My Soul Languishes for Your Salvation

Well, we are at the midpoint of Psalm 119. I want to ask you a question. What is the most tired that you have ever felt? The kind of weariness that is so deep, you wondered if you were ever going to come out of it. If you could endure that level of tiredness and ever have energy and strength again. Whether that was a physical, emotional, or spiritual. I mean, when you get really exhausted, it's not like there's really that much difference. Where you felt like, I am about to break. I'm going to snap. Maybe I'm just going to die. Oh, you're just being dramatic. No, I'm not being dramatic. That is what our text is dealing with this morning. And I think that we've all felt this at points. That for some reason.

that we are just weary. Our souls are tired. And that may be for a multitude of reasons, right? Sometimes we start reaching that point and it's because of loss, the death of a loved one. Maybe it's the death of our parents or a child, your spouse, a close friend. Sometimes we get very weary and tired because of opposition. Because of strong disagreements between brothers. Mocking of our coworkers or our classmates. Maybe the disapproval of our family. But probably the most common is just we get tired of being faithful day after day. That you just kind of do what's right. And you don't always see that there's a great benefit or reward. And there becomes opposition from doing it.

And it can be exhausting. And you wonder, how much strength do I have left? Well, depending on where you are in life, these trials will strike you differently. But I think we all probably have had it happen at some point where we feel helpless. We feel like we're reaching a crisis point. And you wonder, if I reach that point, can I continue? Will I be able to continue? And will I ever recover from continuing down the path of being faithful? Loss, opposition, prolonged obedience, they wear us down. And that is exactly where the psalmist is at in this passage that we have this morning. We've come to the valley of Psalm 119. And in the last few stanzas of this psalm, the last few sections, The psalmist has been talking about his enemies. He's been talking about the arrogant ones, the ones who have been opposing him. And now we come to this section and he is worn out at the point of breaking. His strength is gone. His soul is fainting. His eyes are failing. And yet it's instructive to us because what he does is he turns to God and he calls on the name of the Lord.

And what we're going to see is when his faithfulness to God has left him exhausted and the deliverance he expects has not come, the psalmist does not turn away from God or his word. Rather, he clings to it. He cries out to God for comfort. He pleads for life and he trusts that God's word is sufficient and can sustain him. And we'll find that this is God's answer for us as well. the help that we need in our trials and hardships is not found out in the world. It's found in the word of God. God's word, which comforts us, revives us, and enables us to continue on even when we are bone weary. Well, if you will, please stand for the reading of God's holy word. This is Psalm 119 verses 81 through 88. My soul languishes for your salvation.

I wait for your word. My eyes fail with longing for your word while I say, when will you comfort me? Though I have become like a wineskin in the smoke, I do not forget your statutes. How many are the days of your servant? When will you execute judgment on those who persecute me? The arrogant have dug pits for me, men who are not in accord with your law. All your commandments are faithful. They have persecuted me with a lie. Help me. They almost destroyed me on earth. But as for me, I did not forsake your precepts. Revive me according to your loving kindness so that I may keep the testimony of your mouth. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated.

Well, one of the first points from this passage is that you must wait on God's word even when you're worn out. The psalmist begins in these three verses by telling God of the state of his soul. He's not chipper. He's not bright. He's languishing, exhausted, right? He has no energy. His soul is languishing. And one thing I want to say is that Christians do feel this way. That to have this anguish in your soul does not mean that you're not a Christian. There are points where Christians reach this depth. Christians are not exempt from suffering in opposition or the weariness of being faithful to God when the work seems endless or when the work seems fruitless. Now, we don't necessarily know the precise nature of the psalmist's persecution, but...

It's clear that he's under persecution and everything in him is calling out to God to save him. And God has not done it yet. Now this is, we're not talking capital S salvation, right? We're not talking about justification. We're just talking about whatever these difficulties that he's facing, he wants God to save him. And God hasn't done it yet. He waits, but in his waiting, he's exhausted. There's a trial that's the same trial. It's day in and day out. The exhaustion gets worse. So what does he do? What do you do when you're exhausted and are waiting for relief? What the psalmist does is he calls on God and he puts his hope in God's word and God's promises. And this is very different than our response tends to be when we get suffering, isn't it?

What is our response? Well, when we face suffering, often I think our first response is to doubt God. Is God really a good father? Does God really desire good for you? Is he working for your good? That's sort of the innate response that you have when trials come, is to question God. But that's not what the psalmist does here, is it? His example is that the worse things get, the tighter he clings to God's word. And the psalmist doesn't sugarcoat how he feels. He doesn't pretend that things are really okay. He's very honest about the difficulties, but he absolutely refuses to turn upon God or to forget God's promises. In 81, he talks about his soul, right?

But in 82, he talks about his eyes. So it's both, right? We're spiritual beings, we're physical beings. And what the psalmist is feeling is not just inward soul turmoil, it's his physical body. His eyes fail. He's longing for God's promises to be fulfilled and he's looking for it. And he's just not seeing it. You think of a little kid, right? Who's told, hey, grandma and grandpa are coming. And so what do they do? They run to the window and they start looking. Well, grandma and grandpa are coming tomorrow for dinner or whatever, right? But immediately it's like, go to the window. Look outside. Where's grandma and grandpa? And then what do they ask? When are they going to get here? They're coming. Five minutes later. When are they going to get here?

They're coming, right? They're waiting, they're waiting. Well, this is the psalmist is waiting for God to fulfill his promises. And the psalmist's eyes are beginning to fail. He's waiting and he's saying, when will you comfort me? When will you comfort me? When we're in that position, we don't think the delay is good for us. So tempted to think that God is not right in delaying. But if we have the right attitude, what does the delay do? Well. the delay sharpens your desire. The right response to God's delay is to desire what God has promised to give you more. It's to grow your desire for him. It's to grow your desire for the hope and the peace and the fulfillment that only he can give you. And so part of the delay is to teach us to have better taste, to desire better things.

And if God just gives us ease, then we'll be satisfied with mud pies when he has much greater things for us. And so as a Christian, you must learn to wait upon the word of God, even when your comfort, or maybe I should say, especially when your comforts are being stripped away. But he's in a painful spot. And he makes this point clearer when he goes to his analogy, right? He says, like a wineskin in the smoke. What is a wineskin in the smoke? Well, it seems to me that the meaning is you think about a skin, and when you have leather or skin, you want it to be supple, right? It's got to be flexible to be able to hold the contents. But when you put it by a fire, what begins to happen? It gets dried out. The smoke dries it out.

And when you have skin that's being dried out, what's it do? It becomes brittle. It becomes cracking. It starts to break down. And the psalmist is saying, I'm like a wineskin by the smoke. I'm being dried out. This persecution is breaking me down. I don't know how much longer I can last. But in the midst of that turmoil, he says, I will not forget your statutes. So again, we see that what the psalmist does is he will not let go of the word of God. He goes on and he says, how many are the days of your servant? When will you execute judgment on those who persecute me? The psalmist seems to be reminding God of the shortness of his life. He's frail and he's weak and he can't last forever under this strain. And yet in this call, he's not accusing God.

And he doesn't actually even ask God to change his circumstances. He's just pleading with God. I'm weak. I need you to sustain me. If God doesn't bring justice quickly, he's not sure he's going to survive to be able to see it happen. But in the midst of all this turmoil, he is calling on God for justice. He's not taking the justice into his own hands. And what about you? When you are feeling the sense of injustice, where do you go? Do you call on God for justice? Or do you feel like if justice is to happen, you have to take it into your own hands. And in the midst of all this trial, then he just acknowledges that what are the arrogant doing? Well, these enemies that he's been talking about over the last few stanzas, these arrogant men are that the arrogant men are digging pits for him. They are.

actively seeking to harm him. And when you think about these pits, you have to think about like a tribal huntsman, right? You go out in the woods, you dig a big pit, you put sharp stakes in the bottom of the pit, and then you cover it with some branches and grass and whatever so that you can chase the game to the pit and they fall in and they're pierced and they die. And so the psalmist is saying, I have these enemies, these proud, arrogant men, and they're digging pits for me. And as Christians, that's what happens. There are people who are out there digging pits, trying to ensnare us. What does that mean? Well, you have to think about what scripture says about the wicked men. They're like their father, the devil. The devil goes around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

And the wicked fall into that trap as well. They follow along with him. And Romans were told that the wicked suppress the truth in unrighteousness. And what happens is, when you have a wicked man who's suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, when he sees righteousness, he doesn't like it. Because it's hard to suppress the truth when it's staring you in the face. And so the wicked are always going to oppose to any semblance of righteousness because it wakens their conscience. And it's a front to them because they're in the process of trying to repress the truth. They're in the process of being unrighteous. And so Satan hates man because man is in the image of God and he wants to fight God, but he can't.

He can't reach into heaven. So what he does is he fights the next closest thing, which is those who are made in God's image. And the unbelievers follow in the footsteps. So they're digging these pits. They're trying to suppress the righteous. Well, what are these pits? There are different types of things that we could think of as pits. We could say there are physical pits, the temptations, the things that are held out, pornography, sexual sins. drunkenness, whether that is attained through alcohol or drugs. One pit that is super common and growing, especially in young men, is gambling. Our culture is normalizing all these different things and there's snares set up to get you. But it's not just the physical things, snares. There's more.

Some of the pits that the enemies are digging for us are far more subtle. They're ideas. They're ideas that get dressed up as being benign and not that big of a deal, but there's poison in them. And if you follow the ideas and the ideologies that the world feeds you to their logical end, they'll kill you. And these ideas are things that you'll find everywhere. You'll find these, you'll find... poisonous ideas being spouted by your teachers by your schoolmates by your co-workers all over social media all over the internet and when we spend time seeped in the teachings of wicked people the more susceptible we're going to become for ideological pits that are being dug There are many, many pits that we could talk about today. I want to talk a little bit about victimhood, this idea of having a victim mentality or a self-love. It's a pit that we have today. And here's the thing. Our culture survives on victimhood. It's the currency of our day. The greater victim you are, the more cachet, the more moral.

power you have to get what you want we may think that this is new but it's not adam blamed god in the garden first he says well it's this wife that you gave me i'm just a victim here god the woman she it's her fault and really if you look at it god you gave me the woman right And then what's Eve say? Well, you know, I'm the real victim here because I was deceived by the serpent. And so the victimhood mentality goes all the way back to the fall in the garden. This is not a liberal issue versus a conservative issue. It's not men versus women. We all want to play victim card.

That we're not, we don't actually need to be held responsible for the things that we've done because someone else has sinned against us and it's actually their fault. Now, these ideas are dangerous, right? These pits are dangerous because you remember that pits disguised because what animal is going to jump onto a stake in the ground? They're smart enough not to do that. You have to disguise it. And the reality is you have been sinned against. And so when we talk about victimhood and when we think about victimhood, there actually are real people who have been victimized. And we've all actually been sinned against seriously in many ways. We've been failed. But there's a problem if we then take that further and say, we are no longer responsible for anything we do because we've been a victim. So the psalmist says, I am suffering and I need God to act.

The victim says, I am suffering, therefore I'm justified in my bitterness, in my disengagement. I'm justified redefining what's right and wrong because of my victim, whatever was the victim. When suffering becomes the primary lens through which we interpret our reality, it tempts us to excuse our sin. It tempts us to abandon obedience. it tempts us to treat God's commands as negotiable. But the psalmist shows us a better way. The psalmist names the injustice honestly, and he cries out to God for help, and he remains tethered to the word of God. He doesn't blame other people groups for his sin. He doesn't go into ethnic vainglory, and he doesn't blame his older brother or his younger brother.

Or a schoolmate. And here's the thing. If you're a Christian, you know how many innocent people have suffered in this world. One. Only one. Jesus Christ is the only one who undeservedly suffered. And he suffered. You remember what 1 Peter tells us about Lot? It says that his righteous soul was afflicted when he lived in Sodom. If... If Lot was afflicted by living in Sodom, how afflicted was Christ every minute of every day living amongst his creation, which was an active rebellion and rejecting him? How much suffering did he have over that? But it doesn't stop there, right? Because he goes on in perfect obedience to the Father until finally he comes to the Garden of Gethsemane.

And you read about this psalmist who's saying, my eyes are failing and he's languishing. But think about the garden and what Christ went through. He was crying and his friends would not even stay and pray for him. They would go to sleep. And you think your friends are uncaring about your problems, right? And he's literally sweating drops of blood, the anguish that Christ is in. And yet when he came before his accusers, he was silent. He didn't return reviling with reviling. He didn't play the victim card. As Christians, we know the truth about who the real innocent person who suffered was. And if we want to stand on our own rights and accuse everyone else and make all these excuses, we'll never have peace. True peace will be found when we...

can, with Christ, pray for the forgiveness of those who are harming us, when we will look to Christ for the salvation, when we'll tie ourselves to his law. There are many other pits. Trying to navigate through these waters, the more you think about it, feels kind of impossible. How can you keep your children from falling into some ideological pits and traps of our culture? How can you keep your children pure? I mean, I've been in groups with you men, right? We've talked about like, how are we supposed to keep our son's eyes pure when there's women walking around in their underwear? Like, you're looking at these traps and the pits and the snares of this world. But it's worse than that, right? Because we have algorithms which know you better than you know yourself. And the algorithm will find whatever pit you're most susceptible to, and it's gonna, feed it to you. And the same is true of your children. So what are we going to do? How do we avoid all these pits that the wicked are spreading out in front of us and making them look really nice and really appealing? And there's always a veneer of truth in it. Well, I'll let you in on a little secret, okay? You ready? God is more complex and smarter than any algorithm there is out there. And when you go to the book of Jeremiah, what does Jeremiah say?

Jeremiah 17, 9. Who knows it? You all need to know this verse. Jeremiah 17, 9 is, the heart is deceitful above all things. Okay? So he says this. There's a statement of truth. The heart's deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. There's the fact. Then he asks the question. Who can know it? Because you realize there's a problem. If you say you know your heart, I say, did you hear what he said? It's deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. You can't know your heart. Your heart is the best liar, the best deceiver there is. And so you say you know your heart. And I said, do you hear what Jeremiah said? Your heart's deceiving you. But he doesn't stop there, right? He says, the next verses, I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the result of his deeds. In other words, There is someone who knows the depths of your heart and the deceitfulness of it and can actually reveal it to you. And that is the I, the Lord. I, the Lord, is the one who knows your heart and can show you the depths and the wickedness of it. John tells us that Jesus did not need any testimony about man. Why? Because he knew what was in the heart of man. The solution, the...

solution to not falling into all these pits to guarding your kids against all these pits that the wicked are digging and spreading and trying to trap you is to know the word of god is to know god's law It tells us that those who dig the pits do so in contradiction to God's law. And so the more you know of God and the more you know of his law, the more you know his word, the better guarded you will be against all the wicked heresies of this world in which they're trying to trap you. Because God is the one who's above it all and can see the path. He makes the crooked ways straight.

And so if you want to be on guard against all of these snares of the arrogant men in which they're doing, you have to submit to and inculcate yourself with the word of God. In the beginning of the Psalm, he says, how can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to your word. And notice what he says, that the wicked are liars. The wicked are liars, but God's faithful and his truth is faithful. God will not lie to you. All the truths of scripture will bless you and will make your life better. Not necessarily easier, but will make your life better. The wicked will simply lie to you. Their pits are deceptive and they're built for your destruction. But this is no easy task, right? Because what's the psalmist say? They almost destroyed me on the earth. They almost destroyed me.

The psalmist has been following God's law. He's loving it. He's meditating on it. And all along the way, the arrogant men are seeing him following God's law, and they're offended by the fact that he loves the Lord. They're offended by his obedience to the Lord, and they seek, they actively seek his destruction. We're in spiritual warfare. The great Puritan J.C. Ryle says that in this life, we've been given armor to wear. We get robes in heaven. We don't need armor in heaven. But right now, we're not given robes because they seek his destruction. They seek to destroy the righteous man, but they have not succeeded. They haven't succeeded. Why? How has the wicked not succeeded in trapping the psalmist in their wicked pits that are covered with things that look so appetizing? Well.

It's because the psalmist's life is built on the rock. His life is rooted and grounded on Christ. Christ is the word. And there is no surer foundation than Christ. And in the end, this is what we see here in this psalm is the essence of faith. It's the essence of faith. This is Job. This is when Job says, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. This is Peter saying, after Jesus says, eat my body, drink my blood, all the people say, that is weird, it's gross, it's too hard, and we want nothing to do with it. And all the people leave. And Jesus turns to his disciples and he says, what about you? Are you going to leave too? And what does Peter say? Peter says, Lord, where else could we go? You have the words of life. It's the low point of faith. But in that moment, you find bedrock. The fluff is gone. The comfort's gone. The ease, gone. There's no end in sight, but that's faith. Faith isn't seeing. If you saw it all, it wouldn't be faith. It would be there.

The whole point of faith, the whole idea of faith is that you have to trust the one who gave you the promise, even in its most bleak form, and wait for the fulfillment of the promise that he's given. The hope is not realized. You are looking out and you're seeing God promised this, but I don't see it yet. And I'm struggling. My eyes are failing. And yet I know God's good and I know he promised it, so it has to be true. The only thing that will sustain you in the end is the testimony of God. You have to stand and say, let God's word be true and every man a liar. Though all the culture is saying, bow down, don't actually mean it, but just conform, right? And you say, no, no, God's word is true. Every man's a liar.

I won't go the ways that the world wants me to. And you may feel like you are Elijah standing there with all 450 prophets of Baal, all Israel, 50-50, they'll go either way, and you stand there. But you also have to realize in moments like that that the positioning there is not a true dichotomy, is it? Because... not only does God have 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal, but also God's there. He actually was there. Well, the psalmist then says that, well, he calls on God to renew his life according to God's covenantal love. And again, this reveals to us that the psalmist's life isn't about himself. He says, look, Revive me according to your loving kindness. So it's according to God's faithfulness. This is chesed. This is God's covenantal loyalty. Revive me according to that. But why? But why is he wanting revived? Because he's saying, this whole psalm, it's like, I'm on the verge of breaking. I'm about to snap. I'm this wineskin that's by the fire. It's being worn out. It's getting cracked.

about to fail. And then when he says, revive me, what does he want revival for? So that he can obey, so that I may keep the testimony of your mouth. Isn't that kind of wild? And how often does the psalmist argue this way? Lord, sustain me because the dirt can't sing your praises. And if I'm in the dirt, I can't do it. So sustain me so that I can give you glory. And the psalmist is saying, I need your sustenance. I need your revival so that I can actually obey you. Not because I feel like I deserve a life of ease, but because I want to use my life. I want my life to be expended in the obedience to God.

And so this is our call. We may be worn out. We may be overwhelmed. We may be wondering if we can go on. And yet the same word that has sustained the psalmist can sustain you. So hold fast to the word of God and cry out to God and wait on him. God is faithful. And if you're like, well, I don't necessarily connect with the psalmist right now. I don't feel like I'm in that amount of turmoil or whatever. then what you need to do is you need to be working to build yourself such a firm foundation on the word of God that when that point comes, you will have a firm, sure foundation. That's what Jesus said, right? The wise man built his house on the rock. The rains came tumbling down, but the house on the rock stands firm. So build a sure foundation on Christ, one that is not shaken.

And learn the word of God so that the wicked men cannot ensnare you in their pits. Because they look really deceptive often. And it's the word of God that will give us the sight to be able to make it through. Let's pray.