Owl or Eagle?
(No. 2860)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1903.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MARCH
10, 1872.
"I am like an owl of the desert." Psalm 102:6.
"Who satisfies your mouth with good things; so that your youth is
renewed like the eagle's."
Psalm 103:5.
IN the 102nd Psalm, the Believer likens himself to an owl, and in the
103rd Psalm, in almost the parallel verse, he is compared to an eagle.
What a blessing it is that the saints of God, in the olden times, were
moved by the Holy Spirit to write down their experiences. And what a
mercy it is that they wrote them out so fully! They have not given us
miniatures so much as full-length portraits. Especially was this the
case with David–again and again he draws himself to the very life.
Possibly, if left to himself, he would have omitted from his
autobiography some of his faults and failings, as well as the grosser
sins of his life, but he was under the guidance of the Spirit of God
and, therefore, he has shown us his true self–infirmities, iniquities
and all that he was! It is related of Oliver Cromwell that when his
portrait was about to be painted by an eminent artist, the painter
desired to conceal the wart upon the Protector's face, but the true
hero said, "Paint me just as I am, wart and all." In a similar style,
David, the champion and hero of Israel, in the portrait of himself,
painted by himself, shows us his scars and warts, his blemishes and
imperfections.
This, I say again, is a great mercy because if it were not for this
fact, we might have supposed that these gracious men of the olden time
were not subject to the same infirmities as ourselves. And we might
have concluded that we were not the Lord's people, "for, surely," we
would have said, "God's true people never wandered as we wander, never
failed as we fail, were never downcast as we are and were never on the
borders of despair as we sometimes are." But we turn to this blessed
Book and we find that the saints of God described in it were very much
like the saints of the present time. The sea of life is rough to us and
it was rough to them. Their vessels leaked, then, and ours leak now.
The winds sometimes blow a hurricane just as they did, then, and
spiritual navigation was, in their day, very much what it is today.
This must always be a cause of consolation to us and also a means of
direction, for, seeing that they fought and struggled as we do, we can
examine their methods to discover how they gained their victories. And,
having the same sort of enemies to deal with and the same Divine
assistance at our disposal, we flee for help and strength where they
fled and use the same means which they used so well in overcoming their
adversaries. If God had changed, that would have altered matters for
us, but, since He is still the same and deals with His children after
the same rule of Grace, we are both comforted and instructed as we read
how He delivered His ancient people. I hope it may be so while we are
meditating upon our two texts.
Observe, first, that the saints of God have differed, the one from the
other. Some think that these two Psalms are by different authors, yet
one of them says, "I am like an owl of the desert," while the other
says, "My youth is renewed like the eagle's." But, as I believe that
these Psalms were both written by the same person, I see another line
of thought, which is that the saints of God have, at times, differed
from themselves. Extremes have met in them. They have been like an owl
one day and like an eagle another day. We shall close our meditations
by observing that the Lord alone can change the sadness of His people
into gladness and make the owl of the desert into the eagle that soars
aloft on mighty wings.
I. To begin, then, The SAINTS OF GOD HAVE DIFFERED, THE ONE FROM THE
OTHER. One mournfully hoots, "I am like an owl of the desert." Another,
stretching his broad wings, cries, as he mounts towards Heaven, "My
youth is renewed like the eagle's."
This may be accounted for in various ways. Something may be set down to
the different times in which men have lived. David, on the whole, lived
in times in which the Church of God prospered. Some think that the
102nd Psalm was written by Nehemiah, or by Daniel, who lived in more
troublous times, when the House of God lay waste and Israel was carried
into captivity. The children of God usually sympathize very much with
the condition of things by which they are surrounded. When there are
revivals, they are cheered. And when there is a long season of
declension, they feel humbled and brought low. We do not expect that
the age of Jeremiah should bring forth many rejoicing saints. Neither,
on the other hand, should we expect that the days in which the Lord
magnified His name through His servant, David, should bring forth a
majority of mournful saints. Much will, therefore, depend upon the
times in which God's people live–yet not as much as some would think.
There have always been some who have blessed the name of the Lord when
they have been the only godly persons in the district. They have shone
like stars of the first magnitude amidst the thick darkness of the
night that reigned around them. While there have been others who, even
in times of refreshing, have cried out, "My leanness, my leanness!"
Something must also be set down to the various works in which different
men have been engaged for the Lord. Some of God's servants must be of a
joyful disposition, or they would never get through the heavy work that
is appointed to them. Others, who have the heavy task of rebuking
incorrigible sinners and threatening God's judgments upon them, are
naturally of a somewhat gloomy cast of mind. They would not be fitted
for their stern work if they were not, themselves, stern. I have no
doubt that those wonderful sermons of John Bunyan, when he "preached in
chains to men in chains," were the more powerful because there was a
sympathy in the sorrow of his heart with those who were themselves in
sorrow through their sin. God may be as much glorified by a weeping
Jeremiah as by an eagle-winged Ezekiel!
The trials of God's people also differ All of them feel the weight of
His rod, but they do not all feel it alike. There are some Believers
whose path is comparatively smooth. In temporal things they are well
provided for. They have good bodily health, the members of their family
are spared to them, they seem to travel along a very easy way to
Heaven. But there are others to whom the getting to Glory is like
crossing the Atlantic in a storm! They have wave upon wave–all God's
billows sometimes seem to go over them. Divine Wisdom arranges our lot,
but our lots are not precisely alike. I do not doubt that there is a
more equal distribution of happiness than we sometimes dream. Still,
there are differences and those differences are very conspicuous, here
and there, among Christians.
Still, I think a great deal more is to be set down to constitutional
temperament than to any of these outside things. I know some of my dear
Brothers and Sisters who, if they were very poor, would still be happy.
Indeed, I have seen them very sick and ill, but they have still been
joyful! I have gone with them to the graveside, but they have rejoiced
in the Lord even there. They could not help doing so–there seemed to
be a fountain of joy in them, like water in a well that springs up
continually! On the other hand, there are some brethren–I will not say
that there are many, here–still, there are some who could not help
grumbling wherever they might be! If they had the fat of the land upon
their table, it would not quite suit their appetite–they would prefer
a mixture of bitter herbs! I believe that there are some Christians
whom God Himself will never satisfy until He takes them to Heaven. They
seem to have a soul that utterly disdains to be content and shows its
greatness, I suppose, in continually feeling that nothing is quite good
enough for it. That is a dreadful constitution for any man to have!
Perhaps it is his liver that is wrong, or, more likely his heart, but
there is no doubt whatever that physical disease has a great effect
upon constitutional temperament. And some sad folk are rather to be
pitied than to be blamed for the dark and somber view which they take
of everything around them.
I incline to think, however, that we must not lay too much stress upon
such things as these, but that the main difference will be discovered
in another direction. Some saints have more faith than others have–and
very much in proportion to their faith will be their condition of heart
and mind! Such saints, having more faith than others have, will also
have more zeal for God, more conscientious observance of His commands,
more complete devotion to His will, more self-denying consecration to
His service–and where there is much of all these things, there will be
more joy than there can be in any other condition of heart and life! If
you are a true Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, yet are slack in
serving God, you shall get to Heaven but you shall have very little
Heaven on the way there. But if your faith rests, like a trustful
child,
upon the Omnipotence and Immutability of God. If you simply and
implicitly rely upon the atoning Sacrifice of Christ and then, out of
love to your Lord, are fired with a sacred devotion to be used to
Christ's Glory, your peace shall be as a river and your righteousness
as the waves of the sea! God, in His all-wise Sovereignty, may send you
various trials which will cast you down, but it is according to the
gracious rule of His Kingdom to give the sweet reward of His Presence
to His obedient children. He says to us, as He did to His ancient
people, "If you will walk contrary unto Me, then will I also walk
contrary unto you." But if you walk with God as Enoch did, you shall
have the joy which doubtless beamed from Enoch's face, beaming also
from yours!
The practical lesson of this first part of my subject is this. Do not
judge yourself, dear Brother or Sister in Christ, by any other human
being. Do not say, "I cannot be a Christian because I am not as
mournful as So-and-So was." God forbid that you should fall into such a
delusion as to think that you ought to imitate any man's miseries! Do
not say, on the other hand, "I cannot be a Christian because I have not
the joys which I have heard such an eminent saint speak of." It would
be an ill day for you if you should try to counterfeit those joys! The
man who said, "I am like an owl," and the man who said, "My youth is
renewed like the eagle's," are both in Heaven praising God! If they
were two different men, both were accepted in the same Savior, both
were washed in the same precious blood and both entered into the same
everlasting Glory–and you, whether you are joyful or miserable, if you
are depending alone upon the atoning work of Jesus Christ, shall be
there too, in due time, to praise the Lord forever with them!
II. But now, secondly, I have to remind you that SAINTS DIFFER FROM
THEMSELVES AT DIFFERENT PERIODS. They are not at all times what they
are sometimes.
I feel morally certain that David wrote both these Psalms, for there
are very similar expressions in both of them. Anyone who has studied
every verse and letter of the Psalms, with diligent care, as I may
rightly claim that I have done, gets to feel as if he knew the tones of
David's voice and could tell which is Asaph's and which is David's. And
there is, to my mind, a Davidic ring in this 102nd Psalm quite as
surely as there is in the 103rd. If it is so, then it was David who one
day said, "I am like an owl of the desert." And the day after said to
his own soul, concerning his God, "Who satisfies your mouth with good
things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's." It was the
same man in different moods–and Brothers and Sisters, we know,
experimentally, that the children of God have these various moods!
First, notice the contrast here–a contrast which I have verified and
so have you, if you are a child of God. Here is a man under sense of
sin. He has discovered that he is a lost soul. The arrows of God drink
up the life of his spirit and his self-righteousness is smitten and
withered. He cannot bear company and gaiety, nor even the common joys
of life, so he gets away alone and pines, and cries, "I am like an owl
of the desert." The most dreadful verses that he can find in the book
of Job, or the Lamentations of Jeremiah exactly suit his case. This is
how he talks to his God–"I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my
drink with weeping because of Your indignation and Your wrath: for You
have lifted me up and cast me down." But look what happens when the
Lord Jesus Christ manifests Himself to that poor guilty sinner! He
looks at Christ upon the Cross–it is a trembling look and his eyes are
half blinded by his tears and by the mists arising from his doubts and
fears–but he does look to Christ, honestly and sincerely, and trusts
Him with his soul!
Have you not seen the change that such an experience works in men? Now
he is not like an owl any longer. His sin is completely forgiven. In a
moment he has passed from darkness into marvelous light, from bondage
into liberty, from death unto life! Now, like the eagle, he stretches
his wings and mounts aloft into the glorious sunlight! Ask him whether
he is like an owl, now, and he will say, "God forbid! Why should I be?"
See how the man walks now? Before, his feet seemed like lead. Now, they
appear almost as if they were winged, like the feet of the fabled
messenger of the gods. Now, the man runs along the path of duty! He
delights in his God. He loves Him! He adores Him! He triumphs in Him
and boasts of the Lord Jesus Christ as His Savior. All this change is
sometimes worked in a single hour–yes, in a single moment the
sackcloth and ashes are taken away, the loins are girded with the
garments of praise–and sorrow is changed into overflowing bliss! There
you have one example of the contrast between the owl and the eagle
spirit.
And, afterwards, in the Christian life, you may see the same
difference. Here is a Believer in deep trouble. Christians have a
promise that they shall have trouble and that is one of the promises
that God always keeps! "In the world you shall have tribulation." Now
see the Christian in the time of his tribulation–sometimes he is bowed
to the very earth under it. If you need an example, look at Job,
covered with sore boils from head to foot, sitting among ashes and
scraping himself with a potsherd. His children dead, his property
destroyed, his friends–the few that remain–miserable comforters
to him! Watch him a little while till the Lord returns to him in mercy
and gives him twice as much as he had before, and "blessed the latter
end of Job more than his beginning." So is it, often, with the people
of God today. If they do not receive temporal prosperity, they get
spiritual blessings that are more valuable by far and so, up from the
ashes, God's Jobs still arise! From the willows they take their harps,
again, and–
"Loud to the praise of love Divine,
Bid every string awake,"
because the Lord has dealt so graciously with them! So you see that the
same men may be like owls in their time of trouble and like eagles in
the day of their deliverance out of it.
The contrast will be still more conspicuous if you look at another
picture. It is a portrait of yourself and of myself. Do you ever sit
down and look within and look around and look beneath? If so, when you
look within, you see imperfections, infirmities, temptations, sins. You
fetch a long-drawn sigh and moan, "I shall surely fall one day by the
hand of the enemy. With all this combustible material in my heart,
someday there will be a terrible catastrophe and my profession of
religion will be destroyed in a moment." Possibly you look around you.
Business is not prospering. Perhaps one child is sick and ill. Another
is deformed, another has gone out to a job, but is not behaving well.
You have all manner of troubles. Your house is not "so" either with
yourself, or with God, as you desire it to be. Then you look down. You
feel that you are soon going to die and you wonder how you will bear
the pains, groans and dying strife. And your dear wife will be a widow
and your children fatherless. Ah, you fetch some more sighs and say to
yourself, "I am like a pelican of the wilderness–I am like an owl of
the desert." Of course you are and you always will be as long as you
turn your eyes inside! But when, instead of looking within, or around
you, or looking down to the grave, you look up and see Christ, the
ever-living Savior who has passed through the grave and now lives to
die no more, you will no longer dread to die because you will know that
there is to be a glorious Resurrection in which you shall share!
Then you will not be, any longer, like an owl of the desert, but you
will mount aloft, above the clouds, into the clear blue sky of happy
fellowship with the ever-blessed God, rejoicing that in Christ Jesus
your salvation is accomplished, the Everlasting Covenant is signed,
sealed and ratified, your security certain beyond all doubt, you
yourself adopted into the family of God and being made ready, in due
season, to enter into the glorious abode of eternal bliss! When you
realize all this, no longer will you sigh, and cry, and repine, but you
will rejoice "with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Give up the
habit of looking within or around you, or if you do sometimes mourn
over what you see there, even then say, with David, "Although my house
is not so with God; yet He has made with me"–you can see the eagle
stretching his wings there–"yet He has made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things, and sure."
Let me set before you another contrast. Sometimes even good men, when
they rise in the morning, get up in a humor which is anything but
amiable. They go downstairs and find their family in a condition which
is anything but amiable. They go out to their business and they find
their affairs anything but pleasing. All day long everything seems to
go wrong with them, or else they go wrong with everything–which is
probably the real truth. Some Believers seem to like to indulge in a
little comfortable misery and appear all day long to determine to be
unhappy. A certain thing in which they are interested has not prospered
as they desired, although it has prospered far beyond their deserts.
Another thing has not happened just as they wished it might, though it
has happened a great deal better than they ought to reasonably have
expected.
Have you ever met a Brother in that condition? I have, and I have also
met Sisters in the same condition! I have gone to visit them and their
story, from beginning to end while I have been there, has been about
their rheumatism, or about the smallness of their allowance from the
church or the parish, or about their sorrow at having lost so many
friends and helpers! But what a mercy it is when the sorrowful soul is
helped to shake off that depression and to say, with Habakkuk,
"Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be on the
vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no
meat; the flocks shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no
herd in the stall: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the
God of my salvation." This is the way to leave the owl in the desert
and to let the eagle soar upwards in his glorious flight! Suppose we
have miseries–have we not also mercies? Are Marah's waters bitter?
Then put the Cross of Christ into them and they will at once be
sweetened! Is your way rough? Yet your God leads you in it, so it must
be the right way! Does it traverse a desert? Yet the manna has always
fallen even there! Are you weary and footsore? Then remember that
"there remains, therefore, a rest for the people of God."
Some people will always look on what they call "the black side" of
things, but to faith's eye, there is no black side, for even the dark
side of God's Providential dealings with us glows with light when faith
looks at it! Many people appear to take a telescope and try to look
through it upon the unknown future and, before they look, in their
anxiety they breathe on the glass and then, as they gaze, they cry,
"There are a great many clouds to be seen!" Yet, all the while, it is
only their own breath that has created them! It is best for the
Believer to leave the future with God–to rest entirely in His purposes
of love and mercy and to march forward singing to his God–
"What may be my future lot Well I know concerns me not! This should set
my heart at rest, What Your will ordains is best"
Here is another contrast. From the 102nd Psalm we learn that the
Believer, in his trouble, had forgotten to eat his bread, but in the
103rd Psalm we are told that the Believer, in his joy, has his mouth
satisfied with good things. There are some persons who fall into
spiritual trouble through neglecting the means of Divine Grace. You say
that you are very depressed in spirit, that you have lost your
evidences and are brought very low. Brother, let me ask you some
personal questions. How long is it since you were at a Prayer Meeting?
How long is it since you were at a week-night service? How long is it
since you left off the habit of carefully reading a daily portion of
God's Word? How long is it since you enjoyed conscious fellowship with
the Lord Jesus Christ? I asked a Christian, as I believe him to be,
that question some time ago, and he shook his head and said, "I wish
you had not asked me that question, for, alas, it has been many a month
since I could truly say that I have had any such fellowship." If that
is the case with any of you, do you wonder that you are like an owl of
the desert? If a child never goes to his father to get a good word from
him, is it any wonder that he doubts whether his father loves him? What
wife would live in the same house with her husband and yet never speak
to him by the six months together? It would be a shame if she did act
like that, yet here are some of us, with Christ always near us, living
on without speaking to Him, or having fellowship with Him! Well may
such a person be like an owl of the desert– but let a man begin
diligently to attend the means of Grace, let him be much in private
prayer, let him seek fellowship with Jesus–and he will soon shake off
his mourning and forget his sorrows! And up again into the clear air he
will mount, like the eagles, on wings renewed by God!
The last point of contrast is this. The owl is a bird that is afraid of
the light. It loves the darkness and, therefore, it loves not the
sunshine. But the eagle is not afraid of the sun–it even dares to
stare into the face of the great father of day! There are also some
Christians who appear to be afraid of the Light of God. They have a
little, but they do not want too much. I have heard of a good man who
would never read, at family prayer, that chapter about Philip and the
eunuch. There is, in that chapter, a good deal of the Light of Good
upon the subject of Believers' Baptism and that man did not want to
read about it, for he was afraid of the Light. Others will not read
those passages, in the Epistles, which speak of Election,
Predestination, Particular Redemption, Final Perseverance and similar
great Truths of God that are revealed by the Holy Spirit. Such people
say that these doctrines are too Calvinistic, so they do not read about
them, for they do not want to see too much Light. I know Christians–at
least they profess to be Christians–who, in various matters, are like
the owl of the desert–they do not like the Light. But the true-born
child of God needs the Light of God–he cannot have too much of it! He
delights to do his Lord's will. He says of everything he does, "If it
is not according to God's Word, I desire to be undeceived concerning
it. And if there is any Truth of God taught by the Holy Spirit which I
have not yet received, I desire to receive it and to sit down humbly at
Jesus' feet, to unlearn all I know if it is wrong, and to learn
whatever He would have me learn." Let us pray to God to give us the
eagle eyes which are glad of the light and to take away from us the
sleepy eyes of the owl which only see in the darkness.
III. My last point, for which I have only a minute or two left, is
this–THE LORD ALONE CAN CHANGE SPIRITUAL SADNESS INTO SPIRITUAL
GLADNESS.
No hand can heal a broken heart save the Divine hand that made it The
minister's words cannot heal your wounds. The Holy Spirit alone can
pour in the true balm. The ancient question was, "Is there no balm in
Gilead? Is there no physician there?" The answer is, No, there is none.
There is no balm in Gilead–that is not the place to look for it. There
is no physician there. If there were, the health of God's people might
be recovered. But it is not recovered in Gilead and never will be. The
only true balm comes from Calvary! The only unfailing Physician is He
who has gone up to His Father's Throne, yet who hears the cry of all
who call upon Him in sincerity. He alone can turn the owl into an
eagle, but
He can do it! He understands your case, for He has passed through an
experience exactly similar to yours. He has not only walked the
hospitals that is an essential thing for a physician to do, but He has,
Himself, lain on the bed in the hospital. Christ took upon Himself our
sicknesses and bore our sorrows–and even our sins were caused to meet
upon Him when He hung on the accursed tree as the Substitute for all
who believe in Him! You have, therefore, the best of physicians to heal
you! So, sin-sick Soul, look to Him! If you have only an owl's eyes,
yet turn them unto Christ and He will change them into an eagle's eyes.
If you are only as the owl of the desert, resolve that you will see no
light but His Light, for, then, His Light will surely soon come to you!
Remember, O you Mourners, that there is one Person of the ever-blessed
Trinity who has been pleased to consecrate Himself to the work of
comforting tried and troubled souls. As Christ has redeemed us, so the
Holy Spirit comforts us. He is The Comforter, The Almighty Comforter.
As God Himself has become the Comforter, what case of sorrow can be
thought to be hopeless? Of old, the Lord said, "As one whom his mother
comforts, so will I comfort you; and you shall be comforted." And our
Lord Jesus Christ, after going back to Heaven, has sent us the Holy
Spirit to be our Comforter. And the Holy Spirit uses the very best
medicine that can possibly be compounded. Do you ask, "What is that?"
Christ said to His disciples, "He shall take of Mine, and shall show it
unto you." What medicine can ever be equal to the things of Christ? O
poor owl of the desert, if the Spirit of God shall come and visit you,
as He will, and reveal the things of Christ to your soul, you will then
spread your wings, like an eagle, and mount aloft into the heavenlies
in Christ Jesus!
With one more remark I will close my discourse. Whenever a soul is cast
down by God, there is a reason for it, and that reason is love. When
the Lord kills, why does He do that? When He wounds, why does He do it?
Here is the reason, given in His own words, "I kill, and I make alive.
I wound, and I heal." You must first be stripped by God if you are to
be clothed by Him! You must be emptied if you are to be filled! You
must be uprooted if you are to be transplanted! You must become nothing
if Christ is to be your All-in-All! Is not this Christ's usual rule,
that He cuts down the green tree, and makes the dry tree to flourish?
The Virgin Mary truly sang, "He has filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich He has sent away empty: He has put down the mighty from
their seats, and exalted them of low degree." Destitute, empty, broken,
crushed, wounded, dead–you are just the sort of people Jesus came to
save!
He came into the world to save sinners, to seek and to save the lost.
So you, being lost, are the most suitable objects for the display of
His love. I am sent to preach the Gospel to the broken-hearted, to
minister consolation to the afflicted and tried, and to tell of the
opening of the prison to them that are bound. Not to those who are
satisfied with their own righteousness, but to those who know that they
are sinners do we preach a Savior! You who can fall no lower than you
are–unless you sink into the lowest Hell–are the very persons to be
the objects of Divine regard! Your extremity is God's opportunity to
bless you. To you who pine, sigh, cry and say, "We are like the owls of
the desert," is this message of mercy proclaimed, by the voice that
sounds even in the wilderness, "Comfort you, comfort you My people,
says your God. Speak you comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her,
that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for
she has received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins."
Bankrupt sinners, come and learn how all your debts have been
discharged! Wounded sinners, come and be healed by the Great Physician!
Yes, and even to you who are dead, and in your graves, the Lord says,
"Live." And you shall live, even as the Lord Jesus said to Martha, "He
that believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." The Lord
grant you Grace to look to Jesus, that the owls' eyes may now be turned
into eagles' eyes and the owls of the desert into eagles, for Christ's
sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 102.
Kindly notice the title of this Psalm–"Prayer of the afflicted, when
he is overwhelmed, and pours out his complaint before the LORD." I call
your attention to it in order to remind you what charges there are in
the life of a Believer. Here, in the 102nd Psalm, the afflicted saint
is pouring out his complaint. And then, in the 103rd, the rejoicing
Believer is blessing the Lord in a jubilant song of grateful praise.
Such are a true Christian's ups and downs, nights and days, and I can
see how the 103rd Psalm blossoms out of the 102nd. When the afflicted
Believer can pour out his complaint before the Lord, it will not be
long before he will be able to cry, "Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all
that is within me, bless His holy
name." If you carry your complaint in your own bosom, or tell it to
some earthly friend, you will probably continue to have cause to
complain. But if you pour out your heart before God, it will not be
long before He will give you ease and relief.
Verses 1, 2. Hear my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come unto You. Hide
not Your face from me in the day when I am in trouble. "For that would
make my trouble to be unbearable." So William Cowper sings–
"That were a grief I could not bear Did You not hear and answer
prayer."
2. Incline Your ear unto me. ' 'Stoop down to me. Bend over me. Listen
to the moans of my darkness, the whispers of my weakness."
2. In the day when I call, answer me speedily.' 'For I am brought so
low that if a delay is not a denial, it will be tantamount to it, for I
shall be dead before the answer comes unless it reaches me speedily."
3, 4. For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as
in a hearth. My heart is smitten and withered like grass; so that I
forget to eat my bread. That is a very pitiful state for anyone to be
brought into, in which the sorrow of the mind begins to weaken the
strength of the body! The soul itself is so inflamed that a fever is
generated within the bodily frame, which seems "burned as in a hearth."
5. By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin.
By grief he had brought himself down to such an emaciated state that
his bones pierced through his skin.
6, 7. Iam like the pelican ofthe wilderness: Iam like an owl of the
desert. I watch and am as a sparrow alone upon the housetop. He had got
into such a melancholy state of mind that he shunned human company,
sought solitude and became as mournful a creature as "an owl of the
desert."
8-10. My enemies reproach me all the day; and they that are mad against
me are sworn against me. For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled
my drink with weeping because of Your indignation and Your wrath: for
You have lifted me up and cast me down. Observe that all David's
enemies could not make him weep. Mad as they were against him, they
could not extort a tear from his eyes, but God's indignation and wrath
touched him to the quick and made him mingle his drink with weeping. He
felt that God was treating him as wrestlers treat one another–when a
man deliberately lifts up his opponent in order that he may give him
the worse fall–"You have lifted me up and cast me down." All the joys
that he had ever known seemed to make his sorrow the more bitter. The
Light of God's Countenance, in which he had formerly walked, made the
darkness, in which he was enshrouded, to seem all the blacker.
11, 12. My days are like a shadow that declines; and Iam withered like
grass. But You, O LORD, shall endure forever; and Your remembrance unto
all generations. That was David's usual way–to comfort himself in his
God when he could find no comfort in himself or in his surroundings.
You remember that he did so on that memorable occasion when Ziklag was
burned and the people spoke of stoning him–"David encouraged himself
in the Lord his God." We shall be wise if we follow his example, for,
when every other source of joy is dried up, when all earthly wells are
stopped up by the Philistines, the stream of God's mercy flows on as
freely as ever!
13, 14. You shall arise and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favor
her, yes, the set time, is come. For Your servants take pleasure in her
stones, and favor the dust thereof God is sure to bless His Church when
the members of it take a deep interest in even the least things that
appertain to God's cause. "Your servants take pleasure in her stones,
and favor the dust thereof." I fear that, in many churches, the set
time to favor Zion has been postponed by the apathy, the lethargy, or
the carelessness of many of those who profess to be the servants of
God!
15, 16. So the heathen shall fear the name ofthe LORD, and all the
kings ofthe earth Your Glory. When the LORD shall build up Zion, He
shall appear in His Glory. It was to God's Glory for Him to build up
the ancient Jewish Kingdom and it is equally to His Glory to build up
His Church at the present time–quarrying the stones of nature,
changing them by His almighty power, polishing them, by His Grace,
after the similitude of a palace, building them up upon the one
Foundation, that is, Jesus Christ–laying course upon course until the
whole structure shall be finished.
17. He will regard theprayer ofthe destitute, andnot despise their
prayer There is a gracious promise for all destitute souls who cry unto
God!
18. This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people
which shall be created shall praise the LORD. This is written for our
comfort, dear Friends! There it stands permanently, in this blessed
Book, that as long as there is a destitute and tried people of God, He
will not despise their prayer!
19. For He has looked down from the height of His sanctuary; from
Heaven did the LORD behold the earth. As if God was looking down from
the battlements of Heaven, observing, watching for something–and what
is it that God is looking for?
20. To hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are
appointed to death. Is not that a delightful view of God? Watching not
for the music of sweet singers, nor for the noise of victorious
warriors, but for "the groaning of the prisoner," the sight of those
shut up in the condemned cell, "appointed to death."
21-23. To declare the name of the LORD in Zion, and His praise in
Jerusalem; when the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to
serve the LORD. He weakened my strength in the way; He shortened my
days. It is most instructive to notice how the Psalmist ascribes all to
God, not only his strength, but his weakness–not merely his extended
life, but even the shortening of his days! It takes away the sting from
our sorrow when we know that it comes from God. It helps us to bear any
apparent calamity when we feel that it is our Heavenly Father's hand
that has worked it all, or His will that has permitted it to happen.
24-27. I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: Your
years are throughout all generations. Of old have You laid the
foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of Your hands.
They shall perish, but You shall endure: yes, all ofthem shall wax
oldlike a garment, as a vesture shall You change them, and they shall
be changed: but You are the same, and Your years shall have no end. The
ever-living God is our constant comfort amidst the ever-changing scenes
of this mortal life! Yes, and when we come even to the border of the
land of death-shade, this is still our joy, "The Lord lives," for, from
the midst of the Throne of God, we hear our Savior say, "Because I
live, you shall live also."
28. The children of Your servant shall continue. We pass away, but our
children take our place. As Wesley said, "God buries His workmen, but
His work goes on." One generation passes away, but another comes in its
place. 28. And their seed shall be established before You. Blessed be
the name of the ever-living God!