Thy Compassions, They Fail Not
Psalms 38
May 12, 2019
Our family typically gathers each morning
Before we go our separate ways to pray together.
And many times during her prayers I hear Carrie
Reference the same reality about God.
She will thank God that His mercies are indeed new every morning.
If you’re not familiar with the verse she is referencing, it is found in the book of Lamentations.
Lamentations was written by Jeremiah after the fall of Jerusalem.
He is lamenting the sin of Israel, the wrath of God,
And the destruction that came because of it.
And in that moment, Jeremiah lets out a lament; a wail; a cry.
The first 3 verses of the book tell the tale.
Lamentations 1:1-3 “How lonely sits the city That was full of people! She has become like a widow Who was once great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces Has become a forced laborer! She weeps bitterly in the night And her tears are on her cheeks; She has none to comfort her Among all her lovers. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; They have become her enemies. Judah has gone into exile under affliction And under harsh servitude; She dwells among the nations, But she has found no rest; All her pursuers have overtaken her In the midst of distress.”
And certainly Jeremiah, perhaps better than anyone,
Understands that it was the sin of Israel
That brought all this upon them.
Lamentations 1:8 “Jerusalem sinned greatly, Therefore she has become an unclean thing. All who honored her despise her Because they have seen her nakedness; Even she herself groans and turns away.”
I picture him sitting on a rock that once was part of the temple.
• The temple is in smoke behind him.
• The wall around the city is torn down.
• The wild animals are feeding on the carcasses of the slain.
• And the fresh image of refugees being carried away into Babylon.
You can actually listen as Jeremiah takes inventory of the carnage:
Lamentations 2:6-9 “And He has violently treated His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has destroyed His appointed meeting place. The LORD has caused to be forgotten The appointed feast and sabbath in Zion, And He has despised king and priest In the indignation of His anger. The Lord has rejected His altar, He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered into the hand of the enemy The walls of her palaces. They have made a noise in the house of the LORD As in the day of an appointed feast. The LORD determined to destroy The wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out a line, He has not restrained His hand from destroying, And He has caused rampart and wall to lament; They have languished together. Her gates have sunk into the ground, He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations; The law is no more. Also, her prophets find No vision from the LORD.”
And that is really just the tip of the iceberg.
• It is bad.
• Israel sinned against the LORD
• He warned them and warned them and warned them
• They persisted in that sin.
So in His wrath, God destroyed Jerusalem, killed most of their people,
and exiled the rest.
The book of Jeremiah gives the number as: 4,600
It was a severe strike of punishment from the LORD toward His people.
And yet, hidden within this book of weeping and wailing
Jeremiah pulls himself together
Based upon what he knows about the LORD.
And he writes:
Lamentations 3:22-23 “The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.”
In my margin next to that verse I wrote in my Bible.
“There’s no way at that point he could FEEL that. He KNEW it despite what he felt.”
It was a truth about God he believed despite what he must have felt.
He understood that God’s “lovingkindnesses” (CHECED) never fail.
God’s loyal covenantal love never fails.
And Jeremiah confessed that, even when God had all but obliterated His people because of their severe rebellion against Him.
I BRING THAT UP TO YOU TONIGHT
Because I think that is the heartbeat behind Psalms 38.
Now, David never uses the word CHECED in this Psalm,
But it is obvious that he trusts that God has it.
He wouldn’t be able to pray this way if he didn’t.
This entire Psalm rests upon the fact that God’s compassions never fail.
If David hadn’t believed that, there’s no way he could have sang this song.
You will notice that Psalms 38 is “for a memorial”
It is a song of remembrance.
IT IS A TRUTH YOU SHOULD REMEMBER
It is a song that is meant to cause us to rejoice
As we remember God’s unfailing mercies toward us.
This truth does wonders for the Christian heart.
I hope it encourages you tonight.
So let’s just work our way through it.
3 points
#1 DAVID’S FOLLY
Psalms 38:1-8
When you read those verses the SITUATION IS FAIRLY OBVIOUS.
David has blown it and blown it bad!
We are not under any disillusion that David lived a flawless life.
• His failures are well documented in Scripture.
• That is partly why we love him so much.
• He was a man who failed like we fail, and yet still considered a man after God’s own heart.
We don’t know which particular failure David mentions here,
BUT IT IS A BAD ONE.
Not only is he living in the consequences of a poor decision,
But worse than that,
He is living under the weight of having angered God.
David is feeling God’s displeasure here.
And the Psalm opens with David in an appeal for mercy.
(1-2) “O LORD, rebuke me not in Your wrath, And chasten me not in Your burning anger. For Your arrows have sunk deep into me, And Your hand has pressed down on me.”
It’s NOT a request to escape discipline,
It’s just a request that God not be burning with anger when He does it.
I’ve heard Peggy share the story many times.
• Apparently she was in trouble a lot as a child,
• But how her dad would never punish her while he was angry.
• He always waited until he cooled down to bring forth the discipline.
That is sort of what David is calling for here.
He wants God’s anger to subside a little.
Namely because THE PUNISHMENT he has already received IS SEVERE.
Look at the words, “For Your arrows have sunk deep into me, And Your hand has pressed down on me.”
That is intense language of discipline.
We’ve all read:
Proverbs 23:13 “Do not hold back discipline from the child, Although you strike him with the rod, he will not die.”
Well it’s clear that God believes that one.
He has disciplined David severely.
We know when our kids feel as though they’ve been disciplined severely.
• You know Zech’s got it good when he drags his hinny on the carpet like a dog with worms.
Well, David is describing here the effects of his punishment.
And it’s noticeably harsh.
(4-8) “For my iniquities are gone over my head; As a heavy burden they weigh too much for me. My wounds grow foul and fester Because of my folly. I am bent over and greatly bowed down; I go mourning all day long. For my loins are filled with burning, And there is no soundness in my flesh. I am benumbed and badly crushed; I groan because of the agitation of my heart.”
Those are some very descriptive words of hardship.
• A heavy burden
• Foul and fester
• Bent over
• Loins filled with burning
• Badly crushed
That is a man who has been sufficiently broken because of his sin.
• He’s not hiding it.
• He’s not defending it.
• He’s not excusing it.
• He has been humbled.
And for any believer, you know that this is a double-edged sword.
On one hand we have the hatred a believer feels for his sin.
• It is a grief and a groaning that a believer feels over sin in his life.
Adrian Rogers once said, “God doesn’t make it where a Christian can’t sin. He makes it where a Christian can’t sin and enjoy it.”
I understand that.
The weight, the guilt, the pain is harsh.
The disappointment that is felt can be a heavy burden.
I don’t know if you follow the Malawi team on WhatsApp?
But we’ve had a lot of discussion regarding Romans 7.
You know the passage:
Romans 7:19-20 “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.”
Ultimately leading to:
Romans 7:24 “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?”
There are a lot of people,
And some highly respected ones like John MacArthur and RC Sproul
Who say that Paul there is describing the life of a mature believer who hates sin.
I don’t think that’s what Paul is doing.
I think Paul is describing that point in his life when he realized he was a sinner and tried to kick sin by his own power and couldn’t do it.
But regardless of the disagreement,
I do understand why men like MacArthur and Sproul
Interpret that passage that way.
It is because sin crushes us as believers.
We take it hard, and we should.
We are like Peter who went out and wept bitterly upon denying his Lord.
• It is a hatred that we have when we sin.
• It is a heavy grief.
• It is burning in our loins so to speak.
And that is part of what David is describing here.
No son relishes in the disappointment of his father,
And David is no exception.
But THE OTHER PART OF THIS, is that the discipline of the Lord is often times severe.
We’ve all read Hebrews 12 and we know what the writer tells us:
Hebrews 12:5-10 “and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.” It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.”
I will never claim to have parenting all figured out.
I certainly won’t make that claim until all of my kids pass their teenage years.
But I did learn something of discipline from my dad,
And I think his teaching was spot on.
Namely, that if it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t work.
I see parents discipline their kids while trying to maintain a friendship with them.
I was talking with one parent once about the need to discipline their child, and the parent said, “I spanked him 3 times yesterday.”
My response was, “If you spanked him 3 times, you didn’t spank him once”
By that I mean, when you do it right, you don’t have to do it often.
This is God’s discipline.
The writer of Hebrews said “He scourges every son whom He receives.”
David would attest to that.
So let’s do a little inventory.
• David has blown it. We don’t know what he did, but it was bad.
• David is crushed under the weight of his own guilt for having disappointed his father, and David has felt the heavy hand of the Lord in discipline.
• The discipline has been so severe that David compared it to arrows sunk deep within him, and he actually pleaded with the Lord to not be so angry when He disciplined him.
Now, that’s just a little of the background.
David has angered God.
And God is so angry that He has punished David severely.
Do you see that?
David’s Folly
#2 DAVID’S FAMILY, FRIENDS, & FOES
Psalms 38:9-12
Now after David gives an account of his sorrow,
He acknowledges that none of that is hidden from God.
That is to say, God is well aware of the severity of the discipline.
(9-10) “Lord, all my desire is before You; And my sighing is not hidden from You. My heart throbs, my strength fails me; And the light of my eyes, even that has gone from me.”
God, you know everything that is going on here.
• You see me in my grief.
• You know about the pain in my heart.
• You know about my limited strength.
• You know how I’ve lost the light of my eyes.
BUT DAVID’S DESPAIR IS NOT JUST BECAUSE OF HIS SIN.
David goes on to reveal the result this discipline has had before his peers.
LOOK AT HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS
(11) “My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague; and my kinsmen stand afar off.”
Key word there being “plague”
They don’t want anything to do with him.
It sort of reminds of the trials of Job.
• Yes, Job’s friends did come near, but mostly just so they could find out what he
did wrong so that they could escape such calamity.
EVER NOTICE how when one kid gets caught in trouble and is being punished that all the others get real quiet?
David says that
• None of his family or friends want to come around him.
• They are steering clear because they don’t want any part of this.
That is loneliness and that is grief.
David is bearing this alone.
And it just contributes to the fierce anger of God
And how much a predicament David is in.
BUT THEN THERE IS ALSO HIS ENEMIES; HIS FOES.
(12) “Those who seek my life lay snares for me; And those who seek to injure me have threatened destruction, And they devise treachery all day long.”
David’s friends saw it as a plague.
David’s enemies saw it as an OPPORTUNITY.
It’s like when you read the book of Obadiah and you hear the oracle concerning Edom.
• God was warning Edom
• Because in the day what Jerusalem was conquered by Babylon, and the people were fleeing from the city,
• The Edomites stood at the crossroads and were killing people with the sword.
• They were seizing upon Israel’s punishment and discipline.
David describes his enemies in the exact same way.
• They see God’s arrows in him…
• They see his head down…
• They see him bent over…
• And they see an opportunity to kick him even further and take advantage of his situation.
That is where David is.
So follow the story now.
• He has sinned.
• He did something that greatly displeased God.
• And in God’s displeasure He has severely punished David.
• It is a punishment so severe that his friends won’t even come near him.
• And while David is in the midst of that displeasure (while God is angry) David comes under attack from his enemies.
WELL WHAT DO YOU DO NOW?
• Can you really pray for deliverance when you know you don’t deserve it?
• Can you really ask God for help when He is angry at you?
Well that brings us to the 3rd point
#2 DAVID’S FAITH
Psalms 38:13-22
So David knows that God is angry at him.
And David knows that he is in danger from his enemies.
And yet, look at how David chooses to respond to their threats.
(13-14) “But I, like a deaf man, do not hear; And I am like a mute man who does not open his mouth. Yes, I am like a man who does not hear, And in whose mouth are no arguments.”
I just ignore it, and I refuse to answer.
It reminds of Christ
1 Peter 2:23 “and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously;”
• Jesus demonstrated His faith in God by not responding to the attacks of His
critics.
• That is to say that while under attack, Jesus chose to let God fight for Him
instead of Him fighting for Himself.
Now, that makes sense to us regarding Jesus,
Because we know Jesus was the sinless Son of God.
God had already spoken from heaven,
“This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”
But I’m sure at least somewhere in David’s mind, he would have to wonder what God’s announcement from heaven for him would be like:
“This is David who does dumb things,
And I don’t even want to talk about him right now!”
That’s obviously an exaggeration, but you get the point.
I can see why Jesus would feel good about trusting God,
But as angry as God is at David right now,
Why would he be confident to trust God?
And yet, the faith Christ showed is also the faith that David shows.
He determines to trust God to fight for him, and not to fight for himself.
(15-16) “For I hope in You, O LORD; You will answer, O Lord my God. For I said, “May they not rejoice over me, Who, when my foot slips, would magnify themselves against me.”
David is currently under God’s anger,
And yet David still trusts in God’s deliverance on his behalf.
Do you see that?
Now, just to make sure that you don’t think that David and God patched things up between verses 12 and 13…
David lets you know that he is still under God’s discipline.
(17-20) “For I am ready to fall, And my sorrow is continually before me. For I confess my iniquity; I am full of anxiety because of my sin. But my enemies are vigorous and strong, And many are those who hate me wrongfully. And those who repay evil for good, They oppose me, because I follow what is good.”
• Nothing has changed.
• David is still in the pit.
• He is still confessing his iniquity.
• And he is still being attacked by his enemies who want to see him fall.
So we have here this David, who has offended God,
Brought upon His wrath, and who is suffering under it,
Still determining to cry out to God for deliverance.
(21-22) “Do not forsake me, O LORD; O my God, do not be far from me! Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!”
And the obvious question we would have at this point, is this:
• With the anger that God presently felt toward David, why would David think that God would be willing to come to his defense at this moment?
Does that seem a little presumptuous to you?
I’LL TELL YOU WHY.
Because David knew what Jeremiah knew.
Lamentations 3:22-32 “The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I have hope in Him.” The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he should bear The yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and be silent Since He has laid it on him. Let him put his mouth in the dust, Perhaps there is hope. Let him give his cheek to the smiter, Let him be filled with reproach. For the Lord will not reject forever, For if He causes grief, Then He will have compassion According to His abundant lovingkindness.”
Jeremiah knew what all sons know.
• The discipline of my father does not equal the hatred of my father.
• The discipline of my father indicates the love of my father.
At times sons need discipline.
“it is good for a man that he should bear the yoke of his youth. Let him sit alone and be silent since God has laid it on him. Let him put his mouth in the dust…let him give his cheek to the smiter, let him be filled with reproach.”
• Those aren’t bad things.
• Everyone needs to learn those lessons.
• And the Lord teaches them.
But at the same time,
Don’t let discipline or God’s anger toward you
Cause you to doubt His loyal love to you either.
For even in great discipline, Jeremiah knew:
“the Lord will not reject forever, for if He causes grief, then He will have compassion according to His abundant lovingkindness.”
David knew that too.
Ever read Psalms 103?
Psalms 103:9-14 “He will not always strive with us, Nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us. Just as a father has compassion on his children, So the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him. For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.”
And I just find it fascinating that
Even in a time when David knew that he had earned God’s displeasure,
That David did not allow that to weaken his faith.
Despite angering God David knew he could still count on God.
David knew what Paul told Timothy:
2 Timothy 2:13 “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.”
So let me ask you if you’ve ever blown it?
• Let me ask you if you’ve ever messed up royally?
• Let me ask you if you’ve ever felt the anger of God’s displeasure?
• Have you ever committed folly and made wrong decisions?
• Have you ever collapsed under the weight of your own rebellion?
• Have you ever been disgusted with your own stubbornness?
Well the wonderful reality is that God’s discipline towards us
Does not indicate hatred towards us…it indicates love for us.
And in those moments we can still rest in His CHECED.
We can still rest in His loyal covenantal love.
God has sovereignly determined
To set His love upon those whom He has chosen,
And nothing can change that.
TURN TO: ROMANS 8:31-39
That is great news for believers.
And we sing:
“Great is Thy faithfulness O God my Father. There is no shadow of turning with Thee. Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not. As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.
“Pardon for sin And a peace that endureth; Thine own dear presence to cheer And to guide; Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow; Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside.
Great is Thy faithfulness, Great is Thy faithfulness; Morning by morning new mercies I see. And all I have needed Thy hand hath provided. Great is Thy faithfulness Lord unto me”
BELIEVER YOU CAN TRUST IN THAT.
That regardless of what you’ve done.
• Even if you’ve walked through a season of sin and displeasure.
• Even if you know the sting of God’s strap and have felt the weight of His arrows in your side.
That does not mean that God has turned on you.
• He is as loyal to you now as He has ever been.
• Trust in Him.
Because incidentally…
• Those Babylonians that destroyed His temple, God destroyed.
• Those Edomites that cut down the deserters, God destroyed.
He disciplined Israel, but He never rejected them.
David banked on that as well.
