Another Lesson From Manasseh’s Life

Another Lesson From Manasseh's Life

(No. 2385)

A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1894.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
AUGUST 19, 1888.

"And the Lord spoke to Manasseh, and to his people: but they would not
listen. Therefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host
of the king of Assyria; which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound
him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon." 2 Chronicles 33:10,11.

THE proper way for a sinner to be brought to God is for God to speak to
him and for him to hear. Manasseh would not come that way–"The Lord
spoke to Manasseh, and to his people: but they would not listen."
Therefore, as God determined to save the rebellious king, He fetched
him back by a rougher road–He sent the captains of the host of the
king of Assyria, who took him among the thorns.

I am going to talk to you a little about the plain and proper road by
which you should come to God. And then I shall deal with those who have
gone among the thorns. There may be some such characters here, tonight.
Let me say that if I should happen to describe anyone very correctly, I
hope he will not do as a friend did the other Monday. He had come up to
London and I gave such an accurate description of him on the Sunday
that he came in very indignantly to see me the next day, to know
whether his wife had not written to me. He looked as if his wife and
myself might, both of us, have rather hard times with him. When I
assured him that I did not know his name and had never seen him or his
wife, or heard a word about him, he grew a little more calm–but the
portrayal of him appeared to be so accurate that I could not help
saying to him, "Surely God has spoken to you. Take the message home to
yourself. Do not blame me or your wife, but blame yourself to think
that such a description should apply to you."

Now, first, as I have already told you, the proper way for a sinner to
be brought to God is for God to speak to him and for him to hear. In
Holy Scripture, God warns men. He tells them that sin is an evil thing
and that if it is persisted in, it will bring endless ruin to them.
Now, the proper thing for the man who hears that warning is to take
heed to it, to run to the helm of his vessel and steer the ship in
another direction. God grant that you and I may not be as the horse and
as the mule, that need bit and bridle, but may we listen at once to the
warning so kindly given and turn from every evil way!

Sometimes God speaks by way of invitation. "Come to Me," He says.
"Return to Me. I am ready to forgive. I delight in mercy." Now, the
proper way for one who hears this invitation is not to wait and linger,
but to accept it at once. "When You said, Seek you My face; my heart
said unto You, Your face, Lord, will I seek." The Lord invites you to
come to the ark to escape the flood, to come to the banquet to satisfy
your hunger, to come to the sacred bath, that you may wash and be
clean, as he of old did who washed his leprosy away in the Jordan.
Whenever God speaks to us in any way, let us listen and, listening, let
us obey–especially when He sets before us Jesus, Crucified, and says
to us, "Trust in Him and you shall be forgiven. Accept the Great
Sacrifice! Believe that your sin was laid on Him and you shall be
forever clear of it." Oh, that you would accept Him at once! We do not
need to go round about, over hedge and ditch, to find the Savior–there
is the Cross, look to it and live!

I was asking a friend, just now, concerning a sermon he had heard, and
he said, "It was a very clever sermon, but if anybody had followed its
teaching, he would not have been within 6,000 miles of the Cross of
Christ." Well now, that is not what I want to do with you, to lead you
thousands of miles away from Christ! But, as God has set forth Christ
to be a propitiation for sin, I pray that you may accept Him and live
by Him. "Look unto Me," He says, "and be you saved."–

"There is life for a look at the Crucified One."

May the Holy Spirit, whose word is, "Today, today, today," speak with
power to your hearts that you may hear because God speaks!

You understand the way sinners are saved, do you not? "Faith comes by
hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." We hear the Gospel, we
believe it, we live by it–there is the whole machinery of salvation!
We preach a Crucified Savior, and whoever believes in Him shall not
perish, but have everlasting life. Yet we cannot beat it into men's
heads that salvation is as simple as this! I remember how Martin Luther
said that it was so difficult to get the Doctrine of Justification by
Faith into the minds of the Wittenbergers that he had half a mind to
take the Bible and beat them over the head with it! I am afraid that he
would not have gotten the Truth of God into their heads that way.
"Look," he said, "if these sectaries come to you with a new doctrine,
you stare at it like a cow at a new gate! But when I bring you the
Gospel, you will not even look at it, much less will you receive it!"
Oh, that the Spirit of God would deliver us from such folly, that we
may accept Christ, trust Him, and live!

This is the happy way of salvation, to hear, believe, and live. Men go
about to try and invent a salvation that makes its followers
miserable–you must have so many wretched feelings, so much despair, so
many gloomy thoughts. No, no! The Gospel message is, "Believe and
live." Why should men need to make their case worse than it is? It is
already as bad as it can be! Why struggle to find an impossible
addition to your present danger? Why try to import foreign and
extraneous griefs into your already unbearable misery? I was trying,
once, to explain the Gospel to a young woman, so as to make it very
simple to her, but she said, "Why, dear Sir, I thought I was to feel a
great deal! My father, before he found Christ, was so bad that he had
to be put away in a lunatic asylum, and I thought I must be like he
was." That is the rough way that many people think they have to travel.
But the proper way, the Scriptural way is, "Come to Jesus, put your
trust in Him. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be
saved." This, then, is the happy way!

It is also an accessible way. If I preached to you that you must have
so much despair, so much of terrible agony of soul, you might say, "I
cannot go along that road. I am a young man full of spirit. I am a
young woman with ruddy cheeks and happy heart. Must I be miserable in
order to find Christ?" Ah, my dear Friend, it is not so put! You will
have, you must have, sorrow for sin. That, the Lord will give you–you
have not to make it yourself–the Holy Spirit will work it in your
heart if you yield yourself wholly to Him. How often have I told you
that if you cannot come to Christ with a broken heart, come to Christ
for a broken heart! If you have not a proper sense of sin, I do not
expect that you ever will have it until the Holy Spirit gives it to
you! Come to Him and trust Him to work it in you. Remember that
repentance does not come before faith–it is a kind of Siamese twin
with faith! Which comes first, I cannot tell, until you tell me which
spoke in a wheel moves first when the whole wheel moves!

Repentance is the lovely sister of Faith, if it is not Faith's
first-born child. So you are not to repent, first, and then to come to
Christ. Bring nothing to the Savior except your nothingness! Come to
Him empty, just as you are. In a short time, some of the fruits in our
gardens will be ripening. Suppose we have a fine apple tree, or pear
tree, with fruit on it, quite ripe. As you stand under it, you can
imagine that you hear it talk. Trees have a language–shall I interpret
what that tree is saying? It says, "Baskets, bring baskets." What for?
Here is a basket, but I dare not bring it. "Why not?" asks the tree.
Because it is empty. If the basket were full, I would bring it. But the
tree will say to you, "I need empty baskets, that I may fill them with
fruit." So Jesus needs nothing of you but your emptiness–and you may
come to Him just as you are. In fact, this is the only way to come to
Him aright. If you live in the country, where you have an old-fashioned
well, do you ever say to yourself, "I dare not let this bucket down
till I fill it"? Everybody would laugh at you if you talked like that!
You let it down empty that it may be filled! So let your empty soul
down into the deep well of Christ's infinite merit, that it may be
filled to the brim!

Thus, you see, this is a happy way, and it is an accessible way. You
can come to Christ, can you not, in such a way as

this?

It is, next, a way which has frequently been taken. Talking, some time
ago, about the difficulties I had when coming to Christ, I said to some
Brothers and Sisters present, "They were self-made difficulties. They
were not necessary, except it was that I might know the rough road in
order that I might the better help others." And I remember that our
beloved and honored Brother, William Olney, said, "I never had such
difficulties at all. I know nothing whatever about them. As a boy, I
trusted in Christ and I found peace with God at once." I believe that
there are hundreds and thousands of earnest Christians who simply come
to Jesus without any particular pang of conscience, or grief of
heart–and they are as truly

in Christ as any of us–and their lives prove it! This is a way that
has been frequently taken–all men are not fools– some do take the
straight and narrow road, by God's Grace, that leads to everlasting
life. I pray you, therefore, my dear unconverted Hearer, especially you
young men, and you young women, to enter the King's highway which leads
to everlasting Glory! Hear while God speaks, believe what God says, and
live forever!

Is not this the Gospel way? "He that believes and is baptized shall be
saved." "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." Is
it not the right way? Where else should we look but to our Savior? What
can we do but look, for we have nothing of our own to bring? Let us
even now look out of ourselves to Christ and live forever! Would it not
be a blessed circumstance if, without any further question about the
matter, every unconverted man and woman here tonight would close in
with Christ, crying, "I will perish, if I do perish, at the foot of the
Cross! I will trust you, Emmanuel, the unique Savior, the one and only
Interposer, the one Mediator who can lay His hand on God by virtue of
His own Godhead, and on man by reason of His Manhood, and join us both
together in a blessed league of endless amity"? May that be done for
each one of you! Let the prayer go up from you who know the Lord, you
who can pray–"Lord, save the whole congregation!" What a congregation
it is! Every Sabbath, morning and night, these masses gather here!
Lord, why do they come if You do not intend to bless them? Shall they
come up like waves of the sea and then go rolling back, again, and
leave not a trace behind? No, rather may some precious pearls be washed
up on the shores of salvation, tonight, that shall adorn the crown of
Christ forever and ever!

But now I come to the tug of war in the other side of my subject. When
men reject this simple and easy way of trusting Christ, then and there
the Lord might leave them. And if He did leave them, woe would be unto
them! There is no greater curse than that solemn sentence, "Let him
alone." But, instead thereof, the Lord begins to take men along a rough
road. Let me read the text again–"The Lord spoke to Manasseh, and to
his people: but they would not listen. Therefore the Lord brought upon
them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took
Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him
to Babylon." Perhaps He will do the same with you. It may be that He is
dealing thus with some of you and here is the point where I thought it
was likely that I might describe somebody's case very particularly.

I. First, THE LORD OFTEN ALLOWS TEMPORAL TRIALS TO TAKE MEN CAPTIVE. It
often happens that

God, with a view to the salvation of men, sends them temporal trials to
capture them, as Manasseh was taken "among the thorns." Is it so, my
Friend, that after hearing the Gospel for years, you are still
unconverted, and that God is now beginning no longer to speak to you
with words, but to deal with you by blows?

I have known persons in this case to find everything going wrong with
them in business. It has seemed as if the current which had flowed
toward them had suddenly dried up, or flowed backward! Do what they
may, nothing prospers. There is a blight and a mildew on all their
crops. They are disappointed where they had the highest hopes. Their
speculations all turn out failures. Everything goes wrong. This is one
of the black dogs with which the Good Shepherd fetches home His stray
sheep–perhaps He is thus going to fetch you home. I pray that He may!

In the case of another, the man finds himself out of work. He has
always been able to bring in enough for the wife and the family, but
now he is out of a job and cannot get employment. He has tramped the
streets of London till he has worn out his boots but he cannot find
anything to do. The table had a very scanty meal upon it, today, and
this Sabbath has been a very sorrowful day in that home. We read of
one, the other day, who destroyed himself because he could not bear to
be so long without work. Do not so act, I pray you! Oh, do not think of
such an evil course as that! Rather say to yourself, "Here is another
of the Lord's black dogs come after me. I would not go when the
Shepherd called me, but He means to have me, and so I am being tried in
this way."

If, like Jonah's gourd, your hope withers and you feel ready to faint,
do not faint, but be of good courage–some of these rough waves may
wash you on the Rock. I am sure I pray that they may. Come and flee
away, flee away, flee away, now, to the God who smites you in love!
Kiss the rod and yield yourself to Him who holds it, for these
troublous ways are often the very ones by which the Lord brings His
exiled children home to His heart!

Sometimes God permits men to fall into very extraordinary troubles.
Some of you have read the life of Mr. John Newton. As a young man you
know how boldly wicked he was. What a shameful thing it was for him,
the son of parents who were able to support him in comfort, to be found
on the Gold Coast, literally a slave, with scarcely a rag to cover his
nakedness! Yet this severe discipline was necessary. He would never
have been the Lord's free man if he had not been man's

slave. If he had not been brought as low as that, he might never have
looked up to God! I have known some people get into very strange
circumstances, so remarkable that if they were to describe them, they
would hardly be believed–and I may be speaking to some such just now.
Horror has taken hold upon you! Your condition has become
indescribable, yet, perhaps, this is the only point of view from which
your eyes will begin to see your Savior! It is strange that men should
need to be flogged to Christ, but they do. If you will not come by the
easy way, you shall come by the rough road. And if a call is not
enough, you shall be made to smart–but, by His Grace, you shall come,
for the Lord means to save you! Yield to Him, I pray you! You have the
hook in your jaws, now, and the more you pull, the more that hook will
tear and the more you will be made to bleed! But the great Fisherman
will never lose you. I have come with the landing net, to see what can
be done to get you safely on the bank. Oh, for almighty Grace to make
your sharpest trials the surest way of saving your soul!

Very frequently does it happen that persons are dealt with by bodily
affliction. One said that he would never have seen Christ if he had not
been blinded. It was only when his eyesight failed that, by faith, he
looked to his Savior. Another, who had lost both his legs, declared
that it was the best thing that ever happened to him, for he could no
longer go with his evil companions in the ways of amusement and folly.
He was brought to the House of God and there the Lord met with him! So
the doctor tells you that your lungs are affected and, he says, he
hardly thinks that you will recover. God is speaking to you somewhat
roughly by that dread disease, but listen to its voice! Let the
consumption warn you that your sin should be consumed! Many and many a
time, headache and heartache have brought sufferers to their knees and
made them turn to God. If I am addressing any who are in the
condition–most pitiable and sad–of being likely to end their days in
the hospital, let me interpret to them the voice of God in this trying
dispensation–"Turn you, turn you to Him that smites you; turn at once
unto the Lord, and live."

Another very likely means by which God takes men among the thorns and
brings them to Himself, is the loss of dear friends. A dying mother, in
her death, has been mother in a spiritual sense to those whom she
brought forth naturally. How often has a wife beckoned her husband to
Heaven! And the dear children of London who die so numerously, are
among the ablest missionaries of the Cross! How they speak to the
father's heart! How the mother is moved as she remembers little Jane
and the hymn she sang when she came home from Sunday school. And what
little Harry said about meeting mother with Jesus in Heaven! God often
brings men and women to Himself by taking their children from them.
There was a sheep that would not follow the shepherd, so He stooped
down and took the lamb up in His bosom, and walked away with it–and
then the mother followed bleating after him. May it be so with all of
you who have lost dear children! May you follow that gentle Jesus who
has gathered your lambs into His bosom in Heaven! But you do not want
to lose your children, do you? No, and you do not want to lose your
wife or your mother. Then follow Jesus without needing such trials.

In brief, all I have been saying amounts to this–take the old road by
the Cross of Christ and do not need to have your path strewn with
thorns! Come to Jesus just as you are, and come now! Spirit of God,
draw them! I feel that my words are so feeble when I talk to you about
this great salvation. What can I do? If you are to be saved, the arm of
God must be revealed–and then the work will be done!

II. I am going, now, a step farther. Manasseh was not only taken "among
the thorns," but he was "bound with fetters." So The LORD SOMETIMES
PERMITS MEN TO BE BOUND BY MENTAL TRIALS.

All other trials put together can never be compared with mental trials.
I mean such as these. For instance, when sin ceases to afford pleasure.
The man used to be a very jovial companion. He could sing a comic song
and he was fine company, but, all of a sudden, he lost all that
pleasure and he could enjoy it no longer. If he is taken to the
theater, it seems all hollow to him. He went only a few nights, ago,
and when he came back, he said, "Pooh! Call that amusement? It is worse
than hard work." The very things that once made him all aglow with
delight do not affect him, now, nor cast a single ray of light on his
path! He has lost all zeal for that which he once loved in the way of
sinning!

Beside that, his daily avocation has become distasteful. He used to
take an interest in his business, but he has no pleasure in it now–it
seems a mechanical drudgery. His life has turned into a treadmill, all
hard work without an atom of joy. Friend, if this is your case, God is
dealing with you! He knows how to pull your proud spirit down. He can
bring your gaiety into the very dust and you, who danced and reveled,
the other day, will mourn in sackcloth and ashes when He begins to
visit you.

Worse, even, than this, your old sins come out of their hiding places.
You buried them long ago. You forgot all about them. You never thought
of seeing any more of them, but now they haunt you, those ghosts of
your former sins! You are like a man on one of the Russian plains when
the snow has fallen deeply. The wolves, your old sins, are after
you–you have tried to drive hard and you have given up one habit after
another to the wolves, but here they come! You can hear their howl
behind you! You will have to give up something more and on you speed,
lashing the coursers of your resolution, yet you cannot escape from the
cruel pack! They are upon you, they will tear you in pieces! Even when
you are asleep, you hear them in your dreams. When you wake in the
morning, you can still hear them. I remember when, at night, I used to
dream of Hell. And when I woke in the morning, and all day long, I had
a horrible remembrance of my past iniquities which I could not put
away. Are you getting fettered like this? If so, I cannot say that I
regret it, for, so long as you are saved, I shall not mind the
roughness of the road if you will not come by a smoother one!

It may be that you have great inability in prayer. I heard you say
"Why, I can pray when I like!" Can you? "Oh, we have only to say, 'God
have mercy upon us!' and all will be right." Yes, but you do not find
it so now, do you? You have been praying, but you have not been heard.
You have cried to God, but you find no peace. You have gone on
pleading, but you have found no rest. This is where you are now, with
an iron Heaven above that reverberates with your cry. Ah, poor Soul,
yours is a sorrowful condition, but this is the way they must go who
will not take the easier road to Heaven! If God means to save you, He
will save you even thus, as you will not hear His voice and live.

I daresay, too, that now you feel a great need ofpower to grasp the
promises. If, in preaching, I say anything dreadful, you will believe
it and take it home to yourself. If there is a threat, you will cry,
"Ah, that is true! That is true to me!" But when I utter a sweet word
of encouragement, you say, "Oh, I dare not take that! It would be too
presumptuous." And when a glorious promise is set before you, you say,
"I wish that I could appropriate that, but it is too good to be true to
me." I am only telling you what I have gone through, myself, therefore
I can speak, I was going to say, as one who knows every inch of the
ground. Oh, what a fool I was that I did not believe in Christ the
straight way, but that I must need to go round this road of learning my
own nothingness and powerlessness–and learning it by a painful and
bitter experience!

And, dear Friend, if I understand your position, you have a fear of
death and a dread of judgment upon you. "Oh," you say within yourself,
"the wrath to come, the wrath to come!" It is no use for anybody to
preach to you the new and false doctrine, you know very well that–

"There is a dreadful Hell,"

for you have the premonition of it in your own conscience, and you
cannot rest because of it! Well, well, this is the way by which the
Lord will drive you to Himself! The captains of the host of the king of
Assyria have taken you among the thorns, bound you with fetters and
brought you down to Babylon. You seem to be under the cruel dominion of
Satan– you hear about Zion, but you are carried away to Babylon–you
are an exile in a strange land!

There is one thing I want to say to you, and then I will turn away from
this point. If you are in the power of the enemy, but you are not
willingly there, you will get away from it. You remember Mr. Bunyan's
description of Giant Slay-Good? He would go up and down the heavenly
road leading to the Celestial City and lay hold of the pilgrims, one by
one, to take them into his den and pick their bones. But Mr.
Feeble-Mind said that if they did not come there willingly, and if they
needed to escape, they would escape. Now I want you to gather comfort
out of that Truth of God. You do not want to be a slave to Satan. You
do not wish to remain in doubt and fear, do you? "Want to remain as I
am?" you say, "I would give my right hand to get out of this cruel
bondage! I would yield both my eyes with cheerfulness if the Light of
God might, thereby, come into my soul." You need not give up your hands
or your eyes! And you shall not perish–you shall not die, but live!
The Lord speaks comfort to you from this story of Manasseh in Babylon.

Listen to two or three observations and then I will close. In order to
your comfort and peace, first, know that the Lord is God. You did not
know it. You refused to know it, but know it now. When the Lord comes
to try conclusions with a man, and puts out His almighty power, it is
not long before that man will know that Jehovah is God, indeed! If we
learn it quickly, as Manasseh did–"Then Manasseh knew that the Lord,
He was God"–it will be for our salvation. But if we are very slow in
learning it, like Pharaoh was, we shall have to learn it all the same,
but it will be to our destruction! "Who is the Lord? Who is the Lord?"
asked Pharaoh. The Lord soon gave him an answer, for the water was
turned into blood and the frogs were even in his majesty's bed-chamber!

"Who is the Lord?" Listen to the thunder! Hear the rattling of the
hail! Sit still in the darkness, the darkness that might be felt!
Pharaoh began to make a shrewd guess as to who Jehovah was and he
pulled in his horns a good deal, and promised to yield this, and yield
that. But by the time Jehovah's 10TH bolt had been launched against
him, and his firstborn son was dead, then he knew who God was! Remember
the result of that great battle and see who it is against Whom you are
contending. Throw down your weapons! Put an end to such a mad warfare!
Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth, but let not a
man contend with his Maker!

That done, humble yourself before the Lord as Manasseh did. The lower
you lie before God, the better. Stretch yourself flat down upon His
promise. Have no pleas, make no excuses. Down, Sir, down! You cannot
lie too low. Off with those feathers of pride! Remember how God said to
the children of Israel, "Put off your ornaments from you, that I may
know what to do to you." Fling away all thoughts of pride and human
merit, and put a rope around your neck! Come before God like a
condemned criminal who only owes his present absence out of Hell to
infinite, unspeakable mercy! Now you are getting where God can bless
you! It is impossible to pardon a man unless he is guilty. I insult him
if I offer to forgive him for an offense he never committed. But you
are guilty before God! Then confess your iniquity and transgression,
and come before the Lord with penitent acknowledgments of all your
wanderings out of the way of holiness.

What next? Well, do as Manasseh did, begin to pray. Cry mightily unto
the Lord, but do, also, this thing, as I have twice bid you,
tonight–"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." I
do not wonder that the Church of Rome puts up the cross everywhere. It
becomes idolatry to worship a symbol; but if the symbol did no more
than remind us of a Crucified Savior, that might be a different matter,
for it is a Crucified Savior that we need always to remember. Christ
died for sinners. Christ died, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to
God. "In due time, Christ died for the ungodly."

Now, look this way, look to Jesus. Do not look 20 ways, look only this
one way. The Son of God, the Son of Man, bore sin in His own body on
the tree. I have often seen, upon crosses in Italy, these words, "Spes
unica," the unique hope, the only hope of a sinner. Salvation is all in
Christ! It is not what you are, nor what you ever will be–your hope
lies in Jesus Christ–dead, buried, risen again, pleading at the right
hand of God, coming again in Glory! Rest there, my beloved Hearer! Rest
there, now, whether you have come by the old original right way, or
have come over hedge and ditch as I did, through the thorns and through
the sea! So long as you get to Christ, I care very little how you come.
"What is the right way of coming to Christ?" asked one. Well, if you
get to Him at all, any way is the right way and, after all, there is no
long journey to take to get to Christ! Where you are, tonight. Where
you sit in that pew or those aisles, look to Jesus by faith and the
great transaction is done–and you are saved!

What do I mean by your being saved–that you will thereby escape Hell?
You will do that, but I am not talking about Hell just now. You will
escape from the power of sin–that is something far more to be thought
of. You will escape from the love of sin and from a life of sin.
Holiness will be worked in you. You will be born a child of God. May
the Lord grant it to every one of you! If the Savior were to say to me,
tonight, "I will give you every soul but one in the Tabernacle, and you
are to pick out the one that is to be lost," I would not pick one of
those little girls over yonder and, as I look round this gallery, I
would not select any of you old gentlemen, nor the young ones, either.
Where would I find the soul that would be lost? I thank God that I am
not condemned to make such a terrible choice as that! But, I pray you,
do not make it yourself! Do not make it yourself! May God in mercy lead
you to say, "If there is only one soul that will look to Christ,
tonight, I will be that one." While I stop a minute, look, look, LOOK.
Look to Jesus, look and live! And to His dear name shall be the praise
forever and ever! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: Psalm 38.

A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance. Remember, although this is a
very sorrowful Psalm, it was written by a man of God. It will show you
what a terrible thing sin must be, for even a child of God feels the
smart of it very grievously. This is not the language of an unforgiven
sinner–it is the cry of a saint who, for a while, has sinned and is
feeling the bitterness of his transgression.

Verse 1. O Lord, rebuke me not in Your wrath. "If You do rebuke me, O
Lord, do it gently! Be not angry with me, for I cannot bear it, I shall
die under it. O Lord, rebuke me not in Your wrath."

1. Neither chasten me in Your hot displeasure. "Chasten me, it will do
me good; it is necessary; it is profitable; but not in Your
displeasure, certainly not in Your hot displeasure." The man of God is
more afraid of God's anger than he is of suffering. He does not object
to affliction–what he does fear is any degree of the wrath of God in
the chastisement.

2. For Your arrows stick fast in me. Does God shoot at His own
children? Yes, but only that He may kill the sin in them. And He knows
how to make His arrows stick, and stick fast, too, in His own dear
children. The Lord hates sin with a perfect hatred. Even when sin was
laid on Christ, even though it was none of His, yet the Father forsook
Him. He will not endure sin anywhere, but He hates it most in those
whom He loves most–"Your arrows stick fast in me."

2. And Your hand presses me sorely. As if God's hand pressed heavily
upon the soul of David. I remind you again that this was a man of God
who thus cried out. If any of you, who are not the children of God, are
feeling the heavy hand of the Lord on account of your sin, do not
wonder at it. If His own children do not escape the rod, He is not
likely to spare you! See into what a terrible condition David came, as
he tells us in the third verse.

3. There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your anger. He felt as
if his very flesh was decaying, rotting, dissolving, and that there was
no soundness in it. When God deals with men in a way of anger, they
cannot stand against Him any more than the wax can resist the heat of
the furnace. Beware, I pray you, that you provoke not God's eternal
wrath in Hell, for even here it is not to be borne! What will it be
when mercy's gate is closed? "There is no soundness in my flesh because
of Your anger."

3. Neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin. His very
bones suffered through his sin. He could not rest, he turned over and
over in his bed, but he could not find a place soft enough to lie upon
in peace. Sin will make any man's bones ache when once his conscience
is really quickened and, with David, he will cry, "There is no rest in
my bones because of my sin."

4. For my iniquities are gone over my head. David was like a man who
has sunk seven fathoms deep! Big waves of iniquity rolled over him and
he saw no light, no hope, no way of escape.

4. As an heavy burden they are too heavy for me. It is a great mercy
when sin is a burden, for, when it becomes too heavy for us to bear,
Christ will bear it! A man is in an evil case when he finds no burden
in sin, when he thinks he is quite able to bear it himself! But he to
whom sin is an insupportable, intolerable load, is already on the road
to mercy. See how the Psalmist goes on to show that his case is still
worse.

5. My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness. He got to
be so bad that he could not bear himself! His sorrow on account of his
folly had made him feel as if he were a corrupt being, like one
suffering with a foul cancer, unfitted for the company of his
friends–"My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness."
As I read that verse, it brings up memories of my own state of mind
before I found the Savior. Look at the title of the Psalm–"To bring to
remembrance." That is just what it has done with me. Perhaps it is
doing the same with some of you.

6. I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day
long. I again remind you that this is a child of God, a man who had
enjoyed the Light of God's Countenance, and yet he was in this sad
state. Do not utterly condemn yourselves. Do not say that you are not
the people of God because you are troubled in heart. But if you really
are not God's people as yet, but only seekers after Him, do not wonder
if sin greatly grieves and vexes you.

7-9. For my loins are filled with a loathsome disease: and there is no
soundness in my flesh. I am feeble and sorely broken: I have roared by
reason of the disquietness of my heart. Lord, all my desire is before
You The first beam of comfort comes in here. "Lord, I am almost at
death's door, yet You know my desire; I do not love sin, I wish to be a
true Believer, I desire to be holy. Lord, all my desire is before You.
You can read it as if it were written in a book. I need not speak, for
I would only spoil my case with my words; but all my desire is before
You."

9. And my groaning is not hid from You. "I can hide my groaning in a
measure from my fellow creatures. I try to suppress my moans when
anybody is near, but my groaning is not hid from You." Thank God there
is not a tear in any eye but God sees it, nor a groan in any heart but
God hears it! Make much of this Truth of God and find sweet consolation
in it.

10. My heart pants. That is the best sort of prayer in all the world,
when there are no words, but in silence there is a panting and longing
after God! We cannot explain what this panting is, but if you have ever
seen a hunted stag panting for breath, you have some idea what David
meant when he said, "My heart pants."

10. My strength fails me. That is good prayer, too. "When I am weak,
then am I strong." When I cannot pray, I do pray. When my strength
fails me, then God's strength comes in to help me.

10, 11. As for the sight of my eyes, it also is gone from me. My lovers
and my friends stand alooffrom my sores and my kinsmen stand afar off.
If you have ever had much trouble, you will find that your friends are
rather scarce at such times. Friends are very much like swallows–they
twitter about us in the summer and they build their nests under our
eaves– but where are they in the winter? Ah, where are they? You may
ask the question, but who can answer it? Sorrow is not a thing which
attracts company. Men naturally hide themselves from grieving
companions. So David says, "My lovers and my friends stand aloof from
my sores and my kinsmen stand afar off."

12,13. They also that seek after my life lay snares for me: and they
that seek my hurt speak mischievous things and imagine deceits all the
day long. But I, as a deaf man, heard not; and I was as a dumb man that
opens not his mouth. It is a fine thing, when you are slandered, not to
hear it. And it is a better thing to never reply to it. I have always
tried to possess one deaf ear and one blind eye–and I believe that the
deaf ear is the better ear, and the blind eye by far the more useful of
the two! Do not remember the injury that is done to you, try to forget
it and pass it over. Do not go about the world determined to grasp
every red-hot iron that any fool holds out before you. Let it alone! It
will be for your own good and for God's Glory to be very patient under
the slander of the wicked.

14, 15. Thus I was as a man that hears not, and in whose mouth are no
reproofs. For in You, O LORD, do I hope: You will hear, O Lord my God.
So the Psalmist, by his example, encourages you to take your troubles
to God, and not to handle them yourselves. Spread them before Him and
trust in Him to deliver you in His own time and way.

16-21. For I said, hear me, lest otherwise they should rejoice over me:
when my foot slips, they magnify themselves against me. For I am ready
to halt, and my sorrow is continually before me. For I will declare my
iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin. But my enemies are lively, and
they are strong and they that hate me wrongfully are multiplied. They
also that render evil for good are my adversaries; because I follow the
thing that is good. Forsake me not, O LORD: O my God, be not far from
me. The persecuted Psalmist resorts to his God. Let us do the same when
we, also, are persecuted for righteousness' sake.

22. Make haste to help me, O lord my Salvation. David's case is urgent
and his plea is earnest. If we are in a like case, let us also cry,
"Make haste to help me, O Lord my salvation."