Trusting God in the Dark

the following message by Alistair beg is made available by truth for life for more information visit us online at truthfortheworld.org I invite you to turn with me to the 13th Sun to Sun thirteen which in our Bibles I think has the heading how long O Lord and I'm going to read it and then we're going to look at it together some thirteen to the choirmaster a Sam of David how long O Lord will you forget me forever how long will you hide your face from me how long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day how long shall my enemy be exalted over me consider an answer me O Lord my god light up my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death lest my enemies say I have prevailed over him lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken but I have trusted in your steadfast love my heart shall rejoice in your salvation I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me Amen father help us now as we look to the Bible that our thinking and my speaking may set forward your plans and purposes for us as we look from ourselves to you and we pray in Christ's name Amen now some of you have joined since we began and that is understandable given the nature of the day I said as we came together that I had determined that I would set aside the study of this past week which I have enjoyed and benefited from that is our study in for Samuel because these early days in for Samuel and we've only just begun are foundational to all that is going to follow and since as you can see we're only a shadow of our normal morning congregations and that was certainly true at fifteen then if I choose to go ahead now with four Samuel I leave at least fifty or sixty percent of a congregation with a large gap that is an important piece of the puzzle and so as I came into the building this morning thinking along these lines and then seeing who was present at about ten past eight about eleven people I decided that I would should do something then that that Hannah would be pleased with if you like because now I've been living with Hannah all week don't misunderstand me I really livin with sue a week but also with Hannah because she is the focus the focal point and focus of these early two chapters of First Samuel and one of the great benefits of studying in this way and beginning a series in this way is that we pick up new friends and and companions and so as I thought about it I said to myself I think that Hannah if she had occasion to say suggest something to me she might have said well you know it would probably be quite good if you went to the thirteen son because she would have said you know Elkanah when he came to me you know he came with those questions you know why do you look so sad why is your face like this why have you lost your appetite and so on and he recognized the fact that I was absolutely going through it so why don't you take a few verses from a somewhere someone is actually going through it and so this is where we are because some thirteen helps us in this particular way now the nature of David's circumstances are not described for us ie in terms of historical context therefore were unable to say he was speaking in this way are writing in this way because this or that was happening we don't know what was happening which actually makes it in some ways all the more beneficial for us if we were to say that it was because he was being chased by someone or frightened by someone then we could say well I wasn't frightened and I wasn't chased but since he doesn't defy what the underlying issue is we're just introduced to the fight that he was of you're like dealing with depression or he was living with the blues or he was trying to come to terms with what it means to trust God in tough times and the terminology that is used to describe such an experience as morphed over time and modern methodology for dealing with such an experience changes with time but the unrelenting truth of God's Word will be helpful to us as we look at it now and I would like simply to outline the study there is if you like three there are three sections verses 1 & 2 which we will consider under his condition verses 3 & 4 his cry and verses 5 & 6 his consolation and I will probably as normal spend longer on the 1st then on the 2nd and on the 3rd now you will notice that there is a recurring question here how long how long how long and again if you've been reading in preparation in for Samuel you know that this was the great concern of Hannah as well verse 3 begins year after year in other words this circumstance that she was facing was not a matter of passing significance rather it confronted her all day as it were and every day and the psalmist here is in similar straits if you like they say that time flies when you're having fun probably that's fair as a cliche but when things move into a minor key I think it's also true to say that life seems to move into slow motion and we will find ourselves when we're going through it saying I don't know if we're ever going to come out of this circumstance now what is it that he's facing well we could summarize it in a couple of phrases number 1 faces the fact that he feels forgotten and forsaken how long will you forget me how long will you forsake me or how long will you hide your face from me now he feels himself to be left out to be misplaced to be forgotten now if we're honest this is a feeling with which each of us will be able to identify it may not be uppermost in our thinking as we've come this morning we may have to look back a week or two or a year or two and certainly if we have not had reason to feel in this way if we just live a little longer we will have the opportunity no doubt it's the kind of feeling that you have when you are moving to a new school as a boy or a girl and you are uprooted from your framework of friendship and you have to go that first day into a new environment and you don't know a single person and you have to stand by the radiator in the hope that somebody may come and say hello to you and if they don't you go home and you tell your parents I'm never going back to that school again and of course they said that very quickly to rights and the next day you go back and you are desperately hoping that you won't feel the way you felt yesterday it's the feeling that you have when they give out the jerseys having picked the soccer team in my case on a Friday lunchtime so that you can play on Saturday morning and when you go to the physics lab and the games teacher assigns the positions for the day and throws as he did the Jersey to you with your number on it you find that the 11 jerseys have gone and you're still sitting there it's the feeling that you have when the invitation goes out to the party and everyone else that you know seems to have been invited and you have been left off the list or in contemporary terms that the number of your likes that are coming in and whatever social device you're using is diminishing while in the case of others it seems to be going in the other way you see to be isolated from human relationships is without question crushing but what he's talking about here is actually something far more significant he's talking about the sense that he has of being isolated from God himself and what becomes apparent to us is that in this experience of the blues or incipient depression what we discover is that his perceptions as in our perceptions will not necessarily be accurate because what he feels to be the case is not the case but it doesn't alter the fact that he feels it to be the case now he should know what we know that God makes it clear through his prophet about this matter Zion said the Lord has forsaken me the Lord has forgotten me what does that mean it means that the people of God in the journey of following God of being his his followers and his servants have on occasion on that pilgrimage said I believe the Lord has actually forgotten us if if he had not forgotten us if he was still with us how would we be in this predicament here in this wilderness if he truly was watching over us surely we would not have been gathering carried away into exile in Babylon and have to endure all of this if God was really with us and blessing us and securing us then why would we have taken our harps and Hawk hung them up on the on the trees and and said to one another there is no way that we can sing the song of praise to God in a foreign land apparently he has forgotten us but Zion said the Lord has forsaken me the Lord has forgotten me and here's the word of God to his people can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has born now surely not though she may forget you it's possible I will not forget you see I have engraved you on the palms my hands an amazing picture it's a metaphor people always ask me he said why do you have these bits of string around your wrist while I used to have six now I have eight every time somebody comes along I get a bit of string we say you can't remember your grandchildren without string yes I can but it's just there and I think of them all God looks down and he looks as it where is this at his hands and he says oh there they are true but what's David's experience how long will you forget me God's care for his children is like the Sun it's constant even though the clouds obscure it it doesn't mean the Sun isn't there it's always there just go above the clouds he feels it the reality of it is that he feels forgotten and forsaken and in a second phrase he is sorrowful and he is subdued sorrowful and he's subdued how long must I take counsel in my soul the very core of my being and of sorrow in my heart all the day the juxtaposition between his mind and his emotions he's if you like trying to to fit together the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle psychologically why do I feel this way what is going on here how do I make sense of all of this and what he discovers is that he doesn't have all the pieces of the jigsaw present so that he might see the final picture in all of its clarity and what has happened to him is he's just chewing on it why is this going on how long will this go on and the longer he thinks about it the longer he gives his mind to it the greater is the possibility for him increasing in self-pity oh look at me look what's happened to me nobody remembers me I don't believe you remember me ruminating said Spurgeon on one occasion is a great verb ruminating upon trouble is better work there are certain things that is better to swallow than to and what he's doing is he's chewing when he should be swallowing and he says and when you add to that the sound of my enemies seeking to triumph over me it's like it's like a pouring vinegar on an open wound the laughter of his enemies sounds louder in his ears than his awareness of the Providence and kindness of God how long is this going to continue he says now let me just pause and say okay let's imagine for a moment that we find ourselves in this condition if you ever find yourself in this condition I wonder what accompanying evidence is there are for you I can tell you from from myself there are a number of things often accompany this sense of being dispirited in this way one may be that one begins just to waste time to waste time nothing seems to be very good nothing seems to be going very well and instead of getting about the business getting up making the bed making sure that we're going about our duties we start now just to begin to waste time or on the flip side of it we start to work now like a maniac and we think that we will fill up this vacuum by feverish activity not the same as necessarily resting and serving God or as we seek to make sure we're covering it all we're actually allowing it to pile up frustration arrives bitterness is present fearfulness begins to scream into our hearts and we discover there were actually afraid now of doing normal things and we can't fully explain it what has happened that we are now as destabilized as this and what are we going to do well we're going to discover what we're going to do but let me tell you what I'm not going to do when those days come unless phase that we sing the hymn don't we days of darkness still come or me sorrows paths I oft may tread now that is either true or you shouldn't be singing it days of darkness do come over me sorrows paths sigh off mate red now in that experience which is David's experience here there are a number of things it's not wise to do I made a mental note to myself some time ago number one I will not make a major decision in that experience I'm not about to decide about moving house changing my job or anything that is remotely major secondly I'm not gonna write important letters because I can't trust myself when I take my pen in my hand not to allow my sense of foreboding frustration disappointment fearfulness the blues not simply to bleed out onto the page thirdly I'm not going to judge my spiritual life and fourthly I'm gonna try to make sure that I'm not judging anybody else's spiritual life because when we find ourselves in that situation it is very easy to get things wrong and for me to say these things this morning you may find yourself saying yes I feel like you're making me look in a mirror well you're not alone in the mirror many of the choices servants of God have known these times Jonah samuel chadwick he used to read isaiah 40 every Monday morning after he had preached on the previous day just to get himself recalibrated because he was saddened William Cowper the great theologian the hymn writer who gave us our opening hymn from this morning out of the depths of his own life he cried feeling forsaken and disappointed and disheartened and he's the one who then writes judge not the Lord by feeble sense but trust him for His grace because behind a frowning Providence the darkness of it he hides a smiling face now some people fight this more than others some it is a constant battle for others we're hardly troubled and personality comes into this personality type comes into this not everybody is winnie-the-pooh you know there are there's a significant number of yours that that you find as you go through and some of them in the some of us we are extroverted and that brings with it the danger of superficiality others of us are introverted which brings with it I've observed the danger of morbid introspection and the trouble is that if you are of the melancholic disposition to be with somebody who is not of that disposition and doesn't even really understand it then you may find that you are a Hannah up against an elk Anna why do you weep why don't you eat why is your heart sad no this is him trying his best but I said we'll come to that sermon later but this is this is the husband at work you know what's up with you what's up with you I mean goodness gracious it's hard isn't it if the pastor is that way and melancholy it's it's a it's a tough dose you know the old story of the pastor is playing golf with one of his friends and and they're playing match play and he keeps he's just going down again again again and every time he comes off the green that he he says to the his friend who's who's he's playing he says your hole and then again and he loses the nice or says you're all and about the 12th or 13th hole his friend trying to cheer him up says hey come on it pastor he says you you you're an old you you're younger than me and you know one day one day you'll you know you'll do my funeral and the pastor says yeah but it'll still be your hole so when you when you've got that kind of disposition that your thing is a hard deal to shake and number of things contribute to it as well and one is just our physical condition when we are tired when we are overly tired and when we are in need of insight from those around us it also is contributed to by spiritual warfare that we're not dealing with flesh and blood but against spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places and it also comes often on the heels of a great success or a significant encouragement if we had nowhere else in the Bible to which we might turn to make that point we could make sure that we understood what was happening to Elijah in first Kings because remember when Elijah goes against the prophets of bale it is you know there's hundreds of them and there's only one of him every all the excitement was on their side all of the potential triumph or victory was in their side and and he was up against it it was himself and God against the hordes you know the story God shows himself strong the sacrifices burned up and Elijah immediately goes off on a on a preaching tour all around the community and introducing people the new songs no go to the next chapter where is he he's hiding underneath a broom tree what are you doing under the broom tree well I'm the only person that really knows I'm the only person that really cares I'm the only guy there's nobody left except me you're wrong Elijah you express your feelings accurately you need to cry but not like this that brings us to the second point that David then cries to God it's important first of all that he does cry I remember forget the song now but it was when I shout shout let it all out you know that whole primal screaming thing that I think John Lennon and Yoko Ono got into it didn't really seem to do very much for them at all but there is a sense in which every so often you just have to go out in the backyard and just have a right good scream to yourself you know just like yeah hopefully nobody's around and you get it get it out but it is it is important to give voice to things David knows this in another Sam you remember he says when I kept silent my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long so the cry is important but what is more important is the one to whom he cries he directs his cry and he directs his cry to God consider and answered me all Lord my God and what is he crying while he is crying for consideration look at me considered me answer me this tidal wave that has knocked him down and rolled over him causes him to pray it's hard for me to stay away from from for Samuel so I don't I don't have to when you read that in preparation for our next study ponder this that if pnina Hanna's rival had been a sort of decent soul and had said to her essentially look I've got a number of kids you've got no children why don't I just share them with you in other words if if her response to that circumstance had been to moderate the deal then Hanna would never have had occasion to pray or she did it was if you like the darkness and the badness and the provocation and the aggravation that it was it was the the storm roll in over her head that caused her to cry as she did you see it's really not good for us to live in any realm of denial when the storm breaks over our heads if we try and suck it up we do harm to ourselves and to everyone around us therefore the psalmist helps us here doing here what Hannah does in 4 Samuel 1 and that is turning to God consider me O God for consideration and also for illumination light in my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death you cease a short step from heaviness or despondency to the finality of death we don't hear much about it but it is possible to die of a broken heart and more people do then probably we understand because the overwhelming pressure and burden of these things real or perceived may be such as to take them down literally into the grave and so he's saying make sure that you lighten up my eyes look at me look at me Hannah again it's fascinating that it says that her countenance changed her countenance changed in other words people were looked at and said you know there's something in Hannah's eyes that something has happened had to change her now our reaction to despondency the discouragement to disappointment is is just this to ask God to turn the lights back on but he doesn't often turn the lights back on that was a problem for Hannah that was a problem for David how long how long how long in for Samuel year after year year after year you see this is the real test the world looks on people who do not believe the Bible who do not understand that Jesus as a risen king they look on and we're tempted to say if we can only show them you know this amazing triumph that is ours to to enjoy then they will be impressed with that they may or may not be but I'll tell you what will impress them it's when in the experience of our own deep-seated despondency that doesn't seem to be mitigated by time that doesn't seem to be altering as we progress that we are able still in that situation to discover that God is teaching us now to trust him not with the lights on bother the lights now think about it with your children and your grandchildren you put them up to bed what did they say to you will you leave the light on we will probably start there and perhaps a few days later or whatever do you leave the light on no what will you leave the light on in the bathroom okay then will you leave the light on no I'm going to close the door well will you close it all the way will you please leave it open just a little bit now if the child is 27 years old and this is still going on we've got a major problem here right and some of us are much further along the the line and we're still having these crazy conversations with God and in the media in the middle of it all he's been saying to us I mean I've been coming to teach you to live with the lights off none of the lights on anybody can sleep with the lights on it's when it's darkness when darkness veils your lovely face I rest on your unchanging grace not on the lights but on the one who is the father of lights as TM says in whom there is no variableness neither shadow jutsu turning now to our final point what is the bridge that gets us from verse 4 to verse 5 the answer is it is prayer it is prayer because that's what he's doing in verses 3 and 4 considered me and sue me and the consolation that he discovers it's fantastic and what makes this Psalm so compelling and I think a psalm with which as I say Hannah would be quite happy for us to to pursue is the fact that verse 5 and verse 6 give no indication of anything having changed in the psalmist circumstances there's not that nothing's changed except his perspective how did his perspective change because he went to God in prayer in force when Hanna finally comes out and gets her appetite back and and and has a spring in her step and joy in her countenance you will find us in verse 18 it's not in verse 20 why is that significant because in verse 18 she doesn't have a baby it's only in verse 20 she said the baby but she gets her appetite back and her face changes on the strength of what in the strength of the fact that she recognizes that God is still God were the lights on or the lights off because she recognizes the fact that God is a sovereign God sovereign when he gives things to her and sovereign when he gives when he chooses not to give things to her once she's got that resolved then there is a change until that's resolved there couldn't be and that's the same year in the Sam notice notice the verbs where do we find him but I have trusted in your steadfast love the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases his mercies never come to an end well you say well okay but what does that mean look at where I am but I feel forgotten and I feel disappointed and my enemies seem to be doing better than me and pnina she's a pain in the neck and she aggravates me all the time makes me sad and makes me want to cry but I have trusted in your steadfast love this is volitional this is not emotional this is a lesson isn't it we need to bring our emotions underneath the jurisdiction of God's character and God's purposes the feelings of his heart are real but now he is applying his mind to the matter he is if you lie being transformed by the renewing of his mind so trusting and then you will notice rejoicing my heart shall rejoice in your salvation I have trusted part 10 past tense I will rejoice in your salvation in other words when I look at the shattered remnants of my experience here and it looks as if the collapse is almost absolutely definite and I remind myself that you give beauty for Ashes the oil of joy for mourning and a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness and finally singing I will sing it's hard to sing isn't it if you're upset I find it so it's hard to pray when you're upset can't get much out songs very routine and some of us as well we like to play on the play on the play in the minor key all the time you know erect a monument to all of our disappointments oh this didn't happen and that was a mistake and this is a failure and look at this and look at that and the evil one is happy with that how do you take us back down that corridor all day every day just take us back down oh do you remember I can't believe you look at this look at that look at the next thing what do you do with that well you say I'm gonna trust in your steadfast love I'm gonna rejoice in you the God of my salvation that you have saved me from sins penalty that you are saving me from sins power that one day you will save me from sins very presence and therefore I can sing and therefore I will sing one final comment and an illustration here's the comment let's acknowledge the fact that there is a perverse sense of satisfaction in feeling sorry for ourselves and there is more than a hint of that in the experience of the Sun and we like to go away by ourselves and play it over again and again we need to resist that we need also to recognize that only ultimately in the new heaven and in the new earth will these storms of life be finally stilled and that then is a matter of trusting God trusting that our Father is wise when he doesn't give us something it's because he knows it's better for us not to have it when he entrusts us with something that is hard to accept it remains because he is able to look upon us and give to us the privilege of bearing testimony in that circumstance to the reality of His grace and it is an opportunity for us to remind ourselves that as with David so with us that it's God's Word that is the anchor for our souls the illustration is that it's a boy in Scotland we would go camping with a youth organization and on one occasion we're camping up in the North East of Scotland and we went on a day trip leaving our tented village behind we went on a day trip to Inverness and while in Inverness the weather deteriorated significantly as it can and significant winds blew through so that by the time we arrived back at the campsite a number of the tents had been blow had been blown away some of them actually over the edge of the cliff my particular tent that I was in with five other boys and attempt and officer as he was called was was hanging limping as it we're in the breeze but it was finally secured and as I lay there that night I remember thinking a number of things the first one was I'm glad this is not my permanent home I'm only here for a time I get to go home and the second thing was I'm glad that whoever hammered in the tent pegs for our tent hammered them into such solid ground and did so so securely and then I don't think I would ever have thought to myself at 12 you know that would be a good illustrate for a talk but it is because the tents that blew away had not been fastened into solid ground therefore the call is to say Lord Jesus Christ help me now to have the ten pegs of my life fastened entirely into my confidence in you so that in life and then death in joy and in sorrow in sickness and in health that I might be able to bear testimony to these things help me when I'm in need of this consolation help me not to just be a nuisance to everyone around me but to cry out to you and come and meet with me so that I may be found trusting and rejoicing and singing this message was brought to you from truth for life where the learning is for living to learn more about truth for life with Alistair beg visit us online at truth for

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 260,179

Rating: 4.8667965 out of 5

Keywords: Truth For Life, Psalm 13, Christian Thinking, Sadness, Suffering, Sorrow, Sovereignty of God, Trusting God

Id: J_DKmBOJfKE

Length: 37min 6sec (2226 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 23 2019