3390. Hoping in God’s Mercy

A Sermon Published On Thursday, January 22, 1914.

Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his mercy. {Ps 33:18}

1. By the term, “the fear of God,” we understand in Holy Scripture the totality of true religion. We do not mean by the fear of God, the slavish fear which trembles in God’s presence, as the poor slave trembles under his master’s lash, but that childlike fear which fears to offend, which fears to be led into error — a reverential fear such as the angels have when they veil their faces with their wings and cast their crowns before the glorious throne — to have such a fear of God before our eyes as to restrain our wandering passions, to keep our hands from doing evil, and our tongues from speaking the thing which is not right; to have such a fear of God that we feel as though we were in God’s presence, and act, and speak, and think as though we fully recognised the eye that reads the secrets of the heart. When we read, therefore, that the eye of the Lord is on “those who fear him,” we are to understand that he has gracious regard towards those who delight in him, who worship him, and are his children.

2. But the part of the text to which I call your special attention now is that expression, “Those who hope in his mercy.” This is intended to be of the same reach and scope as the first. Those who fear God are the same people as those who hope in his mercy, and this is very consoling; for to hope in God’s mercy seems to be only a very small evidence of grace, and yet it seems to be a very sure sign, for those who hope in God’s mercy are the same people who are said to fear him. They are the same people as are described as being his saved ones, his children, the truly godly ones.

3. I hope there are many here who can say, “Well, I hope in his mercy: if I cannot get further, yet I can get as far as that: my hope is fixed in the mercy of God in Jesus Christ.” Then, dear friend, may the words we shall speak be comforting to you, and may you rejoice that the Lord considers you, and has an eye of favour towards you, now, and will have, for ever.

4. I am always very anxious about those who have the beginnings of grace in them. I think I would go a long way out of my road to carry one of the lambs in my bosom, and to try to cherish one who was ready to die with doubt. But, on the other hand, I am always fearful of giving any encouragement to those who are on a wrong foundation. Like the ancient mariner {a} who was afraid of the whirlpool on the one hand and the rock on the other, and found it difficult to steer along the mid-channel, so I may find it tonight. I would not grieve a trembling soul. I would not bolster up a self-deceived one. Far be it from these lips ever to become a rod for the backs of God’s weak ones, and equally far be it from this tongue to speak so as to put pillows under men’s armholes and under their heads, by which they may go to sleep, and sleep themselves into perdition.

5. In trying, therefore to avoid two evils, I shall begin by speaking about a hope in God’s mercy, which is false, and then I shall say a little about a sound hope in God’s mercy.

6. I. To begin, then, at the beginning: — THERE IS A FALSE HOPE IN GOD’S MERCY AGAINST WHICH WE EARNESTLY WARN YOU.

7. “I do not believe,” says a man, “that God will ever cast me into hell, for God Almighty is very merciful.” “What will become of you when you die?” said one man to another. “I do not know,” was the answer, “and I do not think much about it, because I know that God is a very good God, and I do not think that he will cast the souls of men into hell, as bigots say, and cause them to be banished from his presence for ever.” Now, friend, if this is your hope, I beseech you to get rid of it, for it is a deadly viper, and though you nurse and cherish it in your bosom, it will sting you to your destruction, for do you not know that the God of the Bible is a God of justice, as well as a God of mercy? Though he is infinitely good, yet he himself has said it, “I will by no means spare the guilty.”

8. What do you think of this text, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God”? Does that seem as if God would not punish sin? “The soul that sins, it shall die.” What do you think of that? “These shall go away into everlasting punishment.” Does that seem like effeminate and sentimental kindness that will wink at sin? If you are to be saved by the general mercy of God, then let me tell you that this blessed Book of God is all a mistake and deception, for there are no such teachings here as those of which you dream. Besides, you know better than this — I appeal to your own conscience, you know better than this.

9. We tell people that if they allow filth to accumulate and sewage to become stagnant, if they deprive themselves of fresh air, and neglect ventilation and cleanliness, when the fever comes it will be sure to make them its prey, and they might say, “Oh! we do not believe that; God is merciful, and we do not believe that he will ever let the fever take people off by scores; we shall not think of clearing away the dung heaps, or cleaning out the sewers, or opening the windows. We tell you it is all bigoted trash; God will not let the people die of fever.” But they do die of fever, and the very people who neglect the laws of health are taken away, God’s mercy notwithstanding. And so it will be with you. Sin is like a dung heap; your iniquities are like those fever-breeding drains; and your soul will die of the disease which springs from the sin which you so much love, and all your talk about God’s mercy you will find to be a dream. If a man shall go to sea tomorrow in a leaky ship, which takes in the water while she is going down the Thames, they may keep the pumps always going, but yet the water gets ahead of the men. You say to the man, “Sir, if you go out into the sea — it is only a matter of time — your ship will go down; she is not seaworthy; she will never get down the Channel.” “Oh!” he says, “do not tell me that; God Almighty is merciful, and he will never let a poor fellow be drowned; I believe that my ship will float, and I intend to run the risk, for I believe in God’s mercy.” Down the vessel goes, and the wretch on board of her, and all her passengers are drowned, and what do we say? Do we say that God is not merciful? No! but we say that some men are insane, and so we say of you. If you trust in that general mercy of God, and will not obey the gospel, but put from you the way of salvation which God has ordained, you will perish, and your blood will be on your own head, since you have foolishly perverted the goodness of God to your own destruction.

10. In other people this belief in the mercy of God takes the form of saying, “Well, I have always done my best: I have been a respectable person ever since I can remember: I bring up my children as well as I can: I send them to the Sunday School: I always pay my debts: I do not swear, I am not a gin drinker: I do not know that I have any particular vice. On the contrary, I am always ready and happy to help the poor, and to say a good word for religion and so on. It is true that I am not all I ought to be; no doubt we are all sinners, and there is a great deal that is wrong and imperfect about us, though I do not know what it is in particular; but anyway, God is merciful, and what with what I have done, and what I have not done, and God’s mercy to make up for all shortcomings, I do not doubt that it will be all right with me at the last.” Now, this, again, is a deceit and a refuge of falsehoods, a leaning wall and a tottering fence, which will fall on those who take shelter behind it. You have read of Nebuchadnezzar’s image, which was part of iron and part of clay. Had it been all of iron, it might have stood, but being part of clay, eventually the whole image was broken in pieces. Such is your religion. You trust in part to the mercy of God — I will call that the iron; but you trust in part to your own so-called good works; that is the clay, and down your image will fall before long. Why, you are like the man in the proverb who tries to sit on two stools, and you know what becomes of him. Besides, how foolish you are to try to yoke yourselves to God to help him! Go and yoke a gnat with an archangel, or find a worm and put it side by side with leviathan, and hope that they will plough the stormy deep together. Then think of Christ helping you, and of you helping Christ. Absurd! If you are to be saved by works, then it must be all by works, but if by grace, it must be all by grace, for the two will no more mix than fire and water. They are two contrary principles; therefore, give up the delusion. A hope in God’s mercy which is interlaced and intertwined with a hope in your own works is certainly vain.

11. But we know others who say, “Well said, Mr. Preacher, I know better than that: I shall never fall into that snare. I trust in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, and in him alone: I expect the mercy of God to come to me through Christ, and I depend on him.” Well, you talk very well: you talk very well. I must go home with you. But the man does not want me to go home with him. I do not know where he intends to turn in, perhaps, once or twice on the road before he gets to his house. When he gets home, we shall ask his wife what kind of a man he is. She will then be compelled to say, “Well, sir! he is a great saint on the Sabbath, but he is a great devil all the rest of the week, he can talk a horse’s head off about religion; but, sir, there is no genuine living in the matter, no real, righteous, godly action in him.”

12. Did you never read of Mr. Talkative in The Pilgrim’s Progress? How he could recite all the doctrines: how he could prate about them! He had them all at his finger-tips, and on the tip of his tongue; but they never operated on his life, never affected and sweetened his character. He was just as big a rogue as though Christ had never lived, and just as graceless a villain, as though he had never heard of the Saviour at all. Now, sirs! any kind of faith in Christ which does not change your life is the faith of demons, and will take you where demons are, but will never take you to heaven. Men are not saved by their works — we declare that plainly enough — but if faith does not produce good works, it is a dead faith, and it leaves you a dead soul to become corrupt and to be cast out from the sight of the Most High. A genuine hope in God’s mercy, according to the teaching of Scripture, purifies a man. “He who has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure.” If you have a hope in the mercy of God, which lets you do as the ungodly do with impunity, then, sir, you have a millstone around your neck that will sink you lower than the lowest hell. May God deliver you from such a delusion!

13. I fear there are still others who have a bad hope, a hope which will not save them, because they trust in the mercy of God that they shall be all right at last, though they have neglected all those things which make men right. For example, the Word of God says, “You must be born again.” These men have never been born again, but yet they trust in the mercy of God. Sir, what right have you to expect any mercy when God has no mercy, except what he shows to men by giving them new hearts and right spirits? You say you trust in the mercy of God, and yet have no repentance, and do you think God will forgive the man who not only does not love, but refuses and despises his Son, the only Saviour? I tell you there will have to be a new Bible written before this can be true, and there will have to be a new gospel — indeed! and a new God, too, for the God of the Bible never will, nor can, wink at sin. Unless he makes you sick of sin, he must be sick of you, and until you hate your iniquities with a perfect hatred, there cannot be mercy in God’s heart for you, for you go on in your iniquities.

14. You tell me you trust in God, and yet there has been no change of life in you! Oh! sirs! unless you are converted, and become as little children, you shall by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. The first thing mercy will do for you will be to turn your face in an opposite direction. If mercy shall ever come to you, it will make you a new creation, give you new loves, new hates; but if you do not have conversion, what have you to do with mercy? The mercy of God, wherever it comes, makes men pray. You never bend your knees, and yet you say you trust in God’s mercy. Oh! sir! you are deceiving your own soul! The mercy of God makes a man love Christ, and makes him seek to be like Christ. You have no love for Christ, and no desire to be like him. Then, sir, please give up that falsehood, which has been so far as a soft pillow for your head, and believe me that the mercy of God cannot come in the way in which you expect it.

15. I wish I might have torn away from some now present their false dependencies, but I am afraid they are too dear to them for my hand to do it. May God’s Holy Spirit deliver men from all false confidences in God’s mercy!

16. II. But now a much more pleasant part of my work comes before me, namely: — TO DESCRIBE A SOUND HOPE IN THE MERCY OF GOD.

17. I shall say of it first, that a soundly hopeful soul feels its need of mercy. It does not talk about sin, but it feels it. It does not talk about mercy, but it groans after it. Beware of superficial religion. I think if I might only say two things before I died, one out of the two would be — beware of surface godliness. Take care of the paint, the tinsel, the varnish, the oil. There must be in us a hungering and a thirsting after righteousness. There must be in us the broken heart and the contrite spirit. I like revivals much: far be it from me ever to say a word against them; but I have seen scores of men jump into religion just as men jump into a bath, and then jump out again just as quickly: because they have not felt their deep need of Christ.

18. You may depend on it, there is no sound bottom to a man’s religion unless he begins with a broken heart, and that religion that does not begin with a deep sense of sin, and a thorough heart-breaking conviction, is a repentance that will have to be repented of, before long. May God save us from it! If you are to have a hope in mercy, you must know that it is mercy: you must know that you need it as mercy: you must be completely divorced from every confidence, except in mercy. You must come to this, that it must be grace first, last, and midst — grace everywhere — or else it will never serve or save such a poor helpless castaway as you are. A sound hope, then, is one in which a man knows that he needs mercy.

19. Another sign of a sound hope is, that he clearly perceives that mercy can only come to him through the Mediator — Christ Jesus. The Word of God tells us that there is only one door of grace, and that is Christ; only one foundation for a genuine hope, and that foundation is Christ. God’s mercy is infinite, but it always flows to men through the golden channel of Jesus Christ, his Son. Soul, it will be a good thing for you when you are rid of the idea of hunting after mercy here, there, and everywhere, and when you come to Christ, and Christ alone, for it. God swears by himself that there shall be no hope for man outside of Christ, but that there shall be hope for them there. “Other foundation can no man lay than what is laid.” Against all other confidences God thunders out that famous sentence, “He who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the Son of God.” When you are tied up to Christ, when every other door is shut, and barred, and fastened up with iron padlocks; when every cistern is broken; when every hope is shipwrecked, and the last broken board has been swallowed up in the whirlpool of despair — if your soul then clings to Christ, you have a sound hope, a hope that never can let you go.

20. Yet again, that hope which leads a man to desire to be conformed to God’s plan of mercy, is a sound hope. I mean this. There may be someone here who says, “I fear I am not regenerated; you condemned me just now, sir, but oh! I wish I were! I am afraid I am not converted, but oh! that God in his grace would convert me! You spoke of repentance: I fear I do not repent as I should, but oh! I wish that I could repent! Oh! that my heart would break! I feel because I do not feel, and I sigh because I cannot sigh!” Ah! poor soul, if you are willing to be what God would make you to be, then your hope is, though not yet a perfect one, yet good so far as it goes. If you will now come, and cast yourself on Christ, though you have no regeneration apparent to yourself, yet you shall be saved. If you will come as you are, with all your iniquities about you, without any repentance that you can discern; if you will come empty-handed, and cast yourself on what Jesus did on the cross, and is still doing in pleading before the throne, you shall never perish, but you shall be saved.

21. Oh! it is a precious gospel which we have to preach to needy sinners! A full Christ for empty sinners: a free Christ for sinners who are enslaved! But you must be willing to be this; you must be willing to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and if you can honestly say that you are now willing, and that you will now close in with Christ, then yours is the hope on which God looks with the kindest regard.

22. So I might continue to describe this hope, but I shall not detain you longer on that point. I do hope and trust that I have many here who are beginning to have a little hope in Christ. Oh! it is a mercy to see the first streaks of daylight, for the sun is rising. It is pleasing to see that first dewdrop, the first tear that comes from a troubled heart. I think the Lord is about to bring water out of the flinty rock. I feel so grateful when I meet some in distress. Sometimes after the service there is someone who wants to see us. They are so distracted and depressed, and they think they are giving us so much trouble; but oh! it is blessed trouble! There is not one of us who would not be glad to sit up all night, I am sure, to see many such troubled ones if we might only speak a word to them by which they might find joy and peace. Now, I want to take the text like a very sweet and dainty morsel, and just drop it into the mouths of you who are ready to faint for it; “The eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his mercy.” Though you have gotten no further than that, yet you have God’s eye on you, and you may be greatly comforted.

23. III. But we must go to another point with great brevity. We have in this house of worship here and now: — SOME WHO ARE AFRAID TO HOPE IN GOD.

24. They unconsciously desire to trust him in his own appointed way. They understand it, but they are afraid to do it. Now, my beloved fellow sinner, I beseech you to cast yourself on Christ, and to trust in him, and remember that God cannot lie. It is blasphemy to suppose that God can say the thing that is not true. Now, he has promised, over and over again, to save everyone who trusts in Christ, and if he does not save you, well, then ——— . You know what I mean. Oh! but God cannot lie; therefore, come and cast yourself on his faithful promise. Well do I remember when that text, “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved,” sustained my fainting soul for months on end, before I actually had joy and peace. Do you call on God in prayer? Do you trust in God, however little it may be? Then you shall be saved. Believe it. If any soul here feels himself to be as black as night, imagines himself to not be on the list of the hopeful, yet if he can only come and cast himself on what Christ did when he died on the cross for sinners, God must cease to be God before that soul can perish. Hope then, hope then, sinner, for God cannot lie.

25. Then hope, again, because God has saved, and is still saving others. We have not ceased to have conversions in this house. I am sometimes afraid that they are not so many as they once were, but they do come, and come frequently, too, to the praise of God’s grace. Now, if others are saved when they trust Christ, why should you not be? Who has clambered up into the secret chambers of heaven, and found that your name is not written in the roll of election? Who? Why, no one has done so. Then, since Christ tells you to come and trust him, come and trust him. Oh! that you might come tonight, and since he has accepted others he will accept you, for he says, “Whoever comes to me I will by no means cast out.”

26. I beseech you to have hope, again, because it is for God’s honour to save sinners. If it were dishonouring to Christ to receive the ungodly, you might stand in doubt, but since it is one of the jewels in his crown which gladdens his heart and brings him honour in the sight of glorified saints in heaven, depend on it he is not hard to be persuaded. Christ is quite as willing to save as ever the most longing sinner can be to be saved. It is his delight to be generous, to dispense from his bounty to those who need it. Have hope then. The generous character of Christ should encourage you.

27. Have hope, I say, once more, because of what Christ endured on the tree. See him dying in unutterable pains and pangs: hands and feet distilling founts of blood: his body racked with agonies that cannot be described: his soul meanwhile ground and crushed beneath the wheels of divine wrath against the sin he bore for our sakes: his whole being a mass of suffering in our room and place. Now, what is all this miraculous and sacrificial endurance for? Surely that bearing all this, we might be spared and never know its anguish. Oh! when my soul looks to Christ, it seems to see that nothing is impossible with such an atonement. No sin is too black for that blood to wash and cleanse away. It cannot be that beneath the canopy of heaven there can be a sinner so abominable that the blood of Christ cannot make a full atonement for all his sins. Come, then; come then; it is the voice of Jesus that calls you. Come, you chief of sinners. Come now, before yet another day shall dawn; come, and find in Jesus’ wounds a refuge from the stormy blast, that soon shall come to sweep the unconverted into condemnation.

28. IV. Yet we must still pass on, and only for a moment linger on: — THE COMFORT WHICH THE TEXT AFFORDS TO THOSE WHO HAVE A HOPE IN GOD’S MERCY.

29. It says that the eye of the Lord is on them. There is a blessing for you. No one else’s eye is on you. You have gone up to London, away from parents and friends, and no one looks after you now. You have come into this big Tabernacle, and I am sorry to find that there are still some of our members who do not look out for strangers — do not look out for souls as they ought to do, and you have been coming here, and no one has spoken to you. Now, let me read the text, and I need not say any more, “The eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his mercy.” God sees you, and you do not need anyone else. Be content that God knows all about it. You are up in the top gallery there, somewhere behind, where my eye cannot see you, and hardly my voice, but “the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his mercy.” And notice that that eye, as well as being an eye of observation, is also an eye of pity. God has compassion on you. He stands side by side with you, that bleeding Son of God, and in your groans he groans, and in your griefs he takes a share. He has compassion on you: indeed! and he will help you, and even now he loves you. The eye with which he looks at you is a Father’s eye, and when a father sees his child broken-hearted, he says to himself, “I can stand anything but this, but my child’s tears overcome me, overpower me. I cannot see him sick, and sad, and sobbing, without pitying him.”

30. Oh! some of you have sons and daughters of your own; and when you see that sick child of yours crying with pain, why, you would spend all you have, if you could only get some doctor who would make him well again. “Just as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him,” and that means all those who hope in his mercy, for they are put, as I tell you, in the text in the same category as those who fear him. Your Father’s eye is on you, and he pities those tears, and sighs, and cries of yours: he loves you, and he intends to bless you.

31. Now, I want to say to you believers here, something similar to what I said at this morning’s service. I do wish that all the members of this church were more on the alert after those who are beginning to hope in God’s mercy. Some are. I cannot find much fault with you. You are my joy and crown, and sometimes I boast, I hope in no wrong way, of the earnestness of many in this church. But do not make me ashamed of this, my boasting, as some might well do, who are cold and careless about the souls of men. Do you know there are lost ones all around you, lost ones about whom you seem to have no concern, though, according to Christ’s law, they are your brethren, your neighbours? What a sad, sad story it is that we have recently been seeing in the newspapers every day — a gentleman lost; rewards offered, the police searching; but he is lost; a hat found; some kind of clue given; but he is lost! How must the parents’ hearts break. How must friends day by day feel life a burden until they know what has become of him! He is lost! He is lost! Ah! but the loss of a man for this life, though it is a very heavy blow, is nothing compared with the loss of a soul. Ah! mother, you have a child who is lost. Ah! husband, you have a wife who is lost. Ah! wife, your husband is lost. And have you never advertised for him? Have you never sought him? God knows where he is. Have you never gone to God and said, “Seek him, and find him”? Have you never enlisted the Great Soul Finder’s aid, who came into the world “to seek and to save those who were lost”?

32. Are you quite careless about it, whether your servants, your neighbours, your husbands, your wives, your children, shall be lost for ever or not? Then I am ashamed of you, and angels are ashamed of you, and God’s living people are ashamed of you, and Christ himself may well be ashamed of you, that you have no care for those whom you ought to love.

33. I trust that this is not the case with us, but that we do anxiously desire that lost ones should be saved. Come, then, I want you to look for those who are beginning to seek Christ, and when you have done that, and have found them, then I want you to look for those who are not seeking Christ. I do not think there ought to be a person come within these four walls, into these galleries, or on the area, but shall be attacked for his good by someone or other, before the whole assembly is scattered. Surely you might find a way of asking some question, kindly and affectionately: not rudely, but respectfully: so that if I have been the means in any way of making a little impression on their souls, you may follow it up by personal dealing. If I have put in the nail of truth a little way, you may give it a heavy blow, and drive it in deeper, and may God grant that the Holy Spirit may clinch the nail so that it never may be pulled out.

34. Oh! my hearers, we must have you saved. We cannot go on much longer with some of you as you are, because you yourselves will not go on much longer what you are. We have been rather free for the last few weeks from deaths and departures, but do not think that we shall be free from them for long. In the ordinary course of nature, as those who calculate the averages of human life will tell you, a certain proportion of a great multitude like this — some six thousand and more, must soon die. There is no chance about whether we shall or not — we must. Now, who shall it be? Who shall stand before his God? To whose ear will the ringing trump of the archangel sound? For whom shall the funeral bell be tolled? Over whom shall it be said, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust”? Since we do not know to whom the summons may come, may this be the command to all, “Consider your ways, and prepare to meet your God.” Oh! that you might prepare this very night, and seek the Lord with full purpose of heart, and this is the promise, “He who seeks finds; he who asks receives, and to him who knocks, it shall be opened.”

{a} The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge written in 1797-1798. See Explorer "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner"

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ps 139}

This is a Psalm we can never read too often. It will be for us one of the greatest safeguards against sin if we have its teaching constantly before our mind’s eye, and the teaching of this Psalm is simply this, “You God see me.”

1. Oh Lord, you have searched me, and known me.

You have looked into my most secret parts. The most intricate labyrinths of my spirit are all observed by you. You have not searched, and yet been unable to discover the secret of my nature, but you have searched me and known me. Your search has been an efficient one, you have read the secrets of my soul.

2. You know my downsitting and my uprising, you understand my thoughts afar off.

It is a common enough thing to sit down and to rise up, and I myself often scarcely know why I do the one or the other, but you know and understand it all. “You understand my thoughts afar off.” My heart forms a thought that never comes to a word or an act, but you not only perceive it, but you translate it; you understand my thoughts.

3. You surround my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

I am surrounded by you as by a ring of observers.

4. For there is not a word on my tongue, but, lo, oh LORD, you know it altogether.

Not only the words on my tongue, but those that slumber in my tongue, the unspoken words, you know them perfectly and altogether.

5. You have hedged me behind and before, and laid your hand on me.

Your presence amounts to actual contact. You not only see, but touch, like the physician, who does not merely look at the wound, but eventually comes to probe it. So you probe my wounds, and see the depths of my sins.

6, 7. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain to it! Where shall I go from your Spirit? or where shall I flee from your presence?

It seems as if the first impulse was to flee away from a God whose attributes were so lofty. It was only a transient impression, yet David words it like this.

8-10. If I ascend up into heaven, you are there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

How swift he supposes his flight to be, as swift as the light, for he borrows the wings of the morning, and yet the hand of God was controlling his destiny even then. As Watts rhymes it: — 

   If mounted on the morning ray,

   I fly beyond the western sea,

   Thy swifter hand should first arrive,

   And there arrest thy fugitive.

11, 12. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,” even the night shall be light around me. Yes, the darkness does not hide from you, but the night shines as the day: the darkness and the light are both the same for you.

For, mystery of mysteries, and more wonderful still, you not only observe, but you always have observed, and you have not only observed my well-formed being and my visible life but before I had a being you observed what I should be, and when I was still in embryo your all-observing eye watched me.

13-16. For you have formed my inward parts: you have covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise you; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are your works: and that my soul knows very well. My substance was not hidden from you, when I was made in secret, and intricately formed in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, yet being imperfect; and in your book all my members were written, and the days fashioned for me, when as yet there was none of them.

In so vivid a manner does our holy poet sing about the omniscience of God with regard to our creation. Before we had breath he formed and fashioned us.

17. How precious also are your thoughts to me, oh God! How great is the sum of them!

How many thoughts has God towards us! We cannot count them, and how kind are those thoughts — we cannot estimate them — how precious, how great!

18. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand; when I wake up, I am still with you.

I suppose I had finished the total, had counted up all your thoughts to me, and then fell asleep. I should then only begin to count again, for you continue to thrust out mercies from your hand. My God, my enumeration shall never overtake you, much less my gratitude, and the service that is your due!

19. Surely you will kill the wicked, oh God: depart from me therefore, you bloody men.

“Surely” — here is a solemn inference from the omniscience of God — “surely you will kill the wicked, oh God.” You have seen their wickedness. They have committed their wickedness in your presence. You will need no witnesses, no jury; you are all in one. Are you not the Judge of all the earth, and shall you not do right? “Surely you will destroy the wicked, oh God.” Then I do not desire to have those in my company who are condemned criminals, and are soon to be executed. “Depart from me, therefore, you bloody men.” See how this motivates David to purge his company and keep himself clean in his associations, since God, who sees everything, and will surely punish, would hold it to be evil on the part of his servant to be found associating with rebellious men.

20-22. For they speak against you wickedly, and your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate them oh LORD, who hate you? And am I not grieved with those who rise up against you? I hate them with a perfect hatred: I consider them my enemies.

We are bound to love our own enemies, but not God’s enemies, since they are haters of all that is good and all that is true, and the essentially good One himself. We love them as our fellow beings, but we hate them as haters of God.

23, 24. Search me, oh God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.