Preaching to Your Own Soul

"Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” (Psalm 43:5).  In this psalm as in many others, we find David talking to his soul.  He is in a way reproving his soul for being discouraged.  Martyn Lloyd-Jones, one of the greatest preachers of the 20th century, held emphatically that whenever Christians find themselves disheartened, they need to preach to themselves.  They need to exhort their own souls.  I have found that many of the great Puritans of the 17th century stressed the same thing.  Here is what one of the best of their number, Richard Sibbes, had to say on the verse above: “David was in great trials and afflictions, for God allows his children to fall into long and great afflictions and troubles before his deliverance comes.  It is implied in the text that David was reproving his soul for being cast down.  David realized that their was no good reason why he should be cast down, but there he was.  It is a sin for a child of God to be too much discouraged and cast down in afflictions.  The soul is cast down too much when our sorrow does not bring us to God, but away from God.”  I think a very important point to grasp from David’s example here is that a major step in his recovery from discouragement was the dialogue he had with his own soul!