IX.The Climax.God of my life, to Thee I call,Afflicted at Thy feet I fall;When the great water-floods prevail,Leave not my trembling heart to fail!""There is but a step from the third heavens to the thorn in the flesh."—Winslow."Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life."—Verses 7, 8.IX.THE CLIMAX.The storm-struggle in the soul of the Psalmist is now at its height. In the previous verse, he had penetrated through the mists of unbelief that were surrounding him, and rested his eye on the Mizar hills of the Divine faithfulness in a brighter past. But the sunshine-glimpse was momentary. It has again passed away. His sky is anew darkened—rain-clouds sweep the horizon—"Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts." Amid the environing floods he exclaims, "All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me!"The figure is a bold and striking one. Some have thought it has reference to the sudden rush of water-torrents from the heights of Lebanon and Hermon;—that it was suggested by the roaring cataracts at his feet—Jordan with its swollen and winding rapids—the faithful picture of the deep-wornchannels in his own spirit—fretted and furrowed with the rush of overwhelming sorrow.But the word rendered "deep," is, in the original Hebrew, more applicable to the floods of theoceanthan to the rapids of a river; and the image, in this sense, is bolder and more expressive still.[70]Billow calls on billow to sweep over the soul of the sufferer. They lift their crested heads, and with hoarse voice summon one another to the assault. "Let us be confederate!" say they. "Let us rouse the spirit of the storm! Let the windows of heaven be opened! Let the fountains of the great deep be broken up, that we may shake this man's confidence in his God, and plunder faith of her expected triumph! Ye angry tempests, driving sleet and battering hail! come and aid us. Ye forked lightnings, gleaming swords of the sky! leap from your cloudy scabbards. Old ocean! be stirred from your lowest depths. Let every wave be fretted to madness, that with one united effort we may effect his discomfiture and leave him a wreck on the waters!"They obey the summons. Already chafed and buffeted, they return with fresh violence to the shock. Affliction on affliction, temptation on temptation, roll on this lonely, surf-beaten cliff. Outward calamities—inward troubles; his subjects in revolt—his friends treacherous; his own son and favourite child heading the insurrection; he himself an exile, haunted with the thought of past sins that were now exacting terrible retribution;—and worse than all temporal calamities, the countenance of his God averted. Affliction seemed as if it could go no further—"Allthy waves and thy billows have gone over me!"We believe there are periods in the history of most of God's people corresponding to the awful experience recorded in this verse. Few there are who cannot point to some sad and memorable epochs alike in their natural and spiritual being,—some solemn and critical crisis-hours, in which they have been subjected to special and peculiar trials;—encompassed with the thunders and lightnings of Sinai—the trumpet sounding long and loud:—or, to revert to the simile of the Psalm, when the moorings of life have been torn away, and they havebeen left to drift, on a starless, tempestuous ocean. Often, as with David, there may at such times be a combination of trials,—sickness—bereavement—loss of worldly substance—estrangement of friends—blighting of fair hopes. Then, following on these, and worse than all, hard thoughts of God. We see the wicked around prospering,—vice apparently pampered,—virtue apparently trodden under foot,—many passing through life without an ache or trial—their homes unrifled—their hearts unwounded—their every plan prospering—fortune smiling benignantly at every turn; whileweseem to have been a target for the arrows of misfortune,—tempted with Jeremiah to say, "I amTHEman who have seen affliction by the rod of His wrath."[71]And doubting a God ofprovidence, the next step is to doubt a God ofgrace. We begin to question our interest in the covenant,—to wonder whether, after all, our hopes of heaven have been a delusion and a lie. God's mercy we imagine to be "gone for ever." He seems as if He would be "favourable no more." There is no comfort in prayer—no brightness in the promises; the Bible is a sealed book;—the heavenshave become as brass and the earth as iron! Oh, so long as we had merelyexternaltrials, we could brave and buffet the surrounding floods. So long as we had the Divine smile, like the bow in the cloud, resting upon us, we could gaze in calmness on the blackest sky;—yea, rejoice in trial, as only unfolding to us more of the preciousness of the Saviour. But when we have thecloudwithout thebow,—when outer trials come to a soul in spiritual unrest and trouble,—when we harbour the suspicion that the only Being whocouldbefriend in such an hour has Himself hidden His face,—when we have neither this world nor the next to comfort us—smitten hopes for time and despairing hopes for eternity!—this is the woe of woes—the "horror of great darkness,"—"deep calleth unto deep." We can say, with a more terrible emphasis far than the smitten patriarch, "IAMbereaved!"The Psalmist had now reached this extremity. It is the turning point of his present experience. He has two alternatives before him:—either to suffer unbelief to triumph, to distrust God, abandon the conflict, and sink as lead in the surging waters; or to gather up once more his spiritualresources, breast the waves, and manfully buffet the storm.It is with him now, as with a sinking disciple in a future age:—when the storm is loudest and the midnight is darkest, the voice and footsteps of his God are heard on the waves: "And about the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came to the disciples, walking on the sea." "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles!"[72]And what is the first gleam of comfort which crests these topmost waves? It isdiscerning the hand and appointment of God in all his afflictions! He speaks of "Thywaves andThybillows." These floods do not riot and revel at the bidding of chance. "The Lord sitteth upon the water-floods."[73]While, in one sense, it aggravated his trials to think of them as Divine chastisements—the expressions of the Divine displeasure at sin—yet how unspeakable the consolation that every billow rolled at the summons of Omnipotence. "The floods," he can say, "have lifted up, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, thanthe mighty waves of the sea."[74]"O Lord our God, who is a strong Lord like unto thee? Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them."[75]But he could go further than this. He could triumph in the assurance of God's returning favour;—that behind these troubled elements there was seated a Being of unchanging faithfulness and love. Already the lowering mist was beginning to clear off the mountains, and the eye of faith to descry sunny patches of golden light gleaming in the hollows. Soon he knew the whole landscape would be flooded with glory. The sailor does not discredit the existence of the beacon or lighthouse, or alter the direction of his vessel, because the fog prevents these being seen. Nay rather, he strains his eyes more keenly through the murky curtain, in hopes of hailing their guidance. When a cloud or clouds are passing over the sun's disc, and hiding it from view, the sunflower does not, on account of the momentary intervention, hang its head, or cease to turn in the direction of the great luminary. It keeps still gazing upwards with wistful eye, as if knowing thatthe clouds will soon roll past, and that it will ere long again be bathed in the grateful beams! So it was with David. He felt that the countenance of his God, though hidden, was not eclipsed. This pining flower on the mountains of Gilead does not droop in the anguish of unbelief, when "the Sun of his soul" is for the moment obscured. He knew that there would yet arise "light in the darkness." Amid the roll of the billows—the moaning of the blast—he listens to celestial music. Its key-note is "the loving-kindness" of hisGod. While the heavens are still black, and the tempest raging, he lifts the voice of faith above the war of the storm, and thus sings:—"Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life!""Yetthe Lord!" The believer, even in his deepest and darkest season of trouble, has alwaysthisalternative word—"Yetthe Lord will!" I am sunk in sore trial—"Yetthe Lord" will be faithful to His promises! I have been bereaved of those near and dear to me—"Yetthe Lord" will be to me a name better than that of son or daughter!I have been laid for long years on this couch of suffering—"Yetthe Lord" has converted this lonely sick-chamber into the vestibule of heaven. I have been tossed and harassed with countless spiritual temptations—"Yetthe Lord" will not suffer these temptations to go further than I am able to bear. I am soon to walk through the dark valley—"Yet" will "I fear no evil, forThouart with me!"The Psalmist's assurance of deliverance was indeed the test of no meagre faith. We know well, how apt we are to be influenced and affected by present circumstances. When all is bright, and genial, and prosperous,—amid a happy home and kind friends,—in the midst of robust health and flourishing worldly schemes, the buoyant heart is full of elasticity. The joywithout, imparts aninnersunshine. A man is happy and hopeful in spite of himself. But if all at once he is plunged into a vortex of trouble,—if clouds gather and thicken around,—the mind not only becomes the prey of its own trials, but it peoples the future with numberless imaginary evils, and its very remaining joys and blessings become tinged and sicklied over with the predominating sadness! It could as littlebe expected, on natural principles, that the heart could in such circumstances be hopeful and rejoicing, as to expect that the outer landscape of nature would glow and sparkle with beauty, if the clouds of heaven obscured the great fountain of light.But faith, strong in God's word, can triumph over natural obstacles. It did so in the case of this afflicted exile. He remembered how his God had vouchsafed past deliverances, even when he least expected them;—"They looked untoHimand were lightened"[76][literally, "their countenances were made bright."] He feels assured that the same loving-kindness will be "commanded" still. He sees God's covenant faithfulness resting calmly and beautifully, like the rainbow-tints in the spray of the cataract! "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God."[77]This experience we have been considering is that of Christ's people only. But there is an experiencesadder still: that of those who are living "without God," and therefore "without hope;"—the billows heaving, and yet they knowing not of them;—"deep calling to deep," yet they ignorant alike of their guilt and danger! There is nothing more sad or touching in the midst of a storm,—when the vessel is reeling on the waves, and little expectation of safety is left,—than to see, amidst the settled gloom of despair, the little child playing on the deck, all unaware of what is impending;—or, at a time of heart-rending bereavement, when every face of the household is muffled in sadness and suffused with tears, to hear the joyous laugh and playful prattle of unconscious infancy. Ah! of how many is this the position with regard to eternity;—living heedless of their danger—the waves of destruction ready to close over them! Sadder far, surely, istheircase, than all the troubles and trials of God's most afflicted people.Theirwaves and billows are crested with hope—"songs in the night" come floating along the darkened surges; but the future to the others hasnoray of hope,nomidnight star,nodivine song! There is a time coming when, in a more awful sense, thecry will be heard, "Deep calleth unto deep: all Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over me!" But there will be no after-strain—no joyous anthem of anticipated deliverance—"Yet the Lord will command His loving-kindness!" In vain will the cry ascend, "My heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the Rock that is higher than I."But, blessed be God, that cry may ascendnow—that Rock may be fled to as a shelternow. Sinner! these waves swept over the Rock of Ages, that they might not sweep over you! Sheltered in these crevices, you will be eternally safe. Not one blast of the storm, not one drop of the rain-shower of vengeance, can overtake you. When the billows of wrath—the deluge of fire—shall roll over this earth, safe in these everlasting clefts, you may utter the challenge, "Who shall separate me from the love of Christ?"X.Lessons."When darkness long has veil'd my mind,And smiling day once more appears,Then, my Redeemer, then I find,The folly of my doubts and fears:Straight I upbraid my wandering heart,And blush that I should ever beThus prone to act so base a partOr harbour one hard thought of Thee!""Here deep calls to deep. Yet in the midst of those deeps faith is not drowned. You see it lifts its head above water."—Bishop Hall."We perceive the Psalmist full of perplexed thought, and that betwixt strong desires and griefs, and yet in the midst of them intermixing strains of hope with his sad complaints.... What is the whole thread of our life but a chequered twist, black and white, of delights and dangers interwoven? And the happiest passing of it is, constantly to enjoy and to observe the experiences of God's goodness, and to praise Him for them."—Archbishop Leighton, 1649."Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of the water-spouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life."—Verses 7, 8.X.LESSONS.In the previous chapter we spoke of the two verses which form the turning-point in the Psalm,—the climax of the conflict therein so strikingly described between belief and unbelief. We referred to the boldness and expressiveness of the figure: the troubles of the believer, like the billows of the ocean calling on one another to unite their strength that they might effect his overthrow, but faith rising triumphant above them all. At times, when all human comfort gives way, God himself appears. "The voice of the Lord is upon the waters."[78]Henot only "commands His loving-kindness in the day-time," but "inTHE NIGHTHis song is with us." Our heavenly Parent comes in earth's darkest, most tempestuous hours, sits by our side, sings His night-song—His own lullaby—"Peace, be still!" "So giveth He His beloved sleep!"[79]God's "songs"sound always sweetest "by night"—the deep, dark night of affliction. The nightingale's notes are nothing by day—they would be lost in the chorus of other birds; but when these have retired to their nests, she prolongs her tuneful descant, and serenades, with her warblings, the silent earth. The world can only giveitssongby day. It can speak only in the sunshine of prosperity. But "God our Maker givethsongs in the night!"[80]His promises, like the nightingale, sound most joyously, and, like the glow-worm, shine most brightly, inthe dark!Let us pause ere proceeding with the sequel of the Psalm, and ponder the great lesson to be derived from this experience of David.It is,totrust Godin the darkest, gloomiest night of earthly trial! To wait His own time, and to say, when the billows are highest, "Yet the Lord will"—This is one great end and design of trial, to exercise the grace ofpatience. There is nothing God loves better thana waiting soul. "The Lord is good to them that wait for Him."[81]"I waitedpatiently," says David, in another Psalm, (or, as it is literally, "I waited, waited,") "for the Lord, and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry."[82]"I know thy works," says Jesus, speaking of old, in the language of commendation, to His church at Ephesus: "how thou hastBORNE,and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast notFAINTED."[83]How often has our wayappearedto be hedged up with thorns,—as if there were no possibility of egress! In sailing among some of our own Highland lakes and inland seas, where the mountains, in a thousand fantastic forms, rise abrupt from the shore, we frequently seem to be landlocked, and able to get no farther. Yet the vessel pursues its serpentine course; and as we double the first jutting promontory, the lake again expands; the same waters appear beyond, gleaming like a mirror of molten gold. We find what we imagined to be an impassable barrier, is only a strait, opening into new combinations of mountain majesty and beauty. So is it in the Voyage of life. Often, in its fitful turnings and windings, do we seem to be arrested in our way;—"Hill Difficulties" risingbefore us, and appearing to impede our vessel's course;—but as faith steers onwards, impediments vanish, new vistas and experiences of loving-kindness open up. Where we expected to be stopped by walls of frowning rock and barren mountains, lo! limpid waves are seen laving the shore, and joyful cascades are heard singing their way to the silver strand!And not only does God thus "command His loving-kindness" in disappointing our fears, but "in the night His song shall be with us." He will turn the very midnights of our sorrow into occasions of grateful praise! Yes! if not now, we shall come yet to see the "needs be" of every trial. We have only a partial view here of God's dealings—His half-completed, half-developed plan; but all will stand out in fair and graceful proportions in the great finished Temple of Eternity!Go, in the reign of Israel's greatest King, to the heights of the forest of Lebanon. See that noble Cedar, the pride of its compeers, an old wrestler with the northern blasts of Palestine! Summer loves to smile upon it—night spangles its feathery foliagewith dew-drops—the birds nestle on its branches—the wild deer slumber under its shadow—the weary pilgrim, or wandering shepherd, repose under its curtaining boughs from the mid-day heat or from the furious storm; but all at once it is marked out to fall,—the old denizen of that primeval forest is doomed to succumb to the woodman's stroke! As we see the unsparing axe making its first gash on its gnarled trunk—then the noble limbs stripped of their branches—and at last the proud "Tree of God" coming with a crash to the ground; we exclaim against the wanton destruction—the demolition of this noblest of pillars in the temple of nature,—and we are tempted to cry with the prophet, as if inviting the sympathy of every lowlier stem—invoking inanimate things to resent the affront—"Howl, fir-tree, for the cedar has fallen!" But wait a little!—follow that gigantic trunk as the workmen of Hiram launch it down the mountain side,—thence conveyed in monster rafts along the blue waters of the Mediterranean,—and last of all, behold it set a glorious polished beam in the Temple of God;—and then, as you see its destination,—gazing down on the very Holy of Holies, set in the diadem ofthe Great King;—say, can you grudge that the crown of Lebanon was despoiled, in order that this jewel might have so noble a setting? That cedar stood as a stately beam and pillar innature'stemple, but the glory of the latter house was greater than the glory of the former. How many of our souls are like these cedars of God! His axes of trial have stripped and bared them,—we see no reason for dealings so dark and mysterious; but He has a noble end and object in view—to set them as everlasting pillars and rafters in His heavenly temple, to make them "a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of our God!"Or take another illustration. Go to one of our graving-docks, where the weather-beaten vessel has been weeks or months in the carpenter's hands. Her started timbers are replaced, her shattered keel renewed, the temporary props and scaffoldings have been removed, and with her gay streamers afloat, and her crew on deck, she stands ready and equipped for sea. What is needed? Nothing but the opening of the sluices, to reunite her to her old watery element. She lies a helpless, decrepit thing, till these dock-gates be opened, and the buoyant waves rushto clasp her anew in their embrace. It is done! But at first all is noise, and wrath, and tumult. These gurgling waters, discoloured with mud and sediment, convert the noble granite basin into an inky, turgid whirlpool. Ere long, however, the strife ceases; the great wooden wall raises itself like a child that has been awoke in its cradle by the voice of the storm—the waters gradually calm and subside;—higher and still higher is the vessel lifted, till, amid the cheers of the crew, she passes by the opened gates, and, with every sail spread to the breeze, is off to new voyages in her ocean-home.Child of trial! "vessel of mercy!" your God sees meet at times to bring you into the graving-dock, that He may put His tools upon you, and refit and prepare you for the great voyage of immortality. When He opens the sluices of trial, you may see no mercy in His dealings. It may be "deep calling to deep"—the roar and heaving of antagonist waters; they may at first, too, stir up nothing but the dregs and sediment of sin,—expose the muddy pools, the deep corruptions of the heart. But be still! He will yet vindicate the rectitude and wisdom of His own procedure.Ere long, these surging waves will settle peacefully around you, the shadows of heaven reflected in their glassy surface; and better still, strengthened and renovated by that season of trial, you will go forth from the Graver's hands more ready to brave the billows, grapple with the tempest, and reach at last the haven where you would be!It ishard discipline—the undowny pillow, the trench-work and midnight vigils—which makes the better soldier. The type of strength in the kingdom of inanimate nature is not the sickly plant of the hot-house, or the tree or bush choked in the dark jungle; but the pine rocked by Alpine or Norwegian tempests, or the oak mooring its roots in the rifted rock! David would neither have been the King nor the Saint he was, but for the caves of Adullam and Engedi, the rocks of the wild goats, the forest exile of Hermon and Gilead. He had to thankafflictionfor his best spiritual graces. The redeemed in glory are ready to tell the same. "We would never have been here but for these storms of 'great tribulation.' But for the loss of that child—that worldly calamity—that protracted sickness—that cutting disappointment—that wounding ofmy heart's affection—that annihilation of earthly pride and ambition—that 'deep calling to deep'—I would not now have been wearing this crown!" Trials have been well compared to the winds God employs to fill our sails and fetch us home to the harbour of everlasting peace![84]One word of caution ere we close this chapter. From all we have said—of "deeps" and "floods," storms and water-spouts, and midnight darkness—are any to leave these pages with the feeling that Religion is a gloomy, repulsive thing;—that the believer's life is one of darkness and despair;—that better far is the world's gaiety and folly—the merry laugh of its light-hearted votaries—than a life of sadness like this? Mistake us not! We repeat what we have already said. The experience we have been now considering is, in many respects, peculiar; one of those dark passages which stand alone in the diary of the spiritual life.Religion gloomy!Who says so? Shall we take St Paul as our oracle? What is his testimony? In all hisletters he tries to crowd as much as he can into little space. In one of these, he has room for only two injunctions. But instead of giving two that are different, he prefers to repeat theone. It is the emphatic tautology, "Rejoice in the Lord alway: andAGAINI say,Rejoice."[85]Or shall we seek a different tribunal? Go gather together all the philosophers of antiquity—Plato, Socrates, Aristotle. Bring together the wise men of Greece—the philosophers of Alexandria—the sages of Rome. Ask if their combined and collected wisdom ever solved the doubts of one awakened soul, as have done these leaves of this Holy Book? Which of them ever dried the tear of widowhood as these? Which of them ever smoothed the cheek of the fatherless as these? Which of them ever lighted the torch of hope and peace at the dying bed as these, and flashed upon the departing soul visions of unearthly joy? O pagan darkness! where wasthysong in the night? In the region and shadow of death, where didthylight arise?ButWEhave a "more sure word of prophecy, to which we do well to take heed, as unto a lightshining in a dark place." The Christian istheman who alone can wear the sunny countenance. The peace of God, keeping the heart within, cannot fail to be mirrored in the look and life without! And if (as often is the case) he has his appointed seasons of trial—the sea of life swept with storms of great tribulation—it is with him as with yonder ocean. To the eye of the young voyager, gazing on its mountain billows, it would seem as if its lowest caverns were stirred, and the world were rocking to its foundations; while, after all, it is only a surface-heaving! There are deeps, unfathomed deeps, of calm rest and peace, down in that ocean's undisturbed recesses.Believer in Jesus! with all thy trials, thou art a happy man. Go on thy way rejoicing. Tribulation may fret and ruffle the calm of thy outer life, but nothing can touch the deeps of thy nobler being. Troubles may rise, and "terrors may frown," and "days of darkness" may fall around thee, but "Thou wilt keep him, O God,IN PERFECT PEACEwhose mind is stayed onThee!"XI.Faith and Prayer."Rock of Ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee!""The soul of man serves the purpose, as it were, of a workshop to Satan, in which to forge a thousand methods of despair. And therefore it is not without reason that David, after a severe conflict with himself, has recourse to prayer, and calls upon God as the witness of his sorrow."—Calvin on the Psalms."I will say unto God my rock, Why has thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?"—Verses 9, 10.XI.FAITH AND PRAYER.Touching was that scene which occurred three thousand years ago on the borders of Palestine: aged Naomi, in returning to the land of her own kindred from her sojurn in Moab, pausing to take a last farewell of her two loving daughters-in-law! One of these refuses to part from her. Strong may be the inducement to Ruth to return to the home of her childhood, and, above all, to the spot where hallowed dust reposes (the buried treasure of her young affections). But ties stronger than death link her soul to the one who had shared for ten years her joys and sorrows. With impassioned tears, she announces her determination! Her resolve may entail upon her manifold sacrifices. She may be going to an alien people—to a home of penury—to bleak and barren wilds, compared with her own fertile vales. But she is ready for any toil, any self-denial, if only permitted to retainthe companionship of that living, loving heart, which had been to her all that earthly tenderness could be.Such, if we may compare an earthly with a heavenly affection, were the feelings of the banished King of Judah, at this time towards his God. All the temptations that have been assailing him have not repressed the ardour of his faith, or diminished the fervour of his love. Unbelief had done its best to sever the holy bond which linked him to his Heavenly Friend; but, like the tender-hearted Moabitess from whom he sprung, he will submit to any privation rather than be parted from Him whose favour is life. "Entreat me not to leave Thee," is the spirit at least of his fervid aspiration; "nor to return from following after Thee. Where Thou goest I will go, and where Thou dwellest I will dwell; and death itself shall not separate between Thee and me." As Peter, in a future age, rushed to the feet of that Saviour he had again and again wounded, so these many waters (the "deep calling to deep") cannot quench the Psalmist's love, nor many floods drown it. The voice of malignant taunt and scorn, "Where is now thy God?" mighthave driven others to despair; but it only rouses him up, in the midnight of his struggle, to the exercise of new spiritual graces. "I shall not," he seems to say, "surrender my holy trust; I know the graciousness of the God with whom I have to deal. Nothing will tempt me to abandon my interest in the covenant. I shall take a new weapon from the Divine armoury; with it I shall seek to decide the conflict. No gibes of the scoffer, no rebellious son, no crafty Ahithophel, can rob me of the privilege ofPrayer." "I will say unto God my Rock, Why hast Thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?"It is, then, a combined exercise offaith, andprayer, on the part of David, we are now called to consider. Out of weakness he is made strong, waxes valiant in fight, and turns to flight the armies of the aliens.Let us advert to each in their order.Faithregards God here under a twofold aspect.1.It looks to Him as animmutable God.Amid the fitfulness of his own feelings, this was the Psalmist's consolation—"God myRock!"What a source of comfort is there here in theimmutabilityof Jehovah. All else around us is unstable. External nature bears on every page of its volume the traces of mutation. Earth has the folds already on its vesture—the wrinkles of age on its brow. The ocean murmurs of change, as its billows chafe on altered landmarks. Human friendships and human associations are all fluctuating. So are our habits, and tastes, and employments. The old man looking back from some hoary pinnacle on the past, almost questions his personal identity; and these emptied chairs!—these faces, once glowing at our firesides, now greeting our gaze only in mute and silent portraits on the wall! "Here we have no continuing city," is the oracle of all time."ButThouart the same, and Thy years shall have no end."[86]"Heaven and earth may pass away," but there is no change, andcanbe none, in an all-perfect God! "The wheel turns round, but the axle is immutable." The clouds which obscure the sun do not descend from heaven—they are exhaled from earth. It is the soul's owndarkening vapours, generated by unbelief and sin, which at times taint and obscure the moral atmosphere. Behind every such murky haze He shines brightly as ever. "Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?"[87]"Young sailors," says Rutherford, "imagine the shore and land moving, while it is they themselves all the while. So we often think that God is changing, when the change is all with ourselves!"2.Faith regards this immutable God as a God in covenant."MyRock!" Believer! you have the same immovable ground of confidence! Look toYOURGod in Christ, who has made with you "an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure!" He, "willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope setbefore us."[88]The torch may flicker in your hand, the flame may be the sport of every passing gust of temptation and trial, but He who lighted it will not suffer it to be quenched. "Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have thee, that he may sift thee as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not."[89]The Great Adversary may attempt to rob you of your peace, but that peace is imperishably secured. He must first destroythe Rock, before he can touch one trembling soul that has fled there for refuge! He must first uncrown Christ, before he can touch one jewel in the purchased diadems of His people! Your life is "hid with Christ in God;" because He lives, "ye shall live also!" God himself must become mutable, and ceaseto be God, ere your eternal safety can be imperilled or impaired. "If we perish," says Luther, "Christ perisheth with us."Let us turn now to the Psalmist'sPrayer.IfFaithbe called the eye,Prayermay be called the wings of the soul. No sooner does Faith descry God his "Rock," than forthwithPrayer spreads out her pinions for flight. In the close of the preceding verse, (when in the extremity of his agony,) David had announced his determination to betake himself to supplication—"In the night His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life." He follows up his resolution now with material for petition. He puts on record a solemn and beautiful liturgy—"I will say unto God my Rock, Why hast Thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?"How wonderfully does God thus overrule His darkest dispensations for the exercise and discipline of His people's spiritual graces! In their overflowing prosperity they are apt to forget Him. He sends them afflictions. Trial elicits faith—faith drives to prayer—prayer obtains the spiritual blessing! It was the sense of want and wretchedness which drove the prodigal to cry, "Father, I have sinned!" It was the "buffeting" thorn which sent Paul thrice to his knees in the agony of supplication, and brought down on his soul a rich heritageof spiritual blessing. It was these surging waves—the "deep calling to deep"—which elicited the cry from this sinking castaway, "My heart is overwhelmed: lead me to theRockthat is higher than I!" "Behold he prayeth!" That announcement seems in a moment to turn the tide of battle, and change the storm into a calm. Well has a Christian poet written:—"Frail art thou, O man, as a bubble on the breaker;Weak, and govern'd by externals, like a poor bird caught in the storm:Yet thy momentary breath can still the raging waters;Thy hand can touch a lever that may move the world."The struggle till now may have seemed doubtful; "but they thatWAITupon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles."[90]It is said, the beautiful plumage of the Bird of Paradise not only impedes its flight when flying against the wind, but often in the ineffectual effort it is brought helpless and exhausted to the ground—its golden hues soiled and ruffled. When, however, a gentle breeze springs up, it spreads out its feathers in a fan-like shape,and is borne joyously along! So with the believer. When he is called to do battle with unbelief, the wings of faith are often soiled, and mutilated, and broken; he falls a helpless thing to the earth. But when God's own south wind blows, he spreads out his glorious plumage, and, rising on the pinions of prayer, is borne onwards and upwards to the region of heavenly peace and joy!There are one or two characteristics in David's prayer worthy of note, with which we shall sum up this chapter.1. Observe hisINSTANTresort to the "God of his life!"No sooner does the thought of prayer suggest itself, than he proceeds to the sacred exercise. Like the prodigal, not only does he say, "I will arise and go," but the next record in his history is, "And he arose, and came to his Father."[91]Oh, how much spiritual benefit we miss by procrastination! The cloud of blessing floats over our heads, but we fail to stretch forth the electric rod of prayer to fetch it down! We determine on embarking, but, by guilty delay, we allow the vesselto weigh anchor, and we are left behind. Many an afflictive dispensation thus loses its sanctifying design. When the heart is crushed and broken, the heavenly voice sounds startling and solemn! What a season, if timeously improved, for enrichment at the mercy-seat! When "things present" are disenchanted of their spell,—when time is brought to hold its relative insignificance to eternity, what a season for the self-emptied one, to go to the all-fulness of Jesus, and receive from Him every needful supply! But, alas! we often know not "the day of our merciful visitation." The heart, when the hammer might be falling on it, and welding it to the Divine will, is too often suffered to cool. Solemn impressions are allowed to wear away,—the blessing is lost by guilty postponement. David might now have been so absorbed in his trials, as to have lost the opportunity of prayer. He might have invented some vain excuses for procrastination, and missed the blessing; just as the disciples, by their sluggish indifference and guilty slumber, drew down the thrice-repeated rebuke from injured Goodness, "Could ye not watch with me one hour?" But the golden moment isnot suffered by him thus to pass. No sooner does he get a glimpse of the path of prayer, than he proceeds to tread it. The very fact of the fire being so low, is the most powerful reason for stirring it. Her Lord being lost, is the strongest argument for the Spouse seeking Him without delay;—"I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek Him whom my soul loveth."[92]2. Observe David'simportunity. He waxes into a holy boldness. He seeks to know from "the God of his life" the reasons of this apparent desertion—"'Why hast Thou forgotten me?' I cannot see or understand, as Thy covenant servant, the reason of all this depression—why, with all those promises of Thine, these hands should be hanging down, and these knees be so feeble."The mother does not cast off her sick or feeble child. Its very weakness and weariness is an additional argument for her care and love, and draws her heart closer than ever to the bed of the tiny sufferer! David knew well that God, who had ever dealt with him "as one whom his mother comforteth,"would not (unless for some wise reason) leave him to despondency. Looking to this immutable Covenant-Jehovah, and lifting his voice high above the water-floods, he thus, in impassioned prayer, pleads "the causes of his soul:"—"In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in Thy righteousness. Bow down Thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be Thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me. For Thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for Thy name's sake lead me, and guide me. Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for Thou art my strength. Into Thine hand I commit my spirit: Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth."[93]3. The Psalmisttakes hisSPECIAL TROUBLEto God, and makes it the subject of prayer. He names in the Divine presence the cause of his deepest perplexity. "As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me, while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?"[94]"Generalities," says a good man, "are the death of prayer." The loftiest privilege the believer canenjoy is the confidential unburdening of his wants into the ear of aFather. Just as a child can freely unbosom to a parent what he can do to no one else, so are we permitted to tell into the ear of our Father in heaven whatever may be the heart-sorrow with which a stranger (often a friend) dare not intermeddle. See thespecialityin the Psalmist's confession of his sin. It is not thegeneralacknowledgment of a sinner. It is rather an humbled penitent carryingonedeep crimson-stain to the mercy-seat; bringingit, andit alone, as if for the moment he had to deal respectingitonly with the great Heart-searcher. "Mysinis ever before me." "I have donethisevil in Thy sight." "Wash me frommine iniquity, and cleanse me frommy sin." "I said, I will confessmy transgressions, and Thou forgavest the iniquity ofmy sin."[95]Let us not think that we can ever have comfort in merging individual sins in ageneralconfession. This is the great and pre-eminent advantage of secret closet-prayer. Social prayer and public prayer are eminently means of securing the Divine blessing; but it is in the quiet of the chamber,when no eye and ear are on us but that of "our Father that seeth in secret," that we can bring our secret burdens to His altar,—crucify our secret sins, acknowledge the peculiar sources of our weakness and temptation, and get special grace to help us in our times of need.But we may here ask, Have we any assurance that the prayers of David, at this critical emergency, were indeed answered? Or,(as we are often tempted in seasons of guilty unbelief to argue regarding our prayers still,) did they ascend unheard and unresponded to?—did the cries of the supplicant die away in empty echoes amid these glens of Gilead? We have his own testimony, in a magnificent ode of his old age,[96]one of the last, and one of the noblest his lips ever sung, that Jehovahhadheard him in the day of his trouble. It is a Psalm, as we are told in the title, written by him on his return to his capital, when victory had crowned his arms, and his kingdom was once more in peace. The aged Minstrel takes in it a retrospective survey of his eventful pilgrimage. Many a Mizar-hill in the long vista rises conspicuously into view. He climbs inthought their steeps, and erects his Ebenezer! As his flight and sojourn beyond Jordan formed the latest occurrence in that chequered life, we may well believe that in uttering these inspired numbers, the remembrance of his memorable soul-struggle there must have been especially present to his mind. Let us listen to his own words: "The sorrows of death compassed me, andTHE FLOODS OF UNGODLY MENmade me afraid.... In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried untomy God:He heardmy voice out of His temple, andmy cry came before Him, even into His ears." In the sublimest poetical figures of all his Psalms, Jehovah is further represented in this hymn of thanksgiving as hastening with rapid flight, in august symbols of majesty, to the relief and succour of His servant—"bowing the heavens"—"the darkness under His feet"—"riding upon a cherub"—"flying upon the wings of the wind"—"sending out His arrows, and scattering His foes"—"shooting out lightnings"—and "discomfiting them." And with the writer's mind still resting on the same emblems which he uses in his Exile-Psalm,—the "deep calling to deep"—the "noise of the water-spouts"—the"waves and billows,"—he interweaves other references and experiences with this unequivocal testimony to God his "Rock," as theHearer of prayer,—"He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters.... Who is God save the Lord? or who is aRocksave our God?... The Lord liveth; and blessed be myRock;and let the God of my salvation be exalted!"[97]Reader! let me ask, in conclusion, doyouknow in your experience the combined triumphs offaith and prayer—these two heavenly spies that fetch back Eschol-clusters of blessing to the true Israel of God? Do you know what it is, in the hour of adversity, to repair to "theRockof your strength?" Do you believe in His willingness to hear, and in His power to save? How sad the case of those who, in their seasons of trial, have no refuge to which they can betake themselves, but some fluctuating, perishing, earthly one;—who, when they lose the world, lose their all! The miser plundered of his gold, cleaving to the empty coffers;—the pleasure-hunter seeking to drain the empty chalice, orto extract honey out of the empty comb;—the bereaved grasping with broken hearts their withered gourd, and refusing to be comforted! The worldling is like the bird building its nest on the topmost bough of the tree. There it weaves its wicker dwelling, and feels as if nothing can invade its security and peace. By and by the woodman comes,—lays down his axe by the root. The chips fly off apace. The pine rocks and shivers; in a few moments it lies prone on the forest-sward. The tiny bird hovers over its dismantled home—the scene of desolation and havoc—and then goes screaming through the wood with the tale of her woes! The Christian, again, is like the sea-fowl, building its nest in the niches of the ocean cliff, which bids defiance at once to the axe and the hand of the plunderer. Far below, the waves are lifting their crested tops, and eddying pools are boiling in fury. The tempest may be sighing overhead, and the wild shriek of danger and death rising from some helpless bark that is borne like a weed on the maddened waters. But the spent spray can only touch these rocky heights,—no more; and the curlew, sitting with folded wings on her young, canlook calm and undismayed on the elemental war. "What is the best grounds of a philosopher's constancy," says Bishop Hall, "but as moving sands, in comparison of the Rock that we may build upon!"Yes! build in the clefts of that immoveable Rock, and you are safe. Safe in Christ, you can contemplate undismayed all the tossings and heavings of life's fretful sea! So long as the Psalmist looked to God, he was all secure. When he looked tohimself, he was all despondency. Peter, when his eye was on his Lord, walked boldly on the limpid waves of Gennesaret; when he divertedit on himself, and thought on the dangers around him, and the unstable element beneath him, "he began to sink!"Believer! is your heart overwhelmed? Are you undergoing a similar experience with the Psalmist? Your friends (perhaps your nearest and best) misunderstanding your trial, unable to probe the severity of your wound, mocking your tears with unsympathising reflections and cruel jests—"a sword in your bones!" Turn your season of sorrow into a season of prayer. Look up to the God-man Mediator, the tender Kinsman within the veil!He knowethyour frame. When He sees your frailbark struggling in the storm, and hears the cry of prayer rising from your lips, He will say, as He said of old, "I knowtheir sorrows, and I will go down to deliver them! O wounded Hart! panting after the water-brooks, I was once wounded forthee. O smitten soul! seamed and scarred with the lightning and tempest, see how I myself, the Rock of Ages, was smitten and afflicted!" Ay, and thou canst say too, "GodMYRock!" Thou canst individually repose in that sheltering Refuge, as if it were intended for thee alone. The loving eye of that Saviour is upon thee, as if thou wert alone the object of His gaze,—as if no other struggling castaway breasted the billows but thyself!Blessed security, who would not prize it! Blessed shelter, who would not repair to it! Oh that the Psalmist's creed and resolution might be ours—"I will say of the Lord, He ismy RockandMYFortress, andMYDeliverer."—"O come let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to theRock of our salvation!"XII.The Quiet Haven.
God of my life, to Thee I call,Afflicted at Thy feet I fall;When the great water-floods prevail,Leave not my trembling heart to fail!"
God of my life, to Thee I call,Afflicted at Thy feet I fall;When the great water-floods prevail,Leave not my trembling heart to fail!"
God of my life, to Thee I call,
Afflicted at Thy feet I fall;
When the great water-floods prevail,
Leave not my trembling heart to fail!"
"There is but a step from the third heavens to the thorn in the flesh."—Winslow.
"Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life."—Verses 7, 8.
The storm-struggle in the soul of the Psalmist is now at its height. In the previous verse, he had penetrated through the mists of unbelief that were surrounding him, and rested his eye on the Mizar hills of the Divine faithfulness in a brighter past. But the sunshine-glimpse was momentary. It has again passed away. His sky is anew darkened—rain-clouds sweep the horizon—"Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts." Amid the environing floods he exclaims, "All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me!"
The figure is a bold and striking one. Some have thought it has reference to the sudden rush of water-torrents from the heights of Lebanon and Hermon;—that it was suggested by the roaring cataracts at his feet—Jordan with its swollen and winding rapids—the faithful picture of the deep-wornchannels in his own spirit—fretted and furrowed with the rush of overwhelming sorrow.
But the word rendered "deep," is, in the original Hebrew, more applicable to the floods of theoceanthan to the rapids of a river; and the image, in this sense, is bolder and more expressive still.[70]Billow calls on billow to sweep over the soul of the sufferer. They lift their crested heads, and with hoarse voice summon one another to the assault. "Let us be confederate!" say they. "Let us rouse the spirit of the storm! Let the windows of heaven be opened! Let the fountains of the great deep be broken up, that we may shake this man's confidence in his God, and plunder faith of her expected triumph! Ye angry tempests, driving sleet and battering hail! come and aid us. Ye forked lightnings, gleaming swords of the sky! leap from your cloudy scabbards. Old ocean! be stirred from your lowest depths. Let every wave be fretted to madness, that with one united effort we may effect his discomfiture and leave him a wreck on the waters!"
They obey the summons. Already chafed and buffeted, they return with fresh violence to the shock. Affliction on affliction, temptation on temptation, roll on this lonely, surf-beaten cliff. Outward calamities—inward troubles; his subjects in revolt—his friends treacherous; his own son and favourite child heading the insurrection; he himself an exile, haunted with the thought of past sins that were now exacting terrible retribution;—and worse than all temporal calamities, the countenance of his God averted. Affliction seemed as if it could go no further—"Allthy waves and thy billows have gone over me!"
We believe there are periods in the history of most of God's people corresponding to the awful experience recorded in this verse. Few there are who cannot point to some sad and memorable epochs alike in their natural and spiritual being,—some solemn and critical crisis-hours, in which they have been subjected to special and peculiar trials;—encompassed with the thunders and lightnings of Sinai—the trumpet sounding long and loud:—or, to revert to the simile of the Psalm, when the moorings of life have been torn away, and they havebeen left to drift, on a starless, tempestuous ocean. Often, as with David, there may at such times be a combination of trials,—sickness—bereavement—loss of worldly substance—estrangement of friends—blighting of fair hopes. Then, following on these, and worse than all, hard thoughts of God. We see the wicked around prospering,—vice apparently pampered,—virtue apparently trodden under foot,—many passing through life without an ache or trial—their homes unrifled—their hearts unwounded—their every plan prospering—fortune smiling benignantly at every turn; whileweseem to have been a target for the arrows of misfortune,—tempted with Jeremiah to say, "I amTHEman who have seen affliction by the rod of His wrath."[71]And doubting a God ofprovidence, the next step is to doubt a God ofgrace. We begin to question our interest in the covenant,—to wonder whether, after all, our hopes of heaven have been a delusion and a lie. God's mercy we imagine to be "gone for ever." He seems as if He would be "favourable no more." There is no comfort in prayer—no brightness in the promises; the Bible is a sealed book;—the heavenshave become as brass and the earth as iron! Oh, so long as we had merelyexternaltrials, we could brave and buffet the surrounding floods. So long as we had the Divine smile, like the bow in the cloud, resting upon us, we could gaze in calmness on the blackest sky;—yea, rejoice in trial, as only unfolding to us more of the preciousness of the Saviour. But when we have thecloudwithout thebow,—when outer trials come to a soul in spiritual unrest and trouble,—when we harbour the suspicion that the only Being whocouldbefriend in such an hour has Himself hidden His face,—when we have neither this world nor the next to comfort us—smitten hopes for time and despairing hopes for eternity!—this is the woe of woes—the "horror of great darkness,"—"deep calleth unto deep." We can say, with a more terrible emphasis far than the smitten patriarch, "IAMbereaved!"
The Psalmist had now reached this extremity. It is the turning point of his present experience. He has two alternatives before him:—either to suffer unbelief to triumph, to distrust God, abandon the conflict, and sink as lead in the surging waters; or to gather up once more his spiritualresources, breast the waves, and manfully buffet the storm.
It is with him now, as with a sinking disciple in a future age:—when the storm is loudest and the midnight is darkest, the voice and footsteps of his God are heard on the waves: "And about the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came to the disciples, walking on the sea." "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles!"[72]
And what is the first gleam of comfort which crests these topmost waves? It isdiscerning the hand and appointment of God in all his afflictions! He speaks of "Thywaves andThybillows." These floods do not riot and revel at the bidding of chance. "The Lord sitteth upon the water-floods."[73]While, in one sense, it aggravated his trials to think of them as Divine chastisements—the expressions of the Divine displeasure at sin—yet how unspeakable the consolation that every billow rolled at the summons of Omnipotence. "The floods," he can say, "have lifted up, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, thanthe mighty waves of the sea."[74]"O Lord our God, who is a strong Lord like unto thee? Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them."[75]
But he could go further than this. He could triumph in the assurance of God's returning favour;—that behind these troubled elements there was seated a Being of unchanging faithfulness and love. Already the lowering mist was beginning to clear off the mountains, and the eye of faith to descry sunny patches of golden light gleaming in the hollows. Soon he knew the whole landscape would be flooded with glory. The sailor does not discredit the existence of the beacon or lighthouse, or alter the direction of his vessel, because the fog prevents these being seen. Nay rather, he strains his eyes more keenly through the murky curtain, in hopes of hailing their guidance. When a cloud or clouds are passing over the sun's disc, and hiding it from view, the sunflower does not, on account of the momentary intervention, hang its head, or cease to turn in the direction of the great luminary. It keeps still gazing upwards with wistful eye, as if knowing thatthe clouds will soon roll past, and that it will ere long again be bathed in the grateful beams! So it was with David. He felt that the countenance of his God, though hidden, was not eclipsed. This pining flower on the mountains of Gilead does not droop in the anguish of unbelief, when "the Sun of his soul" is for the moment obscured. He knew that there would yet arise "light in the darkness." Amid the roll of the billows—the moaning of the blast—he listens to celestial music. Its key-note is "the loving-kindness" of hisGod. While the heavens are still black, and the tempest raging, he lifts the voice of faith above the war of the storm, and thus sings:—"Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life!"
"Yetthe Lord!" The believer, even in his deepest and darkest season of trouble, has alwaysthisalternative word—"Yetthe Lord will!" I am sunk in sore trial—"Yetthe Lord" will be faithful to His promises! I have been bereaved of those near and dear to me—"Yetthe Lord" will be to me a name better than that of son or daughter!I have been laid for long years on this couch of suffering—"Yetthe Lord" has converted this lonely sick-chamber into the vestibule of heaven. I have been tossed and harassed with countless spiritual temptations—"Yetthe Lord" will not suffer these temptations to go further than I am able to bear. I am soon to walk through the dark valley—"Yet" will "I fear no evil, forThouart with me!"
The Psalmist's assurance of deliverance was indeed the test of no meagre faith. We know well, how apt we are to be influenced and affected by present circumstances. When all is bright, and genial, and prosperous,—amid a happy home and kind friends,—in the midst of robust health and flourishing worldly schemes, the buoyant heart is full of elasticity. The joywithout, imparts aninnersunshine. A man is happy and hopeful in spite of himself. But if all at once he is plunged into a vortex of trouble,—if clouds gather and thicken around,—the mind not only becomes the prey of its own trials, but it peoples the future with numberless imaginary evils, and its very remaining joys and blessings become tinged and sicklied over with the predominating sadness! It could as littlebe expected, on natural principles, that the heart could in such circumstances be hopeful and rejoicing, as to expect that the outer landscape of nature would glow and sparkle with beauty, if the clouds of heaven obscured the great fountain of light.
But faith, strong in God's word, can triumph over natural obstacles. It did so in the case of this afflicted exile. He remembered how his God had vouchsafed past deliverances, even when he least expected them;—"They looked untoHimand were lightened"[76][literally, "their countenances were made bright."] He feels assured that the same loving-kindness will be "commanded" still. He sees God's covenant faithfulness resting calmly and beautifully, like the rainbow-tints in the spray of the cataract! "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God."[77]
This experience we have been considering is that of Christ's people only. But there is an experiencesadder still: that of those who are living "without God," and therefore "without hope;"—the billows heaving, and yet they knowing not of them;—"deep calling to deep," yet they ignorant alike of their guilt and danger! There is nothing more sad or touching in the midst of a storm,—when the vessel is reeling on the waves, and little expectation of safety is left,—than to see, amidst the settled gloom of despair, the little child playing on the deck, all unaware of what is impending;—or, at a time of heart-rending bereavement, when every face of the household is muffled in sadness and suffused with tears, to hear the joyous laugh and playful prattle of unconscious infancy. Ah! of how many is this the position with regard to eternity;—living heedless of their danger—the waves of destruction ready to close over them! Sadder far, surely, istheircase, than all the troubles and trials of God's most afflicted people.Theirwaves and billows are crested with hope—"songs in the night" come floating along the darkened surges; but the future to the others hasnoray of hope,nomidnight star,nodivine song! There is a time coming when, in a more awful sense, thecry will be heard, "Deep calleth unto deep: all Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over me!" But there will be no after-strain—no joyous anthem of anticipated deliverance—"Yet the Lord will command His loving-kindness!" In vain will the cry ascend, "My heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the Rock that is higher than I."
But, blessed be God, that cry may ascendnow—that Rock may be fled to as a shelternow. Sinner! these waves swept over the Rock of Ages, that they might not sweep over you! Sheltered in these crevices, you will be eternally safe. Not one blast of the storm, not one drop of the rain-shower of vengeance, can overtake you. When the billows of wrath—the deluge of fire—shall roll over this earth, safe in these everlasting clefts, you may utter the challenge, "Who shall separate me from the love of Christ?"
"When darkness long has veil'd my mind,And smiling day once more appears,Then, my Redeemer, then I find,The folly of my doubts and fears:Straight I upbraid my wandering heart,And blush that I should ever beThus prone to act so base a partOr harbour one hard thought of Thee!"
"When darkness long has veil'd my mind,And smiling day once more appears,Then, my Redeemer, then I find,The folly of my doubts and fears:Straight I upbraid my wandering heart,And blush that I should ever beThus prone to act so base a partOr harbour one hard thought of Thee!"
"When darkness long has veil'd my mind,
And smiling day once more appears,
Then, my Redeemer, then I find,
The folly of my doubts and fears:
Straight I upbraid my wandering heart,
And blush that I should ever be
Thus prone to act so base a part
Or harbour one hard thought of Thee!"
"Here deep calls to deep. Yet in the midst of those deeps faith is not drowned. You see it lifts its head above water."—Bishop Hall."We perceive the Psalmist full of perplexed thought, and that betwixt strong desires and griefs, and yet in the midst of them intermixing strains of hope with his sad complaints.... What is the whole thread of our life but a chequered twist, black and white, of delights and dangers interwoven? And the happiest passing of it is, constantly to enjoy and to observe the experiences of God's goodness, and to praise Him for them."—Archbishop Leighton, 1649."Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of the water-spouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life."—Verses 7, 8.
"Here deep calls to deep. Yet in the midst of those deeps faith is not drowned. You see it lifts its head above water."—Bishop Hall.
"We perceive the Psalmist full of perplexed thought, and that betwixt strong desires and griefs, and yet in the midst of them intermixing strains of hope with his sad complaints.... What is the whole thread of our life but a chequered twist, black and white, of delights and dangers interwoven? And the happiest passing of it is, constantly to enjoy and to observe the experiences of God's goodness, and to praise Him for them."—Archbishop Leighton, 1649.
"Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of the water-spouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life."—Verses 7, 8.
In the previous chapter we spoke of the two verses which form the turning-point in the Psalm,—the climax of the conflict therein so strikingly described between belief and unbelief. We referred to the boldness and expressiveness of the figure: the troubles of the believer, like the billows of the ocean calling on one another to unite their strength that they might effect his overthrow, but faith rising triumphant above them all. At times, when all human comfort gives way, God himself appears. "The voice of the Lord is upon the waters."[78]Henot only "commands His loving-kindness in the day-time," but "inTHE NIGHTHis song is with us." Our heavenly Parent comes in earth's darkest, most tempestuous hours, sits by our side, sings His night-song—His own lullaby—"Peace, be still!" "So giveth He His beloved sleep!"[79]God's "songs"sound always sweetest "by night"—the deep, dark night of affliction. The nightingale's notes are nothing by day—they would be lost in the chorus of other birds; but when these have retired to their nests, she prolongs her tuneful descant, and serenades, with her warblings, the silent earth. The world can only giveitssongby day. It can speak only in the sunshine of prosperity. But "God our Maker givethsongs in the night!"[80]His promises, like the nightingale, sound most joyously, and, like the glow-worm, shine most brightly, inthe dark!
Let us pause ere proceeding with the sequel of the Psalm, and ponder the great lesson to be derived from this experience of David.
It is,totrust Godin the darkest, gloomiest night of earthly trial! To wait His own time, and to say, when the billows are highest, "Yet the Lord will"—
This is one great end and design of trial, to exercise the grace ofpatience. There is nothing God loves better thana waiting soul. "The Lord is good to them that wait for Him."[81]"I waitedpatiently," says David, in another Psalm, (or, as it is literally, "I waited, waited,") "for the Lord, and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry."[82]"I know thy works," says Jesus, speaking of old, in the language of commendation, to His church at Ephesus: "how thou hastBORNE,and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast notFAINTED."[83]How often has our wayappearedto be hedged up with thorns,—as if there were no possibility of egress! In sailing among some of our own Highland lakes and inland seas, where the mountains, in a thousand fantastic forms, rise abrupt from the shore, we frequently seem to be landlocked, and able to get no farther. Yet the vessel pursues its serpentine course; and as we double the first jutting promontory, the lake again expands; the same waters appear beyond, gleaming like a mirror of molten gold. We find what we imagined to be an impassable barrier, is only a strait, opening into new combinations of mountain majesty and beauty. So is it in the Voyage of life. Often, in its fitful turnings and windings, do we seem to be arrested in our way;—"Hill Difficulties" risingbefore us, and appearing to impede our vessel's course;—but as faith steers onwards, impediments vanish, new vistas and experiences of loving-kindness open up. Where we expected to be stopped by walls of frowning rock and barren mountains, lo! limpid waves are seen laving the shore, and joyful cascades are heard singing their way to the silver strand!
And not only does God thus "command His loving-kindness" in disappointing our fears, but "in the night His song shall be with us." He will turn the very midnights of our sorrow into occasions of grateful praise! Yes! if not now, we shall come yet to see the "needs be" of every trial. We have only a partial view here of God's dealings—His half-completed, half-developed plan; but all will stand out in fair and graceful proportions in the great finished Temple of Eternity!
Go, in the reign of Israel's greatest King, to the heights of the forest of Lebanon. See that noble Cedar, the pride of its compeers, an old wrestler with the northern blasts of Palestine! Summer loves to smile upon it—night spangles its feathery foliagewith dew-drops—the birds nestle on its branches—the wild deer slumber under its shadow—the weary pilgrim, or wandering shepherd, repose under its curtaining boughs from the mid-day heat or from the furious storm; but all at once it is marked out to fall,—the old denizen of that primeval forest is doomed to succumb to the woodman's stroke! As we see the unsparing axe making its first gash on its gnarled trunk—then the noble limbs stripped of their branches—and at last the proud "Tree of God" coming with a crash to the ground; we exclaim against the wanton destruction—the demolition of this noblest of pillars in the temple of nature,—and we are tempted to cry with the prophet, as if inviting the sympathy of every lowlier stem—invoking inanimate things to resent the affront—"Howl, fir-tree, for the cedar has fallen!" But wait a little!—follow that gigantic trunk as the workmen of Hiram launch it down the mountain side,—thence conveyed in monster rafts along the blue waters of the Mediterranean,—and last of all, behold it set a glorious polished beam in the Temple of God;—and then, as you see its destination,—gazing down on the very Holy of Holies, set in the diadem ofthe Great King;—say, can you grudge that the crown of Lebanon was despoiled, in order that this jewel might have so noble a setting? That cedar stood as a stately beam and pillar innature'stemple, but the glory of the latter house was greater than the glory of the former. How many of our souls are like these cedars of God! His axes of trial have stripped and bared them,—we see no reason for dealings so dark and mysterious; but He has a noble end and object in view—to set them as everlasting pillars and rafters in His heavenly temple, to make them "a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of our God!"
Or take another illustration. Go to one of our graving-docks, where the weather-beaten vessel has been weeks or months in the carpenter's hands. Her started timbers are replaced, her shattered keel renewed, the temporary props and scaffoldings have been removed, and with her gay streamers afloat, and her crew on deck, she stands ready and equipped for sea. What is needed? Nothing but the opening of the sluices, to reunite her to her old watery element. She lies a helpless, decrepit thing, till these dock-gates be opened, and the buoyant waves rushto clasp her anew in their embrace. It is done! But at first all is noise, and wrath, and tumult. These gurgling waters, discoloured with mud and sediment, convert the noble granite basin into an inky, turgid whirlpool. Ere long, however, the strife ceases; the great wooden wall raises itself like a child that has been awoke in its cradle by the voice of the storm—the waters gradually calm and subside;—higher and still higher is the vessel lifted, till, amid the cheers of the crew, she passes by the opened gates, and, with every sail spread to the breeze, is off to new voyages in her ocean-home.
Child of trial! "vessel of mercy!" your God sees meet at times to bring you into the graving-dock, that He may put His tools upon you, and refit and prepare you for the great voyage of immortality. When He opens the sluices of trial, you may see no mercy in His dealings. It may be "deep calling to deep"—the roar and heaving of antagonist waters; they may at first, too, stir up nothing but the dregs and sediment of sin,—expose the muddy pools, the deep corruptions of the heart. But be still! He will yet vindicate the rectitude and wisdom of His own procedure.Ere long, these surging waves will settle peacefully around you, the shadows of heaven reflected in their glassy surface; and better still, strengthened and renovated by that season of trial, you will go forth from the Graver's hands more ready to brave the billows, grapple with the tempest, and reach at last the haven where you would be!
It ishard discipline—the undowny pillow, the trench-work and midnight vigils—which makes the better soldier. The type of strength in the kingdom of inanimate nature is not the sickly plant of the hot-house, or the tree or bush choked in the dark jungle; but the pine rocked by Alpine or Norwegian tempests, or the oak mooring its roots in the rifted rock! David would neither have been the King nor the Saint he was, but for the caves of Adullam and Engedi, the rocks of the wild goats, the forest exile of Hermon and Gilead. He had to thankafflictionfor his best spiritual graces. The redeemed in glory are ready to tell the same. "We would never have been here but for these storms of 'great tribulation.' But for the loss of that child—that worldly calamity—that protracted sickness—that cutting disappointment—that wounding ofmy heart's affection—that annihilation of earthly pride and ambition—that 'deep calling to deep'—I would not now have been wearing this crown!" Trials have been well compared to the winds God employs to fill our sails and fetch us home to the harbour of everlasting peace![84]
One word of caution ere we close this chapter. From all we have said—of "deeps" and "floods," storms and water-spouts, and midnight darkness—are any to leave these pages with the feeling that Religion is a gloomy, repulsive thing;—that the believer's life is one of darkness and despair;—that better far is the world's gaiety and folly—the merry laugh of its light-hearted votaries—than a life of sadness like this? Mistake us not! We repeat what we have already said. The experience we have been now considering is, in many respects, peculiar; one of those dark passages which stand alone in the diary of the spiritual life.Religion gloomy!Who says so? Shall we take St Paul as our oracle? What is his testimony? In all hisletters he tries to crowd as much as he can into little space. In one of these, he has room for only two injunctions. But instead of giving two that are different, he prefers to repeat theone. It is the emphatic tautology, "Rejoice in the Lord alway: andAGAINI say,Rejoice."[85]Or shall we seek a different tribunal? Go gather together all the philosophers of antiquity—Plato, Socrates, Aristotle. Bring together the wise men of Greece—the philosophers of Alexandria—the sages of Rome. Ask if their combined and collected wisdom ever solved the doubts of one awakened soul, as have done these leaves of this Holy Book? Which of them ever dried the tear of widowhood as these? Which of them ever smoothed the cheek of the fatherless as these? Which of them ever lighted the torch of hope and peace at the dying bed as these, and flashed upon the departing soul visions of unearthly joy? O pagan darkness! where wasthysong in the night? In the region and shadow of death, where didthylight arise?
ButWEhave a "more sure word of prophecy, to which we do well to take heed, as unto a lightshining in a dark place." The Christian istheman who alone can wear the sunny countenance. The peace of God, keeping the heart within, cannot fail to be mirrored in the look and life without! And if (as often is the case) he has his appointed seasons of trial—the sea of life swept with storms of great tribulation—it is with him as with yonder ocean. To the eye of the young voyager, gazing on its mountain billows, it would seem as if its lowest caverns were stirred, and the world were rocking to its foundations; while, after all, it is only a surface-heaving! There are deeps, unfathomed deeps, of calm rest and peace, down in that ocean's undisturbed recesses.
Believer in Jesus! with all thy trials, thou art a happy man. Go on thy way rejoicing. Tribulation may fret and ruffle the calm of thy outer life, but nothing can touch the deeps of thy nobler being. Troubles may rise, and "terrors may frown," and "days of darkness" may fall around thee, but "Thou wilt keep him, O God,IN PERFECT PEACEwhose mind is stayed onThee!"
"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee!"
"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee!"
"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!"
"The soul of man serves the purpose, as it were, of a workshop to Satan, in which to forge a thousand methods of despair. And therefore it is not without reason that David, after a severe conflict with himself, has recourse to prayer, and calls upon God as the witness of his sorrow."—Calvin on the Psalms."I will say unto God my rock, Why has thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?"—Verses 9, 10.
"The soul of man serves the purpose, as it were, of a workshop to Satan, in which to forge a thousand methods of despair. And therefore it is not without reason that David, after a severe conflict with himself, has recourse to prayer, and calls upon God as the witness of his sorrow."—Calvin on the Psalms.
"I will say unto God my rock, Why has thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?"—Verses 9, 10.
Touching was that scene which occurred three thousand years ago on the borders of Palestine: aged Naomi, in returning to the land of her own kindred from her sojurn in Moab, pausing to take a last farewell of her two loving daughters-in-law! One of these refuses to part from her. Strong may be the inducement to Ruth to return to the home of her childhood, and, above all, to the spot where hallowed dust reposes (the buried treasure of her young affections). But ties stronger than death link her soul to the one who had shared for ten years her joys and sorrows. With impassioned tears, she announces her determination! Her resolve may entail upon her manifold sacrifices. She may be going to an alien people—to a home of penury—to bleak and barren wilds, compared with her own fertile vales. But she is ready for any toil, any self-denial, if only permitted to retainthe companionship of that living, loving heart, which had been to her all that earthly tenderness could be.
Such, if we may compare an earthly with a heavenly affection, were the feelings of the banished King of Judah, at this time towards his God. All the temptations that have been assailing him have not repressed the ardour of his faith, or diminished the fervour of his love. Unbelief had done its best to sever the holy bond which linked him to his Heavenly Friend; but, like the tender-hearted Moabitess from whom he sprung, he will submit to any privation rather than be parted from Him whose favour is life. "Entreat me not to leave Thee," is the spirit at least of his fervid aspiration; "nor to return from following after Thee. Where Thou goest I will go, and where Thou dwellest I will dwell; and death itself shall not separate between Thee and me." As Peter, in a future age, rushed to the feet of that Saviour he had again and again wounded, so these many waters (the "deep calling to deep") cannot quench the Psalmist's love, nor many floods drown it. The voice of malignant taunt and scorn, "Where is now thy God?" mighthave driven others to despair; but it only rouses him up, in the midnight of his struggle, to the exercise of new spiritual graces. "I shall not," he seems to say, "surrender my holy trust; I know the graciousness of the God with whom I have to deal. Nothing will tempt me to abandon my interest in the covenant. I shall take a new weapon from the Divine armoury; with it I shall seek to decide the conflict. No gibes of the scoffer, no rebellious son, no crafty Ahithophel, can rob me of the privilege ofPrayer." "I will say unto God my Rock, Why hast Thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?"
It is, then, a combined exercise offaith, andprayer, on the part of David, we are now called to consider. Out of weakness he is made strong, waxes valiant in fight, and turns to flight the armies of the aliens.
Let us advert to each in their order.
Faithregards God here under a twofold aspect.
1.It looks to Him as animmutable God.
Amid the fitfulness of his own feelings, this was the Psalmist's consolation—"God myRock!"What a source of comfort is there here in theimmutabilityof Jehovah. All else around us is unstable. External nature bears on every page of its volume the traces of mutation. Earth has the folds already on its vesture—the wrinkles of age on its brow. The ocean murmurs of change, as its billows chafe on altered landmarks. Human friendships and human associations are all fluctuating. So are our habits, and tastes, and employments. The old man looking back from some hoary pinnacle on the past, almost questions his personal identity; and these emptied chairs!—these faces, once glowing at our firesides, now greeting our gaze only in mute and silent portraits on the wall! "Here we have no continuing city," is the oracle of all time.
"ButThouart the same, and Thy years shall have no end."[86]"Heaven and earth may pass away," but there is no change, andcanbe none, in an all-perfect God! "The wheel turns round, but the axle is immutable." The clouds which obscure the sun do not descend from heaven—they are exhaled from earth. It is the soul's owndarkening vapours, generated by unbelief and sin, which at times taint and obscure the moral atmosphere. Behind every such murky haze He shines brightly as ever. "Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?"[87]"Young sailors," says Rutherford, "imagine the shore and land moving, while it is they themselves all the while. So we often think that God is changing, when the change is all with ourselves!"
2.Faith regards this immutable God as a God in covenant.
"MyRock!" Believer! you have the same immovable ground of confidence! Look toYOURGod in Christ, who has made with you "an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure!" He, "willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope setbefore us."[88]The torch may flicker in your hand, the flame may be the sport of every passing gust of temptation and trial, but He who lighted it will not suffer it to be quenched. "Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have thee, that he may sift thee as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not."[89]The Great Adversary may attempt to rob you of your peace, but that peace is imperishably secured. He must first destroythe Rock, before he can touch one trembling soul that has fled there for refuge! He must first uncrown Christ, before he can touch one jewel in the purchased diadems of His people! Your life is "hid with Christ in God;" because He lives, "ye shall live also!" God himself must become mutable, and ceaseto be God, ere your eternal safety can be imperilled or impaired. "If we perish," says Luther, "Christ perisheth with us."
Let us turn now to the Psalmist'sPrayer.
IfFaithbe called the eye,Prayermay be called the wings of the soul. No sooner does Faith descry God his "Rock," than forthwithPrayer spreads out her pinions for flight. In the close of the preceding verse, (when in the extremity of his agony,) David had announced his determination to betake himself to supplication—"In the night His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life." He follows up his resolution now with material for petition. He puts on record a solemn and beautiful liturgy—"I will say unto God my Rock, Why hast Thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?"
How wonderfully does God thus overrule His darkest dispensations for the exercise and discipline of His people's spiritual graces! In their overflowing prosperity they are apt to forget Him. He sends them afflictions. Trial elicits faith—faith drives to prayer—prayer obtains the spiritual blessing! It was the sense of want and wretchedness which drove the prodigal to cry, "Father, I have sinned!" It was the "buffeting" thorn which sent Paul thrice to his knees in the agony of supplication, and brought down on his soul a rich heritageof spiritual blessing. It was these surging waves—the "deep calling to deep"—which elicited the cry from this sinking castaway, "My heart is overwhelmed: lead me to theRockthat is higher than I!" "Behold he prayeth!" That announcement seems in a moment to turn the tide of battle, and change the storm into a calm. Well has a Christian poet written:—
"Frail art thou, O man, as a bubble on the breaker;Weak, and govern'd by externals, like a poor bird caught in the storm:Yet thy momentary breath can still the raging waters;Thy hand can touch a lever that may move the world."
"Frail art thou, O man, as a bubble on the breaker;Weak, and govern'd by externals, like a poor bird caught in the storm:Yet thy momentary breath can still the raging waters;Thy hand can touch a lever that may move the world."
"Frail art thou, O man, as a bubble on the breaker;
Weak, and govern'd by externals, like a poor bird caught in the storm:
Yet thy momentary breath can still the raging waters;
Thy hand can touch a lever that may move the world."
The struggle till now may have seemed doubtful; "but they thatWAITupon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles."[90]It is said, the beautiful plumage of the Bird of Paradise not only impedes its flight when flying against the wind, but often in the ineffectual effort it is brought helpless and exhausted to the ground—its golden hues soiled and ruffled. When, however, a gentle breeze springs up, it spreads out its feathers in a fan-like shape,and is borne joyously along! So with the believer. When he is called to do battle with unbelief, the wings of faith are often soiled, and mutilated, and broken; he falls a helpless thing to the earth. But when God's own south wind blows, he spreads out his glorious plumage, and, rising on the pinions of prayer, is borne onwards and upwards to the region of heavenly peace and joy!
There are one or two characteristics in David's prayer worthy of note, with which we shall sum up this chapter.
1. Observe hisINSTANTresort to the "God of his life!"
No sooner does the thought of prayer suggest itself, than he proceeds to the sacred exercise. Like the prodigal, not only does he say, "I will arise and go," but the next record in his history is, "And he arose, and came to his Father."[91]Oh, how much spiritual benefit we miss by procrastination! The cloud of blessing floats over our heads, but we fail to stretch forth the electric rod of prayer to fetch it down! We determine on embarking, but, by guilty delay, we allow the vesselto weigh anchor, and we are left behind. Many an afflictive dispensation thus loses its sanctifying design. When the heart is crushed and broken, the heavenly voice sounds startling and solemn! What a season, if timeously improved, for enrichment at the mercy-seat! When "things present" are disenchanted of their spell,—when time is brought to hold its relative insignificance to eternity, what a season for the self-emptied one, to go to the all-fulness of Jesus, and receive from Him every needful supply! But, alas! we often know not "the day of our merciful visitation." The heart, when the hammer might be falling on it, and welding it to the Divine will, is too often suffered to cool. Solemn impressions are allowed to wear away,—the blessing is lost by guilty postponement. David might now have been so absorbed in his trials, as to have lost the opportunity of prayer. He might have invented some vain excuses for procrastination, and missed the blessing; just as the disciples, by their sluggish indifference and guilty slumber, drew down the thrice-repeated rebuke from injured Goodness, "Could ye not watch with me one hour?" But the golden moment isnot suffered by him thus to pass. No sooner does he get a glimpse of the path of prayer, than he proceeds to tread it. The very fact of the fire being so low, is the most powerful reason for stirring it. Her Lord being lost, is the strongest argument for the Spouse seeking Him without delay;—"I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek Him whom my soul loveth."[92]
2. Observe David'simportunity. He waxes into a holy boldness. He seeks to know from "the God of his life" the reasons of this apparent desertion—"'Why hast Thou forgotten me?' I cannot see or understand, as Thy covenant servant, the reason of all this depression—why, with all those promises of Thine, these hands should be hanging down, and these knees be so feeble."
The mother does not cast off her sick or feeble child. Its very weakness and weariness is an additional argument for her care and love, and draws her heart closer than ever to the bed of the tiny sufferer! David knew well that God, who had ever dealt with him "as one whom his mother comforteth,"would not (unless for some wise reason) leave him to despondency. Looking to this immutable Covenant-Jehovah, and lifting his voice high above the water-floods, he thus, in impassioned prayer, pleads "the causes of his soul:"—"In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in Thy righteousness. Bow down Thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be Thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me. For Thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for Thy name's sake lead me, and guide me. Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for Thou art my strength. Into Thine hand I commit my spirit: Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth."[93]
3. The Psalmisttakes hisSPECIAL TROUBLEto God, and makes it the subject of prayer. He names in the Divine presence the cause of his deepest perplexity. "As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me, while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?"[94]
"Generalities," says a good man, "are the death of prayer." The loftiest privilege the believer canenjoy is the confidential unburdening of his wants into the ear of aFather. Just as a child can freely unbosom to a parent what he can do to no one else, so are we permitted to tell into the ear of our Father in heaven whatever may be the heart-sorrow with which a stranger (often a friend) dare not intermeddle. See thespecialityin the Psalmist's confession of his sin. It is not thegeneralacknowledgment of a sinner. It is rather an humbled penitent carryingonedeep crimson-stain to the mercy-seat; bringingit, andit alone, as if for the moment he had to deal respectingitonly with the great Heart-searcher. "Mysinis ever before me." "I have donethisevil in Thy sight." "Wash me frommine iniquity, and cleanse me frommy sin." "I said, I will confessmy transgressions, and Thou forgavest the iniquity ofmy sin."[95]
Let us not think that we can ever have comfort in merging individual sins in ageneralconfession. This is the great and pre-eminent advantage of secret closet-prayer. Social prayer and public prayer are eminently means of securing the Divine blessing; but it is in the quiet of the chamber,when no eye and ear are on us but that of "our Father that seeth in secret," that we can bring our secret burdens to His altar,—crucify our secret sins, acknowledge the peculiar sources of our weakness and temptation, and get special grace to help us in our times of need.
But we may here ask, Have we any assurance that the prayers of David, at this critical emergency, were indeed answered? Or,(as we are often tempted in seasons of guilty unbelief to argue regarding our prayers still,) did they ascend unheard and unresponded to?—did the cries of the supplicant die away in empty echoes amid these glens of Gilead? We have his own testimony, in a magnificent ode of his old age,[96]one of the last, and one of the noblest his lips ever sung, that Jehovahhadheard him in the day of his trouble. It is a Psalm, as we are told in the title, written by him on his return to his capital, when victory had crowned his arms, and his kingdom was once more in peace. The aged Minstrel takes in it a retrospective survey of his eventful pilgrimage. Many a Mizar-hill in the long vista rises conspicuously into view. He climbs inthought their steeps, and erects his Ebenezer! As his flight and sojourn beyond Jordan formed the latest occurrence in that chequered life, we may well believe that in uttering these inspired numbers, the remembrance of his memorable soul-struggle there must have been especially present to his mind. Let us listen to his own words: "The sorrows of death compassed me, andTHE FLOODS OF UNGODLY MENmade me afraid.... In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried untomy God:He heardmy voice out of His temple, andmy cry came before Him, even into His ears." In the sublimest poetical figures of all his Psalms, Jehovah is further represented in this hymn of thanksgiving as hastening with rapid flight, in august symbols of majesty, to the relief and succour of His servant—"bowing the heavens"—"the darkness under His feet"—"riding upon a cherub"—"flying upon the wings of the wind"—"sending out His arrows, and scattering His foes"—"shooting out lightnings"—and "discomfiting them." And with the writer's mind still resting on the same emblems which he uses in his Exile-Psalm,—the "deep calling to deep"—the "noise of the water-spouts"—the"waves and billows,"—he interweaves other references and experiences with this unequivocal testimony to God his "Rock," as theHearer of prayer,—"He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters.... Who is God save the Lord? or who is aRocksave our God?... The Lord liveth; and blessed be myRock;and let the God of my salvation be exalted!"[97]
Reader! let me ask, in conclusion, doyouknow in your experience the combined triumphs offaith and prayer—these two heavenly spies that fetch back Eschol-clusters of blessing to the true Israel of God? Do you know what it is, in the hour of adversity, to repair to "theRockof your strength?" Do you believe in His willingness to hear, and in His power to save? How sad the case of those who, in their seasons of trial, have no refuge to which they can betake themselves, but some fluctuating, perishing, earthly one;—who, when they lose the world, lose their all! The miser plundered of his gold, cleaving to the empty coffers;—the pleasure-hunter seeking to drain the empty chalice, orto extract honey out of the empty comb;—the bereaved grasping with broken hearts their withered gourd, and refusing to be comforted! The worldling is like the bird building its nest on the topmost bough of the tree. There it weaves its wicker dwelling, and feels as if nothing can invade its security and peace. By and by the woodman comes,—lays down his axe by the root. The chips fly off apace. The pine rocks and shivers; in a few moments it lies prone on the forest-sward. The tiny bird hovers over its dismantled home—the scene of desolation and havoc—and then goes screaming through the wood with the tale of her woes! The Christian, again, is like the sea-fowl, building its nest in the niches of the ocean cliff, which bids defiance at once to the axe and the hand of the plunderer. Far below, the waves are lifting their crested tops, and eddying pools are boiling in fury. The tempest may be sighing overhead, and the wild shriek of danger and death rising from some helpless bark that is borne like a weed on the maddened waters. But the spent spray can only touch these rocky heights,—no more; and the curlew, sitting with folded wings on her young, canlook calm and undismayed on the elemental war. "What is the best grounds of a philosopher's constancy," says Bishop Hall, "but as moving sands, in comparison of the Rock that we may build upon!"
Yes! build in the clefts of that immoveable Rock, and you are safe. Safe in Christ, you can contemplate undismayed all the tossings and heavings of life's fretful sea! So long as the Psalmist looked to God, he was all secure. When he looked tohimself, he was all despondency. Peter, when his eye was on his Lord, walked boldly on the limpid waves of Gennesaret; when he divertedit on himself, and thought on the dangers around him, and the unstable element beneath him, "he began to sink!"
Believer! is your heart overwhelmed? Are you undergoing a similar experience with the Psalmist? Your friends (perhaps your nearest and best) misunderstanding your trial, unable to probe the severity of your wound, mocking your tears with unsympathising reflections and cruel jests—"a sword in your bones!" Turn your season of sorrow into a season of prayer. Look up to the God-man Mediator, the tender Kinsman within the veil!He knowethyour frame. When He sees your frailbark struggling in the storm, and hears the cry of prayer rising from your lips, He will say, as He said of old, "I knowtheir sorrows, and I will go down to deliver them! O wounded Hart! panting after the water-brooks, I was once wounded forthee. O smitten soul! seamed and scarred with the lightning and tempest, see how I myself, the Rock of Ages, was smitten and afflicted!" Ay, and thou canst say too, "GodMYRock!" Thou canst individually repose in that sheltering Refuge, as if it were intended for thee alone. The loving eye of that Saviour is upon thee, as if thou wert alone the object of His gaze,—as if no other struggling castaway breasted the billows but thyself!
Blessed security, who would not prize it! Blessed shelter, who would not repair to it! Oh that the Psalmist's creed and resolution might be ours—"I will say of the Lord, He ismy RockandMYFortress, andMYDeliverer."—"O come let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to theRock of our salvation!"