Psalm 13 - God Has Not Abandoned You

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. We are in Book One of Psalms, and the Psalms, as I've mentioned before, they're all kind of individual literary units. They don't necessarily build on one another.

Not all of them, anyways. And so we've been looking at kind of some unique aspects, some unique prayers of David and I believe a couple other people as we've been journeying through Book One in Psalms, which is Psalm 1 through Psalm 41.

And today we are in Psalm 13. And the inscription on this Psalm just says this, for the music director, a Psalm of David. This one's a short one.

It's only six verses. Not all of the Psalms are, if you will, created equal in the sense of how much goes into each individual one. So Psalm 119 has 176 verses.

Psalm 117 has two verses. And Psalm 13 that we're looking at today is one of those ones that's a little shorter. It's only six verses, but I think you'll find that it has some wonderful truths for our life today.

The Psalm says this, How long, Yahweh, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long am I to feel anxious in my soul with grief in my heart all the day?

How long will my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, Oh, Yahweh, my God, enlighten my eyes or I will sleep the sleep of death. And my enemy will say, I have overcome him.

And my adversaries will rejoice when I am shaken. But I have trusted in your faithfulness. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to Yahweh because he has looked after me. And what a great Psalm. It speaks to how we genuinely feel.

This isn't one of the ones where David's necessarily saying, God, like you bash in the teeth of all of my enemies, and I just know that, you know, you demolish all of these things and you will reign forever.

There are days where we feel like that, where we can see, OK, God's working. God's working in incredible ways, and it's clear and it's obvious. There are also the days where it's like, Hey, God, it kind of feels like you forgot about me.

Like I'm still over here and I could really use some help here. David's praying and he's asking because there is an enemy that is exalted over him. And you can think about some of the enemies that David had in his life.

We've talked already about Absalom, his own son, that kind of took over the kingdom, stole the hearts of the people, stole some of David's concubines, stole his advisor, and stole kind of the some aspects of the army.

And he was exalted over David for a time, and David had to run in fear for his life. That was a time when he had an enemy exalted over him. I can think of for a lot of years, it was King Saul.

That it was an enemy that did not love God, did not follow God, but someone that was in charge over David, that had tried on many occasions to kill David. And he was an enemy that was consistently exalted over David.

Just because there are wicked people in positions of authority doesn't mean that God isn't there. Here, as David starts off the Psalm, talking about, did you forget me? How long are you going to put up with this?

How long are you going to hide from me? He says, I'm praying and I'm not feeling your presence. He says, I'm praying and I don't know that you're there.

Like, I don't see your action. I don't see the righteous winning in all of these things. I don't see them being exalted.

He says, instead, I see the wicked being exalted. He says, God, I'm anxious in my soul and I don't know about you. That's a very common feeling for Generation Z and Millennials.

It's very common for those that are kind of Type A and perfectionists and consistently worried about lots of things.

You can think about the story of Mary and Martha and Martha is troubled and cumbered about with much serving and she's worried about many things.

You can think about even those that are approaching their kind of last days here on Earth, whether that's literal last days or if it's, you know, the last decade or a couple of decades, and they have some apprehension about what is to come.

And for them, they might feel that anxiety in their soul with grief in their heart all day. We talked on Sunday at our church about the fact that Jesus knows what it's like to have that grief, that he was a man of sorrows.

We would sing both the old hymn, Man of Sorrows, what a name for the Son of God who came, ruin sinners to reclaim.

We would sing that one, also the kind of newer song, Man of Sorrows, Lamb of God, by his own betrayed, the sin of man and wrath of God has been on Jesus laid. Jesus knows what it's like to feel grief. He was the one that wept.

He was the one that when he saw the crowds of people in desperate need of direction, in desperate need of God's love, that he was moved with compassion. He was moved with emotion.

He was the one that in the garden was also anxious, not in a sinful sense of not trusting God, but he sweat great drops of blood in anticipation and dread of what was to come.

So when we feel grief, when we feel fear, when we feel anxiety, we are not participating in something that God isn't acquainted with. He knows your feelings and he sees you. He has not forgotten you.

I quote the verses often because there's such a comfort from Joshua 1 and Hebrews 13, that God has promised that he will never leave us or abandon us, forsake us. He's promised he will never do that. He will never forget us.

We are his child. And if I belong to a heavenly father, I know that though maybe my earthly parents might forget about me, if they're trying to get everyone, you know, coming home from church, oh no, where's where's Bryon at? They might forget me.

As far as I'm aware, I don't know that they ever did forget me. But your parents might forget about you, but your heavenly father will never ever, ever forget about you. And he will not hide his face from us.

And I think of Jesus on the cross, that with the sin of the world on his shoulders, he quoted from Psalm 22 that we'll be at just in a couple of weeks in Tabernacle Talk where he quotes David saying, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from me?

I can think of, I believe it's the song, his robes for mine, where because of the sin placed on Christ, that then in that moment in time, you have God turning his face from Christ because of the sin, that God is too pure to behold sin.

And as Christ suffered in our place, that in that moment, that perfect unity that had always existed between the Father and Son, that God every step along the way was telling people that Jesus was his beloved Son, in whom he is well pleased.

He talks about Jesus was the Son that other people were to hear. He announced it through angels of who Jesus was. He told it to the shepherds.

He told it to the wise men through the scriptures and then through the star. All of those things, he had proclaimed Jesus, he had shown him. And yet in that moment, there was that turning away from the Father, that he did not look at his Son.

And because in that moment, Jesus took our place, now forever God's face is turned towards us.

So where we could sing along with the blessing of the sons of Aaron and the Levites, the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord to make his face shine on you and give you peace forever.

And because of what Jesus has done, we are forever in the light of God's face.

That just as with Moses in the Old Testament, where he couldn't even look at God's face, that God passed by, that Moses saw his back, but he couldn't see the front, because God said, if you see me in all of my glory, it would destroy you, it would

kill you. So I'll show you my back.

And when Moses came down from the mountain after having been with God, his face was shining, and it freaked out the children of Israel so much that he had to put a veil over his face, because his face was shining in the light of God's, from the light

of God's presence. And because God hid his face from Christ on the cross, we are never hidden from God's face. And so his glory, the light of his word, the light of his Holy Spirit are forever with us. What a comfort.

Here David's plea, how long will you hide your face from me? God has not hidden his face from you. He has made himself known to you completely and totally.

His will, his works, his character, he has made known to us in Scripture.

And so we are able to have some joy in that, that in our anxiety, in our grief, in our fear, in our worries about the wicked or our place or what the wickedness of the world is, we can know that God is with us and he has not abandoned us.

And so that can give us such great hope. Verse number three, consider and answer me, Yahweh my God, enlighten my eyes or I will sleep the sleep of death.

He says, enlighten my eyes, cause me to have that joy, that recognition of who you are that brings, your eyes can droop, they can be sad, they can be just downtrodden constantly looking down, or it can be enlightened.

It's when you haven't eaten all day and your eyes are kind of dim and then maybe you eat something, maybe you have something with a little bit of sugar in it and your eyes pop open and you go, oh great, okay, I've got energy again.

He says, enlighten my eyes. I mean, I can think of so many times, even in my just day to day life where I know that I need this prayer.

God, enlighten my eyes, cause me to have just a joy and excitement in who you are and what you've done, the fact that I can trust you. He says, enlighten my eyes. He says, or I will sleep the sleep of death constantly in the Psalms.

We can see David praying that prayer. God, don't let me die. Let me praise you in the land of the living.

And that isn't a bad thing to pray at all.

Here, David, obviously in more mortal danger, we might pray that kind of thing when we're going through maybe more emotional difficulties or maybe a health difficulty versus David who literally has physical enemies that would attempt to kill him.

He says, if I die, then all of my enemies will be like, yeah, I beat David. I beat David's God. So he says, don't do that, Lord.

Don't allow them to have that. He says, and light my eyes, cause me to be strong, cause me to not fall to my enemies. And I think we can pray that.

I think I mentioned last episode with the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord's Prayer, where he says, do not deliver us to temptation, but do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

And that can be our prayer, too, of God, help me to not fall prey to sin. Help me to not succumb to lust. Help me to not succumb to anger.

Help me to not succumb to greed. Help me to not succumb to despair. Like, enlighten my eyes.

Help me to see your Holy Spirit and the fruit that he wants to build in my life, so that my enemies, my adversaries, my spiritual enemies do not defeat me. I want to be victorious in Jesus. It says, I have trusted in your faithfulness.

Our trust is not in our own righteousness and our own faithfulness and our ability to maintain a right standing with God. Instead, it's realizing he gives us the strength. He gave us his Spirit, and so we are resting in his faithfulness.

It says, my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I'm not going to rejoice in this world. I'm not going to rejoice in the fact that I'm a king, as David might think here.

He says, my heart isn't going to rejoice in my enemies being overcome.

He says, my heart is going to rejoice in your salvation, the fact that you are there for me, that you have saved me, that you have, for Christians, that he has sent Christ to us, that we are forever reconciled, that we are no longer under

condemnation. He says, my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has looked after me. So his prayer at the beginning, how long will you hide your face from me?

And then verse 6, I'll sing to the Lord because he has looked after me. He says, God, I didn't see what your face was doing. I didn't see what your actions were.

But now I know when I look at my life, I know you have looked at me, that you have given your favor. Wherever you look, you're doing something. He's not just looking and going, oh man, something's happening over there that I have no control of.

If God looks at you, his face is on you, he is doing something. And it's not always something comfortable or easy, as we can see in this Psalm, that there are adversaries and enemies, and they're being exalted, and they're trying to kill David.

All of that is happening, but David sees his salvation in all of it, and he knows that it comes from the hand of God. There are no circumstances. There are no just happenstance with the Lord.

Instead, it is deliberate. The response? I will sing to the Lord.

I will sing to Yahweh. And I'd encourage you, sing to God. Maybe you'd say, I have a terrible voice.

No one wants me to sing. Sing in your heart. Listen to some music.

Put in your earbuds. Put it on your speaker. Put it on your TV.

Turn on the radio. Turn to, you know, I don't know what they have out here. Joy FM, Caleb, whatever, sing to God because He has been good to you, because He saved you.

And as a result of what He's done, He is worthy of your worship and your praise. He is worthy of the songs that, as the New Testament would put it, making melody in your heart to the Lord. He's worthy of it.

So to that end, I'm going to tag on to this episode two different songs. One is Psalm 13 from Shane and Shane, and then Psalm 13, I think it's called Oh Lord, How Long by Sovereign Grace Music.

So I'm going to connect those two, throw those in the comments in the description for this video.

That way you can put into practice what's been said here that you would sing to the Lord because he has given you salvation, because he has looked on you, because he had turned his back on Christ on the cross, that he could not behold sin, he

couldn't look at it, but in his turning, then he turns towards us, that Christ took our sin, and now God's full unveiled goodness, his Spirit is with us, and what an incredible thought that is. Today, you're not alone, God's not abandoned you, he has

looked on you with favor, so sing to him.