Let's ask the Lord to send a spirit from heaven and illumine our hearts in the ministry of the Word this evening. Would you bow with me? Father God, we pray that your Word would be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path this evening. We pray, Father, that we would break through the monotony of perfunctory. We pray, Father, that that which is so common to us would be a source of refreshment and not despising. We pray, Father, that we would not fight against your Word. We pray, Father, that your Spirit from heaven would break up the fallow ground of our heart, and not just the fallow ground, but for some of us, Father, that the tears that are shed in our affliction, in our fight against sin, our fight against pain, our fight against sorrow, our fight against the dark providences that have fallen upon us, that You would remind us that You store up all our tears in Your bottle, Are they not in your book? And we thank you, Father, that you are a tender Father. Though you send dark providences, behind that dark cloud is the smiling face of God. And we see it in the person of Jesus. And we pray, dear God, that you would lift our heads up to the cross, where He, likewise, was crushed by affliction in a way that we never could be, never will be. and yet He did it that we might be brought nigh to God. Bring us nigh to Yourself this evening, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. I invite you to turn your Bibles to Psalm 119. Praise God, we're back in Psalm 119. We only have a few more stanzas before we finish this wonderful psalm. But tonight, we're going to be in the Resh stanza, which is verses 153-160. So let's give our attention to the reading of God's Word, Psalm 119, 153 to 160. Listen carefully, for this is the Word of the living God. The psalmist says, look on my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget your law. Plead my cause and redeem me. Give me life according to your promise. Salvation is far from the wicked, for they do not seek your statutes. Great is your mercy, O Lord. Give me life according to your rules. Many are my persecutors and my adversaries, but I do not swerve from your testimonies. I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands. Consider how I love your precepts. Give me life according to your steadfast love. The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever." That's part of the reading of God's word. I want to talk tonight about affliction, and I want to talk about how hope can be a recurring antidote to affliction. And I was thinking about, as I was thinking about how to start these thoughts, I could do no better than to come to Genesis 22. I don't want you to turn there, but this is in the lectionary readings in the synagogue known as the Akedah. It is that chapter where God calls Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. And I'm going to be honest with you, it's, in my opinion, one of the hardest chapters in the whole Bible. It's something that I cannot fathom, I cannot imagine. It's something that I'm certain the Lord is never going to call us to do. But every once in a while I think, but what if He did? What would I do? What did Abraham do? God called him to sacrifice Isaac, and it's very interesting that in the text in verse 2 he says, your only son whom you love, sacrifice him. And you know the story, they're going up Mount Moriah, and of course Isaac is asking the question, where is the lamb for the burnt offerings? And Abraham says in Genesis 22 verse 8, the Lord will provide. Literally, it is the Lord will see to it. And then you know the story, the angel calls out because of Abraham's obedience and tells him to stay his hand. And what did God do? He provided a ram. The Lord will see to it and the Lord provided. And as you know, Abraham called that place Jehovah-Jireh. Jehovah-Jireh. It means the Lord will provide. Literally, though, it means the Lord will see to it. And seeing or looking is the theme that runs throughout this stanza. In fact, if you look in your ESV, the very first word is look. It is the word that we get the name Jira or Jira from. God will see to it. He will look. He will look down upon us and He will provide. But I want you to think about Abraham during this time. I want you to think of the emotional and psychological basket case that he must have been, especially those of you who have children. Spurgeon says, I think that the thought that the Lord will see to it met him at every distrustful thought, it met him at every doubting moment, and it met him at every rationalization of the flesh. Spurgeon goes on, he says, the expression Jehovah Jireh was ruling Abraham's thought long before he uttered it. He reasoned or whispered within himself, if you slay your son, how can God keep his promise to you that your seed shall be as many as the stars of heaven? And he answered that suggestion by saying to himself, the Lord will see to it. And then he went on upon that painful journey and the suggestion must have come up again. How will you meet Sarah? When you return home having stained your hands with the blood of her son, how will you meet your neighbors when they hear that Abraham, the faithful man of God, the follower of Yahweh, who professes to be such a holy man, has just killed his son? And the same answer sustained his heart. Jehovah will see to it. Jehovah will see to it. He will not fail in his word. Perhaps he will raise my son from the dead, but in some way or other, he will justify my obedience to him and vindicate his own command. Jehovah will see to it. This, Spurgeon says, discharged every mistrustful thought. You see, Abraham's whole heart was saturated with this idea that the Lord will see to it, the Lord will see to it. Put yourself in those shoes because I think that we go through maybe not the same kind of affliction but similar wrestlings and battles with our mind and our heart as we are confronted with dark providences, as we are confronted with afflictions, as we are confronted with sadness, as we are confronted with depression. My family and I went and saw the new Spider-Man movie last night. I'm not gonna spoil anything, but there was this scene where Spider-Man was fighting three enemies at the same time, and I'm just like, this poor guy, can't get a break. And I thought, that's kind of really like life, You're fighting battles on multiple fronts, right? It's never just one thing, it's many things. It's not like Spider-Man can say, excuse you guys, can you two go sit in the penalty box while I deal with this one guy, because he's a lot. Oh yeah, we'll just go sit in the penalty box and we'll wait until you get done with this guy. No. The world, the flesh, and the devil, they assault us. Depression attacks us. Failures haunt us. And as we're confronted with affliction, we must no doubt allow the controlling thought that ruled Abraham's mind and soul to rule ours as well. Like Abraham, it will be an epic struggle, but this is something I never want you to forget. Nothing worth fighting for is easy. Have you ever experienced that? Nothing worth fighting for is easy. What is affliction? Affliction is misery. Affliction is an oppressed situation. Affliction is unrequited love. That is to say, one-sided love. Have you ever experienced that? painful loss, physical pain, emotional pain, rejection by others, not fitting in. Affliction has the potential to cause deep psychological and emotional anguish. And when afflictions confront us, one thing is absolutely certain, boys and girls, I want you to listen to this, and parents and adults, when affliction confronts us, one thing is absolutely certain, something is gonna get bulldozed. Something is going to get bulldozed. Let me give you four options of what's going to get bulldozed. When confliction affronts us, something's going to get bulldozed. Here's the first thing that's going to get bulldozed. People will get bulldozed by your rage. You lash out at those responsible for your affliction, even those not responsible for your affliction, including even those who are trying to help you in your affliction. Oftentimes, the affliction is still there once the bulldozer stops its destructive path. But that's one way we can respond to affliction. We can rage. We can strike out in anger. Anger never really solves anything, does it? What's the second way we can respond to affliction? The call to action that affliction incites can be bulldozed by apathy. You can ignore it. You can kick the can down the road and repeat. Ignore, kick the can down the road, repeat. And you just keep doing the same thing. And what you find is when you get there, it's exactly the same as when you left. We can ignore it. This is a naive approach. And I think it's fueled by a surprise at affliction. You're surprised by affliction. And beloved, we should not be surprised by affliction. Job says it well in Job 5, 6, and 7, for affliction does not come from the dust, nor does trouble sprout from the ground, but man is born to trouble as sparks fly upward. What we should be surprised at is that we're surprised at affliction. We should rather expect it. A third thing we can do when confronted with affliction, despair can bulldoze the joy and victory that can be found in the midst of affliction. We can give up. If you can't beat them, join them. I'm done. I'm not gonna try anymore. But finally, hope can bulldoze the threat and premature victory cry of affliction. But it's hard to remind yourself of hope when you're surrounded by such darkness, isn't it? And some of you are going through darknesses right now. Some of you have just come off of the tail end of darknesses. Some of you are going into a season of a dark providence. And I understand that there is a depression that feels like a darkness that will never lift. There is a succession of dark providences that make you feel like an elephant is sitting on your chest and you can't breathe. But I believe that in the moment, these are the things that Abraham was feeling with every step that he went up on Mount Moriah. He may have had three steps of doubt, and then one step of hope, and then 20 steps of despair, and two steps of hope, and then five steps of anger, and three steps of hope. Don't make him into a saint that he's not. Abraham was a real flesh and blood man. He had doubts, I promise you. I assure you he had doubts going up that hill. And you need to remember that and not have this grandiose view of the saints. I mean, just look at how many wives he had. There you go. He was a real flesh and blood sinner. Five steps of anger, three steps of hope, but we could say this, and this is why I think he's in the hall of faith and in Romans 4 as the father of the faithful, because he didn't stop fighting. And we must fight if we would overcome affliction. So let me give you two features of this bulldozing character of hope over affliction. Hope overcomes affliction, hope. And there's two features of it. Here's the first feature. I could say it in this phrase, hope never stops asking God to see. Hope never stops asking God to see. You could see this in verse 153, verse 158 and 159. Everybody wants to be seen, right? Well, one of the most common things that I encounter in my counseling, primarily marriage counseling, is that one of the spouses doesn't feel heard and doesn't feel seen and therefore they don't feel important. It's horrible when you don't feel seen. It's horrible when you feel irrelevant. It's horrible when you feel left out. It's horrible when you feel unloved. And it is a dangerous thing to feel unloved. And outside of God's covenantal love, you will never experience the archetype of love, the love to which every love strives to approximate, the love of God. But I want you to notice here that God looks and that's what the psalmist expects and that's why he cries out to him in verse 153, look on my affliction and deliver me. In other words, take note of my affliction, see how I suffer. How often in the life of God's people has God looked down and had compassion on his people. And having had compassion, he intervenes to redeem them. The children of Israel cry out in the house of slavery and he saves them. The tribes of Israel cry out under the oppression of a tribal warlord and God saves them by sending judges. And on and on it goes. And one of the things that God delights to do is He delights to put us in cliffhangers. He delights to put us in places where it's to the very end and you think that all hope is gone and then He comes and He saves, or He sends that check in the mail, or He takes away that cancer, or He just does things that makes Him and His glory get put on display. And so often when God looks down upon the pitiable state of His people, the scripture tells us that He remembered His covenant. He will save, and He will do it for His glory, He will do it for His word, He will do it for His renowned, and thankfully at His elect, we benefit from it. God does the same for people today in His time and in His way. What He says in 154a is what we can say today, plead my cause and redeem me. In other words, argue my case. Redeem me. Never forget that we have an advocate, beloved, in Jesus Christ. He is an advocate who daily, I'm sure, listens to the accusations of Satan against you. You have far more to worry about in the accusations of Satan against you before the bar of judgment than you do about the accusations of people today who slander and accuse you. I promise you of that. You have far more to worry about in the accusations of Satan. And what we are to expect from our advocate in heaven is this, he hears all the accusations and he warrants none of them because of what he has done. And so we can ask him and expect him to plead our case before the bar of judgment. But I want to go on to say this, God uses affliction to teach us at least three things. Because sometimes we must remember it's the broad scope of redemption that God has in mind when He sovereignly sends affliction our way. So three things that affliction teaches us. First, very simple, God sometimes enlists affliction as a teacher to show us that this world is not our rest, but our exercise for rest. This world is not our rest, but our exercise for rest. When you have those thorns, It reminds you this is not it, and it reminds you to shed the theology of glory and to embrace the theology of the cross. Secondly, affliction teaches us this, if we would call out to the covenantal Lord in our affliction, we should do so as the covenant people acquainted with and determined to carry out His covenant code in our lives. And we see this in the attitude of the psalmist in 153b. I do not forget your law. And then later in verse 159, consider how I love your precepts. So redeem me plain by case for I do not forget your law. Consider how I love your precepts. He's not saying do all these things because I do this. He's saying I'm doing the things that attend to the life of a child of God who treasures you in their heart because of what you have done for them. Calvin says, if then we will have God to hear us, we must have His law, as it were, fully settled in our hearts. Charles Bridges says this, the consciousness that we do not forget His law is our plea, that He would consider our affliction and deliver us, and is of itself an evidence that the affliction has performed its appointed work. So when we have been delivered from affliction by the Lord, then the next time it comes, we are more inclined to anticipate the same. So such an ardent dependence on the Lord has a consequence that can be dangerous, but in itself is natural and wholesome. We find repugnant the blatant, defiant, rebellious actions of those who name the name of Yahweh. Look at verse 158. I look at the faithless with disgust because they do not keep your commands. Now, this word faithless, it's a very specific word in the Hebrew. And it basically means treacherous. It basically means covenant breakers. He's not talking about pagans here. He's talking about fellow Israelites who name the name of Yahweh and do not live according to His law. And we should not try to shield this. We should not try to Soften the blow of this. We've encountered this many times in Psalm 119. There is a holy disgust of those who do not submit themselves to the Lord. Those who do not keep the commands of the Lord. But I want to say this. These are not God's people who are weak and struggling. These are those of God's people who are defiant and rebellious and there's a big difference between the two. And sometimes it's not always apparent. Sometimes you got to get in there and ask hard questions and spend time with people to figure it out. But now secondly, and finally as we wrap up here tonight, hope never stops asking God to revive The word should really here be translated revive in verse 154, plead my cause and redeem me, give me life according to your promise, that phrase give me life, we see it three times, 154, 156, 159, it should really be translated revive. We're talking of course of the revival of affections in the soul, the revival of hope, the revival of desire, the revival of faith, the revival of strength, the revival of resolve to keep fighting and never give up. And I want you to notice, what it is according to, verse 154. Revive me according to your promise. I just want to quote verse 50 here. I know this is not part of our section, but listen to this. This is my comfort and my affliction that your promises give me life. This is my comfort and my affliction that your promises give me life. So what do we see the psalmist doing and what should you do in affliction? In the mix of affliction, go back to the promises of God and they will refresh your soul. They will refresh your heart and they will refresh your hope. But secondly, Revive me according to your rules, 156. And here I just want to read verse 92. If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. See, in our affliction, beloved, we can find comfort in the law, which is a mirror of who we really are. The law is a mirror of who we really are. Sometimes people read the Sermon on the Mount, and they're like, oh, these are all the things that we have to do. No, beloved, the Sermon on the Mount is who you are. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those who forgive. This is who you are. Yes, sometimes we have to work harder than other days to do it, but if you are a new creation, this is who you are. And so when you look into the law, you see who you are positionally in Christ and who you are as you strive to keep the law in your sanctification. And then also, revive me according to your steadfast love. This is that blessed covenantal word, chesed, God's love is steadfast even when I act faithlessly and do not keep His commands. God's love is steadfast when I do not seek His statutes. God's love is steadfast when I forget His law, not because I have done these things, but because these things are blips and they're not the prevailing disposition of my life, because God has made me a lover of His law, and yet I'm still beset with the flesh. But then also he says in verse 156, "...revive me according to your great mercy." He doesn't literally say that, but I just want you to notice the juxtaposition between verses 156 and 157, because you have the same Hebrew word here, which means many multiplied much. Verse 156, "'Great is your mercy, O Lord! Give me life according to your rules.'" And then look at 157, "'Many,' or you could say, great, or many, "'are my persecutors and my adversaries, but I do not swerve from your testimonies.'" How many times has God allowed the deck to be stacked against His people with regard to numbers? This required God's people to trust not in themselves, but in God, and then God overcomes. You talk about numbers. What about Gideon's 300? Nobody thought that that would go well, and how did it turn out? You talk about numbers. One angel to kill 180,000 Assyrians. We were just reading this the other night with the boys. Jesus read Isaiah in the synagogue and had the audacity to say, today this is fulfilled in your presence. And what did they do? They didn't cheer him. They ran him outside a big crowd and tried to throw him off a bluff. There were more numbers than Jesus, and what did he do? He just slipped past them. The Lord exalts and rejoices and is glorified to defy the odds. Great are my persecutors, great are my adversaries. That's fine. Great is the mercy of the Lord. Great is the mercy of the Lord. Sometimes our woes and afflictions are self-afflicted. We fret over what we do not control. And if we do not control, we cannot get the desired outcome. Has that ever been you? Have you ever thought about the real possibility that that just may be a mercy from the Lord, that you don't get what you want? Have you ever thought about the real possibility that not controlling everything is a mercy of the Lord? I mean, beloved, I cringe at how I would mess things up if I got everything that I want. It's one of the reasons I bless God that we have a plurality of elders. I don't want to be the only guy making decisions. That scares me. I bless God that I'm not the only one raising my children. That would scare me. God strikes balance in the order of things, but he also strikes balance in your afflictions, beloved. And his mercies come in surprising packages. The Lord knows us so well that He knows that if we controlled everything that that might destroy us. He knows what would puff up pride. He knows that the pride, what it would do to you. So instead of letting you have what you think you want out of His tender mercy, He withholds it. And what a mercy it is to let God be God. It's futile to do otherwise. And just respond to the afflictions with the mercy He has given us in the moment. And is this not what Jesus did? We think of another cry of affliction, Psalm 22, as the psalmist is prefiguring what Christ is going to say in so many words. Many bulls encompass me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me. They open wide their mouths at me like a ravening and roaring lion. But then he says later in verse 19, But you, O Lord, do not be far off. O you, my help, come quickly to my aid. You see, beloved, the way of the Savior is the way of affliction. Do not be surprised at your affliction, but know this. You do not need to despair in affliction. You do not need to rage in affliction. You do not need to give up in a puff of apathy in affliction. You can overcome affliction with the bulldozer of hope. the hope that is exhibited here in the psalmist, the hope that was exhibited by our Lord who set his face like a flint to Jerusalem. If we put our trust in God, follow the example of our Lord, and then the last word will not be affliction. The last word that will close this now time, this present age, will be, well done, my good and faithful servant. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you that we are not left alone in affliction. We thank you, Father, that you are kind to give to your people words. We thank you, Father, that you do see us, you see to it, you provide. And Father, forgive us when, as silly children, We get angry when you do not provide in the way that we think you should provide. Forgive us when, as silly children, you don't provide in the timeline in which we think you should provide. Forgive us, Father, when we are being pressed and ground down in the crucible that we think that You're not in control and that we could do better, but help us, Father, in the midst of affliction to embrace the affliction as from You and to trust that You will deliver us from that affliction in Your time. And in the meantime, we need only be faithful to You. Give us grace to do it. In Christ's name, amen.