A Study in Psalms - Psalm 77

When you get to heaven, that great day when you get to heaven, is there someone you want to see? Now I know we all want to see Jesus We're going to see Jesus We all want to see Bible characters And you all want to see your family, right? But outside of the Bible characters and Jesus, is there one person you want to look up and say, I want to see so and so when I get there? There's one person I want to meet, and maybe because I was born in Sudan, my parents were missionaries, I grew up reading the missionary books One person I want to meet, his name is Adronium Judson You know about him? Okay

Probably, I think the best missionary biography you could ever read It's called, too, The Golden Shore, The Life of Adronium Judson Parents, maybe you ought to make your kids read this book because when I was suffering in India, when we didn't have air conditioning, and you know, we couldn't sleep at night when it was 95 degrees in your house when you're suffering or whatever, and you think you had it bad, I would read his autobiography or biography and realize how good we had it when he didn't Let me just tell you a little bit about him

He is the first missionary that American Missionary Board sent out Now, there were some missionaries that maybe went out on their own before him, but he's considered the first missionary to ever be sent out by American Missionary Board

He was actually a Congregationalist when he left on the boat, and he left in 1812, and you probably know 1812 is a pretty critical year in the history of the United States, but he married Anne Hazeltine, and they call her Nancy, so I'll call her Nancy, and he married her two weeks before they got on the boat to go, to go to be the first missionary to go to Calcutta, India

It took about six months on the boat to get to India, where he thought he was going to be a missionary in India, and while on the boat, he studied the scriptures and realized he was wrong about baptism, because Congregationalists do infant baptism, so when he got there, he met with William Carey and different Baptists there, and he switched from being a Congregationalist to a Baptism

So the first thing he lost was his support, because he's not a Congregationalist anymore, he was a supporter, so he had to write back, and he actually sent another missionary back saying, hey, go back and try to raise some money, but he lost his entire support Tells me a lot about him Then he lost his country because India says, no, you cannot come on the, stay on that boat, and sadly while he's on the boat, he couldn't go on the land, his wife lost one of their babies So he lost his country, he thought he'd be a missionary in India

William Carey was there, India was much more advanced because the British were there, but he ends up going to Burma, what we call Myanmar today, where I got to spend three years So he lost his support, he lost his country Then he lost his children He ended up having three children die with his wife Nancy And then after Nancy got ill, she had to get on a boat Often when the missionaries got sick, they would put them on a boat and go to somewhere where the weather was better, try to get them acclimated

Nancy went back to America for two years, and she was quite the celebrity here, because people didn't know about Burma, and so she spent two years in America, so he was out his wife for two years But when she came back in 1824, Britain and Burma went to war, so all the white missionaries or all the western men were arrested by the Burmese government because they would consider them spies So he lost his freedom then Judson was put in two different prisons for two years, and let me just read you one paragraph, tells you how bad he had it

So at the age of 36, Judson was in prison along with 100 men in a single room He was bound with three pairs of chains and feet were fastened in stalks, which at times were elevated so that only his shoulders touched the ground The room in which he and many other prisoners were crowded was without a window, and it felt like a fiery furnace under the merciless glare of the tropical sun The stench of the place was terrible, vermin crawled everywhere, and the jailer, Mr Spotted Face, was a brute in human form Every afternoon the gong would sound at exactly 3 p.m., and Mr

Spotted Face would walk in and he would select one prisoner for execution that afternoon And Mr Judson, for two years, thought he could die, but he never did Many prisoners died, but Nancy, his wife, was outside the prison constantly bribing the guards to bring food in She even brought his translation of the Burmese Bible and hid it in a pillow so that he could continue his work there But he spent two years in that prison, and eventually they released Judson so he could be the translator to try to negotiate peace with the prison

But the cost of that time in prison was more on his wife, because Nancy died two years later, and then the two-year-old baby, Maria Judson, died So he lost a wife, and now that's four children who had died And that caused him, finally, to lose his sanity Judson's grief led him to go into eventual retreat and seclusion He didn't want to have anything to do with anybody He went into the jungle, and he built a hut there, and he called it the Hermitage, and he spent 40 days in the jungle, eating little besides minimal rice rations He dug his grave because he was waiting to die and wanted to die

And he spent many hours contemplating death The jungle was tiger-infested, and many of the locals feared that he would not live, he'd be eaten And when he returned safely from his self-exile, everyone was surprised he'd survived And over the course of that time, Adronium increasingly emerged from his spiritual darkness with new resolve to reach Burma for Christ In 1835, Judson completed the translation of the Bible into Burmese, and actually, most Burmese still use that Bible today

When I go teach in Burma, and I'm not going to be able to go in two months, and they're not letting Americans in, but I'm going to Zoom, but it's kind of frustrating because half the pastors use the Burmese Bible from 1835, and then others use the updated versions, which are more accurate and a little better, but they still love that Bible, and they use it But in 1835, he married the widow of another missionary, Sarah Hall Boardman Sarah Boardman's husband had died there They had eight children, but three of them died in infancy

Judson would then, for the first time in 38 years, return to the United States on furlough, and there he commissioned a lady to write a book about his life named Emily Chubuck And he ended up marrying that lady So he enjoyed a decade of evangelistic fruitness, especially among the Karen people Today, there are probably seven million Christians in Burma that would trace their Christian ancestry to him So altogether, he lost two wives and, I think, six children The first wife he married, none of the children lived And Ping and I got to go in 2017

We took a road trip, which is quite interesting in Burma, and we drove about a day to get down to where Mulamang was, where his church was We went to the first Baptist church that was started, the oldest church in Myanmar, which was started in 1827 And the graves are in the church Now, Judson's grave is not there because he died at sea So they buried his body at sea And Hazeltine's wife is there But when you go in that church and you look around, immediately you see the children's graves

Now, if you go to a graveyard here, you don't know those gravestones are children necessarily, right? Because they're all looking alike You don't know if it's adults or children until you read what it says on there But when you go to a graveyard there, you see this gravestone in cement, and you know it's children So I saw several of his children's graves there, and it's touching So we get into Psalm 77 tonight that teaches us that even great men like this man, who has led millions to Christ, had a time of spiritual depression, a time he wanted to die And he's not the only one

Someone mentioned Charles Spurgeon Charles Spurgeon had gout, and he suffered from depression William Cowper, one of my favorite hymn writers and poets, he suffered depression And lots of people in the Bible did So let's look at Psalm 77, and it's 20 verses And I'm going to read it out loud first To the choir master, according to Jed Thun, a Psalm of Asap. I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me In the day of my trouble, I seek the Lord In the night, my hand is stretched out without wearing My soul refuses to be comforted When I remember God, I moan

When I meditate, my spirit fails Selah You hold my eyelids open. I am so troubled that I cannot speak. I consider the days of old, the years long ago. I said, let me remember my song in the night Let me meditate in my heart Then my spirit made a diligent search Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in his anger shut up his compassion? Selah

Then I said, I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the deeds of the Lord Yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work and meditate on your mighty deeds Your way, O God, is holy What God is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders You have made known your might among the peoples You, with your arm, redeem your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph Selah When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid Indeed, the deep trembled The clouds poured out water

The skies gave forth thunder Your arrows flashed on every side The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind Your lightnings lighted up the world The earth trembled and shook Your way was through the sea Your path through the great waters Yet your footprints were unseen You led your people by the hand of Moses and Aaron Let's pray Father, tonight as we open up Psalm 77, may you teach us May you encourage us May you strengthen us for when the desert trials come, when the discouragements come, and Lord willing, hopefully not the depressions But if they do, may we rely on you

May we cry out to you And may you comfort us May you encourage us Because we know you'll never leave us or forsake us In Jesus' name, amen The heading says to the choir master, who apparently is named Jethathun, and a psalm of Asaph Who is Asaph? Well, Psalm 73 begins book three of the five books in Psalms And so Psalm 73 to Psalm 89 are the psalms in book three And Asaph would author 12 psalms He would author Psalms 50, and then 73 through 83 So when you're reading Psalm 73 through 83, you've got 11 consecutive psalms of this guy named Asaph

We know that Asaph was Heman's brother from 1 Chronicles 639 And we know that Asaph, Heman, and Ethan were all appointed to be singers for worship in the tabernacle in 1 Chronicles 15, 16, and 19, and 2 Chronicles 5 So this is a singer But he's also, the Holy Spirit used him to write 12 of the psalms What kind of psalm is this? It would be called an individual lament And what is the cause or the reason for this lament? We don't know But there's a lot of possible truth to the fact that perhaps it's written when the northern kingdom was sent into exile in 722 BC

Perhaps it's after a military defeat We don't know But whatever it is, it caused Asaph some tremendous, tremendous crisis The main idea of this psalm is, in the time of great personal crisis, Asaph, the psalmist, found great relief in meditating upon the past triumphs of God So should we Maybe it's a death of a loved one Maybe it's a critical illness Maybe it's a divorce Maybe it's a loss of a job Maybe it's abuse of many kinds Maybe it's just loneliness in this world All those things can trigger discouragement They can trigger depression Like Adronium Judson, Charles Spurgeon, William Cowper

In the Bible, we see characters like David, Elijah, Jonah, Joe, Moses, Jeremiah, and even Paul said that he even despaired of life at times So let's look at, we have three paragraphs Asaph's complaint, verses 1-9 Asaph's contemplation, verses 10-15 And Asaph's comfort, verses 16-20 So let's get into verses 1-9 When you read the psalms, and I've covered this many times, always look for the personal pronouns So here, when you look for verses 1-9, you're going to see the word I, my, and me, either 20 or 21 times, depending on your translation. ESV, I think it's 20 So it's all about Asaph

All about me All about I, I, I But then when you look here in the first nine verses, it mentions God or Lord maybe six times, and then his or he another six times So it's pretty much all about Asaph here, because this is his depression This is his complaint here So first off, he begins by requesting God He's going to request, reach out to God He's going to remember God He's going to recall God's deeds, and he's going to give rhetorical questions to God in his first nine verses So first off, he requests God He cries out to God He calls out for two things, help me and hear me

In verse 1, he says, I cry aloud to God, aloud to God It's as if he's shouting out to God You'll see in the next verses, his hands are up So he's saying, help me God And then he's saying, and he will hear me He's confident that God will hear him

We have that same assurance too, don't we? You may not understand your discouragement, your trial, why you're in the desert, but Hebrews chapter 4, verse 15 to 16 is the verses that every single Christian should know and have memorized, I think, because the psalmist didn't have these verses, but we know that it says in Hebrews 4, 15 to 16, for we do not have a high priest The high priest is Jesus Christ who was unable to sympathize with us in our weakness, but the one who is in every respect has been tempted as we are yet was without sin

Verse 16 says, let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in a time of need It's a picture of Jesus on the throne with a scepter waiting for us to come into his very throne room And Jesus will always extend the scepter and willingly allow us to come in and talk to him So the psalmist is crying out to God He's saying, hear me He knows God will hear him He just doesn't know why his prayers are not being answered So verse two, he reaches out to God

He says in the day of trouble and in the night of tribulation, most likely it's a day of disaster for the nation Israel Perhaps it's a military defeat in the night He says, my hand reaches out to you That's not uncommon in Jewish culture It was common to raise hands toward heaven when they're praying But this is a Psalm of anguish This is a Psalm of a man crying out His soul refuses to be comforted

Let me ask you, when was the last time you spent hours and hours at night or the whole night praying for something? Not too often, probably, right? Maybe there was something, but our prayers are usually pretty short, right? So someone said, why does God let things go on as long and as tragically as they do without God giving us any tokens of his increase or concern? And we talked about this in our Psalm 91, in our Psalm 88 message Sometimes it's if God isn't hearing us, God isn't answering our prayer, but God does answer the prayer

But I think it's good to review tonight, and we went through this in our Psalm 91 message Why doesn't God answer some of our prayers? And I'll give you five reasons. I've given to them before, but it's time to review them Number one, we ask for wrong motives James 4.3, when you ask, you do not receive because you ask for wrong motives that you may spend it on your pleasures You know, you can ask for a Ferrari God's not going to give you a Ferrari He might give you a 2005 Honda, but he's not going to give you a Ferrari So wrong motives

There are people that, you know, mostly in Pentecostal or false teaching churches will ask for wrong motives because the name it and claim it false teaching Number two, unconfessed sin Isaiah 59.2 says, because your iniquities have separated you from God, your sins have hidden his face from you so that he, God will not hear James tells us in James 5.16, that the prayer of a righteous man is powerful effective But if you're not in a righteous state and you're living in constant sin, the Bible tells us, and we just read Isaiah 59.2, that God will not hear your prayer

The good news is, is the Bible says in 1 John 1.9, if we confess our sins, God is righteous to forgive us those sins He will cleanse us Then we can approach God in holiness and boldness And I already read you Hebrews 4.16 that says, approach him boldly The third reason is doubt James 1.6 says, but when you ask, you must believe and not doubt because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea being blown and tossed by the sin So when you pray, you pray with faith That doesn't mean God is going to give you everything, but you pray, asking God for the answered prayer

Number four, family conflict Okay. 1 Peter 3.7, I mentioned this in Psalm 91, that if the husband is not loving the wife in a gentle manner, the prayer of the husband is not going to be answered That is such a convicting prayer that husbands have to love their wives in the right way And number five, and this is probably true of a lot of our prayers we don't understand It's just not the right time It's not on God's timeline He's the sovereign God He has a timeline God knows what he's doing And Isaiah 55.8.9 says, for my thoughts are not your thoughts

Neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than yours and my thoughts and your thoughts So just because we haven't received an answer to prayer, it doesn't mean no God knows what's best for you But think about, are we asking with wrong motives? Do we have any unconfessed sin in our life? Are we asking, doubting? Is there some family conflict? Or is it just not the right time? Let's move on to sub-point number three, remembering God So in verse three he says, my soul groaned Then he says, my mind meditated My spirit fainted

So the psalmist is so disturbed that he groans And this isn't the only psalm where the psalmist groaned There's other psalms where he groaned He says, when I meditate, he groans because he remembers the past deeds, the past mighty acts of God, perhaps the walls of Jericho coming down or the ten plagues He remembers how the God of Israel, Yahweh, was a mighty God, almighty God, and he expects God to do the same thing So if this was the northern tribe being taken away into captivity, it's because of Israel's sin

And maybe he doesn't remember that God promised to bless them when they were holy, but also to curse them when they were unholy But he's meditating, and it's causing him to groan, even causing his spirit to faint This is a very broken man Pastor Ray Steadman said, it's evident here that the psalmist is confronted with two problems, not just one The first problem is there's something distressing that has brought him to God in verses one and two But in verses three and four, there's a second problem, and that problem is the apparent failure of God to respond to his prayer

Of the two problems, number two is greater than number one That is why he says in verse three, I think of God, and I moan It only makes him feel worse Why does not God do something? This is the cry that comes welling up out of the depths of his anguish. I think of God, and it makes me ask, why doesn't he help me? I moan, I meditate, and my spirit just melts away We've talked a lot in our Sunday services in the book of Hebrews about the desert experience, and we always turn to that wonderful chapter in Isaiah 43 That's another chapter that you should have memorized or at least written down

If you're going through a hard time, do you remember Isaiah 43? The not if, but the when Isaiah 43, verses one to three says, O Jacob, he formed you, O Israel, fear not, I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine And then he says, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, and the flames shall not consume you, for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel

So what we learned on Sunday is you may have to go through the fire, you may have to go through the waters It's not if, but it's when And if you were with us on Sunday, Tom Mason took us to that passage in 1 Peter chapter four, and 1 Peter has more verses about suffering than any other book in the New Testament And I won't read you, he read verses 12 to 19, but 1 Peter 4, 19 says, let those who suffer according to God's will, entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good Yes, it is the will of God that some of us suffer We don't like that verse, but it's true

So he's remembering God We move on to sub point number four, he starts to recall God's deeds So he first off, he says, my eyes weary He says, you hold my eyelids open He can't sleep Now, you or I would take a sleep aid or some pill, right? But he doesn't have that option He blames God for his insomnia He doesn't have the words to express his anguish Then he also says in verse four, my mouth stammered. I am so troubled that I cannot speak The New Living Translation says, I am too depressed even to pray He goes from yelling in verse one to not being able to speak in verse four

He's suffering in depressed silence, but you know what? Sometimes silence is good Ecclesiastes five, two says, be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty with to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth Therefore, let your words be few Lance gave the example and we'll study it in four weeks from tonight We'll be looking at the book of Job and remember before Job's counselors came, his three friends, they sat in silence for seven days

Silence is good sometimes to contemplate, but once the three counselors started talking, they were miserable counselors, okay? But he, I think the silence here is good because it gets him to stop thinking about himself and to start thinking about God Says his mind reflected in verse five So his eyes wearied, his mouth stammered and his mind reflected Verse five says, I considered the days of old, the years long ago Once again, he's reflecting the days of old, but he's not just reflecting on him He's starting to meditate upon them Dr

Martin Lloyd Jones says, instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way, remind yourself of God, who God is and what God has done and what God has pledged himself to do So he's starting to reflect Then verse six, he says, my heart meditated He said, let me remember my song in the night Remember, this is a singer This is probably a choir director in the temple and he knows all the hymns the Jews know So he's remembering the songs that he'd sung at the night, the songs that praise the Lord, the songs that remember the great acts of the Lord

You know, singing praises to God can dispel the darkness of torment, can it? You know, this, this very psalm, Psalm 77 is going to close out with a song, basically verses 16 to 20 are pretty much the same as Exodus 15 and Habakkuk chapter three, when it talks about the parting of the Red Sea You know, I know it's not easy when you are down, when you are depressed, when you are discouraged And there's probably a lot of people on Tutu are, and sadly they're probably not here tonight, but you are, but we need to meditate upon God and his attributes and his mighty acts in the Bible

Lance Sparks gave an illustration probably 25 years ago that I never forgot about physical hunger versus spiritual hunger So when you have physical hunger, you need to eat every day, right? But if you skip breakfast, you're hungry at lunch If you skip lunch, you're starving at dinner If you skip your food for one day, you're going to want to eat the next day You're going to be so hungry You're going to scarf it down, right? But spiritual hunger is not the same It's opposite If you skip your Bible reading on Monday morning, you're probably going to skip it on Tuesday

If you skip it on Tuesday, you're probably going to skip it on Wednesday So it's really hard when you're not feeling happy or feel like praising the Lord or singing songs or praying, but no matter how hard it is, you need to go into the word of God And even though it's the last thing you want to do, it's the most important thing you need to do And where do you need to go? Psalms Look at these men They're normal human beings like us We want books to satisfy our depression and deeds, right? Some cheerful book by some famous author

We want to watch a Hallmark movie and get encouraged, right? We want our family or friends to come over or somebody to say something that's so beautiful that we're cheered up, right? But usually like Job's miserable counselors, they just make it worse, right? But God's word, Hebrews 13 says five says, I will never leave you or forsake you And Hebrews 2 18 is another verse you need to remember It says for, because he, Jesus has suffered when he was tempted, he's able to help those who are being tempted Remember that Jesus Christ was hungry He was tired

He cried all the things Jesus walked in your footsteps He walked in your shoes He knows how you feel Let's move on to sub point Number five, rhetorical questions to God here We've got some of the most beautiful poetry in Psalms And we talked about this in Psalms 88 If you remember many times, the commentator will just start asking questions to God and they're always rhetorical questions, which means the answer is no So ASAP may be depressed over the Northern kingdom or relatives going into captivity He specifically mentions Joseph and Jacob So possibly it is the Northern kingdom

So in Psalms 88, we saw six straight rhetorical questions Remember, do you work wonders for the dead? Do the departed rise up to praise you? Is your steadfast love declared in the grave? Are your wonders known in the darkness or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? So ASAP is going to ask, it depends on your translation Mine is five questions, but maybe yours is six, but there are three categories here Number one category, will the Lord forsake me? Verse seven So I have one question here, but I think the King James and NASB has two

Will the Lord spurn forever or will never again be favorable? So the question here, is God finished with me? And the answer is absolutely not And you'll see that in the application when we get to, okay Judson, he wanted to die He dug his own grave He was depressed. I mean, all those children dying, two wives dying, and even his third wife died just a couple of years after he died So, but that legacy is with the Christians in Myanmar today, that Judson Bible. I mean, so God was not finished with him and God's not finished with you

The second category, these rhetorical questions fall under, is will the Lord fail me? And that's in verse eight And he asks about two attributes of God Has his steadfast love ceased? Are his promises at an all-in time? So he's saying, has God ceased to love? Because I don't feel your love right now, God Has God scrapped his promises? Remember, Moses said not one of God's promises fell to the earth All of them were true And we know the answer is, of course not The third category of the rhetorical questions in verse nine

Will the Lord forget me? He says, has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in his anger shut up his compassion? So the question is, has God stopped being gracious? Has his anger stopped? You know, in Exodus 34, six and seven, God says, I wasn't gracious and I'm merciful And he was in the Old Testament and he is in the New Testament So the answer to these six questions in these three categories is no, no, no Warren Wiersbe says one of his favorite quotes regarding affliction is this When God puts his own people into the furnace, he keeps an eye on the clock and his hand on the thermostat

He knows how long and how much And if we rebel, he may have to reset the clock But if we submit, he will not permit us to suffer one minute too long The important thing is that we learn the lesson he wants to teach us in that we bring glory to him alone We may question why he does it to begin with, or why doesn't he turn down the heat or even turn the heat off? But our questions are only evidence of our unbelief Job 23, verse 10 is the answer But he knows the way I take When he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold Job said that in Job 23, 10 Gold does not fear the fire

The furnace can only make gold pure and brighter So sometimes God puts us through the heat, puts us through the furnace to purify us so that we can be used for his kingdom and his glory So we've looked at Asap's complaint where he was depressed But you start to see he's slowly starting to get his eyes off of himself and onto God So let's look at Asap's contemplation in verses 10 to 15 Verse 10 is the critical verse in the psalm because this is where the mood changes So I mentioned in verses 1 to 9, there were 21 personal references about himself But in verses 10 to 20, only five

But in verses 10 to 20, there are 26 divine references to God You God, your and Lord and different names So you can see how the second half of the psalm, it's not about Asap, it's all about God And that's because the ministry of the Holy Spirit does away with the I, the me, and the my Asap turns his eyes off himself and starts to look for heaven And he's going to do four things you see in your outline Number one, he's going to get refocused on God's deeds Then I said, I will appeal to this to the ears of the right hand of the most high He's going to appeal to the most high God

You know, that's the name of God, right? In the second half of the psalm, we're going to see multiple names for God We have Elohim twice in verse 13, once in verse 16 We have El for God in verse 14 We have Yah shortened for Yahweh in verse 11 But this is the big one, Elyon And if you've been with us in the study of Daniel, you know all about Elyon Psalm 57, too, says, I cry out to God most high, to the God who fulfills his purpose to me This is the God most high he's appealing to This name of God most high is used 19 times in psalms It's first used in Genesis 14, 18

And we've talked a lot about it Let's move on to sub point number two, remembering God's deeds He says, I will remember the deeds of the Lord. I will remember your wonders of old Have you ever done this? Have you ever meditated upon the deeds of God? Now, usually we're New Testament Christians, so you may meditate upon the cross, okay? But the psalmist, they didn't have the New Testament So what would they meditate upon? They meditate upon creation Understand that probably half the so-called Christians in America don't really believe in the first 11 chapters of Genesis

We do here at Christ Community Church But he's pondering on creation, the flood, the nations that were scattered, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Moses in the burning bush, the 10 plagues in Egypt, the pillar of fire by day and the pillar of the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night How he provided water and manna and the birds in the desert for 40 years How about the walls of Jericho falling down? He's just meditating upon those great deeds of God Number three, we need to reflect upon God's deeds Same as verse 11

He says, I will ponder your work and here I'm going to meditate upon those mighty deeds The New Living Translation says, they are constantly in my thought. I cannot stop thinking about your mighty works He wants to get out of depression or discouragement and that's the key to start meditating upon the works of God We've talked about this before There's five disciplines to Scripture, right? You can hear the Scripture on Sunday and that's what a lot of people do You people come out twice a week so you're going to grow more, you're going to learn more But hearing is not enough

Hopefully the pastor's encouragement or the preacher's encouragement gets you to read the Word of God Every Christian needs to have a quiet time where they're going through the Bible. I'm not a fan of speed reading the Bible, but you need to be, have a plan to read the Bible You don't have to read it in a year, a couple chapters a day. I read one Psalm a day, I read one Proverb a day, I read two chapters of the Old Testament a day, and then I stay in the same New Testament book for 30 days That study lesson is in the MacArthur Study Bible if you want it, by the way

But you start reading, hearing number one, reading, and then you start to memorize Scripture What is your trial? What is your depression? What is your discouragement? Is it loneliness? You know, are you a young woman praying for a husband? You start to pray, okay? You start to memorize Scriptures about it, no matter what it is Are you battling some temptation? 1 Corinthians 10, 13 would be a great verse to memorize about temptation So you memorize Scripture, okay? So you hear, you read, you study, you memorize, but number five is meditation

We talked about taking a verse, maybe one verse when you read the Bible in the morning, that jumps out to you One verse that says, wow, I need to work on that Maybe it's a promise, maybe it's a sin to confess Maybe it's just something, wow, I need to study that more Write that verse down on a sticky note, you know? Put it in the back of your Bible, okay? Put it on your car steering wheel Put it in your wallet, so when you pay for lunch, you pull it out Say that verse 10 times in one day and meditate upon it The example I used a couple weeks ago was Proverbs 12, 25

Anxiety in a heart, you know, is going to make a man discouraged, but a good word from the Lord So I mentioned about when you start thinking about anxiety, you remember Matthew 6 and Jesus says, don't be anxious, don't be anxious, don't be anxious So reflect upon God's deeds So the number four, he's going to, now that he's reflected on those deeds, he's going to rejoice in God's deeds, okay? Verse 13 to 15 The psalmist recalls the attributes of God in three ways Number one, he's going to recall and rejoice that God is holy Verse 13, your way, oh God, is holy What God is great, like our God

God's way is holy Holy means upright So we can trust God We can trust God that he's doing the right thing Maybe the northern kingdom is being taken away Maybe they lost the battle, but God knows what he's doing and God, we can always trust God to do the right thing, even may it be that we don't like what he's doing Number two, God is powerful Verse 14, you are the God who works wonders That word wonders several times in the psalm You have made known your might among the peoples In the previous stanza, Asaph reflected upon God's deeds and miracles, his works and mighty deeds

But here, not only is God holy and upright, but God is so powerful that he can put all his holy degrees into action Number three, verse 15, God is caring He says, you, with your arm, redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph How do we know God is caring? Because he redeemed, he elected the nation of Israel for salvation, but they, you know what happened with them? He elected us If you have Jesus Christ in your heart, he says it was by his strength only that he redeemed your people Redeemed here is the same Hebrew word that's used in the book of Ruth for the kinsman redeemer Okay

In this context here, it is talking about what we're going to get to in the next five verses, the deliverance of Israel from Egypt So he mentions Jacob and Joseph It's interesting in book three of Psalms, Psalm 73 to Psalms 89, there's only 17 Psalms there, but almost all the mentions of Jacob and Joseph are in that Psalms There's only one other Psalm that mentions Jacob and Joseph outside of book three and that Psalms 105, but Psalm 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 80 They all talk about Jacob and Joseph Okay God is holy God is powerful And God is caring

Even when he allows us to fall in depression, like the Psalmist, it's part of his loving plan In times of discouragement or depression, we must have the discipline ourselves to meditate upon God's word Let's look at the last five verses, paragraph number three, Asep's comfort So he's going to talk about the Red Sea And there are many Psalms that talk about Israel's history Psalm 78, 105, 106, 107, 114, 135, 136 The next Psalm, Psalm 78 after Psalm 77 is the second longest Psalm after Psalms 119

But here, this last stanza, we're going to see Asep recalling the most powerful demonstration of God in the old Testament And that is the deliverance of the children of Israel in the Exodus from Egypt God demonstrates his power over using violent nature We have really beautiful poetry here It's almost the same as Exodus 15, the Song of Moses, and Habakkuk chapter three So number one, God's power was displayed at the Red Sea Six things happen here It says, the waters tremble Really interesting verse It says, the waters looked up and saw you, O God

So this is beautiful Hebrew poetry with superb literary skill The Psalmist pictures the waters of the Red Sea looking up at their creator Now notice the next five things, the cloud poured, the skies thundered, the lightning flashed, the thunder sounded, twice it says the lightning flashed, the earthquake If you go back to Exodus 14, it doesn't talk about that It says they crossed the Red Sea on dry land There's no mention of rain and lightning and thunder So some commentators think this is just poetic embellishment language

Well, Pastor Lance is going to be preaching in Hebrews 11, 29 in just a couple weeks about the children of Israel having faith to cross the Red Sea So I asked him to answer the question, did it really rain and lightning flash? I think it did But this is the only place in scripture that talks about these things happening There's no other detail in Exodus Exodus doesn't mention rain, thunder, lightning, or the shaking of the earth So it could be poetic embellishment or poetic language, but I also think it's realistic history

So God's power was on display and the violence you see in nature about what happened there Number two, God's path was decreed through the Red Sea God's path was invincible and God's path was invisible It was invincible He says your path, your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters God made a highway through the Red Sea You know, a lot of liberals don't believe that

And I remember hearing a story, I hope it's true, of a liberal Bible professor at one of our liberal colleges saying that this didn't really happen, that the Israelites crossed the Sea of Reeds and the professor said there was maybe two inches of water and this young Christian in there said, praise the Lord, which infuriated the professor who's trying to defeat his faith And the professor said, why are you saying praise the Lord? And he said, well, if the Egyptians drowned in two inches of water, that's a greater miracle than all that

So the professor was not too happy with him, but I believe it was not two inches of water and I don't believe it was the Sea of Reeds, but God made a highway and they went through on dry land But it says that your footprints were unseen God's presence was there, but they couldn't see it And it's the same with us. I'll bet some of you have that footprints poem in your house Okay, I'm not going to read it tonight It's kind of cheesy, but you can have it But it was real popular in the 70s, 80s and 90s Maybe you still have it But it's true

When we walk, God's carrying us sometimes, right? And he was there in the Red Sea on that highway, but nobody saw his footprints, but the visible results were there Number three, God's people were delivered from the Red Sea He says two things God led them like a flock and God led them by his servants So he says, you led your people like a flock So this shepherding motive is very common in Psalms 77, 78, 79 and 84 Psalms. A lot of verses about shepherding

Who's the shepherd here? Well, we know in the New Testament, Jesus is a good shepherd, John 10, right? But here, God is the great shepherd here God is the one leading And who are the little shepherds? Well, his servants, Moses and Aaron So the psalmist is going to close verses 16, 17, 18 You see the violence of nature that God has displayed his power But then in verses 19 and 20, you see the calmness of God It's a peaceful verse to end God uses little shepherds like Moses and Aaron to lead a flock

James Boyce says, God who acted in mighty ways in the past to redeem his people also acts in calm, tender and loving ways And this is what he's doing in the present time, even though it's not been evident to the psalmist before this The psalmist and the children of Israel would look back at the greatest demonstration of power in the Old Testament, which is the parting of the Red Sea, the 10 plagues and the exodus of Egypt

But as New Testament believers, we look through, we look back to the greatest demonstration of power in the New Testament, and that is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead Okay? At the beginning of the psalm, Asap was a likely prospect for a psychiatric warden, just like Adriam Judson was But at the end of the psalm, you see he's calm, cool, and collective Someone has said, and I want you to remember this, occupation with self brings distress Got that? When you're occupied with yourself, like the first nine verses, I, I, I, I, instead of God, occupation with self brings distress

Number two, occupation with others brings discouragement So you want your neighbors to come, you want your friends to come, and like Job's counselors, they don't usually bring a lot of happiness or joy to you, do they? So occupation with self brings distress Occupation with others brings discouragement But number three, occupation with Christ brings delight Okay? Remember that? Occupation with self brings distress Occupation with others brings discouragement And occupation with Christ brings delight

You know, we have a few minutes. I want to finish this psalm talking about a depressed character in the Bible And you know his name is Elijah And we studied the book of Elijah on Wednesday nights many years ago But you remember 1 Kings chapter 18, the height of Elijah's ministry, right? Remember, he tells the Israelites, how long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him But if Baal, then follow him And you know the story in 1 Kings 18, right? So they have a contest And the 850 prophets of Baal, they prepare a bowl

And they try calling the God of Baal to send fire from heaven And they cut themselves And they dance around for hours and hours and hours And the God doesn't answer because it's no God It's a false God Then Elijah prepares his bowl And he pours buckets of water and buckets of water and buckets of water out And he calls on God And instantly, fire comes out of heaven, consumes the bowl, and licks up the fire And all the people cry out, the Lord, he is God The Lord, he is God And immediately, Elijah says, capture the false prophets and execute them

So effectively, in 1 Kings 18, Baal worship is eliminated It's eliminated out of Israel They killed all the priests, all the prophets So this is the height of Elijah's ministry He's on cloud nine, much like when people go on short-term mission trips with Christ in the church They come back from Argentina on cloud nine They come back fired up They want to do door to door They want to do more stuff But after a couple of weeks, they're not so high in cloud nine

So in 1 Kings 19, what happens to Elijah? Well, in the beginning, Jezebel, we talked about that horrible lady last week, right? She says, you're going to be dead tomorrow So what happens? He gets scared He runs And the angels, they take care of him for 40 days And he goes, hides in the cave And you know the verses about God speaking through the.. God doesn't speak in the thunder God doesn't speak in the fire God doesn't speak in the wind Just a quiet whisper, God speaks to him But the verses I want to concentrate on are 1 Kings 19, verses nine to 19 God's not finished with Elijah

He doesn't send him to counseling He doesn't comfort him He says, hey, Elijah, I got 7,000 other people than you who did not bow down to ball, but I'm not finished with you, Elijah So in 1 Kings 19, he's got more work for Elijah to do Okay And he's going to say, let's just go to verse 15 And the Lord said to him, go return your way to the wilderness in Damascus And when you arrive, arrive, you shall anoint Hazel to be king over Syria So the first thing God says, go appoint Hazel king of Syria The second thing he says, and Jehu son of Nishi, you shall appoint to be the king over Israel

So go down to Israel, the Northern kingdom and appoint this guy, Jehu, to be the king there And thirdly, go appoint Elisha to replace yourself So God is not finished with Elijah He had a pity party in chapter 8, 8, 19, after being so high in cloud nine and chapter 18, three things to do God wants to bring us through our troubles in a way that will give us a testimony that will bring praise and glory and honor to his name He has not written us off He is building our character so he can use us in a more powerful way On the back of your outline, I put a poem there. I don't know if you saw it

And I just want to close and read with that beautiful poem I saw when I was studying The poem says, if God can hang the stars on high, can paint the clouds that drift on by, can send the sun across the sky, what could he do through you? If he can send a storm through space and dot with trees, the mountains face, if he the sparrow's way can trace, what could he do through you? If God can do such little things as count our hairs or birds that sing, control the universe that swings, what could he do through you? So maybe you're discouraged tonight Maybe you're lonely

Maybe you think you're depressed God is not finished with you He was not finished with Adroniam Judson, and he's not finished with you Let's pray Father, if there be anybody tonight that's going through some desert experiences, that's going down in the dumps or in darkness, is feeling depressed or discouraged, may they remember that Psalm 77, Asap got his eyes off of himself and got his eyes onto you, and especially onto the great things you've done Asap did not have the New Testament, but we, Father, know the great works you've done You died on the cross for our sins

Your sinless son died on the cross for our sins He was buried, and he rose from the dead, and he sits at the right hand of God, and even now, interceding for us in our prayers So, Father, may we not stay in a spirit of depression, a spirit of darkness May we, like Adroniam Judson, like Spurgeon, like Kalper, and like Job, and like all the other Bible characters, get our eyes focused on you, and get out of the funk, get out of the depression We know that you love us We know you'll never leave us or forsake us We just pray for those who are discouraged

Perhaps there's people in our church tonight, they're not here tonight, that are suffering Can we be a source of encouragement to them? May they read Psalm 77, and may it encourage them In Jesus' name, amen Next week, we're going to look at Psalm 101, real short one, Psalm 101, and that's called the Commitment Psalm It's technically about King David's commitment, but it also applies to our commitment When you read it, I will, I will, I will, or I shall Fifteen times it says, I shall or I will So read it, and we'll study that next Wednesday.