Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Brevity of Life Before the Eternal God (Psalm 39) | Charles Spurgeon

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The Brevity of Life Before the Eternal God (Psalm 39) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to the deep dive from reformed thinking.
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  We take your sources, we break them down, and we look for that
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  clear, actionable wisdom inside. And today we have a really
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  potent source. We're looking at excerpts from
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  Charles Spurgeon's classic The Treasury of David, and we're
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  focusing in on his exposition of Psalm 39.
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  This is such an interesting one because it gives us this this
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  window into King David's mind when he's not the triumphant
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  king. No, not at all.
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  He's a man under immense pressure.
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  We're talking sickness, deep sorrow, and he's got his enemies
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  just watching him, waiting for him to slip up.
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  So our mission for this deep dive is to really pull out the
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  theological lessons from that struggle, that raw internal
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  battle he's having. Yeah, we want to look at silent
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  suffering, what that means, and the, well, the shocking brevity
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  of human life and maybe most importantly, what it actually
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  looks like to put your hope in God alone when everything else
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  feels like it's falling apart. OK, so let's start where the
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  text starts, with the dedication.
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  Because it's a bit of a paradox, isn't it?
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  It's addressed to the chief musician, even to Judithan.
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  Right. And if you go back to First
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  Chronicles, you find out that Judithan's name literally means
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  something like praising or celebrating.
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  He's the guy ordained for song in the House of the Lord, which,
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  you know, seems like a strange choice for what Spurgeon calls a
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  sorrowful ode. It's totally counterintuitive.
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  You've got this Psalm that's full of despair and affliction,
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  and you hand it to the director of celebration.
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  It doesn't seem to fit. Now Spurgeon gives the
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  straightforward historical answer, which is that David
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  probably just rotated the Psalms through the different choir
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  masters. You know, and administrative
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  thing. Sure, that makes sense.
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  But I think there's a deeper theological point there.
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  Doesn't it sort of suggest that the people in charge of joy also
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  have to be ready to leave the song of sorrow?
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  Oh, that's good. Yeah.
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  That in the life of a believer, joy and sorrow aren't in
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  separate boxes. They're right next to each
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  other. Exactly.
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  It's setting the tone that even in the sanctuary, suffering has
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  its own kind of music. And before we jump into the
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  verses themselves, let's just quickly touch on the structure
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  because it helps you see David's progression here, or maybe his
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  regression at first. It's definitely not a straight
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  line. No, it starts with this ironclad
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  resolve verses one and two. He's just decided he's going to
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  be perfectly silent. It's pure human willpower.
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  And spoiler alert, that fails. It fails spectacularly.
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  It becomes a kind of psychological pressure cooker.
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  The grief doesn't go away, it just it boils over.
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  So from verses 2 to 6 you see this internal volcano erupting.
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  And that leads him into a really dark place, contemplating the
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  futility of life, even wanting it to be over.
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  But then you get the pivot for seven, the whole thing shifts.
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  Right. The focus turns away from his
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  own pain, away from his enemies, and it turns toward God.
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  And the tone changes completely, becomes submissive.
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  He's asking for spiritual deliverance, not just
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  complaining about his circumstances.
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  It's like the clouds start to part the moment he looks up.
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  So we're basically watching David's own plan of self-control
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  fail so badly that it forces him back onto the only thing that's
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  stable. God's sovereignty.
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  Let's start with that first part, then that initial resolve
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  in verse 1, he says, I said I steadily resolved.
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  I mean that language is so forceful.
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  It is. This wasn't just a passing
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  thought. This was a deliberate, you know,
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  a fixed decision that he registered in his spirit after
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  some serious thought. And his goal was so specific I
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  will take heed to my ways that I sin not with my tongue.
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  He. Knew.
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  He knew. The tongue is often the last
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  thing grace brings into subjection, and it's usually the
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  first thing to rebel when you're suffering.
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  He saw his whole life, his ways, as needing a full time guard.
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  He's recognizing the spiritual danger of sins of the tongue.
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  Absolutely, and Spurgeon paints this really vivid picture,
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  comparing I'll words to sparks of fire that can spread and
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  cause so much damage. So what was driving this, this
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  almost obsessive need for silence?
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  What was the external pressure? It was.
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  Coming from 2 directions really. First, he was terrified of
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  bringing reproach on God if David, a man known to be a
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  believer, starts uttering hard words of God in times of
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  depression if he sounds bitter or resentful.
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  His enemies, the ungodly would just grab onto that.
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  They'd misuse it in a heartbeat. They'd see it as justification
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  for their own rebellion against God.
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  It's that old idea, you know, If the children are complaining
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  about the father, why shouldn't the enemies attack him?
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  He's trying to protect God's reputation in front of a hostile
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  audience. And that's what leads to this
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  distinction in his method. This is key.
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  He didn't just want a bridal for his tongue.
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  A bridal just guides it right? Checks the speed and direction.
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  Exactly. He wanted a muzzle, a complete
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  stop. He was aiming for perfect 0
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  defect. Silence.
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  I. Think we can all relate to that?
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  When you're under that kind of pressure, maybe a long term
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  difficulty you just can't explain, it feels safer to just
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  shut down completely, right? Rather than risk saying the
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  wrong thing and having it used against you by people who are
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  just waiting for you to fail. And the text gives us the
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  context for this action while the wicked is before me.
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  That's the key qualifier. That's his screening mechanism.
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  He wasn't going to cast pearls before such swine.
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  He refused to give his internal doubts, his skeptical thoughts,
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  a public stage where they'd just be mocked.
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  So if you're having those skeptical thoughts of the last
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  thing you should do is broadcast them.
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  It's like if you have a contagious disease, you
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  quarantine yourself. You don't go visit your
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  neighbors. David was trying to put his
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  heart in quarantine. But, and this is the big but,
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  that's where we see the fatal flaw in his human plan.
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  This extreme resolve backfires. Massively, and trying to avoid
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  the sin of Commission saying something wrong, he falls right
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  into the sin of omission. He held his peace even from
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  good. OK, so how does not saying good
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  things become a sin? Isn't silence supposed to be a
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  virtue? It can be, but when you push it
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  to this extreme, when it's absolute, it stops being
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  watchful self-control and it starts becoming sullenness.
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  Sullenness. That's a strong word.
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  It is sullen. Silence isn't submission, it's
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  repression. It's a kind of passive
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  aggressive protest against God, the language of grief, of honest
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  petition to God. That's a good thing.
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  To shut that down completely is to neglect what the tongue is
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  for. It's the classic Scylla and
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  Charybdis problem. He's trying so hard to steer
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  away from the rocks of a fiery outburst that he sails right
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  into the Whirlpool of icy repression.
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  This isn't that noble silence of resignation we'll see later.
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  This is him internally holding a spiritual temper tantrum.
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  It just shows how incredibly difficult it is to govern our
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  speech, especially when we're under pressure.
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  Oh. Absolutely.
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  The sources tell this anecdote about Pombo, one of the ancient
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  Saints who dedicated himself to this one verse, just this one,
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  just this one. And it took him 19 years, almost
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  2 decades to even begin to learn the lesson of it.
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  He was constantly struggling with that question.
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  When is silence godly and when do I need to speak?
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  19 years on one verse. Wow.
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  That really grounds this for me. We think self-control is just
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  about willpower. But here's David, a man after
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  God's own heart, and he can't pull it off.
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  It sets the stage perfectly for what has to happen next.
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  If human strength can't maintain this perfect muzzle, then an
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  eruption is inevitable. So David's plan to be dumb with
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  silence was physically possible, but psychologically it was just
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  devastating and. Verse 2 shows us the immediate
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  destructive result of that repression.
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  I was dumb with silence. I held my peace even from good,
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  and my sorrow was stirred. So the silence didn't sure the
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  evil it actually became an aggravation of it.
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  Right. The emotional pressure, that
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  anguish, it needs an outlet. When you just cap it off like
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  that, the floodwaters don't just disappear, they swell up.
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  They get agitated and become a spiritual storm surge inside
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  you. You mentioned it was
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  psychologically devastating what was actually happening inside
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  him. The internal pressure became
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  unbearable, the tech says. My heart was hot within me, and
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  that heat wasn't just there, it was being generated by the
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  friction of inward thoughts. That is such a powerful image of
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  mental anguish. It's like he slammed the furnace
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  door shut, but the fire of sorrow was still raging inside.
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  His soul got hotter and hotter because he was musing.
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  He was just churning over the reasons for his discontent.
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  That's the phrase, isn't it? While I was musing, the fire
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  burned. And what was he musing on?
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  The same things that always trip believers up.
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  The prosperity of the wicked. And his own daily unexplained
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  suffering. He's looking out at the world
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  and he sees people who couldn't care less about God, and they're
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  succeeding. Meanwhile, he, the servant of
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  God, is just miserable. He can't make sense of
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  Providence and the musing becomes fusing.
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  It just creates this internal chaos.
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  The more confusing it is, the hotter the fire gets.
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  Silence without an outlet can be a direct path to madness for a
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  sufferer. You have to tell your sorrow to
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  someone, and the 1st and fullest telling must be to God.
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  So his soul becomes this, this volcano.
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  He's heaving with a mental earthquake tossed around by an
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  inward ocean of fire. And all those restraints that
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  iron muzzle he was so determined to wear, they're about to be
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  blown to pieces. The lava has to come out.
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  Which brings us to the eruption in verse 3.
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  Then spake I with my tongue. It's so simple.
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  Grandly laconic Spurgeon calls it.
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  I spake misery like murder, will out.
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  Anguish is clamorous. You can silence praise, maybe,
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  but anguish will always force a channel for itself.
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  It just sweeps away every artificial restraint.
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  But this is where the spiritual victory actually begins.
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  Right in the middle of this messy outburst, The saving grace
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  is the direction of the vent. Right.
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  The outpouring of his soul was toward God and not towards man.
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  And that one detail changes everything about the morality of
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  this outburst. If his heart has to speak, let
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  it speak to the Lord. Why is that so crucial?
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  Well, for one, even if his words are rash, even if they have too
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  much of natural heat in them, God is going to be infinitely
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  more patient with Him than any person would be.
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  And more importantly, David's outburst can't stain God's
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  purity or sovereignty. If he complaints to his friends,
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  they might rebuke him, or they might even learn bad habits from
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  his bitterness. Or they might just despise him
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  for it. By taking the complaint directly
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  and only to the Lord, he moves the whole battle.
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  It's no longer about public perception and what the wicked
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  think. It's about private submission.
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  This is his first real step out of that sullen, angry silence
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  and toward genuine resignation. So the lesson isn't that
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  repression is good. It's that when our attempts at
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  repression inevitably fail, the direction of the eruption is
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  what matters. Does it lead to more sin?
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  Or does it lead to a deeper, more honest relationship with
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  God? He turns all that chaos and
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  frustration toward the only one who can actually handle it.
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  And the very first words out of his mouth, the second that
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  muzzle comes off, they just reveal the depth of his despair.
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  He says Make me to know mine end.
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  Taken literally, that sounds pretty dark.
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  It sounds like an impatient cry for death, a rash desire to just
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  know the date so he can count down the days until the grave
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  ends his suffering. We see that with other figures
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  like Elijah in the wilderness, just wanting it all to be over.
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  He's trying to pry open the book of God's plan and read the last
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  page. But there's a better, more
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  theological way to read that, which is probably why this song
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  is in Scripture. Right.
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  The SAFER petition isn't a death wish.
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  It's a plea to understand the shortness of life.
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  It's what Spurgeon calls a divine philosophy that helps him
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  put his temporary problems in perspective.
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  He wants to know the measure of my days.
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  He wants that assurance that his trials will end, or at least to
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  be taught that his existence is being measured out carefully by
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  a wise God, not just by random chance.
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  And the goal of knowing this isn't to wallow and gloom, it's
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  so that I may know how frail I am.
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  And he immediately goes from that general request to this
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  very specific, almost painful reality.
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  Behold, thou hast made my days as in hand breadth.
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  A hand breath the width of four fingers.
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  That's a shocking metaphor for a human life.
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  That word, behold, is like a command.
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  It's telling us to stop and really stare at how brief this
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  is. If my life is that short, just a
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  few inches long, then how should I be living?
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  You have to watch every single step.
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  Make sure that in the little time you have, there's much
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  grace, much truth. And then he compares that hand
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  breadth to God. Mine age is as nothing before
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  thee. I mean, that is a crushing
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  verdict. Think about eternity.
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  Compared to the self existent God who has no beginning and no
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  end, A human life, even 100 years, is less than a tick of a
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  clock. It's nothing and.
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  This realization leads him to this settled, almost brutal
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  decree about the state of all humanity, even at its very best.
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  Verse 5. Verily, every man at his best
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  state is altogether vanity. Even when a man is settled at
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  his most stable, his most successful, his most powerful,
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  God's decree is that he shall not be settled.
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  His only constant is his inconstancy.
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  The only true thing about him, his only Verity, is his vanity.
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  It's a staggering indictment, and it applies to every man.
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  It's a bad day for anyone who's measures are on Earth, whose
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  security is in their own achievements.
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  But. You know, it's actually
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  surprisingly good news for those whose trust is somewhere else.
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  How so? Well, if your best state is
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  settled in Christ, if your citizenship is in heaven, and
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  then you can actually rejoice that your earthly life is a vain
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  thing because you never put your hope there in the first place.
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  That's a great point. And David then looks out at the
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  world and sees this futility everywhere.
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  Surely every man walketh in a vain show.
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  Spurgeon calls it a passing pageant, a masquerade of
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  shadows. We're surrounded by it.
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  Worldly people are like travelers in a mirage, chasing
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  these phantoms as if they're real.
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  They're. Completely deluded, chasing
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  status and wealth that just dissolves the moment you touch
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  it. I mean think about our world
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  today. People chasing digital
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  validation likes followers, metrics.
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  The could be gone tomorrow with a server crash.
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  That is the very definition of walking in a vain show.
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  And when you pursue illusions, the spiritual consequence is
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  guaranteed. Surely they are disquieted in
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  vain. Men fret and fume and worry, and
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  it's all for nothing. They are shadows chasing other
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  shadows, and all the while death is pursuing them all.
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  That phrase, disquieted in vain, is something that should be
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  written on the inside of our eyelids.
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  It really should. You read that, and then you go
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  outside and listen to the noise of the city, the stock market,
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  the traffic, all this activity, this constant noise.
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  It's all about fleeting, unsubstantial things.
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  People lose sleep. They overwork their bodies and
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  their minds. They get sick.
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  And all for what? To load themselves up with thick
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  clay, as the Bible calls it, which they have to leave behind
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  so soon anyway. And the ultimate expression of
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  this futility is right there at the end of the verse.
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  He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather
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  them. He works and sacrifices his
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  whole life, but he has no claim on the future.
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  The analogy is timeless. Spurgeon talks about the eastern
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  farmer who carefully harvests his wheat, only for a robber to
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  come and take it all. Or, in a modern sense, the
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  financial planner builds this perfect portfolio and some
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  distant cousin inherits it and blows it all in a year.
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  So many people work their whole lives for people they will never
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  know. The all gathering muck Rakes, as
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  Spurgeon puts it, are all always followed by the all scattering
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  forks. We just don't know who our heirs
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  will be. Our children could die before
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  us, so they could swander it. All strangers end up living in
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  the family home. It's this evil under the sun for
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  which no remedy can be prescribed.
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  And it is the sheer certainty of that earthly futility that
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  finally forces David to make his pivot.
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  This intense, agonizing look at the vanity of everything man
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  strives for. It brings David to the absolute
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  saving pivot point in verse 7. And now, Lord, what wait I, for
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  my hope is in Thee. This is it.
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  This is the moment he finally cuts the cord to earth.
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  He's just disgusted by the lack of the substance, the inherent
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  grief in the worldly chase. So he anchors his ship, not to
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  the shifting sands of human fortune, but to the Rock of
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  Ages. He turns to the self existent
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  God, the one who will live when all the creatures die, whose
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  fullness is still there when all the earthly supports are gone.
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  He had hoped in his own silence that failed.
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  He had hoped for death. He realized that was pointless.
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  Now he sees there's only one true hope, and it's beyond human
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  frailty. But what he asks for next is so
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  telling. Right after he declares his hope
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  is in God. He doesn't ask for a sickness to
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  be healed, no. And this is the huge spiritual
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  breakthrough. His pleas for a greater
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  deliverance deliver me from all my transgressions.
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  It's a moment of stunning clarity.
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  He stops harping on his physical pain because he realizes it's
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  nothing compared to the spiritual danger of his sin.
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  The bitter taste of suffering is less scary once the poison of
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  sin is dealt with in the soul. He gets it.
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  His physical suffering might be a consequence of his sin, or at
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  least a tool God is using to get his attention.
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  So dealing with the root cause is way more important than
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  dealing with the symptoms. And he's not asking for a
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  partial fix. Eggs for total perfect
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  cleansing, Freedom from all his transgressions.
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  Deliverance from just some of them would be a temporary fix.
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  Yeah, he wants the whole thing gone and he links the.
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  Spiritual state directly back to his public reputation, which was
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  his big worry at the beginning when he was trying to muzzle
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  himself. He says, make me not the
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  reproach of the foolish, that fear of.
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  Reproach is ancient. How does that play out for us
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  today? Is worrying about what the
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  foolish, the skeptics, the ungodly think a healthy thing?
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  Or is it just fear of man? It can be both.
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  Can't it? But here David's motivation
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  seems to be a fear of dishonouring God.
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  The wicked are always watching the Saints, looking for faults.
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  It's a wretched. Thing to become the butt of
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  unholy scorn because of your own moral failure or backsliding.
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  Sin and shame go together. David wants deliverance from the
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  root, which is sin, to avoid the fruit, which is reproach.
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  That's a godly motivation if he's cleansed.
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  They have nothing legitimate to accuse him of, and this brings.
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  Him back to silence but it's a completely different kind of
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  silence in verse 9 I was dumb I opened not my mouth because thou
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  didst it this is a. Silence, as Spurgeon says,
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  purged of all sullenness and sweetened with submission.
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  Remember. Nature failed to muzzle him back
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  in verse one that led to the eruption.
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  But here grace accomplishes the work.
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  The outward action is the same. Silence.
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  But the internal reality is the complete opposite.
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  It's saintly, not sinful. And when he lands?
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  On that phrase, because thou didst it, He is grounding
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  himself in God's sovereignty over every single detail of his
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  suffering. Why is that perspective so
• 18:32
  foundational to a Reformed understanding of affliction?
• 18:35
  It's the. Spiritual shock absorber When
• 18:38
  trials hit, our first questions are why and who's to blame.
• 18:42
  But when? David concludes because thou
• 18:44
  didst it. He's acknowledging God as the
• 18:47
  primary agent, even in the hard things, and that provides.
• 18:50
  Comfort because God doesn't act randomly.
• 18:52
  His will is always wise and kind and best, even when it involves
• 18:56
  our pain. What better reason?
• 18:58
  Could there be for hushing every complaint than the thought that
• 19:00
  the sovereign God authorized this it changes the.
• 19:03
  Silence from a resentful passive act into an active declaration
• 19:07
  of trust in God's perfect will. We have to connect.
• 19:09
  This high theology to our everyday lives, though we're not
• 19:12
  facing martyrdom, but how do we apply that shock absorber of
• 19:16
  because thou dissed it to something like a job loss or a
• 19:19
  bad diagnosis the application. Is to pause that first resentful
• 19:23
  question, why me, and move to the submitted statement.
• 19:27
  If God, who loves me and works all things for my good, has
• 19:29
  decreed this, then my response has to be submission, not rage.
• 19:34
  Think about that. Powerful anecdote of Richard
• 19:36
  Cameron's father he's in prison and his persecutors, just to be
• 19:40
  cruel, brought him the severed, bleeding head of his martyred
• 19:43
  son it's an. Unimaginable horror, and instead
• 19:45
  of cursing them or cursing God, he takes the head of his.
• 19:48
  Son kisses his forehead and says it is the Lord.
• 19:52
  Yeah, good is the will of the Lord, who cannot wrong me or
• 19:56
  mine. That is the practical.
• 19:57
  Outworking of because thou didst it.
• 19:59
  It's the. Acknowledgement that a blow from
• 20:01
  the King of Kings should make us put our hands on our mouths, not
• 20:05
  because we're being forced into silence, but because we trust
• 20:08
  the wisdom of the one who strikes us so that.
• 20:11
  Noble silence of submission. It didn't mean he stopped
• 20:14
  praying. In fact, it seems like it opened
• 20:16
  the door for a more effective, lawful kind of prayer.
• 20:19
  Yes. Verse 10 says remove thy stroke
• 20:23
  away from me. This shows it's completely
• 20:25
  consistent with resignation to ask for a trial to be lifted.
• 20:28
  Spurgeon has a great. Line on this He says God usually
• 20:31
  removes affliction when we are resigned to it.
• 20:33
  If we kiss the rod, our Father always burns it when we get
• 20:36
  still. And we submit the rod has done
• 20:39
  its work. David only pleads for mercy
• 20:41
  after he's become submissive, not while he was in rebellion.
• 20:44
  His prayer now is an appeal for pity, not a demand for justice.
• 20:48
  And he? Bases his plea on his own.
• 20:52
  I am consumed by the blow of thine hand.
• 20:55
  It's like our genuine distress is a good argument to present to
• 20:58
  our father when we show him the. Bruises from the scourge.
• 21:01
  His fatherly pity might move him to comfort us.
• 21:05
  This brings us. To a really crucial distinction
• 21:07
  about the nature of this stroke. As Protestants who hold the
• 21:10
  Westminster Confession, we have to be clear about the difference
• 21:13
  between God's punishment and his correction.
• 21:16
  Right verse. 11 clarifies that God uses the rod because of sin
• 21:20
  and with a view to whip us from it.
• 21:21
  So let's unpack. That for a minute, the
• 21:23
  shepherd's rod versus the rod of the law.
• 21:25
  What's the real difference? The rod of the law.
• 21:27
  Carries the penal consequence for sin.
• 21:29
  It demands satisfaction, but for the believer that satisfaction
• 21:33
  was paid in full by Christ on the cross.
• 21:36
  That penal consequences gone. So what we experience?
• 21:39
  Instead are paternal chastisement exactly the
• 21:42
  shepherd? 'S rod.
• 21:43
  It's a correctional tool used by a loving Father.
• 21:45
  It's not meant to consume us, it's meant to consume our sins.
• 21:49
  The whole purpose is our sanctification to pull us away
• 21:51
  from that vanity we were just talking about and to show.
• 21:54
  Just how devastatingly effective this chastisement is?
• 21:58
  The text gives us this powerful analogy.
• 22:01
  They'll make us his beauty to consume away like a moth, that
• 22:04
  moth. Analogy says so much about our
• 22:06
  frailty and the true value of earthly things.
• 22:09
  We think we're made of something durable, but God's visitation
• 22:12
  shows us we're just fabric. A moth is tiny.
• 22:15
  It's silent, but it frets away the substance of the cloth until
• 22:18
  it's worthless in our world. What is a man's beauty that a
• 22:21
  moth can consume? It could be his health, his
• 22:23
  career, his reputation, his sense of being in control, all
• 22:28
  the outward. Things he builds his identity
• 22:29
  on. God's chastisements reveal our
• 22:32
  own nothingness, making us feel like worn out clothes.
• 22:34
  It forces us. To ask what we really value, I
• 22:37
  mean, if our health or our money can be consumed by something as
• 22:40
  silent and seemingly insignificant as a moth or a
• 22:42
  slow disease, then that beauty must be a pretty poor thing to
• 22:46
  begin with, Spurgeon says. All our desires and delights,
• 22:49
  the things we strive for become wretched, moth eaten things when
• 22:52
  the Lord visits us in his anger, the body itself.
• 22:55
  Is like a garment for the soul, and sin has lodged a moth in
• 22:58
  that garment, and it's slowly eating away at its beauty and
• 23:01
  its strength. The slow.
• 23:03
  Silent devastation of a terminal illness or even just the aging
• 23:06
  process illustrates this perfectly.
• 23:08
  It's a just and affecting image. And after this?
• 23:11
  Crushing realization that we're all moth eaten and fading.
• 23:15
  The ultimate conclusion comes back, and it's punctuated by
• 23:18
  that dramatic pause marker. Surely every man is vanity.
• 23:22
  Sayla. That Sayla is.
• 23:23
  So much more than a musical note.
• 23:25
  It's a theological stop sign. Why is that pause so essential
• 23:28
  right here? It demands.
• 23:30
  That we internalize this truth, the fact that man is as
• 23:33
  insubstantial as his own breath, a vapor, a dissolving garment
• 23:36
  that has to bring us to a it's like that story in.
• 23:39
  Tess and Samuel where the dead body of a Massa is lying in the
• 23:41
  road and it stops Joab's entire army.
• 23:44
  You can't just keep moving until you've processed the reality of
• 23:46
  your own fleeting moth eaten state.
• 23:49
  The only right response is to pause, contemplate and confess.
• 23:53
  So after moving. Past that devastating
• 23:55
  chastisement, David turns to the Lord with this final, measured
• 23:59
  plea. And there's this elegant
• 24:02
  graduation of urgency in it. There is.
• 24:05
  Hear my prayer, give ear into my cry, Hold not thy peace at my
• 24:09
  tears. It's a ramping.
• 24:10
  Up of intensity. It shows how desperate he is.
• 24:13
  A prayer is words structured. Maybe a cry is more passionate,
• 24:18
  more vehement tears. Tears are the highest level of
• 24:21
  plead. Spurgeon calls them the loudest
• 24:23
  of all. There are the irresistible
• 24:25
  weapons of weakness. They can speak more.
• 24:27
  Eloquently than 1000 tongues, right?
• 24:29
  They're like keys that unlock tender hearts.
• 24:32
  David is using every tool he has, but he anchors his petition
• 24:35
  in a very specific theological argument, and it's a beautiful.
• 24:38
  Argument. It's one that connects all
• 24:40
  believers through all time, and it lines up perfectly with our
• 24:42
  confessional tradition, he says. For I am a stranger with thee,
• 24:45
  and a sojourner, as all my father's were that distinction.
• 24:48
  Is so critical. He's not a stranger to God like
• 24:51
  he's lost. He's a stranger with God.
• 24:53
  He's an alien living among the hostile natives of this world,
• 24:56
  but he's sharing God's hospitality the world treats.
• 24:59
  God like a foreigner, so it's no surprise they treat his people
• 25:02
  the same. Same way we shouldn't be shocked
• 25:04
  when we aren't known or valued by the world for our spiritual
• 25:07
  birthright, the Westminster. Confession talks about this,
• 25:10
  about man being an alien waiting for his inheritance.
• 25:13
  David is using the temporary nature of his life as his main
• 25:17
  argument for God's pity. He knows the Lord shows special
• 25:21
  mercy to pilgrims and sojourners.
• 25:23
  So if we unpack. What it means to be a stranger
• 25:25
  and a sojourner. The application for our lives
• 25:28
  becomes really clear. What are the characteristics we
• 25:31
  need to adopt? Well, first.
• 25:32
  Saint is a stranger because his true country is heaven.
• 25:36
  His home is somewhere else. He's just passing through.
• 25:38
  Second, he's. Patient.
• 25:40
  He's content with simple, often poor pilgrims lodgings.
• 25:44
  He expects hardship because his reward is up ahead.
• 25:47
  Third A. Sojourner is careful.
• 25:49
  He's wary not to give offense to the natives, to the wicked
• 25:52
  world, not out of fear, but because he doesn't want to put
• 25:54
  up a roadblock to the gospel and 4th.
• 25:56
  And this might be the most challenging 1A stranger doesn't
• 26:00
  buy things he can't carry with him.
• 26:02
  You don't get tied down buying houses and land and all this
• 26:04
  stuff because you know you're leaving soon.
• 26:07
  That completely. Redirects our focus away from
• 26:10
  earthly investments. We shouldn't be so entangled in
• 26:13
  the affairs of this life that they become baggage.
• 26:15
  We should be focused on acquiring jewels, the jewels of
• 26:18
  the. Covenant the graces of God's
• 26:21
  spirit exactly the. Portable things that will still
• 26:23
  be with us when we finally go home.
• 26:25
  We use the world like a traveler uses an inn.
• 26:28
  We enjoy what we need, but we know it's just temporary
• 26:30
  lodging. And that perspective.
• 26:32
  Changes the entire tone of David's final petition in verse
• 26:36
  13. Oh spare me that.
• 26:38
  I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more.
• 26:42
  He's not just praying. For a longer life so he can
• 26:44
  enjoy worldly pleasures or just to escape death.
• 26:47
  He's already accepted that he must go, hence he wants to.
• 26:50
  Recover from his afflictions and be granted more time because he
• 26:53
  feels he needs to be better prepared for the next life.
• 26:56
  The source material. Is clear that David was not yet
• 26:58
  recovered out of that sin which had brought him exceeding low he
• 27:01
  can't face the thought of dying until his heart is in a holier
• 27:04
  state the peace of the. Gospel, that serenity of
• 27:08
  conscience. It depends on recovering from
• 27:11
  his sin. He's asking for time not to
• 27:14
  enjoy the world, but to get a holier perspective and a more
• 27:18
  ready soul before that final departure.
• 27:21
  And the prayer is only. Lifeful because it's offered in
• 27:23
  submission to God's will. He's seeking A holier frame
• 27:26
  before death, not trying to overturn the sentence of death
• 27:29
  itself. He's moved from demanding an end
• 27:31
  to his life to soberly requesting preparation for
• 27:34
  eternal life. It's a complete.
• 27:35
  Transformation. So we started.
• 27:37
  This deep dive, watching David fail at self-control, we saw him
• 27:41
  move from this rash sinful repression to a volcanic
• 27:44
  outburst and we end with his sanctified submissive silence
• 27:48
  and a sober, lawful prayer. The Theological.
• 27:50
  Discoveries here are just critical for anyone who's facing
• 27:53
  affliction. We saw the difference between a
• 27:55
  sullen silence and a submitted silence.
• 27:57
  You were confronted. With the shocking brevity of
• 27:59
  human life even at its best, and we saw the.
• 28:01
  Absolute necessity of redirecting our fear of death
• 28:04
  and discomfort, turning it into confession of sin, and a deep
• 28:07
  reliance on God's wise and total sovereignty.
• 28:10
  That shift? From obsessing over his external
• 28:13
  sorrows to seeking internal cleansing from sin.
• 28:17
  That's the entire victory of this Psalm.
• 28:19
  David moves us from demanding an explanation from Providence to
• 28:22
  humbly accepting correction from our Father.
• 28:25
  That is the spiritual. Arithmetic of Psalm 39 So as we.
• 28:28
  Close. Here's a final thought for you
• 28:30
  to consider, and it comes from that moth analogy in verse 11.
• 28:33
  If the body of. Man is a garment for the soul,
• 28:35
  and sin has lodged A moth inside it that's consuming its beauty
• 28:39
  and strength. How should the knowledge that
• 28:41
  this garment is inevitably dissolving influence your daily
• 28:45
  actions? How should it affect your
• 28:47
  provisioning for the soul, which is the only part of you that
• 28:50
  cannot decay if your time? Really is just a handbreadth.
• 28:53
  What are the portable jewels you're gathering for the trip
• 28:56
  home?