“O LORD, do not rebuke me
in Your anger,
Nor chasten me in Your
wrath.
Be gracious to me, O
LORD, for I am pining away;
Heal me, O LORD, for my
bones are dismayed.
And my soul is greatly
dismayed;
But You, O LORD - how
long?
Return, O LORD, rescue my
soul;
Save me because of Your
lovingkindness.
For there is no mention
of You in death;
In Sheol who will give
You thanks?
I am weary with my
sighing;
Every night I make my bed
swim,
I dissolve my couch with
my tears.
My eye has wasted away
with grief;
It has become old because
of all my adversaries.
Depart from me, all you
who do iniquity,
For the LORD has heard
the voice of my weeping.
The LORD has heard my
supplication,
The LORD receives my
prayer.
All my enemies will be
ashamed and greatly dismayed;
They shall turn back,
they will suddenly be ashamed”
(Psalm 6:1-10).
“Beware of the false
prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous
wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn
bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit,
but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can
a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut
down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits. Not
everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he
who does the will of My Father Who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me
on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name
cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will
declare to them, ‘I never knew you;
[as it says in Psalm 6:8a] depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness’” (Matthew
7:15-23).
Oh. This isn’t my Psalm. It’s
my Lord’s song and prayer. A Psalm of David, the prophet of the risen Lord
Jesus (Acts 2:30,31). Now I have to go back and re-read the Psalm, hearing my
Master and Savior pray it in the long dark nights between dealing patiently
with the needy and slow-to-believe. I have to hear His voice as He is hounded
by the religious proud in their schemes. As He is rejected. Condemned. Scorned.
Shamed. As He receives the cup – my cup (the one place I can say “me” is in the
deserved wrathful dregs) – from His Father. As the Father rejects Him because of
my iniquity, my lawlessness.
It’s not my song. It’s His.
“Return, O LORD, rescue
my soul;
Save me because of Your
lovingkindness.
For there is no mention
of You in death;
In Sheol who will give
You thanks?” (6:4,5).
And because it’s the song of
His perfect, sinless, beloved Son, the Father hears the prayer and there is a
third day, a resurrection day, the Lord’s Day.
“In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers
and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from
death, and He was heard because of His piety” (Hebrews 5:7).
He sang the song, and He was heard. Hallelujah, He
was heard!
“For the LORD has heard the voice of My weeping.
The LORD has heard My supplication,
The LORD receives My prayer” (Psalm 6:8b,9).
In the midst of this is the command to “depart
from Me, all you who do iniquity.” When the Lord quotes it to His
disciples, He says, “you who practice lawlessness” (those whose religion
is the twisting, perverting, ignoring, and breaking of God’s Law).
The Psalm teaches us that the resurrection is an
announcement of judgment against the enemies of the risen Christ. He will give
command that His angels remove the lawless from His Kingdom (Matthew 13:41),
for He hates lawlessness (Hebrews 1:9, quoting Psalm 45:7).
Lest this “Lord’s Prayer” become a cause of deep
grief, beloved...
...remember the blessing: “But to the one who does
not work [for his salvation], but believes in Him Who justifies the
ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness, just as David [in Psalm
32:1,2] also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits
righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those who lawless deeds have been
forgiven, and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the
Lord will not take into account.’ Is this blessing then on the circumcised, or
on the uncircumcised also? For we say [with Genesis 15:6], ‘faith was
credited to Abraham as righteousness.’ How then was it credited? While he was
circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised; and
he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith
which he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who
believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be credited to
them, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the
circumcision, but who also follow in the steps of the faith of our father
Abraham which he had while uncircumcised...now not for his sake only was it
written that it was credited to him, but for our sake also, to whom it will be
credited, as those who believe in Him Who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, He
Who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of
our justification” (Romans 4:5-12,23-25).
...remember the great purchase: “...our great God
and Savior, Christ Jesus...gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless
deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for
good deeds” (Titus 2:13,14).
...remember the covenant with every lifting of the
cup (for the cup points to the blood of the covenant, Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians
11:25): “And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying [in
Jeremiah 31:33,34], ‘“This is the covenant that I will make with them after
those days,” says the Lord: “I will put My laws upon their heart, and on their
mind I will write them,” He then says, “And their sins and their lawless deeds
I will remember no more.” Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there
is no longer any offering for sin. Therefore, brethren, since we have
confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living
way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since
we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere
heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an
evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the
confession of our hope without wavering, for He Who promised is faithful; and
let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not
forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging
one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near” (Hebrews
10:15-25).
Ah, the daily reading of the Psalms for this sinner:
taking a big, deep breath to sing it out loudly from a self-centered heart,
only to have the words get caught in my throat, choking on the Psalm, as I
realize the Lord prayed them concerning me, the sinner, and then to realize
that in the Father answering this petition from the Son through resurrection, I
have life, too. It is beautiful beyond art and infinitely wiser than merely human words. It is
gracious beyond what even the most perfect me I can imagine could ever deserve.
It is the barest of tastes of how the days of eternity will be spent, for “in
the ages to come He [will] show the surpassing riches of His grace in
kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7).
He is good, and His merciful covenant-love endures
forever and ever and ever...
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