Thank you. Be seated, please. Well, I see that
our VBS is set up on the platform here. Kind
of makes me hungry, doesn't it, you? Pizza, a
bakery, Italian food. Looks pretty good. It's
going to be a great week for our boys and girls.
Let's remember to pray for them and for our teachers
and workers through the week. Well, tonight we're
going to open our Bibles to the book of Psalms
again. some of our summer Psalms. And tonight,
Psalms 42 and 43, we're going to look at two
Psalms because actually these two fit together.
Probably, originally, they were one Psalm. In
fact, some translations even unite them today.
There are three stanzas to the Psalms. And those
will be obvious as we read them. They're almost
identical, verses 5 and 11 of Psalm 42 and verse
5 of Psalm 43. We do not know who the psalmist
is that writes of his sad circumstances, but
because of his circumstances he is struggling
with depression or discouragement. Do you ever
do that? Yeah, we all do. That's part of life,
isn't it? It's not a sin to be depressed. That's
a normal response of the human emotions to certain
situations. Here we find a psalmist who is depressed.
And I'm glad he was. I mean, I'm not happy for
the sadness he experienced, but I'm glad that
he was depressed. And I'm glad that God, by the
Holy Spirit, led him to write about his feelings,
because that helps me, and it helps you. By the
way, Do you ever write about your feelings? Do
you ever find yourself in a particular mood and
sit down and write a page or a paragraph about
that? It's a good thing to do. It helps give
feelings out. And you may find that you start
the paragraph with one kind of feeling and the
time you're done you have a whole different one.
Notice what this psalmist says, as the deer pants
for the water brooks. So my soul pants for thee,
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 day long, Where is your God?
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 a voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude
keeping festival. And here's the refrain, Why
are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you
become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for
I shall again praise him for the help of his
presence. Stands at number two, O my God, my
soul is in despair within me. Therefore, I remember
thee from the land of the Jordan." Now we begin
to understand a little bit more about his circumstances.
We see that he is not in Jerusalem. He is in
the land of the Jordan at the peaks of Hermon
from Mount Mizer. We don't know where the latter
mount is. It may be part of Hermon. Huge mountain,
20 miles long is the ridge of it. Miser may be
a peak along the ridge. Hermon is located 40
miles north of the Sea of Galilee. From the Sea
of Galilee, you can look to the north and see
its peaks. And in the winter time, and in fact
most of the year, there's snow on the top of
Mount Hermon. Today it is the ski resort for
Israel. People from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv along
the coast, the populated areas on the weekends
of the winter often go north and they turn inland
after they've gotten past the West Bank area,
follow the highway down through the Valley of
Jezreel, which is the Valley of Armageddon, and
they either turn toward the Sea of Galilee where
they can enjoy some warm weather. Not exactly
tropical, but a lot warmer than some other parts
of the mountainous region of Israel. Or they
turn the other direction and they go to Mount
Hermon where they can ski. And what do you suppose
is located right there at that crossroads? The
only McDonald's in all of Israel. The only McDonald's
in all of Israel is right there. Well, this psalmist
is apparently in the area of Mount Hermon. Perhaps
he had been taken prisoner by some group that
had come through, some king or nation had invaded
the land and he was among those taken away. He
says, Deep calls to deep at the sound of thy
waterfalls. All thy breakers and thy waves have
rolled over me. On the slopes of Mount Hermon
you have little rivulets, little streams that
carry away the snow as it melts. And those streams
gather together and ultimately become the Jordan
River. And so when he talks here about the waterfalls
and the breakers and the waves, he's listening
to the sound of these streams. He's watching
them gather together for the Jordan as it begins
its southward journey toward the Dead Sea. He
says the Lord will command his loving kindness
in the daytime, and his song will be with me
in the night, a prayer to the God my life. I
will say to God my rock, why hast thou forgotten
me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression
of the enemy? As a shattering of my bones, My
adversaries revile me while they say to me all
day long Where is your God? Second time there's
that question asked you see that So apparently
these people who had taken him captive were taunting
him with that question and It was like somebody
breaking a bone in his body as they taunted him.
Well, where is your God? You see, whatever nation
this may have been, it was a pagan nation. They
had their gods. They were seated on pedestals
or placed in temples. They were made out of wood
and stone and they prayed to them. They bowed
down to them. And these pagans say to this Israelite
who worships the true God, who's a monotheist,
who does not believe in making carved images
in the likeness of God, they say to this Israelite,
where is your God? They want to know where he
is. And so then he repeats his refrain, verse
11. Then moving into Psalm 43, we have stanza
3, Vindicate me, O God, and plead my case against
an ungodly nation. O, deliver me from the deceitful
and unjust man. For thou art the God of my strength.
Why hast thou rejected me?" Do you ever feel
that way? Again, he states that his feelings
say God has turned his back on me. Why do I go
mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
O, send out thy light and thy truth. Let them
lead me. Let them bring me to thy holy hill and
to thy dwelling places." The word dwelling here
means to thy residence. You see, the gods of
the pagans had their residences. They were here
and there at these different hills and high places
and temples. But he says, Lord bring me to your
residence, to your dwelling place. Now where
was that? Where was the Lord pleased to dwell?
In Jerusalem, where he could not go, but that's
where he wants to go. He says, then I will go
to the altar of God. That's where the altar is,
of course, at the temple in Jerusalem. To God,
my exceeding joy, and upon the liar, I shall
praise thee, O God, my God. And once again the
refrain, why are you in despair, O my soul? And
why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God,
for I shall again praise Him the help of my countenance
and my God. What we have in these Psalms is an
inner conversation of the psalmist with his own
spirit. Do you ever talk to yourself? Do you
know we all do all day long? And not only that,
we answer ourselves. Now they say it's okay if
you talk to yourself, just don't answer yourself.
The thing is we all do both all day long. There's
a running conversation going on in our heads
all the time. And it's wise for us to pick up
on that because we tell ourselves some very stupid
things sometimes, don't we? We really do. We
give ourselves some lousy advice. We say some
nasty things to ourselves not even realizing
that we're doing it. And so the psalmist is writing
down his conversation inside here for us to learn
what to do when we get depressed or discouraged.
And I believe that we have the answer to that
in three lessons that we see in the refrain,
verses 5 and 11, and then again in verse 5 of
Psalm 43. When you and I are depressed, the first
thing we need to do is to inquire the reasons.
Isn't that what he does? He says, why? Why? Why
are you in despair, soul? Why have you become
disturbed within me? Do you ever ask yourself,
why do I feel this way? Sometimes we just live
in the pits without ever asking that question.
We need to ask that question. Why am I feeling
this way? Now there could be a hundred reasons
why. You may be distressed, depressed, discouraged
because you're tired. Physical fatigue can cause
it. You may have worn yourself out serving the
Lord. You may have an enemy that's attacking
you as the psalmist did. There could be lots
of reasons, but you need to start by asking the
reasons why. And as he asks that question, he
seems to come up with three answers for himself.
In the first place he is distressed, he is in
despair because God seemed far away to him. He
sees himself like a deer who is in the wilderness
searching for water, desperately thirsty but
can't find it, panting, the tongue hanging out,
and yet can't find God. He says, when shall I
come and appear before God? And he says in verse
6, My God, my soul is in despair within me. I
remember thee from the land of Jordan. He wants
the presence of the Lord. And to his Jewish thinking,
the presence of the Lord was in Jerusalem at
the temple, the place the Lord had ordered for
his dwelling place. But God seemed far removed
from him. Does God ever seem far away from you?
He does to me from time to time. He does to all
of us. And as he asks the reason why, there's
a second answer, I think, in verse 4. He is in
despair because he is longing for the past. Here
he is up all these miles away from Jerusalem
and all he can do is remember. Now I'm not going
to point my finger at him because I tend to be
melancholy too. But he looked to the past. He
said, these things I remember and I pour out
my soul within me. To pour out means to pour
out like a libation, like a sacrifice. He sees
his innards just turned upside down and his very
being just being poured out in his memories.
These things I remember, literally that Hebrew
word means to pierce and then to impress. upon
something like your mind, your memory. Sometimes
memories are like that, aren't they? They just
hang on. It's like they have a hook on them,
they poke a hole in your mind and they just hang
there. And sometimes that's alright and sometimes
it's not alright because the memories hurt and
they bring on depression. He says, I remember
I used to go along with the throng and lead them
in the procession to the house of God. He's thinking
back to earlier times when he would be among
the worshippers going up to the temple mount
to worship God. And he sang with joy and thanksgiving.
He was one of the multitude going to a festival
of Israel. That's his memory. And he can't do
that now. And he's depressed. You know, that's
one of the things that older people face. Longing
for past events. When this or that used to be
done that brought a lot of joy and they can't
do that anymore. Shut -ins face this when they
think on Sunday morning, boy, I used to be able
to go to church. I used to sing in the choir.
I used to teach Sunday school. I used to be there
every week. And now they can't be there at all.
And that memory, as wonderful as it is of good
days, now haunts them. And it could be that in
the loss of a loved one, you've experienced the
same thing. And you look back to those happy
years. When there was companionship and there
was shared love and dreams And now that's gone
And as wonderful as those memories are they hang
on and bring depression Well now you see what
this man's going through He was inquiring as
to the reasons now why his soul is in despair
And the first thing he says to himself is God
seems far away from me. I can't seem to find
God right now I'm searching for him like a deer
out in the wilderness searches for water, but
I can't find God. God's far away. And secondly,
he says, I think of the past. I think of the
good old days. And third, in answer to the question
why, we find that he listened to the wrong talk.
He says in verse 3, my tears have been my food.
day and night, while they say to me all day long,
Where is your God? And again in verse 10, as
a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile
me while they say to me all day long, Where is
your God? You notice he says several times here,
all day long, day and night. Life is dreary for
this fellow. And one of the things that he hears
all day long, is this question, where is God?
Where is God in all of this? And he listened
to it. You know when you and I listen to the
wrong talk from other people, that can bring
us to discouragement. There are some people who
have the spiritual gift of discouragement. Did
you know that? And they go around just sharing
it everywhere they go. And when you see them
coming, you turn around and you walk the other
way. But this fellow couldn't do that. And people
were saying to him, taunting him, teasing him.
Where's God? Where's your God? And of course
it brought him to depression because he allowed
that question to settle on his heart and his
mind. So when you and I are facing depression,
which we all do from time to time, and sometimes
it's for an hour or a few hours and sometimes
for a few days and sometimes for longer. But
when we're facing depression, we can approach
the answer to it by first of all asking this
question, why? Why am I feeling this way? Now
secondly, we notice that the psalmist initiated
a response. He says to himself, hope in God.
He preaches himself a three -point sermon. Hope,
point number one. Point number two, God. Point
number three, hope in God. Why hope in God? Well,
first of all, he tells himself, in essence, God
is not far away, but he's present. Now, God seemed
to be far away to him. He wondered when in the
world he and God would get together, but as he
tells himself hope in God, he reminds himself
that God in fact is not far away. He is present
with him. He says that. Hope in God, for I shall
yet praise him for the help of his presence.
God is there. Turn to Psalm 115 where we have
a similar question asked by another anonymous
psalmist. Psalm 115. The context is similar because
The psalmist here is struggling with the same
question and comparing or contrasting his own
situation with idolaters. He starts out with
praise to God, and then he says in verse 2, this
is Psalm 115, why should the nations say, where
now is there God? You see the same question?
Where is God? And so he answers it. He says,
our God is in the heavens. That's where he is.
Quite unlike the gods of silver and gold that
are work of man's hand, who have mouths that
cannot speak, eyes that cannot see, ears that
cannot hear, noses that cannot smell, hands that
cannot feel, feet that cannot walk, and they
can't make a sound from their throat. Look at
the impotence. of the gods of the nations. Where
are their gods? Well, sitting over here. Oh,
and there's one over there about half finished.
And in answer to the question to him, he says,
our God, the God of Israel, is in the heavens.
And he says he does whatever he pleases. He's
not only in the heavens, he rules in the heavens.
He's sovereign. in the heavens. And if my circumstances
are pleasant for the moment, or if my circumstances
are difficult for the moment, He does what He
pleases. He's still in heaven. That's where He
is. And then in verse 9 He says, Oh Israel, trust
in the Lord, for He is their help and their shield.
Same words, verse 10. He is their help and their
shield, verse 11. He is their help and their
shield. There's both an offense and a defense
here. God is their help, that is their support.
God takes the offense with His people. He is
there on their behalf to help them. And God takes
the defense on their behalf too, because He is
their shield. He puts up the shield to protect
them. So he provides and he protects. And therefore
he says, Israel, and he says to you and to me
tonight, trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord.
You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. Verse
11. Now verse 12. The Lord has been mindful of
us. That's good to remember. Because there are
times our feelings say, God's forgotten me. Somewhere
I fell in between the cracks with God. I must
not be as important as some others because God
doesn't care, God doesn't know God isn't here.
And the psalmist reminds us that the Lord has
been mindful of us and he will bless, he will
bless, he will bless, he will bless. See that?
So the time that the psalmist in Psalms 42 and
43 writes about are not uncommon times. And as
he remembers that God is not far away but present,
so did other psalmist, and so do we need to remember
that. Now going back again to our original psalm,
the second thing that we see in this response,
hope in God, is the psalmist's confidence that
God is greater than his feelings. God is greater
than his feelings. Notice that he says, verse
3, my tears have been my food day and night.
What do you do with food? You eat it. You absorb
it. You take it in. And what he says here is
that his emotions is what he's been living on.
It's what he confesses. He's been living on his
emotions. My tears have been what I've been eating
day and night. You know, when you and I eat our
emotions, it's going to result in this kind of
a problem. And what the psalmist remembers here
is that there's something better to feed on than
our emotions. It's found over in verse 3 of the
next psalm. O send out thy light and thy truth,
let them lead me. Let them bring me to thy holy
hill and to thy dwelling place." You and I can
either feed on our feelings or we can feed upon
the light and the truth of God. God is greater
than our feelings. We need to remember that.
Even though at the moment it's tough to overrule
our feelings, we need to remember consciously
that God is greater. Than the feelings that we
have and we need to feed on his word so we are
kept aware of that truth Now when he says hope
in God there's another confidence that he has
and that is that God demonstrates his involvement
God has a way of demonstrating his involvement
In verse 8 he says the Lord will command his
loving -kindness in the daytime and his song
will be with me in the night The word command
here means to order or to delegate. He says God
is going to delegate to me his grace, his loving
kindness. He's going to remember his covenant
with me in the daytime, even when I feel like
I do. And he says his song will be with me in
the night. He's not saying here a song that God
is singing to him. He's talking about a song
of response in his own life. to God. He says
this song is a prayer to the God of my life.
His song will be with me in the night. Turn over
to Psalm 63 for a minute. Where we have a parallel
verse. Psalm 63 Verse 6, When I remember thee
on my bed, I meditate on thee in the night watches.
For thou hast been my help, and in the shadow
of thy wings I sing for joy. My soul clings to
thee, thy right hand upholds me. Three good verses
to memorize. Do you have trouble sleeping because
of your anxieties? Does sleep come hard because
of depression or memories of the past? Days that
you long for that cannot come again? Well the
psalmist says here that God gives us His grace
in the daytime and in response at night we can
sing to the Lord. We can sing praise to Him.
God demonstrates His involvement on our behalf
and He reminds us here in this psalm that our
circumstances Our circumstances are really God's
breakers and God's waves. He says then in verse
7, deep calls to deep. Now, he probably has in
mind here the depths of waters that are like
answering to one another. Here's a waterfall
and there's a waterfall and the noise that they're
making, the roaring is like an antiphonal chorus.
They sing to one another, deep calls to deep.
But poetically, he may have something else in
mind. He may be talking about the depths of our
spirit calling out to the depths of God. Or it
could be an expression that talks about the depths
of our souls calling out to other depths within
us. The kind of deep meditation that we experience.
And he says that this happens, this deep reaching
down and reaching up to God, this happens at
the sound of thy waterfalls when your breakers
and your waves have rolled over me. Notice whose
breakers and waves and waterfalls they are. They're
God's. It's good for us to remember that God's
in charge of them. When he says that they have
rolled over him, he pictures a stationary object
that stands firm while something rolls over him.
It kind of reminds me of being in the ocean.
Do you like to swim in the ocean with all those
creatures that are below the water you can't
see? The sharks floating around, swimming? I
enjoy the ocean anyway. And it's fun to be out
there where, you know, it's this deep. somewhere
and you're just standing there doing the best
you can to stand and the waves just come and
they pick you up and they set you down. They
pick you up and set you down. That's fun, isn't
it? But he's not talking here about recreational
waves, okay? He's talking about waves of trial.
Waves of heartache. Waterfalls of difficulty.
And he says all of them originate from God's
hand to me. God is demonstrating to this psalmist
his involvement in his life, and he's seeing
that. His feelings haven't caught up with it,
but he's beginning to see it. And so the first
thing he does is to inquire as to the reasons
for his depression. He says, why am I experiencing
this? Then he initiates a response from his heart.
And that response is hope in God. And the final
thing that he does is to start his recovery.
He says, I shall again praise him. You notice
the determination of his heart, the set of his
will? He says, I shall again praise him for the
help of his presence. The reason he's able to
Well, let me say first of all that we begin to
recover from depression when we learn to praise
the Lord, just as we heard sung earlier tonight.
Songs begin to bring us out of depression. One
of the greatest things that you and I can do
when we're feeling low is to go to the tape player,
to the CD player, and put on some good music.
For me, that's the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir,
for one mood. or it's Bill Gaither and his friends,
if I'm in another mood. There's all kinds of
music and then there's the kind of music that
originates within our own souls and we sing to
God and when we can begin praising the Lord,
we begin our recovery. And what he tells himself
here is that his circumstances will pass. They're
not permanent. He says, I shall again praise
the Lord. He recognizes though he's in the depths
of the pit right now that he's going to be lifted
out of the pit. He's going to be happy again.
He's going to praise the Lord again. And he's
going to praise the Lord because the Lord is
his Savior. This is interesting. I discovered
this this week. He says, I will praise him for
the help of his presence. The word Praise, here,
is the word yada in the Hebrew. That's y -a -d
-a -h. And it means to use the hand to throw
something. But then it came to me to lift the
hand to confess sin to God, or to lift your hand
in praise to the Lord, like some of us are doing.
This name Yadah is where we get the name Judah,
the tribe from which our Lord descended. It is
the tribe of praise. He says, I will praise him
for the help of his presence. And this word help
literally means victory or deliverance. And it
is the Hebrew word Yeshua. Does anybody recognize
that? If you've been around any messianic Christians,
you immediately recognize the name Jesus. Yeshua
or Joshua or Yahashua is the name Deliverer or
Savior. And so we have here the tribal name for
Jesus' earthly ancestry, Judah, praise, and we
have His name, the name Yeshua, Jesus, the Savior.
And so what he does is he says, I'm going to
start my recovery by recognizing that my circumstances
are temporary and I am going to choose by an
act of my will to begin praising the Savior because
He is going to deliver me. My victory, my help
will come from His presence in my life. And so
I believe in this psalm or these two psalms combined
we have Something of an answer for depression.
It's something for you to tuck away in your own
heart. Maybe to share with someone who's going
through the valley right now. I'd like for us
to sing together in closing a hymn that comes
out of a verse that I read earlier from another
psalm. It's hymn 356. And it says, under his
wings I am safely abiding. It's a wonderful hymn
of assurance and trust in God's presence and
care in our lives. I invite you to sing along
as we turn to 356. Do you want to lead us? Do
you know this song? You'll learn it? No, I'll
just lead. I know it. That's fine. Let's stand
together as we sing. 356. How many of the rest
of you know it already? Ah, we've got some teaching
to do, that's great. Let's sing it. Under his
wings I am safely abiding Though the night deepens
and tempests are wild Still I can trust him,
I know he will keep me He is my lame, he and
I am his child. Under his wings, under his wings,
Who from his love can sever? Under his wings
my soul shall abide, Listen again to these words,
For thou hast been my help, and in the shadow
of thy wings I sing for joy. My soul clings to
thee, thy right hand upholds me. Under his wings,
O what precious enjoyment, There will I hide
till life's trials are o 'er. Heltered, protected,
no evil can harm me. Thus I'm safe evermore.
Under his wings, under his wings, Who from his
love can sever? Under his wings my soul shall
abide, safely abide forever. Of course that language
reminds us of the cherubim on the Ark of the
Covenant with their wings stretched out over
the mercy seat of God. And what he's saying is
that they're underneath those wings at the mercy
seat of God, where God dwells, where God hears
me, where God is satisfied. where God receives
me under his wings, I may safely abide. Let's
pray. Lord Jesus, thank you that whatever the
emotional condition we may be in might be, that
you're there with us. And though others may say
even to us, where is your God? And we may ask
ourselves the same question within, why have
you forsaken me? that it doesn't change the fact,
the truth, that you are the help, the savior
of our souls by your presence with us. Thank
you for the invitation to rest under the shadow
of your wings and to know there the calm protection
from life's storms. Help us this week, I pray,
to walk under the shadow of those wings and with
the conscious awareness that you're with us.
In Jesus' name, amen. Good night. May we be respectful
of it, realizing that it's your masterpiece.
And with all of its work yet to be done, you're
still at work on it. And thank you that you're
patient in our lives. May we go away from here
today, determined that by your grace, that wherever
our priorities, our thinking, our attitudes need
to be adjusted, we're going to do that because
of the place that you've given the church. In
Jesus' name I pray. Amen. And we are dismissed.