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The Psalm Without a Sunrise (Psalm 88) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. We are really glad to have you
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  with us for another session where we try to get past the
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  surface level of our faith and, you know, dig into the bedrock.
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  Today we have a stack of notes that I can only describe as
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  heavy. I mean that literally, looking
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  at the pile here, and also metaphorically.
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  It is heavy, yeah. We are dealing with material
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  today that it carries a lot of weight.
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  There's no getting around it. We usually expect a certain
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  rhythm when we open the book of Psalms.
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  It's almost a genre convention, isn't it?
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  You know the pattern I'm talking.
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  About Oh, absolutely. The Lament.
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  Right. The writer starts in a bad
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  place. Maybe King David is running for
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  his life in the wilderness, or he's feeling the weight of his
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  sin. But then somewhere in the
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  middle, there's a pivot. The clouds part, the sun comes
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  out and we, you know, we wrap up with a major chord.
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  That's the standard structure. It moves from plea to praise.
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  It resolves, and that resolution is what we come to expect.
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  It's comforting. Right, it resolves.
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  But today we're looking at the one song that refuses to
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  resolve. We're looking at Psalm 88.
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  And in preparing for this discussion, reading through
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  Charles Spurgeon's The Treasury of David on this specific
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  chapter, I was just struck by how relentless it is.
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  It is widely considered the darkest song in the entire
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  Bible. I mean, there really is no
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  competition for that title. It's in a category of its own.
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  It's just so unique. Unlike those other songs that
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  start sad and and with hope, this one begins in gloom, walks
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  through the valley of the shadow of death, and it ends in
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  absolute, total darkness. And yet, and this is the key
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  thing we have to hold on to, it's in the Canon of Scripture.
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  It's the inspired word of God. And that fact alone is something
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  we need to sit with. If we believe that all scripture
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  is given by inspiration of God and is profitable, then this
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  darkness is profitable. So our source material today is
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  primarily Spurgeon's exposition and his collection of notes from
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  various theologians regarding Psalm 88.
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  And our mission, I think, is to try and figure out how a
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  believer, someone who truly loves God, can possess true
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  faith while feeling utterly abandoned.
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  And not just feeling abandoned for a moment or a bad week, but
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  perhaps for a lifetime. That's the kind of weight we're
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  talking about here. We.
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  Want to understand the instruction?
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  Or, as the Hebrew title says, the mass show Hidden in the Song
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  of Sorrow? So let's unpack this.
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  Let's start right at the top with the title and the author,
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  because Spurgeon points out that even the metadata, you could
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  say, sets the stage for the gloom we're about to enter.
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  It does. The title is fascinating.
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  It's called a song or Psalm for the Sons of Korra.
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  Now, typically when we see the sons of Korra mentioned, we
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  expect something. Well, something jubilant.
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  Right, soaring praises. Exactly.
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  These were the Temple Singers. They usually had these soaring,
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  majestic odes. Psalm 48 Great is the Lord,
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  that's them. Psalm 84, how lovely is your
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  dwelling place? That's them too.
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  But not this time. No, not this time.
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  Here they're ordered to chant a dirge, a funeral song.
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  And Spurgeon makes such a helpful observation here.
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  He notes that servants and singers in the Lord's house,
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  they don't get to choose what they sing.
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  They must express holy sorrow as carefully as they express joy.
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  They have to be true to the note that's written on the page, even
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  if it's a minor key. That is a challenging thought
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  for worship leaders today, isn't it?
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  The idea that we must be just as skilled, just as practiced, at
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  singing about the dark nights of the soul as we are about the
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  victories. Absolutely nothing should be
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  slovenly in the Lord's house, he says, including our expression
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  of grief. It's actually more difficult, I
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  think, to express sorrow fitly with honesty and dignity than it
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  is to just pour out happiness. We have to be honest with the
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  text. And then we get this phrase in
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  the title. Mahalath Leonoth.
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  Yes, Mahalath Leonoth. There's a bit of a debate about
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  what this actually means, isn't there?
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  There is. It's a bit obscure.
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  The scholar Alexander translates it as concerning afflictive
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  sickness, and if that's the case, it suggests that the
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  writer was suffering from a a mental malady, a deep depression
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  that had physical and spiritual symptoms.
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  So. It's about the topic of the
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  song. Right, it's a title describing
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  the content, but there's another view.
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  That it refers to an instrument. Yes, the Jewish commentator
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  Kimchi and others suggest it refers to a wind instrument,
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  likely a flute used specifically for mourning.
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  A hollow instrument for a hollow feeling.
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  So whether it's the subject matter sickness or the
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  instrument, the mournful flute, the combined meaning is pretty
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  clear. Unmistakable.
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  This is a song to be performed mournfully with a subdued, heavy
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  voice. And then comes that word you
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  mentioned in the intro, Mashil, mashil, Mashil.
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  It means an instructive or didactic song.
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  And I think this is where many of us get tripped up.
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  We think instruction or teaching needs to be a list of doctrines
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  or a command to do something, you know.
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  Here are three points on how to be a better Christian.
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  A. How to guide?
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  Exactly, but here the suffering of one St. is the lesson for the
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  others. Wow, that's striking.
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  The Depression itself is the textbook, the experience is the
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  instruction. Precisely.
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  Spurgeon calls it experimental teaching, teaching that comes
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  from experience. And he says it's exceedingly
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  valuable. And the man who wrote this, the
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  author, was a man of deep, deep experience.
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  He meant the Ezra height. Yes, Now identifying him
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  perfectly is a little tricky historically, but he's very
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  likely the brother of Ethan and son of Zira mentioned in First
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  Chronicles. But here is the key detail, the
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  thing you have to know about him.
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  Heman was famous for his wisdom. Right in First Kings, when the
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  Bible wants to tell us how incredibly smart Solomon was, it
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  uses Heman as the benchmark. That's right, it says Solomon
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  was wiser than all other men. Wiser than Ethan the Ezra Height
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  and Heman and Kalkel and Darda. So he's in that list.
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  He's the guy you compare Solomon to.
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  So this wasn't some new believer who didn't know his theology.
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  This wasn't someone who was weak in the understanding of God.
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  Far from it. This man was a giant.
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  He was one of the grand trio of chief musicians, Heman, Asaph
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  and Ethan. He was a leader in worship.
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  He was a seer. He was profoundly wise.
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  And yet he wrote the darkest song in the Bible.
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  Spurgeon suggests he might have written this during the
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  oppression in Egypt, which would account for the, you know, the
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  deep bass notes of the song. Or I might have been a personal
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  lifelong depression. But as you said, the specific
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  historical moment matters less than the reality of the man.
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  It proves, and this is such a critical point for us today, it
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  proves, that great wisdom and great gifts do not exempt A
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  believer from heavy soul crushing depression.
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  Hymen did business on what Spurgeon calls the great waters
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  of soul trouble. You can know your Bible cover to
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  cover. You can know your catechisms by
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  heart. You can be a leader in the
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  Church and still find yourself in the pit, Human describes.
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  Well, let's look at that pit. Let's get into the text itself.
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  Section two of our outline covers the 1st 2 verses, and
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  Spurgeon points out something incredible right in the first
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  sentence. It is the only ray of light in
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  the entire Psalm, the only one. Verse one says, O Lord God, of
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  my salvation. That's it.
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  That is the anchor. Human is about to spend the next
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  17 1/2 verses telling God how miserable he is, how abandoned
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  he feels, and how dark it is. But he starts by staking a
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  claim. You are the God of my salvation.
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  He is. Sure of his salvation even when
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  he cannot feel an ounce of comfort.
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  That is the essence of Reformed thinking on assurance, isn't it?
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  It's not based on your current emotional state.
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  It's not based on whether you feel happy or close to God
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  today. It's based on the covenant.
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  It is not, as Spurgeon says, altogether midnight.
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  As long as a man can still call God his Savior, as long as that
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  one little flame is flickering, it's not total darkness.
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  Spurgeon also says true faith turns to Jehovah when all other
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  confidences fail. It's almost like the darkness
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  proves the faith is real because he's still talking to God.
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  He hasn't turned away. Exactly.
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  If he didn't have faith, he would have stopped praying.
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  He would have cursed God and died as Job's wife suggested.
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  But look at the nature of his prayer in verse 1.
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  He says I have cried day and night before thee.
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  Cried. Yeah, that isn't a polite
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  request, is not a quiet time murmur.
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  No. It implies intensity.
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  It's the sound a child makes when they're in real distress,
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  and it implies continuity. The distress he was feeling
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  fueled the fire of prayer. The business of the day didn't
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  stop him, and the utter weariness of the night didn't
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  silence him. And notice the direction he says
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  before thee. It's so intentional.
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  Yes, his arrows were aimed at God.
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  They weren't just shot into the air to relieve stress.
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  You know, he wasn't performing for an audience like the
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  Pharisees praying on street corners.
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  He was pleading with God. Then in verse 2 he says, Let my
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  prayer come before thee. It gives me this image of like
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  an ambassador asking for an audience with the king.
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  He's at the gate knocking. That is the picture He's asking
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  for admission, and he adds incline by an ear unto my cry.
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  That's such a tender phrase. It acknowledges that his prayer
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  might be weak, it might be discordant, it might be just a
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  groan. He's saying lean in.
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  Lord, stoop down, Listen closely, because I can barely
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  get this out. My voice is failing.
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  And as the host of this deep dive, I have to point out this
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  observation from the notes. Only those who are indifferent
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  about the result are indifferent about their prayers being heard.
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  Human is desperate to be heard. He is fighting for his life,
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  literally and spiritually. Which leads us directly to
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  Section 3. If verses 1 and 2 are the plea,
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  verses 3 through 5 are the complaint.
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  And it is, it's vivid. Verse 3 says For my soul is full
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  of troubles. Fool satiated Spurgeon uses this
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  visceral analogy of a vessel filled the brim with vinegar.
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  You can't put another drop in. He's not just troubled, he's
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  nauseated with trouble. He's had his fill.
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  And Spurgeon makes a great distinction here between having
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  your hands full of trouble and having your heart full.
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  That's the critical difference, isn't it?
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  You can have a busy, stressful life, your hands are full of
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  trouble. But when it gets into the soul,
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  that's what he calls the soul of trouble.
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  When the vinegar is inside the vessel, it flavors everything.
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  It corrupts everything. He says, And my life draweth
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  nigh into the grave. He feels his spiritual life
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  declining, his mental life decaying.
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  It's that feeling that death is right there at the door.
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  And honestly, for those in deep clinical depression, death is
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  sometimes welcomed as a relief. He's at that point.
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  He goes on in verse 4 to say I'm counted with them that go down
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  into the pit. He's reckoned as good as dead.
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  This is the social isolation of severe grief.
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  His relatives, his friends, they may have already buried him in
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  their minds. They look at him and they think
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  he's gone. There's no bringing him back.
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  They might even be discussing his estate.
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  You know, that's a grim thought. It's terribly grim.
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  And then he says, I am as a man that hath no string.
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  Total inability help. No power to help himself, he is
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  completely spent. And then verse 5, This phrase
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  really stood out to me. Free among the dead.
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  Yeah, that sounds almost positive, like I'm free.
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  But that is not what he means at all is.
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  There, not at all. It is a terrifying kind of
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  freedom. The Hebrew word here means
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  separated or cut off the nose. Compare it to a leper in a
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  lazaretto, A quarantine house. A leper is free from the
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  obligations of society, sure, but only because he's banned
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  from society. He's an outcast.
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  That's the freedom human is talking about.
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  That is a chilling image. Or think of a battlefield.
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  After the fighting is over, the battle moves on and the slain
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  are left behind. They're free from in the
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  commander's orders now, but only because they've been stripped
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  and left to rot. That's the freedom of the grave.
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  And the emotional climax of that verse is when he says to God,
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  whom thou remember us no more. He feels like God himself has
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  forgotten his name. And that he is cut off from thy
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  hand. Spurgeon notes that man's blows
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  are trifles. We can handle it when people are
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  mean to us or let us down. But God's smitings, those are
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  terrible to a gracious heart to feel forsaken by the Author of
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  life. He calls it the essence of
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  Wormwood. And we must be so careful here.
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  Heman is describing his feelings, not necessarily the
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  theological fact. God does not forget his elect.
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  The names are written on his hands, but human feels
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  forgotten, and the Psalm validates that feeling as a
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  genuine, harrowing human experience for a believer.
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  It just gets heavier. In Section 4, we're looking at
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  verses 6 through 9. He starts using these metaphors
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  of despair. Thou has laid me in the lowest
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  pit, in darkness, in the deeps. He is piling nightshade upon
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  nightshade. He's just layering the darkness.
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  He compares himself to Joseph in the pit or Jonah in the deeps.
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  But notice the difference. Joseph and Jonah got out right.
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  Human cannot see the exit, he says.
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  The mind can descend lower than the body.
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  The soul has its own bottomless pits.
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  And then verse 7, thy wrath lieth hard upon me.
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  The weight of it, that word lieth hard.
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  Imagine a giant leaning his full weight onto a small child.
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  That's the word picture. It's a crushing pressure.
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  And he says, And thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves.
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  Waves quarrel. It's not one big event.
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  No, it's the relentless nature of it.
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  It's one after another. One wave crashes and before you
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  can catch your breath, the next one hits.
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  It feels like omnipotence is being used against him.
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  There's a Selah there. A pause.
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  A pause for the singer to breathe between the crashing
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  waves. A moment for the musicians to
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  play. A mournful interlude, even in
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  the reading of it. We need a moment to recover.
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  Then in verse 8 he goes back to the people around him.
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  Thou has put away in mine acquaintance far from me.
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  This is the loneliness of the long term sufferer.
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  Why were they put away? Maybe it was an infectious
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  disease or a legal impurity like leprosy.
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  Or maybe it was just the infection of sadness.
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  People don't like to be around this kind of gloom for too long.
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  Spurgeon has this guiding quote in the notes.
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  Swallows offer no apology for leaving us to winter by
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  ourselves. It's so true.
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  The parasites of prosperity vanish in adversity.
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  When you're fun, when you're successful, everyone is your
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  friend. When you are human, the Ezra
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  Height weeping day and night, the room clears out pretty
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  quickly. He says I am shut up and I
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  cannot come forth. He's a prisoner, maybe literally
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  in his room do a sickness, or maybe he's a prisoner in his own
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  mind. He's bound by fetters of iron,
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  the iron of despair. There's no escape.
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  And this creed has physical effects.
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  Verse 9. Mine I am mourneth by reason of
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  affliction. Weeping wears away the sight.
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  Your body keeps the score. The sorrow manifests physically.
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  But, and this is the pattern of the believer, we keep seeing
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  this, he persists. Lord, I have called daily upon
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  me. The tears wedded the prayers,
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  but they did not dampen the fervor.
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  And look at the posture. I have stretched out my hands
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  into thee. It's the natural plea of a child
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  to a mother. Even when he feels God is the
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  one crushing him, he reaches for that same God.
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  That's the paradox of faith we keep seeing.
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  Now in Section 5, verses 10 through 12, the tone shifts a
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  little bit. It becomes almost argumentative.
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  He even starts using logic to plead his case with God.
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  He does. He starts asking these
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  incredibly bold rhetorical questions.
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  Wilt thou show wonders to the dead?
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  Shall the dead arise and praise thee, sailor?
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  OK, so let's stop there. Is he denying the resurrection
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  here? Because on a surface read, it
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  sounds like he's saying once you're dead, you're done.
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  That's a great question. And no, he isn't denying the
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  final resurrection. Remember, this is him and the
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  wise, a teacher in Israel. He knows the promises, but he's
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  Speaking of the present state of the world.
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  He's arguing from the standpoint of utility and God's glory on
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  earth. I see.
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  He's saying, God, if I did in this pit, I can no longer be a
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  witness to your grace. Right now in this generation,
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  ghosts sing no psalms in the temple.
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  The congregation of the living won't hear my testimony if I'm
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  gone. So his argument is actually
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  rooted in a desire to praise God.
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  Exactly which is incredible. In the depths of his despair,
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  his concern is for God's praise. Look at verse 11.
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  Shall thy loving kindness be declared in the grave, or that
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  faithfulness and destruction? The grave is the land of
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  corruption. Who's going to preach about
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  God's faithfulness down there? And verse 12 shall they wonders
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  be known in the dark, and thy righteousness in the land of
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  forgetfulness? That's such a stark description
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  of Sheol, the grave, a place where men are forgotten and
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  where they forget. He's asking these questions.
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  Can your attributes be known in the dark?
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  Can your glory shine in a place of nothingness?
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  There's a deep theological point here that the expert analysis in
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  our notes brought out. Human is asking if God's
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  attributes, his wonders, his loving kindness, his
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  faithfulness could be known in the dark.
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  Usually we see those things in the light.
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  That's the crucial question he's wrestling with, and here's the
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  deep dive insight. Sometimes God does show His
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  faithfulness in destruction. What does that mean?
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  Faithfulness in destruction? That sounds contradictory.
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  It means that God is faithful to his covenant promises even when
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  it requires tearing things down in our lives.
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  Sometimes God destroys our false religion.
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  He destroys our self-reliance. He destroys our pride.
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  He tears it all down to the foundation.
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  So that he can build true faith, faith that relies on him alone.
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  So human is asking can you work in the dark?
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  And the answer which human might not see yet is yes.
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  It's a profound yes, and there's a messianic connection here too
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  that Spurgeon alludes to these questions.
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  Shall the dead arise and praise thee?
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  We're definitively answered. When Jesus rose from the dead,
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  God did show wonders to the dead by raising the head of the
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  church. So while human asks them as
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  negative rhetorical questions, expecting the answer to be no,
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  God ultimately answers with a thunderous yes in Christ.
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  The head is powerful, but Heman is still in the middle of it.
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  He doesn't have that answer yet, so we move to section 6, verses
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  13 and 14. He goes back to his prayer.
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  But unto thee have I cried, O Lord, always back to God.
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  And then this phrase in verse 13.
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  And in the morning, shall my prayer prevent thee.
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  Now, in modern English, prevent means to stop something, but
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  that's not what it means here, right?
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  No, it's the old English sense of the word from the Latin
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  prevenir, meaning to come before or anticipate.
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  He is saying I'm going to get up so early to pray, that my prayer
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  will be waiting for you at sunrise.
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  I'm going to beat the sun up. The discipline of early prayer.
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  Yes, before the day's troubles start, before the world smoke
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  dims the air. It references the manna which
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  had to be gathered in the morning.
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  It references the resurrection which happened in the morning.
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  It shows us that Heman is not passive in his depression.
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  He is active, desperately seeking God.
• 18:20
  Spurgeon notes that this is the sign of a true believer.
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  A hypocrite gives up when the answers don't come.
• 18:25
  They might pray for a little while, but then they move on.
• 18:28
  A child of God, however, holds on until he wins his suit.
• 18:31
  And then comes the hard question in verse 14.
• 18:34
  After all this seeking, he asks, Lord, why cast us thou off my
• 18:38
  soul? Why hide us thou thy face from
• 18:40
  me? Can we talk about that?
• 18:41
  Why for a second? Is it OK to ask God?
• 18:46
  Why Can that be a prayer of faith?
• 18:49
  I think it's not only OK, it's holy boldness.
• 18:51
  It's what the Puritans called pleading the promises.
• 18:55
  It's not the familiarity of disrespect.
• 18:57
  It's the familiarity of a son who knows his father can handle
• 19:00
  the question. Job did it.
• 19:01
  Jeremiah did it. Jesus himself did it on the
• 19:04
  cross. Oh my God, why?
• 19:05
  Exactly. But from a Reformed perspective,
• 19:07
  this raises attention. Can an elect soul, one for whom
• 19:11
  Christ died, actually be a castaway?
• 19:13
  And the answer is no. Theologically, no, that's the
• 19:15
  tension. He's not a castaway in reality,
• 19:17
  in his eternal standing. But he is a castaway in his
• 19:20
  experience. And so he asks why?
• 19:22
  Why does God hide his face from his own child?
• 19:24
  Spurgeon suggests. It's to show the believer the
• 19:26
  corruption of their own heart. When the lights of God's comfort
• 19:29
  go out, we suddenly see what's really there.
• 19:33
  We see our unbelief. We see our legal pride, the part
• 19:36
  of us that thinks we deserve better.
• 19:39
  We learn to value His presence more than anything because we
• 19:42
  are starving for it. So the hiding is instructional.
• 19:45
  It's the Macreal in action. Exactly.
• 19:47
  It's a painful lesson, but a necessary one.
• 19:50
  We're heading into the final stretch of the Psalm now,
• 19:52
  Section 7, verses 15 through 18. And if you thought it couldn't
• 19:56
  get any worse, he even tells us this has been going on for a
• 19:59
  long, long time. Verse 15 I am afflicted and
• 20:03
  ready to die from my youth up. From his youth that just.
• 20:06
  It takes my breath away. This isn't a bad week.
• 20:08
  This isn't a season of depression.
• 20:10
  This is a lifelong apprenticeship to patients.
• 20:12
  As one commentator put it, it feels like he's been dying since
• 20:15
  he was a child. He's never known anything
• 20:17
  different. And he uses a word here.
• 20:19
  Distracted. While I suffer thy terrors, I am
• 20:23
  distracted. That is a key detail and the
• 20:25
  notes highlighted. This is the only place in the
• 20:28
  entire Hebrew Bible where this specific word for distracted is
• 20:31
  used. It's a unique word for a unique
• 20:33
  level of suffering. What does it mean?
• 20:35
  It means to be tossed about, to be unable to collect your
• 20:38
  thoughts. It carries the idea of being
• 20:41
  near madness, he's saying. I don't know what to do.
• 20:44
  My mind is fragmenting under this weight.
• 20:46
  I can't think straight. Then in verse 16 he mentions thy
• 20:49
  fierce wrath. And here we we need to make a
• 20:51
  very important theological distinction, one that's central
• 20:54
  to reformed thought. There is punitive anger, the
• 20:58
  anger of a judge toward a criminal who must be punished.
• 21:02
  And there is corrective anger, the anger of a father toward a
• 21:05
  beloved child who needs discipline.
• 21:07
  And Christ bore the punitive anger on the cross.
• 21:10
  Yes, that is the gospel. Christ drank the cup of God's
• 21:13
  punitive wrath dry. So what Humana is experiencing,
• 21:17
  even though it feels fierce, even though it feels like it's
• 21:19
  killing him, is ultimately corrective.
• 21:21
  It's the severe mercy of God. It's fatherly chastisement, not
• 21:26
  judicial condemnation. Verse 17 describes the troubles
• 21:29
  coming like water daily. They just soak in like dew into
• 21:33
  a fleece. They are constant and they drown
• 21:36
  you like a delude. And they compass me about
• 21:38
  together. The image is of a hunt, a pack
• 21:41
  of dogs surrounding a deer. There is nowhere to run.
• 21:45
  He is completely hemmed in by his troubles.
• 21:47
  And then the end Verse 18. Lover and friend, has thou put
• 21:54
  far from me and mine acquaintance Into Darkness?
• 21:57
  But the Hebrew is even more stark, isn't it?
• 22:00
  It is the last word of the Psalm in Hebrew is darkness.
• 22:03
  The literal translation is something like mine.
• 22:05
  Acquaintance is darkness. Darkness is the only friend
• 22:08
  left. Everyone else is gone.
• 22:10
  The only thing familiar to him now is the dark.
• 22:12
  And that's it. That is where it stops.
• 22:14
  No, but God is good. No Hallelujah anyway.
• 22:17
  Darkness. It just ends.
• 22:18
  It leaves the ear in suspense, It's abrupt, it's shocking,
• 22:21
  there's no resolution. Why?
• 22:23
  I mean, why end there? Why not add one more verse of
• 22:25
  hope? I think there are several
• 22:26
  reasons. First, it validates the reality
• 22:29
  that sometimes we are in the dark and the season doesn't
• 22:31
  lift. Sometimes the chapter ends
• 22:33
  before the sun rises. It gives permission to be honest
• 22:35
  about that. But also, I think it forces us
• 22:38
  to turn the page. What do you mean?
• 22:39
  It leaves us waiting for Psalm 89, which is a great Psalm about
• 22:44
  God's covenant faithfulness. It leaves us waiting,
• 22:47
  ultimately, for the resurrection.
• 22:49
  The silence at the end of Psalm 88 is deafening, and it makes us
• 22:52
  long for the word of hope that we know comes later.
• 22:56
  Spurgeon is a beautiful note here, he says.
• 22:58
  We have not attempted to interpret this Psalm concerning
• 23:00
  our Lord, but we fully believe that where the members are, the
• 23:04
  head is. Meaning, if we, the members of
• 23:07
  the body, are in the dark, then Christ, our head is there with
• 23:10
  us. He's not distant, He's in the
• 23:12
  pit with us. I want to move to Section 8 of
• 23:14
  our outline for a bit because Spurgeon in his notes brings in
• 23:17
  these historical illustrations, and I think this is so helpful
• 23:20
  because it humanizes the theology.
• 23:23
  It shows us that Heman wasn't the only one who's been through
• 23:25
  this. Right.
• 23:26
  He wants to show that this is a real experience for God's people
• 23:29
  throughout history. He brings up a woman named
• 23:31
  Mistress Breder. She was a Puritan woman, a
• 23:33
  faithful believer. But listen to her experience.
• 23:36
  She called her life a roaring wilderness of woe.
• 23:39
  A roaring wilderness of woe. Wow.
• 23:42
  She confessed that sin had made her a pray to Satan.
• 23:45
  She felt utterly abandoned, just like Common.
• 23:47
  But she recovered. She did before she died.
• 23:51
  The light broke through spectacularly, she said.
• 23:54
  Oh, the joys that I feel. A place more sweet than the
• 23:57
  Garden of Eden. The darkness was real.
• 24:00
  It was terrible, but it wasn't final for her.
• 24:03
  Then there was Master Peacock. Yes, another man of God who felt
• 24:06
  a hell in his conscience. He actually got to a point where
• 24:09
  he refused to pray because he thought he was a reprobate.
• 24:12
  He thought, why should I pray? I'm damned, It's useless.
• 24:15
  That is that logic of despair we saw in humans argument.
• 24:18
  The dead can't praise you. It is the same dark logic.
• 24:21
  But his restoration came too. He eventually said the sea is
• 24:25
  not more full of water than the Lord of mercy.
• 24:28
  And finally, John Glover. John Glover suffered for five
• 24:31
  years. He had consumption, what we call
• 24:34
  tuberculosis, and this deep spiritual heaviness.
• 24:36
  He couldn't eat, couldn't sleep. He was distracted, to use
• 24:40
  Haman's word, utterly broken. And the result for him.
• 24:42
  The result was that the suffering framed him to such
• 24:45
  mortification of life, meaning it made him so dead to the world
• 24:50
  and its pleasures that he lived like one who was already in
• 24:53
  heaven. The darkness weaned him off the
• 24:55
  world, so that when the light of God's presence returned, he was
• 24:59
  entirely God's. These stories, they're hard to
• 25:03
  hear, but they're also strangely hopeful because these were
• 25:06
  Saints. These were God's people.
• 25:07
  And they were, and they walked through Psalm 88 and came out
• 25:10
  the other side, even if that other side was glory.
• 25:14
  So as we wrap up this deep dive, let's just try to review the
• 25:16
  landscape. We've looked at a song by the
• 25:19
  Sons of Korah that is a dirge. We've seen a wise man, human who
• 25:22
  is completely broken. We've seen a faith that clings
• 25:26
  to the phrase God of my salvation even when God feels
• 25:29
  like an enemy. And we have seen that the Bible
• 25:30
  includes this, that it makes room for this experience.
• 25:33
  That for me is the main take away.
• 25:35
  So why is this in the Bible? Why did the Holy Spirit inspire
• 25:38
  this and preserve it for us? I think it's to provide a
• 25:41
  vocabulary for our darkest hours.
• 25:43
  If the Bible only had happy songs, only victorious Psalms,
• 25:47
  then when we hit the wall of depression or chronic suffering,
• 25:50
  we would have to conclude that we're outside the Bible's
• 25:52
  experience. We think we weren't part of the
• 25:54
  family, but because Psalm 88 is there, we can open the Word of
• 25:57
  God and say I am here, my experience is here, I am with
• 26:01
  Heman, and if Heman is in the Canon, then I am still in the
• 26:05
  covenant. It gives us words when we have
• 26:07
  none. It shows that even when darkness
• 26:09
  is our only friend, we can still say God of my salvation.
• 26:14
  That is the victory of Psalm 88. The victory isn't that the
• 26:17
  darkness goes away by verse 19. The victory is that the faith
• 26:20
  remains in the darkness. I want to leave you, the
• 26:23
  listener, with a provocative thought.
• 26:25
  Chew on as we finish. We hinted at this, but let's
• 26:27
  just make it explicit. We know that Jesus Christ on the
• 26:30
  cross experienced the ultimate Psalm 88.
• 26:32
  He cried out, My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?
• 26:36
  He entered the darkness. She lost every friend.
• 26:39
  He was acquainted with darkness. So consider this, if the Man of
• 26:43
  Sorrows had to walk through this absolute darkness to purchase
• 26:47
  our salvation, is it possible that our own moments of darkness
• 26:51
  are not signs that He has abandoned us?
• 26:53
  But rather, they are the very evidence that we belong to Him,
• 26:57
  that we are sharing in the sufferings of Christ, that we
• 27:00
  are walking the path the Master walk.
• 27:03
  And if we walk with Him in the darkness of this life, we will
• 27:06
  certainly rise with Him in the morning of the next.
• 27:08
  That changes everything. It doesn't necessarily make the
• 27:11
  pain go away, but it makes it mean something.
• 27:13
  It gives it purpose, and purpose is what keeps us holding on.
• 27:16
  Thank you for going on this difficult but necessary journey
• 27:20
  with. Us.
• 27:20
  It has been a privilege. Thanks for listening to Reformed
• 27:23
  Thinking.