Mercy for the Soul in Despair

Transcript

GRM 1156
04/24/2016
Mercy for the Soul in Despair
Psalm 6
Gil Rugh

We're going to go to Psalm 6 in your Bibles. We've looked at the opening five psalms and I thought we'd pick up and look at Psalm 6 as well. As I worked through this psalm I'm reminded again of how much of the Scripture deals with the matter of the trials, the difficulties, the discouragements, disappointments of God's people. Often we have a rather selective approach to Scripture and we want to look at the positive things. But when you stop and think about it, much of the Scripture focuses on those things which we would think of as negative. Look at Israel's whole history; it's a history of difficulty, of trials, much of it brought upon Israel by their own sin and rebellion against God. And then you look at the prophets' ministries who brought the Word of God to the nation and that involved them in suffering, difficulties, trials. When you move to the New Testament, it is no different. You follow Jesus' ministry through the Gospels and it is characterized by opposition, persecution, suffering, difficulty, culminating with the crucifixion of Christ. You get into the book of Acts and then the epistles, much of it talks about the trials and difficulties and sufferings of the apostles. You get to the closing book of our Bible, the book of Revelation of John, which is the revelation of Jesus Christ given to John. Where is he? He is in exile on the island of Patmos for his testimony for Christ—more difficulty in trial.

And this is reflected in many of the psalms. Sometimes they are called psalms of lament. There are psalms that deal with troubles, trials, difficulties. I was reading some in John Calvin. John Calvin's teachings on much of the whole Bible are available, tells you something of the enduring nature of his faithful exposition of Scripture. And about 500 years ago he wrote in his preface to the Psalms, I have been accustomed to call this book an anatomy of all the parts of the soul, for there is not an emotion of which anyone can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror or rather the Holy Spirit has drawn to life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short all the distracting emotions with which the minds of men are wont to be agitated.

And that is true. That's the beauty of the Psalms. Psalms, as we have talked about, is an emotional book. It expresses the emotions that the psalmists are going through, it reflects their despair, their disappointments, their fears. We see at times they are overwhelmed. It would seem they are in deep depression that just is not momentary or passing but seems to go on over extended periods of time. Because of this, we can be tempted to just pick and choose out of the psalms. One recent commentator wrote of the danger of hopping, skipping and jumping through the Psalms in search of the more positive parts. And that can be the case. In fact I will make a confession. I was visiting with one of the pastors at our meeting this week and I said I had given thought, when I started looking into the Psalms, to pick out psalms from various parts of the book so I could balance it and not have so much repeated emphasis on the down emotions. Yet there is a reason God has so much to say about this. The whole book of Job is devoted to suffering and trials and the difficulty of coping with it, as so many of the psalms are. In fact I was moved to read all of Job's speeches in the psalms as I was reminded of how similar it is to what we are reading in the psalmists' writings. But a psalm like David's in Psalm 6, he would be writing maybe 500 years after Job who would be a contemporary in the times of Abraham and the patriarchs.

We like a more positive message, even we who are true believers. There is a draw to that which is more positive, uplifting. That's why men whose ministry focuses on the positives, one of the more popular ones that you can watch on TV today, there are enough negative things in the world. When people come to hear me, they want to hear something positive. Well we don't give people what they want to hear, we give them what God has to say. And the reality for us as believers is we don't want to just have a happy face Christianity. Sometimes we feel the pressure not to let anyone know we are going through a down time, that this is a discouraging time. My life seems overwhelmed, my heart seems broken. There are days I just don't think I can get out of bed. I can’t deal with the children or I can't get myself going to work. It just seems like I can't face life. We think, believers don't have that. Believers do!

David, the writer of this psalm, is a man after God's own heart, that's God's testimony of David. When He told Samuel He was going to appoint him as king, “he is a man who will be after My own heart.” On his first missionary journey the Apostle Paul in Acts 13 refers to that very fact and yet when we come to Psalm 6 we'll find a man who is very discouraged. We don't want to forget, we live in a fallen world so difficulties and trials come from a variety of ways. By the very fact that sin has enveloped the creation, the world can be a difficult place to live. There are hard things that come into our lives. Believers get sick just like unbelievers get sick. Believers can have financial problems just like unbelievers have financial problems. If a tornado blows through the city, it might demolish a believer's house as well as an unbeliever's house. We have troubles and difficulties in our homes, in our jobs, in our personal lives. We don't escape that just because we are believers. In John 16:33, the last night Jesus has with His disciples He says, “In the world you have tribulations. Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” Now note, He did not say in the world you will not have tribulations because I have overcome the world. Sometimes that's the way we as believers think of it—because we are God's children, Christ is our Saviour, He will care for us in such a way that we will be protected from much of the “bad” things, difficult things. Not superficially difficult, things that bring you to the point of thinking you are being crushed by the hand of God. And in your despair you may wonder, does He still love me. Why would this be happening?

That's where the psalmist is. Now as believers we can add the persecution of enemies and those who are opposed to God and His people. But there are all kinds of trials that come into our lives. James says they are multifaceted, multicolored, they are all kinds. And that's what we are dealing with in Psalm 6.

I want you to note before we begin, in Psalm 6 there is no reference to sin—David the writer confessing sin, repenting of sin. So we should be careful about reading that in as the background of the psalm. When I think, in light of what he says it would seem there must be a sin he is dealing with. That's part of the misunderstanding that comes. Trials come into our life when there is not specific sin being dealt with, Job being the outstanding example of that and we'll note that as we move along. What happens in this psalm, in the first seven verses David expresses something of his despair. And I tell you when you read through this, your evaluation and conclusion is, in our day we would say, he is clinically depressed. I mean, he has come to the bottom. He doesn't know what to do, where to turn and he can't face life. And then in verses 8-10 he gets his feet back on the ground, gets refocused, although that doesn't indicate the trial is gone. Important to keep it in perspective.

One other thing to note before we go into this psalm. I want you to mark in your Bibles how many times he addresses or refers to the Lord, Jehovah, Yahweh. Sometimes when you read in the Old Testament they will refer to the ‘tetragramaton.’ It means the four letters in the name of God. Here we bring it over, YHWH. In Hebrew as originally written it didn't have any vowels. You just learned the pronunciation of words and the collection of the vowels. The vowels weren't added until a thousand years after Christ. So we have YHWH as we pronounce it, sometimes taken as Jehovah. It is translated as we have it, LORD. Eight times in ten verses he'll refer to the LORD. Note how we start, “Oh Lord do not rebuke me.” Then verse 2 the first line, “Oh Lord,” in the second line, “Oh Lord.” Verse 3 the second line, “Oh Lord.” Verse 4 the first line, “Oh Lord.” You come down to verse 8 in the second line, “the Lord.” Verse 9 the first line, “the Lord,” the second line, “the Lord.” Permeates here, his focus is on the Lord. One of the things we see, we go through a trial of such depth, what the Lord is doing is bringing His child to the point to realize there is no place to go but the Lord. I am so overwhelmed, so crushed, so in despair and overwhelmed with hopelessness, where could I go but to the Lord. So you find the psalmist expressing this to the Lord and he'll talk about the Lord.

So verse 1 begins, “Oh Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger nor chasten me in Your wrath.” David doesn't want to be dealt with as the object of God's wrath, His anger. In other words I don't want to be dealt with like one who is not your child, one who is your enemy, one that will be destroyed by you. I don't think that we want to read into this that it is necessarily because of some specific sin. David doesn't say, oh Lord, I have sinned, I confess it to you, I repent. Forgive me. He starts right out, don't rebuke me in Your anger, don't chasten me in Your wrath, don't deal with me like you would with one who is your enemy, who is not the object of Your love. Very similar to Job.

Come back to Job 1. I would encourage you maybe this week, read through Job. You don't even have to read through the whole book, just read through the speeches of Job. Skip his friends for the time, we'll refer to his friends later. And it will remind you of how much Job's experience is like much of what the psalmist expressed. But I want to establish the character of Job to begin with. In Job 1, you are familiar with the context, God addresses Satan. In Job 1:8, “The Lord said to Satan, have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.” Now that is a high testimony coming from God Himself. That doesn't mean that Job was a man without sin, but among all those on the face of the earth God says about Job, there is no one like him, as righteous as he is, who is as careful about avoiding sin as Job. Then you come to Job 2 after some events occur. God addresses Satan the second time, Job 2:3, “The Lord said to Satan, have you considered My servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God, turning away from evil.”

Now I come to this because it sets the context for the book of Job. Satan doesn't disagree with God about Job's righteousness. He doesn't say, he's not such a perfect man as You are making out. There is quite a bit of sin in Job's life. Satan doesn't disagree with God about Job. What he does say is the reason Job lives such a righteous life is God has so protected Job, he lives what we call the good life. He is rich, he has an abundance, he has servants, he has the respect of the people who know him, he has a beautiful family. They are able to get together, all his children and have a feast together. Satan's accusation is who wouldn't love You when You bless him and protect him like You have? The point is when we come into Job we want to realize all these trials are coming on a man who is as righteous as a fallen man can be in the grace of God. Nobody on the earth supersedes Job by God's testimony.

Yet he is going to go into great trial. Come over to Job 6, this is an example and Job speaks. Verse 2, “Oh that my grief were actually weighed, laid in the balances together with my calamity. For then it would be heavier than the sand of the seas.” This is what he sees, you cannot measure the burden I have, the grief that has overwhelmed me. And what is the cause? Verse 4, “For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, their poison my spirit drinks. The terrors of God are arrayed against me.” We say it is Satan doing this, but ultimately it comes from the hand of God because Satan couldn't touch Job until God said go ahead. So it is God who is determining what will come into Job's life, and Job recognizes it. The arrows of the Almighty have pierced to my innermost being, they have poisoned my spirit. I mean, it is overwhelming. The terrors of God are arrayed against me, only God could bring this into my life.

Come over to Job 19, the last line of verse 7, “I shout for help but there is no justice. He,” referring to God, “has walled up my way so that I cannot pass. He has put darkness on my path, He has stripped my honor from me, removed the crown from my head. He breaks me down on every side and I am gone. He has uprooted my hope like a tree, He has also kindled His anger against me and considered me as His enemy.” Similar to what the psalmist is saying in Psalm 6 when he says don't treat me like Your enemy, Lord. Job has that feeling. The pressures on him are so overwhelming, so destructive. He is being destroyed from the inside. Like Job says, His arrows have pierced me on the inside the poison is within me, I'm crushed, I'm destroyed. Job feels like God has turned His anger against him and treating him like one who is His enemy.

Cross back through the Psalms and come to Jeremiah 10, it's the only verse we will take out of Jeremiah. We can spend time in Jeremiah, there is a reason he is called the weeping prophet. The second book he writes is called the Lamentations of Jeremiah. And through the prophecies of Jeremiah we find a prophet who suffers mostly from the hands of his own people. Jeremiah 10:23, he acknowledges the sovereignty of God, “I know, O Lord, that a man's way is not in himself nor is it in man who walks to direct his steps. Correct me, oh Lord, but with justice, not with Your anger or You will bring me to nothing.” See those who have experienced such crushing trials, not just physical but spiritual and emotional, can have the sense that God is dealing with me like an enemy. And that was Job's concern, that's Jeremiah's concern. Correct me, but not in Your anger or You will bring me to nothing. Job felt that God had brought him to the brink of Sheol, death, the destiny of all men, he refers to it. In Psalm 6 the psalmist expresses his concern that God is bringing him to the grave. That's where it is, God, do You still love me?

So we come back to Psalm 6. Remember David is the man after God's own heart and Job is a very righteous man. David is not some weakling, well, he is very emotionally fragile. We know from David's life that is not the case—he is the warrior king of Israel, he killed so many people in battle that God said he could not be the one to build the temple. His son, Solomon, would do it. Because he, David, was a man of bloodshed. He has led Israel fearlessly in combat, he is the man who stepped forward, remember, in his youth to go face to face with Goliath, using his slingshot. He said I killed a bear and a lion with my own hands. This is not somebody who lies awake at night worrying about the little things of life. He is not a man who is weak emotionally or physically or spiritually. He is going to write about 75 of the Psalms. We all know of David, and yet we are going to see here is a man bottomed out, deeply depressed, overwhelmed with the hopelessness and despair of his situation.

And he cries out in Psalm 6:2, “Be gracious to me, oh Lord, for I am pining away. Heal me, oh Lord, for my bones are dismayed.” Physically, emotionally, spiritually David is exhausted. I am pining away, I'm drained, all strength and energy have gone out of me. My bones are dismayed. We uses expressions like this, I am bone tired. Well, to the very depths of my being I am worn out. That's what he is expressing, my bones are dismayed, a word that carries the idea of trembling, sometimes used of terror, of dismay. We would say, to picture it, their knees were knocking. So overwhelmed that on the inside I am trembling, just like I might get sick to my stomach, you are getting queasy, I feel it on the inside. And it's hard to sort out, the physical illness and the emotional because they are tied together. You know how it is, things can be going along fine and something happens, you are made aware of something, someone close to you dies suddenly or something. All of a sudden all your strength is gone, you feel like you will collapse, some people just faint. It's just like I can't stand up, I better sit down. That's David's picture—I am pining away, I am wasting away, I am trembling on the inside.

But you know what he does here, he keeps perspective on who is Lord. He doesn't say Lord, I deserve better treatment; Lord, I have been faithful, I don't deserve this. “Be gracious to me.” He is appealing to God for grace. Even Job, living as righteous and godly a life as he did, didn't deserve God's favor, nor did David. So he appeals to God's grace. He recognizes God is the One who can heal him. “Heal me, oh Lord.” What is he telling Him? How serious my condition is. He realizes, and he is going to come to this, I am not God's enemy but it feels like I am. Sort of like he is reminding God, not in a wrong sense because he doesn't claim he deserves everything. I am coming appealing for grace, Lord, that you would look on the seriousness, wretchedness, hopelessness of my condition and be merciful to me. Show me grace, heal me.

Verse 3, “And my soul is greatly dismayed.” I have to repeat myself, my soul, summary of this, in my innermost being I am trembling, I am hopeless. His next line, “But You O Lord,” here is my condition, but You O Lord. And it's like I don't even know what to say next, all I can say is how long. How long? I mean, this is not just a bad night, a difficult day or two. This has evidently been going on long enough to wear down, wear out and totally discourage and depress this great servant of the Lord. All he can say is “But You O Lord.” What would he complete, what is the complete? You O Lord could rescue me, you O Lord could . . . But you get to that point and you say how long for whatever reason is going on. Then he goes back to repeat his request, if you will, in verse 4, verse 5.

“Turn O Lord,” or return, “Turn O Lord, rescue my soul.” It's like the Lord has left him, turned away from him. “Turn O Lord, rescue my soul.” He has no doubt in the Lord's power and ability to do this, he has no doubt it is the hand of the Lord has brought this upon him. That's why I don't think any specific sin is behind this because David is not moved to deal with it like he does in Psalm 51—oh Lord, my sin, and my sin is ever before me. I repent. No, it's more serious than that in one sense. It's one thing when you realize I have sinned and Lord, I deserve what is happening. It's another thing when you are going through this and you can't think of anything in your life that would be the cause. I've tried to be the most godly person I can be, I've tried to be faithful to the Lord.

“Turn O Lord, rescue my soul. Save me because of Your lovingkindness.” I love that, there is our word again. We talk about hesed, bring it over h e s e d, it's God's covenant love. The basis for David coming to God is God has chosen to enter into covenant with David and place His love upon him. So I can come to God as a God who will be gracious to me. Lord, I appeal because of Your covenant love for me. You established the relationship with me, You made me the object of Your love. Lord, rescue my soul, save me because of Your covenant love. Again it's not claiming his worthiness, but recognizing I am in this situation by the hand of God. And He is the One who can rescue me. I keep coming back to the song, “Where Could I Go But To The Lord.”

This is where Paul encouraged the Roman church to come from in his letter to the Romans at the end of Romans 8 when he asked the question, “who or what can separate us from the love of God which is ours in Christ Jesus? Famine, persecution, trials, difficulties of all kinds. I am convinced that nothing can separate us from the love of God.” That's where David is in that sense. Without the fullness of the revelation that you and I have, but he knew God had established His covenant relationship with him, that He had placed His love upon Him. And in spite of everything, and it seems like God, You are dealing with me in Your wrath, but I come because You've made me the child of Your love in claiming that, and that You show Your love in delivering me.

No different than us, we go to Hebrews 4 and we are exhorted in our times of tribulation, trials, persecutions to come with boldness to the throne of grace to receive the help that you need. “Be gracious to me, O Lord,” verse 2. “Save me because of Your lovingkindness.” Nothing changes in that sense, the way God deals with His children. Doesn't mean sometimes it is not heavy. Do you know what this does? It brings us to the point, no one and nothing else can help. Lord, I come to You, I turn to You. I don't have any place else to go. I feel like if You don't intervene, the next step is death. It's good to come to that point. We settle into a kind of Christianity and we think, I can handle it, things are going well. That's not so bad. And even when trials come we think, I'll get myself together here. Come on, snap out of it, get yourself together, you can handle this. Be a man, deal with it. But sometimes the Lord keeps the pressure building and I can't handle it, I don't know what to do. There is a sense I'm overwhelmed. People can be a comfort, sometimes the Lord uses people, sometimes they are no help. I'm left with myself.

That's what he says in verse 5, “There is no mention of You in death, in Sheol who will give You thanks?” In other words my ministry on earth and the role I am privileged to have of giving You praise and showing before the nation Israel, for example, Your greatness, Your power will be over. Doesn't mean that death is the end of it. Some commentators wander off into unbiblical thinking here. It's like Jesus said in John 9:3, “I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day. The night comes when no man can work.” And we want to be carrying out our work for the Lord while it is day. When David does come to the end of his life, he faces it as a godly man, he is prepared. But he doesn't sense that this is the time.

Verse 6, “I am weary with my sighing. Every night I make my bed swim, I dissolve my couch with my tears, my eye is wasted away with grief.” We put it as commentators all the way back to the 1800s as I read, our expression would be I cried my eyes out. That's what David is saying here—I cried so much that tears made my bed wet. We would say I was so broken, I just cried and cried and cried, and cried my eyes out. This is David. Get it together, man. This is not a pity party. Let me tell you, when the Lord puts the pressure down no one can stand. That's why David's only hope is God will deal with him as a child of His love because there is no hope otherwise, apart from God's grace. He is destroying his enemies and preparing them for ultimate destruction. You know going to bed at night doesn't help. We won't go to Job, but Job had the same experience, he said, I go to bed and close my eyes and I am filled with terror. I can't sleep. You know how that cycle goes and you'll note this is not just a one-night affair, one-night problem. “Every night I make my bed swim.”

You know problems we deal with, but sometimes when they don't go away they wear us down. Then I can't sleep in the night, I get up in the morning and I'm tired, I don't even want to drag myself out of bed. I can't face the day, I can't face the kids, I can't face going to work. I don't want to deal with people, my mind is not working, I can't make decisions. And I drag through today. But if the next nights aren't any better, this cycle is going down. Lord, what will be the end of this? That's where he is. That's why he said in verses 4-5, “Lord, if You don't rescue me, if You don't decide to intervene because of Your love placed upon me in Your covenant, I'm going to the grave.” This is not one of those things, get ahold of yourself and get out. That's why we looked at the word Lord and the name, Lord, repeatedly through this. The Lord brings these kinds of crushing trials so that we are left with no place to go but the Lord.

And then David says, and he is going to turn and there is hope. At the end of verse 7, “It has become old because of my adversaries.” You know when a child of God is having trouble, it's amazing how quickly people are ready to pile on. You and I sometimes think that some people's life in this city consist of watching Indian Hills, waiting and hoping for something bad to happen so they can jump in and pile on. Get a life, move on. That's the way it can be personally. Adversaries add to your distress because now you are down they say God is abandoning you. Shimei who was throwing stones at him when he was fleeing from his son, Absalom. You are a man of bloodshed, deserve it all. Those kinds of people. You are already down, you are already concerned the Lord seems to be dealing with me as His enemy.

So he says in verses 8-10, he gets his perspective back, “Depart from me all you who do iniquity. For the Lord has head the voice of my weeping, the Lord has heard my supplication, the Lord receives my prayer. All my enemies will be ashamed and greatly dismayed, they shall turn back, they will be suddenly ashamed.” Puts it in perspective, I have my focus again. Doesn't say the trial is gone, but I brought myself to understand. It's sort of like Paul in his prayer for the Lord to deliver him from the trial he had from the hand of Satan and God said no, I won't remove the trial but My grace is sufficient for you. All of a sudden Paul is thinking, I will rejoice in my trial. I see. It's like the psalmist comes here, I am the child of God's love, He is gracious to me, He has heard me, He will answer my prayer. And get away from me, you enemies, because the Lord has heard. You lose. You thought this was an occasion to jump on and have me destroyed, but God has heard my prayer. He is not dealing with me as His enemy, He'll be gracious to me. I am the one who is the recipient of His covenant love.

“The Lord has heard the voice of my weeping, the Lord has heard my supplication, the Lord receives my prayer. My enemies will be ashamed, they will be greatly dismayed.” Up in verse 3 line 1, David says, “My soul is greatly dismayed.” When all is said and done my enemies will be the ones trembling, they'll be the ones experiencing God's wrath. They shall turn back. I've asked the Lord in verse 4, Return or “Turn O Lord,” He'll turn to rescue me and my enemies will be turned away from me, they will be ashamed.

These enemies come from a variety of places. Do you know where David's greatest enemies were? Within Israel. Sometimes enemies come as friends. Turn back to the book of Job again, Job 19. Job had three friends. When you think of Job, you immediately think of Job's three friends. But they were not helpful friends. They used Scripture and they say a lot of true things, if you read their speeches. But they misused them to add to Job's affliction. So they have become opponents and enemies. Job 19, and here is his response to his friends, the most immediate one Bildad, but his response to his friends. “How long will you torment me and crush me with words? These ten times you have insulted me, you are not ashamed to wrong me. Even if I have truly erred, my error lodges with me. If indeed you vaunt yourselves against me and prove my disgrace to me, know then that God has wronged me and has closed His net around me.” Even if you are right and I have erred, it is not your position to pile on. My error lodges with me. They had come to be his friends, and they are friends in a way. Three people came and sat with him here, and it was an extensive time. I mean, they are with him for a little while before they even have anything to say. They just realized the suffering he is going through is so deep. But then they add to his burdens, his woes. Job 19:2 says, “How long will you torment me and crush me with words?” Everything they have to say, some of it is true, but its application to Job and his situation is not and it adds to the burden.

And you come back to Psalm 6, that's what David experiences, whether they are those close to him who misuse the truth concerning God. Not every trial is a result of sin. We don't have the answer. Sometimes people say I don't know why God is doing what He is doing ultimately. I can tell you that you are His child, He loves you, His goal is not to destroy you. But we don't have all the answers. I don't know why God does in my life what He does. You know what we ought to do, our first line is to turn to the Lord. Who is David talking to throughout this psalm? O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord; the Lord, the Lord, the Lord. We sometimes look for others to rescue us. You know the good thing is to get apart with the Lord. I have a study at home, it's a good place to get apart. But I also have a closet, it's just a little walk-in closet but there is room to put a chair in there. When I really want to get away, I can go into my closet and talk to the clothes, or they hear me talk to the Lord. And I sit in the chair and say, Lord, I'm at my wits' end; Lord, I'm overwhelmed; Lord, I don't know what to do. Lord, what do I say? Where do I go? You are a God who is gracious, Your grace has been abundant, but here I am. And I need, only You know what I need. Sometimes we just have to get apart with the Lord, turn off the phone and don't text, don't . . . Just get apart. Lord, it's You and me. And you know it's me, it's me oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer kind of thing. My first thing, and it doesn't even have to be to call ten people to tell them to pray for me. Not anything wrong with that, but the first thing I want to do is go to the Lord because He is behind everything that comes into my life. He sifts every trial, He plans every difficulty. He restricts the devil so that he cannot destroy me. But he (the devil) can only do what will be used of God to nurture me.

So one of the things that happens is these trials drive us to the Lord. You all know what it is like. When a trial comes that really is overwhelming, that is smashing, crushing, just takes your breath away and you immediately don't know what to do. Your first thought is O Lord, O Lord. Great start, don't stop. The thing is I need to just get apart, pour my heart out to the Lord, tell Him. It doesn't say he will take away the trial, He can. And I will ask for His mercy. I come to a throne of grace to find the help I need, but I come knowing He loves me. And David gets his feet back on the ground with that. And in verses 8-9, “The Lord has heard the voice of my weeping, He has heard my supplication, the Lord receives my prayer.” I know that, I clarify it because He has promised to hear me, He has promised to listen to me.

Now the trial is in perspective again and sometimes it has to go on for a while, sometimes it won't go away. We come to realize this trial may not get better. David is going to come to a time when he is going to die, he's not going to get better. Paul comes to a time when he is in prison and he says the process has begun that is going to end with my death. It's not going to get better. God gives the grace for the time.

Come Psalm 119, we'll do Psalms and then we'll go back to Hebrews and then we'll be done. Psalm 119. Somebody told me this week if I'm going to do all of Psalm 119 like I am doing these others, they are not coming. Verse 67, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your Word.” You know one of the things that afflictions do? They help center our lives on His Word, keeps our walk on the path. Look at verse 71, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes.” How many times have you heard people share, in the greatest trial of my life I came to appreciate the Word of God and the promises of God in a greater way than I ever had before. Down in verse 92, “For if Your Law had not been my delight, then I would have perished in my affliction.” Take hold of the Word of God, the promises of God. God, You have showered Your grace upon me, You have told me You would never remove Your grace from me. I am the object of Your love, You have entered into covenant relationship with me. You have said nothing will separate me from Your love. That means His child even is an evidence of Your love and Your purposes for my good are the goal.

Come over to Hebrews and stop in Hebrews 4 since I have been referring to this verse, just so you see it since I have referred to it. Verse 16, “Therefore let us draw near with confidence.” There has not been arrogance in David's prayer in Psalm 6, but there has been confidence. He had to restore that confidence, and how he did it was talk to the Lord about it. Draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that's where He shows His graciousness to us. As David prayed, “Lord be gracious to me that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Our first recourse ought to establish it as our pattern. In the little troubles I first go to the Lord, then if there are bigger troubles I already have the pattern. I go to the Lord no matter how small, how big. Then when the overwhelming trials and troubles may come, I already have the pattern established. I go to the Lord, I go to the chair in the closet or wherever you go. We go there and we have to talk it over, pour it out because the Lord is not at His wits' end, the Lord is not overwhelmed and the Lord is not dealing with me as His enemy.

Come to Hebrews 12, and this is what we have been saying, there are certain things we must not forget as God's children. But he tells the Hebrews because they are getting discouraged, overwhelmed. Verse 5, “You have forgotten the exhortation which was addressed to you as sons,” and he quotes from Proverbs 3:11. Here is the quote, “My son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor faint when you are reproved by Him. For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines.” Now I put His discipline in proper perspective and I remind myself because sometimes the trial seems like, does the Lord really love me? Lord, do you still love me? And that reminds me of the passage, He says nothing can separate me from His love. “Whom the Lord loves He disciplines, He scourges.” That is serious business to be scourged, there are serious disciplines, “every son whom He receives. It is for discipline you endure.” You endure because you know what God is doing, He is not destroying you, He is building you. “God deals with as with sons, what son is there whom his father does not discipline?” If you are not disciplined, you don't belong to Him. Now we don't enjoy discipline when we are going through it, that's what he goes on to say. “But He always,” the last part of verse 10, “disciplines us for our good so that we may share His holiness.”

Job wasn't done being purified, David wasn't done being purified, you and I aren't done. When we are in glory there will be no discipline, we will have been perfected. Until then discipline is necessary, it's part of the refining process. Verse 11, “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful. But to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore strengthen the hands that are weak, the knees that are feeble,” and so on.

Why has God put all this in the psalms? Reminds us He is going to take us through trials. If you are a child of God you are going through trials, you will. They are not all to the same degree, they are not all the same kind, the trials of God are multifaceted, but they are right for me, they are right for you. His grace will be sufficient for my trials, His grace will be sufficient for your trials. We sometimes look at what someone is going through and say, I couldn't deal with it, I couldn't do it. Well, God is not giving you the grace to go through it. Why would He give you grace to go through what He is taking someone else through? He is a loving heavenly Father, dealing with each of His children, disciplining them, training them as they need. That's the greatness of our God.

This is not only for His children, for those who don't belong to Him, they experience the wrath of God and the anger of God in their lives. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. The unbeliever lives under the destructive wrath of God that has as its end their destruction in an eternal hell. They are hopeless and without hope in the world, but God has provided a Savior and even in their wretched condition we are testimonies of that. God offers His grace and for those who will turn from their sin and place their faith in Him, there is cleansing, there is forgiveness and He causes you to be born again. And now you become the object of His covenant love, His loving care and His sure protection and keeping. It gets no better than that.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for the record You have preserved for us as the Spirit directed the various writers of Scripture to record and You have preserved what is necessary for us to hear and learn and practice. Thank You for the testimony of the psalmist. Lord, he couldn't appreciate the impact of the trials that seem to be overwhelming, seem to have the potential to crush and destroy him, and yet thousands of years later we as Your people come to appreciate, to learn, to grow and understand how You are working in the lives of Your children. Lord, I pray for those who are here, going through crushing trials, especially difficult times, that they might find the reminder of Your sovereign love for them encouragement and strength. Lord, for all of us, may we be reminded to have the pattern in every aspect of our lives, in the small things and the big things, to have as our habit we first turn to You, talk it over with You, submit our situation to You, seek Your mercy and grace, wisdom and guidance so that in all areas of life we might continue to grow, mature and be partakers of Your holiness. We pray in Christ's name, amen.