Psalm 43
Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people, from the deceitful and unjust man deliver me! For you are the God in whom I take refuge; why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling! Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God. 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.
Preach to yourself. But preach honestly—within yourself.
There is far too much ecstasy in the church. Ecstasy, from the Greek (έκ-στασις) means to stand outside of oneself. This is the “preaching” of a misguided Christian in which he feels compelled to put on a happy face when he knows, if he were honestly speaking of and to his own wicked heart, that he is a worthless, reprobate sinner.
Ecstatic preaching is the communication of a message centered in the glossy pretensions of a person’s own opinions. Someone steps outside himself and pretends to be something other than what God says of him. There is no call to act spiritually bouncy or religiously virile when the candid truth is that all those heinous things people may say of me are actually true.
In fact, there is nothing so terrible anyone might say about me that isn't actually better than the really awful truth. When ungodly enemies oppress me and the deceitful and unjust man torments me, I have no defense against it. He may take satisfaction in condemning me, but he doesn’t know the half of it.
Of course, God does. God knows all about me, and God is not going to countermand the unjust man on the one occasion he unknowingly stumbles into saying something accurate. For me to step outside myself and affect shock or indignation that someone should regard me as a black-hearted nasty piece of work, that would be sheer dishonesty.
I am black-hearted. I am a maggot. So what kind of a question is it to demand of God, “Why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
Why else? I deserve to be rejected.
What I need is not vindication from the reproach of other lying bastards. What I need is absolution through Christ from the God of our salvation. What I don’t need is defense against unjust liars and critics. But I do need defense against the righteous verdict of the one holy and righteous God.
“Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Matthew 10:28
What I need is for God to send me his light and his truth. Instead of interrogating God for letting other people abuse me when it could very well be him—instead be entreating him, “Send me a Savior!” That’s the essence of this prayer. God’s light and truth is Jesus Christ. (John 14:6) Let him lead me. Let him be within me preaching to the real me, preaching sin and grace, Law and Gospel, and death and resurrection.
May that reside within me— God’s light and truth. Then I don’t have to go ecstatically and gleefully skipping around outside myself like a ridiculous cricket chirping about myself and all the swell things I’ve done. There is entirely too much of that sort of nonsense going on in churches these days.
If we are going to go to the altar of God, to His holy hill and dwelling, it is to praise Him! We don’t enter the sanctuary of the Most High to step outside ourselves and take over the central place which belongs to Him. If I am to go into the hallowed house of God, He must bring me. He must atone for me. He must give his favor.
“THEN” – only as He leads me, may I praise him as I ought – not in some ecstatic frenzy, but in the holy joy of knowing my hope and salvation are in my God.
Then go back to preaching honestly to yourself. Interrogate yourself once, “Why are you cast down, O my soul and why are you in turmoil within me?” Knock it off. The Lord is my salvation!
