Psalm 42-43
1. Depression can be a bigger giant than Goliath.
2. The difference between two kinds of “why?,” and the ongoing battle
between our old nature and our new nature in Christ.
3. In God only we trust! The ultimate cause of all spiritual depression is
unbelief.
4. The ultimate remedy of depression is worship.
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This is a psalm of David in a time of affliction. Because he is likely king at this time (see v. 6), and because he longs to be restored to the tabernacle (v. 4), it would be safest to locate this psalm as being written during the time of Absalom’s rebellion. So this is not just a matter of danger for David (which he had faced many times before), but of mortal danger from a dearly loved son.
“Hear my cry, O God; Attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: Lead me to the rock that is higher than I . . .” (Psalm 61:1-8).
First, this is not a dispassionate prayer. David cries out, “Hear my cry, O God” (v. 1). He is in a desperate way. He will cry out to God from the ends of the earth, which indicates some form of exile (v. 2). When he is overwhelmed, when his heart is overwhelmed, he asks that he be led to a rock that is higher than he is (v. 2). God has been a shelter for him in times past, a strong tower against the enemy (v. 3). This indicates that on the top of the rock that is higher than David there is a fortress. Having presented the request, David declares his confidence that he will return to the tabernacle to be there forever, and that he will trust in the covert of God’s wings (v. 4). He then says Selah, which most likely means something like “pause and reflect.”
David has made vows, and God has heard them (v. 5). He is confident that he has been given the heritage of those who fear God (v. 5). The king’s life will be prolonged, and his years will be extended like they were generations (v. 6). He will abide with God forever (v. 7), and mercy and truth will do it. God will be praised forever, and He will be praised forever daily (v. 8).
Here is a striking difference between the formalist and the true believer. The formalist is content with having prayed. The true believer has a holy discontent until he has an answer. The formalist checks the box that says he has “said his prayers,” but he, along with everybody else knows that prayers are not meant to be answered. God, for some mysterious reason, wants us to say them, but He isn’t listening. Away with all that. The psalmist says “Hear my cry, O God.” He says, “attend to my prayer.”
It might be the end of the earth, but it is not the end of prayer. It may be far away from the tabernacle, but God is no local baal tied to just one mountain, or to one shrine. David’s distance might be geographical, as a man might pray when lost on a glacier in Greenland. Or David’s distance might be ecclesiastical—where the tabernacle was taken as the very center of all things. Either way, or both, God is immediately there. Wherever God is, there is the true center.
So the end of the earth is not the end of prayer, but the end of prayer is the end of man.
Not only does David not have a Rock that is higher than he is, he doesn’t know where it is. He knows
there is one, but he can’t find it, and he can’t get up on it. His cry is to the one who can accomplish a full deliverance. The first thing is that he must be led to the Rock; he needs to be shown where it is. And because the Rock is higher than he is, two things follow—if he gets up on it, he will be saved, but because it is higher than he is, he can’t get up on it. He needs to be led there, and he needs to be placed there.
And just being led there is not enough. Picture this great danger along a rocky coast, and you are a mariner whose ship has foundered. The shoreline is a series of rocky cliffs—your salvation from the waves is there, right there. You can see it now. But seeing it and being on it are two entirely different things.
God’s past kindnesses do not have an expiration date. Notice how David prays from the past to the future, from “thou hast been a shelter . . . (v. 3)” to “I will abide . . . I will trust” (v. 4), from “God, hast heard . . .” (v. 5) and “hast given” (v. 5) to “Thou wilt prolong . . .” (v. 6).
God’s faithfulness in the past is a sure indication of His faithfulness in the future. God’s hard providences are sometimes hard, sometimes tangled and messy, sometimes inscrutable, but always faithful. The plots twists are often over our heads, but the happy endings never are. The Christian cosmos is a comedy, not a tragedy, and not a farce.
If contentment is a gift from God, and it is, then it is appropriate for us to plead for it. And when we are pleading for it, it only stands to reason that we know that we do not yet have it. You don’t know where it is, or how it can be, but you know who has it to give.
David wanted to be back at the tabernacle. The shelter of God’s wings might be seen in the Holy of Holies, with the wings (“the covert of thy wings”) of the cherubim extending over the mercy seat.
Jesus is that mercy seat. Jesus is the Rock that is higher, much higher, than we are. Jesus is the tower fortress on top of that Rock. Jesus is the tabernacle. Jesus welcomes you under the covering of His wings. Jesus is your heritage. Jesus is mercy and truth. Jesus is the fulfillment of all our vows.
What do you do, then, when your heart is overwhelmed? You fly, you fly to Jesus. Nothing else makes any sense.
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The background to this psalm is found in 1 Samuel 23, and it is a testimony to David’s faithfulness to God in the midst of much unfaithfulness to him. David had delivered Keilah from the Philistines, but the Lord told David that they would turn him over to Saul. He then went to the wilderness of Kiph, but the Kiphim went to Saul the tyrant and promised to turn David over to him. Saul, true to form, felt like he’s the one who needed compassion (1 Sam. 23:21). The one exception to all this treachery was Jonathan. In this background chapter, he makes a wonderful covenant with David—Saul, the tyrant, fathered one of the noblest sons in all of Scripture (1 Sam. 23:16). But when most men are treacherous, and when many men are flakes, God remains God.
“To the chief Musician on Neginoth, Maschil, A Psalm of David, when the Ziphims came and said to Saul, Doth not David hide himself with us?
Save me, O God, by thy name, and judge me by thy strength. Hear my prayer, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth. For strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul: they have not set God before them. Selah. Behold, God is mine helper: the Lord is with them that uphold my soul. He shall reward evil unto mine enemies: cut them off in thy truth. I will freely sacrifice unto thee: I will praise thy name, O LORD; for it is good. For he hath delivered me out of all trouble: and mine eye hath seen his desire upon mine enemies” (Ps. 54:1-7).
When the Kiphim volunteered to turn David over to Saul, David cries out to God, asking for salvation by the name of God (v. 1), and he requests that he be judged by the strength of God (v. 1). He then urges God to listen (v. 2). David says that his problem is two-fold—strangers have volunteered to take up the conflict with David (v. 3), and oppressors are trying to get him (v. 3). The Ziphim are the strangers, who should have had no problem with David, and the oppressors are Saul and his forces. Both are motivated by a functional atheism—they have not set God before them (v. 3). We then find a selah—Spurgeon says that David is out of breath with indignation. David then says that God is with him; the Lord is also with those who encourage David (v. 4), which would have to include Jonathan. David knows the shape that this help will take—God will reward evil to David’s enemies, and will cut them off in His truth (v. 5). David knows this will happen, and he promises to pay his sacrificial vows when it does (v. 6). He will praise God’s name (v. 6), the name by which he was saved (v. 1). David claims his deliverance by faith (v. 7), and he foresees his God-given victory over his enemies (v. 7).
We considered the realities of functional atheism in the previous psalm, but we see that same kind of atheism at work here. David says that strangers have risen up, and oppressors have pursued, because “they have not set God before them.” But what does Saul say when the Ziphim come to him? He puts a pious varnish over it. “And Saul said, Blessed be ye of the LORD; for ye have compassion on me” (1 Sam. 23:21). Saul pronounces this blessing in the name of Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel.
We have noted this characteristic of Saul before—trying to murder others while expecting everybody to feel sorry for him. But this kind of thing is often a function of retroactive justification. If one man wrongs another, he is frequently not of a mind to say to himself, “Yes, I did a vile thing without any good reason.” The human heart is a self-justification factory, manufacturing reasons by the quarter ton.
Most of those reasons are of a very poor quality indeed, and have a very tenuous relationship to any kind of orderly chronology. So one man wrongs another, and then goes hunting around in the past (anything earlier than his sin) for retroactively perceived grievances, things that were perfectly fine with him at the time. This is the way the world works, but it must not be the way that you work.
Now David is not being petty or vindictive. As with the imprecatory psalms, the whole point is to turn a grotesque situation over to God, who is the one who sees all things perfectly. We can know the main outlines, but we still turn it over to God. While the bulk of this psalm is David asking to receive help, in one place he makes a direct statement about what God will do to those who are persecuting him. So it is not turned over to God in a spirit of agnosticism; the situation is turned over to God with particular requests attached. David here says that God will “reward evil” to David’s enemies. David has a particular request that God “cut them off.” He wants God to do this in God’s truth, and according to God’s judgments, but he nonetheless wants God to do it. Someone has ably defined a liberal as someone who won’t take up his own side in a fight. If that is the case, the spirit of liberalism is pervasive in the modern church—even including ostensibly conservative churches.
God will not not judge the world in the aggregate. He will not judge by the gross ton. His judgments will involve glasses of cold water that some people gave and other people didn’t (Mark 9:41). His judgments will include every idle word that some people spoke and some people didn’t (Matt. 12:36). God will render to every man according to his deeds (Rom. 2:6). The apostle Paul also says of false teachers that their “end shall be according to their works” (2 Cor. 11:15). He also asked that Alexander be rewarded “according to his works” (2 Tim. 4:14). “And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear” (1 Pet. 1:17).
Now in line with all the Reformation, we hold that the dividing line between the sheep and goats is a line drawn by the electing good pleasure of God, and is not according to works. But once the Lord’s infinite wisdom has drawn that line, the punishments and the rewards that are apportioned to the reprobate and the elect respectively most certainly are in line with how we have lived our lives. The scriptural testimony to this reality is abundant. And so it is crucial that we turn to Christ, knowing that His mercies endure forever.
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Although the occasions can be many, there are two basic reasons for discouragement—internal and external. The internal occurs when for some reason we have given way to sin, and the external occurs when we are buffeted by circumstances, as Job was, but without sin. And, of course, it is possible to get discouraged in both ways. How are we to understand this? How are we to respond to it?
“Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God” (Ps. 42:11).
We have dealt with this psalm in detail before, and so here we will just consider the implications of this one verse. First, the psalmist presupposes that the condition of peace is normal. He is cast down and disquieted, and he wants to know the reason why. This disturbance of his soul is the thing that requires explanation. “Why are you cast down?” he asks himself (v. 11). Second, the psalmist remonstrates with himself. He talks to himself, which is a good alternative to listening to himself. He preaches to himself, and it is a convicting sermon. Third, he comes to a pointed exhortation, commanding himself to hope in God. Not only this, but he anticipates that he will in fact obey the command, for he will in the future praise God.
When we speak peace to our hearts, we can do it in accordance with the Scriptures, or we can do it in accordance with our own pipe dreams. For example, someone who has become and idolater by turning away from the Lord can speak peace to his own heart, in his own name and on his own authority. “And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst” (Dt. 29:19). What I am declaring here are the words of the gospel, and the gospel does not sew cushions for sin.
Remember that your salvation has occurred because God has included you in His triune life. The gospel is triune, just like the God who established the gospel. And this is why peace for your distress is triune peace. What do I mean? God the Father has declared that the comfort of peace is to be announced to us (Is. 40:1-2). Christ has become our peace by His own blood (Eph. 2:13-14). And why would the Father not give to us what Christ has purchased for us? And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Christ so that He might comfort those who mourn, that He might bind up the brokenhearted (Luke 4:18). Because Christ died, the executor of His testament is the Holy Spirit. Remember then, when you are struggling with discouragement, that Father, Son, and Spirit, are all engaged on your behalf.
One reason why Christians are discouraged in their attempts to live the Christian life is that they are attempting to run the race with cords around their feet, and a 150 pound backpack on (Heb. 12:1). And so the way out of discouragement in sin is repentance. Discouragement in such cases is disciplinary, and God’s hand is heavy upon you for a reason. Make sure to repent the sin all the way down to its foundations, and secondly, make sure to repent of the right sin. Don’t go snipe hunting in your conscience.
But don’t make the mistake of thinking that hard circumstances mean that you must have sinned. This was the error of Job’s failed comforters (Job 2:11), and it was the error of the disciples concerning the man born blind (John 9:2-3). But at the least, every trial contains a temptation to murmur, an invitation to think that the God of universe has bungled matters when it comes to your case. But God does all things perfectly well (Rom. 8:28).
When Christians sin, or when they struggle with affliction, there is an accuser of the brethren in heaven who accuses them there. But, thanks to God, we have an Advocate there on our behalf. Christ is our attorney, defending us before the Father (1 Jn. 1:1-2). But the devil does not just accuse you in the heavenly courts—he also accuses you to you. What kind of Christian do you think you are? We have an Advocate on earth, as well as in heaven (John 14:16). The same word describes the office of the Son and the Spirit. Whether you stand accused in heaven or on earth, you have a court-assigned defender. And neither the Son nor the Spirit have ever lost a case. “How could they get me off ?’ you might wonder. “I’m guilty.” They successfully defend sinners like you and me because they never, ever argue from your virtues or mine. Their case presupposes our guilt. They always plead the blood of Christ, shed on earth, and then they plead the blood of Christ, sprinkled on the altar of heaven.
The Puritan William Bridge pictured it this way. First, distinguish the money in your bank account, and the money in your wallet. There is your basic, foundational wealth, and there is the money you have on you. If you are mugged, then the thieves can only take what you have on your person. They cannot get at your bank account, which is not on you. In the same way, a hard day can only disturb that day’s peace. You have a fundamental peace that a rainy day cannot touch (Rom. 5:1). Second, distinguish peace in the seed and peace in the flower. Often peace in the seed looks like trouble. When you were converted, you were now troubled over things that never bothered you before. Don’t be troubled over that kind of trouble. And third, distinguish peace from a distance, where you can only see the dancing, and everybody looks crazy, and peace up close, when you can hear the music.
The peace of God is a guardian, a fence, but it does not encircle your vices and sins. Rather, your hearts and minds are protected by the peace of God, which passes all understanding (Phil. 4:7).
Christ Church