July 27, 2005

Reading through the Bible in one Year: Job 3:1-5:27; Acts 17:10-31

Good Afternoon Brothers and Sisters,

Psalm 6

1     O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger,

Nor chasten me in Your wrath.

     2     Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am pining away;

Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are dismayed.

     3     And my soul is greatly dismayed;

But You, O Lord—how long?

     4     Return, O Lord, rescue my soul;

Save me because of Your lovingkindness.

     5     For there is no mention of You in death;

In Sheol who will give You thanks?

     6     I am weary with my sighing;

Every night I make my bed swim,

I dissolve my couch with my tears.

     7     My eye has wasted away with grief;

It has become old because of all my adversaries.

     8     Depart from me, all you who do iniquity,

For the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping.

     9     The Lord has heard my supplication,

The Lord receives my prayer.

     10     All my enemies will be ashamed and greatly dismayed;

They shall turn back, they will suddenly be ashamed.

NASB95^[1]

When I read through this Psalm I was struck by the tragedy that is etched between every line.  David wrote this Psalm with a great anguish on his heart, and a knowledge that he was due punishment for sin.  As I reflected on this, one sin that came to mind was when he had an affair with Bathsheba, and then masterminded the plot to murder her husband.  David was brought face to face with his sin when a local prophet pointed out that he did not get away with his sin, he was guilty.  Bathsheba became pregnant with a son when he had the adulterous affair with him.  Then when the son was born, David was faced once again with his sin because God took the life of his son.

2 Samuel 12:13-23

13     Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.

     14     “However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die.”

     15     So Nathan went to his house.

Loss of a Child

Then the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s widow bore to David, so that he was very sick.

     16     David therefore inquired of God for the child; and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground.

     17     The elders of his household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them.

     18     Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Behold, while the child was still alive, we spoke to him and he did not listen to our voice. How then can we tell him that the child is dead, since he might do himself harm!”

     19     But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David perceived that the child was dead; so David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” And they said, “He is dead.”

     20     So David arose from the ground, washed, anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he came into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he came to his own house, and when he requested, they set food before him and he ate.

     21     Then his servants said to him, “What is this thing that you have done? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept; but when the child died, you arose and ate food.”

     22     He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows, the Lord may be gracious to me, that the child may live.’

     23     “But now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”

NASB95^[2]

We don't know how long that the time was between Nathan giving the prophecy, and the child dying.  One thing is certain, David certainly experienced everything that was written in this Psalm.  David experienced the penalty of his sin, he experienced a sorrow that was bone deep, and an extreme sorrow that caused him to cry continuously for forty days. 

David felt hopeless, yet he reminded God that nothing would be gained by his death.  David knew that if he survived the sin, and returned to praise God and to give Him thanks, that would glorify the Lord. 

Where this parallel falls apart at was that David's enemies in the case of Bathsheba was himself.  Unless you consider spiritual warfare.  What about spiritual warfare?  I wonder as I read through the text, and consider the commentaries, how many of the commentators have suffered through the painful situations that are born in sin?  It is no wonder that they don't comment much on this passage because they cannot relate to the passage.

Consider for a moment that this chapter may be a picture of a sinner who has returned to God. 

First:  David recognized that he was living in sin, and that he deserved what he got from God.  How many people are living in sin, living in adultery, living with affairs, living with drug use, pornography, or a multitude of vices.  They know that God is not going to bless their life, and expect that God will judge them for their lifestyles that are not glorifying Him.

Second:  David recognized the need to repent before God.  When a person recognizes that their sin is hindering their walk with God, they come back to Him and beg for forgiveness.

Third:  David expressed a deep remorse for his sin.  He was sick with guilt over his sin, and cried for forty days.  In order to defeat the sin in our lives, we have to be able to see it through God's eyes, and be deeply remorseful.

Last:  David claimed victory over the sin, and walked according to that truth.  It is implied that he left the company of sinners that he was keeping and separated himself from them.  This is an important point, if we do not separate ourselves from the iniquity, or from the sin, then we will fall back into it.  When other people see us gain victory in our lives, their lives will lead them to the point where they will be ashamed of their lives.  Then they will turn to repentance.

I am not sure that the iniquity that David was speaking about in this Psalm was that of Bathsheba.  Whatever the sin was, it made a profound impact on David’s life.  He was messed up emotionally, and messed up spiritually over the sin.  He did not hesitate to shed tears, and to cry his eyes out before the Lord.  He expressed feelings of great depression, hopelessness, grief and abandonment.  He felt disconnected from God, to the point that he begged for his life and told God the benefits of his staying alive. 

The point of all of this is simple; God has had experience drawing sinners to Himself.  Nothing that you have done is greater than the compounded sin that David was guilty of.  God is waiting to hear the heart of repentance, and the heart that purposefully feels remorse and purposefully makes a determined effort to renounce the sin and follow Him.  That is what God is waiting for, He is waiting for passion.

I am going to close here, today was rather weird my schedule was all messed up.  I hope that if you read this study and can relate to what David was feeling when he wrote the Psalm that you will follow his lead and turn everything over to God.

Father, draw each of us to a place where we feel remorse for our sin, and a deep desire to turn from it.

In Him,

Joe Turner.