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Psalm 10. Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? In arrogance, the wicked hotly pursue the poor; let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised. For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul, and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord. In the pride of his face, the wicked does not seek Him; all his thoughts are, "There is no God."

His ways prosper at all times; the judgments are on high, out of his sight; as for all his foes, he puffs at them. He says in his heart, "I shall not be moved; throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity." His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression; under his tongue are mischief and iniquity. He sits in ambush in the villages; in hiding places, he murders the innocent. His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless; he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket; he lurks that he may seize the poor. He seizes the poor when he draws him into his net. The helpless are crushed, sink down, and fall by his might. He says in his heart, "God has forgotten; He has hidden His face; He will never see it."

Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up Your hand; forget not the afflicted. Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, "You will not call to account"? But You do see, for You note mischief and vexation, that You may take it into Your hands. To You, the helpless commits himself; You have been the helper of the fatherless. Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till You find none. The Lord is king forever and ever; the nations perish from His land.

O Lord, You hear the desire of the afflicted; You will strengthen their heart; You will incline Your ear to do justice to the fatherless and to the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.

Father, we come to You, the One who is Lord and King forever and ever. We pray that You would arise, O Lord, and come to aid us now as we look at Your word, that the words of the Psalmist would penetrate our hearts and bring confidence and comfort and strength to the weak and failing mind this morning. Thank You, O Lord, that You are our rock and our redeemer. We pray by the spirit of Your might that You would work in our hearts this moment, in Jesus' name, Amen.

The Psalm is a Psalm that has its perspective of a man who is looking upon hardship and suffering. Looking at times of trouble, he is challenged in how he is to process this information of much difficulty and hardship that is before him. His experience is not unique to him but is a common experience experienced by each one of us in various ways as trials and difficulties and hardships in life take on various forms for each one of us. But this common experience also raises a common question, particularly a common question for those who know the Lord. The experience that he is having is just a time of trouble ultimately. We'll look at it in a moment, but it's really just a time of trouble. A time of confusion because difficulty surrounds him, and he is looking at the prosperity of the wicked, and he is questioning, "Where are You, God?"

Trouble is always before us because, as it says in the book of Job, affliction does not come from the dust, nor does trouble sprout from the ground, but man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. What is certain, just as sparks coming out of a fire pit will shoot upward, and so certain is affliction and trouble for mankind. But Job had a question as well. The common experience of man, experienced by Job and experienced by us and experienced by the Psalmist, also was met with a common question in the life of Job, a man who suffered like no one else we could say in the Old Testament. The question that he had is the question that the Psalmist raises: "Where are You, God?" Job said these words in Job 23: "Behold, I go forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I do not perceive Him. On the left hand, when He is working, but I do not behold Him; He turns to the right hand, but I do not see Him. But He knows the way that I take; when He has tried me, I shall come out as gold. My foot has held fast to His steps; I have kept His way and have not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my portion of food. But He is unchangeable, and who can turn Him? What He desires, that He does. For He will complete what He appoints for me, and many such things are in His mind." That's the common question: "Where are You, God, in the midst of our suffering?" We look forward; we don't see You. We look to the left; it seems like we can't see You. Apparently, You're working on this side, but we don't perceive it to be so. This is the question of the Psalmist, a question of perplexity.

Verse number one of this chapter begins with this question: "Why, O Lord, do You stand far away? Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?" Standing far away, hiding Yourself. Don't jump too quickly onto the Psalmist here and attack him as if to say, "Don't you know your theology? God is everywhere. God is omnipresent. What do you mean 'far away'? What do you mean 'hide Yourself'?" "Where shall I go from Your Spirit? And where shall I flee from Your presence?" No, he does know his theology, and perhaps he knows it better than we know it. He understands that the presence of God is everywhere. Yes, God is omnipresent, but he also understands that God doesn't always choose to manifest His presence and to reveal His presence and to work in such a way as it manifests His power and might before us so that it is easily discernible by us.

And the Psalmist is not going to let this doctrine about the omnipresence of God keep him from being real with how he's experiencing God at this moment in his life. And I would encourage you to also think the same about that. His question is one of perplexity. It is not an irreverent challenge to God. He is not denying God's goodness. He is not denying God's character, His attributes as one who is omnipresent. Nor is he asking this question in cold unbelief. In fact, you could actually, from this question, derive some measure of confidence that the Psalmist here does believe God's near because he's speaking to Him. "Why are You so far away, O God?" Can't you see the faith in that? He doesn't believe God fails to now exist or that He's too far from his problem or that He doesn't see what's going on, but he is explaining and is describing and he is pouring out his heart to God as he's experiencing this dark providence that is coming upon him and that he's witnessing.

This is actually the soul essentially trying to wrestle and make sense of God's rule and activity in times of trouble. This is what's happening here. He's trying to make sense of God's rule and God's reign and God's activity in difficult times. For the Psalmist, the sun is eclipsed, and it's dark. He knows the sun is there. That is not what is the question. But he is not feeling and sensing the rays that come from the sun that warm his heart and helps us sense the nearness and the dearness and the benefits of the sun toward us. The glory of it is hidden in his eyes, and he feels none of it at this time of his life.

What is the particular trouble that the Psalmist is referring to? Well, it is the trouble that is caused by the wicked. In verse number two, he says this person, this wicked person, he pursues the poor, and he's arrogant. And all that he does is works towards people that are evil. He pursues the poor, verse number two. He's greedy for gain, verse number three. His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression, mischief and iniquity. In fact, this person sits in ambush, and he's a murderer. And what he does is that when he gets his hand on the helpless, he crushes the helpless. A wicked man. Concerned only about himself and only about his own pride and only about getting what he wants and desires. You say, "Well, that describes all of us in some way." Yes, it does. But it gets worse. Because this person, although he is so evil and so wicked in how he treats others, the Psalmist is saying this is what he thinks about you, God. "All his thoughts are, 'There is no God.'" He's an atheist. He doesn't believe in God. "There is no God." He lives as he pleases, does what he wants, steps on who he wants to step on to get what he wants.

And his words towards God are equally as evil as his thoughts. Says in the passage of scripture here in verse number six, he says in his heart, "I shall not be moved; throughout all generations, I shall not meet adversity." Well, no trouble is going to befall me, so he's the one that stirs up trouble for everyone, but thinks no trouble's coming his way. In verse number 11, he says in his heart, "God has forgotten; He has hidden His face; He will never see it." In verse number 13, he says, "Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, 'You will not call to account'?" He's a practical atheist. It's funny. He says there is no God, but then he goes on to say God won't call it to account. It's interesting, the inconsistency of atheism. You'll see it all the time. They curse a God that they do not apparently believe exists. They blame a God for evil in the world, and they do not believe exists. As one man said, this man's thoughts are essentially this: "There is no judgment. There is no judge." He's a proud tyrant who could be described like the kings of Tyre and Babylon in the books of Ezekiel and Isaiah that are likened to Satan, who is a tyrant, a proud tyrant who does what he wants and is lifted up in pride, and all his actions result in dark oppression.

Now, the biggest problem of this picture to the Psalmist is verse number 5. In verse number 5, he says this: "His ways prosper at all times." That's the biggest problem of the picture. There are people that hate God. There are people that are wicked. There are people that deny Him and say evil about Him and do evil toward others. But the biggest problem in this picture is that what the Psalmist perceives with his eyes that is troubling his heart, that is giving rise to the question of verse number 1, is that this person is prospering in his ways. And this is why he's concluding, "God, why do You stand far away, and why do You hide yourselves in times of trouble?" You can see how this is fueling right into that question. "God, why do You allow him to go on and live as he does? You made him; You sustain the creation, and with one word of Your breath, You could annihilate this person from the entire planet. What is going on here, God? Why are You so far away from this situation? It doesn't seem like You. Why do You allow him to do such things?"

Do you feel the pain of the Psalmist? You only have to watch the news this week, last week, to know exactly about that. A wicked man standing in ambush, shooting at the righteous, and Charlie Kirk dies. Leaves his wife and two young children. That's one person in one part of the world. What about the countless other people that are suffering? Children starving, the wicked prospering, believers being persecuted all over the world for their faith. When you watch the news, you see this hostility to Christ and the gospel, but they seem to be increasing with goods and wealth, and things are going well for them. The world leaders making decisions to destroy lives. Let's bring it a little bit closer to home. What about in your own life, in your own relationship? Do you feel the same way as the Psalmist sometimes? "You know, God, I am trying to live for You and honor You and please You, but all I get from my friends and from my family and from my children is hatred. They don't listen to my word; they don't care about me; they don't care about what I have to say." And God, I know that people are wicked, and I know the world is evil, but God, why do You stand so far off? "The king's heart is in Your hand, and You can turn it with us whoever You will." Your spouse, your children, your friends, your boss turns on you, and you look upon the situation, and you scratch your head thinking, "Okay, God, what is going on here?"

Or maybe just generally, you look at the wickedness of the spiritual forces of darkness in the world, and it seems that God has abandoned the earth to let Satan and his minions just take dominion over cities and towns and villages and workplaces and homes, and you think to yourself, "God, why are You standing so far away?" The problem in this passage is not the fact that there is trouble. This is not the problem that the Psalmist has. The problem that the Psalmist has is the seeming absence of God in the midst of trouble because he knows what God did to the Egyptians when they had the children of Israel in bondage, and he knows what God did in parting the Red Seas and leading His children down in dry land and then letting the waters come and destroy the wicked before their eyes. He knows the stories of the fathers that have gone before him, and he himself, if this is David, and we're not 100% sure, but he himself has seen the mighty hand of God working so that he slew Goliath with stones from a brook and a sling. The problem is the seeming absence of God.

Now, the Psalmist is not delirious. You can't accuse him of just saying he's just blind to what's really going on. You know what? In one sense, you might say he doesn't see it as clearly as he should see it, but he's not delirious. He's not denying his mind, intellect, and faculties. He's seeing what he's seeing. He's not going to say, "Well, that's not true wickedness," and downplay the wickedness. And neither is he going to say that God is executing perfect justice right now in these people's lives by destroying the wicked. He knows it will happen, but you can see the tension, right? He's describing things exactly as they appear, and he's not questioning God's authority. This is a man that is honestly living in tension between what he sees and hears versus what he believes about God's love and justice.

And I hope you felt some of that tension in your own heart and life as you honestly grapple with trials and afflictions in your life. He's not after selfish gain. He desires justice. Verse 2, he just wants the wicked to fall into their own schemes, which is something that God Himself says does happen to the wicked. He just wants God to do justice and judgment, which is something that God does do, that he actually takes confidence in at the end. He's not in it for selfish gain. In fact, you could actually argue that the wicked person here is not actually attacking him, but he's actually looking upon that wicked person attacking others, and he's troubled by how he's afflicting the poor.

But what the Psalmist does fail to comprehend is that the darkness and absence of God is a necessary part of God's purposes in the fallen world in which we live. I'll say this again: what he fails to comprehend, which so many of us do fail to comprehend, is that the darkness and absence of God, or the seeming absence of God, is a necessary part of God's purposes in a fallen world. God is showing man you can't have heaven without God. So God hides Himself. God stands afar off to show man that you can't have heaven without Me. You understand that? Heaven is a place where there is no evil. It is a place where God's presence and glory shines perfectly, where there is never the question that will arise in the hearts of anybody, "Where is God?" and it never seems in any way, shape, or form that God is standing far away. Why? Because there's no evil, and there is no wicked. But the darkness and absence of God is a necessary part of God's purposes in a fallen world to show man you can't have heaven without Me and that the ramifications and the consequences of sin are great, and they spread to every part of the world, to the hearts of every person, and no one escapes, not even the righteous. No one escapes the harsh realities of sin in a fallen world. That's why all of us will die one day. God allows evil to magnify justice and to magnify mercy. By allowing the wicked to go on, He shows that He's a merciful God. But also, as the wicked goes on and stores up wrath for the day of wrath, the full justice of God will be on display like never before in that day.

But He also allows the wicked to prosper in his ways to draw us nearer to God so that we can do what the Psalmist does and begin praying. Doesn't trials have a way of doing that? It has a way of shaping our prayer lives, has a way of deepening our dependence upon God, it has a way of awakening us out of our apathy and out of our lethargy towards the things of God and seeing that I need You, God, where are You? Do something. It produces in the people of God a longing for heaven that we are called to have that we so often do not have because we're comfortable. God allows the wicked to prosper and for evil things to happen to the righteous to fulfill His purposes of grace in us, to teach us forbearance so that we might know of His forbearance, to teach us of patient waiting and trusting, and to wean us from this world. How often both hands are clutched onto the things of this world, and we just headlong into the affairs of this life until God sends a trial into our lives, and we think to ourselves, well, I need You, God. Where are You, God? It's amazing when things are going well, we're not saying, "Where are You, God?" even though we're forgetting about Him. But when trouble comes in, God teaches us and fulfills His purposes of His grace in us to remind us of our need for Him, to wean us from this world, and to remind us of the futility and fallenness of this world, and so that He might conform His people to the image of His Son.

You see, God's answer: God is more concerned about our holiness than He is about our comfort. And God wants to work righteousness in His people and holiness in His people, and He uses a refining fire of trials to do that. And I would argue that He even withdraws His presence from us, or the experience of His presence, to also do that. I love what C.H. Spurgeon said; he said, "Should the parent comfort his child while he's correcting him? If he did that, where would be the use of chastening? A smiling face and a rod are not fit companions. God bears the back that the blow may be felt, for it is only felt affliction which can become blessed affliction. If we were carried in the arms of God over every stream, where would be the trial and where the experience which trouble is meant to teach us?"

I'm going to be honest with you, the reasons for the absence of God in the presence of affliction, the reasons I just gave you, are general. And the answer is always general. Because God is sovereign, and He is over all, and His ways are past finding out, and He is not under any obligation to tell us why He's bringing particular trials and what particular grace He's trying to work into our lives and what particular thing that He's trying to do in the world. He is not accountable to us so as to need to inform us so that we can be satisfied with Him and therefore say "Okay, God, yeah, I know You're doing a good job there." You see, this was part of the problem with Job, wasn't it? He starts off really well, but his "why" question, which is similar to the Psalmist's question, just continues on for a little bit too long and starts going places where it shouldn't go, and he starts saying things that he shouldn't really technically be saying, and feeling things that go beyond the truth and the revelation of God. So much so that when he began, as it were, questioning God to that extent, God showed up in His mighty power, and God put Job on trial, saying, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the world? Come on and tell me."

Amazingly, in the discourse that God has with Job, by the end of it, and in the entire book, God never tells Job why he's suffering the way he's suffering. What is the message of the story of Job? The righteous will suffer, but listen, God is sovereign, and He has purposes, and He's not obliged to share them with us. So I confess that the question somewhat remains still unanswered. "Why, O God, do You stand far away, and why do You hold Yourself in times of trouble?" It's still sort of unanswered. I give you the general principles for which it could probably fall into one of these categories, of course, but the experience of the Psalmist is real, and he's feeling what he's feeling. And so the Psalmist does the right thing in responding to this absence of God in the trials and afflictions. He doesn't put God on trial, but neither does it become fatalistic. You know what that looks like? "What will be is what will be. And all I got to do is bite my teeth and let the storm pass, and that's it. You know, God's ordained everything, whatever comes to pass, and therefore He is sovereign, so you know what, He doesn't need me, so you know what, I shouldn't even bother about praying. It's all just going to happen as He said, and the best thing to do is just grit your teeth and hang in there tooth and nail." Nope, he doesn't do that. He doesn't think what I do doesn't matter. That's not his attitude in this trial, and neither does he sit there trying to work it out like many of us do. Endless musings. "Ah, God is sovereign. Ah, yes, this bombing happened here. This many problems happened here. The children died there. This situation happened here. This problem in my life happened here. Ah, I want to work out exactly what God's doing. He's doing this to do this to do this to do this to get that end." No, he doesn't do that. He doesn't muse upon the endless possibilities of the potential purposes of God, speculating about what God might want to do and what He might do and should do and all these kinds of things, as if he's trying to justify God to himself because he's struggling with it. No, he struggles with it. And let me just say this to you: it is okay to struggle with it, and we should struggle with it. It's part of the mystery of God's sovereignty and providence. That God brings dark clouds of providence into our lives to teach us lessons and to work grace in our lives that we may not see yet now, and neither may we know the good of it until eternity. And we've got to be comfortable with that.

The Psalmist responds, rather though, instead of doing all these things, with a cry of faith and a remembrance of who God is. To me, he prays one of the most beautiful prayers ever recorded in the scripture. His prayer begins with "why, O God, why, O God." It delineates into a discussion or a detailed description, or should I say, of the wicked. But he doesn't end his prayer after the description of the wicked, and he says, "Okay, well, God, I just got to deal with this. I'm done with it. I'm sick of praying. It's too hard for me." He continues to pray, and he prays a request of requests in Psalm 10:12, "Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up Your hand; forget not the afflicted." "Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up Your hand." Once again, but God's always working. You see what happens in our brains here? Why pray, "God, lift up Your hand"? No, this is what he sees. He knows this about the character of God. He knows this about the power of God, and he knows the answer to the wicked and the answer to this problem is that God would arise.

It could be literally translated as, "God, do something. God, You got to act. Far away, draw near, O God. You're hiding Yourself; make bare and reveal Your arm. Arise; don't forget the afflicted." He goes on to even request later on here, "Break the arm of the wicked," in verse 15. Don't you love that? "Lift up Your arm, lift up Your hand, and break the arm of the wicked." He's not talking about breaking the literal bones of the arm of the wicked person. He's talking about dismantling his power. "Cause his power to cease in what he is doing against Your will and work."

And then he goes on to say, "God, call this man to account." Verse 15, "Call him to account. Call his wickedness to account," I love it, "till You find none." What that means is, every wicked deed and thought, judge every one of them until there is no more to be judged in his life. Justice. He wants to see God's arm displayed in His holy justice. And the request that he makes, the most glorious request for God to arise, for God to lift up His hand, and to forget not the afflicted, is built upon confidence in God's goodness. You see, although he understands that this is a sense of the absence of God, he doesn't deny that goodness of God. And so often we do that, don't we? The absence of God, we start questioning His goodness. What the Psalmist is doing is he goes, "I know that there's this absence, there's this sense in which You're far away, and I know the wicked is prospering in his works, but that does not mean You're not good, God." And so what he does is he tells the Lord to arise and to make bare His arm and to work righteousness, but then he remembers God's goodness.

Verse 14, look what he says, "But You do see, for You note mischief and vexation, that You may take it into Your hands. To the helpless commits himself; You have been the helper of the fatherless." What the Psalmist is doing here is saying, "God, although You seem far away, You're seeing everything that's happening, and more than this, God, You're taking notes, as it were, and one day, and You will take these things into Your hands, and You will work justice, and You will destroy the wicked." "I know You will." And then he points in verse 14 to the fact that God doesn't fail, and He hasn't failed. He says, "You do see; You do know mischief, that You may take it into Your hands, but even the helpless commits himself to You, and You have been the helper of the fatherless." He reminds himself, "God, You have been; You have done this before; You have been the helper of the fatherless; You have seen the poor and the afflicted, and You have rescued them time and time again. God, I know You're good, and I know You feel and seem far away, but I know You see, and I know You will act, and I know that You are good, and that Your purposes ultimately work together for good to them that love You."

You have been the helper of the fatherless, and if there's anything that he reminds himself that is most comforting, it's in Psalm 10:17, "O Lord, You hear the desire of the afflicted." He could say, "God, You hear the prayer of the afflicted," and you could say, "Yeah, the prayer and the desire are one and the same." I would go beyond that and say, no, He hears the desire of the afflicted. Sometimes you feel like you can't pray in the middle of such a deep trial and affliction, but you have no words for God. God sees the desire of the afflicted. "Your Father knows what you have need of before you even ask Him." "God, You're not indifferent to our desires, even though You seem far away," and this request is also built on the sovereignty of God because he says in Psalm 10:16, "The Lord is king forever and ever; the nations perish from His land." You know what he's reminding himself of and praying to God and speaking to God and exalting God of? He's basically saying, "God, we are observing the reign of the wicked from verses 2 to 11, and we're seeing the wicked reign, but we will never forget Your reign. The wicked has his day, but his day will come to an end. You, O Lord, are king forever and ever." And so the wicked may go on for a time, but Lord, You go on for eternity. His purposes may endure for a month, or for a year, or for 20 years, or for 80 years, or for 100 years, but Lord, Your purposes will outlast his and overpower his, and the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever. "God is sovereign." The Psalmist reminds himself, "Their rule ends, but the truth is, O God, that we have received a kingdom that will not be shaken by the wicked, and we pray, 'Your kingdom come, and Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,' and we believe it so, O God. That the kingdom of this earth, which man has taken into his hand and Satan has so perverted and corrupted and worked evil and wickedness, Lord, this world is Yours. You will redeem it. Your purposes will outlast the wicked, and one day we will know that what happens on earth will be as it happens in heaven. The whole world will be submitted to Your reign. Your purposes are eternal. They're not subject to our time frames, and this is where faith has its tension, doesn't it? This is where the Psalmist has to find himself, and he has to be comfortable laying in that quiet corner of this rock and shelter by which he is sheltered by God. He understands that God is sovereign and yes, He's on the throne, but he sees what he sees, and so he's like, "God, I know Your purposes are both now and not yet, but they will be."

The one word that describes this kind of faith is the word "wait." "Wait on the Lord." This is the kind of faltering faith that the disciples struggled with, didn't they? Time and time again, the storms happening, "Lord Jesus, don't You care that we perish?" The One who sent the storm is going to still the storm. But worse, it happened to them again when they looked at the gruesome arrest of the Savior who was going to die a deadly, gruesome death on Calvary's mountain. And the disciples struggled to see by faith through the darkness of Calvary to the dawning of the resurrection. They come to a point in their life and experience as they come to arrest Jesus in the garden, and they're probably saying to themselves, "What on earth is going on? Wasn't this the King, the One that was meant to overthrow the enemies, and now is being arrested? The Pharisees and the scribes, we heard Him say to them that He's King and He is Lord, and that the kingdom of God is going to endure forever, and now the King is being arrested. He's being put on trial, He's being spat out, He's being beaten, He's being bruised, He's being nailed to a cross, and He's suffering a gruesome death, the death of a criminal when He commits no sin. Have the powers of darkness prevailed? Has God forsaken us? But people came back from the cross telling us that Jesus said, 'My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?' He said, 'God, why are You far off?' Is this it? Is it over? Why is God hiding Himself?"

Little did they know, as they cowered, as it were, in that upper room out of fear and fled from the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, little did they know that all through the darkness of the night, and the sun was darkened, and the suffering of our Savior was seen by all, all through the dark of the night, God's purposes were unfolding in such a way that the effects and change would change the entire universe forevermore. A redemption of man, a redemption of the created order, a destruction of Satan, and the power of darkness being crippled once and for all, and appointed to the lake of fire where the devil will be forever and ever, all because of the dark night of the cross.

They couldn't see the dawning of the resurrection through the darkness of Calvary, but the wonderful thing about it is the Lord heard the prayer, "Lord, arise. Oh God, lift up Your hand," and on the first day of the week, God arose and lifted up His hand and raised His Son Jesus from the dead. He did not forget the afflicted, and He enthroned Him as King forever and ever, and gave Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Do you feel that God's forsaken you? Do you feel like God's forsaken the world in which we live? Oh, helpless one, do what the Psalmist says. Commit yourself to Him. Oh, questioning one, don't be silent. Let your "why" be met with "Lord, arise. Oh God, lift up Your hand." Oh, doubting one, turn your doubting into faith and call upon the name of your God. Remember that the Lord hears your desire. He will do justice. He will break the arm of the evildoer, and your trial, which is but for a moment, will work for you an exceeding eternal weight of glory if you but look to God and trust in Him and lean upon Him.

Your enemy, the devil, it may be people, individuals, whatever it may be, it is ultimately pointing back to Satan's work in the world, in the hearts of those around us, and he is, as it were, thwarting what you're desiring to do, and you feel like it is not happening, and you're asking, "Where is God?" Remember, God has not forgotten the afflicted. He looks at your family. He looks at you. He looks at your life. He sees you in your struggle with sin, and the answer is not to run away from God. Neither is to be fatalistic, but to call upon His name and to remind yourself of the goodness of God, which never fails.

And this is what the church should do. As a whole, when she sees the estate of the church in the world today, the cry of revival is this cry, "Arise, O God, arise, Lord. Oh God, lift up Your hand." That is the cry of revival. That is to say, "God, there is wickedness in the house of God. Lord, there is wickedness among the churches of God. Lord, there is an apathy which burns and causes our hearts to yearn in the house of God, and Lord, there is such a darkness out there that we don't know what to do with it, and God, You seem so far away with the church of Jesus Christ triumph in darkness." The church should respond to that by saying, "God, revive us again. God, arise."

The problem is many of us don't have boldness with God like this anymore. We would feel somewhat irreverent to say, "God, arise." Well, it's the devil, but it will be your flesh at the same time saying to you, "What is God sleeping, or what do you think about why are you asking God to arise?" No, this prayer is appropriate. And the more we allow our hearts to be deeply burdened by the sin around us and the sin within us, we would have more boldness to God, to come to Him and say, "God, do something. Act now, make bare Your arm. Save us, Your people, for we are afflicted." And God will. And God will.

Let us pray.