Sin, Sickness, Death and Mercy

O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger,

    nor discipline me in your wrath.

 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing;

    heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled.

 My soul also is greatly troubled.

    But you, O Lord—how long?

 Turn, O Lord, deliver my life;

    save me for the sake of your steadfast love.

 For in death there is no remembrance of you;

    in Sheol who will give you praise?

 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;

    it grows weak because of all my foes.

 Depart from me, all you workers of evil,

    for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.

 The Lord has heard my plea;

    the Lord accepts my prayer.

All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled;

    they shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment. 

Psalms 6 (ESV)

Think of all of the things in your life that have gone wrong.  Maybe you have been cheated, maybe you are sick, maybe you have lost a loved one.  There is a reason why things like immorality, sickness, and death hurt us; they are unnatural.  Actually, let me rephrase that; they were not intended to be a part of humanity.  When we read Psalm 6, it is interesting because in the first seven verses there is a correlation between sickness and sin.  While David is writing this, he is sick; yet he describes God’s wrath.  David describes the fear of what it is to be in God’s wrath, and he asks for healing.  So what does David’s affliction have to do with sin?

When I started graduate school, my first class was in Old Testament Exegesis. My professor explained to us that there are two types of evil; there is moral evil (lying, cheating, stealing, etc.), and there is natural evil (natural disasters, illness, even death itself).  All of this was the result of the Fall.  We were not meant to sin, we were not meant to get sick, we were not meant to die.  We were meant to be in perfect community with God and live forever.  “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12 ESV).

But God does have mercy.  A lot of times we might say the trials and tribulations we experience are not fair; but what does that mean?  Fairness would have been killing Adam and Eve, fairness would have been wiping out humanity in the Flood, fairness would mean that there would be no path to Salvation.  What we get is mercy through God’s grace.  David’s affliction would be temporary compared to the love that God bestows upon him.  Eventually whatever we, as Christians, go through will work together for good (Romans 8:28).  In the end, God will be glorified, even if our pain is self inflicted. 

So in our times of distress, we have to remember that God is with us.  This world can and will kick us in the teeth, but He is good, He controls all things.  We may experience the most evil of things, but God goodness and glory will trump all things.

I love you all,

Justin