Singing for the help of the Lord, I direct your prayerful attention to Psalm 38, and ready for our text, verse nine. Lord, all my desire is before thee, and my groaning is not heard from thee. Psalm 38 and verse 9.

Desire, oh my desire. Desire is a strong feeling of wanting something or willing for something to happen. This psalm you're told in the heading the psalm of David, and to bring to remembrance. It is filled with a sense of God's judgment and the consciousness of sin. If anything here is brought to remembrance, it is the fall, it is the consequences of fall, the felt sense of sin in David and that which he struggled with and was under the influence of right through his life.

Mine iniquities are gone over mine head as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me. My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness. My loins are filled with the loathsome disease. There's no soundness in my flesh. It's a good thing when we do not forget what we are in Adam and how that we have fallen. It will keep us on the important things, the vital things, those things which are vital in a dying hour, often used to be struck by the martyrs when they were being martyred, that the portion of scripture that they wanted read was Psalm 51. Bring to remembrance their sin, but also the redemption and deliverance and saving from sin.

How easy it is, especially nowadays, to lose sight of that which is vital, and be taken up with all sorts of other things. Naturally, and sometimes I have felt this, and really even prayed it, Lord, I'd be a better Christian if I didn't have this constant battle with sin, if I didn't have this fallen nature. But you know, if the Lord granted us that, that we'd never felt our sin, we'd never need Him, He wouldn't be precious to us, we wouldn't pray, we'd be like those that are lost, those that yet are not called, that have no sense of their sins yet before a holy God.

We must remember that it is God's children alone that really know what sinners they are and what evil hearts they have. And so when you have a psalm like this, it is to bring to remembrance, it is that we don't forget what we are in Adam, what we are outside of Christ, and to humble ourselves before God because of our sin and iniquity.

This psalm is also a very prophetic psalm. We cannot read it, but have our thoughts go to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, bearing His people's sin. And this is why we read the portion in Luke, because it was there in the Garden of Gethsemane where it is fulfilled, He had laid on Him the iniquity of us all. And we find our Lord groaning under the sense of sin laid upon Him.

When we find the people of God, like David, groaning under sin when we feel our own, it would be a strange thing if we then viewed our Lord and His sufferings and there was no aspect of sin or suffering for sin in His sufferings. But it is, and it's very, very evident. And so, though this may be and was David's experience, yet David is a prophet, he is speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who was made sin for us, that knew no sin.

That's a good thing where we can enter something, enter the sufferings. of our Lord Jesus Christ, not just those physical sufferings, not even where He endured the contradiction of sinners for Himself, but because He bore our sin. And so when we come to a time like this, then we see something of our Lord groaning and crying out under the weight of his people's sin.

I draw your attention to four fours in this psalm. In verse 15 through to 18, following this, thus I was as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs. Then he says, for in thee, O Lord, do I hope thou will hear, O Lord my God. Then another four, for I said, hear me, lest otherwise they should rejoice over me. When my foot slippeth, they magnify themselves against me. And then verse 17, for I'm ready to hold, and my sorrow is continually before me. And verse 18, for I will declare mine iniquity, I'll be sorry for my sin. And he follows us flowing out from those things that he's walking through.

There's a reason, reason for his sense of sinnership, reason why I as a deaf man, verse 13, heard not, I was as a dumb man that openedeth not his mouth. And so may we also see those things that flow out from our sense of cinship, and it affects how we speak, how we think, how we act.

But now coming immediately to the text, I want to speak of three things, no, just three things. The first is to notice that it is in desire, that the difference between the wicked and the godly is clearly shown. Lord, all my desire is before Thee, my crony is not hid from Thee. The second thing is to notice that the psalmist He knows that his desires and his groans are not hid from the Lord. He knows that. And then thirdly, the path of our Lord and that fellowship with Him.

But firstly, this distinction, this difference, that is before between the righteous and the wicked. When we come forth from the womb, we are walking in a path that all of our desires, all of our ways are completely contrary to the Lord and to His ways. In Job we read that the Wicked desire not the knowledge of the Lord. I was really struck by that because there's many times I've tried to speak to those round about us at Cranbrook and a lady I only saw today but a couple of years ago when we had our Thanksgiving services I bummed into her as I was putting leaflets around to people that we knew, inviting them to the services. And she said, oh, she said, I'm not religious. I said, but you have a soul, and you must stand before God. I said, come, come and hear the word of the Lord. Look, have one of these invitations and come. No, she said, I would rather not know. I do not want to know. And I've come across this several times, and when I read this in Job, I thought, this is a real definition of the wicked. People wouldn't like to be told that they're wicked, but the definition is they desire not the knowledge of the Lord. They'd rather die in complete ignorance, they'd rather just end up knowing not where they are going or what is before them.

And I felt this, this is a very clear mark of those that are not the Lord. Their desires are not after the things of God. They do not want them, they do not ask for them, They do not go where they shall hear the things of God. They do not pray for them. And the apostle, when he writes the Ephesians, he says that we all, we were fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as others. And again, the emphasis is on what the desires of the ungodly are, they're after the flesh and after the things of this world.

We read in Isaiah 53 concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, that there is no form or comeliness that we should desire Him. In a natural way, there is nothing to attract us or draw us, to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is put then as a very clear evidence, a very clear token of grace where the Lord changes the desires, where He puts them in a different way. It is God that does it, and I hope this might be as a means of comfort clarification, making it clear whose we are, whom we serve, where the Lord has been pleased to change our desires.

It struck me in our first hymn, the last verse, yes, dearest Lord, tis my desire, thy wise appointments to admire and trace the footsteps of my God through every path in Zion's road. There was one desire of the hymn writer, a desire that is not a natural one, to really want to trace out and look at all of the Lord's ways and delight ourselves in those ways.

In Psalm 73, he begins that psalm and he's very troubled by the wicked, there are no bands in their death, but their strength is firm. He says that my feet were almost gone, my steps had well now slipped, I was envious of the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. And he sets forth what their path was in this world. And they did not desire the things of God at all. wasn't until he came into the sanctuary. Then he saw the difference, how that God had put them in slippery places and suddenly they were to go down into the pit. But when he comes to the end of the psalm, then he is looking at the Lord and what the Lord has done for him. He says, nevertheless I am continually with thee, Thou hast holden me by my right hand, Thou shalt guide me with Thy countenance, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee." And there is that desire after the Lord. What a difference in the earlier part, he was stumbled, with the prosperity of the wicked, but when he comes to the end, then his desire is after the Lord.

No man, says our Lord, can come unto me, except the Father which hath sent me. Draw him, and I'll raise him up at the last day. And it is the Lord then that puts these desires, a desire after God. When shall I come and appear before God? that time when a man looks unto his Maker, and instead of desiring to be just ignorant and to far off from Him, he desires to know about God, and to know the way of salvation. I know when the Lord first gave me spiritual life, first quickened my soul, that was the desire, and it changed from not wanting to go to the house of God, not wanting to hear the things of God, to want to hear at every opportunity. Anyone that would speak to me about the things of God, my ear was open to them. That desire had completely changed, as in a moment.

And so there'll be those desires after God, after holiness, after those things which are above. Psalm 110, I believe it is, from the womb of the morning, there is holiness. And when you think of the spiritual birth, it is the Holy Ghost that quickens a soul. And so right from the very beginning, there is holiness. You don't have a situation where a soul is quickened, has a new birth, and it's a long way down the track that they suddenly think, well, I should be walking in ways of holiness or uprightness. There will be those things that we are shown as inconsistent with the faith, but there will be things immediately that will be seen as unholy, and we desire that which is holy. And that's because the one who's quickened us into life is the Holy Ghost. It's a holy birth right from the very beginning, the womb of the morning. And so there'll be desires.

After that, after holiness, there'll be desires after His Word. Put in a way of exhortation, Peter, he says, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby. Those desires will be there, a desire to read the Word, to hear the Word, to hear it preached. And one thing about desires, Because the Apostle Paul, he says, the good that I would, I do not, the evil that I would not, that I do. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? We may desire something, it's a strong wanting something, wanting something to come to pass, but we ourselves have no power to do it. And we come to the Lord to do it, but the blessing is that first is a willingness, first is a desire.

Blessed are those that hunger, says our Lord, and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. They're blessed when they are hungry or when they are thirsty. Not when they are filled, yes they are, but the blessing comes with the the hunger and thirst first, and so with the desire, that where there's that really desire to do that which is right, to walk in the right ways, and yet, as the psalmist David here proves, how much sin and wickedness and evil, and that we aren't able to fulfill and to do all that we desire.

It is said of repentance, repentance is absolutely vital for salvation. But repentance is never perfect. We never fully turn to the Lord. We still remain sinners. But the spirit of repentance is the vital thing. That willingness, search, Lord, oh, search my inmost heart. Try its real state to find. That willing to be searched, a willing to change and to turn. That is what is pure and right. This side of the grave, we're not perfect, we never will be free of sin. But what the Lord gives to his people, Paul says, he said, so with the flesh I serve the law of sin, but with the mind, the law of Christ. He says, if I do that which I would not, is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. And so he was desiring to do that which is right, but finding the opposition that is within all the time.

The Sabbath's day, the trouble here, was his sin. His desire was not to that sin, but to be free from it. The desire also will be to be with the people of God. When we think of the case of Ruth and Orpah, we find two, and often in the scriptures, the Lord doesn't just give one, he gives two, Abel and Esau, two worshippers, one worshipped right, one wrong, two praying, Pharisee, publican in the temple, one commended by our Lord, the other not. And you find this right away through the scripture. Most of the parables, the Lord is comparing too. And we find with Ruth, there's not just one that is brought out of Moab. But there's two, there's two widows there. And one desire, strong desire to be with Naomi. have that her God be her God, her people my people. She desired to be with her, she claimed to her, but did not have that desire. And there you see again that the difference that is wrought in the heart and it's seen by desire, that strong feeling of wanting something.

Emre just speaks of that aching void, that the world cannot fill, and that desire like Bunyan's, Christian, was that he might flee from the wrath to come, or the city of destruction, and seek unto the Lord, and seek that heavenly city. You know, where there is the desires, then there'll be action following after that. And there's a promise, the desire of the righteous, shall be granted. And so in desire there is the real difference and may we have that witness of the Spirit, where we stand in this.

And again with a contrast, in youth, in unregeneracy, our desires are after all materialistic things, worldly things. very positive desire for spending the time in all those things which Solomon says, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. And on the other hand, a lack of desire for the things of God. But when the Lord began, when the Lord begins, then that changes, that turns, and the desire for temporal, vain, empty earthly things is dimmed or taken away, and the desire for spiritual things is raised strong and pursued after. And this then is a clear mark of grace, a clear changing of the heart, renewing the spirit of the mind, and giving that soul something that they do not have. by nature. And we've said the encouragement of each year and that here's the word, if the Lord has given you a desire after Him and His ways, that's not a natural thing, it's not a thing we're born with, it's not something that Satan can or would give us at all, but it's something that God gives and God does. And it comes before a soul has assurance, before a soul even knows that they are a child of God. The Lord gives them this token, this which will follow on to be granted in God's time and will really follow right through one's life. And there'll be those desires to be with the Lord, as the Apostle said, to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better.

When we're in chastening under the correcting hand of God, the desire will be, Lord, make this work for good. Let it not just be chastening for chastening's sake and me be like a bullock unaccustomed with the yoke, but let it be that I'm bettered by it. that there is profit within. No chasing for the present seemeth to be joyous, but greedous nevertheless afterward, yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby. And their desire will then be, Lord I've suffered this loss, might be a materialistic loss, I've been through this trial, but let it be for good. Let it work for good. And there will be that desire, not just to get out of the cross, not just to get out of the Lord's hand. The psalmist here is speaking of His hand upon him. But the desire will be that it will be for good and used for good.

Well, there's not only a desire here mentioned in our text, but it is also groaning. All my desire is before Thee, My groaning is not hid from Thee. And so it pictures a being in a situation which is not only a desire arising from it, it's a desire after the Lord, a hunger and thirsting after the Lord. It's a groaning under one's sin, a being burdened with that sin and with the path that we are called to walk in. This is a soul. There's a living soul, a feeling soul, one that knows what it is to really bear their sin themselves.

I want to then notice secondly, that the psalmist knows that his desire is known by the Lord. Lord, all my desire is before Thee, and my groaning is not heard from Thee. Again, we have a contrast in something that marks out God's people. We think of those that do not want to know God, and are horrified, or would be horrified to think that God knows them, knows their thoughts, their intentions, their life, and everything about them. But when the Lord works with a sinner, they already then know their sinnership. They know under God's certain eye what they are. And then it becomes, as with the psalmist here, a comfort that the Lord actually does know them. We think of Psalm 139, it's a beautiful psalm where, again, David says, O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising. Thou understandest my thought afar off. And right through the psalm, he's speaking of how the Lord has seen him, known him, even in the womb, even when he is being formed, and that nothing can hide him from the presence of the Lord. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me, he is very mindful of the Lord's eye upon him. And so it is in this psalm as well. He has been brought to know this, to testify it before God, and He is a means of comfort. All my desire is before Thee.

It's a wonderful thing that the God of heaven and of earth, who inhabits with eternity, who is so great, yet He condescends. to actually know what is in the hearts of His people and to know what their desires are. He doesn't say, Lord all my prayers are before Thee, that no doubt was the case. But He's saying all my desires are, that which is just felt, that which is wanted and longed for, without it being put into words, it is known by the Lord. And we may say, of course, that one reason why it is known is because God has put them there. He will have respect unto the work of his own hands. Wherever the Lord has worked, he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ, and that inward work The Lord knows all about, He knows the desires, the sighs, the cries, the groans, everything about that sinner. And the psalmist here is in prayer testifying this before God, and His groanings as well, not hid from thee.

I gave this for your help to us. to actually know that the Lord is mindful of our path, mindful of what we're going through, whether it is because there's sin that's working within, maybe it is that we've been called to walk a path in providence and there we are groaning under it, dear David knew what it was, the swords shall not depart from my house, path had been foretold, thy neighbours shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun, and they did, Absalom did, and the trouble that he had, those sins that he groaned under, and he would have known God had foretold it, this was his path, this was the chastening, and these sins then were

not hid, when Shimei was casting dust and cursing when David was fleeing from Absalom. He had a very different spirit than Abishai. Abishai would never take off his head, but David said, let him curse, the Lord hath bitten him. Maybe the Lord will quite be good, for he's cursing this day. And he's mindful the Lord is in control. The Lord is the sovereign. He is guiding all things.

and his life's minutest circumstance is subject to the Lord's eye and he feels and knows this. I wonder how much with us we are mindful that the Lord knows our path. Sometimes in the especially timing of things, the Lord makes it very clear that he does know where we are. and what we are doing.

Many years ago, I was preaching up at Ebenezer Luton, and feeling very, very low in my own soul. I had my father that was not well in Tasmania, but I was very low spiritually. And my dear one said, if you don't hurry up and drive, you're never gonna get to that chapel in time. So I went, and there were days when But we had a mobile phone and I just pulled up outside that chapel and turned the phone off, oh sorry, turned the engine off of the car and immediately the phone rang. Just when I could have picked it up. A moment later I'd have turned it off for ready for the service. And there's my dear wife, she said, your sister's run from Tasmania, your father's just been rushed off in the hospital. Didn't know whether to let you know, you already knew you were so low, but had the opposite effect. I thought, the Lord knows where my father is. He knows where I am this side of the world. He knew the exact moment that I turned that engine off. He knew the exact moment when I should pick up that phone, and it lifted me up. He encouraged me all that day. I had a good day that day. And it was just because I knew that the Lord knew. He impressed upon me. He knew where I was at that time.

I've had other times too. There's one time, dear friend up at Waddesham, he'd lost his wife and four years after, I was sitting in my study in the morning realized that it was the anniversary of his wife's death. And I had a scripture on my mind and I thought, I'll ring him up. And I just picked up the phone and rang him up. And he answered immediately. And he said, that's remarkable. He said, I'd just come off my knees in prayer. He said, a few seconds later I would have been out that door and gone to work. He said, your phone call came at precisely the exact moment, and I could read to him the text of my spirit. Just a few seconds phone call, 15 seconds or so, and that's all. But the timing, it was encouragement to him, encouragement to me. And it is these things that impress upon us what we trust we know anyway, but it makes it very real. that the Lord knows exactly where we are, my life's minutest circumstance, subject to His eye.

And so here, the psalmist is picturing the Lord, He is in heaven, but all of the psalmist's desire is before the Lord. And His groaning is not hid from Him either. And we know this, that the Lord in His time and in His way will deliver His people and save them and lift them up and help them. There are many things we come in life, sometimes small things that completely derail us, trouble us, churn up our minds, and the Lord knows these things. He causeth it to come. and causeth it to have that effect upon us. May we have a more and more knowledge and a persuasion that these things are not hid from the Lord. He sees and knows them.

I want to look lastly at that of the Lord Jesus Christ, the path of our Lord. We said at the start, and this is why we read in Luke, of His path in the Garden of Gethsemane and laying, having laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He said to His disciples when their Passover was due, He said with desire, I have desired to eat this Passover with you. before I suffer." It's an amazing thing, the Lord so desiring this with His disciples. This would be the last real Passover, because He was the Passover Lamb, He was the Paschal Lamb. He was the sufferer in their place. And so when the Lord brings His people to know something of His sufferings, He brings them into fellowship with Him. and his sufferings.

We think of John in writing his epistles, and he speaks of fellowship, and it's not just with the Lord, but it's with his people. In the first chapter, first epistle, verse three, that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us, And truly, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And that fellowship is realized in walking in the path of the Lord, walking. We can often hear of a path of another, and sometimes it can be very, very close to us. Dear uncle of ours, now with the Lord, One of his sons, who's now also passed away, he was afflicted with bipolar. And many, many years he was. So his father lived with it. He knew the affliction of his son in that way. And yet, when he came to the end of his life, when he was in Pembrey Hospital, And I was one of the first ones to visit him after he was taken in. And he said, where am I? He said, I'm in India or somewhere. And the nurses were all speaking in their own tongue round about him. And he was seeing things, I think he was seeing things outside the window as well. And he was really surprised to know, no, you're in England, you're in Tunbridge Wells. And he's confused like this in his mind. He suddenly said this, poor Brian, poor Brian. And I thought, yeah, for the first time in the eventide of your life, you're thinking of your son and at last really realizing what he'd been through.

That split mind and seeing things, imagining things that was part of his affliction. It was only when he walked through that himself that he could look back and remember, think, that was what my son walked through. And so with those things that the Lord brings us to walk through, it is a blessing when our minds are led to Christ, when we're led to consider Him, such contradiction of sin is against himself, lest we be wearied and faint in our minds. Sin must be put away, it must be dealt with. And with the Lord Jesus Christ, he suffered the hell that his people should suffer. He suffered the wrath of God that should be upon them. And we read in this psalm, rebuke me not in thy wrath. But there's no wrath for the people of God, that wrath was on Christ. Again, in the epistles of John, he speaks of the propitiation, a wrath-ending sacrifice. And the psalmist says here, no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The anger and wrath of God against the sins of the people of God that were laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And that which then is experienced and felt here below, that is not the eternal wrath of God. That is not that which is to be endured eternally. And it's only but, as the hymn writer says, we do but taste the cup. He alone hath rung it up. And it's when we come then into those places that we have some fellowship with the Lord.

But that leads us also to think, what were the desires of the Lord? And we have that in the beautiful prayer in John 17. Father, I will that they whom thou has given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory. And the desires that the Lord had towards his dear people, towards their salvation, towards their peace, are these things I have spoken unto you, that in me you might have peace, in the world you shall have tribulation, be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. That desire for his people that they might be upheld and strengthened. He says to Peter, I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. When thou art converted, strengthen thy breath. And that which the Lord desires for his people, he mentioned the text, the desire of the righteous shall be granted. Our Lord Jesus is the only true righteous one. Our righteousness is are as filthy rags, but our righteousness is of Him. This is the name, wherewith He shall be called the Lord our righteousness. And so, with the desire of the righteous, the desire of Christ, is granted, His people shall be with Him. It shall be that His sacrifice is accepted, that He lays down His life for His sheep, that He takes it again, that He receives His dear people above.

In our text, it doesn't say just, Lord, my desire is before Thee. It is all my desire. And I just want to add this, with us, We have our old nature, and we have a new nature. With our Lord, there's no sin in heaven. All the desires were pure, holy, and right. But with us, when we have in our text all my desires, there are still those desires of the flesh that have been completely killed.

and the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, so that he cannot do the things that he would." And I would, if we're to have that comfort from this word, that we are mindful of this, mindful of this conflict, because otherwise we'd say, but how can I be a comfort, how can it be a comfort when I find there are these contrary desires that I'm having to resist and fight against or pray against, but it is the old nature.

Sin shall not have dominion over you. You're not under sin, but you're under grace. You're not under the law. And so there will be, though still the old nature, but it doesn't have the ascendancy. It is not ruling. and it is part of what brings about the groaning that is here.

My groaning is not hid from Thee. I often like to think of texts like this where you can pull a word out and it still reads all right, and you think, why has that word been put in? Lord, my desire is before Thee. My groaning is not hid from Thee. But the Word all taken out, but it's in there. And there's a need for it to be in there. That all desires, good and bad, are before the Lord. And the Lord will shift out. The Lord knows what is going on in the heart. He can discern that better than us, as to what comes from Him. and what still is from the old nature.

Very, very subdued, we might say, than what it was, or those that are still unregenerate, there is no desires for the things of God. Not out of a pure motive, not after the law, but things that all centre in themselves. And so may it be with us that we can come in with the psalmist here. The Lord gives us a token for good. The Lord gives us the same knowledge as the psalmist had, that the Lord knew. And then he also gives us some fellowship with the Lord in his sufferings and in his path. May the Lord have his blessing. Amen.