This «Psalm of Asaph» has a mournful tone in it; at times the writer is in the deeps; but we may be quite sure that be will end the Psalm cheerfully because he begins it with prayer. No matter what sorrow falls to your lot, if you can pray, you will rise out of it. When Jonah went to the bottoms of the mountains, in the belly of the fish, and took to praying, it was well with him. If thou, dear troubled soul, canst but pray, thou needest not despair.
Psalms 77:1. I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice; and he gave ear unto me.
You see, he cried, and he cried again, and at his second call the door of mercy was opened to him. God sometimes makes petitioners wait that they may become more earnest, and that they may really feel the value of the thing they are seeking. So Asaph says, «I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice.» That is the way to get the blessing. You will often find, dear friends, that it helps you to pray if you use your voice in prayer; there is no necessity to speak, you can pray without the use of the lips; but it often helps your thoughts if you are able to express them aloud.
Psalms 77:2. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted.
He could not sleep, so he took to prayer. Which is the greater mercy, prayer or sleep, I cannot say. In the psalmist's case, I should suppose that prayer just then was better than sleep. His trouble so pressed upon him, that it gave him no respite whatever, so all through the night he continued to cry unto the Lord.
Psalms 77:3. I remembered God, and was troubled:
God is the fountain of all comfort, yet there are times when even a godly man can find no comfort in God. Asaph perhaps remembered the dark side of God's attributes. Justice seemed to stand over him with a drawn sword.
Holiness frowned upon him. Power threatened to crush him. Truth stood up to condemn him. He could not find any comfort, even in his God.
Psalms 77:3. I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah.
He was covered right up, like a ship that has gone down in deep water: «I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed Selah.» Whenever you see this word, «Selah,» it means lift up the notes; tune up the strings of the harp; get the mind and heart ready for something in a rather different strain.
Psalms 77:4. Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
You thought that the psalmist was going to say, «I cannot sleep.» He has given up the attempt to do that, so now he tries to talk; but utterance fails him. Shallow brooks sound as they flow, but deep griefs are still; and a man may be so troubled in heart that he cannot speak; he can only explain his sorrow by groaning and tears.
Psalms 77:5-6. I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times. I call to remembrance my song in the night. I commune with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search.
He looked back into the records of ancient history to see if God did ever forsake a praying man. He thought upon his own experience, and he recollected how, when it was night with him before, God made him to sing like a nightingale, in the darkness; so he asks himself, «Has God changed? Will he give me no songs now? Will he leave me to perish?» Thus have the best of men, in their sore troubles, had to put to themselves solemn questions, and they have not always been able to answer them.
Psalms 77:7-9. Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fall for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.
If you are a child of God, yet never had to ask these questions, you ought to be very grateful; but if you have to ask them, be very thankful that Asaph asked them before you; and believe that, as he had a comfortable answer to them, so shall you. It is always a comfort when you can see the footprints of another man in the mire and the slough, for if that man passed through unharmed, so may you, for his God shall also be your Helper. But only think of this inspired psalmist, this sweet singer of Israel, being so troubled and broken in spirit that he says, «Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies?»
Psalms 77:10. And I said, This is my infirmity:
«This is a trouble appointed to me, I must bear it.» Or, «This is because of the weakness of my faith. God has not changed; it is I who have changed.
‘This is my infirmity.'»
Psalms 77:10. But I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.
«I will remember what God has done with that right hand of his. I will remember when I used to sit at his right hand. «'What peaceful hours I then enjoyed!
How sweet their memory still!
But now I find an aching void
The world can never fill.'»
It is a good thing to make a record of your experiences when they are sweet; you may want that record one of these days. I do not believe in keeping a diary always, for one is apt to put down more than may be true; but there are times of special mercy when I would say, «Write that down for a memorial, and keep it by you, for the day may come when that record will minister comfort to you.»
Psalms 77:11-12. I will remember the works of the LORD: surely I will remember thy wonders of old. I will meditate also of all thy work,
«I will not have any more of my works; I will meditate on thy work. I will get to thee, my God, and think of what thou hast done; especially of thy works of grace, how brightly they shine! I will meditate also of all thy work,»
Psalms 77:12-13. And talk of thy doings. Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary:
Or, «is in holiness.» God's way is sometimes in the sea, but it is always a holy way. God never deals with his people, or with any of his creatures, unjustly or unrighteously. «I cannot trace God,» said Luther once, «but I can trust him;» and from that saying of his we have coined the phrase, «To trust him when you cannot trace him.» When you are unable to see God's footprints because he rides upon the storm, yet still say, «Thy way, O God, is in holiness.»
Psalms 77:13-14. Who is so great a God as our God? Thou art the God that doest wonders: thou hast declared thy strength among the people.
See how the psalmist comforts himself with what God had done; and he went right back to the Red Sea for his illustration. Somehow, God's people in the olden times always liked to sing the song of Moses; by a kind of instinct, they thought of the Red Sea, as if to remember the redemption that God wrought out for his people when he destroyed Pharaoh and all his host. Let us go there, too, and think of the Red Sea of our Saviour's blood where all our sins were drowned.
Psalms 77:15-17. Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph Selah. The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they were afraid: the depths also were troubled. The clouds poured out water: the skies sent out a sound: thine arrows also went abroad.
I suppose that there was a storm at the time of the passage of the Red Sea, so that the deep-mouthed thunder spoke to the quaking heart of Pharaoh, while the flashing lightnings set the heavens on flame, and made Egypt's chivalry tremble as the horse and his rider went down into the sea.
Psalms 77:18-19. The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook. Thy way is in the sea,
Where you cannot see his footprints; «in the sea,» where there seems to be no way at all, there God makes a highway. Are you in such trouble, dear friend, that you cannot see the possibility of escape? Remember this verse: «Thy way is in the sea,»
Psalms 77:19-20. And thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known. Thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
There the Psalm stops, just when you thought there was more to be said. The Holy Spirit knows how to leave off, and he closes abruptly with a sublimity seldom equaled. God's people need to know no more than this, that God is leading them. Asaph does not say that Moses and Aaron led them: «Thou leddest thy people.» Moses and Aaron were only the Lord's servants and under-shepherds: «Thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.» May he be ever our Leader! Amen.