Opening illustration: One of the joys of being with kids is holding their hands. We do it to keep them safe while crossing the street, or to keep them from getting lost in a crowd. And whenever they stumble and lose their footing, we grab their little hands tighter to keep them from falling. That’s what God does for us. Inevitably there are stones and cracks that trip us up on the sidewalks of life. That’s why it’s easy to identify with the psalmist, who said, “My steps had nearly slipped” (Psalm 73: 2).
Let us catch up with the Psalmist and learn from his experience by turning to Psalm 73 …
Introduction: We all face a variety of issues that threaten to make us stumble. For the psalmist Asaph, seeing the prosperity of the wicked caused him to question the goodness of God. But God squeezed his hand and reassured him that, given the judgment of God, the wicked do not really prosper. True prosperity, the psalmist discovered, was found in the fact that God was always with him: “You hold me by my right hand” (v.23). And just for good measure, God reminded him that He would also guide him through life and ultimately welcome him home to heaven (v.24). And be his strength forever (v. 26). How good is that!
What do we learn as God hold’s our hand during trying times?
1. Amazing grace of God (v. 23) ~
This verse contains the two precious mercies of communion and upholding, and as they were both given to one who confessed himself a fool, we also may hope to enjoy them. I am kept by thee in the land of the living; I am permitted to abide in thy presence; I am allowed to hope in thy mercy. Notwithstanding my low and unworthy views, notwithstanding my doubts about the justice of the divine administration, notwithstanding my envy at the prosperity of the wicked, and my spirit of complaining against God, I am not driven away from God; I am not banished from his presence, or cut off from his favor. Well may we marvel when we reflect on our thoughts about God, that He has not risen in his anger, and banished us from his presence forever and ever.
There is a note of amazement there ~ amazement over the unfailing grace and faithfulness of God. It is as if Asaph is looking back over his life and saying, "I wouldn’t expect this; I would expect that if God were as I am He would have quit with me long ago. Yet, nevertheless, beyond expectation, and to my utter amazement, God did not forsake me. Despite my rebellion, despite my questioning, despite my discontent with the Lord’s way, I am continually with God." Or, as he says, "Thou art continually with me."
He is saying to us, "I understand now the amazing and unbelievable truth that God never forsakes His own, even when they are the least deserving of His favor. He was constantly and continually with me. I was far from Him; I was distrusting; I was murmuring, sulking, as a spoiled child. Yet, never once did God remove His faithfulness from me." In fact the psalmist says, it was very intimate. "He held me by my right hand." The picture is of a little child who is afraid and stubborn and intent on his own way, and of a patient father who holds that child by the hand and keeps that child ~ the idea of tenderness and strength and wisdom. "The almighty God never once left me. Look wherever I can at my life’s pathway; always He held me by my hand."
And that is amazing because we slip, we stumble, we fall. We spend so many of our days living as beasts. We think that the only things of value are the things of the earth. We doubt God and question His ways with us. Yet God always is faithful. He keeps us in all of our sorrows and fears. He keeps us before death and the grave. There is never a moment that He refuses to own us as His children. He takes us up in the arms of His covenant. Let that lesson flood our souls, the lesson of the amazing grace of God. God never forsakes His own.
This is as an instance of condescension, respect, and familiarity; see Acts 23: 19, as a parent takes his child by the hand, and learns it to go, so the Lord takes his children by the hand, and teaches them to walk by faith in him, Hosea 11: 3 or in order to keep them from falling, and bear them up under temptations and exercises; as well as to lead them into more intimate communion with himself in his sanctuary, and to raise them up out of their low estate to an exalted one; see Isaiah 45:1, and likewise to put something into their hands, to supply their wants, and fill them with his good things; see Ezekiel 16: 49.
Illustration: A missionary on furlough told this true story while visiting his home church in Michigan, "While serving at a small field hospital in Africa, every two weeks I traveled by bicycle through the jungle to a nearby city for supplies. It was a journey of two days and required camping overnight at the halfway point. On one of these journeys, I arrived in the city where I planned to collect money from a bank, purchase medicine and supplies, and begin my two day journey back to the hospital. Upon arriving at the city, two men were fighting, and one was seriously injured. I treated his injuries and told him about Jesus Christ. I then traveled two days, camped overnight, and arrived back home without incident. Two weeks later I repeated my journey. When I arrived back at the city, I was approached by the young man I had treated. He told me he knew I carried money and medicines. He said "Some friends and I followed you into the jungle, knowing you would camp overnight. We planned to kill you and take your money and drugs. But just as we were about to jump your camp, we saw that you were surrounded by 26 armed guards!" At this I laughed and said that I certainly was all alone out in that jungle campsite. But the young man pressed the point, saying, "No Sir, I was not the only person to see the guards. My five friends also saw them, and we all counted them. It was because of those 26 armed guards that we were afraid and left you alone." At this point in his message, a man in the audience jumped to his feet and interrupted the missionary and asked the exact day that incident happened. The missionary told him - and the man excitedly told THIS story - "On the night of your incident in Africa, it was morning here, and I was preparing to play golf. I was about to tee off when I felt the urge to pray for you. In fact, the urging of the Holy Spirit was SO STRONG, I called men to meet me here to pray for you. "If you were here with me that day to pray please stand up?" The men who met together to pray stood up. The missionary wasn’t really concerned with whom they were - but he wept as he counted their number -You guessed it - there were 26!
2. Certain guidance of God for the future (v. 24) ~
With thy advice; with thy teaching. This implies two things:
(a) His belief that God “would” do this, notwithstanding his folly; and
(b) His purpose that God “should” be his guide now.
He would no longer murmur or complain, but would entrust all to God, and allow himself to be led as God should be pleased to direct him.
He is engaging in some holy reasoning. This is the reasoning behind it: Since God has shown His faithfulness in the past; since He has shown His amazing goodness to me in the past which never failed; therefore I may conclude and judge that He shall guide me in the future by His counsel and afterward receive me to glory.
Is there anything more wonderful than that? The psalmist tells us of the fact that our days in the future will be under the control of the wisdom of God. They will be directed by God without error to the appointed end of our glory. That life, then, is not left to chance. A believer does not simply meander through this present time, trying to make his own way in life. The psalmist is telling us that our life is not simply in the cards and that we should hope for the best. But we may have this assurance: God will guide us by His wonderful wisdom and counsel, and He will receive us to glory.
After You have led me along the path of the present life in the way in which You would have me to go, You will then receive me to Yourself in heaven - to a world where all shall be clear; where I shall never have any doubts in regard to thy being, to the justice of thy dispensations, or to the principles of thy government.
In those words God declares that He is God; that He is almighty; and that He shall ever be God unto us. He is not a God who is afar off, but He holds all things in His hands, and His hands guide according to His own heart. The hand of God directs us even as His heart has chosen and purposed for us. He will be our guide; He knows the way; He is able to keep us on that way. He loves us for His own name’s sake. What will happen to us in the future? What will be the stresses and demands that come to us in our lives? What sorrows and difficulties await us in the days that are before us? We do not know. But we do know this: God will guide us by His perfect counsel and wisdom and afterward He will receive us to glory. That is the goal.
Christians believe that "take me to *glory" here means "take me to *heaven". This is because only God has *real *glory and God’s home is *heaven. The word "*glory" means "something that shines very much".
Illustration: During the dark days of the American Revolution, when the Continental Army had experienced several setbacks, a farmer who lived near the battlefield approached Washington’s camp unheard. Suddenly his ears caught an earnest voice raised in agonizing prayer. On coming nearer he saw it was the great General, down on his knees in the snow, his cheeks wet with tears. He was asking God for assistance and guidance. The farmer crept away and returned home. He said to his family, “It’s going to be all right. We are going to win!” “What makes you think so?” his wife asked. “Well,” said the farmer, “I heard General Washington pray out in the woods today - such fervent prayer I have never heard. And God will surely hear and answer that kind of praying.”
3. Confess God as our only desire and strength when we go through suffering & trials (vs. 25–26) ~
Literally in Hebrew it means, “Who is to me in the heavens?” That is, There is no one there that in my love for him can be compared with thee; no one who can do for me what thou canst do; no one who can meet and satisfy the needs of my soul as thou canst; no one who can be to me what God “is” - what a God “must” be. After all my complaining and my doubts there is no one, not even in the heavens, who can supply the place of “God,” or be to me what God is; and the warm affections of my soul, therefore, are “really” toward him. I feel my need of him; and I must and do find my supreme happiness in him. What would even heaven be to me without God? Who there, even of the angels of light, could supply the place of God?
He is saying that he has learned through his sufferings to desire nothing but God. God is now everything to him. Having God, he finds that all of his wants cease. All I need is to be found in God and, having Him, I am satisfied. Is that true for you?
The psalmist has learned, then, not to expect earthly things or things of this present life to be the things which will satisfy him, but to look upon God personally as his satisfaction. He found in God complete sufficiency for every need, complete sufficiency for every hour and every duty that was placed before him. God was his all. And, having God, he knew that there was nothing that he could yet desire on earth. He was content in having God. Knowing God in all of His glory and greatness that satisfied him perfectly in this life.
God is all-sufficient; thou dost meet and satisfy the needs of my nature. All my happiness is in thee; no one on earth could be substituted in thy place, or be to me what thou art as God.
Is that true for you?
Our God remembers that we are on the earth and that we are frail and we are weak and that death passes upon us, so that the end of our earthly life is the grave and man is nothing but dust. Our flesh is weak. It is always plagued with the curse of sin and constantly it is decaying and heading towards the grave. Our earthly life is only like a shadow which is quickly passing. And our hearts faint within us. We can become overwhelmed with worries and with cares. Our hearts can become paralyzed with fears and doubts. We stagger, we faint, and our courage fails within us.
His heart and flesh have failed him already, and he had almost fallen; they would fail him in the hour of death, and, if he relied upon them, they would fail him at once. His God would not fail him, either as a protection or a joy. His heart would be kept up by divine love, and filled eternally with divine glory.
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever, says Asaph. The believer’s heart, then, is not weak, because God is the strength of his heart. God causes faith to keep our hearts beating. God preserves us by His wonderful Spirit so that we may say, our hope is on Yahweh stayed; in Him our hearts are joyful made; our help and shield is He. Our trust is in His holy name; Thy mercy, Lord, in faith we claim as we have hoped in Thee.
That is the beautiful word of God to us today.
The lessons that the psalmist learned, in the way of deep trial and suffering, he learned in such a way that they were riveted to his own heart. Those lessons were these: God’s amazing grace in which God never forsook him; God’s perfect guidance for all the future; and God as his only satisfaction and all-sufficient strength.
Illustration: Henry W. Grady was speaking on the greatness of America, and he said, “I have stood by Hampton Roads in Chesapeake Bay, and saw there deployed the great naval strength of America. And then, on the shore, the parading might of our armies. And as I looked at the navy and as I looked at the army, I said, ‘Surely the strength of America is to be found in its military and naval might.’” The great orator said he stood under the dome of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. And as he watched the processes of democracy he said, “Surely the greatness of America is to be found in its Senate, in its Congress, and in its legislative processes.” Then, he said, “Sometime later, I was the guest in a Georgia home, in a farm of an old friend that I knew from boyhood days. And at the end of the day, when the work was done, he gathered his family around him, opened God’s Holy Word and, after reading from God’s Bible, the family knelt in prayer.” And the great orator said, “As I knelt with my old friend and his family in the circle of that evening prayer, the great armies and navies of America faded away. The Capitol Building with its Senate and its Congress faded away. And there came to my heart the conviction that the strength of America is found only in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob whom we all need to worship.”
Conclusion: The Psalmist’s affliction, while unpleasant, had the beneficial effect of drawing him closer to God. While there was an initial reaction of bitterness and complaint, he finally came to the point of worship and praise. Now, rather than dwelling on what material things he lacked, he delighted in the greatest blessing of all - having God as an intimate counselor and guide, a present and a future source of comfort and security (vv. 23-26).
So, next time you stumble, remember that the powerful hand of God is holding your hand and walking you through life - all the way home! — Joe Stowell
Many things about tomorrow
I don’t seem to understand;
But I know who holds tomorrow
And I know who holds my hand. —Stanphill
Let God do the holding and you do the trusting.
