Latest / Reformed Thinking / Tears in the Night: David’s Cry for Mercy (Psalm 6) | Charles Spurgeon

Transcript

Tears in the Night: David’s Cry for Mercy (Psalm 6) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to the deep dive from Reformed thinking.
• 0:03
  Today we have a really remarkable piece of scripture in
• 0:06
  front of us, Psalm 6. It's designated as the first of
• 0:10
  the seven penitential Psalms, and you can really see why our
• 0:13
  source material paints this picture of, well, a spiritual
• 0:16
  drama. It is.
• 0:17
  It's like a snapshot of a soul moving from just total distress,
• 0:21
  pleading for mercy, to this sudden, confident victory.
• 0:26
  The structure is just phenomenal.
• 0:27
  It's more than just a prayer, you know.
• 0:29
  It's almost a guide for a troubled conscience.
• 0:31
  A guide? How so?
• 0:32
  It shows us how a Sinner, someone who has really
• 0:35
  acknowledged their sin and is feeling the weight of God's
• 0:37
  displeasure, learns to rely completely on grace.
• 0:41
  On themselves. Not on anything within himself.
• 0:43
  And that switch, that movement is so immediate, it's
• 0:47
  compelling. OK, let's unpack that a little.
• 0:49
  You mentioned the penitential Psalms.
• 0:50
  For anyone who might not be familiar, what are these seven
• 0:52
  texts and what's the theological current that connects them?
• 0:56
  So the. Seven are Psalms 6323851102,
• 1:00
  1:30 and 1:43, and they're grouped together traditionally,
• 1:04
  often for liturgical use, because they all share this one
• 1:07
  central theme, which is the deep, all consuming struggle
• 1:11
  with personal sin and the, well, the affliction that comes from
• 1:14
  it, right? But what really sets them apart
• 1:17
  is the language. It's this language of sorrow
• 1:20
  over sin, a deep humiliation before a holy God.
• 1:23
  And then this is the critical part, a practical hatred of the
• 1:26
  sin that caused all the grief in the first place.
• 1:29
  So sorrow, humiliation and hatred of sin.
• 1:32
  Yeah. Our sources call those the
• 1:34
  unfailing marks of a truly contrite spirit.
• 1:37
  That's a key distinction. This isn't just a lament like
• 1:40
  some of the other Psalms. It's a lament that's it's really
• 1:42
  rooted in self condemnation and this desire for holiness.
• 1:45
  Exactly. Now in terms of context, the
• 1:47
  Psalm is attributed to David. How important is that
• 1:50
  designation, a Psalm of David, for understanding its authority
• 1:53
  and perspective? Oh, it's hugely important.
• 1:55
  For one, it gives us a sense of its high antiquity.
• 1:58
  Yeah, it places this whole theological argument right at
• 2:00
  the foundations of the Old Covenant experience.
• 2:03
  And having David as the author that anchors it.
• 2:06
  It does. I mean, here was a man who is
• 2:07
  constantly dealing with external enemies, with sickness, but
• 2:10
  maybe most of all with a disquieted conscience.
• 2:13
  All right. So by attributing it to David,
• 2:16
  we know this anguish is the wrestling of a true believer,
• 2:20
  someone whose troubles, physical or otherwise, always led him
• 2:24
  back to the realization of God's potential anger over his sin.
• 2:28
  So the suffering is never just random.
• 2:30
  Never. It's directly connected to
• 2:32
  guilt, an experience that's common to every St. living under
• 2:34
  the covenant of grace. OK, so the suffering is seen as
• 2:37
  correction from God. But before we get into the text
• 2:41
  itself, the title is a bit cryptic, as they often are.
• 2:45
  Yeah, it's addressed to the chief musician on Nejanath upon
• 2:49
  Sheminith. These musical terms feel like, I
• 2:51
  don't know, historical. Dust.
• 2:53
  They do, and that's what makes them so fascinating.
• 2:55
  They confirm the incredible age of the text.
• 2:58
  How so? Well, because we don't fully
• 2:59
  know what they mean anymore, but they tell us.
• 3:01
  The Psalm wasn't just spoken, it was composed for a structured
• 3:04
  liturgical performance. With instrument.
• 3:06
  Right. Neganoff, for instance, is
• 3:09
  generally thought to refer to stringed instruments, which
• 3:11
  suggests the chief musician was arranging an accompaniment with,
• 3:15
  you know, bowed or plucked sounds, setting a very specific
• 3:18
  mood. A mournful or meditative sound,
• 3:21
  probably. That would fit, and then you
• 3:22
  have Shemeneth. Which is even less clear, right?
• 3:25
  Yeah, the scholarly consensus, if you can call it that, is that
• 3:28
  Shemeneth refers either to the octave or maybe a lower key like
• 3:32
  a bass or tenor key. And that would also fit.
• 3:35
  It would fit perfectly with the opening of Psalm 6.
• 3:38
  The mood for those first 7 verses is heavy, mournful,
• 3:42
  disconsolate. A lower minor key setting would
• 3:46
  have just amplified that crushing sense of David's
• 3:48
  affliction. It's amazing to think that this
• 3:51
  specific musical language, designed for such theological
• 3:54
  weight, has just been lost to time.
• 3:56
  And that brings us to the most famous, or maybe infamous, of
• 3:59
  these terms. Sayla, the great mystery word.
• 4:03
  Right, it's still untranslated. You could get the best Hebrew
• 4:06
  scholars in a room and they tell you its precise meaning is lost,
• 4:09
  which again just confirms how ancient this text is.
• 4:12
  But we have some ideas about its function, don't we?
• 4:15
  We do. While some theories are a bit
• 4:17
  wild, maybe changing tempo or instruments, the most compelling
• 4:21
  idea is that it signaled a pause.
• 4:23
  A pause for what? Either for an instrumental
• 4:25
  interlude while the singing stopped, or, and I think this is
• 4:29
  more significant, a pause for meditation.
• 4:33
  A cue to just stop, to reflect on what was just said.
• 4:36
  Exactly. A spiritual flag.
• 4:39
  In attacks like this one, where the suffering is so raw and the
• 4:41
  pleading is so desperate, Salah forces you to absorb the full
• 4:46
  weight of David's condition. To really feel it.
• 4:48
  Yes, to reflect on the physical pain, the spiritual agony, the
• 4:52
  nature of the mercy he's asking for.
• 4:54
  So even without a translation, we know this was highly
• 4:57
  structured worship designed to move someone through a very
• 5:00
  ordered experience of penitence. OK, let's move into the actual
• 5:03
  content then. The source material points out
• 5:05
  that the Psalm is, and I quote, readily divided into two parts,
• 5:09
  and it's a radical change. The division is dramatic.
• 5:12
  It's essential to the theology of the whole thing.
• 5:14
  So Part 1 is what? Part 1 is verses one through 7.
• 5:18
  That's the minor key. We were just talking about the
• 5:21
  plea. It's his overwhelming plea in
• 5:23
  the midst of his distress. It's mournful, disconsolate,
• 5:27
  totally focused on his suffering and his weakness.
• 5:30
  It just lays out the full extent of the burden.
• 5:32
  It sounds like a spiritual death chamber and then at verse 8
• 5:36
  everything just flips. The transformation is
• 5:38
  instantaneous, Part 2, verses 8 through 10.
• 5:41
  That's the declaration of assurance, of triumph.
• 5:43
  From a minor key to a high. Key.
• 5:45
  The note changes entirely from petition and fear to confidence
• 5:51
  and command. And it's not gradual, it's
• 5:53
  abrupt. It signals this moment of
• 5:55
  certain faith that's been worked inside him before anything has
• 5:58
  actually changed on the outside. He just knows.
• 6:00
  He knows his prayer has been heard.
• 6:02
  But before we get to that victory, we really have to sit
• 6:04
  in the struggle. That first part deals with an
• 6:06
  affliction so severe they call it soul trouble.
• 6:09
  This isn't just having a bad day, it's a total collapse.
• 6:12
  Yes, and that phrase our sources use is chilling.
• 6:16
  Soul trouble is the very soul of trouble.
• 6:18
  What does that mean exactly? It gets at this principle that
• 6:21
  when your conscience is wounded, when you even just apprehend the
• 6:25
  possibility of God's anger, all your other external troubles,
• 6:28
  sickness, persecution, whatever, they get magnified, they become
• 6:32
  intolerable. So as outward problems only
• 6:34
  matter because they connect to something deeper.
• 6:37
  They connect to the internal realization that he has sinned
• 6:40
  and God might be displeased. For the Saint, the worst part of
• 6:43
  any affliction isn't the pain itself.
• 6:45
  It's the fear. It's the dread that it might be
• 6:48
  a token of divine wrath and not a Father's correction.
• 6:51
  So his outward suffering becomes the physical proof of his inward
• 6:54
  spiritual guilt. How does the text detail this
• 6:58
  connection? It gives us three really
• 7:00
  powerful, visceral descriptions. First, David says his bones are
• 7:04
  vexed. Vexed, The Hebrew suggests they
• 7:06
  were shaken. Now think about that.
• 7:09
  Your bones are your frame, the pillars of your body.
• 7:11
  Right, the most solid part of you.
• 7:13
  For him to say his bones were shaken means his terror was so
• 7:16
  great, his spirit so disquieted, that the very structural
• 7:20
  integrity of his being was made to tremble.
• 7:22
  It's a physical fear induced shaking.
• 7:24
  A literal instability brought on by spiritual distress.
• 7:28
  That's that's intense. What's the second symptom?
• 7:30
  He says I am weak. The original language here has
• 7:33
  the sense of one who droops or Withers like a plant that's been
• 7:38
  blighted by a storm. So his energy is just gone.
• 7:40
  Completely drained by this ceaseless internal torment, he's
• 7:44
  weak not from age, but because the apprehension of God's
• 7:48
  displeasure has just spoiled his pride and taken away all his
• 7:51
  strength. And the third detail is about
• 7:53
  his weaving. He says his eye is consumed
• 7:56
  because of grief. Consumed.
• 7:58
  The idea is that his constant intense weeping has led to
• 8:02
  physical exhaustion and deterioration.
• 8:04
  His eyes are waxing old, growing red and blurry and feeble, like
• 8:08
  an old man's eyes growing dim. So the shaking bones, the
• 8:11
  drooping weakness, the consumed eyes, it's all there to show us
• 8:15
  this is not shallow suffering. It's total.
• 8:17
  It's existential. Which brings us to the opening
• 8:19
  plea, the heart of his anxiety. O Lord, rebuke me not in thine
• 8:24
  anger, and chasten me not in my hot displeasure.
• 8:27
  This is such a critical theological moment.
• 8:29
  Because he's not asking to be let off the hook, is he?
• 8:32
  Not at all. He's not asking for immunity
• 8:34
  from correction, he's asking for a distinction in how that
• 8:37
  correction is given. Right.
• 8:39
  This is where that covenant theology really comes through.
• 8:41
  It does. David is fully conscious that he
• 8:44
  deserves to be rebuked. He even understands that
• 8:46
  chastisement is often necessary, you know, for conviction and
• 8:49
  sanctification. Here's that analogy.
• 8:52
  Corn is cleaned with wind, and the soul with chastenings.
• 8:55
  Exactly. He doesn't want the blessing of
• 8:57
  correction to be taken away. He needs it.
• 9:00
  But hold on. If he accepts correction, how
• 9:04
  can he, under the law, so confidently ask for a
• 9:07
  distinction between a father's discipline and God's hot
• 9:10
  displeasure? Aren't they often presented as
• 9:12
  the same thing in the Old Covenant?
• 9:14
  They're often conflated, yes, but David is pleading for the
• 9:17
  difference between a father's discipline and a judge's
• 9:20
  condemnation. He's pleading against the kind
• 9:23
  of wrath that threatens ruin and perdition.
• 9:26
  He's saying let the rod be for discipline, but don't let it
• 9:28
  become a sword for destruction. Because if God rebukes him in
• 9:32
  hot displeasure. The affliction will be too much.
• 9:35
  The danger is that his heart will just sink in despair.
• 9:38
  So he wants fatherly and gentle chastisement.
• 9:42
  Yes, correction. That is sweetened by knowing
• 9:45
  it's administered in Dear covenant love.
• 9:48
  The second a St. loses sight of that covenant love, affliction
• 9:52
  just becomes despair. He needs the rod to be held by a
• 9:55
  hand of love. So that the discipline leads to
• 9:57
  repentance and life, not to annihilation.
• 10:01
  This moves right into his next prayer in verse 2.
• 10:03
  Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak.
• 10:06
  He's not making any kind of merit based argument, he's
• 10:08
  appealing to his ruin. And that's what our sources call
• 10:11
  the right way to plead with God. Pleading his own weakness.
• 10:14
  He pleads his sin, his littleness, his frailty.
• 10:17
  He throws himself completely on God's compassion because he
• 10:20
  knows if he appealed to his own merit, he'd have no case at all.
• 10:23
  It's a powerful rejection of any kind of works based
• 10:26
  righteousness. So how does his weakness become
• 10:29
  his strength in prayer? That seems so counterintuitive.
• 10:32
  It becomes his strongest argument because it's meant to
• 10:34
  move God's pity. He's basically physically
• 10:36
  saying, look at me, I'm a mess, I'm a weak vessel.
• 10:39
  And that's where you get that beautiful analogy.
• 10:41
  Don't send forth the fury of thy Tempest against so weak a
• 10:44
  vessel. Instead, temper the wind to the
• 10:47
  shorn lamb. A just judge might demand
• 10:50
  strength. But a merciful father pities
• 10:52
  weakness. David is relying entirely on
• 10:55
  that compassion. He's confessing that the weight
• 10:57
  of his sin has already crushed his ability to stand.
• 11:01
  And then? After all this, his agony is
• 11:04
  punctuated by this abrupt question in verse 3.
• 11:08
  It sort of breaks the flow. But thou, O Lord, how long?
• 11:11
  Yes, it feels like impatience the moment his composure finally
• 11:15
  breaks. It is the breaking point, the
• 11:17
  phrase dominio schoolho. Oh Lord, how long?
• 11:20
  It's not a challenge to God's sovereignty.
• 11:22
  It's a desperate, anguished plea for relief.
• 11:25
  I think our sources mentioned John Calvin.
• 11:27
  They do. It was a favorite exclamation of
• 11:29
  his, apparently during his sharpest pains.
• 11:31
  It reflects that anxious spirit waiting for the dawn of grace.
• 11:35
  So it acknowledges God's timing is in control, but confesses
• 11:38
  that the wait has become almost unbearable.
• 11:40
  Yes, he has hope, but his hope is only in God.
• 11:43
  That's why the directed. But thou, O Lord, how long will
• 11:46
  you hide your face? He's convinced relief has to
• 11:49
  come. It must because God is faithful,
• 11:52
  but the waiting period is nearly breaking him.
• 11:55
  It's a cry that's common to Saints who are wrestling in
• 11:57
  prayer, waiting for that spirits assurance of pardon.
• 12:00
  OK, so after that plea against condemnation and the confession
• 12:03
  of weakness, he moved to the central appeal for deliverance
• 12:07
  in verse 4. Return, O Lord, deliver my soul.
• 12:12
  Oh, save me for thy mercy's sake.
• 12:14
  That last phrase, for thy mercy's sake, seems to be his
• 12:17
  entire strategy. It is.
• 12:18
  It's the postulatory plea. He grounds his entire case in
• 12:22
  God's character. He's laying hold, as the sources
• 12:25
  say, not on God's left hand of justice, but on his right hand
• 12:28
  of mercy. He knows justice offers him
• 12:30
  nothing. Nothing at all.
• 12:32
  He's so aware of his iniquity. So this plea based on Divine
• 12:36
  Mercy alone, is what's called a prevalent plea, one that have
• 12:39
  the authority to be heard by God.
• 12:41
  It's just a total dependence on grace, and he reinforces this by
• 12:45
  using a specific name for God over and over.
• 12:48
  You see that he pleads the name Jehovah Lord in all caps in our
• 12:51
  translations five times in just a few verses.
• 12:53
  That's very deliberate. Highly deliberate Jehovah is the
• 12:56
  covenant name of God. It encompasses attributes like
• 13:00
  eternity, Infinity, immunability, self existence,
• 13:04
  and when you're a tempted St. facing God's potential wrath,
• 13:07
  those specific attributes are full of consolation.
• 13:11
  How did those abstract attributes offer comfort again
• 13:15
  such a you know, a physical temporal suffering?
• 13:18
  Well, think of it this way. Daver is weak, temporary,
• 13:21
  changeable. His life is fleeting, right?
• 13:23
  But Jehovah is eternal and immutable.
• 13:27
  If God is immutable, then the covenant he made with David
• 13:30
  can't change based on David's own ups and downs.
• 13:33
  If God is eternal, his love doesn't just run.
• 13:36
  Out. So he's arguing I'm weak and
• 13:37
  changing, but you are not. So please be consistent with
• 13:40
  your own nature, which is merciful.
• 13:42
  He's pleading the stability of the Covenant itself against the
• 13:44
  instability of his own heart. That's a much deeper way to read
• 13:47
  it. And he follows this appeal to
• 13:49
  God's nature with an argument about God's glory.
• 13:51
  For in death there is no remembrance of thee, in the
• 13:54
  grave who shall give thee thanks.
• 13:55
  This is a bold argument to make. It's remarkable theological
• 13:58
  rhetoric. David is contending that sparing
• 14:01
  him a penitent Sinner will actually glorify God more than
• 14:05
  destroying him would. Because if he dies, his praise
• 14:09
  stops. His voluntary praise is
• 14:11
  suspended, yes, and if he were to perish eternally, God would
• 14:15
  get no voluntary Thanksgiving from him in the ultimate sense.
• 14:18
  So he's not trying to bargain. He's arguing that mercy is a
• 14:21
  brighter display of who God is than justice is, at least in
• 14:24
  this case. Precisely saving a singer
• 14:26
  doesn't stain his banner. It honors mercy, which our
• 14:29
  sources call God's peculiar darling attribute.
• 14:32
  God delights in mercy. He does, and by showing the
• 14:35
  power of His grace to restore a broken, weeping Sinner, God's
• 14:39
  glory is magnified far more than by just letting the penalty
• 14:42
  fall. This argument then leads right
• 14:44
  back into those vivid descriptions of his grief,
• 14:46
  especially his weeping. Yes, in verses 6 and seven, he's
• 14:50
  groaning until he is weary, weeping so much he fears his bed
• 14:54
  would swim. The imagery is just visceral.
• 14:56
  It is. He's groaned until his voice is
• 14:59
  hoarse, but the focus is on the tears.
• 15:03
  The Hebrew for swim means, literally, to cause to swim.
• 15:06
  He feared his tears would be so numerous they'd water his couch.
• 15:10
  It emphasizes the relentless physical nature of his distress.
• 15:14
  And the sources put so much theological weight on those
• 15:16
  tears. They say they have a voice.
• 15:19
  How can tears speak? The voice of weeping is
• 15:21
  described as a universal tongue. Universal.
• 15:24
  A language understood everywhere on earth and in heaven, no
• 15:26
  matter where the weeper comes from.
• 15:28
  Tears are the eloquence of sorrow.
• 15:31
  They're an unstammering orator that needs no interpreter.
• 15:34
  That's a lot of metaphor. Eloquence of sorrow,
• 15:36
  unstammering orator. They're also called liquid
• 15:38
  prayers. Liquid prayers.
• 15:40
  The idea is that prayers joined with tears cry louder in God's
• 15:43
  ears. They make sweeter music.
• 15:45
  The tears prove the sorrow is genuine, that the repentance is
• 15:48
  felt deep in the soul. One source says a penitent Tear
• 15:51
  is an undeniable ambassador that never returns from the throne of
• 15:54
  grace unsatisfied. And this connects to that famous
• 15:57
  phrase geminibus in an erbilibus.
• 16:00
  The groans which cannot be uttered, Yes, it connects human
• 16:02
  grief to the Spirit's work. The simple devout tears which
• 16:06
  can't speak doctrine, they speak aloud in the ears of God.
• 16:09
  The sorrowful intention is heard even before the tears blur the
• 16:12
  eyes. OK, so after that intense list
• 16:16
  of physical and spiritual distress, the weeping, the
• 16:18
  groaning, the fear, everything changes at verse 8 suddenly,
• 16:22
  completely. The minor key is just.
• 16:26
  It's a. Seismic shift.
• 16:27
  He commands depart from me, all you workers of iniquity.
• 16:30
  What happened? Nothing has changed outside of
• 16:33
  him. The shift is entirely internal.
• 16:36
  It's spiritual. It comes from the certainty he
• 16:38
  has gained that God has heard his petition.
• 16:40
  He receives the Spirit's seal of assurance.
• 16:42
  That's it. He declares it as a settled
• 16:44
  fact. The Lord hath heard the voice of
• 16:46
  my weeping, and the Lord hath heard my supplication.
• 16:49
  This piece isn't based on evidence.
• 16:51
  It's an infallibly assured privilege of the Saints worked
• 16:53
  by the Holy Spirit. It's the moment of
• 16:55
  reconciliation happening in real time inside the prayer.
• 16:59
  Absolutely. You think of Martin Luther
• 17:01
  wrestling in his closet and coming out leaping and crying.
• 17:04
  Vissimus, Vissimus, we have conquered.
• 17:06
  That assurance immediately resolves the soul trouble.
• 17:10
  And he uses it as a reason for future hope, Yes.
• 17:12
  Past experience guarantees future expectation.
• 17:16
  He hath heard, therefore he will receive my prayer.
• 17:19
  The confidence of yesterday fuels the hope of tomorrow.
• 17:22
  So the peace is secured, and the very first thing he does with
• 17:25
  that piece is practical. It's directed outward.
• 17:28
  Depart from me all you workers of iniquity.
• 17:30
  Yes, why that? This is a critical point of
• 17:33
  Reformed piety. This command is the third
• 17:36
  unfailing mark of true repentance.
• 17:38
  After sorrow and humiliation. It's the practical hatred of
• 17:42
  sin. Repentance can't just be an
• 17:43
  emotional state or a confession. It has to be a practical thing.
• 17:47
  It has to result in decisive action against sin.
• 17:50
  And why does receiving pardon trigger this command to
• 17:53
  separate? Because as a truly pardoned
• 17:55
  Sinner will necessarily hate the sins that cost the Savior his
• 17:59
  blood, the assurance of grace creates A decisive break with
• 18:02
  the past. The internal trouble is
• 18:04
  resolved, so the outward manifestation has to be
• 18:07
  separation from iniquity. Our sources put it pretty
• 18:11
  bluntly. Grace and sin are quarrelsome
• 18:13
  neighbors, and one or the other must go to the wall.
• 18:16
  Having received pardon, David now takes a commanding tone
• 18:20
  toward those who mocked his faith or led him astray.
• 18:24
  His peace with God requires war against iniquity.
• 18:27
  It's sanctification flowing directly from justification.
• 18:30
  The second his conscience is cleared, his ethical mandate is
• 18:34
  restored. Exactly.
• 18:35
  His affliction taught him the danger of his past associations.
• 18:38
  Now that he's been cleansed by mercy, he has to sweep his house
• 18:41
  clean of any sinful influence. And that doesn't just apply to
• 18:43
  people. It's attitudes, habits, desires.
• 18:46
  All the workers of iniquity in his own life.
• 18:49
  The Psalm then concludes with this triumphant declaration.
• 18:53
  It shifts from his internal victory to a prophecy about his
• 18:56
  external enemies. He wraps it up with total
• 18:58
  certainty. All my enemies shall be ashamed
• 19:01
  and sore vexed. He's gone from fear and self
• 19:04
  pity to being a prophet of his own deliverance.
• 19:07
  It's the final assurance for the believer.
• 19:09
  Yes, that the period of trial, the external warfare will be
• 19:12
  accomplished, and sudden confusion and shame will cover
• 19:16
  the enemies of righteousness. The word suddenly there seems
• 19:19
  important. David waited a long time for
• 19:21
  Grace, but the deliverance will be swift.
• 19:24
  Guarantees that God's response to a penitent heart is both
• 19:27
  immediate in terms of assurance and decisive in terms of final
• 19:30
  deliverance. The entire arc from verse one to
• 19:33
  verse 10, from fear and weeping to victory and prophecy.
• 19:36
  It shows the whole ordered cycle of God's dealings with a
• 19:40
  contrite heart. So conviction, humiliation, a
• 19:43
  plea based on mercy. And that mercy grants the
• 19:45
  certainty of pardon, which immediately results in
• 19:47
  sanctification and triumph over all opposition.
• 19:50
  It's the full picture. So this deep dive into Psalm 6
• 19:53
  really clarified the conditions of true penitence, the sorrow,
• 19:57
  the humiliation, that absolute dependence on grace.
• 20:00
  And it confirms this is the only path to the kind of assured
• 20:03
  confidence David found. And we have to take away this
• 20:06
  recognition. The David at his lowest point
• 20:09
  chose to plead his weakness, his littleness, as the strongest
• 20:13
  possible argument for God's help.
• 20:15
  He didn't appeal to his resume, his accomplishments, or his past
• 20:19
  faithfulness. He appealed to his utter
• 20:21
  frailty. He knew God's mercy is best
• 20:24
  displayed when His strength perfects our weakness.
• 20:27
  Which leaves us with a really interesting paradox to think
• 20:29
  about. We talked about the lost musical
• 20:31
  language Sayla Neganoth. Their obscurity just confirms
• 20:35
  how ancient this Psalm is. So if the specific technical
• 20:39
  language of music that was used to convey spiritual depth is now
• 20:42
  lost to us, what does that say about the true music of the
• 20:45
  soul? The voice of weeping, the liquid
• 20:48
  prayers of a broken heart. David knew that the eternal,
• 20:52
  immutable Jehovah heard that perfectly clear.
• 20:54
  It required no interpreter at all.
• 20:56
  The outward sounds of human orchestration, they fade, they
• 21:00
  become mysterious, but the communication of a truly
• 21:02
  contrite spirit that remains eternally intelligible to the
• 21:05
  one who it's addressed to.