September 30, 2023 -- Psalm 42:8-11 -- The Psalm Series: Songs in the night

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By day the LORD commands his steadfast love,
    and at night his song is with me,
    a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God, my rock:
    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
    because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As with a deadly wound in my bones,
    my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,
    “Where is your God?”
11 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
    my salvation and my God.
Psalm 42:8-11 ESV

Through-out this brief Psalm the writer has been lamenting listing the hardships his soul endures as he longs for the Living God. It’d be easy to miss verse 8 and the significance of it. Even though so many troubles and suffering has been stacked up against the psalmist he confesses this glorious truth: “by day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me”. At the command of the LORD our days are filled with the steadfast love of the LORD. Do you see His goodness? Here are some of the evidences of His commanded steadfast love:

  • the fact you are alive

  • the fact you are speaking to Him and He is commanding His love to you

  • the fact you are able to remember His goodness when you struggle

  • the fact you are anticipating renewed times of worship

  • the fact that He is your salvation

  • go ahead. Add to this list, your own experiences, the evidences that the LORD has commanded His steadfast love towards you.

At night His song is with you—that is how verse 8 continues. Think of these beautiful words:
     The LORD your God is in your midst,
     a mighty one who will save;
     he will rejoice over you with gladness;
     he will quiet you by His love;
     he will exult over you with loud singing.
     Zephaniah 3:17 ESV
After these beautiful words there is the promise that the LORD will gather His people once again for worship and He will restore their fortunes. The point is this, whether you can hear Him or not, the LORD our God sings lullaby’s over His people at night. The loud war cries of verse 14 have ended in His victory and now He tends to His battle weary people, approaching them with songs in the night, because the terrors of war have ended. The LORD has got you in the grip of His grace and you can sleep in peace because He will quiet you with His love.

The Psalm ends with the same refrain of verse 5. The Psalmist is using his voice to command his emotions, he is preaching to his soul the salvation of God. Read verse 11 again. He is taking the words of the Bible, the gift of the Spirit of God, to speak God’s encouragement to his situation. In I Samuel 30:6 you read “But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God”. He was in the middle of a near mutiny by his soldiers, enemies had raided his camp and carried off their all the wives and children of the men with David and David’s own two wives were taken captive. Their supplies and their possessions were gone But David strengthened himself in the LORD. I wonder, did he use words like those we read in Psalm 42?

You have promised, O LORD, to command Your steadfast love towards us by day and night Your song will be with us. Help us to hear this music of heaven. King Jesus, Captain of Salvation, by the powerful presence of Your Spirit in us, help us preach to our soul the powerful truth of Scripture found here in this Psalm. Help us to declare it over and over until we are comforted and renewed in our confident hope of Your past victories and Your final, quickly approaching victory, when sin and death will be no more. Amen.

https://youtu.be/4iPIi7sunEU?si=CZ1g7dp3h5ufFhGq “No More Night” David Phelps

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