Forsaken?

Open your Bibles to Psalm 88. Forsaken. Is there a more terrible word? Forsaken by God. Rejected. Abandoned. Cast away by Him. Tonight, I want you to listen to the testimony of Heman. It’s heart wrenching. We have reason to believe he was a wise and a godly man, yet he feels forsaken. Hear his cry. “O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?” Now in an assembly this size, I imagine that there are some here tonight who feel forsaken. Wave upon wave of trials roll over you. Like Heman, you cry out to the Lord in prayer. Like Heman, you plead for relief, and still, one trouble follows another. God seems distant, far away. The poet expresses how you feel. “Where is the blessedness I knew when I first saw the Lord? Where is the soul refreshing view of Jesus and His Word?” I wonder if that might be you tonight. Then Psalm 88 is especially for you. And I have good news for you. This psalm, which is so full of anguish, will become for you a psalm of comfort.

Before I read God’s Word, let us go to Him in prayer.

Man does not live, O God, by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from Your mouth. Nourish our souls tonight from Your Word so that we might know Christ better and trust in Him more. Hear our prayer now because we offer it in the all-prevailing name of Jesus. Amen.

Psalm 88.

“A Song. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. To the choirmaster: according to Mahalath Leannoth. A Maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.

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 am 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 heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah

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 eye grows 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? Selah Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon? Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your righteousness in the land of 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.”

And here ends the Scripture lesson, and this is the Word of the Lord.

I think you’ll agree with me, Psalm 88 is painful to read. It comes from the hand of Heman. He lived in the times of David and Solomon. And Heman suffers, and he experiences the worst kind of suffering – the dreadful sense that he has been forsaken by God. We don’t know what caused his suffering. We can speculate. Perhaps sickness from his youth; it just never went away. No healing. No relief. And often, suffering is like that. It’s intractable. It stays with us for a lifetime. Or his suffering might have been caused by a crushing sense of sin. That should not surprise any one of us. It’s the righteous more than anyone else who feel the terrible evil of sin. Indwelling sin remains, and we suffer under its weight. The Bible tells us that God disciplines those He loves. Could it be that the disciplining hand of God has felt to Heman like rejection? Then there’s depression. Its dark cloud can afflict the most godly man or woman. Don’t for a moment ever think you’ll never experience it. It is a sad reality to so many dear believers. And I’ll add, there’s the mystery of God’s providence. For His glory, for our good, for the welfare of His church, He often sends us to places that are full of dread. We don’t know what caused Heman’s suffering, but what we do know is that God sent him to a dreadful place, a hard place, and left him there.

And you and I would do well to listen to Heman. “Why?” you ask – because I’m confident in saying if God has not yet sent you to a hard place, it’s likely that some day He will, for His glory, for your good, for the wellbeing of His beloved church. Psalm 88 is here either to sustain you in a hard place or to prepare you for that hard place to which you will one day go. Now let’s look at the psalm and then I’ll make several applications.

In this psalm, Heman cries for deliverance from death. Thoughts of death overwhelm him. Look at verse 3. “My life draws near to Sheol.” “Sheol,” that means the grave, where the body lays under the power of death. Thoughts of death have afflicted Heman throughout his life. He says in verse 15 that he has been “afflicted and close to death” from his youth. Heman’s psalm is saturated with the vocabulary of death. Look at verse 3. “Sheol and the pit.” Verse 4, “the grave.” verse 6, “the regions dark and deep.” Verse 11, “Abaddon” – that means the place of destruction. Verse 12, “darkness.” And again verse 12, “the land of forgetfulness.” Now go back with me to verse 4. Heman says, “I am counted among those who go down to the pit.” Though alive, he is already being treated as if he is dead. Now thoughts of death overwhelm him, and so do thoughts of God’s judgment. Look at verse 7. “Your wrath is upon me.” Verse 15, “I suffer your terrors.” Verse 16, “Your wrath has swept over me.” His situation is so dire that he counts himself forsaken by God and under His righteous wrath. Forsaken by God – that’s just what Heman’s friends conclude. Look at verse 8. “You have caused my companions to shun me. You have made me a horror to them.” And most painful of all, he cries to the Lord, and look at verse 14 to hear his cry – “O Lord, why do You cast my soul away? Why do You hide Your face from me?” And three words in verse 15 sum up his distress – “I am helpless.” Our heart goes out to Heman. He is not at that place yet where he can sing, “Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, the clouds you so much dread, are big with mercy and shall break with blessings on your head.” He’s not at that place yet where he can sing those words.

Now in the psalm, Heman cries for deliverance from death. He also makes the case for his deliverance from death. First the cry then the case for deliverance from death. And it’s a God-centered request. He wants to be returned to the assembly of God’s people. He wants to be returned there so that he can testify to God’s power and grace. These are fascinating verses. Look at them, starting in verse 10. “Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the departed rise up to praise you? Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon? Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?” Now here’s what’s driving Heman’s prayer, and we mustn’t miss it. Death is final. After death, the believer will praise God in heaven, but the time for praising Him in the assembly of His people on earth, that is gone and it is gone forever. The time to testify to the saving power to family and to friends and to the community, those are gone forever. You will remember the apostle Paul’s internal conflict. He shares it with us in a letter to the Philippians. As he considers his possible execution, he writes, “My desire is to depart and to be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.” “If it’s Your will, O Father, to take me to heaven now, I want to go. For to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if it’s better for me to stay and to continue to serve Your church and to work in its midst, Father, I will submit to Your will.” I wish we all had the attitude of the apostle Paul. What power there would be in our witness as believers.

Now let’s return to Heman – how dire his situation is. Look at verse 17. His troubles, which he labels God’s “dreadful assaults,” surround him “like a flood all day long.” They close in on him together. Troubles, like flood waters, they are closing in on him, surrounding him, and his head is barely above the raging flood. Look at his lament in verse 18. It’s heartwrenching. “You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness.”

Let me move on to four applications. If you’re at the place where Heman was, I want you to know tonight that there is comfort for you. There is comfort for you, and there is comfort in this psalm. In this psalm you have an example of faith in affliction, an example of faith in affliction. Heman prays to the God of what? The God of his salvation. In his feelings of forsakenness, he never wavers in his faith in God. The Lord is on His throne and is sovereign over all his life. Heman never gives up. You mustn’t either. Heman never stopped praying, and in your affliction, you must go on – go on praying. Heman wrestled in prayer and so must you. Let me paraphrase and quote an older writer, David Dickson. “The psalm brings comfort because it shows that Heman was supported by God even when he didn’t feel the support of God’s omnipotent hand. Later, so much comfort was given him that his cries were turned into a song, both for himself and the church. Even the saddest and harshest circumstances, even then, a believer in God must lay hold of God’s goodness, promise and covenant, and must still trust in the Lord.” Tonight, in your affliction, you have an example of faith, Heman’s faith. You have an example to imitate.

Next, if you are where Heman was, you have a home right here in God’s church. This is your home and this is where you belong, right now in your affliction. You see, the church is the gathering place for the afflicted. No Christian should treat with contempt a brother or sister who feels forsaken by God. No Christian should ever despise those who feel forsaken like Heman. The church is the place for those who grieve. It’s the place for you to come who are grieving. It’s a place for you to shed tears. If we are embarrassed by tears, we must get over it. We weep with those who weep. Tonight in your affliction, I have good news for you. You have a home in God’s church where you have come tonight. This is the place where you belong.

Again I’ll ask, “Are you where Heman was?” Then next, you have a prayer to imitate and a song to sing. Heman has left you with a pattern for prayer, a model for pouring your heart out to God. His words are honest, they are urgent, and they are pleading, and they can be your prayer too. You can take these words, and by God’s grace, make them your prayer. The reason we sing psalms of lament at First Pres is that they are God-given words that enable us to articulate the deepest anguish of our souls. You may not come to worship in great distress, but I assure you that many of your brothers and sisters do. And when you sing a psalm like Heman’s you stand alongside them in their sorrow. You bear their burden with them in song. And as you sing, you encourage, and you seek God’s comfort for them. Tonight, in your affliction, you have a prayer to imitate and you have a song to sing.

I’ll ask another time, “Are you where Heman was?” Then next, you have a Savior to embrace. You have a Savior to embrace. Heman is pointing you to the Savior, Jesus Christ. I can’t think of the end of Psalm 88 without thinking of Jesus. Look again at verse 18. “You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness.” These words take us to another time, to another place, to a place shrouded in darkness – Golgotha. It means, “The place of the Skull.” The place of our Lord’s crucifixion. All His companions forsook Him at His trial, and at Golgotha, from noon to mid-afternoon, darkness covered the land and Jesus cried, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Heman felt forsaken. Jesus was forsaken. We call this cry of Jesus “the cry of dereliction, the cry of abandonment, the cry of forsakenness.” Richard Cecil wrote, “Christ drank the cup of wrath without mercy that we might drink the cup of mercy without wrath.”

Jesus did that for you. On the cross, Jesus bore the rejection by God that was due to you and to me for our sin. Try, if it’s even possible, to feel the weight of Jesus’ sufferings on the cross. What Jesus hates the most – sin – is laid on Him. He knows sin’s evil, and on the cross, He is brought into as close a relationship with sin as possible without He Himself becoming a sinner. He experiences on the cross what it means to fall into the hands of an angry God. John Duncan felt the weight of Jesus’ sufferings. He said, “Do you know what Calvary was? Do you know what it was? It was damnation, and damnation taken lovingly for you and for me.” John Calvin, he writes, “This is our wisdom duly to feel how much our salvation cost the Son of God.” Do you feel how much your salvation cost the Son of God? Do you feel the weight of your sin upon Him? Think with me. When you hear Jesus cry, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” you hear the agony of one suffering God’s holy wrath against sin. And if you hear it, truly hear it, you can never treat sin lightly again. “Ye who think of sin but lightly nor suppose the evil great, here may view its nature rightly, here its guilt may estimate.” Do you hear Jesus cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” This is the savior that you must embrace.

When you hear Jesus cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” you hear God’s word of acceptance. “It is finished.” “Jesus paid it all, all to Him we owe.” He was forsaken in our stead that we may never be forsaken. In those moments when we feel abandoned, we need to hear the Gospel afresh. In our Savior, we are loved. We are accepted and we are forgiven. Do you hear Jesus cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” This is the Savior you must embrace. When you hear Jesus cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” you hear the Father’s pleasure with His Son. Isaiah prophesies, “It pleased the Lord to bruise Him.” Did you hear that? “It pleased the Lord to bruise Him.” He has put Him to grief. He is pleased with what the death of His precious Son accomplishes – the salvation of many. Jesus’ death for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. On the cross, God’s heart of love for sinners is displayed. On the cross, God’s love for you and me is fully on display. “God did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up, gave Him up to the cross for us all.” “Herein is love – not that we love God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Whenever we are tempted to doubt the love of God for us, just look at the cross. Look at the cross. God says, “This is how much I love you.” Do you hear Jesus cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” This is the Savior you must embrace.

Now watching events unfold at the cross, we are told there was a centurion and he had been to this horrible place many times to do his vile duty. He heard the shouts of hate, the bitter cursing, the give way to pleas for relief, then sobs, unconsciousness and death. Now what does he see? Now hate but a Man who prays, “Father, forgive them.” He doesn’t hear cursing, but prayer, “My God, My God.” That centurion sees a Man with the strength to cry out and only then breathe His last. And he declares, “Truly, this Man was the Son of God.”

As we bring our time together tonight to a close, let me take you to Wenham, Massachusetts, to Gordon College, behind Frost Hall, and there I would show you an unfinished wall. And there is a story behind that unfinished wall. During the First World War, it would have been called The Great War, Mr. Prince, his son, leaves his fiancee to join the Lafayette Escadrille in France and fight the Germans. And the father starts to build a home as a wedding gift, and his son is killed. News arrives and work is stopped. An unfinished wall remains to this day. A father’s love, a son’s death, an unfinished work testifying to a father’s grief.

Now I want you to look at the cross. A Father’s love, a Son’s death, a finished work forever testifying to the Father’s pleasure in His Son and to His pleasure in those His Son saves. Jesus – “Truly, this Man is the Son of God.” The Son of God, truly forsaken for you, for me. This is the Savior that I am asking you tonight to embrace. The Son of God, now risen from the dead. He says to you and to me, to each one of us, “I will never leave you or forsake you. Lo, I am with you to the end of the age.” This is the Savior you must embrace.

Let us bow for prayer.

Our God in heaven, You so loved the world that You gave Your only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. And we praise You tonight that by sovereign grace we have seen our Savior and the provision that He has made for our sins. And we trusted in Him and now rejoice before You in the forgiveness of sin. But I would pray if there is someone here tonight who has never trusted in Christ alone for salvation, that they would believe the Word that was read and proclaimed and that they would transfer their hope of salvation from what they do to what Christ has done on the cross for them, that they might believe and have everlasting life. Hear our prayer tonight for them, we ask. Hear all of our prayers tonight, for we offer them in the mighty name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, the Savior who loved us and gave Himself for us. In His name we pray, amen.