Psalm 38
O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath!
For your arrows have sunk into me, and your hand has come down on me.
We’ve been talking consistently about our God who loves us with an everlasting love, our Creator who saved us by way of His Son, who, after His finished work, poured out His Spirit upon us as a guarantee of our salvation.
We know and are consequently in awe of Christ and His finished work. And it helps that because of His finished work, we have His Spirit, who constantly reminds us of our absolutely right-standing with the Creator of all things; By the Spirit we are consistently and constantly reminded that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is so close to us, as we have been so reconciled to Him that we are able to call Him our Father.
So when you read verses like the ones that start off Psalm 38, you probably start thinking to yourself, at least as I have… that there’s so much more to our Father than we know. More than the loving Father we so desperately needed, see here, as David wrote, and saw; He is a God, a Father capable of anger and wrath, of rebuke and discipline.
Is this, therefore, contradictory to what we already know? I don’t think so – it actually gives us a more detailed picture, another facet and perspective to the infinite glory and, more importantly, the everlasting love God has for us. For when He does rebuke us, He does it because He is for us, and not against us – and even if He does rebuke us, even in anger, I have reason to believe that the underlying heart is one that is full of love.
We’ve read in Romans 1 that we’re just as susceptible to the unrighteousness that is the suppression of truth; after all, we’re still in this limited world making sense of things with our limited minds, so it’s not a question of if, but when we would also fall into unrighteousness and its consequences.
We’ve read further, and we’ve seen that God’s wrath upon all who do suppress the truth and suggest the lies; and three times in the chapter we read that this wrath is not one of rebuke from His end, but more of Him ‘giving themselves up’ to their perversity, their deluded minds, and so on.
But see, here’s the thing – whether it’s us who fall every now and then into unrighteousness, or if it’s anyone who has yet to come to believe and appreciate salvation through Christ alone, we’re disciplined in His wrath… and just as we’re rebuked in anger, it all comes from the foundation of His everlasting love.
We may be wounded by His arrows, or His hand may have come down upon us… or it feels that way, anyway… but we stay vigilant, trusting Him even in discipline and rebuke, knowing He knows everything, and we barely know anything.
There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin.
For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.
My wounds stink and fester because of my foolishness, I am utterly bowed down and prostrate; all the day I go about mourning.
For my sides are filled with burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh.
I am feeble and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart.
And here we see more of His wrath; Paul in Romans 1 talks about how it is as God ‘gave them up’ to their schemes and deluded minds, resulting in rebellion and all sorts of perversity, but here David presents another perspective to the consequences of sin.
More than our hearts within, apparently our flesh is uneasy, and it goes as deep as our bones. As the mind is burdened, so the body is burdened, and not only weighed down, but also wounded and left for infection.
Now this may not be how you are physically, but it’s clear – because of sin, because of our iniquities, and the ‘tumult of our hearts’, our minds are impacted with grief and mourning, and our bodies follow suit. We sin against ourselves and others, and all I think David is pointing out here is that the consequences to our finite minds and bodies is very real.
O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you.
My heart throbs; my strength fails me, and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.
My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague, and my nearest kin stand far off.
Those who seek my life lay their snares; those who seek my hurt speak of ruin and meditate treachery all day long.
But I am like a deaf man; I do not hear, like a mute man who does not open his mouth.
I have become like a man who does not hear, and in whose mouth are no rebukes.
But for you, O LORD, do I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.
For I said, “Only let them not rejoice over me, who boast against me when my foot slips!”
For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever before me.
I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin.
But my foes are vigorous, they are mighty, and many are those who hate me wrongfully.
Those who render me evil for good accuse me because I follow after good.
Do not forsake me, O LORD! O my God, be not far from me!
Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!
Before we go any further, let’s remember what happened to Job. He was doing just fine with a family and lots of livestock, and the enemy of our souls did not just come against him once, but twice: First, he took away all his material wealth, and killed his posterity, and, second, he afflicted him from the inside out with anguish, and from the outside in, with terrible boils covering his entire body.
And if that wasn’t enough, he was spurned by his wife, who told him to ‘curse God and die’; Shortly after, his friends came over, being silent at first to lament the great tragedy that befell Job, but eventually ready to condemn him.
Before his friends came over, he said that one line that we sing as a bridge in an old praise song: ‘The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord’…
But see how he groaned, when he broke the silence between him and his visitors – ‘Oh, that I was never born’.
Friends, we see how ruthless the enemy can come against anyone, down to making what’s left of Job’s pathetic life painful for him, to the point that he cursed the day that he was born. Not content to steal from us, he kills us, and as a sort of piece de resistance, he destroys our minds, and destroys our hope. Death, even in life.
Not so, with David! For, see, I’m not about to go ahead and compare what happened to him and what happened to Job… but I could make a case for us to consider that whatever he did go through may have been so much worse, in that it was not the devil who came against him, but even worse – he sinned against himself, and is now suffering the consequences of his sin (which may as well be the same, that is, death also in life), and the wrath of God.
But instead of cursing like Job did, what does David do? He longs for God, He sighs, knowing that God hears him.
He recognizes how he arrived to the end of himself, in that his own body has given up on him, and not just his body but even his friends and family have deserted him. Those who ARE present are his enemies, ready to trap his body, and more than willing to curse him with their many words.
This renders him speechless, dazed as he was rendered deaf. In Tagalog, ‘tulala’, dumbfounded.
But, see, even if in the majority of the Psalm, David speaks of his infirmity, and he laments the impact of his iniquity… He calls out to God.
But for you, O LORD, do I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.
Do not forsake me, O LORD! O my God, be not far from me!
Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation! (v 15, 21, 22)
Friends, when we come to the end of ourselves, and when we see everything else that we had our hopes on crumble away or disappear into nothingness… Let us lament, but let us NOT stay there – God forbid!
Friends in the body of Christ, may we be reminded, even in these darkest of dark times, of the conviction of the Holy Spirit – we are reminded that we are with God, and God is with us, no matter what. We are reminded that through Christ, nothing could ever separate us from the love of God.
Christ has made it possible for us to cry out so desperately to our God, and to our Father. Surely, when we are called to run to His throne of grace, let us also remember to enter His gates with thanksgiving, lifting up our voice in praise – for truly, our Savior is worthy.
Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain to receive the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and honor, and glory, and blessing.Revelations 5:12
Let us take heart, and when we lack courage, let us pray; in doing so, we bring all of ourselves to trusting in the Lord… and, as Scripture says, blessed is the one who places their trust in the Lord, and those who trust in the Lord shall never be put to shame.
As the memes go, I pray that you are seen through all of your problems and situations… by no less than our Savior, and our Good Shepherd – Jesus Christ.
I think I’ll stop here for now. I hope you’ve been blessed as I have been blessed writing this. May come off as a bit abrupt or less concise as I’d have wanted it, but again, I hope you’ve still been blessed regardless.
Until the next time I post, I pray that you continue to grow in the grace of Christ, in spite of all that’s happening to us and around us, may His grace abound, in Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.
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