Admittedly, this psalm is dark.  It is hard to get through.  In one sense, this is not one of David’s finer moments.  He is sick.  He is sinful.  In this situation, the two are not mutually exclusive.  David makes clear that his physical and emotional duress is a direct result of his iniquity and God’s displeasure, “There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation.  There is no health in my bones because of my sin” (Ps 38:3 ESV).  Now, before you start wondering what great sin you have committed, just because you feel a cold coming on, remember that sickness is not always a result of our sin.  Think of godly Job, who suffered tremendously, yet this was not a direct echo of some sin on his part, despite what his counselors believed.

 

You read this difficult psalm, and you come away wondering how David made it.  His health had left him.  His friends forsook him.  His own kin would have nothing to do with him.  He speaks of actually “stinking,” because of the effects of his sin.  The only ones who were interested in David now were his enemies.  Oh yes, and did you notice how the psalm begins?  With God’s arrows sunk into him (38:2)?

 

 

I have had the privilege, in my years of pastoral ministry, of sitting and counseling with saints, who are under such a load of guilt and sin, that they are physically about to break.  I have even seen believers be rather physically ill, as they rehearse for me the instances and implications of their sin.  No time for posing.  Pretense to self-righteousness is laid aside.  I have seen saints in this place, and they are precious in the Lord’s sight.  Consider this lengthy quotation from pastor William Gouge (1575-1653) author of a justly famous Puritan commentary on Hebrews, and the oldest, wisest, and most respected among his fellow divines at the Westminster:

 

 

“Enough!”  cries David.  “I am sorry.”  Remember, we said that this psalm is not one o David’s finer moments.  However, there is another very real sense in which it is.  For, when is the believer more beautiful, more reflective of gospel glory, than when we are allowing godly sorrow to lead us to repentance (2Co 7:10).  As I typed this, the TV is no in the background.  On the news, a story of a young man in California caught my attention.  How apropro.  He is standing on the side of a busy roadway during the morning commute.  Cars file by, as he holds a sign that reads, “I cheated on my girl and this is my punishment.”  Apparently, the young gigilo was hoping that his girlfriend would see his public sincerity and take him back.  In this psalm, as it were, David is holding up his sign to the Lord, “Take me back.  Don’t leave me” (38:21).

 

Indeed, this is David coming to his senses.  This is a good day for David.  Far worse a situation is the “normal” day-to-day lives we live, in which we anesthetize ourselves to the reality of our sin.  I have been a guitar player, since I was fifteen years old.  On the fingertips of my left hand, the hand with which I makes chords and notes on the fretboard, I have thick calluses.  These tough pads on the tips of each finger on my left hand allow me to press the strings down, slide up and down thin wire, without getting cut.  Now, as all guitarists know, this is a good and necessary thing.  Yet, when we allow our hearts to become callused, such that we can know longer be cut to the heart at the thought of sinning against our God, we have come to a very ugly place.

 

So, when you read this penitential psalm, pray that the Lord would give you a heart, like David’s – one that ultimately repents, ultimately comes to the Lord, whose hand, while heavy in coming down on us (38:2), is also tender and restorative.  Right in the midst of our deepest shame, distress, disgust, emotional and physical pain, due to sin, we must wait on the Lord (38:15).  He will hear.  He will heal.  

 

 

A man that is to go down into a deep pit, he does not throw himself headlong into it, or lea down at all adventures, but fastens a rope at top upon a cross beam or some sure place, and so lets himself down by degrees: so let thyself down in to the consideration of thy sin, hanging upon Christ; and when thou art gone so low that thou canst endure no longer, but art ready to be overcome with the horror and darkness of thy miserable estate, dwell not too long at the gates of hell, lest the devil pull thee in, but wind thyself up again by renewed acts of faith, and ‘fly for refuge unto the hope that is set before thee; (Heb. vi. 18;) and all the way thou goest, admire the infinite grace and love of God to thee in delivering thee from so great a death.  My brethren, there is no entering into the maze and labyrinth of sin without this clue in your hands.  Solitary considerations of sin, if we dwell too long upon them, will work too violently: therefore we should make frequent transitions from sin to free grace, from the law to the gospel, from our miserable and wretched selves to our merciful and mighty Redeemer.