Preached at Markham Baptist Church, February 2, 2003

Give ear to my prayer, O God; do not hide yourself from my supplication. Attend to me, and answer me. I am troubled in my complaint. I am distraught 3by the noise of the enemy, because of the clamor of the wicked. For they bring£ trouble upon me, and in anger they cherish enmity against me. My heart is in anguish within me, the terrors of death have fallen upon me. Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me. And I say, “O that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest; truly, I would flee far away; I would lodge in the wilderness; I would hurry to find a shelter for myself from the raging wind and tempest.” Confuse, O Lord, confound their speech; for I see violence and strife in the city. Day and night they go around it on its walls, and iniquity and trouble are within it; ruin is in its midst; oppression and fraud do not depart from its marketplace. It is not enemies who taunt me — I could bear that; it is not adversaries who deal insolently with me — I could hide from them. But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend, with whom I kept pleasant company; we walked in the house of God with the throng. Let death come upon them; let them go down alive to Sheol; for evil is in their homes and in their hearts. But I call upon God, and the LORD will save me. Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he will hear my voice. He will redeem me unharmed from the battle that I wage, for many are arrayed against me. God, who is enthroned from of old will hear, and will humble them — because they do not change, and do not fear God. My companion laid hands on a friend and violated a covenant with me with speech smoother than butter, but with a heart set on war; with words that were softer than oil, but in fact were drawn swords. Cast your burden£ on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved. But you, O God, will cast them down into the lowest pit; the bloodthirsty and treacherous shall not live out half their days. But I will trust in you. (Psalm 55) (NRSV)

Cast your burdens upon the Lord and he will sustain you. Is that a suggestion? No, it's stronger than a suggestion. Is it a command? No it's not quite a command. A promise? Yes, a promise. Cast your burdens on the Lord and He will sustain you. It is a promise that the apostle Peter would echo in his first letter. But we have it here first. A promise – “Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain”. It is a promise - the Lord will sustain you but it comes with a condition. Like so many of the promises that God gives us there is a prelude to the promise. There is something that we must do first. - Cast your burden onto the Lord. That's the prelude to the promise.

Cast your burden on to the Lord.

And this Psalm is an example of just that. Here we see the Psalmist casting his burden upon the Lord. He does so in prayer - he comes to God and gives his burden to God.

“Give ear to my prayer, O God. Do not hide yourself from my supplication.” Not that the psalmist had ever got a busy signal from God and the heavenly switchboard before but this shows the urgency of the request, the importance of the prayer.

“Attend to me and answer me.”

And he comes to God in prayer to cast his burden upon the Lord. J. Hudson Taylor once said "Satan, the Hinderer, may build a barrier about us, but he can never roof us in, so that we cannot look up."¹

To be sure you don't have to give them to God. There are lots of options to choose from. For instance, we can allow our burdens to overwhelm us. Indeed, this is the psalmist's case. There are his enemies, there are his adversaries. And they are bringing trouble against him and all of it is too much for him.

"My heart is in anguish within me, the terrors of death have fallen upon me, Fear and trembling come upon me, horror overwhelms me." (Psalm 55:4-5) (NSRV)

The psalmist is in an awful situation. The burden he carries is so great that it affects his very core. He is gripped by the terror of it all.

And how easy it is to be overwhelmed by life. The terrors and the horrors we face can be great. Fear can so grip us that we feel overwhelmed. I know in my own life, I often think of the future and it does not look good - I worry for the next generation, in particular for my kids. I don't think the next generation of Christians are going to have an easy go of it at all - I see persecution and hatred toward everything Christian for the next generation. And I need to learn to give the burden to God, to trust in his promises that he will indeed give strength and help to those who call on Him in faith.

It is easy to be overwhelmed by our burdens. That is one way to deal with our burdens, our worries, but there is another way and that is to try to run away from them.

The Psalmist considers this option too and he says, "O that I had the wings of a dove." (verse 6)

This is another option for our burdens. We could allow them to overwhelm us or we could seek to run away from them. We could try to escape from them.

He could endeavour to try to get away from it all. And so many people in our world try to do this. To be sure we all need holidays. We all need to take a break. Even Jesus left the crowds to go to a quiet place to pray.

But sometimes this desire to escape can become a neurosis. So that some are constantly trying to get away. Some flee into the future - where we make grandiose plans, when my ship will come in. When I win that lottery then this is what I'll do. And we escape into the future, neglecting the here and now. I know some pastors who are like this. They always speak of their next church, the next church they say is going to have great leaders, and the whole congregation is going to be on fire for God. They fly away into the future.

Others fly to work. They escape their problems and difficulties by burying themselves in their work. Others turn to drugs and alcohol or pornography or in the arms of a lover. All for the purpose of wanting to flee far way to lodge, that is live, in the wilderness. A place to escape from their burdens.

It is an attitude that exists today, it is an attitude held by the Psalmist. O that I had wings like a dove. We can seek to flee from our burden. But you know the problem with this approach, don't you? The problem is that wherever I run to, wherever I escape to - I always take myself with me. I always bring my fears, my mistakes, my selfishness, my poor attitudes, all my foibles and follies. There is no escaping from myself.

I've heard of some people who are looking for a perfect church, and I would like to say to them, If you ever find the perfect church - don't go there because you'll wreck it! I would wreck the perfect church because I would bring my imperfections with me.

I could flee from my burdens - but really that's not a good option.

Well, what is a good option? Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you.

Now at verse 9 the Psalm shifts in mood and we begin to see the Psalmist casting his burden on the Lord.

Having reviewed his options, it's as if he rejects these and instead decides to cast his burden upon the Lord.

What is his burden? In verse 9 - 11 he tells us that the burden he carries is one of sorrow for the wickedness he sees around him. His spirit is sensitive to the violence and strife the sin, the ruin and the oppression and the fraud and he asks God to bring an end to it by bringing confusion among them.

It is the burden of betrayal of a close friend. An equal, a companion has betrayed him (verse 13,14, 20-21). He has broken promises (20-21) he has deceived him. And the psalmist carries the burden of betrayal.

It is the burden of anger and the desire for revenge. And in verse 15 he is angry and says, "Let death come upon them. Let them go down alive to Sheol". He is angry and he takes that burden to God.

Just pause there for a moment at verse 15 and let's think about this verse for a moment. Do you ever read the Psalms and find one that really ministers to you, and you're reading it and then you find something like this in the middle of it, and you say, "Where did this come from?" And we just skip over it. But two there are two ideas that we must keep in mind here.

First, remember that the psalmist is praying here. He is casting his burden on God. And he is laying his burden of anger on the Lord. People get shocked at this but how healthy it would be if we brought our anger to God and we left it with Him. How much better it would be if in our anger we did not sin but laid it upon God's shoulders and gave it completely and fully to Him.

I tend to internalize my anger and have these arguments in my head with the person who has wronged me and I always win the argument. I always end up the victor and the other person ends up shamed, disgraced and humiliated. It takes a great deal of energy and in the end only makes me worse - to see it actually happen - to see the person actually humiliated.

But how much better it would be if we cast the burden of anger on the Lord.

But there is more. For I believe that this is the Word of God. It is God's revealed Word here. So that brings verse 15 into a little different light - what is being said here is that God hates evil, He hates all treachery, slander and violence and this is a statement of what God will do to those who cherish evil in their hearts.

To be sure we live in a time of grace and we need to practice grace, we need to proclaim grace and I hope you hear of the grace of God from this pulpit week after week but understand that there will be an end to the time of grace and all those who have refused His grace, turned their back on grace will be judged. And they will be taken down to the lowest pit. In other words they will be separated from God, from His holiness, His beauty, His life and His presence forever. Read Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus explains it all.

I wonder if we can be so burdened by evil in this world that we can pray that he would cast it to the lowest pit and cleanse the world from it? He is praying that hat evil and wickedness be eradicated but notice that he has left it with God.

Our God has shown us how we are to act toward our enemy we are to turn the other cheek. We are to go the extra mile. We are to pray for our enemy.

And all the while we are to cast our burden upon the Lord - to give Him your anger, give Him your desire for revenge and follow the way of our Lord. Cast your burden upon the Lord for he will sustain you. It's a promise with a prelude.

Don't be overwhelmed by your burden. Don't try to run away from your burden, but bring it to God, your sorrow, your feelings of betrayal, your anger, bring it to God.

You know why He wants us to do this, don't you? Because it shows that we trust Him, it shows that we recognize our own inability and our need for Him to be in control of our lives. It is an act trust - cast your burden on the Lord.

And then the promise. He will sustain you. That is, He will strengthen you - He will keep you. He will enable you to keep on keeping on. How?

Well he says, in verse 16, as we call on Him He will save you. He will save you from the crushing weight of your burden. He will save you from being overwhelmed by your burden. He will save you from running away from the thing you worry about, the situation you don't want to face.

He will save you from acting on your anger, for you will have cast it upon Him.

Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you - how? He will save you, but also in verse 17 we read that He will hear us. He will actually hear our prayer. It will not go in one ear and out the other - He will actually hear us.

And then verse 18 He will sustain us by redeeming us. He will bring us through.

Cast your burden upon the Lord for He will sustain you.

You know that old hymn, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus"? There is a line there that goes, "O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer."

And it's true - what needless pain we bear, what peace we often give up simply because we think we can carry our burden ourselves. If only we would turn to God in prayer and ask Him to carry our burden for us.

This is a promise, He will sustain you. with a prelude. Cast your burden on the Lord.

Some of you today are carrying burdens. And today the Holy Spirit is speaking to you. He is calling you to cast them upon God. And we want to give you that opportunity.

We are going to come to communion and we are going to celebrate the fact that we can cast our burden of sin upon God. And through the solo and the prayers you will be invited to do that.

Then after communion while the organist and pianist play you are invited to take a slip of paper that is in the pews and write your burden on.

"God I give to you my burden of anger."

"God I give to you my burden of sorrow." "God I give to you my burden of anger."

Or it may be a burden you carry for a person.

"God I give to you the burden I carry for my children."

Then while we sing the last hymn the ushers will receive it and will bring it to the front and it will be destroyed, as a symbol of the fact that you have now given it to God. It is now his. And you no longer carry it. You trust Him with it.

Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you.

Let us now come to this table and cast upon him the burden of sin that we carry, trusting Him to cleanse us from all unrighteousness by His shed blood.

Footnote:

1. Quoted in "George Muller of Bristol" by A.T. Pierson, Pickering and Inglis, London, 1899, p. 145.