Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Take not thy spirit from me. Psalm 51:13
This line is pure fear. It’s the fear of abandonment. David doesn’t want God’s Spirit to leave him. He had seen it happen to someone else. Now, he sees where it could be happening to him.
I suspect David is thinking of King Saul. Of course, I can’t prove it. But it helps me to understand this Psalm better if I imagine David replaying his predecessor’s spiritual self-destruction. I think David is afraid that God will do to him what he once did to Saul.
Back when David was only a boy-soldier, Saul was the popular king of the twelve tribes of Israel. David was waiting in the wings to take his place. That was God’s decision, not David’s, and the prophet Samuel had confirmed it by anointing David to be the next ruler of Israel. David had a front row seat to watch Saul make a shipwreck of his relationship with God.
Saul was a beautiful man. He was tall, and strong, and handsome, the type of person we all want to follow. But the Lord regretted his decision to make Saul king.
God regretted making Saul king over his people for only one reason. One reason is enough for any of us. Saul had turned back from following him, and did not perform his commandments.
God’s final rejection of Saul came when he ordered him utterly to destroy the city of Amalek. Saul allowed the cattle and precious metals to be spared. When confronted about it, Saul cooked up a story about saving it all for a sacrifice to the Lord. But the prophet Samuel saw through his words, and told him how God didn’t really need any cattle or gold that day. God instead wanted Saul to listen and obey.
It was then that God’s Spirit left King Saul.
There is a warning for us in all of this. David saw what happened to Saul after the Spirit of God departed from him. Once a pious man of God, Saul had become a desperate, angry pagan who put more stock in séances and mediums than in the worship of the Lord. Saul turned from trusting in God to trusting in the dead. It all started with impenitence over his sin.
This is serious business. We can become complacent about sin. We can defend it so long and so well that no one can tell us otherwise. We basically dare God to say anything about it. And then, one day, when we are perhaps even confident that all is well between us and the Lord, the Spirit leaves us. It can happen. David knew it; he had seen it in Saul. He knew that he was on the ragged edge of it happening to him.
It was only by God’s Spirit that David finally came to his senses about his sin. He had covered up his affair with a married woman and the subsequent murder of her husband. It was only by God’s Spirit that the prophet Nathan was able to get through to him with a story about a rich man and a poor fellow with only one lamb. (If you don’t know this story, stop and read II Samuel 11:1 - 12:25 in the Old Testament now.)
Don’t think for a minute that David’s repentance isn’t anything short of a miracle. Most people still refuse to acknowledge their sin and get down on their knees, even when confronted. It’s a sure sign of impenitence, and it’s a recipe for death. If you confidently remain in your sin, God cannot be your companion. He eventually will leave you to your false friends, both the demonic ones and the human ones who tell you the lies you want to hear. Then you can call upon God all you want on the final day, but He will say that He never knew you. You will be separated from all of God’s love, and introduced to all of His justifiable wrath. Then a wave of righteous anger shall wash over you as you have never experienced before--and you will be filled with an eternal void of loneliness that will never be filled. Perhaps most bitter of all: you will have to acknowledge it was all your fault.
So, this prayer is important. This is why we pray it after every sermon, every Sunday. All prayers are important, but praying for the Holy Spirit is certainly one of the most important ones, if not the most important one. We do not want to end up like Saul, abandoned by God. Sinners have no hope without God’s Spirit.
It’s good to know what we’re asking for each week as we pray that God the Spirit not leave us. The assumption here is that God the Spirit has every right to leave. Like David, we need to be very humble about this. Our sins are very real to God.
Second, it is the Holy Spirit who teaches us to repent. He points out our sins. He makes us feel guilty over them. This is not a cruelty. Standing in the flame of God the Spirit is painful, but it is a great gift. Only people who know they are sick bother to find a doctor. God the Spirit touches us where the infection is most ripe and makes us hurt.
And then, there is the final word. The sinner who has been brought this far by God the Spirit gets brought even a bit further. He gets brought to Christ, who has taken these sins out of our hands and made them his own. They belong to Him now; He has disarmed and diffused them like a bomb-squad expert with a hot IED. This is the doctor whose blood is a healing salve for all of our spiritual infections. It is because of Christ that David could get up and eat and drink and live again after this prayer. Wherever a broken and contrite heart meets God’s mercy, you can be sure it’s because of Christ’s death on the cross. The outcome is so good because the sacrifice has been so effective. The blood of Christ covers over a multitude of sins.
This week I was reminded again of the frailty of my job. The word for that these days is "relevance." The ministry isn’t very relevant. It doesn’t meet anybody’s real needs; it doesn’t make anything.
Of course, this upsets and depresses me. I’d like to blame it on the overcast weather, but I think Satan is the more likely culprit.
We make a serious miscalculation these days if we think the gospel of forgiveness freely passed out to sinners is relevant. This message will never, strictly speaking, meet the needs of the people of our age--or any other. It’s about as relevant to the stubborn, smug, sinful nature of human beings as buttermilk in a bar, or arguments for marriage and fidelity in a whorehouse.
But for sinners who have come to know and sorrow over their sins with David, it is life and salvation. David’s prayer tonight is answered in every absolution. It is the greatest treasure, and it is transformative. Our lives can never be the same after we have believed we are saved at Calvary. There is too much that has been put away for good, and too much that has been given for us to enjoy forever.
“Take not thy Holy Spirit from me,” we pray. Also, “Cast me not away from thy presence.” Consider that the next time the bloodied hand of Christ reaches down to touch you at confession. It is there that your prayer is answered.
The Reverend Sean M. Smallwood
cruxprobatomnia -- the cross tests everything
I acknowledge the debt to the late Prof. Gerhard Forde.
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