Sunday, December 15th, 2019 - PM - Lord, Set Me Free! (Psalm 88)

Turn with me to Psalm 88 Psalm 88.

I'm not sure why the Lord orders things the way he does sometimes until maybe hindsight. And why we would be here in this time of year looking at a song such as Psalm 88.

But I do trust. the God knows what he's doing and that

In the bustle and hustle of all the Christmas time activities, let's not forget.

It's not exactly the greatest time of year for some people.

I don't want to be the one to have to burst any bubbles or take any Joy or Bring you to a low place without leaving you with hope but if I'm to be true to the scriptures and do my job to preach the whole counsel. We must visit Psalm 88. It is the only Psalm in the entire Salter.

Like it there is no other song. that compares With how Psalm 88 is written.

And I prefaced that because I want you to know this is something that I've dreaded for some time. And if you'll be kind to me, we'll see what's here. And I know my dread is only my weakness in flesh that God has something from this song that each of us need. I know I know what I'm going to share with you today Psalm 88. Is a hard song I'm not going to try to fluff it up. There's no way that I can make it sound any better than it does or I might be guilty of adding to the scriptures are taking away from the scriptures when what's written is written and what stands? Will be here until Heaven and Earth pass. And we need some 88 just as much as we need some 150. We need Psalm 88 just as much as we need someone.

And it's a song.

It's a song that touches one of the deepest places of our heart in life. Nelly you can stick your head in the sand and if you want to do that, then I would suggest it now is your time to exit?

You can ignore Psalm 88 and you can move on with life and everything. You can pretend that it's all peachy keen and everything is going the way that I ought to go and there's no trouble anywhere, but you'd only be fooling yourself. Let me be your friend today come alongside you sit down with you and work through this most difficult song. Hopefully I can help you. See some clarity as to why is Sundar Salter as we continue savoring the soldier with the time we have I would draw your attention to the inscription. We will look at that momentarily. I want you to look at verse number 13 and then we'll consider the storm in its entirety Psalm 88 verse number 13. I'd like for you to read this out loud with me and let this be from your heart if you mean these words Psalm 88 verse 13, the Bible says but unto thee have I cried. Oh Lord and in the morning shall my prayer prevent the Lord I ask for your Divine help an unction as I share the truth of the scriptures today. I pray Lord that you would not leave us in a place of dejection. And that Lord I Would by no means lead anyone down a path that would reopen Old Wounds or cause them to wallow in in a self self-centered depressed Meyer the Lord we must confront the truth of Psalm 88 today or will not find true healing to our soul to which you would call us. And this phone is unique in the Stalter. There is none other like it. And I'm thankful that it is the only one like it because no other song ends the way this song does. And Lord, I pray that you will help us to come to a greater understanding of your loving kindness and your mercy and thank you Lord that the Bible doesn't end with the last word of Psalm 88. Thank you Lord that we have. Hope as we read of those angels that came by Mary at that tune when she was so broken. In the place on the brink of utter despair all hopes having she thought been dashed upon the rocks of death. Mourning over the loss of the one she loves so much gave her life following and now he was gone and the angels coming pose the question. Why why weepest thou? Oh Lord, the time will come when we might hear similar words and truly through your word we can take comfort in that you hear even Beyond this life Lord. You can give us hope even in the midst of wondering will there be any answer from heaven? We can still hold out hope that the only place we can direct our prayers to his to your unfailing grace your marvelous love. I pray that you'll help us to understand where to go when life hurts and Heaven is apparently silent. Mage one of us remain steadfast that even when the world might mock when it seems that you're a Million Miles Away Lord, we will simply follow the example of of the stoma steer him on that. We will just keep on praying. When darkness is our closest friend. Lord I pray that you will help us in this time in Jesus name. I pray amen. Some have titled this when darkness is my closest friend and they're working through this Psalm. It is unlike any other in this altar in that no other phone closes with the words that Psalm 88 closes with every song that we've studied the even though some of them of taking us to some very low points to some very deep deep places with the psalmist inevitably as a preacher. I've always been able to come back to some verse of Hope some some semblance of truth that the Somas came back to life and and realized his Hope was in God Psalm 88 has has not averse to end on a high note. Read the very last word of the song and that's where it ends. That's where this song stops. It doesn't stop in light. It's tops in darkness.

We can't erase it from the psalter. We can't erase the trews that the psalmist Works through from our lives and I'll be frank be honest with yourself. Not with me have there not been times when the back of your mind you had questions that Maybe you didn't formulate them as a as a prayer per se but you were thinking between you and God. What's going on here? Did I miss something somewhere along the way?

There have been many times throughout Ministry and I'm sure I have many more to go if the Lord tarries and I have more opportunity to Pastor that I will feel just as helpless then as I did time and time that I could tell you about with visitation standing by people sides. Not really knowing what to say not having any answers in an of myself. Psalm 88 speaks of a time in this psalmist Journey where There are no answers. none

And so for me to impose an answer where there is none would be for me to put myself in a place that I don't belong.

I don't have all the answers, but this song helps me in my face. Because even though there were no answers. I want you to notice the psalmist says I'm not giving up. I'm not giving up I am going to keep asking and Lord, even if you're not hearing me. I'm not going to stop praying.

When life hurts in heaven is apparently silent. What do you do? When you have no answers and you at your Wit's End, what do you do? Well, you're a pastor you have to say that keep on praying but sound so severe it is. There's there's no other there's no other recourse that I can take you to do. You understand my plight. There's nowhere else that I can go. There's no one that I can take you to that can help you but God. Maybe you would chop that up as well. Then you're no good because you can't do what I'm wanting you to do. I'm futile. No, I I can't do everything. I don't have magical powers to just wave a wand and make trouble go away. Sometimes I don't know why people are going through what they're going through sometimes only God does it might be because of sin, but it could be because of testing or trial or or any other number of reasons. It doesn't have to be since it could just be purging of dross. I I don't know it all. I can grow pan and I can pray and I can search the scriptures Lord. Give me a verse and inevitably I come to something but if Psalm 88 were all I had how despondent would it be? now I drew your attention to the inscription. I did so on purpose because I want you to notice something. This is the last of the songs of the sons of kohath poor. Excuse me, the song for the sons of Korah and you notice through book 3. We've had many of these Psalms these songs for the sons of Korah.

It's to the chief musician upon Mohela. leonos maskil of Heman the ezrahite

Read the inscription for Psalm 89 will you? maskil of Ethan the ezrahite

I don't believe you should conclude your reading of Psalm 88 with Psalm 88 verse number 18 encouragement for you would be to continue reading in this phone 89. Now you can take that position with me. If you believe the instructions are inspired. If you believe that the variance scriptions for this phone are as much scripture is any other word? In fact in the Hebrew Bible verse number one of this song is actually the inscription verse number 18, then would be verse number 19 in our English Bible. And I take it as just as much inspired as the other things that are written in this phone. So is Psalm 88 is the last of for the sons of Korah It Is by Heman the ezrahite psalm 89 is by Ethan the ezrahite you see the connection between the two. So while Psalm 88 itself hemans words ends with Verse 18. It's like it's like the other Ezra had just picked right up where he left off. And what does he say in Psalm 89 verse 1 I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever. How long Oh only until we get to the end of Psalm 88. That's how long I'm going to sing of his mercies and we learn a lot about God's character in so many ate his lovingkindness is Mercy who's going to tell people about that from the grave? That's the argument of the psalmist. So what are you do you just keep on praying when there seems to be no response from Heaven. You just keep on praying. That's the best help I can give. It's unlike any other song. Is there there's not even a vow to praise for the Future's So you mean you never even says, you know, someday it's going to turn around and I'll come praise. You know, he just ends in darkness. Groping through what one writer called The Darkest Night of the Soul just a seemingly groping but again, so maybe 9 follows on its heels with some Covenant. No promises the Covenant of David. May God made with David as seen through so many night and he will keep his coming. He will keep his promises to Israel. It's not over until God says it's over. We don't know the exact background of the song which also can be a help to us because then it applies to multiple different instances in life. I don't think we can in a box it into 1 time frame in a writer's life. It speaks to so many and it's been applied in so many venues. I'll give you some of those but it seems to Envision the despair that comes in certain life scenarios. Come with me if you would now only if you would. And I understand. I have sensitive ears here today. So I will I will be the kindest that I can be. But I also will refuse to shy away from facing the truth that this life is a nasty life and this world is an evil Wicked place and that's because of sin II don't we go all the way back to the Adams ball and all that, but we can people do wicked things. And it's not even Wicked people. Sometimes it could be just someone who's trying to do. What's right and they get involved and Tangled and something that that they're fighting for a cause and then they wind up in a place where Psalm 88 might be their best friend. Come with me down to the corridors of time. If you would let's go back to well. Let's go back to the kingdom of David. What will just let me preface all that. I'm about to stay here with this is this is glorified imagination or we're not going to chapter and verse I can't turn to it. Well, maybe there is a Bible story. I just haven't thought of it yet book in The Book of the Kings, maybe brother Michael cover that and some of his studies and blacks just my imagination. You're with me on that. Okay stepping aside from the actual text giving you where where we need to go come with me to David's Kingdom. The enemies are surrounding and David and joab and Abner and his mighty men. They're preparing to go out to the battlefield because the battle calls and David is confident. Our King is confident. Now I'm imagining imagine with me and we're going to go with David and we're going to fight this battle believing that the Lord's going to deliver us. But I read some of the battles if it wasn't under David, maybe another king wear mini mini lace Lane afterwards.

I want you to come and walk through that field with me and your mind and maybe he's looking for struggling Signs of Life.

in the midst of of all that destruction Could there be a soul in his real life who gallantly followed his King into battle and Mets or with the enemies archers and lies wounded? And time passes and the day Fades and there's no medic to respond.

And maybe those that were laying around him. He says goodbye to them one by one as they slip off struggling and anguish. And his last breath closes. When the feeling of Psalm 88 it's dark. Nobody came to help I had no friends. I can't walk on my own. I'm wounded beyond help and there's nobody else here Lord Lord. Where are you in this? There's nobody to help that's so many 8 go with me down to the quarters of time. Let's fast forward a little bit if you would. And I use that one because he know we're talking about Israel. And this was an Israelite who who is singing this song?

But fast forward if you would with me to another dark dark time, and this would be in the history of the church the time of the Reformation there was a man named Bishop Hooper Hooper story. Alright, well, I'll try to educate you a little bit. I'm not a historian. So don't quote me on all the details, but this is not really glorified imagination because we have his own writings in his own accounts. In the day and time which Bishop Hooper lived some turbulence was happening in England over the throne and who would be on the throne and Queen Mary ascended the throne in power and many of you know, she was staunch Catholic and she's known throughout history by a title. That's not very pleasant. Bloody Mary why because she with a Vengeance went after those that were were Protestant that means they were of the Reformation maybe Evangelical in their presentation of the Gospel preaching the gospel Bishop Cooper was one of those that fell in her crosshairs and Bishop Hooper set wasting away in a prison. under Mary And in darkness one of the Psalms in which he references in a letter back to his wife just prior to him being burned at the stake for preaching. That's Unthinkable isn't anywhere Americans. We can't even understand what it would be like to live in a place where our own government would come after us and ties to a polling do that kind of wickedness. That's just on her. Maybe not so much because we still have gas Chambers in electric chairs and we still have capital punishment today. It's not too far-fetched that you know Christians can be named as terrorists or something like that or put on Watchdog list and different things and and that people could come after Christians and hey, we're not other Woods you with me. Bishop Hooper wrote and one of the Psalms that he included to his dear wife some of his last words were Psalm 88. He says Psalm 88 is for the soul that lives where I do. You see there's no knight in shining armor coming through to rescue him and and coming. You know, we always want that in the movies right in the Hollywood movies. We've got to play it up just at the second when the news is about to Here Comes The Arrow flying through in and you know, they're saved and they're going to live it done always work out that way. Hebrews 11 is clear about that you have many who were delivered and in God's glory on them was to deliver them others. However, Persona Sundar, that's Hebrews 11 part B. Okay. We always want to be in part A and we want the deliverance and we want to see that happen. But remember the three Hebrew children. The fiery furnace if we're not going to serve you Nebuchadnezzar if God delivers us that's up to him. And I think I'd be more like yes, please Lord, that's what I want. But they said even so if he doesn't Will Not Bow the knee to you and so they had no problems promise of Deliverance of going into that furnace and coming out. It was only by the grace in the Providence in the movie of God that they came out and didn't even smell like smoke. Yet the man who threw them in died because of the heat was so hot. It's not a fairytale. Doesn't always happen that way. Sometimes it works out like Bishop Hooper. And he didn't come out of that one like the three Hebrew children did he died? And Psalm 88 was his closest friend in that deep dark dungeon of Mary. As he awaited his Doom me tell you about another man this man this man lived alongside John Newton John Newton. We know his salvation story. He was on a slave ship and he remembered his mother praying for him. He trust Christ who gets gloriously saved and I once was lost but now I'm found I once was blind but now I see that John Newton. Let me tell you about his friend. Whom he admired greatly and really got to know him in a brief time in his life this man. John Newton would have wished that he could have had more hymns written in the whole only Hymnal with this man's name attached to them you sing some of this man's hymns today and this man if you read his biography, you know, he had ups and downs in his life and he went to some of the most despondent places you see when he was converted a lot of his struggles were probably it if he were alive today that he be diagnosed as a as a mental schizophrenic or bipolar or some kind of thing like that. I'm sure they have some mental disease for him. but this man

thought that he had committed the unpardonable sin because he tried to take his own life. And this is where John Newton really kind of steps in and once he found the grace of God it helped him through one of the darkest depression seed ever been in his life and through that he wrote some of the most moving hymns that we have today. And this man ministered alongside John Newton and was going to publish this only Hymnal with him for many years. They say they serve together, but then he plummeted back down into a one of the deepest places in his life again.

In this day and time, you know, they didn't have movie theaters and all that so much of what was taken in through entertainment would have been through Reading and so a lot of the stories and things maybe you would read something like Robinson Crusoe and you would go on a voyage with him and wind-up, you know Shipwrecked on an island somewhere off of the Caribbeans and you know, you have that that story. I love Robinson Crusoe. If you're going to read it read the unabridged version because they don't cut got out of that one. I'll just leave that with you. There's another story that probably Robinson Crusoe, you know, maybe it was partially based off of in this was & Sons voyages around the world Voyage around the world a little bit. Okay, you talk about a travesty of tragedy. I mean the man left with about eight ships and almost a thousand men from England and he's going to sail across the Atlantic with these eight shifts and he gets down around Cape Horn and things go tragically wrong time and time again, I won't give you the whole thing, but basically all the ships are scattered and they had Rendezvous points along the way you have disease breaking out all along all among the ships and then they run into Spanish ships that they have to run from it and their masks are breaking and they're pulling into Port every chance they get to try to repair the best tools and then they come around South America before the Panama Canal and all of that and you might have had you might have had You know the Strait of Magellan you could go through that if you knew where you were going, but it's very narrow dangerous down there the weather changes just like that. It was a known as a as a as a place for shipwreck and desolation just to try to make it around that will his goal was to try to get over to China. He eventually did but he only made it there with with maybe a third of who he left England with. 3rd And in this day and time, you know scurvy just a lack of vitamin C nutritional deficiency. They hadn't figured all of that out and men were dropping like flies their food when they had that they had to abandon so much from their vessels. There were a couple of ships that even turned around and went back to England and it was recalling and recounting some of these voyages and Sons voyages around the world and the tragedies that happened some of those Sailors that this man took up his pain that the hymn writer and he wrote A Hymn in our in our more modern times that my parallel Psalm 88 and part of the inspiration that came to him from that was remembering and Sons voyages and the disease in the death that played in the in the tragedy after tragedy that occurred on this voyage and he imagined the Sailor under and Son finding himself, you know, a seasoned swimmer finding himself in the cities of South America being overwhelmed by the way, and no one there to help. There's no ship in sight and he goes down and it's bitterly cold Waters and it's not long before he succumbs to those waves. Come with me down to the corridors of time to the decks of the Titanic and you'll find a place fitting for Psalm 88 come with me to a place in New York where now sits two vacant holes in the ground and two towers that wants burn and raised inflamed from terrorist attacks and come to some of those stairwells where people never made it out and you'll find a place. Where Psalm 88 belongs? Come to me through with me through the history of Israel to a place called Auschwitz. And you'll find a place. Beyond any human help we're sadly as sad as it is Psalm 88 belongs that him writer's name was William Cooper. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

The other song that he wrote was prone to wander Lord. I feel it prone to leave the God. I love I think I missed calling that there is a fountain did he did he write that song? Maybe somebody else did that song? I might have that confused. But the one that says prone to wander Lord, I feel it. That's the one that I was trying to think of. What's the name of that him? I'm losing my mind up Here Come Thou Fount. Yeah. There is a fountain that's Come Thou Fount xty get it confused with that. It's right prone to wander Lord. I feel it in the story of that him is you know, he was in a carriage coming coming on a trip and this lady got into his Care Urgent and started talking about this new him that was written and had no idea that the man who wrote The Very poem that inspired the song was there in the carriage with her and talk about how to change your life and in all the hope that you'd found an and he went away from that with a little bit of hope that what he had done was making a difference.

Come with me as a pastor. Dominion hospital room come with me and sit down with families that you can see in their eyes the questions linger come with me and my own family and sit with me in days gone by next to my Meemaw at she's got a blank stare in her eyes looking out and I'm wondering does she even know who I am? Alzheimer's is a terrible disease. You can fill in the blank. Okay. Well, I want a lemon and put in a box there are places in life where Psalm 88 is real. In the psalmist finds himself in that place. When Affliction is profitable has just been reading and working through some some of the life of Robert E Lee and Ulysses S Grant again, and I just recently came to the climax of the of the end of the war when Lee would come in with all the dignity and respect that that man commanded from both North and South would common offer to surrender his sword to you of Alicia's S Grant. because of the state of the army of Northern Virginia and I thought about the many battlefields that riddle the South where I grew up in the battlefield that my grand dad work for Pickett's Mill Battlefield Kennestone, Kennesaw Mountain, Chickamauga Chattahoochee mean all through the South

There's Memorials of the tragedy our country endured so that most horrific time of Civil War. I wonder if there weren't some soldiers whether they were wearing blue or gray is irrelevant laying on a battlefield somewhere pleading with God a synonymous train to what would sound from Psalm 88 I wonder Affliction can it be profitable Thomas Fuller Road in reference to his own sufferings in the Civil War. He said this I have observed that towns which have been casually burnt have been built again. More beautifully than before. mud walls Afterwards they're made of stone. And roofs, they were formally but thatched after. Their Advanced to be tiled.

The Apostle tells me he went on to say that I must not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to happen to me. May I likewise prove improved by it? Let my renewed Soul, which grows out of the ashes of the old man be a more Pious Fabric and a stronger structure. So she'll Affliction be my advantage.

When life hurts and having a silent. I would encourage you Psalm 88 teaches us keep on praying. Keep praying. Don't lose. Hope in God the psalmist never lost. Hope he doesn't. He doesn't come to the place of total despondency. He never gives up Hope on God. Although he does say it's much to his cause and many of the things that have happened to him. Whether it's a an illness. I don't know if you want a Biblical illustration these tend to have a deeper impact. Let me illustrate it this way for you. If we look at some of what the psalmist says here and verse number 15. I am Afflicted and ready to die for my youth up while I suffer. Thy Terrors. I am distracted. I think of a young man who started so well. a young man who ascended to the throne of Israel and power went to his head and lifted up in Pride. He took upon him more than he should and this man approached as king. He approached the office of the priest and he did what was only allowed for the priest to do that day and asked me reach for the altar the Lord smote him with leprosy. And he died a leper. That man's name was Uzziah. I think about another time in the Bible when Moses was leading God's children of Israel and are and Miriam and Aaron stood up and rebuked Moses.

And what happened to Miriam God smote her with leprosy. I think about another man. That was just serving God and serving God's man Elijah and Naaman the leper comes and gets cleansed and on the way out to haysi intercepts Naaman and says no they want the gift back you remember what happened to get hazed? I smitten with leprosy. I wonder if leprosy might not be close to the Affliction. Text Julie that's described here by the psalmist. It's from you Lord. There's no other argument that use I can make it's not like he can say yeah, I rubbed up against the wrong person and I caught leprosy he knew it was from God. There's no other explanation that Miriam can give you except God did it say the Lord she found cleansing and healing but I guarantee you he knew that that was God's judgment on him for overstepping and committing a we can hang the sin and tarnishing the Very testimony of the god of Israel and taking that gift back from Damon. You see sometimes things do come from God. Not always it could be other issues understand but in the psalmist mind in this song, this is something that God has delivered to him. This is not a cross to bear. This is an infirmity. This is an Affliction that God has given to him maybe because of sin maybe who knows the background of this phone is unknown for whatever purpose God has Afflicted in the psalmist calls attention to that. Excuse me. It's a maskil psalm. Instruction making prudent making one wise if you'll spend time with Psalm 88 not too much because I don't want you to wind up in the spare. You need to come out and read Psalm 89, but if you'll get along with soulmate E8, it'll make you wiser. It'll teach you some things about life that maybe your parents have hidden from you or maybe you've been sheltered from hey, this is not a friendly world. There are wicked things and sometimes we get in a place that is that is at the other depths. Free among the dead like the slain that lion the grave who now remember is no more Lord you forgotten these that are there who's going to praise you from the what a dark song without parallel the most desolate of the psalter. It's been called affinities with the book of Jobe.

It's not driven by the wisdom question of God's righteousness Lamentations 3 would be in the balance as well. a lament Psalm No Doubt couple of ideas for you here

you can advance to the next slide when Trouble Comes silently. What are you do keep on praying?

We overcome we become overcome with troubles from God's Wrath. There's three cries that are noted in this song. In structurally, you'll do well to know these three cries. Look at verse number one. Oh Lord, God of my salvation. I have what? I have what? Pride day and night before the day and night 24/7 Around the Clock. I'm crying before you Lord You're the god of my salvation. This would be Jehovah forgive me a Adonai. This would be Jehovah Elohim. Yahshua Joshua salvation. That's related to the term salvation, LOL. He is God. Jehovah is all caps Lord. You're the god of my salvation Mark the word cried there. This has the sense the idea of basically to cry out for help. It's a plea to the God who saves it's a prayer of faith. And that's how the song begins boy. If we could just end with verses 1 and 2 medley Psalm 88, you know a lot easier to preach but it doesn't in there. Now look at first number 9 if you will mine. I'm honest by reason of what Affliction Lord Jehovah. There. It is. Again. I have called daily upon the stretched out my hands under the so even in the contacts, you can see the calling out there has a little bit more of a force to it. This is to call out loudly it comes from the Hebrew Kara to call out loudly. The first of the first would have been from sock and that that's a cry out for help here to call loudly. And like the first cry and it could be a cry for help, but it's often the extended by frequent brush with death. This is a close call and now you know, I'm calling out loudly and so it's building in anticipation brings a different Hue a different a Different Light to how this phone has been calling out. There's one more look at first number 13 that we read together unto thee have I

pride yet a different word still synonymous. Okay. We don't want to read too much into it cuz they're just cinnamon synonyms synonyms synonyms. We do that in English. We use the same words, so don't get too caught up in it, but this one is from shiv aarti shiv. Aarti. I cry to you for help literally can understand that way and that implies a Nutter intensity. One writer described it as two other a successive series of Screams.

You see the intensity of the psalmist. It's like I called out. I'm not hearing anything. I'm getting more intense. I'm crying under you because of had this brush with death and now Lord I'm screaming at the top of my lungs. Can you even hear me? It builds and it builds. The center word of this song You knows I like to do that. Sometimes I haven't had the time to sit down and count where the center syllable is in the Hebrew, you know, if you break the the song down in Hebrew, I love to go and listen to the to someone read it in Hebrew and listen to the the Rhythm and Decatur and the Cadence that Decatur the Cadence whatever that animal cater is the Cadence of of the the the flow as it comes off of a Hebrew person slips when they're speaking it. It's beautiful. It's really is a beautiful song. They have to really work to try to interpret what they're saying into that. I you know still working through English to get there. It's not perfect. I did it, but I'm just in awe at the beauty of how the words flow the center word the center word of the song If you counted all the words in the Hebrew and then went to the very middle of it the middle word. Is it has the idea of imprisoned it is the word?

Let's see penis. And where is it? I'll find it loving kind of so so many wonders.

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Well, I wrote it down on my desk if you want to know. I'll tell you later. It's a word that it means shut up. I think shut up. If you find the words shut up in the psalm locked up prison imprisoned. That's the very middle word and everything else kind of flows around that so we see the three cries. What do we do when we were overcome with troubles and it's apparently because of God's Wrath verses 1 through 7 helps us understand what the psalmist is going through. This is my troubles mean they're threatening my life verse number three. My strength is gone. I have no more strength verse number for Lord. I am forgotten. You don't even remember me anymore. I'm so far away. I'm I'm gone. Nobody remembers me. You don't remember that's first number 5. I'm at Rock Bottom verse number 6. This is the lowest of the low point. You don't get any lower than this. How can you get any lower than the grave? The place of the Abode of the Dead Lord, I am drowning in your Wrath. First number 7. Are you excited about this song yet? You see I have my work cut out for me. That's why I said I'll be really glad if you come back next Sunday.

The moment when we have to ask, you know by whom would Psalm 88 have been sung originally by what congregation could we sit down? I mean, how would you like to come on a Sunday morning? And we sing a song like this for our opening him?

Brother Mike, we're not going to do that around here. By the way, there's only one and it's right here in Psalm 88 and we're dealing with it. Now in the history of Broomfield Baptist Church. We can move on after we're done today right in men. You want the words to Cooper's him? Castaway it goes like this no voice Divine the storm allayed no light for picture just for pictures shown when snatched from all the effectual Aid we perished each alone. He's talking about that guy that went over on Elm City NC Voyage lost at sea drown. He says we each went over. Snatched from all effectual Aid. There's no one to help we perished. He perished. I perished Cooper sing the listen to this but I beneath a rougher sea. And whelmed and deeper Gulfs than hate. Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing to my heart to sing thy praise hardly a song, you know Psalm 88 hardly hardly a song for congregational worship. But then we might find them a meaning a deeper meaning for the two Silas that break up the soul into three sections.

Think about it. Pause long enough to think about how unkind life can be sometimes how unkind is life when we have to gather around an empty table or a table that has empty chairs around it at Thanksgiving or we gather around a Christmas tree that once used to be filled with the banter and laughter and now there's vacancies. How kind is life not very kind, but how good is our God in light of it? One of Cooper's greatest friends during his ups and downs as I mentioned was John Newton.

Is Hope still found an anchor? Through the help of others that was around him in his life. Not like the psalmist here who says I don't have any friends all my friends and all my acquaintances are gone. There's nobody here but Me Lord I'm alone. I'm Afflicted and I'm reaching out to God. I wonder if Psalm 88 wouldn't be more at home and find a place in the heart of someone living in an assisted living facility that no family comes to visit them or Worse. They're not even in a place where they get regular help. They're just pining away and they're they're believer, but they're reaching out to God, but they're alone. They're afflicted.

My friends have forsaken me. You know when I first got sick everybody was there to help and as time went on one by one they kind of fell by the wayside and nobody's really there to help anymore. It's just me Lord. It's just me. Lord if this is an interesting argument from the psalmist who's going to tell others about you if if I go to the Grave How am I going to witness for you? It is if I can't. Be alive to do it. That's a good argument, right? Let's come to the Lord and say Lord. Give me another year give me another another day. Give me another opportunity. If you go to the Lord and ask him to let you live so you can witness for him. You better do it. I'm just second you better do it. Don't waste the opportunity. I'm alone. I'm Afflicted. I'm reaching out to God that's verses 8 through 10. I'm wondering over God's seeming inattention. verses 11 through 18 others need to know about your loving kindness. They need to know your faithfulness Lord. Let me tell them let me live so I can tell them they won't know about your wonders. They won't know the Miracles that you can do, except you. Let me be your witness. Why won't you answer me? God, look at verse 14. I need to hear from you and you're not answering me. All my life I've suffered. Now. This was something that plagued him from his youth up. He tells you that verse number fifteen your wrath overwhelms me verse number 16. I'm surrounded by Terrors your Terrors verse 17 Lord. There's nobody else that I can go to you still see even in the light of all the despair the psalmist knows there's no one else that can help him. But God and he hasn't lost faith in God. He's still praying to God. He's still pleasing to God because nobody else has any answers and he doesn't know where else to go. But he knows that God can hear it's just that he's not for whatever reason so he hasn't laughed in his face. He still believes just as firmly in God's loving kindness and mercy and miracles and everything that God can do it's just it's not happening in his life at that moment in time. Jesus is Lord. There's nobody that can help me but you there's nobody that can do this.

for the troubled for the Truffle thairath life hard upon me now has to flicted me with all thy waves. Our sufferings are great service old Spurgeon said to us when God blesses them for they help us to be useful to others. Must be a terrible thing for a man. Never to suffer physical pain. You say you like that man? But unless you an extraordinary extraordinary extraordinary Grace you drove hard and cold Spurgeon said you would get to be a sort of Cast Iron Man breaking other people with your touch. No, let my heart be tender even soft for if it must be softened by paying. I would gladly know how to bind up my fellows wound. Let my I have a tear ready for my brother's Sorrows, even if For that to be so I should have to shed 10,000 for my own in Escape From suffering would be an escape from the power to sympathize and that ought to be deprecated beyond all things Luther was right when he said that Affliction was the best book in The Minister's Library. How can the man of God sympathize with the afflicted ones? He knows nothing at all about their troubles. I remember a hard miserly fellow who said that the minister ought to be very poor so that he might have sympathy with the poor. I told him I thought he ought to have a turn at being very rich to so that he might have sympathy with the very rich and I suggested to him that perhaps upon the whole it would be the handiest to keep him somewhere in the middle so that he might more easily range over the experience of all classes. The man of God who's the minister to others could always be robust. It would perhaps be a loss if he could always be sickly. It might be equally so but for the pastor to be able to range through all the places where the Lord suffers his sheep to go is doubtless the advantage of the flock. For what? It is to ministers that it will be to each one of you according to his calling for the consolation of the people of God. I know not why? Our family has endured some of the heartache that we have. But I do know. That there's been somebody with me. In the darkest moments. I'm talking about moments when I wondered. I wondered Lord. What what's going on? And through that knowing a calm assurance that even though I I mean, I still don't have answers. To this day. I do not have answers for some of the questions that I have. But I do know I have a peace that passes understanding that God is using it on purpose as 2nd. Corinthians says that we might Comfort others wear with with the comfort of work were comforted of God. I pretend to have all the answers. And your heart might not feel exactly like mine, but hurt is hurt. And sometimes life hurts. We don't just fuzzy it over and polish it up like we do with with death today, you know, it's like we don't even want to face the reality that they're actually gone. We dress them up and put them in their best and put makeup all over Amon mask everything we can and I know I'm sorry. It's reality. When the only recourse is prayer.