Will You Hide Forever?

David the King knew about depression.  Some of His Psalms were very dark indeed.
Psalms 13, 39. 70 were written by David and are all dark.  Psalms that were perhaps
not written by David are the dark Psalms 120, 129.  Psalm 88 is attributed to a  son
of Asaph and is especially dark.

Psalm 13 was written by David during a very dark period in his life.

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“1  How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy
face from me? 2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart
daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? 3 Consider and hear me, O
LORD my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death; 4 Lest mine enemy
say, I have prevailed against him; and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved.
5 But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. 6 I will sing
unto the LORD, because he hath dealt bountifully with me.” (Ps 13:1-6)

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"How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord?  forever?"   What a horrible feeling rooted in
the very depths of the heart, that God has abandoned me.  Forever?  "How long wilt
thou hide thy face from me?"  This is much more common than realized and is felt by
Christians who live in the real world.

Jesus felt abandoned on the cross.  Luther felt the same for years, "My God, My God,
why has thou forsaken me."  Job felt abandoned of God:  "Let the day perish wherein I
was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.  Let that
day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. 
Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upn it; let the blackness
of the day terrify it....  Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid
sorrow from mine eyes. Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the
ghost when I came out of the belly?"  from Job 3:2-11

But Job knew where to look for help.  "Naked come I out of my mother's womb, and
naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be
the name of the Lord."  Job. 1:21

Some of God's choicest saints have battled depression for years, some for their entire
lives.

"How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long
shall mine enemy be exalted over me?"   "How long shall I take counsel in my soul."
This is the road to insanity.  Pr 12:15  "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but
he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise."  He takes counsel in his soul.  He has "tried to
do right," that is, right in his own eyes.   He has tried many cures.  But this only
intensified his feelings.  Pr 19:21 "There are many devices in a man’s heart;
nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand."

God cannot deny Himself.  Man was not created to live under his own wisdom and
under his own opinions. These are the way of death.  The Apostle Paul knew this, and
told the elders of Ephesus,  Ac 20:27 "For I have not shunned to declare unto you all
the counsel of God."

Paul also prayed for the church, that the Father in heaven, "would grant you, according
to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in
love, May be able to comprehend will all saints what is the breadth, and length, and
depth, and height: and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye
might be filled with the fulness of God...."  Eph.4:16-19

Jesus put it this way, Joh 12:25 "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth
his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal."  God will not become an
instrument and an enabler of my self worship.  I am to put off the old man with his
deeds.

The enemies of my soul are strengthened when I war against Christ and His servants.
 David begins to see light and life when he prays, "Consider and hear me, O God my
God: lighten mine eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death."

It is the hope of faith that awakens the soul from death and breathes the breath of life:
"I have trusted in thy mercy: my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation."  Forgiveness of
sins, newness of life, love and hope spring up from faith in the promises of God, who
deals bountifully with His people.

But faith comes only from God.  It is not the bell you ring on your tricycle.  It is very
often faith itself that is tested and tried by the dark valleys. "Knowing this, that the
trying of your faith worketh patience.  But let patience have her perfect work, that ye
may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing."

Trials are messengers from the Lord to call upon Him for wisdom and grace [James
1:3,4], but God will not be your handmaiden to serve your lusts and desires.  I must
receive the engrafted word, which is able to save my soul, for I am the problem, not the
circumstances surrounding me.

Faith teaches me that I am not my own, that I belong to Jesus Christ.  That makes all
the difference in the world:  HC 1:  Question 1:  What is your only comfort in life and
in death?

 Answer 1:  That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but
belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who with His precious blood has fully
satisfied for all my sins, and redeemed me from all the power of the devil; and so
preserves me that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my
head; indeed, that all things must work together for my salvation. Wherefore, by His
Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and
ready from now on to live unto Him.

But you say, "I don't believe that. Isn't there another way?"
No.

The Rainbow Covenant

There is no nation on earth that is not either a covenant keeping nation, or a covenant-
breaking nation. After the flood, God made the rainbow covenant with the whole
world, promising without condition that He would never destroy the world again with a
flood, and putting His war bow in the sky in the "at peace" position as a sacramental
sign of His promise.

The foundation of this promise was God's eternal promise that in the fullness of time
His Son would  be sent forth as a redeemer for men.  God received the sweetness of the
bloody offerings that Noah made to Him immediately after coming forth from the ark
and remembered the covenant that He had made with Adam, when such offerings were
instituted.  If Christ was to come to redeem people, then there must be people to
redeem.

God's promises that He would not destroy everything as He had done, and that
seedtime and harvests, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night would
continue until the end of the world [Gen.8:22] were unconditional and rooted in His
grace.

But God did lay some privileges and duties upon man in terms of this
rainbow covenant.  The fear of man would come upon all the beast and birds and fish
and they would  be food for man, just as all the plants had been before the flood.  But
they were not to be cruel to the animals but value their lives, slaying with compassion
and not partaking of the blood, for the life of the flesh is in the blood, and life was to
be considered very sacred.

This blood would be required of every man and every animal.  The slaying of an
animal for food would be a religious exercise involving the pouring out of the blood
and thanksgiving for the food that God had provided.  Further "Whoso sheddeth man's
blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man."  [Gen
9:6]

Man's blood was especially precious, and the sinful shedding of man's blood was to be
revenged by the shedding by man of the blood of the murderer.  This is the foundation
for capital punishment and just wars against bloody and vicious nations.  This is man's
responsibility in terms of the rainbow covenant.

This provision was later written into the law of Moses:  Numbers 35:33 and context. 
"So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the
land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that
shed it."   This is included under the New Testament:  Romans 13:4 and context.  The
state is the chosen instrument of God to carry out this provision of the Rainbow
Covenant.  After the flood, in order to restrain sin from becoming more than could be
borne, God established nations and sent them to war to restrain the sins of men.

But who, in the modern world is that just nation that is not polluted with innocent
blood?  Abortions by the thousands upon thousands bloody the land of almost every
nation upon the earth.  Persecution sheds the blood of Christians in every Muslim land
and even children and women to do escape the cruelty.  Who is fit to require the
provisions of the Rainbow Covenant?  It appears that only God is, and His judgments
must seek out the blood in every nation of the world, for men have forsake the God of
Covenant and seek to establish their own covenants of emotionalism and humanism.

But the peace of God symbolized by every rainbow in the sky, testifies against men
everywhere under the sun, the blood will be required, and none of the guilty will
escape.

De 19:13 Thine eye shall not pity him, but thou shalt put away the guilt of innocent
blood from Israel, that it may go well with thee.    See context

2Ki 21:16 Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled
Jerusalem from one end to another; beside his sin wherewith he made Judah to sin, in
doing that which was evil in the sight of the LORD.  See context

Ps 94:21 They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and
condemn the innocent blood.  See context

Ps 106:38 And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their
daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted
with blood.  See context

Mt 27:4 Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they
said, What is that to us? see thou to that. See context

Mt 27:24 When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was
made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent
of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. See context

Mt 23:35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from
the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye
slew between the temple and the altar.  See context

Re 16:6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them
blood to drink; for they are worthy. See context

Re 19:2 For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore,
which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his
servants at her hand. See context

Dear man, dear woman, whoever you are.  Fly to the blood of Christ, for it alone can take away the sins of the world!!