#718 Be Not Far From Me

O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger,

nor discipline me in your wrath!

2 For your arrows have sunk into me,

and your hand has come down on me.

3 There is no soundness in my flesh

because of your indignation;

there is no health in my bones

because of my sin.

4 For my iniquities have gone over my head;

like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.

5 My wounds stink and fester

because of my foolishness,

6 I am utterly bowed down and prostrate;

all the day I go about mourning.

7 For my sides are filled with burning,

and there is no soundness in my flesh.

8 I am feeble and crushed;

I groan because of the tumult of my heart.

9 O Lord, all my longing is before you;

my sighing is not hidden from you.

10 My heart throbs; my strength fails me,

and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.

11 My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague,

and my nearest kin stand far off.

12 Those who seek my life lay their snares;

those who seek my hurt speak of ruin

and meditate treachery all day long.

13 But I am like a deaf man; I do not hear,

like a mute man who does not open his mouth.

14 I have become like a man who does not hear,

and in whose mouth are no rebukes.

15 But for you, O Lord, do I wait;

it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.

16 For I said, “Only let them not rejoice over me,

who boast against me when my foot slips!”

17 For I am ready to fall,

and my pain is ever before me.

18 I confess my iniquity;

I am sorry for my sin.

19 But my foes are vigorous, they are mighty,

and many are those who hate me wrongfully.

20 Those who render me evil for good

accuse me because I follow after good.

21 Do not forsake me, O Lord!

O my God, be not far from me!

22 Make haste to help me,

O Lord, my salvation! Psalm 38 ESV

The Psalm has in it's title "to bring to remembrance", and the words that follow are a plea to God to act on behalf of the poet. He has written before, "remember Your steadfast love for me". He does not ask upon the basis of his merit, for he confesses all else, yet he ask as the child ask the father that he has disappointed. The approach is based upon a unilateral covenant, that God is love, that God is Holy, and that God has anointed David unto Himself, called him His own. 

In Your anger - Many times I thought to avoid God's disapproval by avoiding the places where He spoke. If I went to church it was one where my conscience would never be provoked, and if I read the scripture it was in avoidance of the path that would cut into my soul. I remember reading about an indigenous group of people, as observed by a missionary, that when their children misbehaved it took merely a pinch, or even just a look, and the child was reduced to tears. So highly they held the approval of their parents that their disappointment was the worse sort of punishment, it took little to get their attention. 

Your hand - David sees his present affliction as coming from no other place than God Himself, and we shrink as apologists from such inference, but is God not aware, not sovereign, not willing all these things to our good? The child that does not know correction is the child truly forsaken. David feels the hand of God for his sin, Christ feels the hand of God for the sins of the whole world.

My wounds are foul and festering: “Sin is the wound of the soul, which must be washed with the tears of repentance, cleansed by the blood of Christ, and healed by the Spirit of the Holy One.” (Horne)

If your spouse cheated on you, if your neighbor stole from you, if your children did something so wretched and grievous as Simeon and Levi, it would cause the most hideous of smells to rise from the incense of our depravity. How can it be that God should even for a moment entertain the thought of loving something as deplorable as me? I don't need the voice of a man, telling me that my sin is not so bad, saying it is not sin even since so many would not bat an eye to see it that way. What I need is to know what God hates, what God calls sin, and to keep Him ever before my eyes.

My nearest kin - Everyone has removed themselves from my plague, they stand too far away to be able to comfort me. They are afraid to come near me, and You are the only One that dare, for You alone know the source of this infirmity, if there will be a glorious end to it. Let everyone leave me, but God be near me, it is Your presence I need.

Like a mute man - 

6We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. 7He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. 8By oppression and judgment He was taken away, and who can recount His descendants? For He was cut off from the land of the living; He was stricken for the transgression of My people.…Isaiah 53: 6-8

I confess my iniquity - Only Christ had no sin to confess, what He died for He bore, my sin, and for that I am eternally grateful. For that, I am not willing to sew fig leaves, but rather bare the shame of my nakedness, bringing it to the altar of God, where there only can it be burned up and remembered no more. I cannot be free from what I have hidden for it will come to light one day. I cannot be free from what I can conceal from the eyes of men, because God is not a man, and as the Psalmist so well has said, "against You and You only have I sinned." Don't trick me into cleaning the outside of the cup, into putting on a church face, for none of you has the power to save me, only Christ, and Christ alone.