Psalm 42
Notes
Transcript
Over the past weeks, we have seen how the Psalms can help us as we work through our struggles in life. Whether we are dealing with sin and it effects in our lives, evil people, or difficult circumstances.
When it comes to sin and its effects, emotional and spiritual struggles are a natural result of living in disobedience to God. When we do rebel against God, Yahweh, the “I AM,” the source and sustainer of life we will struggle with emotion. We will feel alone, depressed. Depression then comes out in listlessness, bitterness, anger. This is because we have separated ourselves from Yahweh, our life, the source of all that is good. The conviction of our god-given conscience, and that of the Holy Spirit can overwhelm us, as they must to bring us to repentance and confession so that we can be restored.
But living in sin and it effects is not the only source of emotional and spiritual struggle.
Sometimes, when dealing with evil people, or the evil of this world, we can become overwhelmed. We are ridiculed and taunted. We can feel like God is distant. We question if he has forgotten us. We wrestle in our hearts and minds, we feel torn-up inside. We know that God is good and that he loves us. But the circumstances of life are so horrible and hurtful. We know that He has the power to change things, but He does not. We sink in despair. Our hearts break.
Like Spafford
What Are You Afraid Of? Facing Down Your Fears with Faith God Cannot Be Defeated by Disasters
In 1871, Horatio Spafford lived in the Lake View suburb of Chicago. He was a young lawyer with a wife, Anna, and four little girls. In October of that year, the whole center of the city was devastated by fire. No one is certain how the fire started, but it killed hundreds of people and destroyed whole sections of the city.
All across town, people were wandering homeless and hungry. The Spaffords were deeply involved in doing what they could to help families in distress. But it was no short-term ministry. Two years later, exhausted from their work, they planned a trip to Europe for rest. But at the last minute, business kept Horatio in town. Anna and the four girls boarded a ship and left the harbor.
Late one night during the voyage, another ship rammed the steamer, which sank within twenty minutes. One of only forty-seven who were rescued, Anna was pulled from the water, unconscious and floating on a piece of debris. But the four Spafford girls perished. Anna sent a telegram from Paris to her husband: “Saved alone. What shall I do?” She remarked to another passenger that God had given her four daughters and taken them away and that perhaps someday she would understand why.
Like Bridges
Luther Bridges began his ministry as a Methodist preacher at seventeen and spent much of his life in evangelistic work. While attending Bible college, he met Sarah Vetch, and the two married young, eventually having three sons.1 In 1910, Bridges accepted an invitation to lead a two-week revival near his wife’s parents’ home in Kentucky, leaving his family there while he conducted services in a nearby town.1
The tragedy that followed became transformative. During the revival, his wife’s parents’ home burned down, and Sarah and all three sons perished in the fire.1 Bridges struggled deeply with grief, questioning how such loss could occur while he was engaged in God’s work, and he temporarily stopped preaching.1
What do we do then? Repentance and confession are not what we need. What do we do?
That is the situation Psalm 42 and Psalm 43 address.
These two Psalms were likely one Psalm, though for reasons unknown, were at some point broken apart that they might be used separately. Psalm 42 has the introduction, and Psalm 43 has none. They are also tied together by the refrain that occurs in Psalm 42:5, 11, and Psalm 43:5.
5 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why are you disturbed within me?
Wait for God, for I shall still praise Him,
For the salvation of His presence.
Despair - bowed down, brought low, inward brokenness and hopelessness
Disturbed - describing the sound or roar of waves, inward noise, commotion
For the choir director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah.
1 As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So my soul pants for You, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;
When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food day and night,
While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me.
For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God,
With the sound of a shout of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why are you disturbed within me?
Wait for God, for I shall still praise Him,
For the salvation of His presence.
6 O my God, my soul is in despair within me;
Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan
And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls;
All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.
8 By day, Yahweh will command His lovingkindness;
And by night, His song will be with me,
A prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries reproach me,
While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
11 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why are you disturbed within me?
Wait for God, for I shall still praise Him,
The salvation of my presence and my God.
1 Give justice to me, O God, and plead my case against an unholy nation;
Oh protect me from the deceitful and unrighteous man!
2 For You are the God of my strength; why have You rejected me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
3 Oh send out Your light and Your truth, let them lead me;
Let them bring me to Your holy mountain
And to Your dwelling places.
4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
To God my exceeding joy;
And upon the lyre I shall praise You, O God, my God.
5 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why are you disturbed within me?
Wait for God, for I shall still praise Him,
The salvation of my presence and my God.
A Maskil of the Sons of Korah
A Maskil of the Sons of Korah
maskil - possibly a wisdom Psalm
wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord
applied knowledge of how to live
Sons of Korah
Exodus 6:18 “The sons of Kohath: Amram and Izhar and Hebron and Uzziel; and the years of Kohath’s life were 133 years.”
Exodus 6:20 “And Amram took his father’s sister Jochebed as a wife, and she bore him Aaron and Moses; and the years of Amram’s life were 137 years.”
Exodus 6:21 “The sons of Izhar: Korah and Nepheg and Zichri.”
Numbers 16 - Korah, Dathan, Abiram, On
Sons of Korah did not join in the rebellion, and were not destroyed along with the rebels.
Famous son of Korah would be the prophet Samuel. We find his genealogy in 1 Chronicles 6.
Later, other Korahites joined David in Ziklag.
And still later, David appoint Korahites as song leaders and gatekeepers for the temple worship.
Being of the tribe of Levi, the Korahites did not have their own land, but were given key cities in the inheritances of other tribes.
Korahites lived in Ephraim, Dan, and Manasseh. Joshua 21:4–5
Being in those tribes, they would have been taken away in exile from the land by the Assyrians in 722 BC.
That is likely the setting for Psalm 42 & Psalm 43. A son of Korah who was taken away in exile, is overwhelmed by the loss, and the ridicule and taunting he faces in exile.
Lament
Turn to the Lord
Complain
Ask
Trust
1 As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So my soul pants for You, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;
When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food day and night,
While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me.
For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God,
With the sound of a shout of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.
Thirsting for God
He longs to have communion with God, yet feels so distant
Longs to be near to God, for him, to go to the temple
He is being ridiculed, “Where is your God?”
This could have been from his captors. It was likely from the other Israelite captives.
He likely tried to lead the Israelites to the Lord, though the majority were constantly worshipping Baal and the calves built by Jeroboam.
Now, being captive, the jeering, the taunting comes. “Where is your God now?” “Why are we suffering like this if God is so powerful?” “Why isn’t he coming and freeing us?”
Psalm 42.4 he is remembering how he used to go to Jerusalem for the feasts, or festivals.
The festivals: Passover, Weeks, Tabernacles.
Deuteronomy 16:16 “16 “Three times in a year all your males shall appear before Yahweh your God in the place which He chooses, at the Feast of Unleavened Bread and at the Feast of Weeks and at the Feast of Booths, and they shall not appear before Yahweh empty-handed.”
Refrain
5 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why are you disturbed within me?
Wait for God, for I shall still praise Him,
For the salvation of His presence.
There is a battle going on.
He FEELS distant from the Lord. He FEELS the torment in his soul. God is good. God is powerful. God could intervene. God is not here. God has forgotten me. God is not ending this suffering.
But he knows the truth of God’s goodness and justice. He knows the truth of God’s promises.
So he fights back.
He questions his feelings.
He rebukes his thoughts and torment.
He determines to wait for the Lord.
He vows to praise the Lord, for his salvation of his presence.
Then he cries to the Lord.
6 O my God, my soul is in despair within me;
Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan
And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
He tells God what is happening. He remembers the good land God gave in fulfilment of his promise to Abraham.
Yet.
7 Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls;
All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.
He also knows the suffering he is now experiencing.
The suffering as a result of the sin of the people of Israel.
The suffering that is on going, and cannot be ignored.
Like the sound of a waterfall, there is torment in his heart and mind, in his soul. It is deafening like the roar of the waters rushing over the edge of the waterfall, and crashing with a never-ending roar upon the rocks below.
The waves from the waterfall keep coming, and like a flood keep breaking over him.
So, are the trials he is living in this foreign land, among people who mock his faith in God.
But yet,
8 By day, Yahweh will command His lovingkindness;
And by night, His song will be with me,
A prayer to the God of my life.
The facts. God is with him by day and by night.
He sees the lovingkindness of God each day as God continues to meet his needs in the midst of the suffering.
Though he weeps through the night over his loss, he finds that God gives him a new song.
This is what Luther Bridges experienced.
Yet the Lord drew him back to ministry through prayer and study, and Bridges eventually ceased asking “Why?” about his family’s death.1
A turning point came when Bridges encountered Psalm 91:1—“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty”—which convinced him that God’s presence could sustain him through his loss.1 From this spiritual breakthrough, Bridges composed a hymn reflecting the peace available through trust in God.1 The song declares,
Song
Song
This is what Jeremiah experienced in his lament.
22 The lovingkindnesses of Yahweh indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
9 I say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries reproach me,
While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
He voices his complaint to the Lord
and again, he speaks to himself
11 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why are you disturbed within me?
Wait for God, for I shall still praise Him,
The salvation of my presence and my God.
Turned to the Lord
Voiced his complaint
Now he is going to Ask God to act.
1 Give justice to me, O God, and plead my case against an unholy nation;
Oh protect me from the deceitful and unrighteous man!
2 For You are the God of my strength; why have You rejected me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
3 Oh send out Your light and Your truth, let them lead me;
Let them bring me to Your holy mountain
And to Your dwelling places.
4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
To God my exceeding joy;
And upon the lyre I shall praise You, O God, my God.
And finally, he speaks to himself again
5 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why are you disturbed within me?
Wait for God, for I shall still praise Him,
The salvation of my presence and my God.
Lament
Turn to the Lord
Complain
Remember, Find the song
Ask
Trust - command yourself
Remember: 3 festivals
Passover - Christ’s provision of salvation
Weeks - Christ’s provision of the Holy Spirit to comfort, guide, remind
Tabernacles - Christ is coming again!
Verse 2
All my life was wrecked by sin and strife
Discord filled my heart with pain
Jesus swept across the broken strings
Stirred the slumb'ring chords again
Verse 3
Feasting on the riches of His grace
Resting 'neath His shelt'ring wing
Always looking on His smiling face
That is why I shout and sing
Verse 5
Soon He's coming back to welcome me
Far beyond the starry sky
I shall wing my flight to worlds unknown
I shall reign with Him on high
Horatio boarded a ship to find his wife and bring her home. When the ship’s path crossed the very point where his daughters had been lost, the captain called him to his cabin and told him so. Horatio, deeply moved, found a piece of paper from the hotel in which he had stayed before the voyage. He jotted down the words to “It Is Well with My Soul,” now one of the world’s favorite hymns.
Back in Chicago, the couple tried to start over again. A son was born to them, and then another daughter. Maybe the worst was over. But then, another tragedy: the boy died of scarlet fever at four years old.
Inexplicably, the family’s church took the view that these tragedies were surely the punishment of a wrathful God for some unspecified sin on the part of the Spaffords. An elder in a church he had helped build, Horatio was asked to leave rather than being taken in and comforted by a healing community.
In 1881, the little family left the United States to begin a new life in Jerusalem. They rented a house in the Old City section, with the goal of imitating the lives of the first-century Christians as closely as possible. Soon the family was widely known for their love and service to the needy, as well as for their devotion to the Scriptures. Even today, the Spafford Children’s Center serves Jerusalem and the West Bank by providing health care and educational support to as many as thirty thousand children annually under the leadership of the Spaffords’ descendants.10
Anna and Horatio Spafford suffered severe testings of their faith, but they did not blame God for their suffering. They knew He was in control of all things, and because He could not be defeated, neither could they. Their faith allowed them to learn through their testings and to use their pain to bless others and further the Gospel.
Lament
Turn to the Lord
Complain
Remember, Find the song
Ask
Trust - command yourself
Again, and again, and again.
