it further and further.

And the more you suppress truth, the more truth you have to suppress. So you push it down more. And it's harder and harder to hold it down.

And you get to a point where you can't even let go and stop holding it down because it'll come back up and destroy you.

Listen, if God, if men can suppress God's truth like that, then we, when we're stirred up, when we're in Asaph's position, we can suppress the truth that is

God trying to bring us back to him. We need to not ignore that misery, as it were, in our spirit.

Because you ignore God now and you become accustomed to this autonomy. You become independent.

You pull away from God. You forget the joy of your salvation. And it becomes further and further and more distant from you.

Just that joy, just that emotional attachment back to God. You'll soon join the heathen. You'll be asking cynically whether God is even able to know what you do or don't do.

As God through nature gives undeniable testimony that he is, so also he may be speaking to your soul in your current disturbance.

If you are stirred up about something like this, if your relationship with God is not as vital, as energized as it had been, this is exactly what it could be.

Are your eyelids forced open? Attribute it to him. Don't take the sleep aid. Ignore those sheep that you want to count.

Because it may only obscure what God by his spirit might be saying to you. In fact, rejoice because he's proving to you that he is.

That his spirit is in you. If we can grieve the Holy Spirit, certainly the

Holy Spirit can grieve us. Certainly he can stir us up.

For Asaph, just remembering God has failed to bring him relief. But that may be for a reason that's not too hard to figure out.

It may be because the focus has been more on himself than on God. He's remembering

God, but he's remembering a God who can. If he remembered God earlier, now he falls back on memory of another sort.

Because of the first four verses, he's remembering God and what it was like to be with him.

Now in verses five through nine, take a look there. He says,

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 that my spirit made a diligent search.

And then he asks these questions. This diligent search he's making. Will the

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

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

Now think about this a moment. The days of old, the years gone by, my song in the night.

He's saying, I've moaned and I've growled. I've stayed up for the whole evening. I'm so disturbed,

I can't speak. And this just isn't working. And so maybe I need to go to another tonic. Find another balm that will help me.

So he sets his mind to what was rather than what is.

Do you just see that? He's remembering the past. Will those better times never return?

It's sort of a little Jesse's question in Sunday school. If today's the worstest day ever in my whole life, what will tomorrow be like?

Is it gonna be even worster? But the preacher in Ecclesiastes 7 .10,

he addresses this. When we look back and ignore what is and looking back to what was, he says, say not, why were the former days better than these?

For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. You see, scripture forces us to deal with things as they are.

It forces us to deal with reality. What was so good about the former days? Was it a peaceful spirit?

Maybe that was because God's spirit hadn't taken up residence in years yet. Maybe it's because you weren't yet even disturbed or aware of sin.

You hadn't given any serious thought to Jesus Christ and the cross where he bore your sins.

Maybe that's why your spirit was not disturbed and stirred up. You might have had peace, but from whom?

With whom? Peace from yourself, peace with yourself, not peace with God.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. There's no peace with God without faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross. Knowledge of sin can be terribly disturbing, but it's a good disturbance if it brings you to repentance towards God, if it brings you to faith in Jesus Christ.

Look at those questions again. They say, will the torture never end? Will he spurn forever?

Never again be favorable. Is his love or his mercy forever gone? Are his promises now ended?

Has he forgotten that he is a gracious God is another way to say it. Has he forgotten to be gracious?

Has he forgotten that he even is gracious? Why is he leaving me like this? But to borrow from Paul, the church must look back on these questions and answer them and say, may it never be.

It can't be that God has forgotten any of these things. He's questioning God's nature here. Has God forgotten mercy?

Has God forgotten grace? Has God forgotten about salvation? They feel like that as we struggle, as we pray, as we moan, as we continue in this dark eternity, this dark night of that corrupted relationship that we have with him sometimes.

But what he's wondering here is if God has changed. He's forgotten Malachi 3 .6,

I, the Lord, do not change. He's forgotten what the psalmist said, forever, O Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens.

You see, what's at stake here is God's nature. What is being questioned here is his faithfulness to his own word.

And here is the risk we take when we look to the things of this world with a greater fixation than things above where Christ is.

This is the risk we take when we look more to our circumstances than we look to our sovereign

God. We make ourselves and our troubles the center of attention.

We essentially are removing God. We're saying that my woes are so woeful, they're so hard to bear that if God doesn't do something now, if he doesn't work immediately, well, maybe he's not

God at all. Maybe I have cause to look at the scripture and say, well, he says he's merciful and gracious, but I'm not seeing it.

And therefore, maybe we need to understand that God is not to be extorted into action.

You know, if we stamp our feet, if we shake our fists saying, Lord, if you don't do thus and such, then I'll start questioning who you really are.

Well, that's very dangerous ground for us to go to. What Asaph is putting at hazard here is whether the

Lord actually even keeps his word. Psalm 105 says he remembers his covenant forever, the word that he commanded for a thousand generations.

And to the church, it says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Our personal struggles don't change that one little bit, no matter how worst this day ever we might be feeling.

One man wrote, questions are comfortless things. They arise from an unsettled mind. They settle in nothing.

Hankering after the past is no remedy for the present and no recipe for the future.

So have we been there? Can we relate to Asaph? We haven't any idea what exactly happened.

We only have the result of it in his own spirit. But verse four says it's God who won't let him sleep.

Verse two says that God is the reason his soul can't be comforted. Verse seven says he's been spurned by God.

The same word can also be used to say to stink or to emit a stench.

So the question is, will God continue to see me as rancid and putrid forever?

This just won't end. It goes on and on and on. He finds no resolution.

Well, again, we don't have a specific historical incident as we do in so many of David, for example, many of his

Psalms. With the Psalm of David, when Doeg the Edomite killed the priests, that sort of thing.

And we know exactly what David is talking about, exactly why his spirit was stirred up to write that Psalm because we can look at 1 and 2

Samuel and find the incident right there. We don't have anything like this. But if we're stirred up like that, if we feel this broken relationship,

God's spurned me forever. Have we forgotten to be gracious at all? Or has he forgotten to be gracious just to me?

Does he not remember that I've repented of my sins and come to him by faith in his son, Jesus?

What's happening here? I would suggest what cause could this be but sin?

What could this be but sin not acknowledged, sin not repented? The prophet said in Isaiah 59 too, your iniquities have made a separation between you and your

God and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. See, God doesn't take away our comfort for no reason.

His son Jesus died so that our sins might no longer stand between us and him. And brethren, that sacrifice was too costly, that sacrifice was too precious for the father to easily or quickly turn away from those for whom his son died.

But neither can he allow us to take an easy view of our sin. His removal of our easy life is a mercy.

His stirring up of our soul is because he's a good God. He's a caring father who won't let us go on in iniquity, who won't let that continue, but by his spirit, he stops us.

He stirs us up as Asaph is. So again, I say, if we're in this situation, if we as children of God, any of us, by faith in his son,

Jesus Christ, we find ourselves with that tossing and turning evening. And some of you say, well, it's just one of those nights.

What do I do? I get up and I have another glass of my hot herbal tea because it has something in there. I forget what it is, but it's supposed to be some natural sleep aid.

That might not be the best thing to do. If we serve a sovereign God and it's

God who won't let my eyes close, maybe prayer, maybe prayer unto repentance, maybe asking

God to examine me and show me if there's any wicked way in me, as the other psalm says, is a better antidote to this whole question.

It must be true, the removal of the ease of life that we have is his goodness, is his mercy.

It drives us inward, not to bemoan our difficulties, but to uncover what we've done.

What is the reason this relationship is not what it was? There is great hope here also.

If you do love the Lord Jesus Christ and you know what it is to walk step by step with him, to have confidence when you go before God because it's

Jesus Christ who brings you there by the faith he gave you in the sacrifice he made on the cross. If you know this vitality, this indescribably wonderful relationship with God, then we're with the psalmist in Psalm 73.

Whom have I in heaven but you? What do I desire on earth but you? Nothing else.

And when we don't have that, we can't function. I can't sleep,

I can't talk, I can't think anymore. I have to have this back. Now we need to uncover whatever it is within us because God wouldn't be stirring us up like this.

God wouldn't be parting and making wider that relationship. We're not for our good and we're not for a cause.

He doesn't do these things for nothing. He does them because he's a good father, because he loves.

In verse 10, Asaph takes a little better tact. In verse 10, he gets on a better track.

He says, then I said, I will appeal to this. No longer the memories, no longer the questioning of God.

I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the most high. Oh, now he's setting his mind somewhere different.

Do you see him pulling away from the circumstance? Do you see him getting his eyes off the horizontal and up to the vertical?

As Paul says in Colossians, set your mind on things above where Christ is. Not all at once, not the whole 90 degrees in a flash, but he's coming up.

He's getting his eyes set upwards where they must be. I will appeal to the years of the right hand of the most high.

Verse 11, I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember your wonders of old.

I will ponder all your work and meditate on your mighty deeds. Your way, oh God, is holy.

What God is great like our God. In other words,

I'll stop remembering me. I will stop thinking about my circumstance.

I will set my mind on God. Not as earlier when I only wanted him to be my divine interventionist.

What he's remembering here is the sheer greatness of God. He's gonna meditate on God's nature in favor of circumstance.

And this, brethren, is a far better course. This is a much better direction to go when we're stirred up like that.

Now, rather than asking if God has changed, he's asking what God is great like our God. And the answer is immediate.

You are the God who works wonders. You have made known your might among the peoples. So are you with him?

Are we with him? Has a psalm torn you from your spiritual malaise? I would ask, are you tired of feeling sorry for yourself?

For not having this tight bond that you can actually feel with God?

Are you tired of doubting God? Join now with Asaph. Join now with Asaph.

When you think back on God, don't stop when you've remembered that he can. Keep going until you remember that he has.

Don't just say God can do this or that or anything because with God, nothing shall be impossible.

It's true that God can do anything. But that becomes sort of an intellectual thing, doesn't it?

I believe God can do anything because the Bible says so and I believe the Bible. And that's all true and I don't denigrate that.

But keep thinking on this God who can do anything and remember that he has done.

Remember what he has done. He has imposed himself on history. He's imposed himself on your history.

So join with Asaph here in thinking this way of God. And this is the answer to the previous questions about God forgetting.

What the prophet says, Isaiah says, can a woman forget her nursing child that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?

Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. We're in that worstest day ever.

It will never end no matter what. Forget that.

Think upon a God who says in his word, he cannot forget you.

And to the church in the book of Hebrews, he says, I will never leave you or forsake you. Not the circumstance.

God's word says it, history confirms it. He's thinking about what

God has actually done. Not what God's able to do. We've already covered that. We already believe that.

What God has done. With your arm, verse 15, you redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph.

God doesn't just present himself as able. He does and he did.

Think yourself. When you're in this spiritual turmoil, what has

God done for you? Do you remember when he gave you a new heart, took out your heart of stone, gave you a heart of flesh that you're able to believe?

That's no less an act in history than anything else that we talk about from this pulpit. Something he actually did.

With your arm, you redeemed your people. He's thinking back to the Exodus. Listen to what he cites here.

When the waters saw you, oh God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid. Indeed, the deep trembled.

The clouds poured out water. The skies gave forth thunder. Your arrows flashed on every side.

The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind. Your lightnings lighted up the world. The earth trembled and shook.

Your way was through the sea. Your path through the great waters. Yet your footprints were unseen.

And the whole psalm ends with this. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

He's just recalled the Exodus. Other than the cross of Jesus Christ, God's most dramatic act of redemption in all of history.

So ask yourself, when you stir it up, when you see this relationship with Christ not what it was, will he spurn forever?

His worstest day ever, will it ever end? Will it go on and on and on?

No, he will never forget those whom he redeemed out of slavery. He will never forget those whose precious blood of his son was shed for.

I want to say a sentence again. He will never forget those for whom his son's precious blood was shed.

Will he never again be favorable? How could a God whose right arm destroyed your enemy not be favorable?

Has his love ceased forever? I mean, Deuteronomy 7, verses seven and eight,

God explains that he did all this, this redemption out of Egypt, speaking to Israel of the history that they just experienced, not because of their worth or because they were such an impressive people, but because he loved them and he kept his oath to save them.

These are the answers to the questions. Has God forgotten to be gracious? Will he spurn forever?

Think back on what God has actually done and answer those questions. This is the right place to go.

When you're so upset you can't sleep, when God's absence has you in an eternity of grief, when your sin has caused his face to turn and it seems he'll never turn back, go here, join

Asaph, and remember what God has actually done, not just in history generally.

We want to read the histories of the Bible. Think about what God has done for you.

Think about your history with God from the time that he opened your eyes and gave you faith in Jesus Christ.

If you are a Christian, you have even more to look upon than Asaph and the rest of Israel combined.

Verse 15, he says, you redeemed your people. He led them out of slavery in Egypt, of course, that's what he's talking about.

Galatians 3 .13 says to the church, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who has hanged on a tree.

Verse 16, Asaph says, when the waters saw you, they were afraid. And this is the Red Sea, this is where the ocean piled up on either side to make a path for Israel and not one drop dared to spill on any of the people who

God sent across there. Verse 17, the clouds poured out water, the skies gave forth thunder, the storms of Sinai that warned them that they mustn't so much as set foot on the mountain while God was there.

But because of Christ, we stand boldly at the throne of grace. Because of him, Sinai's thunder is quenched.

Verse 18, the earth trembled and shook. I mean, as the law was being given from Sinai, part of this whole exodus experience, this is what

Asaph is remembering. He says, the earth itself shook in terror. Do you remember the signs of your redemption?

Do you remember the darkness that covered the land as Jesus died on the cross? You and I weren't there.

But in a way, as what Christ did is imputed to us, we were there.

We were in him. We're crucified with Christ. Remember the darkness that covered the land, the earthquake that forced open the graves and released those who were held by death until Christ died?

Verse 19, your way was through the sea, yet your footprints were unseen by day a cloud, by night a fire.

We can't see our guide, can we? Our guide is the paraclete. But we know that the spirit of Christ indwells us, he guides us.

We do have his footprint in history. We have it in scripture. Verse 20, the end of the psalm, you led your people by the hand of Moses, and Aaron.

The church has so much more than they did then. These things that Asaph is remembering. Has God ever denied you direction when you've asked him?

He's given you a church full of brothers and sisters in the Lord. He's given you a pastor to pray with you. He's given you his word, his spirit.

He's placed you in his son and given you himself as his father, as your father, excuse me.

As much as he provided for them in the wilderness, no less does he for us now. What was the worstest day ever in your whole life?

Don't stay there. Remember Christ. Remember the mighty acts that God has done for you in him.

Remember what was done by Christ for his people, by him and through him and because of him.

Remember that God is not just a God who can do anything, but a God who has done anything, including taking sinners, black -hearted, rebellious sinners, changing their heart, giving them a new spirit, making them able to believe and drawing them to his son,

Jesus Christ. Remember this. Remember that Asaph, when he says it was the

Lord who troubled him, it could be nothing but sin. Nothing but his own sin that at the time he hadn't acknowledged.

And notice that the psalm just ends. Notice that the psalm doesn't resolve.

He said, you led your people by the hand of Aaron and Moses. Done.

We don't get a verse 21 that says, and now I feel restored to God.

We don't get a verse 21 that says, everything's better today because I had this prayer.

Do we just leave it like that? We don't know how long it will take if the

Lord has stirred you up for whatever reason. if the Lord has stirred you up for whatever cause. Most generally, in our life experience, tells us scripture would confirm it's sin.

It's sin that we haven't acknowledged that we haven't repented. We can resist that.

We can suppress that. If we go with Asaph, I would suggest, if we go with Asaph, remembering what

God has done, that this would bring us to repentance. And then 1 John 1 .9,

what does that say? It says, what's the worstest day ever in your whole life?

If you love Jesus Christ, it's when, because of our fault, we are not drawing near to God.

And yet the promise of scripture, the promise of Asaph, is that if we draw near to God, he will draw near to us.