SERMON OUTLINE:
Reason for Psalmists depression:
• Separation (vs 6)
• Attack (vs 3&10)
• Grief (vs 3,5 &7)
Remedies to the Psalmists depression:
• He prays (vs 9)
• He affirms (vs 8)
• He sings (vs 8)
• He preaches (vs 5&11)
• He remembers (vs 4)
• He thirsts (vs 1-2).
SERMON BODY:
Ill:
• A little boy watched as his mother gently rubbed cream all over her face.
• He then asked his mum the question, “Why are you rubbing cold cream on your face?”
• His mother replied, “To make myself beautiful,”
• A few minutes later, she began removing the cream with a tissue.
• The boy looked at her and said, “What’s the matter? Are you giving up?”
• TRANSITION: When it comes to life,
• Many people feel like giving up!
• Life is meant to be beautiful but for many it is miserable and sad.
One insight that jumps out of this psalm is that the writer had depression!
• He is downcast, disillusioned, and very depressed.
• Depression is not a new thing,
• It has troubled people everywhere, and in every age,
• And today, depression is a mental illness that affects around one in four people,
• It may not be as severe in each person,
• But it can still cause many people to be disheartened and down.
Note:
• If you suffer from depression, then you are in very good company!
• Throughout history many deeply spiritual men and women have experienced depression:
• i.e. Charles Spurgeon, one of Britain’s greatest preachers,
• Was immobilized for weeks at a time by depression.
• In a biography of the "prince of preachers", Arnold Dallimore wrote,
"What he suffered in those times of darkness we may not know...
even his desperate calling on God brought no relief.
'There are dungeons', he said, 'beneath the castles of despair.'"
Other well-known Christians who suffered depression include:
• Martin Luther; John Calvin; John Wesley; William Cowper; Emily Dickinson,
• Sir Isaac Newton; Florence Nightingale and C.S. Lewis,
• And those are just a few, the list could easily go on and on and on!
• And when you look into the pages of the Bible,
• We will come across well-known names of those who suffered with depression.
• Abraham, King David, Job, Jonah, Elijah, Jeremiah, Moses. John the Baptist.
• Once again, the list goes on and on and on!
• TRANSITION: throughout Christian history,
• Many deeply spiritual men and women have experienced depression.
Question: Can anything good come out of these dark times of depression?
Answer: is yes!
• God can use all our experiences in life – including those dark times.
• To teach us and to use those experiences to shape our character,
• And make us some help to others who are going through similar experiences.
Ill:
• How a pearl is formed.
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/934totJgo_U
Quote: Stephan Hoell
“A pearl is a beautiful thing that is produced by an injured life. It is the tear (that results) from the injury of the oyster
<video called it the: ‘Peral sack around the disturbance’>.
The treasure of our being in this world is also produced by an injured life. If we had not been wounded, if we had not been injured, then we will not produce the pearl.”
• TRANSITION:
• God can use all our experiences in life,
• To teach us and refine us and through them shape our character,
• And make us some help to others who are going through similar experiences.
Now, the reasons for depression can be many and varied,
• There is no one diagnosis that fits every person,
• People are unique and they may share common symptoms with others,
• But there is no one cure for every person.
• This sermon is not going to claim to be the remedy for depression,
• What it will do is give some good principles that will help when we are down.
• It will remind us that God can use our difficult times, our tears,
• To produce something beautiful from our pain.
NOW DEPRESSION IS A KEY THEME IS PSALM (#42):
• One reason for writing a song is to tell others exactly how we feel.
• Songs are poems set to music,
• That express our feelings, our moods, our emotions.
• Songs are written from then heart and not just the mind.
• And that is why we so easily identify with them.
• Although the writer of this psalm is not named,
• Later tradition attributes it to ‘A maskil (scholar) of the Sons of Korah.’
• “Sons” can also mean descendants as well as a biological son.
• We may not know the name of this scholar,
• But we do know that he knew what it was to be depressed, despondent and dejected,
• We find him in the grip of a dark bout of depression.
Question: What is depression?
Answer:
Ill:
• DVD: What are Symptoms of Depression?
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/uUsfdxUO-I4
• TRANSITION: The Christian psychiatrist, Louis McBurney writes:
• (Leadership Magazine, Spring Quarter, 1991).
• “Depression takes many different forms.
• Emotionally it appears as a feeling of sadness, not wanting to go on,
• Hopelessness and, in extreme cases, self-destruction.
• Physically it is expressed through tension, headaches, tiredness,
• Bowel disturbances and chest pain,
• Even though a physician would be hard pressed to find anything physiologically wrong.”
Ill:
• Stats taken from ‘The Ultimate List of Mental Health Statistics for 2019’
• https://www.uksmobility.co.uk/blog/2019/03/mental-health-statistics/
“1 out of 4 people in the UK have a mental health problem.
3 million UK citizens are diagnosed with this mental disorder, and that number is increasing.
More than half of all individuals committing suicide suffer from depression.
Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide.”
Note:
• There is no one cause of depression.
• It is often an interaction of genetic factors, body chemistry and life events.
• It spans the spectrum of negative states from feeling low to severe or clinical depression.
• Because there is no one cause of depression.
• There is therefore no one simple solution.
(a). For some people medicine may well be needed:
• Please do not be more spiritual than God!
• Who once told a sick man to; “take a little wine for his stomachs sake”?
• (1st Timothy chapter 5 verse 21)
• He did not tell Timothy to “claim his healing” or even to “pray more!”
• He told Timothy to “take your medicine.”
• By all means pray and ask for healing (that is always a wise course of action),
• But one-way God does heal is through medicine – so keep taking it if you need it!
Ill:
• Remember the apostle Paul travelled with a doctor on his team – Dr Luke.
• Although he was a good historian, he was first and foremost a medic!
(b). For some people a lifestyle change may well be needed:
• i.e. They may need to change their diet.
• What we eat plays a key part in our physical & psychological make-up.
• We all need to be eating fruit & vegetables and to cut down on the junk foods.
• i.e. They may need to introduce some regular exercise into their daily schedule.
• Just a 30min walk a day can make a big difference.
• i.e. They may need to change their sleeping patterns.
• Routine - resist the urge to stay up late at night and then lying in bed all morning.
Question: What are the reasons for the psalmist’s depression?
Answer: Let me highlight 3 of them:
Reason #1: Separation (vs 6):
• Notice where the psalmist is when he writes this song.
• Verse 6 tells us that he is away from home.
• Verse 6: the psalmist describes his location as:
• Being in 'the land of Jordan, the heights of Hermon - from Mount Mizar'
• From his description David tells us that he is residing in the northernmost part of Israel.
• He is unable to get down south to Judah.
• We might say that he is experiencing a nasty bout of homesickness.
Note: I think that the psalmist being away from home can be taken in two ways.
• First geographically:
• He is far away from home physically (North-east),
• Verse 6: “…the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.”
• Back home in the South,
• The sons of Korah watched over the east and north gates of the Temple.
• (The sons of Merari the south and east).
• These singer-gatekeepers surrounded the Temple,
• Standing every morning and evening to thank and praise God.
• (1Chronicles chapter 23 verses 12-31).
• But in this Psalm, he is far from home,
• And homesickness can be a pretty, strong depressant!
• Second: spiritually.
• But he is also away from his home spiritually!
• Being in the north he is unable to go to the temple in Jerusalem (South),
• He is used to being with others and regularly going to the temple to worship God.
• But now that is all a distant memory,
• He is absent, far away and isolated!
• This leads David to enter a downward spiral of discouragement.
• He feels ‘cut off' from God,
• And he also feels forgotten by him as well (vs 9):
“I say to God my Rock,
‘Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?’”
Reason #2: Attack (vs 3&10)
• He is under attack by his enemies.
• Verse 3 & verse 10:
“My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
‘Where is your God?’”
“My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
‘Where is your God?’”
• The psalmist is being taunted for his faith.
• This mockery feels to the psalmist like severe blows to the ribs.
• They are that painful!
• We use the expression; “kicking a man when he is down”.
• That is exactly how the psalmist feels.
• Notice: What makes this taunting especially painful
• Is that his enemies are actually using as an accusation,
• The very thing the psalmist is thinking - namely, where is 'God in all this?’
Reason #3: Grief (vs 3,5&7):
• The psalmist is in a very bad way emotionally.
• He finds himself crying all the time.
• Verse 3 informs us that:
• He is living on a diet of tears rather than on truly nourishing food.
• The psalmist is literally down in the dumps.
• He is utterly depressed by the whole situation (vs 5).
“Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?”
• He feels that life is simply too much for him.
• And that any moment he will have a complete breakdown (vs 7).
“Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.”
• Like so many who experience these dark times of depression,
• The psalmist is going through a grieving process.
• To him it feels like losing a loved one.
• For some people a sense of profound loss,
• Can accompany periods of severe depression.
Ill:
• DVD Clip 0 to 1.45secs: Depression Understood: What It Is Like to Have Depression
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/OJ7cf-AgLTQ
• TRANSITION: Davis the psalmists depression is severe!
• He feels separated, he feels under attack, he feels intense grief.
Note:
• Despite his depression, if you scan the psalm:
• You can find six things that the psalmist does to help lift his spiritual depression.
• Six insights as to how David responds to discouragement and depression.
• Six things that I you and I can copy in our own seasons of darkness.
• For those of you taking notes,
• I will give them to you in two sets of three.
• The first three, he prays, he affirms, and he sings.
First: He prays (vs 9).
“I say to God my Rock,
‘Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?’”
• First, he responds to his circumstances by talking to God.
• “I say to God, my rock: ‘Why have you forgotten me?”
• Always a good idea to bring God into the equation,
• Now notice how he refers to God in this prayer.
• He calls him his ‘rock’.
• A rock of course is a solid and immovable, it can be a strength and defence.
• So even though in his heart felt forgotten,
• His mind knew that this could not possibly be the case.
• Because God is unmovable and steadfast.
(2). He affirms (vs 8)
“By day the LORD directs his love,
at night his song is with me –
a prayer to the God of my life.”
• Here the psalmist is affirming God’s love to him.
• Although feelings and circumstances may look as if God has forgotten him,
• His faith says, “No!”
• And he clings to, he holds on to the promises of God and he never stops believing.
Ill:
“Three men were walking on a wall,
Feeling, Faith and Fact.
When Feeling got an awful fall,
Then Faith was taken back.
So close was Faith to Feeling,
That he stumbled and fell too,
But fact remained and pulled Faith back,
And Faith brought Feeling too”
• So, in the core of his discouragement he affirms God’s love for him.
• As well as being ‘loved’ by God (vs 8),
• He also remembers (vs 5 & 11), that God is his “Saviour and God.”
Notice:
• He says in verse 7b: “All YOUR waves and breakers have swept over me.”
• He says all his crashing and tumultuous and discouraging circumstances.
• Are the waves of God.
• But he never loses his grip on the promises of God,
• The act as the ballast in his little boat of faith.
• They keep him from capsizing in the tumult of his emotions.
(3). He sings (vs 8)
“By day the LORD directs his love,
at night his song is with me –
a prayer to the God of my life.”
• This song might have started out like an old blues song,
• “Well I woke up this morning, feeling blue”
• But I would suggest the tune and the style changes,
• Even in the night, when symbolically everything is at its darkest,
• He says, God is able to give his people a song to sing.
Ill:
• Many of our great hymns and songs were written out of adversary.
• The hymn ‘When peace like a river’ comes to mind.
• DVD: It Is Well with My Soul: The Story Behind the Hymn - Horatio Spafford
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/Bvq3pYsHidA
Note:
• For those of you taking notes,
• Here are the second three ways the psalmist lifts up his heart and spirit,
• He preaches, he remembers, and he thirsts.
(4). He preaches (vs 5&11).
“Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Saviour and my God.”
• Notice who the psalmist is preaching to!
• He is not in a pulpit, rather he is preaching to his own soul (vs 5&11).
• The psalmist says we must all learn to preach the truth to ourselves.
• We must all learn to practice our own theology.
Quote:
• Fifty plus years ago Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote a book called, ‘Spiritual Depression’
• Martyn Lloyd-Jones was both a medical doctor and a Minister.
• His book is based on this Psalm and he insightfully comments on this verse:
Have you 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. You have not originated them but they are talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment [in Psalm 42] was this: instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says,: “Self, listen for moment, I will speak to you.”
• That is good insight and advice,
• Too many of us are victims of listening to self rather than talking to self.
• May we all learn to skill of preach our knowledge and theology to ourselves.
(5). He remembers (vs 4).
“These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise
among the festive throng.”
Ill:
• We are used to looking at photos and videos,
• We have photos on display in our homes, on our phones and all-over social media.
• It is our way of looking back, remembering a moment or an event or a person.
• Looking back at photos and videos is normally a pleasant experience,
• We are able to revive good memories and lift our spirits.
• TRANSITION: That is what the psalmist does here,
• He has to use word pictures as the technology we use was not available to him.
• The psalmist was experiencing agony of the present,
• So, he balances the scales by recalling joyful events of the past,
• He remembers when he was with God’s people, in God’s house,
• And together worshipping God.
Ill:
• Corporate worship is so important in the life of every Christian.
• I hope in lockdown you are missing ‘live congregational worship!’
• Video & Zoom meetings are a substitute,
• But we know instinctively that they are poor substitutes.
• When we meet collectively together and when we praise God together,
• We should encourage one another to lift our eyes and thoughts upward towards God.
• And that should always lift our spirits and thrill our hearts.
(6). He thirsts (vs 1-2).
“As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?”
Ill:
• The writer of this Psalm longed for God,
• In the same way a deer searches for water during a drought.
• Such a longing is intense, it is urgent, it is a priority,
• Without water a deer dies and without God we might as well be dead!
• The deer will be refreshed and revitalised by life-giving water.
• And the believer will also be refreshed and revitalised by the life-giving water of God.
Note:
• Verse 2: He asked when he might “meet with God” or “appear before God”
• This is Old Testament jargon for going on a pilgrimage to the Temple.
• A likely translation of the end of verse 2 is:
• “When will I come and see the face of God.”
• Quote: Someone has said that:
• “Many men seek the hand of God but very few seek His face”.
• Sadly, too many Christians want the blessings of God,
• But not always God himself!
• Our longings reveal our priorities.
• The psalmist longed for God and not for lesser things.
Notice the four motions that the psalmists take in this psalm:
• First: it is backward to Mount Zion from which he has been removed.
• Second: It is to the temple on that mountain, to the place where God dwells.
• Third: it is to the altar of God before the temple.
• Fourth: it is to God himself!
In conclusion:
• Psalm 42 goes much further than mere words on a page.
• It is a human spirit crying out in despair,
• It is someone finding God and his comfort and encouragement.
• He did not find God or his comfort easily,
• It required him being like the thirsty deer seeking for refreshing water.
• Now many scholars think that Psalm 42 and Psalm 43,
• Are one Psalm that has been divided into two psalms.
• Don’t panic I am not going to give you another sermon,
• But I will finish by quoting a verse from Psalm 43 verse 5,
• (The Living Bible captures the psalmist’s sentiments superbly):
“O my soul, why be so gloomy and discouraged? Trust in God! I shall again praise him for his wondrous help; he will make me smile again] for he is my God!”
SERMON AUDIO:
https://surf.pxwave.com/wl/?id=l3d7XSWKuRoyTHyy9IZGYcBedqUXRQTc
SERMON VIDEO:
https://youtu.be/EjD_C34Vww8
