Faith Beyond Circumstances
Psalms 74
June 14, 2020
Tonight we come to the 74th Psalm.
It is yet another Psalm of Asaph.
• I love the Psalms of Asaph because there is a real raw honesty that comes forth in them.
• Just as we saw last time in that infamous 73rd Psalm when Asaph took you into the depths of his doubt and struggles and his near apostasy.
The 74th Psalm is no different.
And as an intro into this Psalm I’d like to just approach the question:
WHAT DOES YOUR FAITH REST IN?
Now on one hand it’s really easy to answer that question.
• We’d say, “God”
• Or “God’s Word”
• Or “Jesus Christ and Him crucified”
We know the answer.
And yet, sadly in our culture we see times
Where these claims are proven false.
A couple of weeks ago the lead singer of a well-known contemporary Christian band called HAWK NELSON…
Songs like “Drops in the Ocean” where they sing:
“If you want to know how far my love can go, just how deep, how wide? If you want to see how much you mean to me look at my hands look at my side. If you could count the times I’d say you are forgiven. It’s more than the drops in the ocean.”
They’re not a band I’d necessarily endorse,
But at the very least they were labeled as a Christian rock band
That sought to spread the love of Christ.
A couple of weeks ago their lead singer, Jonathon Steingard, wrote an article that he NO LONGER BELIEVES IN GOD.
“After growing up in a Christian home, being a pastor’s kid, playing and singing in a Christian band, and having the word ‘Christian’ in front of most of the things in my life — I am now finding that I no longer believe in God,”… As an adult, he began questioning what he saw as contradictions within his religion. He wondered why evil and suffering occur throughout the world if God was truly “all loving, and all powerful.”
https://www.insider.com/jon-steingard-hawk-nelson-lead-singer-doesnt-believe-in-god-2020-5
He mentions a few other things,
• Like how the Old Testament and the New Testament seem to be at odds, specifically that God would call for the genocide of a people in the Old Testament and command love in the New.
And we’ve heard those types of arguments many times before.
• “If God is good, then why does He allow suffering?”
• “Why do bad things happen to good people?”
• “How could God command all the Canaanites to be killed?”
You’ve heard them.
But it is a little more unsettling when those arguments come from
The mouth of a pastor’s kid and professing Christian
Who has made a career out of singing songs about the love of Christ.
It is the sin of apostasy, and it is unsettling.
But stories like that are why I ask you:
“What does your faith rest in?”
When people make arguments like those of Jonathon Steingard
What they reveal is that their faith rests in their circumstances.
To put it a little simpler.
It’s easy to trust God when good things are happening.
• When God satisfies your expectations of love
• When God satisfies your definition of goodness
• When God operates within your framework of what is right
At those moments it’s easy to trust God.
• It’s easy to sing about God.
• It’s easy to love God (because He is acting consistent with your expectations)
But what about when God doesn’t?
• What about when God allows the suffering?
• What about when the young mother dies?
• What about when the child is not protected from the abusive father?
• What about when the sickness doesn’t go away?
And the struggle for so many has been
In trying to maintain this view of God being good and loving
When the things He allows don’t fit our definition
Of what is good and loving.
First of all I would remind you of what the Bible says.
• God is good
• God is love
If what God does doesn’t fit your definition of good and love
Then change your definition.
God is not defined by those terms, He defines them.
• We know what is love by looking at God.
• We know what is good by looking at God.
We don’t force God into our definition.
But beyond that, I JUST BRING THAT STORY UP
To remind you of the danger of letting your faith rest on circumstances.
Because I can promise you that in this life you are going to face things
That will not feel like love or goodness,
And if your faith is resting only on your circumstances you are quite likely to follow that apostate pathway and walk away from God.
I want to remind you that your faith must rest on one place
And that is on the revealed word of God.
We trust God is who He says He is,
Even when circumstances make it hard for us to see that.
I give you that as an intro because Psalms 74
Is A GREAT EXAMPLE of the kind of faith I’m talking about.
It is the faith of Asaph that goes beyond what he sees or understands.
Now, if you were with us two weeks ago
Then you know that Psalms 73 could be lumped into this category as well.
• After all, the faith of Asaph nearly failed because circumstances didn’t match
his expectations.
• He couldn’t figure why the wicked who spurned God could have such blessing
in life while the righteous could suffer so much.
• He nearly walked away from the faith.
But we read:
Psalms 73:16-17 “When I pondered to understand this, It was troublesome in my sight Until I came into the sanctuary of God; Then I perceived their end.”
Asaph had been looking at the circumstances,
But he hadn’t been looking at the whole story.
He was looking at the present, not at the end.
And when he returned to the sanctuary and heard the word of God,
His faith moved beyond his circumstances and actually led to
One of the great confessions of the Bible.
Psalms 73:25-28 “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For, behold, those who are far from You will perish; You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to You. But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, That I may tell of all Your works.”
Well, Psalms 74 has a similar feel.
• Only the dilemma in Psalms 74 is NOT the wealth of the wicked.
• The dilemma of Psalms 74 IS the perceived defeat of God.
There are 3 main points we see in the Psalm tonight,
And we’ll break them down a little more than that.
#1 ASAPH’S LAMENT
Psalms 74:1-11
Basically what is occurring here is Asaph laying out before God
All the issues that are causing him confusion and pain.
• These are his list of irreconcilable dilemmas.
• These are the circumstances that he has no answer for.
If someone were to approach him and ask him why these things happened, Asaph wouldn’t know what to say.
We can understand them easier, but breaking them down into 4 real problems for Asaph.
1) THE ASSUMED REJECTION OF GOD’S PEOPLE (1-2)
“O God, why have You rejected us forever? Why does Your anger smoke against the sheep of Your pasture? Remember Your congregation, which You have purchased of old, Which You have redeemed to be the tribe of Your inheritance; And this Mount Zion, where You have dwelt.”
As we work our way through this Psalm you will recognize that
The event in view here is
The destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians.
And the FIRST QUESTION Asaph gets to the heart of that.
“O God, why have You rejected us forever?”
To that I would add that this was more than a feeling on Asaph’s part.
• Ezekiel actually showed us God’s glory departing from the mercy seat, then
from the temple, and ultimately from the city altogether.
Ezekiel 11:23 “The glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city and stood over the mountain which is east of the city.”
The rejection of God was far more than just Asaph being dramatic.
There was a sense in which God did reject His people.
• Now it was NOT “forever” as Asaph assumed,
• NOR was it TOTAL as he likely also assumed.
BUT THERE WAS A REJECTION.
He would also ask, “Why does Your anger smoke against the sheep of Your pasture?”
This is likely a reference to the smoke rising from the burning city of Jerusalem.
It was just a graphic picture of God’s anger toward His people.
And the struggling thing for Asaph was that this seemed out of character.
For Israel was the people whom God had saved and redeemed.
(2) “Remember Your congregation, which You have purchased of old, Which You have redeemed to be the tribe of Your inheritance; And this Mount Zion, where You have dwelt.”
• These people were God’s “congregation”
• These people were “purchased of old”
• These people were “redeemed to be the tribe of [God’s] inheritance”
• This location is “where You have dwelt”
I mean, these things were supposed to be eternal.
We weren’t supposed to be rejected by You.
But to Asaph that’s what it looked like.
Now we have the luxury of history on our side
So we know that the rejection was temporary and partial.
• In that not all of them were rejected, several lived in Babylon and were greatly cared for by God (Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-nego, Esther, Mordecai)
• The rejection was not forever, but only for 70 years.
But if you put yourself in Asaph’s shoes it must not have felt that way.
Circumstances looked bleak.
But that’s not all he laments.
2) THE APPARENT VICTORY OF GOD’S ENEMIES (3-8)
Here Asaph just sort of chronicles the audacity of the enemy
And what they did to God’s city and God’s house.
THEY INVADED THE CITY AND THE TEMPLE
(3) “Turn Your footsteps toward the perpetual ruins; The enemy has damaged everything within the sanctuary.”
THEY MOCKED GOD IN HIS OWN TEMPLE
(4) “Your adversaries have roared in the midst of Your meeting place; They have set up their own standards for signs.”
Not only blasphemous words,
But actually flying their flags of their pagan deities in God’s temple.
THEY DESTROYED GOD’S ALTARS
(5-6) “It seems as if one had lifted up His axe in a forest of trees. And now all its carved work They smash with hatchet and hammers.”
You’ve likely read it in Exodus or in 1 Kings; those long segments where the detail of all the altars and tables and candlesticks, etc. are described.
And yet the Babylonians chopped them all apart with axes
So that they might take the gold off of them back to Babylon.
THEY BURNED GOD’S TEMPLE
(7) “They have burned Your sanctuary to the ground; They have defiled the dwelling place of Your name.”
THEY TOTALLY DOMINATED GOD’S PEOPLE
(8) “They said in their heart, “Let us completely subdue them.” They have burned all the meeting places of God in the land.”
Now to get inside Asaph’s head here you need to zoom out
And take an honest look at what this looks like.
• A foreign army, following pagan deities
• Just entered the Holy City and the Temple itself.
• They tore up everything, mocked God, stripped it bare,
• Burned it, and took all the people captive.
And might I remind you that this sort of thing
WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO HAPPEN.
• I mean do we not remember Aaron’s sons being consumed by fire for offering strange fire before God?
• Do we not remember Moses not being allowed into the Promised Land for failing to treat God as holy in the midst of the people?
• Do we not remember Uzza being struck dead for touching the Ark?
• Do we not remember Uzziah being turned leprous for entering that temple?
Many of you will remember that this reality was the hope of Israel.
They didn’t think anyone could come into Jerusalem and mess with them
Because God’s temple was there.
That was actually their boast:
Jeremiah 7:4-7 “Do not trust in deceptive words, saying, ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’ “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly practice justice between a man and his neighbor, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, nor walk after other gods to your own ruin, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.”
You see that this temple was their ace in the hole.
No one was going to come in here and overthrow God.
And yet, that’s exactly what Babylon did.
What does it look like?
It looks like God lost.
Let me give you an opposite account to further my point.
TURN TO: 1 SAMUEL 5
Remember that story?
• That story makes it look like God is far more powerful than the Philistine gods (and indeed He is)
Well, if that story makes God look like the stronger God,
Then what does this story look like?
It gives the appearance that God lost.
That is the conclusion you come to
If you are only looking at the circumstances.
Of course God’s word tells us that
• God did not lose,
• Rather God Himself brought Babylon here and strengthened them
• To do all that they did as punishment for the idolatry of His people.
But if you are only looking at the circumstances
You can see how bad this looks.
The Assumed Rejection of God’s People
The Apparent Victory of God’s Enemies.
3) THE ABSOLUTE SILENCE OF GOD’S PROPHETS (9)
(9) “We do not see our signs; There is no longer any prophet, Nor is there any among us who knows how long.”
Now again, to be fair, that’s not exactly true.
• Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel all prophesied that this would happen.
• Jeremiah even prophesied that it would last for 70 years.
• Isaiah named the king who would send Israel back.
But we’re talking here about perception in circumstances.
At that time in Israel, no one was listening to the prophets.
• Regarding the prophecy of Jeremiah that it would last 70 years,
• Daniel was the first to discover that, and it wasn’t until the 67th year of the exile.
And here we are talking about perceptions.
We are talking about circumstances.
And the circumstances are that no one had an answer for this.
It only added to the perception that perhaps God was not real,
Or perhaps God did not actually love His people,
Or perhaps God had been defeated.
Asaph is just calling it like he sees it.
There is one more perception here in this lament.
4) THE ABSENT RESPONSE OF GOD (10-11)
(10-11) “How long, O God, will the adversary revile, And the enemy spurn Your name forever? Why do You withdraw Your hand, even Your right hand? From within Your bosom, destroy them!”
To make matters worse, God doesn’t seem to be doing anything to answer the doubt.
• God is not responding.
• God is not doing anything.
His people are suffering, the enemy is looting, the prophets are silent, and God isn’t giving any explanation at all.
It doesn’t appear that He is doing anything more
Than all the false gods of the nations.
And if you stop there, and look only at the circumstances,
You can see why so many would have faith that failed.
You’d understand why someone would say,
• “I guess God isn’t God after all.”
• “It looks like He doesn’t care for us like we thought He did”
• “Apparently God isn’t hearing our prayers”
• “I guess God’s word doesn’t have the answers”
And you would be able to see why people, whose faith rests on circumstances, might then turn and say, “I no longer believe in God”
• “I used to believe in Him, but after what happened in Jerusalem, I don’t
anymore.”
That’s precisely the type of defection we see in that singer.
• He just couldn’t rationalize the perceived injustice around him.
• He just couldn’t explain the suffering or the “bad” in the world.
• And so, he determined that God is not real.
And this is why our faith does not rest on circumstances.
If it does, you will face realities that will rattle you too.
Our faith rests upon who God has revealed Himself to be,
And we trust that, even when we don’t understand.
Well in Psalms 73 Asaph told us that he nearly walked away from God.
But in Psalms 74 that is not the case at all.
In fact, Asaph handles these negative circumstances like a champ.
He gives us a great example of faith that is greater than circumstances.
His Lament
#2 HIS DECLARATION
Psalms 74:12-17
Don’t you love that first line!
“Yet God is my king from of old”
I’m not looking at what I see today anymore.
(that was the mistake of Psalms 73)
I’m looking much deeper.
• In Psalms 73 he learned to look past the present to the end.
• In Psalms 74 he learned to look deeper than the present and see the beginning.
Remember who God is and has always been
And don’t allow present circumstances to change that.
“Yet God is my king from of old”
And what is the main truth he knows about God?
“Who works deeds of deliverance in the midst of the earth.”
• God is God
• God is King
• God is My King
• God has always been King
• And GOD IS A DELIVERER
HE ALWAYS HAS BEEN.
Instead of looking at today’s headline and wondering where God is,
Asaph looks back through the pages of history
And chooses not to let present circumstances upset his faith.
God has always delivered His people,
Even from the most desperate and dark situations.
CONSIDER:
(13-14) “You divided the sea by Your strength; You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; You gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.”
What is Asaph referring to?
The Exodus from Egypt and the subsequent crushing of the Egyptians.
Why bring that up?
Well, if you’ll remember that appeared to be
A pretty hopeless time too didn’t it?
Exodus 2:23 “Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God.”
• 450 years of slavery, watching Egypt worship false gods.
• It must’ve felt like God had forever rejected His people or that perhaps He was not as powerful as they thought.
• And yet God raised up Moses.
And when they left Egypt, they ONCE AGAIN WERE IN A DESPERATE SITUATION as they were pinned up against the Red Sea.
Exodus 14:10-12 “As Pharaoh drew near, the sons of Israel looked, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they became very frightened; so the sons of Israel cried out to the LORD. Then they said to Moses, “Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you dealt with us in this way, bringing us out of Egypt? “Is this not the word that we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”
• That was a pretty dark day too, and yet God delivered.
When Asaph sees the temple going up in smoke,
He doesn’t lose faith, he just goes in his mind back to the Exodus
Where God delivered before.
AND THAT’S NOT THE ONLY PLACE.
(15) “You broke open springs and torrents; You dried up ever-flowing streams.”
Here he remembers the Wilderness Wanderings where circumstances again looked bleak.
• When it appeared that the people would die of thirst in the desert, God opened
up a spring of water from a rock.
• When the Jordan river prevented them from crossing into the Promised Land,
God dried up that stream.
In reality, Israel’s history is filled
With hopeless situations and the deliverance of God.
There are endless stories of times when it appeared there was no hope and no explanation and then God did the unthinkable and delivered.
Asaph is holding to that here as well.
Circumstances will not wreck his faith,
He’ll rest on the past and who God has always been.
And then comes a great statement about the sovereignty of God.
(16-17) “Yours is the day, Yours also is the night; You have prepared the light and the sun. You have established all the boundaries of the earth; You have made summer and winter.”
I think there are 2 ways to read those verses.
• You can read them literally and see them as a reference to creation where God brought light out of darkness and created all things.
• I think you can also look at it metaphorically as if to say God is sovereign over both the night and the dark.
Regardless if it’s bad or good, God is still in control.
This is actually what Jonathon Steingard most failed to understand.
• That God is sovereign over all things,
• And even when bad things happen,
• They are sovereignly ordained for the good of His children.
There are a lot of things in life that seem bad to the eye,
But if seen through spiritual eyes we realize them to be blessings.
Consider:
John 9:1-3 “As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
Blindness seems terrible doesn’t it?
(and it would be hard)
And yet, here is a blind man, born blind for the glory of God.
Exodus 4:10-11 “Then Moses said to the LORD, “Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” The LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?”
All bad and all good have to be viewed
Through the lens of God’s sovereignty
And with the understanding that God is working all things
For the good of those who love Him.
It may be terrible at the moment.
But our good and loving God knows exactly what He is doing.
Asaph knows that.
• He is not about to make the same mistake twice.
• He will not allow circumstances to shatter his faith.
• His faith is bigger than his circumstances.
He actually reminds us of the book of Habakkuk.
• Habakkuk cried out to God because his people were evil.
• God said He would send the Babylonians to destroy them.
• Habakkuk didn’t like that, but understood the sovereignty of God.
He closed his book with this statement:
Habakkuk 3:16-19 “I heard and my inward parts trembled, At the sound my lips quivered. Decay enters my bones, And in my place I tremble. Because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, For the people to arise who will invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom And there be no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail And the fields produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold And there be no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord GOD is my strength, And He has made my feet like hinds’ feet, And makes me walk on my high places. For the choir director, on my stringed instruments.”
One sat after the destruction, one sat before it,
But both viewed it through the lens of God’s sovereign goodness.
His Lament – His Declaration
#3 HIS CRY
Psalms 74:18-23
There are 4 requests from Asaph here.
And notice that NONE of them are for understanding.
He doesn’t seem to feel that God owes him an explanation.
He is walking by faith.
1) REMEMBER THE ENEMY (18)
(18) “Remember this, O LORD, that the enemy has reviled, And a foolish people has spurned Your name.”
• Even if Asaph were capable of taking his own revenge, he knows he cannot.
• Dealing with the Babylonians will be the job and prerogative of God.
• And Asaph is trusting God to deal with them in His time.
Incidentally, both Jeremiah and Ezekiel promise that He will.
Here’s just one of many
Jeremiah 50:29-32 “Summon many against Babylon, All those who bend the bow: Encamp against her on every side, Let there be no escape. Repay her according to her work; According to all that she has done, so do to her; For she has become arrogant against the LORD, Against the Holy One of Israel. “Therefore her young men will fall in her streets, And all her men of war will be silenced in that day,” declares the LORD. “Behold, I am against you, O arrogant one,” Declares the Lord GOD of hosts, “For your day has come, The time when I will punish you. “The arrogant one will stumble and fall With no one to raise him up; And I will set fire to his cities And it will devour all his environs.”
Asaph is going to wait for that day.
He knows God will answer all the abuses against Him.
And Asaph prays that God would remember
What the enemy did to God and to God’s people.
2) REMEMBER YOUR BELOVED (19)
(19) “Do not deliver the soul of Your turtledove to the wild beast; Do not forget the life of Your afflicted forever.”
I love that even in the midst of such punishment
Asaph still refers to Israel as God’s “turtledove”.
He knows God’s love never fails.
He understands God’s CHECED
His request here is that God would not forget His beloved forever.
It is to pray that God, in His own time, would again restore His people.
And of course you know that He promised that as well.
Jeremiah 29:10-14 “For thus says the LORD, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. ‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. ‘Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. ‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. ‘I will be found by you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.’”
This is how Asaph is praying.
• That God would punish the enemy who brought this pain.
• That God would deliver His people who deserved it.
3) REMEMBER YOUR COVENANT (20-21)
(20-21) “Consider the covenant; For the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence. Let not the oppressed return dishonored; Let the afflicted and needy praise Your name.”
Right now the WRONG PEOPLE are living in the land.
Asaph knows that God has given this land to Israel.
In fact, God promised Abraham that He would.
Asaph is simply calling on God to remember that promise.
Which of course God did.
You understand a little here about our faith when circumstances go bad.
• Don’t lose faith.
• Look back to who God has been.
• Don’t pray for an answer or explanation.
• Pray for God to do what He has promised.
And then we one final request, which I love.
4) REMEMBER YOUR GLORY (22-23)
(22-23) “Arise, O God, and plead Your own cause; Remember how the foolish man reproaches You all day long. Do not forget the voice of Your adversaries, The uproar of those who rise against You which ascends continually.”
Ultimately Asaph prayed that
The perception of God in the world right then would fade away.
The fall of Jerusalem certainly gave the impression
That God wasn’t as powerful as He seemed
And that His people weren’t as secure as they thought.
It looked to the world like God was over-hyped.
And this was the biggest grief Asaph faced.
• And so his prayer was that regardless of what happened in his life,
• May God move to defend His great name
• And to silence the foolish who speak against Him.
And by the way, God will do this too!
TURN TO: EZEKIEL 36:22-32
God will act for His own sake.
Well there you have a great illustration of the type of faith
That moves beyond bad circumstances.
The kind of faith that stands even when things go terribly wrong.
It IS NOT a faith that looks at suffering and determines that there is no God.
It IS faith that looks at suffering and sees that God is at work as He always has been.
It IS NOT a faith that prays for an explanation so that I can keep believing.
It IS a faith that prays according to the promises of God because it is believing.
It IS NOT a faith that demands relief from struggles and hardships.
It IS a faith that cries out for God to be glorified through it all.
That is the type of faith that is bigger than circumstances
And it is the kind of faith you and I are called to have.
