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THE MESSAGE OF UNBROKEN BONES (Psalm 35)

I absolutely love how so many times one of these psalms will naturally lead into the next one. It is like a continuing drama, a story unfolding before us.

After seeing in Psalm 34 how often the word “all” was used as a theme, it seems as though Psalm 35 continues that thought. It is a prayer that God will break through. Let’s look at a portion of David’s cry in this passage.

Verse 7: “For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul.”

There is an application for this verse that we should not miss. Even when people are persecuting you and constantly after you, make sure you are living your life so that their actions are without cause. Don’t give anyone a reason to do you harm, to lash out at you because you first lashed out or did something evil to another. Live your life above reproach and without blame.

David did that. He was on the run for his very life, but it was not because of anything he had done.

Verses 8-9: “Let destruction come upon him at unawares; and let his net that he hath hid catch himself: into that very destruction let him fall. And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord: it shall rejoice in his salvation.”

Isn’t that last verse wonderful? David was in harm’s way but was still joyful.

Recently I was with a man who has been in the Lord’s work for many years and just exuded joy. I mentioned to him that I noticed this, and he spoke to me privately about it.

“I’ve had a lot of trouble and difficulty to deal with,” he told me. “I learned that as long as I grumbled and complained about it, I stayed in a terrible frame of mind. But when trouble came, I realized that the best thing I could do was start praising God. Inevitably, when I did that, God brought me through the circumstances.”

I believe there is a great truth in that for all of us. It was my friend who reminded me of it, but it is also illustrated in this psalm. David was a joyful man in a difficult situation.

Verse 10: “All my bones shall say, Lord, who is like unto thee, which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him, yea, the poor and the needy from him that spoileth him?”

There is that word “all” once again as we saw so many times in the previous psalm. And there is a message in these bones we are reading about now. They are not only the bones of David, but also of the Lord Jesus Christ.

These are messianic psalms. Go back to Psalm 34:20 and consider about whom these words were written: “He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken.”

Both of these verses are prophetic, a foreshadowing of when the Messiah would come. They would afflict Him, trouble Him, and eventually crucify Him. But they would not break His bones, because God had said they would not be broken.

This is a reminder that the Lord has everything in hand and even puts limits on evil. God is ultimately in control.

The Bible says in John 19:32-36,

“Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe. For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.”

Can you imagine? Our Lord Jesus -- who according to medical doctors, had every wound imaginable at Calvary -- did not have a single broken bone because God said in the Old Testament that they would not be broken and that those bones would speak to us. What do the unbroken bones say?

They say to us that God is true.

They say, “Who is like the Lord?”

They say that He delivers the poor and needy.

They tell us that God never breaks His promises.

To prove that “all” really means all, God the Father points to Jesus Christ. It is as if He said, “As surely as I took care of My own Son, I will take care of you.”

In the previous psalm, David was forced to run from Gath, a place where he thought he could find refuge. A man named Doeg the Edomite saw him there and brought great trouble and persecution to him. He was in fact a spy who told Saul where David was going. David was still on the run in Psalm 35.

But it is wonderful to see that, in this historical context, David was able to continue to say that God was taking care of him. Even David’s bones cried out that there is no one like the Lord. That continued to be proven true in Christ’s time on this earth, when His bones were kept unbroken by the hand of God.

Now let’s bring this home to where we live. God brought this psalm to me many years ago at the end of a very trying day, when I was dealing with one problem after another. He showed me Psalms 34-35 to emphasize that He always takes care of His children, no matter what circumstances they find themselves in.

You certainly are not facing anything like what Jesus faced on the way to the cross, and you probably are not in as dire a situation as David was. But whatever you are facing today, God is the God of all. He kept David’s life safe and He kept His own Son’s bones from being broken. He will keep you right where you are.

Do what David did in Psalm 35:9. Decide that you are going to “be joyful in the Lord” and “rejoice in his salvation.” It may be that you cannot truly rejoice in your circumstances, but you can rejoice in the Lord in the midst of those circumstances, because our God is the God of unbroken bones.