Latest / Reformed Thinking / Remembering God in the Dark Night of Faith (Psalm 77) | Charles Spurgeon

Transcript

Remembering God in the Dark Night of Faith (Psalm 77) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Hello, and welcome to Reformed Thinking.
• 0:02
  It's good to have you back with us.
• 0:03
  It is. We are opening up the library
• 0:06
  again, cracking the spine on some old books and really trying
• 0:10
  to get our heads around the mechanics of the Christian life.
• 0:14
  And today we're doing something a little bit different.
• 0:16
  Usually, you know, we take a doctor in.
• 0:18
  We chase it down through history.
• 0:20
  Today we are taking one specific text, Psalm 77, and we are just
• 0:26
  going to walk through it line by line.
• 0:28
  Yeah, but we aren't just reading it cold.
• 0:32
  We're looking at it through a very specific set of lenses.
• 0:35
  We've got the commentary of Charles Spurgeon from his huge
• 0:38
  work The Treasury of David. It really is.
• 0:41
  And we're filtering all of that through the theological
• 0:43
  framework of the Westminster Confession.
• 0:45
  So we're going to see how the rubber of, you know, high minded
• 0:48
  reformed theology actually hits the road of real gut wrenching
• 0:52
  human emotion. I think that combination is
• 0:54
  going to surprise some people. Yeah, there's this stereotype
• 0:57
  out there that reformed theology is all head and no heart.
• 1:00
  Oh yeah, all logic, predestination, order.
• 1:03
  Yeah, people think of it as cold.
• 1:04
  It's a really common misconception, but when you look
• 1:06
  at the Puritans or you look at the Westminster Divines or you
• 1:10
  look at a guy like Spurgeon, you find the complete opposite.
• 1:13
  You find a theology that is incredibly robust when things go
• 1:18
  wrong. That's the test, isn't it?
• 1:20
  It is. It's easy to have a fluffy
• 1:22
  theology when the sun is shining, but when you're in the
• 1:24
  dark, you need something with a backbone.
• 1:27
  You do. You need to know that God is
• 1:29
  sovereign, that you are frail, and that the Scripture is
• 1:33
  objectively true regardless of how you feel in the moment.
• 1:36
  And that distinction between what we feel and what is true,
• 1:40
  that's going to be the main battleground of this whole
• 1:42
  discussion, I think. I think so.
• 1:44
  So we're looking at Psalm 77. The author is Asaf now.
• 1:48
  I feel like Asaf is. He's the guy in the band that
• 1:51
  nobody knows the name of. Everyone knows David.
• 1:53
  David is the front man. He's the lead singer.
• 1:55
  That's a really fair comparison. David is the warrior king.
• 1:58
  He writes the hits. You know, he had these
• 2:01
  incredible highs and these just crushed lows.
• 2:04
  But ASAP is different. How so?
• 2:06
  Well, Spurgeon describes him as a man of an exor savage mind.
• 2:10
  Exercised like he's been to the. Gym exercised like he's working
• 2:14
  something out. He's thoughtful, he's
• 2:15
  contemplative, and the source material points out something
• 2:19
  really fascinating about his musical style.
• 2:21
  What's that? It says ASAP specializes in the
• 2:24
  minor key. The minor key, if you play piano
• 2:26
  or guitar, you know exactly what that sounds like.
• 2:29
  You do. It's tension, it's melancholy.
• 2:31
  It doesn't resolve the way you expect it to.
• 2:33
  Right. It has a dash of sadness to it.
• 2:36
  But Spurgeon argues that this isn't just sadness for the sake
• 2:39
  of being sad. He says this minor key gives the
• 2:42
  song a tonic flavor. A tonic like medicine.
• 2:46
  Precisely if all you eat is sugar, if all your worship songs
• 2:50
  are a happy clappy, major key anthems, you eventually get
• 2:53
  sick. You get spiritual diabetes.
• 2:55
  You do. You need the bitters.
• 2:57
  You need the minor key to actually cure the soul.
• 3:00
  Asaf is essential because he's so honest about the darkness.
• 3:03
  The notes we have say that to understand Asaf, you must have
• 3:06
  done business on the great waters.
• 3:07
  I love that phrase. Me too.
• 3:09
  It implies that spiritual maturity isn't something you get
• 3:11
  in a classroom. It's something you get in the
• 3:12
  storm. Yeah, you have to go out into
• 3:14
  the deep water where it's dangerous, where the waves are
• 3:17
  over your head and you have to do business with God right
• 3:20
  there. If you haven't been through
• 3:23
  that, AAF might just sound like he's whining, sure.
• 3:26
  But if you have been there, AAF sounds like a lifeline.
• 3:30
  O Our mission today is to look at the anatomy of siritual
• 3:33
  depression, and I use that word anatomy on purpose because we
• 3:37
  are going to dissect it. We're going to take it apart to
• 3:40
  see how it works and hopefully find the cure.
• 3:42
  And the song gives us a great structure for that.
• 3:45
  It breaks down into two very distinct moves.
• 3:47
  OK, the first half verses, one through 9.
• 3:50
  That's the breakdown is the trouble, the pleading, the
• 3:52
  confusion. It's very subjective.
• 3:54
  Lots of I and me. All about his feelings.
• 3:56
  All about his feelings. Then at verse 10 there's a
• 3:59
  pivot, a huge one. The second-half, verses 10
• 4:03
  through 20, is the recovery. It shifts to the objective Lots
• 4:06
  of God and thou. OK, let's start the dissection
• 4:09
  then. Section 1, The anatomy of
• 4:11
  sorrow. First one begins I cried unto
• 4:14
  God with my voice. Now I want to stop right on that
• 4:16
  word cried because we usually say I prayed to God.
• 4:19
  We don't often say I cried to God.
• 4:21
  Cried is the right word. The Hebrew implies A shriek or a
• 4:25
  shout. Spurgeon knows that these are
• 4:28
  not stately, stilted words. It's not a prepared speech.
• 4:32
  Not at all. This isn't the prayer you pray
• 4:34
  at the beginning of a church potluck.
• 4:35
  This is a guttural, unfeigned expression of pain.
• 4:39
  And he emphasizes with my voice. I cried unto God with my voice.
• 4:44
  Why does that even matter? God hears our thoughts.
• 4:47
  He knows what we need before we ask why do we need to make
• 4:50
  noise? It's a question of pressure.
• 4:52
  Have you ever been in so much physical pain?
• 4:54
  Like you smashed your thumb with a hammer?
• 4:57
  Something that you just yelled. Oh, absolutely, it's
• 4:59
  involuntary. You didn't decide to yell.
• 5:01
  The pain forced the sound out of you, right?
• 5:04
  That is what is happening here spiritually.
• 5:07
  The souls under such immense pressure that it's compelled to
• 5:09
  use vocal utterance just to vent the agony.
• 5:12
  But there's another layer to it. Spurgeon uses this really vivid
• 5:15
  analogy of an alarm bell. I wanted to bring that up.
• 5:18
  He says it's a comfort to hear the alarm bell ringing when the
• 5:21
  house is invaded by thieves. Think about that image for a
• 5:23
  second. Your soul is the house.
• 5:27
  The thieves are doubts, despair, maybe even demonic accusation.
• 5:32
  They've broken in. Now if the house is silent,
• 5:35
  that's terrifying. Because it means the thieves
• 5:37
  have taken control. They've cut the phone lines.
• 5:39
  They're working in the dark. Correct.
• 5:41
  Silence means the enemy is winning.
• 5:44
  But the cry, the noise of prayer, that's the alarm bell.
• 5:48
  It means the homeowner is awake. It means they're resisting.
• 5:51
  It means they're calling for help.
• 5:53
  So even though the cry sounds like pure pain, it's actually a
• 5:57
  sign of life. As long as you're screaming for
• 5:59
  God, you haven't been conquered. Exactly.
• 6:01
  You haven't given up. And he didn't just do it once,
• 6:04
  the text says even unto God with my voice, and then it implies A
• 6:07
  repetition. He kept at it.
• 6:09
  Perseverance, he cried again. The gate of grace opens to the
• 6:13
  steady knock. You don't just ring the bell
• 6:15
  once and walk away. You lean on the buzzer.
• 6:18
  But here's where it gets really tricky.
• 6:19
  He's leaning on the buzzer, he's crying out and he isn't feeling
• 6:23
  better. Yeah, verse 2 says in the day of
• 6:25
  my trouble I sought the Lord, my sore ran in the night, and cease
• 6:30
  not. My sore ran in the night.
• 6:33
  I mean that is a graphic image. It sounds like a medical
• 6:35
  condition. It sounds awful.
• 6:37
  It's a metaphor for a grief that just will not heal.
• 6:41
  The literal translation suggests a hand stretched out in prayer,
• 6:45
  or maybe a hand that's wet from constantly wiping away tears.
• 6:48
  But the point is, it's ceased, not.
• 6:50
  It's continuous. It's like a bleeding wound that
• 6:53
  refuses to scab over. And then we hit this phrase that
• 6:56
  honestly confuses me. My soul refused to be comforted.
• 7:00
  Yeah, my soul refused to be comforted.
• 7:02
  That sounds dubber. I mean if you're in pain and
• 7:05
  someone offers you comfort, you take it.
• 7:07
  Why would a believer refuse comfort?
• 7:09
  Is he just being difficult here? It does sound like petulance,
• 7:13
  doesn't it? Like a child pouting in the
• 7:15
  corner. A little bit, yeah.
• 7:16
  But we have to look at this through the lens of human
• 7:18
  frailty. So why do we refuse comfort?
• 7:20
  Well, sometimes the comfort that's being offered is just
• 7:23
  fake. I mean like bad advice
• 7:25
  platitudes. Exactly.
• 7:27
  Cheer up, it could be worse. Or God never gives you more than
• 7:32
  you can handle. Oh, I hate that one.
• 7:34
  Me too. If you're in deep trauma, those
• 7:38
  words are not comfort, they're insults, so the soul rightly
• 7:43
  rejects them. That makes sense.
• 7:45
  You spit out bad medicine. You do.
• 7:47
  But there's a deeper, darker psychological reality happening
• 7:50
  here. Think of a man who is physically
• 7:52
  sick. He has a high fever.
• 7:54
  You bring him his favorite meal, the steak.
• 7:58
  What does he do? He turns away.
• 7:59
  The smell of it probably makes him nauseous.
• 8:01
  Right. The food is good, the steak is
• 8:03
  nourishing, but his capacity to receive it is broken by the
• 8:06
  sickness. OK, Spiritual depression creates
• 8:08
  a kind of nausea of the soul. You read a promise in the Bible,
• 8:12
  a good nourishing promise, and instead of feeling hope, you
• 8:15
  feel sick and push it away. The reformers had a lot to say
• 8:17
  about this, didn't they? They didn't just chalk it up to
• 8:19
  feeling down. No, they saw a moral dimension
• 8:21
  to it, too. And Spurgeon gets very pointed
• 8:23
  here. He says we can succumb to a
• 8:25
  sullenness. Sullenness, he calls it the
• 8:28
  daughter of despondency, or, my favorite, the son of sorrow
• 8:32
  hugging his chains. Wow, hugging his chains.
• 8:35
  That's a brutal image. It suggests we can fall in love
• 8:38
  with our own misery. We do.
• 8:40
  We absolutely can. We can become addicted to the
• 8:42
  narrative of being the victim. We can start to think my
• 8:46
  situation is so unique, so terrible, that God's common
• 8:50
  grace doesn't apply to me. And that's a form of.
• 8:52
  Pride. It's a perverse form of pride.
• 8:54
  It's an unhumble pride that says I am the exception to God's
• 8:58
  mercy. So when we refuse comfort, we
• 9:00
  are actually elevating our suffering above God's ability to
• 9:04
  heal it. That's it.
• 9:05
  We're making an idol out of our own pain.
• 9:07
  And that leads right into verse 3, which contains a paradox that
• 9:10
  is frankly terrifying if you think about it.
• 9:13
  I remembered God and was troubled.
• 9:16
  Stop and let that land. For a second I remembered God
• 9:18
  and was troubled. It just shouldn't happen.
• 9:20
  The Bible is full of commands to remember God.
• 9:22
  Remembering God is supposed to be the solution.
• 9:25
  It's the balm. It is, but here Asaph says
• 9:28
  remembering God is the source of the trouble.
• 9:30
  How is that possible? This is where good theology
• 9:33
  really matters. Who is God?
• 9:35
  He's not just a a benevolent grandfather in the sky, He's a
• 9:39
  holy. He is just.
• 9:41
  He is all knowing. He is true.
• 9:44
  Now imagine you're in a state of guilt.
• 9:45
  Imagine your conscience is tender.
• 9:47
  You feel like a failure, You feel dirty when you think of a
• 9:50
  holy God. Is that comforting?
• 9:52
  He just highlights the dirt. It makes it worse.
• 9:54
  It terrifies you, Yeah. When you think of a just God and
• 9:57
  you know you sinned, Is that comforting?
• 10:00
  No, it means punishment is coming.
• 10:02
  Judgement. Even God's truth is scary
• 10:04
  because if he's true to his word, he must judge sin.
• 10:07
  So to the jaundiced mind, that's the term the source uses.
• 10:11
  Every single attribute of God has a dark side.
• 10:14
  So we project our fear onto God's character.
• 10:17
  We do. Even the brightness of His love
• 10:19
  can blind us. We look at his love and we
• 10:21
  think, oh, that's for other people.
• 10:22
  That's for the Super Christians. I have neither part nor lot in
• 10:25
  it. And that suspicion caused the
• 10:28
  Spirit to just sink. The source talks about inward
• 10:30
  disquietudes returning like raging billows.
• 10:33
  You're just getting hammered by waves of theological panic.
• 10:35
  And right there, right when the panic is at its absolute peak,
• 10:39
  we see the word sela sela. Most people just skip that word
• 10:43
  when they read the Psalms. They treat it like a typo or a
• 10:45
  page number or something. The musical instruction?
• 10:47
  Most likely it means applause or a lift, but in this context,
• 10:51
  Spurgeon calls it sorrow. Taking a breath.
• 10:54
  That totally changes how I read it.
• 10:56
  It's not just a musical rest, it's a physical necessity.
• 10:59
  Think about sobbing, that deep, heaving kind of crying where
• 11:03
  your chest hurts. Eventually you have to stop just
• 11:06
  to gasp for air, right? That gasp is the Sela.
• 11:10
  It's the moment where the psalmist has to stop speaking
• 11:12
  because he physically cannot continue.
• 11:14
  He takes a breath, wipes his eyes, and then he plunges back
• 11:18
  in. And when he plunges back in, in
• 11:20
  Section 2, we see the physical toll this is taking on him.
• 11:24
  Verses 4 through 6, we start with insomnia.
• 11:26
  Verse 4 Thou holdest mine eyes waking.
• 11:29
  Notice the grammar again. He doesn't say I have insomnia.
• 11:33
  He doesn't say the coffee was too strong.
• 11:35
  He says thou holdest. He's blaming God for it.
• 11:38
  He's attributing the action to God.
• 11:40
  This is the Westminster Confession coming through.
• 11:42
  God is the first cause of all things.
• 11:44
  Psalm 127 says God gives his beloved sleep, right?
• 11:48
  So logic dictates that if sleep is withheld, God is the one
• 11:52
  withholding it. Wow, that is a hard pill to
• 11:55
  swallow at 3:00 in the morning. You're lying there staring at
• 11:57
  the ceiling and you have to admit, God, you are doing this
• 11:59
  to me. It's hard, but it's also
• 12:01
  grounding because if God is doing it, there must be a
• 12:04
  reason. It isn't random, it isn't chaos.
• 12:06
  It's a severe mercy, Navy, but it's from his hand.
• 12:09
  But the sleeplessness leads to silence.
• 12:11
  The verse continues. I am so troubled that I cannot
• 12:14
  speak. We've gone from the loud cry in
• 12:16
  verse one to total silence in verse 4.
• 12:19
  Great griefs are dumb. That is the phrase shallow
• 12:23
  Brooks Brawl and make a lot of noise.
• 12:24
  You know, a little stream makes a lot of splashing, but deep
• 12:27
  rivers, the Mississippi, it runs silent.
• 12:30
  Yeah. When you were in the deep end of
• 12:32
  sorrow, language feels you. You just run out of words.
• 12:36
  The source mentions Niobe from Greek mythology.
• 12:39
  Yes, the mother who lost all her children and wept until she
• 12:42
  turned to stone. Or Cementus, the Egyptian king.
• 12:47
  He watched his friend be LED to death, and he wept.
• 12:50
  But then he watched his own children be LED to death, and he
• 12:52
  stood silent. The grief was too big for tears.
• 12:56
  Too big for words, could be for anything.
• 12:58
  So what? Do you do when you can't pray?
• 12:59
  When you literally cannot find the words.
• 13:02
  This is where the doctrine of God's omniscience becomes a real
• 13:04
  comfort. The Source reminds us that even
• 13:07
  when we can't speak to men and can hardly speak to God, the
• 13:10
  Father understands the silence. It references King Hezekiah, who
• 13:14
  said he could only chatter like a crane or a swallow, just
• 13:18
  making noises. Bird noises.
• 13:19
  God understand bird noises. The source is tears.
• 13:22
  Have a grammar. God parses the syntax of our
• 13:24
  weeping. He knows what the silence means.
• 13:27
  You don't need to be eloquent to be heard by him.
• 13:29
  So Asaph is sleepless and he's speechless in verse 5.
• 13:33
  He tries a technique that I think we all try at some point.
• 13:36
  He tries nostalgia. I have considered the days of
• 13:38
  old. He's looking for a lifeline.
• 13:41
  He thinks if I can just remember the good old days, maybe I'll
• 13:45
  feel better. He is ransacking the past to try
• 13:49
  and light the gloom of the present.
• 13:51
  But it doesn't work. No, it backfires completely.
• 13:54
  And this is a danger the Puritans warned about all the
• 13:56
  time. When you're depressed, looking
• 13:58
  at your own past can be a trap. You look at the venerable
• 14:02
  experiences of ancient Saints, or you look at your own
• 14:05
  spiritual high points, and you compare them to your current
• 14:08
  misery. And the contrast just makes you
• 14:10
  feel worse. It digs the hole deeper.
• 14:12
  It highlights the loss. You think, Look how much God
• 14:15
  seemed to love me. Then why is he stopped?
• 14:18
  The jaundiced mind sees everything through a yellow fog.
• 14:22
  It twists every good memory into an accusation against God.
• 14:25
  Verse 6 breaks my heart a little.
• 14:27
  I called to remembrance my song in the night he used to sing he.
• 14:31
  Used to be a Nightingale. He could sing in the dark.
• 14:33
  Now he's just a comrade to the owl.
• 14:36
  He's lost his music. But notice what he does.
• 14:38
  He doesn't just wallow in it. The text says his spirit made
• 14:42
  diligent search. The Hebrew word there is chafas.
• 14:46
  Which means to strip something naked, to lift up the coverings
• 14:49
  and search fold by fold. He is taking his own soul apart.
• 14:53
  He's looking for the problem for the root 'cause.
• 14:56
  He's introspecting. He's digging into his spirit to
• 14:59
  find the abomination, the secret sin, the hidden idol that is
• 15:04
  causing God to hide his face from him.
• 15:06
  It's like taking a watch apart to find the one broken gear.
• 15:09
  And that's hard work. It's easy to spy faults in other
• 15:12
  people. We all have 2020 vision for
• 15:14
  other people's sins. But it is hard work to take your
• 15:17
  own heart to pieces like a watchmaker.
• 15:20
  ASAP's doing that hard work. And as he takes the watch apart,
• 15:23
  he starts asking questions. This brings us to Section 3, the
• 15:26
  battle of questions verses 7 through 9.
• 15:29
  These verses are a machine gun of anxiety.
• 15:31
  He fires off 6 specific questions.
• 15:33
  And these aren't just casual questions.
• 15:35
  These are the interrogation of unbelief.
• 15:36
  Let's just read them. Will the Lord cast off forever?
• 15:39
  Will he be favorable no more? Is his mercy clean gone forever?
• 15:44
  Doth his promise fail forever more?
• 15:46
  Hath God forgotten to be gracious, and has He in anger
• 15:50
  shut up his tender mercies? He is attacking the very nature
• 15:53
  of God. He's going right to the heart of
• 15:55
  everything. He is questioning the
• 15:56
  unchangeable attributes of God, right?
• 15:59
  Have God forgotten? Just think about that.
• 16:02
  Can an omniscient God forget? Doth his promise fail?
• 16:06
  Can a truthful God lie? These questions are terrifying
• 16:09
  because they suggest the entire universe is broken.
• 16:12
  If God can forget to be gracious, then the sky is
• 16:16
  falling. Nothing is certain.
• 16:17
  But the source material argues that these very questions are
• 16:20
  also the cure. How can the questions possibly
• 16:23
  be the cure? They sound like the problem.
• 16:25
  Because Asaph is putting his unbelief through a catechism, he
• 16:30
  is forcing his fear to speak clearly.
• 16:32
  What do you mean? Usually fear is a vague,
• 16:34
  shapeless cloud in the back of our minds.
• 16:37
  What if God hates me? Asaph forces that fear onto the
• 16:40
  witness stand and Cross examines it.
• 16:42
  He's. Using logic against his
• 16:43
  feelings. He's using a reductio ad
• 16:45
  absurdum. That's a logic term.
• 16:47
  It means taking an argument to its extreme logical limit to
• 16:50
  show that it's ridiculous. Walk us through that with one of
• 16:53
  these. OK, take the question, Have God
• 16:56
  forgotten to be gracious? Asaph asks it that he has to
• 16:59
  answer it. If the answer is yes, then God
• 17:01
  is not God, because God by definition cannot have amnesia.
• 17:05
  If God ceases to be gracious, he ceases to be God.
• 17:09
  Since God cannot cease to be God, the answer must be no.
• 17:12
  So by asking the worst possible question, he forces himself to
• 17:16
  realize the absolute impossibility of it.
• 17:19
  Exactly. He corners his own fear.
• 17:21
  He realizes that while God may leave his people for a season,
• 17:24
  he might hide his face. The idea that he would cast them
• 17:27
  off forever is monstrous folly, just theologically impossible.
• 17:31
  So he uses the objective truth of who God is to crush the
• 17:35
  subjective fear of what he feels.
• 17:36
  That is the reform method right there.
• 17:38
  Truth over feelings every time. And that leads to the pivot
• 17:41
  point, the fulcrum of the entire Psalm, Section 4, verse 10.
• 17:45
  And I said this is my infirmity. This is the diagnosis.
• 17:47
  He stops the questioning. He puts down the interrogator's
• 17:49
  lamp and he points the finger at himself.
• 17:52
  This, this doubting, this panic, this questioning, is my
• 17:55
  infirmity. What exactly does he mean by
• 17:57
  infirmity? It means weakness.
• 17:59
  It means sickness, He's admitting The problem isn't that
• 18:03
  God has changed. The problem is that I am weak.
• 18:06
  It's a disease of my faith. But the source offers another
• 18:09
  interpretation that I find really helpful.
• 18:11
  It says it could also mean this is my appointed sorrow.
• 18:14
  And that is a subtle but powerful shift.
• 18:17
  If it's my infirmity, it's a weakness I need to get over.
• 18:21
  But if it's my appointed sorrow, it's a burden I need to carry.
• 18:25
  Ah, I see. It's the realization that the
• 18:26
  season of darkness has been measured out by the Lord.
• 18:29
  It is my portion of the cup. And once he accepts that, he can
• 18:32
  move forward. The second-half of verse 10 I
• 18:36
  will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High.
• 18:39
  The right hand. Here we see that phrase all over
• 18:42
  Scripture. What does it signify?
• 18:43
  Power Executive action. A soldier holds his sword in his
• 18:47
  right hand. A king holds his scepter in his
• 18:50
  right hand. It represents God's active
• 18:52
  ruling power in history. So Asaph stops looking at his
• 18:55
  own sore, his wound, and starts looking at God's right hand, his
• 18:58
  power. That is the cure.
• 19:00
  You cannot cure spiritual depression by staring at your
• 19:04
  own navel. You have to look out.
• 19:07
  You have to look up. And specifically, Asaph decides
• 19:10
  to look back at history. This brings us to Section 5, The
• 19:14
  cure. Verses 11 and 12 give us a very
• 19:18
  specific three-step process and I think this is where the rubber
• 19:21
  meets the road. For anyone listening who is in
• 19:23
  this state, what do you do? Step one?
• 19:27
  Remember. Verse 11 I will remember the
• 19:30
  works of the Lord. The source calls memory a fit,
• 19:34
  handmade for faith. Spurgeon uses that analogy of
• 19:36
  Joseph in Egypt here right he. Does, and it's brilliant.
• 19:39
  You remember the story of Joseph.
• 19:40
  He stored up grain during the seven years of plenty so that
• 19:43
  there would be food during the seven years of famine.
• 19:45
  Right, he was prepared. Spurgeon says our memory should
• 19:47
  work the exact same way. When you're in a season of
• 19:50
  plenty, when God feels close, when players are answered, when
• 19:53
  life is good, you need to store those memories up.
• 19:56
  You need to pack them into the granaries of your mind.
• 19:58
  You do because why? Because the famine is coming.
• 20:01
  The famine is coming, and when you're in the seven years of
• 20:05
  spiritual famine, when you feel nothing, you go to the granary,
• 20:08
  you open the doors of memory and you feed on what God did in the
• 20:12
  past. Faith lives on the canned goods
• 20:14
  of memory during the winter. That is so practical.
• 20:17
  If you don't journal, if you don't mark the moments of grace
• 20:19
  in your life, you starve when the winter comes.
• 20:22
  You absolutely do. And notice he mentions wonders
• 20:25
  in the plural. I will remember thy wonders of
• 20:27
  old. He doesn't just remember the one
• 20:30
  big thing, he remembers the details.
• 20:33
  All of God's works are wonders. OK so Step 2 is meditate verse
• 20:37
  12. I will meditate also of all that
• 20:40
  work. This is different from just
• 20:42
  remembering. Remembering is recalling the
• 20:44
  fact. Meditating is chewing on it.
• 20:47
  It's rumination like a. Cow chewing the cut.
• 20:49
  Exactly. You bring the fact up from your
• 20:51
  memory and you grind it down. You extract every bit of
• 20:54
  nutrition from it. And Spurgeon has a sharp
• 20:56
  critique here. He says many professors, I mean
• 20:59
  people who profess faith, have barren conversation because they
• 21:02
  take no time for contemplation. We're too busy, we just skim the
• 21:05
  surface of things. We snack, We don't feast.
• 21:09
  You cannot get the deep nutrition of the Psalms by
• 21:12
  skimming them on your phone while you wait for a latte.
• 21:15
  You have to sit with them. You have to meditate.
• 21:17
  And that leads directly to step three, talk and talk of thy
• 21:21
  doings. Meditation must lead to speech.
• 21:25
  If you only meditate and never share it, Spurgeon says, you are
• 21:28
  a mental miser. A mental miser hoarding the
• 21:31
  spiritual wealth. You're like a mill that grinds
• 21:34
  corn only for the Miller. The goal of theology is not just
• 21:38
  your own stability, it's the edification of the whole body.
• 21:42
  When you talk about God's goodness, even when you're
• 21:44
  struggling, it has a consoling efficacy.
• 21:47
  It helps the listener, sure, but does it really help the speaker?
• 21:50
  Absolutely. There's something about
• 21:52
  articulating the truth that makes it real to your own heart.
• 21:55
  When you hear your own voice declaring the works of God, it
• 21:58
  preaches A sermon to your own soul.
• 22:00
  There's an analogy here. I don't want to miss the hound.
• 22:03
  Oh yeah, the hunting dog. When a hound loses the scent of
• 22:06
  the prey, what does it do? It doesn't just sit down and
• 22:08
  quit. It hunts backward.
• 22:10
  It circles back to the last place it had the scent.
• 22:13
  That is a great image for the believer.
• 22:15
  When you lose the scent of God's presence, when you feel totally
• 22:19
  lost, go back. Go back to the last place you
• 22:22
  knew He was there. Go back to the last clear
• 22:25
  evidence of His grace in your life.
• 22:27
  Hunt backward until you recover the trail.
• 22:29
  It's like finding a receipt that proves you own your house.
• 22:32
  You find that one. Note that one memory, and it can
• 22:35
  save you from the prison of despair.
• 22:37
  So Asaph has his plan. He's going to remember, he's
• 22:41
  going to meditate, he's ready to talk.
• 22:43
  And where does his mind go? It goes to two places.
• 22:45
  This is Section 6. He sees God in the sanctuary and
• 22:48
  he sees God in the sea. Verse 13 Thy way, O God, is in
• 22:51
  the sanctuary, or the marginal reading says in holiness.
• 22:54
  The sanctuary. This is the place of clarity.
• 22:57
  This is the temple. Here everything is ordered.
• 22:59
  The law is clear, the sacrifice is clear.
• 23:02
  The presence of God is localized right over the Ark of the
• 23:05
  Covenant. In the sanctuary, we understand
• 23:07
  the philosophy of Providence. We see the why.
• 23:11
  We see that God is holy. We see that everything he does
• 23:13
  is ultimately righteous. When we're in the sanctuary, in
• 23:16
  worship, in the Word, we get the big picture.
• 23:19
  We see the blueprint. But then verse 19 throws a
• 23:22
  massive curveball. Thy way is in the sea.
• 23:25
  This is the contrast. The sanctuary is clear.
• 23:28
  The sea is a total mess. Yeah.
• 23:30
  It's mysterious. It's trackless.
• 23:31
  It's chaotic. Thy footsteps are not known.
• 23:35
  Martin Luther had a profound thought on this, didn't he?
• 23:38
  Luther spoke of hearing God say to him in his struggles.
• 23:42
  I am not to be traced. God walks on the water.
• 23:46
  You cannot track footprints in the ocean.
• 23:49
  As soon as he steps, the water fills in the space.
• 23:53
  There's no trail. The source brings in a modern
• 23:55
  science connection here about ocean currents.
• 23:58
  It's a really helpful illustration.
• 23:59
  We know now that there are massive currents paths in the
• 24:03
  sea. The Gulf Stream for example.
• 24:05
  Ancient sailors didn't know they were there, but the currents
• 24:07
  were moving their ships anyway. God.
• 24:09
  Has a path. God has a specific ordained path
• 24:11
  for your life, a current. But to you looking over the side
• 24:15
  of the boat, it just looks like swirling, chaotic water.
• 24:18
  You can't see the path, you just have to trust the captain.
• 24:20
  So we have to reconcile the sanctuary and the sea.
• 24:23
  That is the key to spiritual stability.
• 24:25
  You have to know that God's way is holy.
• 24:28
  That's the sanctuary. Even when it is hidden, that's
• 24:31
  the sea. You interpret the mystery of the
• 24:33
  sea through the certainty of the sanctuary.
• 24:35
  So you say I don't know what God is doing right now, see, but I
• 24:38
  know who God is. Sanctuary.
• 24:40
  That's good. That's solid ground.
• 24:42
  And Asaph needs that solid ground because the memory he
• 24:45
  pulls up next is the ultimate C circumstance.
• 24:48
  He goes back to the Exodus Section 7.
• 24:50
  The Exodus Theophany verses 14 to 18.
• 24:53
  This is some high drama. It really is.
• 24:55
  He starts by calling God the God the doest wonders.
• 24:58
  Not just has wonders like they're in a museum, he does
• 25:01
  them. It's his habit.
• 25:02
  He's an act of God. And then he describes the
• 25:04
  redemption of the sons of Jacob and Joseph.
• 25:07
  Why mention Joseph specifically? It's usually just sons of Jacob.
• 25:11
  It's an interesting detail. Jacob is the father of the
• 25:13
  nation, sure, but Joseph was the provider.
• 25:16
  Joseph was the one who went into the darkness of Egypt first to
• 25:19
  save the family. It highlights God's Providence
• 25:23
  in using suffering Joseph slavery to bring about salvation
• 25:26
  for the whole family. OK, so when we think of the Red
• 25:29
  Sea crossing, I think most of us picture the movie version.
• 25:32
  You know, Charlton Heston, The walls of water stand up, the
• 25:36
  ground is dry, the wind blows. They just walk across.
• 25:39
  It's majestic, but it's. Orderly ASAC remembers it very
• 25:43
  differently. Look at verses 16 through 18.
• 25:46
  This isn't a parade, it's a catastrophe for the Egyptians.
• 25:49
  The water saw thee. Oh God, the water saw thee.
• 25:52
  They were afraid. The depths also were trouble.
• 25:55
  That's personification. The ocean sees its creator and
• 25:58
  has a full blown canonic attack. It trembles.
• 26:00
  And then the weather comes in. The clouds poured out water.
• 26:03
  The skies sent out a sound. Vine arrows also went abroad.
• 26:07
  Arrows means lightning. Asaph is describing a violent,
• 26:10
  terrifying thunderstorm. Rain pouring down, Thunder
• 26:14
  crashing, lightning striking the ground all around.
• 26:16
  Wait a minute, does Exodus actually mention a thunderstorm?
• 26:19
  Not explicitly in the prose narrative, no.
• 26:22
  But Josephus, the Jewish historian, confirms the
• 26:24
  tradition. He says that while Israel was
• 26:26
  crossing, the Egyptians were being absolutely hammered by
• 26:29
  storms, thunderbolts and rain. He calls it aerial artillery.
• 26:33
  So imagine that scene. You're an Israelite.
• 26:35
  You were walking through a Canyon of water, and above you
• 26:38
  the sky is exploding. Thunder, lightning.
• 26:41
  The earth is shaking. It is terrifying.
• 26:44
  The voice of thy Thunder was in the heaven.
• 26:46
  The lightnings lightened the world.
• 26:48
  The earth trembled and shook. So what's the point of focusing
• 26:51
  on the violence of it? It emphasizes God's raw power
• 26:54
  over chaos. Nature saw God and trembled.
• 26:58
  The quiet caves of the sea were moved with fear.
• 27:01
  And yet, and here's the irony, man, the Egyptians, and often
• 27:05
  us, we refuse to tremble. We are harder than the rocks.
• 27:08
  We're more stubborn than the sea.
• 27:09
  So Asaph builds this huge crescendo.
• 27:12
  It's loud, it's violent, it's the warrior God marching through
• 27:15
  the sea, destroying the enemy of lightning.
• 27:17
  And then we hit Section 8, verse 20.
• 27:19
  The transition is so abrupt it almost gives you whiplash.
• 27:21
  It really does. Thou lettest thy people like a
• 27:24
  flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
• 27:25
  We go from the terrible Thunder, earthquake, lightning to the
• 27:28
  gentle a flock of sheep. Why switch to the image of a
• 27:32
  flock right there? Because sheep are so significant
• 27:34
  in the Bible. What are they?
• 27:35
  They're stupid, they're prone to wander, and they are completely
• 27:39
  defenseless. You don't lead a pack of wolves,
• 27:41
  you lead a flock of sheep. They require constant solicitous
• 27:45
  care. And the paradox is that God LED
• 27:47
  this helpless stupid flock through the terrifying sea.
• 27:51
  And then through the wilderness, he didn't take them around the
• 27:54
  danger, he took them straight through it.
• 27:55
  But he was with them. The God who throws lightning
• 27:58
  bolts is the same God who carries the lamps.
• 28:01
  And look at the agency mentioned by the hand of Moses and Aaron
• 28:04
  this. Is crucial.
• 28:05
  God is the shepherd, but he uses under shepherds.
• 28:08
  He uses human hands. Moses and Aaron.
• 28:10
  God drives his foes away with his own raw power, the storm,
• 28:14
  but he leads his people using human instrumentality.
• 28:18
  He uses a stuttering man like Moses and his brother Aaron to
• 28:21
  hold the hands of the people and guide them.
• 28:23
  And then the Psalm just ends. It just stops.
• 28:26
  Verse 20 is the end. There's no Amen.
• 28:28
  There's no and so we lived happily ever after.
• 28:31
  It just cuts to black. Spurgeon observes that the
• 28:34
  Spirit of God knows when to see speaking.
• 28:36
  It doesn't need a neat, methodical conclusion.
• 28:39
  The vision itself is the conclusion.
• 28:41
  You have seen the power. That's the storm, and you've
• 28:44
  seen the care. That's the flock.
• 28:46
  If you know that the God who controls the lightning is the
• 28:49
  same God who's leading you like a sheep, what else do you really
• 28:52
  need to know? You know you're safe, even if
• 28:55
  it's dark, even if the sea is loud around you.
• 28:57
  Exactly. The smiter of Egypt is the
• 28:59
  shepherd of Israel. That is the resting place for
• 29:02
  the soul. So let's just trace the ark of
• 29:04
  this deep dive. Asaph starts in the absolute
• 29:08
  pit. He is screaming at God.
• 29:10
  He's refusing comfort. He is, in Spurgeon's words,
• 29:13
  hugging his chains. He spirals into those dark
• 29:16
  questions. Has God failed?
• 29:19
  Then he hits the bottom. He admits his own infirmity, he
• 29:22
  stops looking at himself, and he looks at the right hand of God.
• 29:24
  He engages the cure. He remembers.
• 29:27
  He meditates, he talks, he recovers the scent like the
• 29:30
  hound he. Reconciles the sanctuary, God's
• 29:32
  holiness with the sea, God's mystery, he.
• 29:34
  Remembers the power of God in the storm of Exodus.
• 29:38
  And finally, he rests in the simple fact that he is just a
• 29:40
  sheep in the flock, being led by the hand of God's chosen
• 29:43
  servants. It's a movement from
• 29:46
  introspection, I'm so troubled to adoration.
• 29:50
  Thou art the God. It's the move from the
• 29:52
  subjective to the objective. And that is the only way out of
• 29:56
  spiritual depression. You have to get out of your own
• 29:58
  head and into God's history. That is a lot to chew on.
• 30:01
  Before we close the book on Psalm 77, I want to leave the
• 30:04
  listener with one final thought. A provocation, if you will.
• 30:08
  Go for it. The Psalm ends with by the hand
• 30:11
  of Moses and Aaron, God used human hands to lead the flock
• 30:16
  through the terror. I want you, the listener, to
• 30:20
  consider this. You might be in the sea right
• 30:22
  now. You're looking for God to split
• 30:24
  the sky. You want the lightning.
• 30:25
  You want the big, undeniable miracle?
• 30:27
  But God usually works through means.
• 30:28
  Exactly consider how God might be leading you through your own
• 30:31
  sea right now using the hand of someone you might be
• 30:34
  overlooking. A friend, a spouse, a pastor,
• 30:38
  just someone ordinary. And you can flip it around, too.
• 30:41
  Consider how you might be the hand of Moses for someone else's
• 30:43
  flock. There are people around you who
• 30:46
  are drowning in the noise of their own lives.
• 30:48
  They need a shepherd. They need a hand to hold.
• 30:51
  Maybe you are the instrument God wants to use to get them to the
• 30:54
  other side. That's the challenge.
• 30:56
  Don't just wait for the lightning, look for the hand.
• 30:59
  Thank you for joining us on Reformed Thinking.
• 31:01
  We'll see you next time.