Well, you can turn in your Bibles to Psalm 6 if you're not there. Psalm chapter 6 in the Word of God. Psalm 6 has traditionally been understood as one of seven penitential psalms. The others being Psalm 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143. Now, if you'll compare these penitential Psalms, you'll notice that there's no explicit confession of sin in Psalm 6. And so the question is, is this a penitential Psalm or not? We're going to see David describing how his body and soul were both affected by this deep-seated affliction he was experiencing. And was this affliction that David is experiencing, was it directly due to some particular sin or was David just under this impression that God was judging him? We don't know exactly. We don't know if David's undergoing some physical affliction that's so terrible he's simply suspecting God's displeasure or perhaps David is acutely aware of some sin, some sin he doesn't mention here, but some sin that gave rise to God's displeasure and for which he's experiencing this anguish of body and soul. So commentators are divided on this point, but here's the bottom line that you need to know. Regardless of the exact cause of David's despair, this psalm is not focusing on the cause of despair, but it's focusing on the fact of it and it's focusing on the cure And so this morning, you may be suffering some affliction. In fact, it may be that there is some sin in your life. And because of this sin in your life, there's anguish in your soul. There's unrest. Or perhaps even in this sin in your life that you've not repented of, you are experiencing presently the chastising hand of God upon you. Or it could be that you're not aware of any sin in your life, but you're suffering and maybe God is testing you and desires simply to put to death the flesh. Mortify the deeds of the flesh and make you more like Christ. Or maybe you're not suffering at all. Maybe this morning you'd say, you know, there's not any grief that comes to my mind right now in my own personal life, but in which case I want to encourage us all, brothers and sisters, this text is still for you. You may not be at the place where David is in the dungeon of despair, but this text is for each and every one of us. Because the Psalms are prayers for all of Christ's church. And those of us who are not suffering today will suffer tomorrow, or at least we must even today read this prayer and pray this prayer as an intercession for those who are suffering. So this psalm is for everyone. And with that being said, let's stand together and out of respect for the reading of God's word, let's stand and read our text. Psalm chapter six. For the choir director with stringed instruments upon an eight string lyre, a psalm of David. O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger, nor chasten me in your wrath. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am pining away. Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are dismayed and my soul is greatly dismayed. But you, O Lord, how long? Return, O Lord. Rescue my soul. Save me because of your loving kindness. For there is no mention of you in death. And Sheol, who will give you thanks? I am weary with my sighing. Every night I make my bed swim. I dissolve my couch with my tears. My eye has wasted away with grief. It has become old because of all my adversaries. Depart from me. All you who do iniquity, for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping. The Lord has heard my supplication. The Lord receives my prayer. All my enemies will be ashamed and greatly dismayed. They shall turn back. They will suddenly be ashamed. That's the reading of God's word. You may be seated. Let's pray. Our merciful Father in heaven, we come to you this morning asking that you would please speak to us through your word. We have people in the body of Christ that we know here, our church family that are suffering, that are grieving. There is broken hearts, Lord. Lord, there is anguish of soul. There's anguish of body, Lord. There are physical needs and emotional needs that truly only you know the full depths of. We just ask, oh God, that you would use this prayer of your servants. You would use these inspired words to touch every heart and to stir us, Lord, to intercession for those of us that are not in the place where David is here. Stir us to pray even this way. for those who are grieving. Lord, touch every heart, confront every heart. If there be somebody in your midst who doesn't know Christ, we pray you'd confront them too with their need for the gospel. In Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen. C.H. Spurgeon has been called the Prince of Preachers. The Prince of Preachers. And he was a true man of God. So it may surprise you to know that Spurgeon frequently struggled with severe depression. And from what we can tell, his anguish was partly due to gout. He did have a medical condition. And enduring much controversy and criticism, if you know the life of C.H. Spurgeon, what he went through, we know there are certainly other contributing factors to what this man was experiencing. His despair, including overexertion, and all of the controversy he was at the center of in his time. In his biography of Spurgeon, Arnold Dalimore wrote, what Spurgeon suffered in those times of darkness, we may not know. Even his desperate calling on God brought no relief. Spurgeon himself said, there are dungeons beneath, there are dungeons beneath the castles of despair. And the man in today's text is a man who is crying out from a dungeon. A dungeon of despair. It's not a dungeon of stone and steel, but it's a dungeon of the soul. It's no less real. David cries out here as one who is trapped. He is shut in to sorrow. He is shut out from joy. Ever been there? What should you do when you're living in a colorless world? When you feel like everything has lost its joy and purpose and meaning, and maybe you don't even know why. But you're suddenly living with this loss of meaning, this loss of hope, loss of motivation, loss of energy, loss of strength. There's these feelings of misery and weakness and you can't seem to shake it and you don't know what to do. What do you do when you find yourself locked away in the dungeon of despair? This psalm offers guidance on how to escape despair's dungeon. And in this prayer, David models how to respond to despair. He shows us three steps we can take when we are trapped in despair. Step number one, cry out in despondence. Cry out in despondence. Verses one through three show us. Four times in verses one through three, David invokes the name of Yahweh in his prayer. Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! He can only cry out to God in this despondence. It's a desperate cry. Sort of reminds me of Mendelssohn's opening of his oratorial Elijah with a chorus crying out, Help, Lord! Help, Lord! Wilt thou quite destroy us? It's in deepest grief that such a cry may be all we can raise to God, but it's a start. And it's where David begins. The first three verses here indicate three factors behind David's despondence. First, we see that he is concerned with God's displeasure. Verse one, O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger, nor chasten me in your wrath. Any good father will rebuke. his child for misbehaving and if that child does not shape up and make corrections but persists in disobedience, a good father will go on to administer chastening. That is discipline. The word to chasten here means to discipline, even to train. But it's often understood as involving a painful process. Often you'll see this verb to chasten is involved with a rod or the use of a whip. This is because pain is an excellent teacher. C.S. Lewis said it right. He said, God whispers to us in our pleasures, but shouts to us in our pain. And in verse one, David mentions both God's rebuke and chastening. He believes this pain he's presently experiencing is God's punishment due to his sin, due to some displeasure of God upon his life. So let me ask you, and this is a question that is certainly easier to give an answer to than it is to accept the answer. But the question for you is, could it be that the pain in your life The pain that God has brought upon your life is His way of chastening you. Even more generally, could it be that the pain that God has brought into your life this morning and what you're experiencing is God's way of chiseling away what is displeasing to Him and conforming you more to the image of His Son, Jesus Christ? It might be easy to answer, yes. Yes, the pain I'm experiencing is God's good for my life. He cares. That's why he's dealing with me in this way. But it can be extremely difficult to accept this. Now, David suspects God is angry. David suspects God is fiercely chasing him. He says, Oh, Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger, nor chasing me in your wrath. It would be wrong for David, or any one of us for that matter, to despise the chastening of the Lord. To say, Lord, don't you ever chasten me. Don't you ever bring things into my life that I don't like. But citing Proverbs 3, the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews 12, 5, My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord. nor faint when you are reproved by Him. For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives. The author of Hebrews is telling us God spanks His children. God disciplines His children. This isn't child abuse, this is loving discipline. God spanks His children because He loves His children. He cares about them and He wants to correct them. And so Hebrews goes on to say that God disciplines us for, don't miss it, our good. Our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. But yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Hebrews 12, 10 and 11. So David's not demanding God spare him any chastisement. He's pleading that God would not do so in anger and in wrath. It's one thing to be chastised. It's another to be chastised in anger. Parents are to rebuke and chasten their children for their sin. But parents are only to do so in love and with care. And when we're suffering terrible pains, it makes all the difference, does it not, to know God is not angry at me. God's not trying to destroy me. God loves me. He cares about his children and he's committed. He's committed and he is always committed to chasing his children, to working all things together in their life for their good. What he knows is for their good, even if it means suffering and pain. So in the chaos of suffering, David's confused. He's concerned with what he feels to be God's displeasure upon his life. Of course, David, we just have to understand, didn't have the full story. He didn't realize that the wrath of God would be completely laid upon Jesus in such a way that then we could be spared. But here, David, as he's concerned with what he feels to be God's displeasure upon his life, also shares with us he's concerned with his own distress. Be gracious to me, verse two. He says, Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am pining away. Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are dismayed. Verse two describes physical distress. Did you catch that? David claims he's pining away. The images of a plant drooping. Ever seen a plant just dying? It's withering. The stages of death are now visibly apparent. David was a strong warrior. This was a young man. He killed a lion with his bare hands. David was strong, but now his body is withering away. It happens to the best of us. And he says, my bones are dismayed. In Hebrew poetry, the bones represented the entire aspect of man's physical being. So David's saying my whole body feels this pain. He's suffering physically. But verse three makes it plain. He's also suffering psychological distress. He adds, and my soul is greatly dismayed. David's describing the dismay of his soul even as more intense than what he's suffering in his body. And that's often the case. It's easier to bear a headache than a heartache. It's easier to mend a broken bone than it is to mend a broken heart. Maybe David's physical symptoms here were contributing to his psychological symptoms, or maybe it was the reverse. The text doesn't specify, but the Bible does describe that body and soul share an essential unity. So that pains in your body will affect your mood. And I think we all know that. And your mood, also it's proven, will directly affect the state of your body. There's a connection, there's a unity. But whatever the exact cause behind David's distress, remember, whatever the exact cause behind your distress this morning, Let me encourage you like David. Cry out. Cry out to God in your despondence. You can always begin there. David's concerned with what he feels to be God's displeasure. He's concerned with what he feels is this distress upon him. And thirdly, he's concerned with his trial's duration. There's no end in sight. David says, my soul is greatly dismayed in verse three. And then he says, but you, O Lord, How long? How long? There's no end in sight. And this expression, how long, appears four times in another Psalm of David, in Psalm 13. How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul? Having sorrow in my heart all the day, how long will my enemy be exalted over me? David, is not seeing any end to his trial. And surely this is the worst of it. In commenting on trials, Andrew Fowler has said, it is not under the sharpest, but the longest trials that we are most in danger of fainting. When Job was accosted with several tidings in quick succession, he bore it with becoming fortitude. But when he could see no end of his troubles, he sunk under them. How long? How long? There's no end in sight, Lord. Maybe you sense God's displeasure in your life. It could be you know of some sin you've committed, and you believe this is God's chastening upon you. Or you might not know what's going on in your life, but you have a sense of God's displeasure because of all that's happening, and you're carrying this physical and psychological distress. And the worst of it is you just don't see any end. And that's where you are, and what can you do? You feel trapped in despair. Take the first step. Cry out. Cry out in despondence. This isn't even a cry of faith. It's just despondence. When you're crushed in sorrow, God's not gonna turn you away for not using all the right words, for not having all the right theology. No one is going to critique your prayer. You're not trying to impress anyone here. That's fine. Cry out. That's what God wants to hear. It's the cry of His children. Oh Lord, how long? If you're trapped in despair, this is the first step you must take. If you're there, only crying out in despondence, and you're only crying out in despondence, and that's all, you're only going to stay there. So at some point we do need to take the next step. Step number two, we've seen cry out in despondence. Step number two, call for deliverance. Call out for deliverance. Verses four through seven. David turns a corner here in verse four, because he now begins calling out for deliverance. Let me illustrate for you the difference. when a mother suddenly loses her child. She's crushed. There are a few experiences that we could have of being plunged into this sort of inexpressible grief. And in order not to get bitter at God, and in order not to go insane, all she can bring herself to do is cry, oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord, why, why, why? She's crying out in despondence. And that's not wrong to do. That's a biblical thing to do. But if she is ever to move on with her life, she must at some point take the next step and actually call out for deliverance. Deliverance from the dungeon of despair. Now, this is an act of faith. however desperate. It's one thing to simply direct your cries to God. It's another thing to call out for God. Do you see the difference? David's been crying out to God. Now he's calling for God. Verse four. Return. Oh, Lord, rescue my soul. Save me because of your loving kindness. David's call for God to return suggests that at present David does not sense nearness to God like he once did. And David's call for God to rescue his soul suggests that David very literally views this struggle that he's immersed in as a matter of life and death. But on what grounds does David hope to receive God's deliverance? Well, notice David bases his call for deliverance on three pleas. First, he pleads for sake of God's unfailing love. He says, save me because of your loving kindness. This word loving kindness could be translated unfailing love. It is God's loyal love of his people based on his unconditional covenant with them. So David recalls he's talking to the Lord. Yahweh. He's talking to not just anyone, but the Lord who, as Exodus 34 made plain, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness and truth. And keeps loving kindness for thousands. He's the one who forgives iniquity and transgression and sin. David pleads to this God. And he pleads upon this God's unfailing, unchanging character. David doesn't pray, Lord, I deserve this. Lord, you got the wrong guy. Actually, David is acknowledging the exact opposite when he's asking for God's mercy, which is another way to translate this word loving kindness. He's pleading for deliverance on the basis of God's mercy. It's like he's saying, because I know you're merciful, Lord. Now he's going to go on to say in verses five through seven. Because I know you're merciful, I know. You'll take thought for my life. You'll take thought for my sorrow. So David pleads for the sake of God's love and kindness. And next, he pleads for the sake of his own life. Look at verse five. For there is no mention of you in death. In Sheol, who will give you thanks? There's a common misunderstanding here, by the way. Some have tried to use David's words here to claim he's teaching us the idea of soul sleep, which is this idea that when you die, your soul will sleep with your body until the resurrection. Others have claimed that David's teaching here, the annihilation of the soul, that we all together cease to exist at death. But both of these views fail to appreciate the context of David's prayer. His words are a lament to God, a cry out of his own despondence. And these words might describe then simply how David felt at the moment. I mean, they certainly do. They're describing how David feels in this moment of anguish. And we could also say David might simply be speaking with respect to his present earthly, physical, bodily existence. Whatever the case, before you take his words too literally and say, oh yeah, David didn't believe in an afterlife. David didn't believe that his soul would be joined to the Lord at death. You should also pay attention to Psalm 16 and Psalm 17, which are other Psalms of David. And pay attention to other Old Testament expectations of God's saints, like we find in Job or the book of Daniel. We can see that, however shadowy, God's people in the Old Testament did have some faint expectation of a resurrection. and that they would be joined to God. And whatever the extent of David's understanding, 2 Timothy 1.10 tells us, when Jesus Christ came, our Savior brought to light immortality in the gospel. Jesus is the one who comes from the other side to show us clearly what awaits on the other side of death. Now the word sheol that David mentions is transliterated from the Hebrew word. And the writers do that because the meaning is not all quite clear to us. But from what we understand, it represents the abode of the dead. It's the netherworld. And David's saying, Lord, if you don't deliver me, that's where I'm going. And if I die, my lifeless body is no longer going to serve you and praise you. So in one sense, David's pleading with God for his own life's sake. While in another sense, he's pleading for his life for the sake of God. He's pleading for God's sake. He's saying, God, I'm your man. Lord, I'm yours. I speak for you. And if I go to the grave, that's it. I can't talk to others about you anymore. Not in this life. So he says, save me so that I can serve you. I can continue to thank you. Praise you. Is that your prayer? You pray this way. Is it all about you or is it about God? Why do you want healing? Why do you want. Forgiveness or or peace, why do you want freedom? Why do you want what it is that you want? James would warn us. He warned many in the church, you pray and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives so that you may spend it on your pleasures. James 4 3. You see, when we plead with God, we ought to be chiefly concerned with his interests, with his glory and not our own. David pleads for the sake of God's loving kindness, and he pleads for the sake of his own life, which is also for the sake of the Lord. But also we see he pleads for sake of his own languishing. In verses 6 and 7. He says, I am weary with my sighing. Every night I make my bed swim. I dissolve my couch with tears. My eye is wasted away with grief. It has become old because of all my adversaries. This is a good example of poetic exaggeration. Because David's not literally saying that he cried so much that he's swimming on his bed. But you get the idea. He's not swimming on his bed. He's not dissolved his couch. But here we see the magnitude of this man's sorrow. Once again, the psalm does not focus on the cause for David's grief so much as it does on the fact of it and how David responds to his grief. We don't even know the exact nature of this pain. But David says he can't stop weeping over what it is he's enduring. Now why would David mention this to God in the first place? Why would David mention these details to God, the magnitude of his suffering? I think the purpose is natural enough that when we are suffering, when we're really hurting, we have no problem going to people that we know care, that we know we can trust and just pouring out on them what we're feeling. That's what David's doing. So he indicates the magnitude of sorrow, but I believe David is also drawing attention to the genuineness of his sorrow. Some people are very good at crying, and it's like they're too good at it, and they will use their tears to deceive you. and to get something they want from you. You know, we call these crocodile tears because there's no real genuine interest in you. There's no real heart behind the tears. And so people will manipulate you with their crying, but that's not David. I mean, some people cry to be seen of men, but tears shed in silent, tears shed in secret are unquestionably genuine. David is weeping alone. He's still here in the wee hours of the night. We find him still weeping for his grief. It was Martin Luther who said in his 95 thesis that the entire Christian life ought to be one of repentance and an act of brokenness and contrition. If anybody exemplifies that, it's David, who came to this place many times in his life. Here he's weeping, his tears, his sorrow is great, it's genuine. So David calls for God's deliverance, for sake of God's loving kindness, for sake of his own life, for sake of his languishing. And all this is predicated on the fact David knows God hears, God cares. What do you do when you're in the dungeon of despair? When you are shut up to sorrow, shut out from joy, cry out to God in your despondence. Call out to God for deliverance. But step three, come to confidence. Verses eight through ten, come to confidence. David turns another corner at verse eight, and this is quite a remarkable change in the whole psalm. The entire mood of the psalm changes here almost instantaneously. Verse 8, Depart from me, David says, all you who do iniquity, for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping. The Lord has heard my supplication. The Lord received my prayer. How could a despondent David so suddenly gain confidence? How do we just go from despondence to confidence in a moment? Three times in verses 8 and 9 we read, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord. That's it. That's the answer. David's confidence is in the Lord. Three times we see him repeating this. This is clearly the emphasis and this confidence is the key which unlocks the iron shackles of David's depression. Not just any confidence, but confidence in the Lord. And verses 8 and 9 give us two proofs that David is confident. First, verse 8, he has confidence to face his enemies. Whatever the exact cause behind all David's physical and psychological distress, we do catch a hint here, his enemies may have something to do with it. Verse 8, David addresses all who do iniquity. Verse 10, he mentions all my enemies will be ashamed. Now David could be addressing enemies in a figurative sense. These would be people that were not necessarily seeking David's life, just people that were shaming David. People that were criticizing him. I'm thinking of Shimei, when David was fleeing from Absalom. This man of the house of Saul, who was a worthless man, came out and exploited David's weakness, exploited David's despair. taking advantage of David's misfortune. Could be those who are criticizing him and his suffering. Or this could be enemies in a more literal sense. Those who are actually trying to surround and eliminate David as a rival. This would be those like King Saul, the followers of Absalom. You have the Philistines at a time in David's life, or the Amalekites. Whoever they were, they very likely had something to do with the tremendous fear David's experiencing. And yet, and yet in a moment, David gains confidence to face these enemies. And you see a man who's reconciled to God, a man who takes confidence in the Lord as a man who could stand before the world and a man who could face anything. Because as Paul says in Romans 8 31, if God is for us, who can be against us? God and you are always a majority. Several years ago, I read the autobiography of John Patton. Patton was a missionary to the New Herbertese Islands in the South Pacific. Talk about a man who endured hardship. Patton lost his wife and baby son due to illness. He had to bury them with his own hands. and somehow he got out of that dungeon of despair and managed to continue serving the Lord. Here was a man who knew how to cry out in despondence and call out for deliverance and to come to confidence in the Lord somehow. Well one of John Patton's most incredible stories comes from this autobiography where he tells how that one evening he and his wife were surrounded in their hut by hostile natives who were intent on burning down their hut and killing them both Patton says that they spent the night terror-filled, desperately praying for God's supernatural deliverance. And they could hear the warriors assembled all about their hut, angrily chanting and beating on their drums. This is an incredible trial of faith. And when daylight came, John says they looked out of the window and mysteriously the hostile natives were gone. They'd all disappeared without a trace. The event had so perplexed the Pattons that about a year later, after the chief of that tribe had converted to Christ, John asked him, he said, remember that night you guys were surrounding us, you were going to kill us? He said, why didn't you ever attack us? And the chief seemed surprised that John didn't know why. And he said, because of the men who were surrounding your hut that night. And John, intrigued, said, there were no men surrounding our hut. And the chief insisted. Oh, yes, there were. We saw hundreds of men, hundreds of men in bright shining garments standing before your hut with swords drawn, ready to protect you. We didn't dare invade. That's a true story. It came from the lips of a man who at that time who who witnessed that was not a follower of Jesus Christ, but later came to put his faith in Jesus Christ. But I'll tell you what that shows us. The Lord encamps around his people. The Lord protects his people. The Lord is a shield to all who put their trust in him. He is a strong tower. He is a refuge. The Lord is enough. David could say, depart from me, all you who do iniquity. The Lord has heard the voice of my weeping. The Lord has heard my supplication. The Lord receives my prayer. All my enemies will be ashamed and greatly dismayed. They shall turn back. They will suddenly be ashamed. When you come to confidence in the Lord. You can stare death in the face. You can stare the odds in the face. And you can know God has your back. And whatever that means, everything is going to be all right. David had that confidence. No wonder David had the confidence to face his enemies. But also we see David has the confidence in the Lord's deliverance. Notice the change in verb tense from verses 8 to 10. He begins the last line of verse 8. For the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping. The Lord has heard, verse 9, my supplication. The Lord receives my prayer. And it's because David is confident as he has prayed, and he is praying, that suddenly he can say, verse 10, all my enemies will be ashamed. and greatly dismayed. They shall turn back. They will suddenly be ashamed. Please notice David has been praying for deliverance and he hasn't yet in time received the answer. He hasn't received what he's praying for. But at least at the present he can say, I'm confident the Lord has heard. The Lord has heard and the Lord will deliver me, whatever that means for me. here's the key to how anyone who's brokenhearted and locked away in the dungeon of despair can come to confidence and be set free. John Bunyan illustrates the truth David's describing for us in Pilgrim's Progress. Christian and hopeful have been languishing for some time in the giant despair's dungeon when suddenly after praying all night Bunyan writes, Christian As one half amazed, break out impassionate speech. What a fool, quoth he, am I to lie in a stinking dungeon when I might as well walk at liberty. I have a key in my bosom called promise that will unlock, I am persuaded, any door in downing castle. So Christian and hopeful use this key promise and they find that it unlocks the dungeon and sets them free. And Christian, talking to you, Christian brothers and sisters in this room, you have from Christ, we are told the Lord Jesus Christ has given to you precious and magnificent promises. Second Peter 1.4. Jesus said you will know the truth. What good does that do me? He said you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. The truth is the key. The truth is in the word of God. The truth, Jesus Christ has come to reveal to us so that by coming to him, by coming to his word, we don't have to remain in the dungeon of despair, but we can be set free. Of Jesus the Messiah, it was said, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news. to the afflicted. He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners. You can come confidently to Jesus because Jesus came to set you free. Jesus came so that you wouldn't stay. You wouldn't have to be locked away in the dungeon of despair. He came to set you free. Praise God. What should you do when you're trapped in despair? This psalm offers guidance how to escape despair's dungeon. Cry out in despondence. Call out for deliverance. Come to confidence in Christ Jesus our Lord. Are you in despair this morning? Maybe someone's in despair over sin. You feel the weight of your sin. That's a good thing. If you feel godly sorrow for your offenses against the Holy God, but let me tell you, it better not stop there. You need to find relief. You need to find forgiveness in Jesus Christ. You need to cast that burden of sin upon the Lord Jesus Christ and find that He has sufficiently paid for your sin. That His atonement will cover and free you. Maybe that's someone here this morning and you need the forgiveness and the relief that Jesus Christ is offering. Or maybe you're simply, there's somebody here, simply despairing over some intense physical or psychological pain. And I know from having talked to some of the body that how frequent this is. We have brothers and sisters, even right now as I speak, that are undergoing intense pain, the deaths of which only God knows. And maybe that's you and you can't even explain why. Let me encourage you, if that's you, do not stop. Do not stop crying out. Don't stop crying out in your despondence and calling out for the Lord's deliverance of your life until, don't stop, until you come to confidence. James Montgomery Boyce tells the story of a Baptist pastor who was experiencing severe depression. And after months of therapy and soul searching, he was by himself near a lake. And he says nothing ecstatic or noisy happened, nothing high powered or sensational. He just suddenly felt different. And as he explained that feeling, he became aware, he says, I became aware of strength in my limbs and objects before my eyes. I suddenly saw, I felt, I heard. Was it possible? Was the cloud finally gone? Had the world come alive again? I stood and moved carefully at first. The feeling, the sensations, the awareness, the strength, was it real? Was it back to stay? I began thanking and praising God, singing and laughing. I continued to walk with vigor for three miles around the lake. I sang, I cried, I laughed, I prayed, I quoted scripture, I talked to the birds, I talked to the trees. To this day, I'm grateful no one saw me. I would have been shipped back to Ward 7E for sure. But here's the true story of a man who at one point was locked away, felt locked away in the dungeon of despair. And he's sharing how God, the Lord, suddenly set him free. You know, that's the story of Psalm 6. David, languishing in a dungeon as a spare, suddenly, suddenly, suddenly by the grace of God is set free. Because God is real. And he's just as real as your struggle. He's just as real as the walls of the dungeon that has hemmed you in. And you can take confidence in him. You can cry out to him and call to him. And don't stop. Don't stop until he brings you to confidence in who he is. Let's pray.