Psa. 40 12
For troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me.
13
Be pleased, O LORD, to save me; O LORD, come quickly to help me.
14
May all who seek to take my life be put to shame and confusion; may all who desire my ruin be turned back in disgrace.
15
May those who say to me, "Aha! Aha!" be appalled at their own shame.
A believer is a person who is a sinner. The principle of proving salvation is that sin is always magnified. This struggle with our sin is not fundamentally rooted in guilt but should move us toward greater dependence on God. This is what the Psalmist is expressing here. You will find that saints struggle with sin more than the wicked. Most people practice some sins over and over again. Here the Psalmist starts out this Psalm speaking of God bringing him from a physical wound that could have resulted in death to being healed. The Psalmist is describing the reality of the christian experience as being very low and experiencing extreme highs. Some people describe this as having charisma without a doctrinal foundation. In other words they describe these highs as confessing sin after a great struggle with guilt. Kind of like losing our assurance and regaining it upon confession. But they fail to put this together with the purpose of the Psalmist writing the Psalm.
You will find when the Psalmist complains about his sin it is always described with this physical suffering. This suffering is caused by his occupation. He was a warrior. If we fail to see that God used these military conditions of the threat of physical death as the root words for the nt spiritual death then we will be guilty of teaching a form of spiritual mysticism. The whole point of the human expression of suffering in this military way is to teach that God carrying out the curse of the law through Israels military success. God destroyed the nations through carrying out His curses. The purpose of the Psalmist writing these complaints was to argue for the success of Gods kingdom advancement by destroying all of their enemies. In the Psalmist complaints is that God must unite the people before the Psalmist personal desires for destroying the opposition could be successful. This is what he is complaining about in Psalm3 1 O LORD, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me! We could say that the power of the curse that is within..that being our familiarity with corruption is enforced and made real by the amount of opposition that we face in our lives.
The Psalmist has this in view as he presents his complaint to God. He is always arguing from the position of need and not really guilt. His complaint about the number of his sins is really to enforce his desire to create peace throughout the nation. This is the difference between a very young christian and a mature saint. The young believer is overcome by guilt and is motivated to protect himself. But a mature believer has used his weakness to argue for greater success. A mature christian who is struggling with sin is always concerned for these greater purposes. The relationships are more important than the principles. A mature believer acts as a representative of someone else struggle with worry , guilt or fear to find solutions in a substitutionary way as the main function of his teaching. The only way that we can grow to this kind of leaderhip is to speak these Psalms as instruments of Gods substitutionary work. Because these Psalms are Gods laws, decrees...etc that provide the wisdom to act as a substitute in the face of the most violent opposition. The Psalms teach that the attitude of pride is thinking that we can obtain some kind of success in our own compliance with the law. But in being drawn into substitution we must die in the curse. We must be motivated to oppose the curse of death by dying to self protection in cursing the curse.
The Psalmist has this in view as he presents his complaint to God. He is always arguing from the position of need and not really guilt. His complaint about the number of his sins is really to enforce his desire to create peace throughout the nation. This is the difference between a very young christian and a mature saint. The young believer is overcome by guilt and is motivated to protect himself. But a mature believer has used his weakness to argue for greater success. A mature christian who is struggling with sin is always concerned for these greater purposes. The relationships are more important than the principles. A mature believer acts as a representative of someone else struggle with worry , guilt or fear to find solutions in a substitutionary way as the main function of his teaching. The only way that we can grow to this kind of leaderhip is to speak these Psalms as instruments of Gods substitutionary work. Because these Psalms are Gods laws, decrees...etc that provide the wisdom to act as a substitute in the face of the most violent opposition. The Psalms teach that the attitude of pride is thinking that we can obtain some kind of success in our own compliance with the law. But in being drawn into substitution we must die in the curse. We must be motivated to oppose the curse of death by dying to self protection in cursing the curse.
done
ReplyDelete