Mr. Bultitude
Puritan Board Freshman
From a John Piper sermon on Psalm 42:
Thoughts?
[The psalmist] responds to his circumstances at one point by asking God Why? Verse 9: “I say to God, my rock: ‘Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?’” The word forgotten is an overstatement. And he knows it is. He just said in verse 8, “By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me.”
What he means is that, it looks like God has forgotten him. It feels as if God has forgotten him. If God hasn’t forgotten him, why aren’t these enemies driven back and consumed? It would be good if all of us were so composed and careful in the expression of our discouragements that we never said anything amiss. But that is not the way we are. In the midst of the tumult of emotions, we are not careful with our words.
Those of us who were around in 1985 when I preached through Job may remember how this truth came home to us as a church. For years afterward, we would refer to the words of Job 6:26 and talk about “words for the wind.” Job says to his critical friends, “Do you think that you can reprove words, when the speech of a despairing man is wind?” In other words, don’t jump on the words of a despairing man. Let it go. There will be ample time to discern the deeper convictions of the heart. Let the wind blow them away. They are words for the wind.
Thoughts?
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