"Get Me Back to Church!": Psalm 43
In Psalm 43 the psalmist pleads for deliverance from his enemies, and he longs to be restored to corporate worship. The psalm has great relevance for our own times. We may not presently be prevented from corporate, or public, worship by enemies like the psalmist was, but in recent years many of us have known the loss of it, if only for a short time.
In the psalm, great weight is placed on public worship, perhaps so much weight that we may be unable to fully identify with it. The psalmist can't be happy without it. His passion for public, not just private, worship provides a convicting lesson—worshiping God publically is top priority, even over personal comfort.
Psalm 43 is short and divides nicely into two parts, so let’s look at his prayer for deliverance (1-2) and his longing for worship (3-4). Then we’ll reflect on how the psalm should apply to New Testament believers.
Prayer for Deliverance
Vindicate me, O God,
And plead my cause against an ungodly nation;
Oh, deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man!
For You are the God of my strength;
Why do You cast me off?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? (Psa. 43:1-2)
In these verses the psalmist pleads for deliverance in two special ways that might be counterintuitive to us.
The psalmist argues for why he should be delivered.
He says "deliver me … for You are the God of my strength” (2). His basis for expecting deliverance could mean “you are my strong God,” or “You are the God who gives me strength.” Both are true, and both emphasize that God is almighty and does not hoard His resources for Himself but uses His power to love and protect His people.
The relational aspect of the argument must not be missed. He presupposes that his covenant with God gives him a claim on God's lovingkindness. His words are not far from the sentiment, "We're in a relationship, so you have to do kind things for me." That’s bold, and it might be impertinent if the speaker were presumptuous. But God tells His people— “Blessed are all those who put their trust in [me]” (Psa. 2:12) and “[I am] a shield for all who trust in [me]” (Psa. 18:30). The psalmist therefore is embracing God's promises and using them to make a case before God. He’s not impertinent at all; he’s praying God’s promises.
The psalmist asks why he suffers.
And yet, the psalmist prays, “Why do You cast me off?” His misery seems to conflict with God’s promises. He’s wondering, “Why should my enemies be so successful in making me miserable, when I have You as my strong God?”
You might reply to him: “God is not casting you off. God uses hardships to develop endurance and purify our faith” (James 1; 1 Pet. 1). That’s good counsel, but undoubtedly the psalmist already knows it. So why is he asking at all? Is he backslidden? No, we should not expect to learn God’s truths as if we can “get them down pat” and move on.
The Christian life is not a one-time lesson in school. It is living through hardships, being reminded of our vulnerability, and reasserting God’s glorious truths over and over. It is like keeping a torch lit so you can hold it aloft as you navigate your way through the long dark cave of a fallen world. As we face hardship again and again, we ask hard questions again and again, and we appeal to God's mercies again and again.
In sum, the psalmist prays for deliverance, grounds his prayer on God’s covenanted strength, and asks the poignant question “why?” not to doubt God, but en route to refreshing his faith in God during his current circumstance. “I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God” (5).
Why Should We Sing Psalms
Joel R. Beeke gives nine reasons why churches ought to return to the ancient practice of psalm singing. Here you will find the biblical basis, the experiential benefits, and the sheer beauty and glory of singing psalms.
Restoration to Public Worship
The psalmist wanted deliverance, but when he speaks of the results of that deliverance, he dwells on reunion with God in public worship.
Oh, send out Your light and Your truth!
Let them lead me;
Let them bring me to Your holy hill
And to Your tabernacle.
Then I will go to the altar of God,
To God my exceeding joy;
And on the harp I will praise You,
O God, my God. (Psa. 43:3-4)
The psalmist wants to go “to Your tabernacle.”
The tabernacle was God’s ordained place of public worship. You might say that the psalmist longs to “go back to church.” John Calvin commented on these verses—“He places the height of all his enjoyments in this, that he might be at liberty to take part in the exercises of religion, and to worship God in the sanctuary” FOOTNOTE: John Calvin, Commentary, vol. V Psalm 36-92 (repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), 1:146. That aptly describes the psalmist’s attitude—public worship is “the height of all his enjoyments.”
The psalmist wants to go “to the altar of God.”
This point needs to be handled with care, for God does not ordain that New Testament believers have priests or a physical altar. These Old Testament elements had built-in obsolescence and are fulfilled in Christ. Christ is our high priest and propitiation (Heb. 7:25-27). His death on the cross was our once-for-all sacrifice. The New Testament ordinances put the message of the cross at the center of all. Without Christ we are “without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12), but with Christ we have access to God (Eph. 3:12). The language about going to the altar should remind us to go to the Father through Jesus Christ.
The psalmist says going to the altar is going to God.
He conceives of the altar as so closely tied to God, that going to it is the same as going to God. Note the wording—“I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy.” There are two points to be made here. First, once again, we have access to God through Christ. There is no other way to come to the Father (John 14:6). Second, we should think of going to the ordinances for public worship as an outward manifestation of enjoying our access to God. Modern people can very easily go to church primarily for social connections, to have someone to talk to, to get affirmation. But if these are our main reasons for going, we are man-centered. The ordinances say “hear from God, sing to God, give praise to God, pray to God, rely on God’s Christ and God’s Spirit.” Going to church should be all about worshiping God through Christ and by the Spirit.
The psalmist wants to sing.
“On the harp I will praise you.” Coming to God through His Son in obedience to His ordinances leads to expressing joy, in praise and in corporate worship. As we noted, he longs to “go back to church.” His heart is there. Public worship is top priority.
Let’s hasten now to reflect on the meaning of all this for us. The focus on the ordinances for public worship in the psalm provides an opportunity to ask an important question.
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Application: Do We Prize the Ordinances?
Modern Christians can often fail to value public worship. The reasons for this are many. Perhaps Christ’s words in John 4 about people worshiping God anywhere, and the Pharisees’ tendency toward ostentation, have been taken to conclusions God never meant. The fact is there are still ordinances, or divine commands, requiring and regulating public worship. We must not abandon church or practice it however we want. The Pharisees’ public pride does not justify privatizing religion. Bad practices should lead to reformation and not to eradication or innovation.
As we’ve seen, we don’t have a tabernacle or priesthood or sacrificial system, but we do have God’s commands for how to “do” church. What are the ordinances for the New Testament church? What should we be passionate about, as the psalmist is?
We are to sing God’s praise in church.
“Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Col. 3:16). The group-use of reciting and singing Scripture is clear in the New Testament (Mark 14:26; Acts 4:24-30). The church needs to recover psalm-singing, since it is an apostolic command. There are few things more edifying than singing Scripture in worship. The psalms help us deal with our unruly selves before God. They’re poetic, emotional, theological, Spirit-inspired devotions, and therefore they help us knead unmitigated truth deep into our souls.
We are to engage in the public reading of Scripture.
“Give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine” (1 Tim. 4:13). "Reading" refers to public reading, as seen in the Greek word (ἀναγνώσει), the immediate context, and by other passages (e.g. Col. 4:16). Public reading gives a congregation a wonderful opportunity to hush itself before the Lord and give a humble ear to God. Carried out consistently, and by the Spirit’s power, public reading can shape our attitudes to God, as well as our children’s. It is wondrous to behold dozens of people (or hundreds) quiet themselves before the Lord, still and attentive, to hear His Word.
We are to sit under Bible teaching and preaching.
Those who preach must be sent by God (Rom. 10:15), for not everyone is to preach (1 Cor. 12:29). God established the office of elder so that the church will continue to have teachers and preachers (Eph. 4:11; 1 Tim. 5:17; Heb. 13:7, 17). Many people today listen to other people’s elders and neglect to sit under their own. It is an important but oft-neglected distinction: God ordained not just preaching, but elders who preach to their congregations. We can listen to other good Bible teachers, too, for example online, but we must not neglect God’s ordinance. If we have joined a church, as we should, we have a pastor whose glorious task it is to teach and preach the Word to us; we must faithfully sit under his ministry.
We are to sit under ministry in a “conscionable” way.
This is the term used in the Westminster Confession (XXI. 5). Merely sitting with your mind wandering while the pastor preaches is to fall into externalism. We must listen to the Word with fear and humility (Isa. 66:2), with understanding (Matt. 13:19), with purpose (Acts 10:33), with faith (Heb. 4:2), and with a resolve to obey (James 1:22). Our heart, mind, soul, and strength should be engaged. We cannot take a passive role, as if listening to preaching were similar to being entertained.
We are to enjoy public prayer led by the teachers.
The apostles were (and through their writings still are) the teachers of the church; they emphasized their role—“We will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4). Ministering the Word is public, so praying should be too. Prayer should be carried out by men everywhere in the church (1 Timothy 2:8, 3:15). Women pray, too (1 Cor. 11:5), but Acts 6 points out that the teachers, now the pastors and teaching elders, lead by praying as well as by preaching.
We are to practice Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
Some churches reserve the term ordinance for these two. Others call all these above-mentioned practices by the term ordinances, and many reserve the term sacraments for these two. Whatever you call them, they are clearly commanded by the Lord for our (Matt. 28, 1 Corinthians 11). We will indeed be edified, by God’s grace, as long as we feed our faith upon the rich symbolism they teach.
We should be passionate about these ordinances, like the psalmist was about his. The Great Commission is carried out as an effort to establish local churches that practice them (e.g. Acts 14:23; 20:7). Biblically, to be excited about the Great Commission is to be excited about church planting and the ordinances. In fact, when Jesus commissioned the apostles to disciple all the nations, he added two explanatory phrases: "baptizing them … teaching them to observe" (Matt. 28:19, 20). There has been a lot of talk about discipleship in our generation, and there is a tendency to define it without referring to Scripture; it is therefore important to see that Jesus defined discipleship as carrying out the ordinances. He, like the psalmist, had a passion for public worship. So should we. We must not dismiss God's means of discipleship while we devise our own.
Church is glorious. But to see it as glorious you must perceive the meaning of God’s ordinances. Too often we look solely at the sinners gathered, and if that is all we see, then church looks like a spiritual sick ward (if we’re seeing the group as it really is, Matt. 5:3; 1 Tim. 1:15). But to look at the ordinances in faith, our eye will be upon the gracious medicine that God has given all of us sick people, for that is what the ordinances represent.
You can sense the sheer delight the psalmist has in public worship as God has ordained it. When was the last time you went to church and praised God with real relish? When was the last time you longed to worship God in the purity of His ordinances? If we need to reform, and strip off the accretions that have been layered on by well-meaning but mistaken generations before us, let us do so.
Sing the Psalms.
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