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Remember these are in note form. Please don't expect good grammar etc.
Psalms 42 and 43: Why are you cast down my soul? Hope in God!
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN A BEAUTIFUL PLACE YET FELT SUPREMELY SAD? This world?!
These two psalms were written at the source of the River Jordan - amidst the cataracts and waterfalls - Towering above is Mt. Herman - but also the writer is along way from Jerusalem and his friends. - Beauty when no-one else is with him appreciating it. . In spite of the beautiful scenery he is feeling low, and troubled. -------- Sad beauty - like some music. ----------------- Refrain: Why are you cast down Oh my Soul?
This refrain continues into the next Psalm. That is why many believe they are in fact one Psalm. We consider them together.
Some have interpreted this as a Psalm of spiritual depression. Some truth in that. 1. Yearning and longing for God. vs.1,2: 1 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
2. Distress at the pressure of his enemies who don't believe in God and make fun of him. vs. 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, "Where is your God?"
One easily hears such mocking today:
A good person falls ill or some catastrophe overtakes a nation and some sneer and say `There is no God.'
He is particularly VULNERABLE because he has declared his faith. You will be particularly vulnerable if you are known as a believer.
People can say `Where is your God?'. . The darkness and unhappiness that comes from that. Even self-pity:
`3 My tears have been my food day and night.....
He tries to remember the happy past but although it helps a bit it still leaves him pining.
vs. 4,5:`These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng. 5 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?
. Spiritual struggle and battle - he decides to do something about it.
5 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.
· He is still a little downcast so he tries again · but soon the waves and waterfalls of the upper Jordan remind him of the waves and troubles that are overwhelming him.
vs.6-7: My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon-- from Mount Mizar. 7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
However a mood swing gives him more hope.
8 By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me-- a prayer to the God of my life.
Problem is that it is only a mood swing, so the very next verse takes him back into depression again.
9 I say to God my Rock, "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?" 10 My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, "Where is your God?" 11 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Psalm 43 is much more positive but its last verse still contains the words `Why are you cast down O my soul?'
Does that experience fit any of our experiences?
My guess is that almost all of us can think of a time in our lives when that was true.
May be some of us are like that much of the time and are feeling like it just now. ---------------------------------- Perhaps though we are making a mistake. We are assuming that it only is his own personal problems that are absorbing his emotions.
If that were so we would expect his faith to be giving way.
Actually there is no hint that he is shaken in faith.
Lets then think of his sadness in another way
- not just his own personal problems but the problems of the world that are troubling him.
If that is the case then all of us even if we are of very cheerful disposition should be able to identify with him.
Compare the first verse with a well known verse in the NT 1 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. AND Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied.
ALSO the next verse 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, "Where is your God?" AND Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted.
Trevor McDonald the gentleman who reads the News at Ten I have heard it said that after some news broadcasts are over he weeps at what he has had to report. (I do not know whether or not this is true of course).
In these words Jesus is not saying `Blessed are they who are sorry for themselves', but `Blessed are those who long for goodness to come to the earth and weep when they see the seeming triumph of evil.
THEY, Jesus says, will have their hopes realised.
If you are a real Christian, having given your life to Christ, whether or not you get depressed, you will know what it is to long for the coming of God's kingdom.
and wait patiently for the fulfilment of His promise.
and pray for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.
One Biblical definition of a real saint is a `person who is waiting and longing for the kingdom of God.'
Jesus was able to `rejoice in Spirit', but he also said `Now is my soul troubled'.
The Apostle Paul told us to rejoice. Yet he also said: Romans 9:1-3 1 I speak the truth in Christ-- I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit-- 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race.
THERE IS A TIME TO REJOICE AND A TIME TO MOURN and that applies to all of us whether we are naturally cheerful or naturally melancholy.
This psalm is about the time to be sorrowful, but it contains the assurance that sorrow is not forever for God sends His light and truth. -------------------- THE DROUGHT. 1 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
Do you ever feel there is a drought of love, faith, and hope? ----------------------- vs.2 `When?'. The wait seems LONG. Troubles seem to go on and on.
Our spiritual ordeal is LONG.
A few years ago, just after the collapse of communism a professor in America said `history has come to an end.'
History is about battles and troubles. That's all over now. All that is left is for the world to get more and more prosperous.
He must have thought the Kingdom of God had already come. I wonder what he is thinking now? WHEN? ------------------ vs. In vs. 3 & 10 the question `WHERE IS GOD?' is asked.
The land scape seemed empty of goodness. --------------- This particular saint is not only longing for God, but also for fellowship.
4 These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng.
That must be true for many house-bound people and those who are in a foreign land cut off from Christian fellowship. -------------------- We live in two realms. 1. Mind must be stayed on Eternity. Our hope is in God. 2. Yet we live in this world and so we must not be indifferent to its pains.
Sometimes it may seem that one disaster follows another Each keeps sweeping over the world. 7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
For the Christian this should lead to ever more fervent prayer. 43:3 Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me;
Psalm 43 ends with the great exhortation: Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.
It is the fact that God is Saviour that is the only real source of final help.
When people say why does God not stop this or that war or tragedy, they are asking God to patch up this or that which is wrong with the world.
· Plumber who only comes when there is a leak. · Or a doctor who only comes when there is an illness.
The need of the world is not a patch here and there. It is a new creation.
Sin has gone far too deep into all of us for an occasional visit from God.
THE GOSPEL: · He came once and for all to bear our griefs, and · carry our sorrows so that · dying for our sins, He might give us forgiveness. · Rising from the dead He gives us a place in His new creation.
God's kingdom will not come until · the time when all nations have heard that testimony and responded one way or the other.
You and I must choose. Either simply to set our hearts on this world or to accept Christ's kingdom in our lives.
If we choose the former, whether or not we are fortunate to be of cheerful disposition, we are destined ultimately to perish with this world. Its waves will carry us away. If we choose the latter, we will have in us two different emotions. We will certainly rejoice that the light and truth which are our guides will one day sweep us into the glory of God and His new heaven and earth - that is the best antidote to self pity -
BUT ALSO sharing in the heart and mind of Christ we will feel sorrow as we contemplate, NOT OUR OWN PERSONAL SORROWS - GREAT THOUGH THEY MAY BE · but the state of the world, · praying and working for the cause of goodness, truth and love.
That too will a very strong guard against self-pity.
In our Christian lives there will be times for rejoicing and times for sorrow. JESUS: John 16:33: "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (NIV)
These psalms (42&43) are for those times of sorrow. they express how we feel but also spur us to prayer and point us beyond sorrow to the everlasting Saviour whose purposes are most surely being worked out. ======================================== If this has assisted you in your thinking, study or preparation please fill in a Feedback form (see link below) stating to which article/sermon note etc you are referring. 'Faith and the Modern
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