Hoping in God’s Mercy

Hoping in God's Mercy

(No. 3390)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 1914.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S DAY EVENING,
FEBRUARY 16, 1868.

"Behold, the eye of the Lordis on those who fear Him, on those who hope
in His mercy." Psalm 33:18.

By the term, "the fear of God," we understand in Holy Scripture the
whole of true religion. We do not mean by the fear of God, the slavish
fear which trembles in God's Presence, as the poor slave trembles under
his master's lash, but that child-like fear which fears to offend,
which fears to be led into error–a reverential fear such as the angels
have when they veil their faces with their wings and cast their crowns
before the glorious Throne of God–to have such a fear of God before
our eyes as to restrain our wandering passions, to keep our hands from
doing evil and our tongues from speaking the thing which is not
right–to have such a fear of God that we feel as though we were in
God's Presence and act, and speak, and think as though we fully
recognized the eye that reads the secrets of the heart. When we read,
therefore, that the eye of the Lord is upon "them that fear Him," we
are to understand that He has gracious regard towards those who delight
in Him, who worship Him and are His children.

But the part of the text to which I call your special attention now is
that expression, "Those who hope in His mercy." This is intended to be
of the same reach and compass as the first. Those who fear God are the
same persons as those who hope in His mercy and this is very consoling,
for to hope in God's mercy seems to be but a very small evidence of
Divine Grace and yet it seems to be a very sure sign, for those who
hope in God's mercy are the same persons who are said to fear Him. They
are the same persons as are described as being His saved ones, His
children–the truly godly ones.

I hope there are many here who can say, "Well, I do hope in His mercy.
If I cannot get farther, yet I can get as far as that–my hope is fixed
in the mercy of God in Jesus Christ." Then, dear Friend, may the words
we shall speak be comforting to you! And may you rejoice that the Lord
considers you and has an eye of favor towards you, now, and will have
forever!

I am always very anxious about those who have the beginnings of Grace
in them. I think I would go a long way out of my way to carry one of
the lambs in my bosom and to try to cherish one that was ready to die
with doubt. But, on the other hand, I am always fearful of giving any
encouragement to those who are on a wrong foundation. Like the ancient
mariner who was afraid of the whirlpool on the one hand and the rocks
on the other, and found it difficult to steer along the middle of the
channel, so may I find it tonight. I would not grieve a trembling soul.
I would not bolster up a self-deceived one. Far be it from these lips
to ever become a rod for the backs of God's weak ones! And equally far
be it from this tongue to speak so as to put pillows under men' s arms
and under their heads wherewith they may go to sleep and sleep
themselves into Hell!

In trying, therefore, to avoid two evils, I shall begin by speaking
about a hope in God's mercy which is false–and then I shall say a
little about a sound hope in God' s mercy. To begin, then, at the
beginning–

I. THERE IS A FALSE HOPE IN GOD'S MERCY AGAINST WHICH WE EARNESTLY WARN
YOU.

"I do not believe," says a man, "that God will ever cast me into Hell,
for God Almighty is very merciful." "What will become of you when you
die?" said one man to another. "I do not know," was the answer, "and I
do not think much about it because I know that God is a very good
God–and I do not think that He will cast the souls of men into Hell,
as bigots say, and cause them to be forever banished from His
Presence." Now, Friend, if this is your hope, I beseech you to be rid
of it, for it is a deadly viper and though you nurse and cherish it in
your bosom, it will sting you to your destruction, for do you not know
that the God of the Bible is a God of Justice, as well as a God of
Mercy? Though He is infinitely good, yet He Himself has said, "I will
by no means spare the guilty."

What do you think of this text, "The wicked shall be turned into Hell,
and all the nations that forget God"? Does that seem as if God would
not punish sin? "The soul that sins, it shall die." What do you think
of that? "These shall go away into everlasting punishment." Does that
seem like an effeminate and sentimental kindness that will wink at sin?
If you are to be saved by the general mercy of God, then let me tell
you that this blessed Book of God is all a mistake and deception, for
there are no such teachings here, as those of which you dream. Besides,
you know better than this–I appeal to your own conscience, you know
better than this!

We tell people that if they allow filth to accumulate and sewage to
become stagnant. If they deprive themselves of fresh air and neglect
ventilation and cleanliness, when the fever comes it will be sure to
make them its prey! And they might say, "Oh, we don't believe that! God
is merciful and we do not believe that He will ever let the fever take
people off by scores–we shall not think of clearing away the dung
heaps, or cleaning out the sewers, or getting the windows made to open!
We tell you it is all bigoted trash! God will not let the people die of
fever!" But they do die of fever and the very people who neglect the
laws of health are taken away, God's mercy notwithstanding! And so it
will be with you. Sin is like a dung heap–your iniquities are like
those fever-breeding drains and your soul will die of the disease which
springs from the sin which you so much love. And all your talk about
God's mercy you will find to be a dream! If a man shall go to sea
tomorrow in a leaky ship which takes in the water while she is going
down the Thames, they may keep the pumps always going, but yet the
water gets ahead of the men. You say to the man, "Sir, if you go out
into the sea–it is only a matter of time–your ship will go down. She
is not seaworthy–she will never get down the Channel." "Oh," he says,
"don' t tell me that–God Almighty is merciful and He will never let a
poor fellow drown! I believe that my ship will float and I mean to run
the risk of it, for I believe in God's mercy." Down the vessel
goes–and the wretch on board of her and all her passengers are
drowned! And what do we say? Do we say that God is not merciful? No!
But we say that some men are insane–and so say we of you! If you trust
in that general mercy of God, but will not obey the Gospel and put from
you the way of salvation which God has ordained, you will perish! And
on your own head will be your blood since you have foolishly perverted
the goodness of God to your own destruction!

In other persons, this belief in the mercy of God takes the shape of
saying, " Well, I have always done my best. I have been a respectable
person ever since I can recall–I bring up my children as well as I
can–I send them to the Sunday school. I always pay my debts. I don't
swear and I am not a gin drinker–I don't know that I have any
particular vice. On the contrary, I am always ready and happy to help
the poor and to say a good word for religion and so on. It is true that
I am not all I ought to be–no doubt we are all sinners and there is a
great deal that is wrong and imperfect about us–though I don' t know
what it is in particular. But anyhow, God is merciful and what with
what I have done and what I have not done–and God's mercy to make up
for all the shortcomings–I do not doubt but what it will be all right
with me at the last." Now this, again, is a deceit and a refuge of
lies–a bowing wall and a tottering fence which will fall on those who
take shelter behind it!

You have read of Nebuchadnezzar's image which was part iron and part
clay. Had it been all iron, it might have stood, but being part clay,
by-and-by, the whole image was broken in pieces! Such is your religion!
You trust in part to the mercy of God–I will call that the iron. But
you trust in part to your own so-called good works–that is the clay
and down your image will fall before long! Why, you are like the man in
the proverb who tries to sit on two stools–and you know what becomes
of him! Besides, how foolish you are to try to yoke yourselves to God
to help Him! Go and yoke a gnat with an archangel, or find a worm and
put it side by side with leviathan–and hope that they will plow the
stormy deep together! Then think of Christ helping you and of you
helping Christ. Absurd! If you are to be saved by works, then it must
be all of works! But if by Grace, it must be all of Grace, for the two
will no more mix than fire and water. They are two contrary principles!
Therefore, give up the delusion! A hope in God's mercy which is twisted
and inter-twisted with a hope in your own works is certainly vain!

But we know others who say, "Well said, Mr. Preacher! I know better
than that–I shall never fall into that snare. I trust in the blood and
righteousness of Jesus Christ and in Him, alone! I expect the mercy of
God to come to me through Christ and I depend upon only Him." Well, you
talk very well. You talk very well. I must go home with you! But the
man does not want me to go home with him. I do not know where he means
to turn in–perhaps once or twice on the roadbefore he gets to his
house! When he gets home, we shall ask his wife what sort of a man he
is. She will then be compelled to say, "Well, Sir, he is a great saint
on Sunday, but he is a great devil all the rest of the week! He can
talk a horse's head off about religion, but, Sir, there is no genuine
living in the matter–no real, righteous, godly action in him."

Did you never read of Mr. Talkative in The Pilgrim's Progress?How he
could tell out all the Doctrines! How he could prate about them! He had
them all at his fingertips and at his tongue's tip, too, but they never
operated on his life. They never affected and sweetened his character.
He was just as big a rogue as though Christ had never lived–and just
as graceless a villain as though he had never heard of the Savior at
all! Now, Sirs–any kind of faith in Christ which does not change your
life is the faith of devils! And it will take you where devils are, but
will never take you to Heaven! Men are not saved by their works–we
declare that plainly enough–but if faith does not produce good works,
it is a dead faith and it leaves you a dead soul to become corrupt and
to be cast out from the sight of the Most High. A genuine hope in God's
mercy, according to the teaching of Scripture, purifies a man. "He that
has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure." If you have
a hope in the mercy of God which lets you do as the ungodly do with
impunity, then, Sir, you have about your neck a millstone that will
sink you lower than the lowest Hell! God deliver you from such a
delusion!

I fear there are still others who have a bad hope–a hope which will
not save them–because they trust in the mercy of God that they shall
be all right at the last, though they have neglected all those things
which make men right. For instance, the Word of God says, "You must be
born-again." These men have never been born-again, but yet they trust
in the mercy of God! Sir, what right have you to expect any mercy when
God has no mercy, except that which He shows to men by giving them new
hearts and right spirits? You say you trust in the mercy of God and yet
you have no repen-tance–and do you think God will forgive the man who
not only does not love, but refuses and despises His Son, the only
Savior? I tell you there will have to be a new Bible written before
this can be true! And there will have to be a new Gos-pel–yes–and a
new God, too, for the God of the Bible never will, nor can wink at sin!
Unless He makes you sick of sin, He must be sick of you! And until you
hate your iniquities with a perfect hatred, there cannot be mercy in
God's heart to you, for you go on in your iniquities!

You tell me you trust in God, and yet there has been no change of life
in you! Oh, Sirs! Unless you are converted and become as little
children, you shall in no wise enter the Kingdom of Heaven! The first
thing God's mercy will do for you will be to turn your face in the
opposite direction.

If mercy shall ever come to you, it will make you a new creation, give
you new loves, new hates. But if you have not conversion, what have you
to do with mercy? The mercy of God, wherever it comes, makes men pray.
You never bend your knees and yet you say you trust in God' s mercy?
Oh, Sir, you are deceiving your own soul!

The mercy of God makes a man love Christ and makes him seek to be like
Christ. You have no love to Christ and no desire to be like He. Then,
Sir, I pray you give up that falsehood, which has been, up to now, as a
soft pillow for your head, and believe me that the mercy of God cannot
come in the way in which you expect it!

I wish I might have torn away, from some now present, their false
dependences, but I am afraid they are too dear to them for my hands to
do it! May God's Holy Spirit deliver men from all false confidences in
God's mercy! But now a much more pleasant part of my work comes before
me, namely–

II. TO DESCRIBE A SOUND HOPE IN THE MERCY OF GOD.

I shall say of it, first, that a soundly hopeful soul feels its need of
mercy. It does not talk about sin, but it feels it. It does not talk
about mercy, but it groans after it. Beware of superficial religion! I
think if I might only say two things before I die, one out of the two
would be–beware of surface godliness. Take care of the paint, the
tinsel, the varnish, the oil! There must be in us a hungering and a
thirsting after righteousness! There must be in us the broken heart and
the contrite spirit. I like revivals–far be it from me to ever say a
word against them–but I have seen scores of men jump into religion
just as men jump into a bath–and then jump out, again, just as quickly
because they have not felt their deep need of Christ.

You may depend upon it, there is no sound bottom to a man's religion
unless he begins with a broken heart. And that religion that does not
begin with a deep sense of sin, and a thorough heartbreaking
conviction, is a repentance that will have to be repented of before
long. God save us from it! If you are to have a hope in mercy, you must
know that it is mercy! You must know that you need it as mercy! You
must be clean divorced from every confidence except in mercy! Youmust
come to this, that it must be Grace first, last, and midst–Grace
everywhere–otherwise it will never serve or save such a poor helpless
castaway as you are. A sound hope, then, is one in which a man knows
that he needs mercy!

Another mark of a sound hope is that he clearly perceives that mercy
can only come to him through the Mediator– Christ Jesus. The Word of
God tells us that there is but one door of Grace, and that is Christ!
But one foundation for a genuine hope–and that foundation is Christ1
God's mercy is Infinite, but it always flows to men through the golden
channel of Jesus Christ, His Son! Soul, it will be a good thing for you
when you have done with the idea of hunting after mercy here, there and
everywhere, and when you come to Christ, and Christ alone, for it! God
swears by Himself that there shall be no hope for man out of Christ,
but that there shall be hope for them there. "Other foundation can no
man lay than that which is laid." Against all other confidences God
thunders out that famous sentence, "He that believes not, in condemned
already, because he has not believed on the Son of God." When you are
tied up to Christ. When every other door is shut and barred, and
fastened up with iron padlocks. When every cistern is broken. When
every hope is shipwrecked and the last broken board has been swallowed
up in the whirlpool of despair–if your soul then clings to
Chr-ist–you have a sound hope, a hope that can never let you go!

Yet again. That hope which leads a man to desire to be conformed to
God's plan of mercyis a sound hope. I mean this. There may be someone
here who says, "I fear I am not regenerated. You condemned me just now,
Sir, but oh, I wish I were! I am afraid I am not converted, but oh,
that God in His Grace would convert me! You spoke of repentance–I fear
I do not repent as I should, but oh, I wish that I could repent! Oh,
that my heart would break! I feel because I do not feel and I sigh
because I cannot sigh!" Ah, poor Soul, if you are willing to be what
God would make you to be, then is your hope, though not yet a perfect
one, yet good so far as it goes! If you will now come and cast yourself
on Christ, though you have no regeneration apparent to yourself, yet
you shall be saved! If you will come as you are, with all your
iniquities about you, without any repentance that you can discern. If
you will come empty-handed and cast yourself on what Jesus did upon the
Cross and is still doing in pleading before the Throne of God, you
shall never perish, but you shall be saved!

Oh, it is a precious Gospel which we have to preach to needy sinners! A
full Christ for empty sinners! A free Christ for sinners that are
enslaved! But you must be willing to be this–you must be willing to be
renewed in the spirit of your mind–and if you can honestly say that
you are so willing and that you will now close in with Christ, then
yours is the hope upon which God looks with the kindest regard!

I might thus continue to describe this hope, but I shall not detain you
longer upon that point. I do hope and trust that I have many here who
are beginning to have a little hope in Christ. Oh, it is a mercy to see
the first streaks of daylight, for the sun is rising. It is pleasing to
see that first dewdrop, the first tear that comes from a troubled
heart. I think the Lord is about to bring water out of the flinty rock!
I feel so grateful when I meet with some in distress. Sometimes after
the service there is somebody that wants to see us. They are so
distracted and depressed–and they think they are giving us so much
trouble, but oh, it is blessed trouble! There is not one of us but
would be glad to sit up all night, I am sure, to see many such troubled
ones, if we might but speak a word to them by which they might find joy
and peace!

Now, I want to take the text like a very sweet and dainty morsel and
just drop it into the mouths of you who are ready to faint for it–"The
eye of the Lord is upon those who fear Him, upon those who hope in His
mercy." Though you have got no further than that, yet you have God's
eye upon you and you may be greatly comforted! But we must go to
another point with great brevity. We have in this house of worship,
here and now–

III. SOME WHO ARE AFRAID TO HOPE IN GOD.

They unconsciously desire to trust Him in His own appointed way. They
understand it, but they are afraid to do it. Now, my beloved fellow
sinner, I beseech you to cast yourself upon Christ and to trust in Him!
And remember that God cannot lie. It is blasphemy to suppose that God
can say a thing that is not true. Now, He has promised, over and
overagain, to save everyone that trusts in Christ. And if He does not
save you, well, then_. You know what I mean. Oh,but God cannot lie!
Therefore, come and cast yourself upon His faithful promise! Well do I
remember when that text, "Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall
be saved," stayed my fainting soul for months together, before I
actually had joy and peace. Do you call upon God in prayer? Do you
trust in God, however little it may be? Then you shall be saved!
Believe it. If any soul here feels himself to be as black as
night–imagines himself to be out of the list of the hopeful–yet if he
can but come and cast himself upon what Christ did when He died upon
the Cross for sinners, God must cease to be God before that soul can
perish! Hope then, hope then, Sinner, for God cannot lie!

Then hope, again, because God has saved and is still saving others! We
have not ceased to have conversions in this Church. I am sometimes
afraid that they are not as many as they once were, but they do come
and come frequently, too, to the praise of God's Grace! Now, if others
are saved when they trust Christ, why should not you be? Who has
clambered up into the secret chambers of Heaven and found that your
name is not written in the roll of election? Who? Why, no one has done
so! Then, since Christ bids you come and trust Him–come and trust Him!
Oh, that you might come, tonight, and as He has accepted others, He
will accept you, for He says, "He that comes unto Me, I will in no wise
castout."

I beseech you have hope, again, because it is to Gods honor to save
sinners. If it were dishonoring to Christ to receive the ungodly, you
might stand in doubt. But since it is one of the jewels in His crown
which gladdens His heart and brings Him honor in the sight of glorified
saints in Heaven, depend upon it, He is not hard to be persuaded!
Christ is quite as willing to save as ever the most longing sinner can
be to be saved! It is His delight to give of His liberality, to
dispense of His bounty to those who need! Have hope then. The generous
Character of Christ should encourage you!

Have hope, I say, once more, because of what Christ endured upon the
Cross. See Him dying in unutterable pains and pangs! See His hands and
feet distilling founts of blood! See His body racked with agonies that
cannot be described! His soul, meanwhile, ground and crushed beneath
the wheels of Divine Wrath against the sin He bore for our sakes! His
whole Being is a mass of suffering in our place! Now, why all this
miraculous and sacrificial endurance? Surely that bearing all this, we
might be spared and never know its anguish! Oh, when my soul looks to
Christ, it seems to see that nothing is impossible with such an
Atonement! No sin is too black for that blood to wash and cleanse away!
It cannot be that beneath Heaven there can be a sinner so abominable
that the blood of Christ cannot make a full atonement for all his sins!
Come, then! Come, then–'tis the voice of Jesus that calls you! Come,
you chief of sinners! Come now, before yet another sun shall dawn! Come
and find in Jesus' wounds a refuge from the stormy blast that shall
soon come to sweep the unconverted into condemnation!

Yet must we still pass on and, only for a moment, linger upon–

IV. THE COMFORT WHICH THE TEXT AFFORDS TO THOSE WHO HAVE A HOPE IN
GOD'S MERCY.

It says that the eye of the Lord is upon them. There is a blessing for
you. Nobody else's eye is upon you. You have got up to London, away
from parents and friends, and nobody looks after you now. You have come
into this big Tabernacle and I am sorry to find that there are still
some of our members who do not look after strangers–do not look after
souls as they ought to do–and you have been coming here and nobody has
spoken to you. Now, let me read the text, and I need not say any more,
" The eye of the Lord is upon those who fear Him, upon those who hope
in His mercy." God sees you and you do not need anybody else! Be
content that God knows all about it. You are up in the top gallery
there, somewhere behind where my eye cannot reach you–and hardly my
voice–but "the eye of the Lord is upon those who fear Him, upon those
who hope in His mercy." And mark that eye, as well as being an eye of
observation, is also an eye of pity! God has compassion on you! He
stands side by side with you–that bleeding Son of God–and in your
groans He groans, and in your griefs He takes a share. He has
compassion on you–yes, and He will help you–and even now He loves
you. The eye with which He looks upon you is a Father's eye and when a
father sees his child broken-hearted, he says to himself, "I can stand
anything but this. My child's tears overcome me, overmaster me. I
cannot see him sick and sad and sobbing, without pitying him."

Oh, some of you have sons and daughters of your own! And when you see
that sick child of yours crying with pain, why, you would spend all you
have, if you could but get some doctor that would make him well
again."Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them
that fear Him." And that means all those who hope in His mercy, for
they are put, as I told you, in the text in the same category as those
who fear Him. Your Father's eye is upon you and He pities those tears,
sighs and cries of yours–He loves you and He means to bless you!

Now, I want to say to you Believers here, something similar to what I
said at this morning's service. I wish that all the members of this
Church were more on the alert after those who are beginning to hope in
God's mercy. Some are. I cannot find much fault with you. You are my
joy and crown–and sometimes I boast–I hope in no wrong way, of
theearnestness of many in this Church! But make me not ashamed of this,
my boasting, as some might well do, who are cold and careless about the
souls of men. Do you know there are lost ones round about you, lost
ones about whom you seem to have no concern, though, according to
Christ's Law, they are your brethren, your neighbors? What a sad, sad
story it is that we have lately been seeing in the newspapers every
day–a gentleman lost, rewards offered, the police searching– but he
is lost! A hat found. Some sort of clue given. But he is lost! How must
the parent hearts break! How must friends, day by day, feel life a
burden till they know what has become of him! He is lost! He is lost!
Ah, but the loss of a man for this life, though it is a very heavy
blow, is nothing compared with the loss of a soul! Ah, Mother, you have
got a child who is lost. Ah, Husband, you have got a wife who is lost!
Ah, Wife, your husband is lost! And have you never advertised for him?
Have you never sought him? God knows where he is! Have you never gone
to God and said, "Seek him and find him"? Have you never enlisted the
Great Soul-Finder's aid, who came into the world, "to seek and to save
that which was lost"?

Are you quite careless about it, whether your servants, your neighbors,
your husbands, your wives, your children shall be lost forever or not?
Then am I ashamed of you! And angels are ashamed of you! And God's
living people are ashamed of you! And Christ Himself may well be
ashamed of you, that you have no care for those whom you ought to love!

I do trust that this is not the case with us, but that we do anxiously
desire that lost ones should be saved. Come, then, I want you to look
up those who are beginning to seek Christ! And when you have done that,
and have found them out, then I want you to seek after those who are
notseeking Christ. I do not think there ought to be a person come
within these four walls, into these galleries, or on the area, but
shall be attacked, for his good, by someone or other, before the whole
assembly is scattered! Surely you might find a way of putting some
question, kindly and affectionately–not rudely–but respectfully, so
that if I have been the means in any way of making a little impression
on their souls, you may follow it up by personal dealing! If I have put
in the nail of the Truth of God a little way, you may give it a heavy
blow and drive it in deeper–and God grant that the Holy Spirit may
clinch the nail so that it may never be drawn out!

Oh, my Hearers, we must have you saved! We cannot go on much longer
with some of you as you are because you yourselves will not go on much
longer as you are! We have been rather free for the last few weeks from
deaths and departures, but do not think that we shall be free from them
long! In the ordinary course of nature, as those who calculate the
averages of human life will tell you, a certain proportion of a great
multitude like this–some 6,000 and more–must soon die. There is no
chance about whether we shall or not–we must. Now, who shall it be?
Who shall stand before his God? To whose ears will the ringing trumpet
of the archangel sound? For whom shall the funeral bell be tolled? Over
whom shall it be said, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust"? Since we know
not to whom the summons may come, may this be the command to all,
"Consider your ways and prepare to meet your God." Oh, that you might
prepare this very night, and seek unto the Lord with full purpose of
heart! And this is the promise, "He that seeks, finds; he that asks,
receives and to him that knocks, it shall be opened."

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM139.

This is a Psalm we can never read too often. It will be to us one of
the greatest safeguards against sin if we have its teaching constantly
before our mind's eyes. The teaching of this Psalm is simply this,
"You, God, see me."

Verse 1. O Lord, You have searched me, and known me. You have looked
into my most secret part. The most intricate labyrinths of my spirit
are all observed by You. You have not searched and yet been unable to
discover the secret of my nature, but You have searched me and known
me. Your search has been an efficient one. You have read the secrets of
my soul.

2. You know my sitting down andmy rising up, You understand my thoughts
afar of. It is a common enough thing to sit down and to rise up and I,
myself, oftentimes scarcely know why I do the one or the other, but You
know and understand all. "You understand my thoughts afar off." My
heart forms a thought that never comes to a word or an act, but You not
only perceive it, but You translate it! You understand my thoughts.

3. You compass my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all
my ways. I am surrounded by You as by a ring of observers.

4. For there is not a word on my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, You know it
altogether. Not only the words on my tongue, but those that slumber in
my tongue, the unspoken words, You know them perfectly and altogether!

5. You have beset me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon mm.
Your Presence amounts to actual contact. You not only see, but touch,
like the physician who does not merely look at the wound, but by-and-by
comes to probe it. So do You probe my wounds and see the deeps of my
sins.

6. 7. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me! It is high, I cannot
attain unto it. Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I
flee from Your Presence? It seems as if the first impulse was to fly
away from a God whose attributes were so lofty. 'Twas but a transient
impression, yet David words it so.

8, 10. If I ascend up into Heaven, You are there: if I make my bed in
Hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning and
dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Your hand
lead me, and Your right hand shall hold m. How swift he supposes his
flight to be, as swift as the light, for he borrows the wings of the
morning–and yet the hand of God was controlling his destiny even then!
As Watts rhymes it–

"If mounted on the morning ray, I fly beyond the western sea, Your
swifter hand should first arrive, And there arrest Your fugitive." 11,
12. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall
be light about me. Yes, the darkness hides not from You, but the night
shines as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to You.
For, mystery of mysteries, and more wondrous still, You not only
observe, but You always have observed! And You have not only observed
my well-formed being and my visible life, but before I had a being, You
did observe what I should be, and when I was yet in embryo, Your
all-observing eyes watched me.

13-16. For You have possessed my reins: You have covered me in my
mother's womb. I will praise You; for I am fearfully and wonderfully
made: marvelous are Your works: and that my soul knows right well My
substance was not hid from You when I was made in secret and curiously
worked in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes did see my
substance, yet being not perfect, and in Your Book all my members were
written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was
none of them.In so vivid a manner does our holy poet sing of the
Omniscience of God with regard to our creation. Before we had breath He
formed and fashioned us.

17. How precious also are Your thoughts unto me, O God! How great is
the sum of them!How many thoughts has God towards us! We cannot count
them! And how kind are those thoughts–we cannot estimate them–how
precious, how great!

18. IfIshould count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I
awake, I am still with You. I suppose I had finished the tale, had
counted up all Your thoughts to me and then fell asleep. I should then
but begin to count again, for You continue to thrust out mercies from
Your hands. My God, my numeration shall never overtake You, much less
my gratitude, and the service that is Your due!

19. Surely You will slay the wicked, O God: depart from me, therefore,
you bloody men. "Surely"–here is a solemn inference from the
Omniscience of God–"surely You will slay the wicked, O God." You have
seen their wickedness. They have committed their wickedness in Your
Presence. You will need no witnesses, no jury! You are all in one! Are
You not the Judge of all the earth, and shall You not do right? "Surely
You will destroy the wicked, O God." Then I desire not to have those in
my company who are condemned criminals and are soon to be executed.
"Depart from me, therefore, you bloody men." See how this sets David
upon purging his company and keeping himself clean in his associations,
since God, who sees all, and will surely punish, would hold it to be
evil on the part of His servant to be found associating with rebellious
men?

20-22. For they speak against You wickedly, and Your enemies take Your
name in vain. Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate You? And am not I
grieved with those that rise up against You? I hate them with perfect
hatred: I count them my enemies. We are bound to love our own enemies,
but not God's enemies, since they are haters of all that isgood and all
that is true–and the essentially Good One, Himself. We love them as
our fellow beings, but we hate them as haters of God.

23, 24. Search me, O God, andknow my heart: try me, and knnowmy
thoughts. Andsee if there are any wicked ways in me, and lead me in the
way everlasting.