40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Psalm 6 (Episode 386)

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

Chad and Daniel discuss Psalm 6. Have a listen! Show Notes: Support 1517 1517 Podcasts The 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 on Youtube What's New from 1517: 2023 HWSS Conference Livestream Signup Free 2023 Advent Resources 2024(May 3-4) NWA Tickets are Now Available! Join the 1517 Academy All Charges Dropped, Vol. 2 More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to the Psalm Companion to 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. This is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all of the podcasts that are living there, and of course you can check out 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. If for some reason you looked up Psalm 6, found this, just so you know, Chad Bird and myself are going through the entire Old Testament. We're in Job at the time that this is being recorded, but we do a psalm a week as well. We are in Psalm number 6 today, Chad.

This one is to the choir master with the stringed instruments. He's got to have those stringed instruments to play this one out. And this, of course, is a Psalm of David. Yeah, most of the first book of Psalms are labeled Psalm of David, heavily concentrated there. And this is the first of what are traditionally called the seven penitential psalms. So 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143. some of those are not quite uh fitting in that category but psalm 6 is because it really is about confession about the way that sin affects us about repentance about uh praying that god

would be gracious to to the sinner and you get this right away it starts out oh lord rebuke me not in your anger nor discipline me in your wrath so you often get this kind of don't do this but do this petition in the psalms so don't don't rebuke me in your anger don't discipline me in your wrath so i don't want you to do that but be gracious to me oh lord for i'm languishing heal me oh lord for my bones are troubled my soul also is greatly troubled but you oh lord how long so right away we kind of you know you get the picture of uh someone who's it's not just like guilt but it's like affecting his very body because he talks about his bones being troubled and that's that's also that kind of very corporeal language is all over the psalms

where you're you don't the psalmist doesn't say my uh my conscience is plagued by guilt it's more like you know my bones are wasting away my body's rotting my heart is turned to dust you all these kinds of very graphic body images are used to describe what's happening inside the psalmist who is dealing with guilt, with shame, with all these emotions that are connected to sin. Yeah, I think it doesn't take you much effort to sort of take these words and know what he's talking about. There's something about being a sinner, and then, of course, in living in a sinful world, where, you know, Paul will say, you know, this sort of—he has these frustrations in Romans 7, where he's like, I don't understand my own actions. I find that

those words from Paul extremely comforting, just that you know that you're not the only person that sometimes at the end of the day doesn't understand why you did whatever thing you did. Because you look at it and you're like, why would I do that? Paul would say, I don't even want to do that. I don't even like that. In fact, I like this other thing, and I didn't do that thing that I like, and then this thing that I don't like, yeah, that's what I do. There's something obviously wrong with me here um and and you get some of that in this where it's like look my soul i'm troubled my i'm i'm weary uh you feel like you are you are in a fight that you absolutely cannot win right where you're like i'm at i'm at war with myself with my own actions my own desires and

I am languishing here. Like, how long am I going to get up another day to fight this battle and lose? And I do like this part, too, that, you know, David doesn't say, don't rebuke me, don't discipline me, but he does say, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. uh so this would be to say if you're going to rebuke me uh rebuke me in your love right rebuke me as a father yeah yeah and if you're going to discipline me don't do it with wrath so wrath would be like don't have it be retribution right uh but if you're going to discipline me do it because you to teach me do it out of do it out of uh out of regard for me out of love for me. And this is how he can say then, to be—and not only that, though, so like,

I'll take some loving rebuke and some constructive discipline, but then you are appealing for something that you absolutely don't deserve at all, which is, I'm asking you to be gracious to me, because you're acknowledging here that God is a God who could look at your plight, and even though you're a sinner and you're responsible for your sin that god would know that uh this is a um a painful condition that humanity finds itself in it's certainly those who people of faith who like have to contend in this way yeah yeah and then he's he goes on to kind of build on that that whole idea because he says the idea of uh it's like he's picturing god almost as as walking away and he says turn so to come back and deliver my life save me for the sake of your steadfast

love so don't save me because of something in me don't save me because i've repented don't save me for whatever you want to fill in that blank with but save me for one reason and one reason only for the sake of your steadfast love which is of course the only reason that god ever does save yeah don't Don't you love that he doesn't say, I have turned, so deliver my life? Instead he says—you could literally say it this way, you're asking God to repent, right? So you're saying, you turn and deliver my life, save me for the sake of your steadfast love. And this is, I think, an acknowledgment that repentance is not something that you can do. God is the one who does the repenting.

But also, in this way, you're saying you have every reason to walk that direction. Change course and walk back. Don't walk that direction without me. Turn around, come get me, and take me with you. Yeah, God repenting in the sense of turning back. Not leaving us behind, but returning, turning back, and doing what is in conformity with his steadfast love. That is saving, delivering.

because if he doesn't verse five in death there is no remembrance of you in shoal who will give you praise so if you don't do this well i i have no hope yeah i'm gonna end up in the grave end up in shoal shoal's being used here as just kind of the the general place for for the dead so if i'm there i'm not gonna pray i'm not gonna be praising you from the grave so if if you do this if you turn, deliver me for the sake of your love, then I'll live. And not only will I live, but I will praise you because of who you are and what you've done for me. And then he does this shift. So he starts out the first three verses, don't rebuke me in your wrath or discipline me, be gracious to me. I mean, my bones are troubled. And then he turns in verses four and five for this petition

to turn, to deliver, to save. And then he switches back to kind of where he began to describe more of this agony is going through and just, just turmoil of soul. I'm weary of my, with my, with my moaning every night. I flood my bed, my bed with tears. I drenched my couch with my weeping, my eye wasted away because of grief grows weak because of all my foes. I mean, this, you can't give it to more of a kind of a,

an image of a person who's fallen apart. Right. Yeah. He goes to bed, and this is like toss and turn in bed. He's crying his eyes out, just drenching. Of course, this is hyperbole, the idea of just drenching his bed with all these tears he's crying because everything he's going through, but also, as he says, because of all my foes. As if having this sin is not enough, he's also got these people who are opposed to him. So he's got the sins, he's got the foes. So, obviously, that's why he's turning to the Lord, because he's the only one who's going to be able to pull him out of what he's in.

Yeah, and biblically speaking, sin is a foe, right? So we would say that our great enemies are sin, death, and the devil. Sin, of course, is something that we contend with, that is part of us, right? We have this condition, and this condition is, in fact, our enemy. and so foes certainly david has people who are foes but i i think a lot of times in the psalms david also understands that his own sinfulness is his enemy yeah anybody who knows david's life it's like yeah i'm pretty sure david's worst enemy was never goliath or saul yeah or or anybody else it was always david yeah this goes this goes for us as well we any any amount of uh of with any

amount of honesty. You could know this is true about yourself. You're saying, no, who's your worst enemy? Oh, well, this is a thousand percent me. Yeah, without a doubt. No one has sabotaged me like I've sabotaged me. No, nobody else comes close. So, verse 8, 8, 9, and 10. Depart from me, all you evil workers, for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping. the lord has heard my plea the lord accepts my prayer all my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled they they shall turn back there we have that image of turning again they shall turn back and be put to shame in in a moment so it overall that last part is it's kind of the the idea of god is going to demonstrate by his grace toward me that he's on my side

he hears my prayer he accepts my plea and because of that all these enemies are going to be greatly troubled ashamed confounded because it's pretty obvious that the god who saves me because of his loving kindness is for me he's not against me which you know before then people might have been hurling that in his face but it's not true because god has been gracious and merciful to him and heard his prayer yeah and this is a beautiful thing too that you can know i mean you don't have to have some kind of person trying to hunt you down and kill you for this to be applicable to you. Just depart from me, all you workers of evil. I mean, this could just be the devil himself, that the Lord hears the sound of his people weeping, that he hears that plea, that he accepts

their prayers, and whatever that enemy is, that God is on your side, and that the day of them being put to shame, uh, is not far off. Amen. I don't, uh, I think that's, uh, I think that's it. All right. Well, there you go. There is Psalm number six. Chad, uh, I will see you next episode, uh, for, uh, Psalm number seven. All right. See you then.