The Solemn Appeal And Earnest Cry Of A Waiting Soul 2
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II. But he adds another word. "My hope is in You." There is a connection between these two clauses. He had appealed to God - "What do I wait for?.... Am I a timeserver, a hypocrite, a double-minded man, a perverse rebel? You know. Lord, there is in me another mind, another spirit, another nature, which cleaves to, and loves You." "What do I wait for?" I wait on You because my hope is in You.
What is it to be able to say, "my hope is in you?" To feel that in the Lord rests all the hope of our troubled minds; that in Him is deposited all our treasure "for where a man's treasure is, there will his heart be also"; that He is our rock, whereon we venture for eternity, in the face of sin, death, and hell. "My hope is in you." Not in myself - fickle and feeble; not in my own righteousness - defiled and polluted; not in my own strength, which is utter weakness; not in my own resolutions, which are to be broken; not in the creature, wayward and wavering. No - it is in You, Lord.
Before we can be brought to this point - to hope in God - we must know something of His Person and character. Observe, it does not say, "I hope on God," but "in God." It is one thing to hope on God - another thing to hope in God. When we hope on God, we hope on His attributes, on His perfections, on His invitations, on His promises. But this is not the Person of Jehovah. This is not a looking into His very heart and bosom. This is not the repose of the soul in the Triune God, as personally revealed to it. The on is external - the in is internal. The on is when the soul is at a distance - the in, when it comes to the very center of the bosom of Jehovah.
So that it is not the same thing to have our hope on God, as in God. We cannot have our hope in God until we have entered the sanctuary within the veil, until we have looked into the sympathizing bosom of Jesus, until all the emotions and desires of our heart have pierced beyond transitory things, and mounted beyond the dark cloud that hovers over earth up to the very bosom of the Three-One God, to anchor there, as our hope for eternity. Now, when we can say, "My hope is in you," in Jehovah-Jesus, in His sympathizing bosom, in His atoning blood, in His finished work, in His justifying righteousness; for I have a vital union to Him, as the head of the church, "God over all, blessed forever;" when we can say, "My hope is thus in Him, centering in His very bosom;" then comes, "What do I wait for?"
While our hope is on Him, not "in" Him, we may be waiting for many things. We have not been fully separated from the world; we have not come to the slaughtering stroke that cuts to pieces all our own righteousness; we have not had the grafting knife fully passed through the scion to separate it from the old stock. But when we can say, "My hope is in You; all my soul's hopes, all my soul's affections, all my soul's desires, are in the precious Lamb of God;" - then we can say, "What do I wait for?"... "Is not my all there? Does not my hope center there? Is He not the winner of my affections, the Lord of my heart, the God of my soul, and the guide of my feet? Is He not my Creator, Preserver, Savior and Mediator?.... What do I wait for?" Shall I go to the creature, when there is the Creator? look to man - when there is God? go to a worm of earth, when there is Jehovah, the Rock of Ages? "What do I wait for?.... Why, I wait for You because my hope is in You, and because I expect to receive everything from You."
III. Is it not strange that all this should be consistent with a deep personal knowledge of sin? - "Deliver me from all my transgressions." What a strange expression! Here is a man whose affections and desires are of a spiritual nature, and all whose hopes and expectations spring from, and center in the Three-one God. Why, would you not expect this man to have no sin at all? no inward transgressions, no external backslidings, no slips nor falls? Would you not expect him to be perfectly holy and pure? Yet the same Spirit that uttered, "what do I wait for? my hope is in you," breathed forth this petition and cry of a brokenhearted sinner, "Deliver me from all my transgressions." It is not, then, our holiness, nor our purity, nor our piety which bring us near to the Lord; but our felt sinnership, our guilt, our filth, our condemnation, and our shame. And when the blood of Jesus is sweetly applied, it brings the soul through all these things, and above all these things, into His bosom. And yet to be a transgressor still! We will look at the words a little more closely, if God enable.
"Deliver me from all my transgressions." What! "all my transgressions?" Yes, "all my transgressions." You see David was but a sinner still. What is transgression? It is stepping beyond the narrow line - disobeying the word of God, the will of God, the mind of God, the dictates of the Spirit in a tender conscience, and the workings of godly fear in the soul. But how is this? How can a man be in this posture, "Now Lord, what do I wait for? my hope is in you;" and yet be feeling the workings of base transgression in his heart? It is a mystery, and always will be a mystery, except to the exercised family of God. This is the source of the mystery - that they carry within their bosom a defiled and polluted nature; a nature utterly incurable - a nature so thoroughly saturated with evil, as absolutely to be irremediable in this life.
Now, David felt the workings of these transgressions. He knew what it was to have a lustful eye, a backsliding heart, and filthy imagination, a roving, roaming, and carnal mind - perpetually transgressing God's holy will and word. He knew what it was to be entangled in the snares that Satan spread for his feet, to be caught in the besetments of a wicked heart, and be ever stumbling through the corruptions of his nature. He knew what it was to be a sorrowful captive, a poor broken-hearted soul, exercised with a daily, and sometimes an hourly conflict. And how did he come to know this? It was waiting upon the Lord, whereby he received light to see it - it was waiting upon the Lord, whereby he received life to feel it. It was hoping in the Lord, having his anchor there, that made him feel more the tossings to and fro of the sea of iniquity within.
But sin was his burden. It was not his joy- it was not his glory. He could not feel comfortable, nor happy as a transgressor. It was the trouble of his heart, and the very grief of his soul that he was one. And I believe a man is dead in sin who feels otherwise.
I have no idea of a ‘hardened transgressor’ among the children of God, or of a seared conscience in the living family. I know by painful experience, that stripes follow sin; and if we transgress God's holy word, we shall be visited for it. Then this cry, "Deliver me from all my transgressions" and this delivers us from hypocrisy follows. We can no longer walk with the clean-handed and the clean-hearted. We can no longer boast of our own uprightness and consistency. We fall down as poor, guilty sinners, we smite upon our thigh, and we remember the sins of our youth. We dare scarcely at times look up to heaven, but say, "God be merciful to me a sinner!"
In crying to the Lord to deliver him from all his transgressions, there were three things specially connected with sin, from which David desired to be delivered.
1. The GUILT of sin. Now, wherever there is transgression in a child of God, there must be guilt. I do not care what he has passed through - what his experience is - however the atoning blood and pardoning love of the Savior may have been felt - guilt will be sure to follow sin, as the shadow follows the sun. Now, when a soul feels it has transgressed against a holy and pure God, it will desire and cry earnestly to be delivered from the guilt of its transgression. Nothing can really do this for the soul, but that balmy blood, the blood of the Lamb of God. Which "cleanses from all sin." This can, and does deliver the people of God from the guilt of sin.
2. The FILTH, SHAME, and CONFUSION that sin produces in the conscience. The conscience becomes defiled through sin, and filth and shame cover the heart. Now, in crying to be delivered from all our transgressions, we desire to be delivered from the filth and shame, from their pollutions and defilement. Do you not feel how sin pollutes, how sin indulged hardens and defiles the conscience, the heart, and the imagination? So that, when you would go into the sanctuary of God, and have heavenly and spiritual feelings, some lust that you have indulged, some idol that you have set up in the chambers of imagery, comes with a polluting flood into your holiest moments, defiles your conscience, and makes you feel "a beast before God" - "yes, more brutish than any man" - "a worm and no man." Now, when you feel this, you want to be delivered from the filth of sin, as well as the guilt of it. How is this done? By having a divine plunge into the fountain which was once opened for sin and uncleanness; so as to feel the filth and shame of sin forever done away.
3. The DOMINION of sin. How hard sin strives for the mastery in a man! Few people, comparatively speaking, know the power of sin. They give way to it, and then they do not feel it; or their corruptions are not stirred up, and their souls are not exercised. With some, one lust governs, and keeps out the rest. If pride fills the throne of the affections, it shuts out covetousness; and if covetousness rules, it keeps out pride. So that, being under the power of one sin, the door is shut against the rest; and they think they are free from sin, because they have not the conflict with it that others of God's people are exercised with. But he who watches the movements of his heart, he who is tried by the conflict, he who is perpetually assaulted by "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life" - he knows what it is for sin to be perpetually seeking to gain the mastery over him. And O, what struggles, sighs, and groans does the poor child of God pour out into the bosom of his heavenly Father, that he may not fall a victim to the power of sin.
Now all these things - the guilt of sin, the filth of sin, and the power of sin - did David cry to the Lord to deliver him from. And I believe it will find a responsive echo in every God-taught breast. We cannot know the guilt of sin without crying to be cleansed from it; we cannot experience the filth of sin without crying to be washed from it; and we cannot experience the power of sin without crying to be delivered from it.
IV. There was one thing more in David's breast; there was a feeling besides that lay deep in that holy man's bosom - "Make me not the reproach of the foolish." Who are these foolish? I believe them to be people in a profession of religion, utterly destitute of the feeling power of it in the heart - the five foolish virgins, who had lamps, but no oil. These foolish ones know nothing of the workings of sin and corruption in the heart of a child of God - they know nothing of the powerful temptations that Satan is continually seeking to ensnare them by; still less do they know anything of the agonizing struggles in a tender conscience that they may not be entangled in the snares of the wicked one. These foolish ones are very consistent, upright, virtuous, and amiable, viewed as moral characters. There is much in them exceedingly admirable to nature; and yet they are foolish; for they have not the grace of God in those who makes them wise unto salvation. They do not know the treachery of their heart, the temptations of Satan, nor the inward struggles of a gracious principle against the corruption of depraved nature. But being so consistent, so upright, so virtuous, so moral, so amiable, and so honorable, they know no pity for the slipping and halting.
Now what David feared very much was this - lest by his slips and falls, lest by the transgression of his lips, the transgression of his hands, or the transgression of his life, he should be made "the reproach of the foolish." These foolish ones, unexercised and unplagued, who know nothing of the inward workings of sin, and the strugglings of a living soul against it, he knew would point the finger of scorn against every poor, Satan-tempted, sin-plunged transgressor.
But why did he utter this cry? It was because he felt a conflict in his soul. So powerful were his temptations, so subtle were the snares that Satan was spreading for his feet - and so weak his flesh to stand against the temptations, that he felt if God Himself did not hold him up by His own almighty arm fall he would, fall he must, and thus become "a reproach to the foolish." Well; but should we not expect something better from David than this? Why, was he not a holy man, a heavenly-minded man, led up from time to time into sweet communion with his God? What! this good, gracious, holy, and heavenly-minded saint talk in this way? It is a mystery, and ever will be a mystery, that the same man who could solemnly appeal to God that he waited only for His smiles and the testimonies of His approbation - that all his hopes centered in Him, and all his spiritual affections flowed unto and rested in Him - that this same man was so tempted in his soul, so tried in his mind, so plagued by the unceasing conflict between nature and grace, that he should cry as a poor broken-hearted sinner at the footstool of mercy, "Deliver me from all my transgressions."
Is it not a sweet encouragement to a poor, sin-burdened wretch, that this holy man was thus exercised? Suppose you had the bright part only of David's character - his holiness, his spirituality, his heavenly-mindedness, and his love to God; and had not the darker shades - his corruptions, temptations, conflicts, and perplexities. Suppose the Holy Spirit had revealed only one portion of David's experience, his blessings and manifestations, and neglected to record the cries and groans of his troubled soul; would God's poor, tried, and tempted family have gone to the Psalms as to a full breast of consolation? But the Lord the Spirit has mercifully unfolded both parts of David's experience; the bright lights, and the dark shades - the workings of grace, and the workings of nature - the deep sinkings, and the sweet deliverances; turning him out to our view, just as he was - not exalting the man, but magnifying the grace of God in him. We can read in the Psalms his experience, and feel the same workings in our own bosom. For this purpose they were revealed, that they might be a standing consolation, a breast of ever-flowing milk, to the poor and needy, hungering and thirsting after righteousness; that the Lord's exercised family might thus have a sweet testimony raised up in their hearts, that they are treading in the footsteps of the flock, and that their spot is the spot of God's children.
Let us endeavor to gather up these fragments. I have endeavored to trace out their connection - to show you how David came into this solemn frame, and then how he breathed out his soul before the Lord. Can you and I find any echo here? Do look at it - it will bear close inspection. If you are a child of God, you will not mind a cross-examination. You will lay your whole soul at times bare before a heart-searching God, and say, "Search me, and try me, and see if there be any wicked way in me." Can we then walk step by step with this holy man of God? - "Now, Lord, what do I wait for?" Do we know what it is to wait upon the Lord, to plead and wrestle with Him at His footstool, that He would appear for us? Can we lay down our feelings side by side with the feelings of David? Then the same Spirit that prompted the one prompts the other. Can we go a step furthers - "My hope is in you." It is a great word to use - we may say it unadvisedly - we may say it delusively - we may say it hypocritically. Can we say it honestly? That is the question. What manifestations, what testimonies, what discoveries have we had? What goings out, and what comings in? What cries, and what answers? What tears and what wipings away of tears from our eyes? What afflictions, and what consolations? We must know some of these things in order to be able to say, "My hope is in you."
Let us go a step further. Are we unplagued, unexercised professors, that have never loathed ourselves for the guilt of sin, and never felt its filth and power? Or if we be these unburdened, untried professors, we cannot say with a feeling heart and conscience, "Deliver me from all my transgressions;" - "more in number than the hairs of my head" - transgressions in heart, lip, and life; transgressions morning, noon, and night; proud transgressions; covetous transgressions; hypocritical transgressions; transgressions of every kind, every color, every shade, and every hue. But when we come as penitents to the footstool of mercy, we can say, "Deliver me from all my transgressions." Have we ever feared, cried, and groaned within us, lest we should be made a reproach of the foolish? lest our sins should break forth? lest our lusts should desolate our soul? lest our temptations should so overpower us as to cast us altogether down? Have we ever feared and quaked within us lest the foolish should point the finger of scorn at our falls and backslidings? Why if we can come in here. surely, surely we may use the words. "Make me not the reproach of the foolish."
Thus our personal experience will coincide with that of the Psalmist. We shall have testimony that the same Spirit is teaching us who taught him. We shall travel on side by side, and view our experience in his experience; for "as in water, face answers to face, so the heart of man to man." Thus we shall bless and praise God that ever He led David into these paths and gives us some testimony that the same Spirit that guided him is guiding us, and will bring us eventually to the same place where David now is; when God will wipe away tears from off all faces, and give us to see, face to face, the glory of the Lamb.
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