This evening, with the Lord's
help, I wish to continue our series on questions asked in
scripture. And for our text this evening,
Psalm 77, and reading verses 7, 8, and 9. From verse 7, Will the Lord cast
off forever and will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone
for ever? Doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his
tender mercies? Selah Psalm 77 and verses 7,
8 and 9 Six questions. A troubled soul's many questions. It will be of comfort to us when
we come into troubles and sorrows of soul and we have many questions. Questions relating to whether
God is still with us and whether we know his mercies and all that
he has been to us before, that he will still be that for us. We may have these questions like
asked in this psalm and indeed in Psalm 42 that we read another
four. And to read in scripture the
inspired word of God, that the Lord's dear people who've gone
before us They also had questions, and it may be the questions that
they ask are the very same ones that we also are asking. The Word tells us that, as in
water face, answereth the face, so the heart of man to man. And
we know that by nature we are fallen alike, and even under
grace, many things that we pass through that are the same as
others of the Lord's dear people. But very often we feel isolated,
we feel like we're the only ones that feel as we do, and only
ones that are walking in the path that we are. So when we
come to the Word and we find one that we can walk with, it's
very precious. It's a blessed thing when we
can walk with those of our contemporaries, those of our church members or
family members who fear the Lord. And they that fear the Lord speak
often one to another, and we discuss and go over those things
that trouble us and that we question. But when we come to the Word
of God, we come to that which God has put there, the inspired
Word of God. It is the experience of His dear
people, And the Lord has seen fit to have it recorded for the
help of those that should follow after, even to the end of the
world. And so it is that the questions
this evening are those questions a troubled soul will be asking. And may the Lord make it of use
and of help to the living family of God. I want with the Lord's
Hail to look first at the circumstances that were surrounding the psalmist
that brought him to ask these questions. And then secondly,
the questions that were asked. But then lastly, the answer to
these questions that are found in this psalm as well. So what are the circumstances? We know of course that all of
the Lord's dear people walk an individual path, but there will
be those things that under more general headings, they will be
the same for each of the people of God. And so we find in this
psalm that the first circumstance is that it is a day of trouble. In verse 2 we read, In the day
of my trouble I sought the Lord. Man is born under trouble as
the sparks fly upward. And it is when we come into those
troubles that then we start to search and it is then we start
to question. So dear soul, if you have troubles,
if I have troubles, then don't be surprised if in those troubles
there arises questions, questions that we ask, like these in this
psalm. Also, it is a trouble that is
not just an outward trouble, but it troubles us. In verse
four, I am so troubled that I cannot speak. And they're two different
things, really. We can have troubles outwardly,
and it not trouble us inwardly. But very often we have troubles
outwardly, and it troubles us inwardly. And it affects us,
and indeed the psalmist here, he says that he is so troubled
that he cannot speak. As our troubles affected us like
that, so profoundly it is a place of the stopping of mouths, a
place where we cannot speak. cannot speak to others, cannot
have fellowship with others. The psalmist in Psalm 73, when
he is so stumbling over the prosperity of the wicked and the trials
of God's people, and he says, if I should speak thus, I should
offend against the generation of my children. Many of the Lord's
dear people, they think, if I was to speak my mind, If I was to
unburden what is going on inside, the people of God would say,
well, you're not a child of God. We're not having anything to
do with you. How can you be right when you
think those things? And so they keep silent and go
over it in themselves. Yet if they would but know, they'd
find that the Lord's dear people had an echo too, and that they
knew exactly what was going on because they experience the same
things. Here's outward trouble that is
then inward trouble as well. And then we have a sore, a sore
that runs in the night. Many of us will know if we have
troubles and they take sleep from us and we lay awake at night
and we start to go over things in the dead of night. then they
get worse and worse. They sing so much more in the
dark and in the night than they do in the day. And the psalmist
here mentions this several times, that it is in the night. He says
in verse 6, I took all to remembrance my song in the night. It is my soul ran in the night
and ceased not my soul refused to be comforted. And so it is
the night watchers that magnify the troubles and give rise to
these questions. Have you found that so? Is that
the part of that which is common to you as well as the psalmist
here? Then there is a remembering of
God. He says in verse 3, I remembered
God and was troubled. What was he remembering? He's
remembering God in his greatness, his majesty, he that fills heaven
and earth. The heaven and the heaven of
heavens cannot contain him. God that appeared at Mount Sinai. The mountain quaked. The thunders
were felt. That great God, that when he
shall come at the last day, and all the nations of the earth
shall mourn before him, they shall call upon the rocks and
the hills to hide them from the face of him that sitteth upon
the throne. The almighty God, the great God,
the God against whom we have sinned, the God before whom we
must stand at the last day. When we consider God, and we
would say here, God outside of Christ, and outside of the provision
for sinners, when we think of God, we think of the situation
that Adam was in before the promised seed was made known, before a
covering was made by God for him, Before God's mercy was shown
him, he hid. When he heard the word and heard
the voice of the Lord, the word of the Lord in the garden, he
hid from his presence. He couldn't stand before his
presence. He was troubled. And so the psalmist
here, and you and I, when we remember God, when we remember
how great God is, God is greatly to be feared, in the assembly
of the saints to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.
This was a circumstance whereby the questions arose in the psalmist's
heart. But then there was a considering
of the days of old. In verse 5, I have considered
the days of old, the years of ancient times, whether or not
with the psalmist going right back to the Lord's dealings with
Israel. But for the people of God, we
think of that which is past. We're warned in the scripture,
say not, why were the former days better than these days? that us not inquire wisely concerning
this thing. But we often do. We look back
and we look back upon the good things, the pleasant things,
the blessings, and we say that it is not now what it once was. And we think of former times
and former blessings and those things that we've handled and
tasted and felt and enjoyed. There is a remembering of those
former blessings that we have had and that we don't have now. And then there is a searching,
a searching of our own hearts and going over our own hearts. All what is pictured here is
all centering, as it were, inward. what has happened to us before,
our troubles, and at night, and our own heart, and former blessings,
and former days, and God in his greatness, and his majesty, and
his might. This is the situation, the circumstances
that bring forth these questions. Is it so with you? Is it so with
me? That we look at what is it that
has caused us to question in this way. What are the questions then that
are asked in the second place in our text? These are the questions
of the text. Three verses, each one with Two
questions in there. Verse seven. Will the Lord cast
off forever? The experience of the soul obviously
is feeling cast off from the Lord. And the question is, will
this go on forever? Is this eternal? And will he be favourable no
more? The soul does not feel the favour
of the Lord, and wonders whether that is going to continue and
never again will they know the favour of the Lord to be upon
them, always against them. You know, in the days of sale,
and the apostle knew this, where they had to watch for a
favourable wind. When I was young, I used to do
sailing in small boats. And if the wind was against us
and we had to tack to go somewhere, it was very hard work. That wind was against us and
it was a labour. If the wind then turned around
and was right behind us, Then we had no hard work, we were
just blown along to where we were going. A very big difference. And it can be like that in our
lives, where sometimes everything is favorable. The wind behind
us and the Lord makes all things so smooth and go so smoothly. And other times everything seems
to be wrong and nothing fits and nothing goes right. No help
from the Lord appears. The Lord told Israel of old that
it was just as easy for Him to fight against them as for them. And when they sinned and did
wickedness, that's what He did. But even in the history of Israel,
There were those times that he was favourable to them again,
but here the psalmist is really questioning, will, will he be
favourable no more? Never ever know those times,
being favourable again. Then in verse 8, regarding his
mercy, Is his mercy clean gone? For heaven, a mercy can never
be earned. Mercy is free, it is in spite
of our works, and yet the psalmist here cannot see mercy. So dark is his path, he cannot
see mercies in the way. Is his mercy Clean God forever. And then doth His promise fail
forevermore. The psalmist of course with Israel
had the promises of the coming Messiah. They had promises of
good. Maybe you and I have those promises
as well. Some that we lay up like dear
Jacob no doubt did. how the Lord would appear in
providence, promises concerning ourselves or our loved ones,
or the house of God. And it seems that that promise
will fail. It won't be brought to pass.
It won't be fulfilled. Doth His promise fail forevermore? And each time these questions
They're not just, doth his promise fail? Or will the Lord cast off? Or is his mercy clean gone? All
the time it is forever, forever, forevermore. And it's looking at the future,
eternity, never ever to be known again. The questions showing
great trial and great darkness of soul and great expectational
questioning of any favour or blessing from God again. Verse
9, Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Can God forget? Can He forget
to be gracious, kind to those that are unthankful to Him, rendering
good to those that do evil. By grace you're saved. But can
God forget to be gracious? And has He in anger shut up His
tender mercies? Is it our path? Is it what we've
done? Is it what we've said? Is it
how we've acted? That God is so angry with us
that he's shut up his tender mercies and we won't know them
ever again. These are the questions that
have been asked by the psalmist. It really feels that. And if
we would go back to Psalm 42, Then we have other questions.
He's asking, in verse 5 of Psalm 42, his own soul, why art thou
cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted in me? We might ask those questions
as well. And then in verse 9, what he
says that he was saying to God, Why has thou forgotten me? Why
go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? A lot of why's. Why this? Why that? A lot of questions. Many questions. And they're being
asked by a troubled soul. And dear friend, if the word
comes, into your path this evening, into mine. We want to know the
answers. We want to know what is the way
out. How can this be resolved? How
can the Lord show us what the true situation is? And remember what we said at
the beginning. This is the inspired word of God. Where God shows
the malady, Then he will show the remedy, and it is so in this
psalm. And so I want to look in the
third place at the answer to these questions. The first is in the last word
of our text, Selah. or pause, a silence. How often it can be that we have
so many things arising within, so many questions like this,
one after another, and it's like someone says, if we're speaking
all these to them, now wait a minute, just stop, just be quiet and
wait and listen, And I will tell you my advice, and that's what's needed here.
How often we are so full of churnings and trouble. We're like Martha,
cumbered about with much serving, so much full of troubles that
we cannot sit at the feet of the Lord. We cannot hear His
word. The children of Israel were like
this. And Moses had been sent to them,
and the signs were being wrought in Egypt, that Pharaoh was reacting
by making their toil and their burdens even harder. And so when
Moses was trying to tell the children of Israel those things
that would encourage them and help them, yet their heart, they
were so burdened with hard labor that they could not, they would
not listen to him. You know, it didn't make a difference
The Lord still appeared for them and still helped them, though
they were so troubled that they wouldn't listen to Moses. So
that is the first thing. May you and I be helped to be
still and to listen and to pause. The second thing is to realize
that this is our infirmity. In verse 10, and I said, this
is my infirmity. It's my infirmity. Help me to remember that we are
sinners. We are of the dust. God is in
heaven. God knows all things. God is
perfect and pure. and unchanging, that we change
and we're sinners and we are impure and we are those for whom
the gospel is prepared for sinners and for those that cannot help
themselves. And so we are to remember that
as sinners and as creatures of a day, that this is our infirmity. The way that we are looking at
things. You know there are some with
various afflictions of body or of mind, that, as it were, it
is an infirmity that they have, some that may have an autism. Things are black or white, they're
either this or that, but they cannot be a grey in between. And it's an infirmity that affects
everything in their life, all the decisions and all the things
that they do. And all of us to some extent,
some if we were to have a glass of water, they would say, Well,
it's half empty. And others would say, no, it's
half full. One would look upon it as a discouraging
thing. It's heading towards the empty. But the other one would look
upon the encouraging thing, no, it's half full. And you view
the same thing, but view it in a different way. Now may we think upon our own
infirmities, because I think if we go back into our lives,
you'll find some of us are much more prone to be asking these
questions or to be very low and so cast down. Elijah was like
that, greatly used of the Lord, fearless before Ahab, But then when Jezebel says that
she's going to kill him like he has killed her prophets, then
he runs away. He says to the Lord that he'd
rather die than live. And he is so dejected, so low. The Lord strengthens him, brings
him to Mount Horeb. and there gives him a fresh charge. And then he gives him Elisha,
who's got a very different temperament, to go with him, to be with him
right till his journey's end, to see him taken up into heaven.
The Lord knew how to deal with Elisha. And he knows how to deal
with us as well. He knoweth our frame. He remembereth
that we are but dust. He knows our infirmities. And it's good when we can come
like with the psalmist here, and even asking all these questions. Say this, this is my infirmity. I recognize it. This is me. Getting so low. Getting so bowed
down. But then the remedy is remembering. You say, but wasn't that part
of the trouble? Hadn't he remembered God? Hadn't he remembered former blessings? How can remembering be part of
the remedy when it is part of the melody. It is because it's
what we remember. We said at the beginning, the
circumstances, it was all surrounding remembering really everything
outside of Christ. It's remembering our experience,
our blessing, we had had but don't have now,
and remembering God out of Christ. But here it is remembering the
right things. Remembering those things that
center not in self, but in Christ. It's one of our hymns, 515. It is a prayer to the Holy Ghost. And we have in verse 6, Out of self to Jesus lead, for
and in us intercede, guide us down to death, and there banish
all our guilt and fear. And really that's the key. Leading
us out of self. The Holy Spirit's work. The work
of the Spirit to take of Jesus and reveal it unto us. To be
the remembrance. He shall bring to you all things
to your remembrance. What things? Things that will
cast you down? No. All things whatsoever. Lord is what is to be the strength
of the people of God. So what does he say here? What
will he remember? I will remember the years of
the right hand of the Most High. What does he mean about the right
hand of the Most High? If we were to go to Psalm 80,
We get a verse, I think it's the first verse I ever preach
from. Psalm 80 and verse 17. Let thy hand be upon the man
of thy right hand, upon the Son of Man, whom thou madest strong
for thyself. That is the secret. The man at thy right hand is
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and he has been made strong so
that God will lay on him the iniquity of us all, that it should
be through him that the people of God triumph and are strengthened. It is by the Lord Jesus Christ
that the children of Israel went out of Egypt by our Strong hand,
not a weak hand, but a mighty hand. And what brought them out
of Egypt? The Passover. The bloodshed,
the lambshed, the sheltering beneath that blood. And they
are brought out of Egypt. And so it is remembering what
God has done through His beloved Son, these Old Testament saints,
They saw Christ's day, Abraham did. Moses spoke of him. Prophet, shall the Lord thy God
rise up unto thee like unto me? Him shall ye hear. Moses saw
the Lord's goodness pass before him in the way on the mount. He was put in the cleft of the
rock. Beautiful times of the Lord Jesus
Christ. So what is remembered here is
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is God's way of saving sinners. Out of Christ, God is a consuming
fire. And as soon as we lose sight
of Him, then come all of these questions. God's people are chosen
in Christ. All the promises of God are yea
and amen in Christ Jesus, not outside of Him. It is because
He has shed His precious blood, because the debt is paid, because
peace is made on our behalf before God. The writing that is against
us has been put away at Calvary. The empty tomb proves it so. And so he goes on. In verse 11,
I will remember the works of the Lord, or works of Jehovah,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father, thine they were,
the people of God, and thou gavest them me. My Father gave me a
commandment, what I should say and what I should do. I have
power to lay down my life, I have power to take it again. This
commandment have I received of my Father. I lay down my life
for the sheep. I have power to lay it down,
power to take it again. This is remembering the Lord's
work. You say of old, yes, you go right
back to Abel, who offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain,
because it was a blood sacrifice. because the Lamb was slain. He being dead, yet speaketh,
bearing witness, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And so it's remembering the works
of God. And in the New Testament, in
these gospel days, we have not just the types and the shadows,
but we have the work of our Lord at Calvary, We have the ordinances
of the house of God. We have those witnesses that
are spoken of in 1 John 5, the witnesses on the earth, the spirit,
that is, the spirit ministry, the gospel of power, that the
Thessalonians receive the word of God, not just in word only,
but in demonstration of the spirit and of power. And then the ordinances,
the water and the blood, water baptism, buried with him by baptism
into death, risen again in newness of life, the Lord's supper, this
do ye in remembrance of me, as oft as ye eat this bread and
drink this cup, ye do show forth the Lord's death till he come.
The church of God is not to forget this. The Lord says, as it were,
to his church, you will get very low, You'll have all of these
questions, but these ordinances are given you, because I have
died and risen again, and you that have been quickened, you've
died to self and risen again in hope. I shed my precious blood, my
body was broken, and you ought to remember that, and do this
in remembrance of me. You see how important is not
just remembrance, it's what we remember. It's who we remember. Whose works we remember. What
shall avail at that last day. The last chapter in the book
of Ruth. We don't read of Ruth doing anything. No, it is the end of Chapter
3, after she's presented her case to Boaz, Naomi says, sit
still my daughter. The man will not be at rest until
he has finished the thing this day. And he deals with the matter
on her behalf. We have an advocate with the
Father Jesus Christ, the righteous. He appears in the presence of
God for us. He makes that intercession for
us. He is our advocate with the Father. We have to remember that. It is remembering the gospel
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We have also in verse 12, a meditation of all
our work. Instead now in the night season,
just going over all the troubles and all the sorrows and all the
things that seem so against us, that we begin now to meditate
upon the work of the Lord. All of it. And as the Spirit begins to lift
us out of self and point us to Him, They looked unto Him, their
faces were lightened. Look unto Me, all ye that, or
come unto Me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, I will give
you rest. It's to look unto the Lord, even
from the ends of the earth. Tim Ryder says, I see from far
thy beauteous light, and in thee sigh, for thy repose. My heart is pained, nor can it
be at rest till I find rest in thee." And he's all the time
looking for that help outside of self, in Christ, in his finished
work, because of what he has done. Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday, and today, and forever. He does not change. The amount
of fear nots, the amount of assurances for a people, even a people like
in Malachi that had gone away from the Lord. The tears of the
Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. His mercies, they fell
not. I am the Lord, I change not.
Wherefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. It is that unchanging
immutability of the Lord, His oath, His promise, that shall
never fail. When Samas went further than
just meditating, he also spoke of his doings, and talk of thy
doings. They're not speaking of himself,
of his doings, but the Lord's doings, and specifically that
which the Lord has done at Calvary. But we could also bring those
things that the Lord has done in our own lives. He which hath
begun a good work in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus
Christ. He will have respect to the work
of his own hands, and all the time It is centering on Christ. As soon as we deviate, as soon
as we go away, and we start looking at ourselves, and then how low
we get. If Hezekiah was here, he'd say,
he said, you remember what the Lord did to the Assyrians. You
remember what the Lord did in raising me up from a sick bed
even unto death and adding 15 years to my life. but don't remember how I did
not render according to the benefit and rise up in pride and show
the messengers of Babylon all my riches. I'm ashamed of that,
but you'll remember what the Lord did for me and what the
Lord blessed me with. There's many things that we will
be ashamed, and the Lord uses that to humble us and lay us
low. The Lord says of his people,
this people have I formed for myself, they shall show forth
my praise. Yet sometimes as if we were saying,
Lord, I won't show forth thy praise unless you do this and
this and this. Unless you do things different.
But the Lord's work is the same, and what He has done, He has
done forever. Nothing can be put to it or taken
from it, and the Lord doeth it that men might fear before Him. We have also in verse 13, thy
way, O God, is in the sanctuary. One said once, there's nothing
like church trouble. Often in our troubles we come
to the house of God to find relief and find help, but when the trouble
is in the house of God and is sadly amongst the people of God,
then it's a double trial, a double difficulty. But then when we
remember that the church is God's church, none can care for it
more than Him, and He knows how to manage it. And God is greatly
to be feared in the assembly of the saints, to be had in reverence
of all them about him. Where two or three are gathered
together in my name, there am I in the midst. Unto him shall
the gathering of the people be. It's a blessed soul that can come like
dear Hannah, you know. She had her troubles. She couldn't
have children. And she had the adversary so
against her. And she regularly went up to
the house of God, but what a kind of a house of God that was. The
sons of Eli, they lay with the women at the door of the tabernacle.
They abused the sacrifices of the Lord so that people abhorred
the sacrifices. We can't go there. You can't
have a blessing there, you can't have help there, when all of
these kinds of things are being done there. But she goes and
she prays and she even promises if the Lord should give her a
man-child, she'd loan him to the Lord. What, loan him to go
into that company? With Eli, who can't even manage
his own children, let alone little Samuel? No, she lent him to the
Lord, not to man. And you know the Lord answered
her prayer. and gave her Samuel, and the
Lord blessed Samuel, and the Lord made Samuel a blessing and
appeared to him. There are a lot of lessons there,
you know. There'll never be a perfect church upon earth. No, there
won't. But the Lord is in the midst
of his church. You read the letters to the churches
in the Revelation, seven of them, and only two that there was nothing
said against them. All of them had things that the
Lord had to say against them. And we are to remember them.
Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary. Who is so great a God as our
God? And this is what we are to do
to look at the great God, but not outside of Christ. To look
at Him in the sanctuary, Look at that God who, in verse 14,
doeth wonders. Thou hast declared thy strength
among the people. Thou hast with thine arm redeemed
thy people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. When we look to the
dear Redeemer, to our Lord Jesus Christ, we see Him. They looked unto Him and their
faces were lightened. This poor man cried and the Lord
heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. Again, one
way is the psalmist David's experience, another, it points the experience
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. Do you know, in this psalm after
the psalmist meditates and speaks, In this way, then at the end
of verse 15, we have the sealer again, to pause, to think, to
meditate. This is the remedy for you and
I. It's not found. Pouring over
our troubles, going over things as if were all dependent upon
us, really. If we couldn't have kept our
own soul, if we'd done this right or this wrong, and if these things
had been managed better, I'm not saying that there is not
a time that we shouldn't search our heart, that we shouldn't
bow before the Lord's rod, come to repentance, put right what
is wrong. There is. If we confess our sins,
He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. But in all these things, may
we never lose sight of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. This
is the gospel that is for sinners. It is a gospel of which no case
is too hard or too difficult. And the Lord doesn't begin and
then say, I didn't realise what a terrible sinner this one was. This case is too difficult for
me. I'm now going to withhold my
mercies and my graciousness. I'm going to be so angry with
this person. I'm going to give up on him.
The Lord doesn't. No case is too hard for the Lord. And where He begins, He will
surely carry on. Because each song is a blood-bought
song. And each blood-bought song was
one that the Father gave to the Son to redeem. And each one that
the Lord redeemed on Calvary, He's begun a good work in them. He's bid them live. He's given
them a hearing ear. He's drawn them after Him. No
man can come unto me except the Father which sent me. Draw him,
and I will raise him up. When? At the last day. It's bound up ever and ever in
the calling of God's dear people. And so, dear soul, if you, like
me, have so many questions, and questions that bring us lower
and lower and darker and darker. The Lord gave us to read all
of this psalm, to go through it all and to see the remedy
that is in God and the provision in our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ, the man at God's right hand. There would be no gospel,
no salvation without God's provision of His only begotten Son and
all that He has done through Him. Yet sometimes we start to
walk in the path of which we leave the Lord Jesus Christ out
and it's as if we just have our soul and God and we wonder why
we are so low. Salvation says Jonah in the whale's
belly In all the darkness and the tossings and the impossible
case he was in, salvation is of the Lord. And the Lord spake
unto the fish and it vomited Jonah out onto the dry land. And then Jonah obeyed and he
went and he preached as the Lord had bade him. And may we be helped
to go in that path of which the Lord is able to deliver us from
ourselves and to save unto the uttermost all that come unto
God by Him through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The crown
of salvation is to be on His head and on His alone. None other, no other place to
Christ alone be the glory. May the Lord then bless this
word to a troubled soul who has many questions, may be blessed
in giving the answer from the same word that had the same questions
that you had, and has the answers from God himself. Amen.