Please turn in your Bibles to Psalm 42, Psalm 42, I'll be exhorting on Psalm 43, but there's good reason to think that these were once one Psalm, and so I'll read both Psalm 42 and Psalm 43, but it is Psalm 43 that we'll actually be looking at. Psalm 42. For the director of music, a mascal of the sons of Korah. As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, Where is your God? These things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I used to go with the multitude leading the procession to the house of God with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng. Why are you so downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God. My soul is downcast within me, therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon from Mount Mizar, deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls. All your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the Lord directs His love, 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 must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, where is your God? Why are you so downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God. And then Psalm 43, the text for this evening. Vindicate me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation. Rescue me from deceitful and wicked men. You are God, my stronghold. Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? Send forth your light and your truth. Let them guide me. Let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell. Then will I go to the altar of God, to God my joy and my delight. I will praise You with the harp, O God, my God. Why are You downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put Your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God. Dear brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ, How could a loving God allow such a terrible thing to happen? If God loves me so much, why doesn't He answer my prayer? Why did God allow my spouse to die? Why am I so lonely? Why am I suffering cancer at age 44 when all those around me are prospering so much? Why did my dearest loved one betray me? Why am I so depressed? Why have I lost the joy of the Gospel? Why doesn't Christian worship mean as much to me as it once did? These are the cries of intense questioning and suffering in an average church. These are the cries of an average church member. Deep-seated confusion and discouragement at the ways of a mysterious God. We hear preachers and church members and church songs tell us to smile and be happy because God has a wonderful plan for our life. But inside, we know that life's actually often a lot more difficult. And we can say to one another, you know, others just don't know what I'm going through. They don't know how depressed I am. And for some of us, as we get older, it's easy to become cynical. We can become cynical about the Gospel and about the Word of God. But perhaps we're not cynical. Perhaps we're just perplexed. If God is so real and so powerful and so good, why does He allow fill-in-the-blank? Has He forgotten me? I've often heard it said, and I've said it myself, I know the truth of the Gospel. I know God loves me. I know all things are working out for my good, but I don't feel it. I still pray. I still read my Bible. I still go to church. But I'm depressed and I wonder if God has abandoned me. I wonder, do you think a true Christian can think this way? Is this something a Christian can think? In Psalm 43, we have the heartfelt record of the psalmist seemingly in despair at unanswered prayer. He's a man of God. He's written Scripture. He knows what joy in the Lord is. And yet, he's feeling completely downcast. And every godly Christian wrestles with these things at one time or another. Whether it is deep-seated, mind-numbing discouragement, or whether it's the agony of soul-crushing affliction, we go through times when we wonder where God is. But praise God that He's given us in His own book of songs that are to shape our worship in Psalm 43, a way for us to take this very depression on our lips and sing to God and yet have hope and joy. What a gracious God that would give us such a psalm that recognizes the struggles we're really going through. In the next 25 minutes or so, I want to look at Psalm 43. And I want us to see how the psalmist deals with despair. And I hope, I pray, that all of us, especially those of us who might be struggling in this way, that we would see how even in the midst of intense affliction, We can still have joy and hope in the worship of our God. I want to work through the psalm in basically three parts. In the first two verses, the psalmist states his problem, his request, what he's struggling with, how he has a divided heart. And then I'll move on to verses 3 and 4 where we see how the psalmist tries to deal with it, what his prayer is to God. And then in verse 5, we see how even after that prayer doesn't seem to have done what he wants it to do, the psalmist stops and he preaches the Gospel to himself. So let's start by looking at verses 1 and 2. It says, Vindicate me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation. Rescue me from deceitful and wicked men. You are God my stronghold. Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? Now, we don't know all that much about the background of this psalm. We don't know who exactly the enemies of the psalmist were. It seems as if it might have been someone who betrayed him, someone who knew him. And possibly that person betrayed him too in a hostile nation. But in any case, what's clear is that the psalmist knows he hasn't done something wrong to deserve this. He's in the right. And those that are oppressing Him and those that are fighting Him are the ones that are unjust. This isn't a just punishment of God. If God would intervene with justice, the problem would go away. He's saying, God, be just to me. These people are in the wrong. Why are you letting them harm me? He doesn't deserve this struggle. And the psalmist is doing the right thing. He's responding in prayer. He's praying, Lord, take this away from Me. Vindicate Me. Take the struggle away. And that's exactly what the believer is supposed to do, isn't it? We're supposed to. When struggles come, Jesus says, ask Me. Ask Me for whatever you need. And I'll give it to you. And He even gives us a parable of the persistent widow. And He says, if you don't get it the first time, keep asking and asking and asking. And because of your persistence, you will get what you need. The psalmist is doing the right things. he says you are my God my stronghold that means he's taking God as his stronghold and yet he goes right on to say why have you rejected me if I've made you my refuge why have you rejected me and the psalmist is divided in his heart and I think we all know what that feels like we know what it's like to be going through a struggle and praying and doing what we know we should do as believers, and yet still, the struggle doesn't go away. Romans 7, for example, Paul says, I don't do what I want to do, and what I want to do, I don't do. He knew what he was supposed to do, and yet, he couldn't do it. In Mark 9, the man comes to Jesus and says, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. Have you been there? Maybe for you it wasn't an enemy. Maybe it wasn't a friend that betrayed you. Perhaps it was a broken down marriage. Perhaps a drifting son or daughter. Perhaps an illness or cancer. The loss of a loved one at a young age. Disappointment in life. It doesn't really matter. Whatever the case is, you may have had a struggle that took away your joy in God and you prayed to God to take that struggle out of your life. And he left it there. Sometimes, God doesn't answer our prayers in the way we would like. The prophet Jeremiah went through such intense suffering that in the book of Lamentations, he presents God as an archer. And God pulls back this bow and He shoots it, but not at Jeremiah's enemies. It's pointed straight at Jeremiah and arrow after arrow goes into Jeremiah's kidneys. That's how he felt God was responding to his struggle. In Psalm 88, the psalmist there says that wave after wave of God's oppression crashed upon him. And if you've ever lost control of yourself in the ocean, you know what that feels like and you are completely helpless. And he feels like it's God. God is the one sending these waves crashing upon him. He says, My eyes grow dim because of sorrow. I cry out to you, yet you hide your face from me. My only friend is darkness. He's talking about life crushing suffering where he can't see any hope. If you're feeling this way today, I hope this psalm can be used and the Spirit can work in your heart to help you to see that even then, there's hope in God. Or if you're not feeling this way now, I'm sure you can remember a time when you have. But there's a chance that someone is sitting here saying, well, I haven't really gone through anything quite that bad. I've been pretty steady. I've managed to avoid suffering so far. My life's pretty good and hopefully it'll stay that way. I hate to put a damper on a Sunday evening, but suffering will come. Jesus says those who follow Him will suffer with Him. The servant is not greater than his Master. Paul says in Romans 8.17 that it is necessary that we suffer so that we can be made like Him and prepared for glory. Peter says in 1 Peter 4, verse 12, Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you. James 1 says, Count it all joy, my brothers, when, not if, When you meet various trials. This is not a popular message. If you turn on the TV and listen to a lot of the preachers on a Sunday morning, this isn't what you'll hear. But it's true. It's reality. And if you look around in this room, every one of us is walking towards death. We're all decaying. And in all likelihood, in a hundred years, if the Lord does not return before then, none of us will be here. Everyone in the world suffers. That's not unique to Christians. We know that. Here in America, maybe we're spared from some of the worst suffering, but we still suffer. But the question is, if we all suffer, if we're all going to the grave, what is it that makes the Christian suffering different? What is it that makes what Peter and Paul and James say true, that suffering can be counted as joy? What would make that different from the way the world thinks of suffering? Well, if you think about verse 1 here where he says, Vindicate me, O God. Any unbeliever could pray, God, take my trial away. Any unbeliever will pray that he wins. But what makes the Christian different is how he responds when the prayer is not answered the way he would like it to be. And so it's so important that we don't stop with verse 1, but we move on and see what the psalmist does next. The Apostle James says that suffering turns to steadfastness and perfection. How do we experience that? Peter says suffering leads to rejoicing. How can we rejoice in suffering? Paul says, suffering leads to glory. Is that really true? Is it really true that suffering leads to glory? Turn to verses 3 and 4. And the psalmist prays, Send forth your light and your truth. Let them guide me. Let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell. Then will I go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise You with the harp, O God, my God. In these two verses in the middle of the psalm, there's at least four things here that the psalmist prays for. And I want to go through each one and you can think of them as things that you should do when you are suffering, when it seems like your prayers are not answered. Pray these things over and over. First, if you look in verse 4, you see that in the midst of suffering, the psalmist focuses on recovering joy in God. At this point, he's not concerned anymore with God taking the trial away. The trial has not been taken away. Now he's concerned with discovering joy in God. And if that means taking the trial away, that's what he wants. But the main thing he wants is joy in God. The NIV translates it joy and delight. Another translation says exceeding joy. But what they're all trying to come to grips with is two words together, rejoicing joy. It emphasizes that this is the joy at the heart of his life. He's had it. God is that joy for him, but he is not having that now because he cannot worship God the way he wants to. What the psalmist wants to get back to in the middle of his struggle is God as His exceeding joy. And I'll ask you, is God your exceeding joy? Could everything be taken out of your life? And as long as God is still there at that joy, you would be happy. Or are you more concerned about the things of this world? Maybe your family. Maybe your business. Your career. Maybe entertainment. Maybe a hobby. Are those the things that are most important to you? And when you suffer, are those the things that you're so upset about missing? Or is it that you've lost joy and peace in God? You're exceeding joy. Part of the purpose of suffering in this world is for God to show us that we should not put our joy in the things of this life. We should put our joy in Him who gives us every good gift. He wants us to wake up from idolatry and make God our exceeding joy. A second thing in these two verses, if you look back to the beginning of verse 3, is that in the midst of suffering, you must look on God's help alone. And often when we're struggling through depression, we do come to a point where we are at our wits' end. We can't see a thing. We can't think straight. we might hear sermons, we might read books. It stops affecting us. And all we can do is cry out and say, Lord, send Your light and Your truth and let them lead me. And we have to come to this point where we realize that we can't do anything. That it is God alone who brings us out of despair so that our joy is in Him alone. Psalm 139. The psalmist says, even if I go to a place where it's complete darkness, where I can't see a thing, even there, it's light to You. And Your hand holds me and it guides me. And even if I can't see anything, I cry out to You and I know that You lead me from there. God loves to exalt the humble. He loves to exalt those who cry out to Him. Now, it's in those very times that often it's the hardest for us to cry out, but remember that God's promised us His Spirit. Paul says in Romans 8, Likewise, the Spirit helps us not in our strength, but in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. When you are struggling, when you've lost the joy of worship and joy in God alone, Get rid of everything that you depend on and call on Him alone for help. Lord, send out Your light and Your truth. Let them guide me. But notice the third thing. What does the psalmist pray that God's light and truth will lead him to? But to the temple of God, he says, let them bring me to Your holy mountain, to the place where You dwell. And it's clear that what the psalmist wants to get back, what he needs to get back to have that joy is to be in the house of God where he can worship God and that's what this trial has prevented him from doing. That's what he cares about more than anything else is worship. What is it about the temple that's such a big deal? Well, obviously for the Jews in the Old Testament that was the heart of their worship. That was where Yahweh met with His people. That's where they said better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. And yet the psalmist has been separated from that very thing. The one thing that's more important than anything else for His joy, and He can't get to it. When we are struggling, is our biggest problem whatever the struggle might be with a person, with a possession, with our health? Or is the thing that we miss more than anything else coming into God's house with His people and worshiping Him and praying to Him and hearing His Word and calling on His name and having that joy in Him alone. The fourth and the last thing in these two verses that the psalmist wants to get back to is do you notice the one piece of furniture in the temple that he mentions? He says, let them bring me to your holy mountain to the place where you dwell then will I go to the altar of God. And the altar in the Old Testament is where the sacrifices happened. And sometimes they were sacrifices of joy and thanksgiving. But inseparable from the altar is also all the sacrifices in Leviticus where goats and rams every single day, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, festival after festival, killed, bloodshed. Because that had to happen for the people of Israel's sins to be forgiven. And every time a goat and a lamb was killed at that altar, it all pointed to a time when the Lamb of God would come and take away the sin of the world. And the Israelites had to know if they were looking to God, that it is through that sacrifice that God alone would provide that their sins could be forgiven and that they could come and approach Him and worship Him with joy. And the psalmist knows that. He wants to get back to the altar of God, which for them is the cross. He wants to get to the cross. He pled at the beginning saying that he was innocent in this situation. But he knows that he's a sinner. In another psalm, it says in Psalm 130, if you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, who could stand? And we have to come to a point in our suffering again where we realize that not only can we not do anything about our suffering, not only do we need God to lead us back to His worship and back to Him as our joy, but we have no right for Him to do that outside of the altar, outside of Christ. And so when we're suffering, we have to look and say, I want Christ alone. I want my sins forgiven. Because if I have that, I have everything. And if I don't have that, I have nothing. If I don't have the cross, I don't have worship. If I don't have worship, I don't have joy in God. I need to get back to the altar. These are four things that the psalmist wants to do that show that in the end, it's not just victory over his enemies that he wants. He wants God as his joy in worship. In the Old Testament, we read about the man Job, who not only was one of the most wealthy men in the ancient Near East, but he was possibly the most righteous man in all the ancient Near East. And he delighted in God. He praised God. God was Job's exceeding joy. And yet the devil comes along and he says to God, the only reason Job loves you and cares about you is because you've given him all this stuff. And if you take away all this stuff, if you take away his family and you take away his possessions and you take away his health, he will not praise you anymore. He will curse you. So God gives the devil permission to take these things away from Job. So everything except for Job's health. His life. He takes his family. He takes his possessions. He takes his friends. And he takes his health. And what is Job's response? He certainly struggles. But when it comes down to it, Job says, For I know that my Redeemer lives. And at the last He will stand upon the earth and after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. Though He slay me, yet will I praise Him. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Well, you might say, this is all great. I'll try to do this next time. I'll try to pray to God. I'll try to make Him my exceeding joy. But the fact is, this is pretty intense suffering. The fact is, I've done that before and it doesn't seem to go away. But that's no different than the psalmist. In verse 5, the third part, the psalmist makes it clear that he's still cast down even after this prayer. He says, Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? And the word we have here for downcast is almost like a melting away of his soul. And when he says he's disturbed, it's the same word used to describe the turmoil of raging waters. And in one sense he feels melting away and in another sense it's raging within him. And again, he's prayed the right prayers. He's prayed for God to take the struggle away. He's sought to return to worship. He's sought to return to the altar. He's sought God as his exceeding joy. And he's still downcast. but it's so critical that you see what happens at this point in the psalm. Because what if the psalmist stopped there? What if he said, why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? And then we saw Psalm 44 underneath. I've heard a number of pastors say over the years that one of the problems with Christians is that we listen to ourselves and our complaints more than we actually listen to the Gospel and speak the Gospel to ourself. And all we can think about is our struggles. But that's not what the psalmist does. We want to figure out everything. We want to be like God. We want to know how, why. Why have You done this to me? How can I solve this problem? How can I move on in this life? But there must come a point, if we are not God, there must come a point where we say, I will stand on faith. Though He slay me, yet will I fear Him. Faith that God truly loved us in Christ and sent His Son for us. Faith that in the Gospel He gives us every perfect gift. Faith that He's given us through Christ far more than this world could ever offer. Joy is coming. Greater joy than we can imagine. We might not see it, but there comes a time when no matter what we see, we have to believe it. Paul says in Romans 8, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. He doesn't just say, you know, if you grin and bear it, it will be a little bit better. Heaven's somewhat better than this. No, he says it's not worth comparing. It's off the charts. You won't even want to think about this. You won't be able to think about it. Heaven will be so glorious. And that's what we need to keep in our minds. Paul says, we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose. So in some way, even this suffering, Even the suffering, even when it seems like my prayers are not answered, even that is for my good. And again, like the psalmist, we might not see it. We might not be able to see it at all. But Paul says, Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, We wait for it with patience. So the question is, when you've walked through this and you're wrestling with your struggle, you've prayed for God to take it away, He hasn't taken it away. You've prayed that He would guide you, that He would bring you back to worship. And you're still struggling. You're still depressed. You're still downcast. Do you have confidence? Do you have confidence in our God? Will you give Him the last word and say, whatever I understand, God has sent Jesus Christ and He paid the penalty that I can't pay and He suffered in a way that I'll never suffer and He's promised me that I can hope in Him for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God. Do we have confidence in our God? When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, He knew that He was coming up to the most intense suffering any man had ever gone through. And yes, Jesus is God, but Jesus was also man. And as was read in the call to worship, He was tempted in every way just as we are. It was not easy for Him. And when He was in Gethsemane, He prayed earnestly, so earnestly, that He sweat drops of blood, Father, if it's possible, take this cup, this suffering, from Me. Sort of like the psalmist in verse 1. Vindicate Me. And then He said, Your will be done. And Jesus went forward. And He went to the cross. And He went through abandonment. He went through forsakenness in a way far worse than the psalmist who wrote Psalm 43. In a way that only Jesus could cry out, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? And you say, well, how could He do that? If Jesus was a man tempted in every way as we are, and God forsook Him, how could He do that? The Scripture says He did it because of the joy and the glory set before Him. He knew the glory He had had with the Father before time. He knew that He would be going back to that glory and He knew that He would be taking all the elect into that glory. And He knew that this suffering would achieve that glory for the Father and for Him. And because He did that, because He went through that suffering, because He was so downcast and troubled at that moment, you and I can say, why are you so downcast, O my soul? Hope in God. For I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God. I began this sermon with a series of questions. And at one level, I have not answered a single question. I can't. I don't know why God took your spouse away. I don't know why you or I are lonely. I don't know why you or I struggle with an illness. I don't know why. And neither did the saints in Scripture. Job spent a whole book trying to find out, and he didn't. Joseph couldn't figure it out. Daniel couldn't figure it out. Paul couldn't figure it out. And maybe even for a brief moment, Jesus couldn't figure it out. Because He cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Brothers and sisters, we are sinners, bogged down in a sinful, miserable world. We are not God and we cannot figure out why we suffer. We cannot always figure out why we struggle. But we can see Calvary. We can see the love that drove our Lord to the cross and led Him to die for us. and we can confess that we deserve to be up on the cross, not Him. We committed all the sins that made someone have to go up there, not Him. And yet, He's there. He's up on that cross. He's the one going through despair. He's the one greatly troubled. Amazing love, how can it be that you, my God, should die for me? And I would ask you as Christians who suffer, what are you willing to suffer to be identified with that Lord on that cross? At what point would you say, God, that's too much. You haven't done enough for me to make me go through that suffering. Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my life, my soul, my all. Christ went to that cross so that He could be the one that cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And we could say, Hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God. When you suffer, when you struggle and you go away, and this week comes along, will you believe the Gospel no matter what happens to you? Will you believe the truth of the Gospel? Will you call out to God to take away your trial? And if He doesn't, will you call upon Him to lead you by His light and truth to His holy hill? Will you call upon Him to show you the cross? And will you call upon Him to make Himself your exceeding joy? And will you be able to say, I may be downcast, but I will hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, my salvation and my God. I want to close with an exhortation of the Apostle Peter. He says, Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you. Cast all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you. Resist the devil, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen. Let us pray. our father in heaven we confess that at times we struggle and we see in your word that we are to have joy and that we are to have the peace that passes understanding but we have trials and when we pray sometimes it seems as if those trials are not taken away but we praise You that You've given us a psalm to show us how we are to look to You even in that suffering and how even in that suffering we can find joy and hope in You because of what Christ has done we pray that You would give us that hope Lord by Your Spirit who alone can do it give us the power to believe the Gospel and to believe that we can hope in You our Savior and our God we pray all this in Christ's name Amen