What do we do when life seems to be falling apart? How do we handle situations in which God seems absence and his absence seems that it will never end? What do we think when enemies of our Lord raise their hands against him and yet he remains silent? These are no doubt questions that we often have in life and yet maybe questions we are fearful to ask. Maybe the thought of asking these questions produces fear in us that we’ll get rebuked in questioning God’s actions or voicing that we feel he is absent from our lives. Scripture, however, does not ignore such questions. In fact, the psalms of full of writings where individuals are questioning the Lord, voicing their struggles, and crying out for something different. And I believe that these kinds of psalms are helpful to instruct us in handling similar situations in our own lives.

Psalm 74 is one such psalm. The psalm recounts the prayer of Asaph as he writes, weeping over the destruction of the temple, while in exile in Babylon. The Lord had permitted the destruction of Jerusalem, the desolation of the temple, and the exile of his people. Thus, to the psalmist it looks as if the Lord has simply abandoned them forever, and so he cries out in this psalm.

Structurally, the psalm is broken up into six parts: 1-3, 4-8, 9-11, 12-17, 18-21, and 22-23. Therefore, let us first just walk through the psalm so that we understand what is being said before we then step back and draw some lessons for us today.

First, in verses 1-3 we see Asaph’s questioning of God and request that the Lord remember his people again. He writes, “O God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture? Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage! Remember Mount Zion, where you have dwelt. Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins; the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary!” In writing this, he asks God why this punishment is tarrying so long. It’s not as if the psalmist things correction from the Lord is unjust, but it seems to be lasting longer than expected. Therefore, he asks the Lord to remember his people and look with pity.

This section is followed in verses 4-8 with a description of the destruction of the temple. In these verses it seems that Asaph’s desire is to evoke the Lord to defend his honor, for an assault on the temple was an assault on God himself. So, he writes in great detail what God’s enemies have done and said.

In verses 9-11 the psalmist then turns to voicing his feeling of abandonment. He wonders how long the Lord will allow his enemies to revile his name and questions why God is holding back his hand from crushing his enemies.

The picture, however, is not one in which the psalmist reasons that God is unable to stop his enemies or lacks control, for Asaph acknowledges this in verses 12-17. In these verses, he acknowledges that God has created and redeemed his people. He points out that God rules over the waters, earth, day, night, heavenly bodies, and the seasons. He also mentions that he had crushed the monster in the sea, the leviathan, and that the sea is under his great power. All of these beings and the sea are enemies of God in the Scripture, and Asaph says that God had crushed and ruled over all of them. His thought is not that the Lord lacks power or ability. He knows God’s power. Therefore, he is puzzled even more at the Lord’s seeming absence and lack of response to his enemies. For this reason he cries out again in verses 18-21 for the Lord to remember how the enemy has mocked him and how his people are like a helpless dove in need. He cries out for God to look upon both his enemies’ work and his people’s need.

Then, finally, the psalm ends in verses 22-23 with a final plea for God to rise up and crush his enemies, primarily for the honor of his name and secondarily for the good of his people. Thus, in order to evoke the Lord to action, the psalmist once more reminds the Lord that his enemies’ voices are rising continually against him while they hear nothing from the Lord.

“So, how” we might ask “does this psalm help us?” Well, I believe, like I have mentioned that this psalm is an example for us as to what we need to do in dark and difficult times. It is instruction for us as to how to handle ourselves when God’s enemies are seemingly triumphing and God is remaining silent.

Therefore, this morning I want to draw out one clear truth from the text and then under that gives some instruction from this psalm as to what we need to remember in difficult times.

The clear truth that I think we can learn from this psalm is that …

There are times when God is willing to allow his enemies to rise up against him, his children to go through intense suffering, and yet remain silent and not act

This is the situation in this psalm. Israel had turned from obeying the Lord and their exile and the destruction of Jerusalem was the result. And even while his children were suffering and his enemies were reviling and mocking him, God was willing to remain silent and not act.

Why God is willing to do this on some occasions we don’t know. However, God is wiser than we are. I’m sure many were crying out to God and asking, “Why?” when Jim Elliott and four of his companions were brutally murdered by the Auca Indians in the late 1950s as they were seeking to spread the gospel. I’m sure many thought God’s lack of intervention was mysterious to say the least. However, now we can look back at the hundreds (and probably thousands) of missionaries who have been driven to give their lives to the cause of missions because of the story and testimony of Jim Elliott’s life.

And I’m sure that many of us have cried out why God did not act and remained silent as we were going through intense suffering and he seemed to be absent. However, at the same time, we can no doubt see great growth in our lives during such times as we were drawn close to the Lord and made more like his son.

With that said, however, I am not saying that we will always see why God allows seasons like this in our lives and in the world. We might never know this side of Christ’s return. But we do know that Scripture gives us precedence of such times in the world where everything seems wrong and God appears still and silent.

So, the question might be then, “How do we sustain ourselves in those times when the circumstances of this psalm mirror the circumstances in our lives? What is it that we need to think and remember and understand?” I think this psalm gives us answers to these questions. Therefore, let me give you a few things this morning that I think this psalm teaches us that we need to remember during difficult days in our lives when it seems that sin is triumphing and that God is silent and inactive.

First, remember that it is okay to cry out to God for deliverance from your situation, especially on the basis of his honor and his faithfulness toward his people

In this psalm Asaph is crying out to the Lord to uphold his honor and display his faithfulness to people. And God included this psalm in the Bible, I think, not to show us that such praying is wrong but to show that it is right. Moses, in Deuteronomy 9, Moses cries out to God for him not to destroy his covenant people. And the basis for his appeal is twofold: 1) God’s honor, for if God had destroyed his people then the Egyptians would be able to mock him in saying that he was not able to do what he promised, and 2) God’s faithfulness to his people in redeeming them. In short, Moses was crying out for God to act to uphold his honor and to do good for his people. This is the exact thing that Asaph is praying here, and I think it is a right thing to pray.

Therefore, just because we know that God will sometimes allow difficult times to tarry and maybe even lead to the loss of our very lives (such as with Jim Elliott), it does not mean that we should cease praying and asking God for deliverance and rescue and relief. In fact, I think God’s intent often for difficult times is to drive us to become people with a greater commitment to prayer. And when we pray for God’s honor and faithfulness toward his people to be displayed, we are praying in accord with who God has shown himself to be – a God who seeks the good of his people and the glory of his name.

Second, remember that God is in control of the situation and measuring out your difficulties

Again, Asaph makes clear in this psalm that the picture is not that someone has gotten the upper-hand on God and that God is unable to do anything other than what is happening. Our God is not one who says, “I tried to stop everything but I just couldn’t.” No, he is a God who sits in the heavens and does whatever he pleases. He is a God whose plans cannot be thwarted.

Asaph knew that he was the God who had crushed the heads of Leviathan and gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness (v. 14). He know that he was in control of the whole world and had broken the heads of the sea monsters on the water. He knew that God was all-powerful and in control. And so can we know these truths.

Don’t try to comfort yourself in difficult times by telling yourself that God couldn’t do anything about the circumstances or that evil got the upper-hand even though God was hoping to do something else. Rather, know the same truth that Asaph knew, that these troubles were being measured out through God’s very hands before they came to his people.

Asaph clearly knew this. In fact, that’s why he’s praying this prayer, for he feels that it is too much. He wonders when it will end. But what he knows is that it’s passing through God’s hands, and that God is in control of the circumstances.

Let this be our comfort. Don’t try to make God appear weak or helpless to try to comfort yourself but remember who God is, who you are to him, and that he is weighing out these great struggles in your life. That is the comfort that Charles Spurgeon wrote of in his life as he suffered from depression, criticism, gout, and a number of other things. He found his comfort in the fact that God was in the midst of all of it and in control of all of it. He wrote, “It would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me, that the bitter cup was never filled by his hand, that my trials were never measured out by him, nor sent to me by his arrangement of their weight and quantity.”¹

Spurgeon knew it in difficult times, Asaph knew it in these difficult times, and so must we remember in our difficult times that God is in control and that he is sovereign even over the struggles that come to us in life.

Third, we must remember that God is committed to us as his people, loves us very deeply, and wants our good even more than we want it ourselves

Now you might say that this text here doesn’t seem to communicate that picture. Instead, it looks like God’s people are wanting to be loved and cared for by God and yet he is refusing. However, we need to look more clearly at the words of the psalm. For look at what the psalmist appeals to so that they might see God’s deliverance. In verse 2 he says, “Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage.” Then in verse 20 he writes, “Have regard for the covenant.”

Do you see? He appeals to the covenant and redemption which God had initiated. God’s did not have a relationship with these people because they had decided they wanted God to be their God and to have him as their Lord. They did not seek God. They did not want God. Instead, God sought out Abraham and made a covenant with him to be God to his descendants. God had initiated the covenant and the redemption of his people. God had made the promise that he would be faithful toward his people without God’s people asking for such commitment.

So it is with us. We did not ask God to send a solution to our send problem. We did not ask God to love us to such an extend that he would send his Son to die for us. We did not plead with God for these things. No, God, initiated it. He was the one who first loved us and sent his Son to die for us while we were still his enemies. We love him only because he first loved us.

Therefore, we do not need to look to our circumstances to determine whether God loves us, for they can be deceiving. Instead we can simply look to the cross and remember that God loved us so much that he gave his Son for us when we were his enemies. The cross can be a reminder to us that he is committed to us. And the fact that he has predestined that ultimately we will be like his Son means that he is more interested in our good than we want good for ourselves. God’s great love for us is crucial for us to remember in difficult times, and yet we can be sure of it.

Finally, we can remember that in whatever circumstances we are in, we can still praise God

In this psalm, the psalmist cries out in verse 21 for God to allow “the poor and needy [to] praise [His] name.” In essence, his cry was, rescue us, pulling us out of our desperate plight so that we might then praise you.

And again, this is indeed a right thought. As we cry out for God’s deliverance and help in difficult circumstances and trials we should seek to praise him when such deliverance occurs. In fact, Psalm 67 constantly repeats the idea of requesting the Lord to do good to his people and then his people praising him.

However, we also need to remember that in all circumstances in this life we can praise God for he has already rescued and redeemed us. Peter writes in 1 Peter 2:9, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

We have been called out of the darkness of Satan’s grip, the curse of sin, and the reign of death so that we might proclaim God’s excellencies. Therefore, we have ground to praise God regardless of our circumstances. We must simply remember the cross and our salvation. It is as Michael Card has written, “[I must know] I am that richest man, though I must beg for bread. For the very one who might condemn has called me friend instead.”

Indeed, in this life there will be circumstances like we read in this psalm. God’s enemies will appear to be triumphing as they mock and revile God. God’s people will be in difficult and crushing circumstances. And amidst all of this, God in his wisdom, might choose to appear silent and still. Yet, even in those times might we be armed to walk in obedience as we remember God’s control over all things, God’s love and commitment toward his people, our ability and right to pray, and the call to praise him for he has redeemed us from our rightful punishment of eternal hell. May we, therefore, find ourselves armed for obedience through the instruction of this psalm this morning for our good and God’s glory. Amen.

¹Darrel W. Amundsen, “The Anguish and Agonies of Charles Spurgeon,” in: Christianity Today, Issue 29, Volume X, No. 1, p. 25.

LESSONS FOR TIMES OF GOD'S SEEMINGLY ETERNAL ABSENCE

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