PSALM 39:7-11

We return again to Psalm 39 which s a continuance of David’s Psalm of remembrance in Psalm 38.

            I would draw our attention this week to the study of verses 7-11, which says, “And now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in thee. Deliver me from all my transgressions: make me not the reproach of the foolish. I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it. Remove thy stroke away from me: I am consumed by the blow of thine hand. When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. Selah.”  I am calling this section “David’s Prayer”.

            Let us begin in verse 7 with our study.  I see in this verse ‘David’s Hope’.  O, to voice our hope in Him through prayer.  As David looks about himself he finds no reason to linger in his present condition.  He places all his hopes in the Lord.  Our Lord loves for us to acknowledge Him as our only place of ‘hope’.  The word ‘hope’ means confident expectation.  In the world there is nothing but uncertainty.  In Him there is nothing but confident expectations.  Let us rest our confidence in Him and direct all our expectations to Him.  In another Psalm David said ‘all my expectations are from the Lord’. My, my what a grand state of rest to be able to say whatever the Lord sends that is what I was expecting.  It is a sweet place to rest in Him who is never shaken and to abide in Him who never changes.

            In verses 8-10 we are confronted with ‘David’s Humility’.  In verse 8 we find the humility of David’s repentance. He desires deliverance from all his ‘transgressions’. (To step out of God’s ordained boundary lines.) He realizes they have been the grounds for the wicked to make a fool of him.  They have made him the punch line of all their jokes.

            In verse 9 David has shut his mouth before the rod of God’s correction. He realizes that all that has come to him “…thou didst it.”  Sarah Edwards said to her daughter Esther after the death of her father and her husband, ‘Kiss the rod of God’s correction and put your hand over your mouth’. 

            Richard Cameron was beheaded for preaching the gospel. His bloody head was brought to his father in prison.  His father said weeping, “It is the head of my son. Good is the will of the Lord for He hath made goodness and mercy to follow us all our days.” A young girl was asked one day why she was born deaf and dumb. A look of anguish clouded her face for a moment; she then called for a tablet and wrote, “Even so Father; for so it seemeth good in thy sight.”

            In verses 10-11 we are confronted with ‘David’s Heart’.  He is uncovering an honest heart before God.  He shows his bruises that God has caused and acknowledges the providence of His hand.  Our God loves to be acknowledged for any and every situation. David, in verse 11, realizes that at best his human beauty is empty and vain.  It is worthy of nothing but total consumption.  The real beauty is the God likeness produced by being placed in the fire crucible of suffering at the hand of our God.  David closes this prayer with the word ‘Selah’.  He stopped to make sure his eyes, affections, and attention were upon things above and not on things on this earth.

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