Well, good evening. It's good to be with you this evening at Brunsfield Evangelical Church.
Greetings to you from the rest of the pastors and the elders at Corroboros Christian Centre across town.
I have to apologise to you this evening if my voice starts to fade a little bit.
The Nixon household has been unwell this week, and this morning I didn't have a voice when I woke up,
but fortunately when I was preaching it came back.
So let's hope it doesn't work the other way tonight that I start off with a voice and it runs out by the end.
Now, it's been great to be able to sing the passage that we're going to be looking at together,
this evening. It was also great to hear it in a word, wrapped, to us at the very start.
I don't think I can follow that. I'm definitely more of an abide with me person rather than a
wrapped person, but it certainly helped us to think about what we're going to be looking at tonight in the Scriptures.
See, tonight we're going to be spending time in the heart and the soul of the psalmist Asaph.
Imagine that you are sitting with this guy over here, over coughing, and he is unburdening his soul to you.
He is confessing to you how his faith in God almost collapsed and failed him.
You see, Asaph is cracking under the assault and the burden of doubts.
If you have ever wrestled with hard questions or doubts about the Lord, questions like,
is the Bible historically reliable? Can I trust it?
Is Jesus a real person? Did he really exist? Did he really live? Did he really die? Did he really rise again?
Can I be certain about his promises that he makes to me in the gospel that if I believe in him,
I'll be forgiven for my sins and I'll have the hope of heaven?
If you've ever wrestled with questions about, can I be sure about these things,
then you can well sympathize with Asaph in his time of uncertainty.
I've spent many hours in recent years fielding questions from sceptical people at universities around the country,
people who think that the Christian faith is irrational and irrelevant.
I've also spent many an hour pastorally counselling people in my own church and in other churches
who have been struggling as believers, whose faith has been thrown into tremendous doubt and uncertainty
by things that they have read, by questions that have come into their minds
or that they have been exposed to in the world. And these doubts, they have stolen their joy
and have hindered their walk and their effectiveness for Christ.
And so when we think about doubts tonight, I know that we're going to a place that is dangerous.
We're going into a place that is uncomfortable.
And it should be uncomfortable because we're actually going into the trenches this evening together.
The trenches at the front line of the war of scepticism against faith.
But before we get into that battle, before we jump into the trenches,
it's so good to begin our time together where Asaph begins.
Because he knows he's about to take us on a hard journey.
And so right at the very beginning of his psalm, as we have heard, as we have sang,
in verse 1, Asaph tells us what his ultimate conclusion was.
The conviction that has been tested and tried in the furnace of affliction
and that has been proven to be true.
Verse 1, truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
Asaph wants us to know before we get into this battle,
that it is possible to make it out onto the other side.
It is possible to keep going in faith.
And his confession in Psalm 73 shows us the way that we can go,
the way through the minefield of spiritual doubt and uncertainty.
So I'm not going to read the passage again.
We've heard it.
We've sang most of it.
But what I'm planning to do is I plan to walk you through all the passage.
So let's just get stuck in straight away.
I've got three things for you this evening.
The first thing is, the first step, if you like, through the minefield of doubt
is to confess your doubts about God.
You'll find this comes out of verses 1 to 14 of the passage.
Asaph begins by confessing to us how unstable his faith has become.
He says in verse 2,
As for me, my feet had almost stumbled.
My steps had nearly slipped.
Now what has so deeply unsettled Asaph?
Well, he confesses to us the reason in verse 3, if you look at it.
He says,
For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
Now you're meant to have a bit of an experience of deja vu when you hear the prosperity of the wicked here.
You're meant to hear an echo of the opening words of the opening psalm.
Psalm 1.
That psalm states that there are two roads in life.
There is the way of the righteous, which leads to life.
And there is the way of the wicked that leads to death.
Psalm 1 says these words very confidently.
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked.
It goes on and says,
Instead, his delight is in the law of the Lord.
In all that he does, he prospers.
Then he finishes verse 6 of Psalm 1.
The way of the wicked will perish.
That's the way it's meant to be.
The righteous are meant to prosper.
The wicked are meant to perish.
That's what the Bible says.
Asaph knows that.
And yet that is not what Asaph has experienced in life.
He has seen the absolute reversal of that.
He, a righteous man, is suffering while the wicked prosper.
You see, Asaph lived during dark and difficult days.
Faithless times in the nation of Israel.
It was a time of division socially, of decline and depravity.
In the private home and also in the public square,
the sins of injustice and immorality and idolatry were rampant.
This was a plague upon the nation.
And Asaph confesses to us this evening that these dark times
had raised dark thoughts in his mind and in his soul.
As he then goes through the next set of verses,
you can listen to him as he complains,
as he confesses what he's angry at God for,
why he is frustrated, why he is doubting.
Listen as he complains about, first of all,
how the wicked live in luxury and leisure.
Verses 4 and 5.
For they have no pangs until death.
Their bodies are fat and sleek.
They are not in trouble as others are.
They are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
Jump down to verse 12.
He returns to this theme again.
He says,
Behold, these are the wicked.
Always at ease, they increase in riches.
Asaph is complaining here, it's not fair.
It shouldn't be this way.
He goes on in verses 6, 7, and 8
to complain about how the wicked are desperately antisocial.
He says,
Therefore pride is their necklace.
Violence covers them as a garment.
Their eyes swell out through fatness.
Their hearts overflow with follies.
They scoff and speak with malice.
Loftily they threaten oppression.
You wouldn't want to live with these people as your neighbors.
These are horrendous people to live around.
Asaph lives in fear of his life day and night.
But he goes on again in verses 9, 10, and 11
to complain about how the wicked are defiant in their unbelief.
Verse 9.
They set their mouths against the heavens
and their tongues struts through the earth.
And they say,
How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?
If you were to put yourself for a moment into Asaph's shoes,
if you were to feel with him and for him in the midst of this dark time,
then you'll recognize this is tough.
This is really tough, excruciating.
It throws into question everything that he has believed about God
and God's promises to his people.
Then in verses 13 and 14,
he almost reached the lowest point of Asaph's journey.
Listen as Asaph confesses just how dark his thoughts and his doubts had become.
All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.
For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.
What's the point?
Is basically what Asaph is asking.
What's the point?
It's not worth it.
It's a lie.
Maybe I would be better off throwing my lot in with the wicked.
Maybe you've been in a place like that before.
Maybe you have asked hard questions about difficult issues.
Maybe you've considered questions like,
why would a good God allow bad things to happen
like the Manchester bombing a few weeks ago
or like the London Bridge attack last night?
Where was God when that happened?
Maybe you would ask questions like,
what if my belief in God is just wishful, delusional thinking?
How can I be sure it's real?
What if I can't trust the Bible in light of the findings of science?
What if it's not reliable?
What if it's not true?
These are hard questions that come to many of us at different times.
I wouldn't be surprised if you struggle with these things.
Confess that I struggle with these things from time to time.
And all of us will face these things, these questions, these issues,
because we live in a dominantly secular society.
21st century Scotland is a secular society.
Fewer than 5% of the population would confess to be Christians of one sort or another.
We are day in, day out bombarded with information and media and ideology
that is contrary to what we believe is true in the Bible.
In our society today, our beliefs are often mocked
and our values are now being seen as being positively dangerous.
There are very articulate atheist personalities
who are out there in the public square,
people like Richard Dawkins, Stephen Fry, Brian Cox.
And rarely do we hear what they have to say answered by a competent Christian spokesperson.
Usually these guys wipe the floor with some bishop in the Church of England.
Okay?
And so I would even suggest to you this evening
that we might face harder assaults on our faith
than what Asaph endured all the years before in Psalm 73.
We are in a substantially more difficult situation today.
And that is why I'm so encouraged to find in God's book this psalm.
To find that God has preserved for all the centuries,
for all his people,
the journey of Asaph through his time of doubt,
his time of darkness.
Because God has given us words to use
when we find ourselves in this kind of place.
God has given us a pathway to follow
through the minefield of spiritual doubt and affliction.
If you find yourselves wrestling with the things
that Asaph is wrestling with on your journey through life,
then turn to this psalm and follow Asaph.
He has charted the way through.
And so the first thing that Asaph does
is he confesses his doubts about God.
But he doesn't stop there.
What's the way on?
What are we to do with our doubts?
Well, the second thing is to bring your doubts to God.
You see this in verses 15, 16, and 17.
And the first thing to notice in verse 15 is
there is one thing that Asaph did not do with his doubts.
And that's that he did not recklessly expose
everyone else to them.
He didn't unnecessarily rattle everyone's faith.
Remember, he's just buried his soul to us
in verses 13 and 14.
All in vain have I done these things.
And then verse 15 picks up and says,
if I had said, I will speak thus.
That's stuff in verses 13 and 14.
If I had said those things,
I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
You see, Asaph was a wee bit like Fiona this evening
who's been leading us in worship.
Asaph was a worship leader in the temple of God.
He had a position of responsibility in God's people.
He was an example to all of them
about what the life of faith looks like.
And so as he, as the model believer, if you like,
the faithful Israelite,
as he is gripped and crippled by doubts inside of him,
he doesn't start a blog.
He doesn't start tweeting to all of his followers
to publicly air these things.
That would have done tremendously great harm
to faithful Israelites who already were struggling
in the midst of the dark times
that Israel was facing in those days.
They were looking up to Asaph,
and the last thing they needed was Asaph to go awal.
And so Asaph did not recklessly tell everybody
what he was thinking.
But also Asaph did not just hold on to these things privately
and keep them to himself and try and resolve them.
Instead, the turning point for Asaph in this psalm
comes whenever he stopped holding on to his doubts himself,
trying to work them out on his own.
And he takes his complaints, he takes his questions,
he takes his doubts and his issues to God himself.
Asaph, verses 16 and 17 said,
but when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task
until I went into the sanctuary of God.
Then I discerned their end.
Asaph went into God's temple in Jerusalem
on top of Mount Zion.
That is the place where he knew God could be found.
That is the place where God's presence
dwelled among his people.
I wonder, did Asaph remember the words of Solomon
whenever he had opened the temple years before?
Read about that event in 1 Kings chapter 8
where Solomon prays in dedication.
May your eyes be opened toward this temple night and day.
This place of which you have said,
my name shall be there.
So that you will hear the prayer
your servant prays towards this place.
Hear the supplication of your servant
and of your people Israel
when they pray towards this place.
Hear from heaven your dwelling place.
And when you hear, forgive.
I wonder, is that the thing that is in Asaph's mind
when he chooses to go up to the temple of the Lord?
Does he remember the promise
that this is the one place that he knows
that God can be found?
This is the place where if he is praying,
God will be hearing
and God will be answering his requests for help.
And so Asaph, responding to the promise of God in the past,
goes up into the temple.
He perhaps stands with the congregation
as they stand and worship.
He sits as the priests open up the book of the law
and they preach and teach the people.
He observes the sacrifices taking place
as still faithful Israelites come
bringing their sacrifices to have their sins atoned for.
And as he spent time there in God's presence,
in the temple,
it seems that everything changed
in Asaph's troubled, disquieted soul and mind.
Now for us today, we don't have a temple, do we?
This place is a beautiful, wonderful place,
but this is not a temple.
We don't have a temple to bring our troubles
into a building.
But we do have something,
indeed someone,
that is far better.
You see, the glory of God today
does not dwell in a building of bricks and mortar,
but the glory of God dwells in
the body of a person of flesh and blood.
His name is Jesus Christ.
You don't have a place to go into,
but you do have a person
whom you can invite into your struggles.
Someone who is willing to walk alongside you
and journey with you
and help you through those dark,
difficult storms of fear and doubt.
And the Lord Jesus,
he is accessible anytime,
anywhere,
about anything.
And he welcomes us when we come to him.
If our doubts and our struggles,
he's glad that we would come and turn to him.
He welcomes us even when we come
with simple,
struggling,
doubting faith.
I know that because
that's what you see
when you read about Jesus in the Gospels.
When you read about his life,
that's exactly what happened
when people who were struggling came to him.
One of my favorite stories in the Gospels
is in Mark chapter 9.
In that story,
a father brings his demon-possessed son to Jesus.
The father has tried everything
to try and get his boy freed
from this force that wants to destroy
and take his life.
This demonic presence throws him into the fire,
throws him into water to drown him.
He's out to destroy this little boy's life.
The father doesn't know what to do,
but he hears that Jesus is in town.
The father brings his son to Jesus
because he believes Jesus can do something to help
that no one else can do.
Yet nevertheless,
the father does not fully know
what to make of Jesus.
His faith is mixed with fear and uncertainty.
And as he comes to Jesus,
he confesses this.
Mark chapter 9, verse 24.
Lord, I believe.
Help me overcome my unbelief.
You wonder, how will Jesus react?
He's just come to him and said,
Jesus, I need you to help me with something,
but I'm not fully convinced.
I've got some unbelief and doubt in me.
Does Jesus react and say, go away?
Does Jesus say,
how dare you come to me
when you don't fully believe in me?
Is Jesus angry?
No.
Jesus sees this man's dear heart,
his love for his son.
He sees that he is troubled,
that he is doubting and uncertain.
And Jesus gives him a reason to believe.
And Jesus helps him.
And Jesus heals his son.
That story is great news for all of us
when we struggle and we wrestle with our doubts.
It shows us that Jesus has opened wide arms
and says, come.
Yeah, you've got struggling, doubting, faith.
So come.
Invite me into your doubts and into your struggles.
I'll be there with you.
I won't abandon you.
We can be honest with God.
We don't have to run away and hide from him.
We don't have to pretend with him.
We don't have to be ashamed.
We can bring these things to God.
We can ask him for his help to work things through.
We can bring these things alongside
a trusted Christian friend.
Because God, by his Holy Spirit,
will minister to you through
that wise Christian friend or pastor or elder.
They will help you.
There have been many Christians
who I have never met in my lifetime,
but who have hugely helped me
and ministered to my heart and my soul
with my doubts and questions
through their books.
People like, if it comes up,
Ravi Zacharias.
People like Tim Keller.
Even people like C.S. Lewis or Lee Struble
who were committed skeptics,
who actually selected to disprove the Christian faith.
And on their journey of research,
discovered, oh goodness, it's true,
and became Christians.
These people and many more
have been dear friends to me
whom God has used to minister
into my heart to teach me
and to help me work through things.
And so when you are struggling with doubt,
the first thing to do
is to confess your doubts about God.
And the next thing to do
is to bring your doubts to God.
He's big enough.
But then we need to see what happens next
as the psalm resolves itself
in verses 18 to 28.
And this is the third thing,
that you can resolve your doubts
by taking God at his word.
You see, doubts ultimately revolve
around the question,
can I trust what God has said is true?
Can I trust that what God has said
in his book is true?
Can I stake my life, my death,
my eternity upon it?
That's the question
that Asaph is wrestling with.
Is it in vain?
And that's the question
that is resolved in his mind
and in his heart through his journey.
In the temple,
there were no heavenly visions.
There were no incredible miracles.
God didn't answer
all of Asaph's questions,
didn't resolve all of his issues and doubts.
But God did bring into new focus
in Asaph's mind some old truths.
And that's what got him through.
Indeed, there are three new assurances
about old truths
in this last part of the psalm.
These are the things that served as fuel
to keep the flame of Asaph's faith burning
in the midst of the dark times
in which he lived.
First of all,
there was a new assurance
about the peril of the wicked.
See this in verses 18 to 20.
Of the wicked, Asaph now sees,
truly you set them in slippery places.
You make them fall to ruin.
How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors.
Like a dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when you rise yourself,
you despise them as phantoms.
Then there's a new assurance
about the security of the righteous.
Verse 21 to verse 24.
Asaph says,
When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
I was brutish and ignorant.
I was like a beast towards you.
Nevertheless,
I am continually with you.
You hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel.
And afterward,
you will receive me to glory.
And then there's a new assurance
about the goodness of God.
The last four verses.
Whom am I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth
that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
For behold,
those who are far from you shall perish.
You put an end to everyone
who is unfaithful to you.
But for me,
it is good to be near God.
I have made the Lord God my refuge
that I may tell of all your works.
Finish it off.
Go back to verse one.
Truly God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
Asaph's struggle was provoked
by his present sufferings.
The righteous suffering,
the wicked prospering.
It's the wrong way around.
But now he has a new perspective
on these events
in the light of the future.
Because yes, right now,
the righteous do suffer,
the wicked do prosper.
But it will not always be that way.
God's going to put things right.
Just as you wouldn't judge
the winner of a race
by who's leading at halfway time.
Just in the same way,
you shouldn't say that
just because the wicked are ahead,
just know that they're always
going to be ahead.
No, when all is said and done,
when time is up,
when the finish line is crossed,
we will find things being
as yackly as God has said,
that the righteous
shall prosper forevermore
and the wicked shall perish
forevermore.
Indeed,
verse 20 says
that the wicked will vanish
like a bad dream
when you wake up
first thing in the morning.
It was so real.
And then you open your eyes
and you can't even remember
what it was.
They will vanish
like phantoms.
And Asaph takes
all these things,
all these old truths
to heart in a new way.
And he resolves
to trust God
in these dark days.
And Asaph today
is alive in glory.
Asaph today
sees
that this is true,
that God
did not disappoint him.
And Asaph would say to us
if he was here,
keep going.
Keep going.
Things will right themselves
in the end.
Now as we sort of
wrap things up
for this evening,
we have to ask
who do you most identify with
in this psalm?
Whom are you?
Are you an Asaph?
A Christian,
a believer,
but you're beset
by troubles and doubts
at this time
about your faith.
Let me urge you
to follow in Asaph's footsteps
and do exactly
these things,
to confess these things
openly about God,
to bring them to him
and to someone
who's trusted,
to read,
to learn,
to discuss,
to pray
and ask for help.
and resolve
by trusting
that what God says
is true
and will be proved
to be true.
So,
wise piece of advice.
I've never been able
to find out who said it,
but they said,
doubt your doubts
and believe your beliefs.
But whatever you do,
don't make the mistake
of doubting your beliefs
and believing your doubts.
You need to know
that every time
you have a doubt,
what you're actually
encountering
is an entirely
alternative set of beliefs.
So,
you're doubting your beliefs
and that doubt itself
is a world
of alternative beliefs.
And so,
when you encounter a doubt,
you need to ask
questions of it.
You need to push back
against it
and ask,
okay,
you're raising questions
about my faith
and the reasons
that I have for my faith,
but what reasons
do you have doubt
for saying what you say?
Are your reasons
any better than my reasons
for believing
that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God
in the flesh,
that he lived,
he died,
he rose again?
Do you have better reasons
to doubt?
I guarantee you,
time after time
after time,
it doesn't.
And so,
believe your beliefs,
doubt your doubts.
Don't make the mistake
of believing your doubts
and doubting your beliefs.
Look at the reasons.
Are you like those tonight
who are called
by Asaph the wicked?
Those who live their lives
independently from
and defiantly
against God.
Because Asaph sees
that if that is
who you are this evening,
if that is how you live
your life here and now,
then that is also
how you will live your life
throughout all the endless
ages of eternity.
C.S. Lewis,
the Christian writer,
once said that in the end
there are only two types
of people in the world.
Those who say to God,
thy will be done,
and those to whom God
will say,
your will be done.
Terrible words.
And God does not want you
to perish like the wicked.
That's why he sent his son,
Jesus,
into this world.
John 3.16 tells us,
for God so loved the world
that he sent us
his one and only son
so that whoever believes
in him should not perish
but have everlasting life.
The thing that Asaph
was hoping for
and looking for
in this psalm.
If you're among the wicked
this evening,
then turn and trust in Jesus.
But maybe there's a third
type of person
who would be here
this evening.
And maybe you're
the sort of person
who is searching.
You're searching for answers.
You're searching for meaning.
You're searching for that thing
that seems to be missing
in your life.
And maybe you have discovered
that the prosperity
of the wicked,
the prosperity of this present life
doesn't truly satisfy.
Perhaps you're like
the old billionaire
Robert Maxwell
who said,
I worked all my life
to reach the top
only to realize
when I got there
there's nothing there.
A man who was found
not long after saying that
over the side
of his private yacht
dead in the water.
Perhaps you are
wanting the kind of assurance
that Asaph has
at the end of this psalm
that he can say
that even though
my heart and my flesh
shall fail
yet you are
the strength of my life
and my portion forever.
If you're here
this evening
and you are searching
and you're looking
then what you're looking for
is the Lord Jesus.
Your heart is
like a home and beacon
for him.
And so I'd urge you
I would encourage you
to please
investigate Jesus
for yourself.
There are people here
at the church
who can help you.
Someone who brought you
perhaps can help you
and point you
in the right direction.
But please
whatever you do
investigate him.
It will be the most
important thing
that you ever do.
With these words
I want to close
in there from C.S. Lewis
again and he said
that Christianity
is a statement
which if false
is of no importance
and if true
of infinite importance
the one thing
it cannot be
is moderately important.
So if you're searching
tonight
find out more.
Let's pray.
Lord and Father
we thank you
that you truly
are good to Israel.
You are truly good
to your church.
Thank you for your
wonderful love
that you sent your son
to rescue us.
We who were counted
among the wicked.
We who lived our lives
in sin
ignoring you
couldn't care less
about you.
Thank you
that you have
come down
and rescued us.
Thank you
that you are
the God
who also
is open to questions
that you have
given us
minds to think
and to reason.
Thank you
that the faith
that we have
stands up to scrutiny.
We thank you
for the great
encouragements
that over the
many centuries
that the Christian
church has been here
that the greatest
intellectual minds
of atheism
have attacked it
and sought
to destroy it.
Other religions
have come in
with their other ideas
and yet the one thing
that has stood
unshakable,
firm,
unmoving
is the word of God
and the Bible
and the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thank you
that it has
stood the test
of time.
It has stood
as the rock
of ages
and so help us
today
to cling tightly
as we live
in our society
which is filled
with unbelief
and doubt
and godlessness
and atheism
and agnosticism.
Help us
to stand firm
and cling fast
to the rock
and help us
Lord
as we wrestle
with the
uncertainties
and the questions
that come up
into our minds,
the questions
that other people
would share with us
that they're wrestling
with.
Help us
to journey
with Asaph
and help us
to reach the other
side,
keeping going
in faith
and reaching
that same conclusion
that truly
you are good,
truly your word
is trustworthy.
So Lord,
have your way
in our hearts
and our minds
this evening.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.