Psalm 38
This is a Psalm of David for
the memorial offering. Psalm 38, beginning at verse
1, it says, O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline
me in your wrath. For your arrows have sunk into
me, and your hand has come down on me. There is no soundness
in my flesh because of your indignation. There is no health in my bones
because of my sin. For my iniquities have gone over
my head, Like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. My
wounds stink and fester because of my foolishness. I am utterly
bowed down and prostrate. All the day I go about mourning,
for my sides are filled with burning and there is no soundness
in my flesh. I am feeble and am crushed. I
groan because of the tumult of my heart. Oh Lord, all my longing
is before you. My sighing is not hidden from
you. My heart throbs, my strength fails me, and the light of my
eyes, it has also gone from me. My friends and my companions
stand aloof from my plague, and my nearest kin stands far off.
Those who seek my life lay their snares, those who seek my hurt
speak of ruin, and meditate treachery all the day long. But I am like
a deaf man, I do not hear, like a mute man who does not open
his mouth. I have become like a man who
does not hear, and in whose mouth are no rebukes. But for you,
O Lord, do I wait. It is you, O Lord, my God, who
will answer. For I said, only let them not
rejoice over me, who boast against me when my foot slips. For I
am ready to fall, and my pain is ever before me. I confess
my iniquity. I am sorry for my sin. But my
foes are vigorous. They are mighty. And many are
those who hate me wrongfully. Those who render me evil for
good accuse me because I follow after good. Do not forsake me,
O Lord, O my God. Be not far from me. Make haste
to help me, O Lord, my salvation. Amen. Our Lord and God, we pray
that these words from the pen of King David might encourage
us, encourage us to confess our sin, encourage us to think about
how damaging and dangerous our sin is, but also to encourage
us to run to Christ. to run to the cross, to cling
to Jesus, for He alone is our hope and our salvation and can
save us from our sin and from the misery that comes from it.
We ask it all in His name and for His sake. Amen. When I was
a kid, we used to play in Willowbrook Creek Park just down the street
and there’s a little section the other day I was riding down
Willowbrook on my way to get a haircut with Patrick and I
saw a little section with stones in the bottom. And I remember
that section from years and years ago. We used to, as kids, play
on that. We used to hop from one stone to the next, one stone
to the next, until we got across the creek. And we had a lot of
church picnics over there. And I can remember many a church
picnic where we didn’t make it from stone to stone, but fell
in the water. And how, for many hours, we had to suffer with
wet clothes until it was time to go home. And some of you kids
know how it is. Your parents are long-winded,
and they talk and talk and talk after church. and you have to
suffer in your wet clothes. You miss a stone, though, and
you get all wet. And that’s the way it is. Well, this psalm,
in navigating it, is a lot like crossing a creek. If you jump
from stone to stone, you’ll make it through. And each of those
stones, I would suggest, are the prayers. You find them in
verses one, verse nine, verse 15, and then at the end, in verse
21, 22. But if you sort of dance across the psalm on those stones,
which are prayers, you’ll make it through. And you’ll notice
that each prayer at the beginning is desperate, is dark, is hard,
is difficult. But as you get through the psalm,
the prayers get progressively more trusting in God, more confident
in a faithful outcome, more willing to confess sins and own up to
one’s own troubles. And the faith of David, our faith,
increases as we make it through. So the psalm starts out hard
and it gets better and better as you go through. But if you
dance across the stones or the prayers, you’ll get there. This
psalm, as you know, we look at each psalm. What kind of psalm
is it? Well, this psalm is a bunch of
different things. It’s a confession. David has
sinned and he confesses it. It’s a lament. My life is terrible.
It’s a complaint. God, you have shot me with your
arrows, and those wounds which you have inflicted upon me, they’re
festering, they stink, they’re infected, they’re not getting
better. So it’s all those things all in one. But let’s look at
the psalm through the eyes of the prayers. Look at prayer number
one. Find it in verse one. It says, O Lord, rebuke me not
in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. David is probably
resigned to the fact that he’s going to get it. Some of you
kids remember that from your childhood or you’re presently
experiencing in your childhood. You know you’ve done wrong and
you’re going to get in trouble. Just don’t make it as bad as
it could be. You ever had that prayer with your parents? I know
I’m going to the woodshed, but just don’t make it as bad as
it could be. Well, David just doesn’t want God’s full wrath.
Now, would you want God’s full wrath? No, you wouldn’t. And
so David is praying that. David is in the midst of great
sickness. We’ll read in just a few minutes about how sick
he is, how bad his life is. And he believes that the sickness
is directly related to his sin. We don’t know what he did, but
we understand that he’s not feeling good. He’s feeling pretty rotten.
And he believes it is directly connected to sickness. And we
have to stop there and understand a couple of things. Number one,
every time you get sick, you get the sniffles or the cold,
or you end up in the hospital, it’s not because you have sinned.
Now sickness is a result of sin. The world is cursed. There’s
sickness because of sin. But is every sickness you have
a direct judgment from God? Well the answer is sometimes
it could be. But very often we don’t need
to see it as that way. But it could be that you get
sick. Now we understand there are certain behaviors in life that
if you do these certain behaviors you’re going to get the consequences.
And there are some sins which are heinous in God’s sight and
you can get sick and die. And your body can fall apart
in great judgment. We do understand that. Now, it’s
very interesting that this class that meets in here on Sunday
mornings is studying Job. What Job’s friends, as they call
him, say to him, Job, you’ve done something wrong. And that’s
why you lost your wife and your children and your cattle and
your grandchildren and your houses and your barns and your winery
and your whatever else. But what did chapter one and
two say about Job? He was a righteous man and there
was none like him on the face of the earth. So we have to understand
that it’s not always the case. But David’s prayer is this, you’re
going to rebuke me, just don’t do it in your anger. I am miserable
enough as it is. Now he’s going to describe in
verses two through eight how he feels. He says, your arrows
have sunk into me. That’s a painful thought. Your
hand has come down upon me. Now who wants the hand of God
upon them? Not me, not I. There is no soundness in my flesh
because of your indignation. There’s no health in my bones
because of my sin. My iniquities have gone over
my head. They’re like a heavy burden. They’re too heavy for
me. Now stop there for just a moment.
Have you ever sinned and you know you’ve sinned and God lets
you know that you’ve sinned and life is just flat miserable?
And even when you have confessed and said, oh God, I didn’t mean
to, I’m sorry, I now realize it was wrong. It was wicked,
it was evil, I shouldn’t have done it. But you just still feel
rotten. That’s where David is. And he
has God’s heavy hand upon him. And then he goes on, it gets
a little gross, you might say. He says in verse five, my wounds
stink and they fester because of my foolishness. I am utterly
bowed down and prostrate. All the day I go about mourning.
My sides are filled with burning. There’s no soundness in my flesh.
I’m feeble, I’m crushed. and I groan because of the tumult
of my heart.” Now, I don’t know how much worse of a situation
he could get in. I mean, he sounds a lot like
Job, where he’s got sores, he can’t sleep at night. All his
friends have come to spite him and to say foolish, ungodly things
that are not helpful, but discouraging to him. And he’s in a bad way. Well, it leads us to his next
prayer, verse two. Before we land on that second
prayer, Think about this, is there something in your life
that you need to repent of? Because God will pursue you.
And as we see in the life of King David, he’ll pursue you
in such a way that he’ll get your attention, he’ll wake you
up, and he’ll make you come to him. Something to think about,
something to pray about. Well, the second prayer we find
in verse nine. He says, Oh Lord, my longing,
all my longing is before you. My sighing is not hidden from
you. And you see there’s little progression.
He goes from go easy on me to Lord, you, you know, everything
I’m sighing and groaning about. Sometimes, sometimes we feel
a little bit like Eeyore, nothing’s going right. Everything’s against
us. Well, that’s what we find in this set of complaints in
10 through 14. After this prayer, he says, my,
My heart throbs. My strength fails. The light
in my eyes, it’s gone from me. My friends and my companions,
they stand aloof from my plague. My nearest of kin stands far
off. I go back up to those earlier
verses. Would you want to come be around somebody who stinks
and they’re festering and they’re Wounds are like they are. Do
you want to be around a Job? Do you want to be around somebody
who suffers? So he’s feeling a little bit
like Eeyore. Nobody likes me and everybody hates me. But God,
he says, all my longing is before you. My sighing is not hidden
from you. He speaks in verse 12. Those
who seek my life lay their snares. Those who seek my hurt speak
of ruin. They meditate treachery all day long. I’m like a deaf
man. I don’t hear. I’m like a mute
man who does not open his mouth. I’ve become like a man who does
not hear and in whose mouth are no rebukes. You may have felt
this way before but not been able to articulate it. And sometimes
the Psalms for us articulate what we couldn’t say or maybe
we would dare not say. I mean, here’s David, man after
God’s own heart. saying some pretty hard things,
some pretty rough things. And that’s why the Psalms are
so wonderful. They give us words to say when we don’t have them
ourselves. Then there’s a third prayer in
verse 15. He says, but for you, O Lord,
do I wait. It is you, O Lord, my God, who
will answer. Now you might say it in other
words. David said, I’m going to sit
tight. I’m just going to wait and I’m going to watch and I’m
gonna let God do his work. It’s very interesting that he
says this because that was the theme of Psalm 37. We whizzed
through it last week, I know, but one of the great themes of
Psalm 37 is I’m just gonna sit tight and I’m gonna calm myself
and I’m gonna let God do his work. And that’s one of the greatest
things we can do when we are in the midst of hardship. When
life is falling apart, when the roof is tumbling in on us The
ground is giving way beneath us. We sit tight and we watch
and we wait for the Lord. So that’s his prayer in verse
15. I’ll wait on you. You’re the one who will answer.
All my friends, they’ve laid snares for me, they’ve discouraged
me, they’ve stayed away from me because I stink and my wounds
fester and all the rest. He says I’ll just sit tight.
Now notice in the next couple verses, verses 16 through 20
when he talks about his position again, or his plight. He summarizes
what he said in verses two through eight, and he summarizes what
he said in 10, 14. So the complaint in 16 to 20 is kind of a summary
of the first two complaints. He says, for I said only let
them not rejoice over me who boast against me. So there’s
people, they don’t like me, they’re waiting for me to fall apart
and die. But he says, don’t let them rejoice.
Don’t let them dance on my tomb, I guess he might be saying. He
says, I’m ready to fall. My pain is ever before me. I
confess my iniquity. I’m sorry for my sin. But my
foes are vigorous. They are mighty. And many are
those who hate me wrongfully. Those who render me evil for
good, they accuse me because I follow after good. Do not forsake me. That’s the
final prayer. Do not forsake me, oh Lord, my
God. Be not far from me. Make haste to help me, O Lord,
my salvation. Then that last little section,
16 to 20, he speaks of how his enemies gloat over him, how he’s
ready just to fall full headlong and fail finally. His sin troubles
him. He’s outnumbered by his enemies,
and they’re not only standing at a distance waiting for him
to fall, but they are slandering him, they’re accusing him. But
the final prayer leads us to a resolution. And this is the
case in a lot of psalms. Psalms often resolve themselves
and the very end is a blessing. The very end is God working things
out and he addresses God and speaks of him as his salvation.
Do not forsake me, O Lord my God. Be not far from me. My friends
are far from me, but you be not far from me. Make haste to help
me, O Lord my salvation. All others are going to fail
him. All others are going to stay away. interesting thing to speak of
God as our salvation. And to know that sometimes we
go through utter despair, utter hardship, utter failures, utter
loss, utter sickness, utter desperation. And we need to remember that
in order for God to save us, that’s what Jesus went through.
You remember the night he was betrayed when he was praying
in the garden. He asked his disciples to pray and watch and watch and
pray, and they couldn’t do it. They fell asleep. But Jesus prayed. He was praying for us. And he
went through some of the most difficult turmoil that any human
could go through. It says he sweated droplets of
blood. His body was convulsing. It was
putting out blood as he prayed in anguish over his future suffering,
but also over our future life. But the next day when he went
to the cross, he would suffer in a way that was greater than
even David suffered here. People would abandon Jesus. He
would be wounded. He would be mortally wounded,
in fact, for our sakes. And so in the midst of our suffering,
we have to be reminded that suffering is a result of sin, sometimes
directly our sin, but always the sin of Adam and the effects
it’s had on this world. We have to remember that others
will kick us while we’re down. You probably experienced that.
Couldn’t get worse, but it does. And often it comes from family
or even folks that we would call loved ones. But we have to remember
that Jesus will never leave us. He’ll never forsake us. And in
the midst of our hardship, in the midst of our service to the
King of Kings, God is always with us and he will never forsake
us. and that he’s been there in those
hardships before us, and he can identify with us greatly. So
let us think and pray on these things. Let’s pray together.
God, we ask and pray that you might help us to understand that
life in this world is not fair. Life in this world is full of
suffering and sin and difficulty. Life in this world, even when
we’re trying to live and strive after righteousness, hardship
does come. And Lord, we remember that you’ve
chastened us for our sin, round off those rough edges, and sometimes
it just plain hurts. But we thank you that redemption
is ours in Christ, that forgiveness is ours in the Savior, and that
you will never leave us or be far from us. And we pray that
this psalm might be embedded in our minds and hearts so that
we can make sense of the world we live in and the hardship that
often comes. And we pray that you give grace
to those who are who are caught in sin and unable to get away
from it, that you by your spirit, you by your word, and you by
the faithfulness of your people might rescue others from the
snares of sin and death. And we pray all this in the name
of Christ. Amen.