SERIES - PSALMS OF THE SONS OF KORAH – PSALM 88 - PART 2
THE GLOOMIEST CHAPTER IN THE BIBLE – PSALM 88 – PASSING THROUGH STORMY SEAS – PART 2
It is considered that Psalm 88 is the gloomiest chapter in the whole bible. It could be said there are no positives in the Psalm. It is never or rarely preached on, but this is one of the blessings of expository preaching where you cover the whole text or book, not just favourite passages and selective texts.
We looked at the introduction last time, the first 6 verses. Now we continue.
Psalm 88:7 Your wrath has rested upon me, and You have afflicted me with all Your waves. Selah. Psa 88:8 You have removed my acquaintances far from me. You have made me an object of loathing to them. I am shut up and cannot go out.
We look at these two verses that dwell on the blame attributed to God, for in the psalmist’s mind, God took actions that had made it miserable for this man. God’s wrath rested on him. God washed waves over him that caused distress and torment. God removed from him all his friends and caused them to despise him. More than that, God allowed him to become an object of hate by those once friends and companions. God has caused him to be shut up so he cannot go out. I suppose you have to use your own imagination as to why he was not able to leave his house.
Well all that is a picture of misery with not one good prospect. We would expect for the Christian, that he or she might say, “but the Lord remains with me,” or, “Please, Lord help me in this situation,” but in the whole psalm, only one verse approaches that, verse 13. These two verses are the image of misery. It’s almost too depressing, isn’t it? “God did all this to me. He really bashed me up.”
We began last time with the prayer at the start of the chapter. Look at those verses – Psalm 88:1 O LORD, the God of my salvation, I have cried out by day and in the night before You. Psa 88:2 Let my prayer come before You. Incline Your ear to my cry.
The psalmist launched straight into prayer but it was a prayer of lament, and there is no hint what the problem was. I dare say there was one; it’s just not stated. Returning to verses 7 and 8, in those two verses is an experience many feel sometimes in their lives. “Why has God done this to me? Why has God left me?” Even, “What have I done to deserve this terrible stuff? Does God care?” There are even times we feel like that and can’t put a finger on it.
Job went through more, I dare say. He did nor curse God or blame Him. He just cursed the day of his birth. A man who gives up on God when he is in hardship is not worthy of the grace of God that was extended to him in the first place.
Some people have reactionary feelings. By that I mean they react straight away and lash out. They adopt an irrational stance. Irrational people never make for harmony. They cause division. I think this might be the reason why some turn from God when the way gets hard. They react against God and give it all up. The psalmist was not doing that. He was just pouring out his heart from a well of misery.
Last time I mentioned the strong parallels between Psalm 88 and the two Messianic psalms 22 and 69. There is similar language. Those Messianic psalms were prayers from the cross when the Lord suffered there. The New Testament gives very few statements of Jesus on the day of crucifixion but the Psalms give a lot. It is even more pronounced as you go through Psalm 88. Here are a few of the verses that can be considered as parallels -
Psalm 22:6 But I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of men, and despised by the people. [The psalmist was despised by those who once knew him].
Psalm 69:2 I have sunk in deep mire and there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters and a flood overflows me. [The psalmist afflicted by waves that washed over him whatever the reason].
Psalm 69:8 I have become estranged from my brothers and an alien to my mother’s sons. [The psalmist had all his friends removed. He was alone. Speak on the significance of this verse.
Psalm 69:11-12 When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them. Those who sit in the gate talk about me and I am the song of the drunkards, [His acquaintances had been removed from the psalmist].
Psalm 69:15 May the flood of water not overflow me and may the deep not swallow me up and may the pit not shut its mouth on me. [God’s waves had afflicted the psalmist and the waves of judgement afflicted Christ on the cross].
Psalm 69:20 Reproach has broken my heart, and I am so sick, and I looked for sympathy, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. [For his friends had turned against him and despised him].
Psalm 88 v 9 My eye has wasted away because of affliction. I have called upon You every day, O LORD. I have spread out my hands to You.
Have you ever felt that you are alone and not even God cares about it? You speak and pray but it is like you are in a lead box. We look at the second part of that verse firstly. It was not for want of trying or persisting, that was the problem. It was that God was so distant and did not answer. Every day he persisted in petition and stretching out his hands. It appeared to do no good.
I will ask you, “When do you give up doing that; when do you stop praying?” Some of the great prayer warriors pray for matters persistently and hold on in faith, not having an answer, maybe for years, even decades. Their hands are outstretched for the answer, but it does not come. I am not a prayer warrior, maybe a pen warrior, but I so admire the dedication and personal godly commitment of the one, who day after day, beseeches the Lord. These are your faithful ones. These are the intercessors. These are Hur and Aaron.
There is an expression used by the psalmist – “My eye has wasted away because of affliction.” What does it mean? The KJV uses “mourneth” but that is misleading. The versions with “waste” are correct. The eye is wasting away. It looks defective. It may be through constant crying or through great sadness, but physically, he was affected. Those undergoing great spiritual calamities do have their physical bodies affected. This is so plain in the two Messianic Psalms again, and in Isaiah 52 and 53. Distress of the soul is spiritual and physical.
Psalm 88 v 10 Will You perform wonders for the dead? Will the departed spirits rise and praise You? Selah. Psalm 88 v 11 Will Your loving-kindness be declared in the grave, Your faithfulness in Abaddon? Psalm 88 v 12 Will Your wonders be made known in the darkness and Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
The sad state continues and the misery speaks. When misery speaks, some people want to run away from the speaker, and might say something like, “What a miserable person. It depresses me.” The psalmist laments his condition with 4 questions. Now a word about questions. Let us consider this – if I was speaking to you and said, “Will the Lord return to catch up His Church?” then you would probably understand that I was questioning in a positive way. The automatic answer is YES. However if you heard that question from a non Christian as, “Well is Jesus coming once again?” then you sense the doubt behind the question. The person probably does not believe it.
So then, in what sense did the psalmist ask those 4 questions?
Look at the first two questions that are related. I suppose we could restate them as, “Will the dead remain dead, or will God revive them to rise up and praise God?” The word for dead is expanded by Ellicott – “These words are not to be taken in the sense of a final resurrection as we understand it. The hope of this had hardly yet dawned on Israel. The underworld is imagined as a vast sepulchre in which the dead lie, each in his place, silent and motionless, and the poet asks how they can rise there to utter the praise of God who has forgotten them.” The word for dead is “shades”, nerveless ghostly forms, whispy ghosts with no substance”.
Which position did the psalmist take? In his state of misery, maybe he thought there was no future anyway and death is the total end of everything. Many people in the world believe that. We live and we die and that is the end.
I want to look at the next two questions. They are also related to the first two questions. In the third one, he asks if God’s loving-kindness (or mercy in some translations), and God’s faithfulness can be known after death. Is it actually going to happen that God has something in store for the human soul after death, when the person is in the grave? Do we believe that or not believe that? Are we Sadducees in that regard?
If you have the NASB or ESV or Holman translations, the word at the end of verse 11 is Abaddon. If you have the KJV or the NIV, it is “destruction” and the NIV uses a capital letter because it is a place. It is used 6 times in the Old Testament and means a place of destruction and ruin. To return to that question in verse 11, the psalmist asks if there is going to be any of God’s faithfulness in a place of ruin and destruction.
Let us look at the last question in verse 12. The question posed is, will it be possible to know God’s wonders and righteousness in a place of darkness and forgetfulness, which is actually means oblivion? Can we know those things in nothingness?
Okay, we have looked at the questions. Now what does it all mean? I did look at a lot of commentators in all this and every one of them takes the position that when dead, always dead, and that is the end of it all. That was the psalmist’s position. All commentators state these verses have nothing to do with resurrection. I will give three quotes that cover that in a way.
[1]. All the passages cited confirm the impression got from this psalm of the Hebrew conception of the state of the dead. They were languid, sickly shapes, lying supine, cut off from all the hopes and interests of the upper air, and even oblivious of them all, but retaining SO much of sensation as to render them conscious of the gloomy monotony of death. (Ellicott)
[2]. The question here is not whether they would rise to live again, or appear in this world, but whether in Sheol they would rise up from their resting places, and praise God as men in vigour and in health can on the earth. The question has no reference to the future resurrection. It relates to the supposed dark, dismal, gloomy, inactive state of the dead. (Barnes)
[3]. To do ‘wonders’ is the prerogative of God (Exodus 15:11; Psalm 77:11; Psalm 77:14): to give thanks to Him for them is the duty of man: but the Psalmist cannot believe that even God will work such a miracle that the dead shall arise and praise Him. Rephâîm, the Heb. word for ‘shades,’ denotes the dead as weak and nerveless ghosts. Arise might mean no more than ‘stand up,’ referring to what takes place in the unseen world, but the parallel of Isaiah 26:14 suggests that it is a resurrection of which the poet speaks as inconceivable. (CBSC)
Back to those four questions. The psalmist is saying there is nothing in the grave that has any hope and they who are dead remain dead, forgotten, oblivion. Why then did he ask those questions, and what is their relevance to this Psalm? I can only guess and may the Lord help me to understand. I think what he is saying is that there is nothing once you are in the grave, but he is not in the grave yet. He is the land of the living so why won’t God answer him. He is wasting away and has no hope. He is still living, not with the dead in a place of forgetfulness and nothing, so where are the wonders, the praise, the loving-kindness of God, the faithfulness of God to him? Why is God not answering him for he is alive not dead?
At the outset last time I said this was the gloomiest chapter in the whole bible. There is not even one positive thing in it. It is not my purpose to dwell just on gloom for then you all leave feeling miserable and that is not the mission of a preacher. Now so far, what can we draw from all this?
This psalm by one of the sons of Korah would not have been written for praise in the tabernacle. We have looked at some of those psalms already and they are great monuments of praise and rejoicing, but this one is not. Maybe it could be sung at a funeral back in the time of its composition, but certainly not now.
The psalmist saw nothing after death, nothing from those dead shades in Abaddon but I want you now to turn to 1Corinthians. Come down to chapter 15 and verse 16. We will read four verses -
1Corinthians 15 v 16 If the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised, 1Cor 15:17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless. You are still in your sins. 1Cor 15:18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 1Cor 15:19 If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
In those verses Paul outlines the futility of the Christian faith if the belief in the resurrection is false. Those of us who go to church and live for God are just pitiful people if there is no resurrection. We are wasting our time. We have a worthless faith. However the great change comes in the next verse, a mighty power that rules over all creation. Let us look at it - 1Corinthians 15:20 “but now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.”
Christ's resurrection has guaranteed all resurrections. His death on the cross opened the way for men to know forgiveness of sins, and His resurrection paved the way for us to be raised with new bodies. The psalmist did not know that; he did not know there was life after death; he believed the Hebrew thought on it. God knew all about it though, and when the sons of Korah died they went to be in Paradise, in Abraham’s bosom, waiting for the resurrection of Christ and His ascension so they would all be translated into heaven.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the Resurrection and the Life. The glorious hope we have is the Rapture and if we are alive we will be changed from mortal to immortal, but the graves will burst open and all those who have died in Christ already will be changed from corruptible to incorruptible.
We can do no better than to end this message with the great words of victory and comfort that Paul wrote. Reading from 1Corinthians 15 starting at verse 51 –
1Corinthians 15 v 51-58 Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. This perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality, but when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.
We finished by singing the next song which is one of my poems. “Joyful, Joyful” from Beethoven’s 9th is the best tune I suggest.
TO BE ABSENT FROM THE BODY
To be absent from the body,
To be present with the Lord;
To be robed in linen garments
With eternal life unflawed.
I will then be in His presence,
Where the saints of God will shine,
And that blessed sinless pleasure -
O, that joy will then be mine.
Heaven’s call will soon come to us
Bathed in joy and happiness.
He will raise His saints up to Him,
Called from this world’s wretchedness.
In an instant changed forever,
In the power of His might,
And the glories then of heaven,
Will be wondrous in our sight.
It was grace that sought and saved us;
Nothing of it we deserved.
Wonders grace has stored up for us,
That in glory are reserved.
We will see our splendid Saviour,
Gathered with His ransomed throng.
Faces shine in radiance bright,
As they praise their Lord in song.
To be absent from the body,
To be present with the Lord,
And we long for that appearing,
As we rise to our reward.
Jesus soon comes, and He’ll change us
In the twinkling of an eye.
We’ll behold His full perfection,
Being flawless, we won’t die.
21 September 2021 R E Ferguson
Poem copyright. May be used with acknowledgement
ronaldf@aapt.net.au
