The following is a lightly edited transcript

Thank you very much for your welcome and for your being here. It’s an honor to be in this pulpit, as it has been shared by people of like mind and like heart.

Hope in God

Before I read the text that I will speak on, let me give you three or four reasons for why I chose it that might help you ponder whether it’s relevant for you or not.

First, when I was 34 (I’m 61 now) I came to Bethlehem and was a totally green pastor. I had never pastored before. I had maybe preached 15 times in my life as a teacher. I had never done a funeral. I had done one wedding. I had never baptized anybody. I had never led anybody in communion. I had never dedicated a baby. And they hired me anyway. I was very anxious, and those days were filled with insecurity and nervousness about whether I could do it. Psalm 43, which is what I’m going to speak from, was my daily bread. It reads:

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
     and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
     my salvation and my God.

That’s found in both Psalm 42:5 and Psalm 43:5, and we’ll go there in a few minutes. So the first reason is that I was fed on this psalm and it sustained me for several years. In fact, there was a big wall on the west side of Bethlehem Baptist Church’s building that had no name on it. As you drove on 8th Street leaving town, there was no indication of what this building was. And so, I said to the powers that be, “Let’s put a big sign up there that simply says, ‘Hope in God.’ I don’t want an effeminate little scrawl, but big fat letters.”

And so they put up a big sign that said “Hope in God.” For years the people in the neighborhood would say, “Oh, you go to Hope in God church.” That wasn’t the name of the church. It was just the big sign we put up. But that’s exactly what I wanted it to be known as. We’re the desperate people who hope in God. This psalm has worked for me and I hope it’ll work for you to help you deal with those kinds of anxieties.

Second, between a biopsy and surgery last year, for prostate cancer, this psalm was the second most important text that God used to sustain me. The first most important was 1 Thessalonians 5:9, which says:

For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.

God gave me that one in the room when the doctor said, “I think we better do a biopsy.” And then this one came next, and it lasted longer and was powerful.

Third, this psalm does in fact define the ultimate goal of life. It’s big. So if you’re wondering what you’re on the planet for, there’s no doubt about it. It’s in here and you’ll find out.

Finally, it gives very practical steps that you can take when you feel distant from God, as though he has forsaken you.

God Our Refuge

So, open your Bible if you have one to Psalm 43. And if you don’t have one, that’s okay, just listen carefully. We’ll read the whole psalm, it’s only five verses long. It says:

Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause
against an ungodly people,
from the deceitful and unjust man
     deliver me!
For you are the God in whom I take refuge;
     why have you rejected me?
Why do I go about mourning
     because of the oppression of the enemy?

Send out your light and your truth;
     let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
     and to your dwelling!
Then I will go to the altar of God,
     to God my exceeding joy,
and I will praise you with the lyre,
     O God, my God.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
     and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
     my salvation and my God.

A Divided Heart

In Psalm 43 we see the ultimate goal of life and the practical steps you can take if you’re distant from God, or feel that way, and feel that he has forsaken you. Notice that Psalm 43:1 describes what is going on in the psalmist’s life, and Psalm 43:2 describes what is going on in the psalmist’s soul. First he says, “Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against the ungodly people.” So there’s people out there. This is not inside of him. This is out there. He says, “Defend me against these ungodly people. From the deceitful and unjust man, deliver me.” So he’s got enemies and they’re making life hard for him. They’re threatening him and making him miserable. There are all kinds of things that make us miserable, some of them are out there and some of them are in here. In the first verse there are some out there for this psalmist.

Now in Psalm 43:2 he describes what’s going on in his soul. He says, “For you are the God in whom I take refuge, why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” So, the effect of these enemies has been that he feels rejected by God. He says, “Why have you rejected me?” And he’s crying, and moaning, and mourning all day long, saying, “Why do I go about mourning because of the enemy?”

Now, here’s what’s so remarkable. Clearly, this man is divided. He has a divided soul, because he says, “You’re my refuge. You are the God in whom I take refuge,” and then he says, “Why have you rejected me?” Well look, if you read the psalms you know that God doesn’t reject those who take refuge in him. He does anything but reject those who take refuge in him. If you take refuge in God, he’s your God. He stands with you and for you. So this man is a divided soul. Part of him is saying, “You’re my refuge,” and part of him is saying, “Why have you rejected me?” He is a split man.

In Psalm 45:2 he says, “You are the God in whom I take refuge,” and in the next line he says, “Why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning?” So part of his heart, it seems, is taking refuge in God, and part of it is feeling rejected by God. He’s perplexed. He doesn’t know how to figure out his circumstances. He is thinking, “If you’re for me and if I’m taking refuge in you, why are these enemies having such an upper hand in my life?” He seems to mean, “Why do you turn your back on me? Why do you let the enemy make me miserable? You’re my refuge. I have fled to you 100 times in my life. I fly to you now. And you’ve given me over to the scorn and the threat of my enemies. There’s darkness all around me and I’m going through days mourning.”

I think that is not an uncommon Christian experience — a divided heart, a torn heart. I’m not saying it’s a good thing. I don’t think it’s a good thing. Ideally, it should never happen. But I am saying, not only does it happen, but that it happens to every believer, sooner or later. You can have a torn heart, where part of your heart says, “You’re my refuge,” and the other part of your heart says, “Where are you?”

Help My Unbelief

That kind of experience is in the New Testament. For example, in Mark 9:24 a father says, “I believe; help my unbelief.” He’s talking to Jesus, right? Maybe someone could say, “Well, do you believe or don’t you believe?” He’s divided. He is saying, “I believe you, but help my unbelief. Part of me believes and part of me doesn’t believe.” Also, Romans 7:19 says:

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

My guess is many of you know that experience of a divided heart. So what I want to look at is how this man deals with it. What practical steps does he take against a divided heart? That’s what this psalm is mainly about. The grace of God has kept him from going so far that he can’t fight. He can take steps, and he does. He begins the psalm by crying out, “Vindicate me, O God. Defend my cause.” So he’s crying out against his circumstances. “Vindicate me. Change these circumstances. Have mercy upon me. Defeat the enemies, O God. Vindicate me. I’m on your side. I’ve taken refuge in you. Settle it. Defeat my enemies for me. Bring me deliverance, bring me rescue, and bring me healing. Whatever I need, bring it to me. I’m taking refuge in you.”

However, that’s not the main thing he does in this psalm. The reason I say something more is happening and it’s deeper is due to the fact that a purely natural man would pray like that. You don’t have to be born again or be a Christian to say, “God, slay my enemies.” What unbeliever wouldn’t want to pray that? The fact that he is praying for his own vindication over his opponents is no sign of his godliness. It may be godly, and I assume it is. But it may not be. Therefore, it’s not the deepest thing that’s going on. The things we have in common with unbelievers are not the deepest things. Any unbeliever would cry out, “If there’s a God, slay my enemy. Get me out of here.” That’s not the deepest thing that’s going on here. That’s not spiritual work, per se. There are two other things happening here.

Special Grace

He does two things that only born again people do — two things that only people who are inhabited by and enabled by the Holy Spirit do. And that’s what I want to know about. I want to know what, as a believer in the living God, a follower of Jesus Christ, I should do when I find my heart divided and part of it is saying, “I’m taking my refuge in you,” while the other part of it is saying, “Why have you rejected me?”

Spiritually Deep, Profoundly Troubled

I want you to know what you should do. How do you make progress with that? How do you move away from that and solve it? And that’s here in this psalm. He does two things. The first one we’ll spend almost all of our time on, and the last one I’ll just mention briefly at the end. Psalm 43:3–4 describes what he does. Let’s read them. He cries out to God:

Send out your light and your truth;
     let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
     and to your dwelling!
Then I will go to the altar of God,
     to God my exceeding joy,
and I will praise you with the lyre,
     O God, my God.

Now that’s an amazing prayer; it really is. When you read that and you ponder all those words, you see a very rich spiritual experience in that prayer. You see vocabulary that is permeated by God and a relationship with God. You see a sequence of thought and a God-centeredness to his goal. You see an acquaintance with the sanctuary. You see an emotional outcome anticipated. This reveals that this man is a deep saint. This man knows God. He’s had dealings with God. And I find that tremendously encouraging because this is the same man who is saying, “Why have you rejected me?” He would be able to pray like that? Let’s read it again:

Send out your light and your truth;
     let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
     and to your dwelling!
Then I will go to the altar of God,
     to God my exceeding joy,
and I will praise you with the lyre,
     O God, my God.

How can you be a man like that and say, “Why have you rejected me?” It’s strange, but it happens. It has happened to you. It will happen again. So what does he do?

Recovering Joy in God

Notice that there’s not a whiff of praying for vindication from his enemies in Psalm 43:3–4. The enemies are not the issue anymore; the issue is within. Something greater is at stake now. There’s much more important victory to be had than victory over the enemies. It’s a great thing when you get victory over an enemy, disaster, a person, or cancer. But whether you get victory over another person, or victory over a disaster, or victory over cancer is quite irrelevant to the main victories in life. That’s not the main issue in life. There is a victory that’s far more important, and you can lose all those others and win this one. You can lose the battle with cancer, you can lose the battle with a disaster, you can lose the battle with another person and totally triumph on what matters. And that’s what this is about.

So there are four stages, and I want the Old Testament to show you the four stages of what he does. And I plead with you to do these things in order to win the victory that really matters.

1. He prays that God would send light and truth to guide him.

He wants guidance. Psalm 43:3 says:

Send out your light and your truth,
     let them lead me.

So he’s confessing to God, “I need leadership. I need guidance in my life.” Why? Why would you pray for a thing like that? What would be your situation if you said to God, “Send light”? The answer is, you’re in the dark. This man feels surrounded by darkness, and he’s pleading that light would dawn on his life.

And the reason I think he adds the word truth — “Send out your light and your truth” — is that truth is what you see when light comes into your life. Truth is what you see when there’s light. If there’s no light, you see error. You don’t know what you see. You don’t know what that is in front of you. You might trip over it and fall. But when light goes on reality happens. You see reality, and truth is out there. And so he says, “Send light. And let there be truth here. I don’t want to be in darkness anymore.” So here’s this amazingly deep saint, who feels abandoned by God, and must feel in the darkness because he’s crying out for light.

There are many people who come to me for prayer, pointing to their head, saying, “Pastor, it’s all up here. I know the doctrines. I’ve been in this church a long time.” And then they point to their heart, saying, “But it’s not here.” This happens all the time. They will say. “I know that God is true. I know that he loves me. I know that his promises never fail, and he’ll never leave me nor forsake me. But I don’t feel it.” That’s what this man evidently is experiencing. He says, “God is my refuge,” and “Why have you forsaken me? I’m not feeling your presence at all. I’m feeling dark.”

He knows the cause of this darkness. He’s blind to something. That’s what the darkness is. He’s blind to something. So when he’s saying, “Send your light,” it’s like some of you who were here for the seminar this morning. There are eyes in the heart, according to Ephesians 1:17. This man’s heart eyes are not seeing. They’re being darkened. And he’s asking, “Send light. Illuminate so I can see what’s true,” meaning that he wants to feel, savor, and experience that God is his refuge. He is saying, “I fly to you. Why have you forsaken me? Send light and guide me out of darkness into light where I can see glory, and my heart can join with my head in saying and knowing you’re my refuge.” That’s what he’s pleading for.

It’s like Paul prayed in Ephesians 1:18. Isn’t it amazing that this is a prayer for Christians? It says:

May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened to know what is the hope to which he has called you.

He’s praying for Christians, that the eyes of their heart would be enlightened. This is the psalmist’s experience. Paul knows where we live. Paul knows we go in and out of seasons of darkness when the things that we affirm strongly we don’t have emotional resonance with. He’s praying for spiritual light, not physical light. Physical light helps the physical eyes, and spiritual light helps the spiritual eyes. That’s what he’s praying for.

He’s not praying that he gets victory over his enemies anymore. He’s praying about the battle within himself. This is the one that matters. He can die and get killed by his enemy, he can die of cancer, and he can die of a disaster, but if the victory is won inside and he sees light, that’s okay. That’s the battle that he wants to win. “O God,” he prays, “send me light.” And then he says, “And let there be truth.” He knows he needs guidance out of darkness. He wants divine light to shine on his heart, so that darkness is banished and truth is seen, and all that he affirms about God being his refuge would be felt by his heart and he no longer would say, “Where are you? Why have you rejected me?”

2. He asks God to bring him to God’s holy dwelling.

The light and that truth that comes is going to lead him to God’s holy dwelling, the sanctuary, the altar of God. Let’s read that from the middle of Psalm 43:3

Let them bring me to your holy hill
     and to your dwelling!
Then I will go to the altar of God…

Amazing. He knows where he needs to go and he’s praying for light and truth to dawn so he gets there. First, in general, he wants to go to the sanctuary, but then very specifically one part of the sanctuary — the altar. What happens at the altar? Animals are killed at the altar and offered to God for sinners who come to the altar.

From our standpoint on this side of the cross, we cannot not read this psalm without saying, as a Christian, “Take me to the cross. Lead me to the cross. Let your light and your truth come and may they lead me to the sanctuary, to the cross, to the high priest, to the sacrifice — Jesus. Because there my sins will be covered.” It’s not a good thing to feel distant from God when he’s not distant from you. We need forgiveness for that, and many other things in our lives. So on this side of the cross we know what that kind of prayer means. Hebrews 13:10 says:

We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.

In other words, Christians now know that Jesus Christ has become the altar, he’s become the high priest, he’s become the sacrifice. So that when we read, “I will go to the altar of God,” that means, “I will go to Christ, my altar, my sacrifice, my high priest. And I will find forgiveness there.” That’s number two. So you pray first that there be light, dispelling your darkness. That light leads you to the sanctuary of God, the altar, who is Jesus Christ, where the slain animal, or in this case, the slain Savior provides cleansing and forgiveness for our sin.

3. He wants this light and this truth, not just to lead him to the altar, but to lead him to God as his exceeding joy.

Did you see that in Psalm 43:4? It says:

Then I will go to the altar of God,
     to God my exceeding joy.

Remember I said this psalm talks about the ultimate goal of your existence? Here it is. The ultimate goal of our existence is not the forgiveness of sins. It’s not the altar. The altar, the cross, and the death of Jesus is a means to the ultimate goal of your life. The ultimate goal of your life is having received light, having been brought to the altar, having your sins forgiven, having the darkness dispelled, to find God as your exceeding joy and no longer all his substitutes. That is one of the reasons we often feel so distant from God. We have so many substitutes for God. It’s no surprise that God’s going to begin to feel distant when other things are satisfying our heart besides him. So he’s crying out, “O bring me to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy.”

Now there’s a little thing here you can’t see in English. I’m always hesitant to pull linguistic rank on you by telling you something about the Hebrew text, but I’m going to do it anyway because it’s such good news. Here’s the literal rendering of the phrase “God my exceeding joy.” It literally reads: “God the gladness of my rejoicing.” It’s two words in Hebrew — “the gladness of my rejoicing.” Now what would that mean? You can see why they translated it, exceeding joy. Because what does that mean? God the gladness of my rejoicing. I’m going to make a suggestion to you. You just weigh this, ponder this, look for it in other parts of the Bible, see if this might be so.

When I read the phrase, “Get me to the God who is the gladness of my rejoicing,” I think that’s his way of saying, “There are many good things in the world that make us happy and rejoice.” My wife makes me happy, my daughter makes me happy, preaching makes me happy, and friends make me happy; I’m hungry right now, so eating later will make me happy. Is that all idolatry? It might be. Does it have to be? No — not if God is the gladness of your rejoicing, which I take to mean something like this: In all of my rejoicing, in your listening to me now, in my wife’s flying out here to be with me, in the food I anticipate afterwards, in the friendship at a friend’s house, if God is not at the core of it, it’s empty and unspiritual, and useless rejoicing in the end.

Now that’s a very radical thing to say because it means the gladness of sex should have God at the center of it. The gladness of eating pizza should have God at the center of it. The gladness of a vacation in the mountains or at the shore should have God and his beauty at the center of it, so that God is the core gladness of all my gladness. So, the psalmist is saying, “Banish my darkness. Bring me to the altar of God. Forgive all my sins and bring me all the way home to the God who now is the core of all my gladness. I don’t want to be glad without God. I don’t want any competing gladness in my life that is not essentially gladness in God.”

God created friendship, marriage, food, sex, mountains, and beaches, and he didn’t do it to tempt us with idolatry. He did it so that those moments of horizontal delighting could become worship, as we render thanks, and as we see beautiful echoes or reflections of the nature of God in the beauty of the world, or the beauty of people. He means for us to be so radically God-saturated that these other things are not competing with God; they’re expressing God. I think that’s a little bit of what he probably means when he says, “Take me to God, the gladness of my rejoicing.”

4. He prays that this light and truth will lead him to express praise to God.

Psalm 43:4 says:

I will praise you with the lyre,
     O God, my God.

The apex of your joy is when it finds expression. Don’t you know from your own experience that if a good thing happens to you that makes you very happy — it could be a perfectly natural thing or a high spiritual thing — and you go off by yourself and just close in on yourself, it goes bad. But if you let it out or talk to somebody it is completed. You all know the impulses. Maybe you turn a bend in a mountain road traveling with a friend, and the vast expanse of a snow-capped ridge stretches before you and takes your breath away — if you don’t say something to the person next to you in the car, you’re sick. You say things like, “Wow, look at that.” That’s all. I mean that’s kind of California poetry — “Oh wow, look at the moon.” It’s not exactly Shakespeare, but it’s the best most people can do.

The words are quite irrelevant here. I’m talking about when goodness, beauty, and glory lands on you; it comes to its consummation when it gets expressed and shared. And so, the psalmist terminates his prayer with, “I will praise you with the lyre, O God my God.” C.S. Lewis taught me this more than anybody outside the Bible. He said:

We delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment.

That’s very profound. You think what we’re doing when we sing in services like this is simply responding to all the goodness of God to us? No. That for sure is happening, but when you give vent to the goodness of God in your life, the joy in the goodness is completed, not just identified and expressed. And we all know that.

This is a silly little illustration, but maybe it will stick. I remember at Fuller Seminary, from 1968–1971, I was reading the cartoons in the New Yorker every week when it came out. I’d go to the shelf where the magazines were and I’d take down the New Yorker, and I would open it and would go from cartoon to cartoon. It was kind of sophisticated and cool, and they were funny. Now there’s nothing more frustrating than to read an absolutely hilarious cartoon in a library all by yourself, standing in a corner, in the stacks with nobody to say, “Look at the cartoon. Isn’t that funny?”

I used to watch television and when a comedian would come on — now, if I named the comedians I watched, half of you would not even know who they are — I would go get my mother and make her sit with me, so I would laugh harder. Because when my mother laughed and I laughed together, our two laughters fed off of each other, and we just enjoyed it so much more. Those were little windows for me onto what’s going on here, very profoundly.

This man wants light to come, to guide him out of darkness, to the altar of God, to God the gladness of his joy, which reaches its consummation in shared expression toward God in a community. That’s what he does. His divided heart has undertaken to do something, namely, pray:

Send out your light and your truth;
     let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
     and to your dwelling!
Then I will go to the altar of God,
     to God my exceeding joy,
and I will praise you with the lyre,
     O God, my God.

Preach to Yourself

Now, that’s the first thing he does, but I said there were two and I said I would only mention the second one. So I’ll mention it now. Maybe I’ll read one quote from a book about it, so if you want to read the book you can go get it.

The second thing he does is in the last verse. Psalm 43:5 says:

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
     and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
     my salvation and my God.

He’s frustrated with himself. Now, you tell me, what’s the difference between what he’s doing in Psalm 43:3–4 and what he’s doing in Psalm 43:5? Who’s he talking to in verse 5? He’s talking to himself. He says, “Why are you downcast, O my soul?” He’s talking to his own soul.

He says, “Soul, why are you downcast?” He’s talking to himself — “Why are you downcast? Why are you in turmoil?” And now he’s commanding himself, saying, “Hope in God, soul, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” So my second suggestion to you, in closing, is to not just do verse 3 and 4, though we must do that. Let’s join hands and in our dark moments do that. But also, learn to preach to yourself. Preach the gospel to yourself.

This morning, looking around for encouragement and strength in God’s word, not only did I read in Mark 8, which I quoted at the beginning of the seminar this morning, but I also read in Psalm 90:17, which says:

Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands!

Now that’s a prayer. And I had worked long and hard on these messages. I had the work of my hands. I held up my manuscripts, and I said, “God, establish the work of my hands today.”

Now is that all I should do at that moment? No. I should also do verse Psalm 43:5, because if I believe that God hears that prayer and that there’s a promise in it for me, I should preach to myself at this point. I should say, “Tired, lazy, unbelieving, doubting self, he’s going to establish the work of your hands. Believe him, soul.” Because if I’m not preaching to myself, somebody is, namely the devil. And he’s not saying that. The devil’s saying, “He’s not going to establish the work of your hands. There’s just so much pride in you, so much fear in you, so much anxiety in you, so much distraction in you, and so much weariness in you. This is going to bomb.” That’s the message you’re going to get.

So you don’t just counter that message with prayer. Yes, there must be prayer. And yes, there must be promises from God. But just think of the difference between only praying, “Establish the work of my hands,” and going on to preach it to yourself. If you stop right there, little voices could be saying, “You’re not trusting him. And he’s not going to do it.” So you add to that prayer some words of preaching to yourself, just like verse 5, and you say, “Soul, you have prayed. He has promised. Now soul, believe this, count on this, relax in this, and enjoy this. He’s coming through for you.” That’s the way you preach to yourself.

Spiritual Depression

Now, as I close, the person you should read on this is Martin Lloyd-Jones. The book he wrote on the topic is called Spiritual Depression. It may be one of the most important books he ever wrote. This is the London pastor who died in 1981. I’ll read you one quote from his book because it illustrates the second strategy of fighting the divided heart so well. Here’s what he wrote:

Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You’ve not originated them. But they are talking to you. They bring back the problems of yesterday. Somebody’s talking. Who’s talking to you? Yourself is talking to you.

Now this man’s treatment (Psalm 42 and 43) was this: Instead of allowing himself to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. “Why are you downcast O my soul?” He asks. His soul has been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says, “Self, listen for a moment. I’ll speak to you.”

That’s Martin Lloyd-Jones. He’s a medical doctor and very wise about the relationship between spiritual and physical things, and depression and discouragement. And he knows what he’s talking about. The entire book is an exposition of the verse from Psalm 42:5, Psalm 42:11, and Psalm 43:5, which says: Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” Talk to yourself with biblical truth. Preach the gospel to yourself.

Those are the two things that the psalmist with the divided heart does. On the one hand he’s saying, “You’re my refuge, I fly to you,” and on the other hand he’s saying, “Where are you? You’ve rejected me.” To remedy that divided heart, where he’s got things pretty right in his head and he feels like he’s in the darkness, he’s praying, “Send your light. Guide me out of this darkness. Lead me to the altar. Forgive my sins. Show yourself as my exceeding joy. Bring my mouth to praise.” Then he starts preaching to himself, and that’s what we should do too. Let’s pray.