Defend Your Cause

Good morning.

We're in Psalm 74, and so we're gonna read the whole psalm, and then we're gonna preach line by line through it.

It says this a maskil of Asaph.

Oh 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.

Your foes have roared in the midst of your meeting place.

They set up their own signs for signs.

They were like those who swing axes in a forest of trees, and all its carved wood they broke down with hatchets and hammers.

They set your sanctuary on fire.

They profane the dwelling place of your name, bringing it down to the ground.

They said to themselves, We will utterly subdue them.

They burned all the meeting places of God in the land, and there is none among us who knows how long.

How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?

Is the enemy to revile your name forever?

Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand, take it from the fold of your garment and destroy them?

Yet God, my king, is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.

You divided the sea by your might.

You broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.

You crushed the heads of Leviathan.

You gave them as food for the creatures of the wilderness.

You split open springs and brooks, you dried up ever flowing streams.

Yours is the day, yours also the night.

You have established the heavenly lights and the sun.

You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth, and you have made summer and winter.

Remember this, O Lord, how the enemy scoffs, and a foolish people reviles your name.

Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild beast.

Do not forget the life of your poor forever.

Have regard for the covenant, for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.

Let not the downtrodden turn back in shame, let the poor and needy praise your name.

Arise, O God, defend your cause.

Remember how the foolish scoff at you all the day.

Do not forget the clamor of your foes, the uproar of those who rise against you, which goes up continually.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

May God bless the reading and the proclamation of his promises this morning.

So this psalm, if you notice, and the title of it is called A Maskil.

Now, nobody really knows what that word means.

So if you were waiting for some original language, you know, profound kind of thing, you're not gonna get it.

Some people might think it actually speaks to the writer and his knowledge and understanding of the what the information of which he's writing about.

Some people think that it's maybe some type of structure of liturgy or something that the church would participate in celebrating and rehearsing.

However, what we do know is that the writer of this psalm is painting a story for us.

Now, we can't depict the actual events or situations that led up to this, but what we discover as we step onto the scene of this psalm is that the temple of God has been brought to ruin.

It is destroyed and utterly in shambles.

And Israel, people, the chosen people of God, the people of God's promises, are crying out to God, where are you?

You've allowed wickedness to prevail.

They have destroyed everything that we've built.

And they're sitting there crying out in anguish because they don't see the promises of God being fulfilled.

They don't see the works of God being displayed.

It's as if he's nowhere to be found.

And so this psalm is a psalm of lament, like a lot of the psalms are.

But the more specific emotion in this psalm that we're gonna try and discover and understand better is anguish.

Anguish.

Israel is feeling and communicating extreme pain.

They're in a moment, in a time of extreme distress.

And you can tell by the restlessness of their language that their hearts are in extreme anxiety.

What's gonna happen next?

Where is God?

And so as we start to try to break down the way that this psalm is structured, we're gonna see in verses one through three that the people of God's promises are in the midst of prevailing wickedness and question God in the midst of their anguish.

God's people, his congregation, are crying out in anguish.

They're devastated by the destruction of the holy temple and believe that God has abandoned them in judgment.

Their cry is for God to remember them.

More so, remember the promises that He has made to them.

And so they cry out, God, where are you?

Now they embrace that the anger of God is a judgment on their own sin, but they desire vengeance to be executed so that his glory might be restored.

They request God to turn his remembrance toward his people and his posture toward the destruction of the wicked.

And you can see the anguish right here in verses one through three.

God, where are you?

Where are you?

Do you even remember us, the people of your promise?

Do you see us?

Do you hear us?

And it's so much so that they actually request God to direct his steps or turn his very posture as if his back was turned away from them in forgetfulness or in rejection and abandonment.

And they say, Cast not your gaze away from us, but turn your posture so that you might see this ruined shambles that we are living in.

And then 4 through 11, the next kind of chunk of verses, the psalm writer goes into great detail to talk about the extreme nature of the destruction that the temple received.

The extent of the destruction of the wicked is vast, and there's no longer any sense of God's presence with his people.

You see, the destruction of the temple didn't just mean some kind of breaking down of some ornate building that they had constructed and they lost some jewel of the city or they lost some great monument that they had tried to build.

No, this meant that God's very presence dwelt among them.

You see, the temple housed God Himself, His presence that He was able to give to His people, that they were tangibly able to experience and commune with God through Him residing there.

It was lost.

It wasn't just a structure of a monument, it was a housing place for the Spirit of the Lord.

And so their anguish is greater because it's not that they've lost something they built, but they lost the God that they worshipped.

And the wicked have gone to great means to see the temple of God's presence brought to ruin.

You see, where there was once the resound of the songs of God's people, now there is simply the roar of God's wicked enemy.

Where the images of God's covenant and presence brought assurance to his people, now the signs of the enemy's conquest fill them with fear.

They have cut down, crumbled by hammer, and burned the dwelling place of God among his people.

It even says in verse 8, they said to themselves, We will utterly subdue them.

You see, the wicked committed in their very heart that there would be not left anything for the people of God to find hope in.

For God's people, this was a loss of all hope, a loss of blessing and righteousness, a loss of the very presence of their God.

You see, to the people of Israel, God is silent, God is deaf, and God is unconcerned with their anguish.

They long to be comforted by hearing his voice.

They want him to take action against those who have profaned his name, and they want him to care about their despair.

But they don't feel that.

No, they feel as if the God who once delivered them with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm from the oppression of Egypt had made them a people for himself, has placed his blessing upon them, had made a covenant with them, had put his very presence in their midst, is now a God who is weak, feeble, silent, deaf, and distant.

Verses 12 through 17 take a turn.

And this is kind of the natural pattern of the Psalms, where the psalmist begins by being honest about his situation, being honest about the things that he's feeling in his heart, sometimes speaking on his own behalf, but at this time in others speaking on behalf of all of Israel, he turns and he declares what he knows to be true about God.

You see, God is faithful to the people of his promises, and he has demonstrated that throughout time in power and might.

The recounting of God's mighty works by the psalmist accomplishes three things.

I think it does this well.

Number one is that it reminds God's people that he's actually able to do what they're requesting of him.

You see, they want vengeance.

They want God to deal justly with the wicked.

Those who had came in and subdued them and destroyed the temple, they want him to abolish them.

They want him to destroy them in the manner they destroyed his dwelling place.

And they recount what God has done in the past, in his mighty deeds, in his power and strength, and it affirms within them he's able to do this.

They're not asking him to do something that he can't.

They're not asking a weak God to become stronger than he really is.

They're asking him to do simply what they've seen him done do in the past.

Number two, it places their hope and faith on God's word and work instead of their current circumstance.

It places their hope and faith on God's word and work instead of their current circumstance.

If Israel was just left with what they saw, they would be utterly hopeless.

There would be no light of hope.

There would be no assurance that God was with them, that he was able to rescue them and save them, that he would work salvation on their behalf through his strength.

You see, we can be that way.

We can set our gaze on our current circumstance to such great measure that we fail or are blinded to be able to see the true God whom we serve.

And we don't place our hope and faith on God's word and work.

Instead, we place our despair and anguish on our circumstance.

And then number three, it depicts the true character of God rather than the one they're tempted to believe.

It depicts the true character of God rather than the one they're tempted to believe.

You see, in the midst of anguish, in the midst of despair, we're tempted to believe lies about God.

Where are you?

How long will you hold out on us?

How long will you allow wickedness to prevail?

You see, God's nature and character of what he declares himself to be and also what he has demonstrated himself to be is in opposition often to our current circumstance.

We can get lost in our anguish, we can get lost in the places that we find ourselves in in those moments.

And recounting the former actions of God's deliverance and salvation allows the people of Israel to focus on the true character of God rather than the one they're tempted to believe.

And as it closes down this passage, this section here, we see that all the powers of the earth are subdued by God's hand, and his purposes cannot be deterred.

God is continually working salvation for his people, and time is not a threat to his purposes.

I love how the psalmist talks about these mighty deeds that God did, right?

He split the sea, he brought water from the rock, he crushed the head of the sea monsters, he was the one whose hand was outstretched to save his people in power and might.

And then in the second part of this chunk of scripture, he starts going about how the morning and evening is yours, winter and summer is yours, the evening light and the sun, it's yours.

It's almost as if he's saying, God, we know that not only do you have the power to do what we are praying and crying out for you to do, it's not only that you have the power because you have demonstrated it in times past, but we know that time neither is in opposition to your purposes.

Now we look at things and we say, God, move now.

Right?

I'm learning this as a pastor.

As a pastor, I have people who want to meet with me in times of emergency, right?

And what I'm learning is that their emergency isn't my emergency.

And what I'm also learning is that the thing that broke now took years to get there.

Typically, people don't experience emergency situations in an emergency measure of time.

And what took so long to get to this breaking point, it's gonna take a long time to heal.

It's gonna take a long time to see the gospel bring life back to that dead situation.

And I can see Israel in the moment of this.

God, I need you to move now.

Destruction of your temple has caused us to lose your presence.

We are not, we are wanderers, we are a people with no home.

God, where are you now?

But see, it was the sin of Israel for years that led to this.

It was their neglect of the purposes and ways of God, it was their neglect of their identity as his chosen people and children that got them to this point.

And they want God to move now because we're in a state of emergency.

But I love how the psalmist says time is no factor to the accomplishment of your purposes, because you hold the very sun and the moon in your hand.

Verses 18 through 23, we see that God's people then pray.

Out of the midst of being honest about their anguish, out of seeing such destruction and turmoil, and then recounting the ways that God has moved in the past, now they come to a position where they pray and request God to demonstrate his faithfulness once again through delivering justice to the wicked.

God's people fear that they will be delivered to destruction just like the temple was.

They know that without God intervening, they are ruined and have no hope.

And they're relying on God's word of his covenant to be sufficient to see his work bring them salvation.

They're relying on God's word of his covenant to be sufficient, to see his work bring them salvation.

And so, in the midst of their anguish, in the midst of their recounting who God is, what are they called to?

Are they called to take up arms and fight?

Are they called to try and push back the darkness in their own strength?

No.

They're called to humble themselves and pray and say, God, move.

Move.

And so our main idea this morning for this Psalm 74 is this that God's people are in the midst of anguish due to prevailing wickedness.

God's people are in the midst of anguish due to prevailing wickedness.

They're in the midst of ruins.

Their place to commune with God and experience his presence is gone.

His promises seem empty, his word seems null and void.

Righteousness appears to have been fully subdued by wickedness.

Their cries of anguish are due to an overwhelming sense that God is not who he says he is, and that he will not do what he has promised to do.

You see, their temple, their source of hope and prominence has been decimated.

We can get that way.

We can look around us, and it seems like wickedness is prevailing.

We can be just like Israel, and we can ask the question, God, where are you?

How long will you allow this tragedy to happen?

How long will you allow the wicked to prevail?

Will you not see the people of your promise?

Will you not deliver on the word that you have given us, that you will bring us salvation, that you are making all things new, that you have dealt justly with wickedness and evil.

But you see, we play into the story.

Our own sin and our own short companies prop up the narrative that we see in Psalm 74 in, I think, two ways.

Number one is this some of us experience anguish because our temples have been destroyed.

Some of us experience anguish because our temples have been destroyed.

We have constructed temples of false gods and false promises.

We're devastated when these temples are brought down before us.

You see, some of us don't have the career or the compensation that we think we should have at this point in time or that we deserve because we went to a university and we got a piece of paper that said you should pay me this much.

Some of us don't have the spouse or the family that we always dreamed of, whether it was our sin or other sins or just circumstance in life that we don't have that thing that we imagined, the white picket fence and the boy and the girl, and they're doing everything right, right.

We don't have that.

We've built these temples around false gods and false promises, and they're brought to destruction around us, and we find ourselves in anguish, anguish.

Some of us sit in the midst of rubble because our temples of life's idols have crumbled down around us.

That's where our anguish is.

It's not that God's righteousness is being threatened, it's not that his ways might be thwarted.

It's not that we don't see God moving his purposes and plans throughout the earth, it's that your plans and your purposes have been destroyed.

And you built an idol to house that God.

And that God proved himself to be weak and a liar.

And when it came crashing down, you found yourself in the midst of anguish.

But church, let me challenge you.

Could this not be God's love for us?

These temples that we've built, who've been built to house the idol of our vain pursuits, empty gods with empty promises, could it not be God's love to destroy them?

You see, I would argue that it'd actually be God's passive judgment upon us to leave these temples erected in our hearts.

If you want God to judge you, let God give you everything you wanted.

Because the propensity of us is to not want Him.

We want His stuff.

And so we build temples in our hearts and we erect idols to sit on those thrones because we pursue empty gods with empty promises, and God's love and care and compassion is to bring those temples to rubble that he might sit on the throne, that we might have him.

You see, all of our pursuits that are outside of knowing and being fully pleased in God Himself is vanity.

Everything you love and hold dear that is not God Himself will one day be gone.

The moth eats, the rust corrupts.

But God Himself, the Lamb in His church, is everlasting.

So some of us experience anguish because our temples have been destroyed, but some of us, some of us doubt God's word and work because we see prevailing wickedness around us.

Some of us doubt God's word and work because we see prevailing wickedness around us.

The narrative of our culture is that wickedness is prevailing.

At first glance, the light of hope is being consistently dimmed.

We, like the people of Israel, are asking, where is God?

When evil seems to triumph in the headlines of our culture, our hearts respond with, how long?

You see, we find ourselves living in a post-Christian world.

And if we're honest, at times it seems like both the culture and God Himself have moved far beyond our cries.

Right?

If you can't be a Christian, if you can't be a person and be honest about looking at culture or looking at your own life, and at some point in time be caught in such anguish to ask the question, God, where are you?

I don't know that I can trust you.

You haven't been kicked in the teeth enough.

You haven't lived life enough.

But we can't doubt God's word and work simply because it seems as if we view wickedness prevailing.

But we do it.

We look and we see, how can it get better?

How can anything good happen?

How could God really be who he says he is?

How would he let this happen?

Not just in the midst of three mass shootings in one week.

That's as tragic and as heartbreaking as that is.

It's nothing compared to the rest of the wickedness in this world that didn't make the headlines that you're not going to read about.

It's everywhere.

And I have to remove myself from them.

As your pastor, I'm trying to be honest with you.

I have to remove myself from those headlines because I ask God, are you real?

They tempt me to do that.

They tempt me to say, God, are you real?

How could you do this?

How could you allow this to happen?

And I have to pull myself away and have to place my gaze in the Word of God to see His Word and His work and recount how powerful and mighty He is.

I have to recount the ways that He's moved in my own life and in the life of people that I love and that I've done community with for so long and say, God, I know you're real.

I've tasted and seen, I have experienced tangibly your power and might in my own life, in the life of people I love.

I see it in your word, these promises that you will fulfill, or else you are not God.

You see, every word, every promise that comes out of the mouth of God is yes and amen for his people.

If he fails on one measure, he fails to be God himself.

That's why he made every promise.

That's why he made every prophetic utterance that came out of his mouth into the hearts of his people, based upon his name.

There was no other name, though he sought heaven and earth and all creation by which he could make these promises upon than his own name.

His name's at stake.

Who he is is at stake.

And so, what do we put our hope in this morning, church?

It's this.

I believe that God's people can be filled with joy because all wickedness has been judged in the destruction of Jesus, the true temple.

God's people can be filled with joy because all wickedness has been judged in the destruction of Jesus, the true temple.

Jesus in John 2.19 says, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

You see, he was in the midst of the temple.

He was challenging religious leaders of that time as he was teaching and preaching, and as he had their attention, he said, No, destroy this temple.

And they thought they were talking about that he was talking about the temple that he was standing in the midst of.

And he meant me.

He meant destroy my body, the dwelling and presence of God in fullness.

Destroy it, and in three days I will raise it up.

You see, Jesus is the temple of God's dwelling that was destroyed, so that his people might be brought near to commune with him.

Jesus is the true temple, and Jesus was destroyed in the judgment of all wickedness.

And as we look at Psalm 74, and we start recount, and they start recounting the works of God in might and strength, we can see a direct parallel to the destruction and resurrection of Jesus Himself for our sake.

You see, like I said, Jesus is the temple of God's dwell of God's dwelling that has been destroyed, so that his people might be brought near to commune with him.

But also on the cross, Jesus cried out in Israel's place, My God, where are you?

Like the sea which divided God's people from his blessing was parted, so in Jesus' death the curtain of the Holy of Holies was torn, bringing the blessing of his presence to us.

As the water sprung forth from the rock, which was struck, quenching the thirst of Israel, so the spear brings to us water and blood from his side, which is promised to eternally satisfy us.

And as God crushed the head of the dragon Leviathan, so Christ crushed the head of the old dragon Satan.

God has postured himself against prevailing wickedness and brought it all to justice through the death and resurrection of his son.

What other measure must we demand from God?

What other thing must he bring forth to pay for it?

For us to take from him then his own son, to give his own son to bring wickedness to justice, and to extend mercy to the people of his promise.

May God be glorified when he destroys our idle temples so that we might be brought into the glorious temple of his son.

May God be praised when we gaze at the cross and see all unrighteousness dealt with.

And may our hearts be encouraged beyond our circumstance when we see the empty tomb.

It is at the cross that justice and mercy collide.

You want God to deal with wickedness?

He did.

What more could you ask of heaven?

What more could you ask of a father than to give his own son?

If you're a parent in this room, there's nothing on this earth that could cause you to give your son or your child for the sake of wicked, wicked people.

But God did.

God bankrupt heaven.

And we see on the cross where justice is executed, all wickedness is dealt with.

And all of heaven's mercy is poured out for his people.

I believe that we can live this out in three ways.

As we're looking at our circumstances and as we're caught at times in anguish about our culture or our own life, I want to give us three ways which I think we can be encouraged and helped to see the truth of the gospel in our life and in our work.

Number one is this recount your situation.

Recount your situation.

Look, it's okay to be honest with God about our moments of anguish.

He's a big boy.

It's okay to be honest.

When we can be, because I feel it's like when we can actually be honest about our anguish, when we can actually be honest about how we feel, that's where we're at the perfect place for God to honestly deal with us.

If we want to try and hide and fake our way around God, He can't deal with that.

He's not gonna deal with that.

It's when we are humble and brought low and we're able to be honest that we doubt, that we fear, that we are in anxiety, that we don't know what's gonna happen next, that we find ourselves in utter despair, that God says, now I can work with that.

You see, when we're honest, we can be honestly dealt with.

That's a glorious grace by the Spirit to us.

Honesty is an enemy to your faith.

In no way, shape, or form is honesty an enemy to your faith.

It's when we fail to also be honest about God's word and work that our faith is threatened.

It's not a threat to your faith to be honest.

It's when we don't see God in all of his majesty, power, and glory.

It's when we don't also remember his ways.

That's point two.

It's when we sit there and we just look at our circumstance and we fail to set our gaze on all that he's done and promised for us that our faith is threatened.

So, number two, remember his word and work.

To be honest about our circumstance, but to not be honest about his word and work, it's detrimental to our faith.

Because when we remember his word and work, it causes us to put God rightly in view for who he truly is.

Think about a time when you've been tempted to believe something false about someone you deeply know and love.

Someone who you've done life with, who you love and who you know intimately, and something happened, and you were tempted to believe wrongly about them.

Everyone should have some circumstance of that measure.

But when you really start thinking about that person, you're like, that's not them.

They wouldn't do that.

When you start thinking about the relationship that you have with them, doesn't it start to bring you comfort in those times?

Man, I don't think they would do that to me.

I don't think they would act that way.

I know them better than that.

You see, I think that when we remember God in his word and in his work, it causes us to put God rightly in his place.

When we're tempted to believe God is acting different than how he has acted in the past, we are tempted to believe that his promises mean nothing.

We are tempted to believe that he is silent, deaf, and distant.

Remembering his word and work can encourage our hearts and give us faith and hope that that's not who God is.

It's not what he said he would do.

That's not how he has acted in the past.

And see, we all have stories to bring to remembrance of God's power and might moving in our lives.

We were talking about this in our community group this last week.

We uh decided to walk through Psalm 74 together, and it was awesome because I got to practice my sermon on my community group unknowingly, right?

Um it's always funny because it's it's you kind of ask a question, and people look at you like, well, what's the answer?

Like, oh, I'll tell you the answer.

It's point number three in my sermon.

Um, but uh um man, we we started talking about some of the things that God had done in our lives, but we had all brought to remembrance um how God saved us.

You want to talk about a miraculous work of power and might.

God made me love him.

I didn't love him, I didn't want anything to do with him, I didn't want to live righteously, I didn't want to obey his word, I didn't want to serve his church.

But God in his power and might made me love him, made me honor his bride, the church.

Caused me to want to be obedient to his word.

What miraculous power that I can recount and remember constantly when I'm tempted to believe God's not who he says he is.

Ultimately, church, we must set our gaze to Calvary where justice and mercy come crashing together because in Jesus all wickedness has been dealt with justly, so that all mercy might be given to the people of his promise.

There is not one single act of wickedness that will prevail.

Do you hear that?

There's not one single act of wickedness that will prevail.

In the end, one of two things will happen.

The wickedness we see in this earth will be covered and washed by the blood of our Savior, or it'll be cast into outer utter darkness and eternal judgment in the wrath of the Father.

But not one act of wickedness will be left undone.

Third thing is request for him to move.

Request for him to move.

We can pray bold prayers of faith to see and experience the justice and mercy Christ has already accomplished for his glory and our good.

We can pray like we did this morning, God, move.

You see, we live in this tension where the resurrected Christ has come forth out of the grave and he has ascended to the right hand of the Father, and he is waiting a time where he comes back to fulfill all of his promises, to see all of his work fully be brought to this tangible presence of his people, a new heavens and a new earth.

But we as a people are suspended in the tension of the in-between.

But we know what's coming.

And we can pray for God to demonstrate it now.

Demonstrate your justice now.

Demonstrate your mercy now.

Let us see your mighty hand.

Let us see your outstretched arm bring salvation to your people.

We can pray bold prayers because we know that the cross and the empty tomb has accomplished all things.

We're just waiting for them to be true.

In the sense of our seen, felt experience.

In times of God's perceived not moving, may we rest in patience to see the unfolding of his glorious temple, where the Lamb and His church shall rejoice in righteousness forever.

Even in the midst of our bold prayers.

Look, God doesn't work in our time.

He doesn't have to.

He can if he chooses to, but according to his will and his power, he doesn't have to.

And there's gonna be times where we stand in faith, we pray bold prayers, we believe that God is going to deal with it.

And what we see is perceived nothing.

It's gonna continue to seem like God is still silent.

It's gonna continue to seem at times like God is still deaf, and our prayers fell on deaf ears.

But can we rest?

Can we have patience?

Can we look forward to a greater day where the temple that was destroyed but built back up in resurrection would build for himself and his church a new temple that we might live in forever with him in communion and intimacy and joy.

So, church, in the midst of tragedy, in the midst of anguish, let us not be afraid to pray bold prayers.

But let us not be impatient as we wait for God to bring all things to completion.

Let's pray.