LivePrayerSermon 2639. Our Heavenly Father's Pity
(No. 2639)
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY SEPTEMBER 10, 1899.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK, ON A LORD'S-DAY EVENING IN 1857.
"Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear Him." Psalm 103:13.
WHAT a blow this is for our pride! Then God's children are pitiable objects, notwithstanding that He has crowned them withglory and honor, has given them perfection in Christ Jesus, has breathed into them the breath of spiritual life, has set theirfeet upon a rock and established their goings-yet they are and they always will be, so long as they are here below-pitiableobjects! It is like tolling the death-knell of all our pride to talk about God pitying us! Why, my Brothers and Sisters, weshed our pity profusely upon the ungodly-we are often pitying the wicked, the profane, the blasphemer and Sabbath-breaker-buthere we find God pitying us! Even David, the mighty Psalmist, is pitied! A Prophet, a priest, a king-each of these shall havepity from God, for, "He pities them that fear Him," and finds good reasons for pitying them, however high their station, howeverholy their character, or however happy their position! We are pitiable beings! Oh, boast not, Believer! Be not loud in praiseof yourself! Put your finger on your lips and be silent when you hear that God pities you! The next time carnal security wouldcreep in, or fleshly conceit would get the upper hand of you, remember that while you are boasting, God is pitying-and whileyou are triumphing, He is looking down upon you with pitying eyes of compassion, for He finds reason for compassion when youcan only see cause for glorying!
Our subject then, Beloved, will be a review-a review of our lives-if we are the Lord's children and fear Him. I hope it willbe profitable to us. It will not be profitable through the newness of the thoughts, but rather by "stirring up your pure mindsby way of remembrance," to look back upon all the ways whereby the Lord your God has led you. "Like as a father pities hischildren, so the Lord pities them that fear Him." First of all, notice the displays of this pity. Then, the spirit of thispity. And then, lastly, note the objects of this pity.
I. Notice THE DISPLAY OF THIS PITY. "Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear Him." When doesa father display pity towards his child? I answer-on many and divers occasions.
Sometimes, the father's pity is bestowed upon the child's ignorance. He, himself, knows a thing which is, to his child, aprofound mystery. He knows a certain truth which is, to him, an axiom and an element of his knowledge. But to his child itseems like the apex of the pyramid of knowledge-he wonders how he can ever attain to so high a pitch of learning! And, oh,how foolish are the child's surmises! How long he is guessing at truth and how mistaken are the axioms which he founds uponhis mistakes of thought! And how the father pities the child if he falls among bad companions who teach him errors, who, insteadof filling his mind with truth, fill it with lies! When he comes to his father with all those strange stories, with whichwicked men have filled his little ears, the father pities him that he should be so ignorant as to be carried away by everywind of tattling-that he should receive every talker into his confidence and believe everything because man has said it, takingevery man's opinion and believing what any man declares to be right!
So, when, in the plentitude of our supposed wisdom, we think ourselves infallible, God looks down on our wisdom as being childishfolly! When, in the glory of our wondrous eloquence, we talk great things, God looks down upon us as upon the prattler, whotalks fast, but talks foolishly. And, often, when we come before our fellows and spread before them wondrous discoveries thatwe have made, He that sits in the heavens does not laugh in derision, but He smiles in compassion that we should think ourselvesso wise in having discovered nothing, and so supremely learned in having found out untruths!
And how God must pity His dear family when He finds them led astray by false doctrine and error! How many there are of God'speople who go up to houses of prayer, so-called, where, instead of hearing the Truths of the Kingdom of Heaven, they are taughtall kinds of strange things-where they hear "another gospel, which is not another, but there are some that trouble them."Where all the isms and fancies of man are preached, instead of the Truth of God, in all its discrimination, in all its power,in all its constancy and everlastingness and the power of its application to the soul by the Spirit of God. How God pitiessome of His children who are thus led astray! One of them, perhaps, says of their minister, "Is he not intellectual? Is henot a wonderful minister? Though he said nothing about Jesus Christ, today, yet it was such a clever discourse! It is true,he did not preach God's Gospel, but, then, see how beautifully he cleared up that point of metaphysics! It is quite certainthat he did not lead me to hold more fellowship with my Redeemer, but then how excellent was that distinction which he drewbetween those two similar terms which he employed!"
Another says, "I never heard a man so clever as my minister! I will not go and hear any of those vulgar preachers who talkto their hearers in a way that servant girls and mechanics can understand. I like to hear my minister, for he is so profoundlywise, that I do not believe there are many people in the chapel beside myself who can appreciate him! I will still go andhear him, dear man, though he does puzzle me, sometimes, so that I do not know what on earth he is talking about, and whenhe has finished his discourse, it has been such a perplexing one, that I have lost my way, and said, 'Dear me, the time isgone and I wonder what the sermon has been all about!'"
God pities His children when they are in this position. He does not pity them when they hear His Truth-when they have realGospel fare, however roughly the meat may be carved, and however it may be served up on the coarsest platter that human speechcan supply. He pities them not when they get such spiritual food as that-but He does pity them when they are misguided, whenthey are carried away by "philosophy, falsely so called," being misled by the seeming wisdom of man which, after all, is butfolly, having nothing of wisdom in it-the highest wisdom being that of believing what God has said, receiving God's Truthsimply as God's Truth and asking no questions about it. God pities His children, however, in all their ignorance. He is notangry with them, nor does He speak sharply to them, but He leads them on by His Spirit until they understand His Truth andreceive His Word.
It were well, however, if there were nothing else but ignorance to bear with, but the parent often has something worse thanthat to suffer from his child-he has to endure the disobedience and waywardness of human nature. There is the continual uprisingof evil passions, the perpetual proneness to disobedience, the frequent wandering from the path of righteousness and, oftentimes,the father has to pass that by with, perhaps, just a little admonition, but without a frown, without a sharp word, withouta blow-he has to say, "My Child, it is all forgiven you"-and though his temper may be sorely tried, yet he has patience withhis child, for he pities the child's disobedience. He knows, too, that he was once a child, himself, and then he did the sameas his child is now doing and, therefore, does he have patience with his child and he pities him. My Brothers and Sisters,what pity has the Lord had upon you and me, in all our wanderings! How often have we gone astray and yet, compared with ourwanderings, how seldom have we been chastised! How frequently have we broken His Commandments and rebelled against His Covenantand yet how light have been the strokes of chastisement, compared with the weight of our guilt, and how seldom has He afflictedus, compared with the frequency of our transgressions! How has He had patience with all our shortcomings and has bid His handbe still, when, if it had been like ours, it would have risen in hot anger to smite us to the dust! Truly, He has pitied us,"like as a father pities his children," only with a far greater patience! Even as He is, Himself, infinitely greater thanall earthly fathers, so has His pity been more continuous, more patient and more long-suffering than the pity of any humanparent who has ever breathed.
And as a father pities his child, not only in all his disobedience, but in all his actual transgressions and downright sin-whenhe grows from the mere wish to do evil up to the actual commission of the crime-like as a father still pities his child, evenwhen his follies have ripened into the worst of guilt, so has God pitied us, my Brothers and Sisters, when we have gone intogross sin before our conversion. Yes, and some of us even after it! When we have gone astray like lost sheep, have brokenthe hedges of His commands, and have gone rambling over the dark hills of transgression, still has He had pity upon us. Itis amazing how far a father's pity will go towards his child, even when he has transgressed ever so much. There are some whohave shut the door in their children's face and bid them never enter their house again, nor come near them. They have ceasedto speak of them, for they have determined that they would never take their names on their lips again, nor consider them theirchildren.
But such fathers are, I trust, very few in number. It is rarely that we meet with them. A father usually endures much, andendures long. After he has had the peace of his home destroyed and his gray hairs almost brought with sorrow to the tomb.After his family has been made a wreck and he has lost almost everything he had, by the profligacy of his son-still his love,tenacious to the last, holds to his boy and will not let him go. And even when others speak harshly of him, the old man palliateshis son's guilt-perhaps a little foolishly-but if he can find an excuse for him, he does. He will not have it that his sonis worse than others and he will allow no man to make his son's guilt appear greater than it is-in fact he will, as far ashe can, try to make it seem less.
Our Heavenly Father is not foolishly pitiful, but He is pitiful. Yes, and He is better than that! He is wisely pitiful overthe most erring of His children. Our God is no Arminian god-the Arminian's god is a pitiless god to his children. He is representedas being pitiful enough to all the world, but pitiless to his own children, for, according to the teaching of some, when theysin, he cuts them out of the covenant! And if they transgress, he bundles them out of doors, tells them they are not his childrenany longer and, because of their transgressions, he will have it that they are none of his and shall be damned at last, despitethe fact that Christ has died for them, that the Holy Spirit has regenerated them and that they have been justified! He caststhem away from his presence and they are to be lost forever! He is a pitiless god, but the god of these people is no relationto our God!
We do not believe in their god, nor do we fear him, nor bow before him. Our God is constant in His affection and mercifultowards His children! When they go astray, He pities all their guilt and sin. It is true, He takes the rod in His hand and,sometimes, causes us to weep bitterly by reason of the soreness of His chastisement. He applies the rod to our very soul andbrings the iron into our inmost spirit. He makes us smart, and cry, and groan, and sigh, but all He does is in pity becauseHe is determined to save us. He will not let us go unpunished because He pities us for our folly and sin. Just as the physicianwill not let the man go without his medicine because he pities him in his disease, so God will not let His children go withoutHis chastisement because He pities them in their sin. And mark, too, even that chastisement is one of pity-there is not onetwig too many in the rod, nor one stroke over the right number, nor one drop of gall too much-and that drop is none too bitter.The affliction is all measured out and weighed in balances and scales, all given as it should be-no more than what is necessary.God pities His children in all their chastisement and pities them in all their guilt and wanderings-and He will not let themgo away from Him altogether, nor will He suffer them to perish, for He pities them still.
God also pities His children in sickness. That is a time when a father pities his children very much. It does not say, "Likeas a mother pities her children, so the Lord pities them that fear Him." And I think the reason is not because a mother'spity is less intense, or less affectionate-for it is more so, by far-but because it is sometimes less effectual than the father's.A mother may pity her child, yet she may not be able to preserve it from an enemy. The mother may pity her child when it issick, but she may be alone in the house and she may not be able to travel far enough to find a physician and, therefore, Godhas put in, not merely the affection, but the strength of pity. "Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pitiesthem that fear Him." On the bed of sickness, the strength of pity is proved by Christ upon God's people. He does not stand,as the mother would, to weep over the child, but He does more than that. He does give true compassion, He does sympathize,but, more than that, He heals! He makes the wounded spirit whole. He removes the aching pain from the conscience, binds upthe broken heart, makes the weak to be strong and the faint one to rejoice! He gives us the strength of pity and some of uscan remember that strength of pity when, in our sickness, we lay tossing in our beds, without hardly power to pray-when wesaid our heart and our flesh had failed us, and we must die. When our brain was racked with discordant thoughts and reasonseemed to have left its throne, and blank despair held carnival within our brain, which, for a while, was under the dominionof the Lord of Misrule and revelry was perpetually kept up there. It was then, when we could do nothing, that Jesus came tous, not merely with the faint whispers of compassion, but with the strong voice of healing, bade our fears be still, comfortedour aching heart and then made our flesh leap for joy because our spirit, its twin sister which had been broken on the wheel,was delivered from the tormentor and made perfectly whole! Thus the Lord pities His children! He specially pities us in allour sicknesses.
And, my Brothers and Sisters, your Heavenly Father pities you who are His children under all your manifold trials, of whateverkind they are, and from whatever quarter they proceed. Thus, when persecuted, you have had His pity- when the jeer and tauntof the ungodly have been cast upon you-and when worse than that has been attempted against you. When you have had to bearthe brunt of poverty, you have had God's pity shed upon you. And you have had a pity, too, that was not barely that of words-youhave had the pity of help. He has given you your bread in your extremity and made your water sure when the brook was dry.You who have lost your friends and have had to weep over numerous bereavements. You who have mourned over your family whohave been swept away, one after another, not once have you been bereaved without the pity of your God! Never once has theclay fallen on the coffin lid, with the sad message, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," without the pity of your God fallingon your heart, like gentle dew from Heaven! He has always pitied you in your low estate. He has always been with you in allyour varied troubles and has never left you-
"'Mid scenes of confusion and creature complaints"- He has kept by your side and led you all through your journey. And hereyou can raise your Ebenezer and write the words of our text upon it, "Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pitiesthem that fear Him, and He has pitied me up to this hour!"
Yet once more, sometimes God's people have wrongs and a father pities His children, if they have wrongs that are unrevenged.I know a father who sometimes says, "If you strike me, you may strike me again. I will turn the other cheek to you and youmay smite me as long as you please. But," says that good man, and he is a man of peace, too-like myself, a thorough man ofpeace, though a little inconsistent-"strike my children and I will knock you down if I can! I will not have you meddle withthem. If you hit me, I will not resist you. You may do what you please with me. But if you smite my children, that I can neverendure! I love them so, that I should break through every principle to resent it! So strong is my natural affection for themthat though I might conceive myself to be wrong in what I did, I should do it, most certainly!"
Depend upon it, there is nothing that brings a man's wrath up like touching his children! And the same thing is true of God.You may curse Him and He will not be so angry with you as if you touch His children. The prophet Zechariah declared to Hisancient people, "He that touches you, touches the apple of His eye." If any of you want to know the shortest road to damnation,I will tell you-despise God's little ones! Treat God's people ill and you will damn yourself by express! Remember our Lord'swords, "But whoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone werehanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."
There never was a wrong done to one of God's people that God did not avenge! There has never been an ill deed done towardsthem yet but He has punished the doer of it. Though He suffered Assyria to break Israel in pieces, yet let Assyria speak,when she rises from her tomb, and tell how terribly God has shivered her with a rod of iron because she vaunted herself againstthe people of the Most High. Let old Rome testify that on her still rests the blood of the martyrs. Behold, our God has brokenher empire in pieces! The Roman emperor has ceased to exist and his gaudy pomp is gone. Yes, and modern Rome, too, has anawful doom yet to come-she, above all other cities-has a fearful future before her. She, that is wrapped in scarlet and sitson the seven hills, the Whore of Babylon, drunk with the blood of the saints, shall yet meet the doom foretold in the Revelation.Lo! God has said it! She shall be torn in pieces! She shall be burnt with fire and utterly consumed! God might have forgivenher if it had not been for the blood of the martyrs-but the blood of His children cries out against her and the curse of Godrests upon her! The Church of Rome can never again be put in the ranks of Christian churches! God has forgiven other Churchestheir sins and, despite errors in their doctrine and their practice, He has kept them among the living Churches. But of theRomish Babylon He has said, "She has made her garments red with the gore of My children; she has stained her hands with theblood of the saints; she shall be cut off, once and for all, and be forever cast away! Come out of her, My people, lest yoube partakers of her plagues and share in her fearful doom!" God pities His children! No martyr has died unpitied, nor shallany martyr die unavenged! Springing from their graves, they cry, "Revenge, revenge, upon the apostate church of Rome!" Andit shall be had. Lo! The souls of the saints beneath the altar cry, "How long, O Lord, how long?" Not long shall it be! Thesword is being made ready in Heaven. It is furbished and the God that pities them that fear Him shall not let His hands spare,nor His eyes pity, when He comes to avenge Himself upon the church that has dyed its garments with the blood of His elect!
II. And now, dear Friends, leaving that part of the subject, I want you briefly to notice THE SPIRIT OF GOD'S
PITY.
There are different sorts of pity. Some I would not have at any price whatever. Did you ever see the pity of contempt? Haveyou not often seen a gentleman watching a poor man doing something or other, and then saying to him, "Poor fellow, I do pityyou"? Have you ever seen a very respectable aristocrat who has never heard anything but the most "proper" kind of preaching,turn on his heels and go out of a Chapel door, saying, "Well, I do pity people who can listen to such stuff as that"? We haveoften seen that pity of contempt. But that is not God's kind of pity! He never pities His people in the way of contempt anda father never so pities his children. Sometimes, when a boy is writing a copy, a stranger goes through the school and says,"Well, he is an ignoramus," and he pities him, perhaps-but there is a sneer with his pity. But the lad's father comes intothe room. The boy has just got into pot-hooks and hangers and the father thinks he makes them very well for such a littleboy. He pities him, perhaps, that he is not able to write better, but there is no contempt with his pity. Nor is there anycontempt with God's pity-He sees what we are and pities us-but there is not a solitary grain of contempt for any of His peoplein His pity.
Other people's pity is the pity of inaction. "Oh, I do pity you very much!" says a person to a sick woman, "your husband isdead, your children have to be supported and you have to work hard. Well, my good Woman, I pity you very much, but I cannotafford to give you anything. I have so many who call upon me." How much pity there is of that kind in the world! You can getpity of that sort in abundance. If you lift the knocker of the first door you come to, you will get plenty of pity of thatkind. Pity is the cheapest thing in the world if that is all. But God's pity is not pity of that sort-it is not the pity whichis mere pity, it is not the pity of inaction-but, when His heart moves, His hands move, too, and He relieves all the needsof those He pities.
And let me say, again, God's pity is not a pity of mere sensitiveness. The other day a gentleman, talking of accidents, saidin my hearing, "I saw a boy running down a lane where a cab was coming at a very rapid rate. I saw that the boy must be crushedunder the horse's feet, or under the wheels. I stood for a moment thunderstruck and then I saw him crushed to pieces underthe wheels! I ran down the next street in a moment. I was so sensitive, I could not bear the sight." Instead of seeing whathelp he could give, he ran away. "Yet," he said, "I did not do that from any lack of sympathy, or any lack of pity, and whenI stopped myself, I thought it useless to go back, for I am so sensitive that I naturally avoid every sight of misery." Thatis not God's way of showing pity! His pity is not the pity of the stranger who ran away! God's pity is the pity of the father-itis not the pity of the mere sensation of the moment, but the pity which desires to do something to relieve his children indistress-
"The pity of the Lord, To those that fear His name, Is such as tender parents feel- He knows our feeble frame."
Then, tried Believer, take your case before your God tonight in prayer. He is a God of pity and not a God of man's pity. Goto Him, now, if you are poor. Tell Him all your care and see if He will not help you. Go and tell Him that your spirit isdepressed and see if He will not cheer you. Tell Him that your way is hedged up and that you cannot find your path, and seeif He will not direct you. Tell Him you are ignorant and know nothing, and see if He will not teach you. Tell Him you havefallen and see if He will not set you on your feet, take you by the arm and teach you to go tell Him you are black by reasonof your falls-and see if He will not wash and cleanse you. Tell Him that you cut yourself against a stone when you fell andsee if He will not bathe your sores. Tell Him you are distressed because you have sinned and see if He will not kiss you withthe kisses of His love and tell you He has forgiven you. Go and try Him, for His pity is a heavenly pity! It is the very ointmentof Paradise that heals sores effectually!
III. I close, by noticing THE PEOPLE WHOM GOD PITIES. Who are the objects of God's pity? "The Lord pities them that fear Him."
Some of you He does not pity at all-you that do not fear Him, but trifle with Him. You that hate Him. You that despise Him.You that are careless about Him. You that never think of Him-you have none of His pity. When you are sick, He looks upon yoursickness as something that you deserve. When you go astray, He looks upon your wandering as a mere matter of course of yourguilty nature-and He is angry with you-wrathful with you! Your afflictions are not strokes of His rod, they are cuts of Hissword! Your sins are not things that He overlooks, but if you die as you now are, guilty and unsaved, remember that even whenyou are cast away by God, justice shall look upon you with tearless eyes and say to you, "You knew your duty, but you didit not." And the stern voice of God shall, because you have been desperately guilty, drive you away from His Presence forever!Think not that this text will afford you any consolation in this life, or in that which is to come! You shall not have evena drop of water to cool your tongue in Hell-no pity shall be shed upon you there. If you could have pity bestowed upon youin the regions of your punishment, it might fall like a shower of gentle rain upon your tongues. But God bestows no pity uponyou that love Him not, fear Him not and turn not from the error of your ways.
Oh, that you would but fear Him! Would to God that He would make you fear Him now! Oh, that you would tremble at His Presenceand then, oh, that you could know yourselves to be His children and fear Him as children do their parents! Oh, that you didreverence His name and keep His Sabbaths! Oh, that you did obey His Commandments and have His fear always before your eyes!Then should your peace be like a river and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. Oh, that you were wise to bow yourselvesbefore Him and to confess your guiltiness! Oh, that you would come, "just as you are, without one plea," to Jesus Christ!Oh, that you were stripped of every rag of self-righteousness and clothed in the righteousness of Christ! Then you would haveChrist as your Savior and you might rejoice that, henceforth, He would pity you in all your sicknesses and in all your wanderings!He would pity you here, and at last lead you up to be where pity shall be unneeded-in the land of the blessed, in the homeof the hereafter where the weary rest and the wicked cease from troubling.
But they do not cease from trouble in Hell. They are troubled without pity, pained without compassion, scourged without anyleniency and damned without an iota of mercy, being left to stern justice and inflexible severity! Seeing that they wouldnot turn at God's reproof and would not heed His warnings, but cast His Truth behind their backs-seeing that, being oftenreproved, they hardened their necks-they were, therefore, "suddenly destroyed, and that without remedy." Seeing that theyhave destroyed themselves. Seeing that they have rejected the invitations of the Gospel. Seeing that they have despised theSon of God. Seeing that they have loved their own righteousness better than Christ's and preferred Hell to Heaven, the penaltiesof iniquity to the reward of the righteous-therefore, without pity they shall be shut away, forever, from the regions of happinessand banished from the Presence of Him who pities them that fear Him, but punishes them that fear Him not! The Lord save usall from such a terrible doom as that, for Jesus' sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM25.
Verse 1. Unto You, O LORD, do I lift up my soul It is down and I would gladly lift it up, yet I am powerless to do so if Iam left to myself. When the soul cleaves to the earth, who but God can lift it up? Yet it must be our desire and objectiveto seek to lift up our soul unto God.
2. O my God, I trust in You: let me not be ashamed, let not my enemies triumph over me. Whatever happens to me, I trust inYou. Down goes the anchor-that ship will never drift far out to sea. "O my God, I trust in You." Can you say that, dear Friends?Then if you are in the dark, you are as safe as if you were in the light, for still this anchor holds! "O my God, I trustin You." "Let not my enemies triumph over me." They will do so if they can get me back into the world. If they can seduceme from the paths of holiness, what shouts of joy there will be in the camp of the enemy! "Hold me up, and I shall be safe."
3. Yes, let none that wait on You be ashamed: let them be ashamed which transgress without cause. When good men are in earneston their own account, they soon begin to pray for others and the evil which they dread for themselves, they are sure to dreadfor their Brothers and Sisters. David first prayed, "Let me not be ashamed." And then he added, "Let none that wait on Yoube ashamed." The only shame that is worth having is a blessed shame-the shame of true repentance which sorrows over past sin,of which it is ashamed. Alas, there will be an eternal shame which shall cover those who choose the ways of sin!
4. Show me Your ways, O LORD; teach me Your paths. That is the prayer of one who is taught of the Spirit, for, by nature,our desire is to have our own way and if we can have our own way, we are satisfied. But when the Lord has taught us better,our prayer is, "Show me Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths."
5. Lead me in Your truth, and teach me: for You are the God of my salvation; on You do I wait all the day. We need not onlyto have the path shown to us, but to be led into it, for we are like babes just learning to walk-we must have a finger thatwe may hold, or a hand that we may lean upon. "Lead me in Your truth, and teach me." That is the second time that David hasprayed for the Lord to teach Him-and as long as we are here, we also shall need to pray, Teach me. What is a disciple buta learner? His daily cry must be, "Teach me: for You are the God of my salvation." There is another grip of the hand of faith.I have taken You to be my salvation, O my God! I trust nowhere else, "On You do I wait all the day," expecting everythingfrom You-tarrying Your leisure, but tarrying hopefully, expecting to be blessed.
6. Remember, O LORD, Your tender mercies and Your loving kindnesses; for they have been ever of old. Your saints knew thembefore I was born, and I have known them since I have been born again. By the constancy of Your kindness to me to now, continueto bless me, for are You not an unchanging God?
7. Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to Your mercy remember me for Your goodness' sake,O LORD. In this verse and the preceding one, there are three, "remembers"-first, that God would remember His tender merciesand His loving kindnesses. Next, that He would notremember our sins and our transgressions and, then, that He would rememberus according to His mercy and goodness. This last request may remind us of the prayer of the dying thief, "Lord, rememberme." And it may serve for us as a repenting prayer. "According to Your mercy remember me for Your goodness' sake, O Lord."
8. Good and upright is the LORD: therefore will He teach sinners in the way. If good men endeavor to make others good, muchmore will the good God do so. A good man will seek to lead sinners in the right way and much more will our good Savior, andGod, and Helper do so. Only let us be willing to be taught and come to Him confessing our ignorance, and asking to be ledand instructed. This Psalm, you see, dear Friends, is all about teaching-and as David needed instruction, so do we! The nextverse deals with the same subject.
9. The meek will He guide in judgment: and the meek will He teach His way. Not the proud man, but the meek-the learners-theteachable ones! Those who, like little children, are willing to believe what they are told upon true authority. Oh, that weall may be among the meek! The tender-mouthed horse is easy to drive, but some people are so stubborn and obstinate that theyare "as the horse, or as the mule which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle." Oh, thatwe were sensitive to the slightest touch of the Divine hand and always ready and anxious to be instructed by the Lord!
10. All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth unto such as keep His Covenant and His Testimonies. Do you believe that,you who have been sorely tried? If you are resting in Covenant love, and find your hope in Covenant blood and Covenant promises,you must believe that everything God does to you is done in mercy and truth. Yes, though He strikes till every blow of therod leaves a blue wound, yet we rejoice in these tokens of His fatherly love and desire for our highest good, for He has said,"As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten." The word, "love," in that passage conveys the idea of a very tender and ardentaffection.
11. For Your name's sake, O LORD, pardon my iniquity; for it is great Those who are not taught of God pray very differentlyfrom that, for their prayer is, "O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is little." But he who is graciously instructed confessesthe greatness of his guilt and out of that he draws a plea for mercy, for is not God a great God, and is it not greatly toHis Glory to pardon great sinners? And when they are pardoned, are they not filled with a great love and a great zeal, sothat they are greatly serviceable to their Lord and Master?
12. What man is he that fears the LORD? Him shall He teach in the way that He shall choose. True reverence for God, a holyfear of Him, is a quality that God delights to see. And wherever He finds it, there He gives further instruction.
13. 14. His soul shall dwell at ease and his seed shall inherit the earth. The secret of the LORD is with them that fear Him;and He will show them His Covenant Are you one of those trembling ones who fear to offend God? Well, I daresay that you sometimesenvy those who are very boisterous in their joy. Do not envy them-you have something better in having that holy, filial fearthat trembles at God's Word-and you shall have the secret of the Lord with you and He will show you His Covenant.
15. My eyes are eyes toward the LORD; for He shall pluck my feet out of the net When they get into it, He will pluck themout of it. When Satan seems to cast a net over me, God will come and pull me out. There is force in that word, "pluck"-denotingswiftness and energy. And, perhaps, there is a little idea of roughness, but God's roughness is true tenderness.
16. Turn You unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted. If you pass that dish round, there are somewho will not help themselves from it, for they are not "desolate and afflicted." But I know that there are some, even here,who are both "desolate and afflicted." Be sure, dear Friends, that you make this prayer your own-"Turn You unto me, and havemercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted."
17. 18. The troubles of my heart are enlarged: O bring You me out of any distresses. Look upon my affliction and my pain.And what follows? "Take the affliction and the pain away"? No!
18. And forgive all my sins. David will be quite content if God will but look with pitying eyes upon his sufferings, but,as for his sins, he must be clean rid of them-he cannot be happy until he has the answer to this petition-"Forgive all mysins."
19. Consider my enemies; for they are many; and they hate me with cruel hatred. The better the man, the more bitterly is hehated by the ungodly. It is not by holiness that you will escape the hatred of the world-it is by that very thing that youwill awaken its malice! Do not wish to have it otherwise, but remember your Lord's own words, "Woe unto you, when all menshall speak well of you! For so did their fathers to the false prophets." But, "Blessed are you when men shall hate you, andwhen they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man'ssake. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in Heaven: for in the like manner did theirfathers unto the Prophets." If we live near to God and are truly the seed of the woman, the seed of the serpent will constantlybe nibbling at our heels-some little viper or other will be sure to be there! As the great serpent seeks to do us injury,so will his seed.
20. O keep my soul, and deliver me: let me not be ashamed; for I put my trust in You. Do you notice how David gets back tohis keynote? Almost at the beginning of the Psalm, he said, "O my God, I trust in You." Now he says "I put my trust in You."Let faith in God be the keynote of your life Psalm! At another time, David wrote, "Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shallyou dwell in the land, and verily you shall be fed." That is the motto for all Christians-"Trust, trust, TRUST!" When thereis nothing to be seen, when you are in thick Egyptian darkness, let Job's confident declaration be the resolve of your spirit,"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him."
21. Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on You. The child of God cannot hope to pass through the world safelyunless he is careful to keep his integrity and his uprightness. There are some who profess to be Christians who try to geton in trade by various tricks-and they hope to win the favor of men by just bending a little to their ways. Never do so, Beloved!If you give way an inch, you will have to give way a yard or a mile before long!
22. Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles. God did so Himself to Israel. Jacob, whose name was also, Israel, said,"All these things are against me." Yet God redeemed him out of his troubles! And so will the Lord do for all His people indue time, glory be unto His name, world without end! Amen.