This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - Hi, this is Pastor Tom, and I want to welcome you back for our
look at Psalm 41 to 45 this week. Day three means we're looking at Psalm 43. And
when you look closely, you see pretty quickly that Psalm 43 is meant to be read
together with Psalm 42.

They are actually part one and two of how to deal with a downcast soul. You can
see this very clearly when you look at Psalm 43 verse five, which repeats the
same words that we saw twice in Psalm 42. Verse five says, "Why are you
downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my
Savior and my God. " So obviously these two Psalms are meant to be sung
together.

Remember, the Psalms are songs. They are the songbook of Israel. So these Psalms
are meant to be sung together.

And in Psalm 42, we saw the need for us to recognize our thirst for God, to
remember the faithfulness of God, to put our hope in God, to let the depths of
who God is call to the depths of who we are. In Psalm 43, we're given a prayer
to pray when your soul is downcast. Listen to verses two and three.

"You are God, my stronghold. Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about
mourning oppressed by the enemy?

Send forth your light and your truth and let them guide me. Let them bring me to
your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell. " This very short prayer
reminds us of four things that our soul needs when it's downcast.

When your soul is downcast, your soul needs a stronghold, your soul needs light,
your soul needs truth, and your soul needs a holy mountain. First, your soul
needs a stronghold, and God is your stronghold. A stronghold is a place of
security.

A stronghold is a place where no enemy can reach you. Now, because the
circumstances in the psalmist's life were not working out as expected, they felt
like their stronghold had been stolen from them. God, why have you rejected me?

Why do I have to go about mourning? But the truth of the matter is God is your
stronghold, and there is no enemy who can ultimately reach you because our life
is more than our present circumstances. Yes, the circumstances now might be
going wrong, and even the circumstances, I hope this is not true, but it may be
true that the circumstances of the rest of your life, you might have to face
something that's going wrong, but God is still your stronghold.

Through this life and all the way into eternity, a place of security where in
the end no enemy can reach you. So you can depend on God as that stronghold, and
you might need to enter that stronghold right now if your soul is downcast and
recognize, I'm not going to find the strength I need anywhere else except for the
protecting presence of God. A downcast soul needs a stronghold.

Second, a downcast soul needs light, and God is light, so God can give you the
light. Many times when our soul is downcast, we begin to look for some kind of
light that can make us feel better, so we look to the light of understanding. If
I could just understand the circumstances or understand why this is happening or
even understand what God is doing in my life through this, if I just had that
light, or we look to the light of relationships, if I could just get the right
people in my life and we could say the right thing or have the right discussion
or even have the right enjoyable experience, that would bring me some light,
that would lighten my mood.

But sometimes, many times, the light of understanding, the light of
relationships is not enough. You need God's light to flood your soul, a kind of
light that you can't find anywhere in this world, a light that's above and
beyond your circumstances and even relationships. A downcast soul needs God's
light.

So you say, God, I'm not seeing right now. It feels very dark right now. Would
you flood my soul with your light?

Now, the flood light, I hate to tell you, it may turn on slowly, like a dimmer
switch coming up slowly. It may come on all at once. I pray that happens for
you, but most of the time in my life, it's been like this dimmer switch that
slowly but surely God's light begins to dawn on me.

A downcast soul needs light. Third, a downcast soul needs truth. Send forth your
light and your truth and let them guide me.

You need God's truth in your life right now. When your soul is downcast and
people know it around you, everyone has a truth for you. And some are true, some
are God's truth, but a lot of them are people's truth because they care about
you, because they want things to be better for you.

Sometimes, let's be honest, they're tired of you being downcast and they just
want you to be better. And so they have all these truths, do this or do that, or
I tried this or I tried that. And some of them might be helpful.

Some of them are very helpful, but you need God's truth. You need to find God's
truth in what people are saying. The truth will set you free.

And the truth, God's truth will also lift your soul. And again, it's usually a
gradual process that that truth lifts your soul. And then finally, he says, a
downcast soul needs something else.

A downcast soul needs a holy mountain. Now, this holy mountain, that's the place
where God dwells. The holy mountain specifically that he's talking about here
was the place where God's tabernacle was located, the place of God's presence
for everybody who worshiped throughout Israel.

And one of the reasons that the writer of Psalm 42 and 43 was so discouraged,
was so downcast was they couldn't get to Jerusalem. They couldn't get to the
tabernacle. They couldn't get to the place of God's presence.

They felt cut off from God's presence. They felt cut off from the holy mountain.
Well, I want to remind you that as believers today, God lives in us through his
Holy Spirit.

We don't have to go to some city or some building to find God's presence. We can
always enter into God's presence. The COVID-19 crisis kept believers from being
together in the church building, but neither can it or anything else in all
creation have the power to shut you off from God's presence 'cause God's
presence isn't in the building.

God's presence is in you. You can go to God's holy mountain wherever you are.
You can go to God's holy mountain right now.

And verse four reminds us of a couple of other truths about this holy mountain.
It says, "Then I will go to the altar of God, "to God, my joy and delight, "and
I will praise you with the harp, oh God, my God. " So obviously his soul is
starting to lift because of the presence of God.

What does he say to us here about this holy mountain? "I'll go to the altar of
God," he says. "The holy mountain is the place where I recognize "where I am
forgiven.

" For them, they had to go to the altar and make sacrifices. Jesus already made
his sacrifice for you. So you can go to the holy mountain right now and
recognize in a fresh new way that you are forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ.

And if Satan is battling you on that, recognize that the cross is greater than
any other power. You are forgiven. Go back to that cross, that place of
forgiveness.

It's also the place where you recognize that God is your joy and delight. Of all
the things we can delight in this world, all the things we can find joy in,
everything else is a false second compared to the greatness and the goodness of
God. He specifically says here, "I will praise you with the harp, oh God, my
God.

" I don't want to say you have to learn to play the harp. Maybe some of you know
how to play the harp. That's good, go play the harp right now.

What I do want to say is a downcast soul often needs to sing songs of praise or
listen to songs of praise. And you say, "Well, wait, my soul is downcast. "I
don't feel like singing.

" That's why you need to sing. Now, I'm not saying you have to sing happy, happy
songs. I'm not saying your soul is downcast and you have to sing if you're happy
and you know it, clap your hands.

I am not saying that. Find songs that sing the truths that meet you where you
are and sing those songs of truth to God because a downcast soul often needs to
sing songs of praise. Now, as we end this two-day look at what to do when your
soul is downcast, I want to go back to verse five.

It's those same sentences that we've read three times in these psalms. But this
time, as I read it, I'd like you to focus on a word. Focus on the word yet.

Verse five, "Why are you downcast, O my soul? "Why so disturbed within me? "Put
your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, "my Savior and my God.

"You may not now be praising him, "but as his child, you will yet praise him. "
Yet, in the future, in God's future, in God's promise. So I want to encourage you,
don't confuse your now with your yet because God's yet is greater than your now
and God's yet will last longer than your now and God promises that his yet will
replace your now.

With that in mind, let's pray together. And thank you, God, that whatever
condition our soul is in, we know that your promise will never fail us. Even if
we feel like it is failing us, your promise will never fail us 'cause your
promises are greater than our emotions.

They're greater than our feelings. And so we hang on to that yet right now. That
day when we'll be lifted out of the circumstances and the discouragement that
we're in right now, but even more that day when we'll be lifted to be with you
in eternity, we will yet praise you, our Savior and our God.

We trust in that in Jesus' name, amen. Thanks for walking through these days of
what it means to face discouragement in our lives. Tomorrow we're going to turn the
page and we're going to look at how to trust God in victory and how to trust God in
defeat.