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Psalm 42
42:1 As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?2
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
4 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.
5 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 salvation3 6 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.
7 Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
have gone over me.
8 By day the LORD commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God, my rock:
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As with a deadly wound in my bones,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
11 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.
[1] 42:1
[2] 42:2
[3] 42:5
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
What we've been doing throughout this year, the last Sunday of the month, we've been looking at a different Psalm. And even though we're going through the book of James right now, we're gonna take a break from the book of James. We're gonna look at Psalm 42. So if you would open your Bibles and to Psalm 42 or it's also there in your worship guide. And we're actually gonna look at Psalm 42 and 43.
Jeffrey Heine:They are technically one Psalm that for some reason has 2 different chapters. But we're gonna read all of chapter 42. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, oh god. My soul thirsts for god, for the living god. When shall I come and appear before god?
Jeffrey Heine: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.
Jeffrey Heine:My soul is cast down within me. Therefore, I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Herman, from Mount Mazar. Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All your breakers and your ways have gone over me. By day, the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night, his song is with me.
Jeffrey Heine: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 taught me. While they say to me all the day long, where is your God?
Jeffrey Heine: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. Pray with me. Our father, we thank you for the words we have just read.
Jeffrey Heine:I pray that they would stir us up to hope in you. Jesus, we need to hear from you. We believe that you speak to us through your word, empowered by your spirit. And so Holy Spirit, you're welcome to come in our midst, move freely here, have your way with us. Those who need convicting, I pray that you would convict them.
Jeffrey Heine:Those who need restoration, restore them. But, Lord, have your way. God, in this moment, this sacred moment, a prayer would not get in the way, but my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:Amen. I've got 3 little girls. My youngest one is named Georgia. She's 4. And last week, I'm driving Georgia somewhere.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm not even sure where. And we're talking about some friends of ours. And Georgia asked me, so where did they go to church? I said, well I, actually I don't know if they go to church. I'm, I'm not even sure if they're Christians.
Jeffrey Heine:We, we should be praying for them. She goes, dad, I know they're Christians because they're rich. And I said, well, what? And she goes, yes, rich people are Christians. And I'm not where, really sure where she got that theology or what y'all have been teaching her when when I'm not not looking, but now I've got to battle this kind of prosperity gospel at home.
Jeffrey Heine:The the prosperity gospel is, it's a false gospel that says, if you're a follower of Jesus, then He's going to want you healthy, He's going to want you wealthy, and that if you're not healthy or you're not wealthy, it's because sin or lack of faith in your life. And this is, theological mumbo jumbo. It's a powerful of crap. I'm just gonna say it. And any preacher who preaches that is nothing more than a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Jeffrey Heine:Because it is not the gospel and it is certainly not what the Bible teaches. But what about things like depression? Or, can you, can you put your faith in Jesus? Can you really be seeking Him and still feel spiritually dry? Spiritually depressed?
Jeffrey Heine:Can can you be filled with the spirit and yet be distant from God? Can that happen? Or, or all of, or all of those things, the not feeling God's presence, the feeling distant, are all those things really a result of sin, or a lack of faith? What I've noticed is within the Christian community that, usually we are pretty strong at rejecting what is the more blatant forms of prosperity gospel, and the health, wealth, prosperity gospel, but we've let in what I call prosperity light into our lives. Which is the belief that Christians should never experience spiritual dryness, unless they're doing something wrong.
Jeffrey Heine:They should never be depressed, unless sin has come into their life, because God wouldn't allow those things. And if you're one of those Christians who feels like your prayers are just hitting a wall and that you're never getting through to the Lord, that well, it's because of some obvious sin in your life, because that's not how God behaves towards his children. But I want you to hear me that the Bible clearly teaches against prosperity light as well. Strong, growing, passionate Christians can go through dry times. And you will experience one of these times if you're not right now in the middle of 1.
Jeffrey Heine:The question is, what do you do in such a time like that? How are you supposed to react when when you begin feeling this way? And that's what this psalm is about. Here, we we hear the prayer and we we we read about the song of someone who's going through a deep and a dark spiritual depression. It feels like God is not listening to him, God is not anywhere around.
Jeffrey Heine:And this is an instructional Psalm for us to teach us how we are supposed to go through times like that. And so, let's walk through it. Let's look at verse 1. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so my soul pants for you, oh God. The first image that we are giving here is of a deer panting for water.
Jeffrey Heine:It's not a camel panting for water, not not an animal that really belongs in the desert. This is a deer, which is incredibly thirsty, severely dehydrated. Deer are not stupid animals. They don't wait until they are severely dehydrated to try to go to a brook and drink. What's being described here is a deer is going to a water brook to drink and is not finding anything.
Jeffrey Heine:So so the deer is panting, longing for water that's not there. And this is how the psalmist feels about his relationship with god. You know, verse 2, my soul thirsts for god, for the living god. When shall I come and appear before God? And so just as the deer is coming before this flowing water, which is living water, The psalmist now goes before the living God.
Jeffrey Heine:And just as the deer was panting for water and could not find any, the psalmist is now going before God saying, I thirst, and he's not finding anything to quench his thirst. He's saying, God, where are you? Where shall I come? When shall I come and appear before God? Or basically, when am I ever going to feel your presence?
Jeffrey Heine:And this is especially painful to him because the person writing this psalm used to have incredible joy. It's not like he he's he doesn't know what he's missing out on. He knows what it's like to have the joyful presence of God in his life. He knows what it's like to have his prayers heard. He knows what it's like to, to worship God and just experience him.
Jeffrey Heine:We know this from the very title of the Psalm, you know, right before verse 1, says to the choir master, a mask of the sons of Korah. Now, the sons of Korah, they were the Levites who were in charge of leading the Israelites in worship. They led the Israelites through song. And so they're the worship leaders of Israel, and this psalmist here is one of them. So he's he's a minister.
Jeffrey Heine:And if you look at verse 4, he says, these things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I would go with the throng, and how I would lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. I used to be not just one of the ministers, I used to be the one who led the people into the temple. This procession into the temple, and there would be such joy as people are singing behind me, as I'm leading them in to worship God. And so he is one of the chief worship leaders in all of Israel, and he's thinking back so fondly in those joyful times. And he's wondering, what happened?
Jeffrey Heine:Why why is that not there anymore? Perhaps some of you feel the same way. I I actually, I know some of you feel the same way because we have these conversations about, you look back at maybe it's a time in college or for some of you maybe even a time in high school and you're like, I just felt so close to the Lord then. But I just, man, there's nothing now. I just, I know I don't feel the same passion when I sing.
Jeffrey Heine:I, I feel like my words when I pray, just kind of hit the floor. You're wondering why things are different. What we see here is a man who loves the Lord, who has deep faith, who in the past has joyfully experienced the presence of the Lord, and yet now is dry. Look at verse 3. My tears have been my food day and night.
Jeffrey Heine:While they say to me all the day long, where is your God? So this psalmist now is crying day night, and tears are his food. And so, very artistic way of just saying, he's not sleeping, and he's not eating. So he's not getting any rest, he's not getting any nourishment. And these are clinical signs of depression right here.
Jeffrey Heine:To to when you, you know, you can't sleep anymore. You'd love to sleep, but you just can't. You just cry through the night. You you'd love to eat, but you've just lost all of your appetite. So now this spiritual dryness has turned into a real physical depression.
Jeffrey Heine:And emotional depression has physical consequences. This man needs rest. He needs food. His body's breaking down. A lot of times when people come to my office and they say they're struggling through depression and things, I ask, are you exercising?
Jeffrey Heine:Are you eating? Are you sleeping? You need those things. You you are emotional, physical, and a spiritual being, and when one of those is off kilter, it's it's gonna affect you. Here you have the psalmist breaking down in every area.
Jeffrey Heine:As he goes through this depression. Verse 4, he he remembers the good times. Then in verse 5, he wonders why he's not experiencing it anymore. Why? Why are you cast down, oh my soul?
Jeffrey Heine:Why are you in turmoil within me? What has led to the Psalmist? What has led him to this point in his life? First of all, let me say what hasn't. The Psalm is somewhat different than a lot of the other Psalms that are out there.
Jeffrey Heine:There's no mention of any sin. There's no mention of a need for repentance here. So I don't think he's here as a result of sin. There's other Psalms like, you know, we looked at at our last last month, we looked at Psalm 51, the Psalm of repentance. And clearly that's what you have there.
Jeffrey Heine:David is, King David is joyless. He is spiritually dry because he committed adultery, because he murdered, because he tried to cover it all up, and now this sin was just killing him. And so he needed to confess these things. He needed to repent of these things so he could be restored and he like, restored to me the joy of my salvation. And so that's what David needed.
Jeffrey Heine:And there's many Psalms that are just like that, but not here. Instead of sin, all we find as we read through this is a very sincere, genuine faith and love for God. There's no hint of him doing anything wrong. He's still praying. He's he's still loving the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:It's just he doesn't feel anything. We don't know the reason why. I think one of the reasons we don't know why is it's simply part of the Christian experience. There's, you don't really have to point to a why here. This is part of every Christian's experience.
Jeffrey Heine:However, we can find some things, I think, that have contributed to his depression, things that have been outside of his control. Look at verse 6, second part of it. It says, My soul is cast down within me. Therefore, I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon and from Mount Mazar. These locations that the Psalmist throws here, Jordan, Hermon, Mount Mazar, they're way up North.
Jeffrey Heine:They're far away from Jerusalem, far away from the temple. And so what he's saying here is, we don't know how, we don't know why, but this psalmist, this one of the chief musicians here is no longer living near the temple. He's no longer living near Jerusalem. Likely he's been exiled. And so as a result, he can no longer meet with a congregation of believers.
Jeffrey Heine:He can no longer corporately worship with them. He can't gather with other people who share his faith. He's, he's isolated. He's way up North where people don't believe these things. And it's killing him because he needs other believers in his life who are going to encourage him in his faith.
Jeffrey Heine:Otherwise, he's going to start breaking down like this. Verse 10 says that he is now surrounded by adversaries who taught him, who ridicule his faith, who wound him deeply, literally in Hebrew in verse 10, where it says, as with a deadly wound in my bones, literally, that is there is murder in my bones. The taunts are murdering him. And what we see here is something that the entire Bible teaches is that you were made not just to love the Lord and to worship Him by yourself, but you were created to do those things within community. Not not just go to a church, but to be part of a church, part of a community that can encourage you in these things.
Jeffrey Heine:And I know that it's become popular, what do you What is it? Generation y? What is now the next generation? Generation I? I I don't know.
Jeffrey Heine:It's become popular though, like, I don't really need church anymore because I have church in my car and I can podcast. I I can listen to the sermon, but but sermons don't do, you know, podcasts don't do hospital visits. Podcasts don't come and pray with you. Podcasts don't embrace you and and get with you in your presence and encourage you. Podcasts don't do that.
Jeffrey Heine:You weren't created for podcasts, you were created for community, real community. I wish I had time to just walk through a bunch of the Psalms right now and point out how all the Psalms steer to this because you see this over and over. Actually, we're going to. Well, I've got time now. Kate DeFuniak, you're here, but we missed you.
Jeffrey Heine:Just gave me an extra 10 minutes. We might do it later. Oh yeah. That's right. It was 5 o'clock when you were in Honduras.
Jeffrey Heine:Yes. Well, I'm taking lecture 10 minutes. If you all go to Psalm 31. This is free right here, okay? This this this one's free.
Jeffrey Heine:This is typical of many of the Psalms that are out there. We won't read through the whole Psalm. I'll just read through a few verses. Says in you, oh lord, do I take refuge. Let me never be put to shame.
Jeffrey Heine:In your righteousness, deliver me. Incline your ear to me. Rescue me speedily. Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me. You you go through the the all all the the verses there and it, you know, verse 9, Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress, my eye is wasted from grief.
Jeffrey Heine:Verse 10, For my life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing. Verse 11, because all my adversaries have become a reproach, as I become all my, because of all my adversaries, I have become a reproach, especially to my neighbors. Alright. On and on and on, you're gonna go through all of this psalm, and all you're gonna hear is, I, me. I, me.
Jeffrey Heine:It's a very personal prayer, a very personal song. And then you're gonna get to verse 23. Love the Lord, all you His saints. The Lord preserves the faithful, but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride. Be strong and let your heart take courage.
Jeffrey Heine:All you who wait on the Lord. And what you see here is very typical of all of the Psalms, or or I shouldn't say all, most of the Psalms, in which you're gonna find a psalmist describing a very individual experience, individual encounters, individual concerns and prayers or praises. And then suddenly towards the end, he addresses the congregation. And he tells people, everybody prays, everybody worship. And what you see is, he's starting this alone, but he never ends it alone.
Jeffrey Heine:It's it's always ended in the middle of a community of faith. And you see this happening over and over again in the Psalms, and this phenomenon is so common, it can't be accidental. When you see it so many times, and what it teaches us is that, when you have a praise, you don't praise in isolation. What you are to do as a Christian is you are to now bring that praise before the assembly, and we are all to join in. If you have a lament, you don't lament in isolation, but you bring that lament to the community of God, and we all lament together.
Jeffrey Heine:So one of the reasons we read the Psalms is because they're full of joy and they're full of laments, and we all join in together to these things. So what you've likely heard from many worship leaders is wrong. Jess has never said this. Which is, alright, now that you're coming in here, I know that there's been some horrible things that have happened through the day. You've been stuck in traffic, maybe gone in a fight on the way over here with your spouse, all this.
Jeffrey Heine:I just want you to leave all of that outside because we're coming in here to worship the Lord. And the psalmist says, don't you dare do that. You bring all of your baggage in here, and we lament together. And when we do that, it leads us corporately into worship. And you find this over and over.
Jeffrey Heine:We were meant to be within community. There is strength in numbers. There is encouragement in numbers. And the psalmist here is feeling the effects of no longer being part of such a community, no longer being a part of what some of us volunteer voluntarily do and isolate ourselves. He would kill to be part of a community, some of the things that we neglect so easily.
Jeffrey Heine:One of the reasons I believe this psalm was written, it was preserved and it was put in our Bibles for us, and so that we can learn that lesson. And also that we can learn now what's what's what to do now in community as we're going through seasons of depression or dryness. So let's look at what the Psalmist does here. I think he's a model for us. The first thing he does is he pours his soul out to God.
Jeffrey Heine:He's constantly praying to God, even though he feels nothing. I mentioned this at the theological coffee house that I taught at last. But I think most people now pour out their soul to anybody and everybody except God. It's what Facebook's for. It's what tweeting is for.
Jeffrey Heine:It's what blogging is for. You just kind of write about all your problems and you just put it out there. But we don't pour out our soul to God. I call people out on this when they come to my office. So don't be scared to death to ever come to my office.
Jeffrey Heine:But sometimes when people are there, they're telling me their problems and they're like, you know, I'm just, I'm just really praying through this and I keep crying out to the Lord about this. And occasionally I'll stop them and I'll say, really? I mean, I know we say that as Christians, We always say, I've just been praying about this. And I stop and say, have you? Have you really been praying or have you just been telling, blogging, just communicating to anyone and everyone about this, except for the Lord?
Jeffrey Heine:And I tell you about half of the time when I do that people are like, you're right. I really haven't poured out my soul to the Lord. That's what the psalmist does here. All of his hope, all of his despair, he just unloads and says, Lord, here it is. The second thing the Psalm does, the psalmist does is he talks to himself instead of listening to himself.
Jeffrey Heine:I probably should explain that. We're to talk to ourself instead of listening to ourself. Doctor Martin Lloyd Jones, he's one of my favorite pastors and commentators. He, he was English preacher. He wrote an entire book on Psalm 42 called, Spiritual Depression.
Jeffrey Heine:And, I just want to read you a section of it. I normally don't do kind of long quotes. I'm gonna read you a paragraph because he's the one where I really learned this from. He says, have you ever realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning.
Jeffrey Heine:Where did they come from? You have not originated them, but they are talking to you. They bring back the problems of yesterday. Somebody is talking. Who is it talking to you?
Jeffrey Heine:It's yourself talking to you. Now, this is how the psalmist in Psalm 42 responds to himself talking to Him. Says, instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself, and he says, why are you cast down, oh my soul? He asked. You see, his soul has been depressing him, crushing him, so he stands up to it, and he says, self, listen for a moment.
Jeffrey Heine:You will not speak to me, I will speak to you. Hope in God. And you find that throughout this song. He's speaking, I would say, he's preaching to himself. He's hearing those thoughts, and they're coming to him, and they're attacking to him.
Jeffrey Heine:He's like, where are they coming from? He's like, wait. I will tell myself truth. Why are you downcast, oh my soul? Put your hope in God.
Jeffrey Heine:Trust in God, soul. He's preaching to himself. He says in verse 5, he says hope in God. Verse 11, he says hope in God. When you go to chapter 43 verse 5, same thing.
Jeffrey Heine:He says, hope in God. And as Christians, we need to get in the habit of preaching to ourselves, not just listening to ourselves. And so, if you're going through a spiritual depression, don't listen to yourself, but tell yourself, in this time, Joel Brooks, hope in God. Tell yourself, Romans 838, for I'm sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things presence, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor death, nor anything else in all of creation can separate me from the love of Jesus Christ our Lord. We need to tell ourselves, preach to ourselves the gospel truth.
Jeffrey Heine:3rd, we need to remember the lord. Sounds so obvious. I mean, my heart is so full, I could land here for a while. Go to go to verse 78. Deep calls to deep, which for some reason has always been like the banner of like every youth kind of have you seen it like youth ministry thing or conference?
Jeffrey Heine:Deep, calling to deep. It's actually a really negative thing here. Deep calls the deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All your breakers and all your waves have gone over me. By day, the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night, his song is with me.
Jeffrey Heine:A prayer to the God of my life. Lord, communicate this. The psalmist here is describing in verse 7, the sensation of drowning. That's the deep calling onto deep and the the breakers coming over him. Wave after wave, he's he's drowning.
Jeffrey Heine:Yet, he sees this as from the lord. Your breakers, your waves, your waterfalls are going over me. So he's still trusting. This is all part of God's sovereignty as I'm feeling these things, and I'm drowning. And then he remembers the Lord in verse 8.
Jeffrey Heine:It's this is a glorious verse. Notice that the word lord here is written in all capitals. It's lord, all caps. All your Bibles should have that. And this is how translators translate the word Yahweh.
Jeffrey Heine:Alright? You have lord in in lowercase caps, that means lord. Lord in all capitals is is Yahweh is the Lord's personal name, Yahweh. When God revealed himself to Moses and Moses said, who are you? God said, I am Yahweh, which is the Hebrew word for I am.
Jeffrey Heine:That's my name. My personal name is Yahweh, I am. And that's what the psalmist uses here. But notice that all throughout chapter 42, all throughout chapter 43, you will not see Yahweh. You're not gonna see the name of the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:All you're gonna see is the more generic Elohim, the word God. No, God save me. God this, God, but here it is, Yahweh, the personal name of the Lord. And the reason he is using this, the personal name of the lord is because of the steadfast love that follows. The word steadfast, we've looked at it in weeks past is the Hebrew word hesed.
Jeffrey Heine:It means loyal love, never ending love, merciful love is the covenantal love of God that is never broken. And this is what's happening. As the psalmist feels like he's drowning and wave after wave is coming over him and he feels nothing, he's remembering his marriage essentially. That's what happened when God made a covenant with his people. It was like a marriage.
Jeffrey Heine:And the, the name that God signed on the marriage certificate was Yahweh, his personal name. The Lord says, I've made a covenant with you and I will never ever leave you. I will always love you, Yahweh. And so, as these breakers are coming in, and he is so depressed, he remembers, the Lord. I'm married to the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:And he signed his name Yahweh, and he is never going to leave me. Ever. He will always love me. And this becomes His song in the night. It's the only glimmer of hope He has in this point.
Jeffrey Heine:It's in the hesed love of God, Yahweh. Do you know what our song in the night is as Christians? Where we see Hesed love on display, we look at the cross. And that's when we see the extent of how much God will go through in order to keep a covenant, to keep us close to him. This Psalm is ultimately about Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:He's the one who made an even better covenant because He made it with His blood. It's only by looking to Jesus are we ever going to get through times of spiritual dryness, spiritual depression? And we can get through them because when we look to Jesus, we can see that he took all of our dryness. He took all of our depression. He took all of our pain, and he bore it on the cross.
Jeffrey Heine:All of it. What what the psalmist here is describing this, this panting and this thirsting, were were just something that was partially felt, was just briefly felt. But on the cross, it was ultimately felt by Jesus. And so when the psalmist here says, I I thirst for God, what we're hearing is just a little faint echo of what Jesus would later cry on the cross when He screams out, I thirst. Because the sky is darkening and it's black, and God is nowhere present.
Jeffrey Heine:The psalmist here pours out his his soul to God, but Isaiah says that Christ poured out his soul to death. The psalmist cries out here, why have you forgotten me? Jesus cried out, why have you forsaken me? Why have you abandoned me? The psalmist here says, there's deadly wounds.
Jeffrey Heine:It feels like deadly wounds in my bones. Jesus actually experienced the deadly wound when it says, he was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. That's murder in your bones. The psalmist here says he he feels like wave after wave is crashing on Him, but when we look at Jesus, we see wave after wave of His Father's wrath being poured and unleashed on Him.
Jeffrey Heine:And so this psalmist here felt only in part what Jesus experienced in full. And that's the absence of God. Jesus was totally forsaken, totally rejected, totally abandoned in order that you would never experience those things forever. You are always gonna be loved. God is always gonna be near to you.
Jeffrey Heine:For all of eternity, will forever be in his presence.