Deserted and Chastised Christian

Introduction to the Study and Sermon Structure

0:03 This adult Sunday school class was held on February 8, 1987, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:13 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.

0:44 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. And 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,

1:32 directed to one of the great perplexing problems that every true child of God faces. Now, 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 basis, 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 principal, as the principal, as the principal, as the principal, as the principal, as the principal, as the principal, as the principal, as the principal, as the principal, as the principal, as the principal, as the principal, benefactors of the meal that is spread ought to be given preference, and that is not in any way a 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.

2:55 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 stripes. 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. 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.

4:08 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? Secondly, what was the basic cause of his condition? And 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?

4:37 So three very simple questions. What was his condition? What was the basic cause of it? And what did he not do, the negative, and what did he do in order to seek deliverance from his condition?

Reading Psalm 38 and Initial Reflections on David's Condition

4:50 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.

5:13 There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation. Neither is there any health in my bones because of my sin. I think it's dealt with. For my iniquities are gone over my head as a heavy burden.

5:36 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.

5:50 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.

6:10 My heart throbs. My strength fails me. As for the light of my eyes? It also is gone from me.

6:20 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.

6:55 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 sorrowful. I will be sorrowful. I will be sorrowful.

7:16 I will be sorrowful. I will be sorrowful. I will be sorrowful. I will be sorrowful.

7:48 That 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...

8:19 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.

8:27 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 have come up with at least a reasonable answer to the question, just raise your hand and we will acknowledge you.

8:44 All right, George? All right, he was penitential, he was suffering, and he was persecuted. Do you agree? 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? All right, Pete?

9:05 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?

David's Condition: Divine Chastisement and Desertion

10:01 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.

11:22 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 experience has its ups and its downs, its periods of

12:49 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 fast and your hand presses me.

13:55 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 3, 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.

14:55 Neither is there any health in my bones because of my sins. Verse 5, my wounds are loathsome and corrupt. He speaks of verse 7, 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. He was emotionally tormented. Verses 6, 8, and 17. I am pained and bowed down greatly. I

15:43 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 till the time he went to bed and you couldn't find a crack of a smile on his face from 6 to 10 o'clock at night. I go mourning all the day long.

16:03 That's his confession. Look at verse 17.

16:08 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.

16:24 And then, this brings in one of the strands that I believe Mr. Gerglis 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 ebulance and joy, but he lost even the support of his friends.

17:05 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.

17:38 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

18:45 who in the court of heaven was as except when he wrote that as he was when he looked upon the face of his reader of the horrible realities in Psalm 38. Alright? So we've looked at his condition. Now second question.

The Basic Cause: David's Own Sin

19:08 What was the basic cause of this condition according to his own acknowledgement? What was the basic cause of this condition? Yes, John?

19:24 He what? He committed a sin or some sin against God. Where do you find that? Right? We'll start at the back then and move forward.

19:39 There are at least four verses where he asserts that. Alright? Verse 18. Notice what he says.

19:45 For I will declare my iniquity. I will be sorry for my sin. Here is a case unlike Job where Job doesn't 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 meaning 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. Alright?

20:29 What other verses indicate that this was the cause of his problem? Did you find the other three? Alright? Paul? Alright. Verse 3.

20:39 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. Alright? Next verse, obvious verse 4. For my iniquities have gone over my head as a heavy burden. They are too heavy for me. Alright? Any other indication of his cause being his own sin? Alright? Jeff, read it for us.

21:18 Alright. 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.

21:35 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.

22:12 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

What David Did NOT Do: Avoiding Common Pitfalls

23:05 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? I ask the question that way because I want us to see the contrast between what he did and what we so often do.

23:26 What's the first thing that's evident he did not do? If he did it, we wouldn't even have this psalm. Alright? Cliff, he didn't run. 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?

24:13 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.

24:38 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

25:30 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?

25:42 Cliff sort of mentioned it. His voice drew up, but I want to make it a second head. It's so vital. Charlie?

25:52 Say that nice and loud. He did not deny his sin. 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, maybe it's really not sin. Maybe I've allowed myself to be brainwashed. Maybe they're a little bit semi-cultic. He did not deny the reality of his sin. He says again and again without exception. He owns this possessive pronoun. My sin. My

26:44 iniquities. My foolishness. My iniquity. My. 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.

27:27 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.

27:55 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 a sin in which others were implicated and provoked him to sin.

28:28 His great and shamed 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 roof top could have looked upon her naked body. But there's no transfer. 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 to 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. My sin. My iniquity.

29:12 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?

29:46 He didn't give up his claim to being a child of God. Now, how do you know that, Gary?

29:58 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.

30:08 Oh, you've gone altogether too far. But that's all right. You've given a valid answer, so let's start there. Forsake me not, O Lord, O what?

30:18 My God!

30:21 My!

30:24 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?

30:44 Verse 15.

30:48 For in you, O Lord, do I utterly despair? No. For in you do I hope.

30:57 Answer, O Lord, my.

31:04 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 unmortified and unconfessed as to precipitate an abundance of divine chastisement that such a person, he can still say, O my God! O Lord, my God!

31:36 Yes. Yes. He did not give up his claims to God being his God. Some other verses that indicate it. Yes, Cynthia?

31:52 Yes. Write 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.

32:12 He still is. 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.

32:35 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.

32:59 The other indications, the first verse. O Jehovah!

33:03 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

33:54 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 hints.

34:08 Alright, someone think he has it. Cliff? 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. I may 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

34:54 you start snapping your fingers and asking God to give an account to you, that's dangerous business. There was something else he didn't do. Ron? Alright, 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.

35:26 Very good.

35:29 He didn't chastise himself.

35:41 Alright, so he is 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.

35:59 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.

36:12 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 him. Now that's 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.

37:36 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?

38:07 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, under the chastening hand of God. He's 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 seasons, whether they are this aggravated and this intense, is not the issue. When you

38:59 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.

What David DID Do: A Pattern for Seeking Deliverance

39:42 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.

40:19 What's the first and most obvious thing he does, John? Alright, he waits upon God. Now what does it mean to wait upon God? We find that terminology used in many places in scripture.

40:37 He waits upon God. What's it mean to wait upon God? Alright, 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.

41:07 Some are a mixture. He's addressing God. He addresses others. He addresses himself. But notice this psalm begins with the upward, outward look. Oh 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, oh Lord, my salvation.

41:44 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. Alright? The second thing he did.

42:34 That is 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.

43:12 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?

Transparent Prayer and Pouring Out the Heart to God

44:16 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 processor saying, oh, David, slow down a little bit. I've got to feed that in.

44:28 I've 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, Dave. 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, you 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?

45:03 Pour out your heart. Pour out your heart before him at all times, you people.

45:09 Got any ideas?

45:16 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. All right? And the other reason. 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.

46:16 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 of your father?

46:52 Mother, the thing 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?

47:20 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.

48:02 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.

Holding to Hope and Pursuing Holiness Amidst Suffering

48:22 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.

49:25 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.

49:47 They that render evil for good are adversaries unto me because, present tense, I, I follow the thing that is good. Now, there's another crucial area. There are many of God's people, especially 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,

50:49 I follow the thing that is good.

50:53 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. 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.

51:19 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 day, his courage 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.

51:53 Some of them might come up and say, David, you don't look like a very happy Christian. He'd say, I'm not. I'm 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.

52:06 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.

Confessing God as Salvation and Waiting for Deliverance

52:30 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 deliverance.

52:40 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's waiting for God's deliverance and God's intervention. Well, 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're 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 McLeod 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

53:59 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.

Concluding Prayer and Application

54:21 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.

54:48 Thank you for the privilege of studying this psalm together this morning. Thank you for the privilege of studying this psalm together this morning. 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.

54:56 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. as we seek to live to the praise of your beloved Son. We ask in his name. Amen.