Psalms 87-89: Depression Under Pressure

0:00God draws people from every tribe, every tongue and every nation to be included in his great kingdom. This is Mission 66, brought to you by T.W.R. and the Bible Teaching Ministry of Dr. Luis Salau. Today we're in the book of Psalms, a collection of praise and prophecies, many written by King David and originally set to music. You can download your study guide at Mission66.org and follow along with John and Esther. Let's get started. We continue our series in the Psalms and this time we're taking Psalms 87, 88 and 89. And here is our teacher, John Matthews, who lead us through these Psalms with the theme, Glory and Spite of Depression. Yes, sir, thank you very much and a very well-welcome to Mission 66. So good to have your company today wherever you're joining us from and we are continuing through the book of Psalms.

1:00And so today we're going to look at Psalms 87, 88 and 89 and that means we close out the third of five distinctive collections within the book of Psalms. Now Psalm 87 written by the Psalms of Cora is a Psalm that talks about Jerusalem, about what God had done in favor of Zion. Psalm 89 related to a similar theme, it's written by a man called Ethan and it talks about what God has done for his people and yet the sadness when the people were taken captive to Babylon. And then Psalm 88, which we're actually going to be looking at first here, talks about the particular suffering of one individual. Psalm 88 is attributed to the sons of Cora, but it's meant to highlight the suffering of the distressed and this Psalm is also presented as a poem of the Ezraite who was called Heyman. Now, we don't have all that much information on Heyman himself, but it's thought that

2:06he might be the same person who's mentioned in First Chronicles chapter 6, the Son of Zira. Now, Psalm 88 is a little different from the other Psalms and as we follow along, I'm sure some of us will identify with what the writer here is expressing. He's suffering in life and he's going through a period of depression. Let's read Psalm 88 from verse 1. O Lord, God of my salvation, I cry out day and night before you. Let my prayer come before you, incline your ear to my cry. For my soul is full of troubles and my life draws near to sheer. I am counted among those who go down to the pit. I am a man who has no strength like one set loose among the dead, like the slain

3:08that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand. And when we begin reading the Psalm, we may sense the great pain that the writer is facing here, revealing and showing us that in certain moments in life we need to and should simply cry. It's not true that in every situation in life we need to leave smiling and we always, we always are able to find the positive. Sometimes that's not possible. We're going to learn through this moment of suffering and pain that someone who's living under the pressure of, let's say, health problems or deep grief or maybe the danger of losing their own life will sometimes continue and need to grief for a while. And as we do, well, God is right there with us in the midst of our pain.

4:11He feels our pain, believe it or not, even more keenly than we do. Verse 8 says, You have caused my companions to shun me. You have made me a horror to them. I am shut in so that I cannot escape. My eye grows dim through sorrow. Every day I call upon you, O Lord, I spread out my hands to you. Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the departed rise up to praise you? The psalmist feels that soon enough he's going to die, so he asks God to have mercy on him and he continues crying to God, saying, In verse 13, But I, O Lord, cry to you. In the morning my prayer comes before you. O Lord, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me?

5:14I am addicted and close to death from my youth up. I suffer your terrors. I am helpless. You're off. I swept over me. Your dreadful assaults destroy me. They surround me like a flood all day long. They close in on me together. You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me. My companions have become darkness. We see the psalm ends on this note of pain and suffering, and it shows how the circumstances must have been so difficult and inexplicable in this person's life. And yet God is still there with us. Sometimes we experience depression because of the pressures of life. Sometimes we experience for reasons that we can't even explain.

6:16And in our weakness, well God calls us to Himself to rely on His grace and His mercy. And now we're going to go back once after 87, which is quite different from Psalm 88. It talks about the wonders of Zion of Jerusalem. So there's a bit of a gear change as we get a verse 2, which says, The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Glorious things of you are spoken, O city of God. Then it mentions how God has brought people from all over the world to worship there. And it's almost a little bit of a preview of the great judgment day when the books will be opened and the names of people from all the nations that are written in the book of life will be ushered into heaven. And right after Psalm 87, we're going to look at Psalm 89 because that talks about the greatness of God and everything that He has done in favor of His people.

7:21And it begins by saying, I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord forever. Of my mouth, I will make known your faithfulness to all generations. For I said, steadfast love will be built up forever. In the heavens you will establish your faithfulness. You have said, I have made a covenant with my chosen one. I have sworn to David my servant. I will establish your offspring forever and build your throne for all generations. What a promise that is and the description of the power of God is beautiful here. And it continues throughout the psalm. It's 52 verses long this psalm. It's a long one. Let's just look at verses 9 through 13 which depict the beauty and the power of God

8:23over all things. You rule the raging of the sea. When its waves rise, you still them. You crushed Rahab like a carcass. You scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. Now Rahab in this verse is another name here for ancient Egypt. And verse 11 says, the heavens are yours. The earth also is yours, the world and all that is in it you have founded them. The north and the south you have created them. Teibor and Hermann joyously praise your name. You have a mighty arm strong is your hand. Hi, you're right hand. This incredible description here of the power and the greatness of God. However, despite that power, despite God's power and all that he had done for Israel's

9:27serious problems still existed and occurred when the people suffered the consequence of their own sin. And we see a little bit of that from verse 30 on. It says, if his children forsake my law and do not walk according to my rules, if they violate my statutes and do not keep my commandments, then I will punish their transgressions with the rod and their iniquity with stripes. But I will not remove from him my steadfast love or be false to my faithfulness. I will not violate my covenant or alter the word that went forth from my lips. God's word is true. It's eternal. It's enduring. Verse 35 says, Once for all I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David.

10:30His offspring shall endure forever. His throne, as long as the sun before me, like the moon it shall be established forever, a faithful witness in the skies. But just as we feel our pain and have our problems, that's the reality of life as knit, the sarm then reveals the moment when the people of Judah cry over the destruction of the southern kingdom when Babylon invades, when things go wrong, desperately wrong in this situation. And what goes through their mind is that perhaps God has, indeed, given up on his promise on his covenant. And perhaps now he decided, look, I'm not going to fulfill this promise made to David because of these people and their infidelity and all their constant turning away from me. Well, he's not going to do that. God has promised he won't do that.

11:32But listen to what the people say in verse 46, because they long for God, saying, How long, O Lord, will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire? Remember how short my time is? For what vanity you have created all the children of man? What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of sheol? Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David? Remember, O Lord, how your servants are mocked, and how I bear in my heart the insults of the many nations with which your enemies mock O Lord, with which they mock the footsteps

12:32of your anointed, and yet despite so much pain, suffering, depression, the psalm ends saying, Blessed be the Lord, forever, our men and our men. In that marks the end, Esther, of the third collection of psalms, and quite a range of emotions therein. Well we certainly have been on a journey, John, and it's been wonderful to see how the Word of God accommodates even the range of emotions that we might go through. Well, this is Mission 66, and of course we are being taught here about our teacher, John Matthews. I'm Esther, your host, and we're going to head now into some discussion time based off of what we've read. And before we get into that, I do want to encourage you friend to be a part of the Mission 66 conversation. You can find us today on Facebook and on Instagram at Mission 66, and while you're there,

13:37you can drop a comment and leave a question on any of the episodes that might have sparked your interest. You truly look forward to engaging with you on what you're learning on Mission 66. Okay, John, let's start off with Psalm 87. Now verse four here mentions people from all over the world that were included in His Kingdom, right? And Rahab and Babylon were mentioned here as well. Now look, I thought that Rahab wasn't Jericho and that the Babylonians were Judas enemies. So please can you give us some context here? Yeah, I'll certainly try Esther. And Rahab here has, and I mentioned it before, nothing to do with the Rahab who's mentioned in the book of Judges. You might remember when the Israelites were conquering the city of Jericho. This Rahab is effectively referring to Egypt as one of the nations mentioned in Psalm 87. Babylon, tire, Felicia, Cushion, also there showing up in verse four.

14:39So Psalm 87 here is reflecting how God had drawn people from every tribe, every tongue, and every nation to be included in His great kingdom. There were people from the concord nations of Canes who joined themselves to Israel because of the name and the fame of Israel's God. And even though Babylon was an historical enemy of Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar, himself eventually was brought around to faith through the testimony of Daniel, a wonderful story that was one of the captives who'd come from Jerusalem and even the Philistines and the Cushites joined themselves to Israel for the same reason. Well, ultimately they're following and dedicating themselves not to Israel, but to God. And God is the God of all, and His offer of salvation through His Son Jesus Christ is available to all. You know, when we're looking at the Psalms, very many of them are incredibly encouraging

15:43and they really do encourage our hearts, but Psalm 88 has a different tone to it. It has this air of depression. And honestly, it doesn't even seem like it really comes to a hopeful conclusion at all. It honestly reminds me of Job's experience when he was suffering and he endured this suffering while also trying to keep his faith through what he was enduring. Yeah, I mean, it's a long journey that Job goes on and the Bible documents that journey, but we also know how his faith and his clinging onto God ultimately, God delivers him, doesn't he? We know that. And ultimately God is with him through that whole experience. And you know, some Bible passages you're right, Esther, they reach out to people in a situation of suffering. And sometimes in suffering, we have no answers. You know, God calls us to be there for people and just to be there. Sometimes there are

16:44no words words do not suffice. And our being there for people as people who trust and love God just reflect his presence with us always, even when we have no idea what's going on, let alone why it's going on. So the God of the Bible is the only God. He's the real God and he's a God who understands life, but also understands suffering and understands death. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, came to this earth and suffered and experienced every emotion that we experienced, he experienced being murdered and being persecuted and tortured, experience taking on his own father's wrath so that you and I may be forgiven of all the things that we've done wrong. We've got to do is recognize that we need saving. And we turn to him who's the only one capable of forgiving us and ask for his forgiveness.

17:49And what does he say when we ask, yes, I forgive you. But the Bible will tell us plenty about difficult moments, the dangers of death and the psalmist here feels free to get emotional to cry, present his prayer before God, even though there seems to be at this stage as we read this chapter, there's no moment of hope here. He just presents the pouring out of his heart before God saying, I don't understand. And that's okay. It gives us license to do the same to God when we hit those those points in life when we just don't understand and the depth of emotion feels as though it's going to drown us sometimes. But what it reveals ultimately is that our only hope and our only expectation of eternal life is in Jesus himself and actually true peace whilst it may seem elusive right here and now is also found in him.

18:51You know, John, I have to say that this is deeply encouraging for me as I try to support some friends who are going through a fickle time, a tragic time, having lost mom, dad and sister in a tragic car accident. And so just being reminded that God is with us even in our deepest suffering. It's, it brings peace. It does. And at the very least, give some words to be able to share with these friends that are currently going through this, this tragic time. But I wanted to get a sense of what you meant. And this may be for those who are wondering as well, what did you mean when you said that God is the God of life and death? Well, first of all, I'm sorry to hear about your friends Esther. And you know, that's one of those situations, isn't it, where words don't do justice. Only to say that God is a God of peace. He's a God of comfort. And when we can make no sense of our situation,

19:52he is there for us. Yeah, and he is a God of hope and hope may seem scarce in the midst of something going badly, badly wrong. But he remains a God of hope. And you know, you asked the question, what did we mean by that God is the God of life and death? Well, God creates life, but death is also a reality when sin entered the world there in the garden of even so did death. It came with it. And the Psalmist is saying here, listen, God, will the dead be able to praise you? He doesn't go into the details of what will happen after death. But he talks about death as something that is threatening his life in this moment, understanding that the end of this life begins in the grave. This doesn't mean that he doesn't believe in life after death. But he's talking about man going down to shale, which is

20:53the realm of the dead, which is a mystery that we can't fathom. But one thing we know is that God does know if we obey him in life, we can trust him as we pass over to death. And I'm often reminded of a wonderful quote from Billy Gray. And when he says, someday you'll hear that Billy Gray is dead, don't you believe it? We're on that day, I'll be more alive than I've ever been. And that is the sure hope of those who believe in Jesus Christ that actually the day we die. That's a glorious day because it's the beginning of our eternity when we see Jesus and we become like Jesus and we spend forever more with Him. It's tough. It's tough for those who are left behind, but the moment of our death, well, that is a profound sublime, glorious moment for those who

21:53believe in Jesus Christ. Amen, John. Amen. Yeah, that is the hope in which we trust. We trust in that. All right. Well, I'm going to skip now to Psalm 89 because you know, the talk of death is just little unsettling, but we're going to keep it moving. Let's actually look at verse 26 here because it says, you are my father. And so I want to know who is this father that the Psalmist is actually talking about. Yes, Psalm 89, it's basically discussing it. The question, has this covenant which God established with David now been nullified because the people have been taken to Babylon captive? He's discussing the situation of the king. He's going to talk about the king in the ancient way of speaking actually in the Middle East. It was believed that every royal being had a connection to a divine being. So for example, in Egypt, it was believed that the Pharaoh was the son of an Egyptian God in the same way. In the Old Testament, the idea is that the king is the

22:56son of the God of Israel. So you are my son today. I've become your father. Here he says, he'll call out to me, you are my father, my God, the rock my savior. So the reference here is to the Davidic king being preserved by God. And it's this sort of connection that will be mentioned later on in talking about Jesus, the Messiah, being the son of God, not only in the royal sense, but also meaning he has the same nature as the father. So John, you know, in your explanation of Psalm 88, especially in discussing depression, I know that there might be some of our friends who are listening to us right now who might be experiencing depression in their lives. So how could we counsel them in a way that can give them hope? But can we can we love with depression or with those

23:58feelings as we try to navigate them in our lives? Well, I think it's important to talk about the misguided beliefs sometimes within some Christian circles that we can never go through depression that we have to have this spirit of victory over everything because God has with us and we'll never experience any problems. Well, it doesn't take too long a look through the Bible to understand that that clearly is not biblical nor is it true. I mean, you just look at the Psalms, classic example, you know, you look at Elijah, the story of Elijah's when he literally comes to the end of himself and wishes, wishes he wasn't alive anymore because he he seems to have lost all hope. I think there's reality that in the soul of mankind that we originally we are created in this perfect world which is fallen and there is a longing, a longing a deep longing for a return to relationship with our father, with our creator. And here in this Psalm, we see the psalmist facing the realities of life

25:06that many face. He's facing a serious crisis in this particular instance. He's facing the danger of of death. Now, many of us, well, all of us in life will face times of hopelessness where people people die. Serious things happen. We're we're let down. We're grieving things. We're grieving loss in lots of different areas of life. That's reality. And that causes us to feel down. And all of us go through periods of sadness because of adverse circumstances and our nervous systems, our bodies become down. They are depressed by circumstance. It can also be a spiritual problem. It can be a spiritual issue. It can be a clinical problem. It can be a chemical issue. So far be it from us to try and simplify something that is deeply, deeply complex as the human soul is.

26:09And there are many, many reasons for the spirit and the soul and the body to be depressed. And and they're all completely legitimate reasons. And it just gives us a sense of deep, deep sadness in in our being, whatever the reason for that is. And so depression is very real. But we shouldn't think that it's insurmountable. As it says in Proverbs, I have come to give you a future and a hope. And that is the story of Jesus Christ. We have an eternal future. We have eternal hope that goes way, way beyond this life. In fact, the day that we die is the moment that we enter eternity with him. But that is a sure eternal hope. But it doesn't negate the fact that sometimes depression is real in this life. But yet, yet even in the midst of that, and this may seem impossible for you as you

27:12listen to this now, because of your circumstances. And boy, do I get that? But there is peace. And there is hope to be found by resting in the Father's arms here and now too. John, thank you so much for sharing such vital truths with us today. And we can certainly stand firm and hold fast to these truths that we learn on Mission 66. So why don't we go ahead and summarize all that we've learned today, John? Well, Psalm 87 was celebrating Zion, the city of God, as the chosen place of his dwelling back in these times. And it highlights the inclusion of people from various nations, Egypt, Babylon, Felicia, and others as citizens of Zion. And that emphasized God's plan to include people from every triumphant and nation through the coming of Jesus Christ who died for all. Psalm 88, then, different tone, it's a lament. The psalmist is crying out to God day and night. He feels abandoned,

28:16close to death describes this overwhelming sense of darkness, isolation. And says, Lord, there's an absence of hope. I don't feel any hope here whatsoever. And yet, continues to pray to God. And the Psalm then ends with a hint, but an unmistakable hint of noticeable relief. And the Psalm 89 begins with praise for God's steadfast love and his covenant in during faithfulness, particularly his promises to David. recounts God's mighty deed, his covenant with David, it affirms his power, his justice, the fact that he is Lord overall, including the beginning of the end of of time here on earth, not just for us, but the times of this earth when he will usher in and you earth, points towards that. And the Psalm then shifts, doesn't it, to a lament? Again, wondering why God seems to have abandoned his covenant, allowing David's kingdom to suffer defeat. And we

29:22learn that complaining to God is not necessarily evil. In fact, crying to him in the midst of our pain is normal. God knows that he expects that even. And who knows what God may do in answer to those deep cries? What a wonderful God we serve, a God who sticks closer to us than a brother. And I want to thank you for joining us for today's episode of Mission 66. And we invite you to join us next time as there is still so much more for us to learn as we journey through the Psalms. Well, until then, dear friend, I pray that God will bless you. This is Mission 66. As Mission 66 comes to a close, be sure to download your free study guide at Mission66.org. Deep in your daily devotion within science from each episode and let John and Esther lead you through the scriptures. Get your study guide at Mission66.org and be prepared for next episode.

30:28There you can also connect with us. Ask questions or donate to help Mission 66's World Wide Outreach. Head to Mission66.org. Mission 66 is made possible through Transworld Radio in partnership with Dr. Luis Seyau.