Psalm 74: Cruel Sufferings – Faithful Sufferers! 1. Reasoning with God in Suffering Psalm 74:1

Text: “Oh God, why hast Thou cast us off for ever?  Why doth Thine anger smoke against the sheep of Thy pasture?

Psalm 74:1.

Good morning, suffering Christian!  When you and I suffer as Spiritually regenerate Christians, we often know we are suffering because of some failing in our obedience to our Holy Lord God – in word, in thought, or in deed.  However, we also know that the Lord in all His grace and mercy has made a way for us to repent of that failing, that sin, that straying from the path of righteousness – and therefore we can make our way, reverently, to His throne of grace, to find mercy in time of need. We Christians often suffer constantly because of our sins.

“Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”  (Hebrews 4:16)

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us.”  (1 John 1:9-10)

As natural born sinners, we have always a way back to full obedience with the Lord God, our Creator Lord God Who gave mankind His Ten Commandments for one reason only – to show us that we could never fully keep them, and therefore needed a Saviour, Jesus Christ, to redeem us from all our sins.

However, it is when this type of suffering for sin becomes prolonged that we begin to become so very weary and distressed; when it seems like the Heavens are as brass, and that our prayers of repentance and seeking forgiveness are just not being heard by God.  This seems to be where the Psalmist has arrived here at the commencement of Psalm 74.

Verse 1. “O God, why hast Thou cast us off for ever? To cast us off at all were hard, but when Thou dost for so long a time desert Thy people, it is an evil beyond all endurance – the very chief of woes and abyss of misery.  Sin is usually at the bottom of all the hidings of the Lord’s face; let us ask the Lord to reveal the special form of it to us, that we may repent of it, overcome it, and henceforth forsake it.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 320)

An Instructive Purpose: Suffering in our Christian life and experience is given to us by God in order to instruct us in the way we should walk, in the way we should live our lives for Christ.  God the Holy Spirit condescends to come and take up abode within each and every soul redeemed by the precious, sinless Blood of Christ Jesus.  We become His temple.

“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?  If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy which temple ye are.”  (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)

When Christians commit sin – in any degree or form – we cause immediate grief to God the Holy Spirit living within us.  God cannot abide sin.  We must flee far from it.

“Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.  And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.  Let all bitterness and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”  (Ephesians 4:29-32) 

We now realise that Spiritual suffering has an instructive purpose for God’s people. Sin separates us from the glow of Gods face, and we grieve the loss of His fellowship.

“Title: “Maschil of Asaph.” An instructive Psalm by Asaph.  The history of the suffering church is always edifying; when we see how the faithful trusted and wrestled with their God in times of dire distress, we are thereby taught how to behave ourselves under similar circumstances; we learn, moreover, that when the fiery trial befalls us, no strange things have happened unto us, we are following the trail of the host of God.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 320)

Suffering and Serving:  Sin is not the only reason the genuine Christian suffers.  Suffering seems to be a part and parcel of the lot of the most faithfully serving saints.  We often suffer not realising WHY we are suffering.  Such sufferings can be the Lord God’s way of testing us, as He did with the faithful Job, in order to make us even stronger in the service of Christ.

Verse 1. “Why doth Thine anger smoke against the sheep of Thy pasture?  Suffering in the Sovereign will of the Lord God becomes a God-ordained privilege for the Christian, when once we realise that it is sent against ‘the sheep’ of God’s pasture, and not the goats!  Such trials and sufferings only serve to assure you and I that we are indeed, ‘His sheep’.

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: and I give unto them Eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.  My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck then out of My Father’s hand.  I and My Father are ONE.”  (John 10:27-30)

Verse 1. “…the sheep of Thy pasture. There is nothing more imbecile than a sheep: simple, frugal, gentle, tame, patient, prolific, timid, domesticated, stupid, useful.  Therefore, while the name of sheep is here used, it is suggested how pressing the necessity is for Divine assistance and how well-befitting the Most High it would be to make their cause His own.” (Lorinus John,1569-1634)

“Lord God? Why am I suffering at this present time, and for so long a period? Please reveal this unto me, that I may be encouraged to persevere in Thy service?” This may well be your reasoning with the Lord today, beloved Reader. (Isaiah 1:18)

The history of the suffering church of Christ Jesus, reveals unto us today, how we must endure suffering for reasons known only to the Lord God, but it is only ‘His sheep’ that suffer such times of hardness and day to day difficulties.  Knowing we are ‘His sheep’ is a very real encouraging assurance to us.  It is only Christ’s sheep that are going to Heaven.

Thought: “And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats (unsaved) on the left.  Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come ye, blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”  (Matthew 25:33-34)