Faith in the Silence
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Text: Psalm 13:1–6
Theme: Honest lament and persistent faith
Focus: How to pray when hope feels lost
1 How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? for ever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? 2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? 3 Consider and hear me, O Lord my God: Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death; 4 Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him; And those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved. 5 But I have trusted in thy mercy; My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. 6 I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me.
🔰 Introduction:
🔰 Introduction:
Have you ever prayed and felt like heaven was silent? Have you ever cried out to God and wondered if He even heard you?
HAVE YOU EVER FELT LIKE GOD HAS FORGOTTEN YOU? As a pastor I have spoken with men and women who feel like God has turned his back on them. “Where is God while my life is falling apart? Why has God abandoned me?”
Some people feel this way, but they would never say so out loud. They have been taught that Christians don’t experience such things—a good Christian always experiences abundant life, the victorious Christian life.
They’re worried that if they say what they are thinking, their Christian friends will look down on them and wonder whether there is unconfessed sin in their lives. Maybe they will question their salvation. So they keep up appearances and keep their questions to themselves. And yet they can’t shake the feeling that God has turned away from them.
If that describes you, it’s good to know that you are not alone. Charles Spurgeon, the great nineteenth-century preacher, once announced from the pulpit of London’s Metropolitan Tabernacle, “I am the subject of depressions of spirit so fearful that I hope none of you ever gets to such extremes of wretchedness as I go to.” This was not unusual for him. Ten years earlier, he had been honest and vulnerable as he introduced a sermon on Isaiah 41:14.
“Periodical tornadoes and hurricanes will sweep o’er the Christian; he will be subjected to as many trials in his spirit as trials in his flesh. This much I know, if it be not so with all of you it is so with me. I have to speak to-day to myself; and whilst I shall be endeavoring to encourage those who are distressed and down-hearted, I shall be preaching, I trust to myself, for I need something which shall cheer my heart … my soul is cast down within me, I feel as if I had rather die than live.… I need your prayers; I need God’s Holy Spirit; and I felt that I could not preach to-day, unless I should preach in such a way as to encourage you and to encourage myself in the good work and labor of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
If you have walked many miles with Christ, you know what he means. You have probably felt the same way at times. There are days when my prayers seem empty too, when my Bible is just letters on a page, when I feel like God is nowhere near me.
How good to know that David experienced the same things we do. David is one of the giants of the Old Testament, “a man after [God’s] own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14). The prophet Samuel anointed him. He was a king, a general, and an author of Scripture. He is an ancestor of Christ. Yet in Psalm 13 David describes a time when he felt like God had turned away from him. What’s more, David was a prophet; in the Psalms he is speaking for Christ. So this is the experience of our Lord Jesus in his humanity too. If David could be honest with us, we should be able to be honest with each other.
Psalm 13 doesn’t end with David’s questions. If we feel like God has abandoned us, we shouldn’t abandon ourselves to discouragement. We need to turn to God in faith like David did to find the joy and peace he experienced in the end. God has given us his great and precious promises. We have an anchor for the soul. We need to encourage our hearts by looking to Jesus.
Psalm 13 is a raw, heartfelt prayer from David — not a neatly packaged devotion, but a soul crying out in anguish. It begins in the valley of despair and ends on the mountaintop of praise. And in those six short verses, David teaches us how to pray when hope feels lost.
Charles Spurgeon once said,
“There are no stars visible in the day; they are there, but we cannot see them until the darkness comes.”
Psalm 13 is a prayer forged in darkness — and it teaches us how to be honest with God while holding on to faith.
David reveals three movements that take us from the valley to the mountain top...
I. The Cry of Despair — “How Long, O Lord?”
I. The Cry of Despair — “How Long, O Lord?”
1 How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? for ever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? 2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?
David begins with four agonizing questions — all repeating the phrase “How long?”
It feels like this trouble and sorrow is never going to end. Time flies when you’re having fun, but the hours crawl by when life is hard. A week in the hospital is longer than a month of good health and exercise.
We can put up with something if we know how long it will last. Trouble can be unbearable when there is no end in sight. Your endurance wears thin like old brake pads. We can usually stand under short, sharp trials. Long-term trials grind us down over time.
To make things worse, David doesn’t seem to know why this is happening. There is no confession of sin in Psalm 13, no repentance, no guilt that seems to be hindering God’s blessings. For some reason that is hidden to David, it feels like God has turned away from him
A. The Agony of Delay
David feels forgotten — abandoned by the God he loves. “How long” isn’t just a question of time. It’s a question of trust. “God, where are You?”
This is not rebellion. This is relationship. Only those who believe God cares would plead like this.
It feels like God no longer cares enough to pay attention and take special care of him as a beloved child. We think to ourselves, “If he remembered me, he would not have allowed this to happen. And he would certainly not allow this to go on.”
Can God forget us? Of course not! The Lord says,
15 Can a woman forget her sucking child, That she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, Yet will I not forget thee. 16 Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; Thy walls are continually before me.
Our hearts may tell us that we have been forgotten. Satan wants us to believe that we are like an orphan on a street corner. Yet we know this cannot be true.
B. The Anguish Within - (Vs. 2)
“How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily?”
David is emotionally drained. He’s trying to solve his pain with internal thoughts — but it’s leading nowhere.
Cross-reference: Psalm 42:3
3 My tears have been my meat day and night, While they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?
“The first real atheism came with Greek philosophy. So the taunt did not mean that God did not exist, but that God had abandoned the psalmist.” James Montgomery Boice
As we ask ourselves why this is happening, we might start dredging up past sins. We know that we are saved by grace, but we wonder whether God has really forgiven us. Maybe he is punishing us for what we did. He has decided to take it out of our hide. Our thoughts become dark, and our hearts are full of sorrow.
C. The Adversary’s Advantage - (Vs. 2)
“How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?”
It looks like the enemy is winning. David’s suffering is public. He’s not only in pain; he’s humiliated.
David wonders how long his enemy will triumph over him. David fought against the Philistines his whole life. And he was on the run from King Saul for about eight years. The Ancient Near East was a violent place.
Most of us do not have human enemies trying to kill us, but we all have two great enemies. The Bible says that Satan is “a roaring lion” looking for “someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8); he is the enemy of our souls. And death is the great enemy of us all. In fact, some scholars think that David is thinking of death as his enemy. When darkness descends in our hearts, it can feel like death will swallow us forever.
David felt like he was about to collapse under the weight of this unrelenting burden. We might feel the same way. But ultimately this psalm is about Christ.
“God’s delays are not God’s denials.” – Warren Wiersbe
Even when God seems silent, He is still sovereign.
II. The Call for Deliverance — “Consider and Hear Me”
II. The Call for Deliverance — “Consider and Hear Me”
(Psalm 13:3–4)
Despite the pain, David prays. He doesn’t walk away — he leans in.
Mercifully, David doesn’t leave us with these dark questions. He shows us the way out of the darkness into the light. David’s prayer in verses 3, 4 is the turning point in this psalm.
David prays to the very God who seems so far away from him, who seems to have abandoned him. Although his heart tells him that God has turned away, David doesn’t believe his own feelings. By faith he pleads with God to hear and answer.
“Consider and hear me, O LORD my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death…”
A. The Request for God’s Attention - (Vs. 3a)
“O LORD my God” — even in lament, David speaks personally. God hasn’t moved, and David refuses to let go. David’s faith is tenacious. By faith he holds on to his relationship with God and calls him, “Yahweh my God.” He would not be torn from the arms of God.
Consider = Look!
David is saying to God, “Look! Answer me! Give me light!” Three requests. He prays with the passion and confidence of a man who knows God. The Lord is “my God” (v. 3).
To raise the stakes, he reminds God that if he doesn’t turn to him, then the enemies will win (13:3b, 4). God had promised to bless David. David subtly reminds God that if he fell, God would default on his promises.
The enemy would see that God had not been faithful to keep his word; so God’s character is on the line. God had committed himself to David, and David prayed on the basis of those promises.
God has committed himself to us too...
20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
When our hearts are full of questions and we wonder why God has left us, that is the time for tenacious faith. We need to pray like never before.
Prayer in sorrow is not weakness — it is worship in its truest form. The temptation is to turn somewhere else besides God...
B. The Reach for Clarity - (Vs. 3b)
“Lighten mine eyes” — Give me light. Give me hope. Give me perspective. He feels on the edge of despair.
God said to the people of Jeremiah’s day,
13 For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.
When our hearts tell us that God is far away, we are tempted to take matters into our own hands.
God’s way hasn’t worked, so I will do things my way. God has not given me a Christian husband, so I will date this nice man at work even though he is not a Christian. God has put me in a dead-end job, so I will betray somebody to get ahead. God left me with a disability—he doesn’t care about me, so why should I care about him? I’ll do what I want to be happy.
The first step of faith is to turn to the very God who seems to have abandoned us. When it feels like God is far away, that is when we need to pray the most. The Scriptures encourage us.
8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. 14 And I will be found of you, saith the Lord: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the Lord; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.
A lighthouse doesn’t stop the storm, but it shows the way through.
David is asking God to show the way through the darkness.
If we are not enlightened by God, we will surely fall asleep. And often, spiritual sleep leads to spiritual death.
C. The Risk of Perceived Defeat - (Vs. 4)
David is concerned not just for himself but for God’s name.
“Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed…”
David knew one of the worst parts about losing to anyone is hearing him boast after he has defeated you. He did not want his enemy to rejoice when he was brought low.
Knowing how his enemies would gloat over his fall, David was even more determined to not be moved.
“Awareness of God and the enemy is virtually the hallmark of every psalm of David; the positive and negative charges which produced the driving force of his best years.” Derek Kidner
Even in sorrow, he remembers this is God’s battle too. What a reminder: our pain is seen by a God who cares about both our soul and His glory.
III. The Confidence of Devotion — “I Will Sing Unto the Lord”
III. The Confidence of Devotion — “I Will Sing Unto the Lord”
(Psalm 13:5–6)
What a shift!
As David settled his heart through prayer, the Lord gave him light. David’s prayer turns to confident joy.
“But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the LORD…”
He’s still in the same situation — but his song has returned.
A. Trust in God's Steadfast Love - (Vs. 5a)
The grammar shows that he trusted God at a specific point in time. I picture this like setting a stake in the ground. David could point to a moment in time when he said, “Lord, I do trust you. No matter what is happening, I am deciding right now that I believe you are good and you care for me.” David made a conscious decision to hope in God.
“I have trusted in thy mercy” — mercy (Steadfast Love) is the Hebrew word chesed, Steadfast love” means God’s loyalty to his promises and commitment to his people. It is covenant love
When a husband vows to love his wife “until death do us part,” this is chesed, steadfast love. He will not always feel warm fuzzies for her; he might even be angry at her sometimes. But if he is a good man he will be committed to her and faithful to her and will care for her and love her. God has committed himself by covenant to his people like a husband to his bride. David trusts in God’s committed love.
“He begins his prayer as if he thought God would never give him a kind look more.... But by the time he had exercised himself a little in duty, his distemper wears off, the mists scatter, and his faith breaks out as the sun in its strength.” William Gurnall, cited in Spurgeon
When you can’t trust anything else, trust in God’s mercy.
B. Joy in Future Deliverance - (Vs. 5b)
David says, “My heart shall rejoice” — not because things are fixed, but because he knows who God is. And because he trusts in God, David also hopes in God. Looking to the future, he says, “my heart shall rejoice in your salvation” (v. 5).
“Salvation” in this sense means complete well-being. God will meet every need.
David means more than knowing that his sins are forgiven, as wonderful as that is. He means complete salvation: comfort for his heart, quiet for his mind, healing for his body, complete safety, perfect peace.
God is not just saving our souls: he is saving us body, mind, heart, soul, spirit, senses, eyes, hands, feet, thoughts, emotions, relationships—everything we are! God says, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5).
David had not yet received what God had promised. He looked forward and rejoiced to see God’s salvation in the distance. This is the way it has always been for God’s people. We look forward by faith for blessings that are to come. Peter puts it this way:
13 Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
Faith looks ahead. David rejoices in what hasn’t even happened yet. Real hope—hope that sees the future—will give you joy, even in the worst trouble. God’s promises are so real and so big that having them changes everything.
C. Praise for Past Faithfulness - (Vs. 6)
C. Praise for Past Faithfulness - (Vs. 6)
“He hath dealt bountifully with me.”
He looks back and remembers: “God has never failed me before.” Memory fuels trust.
“[In times of trouble, the Lord] would with one Scripture or another, strengthen me against all; insomuch that I have often said, Were it lawful, I could pray for greater trouble, for the greater comfort’s sake.” John Bunyan, cited in Spurgeon
God’s bounty is nothing less than all his generosity that he pours out day by day. When his heart was heavy and his eyes were dark, David was blind to the good things God was doing today and the good things he has stored for tomorrow. He was blind to God’s blessings. When he turned to God in prayer and fixed his hope on God, he sang for joy at God’s generosity.
If you are a Christian and you feel like God has abandoned you, I can’t tell you when the emotional darkness will lift. But I can tell you that you are not alone. You are following the footsteps of godly men and women who have gone before you. David felt abandoned by God. Our Lord Jesus truly was forsaken by God.
When the clouds lift and the light shines on you again, you will see his face, and you will know that he has been right beside you all along. For now you need to call out to God in prayer, the very God who seems so far away. You need to hope in him. His promises are true, his Word is sure, and he will save you.
Conclusion:
Psalm 13 begins in despair and ends in devotion. What changed? Not David’s situation — but David’s perspective.
This psalm gives us permission to be real. You can come to God with your pain, your questions, and even your tears.
But it also calls us to remember:
5 For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
When God feels distant… draw closer.
When your hope feels gone… pray anyway.
When the silence stretches long… sing anyway.
Because faith is not just believing when we see — it’s trusting when we don’t.
“I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me.” – Psalm 13:6
