Soul Trouble
Psalm 88,
O Lord, God of my salvation,
I cry out day and night before you.
2 Let my prayer come before you;
incline your ear to my cry!3 For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
4 I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am a man who has no strength,
5 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.
6 You have put me in the depths of the pit,
in the regions dark and deep.
7 Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah8 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;
9 my eye grows dim through sorrow.
Every day I call upon you, O Lord;
I spread out my hands to you.
10 Do you work wonders for the dead?
Do the departed rise up to praise you? Selah
11 Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,
or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
12 Are your wonders known in the darkness,
or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?13 But I, O Lord, cry to you;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
14 O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?
Why do you hide your face from me?
15 Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,
I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.
16 Your wrath has swept over me;
your dreadful assaults destroy me.
17 They surround me like a flood all day long;
they close in on me together.
18 You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;
my companions have become darkness.
Psalm 88 is similar to many other psalms in that first, it’s a prayer, and second, it’s a lament — the psalmist is struggling. We see this often in the psalms.
But Psalm 88 is dissimilar to other psalms — or really, it’s unlike any other psalm in that it has no resolution. Other psalms will feature moments of disorientation and darkness, but by the last verse, they spring forward, they bounce back, they recite hope.
But that’s not the case in Psalm 88. The very last verse, where we’re expecting the light to break through, says, verse 18:
“You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness.”
We can see it there on the page in verse 18. Darkness literally gets the last word in Psalm 88, which is why this psalm has been called “the saddest psalm of the Psalter.”
It’s uncomfortable to read; it’s uncomfortable to preach; it’s uncomfortable to listen to, but here we are this morning, and I want to know: Why does God give us Psalm 88?
Now, we know the answer to that question is because somehow it’s good for us. By God’s grace, he loves us and he’s committed to our everlasting good in Christ — we know that’s true and that’s where we should start any time we ask “why” about anything: God is good. He loves you. And he’s sovereign.
So a better question might be: Why is Psalm 88 good for us? In God’s wisdom and love, why do we need Psalm 88?
I think there are three reasons. We’re going to look at each one, but first let’s pray again and ask God for help.
Father in heaven, by your grace we are here with your Word open before us, and we ask for your help. We reject any assumptions that there’s nothing here for us, and we reject any pretense that thinks we can gain anything from you in our own strength. Our souls are needy and you must feed us. Do that, please, in Jesus’s name, amen.
The first reason we need Psalm 88 …
1. Soul trouble is a real experience in Christian life.
We don’t know the historical details behind this psalm. The superscript tells us that it’s from a son of Korah named Heman the Ezrahite — and there are a couple different “Hemans” in the Old Testament; we’re not 100% sure which one this is, but he’s not to be confused with He-Man, the cartoon from the 1980s. This is Heman the psalmist, but beyond that, we don’t know much about what’s going on. We don’t know of a certain event he’s responding to. And that’s on purpose.
It’s important for us to see that the trouble in Psalm 88 is not an external physical enemy, but it’s personal and spiritual … and the thing with personal, spiritual trouble is that it can happen anywhere at any time — in the Middle East in 600BC or here, today — and it can happen for all kinds of reasons, some that make sense and others that make no sense.
In Need of a Category
The fact is it’s trouble. The psalmist says in verse 3,
“My soul is full of troubles.”
And we can understand that … he has a troubled soul. Soul trouble. And this a category we need. There is such a thing as a condition of soul that’s like being on the edge of the grave, he says in verse 3. He uses lots metaphors to describe the experience …
Verse 4:
“I am counted among those who go down to the pit, I am a man who has no strength.”
To paraphrase him, he’s saying,
I’ve been betted against and drained of life, verse 4.
I’m like a zombie and useless — discarded with the dead, verse 5.
I’m forgotten and forsaken by God, verse 6.
And this is the psalm. You heard it read. It’s this kind of talking pretty much the whole way through, and it just goes from bad to worse, to finally darkness. This is soul trouble — it’s a condition.
Or, it’s what some have called “spiritual depression.” That’s the title that Martyn Lloyd-Jones gave it back in the 1960s (the word “depression” was not used back then like it is today). But he explained it as an experience in the Christian life when you’re in a prolonged state of spiritual discouragement, heaviness, or lack of joy — and not because of some sin, but it just is.
This experience has also been called “the dark night of the soul.”
Or also “divine absence.”
They’re all talking about the same thing. It’s an experience of intense spiritual dryness, disorientation, and darkness — it’s when God has permitted himself to seem far from you.
We need a category for this.
So call it what you want — “spiritual depression” or “dark night of the soul” or “divine absence” — I’m calling it soul trouble (to use the words of verse 3).
But the main thing is that you know it’s a thing. It’s a real experience in the Christian life, and some of you know about it all too well because you’ve been there … or you are there now.
And we don’t like to be there. We don’t want to be here. But we can’t just make it stop.
Others Have Been There, Too
Well, first thing we all should know about this experience is that when you find yourself there, you’re not alone and it’s not uncommon. Historically, we have lots of examples of past saints who’ve been there.
Charles Spurgeon spoke openly of his own soul trouble. In 1858, he preached a sermon to his church titled, “The Christian’s Heaviness and Rejoicing,” and in that sermon he said,
I was lying upon my couch during this last week, and my spirits were sunken so low that I could weep by the hour like a child, and yet I knew not what I wept for …
He battled this all throughout his ministry. Spurgeon can help us.
But personally, I’ve been most helped by John Bunyan, another Baptist ancestor and pastor. Bunyan lived in the 1600s but we can read him today, and he talks about his struggles openly in his autobiography. He called his experience “many turnings and goings” upon his heart. That’s another way to say Ups and downs. Back and forth.
I want to read to you an extended quote from Bunyan, and it’s in Old English, so hang with me (it’s printed in the handout if you want to follow). He writes this:
I have wondered much at this one thing, that though God doth visit my soul with never so blessed a discovery of himself, yet I have found again, that such hours have attended me afterwards, that I have been in my spirit so filled with darkness, that I could not so much as once conceive what that God and that comfort was with which I have been refreshed.
I have sometimes seen more in a line of the Bible than I could well tell how to stand under, and yet at another time the whole Bible hath been to me as dry as a stick; or rather, my heart hath been so dead and dry unto it, that I could not conceive the least dram of refreshment, though I have looked it all over.
Do you hear him? His Christian life is like a roller coaster. He sees and then he can’t see. He has affections and then no affections. Rivers of refreshment; dry as a desert. And it doesn’t make sense. You ever been there before?
Brothers and sisters, you’re not alone.
As the Word of God!
We can read about the experiences of past saints, but even better than that, God gave us Psalm 88. We can read the experience here as the word of God. We can walk with this psalmist as he’s in the darkest part of the valley.
Verse 7:
“Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves.”
You’ve isolated me, verse 8. I’m shunned.
I pray to you every day but you don’t listen.
Why do you reject me? Why are you hiding from me?
I’m overwhelmed. I’m exhausted. I’m being destroyed and I can’t get a break.
I’m in the dark.
Soul trouble. That’s what this is.
And we need Psalm 88 because soul trouble is a real experience in the Christian life. God gave us this psalm so that we know what to do with it.
That’s the second reason we need Psalm 88.
2. We learn to take our soul trouble to God.
Okay, so Psalm 88 is bleak and despairing at face-value, but when we look closer, we can see that it’s not without hope, and that’s because of the most obvious fact of this psalm: it is a prayer. Which means, everything that is said here is said to God.
Look at this with me, verse 1:
“O Yahweh, God of my salvation, I cry out day and night before you.
Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry!”
Verse 9:
“Every day I call upon you, O Yahweh; I spread out my hands to you.”
Verse 13:
“But I, O Yahweh, cry to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you.”
Do see that? You, you, you! The psalmist is bringing his soul trouble to God even as he knows that God is the one in control of it.
The God We Can Trust
That’s the amazing thing of the very first line in verse 1. He starts this whole psalm with, “O Yahweh, God of my salvation.”
Now why is that important?
It’s that he addresses God by his covenant name, Yahweh. The name “Yahweh” is the name that God revealed to Moses (and the people of Israel) as the grounds by which he can be trusted. This revelation is one of the highest moments in all the Bible. It is Exodus 34, on Mount Sinai: God passed before Moses and proclaimed his name:
“Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness…”
God proclaimed himself to be the God who is there, and who is there to save. He is the present, saving God — Yahweh. That’s his name! That’s who he is! He is the present, saving God even when we can’t see, even when we may not feel it.
The psalmist acknowledges this reality right from the start. He’s in the dark, but even in the dark he comes to the God of promise, the God of covenant faithfulness, the God of his salvation. That’s what it means to call God by his name, “Yahweh” — which he does in verse 1, verse 9, and verse 13.
The psalmist feels forgotten, but he has not forgotten who to tell it to. Verses 1, 9, and 13 frame this psalm. He’s saying, Yahweh, I’m a mess, look at me. This is where I am. I’m a mess, but I’m your mess … And I’m coming to you.
We are taught here to do the same thing.
Three Possible Scenarios
There are really three possible scenarios we could be in. Track with me here:
1. The best scenario — this is not to have soul trouble — this is when God is close and clear. It’s what John Bunyan was talking about when he said “God doth visit my soul with blessed discoveries of himself.” We read the Bible and we can see! And we’re mainly thankful! Don’t you want that? It is “heaven on earth” (that’s what the Puritan Thomas Brooks called it). It’s the best scenario.
2. The worst scenario — this is to have soul trouble, to feel all the things Psalm 88 feels, but it’s to run away from God. It’s to abandon God, reject God, refuse to pray. That is “hell on earth.” God, keep us from that. It’s the worst scenario.
So there’s the best scenario and the worst scenario, and Psalm 88 is neither of those. So what is it?
3. It’s the second-best scenario. It’s to have the soul trouble, but to bring the soul trouble to the God who ‘feels’ far away. It’s to call him by his name, Yahweh, the God of my salvation. It’s to say, I’m a mess, but I’m your mess.
It’s not the best place to be, but it’s the second-best place to be, and sometimes God calls us to second best.
Part of Our Vocab?
And again, in terms of a category, this is one that I want us to have in our church. I think it’s a big problem in the local church when everyone pretends like they’re in the best scenario when they’re not. Everybody we see, we say, “Hey, how are you?” And it’s constantly, “Great! Great! Great!”
I want us all to know: we don’t have to say “great” if it’s not great.
But then what do we say? If it’s not great and somebody asks you, “Hey, how are you?” You can say, “I’m doing second-best.”
Could we make that part of our vocabulary?
If we’re doing second-best, let’s tell one another, and help one another. God loves you right there, in that valley, in second-best. He loves you. He is the God of your salvation. Take your soul trouble to him.
Psalm 88 shows us how to do that.
Third reason God gives us this psalm …
3. Jesus has endured the darkness for us.
The Book of Psalms overall is meant to be a guide for our worship. The psalms model for us how to live the life of real faith with all its ups and downs, turnings and goings. And it’s amazing how we can identify with such an ancient text. We forget sometimes that this was written thousands of years ago. And yet, we can read it and we get where the writers are coming from. That’s astounding. We have an ancient faith, and the psalms are for our faith.
But the psalms are not about us and our faith.
The psalms are mainly about the Messiah. Some psalms are more overt here than others, but every psalm, taken in context, is meant to point us to Jesus. The same goes for Psalm 88.
And I think that becomes clearer the more we slow down and hear what the psalmist is saying. As dark as our own situation might be, there are parts of Psalm 88 that stretch beyond our experience.
Wait, It’s Not That Dark
As it turns out, I ran into my own soul trouble this past week. True story. I didn’t cry for an hour like a child, like Spurgeon did, but I hit a snag, I was spinning my wheels for a bit, and providentially, I’m in Psalm 88. But the more I meditated on it, I was like, Yeah, I’m not there. It’s not that dark.
And I think we all have to say that by the time we get to verse 7.
This is one we need to see together. Can everybody find verse 7? If you don’t have a Bible, we’d love to give you one, but for now look on with a neighbor if you need to. We all need to see verse 7,
“Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah”
Now notice he doesn’t say, “It feels like your wrath is upon me.” No, he says, “Your wrath” — ḥēmāh, your fury, your rage — “your wrath lies heavy upon me.”
And I read that this week and said, I’ve never been there. Some of us in this room have been in some really dark places, but none of us have ever been there.
When you get to Psalm 88, verse 7 — the wrath of God heavy upon me — you read that and realize: there’s only one person who’s ever been there and lived to talk to about it. His name is Jesus.
And look, he went there for you. We can say, he went there for me.
He Went There For You
He went there, to that ultimate place of darkness, and he suffered that wrath, so that we don’t have to.
Which means: as dark as it might get for you, you can remember that Jesus has already gone there and beyond there — on the darkest of days, from a hill called the Skull, after he cried forsaken, after he said It was finished, after they sealed the tomb with a stone, he went there, to the grave where his companions became darkness … but then he looked Death in the face and he said You’re done. … And he left. He got up.
He was raised in death-defeating, indestructible life which he has right now, for you, where you are. You might feel alone, but you are not alone. He will never leave you. He will never forsake you. Jesus is not afraid of the dark, and because of him we don’t have to be either. Praise him! Praise him! What a Savior!
Jesus, thank you for your great love for us. And thank you that the proof of your love is in your wounds. We know that you’ve not abandoned us. You’ve not forgotten us. But you’re here with us always and you hold us even when we hurt. And we can’t see. You’ve got us. We praise you, Jesus. We praise you.
