Psalm 77:9














So fully was the thought of God woven into the whole life and relations of a pious Jew, that to him the unbearable distress was the lost sense of God's presence and interest. We have two striking instances of this. The supreme point of David's distress, when fleeing from his son Absalom, lay in this - his enemies taunted him with the lost favour of God, saying, "Where is now thy God?" And Isaiah closes his magnificent fortieth chapter with this sublime appeal, "Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?" Imagined change in God's relation, and the failure of God's mercy, are the supreme woes to all Godfearing men still.

I. THE CHRISTIAN'S GREAT TROUBLES ARE DOUBTS ABOUT GOD, NOT AFFLICTIONS SENT BY GOD. The distinction between these two is this - doubts are inward, afflictions are outward. It is not a very great thing for the soul to master mere circumstances - especially since God never permits them to be overwhelming. The great thing is for the soul to master itself. When our circumstances start doubts, then we get humbled and broken. It is doubt, suspicion, fear, that really crushes our spirits, and forces tears. Our doubtings usually concern:

1. God's Personality. Like David, we cry for assurance that God is a "living God;" not a vain idol; not an abstraction of science; not the vague "eternal that makes for righteousness."

2. God's relationship. He may be God, but is he my God?

3. God's faithfulness. For God ever sets out promises for faith to grasp; and what can faith do if God does not keep his promises?

4. God's actual present nearness. "Where is now thy God?" "Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer might not pass through."

II. THE STING OF DOUBTING TIMES IS THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN. Illustrate from the case of David, who lost the sense of God, lost his hope in God, filled his soul with questionings and fears, when he had stepped aside from the ways of righteousness and good self-restraint. Sin clouds the mind with doubts.

III. NEITHER AFFLICTIONS, NOR DOUBTS, NOR CONSCIOUS SIN DO MAKE GOD'S MERCIES FAIL. Precisely in those scenes Divine mercies most abound. Things, and conditions of mind and feeling, may affect our vision of him; they cannot affect him. We may project our shadows over him, and then find we can only see the shadows. God is not moved to change by our change. "He abideth faithful."

"His mercies aye endure, Ever faithful, ever sure." Ask, "Is his mercy clean gone forever?" and you cannot want any answer. To state the question is to be ashamed of the doubting that suggested it. - R.T.

Hath God forgotten to be gracious?
The question before us is what the logician would call a reductio ad absurdum; it reduces doubt to an absurdity; it puts into plain words the thought of an unbelieving mind, and at once it is seen to be a horrible notion. "Hath God forgotten?" We stumble at the first word. How can God forget? "Hath God forgotten to be?" We snap the question at that point, and it is blasphemous. It is no better when we give it as a whole — "Hath God forgotten to be gracious?" The bare idea is bold, ridiculous and blasphemous.

I. TO THE MAN OF GOD IN DISTRESS this question is commended, "Hath God forgotten to be gracious?" What kind of distress is that which suggests such a question? Where had Asaph been? In what darkness had he wandered? I answer, first, this good man had been troubled by unanswered prayers. "In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord"; and he seems to say that though he sought the Lord his griefs were not removed. He was in darkness, and he craved for light, but not a star shone forth. Nothing is more grievous to the sincere pleader than to feel that his petitions are not heeded by his God. Besides that, he was enduring continual suffering. "My sore ran in the night." When Asaph had prayed for relief, and the relief did not come, the temptation came to him to ask, "Am I always to suffer? Will the Lord never relieve me? It is written, 'He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds'; has He ceased from that sacred surgery? 'Hath God forgotten to be gracious?'" In addition to this, the man of God was in a state of mind in which his depression had become inveterate. He says, "My soul refused to be comforted." Many plasters were at hand, but he could not lay them upon the wound. More than that, there seemed to be a failure of the means of grace for him. "I remembered God, and was troubled." Some of God's people go up to the house of the Lord where they were accustomed to unite in worship with delight, but they have no delight now; they even go to the communion-table, and eat the bread and drink the wine, but they do not receive the body and blood of Christ to the joy of their faith. At the back of all this there was another trouble for Asaph, namely, that he could not sleep. He says, "Thou holdest mine eyes waking." It seemed as if the Lord Himself held up his eyelids, and would not let them close in sleep. Moreover, there was one thing more: he lost the faculty of telling out his grief: "I am so troubled that I cannot speak." To be compelled to silence is a terrible increase to anguish: the torrent is swollen when its free course is prevented. A dumb sorrow is sorrow indeed. Now, let us attend to the amendment of the question. Shall I tell thee what the true question is which thou oughtest to ask thyself? It is not, "Hath God forgotten to be gracious?" but "Hast thou forgotten to be grateful?" Why, thou enjoyest many mercies even now. Grace is all around thee, if thou wilt but open thine eyes, or thine ears. Thou hadst not been spared after so much sin if God had forgotten to be gracious.

II. THE SEEKING SINNER IN DESPONDENCY. He makes you nothing that He may be all in all to you. He grinds you to the dust that He may lift you out of it for ever. Meanwhile, I do not wonder that the question crosses your mind, "Hath God forgotten to be gracious?" Let me show how wrong the question is. "Hath God forgotten to be gracious?" If He has, He has forgotten what He used to know right well. "Hath God forgotten to be gracious?" Then, why are all the old arrangements for grace still standing? There is the mercy-seat; surely that would have been taken away if God had forgotten to be gracious. The Gospel is preached to you, and this is its assurance, "Whosoever believeth in Him is not condemned."

III. THE DISAPPOINTED WORKER. You say, "I do not feel as if I could preach; the matter does not flow. I do not feel as if I could teach; I search for instruction, and the more I pull the more I cannot get it." "Hath God forgotten to be gracious?" Can He not fill thine empty vessel again? Can He not give thee stores of thought, emotion, and language? Oh, perhaps you say, "I work in a back street, and everybody is moving out into the suburbs." You have lost your friends, and they have forgotten you; but, "Hath God forgotten to be gracious?" You can succeed so long as the Lord is with you. Be of good courage; your best friend is left. He who made a speech in the Academy found that all his hearers had gone except ; but as Plato remained, the orator finished his address. They asked him how he could continue under the circumstances, and he replied that Plato was enough for an audience. So, if God be pleased with you, go on; the Divine pleasure is more than sufficient. "The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge." Did not Wesley say when he was dying, "The best of all is, God is with us"?

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

I. ALL COMPLAINTS AGAINST PROVIDENCE PROCEED FROM WEAKNESS AND THE INFIRMITY OF HUMAN REASON.

1. The first of this sort, which naturally presents itself to the mind, when we consider God and ourselves, is this, That God is too great and too excellent a Being to humble Himself to behold the things that are on earth Epicurus and his followers, who denied God's government of the world, denied also that He made it. So far, at least, they were consistent; for, if they thought it too much trouble for God to govern the world, they could not consistently put Him to the trouble of making it. But if we turn the argument, and begin with considering the works of the creation and "call to remembrance those years of the right hand of the Most High," we shall from these works of God be led to just conclusions with respect to the methods of Divine Providence, less obvious to our observation, in the government of the world.

2. Another reason which some have for suspecting that the affairs of the world are not under the conduct of Providence, is, that they cannot discern any certain marks of God.'s interposing. On the contrary, they think it evident that, all the inanimate and irrational parts of the world follow a certain course of nature invariably; and that men act with all the signs of being given up to follow their own devices, without being either directed or restrained by a superior power. But in this way of reasoning there are two great mistakes —(1) That the conclusion is not, rightly drawn from the observation, supposing the observation to be true.(2) Supposing the conclusion to be true, it, will not answer the purpose intended. And whatever inequalities may appear to us in the distribution of good or evil in this life, they cannot stand as objections to God's government over the world, unless you can prove that there will be no day of reckoning hereafter.

II. A SETTLED PEACE OF MIND, WITH RESPECT TO GOD, MUST ARISE FROM A DUE CONTEMPLATION OF THE GREAT WORKS OF PROVIDENCE, WHICH GOD HAS LAID OPEN TO OUR VIEW FOR OUR CONSIDERATION AND INSTRUCTION. Happy are they who listen to this still voice! they will act not only the safest, but the most rational part; whilst others, full of themselves and their own wisdom, are daily condemning what they do not understand. And if ever they recover their right reason, the first, step must be to see their weakness, and to join wit.h the psalmist, in his humble confession, "It is my own infirmity."

(Bp. Sherlock.)

Let us rest assured of this, that the roughest of God's proceedings do not always issue from an angry intention: it is very possible, because very usual, that they may proceed from the clean contrary. The same clouds which God made use of heretofore to drown the earth, He employs now to refresh it. He may use the same means to correct and to better some that He does to plague and punish others. The same hand and hatchet that cuts some trees for the fire may cut others into growth, verdure, and fertility.

(R. South, D. D.)

People
Aaron, Asaph, Jacob, Jeduthun, Joseph, Psalmist
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Anger, Compassion, Compassions, Favours, Forgotten, Gracious, Memory, Mercies, Merciful, Pity, Selah, Shut, Tender, Withdrawn, Withheld, Wrath
Outline
1. The psalmist shows what fierce combat he had with distrust
10. The victory which he had by consideration of God's great and gracious works.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 77:1-9

     5567   suffering, emotional

Psalm 77:7-9

     5265   complaints
     8615   prayer, doubts

Psalm 77:7-12

     6233   rejection, experience

Psalm 77:8-9

     1030   God, compassion

Library
June the Eleventh the Path Across the Sea
"Thy way is in the sea." --PSALM lxxvii. 11-20. And the sea appears to be the most trackless of worlds! The sea is the very symbol of mystery, the grim dwelling-house of innumerable things that have been lost. But God's way moves here and there across this trackless wild. God is never lost among our mysteries. He knows his way about. When we are bewildered He sees the road, and He sees the end even from the beginning. Even the sea, in every part of it, is the Lord's highway. When His way is in
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

A Question for a Questioner
The question which makes our text is meant to end other questions. You may carry truth as far as ever you like, and it will always be truth. Truth is like those crystals which, when split up into the smallest possible fragments, still retain their natural form. You may break truth in pieces, you may do what you like with it, and it is truth throughout; but error is diverse within itself, and evermore bears its own death within itself. You can see its falsehood even in its own light. Bring it forward,
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 31: 1885

Ere Another Step I Take
"I commune with mine own heart." -- Psalm 77:6. Ere another step I take In my wilful wandering way, Still I have a choice to make -- Shall I alter while I may? Patient love is waiting still In my Savior's heart for me; Love to bend my froward will, Love to make me really free. Far from Him, what can I gain? Want and shame, and bondage vile -- Better far to bear the pain Of His yoke a little while. Soon I might its comfort find; Soon my thankful heart might cry, "In Thy meek obedient mind, As
Miss A. L. Waring—Hymns and Meditations

Despondency Self-Corrected. --Ps. Lxxvii.
Despondency Self-Corrected.--Ps. lxxvii. In time of tribulation, Hear, Lord, my feeble cries, With humble supplication To Thee my spirit flies: My heart with grief is breaking, Scarce can my voice complain; Mine eyes, with tears kept waking, Still watch and weep in vain. The days of old, in vision, Bring vanish'd bliss to view; The years of lost fruition Their joys in pangs renew; Remember'd songs of gladness, Through night's lone silence brought, Strike notes of deeper sadness, And stir desponding
James Montgomery—Sacred Poems and Hymns

A Path in the Sea
'And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them: 20. And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night. 21. And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night,
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

How the Whole and the Sick are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 13.) Differently to be admonished are the whole and the sick. For the whole are to be admonished that they employ the health of the body to the health of the soul: lest, if they turn the grace of granted soundness to the use of iniquity, they be made worse by the gift, and afterwards merit the severer punishments, in that they fear not now to use amiss the more bountiful gifts of God. The whole are to be admonished that they despise not the opportunity of winning health for ever.
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Letter iii (A. D. 1131) to Bruno, Archbishop Elect of Cologne
To Bruno, [8] Archbishop Elect of Cologne Bernard having been consulted by Bruno as to whether he ought to accept the See of Cologne, so replies as to hold him in suspense, and render him in awe of the burden of so great a charge. He advises him to seek counsel of God in prayer. 1. You seek counsel from me, most illustrious Bruno, as to whether you ought to accept the Episcopate, to which it is desired to advance you. What mortal can presume to decide this for you? If God calls you, who can dare
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

Letter Xlii to the Illustrious Youth, Geoffrey De Perrone, and his Comrades.
To the Illustrious Youth, Geoffrey de Perrone, and His Comrades. He pronounces the youths noble because they purpose to lead the religious life, and exhorts them to perseverance. To his beloved sons, Geoffrey and his companions, Bernard, called Abbot of Clairvaux, wishes the spirit of counsel and strength. 1. The news of your conversion that has got abroad is edifying many, nay, is making glad the whole Church of God, so that The heavens rejoice and the earth is glad (Ps. xcvi. 11), and every tongue
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

Joy
'The fruit of the Spirit is joy.' Gal 5:52. The third fruit of justification, adoption, and sanctification, is joy in the Holy Ghost. Joy is setting the soul upon the top of a pinnacle - it is the cream of the sincere milk of the word. Spiritual joy is a sweet and delightful passion, arising from the apprehension and feeling of some good, whereby the soul is supported under present troubles, and fenced against future fear. I. It is a delightful passion. It is contrary to sorrow, which is a perturbation
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Prayer
But I give myself unto prayer.' Psa 109: 4. I shall not here expatiate upon prayer, as it will be considered more fully in the Lord's prayer. It is one thing to pray, and another thing to be given to prayer: he who prays frequently, is said to be given to prayer; as he who often distributes alms, is said to be given to charity. Prayer is a glorious ordinance, it is the soul's trading with heaven. God comes down to us by his Spirit, and we go up to him by prayer. What is prayer? It is an offering
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

Covenant Duties.
It is here proposed to show, that every incumbent duty ought, in suitable circumstances, to be engaged to in the exercise of Covenanting. The law and covenant of God are co-extensive; and what is enjoined in the one is confirmed in the other. The proposals of that Covenant include its promises and its duties. The former are made and fulfilled by its glorious Originator; the latter are enjoined and obligatory on man. The duties of that Covenant are God's law; and the demands of the law are all made
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

The Early Life of Malachy. Having Been Admitted to Holy Orders He Associates with Malchus
[Sidenote: 1095.] 1. Our Malachy, born in Ireland,[134] of a barbarous people, was brought up there, and there received his education. But from the barbarism of his birth he contracted no taint, any more than the fishes of the sea from their native salt. But how delightful to reflect, that uncultured barbarism should have produced for us so worthy[135] a fellow-citizen with the saints and member of the household of God.[136] He who brings honey out of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock[137]
H. J. Lawlor—St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh

Of Faith. The Definition of It. Its Peculiar Properties.
1. A brief recapitulation of the leading points of the whole discussion. The scope of this chapter. The necessity of the doctrine of faith. This doctrine obscured by the Schoolmen, who make God the object of faith, without referring to Christ. The Schoolmen refuted by various passages. 2. The dogma of implicit faith refuted. It destroys faith, which consists in a knowledge of the divine will. What this will is, and how necessary the knowledge of it. 3. Many things are and will continue to be implicitly
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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