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Teach Me to Do Your Will (Psalm 143) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reform Thinking. I am your host and I am so glad
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you could join us today for this deep dives into our source
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material. Yes, thanks for having me.
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I am really looking forward to getting into this one.
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Me too. So today we are looking at
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Charles Spurgeon's The Treasury of David, and we are going to
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focus specifically on Psalm 143. Right, it is a really
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fascinating text. It really is, and our mission
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for you today, as you listen, is to extract some practical
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theological insights on how to handle overwhelming despair.
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Yeah, and we're also going to look at how to silence the
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accusations of slander. And we will unpack the intense
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tension between asking for divine justice and pleading for
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pure mercy. Because those two things usually
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do not go together easily. No, they do not.
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You know, normally when we talk about a medical diagnosis,
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there's this expectation of, well, total clarity.
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You break your arm, the X-ray shows that jagged white line and
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the doctor just points and says there it is.
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That is the problem. Right.
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It is binary. You look at the film and the
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bone is either broken or it is not broken.
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It is clean, visible and easily categorized.
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Human beings find a lot of comfort in that kind of visual
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confirmation. We like things to be tangible.
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We really do. But then you step into the world
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of spiritual despair, where you step into theological tension,
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and suddenly that physical X-ray machine is just useless.
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Utterly useless. We're looking at a diagnostic
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landscape of the human soul that is murky, confusing, and filled
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with contradictions. We are trying to chart the
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anatomy of depression and faith and those things do not show up
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on a scam. No, they do not.
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So to set the stage for you, historically ecclesiastical
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rabbis categorize Psalm 143 as one of the seven penitential
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psalms. Yes, that is the traditional
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academic bucket for it. Right.
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The assumption was that this is a text about a person weeping
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over their own personal failures.
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The Spurgeon views it very differently.
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He really does. He reads it as a martial
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vindication against slanderers, rather than just a weeping
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confession of fault. Yeah, he calls it a mingled
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strain. He describes it as a box of
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ointment composed of sweet, bitter, pungent and precious
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ingredients all mixed together. That is quite an image.
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It is. It is the outcry of an
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overwhelmed spirit struggling to rise above the mud and grasped
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the best things. The image Spurgeon paints is
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striking. Tell us about that image.
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Well, the petitioners hands are outstretched to heaven in a
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posture of complete surrender, but at his girdle hangs a sharp
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sword rattling in its scabbard. Oh wow, so he is armed?
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Yes, he is a warrior who has been beaten down, not a monk who
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has been sitting in quiet contemplation.
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And that warrior imagery brings us to a really fascinating
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paradox. Or at the beginning of the text.
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I want to bring in an analogy about legal systems to make
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sense of these opening verses. I think that is a great way to
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frame it. So think about walking into a
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modern courthouse. In the first verse, the author
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asks God to answer him in his righteousness, right?
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He's essentially asking for a hearing in what historical
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English law would call a court of requests.
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This was a place where you would present a petition for a civil
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dispute. A place to settle grievances
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between people. Yeah, you go in saying someone
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has wronged me and I want the judge to look at the facts and
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vindicate my name. That is a brilliant way to
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explain it. He wants a civil ruling against
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his human enemies. He wants the record set straight
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because he knows he is innocent of the specific slander being
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spoken against him. But then in the very next breath
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in verse 2, the author begs God not to enter into judgment.
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He completely changes his tune. He does.
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It is like he suddenly realizes he is not walking into a small
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claims court. He's desperately trying to avoid
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the court of Kings Bench. Which is a terrifying place to
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be. Yes, in historical terms, the
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King's Bench was the highest Criminal Court, where the Crown
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itself was the prosecutor and your actual life was on the
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line. So the stakes are infinitely
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higher. Precisely how can the author
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simultaneously plead for God to answer in strict righteousness,
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but then turn around and beg God not to enter into judgement?
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It sounds like a total contradiction.
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That is the core tension of the courtroom paradox, and the
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answer lies in the doctrine of universal condemnation.
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Unpack that for us. When the author says, In thy
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sight shall no man living be justified, he is stating a blunt
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legal reality. This is long before the Apostle
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Paul ever picked up a pen to write the same truth in the New
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Testament. So the author already knew the
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legal standing of humanity. Yes, the mechanism here is
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critical to understand. The author realizes that he
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cannot isolate a single incident for God to judge.
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If you invite the omniscient judge to evaluate your
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character, you do not get to limit the scope of the discovery
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phase. I see you cannot just hand the
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judge the one file where you look good and hide the rest of
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the boxes. Spot on.
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You cannot hide anything. God's sight is so piercing, so
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discriminating, that the absolute slightest flaw in the
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human heart is seen and judge. So pretend is useless.
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Completely pretense cannot avail where that glance reads all the
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secrets of the soul. There is a synthesis here that
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resolves the paradox. How does that work?
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Well, the godly man, in his desire to have his character
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vindicated against his human enemies, appeals to the just
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judge. But he instantly falls back with
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a guilty sense that before that ultimate divine tribunal, he has
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no inherent merit to stand on. He knows he would lose the
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bigger case, yes. John Owen, the historical
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commentator, points out that the author does not pray absolutely
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that God would forego his government of the world.
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He simply prays that God would not judge him based on His own
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duties and obedience, because those fall desperately short of
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perfection. That distinction changes
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everything about how we view justice.
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It is a terrifying thought to demand pure justice for yourself
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when you realize what that actually entails.
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It really is. John B Go shares a fascinating
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anecdote that perfectly illustrates the psychological
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weight of this reality. He was speaking with a young man
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who confidently claimed I do not think I am a Sinner.
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That is quite a bold cream. Very bold.
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This young man felt he was basically a good person who had
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never done anything terribly wrong.
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Now, Goff did not argue theology with.
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Him. What did he do?
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He simply asked the young man if he would be willing for his
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mother or his sister to know every single thing he had ever
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done, said or thought. Oh.
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Wow, he asked him to imagine his every motion, his every fleeting
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jealous thought, his every petty grievance broadcast for his
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family to see. And you can imagine the
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immediate horror of that proposition.
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Exactly. After a moment of hesitation,
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the young man admitted, No, indeed, I should not like to
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have them. No, no, not for the world.
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Which is how most of us would react, yeah.
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Gough then pressed the logical point.
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He said if you cannot bear the scrutiny of your own family who
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love you and are flawed themselves, how can you dare to
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say in the presence of a holy God who knows every microscopic
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thought of your heart, that you do not commit sin?
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That is a devastating argument. It really puts it in perspective
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if your own mother seeing your thoughts would ruin you.
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What happens when the creator of the universe reviews the Ledger?
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That story highlights the sheer terror of the Court of Kings
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Bench. If we are judged by the law, we
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are finished. So how does anyone survive it?
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Well, to understand how the author resolves this terrifying
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tension, we have to look at the concept of substitution.
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Consider the anecdote of the dying Christian woman.
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Tell me about her. A revered minister visited her
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in her humble home. She was at the very end of her
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life, facing eternity, and the minister asked her the ground of
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her hope. How could she be at peace?
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And what did she say? She replied with complete
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composure. I rely on the justice of God.
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Which, based on everything we just discussed, sounds like a
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completely suicidal thing to say.
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Asking for justice is asking for condemnation.
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It surprised the minister too. But then she added the crucial
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twist. She said justice not to me, but
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to my substitute in whom I trust.
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Oh, that is brilliant. She understood the exact legal
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mechanism of forgiveness. Forgiveness is not inconsistent
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with truth or righteousness. God does not just sweep sin
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under the rug and pretend it did not happen.
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Because that would make him an unjust judge.
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Yes, the pardon God bestows in mercy is bestowed in justice to
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the substitute who discharged the sinner's obligations.
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The debt was fully paid, so justice demands the prisoner be
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set free. It is an incredible legal
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transaction. You get the mercy, but the
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mercy's backed by ironclad justice.
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Absolutely. Thomas Ly adds another layer to
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this when he looks at the specific phrasing with thy
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servant in verse 2. Yes, that is a key phrase.
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The author does not say enter not into judgment with an enemy,
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a rebel, or a traitor. He says Thy servant.
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Even the faithful servant is in danger.
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Yeah, even the person wholly devoted to God, consecrated to
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his ways, must lose their case if judged by the law.
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Matthew Henry captures this beautifully by saying that we
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ask God not to enter into judgement with his servant,
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because his servant has already entered into judgement with
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himself. That is a great way to put.
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It the servant has already looked at the Ledger and pleaded
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guilty. William Gernol uses a chilling
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geographical analogy for this exact situation.
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He says that whoever attempts to enter life by a law based
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righteousness is trying to find the northern passage to the
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Indies. Meaning it is impossible.
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Right. Whoever attempts it is sure to
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be frozen up before he gets halfway there.
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It is a suicide mission. God has nailed that door shut.
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There is no passage through the ice of the law.
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You will freeze to death trying to prove your own goodness.
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So, having established the absolute impossibility of
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standing on his own merit, we naturally have to look at why
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this author is so desperate for an audience with God in the
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first place. He is taking a massive risk.
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He is. Why risk approaching the bench
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at all? The answer is that the external
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pressures are absolutely crushing him.
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Slander has broken him down. The situation is dire.
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We see the enemy has persecuted his soul, smitten his light to
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the ground, and forced him to dwell in darkness like those
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long dead. But here is where I want to push
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back a bit against the Stoic ideal we often associate with
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religious figures. OK.
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What do you mean well? We tend to think that a truly
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spiritual person should be immune to this kind of
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psychological collapse. If this person is so full of
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faith, why is his spirit overwhelmed and his heart
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desolate? It seems like a contradiction to
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some people. Yeah, shouldn't genuine faith
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act as a shield against that level of despair?
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You would think a spiritual giant would just brush off the
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insults and keep moving. You would think so if you adhere
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to a purely Stoic philosophy, but the psychological reality of
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slander and persecution is vastly different.
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How so? The author is no stoic.
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The text shows us a man of intense thought and feelings
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smarting under cruel assaults on his character.
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We have to understand the mechanics of slander.
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Is not just name calling. Not at all.
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Slander is not just someone saying something unpleasant.
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Slander is the systematic dismantling of your social
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reality. It isolates you.
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It turns your friends into skeptics.
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It changes how the whole world sees you.
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Yes, and it has a physical weight to it.
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The text describes it as a blow that overthrows the mind, as
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though it were literally knocked down with a fist.
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It creates A cognitive dissonance where you start
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wondering if you were losing your mind.
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Yes, and that is reflected in the original language.
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When the text says his heart is desolate, the Hebrew word used
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there translates more accurately to stupefied or full of
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amazement. Stupefied.
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That is a strong word. It implies the mind is agitated,
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beaten back upon itself in complete perplexity.
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He is unable to comprehend the mystery of his own suffering.
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He is just spinning in circles. He is.
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He is driven to haunt caverns and holes, feeling like an
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unquiet ghost. It is a state of total mental
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paralysis. Sir Richard Baker outlines what
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he calls the three miseries found in this text to explain
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the totality of this collapse. This is a great breakdown.
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I want to look at these miseries 1 by 1 because they chart the
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exact downward spiral of a ruined reputation.
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The first misery Baker identifies is the greatest
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persecution. And why is it the greatest?
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Because the enemy targets the soul itself, not just goods or
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the body. This is a crucial distinction.
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If someone steals your property, you lose your wealth.
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If someone attacks your body, you lose your health.
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But the soul is different. Very different.
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If someone slanders your character, they are attacking
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the very essence of who you are. They are trying to rewrite your
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identity in the eyes of the community.
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It is a total erasure of the person.
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Yes, if the enemy can win the soul or destroy the reputation
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that houses the soul in society, he does not care about the rest.
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The attack strikes directly at the spiritual life and the
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person's ability to function in the world.
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That leads directly to the second misery Baker identifies,
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which is the greatest overthrow. The author is struck downward to
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the ground. The physical posture of defeat.
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Yeah, this is the physical posture of severe depression.
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The enemy strikes him downward to prevent him from looking up
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to heaven. Which cuts off his hope.
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Right when you are hit with that level of psychological pain, you
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cannot look up. You are pinned down, staring at
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the dirt. Your vision is entirely
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restricted to the immediate reality of your own suffering.
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And that restricted vision locks him into the third misery, which
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is the greatest captivity. Dwelling in darkness.
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Yes, Baker describes this as dwelling in the darkness of dead
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men. He is not just in the dark.
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For a single night, he's kept in such severe obscurity that he
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feels entirely forgotten. Like he's already buried.
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Exactly like that, he feels as if society has already buried
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him and he must be looked for among the tombs.
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His soul has grown cold and stiff in the suffering.
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So the despair makes sense. It does.
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So to answer your earlier question, this intense despair
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is not a lack of faith, it is a testament.
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Well, it is proof of the brutal, effective reality of the attack.
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Matthew Henry has a great quote about this very dynamic.
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He says that the author was not only a great St., but a great
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soldier, and yet even he was sometimes ready to faint in the
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day of adversity. Even the strongest fall.
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Yeah, as Henry puts it, how fir trees if the Cedars be shaken,
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the Cedars are the massive, deeply rooted trees.
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If a storm is violent enough to shake a giant cedar, the smaller
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fir trees should be terrified. That is a brilliant way to
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illustrate the point. Even the strongest among us can
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be brought to a point where the spirit completely faints.
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And that brings us to the specific mechanics of recovering
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from this emotional and spiritual paralysis.
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How do you get back up? Right.
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How do you restart a stopped heart?
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We see the method in the next sequence of the text.
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The author moves from despair to deliberate action.
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He changes his focus. He does, he says, I remember the
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days of old. I meditate on all thy works.
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I muse on the work of thy hands. I stretch forth my hands unto
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thee. My soul thirsteth after thee as
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a thirsty land. This transition is fascinating.
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It is, but it raises an immediate question for me.
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Isn't living in the past often a symptom of depression?
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When someone is constantly looking backward, we usually
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tell them they are stuck. That is true in modern
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psychology. So how is remembering the days
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of old presented here as a cure rather than a trap?
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That is a very sharp observation.
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It is a cure because of the specific method applied.
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Nostalgia is a trap. Nostalgia is just wishing things
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were different. Right.
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Nostalgia is wishing you were back in a romanticized version
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of the past because the present is too hard.
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But what the author is doing here is an active gathering of
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facts. He is building a case.
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Yes, an arranging of evidence and a deliberate communing with
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God. Based on historical precedent,
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the commentators present what we might call the three graces of a
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depressed mind recovering its footing.
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What are those 3 graces? Memory, meditation and musing.
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Each one builds on the other mechanically.
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Let's breakdown that mechanism. How does memory function here?
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First, memory acts as the gatherer of raw materials.
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When you were staring at the dirt, as we discussed in the
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second Misery, your immediate data set is entirely negative.
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All you see is the pain. Right.
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So the author uses memory to pull data from outside his
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current situation. He remembers past deliverances.
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He recalls that God rescued his people centuries.
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The big historical moments. Yes, he remembers the parting of
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the sea, the provision in the wilderness.
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He is collecting objective historical facts that prove
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God's character has a track record of rescue.
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So memory brings the bricks to the the construction site.
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What does meditation do? Meditation takes those raw
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materials and arranges them into a structure.
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If a quick glance at the current situation is discouraging, he
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ruminates on the long histories of divine Providence.
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He starts piercing it all together.
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Meditation is the act of taking a wide view of how God's works
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operate together for good over centuries.
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It is not emptying the mind, which is how modern culture
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often defines meditation. It is the exact opposite of
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emptying the. Mind it is.
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It is actively filling the mind with specific arranged truths.
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You are building a logical case against your own.
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A spare. And then comes musing.
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What is the difference between meditating and musing?
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Musing is the act of discoursing on these truths.
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It is turning that internal meditation into an active,
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spoken dialogue with God is taking the structure you just
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built and living inside. It putting it into practice.
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One commentator likens it to playing a harp to chase away the
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gloomy spirit. AW Mummery expands on this by
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encouraging us to look for God earnestly in all of creation as
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part of this musing process. Looking at nature.
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Yes, we look at the vineyards, the dense foliage of the forest,
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the weird pageantry of clouds, the pensive, fading beauty of
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autumn. We gaze at the physical world
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until we see a Creator of absolute wisdom, sovereignty,
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and love. Looking away from our own
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failures, right? When the work of our own hands
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grieves us, we shift our focus to the work of His hands.
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William Gernell describes this active meditation as prayers
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Handmaid. I love this agricultural
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analogy, he says. Meditation is the plow that
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prepares the hard packed dirt of the heart for the seed of
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prayer. It breaks up the tough soil.
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And once the seed is sown, meditation acts as the Harrow
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that covers the seed with dute so the birds do not steal it.
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That is a wonderful picture. Without this active engagement,
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the memory would just be a passive trap of nostalgia.
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But by actively musing on the evidence of God's character, the
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author restarts his spiritual pulse and Kindles a burning
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desire. He creates a massive thirst for
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God. That burning desire is so
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vividly captured in the metaphor of the thirsty land, the author
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says, My soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty land.
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It is a very raw plea. It is not just a poetic
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flourish, it describes a very specific physical mechanism.
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Sir John Chardon made a brilliant observation about the
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dry lands in the East that perfectly visualizes this
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mechanism. What did he see?
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He noted that before the rains fall, the ground bakes under the
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intense sun. The heat pulls every drop of
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moisture out of the dirt. Leaving it totally parched.
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Yeah, the ground begins to crack from the intense dryness,
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creating deep fissures and chinks that are so profound.
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Well, so deep you cannot even see the bottom of them.
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The earth literally yawns. It opens its mouth in dumb
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pleadings for water. What a powerful visual.
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That is what the author means. His soul feels parched, cracking
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out of the drought of his circumstances, and his
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outstretched hands are exactly like those deep crevices waiting
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for the rain. And when rain finally hits that
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crafter that does not sit on the surface, it vanishes instantly
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into the deep fissures. The ground absorbs it
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completely. It drinks it all in.
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Henry Drummond adds A fascinating philosophical layer
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to this natural thirst. He argues that it is entirely
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natural for a human soul to long for God in this way.
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Like an instinct. Yes, just as a swallow naturally
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seeks its nest or a Hummingbird instinctively seeks its palm
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trees, Drummond says that true poetry is science in another
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form. What does he mean by that?
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He means that the spiritual realm operates with natural
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laws, just like the physical realm.
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The true intended human environment is God Himself.
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Just as the water brooks are designed to meet physical needs,
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God is the soul element that meets the spiritual needs of
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man. So there was nothing artificial
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about this longing. Absolutely nothing.
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There is no false note in this aspiration.
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It is not morbid and it is not forced by religious guilt.
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It. Is just biology of the soul.
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It is the most natural thing in the world for a soul separated
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from its intended environment to thirst for it desperately.
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But this intense natural thirst leads directly into the agony of
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waiting when the ground is cracked and the crops are
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actively dying. It needs water right now.
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Waiting is not really an option. No, if the rain waits another
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month, it does not matter. The clops are dead.
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And that sets up the extreme urgency we see in the next part
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of the text, where the suppliant cries out.
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Hear me speedily, O Lord, my spirit Faileth.
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He is out of time. He asked to hear loving kindness
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in the morning and to know the way he should walk.
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This brings up another point of tension for me.
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Let's hear it. Does demanding God to answer
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speedily cross the line into sinful impatience?
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It feels incredibly bold to put the Creator of the universe on a
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ticking clock and say you need to answer me by morning.
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It does feel bold and it feels demanding, but John Fawcett
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provides some excellent insights that clarify this tension and
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remove the stigma of impatience. How does he explain it?
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He explains that desiring swift relief is a fundamentally
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natural human condition. It is how we are wired.
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Whatever a person desires to have, they naturally desire to
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have soon. We hate waiting.
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We do. Any delay in the accomplishment
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of our wishes causes grief because, as the old proverb
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says, hope deferred makes the heart sick.
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Fawcett argues that there is absolutely nothing sinful in
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this desire for speed, provided it does not devolve into
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murmuring bitterness or distrust of God's ultimate plan.
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So the speed of the request is just a measurement of the pain.
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That is right. If a person does not desire the
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light of God's countenance quickly, it is a certain proof
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that they do not truly desire it at all.
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Because true pain screams for an immediate fix, yes?
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If you are indifferent to when the rescue comes, you do not
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really feel the danger. The author is simply stating A
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physiological and spiritual fact.
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His life is ebbing out. His spirit is failing.
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The tank is empty. If help is long delayed, it will
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arrive too late to save him from this specific despair.
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Mercy has wings to its heels when misery is in extremity.
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Thomas Calvert points out that when affliction strikes, a
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person in misery earnestly sues for speedy delivery.
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We never think help comes soon enough.
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We always want it yesterday. Calvert uses a very humorous
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contrast to highlight this natural human desire for speed.
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He looks at the baffling response of the Egyptian pharaoh
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during the plagues in the Book of Exodus.
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Oh, this is a great story. When Moses asked Pharaoh when he
23:05
wanted the plague of frogs removed, Pharaoh inexplicably
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answered tomorrow. Which makes absolutely no
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logical sense. Your house is filled with frogs,
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your bed is filled with frogs, the ovens are filled with frogs,
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and you say tomorrow works for me?
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Right. Calvert points out how unnatural
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that is. What Prisoner does not want his
23:25
iron knots loosed immediately? What Mariner caught in a
23:28
hurricane wishes for a long storm.
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No one in their right mind. We want to flesh into half Heinz
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feet to run away from us. We want pain to spread out the
23:36
door. The only area where human beings
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naturally procrastinate is in leaving our own favored sins
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there, we are quite happy to say, tomorrow.
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That is a very telling human flaw, but.
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When it comes to pain, the cry for speedy relief is universal.
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It reaches even to Christ himself in the garden, praying
23:54
for the cup of suffering to pass from Him.
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And once the author asks for this speedy relief, he makes a
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very specific mechanical request.
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Cause me to know the way we're in, I should walk.
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He wants directions. He does not just want the pain
24:06
to stop, he wants a navigation system.
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George Beryl Cheever shares a gripping story that perfectly
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captures the feeling of needing God to reveal the path.
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I would love to hear it. Cheever describes a time when he
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was lost in a gorge near the Jemmy mountain in the Swiss
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Alps. Describe that landscape because
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it is vital to understanding the panic.
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Imagine standing at the bottom of a massive bowl of solid rock.
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Teaver was surrounded by completely inaccessible regal
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crags, sheer granite walls rising thousands of feet into
24:37
the air. So he is completely boxed in.
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Yes. He looked in the direction he
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thought he needed to go, and he saw only seemingly impassable
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snowy pyramids and sheer icy precipices.
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Every Ave. looked like certain death.
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It's terrifying. He sat down, his self resource
24:53
entirely exhausted. He realized he was physically
24:55
trapped, feeling like a man in a cage made of mountains.
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But then, when all human confidence was gone, he decided
25:01
to blindly follow his local guide.
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And what happened? Suddenly, as they walked toward
25:06
a solid wall of rock, a hidden door opened in the mountain
25:09
face. It was a narrow, concealed path
25:12
cut into the stone that was invisible from a distance.
25:15
That hidden path allowed him to rise up out of the gorge and
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walk at liberty on the high ground.
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That is a stunning picture of what the author is praying for.
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He is hemmed in by the Providence of God.
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He is staring at precipices of slander and caverns of despair.
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He is in that same rocky cage. He has no map and his self
25:34
resource is gone. He needs the great first 'cause
25:37
to open that hidden door in the rock face, and this moves us to
25:41
the next logical action the author takes.
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What is his next move? Finding that door in the
25:46
mountain wall mirrors what happens next in the text.
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The focus shifts beautifully from seeking immediate rescue to
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seeking long term instruction. He says, I flee unto Thee to
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hide me, teach me to do Thy will, lead me into the land of
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uprightness. I want to bring in James Smith's
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breakdown of what it means to flee to God in this context.
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What does Smith say? Smith says fleeing implies
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several things. It implies danger, it implies
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fear, and it implies a total inability to defend oneself.
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But most importantly, it implies prudence and foresight.
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Foresight. How so?
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The believer sees the storm gathering on the horizon and
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looks out for the covert before the rain starts falling.
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Fleeing is a highly calculated move of self preservation.
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So Richard Baker uses the analogy of a school for this
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specific section of the text. He says this passage describes
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the perfect classroom, which contains the three best
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components you could ever ask for.
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What are the three components? First, it has the best teacher,
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which is God himself. Second, you have the best
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scholar which is a thoroughly humbled student who knows he has
26:48
0 answers and 3rd it has the best lesson, which is to do
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God's will. That is a great summary of the
26:54
text. But my question here is about
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the nature of that lesson. Why is there a specific focus on
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doing the will rather than just knowing it?
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We spend a lot of time trying to figure out what God's will is.
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Why does the author jump straight to the execution of it?
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That is a critical distinction in Reformed theology.
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The mechanics of obedience require 2 separate parts.
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Vincent Alsop answers this by pointing out that we must pray
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for God to teach us to know and then teach us to do.
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So they are two distinct steps. They are not the same thing.
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Knowledge without obedience is lame.
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It cannot walk. Obedience without knowledge is
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blind. It walks right off a Cliff.
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The dangerous combination either way.
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If we offer God only one or the other, we are offering the blind
27:37
and the lame, which the Old Testament law explicitly rejects
27:40
as unacceptable sacrifices. We need both the sight to see
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the path and the strength to walk it.
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Thomas Minton adds to this by saying that the Spirit's
27:48
direction always has strength joined with it.
27:51
The Spirit does not merely no, does not just point a finger at
27:54
the right path and say good luck.
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The Spirit goes with you. The spirit actively inclines the
27:59
human will to choose the good and provides the internal power
28:03
to walk in. Thomas Shepard uses a wonderful
28:05
nautical analogy to explain this relationship between the Spirit
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and the law in the life of a believer.
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Let's hear the analogy. Imagine a large sailing ship
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sitting in the water. The law of God is your compass.
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It provides the objective, unmoving rule that steers your
28:21
course. It tells you exactly where true
28:23
north is. OK, so the compass gives the
28:25
direction. Right, but you can hold a
28:27
perfect compass in your hand all day long and the ship will not
28:30
move an inch. A compass cannot propel a ship.
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It has no force. The Holy Spirit is the wind that
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fills the sails. The Spirit provides the velocity
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and the drive for our obedience. The Spirit and the Law, the wind
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and the compass stand perfectly well together.
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You need both to cross the ocean.
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When the author prays, Teach me to do thy will.
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He is sitting in a dead calm, asking for both the compass of
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God's revealed will and the wind of the good Spirit to propel him
28:58
forward. He wants to be LED into it, but
29:00
the text calls the Land of Uprightness.
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The Hebrew word used there is mishore.
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Geographically it refers to the smooth upland downs of Moab.
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It is a very specific type of terrain.
29:11
Contrast that with the Jimmy Mountain Gorge we talked about
29:14
earlier. Yes, the gorge is dark, rugged,
29:17
full of sharp rocks, confusing turns and constant danger.
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Mishore symbolizes an even level plane.
29:25
A flat, safe landscape. It is a state of equity and
29:28
righteousness that is entirely free from the rough, crooked
29:31
turns and the malice of enemies that exhaust the weary traveler.
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You do not have to watch every single step for fear of twisting
29:38
your ankle or falling off a Cliff.
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That sounds like an incredible relief.
29:42
He wants the wind to blow him out of the dark caverns of
29:44
despair and up onto those bright level pasture lands where his
29:48
soul can walk without constantly stumbling.
29:50
But to reach that smooth plane, the traveler needs absolute
29:54
revitalization. His spirit has already failed.
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He has no energy left to make the climb.
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He needs a boost. And that prompts the final
30:02
urgent please of the text. He prays quick.
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And me, O Lord, for thy name's sake.
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And then he utters A controversial prayer asking God
30:09
to cut off his enemies, ending with the declaration, For I am
30:13
thy servant. Let's look closely at that.
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Let's zero in on the phrase for thy name's sake.
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If the author has just boldly declared I am thy servant, why
30:22
doesn't he plead his own track record of service?
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Why rely entirely on God's name to get this quickening, this new
30:28
spiritual life? It circles right back to the
30:31
courtroom paradox we discussed at the very beginning of our
30:33
conversation. The King's Bench.
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Yes, the Believer knows that despite being a servant, he has
30:38
absolutely nothing inherent to plead before the ultimate
30:41
judgment seat. The Ledger is hopelessly
30:44
unbalanced. All requests for spiritual life
30:47
for this quickening must rest entirely on God's character, His
30:51
glory, and His faithfulness. Explain what Quickening actually
30:55
is, mechanically speaking. Quickening means to give life to
30:58
something that is dead. It is like applying a spiritual
31:01
defibrillator to a stopped heart.
31:03
You cannot ask a dead body to generate its own heartbeat.
31:06
The body cannot fix itself. The energy has to come from an
31:09
outside source. As Andrew Robert Fawcett notes,
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the plea for thy name's sake means asking God to act for the
31:15
sake of His own glory. You are asking Him to show
31:18
himself to be the God of loving kindness and power that He is
31:21
esteemed to be. I see if a doctor brings a flat
31:24
lining patient back to life, it proves the skill of the doctor.
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If God creates a high degree of spiritual life in His broken,
31:31
despairing servants, it renders His name glorious in the eyes of
31:36
all who watch it happen. That makes total sense.
31:38
The author knows he cannot say quicken me because I have been
31:41
such a good, reliable servant. You must say quicken me because
31:45
you are the living, loving God and it aligns with your
31:47
righteous character to rescue those who trust in you.
31:51
And that reliance on God's righteous character brings us to
31:54
the uncomfortable nature of the final verses, where he prays for
31:57
the complete destruction of his enemies.
31:59
He says Of thy mercy, cut off mine enemies.
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This is a tough verse for many people.
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In a modern context, that sounds incredibly harsh, vindictive,
32:07
and counter to the idea of grace.
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How do we contextualize a prayer that asks for destruction out of
32:13
a motive of mercy? It sounds like a total oxymoron.
32:16
It does sound jarring to modern years.
32:18
We are used to thinking of mercy only as pardon.
32:21
But we have to read this text through the lens of its
32:24
historical and theological context.
32:25
Which means looking at the Old Testament setting.
32:28
As Spurgeon points out, under the Old Testament arrangements,
32:30
this was a warrior's prayer. It smells of the dust and smoke
32:35
of a literal battlefield. Archibald Simpson provides A
32:39
crucial perspective here, explaining the mechanics of
32:42
divine justice in history. What is his perspective?
32:45
He says the destruction of the wicked is often a direct,
32:48
necessary mercy to the innocent. Give me an example of how that
32:52
works. Think about the historical
32:54
forces of oppression. Look at Pharaoh driving his
32:57
Chariots toward the Israelites trapped at the Red Sea.
33:00
Or look at the Assyrian king Sennacherib surrounding the city
33:03
of Jerusalem, starving the inhabitants and preparing to
33:06
slaughter them. They were facing mass
33:07
casualties. In those moments, the
33:09
destruction of those tyrannical, violent powers was the exact
33:13
mechanism of God's mercy and kindness to the people they were
33:16
trying to annihilate. If you do not stop the
33:18
oppressor, you were showing zero mercy to the victim.
33:21
Oh, that makes it very clear you cannot have both.
33:24
James Bennett adds that many of these implications are actually
33:27
prophecies of omens concerning future leaders of oppressive
33:30
nations, not expressions of personal petty revenge over a
33:33
minor insult. It is about justice on a macro
33:37
level. The author is praying for the
33:39
vindication of right over wrong on a cosmic scale.
33:42
He is asking for the moral arc of the universe to bend toward
33:45
justice and for the agents of chaos to be removed so the
33:49
innocent can live in peace. And he grounds this entire plea
33:54
in the final phrase of the text. I am thy servant.
33:57
That is a defining statement. This is his ultimate identity.
34:01
Andrew Gray breaks down what it means to be a servant in the
34:03
ancient world, noting there are 4 distinct ways to enter into
34:07
servitude by birth, by purchase, by conquest, and by voluntary
34:12
agreement. 4 distinct legal categories.
34:15
The profound, well, the intense reality for the believer is that
34:18
they fit all four categories simultaneously.
34:21
This creates an ironclad bond between the servant and the
34:23
master. Let's look at how all four
34:25
apply. First, they are servants by
34:27
birth. They're born anew into the
34:29
household of faith. Second, they are servants by
34:31
purchase. They were bought out of the
34:33
slave market of sin by the payment made by their
34:35
substitute. 3rd They are servants by conquest.
34:39
Their natural rebellion and stubborn will were subdued and
34:41
overcome by the wind of the Spirit.
34:43
And 4th They are servants by voluntary agreement.
34:47
Having been born, purchased and conquered, they willingly and
34:50
joyfully choose to sign the contract and submit to the
34:53
Master's will. They want to be there.
34:55
Thomas Watson notes that the Roman Emperor Theodosius thought
34:59
it a greater dignity to be God's servant than to be an emperor.
35:02
That is quite a statement from an emperor.
35:04
This absolute belonging, backed by birth, purchase, conquest and
35:08
choice, is the final bedrock of the author's confidence.
35:12
The despair is gone. The anxiety over the slander is
35:15
gone. He is secure.
35:16
And that security is what allows him to finally rest.
35:19
He knows the Judge is his substitute, his guide is the
35:22
spirit, and his identity is eternally fixed as a servant in
35:26
the House of the King. It is a complete theological
35:28
rescue. That realization of absolute
35:30
belonging completely shifts the perspective on everything we
35:32
have discussed today. If you are listening to this and
35:35
you recognize that you belong to this reality by birth, by
35:38
purchase, by conquest, and by your own choice, your entire
35:41
framework it. Reorients your whole life.
35:44
And sensed the demand for ultimate justice is fully
35:47
satisfied by your substitute. You are completely freed from
35:51
the terror of the courtroom. The gavel has already fallen and
35:54
the verdict is in your favor. The King's Bench is no longer a
35:57
threat. So I want to leave you with a
36:00
final thought to Mull over. If all of this is true, what
36:04
happens to your perspective when you stop viewing your daily
36:07
hardships, your periods of intense desolation, and your
36:11
detractors as just enemies to be destroyed?
36:13
That is a challenging question. What if you start viewing them
36:16
as the very tools designed to create that deep cracked earth
36:20
thirst within you? A thirst that makes you stretch
36:22
out your hands and seek the smooth upland planes of God's
36:25
presence. It changes pain into a catalyst.
36:28
When you go back to that broken X-ray machine we talked about at
36:31
the start, you realize that the murkiness of your spiritual
36:34
diagnostic landscape is not a flaw in the system.
36:37
The Muddy Waters of despair and the rattling sword of slander
36:41
are the very things that drive you out of self-reliance and
36:44
force you to look for that hidden door in the mountain
36:46
wall. That is a wonderful way to sum
36:47
it all up. Thank you for joining us on this
36:49
deep dive into our source material.
36:52
We will catch you next time on Reformed Thinking.