Psalm 88; Honest with God: A Psalm for the Darkness

If you have a copy of God's Word, uh a Bible, please turn with me.

We're in the book of Psalms.

So go to the center of your Bible and open it up and you'll find Psalms there in the center.

Turn to Psalm 88 this morning.

You'll also, if you need a Bible, you can see we have some in the pews in front of you as well.

We're in Psalm 88 this morning.

We're continuing through our series called Honest with God.

We've been looking this summer at prayers that God's people pray honestly before Him, that minister to people, to God's people, in the midst of every condition and every season of life in which they find themselves.

And I realize that at points this summer, that this series has felt heavy at times.

And I want you to know this is not me just going through the Psalms and picking the darkest Psalms I can possibly find to preach on Sunday morning.

Did you know that laments, complaints, and confusion and these songs of despair, songs of despair that the church has been singing, they make up nearly 50%, nearly half of the Psalter of the book of Psalms.

More than praise, more than thanksgiving.

You have people crying out in the midst of their pain.

And I think that tells us something really important.

And honestly, I find it very refreshing.

Because one, the Bible keeps it real.

Secondly, I would say it's refreshing because the Bible, Jesus, meets us not just in the good seasons of our lives.

He meets his people right where they are, in whatever season that they're actually in.

And this morning in Psalm 88, a quick note before I read: if you look in your Bible, you'll see at the top, it is attributed to a man named Heman.

And Scripture connects Heman to one of David's chief worship leaders.

And I tell you that just to say that this is a mature believer, entrusted with leading God's people in public.

And yet we see that he is undergoing deep pain and deep suffering.

And he gives us this psalm that I'm about to read, which is widely known and considered to be the saddest psalm in all the scriptures.

This is God's word.

O Lord, God of my salvation, I cry out day and night before you.

Let my prayer come before you.

Incline your ear to my cry.

For my soul is full of trouble, and my life draws near to Sheol.

I am counted among those who go down to the pit.

I am a man who has no strength, like one set loose among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand.

You have put me in the depths of the pit, in the regions dark and deep.

Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves.

You have caused my companions to shun me.

You have made me a horror to them.

I am shut in so that I cannot escape.

My eyes grow dim through sorrow.

Every day I call upon you, O Lord.

I spread out my hands to you.

Do you work wonders for the dead?

Do the departed rise up to praise you?

Is your steadfast love declared in the grave or your faithfulness in Abaddon?

Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

But I, O Lord, cry to you in the morning.

My prayers come before you.

O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?

Why do you hide your face from me?

Afflicted close to death from my youth up, I suffered your terrors.

I am helpless.

Your waves have swept over me.

Your dreadful assaults destroy me.

They surround me like a flood all day long.

They close in on me together.

You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me.

My companions have become darkness.

This, this dark psalm is the word of the Lord for us this morning.

Let's pray and let's ask for the Holy Spirit to help us.

Let's pray together.

Father, uh this psalm has been really heavy to carry this week.

But I thank you for it.

I thank you that it's in the Bible because it means that uh whatever we are going through in this room this morning, no matter how deep the suffering might be, that you have a word for it and that you speak to it, and that you know this darkness.

And so, Holy Spirit, do what I cannot do.

Use this word to speak to all of us this morning.

Put us on the edge of our seats, anticipating your word, alert to hear from you.

But I pray that you, and you know each person's story in this room.

I pray that you would speak specifically to those this morning who feel like they are hanging by a thread.

We want to see Jesus, and we see him even in this passage, even in the dark, he is there.

May we encounter him in this passage this morning.

It's in his name we pray.

Amen.

Every psalm that we have preached this summer has ended in resolution, even the hardest weeks, even the hardest psalms, eventually, by the end, they find and we find some sort of solid ground to stand on.

Well, not this one.

Psalm eighty-eight is the only psalm in the Psalter that does not end with resolution.

There is no praise at the end.

Uh, there is no light at the end, only darkness.

Literally, that is the last word.

If you look there in the scripture, the last word of the passage.

And I think that's really important.

Because often you'll hear me say, and I've said this uh a lot over the years, is right now someone in this room is in the middle of the worst week of their life.

But for some of you, it's not just a week, it's been a season, it's been years.

You're in the middle of your worst chapter of your life, and you see no light at the end.

There is no date circled on the calendar for when your suffering is going to end.

Some of you this morning are watching a parent.

Forget who you are a little more every visit.

You have been diagnosed with something that is terminal, that is not going away, or maybe you're watching someone that you love who is not getting better, they're getting worse.

You have a depression that won't seem to lift, perhaps.

Or maybe you walk into your home, and every time you walk in, you see the empty chair.

And it reminds you that the person you loved most on this earth was taken from you far too soon.

And so now you're waiting and you've just stopped asking, um, will this get better?

And maybe now you're just starting to say, How long, O Lord?

Maybe now your cry is, Lord, will I even survive this at all?

If that's where you are this morning, that's exactly where Heeman is in this psalm.

He doesn't get an answer.

The psalm just ends in the dark, exactly the way it started.

But what I want you to notice here is in the midst of the darkness, it's astounding once you see it.

Look at verses 1, 9, and 13.

He keeps crying out.

He keeps crying out to the same God who, as far as he can tell, has done nothing but bury him.

He cries out, and when the darkness gets heavier, he cries out again.

And what that shows us is even in the midst of this darkness and even in the sadness of Psalm 88, we see a picture of faith this morning.

And so I want us to look at this Psalm through these three cries that we see.

First of all, an honest cry, secondly, a persistent cry, and lastly, an unanswered cry.

An honest cry, a persistent cry, and an unanswered cry.

Let's look at our first heading, an honest cry.

Look at verses one and two.

He opens by crying out to the Lord, the God of my salvation, and that is the only ray of hope in the entire psalm.

It's stated once at the very beginning and then never developed again.

And notice he cries here out day and night.

So it's not just a one-off in a moment of crisis.

He is continually crying out to the Lord his God.

Look at verses 3 through 7.

Notice how it builds in stages.

Look there at the text.

Trouble, then the pit, then the grave itself, each one darker than the last.

And then it sounds like, as you're reading it, that he's already dead or among the dead.

He's forgotten and drowning under wave after wave after wave.

And we don't know if if he is physically dying.

We're not clear on that, or it's just he's spiritually undone so that he feels like he's dying.

And I think maybe that's the point.

Because this kind of darkness feels like death either way.

Verse 5, and I want us to pause on verse five.

He's cut off from God's hand.

And what's interesting about that is everywhere else in the Psalms and in the scriptures, what is God's hand a picture of?

Strength.

And it's a picture of God's protection.

And so not only is Hean filling forgotten, he's saying here that the hand of God, the strong right hand that is supposed to be holding me and keeping God's people safe, that has let me go.

Think about a small child in a large crowd, maybe in a department store in the holidays, or a ball game, an SEC game day weekend, and tailgating, or perhaps in the stadium or at a concert, and they've been gripping tight to their parents' hands, and then just for a second, uh they they they let go and then they reach back up for the hand, and it's not there.

And think about in that moment for that child, uh it's not gone forever, but just for a second, just long enough for them to feel the panic start to rise inside of them.

Something that they thought was gonna be there and was supposed to be there is suddenly not.

That is a picture.

He reaches out his hand that he's always trusted, and now he grabs for the hand and it closes on nothing.

Verse 8.

And you notice a second wound in the passage, and notice the language here.

This stood out to me right away this week as I was studying.

Notice you.

You, God, have caused this.

You have caused my companions to shun me.

Not just people have left, God, you did this, the same address, and you see it.

Look at verses six and seven.

You see it running there too.

You put me in this pit.

Your wrath lies heavy upon me.

You overwhelmed me with your waves.

And this little phrase here, your wrath lies heavy upon me.

It's not really getting at anger, it's really getting at weight.

Weight resting on him is the word.

And so the it's pressing down.

Think about someone sitting on your chest.

That's what he feels like under this suffering.

It's leaning its full weight on him day after day.

That's the picture.

And he doesn't tell us why.

We don't know why, he only knows who.

And he directly addresses God to his face and says, You have done this, but notice without ever letting God go.

Isn't that relationship?

He's honest, but he's holding on.

There's still intimacy there.

Some of you this morning are hanging by a thread, and you have reached out for God's hand and you have found nothing there, and only constant pressure and weight that is pressing down on you and does not seem to lift.

And when the pain doesn't lift, it's very easy in those moments, is it not, to start saying, Well, maybe I'm the reason why.

But notice there's no indication in this psalm that Heeman has done anything wrong.

There's no indication that there is a result.

This is a result of any uh of his sin.

It never says that.

And yet he will not let God go.

He says, God of my salvation, oh God, I am clinging to you.

Incline your ear to hear my cry.

In other words, listen to me, God.

Help me, God.

You are the only one that can help me.

There's no explanation for the darkness.

Just God's name being called out again and again and again.

What would it look like for you this week?

And I don't know what every person in this room is going through, but whatever your story is and wherever you find yourself, what would it look like for you not to let go of God?

What would it look like this week just to keep hanging on for one more week?

Maybe it's as simple as God, please help me.

God, please listen to my cry.

That is faith.

We see something else, and I mentioned it, let's apply it.

Maybe, like Heeman, it's not only that you feel God's hand is absent, maybe it feels like your friends are absent too.

That your companions have shunned you.

That you have slowly watched your friends quietly disappear in the hardest season of your life.

Not out of cruelty.

It's because no one knows what to do.

No one knows what to say.

And so they say less and less until days become weeks, till weeks become months, and maybe months become years.

You know what people hanging by a thread most need?

It's not a theological explanation of suffering.

Not our answers.

Presence.

Just showing up and just saying, Can I just sit with you?

Saying, I don't know what to say, I don't know what to do, but I love you.

And I'm with you in the middle of this.

Very practically.

Who is someone around you?

Someone in your life that you can call this week and just say you're not alone.

Can we grab coffee?

Can we get together?

And maybe that conversation needs to start by just simply saying, I first need to just tell you how sorry I am for being so out of touch.

I haven't known what to say, I haven't known what to do.

Please forgive me.

But I see you, and I want to walk with you through this.

Can we get together and visit?

That's the first cry.

An honest cry.

Secondly, a persistent cry.

So we see, look at the second half of verse 9.

There's the second cry.

Every day I call upon you, O Lord, I spread out my hands.

I love, think about that image.

Same posture as verse 2.

Daily, persistent, still reaching.

Notice the hands open, held out.

Help me, God.

Then look at verses 10 through 12.

You see Heeman fires off four rhetorical questions at God, and he stacks on these names that are basically indicating the same place the grave, abaden, darkness, and the land of forgetfulness.

And each of the questions expects the same answer.

The rhetorical questions, the obvious answer is no.

The dead do not work wonders.

The dead don't rise to praise.

The dead don't declare God's love.

So what is Heeman doing?

Well, he isn't really asking whether he'll survive.

You know what he's doing?

He's arguing.

He's making an argument.

He's saying, God, if I die, if you kill me, if I go.

To the grave, you lose something too.

You lose me.

You lose one voice, one more voice that is in the world, that is loving you and serving you and crying out to you and praising you.

Notice what Heeman calls God while he's making this plea in this argument.

Oh Lord, all caps.

I've said that.

I say this a lot, but it's important.

Covenant name.

I am bound to you.

That's what it means.

And notice, he's like, God, you are bound to me.

And I know that you are there.

I can't feel it or sense it.

Notice the desperate boldness of what he's actually doing.

He's almost negotiating.

And listen, this is not disrespect.

Job did the exact same thing.

Moses does the exact same thing.

We see it all through the scriptures.

That is faith, that is intimacy, that is relationship.

And that's what it looks like to make room for this kind of honest, bold appeal, not just nice, quiet submission.

Bringing our actual case to God.

And he brings it.

And notice what he gets.

What does he get?

Crickets.

He gets nothing.

He gets silence.

And think about this particular kind of pain.

There is a pain in being left alone, but think about the pain of being ignored.

I mean, if you're abandoned, someone was there and they walked away on you, but being ignored, it's like you, and you know this.

You're standing in front of someone, you say something real, you have a conversation, you're trying to engage, and they completely ignore you and act like you don't exist.

You send a text, you watch it be delivered, you see the read receipts, you get ghosted, ignored, nothing back.

That hurts.

And I would say you can make an argument, it might hurt worse than feeling abandoned because it makes you feel invisible.

It makes you feel less than human, uncared for, and unseen, that whatever it is that you're bringing to the table is not even worth acknowledging, let alone answering.

That is verses 10 through 12.

Heeman is not just afraid God is far away.

He's asking very direct questions to God's face, and he's being treated like he never asked them.

We have our own questions too, don't we?

Why, God?

How long?

Oh Lord.

God, what possible good could come from this?

Maybe it's God, will I ever hold a child of my own?

Ask month after month, appointment after appointment, after every negative test.

Maybe it's why am I still waiting for someone to share my life with?

After another year of being alone, being in a place in life that I did not choose.

And the answer is not no, and it's not even not yet.

Nothing.

And it makes you start to wonder if you're ever even being heard.

And what I want you to see is that even in that, Heeman does not let go.

Even in that, he continues to cry out.

What would it look like this morning for you, whatever it is that you find yourself in the middle of, to continue to cry out?

To not do the Reformed Presbyterian thing right off the bat, your will be done, Lord.

But to actually start to make an appeal.

Like we see here, what would it look like for you to say, God, you said you would never leave me?

Where are you?

God, you said you hear the cries of your people.

Please hear mine.

To say, I don't understand what you're doing.

But I can tell you this, I am not going to stop asking.

Friends, that's not a weak prayer.

That's Heman's prayer.

That's Job's prayer, bringing our actual case, our real questions, our anger, our real confusion, not a polished version of whatever it is we think God wants to hear.

You see, here's the point.

Listen, the silence, and this is what I want you to see, doesn't drive Heeman away.

It drives him deeper, deeper into prayer.

Four unanswered questions.

And he says, God, I'm still here.

My hands are still open.

And I am not going to stop, but I'm going to cling.

He just keeps showing up.

What would it look like for us to just keep showing up in the midst of our pain?

Lastly, an unanswered cry.

So here's the third cry.

Verse 13.

But I, O Lord, cry to you in the morning.

See, there it is again, the consistency, just all day crying out before you.

Look at verses 14 through 18.

You see, just quickly, it intensifies everything he's already covered.

Two more direct questions.

Same accusing language from point one.

He returns and he doesn't let up.

He says similar things.

Your dreadful assaults destroy me.

They surround me like a flood.

But there is something a little different.

Look at verse 15.

Afflicted and close to death from my youth up.

What's that tell you?

This has been going on a long time.

Ever since he was young.

And some of you know exactly what that's like.

It hadn't been just a hard season.

It's been a hard life.

Something that you've carried with you for as long as you can remember on this earth.

The psalm ends this way.

In this darkness, that is the last word.

Literally, there is no benediction.

There is no, but I will trust in the Lord.

There is no turn towards praise.

It doesn't resolve.

You know the feeling when you're watching a show and it's the season and you're loving it, and you get this cliffhanger at the end of the season, and you're excited, you can't wait till it comes out again, and then you get the news that the show's been canceled.

You never see how anything resolves.

It ends mid-crisis and it just stops, and you don't know how it ends.

That is what Psalm 88 feels like when you read it aloud.

But again, notice what Heeman does not do.

He doesn't walk away.

He doesn't trade the Lord's name for someone else.

That's astounding.

And that is faith.

We think faith looks like resolution and looks like confidence and looks like all these answered prayers.

If that's the definition of faith, Heeman has none.

But he is calling on God's name, still bringing his pain to God instead of somewhere else.

That is not the absence of faith, that is faith that's been stripped down to its studs.

You know, he gets darkness, he doesn't get an answer.

And we have another place in Scripture where someone else enters darkness.

And it's not just resembling darkness.

Jesus actually is living darkness.

Remember the garden before he goes to the cross?

My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.

Your Savior praying Psalm eighty-eight in his own words.

Hallelujah.

What a savior! And then he goes to a cross, and what Heman only feared actually becomes what Jesus bears.

Not just the feeling of God's wrath, but he bears the full weight.

Think about that image of the weight bearing down on you.

The full image of God's wrath is bearing down on him.

And Jesus cries out, Remember, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Heman cries out, Why do you hide your face from me and got no answer on the cross?

God did hide his face from God.

And he says, God, why have you forsaken me?

God knows what it's like to be in the dark and to feel all alone and isolated.

And friends, Christ was cut off from the Father's hand.

He was forsaken so that every single person in this room this morning that is hanging by a thread would never actually be alone in the dark, even though it feels that way.

You're never alone because of Jesus and you want proof, look at the cross.

The guarantee is for you.

The darkness, though it had the last word in this psalm, for the believer in Jesus Christ, darkness is not the end of your story.

It's not the end and does not have the last word in your life and in this world.

Revelation 21.

A day is coming when there will be no more death and no more tears and no more sorrow and no more pain.

The older things have passed away, the new has come.

We're not there yet.

One day God will be bringing that.

It is coming.

And so, as you're in this season of darkness, you know how you survive?

Keep your eyes ahead.

Keep your eyes up.

There is a new world coming.

And the way we survive and remain hopeful in the midst of our pain and darkness is by fixing our eyes on the glory that is coming that Jesus has promised.

Every psalm this summer has ended in resolution, not this one.

But you're not left with only Heman's Psalm.

You are left this morning with Heman's Psalm and an empty tomb.

And the promise of a new heavens and new earth.

And so if you're hanging by a thread this morning, don't give up.

Hold on.

Not because you can feel the hand, but because through Jesus, you know the hand is there.

He is with you.

Jesus is there in the dark.

And the same God who came from heaven to live for you and die for you and to rise for you will not let your story finish without glory.

Your story is not over.

He promises that darkness does not have the final word in this world and in your life.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you that you hear us even in the dark, that you never let us go, even though we can always feel your hand.

Would you forgive us for the times that we've stopped crying out to you and instead looked for somewhere else to run and somewhere else to go?

Holy Spirit, strengthen us and remind us that because Jesus already walked through this darkness and rose again, that we'll never that we'll uh we will never be left alone, and that we have a future glory that is waiting on us.

And one day all the sad things will come untrue.

In Jesus' name, amen.