Our Heavenly Father’s Pity

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 with glory and honor,
has given them perfection in Christ Jesus, has breathed into them the
breath of spiritual life, has set their feet upon a rock and
established their goings–yet they are and they always will be, so long
as they are here below–pitiable objects! It is like tolling the
death-knell of all our pride to talk about God pitying us! Why, my
Brothers and Sisters, we shed our pity profusely upon the ungodly–we
are often pitying the wicked, the profane, the blasphemer and
Sabbath-breaker–but here we find God pitying us! Even David, the
mighty Psalmist, is pitied! A Prophet, a priest, a king–each of these
shall have pity from God, for, "He pities them that fear Him," and
finds good reasons for pitying them, however high their station,
however holy their character, or however happy their position! We are
pitiable beings! Oh, boast not, Believer! Be not loud in praise of
yourself! Put your finger on your lips and be silent when you hear that
God pities you! The next time carnal security would creep in, or
fleshly conceit would get the upper hand of you, remember that while
you are boasting, God is pitying–and while you are triumphing, He is
looking down upon you with pitying eyes of compassion, for He finds
reason for compassion when you can 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 will be profitable
to us. It will not be profitable through the newness of the thoughts,
but rather by "stirring up your pure minds by way of remembrance," to
look back upon all the ways whereby the Lord your God has led you.
"Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that
fear Him." First of all, notice the displays of this pity. Then, the
spirit of this pity. 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 does a 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, a profound mystery.
He knows a certain truth which is, to him, an axiom and an element of
his knowledge. But to his child it seems 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 upon
his mistakes of thought! And how the father pities the child if he
falls among bad companions who teach him errors, who, instead of
filling his mind with truth, fill it with lies! When he comes to his
father with all those strange stories, with which wicked men have
filled his little ears, the father pities him that he should be so
ignorant as to be carried away by every wind of tattling–that he
should receive every talker into his confidence and believe everything
because man has said it, taking every 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 childish folly! When,
in the glory of our wondrous eloquence, we talk great things, God looks
down upon us as upon the prattler, who talks fast, but talks foolishly.
And, often, when we come before our fellows and spread before them
wondrous discoveries that we have made, He that sits in the heavens
does not laugh in derision, but He smiles in compassion that we should
think ourselves so 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's people who go up
to houses of prayer, so-called, where, instead of hearing the Truths of
the Kingdom of Heaven, they are taught all 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 pities some of His children who are thus led
astray! One of them, perhaps, says of their minister, "Is he not
intellectual? Is he not 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 certain that he did
not lead me to hold more fellowship with my Redeemer, but then how
excellent was that distinction which he drew between 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 talk to their hearers in
a way that servant girls and mechanics can understand. I like to hear
my minister, for he is so profoundly wise, that I do not believe there
are many people in the chapel beside myself who can appreciate him! I
will still go and hear him, dear man, though he does puzzle me,
sometimes, so that I do not know what on earth he is talking about, and
when he has finished his discourse, it has been such a perplexing one,
that I have lost my way, and said, 'Dear me, the time is gone 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 real Gospel fare,
however roughly the meat may be carved, and however it may be served up
on the coarsest platter that human speech can supply. He pities them
not when they get such spiritual food as that–but He does pity them
when they are misguided, when they are carried away by "philosophy,
falsely so called," being misled by the seeming wisdom of man which,
after all, is but folly, having nothing of wisdom in it–the highest
wisdom being that of believing what God has said, receiving God's Truth
simply as God's Truth and asking no questions about it. God pities His
children, however, in all their ignorance. He is not angry with them,
nor does He speak sharply to them, but He leads them on by His Spirit
until they understand His Truth and receive His Word.

It were well, however, if there were nothing else but ignorance to bear
with, but the parent often has something worse than that to suffer from
his child–he has to endure the disobedience and waywardness of human
nature. There is the continual uprising of 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, without a blow–he has to say, "My Child, it is all forgiven
you"–and though his temper may be sorely tried, yet he has patience
with his child, for he pities the child's disobedience. He knows, too,
that he was once a child, himself, and then he did the same as 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 our wanderings, how seldom have we been
chastised! How frequently have we broken His Commandments and rebelled
against His Covenant and yet how light have been the strokes of
chastisement, compared with the weight of our guilt, and how seldom has
He afflicted us, compared with the frequency of our transgressions! How
has He had patience with all our shortcomings and has bid His hand be
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 than all earthly fathers, so has His pity
been more continuous, more patient and more long-suffering than the
pity of any human parent 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–when he grows from
the mere wish to do evil up to the actual commission of the crime–like
as a father still pities his child, even when his follies have ripened
into the worst of guilt, so has God pitied us, my Brothers and Sisters,
when we have gone into gross sin before our conversion. Yes, and some
of us even after it! When we have gone astray like lost sheep, have
broken the hedges of His commands, and have gone rambling over the dark
hills of transgression, still has He had pity upon us. It is amazing
how far a father's pity will go towards his child, even when he has
transgressed ever so much. There are some who have shut the door in
their children's face and bid them never enter their house again, nor
come near them. They have ceased to speak of them, for they have
determined that they would never take their names on their lips again,
nor consider them their children.

But such fathers are, I trust, very few in number. It is rarely that we
meet with them. A father usually endures much, and endures 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
palliates his 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 son is
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 as he 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 over the most erring
of His children. Our God is no Arminian god–the Arminian's god is a
pitiless god to his children. He is represented as being pitiful enough
to all the world, but pitiless to his own children, for, according to
the teaching of some, when they sin, he cuts them out of the covenant!
And if they transgress, he bundles them out of doors, tells them they
are not his children any longer and, because of their transgressions,
he will have it that they are none of his and shall be damned at last,
despite the fact that Christ has died for them, that the Holy Spirit
has regenerated them and that they have been justified! He casts them
away from his presence and they are to be lost forever! He is a
pitiless god, but the god of these people is no relation to 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 merciful towards 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 and brings the iron into our inmost spirit. He makes us
smart, and cry, and groan, and sigh, but all He does is in pity because
He is determined to save us. He will not let us go unpunished because
He pities us for our folly and sin. Just as the physician will not let
the man go without his medicine because he pities him in his disease,
so God will not let His children go without His chastisement because He
pities them in their sin. And mark, too, even that chastisement is one
of pity–there is not one twig 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 them go 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, "Like as a mother
pities her children, so the Lord pities them that fear Him." And I
think the reason is not because a mother's pity 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 is sick, but she may be alone in the house
and she may not be able to travel far enough to find a physician and,
therefore, God has put in, not merely the affection, but the strength
of pity. "Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them
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 up the broken heart, makes the weak to be strong and
the faint one to rejoice! He gives us the strength of pity and some of
us can remember that strength of pity when, in our sickness, we lay
tossing in our beds, without hardly power to pray–when we said our
heart and our flesh had failed us, and we must die. When our brain was
racked with discordant thoughts and reason seemed to have left its
throne, and blank despair held carnival within our brain, which, for a
while, was under the dominion of the Lord of Misrule and revelry was
perpetually kept up there. It was then, when we could do nothing, that
Jesus came to us, not merely with the faint whispers of compassion, but
with the strong voice of healing, bade our fears be still, comforted
our 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 all our sicknesses.

And, my Brothers and Sisters, your Heavenly Father pities you who are
His children under all your manifold trials, of whatever kind they are,
and from whatever quarter they proceed. Thus, when persecuted, you have
had His pity– when the jeer and taunt of the ungodly have been cast
upon you–and when worse than that has been attempted against you. When
you have had to bear the 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–you have 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 who have been swept away, one
after another, not once have you been bereaved without the pity of your
God! Never once has the clay fallen on the coffin lid, with the sad
message, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," without the pity of your God
falling on your heart, like gentle dew from Heaven! He has always
pitied you in your low estate. He has always been with you in all your
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 here you can raise
your Ebenezer and write the words of our text upon it, "Like as a
father pities his children, so the Lord pities them 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 you may 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 of peace, though a little inconsistent–"strike my
children and I will knock you down if I can! I will not have you meddle
with them. 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 never endure!
I love them so, that I should break through every principle to resent
it! So strong is my natural affection for them that 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 His ancient 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's words, "But whoever shall offend one of these little ones
which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were
hanged 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 towards them 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 against the people of the Most High. Let old Rome
testify that on her still rests the blood of the martyrs. Behold, our
God has broken her empire in pieces! The Roman emperor has ceased to
exist and his gaudy pomp is gone. Yes, and modern Rome, too, has an
awful doom yet to come–she, above all other cities–has a fearful
future before her. She, that is wrapped in scarlet and sits on 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 forgiven her 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 God rests upon her! The Church of Rome can
never again be put in the ranks of Christian churches! God has forgiven
other Churches their sins and, despite errors in their doctrine and
their practice, He has kept them among the living Churches. But of the
Romish Babylon He has said, "She has made her garments red with the
gore of My children; she has stained her hands with the blood of the
saints; she shall be cut off, once and for all, and be forever cast
away! Come out of her, My people, lest you be partakers of her plagues
and share in her fearful doom!" God pities His children! No martyr has
died unpitied, nor shall any martyr die unavenged! Springing from their
graves, they cry, "Revenge, revenge, upon the apostate church of Rome!"
And it shall be had. Lo! The souls of the saints beneath the altar cry,
"How long, O Lord, how long?" Not long shall it be! The sword 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? Have you not often
seen a gentleman watching a poor man doing something or other, and then
saying to him, "Poor fellow, I do pity you"? 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 have often seen that pity of contempt. But that is not God's
kind of pity! He never pities His people in the way of contempt and a
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 into the room. The boy has just got
into pot-hooks and hangers and the father thinks he makes them very
well for such a little boy. He pities him, perhaps, that he is not able
to write better, but there is no contempt with his pity. Nor is there
any contempt 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 people in 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 is dead, your
children have to be supported and you have to work hard. Well, my good
Woman, I pity you very much, but I cannot afford 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 get pity of that sort in abundance. If you lift
the knocker of the first door you come to, you will get plenty of pity
of that kind. 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 which is
mere pity, it is not the pity of inaction–but, when His heart moves,
His hands move, too, and He relieves all the needs of 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, said in 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 crushed under the horse's feet, or
under the wheels. I stood for a moment thunderstruck and then I saw him
crushed to pieces under the wheels! I ran down the next street in a
moment. I was so sensitive, I could not bear the sight." Instead of
seeing what help 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 when I
stopped myself, I thought it useless to go back, for I am so sensitive
that I naturally avoid every sight of misery." That is 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–it is not the pity of the mere
sensation of the moment, but the pity which desires to do something to
relieve his children in distress–

"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. Go to 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 is depressed and see if He will not cheer
you. Tell Him that your way is hedged up and that you cannot find your
path, and see if He will not direct you. Tell Him you are ignorant and
know nothing, and see if He will not teach you. Tell Him you have
fallen 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 reason of your falls–and
see if He will not wash and cleanse you. Tell Him that you cut yourself
against a stone when you fell and see if He will not bathe your sores.
Tell Him you are distressed because you have sinned and see if He will
not kiss you with the 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
ointment of 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 your sickness as something that
you deserve. When you go astray, He looks upon your wandering as a mere
matter of course of your guilty nature–and He is angry with
you–wrathful with you! Your afflictions are not strokes of His rod,
they are cuts of His sword! Your sins are not things that He overlooks,
but if you die as you now are, guilty and unsaved, remember that even
when you are cast away by God, justice shall look upon you with
tearless eyes and say to you, "You knew your duty, but you did it 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 even a drop of water to cool your tongue in
Hell–no pity shall be shed upon you there. If you could have pity
bestowed upon you in the regions of your punishment, it might fall like
a shower of gentle rain upon your tongues. But God bestows no pity upon
you 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 Presence and then, oh,
that you could know yourselves to be His children and fear Him as
children do their parents! Oh, that you did reverence 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 yourselves before 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 have Christ 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 home of 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 any leniency and
damned without an iota of mercy, being left to stern justice and
inflexible severity! Seeing that they would not turn at God's reproof
and would not heed His warnings, but cast His Truth behind their
backs–seeing that, being often reproved, they hardened their
necks–they were, therefore, "suddenly destroyed, and that without
remedy." Seeing that they have destroyed themselves. Seeing that they
have rejected the invitations of the Gospel. Seeing that they have
despised the Son of God. Seeing that they have loved their own
righteousness better than Christ's and preferred Hell to Heaven, the
penalties of iniquity to the reward of the righteous–therefore,
without pity they shall be shut away, forever, from the regions of
happiness and banished from the Presence of Him who pities them that
fear Him, but punishes them that fear Him not! The Lord save us all
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 I am left to myself.
When the soul cleaves to the earth, who but God can lift it up? Yet it
must be our desire and objective to 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 in You. 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 trust in You." "Let not my enemies triumph over
me." They will do so if they can get me back into the world. If they
can seduce me 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 earnest on their own
account, they soon begin to pray for others and the evil which they
dread for themselves, they are sure to dread for their Brothers and
Sisters. David first prayed, "Let me not be ashamed." And then he
added, "Let none that wait on You be 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 only to 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 that we 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 has prayed 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 but a 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 everything from 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 them before I was
born, and I have known them since I have been born again. By the
constancy of Your kindness to me to now, continue to 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 mercies and His loving kindnesses. Next,
that He would notremember our sins and our transgressions and, then,
that He would remember us according to His mercy and goodness. This
last request may remind us of the prayer of the dying thief, "Lord,
remember me." 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, much more 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, and God, and Helper do so. Only let us
be willing to be taught and come to Him confessing our ignorance, and
asking to be led and instructed. This Psalm, you see, dear Friends, is
all about teaching–and as David needed instruction, so do we! The next
verse 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–the teachable ones!
Those who, like little children, are willing to believe what they are
told upon true authority. Oh, that we all may be among the meek! The
tender-mouthed horse is easy to drive, but some people are so stubborn
and obstinate that they are "as the horse, or as the mule which have no
understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle." Oh,
that we 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 the rod 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 ardent
affection.

11. For Your name's sake, O LORD, pardon my iniquity; for it is great
Those who are not taught of God pray very differently from that, for
their prayer is, "O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is little." But he
who is graciously instructed confesses the 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 to His Glory to pardon great sinners? And when they
are pardoned, are they not filled with a great love and a great zeal,
so that 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 holy fear 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 sometimes envy those who are very
boisterous in their joy. Do not envy them–you have something better in
having that holy, filial fear that 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 them out 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"–denoting swiftness 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 some who 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 have mercy 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 my sins."

19. Consider my enemies; for they are many; and they hate me with cruel
hatred. The better the man, the more bitterly is he hated by the
ungodly. It is not by holiness that you will escape the hatred of the
world–it is by that very thing that you will awaken its malice! Do not
wish to have it otherwise, but remember your Lord's own words, "Woe
unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! For so did their
fathers to the false prophets." But, "Blessed are you when men shall
hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and
shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of
Man's sake. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy: for, behold, your
reward is great in Heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers
unto the Prophets." If we live near to God and are truly the seed of
the woman, the seed of the serpent will constantly be 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 to his 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 shall you dwell in the land, and verily you shall be fed."
That is the motto for all Christians–"Trust, trust, TRUST!" When there
is 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 safely unless he is
careful to keep his integrity and his uprightness. There are some who
profess to be Christians who try to get on 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 in due time, glory be unto His name,
world without end! Amen.