March 5, 2006 Psalm 6
For the director of music. With stringed instruments. According to sheminith.
A psalm of David. 1 O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. 2 Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am faint; O LORD, heal me, for my bones are in agony. 3 My soul is in anguish. How long, O LORD, how long? 4 Turn, O LORD, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love. 5 No one remembers you when he is dead. Who praises you from the grave ? 6 I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. 7 My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes. 8 Away from me, all you who do evil, for the LORD has heard my weeping. 9 The LORD has heard my cry for mercy; the LORD accepts my prayer. 10 All my enemies will be ashamed and dismayed; they will turn back in sudden disgrace.
David’s Psalm Shows Deliverance From Despair
During my devotional Bible study for the week I was reading through the book of Numbers - and some of those chapters simply amazed me as I reread them - especially chapter 16. Korah and 250 leading men of Israel tried to lead an overthrow of the government - by leading a rebellion against Moses. In judgment, God had the earth swallow up Korah, Dathan and Abiram’s families. Right after that, fire came from heaven and burned up the 250 leading men who had followed Korah. What amazes me even more is what happens next. Listen to this. Numbers 16:41 The next day the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. “You have killed the LORD’s people,” they said. Hello! Earth to Israelites - come in Israelites! Are you crazy! What happened? A plague then came from the LORD and destroyed 14,700 more Israelites! As I read those verses, all kinds of things came to my mind. One thing of many was that God was not afraid to make the Israelites afraid. He wasn’t afraid to intimidate - in fact many times He HAD TO intimidate His people. It’s the only way they would listen. They needed to have “the Fear Factor.” They needed to see that God was SERIOUS.
Where is “the Fear Factor” today? It seems to be practically non-existent. Even when huge catastrophes like Katrina or El Nino or Tsunami hit, people are told that God really didn’t have anything to do with it. And so we live in a world that resigns every accident and every disaster to blind fate. The very word “sin” or “judgment” is not mentioned. The only time you hear the word “judge” is when people say “don’t judge me.” As a result, a majority of Americans - who even call themselves Christians - don’t seem to worry about sleeping around or getting drunk or anything. They just don’t think about how God will react to their actions - and act as if God doesn’t really care. Because of this, there is no fear of God - because God seems to have become a big fuzz ball who loves everyone and winks at sin. That is not an accurate or complete depiction of God - which once again became very clear to me as I read Numbers again. God was not afraid to use punishment and anger and fear against His very own people - the Israelites. If God doesn’t change - which He doesn’t - then He must be the same yet today. He must still punish sin. He must still allow and even sometimes send disasters - as a call to repentance. Yet even we as Christians - do not cower in fear at the thought that God might strike us dead with lightning when we find ourselves committing a sin that we know is wrong - whether it’s slander, sexual, greed, anger - or whatever the sin may be.
You might be wondering what this has to do with Psalm 6. Even though David was a called King and also served as an occasional prophet of the people - a man who had power on earth and blessings from heaven - even he reflects the fear factor in today’s text. He prays in verse 1, “O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath.” David was afraid that God was either in the process of or about to rebuke him in His anger.
Even though David had some great successes in his history - he also went through a ton of turmoil. Even after he was anointed he spent many of his first years running away from King Saul who was trying to kill him. Due to his own sexual unfaithfulness and murder of his neighbor Uriah his infant son died. Even though God declared forgiveness to him, David still had to live with the aftermath of his sin. His extremely handsome son - Absalom - tried to steal the kingdom from him. Another son - Amnon, raped his half sister - David’s daughter - Tamar. On top of all this inner turmoil, David regularly had to deal with your typical enemies of Israel who were living in surrounding countrysides. Even in his old age, another son of his by the name of Adonijah, tried to steal the kingdom from the rightful heir Solomon. He must have died with either no hair or many greys.
We don’t know what the background of this Psalm was - it could have been any number of things - but we know that David was definitely having a difficult time - both physically and spiritually. He said, “my bones are in agony. My soul is in anguish.” One thing you’ll notice from this sequence - is that as David suffered physically, it affected his soul as well. “Anguish” literally is translated “exceedingly afraid or nervous.” These problems he was going through was tearing him up on the inside. He feared that God was holding him accountable for what he had done - that he was being punished for those sins he had committed with Bathsheba and Uriah. We can tell the extent this had gotten to because he said, “I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes.”
Now, I want you to understand something. David was not some kind of limp wrist-ed little sissy man who walked around with a wig and lipstick on. He was a warrior. They sang songs about him that he killed his tens of thousands. He had been a powerful warrior in his day and seen tons of battles. He was a man’s man. Yet when he went through these physical problems - and he started to think that God was allowing them because God was angry at him - look at what it did to David. It broke him down. It turned him into a sobbing and blubbering person - a scared person. Ultimately, David thought he was going to die. In vs. 5 he wrote, No one remembers you when he is dead. Who praises you from the grave ? He was a broken man.
Does this sound like strange behavior to you? We might expect it more from a woman - but for a grown man to cry all night and soak his bed with tears? Maybe - maybe not. David was not the only one in the Bible to go through those kinds of moments. What does the Bible even say of Jesus in the Garden? Matthew 26:37-38 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” In this instance as well, Jesus knew that God was going to discipline Him in His anger - for the sins of the world. We might be surprised if God lifted the doors and roofs off of our households how many of us have actually had moments like that. You may not have flooded your bed with tears all night long - but have you ever recalled something you did years ago that you knew was wrong? When you thought about it, did you hide your head in your hands, even though noone was around? Did your face get red with embarrassment at the thought of it? Did you say to yourself, “oh, I’m going to die - I’m going to die! I wish I were dead!” These are thoughts that come across our minds. You see, a part of us believes that Jesus died for our sins and said, “it is finished.” Yet there’s another part that whispers in your ears, “but you still have to pay something!” When we have to suffer as a result of a sin we committed, we really think - “God is getting me back!” That thought terrifies us - just like it did David.
What do we do? What did David do? Instead of denying his feelings or just telling himself to “suck it up”, he wrote this Psalm. For the director of music. With stringed instruments. According to sheminith. A psalm of David. Within this song, David writes an actually prayer to the LORD. As he put his emotions on scrolls, the Holy Spirit inspired him and made this prayer a part of God’s Word - so that others could also use these words when they were going through similarly difficult times.
Notice that fear isn’t the only thing that is expressed. There is also something that overrides David’s fear - and that - my friend s- is faith. Faith is expressed in the very point that David was brave enough to approach the God that he feared was punishing him. If David had no faith, he wouldn’t have even bothered to pray or sing to God - he would have been like Jonah and run for Tarshish. Listen to what his faith clings to. Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am faint; . . . Turn, O LORD, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love.
David clings to two things - first of all - the LORD’S MERCY. That word comes from a root - chanah - meaning to bend down. He was asking that God would bend down and look at him - be gracious to him as he lay there in pain. Second of all, He prayed that God would save him because of His UNFAILING LOVE. That word in the Hebrew is “chesed”. It carries with it the idea of faithfulness - with a backdrop of being willing to do things for people - not because they necessarily deserve it - but because of the character of the person giving it. In other words, David’s faith recognized that in HIMSELF he had nothing to point to as a reason why God should deliver him from his troubles. But when He looked at who God was - in His core - THERE he found an object of faith - a point to plead with from God. That very name that David uses in his prayer - the LORD - means just that - a God of free and faithful grace - who IS - and always REMAINS the same. He heard this explanation of God way back when God revealed Himself to Moses in Exodus 34:6 in which God proclaimed that He was,
“The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.
This passage was the John 3:16 of the Old Testament - and David found Himself clinging to this aspect of God. This is what FAITH has to do - especially in a time of trial. When you look at what you are going through, your reason will scream at you - “God hates you! God is punishing you for what you’ve done.” In faith - you need to turn off your eyes, your ears, your nerve endings - and even your brain - and just cling to the words of God which declare “I am gracious.” This is what Christ did when He was suffering on the cross - had been forsaken by His own Father - and STILL cried out at His death - “INTO YOUR HANDS I commit my spirit.” That is faith!
In the midst of our pain - this is what we also need to do. Instead of ignoring your fears or acting like that they don’t exist, in faith we need to cling to the promise of God that He is a gracious God - who is willing to BEND DOWN and take care of us in our pain. This is not seen any clearer than when we see God not only bend down - but COME down to us in the crib and then go even lower to the cross. In Christ we see God’s grace and mercy in action and on display - the very core of God. With our hands of faith we can cling with all of our might to the words of Jesus which say “it is finished.” That one phrase PROMISES us that God is NOT PUNISHING us for our sins - because He already punished Jesus. Mercy is described as “not getting what we deserve.” That’s what we find in Christ - because we see HIM get what WE DESERVE. This is what faith has to do. It is the only thing that can relieve our fears. This is what David does with his prayer in song.
David is not the only person who has done this - not by a long shot. Philipp Nicolai was a Lutheran pastor at Unna in Westphalia. During this time, the plague took 1300 of his parishioners, mostly in the latter half of 1597, 170 in one week. According to what I have heard, the funeral processions went right past his window on the way to the graveyard. To comfort his parishioners, he wrote a series of meditations which he called Freudenspiegel (Mirror of Joy), and to this he appended two hymns, both of which have become world-famous. The first hymn was, "Wake, awake, for night is flying" (Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme). It uses the Parable of the Bridesmaids welcoming the Bridegroom to the Marriage Feast (Matthew 25:1-13), and of the Song of Triumph in Heaven (Revelation 19:6-9). The second hymn was, "How Lovely Shines the Morning Star" (Wie schoen leuchtet der Morgenstern). This also, with a wealth of imagery, hails Christ as our deliverer, and celebrates his triumph. We sing it during Epiphany.
Another famous Lutheran hymn writer was Paul Gerhardt. In his history, the Elector published an edict the Lutherans to join with the Calvinists in their preaching and teaching. A great number of clergy refused to sign the edict, including Gerhardt. Early in 1666 he was deprived of his congregation. Three of his five children had already died in infancy, and then he lost one of his two remaining sons. In the midst of this his wife, worn out by sorrow and anxiety, fell into a long and slow decline. When she died, Gerhardt was left with only one child, a boy of 6 years. Many of his most beautiful hymns were written at this time, and among others, "If God Himself Be For Me”. Listen to just verse one -
If God himself be for me, I may a host defy;
For when I pray, before me My foes, confounded, fly.
If Christ, my head and master, Befriend me from above,
What foe or what disaster Can drive me from his love?
These are the songs we have in our hymn book. We also sang David’s psalm this morning. The reason we have these songs is for you to express your emotions and your feelings and your faith to the Lord - and to encourage one another in the faith. This is why we teach our children these songs in Sunday School. They become a part of who we are - our very heritage. When we sing “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” we express Psalm 46 - that God is our refuge. It reminds us that God kept Martin Luther safe even in the midst of his many death threats. When we sing “I know that my Redeemer Lives” at a funeral - we are reminded of the words of Job - and assure one another that there will be a resurrection from the dead.
Did you notice what this prayer and song did for David? Do you see the sharp contrast that takes place from the beginning of the psalm to the end of the Psalm?
• Away from me, all you who do evil, for the LORD has heard my weeping.
• The LORD has heard my cry for mercy; the LORD accepts my prayer.
• All my enemies will be ashamed and dismayed; they will turn back in sudden disgrace.
As he expressed his feelings and his faith was able to cling to God’s grace, His faith was strengthened. By the end of the Psalm, he has a solid confidence that not only has God heard his prayer, but that the LORD would deliver him from his enemies - and send them away ashamed and dismayed. This is also how Paul Gerhard closed his hymn by writing,
My heart for joy is springing And can no more be sad,
’Tis full of joy and singing, Sees only sunshine glad.
The sun that cheers my spirit Is Jesus Christ, my King;
The heav’n I shall inherit Makes me rejoice and sing.
In David’s life, we can see how this prayer came to play. Goliath lay in the bottom of a valley having lost to a mere teenager - and had his head chopped off. Saul - who so earnestly sought to kill David for no reason at all, also ended up falling on his own sword. Absalom - as he was chasing after David through the forest was conquered by his own hair which got caught in a tree - talk about being ashamed! Adonijah ended up having to backtrack and beg for mercy from Solomon. He later was put to death. The faithful LORD had “chesed” - and in His loving kindness came to David’s side every time that his enemies threatened his life. David had experienced this - and he knew that the LORD would pull through every time. As David wrote this Psalm and sang it, he knew all would turn out fine because he knew who God was at His core - a gracious and faithful LORD. In times of death, depression and despair - we hope that our songs and psalms do that for you as well - that they will reassure you that the FAITHFUL LORD will come to your help as well.
If you came to church feeling tired, weak and worn - it’s ok. Don’t deny it - don’t be embarrassed by it either. You’re not the only one who’s felt this way - not by a long shot. Jeremiah was put in stocks for a time and beaten and ridicule - he felt as if God had deceived him and was ready to give up. (Jeremiah 20) Elijah ran away and thought he was the only one left. Paul too was deserted while in prison. In the midst of all their troubles - they all prayed for strength - and looked to Christ. Next time you are feeling this way - like you are sure that God hates you - if you are sure that God has something against you - that the world is coming to an end - say this Psalm or even sing it to yourself. Learn from David to cling to the same LORD, and be assured that the LORD will hear your prayer - and deliver you from the worst threat of all - despair. Amen.
