Faith and Our Doubts

[00:00:03] Amen. [00:00:07] Well, let's pray. [00:00:11] Almighty God, your word is truth. [00:00:16] It is divinely revealed truth. [00:00:20] Your word ministers to us in our struggles, in our hardships. Your word reveals your character, the way of salvation, how to deal with life's struggles. So I pray, as we look at psalm 73 this morning, that your holy spirit would use your word preached wonderfully in great ways. And I seek the unction of your holy spirit in Jesus name. Amen. [00:00:51] Well, turn with me to our sermon text, which is psalm 73. [00:00:59] I understand you're going to have psalm 73 this evening as well. And had a little discussion with the two elders beforehand. And that's good repetition. That's how we learn. We don't need constant new and novel. We want God's word to get deep into our hearts and our souls. And what you're going to have this evening, I'm sure, is different than this morning. So if you think well this evening, psalm 73. I've already heard it all. No way. So be sure and attend and be blessed this evening as well. Psalm 73. Hear now God's word. [00:01:38] A psalm of asaph. [00:01:41] Truly, God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled. My steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no pangs until death. Their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are. They are not stricken like the rest of mankind. Therefore, pride is their necklace. Violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness. Their hearts overflow with follies. [00:02:23] They scoff and speak with malice. Loftily they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongues struts through the earth. [00:02:34] Therefore, his people turn back to them and find no fault in them. And they say, how can God know? Is there knowledge in the most high? Behold, these are the wicked, always at ease. They increase in riches. [00:02:50] All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning. If I had said I will speak thus, I would have betrayed the generation of your children. [00:03:07] But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task. Until I went into the sanctuary of God. Then I discerned their end. [00:03:20] Truly, you set them in slippery places. You make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment. Swept away utterly by the terrors. Like a dream when one awakes, o Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. [00:03:38] When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant. I was like a beast towards you. Nevertheless, I am continually with you. You hold my right hand, you guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from you shall perish. You put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works. You may be seated. [00:04:31] God's word truly is glorious, is it not? [00:04:40] Well, this morning is about a topic that I became interested in a few years ago, and that has to do with doubts. [00:04:51] Doubts about God, doubts about his character, doubts. Does he exist in all of the. We're not going to answer all those questions because the psalm has a specific area it's dealing with. But please understand this. [00:05:05] And as I looked into the topic of christians and doubting, one of the most startling things I discovered was all christians struggle with doubt. I at one time or another. It's that word all. I wasn't expecting. I was expecting many christians, some christians. And I always thought, well, there's those great spiritual giants who never struggle well. What I found consistently was the idea all christians struggle with doubt, struggle in their faith at one time or another. [00:05:39] And this is where scriptures like psalm 73 provides such help, such hope, such comfort. [00:05:48] You do not have to believe perfectly. [00:05:53] You can struggle with doubts. [00:05:56] Doubts are not unbelief. That was a big discovery of mine as well. Doubts are not unbelief. [00:06:03] You can struggle with doubt. And one of the great things we see here in psalm 73, and God will take hold of your right hand and he will see you through it all. [00:06:13] And that's a glorious truth. [00:06:16] So that's what we discover here in psalm 73. [00:06:20] Psalm 73 opens with a grand statement. Look right there, verse one. Truly God is good. And that's a point that many stumble over right there when they look around the world and they see evil. Truly God is good to Israel. [00:06:36] Grand statement of true of faith here. And actually the psalm ends with a beautiful statement of confidence in God. [00:06:46] But in the middle is a struggle. And Asaph here is very honest in psalm 73. Here we see that God sustained him through his doubts, through his wavering and again, verse 23 is what I'm going to key off of as the main point here to encourage us. Verse 23, Asaph says this is part of his conclusion. You hold my right hand. [00:07:11] Notice that statement is not about, I generate enough faith. I sustain my faith. You know, I, I, I know it's you. It's God centered. You hold my right hand like a, like a loving father taking their child through dangers and trials and tribulations. So, so Asaph came to realize that God was holding him securely by his right hand, even through, even during his struggles with doubt. [00:07:43] And here's even more encouragement. If you read through Hebrews chapter eleven, where you have that great, as it's sometimes called, hall of faith with all those great saints from the past who are commended for their incredible faith. If you read through Hebrews chapter eleven, you read of all those men and women commended for their faith. And if you go back to the Old Testament and read their stories, you'll discover they too struggled. [00:08:09] They struggled with doubts. They struggled with faith. And yet there they are, Hebrews chapter eleven, commended for their faith. God really does hold his people by their right hand. In fact, really, that's a covenant promise. [00:08:24] And so, like Asaph here in psalm 73, goddess held those struggling saints securely by the right hand, bringing them through their doubts, bringing them through their struggles into the great hall of faith. So take heart, even if you do struggle. And some people struggle, their whole christian life, others, it's only an experience. [00:08:48] Once in a while, maybe, but Christ will see you through. [00:08:52] Christ will see you through. I guess this is a part of the perseverance of the saints. Christ will see you through. And again, part of the hope here is, and even the help, the encouragement for us is verse 23, God is holding you by your right hand, just as he did with Asaph here in psalm 73. So let's begin with the author of this amazing psalm that so wonderfully ministers to us right there at the beginning, the superscription, if I remember what this is called, it's a psalm of asaph. That's the author, that's the one who, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, penned these words. And so the first thing to realize is that this psalm is a personal testimony of a great struggle, a great struggle with doubts. And yet it was written by somebody who is considered to be one of the spiritual giants of scripture. Think about it. Psalm 73, composed here by Asaphen. Well, King David had put Asaph in charge of the temple's worship music. [00:09:55] That is a huge, serious ministry position. [00:10:01] You don't give that over to just anybody. Asaph himself is famous for composing not only the very godly, hope filled psalm 73, but he also composed psalm 74 through 83, psalm 74 to 83, which attests to his great piety and how much God used him, even a man who had struggled with doubts. [00:10:27] And so we see here that even if you struggle with doubts, you're in good company and God will see you through. He holds you by your right hand. Now, turning to verse one, we encounter Asaph's. I'm going to call it his statement of faith here. It's a declaration of what he understood about God based upon biblical teaching. Truly, God is good. [00:10:56] That's a fact. [00:10:58] God is good. It's an attribute of God. And it was from this belief, it was from this starting point that God is good, from which Asaph then delves into his, his struggles with doubts. [00:11:11] It was from this point where he entered into his crisis of faith, that fact that God is good. And it's interesting to note that for many a believer, doubts can spring. And non believers, too, doubts can spring from this very attribute of God, from the fact that God is good. [00:11:29] And I like what he adds, though, to those who are pure in heartland. And that could be a whole other sermon or Sunday school lesson right there. But so to keep moving, here's what the crisis of faith, or here's what led to this crisis of faith. You may know the experience. It's a complaint often uttered. We look around us, we see the godless, we see evil people, and guess what? They're prospering. [00:12:00] And yet we know God is good, and we know God is sovereign and God is in control. And here they are prospering. And we look at our own lives and we look at our trials and we look at our hardships, and we can feel like we're getting the short end of the stick from God. [00:12:15] And as a result, we can begin to question, is God really good? Does God really love me? Am I saved? And, you know, the list is almost endless. [00:12:26] We begin to question God and what we have to remember at times like this. [00:12:31] As verse 23 says, God is holding us even then by the right hand. [00:12:38] Now Asaph gets specific here. He begins to describe what he saw, what happened to him in verses two to three. Here's the beginning of his description. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped, for I was envious of the wicked arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked, openly revealing his heart. It's incredible. In penning a song for all of Israel to sing at temple worship, no less. He openly reveals his struggle. Maybe we can learn from something from that as well. [00:13:19] He begins in verse two. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled. My steps of faith, of trust, had nearly slipped. [00:13:29] This is a crisis of faith that he's describing here. [00:13:34] You know, you can be walking along and you can think. You've got God all figured out. You've got the christian life all figured out. You've got the world all figured out because you have your bible. And then your foot trips on something that just doesn't fit and you stumble and your arms begin to flail and you feel like I'm going to fall. And you just can't seem to get a secure footing anymore. That can be what it's like to experience doubts and uncertainties. You encounter something, you look out, you encounter something in this fallen world, something you can't quite reconcile. That's what's going on here. Something you can't quite reconcile about God, what you know of him, and your trust loses its footing. And again your arms are flailing, you're trying to regain your balance, and you're afraid you're going to end up like Humpty Dumpty, having a great fall. And all the king's horses and all the king's men just can't put your faith together again. [00:14:37] And at those times, you need to remember, hopefully I've already repeated it enough as it is that God will see you through it all. It's a covenant promise, really, is what it is. He's holding you by your right hand. [00:14:53] So this is just an introduction to what happened to Asaph. This is what sent him into that crisis of faith. He looked, he saw the prospering and so forth, and he couldn't quite reconcile that whole problem. [00:15:08] But in fact, it wasn't simply a matter of not being able to reconcile God's goodness with the existence of evil. And that evil was even getting ahead. That evil was even prospering. It's verse three that really tripped him up. I saw the prosperity of the wicked. It's not just the existence of evil, it's that they were getting ahead. They were being blessed. In a sense, they were prospering. And remember verse one again. He knows God is good to his people. God blesses those who are in Christ. But then he looked at those who reject God, and he saw they were the ones getting all the goodies. [00:15:53] In other words, Asaph's heart could not process what he was observing in the world. Around him, his faith and understanding of God couldn't bring the disparity into harmony. How can God be a good God and not simply allow evil, but allow evil to be the ones prospering? [00:16:14] And as I was writing this, I kept picturing, I won't say his name, but one of the rich and famous people on his big yacht, where I've seen pictures of him on his yacht with beautiful young ladies and so forth, they're prospering. You know, even christians can struggle over this great question. How can I even believe that there's a God when such evil exists in the world? And again, they're the ones with all the goodies. It's as if they're experiencing heaven on earth. They're not really, but, but it can seem that way. So hopefully you can begin to see that spiritual doubting can occur when we're unable to process what we believe about God. God is good. That's a foundational truth with what we see and we experience around the world, around us. [00:17:04] Asaph's complaint can very easily be our own complaint. Today. [00:17:11] Listen to verses four to eight regarding the prosperity of the wicked. I'll add verse eleven here, for they have no pangs until death. Their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are. They're not stricken like the rest of mankind. Therefore, pride is their necklace. Violence covers them as a garment. They scoff and they speak with malice loftily. They threaten oppression. [00:17:45] When we look out at the world like Asaph did, and we see the wicked getting ahead, maybe living to long lives with very little hardship, very little illness, whatever it is, and we see the bad things that they're getting away with, well, that can really cause us to question God and experience a crisis and have doubts about God and his goodness and even does he exist. [00:18:13] And maybe you can feel like Asaph did in verses 13 to 14 and verse 16, where he says, after seeing all of this and going through a struggle, he says, all in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence for all day long I've been stricken all day long. I've been rebuked. I've been rebuked every morning. For when I thought how to understand this, it seemed a wearisome task. It seemed just to be too big for him to be able to put this all together. [00:18:49] But here we go again. In such struggles, what you need to remember is what Asaph concluded in verse 23. God will see you through this. God will see you through your struggles of faith, because he is holding you by your right hand. [00:19:07] And so when you experience such questions of doubts, you need to remember that doubts, they really and truly hit even the best of believers like Asaph here. [00:19:17] And it can especially happen when we look at how the world is getting away with what it's getting away with. [00:19:26] Remember psalm 73. Here is Asaph's own testimony. It's his testimony of his own experience of deep doubt. He's saying perhaps he even almost lost his faith, or at least he's giving up on pursuing holiness and godliness because his doubts were so big. And yet this is one of the authors of the book of psalms. [00:19:50] Let that sink in. It's this man who composed psalm 73 through. What did I say? Psalm 84. It's this man who composed this psalm which the church has sung since the days of King David. It's this very psalm which has some of the most treasured verses found in the book of psalms. Look at verses 25 and 26. Perhaps some of you have even memorized these two verses. [00:20:19] Whom have I in heaven but you? That's great, because he's been looking horizontally, he's been looking at the evil, and they're prospering, they're getting away with things. And it's like, oh, yeah, look upwards. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. [00:20:47] Do I hear an amen to that? Amen, boy. [00:20:53] You see, we need not fear our doubts. [00:20:58] We don't need to deny our doubts. [00:21:01] We need to bring them to God's word. Yes, see your pastor for counsel, your elders, and so forth. [00:21:10] We don't need to fear our doubts. We don't need to deny that we're struggling with doubts. And we should never look down on our fellow believers who are struggling with doubts as well, because we all struggle with doubts. Right? [00:21:26] And a reading from God's law, Matthew five. Judge not lest you be judged. Right. And always remember, God will see you through your struggles, because God is holding you by your. What? Right hand. Right. Verse 23. Furthermore, consider the greatest doubter. I'm calling him the greatest doubter in the New Testament. You know who that is? [00:21:50] Doubting Thomas. [00:21:53] Right? One of Christ's own disciples. You remember the story. After Jesus rose from the grave, defeating death, he appeared to his disciples in that locked room. But one individual wasn't there. [00:22:07] Doubting Thomas wasn't there in that locked room. When Jesus appeared to them, he wasn't there. We're not told exactly why, but maybe it was because his faith was greatly shaken. [00:22:19] So let's pick up on the story of doubting Thomas. In John 20. I'm going to read verses 24 to 28. [00:22:26] So the other's disciples told him, that is, they told Thomas when he came back. So the other disciples told him, we've seen the Lord. But Thomas said to them, unless I see in his hands the mark of his nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails and place my hand into his side, I will never believe. [00:22:51] Eight days later, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here. See my hands. Put out your hand, place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe. [00:23:10] And Thomas answered him, my lord and my God. [00:23:16] What an amazing ministry of Christ. And notice it was eight days later. [00:23:23] God doesn't necessarily just rush to us and fix our doubts. He may have a great purpose in letting us go through it for our growth in an even greater faith. [00:23:36] And also what's so amazing here is Christ didn't scold Thomas. [00:23:41] Rather, he had compassion on Thomas in his doubt. He ministered to Thomas in exactly the way that he needed to be ministered to. He ministered to Thomas's struggle. Put your fingers here. See my hands. Put out your hand. Put it in my side. You see, Christ will see you through your struggles. He's holding you by your right hand. He will sustain your faith. [00:24:06] Now, verse three, going back to verse three here in psalm 73, there's something that we need to take a bit deeper, because it's vital to helping us deal with our doubts, with our struggles of faith. [00:24:21] In fact, part of verse three here happens to dash to pieces something that we tend to assume regarding our doubts, which is that our doubts are purely, shall we say, cognitive. [00:24:34] Purely, I don't know, factual. God is good. I see evil. These are facts. I can't reconcile them. So I'm struggling in my faith. I want you to notice in verse three, he makes an amazing confession here, which really fits with the word of God, which takes us down to the level of the human heart. Verse three. For I was envious of the wicked. [00:24:58] I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. [00:25:03] What Asaph is confessing here is that his doubts were not pure. [00:25:09] They weren't pure. They were tainted. And it wasn't a purely intellectual questioning. Asaph was envious when he saw the prosperity of the wicked. [00:25:23] I suspect that when we struggle with doubts, we can view them as kind of an intellectual exercise, you know, quite reasonable. Rather than realizing that deep down inside they are tainted by the impurities of our own fallen hearts and desires, you look out, you see the prosperity of maybe just your neighbor. Why isn't God blessing me? I'm one of his own. I'm in Christ. Why am I struggling with this medical diagnosis and my neighbor's knot? Why am I struggling under all these hardships? I'm not pursuing evil. I deserve better as one of God's own. [00:26:06] Again, Asaph confesses he was envious when he saw the prosperity of others. And so something very important that we learn here is that when we're struggling in our faith, it just might be good to stop ourselves and ask, is there something going on in my heart contributing to my struggles? [00:26:31] You see, the word of God is sharper than a two edged sword, and it penetrates deep, deep. Is there something going on my heart contributing to my struggles, to my doubts? [00:26:50] And in the midst of all of this, even when we discover something going on in our heart that's definitely contributing to it, need to hold on to the great truth that God will see me and he will see my faith through it all, because verse 23, he's holding me by the right hand. [00:27:07] So there's some great lessons that we learn here, and I have a total of five, right? That's what I seem to recall, yes. I have five lessons for you, if you like to. If you're one of those that take notes and jot them down, here they are. [00:27:21] What are some of the lessons? Well, first of all, just like with asaph, we all struggle with doubts. It's a normal part of being a Christian. We're not perfected yet, right? We're not with the Lord. We all struggle with doubts. And if one as godly as Asaph can doubt, then we should not be too hard on ourselves when we encounter doubts. And we should as well be compassionate with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ when they struggle with doubts. Just as Christ was compassionate with doubting Thomas. [00:27:56] That was. First, we all struggle with doubts. Secondly, it can be so helpful to become aware of what may be causing what may be lying underneath our doubts. [00:28:09] Asaph would not have had this crisis of faith if he hadn't looked out and sort of focused upon the prosperity of the wicked. Again, it's as if he cast his gaze horizontal and was failing to look up to God. In a sense, he would have not had this crisis of faith if he hadn't looked out at the prosperity of the wicked. And this is the especially important point here. And filled his heart and allowed his heart to be filled with envy. He's focusing on the horizontal. He's seeing what they have, and he's coveting 10th commandment. Right. He's filled with envy. [00:28:48] And, you know, this is one of the beauties of God's word. [00:28:51] It's like a spiritual x ray or spiritual MRI, and it exposes what lies underneath. Again, Hebrews 412, for the word of God is living and active, discerning the thoughts and the intentions of the hearth. So one of the steps towards curing doubt or dealing with doubt is to discern the dishonest parts of our doubting, the dishonest parts of our doubting. It's to tease out wrong motives, wrong desires, sinful and desires, motivations, reasoning. [00:29:29] They are there. [00:29:30] You know, they are there. [00:29:33] Shockingly, Timothy Keller, who's an extremely perceptive, who's extremely perceptive regarding the human heart, says this. Sometimes I'd say doubts are about 10% honest and 90% dishonest. [00:29:54] That shocked me. [00:29:57] I had to reread that when I was reading that over and over. Sometimes I'd say doubts are about 10% honest and 90% dishonest. [00:30:06] Wow. [00:30:08] Then there's a third step here in dealing with doubts. You ready for this one? [00:30:14] It's go to church. [00:30:17] Go to church. Look at verses 16 and 17. It's right here. [00:30:22] But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task. And I went home and I stayed in my closet alone, and I came out and I ignored people, I ignored God, I ignored church. I ignored all those things. Is that what he wrote? [00:30:35] No. When I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a worrisome task until I went into the sanctuary of God. Then I discerned their end. [00:30:46] How refreshing it can be to gather with God's saints on Sunday. [00:30:51] You know, it's meant to renew our hearts after a week of struggling. That's why we worship week after week after week. If we're really honest after a week of struggling, we need this. [00:31:03] I do. Don't you? [00:31:07] This is something that we find in our own society to be counterintuitive. [00:31:14] Even we modern christians, we have a powerful tendency to stay away from church and stay away from formal worship when we're struggling and especially when doubts hit. [00:31:25] But when we come to church on Sunday, we're actually leaving the God denying world behind, outside those doors, in a sense. And we're entering in a place where God's ministering his means of grace and where God is present in a special way. And Sunday worship helps clear the fog. [00:31:45] It helps clear the fog out of our heads. We need more than just our daily personal devotions. I'm not putting down daily devotions, but Americans seem to think that's where the real action is at. [00:32:02] We need church. [00:32:05] We need Sunday morning. [00:32:08] And in church you can especially realize that Christ will see you through your struggles, that he is holding you by your right hand. [00:32:16] So third, go to church. Fourth, entering God's sanctuary helps us to, and I'm going to use a phrase, compare footholds. [00:32:27] Verse 18. [00:32:29] Truly, you set them. That's the ungodly. In slippery places. You make them fall to ruin. The fourth step in dealing with our doubts is to compare footholds. It's to compare that upon which we're trusting to that in which the wicked is trusting. Do you see that? Compare what we're trusting in to what the wicked is trusting in. Then ask yourself, which path, which footholds are truly the more slippery? [00:33:01] Read through psalm 73 and that will make even more sense. God's word, God's truth is a rock. [00:33:09] It's a rock solid, unshakable foothold for all of life. You see the wicked, with all of their prosperity, all of the stuff they have, I don't know, fame and fortune, they can die like that. [00:33:28] Even better. If I could snap my fingers, they can be gone. Our society is in constant, constant change. [00:33:38] What was true yesterday is no longer true today. The world is ever spiraling downwards. The world is never able to really get a solid footing. Verse 18. Truly, you set them in slippery places. That's one thing going on in our society. [00:33:54] People are fighting, fighting for footholds. And they're fighting for those footholds because that's all they've got, because they don't have God. And they don't realize even the foothold they have is slippery. And that's why they keep changing to a new foothold, and that one's slippery. And so everything just keeps changing, changing as they go to a new foothold and fighting for that foothold. [00:34:13] It's part of what's going on. [00:34:16] But God's truth is rock solid. And Christ will see you through your struggles. He is holding you by your right hand. [00:34:26] So compare footholds. Fifth lesson, feel God's hand holding you, or at least know, even if you can't feel it, that his hand is holding you. [00:34:40] That's verse 23. [00:34:43] Nevertheless, I am continually with you. [00:34:47] You hold my right hand to realize God does not abandon you. It gets back to covenant, doesn't it? [00:34:55] I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. Right? I will be your people. I will be your God. You will be my people. [00:35:04] Nevertheless, I'm continually with you. You hold my right hand. He never leaves us. And really, we never leave him. [00:35:12] You hold my right hand. That's it. God has us firmly in his mighty grip. He is securely holding us like a loving father by our right hand. Remember what started Asaph's troubles and his doubting? It was that he had turned his gaze toward the ungodly, and he observed their supposed prosperity, and he became envious. He became covetous. [00:35:38] He was violating the 10th commandment, wasn't he? And he was wanting it for himself. And that's really, really easy to do, especially in our, in our material, prosperous culture. And thus, he lost sight of something that is absolutely huge here, something that the ungodly do not possess. He lost sight of the fact that God, in his grace and in his love and his goodness, was actually right there with him all along, holding his right hand. That's better than anything that the wicked have. In other words, the fifth step to dealing with your doubts, then, is to realize Christ is right there with you in the midst of your doubts, securely holding your right hand, he will sustain you. Wow. [00:36:22] Yes, the wicked often do really prosper. [00:36:29] But in the end, what do they have? [00:36:34] Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Well, except for God's judgment. [00:36:42] We can struggle with doubt. [00:36:44] We can struggle in our faith. We can be tempted to walk away. But you know what? [00:36:51] Christ believed the father perfectly in our place. [00:36:57] He trusted and he obeyed, and he believed without fail. For us, Christ is our righteousness. It's not our performance, it's Christ's performance. [00:37:15] That's why the gospel is such good news. And furthermore, he paid for our sins, all of our sins. He even paid for our sin of doubting God. [00:37:25] You see? [00:37:27] And so your security and the Father's love for you is never ultimately dependent upon you, but rather your security is found in your savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave his life and he rose from the grave, that you might be in the grip of the Father's love forever. [00:37:44] The Lord is our righteousness. [00:37:47] He will never leave you or never forsake you. And so I want to conclude with the conclusion of psalm 73. I'm going to conclude just by reading verse 23 through the end of the psalm. [00:38:01] Listen to this conclusion on the part of Asaph here. [00:38:08] Nevertheless, I am continually with you. You hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. He had just been envying, but he went to church. Now he realizes there's nothing on earth that I desire besides you. Verse 26. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from you shall perish. And you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me, it's good to be near. Goddess, I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works. Amen. Let's pray. [00:39:04] Lord God, it's hard when doubts assail us. [00:39:10] It's hard, we confess, to see evil people, sinners, the wicked, prospering and enjoying things that we wish we had. [00:39:26] Furthermore, we admit we can even be envious in covetousness, making those things, those good things that they have into idols. [00:39:41] And so, Lord, thank you for the forgiveness of our sin through Christ. [00:39:49] But we especially thank you that you have us in the grip of your right hand and you never will let us go. [00:39:58] We praise you for that kind of love, a kind of covenant love. [00:40:04] Lord, I pray especially for those who may have entered these doors struggling, filled with doubts. [00:40:14] Use psalm 73. [00:40:16] Use the means of grace here in worship. [00:40:22] Bring them the help they need. Just like you came to Thomas that eight days later, and you ministered straight to him. And he said, my lord, my God, see them through these difficult times. Encourage them. Thank you for your word, which penetrates deeply and ministers to us right where we need it. [00:40:44] In Jesus name I pray. Amen.