The Tear Collector

No wonder he sings over in verse 10.

Look there. This I know, he says, my enemies will turn back in the days when I call, verse 9, this I know that God is for me. That is an incredible statement of faith because when it's dark and difficult, you're tempted to think God isn't for me. What have I done? You know, I probably deserve this. I deserve to be alone.

I deserve to be rejected. I deserve to have his back turned against me. No, no, God is for me. Have you ever felt that God was against you? Or maybe he wasn't against you, but he certainly wasn't paying attention.

If he was, you wouldn't be having the problems you're having. Well, you're going to be encouraged from God's Word today. We all know the simple truth that sometimes life comes with trials and difficulties. There are things that make us fearful and things that make us sad.

Here's the key truth. God knows all of that and God cares deeply. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Today, Stephen is taking us to Psalm 56. We're going to look at how God responds to our fears and trials.

God never loses sight of the things you face and God's Word will show us that today. On July 17, 1999, if you're old enough to remember reading the news, 38-year-old John F. Kennedy Jr., the son of our 35th President of the United States, made headlines, but it wasn't good news. The night before, he had piloted his single-engine Saratoga from New Jersey.

He was heading to a little island off the coast of Massachusetts called Martha's Vineyard and he had with him his wife and his sister-in-law. On this particular night, the fog had settled in and John had only logged 310 hours of flight, which isn't much at all. In fact, he wasn't even finished with his instrument training. He was confident, overconfident.

He'd done it several times before. The man who was writing this particular article said when you're a pilot, you can be fooled by your senses, especially when it's dark. You can lose your bearing. In fact, you can be heading downward thinking you're flying level. You can be flying up thinking you're flying left and banking when you think you're level. From what occurred, evidently, from the investigation, if a pilot, he said, trusts his instrument panel, he can't go wrong, but if he trusts his senses, it can be dangerous and fatal.

The investigation that followed, the radar showed that he was right on course. He was headed for the airstrip, but just 20 miles out, he began to make a series of strange turns back and forth away from that airstrip. And he went into what is called a graveyard spiral and then minutes crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, 16 miles away from Martha's Vineyard. According to investigators, he had lost his sense of equilibrium and direction.

He had either ignored or didn't understand his instrument panel readings, and certainly the panic of those last few moments he didn't even think to turn on his autopilot, which would have leveled him back out. The psalmist is writing a poem about that kind of experience. He is flying into darkness. He's going to talk about how easy it is to lose equilibrium and a sense of direction. And he's going to write about something we all experience in a way in our Christian experience. He's flying into trouble in the dark. He's going to put his poem to music, and it's going to become a classic.

It's going to become a classic, simply because we've all experienced this kind of thing. Turn to Psalm 56, and God, because he inspires this, wants it to become part of our instrument panel so that we can trust this when our senses tell us differently. Now you'll notice in very small print, just above verse one, I haven't taken any time in our studies and psalms to talk about this.

This is what's called a subscription. It's in small print, just above verse one. You'll notice it says, to the choir master, or to the choir director. Several hundred years, by the way, before the birth of Jesus Christ, Jewish scholars carefully wrote notations into the text that came down through the centuries. It isn't part of the inspired original text, but it was used to help the student of scripture locate that song in a context historically.

And it passed down generation after generation. This particular psalm, you'll notice at the last line of the subscription, says that this occurred, or he wrote this after or around the time when the Philistines had seized him in Gath. Now you can read all about that rather dangerous flight, but let me give you a quick review if you're younger in the faith.

Those of you older in the faith may have read it already. It's where David is alone. It's before he has gathered his 300 faithful companions at army.

He's running for his life. Saul wants to kill this heir apparent to the throne of Israel. There's little doubt that David is going to flee to Gath because he rightly assumes that the last place that Saul would ever think he'd gone to hide was the hometown of a giant named Goliath that he had killed a few years earlier. To make it even more ironic and dangerous for David, Samuel records that just a few days before running to Gath, David has gone to a village, and it's the village of Nob where they have a priestly establishment set up, and he asks the priest if he has any weapons. David doesn't even have his sling.

Do you have any weapons I can use? He's panicked, he's frantic, and the priest says, well, yeah, we had an offering given a praise going back to, well, you know, that event. And we've kept it. It's wrapped in a cloth. It's Goliath's sword.

It's probably still stained with the giant's blood here. And David arrives in Gath carrying the murder weapon. Can you imagine, in fact, one author said that this reveals his entire loss of orientation and equilibrium.

This is the context from which this song is going to come. Now, you'll notice back at the subscription, this says it's a mikhtum of David. That Hebrew word mikhtum means literally to engrave. This is one of those psalms that's going to become an instrument panel for the believer from David's generation to ours, and you don't want it to wear out. This is how you fly level.

This is how you gain equilibrium and strength when you're flying into the darkness of trouble. This subscription then sets the context and you'll notice one other thing I want to point out, it says for the choir master. That next phrase, by the way, no one really knows what that means to this day. They don't know if it's an instrument or it's the meter or the speed or whatever.

They just don't know. For the choir director is a little clearer from history. We know from biblical history that the choir master had special cupboards in what would become the temple. In those cupboards, there would be articles, there would be musical instruments, articles used for the offerings, instrumentation. That's where the orchestra kept their trumpets and flutes. And in there would be the scrolls of music that they would learn. And give it to the choir master meant you wanted it to be kept safe, because he had the key to those cupboards.

In fact, he was the only one who had the key. This is to be engraved certainly on our hearts. Now, we better get into the psalm, pass the subscription.

But I want you to notice verse one. Be gracious to me, God, for man has trampled upon me. Fighting all day long, he oppresses me. My foes have trampled upon me all day long, for they are many who fight. And they're proud about it as they fight against me. When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you.

I love the realism, by the way, of that admission. I'm outnumbered, I'm being trampled on. I'm never going to make it out of Gath alive. And I am afraid, when I am afraid. Not if I'm ever afraid, but when.

You ought to just go ahead and you might even circle that word when. When I am afraid. David isn't going to be invited to too many testimony meetings if he talks like that. Shouldn't he be saying, because I trust in God, I am never ever afraid. I am never afraid. Well, you might look down at verse four, he does add, in God I have put my trust. But note, I shall not be afraid.

You need to picture him clenching his teeth as he writes that. He's sort of saying, I will not be afraid. I am, but I will not be afraid. I am, but I will not be afraid.

I will not. David is effectively teaching us through his own experience that faith does not eliminate fear. In fact, faith might be most clearly seen when you act in faith while in the midst of being afraid. Trust does not eliminate trouble. I mean, who among us trusts God more? The one who trusts him when the sun is shining? Or the one who trusts him when the fog is rolled in and obscured the lights of the shoreline where you hope to land safely? That kind of context takes trust. Now, I love what he does here.

He speaks even with further realism. Notice the last line of verse four. We'll start at verse four.

In God, whose word I praise, in God I have put my trust. I shall not be afraid. What can mare man do to me? What can mare man do to me? And you might think that David wants us all to say nothing, David. Praise God, man can do nothing, but that's not what he does. He spends the next two verses telling us what mare man can do to him.

Look at the list, verse five. All day long, they distort my words. That is, they twist my words, they misinterpret my words. All their thoughts are against me for evil. In other words, they make it clear they wish I were dead. They attack, they lurk. In other words, they're always intimidating me with their words.

These aren't physical attacks yet, but verbal. They misinterpret him, they malign him. He writes, they lurk, they watch my steps. David will go on to give us what I've whittled down into three observations. We'll call them three principles from this inspired instrument panel of God's word. They become his source of hope, his source of encouragement, his equilibrium.

Let me give them to you. Principle number one, God's word is consistently appropriate for every trouble. I want you to notice how often David finds confidence in the word of God. In God, verse four, whose word I praise. If you go over to verse eight or verse 10, in God, whose word I praise.

In the Lord, whose word I praise. Now keep in mind, by the way, that when he says, when he refers to the word of God, he's referring to all the word he had. All he had was the Torah. He had the first five books of the Old Testament. He didn't have his own personal copy, but he probably memorized much of it as a little boy as they did.

He had certainly heard it, expounded. He probably had a little bit of Joshua. He perhaps might have heard the book of Judges read and the heroic feats of these and failures of these men. Those books were sufficient to bring David, however, to praise God for his word. Those books were enough to give him a sense of God's holiness and God's grace and God's creative power and God's atoning plan and God's faithful covenant and God's love and more. But he's got Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Can you imagine if David can find in those few books what he needed to trust in the wisdom of God, how about us?

We have 66 of them, all bound together. And you've found it to be true, haven't you? That when the lights are turned out and the fog settles in, the best thing you can do is go to the word and you have found it true, haven't you?

That it is consistently appropriate for what you need. You find it is indeed, through tears at times, sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. Psalm 19. God's word is consistently applicable to every season.

Rule number two. God is consciously aware of every trail. Now I'm specifically using the word trail instead of trial because that's exactly what David is referring to. Look at the first phrase of verse eight.

I love this statement. You have taken account of my wanderings. The Hebrew word wanderings comes from a verb that refers to a wandering trail of someone experiencing rejection or grief or sorrow. And if you look at the last part of verse eight, he talks about the fact that God is keeping a record of those wanderings in his book.

Think of it in terms of a diary or maybe a personal journal. This is deeply personal language that tells us without any question that God is not some distant sovereign out there who's, you know, kind of map things out and then he expects you to stay on task and, you know, give it your best shot and I'll check in every so often with you. Now David is saying he's keeping a close look, a journal account of my trail. Every step he tracks, every step I take. God is consciously aware of your trail. Thirdly, God is compassionately attentive to your tears. Go back to verse eight again. You've taken account of my wanderings. You've put my tears in your bottle.

Are they not in your book? It wasn't until I traveled to Israel and I saw in one particular shop a collection of these, these little miniature vases. This one's made of glass. It's green. If I cleaned it, it would probably be translucent.

You could probably see easily into it and perhaps through it. This one here is about 2,000 years old, most expensive thing I have in my study. And in ancient days and in the Roman Empire, people would craft and purchase these little delicate instruments and I've seen pictures of them in my research. Some of them have jewels on them and some are gold and just amazing how much money people can spend on anything, but very, very expensive.

Some would be plain. It's probably somewhat in the middle, probably a middle class tear bottle and it's called a lacrimatory, a lacrimatory. Never heard of it. A friend of the family bought this for me and I keep it in my study. Simple vase, as you can see, a long neck and here where the tears would collect and here at the top, it's flared. You can come up after the service and see it, but it's flared out and it's designed for someone to press it to their cheek and catch their tears. I did some study on this and found that these were fairly normal at a funeral procession in Roman days. Friends would bring along their lacrimatory and as they walked, they would collect their tears and then they would give them to the family of the deceased as a token of their love.

They would find these in graveyards next to headstones as an offering of their sorrow. It was common for wives of Roman soldiers to collect their tears as they struggled with the length of time that they had seen their husbands. Sometimes it would be years and when their husbands would return, they would show them a bottle full of tears. In fact, we have discovered one particular document that revealed marital unrest because a soldier came home and his wife's tear bottle was empty. Tear bottles would become companions to people in grieving.

You could see your tears, so to speak. So David is referring really to a common practice in his day that hasn't been around in our day for at least 100 plus years, I have read. But here's the interesting point that David is making. Notice that God is the one holding the bottle to your cheek. It is God who is collecting your tears. It's as if David is saying he has a bottle just for your tears and he hasn't missed catching one of them.

He's caught every one of them. You see, the tender picture of our caring God is one who is deeply interested in your trouble and in your trail and in your tears, so much so that he's effectively keeping all of them. You know, it struck me as wonderful that we have a promise.

You already way ahead of me? We have a promise in heaven. There will be no more what? Tears. Tears.

Now, I've thought long and hard about that. I think we will weep because we weep for joy and we weep. Sometimes we shed tears of happiness.

I think there's going to be a lot of that when we're all struck. I think what he's referring to is there will be no tears of sorrow, no tears of grief, no tears of loneliness. These tears are forever done away. No tears of hurt, no tears of rejection or confusion.

Lacrimatories will be a thing of the past forever, but in the meantime, I don't want you to miss this implication either. David isn't saying that this is your tear bottle that you're giving to God as you walk this trail. No, this is his bottle he keeps for you. He's a bottle with your name on it. Which means, beloved, that you have never ever nor will you ever cry alone.

You have never shed one tear alone. David is moved to praise God. He shifts his focus from what people think about him to what God thinks about him.

You want to get your equilibrium? Stop thinking about what people think about you and what God thinks about you. Stop thinking about how little people think about or care about you and just pause and think about how much God cares about you. No wonder he sings over in verse 10, look there, this I know, he says, my enemies will turn back in the days when I call, verse 9, this I know that God is for me. That is an incredible statement of faith because when it's dark and difficult, you're tempted to think God isn't for me.

What have I done? You know, I probably deserve this. I deserve to be alone, I deserve to be rejected, I deserve to have his back turned against me. No, no, God is for me. As one of his children, this I know God is for me, that is for my good, my redemption. In fact, verse 13, he talks about for my eternal fellowship with him one day in the light. He's not against me. God is for me. Then, in God whose word I praise, in the Lord whose word I praise, notice again the refrain, here's the chorus, it's repeated now.

Verse 11, in God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me? Now notice, no list following this time, no list. What can man do to me? Earlier, let me tell you what man can do to me.

Now, no list, why? Because he's got his equilibrium and has reflected on the fact that what man does to him is nothing in comparison with what God is doing with him and for him. And when we are mesmerized and amazed and captured by what God does for us, it minimizes what others do to us. God is for me. I talked to a sweet couple, they put me on speakerphone, part of our church, they've been surprised beyond their wildest imagination eight weeks ago, not a care in the world really beyond the hustle and bustle, a new home, a family, a little boy and all of that and their own family circus and following a routine physical and a strange little lump, suddenly a myriad of tests and cancer discovered that has already invaded her bones. Their trust is incredible to me. The husband said to me over speakerphone, he said, you know, Steve and I have taken so many things from God for granted, just kind of going through the motions.

He said, not, not now. God is doing some wonderful things in us. These precious family members of ours, yours and mine are more in tune with the spirit of God than ever before.

They're flying by the instrument panel of this kind of song. God knows, God cares. That was an incredibly encouraging message from God's word, and I hope it blessed you today. Thanks for listening to Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Do you know somebody else who needs to hear this lesson?

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