Beloved, I am glad to share with you today the above theme from Ps 42:1-2 and following. Indeed, we begin the 2nd Book of Psalms. It applies prophetically to the period when the remaining faithful Jew, persecuted by the Antichrist, had to flee Jerusalem; and verses 2, 4 and 6 especially reflect the pain of this exile. However, as in Book 1, many expressions can be placed in the mouth of the Lord Jesus, Who suffered more than anyone from the wickedness of His people (e.g. verses 9 and 11). Is there a stronger image than that of verse 2 to convey the sighs of the soul thirsty for the presence of God? May we thus seek this presence whenever a fault has interrupted our communion with the Lord! And let everyone know him by this precious personal name: the “God of my life“,” which corresponds to the apostle’s motto: “For me, to live is Christ” (Phil 1:21-26). He is the One who from year to year wants to lead my life, to fill it, as the precious object of my heart. “Where is your God?” the unbelievers ask ironically (verses 4 and 11; Mt 27:38-43). Ah! if they do not discern Him, let me always know where to find Him, day or night, to raise my hymn and prayer to Him with love (verse 8).
Psalms 42 to 49 constitute a small whole. They all have the suscription “Sons of Coré” – an indication that connects them to each other. They may have been composed at different times; but it does not matter: the Spirit of God presents them to us together, and they follow each other in such an order that only one main subject is developed there. This topic can be summarized as follows: The afflictions of the Jewish residue in the last days, the victories of these faithful, and then their joy and glory in Zion, at the head of the nations under their great King. This Psalm 42 presents us with the complaint of a supplicant who suffers because he is far from the house of God, because his opponents outrage him, and because he remembers the joy of yesteryear. He can, however, encourage himself in God and have hope for the future.
For David’s suffering on the occasion of the Absalom revolt is akin to this one; we remember how he was then driven out beyond the Jordan River, and how he sent Tsadok and the ark of God back to Jerusalem. He found all his joy in the dwelling of God; but he had sinned, and recognized that joy was not his portion of the moment (2 Sam 15). But in all this, we can well say: Such king, such people. The people, the true Israel of God, will experience in the last days a similar suffering and thirst for God. They will groan bitterly like doves – like the doves of the valleys, “all groaning, each for his iniquity” (Ezekiel 7:16). The Spirit of Christ, in full sympathy with them (for in all their distress he is in distress) will lead the residue in these exercises, making them his own. The enemy’s provocation to the individual supplicant: “Where is your God?” (v. 4), is found in Joel 2:17, in the mouths of the Gentiles toward the Israel of God: “Where is their God?” But the subject of this psalm can be what agitates every righteous and afflicted soul. And every suffering of this nature produces exercises towards God. The discipline of the desert thus renders fruit. It gives to know the resources of God, which would otherwise never have been manifested by him, or known to us.
As the heart cries out for the fountains of water, the meaning of these two is simply that David preferred to all the pleasures, riches, pleasures and honors of this world, the opportunity to access the sanctuary, so that he could thus cherish and strengthen his faith and piety by the exercises prescribed in the law. When he says that he wept for the living God, we must not understand him simply in the sense of a love and longing for God: but we must remember how God draws us to himself and by what means he lifts our spirits upwards. He does not enjoin us to ascend immediately to heaven, but, consulting our weakness, He descends us. David, then, considering that the way of access was closed against him, cried out to God, because he was excluded from the external service of the sanctuary, which is the sacred bond of relations with God. David, therefore, being excluded from the sanctuary, is no less afflicted than if he had been separated from God himself. He has not ceased, it is true, in the meantime to direct his prayers to heaven, and even to the sanctuary itself; but aware of his own infirmity, he was particularly distressed that the way by which the faithful attained God was closed to him.
For of all the bitter evils that befall us, there is nothing that can inflict a more serious wound on us than to see the wicked tear god’s majesty to pieces and attempt to destroy and overthrow our faith. The doctrine taught by Paul (Gal 4:24) concerning the persecution of Ishmael is well known. Many consider her childish joke to be of short supply, but since she tended to this effect, that God’s covenant was to be regarded as a worthless thing, it is for this reason that the judgment of the Holy Spirit represented a very severe persecution. David, therefore, with great convenience, compares to a sword of slaughter, which penetrates into the bones and marrow, the derision of his enemies, by which he has seen his own faith and the word of God trampled underfoot. And he would like God to learn to bear their private wrongs more patiently and to manifest the same vehement zeal for which David is distinguished here, when their faith is beset by God’s dishonor, and when the word also that gives them life is included in the same reproach!
The following verses have been compiled for your edification and grouped together for your better understanding.
Like a doe sighs…:
- Spiritual thirst, examples of
Ps 42:3 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God: When will I go and appear before the face of God? Ps 63:2 O God! you are my God, I seek you; My soul thirsts for you, my body sighs after you, In an arid, parched land, without water. Ps 119:174 I sigh after your salvation, O Lord! And your law makes my delights. Ps 143:6 I stretch out my hands to you; My soul sighs after you, like a parched earth. Break.
- The Living God
Joshua 3:10 Says: “By this you will recognize that the living God is in your midst, and that He will cast out before you the Canaanites, the Hethians, the Hevians, the Trieriens, the Guirgasians, the Amorites, and the Jebusians: Ps 84:3 My soul sighs and longs after the forecourt of the Lord, My heart and my flesh cry out to the living God. Mt 26:63 Jesus remained silent. And the high priest, speaking to him, said to him: I adjure you, through the living God, to tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God. Acts 14:14 The apostles Barnabas and Paul, having learned this, tore their clothes, and rushed into the midst of the crowd,
- Discouragement in the lives of good men
-Joshua Jos 7:7 Joshua says: Ah! Eternal Lord, why did you pass the Jordan to this people, to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites and make us perish? Oh! if we could have stayed on the other side of the Jordan!
-Elijah 1 Kings 19:4 For him, he went into the wilderness where, after a day of walking, he sat under a broom, and asked for death, saying: Enough is enough! Now, Eternal, take my soul, for I am no better than my fathers.
-Job 10:1 My soul is disgusted with life! I will give effect to my complaint, I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
-David Ps 69:3 I sink into the mud, without being able to stand; I have fallen into a chasm, and the waters are flooding me.
-Jeremiah Jr 15:10 Woe to me, my mother, for what you have made me born a man of dispute and quarrel for the whole country! I don’t borrow or lend, and yet all curse me.
-The disciples Luke 24:17 He said to them: What do you talk about as you walk, that you may be all sad?
- Spiritual foundation, God as
Dt 32:4, 31 He is the rock; his works are perfect, for all his ways are just; He is a faithful God without iniquity, He is just and upright. 31 For their rock is not like our Rock, Our enemies are judges of it. Ps 18:32 For who is God, if not Jehovah; And who is a rock, if not our God? Ps 62:3 Yes, it is he who is my rock and my salvation; My high retirement: I will hardly falter. Ps 94:22 But Jehovah is my retreat, My God is the rock of my refuge.
From all the above, we note that the pious man had gone with the multitude to the house of God, but all this has passed: he is driven out of the land and his supplication rises from the land of the Jordan and the Hermons, from the mountain of Mitsear; all the waves of God passed over him. What a pain, what a frightening thing to see an enemy in possession of the sanctuary, the name of the Eternal blasphemed and the one who was faithful thrown out to him. The Gentiles, according to Joel, came in with power and mocked those who expected Jehovah’s faithfulness, saying, “Where is their God?” (Joel 2:17). There was, certainly, a terrible trial there (so it was with Christ, on the cross, and much more, for he said that he was forsaken (Mt 27:46)), because what God was to the faithful, by faith, was questioned. This faith is precisely what our Psalm is the expression of. The heart of the faithful sighed after God: the blessings of the covenant were lost; from then on, what God was in himself came out only more powerfully and was appreciated in the same way. The distress that predominates is expressed in these words: “Where is your God?” But if the saint is no longer in Jerusalem, God is his trust. Faith says, “I will celebrate him again, his face is salvation.” The heart too can appeal to him, and under the weight of repeated outrages hope in God himself, who will be the salvation of the face of the one who trusts in him. In verse 5, it will be noted that it is spoken of the face of God which is salvation, and that in verse 11, God becomes salvation from the face of the one who expects him. Through the deprivation of all blessings and the exercise of faith that comes with them, the soul is cast entirely on God; God Himself becomes everything to her. Our prayers are with you all.
PRAYER OF ACCEPTANCE OF JESUS CHRIST AS LORD AND PERSONAL SAVIOR
I now invite every person who wants to become a new creation by walking in the truth, to pray with me the following prayer:
Lord Jesus, I have long walked in the lusts of the world ignoring your love for humans. I admit to having sinned against you and ask your forgiveness for all my sins, because today I have decided to give you my life by taking you as Lord and personal Savior. I recognize that you died on the cross of Calvary and rose from the dead for me.
I am now saved and born again by the power of the Holy Spirit. Lead me every day to the eternal life that you give to all who obey your Word. Reveal yourself to me and strengthen my heart and faith, so that your light may shine in my life right now.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for accepting me into your divine family, so that I may also contemplate the wonders of your kingdom.
I will now choose a nearby waterpoint to baptize myself by immersion, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
All adoration, power and glory are yours, now and forever and ever. Amen!
I would be happy to react to any questions and comments you may have, before sharing with you tomorrow ” the faithful expect God’s intervention (Ps 43).”
May the Lord Jesus Christ bless you abundantly.
David Feze, Servant of the Almighty God.