Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/spurgeon/ps6.2

Text File | 1993-03-17 | 12KB | 211 lines

                           EXPOSITION.

        "_Have mercy upon me, O Lord; for I am weak_." Though I
deserve destruction, yet let thy mercy pity my frailty. This is
the right way to plead with God if we would prevail. Urge not
your goodness or your greatness, but plead your sin and your
littleness. Cry, "_I am weak_," therefore O Lord, give me
strength and crush me not. Send not forth the fury of thy tempest
against so weak a vessel. Temper the wind to the shorn lamb. Be
tender and pitiful to a poor withering flower, and break it not
from its stem. Surely this is the plea that a sick man would urge
to move the pity of his fellow if he were striving with him,
"Deal gently with me, 'for I am weak.'" A sense of sin had so
spoiled the Psalmist's pride, so taken away his vaunted strength,
that he found himself weak to obey the law, weak through the
sorrow that was in him, too weak, perhaps, to lay hold on the
promise. "I am weak_." The original may be read, "I am one who
droops," or withered like a blighted plant. Ah! beloved, we know
what this means, for we, too, have seen our glory stained, and
our beauty like a faded flower.

        "_O Lord heal me; for my bones are vexed_." Here he prays
for _healing_, not merely the mitigation of the ills he endured,
but their entire removal, and the curing of the wounds which had
arisen therefrom. His bones were "_shaken_,' as the Hebrew has
it. His terror had become so great that his very bones shook; not
only did his flesh quiver, but the bones, the solid pillars of
the house of manhood, were made to tremble. "My bones are
shaken." Ah, when the soul has a sense of sin, it is enough to
make the bones shake; it is enough to make a man's hair stand up
on end to see the flames of hell beneath him, an angry God above
him, and danger and doubt surrounding him. Well might he say, "My
bones are shaken." Lest, however, we should imagine that it was
merely bodily sickness--although bodily sickness might be the
outward sign--the Psalmist goes on to say, "_My soul is also sore
vexed_." Soul-trouble is the very soul of trouble. It matters not
that the bones shake if the soul be firm, but when the soul
itself is also sore vexed this is agony indeed. "_But thou, O
Lord, how long?_" This sentence ends abruptly, for words failed,
and grief drowned the little comfort which dawn upon him. The
Psalmist had still, however, some hope; but that hope was only in
his God. He therefore cries, "O Lord, how long?" The coming of
Christ into the soul in his priestly robes of grace is the grand
hope of the penitent soul; and, indeed, in some form or other,
Christ's appearance is, and ever has been, the hope of the
saints.

        Calvin's favourite exclamation was "Domine usque
quo"--"_O Lord, how long_?" Nor could his sharpest pains, during
a life of anguish, force from him any other word. Surely this is
the cry of the saints under the altar, "O Lord, how long?" And
this should be the cry of the saints waiting for the millennial
glories, "Why are his chariots so long in coming; Lord, how
long?" Those of us who have passed through conviction of sin knew
what it was to count our minutes hours, and our hours years,
while mercy delayed its coming. We watched for the dawn of grace,
as they that watch for the morning. Earnestly did our anxious
spirits ask, "O Lord, how long?"

              EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

        Verse 2.--"_Have mercy upon me, O Lord_." To fly and
escape the anger of God, David sees no means in heaven or in
earth, and therefore retires himself to God, even to him who
wounded him that he might heal him. He flies not with Adam to the
bush, nor with Saul to the witch, nor with Jonah to Tarshish; but
he appeals from an angry and just God to a merciful God, and from
himself to himself. The woman who was condemned by King Philip,
appealed from Philip being drunken to Philip being sober. But
David appeals from one virtue, justice, to another, mercy. There
may be appellation from the tribunal of man to the justice-seat of
God; but when thou art indicted before God's justice-seat,
whither or to whom wilt thou go but to himself and his
mercy-seat, which is the highest and last place of appellation?
"I have none in heaven but thee, nor in earth besides thee." ...
David, under the name of _mercy_, includeth all things, according
to that of Jacob to his brother Esau, "I have gotten mercy, and
therefore I have gotten all things." Desirest thou any thing at
God's hands? Cry for _mercy_, out of which fountain all good
things will spring to thee.--^Archibald Symson.

        Verse 2.--"_For I am weak_." Behold, what rhetoric he
useth to move God to cure him, "_I am weak_," an argument taken
from his weakness, which indeed were a weak argument to move any
man to show his favour, but is a strong argument to prevail with
God. If a diseased person would come to a physician, and only
lament the heaviness of his sickness, he would say, God help
thee; or an oppressed person come to a lawyer, and show him the
estate of his action and ask his advice, that is a golden
question; or to a merchant to crave raiment, he will either have
present money or a surety; or a courtier favour, you must have
your reward ready in your hand. But coming before God the most
forcible argument that ye can use is your necessity, poverty,
tears, misery, unworthiness, and confessing them to him, it shall
be an open door to furnish you with all things that he hath. ...
The tears of our misery are forcible arrows to pierce the heart
of our heavenly Father, to deliver us and pity our hard case. The
beggars lay open their sores to the view of the world, that the
more they may move men to pity them. So let us deplore our
miseries to God, that he, with the pitiful Samaritan, at the
sight of our wounds, may help us in due time.--^Archibald Samson.

        Verse 2.--"_Heal me_," etc. David comes not to take
physic upon wantonness, but because the disease is violent,
because the accidents are vehement; so vehement, so violent, as
that it hath pierced _ad ossa_, and _ad animam_, "_My bones are
vexed, and my soul is sore troubled_," therefore "_heal me_;"
which is the reason upon which he grounds this second petition,
"_Heal me, because my bones are vexed_," etc.--^John Donne.

        Verse 2.--"_My bones are vexed_." The Lord can make the
strongest and most insensible part of man's body sensible of his
wrath when he pleaseth to touch him, for here David's bones are
vexed.--^David Dickson.

        Verse 2.--The term "_bones_" frequently occurs in the
psalms, and if we examine we shall find it used in three
different senses. (1.) It is sometimes applied literally to our
blessed Lord's human body, to the body which hung upon the cross,
as, "They pierced my hands and my feet; I may tell all my bones."
(2.) It has sometimes also a further reference to his mystical
body the church. And then it denotes all the members of Christ's
body that stand firm in the faith, that cannot be moved by
persecutions, or temptations, however severe, as, "All my bones
shall say, Lord, who is like unto thee?" (3.) In some passages
the term bones is applied to the soul, and not to the body, to
the inner man of the individual Christian. Then it implies the
strength and fortitude of the soul, the determined courage which
faith in God gives to the righteous. This is the sense in which
it is used in the second verse of Psalm 6, "_O Lord, heal me; for
my bones are vexed_."--^Augustine, Ambrose, and Chrysostom;
quoted by F. H. Dunwell, B.A., in "Parochial Lectures on the
Psalms," 1855.

        Verse 3.--"_My soul_." Yokefellows in sin are yokefellows
in pain; the soul is punished for informing, the body for
performing, and as both the informer and performer, the cause and
the instrument, so shall the stirrer up of sin and the executer
of it be punished.--^John Donne.

        Verse 3.--"_O Lord, how long_?" Out of this we have three
things to observe; first, that there is an appointed time which
God hath measured for the crosses of all his children, before
which time they shall not be delivered, and for which they must
patiently attend, not thinking to prescribe time to God for their
delivery, or limit the Holy One of Israel. The Israelites
remained in Egypt till the complete number of four hundred and
thirty years were accomplished. Joseph was three years and more
in the prison till the appointed time of his delivery came. The
Jews remained seventy years in Babylon. So that as the physician
appointeth certain times to the patient, both wherein he must
fast, and be dieted, and wherein he must take recreation, so God
knoweth the convenient times both of our humiliation and
exaltation. Next, see the impatiency of our nature in our
miseries, our flesh still rebelling against the Spirit, which
oftentimes forgetteth itself so far, that it will enter into
reasoning with God, and quarrelling with him as we may read of
Job, Jonas, etc., and here also of David. Thirdly, albeit the
Lord delay his coming to relieve his saints, yet hath he great
cause if we could ponder it; for when we were in the heat of our
sins, many times he cried by the mouth of his prophets and
servants, "O fools, how long will you continue in your folly?"
And we would not hear; and therefore when we are in the heat of
our pains, thinking long, yea, every day a year till we be
delivered, no wonder it is if God will not hear; let us consider
with ourselves the just dealing of God with us; that as he cried
and we would not hear, so now we cry, and he will not hear.--^A.
Symson.

        Verse 3.--"_O Lord, how long_?" As the saints in heaven
have their _usque quo_, how long, Lord, holy, and true, before
thou begin to execute judgment? So, the saints on earth have
their _usque quo_. How long, Lord, before thou take off the
execution of this judgment upon us? For, our deprecatory prayers
are not mandatory, they are not directory, they appoint not God
his ways, or his times; but as our postulatory prayers are, they
also are submitted to the will of God, and have all in them that
ingredient, that herb of grace, which Christ put into his own
prayer, that _veruntamen, yet not my will, but thy will be
fulfilled_; and they have that ingredient which Christ put into
our prayer, _fiat voluntas, thy will be done in earth as it is in
heaven_; in heaven there is no resisting of his will; yet in
heaven there is a soliciting, a hastening, an accelerating of the
judgment, and the glory of the resurrection; so though we resist
not his corrections here upon earth, we may humbly present to God
the sense which we have of his displeasure, for this sense and
apprehension of his corrections is one of the principal reasons
why he sends them; he corrects us therefore that we might be
sensible of his corrections; that when we, being humbled under
his hand, have said with his prophet, "_I will bear the wrath of
the Lord because I have sinned against him_" (#Mic 7:9|), he may
be pleased to say to his correcting angel, as he did to his
destroying angel, _This is enough_, and so burn his rod now, as
he put up his sword then.--^John Donne.

                       HINTS TO PREACHERS.

        Verse 2.--The _argumentum ad misericordiam_.

        Verse 2.--_First sentence--Divine healing_. 1. What
precedes it, _my bones are vexed_. 2. How it is wrought. 3. What
succeeds it.

        Verse 3.--The impatience of sorrow; its sins, mischief,
and cure.

        Verse 3.--A fruitful topic may be found in considering
the question, How long will God continue afflictions to the
righteous?