I have to laugh at myself a little bit because, you know, I had 11 verses to preach to you this morning and maybe did four or five of them. I've got 52 verses tonight, so I don't know what's gonna happen. Turn with me to Psalm 89. It's page 528 if you're following in the Pew Bibles. One thing to note before I read this is that you'll know if you, when you read the psalms, oftentimes there's a turn toward the end of the psalm. Things are really bad and then suddenly things become really good. Some argue that somebody just mashed two psalms together, but I think that the psalmists are good enough poets that they know what they're doing. There's a bit of reversal here in this one. It begins with praise and with thanksgiving. And then toward the end, it turns toward the south, it gets dark. That's okay. Again, some have said that's because the psalmist just didn't know what to do, but I think the psalmist knew exactly what he was doing. Remembering that the doctrine of the inspiration of scripture reminds us that these psalms are written by men inspired by the Holy Spirit. So there's not a mistake here. Knowing that it's the Holy Spirit who's ultimately the author of this may also help us in looking at some of the difficult things this presents to us. So let's give heed to the word of the Lord. Psalm 89, a contemplation of Ethan the Ezraite. I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever. With my mouth will I make known your faithfulness to all generations. For I have said, mercy shall be built up forever. Your faithfulness you shall establish in the very heavens. I've made a covenant with my chosen. I've sworn to my servant David, your seat I will establish forever and build up your throne to all generations. Salah. And the heavens will praise your wonders, O Lord, your faithfulness also in the assembly of the saints. For who in the heavens can be compared to the Lord? Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened to the Lord? God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be held in reverence by all those around him. O Lord, God of hosts, who is mighty like you, O Lord? Your faithfulness also surrounds you. You rule the raging of the sea, and when its waves rise, you still them. You've broken Rab in pieces as one who was slain. You've scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. The heavens are yours. The earth also is yours. The world, in all its fullness, you have founded them. The north and the south, you have created them. Tabor and Hermon rejoice in your name. You have a mighty arm, strong as your hand, high as your right hand. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Mercy and truth go before your face. Blessed the people who know the joyful sound. They walk, O Lord, in the light of your countenance. In your name they rejoice all day long, and in your righteousness they are exalted. For you are the glory of their strength, and in your favor our horn is exalted. For our shield belongs to the Lord, and our king to the Holy One of Israel. Then you spoke in a vision to your Holy One and said, I've given help to one who is mighty. I've exalted one chosen from the people. I have found my servant David. With my holy oil, I have anointed him with whom my hand shall be established. Also, my arm shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not outwit him, nor the son of wickedness afflict him. I will beat down his foes before his face and plague those who hate him. But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him, and in my name his horn shall be exalted. Also, I'll set his right hand over the sea and his right hand over the rivers. He shall cry to me, you are my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. Also, I will make him my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. My mercy I will keep for him forever. and my covenant shall stand firm with him. His seed also I will make to endure forever, and his stone as the days of heaven. If his sons forsake my law and do not walk in my judgments, if they break my statutes and do not keep my commandments, then I will punish their transgression with a rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, my lovingkindness I will not utterly take from him, nor allow my faithfulness to fail. My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of my lips. Once I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David. His seed shall endure forever, and his stone is the sun before me. It shall be established forever like the moon, even like the faithful witness in the sky. Salah. But you have cast off and abhorred. You have been furious with your anointed. You've renounced the covenant of your servant, You have profaned his crown by casting it to the ground. You have broken down all his hedges. You've brought his strongholds to ruin. All who pass by the way plunder him. He's reproached to his neighbors. You've exalted the right hand of his adversaries. You've made all his enemies rejoice. You've also turned back the edge of his sword and have not sustained him in the battle. You have made his glory cease and cast his throne down to the ground. The days of his youth you have shortened, and you have covered him with shame. Salah. How long, Lord? Will you hide yourself forever? Will your wrath burn like fire? Remember how short my time is. For what futility have you created all the children of men? What man can live and not see death? Can he deliver his life from the power of the grave? Salah. Lord, where are your former loving-kindnesses which you swore to David in your truth? Remember, Lord, the reproach of your servants, how I bear in my bosom the reproach of all the many peoples with which your enemies have reproached, O Lord, with which they have reproached the footsteps of your anointed. Blessed be the Lord forevermore. Amen and amen. Let's pray and ask for God's help. Father, you give your word to us, and we rejoice that it is your word and not the word of mere poets or prophets, self-appointed or otherwise. We give thanks that it is your word and not our own imaginations, to which we give heed to now. We pray, Lord, that in the midst of our troubles, in the midst of our lives, in the midst of our concerns, that you would give us life according to your word. that you would help us to see things in the way that you see them and to read your word in light of your truth and not in light of our own lives or the circumstances around us. Give us your help, oh God, fill us with your spirit that in the preaching and the hearing of this word, your name would be magnified and glorified. We pray these things, Jesus, in your name, amen. Saul moves in really three parts, and of course, those three parts can be divided up a little bit, and we'll do that. Verses 1 to 18 or so give a testimony to the faithfulness of God, to his mercy, to his loving kindness, The mercies here, I think, are better translated loving-kindnesses. It's that Hebrew word, chesed, which means loving-kindness, faithfulness to generations. It's the love that God has that is not broken, is not taken away. And that word shows up eight or nine times in this psalm. It becomes a refrain. of thought and belief that the psalmist goes back to. And so these first 18 or 19 verses or so, he sings of the faithfulness of God and the greatness of God in light of all of that. And then in verses 19 to 37, he speaks more specifically of the covenant that God makes. He refers to that covenant first in verses three and four. And then in verses 19 and following, he speaks of that covenant and what its details are and what God promises in that, counted upon, I mean, fixed upon the idea of God's loving kindness, steadfast loving kindness, and his faithfulness. And then verses 38 to the end is a lament. The psalmist looks, having recited to himself, all that God has said, all who he is and all that he has done, and then looks at his situation and says, wait a minute, there's some discrepancy here. What I am seeing right now does not line up with what I've been told and what I've just recited. And how do I bring the two together? And there are different ways to read that, which we'll look at when we get there. Beginning in verses 1 to 4, this goes back to the covenant that God swore with David. If you want to look at it later on, go to 2 Samuel chapter 7 if you haven't already memorized that, not those verses necessarily, but that location and you'll see how God calls David to be his own and the promise he gives to him through Nathan the prophet. And this is couched within terms of God's mercies and God's faithfulness, his loving kindness. I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever. I will make known your faithfulness. Mercy shall be built up. Your faithfulness you'll establish in the very heavens. God did not have to do this, did he? He didn't have to make a promise to anyone to come and do for them what he said he would do to David and for David. Way back in the garden, when Adam first rejected the way of God, God would have been right to say, okay, end of story. But God had purposes in mind beyond what Adam knew and beyond what even now we can fully imagine. That first covenant made with Adam was pointing ahead to the salvation that God would give to his people. This covenant that God swore to David was a further elaboration of that initial covenant in which God would, through David and through his seed, would redeem his people. He'd already called a people out from nothing to be his own. There was nothing in the Jews, nothing in Abraham that God needed to respond to by calling him and his descendants to be his people. It was simply out of God's love and mercy that he did so. And he made promises to Adam and Eve, he made promises to Noah, promise to Abraham, promises to Moses, and this great promise to David, that there would be a covenant that God would enact with them, and this covenant would endure forever and ever. It wouldn't be just for David and his immediate descendants in the line, in the historical existence of the nation of Israel. We understand, I hope, that this covenant that God makes with David extends and finds its fulfillment in Jesus himself. It troubles me sometimes when I read that God will punish the descendants of David when they do wrong, and I'm thinking, how could God say that? But wait a minute, there's one who will not do wrong, one who did not do wrong, and that's Jesus. And so this passage, this whole psalm ultimately directs us to Christ, to what God has accomplished for his people in Jesus and how we are called to have faith and look toward him in the promises given and in later on we'll see the appearance, discrepancy of God's dealings with his people in light of the covenant. Think of this idea of the steadfast love of the Lord. Exodus 34 verses 5 and 7. Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him, being Moses there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands. forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. Sometimes I think we forget how wonderful God is. We get so wrapped up in our own lives, we let our own apprehensions, our own fears, our own temptations overwhelm us. We get unhappy with what we think are the injustices that we see around us and we forget that it is God who is doing all of these things. All these things are happening because God has ordained them to be. And that we come to him because he calls us to himself. And we experience the graciousness the goodness and truth of God, but also the long-suffering of God, as he continues to be patient with us in our stubbornness. You know, people say the world has progressed and we've made progress and we're so much more advanced than ancient times. I've talked with some people who are into ancient aliens now. The ancient aliens and their technology built Machu Picchu and the desert carvings in Peru and the pyramids. And I just say, you know, it may not be that complicated. It may be that we really were that smart at one point, but we just got dumber as we went along because of sin, because of sin. And what's that, what's God bring to us in that? His long suffering, his patience. Romans says that it's his kindness that leads us to repentance. And this kindness is seen in the statement that he gives in Exodus 34. This kindness of God is revealed to us in the covenant that he gives to David, to save a people for himself. Be faithful to the line of David, even when that line of David will not be faithful to him. There will be one who will come and fulfill all that God has wanted, all that God has desired. It's not conditioned upon a man's promise, but upon God's promise to save his people. In verses 5 and following, we see more and more of the praise of God. In verses 5 and 8, he looks up to the heavens, as it were, and understands the beings that are there, those who live there, and understands that God is far beyond them. God is praised by the angels. Who in the heavens can compare with him? Those that, if we saw, would drive us down, remember when angels appear in the Old Testament and the New Testament, what do people do? They fall down before them and faint. Even John, knowing who Jesus is in the book of Revelation, when the angel appears to him, he falls down as if to worship him. The angel says, wait a minute, don't worship me. I'm just another messenger. He's being so glorious and great that they overwhelm people by their very presence. They themselves give praise to God. There's no one like God, not even those who dwell and who serve him in the heavenlies. And if he is to be feared by those, then ought he not be feared by all of his people, reverenced by all of his people? Ought we not to take time to think how great he is? That doesn't mean that we can't have questions. and that we can't ask him why is this happening. But that has to be approached from a point of faith, a point of recognizing fundamentally how small we are and how awesome and infinite he is. And we'll never quite get that balance right in this side of eternity because we're still sinners, we're still infected by that, we're still driven by too much of remaining sin. But by his spirit we have faith And by that faith, we can converse with God and say, why? And know that he will not reject us. Know that he will hear us. Know that he will answer us in his time. We will have an answer, maybe not in ours, but in his time. The psalmist goes on, Ethan goes on, and then compares God, not just to the heavenly hosts, but also to all of nature around him. And there's kind of a way in which he understands nature in terms of perhaps the spirits that may rule over nature or were seen by the nations around them as ruling over nature. You rule the raging of the sea when its waves rise, you still them. And that seems like a very simple comment on nature. And if you've been to the coast recently or ever, and think of the coast, think of the waves. If you were able to watch, for instance, some of the footage of the tsunami in Phuket, Thailand years ago, and you saw the tsunami come in, you're just in shock and awe at what can happen and how helpless we are before all that. And yet God, God is over all of that. He mentions in verse 10 Rahab. And Rahab may be a reference to Egypt, sometimes refers back to Egypt, but I think here it refers to the mythological being that the nation surrounding Israel believed in, Rahab who ruled the seas, the ancient Leviathan. And the psalmist is saying, Even Rahab, who I don't believe in, but the nations believe in. Remember, God is powerful even over the imaginations, imaginary mythological gods of the pagans. And cuts that one to pieces as well. I mean, maybe it's sort of like us thinking in terms of Mother Nature. How many times have you heard people say, Mother Nature's giving us a hard one right now. And if you're like me, like, will you stop talking about Mother Nature? There is no such thing as Mother Nature. But I can tell you right now that God is powerful over Mother Nature. She's nothing on Him. Literally, she doesn't exist before Him. And all that we attribute to her and our foolishness, just nothing compared to the power of God. So maybe that's one way to consider Rahab here. It's simply telling us again the power of God. All those who would rise up against him, the enemies with his mighty arm he scatters. And maybe that's a reference to the demonic powers. that deceive his people and do his people harm, the idols that the nations worshiped, and the demons that may afflict us at different times with temptations or torturings. God is over them too. The heavens are yours, verse 11. The earth also is yours. The world in all its fullness, you have founded them. Everything, everything belongs to God. He mentions the north and south, Tabor and Hermon. I looked up last night Mount Tabor and Mount Hermon. One is in the north of Israel in what's now the Golan Heights. So it's kind of shared by Syria and Lebanon and Israel. That's Hermon and it's about 9,000 feet high. So what's Mount Nittany? About 1,500, 1,600 feet maybe at most. You know, add on another 6,000 feet to that. and you get Mount Hermon. And when you look at the picture of Mount Hermon, it's almost perpetually covered in snow because it's so high up there. It's about a 13-mile range, so there are like three peaks on that. So when you look up at that, you're properly awestruck by it. Mount Tabor is by Jezreel, it's where Barack and Deborah had their battle with the Canaanites. It's a smaller mountain. It's about 1,500, 1,600 feet. But it comes up directly out of the plain, so it's just there almost out of nowhere. And these are prominent places to look at, to see. They're landmarks in a literal sense. And even these things that people look at and are like, wow, that's wonderful. That's beautiful. That's a place of safety. It's a place of comfort. These places acknowledge in their own way the glory and the power of God. 13 and 14, you have a mighty arm strong as your hand, high as your right hand. And then 14 goes to the qualities of God. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Mercy and truth go before your face. From the power of God over nation, over creation, he meditates then on the character of God. Because you can imagine Or perhaps not, but the people certainly have. Gods who care not for people. Powerful over nature, but didn't care about people. That's what a lot of people believe even now. Yes, there's a god, but he's not concerned about me. He can do things, but he does nothing for me. And you look into pagan cultures and their mythologies, and you see stories of gods who are really more like overgrown, badly behaved teenagers. than anything approaching the God of the Bible. So what matters for us is not just we have a God of power, but we have a God whose character is perfect, righteousness, justice, mercy, and truth. And those who know him are blessed. And we walk before him as he looks upon us, smiling on us, because of his promises of salvation and peace that he gives to us. We look to him and we rejoice in him, and we rejoice in his righteousness, which exalts us as well. When God's people act as God's people, when we are as we are, not as we were, then God's name is lifted up. When we don't fall prey to sin, When we pray for the well-being of others according to God's will, we are lifting up the righteousness of God and seeing his name made great. He is our glory. He is exalted. Our shield belongs to the Lord, our protection, and our King to the Holy One of Israel. This is the praise that Ethan gives to God right off the bat. The God who makes the covenant with David Then follows that he is this kind of God, above nature, above creation, mercy and truth and righteousness all welded together in him. And he is the one who's come and spoken, revealed himself to his people. And then you have in verses 19 to 37, the particular promise given to David explicated here for us, this covenant that God made with him and what that means for us and what that meant for David and for those who were under his rule. I've given help to one who's mighty, I've exalted one chosen from the people. Who chose him? Remember the story when Samuel is told by God to go to, I forget David's father's name now, Jesse's house. and calls all the sons together, and they all come in, and they're all strapping young men, good-looking guys, accomplished farmers, shepherds, warriors, different things like that, and God says, not him, not him, no, not him either, not him, and Samuel thinks, well, Lord, and says to Jesse, is there anyone else? Well, there's just my son David, he's out with the sheep right now. Well, bring him, we can't eat until he comes here. And David appears, and that's the one that God has chosen. God didn't find anything favorable in David. There was nothing in David himself that would cause God to choose him, but God chose to grant him favor anyway. And David is going to become the king and become a great warrior for God. This is the one to whom God gave that promise. When David was settled in his kingdom, when the battles had ceased for a time and he had taken Jerusalem, and was realizing, I have my house, but where's the house for the Lord? He gives thanks to God. And Nathan, the prophet, says, okay, go ahead and build that house you're thinking of for God. Until God says to the prophet, no, David won't build me this house. He does well in wanting to do that, but my house will be built in another way by another man. Instead, I will give David this. Much better than the honor of building God a temple, David will be given the promise of the covenant that he and his descendants would rule forever in the name of God, that they would be the source of blessing and peace to the people. And David can only say thank you when that is revealed to him. And so how is David described? How are God's actions with him described? He's anointed by God. Verse 20, my holy oil, I've anointed him. And through him, my hand will be established. My arm will strengthen him. The enemy shall not outwit him, nor the son of wickedness afflict him. I'll beat down his foes before his face and plague those who hate him." And this is what David saw in the remainder of his days, as God gave his people victory and victory and victory after David's reign and in David's reign. David, unfortunately, would sin grievously, terribly. And that would bring shame to the nation and would bring trouble to his family. And yet, even though David sinned and suffered the punishments according with that, yet God's faithfulness and mercy remained with him. Verse 24. And God's horn is exalted in David as well. David's kingdom grew and grew. And he cried out to God, you are my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. And God made him David's firstborn. That's the priority, the heir of all things. Heavy honor, heavy blessing for just a human being. But we understand too that this wasn't just speaking of David. It was speaking of the one who would come generations later from David's line. He will be the highest of the kings of the earth. My mercy I will keep for him forever, and my covenant shall stand firm with him. His seed also I will make to endure forever, and his throne is the days of heaven. Now that's not poetic hyperbole. We know that. I'm not sure what Ethan thought about it, but we know now that was truth. That was the reality. Remember Genesis 3.15. The seed of the serpent will crush his heel, and your seed shall crush his head. The seed, Jesus, the Christ, the one in whom all these covenant promises are fulfilled and come to pass. So all these blessings given to David through the promise of the covenant, but also this, not a free pass to do what you want to do. God is still the God of righteousness, still the God of justice. And he calls David and his children to obedience. And if they fail to obey, then they will be disciplined. If his sons forsake my law and do not walk in my judgments, if they break my statutes and do not keep my commandments, then I will punish their transgressions with a rod, their nickery with stripes. Insofar as we are in Christ, and through Christ in this covenant, then that applies to us as well. All these blessings given to David and through David to Christ come to us as well. But so too do the afflictions. Coming to Christ is not a free pass to do as you will. It's coming to him to live according to his grace, to have your life transformed by him. Jesus says to the people that he evangelizes, come and follow me. Calls to the disciples, come and follow me. Says to the crowds, come and follow me. And one man says, I've got some business to take care of. Can I come after? And Jesus says, no. I've got to bury my father. Jesus says, let the dead bury their dead. You come and follow me. Everything is given up for the sake of Jesus. And obviously, the applicatory question for each one of us is are we giving up everything for Jesus? Fundamentally, I think we have if we've come to faith in him, but we find there are little things we hang on to more and more as we walk with him. Things that are hard for us to let go of. The desires that we might have, and otherwise legitimate desires, but we may hold them against God if they're not fulfilled the way that we wish. So even now, there's this ongoing struggle that we have to turn things over to Jesus. to follow after him as we're called to do, to give up the lust of the flesh, the pride of life, the lust of the eyes, and say, no, Jesus, your will, not mine, be done. If we fail to do this, then there will be consequences, and there were grievous consequences for David in his life, as we know, and there'd be grievous consequences for his sons when they broke that law, and because they, as kings, were head over their nation in some way, they led their nations astray, and their people suffered greatly at different times. The division of the kingdom in Solomon. Godless kings, certainly in the north and increasingly so in the south. Not heeding God's word, not taking his commandments as they ought to, and yet, Nevertheless, my loving kindness I will not utterly take from him, nor allow my faithfulness to fail. My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that's gone out of my lips. Once I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David. His seed shall endure forever, and his throne is the sun before me, established forever like the moon, like the faithful witness in the sky. That's the hope that we have. Because in spite of David's failures and sins, in spite of the failure of the kings of Israel and the people of Israel to keep faith with God as they ought to have, yet God still had a promise for them and maintained that promise in Jesus. And in spite of our failures, in spite of our sins, in spite of our rebellions against God, in spite of our stubbornness, If we are in Christ, we are not forgotten, we are not forsaken. But there can be trouble that comes our way when we continue to go our own way. And sometimes instead of saying, why me, oh Lord? We ought to say, why not me? Of course it would come to me like this. I've been a fool and I need to repent. Like the prodigal son who takes his portion of his father's inheritance. And mind you, that wasn't just gold sitting somewhere. The father probably had to sell off some of his property, give his son what he had coming to him. So he impoverishes himself to some degree by giving his son what he requested. And the son goes and wastes it and blows it all away on whatever, and then reduced to poverty. He's feeding pigs. Remember that pigs are unclean Jews. And he's wishing that someone would give him the food that they're giving the pigs, but nobody does. And he says to himself, I'm a fool. I'm going back to my dad as a servant. I can live better there than I can here. I've been a fool. And he goes back and finds his father not just waiting for him, but running to him. And as he tells his brother, his son, who was dead is now alive. That can be us. if we're in the middle of stubbornness, sinfulness, rebellion, if we've gone our own way and forgotten the commandments of the Lord, thinking at some level that we know better, we can find what we want on our own and still not submit to the Lord. The faithfulness of God, the loving kindness of the Lord, the mercies of the Lord are forever and sure and lasting. But we're troubled when things go wrong still. We know this. And yet, things happen. And we say, wait a minute. That's not how it's supposed to be. Ethan felt this strongly. We're not sure when Ethan wrote this. There's no timestamp in a document that we can look at that says written 589 BC or whatever. Some say it might have been written after the breakup of the kingdom under Solomon. I think most likely given the language used here and the way these next verses are put together that this probably is written sometime after the deportation of Babylon or in the midst of all that trouble when the city walls were destroyed, when kings had been set up and put down and executed by Nebuchadnezzar. And it seems really like the whole nation is in disarray because it is in disarray. And we know why, because they sinned against God and refused to listen to the prophets again and again and again. And yet there were revivals occasionally. Hezekiah, Josiah, even Manasseh at the end of his days came to his senses. But too late to undo the damage that had been done. Too late to call back to repentance the people that had followed their idiotic and sinful ways. And so God brings judgment upon them. And this is what Ethan looks at and what he testifies to. And the language is strong here. In these verses, the only thing that's not said that God has done is verse 41, as he recognized all who passed by the way plunder him, the king. the one with whom the covenant was made, the king and the people who are with him in that covenant, but you have cast off and abhorred, you have renounced, you have profaned, you have broken down, you have exalted the right hand of his enemies, you've made his enemies rejoice, you've turned back the edge of his sword, you've not sustained him in battle, you've made his glory cease. The days of his youth you've shortened, you've covered him with shame. Let's be honest, have we ever spoken to God like that in our own circumstances? Why did you treat me this way? Or we look at our church and say, why are we, why? What's happening here? You made a promise. And it seems like you're breaking this promise. Now, how do you read this passage? Is he losing faith? Did he not understand who God had done? Because, I mean, he'd recognized the conditions of the covenant. He'd clearly delineated afterwards in verses 30 to 32, what would happen if the people sinned? If he's laying these things at God's feet, is he saying God's done wrong? And some would say he is saying that. But there's a question I have, if that's the case, then what do you do with the Holy Spirit writing this? Would God the Spirit say to God the Father, you've done wrong? Why is this a lament and not repentance? You can read this in different tones of voice. As you read it the first time, you may be thinking he's making an accusation against God. He's blaming God for all this, saying that God has done wrong. And that's possible. Maybe he's blaming God for what has happened. Except God does no wrong. So even that or the first one are not options for us. Is he acknowledging what God has done? I think you can read it like that. Well, you made these promises to us, and now it's all falling apart, so it must be on us that you've done. Is he saying in resignation, an acceptance of the nation's sin and of the king's failures, and of the people's rebellion against God? I think that's the way to read it, but still the language is so strong. You have renounced the covenant of your servant. Calvin is helpful with this when he says the Psalmist is speaking As things appear to him to be, he's speaking in the emotion of his heart and yet from real faith because he's still speaking to God and struggling through this awful time. Maybe he's like Job in this regard. who in the suffering of his body and soul and spirit, the suffering of his mind, is hearing half-baked, half-good theology from his friends, but not the whole story from his friends. And he's looking at himself and looking at God and saying, why, why, why? I don't understand. And surely, if we haven't been through that in our own lives, we will at some point. So why is it like this? A child is taken from us before birth, or maybe in childhood, or maybe in adulthood, dies before us. Physically, we've been put upon by others. And we say, why? I believe in you. Why do I suffer this? Why is this happening? Aren't you being faithful to me? And those questions come up, and they must be brought before God. But as you bring them up, remember the covenants of God. Remember the Christ of the covenant. And remember fully all that God says. Some of our sufferings we've earned. A lot of them we haven't. And like we talked a little bit this morning about it, we need to lay these things up before God and say, I don't know, but help me. I don't know, but help me. And be affirmed in our own minds and hearts, whether it comes to our own prayers and our own reading of scripture, or whether it comes to the comfort of others coming to us and saying, remember who God is. That we come back to that place of sanity. We come back to that place of trusting in God, even in the midst of of unexplainable affliction and suffering. David Dixon puts it like this, and this is the way I summed it up. If grounded upon the truth, verses 1 to 37, the believer may freely express doubts, fears, temptations to God without fear of being misunderstood. The Spirit prays for us in ways that are beyond our understanding. And as we will hold a child, having a temper tantrum, crying uncontrollably, unconsolably, and maybe even try to hit us on the chest, so God will hold us and not let us go until the fit is over. And we're reassured by his love that actually things will be okay. They'll be all right again. Not because we are so wise and smart, but because God is so good. Part of this lament then is recognizing our frailty. Verses 46 and following. How long, Lord? How short my time is. I'm going to die. How long can this happen? Who can deliver my life from the grave? Recognizing, honestly, our limitations. How many times do we hear people say, you can do it. Just try harder. Find it within yourself. I forget the guy's name now. Is it Brian Johnson, the fellow who's a multimillionaire who's planning to live forever? No, and he's got a scheme put together. He's got doctors. He has a particular sleep schedule. He's got the right diet. I think he's even taking, some sort of injections with blood from his son to maintain his health. And yet, I want to say to the guy, dude, you're still gonna die. You don't have it within you. It's not there. Recognize, I want to say to him, your mortality and deal with that before the time comes when you can't deal with it. And in our prayers before God, Now, recognizing the hardness of our circumstances, part of that recognition has to be, I can only do so much. And it's okay to admit that. In fact, it's faithful to admit that. To say, I'm at the end. I trust you, God, to give me more. Verses 49, remembering the covenant again, where are your former loving kindnesses which you swore to David in your truth? Remember the reproach of your servants. And now Ethan gets personal here, I bear in my bosom the reproach of all the many peoples, the people who mock Christ, the people who mock the church, looking at us saying, eh. And yet I don't know how much mocking we actually get because how vocal are we about who we believe? How much do people know that we're Christians and what the content of our faith is? Or do we just maybe tend to keep it on the low down, just to get by life, just to get through? With what your enemies have reproached, O Lord, which they have reproached, the footsteps of your anointed. Ah, there comes the anointed one. What Ethan had yet to see in full, we see in full now. because the one who is the answer to this is the anointed one, our Lord Jesus Christ. Of course his church will suffer when the church does wrong. Of course we have broken the covenant, but of course God's loving kindness and faithfulness does not depart from us, but leads us back to repentance, leads us back to faith and love and hope and truth in him. Picks us up out of the slop we've fallen into. washes us off. Like the priest in Zechariah who has his filthy clothes removed and is given a new set of clothing. So God has done that for us in Christ and will continue to make us clean when we fall into sin, when we walk into sin. I keep saying failures and yet, you know, failures are kind of like, yeah, we're humans, we do that. No, we sin. At some moment, we love to do the wrong thing more than we love to do the right thing. It's not a failure. That's raising your arm against God and say, I don't care. And yet even then, God says, I do care. And he brings us back to himself. Jim, you asked, how do we pray in times like this? Obviously, our situation is not quite like the time of Ethan, but we have to remember who it is who rules the nations, who it is who rules the sea, who it is who rules the world. We have people in power, some may be well-meaning, some after their own kingdom. God is over them. We have people not in power who want power for themselves. God rules over them as well. What does a Christian do? We pray. We pray. We lament the state of our country. the state of the world. We go to God with our fears about the wars in the Middle East, and wars in Africa, and child trafficking, and child slavery, and drug abuse, and death from addictions, and political corruption. Well, we have to remember, it's kind of always been that way. It doesn't use to say wars and rumors of wars. We just have the experience of living in the middle of it in our time. but that doesn't change who God is. In fact, that should drive us all the more to embrace the Lord and the peace and the hope that he gives us through his covenant and the one who is the summation of the covenant, our Lord Jesus Christ, as we find our peace and our hope with him against what the world says, against what the world does, even if the houses that we're in burn down. Even the cars that we're in cease to drive because of some electromagnetic pulse strike. Jesus is still Jesus. Christ is still King. And He's the one who preserves and perseveres with His people, will never leave and never depart. If we are faithful to Him, if we continue to look to Him and remain with Him in the midst of the fires. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you that in the midst of all that goes on around us, you are not just the island of peace, you are the universe of peace. Really, Lord Jesus, these ragings and storms that nations and men and our own souls engage in are really just a drop of rain before the peacefulness that you surround us with. Lord, we ask that you would continue to direct our hearts towards you. Let us rest in your peace, the peace that surpasses understanding. When we are troubled and discontent and don't know what to do, what to say, where to go, remind us, Lord, that you hold us like we would hold a crying child until that storm passes, until that fit goes. And you will love us through that, your tender mercies, your comfort. your spirit living within us, the truth of your gospel, the truth of your word, ministered to us through sermons and through psalms. Lord, you choose that to quiet us, to bring us back to our senses, to lift our eyes from our situations and lift them towards you once again, that we might remain gazing upon you. Lord Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. In the midst of all of this, Lord Jesus, we thank you for forgiving our sins. We ask for desire and for holiness that we might turn away from sin increasingly and love you more. and find in you, Jesus, our constant hope, our sure hope. We thank you, Jesus, for our sufferings, for our afflictions, because without them, we would not know how good you are, how faithful you are. We are grateful, Lord, that you will heal us and are healing us now, making us whole. And one day, we will see you in glory and so rejoice in that day that all the sufferings of this world will not be fit to be mentioned. compared to your greatness and to your glory. We thank you, Jesus, and pray in your name. Amen.