Sermon
Under the Chastening Hand of the Lord
August 11, 2002
Pastor Donald Sheley

Let's take our Bibles today, and if you'd like to use the pew Bible that's in front of you, we're discussing today Psalm 38. Each Sunday this summer we have selected a new Psalm and next Sunday, the Lord willing, we'll be in Psalm 37. We'll talk about inheritance of the righteous, but today we have a very, very unique Psalm. It's Psalm 38. And I've entitled our message 'Under the Chastening Hand of God'. We're going to learn as we study this text today that David wants to leave for all mankind something to remember. Do you notice at the top of your Psalm where it says 'to bring to remembrance'? Do you see that there? A Psalm of David to bring to remembrance. And what David is saying, I want to say something that I don't want you ever to forget, and thus, I have written this for history and for all to read. There's something I've got to say, listen.

Now there are sermons that I preach where you leave rejoicing, but I forewarn you this is not one of those sermons. This is a warning. David learns some deep and desperate lessons that he wants to pass on to us. So what I have to say today is a warning that comes from the heart of David. Here it is -- if you purposely, intentionally go against the laws of God and the Commandments of God, you violate what you know to be right, and you do it not, you can be sure God's going to take you to the spiritual woodshed. God is a God who chastens, but He does it in love. Now let's read the Psalm together with that in mind.

"0 Lord, do not rebuke me in Your wrath, nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure! For Your arrows pierce me deeply, and Your hand presses me down.
There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your anger, nor any health in my bones because of my sin.
For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. My wounds are foul and festering, because of my foolishness.
I am troubled, I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long. For my loins are full of inflammation, and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am feebly and severely broken; I groan because of the turmoil of my heart.
Lord, all my desire is before You; and my sighing is not hidden from You. My heart pants, my strength fails me; As for the light of my eyes, it also has gone from me.
My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague, and my relatives stand afar off. Those also who seek my life lay snares for me; those who seek my hurt speak of destruction, and plan deception all the day long.
But I, like a deaf man, do not hear; and I am like a mute who does not open his mouth. Thus I am like a man who does not hear, and in whose mouth is no response.
For in You, 0 Lord, I hope; You will hear, 0 Lord my God.
For I said, "Hear me, lest they rejoice over me, lest, when my foot slips, they exalt themselves against me."
For I am ready to fall, and my sorrow is continually before me. For I will declare my iniquity, I will be in anguish over my sin. But my enemies are vigorous, and they are strong; and those who hate me wrongfully have multiplied.
Those also who render evil for good, they are my adversaries, because I follow what is good.
Do not forsake me, 0 Lord; 0 my God, be not far from me!
Make haste to help me, 0 Lord, my salvation."

He's asking God not to chasten him or discipline him. It's interesting that chastening or discipline is a frequent subject in the Scriptures. In Hebrews the writer to the Hebrews picks up the passage, the same thought, he says, "And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it."

In our notes on page 2 Psalm 38 is listed as one of the great penitential Psalms because of its confession of sin. David is identified as the author, but he does not actually name the sin that he's referring to. We know what it is. We've learned of his sin as we study the 51st Psalm. David cries out for forgiveness. David, in his kingship, stayed home from war one day, watched across the rooftops and saw a woman bathing, had her brought him, and he committed adultery with her. Knowing that she was Uriah's wife, who was his very staunch and faithful warrior out on the battlefield, he arranges to have him killed to cover the sin and for the new child that was being born.

So he sinned this dreadful sin of adultery and as a king and as a godly man he knew better, and then he went further, and murdered the husband of the wife that he violated. He knows why God is chastening him. He said it's because of my foolishness and because of my sin.

Sin is the most expensive thing in the world, universe. Nothing else can cost so much. Pardoned or unpardoned, its cost is infinitely great. The existence of sin is a fact everywhere experienced and everywhere observed. Sin is the Trojan Horse; it has sword and famine and pestilence in the belly of it. Sin is a coal, that not only blacks, but burns. Sin creates all our troubles; it puts gravel into our bread, wormwood into our cup. Sin rots the name, consumes the estate, and buries relations.

We have the mournful catalogue of words, based on a great variety of images employed throughout the Scripture, which describes the sinfulness of sin. I've capitalized them for you. Sin is the missing of a mark or an aim. Sin is the transgressing of a line. Sin sometimes is called the disobedience to a voice. Sin is the ignorance of what we ought to have done -- sometimes a defeat or discomfiture, sometimes its debt, sometimes disobedience to law, often referred to as iniquity. But the most frequent description of sin in the New Testament is sin is a transgression of the law.

There is nothing so hard to die as sin. An atom may kill a giant, a word may break the peace of a nation, a spark burn up a city; but it requires earnest and protracted struggles to destroy sin in the soul. There is pleasure in sin-the Bible allows it--but it is as bitter as the disappointment of a broken heart.

From that sad day of David's fall, he never knew comfort. The most hideous abominations were committed in his household, and by his own children. The sword seemed never to depart from his house. A shadow was ever upon it. And many Bible commentators believe that he wrote this just while Absalom is in the process of getting ready to take over his own kingdom. So David, with that in mind, with all of its painful accompaniments, it was distinctly traceable to his terrible discretion. In fact, David was being ever pursued and hunted down.

Sin is a moment of gratification, and unless forgiven by Christ, it's an eternity of remorse. Sin is the greatest of all detectives; be sure it will find you out. Sin has a medium of exchange that trades in sorrows, disillusionment and death. Sin is a clenched fist and its object is the face of God. Sin can keep you from the Bible and the Bible can keep you from sin.

We noted in our Bible that it means to bring to remembrance. You notice his past trials and his deliverance; he wants us to remember to those. The number 2 reason why he titled this as the Psalm to be remembered, he wants to remind us, and may we never forget, the depravity of our human nature.

There is perhaps no Psalm which more fully than this describes human nature as seen in the light which God the Holy Spirit casts upon it in the time when He convicts and convinces us of sin. This Psalm is designed to inculcate the perpetual remembrance of David and his sin, and of the pardon that was granted. I want you to remember that. The warning comes but David wants you to know He does forgive; God does pardon. He is a God of mercy. Why this title is affixed to this Psalm -- a Psalm to remember -- and also Psalm 70, we really don't know other than the fact that the subject is contained. He does not want us ever to forget that God is a God who chastens us for sin.

Now notice that the Psalm describes the condition of one suffering from sickness. And some have supposed that David is merely using figurative language here to talk about calamity, trouble, and sorrow that heavily is pressing upon him. And others have supposed that this really wasn't intended to refer to David, but intended to depict the sorrows of a sinning nation; the nation of Israel. Isaiah used this figurative language when he wrote: "Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; they have not closed or bound up, or soothed with ointment." So old Isaiah describing a nation that is sick with sin describes it as a nation with sores that have never healed.

But when you read all the textbooks and the manuscripts that give exposition to this text, the most natural and obvious interpretation is to regard this Psalm as a literal description of one who was suffering under some form of disease, and David tells you why he's suffering. It's because of his sin.

Now there was a cause. He knows perfectly well that he's reaping what he sowed. It's interesting when you pick up the prayers that are prayed on the Day of Atonement in the synagogue, even to this day, they will select Psalm 38 as a confession of sins for persons as well as for them as a nation. So it's a Psalm still use today for confession of sin.

Let's go to the top page 4. One thing immediately strikes us and that is that the first words of Psalm 6 are almost identical. In each Psalm David's specific prayer is that God will not rebuke him in anger or discipline him in wrath. Does this mean that David does not want to be rebuked or that he is rejecting discipline? Not at all! The emphasis is not upon the discipline but upon the words ANGER and WRATH. What David is asking is that God not discipline him in anger. And the reason he is asking this is that the severity of his illness suggests that is precisely what God is doing!

Verses 2 through 8 describes the psalmist's physical and mental anguish. Physical, because he is suffering. Mental, because he is suffering for sin. Now I make the observation that not all sickness comes from sin, or is a punishment of sin. The fact is that most sicknesses are not. But it is important to say this, because physical suffering often depresses us mentally, and in such depressions we are inclined to see connections between our past sins and our present sickness that do not necessarily exist.

Do you know why that's true folks? Because we hear a lot of preachment today that says sicknesses is due to your sin, and if you're not well it's because you're sinning. That's not the truth. Sicknesses is a part of the human journey and our frailty. So I note here that there are two illustrations. Job was described as a righteous man and yet he suffered. God described him as blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. Job's suffering was a demonstration before Satan that a human being will love God for who God is and not just for what the person can get of Him. Job proved God's point when he said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." So Job's illness was an opportunity for God to prove His point -men love Him simply for who He is.

Then I show another one from John 9. You remember when the disciples of Jesus saw this man who was blind and they say, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" But Jesus replied, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned...but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life." So there are times when God takes sickness and, because of His power and His glory, He brings honor to Himself through our affliction.

But neither of these is an explanation for David's suffering. David's suffering for sin. As long as you and I are sinners, you and I have to recognize that there is that possibility that we, because of our sin, are suffering too. Now I suggest the following questions we ask ourselves when we undergo some great calamity or sickness:
(1) Have I sinned or gotten off the track of obedience to what I know I should be doing, and is this setback God's way of getting me back on track spiritually and into fellowship with Him? Ladies and gentlemen, I've observed that there are sometimes God can only get our attention when we're flat on our backs and there's only one way to look up, but to get our attention He will.

(2) Is God using this to trim off some rough edges of my personality and develop a more Christ-like character in me? What I'm suggesting is when we're going through sickness let's make it something that becomes beneficial. God are You trying to say something to me? If You are, I'm ready to listen.

(3) Is God using my suffering as a stage upon which His name and wisdom may be glorified. Is it a place for me to show that I love Him for who He is, entirely apart from whatever material or physical benefits He may have given me? Now let's make an observation: This last question brings us to one of the hardest of God's purposes for us to see and accept. That's why Job is such an outstanding Old Testament example in suffering. Still, there should be an element of this in anything we suffer, simply because we are told to glorify God in everything we do, suffering included. This is the theme of Psalm 38 -- for although David confesses that he is being judged for his sin, God has made this clear to him, he is nevertheless glorifying God in the way he deals with it. Primarily, he is not faulting God, but instead he's praising God as the source of mercy and salvation.

Now I put that in there for this reason; I think the most frequent thing I hear when somebody's going through a calamity or sickness: Why would God allow this to happen to me? We start faulting God. We lay the blame on Him. And I'm making this observation, David is not going to fault God. He knows he's at fault and God becomes the object, the source of His mercy and His salvation. God I need Your help. I'm the one that's in error. I need Your help and I need Your salvation.

All the time I'm studying this in preparation to me with you folks today I'm asking the question, What was the nature of David's illness? Now if he's using figurative language, I'll accept that, but sometimes, and many times, mental or spiritual anguish is more painful than physical anguish. So whether it's physical or whether it's mental, he's going through a very deep and dark struggle.

But I'm going to suggest something -- as you know in preparation for our lesson today I have a series of 30, 40, or 50 commentaries. I read through all of them for anything that relates to this verse. And I came up with something that caused me to bow my head and start weeping. I have never noticed this in 50 years of studying the Scriptures. I've read this and I knew it depicted an illness, but I couldn't come to the conclusion that this possibly was it.

Back to our notes. What kind of disease was it in Israel which set a man apart from his family? David said they've all left me. I'm alone. They've deserted me. What fearful affliction caused the Jews to flee from anyone tainted with it? What was looked upon as the very stroke of God? Surely it was leprosy. David's had become a leper, or so it seems. Now when I came across that -- God, in Your chastising of David did You strike him with leprosy?

You'll notice the word that he uses for sore is the word specifically used in the Old Testament for the plague of leprosy. No wonder even his family fled from him. Had it been anyone but David, anyone but the king, he would have been driven outside the camp, forced to cover his lip, forced to cry unceasingly, "Unclean! Unclean!" David's sorrows were spiritual--the leper could have no place in the sanctuary. David's sorrows were social--nobody wanted to come near him. Now I'm not dogmatic on this, but I'm suggesting that every time I've read it, and I've wondered, God, was Your discipline so severe for his deliberate sin that he died a leper?

Now we live in America and we don't understand the loathsomeness of the disease of leprosy. But folks, I tell you it is tragic. Some years ago I was ministering in Calcutta India, and the thing that disturbed me the deepest, in fact, it took me 3 days I got so sick to my stomach they had to put me to bed. I just could not handle the shock of seeing lepers on the street. Leprosy is a tragic disease. It starts with just maybe a little pinpoint of redness or scaliness or maybe an indentation or a piece of the skin coming up. It starts very small then it begins to spread. It takes sometimes 20, 30, or 40 years to die from leprosy.

It begins to infiltrate the system. The blood turns putrid. The head begins to show pain. Then what happens in leprosy the body...the fingers began to fall off and the hands become stubs, then the nose falls off, and then the ears fall off. Is a tragic sight. I still remember that mother standing on the street corner with her little baby -- no nose, no ears, the hands were stumps; leprosy.

Now I went back and found out some interesting things about leprosy and I've added them to my notes here. Leprosy, though under the law, carried with it a most melancholy condemnation. A Jewish leper was not only horribly diseased, but he was fearfully cursed. He was pronounced unclean by the law and by the priest. That alone cut him off from the sanctuary. Once you had leprosy you never could go to church again. And it cut him off from all of his communications. If you had a home you couldn't go home.

Here's what the Bible says: And the leper in whom the plague [is], his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean.

Remember in Ben Hur, when Ben Hur went into the caves to get his mom? Remember when she came out she had her face covered with a cloth? That was demanded by the Levitical law. All the days wherein the plague [shall be] in him he shall be defiled; he [is] unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp [shall] his habitation [be]. Had he a home, he must leave it. Had he friends, he must be separated from them. Had he a wife, and his children, they were to consider him as dead. His joys all turned to mourning. His covering of honor is stripped off to give place to desolation. He was like one cut off from the assembly of living men. He was lingering always at the gates of death. Leprosy.

When I read that, then I went back to the Psalms again and I can understand now why some Bible commentators say there is the possibility he's describing leprosy. Look with me again: Verse 3, there's no soundness in my flesh nor is there any health in my bones. My wounds are foul and festering. You can smell the dying skin of a leper. My wounds are foul and festering. I am troubled. I go mourning all day long. My loins are full of inflammation, and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am feebly and severely broken.

Verse 11, My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague, and my relatives stand afar off. When I started reading that I began to weep in my office. I said, God, I know You chastise us, but did You get that severe with David that he died a leper? The great king, the man who was so richly blessed, the man that Nathan said David if you had wanted this, God would have given you everything you wanted. Why did you violate? Why did you turn against God's commandments?

When David started to sin he never realized how severe God's spankings can be, and neither do we. Maybe it just could be why the historians are so silent talking about the death of David. But David is not silent. There's no soundness in my flesh. My wounds are a stench, and my family cannot come near. Now whether that's literal or psychological David is suffering deeply.

Now remember, he said I'm going to write you this Psalm. I want you to know, I don't want you ever to forget this, God does discipline as a righteous father disciplines his own children, so our righteous heavenly Father disciplines us. If there is somebody here today as a young person and you're planning to violate God's laws, you know what is right and yet you are going to do it anyway, I guarantee you He's going to give you a spiritual spanking that you'll never forget.

I was confronted this week with a situation where here's a believing girl and a non-believing boy. The girl has been a Christian. She knows that the Bible says. The Bible says be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. She knows that. But she's taken the position, whether it says that or not, I'm going to do what I want. I'm going to marry this guy. And my reply is: God's going to take you to the spiritual woodshed, and when He finishes with you, the chastising is going to be extremely severe.

I have been preaching for 50 plus years, ladies and gentlemen, and I have never seen when there has been a direct violation of God's word, and we know it as believers, and yet we do it anyway, God does punish us for it. Now this may not be the message you want to hear, and I know it's not a consumer sensitive message, nor seeker sensitive. But I'm telling you as a man of God this is a spiritual truth. David said don't forget it! You sin against God and He'll punish you for it! And it's true. He does forgive, but He is a God that loves us so much that He uses chastisement so that we can become partakers of His holiness so that He can bring us back into the pathways of righteousness.

David said, my friends have all deserted me. My family's gone. I'm under the chastening hand of God. God, please forgive me. Please help me God. You are my salvation. And God does forgive. But here's the truth of this Psalm. It's solemn. God loves us so much that He's not going to let you keep on sinning till He brings you under His chastening rod. You cannot go against God's word and not pay a price for it. Just ask David. And he left that history.

If all the rest of the historians are quiet and wouldn't tell us, David said, I'll tell you why; I sinned, and I'm festering inside and out, and I'm lonely, and I feel like a lost man. I can't even talk. I don't want to talk. And I'm thinking sitting in my office, just think of David in all the finery of his palace, gorgeously arrayed, silently and somberly with a cloth across his lips, forgotten, and died. He said it was all because of my foolishness.

Father, Your word is very clear. And I'm aware that this is not a happy message because none of us like the subject of discipline. We didn't like it when we were young; we don't like it now. Yet Your word is very clear You discipline us because You want us to be partakers of Your holiness. And You want us to enjoy the fruits of righteousness. We turn to You today. If there is sin in our lives we ask You to forgive us dear Jesus. We want to turn from our sin. I pray that You'll help us all to flee from temptation, to flee from disobedience, to lovingly reach out and want to serve You with all of our heart and our soul and our being. Please help us today, dear Jesus, I pray, amen. God bless you folks. God bless you.