Spiritual Depression in the Psalms

father I want us to be swallowed up in this Psalm not that it's a happy place to be but to learn how to be in an unhappy place is what we need and this psalmist does it so well he is miserable so well I want you to teach your people how to be struck down well how to be in turmoil well how to be downcast well how to have waves break over them well in the Psalms and this one in particular is so well suited to help us so grant that we would know how to feel and how to think with you in the Psalms through Christ I pray amen one of the prominent emotional conditions that are in the Psalms it could be called spiritual depression I get the phrase from Martyn lloyd-jones his book he wrote a whole book on this Psalm so I'm 42 called spiritual depression - good book I recommend you get it and read it the sum ends why are you down cast on my soul and why are you in turmoil within me now there's a heading to the psalm the big print goes like this to the choirmaster a Maskell of the sons of Korah that heading is a review of last week's sermon believe it or not it makes two points number one the sons of Korah were a subgroup of the priests charged with the ministry of singing you see them in action in 2nd chronicles 20 verse 19 goes like this the Quorra heights stood up to praise the Lord the God of Israel with a very loud voice so this team wear charge do that okay the worship leaders were the Korra heights and this is for them so the first thing we hear announced is this Psalm was sung it was sung and that was the half of the point last week namely the poems are be sung second the word maskol one of the reasons that word is in English though it's not an English word is because nobody knows what it means in Hebrew so it's just transliterated scholars guess what it means it comes from a verb that means to instruct or to help to be wise and so a Maskell may be a poem of instruction and that would fit nicely with last week's sermon so let's just take that meaning we're not sure it might mean a wisely crafted poem not one that instructs but is wisely crafted so if you read the commentaries they all just throw out possible meanings and that's why the word is not translated it's just left maskull because we're not quite sure what it means but the two things from last week were poems are I mean Psalms are poems and songs to be sung and Psalms are for instruction blessed is the man who meditates on the instruction of the Lord day and night so our aim in this series is that we would feel singing poetry and we would think instruction with God in Psalms and so we're moving to the second week of our effort to do that psalm 42 here's what I would like to do I want to give you a brief overview of the psalm and then tackle six ways that this godly cast down in turmoil mance six ways he responds to his misery in the hope that you will absorb a way of feeling and a way of thinking so that the next wave that breaks over your life or the one that has got you underwater right now you would handle it more like he does than like the world does that's what I would like to to happen I think if we live in the Psalms we absorb counterintuitive emotions toward suffering toward difficulty the psalmist's are unbelievably honest about their pain and then they say things that are just off-the-wall hopeful even while they seem to be expressing hopelessness it's very strange the Psalms are strange because it is a strange thing to live under the sovereign love of God as a redeemed person so let's do the overview and then tackle those practical ways that we can follow him in responding three three elements to the overview externally his circumstances are opressing verse three his enemies say to me all day long where is your God so he's being taunted verse 10 same thing only he describes the effect as a deadly wound as with a deadly wound in my bones my adversaries taunt me while they say to me all day long where is your God now not only is it a hard thing to be taunted somebody say yeah where's your God but evidently when somebody says that it means you looked like you've been abandoned they wouldn't come along and say to somebody for whom everything was going well probably yeah where's your God now something's gone wrong and now they're taunting him so you've got the wrong that happen and you got the taunt on top of it that's the external condition of this man secondly the internal emotional condition of the psalmist is depressed and full of turmoil and verses 5 and 11 say it twice why are you down cast why are you in turmoil my soul verse 3 my tears have been my food day and night this man is so depressed he is on the brink of tears all the time never been there you're weird if you haven't you can get so stressed out so sleepless so beat up just just stub your toe and you're in a pool of Tears just bump your head on the cabinet in the kitchen and you fall totally apart I'm talking men not just women lest anybody think oh that's a girly thing it's not this man was a man I've been there you can get so beat down you're simply on the brink of tears all the time that seems to be where he was he said verse 7 look at the end of verse 7 it felt like drowning all your breakers and your waves have gone over me it's like he's he's just making it to the shore and who another big breaker puts him under that's the second thing so it's got the external condition and the internal depression and and turmoil and tears and drowning and and third he's fighting for hope he is really fighting for hope verse 5 why are you down cast on my soul why you did turmoil within me hope in God I will again praise him does that mean I'm not praising I can't praise I want to get to the point where I can praise again I shall again praise Him my help my salvation and my god verse 11 why are you down cast on my soul and why are you in turmoil within me helping God I shall again praise him my salvation to my god now that's very strange way of talking he can't praise and he's telling his soul you're gonna praise again you are so try now and it isn't working because the sum just ended I can't tell you how precious this Psalm is to me in the early 80s when I was brand new here this building didn't exist that building didn't exist just a little slice of building in the middle existed it was an old sanctuary and I would walk to church I've walked ten thousand times to church in this little neighborhood here and I would be so discouraged I don't know why maybe midlife junk you know or hard things at the beginning of a ministry brand-new greened I would just be regularly downcast this Psalm was my salvation how many hundreds and hundreds of times walking between Elliott Street where I used to live and here would I say why are you doing cast on my soul you're a pastor why are you disquieted I learned it in the RSV disquiet and why are you disquieted within me hoping God Piper come on you've got a ministry to do hope in God you will again praise Him this weekend it will come I would love to tell you stories about God's faithfulness over those years so I love the song I hope that you live there whenever you're in that kind of difficult circumstance did have happy ending it did not have a happy ending actually the answer to that question is mixed as with most things in life are mixed this man's faith is incredibly valiant isn't it he won't let go of God but he's not where he wants to be and the sum ends there you you know you think come on this is the Bible hard beginning happy ending doesn't happen that way in this Psalm and doesn't happen that way in quite a few Psalms because he wasn't out yet he was he finished this Psalm under and he wasn't out and so he ends it why why are you down cast a bank that's the end of the psalm so we just see him holding on to God and and not yet able to praise him as he wants so I assume the psalmist in the Bible by God's design to teach us and help us to think God's Way feel God's way in trouble Psalms like this are in the Bible so that you go there and live there feel this think this and get this way so that when the waves break over your life it'll be more like this then I was talking to a bunch of guys on the street this morning I've never I can't believe how many four-letter word you can pack into sentences it's like a dialect well that's one way to handle difficulty now let's go to how he handled it six ways to respond to this kind of situation oK we've seen the situation externally internally how he's fighting now let's flesh out how he's fighting in six responses and I'm going to take them in an order not that they come in the but that I think they may come in life this is my guess about how they might come in life number one he responds to his circumstances by asking why verse nine I say to God my rock why have you forgotten me why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy no that's an overstatement there's a lesson here don't don't think I'm going to minimize it I'm going to call it an overstatement he knows God has not forgotten him and the reason I know he knows is because verse 8 by day the Lord commands his steadfast love and at night his song is with me and still he says why did you forget me what does he mean when he says what have you forgotten me when his head knows he hasn't forgotten it why does he say that it says it because that's what it feels like I mean if if you are God and you're on my side just cancel out these enemies please don't let them keep on taunting me this way they're making my life perfectly miserable I can't take this much longer it looks like you've gone on vacation that's what it feels like and everybody knows that's what it feels like and only a few are honest enough to say that that's what it feels like however God has not forgotten him and he knows it now what does that tell us it's the hugely important lesson right here well to get this because if you care about people in pain you need to know this lesson 1985 I preached a series of messages on Jobe those who are around then hardly anybody but a few on staff will remember a verse and a phrase while up dusts in the second message I think it was and lasted for years I haven't heard it for a while but if I said it at a staff meeting there'd be about 10 who would recognize it and the phrase is words for the wind where's that come from it comes from job 626 listen to this word from job 626 job you remember surrounded by these three friends have beaten up on him big Tom verbally saying all kinds of things about him totally unhelpfully about his condition of suffering and he responds to them this way he says do you think that you can reprove words when the speech of a despairing man is wind what does that mean that means please don't be picky about my language when I'm in pain if I say God why have you forgotten me don't lecture me on the fact that God never forgets his own do that later don't be picky with my language it's so it's a wind word it's going to be blown away there will be plenty of time for you to see my life that I'm a true lover of God and I'll stand with him no matter what don't I think that's the point so if you care about people and you've got a robust theology of suffering like I hope we do here and somebody says something theologically inappropriate let it go it's going to be blown away a month later they learnt they're going to look back on on those horrible moments and they're going to think night glad gut and strike me dead and he didn't and you shouldn't so he asked God why it's not a bad question so good question there are answers not all the answers we want but there are some answers to the whys of our hardship some wonderful biblical helps but not all the detail we would would like number two in the midst of his discouragement he affirms God's sovereign love for him sovereign love sovereign love in the midst of his discouragement he affirms that's important to do even if you're not feeling much of it affirms God's sovereign love for him verse 8 by day the Lord commands his steadfast love and at night his song is with me a prayer to the God of my life in verses 5 and 11 he calls God my salvation my god and then he says something amazing about sovereignty that's love what about sovereignty that in all of this horrible mess he's dealing with whatever it was these enemies taunting him God was in charge where does he say that he says it in verse 7 when he says all your breakers and your waves have gone over me not the devil's breakers and the devil's waves not my enemies breakers in my enemies waves your breakers God your breakers and your waves have gone over me I know you rule the world I know you could dispense with a word with these enemies you could lift my soul in a snap of your finger and for whatever reason you are ordaining waves to break over my life right now that's confirmed all over the Bible that you ought to talk like that he got that one right in other words the crashing the tumult the oppressing the discouraging circumstances the waves he never loses his grip on the great truth of God so many of you so many of you are head of me on this because you've suffered so much more you have on you've enjoyed losses and sicknesses and hardships beyond anything I've tasted yet and you have not wavered and I praise God for you how much more deeply we need to grasp this what many of you bear witness to me and I wouldn't say it into your situation at the moment you say it to me out of the situation I could not have survived this were it not for a massive sovereign God like a rock under my feet who governs all things and loves me in and through them it's like the analogy we like to use around here is it's like ballast in your little boat while the waves are smashing against you you know how ballast works if you don't have some weight in the bottom of your boat just a little wind or waves poo and it takes on so much water it's under but if you got some ballast in it it blows hard but the weight is is keeping you from tipping all the way and that's the way the weighty doctrines of the sovereignty of God's love works so I pray that God would work that deep into your mind and heart thinking and feeling with the Psalms number three he sings to the Lord at night pleading for his life this man is very strange he's so unusual oh to be more like him in my pain verse eight by day the Lord commands his steadfast love and at night now watch this at night his song God's song is with me a prayer to the God of my life was that mean it means that late at night tears flowing down his face he's singing a prayer to God for his life you got my life I got no other place to ask for help I'm coming to you and he sings never done that we need to have a broad enough human ology or musicology or whatever you call it these days so that you have a battery of songs that work on the greatest days of leaping and the worst days of collapse you've got a song and they're all over the Psalms by the one we would sing around here if we if somebody walked into a crisis situation bet then they'd probably start singing it is well with my soul feels it's got the right tone to it it's it's got when built sorrows like billows over over over take my soul here's a here's a couple Isaac Watts wrote this now there's a Christian this is post Calvary how long wilt thou concealed I face my God how long delay when shall I feel those heavenly raised that chase my fears away how long shall my poor laboring soul wrestle and toil in vain thy word can all my foes control and ease my raging pain he wrote that to be sung Isaac Watts did or here's another one from the 1912 Salter I think it's working with Psalm 13 how long wilt thou forget me o Lord thou God of grace how long shall fears beset me while darkness hides thy face how long shall griefs distress me and turn my day tonight how long shall foes oppress me and triumph in their might how Oh Lord my God behold me and hear mine earnest cries lest sleep of death and fold me enlightened ow my eyes lest now my foe insulting should boast of his success and enemies exulting rejoice in my distress that's a good lament but it does take a certain emotional wherewithal to sing when you're totally crushed it's not a jubilant song don't don't think that song equals happy jubilant happy these songs are not jubilant this man is not jubilant he wants to be jubilant that's all point of the song I would like to be jubilant again and I'm not and he's got a song to sing while he's not and he sings it to God number four he preaches to his own soul this is one of the most important lessons in life verse five why are you down cast on myself he's talking to his soul why are you down cast on my soul why are you in turmoil within me hope in God for I shall again praise him my salvation and my god that's a crucial lesson to learn let me read you a paragraph from Martin lloyd-jones book it is so parry just when I when I read this paragraph years ago I thought got to do that kind of do more of that here's what he wrote have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to your self instead of talking to yourself take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning you have not originated them but there they are talking to you they bring back the problems of yesterday somebody's talking who's talking yourself is talking to you now this man's treatment in psalm 42 was this instead of allowing this self to talk to him he starts talking to himself why are you cast down O my soul he asks his soul had been depressing him crushing him so he stands up and says self listen for a moment I will speak to you do you do that I find that given the way I'm wired much of my self talk is very defeatist I tell myself all kinds of bad news I'm just ripped and I can imagine my bad self saying you're supposed to be giving me good news I've got the bad news and I team up with my old self and say some more bad news he bad news I have bad news and no wonder we get discouraged and so here we are on this side of the cross Jesus has come how would you priests yourself now he preached the gospel to yourself it goes like this listen self this Piper listen if God is for you who could be against you self he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for you self will he not with him freely give us all things who should bring any charge against you God's elect it is God who justifies self no it's Jesus who died yes he was raised he was at the right hand of God who intercedes for you self which can separate yourself from the love of God if there's ever a reason for memorizing Psalm 8 it's to turn it into self preaching to preach to yourself because those words are dynamite for deliverance from a hundred circumstances so learn to preach to yourself and if you do it out loud that just think you've got one of those earbuds in the airport number five the psalmist remembers so crucial he remembers he he calls to mind past experiences verse four these things I remember as I pour out my soul how I would here's what he remembers he remembers a worship service 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 now what I want to apply here is this many of you grew up in churches maybe some in this church with very shallow views of the significance of what is happening right this moment and the last hour plus it the the meaning of corporate worship what is going on from 5:30 to 7:00 or so on a Saturday night what is this is this it's just a small thing is this an insignificant thing this is just a human thing for this psalmist the memories of meeting with the people of God in the temple were simply massive let's think of this if nothing more were happening here right now then my adding some information to your brain and nothing more was happening when we were singing than the entertainment of your aesthetic capacities to delight in music he would never do what he just did here it would just be nostalgia right I mean no scale just okay system a canal nostalgia doesn't help you in the waves are breaking over you you don't say oh I remember weed in college we had such a good time what's that got to do with anything the only reason that he would go back and say I remember going in procession to the house of God is that God was real there and that helps I will do that in my dying day if my el Alzheimer's is not too bad I will remember hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of seasons on this front bench or for the first ten years I was here i sat on the platform in the old sanctuary I will remember seasons when your voice is cascaded over my aching soul with unbelievable ball I will remember times at the table I will remember anointings in the pulpit I will remember supernatural in these services I hope you don't come to these services thinking this is just a religious tradition God is here people pass from death to life in this room Saints are made strong and able to weather the assaults of the devil in this room God is receiving praise in this room this is a divine human transaction which not only now but 10 years from now will be at work saving your soul preserving your faith so I say this just to elevate in your heart and mind the significance of corporate worship so if you're a guest tonight and you never go to church and you just showed up here contemplate the possibility that you are missing something massive finally last one the psalmist thirsts for God as a deer pants for a stream verse 1 and 2 as a deer pants for the flowing stream so my soul pants for you O God my soul thirsts for God for the Living God when shall I come and now the translation here is appear before God another translation that I think is probably right is see the face of God but I'm not focusing on that right now I'm focusing on as a deer pants for the flowing streams so my soul pants for you and here's the closing point he's not pleading for relief from his circumstances I mean in the middle of the night singing his prayer maybe turned up in psalm 42 waves breaking over his life feeling discouraged soul in turmoil taunting outside and instead of saying first get me out of here he says I want you want you so bad I want you like a dear one water when he's thirsty I think that's the point of the Psalms you say what's what's the one outcome God intends from the Book of Psalms it's human hearts weaned off of security weaned off of money weaned off of comfort weaned off of fame Wien off of ministry and addicted to God we just want you as a deer pants for the flowing streams so my soul longs for you not first deliverance from my enemies not first deliverance from my depression or my turmoil or these waves if I have to stay underwater to know you I'm underwater so I just pray Oh God in these few weeks that we have together in the Psalms which just do this kind of thing among us let me close with Jesus again when will I come and behold the face of God that that question did not receive a satisfactory answer in the Old Testament just these theophanies like David prayed where God had to turn his back so you wouldn't be incinerated then the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory glory as of the only begotten of the Father that answer is in Jesus Christ and then we have four Gospels unfolding his life so that we can see in his life and death the beauty of his countenance and that is the countenance of God let's pray Oh father in heaven I long for myself and for this people to be more like this poet who in the night was wrestling with all his might to hope in you would you help us to be good fighters of hope make us like deers who pursue you above all things lord help us to be hungry for you and thirsty for you you

Channel: Desiring God

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Keywords: Sermon, John Piper, Desiring God, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Christian, Christianity, Church, Bible, Jesus Christ, God, Scripture

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Length: 36min 9sec (2169 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 01 2013