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September 10, 2022 8:00 am
Welcome to through the songs a weekend ministry of the truthful teaching God's people. God's word over time will study all 150 Psalms with pastor Don Greene from truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio were so glad you're with us. Let's open to the Psalms right now as we join our teacher in the truthful open on Tuesdays. We are studying through the Psalms, Psalm by Psalm beginning in Psalm one we are now to Psalm 88 and this is a magnificent Psalm one that is a striking piece of Scripture for sure. And I invite you to turn there with me as we study it.
Here we find worship in a minor key here. If you wanted to title the message on your notes. We have a walk in the dark will begin in verse one passing over the inscription for the sake of time, O Lord, the God of my salvation. I've cried out by day and in the night before you let my prayer come before you incline your ear to my cry for my soul's had enough troubles in my life has drawn near to Sheol. I am reckoned among those who go down to the pit. I become like a man without strength forsaken among the dead. Like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more.
And they are cut off from your hand, you have put me in the lowest pit in dark places in the depths. Your wrath has rested upon me, and you have afflicted me with all your waves Salah. You have removed my acquaintances far from me. You've made me an object of loathing to them. I am shut up and cannot go out my eye has wasted away because of affliction. I've called upon you every day old Lord, I have spread out my hands to you, will you perform wonders for the dead will the departed spirits rise and praise you. Salah will your lovingkindness be declared in the grave. Your faithfulness and Avedon. We are wonders be made known in the darkness in your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness, but I'll Lord of cried out to you for help and in the morning my prayer comes before you oh Lord, why do you reject my soul. Why do you hide your face from me. I was afflicted, and about to die for my youth on I suffer your terrors.
I am overcome your burning anger has passed over me your terrors have destroyed me. They have surrounded me like water all day long.
They've accomplished me altogether. You have removed lover and friend far from me.
My acquaintances are in darkness last time last Tuesday we studied Psalm 87 and found that it was a glorious look into the future is with as it spoke of the glorious city Jerusalem and the wonders and the glories that would one day be brought to pass by the Lord in his great sovereignty over the nations and the nations will gather together to worship Christ one day still future to us and so is a high note of majesty that we saw.
Psalm 88 is a jarring contrast. If you read the two back to back with some measure of understanding. It is remarkable that they are placed side-by-side.
The theme of Psalm 88 is dark and foreboding you find these words expressing the darkness that is in the Psalm as hard as he writes Sheol hit dead grave, dark places depths departed spirits. Avedon darkness rejection afflicted die suffer burning anger terrors. Indeed, the last word in this Psalm. In verse 18 is darkness. One commentator has said and I quote this is the darkest saddest Psalm in all the Psalter. It is one whale of sorrow from beginning to end."
This would be a difficult song for a falsely upbeat church to preach because it has nothing of the tenor that they want to project. And yet here it is in the Bible. Here it is in the Psalter and we asked this question, then what is happening in Psalm 88. I thought that the Psalms were the book of worship, the joy full shouts of the people of God. What is going on here than in Psalm 88 where there is no voice.
There is no sliver of hope. There is no shade of light that shines through in what is being expressed.
What we have here in Psalm 88 is we hear the voice of one of God's children, who has suffered for a very long time. His affliction has led him to the brink of death and he is found nothing by way of encouragement nothing by way of strength or earthly hope to cheer him along the way. It is a crushing weight that he is expressing and yet we find this, that without any external encouragement. He steadfastly praise so let's see what the Lord has for us as we unpack the Psalm in the hour ahead. First of all, let's take a look at the psalmists terrible affliction is terrible affliction as we consider the first eight verses of this song. He opens with a cry for the Lord to respond to him as so many of the Psalms. Do look at verses one and two with me.
He says, oh Lord, the God of my salvation, I have cried out by day and in the night before you let my prayer come before you incline your ear to my cry. So we encounter him as we find others in the Scriptures, having prayed for a period of time in this almost cases will see a very long period of time and he is praying. After a long season of an answered prayer. God has not responded. God has not helped him and so is praying for God to receive his prayer to incline his ear to him, which is another way of saying God answer me and help me because you have not been doing that until now and so is writing this Psalm only after God had refused his prior prayers and had given him no relief and notice in verse one.
Notice that he calls upon them in the name old Lord IN most of your English Bibles representing the Hebrew name for God, Yahweh, the covenant keeping God the promise keeping God the God who is faithful to his people. In other words, and he addresses him by faith by this name as the God of his salvation, Yahweh. You covenant keeping God, Yahweh, the God of my salvation.
It is to you that I direct my prayer. He says here me and answer me. Now he addresses God by this name Yahweh on three other occasions in the Psalm.
I want you to see this is very key in my perception to understand exactly what it is that he saying and how to properly interpret it in verse nine he says, Psalm 88 verse nine he says I've called upon you every day old Lord in verse 13 he says, but I old Lord have cried out to you for help.
In verse 14, old Lord, why do you reject my soul. He is in the midst of a spiritual hurricane and he is clinging to the one tree that is not moving while the wind blows about him and the storm is battering him on every side without even the relief of the eye of the hurricane passing over him for just a moment of respite in the midst of the severity of the storm. He is clinging to the one tree that is not yet uprooted God you are Yahweh, God, you are the covenant keeping God of your people God I call out to you now what I want you to see. And again, for those of you that are visiting what we do with the Psalms's were treating each one of them in a single message. Psalm 119 will probably be the exception to that. We try to treat them all in a single message and just see the overall flow of the Psalm against what what were seeing rather than a detailed word by word exposition. What I want you to see here in light of the darkness that I pointed out to you earlier. All of the dark themes for the foreboding themes of the Psalm as a whole. What I want you to see is this and contemplate. Is this the uses of the name Yahweh. Indeed, the very name Yahweh is in tension against the whole tenor of the song Yahweh means that God is the faithful covenant keeping God and he is calling upon Yahweh expressing to him that he is not seeing any of this faithfulness, manifested in his own experience, the God of deliverances. In other words, is not delivering him persistent prayer has produced no external results and even worse, there is no internal benefit that he is finding either. It is bleak inside and it is bleak outside. There is no relief from this storm's situation is bleak. He is troubled within he is near death and all of those factors. All of that reality both inside and outside cry out for God to hear and answer him and you see that expressed in verse three.
Remember, it said let my prayer come before you incline your ear to my cry and he goes on in verse three says. For this reason because my soul has had enough troubles in my life has drawn near to see old I am I am dying here.
Oh God and my soul is troubled with then doesn't it seem to you Yahweh that you should respond to me since you are the covenant keeping promise keeping God and I am in this desperate straight with no hope of relief. See the see that the pulsating tension of what is in his heart and he described the situation further as you go on diverse for those who know him, consider him to be as good as dead. Verse four. He said I am reckoned among those who go down to the pit. In other words, the people who know me, who see me have have cast me off is one who is as good as dead I've become like a man without strength forsaken among the dead.
Like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more. And they are cut off from your hand. The picture that he's giving us here is that he is forgotten and forsaken. As though he were one buried nameless in a mass grave with with others who are of no account. This situation has been so profoundly long and so profoundly deep and so profoundly dark that it seems as if God will never remember him again crushing incident. I know that some of you have tasted some of this in the aftermath of death and sorrow and grief that has come upon you and you know that crushing weight of death and of affliction and no human words comfort you or did comfort you in those times, perhaps for some of you. I know that this is been my experience in the past you cry out to God for help and you might as well be speaking into a trumpet. The just returned your words in brass, having gone nowhere and not having been observed by the God who heard the you might as well been praying to a brick wall. It seemed in your experience in your mind.
That's really important to keep in mind it seems that way. Well, here in Psalm 88 we find something of that spiritual experience being expressed and what makes it all the more difficult for him. What makes it all the more troubling for him is that he understands that this affliction has come to him by the hand of God himself that that magnifies the alienation it magnifies the separation. It magnifies the the isolation that he feels where do you go if if all of your human friends have abandoned and forsaken you and the one refuge that you turn to you turn to the name of your God and you find no relief there either. This is isolation exponentially experienced.
Look at verse six with me and notice he's praying to God now. And so when he uses the second person you he is speaking to God when he says this, not to a human audience in verse six he says you have put me in the lowest pit in dark places in the depths. Your wrath has rested upon me, and you have afflicted me with all your ways you have removed my acquaintances far from me, you have made me an object of loathing to them. I am shut up and cannot go out and when you read the Psalm sympathetically. You can almost taste the salt of his bitter tears. Can't you as you hear what he is saying. As you enter into the spirit of what he is expressing to God. His affliction has come upon him like repeated waves on the seashore and there is no relief in sight. He is shot and he cannot go out and he attributes this to the hand of God, look at it again with me in verse six, you have put me in the lowest pit verse seven. Your wrath has rested upon me, and you have afflicted me with all of your waves like repeated waves on the seashore. This is come again and again and again in a relentless monotonous cycle that gives him no relief while while pretty strong language.
You can see how terrible his affliction is in these first eight verses vertically speaking God is distant and seemingly nowhere to be found horizontally speaking his friends have abandoned him internally speaking is devastated without hope he is utterly isolated and utterly alone. That leads us to the second aspect of this prayer of the Psalm I should say and it's his touching prayer is touching prayer here in verse beginning in verse nine. Beginning in verse nine. You see him calling out to God and he says my eye has wasted away because of affliction. I have called upon you every day. Oh Lord, I have spread out my hands to you. Don't miss that. Don't miss that. Do you see the relentless nature of his faith. You see the persistent nature in which he has sought the Lord day after day Sunday Monday Tuesday all the way to Saturday week after week, month after month, crying out to God and finding no answer. Finding no relief. You can see why be easy to go to just pass over the Psalm. If you were just picking and choosing the ones that you liked the best to to speak on this is a very difficult experience and as I may expand on a little bit later the utter darkness of the Psalm is unique to the Psalter. There are hundred and 49 other Psalms and none of them read exactly like this one. It makes a unique contribution to the canon of Scripture, a unique contribution to the Psalter itself and shows us that there is a time and there is a place, and for some Saints they go through seasons like this Job certainly did. Didn't see Job knew something about this darkness and his his fickle friends said you're the blame you're the one to blame. You must have sin that you're hiding for God to deal with you in this manner, and so this Psalm represents what for occasional Saints for all four occasions in life not necessarily for all of life.
This can be the experience of a true saint of God and for those of you who perhaps are in this darkness that may be the one glimmer of light that you need to know when a man when a woman has had this dark bowl placed over their life. It is very rare.
It is extraordinarily rare to find a human being who truly sympathizes and understands without a sense of of distance or judgment or accusation or indifference right and that only isolates even more and makes it all the more difficult to bear and to endure and when you are in that situation, and when it seems that there is not even spiritual relief found from the Scriptures and from your knowledge of God and everything. It's has just been extinguished. Sometimes the one glimmer of light that you need to take the next step is to find here in Scripture passages like Psalm 88.
Like the book of Job, but say that once in a while God will deal with his saints. In this way, and defined in that the encouragement that says there is a context here.
I have not lost my mind.
I am not abandoned utterly. There is a context here. There is one in the Scriptures, with whom I can identify when I find this expressed this way in Psalm 88 will say more about that in connection to Christ.
Toward the end of the message. But if you're in that if you're in that dark circumstance. Let me just invite you to Psalm 88 and defined that there is there is a voice given to you.
There is a voice given for you in the Scriptures in that isolation and that is a great and profound encouragement for those that are walking in this dark shadow of life. Now he is said in verse nine. I called out upon you every day I've spread out my hands to you expressing the reality of unanswered prayer.
God, it's not God. It's not for any lack of my seeking you that I'm in this position. It's not that I've walked away. I have been at your throne. Day after day after day, and there has been no relief of called upon you every day, Yahweh. You covenant keeping God. I've spread out my hands to you, Yahweh.
You covenant keeping God and here I am. I'm on the brink of death with no relief.
Powerful. Don't you love the fact that Scripture will speak so honestly to human experience. Don't you love the fact that that Scripture does not paint a false and rosy picture of all of life. Don't you love the fact that Scripture deals with reality. In this kind of way. I do now. He goes on in verse 10.
Remember he's he's feeling as though he's on the brink of death, and he says here in verses 10 through 12. He makes a very poor ignorant painful argument to God to try to prompt God to answer him. Look at these first three are at these next three verses in verse 10 he says will you perform wonders for the dead will the departed spirits rise and praise you will your lovingkindness be declared in the grave.
Your faithfulness and Avedon. We are wonders be made known in the darkness in your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness. What's he saying here and why is he saying it at a human level what he is saying is this, he says, God, if I die here, there is going to be no purpose in my suffering whatsoever. If you do not deliver me how my possibly going to be able to praise you after I am gone. Once I'm dead father. There's no more for you to do for me and the spirits who have departed. Do not rise and praise you before men you receive no glory from the dead he speaking on a human level, a human perspective here.
He says from the grave. Who's going to declare your lovingkindness, who will talk about your faithfulness and Avedon a word that means destruction is parallel to grave win win win souls depart and go to this netherworld. This place of of death and separation God the every opportunity that they have to praise your name has been extinguished and so God what purpose is it for you from your perspective for your glory not to deliver me if I'm just going to die in my voice and Tyler silenced forever. There's no point in this from your perspective, this does you no good. Now let me just quickly say here that the psalmist here is not denying the conscious existence after death that Scripture elsewhere teaches about souls that depart. He's not addressing it from that perspective. And it would be silly for him to do so because he is in the middle of an earthly dilemma that has no solution.
He is arguing and speaking from within a human earthly perspective if he dies, he cannot speak for God to other men on earth is his point when his tongue lies cold and silent in the grave and is the hymn writer said when the death due lies cold on his brow. There's nothing left to be said and from an earthly perspective. All of this suffering would have been an utter spiritual waste from an earthly perspective.
He says death is a realm of inactivity. Silence. Separation gloom and oblivion. So why God send me their without granting me relief. First, and yet as I cried to you day after day after day all you have done has left me in this dark silence of oppressive spiritual experience and so you see his touching prairies arguing with God to to hear him and to respond and yet he's he's calling out to Yahweh is calling out to the very name that represents faithfulness and so there is this there is this explosive tension in his heart. This explosive tension in his mind, God, I know by your revelation who you have said that you are. I know by common experience with the people of Israel, that you are the God who is delivered your people, even from slavery in Egypt in the past.
I know these things the God that is so far removed from my own experience, but it seems like a rank and utter contradiction God the way that you are dealing with me contradicts your own very name, so it seems.
And that becomes his argument. Then, for God to answer his prayer favorably.
God this is your name, your name means your faithfulness. My experience has been consistently dark, day after day after day. If I die like this. I'm not going to have any opportunity to praise you before men, for it is a God.
Everything about my situation and everything about your name cries out for you to intervene and help me to show me mercy that you thus far have withheld from me.
This is the raw voice of desperation, clinging as I said to the one tree in the hurricane.
The name of God that has not moved. Now we seen his terrible affliction.
We see his his tender prayer is touching prayer and now we look finally. Thirdly, at his tested faith is tested faith though he is discouraged in his dark circumstances. He still has faith even though God's not doing much to help them out here. But in verse 13 with me.
He says, but I know Lord have cried out to you for help and in the morning my prayer comes before you. I start my day on this theme.
Oh God of again coming before you, and asking for your help and so now here in this song for the third time he's calling out to God by his covenant keeping name and saying God help me. One commentator says this at this juncture in the Psalm, and this is very very critical to understand limit backup for read the quote and just say that I recognize that this sounds foreign to this this language this this experience. This argument of the psalmist sounds somewhat formed almost everything else we seen in the Psalms and the times gone by. Normally when the psalmist cries out to God. Normally, he'll see him turning from trials to try out normal. You'll see a turn from despair to to joy here in this.
Although you don't find that turn taking place you keep waiting for the road to turn away from its destination and it just keeps going further and further down toward this dark in and the temptation is to view an expression like this the collective expression of Psalm 88. The temptation is to view it in a critical and judgmental light and say there must be something wrong with him that his experiences like this that he would speak to God like this. I agree with the commentator who said this in a quote and listen to it carefully. If you can get this you can master something really important.
I quote the very frequency and consistency of prayer marks.
This almost as a godly man who believes in the Lord's righteousness and fidelity toward his own." Let me read that again the very frequency and consistency of prayer marks the psalmist as a godly man who believes in the Lord's righteousness and fidelity toward his own."
In other words, beloved, don't judge him harshly by the words that he speaks. Job said that the words of one who were in who is in despair. Those words belong to the wind rather judge him by the manner in which he persistently and consistently calls on God for help when he has no external inducement or encouragement along the way. I would suggest to you that actually, rather than seeing a man of little or no faith here in Psalm 88 you are seeing one of the most exemplary manifestations of faith possible because he continues to call out to God, he continues to believe in his name when absolutely nothing encourages him to do so. Faith, beloved, sometimes is reduced to an exercise of your will.
When there is no support of it from the feelings of your heart and the tension in his soul is palpable. His cries are and answered. Look at verse 14 he says, oh Lord, why do you reject my soul. Why do you hide your face from me, you know, Habakkuk, we studied `couple of times in the course of the life of our church over the past seven years. The prophet Habakkuk voiced similar dismay in his opening prayer of his prophecy when he said how long, old Lord, will I call for help and you will not hear.
I cry out to you violence and yet you do not save. He knows that God is supposed to be the God who answers prayer is experiences diametrically opposed to that. The persistence of prayer, the asking, knocking and seeking, of which Christ spoke in Matthew seven has done him no good. And yet here he is again the next day the next morning calling on him again. His affliction has been long and old, beloved, beloved, enter into his experience with sympathy, have mercy in your heart upon this afflicted St. as you read what he says in verse 15 he says I was afflicted, and about to die from my youth on I suffer your terrors. I am overcome. You know what he saying here sometimes and we've talked about this in the past in other songs you'll find the psalmist drawing upon prior experience as a means to of encouraging his face. I remember the days gone by when you blessed me and that fuels my hope and gives me the courage and the motivation I need to ask you to help me again in the future, but the psalmist is saying here and have anything like that to draw upon. He says from my youth on. I have been afflicted in your terrors. Have overwhelmed me. I don't have any better days to remember it's always been like this for me in his experience, God has been the source of terrifying affliction. Look at verse 15 again I was afflicted, and about to die for my youth on a suffer your terrors. I am overcome. Notice the second person you your your burning anger has passed over me your terrors have destroyed me. They have surrounded me like water all day long they have encompassed me all together and the result is that's what he's received from God and in verse 18 in his human experience.
He's left alone.
Verse 18 you have removed lover and friend far from me. My acquaintances are in darkness. I can't see my friends because they're not here. There is no one here to give me earthly comfort you have been the source of frightening adversity to me. Oh God, and it closes on that note, as much as we may want to it as much as our prior experience in the Psalms conditions us to expect it. There is no closing note of hope this Psalm literally ends in darkness. He is finished praying in the same state in which he began. No answers no relief in every expectation that tomorrow will be another experience just like today, which was just like yesterday and the day before that stretching all the way back into his youth, so he finished praying in the same state that he had begun. He finished praying without understanding why just as Job also never understood the reason for his affliction either in the Psalm closes and is intended to be a unit of thought for the people of God. It's so dark how are we to understand this. How are we to make some kind of sense of this well. One writer suggests this, he says and I quote he says the Lord knows that the sentiment of this whole Psalm. Sometimes best describes his wayward, shortsighted, impenitent, insensitive and faithless children." Is that our take away from Psalm 88 is that why Psalm 88 is in the canon is the inspired writer of Scripture, wayward and unrepentant is that the lesson to grab from the song. I got questions kind of important. Charles Spurgeon didn't think so. Charles Spurgeon did not view the psalmist as a faithless one. In fact, Charles Spurgeon in the transparency of his godly soul said this in his exposition of Psalm 88 in the treasury of David. He said and I quote the great Baptist preacher Spurgeon. Speaking of himself in the third person says this he who now feebly expounds these words knows within himself more than he would care or dare to tell of the abysses of inward anguish. It is an unspeakable consolation that our Lord Jesus knows this experience having accepted the sin of it, felt it all in Gethsemane when he was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." I shortened his quote if you want to look it up in the treasury of David. It's a much more expansive statement than that, but Spurgeon is saying.
My soul has been there.
I know by direct personal experience that is so depressing and so dark and was so difficult that I wouldn't. I don't care to tell you about it and I wouldn't dare to tell you about it because he says it is certain that it would be misunderstood. I would never class myself. Spurgeon, but I could say the exact same thing that he said about his own experience.
I've been in that dark place of inward anguish where there was no relief where the heavens were brass were every cry for help was ignored.
It seemed in the man to whom I reached out for help were less than useless. Look, as I said earlier, we have 149 Psalms that show hope to 1° or another, and it is important for us to understand that that is the usual pattern for God's children. It is not common, it is not usual for God to bring a saint through this dark dark place and it is a blessing and a grace from God that he is like that. But Psalm 88 teaches us that once in a while, there can be exceptions for that Psalm 88 teaches us and some of you have been there. Some of you are there, Psalm 88 shows us that relieved suffering may legitimately be the believers lot in life. Sometimes God allows some of his children to sample the sorrow of abandonment. Sometimes he leaves them to feel the isolation and when he does, whether we know this simply through the teaching of Scripture, or whether we have somehow tasted it a bit in our own personal experience. The past tense event for me. Just so you know, for which I can only give endless praise to God but here is the way that we need to think and understand about it now 3000 years after the song was written, give or take 500 years. Now we can look back to Gethsemane. Now we can look back to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, now, now, beloved, now maybe we have pasted a small little sample of what the darkness and the isolation was for Christ when he was separated from his father when he bore sin on our behalf and bore the wrath of God on our behalf and he cried out my God my God why have you forsaken me. Maybe something of this kind of isolation in our own human experience gives us an idea of what multiplied exponentially. It was like for our Lord to bear sin and wrath and separation on our behalf just suffering was real. His anguish was genuine. His anguish was felt for us in Psalm 88 we get a distant glimpse we get a kind of a reverse meteor a dark light across the sky that gives us a brief witness of how much our Lord has done for us how much he suffered for us, there is a reason why Scripture refers to him as a man of sorrows. There's a reason why we sing man of sorrows.
What a name for the son of God who came ruin sinners to reclaim hallelujah what a Savior you know are our gloom and isolation would be a rightful result of our of our corruption of our guilt. It would be right for us to only know that as our experience, not Christ, that sinless glorious son of God who knew nothing but perfect communion with his father from before the beginning of time and now he voluntarily entered in to this kind of Psalm 88 experience on our behalf voluntarily.
Do you glimpse something now.
By contrast of the great love of Christ for the souls of his people. The great love of Christ. This was no this was no syrupy sentiment of love through which Christ went to the cross. This was the darkness of isolation, the, the, the despair of separation. No wonder he cried out, Lord if it's possible three times let this cup pass from me.
You see the beauty the greatness of his soul in knowing what lay ahead for him. Nevertheless, he prayed with father, not my will but thine be done.
Bring this gloom to me. Bring the judgment on me bring the darkness on me. Father, if that be your will, if that would deliver my bride from her sin.
If that would deliver your elect if it falls on me for their benefit.
Father, I submit, I accepted. When you see the glory of Christ, like that beloved, it makes you want to turn your eyes away. It makes you want to put your face on the ground and said, old Lord, the price that you paid in your one person to nature's heat heat in in his in the infinity of his divine nature.
He felt this infinitely and beloved.
He felt for you and he did it because he wanted to he did it in obedience to his father and beloved, get a whole new perspective on this perfection of Christ. He did it in love. He did this because he loved your soul enough that he could endure that that he would walk into that so that you might go free, so that you might be forgiven so that you might be reconciled to God so that you might be with him in eternity forever and ever.
He bore the grief so that you would know the joy and so we find in Psalm 88 at a human level, a mark of realism. Sometimes there is no resolution for difficulty sometimes there is no relief, no relief, no resolution. Does that mean that our sufferings are without meaning help perish the thought. Don't think that way. Look at what the God of Psalm 88 has done even for this psalmist, even for the writer of Psalm 88 God granted such enduring meaning even in the context of time to his suffering that we are considering his word millennium later thousands of years later. Of course there's meaning to his suffering in our day. Now we look at this God, to whom he cried out, the covenant keeping old Lord God, the covenant keeping God, and what we see about this God it was that God, to whom he prayed that came to earth to save his people from their sins. It's that God, who will return in glory see beloved. We just have to.
We just have to have a completely different perspective on life.
Don't pick. It's not about immediate resolution is not about immediate deliverance. One of the damnable aspects of superficial theology and seeker sensitive ministry and health and wealth prosperity gospel, you realize that's an oxymoron right that's a contradiction in terms.
There is no gospel in that at all is that it tells people to expect and even demand by faith. Immediate resolution of the problems that's not biblical and it conditions us to live by site not by faith, and it conditions us to live according to what we see and feel in utter contradiction of the suffering of Christ and the testimony of Joe the testimony of Habakkuk in the testimony, the writer of Psalm 88. It appalls me should appall you to yes us. God may allow us to suffer like that for time to what one day he's going to return in glory. Beloved, I plead with you to see, to understand and to embrace that there are ultimate hope is not the resolution of problems in this life is why we seek God is not the point. We need to abandon this self-centered perspective that the response to God as long as he's responding to us and things are going our way is God here. Usual morning control dues the sovereign and who's the subject here. No beloved. We seek God based on his character and his revelation, not because we necessarily get relief from our profound sorrow. We seek God because we see the preeminent worth and value in glory of Jesus Christ who suffered like this on our behalf and we seek him for his own namesake.
We seek him for who he is a big part of the time we get the earthly blessings beside sometimes we don't. And that doesn't change our determination to seek him. Rather, we seek him all the more because we have an assurance of final victory in our blessed Lord Jesus. Let's pray together.
Father, though you slay us yet. We will trust in you, be glorified in our lives help those suffering in this manner. Those who walk in darkness and have no light of God.
Would you give grace to their souls to persevere and find in Psalm 88 reason to continue. But even more father to see in our Lord Jesus, the shepherd who is worth seeking.
The shepherd who protects us, who provides for us and who guides us father to find in Christ and in Christ alone. Even if there is never an external inducement to help us to find in the revealed Christ read the word written revealing the word incarnate to persevere with hope that our faith is not in and thus we trust you will. God in Jesus name, amen will friend thank you for joining us on through the Psalms. If you would like to follow my weekly messages from truth community church go to truth Community Church.org and look for the link titled pulpit podcast again. That's truth Community Church.org God bless you. Thanks, Don and Fran through the Psalms is a weekend ministry of the truth sure to join us next week for our study is Don continues teaching God's people. God's word and we also invite you to join us on Sunday at 9 AM Eastern for our lives read from truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. You can find the link at the truth. Pulpit.com this message is copyrighted by Don Green. All rights reserved