Psalm 44 – Are You Sleeping, Are You Sleeping, Father God?

Let It Be, one of the Beatles' most enduring and beloved hits, but did you know, I'm sure some of

you Beatles fans knew this, but John Lennon absolutely loathed the song Let It Be. He

thought Paul was too traditionalist, that the song was too religious. He said this about Let It Be

in an interview, what can you say? Let It Be has nothing to do with the Beatles. And shortly

thereafter, the band broke up. Let It Be was their last number one hit. Now, in the second century

BC, the high priest of Israel had a somewhat similar response to Psalm 44, that song we just

heard read a moment ago. He was so disturbed and bothered by what he read in this song that he

forbade the Levites from reciting some of its verses in the synagogues of Israel.

This is a song about suffering. It's not only a personal lament, it is also a national lament

meant to be sung by the entire people of Israel. But on top of that, it is a very

beautiful song about suffering. It's not only a personal lament, it is also a national lament

It is a very beautiful song about suffering. It's not only a personal lament, it is also a national

bold plea to God, not only pouring out the anguished heart of the singers, but also going

farther to accuse God of abandonment, accusing him of being asleep on the job and demanding

a response that was fitting for the circumstances. As we hear it, as we read it, it can sound almost

disrespectful to our Lord, his greatness, his goodness, his power. And yet, we have to recognize

that this song has applied to just about every generation of God's people. In fact, Bible scholars

and commentators, they take a look at this psalm and they argue about to which group of God's people

is this song really tied to? Who does it really apply to first and foremost? Some say that it was

for the time of David, and we certainly recognize from the superscript that it was written during

the time of David. Some say that it was for the time of David, and we certainly recognize from

the time of David's rule or perhaps just before. But other commentators and scholars say, no, no,

no, this was a song that applies to the time of Jehoshaphat or Josiah or Hezekiah. Others say,

no, it was a time, a song for the time of Ezra and Nehemiah after the exile. Others say, no,

no, no, it was for the time of the Maccabees in between the Old and New Testament. Still,

others say, actually, this song applies to believers in the Great Tribulation. Of course,

the Apostle Paul, he took this song and he applied it to him.

And he said, oh, this is a song for us in the church age. And so who is it for? Well,

it's for all of us. Every generation of God's people faces suffering, and every generation

of God's people faces suffering we can't understand, suffering that we can't always

contextualize, defeat that kind of comes out of nowhere, and we wonder what in the world is going

on. I'm sure there are many here this morning who can identify some circumstance in your life,

some area of

defeat or difficulty or suffering or trouble that just doesn't seem to make sense. And maybe you're

wondering, why doesn't God act? Why isn't God speaking? Why isn't God directing? Why isn't God

doing what I think he should be doing in order to bring this conflict or this problem or this

suffering to some resolution? If you felt those discouragements, take courage. God has given you

a song to sing. We don't need to shy away from Psalm 44. You know, the Lord's the one who's

gave us Psalm 44. How do you get God's attention when it seems like he's asleep on the job,

when he's not watching, when he's not doing what he said he would do? Well, if you were a psalmist,

you'd write a song. And this song in particular really is meant to teach us how to speak to God

when we feel unfairly defeated or when the suffering that we're enduring seems to make

no sense. It really is given for our instruction. In fact,

you can see there, this psalm is called a maskil. That's not a word we use a lot, but a maskil

in the Psalter is a category of songs that give special insight, particular wisdom. They're also

noted for their musical difficulty. And we'll see that as we go through this, it's full of

theological difficulty as well, but that's okay. As we move through these verses, we're going to

see that this song, heavy hearted as it is, serious as it is, anguished as it is,

it's not just a punk rock psalmist sort of lashing out in his garage, banging away on his guitar.

It's not an impulsive song. Despite the frustration and desperation, we see that

the writers remain full of faith in God's love and power. They remain in confidence in their Lord.

But we also see that the psalmists don't hold back. They very carefully and deliberately construct

a song that culminates in a psalm. And that's what we're going to see.

This psalm culminates in this prayer, God, why are you sleeping? Wake up and intervene on our

behalf. Now I use the word construct on purpose because in our English translations, we miss

something truly remarkable about this song and something that I think is very important when

we're getting to this culmination where people of faith are accusing God of being asleep.

And what we discover in the Hebrew and scholars who read Hebrew will tell us is that this psalm

is actually a zephyr.

Now a ziggurat is one of those stepped pyramids. And the psalmists are going to build a song on

purpose in a ziggurat structure in four stanzas. In your English translation, you may see six or

seven stanzas as the text is broken up. But in the Hebrew, it's four distinct stanzas. The first

stanza is 10 lines of poetry, and it is the stanza of praise. The second stanza is then eight lines

of poetry, and it is the stanza of praise. And the second stanza is then eight lines of poetry,

and it is the stanza of pain. The third stanza is six lines of poetry, and that's the stanza of

protest. The final stanza, anyone want to guess how many lines it is? Four lines of poetry, and it is

the stanza of petition. 10, 8, 6, 4. Very deliberate, very careful, very purposeful. Because

the pinnacle of this song is a bold and honest prayer, a call for God to act and to do so soon,

to do so decisively.

But they don't get there out of impulse or emotionality. They get there by starting with

a careful construction and first laying a strong foundation. And that's the first stanza that we're

going to look at here, the foundation of praise, the biggest part of the psalm, 10 lines of Hebrew

poetry. Now, we're going to start right above verse 1 in what's called the superscript. It says,

for the choir director, a maskill of the sons of Korah. The sons of Korah were originally

custodians and doorkeepers in the tabernacle. But during the time of David especially,

they became elite musicians and singers and songwriters. In fact, 11 of their psalms

are preserved for us in the book of Psalms. And we still sing some of their lyrics thousands of

years later. As the deer, that's one of theirs. Better is one day in your house,

that's one of theirs as well. These were faithful, faith-filled men who were

serving God.

Serving the Lord, serving the kingdom of Israel and being used for all sorts of purposes, both

physical and spiritual. Now, the first stanza is the bedrock upon which they're going to build

this remarkable song. And in this first stanza, they praise God for his work, his grace,

and his faithfulness through the ages. Look at verse 1.

God, we have heard with our ears, our ancestors have told us the work you accomplished in their

days.

Days long ago. You know, one reason that John Lennon despised Let It Be so much is because he

thought it was, quote, granny music. See, Paul McCartney, who wrote Let It Be, he grew up singing

songs around the piano with his family. Old songs, traditional songs. Of course, John wasn't a fan of

that style of music. Everything John wanted was new, throw-off-the-old, everything experimental,

everything progressive, everything uncharted. And that gives us,

you know, number nine. And all the other songs on the White Album you skip so you can get to

better songs. That's just me. Thank you. God bless you. But the sons of Korah, they wanted to keep

singing the songs that the grannies sing, that the grandfathers sing, right? The song that had

been passed down from generation to generation. They begin with this wonderful declaration,

God, we have heard...

We have heard and we believe. Generations of God's people had walked with him and seen him move and

seen him work and seen the things that he did. And they passed those truths on to their children

and grandchildren in this unbroken chain of faithful declaration of who God is and what he

has done. The sons of Korah said, we're going to keep singing the story. And that's remarkable

because for them personally,

the story, at least for their family, wasn't always pretty. Here's what I mean by that.

The sons of Korah. Do you know who Korah is? Well, if you page back to the time of Moses

and the wilderness wanderings, at one point, there's a guy named Korah. And he shows up and

he says, I'm pretty sure God talks to me as much as he talks to Moses. And I want to challenge

Moses's authority. And the Lord said, I have an idea. What if I'll show you who I talk to,

the person I don't talk to, the person I don't talk to, the person I don't talk to, the person I don't talk to,

is going to get swallowed up by the earth. And Korah and the followers of his rebellion are

swallowed up. Now we're told in the book of Numbers that there were sons of Korah who did not follow

in his rebellion. And then you go down through the centuries and it's this line of people. These are

the sons of Korah. And so they're singing the old song of what God has done. And part of what he's

done is, well, he judged my ancestors for their rebellion. You know what, Lord? We're not mad

about it. We still trust you. We still trust you. We still trust you. We still trust you. We still

trust you. We believe in you. We're going to keep singing the song. We as a group, these sons of

Korah, we have heard and we believe and we will still proclaim. As Christians here this morning,

it's a good reminder that we are responsible to proclaim the true story of God's power and

faithfulness, first to our families, then to our communities, and then to the wider world as the

world.

Verse two continues,

In order to plant them, you displaced the nations by your hand. In order to settle them,

you brought disaster on the peoples. For they did not take the land by their sword. Their arm did not

bring them victory, but by your right hand, your arm and the light of your face, because you were

favorable toward them. It wasn't Joshua's sword that conquered Canaan. It was all God's strength.

In fact, at the end of his life, Joshua gathers all the people up because he has a lot of things

he needs to talk to them about. But one of the things he says to them, he says, hey, by the way,

you're not in the land of Canaan because you're great or because you're powerful.

God handed you this land as a gift. And we see that it was all God's strength.

In fact, it's very obvious that the Israelites couldn't do it in their own strength. Just look

at the battle of Ai, where after their first immense victory, they go and fight Ai and are

completely wiped out by a small group of Canaanites.

But when God was working among them, nothing could stop his work. No nation could stop the

Lord from his plans to plant and settle his people in the place he wanted to give them.

Of course, in the Old Testament for Israel, that place was a physical place, a physical land,

actual bounded territory that he had promised to Abraham and his descendants forever,

a kingdom on the earth. But the reality is that God still wants to plant and settle,

his people. Look at Psalm 1. Look at the letter to the Ephesians.

Look at how the Bible describes God's desire to give you growth, to give you peace,

to give you stability, to have your roots go down deep and for you to be bearing fruit.

And why does he do this? The sons of Korah tell us it's because he delights in his people.

That's what favorable means there in verse 3. God takes pleasure in us. God likes you.

He might not like you. He might not like you. He might not like you. He might not like you.

He might not like everything that you or I do. We can grieve the Holy Spirit. We can disappoint

the Lord. We can anger the Lord through our sin and rebellion. But God loves you. He delights in

you. He wants to be around you. That picture that we see in the New Testament of the Lord

knocking on the door of our hearts and he says, I want to come in and sup with you.

I want to walk with you, spend life with you because he delights in us. Verse 4 says,

you are my king, my God who ordains victories.

For Jacob, through you, we drive back our foes. Through your name, we trample our enemies.

For I do not trust in my bow and my sword does not bring me victory, but you give us victory

over our foes. Let those who hate us be disgraced. The sons of Korah were extremely loyal to David.

In fact, when David first goes on the run from Saul being banished from his presence,

the sons of Korah, these guys were some of David's first supporters who rallied to him.

But this is important.

Look what they say here in these verses. Who's their king really?

You see, the sons of Korah did not tie their identity to David's political power,

to David's administration, to David as a man. I mean, they loved David. They wanted to serve

David. They threw in with David because that was God's anointed for the time.

But they recognized that the Lord Jehovah was really their king. He says, oh, you're our king.

The Lord was.

Their strength. He was their hope. He was their song. Now, I love to see here, though,

is that they were willing to not only sing, but also to battle. Did you notice they talked not

just about harps, not just about voices? They say, my bow, my sword. So we see these guys at

one sense, they're sweeping up in the tabernacle, but then they're also ready to to put on a sword

and go into battle to actually go to the front. You know, that's not an easy thing to do. It's

easy to talk a big game about.

God's power and victory and deliverance when you're within the fortress walls.

But then when it's time to actually put on the sword and march out to the front,

well, that's something else, especially when you know that your strength is not enough for

the victory and that you are reliant on God's intervention like these guys were. But they

believed. They believed that God was calling them to these different duties, and they believed that

God still had victories for his people. He still does for you and I today, of course, not the kind

of physical and political victories that we see in the Old Testament, because we're told in the New

Testament that we no longer struggle against flesh and blood, right? Now the Lord is conquering not

with swords, but he is conquering with love and grace. The gospel is what conquers the world,

not us actually treading down our enemies. Verse eight closes up this foundational stanza,

and they say, we boast in God all day long. We will praise your name forever,

say law. And so they put their belief into practice. They say, Lord, we've heard and we

believed, and now we're going to put it into practice. We're going to do it. We're going to

live it out. They were going to praise God all day long. So whether they were sweeping in the

temple or they're in one of the rooms and they're writing a song that's going to last for thousands

of years, or whether they're marching out to war and swinging a sword, they said, hey, we're going

to make a plan to praise. Boasting here isn't the connotation we use that word. It means to exclaim,

to rejoice, to lift up, to praise with sincere and deep thankfulness. They said, we're going to do

it. Now, remember, this is the bedrock. The next stanzas are not a mystery to them. They know what

they're going to write next, but this is where they start. This is the building point. Lord,

we believe we love you. We trust you. We know you're great. We know you're powerful. And we

plan to keep on walking with you. And from this foundation, they're going to now begin

their complaint, this bedrock of faith and hope and praise. In fact, before moving on, even, they

stop us and they give us Selah, which we believe was a sort of directive to pause and consider.

Some scholars think it means something like there. What do you think about that? Like, okay, here,

before we move on to all this hard stuff, pause and realize that, okay, God is true. He remains

the same. He is full of power. But then from this place, we now move to stanza two, the stanza of

they turn from what has happened to what is happening. Verse nine.

But you have rejected and humiliated us. You do not march out with our armies.

You make us retreat from the foe. And those who hate us have taken plunder for themselves.

And now I've lost my place. There we go. You hand us over to be eaten like sheep and scatter

us among the nations. When you compared what God had done with what was happening,

there was a total reversal. Instead of victory, there was defeat. Instead of settling,

there was scattering. Instead of provision, they had become plunder. Instead of being shepherded,

they were being offered up as sacrifice. What's going on? The singers are confused.

This isn't just bad luck. This isn't just one of those things. They are convinced, man, God,

you are doing this to us. What gives? What happened? Derek Kidner points out that their

distress deepens with every line. Verse 20.

You sell your people for nothing. You make no profit from selling them. You make us an object

of reproach to our neighbors, a source of mockery and ridicule to those around us. You make us a

joke among the nations, a laughingstock among the peoples. My disgrace is before me all day long,

and shame has covered my face because of the taunts of the scorner and reviler, because of

the enemy and the avenger. Okay, so where is that favor, Lord? I thought you delighted in us.

It seemed like God was so disgusted with his people that he was willing to sell them at a loss.

Have you ever sold something at a loss? A car or a house or something of value? Or even just on a

small level. Here's a good picture. You ever had a garage sale? At 6 a.m., everything's $100 on the

ticket, right? I have one sandal and the strap doesn't work. Yeah, it's 50 bucks. Okay. You get

to 1130 and it's like, take it. I don't even want it.

I don't want it. If you take it, I'll pay you to take it. Right? And that's what they're saying.

They're like, what gives? What happened? I thought we were your special treasure.

And now you're selling us at a loss to be destroyed. Now, we read verses 12 through 16.

We read the second stanza of pain. And as good theologians, this is the part where we say, well,

it must be because of something they've done to be disciplined by the Lord. Because after all,

a lot of the time, we're not disciplined by the Lord. We're not disciplined by the Lord. We're not

disciplined by the Lord. We're not disciplined by the Lord. We're not disciplined by the Lord. We're not disciplined by the Lord.

Judgments in the Old Testament were punishment for sin. Right? That's what I think when I read this.

And it is true that God would at times use other nations to discipline

his people in the Old Testament. And the fact of the matter is that's still true today,

that he will rise up certain nations and bring down other nations according to whether they will

honor God, obey God, seek God. But is that what's happening here?

We need to be careful because there are plenty of times in the Bible where good theologians

come across a scene of suffering and they conclude, well, it must be the victim's fault.

It must be because they did something wrong. It must be because of their sin or imperfection.

But then those good theologians turn out to be very wrong. Job's friends couldn't have been more

wrong about what was happening. Or we even look to the New Testament, right? The blind man in John

nine. It's a very overt scene. They're looking at this blind man. The disciples walk up to Jesus and

directly ask him, Lord, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Because in

their minds, that was the only two options. Somebody biffed it. And now this person has

to suffer. And Jesus said very clearly, oh, neither of them. There's a third door here that

you guys aren't recognizing is what Jesus told the disciples. And that's what the next stanza

is all about. It is the protest stanza where the sons of Korah present their case, where

the sons of Korah present their case, where the sons of Korah present their case, where the sons of

Yeah, we're not perfect. Of course, they're not suggesting that they're perfect and they've

always done everything right. But they say, listen, we haven't done anything to deserve

this suffering. We haven't broken covenant with you, Lord. Let's look at verse 17. All this has

happened to us, but we have not forgotten you or betrayed your covenant. Our hearts have not

turned back. Our steps have not strayed from your path, but you have crushed us in a haunt of

jackals and have covered us with deepest darkness. If we'd forgotten the name of our God and spread

out our hands to a foreign God, wouldn't God have found this out since he knows the secrets of the

heart? The truth of this life is that sometimes you will suffer even if you haven't done anything

to deserve that suffering. Some pain, some defeat, some mistreatment, some problem. My goodness,

look at the apostle Paul. Nobody suffered more than the apostle Paul. And it wasn't because he

was biffing it all the time. Look at the children of Israel when they were enslaved,

in Egypt. God sent them to Egypt. He didn't send them because they were disobeying. He said,

hey, go to Egypt so you can survive there from this famine. But then what happened? A new king

arose who did not know Joseph, did not know the story, did not know how God's people had actually

saved the known world at the time, Egypt in particular. And they were oppressed there

for 400 years. This world is diseased with sin. It touches every corner of the planet. Every aspect

of the human experience. Now, God is going to fix that problem. He is working out his plan.

But meanwhile, you are going to suffer unfairly at some point

because God's long-suffering waits so that more people can be saved and redeemed and saved from

the power of sin. But that means that the outflow of sin continues day by day all over the world.

And so you're going to suffer at some point in a way that doesn't make sense and a way that may

never make sense. And so you're going to suffer at some point in a way that doesn't make sense.

And in a way that is unfair. That's what the sons of Korah are saying here.

Now, sometimes we do suffer because of the choices we make, either individually or nationally.

Sometimes we make a rebel's choice or a disobedient choice, or we know we should go

this way, but instead we go our own way. And then there are consequences, consequences for our sins,

consequences for our actions. We can't look at those moments of difficulty or conflict or

trouble and say, oh, I'm going to suffer. I'm going to suffer. I'm going to suffer. I'm going to suffer.

We can't look at those moments of difficulty or trouble and say, well, God has done this to me.

No, you did it to you. Jonah was in the belly of the great fish because of Jonah, not because of

the Lord. It was a mercy that he was in the belly of the fish, right? Or nationally, can we honestly

look around at our nation and say, oh, America definitely is pressing toward the love of Jesus

Christ. America is definitely following the principles and precepts of the word of God.

America is definitely a righteous nation. No.

And so if God decided to bring judgment against America as good theologians, we could look at that

and say, yeah, that sounds about right. Of course, we pray for mercy and we pray for revival and we

pray, Lord, bring us back from the brink of the judgment that we deserve. But we can understand

that sometimes we are judged for a reason. Joshua, at the end of his book, when he has that big

meeting, he calls everybody together and he says, hey, you haven't conquered the land that you were

supposed to. Also, you're all a bunch of people. You're all a bunch of people. You're all a bunch of

idolaters. Do you want to follow the Lord? Yeah, we want to follow the Lord. OK, I have an idea. Put

away your foreign gods. And they say, oh, OK, we'll do that. And they didn't do it. And what

follows Joshua? The time of the judges, a time of extreme cyclical suffering for generation after

generation, not because God was angry, but because the people would not do what he asked them to do.

But the sons of Korah point out sometimes we suffer and it doesn't make sense and we haven't

broken covenant with God. We haven't broken covenant with God. We haven't broken covenant

with the Lord or we haven't walked away from the Lord. They invite God to investigate them in verse

21. God, come look, audit our hearts and lives. Let me ask you this. Have you ever called the IRS

and invited them to audit your accounts? No. Why not? And that's what they're doing here. They're

like, Lord, we know, you know, come take a look. Bring your white glove. You know what's amazing

here? They're convinced that they were in the right and convinced that on some level of feeling

that God had let them down, but they're still loyal to the Lord, even when it felt like they

had been abandoned. He said, our hearts have not turned back. Their hearts were heavy. Their hearts

were broken. They said, but we're still not going to turn back. Their circumstances were terrible.

But remember the bedrock, the foundation of their song and their lives was their enduring faith in

a true and mighty God, their trust that he would not ultimately fail them. Verse 22. Because of you,

we are being put to death all day long.

We are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. So just for context, since we're talking about

suffering, their suffering wasn't simply a hostile work environment or unfair treatment in some way.

People were actually being butchered and dying. People were bleeding out, right? I mean,

they're talking, we don't know exactly what was going on, but it was all the way serious to the

extreme. Now that doesn't mean that our less extreme trouble or sufferings don't matter. They

absolutely do. And God is not going to let us down. He's not going to let us down. He's not going to

let us down. God invites us to cast those cares upon him because he cares for us. But as we look at

this, we want to note the severity of their suffering because the severity of their suffering

makes the toughness of their faith all the more significant. They're dying and they're saying,

we're still not going to turn back from you, Lord. As they grappled with why all this was

happening, the sons of Korah accidentally stumble on an answer that was new to Old Testament

believers. You see, in the Old Testament, God told his people, if you do this, I'll do it for you.

And they did. And they did. And they did. And they did. And they did. And they did. And they did. And they

said, I'll do this. It was sort of almost mathematical in some cases. He still wanted

their hearts. You still had to believe by faith. But he said, listen, if you as an individual and

you as a nation do one, two, three, four, five, then this is what is the result. And they said,

hey, we're doing that, but the result is not working out. And they stumble upon something

here. Bible commentary, Gerald Wilson writes this. In this context of feeling abandoned and

rejected by God for no apparent reason, the community of faith makes an amazing step of

understanding, not complete understanding, but understanding that shapes their will to commit

themselves in a new and painful way. Here's their understanding. For your sake, we face death

all day long. Paul famously quoted this verse in Romans saying, yeah, this is the plight of

the apostles and the Christians and the church age. His conclusion was not that God had failed us,

but that despite suffering, God's love conquers and that

we conquer through the love of Christ, even when our circumstances are terrible.

Some suffering is a result of the fact that God does love us and we love him. That brings

suffering into our lives in some cases. Derek Kidner writes, Psalm 44 implies the

revolutionary thought that suffering may be a battle scar rather than a punishment,

the price of loyalty in a world which is at war with God.

The Christian life mistakenly as either all Jericho or all AI. In Jericho, you do a little

walking, the walls come down. There's not very much work. Great. I get all the benefit with very

little effort, right? And then at AI, what do we see? Well, there's defeat. Ah, but we know why,

because there was blatant sin. And so if we deal with the blatant sin, no more AI,

everything will be Jericho. But that's not how the Christian life works. That's not even how

the book of Joshua works. You move forward a little bit in the book of Joshua, you have the battle of

Gibeon. So much work. Just constant, difficult battle. So much battle that Joshua's like,

we don't even have enough daylight to complete the amount of work we have to do. Lord, you got

to do something. And the Lord doesn't say, okay, well, I'll just kill all your enemies. Suddenly,

the Lord says, I have an idea. How about I extend the day so you can keep working even harder?

Battle, battle, battle, battle, battle. And you know what? It wasn't even their battle.

They're fighting on behalf of these other people who weren't Israelites, who came and lied to them

and took advantage of them. And then now Israel has to go and bail them out. And the Lord's like,

how about you work all day and then some? I'll make the sun stand still so you can keep working,

keep swinging the sword. So it's not all Jericho and all AI. The Christian life is a difficult life

because it's lived on a battlefield. It's not lived in the cabana. It's,

it's not lived in the, you know, in the place of rest that's coming in eternity. Right now,

the Christian life is lived on the battlefield. Jesus said in this world, you are going to have

suffering, difficulty, tribulation, trouble, but be of good cheer, be excited, be happy,

be courageous because our God and King Christ Jesus has conquered the world. The sons of Korah

are convinced that they are suffering unjustly, that God himself is responsible, that he should

and yet that's how they feel. But what's their foundation? What's their bedrock? What do they

know to be true? And so even though they felt that way, they still go to God for relief. They

still go to him for rescue. This is the musical version of Job's famous line, though he slay me,

yet will I trust him. They made that into a song. So after a foundation of praise and then building

upward on a level of pain, and then a third level of protest, they're,

finally ready to stand at the top and bring their petition to the Lord with the final smallest

stanza, the plea, the petition, still believing God truly loves them. Verse 23, wake up, Lord.

Why are you sleeping? Get up. Don't reject us forever. Why do you hide and forget our affliction

and oppression? Verse 23 is what the high priest Johanan in the second century BC had such a

problem with. He said, God neither slumbers nor sleeps. Of course, that's true. We know that,

right? God doesn't sleep.

Except for when he does, right? Mark chapter four. Don't get me wrong. God, the father does

not slumber or sleep, but God did sleep at one point. Mark chapter four, Jesus and the disciples,

they get in a boat and he says, why don't we cross over to the other side?

And a great storm crashed upon the boat. The boat was being swamped while Jesus slept.

The God man is asleep in the boat.

What did the disciples do? They wake him up and they say, teacher, don't you care that we are

going to die? Sounds very Psalm 44, doesn't it? They're living this out right in front of us in

the New Testament. Now, here's a question for us. Had God abandoned them? Were they unsafe

because Jesus was getting some shut eye? They certainly felt like God had fallen asleep on

the job, obviously.

And the fact of the matter is we feel that way too. I have. Lord, why aren't you speaking? Lord,

why are you far away? Lord, why aren't you moving? And you know, God welcomes us to call out to him

in those moments, not to pretend like we don't have feelings or not to pretend like we aren't

frustrated or confused. You know, the sons of court here are so bold. In some sense, we read

this and we're like, you kind of are stepping over a line, guys. You're being almost disrespectful

to the Lord. And then we remember that God, the Holy Spirit inspired this.

And put his stamp of approval on this song and has gone to so much trouble for thousands of years

to make sure that this song is preserved and delivered and translated so that you and I in

the 21st century can have it in our language to apply to our own Christian experience. He says,

yes, this is for you because the Lord knows that we suffer and he knows that we're confused and he

knows that we need verbiage and language to to put into perspective the things that are going on in

our hearts.

Do you feel like you're in a storm of some kind? Do you feel like Christ has abandoned you?

That's OK if you do. But now remember what is true. Remember the spot from which they started

building. Remember the faithfulness of God. Remember that he is with you. He does care.

He is working in your life. Fear is not the answer. Walking away from him is not the answer.

Lashing out is not the answer. Clinging to your faith and to your savior is the answer.

Verse 25, for we have sunk down to the dust. Our bodies cling to the ground.

Rise up. Help us. Redeem us because of your faithful love.

You know, the psalm ends without resolution, without relief. There's no fifth stanza. It's

like, and so God came and everything is great now. Where are we left? In the dust, right?

As the melody comes to a close, the singers are still crushed in the dirt.

And like in the image with their sort of dying grasp,

gasp, they're looking for a way to get out of it. They're looking for a way to get out of it.

They're looking for a response from heaven. And what do they say? Well, look at that last phrase.

As Paul McCartney sat down to share, let it be with the Beatles for the first time,

one article reports that John Lennon sat grimacing. He hated it, wanted it over, wanted it done.

The sons of Korah, they end their song, not with a grimace, but with confidence. The same hope,

in fact, that they had at the start. Their hearts are full of faith. Faith in what? Faith in God's

chesed love, his merciful kindness. That's the last phrase. A love of tenderness and loyalty and

action. They still believed and trusted that God was a redeemer. He said, man, Lord, I feel like

you sold us for nothing, but I know you're a redeemer and that you'll give the whole world

in order to rescue us from sin and death. They still believed it was his delight to help his

people. They say, Lord, we know you love us. We know you're a redeemer. We know you're a redeemer.

We know you're a redeemer. We know you're a redeemer. We know you're a redeemer. We know you're

not done. Come and work in us as you have before. Love gets the last word, not suffering, not

anguish, but love. This was also Paul's conclusion, of course, when he applied this psalm to himself

and to all suffering Christians and to the church age. Romans 835, who can separate us from the love

of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or

sword? As it is written, because of you, we are being put to death all day long. We are counted

as sheep to be slaughtered. We are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. We are counted as sheep to be

slaughtered. No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am

persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come

nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from

the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Are you suffering today? Maybe it's because of

choices you've made. Maybe it's because of persecution in some form. Maybe you can't

really make sense of why it's happening. The words of wisdom being whispered to you in this

mass skill are this. God hears your prayer. He sees your suffering. He has great power and plans

for your life. Your suffering will not ultimately end in defeat because you have been redeemed.

Now, your suffering may end in physical death. But chesed love has the last word. You can't be

separated from it. His faithful, loyal love that cannot lose.

And so two questions now present themselves to us this morning. First, do you belong to Jesus

Christ? Are you in that chesed love? Are you one of his people? You can be safe in that salvation

even today. In fact, he's invited you into relationship. And the second is, if you're

here and you're a Christian and you're suffering, the Lord knows. But we can put all of our

circumstances in perspective. That's what the sons of Korah are trying to do here. God, here's what

you've done. Here are your promises.

Here's what you've called me to. But here's what I'm experiencing. We're struggling with

understanding and perspective. When it's not our suffering, it's really easy to put it into

perspective, right? Oh, the fiery furnace. That's an incredible situation. That's wonderful. Do you

want to go in the fiery furnace? No. Thank you very much. Paul bobbing in the ocean. Wow, that's

incredible. Man, God is good. You want to switch? No, thank you very much. And then when it's my

suffering, it's like, Lord, I want out. I want out right here, right now. And the Lord's like,

hey, maybe I want to do something through this. Maybe I want to deliver you. Maybe I want you to

endure. Maybe someday this suffering will be seen as a moment of honor and refining or a chance for

the Lord to do a new work in us the way he loves to do. None of us want to suffer, especially when

it's not our fault. But in this world, we have trouble of all sorts. God doesn't ignore it. And

he doesn't demand that we pretend like it isn't happening or it doesn't hurt. He gives us songs

like this to pray and sing to.

And to remind ourselves of what is really true. As we close, there's one last image here I'd like

us to think about. There are the sons of Korah singing loudly from the top of their ziggurat,

suffering, taking painful shrapnel, bleeding out. And they said there, we're going to praise God

all day long. Reminds me of the old hymn. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior

all the day long. All day long is used three times in this song.

It says we're being killed all day long. When we're not being killed, we're being disgraced

all the day long. What are you going to do? I'm going to praise all day long. Because I know God

is true. It doesn't feel that way right now, but I know it's true. It has always been true. I believe

it is true. I'm going to cling to what is true. Let's pray.