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Today we’re going to be in the Book of Psalms together. And we typically do this as a church during the summer. I’ve got a life goal in ministry. I want to teach. I’ve taught through every Psalm in the Bible, but during the summer, we usually take a few weeks to go through the Book of Psalms. And we’re going to do that over these next four weeks. And then we’re going to dive into the book of revelation after this. But in this book of Psalms, what I think is so significant about Psalms, and especially at this particular point of the year, you’re in a in a moment of transition, right? You’ve you’ve gone through the chaos of summer where you’re out of routine of sorts, and kids are getting back into school and you’re getting back into routines. And one of the things I love about the Book of Psalms during this time period is the Psalms. Help us think about how we engage the Lord where we are. And one of the things that’s unique about the Psalms, over and above all the other books of the Bible, most books of the Bible is God’s declaration to us. But the book of Psalms is man’s response to God in light of who he is. And when you read through the Psalms, you discover that there is a Psalm for every season of life, whether you’re on the mountaintops or in the valleys, whether you’re celebrating or weeping.
There there are. There’s a Psalm written for those those moments of life that teach us how to engage the Lord and worship where we are. And so the the candor of these Psalms become this, this beautiful expression of faith that we get to learn what it means to worship the God and the position in which we find ourselves. And today we’re going to look at Psalm 42. And Psalm 42 is a is a powerful psalm that begins with a, a very familiar verse. In fact, you may have quoted this verse as a memorable verse and and been encouraged by what you think are nice sentiments. Right? It starts as the deer pants for the water. You know, it’s a very beautiful, eloquent, poetic psalm. And and you might just quote that in a very sentimental way of an expression of faith. But but what you discover when you when you get into the the context of this passage is that the individual writing this psalm is in the throes of adversity and in the midst of adversity. This psalmist is walking us through how to deal with dark times. In talking about these these dark times, he’s going to really express it in three ways. One, he’s he’s going to talk about the problem he’s facing. Two, he’s going to talk about the the experiences that are contributing to that problem.
And then finally, he’s going to get to the resolution for all the encouragement for us to move forward. And so the question we want to deal with today is how do we deal with with dark nights? And and the psalmist, he’s broken this up into rather an easy pattern to follow, and he’s taking us through his life experience so that we can learn from him and apply to our lives how we come to worship the Lord in the midst of our dark times. And so when we look at this, this Psalm point number one, I’ll give you in your notes is this recognize my condition. The blank in your notes is condition. Um, every one of these, these fill in the blanks number one, two and three. At least start with the letter C. So if you catch if you hear a letter C, you’ll probably know it’s it’s the fill in that blank there. But recognizing my condition. And you see how the psalmist is doing this through the repetition of a question that he’s asking throughout this Psalm. You find this in verse five of chapter 42. You find it again repeated in verse 11, and then finally in chapter 43, verse five, the psalmist asks the same question over and over and historically, just, you know, the reason I bring up chapter 43 is that chapter 42 and 43 have traditionally, historically been taught as one unit.
And so you see the the demeanor of the psalmist by this reoccurring question that he’s asking, which is dealing with how to walk through dark times. And so in verse five he says, why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? In the form of a question? He’s he’s recognizing his condition. And let me just be a little more specific. And being a person that recognizes your condition, we’re talking about authentic transparency here and just stating where he’s at. But but it’s important to say, look, he’s not being a rain cloud to everyone’s life, right? He’s not walking around and just saying, well, I gotta be honest, right. And so everyone he meets, he’s just telling people what’s going on in his life in a very depressing way. Right. Rather, what it’s saying in this passage is that he’s he’s recognizing his condition before the Lord because he knows the Lord is the one who’s going to carry him and sustain him through this, and he’s doing it in the form of a question. Right? He’s acknowledging that God is the one who will walk him through this, but he’s he’s acknowledging the state of his soul before before the presence of God. And when he’s talking, when he’s stating this, this phrase downcast. What he’s acknowledging is that he’s in this place where his life is crumbling, he’s collapsed.
He’s he’s becoming completely undone. The condition that he’s finding himself is this place of really dissolving into nothing. And so the psalmist in these moments is, is bringing us to this place of helping us recognize where he finds himself so that we can learn what it looks like for us to walk through this same positions of life. You know, perhaps, maybe one of the reasons you’ve come here this morning is that you’ve found your soul in a in this familiar place, and you’re asking, where do where do I go from here? And let me just tell you, when it comes to the to the darkness of the night, when you experience that in your life, it’s not a matter of if you will experience it, but when you will experience it and what are you going to do about it? Because it doesn’t matter if you find yourself as one of the strongest in the faith, or a weakling before the Lord. All of us will go through these seasons and moments in our Christian journey. It’s not a matter of if, but when and what are you going to do about it? One of my my favorite heroes in the faith is a man from the 19th century, referred to as known as Charles Spurgeon. Charles Spurgeon is referred to as the Prince of Preachers. He had the largest church in the in the 19th century. But one of the things I have found about Charles Spurgeon that has made him so endearing to me is that Charles Spurgeon was a man that battled with depression.
He struggled with it throughout his ministry. In fact, I think it’s one of the things that made him so effective in ministry because he was so candid about his own struggle and where he found the Lord, that people, people resonated with that and connected to him because of it. And his depression was the reason he struggled with depression. And some think it was multifaceted things that happened in his life very early in his ministry. One of the one of the things that happened was there was a massive stampede in this church, and a few people were trampled to death because of that. And he was in his 20s when that took place. And he carried the weight of that all of his life. And not only that, because he was in the largest church, and he was in really the largest gathering that you could participate in during that time period. And so if you wanted to know all the news of the town, what you would go to was Charles Spurgeon’s Church. In fact, the newspaper writers in the 19th century on Sunday would be at his church. So they had articles to write for Monday, and they would always represent in a very polarizing way what Charles Spurgeon said. And and his critics were something that weighed on him.
And something else Charles Spurgeon struggled with was was he had health battles. And because of that, his health issues weighed on him. All of those things brought him to this place where he he struggled with depression. And through that, this is what Charles Spurgeon said, and kind of a summary of of walking in those seasons. He said, it is good for a man to bear the yoke, good for a man to front the billows, good for a man to pass through fire and through water, and so to learn sublime lessons. Trials teach us what we are. They dig up the soil. And let us see what we are made of. You know, oftentimes as people, we like to take the path of least resistance, to push down things that feel broken so that we can get back to those positive feelings again. But but what Charles Spurgeon is saying is, look, those things aren’t all bad. In fact, they help us to examine what really rests in our heart, what we what we think is most important and value valuable. They teach us about ourselves. It’s not to say go make things hard just to be hard, but rather to understand that in those seasons there are opportunities for maturity and they help us to recognize really where our hope rests. It’s not until you’re tested that you you begin to understand if your faith is genuine.
And Charles Spurgeon learned to lean into those moments of adversity as an opportunity to understand the depth of his faith and where his hope ultimately rested. Um, I remember when I, when I first moved to Utah for the purpose of planting churches, we started with a church plant and helped to get stable and strong, and then eventually we branched out and launched alpine after that. And and I was only 26 years old when we started this church. So I was I had a lot of energy and was still learning some wisdom. Right. So, um, but I remember when I, when I started to, when we started ABC, it was just a small Bible study in our home, just up the road from there at the from here at the time and just a few of us meeting and um, and eventually it morphed into a church. But I remember I met one of the older church planters in Utah that had been here since the 1950s and who had since passed, has passed away. But he came to me and he gave me his sage advice at the time. And he looks at me and he just says one thing. I think the older you get, you just learn to make it short, make it sweet, make it good. But here it is, he said. Never quit on a Monday, never quit on a Monday because he knew something about our experiences as human beings is that moments come and go, but the one thing that endures is the consistency of the Lord.
Don’t. Don’t act irrational when difficult things happen, but rather learn what will sustain you through the storms. Never, never quit on a Monday. And this is exactly where this this psalmist is. He’s he’s asking the soul and he he begins Psalm chapter 41 or 42, excuse me, verse one, by saying it like this, that nice sentimental verse as the 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? C. In the context of understanding what the psalmist is after he began to realize this is this is more than just a nice verse. This is a, a verse crying out out of desperation. This is a soul agonizing for God. And the way that you understand it really is. In verse one, he uses one word twice. He uses that word pant in reference to a deer, and then in reference to himself, likened unto a deer as the deer pants for the water. So my soul pants after you, God. And this, this idea of of panting carries with it the the thought of this deep yearning. It’s as if to say that this this deer had gone. Gone to its familiar streams. But what it discovered was that those streams had dried up.
And now that that that deer is longing for life through through a water source, something to sustain it, to quench its deepest desires. And related to that, dear. The psalmist is saying, this is where I find myself in the midst of of an agonizing, agonizing place to, to to want to draw near to God. And he’s crying out to the Lord in verse two. When shall I come and appear before you? Now, if you’re not careful in this Psalm, we might immediately jump to conclusions and misdiagnose the problem that the psalmist is facing. And some might immediately say, well, the reason he’s in a place of such desperation is a relationship with the Lord is only because of one of two things. Either either he is, he is. He has done a tremendous sin against God, and he’s feeling burden because of that, or something terrible has happened to him. But what you discover when you read this Psalm is that neither of those things are true, that the the state of the psalmist is, is not because of some sin in his own, his own life or something terrible that’s happened to him, but rather just an experience of the circumstance for which he finds himself. Meaning all of us are susceptible to this at any point in our life. It’s not a matter of if, but when, and what are you going to do about it? You know when you feel distant from God with a without a strong reason? Can I can I just remind you of a of a couple of important things? I think that that Scripture would encourage us in.
Just because you feel a certain way does not make it true. In fact, your feelings can deceive you from what the truth of God says. Reality is even when you apply scriptures to to this particular moment. Hebrews chapter 13 verse five says it like this I will never leave you nor forsake you. That’s God’s promise to you. So, so the Bible is acknowledging for us. There is what we feel and there’s what God’s Word says. But what God’s Word says is may not always be what you feel, but what you feel doesn’t determine what truth is. That feels complicated, doesn’t it? Let me give it to you in a in a. Let me give it to you in a more practical sense. Uh, I’ve used this illustration before, so I’ll use it again. Um, I can feel today like a multi-millionaire, right? But when we go check my bank account together, the truth declares otherwise. I am far from that. Right. So? So there is. There may be what you feel, but there’s the reality of what truth says. And the question is, what will you follow? Um, you know, when we come to those positions in life, it brings to us an opportunity to demonstrate what you put your faith in.
In fact, difficulty or adversity becomes this place to to demonstrate not only to ourselves, but to the world and to the Lord, that what matters to me more than the state of my feelings, because those come and go, is the reality and the truth of what God says. My feelings are here for a moment, but God’s Word endures forever. And in fact, if I gave it to you in a more of a, I guess, cheesy illustration, this is something that’s commonly used. But but the reality is, if you put if you put the the front of your train with the idea of, of feeling to then be the determiner of your faith, and that becomes the basis for your fact, your train is going to lead you in all sorts down sorts of all sorts of wrong roads. Right? But when you start with the fact, you learn that you can put your, your, your faith in it and that the feelings will come and go, but what’s what’s most important in those seasons of life is, is to understand what is true, that we may put our trust in it and find our feelings following. You know, I certainly want to be in a place in life where my feelings always align with fact. I always feel good with where I am as I walk in truth with the Lord.
But reality is, that’s not always the case. But. But here you find in this position the psalmist is recognizing his condition to point number two, then to to then begin to understand the contributors. Understand the contributors. You know, as the psalmist continues to go on and write, you’re going to find peppered throughout the Psalm, he talks about some things that are contributing to where he is. We’ve already said it’s not this major sin issue. It’s not this major attack against him, some someone or something happening against him, but rather he’s going to talk about different things that have peppered in his life that have been contributors to the state in which he’s found himself. And for you and for me, that could be a similar thing that, you know, when you think about where you are in the Lord, if you feel distant from him, reality is most of the time it’s not one thing, but oftentimes a peppering of many things that can weigh on you to where all of a sudden you look back and you recognize I’m not as close to the Lord as I desire to be. And so you sit in those feelings as as Psalm 42 expresses itself. But we want to understand the contributors as, as the psalmist writes. And he says in verse three, my tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all day long, where is your God? Couple of things he’s acknowledging in this verse is one.
He’s not eating right. He talks about his tears being his only food day and night. So he’s in this place where he’s feeling a certain way, where he doesn’t even want to eat, but rather the only thing that he’s eating is his tears. And and related to that, we’re also recognizing that he’s not sleeping, he’s not eating, and he’s not sleeping because he’s talking about his tears weighing on him day and night while they say to me all day long, where is your God? So all day the the pressure on this of this moment is weighing on him to where it’s keeping him up. And he’s in such a state that he doesn’t even desire to eat. And basically what he’s saying to you about this psalmist is that he’s he’s in this place of depression. And one of the things that I think is important to recognize for us as human beings is that while we have uniqueness to our design, that the the essence of who you are is not separated in itself, but rather it’s intertwined. And what I mean by that is God calls you to love him with all of your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength. Each one of those categories represents something unique to who you are, but those categories are also ultimately intertwined in the substance of you as a being.
Meaning there’s not this this category of who you are spiritually that’s disconnected from who you are physically. That all of it weaves itself together to make up who you are as a human being. And when things start to impact you physically, whether it’s in your mind, emotionally or or in your physical self, it also weighs on you spiritually, whether it be in the positive or negative. And the same thing spiritually, it can impact you physically. And here this this psalmist is finding himself in such a position. You know, one of the things I’ve learned about myself over the years, I’m going to give you a little secret if you do not know. But pastors work more than just on Sunday. In fact, I have gone through seasons, and even right now we’re putting in 12 14 hour days back to back to back to back. And one of the things I’ve learned about myself is if I go several days without adequate sleep, I start to get sad. Some people might even call that depressed. But I have learned one of the best lessons I can I can step into in those moments is take a nap. Because I know when I get sad, it starts to impact me spiritually and I want to be the best I can in order to honor the Lord with my life. And so for me personally, the lack of sleep.
I don’t get hangry when I don’t eat, but I do get sad when I don’t sleep right. And so just taking some time to make sure my body is refreshed is is important for me. You know, one of the things I’ve learned in working with people, people are fun and people get deeply. And one of the things, one of the places you see that exacerbated is when you take missions trips. I’ve been taking people on mission trips since my early 20s, and I have learned over the years that when you do a mission trip, it doesn’t matter how long the trip is. There’s something magical. Magical about the last 48 days where people start to come unraveled. And I know why the contributors to it are. You know, you’re out of your element. You’re out of your typical routine. You’re out of your creature comforts. You’re in a place that’s kind of pressing you. You’re in each other’s spaces. And when people start to see the finish line, sometimes they they have a tendency of losing it. And so as a pastor, I’ve learned to be mindful of that, to remind people of that, to see each other as a ministry as much as what you’re doing, more importantly, as the people you’re doing it with. And so we go through these seasons of tension. We tend to react to that because we’re we’re being pressed physically. It impacts us spiritually as a as a group or in unity and working together.
And one of the Bible verses or Bible passages, I think, that bring this to light better than any other is First Kings chapter 19. And you don’t have to turn there. But let me just give you a summary of that in First Kings 19. It’s the passage where Elijah in chapter 18 just came before the prophets of Baal, all hundreds of them, and he challenges them to to awaken their God and call down fire to make a sacrifice before them. And all day long they go around doing these chants and cutting themselves and worship their false gods, and nothing happens. And finally, Elijah comes forward and he just prays before the Lord, and he douses his his sacrifice in water. And the Lord brings down fire from heaven and consumes it. This pinnacle moment in Israel and what you find in chapter 19, right after that happens, this lady named Jezebel is ticked and she pursues Elijah. And right after Elijah is on this mountaintop experience, both literally and physically, Elijah all of a sudden becomes afraid. And he runs and he hides and he’s depressed. And God brings him next to this brook. And what God tells him is not a Bible verse. It’s not this pep speech. What God says to him is rest. And God brings an angel before him and feeds him. I think that’s the only time in the Bible an angel cooks.
I can imagine what that meal would have been. It was probably either something from the south with lots of butter and sugar, or my favorite, something from India. I don’t know, but but whatever it was, the angel cooked it. I think we’re going to eat Indian food in heaven. That’s my that’s my hope. But they have perfected the spices. But this angel cooks for him, right? This angel, this angel ministers to him that way. And it. And it speaks to us the importance that, you know, there are times in your life that what you need isn’t just simply a Bible verse, but. But your body needs to be made strong. You just you need rest. You need to eat. You need to understand how you’re interconnected as a being in order to to connect to the Lord. Um, Paul says it like this. First Corinthians ten. Let me just read these verses quick. I don’t want to keep belaboring this, but verse ten, Paul says this to take every captive, every stronghold captive in your mind, meaning that Satan wants to put strongholds in your mind, and he understands that if you believe a lie, it will. It will change your life in the negative. So rather than let Satan control your mind, which will impact you spiritually and impact all of your being, the trajectory of your life, to take those thoughts captive to Christ, that what you believe will determine how you behave.
And if you believe a lie, you’ll live it. But if you believe the truth, it’ll set you free. And so your mind is not disconnected from your soul, but rather interconnected. And David in Psalm 52 verse verse six says, let the bones that you have broken rejoice. And David in the Psalm, he’s confessing his sin before the Lord with Bathsheba. And he’s acknowledging that, that the guilt that he feels is impacting his body physically. And so he’s saying before the Lord, let the bones that you have broken rejoice. So, so your body is not disconnected from your soul. It’s interconnected. Point number two, let me show you what the psalmist goes on and says. He says these things I remember as I pour out my soul how I would go with the throng and lead them in the procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. He goes on in verse six and says, And my God, my soul is cast down within me. Therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, and from Mount Mizar. Let me tell you what’s what’s he’s saying in his life. He’s saying, God, not only do I, you know, verse three, feel this way physically. You know, it’s impacting me spiritually. But but also, he’s acknowledging that he’s not a part of a healthy community.
He remembers a time in his life in verse four where he used to walk with God’s people and in the depth of those relationships, experience the joy of the Lord together. But in verse six, he’s begun to recognize he’s gotten distant from that, and getting distant from that, he’s become distant to the Lord. If you think about it in a spiritual sense, um, when Christ came into this world, he came as the temple of God, the presence of God. And when Jesus died on the cross, it tells you the veil was torn from from the temple, and the Spirit of God no longer dwelled in the temple. But now the Bible says, The Spirit of God dwells with you and you as believers. And first Corinthians 619 or 316 and 619 you are the temple of God. That’s why we as Christians we will never build a temple. It’s blasphemous to the Lord because Jesus has made you a temple. You’re the walking presence of God. Wherever you go, you represent the Lord. And so if you want to see God work, one of the most beautiful places you can see God work in the world is through the hands and feet of his own people, because they are the temple, the very presence of God. As you move in this world, it’s why we will say as a church, look, there is no such thing as a lone Ranger Christian.
In fact, it’s it’s ungodly and it’s sinful. And the reason for that is God created you as the temple of God to represent him in this world. And he’s given you the the gifts of the Lord in order to serve him among a community to accomplish what God desires for us to do together. God doesn’t want you to do that on your own. In fact, God wants you to do that in the body of Christ to help his bride become who God has called them to be. And if you don’t understand your need for community, at least we can understand the need to see God’s community live out the purpose for which Christ has created us. And therefore, in order to do that, you’ve got to belong. In fact, one of the most important things I could say about community is that it takes time to develop. You know, there may come a place in your life when you realize, man, I am completely empty. And all of a sudden you turn for help, but you can’t find it because you haven’t taken the time to invest in the richness of a community where people can be the hands and feet of Jesus to you. The psalmist is reminding us of the importance of why Jesus made his church. They become the expression of the life of Christ, made known because the life of Christ dwells in them.
And he’s realizing in this moment I’ve gotten away from that. And then he goes on in the following verse and he says this, 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? So while he’s away from community, he’s also recognizing that the society that he’s a part of is adverse to not only his faith, but because they’re adverse to his faith, they’re adverse to him, and he feels like he’s on an island unto himself. And so he’s reminding us, you know, you’re you’re interconnected as a being and it impacts your life. And a community can help you in the midst of that life because society doesn’t know the Lord. And therefore there’s there’s not the hope of Christ in them, which speaks to the importance of being a part of of God’s people. So here’s what’s important then, you know, recognizing my condition, An understanding that there can be contributors to where I’m at. But most importantly, how do we apply the cure? What’s the cure in The Dark Knight? I want to give you just three reasons to or three things to to rub as ointment to your soul. Remember, it’s it’s not if you will go through these moments, but when you go through these moments and what are you going to do about it? And so the ointment that God gives us, it’s not necessarily just a miraculous overnight cure, but but it helps us walk through that adversity to to understand this is what I, I bring against that adversity to walk in victory.
And number one is this remember, remember. More specifically, remember who God is. And this is what the psalmist does in verse six. 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. Here’s what the psalmist is saying in order to to battle through adversity. What I’m doing is going back to the foundation, the bedrock that brought me to where I am, the reason I first believed, why I chose to trust in God, the security of that foundation. Because when all else falls away and when the world wars against me, it’s this one thing I know that will carry me through. Therefore, I remember in the midst of adversity, this this psalmist is, is going back, and he’s encouraging you to say, look, when it comes to your own walk of faith, it’s important to route yourself in a foundation because difficult days will come. And when those days come, you need to know what you can grab a hold of that will hold you secure through those trials. That’s why it’s important. In Hebrews, the writer says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. When everything else can be inconsistent, the one thing that will always sustain is who God is.
Because who God is will never change. What do you hold on to? And the psalmist is saying it like this in verse seven, deep calls to deep at the roar of the waterfalls. All your breakers and your waves have gone over me. He’s describing this, this Hebrew imagery of what water has represented to these people. You know, it’s even true in cultures today. You know, not every culture likes to take a swim in the summer. Like some people look at that like it’s weird. And we we do that here in this country. But there are some countries the idea of swimming is not like on their bucket list of things they want to do for their summer activity. But even when you get back to the Hebrew imagery from the beginning of Genesis chapter one, it tells us in the very beginning when God spoke the world into existence, and it tells you the that there was chaos over the waters and out of the chaos of the waters, God brought order. God brought land. God brought purpose. But because of that, the Hebrews have always seen water as this place of chaos. And the psalmist is saying this, this water is is running the risk of sweeping me away and drowning me. And he’s crying out for that, that life vest to hold on to. And what he’s saying for us is the cure for it is is he remembers, he clings to.
He goes on in verse eight, by day the Lord’s commands, commands, his steadfast love. And at night his song is with me. What he’s saying is he’s remembering the goodness, the bedrock, the truth, the foundation that who God is in the midst of the day. Because he realizes that at some point the night is going to come. But in the darkness of night he’s able to see see his life carried through by the goodness of who God is because he knows God is true. It’s the reason, as a church, we. If you’re new to Alpine Bible, hopefully we saw you. And if you were new, we likely gave you a gift. And one of those gifts we gave you is the book called More Than a Carpenter. And the reason we gave you the more than a carpenter is because we want people to recognize that the basis of Christianity is not a blind faith. Guess most people, when they talk about faith, they sort of say it like this. There’s a lot of different religions in the world. Who knows what’s true. I’ll just put my faith in something and hopefully in the end, when I see God, he’s like, you know, that one was wrong, that one was wrong. But your religion was right, right? That’s typically, we think, blind faith. Is this blind, ignorant guess.
But look, when God made you, he made you with a mind and he calls you to love him with all of your mind. And what’s important to recognize is in Christianity is it’s it’s rooted in historical fact. In fact, I often tell people two things about Christianity that that are pillars of foundation. And if these two things are not true, do not believe it. One is dealing with the reality of who Jesus is, more specifically the resurrection of Christ, and the other is the validity of the Bible. If you can’t trust those things, do not believe in the Bible. Do not believe in Christianity, do not believe in Jesus. But if those two things are true, if those two things are secure, it aligns everything else for us. The details of what it looks like to follow after Jesus will work itself out. If we can just we can just understand those two foundations are our bedrock for us. They will not. They will not change, they will sustain. And More Than a Carpenter is not the only book written on the historical reliability of Jesus. If you want to find some others, there’s a man by the name of Gary Habermas, Habermas who has spent his life studying the resurrection of Christ. He’s a great resource. There’s even a guy named Chuck Colson who was a part of the the Watergate scandal with Nixon Colson. He, he wrote a book on the on his faith in Christ that he found while he was in jail.
And one of the things that provoked him is he realized the 12 most powerful men in the world. During the Watergate scandal, couldn’t hold their story together for 48 hours. How incredible it was that Jesus’s followers not only maintained the consistency of their story of seeing the resurrected Christ, but they all gave their life for it. And so he wrote a book on the foundation of Christianity, or even a more recently, a book by Lee Strobel called The Case for Christ. And that’s if you don’t like reading books. They even made that a movie. You can go watch it. They told a they told a love story in the midst of that one. So you can enjoy a love story while you see the validity of of Jesus. But it becomes the foundation for us that when when life shakes us, we go back to that source. In addition to that number two and move through this quickly. He teaches us to pray. You see, the the psalmist prays in this. He says a prayer to the God of my life. And prayer is the step of faith. It’s saying, look, I remember this foundation and I’m acting on it by calling out to God in faith because I believe that God is the one who can carry me through this, right? No matter how great or small your faith may be, it’s an expression of faith and adversity.
And look at his prayer. Verse nine 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? And he’s not doing anything in this verse other than just crying out to God in a place of desperation. This is not, you know, I’m going to impress you with how great I am. God is just simply saying I am completely undone, laid bare. And here’s where I’m at, Lord. But in this prayer, he is acting in faith, trusting that God is the one who has the solution. Lord, I know who you are. Rather than feeling, I’m trusting in the truth. I’m acting in that by faith. And then ultimately the next point there, letter C is hope. Put your hope in God. Why are you cast down? He says in verse 11. 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. The psalmist is saying here at the very end, he knows his. His situation is temporal, that feelings come and go. Circumstances will fade. But what he has in the Lord will endure.
And so he refers to that as hoping in God. And hope is one of those words in English that has transitioned over time that today when we we use the word hope that we we mean more like a a wishful anticipation, right? I sure hope so. Like it’s some sort of, you know, wish that it might work out, but, um, but before that, the word hope literally meant this eager expectation that it was this place of certainty because of the consistency of who God was. And so while while the psalmist sees his situation, he knows the reality of what God has declared, and he is remembered that truth. And because of that, it gives him a hope beyond his circumstances. Knowing that God in all things will, will get the victory in his situation will soon pass. And we as people, we face the challenges that we were sometimes reminded in the midst of challenges that we have. It really let me say it like this. In the midst of challenges we have, we’re often reminded in those moments that our hope may not truly be in what it should be. In adversity has this place of awakening our soul. Recognizing man. I was hoping in something that really wasn’t the ultimate hope for which my life was intended to rest. But it’s not until adversity presents itself that we begin to learn where our true hope should be.
And John of the cross in the 17th century wrote a poem called The Dark Night of the soul. And he he acknowledges in that poem really what adversity does for us. He he acknowledges for us one that it helps. It helps us become first discontent. And then in desperation, we become disoriented until finally we face our demons. Whatever is warring against us in order that we may mature in Christ, that adversity becomes this place of maturity, that God uses an obstacle to remind us again and again of the faithfulness of who he is. To remember then by faith, seek him in prayer and then act on that. This idea of hope is saying, now that I’ve trusted in you by faith again, Lord, I’m going to move forward because I know in you I am completely secure. You know, some of us may look at this passage as the psalmist has written and ask ourselves the question, well, how do we know? How do I know this is this this Psalm is something that relates to me. How do I know that the way God might have intervened and cared for this psalmist is the same way that God cares for me today. And can I just remind you maybe of a few important things of what Jesus did for you at the cross? In the book of John, when Jesus was dying on the cross, he says this.
Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said, I thirst, I thirst. Do you remember how this Psalm begins? Psalm 42. As the deer pants for the water. So my soul pants after you, Lord. We thirst. And then again in Matthew 27, verse 46, Jesus said it like this My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Do you remember what he said in Psalm 42 verse nine? God, have you. Have you forgotten me? Have you forsaken me? Jesus is taking on Psalm 42. Jesus’s soul is going through the experience, the loss in Psalm 42 so that you would never have to. Jesus endured your thirst and was forsaken by the father, so that you could live in the promise that God’s presence would be with you no matter where you go, regardless of the way you might feel. So when it comes to the place of feeling and faith, you would learn to trust in the Lord by faith rather than walk in your feelings. Charles Spurgeon said it like this. He said, I find myself frequently depressed, perhaps more so than any other person here. I find no better cure for that depression, then to trust in the Lord with all of my heart and seek to realise afresh the power of peace, speaking the peace speaking blood of Jesus and His infinite love in dying upon the cross to put away all my transgressions. Yeah, I’d love to end when I think about these things with the the thought from church history.
And let me just close with this and we’ll be done. There’s a lady in the 18th century by the name of Marie Durand. She was a Christian lady, and at 19 years old, she was thrown into prison because of her faith in Christ. This was in a time in in France where the government was opposed to, to Christianity. And so she was thrown into prison at 19 years old, and she was told one thing. And the darkness of that dungeon, the darkness of those days, if you would recant your faith, you could go free. And for 38 years she endured in that dungeon. Finally, after 38 years, the political environment changed in her country and she was set free to enjoy the last eight years of her life in freedom. But for 38 years, she endured in that darkness. And the question is how? And I think she left a mark to remind us of what her secret was. On the the cell walls, it’s known that Marie Duran etched these words. Resist her. Resist her. She was able to endure in the midst of darkness because she remembered the greatness of who her God was. And because of that faith that she placed in his truthfulness, she was able to endure beyond the feelings of the circumstance.