What’s the Difference Between True and False Faith?
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What’s the Difference Between True and False Faith?

Sinner, Call on a Holy God | Psalm 6

Posted July 12, 2024
Encouragement

No matter your emotion or situation, there is a psalm for you. Some psalms help you worship with full-throttled joy (e.g. Psalm 150). Others give expression to your fear, envy, and sense of isolation (Psalms 64, 73, 88 ). There are even psalms for your frustration over God’s apparent unresponsiveness (Psalm 44). So if, as Martin Luther wrote, Jesus “willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance,” we would expect to find psalms that help us express sorrow over our sin and a sincere desire for new obedience. And we do.

Christians have commonly identified seven contrition–infused psalms that have been designated penitential psalms (Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143). In a day when sin is commonly minimized or even celebrated, these psalms can give us biblical language to grieve our brokenness. And, linked with the healing ministry of Christ, they can be a balm to our troubled souls. They align with the New Testament promise that the sins we sincerely confess will surely be forgiven (1 John 1:8).

Sometimes the poetry of the penitential psalms doesn’t seem to line up exactly with our situation. That’s okay. We don’t have to be literally flooding our beds with tears (Ps. 6:6). We just have to know that we are weak, and come to Christ because he is strong.

Psalm 6 makes three simple observations about biblically penitent people: they are in trouble, they ask God for mercy, and they can expect God to be gracious.

The Predicament of the Penitent

David uses a powerful phrase to sum up his situation: “I am languishing” (Ps. 6:2). He’s weak. Feeble. Because his conscience is uneasy, his whole self is unwell. His bones and his soul are troubled (6:2, 3). David is a wreck. He’s crying when he should be sleeping. “I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. My eye wastes away because of grief” (6, 7). The end of verse three isn’t even a complete sentence: “But you, O Lord—how long?” The thought of life going on as it has been tortures him.

Unrepentance—the act of making peace with your sin—will ruin you. Because life is more than our material circumstances (Matt. 6:25) human thriving requires a healthy walk with God. And chasing wrong goals always leaves us tired, empty, and frustrated. Sin can produce a temporary high. But the rush cannot last. “Languishing” is the ordinary, expected result of impenitent sinfulness.

David isn’t only suffering under the weight of his own sin. Enemy attacks make him unnervingly conscious of dying. He uses the prospect of death to urge God to hear his case; “For in death there is no remembrance of you” (6:5). Old Testament saints, understandably, had a more negative view of death than do New Testament believers. There are many bright spots (e.g. Job 19:25–27; Ps. 16:10) but in Old Testament logic, death was more a discontinuation of life than “an entering into eternal life.”

Bottom line: David’s thoughts are dark. Thankfully, he realized that “Depression and exhaustion as complete as this are beyond self-help or good advice.” So, in his plight, he called upon God. Our sins also should lead us to God, not away from him.

The Plea of the Penitent

David makes six requests in the first four verses. They aren’t as explicitly self-deprecating or contrite as other penitential psalms (e.g. Psalm 51). But he does model the vital discipline of going to God in times of trouble. And David is at least part of the problem. Even if he doesn’t divulge a particular sin, he gives the sense that, perhaps because of his backsliding, God feels distant. “Return, O Lord, deliver my soul” (Ps. 6:4 KJV).

David knows he should be bracing for divine rebuke and discipline “Rebuke me not in anger nor discipline me in your wrath” (6:1). The just Judge only chastens the guilty. Truly penitent people know that they deserve rebuke and discipline, and rightly fear God’s wrath and anger.

So David prays for leniency. “Be gracious to me.” Don’t treat me according to my sins. “Heal me, O Lord,” for I have made myself sick (6:2). Knowing that his sins have trapped him. David prays, “Deliver my life … save me” (6:4). Maybe David is praying for physical deliverance. Or Perhaps he mentions his enemies because they were deriding him for his moral failures.

We will glean more specific application from subsequent penitential psalms. But part of what can make Psalm six so helpful is that we don’t know what sin David is lamenting. He doesn’t name a sin. But in his fallen condition, he asked God for mercy. The pursuit of mercy is a basic rule for living before God’s face.

The Prospects of the Penitent

The end of the psalm is hopeful. And not simply because David has been honest with himself about his problems, but because he has called on God. By faith, the penitent can know four hope-giving truths.

God Will Hear

David held it as fact: “The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord accepts my prayer” (6:9). True penitence is the proper language for communing with a holy God. God puts it directly: “Call to me and I will answer you” (Jer. 33:3). The Father cannot ignore cries for help from his adopted children offered in the name of his only begotten Son.

God Will Act

David believed that God would deliver him from sin’s entanglement and rebuke his enemies (6:10); his prayer was biblical and harmonized with God’s just character. In Psalm 50 “the Mighty One, God the Lord speaks” this formula: “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me” (1, 15).

God Will Receive Our Praise

David suggests that God must keep him alive to receive his praise (Ps. 6:5). In fact, the dead in Christ do praise God. But so do those who are alive in Christ. No matter your situation, you were made to praise. And with God’s help, the knowledge of your sin can motivate you to worship God for his great salvation.

God Is Love

Other relationships are fragile because the passions of one or both partners can lag. This is true even of our love toward God. Our love can grow cold (Matt. 24:12; cf. Rev. 2:4). But God’s love for his people never fails. It is “steadfast love” (6:4); as immovable as every other trait of the Almighty. And it is indisputably proven to us in the cross.

The message of the first penitent psalm is simple: Tell God your sin, seek his help, and count on him to answer you in the best possible way.


Footnotes

  • Heidelberg Catechism Q/A 42.

  • Derek Kidner, Psalms 1–72, 62.

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William Boekestein

William Boekestein is the pastor of Immanuel Fellowship Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He has written several books and numerous articles. He and his wife, Amy, have four children.