Psalms 38

Psalms 38:1-22

The trial of the righteous which is the result of sin in them. A psalm of David, to bring to remembrance. The two psalms that close the series here take up the question of the holiness of God in connection with the sufferings of the righteous, which confessedly are many, and which, at the time which is continually before us, will be of such exceptional severity. Still they are both of the most general character, containing no special references to that time which would narrow their application in any way. The present one speaks of sin in the believer as that which necessarily entails suffering for him; the judgment of this being now, that in the day of judgment he may escape it (1 Corinthians 11:32). The New Testament shows us this as the Father’s judgment, the chastening of His own children that they may be partakers of His holiness (Hebrews 12:10). Not that this is the whole account, however, as the former passage shows; for God must needs maintain His character as the Governor of His creatures before all. So the apostle Peter warns us that “the time is come when judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely” -or “with difficulty” -“be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” (1 Peter 4:17-18.)

1. The first section shows us therefore the soul under conviction, and in dread of the divine anger. We must not expect, notwithstanding the grace realized in the thirty-second psalm, that there will be here the clearness of knowledge which the New Testament has brought to us. Sin is felt and owned, and God’s anger is dreaded. Nay, already His arrows stick fast in the sufferer, and the mighty hand of God presses down upon him. He feels it in his whole condition, taking soundness from his flesh, and health from his bones. His sin is the burden upon him, a burden he has not strength to carry.
2. We have next the humiliation and misery of it. The wounds become open sores, which stink and are corrupt. But this corruption has its root in “folly,” the opposition spiritually to divine wisdom. He is bent and bowed down under the pressure: mourning all the day long. Again, he cries out of the disease that fills him, no soundness anywhere at all; and again he complains of his feebleness, with an anguish that continually increases.
3. But in the very One who smites faith finds its refuge. He, the Omniscient, is not regardless of his desire, nor ignorant of his misery. To Him he turns when he is, as it were, forsaken of himself, and when his intimates avoid him as under the stroke of God; only his enemies remain, busy with plots against his life. With all this he is like a man deaf and dumb his mouth stopped, as one before God (Psalms 39:9). Self-restrained, he has no reproofs, though their wickedness is transparent. But he has left all to God, in whom he anchors himself and is at rest. God shall answer for him.
4. But to Him he can speak therefore, and put it all before Him: and accordingly we find now the trial so put, but more the external part of it, the worst having found relief. First, the attitude of the enemies, ready to use every slip of his to exalt themselves by it. Himself too, so conscious of his readiness to halt, humbled and discouraged by his failure, the reality of his sin which he could not hide, and at which his soul trembled. And that which had abased and cast him down had strengthened and multiplied too his enemies, who persecuted him in fact, not for the failure which he confessed, but for the good which, spite of the failure, he had really followed. Common enough, we all know, is such conduct on the part of those who would fain hide under a cloak of righteousness what is mere hatred of righteousness itself!

But how bitter then to the soul those sins of the righteous which give them their desired opportunity! But they use these to their own ruin, while God uses them to the humbling of His people, that He may come in for them. 5. So the psalmist turns to Him once more. The unerring government of God will make no mistake. He knows, after all, those who own Him God, their God; who cling in the consciousness of weakness and worthlessness to Him as Saviour. Their sins cannot make their need of Him less as that, nor change the Unchangeable, who, undeceived from the beginning, and for no good in them, has taken such place of relationship toward them. So the cry that ends the psalm has in it these tokens -so simple as they are -of answer and acceptance, Jehovah my God", “Lord, my salvation”! He who can cry from the heart thus will certainly find God no less than his faith accounts Him.