The Power of a Sigh
(No. 2464)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MAY 10, 1896.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, APRIL
22, 1886.
"For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will
I arise, says the LORD; I will set him in safety from him that puffs at
him." Psalm 12:5.
YOU must all have noticed that David lived in very evil times. When he
wrote this Psalm, the days were dark and his cry was, "Help, Lord; for
the godly man ceases; for the faithful fail from among the children of
men," from which I gather that, bad as the times may be in which we
live, there have been bad times before these. We are not the first
persons who have had reason to complain of the evils by which we are
surrounded. If we have to say that the love of many is waxing cold and
the Truth of God is scarcely to be found, such experiences have
happened to God's servants many times before. Let us not think it
strange concerning the fiery trial we have to endure, as though we were
the first persons to whom that trial has come. No, dear Friends, I feel
greatly comforted when I remember that all through the history of God's
people, there have been periods of darkness as black as that in which
we live–times of trial and perplexity when it has seemed as if the
whole course of nature was out of order–and as if the very foundations
were removed, so that men were ready to cry, "What can the righteous
do?" If it is so, that we are only weathering storms like those which
tossed the boats of our fathers before us, and if their ships came
safely into the harbor, notwithstanding the hurricane, let us take
comfort and be assured that we, too, shall weather this raging
tempest–and that for us there will yet be a season when we shall be
glad because we are quiet, because the Lord has brought us into our
desired haven.
My subject on this occasion leads me to speak to those who are in
personal trouble and to say something concerning God's gracious
dealings towards them. The text seems to me to tell us three things.
First, that God's people may be in a very sad case. Secondly, that
God's people have a Friend at hand, a Friend who can hear even their
sighs. And, thirdly, that this Friend will do them a good turn when
once He arises and takes their cause in hand. And He is certain to do
it, for the text is virtually a promise–"For the oppression of the
poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, says the Lord; I
will set him in safety from him that puffs at him."
I. First, then, GOD'S PEOPLE–His own people–His elect people–His
redeemed people–His well-beloved people–MAY BE IN A VERY SAD CASE.
Certainly, to begin with, they may be poor and, in addition to that,
they may be needy, for I take it that the words, "poor," and, "needy,"
have not quite the same meaning. A man may be very poor and that
condition is bad enough, yet his needs may not be many. When he puts on
his hat, he covers his whole family, and when he takes a crust into his
mouth, he feeds his whole family. But, alas, there are many who cannot
say that, for, in addition to being poor, they are very needy. They
have a number of mouths to feed and a number of backs to clothe–they
have more needs than one person would have if he were by himself. A man
may have many who are so attached to him by the ties of nature that
their needs become his needs and, therefore, in addition to being poor,
he is needy as well.
It should not surprise any of us if we find ourselves to be poor and
needy. The poor will never cease out of the land and, until Christ
shall come again, there will be afflicted and poor people left who
shall trust in the name of the Lord. Let us not say that because we are
poor and needy, therefore we are not the Lord's. No, but let us rather
argue the other way, for it is the poor to whom the Gospel is preached!
It is often from among the poor that God chooses His very best and
brightest servants. Certainly, if you take the line of history, you
shall see electing love looking far more often into the cottage than
into the palace! You shall see the redemption of Christ purchasing to
itself precious souls more often among peasants than among peers and
princes! They who have had least of this world's good have often had
most of the good of the world to come–and they who have had most of
this world's portion have, as a rule, had no portion at all in the
Kingdom of Heaven.
Remember our Lord's solemn warning, "How hardly shall they that have
riches enter into the kingdom of God!" And forget not Paul's words,
"Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are
called: but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound
the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things
which are despised, has God chosen, yes, and things which are not, to
bring to nothing things that are: that no flesh should glory in His
Presence." So the Apostle James writes, "Hearken, my beloved Brethren,
has not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of
the kingdom which He has promised to them that love Him?" You may,
therefore, be poor and needy, and yet not only be among the Lord's
servants, but be among the very best of them, among the very richest of
them, among those whom He loves best of all!
But, next, God's best servants may be oppressed as well as poor and
needy. The man who wrote this Psalm, the Lord's servant, David, was a
man much oppressed. In his boyhood I imagine that he was the most
despised of his father's family. I gather that from the fact that when
his brothers came home to attend the sacrifice with Samuel, the
Prophet, David was left alone to keep the sheep. Jesse brought all his
sons except young David, and set them before the Prophet. And even
Samuel, when he looked on Eliab, said, "Surely the Lord's anointed is
before me." But it was not so and after the seven sons of Jesse had
appeared, and been rejected, the Prophet asked, "Are here all your
children?" And the father answered, "There remains yet the youngest
and, behold, he keeps the sheep." As soon as David came, the Lord said,
"Arise, anoint him: for this is he."
When the stripling went down to the battle, he was snubbed by his
eldest brother Eliab, although he was the one by whom the Lord meant to
deliver Israel and to strike the Philistines! From his early days until
the time when God set him in safety from him that puffed at him, David
was terribly oppressed. Saul grew jealous as he heard the voices of the
women singing, "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten
thousands." It soured the heart of the king of Israel and he could not
bear to think of it! Gloomy and dark of mind, he thought of David as
his supplanter and hurled a javelin at him, seeking to slay the one to
whom he owed so much! David had to escape out of Saul's sight–you know
how the king pursued him all over the country and followed him to the
caves of the wild goats and to the valleys of the desert. David, though
perfectly inoffensive, had to flee from his father-in-law, whose life
he disdained to take when it was in his power. He was always kind,
generous and faithful to Saul, yet he was always the subject of slander
and oppression.
So, you see that God's servants may be oppressed. You may be a child of
God and yet get a very bad name for yourself, yes, even through doing
the things that are right and through being something more than what
men ordinarily are! Poor Joseph was cast into prison, not through
wrongdoing, but as the result of his chastity and purity. And many a
child of God has brought upon himself an ill name by simply being
faithful to the Truth and faithful to his God. Do not wonder if
somebody who is set over you, deals very harshly with you. It may be
that, in the Providence of God, it is intended that it should be so
with you, especially in your youth. "It is good for a man that he bears
the yoke in his youth." And there are some men I know of who had very
hard times as apprentices and as journeymen, who, nevertheless, in
later life were obliged to feel that it was good for them that they
were thus broken in. It was a breaking in, but it was a rough colt that
needed it–and though the treatment was unrighteous and unjust on the
part of the oppressor–yet God overruled it and made it work for good!
He often takes His Joseph, who is hated of his brethren, and makes all
the sheaves to be obedient to that sheaf–and the sun and the moon and
the eleven stars of the family are obliged to honor that lone star
which once they had so much despised.
Do not be astonished if your way is rough on the road to Heaven! Rather
wonder if you come to a smooth portion– and when people begin to speak
well of you, look about you and be a little afraid of what they are
trying to do! Be not at all surprised when they abuse and misrepresent
and slander you. Take all that as a matter of course and go to God with
it. But when they begin to cry, "Hosanna!" do not think much of it. The
same folk who shout, "Hosanna!" today, may cry, before the week is out,
"Away with him, crucify him, crucify him." Palm Sunday is not far off
from Good Friday. The day of acclamations is followed very swiftly by
the day of crucifixion!
Further than that, God's people may sometimes be so oppressed that they
scarcely are able to speak for themselves at all. They may feel quite
shut up and silenced. Read the text, "For the oppression of the poor,
for the sighing of the needy." They dare not speak. They have to
confine their language to a sigh! They dare not go and expostulate with
the oppressor and state their claims to justice. They dare not go and
tell a friend about the wrong, lest further mischief should come of it.
They are so bound and shut up that they cannot come forth out of their
prison–all that they can do is bear their burden in secret–and sigh
like that holy woman whom God loved so much, whose adversary "provoked
her sorely, for to make her fret." Hannah was a woman of a sweet poetic
mind, perhaps the greatest poetess mentioned in Scripture, but she was
so broken down by her sorrow that when she went up to the House of the
Lord, she could not speak out! "Only her lips moved, but her voice was
not heard." She was so overcome with sorrow that the priest of God did
not understand her real condition, but began to rebuke her as though
she had been drinking, whereas the only wine she had tasted had been
the bitter cup of wormwood which her adversary had made her drink. You
also, my Hearer, may truly be a child of God and yet be in a similar
state to that of Hannah–unable to utter a word, but obliged to resort
for relief to deep sighing–that expressive token of an inward,
unutterable grief.
Once more, we may be God's people and yet we may be very much despised.
The text speaks of the righteous man as being puffed at–"Him that
puffs at him." You know, those who act thus, say, "Oh, he! Pshaw!
She–oh, well! She– pooh!" Just as if they could not say anything that
would express their contempt of such persons and so they just cry,
"Pooh, Pooh! Why, they are not worth mentioning!" They cast out your
name as evil. They will not say what the evil in your character is–but
that is always worse than stating it. I have occasionally heard a
person say of another, "Oh, So-and-So! Humph!" with not another word,
but only a shrug of the shoulders. That is an abominable way of
attacking another! If you have anything to say against a person, say it
out, and let us know what it is. But that, "Pooh!" or that shrug, which
may mean so much and yet may have nothing in it, is dastardly! It is
like a poisoned dagger which should never be used by an honest hand. We
may be God's people, yet we may be thus assailed.
Have not some of those who have fought their way to the front, some who
have been the bravest champions for God, as David was, been puffed at?
Eliab said to his young brother, "I know your pride, and the
naughtiness of your heart, for you are come down that you might see the
battle." That was said to the ruddy youth before the fight with
Goliath–but the mockers dared not talk like that when he came back
bearing in his hand the giant's gory head which he had cut off with the
Philistine's own sword! They puffed at him and yet he was the man whom
God had chosen who should be honored and reverenced by all the people
of Israel! He was to be famous among the greatest of kings, yet he must
begin as a mere despised peasant boy! Never mind, young man, never mind
what they say! They say, and they say, and they say– and when they
have said it thrice, let them say it again as often as they please! As
for you, go on in the path the Lord has marked out for you. Trust in
God and serve Him faithfully and then fear not, and be not dismayed,
whatever man may do to you!
Thus have I described the sad case in which a true child of God may be
found.
II. It is more pleasant to turn to the second head and say that GOD'S
PEOPLE HAVE A FRIEND AT HAND.
There is a Sister who may be in the congregation right now. If so, she
will be pleased to hear that she gave me my text for this discourse. As
many of you know, my dear wife very kindly selects for me the texts
that make up the daily portions in our little penny Book Almanac–and
she put down this passage among the others, "For the sighing of the
needy, now will I arise, says the Lord." And the dear child of God to
whom I refer wrote a letter to say how remarkably God had blessed this
text to her comfort. She was in sorrow and trouble and somewhat given
to sighing–and she thought that, perhaps, God was grieved with her for
sighing–but this text greatly cheered her. She gives a little picture
of what she thinks the texts means. I will tell you what she writes,
for it will be the best part of my sermon by a long way.
She says, "When I am in bed and my little child wants its mother, if it
utters a petulant cry, I do not take any notice of it. I know that it
ought not to wake mother up and disturb her with its selfish cry. But
if, instead of crying, it seems very weak, and very sad, and it gives a
sigh, I cannot stand that, but go to it at once! When it does not cry
to me, or cry for me, but I only hear it sigh, then I get out of bed at
once and go over to the little cot to see what is the matter." "Now
will I arise, says the Lord." See, it is the sigh that fetches the
mother out of bed! There is great power about a sigh in the ears of a
loving mother! If the child could speak and say, "Mother, come to me,"
mother might answer, "Not so, my Dear, lie still." Or if the child only
cried out in hastiness, "Oh, come to me!" mother might reply, "Be
still, child, be still.
You are not suffering as much as you fancy you are." But when the child
involuntarily, in its weakness and sorrow, utters a little sigh, mother
has heard it, and she is at once out of bed and by the side of her
little sighing child! Is not that a capital explanation of the text,
"For the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, says the Lord"?
See, then, the power that there is in the sorrows of God's children to
touch the heart of their great Father when He hears their sighs! When
those sorrows come to be so bitter that the sufferers can scarcely
pray. When they cannot find any language in which to express their
grief. When even their desires seem to fail and they are so broken down
and made so weak by the various troubles that have crushed them that it
comes to just this sighing and nothing more, then God cannot be still,
He must get up! He has gone away and hidden His face before, but now He
sees that the time has come to manifest His unchanging love and Grace!
"Now will I arise, says the Lord; I will set him in safety from him
that puffs at him." Yes, Brothers and Sisters, God hears our sighs even
if we cannot hear them ourselves! When we think we have not prayed at
all, we have often prayed the best! When we imagine that our groans
have been empty, they have often been the fullest! When we sigh because
we think we do not sigh, God hears that sort of sighing which is only a
longing to sigh! He hears the grief when the grief has no voice. He
hears the sorrow when the sorrow cannot find a tongue.
Then note that as the Lord hears our sighs, those sighs touch His
heart. The wicked have been puffing at the godly. They said, "Our
tongues are our own, who is the ruler over us?" The Lord took no notice
of them but let them blaspheme if they would. But there arose the sad
sigh of His children and that touched Him! He could not bear that. It
seems to me a very wonderful thing that the Almighty, the Infinite, to
whom the Heaven of heavens is nothing, who takes up the isles as a very
little thing, to whom all this system of worlds is but as the smallest
grain of dust that does not turn the scale, yet is, as we say, "all
there," when His children sigh–and His heart is touched, His heart is
moved–His whole being is full of an infinite compassion! He cannot
bear that sighing. "Now will I arise, says the Lord. I will get up from
My Throne of Glory that I may deliver My people. I have heard their
sighs and I cannot stay away from them! Love masters My Omnipotence! I
feel but one force–the force of my overwhelming love! It sways Me and
impels Me to speed to their relief. I will get out of My hiding places,
I will end my withdrawals from them, I will rend the veil and come out
from between the cherubim. Now will I arise, says the Lord." What has
caused all this mighty movement? Nothing but the sighs of His needy
people!
Will you also think that as this sigh is heard by God, it is a
wonderful thing that God should speak of Himself as being fully moved?
"Now will I arise, says the Lord; I will set him in safety from him
that puffs at him." "Verily, you are a God that hides Yourself." The
thunder, the tempest are but the hiding of His power–who can
understand the fullness of His might? What must God be when He says,
"Now will I arise"–like one who leaves his couch, like one who rolls
up his sleeve to make bare his arm–like one who sets himself with
intent and purpose to do some work that will require all his skill and
all his power? Think of God arising in His might! When He arises, He
shakes the earth terribly–nothing stands before Him when He once
arises! Poor, sick, needy, sorrowing, sighing child of God, it is you
who can bring Him into this marvelous state of activity! I tremble
while I try to describe it–God making Himself fully God–arising,
lifting up Himself, putting forth His power!
If you need a picture of it, remember Israel in Egypt. "And it came to
pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children
of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their
cry came up to God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their
groaning and God remembered His Covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and
with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had
respect to them." Did you ever hear that text preached from by Handel
in his masterly oratorio, Israel in Egypt? How he makes all the music
of all the stringed instruments and the voices of all the singers bring
out that sigh! "The children of Israel sighed by reason of the
bondage…and God heard their groaning." Now I can understand all the
rest of the song and all the rest of the music! I can understand how
the chorus rings out with a great shout, "The horse and his rider has
He thrown into the sea." The beginning, the meaning of it all is that
they "sighed by reason of the bondage." "Now will I arise, says the
Lord." And when He does arise, then the sea in the fullness of its
strength is but the trembling instrument of His Omnipotence and soon
Pharaoh and his horses and his chariots are drowned in its depths!
The same God lives forever and ever, and lives for you as He lived for
Jacob's seed in the land of Mizraim! And you in your sorrow can still
touch the heart of God as their sighing, because of their taskmasters,
touched His heart in the days of old! And He will deliver you as He
delivered them. Only sigh and cry to Him and He will come to you. He
will come riding on a cherub, yes, riding upon the wings of the wind!
And He will deliver you and you shall glorify Him, for what He has
done, before, He will delight to do again, "for His mercy endures
forever." Hallelujah! Therefore, let His people, even in their sighing,
learn to rejoice in Him!
III. Now I must close by dwelling for only a few minutes upon the third
point which is, WHEN GOD'S PEOPLE
FETCH THEIR FRIEND BY THEIR SIGHS, HE WILL DO THEM A GOOD TURN. What
does He say?" I will set him in safety from him that puffs at him."
You know what God did for David. There was Saul, hunting him
everywhere, and I do not doubt that David was strongly tempted,
sometimes, to seek safety for himself. He did some few things that
looked as if he meant to preserve himself from the hand of his
adversary. But once, when he caught Saul in a cave, entirely in his
hands, he only cut off the edge of the skirt of the king's robe and let
him go. It was a grand proof of the power of faith to abstain from
touching the man who thirsted for his blood! That was another night of
triumph for David when he went out with Abishai and they stole through
all the ranks of the sleeping soldiers, threading their silent way till
they came where Saul lay asleep in the trench, with his spear stuck in
the ground at his bolster. And Abishai said to David, "God has
delivered your enemy into your hands this day: now, therefore, let me
strike him, I pray you, with the spear even to the earth at once, and I
will not strike him the second time."
He was ready to grasp the spear and give one thrust at Saul and pin him
to the ground. And there was David, with the remembrance of his bitter
persecution hot upon him. But he laid hold of his companion's hand and
whispered, "Destroy him not: for who can stretch forth his hand against
the Lord's anointed and be guiltless? David said, furthermore, "As the
Lord lives, the Lord shall strike him; or his day shall come to die; or
he shall descend into battle and perish. The Lord forbid that I should
stretch forth my hand against the Lord's anointed: but, I pray you,
take you now the spear that is at his bolster, and the cruse of water,
and let us go." So the two brave warriors threaded their way back
through the sleeping host, taking with them the cruse of water and the
spear that had been by the king's head, that he might see how nearly he
had lost his life and how completely he had been in their hands. No,
David did not deliver himself from Saul's oppression–and it is a
splendid evidence of faith when faith can hold her hand!
Perhaps you, also, have been oppressed. You have been ill-treated. You
may have an opportunity of avenging yourself and if you are a child of
the devil, you will do it. But if you are a child of God, you will say,
"No, no, I have no vengeance to return. It is not mine to repay. The
only vengeance I would return is to show sevenfold kindness for all the
ills done to me. I will not lift my hand to deliver myself." Then God
says, "Now I will do it. I will do it. I have heard the sighing of my
poor child under all his oppressions, 'Now will I arise, says the
Lord.'" And within a short space of time Saul falls by the arrows of
the Philistines upon mount Gilboa and David is anointed first king over
Judah, and, by-and-by, king over Israel as well! Against him no dog
dares to move its tongue–he is the delight of the united nation and
leads them forth to victories against the Philistines–for God has set
him in safety from him that puffed at him!
Well now, God can take any of His children and do just the same for
them! He can lift them out of their troubles and put them somewhere
else where they shall be masters of those whose servants they formerly
were. He shall lead your captivity captive and make you to come to the
bright side of the hill if you have but had Grace enough to travel on
the bleak side of it clinging only to your God! "I will set him in
safety from him that puffs at him."
The Lord does that in many ways. Sometimes He takes His servants and
puts them quite out of the power of their adversaries. Many a time in
Providence has He done it. Sometimes He does not do anything of the
kind, but He lets their adversaries puff at them, only He makes them
feel that all that they can do is puff. Well, they may puff if they
like till they have puffed their breath away! I like that picture Mr.
Bunyan gives us when he represents the pilgrims going by the cave where
Giant Pope sits and the giant has grown so crazy and stiff in his
joints that he can now do little more than sit in his cave's mouth,
grinning at pilgrims as they go by, biting his nails because he cannot
come at them, and saying, "You will never mend till more of you are
burned." But he cannot burn them, so he may sit there and say what he
likes! And, sometimes, the children of God get so much Grace and so
much faith that those who puff at them may keep on puffing, but the
godly are far above it all!
Does it not sometimes happen that a Christian woman lives with a
husband who makes everything very unpleasant, but her soul is so full
of the love of God and she is taught so much patience that she is set
in safety from him that puffs at her? Some child of God has to go and
run the gauntlet of persecution and do battle in a workshop with
ungodly blasphemers–but he walks so near to God and he is so peaceful
and so full of the enjoyment of heavenly delights that, at last, he
does not come to take any notice of all the puffing except that he is
driven to more prayer and to a closer walk with God! "I will set him in
safety from him that puffs at him." I do not know which is the better
of the two–to get right away from the persecutors–or to be allowed to
stay where you are and feel, "It does not matter. All the bitterness is
gone, all the injury is removed." Whichever God thinks is better for us
and more for His own Glory, He will do, and either way we are content!
It may be that the one who puffs at some of us is neither a man nor a
woman–we think that we could bear that kind of puffing–but it is the
devil, himself. Oh, Sirs, we had better go a thousand miles around,
over hedge and ditch, rather than once come into conflict with him! I
have had a sharp brush with him now and again, but I still need to pray
every morning that prayer, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us
from the Evil One," for all other temptations are as nothing compared
with actual contact with that grim Evil One! He knows how to strike and
he knows how to wound, but yet, if it were most for the good of others,
if we, having to be leaders of others, must sometimes have a battle
with the arch-enemy, it is a grand thing if the Lord so covers us with
armor of proof from head to foot that He sets us in safety from him
that puffs at us and we are made to feel that even the devil's
temptations are but as puffs!
Yet, if that puff might bring a poisoned arrow into your soul, it is a
blessed thing to feel that God can set you in safety from it all. For,
"who is he that shall harm you?" Who is he? Our Master met him in the
wilderness and fought him in a threefold duel and left the marks of His
sword upon him. The scars are there and you and I may look that grim
adversary in the face and tell him that we know his Master, and that he
knows his Master, too, and that we are in that Master and that Master
is in us and, as surely as He overcame, and triumphed once for us, so
shall we overcome in His strength! So the weakest saint can say,
"Rejoice not against me, O my enemy: when I fall, I shall arise." With
such a text as that, let us give him a deadly thrust and he shall
spread his dragon wings and fly sway, discomfited by one whose sighs
have brought God to his help, whose cries have brought Omnipotence to
be infinitely more than a match for all the powers of darkness!
Now I have finished my sermon, only I have been thinking that there are
some here who will say, "Alas, we are not the children of God and yet
we are in trouble." Well, if you do not know yourselves to be the
children of God and you are in trouble, yet the Lord our God is full of
pity and full of compassion! He has pity, even, for natural and ungodly
men when they are in trouble. I wish you would think of that, some of
you who never prayed in your lives. If you are in trouble, now is the
time to begin to pray! A Brother came to join the Church this week. He
had been ill and sick for some time and he had gone to the hospital and
obtained medicine, but it had not done him any good. He was about to
take a dose of the medicine when it came to his thoughts, "I have never
prayed to God to make me well." So he stopped and prayed a prayer to
God, whom he did not know, that He would help him in his sorrow and his
sickness and give him health. And he came to tell me how God dealt with
him in mercy and how he was led by that answered prayer to put up many
other prayers and to trust Jesus Christ for the salvation of his soul!
Now, if you are in sore sorrow and in deep trouble, whatever it may be,
turn to your God! He hears the young ravens when they cry. They cannot
pray spiritual prayers any more than you can and yet He hears their
cries. Oh, if you are like the poor raven, yet let your cry go up to
God and He will hear you! He is a God full of compassion. "Like as a
father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear Him." And
He even has pity upon those who fear Him not! O my Hearers, try Him and
trust Him for yourselves! Do not think harshly of my God! Fancy not
that He is made of flint or granite. He will listen to your sighs, your
cries and your tears. Only turn to Him with full purpose of heart and
He will not cast you away. May He bless you now, for Jesus Christ's
sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 119137-152.
Verse 137. Righteous are You, O LORD, and upright are Your judgments.
It is well to be able to say this when you are being tried, when the
hand of God lies heavy upon you. It is hard to kick against the pricks,
but it is very sweet to submit and to say, "Righteous are You, O Lord,
and upright are Your judgments."
138. Your testimonies that You have commanded are righteous and very
faithful. "Righteous" for the present, "faithful" for the future. There
is no mistake about God's Word–it will never fail–we may trust it
implicitly and we shall never be disappointed.
139. My zeal has consumed me. The Psalmist had such zeal for God's Word
that he seemed like a sacrifice consumed with the fire upon the Lord's
altar!
139. Because my enemies have forgotten Your Words. First, they despised
them, then they neglected them. At last they got as far as even to
forget them! Forgetfulness of God's Word is a very dreadful stage of
disease of the heart.
140. Your Word is very pure: therefore Your servant loves it. To love
God's Word for its purity is an index of a pure heart. Some love it for
its poetry, some love it for its doctrine, some love it for its mercy,
but he is an advanced man in the kingdom of Grace who loves it for its
purity.
141. I am small and despised: yet I do not forget Your Precepts. Others
may, but I am not following their example. It is well when a Christian
man is a contrast to other men. When they call him a mere nobody, he
adopts their words and says, "Yes, I am nothing. 'I am small and
despised,' yet I do not forget the Lord's Precepts."
142. Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and Your Law
is truth. Pilate asked, "What is truth?" Here is the best possible
answer–"Your Law is truth." Not only does it contain the truth, but it
is the Truth. The Word of God is not only true, that is its
quality–but it is the Truth of God, that is its essence. It is the
cream of all truths. "Your Law is truth."
143. Trouble and anguish have taken hold on me: yet Your Commandments
are my delights. "Trouble and anguish have taken hold on me." Like two
fierce dogs, they had fixed their teeth in him, yet even then he could
say, "yet Your commandments are my delights." What a riddle is the man
who knows God! He has great trouble and is full of anguish, yet he is
delighted! How can these things be? The child of God knows what it is
to be troubled on every side, and yet not to be troubled within.
144. The righteousness of Your testimonies is everlasting: give me
understanding, and I shall live. As if he could not live without it! He
did not call it true living except as he understood and enjoyed the
Precepts of His God!
145. I cried with my whole heart; hear me, O LORD: I will keep Your
Statutes. Here we have both a prayer and a resolve; but the resolution
grew out of the prayer and was connected with it. The Psalmist prays to
God to help him to keep His Statutes. Are any of you hard put to it,
just now, by strong temptation? I commend this verse to you–"Hear me,
O Lord: I will keep Your Statutes." Cry to God, "Help me, O Lord; let
not strong temptation drag me away from You! I long to be holy, my
whole heart's desire is to keep Your ways; O help me, I pray You!" This
verse begins with, "I cried," and the next verse begins in the same
way–
146. I cried to You. It is good when you can cry. The living child
cries and it is the man of God whose prayer is a cry of almost
inarticulate utterance and grief–"I cried." "I cried." What did he
cry?
146. Save me, and I shall keep Your Testimonies. David had no notion of
salvation without obedience, so he prays, "Save me, and I shall keep
Your Testimonies." Is that the salvation you desire–salvation from
sin? If so, you shall have it! God, the Holy One, delights to bestow
holiness, and He will speedily hear and answer such a prayer as that.
147. I prevented the dawning of the morning and cried. The Psalmist was
still crying, crying early in the morning. Before the sun was up, he
was up, and crying to God.
147. I hoped in Your Word. It is well when hope goes with prayer, when
you begin to see daylight even before the sun is up. "I hoped in Your
Word." Not in any enthusiastic impression of his own, but in God's
Word, itself, the Psalmist placed all his confidence!
148. My eyes are awake through the night watches, that I might meditate
in Your Word. As he was up before the sun, so he was praying before
they set the guards for the night watch. And when they were changing
guards and he heard the cry of the hour from the watchman, he was still
crying to God! And at the same time he was meditating–"that I might
meditate in Your Word." Ah, that is the way to cry! Meditation is very
much neglected nowadays. We read, perhaps, too much. We meditate, for
certain, too little. And meditation is to reading like digestion after
eating. The cows in the pasture eat the grass and then they lie down
and chew the cud and get all the good they can out of what they have
eaten. Reading snips off the grass, but meditation chews the cud!
Therefore, "read, mark, learn and inwardly digest." In this matter we
often fail. We shall be wise to imitate David who devoted the early
morning to prayer and the night watches to meditation.
149. Hear my voice–So the Psalmist used to pray aloud! It is a very
great help in prayer if you can do the same. If we pray aloud to be
heard of men, it is a sin. But if we pray aloud that we may hear
ourselves, so that our devotion may be excited, we shall often find it
very profitable. And if people hear us, by accident, so much the
better–they are not hearing anything that will do them harm–they are
hearing that which may do them good.
149. According to Your loving kindness. That is, do not hear it to
judge it, to censure it, to criticize it, but hear it as a father hears
his child, loving to hear its little voice speaking in broken accents.
149. O LORD, quicken me according to Your judgment. Just now, the
Psalmist prayed, "Hear me, O Lord!" In the 146th verse, He cried, "Save
me." Now his prayer is, "O Lord, quicken me!" When God puts more life
into us, then we have more strength to bear our burdens and, having
more spiritual life, we have more power to resist temptation!
Quickening is an essential mercy, containing within itself a multitude
of blessings. "Quicken me according to Your judgment."
150. They draw near that follow after mischief. He could hear the sound
of their feet behind him–they were running after him and he could
detect the pitter-patter of their malicious footsteps.
150- 151. They are far from Your Law. You are near, O LORD. What a
comfort that is! They are trying to get near, but You are near! I can
hear the tread of their feet behind me, but I can see Your face close
to me! How comforted is the Psalmist in the time of trouble! His
adversaries may be as keen of scent as bloodhounds, but God is with
him, therefore he fears them not.
151- 152. And all Your Commandments are truth. Concerning Your
Testimonies, I have known of old that You have founded them forever. So
that this Psalm was written by David when he was an old man. He had
known the Lord's Commandments when he was young and now, in his
declining days, he can say, "I have known of old that You have founded
them forever." O young men, if you want to be happy old men, begin by
knowing God's Word! If you have known that God has founded His Word of
old, you know that which will comfort you when you grow old! In fact,
you have found a perpetual spring within your heart, if, from your
youth up you have known in the fullest sense the Word of the Lord! Some
are changing their creed every day in the week, as the weather changes,
but blessed is that man who has so learned Christ to begin with that he
keeps in the old way all his life! He is the man who can truly grow.
Transplant a tree six times a year and you will not get any fruit from
it. But blessed are they that are planted in the courts of the Lord,
for they shall flourish there and shall still bring forth fruit in old
age!