Arise, O God, Defend Your Cause

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Christianity teaches that, contra fatalism, suffering is overwhelming; contra Buddhism, suffering is real; contra karma, suffering is often unfair; but contra secularism, suffering is meaningful. There is a purpose to it, and if faced rightly, it can drive us like a nail deep into the love of God and into more stability and spiritual power than you can imagine.”

~Tim Keller

“God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.”

~Augustine

“Perhaps nothing helps us make the movement from our little selves to a larger world than remembering God in gratitude. Such a perspective puts God in view in all of life, not just in the moments we set aside for worship or spiritual disciplines. Not just in the moments when life seems easy.”

~Henri Nouwen

“Sometimes, to overcome a hurdle before us, we don’t need to search for new truth or understanding of God so much as we need to live out what we already know.”

~Amy Layne Litzelman

“To win the war against fear, we must know the true God as He is revealed in the Bible. He works to give us lasting peace. He receives joy, not from condemning us but in rescuing us from the devil.”

~Francis Frangipane

“Because God is the living God, He can hear; because He is a loving God, He will hear; because He is our covenant God, He has bound Himself to hear.”

~Charles Spurgeon

“The everlasting covenant which God has made with Jesus, and through Jesus with all His beloved people, individually, is a strong ground of consolation amidst the tremblings of human hope, the fluctuations of creature things, and the instability of all that earth calls good.”

~Octavius Winslow

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 74 (ESV)

A Maskil of Asaph
1 O God, why do you cast us off forever?
Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of
your pasture?
2 Remember your congregation, which you
have purchased of old,
which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your
heritage!
Remember Mount Zion, where you have dwelt.
3 Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins;
the enemy has destroyed everything in the
sanctuary!
4 Your foes have roared in the midst of your
meeting place;
they set up their own signs for signs.
5 They were like those who swing axes
in a forest of trees.
6 And all its carved wood
they broke down with hatchets and hammers.
7 They set your sanctuary on fire;
they profaned the dwelling place of your name,
bringing it down to the ground.
8 They said to themselves,
“We will utterly subdue them”;
they burned all the meeting places of God
in the land.
9 We do not see our signs;
there is no longer any prophet,
and there is none among us who knows how long.
10 How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?
Is the enemy to revile your name forever?
11 Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?
Take it from the fold of your garment
and destroy them!
12 Yet God my King is from of old,
working salvation in the midst of the earth.
13 You divided the sea by your might;
you broke the heads of the sea monsters
on the waters.
14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
you gave him as food for the creatures
of the wilderness.
15 You split open springs and brooks;
you dried up ever-flowing streams.
16 Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you have established the heavenly lights
and the sun.
17 You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth;
you have made summer and winter.
18 Remember this, O LORD, how the enemy scoffs,
and a foolish people reviles your name.
19 Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild
beasts;
do not forget the life of your poor forever.
20 Have regard for the covenant,
for the dark places of the land are full of the
habitations of violence.
21 Let not the downtrodden turn back in shame;
let the poor and needy praise your name.
22 Arise, O God, defend your cause;
remember how the foolish scoff at you all the day!
23 Do not forget the clamor of your foes,
the uproar of those who rise against you,
which goes up continually!