A Song for the Sad (Psalm 88)

Transcript

JR 47
1/4/2026
A Song For the Sad
Psalm 88
Jesse Randolph

Joseph Bayly was a renowned figure in the Christian publishing world in the 1960’s and 1970’s. He and his wife, Marylou, were based in Chicago and they were blessed by the Lord in many different ways. They had a quiver full of children. Joseph had a high-ranking position with InterVarsity Press. But this family, you see, was not immune from tragedy or from grief. Quite the contrary, in fact.

For starters, their young son, Danny, died of leukemia when he was just five years old. As you can imagine, that rocked the family, it devastated them. But then came the hope of new life, as the Bayly’s soon found out that they were expecting another child, another son which of course was cause for great joy. But when the day came to meet their new son, they soon learned this new son had been born with a severe disability, they named him John. On the second day of John’s life, he passed away. Meaning, in the span of over just a year, the Bayly’s had lost two sons, two boys. But God wasn’t finished with them yet. In addition to their younger children, the Bayly’s had some older children in their quiver. Just a few years after the deaths of both Danny and John, their 18-year-old son, Joe, was in a freak sledding accident. Because Joe was a hemophiliac, the laceration he suffered proved to be fatal. As he bled out and died in the snow on a cold winter’s day. So, three sons, three funerals, three headstones, three distinct but interlocking waves of grief.

Later, Joseph, as a grieving father, would write his own poem of lament of having lost his three sons. In his poem, he wrote these words:
“Let me alone, Lord You have a heaven full of treasure; could you not wait to exercise your claim? O spare me, Lord, forgive, that I may see beyond this world, beyond myself, Your sovereign plan, or seeing not, may trust You, Spoiler of my treasure. Have mercy, Lord, here is my quitclaim.” Now, note how Joseph wove into that poem words of complaining. He said, “You have a heaven full of treasure; could you not wait to exercise your claim?” Words of accusation. He called God the “Spoiler of [his] treasure.” Words of fear and resignation. “Let me alone, Lord.” Words of prayer. “Have mercy, Lord.” And ultimately, words of trust. Where he asked the Lord for help to – “see beyond this world, beyond myself, Your sovereign plan.” What Joseph and Marylou Bayly learned the hard way through that staggering season of suffering and grief. Is that a life of faith is not always for the faint of heart. Instead, even for the faithful, there are days and there are times and there are seasons where it doesn’t seem like there’s going to be a light at the end of the tunnel but instead, only further darkness.

Well, prayerfully, through the text we’ll be in this morning, Psalm 88. The Spirit will work in each of our hearts, as He teaches us, and trains us, and equips us, to walk faithfully and enduringly through our various dark nights of the soul. If you haven’t already, turn with me in your Bibles, please, to Psalm 88. Which is widely regarded as one of the darkest passages in all of scripture. One theologian calls it “the black sheep of the Psalter.” I’ll go ahead and read the Psalm in full and then, we’ll work our way through it.
Psalm 88 – God’s Word reads:
“A Song. A Psalm of the sons of Korah. For the choir director. According to Mahalath Leannoth. A Maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.
O Yahweh, the God of my salvation, I have cried out by day and throughout the night before You. Let my prayer come before You; incline Your ear to my cry of lamentation! For my soul has been saturated with calamities, and my life has reached Sheol. I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like a man without strength, released among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom You remember no more, and they are cut off from Your hand. You have put me in the pit far below, in dark places, in the depths. Your wrath lies upon me, and You afflict me with all Your breaking waves. Selah.”
“You have removed my acquaintances far from me; You have set me as an abomination to them; I am shut up and cannot go out. My eye has wasted away because of affliction; I have called upon You every day, O Yahweh; I have spread out my hands to You. Will You do wonders for the dead? Will the departed spirits rise and praise You? Selah”
“Will Your lovingkindness be recounted in the grave, Your faithfulness in Abaddon? Will Your wonders be known in the darkness? And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?”
“But as for me, O Yahweh, I have cried out to You for help, and in the morning my prayer comes before You. O Yahweh, why do You reject my soul? Why do You hide Your face from me? I have been afflicted and about to breathe my last from my youth on; I bear Your terrors; I am overcome. Your burning anger has passed over me; Your horrors have destroyed me. They have surrounded me like water all day long; They have encompassed me altogether. You have removed lover and friend far from me; my acquaintances are in darkness.”

These probably aren’t the verses you’d send over text to your daughter on her birthday, to wish her a happy birthday. These likely aren’t the verses you’ve pledged to memorize in 2026. These aren’t the verses, as my old pastor used to say, that you’d likely find on the inside of a Dayspring card. No. This is a Psalm of lament, a Psalm of sorrow, a Psalm of anguish, of which there are many in the scriptures. Psalm 13:1, David says, “How long, O Yahweh? Will You forget me forever? How long will you hide Your face from me?” Or Psalm 22:1, David says, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” Or Psalm 77:3, Asaph says, “I remember God and I am disturbed . . .” Now, in each of those psalms, and there are several more. The author eventually gets to seeing the light, as he remembers some sort of key truth about God and His faithfulness. Which leads that Psalmist to pull up from his spiritual nosedive and start coasting along.

You know, in Psalm 13, for instance, David ultimately gets to the place, after saying “how long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” To saying, “But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness; my heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing to Yahweh, because He has dealt bountifully with me.” Or in Psalm 22, it is David again, and he goes from feeling forsaken, to saying this, in verses 9 and 10, “Yet You are He who brought me out of the womb You have been my God from my mother’s womb.” Then, in Psalm 77, Asaph, he regains his focus as well, he regains his perspective, and he says this, in verses 11-13, “I shall remember the deeds of Yah; surely, I will remember Your wonders of old. I will meditate on all Your work and muse on Your deeds. O God, Your way is holy; what god is great like our God?”

Well, in our passage for today, there is no such turnaround. There is no regaining of a bright or a sunny or a spiritual perspective. At no point in this Psalm, does the Psalmist change his tune as he suddenly remembers God’s goodness and God’s faithfulness. No. The author of Psalm 88, who we’ll meet in just a moment. He places us in this very dark room. While we might be feeling around for a light switch, we find that the walls are just totally smooth all around us. There’s no light at all. In fact, this Psalm, as we’ve read, literally ends in darkness verse 18, he says, “. . . my acquaintances are in darkness.” The word “darkness” literally gets the final word in this Psalm. So, the Psalmist pours out these words of lament. Then the Psalm just ends, on this dismal, depressing note. It ends with this horrible groan.

Now, some of you might be thinking, “Goodness, Jesse, couldn’t we start on a lighter note in 2026?” “What about the Gospel of Luke? Have you forgotten that book?” We will resume the study next Sunday. But I wanted to go here to Psalm 88, for a simple reason. A simple reason, just being the recognition of the fact that while a page on the calendar has turned and the year 2025 has ended and the year 2026 has begun. For some of you, as you turn to 2026, it’s not as simple as simply turning a page. No. For many here, the year 2025 was hard. It was really hard the sickness, or the diagnosis, or the relational strife, or the deceit, or the divorce, or the death.
For you, it was a year full of dark clouds, and very few of those clouds had any trace of a silver lining. For you, 2025 was one of those years where it felt like the Lord wasn’t near to you, but instead, was very far from you, very distant from you. Now, you’ve stumbled into the year 2026, not with a sense of joy or anticipation, but instead with these feelings of worry and anxiety. Perhaps even distrust and anger. Anger toward others, or anger toward the God who you know controls all things. Whether that describes you right now, or describes you eight months from now, as you encounter that sort of season of darkness and despair. This Psalm is for you.

Let’s go ahead and get into our verse-by-verse exposition in this sermon I’m calling “A SONG FOR THE SAD.” I’m calling that, because if you look at the superscription, those words right before verse 1, we do know that this is a song. It says: A Song”, a “Psalm of the sons of Korah.” What we just read off the pages of God’s Word, are a “song”. This is a song, meaning, these are words that were originally written for the purpose of being sung.

Now, we’ve had some real tear-jerking songs in our times. Right? I mean, Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven was written over the loss of his young child. You know, back in my generation, we had R.E.M’s Everybody Hurts. You know, every country song has some trace of a truck and a dog, and a bottle, and some aggrieved woman, and that’s just how it goes. But none of those songs holds a candle to the sadness that’s expressed here in this song in Psalm 88. The anguish in these words is raw and it’s unrelenting. there’s no cute theological bow tied at the end of these words. It’s really a song for the sad. A ballad for the bruised. The song’s words were written by a man, we see him here, named “Heman the Ezrahite.” Take a look at the rest of these words in the superscription. It says, “A Psalm of the sons of Kroah. For the choir director. According to Mahalath Leannoth. A Maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.”

So, first of all, this Psalm is a song “of the sons of Korah.” Now, Korah was this man who attempted to lead a rebellion, back in the days of Israel’s wilderness wanderings, back in Numbers 16. His descendants would end up having various tabernacle responsibilities in ancient Israel. One of the responsibilities they were given in the time of King David was that of songwriting. The sons of Korah were songwriters and this man, Heman, was one of the sons of Korah. In fact, in I Chronicles 6:33 we’re told that among the “sons of the Kohathites”, that’s another word for the sons of Korah – “. . . [was] Heman the singer.” So, he was a singer and he was a songwriter. The original “singer-songwriter type” and Psalm 88 was his song. Which he delivered, it says, to “the choir director.” The chief musician and he did so “according to Mahalath Leannoth.” We think that it might be some sort of tune or tempo of some sort. Which no doubt would have been sad and dark and dirge-like. It would have understandably matched the lyrics of the song. Meaning, this wouldn’t have been an upbeat sort of song. The music would have matched the content.

Now, a couple more important details about this man, Heman. We know he was a man of privilege and a man of blessing. He was praised as a man of wisdom in I Kings 4:31. He was descried in I Chronicles 25:5 as a man who lived and worked in the inner circle of the king of Israel. And that same verse, I Chronicles 25:5 tells us that Heman had fourteen sons and three daughters. Then the very next verse I Chronicles 25:6, says that “All of these [meaning his children] were under the direction of their father to sing in the house of Yahweh, with cymbals, harps, and lyres, for the service of the house of God.”

Heman, then, was this man who had much. This man who had been blessed much. A man who had various distinct privileges. He was this wise, and talented, and accomplished man. A rich man, in more ways than one and yet, he ended up writing this song. But why? Some have said he wrote this Psalm on account of a disease or condition that was ravaging his body. Others have said it was on account of some Job-like trial that he went through, where he lost his wealth and his loved ones, which led to him writing this song. The reality is, we’re not entirely sure. We have what we have on the pages of scripture and they tell us plenty. Which is that this man clearly was carrying a burden. And this man clearly was going through some sort of crushing trial. Which made it feel as though he was dying this slow and agonizing death.

Let’s get more into what this man had to say by working through the text itself, starting in verse 1:
He says, “O Yahweh, the God of my salvation, I have cried out by day and throughout the night before You.”
Now, the way this Psalm opens, we might initially expect this to be a Psalm of praise. Because our author, Heman, is saying: “O Yahweh, the God of my salvation.” He sounds a little bit like David here, in Psalm 27:1, where he says: “Yahweh is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” That’s the initial sense we get from those first few words, that Heman, as he writes this “Maskil.” Which means a Psalm of instruction, or a Psalm of contemplation. That he’s about to pour out his heart before God. That he’s about to commend God for being his stronghold his strong tower, his deliverer, his rescuer.

But that wasn’t the case and that wasn’t to be. No. As we read on, as Heman continues, we learn that something was wrong. He says: “I have cried out by day and throughout the night before You.” So, half a verse in, and it’s already evident that there’s an issue – there’s a problem, something is off. This man hasn’t sat down to write a love poem about his God. No. He’s in agony. Which is why he says: “I have cried out.” Those words “I’ve cried out” are describing a deeply piercing shout. A loud cry for divine help. Heman was desperate to have God bend toward him. To incline His ear toward him. To hear his prayer. And that’s precisely what’s being described here. You know, Heman wasn’t merely moaning in misery in this Psalm. Rather, he was praying. He was in agony, and he was grieving. But he knew he could talk to the Lord about it.

So, he prayed and he prayed persistently. Look at the language again of verse 1, he says:
“I have cried out by day and throughout the night before You.”
This language, again, is reminiscent of David, who says this, in Psalm 42, these will be familiar words to many:
“As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God? [he says] My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’ These things I remember [says David] and I pour out my soul within me.” That’s what Heman was doing here. He was regularly pouring out his soul before the Lord, and he was doing so in prayer.

Speaking of which, look at verse 2, where Heman says:
“Let my prayer come before You; incline Your ear to my cry of lamentation!” See, Heman was no atheist. No. He was a believer and he did what Believers do, he prayed to God, to his God, to Yahweh. As we’ll soon see you know, Heman does not get everything right in this Psalm, far from it. But he gets this one thing right. He understands that in seasons of darkness and suffering that true followers of the one true God, are to be persistent in calling out to Him. In crying out to Him. In praying to Him.
Heman didn’t cut off his communication with God. He didn’t cave into that temptation that some of us fall prey to. Where we cry out initially, but then when God doesn’t answer our prayer according to the way that we want Him to answer our prayer, in our suffering, in our darkness we change course, we switch our approach. We go silent on God in our indifference and maybe even our bitterness. Heman didn’t do that. He didn’t go silent on the Lord. No. He kept talking to God. He spoke to God in prayer. But as he spoke up and as he spoke out; he did so, as we’re going to see in this distinctly downcast tone. Very quickly, this Psalm turns dark, really dark. As Heman, not content with simply pouring out his heart to the Lord. Begins to into this mode of questioning and doubting the Lord. Meaning, those very first few words of light, at the beginning of verse 1, “Oh Yahweh, the God of my salvation”, that light quickly becomes extinguished.

The arc of this Psalm turns distinctly downward, starting in verse 3 he says:
“For my soul has been saturated with calamities, and my life has reached Sheol. I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like a man without strength, released among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom You remember no more, and they are cut off from Your hand.” Now, by mentioning his “soul”, verse 3, being “saturated with calamities.” It’s clear that whatever affliction that Heman was going through here. Whether it was physical or relational or emotional or something else. He saw it plainly as a matter of the soul. As a matter of his spiritual health or lack thereof. Whatever he was going through here, it was serious. So serious, in fact, that to him, what he was going through, it was like death. It felt like he was dying. That’s why he’s using these terms in verses 3-5 like, “Sheol” and the “pit” and “. . . a man being without strength”, and being released among the “dead”, like those who were “slain” and “who lie in the grave”, those who God “remember[s] no more”, and those who are “cut off from [the divine] hand.” This part of the Psalm is just permeated with these images of death. Now, Heman, of course, hadn’t actually died or else he wouldn’t have been able to write this Psalm. But it felt like he had died. Or, at minimum, it felt like he was dying. He felt empty. He felt hollow. He felt like a shell of himself. He felt like his very life was leaving him. His words in this Psalm are painting this overwhelming picture of darkness and despair.

David, again, in Psalm 30:2-3 says: “O Yahweh my God, I cried to You for help, and You healed me.[so he was praying as well, then he says] O Yahweh, You have brought up my soul from Sheol; You have kept me alive, that I would not to down to the pit.” So, those are David’s words. David is expressing gratitude to God, in his season of darkness. But David’s reflecting on having already been plucked from that path, that otherwise would have led him to Sheol. But Heman here is expressing the opposite. In his grief and in his despair, it feels as though he’s already sunk down into that pit. It feels like the grave has already consumed him. And that Sheol, the dwelling place of the dead, as Old Testament Israelites conceived of it, has already swallowed him up.

Heman, in other words, is not just having a bad day, as he sits down with the pen. Rather, deep down his soul was full of trouble. His seventeen children and the house full of lyres and instruments all over him, his full house, were all testifying to the fact that he lived a life that was overflowing with many blessings. But his heart was full of sorrow. He was deeply troubled. Whereas David would say, in Psalm 16: “. . . You will not forsake my soul to Sheol; You will not give Your Holy One over to see corruption.” Heman was saying: “God, it feels like You’ve done just that.” “It feels like You’ve allowed me to be left for dead.” “It feels like You’ve let me slide into the place of the dead, Sheol.”

Abraham Lincoln, our nation’s 16th president, was known for having these deep, deep swings of depression, over the course of his life. In one of those swings, Lincoln wrote this:
“I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on earth.”
That’s dark. Well, like Lincoln, Heman was at a point in his life where he felt like he couldn’t go on. He was a man who was so overwhelmed by his many troubles that his life, felt like death. Though he knew he wasn’t dead, physically, that’s how it felt to him. He felt so low, that he couldn’t fathom the idea of going on. Things felt so hopeless, and so dark, that life simply seemed unlivable to him. But again, and to Heman’s credit. At least he was talking to God about it. Right? At least he was still communing with God about it. As F.B. Meyer, an old British pastor from the late 1800’s once put it: “There is nothing that so quickly makes the bell ring in heaven as the touch of a troubled hand.” And Heman apparently believed that. He was taking everything to the Lord in prayer.

But now, as we turn to verse 6 and read through part of verse 8, we’re going to see now that Heman went a step beyond merely feeling like he was dying and feeling like he had already slid into Sheol. To now, laying the blame for his condition on God. This is the part of the Psalm where Heman goes from saying, “God, I’m no sure I can go on.” To “God, You did this to me, and I blame You.”
Take a look at verse 6, where there’s this definite switch in the language, from “I” to “You.” Heman says:
“You have put me in the pit far below, in dark places, in the depths. Your wrath lies upon me, and You afflict me with all Your breaking waves. Selah. You have removed my acquaintances far from me; You have set me as an abomination to them.”

So, note that, back in verses 3-5, Heman felt like his “life [had] reached Sheol.” It felt to him like he was already in “the pit.” It felt like he’d been “released among the dead” “like the slain who lie in the grave.”
But now, here in verse 6, he’s saying to God, through prayer: “And You are the one who put me here.”
Look at his words, verse 6, “You have put me in the pit far below, in dark places, in the depths.” “You, God, are the author of the darkness I’m going through.” And “You, God, are the cause of all that’s happening to me.”

Do you want to know something? He was right. Heman was right. God was the One who had caused whatever calamity to befall him, to befall him. And God was the One who would ultimately cause whatever hurtful or distressing or harrowing circumstance had fallen on Heman’s life. Just like God is the One who ultimately brought about ever hurtful and distressing circumstance in our lives, over the last year. Now, you’re probably thinking: this is the time where I need to throw the flag on the pastor, like how so? How can that be? How about my responsibility and by ability to choose for myself? And my free will? If we say that God is the One who brings about certain hurtful and distressing circumstances in our life, doesn’t that mean God is the author of evil? Well, those topics (advertising plug) are going to be addressed at tonight’s Q & A, as we look through these matters of divine sovereignty and man’s responsibility. But it’s also one of those questions, just to give you a preview, that mere mortals like you and I will never get to the bottom of, in these bodies of flesh. With these fallen minds, in this life. Because we can’t.

Now, to be sure, these are matters which God has revealed to us, as He’s disclosed them to us in His Word. But what He’s revealed to us isn’t all that there is to know about these matters. Some of these things are reserved for Him to know, as God. What God has told us; are the things we cling to. What God has told us, in His Word, on the one hand, are things that we are to do as Believers, as Christians. We are to love our neighbors. We are to pray without ceasing. We are to love our children. We are to serve in our church. But He’s also told us this other category of information, that all that we do we do under the umbrella of His sovereign will. He knows how we will think. He knows how we’ll speak. He knows where we’ll serve and how we’ll act and how we’ll interact. Because He not only foresaw it, but He foreordained it before the foundation of the world, Ephesians 1:11 says. So, on the one hand, we pray at our bedside. We serve in the nursery, and we have dinnertime conversations with our children. We evangelize the lost. We root out sin and we fight sin and we have victory over sin. But on the other hand, we do so with the understanding that everything we do, or say, or think, God not only knew before the foundation of the world, but He actually designed that we would do or say or think those things, as He carries out His perfect eternal will.

Now, does that mean that when we do or say or think evil things, that somehow makes God the author of evil? Absolutely not. I John 1:5 says –
“God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.” But there’s no question that God uses evil. Evil which He allows, to bring about the ultimate eternal good. He allowed Satan to tempt Job. He allowed Peter to deny Jesus three times. He allowed Jesus to be crucified. He allowed you to commit all the sins that you committed before you came to Him through faith. He allows all of it to happen to accomplish His perfect will. To bring all things “together for good” Romans 8:28, “for those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose.”

The reason for that mini-theology lesson is to flesh out some of what is being said here by Heman in verse 6. Heman was right. God had allowed some of those feelings that he was feeling, of being “in the pit far below, in dark places, in the depths.” God had allowed it. Not only that, God had allowed even those feelings of affliction which Heman mentioned at the end of verse 7, where he says: “And you afflict me with all Your breaking waves.” Now, those words sound very similar to the words of the prophet Jonah, as Jonah’s praying from the belly of the great fish in Jonah 2, and he says:
“I called out of my distress to Yahweh, and He answered me. I cried for help from the belly of Sheol; You heard my voice. For You had cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the current surrounded me. All Your breakers and waves passed over me.” So, Jonah there, of course, was referring to actual waves in the sea, breaking over him. Whereas Heman here, in Psalm 88:7, is speaking of waves of anguish and grief which were rolling over him. But the same principle holds that it was God who permitted both types of waves to roll over both men, Jonah and Heman.

Now, one phrase I passed over, but I do want to draw your attention to now. It’s at the beginning of verse 7, where Heman says: “Your wrath lies upon me.” Now, what Heman had said, up to this point, was true. God had in fact, allowed his darkness. God had, in fact allowed Heman to descend into these depths. It was not true, what’s said here, that God was pouring out His wrath on this man. No. God’s wrath is reserved for the wicked in this world. Romans 1:18 says, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” Heman was not a wicked, or an unrepentant man. No. As we’ve already seen, he was a true follower of the one true God. What this means – is that Heman got this one wrong. Now don’t hear me saying something that I’m not saying. I’m not saying God’s Word is wrong. No. Heman is accurately recording what he felt in this moment, and as it’s taken down, as it’s been passed down from generation to generation, we have, in his words, God’s Word, which is inerrant, and infallible, and pure. It’s recording exactly what Heman was thinking in this moment. The way that the words, the foolish words of Job’s counselors are accurately recorded in that book. But this does not mean that what Heman was feeling in this moment, actually measured up with truth.

Though it felt, to Heman as though God was laying his wrath upon him.
In reality, God was doing nothing of the sort. Heman wasn’t in danger of facing God’s wrath, anymore than you or I, as followers of Christ, who no longer face condemnation. “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” Romans 8:1, face God’s wrath. It may have seemed to Heman that the source of his affliction was the wrath of God, but it wasn’t. Rather, this was one imperfect man’s imperfect way of expressing the heavy hand of God in the life of a Believer. Similar to what David said in Psalm 32:4, where he says: “day and night Your hand was heavy upon me.”

Picking it up, back in verse 8 and then into verse 9 as Heman continued to point the finger at God for his plight. He moved on from describing this feeling of sinking into a pit. To describe this feeling of the walls closing in on him. Verse 8, he says:
“You have removed my acquaintances far from me; You have set me as an abomination to them; I am shut up and cannot go out.” Now, some have taken these words to mean that Heman was going through some sort of physical condition like leprosy, which, for physical reasons, resulted in Heman being physically separated from his friends for cleanliness reasons. More likely, I think is that Heman here is describing his general feelings of loneliness and isolation. That same feeling that Job would experience and that he would express in Job 12, where he says, “I am a laughingstock to my friends.” Heman was lonely. He felt completely alone, as he was circling the drain. It felt like there was no one he could turn to. So, he was not only afflicted, but he was also isolated. And on top of that, he’s blaming God for it all.

Then, verse 9, he says: “My eye has wasted away because of affliction.”
This is another expression that’s describing death. The idea of the eye dimming as it gets closer and closer to death. Heman is describing this process of his life draining from him, as he’s sliding downward, inching closer and closer to the pit and he’s praying. That’s the interesting thing. As he’s complaining, it’s couched in the form of a prayer. I want to highlight that now. He’s praying. And prayer, of course, is a good thing, a necessary thing, a commendable thing in the life of any believer, both in the Old Testament and today, in the New. As we read from verses 9-13 now, we’re going to see that Heman is praying. But as he’s praying, he’s offering these prayers as one who is actually complaining that God is acting unwisely. He's got a bone to pick with God, about the way that God is allowing him to walk through this season of darkness. He thinks God is being foolish in the way that He’s dealing with Heman. The first part of the prayer is found in verse 9, after he says: “My eye has wasted away because of affliction”, he says:
“I have called upon You every day, O Yahweh; I have spread out my hands to You.”


Then, to see how this is prayer, look down in verse 13 where he says:
“But as for me, O Yahweh, I have cried out to You for help, and in the morning my prayer comes before You.” So, he’s saying both of these bookended passages. Is that what he was doing throughout this season of darkness and despair, is what any pastor like me would tell you today, that in your seasons of darkness and despair, how important it is, how essential it is to take your burdens to the Lord in prayer. To pray without ceasing. That’s exactly what Heman is doing. He’s saying, I was praying daily, I was praying every morning, I was even laying prostrate before You, Lord. That’s how committed to prayer I was.

Now, what sits between verses 9 and 13, in those records of Heman’s prayerfulness, is verses 10-12, where we see that again, as he was praying, Heman was not only complaining, but he was questioning, and he was doubting God’s wisdom in bringing him through these trials. He was still contending with God. Look at verses 10-12, where we see these six questions roll out in rapid-fire format. It says:
“Will You do wonders for the dead? Will the departed spirits rise and praise You? Selah. Will Your lovingkindness be recounted in the grave, Your faithfulness in Abaddon? Will Your wonders be known in the darkness? And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?” What Heman was communicating through these questions; as he felt through those feelings of pain and anguish, like he was sliding toward death. What he was communicating is that God, by allowing this all to happen, and indeed, by causing all of this to happen was acting unwisely. That God, the God of the heavens, was acting unwisely. Acting foolishly. Doing Himself a divine disservice. The reason Heman thought this was foolish is because in his worldview, if he were to actually die, physically to die, go into the pit, to go to Sheol, the praise of his God would come to an end, at that very moment.

So, he’s trying to be logical with God here and he’s trying to express to God, that as he conceives of things, it’s only when a person is alive, that they are capable of praising God. There’s actually a trace of Heman’s ways of thinking here, back in Psalm 30:9, where David says:
“What profit is there in my blood, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise You?” So, Heman is employing similar logic here. As he’s firing off these six questions, he’s operating from the assumption that it’s only when he’s alive that he can praise God but not so when he’s dead and doesn’t God want to be praised?

Let’s trace this out, in verses 10-12.
Verse 10 – “Will You do wonders for the dead?” he asks. “Will the departed spirits rise and praise You?” He’s saying here, “God, if You’re going to work in some miraculous way in my life, once I’m departed, well, no one’s going to hear about it.” “No one here on earth will ever learn about it.” “Who else is going to find out about it?” “The answer is no one and you’re going to lose an opportunity, God, to be praised.”

Verse 11 is similar: “Will Your lovingkindness be recounted in the grave, Your faithfulness in Abaddon?” “Abaddon” is another term for the pit, or Sheol. He’s saying, “God, how good is it, if You’re up there in the heavens and I’m down there in the pit? You show Your lovingkindness and Your faithfulness to me, while I’m down there in the pit? Well, who here on earth, again, is going to hear about it? How will You be praised? How will You receive praise? I’m trying to help You out here, God?”

Or verse 12, he says: “Will Your wonders be known in the darkness? And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?” He’s essentially saying the same thing here. “If I go down there, God, into the pit? Into that ultimate place of darkness? If You let me die, no one here on earth, is ever going to hear about it.” “So, what good is it, God, to let me die?” “Instead, You should spare me. You should save my life.” Again, Heman here is feeling like he’s on the verge of death. And that being so, he’s trying to express to God, and negotiate with God that, “hey, praise to You God, is going to go silent, if You let me die so deliver me, spare me, save my life.”
But, even then, there’s this subtext of “God, I know better than You.” “You ought to save my life, because I tell You to save my life not because it’s according to Your sovereign will to save my life.”

Well, the accusations that are veiled as questions, continue into verse 14, he says:
“O Yahweh, why do You reject my soul? Why do You hide Your face from me?” So, from Heman’s perspective, from his flawed human vantage point, it felt like God was playing some sort of cruel game with him. Heman had cried out to God. We’ve already seen, asked God to incline His ear to Heman’s cries. But the Lord, it seemed, was rejecting him. Hiding His face from him. Giving Heman the sense that God had forsaken him and that his soul had been cast away. Again, Heman did not feel like God was just passively allowing things to happen to him. But rather, God was actively working against him. That God was his enemy. That God was targeting him like an aggressor.

So far, had Heman slid. So far had God allowed him to slide. It felt like Heman, right here, was under siege spiritually. He develops this thought, this feeling that he was having of being under siege spiritually, with these various different images. Psalm 88:15-17. He starts with this image of death, in verse 15. He says:
“I have been afflicted and about to breathe my last from my youth on.”
Again, to Heman, it very much felt, at this point, like he was about to die. God had given him a certain number of breaths to breathe during his short life on earth. But now, those breaths were starting to run out. The clock was ticking; his time was up. Then came these expressions in the remainder of verses 15 and 16, he says:
“I bear Your terrors; I am overcome. Your burning anger has passed over me; Your horrors have destroyed me.” As we’ve already seen, as God’s child, Heman wasn’t actually in danger of experiencing God’s wrath. That’s not how God treats His children. As we looked at earlier, God’s wrath is reserved for His enemies. It’s reserved for the wicked.

But in the heat of the moment in the depths of his despair and with his thoughts about God misfiring. It felt, to him, it felt to Heman, like he was the object of God’s wrath. He wasn’t but it felt like he was. So, he used these words like – “terrors” and “burning anger” and “horrors” to describe the situation he found himself in. These feelings of having this divinely placed target on his back were so overwhelming that they were causing Heman to sink lower and lower into his misery. Which is why he says, in verse 17, that the afflictions that God had sent his way, they “surrounded me like water all day long.” They’ve “encompassed me altogether.” The circumstances God had dealt him, were passing over him. They were swirling all around him, leaving him with this overwhelming feeling that he was about to drown.

And if that weren’t bad enough. To make matters worse. Heman was carrying around this profound sense of being alone. Verse 18, he says: “You have removed lover and friend far from me.” Now, remember, the context in view here, he was in the king’s court with a full house and a quiver full of children, and all these people all around him. He was a known man. Still, at this moment, he felt lonely. He felt isolated. Like nobody knew him. Like no one cared, not even God.

Then this last line, he says, “my acquaintances are in darkness.” Now, that word “in” is italicized in both the LSV and the NASB. That’s because the Hebrew rendering here, as Heman is saying: “my acquaintances are darkness.” He is saying long before Paul Simon would say it centuries later “Hello darkness my old friend.” As he looked around, darkness was all that he saw. He was like a fearful child in a pitch-black room alone and afraid. Reaching out his hand in the darkness hoping that somebody’s going to grab it and pull him into the light. Reaching out and seeing those kind of spots all around. Wondering if anybody’s going to ever find him. Wondering if anybody cares. That’s where he left things in this Psalm this song this prayer. This prayer offered up by this man, Heman, in the depths of his affliction. A prayer which, if I could summarize it, goes something like this:
“Lord, this is really hard. This is really difficult.” “Lord, I’m not sure I can go on.” “Lord, this is all Your fault.” “Lord, I think You’re being foolish, in allowing me to go through this.” “Lord, I feel like I’m all alone.” “Amen.”

Now, I suppose we could end right there on that note, with that word “darkness” and then we could all head off to lunch or go take a nap. But we’re not going to end there. We can’t end there. And that’s because while Psalm 88 is shot through with these dark notes of despair which we’ve gone through very quickly this morning. There’s been this major clue hanging out there this whole time. Which reveals that the author of this Psalm, Heman, he had hope all along.

Look back at verse 1, how does this Psalm begin? “O Yahweh, the God of my salvation.” Given everything that we’ve looked at, in the remainder of this Psalm, this morning. This is probably it’s most shocking feature. Because, what this reveals to us is that Heman, ultimately, had hope. Though to borrow an expression from the Book of Job the Lord may have slain him Heman yet, trusted in Him. Despite his afflictions. And despite his pleas. And despite his complaints. And despite his accusations, Heman had hope. He had faith. He had faith that the God he was praying to, was actually there. He had faith that the God he was praying to, actually heard his prayers. He had faith that the God he was praying to, ultimately, would answer those prayers, as God saw fit to answer those prayers, according to His perfect and divine timetable. Heman, in other words, even in the agony, was still able to fine comfort in the character of God. “O Yahweh, the God of my salvation” and we can too.

You know, we worship the same God that Heman worshiped. We can, and we should, have a hope and a faith which was as unshakeable as his ultimately was. Though God might see fit, from time to time, to place us in the pit. As it is His divine prerogative to do so. We also recognize that He has promised to never leave us or forsake us. Not only that but living on this side of the cross we have another truth to which we can cling. One which our hope is centered on. Which is that we have a Savior who Himself endured the darkness on our behalf.

You know, there’s a place you can visit in Israel today, called the House of Caiaphas. Caiaphas was the Jewish priest who detained and oversaw Jesus’ trial, the kangaroo court, before turning him over to the Romans. If you visit the House of Caiaphas today they’ve excavated it underneath. At one of its lowest levels, is this dark holding cell. Where some would say Jesus went and was held and detained immediately before His crucifixion.
There are stairs today that lead down to that pit. As you walk down those stairs, you’ll find a large book open on display. In that book, are the words of a Psalm written in it. The Psalm isn’t written in full. It’s only an excerpt of this Psalm and it’s written in dozens of languages. But in the English, it reads this way:
“O Lord, God of my salvation; I cry out day and night before you. Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry! For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to death. You have put me in the depths of the pit, in regions dark and deep. Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves. O Lord, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you turn your face from me? You have caused my beloved and my friends to shun me, and darkness is my closest friend.”
Those words, of course, come from the Psalm that we’ve been studying today, Psalm 88. A Psalm which reminds us, that as we suffer, that we worship a God, and we worship the God-Man who was acquainted with suffering. This is a Psalm that reminds us, that as we experience sorrows, our Lord, Himself was a man of sorrows, as Isaiah 53 says, and acquainted with grief. It’s a Psalm which reminds us that as we experience our various seasons of darkness, that our Lord experienced, on our behalf, a darkness far greater. He did so for sinners like you and me.

So, we all embark on the year 2026. You know, if you’re feeling like you’re just moving on from one problem to the next. One disappointment to the next. One hardship to the next. If you feel like you’re drowning. If you feel like you just can’t go on. You feel like there’s no escape, no safety hatch. If you feel like you’re hopeless. Or feel like you’re sorrowful. Or that your soul is full of trouble, as Heman would say. If you feel like there’s no light, rather, only darkness at the end of the tunnel.

Keep this truth in mind. That God has given us His Word. He has given us His Word here in the scriptures. He has given us His Word to regular, ordinary, hurting people like you and me. God has placed us in a world that is oh so real. A world that is marked by chronic sickness. And wayward children. And natural disasters. And lost jobs. And betrayal. And loneliness. And despair. And all the rest. While God has blessed us with faith. The reality is faith doesn’t always smile. Instead, sometimes faith frowns and necessarily so. Sometimes it laments, as we’ve seen here in Psalm 88.
As the old Scottish minister Alexander Maclaren once put it:
“Every life has dark tracks and long stretches of somber tint, and no representation is true to fact which dips its pencil only in light and flings no shadows on the canvas.”

That’s right. Jesus the God-Man the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world the One through whom we are saved. We know from His Word, He appointed us, not only unto salvation but He appointed us to suffer. In fact, if you are in the family of God, through faith in Him, meaning, you are a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ you have the promise, not only of eternal life you have the promise that in this life, you will suffer.
Philippians 1:29 says: “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.” When you, not if you do, but when you do; know that you are doing so under the good and sovereign hand of a God who loves you.
A God, who it says in Hebrews 12:6 – “loves those whom He disciplines.”

So, what Psalm 88 ultimate does, then this side of the cross for the follower of Jesus Christ it highlights the fact and reminds us that we serve a sympathetic Savior. One who came for both the lost and the lonely. One who came for the shaken and the fearful. One who came for the confused and the doubtful.
So, dear brothers and sisters in your darkness in your seasons of darkness run to Him go to Him cry out to Him call to Him pray to Him. Know that He knows what you’re going through. Know that He knows what it’s like to be in the darkness because He walked in that darkness, all the way to the cross for you. He did so, in order that your afflictions in this life would be but light and momentary. He did so, so that your seasons of darkness in this life, would be only temporary. The reason is that those seasons of darkness are momentary and light and temporary and boxed into the 70 or 80 years that you have on this planet. It is because you have the light of life eternal life through Him. So, Believers, cling to that truth and cling to that promise, no matter what degrees of darkness the Lord allows you to walk through this year.

Now, if anyone here this morning doesn’t know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Now, I’ll close with this. What you need to know, right now, is that you truly are alone in your suffering. You might have friends and family. And you might have programs you can run too. But you’re actually alone. Because the face of God is turned away from you. You’re in a far worse place than Heman, the author of Psalm 88, ever was. That is because if you die, having no belief, in the sufficiency of what Jesus did on the cross for you for the forgiveness of your sins. Meaning, if you die right now, or die a week from now, without faith well, there will be no light at the end of the tunnel for you. Rather, what you face is even more darkness, eternal darkness. A place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. A place where the fire is never quenched. The place where the groans of damned souls go on forever and ever. That place, of course, is hell.

So, friend, if you have not put your faith in Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior allow whatever suffering you are going through right now, or what you have gone through, or what you will go through allow that very suffering so shine a light on your own desperate need to have Him save your soul. Believe upon the name of Jesus Christ. Believe that He died for you. Believe that He rose for you. Confess your sins to Him. Turn to Him in faith and you will be saved.

God, I thank You for this morning, and this chance to study a Psalm that is certainly dark, Psalm 88. A song full of sadness and brokenness and despair. But a Psalm, ultimately, which has this shaft of light poke through. Where this man, Heman, would ultimately acknowledge You, God as being the God of his salvation. God, for my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I pray that whatever You might allow us to walk through this year. Whatever trials, whatever difficulties, whatever hurts, pains, suffering that we might go through this year, by Your sovereign hand. That we would continually run back to the truth, that You are our God. And You are the God of our salvation. And our eternal hope is in Your hands. We trust You. God, for those here how do not know You, either by their open admission, or by their deception. I pray that they would come to the Lord Jesus Christ, in saving faith. That they would come to the Light of the World, who has brought light into this dark world. Have their sins forgiven. Have the hope of eternal life secured abiblend be with You in glory. God, we love You. We commit this day and this year to You. And it’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.