God, why are you not listening? Answering the Psalms of Desperation

The Problem

• 25 Psalms make some sort of accusation against God
• God is not answering prayers
• Time is running out
• Either circumstances are getting desperate
• or we are losing hope

Psalm 10 —God’s negligence

• Why do you hide yourself, just when you are needed?

1. Why, O LORD, do you stand far away?
   Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
   Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up your hand;
   forget not the afflicted

• God, please be involved!
• Implication that God has chosen to make himself unavailable

Psalm 13 —Has God forgotten them?

• If God seems to delay too long, then this accusation comes
• This is not unintentional, but deliberate!

1. How long, O LORD?
   Will you forget me forever?
   How long will you hide your face from me?
2. How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
   How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Psalm 22 —God has forsaken him

1. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
   Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
2. O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
   and by night, but I find no rest.
6. But I am a worm and not a man,
   scorned by mankind and despised by the people.
8. “He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him;
   let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”

Psalm 44 —God is hostile

11. You have made us like sheep for slaughter and have scattered us among the nations.
12. You have sold your people for a trifle, demanding no high price for them.
22. Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
23. Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever!
24. Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?
25. For our soul is bowed down to the dust; our belly clings to the ground.

Answers

1. Sometimes our sin’s have got us into this mess

• how long?
• and how severe?
• “In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” says the LORD, your Redeemer. [Is 54:8]
• For his anger is but for a moment, and his favour is for a lifetime. [Ps 30:5]

Psalm 38

1. O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath!
2. For your arrows have sunk into me, and your hand has come down on me.

• Psalm 77

7. “Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favourable?
8. Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time?
9. Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?”

Answers

1. Sometimes our sin’s have got us into this mess
2. Sometimes it is our own impatience

• Psalm 31:

22. I had said in my alarm, “I am cut off from your sight.” But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to you for help.

Answers

1. Sometimes our sin’s have got us into this mess
2. Sometimes it is our own impatience
3. The complexity of God’s world is way beyond our remotest understanding. We simply have to trust!

Conclusions from Pt.1

• Honesty: the fact that God caused these songs to be put in the Bible shows he values our honesty as we speak to him
• The fact that they are still talking to God shows they have not given up on him!
• Where do you take your complaints?
• God responds to prayer

Finding the answer

1. from within the Psalms
   • Psalm 90 is the turning point, answering 88 & 89
2. From Jesus
   • He quoted Psalm 22
     ”My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
3. From Paul
   • He quoted Psalm 44

2. Jesus quotes Ps 22

• At about three o’clock Jesus shouted with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mat 27:46
• Was he really forsaken?
• The question “Why” implies you don’t know the answer...?

2 Corinthians 5

21. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

• As we were united to him in his death, he took on our sin as part of that union
• And so was separated from the Father until it was purged away
• Hebrews 5:7 In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard...
• Was he heard in his cry not to be forsaken?

2 Corinthians 5

14. For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died;
15. and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
16. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.
17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

Psalm 44

22. Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
23. Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever!
24. Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?
25. For our soul is bowed down to the dust; our belly clings to the ground.
26. Rise up; come to our help!

3. Romans 8 - Psalm 44

35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
36. As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
38. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
39. nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Ps 45 The conqueror & his bride

3. Strap your sword to your thigh, O warrior!
         Appear in your majestic splendor!
4. Appear in your majesty and be victorious!
         Ride forth for the sake of what is right, on behalf of justice!
         Then your right hand will accomplish mighty acts!….
10. Hear, O daughter... forget your people and your father’s house, and the king will desire your beauty...
13. All glorious is the princess in her chamber, with robes interwoven with gold.
14. In many-colored robes she is led to the king, with her virgin companions following behind her.
15. With joy and gladness they are led along as they enter the palace of the king.

Suffering vs. Abandonment

• Very often these two things get confused in our minds
• We assume that if we are suffering, then we are abandoned (but we are not)
• Maturity is about being able to trust that God is there, even when you don’t feel that he is there

Conclusions

1. Take your complaints to God and be honest with him
   • Tell him all the reasons why he should answer your prayers
2. Psalm 90: Count your days properly
   • in the end days of joy in God’s love will vastly outnumber the suffering
3. Jesus was abandonded so that you never have to be
   • He cried that cry so that it will never be true for you (even though it might seem like it)
4. The King of the Universe loves you passionately
   • If you have had a revelation of God’s love for you, you cand trust him in the external things, because your true reality is so secure.