How Long, O Lord

Psalm 13

Let’s read together from Psalm
13. This is a Psalm of David and
it says to the choir master, a Psalm
of David. How long, O Lord, will you forget
me forever? How long will you hide your face
from me? How long must I take counsel
in my soul and have sorrow in all my heart all the day? How
long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer
me, O Lord, my God. Light up my eyes, lest I sleep
the sleep of death. Lest my enemies say I have prevailed
over him. Lest my foes rejoice because
I am shaken. But I have trusted in your steadfast
love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing
to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. Pray with
me, if you will. Our God, we do thank you that
you speak and that you lift our eyes to heaven. and that you
show us wonderful things from your holy word, things that show
us what is good and right and true. We pray that these words
tonight would bless us and encourage us so that we can live life even
when all hell breaks loose upon us and we seem to be in great
despair. Show us these things by your
grace and with the power of the spirit, in Jesus’ name, amen. I don’t want you to raise your
hand, but I want you to think out loud or not think out loud,
think in your minds. Yeah, what I mean, not what I
say. Rhetorical question, right? How many of you have been in
utter despair? I don’t mean just upset because
you were late to a ball game or your TV blinked out when the
Super Bowl came on or the grocery store was out of your favorite
item and you had to get a rain check. I don’t mean that. I mean
deep, dark, ugly, nasty, flat on your face, if I get up out
from under the cover, something terrible is gonna happen, that
kind of despair where you say, oh God, oh me. Or you say like
our psalmist says, how long? This is the psalm for those who
are down in the dumps that far. This is a psalm for those who
are in great despair. It’s been said of the psalms,
they hit on every single emotion. And this is one of the psalms
that goes deep, deep, deep down where Many people probably have
spent some time, and others may not have known it, or you as
a person may not have understood it yourselves. This is a psalm
that speaks of hardship, it speaks of abandonment, it speaks of
a protracted or a prolonged difficulty, and it flat speaks of utter darkness
in the soul, and in the heart, and in the feelings. And sometimes
we may get in one of these places in life and we say, does anybody
know? Does anybody see? Does anybody
care? And then the logical step from
there is, does God care? Does he see? Has he forgotten
me? Remember Psalm 12 last week as
we looked at it, the psalmist said, there’s not a godly person
left. And now we find ourselves in
Psalm 13 where the psalmist is saying, even God has abandoned
me. So here’s King David in some
sort of situation. We don’t know what the particulars
are. It could be that he’s sick unto
death. It could be that he’s being chased by Saul or Absalom
or some enemy. We don’t know, but the bottom
line is this. He is in despair. One of the
great Old Testament commentators from the 1800s has said of this
psalm, if you look at it structurally, particularly in the Hebrew language,
you have three stanzas. The first is five lines, the
second is four lines, and the third is three lines. And what
he says is you have a tumultuous sea in the first five lines,
you have a calming sea in the next four lines, and then when
you get to the last three lines, you have calm waters. And that’s
a wonderful picture of what God is able to do for us. We can
be on the sea with the waves 40 and 50 feet, the swells and
the trough so big that we see death is certain. And then as
we spend a little time thinking and praying and meditating and
trusting in God’s love, the sea begins to calm and all of a sudden
we’re on placid waters and maybe like the sun has come out just
now after a stormy afternoon, we feel again at peace. And so
that’s a way to look through this psalm. And so as you think
of the stormy seas, as you think of the less rough seas and then
the calm waters, look at how David takes us through his hardship. The first couple of verses are
about despair, how long, oh Lord. And then when you get to verses
four and five, you see him pray to God, or verses three and four,
he prays to God, consider and answer me. And then the last
couple of verses, five and six, he says, but I have trusted. And so you see him go from despair
to prayer to trust. And so those are the three ways
we’ll look at it. Despair, prayer, and then trust. Now before we
dive into this, you need to understand something. Christians do get
down in the dumps. Christians do get into despair
Christians do get depressed you’ll have some Christians who go all
the way to the the Psychological side of things and they’ll say
it’s all in your chemicals. It’s all in your makeup. I But that’s not fully true. And then you’ll have some Christians,
on the other hand, say it’s all sin, right? If you’re despairing,
that’s sin. If you’re despairing, that’s
faithlessness. And I believe somewhere we land
in the middle that God has made us human bodies, right? He’s
made us with chemicals and makeup and temperaments, and every one
of us is a little bit different. That is true. But God has also
made us spiritual people. And so he’s made us to overcome
darkness, even extreme darkness, by his Holy Spirit. Sometimes
we need help. Sometimes we need professional
help. And God, in his wisdom, has given us helpers in the professional
world to get us through things. So it’s not a either or. It’s a spiritual thing. Sometimes
we need help as well in the world. Here’s the bottom line we get
from this Psalm. God gives a solution, and there is a spiritual solution
in Psalm 13 to hardship and despair. So first, let’s look in verses
one through two at despair. He says, how long, O Lord, will
you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face
from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow
in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemies have
triumph over me or be exalted over me? Here’s an example or
a picture of somebody talking out their troubles. Just this
week, I had the chance to sit down with somebody who had gone
through some hardship and they talked a mile a minute. I mean
a mile a minute for a very long time, about years and years and
years of hardship. And you say to a person like
that, you just need to be quiet and listen to God. But you know,
sometimes talking helps It gets the sting out, it lets the pus
come out of the wound to maybe come up with a foul sort of image.
It bleeds, it lets out the hurt. And so here is David in those
first five verses where the seas are rather tumultuous. He’s saying
to God, how long, and he asked how long with four particular instances that he
lists. The first is, how long shall
I have hardship? Second is, how long will you
leave me alone? Third is, how long, this is my
paraphrase, how long do I have to feel funky? And not in the
1970s way. And then, finally, how long will
my enemies have triumph over me? So this whole subject of
despair comes to us in four ways here. First, little sub, point
to look at is how long must I live under hardship? How long must
I live under continual pain, under continued problem without
resolution? It’s as if the problem is compounding,
it’s piling on, it’s going on way too long and never coming
to an end. Think about Job for just a moment.
A good example is Job. Job had just Punch after punch
after punch. Body blow after body blow after
body blow. And you know, Job at the early
chapters of that book was doing all right. He was rebuking his
wife for telling him to curse God and die. He was rebuking
his friends for being worthless counselors. He was saying some
okay things. But chapter after chapter after
chapter after chapter, what, 30 some chapters, Job finally
gets worn down and just says, I can’t, I can’t handle this
anymore. He loses his wits. And so one aspect of despair
that David speaks of here is despair comes after a long time
of hardship. How long, Lord, do I have to
endure this? How long do I continually have to struggle? But you know,
Something for us to consider is sometimes the storm last a
very long time. Now, probably many of us have
had little short trials, little quick trials, and they were easily
overcomable, so to speak. But what about a long illness? What about a long hardship with
a child? What about a long difficulty
in your emotional life? Those can cause us to despair.
Well, the second how long he gives is related to God’s presence. He says, how long will you hide
your face from me? Now, you know, this is the opposite
of blessing. Today’s benediction we used numbers 24, the Lord
or number 624. The Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
We were saying God be with you. God shine his face upon you.
But here the psalmist is saying just the opposite of blessing.
God, you’ve cursed me. You’ve cursed me by leaving me.
Where are you? How long are you going to stay
away from me? How long will your face hide
from me? Where’s my covenant love? Where’s
your faithfulness? Where’s your steadfast love you
promised? I want the good old days of my lovely time with you
to come back. Sometimes we have these hardships
where maybe things pile on us in our family, in our marriage,
and with children, or with work, or with health, or with you name
it, it piles on. And sometimes you might say,
God, where are you? Why don’t you show up? Quit sending
me calamity. Show up and bring me some grace
and some light. So this Psalm shows us despair. There’s a long time under hardship.
God’s face has turned from him. The third, We find in, let’s
see, what verse is it? Verse two, how long must I take
counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? This
is the funk, right? This is the feeling funky. Some
of you are probably half glass, half empty people, right? You
know who you are. And others of you are half glass, half full,
right? We’re made differently. But those
who are half, I’m gonna come up with something new here. Those
of you who are glass half empty folks probably need to understand
that and understand that you need a little more encouragement.
Because people who are naturally outgoing, naturally bubbly, naturally
thankful, not everybody has that. And so if you’re one of those
glass half full type people, you need to realize that sometimes
you’re in a funk because you’ve lost perspective. Now, it’s easier
for somebody of that temperament to get in a funk, but what do
we do when that’s our nature? Well, we got to go to the word
probably a little more. Or what if, what if we’re sick
and suffering quite a bit? You know, maybe somebody who’s
sickly and, you know, they’re infirmed more often than not,
they sit at home more often than they’re out, and they can be
depressed or sad or gloomy or, you know, Maybe even in the proper
sense of the word, a little bit of a hypochondriac. They’re always
sick. They’re always on their deathbed. They’re always dying,
right? You know, folks like that. Sometimes
our funkiness comes from that. Sometimes it’s seasonal. I remember
in February waking up and saying, I can’t believe spring is getting
close, because it sure helps, right? The sun shines out a little
bit longer. It’s not dark and wintry. But there are times when
we have been let down. There are times when we get into
a pit. We need sometimes help, other
people’s help. We need somebody to say, be able
to say to them, I’m in a dark spot right now. And that’s a
person who needs your rescue. Sometimes that person needs to
sit with somebody to be heard and listened to. But that person
also needs to sit under God’s word and let it penetrate deep
in their heart and mind. Because what happens is you get
on unlevel ground. Your feet are gonna step, you’re
gonna slide, you’re gonna fall, and at some point you’re gonna
be flat on your face. And so what do we do when we’re
feeling funky? We cry out to the Lord, how long, how long
must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all
the day? And then the last little how
long he gives is how long will my enemy say I have prevailed
over him, or my enemy, how long shall my enemy exalt over me? Now you’ve got to define your
enemy. Maybe it’s a problem person at work. Maybe it’s a subject
in school. Maybe it’s a neighbor. Maybe
it’s a marital partner, a marriage partner. Maybe it’s a child.
Maybe it’s somebody you know and love. Who knows? It’s Satan. It’s the devil. It’s a sin in
your life. it will get you down and hold
you down for the count, so to speak, and for the knockout.
And so David is saying here, despair comes in these three
forms, enemies, just the feeling of funk, wondering if God has
left, and then just a protracted and prolonged difficulty. And
the good news is God is always there. God is always there and
sometimes he uses these to draw you back to himself. Maybe you’ve
been through a hardship and you say, well, that wasn’t fun, but
I love God more. Or that was miserable, but I
look to Jesus with greater faith. Or that was no walk in the park,
I don’t wish that on anybody, but, and you fill in the blank
with some spiritual benefit. That’s how God works. He shows,
his faithfulness to us in these ways at times. It is no fun.
We’d rather him just infuse a little grace in us and let us get it
that way. But where are good sailors made? On rough seas, right? Where are
good Christians made? It’s in the turmoil of life.
And so this first section on despair shows us that life can
get really hard. I’m sure some of you have experienced
it before, but it can be hard and David affirms that to us.
But the second, section of this is a section on prayer. And so
we move from the rough, rough seas, those five lines of how
long, how long, how long, to verses three and four into this
section on prayer. And the sea is still a little
bit choppy, but less so. He says, consider and answer
me, O Lord, my God. Light up my eyes, lest I sleep
the sleep of death, and lest my enemies say I have prevailed
over him, and lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. So the psalmist has talked out
his troubles. That’s a good thing for us to
do at times. Maybe we write things down in our journal or on paper
to get our feelings out. He’s got a little bit more clarity,
though. Now, at the beginning of this psalm, how long, how
long, how long, his eyes were almost glued shut, right? He couldn’t see. It was dark.
He didn’t want out from under the covers. The pillows were
over his head. But now he’s talked it out a
little bit. There’s a little bit more clarity. And he says, I
need marching orders, I need God to give me something. And
so what does he ask of God? Well, he asked three things.
And these three, in the original language, are imperatives. He’s
not commanding God to do something, but he’s boldly praying, we might
say. And look at what those three
action verbs are. Consider or look. Look upon me,
consider me. And then he says, answer me.
And then he says, give light to me. So he says, look, give
me favor. If God looks at you, Lord bless
you and keep you, Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious
to you. You’re saying, look at me, give
me favor. There’s another psalm where it says, the psalmist says,
who can show us any good? Lord, let the light of your face
shine upon us. So he’s saying, look to me, I’ve
been forsaken, I’m feeling in despair because you’ve forsaken
me, but now look to me with favor. And then he says, secondly, answer
me. I need a message from you. If he thinks God has departed
from him, he’s also thought that God has stopped speaking to him. And so he’s saying, answer me.
And then he says, give light. It’s kind of a funny way of saying,
put a twinkle in my eye, put a spring in my step, because
my eyes were so dim and dark from my weariness and despair
and tears. There was no health in them.
I was a dead man walking, but he’s saying, give me light, put
a twinkle in my eye. And then he gives the request
so that my enemies can’t say we’ve licked him, we’ve beat
him, we’ve prevailed over him, we have shaken him. Because at
the end of the day, that’s what our enemies want, isn’t it? They
want to put their foot on our neck and say, look, God, I can
destroy your loved one. That’s what Job or Satan wanted
to do with Job. He only loves you, God, because
you’ve given him good things. What does God say? No, at the
end of the day, he’ll stick with me. He’ll be faithful. And that’s
what we want. for God to get the glory. So
here is our psalmist, here we are, we’ve climbed out of the
grave, we’ve crawled out of the bed, we’ve escaped trouble. And
it’s so that we can praise God and our enemies can’t gloat over
us. And then we move to the last
section, verses five and six, where he speaks of trust. And
he says, but I have trusted in your steadfast love, my heart
shall rejoice and your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because
he has dealt bountifully with me.” After he’s gone through all of
this, it’s as if he said, yes, all the trouble, yes, all the
howlongs, yes, all the abandonment, yes, all the down in the dumps
and the funky feelings. But at the end of the day, I’ve
trusted in your steadfast love. I’ve kept my hand on my heart. I’ve kept my mind on your word. And yes, it’s been hard, but
I have remembered the steadfast love of the Lord. As we read
from Lamentations 3, Jeremiah standing somewhere looking at
the ruins of Jerusalem, God’s presence gone, God’s temple gone,
the holy city destroyed, the smoke still rising. What does
Jeremiah say? I guess I should go lay down
and die. Almost, but what does he say? The steadfast love of
the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an
end. And that’s what the Christian
is able to say when we are standing at the ruins of sin and misery.
We can be standing on the edge of hell, so to speak. Maybe we’ve
lost everything, but we can say the steadfast love of the Lord
never ceases. And why can we say that? Because
we have a God who will never leave us. He will never forsake
us. If we are in Christ Jesus, what
will separate us from the love of God? Nothing. Not life, not
death, not demons, not anything, not any power can separate us. And you think of the difficulties
God’s people have been through in the history of the church.
Here’s Jeremiah standing in the midst of ruins, the people of
God will be soon in Babylon, sickness, or how about Job, or
David, or death, or despair, or something that we cannot reconcile
in this life except by going to the throne of God. We are
often in difficulty. Now remember, all of the themes
of the Old Testament and even the New Testament are ours. Jeremiah
lamenting and weeping over Jerusalem, they’re gonna be carried off
to Babylon. Well, remember how the New Testament speaks of us.
You are strangers. You are exiles. You are not in
the New Jerusalem. You’re in Babylon. You’re in
the city of man and not yet at the city of God. We are waiting
for Jesus’ return. And so there’s a sense with us
where we add a fifth how long to David’s questions here. How long must I despair? How
long must I take counsel? How long will my enemies have
triumph over me? How long will the tears be? How long, how long?
But you know what the real how long question is? It’s how long,
Jesus, till you come and you’ll make all things new. That’s the
question we should be asking, whether our hardships are personal
or whether we’re looking at the landscape around us and saying,
look at the ethics and the morality and the politics and the scandals
in the land all around us. Our question should, yes, be
all those other four how longs, but that fifth one needs to be
there. How long till you return, oh Jesus, and make all things
new and right again? That’s the question of the martyrs
in the book of Revelation. How long till you come and avenge
our blood? That’s the question of all of us who face evil and
see the church under hardship or the decline of righteousness
in the land. How long? And what’s the answer? Who knows? But what does John
hear from Jesus? I am coming soon. And so that
gives us a glimpse of hope. And so what should our posture
be? Should we look down and down and down? Or should we be looking
up and up and up? The posture is up, right? Because
God is gracious. Deliverance is not yet, but he
is coming. And notice what he says at the
end of verse 13. He says, but I have trusted in
your steadfast love. I’ll rejoice. I’ll sing, and
then what is he anticipating? God’s bountiful blessing. And don’t we know that to be
true? God has something good in store for us. He’s given us
a down payment on that now, but we can’t even begin. No eye has
seen, no mind can conceive of what God has for us in Christ. There’s a wonderful little story
from the life of Martin Luther. I’m sure you’ve heard of it,
but Luther had fits of depression and doubt, the Reformation was
very hard on him. He may be famous and his name
may be all around as the great reformer, but there was a period
of time where he was in a funk. And he was in a bad funk, and
Mrs. Luther came, his dear wife, Catherine, came into the study
where he was, all dressed in funeral garb, and weeping and
crying and carrying on, and he said, oh, dear wife, who has
died? And she says, God has died. And
he says, that’s preposterous, and she said, No, it must be
true because that’s the way you’re acting. She called him her dear
doctor. She said, that is the way you’re
acting. You’re acting as if God is not dead or God is not living,
but dead. And she took or he took the rebuke.
He understood what she meant. His depression had overtaken
him to such a degree that he forgot that God was in charge. And so, friends, so brothers
and sisters, don’t act so cast down. Look up and await the coming
of our Lord Jesus and the power of the living God. Let’s pray
together. Our God, we do thank you that
you give us encouragement in the midst of hardship. We thank
you that you give us your word, that your steadfast love never
ceases, even when all hell is around us. You are still in control. You’re still good and gracious
and kind. Let us not forget it. Let not our despair overtake
us or the evil one drag us so far down. But may we be close
to your word, close to your people, deep in prayer, and full of your
spirit so that we can overcome these hardships. We do pray,
Father, with the Apostle Paul and with the saints in heaven
awaiting your return. Come, Lord Jesus, come. Come
and make all things new. And we pray it in Jesus’ name,
amen. shall it forever be how long
my soul O shall God’s exalting subject
be to their sway? O Lord, my God, consider and
hear my earnest cries. Lest I in death should slumber,
Enlighten Thou my eyes. Lest foes be heard exclaiming,
Against Him we prevail. And David begs my spirit, ♪ Rejoice
when I have failed ♪ ♪ But on thy tender mercy ♪ ♪ I ever have
relied ♪ ♪ With joy in thy salvation ♪ ♪ My heart shall still confide
♪ And I, with voice of singing, will praise the Lord alone. Because to me his favor he has
so largely shown.