God’s Word for You
Psalm 142:2 What a great and wonderful God we have
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, August 12, 2025
2 I pour out my complaint before him;
I tell my trouble before him.
“Trouble” in the second line is tsaráh, which in certain contexts can mean a “rival wife” (Leviticus 18:18; 1 Samuel 1:6). Here it means a trouble that vexes, frustrates, or worries. What a gracious and merciful God we have, who listens to such things from us! He says, on the one hand, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). But he also says, “You have burdened me with your sins and wearied me with your offenses” (Isaiah 43:24). Yet the one does not cancel out the other. He continues to invite us to pray to him and to ask for his help, and he keeps proving to us in his word that we burden him, not with our prayers, for these are things he asks for, but with our sins, which are all things he forbids.
This is the heart of the whole Bible, the truth that rescues us every day. Our sins offend God and burden him. He hates our sin and he condemns our sin. And what brings about sin in us? There are three, even four things in us ourselves, apart from the devil and the world around us, that cause such terrible things. Mankind causes sin in other people by false teaching (Romans 16:17). False teaching misleads people into thinking that something that they believe or do is just fine in God’s sight. I once overheard an old woman tell a pastor of another denomination that she was so happy that the pastor explained that the books of Job and Jonah were just fairy tales, and that they don’t require us to believe that they were true. I pray that the old woman died before that wretched pastor could kill off any more of her faith, or soon she would have given up on Christ and the cross and the empty tomb of Easter in favor of whatever nonsense she was being fed from the pulpit. To pick away at one brick of the foundation of Scripture is to bring the whole thing crashing down in the end. Beware of false teachers!
Another way people cause others to sin is by setting a bad example, as Paul warns: “God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Romans 2:24). There has always been a special trend among certain sinners to teach their little children to sin, to curse and to use other profanity and obscene talk, that makes their parents and grandparents laugh and laugh! That’s how Ham’s family fell away from faith so soon after setting foot off the ark. Bad examples go beyond foul language. The bad example of avoiding church, of bad-mouthing Christians, of treating the word of God and even the Catechism as useless, as nothing but a book to keep a bottle of beer from making a ring on the coffee table. Bad examples lead to hardened hearts, and condemned, damned, children and grandchildren falling to their eternal punishment in hell.
Yet another way people cause others to sin is the inconsiderate use of Christian liberty, which Paul describes as “putting a stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way” (Romans 14:13). There are many things we are free to do, but to do something that causes someone to doubt Christ, or to stop caring about the Commandments, or to give up praying the Lord’s Prayer or even a table prayer, does not lead anyone to heaven. It leads people away from Christ, away from God’s will, away from heaven, and down to hell. Hypocrisy multiplies this, as Jesus said: “Woe to you, you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are” (Matthew 23:15).
So while we offend God when we offend our neighbor with such sins, God is still merciful. That’s the other half of this key teaching of the Bible: Law and Gospel. He is still gracious to us. He still listens when we repent, and when we come on our knees and with tears on our faces because of the crimes we have committed against Jesus and the name of God and the faith of God’s holy people. And what does God do when we repent this way? He forgives! We don’t deserve this. We break each other’s hearts with the wrongs we commit, but God lets it go, because it all went straight to the cross. Now he tosses it all away: “You have put all my sins behind your back” (Isaiah 38:17). And being forgiven, he teaches us to watch out for our weaker brothers and sisters. Don’t lead them into sin! Don’t vex them, or trouble them. Don’t tie a millstone around your own neck! Be gentle with them, be patient with them, and treat them the way Christ has treated you. “I pour out my complaint before him,” and he helps. I cause him to have a complaint against me, and he forgives. What a great and wonderful God we have!
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.