Let us turn again to the psalm,
that psalm that we read, Psalm 38, and drawing your attention
for a while to the words that we have here in verse 9, Lord,
all my desire is before Thee, and my groaning is not hid from
Thee. Psalm 38, verse 9, Lord, all
my desire is before Thee, and my groaning is not hid from thee."
I suppose in many ways we can say that this psalm is the Old
Testament counterpart of what we find in Romans 7 in the New
Testament. And it has been observed that
The superficial Christianity that is so popular in our days
seems to know very little, if anything at all, of the experience
of David as we find it here in the Psalm or the Apostle as he
writes there in Romans chapter 7. Here surely we see one who
is very much aware of his condition before a holy God, one who has
a real sense of his need as a sinner. What does David say as he cries
out in his prayer? Verse 3. There is no soundness
in my flesh because of thine anger, neither is there any rest
in my bones because of my sin. For 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. I
am troubled. I am bowed down greatly, I go
mourning all the day long, for my loins are filled with a loathsome
disease, and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am feeble and
so broken. I have wrought by reason of the
disquietness of my heart." And then we come to the words that
I've announced as our text here in verse 9, having given this
awful description of where he is and what he is. He expresses
his desire before God as he groans out his sad condition, his case. And yet these are the very people
that the Lord Jesus Christ has come to redeem such sinners as
these. What comfort can a Savior bring
to those who never felt their woe? New life from Him we must
receive before for sin we rightly grieve. This is a man grieving
then over the way in which he has so sadly offended God. in his life. It's not just what
he has done, but it's what he is. It's not just a matter of
sins in the plural. It's sin that is bound up in
his very nature. But this is prayer that we have
really in the words before us tonight. And I was struck reading
dear John Rusk in one of the old gospel standards where he
says that real prayer in scripture goes by a multitude of names. It is sighing, It is longing,
it is looking, thirsting, crying, praying, calling, asking, seeking,
desiring, groaning. All these various words are real
synonyms for prayer. And that's what we have here
in this psalm of David, a psalm to bring to remembrance. And of course, as is the case
so often with the Psalms, we recognize some of the marks of
Hebrew poetry and that parallelism that is so peculiar to the Hebrew
mind, and we have it here in our text. We have two clauses,
but the same truth is being stated in each of these clauses, our
parallel statements, Lord, all my desire is before Thee. and my groaning is not his. It's
the same truth in slightly different ways that is being expressed
and you will see immediately that my desire answers to my
groaning. How does he express that desire
that lies in the depth of his own heart? He cannot find words
adequate really to express what he longs for. And so he groans
in his prayer. But I just want us for a little
while before we turn to prayer again to consider then this twofold
division in the psalm. First of all, to say something
with regards to desire. All my desire, he says. is before
theirs." He addresses the Lord in his prayer. Now, we know from
what we're told in other Psalms that the Lord does take account
of the desires of his children. In the 10th Psalm, for example,
in verse 17, "...Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble."
Is it not remarkable that God actually hears desire? He sees it, because he sees all
things, as David says in the 139th Psalm, he knows my down
sitting and my up rising, he understandeth my thoughts are
far off, but he doesn't just see those things that are transpiring
in the very depths of David's soul, but he also hears. He hears the desire of the humble,
says the Psalmist. And isn't that desire in many
ways one of the marks of those who are true worshippers of God? When David on another occasion
expresses himself in his prayer, one thing of my desire of the
Lord, that will I seek after, that I might dwell in the house
of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of
the Lord and to inquire in his tabernacle. He's speaking of
worship and how he has such Ardent desires to worship God, or are
we those who in the busyness of our lives throughout the week
simply long for the coming of that day that God in His wisdom
has set aside, that Sabbath day, the Christian Sabbath, the Lord's
day, when we can gather together with God's people and seek to
worship Him, desiring only to worship Him in spirit and in
truth? Is that the day that we're looking
for? Many things occupy our times, of course, There are many illegitimate
things that creep into our poor lives with such sinners. But
there are also those legitimate affairs that we have to attend
to. There's secular employment, there's living our lives and
all that that entails. But we long, we desire the coming
of that day that we might worship God. That was David. One thing
have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after. He wants to
be in the house of the Lord. He wants to enter into the tabernacle.
He wants only to worship God. But how important is that desire? And it must be sincere desire.
It must be that desire that comes from the heart of a man. All my desire, he says, all my
desire is before thee. Oh, he is asking God really to
to examine his heart. Search me, O God, and know my
heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way
in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. All that he is,
he will have exposed to that all-seeing, that all-searching
eye of the Lord God. You see, there is a desire that
is altogether unprofitable, as the wise man tells us in the
book of Proverbs. The soul of the sluggard desireth,
it says, and hath nothing. That's the sluggard. He has a
desire, but there's nothing sincere about that man, and he finds
nothing at the end of it. Again, the wise man says, the
desire of the slothful killeth him. But that's not the desire
that's being spoken of here in our text. It is that desire that
is altogether before God. This is the prayer of faith. It is that desire that comes
from God. And it is God, who having put
such a desire into the heart of man, will attend to it, will
answer it. Or the Lord Jesus Christ himself
tells us how important that sincere desire is when we come before
God in prayer. In Mark, Mark 11 and verse 24,
Therefore I sound to you, he says, what things soever ye desire
when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have
them. What we desire when we pray,
we're to believe. that we will receive them. Or we're not to mock God with
unbelief. He that cometh to God must believe
that he is, and that he is a rewarder of all that diligently seek him. But how hard sometimes it is
for us to pray. We have to pray in the teeth
of our own unbelief. We have to cry with that man
in the Gospel, Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief. Ought to be fair and sincere
in that our desire might be that that he's truly before the Lord
God himself. What does he say? You shall seek
me and find me when you shall search after me with all your
heart. All my desire it is. all my desire."
Look at what he says in the next verse, verse 10, "...my heart
panteth, my strength faileth me, as for the light of mine
eyes it also is gone from me." How he so yearns after God and
he longs that God would appear for him. This is how we're to
come. If we're those who know anything
of the life of God in our souls, where will our desire be? Where will our affections be
found? If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things that
are above. Where Christ sittheth at the
right hand of God, set your affections on things above, not on things
on the earth, says the Apostle. Well, where do our affections
really lie? What do we know of the exercise
of soul, this holy exercise of soul that we see in a man like
David who is so conscious of his sinnership. He's a sinner,
but what a sensible sinner this man is. All my desire is before
thee, he says, and my groaning is not heard from thee. Do we
know it? We have those words at the end
of that great 15th chapter in 1 Corinthians, Be ye steadfast,
unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as
much as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Well,
what do we know of spiritual labour? Can we not understand
that in terms of spiritual labour? Those hungerings, those thirstings,
those desires, The Lord Jesus himself is spoken
of in the prophet as the desire of all nations. The Lord has
many names, a multitude of names are given unto the Lord Jesus
Christ, and amongst them there in Haggai we read of him who
is the desire of all nations. Well, can we say that he is our
desire? as we come together tonight for
prayer. Whom have I in heaven but thee?
There is none upon earth that I desire besides thee, says David. There is David, you see. He desires
him who is the desire of all nations, the only one who can
really satisfy the longing soul. Oh, he is that one, then, that
we should come to seek after, and to express our prayers to
those of times those prayers might be little more than sighs,
than cries, than these groanings of which David was so familiar. Oh, we have such a desire. Again,
a wise man tells us in the Proverbs, the desire of the righteous shall
be granted. But who are the righteous? They
are those who are in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have no righteousness
of our own. All our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags. The righteous are only those
who stand before God justified. Or they are those who have had
that righteousness of Christ reckoned to their account. That
righteousness imputed to them. And that's what they desire,
like the apostle says, to be found in Christ, not having mine
own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through
the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. All the desire of the righteous
shall be granted. If we do but come with these
groanings, all this desire, what is it comparable to? It's like
that waiting. that waiting upon the Lord and
to wait upon the Lord is not something passive many times
in the book of Psalms we read of those that wait but that doesn't
mean that they're inactive or fatalistic there's so much exercise
here my soul wait thou only upon God for my expectation is from
him says the Psalmist elsewhere Or are we those who would wait
and wait and wait and wait only upon God? And God grant that
we might be those who can come in that spirit of patience. God is a patient
God, a long-suffering God. It ought to be Godlike to wait
upon Him and to look to Him as the one who will meet us and
meet us oft times unexpectedly, and hear and answer our poor
prayers. The desire then, that was there
in the heart of David, this is a man, you see, after God's own
heart. Lord, all my desire is before Thee, and my groaning
is not hid from Thee. Well, let us turn briefly then
in the second place to say something with regards to his groaning. And I want to observe two things.
This is the experience of the Christian. This is the experience
of the Christian believer. But this is also the experience
of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a sense in which the
psalm is a messianic psalm. We'll come to that presently.
But first of all to say something of the believer's own experience. Now what is it? What is it that
causes the child of God to groan in his prayers. My groaning is
not hid from thee." Well, I suppose the first cause of our groanings
is when we feel anything of the conviction of sin. Again, in
the 102nd Psalm, in verse 20, we read of the groaning of the
prisoner. Who is that prisoner that groans?
It's not to be thought of simply in natural, physical terms. That
is a spiritual prisoner. That is that one that we read
of so many times. Psalm 88, the psalmist says,
I am shut up and I cannot come forth. The groaning of that man
who is shut up. And what is he shut up in? He's
shut up in himself. He wants faith, he has not faith. He feels his sin, he feels his
utter inability to do anything spiritually good. Or remember
again the language of the Apostle there in Galatians 3, before
faith came. We were kept under the law, shut
up. to the faith which should afterward
be revealed." There is that ministry of the law to condemn the sinner. That law that speaks death. There's no salvation, there's
no deliverance there in the Lord of God. It only condemns. It's
a ministration of condemnation, the ministration of death. Paul
says, I had not known sin. I had not known sin, but by the
law. I had not known lust, except
the commandment said, Thou shalt not covet. Oh, there was with
that man such an application of the Lord of God, that self-righteous
Pharisee who was thought of Tarsus, considering himself to be blameless
before the Lord of God. Ah, but then the Lord began to
convince him, thou hard to kick against those pricks, when his
conscience was awakened, the goads of his conscience, and
he writes those words, we know that what things soever the law
said, it said to them who are under the law, that every mouth
may be stopped, and his mouth was stopped, and all the world
become guilty before God, and that man was also brought in
guilty before God. And what does David say here?
Here is that man who so much feels his sin. Verse 3, There is no soundness
in my flesh because of thine anger, neither is there any rest
in my bones because of my sin. No rest in his bones. Oh, it's
a terrible disease that he is feeling. But it's a spiritual
malady that is upon this man, David, as he utters the words
of the psalm again. In another psalm he can say,
by reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to
my skin. This is no mock religion. This
is a man who knows real exercise in the very depths of his soul. He feels these things. And who
is the one who can deliver? Who is the one who can deliver
a man from such a condition as David feels himself to be in? There's only one deliverer, the
Lord Jesus Christ himself. And there's only one way of deliverance,
it's by that precious blood. or that blood of the everlasting
covenant, that precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. See
how it's spoken of in Zechariah, there in Zechariah 9, 11, As
for thee also, says the prophet, by the blood of thy covenant
I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pits wherein is no
water. Turn ye to the stronghold, ye
prisoners of hope. Oh, the prisoner has hope. Where
is that hope? Only in the blood of the everlasting
covenant, that precious blood with which the Lord Jesus Christ
has sealed the covenant. Or the Testament, the New Testament,
the New Covenant, it stands because the testator has died. He has sealed it in blood. And here we see how David is
brought to acknowledge his sins and then he's brought to confess
his sin. What does he say in verse 18?
I will declare mine iniquity. I will be sorry. for my sin,
or to know that godly sorrow over sins, to feel sin a grievous
burden, and to groan out our sorrow, to say we're sorry as
we come before the Lord to make our confessions. My groaning,
he says, is not heard from thine. The cause of it, the conviction
of sin, the realization that we're sinners, but this There's
also that way of God in his dealings and
his cross providences that sometimes causes us to groan before him. We fail to understand the mystery
of his ways, his dealings to us and with us are so strange
and so contrary. And we see it of course with
regards to the children of Israel when they were there in Egyptian
bondage, when that Pharaoh arose who knew
not Joseph, and oh, these poor Hebrews, they're set to work,
they're slaves, and he makes their task ever more difficult,
harder and harder, and we're told there at the end of Exodus
2, Now it came to pass, in process of time, that the king of Egypt
died, and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage. And they cried, and their cry
came up unto God by reason of the bondage, and God heard their
groaning. And God remembered His covenant
with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and God looked upon
the children of Israel and had respect unto them. Or what is
it that makes them groan now? It's not a sense of their sinnership. It's not the conviction of their
sins. It's the way in which they're being dealt with, and all of
this under the sovereign hand of God. Why the God of Israel
is the only living and true God, and all events are at His command. And how they're brought then
to groan before Him because of His cross providences. There are those times when God's
way is such that He seems to be so strange in the way in which
He deals with His people. Coming back to the Psalms, look
at the next Psalm. We're in Psalm 38, but look at
what it says there in the next Psalm, Psalm 39. Verse 12, hear
my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my
cry, hold not thy peace at my tears, for I am a stranger with
thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. Why is he so tearful? Hold not
thy peace at my tears, for I am a stranger. He doesn't say a
stranger to thee. He wasn't a stranger to God. God was his God. He was God's
child. But God was a stranger with him. It was the way of God. It was
the mystery of God's providences. And sometimes the Lord does cross
us. And He's strange. And that causes the child of
God to moan and to groan because he has not that wisdom, that
discernment to understand the Lord and the ways of the Lord.
And this is David. All my desire is before thee,
my groaning, he says. He's not hid from thee. And then also, coming back, of
course, to what he is in himself as a sinner. It's not just the
conviction of his sin. It's not just those cross providences. Oh, the believer, the child of
God, feels the awful reality of indwelling sin. All we live to prove that there's
no such thing as perfection in the flesh. There's no such thing
as progressive sanctification. We live to prove it. All the
time. And here is David, you see, he
grieves over what he is. It's what he feels himself to
be. My loins are filled with a loathsome disease. There is
no soundness in my flesh. I am feeble and sore broken.
I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart. He's
not speaking in the past tense. It's all in the present tense.
It's what he is as a child of God. And all of this, it's all
to bring to remembrance. He's ever mindful of what he
is in his own fallen nature. Like Paul, there in Romans 7,
in me, that is, in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing, all wretched
man that I am. Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? I said at the outset, the superficial
so-called Christianity so prevalent knows little of the things that
we're considering here in Psalm 38 or what we might consider
in Romans 7. But what do we know of these
things? It's easy enough to point the
finger at others. But what do we know of this grieving,
this grieving over our sins? Again, look at the language.
of the Apostle there in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5. We that are in this
tabernacle, he says, do groan being burdened. And clearly there,
the tabernacle is the flesh. Whilst we're in this mortal life,
we groan, we're burdened. What causes the burden? That
sense of our sins, how we have to keep on coming and keep on
crying to the Lord God, We want fresh experiences. We can't live
on an experience a year ago, or five years ago, or ten years
ago. We want a living experience. That's the lot of God's people,
is it not? But how wearisome it is. Again,
David there in Psalm 6, I am weary, he says. I am weary with
my groaning. All the night make I my bed to
swim, I water my couch with my tears." But then, here he comes in so
confidently later in the same psalm, verse 8, "...the Lord
hath heard the voice of my weeping, the Lord hath heard my supplication,
the Lord will receive my prayer." Oh, we might be weary with groaning,
and you might be weary with praying, Because you pray for the same
thing over and over and over, you've waited. All be assured,
look at what David's testimony is. The Lord hath heard my supplication. He says, the Lord will hear my
prayer. Here is the experience then of
the Christian. The Christian is one who knows
what it is to groan. But then finally, I said that
it's not only the experience of the believer, it's also the
experience of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is messianic surely. Verse 11. My lovers and my friends
stand aloof from my sore. My kin's men stand afar off. They also that seek after my
life lay snares for me. And they that seek my heart speak
mischievous things and imagine deceits all the day long." Isn't
that Christ? Oh, the Jews were ever plotting
and scheming against Him. Oh, His friends, His lovers,
His own disciples, oh, they all forsook Him and fled. It's the
Lord Jesus Christ that we see here. And the Lord Jesus knew
what it was to groan in prayer Well, we see him there at the
grave of Lazarus in John chapter 11, and we see there two things
so remarkably. We see the blessed truth of his
deity. This is the eternal Son of God
manifest in the flesh, and he will raise Lazarus from the grave.
He will perform a mighty miracle to that man who'd been dead four
days, his body already beginning to decay. why his sister said
to the master, Lord, he stinketh. And yet the Lord raises him to
newness of life. But also there we see the truth
of the Lord's human nature. How the Lord weeps at the grave
of his friend Lazarus, how he is moved in his heart. at that sad scene, Mary and Martha,
their hearts broken at the death of their beloved brother. But
we're told now that the Lord groaned in Himself. That's the
language of the Jews there. In John 11, 33, and again, verse
38, He groaned in Himself. He groaned in spirit, it says,
and He was troubled. Oh, the Lord knew what it was.
to groan, words in a sense filing him as a man. Now, that was nothing at all to do
with indwelling sin, there was no sin in him. Or he is ever
that one who is holy and harmless and undefiled and separate from
sinners. As we said on the last Lord's
Day, even When he comes to die as that one who is the great
sacrifice for sin, yes, the sins of his people were imputed to
him, but that sin was never imparted to him. Even when their sins
were imputed, when he was made sin, who knew no sin? He was
ever the Holy One of Israel. And when he comes to the end
of his life, he can say, the prince of this world cometh and
hath nothing in me. And yet, the Lord knew what it
was to groan in his prayers. Those words we quote them oftentimes
in Hebrews 5, where we read of him who in the days of his flesh,
when he had offered up prayers and supplication, We strung crying
and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was
hurt, in that he feared, though he were a son, yet learned the
obedience by the things that he suffered." Oh, the Lord Jesus
knew what it was. These are the words of the Lord,
not just of David. You see, David's greatest son,
Lord, all my desire is before thee. And my groaning is not
hid from thee. And did not the Lord grant him
the thing that he desired, that that was promised to him in the
eternal covenant? He would see of the travail of
his soul. And what travail it was, it was
in his soul. And he would see the fruits of
all his sufferings in the salvation of his people. And this is the
one that we look to when we come to pray. Or we have not an high
priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
Paul says, but was tempted in all points like as we are, yet
without sin. And then the conclusion. Let
us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may
obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Or there is the truth that he
deduces from the fact that Christ is touched with the feeling of
our infirmities. We can come, we can pray, and
we can pray in his name as that one who is ever always such a
sympathetic high priest. He knew what prayer was. And
all that he would teach us to pray, Lord, all my desire is
before Thee, and my groaning is not hid from them. The Lord
bless his word to us. Now let us, before we do pray
audibly, let us sing the hymn 725, the tune St. Michael, number
61. The sinner born of God to God
will pour his prayer in sighs or groans or words expressed
or in a falling tear. 725.