Unanswered Prayer
(No. 3344)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 1913.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. ON THURSDAY EVENING,
SEPTEMBER 20, 1866.
"O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You hear not; and in the night
season, and am not silent." Psalm 22:2.
It is very clear to everyone who reads this Psalm that these are not so
much the words of David as they are the words of David's Son and
David's Lord, our blessed Master. He prayed with strong crying and
tears. He came before His Father's Throne with supplications and for a
long time it seemed as if He would have no answer. It did appear as if
God had utterly forsaken Him and that His enemies might persecute and
take Him.
Now, why was the Savior permitted to pass through so sad an experience?
How was it that He whose lightest word is prevailing with Heaven, that
He who pleads with Divine Authority this day in His continual
intercession, was permitted, when here below, to cry, and cry, and cry
again and yet to receive no comforting answer? Was it not mainly for
this reason–that He was making an Atonement for us–and He was not
heard because we, as sinners, did not deserve to be heard?He was not
heard, that we might be heard! The ears of God were closed against Him
for a season, that they might never be closed against us–that the
mourner's cry might forever find a way to the heart of God–because the
cry of Jesus was shut for awhile out from Mercy's gate. He stood the
Surety for our sins and was numbered with the transgressors! Upon Him
the Lord laid the iniquity of all His people and, therefore, being the
sinner's Representative, He could not, for awhile be heard.
There was also, no doubt, another reason, namely, that He might be a
faithful High Priest having sympathy with His people in all their woes.
As this not being heard in prayer, or being unanswered for awhile, is
one of the greatest troubles which can fall upon the Christian, and
fall it does, the Savior had to pass through that trouble, too, that so
it might be said of Him–
"In every pang that rends the heart, The Man of Sorrows bore His part."
When I fear that I have not been heard in prayer, I can now look upon
my Savior and say–
"He takes me through no darker rooms Than He went through before."
He can now have a tender, touching sympathy with us because He has been
tempted in all points like as we are.
Was it not, also, once more in our Savior's case, with a view to
display the wondrous faith, fidelity and trustfulness of the obedient
Son of God? Having been found in fashion as a Man, He humbled Himself
and became obedient to His Father's will. Now, obedience is not
perceived until it is tried, and faith is not known to be firm and
strong until it is put to the test and exercised. Through what an
ordeal did this pure gold pass! It was put into the crucible and thrust
into the hottest coals–all glowing with a white heat, they were heaped
upon Him and yet no dross was found in Him! His faith never staggered!
His confidence in His God never degenerated into suspicion and never
turned aside into unbelief. It is, "My God! My God!" even when He is
forsaken. It is, "My Godand My Strength" even when He is poured out
like water and all His bones are out of joint! In this thing He not
only sympathizes with us, you see, but He sets us an example. We must
overcome, as He did, through faith. "This is the victory which
overcomes the world, even your faith." And if we can copy this great
High Priest of our profession who endured such contradiction of sinners
against Himself–if we can copy Him so as to be neither faint in our
minds, nor turn from our Master's work–we shall triumph even as He
overcame!
But my chief objective in considering this theme is not so much to
speak of the Savior's trial as to address myself to those of our number
who may even now be passing through the same experience as our Lord. It
will already comfort you to know that Christ has been where you are.
It will already comfort you to know that Christ has been where you are.
It will already guide you to know that He has set you an example and
that He bids you follow in His steps. Let us now draw near to His
sorrow and think on it for awhile for our instruction and comfort.
In the first place, the text–without any inquiry into the cause of
unanswered prayer, seems to give–
I. A GENERAL GUIDE FOR OUR CONDUCT.
Suppose that we have been seeking some blessing from God for many
months and have not obtained it? Whether it is a personal blessing, or
on behalf of others, what ought to be our conduct under such a trial as
that, the trial of a long delay, or an apparent refusal?
In the first place, Brothers and Sisters, it is clear the text teaches
us that we must not cease to trust God. ' 'O my God." Oh, that
appropriating word! It is not, perhaps, "My Father." The spirit of
adoption is not here so much as the spirit of reverent trustfulness,
but still there is the hold-fast word–"O my God." Christian, never be
tempted to give up your hold upon your only strength, upon your
solitary hope! Under no conceivable circumstances, ever give place for
an instant to the dark thought that God is not true and faithful to His
promises! Though you should have seven years of unanswered prayer, yet
suggest any other reason to your mind than one which would dishonor
Him. Say with the Savior in this Psalm, "But You are holy." Settle that
in your mind. Oh, never allow the faintest breath of suspicion to come
upon the fair fame of the Most High, for He does not deserve it! He is
true. He is faithful. In this apparently worst of all cases, He did
deliver His Son and come to the rescue in due time. In all other cases
He has done the same–and I pray you never to distrust your God until
you have some good and valid occasion for it. Never cast a slur upon
His integrity till He really does forsake you–till He absolutely gives
you up to perish! Then, but not till then, shall you doubt Him. Oh,
believe Him to be good and true! You may not know why it is that He
deals so strangely with you, but oh, never think that He is unfaithful
for an instant, or that He has broken His Word. Continue to trust Him!
You shall be rewarded if you do–and the longer your faith is tried, it
shall be with you as when the ship is longest out at sea–it goes to
the richest climes and comes home with the heaviest and most precious
freight. So shall your faith come back to you with joy!
Your faith may lie among the pots for many a day, but the time of her
deliverance shall come and, like a dove, shall she mount with wings
covered with silver and her feathers tipped with yellow gold! "Trust in
the Lord at all times you people, and pour out your hearts before Him."
Once again, as we are never to cease to trust, so we are never to cease
to pray. The text is very expressive upon this point. "I cry in the
daytime, but You hear not: and in the night seasons I am not silent."
Never cease your prayers! No time is a bad time for prayer. The glare
of daylight should not tempt you to cease–and the gloom off midnight
should not make you stop your cries. I know it is one of Satan's chief
objectives to make the Christian cease praying, for if he could but
once make us put up the weapon of all-prayer, he would easily vanquish
us and take us for his prey. But so long as we continue to cry to the
Most High, Satan knows he cannot devour the very weakest lamb of the
flock! Prayer, mighty prayer, will yet prevail if it has but time!
Oh, if this is the dark suggestion of the Evil One, "Forsake the
closet! Give up private devotion. Never draw near to God, for prayer is
all a fancy"–I pray you, spurn the thought with all your might and
still cry, both in the daytime and at night, for the Lord will still
hear your prayer!
And while you never cease from your trust, nor from your prayer, grow
more earnest in both Let your faith be still more resolved to give up
all dependence anywhere but upon God, and let your cry grow more and
more vehement. It is not every knock at Mercy's gate that will open
it–he who would prevail must handle the knocker well and dash it down
again, and again, and again! As the old Puritan says, "Cold prayers ask
for a denial, but it is red-hot prayers which prevail." Bring your
prayers as some ancient battering ram against the gate of Heaven and
force it open with a sacred violence, "for the Kingdom of Heaven
suffers violence, and the violent take it by storm." He that would
prevail with God must take care that all his strength be thrust into
his prayers! The Lord will not hear you if you only bring up a rank or
line of the display of your desires. There must be no reserves–the
whole army of your soul must come into the conflict
and you must besiege the Mercy Seat, determined to win the day, and
then shall you prevail! If there are delays, take them as good and
sound advice to be more firm in your faith and more fervent in your
cry!
And yet again, cease not to hope. The New Zealander has a word for hope
which means, "the swimming thought," because when all other thoughts
are drowned, hope still swims. She lifts her head out of the foamy
waves with her tresses all trailing and sees the blue sky above her and
hopes, as it is there. So if you have prayed ever so long, yet hope on!
"Hope you in God, for I shall yet praise Him who is the strength of my
life and my portion forever." As long as there is a place of prayer and
a promise of an answer, no Believer ought to give way to despair. "Go
again," said Elijah to his servant seven times! It must have been weary
work to the Prophet to have to wait so long. He did not stand up once
and pray to God as on Carmel–and then instantly came down the fire to
continue the sacrifice–but again and again and, getting more humble in
posture, with his face between his knees, he beseeches the Lord, not
for fire, which was an unusual thing, but for water, which is the
common gift of the skies! And though he pleads for that which the Lord,
Himself, had promised, yet it did not at once come! And when his
servant came back, four, five, six times, the answer was still the
same–there was no sign of rain, but the brazen heavens looked down on
an earth which was parched as if in an oven! "Go again!" said the
Prophet, and at the seventh time, lo, there appeared the cloud like
unto a man's hand–and this cloud was the sure forerunner of the deluge
and storm! Christian, go again seven times! No, I will venture to say
70 times seven, for God must keep His promise! Heaven and earth may
pass away, but not one jot or tittle of Jehovah's Word can fail. "The
grass withers, the flower thereof fades away, but the Word of our God
endures forever." Do you plead that enduring Word of God? Let no dark
thoughts drive you to despair. Continue to trust! Continue to pray!
Increase in your fervency and in the hope that the blessing will yet
come! It did come to the Savior. The morning broke upon His midnight
after all. Never tide ebbed out so far as in the Savior's case, when
the great stretches of misery and sorrow were visible where once God's
love had rolled in mighty floods. But when the time came, it began to
turn, and see how it has turned now in mighty floods of matchless joy!
The love of God has come back to our once suffering Savior and there,
upon the Eternal Throne He sits, the Man, the Crucified, who bowed His
head under mountains of almighty wrath, which broke in huge billows and
covered His soul. Be of good courage, Christian! Hope on, poor Soul,
and hope on forever!
Thus much by way of general direction. But we now go on to a second
point and shall inquire into– II. THE CAUSES OF UNANSWERED PRAYER.
We shall, perhaps, on this theme, get a few special directions which
may be available in particular cases. Dear Friends, there are some of
us who are not often troubled about unanswered prayer–on the contrary,
our own experience is such that the existence of a God who hears His
people's cry is reduced to an absolute, mathematical certainty!
I have no more doubt about this than about my own existence, not
because I can see it clearly and understand it perfectly, nor because
with a blind credulity I submit myself to the Bible as being the
Infallible Revelation of God, but because I have had real dealings with
God, have tried and proved His promises to be true and have found out
that according to my faith, it has been done unto me in a thousand
instances! This is truth that those who have learned to live in the
spirit world and to talk with God understand and know as plainly as
they understand and know that when a child speaks to its father, its
father grants its request. It has become to many Believers not at all a
matter to be argued or talked of by way of dispute–they know that they
have fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ, and
their prayers are answered. But occasionally, to all Believers, I
suppose, there will come staggering moments when they scarcely know how
to reply to their doubts because certain of their prayers have not been
answered.
It may possibly happen that the cause of unanswered prayer may many
times lie in something connected with sin. Do you not think that
unanswered prayers are often a Fatherly chastisement for our offenses?
The Savior, in that wonderful Chapter where He tells out His love to
us, says, "If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love,"
and then He notes, as a special favor, if a man abide in His love and
keep His commandments, he, "shall ask what he wills and it shall be
done unto him." Now it seems to me to be only reasonable that if I will
not do what God wills, God will refuse to do what I will–that if He
asks of me a certain duty and I refuse it–when I ask Him for a certain
privilege or favor, it is not unkind, but, on the other hand, most wise
and kind that He should say, "No, My Child, no. If you will not listen
to My tender command, it is kind to refuse you your desire until you
repent and obey."
Perhaps this is the way in which, too, are visited upon God's people
some neglects of ordinances.''He that knows his Master's will and does
it not, the same shall be beaten with many stripes." And one of these
stripes may surely be our failure in prayer! It may also be temporal
affliction, but probably this is one of the main ways in which the
Master inflicts the stripes upon His children. They are negligent of
His commands and He says, "Then you shall tarry awhile. I will not yet
grant you what you seek. But when you come to a better mind and are
more scrupulous and tender in the fulfilling of My commands, then your
longings shall be satisfied."
It may occur, too, that this delay may be a sort of disclosure to us as
to wherein our sin lies. Sin sometimes lies in a Christian unrepented
of because he only dimly realizes that it is there. Hear what Job
declares–"Are the consolations of God small with you? Is there any
secret thing with you?" That is to say, if you love selfish ease and
feeble comforting. If you do not prevail with God in prayer, is there
some secret sin in you which keeps back the blessing? God does, as it
were, say to us, "Search and look." Unanswered prayer should be to
every Christian a search warrant–he should begin to examine himself to
see whether there is not something harbored within which is contrary to
the will of God. Oh, Believer, this is not a hard work for you to do,
surely, but it is a very necessary one! Search yourself and breathe the
prayer, "Search me, O God, and try me, and know my ways, and see if
there is any evil way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." I
think this is one great reason for unanswered prayer, namely, that it
is a chastisement for sin committed or an admonition against sin
harbored.
Sometimes there may be great sin in the prayer, itself! Are not our
greatest sins often connected with our holiest things? We must be aware
of our prayers. There is such a thing as polluting the Mercy Seat.
Remember what became of Nadah and Abihu, who offered strange fire
before the Lord. Beware, Christian, beware–you may sin against God in
the prayer chamber as well as you can in the market–and you may offend
on your knees, as well as when you are in your business! Have a care,
for how can you hope that a prayer thus stained with sin can ever
succeed unless you bring it to the blood to have it purged and cleansed
from all defiling before it mounts to the Throne of Grace?
And I sometimes fear, too, that our prayers do not speed because the
thing asked for, though as we think good for us, is asked for from a
wrong motive.
If, for instance, a Christian minister asks that he may win souls in
order that he may gain reputation and fame as a useful and successful
Evangelist for his Master, he will probably not be heard, for he asks
from an unworthy motive. If I seek to be useful merely that I may be
known to be a useful man or woman, I am really seeking my own
honor–can I expect God to minister to and pamper that?
I must take care, then, that even when I ask for a good thing, I ask it
for the purest of reasons–for God's Glory. Oh, what washing even our
prayers need! What cleansing, what purging! Can we wonder that they do
not succeed when we so often make mistakes, both in the substance of
the prayers and the motives from which we offer them?
Praying seems, to some persons, to be simply a child's play or a formal
habit. They will take a book, read a form of intercession, and perhaps
offer a few extemporary words and that is all. But these are all
nothing and naughty prayers unless God shall touch them and give them
life!
Sometimes, then, failure in prayer may be caused by sin. In such a
case, heart-searching, deep repentance and especially a speedy going to
the Cross to have renewed fellowship with the cleansing blood and to be
brought once more in contact with the holy sufferings of the blessed
Substitute will make us speed.
But we go on to notice that failure in prayer may sometimes be the
result of ignorance.
I think persons often offer very ignorant prayers, indeed. I am sure I
have good evidence that some do. There is scarcely ever a week passes
in which I do not receive intelligence from different persons who are
on the verge of bankruptcy, or deeply in debt, that they have prayed to
God about it–and that they have been guided by God to write to me to
get them out of their difficulties and to pay their debts! Now, I am
always perfectly willing to do so as soon as ever I am directed
expressly by God, Himself! But I shall not receive the direction at
secondhand! As soon as I receive it myself– and I think it is only
fair that I should receive it, as well as they–I shall be quite
willing to be obedient to His direction, provided, too, the funds are
in hand, which does not often happen! But folks must be very foolish to
suppose that because they ask God that such-and-such a debt may be paid
by miraculous means, it will certainly be done! I have a right to ask
for anything which God has promised me, but if I go beyond the range of
the Divine Promises, I also go beyond the range of assured and
confident expectation. The promises are very large and very wide, but
when one gets a fancy in his head, he
must not suppose that God is there in his fancy. I have known some
fanatical persons who thought they could live by faith. They were going
to preach the Gospel, having no gifts whatever for preaching. They were
going to be missionaries in a district having no more gift to be
missionaries than horses in a plow. But they thought they were destined
to do it and, therefore, they tried to live by faith. And when they had
been nearly half-starved, then they complained against the goodness and
abandoned the labor. Had God really inspired and sent them, He would
have sustained and kept them, but if they go about it willfully and
stubbornly on their own account, they must be driven back to realize
their own ignorance of the Divine Will. Now, we must not pray
ignorantly–we must pray with the understanding and with the spirit, so
that we may clearly know what we are praying about. Get the promise and
then offer the prayer–and the prayer will be answered as sure as God
is God! But get your own fancy into your head and you will only have to
get it out again, for it will be of no service to you.
And then oftentimes we pray in a way in which our prayers could not be
heard consistent with the dignity of the Most High. I love a holy
familiarity with God and I believe it to be commendable, but still, man
is but man, while God is God and, however familiar we may be with Him
in our hearts, we must still remember the distance there is between the
Most High and the most elevated and most beloved of His creatures–and
we are not to speak as though it were in our power to do as we will and
as we please. No, we are children, but we are to remember that children
have a limit as to how they are to speak to their father. Their love
may come as near as they please, but their impertinence may not–and we
must mind that we do not mistake the familiarity of communion for the
impudence of presumption! We must be careful to distinguish between the
two, for he who is taught of God and waits upon Him according to His
mind will find, as a general rule, that he will not be long without an
answer to his prayer.
Now, if it is ignorance that thus prevents the answering of your
prayers, you should get better instructed and search especially into
such texts as bear upon the matter of prayer, that you may know how to
use your private key of Heaven and open the sacred portals, the gate of
the Divine Mercy, for ignorance will often make you to fail.
Again, does it not often happen that there may be reasons for delay
lying in our own infirmity?
Sometimes, if a mercy were to come to a Believer immediately when he
asked for it, it would come too soon. But God times it until it appears
only at the right and best moment. When a gracious godly soul has been
much exercised in his mind concerning a special mercy–has studied it,
weighed it, arrived at a proper apprehension of it and arranged his
plans for its proper use and benefit–then, just at the time that the
barn was swept and all the lumber taken out–then God's harvest of
bounty comes home and the man, being quite ready for the blessing, the
blessing comes!
Perhaps you are not yet ready for the blessing. You have asked for
strong meat, but you are but as yet a babe and, therefore, you are to
be content with milk for a little while longer. You have asked for a
man's trials, a man's privileges and a man's work, but you are as yet
only a child growing up into manhood–and so your good Father will give
you what you ask for, but He will give it to you in such a way as to
make it not a burden to you, but a blessing. If it came now, it might
involve responsibilities which you could not handle, but coming
by-and-by, you shall be well prepared for it!
There are reasons, too, I doubt not, which lie in our future, why our
prayers are not answered. Delays in prayer may turn out to be a sort of
training school for us. Take the Apostle's instance. The "thorn in the
flesh" was very painful, and though he was a chosen Apostle, yet he had
no answer. Thrice he cried, but still the "thorn in the flesh" was not
removed. It was well that it was not, for Paul needed to be taught
tenderness in order that he might write those loving Epistles of his
and, therefore, he received an answer of another sort, "My Grace is
sufficient for you." Oh Christian! If you could get rid of the trouble
in which you now are, you would not be able to comfort poor mourners as
you shall yet do! You would not be a full grown, strong man if you had
not these stern trials to develop your manly vigor! Men do not learn to
be intrepid sailors by staying on dry land. You are to put out to sea
in the midst of the storm, so that you may learn how to manage and
guide the vessel of your soul! You are going through a rough drill,
that you may be a valiant and stalwart, a good soldier of Jesus Christ,
for battles are yet to come and grim foes yet to face–for you have
many fights between now and the blessed active ease of Heaven!
You have not yet won the crown, but you will have to cut your way, inch
by inch and foot by foot, and the Master is making you an athlete that
wrestling with your enemies you may overcome. He is strengthening your
muscles and tendons, sinews and power by the arduous exercise of
unanswered prayer that you may be finely useful in the future! Still,
yet again, perhaps the reason why prayer is not always quickly answered
is this–a reason which no tongue can tell, but which is inscrutable
lying in the Sovereign purposes and wisdom of God.
Now, look! If I cannot tell why God does not hear me, what must I say?
I had better say nothing but put my finger on my lips and wait. Who am
I that I should question Him as to what He does? Who am I that I should
arraign my Maker before my bar and say to Him, "What are You doing?"?
Almighty Potter, You have a right to do as You will with Your own clay!
We have learned to submit to Your will, not because we must, but
because we love that will, feeling that Your will is the highest good
of Your creatures and the most sublime wisdom! Why should we be so
anxious to know the depth of the sea which cannot be fathomed by our
line? Why must we be toiling to heave the lead so often? Leave these
things with God and go on with your praying and your believing–and all
shall yet be well with you!
And now I conclude this point by saying that if the Christian, after
looking into the matter, cannot find a reason why he should not be
answered, let him still expect that he shall be, and still wait upon
God, remembering, however, that he may never be answered after his own
fashion, but that he shall be answered after God's fashion.
I like that verse of old Erskine's, for though rough and quaint, it is
true–
"I'm heard when answered soon or late. Yes, heard when I no answer get!
Yes, kindly answered when refused, And treated well when hardly used."
In Heaven every Believer will realize how great was this truth–and so
here I leave it.
And now, to conclude, I thought I would say a few words upon a very
special case which may occur, and which may be here represented this
evening. I have no doubt that it is in more than one instance. It was
once my case. It is not the case of a Christian asking a blessing for
himself, but it is the case of a sinner, conscious of his danger as a
sinner, asking for mercy.
Brothers and Sisters, it was a very unhappy lot to have to seek the
Lord with such earnestness as I could command as a child for four or
five years–with sighs, and cries, and entreaties–but to have no
comfortable answer whatever, to be as one that chooses strangling
rather than life because of a sense of God's anger in my soul. To
desire reconciliation, to live in the midst of Gospel Light and to hear
the Truth of God preached every Sabbath day, indeed, every day in the
week, after a fashion, and yet not to discover the way to Heaven was a
great affliction. Now, sometimes it is not good advice to say to such a
person, Go on praying. It is good advice! I must correct myself, there,
but it is not the best advice in such a case. Soul, if you have been
seeking mercy and you cannot find it, go on praying by all means–never
relax that, but it is not by praying that you will ever get peace. The
business of your soul is to listen to Christ's command–and His command
is contained in the Gospel, which Gospel is not, "Go you into all the
world and tell every creature to pray," but it is, "He that believes
and is baptized shall be saved."
Now, your business is to pray, certainly, but your first business is to
believe! Your prayers before you believe have but little weight in
them. Unbelieving prayers! Shall I call them prayers? Prayers without
faith? They are birds without wings, ships without sails and beasts
without legs! Prayers that have no faith in Christ in them are prayers
without the blood on them! They are deeds without the signature,
without the seal, without the stamp–they are impotent, illegal
documents! Oh, if you could but come as you are and look to Christ on
the Cross! It is not your prayers that can save you–it is Christ's
prayers, Christ's tears, Christ's sufferings, Christ's blood and
Christ's death! If you trust to your prayers, you have gone back to the
old beggarly elements of the Law. You might as well trust to your good
works as to your prayers, but to trust either will be to rest in "a
refuge of lies." Your hope, Sinner, lies in the altogether gratuitous
mercy of God–and that mercy only comes to those who rest in Jesus
Christ, alone, waiting patiently for Him! Oh, that you could but come
just as you are and lay yourself at Mercy's door with such a word as
this on your lips–
"My hope is fixed on nothing else Than Jesus' blood and righteousness!"
There are no doings of yours needed to complete the work. No! I venture
to say, not even any praying of yours. Your praying and your doings
shall each occupy their proper place, afterwards, and then they shall
be essential in their way, but now, as a sinner, your business is with
the sinner's Savior! If you are now enabled to look completely out of
self and see all that your flesh can do as dead and buried forever in
the grave of Christ–and as being nothing and worse than nothing! And
if you can see Jesus, the mighty Savior, distributing the gifts which
He has received for men, even distribut-
ing them to the rebellious–if you can thus trust Him, you are saved!
What do you say, Sinner? Are you enabled to do it now? Can you fall
flat before His Cross? Oh, the happy day when I learned that I was no
longer to look to self, but found that the Gospel was, "Look unto Me,
and be you saved, all you ends of the earth." Many of you have looked,
Brothers and Sisters! Look again to that sacred head once wounded and
filled with pain and grief, but which now is crowned with glory! Look
and renew your vow of dedication and He will lift you up to be above
the angels and only second to God, Himself!
Oh look now!
And as to you who have never looked before, I pray the Master to open
your blind eyes and cause the scales to drop, so that you may look now
and, while you look, may see everything you need laid up for you in
Jesus! Everything a sinner needs can be richly supplied by Him–and
then the sinner can go his way rejoicing and singing, "Christ is All,
and happy am I that I have sought and found Him." The Lord bless you
all for His name's sake. Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM32.
This is a great Psalm of Grace, a Psalm in which a sinner, cleansed by
Sovereign Grace, adores and blesses the mercy ofGod.
Verse 1. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is
covered. This is not a blessing for the man who says he has no
sin–this is not a benediction for the innocent who talk about their
own good works–but blessed is the man who, having sinned, is pardoned,
whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! In a word, it is
a Gospel blessing–it is the blessing of Free Grace.
2. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputes not iniquity, and in
whose spirit there is no guile. He had a thousand iniquities. He
transgressed in all sorts of ways. The Lord does not impute these
things to him. He has set them down to the account of Another who has
ventured to stand in the sinner's place and be made sin in the sinner's
place! But to this man, this blessed man, God does not impute
iniquity–and in his spirit there is no guile–he confesses his sin
with honesty, he is pardoned with certainty and in his spirit there is
no cunning concealment.
3, 4. When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my roaring all the
day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me: my moisture
was turned into the drought of summer Selah. This is the experience of
those men whom God saves. Till they confess sin, that sin rankles in
them like venom–it boils their blood, it eats into their bones, it
makes life worse than death, it makes them dread the wrath to
come–their days are nights, and their nights are Hells! They cannot
stand themselves. This was David's experience and it has been the way
by which God has led thousands of His redeemed ones that He might bring
them to Himself. As long as we cloak our sin and conceal it and pretend
that we are innocent, the fire burns within us–but when we just
confess the sin, then it is that we are dealing with God aright– and
God deals with us in Grace!
5. I acknowledged my sin unto You, and my iniquity have I not hid. I
said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and You forgave
the iniquity of my sin. Selah. All gone, gone forever, gone at a
stroke! Oh, what a mercy this is, that when once we will take the place
of sinners and plead guilty, then it is that we are absolved at once!
We have but to acknowledge that we deserve the punishment and
immediately that punishment is remitted! This is the way of Grace, the
plan of Infinite condescending Love!
6. For this shall everyone that is godly pray unto You in a time when
You may be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not
come near unto him. The man that has so prayed as to find complete
forgiveness, he is the man that will never leave off praying as long as
he lives! The one gain which covers everything, the gain of conscious
forgiveness, inspires a man to pray about anything and about everything
as long as he lives! "For this shall everyone that is godly pray unto
You." "You are my hiding place." You see God was his hiding place when
he was in a storm of sin, and now he takes God to be his hiding place
in every time of trouble, from all the afflictions of his life, all the
sorrows of the way. "You are my hiding place. You shall preserve me
from trouble." Shall He not, since He has blotted out our sins? Oh, if
God has preserved us from the wrath to come, what is there to be afraid
of? "You shall preserve me from trouble. You shall compass me about
with songs of deliverance." I shall live in a ring of music! I shall
march onward to Heaven as in the center of song! Why, it may well be
so, when once God has freely blotted out our sins–"You shall compass
me about with songs of deliverance." Yes, says God, that I will, and I
will do more!
8. I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go: I
will guide you with My eyes. I have not blotted out your sins to leave
you to wander back into them again–I will be your Teacher, your folly
shall not be your ruin, your ignorance shall not be your destruction. I
will guide you–look at Me!–"I will guide you with My eyes." "A
glance, a look, shall be enough for you! I will give you such a heart
that you shall understand the least motion of My finger. No, I will
guide you with My eyes."
9. Be you not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no
understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest
they come near unto you. A pardoning God may well ask this of us, that
we would be tender. Oh, let us be very willing to do the Lord's will,
plastic in His hands like clay in the hand of the potter! It is a great
pity, Brothers and Sisters, when we won't be guided by the gentle
leadings of God and must be whipped and spurred, and tugged at. For God
will govern us if we are His people. If one bit will not do it, He will
get a tougher bit that shall cut us and hurt us, but He will rule us!
And so He ought to do, blessed be His name!
10. 11. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusts in the
LORD, mercy shall compass him about. Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice,
you righteous: and shout for joy, all you that are upright in heart