Sermon
Faith under Fire
June 9-10, 2001
Pastor Donald Sheley

During the summer months we've taken up a kind of a new challenge, and that is we've set aside the book of John and we're talking about some of the great Psalms in the Old Testament. So we're calling it 'A Summer in the Psalms'. Today I want to discuss with you, and we read it as we started our service, and I printed it for you in your notes, and I would pray that every one of you would have a set of notes. If you don't have one we have plenty for both husband and wife so that each can have their own set of notes. Just raise your hands and we'll pass them to you. They're a large compilation. They consist of 16 pages today. Now we're not going to be able in a way to get through those and so we'll use these same notes, and pray that you'll bring them back next Sunday because we'll be able to complete the sermon from the notes.

But if someone would ask me, Pastor, what is your favorite Psalm? What Psalm speaks to your heart in its deepest dimensions? And I'd have to answer it's Psalm 73. That's why I have given you such lengthy information because it's a Psalm very dear to me, and it speaks of some of the great truths of the life we try to live as Christians, and yet, off times struggle with our faith. So would you turn with me to page 2 in your notes? Now when I commence today I feel bad already because when I get to the finish line and the clock is finished I'm only going to get halfway through the Psalm; and the first part is like being bathed in sour grapes, and the good part won't come till next Sunday. And so when you leave today you're going to...maybe it's not going to be the positive message you want to hear, but of going to get down to some real issues where life meets the road and where a lot of us are living today. Now I know this is true because in the three or four services that we've had already this weekend every time many people have come to me and said, Pastor, you talked right where I was today and I appreciate your comments and your honesty.

So let's go to our notes, shall we? And we begin by saying that the great value of the Book of Psalms is that in it we have godly men stating their experience, and giving us an account of the things that have happened to them in their spiritual life and warfare. Throughout history, the Book of Psalms has, therefore, been a book of great value for God's people. It's right to regard the experiences of these people as being exactly parallel with our own. The fact that they lived in the old dispensation makes no different...they were men and women just like us. History and times change, but man does not! The thing I want to mention especially is that the very remarkable honesty with which these men do not hesitate to tell the truth about themselves. We have a great classic example of this here in the seventy-third Psalm. This man admits very freely that as for him his feet were almost gone and his steps had well-nigh slipped. Now to put that in modern-day vernacular, what he is saying is I came to a place in my spiritual life; I'll be honest with you, I was ready to throw in the towel and tell God I'm done with it. I was almost at the end of my rope. Life was so disturbing and situations around me were so perplexing, I couldn't put it all together; I couldn't understand God and the ways of God in the context of life, and I had come to a point where I was struggling intensely with my faith. Now if you're not there, if you've not been there, you will because all of us have those moments in life when we really struggle with our faith.

Now he goes on to say that he was like a beast before God, so foolish and so ignorant. What honesty. What's he saying? He said in my deepest nights of despair when I'm trying to work out all of these things that God's allowing in my life, he said I talked to God like a beast. I didn't treat Him as the divine. You say I've never talked to God that way. But sometimes in the anguish of your search you say things that, when you're through the search, you have to ask God to forgive you. I have, for the way I talked to Him. The psalmist here says I tell you I got so anguish and so bitter inside of me I didn't treat God like I should. I talked to Him like a beast. That's honest, isn't it?

Back to our notes. I know nothing in the spiritual life more discouraging than to meet the kind of person who seems to give the impression that he or she is always walking on the mountain top. Now that's certainly not true in the Bible. The Bible tells us that these men knew what it was to be cast down, and to be in sore and grievous trouble. And many a saint in his pilgrimage has thanked God for the honesty of the writers of the Psalms. To know that others have had similar experience like mine, yet lived through those experiences and came out triumphantly. This helps me in my journey. But notice something very interesting about the way this psalm begins. He says, he starts off with a great triumphant note, "Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of clean heart." Now what he saying is, now I am going to tell you a story, but I'm going to tell you what has happened to me; but the thing I want to leave with you is just this--THE GOODNESS OF GOD. God never varies.

Now most of the Psalms start with a burst of praise and thanksgiving and there is something else to notice, the psalm generally starts with a conclusion, and the remainder of the passage proves that conclusion. Now Western thought, logic, starts this way: point 1 leads me to point 2 that suggests point 3, and now point 4 sums it up and here's my conclusion. That's Western logic. That's not true with the Hebrew mind. The Hebrew mind says I'm going to give you my conclusion first because this is the real main point. This is what really counts, the conclusion, then I'm going to tell you how I got to that conclusion. But never forget I stated my conclusion first, and even though there were times as I was going through this process of coming to the conclusion I did not agree with the conclusion, yet it was always true. And here's what the old psalmist is saying, I want you to know here's my conclusion -- God is good. Now there are times I didn't think that, but when it's all summed up that's the bottom line. That's divine truth that never varies.

Back to our notes; Page 3. Now what the writer tells us in this Psalm is that he started off with the proposition that God truly is good God, then he went astray and he departed from that premise, then he came back again. Now we all know something about the kind of experience in our own lives. We start in the right place; then something goes wrong, and we seem somehow to be losing everything. The problem is how to get back again. Now what this man does is to show us how to arrive back at that place where the soul finds her true poise.

Now this man tells us all about a particular experience that he had passed through. He tells us that he was very badly shaken, and that he very nearly fell and was tempted to quit. What's the cause of his trouble? Simply this, he did not quite understand the ways of God with respect to him. He had become aware of a very painful fact. He was living a godly life, he was cleansing his heart, he tells us, and washing his hands in innocency. In other words, he was practicing the godly life, he was avoiding sin, he was meditating upon the things of God; he was spending his time in prayer to God; he was in the habit of examining his life, and whenever he found sin he confessed it to God with sorrow, and he sought forgiveness and renewal. That's what every godly man does. He said that's what I did. But look at; yet although he was doing all this, he said I'm having great problems. All day long have I been plagued, and every morning God takes me to the whipping shed. You say, I don't understand this. I try to do right and to live for God, and why is it He plagues my life with difficulty and takes me every morning to chastening. I have to wake up to the same problem, the same misery, the same disappointments every morning I wake up. Why?

Back to our notes. In fact, everything seemed to be going wrong and nothing seemed to be going right. His faith was on the brink of collapsing. If he was trying to be good for God, why was God not giving him a good life? That's his logic. If I'm good to Him, He ought to be good to me. He ought to give me lollipops every morning, and give me desert three times a day. I'm His kid and He's my Father, and I deserve to be treated with favors. That's his logic. Now the real trouble was that when he looked...now that was bad enough, I should say, in itself, but that was not the thing that really troubled him and distressed him. The real trouble was that when he looked at the ungodly he saw them prospering and increasing in riches, and their life seemed to be filled with everything they could wish for. He said their eyes are fat. They've got it all. I'm honest with my income tax. They're not. They cheat, and I have little and they seem to have all the cars on the block. Now this is what caused this man his pain and his trouble. He believed God to be holy and righteous and true, One who intervenes on behalf of His people and surrounds them with loving care and wonderful promises. He believed that. God's good. His problem was how to reconcile all this with what was happening to himself.

Remember, he starts with the conclusion--God is good. Now here's the question, what does it mean that God is good? How would we define the goodness of God? So I go to the theologian and he says: the goodness of God means that God is the final standard of good, and that all that God is and does is worthy of approval-- and my mind says whose approval? If all that He does is worthy of approval, then who is the judge? In one sense we can say that anything that is truly good should be worthy of approval by us, but in a more ultimate sense we are not free to decide by ourselves what is worthy of approval and what is not. Here's my point. To us the definition of good is relative and not absolute. What may be good for us might not be good for someone else, and what is good for us may not be what God would consider goodness. You see I define goodness as it relates to how life responds to me. So therefore the definition is going to vary as to my conditions in life. God's standard is absolute. Ultimately, therefore, God's being and His actions are perfectly worthy of His own approval. The psalmist frequently affirms us that the Lord is good or he exclaims 'O give thanks to the Lord for He is good'. And David says, 'O taste and see that the Lord is good.' And we are reminded that no good thing will He withhold from them who walk uprightly before Him. And all good things come down from the Father of light, says James, with whom there is no variableness, no turning. God's definition of goodness is absolute--determined by a standard that fits into the total context of eternity. Ours is only relative as it affects us here and now.

So here's the point. Here's what the Psalmist is saying: I set aside my human reasoning and I set aside my standards of goodness, and I'll tell you this, the very nature of God, the very actions of God, everything that He does is good. No matter what, no matter under what conditions, His goodness never varies. Now if you're going through a problem today and you're struggling, place that right at the top and say that's true whether I understand it or not--whether I can see it in the context of what I'm going through now--but something that never changes; the goodness of God. That's interesting. With Him there are no variables of change. Now he said that's my conclusion, but I'll tell you, he said, I've wrestled deeply with this whole issue of faith. You see I understand this because my younger years in college I was an agnostic. What's an agnostic? It's a man who says you cannot know. And I wrestled, and there are times when those tendencies to think and to ponder deeply, my faith, there are times I wrestle intensely, even after 50 years. I'm just honest with you. I'm human, but I always remember this, David said it, the Bible says it, it's an absolute truth, never changes, it's absolute--God is good, and I am His and no good thing will He withhold from them who walk uprightly.

Now I want you to set your notes aside and get out your Bible because I'm going to show you that this is something that every saint of God wrestled with in the Bible. It's not just peculiar to us nor peculiar to the psalmist, and I want you to go first of all to page 631 in your pew Bible, and it's the writer called Habakkuk. Now when I was a little boy I couldn't say Habakkuk so I called him tobacco. (Congregation laughs) But Habakkuk was one of those ancient prophets. And look at, here's an old prophet that wrestles with the same thing we wrestled with. Listen to Him: The burden which the prophet Habakkuk saw. O Lord, how long shall I cry, and You will not here? Haven't you said it? God, how long do have to pray about this thing and You still won't answer my prayer? It goes on to say, Even cry out to You, "Violence!" and You will not save. Why do You show me iniquity, and cause me to see trouble? And plundering and violence are before me; there is strife, and contention arises. Therefore the law is powerless, the justice never goes forth. And the wicked surround the righteous; and their perverse judgment proceeds. It's the same thing that the psalmist wrestled with.

And God's answer still doesn't please Habakkuk in verse 12, he goes on, I know You're from everlasting. I know You're God. I know You're the Holy One. We shall not die. O Lord, You appointed them for judgment; O Rock, You have marked them for correction. You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and You cannot look on wickedness. I know that God. I know the day is coming when the wicked are going to be judged. But, why, why, why do You look on those who deal treacherously and hold Your tongue when the wicked devourers? Why God? Now he goes on to continue to express his heart, and then chapter 2 He does something very interesting. He said, I'm done talking. He said, God, I'm just going up here on my rampart. I'm going to sit here in the tower and I'm just going to see if You're God. He goes through this struggle trying to understand. Notice how it comes out. This is the beauty. Go to chapter 3; verse 17. He's gone through his struggle. God has replied to Him. God has met him in his deepest need of doubt. And then he says, Though the fig tree may not blossomed, nor fruit be on the vine; Though the labor of the olives may fail, and the fields yield no food; Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls. He's saying God, I don't care if there's no more harvest, the barns are empty, there's nothing left; Yet, I will rejoice in the Lord my God, and will joy in the God of my salvation for the Lord is my strength. You see he went through the crisis. God I don't understand. I'm just going to sit by and watch You act, and after God talks to him he comes to the conclusion, I made it through the difficult time and I've come to the conclusion if I end up with nothing, I still have Him and that's everything. Isn't that something?

Go with me to Job. In your Bible it's page 357, and it's chapter 23. Now you remember Job started out in life-he had everything, a wonderful family, great flocks, one of the wealthiest men in the area, and all of a sudden God through an arrangement with the adversary allows everything to be destroyed. And here are old Job is he's lost everything. He's lost his kids, lost his holdings. He lost his health. He's sitting at the city gate filled with soars, then his wife comes along and says, why don't you throw in the towel? Why don't you just curse God and die? What's all this righteousness any good for? Just curse God and die. So what does Job do? Look at chapter 23. This is phenomenal. Then Job answered and said: "Even today my complaint is bitter. I have to tell you God; I'm embittered down here (Pats chest). I'm going to be honest. That's what the psalmist says. I got bitter about life, and life has that tendency. Does it not?

He said my hand is listless because of my groanings. He said I've lost all my strength. I don't have any more strength to react. I can't even lift my hands. I'm lifeless in this struggle. Look at the next verse. Oh, that I knew where I might find Him. I'll tell you what I'd do, he said, I'd come before His seat, I present my case before him, I'd fill my mouth with arguments, I would know the words with which He would answer me, and understand what He would say to me. Would He contend with me in His great power? No! But He would take note of me. There the upright could reason with Him, and I would be delivered forever from my Judge. God if I knew where You were. If You'd quit hiding behind those clouds, stop playing hide and seek, we could sit down and talk man to man. And I'd tell You how I feel. I'd listen to what You have to say, and I'd respond. That's what he says. He goes on. Look, I go forward, but He is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive Him. When the He works on the left hand, I cannot behold Him; and when He turns to the right hand, I cannot see Him. But He knows where I am all the time. He knows where my steps are. When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. You see the struggle of a man who wants to talk to God and tell Him how he feels.

Let's go to one more. They're all through the Bible. This is an interesting thing. Go with me to Jeremiah, and in your Bible it's page 516. You'll find that every great saint of God struggled at times with their faith just like us. That's the amazing thing about this wonderful book. Look at chapter 12, and here's Hebrew thinking again. Righteous are You, O Lord. That's his conclusion. Remember, the old psalmist says You're good God. The Jeremiah says God You're righteous. I know that. That's not even negotiable. You're righteous, O Lord, when I plead with You. But let me talk to You about Your judgments. God, I'm going to be honest with You, I don't think You're running this place right (Congregation chuckles) and I want to talk to You about it. I want to talk to You about Your judgments. That's what he's saying. What's the first thing he says? Look at the next verse. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy who deal so treacherously? You have planted them. They have taken root. They grow. They bear fruit. You are near in their mouth, but far from their minds. God, why, why do You let the wicked prosper and You take me to the woodshed every day of my life?

When you think it through, let's go back to our notes, he's simply saying, God, I'm trying to take Your ways and fit them into my thoughts. And the premise that he's forgotten all the way along his this: God's ways are different than our ways, and His thoughts much higher than ours. And one of the great problems we have in this whole matter of faith, we try to bring it down in the context of human thinking and it doesn't work folks, because God is so far higher than that. I know today that I've touched some really tender sensitive, and I can tell the way a congregation walks out because I've said something very, very close. This morning at the 7:00 service I had a lovely mother who sat there weeping because she knew what I was talking about. And after the service she came up and she grabbed me and she said, and just weeping profusely, and she said, Pastor, I'm wrestling with that. And I know the story. Here's a mother who's been faithful at trying to raise your kids to love God. She's taken them to Sunday school. She's done everything she can, and those kids today are living lives that bring shame to the cause of Christ and disgrace to the family name. She says, Pastor, I tried to do what was right. I tried to raise my kids. I did everything I could and look at what I got.

They came to me recently and said, Pastor, I thought our marriage was a happy one. I did everything I could to be a godly wife. My husband was a deacon in the church, and she said, the other day ran off with another woman in the church, and I don't understand it. I hurt. You see it's in those moments, and I'm talking that's right down where the rubber meets the road, that's where faith really begins to twist and turn under the pressure. And I close with an illustration. I told you that all I could talk about was the problem today. I'm going to tell you next Sunday the marvelous solution. It's a fantastic Psalm. But the reason why this Psalm is so precious to me is because I've lived it. Back in 1979 many of you folks were not with me, but as pastor I was struggling. The church was struggling. We were going through some deep, deep valleys, and I was wrestling with my faith. I'd say, God, everything I do is for You. I don't go play golf. I don't have a set of golf clubs. I don't go fishing. I couldn't be so patience to wait for a fish to get on my hook. (Congregation laughs) God for 16 hours a day 7 days a week this is my life. And everybody who knows me; I'm here at 5-4 in the morning till 11 at night. I love being here in God's house. I wait for you to come. I love what I do, but I had come to a point in my ministry where I said, God, I'm done. You bless other people and our church is struggling, and I feel like I'm a desperate failure. God, I want to quit. You can have it! And I felt deep about it. And then I started studying one week and I said, God, I'm going to put it this way, what does a man have to do to talk to You and to get You to talk back?

That's what Job said, wasn't it? Job said, what do I have to do, how can I find You so we can have a conversation? And when you're desperate, you feel that way. So I went through the Scriptures and old Moses had to go up on the mountain for 40 days, Elijah went to the backside of the wilderness, Jesus went to the wilderness, Paul goes to the desert of Arabia, and after preaching four sermons I came to the conclusion; God, I've got to go to my desert to find You. So I decided I was going to go on a 40 days fast. My little boys, Leighton, they're young, I gathered them around and Vernita and I said, now I'm going to do something drastic because if I don't do it, I'm done. My feet are almost slipping and my faith is collapsing, and I can't preach--I can't talk to you if I don't feel deeply what I say and believe it with all my heart. So I said, I'm going to go away to a fast. We had an old motor home at the time. I said, what I'll do is I'll get in the motor home and I'll drive somewhere, I don't know where I'm going, and when I get there I'll then send you a letter. And the letter will tell you where I am so that if in 40 days I don't come back, at least you'll know where do come and get me. And here're the conditions of my departure: under no circumstance are you to contact me. If somebody dies I'll hear about it when I get home. If the church falls apart that will be the way it is. But I don't care, nothing, you are not to contact me under any conditions. So I severed all communications with reality, and where I went I didn't talk to a soul. Now I understand what a prophet goes through in the sense that when you isolate yourself from reality, there's nothing. I couldn't relate to anything that was going on because I had no information from the outside world. So what happens is the mind begins to become, your thoughts become reality. And what Satan does is he starts putting thoughts in your mind that become reality. I attended funerals that never happened because in my mind it was a reality that had taken place.

I went through the anguish for 40 days trying to find God, and I tell you friends, family, that I remained in the ministry now since 1979, and I will till I die--I'll preach--because I learned some things about God in that experience I would have never learned any other way. And that's what the psalmist says. You go through these valleys. You search and, but if you don't release from that divine truth--God You're always good--and that when I get through this I'll have a faith much stronger and much deeper then I did before. And those lessons I learned have been what have carried me through the deep years of ministry or since then over 20 years of ministry. You see why I understand this Psalm? Some of you're sitting here today and you've gone through, you've worked through those hard moments that happened years before, and somehow today the sun shines and the sun sets and you feel God's presence. But it wasn't that way when you were in the midst of the problem, because your definition of goodness was not His.

It's interesting. That's why this Psalm just gets right to me, because the psalmist says, look at, I know God's good. I almost failed Him. I looked at the wicked. I saw the blessing they enjoyed, their arrogance, their pride, and I came to the conclusion it's wasted time having my hands clean and my heart pure. What a conclusion to come to; I'll just throw in the towel. Now I've got to leave you there. You see it's not a good place to leave you, and I know that, because I'm always supposed to leave you with something positive. But I think what I've done is, you've said, Pastor, I didn't know that everybody else wrestles with moments just like mine. They do, and the Bible assures us we'll wrestle with them, but if you follow the divine plan you'll come out singing. You'll come out singing, and I want to talk to you next week about how to react when you're about ready to quit. Okay?

Lord Jesus, we've tried to be very honest today. I'm not here to fancy Christianity up and make people think it's all roses, because life isn't that way. And we'll go through troubles and difficulties just like anybody else in our world. The only thing that makes the difference is that we have You to go through those troubles with us. And that's a world of difference, and when we come out we'll be tried, but like Job, we'll be like pure gold. That's Your promise. And to the psalmist, he said when it's all over I'll walk with You, O God, in the streets of glory. What they hope. So here's my prayer dear God, there are a lot of people who this message is defining where they are, they're struggling, they're hurting, they're trying to figure things out spiritually. Would You surround them today with Your peace? Would You enfold them with Your love? Would You help them to sense Your nearness? When they walk out of this sanctuary today amidst all of their problems, may they realize something never changes--You're good and no good thing will You withhold from us who love You and try to walk uprightly in Your presence. Thank you for that glorious promise, and I thank you for this wonderful group of people who join with me and so graciously, and so kindly, and so intently have listened. I thank you for them, in Christ's name, and everybody said, amen. God bless you.