For our New Testament reading, please turn to the gospel according to John chapter eight. John chapter eight, and we’ll read verses 12 through 32. We just sang from Psalm 43, and we’ll read in just a moment where the psalmist prays to God that he would send forth his light and truth. And you’ll see those themes in this passage from John’s gospel. John 8, 12 through 32. Listen to this. This is the very word of God. Again, Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
So the Pharisees said to him, you are bearing witness about yourself. Your testimony is not true. Jesus answered, even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge according to the flesh. I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. In your law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself and the father who sent me bears witness about me.” They said to him, therefore, where is your father? Jesus answered, you know neither me nor my father. If you knew me, you would know my father also.
These words he spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple, but no one arrested him because his hour had not yet come. So he said to them again, I am going away and you will seek me and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come. So the Jews said, will he kill himself since he says, where I am going, you cannot come? He said to them, you are from below. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins. So they said to him, who are you?
Jesus said to them, just what I’ve been telling you from the beginning. I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.” They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said to them, when you have lifted up the son of man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but I speak just as the father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.
As he was saying these things, many believed in him. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Then for our Old Testament reading and the text for this evening’s sermon, please turn to Psalm 43. Psalm 43.
Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people. From the deceitful and unjust man, deliver me. For you are the God in whom I take refuge. Why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? Send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me.
Let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. Then I will go to the altar of God. To God, my exceeding joy. And I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God. 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.
Thus far the reading of God’s word. Let’s pray for his blessing upon it. Father, we pray that through the same spirit who breathed out these words, inspired them in the heart of the human author, we pray that you would send forth that same spirit to illumine the pages of your word to illumine our minds, give us understanding, send forth your light and your truth to us this evening for we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Some problems in this life. Some of the unpleasantries of this life are one-time events.
They’re not enjoyable to go through, but once you’ve endured them, you probably won’t have to deal with it again. For example, chickenpox. It’s miserable, but generally speaking, once you’ve gotten the chickenpox, you’re also then immune to getting it again. Or an appendectomy. Once your appendix is taken out, you don’t have to mess with that anymore. There’s no more dealing with that.
Or thinking in terms of the maintenance of our homes, maybe some of you have to get up on a ladder and clean out your gutters from time to time. But if you get covers for the gutters, then as one company puts it in their advertising slogan, never clean your gutters again. one and done, get those covers installed, and then your gutters will never give you any problems.
But there are other problems in life, many, in fact, that keep resurfacing. So keeping along the theme of home maintenance, it can be a pretty monumental task to paint your home. And once it’s done, you’re so relieved and the house looks nice. And you know, you’ve taken that important aspect of maintaining your home, you’ve taken care of it. But in a few years, it’s gonna have to be painted again. you could fill in other examples, I’m sure I hope that those specific examples maybe get your mind working and thinking about things that that are arduous, we have to endure them, we have to get them done.
And there might be a sense of relief for a little while. But the problems come around again. And there is much in the Christian life that’s like that. in the Christian life, we never we never arrive. We never reach a plateau, from which there won’t ever be any more roughness in the road, any more difficult circumstances, we never reach a point after which there are no more crises or conflicts. And Psalm 43 teaches us this. Psalm 43 teaches us this, especially if we consider it in combination with Psalm 42.
Now, I did have a few conversations with some of you last week or last time when we looked at Psalm 42. And in some of those conversations, we discussed the fact that there is an opinion amongst some Old Testament scholars that Psalm 42 and 43 at one point were one psalm. Some feel very certain of that, that originally Psalm 42 and 43 were united. And you can see a lot of rationale for that opinion. There is, for example, most of the Psalms in Book Two of the Psalms have titles or introductions. Psalm 43 lacks one. So it makes you wonder, well, was it originally just supposed to be a part of the preceding Psalm?
The themes that are addressed in Psalm 42 and 43 are very similar. And then there’s that refrain that we saw twice in Psalm 42. And we see again, at the conclusion of Psalm 43, that kind of unites these psalms thematically, and in terms of their tone. But I would assert that it’s most likely that Psalm 43 was written separately later as kind of an epilogue to Psalm 42.
The standard Hebrew text, there are some ancient manuscripts of the Hebrew text that have them together, but most of the Hebrew texts and the standard texts have them separately. They also appear separately in the ancient Greek translation, the Septuagint of the Old Testament. But whether they were ever one Psalm or not, clearly, there’s a relationship between the two. And clearly, there’s a flow of thought that connect them.
And so we can recall, at the end of Psalm 42, it ends on the on a note of hope. It ends on a note of confidence, a confidence that built little by little over the course of Psalm 42. And ultimately, it ends in praise. As it says, hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation, and my God.
But then comes Psalm 43. And as Psalm 43 begins, what do we encounter, but more conflict, more struggle. In other words, it doesn’t stop. Conflict or some mighty triumph in the Christian life doesn’t bring the psalmist to a plateau where he no longer has to struggle and he can coast to the end of his life of faith. We see that that’s true in our own lives from experience. We experience from time to time victories in our walk. But then along come new trials, new struggles, new difficulties.
There are multiple times in the Gospels where Jesus makes a very simple statement. several times in Matthew, at least once in Mark, a simple statement of the Lord Jesus Christ, that on the one hand is full of gospel hope, but at the same time is also very soberly realistic.
And it’s this, Jesus said, the one who endures to the end will be saved. The one who endures to the end will be saved. And Psalm 43, again, considered in conjunction with Psalm 42, is a portrayal of this. It’s really the message of Psalm 43. Jesus said, the one who endures to the end will be saved. Psalm 43 teaches us that by grace, Christ’s disciples persevere to the end and are saved. That’s the message of Psalm 43. By grace, Christ’s disciples persevere to the end and are saved.
Our three points are each just two words, and their initials in all three cases are SP. Point number one, struggle persisting, struggle persisting. Point number two, sufferers praying. and three, saints persevering. Struggle persisting, we see that primarily in verses one and two. Sufferers praying, mostly from verses three and four. And then saints persevering in verse five. So first of all, let’s reflect on the persistence of the struggle.
The resolve that we heard at the end of Psalm 42, was hope in God. The psalmist speaking to his own soul, exhorting himself, admonishing himself to hope in God, and giving this optimistic, hopeful testimony that he would yet praise God. But then Psalm 43 begins with a new call for help.
There’s no specific information about the scenario that the writer was facing when this psalm was penned. We don’t know the details. Maybe we’d like to know more details. But really, in a way, it’s good that we don’t know the details because with the details removed, it gives us the freedom to apply. the sentiments, the exhortations, the themes of this psalm to our own struggles, to our own scenarios. You can make wider application when you just don’t know what the psalmist was facing.
But he is facing some kind of opposition, facing some kind of enmity from ungodly people. That’s how he describes them in verse one, vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people. And he makes reference to an unjust man, apparently charges were being brought against the psalmist, accusations were being made, but they were unjust. And it was an unjust and deceitful person bringing the charges, making the accusations. And the psalmist prays, and he asks God, in essence, to be his legal defense, his defense attorney. Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause, is his prayer.
The New Living Translation, at the beginning of that verse where our ESV says vindicate, the New Living Translation says, declare me innocent. What does that remind you of? Basically what justification is. God acquitting sinners only for the sake of Christ. The psalmist is asking God to acquit him, to declare him innocent. The Hebrew word there is shafat, it’s the word to judge. And so declare him, declare me innocent is implied. He’s asking God to justify him.
But as we move to verse two, it would seem that this almost troubles and the sorrows of his heart are compounded because not only are ungodly people accusing him, not only is he being charged by deceitful and unjust man, but he also, that’s made worse by the fact that he senses that God has rejected him. Look at verse two. Why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning? Because of the oppression of my enemy. In other words, why are you allowing me to be oppressed? Why is this happening, Lord?
So, As we look at Psalm 43, what we find out is that the troubles of Psalm 42 are still a reality. Maybe not the exact same troubles, maybe not all the same circumstances, but the psalmist who in Psalm 42 was struggling, was oppressed, was downcast, he’s experiencing troubles in Psalm 43 also. So that struggle is persisting.
And that shouldn’t surprise us, of course, because our Lord Jesus, in John 16, 33, said, in the world, you will have tribulation. And that refrain that we saw twice in Psalm 42, and we see again at the end of Psalm 43, in verse five, it reminds us that we are not yet home. That’s the way one of the commentators put it. It reminds us that we are not yet home. The struggle continues. Well, how does this struggling singer, this struggling writer respond to the struggle? He responds by praying. Point number two, sufferers praying, which we see in verses three and four.
Commenting on this passage, on this psalm, John Stott observed that the singer will not give into his moods, something we’re all so prone to do, to let our emotions carry us away. Our emotions are good things, don’t get me wrong. But Stott says the singer will not give into his moods. So, thinking back to some of the observations made about Psalm 42, the psalmist won’t listen to himself. Instead, he speaks to himself. He takes control of that inner narrative. So, the realism continues. There are still problems. There are still struggles. And the psalmist’s inner wrestlings continue.
And he responds to those wrestlings and to those struggles with prayer. So, again, as you take Psalm 42 and 43 in combination. This is actually verse one of Psalm 43 is the first time the psalmist actually makes petition to the Lord. It’s the first time he makes a request of God. And when he does, what does he Ask, what does he pursue? What does he seek from God in prayer? What he does is he invokes the powerful aid of his God. That’s what we saw in verse three, and what we’ve already talked about.
Send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me. Alec Mateer commenting on this. observes light and truth are figuratively seen as a search and rescue party. The reality is that to live in God’s sight and cherish his truth is the true way through life’s difficulties to a blessed outcome. I really love that imagery, describing light and truth being sent out as being like a like a search and rescue party, And as you might guess, I can’t help thinking of our son, when I think of that, because that’s his whole mission. That’s what he does for a living, search and rescue for the United States Coast Guard, and the psalmist here, sending out a mayday as he’s on the storm tossed seas of his afflictions and troubles, calling for help. And light and truth are personified as if they were guides to lead him back to safe haven.
And you notice how the writer earnestly desires communion with God. Send forth your light and truth, let them lead me, let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. So he wants to be in God’s presence. He wants to know the nearness of God.
Remember, this is that 42 was a psalm of the sons of Korah. They were the worship leaders in the tabernacle and in the temple. And whoever this son of Korah is, who was probably the the author of the psalmist, he’s far away from the tabernacle, he’s far away from that place where his duty lies, that place where he leads the people of God in worship. And he wants to be back there. Not only just to be in that place, but he yearns for the presence of God. You see the progression in the psalm. Note how the progression is indicated and it indicates increasing closeness to God. Send out your light and truth. Let them lead me.
Let them bring me, first of all, to your holy hill.” God’s holy hill is Mount Zion. That’s the pinnacle of the mountain on which the city of Jerusalem was built and upon which the temple was built. So, he’s asking for God’s search and rescue party to bring him to the place of God’s choosing, the place where God meets especially with his people. Let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling place.
The Hebrew word there is mishkam. It’s the word that’s used to indicate the tabernacle. So, God’s house, his tent, his dwelling place on earth. So, you get from Mount Zion to the tabernacle, and then Then I, he says in verse four, then I will go to the altar of God. See, he’s getting closer and closer.
Now he’s before the altar, that place of sacrifice, the place where through sacrifice, atonement is made for God’s people. All representing Christ, of course, those bulls and goats and other animals that had their blood poured out at that altar and whose parts were burned upon the altar. They all pointed to Christ, whose one perfect sacrifice was the only sacrifice that can truly take away sins. So we go from Mount Zion to the dwelling place, to the altar of God, and then finally to God himself.
I will go to the altar of God, to God, my exceeding joy.” And at this time, his perspective is so refreshed that he just bursts forth into praise. And his mind is set on God, his exceeding joy. And he says, I will praise you with a lyre, oh my God. This is a man who’s a professional praise and worship leader. And that’s what he’s looking forward to. He wants to praise the Lord as God. He wants to go up to that mountain, go into the temple, stand before the altar, and worship his redeeming God, his exceeding joy. And again, that all points to Christ, because it’s through Christ that we draw near to God.
We don’t have to go to a particular mountain. We don’t have to go into a particular structure. We certainly don’t need to go before an altar because the perfect, the one perfect sacrifice for our sins has already been offered up on the cross for us. And all that remains for us now is to praise him for what he’s done for us on that cross.
So the psalmist sought to draw near to God. We draw near to God through Christ. quoting John Stott again, speaking on some of his favorite psalms. And noting the pattern that’s demonstrated and modeled for us by this psalm, Stott writes, the cure for depression is neither to look in at our grief, nor back to our past, nor around at our problems, but away and up to the living God. That’s what the psalmist is doing here. And he’s showing us a pattern to be imitated, looking to God. So the psalmist won’t give in to his moods. He takes control of that inner narrative, not listening to himself, but speaking to himself.
And Christians overcome unbelief and discouragement by what we could call Scripture’s logic. That’s why I titled the sermon, Scripture Logic. We don’t listen to the logic of our heart, because what our heart does is it looks at the circumstances, the things around us. What our heart does is it thinks back to our past. But that won’t overcome unbelief. It won’t overcome discouragement. The logic of Scripture is the only thing that will do that for us. crying out to God and trusting in His Word. And by means of those things, we persevere by the grace that God gives.
And that brings us to our third and final point, saints persevering, which we see in verse five. As I claimed earlier, Psalm 43 is, is like an epilogue to Psalm 42. And in Psalm 43, you see the singer growing in confidence. That was beginning in the previous Psalm, but here he comes to a pinnacle of faith and of hope.
The troubles of Psalm 42 are still there. They haven’t completely gone away. Or new troubles have come. So the psalmist discovers that as it pertains to tribulations in this life, there isn’t a one and done scenario. In this life we’ll have persecutions, in this life we’ll have tribulation. He sees that, he’s learned it. You’ve seen it and learned it as well.
But we see the psalmist facing these trials through prayer and facing them with godly hope. And because trials persist, our response must be to persist in prayer. And there’s a reason why verse 5 of Psalm 42 is repeated verbatim in verse 11, and then again at the end of Psalm 43. I think I probably said this last week, talking about Psalm 42, preaching on Psalm 42.
This refrain occurs again and again, because we need to keep hearing it. New trials will come. New struggles will come. New sorrows will come. But our remedy remains the same. We need to keep resorting to Christ. We need to keep speaking the gospel to ourselves and to one another day after day.
And it’s noteworthy, it’s worthy of our consideration that the Psalms were written primarily for the purpose of public worship. That’s what they’re used for. The Psalms were composed for God’s people to sing them together in Holy Convocation. Corporate hymnody, they’re for worship, public worship especially. Certainly we can use them in private worship. Certainly we can and should use them in family worship. But their main purpose was for God’s people gathered together to sing his praises.
And because that is so central to the purpose of the Psalms, God’s people find comfort when they come together in holy convocation. How many times have you felt discouraged, but then being with God’s people and worshiping God together with them lifted your spirits, strengthened your faith, reinforced your belief in those things that you surely believe? and built you up. That’s, that’s why we need holy convocation.
And I realized that there are people, a number of people from the membership of this congregation who are providentially hindered and are physically unable to be with us here for public worship. But for those who in God’s providence are able to come They’re robbing themselves if they don’t. And praise God that we have blessings of technology of things like live streaming and recordings. So you can basically get the content of a worship service, but you don’t get what God gives through His Spirit when God’s people are together. And that’s why Holy Convocation will never become obsolete, no matter how good the technology gets.
We’re strengthened in our faith by singing together and by believing together God’s promises. In our lives, during this present age, redeemed people are always in a race. During this present age, redeemed people are always in a fight. We’re always engaged in spiritual warfare. We’re exhorted by God’s Word to fight the good fight of faith, and to run with patience the race that’s set before us, because these things never fully conclude until Christ calls us home. You might need to take a breather along the way in the race, and God gives us those, doesn’t he? There might be a lull in the action of our spiritual warfare, but it never really ends. Not until God, in his providence, calls us home.
So, verses one and two of Psalm 43 never cease to be part of our experience in this life. And for that reason, we have to keep crying out to the Lord. And that’s the pattern that we observe in Psalm 43. A pattern of growing confidence, a pattern of increasing comfort, a pattern of rising hope, all in the midst of ongoing trials. And one of my new favorite commentators on the Psalms wrote this in his conclusions. about Psalm 23, he said, we will need, we will need again and again to speak to our souls the words of faith in contradiction to the feelings of felt experience. The words, hope in God for I shall again praise him, become a motto to which we return again and again and again.
You know, Part of the reason I like that version of Psalm 43 that we sang is because it has that refrain. And maybe if over time we sing it a few more times, or maybe you sing it at home, that refrain of this psalm will stick in your memory, and you can call it to mind. Oh, my soul, why art thou grieving? What disquiets and dismays? Hope in God, His help receiving, I shall yet my Savior praise.
That’s something good to hold on to. So, brothers and sisters, we must persevere. We must endure. But remember, through Christ, we can. Not in our power, but in His. We can. And once we fought the good fight, and once we finished the race, we shall be saved. He is our salvation and our God. Let’s pray.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, that you give us so many good gifts, so many pleasant things, so much refreshment, even as we live in a world that has fallen and under your curse. Thank you that although we are in the midst of a battle and although we are running a race, you supply us with everything that we need to persevere. Please continue to do that. Please continue to strengthen our faith and help us not to look within or without to the past or to the future, but help us to look to you. And as we persist, and as struggling in our lives persists, may we persist just as doggedly in prayer. And grant us the grace and the strength to persevere. Thank you for the promise that those who endure to the end shall be saved. Lord, grant us that endurance. And we ask it in Christ’s name. Amen.