A Deserted and Chastised Christian

Q: What does the Bible say about divine chastisement?

Divine chastisement is God's discipline upon His children, intended to bring them back to fellowship with Him, as seen in Psalms and other scriptural teachings. The Bible teaches that divine chastisement is an expression of God's love and guidance towards His children. In Psalm 38, David expresses his experience of being under God's chastising hand, acknowledging that his suffering was a direct result of his own sin. This aligns with the doctrine that God disciplines those He loves, as highlighted in Hebrews 12:6-7, where it says, 'For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.' Therefore, such chastisement serves the purpose of restoring believers to a place of communion with Him, reminding them of His holiness and their need for repentance.

Q: How do we know God's love during times of chastisement?

God's love is evident even during chastisement, as it aims for our restoration and growth in holiness. Understanding God's love during chastisement is crucial for Christians. As expressed in Psalm 38, David recounts his deep suffering, which was the result of his sin and God's displeasure. However, the very fact that God chooses to chasten His children is a testament to His unwavering love. Romans 8:28-30 assures us that all things, including our trials, work together for our good. God’s discipline is an invitation to reflect, repent, and return to Him, showcasing that He desires a continued relationship with us, even in our failures. It reassures us that we are still His beloved children, emphasizing the distinction between our standing in Christ and our experiential relationship with Him.

Q: Why is confession of sin necessary for Christians?

Confession of sin is necessary for maintaining communion with God and receiving His mercy and forgiveness. Confession is an essential aspect of the Christian life as highlighted in Psalm 38. David openly acknowledges his sins, stating, 'I will declare my iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin' (Psalm 38:18). This confession is vital for several reasons: first, it allows believers to align themselves with God's truth about their condition, promoting spiritual growth. Second, it reinvigorates our relationship with the Lord, restoring the joy of His salvation and fostering a deeper communion. Third, it opens the door to receiving God's mercy and grace, as 1 John 1:9 promises that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us. Therefore, confession is not only a response to sin but a necessary act for spiritual health.

Q: What should Christians do in times of spiritual distress?

In times of spiritual distress, Christians should seek God earnestly through prayer, confess their sins, and hold onto hope in His promises. When facing spiritual distress, Psalm 38 offers profound insights on how believers can respond effectively. Firstly, it encourages earnest prayer. David turns to God in his despair, 'O Lord, make haste to help me' (Psalm 38:22). This shows that in our turmoil, seeking God should be our first response rather than retreating from Him. Secondly, confession of sin is crucial; acknowledging our shortcomings fosters a genuine relationship with God and paves the way for His healing. More importantly, the psalm teaches that despite feeling overwhelmed, Christians must hold onto hope. David’s unwavering expectation of God's response, despite his circumstances, serves as an example. Christians can trust that God hears their prayers and will act according to His perfect will and timing.

Q: How does Psalm 38 relate to the concept of sovereign grace?

Psalm 38 exemplifies sovereign grace by depicting God's mercy towards sinners, emphasizing His power to restore them despite their failures. Psalm 38 illustrates the principle of sovereign grace vividly, showcasing how God responds to His people in their weakest moments. The psalmist, amidst the anguish of sin and its consequences, does not despair of God’s grace. Instead, he appeals to God's mercy, illustrating that even in judgment, grace abounds. This duality of God’s justice and mercy reflects the heart of sovereign grace doctrine, which maintains that while every believer is deserving of divine wrath due to sin, God offers forgiveness and restoration through Jesus Christ. The hope embedded in this psalm underlines that true repentance, paired with divine grace, leads to spiritual recovery and renewed intimacy with God.

This adult Sunday school class
was held on February 8, 1987 at the Trinity Baptist Church
in Montville, New Jersey. Now while others are coming,
may I urge you to turn in your Bibles, please, to the 38th Psalm. Psalm 38. And keep your Bibles open to
that Psalm. Perhaps I would even be bold
to suggest you keep it open and on your lap because you will
be doing much of the work in our study together this morning. Now, for any who are visiting
with us, just a word of explanation is in order. Pastor Bob Martin
would normally be leading us in our study this morning, carrying
on his expositions in the book of Hebrews in the light of the
pressures of other responsibilities and his preparation for this
evening's exposition in the evening worship. We felt it would be
best if we took some of that pressure off him, and he asked
if I would take the class this morning. And as I was prayerfully
considering what I should do in the course of my own devotional
reading, I found this 38th Psalm, which was my psalm two mornings
ago, coming home to my own heart with unusual freshness. And as
I reflected on this opportunity, I felt it might form the basis
of a profitable study, particularly directed to one of the great
perplexing problems that every true child of God faces. Before we pray and commit our
study to God, let me simply say again, for the sake of our visitors,
that when we have a class in which discussion and contributions
are sought from the class, we do request that just the members
of the Church contribute, and that for two very basic reasons.
First of all, we can be certain that they share the basic doctrinal
perspectives that we hold as a church, and therefore neither
you who might not share those views or others would be embarrassed,
nor would the teacher be put in the awkward position of having
to put someone down publicly who might say something that
was totally off the wall in terms of doctrinal perspectives, and
then secondly, We do have so little opportunity of this nature. We do feel that the children
who sit about the table regularly as the proper benefactors of
the meal that is spread ought to be given preference. And that
is not in any way of despising of you who are visiting with
us. We are glad you are here. But just that word of explanation
before we begin. Let us then pray and ask God's
blessing in our study. Our Father, we thank you, as
already we have been led in prayer, for the many privileges of being
found among your people and in the place of your special presence. And as we now come to examine
this psalm this morning, we pray that the Holy Spirit, who gave
this psalm to us through the pen and through the experience
of your servant David, would be present to give us understanding
in its truth and then give us special help in seeing its application
to our own hearts and to our own lives. Bless us, then, as
together we seek to feed upon your word, independence upon
your Holy Spirit. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, three questions will form
the framework of our study this morning, and I want to apprise
you of those questions before I read through the psalm in your
hearing. And then we'll go back and take
up those questions one by one, expecting you to answer them
out of the passage. The questions will be, number
one, what was the condition of the psalmist when he wrote this
psalm? What was the condition of the
psalmist when he wrote this psalm? What was the basic cause of his
condition? See if you can pick up the hints
as we read through. And then thirdly, what did he
not do and what did he do in seeking deliverance from his
condition? So three very simple questions. What was his condition?
What was the basic cause of it? And what did he not do, negative,
and what did he do in order to seek deliverance from his condition?
Follow then in your own Bibles as I read from Psalm 38. O Lord, rebuke me not in your
wrath, neither chasten me in your hot displeasure. For your
arrows stick fast in me, and your hand presses me sore. There is no soundness in my flesh
because of your indignation, neither is there any health in
my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities are gone over
my head as a heavy burden. They are too heavy for me. My
wounds are loathsome and corrupt because of my foolishness. I
am pained and bowed down greatly. I go mourning all the day long. For my loins are filled with
burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am faint and sore
bruised. I have groaned by reason of the
disquietness of my heart. Lord, all my desire is before
you, and my groaning is not hid from you. My heart throbs. My strength fails me. As for
the light of my eyes, it also is gone from me. My lovers and
my friends stand aloof from my plague, and my kinsmen stand
afar off. They also that seek after my
life lay snares for me, and they that seek my hurt speak mischievous
things and meditate deceits all the day long. But I, as a deaf
man, hear not, and am as a dumb man that opens not his mouth.
Yea, I am as a man that hears not, and in whose mouth are no
reproofs. For in you, O Lord, do I hope. You will answer, O Lord my God. For I said, Lest they rejoice
over me when my foot slips, they magnify themselves against me. For I am ready to fall, and my
sorrow is continually before me. For I will declare my iniquity,
I will be sorry for my sin. But my enemies are lively and
are strong, and they that hate me wrongfully are multiplied.
They also that render evil for good are adversaries unto me,
because I follow the thing that is good. Forsake me not, O Lord. O my God, be not far from me. Make haste to help me, O Lord. my salvation. All right, question
number one. What was the condition of the
psalmist when he wrote this psalm? And before you answer, try to
see if you can come up with an answer that brings together the
various aspects of what he confesses his condition to be and describe
it perhaps in words, not actually in the text, but your own words. so that you could say his condition
was one of da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, or he was in a condition of da-dum,
da-dum, da-dum. However you do it, try to distill
the essence of the condition of the psalmist when he wrote
this psalm. Obviously, you could say in the negative, he was not
in a condition of present joy and gladness before the Lord.
That's obvious, all right? Well, what was his condition?
And when you think you've come up with at least a reasonable
answer to the question, just raise your hand and we'll acknowledge
you. All right, George. All right. He was penitential.
He was suffering and he was persecuted. All right. That certainly brings
together some of the major strands of truth. Someone else want to
take a shot of it? What was his condition? when
he wrote the psalm. Alright, Pete? Alright, so Pete is taking an
analogy out of Pilgrim's Progress and he's like Christian going
uphill difficulty. He knows he's in that posture
because of his sin. He's alone, but he's seeking
the way of recovery and back into the place of full obedience
to God. Someone else want to make a stab
at it? All right, Chet? All right, he seems to be in
a condition of combined physical and spiritual distress. Good. Anyone else? All right, I think we've brought
together the major lines, and what we might say, and I want
to demonstrate this, and I hope to your conviction, and I mean
the conviction of your own judgment and understanding, that the basic
condition of the psalmist when he wrote the psalm was a condition
that we would say was one of being under divine chastisement
and desertion. He was in a condition of being
under divine chastisement and desertion. Now, when we use that
terminology, and I want to explain it and then we'll look at the
specifics, we must understand this fundamental distinction
which we try to make again and again in the ministry of the
word here, and yet which cannot be made too frequently. that
we as the people of God, this is the believer, man or woman
who is united to Christ in the bond of faith, must recognize
the fundamental difference that exists between his standing in
Christ before the court of heaven, that is, his relationship to
God as his judge, and his relationship to God in the realm of his own
experience, thinking particularly of his relationship to God as
his loving, heavenly Father. Now, if we are true believers,
we are united to Jesus Christ in the bond of faith, then in
the court of heaven we are justified and adopted, and our justification
and adoption are irreversible non-improvable conditions or
states of acceptance before God in the court of heaven. However,
in the realm of our experience as the children of God, enjoyment
of communion with God as our Father, the conscious delight
of the fellowship of God as our Father, living under the smile
as opposed to living under the crown of God as our Father, living
under the hand of his blessing in contrast to his hand of chastisement,
that is all in the realm of Christian experience, and that, unlike
our standing in the court of heaven, is not an unchangeable
and an invariable reality. Christian experiences has its
ups and its downs, its periods of being like this. That's Christian
experience. And here we have a psalm that
is dealing not with David's consciousness and confidence of this, though
aspects of this will break through in the psalm, but we are dealing
with a psalm that brings us into the realm of Christian experience
with its vicissitudes, with its changes, with its ups, with its
downs. that he is in this period of
divine chastisement and desertion seems clear from these descriptions
that he makes about himself. Notice it begins, Rebuke me not
in your wrath, neither chasten me in your hot displeasure. Now he is not praying that as
something that he's not already experienced, for notice the next
verse. For your arrows stick fast in me, and your hand presses
me sore." So he is under the hand of God in a context of divine
displeasure and anger and chastisement. And as a result of it, and this
brings in some of the strands that others of you have mentioned,
he was physically sick. Verse three, there is no soundness
in my flesh because of your indignation. Now here is a case where a man's
sickness was directly related to the anger and the chastisement
of God. Now not all sickness is thus
related, a la Job. But in this case it was, a la
the Corinthians, for this cause many are weak and sickly among
you and not a few sleep. So here was a case where he was
conscious of his physical illness being a direct indication of
God's fatherly displeasure. Neither is there any health in
my bones because of my sins. Verse five, my wounds are loathsome
and corrupt. He speaks of verse seven, his
loins filled with burning, no soundness in his flesh. I am
faint and sore, bruised, which could refer to the state of his
soul, but surely these verses we've read indicate that under
this condition, in the realm of experience of divine chastisement,
he was physically sick. But not only physically sick,
he was emotionally tormented. Verses 6, 8, and 17, I am pained
and bowed down Greatly, I go mourning all the day long. We'd
say this guy had a terrible case of depression. I mean, you'd
watch him from the time his feet hit the floor in the morning
to the time he went to bed and you couldn't find a crack of
a smile on his face from six to ten o'clock at night. I go
mourning all the day long. That's his confession. Look at
verse 17. I'm ready to fall. And my sorrow
is continually before me, my sorrow continually before me. So he's physically sick. He is
constantly depressed and grief stricken. And then this brings
in one of the strands that I believe Mr. Girdless mentioned. He is
forsaken by his friends. Verse 11. My lovers and my friends stand
aloof from my plague, and my kinsmen stand afar off. In this
present state, even his friends have deserted him. Maybe they
were ashamed of him. Maybe they were fearful that
whatever his problem was, it was contagious. We don't know.
All we know is he lost the support, not only of the smile of God,
of physical health, of emotional ambulance and joy, but he lost
even the support of his friends. And then added to that, his enemies
are multiplied and stirred up against him. Verse 17 and following. I'm sorry, verse 19 and 20, but
my enemies are lively and are strong. It's one thing when you've
got enemies, but there are times when they're not lively. They
are inactive, but now his enemies are lively. And they are also
strong, and they that hate me wrongfully are not added, but
multiplied. It seemed like enemies crept
out of the woodwork. They were multiplied. And what
do they do? They also that render evil for
good are adversaries unto me, because I follow the thing that
is good. So the condition of the psalmist
when he wrote the psalm was a condition of being under an unusually intense
and severe period of divine chastisement and desertion manifested in physical
sickness, deep emotional trauma, forsakenness by his friends,
and being the object of the hatred and the evil intent and activity
of his enemies. Now, any of you wish you were
David? In that period of his life, that was his condition. Now, that was the condition of
a man who, in the court of heaven, was an acquitted sinner, who
could write Psalm 32, Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord
imputeth not iniquity. That was a man who, in the court
of heaven, was as accepted when he wrote that Psalm as he was
when he looked upon the face of his Redeemer with joy. Larry
stayed in the court of heaven, was not in any way affected by
all of the horrible realities described in Psalm 38. All right? So we've looked at his condition.
Now, second question. What was the basic cause of this
condition, according to his own acknowledgement? What was the
basic cause of this condition? Yes, John? He committed a sin or some sin
against God, where do you find that? All right, we'll start
at the back then and move forward. There are at least four verses
where he asserts that, all right? Verse 18, notice what he says. For I will declare my iniquity,
I will be sorry for my sin. Here is a case, unlike Job, where
Job does not know why he is in the midst of a situation that
is very similar to David's here. Sick, grief-stricken, forsaken
by friends, and the object of the taunting of enemies. But
in this condition, David knows There is no question in his own
mind that he is in this condition because of a certain sin or combination
of sins. I will declare my iniquity. I
will be sorry for my sin. All right. What other verses
indicate that this was the cause of his problem? Define the other
three. All right. Paul. All right. Verse three. There is no soundness
in my flesh because of your indignation. Neither is there any health in
my bones because of my sin. No question. My sin. All right. Next verse, obvious
verse four. For my iniquities have gone over
my head as a heavy burden. They are too heavy for me. All right. Any other indication
of his cause being his own sin? All right. Jeff, read it for
us. All right, because of my folly.
And in the scripture, folly is never a grown man acting like
a little kid, you know, at a party and just having a good time,
making a quote fool of himself. But folly has the element of
moral culpability. Sin is irrational. The man who
sins is a fool, he is acting contrary to his basic identity
as a rational image bearer of God, so in verse 5 there is an
additional acknowledgement that he was in this condition because
of his foolishness. And notice, there is no equivocation,
there is no blame shifting, there is no indefiniteness, He says,
my sin, my iniquity, my foolishness, my iniquity, my sin. So his conscience was alive,
his understanding was clear. Now, what sin was it? Here's
where the commentators have a field day. And they have a field day
because the Bible doesn't tell us. And where the Bible doesn't
tell us, it must mean it ain't important to know. And that's
all I'm going to say about it. I'm sorry to disappoint you,
but that's all I'm going to say about it. Because the people
of God many times, for many various reasons, are in similar conditions,
and therefore God intends that this psalm should be as broad
as the needs of His people in all ages for its timeless principles
and their application. Now then, having answered the
question, what was the condition of the psalmist when he wrote
the psalm? under divine chastisement and desertion, sick, grief-stricken,
forsaken by friends, oppressed by enemies, what was the cause
of that condition? His sin. Now we come to the heart
of our study. What did he not do, and what
did he do in seeking deliverance? And I ask the question that way
because I want us to see the contrast between what he did
and what we so often do. What's the first thing that's
evident he did not do? If he did it, we wouldn't even
have this song. All right. Cliff? He didn't run from God. What is the first tendency of
our hearts when we are conscious that we've sinned, and that consciousness
is heightened? by an evident pressure of God's
chastening hand upon us, what is the natural, instinctive response
of our hearts? Anyone? To do what? To forsake prayer. To turn away
from God. In the sense of our own guilt,
our own failure, the irrationality of what we've done, the tendency
is to put even greater distance between ourselves and God because
of the felt reality of our sin. Now, one of the reasons I'm taking
up this psalm with you is that though this is a universal problem
and one which the people of God have experienced in all ages,
it is a peculiar problem of the instant gratification, feeling-oriented
generation out of which most of you have come. that when my
felt joy and my felt sense of the smile of God is gone, not
for some indefinite and unknown and undiscovered reason, but
because of my sin, my sin even underscored by elements of divine
chastisement, the tendency is to run from God, to give up praying,
to give up seeking God, to give up searching the Word, to give
up having close-heart dealings with God. That is so often our
tendency. David did not do that. Now, what's the other thing he
did not do? Cliff sort of mentioned it, and
his voice drew up, but I want to make it a second head. It's
so vital. Charlie? Say that nice and loud. He did
not deny his sins. He didn't start playing head
games on himself, saying, oh, well, maybe the church I go to
is a little bit legalistic. And those things I did, which
at one time I thought may have been the cause of God's hand
pressing me sore, well, really, you know, maybe it's really not
so. Maybe I've allowed myself to
be brainwashed. Maybe they're a little bit semi-cult.
Maybe he did not deny the reality of his sin. He says again and
again, without exception, he owns this possessive pronoun,
my sin, my iniquities, my foolishness, my iniquity, my sin. And dear people, that's the second
thing we've got to learn not to do. That when conscience smites,
and even before there may be tokens of divine chastisement,
we must learn the discipline in spite of how we feel. To own the reality of our sin,
and to own it not just as sin, notice he didn't say, I acknowledge
sin, I acknowledge iniquity. It's my sin, my iniquity, my
foolishness. Now, whatever the sin or sins
were, we know from the history of David and the history of all
of God's people that the majority of the recorded sins of David
were not sins committed in secret and matters of just his heart
and his relationship to God. they were sins precipitated by
interpersonal relationships. For example, the sin of his hasty
anger in regard to vowing to blot out the household of Nabal,
that was precipitated by churlish Nabal's insensitivity to David's
request that some food be provided for his men, who had been giving
unofficial protection to Nabal and his herdsmen and his flocks. And then God used Abigail to
turn away his anger. But that sin, you see, was the
sin in which others were implicated and provoked him to sin. His
great and shameful sin, if only Bathsheba had been more modest.
If only Bathsheba had used a little more sense and not bathed in
a circumstance in which any man upon any rooftop could have looked
upon her naked body. There's no transfer of the whole
matter of the sins he committed in conjunction with Saul when
his heart smote him that he cut off the hem of his garment. It
was a sin provoked by Saul's constant harassment of him. You
go right through the life of David, yet he doesn't talk about
anyone who may have been involved in the provocation to sin. He
owns it as the child of his own heart. My sin, my iniquity. So the second thing he didn't
do. First thing he didn't do, he didn't run away from God and
put more distance between his soul and God. Secondly, he didn't
deny the sin or deny that it was his sin, which we so often
do. What's the third thing he didn't
do? And this is absolutely vital, and it shows that David understood
this distinction. What's the third thing he didn't
do? All right, you think you found
it, Gary? He didn't give up his claim to being a child of God. Now, how do you know that, Gary? Whereabouts? Give me a chapter.
You've got the right chapter, but give me the verse, all right?
You don't need to look far. Oh, you've gone altogether too
far. But that's alright. You've given a valid answer,
so let's start there. Forsake me not, O Lord. O what? My God! My God! Even though the hand of this
God is pressing him sore, even though he's under the chastisement
of this God, he does not give up his claim to being a child
of God and saving relationship to God. He calls him, my God. All right, other indications.
Ben? Verse 15. All right. For in you, O Lord,
do I utterly despair? No. For in you do I hope you
will answer, O Lord my God." You mean someone can say that
God is his God when he's owning up to sin? sin so grievously
committed and apparently so long un-mortified and unconfessed
as to precipitate an abundance of divine chastisement that such
a person can still say, Oh my God! Oh Lord my God! Yes. Yes, he did not give up
his claims to God being his God. Some other verses that indicate
it. Yes, Cynthia? Yes. All right, a parallel between
verse 9 and some of the statements of Romans 7. Lord, all my desire
is before you. He's conscious that God is still
his Father, and that all of the fundamental, basic, what we would
call baseline longings of his renewed heart as a child of God,
the Lord knows these things. All my desire is before you. You know, Lord, that I desire
to experience again the light of your countenance. I desire
to know again what it is to be under your hand of blessing and
approval and not your hand of chastisement and displeasure. You know my desire to have you
remove the arrows that you've justly sent for my sin. All my
desire is before you. He has not begun to think hard
thoughts of God. The other indications, the first
verse, O Jehovah, he takes that name that was revealed in its
fullness or in its initial fullness in conjunction with God entering
into covenant marriage with Israel. The name Jehovah comes to the
foreground in conjunction with the exodus and with the bringing
of the nation of Israel into covenant relationship with God,
God of covenant faithfulness, and he takes that name, not O
Mighty One, O Exalted One, O Holy One, there were names for that
and you'll find them in the Psalms, but he says O Jehovah, Rebuke
me not in your wrath. So he does not give up his claims
to being a child of God. He does not give up seeking God. He does not shift the blame for
his sin. There's one more thing he doesn't
do. There may be others, but as I went through, these were
four of the major things that I saw he did not do that we so
often do. Let me give you the hint, shall
we? All right, someone has it. He doesn't despise the chastening
of God, but we have to remember that the word in Deuteronomy
4 says that the father chastens the son. He didn't despise the chastening
of God. I hadn't thought of that, but
that's obvious in the thing. The chastening is accomplishing
its work. Let me put that down as a fifth point. He didn't despise
the chastening of God or get churlish with God and get self-justifying
and begin to be impudent and blasphemous. Who is God to treat
me this way? Whenever I hear anyone say that,
I really fear. I really fear for them. For someone
to say, Lord, how long will you treat me this way? That's one
thing. But when you start snapping your fingers and asking God to
give an account to you, that's dangerous business. But there
was something else he didn't do. All right, he did not allow whatever
sin was precipitating the chastisement to provoke other sins of striking
back, of speaking ill-advisedly, defending himself, vindicating
himself. Very good. He didn't chastise himself. So he's not found doing penance,
is he? He's a penitent, but he's not
doing penance. Well, the thing I was fishing for, and these
last two relate somewhat to it, he did not deny the marks of
his own integrity in the midst of this horrible condition. He
did not forget what he really was as a renewed man. He did not give up those marks
of integrity. Verse 9 is one of them. All my
desire is before you. Lord, you can read what I know
is there in my heart. And the basic disposition of
my heart is one that wants to please you, that wants to honor
you, that wants to glorify you. And then another mark of his
integrity was that he could plead before God, that he did not react
as a natural man when his friends, and then when his enemies turn
upon him, he said, I turn a deaf ear, I turn a blind eye, I become
like a dumb man, I do not speak back. He does not give up, you
see, the integrity of consciousness that in the midst of being chastised
for his sin, the whole story about him as a man is not this
particular sin that is presently filling his spiritual horizon.
He isn't denying the reality of this, but he is not going
to allow himself to be deceived into thinking that's all the
reality there is about it. Now that, so often, is where
we fall as believers. A certain sin, a failure, a duty
not performed fills our spiritual horizon, clouds our communion
with God, may bring us under the chastening hand of God. Then
we fall prey to the accusations of the enemy of our souls. that
that reality of our sin is the only reality there is about us,
and we believe his accusations, we lose all our assurance, and
then we become paralyzed and say, what's the use? He did not
do that. He brings forward the marks of
his integrity before God, and then clearly In those last two
verses, forsake me not, O Lord, be not far from me, make haste
to help me, O Lord, my salvation. Well, wait, in what sense was
he his salvation, his deliverance? It certainly wasn't in terms
of this present problem. This is one of the few psalms
that starts on the base note and ends on the base note. You
see, he's not yet been brought through to a place of deliverance
when this psalm ends. He's still pleading, forsake
me not. be not far from me, make haste
to help me." This psalm, unlike many of the psalms, does not
see him brought through to deliverance. He is still under the chastening
hand of God. He is still feeling his afflictions,
and yet he refuses to give up the marks of his integrity. He
knows that God is the God of his salvation. Dear people of
God, when you come into these Whether they are this aggravated
and this intense is not the issue. When you come into a season,
when communion with God as your father is interrupted because
of sin, when God may even be provoked to bring his chastening
hand upon you for that sin, producing a combination of sickness, emotional
trauma, your friends forsaken you, your enemies multiplied
and stirred up against you, And all because of your sin, you
must not turn away from God. You must not deny the reality
of your sin. You must not deny the validity
of the marks of your integrity as a child of God. You must not
strike out against others as though they were the cause. Those
are the things that we are so prone to do. But what does he
do from the positive standpoint? Now in these last 15 minutes,
let's see if we can discover at least 5, 6, 7, 8 things that
the psalmist does that form a wonderful pattern of what we ought to do
when we also come into periods of conscious desertion and perhaps
even intense chastisement. What's the first and most obvious
thing he does? All right, he waits upon God. Now, what does it mean to wait
upon God? We find that terminology used in
many places in Scripture. He waits upon God. What does
it mean to wait upon God? Yes? All right, certainly it
involves actively seeking out God in prayer, and this psalm,
unlike some psalms, This psalm is a pure prayer from beginning
to end. Now, not all the psalms are that.
Some psalms are didactic psalms. They are teaching psalms. The
psalmist is addressing others. Some are a mixture. He's addressing
God. He addresses others. He addresses
himself. But notice this psalm begins
with the upward, outward look, O Lord, rebuke me not. And by various expressions of
confession, acknowledgement of his own sin, the maintenance
of his own integrity, the psalm continues all the way through
and ends in the whole context of earnest, fervent seeking of
the face of God, make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation. Now, the concept of waiting upon
God comes in when Our prayer is not immediately answered.
When earnest, fervent, honest, penitent prayer is not immediately
answered in the sphere of our own experience or our own consciousness,
then we are called upon to wait upon God. That is, to carry with
us, even when we leave the place of prayer, the posture of heart
that we assumed when we were before God in prayer. To wait. upon the Lord, to wait patiently
for him in the language of Psalm 40 and Psalm 37. So, let's put
down as the first thing he did is he set himself to pray. All right? What's the second
thing he did? Jim? All right, I had that down as
number third. He does not defend himself, verses 11 through 14.
Now being in a condition like this, generally the most humble,
what we would call non-visible saint in a congregation, in a
condition like this, somebody's going to know it. Now here's
a man who had a high profile. Many people would evidently see
his joyless face from morning till night, would know that he
was sorely afflicted physically. They would be able to see his
enemies rising up against him, his friends forsaking him. This
was not something that could be done in a corner when you're
the king of Israel. Now, none of us has as high a
profile as David did. But even if we are the most obscure,
low-profiled saint in any given group, the temptation is always
there to want to vindicate ourselves. and not to wait for God's vindication. But David here is prepared to
let God vindicate him. So he sets himself to pray. He
commits his cause in that sense of ultimate vindication to God.
What else does he do? All right, Dave? All right, does God know everything
that David tells him in this psalm before he tells him? Yeah,
he knows all of it. I mean, God wasn't sitting there
at a word processing. Oh, David, slow down a little
bit. I got to feed that in. Got to make sure everything's
in the computer so that my dealings with you are based upon all the
current data. Slow down a bit, David. No, he
wasn't telling God a thing God didn't know. And yet God delights. He says, pour out your hearts
before Him at all times, ye people. Why do you think God delights
to have His people pour out, as Dave has said, transparently
and fully, without reservation, the full spectrum of the state
of the soul? Why do you think God delights
in that? Why does He command it? Pour
out your heart before Him at all times, ye people. Got any
ideas? To humble us? In what sense will it humble
us? Many times it's not until we
articulate what our true condition is in our own ears, hear it in
prayer, our own minds hear it when it's framed, that we feel
the true weight of it. That certainly is a valid principle. Any other reason? Cliff? God created us that we might
have full and unfettered communion with him, and if we come to God
in prayer and we withhold an issue from God, we're not going
to have full and unfettered communion that he desires to have with
us. All right, let's come back to
what this relationship is. It's that of a child in the presence
of his father, the creature in the presence of his creator.
Now, you who are parents, how do you feel when your children
have carried something in their hearts, perhaps for weeks or
months, and suddenly, a given situation, a combination of circumstances,
the plug is pulled and they finally tell you, And you know they've
been carrying something that has been like a festering sore
to change the imagery, like a sour, polluted pond in their hearts. What does it do to you when they
finally tell you, and you say to them, why didn't you tell
me this? I'm your father. I'm your mother. Everything that touches you is
important to me, and you've yearned and longed to enter in. Like
as a father pities his children, the Lord pities those who fear
him. Doesn't it cause you grief as a parent when your child thinks
he discerns something in you or maybe actually does discern
something in you that causes him to close up his heart to
you? I didn't think you'd understand. I thought you'd hit the ceiling.
I this, I that. That's a grief to us. Well, strip
away from that all that is sinful, all that is carnal, and then
project it upward to infinity. God, as a father, is a personal
God who feels as a father. And he delights when his children
pour out their hearts before him. Not that he needs the information. But we desperately need the reality
of knowing that as our Father we can afford the luxury of transparent
heart communion with Him. Nothing we say will shock Him,
He already knows. Nothing we acknowledge will unhinge
or unstring Him. He is our Father. He set His
love upon us when we were at our worst. And he saw it all
when we only had seen perhaps the one thousandth part of it.
And so David then sets himself to pray. He does not defend himself. He pours out his heart in transparent,
thorough openness before God. We're coming down to the last
three or four minutes, so let me just pick up some of the strands
and give the verses. He holds on to his hope in God,
verse 15. Hope is confident expectation. Notice, for in thee, O Lord,
do I hope you will answer. God hasn't yet answered. God
has not yet brought that sense of release and deliverance, but
he's convinced that God will yet answer. He's a man praying
and waiting in faith. So vital. So vital. When we're in a period of desertion,
when we're in a period when God's hand of chastisement is upon
us to say with David, Lord, in thee do I hope you will answer. No one ever sought God in vain. Then, of course, as we've already
noted, he freely and honestly confesses his sin. Verse 18,
he continues to pursue holiness in his general lifestyle, and
here again it's vital. Look at verse 20. They that render
evil for good are adversaries unto me, because, present tense,
I follow the thing that is good. Now there's another crucial area.
There are many of God's people, especially those who've been
conditioned for instant gratification and to live by their feelings,
the moment they get no joy in following the way of righteousness,
they give up. And say, if God doesn't give
me the lollipop of a good feeling, I'm not going to do what's good.
God's under no obligations to give you lollipops when you tie
your shoes in the morning. It's your duty to tie your shoes,
whether God gives you lollipops or not. You see that? And he could say in the midst
of this, think of it, in all the sickness, the emotional trauma,
his friends have deserted him, his enemies are multiplied and
stirred up against him, he says, I follow the thing that is good.
In the midst of this, he holds to a course of what the old writers
called universal obedience. In other words, God is worthy
to be obeyed no matter how you feel. And if you don't learn
how to take your feelings and kick them in the teeth at times,
spit on them and stomp on them, you're not going to go very far
and probably not very long as a Christian. And David in this
psalm sets a marvelous example of a man who clings not only
to his integrity, but he clings to the path of duty in the midst
of the heaviness. Now granted, His obedience at
this stage was not bringing him much joy, because this other
problem was yet unresolved. And he says all the day long,
I go mourning. And yet he could say, while mourning,
I follow the thing that is good. And someone might come up and
say, David, you don't look like a very happy Christian. He'd
say, I'm not. Well, why in the world are you
acting like a Christian? Because God's worthy to be obeyed.
Whether I'm happy or not, I'm not going to add sin to sin.
I'm not going to add to the sin that's brought my grief the sin
of turning away from the ways of my God. There's nothing in
my God that makes him worthy of my being indifferent to his
precepts and commandments. So he continues to pursue the
path of righteousness He dares, as you've already noted, to call
God the God of his salvation. Verse 22, which again is a confession
of his faith. Make haste to help me, O Lord,
my salvation. You are my deliverance. You are
my deliverer. Deliverance shall come. Deliverance
is on the way. And I confess you, there's a
sense in which there's almost a subtle enticement of God to
prove himself to be, to David in this, what he confesses him
to be. a kind of divine argument. If you are my salvation and I
call you such, then, Lord, haste to deliver me from this present
situation." And then the psalm ends in that obvious posture.
He is waiting for God's deliverance and God's intervention. May the
Lord bless this psalm to our hearts as we go through our periods
of desertion, when we are not unjustified, disinherited as
sons in the court of heaven, but when in the realm of our
experience we are at one of these low points, and perhaps for some
period of time. May God bring us back to this
psalm. And may I say to you men in the
academy, this is one of the reasons why Donald MacLeod said in preaching
on the Old Testament, that the Old Testament contains the richest
teaching on the doctrine of the Christian life. This is what
he was talking about. Without disparaging anything God's revealed
in the New Testament, there is nothing in the New Testament
that gives you so thorough a treatment as this psalm does, and this
is just one of them, of what to do in a period of desertion.
So God has deposited this aspect of Christian experience and light
and direction for it, not in the New Testament, but in the
Old. And this is why we are not New Testament Christians, we
are Bible Christians. And may the Lord continue to
help us to work out the implications of that. Let's pray together. Our Father, we are so thankful
that you have given to us in the scriptures a sufficient as
well as a clear revelation of your will for us. Thank you for
the privilege of studying this psalm together this morning.
Thank you for the many principles that it contains for our admonition
and guidance. O Lord, if there are any sitting
here this morning, and we cannot think that there must be some,
perhaps many, who are in a relative period of desertion, may this
word that we have studied together Be your own word of revival and
refreshing and restoration to them this morning. And for those
who may this morning have glory bells ringing in their hearts,
their step full of joy and alacrity in the path of obedience, may
they tuck away in their hearts what they have learned today
against that day that will surely come when there will be darkness
and the sense of desertion. O Lord, help us, we pray, that
we may profit from your word as we seek to live to the praise
of your beloved Son. We ask in his name. Amen.

A Deserted and Chastised Christian

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about divine chastisement?

How do we know God's love during times of chastisement?

Why is confession of sin necessary for Christians?

What should Christians do in times of spiritual distress?

How does Psalm 38 relate to the concept of sovereign grace?

Sermon Transcript

About Albert N. Martin

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A Deserted and Chastised Christian

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about divine chastisement?

How do we know God's love during times of chastisement?

Why is confession of sin necessary for Christians?

What should Christians do in times of spiritual distress?

How does Psalm 38 relate to the concept of sovereign grace?

Sermon Transcript

About Albert N. Martin

Comments

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