READ: Ps. 43:1–5: Send out Your light and Your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to Your holy hill … to God’s altar … my exceeding joy
There is much similarity with Psalm 42; also in Psalm 43 the poet is bowed down under a heavy burden, possibly on the same occasion. First we read of his complaint about Israel, which behaves so unsuitably for the people of God. There is injustice, deceit, even cruelty.
The poet lays this matter before the LORD to pronounce judgment on it, so that the LORD may put an end to the injustice and he may be delivered. Thus the poet teaches us that in times of attacks on church and faith we must always seek our help from the LORD. Only with Him is there strength and deliverance.
While the poet confesses this, there is at the same time the complaint that it seems that the LORD has cast him off. Why does he seem to be continually oppressed? Yet the poet does not remain in self-pity; he knows how there can be deliverance for him in his distress. If only he could return again to the sanctuary! With the LORD nothing is impossible. And where can he be better than with Him who is his God?
For this he prays: send out Your light and Your truth. This means: make it possible that I may appear before Your face in Zion, so that I may experience the light of Your love, lovingkindness, and deliverance, and that the truth of Your promises may again be confirmed to me.
The poet then immediately points to the thanks that he will render to the LORD at God’s altar. He will also sing his thanks and joy to Him with the sound of the harp.We may join in this song with amazement: this God is also my God!
Again the poet calls to himself from the certainty of God’s deliverance: why be so sorrowful when you have the certainty that God, as His child, will grant you deliverance? Is He not faithful, full of love, and also almighty? Is there ever reason to doubt God’s salvation if you love Him sincerely?
For us, because of Christ’s redemption, there is even more reason for that certainty in times of oppression. Rom. 8:37 says: “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”
When are we “more than conquerors”?
Singing: Ps. 43:3,4,5