The text of Psalm chapter 6, as we work through the Psalms, we learn to pray. That's one thing that I've learned as we study and prepare for these morning sermons on the Psalms, is that God wants us to know how to pray in every situation. Remember Psalm 3? He said, O Lord, how many are my foes, was the first line. In Psalm 4, David said, answer me when I call. In other words, don't forget me. Psalm 5, he says, give ear to my words, O Lord, and consider my groaning. And now in Psalm 6, he says, O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger. Don't rebuke me in your anger. So this morning we're going to read Psalm 6 and talk about the things that we learn about prayer and about God's attitude toward us. Please stand for the reading of God's Holy Word. O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing. Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. My soul is also greatly troubled. But you, O Lord, how long? Turn, O Lord, deliver my life. Save me for the sake of your steadfast love. For in death there is no remembrance of you, and she, O who, will give you praise? I am weary with my moaning. Every night I flood my bed with tears. I drench my couch with weeping. My eye wastes away because of my grief. It grows weak because of all my foes. Depart from me, all you workers of evil. 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 shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment. Please be seated and join me in prayer as we ask God for wisdom this morning. Our Father, the giver of all wisdom, We pray that You would enliven this Word to our hearts, that You would open our eyes and unstop our ears, soften our hearts, that we may receive and be trained by Your Word. Lord, encourage us as we learn to pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Suffering in body and in soul. That's the title. Suffering in body and soul. Four points. First, we'll see that God disciplines His sons. Secondly, we'll see God's discipline in body, then God's discipline in soul. Thirdly, and finally, we'll see the basis of the prayer, which is God's promise. God's sons, disciplined body and soul, and then God's promise. The first verse says, O Lord, rebuke me not in Your anger, or discipline me in Your wrath. David's crying out to God in the midst of his terrible hardship, whatever that thing is, and it could be anything. It could be a combination of things. We know that he says his body hurts. We know that he says his soul is tired. And he's got enemies pursuing him. It's probably all three. We don't have a specific incident to tie this psalm to, but we know he suffered and suffered often. And he's appealing to God now, he's saying, treat me like a son. Don't treat me like someone under your wrath. Treat me like a son. Don't rebuke me in anger. Treat me like a son. In other words, just as I am a father and I discipline my children, hopefully never in anger or in wrath, but for their good, treat me that way. We read in Hebrews 12, My son, don't regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or be weary when reproved by Him, rebuked by Him, for the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives." It's for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. This is part of David's understanding as well. I'm your son. Make sure this hardship is the discipline of a father to a son. It's interesting that in Proverbs chapter 3, Proverbs written by David's son Solomon, and David wasn't the best father, we know that, but Solomon was able to learn from his father a little bit. Listen to what he says in Proverbs 3. Solomon writes, My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves. as a father, the son in whom he delights." It seems that David learned this and taught his son Solomon this very same truth. He's saying, don't rebuke me in wrath, but discipline me as a son. So I'm going to kind of walk through the theological understanding of God's discipline, and then I'm going to apply that theological understanding to the person of God. So this may seem like it's antiseptic and I don't want it to be that way. It's just the truth you need to know, especially now when you're not sick, you're not troubled in your soul. If you're like that, you need to learn this now so that when those days come, you have the truth already in your heart. So there are different aspects to God's loving discipline. There's the kind of discipline that is meant to bring sanctification from sin, hardship, That is God's response to sin and He wants you to leave that sin. This is seen in David and Bathsheba when he murdered Bathsheba's husband. He took Bathsheba and committed adultery with her. They had a baby and God took that son. That was a difficult discipline. That was God sanctifying David from sin through hardship. But there's another kind of discipline as well, and it's more just instructive for holiness. This is like a new recruit going to basic training and learning how to march in step. There's a drill sergeant kind of screaming at you if you get out of step. Teaching you how to walk correctly. Not because he's angry. That's his job. To teach you how to walk correctly. How to stay in step. How to march well. It's not punishment. More like God is teaching us through hardship how to march in step, how to stay in line with the family, how to follow our Father and our Lord Jesus. He's teaching you holiness by what you suffer. That's what Hebrews said. And all suffering has a God-glorifying result in the long run. So this is difficult to talk about apart from people's real suffering and emotion. And I will do that in a moment. But these are the truths of God. We have to know them and believe them. When suffering does come, you know that a loving God will be glorified through it in some way. I don't say these words lightly, especially if you feel like you right now are suffering, some great immense difficulty has come upon you. This isn't just me glibly teaching you some doctrines. It truly is for God's glory, and it truly is in the long run for your good, your ultimate good. Why do we know that? Because his word teaches us that. God loves his children and he uses their lives for his glory, and it's our joy to be used by God. He loves His children and He will conform them to Christ through suffering. This is what Paul says in Romans 8, and by Him we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. And if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. If indeed we share in His sufferings, in order that we may also share in His glory. And Paul says, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. And remember who's writing this. This is Paul. Paul knew suffering. If anyone knew what suffering was, it was Paul. He was beaten. He was imprisoned. He starved. He had loved ones removed from him. He was forgotten. He was left alone. People turned on Him throughout His ministry. He knew suffering, and He says, I consider that this is not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed. In other words, all the greatest suffering that He could muster in His whole life, thinking of all of His suffering, and it was just a small, minuscule part of the glory. that will be revealed because of that suffering, through that suffering as he's conformed to Christ. So we see in this psalm that David is crying out to God in immense and deep and very real suffering and he's saying, treat me like a son. God, treat me like a son. Don't discipline me in wrath or rebuke me in wrath. Treat me like a son. That doesn't mean it won't hurt. Remember, God put his wrath on his own son, and his own son, Jesus, knows suffering like no one else. He was made like us in every way, except for sin. And this is why Paul says, we endure all hardship as discipline from a loving father. In other words, God is in charge. He knows what's best. Like that's the takeaway. When you are facing a difficult moment, a difficult time, an overwhelming, immensely dark moment, cry out to God. This God who is sovereign and who loves you. Cry out to Him. And look what He says in verse 2. He says, Be gracious to me. This is what a son desires. Show me grace. I know I don't deserve your goodness. I don't deserve anything but wrath. Show me grace. I pray that this discipline would be effective, that the holiness you desire would be produced in my life, and show me grace." And he's suffering in body and in soul. He says his bones are wasting away. He also said his soul is greatly troubled. He's sick. He's in pain, but his mind is also in pain. And there is a connection between the human being, I mean in a human being, between the body and the soul. And if you think about it, you know this is true. What Proverbs teaches us, Proverbs 17, 22, a joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. A joyful heart is good medicine. And a crushed spirit does dry up the bones. In our prisoner of war training in the military, what they teach you is that when you're a prisoner of war, or if you're just in a survival situation that seems hopeless, the number one thing that will keep you alive in every difficulty, whether you're a prisoner of war like they were in Vietnam for five, six, seven years, or whether you're out in the wilderness, your plane's crashed, and no one knows where you are, The number one thing that will keep you alive isn't all your skill in life-saving or survival skill, none of that. No, your number one thing that keeps you alive is your will to survive. Isn't that fascinating? Your will to survive keeps your body alive. You want to survive. There's a real connection between your body and your soul. This is what David is pointing out in this prayer, is that not only is my body sick, but my soul is sick. And we don't know which came first, because you might notice that when you're very sick in body, you're also very susceptible to darkness, aren't you? You're susceptible to temptation, to despair and doubt when you're very sick in body. Often you feel the weight of life more keenly than you would otherwise. But I think it works the other way as well. You could be overwhelmed by some terrible event in life, a great heartache or stress of the soul. And then you find that your body is beginning to break in small ways. You find that your body is beginning to ache. You feel pain more acutely. David knows this is true. And he turns to the Lord, the only one who can help his body. The only one who can help his soul. But let's look more particularly at what he is praying. This is the second point. He's being disciplined in his body. He's suffering in his body. Verse 2, Oh Lord, I'm languishing. Heal me. My bones are trouble. Verse 4, Deliver my life. Verse five, in death there's no remembrance of you. Some of you know what it's like to suffer in your body. Some of you have been chronically ill or faced a debilitating sickness or had a family member who has. Had loved ones who have died. And it really is difficult because you thought your life was gonna go one way. And then something happens and all of a sudden your future is changed in a moment. All your plans changed. And like David, you often felt, or maybe do feel, you're languishing in your illness. This psalm is for you. This prayer is for you. This is how you pray, and pray we must. And isn't it wonderful that God has given us psalms to show us how to pray in situations in life? He has. There are 40 psalms of lament. like this one, calling out to God, please help, please help. And some theologians have said, there are a hundred Psalms that have elements of lament. So when you think of the Psalmist writing, he's often writing to say, God help me. Don't you see what God is doing? He's giving us a prayer book. in His love for His people that shows us how to pray, shows us the heart of God. And in verse 5, I need to mention, David is not saying in verse 5 when he says, for in death there is no remembrance of you. In Sheol, who will give you praise? He's not saying he doesn't believe in the resurrection. Chapter 16 of Psalms, he wrote Psalm 16, which is a proof text used in the New Testament for Christ's resurrection. So maybe he doesn't have the perfect understanding of resurrection that we do now, but he certainly believed in a resurrection. What he's saying in verse five is just poetically, I don't want to die. God, I don't want to die. It's just a very raw prayer. It's very raw and real. And he's saying, I don't want to die. And how good it is that God has given us this prayer. Because often, when you are very, very sick, if you're to the point of death, you might say that, I don't want to die, God. So God used the suffering of David to give us this book. so that we might be encouraged. It served a purpose. His suffering served a purpose in that we stand now on the shoulders of suffering David, who pointed us to the greatest of suffering people, Jesus Christ, the true David. And yes, David was sick. His body hurt. And when this happens, we pray. We pray. This is what we do. We believe God heals and we pray. Look at James chapter 5, where he encourages the church to pray. He says in verse 13, Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick. And the Lord will raise him up And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. So notice also how James ties the health of the body with the health of the soul. If you're sick, if you're really sick, and this word that's translated sick is a Greek word that means a debilitating physical ailment. It's a sickness that is hopelessly sick. It's a sickness that you don't know that you'll survive. It's a physical ailment that is painful. and very painful. And James says, when you feel this way, you're not alone. Call the elders and they will come and pray for you. And then what happens? It doesn't say you will immediately be healed. He says, what? Your sins will be forgiven. You'll be spiritually restored. There's a connection between the body and the soul, even in the midst of sickness. When Jesus was healing, He was in a house and a paralytic was lowered through the roof, remember? And Jesus looked at him and said, your sins are forgiven. He's a paralytic. He cannot move. And Jesus healed His soul. The greatest need He had. His body also needed healing, didn't it? So James says, if you're suffering, pray. If you're sick, call the elders. Call in support. This is a family. We all will pray for you. Call in your spiritual shepherds. And when they pray for you, God will hear that prayer. Healing is in God's hands, though. It's not in your elders' hands. It's not in any one person's hands. There's no longer someone who can touch you and heal you. Those days have ended with the apostles. But the fact remains that God heals the sick through the prayers of His people. Usually He uses ordinary means. He uses doctors. He uses medicine. Sometimes He uses extraordinary means as well because He's God. We're not deists in this church. We don't believe that after the apostles God just wound up the clock and then stepped back and said, okay doctors, do your work. Like, no. If you don't believe God works in people's lives, how did He regenerate your heart? It was a miracle. If you don't believe He really protects you throughout the day in miraculous ways that you don't know, what kind of God do you serve? God is involved personally in your lives, and He personally interacts in your life to protect you, to heal you, to save you. He's always inserted Himself into this created universe whenever He wanted, at His good pleasure, and especially because of the prayers of His people. When you ask someone to come and pray for your healing, Your soul will also be touched through the illness that you suffer. Just as James said, when he linked the forgiveness of sins and salvation with a debilitating sickness of the body, God uses all things for his glory. And more miraculous than anything else in the world is the regeneration of your own heart. Taking your heart of stone and saying, nope, I'm going to give you a heart of flesh. This is big. This is bigger than the parting of the Red Sea. to be born again. So David is praying for his own sickness. He's praying like Hezekiah, Lord heal my body. And God answered him in a great way. We don't know what happened to David. Maybe he died very sick. And this often does happen. You don't get the exact answer you want. You remain in pain. You remain suffering. And yet we know that God is working it for His glory, even in sickness. It's for your holiness and for God's glory. But not only was his body sick, his soul was sick. He says in verse 3, My soul is greatly troubled. How long, O Lord? Every day I flood my bed with tears. My eye wastes away because of my grief. How long, O Lord? He's overwhelmed not just in body, but also in soul, in grief. He might be called, what we would say today, depressed. And Christians can feel depressed. You don't have to pretend all the time that everything is perfect. You can feel the agony that causes you to feel like your entire soul is troubled. And everyone feels this way in some measure because we're human. It's a result of the fall. Physical attack as well as as emotional attack can come from the world the flesh and where the devil Now of course your body and your mind might actually be prone to what we would say is clinical depression You might just need medicine to help correct that That's not what I'm talking about this morning. I'm talking about a real darkness Maybe because of a sickness that you're experiencing. Maybe because of a traumatic event in your life. You feel dark. You struggle to get out of bed in the morning because you feel like there's no hope. Out of the darkness that wants to envelop you, God wants to bring light. David's grief was overwhelming and he cries out to God. In Psalm 40, one of my favorites, he says, I waited patiently for the Lord. If you're suffering like this today, be patient, cry out to God, expect God to answer, but be patient because he will turn and hear your cry. David said, he lifted me up out of the pit. out of the miry clay. If you've ever suffered like this, you know that this is a reality. When God brings you out of darkness into light, you feel like you've been lifted out of a pit. You feel like you can see clearly. And if this is not you today, it may be someday. So learn now to pray to God, to trust Him. Cry out to Him. Call for Him. You need to do these things when you feel anguish of soul. And also, you should cry out to God, How long, O Lord? How long, O Lord? This is what David is saying. How long will this last? That's what I like about this prayer. It's such a raw prayer. He's crying out, God, I don't know how long I can do this. How long must I go on? You see, it's a personal cry. It's not just something he's writing down for poetry. He's crying out personally to God. And it's a personal God who's receiving this prayer and holding all things in His hands. And He's saying, how long, Lord? We see this throughout the Scripture in Revelation 6. The saints in heaven cry out, O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before You will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? How long? God, how long are You going to not judge the wicked persecuting Your church? If you remember Zechariah 1 as well, one of my favorites, the angel of the Lord. The angel of the Lord is the pre-incarnate Christ. The angel of the Lord said, O Lord of hosts, How long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem? So this is the incarnate Son interceding for the church. Jerusalem representing the church of God. And He's saying to the Father, How long, O Lord? And Jesus is still interceding for you now. And this is our great hope and confidence when you're suffering. Of course, this is the greatest hope. Yes, it does help to know that God has a plan. Yes, it does help to know that God has a purpose. But mostly, you want to know that you're not alone. And this is God's promise that He will not leave us. His Son is interceding for us when we are sick in body and in soul. And He's still crying out on our behalf with the Holy Spirit to our loving Father, and all of them love you. All of them desire your good. That's the fourth point is our confidence. We believe God's sovereign and He's faithful, yes, but we believe that in this covenant that He loves us and it's a steadfast love. This is what he says in verse 4. Do this for the sake of your steadfast love. This is that word that I've taught you before, hesed. It's a Hebrew word that just means a covenant love. It's a faithful love that never ends. In Lamentations 3. This word is used, because of the Lord's... And remember, Lamentations was written by Jeremiah. All of Israel's destroyed. All of Jerusalem's been destroyed. Everyone is dead. Grandparents are dead. Sons are dead. Daughters are dead. Destruction everywhere. Everyone's in exile who didn't die. And Jeremiah writes Lamentations, and he says, because of the Lord's great love, Chesed. We are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness." He is faithful. That was Jeremiah's rock. This is an overwhelming destruction. There's so much death, but my God is faithful. And He keeps His covenant of steadfast love to a thousand generations, Deuteronomy says. He promises to hold on to his own people and not let go. And David is crying out to the Father and he's saying, remember that covenant, remember that steadfast love that you promised to me. I'm suffering here. For this reason, St. Augustine wrote that by making promises to man, God has become our debtor. Is that right? I think it is. God didn't have to make any promises to us. He had no reason to covenant with us as a people, and yet he did. And David's crying out on the basis of these promises, and he's saying, you've covenanted with me to save me, to protect me, to bless me. Remember your covenant. Remember your steadfast love. And so should we cry out in prayer when we suffer in body and in soul. Let me conclude with A very quick illustration from history. Actually, this book is down in the library. It's about the Scottish Covenanters. I'll explain to you who these men and women were. Amazing, faithful believers who believed that God would never leave them or forsake them and that they should be strong. They should be courageous. The Covenanters were called that because they signed a national covenant in Scotland in 1638. They were Presbyterians, which basically meant they rejected the rule of any man as the leader of the church, except Christ alone. Well, this became a problem when the King of England said, I'm the leader of the church, I'm like the English Pope, and you will do what I say. in the 1600s, this was happening. And this could not be accepted by any Scotsman, by any Presbyterian, really, by any Bible-believing man. That a man was in charge of the church. The whole church, rather than God. They believed no man, no king could be the spiritual head of a church like that. So this was the whole struggle that the Covenanters were facing. They were standing on the Word of God. that this was not right. They could not be forced to worship in a certain way because one man thinks he's the spiritual head of the church. Besides that, they were English, and Scotsmen didn't like Englishmen. But King Charles I introduced the Book of Common Prayer. It's a good book. I use the Book of Common Prayer in my devotions. It's wonderful. But he made them use it. And they said, no, we will not use this book. And the king said, if you don't use this book, then it's treason. And ministers, if you don't use this book, you'll be fired. And if you don't go to churches that use this book, and every church was required to use that book, then you could be arrested, and you could actually be questioned and tortured. And if you didn't vow allegiance to the king, you would be punished, often, by death. Can you imagine a citizen had to go to the local church? If you didn't go to church, you were fined for not attending church. In the 1660s, so after about 20 or 30 years, it became very bad. It was called the killing time, the killing years. And more and more ordinary people became involved. And you can imagine. Eventually, the Word of God is going to weigh on you, even if you don't feel like you're that involved in the particulars. More and more ordinary Scotsmen began to see that this was wrong. Before it all ended, 18,000 Scotsmen and women were killed, 18,000, because they held to God's Word. They refused to accept the leadership, the spiritual leadership of an English king. who acted like the Pope. 18,000 died. That's not to mention everyone who suffered in every other way, right? Those who had their property confiscated, this happened. Those who were put out on the streets with their children with no means of income, this happened. Those who were subjected to torture during questioning and fines and imprisonment. Parents watching their children shot. Children watching their parents hanged. Grandparents watching their granddaughters drowned. Why? Because they held to the Word of God and would not bend. All for the Gospel. And can you imagine this psalm for someone like that? Crying out to God, How long, O Lord? And yet if you read their biographies, an unmistakable degree of joy in their suffering. Like Job, they could cry out, I know my Redeemer lives. So what's the application for us? Like Joshua was told, be strong and courageous. I know you're suffering very greatly right now. Be strong and courageous. You may be suffering physically or emotionally right now. God is with you wherever you're going. The Covenanters believed it. God's plan is good. You might say, it doesn't feel really good right now. How can it be good that my loved one has died? Be strong. How can it be good that I'm so wracked with pain I can't get out of bed? Be courageous. How can it be good that depression seems to be nipping at my heels? Always the darkness is striving to master me. God is with you. How can it be good that my children have forsaken God? Be strong. How can it be good that my work is joyless and it's becoming a burden to provide for my family? Be courageous. God is with you. And I'm not naive enough to think that a few Bible verses makes life okay. But these are true truths, as Francis Schaeffer would say. It is true that God is real. It is true that God is in charge of the whole world and everything that happens. It is true that His Word is faithful to transmit His Word, His revealed will to us. And it's true that He's good. And it's true that He loves you. And it's true that He calls you to be strong and courageous. Even when you feel like there's no strength in you. He will not snuff out a smoldering wick. You don't have to be braveheart in the middle of your suffering. You just need to trust God. He will answer you. And these promises, of course, are for those who are actually God's people. false disciples, those maybe in this room who are unsaved, who are false disciples, often suffering is just meant to soften your heart so that you might receive the gospel. Maybe to actually hear it with your spiritual ears for the first time. So let me just conclude the way I do often with the good news of Jesus Christ. If you don't yet trust Christ, you need to know, first of all, that you're in rebellion against God. You didn't just make a bad decision. You're rebelling against your Creator. He calls you to worship Him, and you choose rather to worship this world and whatever it can give you. You profane His holy name with your life. You reject your Creator and thought, word, and deed every day. And this darkness of your heart is something that you probably don't even know or understand, but God does. And the reality is you're a spiritual dead man. You couldn't even come to God if you tried. You're spiritually dead. It's hopeless for you. And yet Jesus came to save sinners just like you, and much, much worse sinners than you. He shed His blood, and it's sufficient to pay for even the very worst of sinners. And God promises, He promises that anyone who would come to Jesus in faith Trusting Him alone for salvation will certainly be saved. But you need faith to do this. You need the Holy Spirit to make you new inside. So pray. If this is you, if you feel like you're suffering in body or in soul, but you know you're not in Christ, that might be why He's softening you now. Pray for faith of forgiveness. Pray for repentance. Don't turn away from God. Now is the hour that you should humbly come to Him in prayer. Please pray with me. Our good and great God, we come to You now. We thank You that You have given us the Psalms. We thank You for this wonderful book of prayer and praise. We thank You that every single part of our lives can be addressed in the Psalms. Every struggle we face, we can be encouraged in our prayers in the Psalms. What a good God you are to care so much for us, to provide this kind of comfort in our prayers. I do pray for those among us who are suffering today, who are suffering greatly. Lord, help them to remember the great blessings that you've given them, even in the midst of their suffering. Help them to remember that not only are you sovereign and powerful, but that you love them. You will never leave or forsake them. Lord, be glorified. In your word, be glorified in our midst. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.