Light and Darkness

Psalm 25

Lutheran theologian Martin Marty read through the Psalms with his wife during her long ordeal with cancer. She had to wake at midnight to take medication to combat the nausea caused by chemotherapy. It took a while for both of them to go back to sleep, and Dr. Marty would read the psalms aloud. One night she caught him skipping Psalm 88. Some have called it the one Psalm that seems to have no hope; it ends with the thought that "darkness is my only companion" or "darkness is my closest friend." "Why did you skip that psalm?" his wife demanded. Marty told her he wasn't sure she could take Psalm 88 that night. "Go back. Read it," she said. "If I don't deal with the darkness, the others won't shine out."

In a book on the Psalms he later wrote, Dr. Marty suggests that two-thirds of the psalms are "wintry in tone"—that is, filled with darkness and despair.

That is not true of all of the Psalms. Psalm 1 says that everything the godly person does will prosper. And the last Psalm shouts out "Praise the Lord!" But in between there are many troubles and trials that face the godly. John Calvin wrote that in the Psalms the Holy Spirit has here "drawn to life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which the minds of men are agitated."

Even in those Psalms that are the brightest and happiest there are glimpses of trouble. In the beloved Psalm 23 we read of the "valley of the shadow of death." And there are dark, wintry statements in Psalm 25. There are "enemies" who hate David, the psalm writer, with "violent hatred." There is a troubling sense of sin in David's own heart, as he recalls "the sins of [his] youth." And the Psalmist is, as he writes, "lonely and afflicted." "The troubles of [his] heart are enlarged."

But that is not all the Psalm is about. There is a light that shines in the darkness. David begins by saying, "To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God in you I trust." He says, "You are the God of my salvation." "Good and upright is the Lord." "All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness."

Three hundred years before Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, there was an earlier reformation centering in the high mountains between France and Italy, where people called the Waldensians preached and lived the gospel of God's grace as they found it in the Bible. During the great persecution they endured, their motto became: "Light shines in darkness."

This is the message of Psalm 25, of the Bible, of the Waldensians, of our own lives if we know the Lord: light shines in darkness. John's Gospel tells us that the Word, Jesus, is the light and "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:5).

But let us look at the darkness, the trouble, the problems, David faced so that we, too, can appreciate the light when it shines in the darkness.

First, there are—

1. Enemies

David's enemies appear quickly, in verse 2. They are "wantonly treacherous" (verse 3). They are numerous:"Consider how many are my foes "—verse 19). They hate David "with violent hatred" (verse 19).

David's enemies were not just irritating people who had offended him in some trivial way. They were out to destroy him and undermine all that he stood for as God's King in Israel.

Our real enemies are those who hate and attack our Christian faith and mock and protest our Christian standards and testimony. Do you have enemies like that?

Throughout history—and perhaps never more than today—there are Christian brothers and sisters who are martyrs (the word means witnesses) for Christ. Theologian B. B. Warfield paid tribute to those who "bore their witness despite cross and sword, fire and raging beasts" in the early centuries of the church's history. Warfield then asked the question: "Must not we, too, steadfastly bear our witness to the truth assailed in our time? There may be no more fires lighted for our quivering flesh: are there no more temptations to a guilty silence or a weak evasion?"

Perhaps if we were better Christians, we would have more enemies. But we must be sure that our enemies are God's enemies, and that God's enemies are our enemies.

What can we do? What did the Psalmist do?

He tells God about it—"To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust" (1,2). The old hymn, "What a Friend we have in Jesus," repeats the words over and over, "Take it to the Lord in prayer." We can do what David did, we can take it to the Lord in prayer, and then, like Luther, we can know that God is great enough to handle all his and our enemies.

Luther knew many enemies—popes and princes, the devil and all his demons. On his way to Worms to face the Emperor and the leaders of Germany, he said that he would go there even though he would be opposed by as many demons as tiles on the housetops of that town. He wrote in his great hymn, "A Mighty Fortress,"

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,

We will not fear, for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us,

The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him;

His rage we can endure, for lo! his doom is sure;

One little word shall fell him.

Don't worry about these enemies—the people who hate God and write books about how Christianity ruins everything. Don't worry about those people who look down on you or criticize you because you are a Christian. Do what David did. "To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul." What a great light shines in the darkness of the hatred and hostility of this world toward God's people everywhere. Let us remember that in this country that hatred is somewhat veiled and hidden; in other places our brothers and sisters are suffering torture and death because of their faith. Let us pray for them too. For that is how the Psalm ends. "Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles."

The Psalmist also struggled with the burden of—

2. Guilt

Three times in Psalm 25 David returns to this troubling problem. In verse 7, he prays, "Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions." He prays in verse 11, "For your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great." In verse 18 he prays, "Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins."

David cannot get his sins out of his mind. He cannot forget them. Perhaps you cannot either. Perhaps you wonder, "Has God really forgiven me?" Perhaps your sins—past and present—trouble you. Perhaps they keep you awake at night.

What can we do? We can do what David did. What does David do? He prays, "Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions."

In his new book on Prayer, Philip Yancey tells a story about a minister in the Philippines. A woman informed him that she had a message from God. He brushed her off several times, but she kept coming back. Finally he said, "I need to test your authenticity. I want you to go back and ask God about a particular sin I confessed in private. If you ask God and he tells you the answer, I'll know your vision is genuine." The next week she returned and he quizzed her a bit nervously, "Well, did you ask God about my sin?" "I did." "And did God answer?" "Yes." "What did he say?" "God said that he couldn't remember."

Our sins are indeed dark and troubling, but they disappear in the shining light of God's goodness and steadfast love. "The "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not—and cannot—overcome it."

The threat of enemies, the burden of guilt—but there is more. The Psalmist is "lonely and afflicted" (16). "The troubles of my heart are enlarged," he says (17).

There is also all kinds of—

3. Trouble

Like David we have experienced the hatred of those who hate God. We know, too, the fears of our own sinful hearts. And we, too, are afflicted by troubles of all kinds.

In reviewing a book about the life of a Christian woman, novelist Dorothy Steinke wrote in the New York Times Book Review that what she liked about the book was its realism. "It wasn't candy-coated." Religion doesn't solve all our problems. On the contrary, she wrote, "you get religion and you get more problems." God doesn't keep us from trouble; he doesn't keep trouble from us.

David asks God not to remember his sins, but he also asks God not to forget him. "Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord." God doesn't remember our sins, but he does remember us. He forgets our sins, but he will never forget us.

There is a framed scripture text right at the front door of our house. It is from Solomon's prayer in 1 Kings 8:56—"Not one word has failed of all his good promise." For many years that verse hung on the wall of my wife's parents house. When Anne's mother died last summer at the age of 97, we placed the beautiful inscription on the wall of our entrance room. Anne's parents lost their youngest son and Anne lost a dear brother, when he was a high school student, in a car accident. In the midst of their grief, Anne's father and mother selected this verse to sum up what had happened to them: "Not one word has failed of all his good promise." That was difficult to understand at first—even impossible—but gradually the light began to shine in the darkness and they saw, they understood, they believed that indeed "not one word has failed of all his good promise."

Psalm 25 is marked throughout by a patient waiting, an enduring trust, even when enemies attack, and sins afflict, and troubles overwhelm. At the end of the Psalm, David is still waiting, still trusting, enduring, continuing, persevering. "I wait for you," he writes in verse 21. God doesn't always help us right away; He doesn't defeat our enemies at once. He doesn't immediately bring us the assurance of forgiveness. He doesn't take away all our troubles when we want him to. But he does. He will.

"The "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not—and cannot—overcome it."

Prayer

Our Father, in you we trust. Let us not be put to shame. Defeat all your enemies, all the enemies of your people and of your truth.

Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love. Forgive us our sins, and make us to know your ways, for you are the God of our salvation.

Be with those who are experiencing deep trouble—the lonely and afflicted, the hurt and the disappointed, the fearful and the sick. Turn to them, O Lord, and be gracious to them.

And enable us all, our Father, to wait for you—to wait in joy and with calm and patient hearts—knowing that you will not fail us, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.