And we’ll begin with our New Testament reading this evening, which is from 1 Peter 1. And the reading will be verses 13 through 21. 1 Peter 1, 13 through 21. And let’s give careful attention to this. Because this is the very word of God. Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober minded. Set your hope fully on the grace that we will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. Since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. And if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.
Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God.
And now for our Old Testament reading and the text for this evening’s message, turn to Psalm 42. Psalm 42. To the choir master, a maskill of the sons of Korah. As a deer pants for the 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? My tears have been my food day and night. while they say to me all the day long, where is your God? These things I remember as I pour out my soul, 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. Why are you cast down, oh my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God. For I shall again praise him, my salvation 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. Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All your breakers and your waves have gone over me. By day, the Lord commands his steadfast love. And at night, his song is with me. a prayer to the God of my life.
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’s your God? Why are you cast down on my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.
That is the reading of the word of God. Let’s pray to him once more before we turn our attention to it. Father in heaven, we thank you for this psalm, this expression of the experience of the psalmist and also the experience of our Savior Jesus Christ and the experience of his church. We ask you to bless our consideration of this passage tonight, and we pray you to encourage our souls through it, that you would cause your word to be an effectual means of grace for each one of us. We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen.
You all know the expression, practice what you preach. I imagine that on more than one occasion, maybe someone has said that to you, and maybe you’ve even dished it out a few times yourself. But you know, the idea is you’re telling other people what to do. Why don’t you do what you’re saying? Practice what you preach.
But what do we preach here? What do we preach at Westminster Orthodox Presbyterian Church? We preach Christ and him crucified. We preach good news. We preach the gospel. And we preach it to each other. We proclaim it to one another as brothers and sisters because we need to hear it again and again, don’t we? And not only is it necessary for us to proclaim and to preach the gospel to one another, it’s necessary for us to proclaim it to ourselves as well. That’s what we see the psalmist doing in this psalm. We see the psalmist remedying the downcast state of his soul by proclaiming good news to himself, to his own heart.
Now, just a few words of introduction, because we are entering now Book Two of the Psalms. And Book 2 of the Psalms compared to Book 1 of the Psalms has a number of noteworthy differences. In the Psalms of Book 1, that would be Psalms 1 through 41, there’s, in terms of the names of God, the titles of God, you find the extensive use of Yahweh.
That’s where, in your English Bible, you see the word LORD in all caps. usually it’s a larger L and then a slightly smaller O-R-D, but they’re all capitalized. And when you see that in your English Bible, just by way of reminder, that means that in the Hebrew at that point, the word that is being used is the memorial name of God. In olden days it was Jehovah, now we say, more commonly we say Yahweh. Some of our hymns, our psalms still use Jehovah. But when you see Lord, in all caps like that, that means the name that’s being used is Yahweh, God’s own personal name. And in book one, you see a lot of use of that and very infrequent use of Elohim, which would be translated in our English Bibles, God.
But it’s reversed when we get to Book 2. And scholars have studied and tried to figure out why or what the significance of all that is, and nobody really knows. But the point being that in Book 2 of the Psalms, it’s much more common for us to see the word God or the name God, and much less frequently do we see Yahweh or Jehovah. Book two also has very few Psalms that are attributed to David. Most of the Psalms in book one are said to be of David. Very few in book two are. We have other, at least authorship or attributions in book two. And this first one that we’re looking at tonight is an example.
It’s to the choir master, a masculine of the sons of Korah. And I bring that to your attention because these sons of Korah were redeemed men who were descended from a rebel who perished in his sin in the wilderness years. You’ve read, I’m sure, in the Pentateuch, in the book of Numbers, of the rebellion of Korah and how the earth opened up and swallowed them. But it did not swallow up the whole clan of Korah. It didn’t swallow up Korah’s children.
They lived, they survived, they went on into the promised land, and they were of the tribe of Levi, and as David was organizing the Levites, he designated that the sons of Korah would be worship leaders. These men whose ancestors had rebelled against God so grievously that God supernaturally consumed them, yet they went on to serve in the Lord’s house as leaders in worship.
That’s why, as you look in verse 6, where the psalmist says, therefore I remember you, speaking to God there, I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon from Mount Mizar. This is a place that’s far north of Jerusalem. And so you can see the reason, part of the reason for the psalmist’s despondency, for his depression, because he’s a son of Korah. His job is to be in the temple of God leading worship, and he’s not there, he’s far away. And so one author described Psalm 42 as the lament of a temple singer exiled in the North who longs to be back at God’s house. That’s part of what’s going on here.
But the message for us from Psalm 42, as I made reference to the concept of practicing what you preach, the message for us is that the downcast Christian can find hope by intentionally speaking gospel words to his own soul. The downcast Christian can find hope by intentionally speaking gospel words to his or her own soul.
And our three points tonight are as follows. First, we’re going to see, they all relate to faith. Because this psalm is all about faith. Point number one is the yearning of faith. yearning of faith. Point number two, the sorrows of the faithful. And number three, hope springing from faith. So, let’s first of all see how this psalm illustrates for us the yearning of faith.
The Christian heart yearns for God and that’s what we see in these opening verses and they’re just this believer, this faithful person, the author of the psalm, is likened unto a deer panting for water. You can imagine a deer out in the wilderness, desperately thirsty and can’t find anything to drink and he can’t find any water and it’s a time of drought. Water’s not available. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so my soul pants for you, O God, says the psalmist.
Now, you know our hymn, Break Thou the Bread of Life. The very end of the first verse of that hymn says, My spirit pants for thee, O living word. And I remember as a young man, still in, I guess, probably junior high or high school, My family and I were attending a church that’s probably a little on the liberal side, maybe quite a bit on the liberal side. And they just brought in a new associate minister, and he and his wife are both flower children, basically. And I remember we’d sung that hymn, and we’d all sung those words, my spirit pants for thee. And I remember this woman, this minister’s wife, commenting that that’s pretty melodramatic. Isn’t it, my spirit pants for thee? It’s kind of over the top, a little bit overboard.
And thinking back, I think she must not have known Psalm 42. And she probably didn’t know the Lord, which is the saddest part. But have you ever felt that God was distant? I suspect that you have because it’s not an uncommon experience for believers, at least from time to time. in times of sorrow, times of difficulty, times of trial.
It’s not uncommon for us to lack a sense of his presence. And we can usually satisfy our soul’s yearning for him under normal circumstances. You may feel far from God. You may not sense his presence, but sometimes just coming to public worship helps that.
Being around our brothers and sisters and gathering in holy convocation and joining together and engaging in worship usually satisfies that soul’s yearning or revives our souls. Sometimes we get that satisfaction and that sense of being revived or refreshed, even from our own personal devotions. But what about when we’re deprived of those things? What about when for some reason we can’t come to worship? That’s the circumstance that the writer of this psalm found himself in, which is why he says in verse two, when shall I come and appear before God? That’s where he wanted to be and he couldn’t be there for reasons we don’t know and aren’t told.
And in verse four, we find him reminiscing, remembering fondly and with a yearning heart when he used to go to the house of God. These things I remember, he writes, as I pour out my soul, how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise. He’s the son of Korah. He led the music, he led the singing, and there he would be in the midst of God’s people going up to the house of the Lord.
And now he couldn’t do that, and he misses it. He yearns for it. And so it’s very telling that the psalmist doesn’t use the term hunger, but he used the term thirst. It’s one thing for your soul to hunger for God, but the use of thirst there, I think suggests something a little bit more desperate. This psalm shares the thoughts of one who is unable to join the congregation. And he remembers joining the throng. He remembers processing to God’s house. It was just a blessed memory for him, having fellowship with other worshipers.
And the joy and the singing. A multitude keeping festival, the end of verse four says. Remember, three times in a year, we don’t know that this necessarily always happened over the course of the nation, but three times in a year, God designated that all the males should appear before him. So there were these three major festivals in the Jewish calendar, and they’d gather, and they’d offer sacrifices, and they would feast together. These wonderful celebrations.
But now the psalmist is pouring out his soul and his soul pants and his thirsts for God. And one of the reasons that we treasure the psalms so much is because they capture our own experiences, don’t they? The psalm shares the feelings and thoughts of one who feels that he’s been forgotten by God. Verse 9, I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? You notice he hasn’t lost his faith because he speaks to God, my rock.
But he’s lamenting that God seems far off. He feels alone, doesn’t he? If you think about it, there are few things worse than feeling like you’re alone. Even if you’re an introvert and you treasure your solitude from time to time, really feeling alone is a different thing. That’s not what you want. And that reminds us of Christ. Because as I say, there are few things worse than feeling alone. And Psalm 42 gives us a taste of the sufferings of Christ. Christ’s own thirst for God. And the pain that Christ felt when he sensed God’s absence. On the night in which Jesus was betrayed, he knew his disciples would leave him.
He even foretold it. It’s written, strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. He told his apostles. He told the 12. You’re all going to fall away. Because of me, John 1632. He said, behold, the hour is coming. Indeed, it has come when you will be scattered each to his own home and will leave me alone. But you know what he says next? He says, yet I’m not alone. For the father’s with me.
But even that comfort was taken away. See how Jesus, when he knew all of his friends, every single one of them was going to abandon him. He still took comfort in the fact that the father was with him. But then at the moment of his suffering, as he was suffering hell on the cross for us, and as the sky was darkened, he hung there. What did he say in that cry of dereliction? My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? He was totally alone. Even the presence of the father in which he took comfort, knowing that all of his friends were going to leave, even that was taken away. We’ve all experienced the yearning of faith. But none of us has experienced it to the depths that Jesus did for our sake.
Well, this psalm speaks of and illustrates the yearning of faith, but it also illustrates the sorrows of the faithful. The psalmist’s yearnings brought a measure of sorrow for him. And in the midst of that sorrow, that suffering, that grief was compounded by the fact that he was being taunted by his adversaries. Look at verse three.
My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all day long, where is your God? He was shedding tears because he was homesick for the house of God. That’s where his place of service was. That’s where he wanted to be. That was the place where he found joy because he wanted to meet with and serve God, and he couldn’t be there.
And all that’s compounded, it’s aggravated by the unkindness of others to him. And as they taunt him, they’re tempting him to doubt God. They’re tempting him to despair of God’s help. And it’s reminiscent of Job’s friends, as Job is in such depths of suffering. And then along come his friends, miserable comforters as they were. And what do they do? They heap accusations on him and say, essentially, this is just evidence that you’re doing something wrong. You must have sinned really badly. So come clean on us now, Job. You’re under God’s curse right now. You’re under his wrath. That’s what the psalmist is feeling here. He’s being kicked when he’s down.
But even more so, we think again of Christ on the cross, suffering such torments, suffering unimaginable physical pain, and then even worse than that, bearing for you and for me the wrath of God against sin. And people down at the foot of the cross taunting him, saying, he trusted in God. Let him deliver him if he delights in him. Where’s your God?
In as many words. This sense that the psalmist has of being forgotten or being forsaken by God coincides with the oppression of his enemies. Their cutting remarks, he likens to a deadly wound in verse 10. So painful was it. Their taunts are relentless. And he recalls them again in verse 10. So this must have been something that they continue to throw up in his face. Where’s your God? Where is he? And it just illustrates the fact that one of the greatest cruelties you can try to inflict upon a Christian is to sow doubt in their hearts.
And the enemies of your soul will do that. They might not use those exact words, where is your God? But they’ll say things like, why would God let this happen to you? You keep telling me about this God you believe in, but if God really loved you, things wouldn’t be like this, would they? Why won’t God help you? It seems to me that this is one of Satan’s favorite darts. Where is your God?
Now we’ve also got the sorrows of the faithful captured in verse 7. Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All your breakers and all your waves have gone over me. So he just feels overwhelmed. He feels inundated by sorrow. But you notice how even in the midst of all that, he recognizes God’s sovereignty in these trials. Because he speaks to God and he speaks of these things as his waves. All your breakers and your waves have gone over me. So.
As we reflect on the sorrows of the faithful, it’s it’s a reminder to us that sorrows and trials are facts of life for all people, and in particular. For Christians, but Christians are never without hope. Ultimately, the unbeliever has no hope. There Separated from God and without hope in the world, as it says in Ephesians. But Christians are never without hope. Hope rises and faith revives, even right here in Psalm 42. We have hope springing from faith. Twice we see the psalmist coaching himself. This is our third point, hope springing from faith. The psalmist speaks gospel words to his own soul. We see that in verse five for the first time. 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.
And this is an example to us, and the way I would summarize the application for us is this. We have biblical instruction, biblical warrant from God’s word to, one way I’ll put it is, take control of the inner narrative. I’ve even heard some of you express this to me in various different ways. Take control of the inner narrative.
That’s what the psalmist is doing. He’s talking to his own soul. Why are you cast down, oh my soul? Most of you have probably heard of William Bridge. He’s a Puritan. He wrote a series, he delivered a series of sermons, 13 sermons in fact, which have been published and printed as a Puritan paperback. I titled the sermon Hope for the Downcast. This collection of sermons by William Bridge is entitled A Lifting Up for the Downcast. I highly recommend it, especially for anybody who wrestles with melancholy or has struggles with depression. 13 sermons on this one verse. Verse 5. Or maybe verse 11. They’re the same. But… Excuse me. Yeah, verse 11.
This why here, when the psalmist is speaking to his own heart, speaking to his own soul, why are you cast down within me? It’s not that he’s seeking an answer from his soul. He’s asking a why in the same sense that Psalm 2 asks, why do the nations rage? When Psalm 2 says, why do the nations rage and why do the people imagine a vain thing? It’s not that anybody’s looking for an answer to that question. They’re expressing the futility of any resistance to the Lord God of the universe.
And here, when the psalmist says, why are you downcast? He’s telling his soul, you don’t need to be downcast. You don’t need to be in turmoil within me. So it’s not a question, it’s an exhortation. He’s telling his soul, reminding his soul, Yahweh is your God. There’s no need for you to be cast down.
And his exhortation to his soul, his encouragement to his soul is this, hope in God. Now, you know that when you’re feeling down, when you’re struggling with something, when you’re going through a difficult time, it can be very wonderfully encouraging to your own soul to hear words like that from a brother or sister in Christ. They just come alongside you and hear about your sorrows and encourage you to hope in God. But we can talk this kind of talk to ourselves as well. And we should. That’s what this psalm, in part, is teaching us. The psalmist deals with sorrow, he deals with suffering by speaking truth to himself.
Because in your experience and in mine, day by day, the voice of faith and the voice of experience or the voice of our circumstances often disagree, don’t they? We know and we believe one thing, but what we see going on around us and what we’re experiencing immediately in the moment seems to mitigate against what we know and what we believe. So the question is, which voice are you going to listen to? Are you going to listen to the voice of your experiences and of your circumstances, or are you going to listen to the voice of faith?
Martin Lloyd-Jones I’ll summarize something he said on this in his great book on spiritual depression. He said, in Christ, we must talk to ourselves rather than letting circumstances talk to us. Control the narrative. Are you listening to your heart? If so, keep in mind that our hearts are deceitful. The way I sometimes like to put this concept, this idea, is talk to yourself rather than listen to yourself. That might not seem to make sense, but what I mean by that is don’t be passive. Don’t let your feelings toss you about. Don’t just listen. to your oftentimes deceitful heart. Take charge inwardly. Control that inner narrative. Guide the agenda, so to speak. Talk to your soul.
That’s essentially what the very frequently read and heard scriptural exhortations like, be strong, are doing. You know, God, through Moses and through Joshua, exhorted the people of Israel, be strong and be courageous. And it’s not as though saying those words suddenly make them stronger. It’s exhorting them to take control of what’s in here and what’s in here. Be courageous, be strong for the Lord. Be strong in the Lord. Be of good courage.
And so we see this refrain twice in Psalm 42. We’re going to see it again a third time in Psalm 43, by the way. But twice in this Psalm, we see hope in God. And I remind you and I impress upon your hearts that there can be no lasting hope in anything or anyone else. Hope in God. And you see how that concludes both in verse 5 and verse 11. Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. So you have this resolution. I shall yet praise him, or I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. I think that’s a twofold resolution.
I think, first of all, especially in the context of this son of Korah, who yearns to be back in the house of God, when he says, I shall again praise him, he’s confident that he will once again go with the throng to God’s house. He believes that sooner or later he’ll be back there. He’ll be back where he wants to be.
He’ll be back in the presence of God’s people, going up into the presence of God himself at his house, in his temple, worshiping. So there’s that confidence of what’s to come, but there’s also a resolve to praise God in the moment, a resolve to praise God in the present circumstances. So even if people are saying to him all the day long, where’s your God? He is resolved that he is going to praise God.
It reminds me of Habakkuk. I don’t know when the last time you read or studied the book of Habakkuk may have been, but the circumstances that he faced were very discouraging. His nation was going to be invaded and overrun by the enemy. God had shown him this and he was distraught. But this is where faith brought Habakkuk. This is the point to which faith brought Habakkuk.
Even knowing what was coming, even knowing that desperate times lay ahead, he said. Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor the fruit beyond the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls.
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. I think that’s what this psalmist is saying. I shall again praise him. And we can say that too. And this is not self-help. We don’t subscribe to self-help here. This is not pull yourself up by the bootstraps theology. That’s not what I’m getting at here. And I know that isn’t what we believe or would espouse.
Notice how the psalmist stirs himself up to hope by looking to Yahweh, looking to the Lord. I said that in book two, you don’t see Yahweh nearly as much as you see Elohim. But there is one occurrence of it in this psalm. Verse eight. By day, Yahweh, the Lord, commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me. a prayer to the God of my life.
So as he looks up and he’s looking to the Lord, his God, that’s where he finds his hope. That’s where he finds his courage. He looks to God. He trusts in Yahweh’s steadfast love. That’s from that Hebrew word, chesed, which Psalm 136 says over and over again, verse after verse after verse, it endures forever. The psalmist believed that and he assured himself of it. That’s hope springing from faith. And faith, faith is not a denial of the facts. Faith is not a denial of the facts. Faith interprets empirical facts in light of transcendent facts.
Now there’s a reason why verse five is repeated word for word in verse 11. And the reason is simple. We need to keep hearing it. We need to keep doing it. Because new trials come along. New struggles arise, new sorrows reach us. And our remedy remains the same. We need to keep resorting to Christ. and speaking the gospel to ourselves and to each other day after day. Is your soul cast down tonight? Jesus understands.
In the garden before his betrayal, He said, my soul is very sorrowful. And what’s interesting is that word, which in both Matthew and Mark is translated in our English Bibles, very sorrowful, is in the Septuagint, the Greek version, the ancient Greek version of the Old Testament used for cast down in Psalm 42. Jesus may have even been alluding to Psalm 42. My soul is cast down within me. So Jesus, so if you’re, I’m saying if you’re cast down, Know that Jesus has been there.
He knows what it’s like. Look to him, hope in him. Let’s pray. Lord, thank you that we have hope in you. And Lord, we believe that there’s no hope in anything else or anyone else. Thank you for turning our eyes to you. Help us to keep our eyes fixed on you. Help us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. In this walk of faith, O Lord, give us strength and bless us. Help us to hope in you. Help us to praise you. We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen.