Tim Badger - Class 2: Lamenting in the Psalms (Psa 142)

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

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   This is the 2018 Day with the Word. Our speaker this morning is Brother Tim Badger. His topic for the day is Closer to Our God, the Book of Psalms. This is class number two, entitled, I Pour Out My Complaints Before Him, Lamenting to God. The reading was Psalm 142. Brother Tim.

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   Well, you should at this stage have two handouts. Does everyone have those two sheets? One is on tips for reading the Psalms. And the second one is a landscape version of Psalm 13. Is that all good? Okay, great. We're going to try and make use of those a little bit in this session.

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   So what we want to do in this session is look at one of the types of Psalms that actually is the majority of what we find in the Book of Psalms, and that is Psalms of Lament. Obviously, lamenting is no stranger to the Bible. We find a whole book in the Bible dedicated to lamentation of Jeremiah to give us insight into the depths of his feeling.

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   And no less so in the Book of Psalms. In smaller versions and smaller episodes of different men and women. But who else laments in Scripture? Let's just have a think about that. This is an extremely important part of what God conveys to us in his choice of records and his choice of words in Scripture.

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   Where else do we find lament outside of the Book of Psalms? Oh, Jeremiah. Through the Book of Jeremiah. Absolutely. And then there's a whole book after that. Wow. Where else? Or Bible care, Bible men and women. Job. Job is extraordinary. Right? So when you come to the story of Job, he finally gets to this point in chapter 10, and he says, I'm going to open my mouth, and I'm going to tell God my complaint.

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   And you're sort of, oh, it's really strong. Like, he just holds it all in, and it just, bang, out it comes. And he complains to God, and he says exactly how he's feeling. And now, brothers and sisters, never, in the Book of Job, do we find God saying, whoa, whoa, Job, settle down.

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   Like, you don't talk to me like that. No, we don't find that. Yes, as the progression of the Book goes along, Job begins to struggle with pride and other issues. But he doesn't speak of God what is wrong. It's the friends that are in that position at the end of the book. And brothers and sisters, what we need to take away from that is exactly what we find in the Book of Psalms, is that telling God exactly how you feel is entirely appropriate when it's done still in faith, no matter if you're on the very edge of hanging on to that faith.

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   And we'll see that as we go through. Where else do we find it? Jonah. Jonah, yeah. Wow. And Jonah is an extraordinary example, because he seems to draw from all of these different psalms, and stitches them all together to fit his situation. And he draws on them, and applies them to his own situation.

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   It was extraordinary. No psalmist had ever been in the belly of a fish, but Jonah was. And he draws on all these psalms to construct his own prayer of lament. Who else goes through this process? Hannah. Hannah is an absolute classic. In fact, the description that we're given in 1 Samuel of Hannah is that she's pretty much a dead woman.

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    That's how she's lost everything. She's completely at the rock bottom. Because of her concern for the nation and spiritual well-being, that's where her mind was. And she pours out this extraordinary complaint. But the amazing thing is that Hannah captures this balance that we find in the psalms. That few other places in scripture have as extraordinary a psalm outside the book of psalms as Hannah does in 1 Samuel chapter 2.

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    It is absolutely amazing. And it is one of the most powerful psalms that deal with the Messiah. And the hope of the future Messiah to come. So Hannah goes through this process of the depths of despair, and comes out of it at the heights of praise. Amazing. And we find exactly that story from that sister in the book of psalms, time and time again.

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    Well, so lament is extremely important to us. Now, here we are in number two. And I'm just going to skip to this slide here. One of the challenges that we find when we're looking at psalms of lament or praise, and we're just going to come to lament a little bit more detail in a minute, because we want to just have a look at some of the tools that we can use to unpack psalms, whether they are lament or whether they're praise.

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    And here's some of the challenges that we typically find with the psalms, that people might create a barrier at first to people getting the most out of the psalms. And the first one is poetic language. Most, I couldn't stand English when I was in high school. It really bothered me. And then the teacher would give you a poem to interpret, and you'd come up with your interpretation, and the teacher's like, no.

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    And I'm like, no. I don't know. What do you want me to say? It felt like, no. I've got to be careful. I'm a teacher, and I respect English teachers. I work with them. I have good friends that are English teachers. I'm not having a go at that. But we know that poetry is not everyone's cup of tea, right?

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    But the thing that we really want to open up to is that they are definitely the way that God communicates. There's no doubt about it. They're all the way through Scripture. In fact, a huge portion of the Old Testament is written in poetic form, not just prose. All through the prophets you find poetry.

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    Hosea is full of poetry, powerful poetry, that calls people's conscience and calls them into conviction of what they believe. All the book of Psalms, and in many other places, of course, including Hannah's in 2 Samuel 2. So poetic language can be a challenge. Another challenge in Psalms is general language. Do you know what's really fascinating about the Psalms is that the challenge that there's sort of this general language about things and enemies is actually one of the benefits of the Psalms that we have.

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    So you will find almost no Psalms have specific historical incidents referred to them. There might be a historical incident that we can say that's definitely referring to this. And sometimes the title very occasionally might allude to this is when David was hiding in the cave or whatever. But in the Psalm, there's absolutely nothing that tells you this is the date and time of the people involved.

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    It's all generalized to enemies and those kind of things. Now, brothers and sisters, that is precisely the way that the Psalms become useful to us. Because if they were specific, we would have a tendency to leave them in like, well, that was David's experience. They don't relate to me. But they've been conveyed in a general way so we can take those same sentiments and use those Psalms and turn them up when we're at school or uni or work and read them on our lunch break and try and identify how we can relate to those same sentiments.

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    So that links to the imprecatory language of kicking the enemies in the teeth. The last verse of Psalm 137 is extraordinary with the exiles. You know what it says? The last verse of Psalm 137 is that the psalmist prays that God will take the little ones of the enemy and dash them against the rocks.

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    End. That's the last poetic stanza in Psalm 137. You think, how on earth can you relate to that? Until we realize, brothers and sisters, that this is meant to be general for us. And that's our passionate view towards all evil things. There's no doubt about that. And that there will be judged in the end.

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    But that's one of the key features of the Messiah in Psalm 45 that we'll look at on Sunday. Is that he loved righteousness and hated iniquity. And that alone is a powerful challenge in the book of Psalms for us. The passion of David and others and Hannah in 2 Samuel 2, which is another psalm, that has a deep disdain for the evil in the world.

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    And it's always, brothers and sisters, not that that person is going to take it upon themselves and say, I'm going to smash my enemies in the teeth. It says, God, it's over to you. Can you please vindicate me and do something about it? And, brothers and sisters, if anything, the language of the psalms in that sense helps us to heighten our appreciation for righteousness and evil.

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    And to make that distinction in our life and have that passion that God does. Not that we don't still love our enemies. That's on a different level altogether. We certainly do. And we show that. But in the end, the enemy within that Christ came to destroy, we passionately believe that that's important. And we will believe, and we do believe, that when Christ comes, he will do exactly to the Babylon of today.

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    That the people, our brothers and sisters in the past, were begging God to do in their time. And we should be begging for God to do it now. I sincerely believe that. You cannot read the book of Revelation and other prophets and Jesus' own words and not realize that that is a passion of all God's people to see that system and, in general, the wickedness of the world once and forever removed.

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    Not just from the world, but from our own bodies themselves. And that's part of the challenge, but part of the benefit of the psalms that we find. And that relates to sort of two, three, and four. Well, what about poetic language, brothers and sisters? Let's just have a quick think about this. I want to show you this.

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    What do you reckon? I'm just going to read these words here. I know the ones at the back. How is that? Is it really big and clear? Oh, good. I'll read it to you. I just wanted to squeeze it on there. I probably should have made my hand out, but I didn't. Okay.

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    Let me just read this to you. See what it sounds like. Lord, do not be too angry with me. Be kind to me. I'm weak. I need help. I feel awful. How long will I wait? Come back, Lord, and save me. I'm going to die, and I will not be able to praise you when death comes.

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    I'm tired of groaning and crying all night. My enemies are making me sad. Now, you compare that to the actual words of Scripture. Oh, Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak. Oh, Lord, heal me, for my bones are vexed.

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    My soul is also sore vexed. But thou, O Lord, how long? Return, O Lord. Deliver my soul. Oh, save me for thy mercy's sake. For in death there is no remembrance of thee. And in the grave, who should give thee thanks? And so goes on. Now, you can immediately see, brothers and sisters, when you put those side by side, why poetic language has its place in Scripture.

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    What does it do? You tell me. What's the value? What's happening immediately? That's how I might talk, right? When I'm just kind of saying a prayer. But that's how it's recorded, and that's how the psalmist pray. What's the benefit of poetic language? It aligns our mind with the poet itself. Okay. So say that one more time, Jonathan.

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    It aligns our mind so that we're on the same wavelength. Okay. So Jonathan was saying that the poetic language actually helps you join into the mind frame of the actual psalmist, what they're going through, far more than this does. Right? So what we're saying is that that poetic language actually conjures up the emotion, the extremity of the feelings, and the depth of those feelings far more than any other language does.

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    And God, under divine inspiration, uses it through the psalmist to do that. Now, brothers and sisters, that gives us an insight into what God is actually calling us to do in our prayers. I don't necessarily think he's calling us to write poems and craft those, because we might not have the amazing skill that those psalmists had, and they do.

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    But I think what it's telling us is that poetic language is showing us that we need to throw all of our heart and all of our mind into our prayers. They cannot be stale, brothers and sisters. We cannot be satisfied with just leaving our prayers as a stale, routine, cliche type of prayer.

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    No! The psalmist write that type of prayer right off the map. There's no place for that. Prayers must be heartfelt. They don't have to be poetic, but they have to be thought out and prayed over carefully. And if we have trouble doing that, which I think all of us do from time to time, then this book is here to help us.

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    And so one of the exhortations is to use the psalms and pray with them. Help them to inform you and use them to help you get to that level. And over time, they will. They'll show you what it's like to trust in God and to pour out our hearts to Him. So that's part of the value of poetic language.

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    Now, one of the tips that is useful to do, brothers and sisters, is this. And Kate and myself have done this occasionally in the past. And I think the more you do it, the better it is. And this is one of the ways to get more out of, particularly the lament psalms, but any psalm.

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    And that is to go through and write the psalm in your own words. I don't know if you've ever tried that before, but the riches that will come to you when you do that is extraordinary. Because this is what it actually is to meditate on God's Word. You take that psalm, you think about it, and you write it in your own words.

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    So this is something that, this is just a little idea for you to try and get more out of the psalms, to be closer to God in those sentiments and feelings, is to take them and write them in your own words. There was a while there where Kate and I were writing three or four verses a day, and we just send it to each other in a text.

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    I might do it at lunchtime. And send it and say, here's Psalm 50, what do we have up there? Psalm 52 verses one to four. And this is how I write it in my own words. And I can tell you it is so helpful to do that. Because what we're doing is distilling the Word of God and really thinking about what it means.

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    And then you can try and put it into your own context. In your own context in your own life. To make those relevant. And I'm actually going to get you to do that a little bit today, in a minute. But this is what I think, this was either Kate or myself, for verses one to four of Psalm 52.

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    You wicked man, you love all the wrong things. God's goodness is always present, but you choose to love everything that is evil. And as soon as you do that, it makes you think about yourself, right? And you start really reflecting on it in a way that you maybe wouldn't if you just read the psalm.

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    When you're trying to dig into that poetic language. So, brothers and sisters, what I want to show you is this psalm particularly. To help us look at the lament psalms and the principles that are here. I want you to come to Psalm 13. So, turn to Psalm 13. Oops. And this psalm is going to be used as a model lament psalm.

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    Because it teaches us the principles of what is involved in lamenting to God. Because it is principled. Psalm 13 is beautiful because it's only six verses and it's highly structured. This is how it works. Verses one to two is the complaint. Right? So, we'll just read it together. Verse one. Psalm of David.

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    How long, Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul? And that's his complaint. Verse two. Oh, sorry. I didn't finish that verse. Over the page for me. Having sorrow in my heart daily. How long will my enemy be exalted over me?

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    And now, there's a distinct change in this psalm. Look at verse three to four. This is a plea from the psalms. Now, he's saying, God, do this. Please do this. Consider and hear me, O Lord, my God. Enlighten my eyes. Lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest my enemies say, I have prevailed against him.

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    Lest those who trouble me rejoice when I am moved. And now, he moves to the third element that you find in Lament Psalms. And that is still the element of praise. Verse five and six. But I have trusted in your mercy. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me.

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    Now, that is beautiful. Two stanzas for each element. There's the complaint, the plea, and the confidence. Now, we're going to look at these three elements as part of what we find in the psalms. And this is a little diagram that possibly helps do that. By the way, if you don't have a copy of Mark Vinson's, Brother Mark Vinson's book on exploring the psalms, I highly recommend you get a copy of that if you want to go further.

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    It's not a commentary on individual psalms. It's actually a tool to help you explore the psalms, sort of what we're doing today. And it is a brilliant resource, I believe, for the Brotherhood. It's by Brother Mark Vinson. And something similar to this diagram is in there that I found useful. I want to share it with you.

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    Right? So here's where we find a person who's in distress in the psalms and what it teaches us. Their complaint, their plea, and their confidence. Now, brothers and sisters, there's not one, as far as I can tell, there's not one single psalm of lament and complaint that doesn't have every one of those elements, at least in part somewhere in the psalm.

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    Now, that's going to be important when we open that a little bit further, that all three parts are there. And it's going to help us as we put together our own prayers as we come to God, especially in distress. But for the moment, I want you to just focus on the complaint. I want to show you something that I started to do with my Year 10 class at Heritage College.

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    So I teach at Heritage College in Adelaide. And I do home group and Bible study for the Year 10s every year, which is great. And what I've got them to do, and I'm going to get you to do this, is to take Psalm 13 and say it in a sentence. Oh, you're allowed to go over one sentence, okay?

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    So I'm not going to be checking. But what I want you to do is take that section, each one of those, and put it in your own words. So, for example, this is what the Year 10s wrote on the whiteboard. They also drew it. So there's the man lying down to capture the sense of it.

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    Verse 1 to 2, this is what Psalm 13 wrote. How long will you let bad stuff happen to me, God? How long do I have to do this on my own? That's another summary of those verses. How long will you not make me do it by myself? How long will you not care for me?

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    How long will you put bad things in my life? That is the sense of exactly what's going on in Psalm 13, verses 1 to 2. So what I'd like you to do, and we're just going to take right in the study, because we have tables out. It's brilliant. What I'd like you to do is take that handout and have a try, particularly on the second and third one, but also go for your own on number one, and try and put it, read it and distill it and put it in a sentence or two.

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    So I'm actually just going to let you do that for four minutes. Let me see how you go. Try and use language that you might use yourself. Try and use language that you might use yourself. because of what you want to be using yourself. Try and use language that you might use yourself because of what you want to be using yourself.

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    Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I might just pause you in 30 seconds, so you may not have finished, but that's right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hopefully, you were able to do maybe one or two of those at least in the psalm.

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    And hopefully what you found is that in doing that, you now are a lot more familiar with Psalm 13, but also a little bit closer to the sentiments of that person in the psalm. It seems, as we're told, as it's David. And you know, brothers and sisters, that's just a little way of doing Bible study, right?

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    That's one way that you can approach the Word and actually try and get something out of it and distill it. And it will have meaning and it will tell us more about how we can pray and what we can say and how to go about that. But that makes us familiar with those three elements that we were talking about.

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    You know, as we said before, every lament psalm where someone is pouring out their complaint to God has all three of those elements. Now, there is some extraordinary lament psalms in the book of Psalms that we have. I want you to come to Psalm 88. This is, by far, brothers and sisters, the darkest psalm that you will find.

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    It is dark from start to finish. And there's a lot of questions about this psalm in terms of what's going on. It's a contemplation of Heman the Ezraite.

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    And he is in deep distress. I'd say possibly few of us have or may even come to the place where this brother has found himself. It's very Job in the way it describes what's happening. And this person is in the depths of despair. And part of the reason for the despair of this person is because they don't understand what God is doing.

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    And they feel frustrated, brothers and sisters, that they have prayed day and night since they were a youth. Look at what it says in Psalm 88. We'll just find that little section. Look at verse 15. I have been afflicted and ready to die from my youth. I suffer your terrors. I am distraught.

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    Now, this is an intense psalm. It's very hard to read without sort of feeling like, oh, you can't even get to the end of it. It's so dark. But this person is struggling with some very real issues that the people of God have struggled with from time to time all through history. And that is God has promised that he's with us, but it certainly doesn't feel like it for me or my family or maybe my ecclesia at this time.

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    And brothers and sisters, we have brothers and sisters in our community that go through times like this. And that might be you. It might have been and it might be you in the future or me. And it's a very real experience for the people of God. And not only that, the people like this person in Psalm 88 and other psalms have on hand the promises that God made that he will never end his line and his promises to set up a king on the throne.

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    And yet they're going through periods where it feels like God is absolutely doing nothing in their life. This person has prayed ever since they were a youth, maybe a teenager, that God would do something. And he hasn't done anything. That's how they feel. And they explain that in complete detail. So through here in Psalm 88, you will find his complaint very clearly and his plea for God to do something.

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    But brothers and sisters, where is any hint of confidence in this psalm? Where would you find it? Because the challenge is every psalm has it. And this is the one that has the least, but it's still there.

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    Verse 13. Let's have a look at verse 13. But to you I have cried out, O Lord. In the morning my prayer comes before you. Now in a sense that is confidence because he believes he's there. So he hasn't let go of the fact that God is, he must be there and I'm still praying to him.

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    But in a sense, verse 13 is also couched as part of his problem. That he's been doing this, but nothing's happening. Yet he still is. Where is another phrase that captures that this man is just hanging on to his faith? Yep, verse 1. The phrase, O Yahweh, God of my salvation. That's it.

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    But everything after that, you think he's almost all but given up. That God is the God of his salvation. And brothers and sisters, this is someone in that place that they're just hanging on to their faith with the edge of their fingertips. On the edge of that cliff. And it feels like they're almost falling over.

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    And they're pouring their heart out to God. Please show me what you're doing in my life. And you know, brothers and sisters, it's right that the psalmist did that. And we need to acknowledge and to know that when things like this happen or hard times come, we have to go to God. Nothing, nothing can get in the way of our relationship with God.

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    Sickness, disease, or whatever it is. And if there's something that is getting there, when doubts arise and fears come in, brothers and sisters, we have, the psalms are telling us, the lament psalms, we have to get on our knees and pour it out to God. We have to tell God that I don't feel like you're doing anything.

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    You've promised that you're a God of love and mercy, but why is that not showing up in my life? Do you know, brothers and sisters, it's never wrong to do that. But the balance is that in any psalm of complaint and lament, every brother and sister who has ever done that on faithful record for us, always puts in there their final vote of confidence in God.

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    There's always something in there that shows their reverence and respect for him, although they might be struggling, excuse me, they might be struggling with doubt and fears. And that's a really important message for us in our prayers, to actually get down on our knees and pray, maybe if it's not for us, but for other people as well.

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    But always in our prayers, brothers and sisters, have some sort of reflection on our confidence in God. And for some of the psalmists, they pour all of this out about the promises, and then they come back, but we know you delivered us from the Red Sea. We know that happened. I know you're there.

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    Please show us again. And that's the voice of faith and trust in God. You know, the next psalm over is one of the most extraordinary. Psalm 89.

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    This is Ethan the Ezraite. Maybe he was a brother. But look at his complaint, brothers and sisters. In fact, you wouldn't know this was a psalm of complaint, because the first 37 verses are an extraordinary depiction of the promises to David. The sure mercies of David. This is one of the best places in the Old Testament where the whole promises to David are summarized.

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    And he's so excited for them. Look what he says in verse 1. I will sing of the mercies of Yahweh forever. With my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations. And it's just this overwhelming appreciation for the promises. But that is precisely why this is a lament psalm. Because look at verse 38.

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    There's a massive change. And that's one of the tips, brothers and sisters, looking at the psalms. For looking at changes in who's speaking and what's going on. And here's a classic. Verse 38. The entire psalm changes. Look what he says. Well, verse 37. This is the end of it. It shall be established forever like the moon.

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    Even like the faithful witness in the sky. Selah. But you have cast off and abhorred. And he's speaking to God, brothers and sisters. You've been furious with your anointed. You've renounced the covenant of your servant. Now, I don't know if we can really capture what the psalmist is saying in that. For you to say to God, you've renounced your covenant is a massive deal.

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    The Old Testament is all about the covenant that God has with his people. And this person at this time says that the promises are fantastic. But God, what are you doing? You're not even fulfilling anything that you've promised. In fact, what you're doing is making it hard for us. Look what he goes on.

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    You've renounced your covenant. Verse 39. You have profaned his crown by casting it to the ground? God? Have you ever noticed this language before? You have broken down all of his hedges. You've brought his strongholds to ruin. All who pass by plunder him. Look at verse 43. You've also turned his back to the edge of the sword and have not sustained him in the battle.

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    You have made his glory cease and cast his throne to the ground. The days of his youth you have shortened and have covered him with shame. How long, Yahweh? Will you hide yourself forever? Will your wrath burn like fire? And even though you've made all of these promises, is this how you're going to treat us?

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    You see, brothers and sisters, this was a real issue for God's people at this time. All these wonderful promises, and yet it felt like God was doing nothing. In fact, it feels like for this psalmist that God was making it worse, not better. Now, brothers and sisters, if that's the problem, that we feel like God is not real and not acting in our life, then we need to pray and tell him.

84. 34:07

    And this is not done with a lack of reverence. This is done with reality, brothers and sisters. This is how we feel. And, you know, sometimes we might feel that this argument sometimes comes up, and maybe it's subtle in your own mind, like it has been for me in the past, that God already knows, so why do we have to tell him?

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    But that line of thinking, brothers and sisters, and young people, has no place in Scripture. God is telling us over and over again, if you're thinking it, tell it to me. I already know. And that doesn't mean that because I already know, you don't tell me. Because I already know, you need to tell me.

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    Because it's about my relationship, says God, with you. And if you never tell me how you feel, if you never get down on your knees and pray for what you're going through and tell me that you want me to act in your life, then our relationship will never be what it could be.

87. 34:59

    And that's what faithful men and women do, brothers and sisters. In Scripture, they tell God exactly what they're feeling. That's not a lack of reverence. We're told in Hebrews 5, verse 7, that in the days of his flesh, the Son of God, Lord Jesus Christ, with vehement cries and tears, made supplications to the Father.

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    And he was heard because of his godly fear. See, these people don't lack a fear of God, brothers and sisters. There's a faith there, but they're struggling. They're definitely struggling. But to keep that relationship with God and to help that faith, they pour it out and they tell God. So, brothers and sisters, it's important for us to put our heart on the line to God and avoid falling into the trap of using cliches or feeling like I shouldn't say that to God.

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    No, we should. We are people of faith. We do believe in the God of Israel and the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. And because that's true, we should tell him. God's not looking for pious-sounding prayers. He's looking for real prayers of saints who are pouring their hearts out to God if that's what they need to do.

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    And that's how it is in the book of Psalms. And that's how we can gain strength, brothers and sisters, from the Psalms of lament. And thinking about our prayers, putting a little bit of thought into them is really useful. And remembering today that when you're in that position, when you need to pour out your heart to God, the first lesson is do it.

91. 36:35

    And the second thing is put in that prayer your complaints and your requests to God and also never leave your prayer at that. Always find something in the past that you can still have confidence in God with and say to him, I know this is who you are. I believe that. Even though it's hard to manage at this time.

92. 37:00

    You know, this is a little quote that I found in a little booklet I came across somewhere called The Hour of Prayer. And it's just a true statement. Few of us make claims on God's help to the extent to which it is available or lay our lives so completely on his strength as we might.

93. 37:24

    And I think that's something worth thinking about. You know, Brother Mark Vinson in his book on the Psalms says this, brothers and sisters, and I'll read it to you. The pouring out of joy and sorrow before God is never an end in itself. Rather, the joy or the sorrow always brings into focus the psalmist's relationship with God whether he feels near to him or far away.

94. 37:53

    Everything in the psalmist's life affects this relationship. Everything in the Psalter is seen in relation to the Lord. This is a crucial point. Prayer is not just another way of expressing ourselves, a way of obtaining psychological release. It is a vital part of spiritual life because it brings into focus our relationship with God.

95. 38:15

    And that's an important element that comes out that God is telling us over and over again in the Psalms. And brothers and sisters and young people, if there is something in your life that it may not be sickness, it may not be tragedy, it may be just an overwhelming confrontation with some sin in your life that you're really struggling with, we've got to pray about it.

96. 38:39

    That's exactly what the psalmist do. When David's praying about his enemy, which is Saul in many contexts in the Psalms, when he's praying about that or his enemies that are surrounding him and he wants God to do something, that's exactly how we can pray with the challenges and the sins that so easily beset us, if something threatens our relationship with God and the covenant that we have with him, whether it's our own actions or the actions of others or sickness, then something must be done about it.

97. 39:12

    But we must bring it to him in prayer. And this is the most important thing that we have in our communication with him, brothers and sisters. You know, you look at these people on the screen, and hopefully you can see those, but I'll just read them out to you. Yeah, good. These people and more have something in common that they share in their lifetime.

98. 39:36

    Abraham and Sarah, Zacharias and Elizabeth, Joseph, Moses, Israel as an entire nation, Hannah, Caleb, Esther, Job, Simeon, Paul. And the list could go on. And one of the key features, brothers and sisters, of those people's life is waiting. They had to wait for God to act. And sometimes it was a very, very long time.

99. 40:00

    When God had promised, and yet that promise didn't feel like it was coming to pass, these brothers and sisters had to wait. And do you know, waiting is one of the key elements that you find in the Psalms. One of the key problems that the people of God wrestle with, waiting. Waiting for Him to do something.

100. 40:18

     Waiting for Him to put release in my life from whatever this is. And that's a real issue. And many people of old, brothers and sisters, have wrestled with this idea of waiting. And you find it over and over again in the Psalms. Do you know, brothers and sisters, actually, most of the Psalms that we find in the book of Psalms are written in these vast periods of history where the people of God are just stuck waiting.

101. 40:49

     It's true. It's not like these Psalms are kind of blasting out of all of these amazing events that keep happening every week. Something amazing keeps happening. No. Most of the Psalms, which are mostly laments, are actually written in periods of Israel's history where there's huge gaps where it seems like God is not there.

102. 41:08

     Now that's true for us as well. That we can see God's hand in Israel and the nations and the trees that are appearing, the leaves that are appearing on the trees. We can see all that. And that's exciting. That's the hand of God at work. But sometimes you can still feel that He's, where is He in my life?

103. 41:24

     And if you don't feel that now, you might feel that before Christ returns. I feel, brothers and sisters, that if Christ doesn't return in the next 10 years, and we pray God He will, our community will have a great need for faithful waiting. And it could be that our Lord doesn't return. And brothers and sisters, that puts us in the same place as so many of the people of God for so long that most of their life has been in a period of waiting and trying to see how God will work as He's promised He would.

104. 42:00

     although it may feel like He doesn't. So brothers and sisters, using the Lament Psalms to help us in this will be a strength to us. You know, this relates to teenagers as well. I just thought I'd put this in here. This is taken from Teenagers of the Bible, page 141. And I think it's a useful thing because it resonated with me.

105. 42:21

     In times of adversity and trouble, it is not unusual to try all kinds of solutions and cures only to find that we have ignored the greatest cure of all time, prayer. Now I would add to that, brothers and sisters, no, we might have prayed about it, but we may not have prayed properly about it.

106. 42:37

     And what I mean now by properly is in the sense and the fervency and the depth that's in the book of Psalms. We might pray for a minute or two over something that's happening and the Psalms, no, that's not, it needs so much more thought and preparation and thinking about to bring your heart and mind to God.

107. 42:55

     This is particularly true of the teenage years when we have plenty of energy and pride ourselves in achievements, frequently taking matters into our own hands. And not necessarily that we consciously are proud that we're awesome, but we just might have that underlying sort of notion that that's how things are going. Only to find ourselves more deeply mired into the problem.

108. 43:19

     And then, as a last resort, we turn to prayer. And so that's an encouragement for teenagers and all of us alike to pour out our heart to God. And when you look and scan through the book of Psalms, these are the things that you find people praying for in their lament Psalms. Your illness, guilt and anxiety as a result of sin, captivity, Israel's national sufferings, and maybe for us those two can kind of go together, right, in our experience now.

109. 43:50

     False accusations from other brothers and sisters in the ecclesia, the brotherhood. Evildoers in their apparent success and prosperity around us. That should bother us, brothers and sisters. It really should. And it did for the psalmist. And it caused him to pray. Various historical incidents in life, various things that might have happened. And perhaps one that's a common theme to all the other ones at times is estrangement from God, feeling not close to God, feeling far away, or that he is deliberately far away.

110. 44:25

     Although, we know that's not the case from a technical, logical point of view. It can certainly feel like that. And so, the psalmist uses this expression a number of times when their heart is overwhelmed. That's the expression that you find in the psalm, that this person is completely submerged and flooded out with whatever it is.

111. 44:45

     And here's another list of those things that we can find. And all of those, like, it's amazing for the sisters, you will not find really any feeling or sentiment that we experience today that is not in the psalms. It's all there. All of it. Every emotion, every struggle, every feeling, all of those things can be found in the psalms.

112. 45:07

     And we need to make use of that book. This is the confidence that we can have. In Psalm 56, he says this little expression, which is absolutely beautiful. The psalmist says to God, in the midst of trial, in the context of sin and other things, he says to God, you number my wanderings, put my tears into your bottle.

113. 45:36

     And we sort of wonder, well, what does that mean? Like, it's a really intimate expression, right? And what he's referring to is this little guy. It's a little tear bottle. And it was common back then at various stages in ancient history where mourners would go around and collect the tears and put them into a little bottle and put a little cap on it.

114. 45:56

     And they would keep it as a remembrance of the mourning that they had when someone passed away or whatever it might be. And the psalmist is saying, God, I know that you do that for me. And although those tears fall on our pillow at night or fall somewhere else and wiped off with our sleeve, the psalmist has, through all of those moments of despair, this confidence that even every little tear from the problems that we have in our life, God knows.

115. 46:23

     And he doesn't just know, he keeps them in his bottle because he cares for us, brothers and sisters. And that gives so much more significance to Revelation chapter 21 when it says, in the end, in the end, God will take all of those tears and wipe them away. And there will be no more sorrow, no more tears.

116. 46:46

     That's the God that we worship. And that's the God that we love. And that's the God, brothers and sisters, that the book of Psalms is trying to tell us about through these lament psalms. Harry Tennant once wrote this, and you've probably seen this quote before. And this is just a couple quotes to share that are relevant.

117. 47:07

     However great the burden, this is in the man David, page 45. However great the burden, however irreplaceable the loss, however terrible the desolation, which brings about our sorrow. For the follower of Jesus, the moment must come when having poured all his tears into God's bottle, he lifts up the head and says, Arise, let us be going.

118. 47:37

     And so, with that in mind, brothers and sisters, these words too are extremely helpful when we're considering the lament psalms and the psalms about helping us to come closer to God. Read the word, think deeply over it, pray over it, pray with it, and pray through it, but no shortcuts, no six easy lessons.

119. 47:59

     There's a price to be paid in full, time must be invested, other lesser activities must go, some cherished pastimes will have to be neglected, but oh, the dynamic you will introduce in their place when we use the psalms in our prayers and make prayer a priority in our life.