I understand these are the lean times of summer, and we see that at our church as well. I am from Calvary Baptist Church in Windsor, Ontario. A little bit of our history, we were, when I became the pastor, the church was an independent, fundamental, King James Bible-believing Baptist church. And some of you may know what that entails, some of you may not, but by God's grace, he has, over the past six or seven years or so, allowed us to kind of come out of that movement and to embrace more biblical theology and philosophy of ministry. And so I was very happy when I came in the doors and I was introduced to Calvin. I'm glad I was not introduced to, hello, this is Arminius, he'll be taking care of you today. So that was nice. A lot of different connections with names here. Is Brittany here? Where's Brittany? Is Brittany in here? Brittany's not here? Poor Brittany, she emailed me and I don't know what happened, but I responded to her and I started referring to her as Stephanie. So I understood she had to tell others who were copied in that he means me. Yeah, well, I don't know where that came from, but so pass my apologies on to Brittany when you see her. It is a privilege to be here. And if you open your Bibles to Psalm 42, please, Psalm 42. I asked Calvin how long Glenn usually preaches, and he told me 15 minutes. I think that was just Calvin wanting to get out early, so we'll probably be a little bit longer than that. Let's go ahead and read Psalm 42. We'll pray, and we'll see what the Lord has for us this morning. Psalm 42, verse 1 through 11. As a deer pants from flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, where is your God? These things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God. My soul is cast down within me, therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon and from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All your breakers and your waves have gone over me. By the day the Lord commands His steadfast love, and at night His song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a deadly wound in the bones, my adversaries taunt me while they say to me all the day long, where is your God? Why are you cast down, oh my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. Now, Lord, I thank you for the wonderful privilege it is to open your word. Lord, I am an unworthy vessel. I have nothing of any import to save, which comes from my own wisdom or knowledge. But Lord, we pray that you would open your word to us this morning. I pray you'd help us to apply it to our lives, to worship you through it, to assess our own lives, and to make changes where you would direct us by your spirit. So Lord, we pray your blessing upon this message. And Lord, we give you all the praise and all the glory for anything that's accomplished here this morning. And Lord, we thank you for it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, you may have seen in your bulletin that the topic this morning is how to deal with spiritual depression. And we are going to focus on that, the spiritual depression. But for the believer, as those who have the Holy Spirit within us, our emotions are inextricably linked to our spirituality as well. You understand, as a believer, that your life has been entirely transformed since your salvation. The Holy Spirit has taken control of your life. And so when you are spiritually healthy, you are emotionally healthy oftentimes. And as a believer, when you are spiritually depressed, you often then become emotionally depressed as well. because that is not the natural state for one of God's children. So there is a connection between our spirit and our emotions, as we will see. But the first thing we want to notice in our passage is we have a man, a psalmist, who is going through actual spiritual depression. This is not his imagination. This is not something that he harbors simply in his own mind, and others can come to him and say, oh, it's just all in your head. Not at all. The reality is even genuine believers go through times of spiritual depression. What do I mean by that? There are times in your lives when Jesus Christ overwhelmingly manifests Himself in your life. So the peace and the joy that He promises that comes from Him, you experience it. And you enjoy it. But then there comes times in your life that almost seem to be the famine after the plenty. We've all experienced it, and we understand that is the reality of the Christian life, this side of glory. God has chosen to leave his people in a world where sin is rampant. He has chosen to leave us in a place where we have the internal struggle between the spirit and the flesh. So knowing that, we all have a common experience. The common experience is there sometimes are mountain peaks, and there sometimes are valleys. That's not ideal for the Christian life, but it's reality. And so you've gone through times in your life where you felt distant from God? Or you felt that God was distant from you? You've experienced the struggle that Paul indicated in Romans 7? You've experienced that. The man in our passage, it's a snapshot of his life where he is at that place in this psalm. He feels distant from God and he's struggling with it emotionally, but we're gonna see how he deals with it. And let me just tell you, by the end of the psalm, he's a shining example of how to deal with spiritual depression. So we see the reality of his spiritual depression. This was not his imagination. This was real in his life and he had to deal with it. It's normal to go through emotional throws at times. That's the reality. That's the reality that this life, this side of heaven brings with it. The key is how you handle it. How do you respond in those seasons of life where God seems distant? That's what we're going to look at this morning. So in verse 5, you see the psalmist expressing his soul is in turmoil. Verse 6, he says that his soul is cast down. The New English translation actually uses the word depressed. Verse 3, he says, my tears have been my food day and night. Everything that he's going through kind of brought him to a point of fasting. He couldn't eat because he's overcome emotionally. He's absolutely overwhelmed by his present state. He felt as if he was at the end of his emotional endurance. He can't handle life with the control and the grace that he once had. He's at a place of emotional brokenness. The fact is, though, God has given us emotions for a reason, hasn't he? God has given us emotions. He's made us emotional beings because his desire is that we respond to him and we worship him with our whole person, including our emotions. Emotions are great. They're good. We turn those to God in praise. But there comes a time in our lives when we are tempted to allow our emotions to control us. And what we're going to see the psalmist do here in this passage, he states the case of how he feels emotionally. He remembers what he knows about God objectively. And then he responds to the objective truth of the scripture and not to his emotions. Wonderful example for all of us. So we see the reality of his spiritual depression. And next of all, we see the roots of his spiritual depression. What caused this in this man's life? Verse two says, my soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? This is a psalm of the sons of Korah. The sons of Korah were responsible for leading worship. Numbers chapter 26, verse 10, we're reminded that Korah led a rebellion against Moses, but God, by his grace, spared the children of Korah. Numbers 26, 10 says, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up together with Korah. When that company died, when the fire devoured 250 men, and they became a warning. But the sons of Korah did not die. But God, by his grace, not only spared the sons of Korah, but he allowed and enabled the sons of Korah to become worship leaders among the nation of Israel. Psalm 42.6 here in our passage says, my soul is cast down within me. Therefore, I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon from Mount Mizar. What he's saying is that not only do I feel distant from you spiritually or emotionally, but he's actually physically absent from the presence of God. And he's longing to be back in the city of God where he can worship once again. Psalm 42, 4 again says, These things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I would go up with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. This is a man who was a worship leader. This is a man who knew what it meant to be in the presence of God. This is a man who knew what it meant to worship God. So he led in worship to the house of God. He led in praise, glad shouts and songs of praise. He led them in obedience, leading them to keep the multitude-keeping festival. So here's a man who was close to God. Here's a man who worshipped God and praised him and led God's people to do the same. He knew what it meant to be close to God. And all of us here this morning have times in our lives that we can look back to and we can say, you know what, when was I closest to God? Can you look back and say, I remember the season of my life when I was closest to Him? I remember the season of my life where I had that overwhelming joy and peace and satisfaction in Christ. Can you look back? And the next question is, why is it that that's something we have to look back to? The fact is, this man, these longings in this psalm are of a man who knows what it means to be in the presence of God. He has experienced sweet times of worship and praise and service. He's led others in the same. He's been encouraged by the corporate worship of the multitude of the saints. In other words, he knew exactly what he was missing as he was away from the city of God. And now, emotionally speaking, he was away from the presence of God. Now, there's a distinction here, right? He's longing to be in the house of God because for ancient Israel to be in the presence of God was to literally be in the vicinity of the house of God. Well, that's different for us. We all have the Holy Spirit inside of us, but there's still a parallel. And the parallel is this. Even though the Spirit's inside of us, we can emotionally and spiritually become distant from God so that we long to be in His presence again. One might find himself in life far from where he once was in their relationship with God. Times of spiritual joy and fulfillment pass from present realities to distant memories, and it ought not to be so. Sometimes that's because of our own doing. Sometimes it's sin in our lives that distance us from God. Sometimes there's situations completely out of our control where life just seems to overwhelm us, and we cannot see the tangible presence or feel the tangible presence of God in our lives. Either way, the psalmist is in a place where he's longing to be back where he once was, which is in the presence of God, in a place of praise and worship and leading God's people in obedience. So the cause of his spiritual depression, number one, is his absence from the presence of God. Number two is his hostile environment. Look in verse three. It says, my tears have been my food day and night while they say to me all the day long, where is your God? These are the mockers, the scoffers. Verse nine. I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me while they say to me all the day long, where is your God? The psalmist found himself in a situation where all those around him were mocking and scoffing because they understood what he claimed to be true about his faith. Yet they looked at his life and at that moment of time, it appeared as if God was not present. Not only did he experience the spiritual or the emotional distance from God longing for his presence, but then he also had to deal with those who looked at his life and they knew it. You confess God to be your God, you speak of the wonders of salvation, but look at you now. How heart-wrenching for the genuine believer to be in a state where even the unbeliever can look and say, where's your spiritual joy? Those all around him were exploiting his afflictions. They used his afflictions as an occasion to attack his faith and even the reality of his God. Yet he knew who God was. God had been good to him. He knew God was alive. He knew that God was reigning. He also knew that his present life circumstances didn't reflect that. And all of us as genuine believers, you come to a place in your life of spiritual depression, You know in your heart of hearts that God is real. You know the reality of salvation. You know that he's changed you on the inside. You know that he's loving and merciful and gracious and has only good things in store for his children. You know that objectively, but you also have to acknowledge that the peace and the joy and the satisfaction and the comfort that you once had is missing. And you also have to acknowledge that from any onlooker looking at your life, It's not a shining example of a life transformed by the spirit of God. This aids or contributes to spiritual depression. That's what this psalmist was experiencing. He says, as with a deadly wound in my bones, he's saying they're mocking me as with a deadly wound in my bones. He's saying it really hurts. It really cuts to my heart. Why? Because his faith is under attack. His faith is under attack by those who are unbelievers. He knows the reality of his God, and yet there's nothing in his life at that moment that screams out, God is real. We can be the same way when our lives do not properly reflect, whether it's from our own doing or not. We can be the same way when our lives do not properly reflect the reality of God. We may experience seasons of life where God blesses abundantly and clearly, so everyone around says they're blessed of God. That's wonderful. There's other times, however, in our lives, we go through seasons of life where there may be little outward tangible evidence of the goodness of God. So how do you deal with those situations? How do you deal with those times of life? We'll see. And so those who are mocking this man, they say, where is your God? Where is he now? It's the same thing men and women do today every time there's a natural disaster or there's some tragedy. Where was God? And for the genuine believer, for situations to arise that allow the unbeliever to mock their God, it's troubling, cuts to the heart, like a wound in the bones. But take joy. Where is your God? Where have we heard that before? Jesus Christ on the cross. And the scoffers come in Matthew 27, 43, and they say, he trusts in God. Let God deliver him now. If he desires him for, he said, I am the son of God. Take joy. You go through struggles of life. You feel oppressed. The mockers and the scoffers come, and they speak to you the very same way they spoke to the Son of God. The genuine believer laments, Psalm 79.9, help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name. Deliver us and atone for our sins for your namesake. Why should the nation say, where is their God? And so we cry out and say, Lord, you've brought me to this place in my life. You're causing these things to happen all around me. But Lord, for your namesake, bring relief. Because I know my life right now is not one that the unbeliever looks at and says, wow, God is real and God is great, because look at their life. But our longing is not simply to escape that situation. Our longing is that God can be glorified. And so we pray to God, God, bring me out of this. Bring me to a place, again, where I can worship and I can praise in all sincerity and everybody who looks at my life can see the reality of your goodness, not just so that I can escape turmoil, but so that your name can be glorified. This man's spiritual depression was caused by an absence from the presence of God. It was caused by a lack of tangible blessing from God and a hostile environment created by his enemies. But it gets worse. In verse 7, we see his persistent afflictions It says, deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All your breakers and your waves have gone over me. Deep calls to deep, wave after wave. What he's saying is that it's an unceasing onslaught of one affliction after another, after another, after another. It's a vivid picture of one who's drowning. One who's cast into the sea, and one large wave comes and crashes upon him. He comes out the other side for some relief, and there's another, and another, and another. And maybe you've gone through this in your life. It just seems like there's no relief. One thing after another, after another, after another, after another. And you say, surely there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Surely the calm waters are coming. Yet they don't come. That's what this man was experiencing. Persistent afflictions. Of course, the picture here is that of a man drowning. See, in Jonah 2, verse 3, Jonah says, For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and a flood surrounded me. All your waves and your billows passed over me. Same picture. Affliction piled upon affliction no light at the end of the tunnel coming to a place where he just said the end of Lord I can't handle it anymore. He's at the end of his emotional stamina Like a drowning man crying out for mercy. That's where he finds himself. I So this man is spiritually depressed. He's absent from the presence of God. He's surrounded. He has a hostile environment all around him. And on top of that, he has these persistent afflictions, one after the other, after the other. Well, what's the result of all that? Verse nine. Feeling of abandonment by God. A feeling of abandonment by God. I say to God, my rock, Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? This is a remarkable passage. He's about to lament the fact that he feels that if God has forgotten him. Yet, how does he start the verse out? I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? What a wonderful picture of genuine faith. What a wonderful picture of genuine faith. One who can come to God and cry out, Lord, this is how I feel. This is how I feel. I feel as if you have forgotten me. And yet you come to him addressing him as your rock, expressing your emotional or spiritual depression. It's a shining example of genuine faith in the midst of turmoil. The psalmist is saying, I'm far from you. Life circumstances have overwhelmed me. Unbelievers are mocking. In all practicality, my life looks like one lived by a man who has been forsaken by God. Yet he comes to God as his rock. In this, we begin to see the proper response to spiritual depression. There's many possible reactions. You come to a place in your life where you feel like God's abandoned you. Come to a place in your life where you feel distant. What do you do? instead of seeking refuge in God and seeking deliverance by Him, many people seek escape from those situations. Now listen, how many of those who claim to be believers have gone through times of trial, turmoil, persecution, And in the midst of that trial, instead of running to God, they seek simply to receive relief from their situation. And they find that relief in some illegitimate means other than God. How many have left the church? How many have left the faith? Because in the midst of the pressure of trials that God brings into our life to strengthen our faith, instead of running to God and being with him through it, they try to find some illegitimate means to escape it. You guys have experienced that. Every church has. And so you have men and women who were here once, and now they're gone. And many of them you can look at and say, and you can pinpoint where the trial was. You can pinpoint where the turmoil was, which they responded to in an unspiritual way. So instead of seeking refuge in God and seeking deliverance by him, one may seek to escape from their life circumstances through illegitimate means. Also, instead of pouring out their hearts to God, they simply may wallow in self-pity. how many look at persistent afflictions and their hostile environment and so on, and they feel as if they're simply the victims of random chance. Life has got me down. Why does all of this always happen to me? As if they're simply riding the waves of randomness. No concept of the sovereignty of God. No concept of the fact that every trial and temptation, every trial and every season of turmoil that comes into our life comes at the loving hand of our sovereign God, so that every trial comes with it purpose. With every trial comes with it purpose and meaning. But some go through this season of spiritual depression and they simply wallow in self-pity, feeling as if they are now the victims of life. Others respond, Instead of responding to feelings of abandonment by God with tears and seeking God, they may respond in bitterness and resentment and respond to the feeling that God has abandoned them by abandoning God. Some simply give up. Lamentations 3.18 says, So I say, my endurance has perished, so has my hope from the Lord. That's it. I gave it a try. It's not working. I've come to the end of myself, and with my endurance goes my hope. But the great mark of the psalmist's spiritual state, and the great mark of any genuine believer, the great mark that we are indeed the children of God, is that even in trouble, we long for him. Even in trouble, we run to him and not away from him. Even acknowledging that the trouble comes at his hand, So even in the midst of this trouble, the psalmist longs for God and seeks to worship God and to praise God once again. So in verse 1 and 2, as a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? What language, the language of longing, the language of desperation, There's a void in my life and it can only be filled by God. And so in the midst of his trouble and his turmoil and even feeling as if God has forsaken him, his response is to run to God. What does that look like? What does that look like? First of all, it looks like humble submission to God, humble submission to the sovereign hand of God in verse seven. Notice again, He says, "'Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All your breakers and your waves have gone over me.'" And I just want you to notice two words there. He says, "'All your breakers and all your waves have gone over me.'" What is that? That is an acknowledgement that everything he was facing Though it led him to feel as if he was forsaken by God, everything he was experiencing came to him at the hand of God. He acknowledged that God's sovereign hand was at work, that all the trouble he was facing comes from him. Now listen, I've experienced people who, in dealing with the most severe of disappointments, the most severe of trials. I think of one case in particular of a woman who lost her daughter prematurely to cancer. And talking to that woman, she expressed to us that, well, God had nothing to do with that whatsoever. That was the doctor's fault. See, her theology and her understanding of God did not allow her to receive from the hand of God trials and difficulties. And so she just simply devised her own theology saying that all that's good comes from God and all that is bad comes from man or from sin or from Satan and we cannot do that. And so the psalmist acknowledges the breakers, the waves, the persistent afflictions ultimately behind the sovereign curtain has God working behind each and every one of them. Yet in verse one and two, he still longs for God. He's praying to God throughout the psalm. I say to my God, to my rock, the God of my salvation. Even in the midst of all of this, he has a sense of ownership by God, acknowledging that he is the sovereign one. He has feelings of abandonment, but he recognizes that those afflictions that he's experiencing are from the Lord. And so he submits to him just like Job did. Job chapter one, verse 20. It says, then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshipped. And he said, naked I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And in all of this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. The ultimate expression of that is found in Job 13.15 where he says, though he slay me, I will hope in him. wonderful mark of the genuineness of salvation is to be able to go through trials and temptations and to run to God and not from him. It's tempting to come to him and say, Lord, I didn't deserve this. Lord, I can't handle this. Lord, you are treating me unfairly. I've tried to obey. I've tried to be obedient. I've tried to worship and praise. Why is all this coming? Let me give you a little bit of encouragement here. Jesus talks about us as the vine. We are the branches, he's the vine. He acknowledges that those branches that bring forth fruit, his Father prunes so that they'll bring forth more fruit. And that's an indication that God looks at your life and when he sees a fruitful believer, He sees your growth and he sees your maturity. He sees the Christ-like character that's being expressed in your life. He sees that, and oftentimes God comes to your life in order to cultivate even more fruit, he prunes. Sometimes that pruning takes the form of persecution. Sometimes it takes the form of trials. That's not necessarily the indication that we are distant, and that's judgment. Sometimes it's an indication that we are close, and it's a matter of cultivating even more fruit. So this psalmist submits to God in the darkness of affliction. In verse 8, So, In the same psalm with a man confessing, I feel as if you've forsaken me, you see a sweet, loving, humble submission to the God with whom he is complaining. Charles Spurgeon said, the day may darken into a strange and untimely midnight. But the love of God ordained of old to be the portion of the elect shall be by sovereign decree meted out to them. No day shall ever dawn on an heir of grace and find him altogether forsaken of his Lord. The Lord reigns, and as a sovereign, he will, with authority, command mercy to be reserved for his chosen. This man comes to God in the midst of feeling as if he's been abandoned by God in the depths of spiritual depression. He responds with humble submission. And next of all, he responds with honest prayer, humble submission to the sovereign hand of God, honest prayer toward a loving heavenly father. Verse nine. I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? And you acknowledge that this is this is a prayer. It's a lament, it's a prayer. Psalm 62, eight says, trust in him at all times, O people, pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. Believers need to come to a place where they have a willingness to pour out their heart before God. Oftentimes in churches, and I don't believe this is true of this congregation, oftentimes in churches, there can be such an air, a culture that's created in the church, that when men and women come together, they all feel as if there's a facade that must be put on. We must give the impression that we're all doing just fine. How are you today? Oh, I'm fine. I'm blessed. The reality is, for the genuine believer, that's not always the case. I'm blessed, yes. But frankly, I'm overwhelmed by life. Frankly, I'm struggling with emotions that don't line up with what I know to be true about God. Believers need to come to a place where they're willing to be vulnerable before God. And even, listen, there's some things in this psalm, there are some things that this man is thinking which are not true. Has God forsaken him? No. Does he feel that way? Yes. So does he say, well, that's an ungodly attitude. I cannot express that to God. And so he comes to God and he adds all the eths and the these and the thys as he's praying to God. He just pours out his heart. And he says, Lord, this is how I feel. Listen, it's okay to come to God and just pour out your heart. Even those attitudes that you know are not right. Lord, this is how I feel. Help me to deal with this. Lord, this is how I feel, but this is what I know about your word, so help me to submit to your word and not to my feelings. This man comes to God with honest prayer. It's like Hannah in 1 Samuel 1, verse 13. It says, Hannah was speaking in her heart, only her lips moved. And her voice was not heard. Therefore, Eli took her to be a drunken woman. And Eli said to her, how long will you go on being drunk? Put your wine away from you. But Hannah answered, no, my lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation. You have to have such a relationship with God that in your prayer life, you can come and with brutal honesty, pour out your heart before him. Even those things that you know, you know, in your heart of hearts, I shouldn't be feeling this way. You know, in your heart of hearts, that that attitude does not line up with the objective truth of scripture, but you pour it out to God and say, Lord, listen, he knows anyway. There ought to be no facade, no superficiality, no platitudes when you come to your God in prayer. You pour out your heart with all sincerity, with all genuineness, and you'll find that through that worship time and that praise time of your prayer life, Expressing that to god And his holy spirit working in you sometimes just going through the throes of that emotional exercise of praying that way He helps you by the time that prayer time is done to stand up and say, okay This is how I feel. But what do I know? We'll see that in a moment You see this man's response to spiritual depression was humble submission It was honest prayer And next of all we see heart discipline Humble submission to the sovereign hand of God, an honest prayer towards a heavenly father, his loving heavenly father, then heart discipline through a biblical theology. And this is really, this is really the culmination of all of this. This man begins to preach to his own soul. Verse five. Why are you cast down, oh my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me? He's preaching to himself. Self, listen to me. Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God. My soul is cast down within me, therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon and from Mount Mizar. But then in verse 11, why are you cast down, oh my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God. He is preaching to himself. He's preaching the objective realities of what he knows about God, his character and his promises. He's preaching it to himself so that he can bring his soul and his emotions in line with the truths of God's word. There's self-examination here. There's introspection here. He does not give in to depression or self-pity, but rather he takes himself in hand and he wrestles through it. He reminds himself of what he really knows. And really, that's the essence of faith, isn't it? Faith is responding to and living according to what we know about God and his promises, even though those things are not reflected in the circumstances around us. Everything around me says God has forsaken me, yet I know biblically that God will never leave or forsake me. So am I going to respond to my circumstances and my emotions, or am I going to respond to the objective word of God and what I know about Him and His promises? We can't always control circumstances. You know what a helpful question is for you to ask yourself repeatedly? Listen, life's going to happen. Sometimes it's going to feel as if you don't understand the purpose and meaning behind the things that come into your life. But the right response is always to come to God and say, Lord, I don't understand it. I don't know why. I don't see your purpose. But Lord, just help me to know how you want me to respond. I can't change it. I can't escape it. So Lord, help me to respond in a way that glorifies you. That's it. That's our responsibility. Show me how to respond. We can't control circumstances, we can't control our enemies, but we can always control our attitudes and our reactions. Martin Lloyd-Jones said this. He says, you have to take yourself in hand. You have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul, why are you cast down? What business have you to be in turmoil? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself, hope in God, instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. So we preach the objective word of God to a soul subjected to the circumstances of life. We preach the objective word of God to a soul subjected to the circumstances of life, and that is the essence of genuine faith. By the way, that presupposes that you have a biblical theology. that presupposes that you know who God is, you know what his promises are, you know all that he has for you in Christ. And so when you come to a place of spiritual depression, you can take your soul in hand and say, okay, this is how I feel. What do I know about God? This is how I feel. What do I know about God's character? I feel as if I'm not being loved. I feel as if there's a lack of mercy. I feel as if maybe he's got it in for me here. But what do I know about God? I know that He is love. I know that He is merciful. I know that He works all things together for good for those who are the called according to His purpose. I know these things to be true. And so, emotions. Sorry, you lose. The Word of God wins. And then faith is getting up from your time of prayer and beginning to walk in response to the Word and not in response to your emotions. Psalm 119.50 says, "'This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.'" Get into the Word. Know God. Know Christ. Know the promises and the blessings that He has given you in Christ. Know His promises so that when afflictions come, you can say, "'Your promises give me life.'" What does this psalmist specifically—what does he know about God? What does he preach to himself? Verse two, my soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? He's alive. How many people go through life circumstances, man, is God even there? He seems so distant. The psalmist says he's alive, he's a living God. Okay, that's a start. The scoffers say, where is your God? And he says, God is alive. Not only is God alive, but God's worthy of praise. So verse 5, he says, I shall again praise him, my salvation. Verse 11, I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. He's alive. Not only is he alive, but his character is such that he's worthy of praise. He's not a living God who has it in for me, but he's a living God who lives for me or whom I live for. And he is working all things for my good. He's living and he's worthy of praise. In verse 5, he refers to God as the God of his salvation. He's alive. He's worthy of praise. He is my Savior. And then in verse 8, by day the Lord commands His steadfast love, and at night His song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. Even in the midst of all of this, He acknowledges the love of God. He's alive. He's worthy of praise. He is my Savior. He is loving. And frankly, He's fit. for one to build his life upon. In verse 9, he says, I say to God, my rock. Everything around him was shifting. Everything around him was in turmoil. And yet, you know what happened? When he came to a place of spiritual depression, persistent afflictions, hostile environment, absence from the presence of God, in the midst of all of that, he was overcome with his emotions, so what did he do? He dug deep into his theology. he dug deep into his theology. And so some say, we want less theology, we want more practical preaching. And we say to them is theology is inherently practical. Theology teaches us who God is, what God's promises are, and how God is disposed towards his children. And so When life overwhelms us, we dig deep into what we know about God, we dig deep into our theology. Martin Lloyd-Jones again said this, the ultimate cause of all spiritual depression is unbelief. That is why the psalmist keeps saying to himself, hope in God, for I will yet praise him. He reminds himself of God. Why? because he was depressed and had forgotten God. So that his faith and his belief in God and in his power and in his relationship to God were not what they ought to be. He goes on to say, have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? This man's treatment was this, instead of allowing himself to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. Why are you cast out, oh my soul? He asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and he says, self, listen for a moment. And what does he do? He preaches theology. He speaks the objective truths of the word of God. When emotion and circumstances are against us, when life does not make sense, sometimes it's simply our biblical theology that gets us through. He must have a proper biblical conception of God. Who is God? What is he like? How is he disposed towards his children? What purpose and meaning do trials have? And then, what should my response be? Therefore, his conclusion. He handles a spiritual depression, humble submission to the sovereign hand of God, honest prayer to his loving Heavenly Father, heart, discipline. He's preaching theology to himself. And then hopeful trust. Hopeful trust. Verse 5, why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God. And he ends on this note in verse 11. Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God. That's it. Know who God is, and then hope in Him. That's not a wishful thinking hope. That is, I know who God is, I know what He has promised, I know how He is disposed to His children, and so, even though nothing around me, as far as my circumstances go, speak to encouragement or to escape, even though all my circumstances scream the opposite, I'm gonna hope in God, because I know who He is. Steve Lawson said this, He said, lasting peace and genuine contentment are found in only one place, hope in God. We must discipline our minds and direct our wills to hope in God when tempted to dissolve into a pool of despair. Hope in God, nothing else and no one else can pull us out of the depressing moments of life. And that's right. There's no lasting hope in anything else in this sinful world but hope in God. I just want to end with one last passage, and we'll be done. Lamentations, chapter 3, verse 15. And you know Lamentations. You know that the conclusion of Lamentations is that all is vanity. There's nothing in this world, there's no accomplishment, there's no accomplishment, there's nothing that this world offers to give me the satisfaction that I ought to only find in God. You know the conclusion of Lamentations. It says, He has filled me with bitterness. He has sated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel and made me cower in ashes. My soul is bereft of peace. I have forgotten what happiness is. So I say my endurance has perished, so has my hope from the Lord. Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall. My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me, but this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him." Let's pray. Dear Lord, we thank you that you are the loving, merciful, gracious God of heaven, who in your mercy condescended to us. You've reached into this world and you've called out a people for your name. Lord, you've set us apart as your prized possession, not because of any worth that we possess, but according to your sovereign choice. And so, Lord, we acknowledge that you have adopted us as your children. And as your children, you have offered us every blessing in Christ. And so, Lord, as our circumstances overwhelm us, as our emotions are preaching one thing, help us to remember who you are, the relationship into which you have brought us, the promises we have in Christ, Help us to rest in our theology. Help us to preach to our own souls. So, Lord, I pray you would lead us in self-examination. Help us to look at those areas of our lives in which we've allowed ourselves to be overcome. Those areas of our lives where we've allowed our emotions to preach to us, instead of us preaching our theology to our emotions. We thank you for your grace and for your mercy. We're entirely unworthy. We thank you that in this life, even our trials and troubles and persistent afflictions, you work for our good. We thank you that as your elect, we can stand with the wonderful confidence knowing that behind everything that comes into our life, there is purpose. We thank you for that, Lord. I pray that you'll help us to trust you. Help us, Lord, to humbly submit to your sovereign hand, even in the midst of such troubles. And then there may be some here this morning, Lord, who are not experiencing anything quite like this. They may be at the mountaintop, overwhelmed with your love and your joy and your peace, and overflowing in their lives, and others looking at their lives can see it. Help us, Lord, even in times of abundance, to have a proper theology, to have a proper trust, to have a proper humble submission, to offer to you honest prayer. And Lord, I pray you'd build our theology during the high times to sustain us through the low times. Lord, we pray that in all of this we could grow into Christlikeness and that you would be glorified. Lord, we thank you for all of this once again in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.