A Troubled Prayer

"Look upon my affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins." Psalm 25:18

If this Psalm were indeed written by David at the time when his son Absalom had raised the rebellion against him, we can readily understand the distinction which he draws between his "affliction’ and his "pain." It is a great "affliction" to have a son become a rebel, and that subjects who owed so much to their monarch should become traitors against his gentle government. "Pain" was the acute sensation, which David’s own heart experienced as the result of such calamity. He knew "How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child."

None of us can guess the "pain" which David must have felt from the "affliction" of having such a son as Absalom; and the "pain" of mind, again, which he felt in being betrayed by his familiar counselor, Athithophel, and in being forsaken by his subjects who in former days had honored him and rejoiced in him. He asked the Lord, therefore, to look, not only upon the trouble, but also upon the misery, which the trouble caused him. "If needs be," says the apostle, "we are in heaviness through manifold temptations"-as if not only the temptations were to be observed, but also the heaviness consequent thereon. So here, we may bring before God’s notice, not only our trial, but the inward anguish which the trial occasions us.

I can understand, also, why David should add, "And forgive all my sins," because he knew that the revolt of Absalom was mysteriously connected with the divine purpose as a chastisement, for his sin wits Bathsheba. He recollected how Nathan had told him that he should have war all the days of his life, and now he remembered it all. The bitterness of gall sickened his soul as he recounted that sin which had once been so sweet to his taste. He went back to the fatal day, and the tears stood in his eyes as he thought of all the filthiness and guiltiness of his conduct- what a traitor he had been to Uriah- how he had dishonored the name of God in the midst of the whole land. Well might he have said, "Lord, when you look upon this well-deserved affliction, and when you see the pain with which it brings my soul, then, though it will bring my sin to your mind as it does to my mind, yet let forgiveness blot it out. Yes, not for that sin only, but for all others that have preceded or followed it, grant me a gracious pardon- forgive, I beg you, all my sins."

1. It is well for us, dear friends, WHEN OUR PRAYERS ABOUT OUR SORROWS ARE LINKED WITH PRAYERS ABOUT OUR SINS- WHEN, BEING UNDER GOD’S HAND, OUR SOUL IS NOT WHOLLY TAKEN UP WITH OUR PAIN, BUT WE ALSO REMEMBER OUR OFFENCES AGAINST GOD. I do not think it would have been worth one’s while to have preached from the text it had only said, "Remember my affliction and my pain," but when it is "Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins," the two things put together are very instructive; let us seek to get some edifying counsel from them.

Our sorrows are profitable when they bring our sins to our minds. Some sorrows may do this by giving us time for thought. A sick-bed has often been a place of repentance. While the man was occupied with his daily work, and the active labor of his hands, or could be from morning until night at business, sin escaped his notice; he was too busy to care about his soul; he had too much to do with earth to remember heaven. But now he cannot think of business, or if he does, he can get no profit or satisfaction from all his thoughts; now he cannot go to his work, but must lie upon his bed until his health be recovered; and oftentimes the quiet of the night, or the stillness of the day which once was given up to the toil and moil of drudgery, has been blessed of God to work a solemn stillness in the soul in which the voice of God has been heard, saying, "Turn unto me! turn unto me! why will you die?" Some of you do not often hear God’s voice. You are in the midst of the clitter-clatter of this great city, and the roar and din of it are so perpetually ringing in your ears, that the still small voice of your heavenly Father you do not hear, and it may, perhaps, be a great mercy to you if, in your own house, or in the ward of an hospital, you may be compelled to hear him say, "Turn unto me! turn unto me! for I will have mercy upon you!"

Other afflictions remind us of our sins because they may be the direct result of transgression.

The profligate man, if God should bless those scourges of the body which have even sprung from his own vices, may find the disease to be a cure for the misdemeanors which produced it. We ought to thank God that he will not let us sin without chastisement. If any of you are sinning, and find pleasure without penalty in the sell-indulgence, do not congratulate yourself upon the apparent immunity with which you violate the laws of virtue, for that is the badge of the reprobate. To sin and never smart, is the mark of those who will be damned; their smart, like their doom, being in reserve and stored up for sorer judgment. But if any man among you here is now smarting for the sin he has committed. I will not say, let him be hopeful, but I will say, let him be thankful; let him remember that evidently God has not quite given him up- he has touched him with the rod, but he has not thrown the reins upon his neck; he has put a curb in his mouth, and he is pulling him up sharply. God grant that it may be blessed to turn him from his wild career. The extravagant man who has spent his money, and finds himself in rags, ought to look upon his sins through his rags: his present poverty may well remind him of his previous prodigality.

The man who has lost a friend, through ingratitude, and now needs a friend but cannot find one, may thank himself for it, and be reminded of his baseness by his bankruptcy. There are many other sins, though we have not time to mention them, which are evidently the fathers of sorrows; and when you get the sorrowful offspring, you should think of the guilty parentage- and if you would be rid of the child, go to God and ask him to deliver you from the sin, and divorce you from the transgression that produced it.

Other sorrows likewise remind us of our sins because they bear their likeness. It has been well remarked that oftentimes when God would punish us, he just leaves us to eat the fruit of our own ways. He has nothing more to do than to let the seed which we have sown ripen, and then allow us to eat of it. How often in reading the Holy Scriptures may you observe the quality of men’s sins in the nature of their punishment! Jacob deceived his father, and what then? Why, he was always being deceived all his life long. He was a great bargain-maker, so everybody cheated him, of course. He would use his wily artifice. As he would be clever and supplant, he had to become a dupe and be supplanted; that was the misery of his life, because it was the besetting sin of his character.

Now, when a man loses money, loses it continually, notwithstanding all the skill and efforts he can employ, I would have him ask himself whether there may not have been some sin in connection with his money which has brought the punishment on him. He may have loved it too much; he may have obtained it in an ill way; he may not have used it when he had it, in a proper spirit; it may have been dangerous for it to remain with him lest it should have corroded his heart by its own cankering. The losses a man suffers in business, I doubt not in many cases, and I am sure of it in some cases, ought to make him look earnestly at the way in which they came upon him.

When we have heard of some who have gained wealth by one speculation, and have lost it again by another speculation, I think it ought to be made the subject of enquiry with them how far their dealings were lawful, if indeed it were lawful for them to have entered upon such traffic in any way or shape; and whether God may not have had a controversy with them in their counting-house. Is this an obligation with money? Surely it often is so with the rearing of your family. If your affliction should come through your children turning out ill in life, or through what is a far lighter affliction- though perhaps you may not think it so- through your children dying in infancy, you may say to yourselves, "How have I behaved towards those children?" Is my child wilful and disobedient? Then how about the training and the management that I have observed? Is my child perverse, vicious, dissolute, worldly? How about my example as it was seen at the family hearth?

May not my boy’s sins be only a reproduction of my own? The fledglings that I have hatched, roost in my family, disturb my peace, and bring me sorrow. May not my daughter’s stubbornness of heart be only my own obduracy that breaks out in the girl? Might I not hear the voice of God saying to me, "See how you treated me, and is it not fit you should eat the fruit of your own ways? You are a father, and how do you like to be thus treated- to be slighted in your discipline, and your affections disregarded?"

So I might continue, passing from our households to our respective positions in society. We sometimes find ourselves unable to maintain our station. With chagrin and mortification we have to take a lower place, and may we not then ask, Did we acquit ourselves before God in all that we might have done in our former standing? Did the rank we held elevate us, and puff us up with vanity? At any rate, we may bring ourselves to great searchings of heart. When sorrow takes any particular shape, it suggests its own particular questions. The problem must be studied to get at the solution. With regard to sickness, I am not certain whether the chastening hand of God for sin ought not to be more immediately recognized than is now for the most part common among us.

In one sense, God never punishes his people for sin. There is nothing vindictive in the rod he uses, and nothing expiatory in the sufferings they endure; for God’s redeemed people were punished in Christ, and it cannot be therefore that the penalty of the law is exacted of them a second time. Yet there is a sense in which the Christian under fatherly discipline, is continually exercised with chastisement. Do you remember the apostle’s words about the Corinthian church? They had fallen into a very lax method of receiving the Lord’s Supper: they brought every one his own bread and wine, some of them were full, and others were hungry; beside which, other breaches of church order were rife among them. So the apostle says, "For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep." Hence I gather that sickness at any rate in the early church was often sent by God upon the members for ecclesiastical offenses. I am not sure whether in like manner sacred corrections, though in a way not so easily discoverable, may not still be in exercise among the members of the Christian church.

I see that in ordinary providence, God visits men; and as there is a special providence for his people, surely there is nothing harsh or unwarrantable in attributing a strong flood of adversity, as well as a refreshing stream of prosperity, to the hand of the Lord! When a Christian, therefore, finds himself chastened in his body, he should go to God with this question, "Show me why you contend with me? Why do you lay your rod upon me, my Father? You do not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. It is not from the heart, as though you had ceased to love; it must be from your unerring judgment whereby in measure you do rebuke; tell me, therefore, my Father, what is the cause? If you see a needs-be, tell me what that needs-be is. "The dearest idol I have known, Whatever that idol be, Help me to tear it from your throne, And worship only thee."

Our sins, then, may sometimes be discovered by the very image of our sorrows. What a great blessing it is to us when our sorrows remind us of our sins by driving us out of an atmosphere of worldliness! There is our nest, and a very pretty, round, snug nest it is. We have been very busy picking up all the softest feathers that we could find, and all the prettiest bits of moss that earth could yield, and we have been engaged night and day making that nest soft and warm. There we intended to remain. We meant for ourselves a long indulgence, sheltered from in element winds, never to put our feet among the cold dewdrops, nor to weary our pinions by mounting up into the clouds. But suddenly a thorn came into our breast; we tried to remove it, but the more we struggled the more it chafed, and the more deeply the thorn fixed itself into us. Then we just began to spread our wings, and as we mounted it would seem as though the atmosphere had changed, and our souls had changed too with the mounting, and we began to sing the old forgotten song-which in the nest we never should have sung- the song of those who mount from earth and have communion with the skies.

Yes when God is pleased to take away our health, our comfort, our children, our friends, it very frequently happens that then we think of him. We turn from the creature with disgust; we leave the broken cisterns because they hold no water, and begin to look out for the overflowing fountain. And so our sorrows, driving us to God, make us, in the light of his countenance, to behold and to grieve over our sins. This is a great blessing to us.

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