Rev. David Holwick
First Baptist Church
West Lafayette, Ohio
September 28, 1986
Don't Give Up Yet
Psalm 30
It was one of those situations you never think will happen to you, but you know it can. Harry Cole was a pastor of a Presbyterian church in Maryland. His wife Jacqueline suddenly had a stroke. This happens to hundreds of thousands of people a year, and many of them recover. But Jackie did not. Soon she lapsed into a deep coma. Her coma was so bad she had to be placed on a respirator.
What would you do in a situation like this? The Coles had talked it over years before and they both decided neither of them wanted to live on a machine.
After she had been on the respirator 41 days, Rev. Cole went to a judge and asked that his wife's machines be unplugged. But the judge wouldn't do it. He said the law gave him no guidelines in this kind of situation, so he refused to do anything. All Pastor Cole could do was sit by his wife. She wasn't really alive, but neither was she dead. And he had no power to do anything about it.
It's a terrible thing to be in a hopeless situation. Every direction you look, things seem bleak. And it seems like it will always be that way, it will never change. If you ever feel like this, keep one thing in mind - don't forget God. The testimony of the Bible is that God can deliver us, he can lift us up, even when things seem totally hopeless.
Hopelessness is not an uncommon feeling. We all experience it at one time or another. My sermon on Psalm 88 showed that believers can get depressed, and depression can last a long time. We all have to face up to the fact that life is hard. And what is worse is that the hardness is not evenly distributed. Some people seem to get more than their share, and they don't seem to deserve it.
The writer of this psalm, King David, had his share of trouble. It's a wonder he lived as long as he did. Every nation in the Middle East was out to get him. Half of his sons tried to kill him at one time or another. On top of this he endured many setbacks and failures.
On this occasion he seems to be suffering from a severe illness. Sickness is something we tend to take in stride. If we don't feel well, we just go to a doctor or the hospital. We expect we'll soon get better. That's why we buy all that health insurance. To us, most sickness is little more than a conversa5ion piece.
But David had no hospital. He had to tough it out. The hardest thing to him was not the physical pain but the emotional trauma. According to verse 1, a big concern was the gloating of his enemies. Maybe they were thinking David was finally being punished like he deserved.
It was a serious illness. Verse 3 tells us he thought he was at the edge of the grave. This wasn't what he preferred. In a previous sermon, I explained how the Jews had only a few glimpses of heaven. When it came to serving God and having fellowship with Him, they put almost all the emphasis on this life. Throughout the psalms, the words death, grave, pit and sheol are used interchangeably. All of them have a very negative feeling. You could say that to a Jew, anything that threatened life was a power from hell.
Some people nowadays have the same idea, but with a twist. We'll all heard someone say that the only Hell we'll ever see is right here on earth. Most of those who say this are in for a big surprise. God's final wrath will be lot's worse that what you go through here. But there is a grain of truth to it. This life we're in can get pretty bad. It can have many of the elements of hell - loneliness and isolation. (Your beer buddies may go to hell with you, but don't expect many heavy partying to go on for eternity.) Both hell and life can have a feeling that everything is closing in and becoming dark. And both can be filled with tremendous pain.
There are people on earth who think they are in hell, that things can't possibly get any worse. There may be someone in this sanctuary who feels the same way. During his illness, King David had experienced this.
But something happened. David thought he was a goner, but God healed him. In verse 3 he says he was brought up. The Hebrew expression here was used of buckets being drawn up from a deep, dark well.
When life gets really bleak, we figure it's always going to be that way. The pain is never going to go away. But if you believe in God, don't count on it. He has a tendency to deliver us from unbearable situations. When you think there's no reason to hope, think again.
Rev. Cole had asked the judge to unplug the life support systems from his wife Jackie. All 4 children agreed. In his mind she was as good as dead. She was just a vegetable. For some reason, the judge refused. All Pastor Cole could do was wait for the inevitable.
He didn't have to wait long. Six days later, his wife woke up. In his own words, he was shocked. He asked her if she was awake. She nodded yes. He asked her to smile. And she did. He kissed her and asked her to kiss back. She did that, too. She continued recovering for the past 3 months. Jackie has some memory loss, and her fingers are not coordinated. But she's far from dead.
Most of us will never experience such dramatic healing. But in any situation, things can get better. David puts it all in perspective in verse 5. It's a verse that believers have treasured for centuries. God'' anger may come on us for a moment. But his favor lasts a lifetime. We may weep at night. But joy can come in the morning.
Nothing is life is so terrible it will never end. If you hang on, it's bound to get better. When a loved one dies, you never think you'll get through the initial shock. It's horrible. But God can heal it. You'll hurt, and you'll cry, and you'll get angry at God, but He will heal you in His good time.
This is one of the greatest promises in the Bible. No matter how bad things get, God can pull us out. He not only heals what's bad, he also replaces it with happiness. Even if you thought you'd never be happy again.
We should always keep in mind that the healing and the joy come from God. It's easy to forget. In verse 6 David says: "And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved." In my "prosperity" - whenever this word is used in the Old Testament, it means a material security that tends to become complacent. We do well and start to think it's our own accomplishment, not God's gift. Our material security soon becomes a false security. As David had put it "I shall never be moved."
His illness changed all this. In verse 7 he gives all the credit to God. It is God's favor that makes his life stand strong. If God ever turns away from him, he's in trouble.
Verse 9 has a great significance. It appears that David is doubting there's an afterlife. He is certainly asking tough questions. His argument boils down to this; God, if I die, you lose a worshipper and don't gain anything.
What's interesting is that David is considering God's interests, not his own. The questions of verse 9 are good ones. Every Christian is going to have questions about why God does things like he does. Why does there have to be so much pain before the joy comes? Why does there have to be pain at all? We're going to wonder if God knows what he's doing.
We have questions, but the answers belong to God. Even Jesus had questions In John 12:27 he asks: "Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, Glorify thy name." He didn't want to suffer. But he knew his father had a reason for it. So he committed himself to his father.
Have you? Ask the Lord to be with you in whatever situation you are in.
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
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