Psalms No.6 The Wisdom of a Worried Man

O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure, for thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore. There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin. For mine iniquities are gone over mine head as an heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.

My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness, I am troubled. I am bowed down greatly, I go mourning all the day long. For my loins are filled with a loathsome disease, and there is no soundness in my flesh.

I am feeble and sore broken, I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart. Lord, all my desire is before thee, and my groaning is not hid from thee. My heart panteth, my strength faileth me, as for the light of mine eyes, it also is gone from me.

My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore, and my kinsmen stand afar off. They also that seek after my life lay snares for me, and they that seek my hurt speak mischievous things and imagine deceits all the day long. But I as a deaf man heard not, and I was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth.

Thus I was as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs. For in thee, O Lord, do I hope thou wilt hear, O Lord my God. For I said, Hear me, lest otherwise they should rejoice over me when my foot slippeth.

They magnify themselves against me, for I am ready to halt, and my sorrow is continually before me, for I will declare mine iniquity, I will be sorry for my sin. But mine enemies are lively, and they are strong, and they that hate me wrongfully are multiplied. They also that render evil for good are mine adversaries, because I follow the thing that good is.

Forsake me not, O Lord, O my God, be not far from me. Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation. Amen.

I want to read to you two verses again from Psalm 38, and if you have a Bible with you I think you'll find it helpful if you have it open. And after reading these two verses, we'll just have a sentence prayer together. Verses 17 and 18 of the 38th Psalm.

For I am ready to halt, and my sorrow is continually before me, for I will declare mine iniquity, I will be sorry for my sin. Our Father, we pray Thee that Thou wilt take these next moments and intensify Thy presence amongst us, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, may the words that we have read be of instruction to our own lives. For the sake of the Saviour, Amen.

Amen. When I was a younger man, the music that was in vogue, and I'm going back a modest ten years, was known as skiffle music. It varied from the sort of stuff that they croon into microphones these days, inasmuch as the instruments were much less sophisticated.

Where a double bass couldn't be found, a broomstick would be used, and a couple of strings from the top to the bottom would provide the means for producing sound. And one of the men who came to be rather prominent as a vocalist in skiffle music was a man by the name of Lonnie Donegan. You may have heard of him, some of you young people may not.

And he used to write songs on the most absurd subjects, and sometimes he would write something that was really worth reflecting upon. As to the former, one of his hits was, Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight? As to the latter, his most profound song, I think, or one of them, spoke about anxiety, spoke about neurosis. And he strummed along with the words, It takes a worried man to sing a worried song.

It takes a worried man to sing a worried song. It takes a worried man to sing a worried song. I'm worried now, but I won't be worried long.

And it seems to me that the thoughts behind that particular song sum up the feelings and the disposition of the person who wrote the 38th Psalm. He was a worried man. That's patently obvious if you just read through the verses very quickly.

We find in the 8th verse, for example, that he speaks about being feeble, extremely weak, and he talks about being broken, and I would imagine that refers to his mental condition. In the 10th verse he tells us that the light of his eyes have gone out, and that surely he speaks of any ambition that he might have entertained. Here is a person who's fraught with anxiety.

He's the epitome of someone with a neurotic condition, a worried man. And it's good for us to look into this psalm this evening because, you see, as Donegan said in his particular song, though this man is worried, by the time he gets to the end of the psalm, it seems as though he's found some relief. He's not completely rid of his worry and his anxiety, but he's much improved from the condition in which you find him at the commencement of the psalm.

And because this man has honestly set down his experience, I put it to you that it's good for you and for me to look at these verses and to see what we can learn. Because alas, worry is not something that was restricted to the Hebrew community three or four centuries before the birth of our Lord Jesus. Indeed, it seems that large slices of society today are infected with this mental malaise, this condition of anxiety with great problems and great difficulties.

And one of the extraordinary things, if I'm any commentator on the 20th century, is the fact that this condition of worry and anxiety affects young people so much. If again my pastoral experience here is anything to go by, then it seems that young people find the tensions of life as heavy and as difficult as those of older years. Now you to some extent expect older people to have difficulties and problems.

After all, the family man has to attend to his job and the responsibilities at home. He's concerned about young Johnny's schooling, he's concerned about the well-being of his wife and so on. You would anticipate that such a man might have worries, might have problems.

But when it's a question of a 13-year-old or a 14-year-old or a 15-year-old being worried, then it seems as though we live in some very, very difficult, some very trying days. Remember the illustration, and it's a tragic one to have to quote from the pulpit, of that little lass in Southampton, who was so worried about her schooling, so worried about the vindictiveness of her friends, that she took the only way out that suggested itself to her. She committed suicide.

And so I say to you that whether you're young or whether you're old, it's necessary in the society in which we live, with all its pressures, with all its tensions, with all its speed, to look into the experience of a man who honestly tells us that he was worried, that he was fraught, that he was distressed, but also concedes a way out, shows that there is a possibility of improving his situation and therefore our situation. A man who has found a remedy for his problems, not in a bottle, but in a belief. One who has discovered that his problem was not really psychological, but theological.

Well, I say to you that I want you to think through the circumstances of this man with me, and particularly to concentrate our attention on the 17th and the 18th verses. Look at them for a moment, for it seems here, in these verses that I've quoted, is the distillation, is the summary of all that the man ever learned. And this is why I have put as the address of my sermon, the wisdom of a worried man.

For here, if you like, is the essence of his wisdom. Here is a praise of it. And there are three words that I would bring to your attention and put alongside, so to speak, my scriptures, and they will do us as pegs on which to hang the various aspects of our study.

And the first word that I suggest to you is important to bear in mind, is the word stop. Stop. Look at verse 17, the first part.

I am ready to halt. The next word is think. Think.

My sorrow is continually before me. And the last word is act. Look at verse 18.

I will declare mine iniquity. I will be sorry for my sin. Stop.

Think. Act. I am prepared to argue that this is the essence of the wisdom of the advice that the man who writes the 38th Psalm leaves for you and for me to profit by this evening.

So come along with me and let's look at these verses, approaching them from this particular point of view. The first thing that I suggested was the word stop. And we read in the 17th verse, I am ready to halt.

Now, this can be translated, and if some of you have modern versions of the Bible, you may find this particular setting forth of the translation. I am ready to fall. But it doesn't really matter whether you take that translation or that of the authorized version.

They amount to the same thing. Here is a man who's having to come to a full stop. He's having to pause.

He recognizes that the conditions which he is immersed in are such that before long he will stumble in a fatal fashion. This man is not like the Gadarean swine who you remember rushed headlong unthinkingly down the precipice to destruction. No he's not a brute beast, he's got intelligence.

He's got a brain and he's thinking. He's thinking hard and before he can really think he has to give himself the opportunity so to do. So he stops.

He recognizes that he's falling. He's in a desperate condition, but as he pauses for a moment, he can reflect upon certain things that are necessary for him to think through. And how much we need to copy him in our lives.

Oh to stop for a moment. Oh to slow down the speed of modern living. I have a theory that modern society is hurt in a way that is beyond repair by the speed at which we live our lives.

The whole business of speed in the 20th century I think is completely disadvantageous. The courtesies of life are passed over as we attempt to keep up with the crowd. We're growing up, some of us, to be strangers in our own family circles.

We don't just live at home, we lodge there. And the time when we rub shoulders with our parents or parents with our children is very very small indeed. The occasions are very few.

And thus there's no opportunity for the pooling of opinion, for the getting to know of one another. And I reflect upon times in my experience as a, in the world of education. When parents came to me and they said, you know something, I don't even know my boy.

I don't even know him. He comes into our home and and he's just like a stranger. And perhaps it's not just the boy that was at fault.

Because meals tend to be held these days at different times and with the desecration of the Sabbath even the traditional English family dinner seems to be going by the by. And when we are together for a few hours then big brother television reigns supreme and there's no opportunity there for fellowship, for family intercourse. So I put it to you, just on a social plane if you like, that the advice of this man is absolutely necessary.

Let's stop in our rush in modern living and think through one or two things. Jesus recognized this tendency to thoughtlessly rush through life, did he not? You remember his comment on how on one occasion he'd been watching the Palestinians in his day, the ordinary Jewish people moving to and fro. Perhaps it was in the temple area, maybe it was in a local marketplace.

And he says they're scurrying here and there, that in such a rush they never stop, they never pause. And Jesus was concerned about this, concerned about the society that lived in Jerusalem, the whole township of people there who were moving further and further to political and military disaster and yet they had no time to pause a moment and to listen to what he had to say, to reflect upon what he put before them. You know I like the testimony of the Apostle Paul and how he was stopped on his tracks one day.

You remember the story how he was moving from Jerusalem to Damascus and one can imagine him traveling by horse at quite a speed and suddenly he's stopped in his tracks. The Lord appears to him, a blinding flashing light apprehends him and Paul has to slow down, he has to come to a standstill. You know it would make an interesting study in Scripture to go right through the history that it records and list all the people whom God criticized for speeding.

There were the Hebrews in the wilderness for a start, there was Saul you remember who was most concerned because Samuel wasn't promptly available to offer a sacrifice so the king anticipated the priestly office of Samuel and he who was apprehended and rightly so by the prophet in the name of God, slow down Saul, wait a minute, pause, halt, it's necessary. And what about Elijah, kept at Zarephath and at Cherith for three long years when naturally speaking he'd love to have been back in Palestine launching a reformation and a revival movement but it wasn't God's time, the prophet had to stop, he had to halt and reflect upon what God would teach him. Peter he's a man who was a very speedy individual and again oftentimes the Lord has to restrain this man and curb his impetuous nature.

What about James and John, oh how quickly they want the Lord to bring down judgment upon the Samaritans because they will not respond to the good news of the gospel and again the Lord has to put the brake on them and say no, it's not like this, you wait a moment, don't you anticipate God's timetable of events, stop, says the Lord Jesus and maybe that's the advice of God, indeed the command of the Lord to some of us here tonight, are you ready to stop in your tracks, you know that you're heading for disaster, you know you're stumbling in life. So the Psalmist who was in a similar situation, whose worry, whose nervous condition was caused by his ceaseless round of activity is by force of circumstances compelled to halt, the reins are pulled in and he's brought to a standstill. But then let me show you my next word and how I would develop it from my scripture here, that you remember was think.

Now come to the latter part of verse 17, my sorrow is continually before me. Now notice from the 18th verse that the word sorrow is in juxtaposition with the word sin, that simply means that it equals sin, in this context when he's referring to sorrow he's referring to his own sinfulness, and at this moment as he's being called to a halt by God he's reflecting upon his sinfulness, he's thinking about his own condition, he is honestly analysing himself, he's being introspective, there are some who say it's wrong to be introspective, I say it's right because it's biblical to be introspective, let a man examine himself, let him pull in the reins now and again and think about his life, and this is what the worried man in Psalm 38 does, he meditates upon what he was, and then he thinks about why he was what he was, if you can sort that out, and then he considers what he would like to be ideally, what he was, well he was pretty badly off wasn't he by any account, he was at rock bottom, look he'd lost his physical health, verse 6 suggests that he was walking with a stoop, verse 8 tells us something about his mental condition, let me give you another translation, I am benumbed and utterly crushed, I roar because of the lack of peace I tolerate, and verse 11 tells us that his physical condition was an embarrassment to his friends, or maybe it was his mental condition that caused them to leave his company, they didn't want to associate with him anymore, well that's what he was, physically, mentally, socially, at rock bottom, what a state to be in, and yet you know, I am not straining scripture at all, I trust I would never be guilty of doing that, when I say that here in Worthing, I have met not just one or two people, but several people like that, perhaps not with the physical condition, but certainly with the psychological condition, certainly with the social condition, they feel absolutely bankrupt in life, there is nothing worth living for at all, and some of them are not old people, they're young people, well if there is some here who would identify themselves with the experience of the psalmist, let me go a little further, and having shown you what he was like, and by implication suggested what you may be like, let us examine why he was what he was. You see, there was a reason for it, it's implied in the second verse, he says of God, thine arrows, this is graphic language isn't it, thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presses me sore, he says Lord I recognize that the reason I'm in this condition is because you have acted against me, now that's a terrible charge to make up against God, it's a serious allegation, but nonetheless scripture seems to indicate that the indictment he levels at the Lord is an honest appraisal, it is a just one, this is indeed what God has done, arrows are sticking fast in his throat, the Lord's hand is pressing against him, this is metaphorical language to convey the fact that God is disciplining him, God is bringing him into this condition, and you know there are many people who thank God for his chastening, for his disciplining, someone has said that God has to bring us low before he can take us high, God has to bring us to an end of ourself before we can come to a beginning with him, now this is the experience of the psalmist here, and I tell you that countless thousands of people throughout the whole history of Christendom would agree with what he says, that in the love of God he has disciplined them like a loving father, not because he was aggressive towards them, not because he was a vindictive God, but rather because he was concerned about their ultimate end, their ultimate salvation.

I love to quote to you the testimony of John Newton, do you remember how Newton was brought down to the level of a beast, yet he was brought that low that God might take him high, I'll give you an Old Testament example, think of Nebuchadnezzar, he literally behaved as a beast, why was he so ashamed of himself, why was he so degraded, because he got wrong ideas about God, wrong ideas about his own importance, and God had to crush the man before he could really understand the way that God would have him live. So I put it to you from Scripture, the Old Testament and I could endorse it with the teaching of the New Testament, that sometimes God chastens us in such a fashion that physically at times, psychologically certainly, and sometimes socially, he brings us to the end of ourselves, so that we cry out for him. But there's another interesting point that I deduce from this psalm, not only does the man consider what he is and he was what he is, but he also reflects upon what he wanted to be, what he wanted to be.

Let me digress for a moment, I'm not exactly a disciple of the psychologist Freud by any means, I reject a great deal of Freudian psychology, but I'm very interested to think about the way Freud divided up human personality. He said that within every human being there were sort of three compartments in his physical, in his mental rather, makeup, and he described one compartment, in fact he put a strange word to it, a foreign term, he described it as the id. And according to Freud, the id was that aggressive part in man, that tendency for man to become a beast, to do things that he knows are wrong, the things that would degrade him, all these instincts, all these urges, Freud refers to as the id.

Then on the other end of the plane, according to Freudian psychology, you have another compartment in man's makeup which he calls the superego, and this has got nothing to do with big-headedness at all, this is man as he ideally ought to be. Here is man as he feels he would like to show himself to the rest of society, a moral man, a happy man, a man who is well geared to the times, who is easy to get on with, a man who one could look up to. So you have these two extremes of the id and the superego, and says Freud, what really the rest of us see about every person is not the id or the superego but a sort of reaction of the two, and that produces what he calls the personality.

In other words, it's neither the worst nor is it the best, it's somewhere in the middle. But the reason why I engage in that excursion is this, that even Freud admits, and it seems to me the psalmist also agrees, that man has some inkling of the type of life that he ought to be living. He's got some notion, some ideal notion of the fashion of living that he should cultivate.

Now you see this here I think in the psalm, in the ninth verse, what does he say? Lord all my desire is before thee. This is really how I would like to live. I would like to bring into realization your will in my life.

I would like to do the things that you would have me to do. Look at the the fifteenth verse, the same point I think is underlined. For in thee Lord do I hope.

Really when I'm honest with myself, when I get away from my depression, when I get away from my sinful tendencies, I recognize this, that if I have the ability to do so, then I would live a life that is compleasing to thee. I would live a life that is holy, a life that is moral, a life that is consistent. Now all this I put to you, the psalmist thinks over, considers himself what he was, why he became what he was, and what on the other hand he would like to be.

Well where do we go from here? Let me put it to you, that if you accept his wisdom thus far, if you're prepared to stop and create a situation in which you can reflect upon your life, if you're prepared to think and to assess yourself, to weigh yourself in the eternal balances as this man tried to do, then the only logical thing that follows is you take the last piece of his advice and you apply it to yourself. Stop, think, act. Look at verse 18, I will declare mine iniquity, I will be sorry for my sin.

There are two things here that are both vital to salvation. The first is confession, that's what verse 18 means. Those of you who have the RSV, I think it's translated in that sense.

I will confess mine iniquity, and the next thing is surely contrition. I will be sorry for my sin. Let's look at confession for a moment.

In the Roman Catholic Church you will find at least one, and in some cathedrals half a dozen or a dozen, little confessional boxes, they're like kiosks. And those who subscribe to Roman Catholic theology, which you've probably gathered I do not, would go into these kiosks, and there they would have an interview with a priest who would speak to them through a little aperture in the confessional. And on interrogation they would relate their sins to him, and after a while he would pronounce absolution.

Now I repudiate any idea of confessing your sins to men and to any other man, but nonetheless I use that illustration because it seems to me that it will be helpful in showing you the teaching of the New Testament regarding what you're to do with sin. If your problem is theological and not psychological, as was the problem of this worried man, if you realize that the circumstances that obtain in your life have been brought about by God to bring you to a situation where you will recognize your own sin, then there is a priest to whom you have to go. Not a priest who is alive today in the sense that you can see him literally, but our great high priest who is indeed living in the heavens, who the Bible says ever liveth to make intercession on our behalf.

Confession for the Christian is going to the Lord Jesus Christ and recognizing him to be the mediator between man and God, and appreciating that his work on Calvary's cross was executed so that you and I might know forgiveness for our sins may have absolution pronounced. Yes there is a confessional, but it's not within the sanctity or the security of a church. The confessional was built by God on the summit of a skull-shaped hill, and there his own dearly beloved Son gave his life for you and for me to obliterate our sinfulness when we confess him as our Savior.

To make us right with God, to link us up again with the one who created us, and it is necessary if you will know release from your worries, from your tension, from the predicament into which I suggest God may well have brought you. It is necessary for you to declare your iniquity. It is necessary for you to confess your sin.

But confession of sin is not a mere rehearsing of past misdemeanors, of past folly. It includes that, but it goes beyond that. There must be a conviction in your own heart that the things that you did were foul and ugly.

You see, when the Bible says if any man shall confess Jesus Christ as Lord, then that man is saved. It doesn't just mean an academic confession. That would make nonsense of the Word of God.

There are many people who might call Jesus Christ Lord, but you see, when you really do it in the biblical sense, you're recognizing that God has made this Jesus both Lord and Christ. He has made him to be Lord and Christ as an acknowledgment of the work that he achieved on Calvary's cross, and any man who comes to the Savior and pleads for forgiveness of their sins must recognize the ugliness, the foulness of sin. It's not just a nod of the head to God that makes you a Christian.

It's not just some decision taken in an emotional atmosphere. This is necessary a decision, of course. It is necessary to look to God for your salvation, but it is equally necessary to be contrite, to hate your sin.

This is what the Apostle Paul was referring to when he spoke about the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and here is the psalmist, this worried man. Why is he worried? Well, I've told you, he's worried because his circumstances are terrible. They're unbearable and strange, though it seems, and some would find the very idea repugnant.

Nonetheless, the psalmist declares his situation was brought about by God, and it was brought about to bring him into that position where he realized the awfulness of his sin, and in contrition and confession, he was able to find deliverance from the, from the pressures that beset him. He was able to find relief, and I put it to you, that if you agree with, with the, the statement that I made earlier on, if you're young or old, it doesn't matter, that there are many today who are worried people, and their worries and their tensions are caused not because of any psychological difficulty, but primarily because of a theological one. If you recognize this, if you realize that the man in the psalm here is an example of yourself, he epitomizes your condition in your life, then take the last verses of the psalm and make them your own, and pray to God because of Jesus Christ and his love illustrated on Calvary's cross for you.

Pray to God in these words. Forsake me not, O Lord. O my God, be not far from me.

Make haste to help me. O Lord, my salvation. And I tell you in the name of God, and on the authority of this book, that he will do just that.

Well, may our meditation on the wisdom of a worried man be constantly a source of help and encouragement to you. Amen. Our Father, we thank thee for the moments that we've spent in thy presence and in the company of thy people.

For us, it has been a precious hour. We ask that something of thy word may continue to be of value to us during this coming week. We recognize that the society in which we live brings with it many pressures.

Help us, O Lord, to apply thy word to our situation and find benefit from it. May there be something of the peacefulness and the tranquility and serenity of soul in our personalities that was exemplified in that of our Lord Jesus. And we ask that thy word shall continue to challenge those who have not fully committed themselves to thy Son and to his glorious gospel.

And now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, the friendship and fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be our experience now, and until that great and glorious day when our Savior shall return. Amen.