You’re listening to a sermon from Pastor Colin Smith of Open the Bible. To contact us call us at 1-877-Open365 or visit our website openthebible.org. Let’s get to the message. Here is Pastor Colin. Now I invite you to have your Bibles open at Psalm 130 as we take another journey into the secret life of the soul. Our aim on these Sunday mornings is to discover what is happening in your inner life, and we have used the picture of the soul, your inner life as being like a board room. Where six duly appointed members of the board meet to discuss the great issues of your life. Their names are mind and heart and will and conscience, memory and imagination. And the outcome of their discussions will determine your future direction. We’ve seen that when a person comes to faith in Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit himself, actually comes to the soul, taking up as it were the vacant chair around the board table. And when he comes, he takes charge and he gives new direction to all of the members of the board. Now this morning we’re going to tread carefully, because we’re going to explore some of the deepest struggles that are ever encountered by a human soul. There are times when the soul experiences an indescribable inner pain, when the soul itself, as opposed to the body, may be overwhelmed with sorrow. Some writers have called this the dark night of the soul. It’s a helpful phrase. Now, there is no book of the Bible that gives us a deeper insight into the struggles of the soul than the book of Psalms. Calvin once described the book of Psalms as being like an anatomy, he said, of the soul. And what he meant by that is that every experience that can be known in the inner life – the mind, the heart, the will of a person – is somehow reflected here in this book of Psalms. It’s all there for us in the Word of God. One of the greatest comforts you can know when you go through pain is, of course, to find someone else who’s been there. When you find someone who has walked your path, there is a connection that happens at a very, very deep level. Now when you open the book of Psalms, you will discover real life companions who have walked the path of pain before. They have struggled with the depth of their own pain and they have brought it into the presence of God. Let me give you just a sample of their experience leading up to this beautiful psalm that’s been read for us. For example, in Psalm chapter 6 and verse 3, the psalmist there writes, my soul is in anguish. How long, O Lord! How long! You ever been there? Anguish? How long’s this gonna take till it changes? Psalm 77 verse 2, my soul, says the psalmist, refused to be comforted. You ever been there? Someone’s trying to reach out to you and offer you some kind of comfort, but the pain was so great you didn’t even want it. My soul couldn’t accept at this point. The pain was so great. Psalm 119 verse 28. My soul is weary with sorrow. Ever been there? I’ve gone through sorrow and the sorrow has continued. I’ve just come to a point where I’m tired of being this sick in my soul. Psalm 130, out of the depths I cry to you O Lord. Now sooner or later there will come circumstances of life in which you will face this dark night of the soul. Your soul will be filled with pain even though your body may be healthy. The inner resources of your life will seem to be dissipated, drained away. You will look for God and you will not find Him. Now some of you will be there right now. Some of you may remember such a time when it seemed incredibly dark around your soul. For a few of us, such a time may still lie ahead but that time will surely come. Now the question this morning, before us then, is how do we deal with this dark night of the soul? How are you going to face these greatest and most painful struggles that can come to the inner life of a Christian person? And I want to say three things from Psalm 130 today. The first is simply this. When you face the dark night of the soul, do not deny the darkness. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Now the wonderful thing about these psalms is that those who were going through the depths of these experiences, faced the pain. There was a sense in which they almost embraced the pain though it was so hurtful to them. But they brought that pain into the presence of God and they’re very pain, because they acknowledged it, became the driving force of the most authentic prayer that is recorded for us here. Now I want to tell you a story this morning. I’ve hesitated to do so because it still goes deep in my own heart. But I share it because I believe that it will be helpful to some and perhaps a number. Some years ago now, we spent a delightful day at a family wedding in England. it it was a great day and in the evening we had a full house with family staying the night in our home. My sister-in-law’s boyfriend, who was a college freshman also came and was staying the weekend along with other members of the family. On Sunday morning I was up early getting ready for a day’s preaching and were surprised to find that he was not in the house. We searched for him early Sunday morning everywhere we could imagine but to no avail. I went to the church led the two services preached and returned home and at lunchtime a policeman arrived to tell me that they had found him and that he had taken his own life. He plunged me into one of the greatest periods of questioning that I have ever known. How could this happen while he was staying in my home, what could I have done? It fell to me to tell the boy’s father and to walk with him through all the trauma that has to be faced at such a time. A few days later we travelled to the boy’s hometown for the funeral service. Soul distraught. When we arrived we were told that the service was to be one of celebration. Afterwards a mature Christian leader came up to me and I can never forget the way in which he said isn’t it wonderful he’s in heaven? And I found my whole soul crying out, doesn’t anybody recognize the darkness? Here were evangelical Christians, Bible people, whose response to trajectory seemed to be to pretend that it wasn’t there, to dress up tragedy in the language of spiritual victory. It wasn’t faith, it was denial. Let me use our analogy of the boardroom to tell you what was going on in my soul. The members come together and take their seats stunned by the tragedy of what has afflicted them all. Mind is reeling heart is broken will, is drained. Conscience says what could I have done? Memory feels sick. Imagination is dumbfounded because it is worse than anything he had ever anticipated. And as they gather the atmosphere is heavy within the boardroom. Well says mind I don’t feel like leading a meeting. The members of the board sit staring at the table in front of them there is an eerie silence the whole soul is numbed by what has happened. Nobody knows what to say. The soul waits to receive some direction, some word, some comfort. Then a memo is brought into the boardroom of the soul, isn’t it wonderful he’s in heaven. There’s no way I can relate to that says mind. He should be alive and at college. It’s about the most insensitive thing I’ve ever heard says heart. Doesn’t help me one bit says conscience. Well says imagination it’s quite clear that whoever wrote this memo doesn’t have much of a clue about what we are facing. Yes says memory I’ll make a note never to listen to anything from that source again. Now you see what happens here is that there is a fundamental disconnect between the reality of the soul and the words that are being spoken out there, and when that disconnect takes place there is the beginning of a great great great struggle, and some of you have been there. I do not question for a moment that he was in heaven. My question is the inability to perceive the darkness, and let me take the opportunity because it causes pain to those who suffer time and again in my experience. Be very careful about what you say to those who are walking through great darkness. Too often well-meaning believers add to the pain of those who suffer by their shallow exhortations. You should be doing this, you should be feeling that by now, you need to try the other. Let me give you this assurance. God will never treat you like that. Open your Bible and you will discover men and women of faith who walked through the dark night of the soul and they did not hide the pain under a pile of spiritual phrases. They faced the pain in all of its horror and they brought it as it is into the presence of God. That connects the soul to God, even the soul in agony to God. Out of the depths I cry to you O Lord. This is prayer ascending from a soul in turmoil it is authentic, it is real. I asked the lady who was bereaved not so long ago how she was doing and she said it just hurts so much. And the way she said it I sensed that she thought that was a failure of faith. I actually thought it was refreshingly honest. See if you deny the pain you can’t bring it to God. And you then shut one of the greatest opportunities to discover His grace. Where did we get the idea that pain isn’t quite so painful if you are a Christian? If I hit my thumb with a hammer it hurts as much as it hurts the unbeliever. Did you know that? And when a Christian soul is in the, if you didn’t know that try it by the way, when a Christian soul is in the depth of sorrow, the pain can seem overwhelming to the Christian soul. And it is no part of Christian faith to deny that. We distance ourselves if we do from Jesus who said in the garden, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, he said. Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord. What do you do when you cry out to God from the depths, when you find yourself in that dark night of the soul? What are you to do? What the Psalmist says to us here, verse 5. One word. Wait. Wait. I wait for the Lord, he says, my soul waits. This is marvelous. This is this is new ground, isn’t it? No smart answers. No trite phrases. No patronising advice. No exhortations to pull yourself together. Just a simple decision and a steady commitment to wait. That wasn’t in the Bible. I would never have written that. You would never have thought of that, would you? Wait. In our instant culture, where we want an answer to everything within the moment, this is one of the hardest things for us to do. It is also one, of course, of the most important disciplines for us to learn. The Psalmist knew that when you are in deep pain, there are no quick answers. This man prays. ‘…out of the depths I call to you, O Lord.’ He continues, he says, to fill his mind with the Word of God. He lifts his pain to God. He fills his mind with the Word of God, and beyond that he waits. And he refuses to pretend that all is well before a solution has come. Here I am in the depths, my inner being is in pain. I will not deny the pain. I will not pretend with slick phrases that all is well. Here is what I will do. I will wait for the Lord. Now think about it. Waiting is a discipline for all people in the world. Waiting is one of the most beautiful and profound expressions of love. Have you ever been in hospital for an operation where you come round and there was someone sitting by the bed just waiting? A beautiful expression of love! When we made our move to this country six years ago, arriving at O’Hare, we had to go through the immigration procedure, which seemed to take forever. It actually took about two hours after the plane landed. Then finally, after going through all of this fingerprinting process, and all of the rest of it, we were able to collect our luggage and to come out into the hall. I will never forget seeing more than a dozen people from this congregation with banners, smiling and cheering. I remember the faces still, they’d been waiting. It’s a wonderful expression of love. Actually it occurs to me there were probably another dozen who gave up an hour previously and went home. And if you did, don’t feel bad about that I don’t blame you at all! But waiting, and we couldn’t believe it, we’d been so long. It’s a beautiful expression of love. Now the length of time you’re prepared to wait is really an expression of the value that you place on the person you are waiting for. I had to get permission to tell you this today, but I waited two years for the lady who’s now my wife. She grabbed my heart the first moment I saw her. The problem was she had the same effect on several others, and I was way, way too slow. So I had to wait and hope. But the waiting was an expression of love. David says, I will wait for the Lord. There’s a question, how long would you wait for God? Length of the waiting is the greatest expression of the value you place on the one you are waiting for. This is worship when David says this. There isn’t a greater expression of love in all the world. God, your face seems hidden from me. I find myself in the darkness. I don’t know what you’re doing, but I will wait for you. And then notice what he says because it’s not only waiting. His waiting is sustained by hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for mourning. Picture that miserable, old night-watchman and he’s parading around the area that he’s securing. And it’s a long, long night and it’s cold. And he’s looking at his watch and, oh, dear, when is that dawn going to come? So one thing sustains him is that however dark and long this night is, the dawn will surely come, and he knows it. And that’s how I look for God. That’s how I wait for the Lord, not with some sense of despair, some sense of hopelessness, but with the deep conviction of mind and heart that at some point God will come through for me. And when he does, I will be right here waiting for him. Don’t deny the pain. Wait for the Lord. And here’s the third and last thing this morning. You will not be disappointed. You will not be disappointed. About a year after we were married, I decided to take Karen for a day at the cricket in England. Now, it’s a wonderful game and I promise you that there is nothing more glorious than an English summer’s day watching the cricket with your lunch packed and spread out before you. It is just a little taste of heaven itself, I promise you. Well, we had planned a day to see England against the West Indies in Birmingham, which is about 100 miles from our home in London. Cricket begins at 11 in the morning and continues until 6 in the evening. You get good value for your ticket. And we travelled to Birmingham and as we arrived we noticed that the clouds were gathering. And sure enough just before 11 the heavens opened and we were rushing for cover from the rain. But of course they said it would only be a shower. In England you should take that kind of statement with a pinch of salt. Well we watched the water hogs soak up water from the grass for four hours. And then the skies began to clear. And sure enough we were wonderfully rewarded because at four o’clock the game began and continued for 25 minutes. Until the rain came again and play was abandoned for the day. At the end as we left Karen said to me, it wasn’t worth it. It was difficult to find an answer. We should have scrapped the tickets and gone and done something else. Now here’s the bottom line question. We’ve got to face it if we’re going to be honest here. Is it worth waiting on God when you’re in the depth of sorrow? What will come out of waiting from God? For there is a temptation that comes to the human soul as it were to tear up our tickets, cut our losses and get on with something else. Is all this as I go through the darkness so that God may salvage some little scrap of blessing out of a mountain of pain? Like an uneventful 25 minutes of play on a rain soaked day? I need to know the answer to that question if I’m to be sustained in my waiting on God in the darkness. So, look at what he says in verse 7. Oh Israel put your hope in the Lord for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. Literally, the word there full is plentiful. Plentiful redemption. Abundant redemption. Redemption means simply what God will bring out of the pain and brokenness that afflict your soul in the darkness and what God will bring out of it, the psalmist says, will be plentiful. Not just enough, plentiful. Peter talks about the same thing in the New Testament, when he talks about the grief that you will experience in all kinds of trials, he says, and in the furnace of these trials what will happen is this, your faith will be proved genuine, and then when Jesus Christ is revealed it will rebound to the praise and to the glory and to the honor of God. See, we see all of our experience wrapped up in a day, a week, a month, or a year. We look at such a short timeframe that it is difficult for us to imagine how anything can come out of the darkness that would be greater than the pain that we have experienced in it, but God is looking at a bigger picture. Your whole body and soul will be redeemed. You are going to be brought into the presence of God and made like him. This whole sorry fallen creation in which we live our lives is going to be redeemed and is going to be renewed, and what God will bring out of this suffering world will be more than we could ever begin to imagine or our minds could comprehend, what God will bring out of your darkness, your suffering in particular will be out of scale, so as to diminish what to you now is so overwhelmingly large, that is beyond what at this point we can grasp or what we can perceive but this is the promise of God. When God redeems it will not be enough. It will be plentiful and when you see what God has redeemed in heaven and when you see your part in it you will say I am so glad I waited for the Lord and if you want evidence of that then just look at Jesus. My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, he said in the Garden of Gethsemane and then they came to arrest him and he said this is your hour where darkness reigns. You see he didn’t deny the darkness, then he moves deeper and deeper into the darkness and the anguish of his own soul. His friends deserted him, the sin of the world is laid upon him. Darkness covers the land and then he cannot even feel the presence of his father and if you had been standing there at the foot of Calvary and someone had asked you what good can God bringing out of this that is greater than the darkness he experiences you would have been stuck for an answer. So what does he do? He waits. He hopes. He trusts. Father into your hand I commit my spirit they took down his body and on the third day the father raises him up and redemption streams to the whole world so come with me one last time into the boardroom of the soul the members of the board are in somber mood as they reflect on the deep darkness in which they find themselves but now the Spirit of God comes right into the boardroom and takes that chair that God has set in every soul that will receive his presence I know the pain of the soul the Spirit says mine I know all your questions believe God knows all your questions heart I feel all your pain conscience I know all your burdens imagination I know all your fears memory I know all your regrets will I know that you feel spent and I want you to know says the Spirit of God that I have not come as a visitor I have come to stay so that we may work through this darkness together mind there’s a great deal that you don’t know and can’t know but I want you to focus now on what you do know so we can help the other members of the board mind straightens himself in his chair and then holds his head in his hands as he tries to focus well all I know right now is that we are in great darkness says mind that’s a good start the whole soul can agree on that says the spirit now what else do we know can we agree that God is with us no we can’t says heart because I can’t feel him yes but that’s not the issue says conscience remember heart you can’t feel anything except the pain it’s overwhelmed you and obliterated all else the question is not can you feel his presence the question is simply is he here I’m ready to believe he’s here says memory we knew him here before why should the darkness make us doubt his presence now yes says imagination like the Sun that’s always there but sometimes hidden behind the cloud hidden for our view only for a time but still they’re as much as before we’re in the darkness that but God is with us can we also agree that God will bring us through well says heart painfully I don’t know how much longer I can stand this we’re not talking time scales says well the question is simply whether we choose to believe that God will bring us through and the only alternative is to remain in the darkness no one else can bring us out I move says will that we affirm as the position of this soul that we are in the darkness that God is with us and that God will bring us through second says mind with God’s darkness is never the final word let’s look to see his full redemption the motion was carried unanimously you father you know the precise circumstances faced by every soul in this congregation right now you know that for some the darkness is very real and the questions have been very great thank you that when we come into your presence we don’t have to pretend that the best prayer comes from pain brought into the presence of God and offered up before you teachers we pray what it is to wait on you to wait and to hope grant that our waiting on you the living God may indeed be the expression of a heart that loves you and will be here as you are there when the felt sense of your comfort breaks through as the clouds are moved and the warmth of the Sun always there bears in upon us again thank you that with you there is plentiful redemption that’s beyond what we can begin to imagine but we thank you that it is what you have revealed to us and in your promise through Jesus Christ we put our trust grant therefore that many may be sustained in great darkness and wonderfully find the help of God in the hardest experiences of life for these things we ask in Jesus name you’ve been listening to a sermon with pastor Colin Smith of Open The Bible to contact us call us at 1-877-Open-365 or visit our website openthebible.org