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Psalm
119:49-56
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Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life. The insolent utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law. When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O LORD. Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake your law. Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning. I remember your name in the night, O LORD, and keep your law. This blessing has fallen to me, that I have kept your precepts. (ESV)
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Quieting Despair
Johann Walter, Kantor
24 April 2012
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Baseball is a funny game. A team can play dismally one day and be world beaters the next. The struggling Houston Astros have played this way recently. Their record over the last seven games is 2-5. In that stretch of seven games, the Astros lost, albeit generally by close scores, the first three and then first two games of the series played against the Washington Nationals and the Los Angeles Dodgers respectively. The Astros won the last game of both series by the lopsided scores of 11-4 and 12-0. They need to save some of those runs for the other games. Baseball is streaky, in part, because those who play it, play it in their heads. As Yogi Berra once said, "Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical." Jim Deshaies, Houston Astros television broadcaster and former big-league pitcher, often points out to Astros fans on broadcasts, that pitching failures are accompanied by or caused by mental lapses, even a kind of sports despair. A pitcher who despairs of his ability to slip his fastball past a hitter will find it impossible to do so. Despair saps his resolve and causes him to have a weakened arm. Despair of success is itself a predictor of failure.
This is also true in our spiritual lives. Satan, the world, and our flesh all team up against us to drive us to despair. They are powerful enemies constantly working upon us. They never give up. If we are left with only our own spiritual capacities with which to fight these enemies, we shall surely lose and succumb to them. The law certainly supports their accusations against us, because their accusations are certainly true. We have not feared, loved, and trusted in God above all things. All too often, we have attempted to depend entirely on ourselves. That does not work out very well for us, does it? How easily we may fall into despair over our status with God when the raging desires of our flesh are placed before the bar of God's law. We know that God hates our sin and his wrath is kindled against us for our wickedness. We tremble when God confronts our depravity.
But our gracious heavenly Father has not left us to our own devices. Though we are often inwardly disturbed by our own weakness and inclination to sin, our Lord Jesus Christ has sent the Spirit, the Comforter to us. Christ sends us the message that the law has been confronted by Him, fulfilled by Him, and rendered powerless against us by Him. This we must believe especially against our own feelings and the struggle we have with the flesh. We must shut our ears to the accusations of the law. We must believe what God's word says about us in Christ and for Christ's sake. Christ makes all the difference in the world. It is a fairly simple question. What are you going to believe? Your own despairing, wicked heart, the accusations of Satan, or the attacks of the world? Or are you going to believe the life-giving word of Christ? Are you going to trust the speech of God that says the law no longer accuses us, because it accused Christ? Are you going to repose quietly in the care of him who does not desire the death of the wicked? These trump the devil, the world, and the flesh every time. | |
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Martin Luther
"Whoever is suffering this kind of trial should not let it move him, because the devil is able to exaggerate his sin, so that it seems to him that he will absolutely succumb and collapse. He will feel nothing other than the pure wrath of God and despair. He must not follow his own perception, but let him seize upon this saying of Paul: 'If we are led by the Spirit,' that is, if he has been stirred up by his faith in Christ, etc., 'you are not under the law' (Gal 5:18). So he shall have the most powerful bulwark, by which he will be able to extinguish all the flaming darts which the evil one lets fly at him (Eph 6:16). So that no matter how much the flesh should rage and rave, all of its disturbance and fury is not able to harm or condemn him, because the Spirit, which leads him, does not assent to the flesh nor does it carry out the desires of the flesh.
"Therefore there is only one remedy for the raging desires of the flesh; taking the sword of the Spirit, that is the saving word; namely that God does not desire the death of the wicked, etc. (Ez 18:23). Without doubt, we shall emerge victors, although we feel precisely the opposite because of the difficulty of the fight. If however this word is driven out of our sight, there will be neither counsel nor help, etc. I speak from my own experience. I have undergone great sufferings and some of those most burdening. However, when finally I apprehended such a passage of Scripture I leaned on it as though it were a holy anchor, and immediately the trials, which without the Word of God would have been impossible for me to have sustained even for a little while, let alone triumphing over them, were driven away.
"In summary, in this disputation about the wrestling match between the flesh and the spirit, Paul teaches that saints and believers are not able to accomplish what the spirit wishes. The spirit earnestly desires to be completely pure, but the flesh, conjoined to it, will not permit it. However, they are saved through the remission of sins which is in Christ. Therefore they can walk and be led by the spirit. They are not under the law, that is, the law cannot accuse and terrify them etc. And even when the law disturbs them, it is not able to drive them to despair."
Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians, 5.18
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Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, send Your Holy Spirit that we might not believe our own feelings, but rather trust your life-giving Word to us that tells us that our sin is covered and our Father's wrath is extinguished. Keep us from despair, and other great shame and vice. Lead us to repentance and keep before our eyes Your gospel. Amen.
For Don Porter, that he would continue his recovery and regain his strength
For Howard Smith, that he would continue to recover from hip replacement surgery
For all those who are plagued by despair, that they would find their comfort in Christ
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Art: DUBOIS, Thomas Lamb of God
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 © Scott R. Murray, 2012
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