Lonely Christian Soldiers! Psalm 88:8-18

Text: “Thou has put away mine acquaintance far from me; Thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.”                                                                                                               Psalm 88:8.

          “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord.”                                                                                          2 Corinthians 6:17-18.

 Good morning, often lonely, separated Christian! Once in your life and in mine, we had the crowds of the world as close friends and confidants; always an inner circle of worldly friends and acquaintances who would support us and sympathise with us no matter what  came about. 

Having one father, Satan himself, being amalgamated with others who were on their way to Hell seemed not such a bad experience of life – until the Living Lord God called us to become a part of His Holy Family – the church – and we were commanded to come apart from all our closest worldly friends and acquaintances, in order to be received as sons and daughters of the Living Lord God.  (John 8:44)

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?   And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial?  Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel...Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” (2 Corinthians 6:14-18)

There is, therefore, no doubt that the dedicated Christian life can be quite a lonely experience, and all who seek to live it can agree that the Psalmist’s experience is a very real one.

Verse 8: “Thou has put away mine acquaintance far from me. There are times when an unspeakable sadness steals upon me, an immense loneliness takes possession of my soul, a longing perchance for some vanished hand and voice to comfort me as of old, a desolation without form and void, that wraps me in its folds and darkens my inmost being.  It was not thus in the first days of my illness…My God, my God, to whom can I turn for comfort but unto Thee, Thou Who didst drink the bitter cup of human loneliness to the dregs that Thou mightest make Thyself a brother to the lonely, a merciful and faithful High Priest to the desolate soul; Thou Who alone canst pass within, the doors being shut to all human aid, into that secret place of thunder, where the tempest-tossed soul suffers and struggles alone; Thou Who alone canst command the winds and tempests, and say unto the sea, ‘Be still!’ and unto the wind ‘Blow not!’ and there shall be a great calm.” (From ‘Christ, the Consoler, A Book of Comfort for the Sick’ (Anon)

Spiritual depression is something that pulls the very soul down into a pit that can never be escaped – but for the help of a Sovereign Lord God of all grace and mercy.  Praise His Name!

Verse 8. “Thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.”  The speed at which old worldly friends and confidants turn on one when one is called into Christ’s Salvation, is a constant source of amazement to me. It is as though such ‘friends’ know they are on their way to Hell, but it doesn’t seem as bad to them just as long as one of their friends does not jump off the damnation train they are on!  New converts to Christ Jesus know this as a fact of their experience of being graciously saved. 

Verse 8. “Thou hast made me an abomination unto them. The mass of men who gather around a man and flatter him are like tame leopards; when they lick his hand, it is well for him to remember that with equal gusto they would drink his blood.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 369)

It is a well-known statistic that young, newly professing Christians can be lost back into the world so quickly by experiencing the loneliness I have just identified in Psalm 88.  It does not take much coaxing, for some new believers, to be wooed back into the drinking dens they once haunted, or into old worldly habits which used to be their ‘normal’ mode of life.  It takes strong determination, much prayer, and drawing close to the Lord God to stop many from returning like the dog to its vomit, or the pig to its wallowing in the mire.  Fact. If the Lord has called them, nothing will deter them. But false professors are easily wooed back into the world.

“For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.” (2 Peter 2:20-22)

At times of such testing, it can seem as if the Lord has hidden His face from the believer.  And the loss of God’s perceived countenance is a grievous depth of loneliness.

Verse 14. “Lord, why castest Thou off my soul? Why hidest Thou Thy face from me? He cannot act towards us in other than a right and gracious manner, therefore, for every stroke of His rod there is a sufficient reason in the judgement of His loving heart; let us try to learn that reason and profit by it.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 369)

A father only chastens his own much-loved children. When we are chastened of the Lord God, it is a proof-positive that we are indeed, His children, and shall benefit from the chastening.

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

“And she (Mary) shall bring forth a son, and thou (Joseph) shall call His Name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)

Because of such deep loneliness endured by Bible-believing Christians, we must always seek to have a group of other sound Christians with whom to fellowship, pray with and for, in order to remain separate from the world and refuse to be conformed to its ways.

“And be ye not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”  (Romans 12:2)

“Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For it they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up…It one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord in not quickly broken.” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)

Thought: We shall never find Christian support in the Devil’s halls of worldly sin!

Blessings ‘N’ Blastings! Psalm 88:2-7

Text: “Let my prayer come before Thee: incline Thine ear unto my cry; for my soul is full of troubles: and my life is draweth nigh unto the grave."                                                                                                           Psalm 88:2-3.

Good morning, embattled Christian! At the commencement of Psalm 88 we have observed how the Psalmist, Heman the Ezrahite, finds himself in the most profound depths of sorrow, depression of spirit, and apparent isolation even from the Lord Himself.  Yet, by drawing close to his Rock of Refuge – though constant prayer in Christ Jesus – he is in fact, fighting as a soldier in Christ against the powers of evil and darkness that are threatening to engulf and overwhelm his very sou! (2 Timothy 2:3-4)

The Psalmist is not seeking to use any physical force, or mental strength, or self-will to combat the forces of spiritual and temporal evil that he is fighting. No! He knows that, in the words of the old hymn: “…The arm of flesh will fail you, ye dare not trust your own…”; and is using the Spiritual weapons of persistent prayer to call down the forces of Heaven to his aid.  (See hymn: Stand up! Stand up! For Jesus, by George Duffield ,1818-1888)

Praise God for praying saints!  He is praying though the ‘blasting’ in order to reach the ‘blessing’ of the Living Lord God, His Saviour and his friend.  Glory to the Lamb!

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

Verse 2. “Let my prayer come before Thee: incline Thine ear unto my cry. We cannot take earnest, soul-crying prayers unto our Holy Lord God without FIRST seeking to be sanctified afresh from all our daily, continual, sin. Fact!

Our Holy Lord God will NOT HEAR the prayers of a man/woman who has not first sought sanctification from sin, for He cannot abide to even look upon sin without punishing it.

“Behold (look, and fully understand!), the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither is His ear heavy, that it cannot hear: BUT your iniquities (sins) separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.” (Isaiah 59:1-2)

“Thou art of purer eyes that to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity…”  (Habakkuk 1:13)

Our prayers go up before the throne of God’s grace, once we repent of our daily sins committed as genuine regenerate Christians, confess them to the Lord alone, and seek to forsake besetting sins. Then the way is open for us to petition, worship, and praise our Holy Lord God without any hindrance from ourselves.  What a gracious Lord God!

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins (as Christians!), and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:8-10)

Verse 3. “For my soul is full of troubles. I am satiated and nauseated with them.  Like a vessel full to the brim with vinegar, my heart is filled up with adversity till it can hold no more. He had his house full and his hands full of sorrow; but, worse than that, he had his heart full of it.  Trouble in the soul is the soul of trouble.  A little soul trouble is painful; what must it be to be sated with it?  And how much worse still to have your prayers return empty when your soul remains full o grief.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 367)

Blessings & Blastings: So often I have sought to teach the concept of ‘Blessings and Blastings’.  We are blessed of the Lord in some area of our daily lives, but often, soon after the blessing of God, comes the blasting of Satanic evil from the world, the flesh, and the Devil.  After we pray our way though the severe blastings of evil, opposition, and soul sorrows – we receive another, far surmounting, blessing from our faithful Lord God’s hand and heart. Blessings and Blastings.

God allows us to receive a ‘blasting’ from Satan, and the world, in order to keep us humble and ensure that we are depending on Christ and not on our own attributes or personal strengths.

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist steadfast in faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in our brethren that are in the world. But the God of all grace, Who hath called us unto His Eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect (mature), stablish, strengthen, settle you. To Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” (1 Peter 5:8-11)

Verse 4. “I am as a man that hath no strength. I have but the name to live; my constitution is broken up; I can scarce crawl about my sickroom, my mind is even weaker than my body, and my faith weakest of all. The sons and daughters of sorrow will need but little explanation of these sentences; they are to such tried ones as household words.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 367)

We ‘born again’, Bible-believing Christians, who have experienced, and do experience, such depths of soul-sorrow, depressions; and grief can immediately relate to the Psalmist’s cries. Yet, the fact that we have and do suffer such soul-afflictions, to me is proof-positive that we actually are the children of the Living Lord God, through faith in Christ Crucified for us. 

Hallelujah! No pain, no gain! If such soul-sorrows drive us into the bosom of our Lord God, then the blastings become blessings to us, for His Presence is full of much needed joy!

“Thou wilt show me the path of life: in Thy Presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”  (Psalm `6:11) The risen Jesus sits at the Father’s right hand.  Praise and all glory to His Holy Name! (John 15:10-11)

Verse 6. “Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. The flesh can bear only a certain number of wounds and no more, but the soul can bleed in ten thousand ways, and die over and over again each hour.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 368)

Verse 7. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me. Dreadful plight this, the worst in which a man can be found. Wrath is heavy in itself; God’s wrath is crushing beyond conception, and when that presses hard, the soul is oppressed indeed. The wrath of God is the very Hell of Hell, and when it weighs upon the conscience, a man feels a torment such as only damned spirits can exceed.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 368)

Thought: Embattled Christians, KNOW they are in a terrible Spiritual Battle in Christ’s army of redeemed souls.  Yet, we sally forth into that horror and strife, knowing, also, that our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, has wrought the Eternal Victory at Calvary’s Cross. Glory to His Name!  “It is finished!” Jesus is Lord!

Psalm 88: A Psalm of Profound Christian Sorrow. Prayers Seemingly Unanswered! Psalm 88:1

Text: “O Lord God of my Salvation, I have cried day and night before Thee: Let my prayer come before Thee: incline Thine ear unto my cry; for my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh to the grave.”

Psalm 88:1

Good morning, sound Christian in deep grief!  You are going through a time of heartbreak and trouble; grief of heart and grief of your very soul.  You have continually cried out in prayer to the Living Lord God Who has saved you through the Cross of Christ – yet you receive no answer from God, and it seems as though the Heavens are made of brass unto you; and you feel tangibly isolated, depressed in spirit, and totally ALONE.

If this describes your state this morning, beloved brother/sister in Christ, my heart goes out to you – for I have been where you are in that terrible place, and would not wish what you are experiencing on any other soul.  Yet, if we are to survive in faith while this period of testing/trial continues, we must always bring to our remembrance the full Sovereignty of our Holy and Almighty Lord God, and the Word of His promise revealed in our Bible.

“…I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” (Hebrews 13:5) Read on, dear troubled soul.

Much of what we have revealed to us in the Book of Psalms is written to prepare us for such times of profound soul grief and troubles.  It assures us that, although the Lord, in His Divine wisdom and foreknowledge of all things, seems to leave us destitute for a season of sore testing – in the end we shall once more rejoice in His Salvation promises, and come through victorious in Christ’s complete Victory at Calvary’s Cross.  Only believe, grieving Christian.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?... Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature (including our often-foolish selves!), shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35-39) Hallelujah!

“Title: “A Song or Psalm for the sons of Korah.”  This sad complaint reads very little like a song, nor can we conceive how it could be called by a name which denotes a song of praise or triumph; yet perhaps it was intentionally so called to show how faith ‘glories in tribulations also’. Assuredly, if ever there was a song of sorrow and a Psalm of sadness, this is the one.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 367)

Note: Heman the Ezrahite is the named author of Psalm 88 in the Old Testament. The title to this psalm notes, “A song. A psalm for the Sons of Korah. For the director of music. According to mahalath leannoth. A maschil of Heman the Ezrahite.

A Maschil: A Hebrew word of uncertain significance that appears in the headings of some thirteen psalms, (Ps 32, Ps 42, Ps 44, Ps 45, Ps 52, Ps 53, Ps 54, Ps 55, Ps 74, Ps 78, Ps 88, Ps 89, and Ps 142). Some current versions of the Bible leave the word untranslated, while others, in accordance with its apparent root meaning of “understand” or “ponder,” translate it as “instruction” or the like. Scholars have suggested that maschil is possibly a technical term relating to the manner of a psalm’s performance or a class of composition. The latter hypothesis is supported by the Psalter’s use of other apparent class names in parallel fashion as well as by the appearance of the word in (Amos 5:23), where it may designate such a class. (HarperCollins Dictionary online)

The Book of Psalms is clearly not a mere book of Hebrew songs and poems, but inspired by the Lord God, and written by His selected people with a view to instruct us, ‘His people’ in Spiritual wisdom and to share with us the Spiritual experiences of many other servants of God, in order to prepare us to deal with life lived as the servants of God, in Christ Jesus.

“Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples (examples): and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.”  (1 Corinthians 10:11)

By reading, and meditating on the grief of soul, and troubles of other servants of God in Psalm 88, and other Maschils contained in canonical Scripture, you and I are instructed and encouraged that our present sorrows, afflictions, and grief are not uncommon, and shall be overcome by the ‘…faith once delivered unto the saints…’ (Jude 3)

Verse 1. O Lord God of my Salvation. While a man can see God as his Saviour, it is not altogether midnight with him. While the living God can be spoken of as the life of our Salvation, our hope will not quite expire.  It is one of the characteristics of true faith that she turns to Jehovah, the saving God, when all other confidences have proved liars unto her.” (C.H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, page 367)

Genuine Christian souls going through such a ‘midnight’ of painful oppositions are drawn like magnets to metal in continual prayer to the Lord God they love and seek to serve.

Verse 1. “…I have cried day and night before Thee. Day and night are both suitable to prayer; it is no work of darkness, therefore, let us go with Daniel and pray when men can see us; yet, since supplication needs no light, let us accompany Jacob and wrestle at Jabbok till the day breaketh.  Evil is transformed to good when it drives us to prayer.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 367)

When Satanic, or worldly powers surround us with woes, and depression of spirit; and dark frustrations of mind – let us retire to the place of personal prayer to the Living Lord God, for it is there, in His Presence, we shall find peace, and strength renewed, to continue on in Christ’s service.  Hell trembles with fear when the weakest Christian cries out to his/her Heavenly Father for help.

“Satan trembles when he sees, the weakest saint upon his knees.” (William Cowper, 1731-1800)

“It was the hymnist William Cowper who wrote – “Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees.” No doubt Satan trembles because he knows that there is nothing you and I can do that is more powerful or effective than to pray. Yet so often we do not pray. Why are we so negligent in this important matter? Perhaps it is because Satan is constantly doing all that he can to keep us from it.”  (Seeds of Faith, online)

Serving Christians, active in the work of the Living Lord God, shall always be a target for Satan’s oppositions; his servants’ hindrances; and even the faltering weaknesses of our own Adamic flesh, the old nature.  We are engaged in a ruthless Spiritual war as the soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Our weapons are not carnal, physical, of this world – but Spiritual, mighty to the pulling down of strongholds, and one of our mightiest weapons is the power of fervent prayer to God. (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

Thought: Sound Christians in deepest grief – are drawn closer to our Rock of Refuge.