Introduction

There are times in life when we feel forsaken by God. The struggles of life become so overwhelming that we wonder if God is with us. It may be the illness of a loved one. It may be marital problems. It may be drug abuse. It may be financial setbacks. It may be sexual immorality. It may be persecution by our enemies. It may be betrayal by our friends. All these struggles can cause us to be downcast and feel alone and abandoned. The psalmist found himself in one of those situations and he gives us an example of steps we can take when we feel distant from God and that he has forsaken us.

This psalm and the previous psalm were originally one psalm. Therefore, the title of Psalm 42 is also the title of Psalm 43.

I. The Psalmist's Divided Soul, 1-2.

A. Verse 1 describes what is going on in the psalmist's life.

1. What makes his situation painful is that he has enemies, and they are oppressing him.

2. They are ungodly people, and they are threatening his life, or in some way making him miserable.

3. What are some of the enemies that surround us?

a. The world, the flesh, and the devil

b. Persecution for our faith

c. Unfulfilled desires

d. Difficult marriages

e. Loneliness

f. Pornography, infidelity, same sex attraction

g. Financial struggles

B. Verse 2 describes what is going on in his soul in response to this situation.

1. His soul is divided, split, that is, conflicted.

2. It explains why the psalmists sometimes pray that their hearts would be made one.

Psalm 86:11– Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name.

3. His heart is divided between saying in the first line of verse 2, "You are the God of my strength," and in the next line saying, "Why do you cast me off?" And then, "Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?"

4. Part of his heart is right now taking refuge in God – God has not let him go, and he has not let God go.

5. Yet, he is at a loss to know why God would allow his enemies to get the upper hand this way.

a. When he says, "Why do you cast me off?" he means:

"Why do turn your back and let the enemy make me miserable? You are my refuge. I have fled to you a hundred times. I fly to you now. But you have given me over to the scorn and threat of my enemies. There is darkness around me, and I am mourning in my oppression."

b. This is not an uncommon condition among the people of God.

1) A divided heart, a torn heart, a conflicted heart.

2) A heart torn between trusting that whatever God says is true, good, loving, and worthy of our trust and trying to figure out why it appears that God forsook us.

a) We see an example of this divided heart in the father of the boy with an evil spirit.

Mk. 9:14-24– When He came to the disciples, He saw a great multitude around them, and scribes disputing with them. Immediately, when they saw Him, all the people were greatly amazed, and running to Him, greeted Him. And He asked the scribes, "What are you discussing with them?" Then one of the crowd answered and said, "Teacher, I brought You my son, who has a mute spirit. And wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to Your disciples, that they should cast it out, but they could not." He answered him and said, "O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to Me." Then they brought him to Him. And when he saw Him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth. So He asked his father, "How long has this been happening to him?" And he said, "From childhood. And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us." Jesus said to him, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes." Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!"

b) We also see it in Paul's struggle with sin

Rom. 7:19– For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.

c) Each one of us can provide examples of a divided heart when contrary providences come our way.

3) In these times we must cry out with the man in Mark 9 – "Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief!"

II. How the Psalmist Handles the Issue of a Divided Soul.

A. He begins the psalm by crying out to God, "Vindicate me, O God, and plead my cause," 1.

1. He is crying out against his circumstances and asking God to change them – "Defeat these enemies, Lord! Give me victory!"

2. It is not wrong to pray that God rescue us from our enemies—whether they are people, or natural disaster, or disease.

3. It's right and good to pray for deliverance and for rescue and for healing, so he does that.

B. But that's not the only thing he does.

C. He does two other things that are far more important and beneficial to his soul, 3-5.

1. They are more important and beneficial to his soul because the desire for vindication and rescue from the enemy can be a purely natural desire

a. You do not have to be born of the Spirit in order to want to get rid of your enemies.

b. Everybody wants to be vindicated and rescued from his or her enemies.

c. It doesn't take a spiritual work in a person's life to make him/her want his/her enemies to be defeated and to escape the mess they are in.

2. The other two things the psalmist does, however, are not natural.

a. The first is that he speaks to God (in verse 3 and 4) and asks for God to lead him not mainly out of trouble, but to God—and specifically to God his exceeding joy.

b. The other is that he speaks to his own soul (in verse 5) and calls on his soul to hope in God.

D.The two steps you can take when you feel forsaken by God.

1. First, speak to God, 3-4

a. This prayer reveals a man with a rich spiritual experience.

1) His vocabulary, his view of reality, the sequence of his thought, the God-centeredness of his goal, the acquaintance with the sanctuary, the emotional outcome anticipated.

2) All this reveals a man who has lived with God and knows God.

3) Is it not amazing that even such a man can feel that God is distant, as if he has rejected him?

b. Notice that in this prayer there is a much more important victory to be won than victory over people, disaster, or illness.

c. He wants to be led to see God, to experience the power of God in his life – regardless of the enemies.

d. His prayer takes him through four stages.

1) Stage one: praying for spiritual light and truth, 3a

a) He confesses that he needs God to lead him because he is in the dark.

b) He knows he is in the dark because his heart is divided.

i. God is his refuge, but he feels forsaken.

ii. He feels rejected.

iii. He knows better – God does not reject those who take refuge in him.

Ps. 18:30– As forGod, His way isperfect; the word of the Lord is proven; He isa shield to all who trust in Him.

iv. But he feels like he can't help himself.

v. God is his refuge objectively, but subjectively he feels rejected and forsaken.

c) He knows the cause of this is darkness – he is spiritually blind to something, so he prays that GOD would give him light and truth.

d) He is praying that God would rescue him not from his enemies but from a far more dangerous enemy:

i. A darkness that causes the world to look much more attractive than it is and causes the greatness and beauty of God to fade out of sight.

ii. A darkness that also causes the enemies to look much more powerful than God.

e) He also prays for truth because this is what you see when light comes.

i. Truth is what's real, what's substantial.

ii. In essence, the psalmist prays, "Send light to my soul. Let me see the true substance and reality of things. O God, banish illusions from my heart. Not just intellectual illusions from my head, but emotional illusions from my heart."

2) Stage two: by this light and truth bring me to your holy dwelling, 3b-4a.

a) The light of God leads him to the truth of his sinfulness and takes him to the place of atonement and forgiveness.

Heb. 13:10– We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat.

b) Our altar is Jesus Christ crucified and risen and standing before the throne of God.

c) The light of God that leads us is "the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ" (2 Cor. 4:4).

d) The light of the Gospel leads us to Christ, to the altar, to the cross.

e) There, our hearts are enlightened to see our sin and our wonderful forgiveness.

3) Stage three: the third stage of his prayer is that this light and truth would lead him to God as his exceeding joy, 4.

a) The final goal of life is not forgiveness or any of God's good gifts.

b) The final goal of life is God himself, experienced as your exceeding joy.

c) Here is man threatened by enemies and feeling danger from his adversaries, and yet he knows that the ultimate battle of his life is not the defeat of his enemies, it is not escaping natural disaster, it is not being healed from an illness.

d) The ultimate battle is: Will God be his exceeding joy? Will God be the gladness at the heart of all his joys?

4) Stage four: the fourth and finalstage of his prayer is that this light and truth would lead him to express this joy that he feels in God, 4c.

a) Genuine joy in God will overflow with praises.

"We delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation." C. S. Lewis

b) We were made to enjoy God with overflowing praise – if we enjoy God and not what he does for us, there is nothing that will shake our foundation.

f. We have been describing the prayer of a divided heart.

1) The psalmist would like to know a constant uninterrupted experience of God as his exceeding joy.

2) But in reality there are times when he feels forsaken.

3) He knows that God has not forsaken him, but it feels like he has.

4) So his deepest strategy to escape this most dangerous condition is to pray, 3-4.

2. Second, Speak to your own soul, 5.

a. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the former pastor and medical doctor from London, described the importance of preaching to ourselves:

"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 this psalm] 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.'" Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1965), 20.

b. In essence, the psalmist preaches to himself.

c. He reminds himself object of his hope: GOD

d. Brothers and sisters, remind your souls that our hope is in God alone.

1) A God who never changes

2) A God who promised never to leave us or forsake us.

3) A God who did not spare his own Son in order to be our hope.

Conclusion

So, you have before you two great practical steps you can take when you feel forsaken: pray to God and preach to yourself. Pray to God for the light you need in your heart, and preach to yourself the truth that you need in your soul

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