This Must Have Been A Mistake

I invite you to turn in the scriptures this morning to Psalm 77. Psalm 77, found on page 619. The choir master, according to Jeduthin, a psalm of Asaph. Psalm 77, page 619. Let's give our attention this morning to God's Word. I cried 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 wearying. 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. 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. then my spirit made a diligent search will the lord spurn forever and never again be favorable has his steadfast love forever ceased are his promises at an end for all time has god forgotten to be gracious has he in anger shut up his compassion then i said i will appeal to this to the years of the right hand of the most high 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 all your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What God is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders. You have made known your might among the peoples. You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph. Selah. When the water saw you, O God, when the water saw you, they were afraid. Indeed, the deep tremble, 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. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. And Aaron's the reading of God's Word. I don't think that any of us would disagree that one of our worst fears in life is losing those who are closest to us. Those sitting next to us who are our soulmates. It's been absolutely painful to see this week a distressed Theodore. who says, I lost my soul mate and how am I going to ever go forward? I have a hard time, of course, with why. So do you, so does she. I have a hard time seeing how there could ever be any good in this. I really don't see it. I try to find an answer to that and I just can't find it. How does it fit at all that God is love and that God has a shepherding care for His people. Did it escape Him? It's an overwhelming feeling in our home, at least this week. This must have been a mistake. Ultimately, we don't believe that. But it sure feels that way. It sure feels that way. There's one question, of course, as you open this psalm and you begin to think about it. I think the sort of capstone of all the questions here, It's this question of, has God forgotten to be gracious? Everything will build toward that question, and the solution, of course, will turn his heart of faith toward the preserving, gracious, magnificent works of God for His people. This is where the psalm ends, on that note. But today I want to walk with you through this psalm that answers these kind of perplexing circumstances of life that we just don't have answers for and have no idea what to say in the moments like this. The psalmist, of course, in this case is Asaph. And there really is nobody quite like him in the Psalter because he's just so straightforward. He says exactly how he's feeling and it sometimes makes us nervous and a little bit on edge because he seems to be pushing limits in the way that he's questioning God. He genuinely struggles, though. He genuinely struggles to understand something that has happened, something that is absolutely perplexing to think about. Something has happened to him. Something terrible has happened. And he really is agonizing and grieving with ultimate grief. It's a psalm of grief. It's a psalm of lament. He begins this way. A deep lament to the Lord. And keep in mind, these were inspired songs. I've tried to say this over and over. Life's not always a praise song. When congregations come and they gather and you're going through this kind of stuff, it's this that's real. It's not being taken into artificial land of saying things overly repetitious that don't do anything for your soul. I cried out to God with my voice. Allowed 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 wearying. My soul refuses to be comforted. No comfort. None. That's how I feel. He was going through some kind of distress, and it was at this point that he was having a hard time. He could not, within his bones, within his heart, he could not pray. The words inside his heart were so utterly painful, he couldn't keep them in. And he's expressing it now. It's building. You'll notice a building in the psalm. He was weary of holding them in. You get the sense that it burst out of him. The agony, the cry, the sense of why, oh Lord? What had happened? I have no idea. I don't think it's unlike the grief that's hit us. The closer you were to this family, the greater the grief is. but it's someone you're close to that this will happen to in life and you'll be here. It's the kind of thing, as I've said, that stops us in our tracks. It's utterly overwhelming. I was talking with a man this week who was expressing all his hardships in life and he asked how I was doing and I told him what happened to Louis and he stopped and he says, well, that makes everything I just said very ridiculous. My problems really are nothing. Feel the pain of this for a moment. Your son, your daughter, your wife, your husband, taken in what is certainly a harsh providence. Not only are priorities corrected, but you're overwhelmed. You're overwhelmed with grief at this moment. You don't even know what to do. How in the world is there an answer to that? And that's real, isn't it? That's not playing anymore. How does this fit? The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. How does this fit? He leads me beside green pastures. Well, looking at it and everything that we think about and the pain that this brings, I don't see it. It really does make no sense as to everything we believe about the goodness of God. This is something you theoretically preach about suffering i preached on suffering early in my ministry and i didn't know what i was talking about i've had a little bit of taste now seeing my own father's death in a very painful way i remember after the service when i preached his his death uh his his funeral which was a terrible death someone walked up to me and said well that was kind of depressing to hear i knew this man this man was living a fairytale life he had never had anything happen to him and i said when you see suffering and you see real suffering then you'll know what i'm talking about this moment we're sort of ready to hear it's not the superficial painted up existences we try to create of the good life maybe that's just a crucial part of this dude do we have ears has god got our attention all of us need to ask it but what asap is really wrestling with here in this particular psalm is is the sense of god's complete absence in the whole thing it's one thing that he could not reconcile in his mind was the single fact that in light of whatever he was facing it seemed as if god was not present where was he he seemed as if he turned his back and walked away he uses the word forsaken for a reason he felt forsaken so he describes this in the wake of this this awful thing that has happened and he says uh in the night my hand is stretched out without wearing my soul refuses to be comforted you get this graphic image of a man alone on his bed in the wee hours of the night unable to sleep because of this uh tragic circumstance overtaken him with inner pain. He has turned to weeping and to cries and to please to God in prayer and his hands are just up. Up. What is it? What is this? He can't close them. There's no answer. His soul refuses comfort because of this one issue in the psalm. An issue that we all know very well. An issue that has often perplexed us in life. Something we simply can't figure out, the toughest thing to stomach. It's not the question of whether this thing happened by chance. It's not that question. It's not the question that this thing escaped God. He has a better theology than that. He has a much better understanding of sovereignty than that. It is the fact that God's sovereign. It is the fact that He holds everything in His hands. Why does God allow things that are seemingly hurtful to His own people? But we could understand it with the wicked. Why, if He's great and sovereign and good and loving to His people, does He remain silent then in the midst of this and there just simply seems to be no answer? We have to fend for ourselves through it. Silence. Silence. You see, I think He's saying this to us. Even the thought of God troubles me. You see it? Why is he saying that? Because of his seeming inaction. Why would he who controls heaven and earth allow a man so rock solid in his faith? A man with a young family. A man with a wife as Theodore. Why take someone so full of life? Why somebody who's such a blessing to us? Why somebody who's actively involved in the church, who loves worship? Who wouldn't miss? Why Him? I remembered God, verse 3, and I was troubled. I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. The Lord Himself, who should be the object of His great delight, has become the object of His great discomfort. The thought of God, of thinking about God, hurt Him. every range of emotion is going through him from anger to frustration to sorrow to lament he upholds the universe in his hand and created all things and gives us life and breath uh could he not have angled the planes differently it wouldn't have taken much just a little and we wouldn't be here could he not in his ultimate power fix that situation why did he appear to turn his back and we have to now figure out and think horrible thoughts about this whole thing what good is there in his own people suffering where is God he's not fine his relationship is not great he is seriously wrestling with God and if you think this is strong it gets more intense this lament grows in verse 4 to a deeper lament with his hand outstretched his hand remains open and then he he progresses you verse 4 hold my eyelids open what do you mean i get no i you're not even giving your beloved sleep what was the the perspective of god's sovereignty in this song i have no sleep and i i have no words and he says i can consider the days of old the years of long ago i said let me remember my song in the night let me meditate in my heart it used to be good and my spirit is searching will the lord spurn forever and never again be favorable has his steadfast love forever ceased are his promises at an end for all time notice the heaping up of questions here has god forgotten to be gracious has he in anger shut up his compassion sometimes looking back is the worst because you're looking back to the good times the golden years the thoughts of of when everything was so wonderful and all of a sudden whatever has happened that's gone it's gone it seems that God has turned his back and walked away this is what he's describing and looking back in former places does not bring comfort. Looking back at his former life before this thing does not bring comfort. It's agony. Does he care? Is he angry with me? Why did he do this? He is genuinely honest about all this. It was a point at which he had to arrive. It brought him to the brink of despair faced with the most important questions of life. Is there really a God who does care out there? Is there a God who hears me? This says no. This says no. It's interesting, however, that in the midst of one of the deepest laments and cries in the Psalter, He gave us something at the beginning. Notice what He says. Right at the beginning, a little glimmer of faith. I cried aloud to God. Aloud to God. And He will hear me. He has not let that go. There's a little glimmer of faith there. He's crushed. He's broken. He's emptied. But He still has faith. It may be faith as of a mustard seed. He still has faith. And He believes that God will answer Him. And that's the question of the psalm. That's the great question. is how does God answer us at moments like this? What does God do? How does He give an answer when this kind of tragedy and this kind of emotion and these kind of questions are at the fore and at the forefront? What is the answer? And what He does at this point, I believe, is so important. If you've ever come to a place of confusion over God Himself, this is the psalm for you. This is the psalm. To see and see what happened to this man and how could he ever have gotten out of such a pit he has one question now that is really dominating the second half of the psalm one question that he's thinking about something that's in his head is how did god's people ever get through these things in the past and how is is how i'm feeling and what i'm experiencing true of God and was it true for them too? Did they go through this? How did they get through it? What does the past say? The past, not of my experiences of all the joys of life, the past of how God helped His people. That's what the question is. What was God's help of His people before? It's in this dark moment alongside of the sufferings of God's people in the past now that he begins to muse and to think and remember. Remember, amuse means never to think. No, think. Not think. We're good at that. This makes us think. You may not understand why something happens the way that it does, and certainly we only see dimly, but we see looking obviously from earth horizontally. We We can't look at the big picture. We only can look at this moment that's right in front of us and who can see it all? Who knows the whole picture? Who knows the whole story? We only see from the point at which we're stopped. But in others, we can see the whole story. Verse 10 is the turning point of the psalm. I said, this is my anguish. You'll notice there, I said, he says in verse 10, this is my, And I said, I will appeal to the right hand of the Most High. This is my infirmity, he goes on to describe here. This is my hardship. The first six verses, there are 18 occurrences. If you study the structure of this psalm, 18 occurrences of the first person singular pronoun. In other words, I cried out, I remembered, I complained, I'm so troubled. I cannot speak. I've considered. I call to remembrance. And after all these eyes comes the question, has God forgotten? Has God forgot grace? He shut up His compassions. I think it's wrong to criticize the psalmist for the eyes. That might have been how I read that before going through suffering myself. But I think it's wrong to criticize the psalmist as often done for his eyes. It was a real experience for him. These were real questions for him. This was a real pain for him. And the psalm is showing us, of course, that he found an answer by looking to the Lord's mighty workings in history. That's where he begins to see the answer. That's where he begins to survey and see it. That from verse 13 to the end of the psalm, there are 21 mentions of God with no personal references at all. So that structure is important, isn't it? Structure is very important. What did God do for others in the midst of this? How did God help other people? How has God helped others who've gone before who suffered in such a way? And so he begins to see how God worked in the past and in light of the present circumstance, he comes to this conclusion that if God is unchanging and God is omniscient and omnipotent, he has always dealt with his people in a certain way. He's always answered them in a certain way. He's always helped them in a certain way. And I should be able to see that. I will remember, verse 10. I will remember. I will appeal to this. To the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember, he says. Your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work to meditate on all your mighty deeds. faith. Faith is now starting to. It's beginning to overcome. I don't think this is a quick process and it's different for everyone, but he's getting up. There are two things he can't get out of his head. Two stories you know. Two events of the past of God's help. In verses 16 through 20, he's thinking about one episode God had delivered his people out of the land of Egypt remember what happened he brought them to the very Red Sea and before them were the waters the barrier to their path to the promised land and in Exodus 14 remember they turned around and there came Pharaoh marching with all of the armies and the Egyptians we read were marching after them and it said and this is stuff we read right over they feared greatly and the people cried out to the Lord. And they said to Moses, it is because there's no graves in Egypt that you've taken us away to die in the wilderness. What have you done to us? You hear it? You brought us out and we're dying. What have you done? What has the Lord done to us? No weapons, backed up against the sea. Here come the enemy, and they're confused. And notice the question, why would God bring us out here to die? Why does he do that? Why does he save us to die like this? When the water saw you, O God, when the water 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, the great waters, yet your footprints, isn't this an interesting inclusion, were unseen. We never saw how that happened. But it happened. That you led your people like a flock when those waters split by the hand of Moses and Aaron and you passed us through, all of us, through the water and the fire. They had felt nothing but fear and God led them through in a moment of great despair and God delivered them. That's the first one, but that's not what I want to focus on too much right now. I want to focus on the second one. There's one more. You'll notice here, verse 13, Your way, O God, is holy. What God is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders. You have made known your might among your people, the peoples. You, with your arm, redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph, Selah. Think about this with me for a minute. He thinks upon two names, Jacob and Joseph. Isn't that remarkable? You know how that story began? Yes, you do. Remember, Jacob's favorite son. He loved his son. And his brothers, in an act of ruthless jealousy, beat him and stripped him and sold him. What did they tell their dad? They took, and I quote, Joseph's robe and slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in blood. And they sent the robe of many colors and brought it to their father and said, we've found this. Please identify whether this is your son's robe or not. This is the phone call. This is the phone call. Your wife was killed. Your husband was killed. Your children. Your son, your daughter was in a car accident and they're gone. Feel it. Your loved one died today. And he said, my son's robe. An animal has devoured him. What a harsh death. What a terrible death. Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces. Then Jacob tore his garment and put sackcloth on his loin and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted and said, No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him. I can hear the cries in the night. Mourning for his son. God didn't come along and say, this is what's happened. God didn't come along and say, listen, he's gone ahead. Seven years of famine. Seven years of famine. God never explained it. But then one day the report came. Joseph's alive. He's the ruler of the land of Egypt. And Jacob was stunned. And the spirit of their father, Jacob, revived. Enough, declared Israel. My son Joseph is still alive. I will go to see him. Joseph prepared his chariot and went there to meet his father, Israel. Joseph presented himself to him, embraced him, and they wept profusely. Then Israel said to Joseph, Finally, I can die now that I've seen your face and know that you are still alive. When Joseph would later explain it, he would say, This was a plan, Father, that God had. A plan you never understood through your great grief. A plan that you never saw or could perceive through your great grief. But I want to tell you, God sent me before you to preserve your life. God sent before me to preserve you, a posterity for you in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. Asaph's marveling at that. You are the God who does wonders. We didn't see your footprints in the sand. We didn't see in the middle of the agony. But wow, was a plan being accomplished. You put on display your strength among your peoples. With power you redeemed your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. See, the psalmist teaching us something very important about life. God's promises have never failed. They never failed in the past and they won't fail in the present. You only see dimly at this point in time, I know, and it's painful. And death is awful. and sometimes the things that happen are so perplexing, they're so beyond us, and seek to say that God is absent from it all and that the Lord is telling you today it's not true. It's not true. The greatest plan in history was fulfilled this way. Imagine a mother one day looking up at her son being crucified when from the beginning it was told to her a sword will pierce your soul. she had no idea what he was going through was for her imagine a son saying to his father heavenly father my God my God why have you forsaken me the greatest plan all throughout history was fulfilled with that cry who would make sense of it at the moment who could who could make sense of it at the moment no one And there Jesus, deeply loved by his Father, was given as the greatest gift. When the darkness of that grief and everything went dark at noonday and no one understood a thing, no one had perceived, there were tears everywhere, there, right there, right then, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespass. You don't have to figure it all out as it's happening. in fact i don't think you can and you know what that's okay but we do need to see god is for his people and he has a plan that most certainly is working out to a glorious end for all of his sheep and he's doing that in your lives you're not going to see often in the valley of the shadow of death of your own deaths and your loved one's deaths why it happened the way that it did but one day. One day it will be clear. And that sorrow will be turned into joy. No matter the present circumstance, God has not forgotten to be gracious. God has not shut up His tender compassions. He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. So I believe Jesus' words that Louis, even though he died, lives. And so must we. The death of Louis has a purpose we can't see. Your alternative is to run around and say this was a great mistake. That may be how I feel at the moment, but that would be the worst of answers. That would be the worst of answers. This is no mistake. His race was finished. When in the end we stand back and look from everything and we see the whole picture, we will see God's good purposes fulfilled in the plan that He has for His people. He always has done it. He'll never fail. He's that gracious. He, says Asaph, has always led his people like a flock, and he'll do that for you too. And I want to assure you that on that day, he promises he will wipe away every tear and there will be no more sorrow. This is his gospel promise to us. Let us have, even in the darkest moments like Asaph, the faith to believe that he will answer us and he has answered us because of his beloved son let's pray heavenly father thank you for your word this morning and thank you for giving us perspective through this lament is necessary in this life and as we lament we believe there is always an answer for you gave your son who lived and died and rose again and in the resurrection has assured us that all who are his will rise again too thank you for these precious promises and comfort the both of family and comfort those who mourn in jesus name we pray amen