980. Has God Forgotten to be Gracious and Compassionate?

Welcome to The Daily Platform. Our program features sermons from chapel services at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Every day, students are blessed by the preaching and teaching of the Bible from the University Chapel Platform.

Today on The Daily Platform, we'll hear a sermon preached by the Chancellor, Dr. Bob Jones III, who is the grandson of the founder, Dr. Bob Jones II. He'll be preaching from Psalm 77 and answering this question, Has God Forgotten How to Be Gracious and Compassionate? It seemed to Asaph at this time in his life that perhaps it was so. We're going to go down through this psalm really quickly. It gripped my heart a few days ago. I was actually headed to the 78th psalm for a message I thought I wanted to bring, and my eyes kind of stopped right here at this psalm.

And God started talking to me. This is a very, very dark moment in Asaph's life. Asaph was the chief choir master in David's reign. He would lead the choirs and the orchestras at the occasions of the festivals and the special worship times at the tabernacle. He was a man who walked with God. He composed, it seems, according to the attributions, about 12 psalms. He was not a stranger to the grace of God. He wasn't a rebel against God. He was perhaps right at the top of all of those who could have been named at that time as a God-seeking man, a God-loving man. And yet, in this psalm, his soul is really troubled.

In fact, look at the first two verses. I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice. And he gave ear unto me twice. He said, I cried to God.

I cried to God. And he heard me. God does hear our prayers. He doesn't always answer them the way we would like him to or think he should. But he hears our prayers.

I really like Proverbs 15, 29. God hears the prayer of the righteous. This was such a man, a righteous man. Something had happened. In the day of trouble, he says, my trouble I sought the Lord. My sore ran in the night and ceased not.

My soul refused to be comforted. The word sore there, according to the Hebrew experts, could be also translated hand. Sometimes it is translated hand, sometimes sore. Most of the other translations translated that, my hand. Evidently what he was saying is, my hand, I'm just reaching out to God and earn his prayer night and day. Maybe it happened after some great special celebratory occasion where his choirs performed just magnificently and the orchestra and everything was in harmony and much praise was given to God. And it sometimes happens after events like that.

He hit rock bottom two weeks ago. We had a wonderful Bible conference. The water of the word bathed our souls. I speak for myself at least.

I'm sure for many of you as well. The Lord was with us. We drew close to the Lord and he drew close to us. In some ways it would have just been really nice to build three tabernacles and stay there like Peter, James and John wanted to do with Christ, Moses and Elijah and the Mount of Transfiguration.

Couldn't do that. Had to go back down into the valley where we live our daily lives. Well, somebody said those who have known the most of heaven are decreed to know the worst of hell.

What does that mean? When you come to the mountaintop to heaven. When you're really in communion with God. Some special revival time in your soul, in your church's life or here at the university.

Everything just feels so good. But Satan is not going to let us stay that way if he can help it very long. Communion with God is what he doesn't have. Satan doesn't have.

He doesn't want us to have it. He hates God. He hates his people. He hates anybody that worships God. He wants to be worshipped God. He said I want to be like the most high. I want people to bow down in front of me. He said to Christ, recorded in Matthew 4, if you'll worship me I'll give you the kingdoms of the world.

I'll make you famous. Just worship me. That's what he wants from each of us. He doesn't want us to worship God.

Because he doesn't. And that's why he got kicked out of heaven. So when we commune with God. When we draw close to God. Personal devotions at the start or end of the day or whenever you have your time with the Lord. And you feel like the Lord is really close to me today. Somewhere along that day the devil is going to do his best to draw you from that communion. Break that fellowship.

Put you down in the depths. Evidently that's what happened to this man right here. His trouble wasn't something superficial. Like two sopranos in his great choir that he directed. Jealous of each other about who got to be the lead soprano on a given occasion. Nothing as stupid and superficial as that. Which happens to us all the time.

Whether we're sopranos or not. This was deep. His soul was in agony. He was not able to get the response from God that he sought. He wanted God to draw near and answer his prayer.

But it wasn't happening. Look at verse 3. I remembered God and was troubled. I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed.

Thou holdest mine eyes waking. I'm so troubled that I cannot speak. Some of you maybe already in the two weeks since Bible conference have had something happen to you that has brought you into serious disagreement with God even. Something has happened in your family life, in your personal life, in your academic life.

Your plans have been rearranged. Your life is in a condition of upheaval and you're saying, God, why are you failing me? Why did you give me this miserable circumstance? Maybe somehow you don't think God's responding toward you the way you think he should. You're at variance with him over how he's governing his vast universe. Or how he's governing your little tiny personal universe.

You're at odds with him over his judgments. And you would think that his effort to reach out to God in his time of trouble, and we'd have no idea what occasioned his trouble, but it was really heavy. And he sought God for help.

Verse 3, I remembered God. I turned to God and I was even more troubled. Has that ever happened to you?

It's happened to me. I won't have time to go into it, but in my early 20s, recently married, for three years the devil attacked my mind and slandered God to me. I trembled when the thoughts first came. I felt physically sick.

And for three years that's pretty much how I felt. My nights were often sleepless. The food before me was tasteless. I didn't tell my wife.

I didn't tell my father. I didn't talk to anybody except to God. And I turned to the scriptures. Even as Asaph turned to God in his trouble for understanding and relief and help, I turned to God. I searched his word for answers to these slanders against God. And everywhere I turned, Satan turned it against me.

And I was in deep despair for three years. I was under a satanic attack. Ladies and gentlemen, you know, I hope, and I'm sure you do, there is spiritual warfare. Satan wants your soul. If he can't have it in hell, he wants it now for all he can have to rob you of the blessings of walking with God. Through your sin, through your anger toward God, whatever else is going on in your life.

If you're saved, he can't rob you of heaven, but he wants to rob you of the best of heaven now before you get there. I remember God and I was troubled. Some of you are experiencing something like that. I know you are.

Two weeks ago, it was glorious. Something's happened, some trouble since then, and you're at rock bottom now. In arguing with God, doubting God, your faith is shaking. I understand how you feel. During my time, all I could do was say, God, I don't understand why you're keeping me in this vice-like antagonism to you.

It's not how I really feel. Satan is gripping me, and I know it. Please deliver me. All I could say was, God, I don't know why your word hasn't helped me. I don't know why you're not answering my prayer. But I'm not going to turn loose of you, and I beg you, don't turn loose of me. And he didn't. And one day, after three years, I was reading something.

I don't know what I was reading. And all of a sudden, it was like God said to Satan, leave him alone. You've had him long enough.

Leave him alone. It was like flying out of midnight into noonday in a bright blue sky. The chain was broken. I could feel it.

I knew it. And it hasn't come back. You may be in a testing, where you're even doubting God and wondering why he's so far away. You've tried to walk with him. It's not that you're running from him.

You, like Asaph, may be trying to run to him, and he doesn't seem to be running to you. You held my eyelids waking, verse 4. I'm so troubled, I can't speak. God, you're to blame for my sleeplessness and my speechlessness.

You're to blame. I've considered the days of old, the years of ancient times. I called to remembrance my songs in the night. I communed with mine own heart, and my spirit made diligent search. He said, there was a time when something like this, I could call on you, and you would respond, and we would go forward together and further fellowship. But why aren't you doing it now, God?

I used to be able to sing songs of thanksgiving and praise you in the night and be comforted and strengthened. But verse 7, will the Lord cast off forever? Will he be favorable no more? Now, God, you don't seem to be kind to me anymore.

It seems you've rejected me. It seems your mercy and your promises are no longer satisfying or applicable to me. Look at verse 8.

Is his mercy clean gone forever? Doth his promise fail evermore? And verse 9, our theme, God, have you forgotten to be gracious? And in your anger, shut up your tender mercies. Have you forgotten to be gracious and compassionate, God?

Have you forgotten? These are stiff words. These are honest words. God wants us to be honest with him. He knows our thoughts anyway. But to speak these thoughts just makes us almost tremble because they're stiff punches in God's direction.

Some of you can relate in some way to his dilemma. He said in verse 10, this is my infirmity. This is my sickness.

It's like I have a disease. I can't get a grip on God like I used to. I will remember the years of the right hand of the most high. I know how it used to be between God and me.

But then he found the solace he needed and that perhaps many here need. Verse 11 to the end of the chapter. I will remember the works of the Lord.

Here's what I'm going to do about it. I'm not going to let go of God. I'm going to remember the works of the Lord. Surely I will remember the wonders of old.

What was he talking about? Verse 12, I will meditate also of all thy work and talk of thy doings. God, I'm going to think about your greatness, all you've done for your people. In David's time, they had the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. It might have had Judges and Joshua, maybe Job, to tell of the works of God. But they also communicated it generationally.

And he said, I'm going to remember. Judges chapter 2 says that for as long as Joshua lived and the elders who outlived Joshua and told of the works of the Lord, the people of God followed God. And after that they went off into Baalism and other works of idolatry. As long as there was somebody to tell them the works of God, who is our God. God sometimes seems to go for great chasms of time between speaking to the world and then silence until he speaks again. And then when he does speak, like he did in 9-11 when America was spoken to, when we were under attack by those Muslim terrorists and other such times, God speaks.

Does anybody listen? For a week America listened. Churches were full. People unapologetically who never had any time for God before or after were speaking of God and talking of prayer.

And after a week, things went back to normal, no more attacks. They forgot God and went on with their lives. And so it is often times when God speaks. Sometimes even believers don't recognize the speaking of God.

He said, I'm going to meditate of your work and talk of your doings. Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary, or thy way is a holy way. Who is so great a God as our God? Thou art the God that doest wonders. Thou hast declared thy strength among the people. Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee. They were afraid, the depths were troubled. Verse 19, thy way is in the sea, thy path in the great waters. Thy footsteps are not known. Thou lettest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

What does he say? God, I'm going to remember the Red Sea experience. That's what he's describing. I'm going to remember what you did there. Your voice was being heard there. Your way was being seen there. You made a path through the great waters. You were walking there. Your footsteps were with them. They couldn't see your footsteps, but you were there with them and you were leading them like a flock of sheep.

The shepherds for those people were Moses and Aaron. Dear friends, if we don't pay attention to this book that describes the wonderful, majestic, supernatural, all-powerful God of Heaven, Yahweh, our God, our Heavenly Father, we're going to spend our life in the morass that Asaph was in. But when you read of his wonders, when you read of his supernatural dealings with his people and his supernatural plan for redemption and a new heaven and a new earth from beginning to end, his wonders grip our eyes and our hearts and seize our affections. And the troubles seem so small. And whatever doubts and fears we have are overtaken, drenched upon by the mercies of God.

And we get our thinking straight again. When we don't think straight about God and we allow our human doubts and fears to take over, it's not too far until we're just maybe atheists, agnostics. God doesn't seem to be acting like I think God should act.

God's let me down. I reached out to him and he didn't seem to respond. Yeah, I know he gives ear to me, but I can't see it.

I don't realize what he's doing. I know the fact, but I don't know the evidence that he's listening. But he said, when I meditated on your work, I got my thinking straightened out again in verse 13. God, who is so great a God as our God. He concluded that the solution for his disease, his sickness was in the consolation that comes when we get a grip on God based upon his works from the past. Have you seen evidences of God in your life at some points in the past? His works, he really showed himself to you in some wonderful answer to prayer.

Go back and remember that. He's still the same God. He hasn't forgotten you, the same God who answered that prayer, who solved that circumstance that was so problematic to you and so grieving to you. That same God is able to rescue us again and deal with us again. I like the way the psalmist ended this.

He said, God, when I remembered your works, your miraculous dealings with your people, and the fact that you led them by two good shepherds through their wilderness journey, and I was glad. If you have a good Bible preaching church with a good godly shepherd, thank God for it. As he follows God, follow him. If he stops following God and he leaves the word of God, leave him.

Find you another place. Thank God for the shepherds that he sends to his people who can lead us in paths of righteousness when we get in the swamps and the bogs of life and can't seem to get going in the right direction. He remembered the supernatural wonders of God, and he said, I'm going to brag about God publicly. I'm going to ponder his works and meditate in his mighty deeds, and I'm going to talk about it. I'm going to tell others of our holy, great, magnificent, miraculous God. I'm not going to let go of him because he's promised never to leave me or forsake me. There may be some here like Asaph that are so troubled that even God doesn't seem big enough to deliver you.

There's some like that here. You can understand very well what I'm trying to say today and what the psalmist was trying to tell us. But if your God is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, if your God is the God of Calvary, the God of the Church, the God who delivers sinners from the wrath of sin, the God of Calvary, the God of the empty tomb, the God who sent his Son to reconcile sinners like us and make his enemies his adopted children with all the privileges of the household of faith, if your God is that God, if he could raise his Son to newness of life and raise us to newness of life in fulfillment of his promise to do so, if he's the God who can create a new heaven and a new earth, he can surely take care of whatever systemic troubles are in you today and he can give you a view of who he is again and bring you out into the bright noonday of the sunshine of his presence and his love. Get a grip on God and he'll reach down into that swamp of trouble and doubt and fear and he'll just pull you right up where you used to be and put you back on solid ground again in his time and his own way. Don't let go of God.

He's bigger than any trouble you have. Father, help us, help us to understand because it's awful to be in a condition like Asaph was. And thank you that you're able to do exceeding abundantly above what we can ask or think. Help us to learn the lessons of the morass, the lessons of the swamp when it seems we're drowning and our cries for your help are not being answered. How wonderful, Lord, to see your rescuing power that invigorates us again to go out and love you and talk of you in Jesus' name.

Amen. I'm Steve Pettit, president of Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. I'd like to invite you to attend one of our summer camps for both middle and high schoolers. BJU has over 50 camps to choose from, so there is one for you. Here's just a few.

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