Suffering and Hope

Psalm 39 - Isaac Mills

This psalm speaks to that deep feeling inside you when you get that unwanted call in the middle of the night, when the police officer knocks on your door with the bad news, or when the dr sits you down and says “its cancer.” It gives voice to unspoken reality everyone feels when they see a funeral procession driving down the road.

Moments like these slow us down. They strip away all the extra things in our lives, all the business with which we occupy our days and they bring us face to face with the reality that death comes to us all. Isn’t it strange that it is only these moments when we consider what is always reality. When the Dr tells you that you only have 6 months to live, why is that so hard to grasp? We don’t honestly believe we would live forever, do we? Death will come to us all.

It is precisely these existential issues which David considered as he wrote this psalm here. Clearly, he thought about this at length and that’s something we don’t like to do. Perhaps this is because he didn’t have nearly as many distractions in his life as we have today. Or perhaps this is because he had a better grasp of God than we do today. I don’t know exactly the reason, but he certainly did wrestle with this and came to some conclusions worth considering.

And so what I would like to do this morning as we look into this psalm is to first walk through it and understand what David wrote and then we can go back through and look at how we might apply this to our lives. Now, they don’t exhaustively cover the issue of suffering, but it does give us a good perspective by which we can frame our suffering. As we go through it, keep in mind this question: How do we face the hard times and hard realities in life?

So this psalm begins with the super script “to the choirmaster: to Jeduthun” We don’t really know who he was, but from this text and others like it we can assume he had something to do with the music in the temple. So, as David wrote this psalm, he wrote it for all in Israel. This Psalm applies to all of God’s people.

Now, this psalm doesn’t give us any particular information about David’s life. It doesn’t present us with the situation he that he faced. This lack of information can make psalms harder to understand. But through the context in the psalm, it is safe to assume David faced some sort of suffering in his life. If we knew the exact reason for David’s suffering then we would know exactly how to interpret this psalm. However, God didn’t see fit to give us that particular information. And I believe as we walk through this psalm you will see why. This psalm applies to all of our lives, particularly hard times, times of suffering. It speaks to us in times that we suffer for our own sins and times that the suffering is no direct fault of our own. So, we know David was facing suffering of some kind. Perhaps it was directly his own fault, or perhaps it was random, not to be attributed back to David. Either way he was suffering. Let’s look at what he says.

(1-3) David finds himself in the face of suffering and surrounded by wicked men. And in this situation, he resolves to keep silent. David found it better to remain silent than to speak and risk sinning against God in the presence of these wicked men. That is a wise response. As we know from other places in the Bible, David was concerned for God’s holiness. He would not want to see God’s name slandered, especially in front of those who do not know God. It almost reminds me of living in a house with your family. There are things you can say in that context that you would dare not say anywhere else because they could be twisted or misunderstood. This was a family issue and David would not want to sin by letting it out. David might have some hard things to say, things which wicked men would twist. And so rather letting them gain an opportunity for sin, he is silent.

David restrains himself, resisting temptation. But we see as verse 2 continues into 3 that the longer David sat in this situation, the hotter he grew. The more he faced this suffering and pondered his situation the more it built up in his mind and in his heart. He mused and the fire burned, so then he spoke. He came to a point where he had to say something. He had to voice his emotions or he would burst. He let loose the tongue that he had earlier resolved to restrain. And it is his prayer that makes up the rest of the psalm.

Verses 4-6 open the prayer (read) that is really not at all what we would expect to hear. I would expect a complaint of some sort. Or perhaps if I expected a holier response I would expect to hear something like “God would You be pleased to sustain me in these trials or to take them from me.” But that is not what David does.

Rather, he turns to God pleading that God would show him how many days he has left. David asked for perspective. He asks to know the frailty and the brevity of life here on earth because in reality, human life is short. Each one of the lines David penned drives this point home.

(4) David asks God to let him see the number of his days. He does not ask for years because there would be far too few left. Days is the shorter of the two and they remind us just how quickly our lives pass by. Fleeting is a good word to describe the life of a man. Like a flower that springs up one day and is gone the next, so too does man’s life spring up and then quickly fade. Take David’s brothers for example. David’s legacy lives on in the place God put him in redemptive history and the psalms he penned. But think of his brothers. There were 7 of them. What are they in whole scheme of history? We are some 3000 years past their lives. Are they thought of at all? And there have been countless billions of people who have lived, died, and are forgotten.

David continues in verse 5, (  ) the handbreadth was the distance between the 4 fingers. Our life is comparable to that. Before the infinite God that is hardly anything at all. Its ironic here that David mentions that man stands… as a breath. Breath has no standing. We often think of our bodies as substantial physical things. They are heavy and take up space. Well consider the burial practices in ancient Israel, which David would have been familiar with. Upon death the body would be washed and prepared with spices, as Jesus’s was. Then for wealthier families the body would be laid in a tomb in the first of two rooms. There the body would dry out or decay. Then the bones would be put in a box and moved the back room to save space. A whole body, reduced to fit into a small and box. Surely, all mankind stands as a mere breath. Actually, that word breath is the same word in Ecclesiastes that is translated vanity. All mankind stands as vanity. Can you catch a breath? Can you hold it or keep it close to you? No, it is gone once it is spent. So too is life. Consider that… We are a shadow. and verse 6 closes reminiscent again of Ecclesiastes. Man works his whole life to store up wealth and in the end it all goes to someone else. Another enjoys the first man’s toil.

Why does David go into this existential rant in the midst of his suffering on earth? Perhaps it is just this. If man is a breath, here today and gone tomorrow. Then what is the temporary suffering that man faces in life? It is less than a breath. If David suffers at the hand of wicked men, what are they? Also a breath. Why would it matter if David escaped the temporal suffering and hardships in life? Just to die and be forgotten? You see, I think David has a bit of a bigger problem here than his present suffering. It is that he is here today and gone tomorrow. His life is short and fleeting. It seems meaningless, it is a breath. At the very least he wants to enjoy these few days in peace, though I think he wanted more. And it is for this reason that he then turns and cries out to God.

In light of all that David has considered he has a question, “For what do I wait?” in the midst his present suffering and in light of the vanity of his life. What is David waiting for? He answers his own question. He says, “My hope is in You.” David knows the only one who can make sense of the vanity of man’s life is the Lord. There is nothing in all creation that can deliver man from his fleeting nature. Nothing can help us escape the fact that tomorrow we are gone, besides the Lord.

Knowing this, David cries out in verse 8 for deliverance. He cries (8). He is asking total forgiveness for his sins. Here David shows a good understanding of his situation. We know originally man was made to live and to fellowship with God in the Garden. We were made for life. However, Adam sinned and so subjected all creation to the curse. We all sin. We know this because we all die, for the wages of sin is death. Death is inescapable and it comes to us all. David realized, if God justly judges sin through death then his only hope of escaping this death is to appeal to the God who is Judge to take away his sin by some other means. The only hope he has of avoiding the futility of life is to appeal to the one who Judges.

In the second line he doesn’t want to be made the scorn of the fool. He doesn’t want to be mocked by godless men. These men who had no regard for God perhaps saw David in his suffering. Their response would have been to mock him. “Where is your God?” they might say. “If He cares for you, then why wont He save you?” They might ask. David asks God to deliver him.

We don’t know for sure if David sinned which lead to his suffering. But as hard as it is to acknowledge, David was in fact a sinner and so he was worthy of any punishment God might see fit to send his way. Look back to Job. Job was righteous in the land, though still a sinner. He suffered greatly and this was not a direct result of his sin. Was God unjust to inflict this upon him? No, God was indeed just. It is a hard but true lesson. David saw that. And so he said

(9) David did in fact open his mouth, but it is only to God and it is not in complaint, but only in request. He does not claim this is not fair or unjust in any way. He doesn’t lash out at any one because he knows it is man’s own sin which has subjected him to death and futility.

So then he cries verse 10. David is wasting away under the hand of his Father. He was enduring some hardship in life. He wanted escape from this hardship, even if it was only for a short while. But this hardship was from God. He knew God was sovereign over all. And so any hardship he endured was from God’s hand. He is exhausted by this discipline. (11) for when God disciplines a man, He takes away all the earthly things that are left to him. Leaving this man with only one thing. God. You see God’s discipline is hard. It is painful. But it is good. Clearly it removes all sources of idolatry. It removed from David any hope of deliverance in anything on earth. The disciplined child must cling to his father for his father is all he has left.

God’s discipline in David’s life was not arbitrary. Nor was it excessive. God knows what is good for David. It is better for David to endure suffering on earth and to lose the things that are close to him than to place his hope in anything other than God and lose eternity. So, God took them away and David was left with God alone. And that is where he placed his hope.

And so David closes (12-13). David was the king in Israel. Why does he call himself a sojourner? He ruled the promised land. Well compared to God, who is eternal, David was just passing through this life. But I think there is more to that. David said he was a sojourner. Sojourners have a home somewhere else. (Heb 13:13-16)

David looked to God to answer the futility he faced in life. He looked to God to deliver him to the home prepared for him. And in v 13 does David really want God to look away? That sounds contrary to the Aaronic blessing “the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face shine upon you.” David wasn’t praying for God’s benevolence to depart from him. Rather, he desires God’s scrutiny, God’s gaze of discipline to pass from him. He wants to enjoy peace for his few short days on earth. He is asking God to let this suffering pass.

So in this psalm, David began in a place of suffering and wisely held his tongue. He called out to God asking to know his days, to understand the brevity of human life, and concluded asking God for deliverance because God is the only one who could deliver him from his futility and present suffering.

This is a weighty psalm. It forces us to face truths we don’t like to consider. Yet it instructs both the man walking through suffering and also the one enjoying relative peace in life. It gives us perspective on the suffering we face in life, who it is from, and what purpose He might have in it. But more than that it forces us to reckon with the brevity of our own lives and the nearness of our death. And it points us to the one who is our hope. So, lets consider two points of application from this psalm.

1.) Life is full of hardships and it seems meaningless. 

Now, I am sure many of you are unsettled by this and that is a good thing. I am also sure many of you know that for the believer ultimately this is not true. That is also a good thing. And we will talk about that in a little while. But for now, we need to confront the uncomfortable reality that there is a lot of suffering in life and that life seems very meaningless apart from Christ. That is the situation that all of our unbelieving friends and relatives are in. And if we are not careful, if we live in sin for a time or if our vision becomes blurred by the concerns and struggles in life we to can be in that spot

Turn on the news. We see nearly constant conflict in the middle east. There has recently been an increased focus on the persecution of Christians in Africa, but its been going on for decades now. We have certainly seen hatred and violence in our country rise over the last few years. Beyond that we see earthquakes, flood, drought, hurricanes, tornadoes, and snow storms causing great hardships on people. On the sides of roads we see broken glass and tire marks from car accident after car accident.

And that doesn’t begin to consider all the personal hardships we endure. We face difficult relationships with friends and coworkers. Perhaps you keep getting passed over time and time again for a promotion at work. Or are slandered and torn down there. Perhaps you live in a family with broken relationships and the holidays bring back scars rather than joyful memories. And then there are health issues on top of all these. Chronic pain, illness, sickness, and thought we may not like to admit it, all these ultimately end in death.

Life looks to be rather difficult and it ends in death for us all. David sat and meditated on all this and that is what prompted this psalm. This is a reality we have to face in our own lives and perhaps in the lives of others too as they confide with us in times of difficulty. So, how do we handle them?

We can learn how to respond to these truths from David in this psalm. David had an accurate view of God and of mankind and so he had a better perspective on for his suffering. David knew that God was sovereign over all things. He acknowledges that God has made man. God has established the limits of our days. Furthermore, he acknowledges that his present suffering is from the Lord. He says, “I do not open my mouth for it is You who have done it.” God is primary actor behind all things.

If that is the case, the, why has He brought all this upon us? David shows us that as well. We touched on this earlier. In verse 8 David calls for deliverance from his sin. Our sin is the reason that He has brought this upon us. We were made for life, but in the Garden Adam sinned, knowing the consequence of his choice, death. And so death comes to us all. God subjected the world to a curse because of Adam’s sin and we all live in that.

We cannot accuse God of being unjust when we face suffering in life because we deserve death. Anything He gives us short of that is certainly merited as well. Earlier we mentioned Job. He was righteous and feared God. Yet he endured great suffering in life. Was this unjust on God’s part? That book makes clear the answer is no. God is the holy creator and man sinned against Him. It is hard to admit, but any calamity brought upon us is merited.

Does this make God out to be some vengeful cosmic tyrant? No, for 2 reasons. First, we do not appreciate how great an offense our sin is to His holiness. But also, consider what David says. “When you discipline a man with rebukes for sin, surely You consume like a moth what is dear to him.” It is a gracious thing for God to discipline the believer for sin. He lets us endure the consequences of our sin to drive us away from them. He may humble the proud man so to take away man’s confidence in himself. He may bring financial hardship on the rich to lessen his dependence on money. Or in the case of Job, one who had great possessions yet was faithful, God stripped all them away to make clear for Job that having God was enough. I do not know the reason for the suffering that you may face in life, but I do know that God does. Through hardships He shapes us. and if nothing else, it brings us to the second thing that David can teach us.

2.) God is our only hope of meaning and deliverance in life.

David called to God saying “My hope is in you.” The same is true for us. We have nothing else to place our hope in. If we have offended God through our sin and God is sovereign over all things, there is certainly no one or nothing else to which we can appeal for deliverance. God’s discipline teaches us this by taking away all in which we might be tempted to place our hope. It leaves us dependent upon Him and Him alone.

We face suffering in this life. Some is a direct result of our own sin. God lets us experience the consequences of our sin so that we run from them. Let me read for you Heb 13:3-11. We are God’s children and so as a good Father, He disciplines us that we share in His holiness. Discipline is painful, yet it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. So, if you are suffering, ask God if it is His discipline that you are enduring for your own sin. Ask that He would reveal your sin and lead you in righteousness. Endure your suffering well. James 1:2 tells us to “count it all joy, my brothers, when you face trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” Let us grow in our suffering.

Perhaps it is not for your own sin that you suffer. The world is subject to the curse and sin and death still roam this earth. And so we suffer as a result of other’s sin. If this is the case, then do as David did and call out to God. Call to your Father who cares or you. Realize that He is sovereign and He is good. You may feel tempted to seek an easy way out of this suffering. You might want to call out to God in anger and accuse Him of wrong. But remember “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” And call out to God because Jesus, your faithful high priest became man and suffered as man. He knows our feeble frame and the suffering we endure. He can sympathize with you in your weakness and He intercedes for you. And briefly, the New Testament makes clear that we will suffer because we are untied to Christ and the world hates Him. If you are suffering for righteousness sake then rejoice for you are counted worthy to suffer for Him.

And lastly learn from David to look beyond your present suffering. Let the hardships of life and the nearness of death cause you to look for deliverance from it all. Remember that we have been made for eternity in God’s presence. Though Adam subjected all creation to the curse, futility, and death through his sin, the path to eternal life has been opened for us by Christ on the cross. Man’s life looks to be short and meaningless. As David says here, “one man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather.” After our short years are past we die and are no more. Cemeteries like this remind us of that. But that is not the final answer. Though our earthly bodies waste away our souls live on. There will come a final judgement. Where we will be condemned to death for our sins, unless we have appealed to God for forgiveness. Being forgiven we will be ushered into eternal life in His presence and have renewed bodies. We will know never ending life full of purpose. We will forever worship Him as we were made to do. Life here has purpose only because of what comes next. Death and futility are not the final answer. If you have placed your faith in Christ you have an eternal home prepared for you by God.

So. we can revisit the question from the beginning, How do we face the hard times and hard realities in life? We do so with hope in God both for this life and for the one to come. David prayed that God would deliver him from his transgressions. God did and placed them upon Christ. David prayed that he would not be made the scorn of the fool. God did and made Jesus the scorn of the fool instead. David prayed that God’s wrathful gaze would look away from Him. God did turn His wrathful gaze away from David and when He did this He placed it upon David’s Son, our Savior.

If you have placed your faith in Christ, let the meal we are about to eat assure you that you too will be delivered from your sin and the futility of this present life. Find in it the strength to endure your present suffering. Know that His body was broken and blood was spilt so yours would not be. Be assured that you will not suffer forever, but will enjoy peace. And if you have not placed your faith in Christ, know that all the suffering and futility of which David spoke will fall upon you. But I implore you to look to Christ. It is not too late to seek deliverance. It is not to late to make God your only hope.