Psalm 42: How Important Is Accuracy?

0:00Looking at our world from a theological perspective, this is the Theology Central Podcast, making Theology Central. Good afternoon everyone, it is Saturday, March 14th, 2026. It is currently 1.55 pm Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central Studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now I know better, but I never can stop myself. I know I should, but over and over and over again, I have a tendency. I mean, I do it frequently. I grab my iPad, I open up the sermon audio app, and I start looking around, looking for what new sermons have been added, and I stumbled upon a new sermon. I believe it was earlier today. I don't remember exactly what time. In fact, I have the sermon right here. It was called, are you ready?

1:01Here's the title, How Important Is The Lord In Your Life? How Important Is The Lord In Your Life? Now, that's a very strong title. It's somewhat provocative. It grabs your attention. It makes you stop and go, well, how important is God in my life? How important is the Lord in my life? How important is Jesus in my life? Now, if I'm sitting in church, I know what I'm supposed to say. Oh, he's the most important thing. He's first. He's last. He's the middle. He's the most important thing. Nothing comes even close. We all know that's what we're supposed to say if we want to win and a want to medal, or if we want to get the church answer right. Now, I think if we're even remotely honest with ourselves, God is not the most important thing in our lives. We are the most important things in our lives, and we have other things that are probably more important. I know we're not supposed to say that, but if we're being honest, if we're being real,

2:03so the title caught my attention, and I'm like, okay, well, I think I should listen to this. I know it's going to be very, it's going to be moralism. We know that. It's going to be moralism, unless somehow this has a proper distinction of long gospel. One of it has a proper distinction of long gospel. How important is God in your life? Well, the law is going to reveal to you how unimportant he is and how much we elevate ourselves over God, and we're going to stand condemned, and then that will drive us to Jesus if we're doing a proper law gospel distinction. But I know that's most likely that's not going to happen. It's going to be moralism. It's going to be law, law, law, law, law, and by the time it's going to turn into, and you know almost know where it's going to go. How important is the Lord in your life? And it's going to turn into, read your Bible, go to church, join a small group, pray, it's going to give you about a list of 75 things you should do and 75 things you shouldn't be doing.

3:03So I already kind of knew which direction it's going to go. So there was a part of me that said, well, just move on, just skip it, just skip it. But then I look down. It gives me the sermon ID, it gives me the duration, 44 minutes and 34 seconds. It gives me the date, March the 13th, 2026. It gives me the category, it's a special meeting. All right, that's interesting. I always like to know what churches do for special meetings because that shows what they're really trying to emphasize for that specific event. And I always find that fascinating. But then this is where my attention immediately was drawn to. Bible text. Some 42 versus one through five. And immediately I was like, wait a minute. Somehow a pastor is going to take some 42

4:06and preach a sermon about how important God is in my life. Now my first thought is how did I end up in some 42? How did I end up there? So some 42, I know that it's for the sons of Korah, some 42, if you just look at the little subscribe, the title right there, and most of your Bibles, it says for the sons of Korah, okay? And that's not for the host of the theology central podcast, all right? And then it's, we read these words, some 42, one through five. As the heart pantith after the water brooks, so pantith my soul after the, oh God. My soul thirsteth for God for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my meat day and night while they continually say unto me, where is thy God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me for I had gone with the multitude.

5:07I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise with the multitude that kept holy day. Why are thou cast down, oh my soul? And why are thou disquited in me? Hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance, right? And I'm like, okay, wow. How does that turn into a sermon about how important God is in my life? Is it's going to try to show that the Psalmist God is so important in the Psalmist life? And then is it going to challenge me? And I like the Psalmist. I guess you could approach it that way. So I was just kind of fascinated, well, how is this sermon going to go? So then I'm like, all right, well, I'm gonna have to listen to this. So I downloaded it, I've uploaded it. You know where this is going. This is going to lead to a sermon review. And I do want everyone to understand this. The sermons, when you just look at the sermon title

6:11and look at the text, just the sermon title and the text alone, this could turn into, and I'm not even exaggerating, this could turn into weeks of episodes, weeks of Bible study. Because just working on Psalm 42, one through five, we could spend weeks on this. We could spend weeks just understanding. There's a lot to understand about Psalm 42, right? I mean, if you know, I don't know how much time you've spent studying the Psalms, but you know that most believe Psalm 42 and 43, they go together. All right, well, that's gonna really change how I interpret Psalm 42, right? Can I just take Psalm 42, one through five and handle it as an individual section? Is that even possible? So we could spend weeks studying all of this and then we have an entire sermon to review. So one sermon, literally, and I know when I say this, I think sometimes people think I'm being hyperbolic, but I'm not, one sermon could literally turn into weeks,

7:14maybe even months of study if we're willing to dig in. That's why, you know, as irritating as sermons can be to me, I can get very frustrated, I can get very irritated with them. They provide me a never ending supply of Bible study, theological discussion, hermeneutical issues. I mean, they just provide me so much and they provide the same thing to you if you're willing to take. I mean, I say it all the time, you can just grab the sermon audio app and just look for the newest sermons and look at whichever one pops up next and just, you've got an entire seminary of education waiting for you if you're willing to dig in and just use it to bring you to study and to question and to challenge. And I, I mean, man, there's so much you can do with it. So I'm always trying to emphasize that.

8:14So I thought, what, how should we approach this? Well, part of me wanted to just turn on the microphone and go straight to the sermon. But I, now I could be very wrong here. Remember, when we go into these sermon reviews, I go in blind. I'm going to operate from this perception that this sermon is gonna do some things with Psalm 42 that I don't believe comes from the psalm. I think we're gonna see someone reading something into Psalm 42 that's not actually there. So what I thought I would do is I'm gonna spend, I'm gonna try to do this in about 15 minutes. I'm gonna try to give you kind of a hermeneutical overview of Psalm 42, really the whole Psalm itself. And try to kind of let you know what, what it's really about, what it's actually doing, the genre of literature that it is, the hermeneutical key, just so that you really understand it, then with having that framework in place,

9:17then we'll go to the audio and see what we find. That's the approach I decided to take today. So before we can even evaluate the sermon, before we can, before we can even evaluate the applications that the sermon may give us, before we can evaluate any of the theological claims that the sermon may make. I think what we have to do is, well, I hate to say this, it should not be considered rare, but it's rare in many circles. I think what we have to do is try to understand the entire Psalm itself, right? We have to understand the entire Psalm itself. And I know, this is what makes special, special meetings, whenever a church is holding a special meeting, and that pastor is given a task, he can't, he knows he can't come back, you know, he may only get one message. So he may not be, he's not gonna be back the next Sunday or the next week. So in many cases, he has to only take a small section

10:18of scripture and do something with it. In most cases, they're being driven by a topic and they're just looking for a text to get them to the topic, which right there already shows you something is so horribly wrong. You don't do that. You don't use a text to get to the topic. If you're just going to preach the topic, just preach the topic. Don't miss, don't read your topic into a scripture, giving everyone the impression that that topic is coming from the scripture. You know, you're placing it there. Just preach the topic and don't worry about a text. I know that may bother some people in the church, but I would rather you just preach the topic to me instead of trying to pretend that you derive this topic from the text of scripture, when it's clearly you've read your topic into the scripture. So I understand why and these special meetings this occur, but in reality, this is just a basic hermeneutical rule you should understand.

11:20You can't ever really take any passage of scripture and preach a sermon, and it'd be anywhere close to being accurate hermeneutically unless you first ensure that you're taking this section of scripture and you're using it based on what the passage and the chapter is actually about what it's actually doing. So you always have to understand the full context before you can break down the individual part. I know that's like so simplistic, but it's violated. Well, just go through all the sermons on sermon audio. You'll hear it violated about, I don't know, a million times and it's kind of frustrating when it occurs, right? So here's what we need to do. We need to understand some 42 itself. Now what you think it says, now what I think it says, now what this pastor thought it said, not what some devotional booklet claims that it says, that it says, not what a modern worship song claims because a lot of modern worship songs take Psalm 42

12:22and they use it. No, no, no, no, no, no. We need to figure out what the text actually says. So let's kind of, let's go through the hermeneutical basics. You ready? Hermeneutical basic training. What is Psalm 42? That's a good question. Who wrote it? Who is speaking? What situation is being described? What is the central message? And what do we absolutely need to see if we're going to read it correctly? Now I could run Psalm 42 through the five layers, but if I went through the whole five layers, that would take an hour. So I'm gonna try to go through this as quickly as possible. Let's start with what kind of Psalm is Psalm 42? Right? I mean, that's a basic hermeneutical question and about genre, right? Psalm 42 is not a sermon. Let's make that very clear. Psalm 42 is not a sermon. I know that's not that deep. I know that's pretty obvious.

13:22It's not a, it's not a doctrinal statement. It's not a doctrinal treatise. It's not that. It's not a list of spiritual priorities. It's not that. I think Psalm 42 bears all of the marks of, what do you think, class? What do you think? What kind of Psalm is it? What do you think? Come on, whoever gets it right gets $5,000. You just have to contact the pastor who preached the original sermon that we're going to review and they have to, okay, no, I'm joking. It is a lament Psalm, a lament, a lament Psalm. That's a spiritual cry of pain, right? Someone in great pain and distress, but they're crying out to God. They, they're, they are expressing their frustration. They're expressing their despair. They're expressing their pain. They may even be expressing their anger, but it is a spiritual cry directed towards God.

14:27It's them speaking to God. So it's a lament and I mean, and the Psalms, a lament is a very common genre. It's not like, ooh, we don't know how to handle a lament. The Psalms are full of lament Psalms, all right? And the and typically a lament is a spiritual cry out to God. It's going towards God. We can call it a prayer, but it's a prayer with great emotion. So I like to refer to it as like a spiritual scream, a spiritual cry, a spiritual shout. And typically these, this is occurring from people who are distressed, they are oppressed, they're grieving, they're confused, or they're spiritually overwhelmed. And typically you get some of the basic elements, some of the basic elements in a lament is a cry to God. That's always critical. They're crying to God. They're, they're bringing all of their pain and emotion and they're directing it towards God.

15:28That's key. A typically an a lament Psalm, they're going to describe the suffering and some some way shape performance going to be described. Typically in a lament Psalm, they will talk something about having enemies or adversaries who are doing something to them or something is happening to you. Typically there will be some memory of the past and there's usually a declaration of hope that in the midst of all the pain and all the suffering and all the distress and all of the oppression and all the adversaries, the psalmist who's crying out will typically utter. And you could say words of hope. I like to say words of faith that they're still expressing faith even though all of their circumstances would say, why do you have faith? And faith is seeing what, well, what we cannot see. It's, it's grabbing onto what we cannot perceive. It goes beyond our feelings and our circumstances.

16:32And I believe Psalm 42 basically contains every one of those elements and some level or capacity. So this means when you open up Psalm 42, we have to understand it as a prayer from suffering. It's not a sermon about spiritual discipline. Right? So that's just key. It's a lament. So Psalm 42 is a lament. You can write that down. What we listen to this sermon is, are they going to identify Psalm 42 as being a part, Psalm 42, one through five, as being a part of a lament? Are they going to preach it that way? Are they going to handle it that way? If they do not, you already know the sermon is going the wrong direction. Another important thing, harmonitically, that a lot of pastors fail when they preach Psalm 42. Almost, I would say most are convinced that Psalm 42 and 43 are actually one Psalm, right?

17:34And in fact, I think most people believe it's a certainty. They were originally one composition and why? Well, both Psalms repeat some of the exact, or they repeat the exact same refrain, right? And that refrain goes something like this. Why are you cast down, oh my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God for I shall again praise him. Look at Psalm 42, five. I'll read it from the King James. Why are thou cast down, oh my soul? And why are thou disquited in me? Hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. Look at Psalm 42, 11. Why are thou cast down, oh my soul? And why are thou disquited within me? Hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God? Look at Psalm 43, five. Why are thou cast down, oh my soul?

18:34And why are thou disquited within me? Hope in God for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God. The same refrain appears three times in both Psalms. Seemingly to argue, this was probably one single composition. Remember chapter divisions and chapter numbers were done much later, not part of the original. All right, so you have a refrain that appears and that repeated refrain kind of forms a poetic structure. All right, I think there's basically three movements. Psalm 42, one through five. Seemingly to express some longing for God. Psalm 42, six through 11 seems to speak of some deep distress and turmoil. And Psalm 43 seems to be a prayer of vindication and some kind of restoration. So longing for God, 42, one through five.

19:36Deep distress and turmoil, 42, six through 11. And I think all of Psalm 43 prayer for kind of vindication and restoration. And I think this is important. The structure, it's kind of a three, it's in three movements. The structure that repeated refrain, this is not designed to be a quick devotional thought. It's about a long internal struggle of faith in the midst of suffering. This is about an internal struggle. All right, think about this. You have external suffering. External suffering creates internal pain, internal struggle. So we have external situation which creates internal pain, internal suffering. And then we have to then navigate the external pain, the external suffering, the internal battle.

20:38And we walk through it somehow with some context of faith and believing there is a holy, all-powerful God. And that sometimes can be very confusing. Here's God, all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipresent. Yet look at this external situation. Look at where I am, look at what's going on. And this is how I feel about it on the inside. And sometimes the way you feel about it on the inside may question, how can this external thing be going on? And why am I feeling this way internally and yet somehow try to reconcile all of that with the fact that there is a God who is all-powerful, all-knowing, as an omnipresent? Who could, obviously, fix the situation or have prevented it from happening in the first place? And that's life. I mean, what I just described is the Christian life. We have external situations that can be painful, all kinds of difficult things to process. And in the same time, we have the internal struggle

21:40and pain that we're feeling. And then somehow we have to reconcile that with the idea that we believe in a God who is the creator of the heavens and the earth and could stop, fix, change the situation at any time. All right, so that gives us a little bit more. Next, who wrote Psalm 42? It's not attributed to David. All right, the superscription talks about the sons of Korah. The sons of Korah are whom? Does anybody remember? A Levitical group associated with temple worship. They typically are known as serving as musicians, singers, or temple attendants. This means Psalm 42 likely emerged somehow from the worship life of Israel, not, not necessarily a personal biography of David. That's very important to realize, all right?

22:43So it means that this Psalm may reflect the experience of someone separated from the temple and corporate worship. And if that's the case, we don't know who the person is, who's experiencing it, but they're somehow separated from the temple and from corporate worship. And I think you see that in the Psalm. They are separated, right? There's a little, there's a geographical hint in Psalm 42, whoever can find that class will get another $5,000. There's, and the geographical hint is, there are about 110, 120, 130 miles away from the temple. If you look at the geographical hint in Psalm 42, it places them probably over 100 miles away. Now 100 miles away may not be that, seemed like a big deal in modern terms, but at that point, they're probably like a week away from even getting there. They are separated and they may be separated for a long period of time.

23:46So this leads to the question then, what's being described? Well, the Psalm gives us some clues about what's going on, right? There's a couple of key factors here, right? If you just look at some of these, it says, my tears have been my meat day and night, all right? So obviously this person is going through some kind of emotional distressed, they're very upset. They've been weeping day and night, and it's been their food. Their food has been their tears. And then look what goes on to say, my tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually see into me, where is thy God? There's people going, where's your God? Where's your God? Okay, something, he seems to be far away from maybe other people who believe in his God. This is someone maybe questioning their God. Verse four, when I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me, all right?

24:47There's some kind of remembrance of something. And then it says, for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God. It's remembering things. So these clues kind of give you a kind of a, there at least paint an emotional picture for us. The speaker is in deep sorrow. I mean, when your food is tears, you seem to be surrounded by people who are at least questioning your God, maybe mocking your faith. You seem to be separated from a place of worship and you're remembering the days when you could go to worship, when you could go to God's house. Now, this is not someone evaluating, is God? Is God important in my life? How important is God in my life? This is not someone that even evaluating that. They're not even asking that question. All right? This is someone who's desperately longing,

25:50it seems, for God, in the middle of despair. That's the world in which the Psalm is painting and the Psalm exists, all right? Now, we also have this famous image, I'm gonna go grab a different Bible here. Psalm 42, which this becomes, oh man, so many worship songs have taken this. Psalms 42, as the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, oh God. Now, this becomes the famous image of the deer and the water, all right? Now, this is the idea, the Hebrew imagery here, the deer is panting, the deer is desperate and thirst, as the deer pants for streams of water. It's kind of thirst that comes from running,

26:50it's a thirst that comes from exhaustion, it's a thirst that comes from danger. So this is a deer who's desperate for water and the Psalmist is saying, my soul needs God, the way a deer needs water. So this is about survival. This is about, I need God. Now, maybe he needs, maybe it's his situation that's making him feel like he needs God. And maybe this person's external circumstances are so bad and he's so desperate, so despondent, so upset that he needs God because he's seeking relief. So it's about survival. It may not be, it's not about devotional time, I don't think. Now, what is the central message of Psalm 42? I think maybe we could say something like faith can feel,

27:53our faith can feel overwhelmed, but hope in God must still speak. We can feel, our faith can be overwhelmed by our circumstances, our faith can feel conquered in a sense, but we must still speak from hope, even when we do not maybe feel hope. Maybe that's a good way of describing it, all right? Because the Psalmist, in a sense, kind of does something remarkable. He does kind of talk to himself. Why are you cast down on my soul? This is the Psalmist speaking to himself. He's in a sense, I don't know if you can say, he's preaching to his own despair, but he's speaking to his own despair. He says, and I think this is important. He doesn't say, why are you sinful? He says, why are you cast down? This is about despair. It's not about rebellion. It's about despair. It's about losing hope. It's about maybe your faith being overwhelmed.

28:53Now, is there a hermeneutical key to Psalm 42? I think for Psalm 42, maybe the hermeneutical key is hope in God. Hope in God. This moves at past distress. I think it moves from distress to reflection, to self-exortation, to hope, all right? And a sense of that, I think what Psalm 42 may be saying, this is how faith wrestles with despair. I mean, this is how life works. We are surrounded with external circumstances, which leads to an internal struggle. So then, I think what Psalm 42 is saying is, this is what it looks like to wrestle with despair because of your external circumstances and you being overwhelmed by them internally. This is how you wrestle with them with faith. It's not denying the external. It's not denying the internal, but it's saying that you got the external,

29:56you got the internal, but you add in faith. This is how faith wrestles with the reality of the external and the struggle of the internal. Faith, this is the thing. Faith does not deny sorrow. Faith speaks in the midst of sorrow, right? Now, there's far more, I can say, we've already gone 30 minutes, but it gives you about as fast as I can, a quick overview of Psalm 42. I think that's a pretty good, a hermeneutical overview of Psalm 42. Now, since we've already been 30 minutes, look, I could go on, as I said, just, I can just look at a sermon and see the text, Psalm 42, one through five. And we could literally, we could turn it into an entire series. We could run it through the five layers. We could, we could do so much. We could do a, we could do an observational outline. We could do an exegetical verse by verse.

30:58Literally, we could spend, we could do a chapter summary method. We could just spend weeks in Psalm 42 and 43. But I just wanted to do it as quickly as that could so that you have kind of like, all right, this is a correct way to see this. And when I say correct, everything I gave you is just based off recognizing the genre, understanding the language, realizing the context, trying to understand the situation. I didn't do anything. Everything I just did, you don't need to go to Bible college or seminary to figure that out. That's just basic reading comprehension and taking time to understand what's going on. Now, with all of that said, we're gonna go to the special meeting. And I think it's for some kind of Bible institute, which, if it is, I'm gonna be very bothered if it, if it's for a Bible institute and we're getting ready to hear a hermeneutical train wreck, I'm gonna get very frustrated. But now you know what to do with Psalm 42, with that knowledge and that newfound knowledge

32:01that's sitting there in your notebook because I know you were taking very good notes. Are you ready to hear what happens when we go to church? Now, we just handled Psalm 42. We never walked inside a building that takes $100,000 a year to keep functioning. We didn't need any of that. So we bypassed the church. We went straight to the text. I think now you have a pretty good understanding of the text. I moved quickly. Now we're gonna go inside a church and see how the church handles the text. Here, we go, now shh. You guys are always talking when we're doing sermon, when we go to church. You guys are always caught. That's why churches don't want us to come back anymore. They're like, no theology central. You've got to sit in the parking lot, okay? All right, but here we go. So everyone, mind on your best behavior, here we go. A couple months ago and asked me about this conference, immediately upon talking to brother Wayne

33:04in that phone conversation, there was only one message that I had that immediately popped into my mind, only one text that came to my mind and it was this one. So that all the rest of them were kind of serious prayers of Lord, you're gonna have to help me preach the rest of the four to lead in to that fifth message. And this one might be a, I might be here and lay an egg with this one, but this is the one that I believe that the Lord has led and directed throughout all of my messages to this point. This has been one of those messages. It was one of those messages that I studied for such a long time, as brother Alson mentioned, studying Numbers chapter 11 and just can't get out of it, right? Just because there's just so much, there's too much to even try to begin to fathom and dive into. And when you think you've got one point all the way,

34:06another point arises and now you have to go back to that first point. It's just too much, it's overwhelming church. Well, that's, that's Psalm 42 for me and we're only gonna be in the first five verses, but all right, so a couple of things. Again, it's the Lord led me. You know how I feel about that? That's to me, you're preloading your sermon with, hey, you can't challenge me. You can't question me. God led me to this message. So if you don't like the message, take it up with God. To me, it's the oldest trick in the book. God gave me this message. God placed this message on my heart. God led me to this message, but it's preloading, you can't criticize it because God gave it to me. And every past, pastors pull this game all the time. And what drives me crazy, you can be even on sermon audio and it'll be someone like, God led this message, okay, led me to this message. God gave me this message and they'll teach, we need to baptize babies. And then someone else will be, God gave me this message.

35:08God led me to this message. I know we should only baptize people who make a profession of faith. And it should be by a merchant, a merchant only. Like, well, wait a minute. God led two people to a message and came to contradictory conclusions. That's why Christians have to stop the nonsense of saying God led me. God showed me. God placed it on my heart. Because if God is showing you and leading you, why is he leading you? Somewhere opposite to where someone else said God was leading them, one of you was lying. And I'm gonna argue both of you are lying. All of you are lying. God is not leading you. God is not speaking to you. No, you read. You look, you study and you decide that's what you're going to preach. And then you come to the conclusion of what you think it means based off your own study, based off your own education. No, stop blaming God. Because if God is leading and guiding and directing, all of our sermons would be the same. We wouldn't have contradictory conclusions.

36:09Just stop it. Because you're blaming God. Now I know what you're ultimately doing is you're protecting yourself. If I say my message comes from God, nobody can challenge me. Nobody. It's as if I'm the Pope. But I don't believe in the Pope. And if I believe in the Pope, I'll just go back to the original source of the Pope. And just forget all of these pseudopopes and all of these other Protestant churches. But it's always like, God led me. God guided, oh man. Okay, well, let's see how well God guided you harmonitically. All right, now he said he studied for hours and hours and hours and hours. This is another important thing to remember. You can study a text for a hundred hours and arrive at a very wrong harmonitical conclusion if your harmonitical process is flawed.

37:13Your harmonitical process is not fixed by the amount of time you study a passage. Your harmonitical process is only fixed if you're using the correct harmonitical process in the first place. So I'm very curious, all of his hours of study where this is going to lead. But we're already got the, oh, God led me. God, I wish I could just do that. I wish I could. Next time someone sends me a mean comment on YouTube, I'm just going to be like, well, God led me to the message. God gave me the message, take it up with God. That's just going to be my go to for now. I mean, it's good enough for everyone else. Why is it not good enough for me? I just think the whole thing, yeah, I just get so tired of it. So tired of it. Every denomination believes God gave them the truth. Every conclusion, everyone thinks that God guided them. God gave them, God showed them. Yeah, that's why we have what, you know,

38:15I'm being hyperbolic, you know, 50 billion different denominations and nobody can agree on one verse. But God gave, glad us all and showed us all. Yeah, okay, yeah. Well, then I guess God wants us all confused. And God does not want us to even come close to figuring out what the text actually says since nobody. God keeps leading everyone to contradictory conclusions. Every, every week that I've come back to this, even after preaching it to our own people, I've gone back a couple different times, just to dive in a little more. I pondered it and studied it and prayed over it. And every time there's a whole new area that comes up or something during another week will come up and something gets added to this message. And it's just been really one of those texts that I just cannot get away from. And I pray that I share that burden with you here this afternoon, this evening. Psalm 42 is so much more than just what we see on the surface, right? It's so much deep beyond belief.

39:15There's so much here that in this one short service that we have tonight, I promise you, I'm not gonna exhaust it. Just like any other time you come to this book, if you think that you've exhausted this book and you understand it completely, well, you need to start back from the beginning and read it again, right? But there's so many different ways that this 42nd Psalm can be applied. But as with all scripture, there's only one interpretation, the interpretation in which God gave when he inspired it to be written, but many applications. And let me just, I don't know if I'm gonna apologize or not up front. So one interpretation, many applications. So first we're gonna, it's gonna be interesting to see what his interpretation is. He says there's only one. Now, I always find it fascinating. People say there's only one interpretation. However, for every interpretation, someone says there's about 500 others out there. So if there's only one interpretation,

40:15then why are there always constantly so many different interpretations? That's a good question. He says there's only one interpretation, but there's many applications. All right, so now I will, you can theoretically say that the text should only have one interpretation. My question is, why is it nobody can seem to ever find and agree on what that one interpretation is? And when someone says there's one interpretation, but many applications, remember the application has to be grounded and connected to the interpretation. So many times people say, here's the interpretation. And you look at the applications and you're like, this seems to be like 752 miles away from the actual interpretation. So they've got to be linked together somehow. So that is an interesting concept. One interpretation, many applications. Okay, that's great. It would be interesting. I could probably do a survey of church history and go how many different interpretations have there been of Psalm 42. I bet you, we can find more than one.

41:19I bet you. I'm almost positive of it. Right, but because really our last couple of messages, all of my messages have really followed a very similar theme. We've said a lot of the same things and I don't ever wanna just beat the same drum to you all and I don't think that I've done that. I've said a lot of similar themes, similar topics and subjects. But the Lord only knows why he keeps some things ever before our minds. And I'll say again, like I said, one of our messages, I promise you, the biggest needer of this message is the man that stands before you. I know why the Lord keeps drawing me back to this text. See, because I'm missing it. I ain't got it yet. I just can't grasp it. Or maybe it's just something, Lord has to constantly remind me of. Right, I don't know about you, but me, the Lord has to constantly, sometimes remind me of the same things

42:20over and over and over and over again. I ain't that smart. I love the way some Christians speak of how their interactions with God works. That God is bringing you back to it or God is bringing it to your mind or God is very actively involved. And I'm always baffled by that. I'm like, well, I've got to so actively involved then all he needs to do is just fix, just just imagine if he just fixed this. He gives, he leads everyone to one definitive, correct understanding of baptism. Just think of how much that would resolve denominational divide and disunity in the body of Christ. If God is the one guiding and teaching and leading and bringing to mind, he could just fix that. Just fix the difference on baptism, then just fix the difference on the Lord's supper.

43:20Just just fix those two things. How about, how about this would be really great? How about bring us to some kind of agreement within Christiandom on salvation? Right, is it monogistic? Is it synergistic? Do we understand it from an Augustinian point of view, a Calvinistic point of view? Do we understand it from an Arminian point of view? Like, like, could we just fix that? I could just give you three or four things if God is guiding and he's all personally involved and he's bringing to mind and he's doing all of this stuff. He could just have all pastors fix baptism, Lord's supper and salvation. And we would have probably one of the most unified churches. The Christianity would be more unified than it's ever been in the history of Christiandom. But no, but he, but he, but he'll be, it's so weird. It's like God will tell people to not park there or to turn here or not do this or to marry this person or to go here, God, God is supposedly telling

44:20and guiding and leading in a million different things and pastors constantly talk about it. Christians just talk it this way. It's the language of the church. And it's like, well, if God is doing all of this, then for crying out loud, he could cause you to avoid this, he could fix this, he could solve this, he could do this, but it always will be like, look, I don't even care about solving pain, suffering, and death in this particular instance, I care about that, but I'm saying in this particular instance for this illustration, just fix us doctrinally and philologically and hermenutically. I don't need you to fix all the pain and suffering in the world. I mean, I do, but if you're not gonna do that, God and you're so intimately involved and you're guiding and you're bringing messages to the heart and you're, well, then just fix us doctrinally. Now, it's gonna be interesting. God seems to be very intimately involved with this individual and his understanding of Psalm 42. What do you think his interpretation of Psalm 42 is going to be? Do you think it's gonna be hermenutically sound or not?

45:22If it's not hermenutically sound, he's blaming God. And I'm gonna ask you once again to please just give me a little liberty, a little leniency tonight to preach to you because I've just got so much on my heart, so much on my mind that if I don't get it out, I'm gonna explode. Or I'm gonna get chastened by the Lord as I stand before you because I'm not doing what he desires out of me. So just give me a little bit of leniency tonight preaching the Psalm to you. Let's read the first five verses of the 42nd Psalm. The Psalm writer says this, as the heart paneth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after the O God. My soul thirsteth for God for the living God when shall I come and appear before God. My tears have been my meat day and night while they continually say unto me, where is thy God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul with me for I had gone with the multitude.

46:24I went with them to the house of God with the voice of joy and praise with a multitude that kept holy day. Why aren't thou cast down on my soul and why aren't thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God, where I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. May Lord add his blessing to the reading of his word, the structure of this message is gonna follow very similarly, very similar, very similar, Lee, right, you get what I'm saying? To the structure of last night's message, okay? Where I'm going to probably ask a lot of questions in the beginning, a lot of questions that aren't gonna feel good, you know how my messages have been this week. But a lot of questions in the beginning and questions that I myself have been struggling with, the questions that I have had to continually ask myself in my own personal life and personal devotions, that might not be something you know about your pastor. Let me give you a little insight to a pastor

47:24before you ever get the message as a congregation. Your pastor has to deal with these messages all week, all month, all year. Some messages take years to come to pass. They're dealing with it the whole time before you ever get it, okay? And that's where we are today this morning. And these are questions that I've had to ask myself. But listen, church, the reality is if we are not constantly asking ourselves the hard questions and demanding of ourselves hard answers, then what in the world is ever gonna change in our life for the good? What will ever grow or what will ever progress to us for the better? The first ultimate question that has to be asked before going anywhere is, do you look like Christ? Do you look like Christ?

48:25All right, now this is completely baffling. He read Psalm 42 went through five. He says he's going to preach the Psalm and he begins with the question, do you look like Christ? Do you look like Christ? Psalm 42, that question does not arise from the text. He's bringing the question to the text. Do you look like Christ? Well, let me just go ahead and make it clear. No one does. And if anyone thinks that they do, they are a liar because Christ was without sin. You do not look like him because you are a sinner by nature. You are a sinner by what you do and by what you leave undone. None of us look like Christ. We may hope to look like Christ, but we will not. We may, and even when we appear to look like Christ in some external act, almost inevitably, internally, our motivation is completely wrong

49:29and our heart is completely wrong because our heart is completely wrong. But if we were to look at the questions that should arise from Psalm 42, it should be things like, we should be looking for different kind of statements. Like, my soul thirst for God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been food day and night. Where is your God? Why are you cast down on my soul? Those are the kinds of things we should be pulling from Psalm 42. Not, do you look like Christ? First of all, when did it become about you? We're reading Psalm 42. I gotta understand what's going on with the Psalmist. But he read Psalm 42 and then he immediately says, do you look like Christ? Psalm 42 is not about whether I look like Christ. Psalm 42 is not even about me. Psalm 42 is about this person suffering, but yet wrestling with that suffering with faith. That's what it's about. Now, remember God is supposedly leading and guiding

50:30and bringing this to his mind. Well, then what God is, God doesn't follow the hermeneutics of Psalm 42, like I don't understand what's going on here. Does your life bear witness bear fruit that you are progressively being sanctified and pressed into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ? Does your life bear witness that you're progressively being sanctified? That is nothing to do with Psalm 42. Now, one thing. Are you totally and completely reliant and running unto and trusting in and cleaving unto the Lord and the Lord alone for all of your hope, for all of your help? Are you completely reliant on God? I'll just try to paraphrase. Are you completely reliant upon God? Again, has nothing to do with Psalm 42?

51:31Doesn't come from the text. Doesn't come from Psalm 43. Nothing, nothing. So already, we're off to a really bad start here. I mean, those are some serious questions that we blow over quite often. Or do we find ourselves completely content with seeking our own wills, staying within our own thoughts and continuing to trek out our own paths? You remember our message out of Psalm 127, except the Lord built the house. They labor and vain that build it. Are you keeping Christ on the outskirts tonight? I'm gonna preach all over Brother Austin's message. I'm being far, far away tonight. That's where the message is going. So just be ready for it. Brother, I told you, our messages just have overlapped every single time and praise be to God for that. Obviously, the Lord had something to say, the independence Baptist Church, the Chapel Hill Baptist Church, to Murray, is it missionary, is Murray Baptist Church? No, it's faith, Baptist Church, and Murray can tell you this.

52:31Yeah, no, I got it. All right, so because their message is overlapped, God is trying to say something. See, it's God is doing all of this. God is doing all the speaking, but immediately what I realized is that Psalm 42 here is being hijacked. Psalm 42 is being used, not taught. There's pastors use the scripture. They treat it like it's a tool. They use it for their own agenda. That is what I cannot stand. It's not a tool for me to use. It's for me to go to going. All right, what is going on here? What's going on here is my neighbor and his motorcycle, okay? But that's what we have to figure out. But he's gonna, he's assigning all the responsibility for this, all the blame on this on God. And I just refuse to believe God who doesn't know what the word says and what it means.

53:32I would think if God is guiding and directing, we would handle the text at least remotely, close to hermenodically, accurate, right? I'm telling you, I'm gonna explode if this doesn't come out, all right? Third hard questions with serious self examination is always the best medicine for the soul that desires to draw nearer to the Lord. I ask you the question in one of the services, I think it was this morning, but if I was to ask your children parents, what is most important to daddy and mommy? What do you think it is that they would say? I mean, seriously, and I know some of you, your kids are long gone out of the house, but the question remains the same for you. Even now, what would your kids say are most important to you? What would your husband or your wife say about you as to what is really most important to you? Would your husband or wife say, well, especially wives talking about their husbands, would your wife say about you husband?

54:33Well, they like looking the part and they like making us look the part, but there's a whole another side of them that nobody ever sees. I know this is gonna come as a shock. There's a whole other side of everyone that no one sees and it's called our sinful nature. I know. It's sometimes I think that church doesn't believe the sinful nature exists and it's almost like there could be people out there and you just look the part, but if there's this other part of you, yeah, it's true of every single person. We're just gonna get right in it tonight, right? Listen church, how important is the Lord in your life? How important is the Lord really in your household? How important really is the Lord in your marriage? How important really is the Lord in your parenting? Just how serious do you take your walk with the Lord?

55:34Just how serious do you take your walk with the Lord that walk with the Lord transfers over as a guide to those who are following us? How important is it to you that not only you provide the best life you can for your children but that your children are saved? That you provide every single opportunity that you possibly can, that the Holy Spirit would move and work upon your children. Is that important? I know these are hard questions and they're the same questions that I have to keep asking myself. I just want you to note this, this sermon is beginning with a set of questions that are being imported into the text. They're not drawn from the text. Everyone just needs to see this. This has nothing to do with Psalm 42. And this is a very common move in preaching. It's a very common strategy in preaching. The preacher already has a theme.

56:36In this case, obviously his theme is spiritual priorities. Are you being godly? Are you doing this? Are you doing this? And then he's gonna read, I guarantee you what he's going to do. But I've listened to enough sermons. He's going to read Psalm 42 through the lens of these questions. And that is harmonitically wrong. And he somehow attributing this that God led him to do this. If you follow a strict, harmonitical method, the question should arise from the passage. The natural questions that should arise from Psalm 42 should be like, why is the psalmist in such deep distress? Why is he crying so much? Why does he feel distant from worship? Why are his enemies mocking him? Do we know who the enemies are? Why does he speak to his own soul? And what does he mean to hope in God while yet filling casts down? Those are questions that emerge

57:36from the actual language of the Psalm. Those are the questions we should be struggling with. What genre is this? What is the Psalm trying to do? What does it mean? With those are the questions we, what is the structure of the Psalm? What is the meaning of the words? Does it follow any kind of, is there a structure? There's an outline to it. I mean, we're just doing observational work. See, look what happened. On a podcast, we spent the first 30 minutes and I gave you a very good understanding of Psalm 42 and Psalm 43. I gave you genre, I gave you structure, I gave you meaning, I gave you questions, I went through all of it and I did it in a very quick way but I did it. So then we turn off the podcast in a sense. I stopped talking and I'll say it this way. We turned off the podcaster and we went to the pulpit.

58:36We went to the church. This institution that requires so much money and effort to keep it operating. Now look what we get. We got Psalm 42, one through five red. We were told that he's going to preach the Psalm and look what's occurring. Now I have to keep asking myself and demanding answers out of myself, out of my home, out of my marriage, out of my pastoral ministry, out of my parenting. I mean, these are the questions that I have to deal with and I weep over and cry over because I'm heartbroken over because I know that the Lord has not done with me yet. But if I don't keep asking myself these questions and how in the world am I ever going to be pressing into the image of Christ? The Lord chipping away, everything that doesn't look like Christ in my life. Church, these are the hard questions that we have to be continually asking ourselves if ever are big prayers that we pray in the moment

59:36or ever going to turn into progress for the Lord. You desire to be close to the Lord. I mean, seriously, we've gone through this whole conference and praise be to God, but the question remains the same. Here at the beginning, do you desire to really be close to the Lord? Here's the theological question. I'll take his question, do you desire to be close to the Lord? All right, do you? Now, you could, I see where he's going to try to now bring this to Psalm 42, but again, he's starting with these questions and we're going to read the Psalm in light of it, but here's the real theological question. Do you desire to be close to the Lord? And now here's the big one. Where does that desire come from? Do we generate that desire on our own? Does God give that desire?

1:00:37No, it's already weird because he said, God is going to chip away and do these things. Well, if God is going to chip away all of these things and all of these problems, then any problems that remain, then God hasn't chipped them away. So then is it God's fault? So now we get into a whole discussion about sanctification, synergistic, monogistic. The church has been debating that for 2,000 years because nobody can have come to any agreement. Yet, God supposedly is guiding and leading and directing. Okay, yeah, just the never-nonsense of church language. But so the thing is, where does the desire arise from? Do we just, I'm going to desire God or just God give me the desire? So if I don't have the desire, is it God's fault? Like, oh, we can get into a whole discussion here, but I'm still trying to figure out how we're supposed to interpret this Psalm. Let's see, I know we're already at an hour. I'm going to at least try to get to, we can get kind of a hermeneutical or his interpretive thesis. We're waiting for the thesis statement on this Psalm. I think what it's just going to turn into is the Psalmist seems to desire God.

1:01:38Do you desire God the way the Psalmist does? But what's causing the Psalmist to desire God? Now that's the real question. Does the Psalm give us an indicator? Is it, does he desire God because of the situation he's going through? Sometimes when our life is falling apart and everything around us is horrible, we will go running to God because we're not seeking God for God. We're seeking God for his comfort and for his help. That's a big theological question right there. Nearness unto your Savior and God a necessity in your life. Do you finally find yourself running unto Christ every single day, desiring to be in his presence and allowing him to be the soul guiding influence in your life, the need for him, the need for his church, the need for God and to be the synopiece and foundation and bonding agent in your home, family, marriage, church. I mean, what's really the focus here, folks?

1:02:40I do find it interesting. And I've gone through my own struggle on this and my life of ministry and my own personal life. Menace yourself, just try to understand this because I think this is, I think sometimes the church, this is where there's conflict between the pulpit and the pew. I think sometimes the pulpit and the pew are two very different worlds. Think of the person behind the pulpit. Just think about them, right? They became a Christian. And at some point in their life, they felt absolutely drawn, they desired to, they wanted to read, they wanted to study, they wanted to, they were hungry and thirsting after, and they just wanted more and more knowledge, more and more doctrine, more and more theology, more and more scripture, more and more sermons, more and more church. They just wanted that, wanted that, wanted that at some point you begin to realize, I think the reason I have this such a desire is because this is what I'm supposed to do in my life.

1:03:41I'm gonna preach, I wanna study and I wanna preach, I wanna learn, I wanna read, I wanna be around it, I wanna, this is what I wanna do with my life. And so for them, their life becomes, I'm pursuing this because this ultimately, what they feel that they're supposed to do and they desire to do. Their life is thinking on a completely different trajectory than the person in the pew. The person in the pew may go, I believe in God, I do love God, but I'm gonna be pursuing a degree in, you know, engineering. I'm gonna pursue a, I'm gonna go to school to become a plumber or an electrician or I'm gonna become a police officer, I'm gonna join the military or I'm gonna be a housewife and I'm gonna homeschool my kids or I'm gonna do this or I'm gonna do that. Your life is a completely different framework, right? So what happens is the person in the pulpit is like, God, God should be number one in your life. You should read, you should study

1:04:42and you've got scripture to demonstrate that. You could argue that, right? Study to show yourself approved. Now that's actually for a minister, it's usually applied to the people in the pew. I've applied it to the people in the pew. Is that even accurate? Desire this sincere look of the word that you may grow thereby. Now that does seem to be a directed towards Christians. That does seem to be directed towards Christians. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. The book of Psalms talks about desiring the word of God more than, you know, desiring the word of God more than food, more than gold, more than silver. And so we can yell at the people in the pew saying, do you love God? Do you desire God? Is God your first priority? Is God what you seek? And the people are like, well, I mean, I mean, I can have a devotional for 15 minutes in the morning, but I got to go to work. I can't be at work sitting there reading my Bible. I can't be at work sitting there pursuing and I've got my career that I'm worried about. And so then pastors will be like, well, when you come home for work as an attorney on the TV,

1:05:43you should be sitting there at the desk studying the word of God and doing a Bible study. I've preached this to people throughout my Christian life because it would be like, what is your problem? What is your problem? Well, the problem is the person in the puppet, that's their whole life was pursuing religion and theology because they're going to be a minister and then they get into the ministry and then that's what they want to do. Now, the reason I had a struggle with people sometimes is I was by vocational. So I was getting up in the morning, going off to the work, going to work, going to spend all day in the military, working eight hours, nine hours, 10 hours, whatever the case may be, maybe working a 12-hour shift and then I was coming home and then I was supposed to study the Bible, study the Bible so that I could preach Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday and I didn't get rid of services because I was by vocational. So it would, I would get very frustrated with people that what's your problem? If I can come home and study for 14 hours, what's your problem? Well, the problem is that it would go into ministry. They had no call to go into ministry. They want to go into ministry.

1:06:44They're just trying to be their lives as a Christian. So the puppet is always like, why don't you desire God more? Why don't you do this more? Why don't you read more? Why don't you pray more? And I think it's because there's, it's two different worlds. The world of the puppet that, of course, that's your life. That's what you felt called to do. That's what you want to do. It's, dare I say, it's almost like fun for you. It's what you desire. And the person in the pew is just like, I just became a Christian because I didn't want to go to hell, okay? I'm a Christian, I do believe in God. I am, I do love Him, but I don't have any desire to go to seminary. I have no desire to go to Bible college, you know? Now, I know that sounds like a cop out, but I think there is a distinction between the two. And the people in the, and the puppets sometimes can yell at the people in the pew, like you should be reading all the time, studying all the time. And it's like, I think the people in the pew are like, you're out of your mind.

1:07:44You know, and so maybe they're just like, well, that's what those pastors do. And that's, that's great to them. But I don't know how people in the pew necessarily verbalize it, but I think and they're like, that's just not my life. I know some, and some capacity you have to understand that. Now, if it's supposed to be different where no, no, no, no, no, no, the people in the pew are supposed to be studying and reading all the time, well, then we've got a major problem in the American church because every statistic shows that the average person doesn't barely read their Bible. They don't study their Bible. They don't retain what is even preached. Every study shows that what's preached on Sunday is typically forgotten by Sunday, but what's preached on Sunday morning? Most of it's forgotten by Sunday night. The people in the pew don't remember anything. And I've done enough, in all the years of ministry, showing that you can't get Christians to do the Bible study methods. You can't get Christians to do basically anything. Now, so people in the pulpit will be like, well, they're ungodly and they're probably not saved, but I think the people in the pew are kind of like, I'm not called to be in ministry.

1:08:45I'm just trying to live my life. So I don't know what how should it look? I know this, Psalm 42 has nothing to do with any of this, but it's where this all gets turned into. Now, so there's a lot there to try to process. What should the average Christian life look like? How much, how many hours should be dedicated to reading and studying and prayer and going to church? Now, the early church met day, you know, every single day. Well, so should you go into church every single day? Should your whole life just be, well, I go to work and then I come home and I spend all evening and prayer and Bible study. Well, I mean, like, what should it look like? Should we all just be living a commune and we do a little bit of work and we spend all day, you know? All right, we gotta get the food ready and then we eat, but then the rest of the day is prayer and worship and like, I don't know. And nobody's ever been able to figure it out. And I think it leads to a lot of conflict. And so pastors will always, you know you're gonna make the people in the pew fill guilty because that you can almost inevitably know

1:09:47they're not reading and studying anywhere close to them. Number of hours that you can apply that they should be. Now, I still don't know what this has to do with Psalm 42. Let's see if he gives us any clue before we stop this review of what his interpretive thesis is for this song. Where does the Lord fall on your priority list? Every single Bible that I give out as a pastor, I write two things. This book will keep you from sin and sin will keep you from this book, right? Psalm 119, 10. But also, right, where does this book fall on your priority list? Write that in your Bible when you get home. And every time you open that first page, you're gonna ask yourself the question, where does this book fall on your priority list? That probably, it'll convict your socks off every single time you open your Bible. Listen church, what's the focus? Not just checking boxes, not just checking boxes every week, saying, making ourselves feel good, I will. I came to church, I feel better, right?

1:10:48Just did the up and downs, did the singing, did all listen to all the pray and listen to the preacher get up and yell at me for an hour. Now I can go on about my business. I've checked the box or is our desire that Christ be all and all. The question is this, what is most important in your life? And I'll help you answer that. To answer the question of, what is most important in your life? Well, what is it that you find your, what is, what is it that you find yourself doing most? That's what's most important in your life. Now I've played this exact same game. I would ask that question to the people and then say, okay, now grab a piece of paper. How many hours are in a week? Now let's subtract how many hours do we spend sleeping in the week? How many hours do, and then I would get and say, now this is how many hours we have left. Now out of those hours that you have left, how much of that time is dedicated to the word of God, to ministry, to prayer, to preaching.

1:11:49Okay, well then God is not most important in your life so stop claiming it. And if you don't love God with all your heart, mind, body, and so it may prove that you were never saved because that was very much caught up into Lordship salvation. I played that same game. Now one, I don't know, that is nothing to do with Psalm 42. And second, I think that just leads to, it turns, it turns a Christianity, it's a moralistic, legalistic approach. All right, well, I'm still waiting for him to, I know I'm going over an hour, but I need him to give us the interpretive thesis before we stop. We have to get to the interpretive thesis. He's only got 30 minutes left in the sermon. At this point, I don't know if he's ever even gonna touch Psalm 42. I know we've started out shooting out of a cannon. And I pray that you understand as all preachers should that this desk is not for just whipping people.

1:12:49This desk is not for just beating people and bashing people over the head and lording over the flock of God with a rod of iron that's not our job. But my desire for all of us is the same desire for my home, my ministry, my personal life, every member of this church, every member of my church and every church that has represented that God and his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, would be the central focus of all of our lives. Because if Christ the son, God the Father, led only by the Holy Spirit of God is not the central focus, is not the central guiding agent then all we do is invade. See how my message is interlaced too? All the everyday monotony and humdrum of our daily lives. Where does it leave Christ? These questions are why this Psalm has been so hard for me

1:13:49because this Psalm for me has really like a real good stuck bandaid. It's really torn off some veils that I've put up in my own life. Pastors shouldn't tell you that, should he? Some places and areas of my life where nearness is a nice thought, but do I count it as a necessity? Where the realization through self-examination that closeness to the Lord is always easier? Do I really find it as essential? And is there any real proof that I have in my own life to back that up, that the Lord is essential? That the Lord is absolutely necessary in every minute of my life by my thoughts and actions and lifestyle? And for me, this 42nd Psalm has really put many of these things into perspective. And again, it sparked all these difficult questions. So bear with me, it's going to be a difficult message.

1:14:53At this point, what's difficult is at this point, what's difficult is, I don't know if we're ever going to get an interpretive thesis for Psalm 42. At this point, I don't even know. I pray just as every night, we're going to end on a high note because what we would figure out soon if we were to read the entire Psalm, many believe this is the Psalm of David, it doesn't tell us, but through contextual clues and writing style, I don't see why I think it's pretty safe to assume but if we were to read the entire Psalm, what we would find as David was once again faced as his life was full of tremendous ups. Okay, now he's making a claim here that this is a Psalm of David, right? Now, again, the subscription says, it's to the chief musician of the sons of Korah.

1:15:55So the Psalm is attributed to the sons of Korah, not David, all right? The sons of Korah, again, as we've already talked about, it's a Levitical group connected to the Temple worship. They're credited with a collection of Psalms, Psalm 42 through 49, 84 through 85, 87 through 88. There's sometimes referred to as the Korahite Psalms, I think that's how you say it, the Korahite Psalms. And the sermon, I think he says something, and I'm paraphrasing many believe, I think he said many, many believe that this is a Psalm of David, he says through the contextual clues and the writing style, I think it's pretty safe to assume. I don't know where, he doesn't offer any of that, all right? I don't get it. I guess maybe, I don't, then it's just complete,

1:16:55it's complete speculation. And I think the real problem is is when you assume that it's David, it changes the interpretation, right? Because if you bring in David, then you can be like, oh, David committed that great sin. David rebelled, David's repentance. So if you frame the Psalm 42 as David, then you can turn this into a story somehow of backsliding or returning to God or repenting from sin. But if you leave the text where it stands, this is about spiritual distress, this is about distance from worship, this is about hope in the midst of suffering. Nowhere in Psalm 42 is our confession of sin. So I don't know where, where did that come from? I have no idea. I'm gonna look, I'm sorry, I'm leaning down from the microphone. I just saw another Bible lay here.

1:17:55I'm gonna grab this one. Where does he get this idea? See, this is what happens when we go to church and listen to sermons. I'm just, I don't have a clue what's going on here. Now, this one doesn't say, oh yeah, this one doesn't do that. I don't know where he gets it from. He doesn't give me a source. He doesn't give me where he's getting this information from. I'm looking all around me. I don't have any tools currently. I don't know. He just made that up. So what's his, so I already, I'm filling the setup, all right? The setup is, here's all these questions. Now, he's gonna take these questions, read it in there and it's all about, hey, is God most importantly in your life? Is God most important in your life? I think what he's about to do, if he's gonna say this is David, I think he's gonna say this is what your life looks like when you're backslidden from God. I think he's gonna go with that. If he goes that direction, ladies and gentlemen, then he blamed God for leading them to this.

1:18:56This would be a hermeneutical disaster. I, because he's, he's imposing David onto the text. The text never says it's dead. There's nothing here that, oh man, I'm hoping I'm wrong. Let's see where it goes. But it was also filled with some pretty terrible downs. In the 42nd Psalm, he has found himself yet again, completely alone. Now, please note, he's now going to interpret the entire Psalm as if it's about David on the basis of, I don't know what. He has found himself apart from the house of God. He has found himself apart from the people of God and to get him back to the point where he begins this Psalm, there had to have been a place where he probably have found himself completely away from the presence of God. And the harsh reality is,

1:19:56is this is probably gonna make some of you mad right here in the beginning, and if you're not already upset at me and cross with me, but here's the reality of the situation church. If your answer is anything other than my total reliance is on the Lord. If your answer is anything other than I run to him every day and seek his will, if your answer is anything other than Christ is the central focus of my life. To be as close to him as possible. If that's not your answer, then the reality is your back slidding. Your far, far away. If there, I told our church the other day, if there has ever been a time in your life where you were closer to the Lord than you are now, your back slidding.

1:20:57And I believe that's where David found himself before writing the Psalm because of external forces and circumstances and people and life that had driven him physically away as well as spiritually away again from God's place, from God's people and ultimately from God's presence. Wow. So he's approaching Psalm 42 is about David in a back slidding state. And then he made this claim that if your answer is not that Christ is the absolute center of everything in your life. If you're not, I think if something like, if you're not totally reliant, I think he said reliant on him constantly seeking him and you're basically perfectly oriented towards him then you're a back slidding. So basically everyone is back slidding. And then the main problem is, for first of all, Psalm 42 never says this. Psalm describes tears, despair, enemies, longing for God. Why are you cast down on my soul, hope and God? There is nothing in Psalm 42 that says

1:21:59if you are not spiritually thriving, you're a back slidding. There is nothing in Psalm 42 that says your distress proves your spiritual failure. There is nothing in Psalm 42 that says sorrow proves your far from God. In fact, the Psalm shows a believer who is distress but is pursuing God. And according to his definition, every single Christian would be back slidding all the time. Man, yeah, there's so many. So his still logical idea is basically every Christian is back slidding, period, the end. And David is back slidding and that gives us Psalm 42. So this should be understood. He is making the hermeneutical claim. His interpretive thesis is that Psalm 42 is about David. Yet there's nothing here that says it's about David and that David is back slidding.

1:23:00And this is the psalm of a back slidding believer, I guess. All together. So firstly, in verses one and two, we're gonna see the psalmist cry for closeness as the heart paneth after the water brooks. So panteth my soul after the oh God. Now, I'm just gonna stop right there because we're at 83 minutes. So here's the key. First, what is the biblical definition of being back slidding? What is the biblical definition of being back slidding? I want you to try to work on that. What is the biblical definition of back slidding and doesn't meet his criteria? His criteria, and I gotta remember, it's something like if Christ is not the absolute center of everything in your life, if you're not totally reliant on him in your life, if you're not constantly seeking him and if you're not perfectly oriented towards him,

1:24:01you are back slidding. Is that how, is that, how many even verses even mentioned back slidding? Is back slidding even a true biblical term? What is it, how does the Bible, who is described as back slidding in scripture? Who does it refer to? What is the historical circumstances? What is the actual definition of being back slidding? Biblically, again, he's preaching Psalm 42, which never uses the term back slidding. Nothing, there's nothing in this text. There's no confession of sin in Psalm 42 and 43. The Psalmist never says, my problem is I'm a sinner. It never says that. So that's already problem. So, but I want you to just, what is the biblical definition of back slidding? We need to work on that. What is, and then secondly, is this Psalm 42 and 43, because I think they're one Psalm, and I think most agree on that. As I've already showed you, you've got the same refrain in both. It seems to be a continuation. And so, but whether you go Psalm 42, 43 together, or just Psalm 42 alone, how is it that you can say Psalm 42 is about David

1:25:02in a backslidden state? How do you make that claim? And he claims, God is the one who led them to this. So what is the bill? I want you to really come up with. I want you to work on, write a paragraph. What is the biblical definition of being backslidding? And does the sermon give you a correct understanding of being backslid? I don't, and again, just note, it doesn't come from Psalm 42, but he's supposedly preaching the Psalm to us. No, he's not. He's imposing an idea. Oh, I'm going to talk about people being backslidden. Basically, everyone is backslidden. Where can I, I'm going to use Psalm 42 as a picture of David being backslidden? David may be shocked to find out, hey, David, you wrote Psalm 42. He may be like, I didn't even know I wrote that. What, oh, you were backslidden. Oh, I didn't even know that. Must be great that as Christians, we can just impose whatever we want upon the Dexon, just say, whoever wrote it. And then accuse them of being in a backslidden state. We can bare false witness all day long.

1:26:02I mean, he just made a complete accusation. David wrote it and David was backslidden. Wow. See what happens when you go to church? Do you see how we spent, we spent about 25 minutes at the beginning just giving you a good clear understanding of Psalm 42. I turned off the mic. We listened to a sermon, preached in a church, and look what happened. Now we're done, now I don't even know what we're supposed. What do you take away from all of that? Possibly that everything that was just said is just completely wrong, not true. Just completely misleading. And then people don't understand why the church is becoming more and more irrelevant. Why go to church for that? All right, well, we'll circle back around to this at some point.

1:27:02And I'm going to stop right there. Thank you for listening. It's now 88 degrees outside here in West Texas. And it's about 188 degrees right here inside this studio. So I'm going to pass out right now and die, all right? Okay, is that a little bit extreme? That's a little bit of hyperbole. All right, well, man, I wish I had some dramatic conclusion to give you, I wish I had something profound to say, but I've given you two very important things to consider. What is the biblical definition of being backslidden? From the scriptures, not from what, don't look up in a book, what does the scripture say? And Psalm 42, a Psalm of David, and David talking about his backslidden state, oh man, I'm telling you, sometimes, sometimes the most dangerous place for actually understanding the scriptures is the church.

1:28:02Sometimes the church is the most dangerous place from keeping you from understanding the scriptures accurately. And I say that only as a result of reviewing hundreds and hundreds of sermons. All right, thanks for listening. Everyone have a great day. God bless.