When You Lose Touch 1975

Okay, I'd like to have us do something a little different from what we've been doing right along. I want to base what I believe the Lord has given for a message today on Psalm 42 and 43, which really is one psalm together. And I believe it would be helpful, since it's in our hymnal, if you turn to page 177 in the hymnal, and those who don't have the hymnal or would prefer not to read, that's fine, just listen.

But I'm going to ask if we'll read this together and consider it, and then it may be also helpful for those who want to pursue it further to take that psalm when you get home and consider it some more. We're going to read Psalm 42 and then go right into Psalm 43, which 43 is just a few verses, and as you'll see, it belongs to 42. Page 177, way in the front of the red book.

As the heart patted after the water broke, so patted did my soul after thee. Bob was saying in the Sunday school lesson this morning that the basic thing is our relationship with God. And everything else hinges on that.

You can be doing all kinds of wonderful things, but if your relationship with God is sick, everything you do, when it's all said and done and the surface is scraped off and you get down to the root, it's sick too. And so often we work on the externals instead of getting down to the thing that really matters. Now as long as our relationship with God seems to be thriving, our prayers are getting answered, we feel his nearness, we even see God's timing in our circumstances, it's hard for us to imagine that anything could ever happen to dampen this marvelous communion which we're experiencing.

But our relationship with God has two sides to it. It has God's side and then it has our side. It's almost as if you were up on top of the Penobscot building or City National, whatever they call it now, and you lost your balance.

And down you go over the edge and your friend grabs you by the hand and he can hold on as tightly as he wants to. As long as you grip that hand too, you're okay. But once you allow yourself to slip out of his grip, you relax your grip, there's nothing he can do.

Now God's grip is certain and sure, and I don't deny for the ones who are involved here in internal security that God has other ways of getting down underneath you if you slip. He'll come down and catch you somehow, that's all true. But God's grip is solid, his heart is steadfast, and nothing changes with him.

See, but our side of the relationship is fragile. It just takes a little too much success in our own minds. A couple sloppy days of ease, some prayerless times, or some bad turn of events, and right away we've lost track of God completely.

Don't even know where he is. Now God wants us to not only understand how he can grip us, but he also wants to teach us how to hang on to him with our will. What kind of relationship is this if I just stand here and God holds me like a stick? There has to be something in my heart and will which responds to his heart and will toward me, so that when I wake up one day and discover that my relationship with God is wrong, something's missing, God isn't there anymore it seems.

What I do about that is very important. It's part of my learning how to stay with God. When I wake up one day and find myself apparently cut off, I've lost touch, what I do about that will either put me into a slump that will go for months, perhaps even for a lifetime, or will bring me right back up on the road with God stronger than ever.

Now when we wake up and feel that we have somehow been estranged, cut off from God, we are tempted usually to think that we're the only one who ever went through this. Nobody understands my desolation. And what a comfort it is to find in Psalm 42, 43 that a saint of God centuries ago knew exactly what we were going through because he or she went through it and put it into words.

Three thousand years ago, almost, some man of God or woman of God, some child of God, loved God, trusted God, woke up one day and found himself out of touch and described what it's like. When you wake up and find yourself out of touch with God, the first thing that you experience, that you feel, is cast out. Estranged, first of all, cut off from God himself.

Oh God, why hast thou forgotten me? Why hast thou cast me off? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? You were so close to me and now that inner feeling, that wonderful sense of your communion with me is gone. And I'm desolate. Not only do we feel cut off from God, but we also feel cut off from man.

There's an alienation from other human beings. My tears have been my meat day and night while they continually say to me, Where is your God? As a sword in my bones. My enemies reproach me.

While daily they say to me, Where's your God? And we begin to experience a wall coming up that we can't see. It's like invisible cotton that seems to cut us off from everybody. Nobody understands me.

Nobody gets through to me, and I seem to have no power to get through to them either. The next thing we experience is a disquietude. We're disquieted within.

Unsettled, uneasy, nervous, upset. I had something and now it's gone. And where did it go? And how are they going to live without it? When a mother has a little child and she's in the shopping center, she's shopping, and while she's busy trying to get her credit cards out of her purse, you know, the kid's gone.

She forgets about the credit cards, the purse, and everything else, and has no peace until she finds her child. If a father is separated from his family in a war, or a famine, or an earthquake, he has no peace until he finds his way back to them. And likewise, that inner room in our lives, which was once inhabited by God, when we walk into that room one day and look at the throne and it's empty, there is no peace.

We're disquieted. We're unsettled. Everything is wrong until somehow we find our way back to the place where the Spirit of God once again sits on that throne.

We're disquieted. We're upset inside. The next thing we experience when we find ourselves cut off from God is overwhelmed.

You know, all thy waves and thy billows have rolled over me. Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts. Any of us who have been, you know, bathing in the ocean and along comes this great big wave, there's absolutely nothing you can do about a big wave when it knocks you down.

It, you know, just smears your face in the sand or it can crack your skull against a rock. There's no power you have. Now as long as God was at my side and in my heart, no wave was that big.

I could take anything that came. But isn't it strange that as soon as that sense of God's presence is gone, even the little waves become giant. And nothing seems to be... I can't cope with any of it anymore.

Nothing seems smaller anymore. Everything's big. If our child is sick or we have a setback at work or we get a flat tire, something goes wrong with a car, your brother-in-law doesn't talk to you anymore, this goes wrong, that goes wrong.

Everything's too much. It can't be handled. Now when we find ourselves out of touch with God, we have a choice.

We can either lie down and wallow in it, and there are people sitting here, no doubt, who have been wallowing in it for a long time. You can still go through the motions of being a believer, still say the right things, you know, and nobody knows but you and God, but you know, that you've given up long ago. You're just wallowing in this until you sink, until you finally drown.

Or you can get up and do something. There may be those among us who've been wallowing in this, you know, and just walking around in desolation, cast down and disquieted within, and overwhelmed by everything for years and years. There may be those among us who just tasted that experience for the first time last week.

But in this song, there's help if we want it. And the first thing that we need to do if we want to find our way back into touch with God is ask our soul, how did it get that way? Did God really withdraw from me? Or did I withdraw my hope from God? And the strange thing, if you're up at the top of the Penobscot building and you lose your grip or you let go of your grip and you start to fall, the thing about God is He's not helpless up there, you know, watching you plop at the bottom. But He immediately comes down after you.

And all the way down, His hand is always right there. All you have to do is grab it. And immediately He holds it.

And that holds good until the age of grace, until you hit the sidewalk. At any point, if you want to, you can take hold. But first you have to ask your soul, why it is that way.

Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, get home! For I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of thy confidence and my God. Get this, even if it isn't in my heart yet, get it in my head, that it is not God who let go of me, but I let go of Him. And if I want to, I can grab this.

At any point, the second thing I need to do, if I want to come back into touch with God, is remember clearly in my mind and heart that though I have changed, I go up and down and round and round, God remains the same. Always the same, and God is always mercy. Amazing, in the middle of this psalm, with all these complaints, we read in verse 8 of 42, Yet the Lord will command His loving kindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me.

He's there! All the time He's there. Now when you take hold of somebody's hand, you shake hands, you know, sometimes they really grab it, you know, and you feel their heart. And sometimes you grab it, you think you got ahold of a dead fish.

You know, sometimes when you kiss your wife, she's there, and sometimes she isn't. Sometimes when she kisses you, you're there, and sometimes you're not. But God is always there.

Always! And how important it is for me to know that His mercy remains the same. His loving kindness He commands in the daytime, it's there all through the day, and in the nighttime His song is. And it's important for me to apprehend that with my mind until finally it sinks down into my heart.

The third thing that we do if we want to really come back into touch with God is start telling God how we really feel. Oh, but God knows how I feel already. Why should I have to tell Him? But He wants us to tell Him.

It's important for us to tell Him. I will say unto God, my rock, why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? For thou art the God of my strength, why dost thou cast me off? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? Lord, you're my rock, but I sure don't feel anything right now. You've forgotten about me.

My enemies are making fun of me. People come up to me and say, where is your God? And I have nothing to say, nothing to do but weep. Lord, you're my strength, but I sure don't feel any presence now.

I don't see any evidence of this at all. And somebody says, wait a minute, you're not supposed to talk to God like that. That's how He talks.

And He doesn't talk with self-pity. Get that. It's very important.

He's not just, oh, after all I did for God, I went to Sunday school all my life, and look at this, He let this happen to me. Not that. But you tell God what's really there.

It's far more pleasing to God for you to tell Him what's on your heart than to pretend that everything's hunky-dory and you're griping underneath all the time. Far better for you to tell Him what's really there. Really say it.

It's better than to moan and groan inside your heart. And after you have told God how you feel, and if it takes you three weeks to get it out, keep going until it's all out, all in, then the next thing you do is ask for light. Show me the way, Lord.

Lord God, I need your help. Oh, send out thy light and thy truth. Let them lead me.

Let them bring me unto thy holy hill and to thy tabernacle. Isn't it amazing? We can be depressed for months and months and some of us for years and years, and all we ever do is whimper once in a while and bleat occasionally and complain a great deal and mumble under our breath, and yet through all this depression, we never come around to the place where aggressively and relentlessly we began asking God for light. Lord, show me.

We do everything except that, almost that we know instinctively that if we ask God for light, we're going to get it, and then we won't be able to sit around and wallow in our self-pity anymore. Ask Him for light. Ask Him.

If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give light, the Holy Spirit, to those who ask Him? You ask Him for bread, you're not going to get a stone. You ask Him for a fish, you're not going to get a scorpion. You'll get light.

Oh, yeah, but God walked out that door. I haven't seen Him for years. When have you gone to the door and called? Oh, but the door's closed.

Well, then knock on it and ask, and you shall receive. Finally, when the light comes, and it always does, and you don't have to wait six months for it, the final step that we take is to go to God's altar. Again, amazing to me how the Sunday School lessons tie in.

Bob was talking about the altar of God all through the morning in the Sunday School class, and this is what he says here in the psalms. The Spirit of God is helping us. Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy.

Yea, upon the hearth will I praise thee, O God my God. Go to the altar. Where's the altar? The altar is the place where the sacrifice has been made, where the blood has been shed, where the atonement is, where the Lamb of God hangs as a sign of God's mercy for you.

As you know, we don't have a, we don't make a kind of a routine of having altar calls here. In fact, I have a personal problem with trying to in any way manipulate people. You know, there are ways this can be done.

Anybody who works with groups of people can figure out ways to get results. You can make them do this and you can make them do that, but the minute you do that, you're no longer treating them with any kind of respect under God. But it does happen, and it will happen again, that as people sense the calling of God, they get things right again and come to the altar.

Not everybody does it. Some do it sitting in their pews, and some do it in their bedrooms, and some do it down by the river, but there are those who will find themselves kneeling at this rail. And when they're kneeling at this rail, they have come not just to that altar sitting there, but what they have done is respond to the call of the Spirit, and as they do, God wipes away time and space, and they find themselves kneeling before the cross of Calvary, and from the side of the Lamb of God comes blood, and it flows out to them and washes their sins.

Then comes water. The Spirit of God flows out to them and renews their minds. Their eyes open, and they begin to see God.

Come to the altar. Don't go to Capernaum looking for signs and wonders. Don't go to Gadara trying to get exorcism.

There are those who think that, you know, casting out demons will solve everything. The place we need to go first and foremost and last of all is the altar. All the time, the altar of God.

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Look unto Him and be saved. All the ends of the earth.

There you will behold what God has done for you, and it will be utterly impossible for you to anymore feel alienated, cut off from God. Not when you behold the extreme mercy which God has shown you. How can you feel cut off and cast out? And at the altar, it will no longer be possible for you to feel cut off from your fellow men, because as the mercy of God begins to fill your heart, that mercy begins to then govern your heart and your attitude towards people.

And my friend, when you have mercy in your heart to your fellow man, you can't possibly feel alienated from him or her. They may be angry with you. They may be, you know, cut off from you in their hearts, but you're not cut off from them, not when you're filled with mercy.

At Calvary, you will also find that it's impossible for you anymore to feel disquieted within, because you will discover and receive once again that thing which you had lost, God's peace. Peace with God, peace with brothers and sisters and all men, peace with your past as it gets covered with the blood, and peace with your future as you see that it's in God's hands. You will have God's peace, and you will begin to praise him, who is your joy and your strength, your God.

Finally, at the altar, you will find that you will no longer be overwhelmed. How can you be overwhelmed? The burden that made you feel overwhelmed by every little wave that came along is now lifted off your shoulders and placed on the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, and you stand free. Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy.

Yea, upon the heart will I praise him, O God, my God. One of the most important lessons we need to learn, all of us, is what to do when we find ourselves and feel that we are cut off from God. Too many of us have spent far too many days, and some of us far too many years, walking around, cast down, disquieted, and overwhelmed when, in a matter of minutes, or at the very most, a matter of hours, at any point we wanted to, we could have turned and begun to find our way to the place where we will be able to praise God in the midst of all our troubles.

May God help us through his Spirit, even this day, to realize that there's no excuse anymore for us to be cast down and disquieted and overwhelmed, not while God's loving kindness is with us in the daytime and his song is with us all night long, not while God sends out his light and his truth to lead us to his holy hill, and not while that altar, which is on the holy hill, has the Son of the Lamb, the Son of God, the Lamb, hanging there on the cross, beckoning us to come and receive peace. If you're doing all right with God right now, may the Lord help us to remember these things that are in this song at the moment when we need it. And to those among us who are having a rough time right now and are really feeling cut off, may we right now, by God's grace, yield to the wooing, encouraging, drawing power of God's Spirit as he calls us to come to his altar and find peace.

Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy. Yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God, my God. O Christ, thou Lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us, and cause that mercy which you have to be so evident, so clear, and so real that not one of us in this place today may be able to walk away from it.

Lord God, draw us to your side, draw us to yourself, draw us into your very heart, and satisfy the emptiness within us with your peace. Before we leave this place today, we ask it for your mercy's sake. Amen.