Until I went into the Sanctuary
My heart and my flesh may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
-Psalm 73:26
Asaph is one of those guys in the Bible who is often lost in the monatany of the Read the Bible in a year plans. I like to refer to him as the "Lost Prophet" - not because I'm advocating that someone outside of Scripture was shown something by God that is authoritative for all mankind (I am a very staunch believer that the God who desired relationship furnished for us an Authorized and Inerrant Book that clearly shows who He - the Holy Bible) - but rather that Asaph is hidden in the sea of the Psalms and often glazed over when reading 5 chapters straight to get to the end.
In fact Asaph has more chapters attributed to his name - 12 - than many of the minor prophets. Yet we preach many sermons out of the books of Daniel, Zechariah and Hosea - but very few about Asaph. Which is a shame really because he touches on many themes that are relevant for our day. He talks about imparting faith to the next generation, breaking free of empty tradition in order to have a genuine response to God and overcoming doubt.
Psalm 73 is one such chapter where Asaph opens up about the struggles of his heart. He sees bad people prospering and good people having all sorts of turmoil. The observations he made grew into deep thought on the subject and the more he thought about it the more he found that it became "troublesome in his sight" (Psalm 73:16).
There is much to be said about this struggle that Asaph found himself in but I will limit it to 2 points. The first is that doubt is often the brother to understanding. In that those who are observative and hungry to understand will at times find themselves in a predicament like Asaph. In my experience the deeper I study into a particular subject the more questions arise in my mind. Many of these questions are answered by the Lord but at times a few can stay in your mind and bother you like Asaph's did to him.
The second point is that great men and women of God can have doubts sometimes. I personally don't think the Church understands well enough that in the same way God delivers us from our sins so He delivers us from our doubts. Doubt shouldn't be a scandelous thing - like I said earlier it is often the traveling companion of someone hungry to understand and know the deep things of God. But while it shouldn't shock us if we run into doubts in our walk with God we shouldn't be proud of them - Asaph comments on this saying that if he had spoken about his struggles when they were heavy on his heart that he would have betrayed the next generation of God's children (Psalm 73:15).
This troublesome splinter in Asaph's mind stayed with him all the way up through verse 16 but them something incredible happened. Asaph walked into the Sanctuary of God.
In the Old Testament the Sanctuary was the place that housed the Ark of the Covenant - which was the physical address of God's Manifest Presence. The concept may feel foreign to us as New Testament believers because we know by faith that God lives inside of us but before the Cross the Presence of God was limited to a specific location - which was wherever the Ark was resting.
The Ark moved from the Tabernacle of Moses to the Tabernacle of David and then to the Temple of Solomon all in Asaph's day but wherever the Ark went so dwelt the God of Israel.
Something changed inside of Asaph when he walked into the Presence of God. The question that had deeply bothered him stopped troubling his mind.
The Presence became a breath of fresh air inside of Asaph's soul that resulted in clarity in his mind. He reflects on the state of his soul as he wrestled with his doubt saying that he "was pierced within" and "was like a beast" before God but then fondly remembers that even in the midst of his doubt that God never left him and even further that the Lord took a hold of his heart and will continue to do so until God receives him into glory (Psalm 73:24).
I find it fascinating that one of the few references to the Afterlife in the Old Testament comes from the pen of a man who has just been delivered from doubt.
Being delivered in this way seems to have deeply changed Asaph - who although having the status and prestige of a good ministry job in an up and coming Kingdom realizes that everything in his life boils down to God's Goodness to him. He goes on to declare that even if he falls into questions again - if his heart and flesh fails - that God will bring him through it and out of it. He ends the Psalm with a declaration of the impact that the Presence has had on his soul saying "the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord God my refuge."
The some Power that set Asaph's soul free from doubt and brought clarity to his mind is available for you and for me.
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