Word of Salvation – Vol. 37 No. 39 – October 1992

 

A Troubled Soul Hopes In God

 

Sermon by Rev. John Haverland on Psalm 42

Readings: Lamentations 3:1-27, 2Corinthians 4:6-18

 

Beloved congregation,

We all know what it's like to be standing around waiting for someone.  You've made an arrangement to meet the person at a certain time and place.  You arrive on time, but the other is nowhere to be seen.  You check your diary to make sure you've got the right time and place and then you wait, patiently.

But after a while you begin to get impatient, and after waiting some more you begin to get anxious and worried and frustrated.  We don't appreciate waiting for others.

Or think of a situation in which you have to wait for an operation, or waiting to recover from an operation.  Those are difficult and frustrating situations too.

In this Psalm we have a person who was waiting – waiting for God.  He wanted to know God, to be closer to Him, to hear from Him.  He longs for this to happen.

He compares his desire with the panting of a deer for water: 'As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you O God'.  He says that he thirsts for God and wants to meet with Him.

Why is this?  What has produced this longing, this thirst, this desire?  Why is he so desperate to know God?  He had this desire because of the trouble he was in.

So to understand this Psalm we need to look at his troubled situation.

1.  His troubled situation.

a.  The first thing we notice here is that he was troubled.  We don't know just what his situation was.  It has been suggested that David wrote this Psalm when he was hiding from Saul, running here and there in the desert.  Another possibility is that he wrote this when he had to flee Jerusalem after the rebellion of his son Absalom.  Others have suggested that it was written by an Israelite during the exile in Babylon.

It doesn't really matter what the situation was because the Psalms always describe a particular situation in general terms.  This means that we can always relate to what is said.  The Psalms are general enough to describe our situation, our feelings, our emotions.  And this Psalm is certainly full of emotion.

Look at verse 3: 'My tears have been my food day and night'.  He felt things so deeply that he couldn't stop the tears.  Some of you will know what that is like – when you keep on crying and it seems as though you'll never be able to stop.  To feel emotionally exhausted, as though your tears had drained away all your energy.

In verse 7 he describes more of his trouble: 'All your waves and breakers have swept over me'.  Maybe you have been swimming in the surf and you have found yourself caught in a powerful wave; it swept you along, tumbling you around, tossing you back and forth, until you were finally let go as the sea grew shallower.  This is how this person felt, only he felt as though all God's breakers and waves had gone over him – not just one but many!  He recognises that they were God's breakers and waves, but that didn't change the way he felt.

He describes his feelings in the phrases that form a refrain in this Psalm: verses 5, 11 and verse 5 of Psalm 43: Why are you downcast O my soul?  Why so disturbed within me?'  The word 'downcast' literally refers to a person who is bowed down, in despair, bent over with a great burden.  The word 'disturbed' literally means a murmuring, a growling.  Here is a man who is burdened by his troubles and who feels a deep restlessness in his soul.

Many of us feel like this at times.  We too have troubles and trials.  You might be experiencing some personal difficulties; or struggling in your marriage; or worried about your children.  You may be trying to cope with sickness, or with tension in your family, or pressure at work.  All of us will be able to identify in some way with the writer of this psalm because we all have times when we feel that we are despondent and discouraged, 'downcast and disturbed'.

But this man not only felt troubled, he also felt...

b.  Mocked.

In verse 3 he talks about people who were constantly goading him: 'Where is your God!?'  This comes back in verses 9 and 10 where he escribes the oppression of his enemies and their constant taunting.

This is typical of the response of the world.  People will see our trouble and they'll come to us and say: 'Isn't God supposed to be looking after you!?  Doesn't God help you in times like this!?  Isn't the believer meant to be spared all these troubles!?'

This person felt this mockery so much that he began to suffer physically because of it.  Verse 10: 'My bones suffer mortal agony.'  That can happen that our spiritual and emotional turmoil begin to show in physical symptoms.

But he was also troubled because he was...

c.  Nostalgic

He looked back to the past, to the good old days!  In verse 4 he remembered how he used to lead the procession to the temple; how he used to gather with God's people for festivals of thanksgiving and praise and rejoicing!

But all that had gone.  That is only a distant memory.  All that was in the past.  And the memory of the way it used to be only increased his pain and the trouble of his soul.

But there was one hopeful sign in all of this – and that was that he was talking to himself.  We don't usually think of that as being a sign of mental health.  We have that joke that the first sign of madness is when you start talking to yourself!

But this person wasn't mad.  In this case talking to himself was a good thing.  It meant that he was analysing his behaviour, asking himself questions, checking on himself.  It meant that he hadn't given up, hadn't thrown it all in.  No, he was saying to himself: 'Now, why are you like this?  Where have things gone wrong?  What is the problem?'  Realising that there is a problem and asking yourself why is a very good starting point towards resolving things.

So from this situation of trouble he begins to put his hope in God.

2.  His hope in God

This is the second thread in this Psalm that we want to examine.  Again we notice three things.

His first step here is that he

a.  Remembers God

In one of her books Joni Erickson tells a story about when she was a girl and was out riding with her sisters.  She was on a little pony while her sisters were on larger horses.  They crossed over a river, but because she was on a small pony the water swirled high around her and she struggled to keep her balance.  She thought she would fall off into the water and be swept away.  Just then her sister looked back and saw her difficulty and called back to her, 'Joni, look up!'  She did that.  She stopped looking at the turbulent waters around her and looked up and across to the other bank.  As she did so she found her balance and was able to make it across.

This illustrates what we need to do.  We are often so busy looking at ourselves, at our problems and at our situation that we forget to look up.  We forget about God.  We don't look to him.

This was the problem with this man.  But he began to make progress when he remembered God.  In verse 6 he resolves: 'I will remember you.'  This was a conscious and deliberate decision.  He decided with his will that he would remember God, that he would put his mind on God rather than on his troubles.  This is something we need to do too.  We need to resolve to remember God.

b.  The second thing he did was to talk to God.

In verses 9 and 10 we see him conversing with God, communicating with him, expressing his feelings to him.  This is important.  There is nothing more tragic than when a person stops talking to God.

In times of trouble you may not be able to pray lovely prayers, or express yourself in an ordered way, or say exactly what you meant to say.  But that doesn't matter.  God still wants to hear us.  He wants us to reach out to Him

Like Job, who in the midst of all his suffering, cried out to God for justice and righteousness!  Like Jeremiah, who called out to God with a complaint about the loneliness of his situation.

So remember God, talk to God, and third...

c.  Hope in God.

This is what this man urges on himself: 'Put your hope in God'.

We spoke at the beginning of this sermon about waiting for God.  That's what the psalmist is talking about.  The word 'hope' is literally the word 'wait'.  But it is translated as hope because waiting implies hoping.  We wait in hope.

This hope is not a vague wish.  It's not a pie in the sky.  No, to hope in God is to have a sure knowledge and strong conviction that God will carry us through.  It is a deep seated assurance that God is with us.

We have this hope because of who God is: He is a God of love.  That is beautifully expressed in verse 8.... (read)

He is a God of strength.  This is the thought of verse 9 where God is described as a 'rock'.  God is always there.  No matter what the situation He is always there.  We can trust Him, depend on Him, rely on Him.

He is a God of salvation.  In verse 11 He is described as our 'saviour'.  He is the God who has rescued us and who will rescue us.  Our Deliverer.  Our Redeemer.  Our Saviour.

This word of course immediately makes us think of our Lord Jesus.  He is the One who has delivered us from sim and Satan and death.  He is the One present with us all the time through His Spirit.  We can hope in God because we know that we belong to this faithful saviour, Jesus Christ, body and soul, in life and in death.

This doesn't always change our situation or our circumstances.  It doesn't mean that our troubles disappear and our problems vanish.  No all of that may remain.  We may still have our questions, our doubts, our difficulties.

But we have hope because we know that God is with us.  It is this hope that enables us to 'yet praise Him"!

We know, with the apostle Paul that these 'light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs them all.'

You will have times of trouble.

When you experience such times, go back to the words of this Psalm.  Remember God.

Talk to Him...!

Put your hope in Him, our Saviour and our God!

AMEN!