When Darkness Is My Only Friend Psalm 88 September 8, 2013 ~ New City Church Calgary ~ Pastor John Ferguson Intro:

: Alexander & the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. What happens when those days turn into weeks & months & seasons & years & decades? What happens when what seems to accentuate the pain is a sense of being abandoned by God? What do you do when the more & more you cry out to God, the more & more distant and silent he seems?

Today, we are going to look at a psalm of lament, of protest, of complaint, for insight into what we are supposed to do when we go through The Dark Night of the Soul. When Darkness is My Only Friend ~ Psalm 88 Look for (1) the honesty of true lament; (2) the doggedness of true faith.

1 O LORD, God of my salvation; I cry out day and night before you. 2 Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry! 1. Addresses God by his covenant name: YHWH Not, God if you are up there could you do me a favor. Not, Big man upstairs. The psalmist has come to know this God personally, covenantally.

2. Prayer is simply talking to God about your life. The real you before the real God talking about your real life. 3. What we are about to learn is the prayer language of lament. It is a diffic ult conversation that we are called to have with God (W. Bruggemann). 3 For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol. 4 I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am a man who has no strength, 5 like one set loose among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand. 1. We dont know exactly what is happening, but he feels like he is going to die; he feels like he has been written off by everyone. 2. Ps. 23, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 6 You have put me in the depths of the pit, in the regions dark and deep. 7 Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah 8 You have caused my companions to shun me; you have made me a horror to them. I

am shut in so that I cannot escape; 9 my eye grows dim through sorrow. Every day I call upon you, O LORD; I spread out my hands to you. Psalms of lament usually are a cry to God to be delivered from ones enemies or oppressors, but here, God is viewed as the oppressor. Question: why does the Psalmist use so much space and take up so much time and waste so much breath setting his lament before God? o Answer: Because he assumes that the God of mercy cares about his misery. He assumes that the God of compassion is aroused by his suffering. 10 Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the departed rise up to praise you? Selah 11 Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon? 12 Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? Graveyards dont have choirs. When one looks at the graveyard, one doesnt see the bodies of the resurrected at this point in time. At the local cemetery, there is no praise music. It is eerily silent. The sting of death is still felt. The Psalmist wants to be among those who worship God in the land of the living.

13 But I, O LORD, cry to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you. 14 O LORD, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me? 1. Biblical realism! (Im so glad this is in the Bible). Sometimes we think this isnt proper etiquette in prayer. We shouldnt say things like this. 2. What gets the believer most upset? Its not the loss of his possessions nor even the presence of persecution. Ps. 30:7, You hid your face and I was dismayed. What gets the believer most upset is the nagging sense that Gods presence is not with us. The unbeliever doesnt really care about that.

3. WCF 18.4, True believers may have the assurance of their salvation shaken, diminished, or temporarily lost in various ways: by Gods withdrawing the light of his countenance and allowing even those who reverence him to walk in darkness and have no light. 15 Afflicted and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors; I am helpless. 16 Your wrath has swept over me; your dreadful assaults destroy me. 17 They surround me like a flood all day long; they close in on me together. 18 You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness. 1. Question: is this reality, or his perception of reality? I think its the latter, but that doesnt make it any less real. This is how he feels. 2

2. Has he given up hope? Is he throwing in the towel? Is he walking away from the faith? Has he become a cynic? An unbeliever? Why did God include this psalm in the middle of the prayer book of the Bible? o B/c this is a great example of a stubborn, determined trust in God! There is a doggedness to his faith. o He is still seeking the face of the God who seems to be hiding from him. He is still praying to this unfathomable, mysterious, frustrating, perplexing God. Hes still crying out to him! 3. Where else can he go? There is nowhere else to turn? Alcohol? Pills? Porn binge? There is only one thing that can satisfy his soul and thats his God, and hes still pursing that God to his dying breath. Main Idea: Lament is not a denial of true faith but a dogged expression of it. 1. Learn the language of lament. 1. M. Card, It seems to me that we do not need to be taught how to lament. What we need is simply the assurance that we can lament. 2. Illus: Staff meeting at a church where the counselor said, Im having trouble believing that God is good. o R. Davis, Sometimes a little talk with Jesus doesnt make all things all right. o Lament teaches us that sometimes prayer doesnt change things. But lament gives us the language and vocabulary to use when we need to have a difficult conversation with God. o The dark night of the soul can last a long time. Lament is what miserable Christians can and should sing. 3. Remember the Gospel. 1. Mark 15:33-3, And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, My God, my God, why have your forsaken me. Was this reality, or his perception of reality? Yes. Jesus was really and truly abandoned by God when he hung on the cross dying for our sins. It wasnt just a feeling, but a reality. And because he was abandoned by God, you may at times feel abandoned, but in reality you never are.

2. Hebrews 13:5, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Conclusion: Samwise to Gandalf, Is everything sad going to come untrue? A great Shadow has departed," said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count. Is everything sad going to come untrue? The Christian answer to that is a resounding YES! Because Jesus not only suffered and died for us, but also was raised from the dead, his resurrection guarantees our resurrection, and it guarantees a new heavens and earth where the great shadow of suffering will depart, and there is no death, nor mourning, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor pain (Rev. 21).