PSALM 69. THAT SINKING FEELING. I recall as a lad seeing an advert on the Bill Boards for a product called 'Bovril'. It was the picture of a little boy sitting astride an outsize bottle of 'Bovril' sailing happily on a great sea. The caption said, "Bovril prevents that sinking feeling!". That must have been 70 years ago, but I remember it as though it were yesterday. I have discovered since that there is a sinking feeling which nothing man made can prevent. Here in the 69th psalm is a song that pulsates with pain. It is a very wonderful psalm of David's even though its contents are painful. It predicts the sufferings of Christ. In that sense we could call it a prophetic psalm. It is frequently quoted in the New Testament. The psalm brings to our notice the suffering in life. We would be very foolish if we thought that we could get through life without suffering. A man once said to me, "I've never had an ailment in my life.", and when I went to his home to pray with him, he said, "I wish that I had never told you that last week. Someone must have been listening." He had come down with his first sickness, and was feeling very sore about it. Yet there are some who have suffered all their lives. There is a scripture which fills the heart of every believer with hope and expectation. It is in the New Testament. "If we suffer with Him, we shall reign with Him." I am aware that the words refer to something other than physical suffering, but there is suffering which is other than physical. However, in that scripture there is an inference that suffering must come. With the suffering there is an implied promise that we shall reign with Him. In this psalm, from the first verse to the fifth, there is a list of sufferings. In the sixth verse there is a change. Let us note first the sufferings of life particularly in the light of this psalm. (Verse 1) "The waters are come into my soul!" THE SUFFERING OF A FLOODED SOUL. If you have ever suffered from flood you will know how horrible an experience it is. At first you are fighting to keep the waters out, and then you are fighting to sweep them out. When you get rid of the flood, the place stinks for months. Waters, in scripture are an emblem of overwhelming distress. It is an element beyond our control. When flooding starts, you put a barrier down in one place and it comes in at another. The feeling of helplessness is devastating. In the process of being flooded by the distress of this world, you feel as the psalmist felt, "Save me O God! For the waters are come in unto my soul!". I am in the grip of overwhelming distress. THE FLOODED SOUL. It is noteworthy that our Lord Jesus Christ had no remorse, nor despair; there is no evidence of it in His life and ministry on earth. Yet no-one felt the oppression from without, this terrible flooding of the soul, more than Christ did. What a dreadful thing it was for Him, that when He was to suffer the greatest, and the billows were to break on Him and roll over Him, all His disciples left Him and fled. There was no help in man. The psalmist cries to God. Save! help! Rescue! Deliver!. How wonderful it is that there is help in God. No matter what the distress. No matter what the suffering, THERE IS HELP IN GOD. But the flooding of his soul was not the only experience the psalmist had. In the second verse he declares, "I sink in deep mire. where there is no standing." Deep waters overflowing had led to the experience of the awful sinking feeling. I have never yet met a single soul who has not at some time had that sinking feeling. To everyone, it is a dreadful thing. When you feel that there is nothing solid in your life, and all is without foundation. At that moment you feel there is no one you can depend upon. In such a situation we feel that everything is collapsing around us. There is nothing left to stand on. "I sink in the mire and there is no standing." The psalmist was referring to a deep spiritual experience. He cried unto the Lord. Why should we consider this sinking feeling?. Because if you have never felt it before, you will be ready for it when it comes, and if you have been through it before, you will be ready for it the next time. The psalmist was desperate. In the third verse he says, "I am weary of my crying, my throat is dried, mine eyes fail while I wait for my God." Here he is exhausted with his own effort. It is no use saying, "I'll try and get myself out of this." We have all heard the fatuous advice, "Pull yourself together!". That is the easiest piece of advice in the world, and the most useless. In flood and bog we need help from outside. There are situations in which there is no standing, and the more you struggle, the deeper you sink. The psalmist stresses his real predicament. "I am hoarse with crying out; my eyes fail." The authorised version of the Bible says, "While I wait on my God." In effect, what the psalmist is saying is, "My eyes fail for looking for deliverance which never seems to come." Those are the times when you are eagerly watching for your answer; convinced that God is bound to do something, somehow, sometime, somewhere, BUT it doesn't happen. O, what a sinking feeling! In the fourth verse the psalmist says,"They that hate me are more than the hairs of my head." They are beyond reckoning. It is a strong way of saying, "I can't find anyone that loves me!" Let's face it. We have all felt like this, and in addition, we discover that there are times when we do not love ourselves either. BUT GOD LOVES US ALL THE TIME IN EVERY SITUATION. The theme changes in the sixth verse. "Let not them that wait on Thee, O lord of Hosts, be ashamed for my sake". How fatal it would be if God had conceded the victory to sin. There would be no Christian Hope. God is however, still on the throne. God still loves every believer. He loves the sinner too, but He never gives the victory to sin, nor allows the sinner to have his own way. To be delivered from the sinking feeling we must look to Him. We can only get out of the predicament God's Way. It is useless going to the Bank Manager or the Business consultant when the bottom of your world falls out. We must go to the only one in the Universe who makes things right. Christ, the Creator, made a new world for me the day I discovered that the bog I was in was bottomless. He lifted me out and gave me the cure for that sinking feeling. He has never left a single believer without relief. Let HIM cure your sinking feeling, and put a new foundation into your life. Copyright (c) 1996, Hedley Palmer. All rights reserved. ---------------------------------------------------- file: /pub/resources/text/hpalmer/psalms: ps-069.txt .