Those who have desired a real walk with God, who have really wanted a pure heart to know His righteousness and to be really born of God, have experienced times of trials and tribulations. They know what it means to be shaken to the very core of their existence. Knowing the corruption of their flesh, they still cry out to God for the work of the cross. They hunger for the death of the self life that they might know the Lord of Glory.
Psalm 6:1 O Lord, rebuke me not in Thine anger, neither chasten me in Thy hot displeasure.
When God begins chastening it seems that God is angry and is dealing with us in His hot displeasure, for the flesh nature recoils and fights against it. The self-life has a built in self-preservation instinct. It will not and cannot submit to God. It is God’s enemy (Romans 8:7). So when God begins to chastise, it rises up in indignation and makes us feel that God is very angry with us. But what is really happening? It is God’s love for us that wars against our flesh. It is for our deliverance, for He scourges every son He receives. For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. If ye endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the Father chastens not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Hebrews 12:6-11. So while we may think God is rebuking us in His anger and chastening us in hot displeasure, He is actually making it possible for us to partake of His holiness. This is the route to coming into His divine nature. This is the process of really being born again!
Psalm 6:2 Have mercy upon me, O Lord; for I am weak: O Lord, heal me; for my bones are vexed.
After a time of being chastened of the Lord, there is an intense feeling of weakness. We feel weak because God is destroying everything of self that we have ever relied on for security. We don’t feel humanly adequate anymore. Confidence in self is gone. It is very difficult to learn how to trust in the Lord and to lean upon Him for all security. We will not really trust Him as long as we have something of self to trust in. When He takes away all our foundations of human security, we will feel so weak that we will cry out for mercy. But it is only now that we will learn the proper relationship with the Lord that He might become our security in all things. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. (As long as we trust in our own abilities, we won’t trust Him. So He has to eliminate them.) In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. (We cannot have two masters. Self has to give way to His Lordship.) Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil. Proverbs 3:5-7. We will no longer be wise in our own eyes after the Lord has destroyed all our self-confidence.
Next, we will cry out, “Lord, heal me; for my bones are vexed.” The Hebrew word for “vexed” is bahal, which indicates an intense trembling inwardly. The bones are our framework, and this is where the shaking takes place. This begins when we really hear a living Word. For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Hebrews 4:12. When we receive a living Word it will vex us even in our bones.
Psalm 6:3 My soul is also sore vexed: but Thou, O Lord, how long?
Even the soul is vexed by a living Word. The vexation reaches down into our mental and emotional make-up. It is as Paul said in his second epistle to the Corinthians. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death works in us, but life in you. II Corinthians 4:11-12. Everything of self must be brought down in order for the life of the Lord to come forth in us. He must be the Lord over us, not just our mind or our emotions or any part of our self life. These are the sufferings Paul spoke of in Romans 8:18: For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Nevertheless, we will say, “I am shaken right down in the very core of my existence. O Lord, how long?”
Psalm 6:4 Return, O Lord, deliver my soul: O save me for Thy mercies’ sake.
Yes, we will cry out for the Lord to return and save us for His mercies’ sake. But He has not left us. Everything we are feeling is because He has come forth in our lives bringing down all the high-mindedness of the self-life. He is destroying pride and arrogance, the phony humility, the selfishness and self-centeredness and all the other aspects of our self-life. He is cleaning us out of everything that offends and opposes His Lordship. He is making us a vessel of honor, a habitation for Himself, a place where He can be glorified.
Psalm 6:8-9 Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; for the Lord
hath heard the voice of my weeping.
9 The Lord has head my supplication; the
Lord will receive my prayer.
Now we begin to understand what the Lord is really doing. The workers of iniquity are all the aspects of our self life opposed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We are beginning to feel some liberty from the things of self that have had us in bondage. We know our prayer is being heard. And with a new authority that comes because of our awareness of His Lordship over us, we begin crying out to the things in our flesh nature, “Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity!” We are now working together with the Lord in our release from the bondage of self.
Psalm 6:10 Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed: let them return and be ashamed suddenly.
The reason so many Christians are hindered in their spiritual growth is because they don’t know where their enemies lie. They are constantly trying to resist the evil one that is outside of them. It is only when we understand that it is the evil within us that must be overcome. Then we can start making real progress in God. How blessed is the man that can say, “Let all mine enemies that are within me be ashamed and vexed.”
Copyright © 2009 by Henry DuBose