Man's Misery and God's Mercy 2
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B. But now let us see what the EFFECT of this provoking God by their counsel was. They "were brought low for their iniquity."
God takes great notice of what goes on in men's hearts, and as he is provoked by their counsel, so in due time he brings them low; and that is "for their iniquity," for he is a God of knowledge, and by him not only actions but thoughts are weighed. "Even the thought of foolishness is sin." God has various ways of bringing down high looks. "The day of the Lord is to be upon every high tower, and the lofty cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan;" for "the lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day." (Isa. 2:11.)
But the Lord has various ways of executing this determination of his heart.
1. Sometimes he brings his people low in circumstances. You have been scheming and contriving how to get on in the world; perhaps have succeeded in some measure, and your heart is lifted up. Now comes a stroke from God in providence, and you are brought low. Your work fails or your wages decrease; your business seems by degrees to dwindle and diminish; customers do not come as before into your shop; you lose good ones and get bad ones; a competitor business is set up near you, and you have the mortification of seeing your trade leaving you for your rival. Or you make bad debts; bills come in that you can scarcely meet, and difficulties arise from quarters you could scarcely have expected. Or your farm becomes unprofitable; you have great losses among your sheep or cattle; or blight upon your crops; or something in a way of marked adversity which seems pointedly to show the hand of God against you. Or if you are not in business, through a bank failure, or railway reverses, or lending money which the borrower has speculated with and cannot repay, you scarcely know whether you will be able to act the honorable man, or be brought through with the respect and credit you have always maintained through life. These heavy strokes make you examine why you are thus dealt with, and you soon begin to see that you are brought low for your iniquity; that pride, or covetousness, or worldly mindedness has mastered you, that you have been taking counsel with sin and self instead of with the Lord, and that this wrong conduct has brought this stroke upon you.
2. Some God brings low in body, lays upon them a complaint which may make life miserable without much shortening it, such as a nervous affection, or a low and melancholy state of mind, springing out of and connected with some bodily affliction, so that life itself may still endure, yet day after day brings with it gloom and misery.
3. Sometimes the Lord sends a blight upon the family. How often godly parents, sometimes even ministers of truth, have disobedient, ungodly children, whose conduct not only by contrast, but really and actually exceeds the wicked life and actions of those who have never known the restraints of a religious home, have never heard a godly father's prayers, or a gracious mother's admonitions. One would think that this was enough to bring the parents low both before God and man, and to ask themselves, "Is there not a cause? If thus afflicted in my family, have not I been guilty of some neglect, and in some measure brought this trouble upon myself by my undue severity or my undue indulgence?"
4. Or you may have suffered from painful family bereavements– may have lost a dear wife or beloved husband, an excellent son or an affectionate daughter, and your pleasant plants have been laid waste.
5. Others again the Lord brings low more especially as regards their souls. He permits them to be much exercised with doubts and fears, allows Satan to fall upon them with his suggestions, allows them to be tempted day by day, and night by night; and by these severe and cutting temptations they are brought down so low as sometimes or even often to question whether they have a spark of grace in their hearts, or a grain of godly fear in their souls. In these and similar ways the people of God are often brought very low.
But now observe the effect of these dealings of God with them. Their eyes become opened to see the hand of God in these dispensations of his providence or his grace. They are made to feel that they are brought low for their iniquities; that there was some secret sin indulged, some ungodly counsel followed, some base requital of the kindness and mercy of God; and they can see, if brought low, they have brought it upon themselves. "Have you not procured this to yourself?" They can see that they were cumbered with much serving; had got into a worldly spirit; had been drawn aside from the strait and narrow path; had become languid and careless in the ways of the Lord; had lost much of their former love, zeal, and tenderness of conscience, and had fallen into a dead and barren state. Now they plainly see why they are brought low and find the word to be true, "He who sows to the flesh, shall from the flesh reap corruption."
But shall they be left there? No! they have a merciful God to deal with. They have not a hard taskmaster over them like Pharaoh; they have not a cruel enemy like Satan– but have a merciful God, whose compassions fail not. We therefore read, which brings us to our next point–
III. The tender regard with which God beheld them when in their affliction they cried unto him– "Nevertheless"– O what a "Nevertheless!"– "He regarded their affliction when he heard their cry."
Here is the mark of the life of God in the soul; for when the Lord's people are brought low for their iniquity, there is usually a sigh and a cry after God put into their heart; and as this sigh and cry is sincere, and they are not like those of whom we read, "They have not cried unto me with their heart when they howled upon their beds;" as it is the special fruit of God's grace, and is the Spirit's interceding breath in them, he bows down his gracious ear and regards the voice of their supplication. And though they cannot pray fluently, for their fluent prayers in times past are now turned into sighs and groans; though they cannot approach the Lord with any measure of confidence and sweet assurance, as having so basely sinned against him, yet there is this wrought by his Spirit and grace within them, that they cry out of the depths of a broken heart and contrite spirit.
No, they are sometimes obliged to go back to their first prayer, and cry, "God be merciful to me a sinner." They are made to confess their sins, and to mourn over them; they are made to lament and grieve that ever they have taken counsel with the flesh, and requited the Lord so basely for his former deliverances. No spot is too low for them, no posture too humble, no confessions too abject and unreserved. They confess themselves to be the chief of sinners, the very vilest and worst of all transgressors, the basest and blackest of all backsliders, the most daring of all rebels, and the filthiest and guiltiest of all trespassers on the patience and mercy of God.
Now, when they thus cry, their prayers enter the ears of the Lord Almighty. He regards their affliction. One of the most painful things you often feel is this, that the Lord regards not your afflictions. You that are afflicted– afflicted in circumstances, afflicted in body, afflicted in family, afflicted in mind– how often you feel or fear that God does not regard your affliction. You say, "If God regarded my affliction, would he not remove it or support me more under it? If he regarded my affliction, why does he not stretch forth his hand and alleviate it, if not utterly take it away? But instead of that, he adds grief to my sorrow, and rather makes the load heavier than lighter. Why does he thus add cross to cross and blow to blow? Or if he sees fit still thus to afflict me, why have I not more faith, more patience, more submission, more power to bear what the Lord lays upon me, and why do I not reap more profit from it? Where is my humility? Where my submission to the will of God? Where my thankfulness even for the smallest of his mercies? Where my sense of his vast goodness to me, in spite of, in the midst of my many troubles? It all seems swallowed up in my affliction. I am so troubled that I cannot speak; my afflictions are so heavy they seem to crush me down."
But, notwithstanding all these murmurs and anxious inquiries, the Lord regards your affliction. He did not bring this stroke upon you without intending it for your good. Why has he brought you down in circumstances, why has he afflicted you in body, tried you in mind, and brought you low in spirit, but because he meant to bring good to you out of it? And has not good already come out of it? Has it not broken to pieces the counsel you took with self, and made you fear lest you should be entangled once more in besetting sins? Has it not made you dread lest you be again caught in Satan's snares; made you see more of the holiness of God, his purity and majesty, and the dreadful evil of sin; made your conscience more tender, caused the fear of God more to grow and thrive, humbled you, and laid you low in the dust before him? Is there no good here?
A Christian, as he grows in grace, like ripe corn, will bend down to the ground. He will not lift up his stalk as when the ear is first shooting forth; but like the ripening ear, will more and more bend down his head. He cannot get too low; and the more grace he has the lower he will get, for the richer the ear and the riper the corn, the more it droops its head. Barren professors lift themselves up on high. No stalks grow so high as barren stalks; no ears look so proudly as those that have all chaff in them and no corn. Winds and rain lay heavy crops; you never see laid wheat when the crop is light. So if you feel or fear that God does not regard your affliction, yet if your affliction has humbled you, brought you down, made you prize mercy more, shown you more of the evil of sin, made your conscience more tender, brought you more out of the world, and more into union with God's dear family, it has done you good. There was a purpose in it, and that purpose has been thus far already accomplished.
"Nevertheless he regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry." It is, I was going to say, insulting to the Majesty of heaven, to say that God does not regard your affliction. It is denying his all seeing eye, or his almighty hand, or his tender, merciful heart. He does regard your affliction when he hears your cry.
But how does he show this. Has he no means of displaying his mighty hand and stretched out arm? Is he ever silent? No!
IV. Observe then fourthly God's remembrance of his covenant and repentance toward his children. "And he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies."
God made a covenant with Israel. He swore unto Abraham that in him and in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. And God having bound himself by oath and covenant, it was incumbent upon his veracity and faithfulness never to depart one jot or tittle from it.
A. But there is something exceedingly striking in the words, "He remembered for them his covenant." It is almost as though God had partially forgotten it, or rather as though he was almost tempted to break it. I have thought sometimes that if God had not bound himself by covenant, the sins and iniquities of his people are so great that he would have been provoked beyond all endurance, to cast them off forever and send them headlong to perdition. Therefore, if I may use the expression, he tied his own hands by the bond of his own veracity. He bound himself by a covenant that he might not be provoked beyond endurance; so that when his arm was about to be let loose to sweep them from the earth, his covenant held him back.
We see this represented in the Psalm before us. "Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them." But how did Moses stand before him in the breach? By reminding him of his covenant, as well as telling him what the Egyptians would say if he destroyed his people in the wilderness. "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it forever." (Exodus 32:13.) And what was the effect of this plea? "And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people." (Exodus 32:14.) It was in this way that Moses, as the typical mediator, stood between God and Israel and held back his outstretched hand. God remembered for them his covenant.
But now let us view this point in a New Testament sense as bearing upon the covenant of grace. God made a covenant with his dear Son on behalf of his chosen people. In this covenant he engaged to pardon all their sins; to clothe them with a robe of righteousness in which they would stand accepted and justified; to bless them with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; to carry them through all the storms of life, and set them before his face in glory. The Son undertook to save all those given to him, to wash them in the fountain of his own most precious blood, to live, die, and rise again for them, and so fully and faithfully to execute the trust committed to him, that, as their Surety and Mediator, he might stand up at the last day, and say, "Of those who you gave me, I have lost none."
Now if God had been provoked by the sins of any one of his people to let loose his hand and sweep him into destruction, he would have broken his covenant. He covenanted to accept and bless every member of the mystical body of Christ, so that if one were lost the whole covenant would have been broken. It is with this heavenly as it is with earthly covenants. Take, for instance, a lease or a contract. If you break any of its conditions, the whole is made void. So if any one of God's dear family should perish by the way, the covenant of grace would have been broken. Therefore, "He remembers for them his covenant."
Though he hates their sins and brings them low for their iniquities; though grievously provoked by their disobedience, yet he remembers for them– that is, upon their behalf– his covenant. It is not their good deeds he regards, nor their bad. He looks higher than either. He looks at his dear Son, with whom he has made an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure. He looks at the seal whereby it was sealed with blood, for we read of "the blood of the everlasting covenant," and as in Egypt, he remembers the blood, and passes by their sins, as he passed over the houses of blood-besprinkled Israel.
O the blessedness of having a manifest saving interest in the blood of the covenant, and thus to have a testimony that God has made a covenant with his dear Son upon our behalf; that our names are written in the book of life; and that Christ is our Mediator at the right hand of the Father. What are all earthly blessings compared with this? What are health and strength and riches and all the goods of life; what is everything that the carnal heart can desire or the covetous mind grasp; what is all compared with a saving interest in the everlasting covenant, and in the love and blood and righteousness of the Lord the Lamb? What is earth, with all its attractions, compared with a saving interest in the precious, precious blood of a dying Jesus?
You will find it so when you come to lie upon a bed of languishing and pain; when the cold drops of sweat stand upon your forehead, and the last enemy is about to grasp you by the throat. What will your anxious strivings to have something and be something more than you have or are– aye, I may add, your successes– what will they do for you then? Only be so many ghastly spectres of the past to terrify and alarm your conscience, to see what shadows you have been seeking to grasp to the neglect of solid substance. But in that solemn hour to have a testimony from God of pardon and peace, will make smooth a dying bed; will calm all anxious fears; and will take you safely through the dark valley of the shadow of death.
B. But now for a few words on the last clause of the text– "He repented according to the multitude of his mercies." It was, as I have said just now, as if God were about to make an end of them. But see how this bears upon our daily experience. Sometimes when you have been plotting and contriving, and perhaps spent half the day in scheming how you shall accomplish this or that worldly design, at night you begin to reflect on the business of the day; and the plots and schemes which have passed through your busy mind fall with some weight and power on your conscience. And now you wonder how God could bear with you; how he could allow a wretch like you to live and indulge such schemes and plans for your own honor, gain, or ambition, and consult so little the honor and glory of God.
Now you are led to see that the Lord would, if he gave full scope to his anger, make an end of you; but instead of that he repents– that is to say, he will not do that which he would otherwise do. Not that we are to ascribe repentance to God as we should to man. But as a term borrowed from the language of men, he so far repents as not to put into execution the thoughts of his holy, indignant heart. Thus instead of sweeping us into destruction, he draws us to his bosom; instead of judgment he manifests mercy; instead of wrath he reveals his grace; and thus he repents according to the multitude of his mercies.
What a sweet expression it is, and how it seems to convey to our mind that God's mercies do not fall drop by drop, but are as innumerable as the sand upon the sea-shore, as the stars that stud the midnight sky, as the drops of rain that fill the clouds before they discharge their copious showers upon the earth. It is the multitude of his mercies that makes him so merciful a God. He does not give but a drop or two of mercy– that would soon be exhaled and gone, like the rain which fell this morning under the hot sun. But his mercies flow like a river, yes, like that "river of God" which we read "is full of water." There is in him a multitude of mercies for a multitude of sins and a multitude of sinners. And thus he gives according to the multitude of his mercies.
This felt and received in the love of it breaks, humbles, softens, and melts a sensible sinner's heart; and he says, "What, sin against such mercies? What, when the Lord has remembered me in my low estate, again visited me with the light of his countenance, and manifested once more a sense of his mercy– what, shall I go on to provoke him again, take counsel of my own heart again, walk inconsistently again, be entangled in Satan's snares again? O, forbid it God, forbid it gospel, forbid it tender conscience, forbid it every constraint of dying love!"
Thus God takes occasion, by the very necessities of his people, to melt them into obedience, to soften them into contrition, to dissolve them into repentance, and thus to bring a crop of praise and gratitude out of the furrows which he waters so abundantly with his mercy. He thus reaps to himself a revenue of eternal praise in heaven, while he secures that obedience whereby he is glorified even now upon earth.
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