Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Psalm 77. We read for our
text from verse 7 through to verse 9, where we read six questions. And the subject this morning
is the six questions of Psalm 77 and the answer. From verse 7, will the Lord cast
off forever? And will he be favourable no
more? Is his mercy clean gone forever? Doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his
tender mercies? Seelah nor pause. Psalm 77, verses
7, through to 9. Now you will have
noticed that we read Psalm 73 as well as this psalm, and 73
is also a psalm of Asaph. And in that psalm as well, he
was troubled and was asking questions. In verse 11, How doth God know,
and is there knowledge in the most high? Also, he was perplexed
as he is in this psalm. So who was Asaph? Well, he's the tribe of Levi,
descended from Levi's three sons. His three sons were Gershom,
Kohath, and Moreri. And it is Asaph that descended
from Gershom. Moses, Aaron, they came from
Kohat, that was the high priest line. So the descendants of Gershom,
which included Asaph, they were responsible for the tabernacle
when it was broken down in the wilderness and when it was moved. For the covers, the curtains,
the screens, the cords, all things they were responsible for. And
Asaph, he lived in the time of David and Solomon and also the
beginning of the divided kingdom, that is Rehoboam. And he saw
the transition between the tabernacle that was in the wilderness and
Solomon's temple. He saw the change from the two. And he was a prophet, we're told,
In the scriptures, it is a prophet, a composer, a singer, and a musician,
of whom it was specifically said that he made a sound with cymbals. Asaph, in the Psalms, he wrote
12 Psalms, Psalm 50, and then from Psalm 73 right through to
Psalm 83. And there is a lot in the Word
of God, a lot in the Psalms, that tells us about Asaph. In fact, there is more written
of Asaph than of any other, or many other writers in the Bible. So he is not an insignificant
character, and when we read things of his experience and of his
questions, We're not to dismiss it that, well, this is someone
that did not know the Lord, did not know the tabernacle worship,
that was not in a position of authority or a position of influence,
he was. And so when we come to people
like that and they have questions that we might have, then that
surely does bear some weight and some help. There's no doubt
that as we gather this morning that we will have questions. When things happen in our lives,
we look at the things that happen, we compare it with the Word of
God, and sometimes when we get a wrong sight, a wrong view of
things, we can get many questions that really are casting aspersions
upon the Lord, as if He changes, and yet they are real things.
We struggle with them. And Asaph is very real, he's
very honest. And we need to remember that
there are those that are God's dear saints, really blessed,
and they have these questions. So if you this morning asking
questions and troubled of things, you are in good company. But
Asaph here, he brought these things to the Lord. He didn't just think, well, if
I don't speak of them, in fact, he does say in the 73rd one that
if he should say these things in verse 15, Psalm 73, if I should
say, I will speak thus, Behold, I should offend against the generation
of thy children. And there may be things that
we think in our hearts, and we think, if I give utterance to
this, if I actually speak about it, I'm going to offend God's
children. Then you think, what is he? Well, he's a minister,
and he is of influence. Why is he saying these things?
And yet, if we but knew it, if we were to give utterance to
them, it would be a help to God's children who also feel these
things, and just need someone to speak them. I remember reading
of the late William Huntington, who preached in this town, and
was a means of making Providence Chapel down the road, building
that for Isaac Beeman. And he had a time in his life
that he was very low, very troubled in his soul, and he still had
to preach. And he found it was amazing that
it was during this time that there was so much blessing upon
his preaching. Because the Lord, through bringing
him low, brought him where the people were. And his preaching
then was a real help and comfort and blessing to the people of
God. And so a psalm like this one,
and the utterances of Asaph as well, are designed to come where
the people are. God designs it and he's put them
in the Word of God, given them the questions that they might
be asking themselves and then show the answers and seeing what
the Lord means to do by bringing us through these dark places,
these low places. So I want to look then at this
Word this morning. the questions themselves, to
look at those questions. And then secondly, what leads
to a correct answer, we'll specifically be looking at the verses 10 and
11, because the psalmist here, he ascribes that it is his infirmity
that has brought him to these questions. It's good for us to
think of that, actually. You know, if we have infirmities
of mind, or infirmities of our body, then that does affect what
we can do, what we can process, what we can understand, what
we can physically do, if it is a physical infirmity. The Apostle Paul says, I will
glory my infirmities. When I am weak, then am I strong. The Lord has said, my grace is
sufficient for thee. So may that be an encouragement
too. If we realize that we have infirmities, physical ones, mental
ones, that affect us processing the truths of God or thinking
through these things, or that we may tend to look upon the
dark side of things, I want to look at this in the second point
of what leads to a correct answer. And then the third point, the
questions answered. But firstly, the questions themselves. These six questions The first is this, will the Lord
cast off forever? Will the Lord, when he has a
people, will he reject that people and
cast them off forever and have nothing more to do with them
at all, as if they were not his people and he wouldn't have anything
more to do with them. The second question was, will
he be favourable no more? So thinking, even if the Lord
does not cast off, will he not show any favours, any helps,
any more to that people? He's all the time. to be against
them. The third question is, is mercy
clean gone forever? The mercy that the Lord had shown,
is it gone? And is it not gone, not just
for a short time, but forever? That we cannot expect Mercy,
we cannot plead it, we cannot ask for it. And the next question, doth his
promise fail for evermore? It doesn't say, doth his promises,
but his promise. And especially we think of the
promise of the Messiah, the promise of Christ. All the promises of
God are yea and amen in him. Has that promise ceased? A God who promises, is He not
able to perform them and to do these things? And the next question, hath God
forgotten to be gracious, kindness, free, unmerited favour Is God
forgotten to be that? And is he just now a hard and
a cold and unfeeling judge, not dealing graciously? And then hath he in anger shut
up his tender masses? Is it anger that it is at the
root of what has happened? and that that has then just shut
up his mercies because God is angry with us. Six questions. You might say,
why? Why have these questions come?
In the beginning of this psalm, we are told some of the reasons
why. It is a day of my trouble. My
soul ran in the night and ceased not. My soul refused to be comforted. I remembered God and was troubled.
I complained. My spirit was overwhelmed. He has considered the days of
old, the years of ancient times. He's going back over blessings
that he has had and others have had. his own song in the night,
and he's searching over. He hasn't got these blessings.
Darkness is upon him. It is not what it once was. He feels far off from the Lord. He feels under the anger of the
Lord. He is in a low place. We're not told of the outward
reason that might have brought this on. But in Psalm 73 we are. And in Psalm 73 we are told that
he was envious at the foolish. He'd seen the prosperity of the
wicked. He's making a comparison between
God's children and between the wicked. And those who are wicked
They seemed to have the best. They had prosperity in the world.
When they came to die, they weren't in trouble, like God's people
were. They were filled with pride.
They had all that heart could wish, and they just spoke wickedly
concerning the things of God. They walked in pride. And yet when you looked at God's
people, Then they were in distress, in trouble, they're weeping. They could not understand these
things. Asaph, he says, I've cleansed
my heart in vain, washed my hands in innocency. He's looking at
time and what is happening in this time. There are many prosperity
preachers that will say, well, if you believe, then you'll have
everything going well. In fact, you'll have just what
Asaph pointed that the wicked had. But the picture for God's
people, God's true people, is very different. In this world,
they have tribulation. In this world, they have trouble.
But they have a hope beyond the grave. They have that which is
not seen here. but that which is eternal. The
things here are all corrupt because of sin, they will soon pass away,
they will soon won't be anymore, we will die, we will not be part
of this. And so when he went into the
sanctuary, he sees what their end should be, that death was
like a veil, and that as soon as they pass through it, on one
side, There they are, they're not troubled, they're not plagued,
they're not having any troubles at all. As soon as they pass
that veil, then they are full of terrors. Then they see the
truth. Then they see God. Then they know the truth. Then
they know how foolish they have been, how wicked they have been,
and how unprepared they are to meet the eternal God and to give
an account of all their life and to bear the punishment for
their own sin with no hope of another bearing it for them.
Asaph saw that in the sanctuary, but while he was just looking
at what his eyes saw, while he was looking at what was happening
around him, then this caused him the trouble, this caused
him the questions that were arising, and it may be with us, We can
say, well, there are specific things in our life. We believe
that God is the order of providence and he directs all things. And
there are specific things that I have many questions. They cause
me to question God and his dealings and his justness, his righteousness,
his holiness. These questions come. They might
not all be the same as what Asaph was asking, They are real questions. What are some of the common things
that arose in these questions that Asaph is asking? The very asking of these questions,
or the way that they are presented, implies that he already knew
these things. He had known these things. He
had known the Lord's presence. How could the Lord cast him off
if he had not known that? He had known the Lord to be favourable
with him. And he had known what it was
to have mercy and to hope in the promises of God and to receive
the grace of God. He tasted that the Lord was gracious. He'd known what it was to walk
before the Lord and the Lord was not angry towards him, but
friendly. towards him. The very questions
imply Asaph had known the other side, and maybe with us as well. The questions that we are asking,
we can look back, we had known the other side. We had known
times when the Lord's blessing was upon us. When the very things
that now we're questioning, that we'll never have them again,
we knew those things. May we hold on to that, what
the Lord has done and has blessed us with. But this didn't, in
a way, help the psalmist. He still had this question. So the other thing that is very
common through these questions, they have respect to eternity. We have the words, ever. Will the Lord cast off forever? no more, favourable no more,
mercy clean gone forever, promise fail forevermore. And his eye
is on eternity for that which is forever. He's not thinking
that this is just a short trial and then the Lord will appear.
His thought is, and it's good for us to view this in every
trial, That which we're after is eternal blessings, everlasting
blessings. The stamp really upon Asaph may
be upon us. The Lord has opened our eyes
that we have an eternal soul and that the blessings that we
need are not just time ones. We need them for eternity. And
those blessings that Lord gives us, we are reliant on him continuing
those blessings, on him being unchangeable, and that those
things will still remain. And so that is also what is implied
here, how much this psalmist needed these things, how much
he valued these things. These questions are very important
to him. If it was not so, he wouldn't
be asking them. He needed the Lord's mercy, he
needed His grace, he needed these blessings that he is asking. Are they gone forever and forever? May we ask ourselves those things
then, our questions. Are they things the Lord has
shown us we really need? They are important to us. They're
not indifferent things. They're not something we can
just pass over and say, well, it'll be all right in the end.
It's good here to have that daily desire and want for the assurance
and comforts and blessings of God. And when questions come
that seem to undermine the very essentials of the gospel, that
then causes us great concern. Well, I want to look secondly
at what leads to a correct answer. In verses 10 and 11, he said,
This is my infirmity, but I will remember the years of the right
hand of the most High. I will remember the works of
the Lord, surely I will remember thy wonders of old. Now, if we
go back to verse three, he says, I remembered God and was troubled. A remembrance of God as the great,
the terrible, the eternal God. will bring us to be troubled. It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the ever-living God. We cannot comprehend God's greatness,
His majesty, His justice, His might. To look upon God in that
way, God is a terror to us. So in the beginning the remembrance
of God was a cause of his trouble. But yet the way leading to a
correct answer to these questions is also by way of remembrance. But it's a remembrance of the
right things. I will remember the years of
the right hand of the Most High. The right hand is God's saving
hand, His saving arm. Those times when the Lord went
forth for His people. The whole key is this, I will
remember. But it is, I will remember the
works of the Lord. I'll remember thy wonders of
old, and not just remembering, but also meditate on these. I
will meditate also of all thy work and talk of thy doings. Now this is then the gospel. This is the work of the Lord. If we look at the creation, the
heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament, that showeth
his handy work. And it is the work of God, that
which he has done for his people, especially in bringing forth
the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, the Old Testament,
it is the work of the Lord in all the types and all the shadows. Asaph, he would look back and
he would look back to see the work of God in Abraham's life,
in Jacob, in Isaac's, He would have seen it in Joseph's, he
would have seen the mercies of the Lord in bringing the children
of Israel out of Egypt, the Passover, when I see the blood, I will
pass over you, the difference made between the children of
Israel and the Egyptians, the difference made in Egypt with
slaying the firstborn, and then the difference when they came
to the Red Sea, the children of Israel brought safely through,
the Egyptians destroyed, the miraculous spring through. These
are God's works towards his people that were saving them, delivering
them, making a distinction and a difference between them and
the workers of iniquity and those that were evil. The real stamp
here is God's work that declares in salvation his goodwill towards
his people. And it shows the ground, the
foundation of the mercy, the graciousness, those things that
he was questioning, it is showing the foundation of it. Moses,
when the Lord said that he would cast away his people, He said,
but then the Egyptians would say, he brought them into the
wilderness but could not bring them into the promised land. And the Lord had respect to the
works already that he'd done and to his great namesake. And
he showed them mercy still and brought them then into the promised
land. And always we are exhorted to
remember the works of the Lord, the works of the Lord in salvation. We have to remember the works
in the way that the Lord set the children of Israel, ordinances,
the Passover, when your children ask you what meaning by this
service, they shall then recount what the Lord did in Egypt, how
he destroyed the land, how he brought them out, how He slew
the firstborn, how the blood was shed. When I see the blood,
I'll pass over you. They were to not forget that.
And then they were to remember the going through Jordan. What
mean ye by these stones? These stones built up outside
of Jordan. The Lord brought us through.
He did this mighty work. He brought us into this land.
works that are to be remembered, and this is reflected in the
Church of God, in the preaching of the Word. We preach the Lord
Jesus Christ crucifying. We lift Him up on the pole of
the everlasting Gospel. He is to be remembered in what
He has done upon this earth. God commendeth His love toward
us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And the love of God is shown
in sending forth His only begotten Son into this world, and that
He withheld Him not. These things of what God has
done, they are His works of salvation that are to be remembered in
the Church of God by preaching through the ordinances, the ordinance
of baptism, buried with Him by baptism into death, risen again
in newness of life, In the Lord's Supper this do ye, in remembrance
of me, is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again. Ye do show forth the Lord's death
till he come. And all of the emphasis is on
the Lord's work in salvation, centring in our Lord and Saviour,
Jesus Christ. And this is what leads to an
answer, what leads to quell the fears and to answer these questions,
these seven questions. Dear friends, may we be careful
what we remember. You know, Satan will try and
get us to remember everything that drags us down, to remember
our follies and our sins and our failures. Yes, may that really
humble us if we do remember those things. and David and the chastening
of the Lord when the sword did not depart from his house, he
would oft thought of his sin. But while we dwell upon that,
then it will cast us down. But we're to look from that,
from that to the Lord's work. Salvation is not by works of
righteousness that we have done. It's not by our good works. It's
not by our good deeds. But it is by God's works, by
the works of His beloved Son, by His work in redemption, in
saving, in His sufferings in the place of His people, that
is where our hope is. And it's remembering that, and
remembering that God remembers it, and we put Him in remembrance
of that. He will have regard to His own
work. It is acceptable to the Lord
when we, like Moses, plead the works of the Lord and plead what
He has done. And so this is a key answer. I said this is my infirmities. My infirmity to be looking at
God outside of Christ and to be asking all of these these
questions. But you know, God knows our infirmities. He knows our weaknesses. This
is why he's given us these things that we have to remember by.
We think of the, after the flood, I do set my bow in the cloud.
I will look upon it. I will remember my covenant.
Remembrance is a very important thing with God, that that which
he has done, be not forgotten, but be remembered. And so that
then gives us a key to coming to the answer when we look at
the questions themselves. Because we might say, well, it's
all right saying about remembering things in the past, but how does
that relate to the future? And how does that relate to now? Well, if God changed, And if
those things done years ago didn't apply now, then there would be
no comfort in that at all. But we read in Hebrews 13, Jesus
Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever. And it is
the immutability of God, the impossibility that he should
change. And the comfort that what God
has done is eternally done. We said about the thing that
runs through these questions, Asaph is looking for eternity,
is looking for that which is forever. And he needs these blessings
that endure forever. Well, when we remember the works
of the Lord, What is to be remembered is these works are forever. What God hath done, what the
Lord Jesus Christ hath done at Calvary is forever. It is an eternal work. He died
to put away the sins of His people. He bore their sin. He knew every
one of them and He knew their sins and bore the wrath of God
in their place and put away their sin by the sacrifice of himself. He redeemed them, set them free
by the payment of a price from the curse of the law. Cursed
is everyone that hangeth upon a tree. The Lord was hung upon
Calvary's tree. He bore that curse and that which
he had done is everlastingly done. The one sacrifice is no
need of further sacrifice, no need of further bloodshedding. All there is is a need of remembering,
remembering what the Lord has done. And we could go back and
say, well, all in the Old Testament, we have the types and the shadows
pointing to that. We have the Psalms, like Psalm
22 and Psalm 69, that speak the very words of
our Lord upon the cross, that describe his sufferings, Isaiah
53 as well, 750 years before Christ suffered. These things have stood the test,
you might say, of time, the Lord coming in the fullness of time
and fulfilling all of these prophecies and all of these types and shadows.
And shall we then go on further from then and think that, well,
that was just for a time, or the Lord will change and these
things will not apply now? So we have a foundation on what
leads to a correct answer. How often Calvary and what the
Lord has done on this earth and at Calvary is the secret to many
questions, many troubles, many perplexing things, things that
we cannot reconcile and understand, things that happen. You think
of the Apostle Peter at Pentecost. You have taken he that was delivered
by the determinate counsel and full knowledge of God. There's
the purposes of God being wrought out. You have taken by wicked
hands, crucified and slain. Now we might just look what those
wicked hands did, crucifying him, slaying him, and being despair,
but no, the Lord said, no man taketh my life from me, I lay
it down in myself. I have power to lay it down,
power to take it again. And we see in that time that
joining together of man and his wickedness, and what he is intent
to do, and yet through it all, God's purposes, are being performed
perfectly. The Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. And we need to view that. When
we see all things happening in this world, when all things are
going on around us, and we might look at them and think, well,
surely God's purposes are not being brought to pass. Man's
going to frustrate it. He's going to unravel what God
has designed. No, he won't. He'll be unwittingly
doing the very thing that God decrees to be done, and God's
favour is towards His own people. So on to look then lastly at
these questions and the answer. Will the Lord cast off forever? No, He will not. The Lord will
not cast off his people that he foreknew. He will not go back
from what he has said with his dear people. The children of
Israel, the Lord has said that even now there is a remnant according
to the election of grace. But if we extend this to all
of God's people in every nation, kindred, and tongue. And those
that he has called by grace, those that he has blessed, those
that he has begun a good work in, will there come something
at which the Lord will then cast them away? The children of Israel,
they did think that that was so. They said that to the Lord,
and the Lord in answer He asked them, he said, where is the bill
of your mother's divorcement? You prove to me that I have cast
your way. And that may be said in a gospel
sense as well. You prove it, that the Lord actually
has cast away a people. This is one of the foundation
truths of God. He which hath begun A good work
in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. There are
those that are written in the Lamb's book of life. There are
those that are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the
world. And in time they are brought to be known by their calling. And once the Lord begins, he
will not cast off his people. It may be for a time under chastening,
Maybe a time in dark dispensations, like Job, that it seems like
the Lord has cast them off. But the Lord has not. He will
return. He will visit them again. It
might be 40 years that the children of Israel were under the Philistines
and other nations, or 70 years under Babylon. The Lord returned
and the Lord brought them back to their own land and blessed
them again. May we remember this, the opposite
to what is questioned. The Lord will not cast off forever. But what about the next question?
Will he be favourable no more? Yes, he will. The Lord turned
again after times of chastening, hiding his face, being silent
to his people. You think of Jacob. Jacob says,
all these things are against me. But very soon he had to prove
that though it was true that Joseph was not, Simeon was not,
and you were going to take away Benjamin also, yet the Lord was
working, surely. and has sent Joseph before them
to preserve life. The Lord often is working in
the background unseen and He will be favourable so that we
can see it. May we always remember this,
sometimes the Lord is favourable to us and we cannot see it. We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God. to them that are the
called according to his purpose. We've only got to think of the
case of Jacob, Joseph, and we realize how much is being done
in a favorable way to his people that is not seen and not known
by them. Is his mercy clean gone forever? How the people of God rely on
mercy. Without mercy we would perish
eternally. We could not continue without
mercy. We need mercy, the free, unmerited
favour of God to our souls. No, His mercy is not clean, gone
forever. And that again centres in Christ's
work at Calvary, because the debt is paid, because that is
settled. We have a beautiful psalm, Psalm
136. Begins, O give thanks unto the
Lord for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. And right
through that psalm the refrain is this, for his mercy endureth
forever. And what's the psalm remembering?
All of the works of the Lord. Bring them out of Egypt, bring
them unto Israel. So the answer is the opposite. No, His mercy is not clean gone
forever. His mercy endureth forever. But what about His promise? Does
His promise fail forevermore? Can a promise of the Lord fail?
We read of those in Hebrews 11 that they waited upon the promise. They died in the faith that the
Lord Jesus Christ would come. They didn't see it, but the Lord
did come, and in these gospel days, we can look back and see
that those promises first given in the Garden of Eden, of the
seed of the woman that should bruise the serpent's head, were
brought to pass, and the Lord did come. And these promised
days of the gathering of the Gentiles is happening. Doth this promise fail forevermore? Have you A promise that you plead,
you rest on, you lean on, all the promises of God. When the Lord promises something,
he will bring it to pass. May we be careful that we don't
read into something that the Lord has promised something that
in the word of God he clearly says that he will not bestow. It's been those that have thought
the Lord's given them a promise and anyone who knows the Bible
can say, well, what you said the Lord is going to do is contrary
to His word. It leads to sin. It is not right
that where He has given a promise and we watch on it, we wait upon
it, is according to His word. It's a blessed thing to look
back and to realise how many of the Lord's promises have been
brought to pass in our lives. And the Lord's promise, it doesn't
fail. It is everlasting. It is an everlasting
promise. And in the Lord Jesus Christ,
he is always there for his people. What about, hath God forgotten
to be gracious? Has he? God does not forget to
be gracious. We need his grace in his dealings
with us here below at the last great judgment day. Then we will
need that same grace and kindness that the Lord shows to his people. He hath not dealt with us according
as our sins deserve. And why? Because he has suffered
for our sins. There is no condemnation. for
them that are in Christ Jesus. May we who feel our need of more
grace rest upon this word. God is not forgotten to be gracious. He gives more grace. What about
the feeling sense of his anger? Hath he in anger shut up his
tender mercies? Is it because of anger? We read
that God is angry with the wicked. Every day, where the Lord shows his face
towards his people as anger, then so soon, as soon as they
are softened, repent, so soon he softens and turns again and
shows mercy. You think of a father, a loving
father, might be angry with a child, might chasten the child. The
child doesn't see the friendly face of the father, but anger. But as soon as that child is
punished, is humbled, is sorry, then the father can't help but
those mercies flow out. He feels that tenderness and
that love to his child. And the Lord feels that for his
people. His anger but endures for a night,
but joy cometh in the morning. And so may these very questions
and the answers that is implied in them be a real help to us
this morning. Those blessings that come from
the Lord, they are evermore, they are eternal, they are what
will land us safe above. They're not just for time. Paul
says, in this life only, if in this life only we have hope in
Christ, we've all been most miserable. But these answers to these questions,
they are eternal ones, and they look for that which is to come. So if we have these questions,
or questions like them, May we be encouraged that we have one
like Asaph asking the same. May we look to the answers and
the foundation of those answers in the finished work of our Lord
and Saviour, Jesus Christ. And may the comfort, the blessing
be ours. And the Lord turned again and
we find out by blessed, sweet assurance that he hasn't cast
us off His favour is shown to us again, His mercy is shown
to us, His promises are brought to pass, and the Lord is gracious
to us, and the Lord, He shows us His tender mercies again.