Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

Psalm chapter 38. It's really challenging just to pick one verse from this Psalm because there's

such a progression from beginning to end in it. So let me read a few different verses, make just

a couple of comments, and then lead us to pray according to this psalm as a whole. So here's how it

starts. Psalm chapter 38 verses 1 and 2. O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me

in your wrath, for your arrows have sunk into me and your hand has come down on me.

I'll jump ahead to verse five. My wounds stink and fester because of my foolishness. I'm utterly

bowed down and prostrate all the day I go about mourning. So just put these initial verses together

and you see that David here in this Psalm is overwhelmed by his sin and foolishness by his

disobedience to God.

And so he gets down all the way to verse 18,

and he says, all the way to verse 17,

and he says, for I am ready to fall and my pain is ever before me.

I confess my iniquity. I am sorry for my sin. So this is a powerful picture of

conviction that leads to confession. He is so overwhelmed by his foolishness, his sin against God

in a way that leads him to confess that

sin. I confess my iniquity. And with contrition, I am sorry for my sin. So see this progression,

a conviction that leads to confession and contrition. Not just, okay, I acknowledge I did something

wrong, but God, I'm so sorry

that I've lived in foolishness, that I've made unwise decisions, that I've sinned against you.

And then he gets to the very end. And this is how the Psalm ends, verse 21 and 22, do not forsake me,

oh, Lord. Oh, my God, be not far for me.

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