Message 3 - Psalms Of The Sons Of Korah. Psalm 42 Part 3 Series

MESSAGE 3 - PSALMS OF THE SONS OF KORAH. PSALM 42 Part 3

Ron Ferguson ronaldf@aapt.net.au

Let us read the last section of the Psalm –

Psa 42 v 7 Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls. All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me. Psa 42:8 The LORD will command His loving-kindness in the daytime and His song will be with me in the night, a prayer to the God of my life. Psa 42:9 I will say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” Psa 42:10 As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Psa 42:11 Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance, and my God.

We are considering verse 8. Sometime in the 2nd half of the 1800s C H Spurgeon gave a message one night titled “Songs in the Night” which took well over an hour. It is one of his most famous sermons. Here is the opening part –

“No one says, 'Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night.” [Job 35 v 10]

Elihu was a wise man, very wise, though not as wise as Jehovah, who finds order in confusion; therefore Elihu, being very puzzled at seeing the afflictions of Job, studied him to find the cause of it, and he very wisely hit upon one of the most likely reasons, although it did not happen to be the right one in Job's case. He said within himself - “Surely, if men are tested, and tried, and extremely troubled, it is because, while they think about their troubles, and distress themselves about their fears, they don’t say, ‘Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night?’” Elihu's reason was right in the majority of cases. The great cause of the Christian's distress, the reason for the depths of sorrow into which many believers are plunged, is simply this - that while they are looking around, on the right hand and on the left, to see how they may escape their troubles, they forget to look to the hills where all real help comes from; they don’t say, “Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night?” We will, however, leave that question, and dwell on those sweet words, “God my Maker, who gives songs in the night.”

The world has its night. It seems necessary that it should have one. The sun shines in the day, and men go out to their labours; but they grow weary, and nightfall comes, like a sweet blessing from heaven. The darkness draws the curtains, and shuts out the light, which might prevent our eyes from slumber; while the sweet, calm stillness of the night permits us to rest on our beds, and there forget for a while our cares, until the morning sun appears, and an angel puts his hand on the curtain, and draws it open once again, touches our eyelids, and commands us to rise, and proceed to the labours of the day.

Night is one of the greatest blessings men and women enjoy; we have many reasons to thank God for it. Yet night is, to many, a gloomy time. There is “the pestilence that stalks in darkness;” there is “the terror by night;” there is the dread of robbers and of sudden disease, with all those fears that the timid know when they have no light with which they can discern objects. It is then they imagine that spiritual creatures walk the earth; though, if they really knew the truth, they would find it to be true, that - “Millions of spiritual creatures walk this earth, unseen, both when we sleep and when we are awake,” and that at all times they are all around us - not more by night than by day.

Night is the time of terror and alarm to most men and women. Yet even night has its songs. Have you ever stood by the seaside at night, and heard the pebbles sing, and the waves chant God's glories? Or have you never risen from your bed, and opened your bedroom window, and listened? Listened to what? Silence - except now and then a murmuring sound, which seems like sweet music. And have you not imagined that you heard the harp of God playing in heaven? Didn’t you conceive, that the distant stars, those eyes of God, looking down on you, were also lips of song - that every star was singing God's glory, singing, as it shone, its mighty Maker, and his lawful, well-deserved praise? Night has its songs. We don’t need much poetry in our spirit, to catch the song of the night, and hear the planets and stars as they chant praises which are loud to the heart, though they are silent to the ear - the praises of the mighty God, who holds up the arch of heaven, and moves the stars in their courses.