The Suffering Saint

You accept the Lord and live happily ever after.

But that is not true. SAINTS, like the SINNERS in this life have their share of suffering.

• We may not suffer for the same reasons they suffer, but we suffer

• Many times for the SAINTS and the SINNERS, the sufferings come from bad decisions they have made in the past

Illus: A woman woke in the middle of the night to find her husband missing from their bed. In the stillness of the house, she could hear a muffled sound downstairs. She went downstairs and looked all around, still not finding her husband she continued to try to find him.

She went down into the basement and listened again. She could definitely hear a moaning sound, and she continued to look, and found him crouched in the corner facing the wall, sobbing. She rushed to him and knelt down beside him and said "What's wrong with you?"

• He said, "You remember when I was dating you, I was twenty-one and you were only sixteen?” She said, “Yes, I remember that.”

• “Remember one night when I was dating you and your father caught us doing something we should not have been doing?” She said, “Oh yes! I remember that well!”

• “And remember,” he said, “I had two choices: I could either marry you, or spend the next 20 years in prison because you were a juvenile?" She said, "Yes, I remember that also, but why are you crying.”

He said, “”The reason I am crying is if I had not married you, I would have gotten out today!"

In this life, SAINTS and SINNERS suffer, and sometimes for the same reasons.

David made some bad decisions, and in Psalm 38, he is suffering for those bad decisions.

This Psalm is similar to Psalms 51 in that it is referred to as one of the Penitential Psalms. The word “Penitential” is where we get the word “Penitentiary,” which is a place of sorrow.

In this Psalm, David is going through a place of sorrow. He doesn’t know how long he will be in this place, all he knows at this time is that he is there.

Any time we choose to sin, it is like buying something and not knowing the price. And that is always DUMB!

Illus: Dr. Jack Hyles, who has gone to be with the Lord, was pastor of the First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana. He was telling a group of preachers at a ministerial meeting that his church downtown needed some more room. They bought a building, and he sent a crew out to tear the building down. But they made a mistake, and tore the wrong building down. He said sadly, “We also bought that building but we do not know yet how much we have got to pay for it!”

That is how sin is. A person can choose to sin, but only the future will tell what outrageous price they may have to pay for it.

In the past, this great man of God had made some bad decisions, and he was suffering because of those decisions.

WHAT DID HE DO?

He had committed adultery with Bathsheba, and murdered her husband. As a result of him making those bad decisions, some bad things began to happen in his life that would not have happened had he not made those bad decisions.

• His baby died

• Amnon raped Tamar

• Absalom killed Amnon

• Absalom led an insurrection

• Absalom was killed by Joab

Had he known the tremendous price he would have to pay for those decisions, he would have never made the wrong decisions. David made his decisions, but he was paying a tremendous price. Let’s look at:

I. HIS CONDITION

In Psalm 38 He is crying his heart out before God.

• His family is suffering

• He is suffering mental anguish, physical agony, social pressure, emotional distress, and spiritual guilt.

David is really being put through the ringer here.

He does what we often do when we are being put through the ringer, ---HE CRIES OUT TO GOD.

Look at verses 1-3, we read, “O LORD, rebuke me not in thy wrath: neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore. There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger; neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin.”

David is saying:

• Like Peter - "Lord save Me".

• Like the Leper - "If Thou wilt, thou canst make me whole.”

• Like the Publican - "God be merciful to me a sinner.”

• Like blind Bartimaeus - "Jesus Thou Son of David, Have mercy on me."

As he cries out to God, he is suffering greatly. Notice-