When the Curse Comes Close

It's a Psalm of David here in a series of Psalms here late in the book of Psalms by David.

And David is feeling the pain of the curse.

The world isn't how it should be.

And the curse is coming close again for him.

And so David's battling enemies at the gate and he's pleading again with God for relief, for deliverance, for victory.

Like he's prayed so many more times.

We've seen this in the Psalms over years now.

And as he pleads here in Psalm 108, he takes five big steps.

And those five steps are my sermon this morning.

When the curse comes close, step one, we groan.

We don't know what situation, what particular situation caused David to write the psalm, but we know that he was struggling to see where God was and what God was doing at this moment.

The psalm opens with this loud praise and confidence.

We're going to come back here in a minute.

He says, I will sing and make melody with all my being.

But the psalm doesn't end there.

And it doesn't stay there.

In fact, it kind of feels like there's two Psalms here and we'll talk about why in a minute.

By the time we get to verses 10 and 11, he says, who will bring me to the fortified city? Who's going to lead me up against my enemy, Edom? Have you not rejected us, O God? You do not go out, O God, with our enemies.

He's saying, God, we're going out against our enemies and it feels like you've rejected us.

It feels like you've tossed us out to the wolves and then you just walked away.

Where are you? Why aren't you helping us? And before we go farther in the psalm, we know this feeling, right? Right? Maybe it's a persistent conflict somewhere in your family.

Or there's some frustrating dynamics at work that just linger months over months over months and make it so hard.

Or it's a friend who keeps disappointing you even after lots of hard conversations.

There's more and more pain.

Or it's piles and piles of doctor's visits and the problem still won't go away.