Psalm 38
“MAKE HASTE TO HELP ME, O LORD, MY SALVATION!”
Psalm 38 is one of what we call “penitential psalms.” There are actually seven of them in the Psalms and we have studied two of them. Psalm 32 and Psalm 51 are two others that we have studied. This is the third one. Penitential comes from the word “penitent,” which is feeling or showing sorrow and regret for having done wrong. In these psalms a sinner recognizes that they have sinned against God and they seek His mercy and forgiveness. The Bible teaches a spiritual principle – that confession and repentance lead to forgiveness. We do not know the setting for this particular psalm, but that is not really important. We do know that the psalmist is David. He cries out to the Lord for help, for relief from the burden and pain that he is experiencing as a result of his sin.
The title in the ESV for Psalm 38 says, “A Psalm of David, for the memorial offering.” The title in the King James says, “to bring to remembrance.” The NIV says, “a petition.” The New Living Translation says, “asking God to remember him.” So, this is a psalm to be remembered. Now, why would David want us to remember some painful experience that he went through as a result of his sin? Well, as we read and study Psalm 38 this morning, the answer to that question will become clear.
Based on the way this psalm begins, it is apparent that God is punishing David for something. There again, we do not know what the story is behind this.
READ Psalm 38:1-2
David is not having a good day. He is experiencing both physical and emotional pain – “Your arrows have sunk into me.” It is like he is being pierced with arrows, experiencing physical pain. David senses God’s displeasure with him – “Your hand has come down on me,” he says. God’s discipline hurts. This is what David is experiencing and, frankly, he feels overwhelmed by the whole thing. So, he is crying out in desperation to God.
Let me ask you a question – Knowing what you know about King David, what kind of a relationship would you say that he had with God?
[Class responses included a very close, genuine, loving relationship]
I would say overall, David had a deep personal friendship with the Lord. He was a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). So, in spite of several well-documented transgressions in his life, I believe that overall, David really tried to please God. He loved God and he wanted to honor Him with his life. So then, a psalm like this, knowing David, the person that we see him as, with this close relationship with God, this really grabs our attention.
Charles Spugeon, speaking to God, said this (he is talking to the Lord): “The anger of others I can bear, but not [Yours, God]. As [Your] love is most sweet to my heart, so [Your] displeasure is most cutting to my conscience.” Let’s face it, when someone you love is angry with you, it hurts more than the anger of a total stranger. And when that Someone is the Lord, it really hurts deeply.
READ Psalm 38:3-4
David is experiencing some sort of physical illness. While sin certainly is a spiritual matter, it can and often does affect us physically. Two things are simultaneously hammering away at David’s life. There is the hammer of God’s indignation, His anger, v 3; specifically, His anger with David. And then, there is the hammer of David’s own sin (guilt and shame). He realizes that his current condition is a result of what he himself has done, his own sin, v 3, his own iniquities, v 4. David feels the weight of his own sin. It is a heavy burden and as he says, “too heavy for me.”
READ Psalm 38:5-8
David’s physical suffering and his mental anguish are of his own making. He is not a victim of an angry God. He brought it all on himself. He talks about “my foolishness.” He has made some foolish choices. And so, what he is going through is a result of that. He has nobody to blame but himself.
Matthew Henry, the 18th Century British preacher commenting on this passage said this: “Nothing will disquiet the heart of a good man so much as the sense of God's anger, which shows what a fearful thing it is to fall into His hands. The way to keep the heart quiet is to keep ourselves in the love of God and to do nothing to offend Him.”
[One class member noted that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10),” which is the opposite of foolishness.]
So, David has done something to offend God. His heart is disquieted. There is something going on internally. Not only is he experiencing physical pain and sickness, but he is also experiencing this sorrow and this grief. Like I said, he is just not having a good day. So, he is suffering (quite literally) the consequences for his sin. What is David going to do? He has to do something. He can’t just stay in this terrible state. He talks to God. That is a good thing to do, isn’t it? When things are not going well David talks to God…
READ Psalm 38:9-10
He addresses God as Lord, Adonai, Master. David is completely honest. You have to be with God. David is transparent about what he is feeling – even though he knows that God already knows how he feels. Somebody asked me one time, “why do we bother to tell God things He already knows?” In other words, “why do we pray?” My answer to them was that God wants to hear from us. We are His children. He loves us. He wants us to talk to Him. Unfortunately, some of us the only time we talk to Him is when we need something or we are in trouble. He wants to hear from us every day. He wants us to start our days by just talking to Him – “Thank You for the day.”
Let me give you an example of this kind of communication that we have in our own human relationships: My wife knows that I love her, but she still wants to hear me tell her that I love her (even though she knows it). In the same way, God wants to hear from us, even though, being the all-knowing God that He is, nothing we say is going to surprise Him. He still wants to hear from us.
David, referring to his awful physical condition, says in v 10, “the light of my eyes… has gone from me.” That is an interesting expression. I kind of scratched my head when I first read that. What does that mean? One commentary I read said this: “David had lost his sense of vitality.” I thought that was pretty good. His despair has dragged him down. So, David is just being honest with God about how he is feeling. He is feeling run down, physically and mentally exhausted. He is worn out. He is just letting God know.
READ Psalm 38:11
Have you heard the expression, “I’m going to avoid it like the plague”? Well, that is the idea David is expressing here. David’s friends are avoiding him like he has the plague. We do not know that literally he had the plague. We do not know what his infirmity was. But nobody wants to come near him! So, what we see here is that his sin not only had physical and emotional impacts, but it hurt him socially. Our sin tends to isolate us from other people. Part of that isolation is our own choosing. We just don’t be around anybody when we are feeling a certain way. And part of it is that people don’t want to be around us when we start moping around and grousing and complaining – “Woe is me!” News flash! Nobody wants to be around negative people. So, if your friends start avoiding you, you might want to figure out why that is.
READ Psalm 38:12
Remember he is king. He has a lot of enemies. Poor David. On the one hand, all of his friends stopped supporting him. They stopped coming around. They are avoiding David. Meanwhile, all of his enemies are more determined than ever to bring David down. They are like sharks in the water. They can smell blood! So, things are not going so well for David. This is a bad time of his life.
READ Psalm 38:13-14
While David communicates in private to God, he is not saying a whole lot to other people. He has effectively shut himself off from all human contact. He sits alone with his own thoughts and with God. This is not necessarily a bad thing under the circumstances. We need to do that sometimes, don’t we? We just need to get away from the distractions of life, from other people, and spend time talking to God. That is what David is doing here. I am not critical at all of David. I think it is a good thing that he is doing this.
READ Psalm 38:15
The New American Standard on this verse here says, “For I hope in You, O Lord. You will answer, O Lord, my God.” David may be going through a really rough time, but he still has hope. In this verse David actually uses the three most common Hebrew names for God – LORD (Yahweh), Lord (Adonai) and my God (Elohim). David’s desire is to get some measure of relief from God for the pain that he is experiencing. That is one aspect of his petition. But David also prays about his circumstances, for some very real problems that he is facing in his everyday life. That is where v 16 begins.
READ Psalm 38:16
So, David prays that his enemies will not win. David, as king of Israel has quite a few enemies. And so, the next several verses are going to deal with this issue. David has got two things going on. He has his discipline by God for a sin he has committed. But then he has some very real opposition that he is facing that he needs God’s help with. That is how life is. Just because we may be going through something physically or spiritually, does not mean our life stops and all of our problems cease. They are still there. They do not go away.
READ Psalm 38:17-20
Again, David admits his guilt. He confesses he has sinned against God. He is sorrowful for that. And while he is guilty before God, David believes that he is innocent of any wrongdoing against his enemies. David says, “They hate me wrongfully. They render me evil because I follow after good.” David, while spiritually guilty (even though we do not know what his sin is), is legally innocent (he has wronged no person). So, David gives these pressing issues over to God for Him to handle. That is good advice. David closes with a final plea to God…
READ Psalm 38:21-22
David longs to be back in sweet fellowship with God. He wants to be near God once again. “Be not far from me,” he says. Sometimes it feels like God has moved away. God is not the One that moved. That is how David feels. He feels far removed from God.
What I found most interesting about David’s psalm, this prayer, is what he does NOT ask for. He never asks God to remove the circumstances from him. Rather, David requests that God be near him and help him as he goes through it. To me what this shows is that David had tremendous spiritual maturity. He does not ask to have it taken away. He asks God’s presence to be there with him through it. And “God, You handle it.”
In the last line of the psalm David says, “Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!” In other words, “Hurry, come quickly Lord!” There is a sense of urgency on David’s part. Well, what happened? How did it turn out for David? Do we know? Yes and no. We do not know the specifics. We do not know if God acted quickly. But this is what we DO know from having read scripture. You can read about David’s life in 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, and 1 Chronicles. We know some things (even if we do not know specifics). At some point God acted. He forgave David. He restored David to fellowship. He healed David physically and emotionally. And we know that God handled David’s enemies. You can read about that. We know that God was in David’s circumstances and worked them all out for good, for God’s purpose, right? So, although we do not know the specific details, we know generally that God did come to David’s aid. All in God’s time and God’s way – not David’s, but God’s. So, God blessed David’s life and his reign as king. He went on to have better days. He was restored.
[Brief discussion that there are consequences for our sinful actions that do not get removed]
What can we take away from Psalm 38? What are some applications?
First, like David, we need to feel burdened by our sin. The Holy Spirit will convict us as we sin. We then should feel a sense of guilt in our conscience and possibly physical or emotional pain. A spiritual person will be sensitive to sin.
Second, like David, we confess and repent of our sin before God. We go to the Lord and we are honest with Him about our sin. We admit what we have done and we repent of it. Repentance is not just saying “I’m sorry.” It is a resolve to head down a different path and avoid repeating those same actions.
Finally, like David, it is important to remember how we felt going through that experience. Now, why is that important? So that we do not go there again. That is the idea.
I want to close with an analogy I once heard that describes us Christians whenever we find ourselves in a state of sin. It is like we are riding a bicycle into the wind – God appears to be against us. Yet, like the bicyclist, at some point he turns around and finds that the wind is helping him, if we repent and change the direction of our lives, we will find God working with us. God is not the One who changed – we did.