Where Is God?

Psalm 10 “Where Is God?”

Questions are a fascinating part of language and human interaction. Think about this profound question that has haunted people throughout the years: are we there yet? While parents can easily answer that question, there is a time in every child’s life when they begin to ask not who, what, when, where, but WHY. Why do I have to obey?

The quest to find out the why’s in life does not end with childhood. Children and adults both ask WHY to what happens in life. This is not a modern question either. People thousands of years ago were asking why…not just of their parents, but of God. Questioning God is normal part of the Christian life. The psalms make that abundantly clear. Psalm 10 is one psalm that guides us in how to correctly question God.

Let’s catch up to where we are now in the book of Psalms. Psalms 1 and 2: everything is right in the world. The righteous flourish, the wicked perish. God’s anointed king reigns. Psalms 3-7: all this comes crashing down. There is disorder and confusion in the world. In Psalm 8, we come up for air and pull in a deep breath of the majesty of God. God did create a glorious world. God did make humans to live on and take care of the earth. Yet, humans in their weakness and sin trample the glory of God. The wicked trample on God’s people. Psalms 9-14 display the folly and sin of humans. That’s the section we find ourselves in this evening. When we come the vending machine of life and find it out of order, what do we do? When we have these questions for God, what do we say?

Read Psalm 10

Psalm 10 divides into 4 parts:

Verse 1: the question
Verses 2-11: the wicked
Verses 12-15: the prayer
Verses 16-18: our God

Since we are talking in part about questions this evening, I’ll put these points as questions.

1. Where is God? Vs 1

In the mind of the psalmist, God is far away. From his perspective, God has hidden himself. The question is: WHY? WHERE ARE YOU GOD?! The Bible clearly states that God is everywhere. We cannot hide from his presence. But sometimes it seems like God is far away. Why? Because life is crushing you. Because evil people have pushed you over and now are kicking at you. If God is God, then why is life this way?

Let me make 2 statements about verse 1:

1. It is OK to feel like God is distant
2. It is OK to question God

When feel like God is distant, we must still seek him by faith. We will see that at the end of this psalm. When we question God, we ask the questions in a way that lead us TO God. Questioning God should not be something you do in a library, but something you do on your knees. The questions are asked OF God: directed to him. Biblical questioning is part of the struggle of faith.

I’ll give the ending away: the psalmist does not get his question answered But he gets something better than that.

2. Who are the wicked? (vs 2-11)

Verses 2-11 are taken up by the description of the wicked. These verses explain why the psalmist is questioning God. I’ve arranged the description of the wicked into 3 categories.

A. The wicked destroy the poor
The poor are the needy or the afflicted of the righteous. They are hotly pursued by the wicked: vs 2. In verses 8-9, the wicked lie in ambush for the needy, like a lion waiting for its prey. The helpless are crushed and fall before the wicked. It’s bad news out there for the needy and the poor. This world has people who are just evil. They are not nice. We ask God why because evil people hurt us.

B. The wicked deny God
Vs 4- the wicked are proud. God is not in his thoughts. Vs 11- They think that God has forgotten, that he doesn’t see. This is not an atheist. This is worse. A person who acknowledges that there is a God, but rejects and curses God. He acts likes God will not come to judge. We ask God why because we are surrounded by people who deny God.

C. The wicked get their desires
Vs 3- the wicked boasts of his heart’s desire. Verse 5- The KJV has “his ways are grievous.” A better translation would be: “his ways always prosper.” Vs 6- he feels completely safe and stable in life. He doesn’t give a care about trouble in the future. We ask God why because it seems like the wicked get all the good stuff, and we get none.

I know some of you have Facebook. And most all of you are familiar with how it works. Basically, Facebook is a place where your friends talk about the best parts of their lives which you compare to the worst parts of your life. Actually, there was a study done that correlated usage of Facebook with discontentment. The more a person viewed (not posted on) Facebook, the more they were discontent.

If the wicked were on Facebook in Psalm 10, they would post something like this:
“Ah, enjoying a typical Saturday afternoon on my yacht with some magnificent wine and cheese we picked up from out stop on the coast of France.” The needy person would be viewing this status from their parent’s basement because their house just burned down.

Life often feels like the wicked people have the best life, while followers of Christ have the worst possible things happen to them. This is a perspective issue if we think this way. We are only seeing this earth. We forget about the perspective of heaven.

What is the answer to this? Prayer.

3. What should we pray? (vs 12-15)
Many of the psalms include cries to God for help. How specifically do we pray when our perspective is all messed up?

A. Rely on God’s work
The first thing to note about this prayer is that God MUST act. Arise, O Lord! We saw this same cry in Psalm 9, verse 19. Do something, God! Work on my behalf. Lift up your hand: do justice. Vs 15- break the arm of the wicked: take away his strength. Get rid of wickedness. We must pray for God to act even though we may wait until the final judgement for him to answer fully.

B. Confront the lies of the wicked
Verses 12-14 especially counter the lies that the wicked spout. Vs 12- the prayer “forget not the humble” looks back to vs 11: the wicked say “God has forgotten.” Vs 14- God does see. Contrast that with vs 11- the wicked things that God has hidden his face and does not see. The helpless person who is crushed by the wicked in vs 2 and 10- these are the people helped by God- vs 14

When we view life from the world’s perspective, it is like looking into a carnival mirror. Things are completely out of proportion. Unlike a carnival mirror, it isn’t funny. Prayer is a way we undo the distortion of sin and the world and regain God’s perspective. We ask God to act instead of focusing on the wicked. We pray the truth of God’s Word back to Him. This helps us cling to the promises of Scripture and to the God who made those promises. God does see. He will defend the helpless.

4. Who is God? (16-18)
As the psalmist regains perspective, he focuses on who God is and what he will do. He doesn’t get his question answered: why do you stand far of, O Lord? But he does get something better: God himself.

A. God is King
On the earth, it looks like the wicked are ruling, but in reality, God is. Nothing can overturn God’s rule as King.

B. God will answer
The wicked boasted about their desire (vs 3). But God hears the desires of our hearts. He will strengthen our hearts and listen to us. That’s what we really need. We don’t the prosperity of the wicked…we need strength for our hearts.

C. God will judge
We’ve encountered God as judge a number of times in the psalms so far. God not only takes care of evil, he defends and cares for the weakest in society.

Application:

1. Remember the truth
The perspective of verses 16-18 is helpful for us when life out of perspective for whatever reason. Spiritual confusion, friend, tragedy, suffering of the body or the soul. In these times, our theology—what we believe about God—must be simple but deep. Vs 16: The Lord is King forever and ever. The theology that gets us through deep trials is often the simple yet profound truth about God. The truth you can hang on your wall: the Lord is King. Forever. Yes, we may need to explore the Scripture and expand our theology, but when there is spiritual confusion, we need the simple but powerful truth. God is King. Period. He reign goes on forever. “But why all this, Lord?” He answers: “I am King.” We bow before him and trust him.

2. Speak to yourself

We find in verses 12-18 the psalmist speaking the truth to himself.
Vs 14- But you do see
Vs 16- God is King
Vs 17- The Lord will hear and will strengthen

One part of regaining a heavenly perspective is talking to yourself. Other psalms expand on this idea, but it is worth mentioning here. The British preaches, Martin Lloyd-Jones, says this:

“The main trouble in this whole matter of spiritual depression in a sense is this, that we allow our self to talk to us instead of talking to our self. Am I just trying to be deliberately paradoxical? Far from it. This is the very essence of wisdom in this matter. Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?” -Martin Lloyd-Jones

Sometimes we’ve got to tell ourselves to shut up and speak the truth to ourselves. Instead of playing a running commentary on the woes of your life, pray to God and speak the truth to yourself. See psalms 42-43 for this.

I remember a few weeks after we got here, I was walking down the driveway to get the paper. At that point we all had been sick, Zachariah had forgotten how to sleep, and I felt like garbage. I was listening to myself mutter and complain. “Woe is me. I’ll never survive.” I stopped and told myself: I don’t care if you feel like garbage. God wants you to be faithful to him. God has not promised that you will always feel good. But God is good.

This is hard work. When it feels like God is far away, we come to him with questions. We tell him our perspective on life. “Lord, the evil are prospering, and I am suffering!” But we don’t stop there. We ask him to work. We remind ourselves of the truth of his word. And we express confidence that he will work.

3. Look to Christ
We must remember that Jesus Christ is acquainted with our suffering, and understands our confusion. Do you remember what Christ cried on the cross: My God, my God why have you forsaken me? The opening line of Psalm 22. When we feel like God is standing far away, we look to Jesus Christ, who was forsaken by God and asked “why?” We know why- he was forsaken for us, so that we would be welcomed by the Father and never forgotten. Jesus faced the worst abandonment possible and asked the deepest “why?” possible. For us. He conquered death and is reigning in glory. Because Christ went through the cross and was forsaken by God, we too can endure whatever cross God places upon our lives. We can endure times when it seems like God has forsaken us, because Christ went before us. He endured and conquered, so we can follow in his steps.