Good evening, thank you, hello, hi guys. Thank you for being here for our last Sunday evening of the spring. We're going to continue on, well, continue on. Tonight we're going to finish another installment of the tough text series. Last week we did the psalms of imprecation, or the imprecatory psalms. Tonight we're going to look at a probably not as difficult topic, but I think for many a tough text in its own right, the psalms of lament, specifically those psalms where we read. And we kind of wonder within the soul, is it really okay to talk to God like this?
These are not true statements to say, how long, oh Lord, will you forget me forever? Like theologically that's wrong. Is that okay to say to God? Why is that in the psalms? We'll look at that particular tonight, that topic. So you have your Bibles open up, or devices to Psalm 13, the quintessential psalm of lament, or the prototypical psalm of lament. Let's pray as we begin. Father, thank you for this evening. Thank you for the gift of your church. Thank you for the gift of your word. Guide us, teach us, lead us now, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.
The psalms of lament are called such because the psalmist has, for whatever reason, sometimes we know it, sometimes we do not, the psalmist has reached a breaking point, and has cracked, if you will. What is the definition of a biblical lament? A lament is, quote, a prayer in pain that leads to trust in God. A prayer in pain that leads to trust in God. Many people feel that the psalms of lament are strange, I think that's maybe a surface level comment on them, or deeper, inappropriate. Because they are themselves filled with complaining, arguing, not just about the hard things in life themselves, but usually the language in these psalms is directed at God.
And so to read God-word language directed at Him that is filled with complaining from believers and godly people, we automatically think that's not okay. I mean, don't we know and believe, Romans 8, 28, that all things work according for the good for those who believe? Don't we trust the Lord? Didn't Jesus say He'll always be with us? Then why this language? Well, of course, we do believe that Jesus is with us, we do believe that Romans 8, 28, that God works all things for good, but we also believe we do not always recognize or sense the presence of the Lord with us.
He does not promise to keep hard seasons from us, and though all things do work together for good, we also affirm that not everything that happens to us is good. And so we lament, the psalms of lament. How many, if you were to guess at 150 psalms, how many psalms are there that are psalms of lament? What do you think, if you're just to give a guess? 20%. 20%? Half? 30. 30? Any other takers? 100. 100. A third, roughly a third of the 150 psalms are psalms of lament, which makes it the largest category of psalms in the entire book.
What do we learn from so many psalms of lament being given to us? us in the book of Psalms, I think by giving us so many, God intends to teach us and invite us to speak the truth about our lives, our pain, our hurt, our anger, and our confusion to speak it back to Him with better vocabulary, and I mean that. I think one thing that horrific events and dark seasons do to us is rob us of words. They rob us of words, they push us into silence because of the thick pain in the human heart. We can generally only think of questions but cannot quickly think of answers.
Praise God that in the Psalms He has given us vocabulary to pray, make it our own, back to Him. Generally when we're in pain, we don't speak well. We don't speak well to others, we don't speak well to ourselves, and we certainly don't speak well to God. We are always in need of theological refinement and words that are precise and correct to give to God, and in giving us so many Psalms, He has given us language to speak to Him. And so when we hurt, the Psalms of lament generally teach us we're to hurt with God, not without God.
So to show us all this, we're open to Psalm 13, the prototypical Psalm of lament. It's famous for its categories, its questions, its movement from beginning in verse one to very dark to soaring on the heights of praise in verse six in the end. There are three movements to this Psalm. Let me begin by looking at verse one and two, the first movement, the questions. This is how Psalm 13 begins. To the choir master, a Psalm of David, how long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Many Psalms we're familiar with and quote and know, perhaps that fill the paintings or portraits on our walls and our homes and our churches begin with a very high and lofty praise-filled language, giving evidence that the Psalmist himself is entering into the presence of God. Here, something else is in view right from the beginning. David laments right away in Psalm 13 with an urgency and a sharpness going straight to the source, questioning God three times in verse one.
We don't know exactly what's going on that gave rise to the context of these words in Psalm 13 or why he's in such a spot. All attempts really to place this Psalm in a specific moment in David's life are educated guesses which leads us to the conclusion that these words can fit many different spots in David's life. We do know, though, that whatever is going on is certainly not a comfortable place to be in. Look at how he begins in verse one, how long? People who ask the question, how long? Are generally people not looking for answers, right?
If you're asking the question, how long? You're not looking for an answer. I know this because of preaching. I look at your faces in the morning when we're all here together and some of us here in the evening and sometimes, you know, when a sermon is bad, really bad, you know, not everything can be a home run. Sometimes you can barely bunt for whatever purpose, but people's faces begin to do something and they begin to almost visibly portray, at least to me is what I feel like, a question on their face.
How long is this sermon going to last? And I know that if that question is popping in the head of many, the answer is evident. It's already been long. enough, please end this misery." Something of the same spirit I think is present in David's heart in verse 1. He is crying out, how long? I think that tells us for David it's already been too long. He's already convinced of things that simply aren't true. He says God has forgotten him, that God is distant from him, and that God has hidden himself from him.
Theologically we know these things are not true because God is omniscient, knowing all things. He's omnipotent, always strong and able to do anything, and God is omnipresent, always near and present over everything, and especially with his people. But if you've been in a place like David and you've arrived at the point where you're asking how long oh Lord, you know that David's present trouble isn't really just a speed bump in the road of life. To David, he seems to be facing an Everest of pain, and when something is as big as an Everest in front of you in life, it tends to block your view from everything else in life, from everything that is true and good and beautiful.
As verse 2 comes in Psalm 13, the painful realities and questions don't stop, they merely change direction. He began asking questions of God, now David asks questions of himself in the start of verse 2, and then question about others at the end of verse 2. How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? So four times now in verse 1 we have heard, and in verse 2, the phrase, how long flow forth from David. But it seems that his first two how long questions about God lead to his next two how long questions.
Or maybe think of it like this, because David believes that God has forgotten him, and because David believes that God has hidden himself, David now feels other woes. His heart has become a raging sea, where concerns and fears and worries and anxieties are swirling all around, ebbing and flowing, rising and falling. It seems that he's filled with pain inside of him, and becomes worried of defeat outside of him. This lament in verse 1 and 2 is quick, it's brief, but if you linger on it you can see the pain that is there.
Inside it you feel what David feels. Short as it is, it's language that is condensed, but highly concentrated with one commentator said, electric current, extreme pressure, loaded with agony and misery. This pain in verse 1 and 2, present in David's life, reminds me of the pain that C.S. Lewis expressed as he writes the book, a grief observed, reflecting after the fact on the death of his wife, Joy. In it, Lewis describes how he prayed time and time again for God to heal her cancer, thinking of it, his prayer, as if he's knocking on God's door, initially knocking, then moving to pounding, then moving to banging, then Lewis describes it, I didn't want to knock anymore, my knuckles hurt, it seems like God's not home.
This is something of what David is feeling in the beginning of Psalm 13, but don't miss the fact that the painfully obvious fact, who he's addressing in Psalm 13. He's not talking to one of his servants, he's not talking to soldiers, he cries out, how long O Lord? He's lamenting to God himself. I think this shows us David is more than just drained, David seems to be done. But isn't it encouraging that when David Could have gone anywhere with his pain. He brings it to God. I think this is instructive for us.
We also see Jesus doing this in the garden of Gethsemane when He said, Let this cup pass from Me. This is prayer. He goes to His Father. And rather than taking pain somewhere else, David brings his pain directly to God. I think we can learn from this. Like I said, we're not just a people, I think, with constant noise around us today. We are a people that contribute to the noise around the world today. We have constant distraction in the palm of our hands with games, Facebook, Instagram, all the other apps the kids are using these days, if you have those things.
The interwebs.com right there on our phones. We can access to anything we want at the touch of our fingertips. And so when things get hard on us or things land heavily on our families, when hard seasons linger and don't lift and dark clouds come and don't scatter, do we just turn up the volume on one of our apps or a device of ours? Or do we bring all the pain to God? David is not ashamed to ask questions like this to God. And we should not be ashamed of it either. Questions about the way you feel God is treating you.
The struggle in your own soul. The struggle with those around you. And honestly, there's something of a Peter element here too. Remember in his own suffering, disciples are leaving the Lord like crazy at the end of John 6. And then Jesus says to the twelve, will you also depart? Does anyone remember what Peter said? To whom else would we turn? You are our shepherd. To whom else would we turn? That's present even in this darkness in verse 1 and 2. That's the first movement of the psalm. Now look at verse 3 and 4.
We go from the questions to the cries. Consider me, and answer me, O Lord my God. Light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest my enemies say, I have prevailed over him. Lest my foes rejoice, because I am shaken. It does seem that there's a progression here in these first two movements. David begins with a theological problem. It's with God, which led to an inward psychological problem. Which then leads to an outward social problem. Let me explain that. Even though David's the king, in many other psalms he rejoices in God as the true king.
When he's in his right mind. He loves that in his sovereignty, this king, he can take refuge behind the Lord's wings. And under his strong arms. But here, David can't find God. He can't see God. He can't feel God as his refuge. And can't feel the safety of being with or near God. So naturally, this theological problem goes outward. And all of a sudden, he fears other problems that are around him. I think we see progression, just as we did in verse 1 and 2. We see it also in verse 3 and 4 with these requests.
Crying out to God. He pleads with God to show up in the start of verse 3. It's as if David is saying, even if you have forgotten me. I've not forgotten you. You're my God. Please look. Please hear me. Please answer me. And please help me. This then moves to the end of verse 3. When David cries out, light up my eyes. Not because he's sensing physical darkness. And he needs physical light. Because he follows a statement with, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Meaning, if God does not show up and save me in this dark mess, I'm done.
So light up my eyes means save me, restore me, bring me back to health of soul. Let the sun rise in my heart. I'm in anguish. Show up. Lead me out of this mess or I'm at my end. In this dark night of the soul, David longs for the light of the Lord to return. That's what he's after. And if this light doesn't return, he doesn't only say he'll die. He says his enemies will claim victory over him. He will be at an end. And a consequence is all his enemies will then gloat at his end. Remember in verse 2, it was only my enemy.
Now in verse 4, it's my enemy and my foes. In verse 2, the singular enemy was exalted over him. And strangely, now in verse 4, the plural enemies are about to prevail over him entirely, showing us the longer that David lingers in this darkness, the more devastating the results will be. Now just as we're encouraged to ask our own questions to God in seasons of lament and suffering, we saw that in verse 1 and 2, in verse 3 and 4, we learn that in our own suffering, we can do more than just ask God questions.
As good and healthy as that is, to do that, we can do more. We can use those questions and let those questions linger in us long enough to drive us to ask God to do something. Not just how long, oh Lord, but consider me, rescue me, relieve me, restore me, deliver me, vindicate me. Those questions lead him to plead with God to intervene. So not only do I think we have in the Psalms of Lament a green light to bring all our lament to God, but we have a green light to plead with God to come and lift the dark things of the soul.
Just like David does here in verse 3 and 4. He desires that God intervenes so that God, not his enemies, will have the final word. Look how it ends. We saw the questions, the cries, now we see the singing in verse 5 and 6. But I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me. What a change is present in verse 5 with the very first word. The rain has dried up, the storm is gone, night is over, morning has dawned, the dark clouds have burst with deep mercy over David's head and he rejoices in the first word that comes out as he sings in verse 5 and 6 as, but.
This word, but, abruptly ends his cries for rescue and ushers him into a new and fresh resolve to know the Lord and to praise the Lord after the clouds have scattered. He praises God in verse 5 and 6. Now in place of these dreadful questions is a delighted trust in God's steadfast love. The phrase steadfast love, as many of you know, is the Hebrew word hesed, which means covenant faithfulness. It's a word that brings to mind ancient promises of old. Abraham heard long ago, I will be your God and you shall be my people.
He heard it and he believed it. So did Isaac and Jacob and Joseph. And Israel heard the same thing through Moses all the way down to David. These ancient covenant promises, I will be God to you and you will be my people. God's people have always had to struggle with the reality of remembering God's promises and banking on them and living in light of them. It seems that remembering that reality in the midst of his darkness is the very thing that brings him back. to the light in verse 5. And what does he do once he's back in the light?
A new melody begins in his own heart. As verse 5 tells us, he rejoices in God's salvation. And where the heart goes, the tongue soon follows. So naturally then in verse 6, we see the symphony of his heart become the song of his tongue. What forms the content of his song? Notice verse 6 in full. I will sing to the Lord. Why? Because he has dealt bountifully with me. So David has not only moved from questioning to crying to singing. In verse 6, God has fully reversed the content of verse 1. He once believed that God had abandoned him.
Now he sees that the Lord has always led him well. And so for David, his joy is all the higher now in verse 6, because his sorrow was all the deeper in verse 1. This is often the experience of the biblical authors. Is this not often also our experience as well? We grow in life not through times of ease, but through times of anguish and suffering and sorrow and slowly but surely the Lord uses these seasons to strip us of our idols, to increase our trust in him and to further root our feeble feet in his firm and ancient promises.
Dark days are no new thing to the people of God. If we really want to learn from Psalm 13, we'll learn that in our suffering, we ought to hurt with God, not without him. We'll learn that in his timing, he will bring us out to the light, that in his providence, he'll let us sit in the dark until the time he has deemed where he will scatter the clouds and bring fresh mercy on our heads. Once that happens, our dark dirge will be replaced with songs of bright hope. And so we can be sure of this, David really felt abandoned by God, though he wasn't.
We may feel the same, but we're not. We have hope in our laments because even in the dark, there the Lord is a light to us still. So praise God that in dark times, he's given us a vocabulary to make our own, to bring before him. Again, a lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust. Without a robust theology of lament, without thinking about these things, I don't think Christians are well-equipped to suffer. Believers may feel that real Christians, when asked how they're doing, have to project victory and joy.
How are you doing? Blessed. We somehow think that this is the only right and possible answers, but really, in fact, this is thin theology and it suggests that sorrow and doubt, to us, we think are indicators of a failed relationship with God. That if we truly were walking with God, we must always be able to answer, blessed, I'm great, I'm fine, soaring on the heights of praise. Rather, I think a mature theology and an experience and a maturity with the Lord will show us that a legitimate part of our life with God is in the dark, hard seasons.
Where we find Him meeting us, where He, by His grace, gives us words to bring back to Him, seasons in the midst of which we will not generally be thankful for, but after which we'll be very thankful for, for what God has done in the midst of them. These seasons, God is eager to meet us in. These are the Psalms of lament. we'll learn that in our suffering, we ought to hurt with God, not without him. We'll learn that in his timing, he will bring us out to the light, that in his providence, he'll let us sit in the dark until the time he has deemed where he will scatter the clouds and bring fresh mercy on our heads.
Once that happens, our dark dirge will be replaced with songs of bright hope. And so we can be sure of this, David really felt abandoned by God, though he wasn't. We may feel the same, but we're not. We have hope in our laments because even in the dark, there the Lord is a light to us still. So praise God that in dark times, he's given us a vocabulary to make our own, to bring before him. Again, a lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust. Without a robust theology of lament, without thinking about these things, I don't think Christians are well-equipped to suffer.
Believers may feel that real Christians, when asked how they're doing, have to project victory and joy. How are you doing? Blessed. We somehow think that this is the only right and possible answers, but really, in fact, this is thin theology and it suggests that sorrow and doubt, to us, we think are indicators of a failed relationship with God. That if we truly were walking with God, we must always be able to answer, blessed, I'm great, I'm fine, soaring on the heights of praise. Rather, I think a mature theology and an experience and a maturity with the Lord will show us that a legitimate part of our life with God is in the dark, hard seasons.
Where we find Him meeting us, where He, by His grace, gives us words to bring back to Him, seasons in the midst of which we will not generally be thankful for, but after which we'll be very thankful for, for what God has done in the midst of them. These seasons, God is eager to meet us in. These are the Psalms of lament.
