The temptation and the refuge.
"Will the Lord cast off?" Here is a soul passing through the very valley of the shadow of death, yet coming out again into the sunshine of God's loving kindness and truth. As Christian, in Bunyan's allegory, could not distinguish the whisperings of evil spirits from his own thoughts, so the bitter questions the psalmist records here as almost overturning his faith, may well have been temptations of the evil one. Whatever their source, there could be but one antidote, one refuge. From his dark thoughts and tormenting doubts of God he turns to the actual facts of God's past dealings, and stays his fainting faith on God's eternal faithfulness.
I. THE TEMPTATION. Perhaps the severest trial to which a believer can be exposed is the temptation to entertain hard, unthankful, unbelieving thoughts of God. This is like cutting off the anchor in the tempest.
1. This temptation may spring from heavy affliction; unusual in nature or duration, and so aggravated by contrast; or unlooked for, like a bolt out of a clear sky; or just what we have prayed to be spared and laboured to avoid.
2. Or from remembrance of special sins. Conscience wakes, as if refreshed with sleep. We lose sight of the cross, and see only the Law we have broken and the judgment we are on our way to meet.
3. Or from mental depression; spiritual darkness; the sense of desertion, and loss of all the joy of God's salvation and comfort of promises. Often this has its secret source in bodily weakness or disease, but is none the less hard to bear, and needs spiritual as well as bodily remedies.
II. THE REFUGE AND DELIVERANCE FROM THIS AWFUL TEMPTATION.
1. In the conviction that the source of our trouble is in our own weakness, not in any failure of God's loving kindness. "I said, This is my infirmity."
2. In calling to mind God's past mercies. This psalm opens with a note of faith (Psalms 77:1). Literally, "My voice [is] unto God, and I will cry; my voice [was] unto God, and he gave ear to me." Then Psalms 77:2-4 record Asaph's sleepless, weary trouble. This thought, that his trouble came from God, instead of a consolation, seemed an aggravation of his woe. Then he began to think of God's past goodness—his own past joy in God. Can God change or prove unfaithful? Impossible! Only my own weak, faithless heart can suggest such a thought. If such a time of trial assails any of us, let us remember: