Psalm 42. I titled this message, Why Am
I Cast Down? Why Am I So Depressed? There is such a thing as spiritual
depression that we can fall into, and there's many reasons on our
behalf as to why we can fall into sin, not being able to be
to the house of God. Maybe we're laid up or something,
we're laying in a sick bed where the gospel is preached, can't
be gathered with God's people. We are going to see here that
this is one of the reasons, one of the major reasons, that Dave
was being cast down. He is separated from God's people,
he's not able to go to the worship service, and it's depressing
him. He's just so depressed. And I
know this, I know I've been cast down before, and you've been
cast down before, I know that. We're like kindred spirits, we're
alike. You know, in this psalm, we see
one of God's children, we see a man after God's own heart,
cast down. I mean, at a very low state in
himself. He has lost a sense of God's
presence. He hasn't lost God. He hasn't
lost his life. He hasn't lost salvation. But
he's lost a sense of the presence of God. And he's on the run from
his son. Not just an enemy, he's on the
run from someone he loves. He loved Absalom. And he's on
the run from him, and Absalom is after his life. He's going
to kill him. You know, we know that this is
a result from back when David had committed the sin with Bathsheba,
and God told him, He said, the sword will never leave your house.
And this is part of it, you know, it's the rebellion of Absalom.
And he's cast down because he can't go to the house of God
with God's people. And so, If you ever find yourself
cast down, you're in good company with David, a man after God's
own heart. Now, the first thing we see here is a deep longing
for the presence of God. As the heart panteth after the
water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. What a picture. David paints
in this first verse, he takes a deer running from a pack of
wolves or a pack of dogs, and after a long run from them, the
deer is extremely thirsty, extremely thirsty, dying for a drink of
water. The deer cannot continue to run if it doesn't find water,
and the soul cannot continue without God. David is on the run, and if he
doesn't get, and I thought of this when I was reading this,
if he does not get a good drink of God, if he does not get a
good drink of God's grace, God's love, a sense of His presence,
a sense of His protection, and to be gathered once again with
His people, he's saying, I'm not going to make it. His great
concern was to be with God. His great concern was to have
the presence of God. He longed for the presence of
God like a deer that's running from a pack of dogs and is dying
of thirst. I saw this on Discovery Channel.
When I read that, the first thought came to my mind. I was watching
a show on Yellowstone National Park and these wolves were chasing
an elk. And that elk was running and running and running, and
they kept running, and its mouth was gaped open, and it was about
to just die of thirst. And you know what it did? It
ran to the water. It got in the water, and it stayed
in that water, and those wolves laid around that water hole,
and that elk stayed right there. It stayed right in the middle
of that water and drank of that water until those wolves left. And I thought of
that, and I thought of this. David said, I am dying of thirst. I'm thirsty for the living God.
Thirsty, he says, my soul. This thirst is deep within. This
is not, as Spurgeon said, a throat thirst. This is not a physical
thirst. This is the soul thirsting after
God. This is real spiritual longing. Longing in the soul after God. to know God, to be with God,
to have His presence. My soul thirsts for God. Now
listen, for the living God, not a God, not an idol, not something
that He has come up with in His imagination, but the living God. Only the living God can satisfy
a thirsty soul. I mean a soul that's thirsting
after God, only the living God can satisfy, nothing else can
satisfy. Our Lord said to that woman at the well, drink of this
water in this well and you'll thirst again. But if you drink of the living
water, if you drink of that living water, you'll live and it'll
be bubbling up in you. Only God can satisfy this thirst.
And he says here, he said, "...My soul thirsteth for God, for the
living God. When shall I come and appear
before God?" He's making reference here to public worship. Now I
want you to get this. I've never seen this before.
I've never seen this in all my times of reading it
before. In a very real sense, When we come together, when we
gather here tonight, we have gathered here to appear before
God. That's what He's saying. When
shall I appear before God? When shall I be with the people
of God when they go to the service of God, the worship service,
and we appear before God? That's what we are doing right
now. Right now we are appearing before God. That gives it a different... a different look when you think
of it like this. When you think of coming here
Sunday morning, when you get up and you get dressed, you think
of coming to appear before God, because that's exactly what we're
doing. We are appearing before God. This is why we forsake not
the assembling of ourselves. You know, Paul said that in Hebrew,
forsake not the assembling of yourselves as a manner of some
is. Because this is appearing before God right now. And he says here, "'When shall
I appear before God? My tears have been my meat day
and night.'" His greatest sorrow was being absent from the worship
service. It was not being able to sense
the presence of God. That was his greatest sorrow.
I believe that was greater than Absalom coming after him. I mean,
that was painful. But he's saying here, he's not
even talking about Absalom here, he's talking about his relationship
with God. He's talking about him and God.
That's what he's talking about. He says, and you know when you're
depressed, what's one of the things that leaves you? Appetite. Appetite. He's saying the only
thing that my meat, my food right now is my tears. It's my tears. Tears are the seasoning of our
prayers. It's the seasoning of our prayers.
No one can doubt the sincerity of our prayers when they are
bathed in tears. I thought, well, sometimes a
good diet of tears is very healthy. Sometimes it's healthy. And there's no doubt David felt
the pain of his sin that caused this problem going on here. In 2 Samuel 16, 11, listen to
this. I don't know if you remember,
but Abishai was cursing David. He was cursing him. And David
said to Abishai and to all his servants, I think his name was
Shimei, he said, Behold, my son, which came forth of my boughs,
seeketh my life. How much more now may this Benjamite
do it? Let him alone and let him curse,
for the Lord hath bidden him. This is of God. David knew that
this cursing of this Benjamite, because the person with David
wanted to kill him. David said, No, this is of God.
I deserve this. This is of God. And my tears have been my meat
day and night. He truly wept. He wept over his
sins. He wept over the the fact that he couldn't sense
the presence of God, that God was gone from him. He wept over
that. David was very sensitive. He was very sensitive to the
presence of God. He wanted and desired greatly
God's presence more than anything. If you read the Psalms, in reading
the Psalms, how often have we read him speaking like this?
It's like, I was thinking today, I thought, I feel like I'm reading
his diary when I read the Psalms, because he's so personal in them. But he says here, "...my tears
have been my meat, day and night, while they continually say to
me..." And here's one of the reasons of his tears. "...Where
is thy God?" This hurt him so much. This was so painful to
him. He's on the run, and they're saying, David, where's your God?
It's as if they've encircled Him, and they're all around Him,
and they're taunting Him, and they're saying, where is your
God now, David? The God you say you worship, the God that you
say is in heaven, where is He now? And that hurt Him so much. It
hurts when people lie on God, when people blaspheme God. That hurts, doesn't it? It hurts.
You know, if somebody says something about my mother and father, that
hurts. Or about my sons or my grandchildren,
that hurts. I remember one time, Vicky's
brother, somebody said something about, I think he said something
about his son. He goes, hold on now. He said,
now that hurts. He stopped him, they started
to say something. I'm not sure if it was about his son, but
he just, he said, hold on now. He said, now it hurts. And he
gave him a warning. And it does, it hurts. It hurts, somebody talks about
someone you love. And there's no one that we love
more than Jesus Christ, our Lord. He says, it hurts when they say,
where is now your God? You know they said the same thing
to our Lord when He was hanging on the cross. Let's see if God
will have Him. He knows what that's all about.
Where is your God now? Let's see if God will have Him.
Charles Spurgeon said, that's been said to many of saints in
trouble. He said, Queen Mary said it of John Knox when he
fled to the highlands. He said, but when the French
were defeated by the Scots, she found out where his God was.
You know, the Scripture says this, David says this in the
Psalms, But our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever
he hath pleased. God is in the heavens. God's
on the throne. There's never a time that God
is not on the throne. There's never a time that God
is not ruling. This is of God. You see, you
and I, and we should learn from this, we should learn. We have
the opportunity, the great pleasure of reading what happened before
and what happened after, just like Job. You know, when Job
went through that, he didn't know all that was going on, but
you and I have the pleasure of opening the Word of God and we
see it. And by seeing that, God hasn't changed. He's the same
God. Here David is on the run and
Ahithophel is given this advice, good advice as far as that goes,
to kill David and how to get him. And then the other one comes
in and the Lord uses him to give opposite counsel and overthrow
that counsel all for the reason of bringing Absalom to the point
where he's killed and David is restored as king. But David doesn't
know all this. He doesn't know it. But you and
I know it because we get to read it. We need to apply that to
our own lives. Anyway, here he says, while they
continually say to me, where is now that God? Never judge, listen, never judge
by outward appearance. Never judge, especially a believer,
especially a believer, never judge that believer by outward
appearance. You know, Job's three friends
came to him, and their opinion of Job was, you have really done
something bad. You've messed up, son. God wouldn't
do this to a perfect man. God wouldn't do this to a righteous
man. Oh yes, He would. He did it to His son, didn't
He? Never judged by outward appearance.
Jesus Christ looked like a defeated reformer. But in reality, He
was and is the victorious Lord and Savior. Lord and Savior. King of kings and Lord of lords. I can't help but think whenever
I read the Gospels and those Pilate and all those men that
were there, those soldiers and all of them were nailed into
a cross that the day they died, guess who they saw? Jesus Christ. We put you to death. We nailed
you to the cross. And there He is, King of kings
and Lord of lords. David says here in verse 4, when
I remember these things, you know, sometimes memory can be
a painful thing. Especially when we reflect on
the times when we could sense that the Lord was with us and
we worshipped with His people and now we can't I'm so cold. I'm so cold and so depressed
and so cast down and I can read the Word of God and I can't get
anything out of it. It doesn't bless me. How do I get in such a state
like this? It's painful. It's painful. It
says in Psalm 137, 1-4, listen to this, By the rivers of Babylon, there
we sat down. Yea, we wept when we remembered
Zion. We hanged our harps upon the
willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us
away, captives, required of us a song. Sing us a song of Zion,
taunting them. You're our captors. Now, sing
us a song of Zion, of your Deliverer. Sing us a song of your Deliverer.
And they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us
one of the songs of Zion. And they said, How shall we sing
the Lord's song in a strange land? How? And David says, When
I remember these things... What's he talking about, when
I remember these things? He says here, go on and read
it. "'When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me, for
I had gone with the multitude.'" He's speaking here of the worship
service. This is what he's speaking of. "'I went with them to the
house of God.'" He led the procession. He was the leader of it. "'I
went with them to the house of God with a voice of joy and praise
as we walked along, and they were singing, and they would
keep in step with their with their song. They would keep in
step with it as they walked along. And there was joy, and there
was praise, and I was with the multitude that kept holy day.
And this is painful. I can't do it anymore. I'm in
a strange land. I'm running. It was painful enough
the few weeks that we didn't meet together here. Did you not
get hungry? I did. I got hungry for this
place. I got hungry for the Word of
God. I got hungry to stand here again and preach the gospel. It's painful to a child of God
not to be able to go to the worship service with God's people. If
it's not, you know, if a person can just show up once in a while
and it's okay if I'm there, if I'm not, you got problems. That person has problems, serious
problems. Try not to breathe. Just don't
breathe. You're going to have a problem.
That's the way it is with a child of God in worship and prayer
and seeking after the Lord. It's like breathing. You have
to breathe. You have to feed on Christ. Christ is sheep food. He's our
food. He's our drink. People who can stay away with
ease, And they're not hungry and thirsty for the living God.
It's because they're dead. You know what hunger and thirst
are? Signs of life. Signs of life. Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst after righteousness. The signs of life are that you
hunger and thirst after God. You long for Him. You desire
His presence. And then David challenges his
soul. You know, we're a complicated
creature, a being, or whatever you want to call it. We're complicated. But sin has complicated us. David
says here, he says, well, he'll say here in a minute, he says,
Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted
in me? Why? He said, You have no reason
to really be cast down. I'm a child of God. If God be
for me, who can be against me? I know that all of this looks
bad, but it's of God. It's of God. And the living God
is my God. And why art thou depressed?"
That's why he's saying, you see, back then they called it cast
down. Today we call it depressed. They say, I'm depressed. David
says, I'm cast down. Same thing. Why are you cast
down? Oh my soul, he's reaching, David
is now turned on himself. And he's actually, this is David,
listen, this is David speaking to David. This is like that new
man encouraging him to straighten up. Why are you cast down? Oh my
soul, why are you so agitated? This disquieted is a strong agitation. He's so agitated inside. Why
are you so disquieted in me? Well, one of the reasons we get
cast down, like I said, is sin and unbelief. But we have no
real reason to. Has God changed? Is He not the same? Is he not
the faithful God? God never changes. He said, I
am the Lord, I change not. Therefore you sons of Jacob are
not consumed, because I don't change. And he gives himself here the
remedy. Why art thou cast down, O my
soul? Why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God. Hope thou in God. for I shall
yet praise Him for the help of His countenance." Now, in my
Bible, in the margin of it, some of you, we have the same Bible,
you see there it says, for the help of His countenance, got
a number four there, over in the margin, it says, His presence
is salvation. His presence is salvation. Hope
thou in God, for His presence is my salvation." Now, we know
that God is everywhere. We know that. God is omnipresent.
He's everywhere. But He's with us, especially
in Christ, and He's for us in salvation. His presence, listen,
God's presence is my salvation. It is. But hope thou in God,
hope in His unfailing love. Hope in His faithfulness. Hope
in Him as the living God who rules over all. No one can put
Him in check. No one. And hope in this, that His presence,
His very existence, the very existence of God is your salvation. Oh my God. Now look, here we
go. It's like, David's like this. You ever see a ship on a storm?
I mean, on the ocean. Henry was telling me, you know,
he was in the Navy and he was talking about he was in a typhoon
one time. He said, I didn't think it was going to make it. He said,
we would be right up on top of that wave, man, way down there,
then way down we go, down at the bottom, then way back up
the top. This is David, this is David. Now look, he says,
why you cast down all my soul? Why are you so disquieted in
me? Hope thou in God, I'll praise him for the help of his countenance. Oh my God, he said, my soul is
cast down with him. And now he's coming off the top
of that wave and he's going back down. how up and down we are,
even in the same prayer. Even in the same prayer. This
is soul wrestling. This is wrestling with God. And
this is wrestling with yourself, because you know better. You
know better. You know that. You know that
there's a struggle that goes within, you have these doubts,
and then on the other hand, you say, why are you doubting for?
God is God. All things are of God. Then you
turn around and it's like a boxing match with yourself. Oh my God, my soul was cast down
within me. But I tell you this, however
up and down we are, God's the right person to cast all your
cares upon, for he cares for you. I like the fact that when
we read David, it gives me encouragement to be able to talk to God like
what's on my heart. He knows it anyway, like you
think you're going to hide it if you don't say it. He knows
it anyway. He knows your thoughts. He knows
the way you feel. And David expressed them to the Lord. He says here, Oh my God, my soul
is cast down within me. Therefore, because I'm cast down,
and here he's reaching, here he's talking to himself again.
He's encouraging himself again. Therefore will I remember thee
from the land of Jordan and of the Hermonites and from the hill
of Miser. I'll remember you, Lord, in the
times when you blessed me. I'll reach back to those times
when you buttered my steps. You buttered my steps, you blessed
me, because I tell you what, as He is, so He will be. I remember
the time you blessed me, and I thought this, do you have a
hermeneut or a miser that you can look back on with sweet reflections?
When you're in the time of trouble, do so. Do so. When you're laying there in a
sickbed, look back on those times when God was blessing you and
your steps were buttered. because you're going to need
it sometime. Sooner or later, you're going to need it. Some memories are good. Here's
a man, you can tell, here's a man that God's given spiritual life
to. He remembers things that trouble
him, and then he remembers things about God that bring joy to him. And he says here in verse 7,
"'Deep calleth unto deep.'" Oh, the deep things of God, the purpose
of God, and the deep things He puts us through in order to fulfill
His purpose and conform us to the image of Jesus Christ. "'Deep
calleth unto deep.'" at the noise of thy waterspouts, at all thy
waves and thy billows have gone over me. Now the Lord Jesus Christ
can say that. Jesus Christ can say all thy
waves and billows have gone over me because he experienced the
wrath of God. But now all of God's waves and
billows has not gone over us. That's an exaggeration. You know
how we are. We, we, uh, we make mountains
out of molehills. But, not to minimize the problem
here, Jonah said this, from the belly of hell, cried I. There
will be a time that God will take His children down in the
depths of sorrow and pain and suffering and they'll feel like,
it'll feel like all of God's waves are going over your head.
You're drowning. You're drowning. Last year when
I went with the grandkids to the beach, The waves were pretty
rough at that time when we were there. And I remember I had my
back turned and he hit me, took me under, rolled me around on
the sand, and I came up like a beached whale. And it hurt
my back. I got out of the water after
that, but it hurt. But I didn't see it coming. And you know,
there are times when trials will come. You don't see them coming.
You won't see them coming. The next thing you know, you'll
be pummeled on the floor rolling. But they're God's waves. That
ocean is God's ocean. And those trials are God's trials. Sometimes it seems that everything
is against me. Everything outward is against
me, and then I've got all this trouble going on inward, all
this struggle that I'm wrestling with inwardly. It just seems
like it's all against me. Peter said this in 1 Peter 4.12,
"'Think it not a strange thing concerning the fiery trials,
as though some strange thing happened to you.'" He's like,
what's going on? What's happening? God. God's
happening. And He's conforming you to the
image of His Son. And He's weaning you from this world. You and
I are more stuck to it than we think we are. But know this. Know this. God
never puts on us what He put on His Son. We never experience God's wrath,
not God's children. Yet the Lord, listen here, here's
His encouragement. All thy billows have gone over
me, thy waves and thy billows, they're rolling over me, I'm
drowning here in this trouble. Yet the Lord, here He's coming
back up now. He's coming back up. He's coming
up for air. Yet the Lord will, will, that's
future tense, because He has and He will command. This is
His sovereignty. This is God's sovereignty. God
will command His loving-kindness. Isn't that something? What strong
language. God will command His loving-kindness
in the daytime. In the daytime He will command
His loving-kindness, He will deliver me, and in the night
His song shall be with me. He'll give me a song in the night.
Even in the midst of trouble, He'll give me a song in the night.
And not only will He give me a song, but He'll give me a prayer.
And my prayer unto the... Listen. This is good. Unto the
God of my life. Unto the God of my life. Now
if you look back here, it says, Yet the Lord. And this psalm
right here starts the second book of the psalms. We went through
the first book, those first 40 psalms. The second book of the
psalms starts in this psalm. And the word Lord is used not
many times in the second book of the psalms. This is His covenant
name, Jehovah. He reaches into that His covenant
God. God is my covenant God. God hath
made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure.
And he's reaching to His covenant God, and he's saying, My covenant
God will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night
He'll give me a song to sing and a prayer to pray. God's lovingkindness,
listen, is our life vest in deep water. Strap it on tight. You know, every time I've ever
put a life vest on, it says to put it on tight. You don't need
a loose life vest. God's love and kindness is one
that you want to wrap around you tight. It'll carry you through
the roughest waters. the roughest waters. The Lord
said over in Isaiah, when you go through the waters, here's
your life vest, God's loving kindness. I'll be with you. He'll
command His loving kindness. He has complete command over
Himself and will use it for our good. And I like this, to God of my
life, this won't kill me. It may feel like it, but this
won't kill me. He's the God of my life. God,
and I thought of this verse right before coming down here, Matthew
22, 32 and Mark 12, 27. He said, I am the God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob. God is not the God of the dead,
but of the living. God's the God of my life. I'm
living. He's given me life. And I will say unto God, My rock. He doesn't lose sight of who
God is. God is my rock. He's my salvation. But I'll say unto Him, Why have
you forgotten me? Is there anybody in here bold
enough to say that when you pray and you're in trouble? David
says, I will say unto God my rock, why hast thou forgotten
me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? That's honest feelings, isn't
it? That's honest feelings. We can say things like that respectfully. We can say things like that respectfully.
We thank it, we might as well say it, as far as God's concerned,
because He knows. You know, I thought here, the
answer to that question is, why have you forgotten me, is why
is your faith so weak? Why is your faith so weak? How soon will we forget who we
are and who God is? He says here, "...as with a sword
in my bones, my enemies reproach me while they say daily unto
me..." And he says it again, "...where is thy God?" It hurts.
It hurts when they said this. He's saying, Lord, they're saying,
where is my God? They keep saying, where is my
God? You know why I think David is saying that? Turn back over
to 2 Samuel. Turn to 16. Let me see if I can
find it. I don't think I marked it. Well,
I wrote it down in my notes, I thought. Oh, well, I don't think I'm going
to be able to find the verse. Anyway, let me look here for a minute.
Okay, I got it. And look at verse 11. And David
said to Abishai and to all his servants, Behold, my son, which
came forth of my bowels, seeketh my life. How much more now may
this Benjamite do it? Let him alone and let him curse,
for the Lord hath bidden it. Listen here in verse 12. It may
be that the Lord will look on mine affliction, and that the
Lord will requite me good for his cursing this day. And it's just as if David is
saying, they keep saying, where is now thy God? God's going to
rise up. He's going to defend His name.
He's going to defend His name. And like David said, leave Him
alone. He said, it may be the Lord will requite me. They keep saying, where is thy
God? And I thought of this also. Thank God if it feels like someone
stabbed you with a sword when they speak against the living
God. Thank God if you feel that. Most people take His name in
vain and use it in cussing and everything else. Thank God if
it's just like, oh, don't say that. There was a time you and
I didn't feel anything when God's name was used in vain and spoken
against. Why go out mourning because of
the oppression of the enemy? You know why? Because you have
life. As soon as I read that, that's
what I thought. Here's why you go mourning, because
you have life. Dead people don't mourn over
such things that concern God and His glory. They don't mourn
over that, but you do. You do. And then to close, David
ends this with, Why art thou cast down? He ends it with encouraging
himself again. Why art thou cast down, O my
soul? And why art thou disquieted within
me? Hope thou in God. Keep looking
to Him. Get your mind off of Absalom.
Get your mind off the situation and get your mind on God. There's
nothing more depressing than when you think about yourself.
Really, there's nothing more depressing when you're constantly
thinking of yourself. You're thinking of, you know,
you need to make more money, you need more of this, you got
this. Get your mind off yourself and get your mind on God. The
greatest thought and the greatest use of your mind is when it's
thinking upon God. That's the pinnacle of the use
of your mind, is to think upon God. Hope thou in God, for I shall
yet praise Him. This is confidence here. I'll praise Him. I'll yet praise
Him. When this is over, when this trial is over, I will praise
God for it. And I will praise God for who
He is. And I will praise God for sending it. I will praise
God for it. Who is the health of my countenance,
and now He calls Him my God. My God. If you and I can find
all our hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have nothing to be
cast down about. As God saved you, Has God saved
you in Christ? Has God saved me in Christ? I
believe He has. I have nothing to be cast out
about. Not one thing. Nothing. And he ends by calling God, my
God, my God. How to overcome spiritual depression? Hope thou in God. Hope thou in
God. Set your mind on things above,
not on things of the earth.