March 28, 2026
How To Complain To God 1
How to Complain To God 1
Welcome to Gospel Rant!
(Also check it out on YouTube (DrBillSenyard)
Happy Palm Sunday 2026. Most are spending this season on the Cross, Jesus’ powerful bold choice to suffer, and redemption, atonement and resurrection—as it should be.
I am going to fill in one of the nasty dirty cracks of the Cross. How Jesus suffered as a model for how we should deal with our times of suffering that inevitably come to us.
How are we to complain to God when the bottom drops out? When the sky goes dark? When we are broken and can’t get up? When we feel such pain, we can’t breathe? I will tell you in this talk and the next.
We will see what you think.
And now, it’s your turn…
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Transcript
00:00:06
Speaker 1: So happy Palm Sunday, twenty twenty six. Most are spending this season thinking about the Cross, Jesus's powerful, bold choice to suffer, to be meet, to be silent, redemption of tone and resurrection as it should be. But he was also complaining in the official technical term Psalm twenty two. So I'm going to fill in that nasty, dirty crack of the Cross, how Jesus suffered as a model for us how we should deal with hurts, how we should deal with suffering that inevitably comes to us, Meaning how are we to complain to God when the bottom drops out, when the sky goes dark, when we are broken and we can't get up. Often we use our hurt as a weapon against other people, particularly the person or institution that hurt us. Jesus didn't do that, and when we feel that pain, you know the kind, we can't. And I'm going to tell you in this talk and the next how we do that. This is the Jesus appointed way of doing that, and it's really helpful.
00:01:08
Speaker 2: I think.
00:01:10
Speaker 1: Welcome to Gospel Rant podcast and Doctor Bill Senor YouTube channel. I'm your host, Doctor Bill Senored. We're free wherever you get podcasts of course on YouTube as well, and so please subscribe. As always, one of the fastest ways you can help us grow is by leaving your comments below. If you're on YouTube, Thank you sincerely. Also, thank you for making Gospel Rant podcast in the top ten percent of podcasts in the world. Thank you for listening every week. We hope that it helps regularly hear about God's love for the unlovable, theloved, the unlovely, the unworthy, and the unlikely. And that's all of us on any given day, if we were just a little bit honest. All right, I want to get right into it after this brief word from our sponsors.
00:01:57
Speaker 2: All right, did you know.
00:01:58
Speaker 1: That God and the Bible have been very clear on this topic of complaining. We're supposed to honestly complain to God. And that's great news. Christianity is such amazing great news. We have to work really hard to mess it up, and we're pretty good at it. I don't know of another religion or philosophy of life that is something so substantive, so relevant to say to people who have experienced tragedy and justice, lost, disappointment, betrayal, hurt, Atheism right, scientific humanism has nothing bad things are random events, without purpose, without meaning. The strong that are going to survive. The weak are going to be called out. So here's the key question. What do you do when the bottom falls out of your world? When you know the unforgivable happens, when something happens to you and you just can't do anything about it? Maybe again, how do you deal with it? How do you cope? Do you warn the loss? What do you mean by that? Do you your loins and move on without denying or repressing? Again? How do you do that? And how good has that served you? Or any other coping strategy? Cover up right? Or is that the best we've got? The Bible gives us another path, a solid one, simple, mysterious but powerful path of repair and the hurt one.
00:03:21
Speaker 2: You can do it.
00:03:22
Speaker 1: I do it first. It's stark and it's description of this existence of it. It doesn't sugarcoat it. It's both honest and hopeful to very rare things. The Bible informs us that we are in a very dark place. This fallen world is filled with people with selfish and often violent hearts. By the way, that's all of us mankind. Humanity wasn't designed to be that way. We were created in God's image to be persons of glory and honor, mutual intimacy and respect.
00:03:52
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not.
00:03:52
Speaker 1: Saying that the world's totally dark, that there can't be good times. So obviously there are the biblical narrative claims that if we would roll up all of the world into one big ball, good and bad package it, measure and even spin it in the best possible light, it's going to tragically fall short of what it was designed to be. We were designed constructed to thrive in something vastly different and better, and I think, down deep, we know that at the sole level, at the midbrain level. If you want to be more scientific, doesn't this help to explain why humanity of all species.
00:04:29
Speaker 2: Hurts so much? Right?
00:04:34
Speaker 1: Why does this hurt so much? When I lose a child or find out that I'm dying, or I'm betrayed by someone I love, or they hurt me again. Why Because that's how we're made Biblically, it hurts even more than you are able to admit. We have internal working models fortresses that protect us from the hurt, So it's even worse than you think. So by necessity for survival's sake, we've grown to much of the inhuman treatment, the dishonor. But don't we suspect that the scars are deeper and more painful than even we know. We were made to be greatly honored, immensely appreciated, and intimately loved as we are, and man, that's so different. It's a vast cavern between the two. So look, I've got really good news to hurting, angry, wounded people me you. There is a god who claims to be your ultimate creator, who tells you that you should be angry, You should be hurt, You should be wounded based on what has happened to you. You should be yelling and screaming and fighting, not necessarily the one who hurts you, but a God. You should be longing for more honor and glory. Again, chances are the best place to get that is from God. And to cover it up like your brain is going to intrinsically do, subconsciously do is another crime against you. Elf inflicted hurt, and we all do it. Some people do it better than others. You were created to hate anything short of being honored and loved and appreciated. You were made to be adored and worshiped.
00:06:12
Speaker 2: Isn't that good.
00:06:13
Speaker 1: News and bad news?
00:06:18
Speaker 2: All right?
00:06:18
Speaker 1: Listen to the bold, stark honesty of the Bible. This is wholly approved rhetoric, no cover up, no spind This is a powerful, formal legal complaint written to God against God by a real flesh and blood person, a believer, in fact, the King of Israel. Imagine the psalmist entering a metaphorical courtroom with an official legal complaint against the defendant. In this case, the defendant is God. And to make that picture even more interesting, he's arguing his case to the judge, the disposer of justice and restitution, and he legal is also God. Psalm twenty two. So as you hear Psalm twenty to picture the plaintiff turning to the defendant and try out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning.
00:07:09
Speaker 2: My roaring.
00:07:13
Speaker 1: The word used for God here is l from the root strength. The implication is that the sufferer's entire source of strength seems to have abandoned him or her. A Hebrew or Jew was a Hebrew because of this relationship with God, and so David is testifying that there experientially is no more relationship. This would be devastating identity level anguish, all right, So how can we tap into what that might feel?
00:07:43
Speaker 2: Begin to feel like?
00:07:45
Speaker 1: Imagine the life changing anguish of a professional athlete losing ability to compete and losing it for life. Put your teacher who has had a stroke taking away their capacity to teach, or a spouse whose life and hope for future has been ravaged by an affair. This is their perceived source of strength, income, life, and identity. For the Psalmist, of course, this was el God. It would seem to the suffer that the only relationship was one of betrayal. He accuses God, the Holy Holy holy aahwah, of ignoring them right, being absent, abandoning him. That's what he's feeling like. Boy, those are strong, and wouldn't they don't They seem irreverent words, officially charging God with unfaithfulness, the faithful God, oh my Gosh, with being unloving and we know he's not.
00:08:41
Speaker 2: And even a liar.
00:08:42
Speaker 1: See, I know that the questions pop in your head and we're gonna likely get to them. We try to just hang.
00:08:47
Speaker 2: In there with me.
00:08:48
Speaker 1: The NIV says, groaning that the Hebrew is roaring that deep seated, guttural crying out loud public. The only person who could change the situation. God is seemingly gone. He's not willing, he's mocking the psalmness. And by the way, remember these are the very words that Jesus spoke from the cross of Golgatha. And what makes this so appropriate during Easter season? This is what he felt as well. It was not true. Oh that's one of those things that has penetrated Christianity and it's just not true that God actually abandoned him. We just sort of say that. But it's impossible. I don't know what your view of the Trinity is, but it's what he experienced in his dual nature, one hundred percent mandred percent.
00:09:38
Speaker 2: God, whatever that is.
00:09:40
Speaker 1: Though it's mysterious and wonderful, there's no way that God the Father could or would turn away. But Jesus felt that level of pain and anguish. He identified with us. He gets your pain. This was a deep, visceral cry of the deepest abandonment in betrayal anyone's ever felt. It's public.
00:10:02
Speaker 2: There's no cover up.
00:10:05
Speaker 1: Neither Jesus nor David seeks to protect the Father's reputation from hearsay, and in Nuindo they both openly and publicly and appropriate approved legal venue accusing the Father. If I were them and in trying to push a new religion, I would have certainly put on a better face than this, wouldn't you. I edit this one out, replace it with a press release of some kind, thanks for giving me what I want psalm instead of this one. But they don't play the spin doctor. There's no whitewashing of Christianity or Judaism. The higher point, as maddening as it may be, is that God freely and boldly and dwells not only in the light, but in the darkness.
00:10:48
Speaker 2: Did you hear?
00:10:49
Speaker 1: God dwells in the light, and he also is present in the darkness. He's omnipresent. The good news is that God not only in dwells pure light. We think about it. But even better news is that God freely and wonderfully stoops down and in dwells at our darkness that envelops us my painful place, my hurting place, those hurting memories, even when I don't feel like He's there. Verse six. But I am a worm does the king saying this, and not a man scorned by men, despised by the people. All who see me mock me. They hurl insult, shaking their heads.
00:11:25
Speaker 2: He trusts in the Lord.
00:11:27
Speaker 1: Let the Lord rescue him, let him deliver him, since he delights in him. Wow, the sufferers trials aren't over. Not only has he been crushed, he's in a place of public mocking his reputation. His life's message is totally discounted. It would appear, and perhaps he's been telling people of a good God and good father. Now look, where's your good father? Now he's being mocked. His life philosophy has God, and his relationship with the supposed God is being mocked. Still, no God to step again? Talk about abanonmate feelings, deep betrayal Verse twelve. Many bulls surround me, strong bulls of bation encircle me. Roaring lions tearing their prey, open their mouths wide against me. I'm poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax. It has melted away within me. My strength is dried up like a potshirt, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death. Dogs have surrounded me. A band of evil men have encircled me. They have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. People stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them, and cast lots for my clothing. Bulls of Bashan, wild bulls that roam the rich pastures of Bashan. I mean, think bison today in Colorado, Untamed, unruling, narcissistic, intensive, insensitive surrounding. He says that they're just it's complete and utter, helpless.
00:13:06
Speaker 2: But there's no way of escape.
00:13:08
Speaker 1: If you want to read Psalm sixty two. My heart is melting and it's like water chocking, fear, anxiety. All my bones are out of joint, just emaciation, dislocation, not broken, but just popped, dividing garments meaning total defeat. That he's not going to survive. This might as well get rid of the good stuff. He's on the canvas. He's counted out. Speaking of total physical and emotional devastation to the point of death. He addresses God as the ultimate disposer of all of this. Eh Man, this is real stuff, right, It's wonderful and troubling. Almost frightening that we could do this and say this and that God would stand by. Let's understand, this isn't whining, this isn't moping, This isn't using my hurt to beat God and to beat the right. That's just a human phenomenon. This is real, deep human pain and the voice of it. This is a common experience. Right. If you can't relate, I don't know who you are, You're in denial. My point is that the Bible fully recognizes no rose colored glasses. The good news is that is not only as it validated. The step one of healing processes is to form the anguish into words and to vocalize them to l to God. And God even provides the model of such pain and struggles over fifty of them Psalm three, four, five, six, thirteen, twenty two, eighty eight, forty three, and others. He gives us the words does in the case you're worried that captures your situation and emotions.
00:14:43
Speaker 2: Use them?
00:14:44
Speaker 1: Is the point Jesus did. God even commands that we bring it raw to him.
00:14:50
Speaker 2: Don't get it? What are you gonna do? I mean, right, what.
00:14:55
Speaker 1: An amazing, unbelievable God. This is God's shoulders. His shoulders are broad enough ours or not.
00:15:03
Speaker 2: So.
00:15:03
Speaker 1: If you're complaining and lashing out as the person who supposedly hurts you, this is not gonna do any good. It's your weapon. It's not helping you. It's not helping them either. It's destructive, not even self serving. It's just yes, it doesn't work. He's immense and worthy of honor and glory, but humiliates himself like this time and time again, willingly subjecting himself to our anger. Listen to that, subjecting himself to our anger, or ranting accusations and blame me which are not true. Out of his love for us, So God advites us. Come on, yell at me, Come and bring me your hurts, your cries, your betrayals. I'm here an official legal session to hear your complaints and grief. Don't wait until you have your act together, because you won't be able to do that without me. Come now as you are. You're more hurt than you knew. The injustice is far greater than you've been willing to admit. You don't even know. It's not honorable to bear your pain, is not honorable. To use your pain as a bat to hit other people. That's all unbelief. Your words will not affect what I feel towards you, God says, I love you as much as I love my son, and he loves me. You will never change that, So come to me, guns blazing by the way. Remember I'll say it again. Don't hear me saying that because you're angry anyway. The Bible approves of venting on other people, you know, blowing up You know, boy, that's just that's what kills marriages when you think your spouse can handle that and you just feel justified and beating them up.
00:16:34
Speaker 2: Also, don't bottle it up.
00:16:36
Speaker 1: It's a real feeling that could be insensitive and very selfish form of destruction. It's not biblically mandated. There are no encouragements for people to vent on other humans. It's destructive to fill on parents, children's, spouses, employees, churches, parking ticket writer and Golden Colorado. Only God has shoulders broad enough, and the one who's willing to eumiliate himself for our sake to get it again. The others don't. They don't have that capacity. That's the way to lose. The idea is we don't bottle it up. The most amazing news. It's one of our covenant privileges Jesus followers, that we can puke out all of our stuff on our holy, Holy Holy God.
00:17:16
Speaker 2: It's almost hard to say.
00:17:18
Speaker 1: Somehow we've accepted the notion that when you commit allegiance to Jesus, you.
00:17:22
Speaker 2: Have to give up all of that stuff.
00:17:24
Speaker 1: Right, you just have to come automatons and bottle it all up. No, look at just one of the many privileges given to us. We have a judge who hears our cries. We are not left alone. God, you said you would be my shield? Where were you when my son was hurt? Where were you when I got fired? Where were you during COVID? Why won't you wave your finger and heal me of this disease? What you said you were a father to the followers. What difference do those words mean to that infant found in the garbage? Or why would you allow that divorce? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
00:17:57
Speaker 2: Well?
00:17:58
Speaker 1: Someone out there is no doubt that Pastor Bill. Isn't this sinful to speak to the Holy Holy God this way?
00:18:06
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:18:07
Speaker 1: You know, but listen, first, we are commanded by God in the Bible or third of the psalms. Almost half of the psalms are an example for us. Second, your heart is already doing it. Don't even think that, since you've buried the anger and hurt, and the heart cries of justice and injustice reparation vended that God can't see them or hear them. The more you get to know God, the anger you will feel if the injustice is a dishonored I mean, the closer you get, the more you should be willing to do this because you get to know Him, and the more that you will blame him.
00:18:37
Speaker 2: He stood by, he didn't stop it.
00:18:40
Speaker 1: We might as well take God upon his commands and to come clean as part of healing these psalms. Third, and lastly, Jesus followed you who have run to the cross and submitted to allegiance to Jesus. Jesus has indeed died for your stuff, including this. You need not fear judgment or becoming a disappointment to God. It's maddening, though, and it seems wrong. Somehow, I get that it's more simple.
00:19:05
Speaker 2: Than we even know, and yet it's paid for. It's the way we survive, it's the way we thrive.
00:19:11
Speaker 1: Now Christians in this broken place. So what an amazing God to continually put up with this.
00:19:18
Speaker 2: But in the good news, I mean, if it's true, right, what are the strategies working for you? I mean, drugs will give you a relief temporarily, but all right, then once you've got stuff in your midbrain subconscious you can't touch it.
00:19:33
Speaker 1: Is just making any sense, it's good news. The exercise is birthed out of a radical faith in relationship with God.
00:19:39
Speaker 2: That's biblical.
00:19:40
Speaker 1: It assumes that there's real and actual hope, healing, restoration, recompense for losses, restitution, resurrection to glory, restoration and honor. The context for complaint psalms is that God sits over the situation. Is God is the judge, the ultimate giver of justice at the throne of the personal. God is real hope for really hurting people like us. And we're going to look into that next week. We're going to continue this and if it's not true, good luck to you and me. If there really is no God who's allowing this, then the human race is just a bunch of SAPs. It's a tragic life. Is there a line that we must not cross? I mean, after all, we're coming to the parts of God, the God of the universe. There are some lines right, yeah, here it is. What the Bible tells it clearly is that God is perfectly right and perfectly faithful. In the end, when the trial is over, he will be found innocent of any in all charges by the spirit's faith manifested through our inner being Ephesians three. We must not ever judge him as guilty. We really believe curse him is guilty because it's just not gonna be the case. That's the aulfin punchline of the Book of Job. True faith is anesthetical to that. So no matter how it feels to you suffer, how much the case against God and his goodness looks like an open and shutcase, He's going to be vindicated. There'll be reasons, and I don't have them. I don't there's no way. I can't even start. But the Book of Job says there's going to be restitution. The nasty stuff that is happening to you will be redeemed, made right. God promises he's got this, but for now he rolls to bring an official legal case against God in God's courtroom, and assuming a response, well, I want to give you a treat, so stick around after I work from our sponsors.
00:21:30
Speaker 2: So just letting you know.
00:21:31
Speaker 1: Last summer I did a series of the top ten prayers of the Old Testament. It was a great hit with listeners, a lot of dialogue and disagreements, actually a lot. So by the way, all of that's going to be shaped into a book released later this year, but beginning after Easter, I'm going to bookend that with my top ten list of prayers top prayers in the New Testament. Look, the Old Testament was hard. This is ridiculously hard. Kind of bold that I would do that, because it's a whole New Testament is filled with great prayers, but ten stood out for me my opinion. Follow Gospel Ran and doctor Bill seniored YouTube starting in two weeks and let me know what you think. As in the Old Testament list, there's gonna be a few surprises, I think, including with the number one prayer. Let's just get the dialogue going. This is fun, all.
00:22:19
Speaker 2: Right, here's the tree.
00:22:20
Speaker 1: The best blue songs ever about being stuck is Johnny Lang still raining. It's all about breakup, but it could easily be about what you're going through.
00:22:29
Speaker 2: So just listen.
00:22:30
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say it. Check it out on YouTube clouds. One by one fill the sky, just like these tears that fill my eyes. I know by now she ain't coming back right abandonment, and I watch my world slowly fade to black. Look out my window, it's still raining. Say look out my window, it's still raining.
00:22:50
Speaker 2: They say that.
00:22:50
Speaker 1: Time heals everything. Well, I know the pain, honey, that love can bring, and I don't get no better with each passing day, every hope I had slowly slipping away. Look out my window, it's still raining. I thought the morning would rescue me, but the rain keeps falling so endlessly. Sometimes I wonder what'll become of me. There ain't much left of what I used to be. Her love shone on me just like a morning light. But now here I am alone again. Tonight, look out my window, it's still raining. Who great, great song, google it? Just let it pour over you. Then pour out your pain whatever kicks up to the judge the God. Because God is here for you and he's got this. He will deal with every one of your injustices, maybe not during your lifetime of mind. Ask the Holy Spirit to make you confident. And know that God is both for you and he's got this. This is not logic, it's not human reason.
00:23:47
Speaker 2: You can't prove it. It's faith.
00:23:49
Speaker 1: It's heaven board faith from the hand of the Spirit alone. Ask hey, we're going to see you next time.
00:23:56
Speaker 2: Take her, child of God.
Speaker 1: So happy Palm Sunday, twenty twenty six. Most are spending this season thinking about the Cross, Jesus's powerful, bold choice to suffer, to be meet, to be silent, redemption of tone and resurrection as it should be. But he was also complaining in the official technical term Psalm twenty two. So I'm going to fill in that nasty, dirty crack of the Cross, how Jesus suffered as a model for us how we should deal with hurts, how we should deal with suffering that inevitably comes to us, Meaning how are we to complain to God when the bottom drops out, when the sky goes dark, when we are broken and we can't get up. Often we use our hurt as a weapon against other people, particularly the person or institution that hurt us. Jesus didn't do that, and when we feel that pain, you know the kind, we can't. And I'm going to tell you in this talk and the next how we do that. This is the Jesus appointed way of doing that, and it's really helpful.
00:01:08
Speaker 2: I think.
00:01:10
Speaker 1: Welcome to Gospel Rant podcast and Doctor Bill Senor YouTube channel. I'm your host, Doctor Bill Senored. We're free wherever you get podcasts of course on YouTube as well, and so please subscribe. As always, one of the fastest ways you can help us grow is by leaving your comments below. If you're on YouTube, Thank you sincerely. Also, thank you for making Gospel Rant podcast in the top ten percent of podcasts in the world. Thank you for listening every week. We hope that it helps regularly hear about God's love for the unlovable, theloved, the unlovely, the unworthy, and the unlikely. And that's all of us on any given day, if we were just a little bit honest. All right, I want to get right into it after this brief word from our sponsors.
00:01:57
Speaker 2: All right, did you know.
00:01:58
Speaker 1: That God and the Bible have been very clear on this topic of complaining. We're supposed to honestly complain to God. And that's great news. Christianity is such amazing great news. We have to work really hard to mess it up, and we're pretty good at it. I don't know of another religion or philosophy of life that is something so substantive, so relevant to say to people who have experienced tragedy and justice, lost, disappointment, betrayal, hurt, Atheism right, scientific humanism has nothing bad things are random events, without purpose, without meaning. The strong that are going to survive. The weak are going to be called out. So here's the key question. What do you do when the bottom falls out of your world? When you know the unforgivable happens, when something happens to you and you just can't do anything about it? Maybe again, how do you deal with it? How do you cope? Do you warn the loss? What do you mean by that? Do you your loins and move on without denying or repressing? Again? How do you do that? And how good has that served you? Or any other coping strategy? Cover up right? Or is that the best we've got? The Bible gives us another path, a solid one, simple, mysterious but powerful path of repair and the hurt one.
00:03:21
Speaker 2: You can do it.
00:03:22
Speaker 1: I do it first. It's stark and it's description of this existence of it. It doesn't sugarcoat it. It's both honest and hopeful to very rare things. The Bible informs us that we are in a very dark place. This fallen world is filled with people with selfish and often violent hearts. By the way, that's all of us mankind. Humanity wasn't designed to be that way. We were created in God's image to be persons of glory and honor, mutual intimacy and respect.
00:03:52
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not.
00:03:52
Speaker 1: Saying that the world's totally dark, that there can't be good times. So obviously there are the biblical narrative claims that if we would roll up all of the world into one big ball, good and bad package it, measure and even spin it in the best possible light, it's going to tragically fall short of what it was designed to be. We were designed constructed to thrive in something vastly different and better, and I think, down deep, we know that at the sole level, at the midbrain level. If you want to be more scientific, doesn't this help to explain why humanity of all species.
00:04:29
Speaker 2: Hurts so much? Right?
00:04:34
Speaker 1: Why does this hurt so much? When I lose a child or find out that I'm dying, or I'm betrayed by someone I love, or they hurt me again. Why Because that's how we're made Biblically, it hurts even more than you are able to admit. We have internal working models fortresses that protect us from the hurt, So it's even worse than you think. So by necessity for survival's sake, we've grown to much of the inhuman treatment, the dishonor. But don't we suspect that the scars are deeper and more painful than even we know. We were made to be greatly honored, immensely appreciated, and intimately loved as we are, and man, that's so different. It's a vast cavern between the two. So look, I've got really good news to hurting, angry, wounded people me you. There is a god who claims to be your ultimate creator, who tells you that you should be angry, You should be hurt, You should be wounded based on what has happened to you. You should be yelling and screaming and fighting, not necessarily the one who hurts you, but a God. You should be longing for more honor and glory. Again, chances are the best place to get that is from God. And to cover it up like your brain is going to intrinsically do, subconsciously do is another crime against you. Elf inflicted hurt, and we all do it. Some people do it better than others. You were created to hate anything short of being honored and loved and appreciated. You were made to be adored and worshiped.
00:06:12
Speaker 2: Isn't that good.
00:06:13
Speaker 1: News and bad news?
00:06:18
Speaker 2: All right?
00:06:18
Speaker 1: Listen to the bold, stark honesty of the Bible. This is wholly approved rhetoric, no cover up, no spind This is a powerful, formal legal complaint written to God against God by a real flesh and blood person, a believer, in fact, the King of Israel. Imagine the psalmist entering a metaphorical courtroom with an official legal complaint against the defendant. In this case, the defendant is God. And to make that picture even more interesting, he's arguing his case to the judge, the disposer of justice and restitution, and he legal is also God. Psalm twenty two. So as you hear Psalm twenty to picture the plaintiff turning to the defendant and try out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning.
00:07:09
Speaker 2: My roaring.
00:07:13
Speaker 1: The word used for God here is l from the root strength. The implication is that the sufferer's entire source of strength seems to have abandoned him or her. A Hebrew or Jew was a Hebrew because of this relationship with God, and so David is testifying that there experientially is no more relationship. This would be devastating identity level anguish, all right, So how can we tap into what that might feel?
00:07:43
Speaker 2: Begin to feel like?
00:07:45
Speaker 1: Imagine the life changing anguish of a professional athlete losing ability to compete and losing it for life. Put your teacher who has had a stroke taking away their capacity to teach, or a spouse whose life and hope for future has been ravaged by an affair. This is their perceived source of strength, income, life, and identity. For the Psalmist, of course, this was el God. It would seem to the suffer that the only relationship was one of betrayal. He accuses God, the Holy Holy holy aahwah, of ignoring them right, being absent, abandoning him. That's what he's feeling like. Boy, those are strong, and wouldn't they don't They seem irreverent words, officially charging God with unfaithfulness, the faithful God, oh my Gosh, with being unloving and we know he's not.
00:08:41
Speaker 2: And even a liar.
00:08:42
Speaker 1: See, I know that the questions pop in your head and we're gonna likely get to them. We try to just hang.
00:08:47
Speaker 2: In there with me.
00:08:48
Speaker 1: The NIV says, groaning that the Hebrew is roaring that deep seated, guttural crying out loud public. The only person who could change the situation. God is seemingly gone. He's not willing, he's mocking the psalmness. And by the way, remember these are the very words that Jesus spoke from the cross of Golgatha. And what makes this so appropriate during Easter season? This is what he felt as well. It was not true. Oh that's one of those things that has penetrated Christianity and it's just not true that God actually abandoned him. We just sort of say that. But it's impossible. I don't know what your view of the Trinity is, but it's what he experienced in his dual nature, one hundred percent mandred percent.
00:09:38
Speaker 2: God, whatever that is.
00:09:40
Speaker 1: Though it's mysterious and wonderful, there's no way that God the Father could or would turn away. But Jesus felt that level of pain and anguish. He identified with us. He gets your pain. This was a deep, visceral cry of the deepest abandonment in betrayal anyone's ever felt. It's public.
00:10:02
Speaker 2: There's no cover up.
00:10:05
Speaker 1: Neither Jesus nor David seeks to protect the Father's reputation from hearsay, and in Nuindo they both openly and publicly and appropriate approved legal venue accusing the Father. If I were them and in trying to push a new religion, I would have certainly put on a better face than this, wouldn't you. I edit this one out, replace it with a press release of some kind, thanks for giving me what I want psalm instead of this one. But they don't play the spin doctor. There's no whitewashing of Christianity or Judaism. The higher point, as maddening as it may be, is that God freely and boldly and dwells not only in the light, but in the darkness.
00:10:48
Speaker 2: Did you hear?
00:10:49
Speaker 1: God dwells in the light, and he also is present in the darkness. He's omnipresent. The good news is that God not only in dwells pure light. We think about it. But even better news is that God freely and wonderfully stoops down and in dwells at our darkness that envelops us my painful place, my hurting place, those hurting memories, even when I don't feel like He's there. Verse six. But I am a worm does the king saying this, and not a man scorned by men, despised by the people. All who see me mock me. They hurl insult, shaking their heads.
00:11:25
Speaker 2: He trusts in the Lord.
00:11:27
Speaker 1: Let the Lord rescue him, let him deliver him, since he delights in him. Wow, the sufferers trials aren't over. Not only has he been crushed, he's in a place of public mocking his reputation. His life's message is totally discounted. It would appear, and perhaps he's been telling people of a good God and good father. Now look, where's your good father? Now he's being mocked. His life philosophy has God, and his relationship with the supposed God is being mocked. Still, no God to step again? Talk about abanonmate feelings, deep betrayal Verse twelve. Many bulls surround me, strong bulls of bation encircle me. Roaring lions tearing their prey, open their mouths wide against me. I'm poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax. It has melted away within me. My strength is dried up like a potshirt, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death. Dogs have surrounded me. A band of evil men have encircled me. They have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. People stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them, and cast lots for my clothing. Bulls of Bashan, wild bulls that roam the rich pastures of Bashan. I mean, think bison today in Colorado, Untamed, unruling, narcissistic, intensive, insensitive surrounding. He says that they're just it's complete and utter, helpless.
00:13:06
Speaker 2: But there's no way of escape.
00:13:08
Speaker 1: If you want to read Psalm sixty two. My heart is melting and it's like water chocking, fear, anxiety. All my bones are out of joint, just emaciation, dislocation, not broken, but just popped, dividing garments meaning total defeat. That he's not going to survive. This might as well get rid of the good stuff. He's on the canvas. He's counted out. Speaking of total physical and emotional devastation to the point of death. He addresses God as the ultimate disposer of all of this. Eh Man, this is real stuff, right, It's wonderful and troubling. Almost frightening that we could do this and say this and that God would stand by. Let's understand, this isn't whining, this isn't moping, This isn't using my hurt to beat God and to beat the right. That's just a human phenomenon. This is real, deep human pain and the voice of it. This is a common experience. Right. If you can't relate, I don't know who you are, You're in denial. My point is that the Bible fully recognizes no rose colored glasses. The good news is that is not only as it validated. The step one of healing processes is to form the anguish into words and to vocalize them to l to God. And God even provides the model of such pain and struggles over fifty of them Psalm three, four, five, six, thirteen, twenty two, eighty eight, forty three, and others. He gives us the words does in the case you're worried that captures your situation and emotions.
00:14:43
Speaker 2: Use them?
00:14:44
Speaker 1: Is the point Jesus did. God even commands that we bring it raw to him.
00:14:50
Speaker 2: Don't get it? What are you gonna do? I mean, right, what.
00:14:55
Speaker 1: An amazing, unbelievable God. This is God's shoulders. His shoulders are broad enough ours or not.
00:15:03
Speaker 2: So.
00:15:03
Speaker 1: If you're complaining and lashing out as the person who supposedly hurts you, this is not gonna do any good. It's your weapon. It's not helping you. It's not helping them either. It's destructive, not even self serving. It's just yes, it doesn't work. He's immense and worthy of honor and glory, but humiliates himself like this time and time again, willingly subjecting himself to our anger. Listen to that, subjecting himself to our anger, or ranting accusations and blame me which are not true. Out of his love for us, So God advites us. Come on, yell at me, Come and bring me your hurts, your cries, your betrayals. I'm here an official legal session to hear your complaints and grief. Don't wait until you have your act together, because you won't be able to do that without me. Come now as you are. You're more hurt than you knew. The injustice is far greater than you've been willing to admit. You don't even know. It's not honorable to bear your pain, is not honorable. To use your pain as a bat to hit other people. That's all unbelief. Your words will not affect what I feel towards you, God says, I love you as much as I love my son, and he loves me. You will never change that, So come to me, guns blazing by the way. Remember I'll say it again. Don't hear me saying that because you're angry anyway. The Bible approves of venting on other people, you know, blowing up You know, boy, that's just that's what kills marriages when you think your spouse can handle that and you just feel justified and beating them up.
00:16:34
Speaker 2: Also, don't bottle it up.
00:16:36
Speaker 1: It's a real feeling that could be insensitive and very selfish form of destruction. It's not biblically mandated. There are no encouragements for people to vent on other humans. It's destructive to fill on parents, children's, spouses, employees, churches, parking ticket writer and Golden Colorado. Only God has shoulders broad enough, and the one who's willing to eumiliate himself for our sake to get it again. The others don't. They don't have that capacity. That's the way to lose. The idea is we don't bottle it up. The most amazing news. It's one of our covenant privileges Jesus followers, that we can puke out all of our stuff on our holy, Holy Holy God.
00:17:16
Speaker 2: It's almost hard to say.
00:17:18
Speaker 1: Somehow we've accepted the notion that when you commit allegiance to Jesus, you.
00:17:22
Speaker 2: Have to give up all of that stuff.
00:17:24
Speaker 1: Right, you just have to come automatons and bottle it all up. No, look at just one of the many privileges given to us. We have a judge who hears our cries. We are not left alone. God, you said you would be my shield? Where were you when my son was hurt? Where were you when I got fired? Where were you during COVID? Why won't you wave your finger and heal me of this disease? What you said you were a father to the followers. What difference do those words mean to that infant found in the garbage? Or why would you allow that divorce? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
00:17:57
Speaker 2: Well?
00:17:58
Speaker 1: Someone out there is no doubt that Pastor Bill. Isn't this sinful to speak to the Holy Holy God this way?
00:18:06
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:18:07
Speaker 1: You know, but listen, first, we are commanded by God in the Bible or third of the psalms. Almost half of the psalms are an example for us. Second, your heart is already doing it. Don't even think that, since you've buried the anger and hurt, and the heart cries of justice and injustice reparation vended that God can't see them or hear them. The more you get to know God, the anger you will feel if the injustice is a dishonored I mean, the closer you get, the more you should be willing to do this because you get to know Him, and the more that you will blame him.
00:18:37
Speaker 2: He stood by, he didn't stop it.
00:18:40
Speaker 1: We might as well take God upon his commands and to come clean as part of healing these psalms. Third, and lastly, Jesus followed you who have run to the cross and submitted to allegiance to Jesus. Jesus has indeed died for your stuff, including this. You need not fear judgment or becoming a disappointment to God. It's maddening, though, and it seems wrong. Somehow, I get that it's more simple.
00:19:05
Speaker 2: Than we even know, and yet it's paid for. It's the way we survive, it's the way we thrive.
00:19:11
Speaker 1: Now Christians in this broken place. So what an amazing God to continually put up with this.
00:19:18
Speaker 2: But in the good news, I mean, if it's true, right, what are the strategies working for you? I mean, drugs will give you a relief temporarily, but all right, then once you've got stuff in your midbrain subconscious you can't touch it.
00:19:33
Speaker 1: Is just making any sense, it's good news. The exercise is birthed out of a radical faith in relationship with God.
00:19:39
Speaker 2: That's biblical.
00:19:40
Speaker 1: It assumes that there's real and actual hope, healing, restoration, recompense for losses, restitution, resurrection to glory, restoration and honor. The context for complaint psalms is that God sits over the situation. Is God is the judge, the ultimate giver of justice at the throne of the personal. God is real hope for really hurting people like us. And we're going to look into that next week. We're going to continue this and if it's not true, good luck to you and me. If there really is no God who's allowing this, then the human race is just a bunch of SAPs. It's a tragic life. Is there a line that we must not cross? I mean, after all, we're coming to the parts of God, the God of the universe. There are some lines right, yeah, here it is. What the Bible tells it clearly is that God is perfectly right and perfectly faithful. In the end, when the trial is over, he will be found innocent of any in all charges by the spirit's faith manifested through our inner being Ephesians three. We must not ever judge him as guilty. We really believe curse him is guilty because it's just not gonna be the case. That's the aulfin punchline of the Book of Job. True faith is anesthetical to that. So no matter how it feels to you suffer, how much the case against God and his goodness looks like an open and shutcase, He's going to be vindicated. There'll be reasons, and I don't have them. I don't there's no way. I can't even start. But the Book of Job says there's going to be restitution. The nasty stuff that is happening to you will be redeemed, made right. God promises he's got this, but for now he rolls to bring an official legal case against God in God's courtroom, and assuming a response, well, I want to give you a treat, so stick around after I work from our sponsors.
00:21:30
Speaker 2: So just letting you know.
00:21:31
Speaker 1: Last summer I did a series of the top ten prayers of the Old Testament. It was a great hit with listeners, a lot of dialogue and disagreements, actually a lot. So by the way, all of that's going to be shaped into a book released later this year, but beginning after Easter, I'm going to bookend that with my top ten list of prayers top prayers in the New Testament. Look, the Old Testament was hard. This is ridiculously hard. Kind of bold that I would do that, because it's a whole New Testament is filled with great prayers, but ten stood out for me my opinion. Follow Gospel Ran and doctor Bill seniored YouTube starting in two weeks and let me know what you think. As in the Old Testament list, there's gonna be a few surprises, I think, including with the number one prayer. Let's just get the dialogue going. This is fun, all.
00:22:19
Speaker 2: Right, here's the tree.
00:22:20
Speaker 1: The best blue songs ever about being stuck is Johnny Lang still raining. It's all about breakup, but it could easily be about what you're going through.
00:22:29
Speaker 2: So just listen.
00:22:30
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say it. Check it out on YouTube clouds. One by one fill the sky, just like these tears that fill my eyes. I know by now she ain't coming back right abandonment, and I watch my world slowly fade to black. Look out my window, it's still raining. Say look out my window, it's still raining.
00:22:50
Speaker 2: They say that.
00:22:50
Speaker 1: Time heals everything. Well, I know the pain, honey, that love can bring, and I don't get no better with each passing day, every hope I had slowly slipping away. Look out my window, it's still raining. I thought the morning would rescue me, but the rain keeps falling so endlessly. Sometimes I wonder what'll become of me. There ain't much left of what I used to be. Her love shone on me just like a morning light. But now here I am alone again. Tonight, look out my window, it's still raining. Who great, great song, google it? Just let it pour over you. Then pour out your pain whatever kicks up to the judge the God. Because God is here for you and he's got this. He will deal with every one of your injustices, maybe not during your lifetime of mind. Ask the Holy Spirit to make you confident. And know that God is both for you and he's got this. This is not logic, it's not human reason.
00:23:47
Speaker 2: You can't prove it. It's faith.
00:23:49
Speaker 1: It's heaven board faith from the hand of the Spirit alone. Ask hey, we're going to see you next time.
00:23:56
Speaker 2: Take her, child of God.
