may 4 10 psalm 42

We Need Communion With GodWe Need Communion With God

Psalms 42:1 NET As a deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God! 2 I thirst for

God, for the living God. I say, "When will I be able to go and appear in God's presence?"


3 I cannot eat, I weep day and night; all day long

they say to me, "Where is your God?" 4 I will

remember and weep!


For I was once walking along with the great throng

to the temple of God, shouting and giving thanks along with the crowd as we celebrated the holy festival.


5 Why are you depressed, O my soul? Why are you upset? Wait for God! For I will again give thanks to my God for his saving

intervention.


6 I am depressed, so I will pray to you while I am

trapped here in the region of the upper

Jordan, from Hermon, from Mount Mizar.


7 One deep stream calls out to another at the

sound of your waterfalls; all your billows and

waves overwhelm me.


8 By day the LORD decrees his loyal love,

and by night he gives me a song, a prayer to the

living God.


9 I will pray to God, my high ridge: "Why do you ignore me? Why must I walk around mourning

because my enemies oppress me?"


10 My enemies' taunts cut into me to the bone, as they say to me all day long, "Where is your

God?"



intervention.


Subject - It is the cry of a man far removed from the outward ordinances and

worship of God, sighing for the long-loved house of his God; and at the same time


it is the voice of a spiritual believer, under depressions, longing for the renewal of the

divine presence, struggling with doubts and fears, but yet

holding his ground by faith in the living God.


Most of the Lord's family have sailed on the sea which is here so graphically described. It is

probable that David's flight from Absolom may have been the occasion for composing this

Psalm.


Psalms 42:1 NET As a deer longs for streams of water, so I long for

you, O God!


Barred from public worship, David was heartsick. Ease he did not seek, honor he did not

covet, but the enjoyment of communion with God was an

urgent need of his soul;


he viewed it not merely as the sweetest of all luxuries, but as

an absolute necessity, like water to a deer.

Thirst is a perpetual appetite, and not to be forgotten,


and thus is the heart's longing after God. When it is as natural for us to long for God as for an animal to thirst, it is well with

our souls, however painful our feelings.


We may learn from this verse that the eagerness of our

desires may be pleaded with God, and the more so, because there are special promises for the unfortunate and fervent.


2 I thirst for God, for the living God. I say, "When will I be able to go and

appear in God's presence?“


More than hungering; thirst can be awful, insatiable, clamorous,

deadly. O to have the most intense craving after the highest good! This is no

questionable mark of grace.


“For God.” Not merely for the temple and the ordinances, but for fellowship with God himself. None but spiritual men can sympathize with

this thirst.


“For the living God.” Because he lives, and gives to men the

living water; therefore we, with greater eagerness, desire him. A dead God is a mere mockery;

we loathe such a monstrous deity;


but the ever-living God, the perennial fountain of life and light and love, is our soul's

desire. What are gold, honor, pleasure, but dead idols? May

we never pant for these.


"When will I be able to go and

appear in God's presence?" He who loves the Lord loves

also the assemblies wherein his name is

adored.


Vain are all pretences to religion where the outward means of grace have no

attraction. David was never so much at home as in the

house of the Lord;


he was not content with private worship; he did not forsake the place

where saints assemble, as the manner of some

is.


It would be well if all our public worship were viewed as

appearances before God, it would then be a sure mark of grace to delight in them. Alas, how many appear before the

minister,

We Need Communion With GodWe Need Communion With Godor their fellow men, and think that enough! “To see the face of God”

is the nearer translation of the Hebrew; but the two ideas may be combined - he would see his God and be seen of him; this is worth

thirsting after!


3a I cannot eat, I weep day and night;

When a man comes to tears, constant tears, he

is in earnest indeed.


3b all day long they say to me, "Where is your God?“

Cruel taunts come naturally from cowardly

minds. Surely they might have left the mourner

alone;


he could weep no more than he did - it was

malicious to pump more tears from a heart which

already overflowed.


The wicked know that our worst misfortune would be to lose God's favor,

hence their malice leads them to declare that such

is the case.


4 I will remember and weep!When he harped upon his

woes his heart melted into water and was

poured out upon itself.


God hidden, and foes raging, a pair of evils enough to bring down the stoutest heart! Yet why let reflections so gloomy engross us, since the result is

of no value:


merely to turn the soul on itself, to empty it from

itself into itself is useless, how much better to pour out the heart before the

Lord!


For I was once walking along with the great throng

to the temple of God, Painful reflections were

awakened by the memory of past joys;


he had mingled in the pious, their numbers had helped to give him exhilaration and to awaken holy delight, their

company had been a charm to him as with them he ascended

the hill of Zion.


Far away from such godly company the holy man

pictures the sacred scene and dwells upon the details of the pious

march.


shouting and giving thanks along with the crowd as we celebrated the holy festival.

The festive noise is in his ears, and the solemn

dance before his eyes.


Perhaps he alludes to the removal of the ark and to the

glorious gatherings of the tribes on that grand national holy day and holiday. How different from

his present place!


We have said “Zion, Zion, our holy and beautiful house, when

shall I see thee again? Thou church of the living God, my

mother, my home, when shall I hear thy Psalms and holy

prayers,


and once again behold the Lord in the midst of his people?”

David appears to have had a peculiarly tender remembrance of the singing of the pilgrims,


and assuredly it is the most delightful part of

worship and that which comes nearest to the adoration of heaven.


5 Why are you depressed, O my soul?

As though he were two men, the Psalmist talks to himself. His

faith reasons with his fears, his

hope argues with his sorrows.


These present troubles, are they to last for ever? The rejoicings of my foes, are they more than empty talk? My absence, from

the solemn feasts, is that a perpetual exile?


Why this deep depression, this faithless fainting, this chicken-

hearted melancholy? As Trapp says, “David chideth David out of the dumps;” and herein he is an example for all

desponding ones.


Why are you upset?

Why is my quiet gone? If I cannot keep a public Sabbath,

yet wherefore do I deny my soul her indoor Sabbath? Why

am I agitated like a troubled sea?


Play the man, and thy castings down shall turn to liftings up,

and thy disquietudes to calm. Wait for God!

If every evil be let loose from Pandora's box, yet is there

hope at the bottom.


This is the grace that swims, though the waves roar and be

troubled. God is unchangeable, and therefore his grace is the ground for unshaken hope. If

everything be dark, yet the day will come,


and meanwhile hope carries stars in her eyes; her lamps are not dependent upon oil from without, her light is fed by secret visitations of God,

which sustain the spirit.


For I will again give thanks to my God for his saving

intervention. Yet will my sighs give place

to songs, my mournful ditties shall be exchanged

for triumphal paeans.


A loss of the present sense of God's love is not a loss of that love itself; the jewel is there, though it gleams not on our breast; hope knows her title

good when she cannot read it clear;


she expects the promised boon though present providence

stands before her with empty hands. Salvations come from

the propitious face of God, and he will yet lift up his

countenance upon us.


6 I am depressed, so I will pray to you while I am

trapped here in the region of the upper

Jordan, from Hermon, from Mount Mizar.


In his troubles. His soul was dejected, and he goes to God and tells him so. It is a great support to us, when upon any account we are distressed, that

we have liberty of access to God, and liberty of speech before him, and may

open to him the causes of our dejection.


7 One deep stream calls out to another at the

sound of your waterfalls; all your billows and

waves overwhelm me.


Afflictions came so thick upon me that I felt

overwhelmed: by which he shows there is no end to our

misery till God is pacified and sends help.

(Geneva)


8 By day the LORD decrees his loyal love,

and by night he gives me a song, a prayer to the

living God.


Still he relies on as constant a flow of divine mercy which will elicit his praise and encourage his

prayer to God.(JFB)


9 I will pray to God, my high ridge: "Why do you ignore me? Why must I walk around mourning

because my enemies oppress me?"


This metaphor pictures God as a rocky, relatively

inaccessible summit, where one would be able

to find protection from enemies. (NET Notes)


10 My enemies' taunts cut into me to the bone, as they say to me all day long, "Where is your

God?"


The reproaches of his enemies were grievous and cutting to

him, as if a sword pierced through the marrow in his bones, which, being very

sensitive, gives exquisite pain.



intervention.


“Why do you bow down?”For poetic effect the

psalmist addresses his soul, or inner self. “and why are you in turmoil

upon me?”


“for again I will give him thanks, the saving acts of

my face and my God.” The last line should be emended to read “[for] the saving acts

of the face of my God”),


that is, the saving acts associated with God’s

presence/intervention. This refrain is almost identical to

the one in v. 5. (NET Notes)


This Psalm makes us take stock of our need for

God in our lives. Does missing out on our time

with God through prayer,


Bible study or Worshiping with other believers

upset our lives as it did David’s?


Perhaps we need to heed the commentators advice

and approach being in worship service as being in the presence of God.


In fact, when we are out in public, or even alone, we ought to humbly conduct ourselves as if standing face to face with God.


If we believe in the omnipresence of God we are in fact always in His presence. Think about

this fact and how it should change your life!

may 4 10 psalm 42

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