1 As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
the face of God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me continually,
“Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng
and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise him,
my help
6 and my God.
My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
at the thunder of your torrents;
all your waves and your billows
have gone over me.
8 By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God, my rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mournfully
because the enemy oppresses me?”
10 As with a deadly wound in my body,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually,
“Where is your God?”
11 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.
Psalm 42
DEVOTION
On the Sunday after Easter, April 7, lay pastor John Muldrow of The Salvation Army, where I worship in Florence, South Carolina, preached a sermon tilted “Where Is Your HOPE?” He used Psalm 42 as his scriptural text. The word hope in his title was capitalized.
The hymn that we sang before the sermon was My Hope Is Built, a very appropriate worship hymn for his sermon and the season of Eastertide. Eastertide, which we are currently celebrating, focuses on Jesus’ resurrection.
Edward Mote, who wrote the hymn My Hope Is Built, was a hymn writer who grew up without religious training and whose parents were pub owners. He was apprenticed at a young age by his parents to a cabinetmaker. He committed his life to Christ at the age of 15 when he heard the preaching of John Hyatt at the Tottenham Court Road Chapel in London. He went on to established a successful cabinet-making enterprise in Southwark near London, and followed this employment until he became a Baptist minister in 1852, at 55 years of age. He ministered for 21 years at Strict Baptist Church in Horsham, Sussex.
Singing hymns was of great interest to Mote. The master cabinetmaker became a prolific hymn writer, composing more than 100 hymns. He published his hymns in 1836, in a hymnbook titled Hymns of Praise, A New Selection of Gospel Hymns. Hymnologists note that this is the first time the now common term “gospel hymn” appears.
The hymn My Hope Is Built was written in 1834 and originally began, “Nor earth, nor hell, my soul can move.” The original title was Jesus, My All In All. The origin of this hymn, as narrated by the composer: “One morning it came into my mind as I went to labour, to write an hymn on the ‘Gracious Experience’ of a Christian. I had the chorus, ‘On Christ the solid Rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand.’”
The next Sunday Mote visited the home of a fellow church member whose wife was very ill. The husband informed Mote that it was their custom on the Lord’s Day to sing a hymn, read the Bible, and pray together. The cabinet maker produced the new hymn from his pocket, and those gathered, as a number of church members had gathered in the home, sang together the hymn, that is now titled My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less, for the first time. This hymn’s compelling topic is hope, as it relates to the parable about the security of building a house on rock, as opposed to sand (Matthew 7:24-27).
My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand:
all other ground is sinking sand;
all other ground is sinking sand.
Our only hope in life is grounded in our faith in Jesus, our Lord and Savior, our Redeemer.
Corps Sergeant Major John Muldrow, reflecting on the title of his sermon “Where Is Your HOPE?” said “it seems like a very simple question,” though it is not. He then discussed how we place hope in the secular ideals of society, which he explained is false hope, for the only true hope that we can have is to “trust and faith and confidence in God.” Then, alluding to the worship service opening hymn, My Hope Is Built, he offered this spiritual advice: “Put your hope in a rock that is steadfast and sure.”
Psalm 42, our scriptural reading for this morning, speaks of separation from God. This is not a spiritual separation, but a physical separation as the psalmist is denied, by the enemies of Judaism, access to the Temple where he longs to sing praises to God. He yearns to return to the sanctuary “As a deer longs for flowing streams.” He has a great thirst, and only the living waters of God can quench that thirst. Though, he answers his despair with a message of hope, as the last line of his poem reads: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”
Where Is Your HOPE?
John Muldrow’s hope, my hope, and I hope that your hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.