Most of you are aware that Dr. Bonson's had a couple of open heart surgeries in his life. And for that reason, I've always taken something of an interest in what the Bible has to say about the heart. It just seemed to be a natural curiosity and point of contact for me as I read through the Bible. And over the last couple months, I have especially been paying attention to the biblical teaching about the heart because of other kinds of heart problems that I've had. And so this month, as God gives me grace, I'd like to preach to you about the heart. And there's much more in the Bible than I'm going to cover in a month, but I've decided to preach this morning on a fainting heart and next Lord's Day on a broken heart, the following Lord's Day about a renewed heart, and then finally at the end of this month, a pure heart. And so please turn with me in your Bibles this morning as we consider a fainting heart, and we'll read Psalm 61. Psalm 61. Hear now God's word. Hear my cry, O God. Attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I call unto thee when my heart is fainting. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For thou hast been a refuge for me, a strong tower from the enemy. I will dwell in thy tent forever. I will take refuge in the covert of thy wings. For thou, O God, hast heard my vows. Thou hast given me the heritage of those that fear thy name. Thou wilt prolong the king's life. His years shall be as many generations. He shall abide before God forever. They'll prepare loving kindness and truth, that they may preserve him. So will I sing praise unto thy name forever, that I may daily perform my vows." Our New Testament reading is found in the first epistle of Peter, 1 Peter chapter 5, verses 6 to 11. Once again, hear God's word. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your anxiety upon him, because he cares for you. Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, is a roaring lion, walks about seeking whom he may devour. Whom withstand steadfast in your faith, knowing that the same sufferings are accomplished in your brothers who are in the world. And the God of all grace, who called you unto his eternal glory in Christ, after that you have suffered a little while, shall himself perfect, establish, strengthen you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. As we consider Psalm 61 and David's plea about a fainting heart, I want to make it clear from the very outset that there's a difference between a faint-hearted person and a person with a fainting heart. I realize in English those sound very similar, but the idioms and the concepts are really quite different. A faint hearted person is a person who has a disposition to emotional weakness. When you go into battle, you don't want faint hearted people fighting next to you. A person who is faint-hearted tends to crumble at the slightest provocation. To be a faint-hearted person is to be emotionally weak. But you see, even those who are not faint-hearted by character have experiences that overwhelm them and make their ordinarily steady hearts faint nonetheless. It's David, the giant killer. David, the fearless shepherd. David, the victorious military commander. David, the king of Israel, who is speaking here. And he was no Caspar Milquetoast. He was not a faint-hearted person. He was anything but faint-hearted, and yet he wrote of having his heart faint. It was courageous, fearless, strong David who said, when my heart faints, Even David could speak of his courageous heart fainting. That's not a comforting observation. If you stop and think about it, if you can think about somebody like David having a fainting heart, that doesn't bring you a lot of comfort. It reminds us, I think, that no matter who we are, no matter how much inner strength and emotional steadiness we may enjoy, there are things in this life that can happen to you, that can happen to anyone. which may simply bowl you over and leave you sapped of emotional strength and vigor and fortitude, leave your heart fainting away, as the text says. Now, just what that experience might be for you, of course, I can't say. It's doubtless different for every individual, from person to person, what it is that would make your heart be overwhelmed and just faint away. Different threats and different tragedies will affect different people in different degrees, I imagine. But what do you suppose your own vulnerability is emotionally? What experience has or what experience would simply overwhelm your heart and leave you prone on the ground, not able to even pick yourself up? For some people, it's prolonged pain, either the experience of the pain or the threat of its coming. For some people, just simply brings them to their knees. For some people, it's the fear of death. Perhaps your heart faints at the prospect of financial insecurity or financial loss. There are people who find it almost impossible to face a crucial test. There are people who have trouble facing a hostile audience, whether that audience is an individual like a boss or maybe the local citizens group. But sometimes that makes people just crumble inside. Debilitating illness can give you a fainting heart. A betrayal by a friend. can give you a fainting heart, or the death of one of your children, or the desertion of your spouse, or worry over a loved one, like how your children are doing, being really lost and not knowing how to find your way. Some people worry over impending war or impending disasters. People worry over disharmony in their families, or repeated failures in their lives, or persecution, or loneliness, and the list can go on and on. What is it for you that overwhelms your heart, that makes it faint away? Let's not fool ourselves with bravado. All of us have that spot, maybe spots, in our lives, which can be touched like an emotional Achilles heel, in such a way that we're just emotionally brought to our knees. I assure you, there's a spot in everyone's life. And I think that the evil one does his best, sometimes through trial and error in our lives, but he does his best to find that spy. And my guess is for just about every one of us, at some time or another he does. Notice as well that what David is talking about in Psalm 61 is not an experience of being battered or shaken. He's talking about being overwhelmed. We've got to understand the context, what David is crying out about here. David was not addressing the mundane garden variety negative experiences which hurt him for a while or which give him a passing jolt of fear or a passing jolt of despair, like a wave breaking over your head at the beach. was speaking to a kind of experience in life which crushes you helplessly to the gritty bottom of the ocean and just will not let you up. You see, this is not the kind of thing where you just, as we say, grin and bear it. Where you just wait for time to heal the hurt. Where every cloud has a silver lining. or where you simply need to keep a stiff upper lip, where all things must pass, where we can persevere with positive thinking, where every drop of rain has a flower that grows for it. Now, this is not one of the kinds of experiences where those cheap, pop panaceas give any relief whatsoever. And David says, my heart faints. The Hebrew means to be feeble, to be overwhelmed, to simply faint away. In Lamentations, the second chapter, it's used of those who are starving to death and their bodies languish. They simply have no strength. They cannot move anymore because they are hungry. In Jonah, the second chapter, it's used of the experience of Jonah in the belly of the great fish. who says, my heart faints. Can you imagine how you'd feel if you'd been swallowed by Shamu and you were gone for three days down in the ocean? You can imagine how your heart might just say, I give up for fear. David used the description of fainting away for having no man to be his refuge when his persecutors were stronger than him. When his soul was imprisoned in Psalm 142, he said, I cry with my voice unto Jehovah. With my voice unto Jehovah do I make supplication. I pour out my complaint before him. I show him my trouble. When my spirit was fainting within me, thou knewest my path and the way wherein I walk have they hidden a snare for me. Look in my right hand and see there's no man that knows me. Refuge has failed me. No man cares for my soul. I cried unto thee, O Jehovah, I said, thou art my refuge, my portion in the land of the living. Attend unto my cry, for I am brought very low. Deliver me from my persecutors, for they're stronger than I am. Bring my soul out of prison, that I may give thanks unto thy name. The righteous shall compass me about, for thou wilt deal bountifully with me. David says, my heart faints. I'm like imprisoned emotionally. because I'm persecuted by those who are stronger than me." In the very next psalm, he uses the expression again, talking about the feeling of desolation that he had when his enemies would smite him down to the ground. He says, for the enemy hath persecuted my soul, he hath smitten my life down to the ground, he hath made me to dwell in dark places as those who have been long dead. Therefore, my spirit faints within me, and my heart within me is desolate. So David's not talking about one of those experiences in life from which you just bounce back, as they say. He's talking about his heart fainting, just giving up on him. And in fact, if you want to understand the torment of David's soul, you need to see that even his religious strength, even his religious resources seemed inadequate and distant at a time like this, in Psalm 61, verse two, he says, from the end of the earth will I call unto thee when my heart is fainting. David imagines that he is now calling to God, you see, not from a comfortable position at the foot of his throne in Zion, but rather, he says, from the end of the earth, when God seems so distant, In fact, it may be that David wrote this psalm while he was in exile. He may have felt that way. From the end of the earth I call unto God, he's so far away from me. His heart had lost its courage and lost its strength, and even God seemed far, far away from David. The rug had been pulled out from under him completely. Haven't you had days, to be perfectly honest, where you felt God was miles and miles away from you? where your prayers have felt like a long-distance call with a very weak connection, where you intellectually understood the omnipresence of God, you knew in your head that He's everywhere, but emotionally you felt all alone and virtually cut off from the Almighty. Well, David knew that too. And so in Psalm 61, He says, my heart faints, is overwhelmed with grief and fear. What are you going to do at a time like that? I want to suggest four things to you this morning, for any of you who might identify with David's experience. The first is, don't hesitate and stop praying. I know that sounds funny because I had just said David has confessed in his prayers, God's far away from him. From the end of the earth he's crying out, it feels like. And yet the point is, he's crying out. David starts this song by saying, hear my cry, O God, attend unto my prayer. He calls upon God to hear his cry, to pay attention to him, to listen to him. And in verse 2, the point is not, God seems far away, so I guess I'll give up on that line of spiritual resource. It's rather, even when God seems far away, and my heart is fainting, I will call upon you. I won't give up. In times of desperation, David says, become more determined in prayer. Don't hesitate to plead with God as though it were somehow faithless on your part or irreverent to plead. You remember that Jacob wrestled with God. He had a hip that was put out of joint for that all-night wrestling match. But the fact is he would not give up, and that's why he was renamed Israel, meaning prevailing one. He prevailed with God because he would not stop. He said, you must bless me. And so what do you do when your heart faints? David says, don't hesitate to pray. Don't stop praying. Plead with God. Secondly, he says to remember and to reaffirm that God cares for you. In verses three to five, listen to David. For thou hast been a refuge for me, a strong tower from the enemy. David remembers how God has been his refuge. He remembers that God has promised, I will dwell in your tent forever. I will take refuge in the covert of thy wings. For thou, O God, hast heard my vows. Thou hast given me the heritage of them that fear thy name. Here he rehearses and recounts God's previous blessings and his sure promises for the future. And it's interesting to me, you notice the increasing intimacy of the metaphors that he uses for God being his refuge. In verse three, he starts by speaking of God being a refuge like a high rock. But at the end of the verse, he talks of God being like a constructed tower. Now it's not just some craggy spot out in the wilderness, but a tower. He proceeds to talk about the friendly tent dwelling of God, and finally, being right under the wing of God, like a chick under a mother hen. And so what do you do when your heart faints? You recognize that you're unable to carry the burden. and you turn it over to God in prayer. And that takes genuine, unreserved, downright humility. You may be accustomed to being in control of your life. You may be accustomed to being a control freak, maybe, to keeping everything manageable and in its right place. And then this happens and you have to surrender to the devastating experience. You simply have to give up and admit that your heart is overwhelmed and you can't do anything about it. That's your greatest time of strength, though, isn't it? That's the irony that the world can't understand. Paul spoke of when he said, when I'm weak, that's when I'm strong. In 1 Peter chapter 5, Peter says, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, casting all your care, translated anxiety in some versions, casting all your care upon him because he cares for you. Why should you hand it over to God when your heart is fainting? Because he cares for you. You're right, he shouldn't. Satan will remind you of that. God shouldn't care for you. And you're right, he doesn't have to. And your own doubts and fears will remind you of that. God doesn't owe you. And you're right, he could ignore you. He has the ability. But you're wrong to give in to those thoughts. You're wrong at that time of utter humility and a fainting heart to be faithless and to challenge the precious promise of God where he says, in just so many few words, but words that speak volumes of comfort, he cares for you. He cares for you. Have you ever had days where even when Your friends and relatives tell you they care, that your heart still hurts. You need to know that He cares, and that He really does care. And not just care in general, but care for you and what you're going through. In the 56th Psalm, we see how David dealt with his fear. In verse 3 of Psalm 56, he says, what time I am afraid, I will put my trust in thee. He says, when that happens, that I become afraid and overwhelmed and my heart is fainting, then I'm going to look upon God as my refuge. I'm going to confide in his protection. What time I am afraid, I will put my trust in thee. I will remember your mighty hand being upon me. I will picture myself under your wings. And David knew that God paid attention. to his sufferings, and God paid detailed attention to his sufferings. It's hard to believe when you think about the thousands, indeed millions of people in the world and through all time and all the details of all the universes that there may be all the planets that God keeps in rotation and yet he has time to even count the number of hairs on your head. In verse 8 of Psalm 56, David says, you number my wanderings You put my tears in your bottle. Are they not all in your book? I don't know how God does that, but I know he cares, because he counts our tears and he keeps them in his bottle. In verses 4, 10, and 11, you notice that David, when he talks about God caring for him, can't help but praise God for the foundation of that confidence that is given in God's Word and the comfort that God's Word gives him. David says, In God I will praise His Word. In God have I put my trust. I will not be afraid. What can flesh do to me? You notice that interjection? He can't even finish the sentence without saying, Praise God for His Word. That's why I can say this. In God I will praise His Word. In God have I put my trust. Verse 10, in God I will praise his word, in Jehovah I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust, I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? David can't even finish the sentence without thanking God that he has a basis for trust, that God has given his word and his word's reliable. The third thing you need to do when you have a fainting heart is not only stop praying and confide in God, knowing that he cares for you. But you need to acknowledge and bow before the character of God. In verse 2 of Psalm 61, David cries, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Of course, God is a rock. In that sense, he's a secure refuge for David. He's immovable, like the rock of Gibraltar. But here, the interesting expression is that the rock is higher than I. And I take that in the sense that if the rock is higher than I, then it's higher than my problems, too. It's bigger than me, and it's bigger than anything that can happen to me. I don't know how many of you will have had this experience. Maybe something like it you can relate to. But when you go to Palm Springs, you have the opportunity to take the tram up to the top of San Jacinto. And if you've ever done that, you know at that lookout station at the top, you stand and you look out over that valley, and it's just like you're on the edge of the world, just so high up. And David says, God, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Can you imagine if somebody had been afflicting you down in the valley, some puny person giving you a hard time, making your life miserable? And then you're transported to the top of San Jacinto and you're looking down. What would you think of the puny efforts of a person down there in the valley that you can't even pick out? With binoculars you can't even pick out because it's just so far away. The rock is so high that it lifts you above all the turmoil and out of the difficulty. That's what David says, God be the rock that's higher than I am. Lift me up. David meditates, as it were, upon the attributes of God when he thinks of the kind of God who cares for him. And I would exhort you to do the same thing, to meditate upon the attributes of God when your heart faints, not like an abstract theological exercise or a lesson, but to meditate upon the attributes of God as an exercise in prayer and devotion, to pray about God being all-powerful and sovereign, To pray about God being self-sufficient and eternal and unchanging and perfectly wise and perfectly holy and full of compassion and full of grace and majestic and worthy of all praise. To think about the God who has brought you under his wing and has lifted you up on a rock that is higher than all of your problems. You see, that's the God who says, I care for you. The rock that is higher than I. David does this very sort of thing in Psalm 57, where we read in verse one that he's taking refuge under the shadow of God's wings. Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me, for my soul takes refuge in thee. Yes, in the shadow of thy wings will I take refuge until these calamities be overpassed. As David goes into the psalm, he meditates on the kind of God who is protecting him. In verse two, he says, it's the most high that is performing all things for him. You think San Jacinto is high? This is the most high God who lives us above everything and cares for us. In verse three, he will send from heaven and save me. When he that would swallow me up reproaches, God will send forth his loving kindness and his truth. In verse 5, David says, God is exalted and glorified above the heavens and the earth. Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let thy glory be above all the earth. And in 7 to 9, he says he will sing praise to God. My heart is fixed, O God. My heart is fixed. I will sing. Yes, I will sing praises. Awake up. My glory awakes, psaltery and harp. I myself will awake right early. I will give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the peoples and sing praises unto thee. among the nations. In verses 10 and 11, again, the attributes of God, for thy lovingkindness is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the skies. Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let thy glory be above all the earth. When you're overwhelmed, don't stop praying. Plead with God. When you're overwhelmed, reaffirm. that He cares for you. Take confidence in Him and meditate upon His attributes, upon His glory, and about how great He is, that He is bigger than you. But there's a fourth thing that Psalm 61 would bid us to do. It's with this I wish to close. I think David bids us also to identify in faith with Jesus Christ, our Savior. You see, there's a strange thing about Psalm 61. David has been praying for himself as the king, but in verses six and seven, he begins to utter confidences about the king, which cannot realistically apply to himself. There's no way, because they are reassurances about the king's eternality, reassurances about the king's invincibility before God, about the king's sharing in God's own attributes. Thou wilt prolong the king's life. You read that thinking David's talking about himself? No. His years shall be as many generations. No king lives many generations. He lives one generation, and David would live but one generation. But he's talking about the king being preserved and living for many generations. He shall abide before God forever. Oh, prepare loving kindness and truth that they may preserve him. God's loving kindness and truth is what preserves this king forever because of God's covenantal promise to David, the Davidic covenant. David could see himself identified with the greater seed that should come, the true and lasting king, the Messiah who was yet to come. the true king of kings, the anointed one of God, in whom all the promises that David trusted would finally be fulfilled. And so when David's heart fainted away, he looked in faith to the coming savior. When the temporal king was undergoing temporal misery, he looked to the messianic king and to the victory that would be his. David's sufferings, you see, were swallowed up in the greater sufferings and the victory. of the Savior who was to come. I ask you as a Christian, as a believer this morning, what is your true comfort in affliction? Isn't it knowing that Jesus too was afflicted? That Jesus knows and identifies with your pain that you're united to him who has suffered and suffered far worse than anything we undergo and has undergone that in our behalf. Like David, when our hearts faint, we need to look to Jesus Christ in faith, drawing comfort from the fact that he too suffered, that he suffered to redeem us, and that our sufferings now are shared by him, shared by one who has defeated hell. and therefore can save us from the tribulations on earth as well. For we do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but one who has been tried in all points like we are, yet without sin. And so draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, that you may receive mercy and find grace to help you in a time of need. You know, recently, as I myself have experienced the fainting heart, I took to reading the Psalms, and I took to reading them voraciously, to be honest with you, pouring over them from one end to the other, time after time, almost in desperation, I suppose. And I'd sit down and sometimes, through my tears, read many Psalms at a time. There were days when I would do the Psalter in two days, I read up to 50 in one reading. I was just desperate for God's word. And as I read, my heart would go out and identify with phrases and expressions that were used by the psalmist to talk about his troubles. And I guess it was because I was reading in big gulps, I suppose, that I didn't stop sometimes to identify the specific psalm that I was reading and to analyze it in its setting and its peculiar attributes and so forth. Of course, I know many of those things from my schooling and my studies. But I wasn't really stopping to give attention to that sort of thing, as I was just emotionally engulfing myself in the Psalms and pouring over the words that I found there. And then a very, very eerie thing happened to me. As I was reading the Psalms one night, and emotionally, as I say, identifying so thoroughly and so fervently with what I was reading, because it seemed to describe my own feelings, it seemed to describe my own distress so perfectly. I read these words, I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, and it melts within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and thou has brought me into the dust of death. And I remember crying, God, that's how I feel right now. But as I read on, the very next words made me jump back almost in horror as I came across the words, they pierced my hands and my feet. And then, of course, all my studies reasserted themselves, you see, and just overwhelmed me with the startling recognition that in my reading I'd wandered into one of the most messianic psalms of the whole Old Testament, Psalm 22. And what I was reading about was the suffering and the agony of Jesus Christ, my Savior. And you know, at first I felt so ashamed that I had been reading of His grief as though it were my own. And a moment later, I think I was overwhelmed with an even more powerful feeling as I recognized that it was. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for suffering for us. And thank you for suffering with us. And thank you for caring and keeping our tears in your bottle. We pray that you would be that rock that is higher than I. And that when the evil one takes opportunity, to bowl us over and to make our hearts crumble, that you will be our hiding place. We thank you for such redemptive love. We thank you for the sacrifice of yourself upon the cross and your victory over even the powers of hell. And we thank you that you share all such blessings with us, your people. In Jesus' name, Amen.