The Upward Look of the Downcast
Notes
Transcript
Camping at Word of Life all next week. Tim Strait from Harmony Baptist in Middletown will be preaching for me the next Sunday the 8th and the following Sunday the 15th. I will be back on the 15th though…just not preaching. So, I’ll see you then.
Intro
Have you ever felt like God was distant or maybe not even there?
Have you ever experience what some call the dark night of the soul?
Felt empty…like you have nothing left?
I’m talking about depression the turmoil of the soul.
I’m sure that everyone here and watching online needs the words and the message of Psalm 42-43. Because...
You either need it right now.
You just needed it.
Or you will need it soon.
Psalm 42-43 (most scholars take these as one Psalm) is beautiful, practical, and wise. These words are like a healing balm to the soul in dark times.
To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?” These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me. By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God, my rock: “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?” Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people, from the deceitful and unjust man deliver me! For you are the God in whom I take refuge; why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling! Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God. Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.
PRAYER
The Condition
The Cause
The Cure
The Condition
The Condition
Absent Thirst (1-3)
Just like our bodies need water physically, we need God spiritually.
Go too long without water and you experience dehydration and disorientation.
So, if we go too long without a sense of God’s presence we become spiritually disoriented.
This is the condition that the writer experiences — he thirsts deeply for God...
But he only gets the bitterness of his own tears.
And to say that his tears are his only food suggests that he is not eating.
The fact that his tears are his only food DAY & NIGHT suggests that he is having trouble sleeping too.
All this taken together causes him to ask, “When shall I come and appear before God? — God feels absent to him. — He is spiritually dehydrated!
This is a deep feeling of being deserted — a sense that God is not there.
In verse 9 he expresses to God that he feels that God has forgotten him.
And in 43:2, this is amplified to actually feeling rejected by God.
So what are the causes? What is it that has the power to bring us into such a state?
The Cause
The Cause
First, we are not to assume that depression and a troubled soul are the result of some sin in our lives.
There is no indication in the text that the psalmist has done anything wrong to cause his depression.
It is true that sometimes a person can feel downcast because of something they’ve done that they feel guilty for but not always.
Experiencing depression or turmoil of the soul doesn’t mean that you’ve done something wrong. You can be doing everything right and still experience this absent thirst. Feeling forgotten or even rejected.
This condition comes to spiritual giants as well as those weaker in the faith.
For example...
Moses (Numbers 11) “Take my life”
Elijah in 1 Kings 19 “Take my life”
Job too despaired of life.
The great prince of preachers, Charles Spurgeon suffered mightily from depression. He once likened himself to Job quoting from Job 7:13, my soul chooseth strangling rather than life.
Jesus prayed these words to the Father — And now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say?
It’s Jesus who was described in Isaiah 53:3
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
What an incredible comfort to know that Jesus our savior knows what this is like — the eternal God of the Universe can sympathize with us in our downcast condition!
So, we must be careful not to reduce this to only being a spiritual matter.
Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones, in addition to being a legendary preacher was also a successful medical doctor before he was called into ministry.
He wrote a book on depression that was very well received.
Lloyd Jones would say that this is a multifaceted issue. There are many dimensions to our beings...
We are physical beings
Emotional beings
Moral beings
Spiritual beings
So Lloyd Jones would say that if your depressed,
you may need to change your diet, your nutrition.
You may need medicine or other physical treatment that will put you in a better position to deal with any potential spiritual issues.
Sometimes physical suffering can make a person more susceptible to spiritual depression.
I already mentioned Charles Spurgeon. Well...
He suffered from something called Bright’s Disease which caused a burning inflammation of his kidneys.
He also suffered from gout, rheumatism, and neuritis.
Add to all that the stress of ministry, and guilt for feeling stressed.
And if that were not enough, he often endured the stinging accusations of harsh critiques, who would tell him that his suffering was God’s judgement on him.
So again we need to be careful not to take an overly reductionistic position when we consider the causes of depression because it’s complex.
A secular therapist looks at this and sees only a matter of brain chemistry — so here’s a pill.
A moralistic Christian will see only a spiritual failing and say — just repent and just pray and read the Bible more.
Another approach is to just love the person, comfort and support them.
Here is something really interesting. In 1 King’s 19. Elijah just got done defeating the prophets of Baal in that well known showdown where fire from heaven consumed his sacrifice but not the prophets.
He’s now on the run from Jezabel and he’s depressed. He asks God to take his life.
What does God do? He sends an angel to prepare food for him to eat.
The angel doesn’t say, “Hey you, snap out if it! Come to your senses!”
He says eat and drink.
I think this is probably the only instance in the Bible of an angel preparing breakfast in bed for anyone!
So the point is this. When it comes to causes, there is a complexity that we need to acknowledge. And there are certainly more potential causes than what we will find in the text this morning.
Let’s look at some of them though...
The first is a lack of Christian community. (v. 4).
He remembers being part of the procession going to the temple.
He remembers being surrounded by the multitude in shouts and songs of praise.
So, when he combines...
The memories of past joy that are currently out of reach...
With his present sadness,
His emotional pain only grows.
His routine has been altered. I think many of us can relate to this when the church hadn’t met for several weeks during the height of the pandemic.
But as he remembers these things it only seems to make matters worse because he is remembering things that cannot be made actual in the moment.
It’s possible that verse 6 indicates that he is far away from Jerusalem and the temple.
Mount Hermon is in a range of mountains in the far north of Isreal.
So maybe he is in some sort of exile and cannot return home.
Another factor is in verse 7.
Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.
This is a poetic reference to the chaos and terrors of life.
While he misses the shouts of joy from the multitude at the temple...
He is instead surrounded by the noise of the roaring waters of chaos.
While he wishes to be PASSING on to the temple...
It is instead the chaotic waters of life that are PASSING over him.
Notice that again we see the water theme picked up again.
In verses 1-2, he thirsts for God like a deer pants for flowing streams.
But he tastes only his bitter tears in verse 3.
And now in verse 7, it is the roar of waterfalls, breakers, and waves that are his experience — NOT the flowing streams he longs for.
These waters are the circumstances of our lives that happen to us and are not in our control.
A tragedy
A loss
A hurt
This brings us to the last cause we find in our text. It’s the oppression of an enemy.
While he longs for company of the multitude and to hear shouts of praise, he is surrounded by the enemy and endures their relentless taunts.
Maybe it’s a neighbor, a coworker, a kid at school.
In verses 9 and 2, he goes about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy.
Their relentless taunts are like deadly wounds in his bones!
We’ve looked at the condition...
We’ve examined some causes...
Now what’s the cure?
The Cure
The Cure
Pray even when you don’t feel like it...
The writer feels abandoned, forgotten, and even rejected. He doesn’t feel God anywhere.
So, what does he do? He prays. This is very difficult but it’s what he does.
He says, so pants my soul for you, O God. (v.1)
These things I remember as I pour out my soul. (v. 4)
My soul is downcast within me; therefore I remember you. (v. 6)
I say to God, my rock. (v. 9)
Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause. (43:1)
You are the God in whom I take refuge (43:2)
Praying when God doesn’t feel near or feel real to you is a little like opening your eyes in the dark.
At first you don’t see anything but then slowly your eyes begin to adjust and you are able to see the edges of objects or the moonlight coming through the window shades.
Maybe you feel that God is not there…pray to him and tell Him that.
Or you feel angry with God. Pray to him and tell him how angry you are.
This is what the psalmist does...
He asks God, why He has forgotten and rejected him? This is what he feels.
Pray to God what you feel, even when you don’t feel like it.
Another thing he does is he talks to HIMSELF.
Don’t just listen to yourself, TALK to yourself.
If you only listen to yourself you’ll end up in a bad place.
Because when you listen to yourself, you are going to hear all about how bad everything is. These are your emotions talking but emotions are not a reliable source of truth.
So the psalmist talks to himself — you could say he preaches to himself.
But he doesn’t say,
Stop it!,
Stop feeling bad for yourself.
Pull yourself together and move on.
No, he doesn’t suppress or deny his emotions.
So what does he say to himself? This is the refrain that is repeated 3x in this Psalm. This is the medicine.
First analyze your hopes. Is something being threatened that you think you need to be satisfied?
If you discover that there is something other than God that you must have in order to be satisfied, then repent and redirect your hope in God.
Another thing he does is he reminds himself of what is true.
He declares with confident assurance that I will again praise him, my salvation and my God.
This is not because he is so resilient or resourceful NO! It’s because God is so faithful.
Here these words of Jesus in John 10:28-29
John 10:28–29 (ESV)
I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
Or these words of Paul at the end of Romans 8:38-39
Romans 8:38–39 (ESV)
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The psalmist also recognizes the sovereign and faithful hand of God in his circumstances.
In verse 8 he recalls God’s “hesed” love — His faithful and loyal love.
And just before this he identifies God as being the source of the chaotic waters that are breaking over him. He calls them...
YOUR waterfalls
YOUR breakers
YOUR waves
In other words, he is comforted by the fact that his sufferings are not the touch of an indifferent or antagonistic stranger but they are the touch of his faithful and loyal God!
King Hezekiah prayed these words after the LORD healed him from a deadly sickness.
Behold it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction. (Isaiah 38:17)
But if God is for us, as Paul also says in Romans 8, then why does he allow us to suffer?
The reflections of Spurgeon are helpful here...
As one who suffered greatly, he came to the conclusion that those who never have to push through the waves of suffering never grow in strength and maturity like those who do.
Think about exercise — It’s never pleasant (especially in the beginning).
I did P90X years ago my arms hurt so badly that I couldn’t extend them past a certain point. I was in a LOT of pain.
But I pushed through it and followed the plan. It got easier because I got stronger. I could see results as a tracked my progress. I was eventually in the best shape of my life.
Spurgeon said that, “It is good for man to bear the yoke; good for a man to breast the billows; good for a man to pass through fire and through water, and so to learn sublime lessons”
Spurgeon learned by experience that trouble both strengthens and reveals where need to grow and get stronger.
Losses reveal the ultimate insufficiency of everything around us that we cherish. And help us to appreciate the ultimate sufficiency of Jesus all the more.
Lastly, the Psalmist asks God to send forth His light and His truth.
Reminding ourselves of the true and faithful promises of God is like a beacon of light in the darkness.
God’s promises alone dispel the fog of depression and help us to see what is good, true, and right.
What a comfort it is to have such objective truth that does not depend in any way on our ability to FEEL it.
Hear this truth and let its light guide you home to the altar of God your exceeding joy!
As humans who have sinned, we deserve the absence of God.
We deserve the excruciating thirst of not being with the one we were made for.
But Jesus was actually separated, rejected, and thirst in our place on the cross.
And when we receive Jesus’ gift of forgiveness and life, we will only at times FEEL absent, forgotten, and rejected. But the truth is that God walks with you through the dark night of the soul and through the furnace.
Meditate on these truths and it won’t be long before the waters begin to flow.
Conclusion
Feeling thirsty? Forgotten? Rejected?
Pray even when you don’t feel like it.
Reorient your hope in God.
Preach his faithful promises to yourself.
If you’re here today and you’re a follower of Christ but are just in a very dry place and you’re not sure where God is, come forward this morning and there will be some upfront who would love to pray with you.
Also, if you’re here today and you’re not sure you’ve ever known the presence of God in your life. Maybe you’ve been keeping him at arms length — not letting him in. And all you know is that everything you’ve tried to satisfy yourself with in this life has only left you wanting and thirsty.
Hear these words of Jesus and come forward during our last song and there will be people here who would love to pray with you.
John 7:37-38 If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
PRAYER
BENEDICTION
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may about in hope.