Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

It is always a shock when an innocent little child all of the sudden lets loose with a swear word, or some other sort of vulgar language.

We are startled because we had no idea the pollution of the world had seeped into their little mind.

We have the same emotion when we read the Bible, and all of the sudden we are hearing unbelievable words of doubt, despair, and all kinds of negative language of complaint.

It is the Holy Bible, and yet, the language at times sounds like it is coming from the gutter of unbelief.

It is like a sweet little innocent 4 year old talking like a pimp.

The Psalms are especially loaded with language that our Western ears find shocking and inappropriate.

The concept of praising God by means of complaining and gripping is one we cannot grasp very easily.

Yet, we cannot really value many of the Psalms unless we learn to enter into the Hebrew understanding of emotions and worship.

If I write a song to sing in our service that went like this:

Lord you just don't seem to care,

And you don't answer my prayer.

I'm feeling so low and in despair,

Because life is so very unfair.

You would think its been too long since my last vacation, and you would recommend I get away and rest my weary mind.

But the fact is, this kind of blues song was sung in the temple on a regular basis.

The Jews were really into the blues.

They sung about how they really felt, and they often felt down.

It was a Jewish conviction that all emotions should be expressed, and none should be suppressed.

They did not leave any feelings out of their songs just because they were negative feelings.

If they felt hate, they sang about hate.

If they felt depressed, they sang about depression.

If they felt God-forsaken, they sang about it, or if they felt God was not being fair, they sang their complaints to Him.

They sang how they felt, and they felt all the emotions, good and bad, and so they are all in their Psalms.

It is hard for us to buy into this.

We prefer to sing only the positive feelings, and go to therapy to deal with the negative ones.

The Jews had no therapists, and so they had to bring all their feelings to God.

God was the one they had to deal with to have mental health.

They had to get all their negative feelings out before God.

They had to lay all the cards on the table, and be open and completely honest before God.

Only a secure people can feel free to complain to God and sing about it in worship, or confront God with their complaints in prayer.

This sounds to us like being a rebel child, but the Psalms make it clear that it can be the way of the secure child that knows he or she is loved even if they do not understand God's ways, and tell Him so.

The more intimate the relationship, the more likely one feels free to complain without loss of love.

Children develop bad feelings toward their parents, and will on occasion blast out with words like I hate you, or your way of doing things stinks, I wish I had been born to other parents.

You can respond to these negative thoughts with a whip, or you can say, I'm glad you could be honest with your feelings.

Let's talk about them, and see why you feel that way.

Freedom of expression is a key way to keep a family sensitive to each other, and it can prevent long range resentments.

This does not mean that it is healthy to be ever complaining and shouting nasty words, but it means that there is a legitimate place for complaining and communicating negative emotions in the family.

A gripe session is not out of line for a Christian family.

It was not out of line for God's people even in church, for they knew how to praise God even in complaining.

Psalm 77 is one of these negative complaint type Psalms, and Asaph, who was apparently gifted at lamenting and complaining, has a whole series of pessimistic questions in verses 7 through 9.

1.

Will the Lord reject us forever?

2. Will He never show His favor again?

3. Has His unfailing love vanished forever?

4. Has His promise failed for all time?

5. Has God forgotten to be merciful?

6. Has He in anger withheld His compassion?

How is that for a half dozen depressing thoughts for the day?

Asaph is obviously not very high on the reading list for positive thinkers.

He is the patron saint of the pessimists.

It would be fascinating to hear the tune to which his gloomy message was sung.

It was not likely a very bouncy or lively piece, but more likely similar to a funeral chant.

We might have tough days when these awful questions enter our minds, but we don't want to sing about it in public, or call God's attention to such treasonous thoughts.

Who of us has not gone through a night like he describes here?

He has cried out to God, and there is no response.

It's like calling 911 and getting a busy signal.

The system seems to be ignoring my need.

God does not seem to care that I am at the breaking point.

The burden is crushing, and no one gives a hand.

God seems to be on vacation in some remote part of the universe, and is indifferent to my petty life and problems.

Have you ever complained to your mate after a restless night and said, "You kept me up all night with your coughing or snoring, or your tossing and turning?"

Most mates have done this at sometime or another.

But who of us has ever had the audacity of Asaph to blame God for a sleepless night?

In verse 4 he point blank fires these words at God: "You kept my eyes from closing."

In other words, it is your fault God that I didn't get a wink of sleep.

Asaph seems to have a gift for complaining to God.

He wrote a dozen of the Psalms: Psa.

50 and Psa.

73-83.

If you read them, you discover he was the expert in the complaint department, and a specialist in the art of pessimism.

He is the author of much of the blues songs in the temple of God.

He sings in Psa.

73 about almost losing his faith because God seems to care more about the ungodly than about him.

He felt that trying to obey God and live a good life was not rewarded anyway, so why not be like the wicked world?

In Psa.

74 he writes of the depressing picture of the days when the enemies of Israel came with axes and hatchets and smashed all the beautiful art in the sanctuary of God.

All of the places of worship were destroyed and burned to the ground.

And fools mocked God all day long.

Then he writes a couple of Psalms-75-76-that have more joy and praise mixed with the negatives of judgment.

But then he comes to 77, and all this complaint, and Psa.

78 is his masterpiece of pessimism.

It is the long history of all the stupid, rebellious failure of God's people that lead them to experience the wrath of God's judgment.

It is one of the longest of the Psalms, and full of the awful folly of God's people.

Asaph was not likely ever the life of the party.

He was Israel's pessimist par excellence.

How in the world could God's people allow Asaph to be one of their song writers?

And why would God allow this sort of thing to be a part of their hymnal that they used in their worship of Him?

They actually set this stuff to music and sang it to the Lord.

It is obvious that we have lost an awareness of how negative emotions can be a positive part of worship and praise.

We would never dream of looking for a person who is often depressed, and asking them to write out some of their feelings so we could sing them in the morning service.

The very idea would be anti-spiritual if we did not have so many examples in the Bible.

This is a Biblical pattern of worship far more frequently referred to and illustrated than dancing, lifting the hands, or speaking in tongues, but you don't hear of many groups who are bragging that we complain more in our worship than most others do, and so we are more Biblical than most other Christians who only rejoice in worship.

One of the most interesting revelations I have seen by studying the worship of the Bible is that there is unbelievable variety, and there is no body of Christians anywhere, that I am aware of, that uses all the Bible forms.

Everyone picks those that most fit their needs and comfort level, and ignore the rest.

The one we are looking at now, the praise through complaint, is probably the most universally ignored of all.

My interest is not to try and revive complaining to God, anymore than I want us to dance in the aisles.

My interest is in learning what values these complaining negative Psalms represent, so we can reap the benefits of those values in our personal life of devotion.

First, lets face the reality that every kind of personality can be used of God.

Asaph does not seem the type we would want to run our music program, but both David and Solomon chose him to be the chief singer and music director for the tabernacle and temple.

Almost all the music we have in the Bible was arranged by Asaph, and when he died his sons carried on the orchestral and choral arrangements.

He was the music man of the Old Testament.