Look with me here in this sixth
psalm. I do a lot of reading and preparing these things, and
I'm grateful that the Lord's given me some direction. He's
given me something to study about and think about. In this psalm,
David is very down, very depressed. He's troubled. He's very troubled. And this is one of what they
call seven penitential psalms. That's where he is penitent,
he is sorry, he is grieving over his sin and over things that
happened to him and things that he did. And it's a crying out
over sin, it's a crying out over guilt and shame. And this is
the very first one of the psalms of penitence where he's crying
out over his sin very, very down. very depressed, very troubled
in his soul. And the others are Psalm 32,
the 38th Psalm, the 51st Psalm, the 102nd Psalm, the 130th Psalm,
and the 143rd Psalm. Everybody knows about Psalm 51. You know where he says, My sins
as ever before me, but, O Lord, if you cleanse me, restore the
joy of my salvation. Have mercy upon me, O Lord. You
know that when you're clear, you know, when you judge me,
you'll be clear because it's against you, you only that I've
sinned. And here's what David, he's in this situation. And these
first seven verses mention why he is so dejected, why he's so
down, why he's so depressed. And that's the only word I can
think of about it. He's dejected, he's down, he's depressed. And
sin should depress us. Sin should cause us to be dejected. Sin should put us very low. And
if you ever become comfortable with sin, and we're more, I think,
in the age we live, because we're confronted with so much stuff
on television and radio and computers and phones and all of these things,
that we're probably more comfortable with sin than we would like to
be or need to be. That's for sure. But these first
seven verses mentions why Davis is so dejected and so down and
depressed. And the first one is, and the
songwriter, Isaac Watts, when he wrote this psalm for this,
he was just right on about it. He said, Here, O Lord, rebuke
me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in the hot displeasure.
The anger of the Lord had him dejected and depressed and down.
He said, O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger. You see, I deserve
to be rebuked. He's not saying I don't need
to be rebuked. I deserve to be rebuked. I deserved
you to rebuke me and put me in my place. I've got nothing to
say about that, but O Lord, don't, please don't do it in anger.
I'm so afraid of you being angry with me. I don't want you to
be angry with me. I don't want you, I can't, you
know, for you to be angry with me, to rebuke me is one thing,
but Lord, Lord, don't do it in your anger. Don't do it in your
anger. And then look what he says, neither
chasing me in your hot displeasure. And again, he's not complaining
about being chastened, correcting him. putting him, straightening
him out, if that's what chastisement does. Chastisement has to do
with correction. And the Lord only chastens those
whom he loves. He chastens only his children,
chastens only his sons. But he says, but don't do it
in your hot dispassion. If you ever, you know, it's like
us, we fly off the handle. We get, somebody makes us real,
one of our children makes us real mad before we think, we've
got him. You know, we're proud, we just
wham! We just react quickly, so angrily, so quickly. And our
Lord's voice is just that quick. He says, Lord, chasten me. But please don't do it when you're
angry. Don't do it in your hot displeasure.
Don't come and catch me in my sin and then just in your hot
displeasure come and chasten me with your hot displeasure. Oh, I've displeased you. I know
I've displeased you. I know I've done wrong. Please,
please, don't be angry." So the first thing that caused him to
be down, the Lord. He was afraid of the Lord being
angry with him. He didn't want the Lord to be
angry. Didn't mind being rebuked. Didn't mind being chastened.
The Lord don't do it in anger. And I bless His holy name that
God will not, will not, never treat us in anger. because he
has done treated his son in anger, done treated his son in wrath.
And then he is down and depressed and dejected because of his own
weakness. Look what he says in verse 2. He said, O Lord, have mercy upon
me, O Lord, for I am weak. I'm weak. He said, Lord, have
mercy on me because I'm weak. Oh Lord, let your mercy pity,
not frailty. I am so weak and I'm so frail
that all Jesus would take nothing for you to destroy. He would
take nothing. So Lord, in your mercy, oh Lord, look at my weakness,
look at my frailty. Look in the 103rd Psalm, just
a moment. We've quoted this so many times.
And David is just admitting his weakness. I tell you, people
talk about they have their strength. I tell you, if I have any strength,
I don't know what they'd be. I don't know what they'd be.
The only strength I have is Christ. I have none in myself. I'm talking about before the
Lord. And look what he said here in Psalm 103, in verse 13. Like as a father pities his children,
so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our
frame, he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days were
as grass, as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. The
wind passes over and is gone, and the place thereof shall know
it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting
to everlasting. So David said, Lord, here I am.
I'm down, I'm weak, I have no strength, I have no ability.
And, oh Lord, you could destroy me, have mercy upon me, oh Lord,
for I'm weak. So weak, so frail. That's what
he's talking about, I'm frail. And that weakness means I'm frail.
You've seen folks that's frail? He said, that's what I am, Lord,
I'm just frail. I'm frail, I just don't have no strength. And then he said, oh Lord, heal
me, for my bones are vexed. And here he says, heal me. Heal
me. He was so troubled. And he says,
my bones are vexed. This word vexed means his bones,
he was so troubled and so down and so vexed that his bones,
this word vexed here means his bones shook. That his bones actually
shook in his body. His bones shook. That's what
it means. They shook. His sin was so heavy on him.
And he says, don't leave me. He said, heal me. Heal me. Take this bone shaking away. Take this base, my bones hurting,
shaking away. Take it away from me. Heal me
from it, Lord. Don't leave me like this. Take
it away from me. And so his anger and his weakness,
and then look what he said, his sorrowfulness. Look how sorry
he is. In verse 3, he says, My soul is sore, thanks. My soul
is also sore of angst." And I'm going to tell you something,
he says, but thou, O Lord, how long? Mr. Spurgeon said this,
soul trouble is the very soul of trouble. When a man's got
soul troubles, he's got troubles. When his soul is so troubled,
and there's no relief from it, the soul trouble is the very
soul of trouble itself. When the soul is troubled, the
bones shake. And when David here has no lip
praying here, the depth of his soul was stirred up. There was
agony in his cry. He says, my soul is also, not
only my bones shaking, my bones shook, but all my soul itself
is sore troubled. That word makes me so troubled. Hurting so bad. And then he asks
this question. And he just runs out of words
and he just don't know what else to say. But thou, oh Lord, how
long? How long? How long before you
come? How long am I going to go through
this? That's what Job asked. How long is this day going to
go? How long? Oh, the day that my
mother, cursed the day that my mother said a man child was born.
Oh, that I would have died on that day. That's what he said.
And David said, my soul is so troubled. And he said, Lord,
how long? How long? There's three things
I want to say about this. And he said, oh Lord, how long?
I'll tell you something. God has an appointed time, an
appointed time and a measure of trouble for every one of His
children. He has them measured out. He
has a time set. And He has so many crosses for
His children. And the time is going to have
to go. The cross is going to have to be borne. The trouble
is going to have to be borne before He'll ever come and deliver,
no matter how much you cry. No matter how much you cry. And
like Israel, God told them before they ever went down into Egypt,
He says, 430 years, your dough laborer has 430 years, your children
will be down in Egypt. And I'll go after 430 years.
430 years they're down there. But God never made a move to
go get them for that 430 years or something. Joseph spent all
that time in that prison. begging somebody to go out and
tell the king. He said, I'm here. Remember me
when you go up to the king. Remember me when you do this.
And remember me when you do that. And he stayed and stayed and
stayed until it was time for his head to be lifted up. Jonah
was in the belly of hell because he tried his best to get away
from what God called him to do. And he was left in hell until
God Brought him up, spit him out on the driveway. We all got
a measure of it. It's just... And if we just have
the grace and the knowledge and the understanding... That's why
Paul said, Lord, I... He asked the Lord three times.
He said, there's a servant of Satan sent to buffet me. Satan
buffets me. A messenger of Satan. He's just
beating me and buffeting me. And you know when you get buffed,
you know somebody's hitting on you, buttoning on you, and he
said, they're buffeting me. Satan himself is. He said, and he asked the Lord
three times, prayed three times, and I tell you, he prayed earnestly. He's probably like David. Oh
Lord, how long, how long, how long am I going to have this
devil going to come and buffet me? You know what our Lord said? He said, you're going to carry
it till you die. He said, I'll tell you one thing
I'll do. I'll give you grace sufficient to carry it. That's
what I'll do. You'll carry it till you die,
but I'll give you the sufficient grace to carry it. Paul said,
all right. And I would like to say that, all right. And I'll
tell you a second thing about, oh Lord, how long. Our nature
is so impatient in our misery Our souls, our nature, they're
so impatient when we suffer. We don't want to suffer. We don't
want any misery. Our flesh rebels against the
Spirit, and we can't help it. This flesh, soul, rebels against
any kind of misery, any kind of pain, any kind of agony, any
kind of trouble. It just automatically starts
to rebel against it. It's just resistant. And that's
why David said, how long? How long? You know, it's just the nature. There is no joy, it's not comfortable. It's not comfortable to suffer.
It's not comfortable in your body. And I was talking to somebody
this afternoon. I said, you know, when somebody's
sick all the time, they get depressed after a while. They get discouraged
about it after a while. They get to thinking, will I
ever get any better? Will I ever get any stronger?
Will I ever get over this? Will I ever go back to where
I can get around again? Is this just going to get worse
and worse and worse? Because we think about it. This
place resists misery and pain. And we're not to rejoice in this
kind in our trials. We don't rejoice in the pain
involved in our trials. But God gives them to us. And,
oh, beloved, I'll tell you the third reason why God delays His
coming. And if we thought about it and
thought about what we deserved and thought about us when we
were in our sin, instead of saying, how long? He'd say to us, how
long will you continue like you are? How long will you continue
in your sin? How long will you continue in your foolishness?
How long are you going to go on doing what you're doing? He'd
ask us how long. But all of David said, How long,
O Lord? So the next time you get discouraged,
the next time you say, Lord, are you going to leave me like
this forever? Is there ever going to be a better
day? Am I ever going to get over this pain? Am I ever going to
get out of this trial? Am I ever going to get over this
burden? Am I ever going to get over this fear? Huh? Remember, we've all got a measure
of it. And you know the end of Job?
He got doubled. what he lost. And we're going
to get double of what we lost one of these days. Oh, bless His name. But look
what he says in verse 4. And this is another thing that
troubled him and depressed him and got him so down and distressed. He says, God's absence really
troubled him. He said, Return, O Lord, deliver
my soul. O save me for Thy mercy's sake.
You know, he said, return, oh Lord. So evidently, God was absent. He felt God's absence. He felt
God, who are you at? He asked God, one time, God,
are you clean? Gone? Have you cleaned for God
and me? You know, and that was the main
cause of his misery, was the absence of God. He said, if the
Lord would return, that everything would be alright. That's why
His disciples said, when our Lord told us, I said it Sunday
morning, He said, I'm going away, and where I go, you can't come. And they started worrying and
wondering all around. He said, let not your heart be
troubled. And then He says, I'm going away. He said, Lord, where
are you going? How are you going? He said, you all know the way.
You know the way to where I'm going. And thank God we know
the way where he's going. But here David's absent. David
said, God, O Lord, return. Come back. Come back, let your face shine
on me. Come back, let me feel your presence. Come back, O Lord,
and stir up my heart to love you, to need you, to desire you.
Don't leave me in this dejected state. He knew that if the Lord
had returned, that would deliver him and save him that quick out
of his trouble. Just the fact that Christ returned,
troubles would go away that fast. That fast. And then look what
he says, and, oh, save me for thy mercy's sake. Oh, my. He didn't say, save me because
I've done good. Save me because I'm the king.
Saved me because I'm a good warrior? Saved me because I'm a good psalmist,
a sweet psalmist of Israel? He never said that. He knew where
he needed to look. He knew where he needed something
to happen for him. He knew what plea to make. He
knew his sin. And he knew it too well to think
that he'd come with any merit. He knew to plead nothing but
the grace of God. And mercy, I'll tell you something,
God's mercy, when you cry out for mercy, it gets God's attention.
You preached on that the other day. You know, James said it
this way. He says, mercy rejoices against
judgment. When God gives mercy, and that
mercy is there, it glories against the judgment that should be yours,
but mercy comes instead. And it glows again. Thank you,
Lord, for your mercy and not your judgment. That's what David's
saying here. Oh, save me, save me for your mercy's sake. Your
mercy's sake. You're the one that's got the
mercy. And magnify your mercy and glorify your mercy. Oh, save
me for your mercy's sake. And then look what he's said.
I'll tell you another thing that had him in trouble. He was in
such a state that he thought he was going to die. He says
there in verse five, he said, Lord, if I die, he said death. And maybe it was the fear of
temple death. Maybe he was so troubled and so dark in his mind
that maybe he thought he was even going to go to an eternal
death. He was so troubled in his soul. I don't know. But he
said it was trouble about dying, trouble about death. And he thought,
Lord, this death is going to come. But here's what he said.
He said, when a man dies, he said, he will not remember. I will remember you, Lord. I
remember you now." And look what he says. And in the grave, who
can give you things? You go to a graveyard by yourself,
and it's so silent, so quiet. Walk through Arlington, walk
through any graveyard, and nobody in those graves are saying a
thing. There's a quietness, no utterance. There was a time that
they remembered the Lord. There was a time that they gave
thanks. There was a time that they sang His praises. And David
says, Lord, if I die, how in the world will I remember You?
Death, I was in death's cage. So, Lord, save me, and I'll praise
You. If You silence my tongue, how
shall I give You thanks? If you don't let me live, how
can I remember? If you don't let me live, how can I call on
you? And also those that are spiritually dead, they have no
remembrance of God, and they certainly don't think of Him.
Certainly don't think of Him. And that's a somber thought.
In death, there's no remembrance of Thee. No remembrance of Thee. The moment We leave here. Then he says here, look what
he says. Here's his tears. They troubled him also. They
troubled him. Bothered him. He said, I'm weary. In verse
6, I'm weary with my groanings. All the night make I my bed to
swim. I water my calf with my tears.
Look what he says, I'm weary with my groanings. He got to
where he couldn't say, he just groaned and groaned and groaned
and groaned. I heard a dear sister say about
a man that I love dearly. She told her husband, she says,
you know, she said, you lay and moan and moan and moan. And said,
he keeps me awake. But when he was troubled about
something, he'd just lay and moan and moan and moan. And he
wasn't conscious of what he was doing. And she told him, she
said, you do. You just moan and moan and moan.
Especially when he had something on his mind. And that's what
David said. He said, I'm weary with my groaning. My throat is weary with it. My
throat is dry. My voice is weak. And it's wore
out. Wore out from my groaning. And then look what he says, I'll
make my bed to swim. What that means is that I will
shed so many tears, if you don't come, that it'll cause my bed
to actually swim. My tears will be so many that
it'll cause my bed to swim. And then he says, and I water
my couch. I water my couch where I rest
and I try to relax. I water my couch with my tears.
So David was a very, very troubled man. And then look what he says
in verse seven. My eye is consumed because of
grief. Now, what he's saying is that
my eye is hurting. I've wept so much, I've cried
so much, and I've had so much grief that my eyes themselves
are hurting. Now, look what he said, it waxes
old because of all of my enemies. He says, just like an old man's
eye that grows dim and gets red and gets weak, He said, I've
wept so much, and I've cried so much, and I've had so much
grief that my eye has gotten dim like an old man's eye. I
just can't see clearly because of my weeping so much. And then look what he said. He
changes his voice now. He changes his voice. And then
because he's starting to lift up his voice, he's starting to
see a little light. And he says, depart from me, all you workers
of iniquity. All you men that come and you
workers of iniquity, the things that, and he shows his hatred
for iniquity here, and his voice changes, depart from me. Get
away from me. And oh, this is the way our Lord
will say one of these days to me, depart from me all you workers
of iniquity. What He said, I have no fellowship
with you. I have no communion with you.
I have no, I don't want anything to do with you. I was iniquitous. I have committed sin. But oh,
depart from me all you that work iniquity. And listen to this. Oh, listen to this. For the Lord
hath heard the voice of my weeping. The voice of my weeping. You
know, did you ever think that there's a voice in weeping? Does weeping speak? What language
does it use? When you hear somebody weeping,
do you need somebody to interpret to you what they're doing? Whether you're in Mexico or whether
you're in China or whether you're in Whatever race you are, when
you start weeping, everybody can understand that language.
Everybody can understand what weeping is. They can understand
those tears. They can understand that sob.
They can understand that weep. They can understand it. It's
a universal language. Everybody, everybody understands
that. But listen, David said, God understands
it. God Himself heard it. And tears are liquid prayers,
I read today. Tears are liquid prayers. And
David said, You're my God, I'll weep when I cannot plead. And
you hear the voice of my weeping. You hear the voice of my weeping.
And I'm sure many of you at times have wept and wept and wept over
things. And then look what happens. He
comes back to God and his faith in God. Look what he says in
verse 9. The Lord hath heard thy supplication.
How do you know he's heard? Because he's come. He's returned.
He's come back. The Lord hath heard. Oh, my. The Lord will receive my prayer.
How does he know? Because God gave him assurance
in his heart. God gave him assurance in his
soul. And he says the Lord hath heard. My supplication to the
Lord will receive. He has, and because He has, He
will. And that's something we can always
remember this, because He has heard our prayers. That tells
us that. It gives us the confidence that
He will hear our prayers. And he hears them. And he says, look what he says
here. The Lord will receive my prayer. You think about that. The Lord of glory receiving you,
receiving your prayer. Whether it's just words, whether
it's a groan, whether it's tears. And David done all of them. He
talked, he cried, he wept, he moaned, he groaned. He done everything
he could. Then he said, the Lord heard
my voice. The Lord heard my voice. And oh beloved, then he says,
let all my enemies be ashamed and sore vexed. Let them return
and be ashamed suddenly. And what this is, is more of
a prophecy than anything. He said, all my enemies, let
them, let them, let them be ashamed. This is something he wants to
happen to his enemies. He said, I want them to return
and I want them to be ashamed instantaneously, suddenly. I
want them to be brought to the place where they're brought to
shame just that quick, suddenly, that God will come and suddenly
bring them to shame. and do it in a moment. In awe
of my soul. I tell you what, you can go through the Psalms,
and you can find rejoicing, and you can find weeping. You can find complaining, and
you can find giving of thanks. You can find laughter, and you
can find faith. Anything, any experience that
you go through in your heart, in your mind, in your soul, from
the highest, to the lowest. You can find them in the book
of Psalms, can't you? You can find your experience
at any given time in the book of Psalms. I pray that's a blessing.