Tears, Fears and Ever-near
-
For the director of music. To the tune of “A Dove on Distant Oaks.” Of David. A miktam. When the Philistines had seized him in Gath.
1 Be merciful to me, my God, for my enemies are in hot pursuit; all day long they press their attack.
2 My adversaries pursue me all day long; in their pride many are attacking me.
3 When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
4 In God, whose word I praise—in God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?
5 All day long they twist my words; all their schemes are for my ruin.
6 They conspire, they lurk, they watch my steps, hoping to take my life.
7 Because of their wickedness do not let them escape; in your anger, God, bring the nations down.
You keep track of my misery.Put my tears in your leather container. Are they not recorded in your scroll?
9 Then my enemies will turn back when I call for help. By this I will know that God is for me.
10 In God, whose word I praise, in the Lord, whose word I praise—
11 in God I trust and am not afraid. What can man do to me?
12 I am under vows to you, my God; I will present my thank offerings to you.
13 For you have delivered me from death and my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before God in the light of life. -
What Jesus is like
What Jesus asks
What he does
Context to Psalm 56, the Psalmist David’s state of mind, namely, his fears - fleeing for his life from Saul.
Introduce the subject of fears by telling a story of the time, recently, when I crumpled under fear on a train from, Macon in the South of France to Paris Gare de Lyon. My voiture broke down in the south of France and the RAC in their wisdom said I had to catch the train home!
Walking crab-like, sideways along the aisle of a crowded train, unbeknown to me my trousers had worked their way down to my ankles!
What could I do? I was holding tightly to my crutches, my callipers were locked, I could not bend down to pull up my breaches.
Fear gripped me and I shouted at the top of my voice in French, to my wife who was off the train and on the platform - ‘Jennie Mon pantalon!’
Why I spoke to her in French when neither of us speaks French well, I do not know. It had the effect of causing every French-speaking person on the train to notice my predicament! She rushed to my aid and hoisted my kegs up like the mainsail on the Sloop-John B. My dignity was partially restored! That’s what fear does. This Psalm begins with a note and an explanation of David running from his enemy Saul.
Three headings that will open up this bible passage for us:
Fears & Tears & Ever-Near
Fears
David is fearful and he is running from Saul. He goes to the land of Saul’s enemies, surmising that Saul would not follow him there.
It was the land of the Philistines and the city of Gath. A place famous for a certain giant named Goliath. David and this infamous brute has previous form, yet in his fear he did not seem to think that would be an issue. The Philistines did remember who David was (songs had been sung about him). It was not a wise move. David was not thinking clearly. Fear had made his thinking fuzzy.
I wonder do you recognise this feeling? God isn't turning up so you try and work things out for yourself and things get worse. God seems far away and you think he is out of reach or too busy for your hearts cry. You are afraid that you cant pray for help because some of the issues are self inflicted…issues like - debt, relationships, substance dependency alcohol drugs, or porn. God has become a ‘him up there’ kind of God. A good question to ask is who has moved you or God? When you are in this place it affects your prayer life and your Bible readings and you lose clarity about the situation you are in. You still have faith but that first love with the Lord, that understanding and guidance that you get from his scriptures is not happening.
Notice that David never allowed guilt and shame to prevent him from coming back to God.
David knew God's mercy and forgiveness first hand. When he fell into adultery he turned to the Lord and cried (Ps 51:7ff ) ‘Wash me and I will be whiter than snow’.
In our reading Psalm 56:1 David prays ‘be merciful to me for my enemies trample on me all day long.’
David's antidote to his fears was to put his trust in God and the word of God.
56:3 ‘When I am afraid I put my trust in God (then he repeats) I trust in God's word. 56:11 ‘I will not be afraid.’ He knows God's nature and character is to be merciful. In 56:1 and 56:11 there seems to be a contradiction, ‘when I am afraid; and v11 ‘I will not be afraid.’ But David is not saying I will never be afraid - he is in fact giving himself a talking to. Sometimes in the midst of our turmoil, we need to give ourselves a talking to making bible based declarations like Psalm 56:9 ‘This I know God is for me.’ This is a key verse in this Psalm. David is remembering that God has helped before. ‘God is for us’- he has in the past and he will do it again. [We will look deeper in to this in the next Session]
Notice that in Psalm 56 David was strengthened from his prayer times. How are your prayer times?
He drew strength from the word. We need to spend time in the word of God. This week on Premier Christian Radio the Bishop of Blackburn spoke of the importance of persevering with reading our scriptures - (22 January 20240).
David drew strength from praise and worship (see Psalm 56:10). How are your times of praise and worship? The worship times here this weekend will be a real blessing to us.
Get a hold of these three words, Renew refresh resource - This weekend will help and resource you. There will be opportunities for prayer ministry or conversations – maybe like Jacob wrestling with the angel of the Lord, you can pray, ‘Lord I'm not leaving here until you bless me hear me help me heal me.’
David fearful, gave himself a talking to and declared ‘This I know God is for me.’ David’s fears and leads us to David’s tears.
Before our next section, let us break for an exercise – Share with the person nearby a time when you cried.
Tears
Let us remember that David is a warrior - a Goliath Slayer, he fought off lions and bears in his shepherding days. Is’nt it strange that he is admitting and emphasising tears? For David there is no shame in tears. The most surprising statement in this next verse Psalm 56:8 is that, not only does God keep a record, but he holds our tears. I have come to realise that this is very significant.
Psalm 56:8 ‘You keep track of my misery. You put my tears in your...container! Are they not recorded in your scroll?’ NET
I hope you will emerge from these sessions and prayer knowing an new peace, a peace that is beyond understanding as the Lord minsirters to youy through the word and worship. I hope you are being built up and resourced to go back to where you live with renewed zeal.
David was under attack, he had made some poor decisions. He turned to God – rather he returned to God. That was his rescue.
God not only knew of his tears, he held them and I believe the Lord wept with him. The divine command in Romans 12:15 says ‘weep with those who weep’ – it is the Word of God and it is a word from God for us today. It oozes compassion and pastoral care. That’s what our Lord does. God added his tears to David's there must be a lake of tears! I am convinced from these scriptures that not one tear is wasted or ignored. Even your silent weeping, hidden sorrow, the Lord knows these situations. God is that close. Next time you weep - hear this- he has been weeping as well with you, holding you, catching your tears in his cupped-up hands - that is the picture he gives us.
I would like to tell you a bit of my Testimony - it relates how this series of talks are themed, ‘Lake of Tears.’
I said previously that I am a Healthcare Chaplain. Before that I was a Chartered Accountant. I married Jennie in 1986.
I have been a Christian for 57yrs.
At the age of twenty-three, everything was going well work, successful in sport, a house, a good salary and then the bottom fell out of my world.
I was on a week away in the Lake District with some Christian friends, hiking. On the day before we were due to return whilst driving up the perilous Honister Pass our car stalled and ‘Crash.’
After I had been taken from under the wreckage I heard the Lord’s voice reassuringly say to me words from Matthew 28:20 say ‘I am with you always.’ I repeated those five words in my mind, over and over again, they kept me holding on, kept me alive until I got from the scene of the accident to the Intensive Care Unit at the Cumberland Infirmary in Whitehaven.
A few years later there were times when I had allowed myself to wallow in self pity. At these times I would still pray but my prayers had an edge, like an irreligious rant fuelled by the frustration of living with this disability and continuing to pray for a miracle.
I was on the Isle of Wight on holiday with Jennie when I went to my bedroom and let rip, in prayer, with another of these pity parties. I said,
“God you are not the personal God I once believed in. You are up there looking down, from a distance. You don’t see my tears, you don’t know how hard this is. You are distant and I need you nearby.
“What happened after this changed my perception of God forever.
As I prayed, alone in that room, God responded deep into my heart with the spiritual precision of a surgeon’s keyhole surgery. As I lay exhausted; emotionally and spiritually broken, I was lifted in a vision to a place I recognised and later to another place, I did not know. With a gentle firmness, God rebuked my rant with a crystal-clear visual response.
In my mind’s eye, I was carried to the place where Jesus led his disciples after the ‘Last Supper,’ the Garden of Gethsemane. I could see myself in the garden, the evening sun lit the olive grove, creating shadows and soft shards of light. The trunks were gnarled with branches reaching upwards to form an atmospheric canopy. I was transfixed, out of sight, observing the disciples resting in the distance. and Jesus was there too, praying, dropping to kneel by a Mount Olive screed. Olive trees stooped over him and he was weeping as he prayed. Sobbing agony, blood droplets fell like perspiration from his forehead. I heard Him groan and pray. Faced with the cup of suffering he was about to imbibe. Ahead lay separation from his Heavenly Father, the cost of bearing the curse of humanity’s sin, Jesus aged thirty-three, my age, sobbed. Jesus wept in full knowledge that the Father would forsake a sin-laden Christ. His rib cage heaving and his chest pounding uncontrollably with tears from the very depths of his innermost self. I heard him roar ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,’ I realised that these were not expressions of fear or pleas for mercy. This was a grieving realisation of what it meant to be devoid of God for even a brief moment in eternity, ‘Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.’
Then, in my vision, Jesus paused mid-sentence, turned his head and locked his eyes on me. Me, Kelvin Burke in 1990 but mysteriously present in Gethsemane. Staring directly at me Jesus continued, “Yet not what I want, Father, but what you want.”
I was overcome with emotion and I began to cry, lying in that room in Ventnor, I sobbed, heartbroken as I realised he did that for me, somehow ‘before the foundation of the world’ (Ephesians 1:4) and before the brutality of Good Friday, Jesus knew me, he understood my tears and my frustrations and he walked forward from Thursday night’s garden prayers onto Friday’s crucifixion…for me. I was broken by this cosmic glimpse at reality… Jesus knew me, Christ knows me, he knows how I feel. I wept like I have never wept before, audible groans, tears like torrents, gut-wrenching, painful tears, healing tears.Then in the dream, I was carried from the garden, soaring like an eagle, up and beyond a mountain range. From long distance, I could see beautiful lofty peaks and majestic shadowy valleys. Suspended face down I hovered over one particular peak. As I looked, I noticed that it was, in fact, a crater, like an extinct volcano. Through my tears, I spoke to the Lord and said, ‘Lord why are you showing me a crater?’
The Lord said, ‘Look into the crater.’
I looked again and saw that the crater was not empty, it was filled with water.
‘Lord, why are you showing me a crater filled with water?’
‘Those are tears, that is a lake of tears,’ the Lord replied.
‘Not one tear you have cried has gone unnoticed’ He continued in a soft tender voice, ‘and for every tear you have cried, the Lord Jesus has wept ten-fold in the heavenly place. This lake of tears represents every tear that has trickled onto your cheeks, the Godhead knows them all.’I had dared to accuse my Lord of being impersonal, un-knowing, distant and here was my answer, he knows me down to my very last tear!”
Ever-Near
This was the Lord’s answer to my arrogant rant, ‘Lord you don’t know me, you don’t see the tears I cry, you don’t realise this is harder than I can bear.’ I had said that he was but distant and his response was to give me a revelation that he was ever-near.
He said every tear was noticed, caught, held and added to by God who weeps with those who weep (Rom 12:15). This vision (with me sobbing) went on for over an hour, time seemed to stand still and I was broken by it. When I came back to myself, I realised God had spoken very clearly and I could not ignore it, it was emphatic. The message is that God is ever-near, this verse is not about him remembering or recording our misery. This is God saying, he is present with us, he will never leave us or forsake us – just like he spoke to me on the Honister pass, he is with us always, ever-near.
If we leave it there, I feel that I have given you half the message. There is a great comfort in knowing we are not alone, that God is present and holds our tears in what must be a Lake of Tears. But does that really help us move on or grow as Christians?
There’s more….
We can never accuse God of not knowing what it's like to suffer. God knows suffering first-hand, Jesus chose to be vulnerable, (Matthew 26:53) he chose to suffer for our sakes as he triumphed over the cross and death.
The Lord, man of sorrows, acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:1) is with us, therefore, when we turn to him in our fears and tears, He can turn every adversity into a victory. 1 Corinthians 15:25 states, 'he must reign till all enemies have been put underfoot.’ How we respond to adversity is crucial. We can move forward today knowing we are on the victor’s side. I have had nearly 45 years of moving forward – the hardship doesn’t get taken away, sometimes things seem harder but I know who is with me, I know God is for me (Psalm 56:9)and I even get to help him to reign and put enemies underfoot. The enemy of paraplegia, diabetes, Cystic Fibrosis, COPD.
How do we do this, David grasped it, in Ps 56:3,10 ‘In God whose word I praise, in the Lord whose word I praise’ – two words – Word and praise.
I often found when I was visiting people on Hospital Wards, even in their darkest hour those who chose to praise and worship God despite their suffering were strengthened for the ordeal.
I would like to end this first session here at Lee Abbey with a quote from a Lucy Grimble song:
Still I will Praise
Sometimes a song feels so costly, And worship takes all that I have,
In seasons of life where it's hard to see, And hard to understand,
That you are still God in the wilderness, You are still God in the pain,
You are the God that is with me, When all else is stripped away,
Still I will praise, Still will praise, Even in this oh Lord, Still I will praise.
Still I will Praise
