A Study in Psalms - Psalm 88

I want to begin tonight by reviewing the story of the hymn, It Is Well With My Soul, and I think a lot of you know about Horatio Gates Spafford and how he wrote that wonderful song, but I wonder if you know the whole story. I knew about the daughters and the shipwreck, but I didn't know the whole story, so hang with me and I'm going to read you about his life. Horatio Gates Spafford was born in New York on October 20, 1828, but it was Chicago that he became well known for his clear Christian testimony.

He and his wife, Anna, were active in the church and their home was always open to visitors. They counted the world-famous evangelist, Dwight L. Moody, as their friend. They were blessed with five children and considerable wealth.

Horatio was a lawyer and owned a great deal of property in the home city. Not unlike Job in the Old Testament of the Bible, tragedy came in great measure to this happy home. When four years old, their son, Horatio Jr., died suddenly of scarlet fever.

Then only one year later, in October 1871, a massive fire swept through downtown Chicago, devastating the city, including many properties owned by Horatio. That day, almost 300 people lost their lives and around 100,000 were made homeless. Despite their own substantial financial loss, the Spaffords sought to demonstrate the love of Christ by assisting those who were grief-stricken and in great need.

Two years later, in 1873, Spafford decided his family should take a holiday in England, knowing that his friend, the evangelist, D.L. Moody, would be preaching in Europe that autumn. Horatio was delayed because of business, so he sent his family ahead, his wife and their four remaining children, 11-year-old daughter Anna, 9-year-old daughter Margaret Lee, 5-year-old daughter Elizabeth, and 2-year-old Tonetta. On November 2nd, 1873, while crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the steamship Vallee du Havre, their vessel was struck by another ship, and 226 people lost their lives as the ship sank in only 12 minutes.

All four of Horatio Spafford's daughters perished. But remarkably, Anna Spafford, the mom, survived the tragedy. Those rescued, including Anna, she was found unconscious, floating on a plank of wood, and they took her to Cardiff, South Wales.

Upon arriving there, Anna immediately sent a telegram to her husband, which included the words, Saved Alone. Receiving Anna's message, Horatio set off at once to be reunited with his wife. One particular day during the voyage, the captain summoned him to the bridge of the vessel.

Pointing to his charts, he explained that they were passing over the very spot where the Ville du Havre had sunk and where his daughters had died. It is said that Spafford returned to his cabin, and he wrote the hymn, It Is Well With My Soul. And then the first line of it is, When peace like a river attendeth my way.

There are some other accounts that say it was written at a later date, but obviously the voyage was one of deep suffering and clear inspiration of the moving and well-loved hymn. Horatio's faith with God never faltered. He later wrote Anna's half-sister and said, On last Thursday, we passed over the very spot where the ship went down in mid-ocean.

The water is three miles deep, but I do not think my dear daughters are there. They are safe, dear lambs. After Anna was rescued, Pastor Nathan Weiss, one of the ministers traveling with the surviving group, remembered hearing Anna say, God gave me four daughters.

Now they have been taken from me. Someday I will understand why. Naturally, Anna was utterly devastated, but she testified that in her grief and despair, she had been conscious of a soft voice speaking to her.

You are saved for a purpose. She remembered something a friend had once said. It's easy to be grateful and good when you have so much, but take care that you're not a fair-weathered friend to God.

Following the deep tragedy, Anna gave birth to three more children, but she and Horatio were not spared even more sadness as, on February 11, 1880, their only son, Horatio, named after the other son who had died, also passed away at age four. In August 1881, the Spaffords left America with a number of other like-minded Christians and settled in Jerusalem. There they served the needy, helped the poor, cared for the sick, and took in homeless children.

Their desire is to show the living about them the love of Jesus Christ. Horatio Spafford died of malaria on the 16th of October, 1888. Anna Spafford continued to work in the surrounding areas of Jerusalem until her own death in 1923.

Both Horatio and Anna were laid to rest in Jerusalem. It can be truly said in the words that Spafford penned that night, It is well with their souls. The question remains, Is it well with your souls? This message tonight, as I was writing it, I was thinking about the family who recently, their 35-year-old son was killed in an automobile accident.

I was thinking about those who've lost their spouse, their husbands or their wives, after many years of marriage and now live alone. I was thinking about the women who had to undergo chemotherapy or are in hospice right now. I was thinking about the special-need moms who have to take care of special-needs children and their life is dictated by that child.

This message is dedicated to all who are struggling, all who feel like they're in the pits, and that God isn't listening to your prayers when you cry out to him. May God bless those suffering and comfort them. Let's pray.

Father in heaven, we love you and we thank you for a chance to open up the word of God and especially a psalm that not a lot of times we would look at. And we just pray, Father, that we can leave here tonight knowing more about you, understanding that sometimes the answer from you is a no, and sometimes the answer is wait, and that your timing is not our timing. Help us to understand this psalm tonight.

In Jesus' name, amen. If you would turn to Psalm 88, we said last week Psalm 98 was the most joyous psalm in this altar. Well, Psalm 88 is obviously, and you'll see, the saddest psalm because there's no happy ending.

We have a very long superscription at the top and it says, A psalm of the sons of Korah to the choir master according to Mahalath-Lenoth Amaskil of Heman the Ezerite. Verse 1, O Lord God of my salvation, I cry out day and night before you. Let my prayer come before you.

Incline your ear to my cry. For my soul is full of troubles and my life draws near to Sheol. I am counted among those who go down to the pit.

I'm a man who has no strength. 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. You have put me in the depths of the pit in the regions dark and deep.

Your wrath lies heavily upon me and you overwhelm me with all your waves. 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. My eyes grow dim through sorrow. Every day I call upon you, O Lord.

I spread out my hands to you. Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the departed rise up to praise you? Is your steadfast love declared in the grave or faithless in Abandon? Are your wonders known in the darkness or your righteousness in the land of the forgetfulness? But I, O Lord, cry to you in the morning. My prayer comes before you.

O Lord, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me? Afflicted and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors. I am helpless. Your wrath has swept over me.

Your dreadful assaults destroy me. They surround me like a flood all day long. They close in on me together.

You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me. My companions have become darkness. Did you notice how the psalm ended? Lance mentioned it on Sunday.

It ends with the word darkness. You know, Psalms 3, the last verse in that psalm says, Salvation belongs to the Lord. Blessing be upon your people.

Psalm 3 ends with a blessing. Psalms 4 says, 4, 8, the last verse in that psalm says, In peace, I will both lie down and sleep for you alone. O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

Psalms 4 ends with confidence in the Lord. Psalm 7, 17 says, I will give to the Lord the thanks due his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the most high. Psalm 7 ends with the last verse singing praises to God.

Psalms 8 ends with, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. Psalms 8 ends with majesty. Psalm 16, 11, last verse in Psalm 16 ends, You will make known to me the path of life.

In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16 ends with joy.

And then the most famous psalm we all know, Psalm 23 says, Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. It ends with joy. I could go on and on and on through 140 other psalms, and they almost all end with exaltation or praise or majesty or trusting in the Lord.

But not Psalms 88. It just ends abruptly. It ends in depression.

It ends in darkness. Why is this psalm even included in the 150 psalms that we have? No resolution. No healing.

No cry of confidence. But we have to remember, this psalm was included in the book of Psalms by the Holy Spirit, and it is a prayer for us also. God may have not answered Heman in this prayer.

His answer may have been open. It's a prayer for the sick. It's not a prayer for those healed.

The promise is that God will hear an answer. The resolution lies in God's sovereignty. This psalm actually needs the New Testament gospel to complete it.

In studying for this psalm, I was surprised that many commentators just skip over this psalm, the usual ones that I like to go to. But let me give you the titles of this message. Dr. William Barak from the Master's Seminary calls this a gloomy psalm.

James Boyce calls it the dark night of the soul. Dick High calls it a cry from the depths. David Holowick calls it the pit of despair.

Sam Storms calls it darkness, my only companion. Charles Spurgeon calls it a deep, dark, depressing psalm, distress of the soul considered. I thought about calling it the I am going to die psalm, but I didn't know if that would be appropriate.

So I just called it the saddest psalm. One commentator said that this is the saddest, darkest psalm in this altar. It's one of wail of sorrowing from the beginning to the end.

Another commentator said this is the gloomiest psalm found in scriptures. I know we read it fast, but did you notice the words calamities in verse 3, shield in verse 3, pit in verse 4 and 6, the grave in verse 5 and 11, dead in 5 and 10, depths in verse 6, abandon in verse 11, darkness in verse 12 and 18, the word cut off in verse 5, dark places in verse 6, shut up in verse 8, wasted away in verse 9, afflicted in verse 15, terrors in verse 15, my last breath in verse 15, and whores in verse 16. There's at least 20 words about a man who is going to or about to die.

There's only one verse, one ray of light, one verse of joy, and that's the very first verse. J. Vernon McGee said that some commentators have tried to apply this psalm to Job, and some have tried to prove that Job and Heman are the same person. I don't think that's true, but we'll see that this psalm is very much like the book of Job.

Some have said it could be about King Uzziah who had leprosy. Others said it could be about Jeremiah when he was in the dungeon. And some said it could be about Hezekiah when he's sick.

But no matter who is in this view, this psalm describes great suffering. What type of psalm is this? It's obviously a lament psalm. A lament is when they cry out to God.

It's an individual lament psalm. The main idea of this psalm is, The psalmist laments the terrible lifelong affliction that has brought him close to death, yet he persists in praying to the Lord day and night. I mentioned the super long superscription up there.

It's called a song. They would sing this in the temple. And it's one of the sons of Korah, but Heman is the one that we give the credit to.

That Hebrew word there, if I can pronounce it right, in the superscription. That means dance of affliction. This psalm is a dance of affliction.

And then the last line, it says, We've talked about a meskil before. The word meskil just means an artistically molded song in keeping with the principles of wisdom. Let's talk a little bit about the author Heman.

Most commentators believe that it's Heman who's mentioned in 1 Kings 4, 31. That says that Solomon was wiser than all the wise men, including Heman. So Heman is a Levite.

He is a musician. And he's actually probably the leader of a group of musicians in Solomon's time. We don't know the date.

We don't know the circumstance. We don't know the sickness. Most commentators would speculate he might have leprosy because that was the most dreaded, horrible disease.

But then not a lot of lepers got it from youth. Verse 15 says youth. So we don't even know the sickness.

It could be paralysis. It could be leprosy. We don't know.

I hope you have an outline. Four simple points. The situation, verse 1 to 3. The separation, verse 4 to 9. The summons, verse 10 to 12.

And the scourge, verse 13 to 18. Let's look at the situation. What's going on here? So first off, he has unanswered prayers.

In verse 1 to 2, he cries out, Oh, Lord, God of my salvation. And he says, I cry out day and night. Let my prayer come before you.

And then he says, incline your ear to my cry. Verse 1, as I mentioned, is the only hopeful line and the only ray of light in this dark psalm. But he does call out to Yahweh.

He does call out to Elohim. Two names of God in the first three words in English he calls out. Yahweh, as we mentioned last week, is the covenant-keeping God of Israel.

And Elohim is the creator God of the universe. He knows his God. He's a musician.

He would make songs, write music to him. But remember we said last week, when you see salvation in the psalm, it's not talking about the salvation that we're familiar with in the New Testament. It means deliverance.

He's crying out for deliverance from his illness. And he knows the only possible deliverance is God himself. There is no other healer that can heal him.

It says he cries out day and night. And verse 15 says that he has been ill since his youth. So we're probably talking about a middle-aged man here.

And since that time, God has not removed the suffering. His prayers are described as cries. Three times it says cries, cries, cries in this psalm.

Yet you notice his faith is active. He's praying. And notice he asks God to incline his ear.

Incline literally means to bend over and come closer. He's asking God to bend over, listen to my pleas. Come closer, God.

Hear my crying. Sometimes it seems that our prayers often don't get answered, even though we know God hears them. Psalms 42 says, My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all day long, Where is your God? And you know the very famous Psalm 22, verse 1, that Jesus would quote on the cross, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? We mentioned when we studied Psalm 91 about the parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18, verses 1 to 8. I didn't have a lot of time to go through that last time.

There are 40 parables that Jesus gave, and three of them are about prayer, and all three of them are in the book of Luke. And the one we mentioned when we looked at Psalm 91 was Luke 18, verses 1 to 8, called the parable of the persistent widow. You remember the story? She needs justice, and so she keeps banging on the judge's door for justice.

The judge doesn't want anything to do with her. He doesn't care about her, but she is so persistent that he wants to get rid of her, so he's going to give her justice. And then it ends in verse 8, I quoted, at the end of our Psalm 91, that it says, Jesus says, When I return, will I find faithful people? Will I find people praying? And I ask you then, would you be faithful prayer warriors of Christ's community church? So this man is persistently praying day and night, but he seems that to God his prayers are not being answered.

Secondly, his troubles are being compounded. He says in verse 3, For my soul is full of troubles. You know the verse Job 5, 7 says, But man is born to trouble as sparks fly upward.

A very common verse we quote a lot of times. You know the saying that bad things come in threes, right? And this is true for this guy. But, you know, when you go through the Bible, you think about Joseph, at least 13 years a prisoner and in the dungeon, right, before he got exalted to be the high leader in Egypt.

Think of Moses. Lance has preached a lot about Moses the last two months, and he was in the backside of the desert for 40 years. Think of David chasing from Saul.

Some people think he may have been chased for up to 13 years. So a lot of people in the Bible had a very difficult and troubled life and bad things. And remember about the Apostle Paul when the angel told Ananias, you know, go to that house on Straight Street, and Ananias doesn't want to go because he heard about how bad a dude Paul was.

And it says, For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of the name. And you know how much the Apostle Paul suffered. And so, you know, a lot of us have had blessed lives.

A lot of us haven't had a lot of problems. We're not like the believers in Ukraine. You're not like a Christian in India right now where a lot of trouble could come your way.

But we forget that the Bible tells us in 2 Timothy 3.12, Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. You can count your blessings if you haven't been persecuted. But we need to remember that.

So his prayers aren't being answered. His troubles are being compounded. And he just says he's near death.

In the last part of verse 3, he says, My life draws near to Sheol. So it's like life in the pits is like a near-death experience. And it's likely that he knows he's about to die or very soon.

He doesn't have the strength, he says, to go forward. We would say he has one foot in the grave. Sheol there, as we've talked about before, is just the realm of the dead where the dead would go, that temporary place in the Old Testament.

In the New Testament, Hades would be the equivalent. So why doesn't God answer our prayer? We talked about this in our Psalm 91. You know, it could be unconfessed sin.

Psalm 66.18 says that if I regard iniquity in my heart, if there's secret sins in my heart, God may not answer your prayer. Maybe you're asking with the wrong motives. Okay? We all want to, you know, ask God to take away the affliction, but seldom do we say, God, your will be done, do we? Maybe it's in the family.

Probably the most convicting verse for me about prayer is 1 Peter 3.7. Every husband here ought to know 1 Peter 3.7 because it says if you're not treating your wife as a gentle partner in the faith, God is not hearing your prayers. I don't know about you, but that's convicting to me. And that is a very powerful verse.

And then sometimes God doesn't answer our prayers because the timing is not right for God. Okay, we're not on God's timetable. We're on His timetable.

He's not on our timetable. And God answers our prayers a lot of time with an emphatic no or a wait. Think of all the women in the Bible that had to wait for the baby.

A long, long time before that baby came, right? All right, let's move on to point two, the separation. So this just gets gloomier and darker and gloomier. And here He's separation from a lot of things.

But you notice He's very transparent. He tells God exactly how He feels. And you and I can do that in prayer.

You know, we don't have to sugarcoat it to God. You can go to God. There are some days or sometimes I don't know how to pray.

I just tell God, you know, I don't feel like praying today. I just, I don't feel good or whatever's wrong. We can talk to God like this.

But in verse four, He's separated from all the personal resources that He would have. He says, I am counted among those who go down to the pit. I am a man who has no strength, okay? He's saying, God, You're responsible for this.

He has no physical strength. He has no personal success to get Him out of this. There's no prospect of recovery here.

People would look at this person and say, He's down in the tubes. There's no hope of recovery. I think the key word in verse four is the pit, okay? I don't know if you remember, but we preached Psalm 42 last year.

And I entitled that psalm, The Horrible Pit. That's what my father called it when he preached on Psalm 42. And we talked about pits there.

They're pits of sin. There are people who are addicted to sin, and they're in a pit of sin. David would have been one until he confessed his sin.

Samson would be another one who was constantly in a pit of sin. Then there's the pit of addiction. Drugs, alcoholism, pornography, they're pits that people, they're having a hard time getting out of.

Then there's just pits of bad habits, laziness, procrastination, playing the victimhood game. Then there's the pit of broken relationships. We have broken homes and dysfunctional families.

There's the pit of family problems. David would be one. He didn't address his family problems, and bad things happened.

Then there's the pit of loneliness, like Psalm 13, or when Saul was pursuing David, David was lonely. And then there's the pit of hopelessness, hopelessness like this psalm here. And we have many men.

It's true of men and women living apart from Jesus. They don't have any hope. You know, we see this in our post-COVID society, don't we? It seems like every day there are more violent acts being committed, there are more suicides committed.

I didn't realize when I was studying for this that we have nine states in the United States that euthanasia is legal with the doctor's consent. They call it the right to life or die with dignity, and there's quite a few countries around the world that it's illegal to die. But no matter what pit you're in, I like what Corrie Ten Boom said.

She said, you know what Corrie Ten Boom is, right? She was in the Ravensbrück Nazi concentration camp for many years, lost her entire family, but came out and was just a shining testimony to God. She said, there is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still. Remember that if you're in a pit right now.

Number two, there's separation from life itself. He says, and notice the likes in verse five, like one set loose, like the slain, and then at the end of verse five, like those. So you've got a simile here.

A simile is just a comparison. He says he's like those among the dead and like those slain in the grave. So he feels like he's a person just pretty much written off or dead.

Maybe death is at his doorstep. I like the New Living Translation. It says, I am as good as dead, like a strong man with no strength left.

So number three, separation from the favor of God. He says, like those you don't remember God for they're cut off from your hand. The NSB translation here captures it.

It says, I'm abandoned among the dead whom you no longer remember. Now God does remember. He's not saying there's no resurrection here.

Remember in the Old Testament, they didn't understand what we remember about the resurrection. He just feels like there's no favor from God here. He's not answering my prayers.

He doesn't feel like there's any grace from God here. Number four, separation at the deepest level. He mentions the pit again.

You have put, notice in verse six, in verse seven and eight, he says, you, you and your. He's pointing at God. He's blaming God.

You put me in the depths of the pit in the regions dark and deep. Someone has said there are pits in life and then there are lower pits in life. Heman feels like he's in the lower pits.

In verse one, God was his salvation, his deliverer. But now he has the emphasis blaming God, you, you, you in verses six to eight, blaming God for his troubles. He believes that God has forgotten him and no longer remembers him.

It reminds you of Joseph in Genesis 37. You remember Joseph's brothers threw him in a pit, right? But then he got out and things were good in Potiphar's house for a while. And then he had the false accusation and he got thrown in a dungeon.

So even Joseph went from one pit to a deeper and worse pit. So he went from what we used to say, the frying pan into the fires, the old saying, it got worse and worse. Number five, separation from the favor of God.

Verse seven, part two. He says, your wrath lies heavily upon me and you overwhelm me with all your waves. He's describing the wrath of God as waves that smash together and like clapping, okay? These waves just keep on coming again and again.

You know, the New Testament, again, he doesn't have the New Testament, we do. And the New Testament tells us in Romans 5, 9 that we're saved from the wrath of God, but he feels like the wrath of God is being poured out on him. And I think sometimes Christians around the world feel this.

I mentioned the believers in Ukraine, what it must be like to be there with Russia invading their country, that they would feel not the wrath of God, but they would feel like it is wrath. Number six, separation from friends. And this is one that really hurts.

Three things here. He's separated, he's despised, and he's in prison. He says, first off, you have caused my companions to shun me.

He feels like he's separated, okay? His friends have long since concluded that they don't want to meet with him. Maybe he's got leprosy. And if he had leprosy, they're not going to go talk with him.

So they've separated from him. And there's nothing worse than suffering, than suffering alone. He's also despised.

He says, you have made me a whore to them. That's why a lot of commentators think it's leprosy or some type of skin disease. And then he says, I am shut in so that I cannot escape.

He's in like a prison, not a real prison, but he feels like it's a real prison. I mentioned that Psalms 88 is very much like Job. If you haven't turned with me to the previous book of the Bible, Job before Psalms, Job 19.

I think you all know in just a couple months, on Wednesday night, Lance is going to be teaching Job. And I can't wait for that. I used to hate the book of Job until one day they asked me to teach it at the Bible school in Myanmar.

So I had to do some real serious study. But I never liked the speeches because in the end, God says, you know, they're worthless speeches. So they're part of sacred scripture, right? But God says that these guys weren't good.

So I never liked the friend's speeches. But after finally studying it, I got to love it. But Lance, it's going to be great.

But turn with me to Job 19. I'll just give you a taste here. And you'll see that Job is much like Heman here in Psalms 88.

In Job 19, verse 13, it says, he has put my brothers far from me and those who knew me are wholly estranged from me. My relatives have failed me. My close friends have forgotten me.

The guests in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger. I have become a foreigner in their eyes. I call my servant, but he gives me no answer.

I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy. My breath is strange to my wife, and I am a stench to the children of my own mother. Even young children despise me.

When they rise, they talk against me. All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I love have turned against me. My bones stick to my skin and my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

So you can see there how some commentators feel that Heman and Job could be the same person, but they're suffering maybe the same type of disease. So he is separated from his friends and all alone. Number 7, though, again, he's separated from the favor of God, part 3, and that's verse 9. Again, he mentions that he's praying.

He says, Every day I call upon you, O Lord. I spread out my hands before you. I cry out to you.

My eyes are just tears dimmed with sorrow, and there's no response. But he continues to be persistent in his prayers that are going unanswered. A couple years ago, Tom Mason preached on Psalm 13, and we call Psalm 13 the How Long Psalm because it begins with four questions to God.

It 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 enemy be exalted over me? That sentence there, How long will you hide your face from me? Mentioned in Psalms 88 also. So he feels like he's separated from the favor of God. You know, think about it, though.

Heman can't get up in the morning and turn the radio on to KBRT 740 and listen to Lance, right, and get some encouragement. It would have been good for him to hear the message about Moses in the desert. He can't get a CD and play it and learn about Moses in the desert, can he? He doesn't have a MacArthur study Bible with notes to encourage him, right? He doesn't even have the complete Scripture that we have.

He doesn't have the Holy Spirit like we have in the New Testament. He doesn't have counselors or friends. We have the Word of God, and we have the Holy Spirit to help us through our depressions, our discouragement in times of need.

And the New Testament tells us in Hebrews 13 5, I will never leave you nor forsake you. And we have perhaps the greatest chapter in the whole New Testament, Romans chapter 8. Will you turn with me there for a bit? I memorized this many years ago, and I do think it's the greatest chapter in the New Testament. And it's a chapter that I'm just going to tell you, if you're struggling, if you need encouragement, the whole chapter is magnificent.

But I just want to read, because it mentions the Holy Spirit about 21 times, I think. But I just want to read the last part. It just ends in like a climactic glory.

But let's look at verse 35, where he says, Romans 8 35, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written for your sake, we are being killed all day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. And it says, No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am sure that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. I don't know how that makes you feel, but it warms my heart on days which are trouble and days are discouraged. Let's move on to point number three, the summons.

And that's verses 10 to 12. Why do I call it the summons? Because the psalmist is trying to summons God, right? Now, if you get a subpoena, you have to go to court, right? If you don't obey the subpoena, you don't show up in court, they can arrest you, right? So Job and Haman both try to summons God. Job 9.33 says to God, There is no arbitrator between us who may lay his hand on us.

Job wanted an arbitrator. Job wanted God to come down and have an arbitrator. And Job says, Let me present my case to you, God.

I don't think I'm sinful. These three foolish friends of mine are telling me all these things that I don't know what sin I've committed. Give me a court case, God.

Give me a hearing. So Job is summoning God. In fact, in Job 23, verses 4 to 6, he just says, I would lay my case before him.

Job wanted a court case, and Haman here wants a court case. In fact, in the book of Job, Job asked God, I counted 114 questions Job asked God out of 522 verses. That's like 22% of the verses Job asked God are questions he's asking God.

And often he's saying to God, Give me a chance to present my case. So like Job, Haman here in Psalms 88 is summoning God. But God is not a man.

God doesn't have to answer our summons, right? And so you notice he's going to ask God six straight consecutive questions in verse 10 to 12. These are all rhetorical questions, right? Rhetorical question number one, Do you work wonders for the dead? Answer, no. Rhetorical question number two, Do the departed rise up to praise you? No.

Rhetorical question number three, Is your steadfast love declared in the grave? No. Rhetorical question number four, Are your faithfulness in abandon? That answer is no also. And that word abandon there means destruction.

It often is partnered with the word sheol. In Revelation 9, 11, the chief demon of the locusts that comes out of the pit is called abandon. And then in verse 12, Are your wonders known in the darkness? Rhetorical question number five, the answer is no.

And then rhetorical question number six, Or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? Answer, no. The Westminster Shorter Catechism, if you know it, the very first question is, What is the chief end of man? And the answer is, man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him. So what Heman is saying is, How can I glorify you if I'm dead? So he gave those six straight questions to God.

How can I glorify you when I'm dead? How can I give you praise, honor, glory when I'm dead? And you know, questions of despair, there's no easy answers, are there? And this is a common theme in Psalms, okay? The Psalms will often ask questions, How can I praise you from the dead? How can I sing praises when I'm dead? I mentioned before, verse 10, if you look at verse 10, it says, Do the departed rise up to praise you? He is not disputing the resurrection of the dead. He doesn't know much about the resurrection of the dead because he doesn't have the New Testament. So he's not denying that there.

But notice though, despite his six rhetorical questions to God, despite his trying to summons God, he knows God. He knows all about God. Four times in this Psalm, he mentions Yahweh, Yahweh, Yahweh, the covenant keeping God.

And notice he talks about verse 11, the steadfast love. Maybe your translation says loving kindness of God. That's an attribute of God.

He talks about the faithfulness of God. That's an attribute of God. He talks about the miracles or wonders of God twice in verse 10 and verse 12.

And he talks about the righteousness of God in verse 12. He knows God. He knows how to pray.

He's persistent in his prayers. And I mentioned when we pray about the Psalm 91, we can pray to God about his attributes, his grace, his mercy, his wrath, his kindness, his goodness. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones said that when we pray, instead of muttering like this depressed, unhappy way, remind yourself of God, who God is, and what God has done, and what God has pledged himself to do.

Psalms 88 stands as a mark of realism of biblical faith. Keep hoping. Keep waiting.

Keep trusting. Keep praising. Despite all the pains, God is our master, not our slave.

We cannot force our lover to come, but we can be ready when he does come. Remember what Job said in Job 23. Beautiful verse.

Job 23, verse 10. But he knows the way that I take. When he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.

Beautiful verse. Let's move to point four, the scourge. Here, verse 13 to 18, we have more pain, and we have more punishment.

And there's no light at the end of the tunnel for him. In fact, the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train, as people would say. So he felt agonized to God, or he's just in utter agony.

And he cries out. And you have two more questions here. He says, but he says, but I, O Lord, cry to you in the morning.

My prayer comes before you. He mentions prayer again. And then he says, O Lord, why do you cast my soul away? That's the seventh question in the psalm.

Why do you hide your face from me? That's the eighth question in the psalm. And that's just like Psalm 13 that says that. Why do you hide your face from me? So, you know, he's like the agony that Jesus Christ felt on the cross when he said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The psalmist here is in as much deep trouble in the end of the psalm as when he began in the psalm.

He also felt afflicted by God. He suffered a long time in verse 15. He says, I've been afflicted and close to death from my youth up.

So we can speculate that he's a older man or a middle-aged man. So he suffered a long time. His suffering has been going on.

That's why many people think it might be leprosy, which today we call Hansen's disease. He suffered deeply. He suffered your tears.

I'm helpless in verse 15. You know, our sufferings can last a long time. We talked about David and Moses and different people in the Bible.

Sometimes it feels like we're facing the wrath of God and it's overwhelming and it can be lonely. Not only did he suffer deeply, not only did he suffer a long time, he suffered painfully. Verse 16.

Your wrath has swept over me. Your dreadful assaults destroy me. So there's some pain to this that is hurting him.

In verse 17, he suffered completely. He says, they surround me like a flood all day long. They close in on me.

And verse 18, he suffered alone. Just a lot of suffering here. You've caused my beloved, my friends to shun me.

And his companions are darkness. He doesn't have the lights, electricity like we have. He's separated from family and friends.

He believes that God has turned all his friends against him. So he claims that only darkness is his companion. So what do we learn from this dark, gloomy, depressing psalm? I'm going to give you four things real quick.

Number one, don't give up. Don't give up. Don't give up.

Suffering ill health and his prayers seemingly not being answered is rough, isn't it? But no matter how long we remain in our sufferings or trial, we must not give up. We must continue to cry out to the Lord. We talked about this in Psalm 91.

If you know the name of the Lord, Psalm 91, the first couple of verses, four names of God, if you know the name of the Lord, you will have a relationship with the Lord. He is your heavenly Father, and you will not neglect your prayer time with him. If a son does not talk to his earthly father, the father is going to go to the son and say, What's wrong? Why aren't you talking to me? God is crying out for many people to talk to him, and they don't.

When you're in despair, when you're in discouragement, when you're in depression, sometimes there are no easy answers, are they? The problems just don't go away, do they? Jesus told us that you have to take your cross, and that cross is a heavy cross. In Matthew 16, 24, he says, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. But you notice this author, Heman, like Job, he doesn't give up.

He completes the prayer, still in the dark, totally unanswered, totally unrewarded. And remember what Satan said, Does Job fear God for nothing? And yet Job's prayer was answered, but Heman's we don't think was. Perhaps the most encouraging verses for me about God's grace in times of trouble is 2 Corinthians 12.

You want to turn there? This will help you not give up. 2 Corinthians 12, verses 7 to 10. You know the story.

To keep the apostle Paul from being conceited, God gave Paul a thorn in the flesh. Commentators debate about what that means. But I love the verses in 7 to 10, in 2 Corinthians 12, because it says, So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of revelations, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me become conceited.

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. He prayed three times. But verse 9, but he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you.

My power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness so that the power of Christ may rest on me for the sake of Christ. Then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.

For when I am weak, then I am strong. Can you say that? May not be easy to, but we need to. We don't know what God is accomplishing through your suffering, through my suffering.

So don't quit. Number two, don't stop praying. Don't stop praying.

This psalm is cried out to God in verse 1, in verse 2, in verse 13, in verse 9, he says he called out to God. He never gave up. He's like Jacob in Genesis 32.

Remember Jacob in Genesis 32? He's wrestling with God, and he will not give up wrestling with God. He wants to know about God. He wants to know his name.

So here, the psalmist is wrestling with God, and he won't give up, like the persistent widow in Luke 8, like the tax collector who prayed in Luke 18. And the third parable that Jesus gave us about prayer is also in Luke 11, verse 5 to 13. It's called, A Friend Indeed.

You don't remember that parable? The family's asleep, and all the kids are in bed. You know, they would not have a big house like us. They'd probably have one room.

And some guy comes along and says, Hey, some companies come. I need some bread. I don't have any.

Give me some bread. And the father yells out, We're all in bed. Go away.

But the guy just says, I need... And Jesus says, because of his impudence... Do you know what impudence means? I had to look it up. I didn't know what it meant. It means cocky.

It means boldness. Because of that guy's boldness, the father gets up, probably woke the whole household up, and gave them the bread. That's how we're to prayer.

So there's some wonderful parables about prayer in Luke 8, Luke 18, and Luke 11. So this psalmist feels like he's in darkness, even to the point of death, discouraged and alone, but he doesn't stop praying. He shares his frustrations with God, and we can too.

You know, Heman had sufferings. We read the story of Horatio Spafford. Six children died.

I think that left three, maybe two that lived, right? Charles Spurgeon suffered bouts of depression. He had gout. Adroniam Judson, my hero, the first missionary, American missionary to Myanmar, suffered a long time of depression because he lost two wives, and something like six to eight kids died.

William Cowper, that great hymnist who wrote There is a Fountain, suffered depression. There's a lot of Christians who suffer from depression, but at some point, they got over it. They got the victory through Scripture, through the work of the Holy Spirit.

I mentioned before, many people pray, let this cup pass away, Lord, but very few pray, thy will be done. So number one, don't quit. Number two, don't stop praying.

Number three, don't stop serving. Two things here. One, for the person who's suffering, and then two, for the family of God.

So let's talk about the person suffering. We mentioned Horatio Spafford, who kept, what about a biblical example? How about the example of Anna in Luke 2? So it said that having lived with her husband of seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was 84. So commentators will argue whether she was a widow for 84 years or she was a widow for 60.

Either way, it was a long, long time. But it says that she never departed from the temple, worshiping, fasting, and praying night and day, and she got to hold and see the baby Jesus when Joseph and Mary brought him there. She served at the temple despite being a widow for all those years.

So the one who is suffering, keep serving. Don't stay in a closet of darkness and gloom. Stay in your ministry.

Find a ministry to be in. Get involved. And then number two, I think it's applicable for you and me, the body of Christ.

It reminds us that we need to serve those who are discouraged, those who are lonely, those who are depressed, those who are going through a divorce. Help the single people in the church. We don't want anybody falling through the cracks at Christ Community Church, but the Pastor Lance and the elders, they can't do it all alone.

Quite often, you know about a person going through a trouble before we know. Okay? So we need to help those people. A couple Fridays ago, Ping and I went and visited Barbara Graham, and we got there early in the morning.

But I found out later that there was like six different groups of people from Christ Community Church that visited Barbara Graham. That's wonderful. That is absolutely wonderful.

Then we went and visited Lorraine Schweitzer, and that was a nice visit. And Lance mentioned this if you're with us Monday night in our leadership meeting. At the end of the time with Lorraine Schweitzer, she looks at me and Ping and says, Don't come back.

Go visit somebody else. She is strong. I mean, she's 94 years old.

She drove herself to the prayer meeting. She drives herself to Wednesday night. Now she's in hospice.

She could die any day because she's got blood clots and the medicine is making her throw up. She wants to go home. So she told me, Don't come back.

I'm good. I'm going to heaven. You go visit somebody else.

So there are people like that that are strong. They don't want you to come to the hospital. They don't want you to come to your house.

But then there are a lot of other people who need love, who need comfort. So we need to invite them to breakfast, invite them to coffee, call them, see how they're doing. So don't quit.

Don't stop praying. And number three, don't stop serving whether you're part of the body of Christ of Christ Community Church or whether you're going through some time of depression. And number four, lastly, don't blame God.

Don't blame God. It is really easy to get bitter. It is really easy to get cynical.

During COVID, I know of two people who passed away and you could blame the hospital. You could blame the doctors. You could blame why they didn't check them in.

You could blame, I think of my father's death about eight years ago, why the hospital wouldn't admit him that I took him home and he died. You could get real bitter and angry at the medical system, at the doctor. You can get bitter at life.

Really easy, even as a Christian. But then I had to step back and say, God gave my dad 84 wonderful years of life. And we got to do that.

But it's easy to blame God. It's easy to get bitter. And you've got to get over that and not blame God.

This Psalm 88, it stands as a witness to the intent of the Psalms to speak to all of life. This Psalm reminds us that life sometimes doesn't have a happy ending. And that's true, isn't it? We'd all like to get married to our bride early and have that one job that lasts for 40 years and never have to quit it and have lots of money.

And all our kids grow up and be perfect kids and get married and they have kids and never get divorced. And they all walk with the Lord and you retire happily and travel around. It's not that way anymore, is it? Now, maybe some of you it is.

God bless you. But life has its troubles. And sometimes life can be lonely.

We could die in our sickness. We can be in our loneliness. Sometimes life doesn't have happy endings.

But remember verse 1, O Lord, God of my salvation, we have the New Testament. We have the Holy Spirit in us. And the Bible is clear.

We know where we're going no matter what happens. Like Lorraine is just ready to go home to be with the Lord. And the Bible does tell us, you know, Lance has gone through the seven God's will and seven steps.

And one of them is it's God's will for some to suffer. That's in First Peter 419. First Peter 419.

People don't like this verse. It says, therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good. Not easy.

But he says that if you suffer and it's God's will that some of us suffer, keep trusting God. He's your faithful creator and keep doing good. And then First Corinthians 417 may be one of my most warm verses that warms me.

First Corinthians 417 says, for this light momentary affliction is preparing us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. I shared this before. One pastor in India one time brought a rope into the church and he brought it into one door and you couldn't see the rope.

So he's saying, this is eternity. This is heaven. And he kept pulling the rope like 100 feet of rope, right? This is you in heaven someday.

And then all of a sudden you saw a little piece of black duct tape. He said, this is your troubles on earth like this much. But the rope was like 100 feet.

He was trying to get the point across to us that someday when you're in heaven, when I'm in heaven, you're going to look back at these afflictions like Heman, like Job, like whatever you're going through and you're going to say, those were light. Those were momentary troubles compared to all the glories of heaven. Your home is in heaven and glorification awaits.

But while we wait, we might suffer. So abandoned by friends, family, Heman was never abandoned by God. It just seemed like it.

You know, God ordained his birth. God ordained his life. His life was not a mistake and no baby born today is a mistake.

Your life was and is part of a divine plan much bigger than we'll ever know this side of eternity. Someday we'll be able to see why. You know, Lance has said this I think 100 times.

God never told Job why he had that little game with Satan and Job 1 and 2, did he? Job never found out why. And we don't know why we suffer. We don't know why we're having these trials and tribulations.

But someday when we're in heaven, we will. I just like what one commentator said. And I'll finish with this.

He said, It is good that we have a psalm like this. But it's also good that we only have one like this. It reminds us that life is filled with trouble even to the point of despair even for mature believers.

Let's pray. Almighty God, precious Savior, I just pray for anybody today who's undergoing trials. Anybody who's suffering.

We think of those who are in hospice right now. We think of those undergoing chemo right now. We think of those who are undergoing family troubles.

We think of the singles or those who have gone through a divorce. Those who are having medical issues and, Father, financial issues. Those who it just seems like the troubles get worse and worse.

May they just continue to pray like Heman. May they not quit, Father God. May they be active in serving you and doing good deeds which is the best thing they can do.

May they not stop praying, Father. May they not stop serving and may not blame you. May they try to understand you, your majesty, and understand that we are finite.

God is infinite. We can't understand his sovereignty and his master plan. Someday, though, we will.

But I do pray for all those who are hurting that as the body of Christ of Christ Community Church we could reach out to those people that we would not let them fall through the cracks that we would show love. And we pray that they could get over the trial. They could get over the depression through the power of the word of God and through the Holy Spirit and through the love of Christ to precious believers.

Father, if there be anybody here tonight that doesn't understand the glory of heaven that awaits, may tonight be the night that they would come to know Jesus Christ. And we know, Father, that they may suffer. We may suffer in this life.

You said it's our will. It's God's will that some would suffer. But we know in heaven there won't be any tears.

There won't be any suffering. There won't be any pain. We'll have a glorified body perfect as you.

We long for that day. May you send Jesus soon. In Jesus' name, amen.