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The Burden of Sin and the Hope of Penitent Faith (Psalm 38) · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reform Thinking. Today is Tuesday 2026 O 324 and
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we are starting a brand new deep dive.
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Yeah, we have a massive stack of notes and commentaries to get
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through today. We really do, and our goal for
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this deep dive is to take a very intense look at Psalm 38.
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Right, which is? It is a staggering text.
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It is we are going to examine the reality of unconfessed sin,
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the severe mercy of God's discipline, and, you know, the
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brilliant hope of salvation in Christ.
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Before we get too far in, we should probably establish our
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theological framework for the listener.
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Yeah, that is a good idea. Go ahead and lay that out.
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Well, we are Protestant Christians and our analysis is
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rooted in Reformed theology. We adhere to the Westminster
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Confession of Faith. So we are not just looking at
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this text as some ancient piece of Middle Eastern poetry, right?
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Precisely, we are treating the biblical text as a mirror for
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the awakened conscience. When the Holy Spirit applies
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this text to you, it becomes a living, breathing reality.
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It really exposes the hidden rot of the soul, and I want you, the
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listener, to consider what actually happens when a believer
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tries to hide their sin. Modern society has a very
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specific way of dealing with that.
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Don't. They Oh, absolutely.
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The modern world tells you that your guilt is just a byproduct
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of social conditioning. Right, like you only feel bad
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because society told you to feel bad.
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Yeah, so the secular solution is just to lower your standards, do
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some self-care and move on. But the biblical text defines
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guilt as an objective moral reality.
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It requires divine intervention, not just human management.
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That contrast is so sharp because usually when we talk
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about a medical diagnosis, there is this comforting exectation of
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precision. It feels like engineering, you
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know? It really does.
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You fall off a ladder, you break your arm and you go to the
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hospital. The physician puts you in front
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of an X-ray machine. And they pull up the imaging and
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point right to the problem. Yeah, they point to a jagged
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white line on a glowing screen and say there is the fracture
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that is the source of your pain. It is a binary situation.
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The bone is broken or the bone is intact.
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The visual evidence is right there in front of you.
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And because the problem is physical and observable, the
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solution is equally physical and predictable.
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Right. We cast it, we said it.
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We wait for the calcium to do its work.
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Human beings love that kind of clean clinical assessment.
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We really crave categories that we can see and manage.
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But then, you know, you step into the realm of the human
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conscience. And everything gets complicated.
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So complicated, you step into the agonizing reality of
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unconfessed sin and moral failure, and suddenly that
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diagnostic X-ray machine just shatters into a million pieces.
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You are no longer looking at a clean break on a black and white
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monitor. No, you are looking at a
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diagnostic landscape that is entirely muddy, ambiguous, and
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frankly terrifying to walk through for the person
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experiencing it. Modern.
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Society wants a clean clinical label for what is happening
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inside the soul. If someone is experiencing
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crushing internal guilt, we try to medicalize it immediately.
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We. Call it a psychological complex,
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or a stress response, or maybe a chemical imbalance.
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And then the goal just becomes mitigation.
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We try to manage the symptoms through therapy or reputation
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control so the individual can get back to normal.
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But the text we are analyzing today just shatters that secular
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framework. It demands we look at the root
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cause. If your problem is objective
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historical guilt before a holy Creator, human management falls
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completely. Flat you cannot out talk, out
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medicate, or out manage the Supreme Judge of the Universe.
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No, you cannot. So where does this kind of agony
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actually start in Psalm 38? Well, when a person is crushed
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under the weight of their own failures, the instinct is to
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look around at their circumstances.
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They blame their environment or their boss or their spouse,
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right? Yeah.
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Or their failing health. But David, the author of this
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text, he looks straight up. His distress does not begin with
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his or his body, it begins with God.
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The opening cry really sets the stakes, David says.
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O Lord, rebuke me not in my wrath, neither chasten me in my
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hot displeasure. He's looking past all the
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secondary causes of his pain. He ignores the physical symptoms
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for a moment. He correctly identifies the
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primary source of his affliction.
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He sees the heavy hand of the covenant God, whom he has
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offended. OK, let's unpack this a bit.
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He specifically asks not to be rebuked in Wrath, which the
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linguistic notes identify with the Hebrew word kema, right?
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And he also asks not to be chastened in anger, which
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translates from the word ketsa. But.
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He is not standing in a courtroom demanding an
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acquittal. He knows he is guilty.
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Oh, he fully acknowledges his guilt later on.
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He is not asking for God to look the other way because he knows
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God cannot do that. He is asking for the judgement
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to be tempered with mercy and this brings up a massive
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theological distinction and reformed thought.
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Yes, specifically in Chapter 5 of the Westminster Confession,
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which deals with Providence. There's an absolute difference
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between judicial wrath and fatherly discipline.
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I think a lot of people blend those two concepts together.
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If they are suffering, they just assume God hates them.
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And if things are going well, they assume God is pleased with
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them. That is a devastatingly shallow
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weight of youth theology. It really leads to absolute
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despair. Let's break those two categories
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down. Sure, judicial wrath is reserved
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for the reprobate. It is the consuming fire of an
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enemy. It is penal, retributive and
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designed for destruction. Fatherly discipline, on the
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other hand, is the measured correction of a loving parent.
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Right. It is corrective, restorative,
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and born out of covenantal love. The Westminster Confession
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teaches that God may leave his children to manifold temptations
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to chasten them for former sins. God will actually allow a
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believer to stumble into the very sin they thought they could
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control. He does it specifically to break
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their pride and bring them back to dependence.
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David feels the terror of God's displeasure so intensely that
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his subjective experience feels like judicial wrath.
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Which is why he is begging for the objective reality of
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compassion. He wants to know he is still a
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son, not an enemy. I want to introduce an analogy
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here to separate these two concepts for the listener.
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Think about the difference between a mugger's knife and a
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surgeon's scalpel. Oh I like that.
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That is a great way to picture it.
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Both of them are sharp pieces of steel.
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Both of them are going to cut your flesh open.
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Both of them are going to cause intense, agonizing pain and
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leave a scar. If you only look at the physical
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mechanics of the metal slicing the skin, they look identical.
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But the intent behind the blade changes the entire reality of
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the situation. The mugger is cutting you to
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destroy you and take your life. While the surgeon is cutting you
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open to remove a tumor and save your life, that captures the
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dynamic Florida State. David knows the scalpel is
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necessary. He knows he has a spiritual
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tumor that will kill him if it is left inside.
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He is pleading with the surgeon to be careful with the cuts.
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He knows he deserves the rod of correction.
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But he asked that the rod not be wielded with the consuming fury
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of an adversary. He is crying out to the surgeon,
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not the mugger. And the text gets incredibly
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visceral as he describes the surgery.
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He says God's arrows stick fast in him, and God's hand presses
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him down. It feels like a physical burden
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that is too heavy to carry. The specific word for iniquity
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here is Avon. That does not just mean making a
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simple mistake. It carries the linguistic sense
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of a perversion, A twisting, or a crookedness.
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And that crookedness has become a crushing physical weight.
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The imagery communicates total helplessness.
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Imagine being pinned to the ground by a massive invisible
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hand with arrows lodged deep into your muscles.
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David cannot pull the arrows out by his own strength.
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He cannot lift the pressing hand off his back.
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This preserves the absolute majesty of God in our theology.
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The Lord is not a passive observer of human choices, just
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sitting in the heavens, wrinning His hands when we sin.
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He is the sovereign judge whose hand can bring the proudest,
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most arrogant heart right down into the dust.
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When the Holy Spirit awakens a slumbering conscience, the
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weight of that Avon, that crookedness is felt in the
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marrow of the bones. So what does this mean for the
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person listening to this right now?
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I want you to evaluate how you view your own suffering.
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That is a critical question to ask yourself.
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When everything falls apart because of a moral failure in
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your life, do you see it as random bad luck?
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Do you chalk it up to a chaotic in different universe?
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Or do you look for the sovereign hand of a covenant God who
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refuses to let his children perish in their own folly?
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Interpreting our pain through a theological lens rather than a
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purely circumstantial lens changes everything.
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If it is just bad luck, you just try harder next time.
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If it is the hand of God, it strips away your
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self-confidence. It drives you to the only refuge
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left, which is the compassionate Lord against whom you have
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sinned. But recognizing the divine
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source of the affliction is really only Step 1, isn't it?
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Yeah. It is.
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The immediate problem David faces next is the catastrophic
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internal fallout of this in itself.
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Recognizing God's hand does not make the arrows hurt any less.
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This brings us to the human symptom.
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Right, the holistic contagion of sin.
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The text moves from the theological root to the
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devastating physical and psychological effects.
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David says his wounds stink and are corrupt because of his
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foolishness, which translates from the Hebrew word ewelleth.
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He has bowed down. He is mourning all day long.
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His loins are filled with a burning disease.
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His heart is roaring in agitation and his strength is
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failing. Even the light of his eyes is
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gone. It sounds like his entire
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physiological system is shutting down.
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The stress is literally killing him.
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Because sin is not a minor flaw, it is not a slight
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miscalculation on a spreadsheet. David uses the word ewelleth,
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which in biblical terms goes far beyond intellectual stupidity.
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It is moral rebellion against God.
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It is a stubborn refusal to live in the fear of the Lord.
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And this kind of moral rebellion rots the soul and the body.
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The text presents a fully integrated view of humanity.
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You cannot compartmentalize the human person.
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Spiritual guilt manifests as physical and emotional
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disintegration. I have to push back here,
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though. I'm looking at this list of
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symptoms the morning, all day long, The roaring heart, the
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physical exhaustion. Modern psychiatry would have a
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field day with that. List.
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They absolutely would. They would look at that and
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immediately diagnose clinical depression or severe generalized
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anxiety disorder. And they would prescribe
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medication and cognitive behavioral therapy.
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Right, So aren't we in danger of attributing all mental and
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physical anguish directly to personal sin?
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That seems incredibly reckless to people who are just genuinely
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sick. That is a very valid concern and
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requires A precise theological answer.
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We must absolutely clarify that not all sickness or mental
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anguish is tied to a specific personal sin.
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The entire book of Job exists to dismantle that false equation,
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right? Yes, Job's friends assumed his
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suffering was proof of hidden sin, and God thoroughly rebuked
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them for it. Furthermore, Jesus explicitly
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rejects this idea in John Chapter 9.
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Right when asked who sinned to cause a man to be born blind,
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Jesus said neither the man nor his parents sinned, but it
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happened so the works of God might be displayed.
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So there is a category for suffering that has absolutely
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nothing to do with personal moral failure.
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Absolutely. However, in this specific text,
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David makes the explicit direct connection himself.
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He is not guessing. He knows his own conscience
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because the Holy Spirit has illuminated it.
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He says there is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger,
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neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin.
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He connects the physical rotting of his flesh directly to his own
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moral rebellion. He is diagnosing himself.
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He is looking at the spiritual X-ray and reading it correctly.
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And in doing so, he provides A devastating critique of two
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modern errors. The first is pragmatism.
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Pragmatism is the attempt to fix spiritual rot with purely
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secular remedies. It tells you to manage your
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reputation, take a pill to numb the anxiety, and just try to
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outrun the consequences of your actions.
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The second error is mysticism, which seeks an emotional
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spiritual high to bypass the reality of a guilty conscience.
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People try to meditate or have a transcendent experience to avoid
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dealing with the objective moral violation.
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David rejects both pragmatism and mysticism.
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He recognizes that his internal unrest cannot be quieted by
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human means because he lacks the ability to cleanse himself.
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The noise of his groaning is the external expression of his
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internal unrest. He says he roars by reason to
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the disquiet of his heart. It is a visceral, animalistic
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sound. The heart is an absolute tumult.
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Genuine conviction reaches the deepest parts of a human being.
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It disturbs the center at a cellular level.
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When the Westminster Divine's formulated their theology, they
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understood the psychosomatic connection.
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They knew that a guilty soul would eventually break a
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physical body. This brings us squarely into the
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doctrine of total depravity, which is a core tenet of
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Reformed theology. We should make sure we define
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this correctly for the listener. Yes, let's do that.
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Total depravity does not mean people are as evil as they could
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possibly be. You can always be worse.
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Total depravity means that sin affects the whole person.
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The mind, the will, the emotions, the nervous system,
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the physical body. Every faculty is compromised.
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Therefore, true healing must address the whole person before
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a holy God. You cannot just fix the mind and
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leave the soul rotting. The integration of the human
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person in this text is striking. There is no sharp division
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between the spiritual life and the embodied life.
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The whole person is disintegrating under the
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pressure of divine discipline. But even in the midst of this
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total collapse, David does not descend into mute, nihilistic
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despair. He turns his absolute misery
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into prayer. He says, Lord, all my desires
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before thee, and my groaning is not hid from thee.
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That is such a tender, vulnerable moment in the text.
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He doesn't have a polished speech.
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He doesn't have three bullet points of theological reflection
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to offer God. He just has physical groans.
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He is essentially saying look at me, look at what I've become.
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God understands the language of size.
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He interprets the groanings that cannot be uttered.
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The suffering St. does not need to wait until their strength
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returns to seek God. They do not need to clean
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themselves up first. The weakness itself becomes the
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occasion for dependence. The fact that David brings his
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ruined, stinking wounds to God is an act of staggering faith.
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We have seen the divine source of the affliction, and we have
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unpacked the internal holistic ruin of the individual.
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But what happens when a person is rotting from the inside out?
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It eventually becomes visible to the outside world.
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Exactly. This internal decay creates
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external social consequences. The suffering expands
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horizontally. David says his friends and loved
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ones stand aloof from his plague or his stroke.
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The specific Hebrew word used here is nega.
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Meanwhile, his enemies draw near to lay snares and plot
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treachery. He is completely isolated from
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anyone who might offer comfort and entirely surrounded by those
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who wish to destroy him. It is the ultimate double
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whammy. The human wings who are supposed
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to support you run in the opposite direction.
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And the human beings who want to ruin you move in for the kill.
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The word *** is vital here, isn't it?
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It has a very specific ancient Near Eastern context.
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Yes, it was often associated with leprosy or a direct visible
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blow from God. In Leviticus, the priest would
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examine a *** on the skin to determine if a person was
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unclean. If they were, they were cast
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outside the camp. They became socially dead.
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David's sin has not only decayed his bones, it has severed his
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most intimate human ties. Sin mimics the isolation of
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hell. It strips away human comfort and
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leaves the individual utterly alone.
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It is one thing to suffer physically, It is another thing
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entirely to suffer physically while feeling completely
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abandoned by your community. When you are sick, you want your
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family around you. David looks up and the room is
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completely empty. The contrast is a staple of the
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biblical lament genre. Friends retreat out of disgust
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or fear of being associated with the fallout.
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While enemies attack because they smell blood in the water,
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the vacuum left by absent friends is immediately filled by
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active adversaries. They see his vulnerability as a
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prime opportunity. They are relentless, he says.
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They speak mischievous things and imagine deceits all the day
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long. They are actively plotting his
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total ruin while he is too weak to even stand.
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So how does David respond to this isolation and this targeted
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attack? Here's where it gets really
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interesting. He acts like a deaf and mute
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man. He offers no reproofs.
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He hears the slander, he sees the traps being laid, and he
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shuts his mouth. Why the silence?
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Is he just too exhausted to fight back?
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Or is he throwing a pity party because he is depressed?
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It is not a pity party. While physical and emotional
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exhaustion certainly play a role, the core reason for his
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silence is absolute submission to the Providence of God.
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He surrenders his right to self vindication because he knows the
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Lord's rebuke is just. He refuses to argue his case in
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the court of human opinion because he knows who's his
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primary audience is the judge of the universe.
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He realizes that winning an argument against his human
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enemies does not solve his actual problem.
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He could write a brilliant defense of himself.
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He could hire a PR team to spin the narrative.
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He could point out the hypocrisy of his enemies all day long, but
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even if he destroys their arguments, he still has the
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arrows of God stuck in his bones.
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That is precisely the issue. He has the intellectual and
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verbal ability to speak. He could tear their arguments
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apart. But he presents himself as one
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who refuses to answer in kind. He does not answer slander with
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slander. The natural biological instinct
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when a human is cornered is to lash out, to justify oneself, to
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scream at the injustice of the attack.
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David has been so humbled by divine rebuke that he no longer
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treats verbal self assertion as his salvation.
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He is learning through intense pain to leave judgement in God's
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hands. I want to speak directly to the
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weary Saints listening to this right now.
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Maybe you feel abandoned by your church community.
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Or maybe you feel misunderstood or falsely accused by people
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around you. And every instinct in your body
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is screaming at you to log onto social media, post the receipts,
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and vindicate yourself. Look at David's silence.
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This is not passive victimhood. This is an active, aggressive
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God word dependence. He is deliberately quieting
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himself before men so that he can wait on the Lord to act as
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his defense attorney. This silence creates A
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theological space. His refusal to answer his
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enemies is not a void of emptiness, it is the space
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created by waiting on God. He will not conduct his final
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defense before men because his life is entirely before the
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Lord. If God is the one who shot the
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arrows of discipline, only God can pull them out.
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Defending himself to his neighbors is a waste of breath.
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This act of dependence naturally raises a massive question.
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If he is not fighting back, what is he actually waiting for in
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his silence? What is the leverage he has
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left? This bridges our discussion to
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the turning point of the song. We are moving from the
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description of the ruin to the pivot of hope and true
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confession. Verse 15 is the hinge upon which
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the entire text swings. David finally breaks his
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silence. But he does not speak to his
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enemies, and he does not speak to his retreating friends.
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He speaks directly to God. He says, For in the O Lord, do I
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hope thou wilt to hear, O Lord, my God.
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The Hebrew word for hope there is yachal.
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And then he openly declares his iniquity and says he is sorry
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for his sin. So what does this all mean?
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The syntax shift is staggering. He stops, looking inward at his
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festering wounds. He stops, looking outward at his
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retreating friends and his attacking enemies.
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He looks upward at the character of Yahweh.
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He finds his leverage not in his own performance, but in God's
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covenantal promises. The word yatshal implies an
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expectant hope that looks for a specific guaranteed outcome.
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It is not wishful thinking. It is not saying I hope it
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doesn't rain tomorrow. It is the kind of hope a child
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has when a parent promises to pick them up from school.
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He is not waiting because he has improved his condition or
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cleaned up his life. He is waiting because he belongs
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to the Lord. Despite the wrath, despite the
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discipline, despite the festering wounds, he still has
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the audacity to call God my God. This aligns beautifully with
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Westminster Confession Chapter 15th, which covers repentance
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unto life. We need to unpack that doctrine
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thoroughly, because the word repentance carries a massive
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amount of cultural and theological baggage.
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People hear that word and think of someone holding a sign on a
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street corner screaming about Hellfire.
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The baggage is unfortunate because the doctrine is
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beautiful. True biblical repentance is not
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the Roman Catholic concept of penance.
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In a system of penance, you perform certain acts, saying
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specific prayers, giving money, doing good deeds to balance the
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cosmic scales and pay off your own debt.
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Nor is biblical repentance mere worldly sorrow.
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Worldly sorrow, as the Apostle Paul defines it in Second
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Corinthians, is just being sad that you got caught.
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It is mourning the painful consequences of your actions.
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You're sad you lost your job, or sad your spouse left you, or sad
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your reputation is ruined. Repentance unto life is a
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specific, honest acknowledgement of guilt combined with a true
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apprehension of God's mercy in Christ.
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It is a change of mind that leads to a change of direction,
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fueled by a sight of God's grace.
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David says I will declare my iniquity.
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I will be sorry for my sin. He is grieving the sin itself.
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He is not just grieving the physical pain it caused him or
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the fact that his enemies are laughing at him.
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He is grieving the fact that he offended the God he loves.
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Godly sorrow mourns the offense committed against a holy God.
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It recognizes that sin is an assault on the character of the
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Creator. Worldly sorrow mourns the loss
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of comfort. David owns his transgression
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completely. There is no blame shifting here.
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He does not say, Lord, I sinned, but you have to understand how
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stressed I was. Or I sinned but my enemies
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provoked me. He takes total ownership of the
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Avon. The crookedness I noticed David
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uses the phrase I am ready to fall.
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He is hanging on by a single thread.
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This totally refutes the massive pressure in some modern church
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cultures to maintain a constant facade of a victorious, always
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smiling Christian life. We have this unspoken rule that
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if you are really trusting God, you should always be happy and
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your life should always be put together.
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But Davis is the anointed king of Israel, a man after God's own
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heart, and he says I am ready to collapse.
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The text forces us to acknowledge reality.
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The sorrow may remain ever before us, even while we wait on
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the Lord. Being ready to fall does not
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mean you are cast off from the covenant.
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It means you are in the exact position where you realize you
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cannot stand on your own 2 feet. It destroys the illusion of
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self-sufficiency. This brings up another critical
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theological doctrine, the perseverance of the Saints.
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The covenantal bond between David and God is severely
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strained by David's sin and God's Hey, would you discipline?
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But that bond is not broken. The persistence of his faith
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under such terrifying darkness is remarkable.
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He does not wait until he feels spiritually strong to seek the
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Lord. He seeks the Lord from within
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the experience of absolute crushing weakness.
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He brings his ruined self to the only one who can rebuild him.
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But his suffering creates a massive theological vacuum that
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the text itself cannot fully resolve.
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David says his burden is too heavy for him to carry.
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His iniquities are going over his head like floodwaters.
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He is drowning in objective moral guilt.
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He cannot fix this himself. No amount of groaning, no amount
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of silence, and no amount of hoping can actually pay the debt
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he owes to infinite justice. This demands an answer beyond
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David's own human capacity. You are identifying the built
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intention of the Old Testament. The Psalm does not unfold the
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full doctrine of substitutionary atonement on its own, but it
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creates the burning theological need for it.
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David is crushed under a debt he cannot possibly pay.
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God is infinitely holy and David is thoroughly corrupted.
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How can a holy God simply forgive a guilty man without
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violating his own justice? Which leads us directly to the
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ultimate fulfilment of the text. We have to read the Old
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Testament through the lens of the New Testament.
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How do we read Psalm 38 in light of the cross?
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We must look at Christ as the true David.
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Psalm 38 points the absolute necessity of a sinless.
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Redeemer. While David suffered under the
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heavy hand of God because of his own personal iniquity, Christ
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suffered under the heavy hand of God for iniquity that was not
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his own. Christ took the Avon of his
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people onto Himself. The canonical parallels here are
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staggering when you lay them out side by side.
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You look at Davidde experience and it is a shadow of what
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happens in the Gospels. Think about the isolation we
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discussed earlier. David's friends stood afar off
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from his plague. They abandoned him when the ***
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became visible. When Christ was in the Garden of
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Gethsemane, sweating drops of blood under the crushing weight
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of impending judgement, his disciples fell asleep.
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When the soldiers came, they fled.
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When he hung on the cross, his acquaintances stood at a
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distance. He experienced the ultimate
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social abandonment. Think about the silence.
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David acted like a deaf and mute man before his enemies, offering
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no reproofs and refusing to defend his own reputation.
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Christ was the silent Lamb before his shearers.
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When he was reviled, He did not revile in return.
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He offered no self-defense before Pilate, before Herod, or
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before the Sanhedrin. He entrusted himself entirely to
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the one who judges justly. And think about the wrath.
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This is the most critical parallel.
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David feared God's hot displeasure.
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He begged not to be consumed by the chima, the judicial wrath.
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He pleaded for the discipline of a father rather than the fury of
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a judge. Christ actually drank the cup of
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judicial wrath on the cross. He absorbed the infinite fury of
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the Judge against sin. He took the consuming fire so
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that believers like David and like us only ever face the
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mayored fatherly discipline of a loving God.
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I want to use an analogy to make this crystal clear.
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Think about a massive, terrifying thunderstorm.
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Judicial wrath is the lightning strike.
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It carries enough voltage to incinerate a house and burn it
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to the foundation. Christ on the.
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Cross acts as the ultimate lightning rod.
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He steps outside, absorbs the full catastrophic strike of
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infinite justice into his own body, and grounds it completely.
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Because he absorbed the lightning, the people inside the
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house only feel the static shock of fatherly discipline.
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The static shock hurts. It stings.
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It corrects you, but it does not incinerate you.
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Jesus experienced the ultimate forsaking so that a believer
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like David could pray, do not forsake me, and have the
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absolute certainty of being heard.
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The movement from David to Christ is 1 of escalation and
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total fulfillment. What is fragmentary and
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incomplete in David becomes final and perfect in Christ.
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What is confessed in David is conquered in Christ.
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David's absolute misery exposes the terrifying weight of human
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sin. And Christ's cross reveals how
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that weight is finally borne away.
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This brings the ancient exegesis right into the weekly life of
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the local Protestant church. How does this staggering
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theological reality connect to our corporate worship on a
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Sunday morning? We look to Westminster
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Confession Chapter 21, which governs religious worship.
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We tie this reality specifically to the sacraments.
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The Lord's Supper is the visible word of the Gospel.
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The broken bread and the poured wine represent the true David,
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the one who took the arrows of God in our place.
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When a believer partakes of the elements, they are not
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performing a work to earn favor. They are resting in the physical
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provision made for their unpayable spiritual debt.
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The bread and wine are God's tangible promise that the
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judicial wrath has been fully exhausted.
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It also shifts how we view the law of God.
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If the wrath is exhausted, what do we do with the commandments?
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We apply the third use of the law in reformed theology.
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The first use of the law is to restrain societal evil.
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The second use is to drive us to Christ by exposing our fin,
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which is what we see in the early verses of Psalm 38.
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But the third use of the law is for the believer who is already
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justified. The law acts as a guide for
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grateful obedience. We are not obeying the 10
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commandments to earn our salvation or hold off Pron's
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wrath. We are obeying because we have
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been united to Christ and we want to please our Father.
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Union with Christ is the only actual mechanical power for the
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sanctification that David is modeling in his repentance.
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I want to bring this down to earth for you, the listener.
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This means that your Tuesday morning is not about waking up
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and trying to pay off your spiritual debt through good
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behavior. You can't do it.
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The burden is too heavy, the arrows are lodged too deep.
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Your Tuesday morning is about resting in the finished work of
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the mediator who already took the lightning strike for you.
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The final petition of the Psalm is Make haste.
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That is not the frantic cry of a hopeless, doomed man.
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It is the confident petition. Of a covenant child who knows
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his father is already on the way.
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He asks God to hurry because he knows God is willing to help.
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Let's look back at the immense ground.
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We have covered. Today we started by examining
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the. Heavy hand of divine discipline
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realizing that God's severe mercy is designed to correct his
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children, not destroy them, we looked at the terrifying.
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Holistic ruin of sin, understanding how it rots the
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physical body, strains the nervous system and shatters the
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soul, leaving no part of the human.
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Person untouched by the contagion of moral rebellion we
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saw the brutal sting of. Isolation, how sin mimics the
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realities of hell by cutting us off from our community and
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leaving us vulnerable to the attacks of our enemies.
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We examined David's. Silence his deliberate refusal
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to defend his own reputation before men, choosing instead to
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submit to the absolute justice of God's rebuke.
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We witnessed the grace of. Specific, honest, unflinching
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confession. We saw the moment David stopped.
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Looking inward at his festering wounds, stopped looking outward
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at his circumstances and started looking upward at the character
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of his savior. And finally we saw the.
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Brilliant, undeniable provision of Christ, the true David.
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We saw the mediator. Who stood silent before his
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accusers, was abandoned by his friends, and absorbed the lethal
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arrows of infinite wrath, so that we would only ever receive
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the healing scalpel of a Father's discipline.
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The trajectory of the biblical. Text takes us from the absolute
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depths of personal physiological ruin to the breathtaking heights
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of redemptive assurance. It proves that God does.
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Not abandoned his people in the dirt.
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Which brings us all the way back to.
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Where we started the diagnostic X-ray of the human soul.
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It isn't a clean picture. It is messy, it is agonizing,
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and it requires us to face our own objective moral reality
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without flinching or blaming our circumstances.
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The diagnosis is fatal. But there is a cure.
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The great physician does not leave his patients bleeding on
30:40
the operating table. He finishes the surgery.
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I want to leave you with one final thought.
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To Mull over today, as you go back to your daily life, think
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about David's. Absolute shocking silence before
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his accusers. What if the most intense?
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Painful seasons of divine discipline in your life are not
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designed to teach you what to say.
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What if they are designed to strip?
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Away your desperate need to defend yourself at all.
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What if God is actively? Quieting yourself righteousness,
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dismantling your pride, and shutting your mouth so that for
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the very first time in your life, you can actually hear the
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approaching footsteps of the mediator.
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That is a truth worth dwelling. On Thank you for joining us
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today for this. Deep dive on reformed thinking.
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You will see you next time.