Psalm 73: Is It Ok To Doubt?

[Music] [Music] it's great to be back in Australia yesterday Violetta and I boarded the long flight from Los Angeles to Sydney and shortly after getting off the the plane as we got onto the jet way I knew that I was home when I heard a lady say get in the back of the lawn back of the line she wasn't speaking to me she was speaking to somebody but just hearing that get in the back of the line I was like I'm home I'm home and so it's it's good to be home it was an amazing trip but in many ways it was kind of a difficult trip and I want to talk to you about that this morning we started off by going to Florida and the arize intensive took place there I was with Ty Gibson and we had an amazing time 250 registrants in Orlando Florida from then I went and spent some time with a good friend of mine pastor Nathan Renner who in many ways is a mentor to me he's probably one of my best three or four friends on the face of the earth and so that was great we spent some time together and just sort of Eastern Sierras which is my favorite place in the United States maybe my favorite place in the world just geographically on the eastern side of the Sierras there which is where Yosemite is located then from there went to visit my family my mom and my dad have historically lived in Wyoming or Colorado in and around that area but they have migrated south to Phoenix Arizona and if you've ever been to Phoenix you might wonder why would anyone live here it's hot and it's dry and it's flat and I suppose in its own way it's it's beautiful as well it is beautiful and so we wouldn't visited my parents and and this is going to sort of all give you a feel for how we arrived at the sermon this morning I woke up early this morning because and this doesn't happen very often very often the the challenge that I faced when it comes to preach or to present is I have too much that I want to say I have too many sermons I want to preach I have too many series I want to go through I'm always like no not that not that not that not that but in preparation for coming back and the next series that we're going to be embarking upon I've just been kind of I don't want to say at a dry but it's been it's kind of felt that way I often in ways that are you know unusual and in God's own idiosyncratic ways he just sort of reveals to me what the new sermon is gonna be what the new series is gonna be and I've just been waiting on the Lord waiting on the Lord just knowing that it's gonna drop it's gonna happen but it hasn't happened and I thought oh this is gonna be you know maybe it's just because I've been busy and I've been distracted and so even as late as the plane ride over I had my Bible there and I purposed in my heart I wasn't gonna watch any stupid movies and I didn't watch any stupid movies and just kind of waiting on the Lord waiting for him to come through and seeing what it was gonna be and and still nothing and so I woke up very early this morning upside down from jet lag as you might imagine and 4 o'clock in the morning and I'm like Lord you're you're gonna have to come through you're gonna have to deliver here and God can work in his wonderful ways you know the Galatians thing wasn't really coming together the Ephesians thing wasn't really coming together and I wasn't sure I wanted that to be the next series anyway still not yet sure what we'll be preaching on next Sabbath but it's gonna be the beginning of a series so I just opened the Bible and just started reading and as is often the case with me when I just open the Bible and I'm looking for a word from the Lord I generally turn to the Psalms that's just where I go that's like my magnetic north that's that's the place that I go I just open one of the Psalms and I start reading and in the case of this morning at about five o'clock this morning I open to Psalm 73 so why don't you join me there if you would Psalm 73 Psalm 73 and before I get right into Psalm 73 we're gonna go right through this beautiful Psalm today in its entirety all sort of 28 verses before we do that I want to setup a little bit more here I wrote a few notes here just so I wouldn't forget any of this I mentioned it when I was with my good friend Nathan we were on the eastern side of the Sierras one of the things that we were doing was rock climbing and the other thing we were doing was we were doing a little bit of fishing and I've been a fly fisherman for much of my life absolutely love it but a fascinating thing it sort of happened late last year in or early last year and the year before and that was that two of my probably my best to fishing friends in the world with the exception of Nathan so I have really three fishing buddies two of them died martin simpson passed away the year before late in November and then of course david north one of our own church members here died in july of last year and so it was a weird thing to be back fishing doing this activity that was so bound up in terms of the memories that I had and the love that I had for it with people that are just not here and Nathan who I was with had been with me on fishing trips with Martin and he had met David before and and it was just a it was just one of those moments where you're just sort of remembering and and the sort of impermanence of life and the frailty and fragility of life was just sort of right in front of me well when we traveled from there I went and spent time as I mentioned with my parents and just about a day before I arrived to visit my my dad who's 76 years old his brother my uncle uncle Odie passed away in time and my brother was my dad excuse me was one of three brothers and his two older brothers have now died and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math there if you have three brothers and the two older have passed away one just a few days ago you know my dad's next in line it's gonna happen you know so I'm there hanging out with my 76 year old father and it was great my brother flew down so we were just just having a great time with dad but yeah all the while you're you're looking in the mirror and you're saying man I'm 46 years old my dad is 76 years old even though when I see him he still doesn't look like an old man to me I see him as kind of a 40 year old man it's weird how that is and then my mom as some of you might know my mother has Parkinson's disease she has four years and you can this trip perhaps more than any recent trip you could see the advances that the disease is making on her life and just seeing your mom frail and and you know shaking uncontrollably not able to write no longer able to drive difficulty eating and sort of all of that so here's my you know aging father and my my diseas'd mother still you know happy as can be and I didn't spend any time talking about these things we did spend some time talking about the passing of my dad's brother Odie at about this time if you've kept up with the news in America at all there was a shooting in a synagogue in the United States of America something almost a dozen people lost their lives there and then just on the flight here in fact in the Los Angeles Airport I called up a friend Greg King Greg and Sara who you met a few weeks ago when we did the interview with them Greg has gone back to the United States of America and he was back you know sort of getting his you know keeping his business going at cetera et cetera and when I called him up just to sort of share and have a word of conversation he informed me that one of his close friends maybe his closest friend in America and one of his business partners who I think is about my age maybe 50 is that right I'm looking for about 50 years old was diagnosed with a terrible brain tumor terminal brain tumor and they've got him immediately into surgery is that right am I getting this right Sara so his wife is a very close friend of Sarah's and it's as I understand it it's it's terminal right he had it he had a 90% of the tumor removed the remaining 10% was inoperable but these the tumor that he has and I'm not a medical doctor but is the kind that even if you get all of it it just comes back so he's on a very short yeah very short timetable so so there's been all of this sort of do all of these things have been happening over the last two weeks and especially the last week and then let me just say one more thing about that as many of you know I'm a very avid rock climber I love rock climbing and in addition to doing the fly fishing that we were doing there in the Eastern Sierras we also spent a lot of time rock climbing and a movie was just released this year in fact has just come out that features a fella by the name of Alex Honnold I've actually talked about him in one of my sermons before Alex Honnold is climber climbs mostly in and around California Yosemite and just last year 2017 yep he free solo to El Capitan and they made a National Geographic movie about it called solo I went and watched the movie in Florida it was so mind-blowing ly good that I went and saw it a second time with my dad and my brother and I suppose if you're not a rock climber you look at that and you think wow that's really dangerous you know that's he's a thousand feet he's 2,000 feet he's 3,000 feet off the ground he if he falls you know there's no ropes he's a free soloist not always but often if he falls he's gonna die but as a rock climber as somebody who's been climbing since I was in my late teens I am fully aware of what he's doing and having done some soloing myself not a lot of it none of it anymore I I just it was fascinating to to see Alex there on this route called free rider which is one of the longer routes right up the center of El Capitan you know just just hanging by his just by his strength and his skill and and just the smallest little bits of you know purchase on the rock separating him and and and in the course of the the the interview and the movie he's talking about death and and how we're all gonna die and and this just brought to my mind yet again just the impermanence of life the fragility of life the frailty of life and so it's been this kind of flood and I didn't even really understand it it's not like I was crying I wasn't spending a lot of time sort of being really emotional about it but this morning when I opened up Scripture and I turned to Psalm 73 it all came together that the shooting and my uncle's passing and my mother's advancing Parkinson's and watching you know Alex Honnold scale El Capitan without ropes at all dawned on me that at some level subconsciously and emotionally I've been becoming increasingly aware of my own fragility I mean any one of us in this room is just one doctor's visit away one positive test away from our own impermanence and so Psalm 73 hit me very hard and I can't wait to sort of unpack that I want to talk to you today about what might be called holy doubt holy doubt Psalm 73 we sometimes think of faith as being holy and belief as being holy and confidence is being holy I want to talk to you today from my heart about holy death I want to begin by just making several statements that you might say yeah yeah you might intellectually assent to the statements but I just want to I just want to reaffirm the reality of this today by letting you know that you have scriptural grounds and a scriptural basis to ask hard questions really hard questions it's okay to ask hard questions and and not only to ask hard questions I want you to feel this morning for those of you that are Bible believing Christians and many of you seventh-day Adventist Christians I just want to give you permission today to not know all the answers it's okay to say I don't know and I'm confused by that and it's okay to be confused and it's even okay to be angry when I see Parkinson's disease having its way with my mother and the picture that I have in my mind of my mom is not what I see in front of me here i I feel a well of frustration and of anger up inside of me it's okay to ask the questions and to say I don't know why this is happening and even at times to be angry you might be saying wait a minute David who are you to give us permission who are you to say that it's okay to be angry it's okay to be confused and it's okay to not know all the answers well I want to say this that God is big enough and secure enough to enshrine wrestling and even doubt in holy scripture itself the Bible is filled with passages in the Psalms and in the prophets and even to some degree in the New Testament with people that wrestled with doubt and they wrestled with God in deep even angry frustration so if God is willing enough and comfortable enough to put people crying out to God sometimes in in really straightforward language saying things like God are you are you deaf that you can't hear my prayer are you blind that you can't see the situation that I'm in if God is comfortable in shrining this kind of protest in Scripture itself I am certain that you are not going to be able to say anything that is going to make God say whoa that was a little too much that was a little too offside is there such a thing as holy doubt I believe that Psalm 73 encapsulate Sack einde of holy doubt I want show you where I think holy doubt goes any conversation about doubt and any conversation about faith are going to necessarily are going to necessitate that we talk about the other if we're talking about faith we're gonna have to talk about doubt and how faith is inherently prone to doubt and vice versa right doubt this idea of holy doubt is is bound up with this idea of faith and I want to say right at the outset here that faith does not offer or require absolute certainty about all things I consider my man I consider myself a man of faith and I look out here and I see a lot of faces that I recognize a lot of people that I know and love I would consider you to be men and women of faith and I just want you to know this morning not only do you have scriptural permission to be upset or to be angry or to be confused or to be ignorant you also have permission to not know everything and it's ok to say you know what I'm confused and I'm upset and I don't know things even though I'm a man of faith or a woman of faith because faith is a journey with God but faith is also a journey toward God and I'm going to pick that up right at the end faith is a journey with and toward God several years ago I read a book by one of my favorite theologians Gregory Boyd the book is titled benefit of the doubt breaking the Idol of certainty and I went back in the series that we preached at light bears camp meeting this year on the Minor Prophets I went back and reminded myself of some of the things that Boyd says about the nature of faith the nature of doubt the nature of certainty and I just want to remind you just let you know remind myself of one of the concepts that he sort of addresses there in this interplay of faith and doubt uncertainty Boyd says miry examination of the biblical concept of faith led me to the conclusion that the concept of faith that equates strength with certainty and that views doubt as an enemy is in fact significantly different from the biblical model he says while the certainty seeking model of faith is psychological in nature the biblical concept of faith he says is covenant 'el in nature that is while the former is focused on a person's mental state I am certain that I know why this is happening I am certain that I know is there and that he's good Boyd says the latter idea of faith a covenant review of faith is focused on how a person demonstrates a faith commitment by how they live Boyd says you don't have to know everything you are you are well within the domain and the parameters of biblical faith to be rattled to be confused to be frustrated and even to struggle so I want to go to Psalm 73 Psalm 73 documents Asaph spouts about the faithfulness and even the reality of God you've got Psalm 73 open there Psalm 73 we often think of the Psalms as having been written by David and it is true that the lion's share of Psalms were written by David the vast majority of them but there are twelve Psalms that were written by a fella named a staff now there are three people in the Bible named Asaph and almost certainly the Asaph that's responsible for the writing of the Psalms in Scripture was a Levitical priest the son of berechiah right so this is a man who is a Jew but he's not just a Jew he's a priest he's he's a Levite and he is someone who was familiar with the inner workings of the Hebrew sanctuary he was a man of God just to say it really simple and in Psalm 73 you have one of eleven Psalms in a row that are all a psalm of Asaph a psalm of Asaph a psalm of Asaph and if you go back to Psalm 50 as the 12th son of Asaph or psalm of Asaph excuse me and what I want to do is I'm going to start by just reading the psalm through and I don't know if you have the same vibe that I get when I read the Psalms but sometimes you read the Psalms and you're like same same just sound same same right and and God is good and God is to be praised but one of the things I love about the Psalms is if you're a lazy reader of the Psalms you miss it if you read the Psalms lazily or if you read the Psalms in a perfunctory or a cursory manner you miss what's going on and I'll be honest this morning when I open up a scripture and started reading through Psalm 73 I missed it I got a few things there was a little bit in there you know enough devotional fodder to sort of face the day but I missed the thing so I went back and I read it again I often challenged myself with the reading of passages of Scripture especially the Psalms to say David I think you missed something there must be something more there there must be something deeper there and so this morning I want to share with you what God shared with me in Psalm 73 let's read it through in its entirety all 28 verses Asaph writes surely God is good to Israel to those who are pure in heart but as for me my feet had almost slipped I had nearly lost my foothold for I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked I'm reading from the New International Version this morning they have no struggles their bodies are healthy and strong they are free from common burdens they are not plagued by human ills therefore pride is their necklace they clothe themselves with violence from their callous hearts comes iniquity their evil imaginations have no limits they scoff and speak with malice with arrogance they threaten oppression their mouths lay claim to heaven their tongues take possession of the earth therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance they say how would God know does the Most High know anything this is what the wicked are like always free of care they go on a Messing wealth verse 13 surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and washed my hands in innocence all day long I have been afflicted and every morning brings new punishments if I had spoken out like that I would have betrayed your children when I tried to understand all this notice this it troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God then I understood their final destiny surely you place them on slippery ground you cast them down to ruin how suddenly are they destroyed completely swept away by terrors they are like a dream when one awakes when you arise O Lord you will despise them as mere fantasies when my heart was grieved and my spirit was embittered I was senseless and I was ignorant I was like a brute animal a beast before you yet I am always with you you hold me by my right hand you guide me with your counsel and afterward you will take me into glory whom have I in but you and Earth has nothing that I desire besides you my flesh and my heart may fail but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever those who are far from you will perish you destroy all those who are unfaithful to you but as for me it is good to be near God I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge and I will tell of all your deeds now there's a lot in there there's a lot of really good stuff in there and I'll be honest in my first reading this morning I missed it I got I got a few points it's good to be near you and and and you'll take me into glory I got enough to sort of walk through the day and feel like yes I've spent time with Jesus but as I went back over it back over again challenging myself as I'm challenging you in Scripture read over it again and again and again until you have a settled sense that you've gotten the point of the original author what was he trying to say and why did he say it in the way that he said it again Psalm 73 documents a SEFs doubts about the faithfulness and even the reality of God you can't miss because he tells us I was deeply troubled now we don't know here much about what the source of a SAS concern and consternation and trouble was but there's a hint that it could have been some kind of a personal sickness perhaps the disease not unlike my own mother's Parkinson's something something has happened to Asaph that the doesn't accord with his view of how things are supposed to work when you're a man of God when you're a person of God when you're a follower of God the hints are found right in the text itself in verse 14 all day long I have been afflicted and every morning brings new punishments sounds like my body is hurting and and I'm receiving new every day the pain grows worse and the disease continues it advances at the end of the psalm psalm 73 verse 26 another indication that it could be a physical a personal physical ailment to Asaph that caused him to wonder aloud and and to raise his complaint against God my flesh and my heart may fail says man my body is wearing down and and I'm hurting and there's there's pain in my bones and I'm very upset we cannot say definitively that this is the cause of a SEFs frustration and his concern but there's sufficient textual indicator to say his body's breaking down maybe he's aging or maybe he has a advanced to see something has happened right whether it's pain of mine or pain of body he's crying out to God I think something is wrong here and it doesn't accord with the very first verse which is a kind of formulaic way of understanding how faith works how God works and how the Covenant works and a Saffy's is not ashamed to just put his cards right out on the table and tell us how he believes the universe is supposed to work how things are supposed to happen because frankly there's probably most of us in this room that would agree would agree with this basic idea surely God is good to Israel to those who are pure in our but anybody say amen to that yet God is good god is good to those to those that are his people God is good to the descendants of Abraham God is good to the church God is good to those that prioritize him and there's a certain formulaic simplicity in this if you are good you'll be treated good if you act in the right way God will take care of you surely God is good to Israel but but this simplistic formulaic way of the way that the universe is supposed to work is not according with what Asaph is feeling in his body and in his bones perhaps but certainly with what he's seeing around him because it looks like people who are not good and who are not in covenant relationship with God are actually prospering and if in fact Asaph is speaking autobiographically and his body is wasting away under disease prematurely he's basically saying to God what gives why me why this why now what and so he cries out doubting God's covenant ill-fate fulness and even if you read between the text he's doubting even God's reality and existence Psalm chapter 1 verse 3 introduces us to this kind of simple formulaic way that the world is supposed to work when you're a follower of God you're a Christian when you're an Israelite is a safe one the righteous is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season whose leaf does not wither whatever they do prospers if you have a business venture you're a follower of Jesus it's going to prosper you don't get in car accidents and your children aren't killed by drunk drivers you don't get early onset Parkinson's you're a follower of Jesus whatever you do prospers and Asaph introduces Psalm 73 with the same kind of formulaic idea hey when we do good God does good to us Jobe is a book that I don't have to tell you has a lot of these same themes these same elements of if God is so good then why is this happening why to me and why now and why this way job 13 verses 23 and 24 how many wrongs and sins have I committed Jobe asks God show me my offense in my sin there's the formula if I live righteously if I live and coming into faithfulness to God I will prosper if something bad has happened I'm being punished I'm being called to account and so Jobe calls out very much in Asaph like fashion okay bad things have happened to me I've done something to deserve this show me what I've done wrong show me my transgression why do you hide your face and consider me your enemy he cries out earlier in the same book of Job job says I say to God do not declare me guilty but tell me what charges you have against me because in job's mind as with Asaph and I'm suggesting with many of us here today if something bad has happened it must be a punishment or at least a consequence there's got to be a reason because good stuff happens to good people and and bad stuff's supposed to happen to people that don't value God it's very easy it's very simple it's very formulaic job 10 continues Jobe asks very pointedly very very frankly honestly does it please you to oppress me to spurn the work of your hands while you smile on the plans of the wicked man that sounds like Psalm 73 that sounds like Psalm 73 Here I am your faithful servant Here I am trying to live and do what's right and bad stuff happens to me my house is taking away my children are taking away my wealth is taking away and yet there are others who are not in covenant till faithfulness to you who are not following you who are not your sons and daughters and you seem to be smiling upon the plans of the wicked this is not merely an Old Testament this formulaic phenomenon is not really Old Testament we find it implicit in the New Testament and passages like John chapter 9 verses 1 & 2 now as Jesus passed by he saw a man who was blind from birth and his disciples asked him saying rabbi who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind because clearly somebody has done something wrong here who sinned is that this man's sin is that why he's blind or perhaps it's the sin of his parents who can tell me who can tell me what's the first word of Jesus answer the word is neither ah just just let the complexity but also the beauty of that soak into your soul the disciples had a very simple very Jewish very a Safian if I can invent a word here on the on the spur of the moment bata they had a very simple way of viewing reality if I do good if I'm a tree planted by the rivers of water if I'm an Israelite if I'm a church member if I'm a man of God if I'm returning to either a woman of God good stuff happens and if I'm not if I'm on the other end of the spectrum if something bad has happened is because I've done something wrong I'm being punished this is a consequence of a choice that I have made the disciples have this very idea it's just a part of the fiber and fabric of of the way that they understood the way that reality works and so they find a guy that's blind and and they know that he's blind for some reason and they can only conceive of two possible reasons either he's sinned or his parents sin and Jesus fascinating answer is neither in in one word Jesus takes aim at this simple formulaic way of viewing reality he says in a single word reality doesn't always work in these nights nice and neat and tidy ways where the good people are prosperous and all their financial ventures and and their spouses never die prematurely and their kids are never killed and in by accidents and they don't get cancer the tests always come back negative Jesus is like no no it doesn't work like that we too I believe like Asaph and the disciples in job are tempted to put reality into really simple boxes I'm gonna suggest today that there is such a thing as holy doubt holy doubt let's continue this frustration with God this this complaint against God is found in many ways in Scripture but perhaps more than any other way it's found in the phrase how long how long is a phrase that emerges again and again and again in the writings of Scripture and in particular in the Psalms just get a feel for the angst of these passages the frustration of these passages the confusion even the anger of these passages Psalm 13 verses 1 & 2 how long O Lord will you forget me forever how long will you hide your face from me how long shall I take counsel in my soul having sorrow in my heart daily how long will my enemy be exalted over me this is why I say you have full permission to be confused and even to be upset and to have doubt and to express those doubts God is big enough you're not going to edge him off of his throne you're not going to knock him off his throne when you say I don't understand why this is happening to me how long will this go on God can handle it he's big enough your pastor might not be able to handle it your spouse might not be able to handle it but God can take it you can ask God how long Psalm 82 verse 2 how long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked that is a pointed question if God enshrines pointed critiques of his governance like this in Scripture nothing you can say is going to upset him he knows just be open be honest be real Psalm 94 verse 3 Lord how long will the wicked how long will the wicked triumph Psalm 74 verses 9 and 10 we do not see our signs there is no longer any profit nor is there any among us who knows how long oh God how long will the adversary reproach will the enemy blaspheme your name forever and over the last few sabes pastor Joel has taken you through a series title when God stands up and he's been doing that in the context of Daniel 8 and 9 the great prophecy of Daniel 9 the 70 week prophecy will of course the birth of the 70 week prophecy is this question right here in Daniel 813 long Daniel over here's to angelic beings talking how long will it take for the vision to be fulfilled the vision concerning the daily sacrifice the rebellion that causes desolation the surrender of the sanctuary and the trampling underfoot of Yahweh's people he overhears two angels this isn't just a SEF and this isn't just joband how long even angels say hey what's going on how long I mean for real God here you're supposed to be the God of all the earth you're supposed to be just you're supposed to see how long how long how long how long Psalm 73 verses four to twelve back to our Psalm all our Psalm here and we we find here we'll sort of summarize Asaph perception of the wicked okay his perception of the wicked because then he moves from perception to actual but there's a transition between the two and we'll get there in just a moment this is a SAS perception of the wicked this is found in verses four to twelve they have no struggles their bodies are healthy and strong yet another textual intimation that something is wrong with his body some sickness some ailment they're evil imaginations have no limits they say how would God know does the Most High know anything a saps complaint is that people complain against God and there appears to be no consequence there appears to be no repercussion people can just say whatever they want in their bodies are healthy and their imaginations can go from perverted thing to perverted thing I wonder here and I'm a little nervous to do this and I just wonder if anybody here remembers back to our seven part series on the Book of Jonah anybody remember what that series was titled very good I heard somebody said in the family of a and you might remember that that Jonah when he was swallowed by the the great fish he went down and he prayed that prayer he prayed that amazing prayer that beautiful prayer we walked through that in in great detail but the last line of Jonah's prayer that he prayed from the belly of the great fish was really a summary of what the whole book of Jonah is about my remember this I wonder if anybody here remembers what was that single phrase that Jonah prayed from the belly of the great fish that encapsulates the whole thing that the entire book of Jonah is about in fact it's really the whole thing that Scripture is about does anybody remember I thought you might salvation belongs to Yahweh as Jonah praised this prayer that the last phrase that he utters from the belly of the great fish is so salvation belongs to Yahweh this is what Asaph believes this is what Joe believes this is what I believe this is what the disciples believed and yet in fairness and in just unbiased observation it doesn't always look that way it does not always look that way I mentioned in the introduction there that I went to see free solo the film about Alex Honnold twice and I've been a huge fan of Alex Honnold for a long time so I started reading his book alone on the wall and I'm only about two-thirds of the way through read this on the plane instead of watching some silly movie that I would regret Honnold is an avowed atheist and so I've taken to fascinating the little internal contradictions in this I've taken to dog-earing all of the pages where I detect contradictions right now I'm not doing this to be critical of Alex I have the utmost respect for him and the work that he does and he's an amazing rock climber and a fascinating human being but by his own identification he says I'm an atheist I'm an avowed atheist even describes in one section here of going through a significant god-hating phase reading the works of Hitchens and Harris and Dawkins and others hating God but then fascinating things happen again and again things will come up where he will say thank God thank God that thank God that and in reading about Honnold atheism a picture has emerged that is unsurprising because it's a picture that I've encountered dozens of times Alex Honnold is not an atheist regarding the true God that is represented in Scripture I'm persuaded he's never even had exposure to the true God that is represented in Scripture he tells us in little bite-size pieces and chunks in the book the God that he is atheistic about the God that he doesn't believe in well I got good news for you Alex I don't believe in the God that you don't believe in as well the picture in the portrait and the character caricature their character that he paints of this God is a God that doesn't deserve to be believed in and Alex like many others who are thinking people rationally minded people observant people they look at the kind of formulaic ways that good Christian people like ourselves and and the way that we paint the world and they say that's not that's not that's not the way it looks because it kind of looks like the world is in total upheaval it looks like people are starving to death it looks like people are being killed for no greater reason than the Caprice of some dictator it I get Alex's frustration I I can even understand and resonate with the intellectual motivations for his atheism I think any Christian who can't see why people doubt is just not being honest with themselves intellectually they're not facing the world that Jobe faced and that Asaph faced and that others in the Psalms face where they're saying God if you are who you say you are and in this world is what you say it is and we are who you say you are then what gives why why fill in the blank why that why me why this way why now and yet right in the heartbeat of Scripture is this consistent insistent refrain salvation belongs to Yahweh God is deliverer God is in charge God is good can somebody say Amen easy to say men not always easy to believe it faith by definition is prone to doubt so I'm going to say it again it's okay to ask hard questions it's okay to not know all the answers it's okay to be confused and even to be angry at times you can even get to the place and I'm wondering and I won't make you raise your hands in fact I'm not wondering I'm certain that there would be a significant number of people in this room who have actually had the ethical experience of Asaph when a says man surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and I have washed my hands and innocence probably many people in this room could say there have been times and I thought what am I doing this whole Christian thing for because it kind of doesn't seem to work as nicely and it's neatly and as easily as I want it to work it would be easier just to go and live a godless life and believe that there's no purpose to life and there's no consequence because it's hard to affirm the goodness of God in the face of the rampant evil that we see around us today and a SEF who I remind you is a Levitical priest he says man I'm doing all of this for nothing I was tempted to think it was all for naught all of those services all of those rites all of those sacrifices all of those rituals all of that church attendance all of that worship all of those ties in vain he says surely in vain I have done all of this this sounds very much like the last book of the Old Testament where you have this sort of a Safian complaint that that is a larger complaint taken on by all of Israel one of the seven critiques that God raises against Israel he says you have said this is God saying to Israel you have said I've heard you say it I've heard you say it and even if you've not said it out loud maybe you didn't have the guts to say you didn't have the ability to say under the strength to say it or the courage to say it out loud you've said it in your heart why be a seventh-day Adventist anyway why be a Christian anyway why be a believer anyway God says I've heard that I've heard that you have said it is futile to serve God what are we gained by carrying out all these requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty but now we call the arrogant blessed certainly evil doers prosper even when they put God to the test they get away with it God's like I've seen you say these things again I'm not threatened by them I know you have felt that way I know that you have often wondered why things happen in the certain way that they happen why did that person die why did I have a cancer tests come back positive why is the tumor in my brain inoperable and why am I only given a year or less to live Asaph was tempted to throw in the towel and join the world in their godless pursuits I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hands I'll just ask you to raise your hearts who here has not been similarly tempted to say you know what peace-out the frustration is too big the burden is too big the confusion is too big there have been times there have been moments of weakness and I'm gonna try and suggest to you today you might be tempted to regard those as moments of great weakness because oh you had doubt you didn't have absolute certainty about everything that was happening in the world you couldn't just easily explain how God allows a man to walk into a synagogue and gun down a dozen people and so you're tempted to give up faith now now I'm gonna suggest today that there's there's a kind of doubt that's holy there's a kind of doubt that it's okay to have there's a kind of doubt that should be encouraged even from the front I'm trying to do that this morning back to Psalm 73 Asaph writes but as for me and he's very autobiographical er very vulnerable very honest he says man I'm gonna tell you guys the truth he doesn't have like this sort of Christian veneer this happy Sabbath veneer this put on the right clothes and wear the right outfit and pretend like everything's fine veneer he just says it he says I got to be honest with you as for me when I thought about this stuff when when my body was wracked with illness and sickness in pain my feet almost slipped I almost threw in the towel I nearly lost my foothold for I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked I love the honesty the vulnerability and the transparency here he's like man I almost gave it up he goes on to tell us though if I had done that if I had spoken out like that particularly as a Levitical priest I would have betrayed your children and I love this idea and I want you to follow me here on just a slight little detour a left-hand detour here yes everybody could have sent to this sometimes we need the faith and the testimony of others to carry us through our doubts and our struggles can somebody say Amen you're doubting they're strong you're weak they're strong we need that we need that I'm gonna go a step further I'm gonna make a more radical suggestion I'm gonna suggest not only do we need the strength and the testimony and the story and the faith of others I'm gonna suggest that that sometimes we actually need the doubts of others how so how could how could somebody else's down so how could somebody else's frustrations how could somebody else's struggles in any way benefit me notice this we need each other we need each other's faith yes but we also need each other's doubts and struggles and here's why if you're not open and honest and vulnerable about your own struggles nobody else will be either and if you can't testify that like a SAP your feet almost slipped and you almost gave gave up you almost threw in the towel you you envied the wicked of you because ACF's testimony goes on that he recovered from that doubt he recovered from that confusion he recovered but if but if we never have any struggles and we never have any doubts and we never have any frustrations and we're not open and honest and vulnerable about them well then we're all going to go on pretending that everything's fine when we know it's not fine in our own experience and we know that everybody else is not fine but we'll just pretend like everything's fine now not only do I need your faith in times of my weakness not only do I need your strength in times of my doubt I need your doubts because I need to see in flesh-and-blood somebody who has struggled somebody who has wrestled somebody who has looked death in the eye looked divorce in the eye look financial ruin in the eye and come out the other side as a SEF does praising God we need each other's honesty and openness and vulnerability oh ACF is very honest for this year when I tried to understand all of this the apparent prosperity of the wicked it troubles me deeply and then you have this key phrase in fact this single word the word till is very much the fulcrum it is the turning point of the whole psalm it troubles me deeply until I entered the sanctuary of God then I understood their final destiny something happened in that till moment something tipped something turned something shifted when Asaph went into the sanctuary of God he entered the sanctuary plagued by doubts but he came out singing for joy which of course raises the question you know we want to see the before and after picture is the Instagram generation we want to see the before 108 with Pastor a and the after 108 with Pastor a we want to see the before intermittent fasting and they after intermittent fasting before the sugar free in the after sugar free who say hey what did you do what was the change show me the before and after photo hey Steff says man everything looked like this until I went into the sanctuary and I came out not plagued by doubts and confusion but singing praises to God and we say what happened what brought about this transition oh I tell you he pretty he tells us but the thing is is that it's not really a what it's not a what that he encounters it's a who that he encounters whom have I in heaven but you an earth has nothing that I desire besides you but as for me it is good to be near God that's what happened in the sanctuary the sanctuary is where God dwelt he dwelt in the sanctuary and then of course in the holy and then to be most proximate to God was in the most holy place and so it wasn't just a thing it wasn't just a right it wasn't just a ritual the act of going into the sanctuary brought me near to God it is good to be near God I have made the sovereign Lord my refuge some personal transaction happened when a SEF went in to the sanctuary the sanctuary was not so much a what he saw that happened it was a who that he encountered and the who that he encountered was Yahweh in his marvelous book a book I read years ago but picked up again this morning from Hans kala rondell deliverance in the Psalms coming close to God his soul a Ceph soul experienced a peace it seemed to have never known before here he began to discern the larger plan of God for men from God he received a totally new perspective on life what's the new perspective except what happened in that sanctuary he began to see things in the light of eternity ah before he had a temporal view there prospering their business ventures are prospering they don't have Parkinson's disease their bodies not withering but something about the sanctuary brought a SEF into a large more panoramic perspective not just a snapshot not even just a wide-angle shot but a panorama and what he saw in the sanctuary was the eternality of God and the the temporality of the things of the earth he says man there's nothing on earth that I want anymore he began to see things in the light of eternity suddenly the reality of final judgment struck home with a new realism perhaps he saw a sacrifice in the smoke of the fatty smoke of the sacrifice ascending to heaven and he discerned the permanence of the death and the finality of the death of the wicked something about his interaction with God and the sanctuary reminded him of the eternality of God the sanctuary revealed what was truly permanent and what was merely passing before when he spoke about the prosperity of the wicked he took a very facile view a very cursory view of the situation and it looked like everything was fine but when he went into the sanctuary God said these are things that are permanent and these are things that are passing and he was like of course but of course God is taking the panoramic view not to telephoto of you there's a bigger picture here a staffs change of perspective regarding permanence and impermanence manifests itself immediately in his psalm look at this Psalm 73 verses 8 to 20 surely you place them on slippery ground now notice the transition everything they do prospers and their imaginations are uninterrupted and everything they touch turns to gold and then notice as soon as he goes into the sanctuary and the tilting of the till he comes out of the sanctuary singing the praises of God a notice the shift from permanence and stability to impermanence surely you place on slippery ground you cast them down to ruin how suddenly are they destroyed completely swept away by Tears they are like a dream when someone awakes when you arise Lord you will despise them as mere fantasies the seeming permanence and the seeming prosperity of the wicked he says I went into the sanctuary and I saw that all of that goes up in smoke all of that doesn't count for anything and and the the cancer that I have the tumor that I have the financial disaster that I have the divorce that I have the death of my children I have all of this is this is not the real thing this is not a permanent this is a this is a momentary thing God takes all of the big panorama of history into the wider view again from Lauren Dells self confident boasting people are not walking on solid ground their happiness is unstable and I like this and unreal because it is based on creation and not in the create or can somebody say Amen oh I like that where does your stability come from where does your happiness come from where does your solidity come from does it come from the creation or from the creator if it comes from the creation like Asaph and Jobe and others you will be inclined to perhaps even doubt and to wonder what God is doing but God takes a bigger broader perspective he sees that this world is passing away there is no consecration to the Lord celestial joy is a state of the heart and is rooted in God the things of Earth cannot satisfy the deepest longings of the soul Asaph began to see the triviality and the flimsiness of materialism with prophetic certainty he now announces the end of the superficial pleasure sequels that pleasure seekers in Israel and as if standing at their funeral Asaph B whales how suddenly are they destroyed completely swept away by terrors fascinating on my trip as a part of my trip I had the privilege of visiting with some very wealthy people some extraordinarily wealthy people and in the course of the conversation that I was having with these people that have done extremely well for themselves financially they told me something that I had heard before and and and they reestablish they just made more permanent in my mind they they told the story of how somebody had come and given a speech to them to to a group they're a part of a large group of extremely wealthy people and this person had come in and and presented the data the various data about how happiness and wealth correlates how they correlate together and basically all of the studies confirm that there's a threshold and a threshold in the United States and equivalent in other countries is about seventy five thousand US dollars there is in fact a correlation a direct correlation between money and happiness but after you get to seventy-five thousand US the correlation ceases and you can double it to 150 or you can quadruple it to 300 and you get no increase in happiness Jim Carrey not long ago the famous comedian and movie star recently said I wish everyone could be rich and famous for a day just to see that it's not all that it's cracked up to be why kill yourself for that hundred and fifty why kill yourself for the 300 why kill yourself for the half-a-million if the return on your investment is no greater now it does sort of contextualize things doesn't it Psalm 73 verses 23 to 26 af says I am always with you you hold me by my right hand notice that you hold me not I hold you you hold me by my right hand you guide me with your counsel and afterward you will take me into glory notice the permanence here glory always whom am I in heaven but you O Lord and Earth has nothing that I desire beside you this is Asaph coming to the close of his Psalm my flesh and my heart may fail another allusion to the fact that it could have been a bodily disease but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever that phrase there that phrase but God is a key phrase I've actually toyed at times with preaching a whole series on the but gods of Scripture because there are several fascinating but gods where when when this phrase shows up it's a total turn everything that was just who is completely insane taneous ly and irrevocably reversed let me just give you one instance Romans 5:17 a for scarcely for a righteous man will one die yet perhaps for a good man some would even dare to die but God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us can somebody say Amen you need what a staff needed you need a but God you need a clause in your life that says yes the cancer test came back positiv and yes i'm facing difficulty in my marriage and yes i don't have you know the financial goals that i wish I had and yes whatever the the struggle the challenge the frustration the difficulty that you have faced are facing or will face you just need to drop a but God in the middle of it you need to go to the sanctuary like ASAP went to the sanctuary and little get your get your sense of reality calibrated not to temporality but to eternality and drop that great big but God right in the middle of your reality and you like Asaph will go from the sanctuary singing the praises of God in fact when he leaves he says I will tell of your great good works la rondell says the believer needs to encounter the Living God what's that word personally in Christ we are eternally safe in the hand of God because Asaph doesn't say I'm holding on to you it's like the old gospel song says I'm not holding on to Jesus he's holding on to me I am always with me with you you will take me to glory you hold me by my right hand God is the strength of my heart notice that God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever in his work the seven penitential Psalms Martin Luther writes these amazingly poetic and beautiful words God accepts only the Forsaken he cures only the sick he gives sight only to the blind he restores life only to the dead he sanctifies only the sinners and gives wisdom only to the unwise fools in short God has mercy only on those who are wretched he gives grace only to those who are not in grace therefore no proud saint no wiser just person can become God's material and God's purposes cannot be fulfilled in him he remains in his own work and makes the fictitious pretended and false and painted saints of himself that is to say he's a hypocrite Asaph is not a hypocrite he's real he's open he's honest I had doubts I had anger I had frustrations and he just lays his frustrations out on the table I close with this amazing statement from the pen of Ellen White a book titled ministry of healing nothing is apparently more helpless now was a SEF apparently helpless that is me sometimes apparently helpless when I look at my aging father and my uncle that has passed and and when I see the advancing Parkinson's disease in my own lives and when I open up cnn.com and see a man has senselessly killed people in a Jewish synagogue I too feel weak and I look at the world and I think God what's going on here and yet here it is nothing is apparently more helpless yet really more invincible than the soul that feels its nothingness and relies totally on the merits of the Savior by prayer by study of his word passages like Psalm 73 which is what we've done this morning by faith and God's abiding presence the weakest of human beings may live in contact with the living Christ and he will hold them by a hand that will never let them go it is okay to doubt it is okay to struggle it is okay to wonder it is okay even on occasion to shake your fist at God beloved not only is faith holy not only is belief holy not only is obedience holy not only is righteousness holy but even doubt can be holy when doubt is embraced as the authentic real thing that it is as a reflection of the crazy weird scary world that we live in and when we come with our doubts and our frustrations and our anger to God he receives them he accepts them and he brings us to himself he brings us into the sanctuary and we can go in with Asaph and say man my whole world was turned upside down until I went into the sanctuary and when I came out my view was expanded to a larger panorama and I saw not temporality I saw eternality I saw not impermanence I saw permanence and I will be with God forever because I'm not holding on to him he's holding on to me you're not saved by your amazing strong faith you're saved by God's amazing strong faithfulness believe believe believe God is big enough strong enough and good enough to save even doubters like you and me and a safe Father in heaven [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Kingscliff Church

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Length: 58min 30sec (3510 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 07 2018