What does the Bible say about despair?

Faith here is the full confidence in God, which counts on His goodness and faithfulness, and that He is for us - which trusts a God who is entirely for us. Without this all is despair, or near to it, in a conscience which feels that it has to do with God. Satan has got in; and to the soul which feels the need of God being for it there is left only the agonising feeling that He is not. Hence the Saviour prays for Peter, that his faith might not fail; that is, that in spite of his dreadful fall he might not be left to the thought that therefore God had abandoned him, was against him, and that there was no hope. The fiery darts of Satan are not his efforts to seduce by acting on our various lusts; but where, by any means, our hearts are turned away from God, the inroads he makes in the form of unbelief and despair. This is the force of the passage in the Corinthians, lest Satan tempt you for your incontinency. The evil was there, the incontinency was supposed, the temptation was the power of Satan over the soul, which was the result. It is evidently a different power from his seductions. There is no pleasure in despair, but deep agony. The flesh finds its pleasure in satisfying its lusts, but there is no lust of despair it is as a consuming fire in the soul.

Here of course it is the repentance of saints who had sinned. But it is the same principle, and in contrast with the world's grief which, knowing not God, gives itself up to despair and works out death. However overwhelmed may be the believer, God takes care that there shall be enough hope in His mercy to guard from the despairing fear which Satan wields for his deadly purposes.

We now turn for a moment to the second thing: "Wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." The enemy's first and dreadful aim will be to weaken in our hearts this unquestioning confidence in God, to edge in by some means unbelieving thoughts, to insinuate that God is not all love, all goodness. These are his fiery darts, darts of unbelief. Especially when there has been failure; when the heart, by some means, has been turned away from God, will he drive the soul to despair, if he can. He will press upon the fallen one the terrible thought that God is a against him, that God has abandoned him, that there is no hope. Hence the Lord's prayer for Peter that his faith might not fail him, that he might not be tempted, in consequence of his great sin, to unbelieving thoughts of God. There is no suffering so great as the agony of despair. Those who have witnessed it in others will never forget it. What must it be to pass through it! It partakes of the torments of hell — the forsaken place — the place where hope never enters. Nothing but the shield of faith can quench the fiery darts of unbelief.

When the soul is distressed or cast down, that is not sin in itself. But sin comes in when there is distrust of God.

Despair does not enter into true sorrow for sin, for along and with it there is a sense of the nearness of the Lord. He stands by in tender grace to lead the soul into full restoration to Himself. Sin appears in its exceeding sinfulness in contrast to His faithfulness and love; His grace becomes a greater reality than ever; the sin is confessed and forgiven; the root of it exposed and judged; and the soul is cleansed from all unrighteousness.

Peter went out then, and "wept bitterly." Repentance did its proper work in his soul, as he saw his folly and sin in the light of his Lord's love. Here is the difference between repentance and remorse. Repentance is the judgment of my sin that I have in the light of love, and grace known. Remorse is produced by viewing the sin in the light only of its probable results. Repentance begets hope, remorse leads only to despair. Repentance leads the soul back to God, remorse drives it to deeper sin, and further into Satan's hands. This is all illustrated in the consequent pathway of Peter and Judas. Judas, who did not know what grace was, went out and, in remorse over his consummate wickedness, hanged himself; Peter, who did know what grace was, and who knew better than ever then how deeply the Lord loved him, went out and wept bitterly. The last thing Peter had done was to deny his Master, and the next thing his Master did was to die for Peter; and if He had not died for Peter, he never could have been restored nor saved.

(Vv. 8-10). The Apostle then refers to the severe trials he had passed through in Asia. The pressure that came upon him was beyond human power to meet; indeed he had despaired of life. Nevertheless, he found that no trial, no opposition, the Christian has to meet is beyond the sustaining power of God. The Apostle may despair of life, but he does not despair of God. If even faced with death, and like the Master, a violent death at the hands of wicked men, yet God is stronger than death. Thus in his great trials he had learned his own weakness and God's almighty power, in order that he should not trust in himself but in God Who raises the dead. Thus, looking back he can say, God has delivered; looking around he can say, God "doth deliver," and looking on he can say, God "will yet deliver." And what Paul could say in his great trials, it is the privilege of the simplest believer to say with like trust in God.

Now in 2 Corinthians we have experimental exercised faith in the conflict; not going on badly, yet one trusting in grace for those who did, not rising on the wings of faith above all the trials, but exercise of heart finding God in them; and this too is very precious. The trials are of various kinds. First, violent persecution, so as to despair of life. He had the sentence of death in himself (this is the secret of force in trial) not to trust in self but God who raises the dead; two things, carrying the sentence of death, the Cross on self, God sending it practically, so he says further on, but it is God meeting the man in the putting down of self. This is brought out beautifully in chapter 4: troubled man, not distressed - God is there; persecuted man, not forsaken - God there; perplexed man, not in despair - God there; cast down man, not destroyed - God there. Now this is the whole matter, and then follows the spiritual mind as to it, already quoted.

(vv. 6-8) Nevertheless, present circumstances are such that the soul is cast down, though it ceases not to remember God from the dreary mountain places beyond Jordan, to which it has been banished. There his calamities are compared to floods and waves allowed by God to overwhelm his soul. Nevertheless the godly man looks on to the coming day when Jehovah will command His loving-kindness. In the meantime his night will be relieved by praise and prayer (cp. Acts 16:25).

(vv. 9-11) In the assurance of the coming day, the godly man stays his soul upon God as his rock. He may have to meet storms of opposition from enemies that oppress and reproach him, as they continually say “Where is thy God?” but no storm can move or shake the Rock in which he trusts. The circumstances may lead him to cry, “Why hast thou forgotten me?” Nonetheless, God being his rock, he can again rebuke the natural tendency to despondency by saying, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God.” Then with renewed confidence the soul can add, “I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.” The favour of God's countenance (v. 5) becomes the health of the countenance of the godly man.

He went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree, and he requested for himself that he might die. It is not but what we see the man of God, but still the man who was tired of life. That was not a feeling of faith. There is very often much more faith in being willing to live than in wishing to die. Wishing to die is not the proof of faith at all. I grant you that no man that knows what death is, that knows what judgment is, that knows what sin is, that knows what God is, could wish to die unless he knew the Saviour. But having known the Saviour we may wince under the trial to which we are exposed in this world. Elijah did, and he wished to die, wished to get out of the trial — certainly a most unbelieving wish. The Lord never did. And there was the perfection of it. If the Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane had wished to die it would have been the same failure. It could not be, and God forbid such a thought, but on the contrary the perfection of the Lord Jesus was that He did not wish to die — "Not my will, but thine be done." On the contrary, He felt death, and He felt the gravity. I grant you, there was all the difference between the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and that of any other. In any other case death is a gain. Death to a believer is gain, but still we ought not to wish to gain till the Lord's time comes for it. We ought to wish to do His will, the only right wish for a saint. He said, "It is enough; now, O Jehovah, take away my life." He was impatient. "Take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers." Yet he was running away from Jezebel. He was vexed; he was unhappy. He now fails after his testimony. He, was miserable now, but after all he wanted not to die when Jezebel wanted to take his life, and now that he is here he wants to die.