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Sooner or later there will come circumstances of life in which you will face this dark night
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of the soul. Your soul will be filled with pain even though your body may be healthy.
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You will look for God and you will not find him.
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Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I am David Pick and Colin, it sounds
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as if today we are going to be talking about something which every Christian at one time
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or another will probably experience.
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Yeah, and I think that many Christians feel a huge pressure in dark times to pretend,
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to put a brave face on things to try and say, well you know, I’m a Christian, I have faith
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and so everything is okay, I’ll be fine. I’m coping and all this kind of thing and when
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you get to the Bible, you don’t find any of that. None of it at all. What you find is
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people who believe deeply speak about the darkness that they’re enduring. Out of the
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depths I cry to you, oh God. So there’s not this pretending that the darkness does
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not exist. It does exist. I mean our Lord Jesus Christ in the greatest darkness cried
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out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And there was only silence. Only silence.
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But that’s reality. And there’s the faith of the Son of God, facing the question not
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dodging the question. That’s reality. Now we’re going to get into the Psalm’s today
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and I hope that this will be a real help and a real comfort to the person who finds themselves
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in a dark place and says, is there something wrong with me? No, you’re walking where
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many Christians have walked before.
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Well, Colin, as you say we’re going to spend some time in the Psalms today, so, if you’re
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able to, I hope you’ll join us in Psalm 130 as we begin the message, Trusting in the Darkness.
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Here’s Colin.
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Now this morning we’re going to tread carefully because we’re going to explore some of the
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deepest struggles that are ever encountered by a human soul. There are times when the
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soul experiences an indescribable inner pain, when the soul itself, as opposed to the body,
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may be overwhelmed with sorrow. Some writers have called this the dark night of the soul.
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It’s a helpful phrase.
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Now, there is no book of the Bible that gives us a deeper insight into the struggles of
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the soul than the book of Psalms. Calvin once described the book of Psalms as being like
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an Anatomy, he said, of the soul. And what he meant by that is that every experience
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that can be known in the inner life, the mind the heart, the will of a person, is somehow
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reflected here in this book of Psalms. It’s all there for us in the word of God.
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One of the greatest comforts you can know when you go through pain is of course to find
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someone else who has been there. When you find someone who has walked your path there
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is a connection that happens at a very, very deep level. Now when you open the book of
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Psalms you will discover real life companions who have walked the path of pain before. They
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have struggled with the depth of their own pain and they have brought it into the presence
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of God. Let me give you just a sample of their experience leading up to this beautiful Psalm
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that’s been read for us. For example, in Psalm chapter 6 and verse 3, the Psalmist there
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writes, My soul is in anguish. How long oh Lord, how
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long? You ever been there? Anguish, how long’s this gonna take till it changes? Psalm 77,
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verse 2, my soul says the Psalmist refused to be comforted. You ever been there? Someone’s
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trying to reach out to you and to offer to you some kind of comfort but the pain was
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so great you didn’t even wanted. My soul couldn’t accept comfort at this point. The pain was
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so great. Psalm 119, verse 28, my soul is weary with sorrow. Ever been there? I’ve gone
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through sorrow and the sorrow has continued. I’ve just come to a point where I’m tired
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of being this sick in my soul. Psalm 130, out of the depths, I cry to you oh Lord. Now
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sooner or later, there will come circumstances of life in which you will face this dark night
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of the soul. Your soul will be filled with pain even though your body may be healthy.
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The inner resources of your life will seem to be dissipated, drained away. You will look
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for God, and you will not find Him. Now some of you will be there right now. Some of you
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may remember such a time when it seemed incredibly dark around your soul. For a few of us such
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a time may still lie ahead, but that time will surely come. Now the question this morning
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before us then is, how do we deal with this dark night of the soul? How are you going
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to face these greatest and most painful struggles that can come to the inner life of a Christian
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person? Now I want to say three things from psalm 130 today. The first is simply this,
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when you face the dark night of the soul, do not deny the darkness. Out of the depths
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I cry to you O Lord. Now the wonderful thing about these psalms is that they don’t tell
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you how hard it is. But what they tell you is, those who were going through the depths
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of these experiences, faced the pain. There was a sense in which they almost embraced
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the pain, though it was so hurtful to them. But they brought that pain into the presence
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of God, and their very pain because they acknowledged it became the driving force of the most authentic
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God.
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Now I want to tell you a story this morning. I’ve hesitated to do so, because it still
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goes deep in my own heart. But I share it because I believe that it will be helpful
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to some and perhaps a number. Some years ago now, we spent a delightful day
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at a family wedding in England. It was a great day and in the evening we had a full house
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with family staying the night in our home. My sister-in-law’s boyfriend, who was a college
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freshman also came and was staying the weekend along with other members of the family.
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On Sunday morning, I was up early, getting ready for a day’s preaching and was surprised
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to find that he was not in the house. We searched for him early Sunday morning everywhere
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we could imagine but to no avail.
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I went to the church, led the two services, preached and returned home.
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At lunch time, a policeman arrived to tell me that they had found him and that he had
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taken his own life. It plunged me into one of the greatest periods of questioning that
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I have ever known. How could this happen? While he was staying in my home, what could
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I have done? It fell to me to tell the boy’s father, and to walk with him through all the
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trauma that has to be faced at such a time.
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A few days later, we travelled to the boy’s hometown for the funeral service, soul distraught.
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When we arrived, we were told that the service was to be one of celebration.
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Afterward, a mature Christian leaders came up to me and I can never forget the way in
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which he said, isn’t it wonderful he’s in heaven?
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And I found my whole soul crying out, doesn’t anybody recognize the darkness?
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Here were Evangelical Christians, Bible people, whose response to tragedy seemed to be to
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pretend that it wasn’t there.
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To dress up tragedy in the language of spiritual victory.
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It wasn’t faith.
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It was denial.
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Let me use our analogy of the boardroom to tell you what was going on in my soul.
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The members come together and take their seats, stunned by the tragedy of what has afflicted
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them all.
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Mind is reeling, heart is broken, will is drained, consciousness says, what could I
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have done.
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Memory feels sick.
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Imagination is dumbfounded because it is worse than anything he had ever anticipated.
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And as they gather the atmosphere is heavy within the boardroom.
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Well, says Mind, I don’t feel like leading a meeting.
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The members of the board sits staring at the table in front of them.
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There is an eerie silence.
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The whole soul is numbed by what has happened.
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Nobody knows what to say.
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The soul waits to receive some direction, some word.
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Some comfort.
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Then a memo is brought in to the boardroom of the soul.
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Isn’t it wonderful he’s in heaven?
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There’s no way I can relate to that, says Mind.
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He should be alive and at college.
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It’s about the most insensitive thing I’ve ever heard, says Heart.
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It doesn’t help me one bit, says Conscience.
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Well, says imagination.
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It’s quite clear that whoever wrote this memo doesn’t have much of a clue about what we’re
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facing.
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Yes, says memory.
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I’ll make a note never to listen to anything from that source again.
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Now, you see what happens here is that there is a fundamental disconnect between the reality
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of the soul and the words that are being spoken out there.
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When that disconnect takes place, there is the beginning of a great, great, great struggle
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and some of you have been there.
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I do not question for a moment that he was in heaven.
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My question is the inability to perceive the darkness.
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Let me take the opportunity because it causes pain
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to those who suffer time and again in my experience.
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Be very careful about what you say to those who are walking through great darkness.
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Too often well-meaning believers add to the pain of those who suffer by their shallow
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exhortations.
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You should be doing this.
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You should be feeling that by now.
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You need to try the other.
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Let me give you this assurance.
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God will never treat you like that.
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Open your Bible, and you will discover men and women of faith who walked through the
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dark night of the soul and they did not hide the pain under a pile of spiritual phrases.
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They faced the pain in all of its horror and they brought it as it is into the presence
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of God that connects the soul to God, even the soul in agony to God.
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You are listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colleen Smith and a message called Trusting
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in the darkness . And if you tune in late, or if you want to
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go back and listen again, you can always do that by coming online to our website
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openthebible.org.uk
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And don’t forget, you can also find us as a podcast now.
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On your favourite podcast site, search for Open the Bible UK and subscribe to receive
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regular updates.
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Back to the message now.
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We’re in Psalm 130.
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Here’s Colin.
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I asked a lady who was bereaved not so long ago, how she was doing and she said,
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it just hurts so much.
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And the way she said it, I sensed that she thought that was a failure of faith.
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I actually thought it was refreshingly honest.
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See, if you deny the pain, you can’t bring it to God.
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And you then shut off one of the greatest opportunities
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to discover His grace.
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Where did we get the idea that pain isn’t quite so painful if you are a Christian?
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If I hit my thumb with a hammer, it hurts as much as it hurts the unbeliever.
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Did you know that?
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And when a Christian soul is in the — if you didn’t know that, try it, by the way.
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When a Christian soul is in the depth of sorrow, the pain can seem overwhelming to the Christian
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soul.
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And it is no part of Christian faith to deny that.
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We distance ourselves, if we do, from Jesus who said in the garden,
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my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, he said.
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Out of the depths, I cry to you, oh Lord.
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What do you do when you cry out to God from the depths, when you find yourself in that
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dark night of the soul?
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What are you to do?
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And what the psalmist says to us here in verse five?
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One word, wait, wait, I wait for the Lord, he says, my soul waits.
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And this is marvelous, this is new ground, isn’t it?
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No smart answers, no trite phrases, no patronizing advice, no exhortations to pull yourself together,
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just a simple decision and a steady commitment to wait, that wasn’t in the Bible, I would
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never have written that, you would never have thought of that, would you, wait?
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In our instant culture where we want an answer to everything within the moment, this is one
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of the hardest things for us to do, it is also one, of course, of the most important
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disciplines for us to learn.
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The psalmist knew, that when you are in deep
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pain, there are no quick answers.
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This man prays out of the depths, I call to you oh lord.
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He continues, he says to fill his mind with the word of God, he lifts his pain to God,
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he fills his mind with the word of God and beyond that he waits.
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And he refuses to pretend that all is well before a solution has come, here I am in the
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depths, my inner being is in pain.
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I will not deny the pain, I will not pretend with slick phrases that all is well, here
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is what I will do, I will wait for the lord.
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Now think about it, waiting is one of the most beautiful and profound expressions of
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love.
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You ever been in hospital for an operation and when you came round there was someone
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sitting by the bed just waiting?
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Beautiful expression of love.
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When we made our move to this country six years ago, arriving at Ohere we had to go
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through the immigration procedure which seemed to take forever.
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It actually took about two hours after the plane landed.
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And finally after going through all of this fingerprinting process and all of the rest
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of it, we were able to collect our luggage and come out into the hall and I will never
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forget seeing more than a dozen people from this congregation with banners smiling and
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cheering and I remember the faces still.
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They’d been waiting!
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It’s a wonderful expression of love.
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Actually it occurs to me there were probably another dozen who gave up an hour previously
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and went home and if you, if you did, don’t feel bad about that I don’t blame you at
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all.
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But waiting, we couldn’t believe it we’d been so long.
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It’s a beautiful expression of love.
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Now the length of time you’re prepared to wait, is really an expression of the value
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that you place on the person you’re waiting for.
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I had to get permission to tell you this today, but I waited two years, for the lady
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who’s now my wife.
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She grabbed my heart the first moment, I saw her, the problem was she had the same effect
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on several others.
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And I was way, way too slow.
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So I had to wait, and hope.
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But the waiting was an expression of love.
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David says, I will wait for the Lord.
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Here’s the question, how long would you wait for God?
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The length of the waiting is the greatest expression of the value you place on the one
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you are waiting for.
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This is worship when David says this!
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There isn’t a greater expression of love in all the world.
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God your face seems hidden from me.
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I find myself in the darkness, I don’t know what you’re doing, but I will wait for you.
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And then notice what he says, because it’s not only waiting, his waiting is sustained
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by hope.
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My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for morning.
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Can you picture that miserable old night watchman and he’s parading around the area that he’s
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securing and it’s a long, long night and it’s cold and he’s looking at his watch and he
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oh dear, when’s the dawn going to come!
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The one thing that sustains him is however dark and long this night is, the dawn will
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surely come and he knows it.
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And that’s how I look for God, he says.
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That’s how I wait for the Lord, not with some sense of despair, some sense of hopelessness
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but with the deep conviction of mind and heart that at some point God will come through for
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me.
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And when he does I will be right here waiting for him.
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Don’t deny the pain, wait for the Lord.
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And here is the third and last thing this morning, you will not be disappointed.
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Now, here is the bottom line question, we gotta face it if we are gonna be honest here,
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is it worth waiting on God when you’re in the depth of sorrow?
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What will come out of waiting from God?
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I need to know the answer to that question, if I’m to be sustained in my waiting on God
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in the darkness.
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So look at what he says in verse 7.
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O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with Him is
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full redemption.
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Literally the word there, full is plentiful, plentiful redemption, abundant redemption.
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Redemption means simply what God will bring out of the pain and brokenness that afflict
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your soul in the darkness and what God will bring out of it, the psalmist says, will be
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plentiful.
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Not just enough.
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Plentiful.
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A really helpful reminder there I think from Pastor Colin Smith that when we experience
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that dark night of the soul as it’s often called, we shouldn’t deny the darkness and
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pain that we’re in, but rather we should wait on the Lord.
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There was a message called, Trusting in the Darkness, and if you tuned in late or if you
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simply want to go back and listen to the message again, you can do that by coming online to
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our website, openthebible.org.uk.
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There you can find any of Pastor Colin Smith’s messages which have already gone out on air.
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You can also find us now as a podcast and that’s available on all the main podcasting
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sites, all by following a link on our website.
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And if you’re searching for it on a podcast site, best to search for Open the Bible UK
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and subscribe to the podcast if you want to receive regular updates.
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Also on our website and available as a podcast is Open the Bible Daily and that’s a series
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of short 2-3 minute reflections, based on Pastor Colin’s teaching and read in the UK
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by Sue McLeish.
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There’s a new one posted every day and it’s a great way to start the day.
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The work of Open the Bible is supported entirely by our listeners and that’s people just like
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you who generously give to keep Pastor Colin’s messages on this station and also on the internet.
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And if supporting Open the Bible is something you’ve been considering doing, if you’re able
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to set up a new donation in the amount of £5 per month, or more, to the work of Open
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the Bible, we’d love to say thank you by sending you a free gift.
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It’s Pastor Colin’s new book, Flying Through the Bible.
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Colin, what do you hope that readers of this book
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will take away from it?
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Well, that people will see that the whole Bible is one story, and that it
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all points to the Lord Jesus Christ.
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You know, I think many folks know some stories from the Bible, David and Goliath, Jonah and
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the whale, and so forth and so on.
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But, I find that often people don’t realise that there really is an overall story line
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to the Bible.
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It begins in a garden, it ends in a city, all the way through, it’s about the Lord
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Jesus Christ.
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So when a person gets an overview of the Bible, that’s the best way to be introduced to the
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Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
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This is going to show you who He is, why we need Him, what He’s accomplished, what He
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offers, what He’s able to do in the life of any person who turns to Him in repentance
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and faith.
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It’s cookies on the bottom shelf, and it’s going to be an introduction to the Lord Jesus
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Christ.
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Well, if you would like to begin supporting OPEN THE BIBLE, in the amount of £5,
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£5 per month, or more, we’d love to thank you by sending you a copy of Pastor Colin’s
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book.
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To give online, or for further information about this offer, come to opentheBible.org.uk.
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There you’ll also find plenty of information about the work of OPEN THE BIBLE.
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For OPEN THE BIBLE and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick, and I hope you’ll be able
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to join us again very soon.
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In our Instant Culture, this is one of the hardest things to learn.
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Find out what it is next time on Open the Bible.
