3500. Two Coverings and Two Consequences

A Sermon Published On Thursday, February 24, 1916.

He who covers his sins shall not prosper. {Pr 28:13}

You have covered all their sins. {Ps 85:2}

1. In these two texts we have man’s covering, which is worthless and culpable, and God’s covering, which is profitable, and worthy of all acceptance. No sooner had man disobeyed his Maker’s will in the garden of Eden than he discovered, to his surprise and dismay, that he was naked, and he set about at once to make himself a covering. It was a poor attempt which our first parents made, and it proved a miserable failure. “They sewed fig leaves together.” After that God came in, revealed to them even more fully their nakedness, made them confess their sin, brought their transgression home to them, and then it is written, “the Lord God made them coats of skin.” Probably the coats were made of the skins of animals which had been offered in sacrifice, and, if so, they were a fit type of him who has provided us with a sin offering and a robe of perfect righteousness. Every man since the days of Adam has gone through much of the same experience, more or less relying on his own ingenuity to hide his own confusion of face. He has discovered that sin has made him naked, and he has set to work to clothe himself. As I shall have to show you presently, he has never succeeded. But God has been pleased to deal with his own people, according to the riches of his grace; he has covered their shame and put away their sins so that they should not be remembered any more.

2. Let me now direct your attention, first, to man’s covering, and its failure; and then to God’s covering, and its perfection.

3. May the Holy Spirit be pleased to give you discernment, so that you may see your destitute state in the presence of God, and understand the merciful relief that God himself has provided in the bounty of his grace!

4. I. Our first point is: — MAN’S COVERING.

5. There are many ways in which men try to cover their sin. Some do so by denying that they have sinned, or, admitting the fact, they deny the guilt; or else, candidly acknowledging both the sin and the guilt, they excuse and exonerate themselves on the plea of certain circumstances which rendered it, according to their showing, almost inevitable that they should act as they have done. By pretext and pretence, apology and self-vindication, they acquit themselves of all criminality, and put a fine gloss on every foul delinquency.

6. Excuse-making is the commonest trade under heaven. The slenderest materials are put to the greatest account. A man who has no valid argument in arrest of judgment, {a} no feasible reason why he should not be condemned, will go about and bring a thousand excuses, and ten thousand circumstances of extenuation, all of them weak and thin as a spider’s web. Someone here may be saying within himself, “It may be I have broken the law of God, but it was too severe. To keep so perfect a law was impossible. I have violated it, but then I am a man, endowed with passions that involve propensities, and inflamed with desires that need gratification. How could I do otherwise than I have done? Placed in particular circumstances, I am borne along with the current. Subject to special temptations, I yield to the fascination; this is natural.” So you think; so you try to exonerate yourself. But, in truth, you are now committing a new sin; for you are accusing God, you are blaming the Almighty. You are impugning the law to vindicate yourself for breaking it. There is a great deal of criminality about such an unrighteous defence. The law is holy, just, and good. You are throwing the onus of your sins on God. You are trying to make out that, after all, you are not to blame, but the fault lies with him who gave the commandment. Do you think that this will be tolerated? Shall the prisoner at the judgment bar bring accusations against the Judge who tries him? Or shall he challenge the equity of the statute while he is arraigned for violating it?

7. And as for the circumstances that you plead, what valid excuse can they furnish? Has it come to this — that it was not you, but your necessities, that did the wrong and are answerable for the consequence? Not you, indeed! you are a harmless innocent victim of circumstances! I suppose, instead of being censured, you ought almost to be pitied. What is this, again, but throwing the blame on the arrangements of Providence, and saying to God, “It is the harshness of your discipline, not the perverseness of my actions, that involves me in sin.” What, I say, is this but a high impertinence, indeed, veritable treason, against the Majesty of that thrice-holy God, before whom even perfect angels veil their faces, while they cry, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts”? Please do not resort to such a covering as this, because, while it is utterly useless, it adds sin to sin, and exposes you to new shame.

8. In many cases people violating the law of God have hoped to cover their transgression by secrecy. They have done the deed in darkness. They hope that no ear of man heard their footfall, or listened to their speech. Possibly they themselves held their tongue, and flattered themselves that no observer witnessed their movements or could divulge their action. So it was with Achan. I dare say he took the wedge of gold and the Babylonian garment, amid the confusion of the battle, and hid it when his comrades seemed too much engaged to notice so trivial an affair. While they were rushing over the fallen walls of Jericho, amid the debris and the dust, he might be unmolested; and then, in the dead of night, while they slept, he turned the sod of his tent, dug into the earth, and buried there his coveted treasure. All looks right, to his heart’s content. He has smoothed it down, and spread his carpet over the grave of his lust. Little did he consider the Omniscient eye. Little did he count on the unerring lot that would come home to the tribe of Judah, to the family of the Zarhites, to the house of Zabdi, and, at last, to the son of Carmi, so that Achan himself would have to stand exposed as a traitor — a robber of his God. Men little know the ways in which the Almighty can find them out, and bring the evidence that convicts, out of the devices that were intended to cover their sin.

9. Do you not know that Providence is an amazing detective? There are hounds on the track of every thief, and murderer, and liar — in fact, on every sinner of every kind. Each sin leaves a trail. The dogs of judgment will be sure to scent it out, and find their prey. There is no disentangling yourselves from the meshes of guilt; no possibility of evading the penalty of transgression. Very amazing have been the ways in which people who have committed crimes have been brought to judgment. A trifle becomes a tell-tale. The method of deceit gives a clue to the manner of discovery. Wretched are the men who bury their secrets in their own bosom. Their conscience plays traitor to them. They have often been forced to betray themselves. We have read of men talking in their sleep to their fellows, and babbling out in their dreams the crime they had committed years before. God would have the secret disclosed. No eye had seen, neither could other tongue have told, but the man turned king’s evidence against himself; so he has brought himself to judgment. It has often happened, in some form or other, that conscience has been witness against men like this. Do I address anyone who is just now practising a secret sin? You would not have me point you out for all the world, nor shall I do so. Believe me, however, the sin is known. Dexterous though you have been in the attempt to conceal it, it has been seen. As surely as you live, it has been seen. “By whom?” you say. Ah! by One who never forgets what he sees, and will be sure to tell of it. He may commission a little bird of the air to whisper it. Certainly he will one day proclaim it by the sound of trumpet to listening worlds. You are watched, sir; you are known. You have been narrowly observed, young girl; those things you have hidden away will be brought to light, for God is the great discoverer of sin. His eye has seen you; his providence will track you. It is vain to think that you can conceal your transgressions. Before high heaven, disguise is futile. Yes, the darkness does not hide; the night shines as the day. I have known people who have harboured a sin in their heart until it has preyed on their constitution. They have been like the Spartan boy who had stolen a fox, {b} and was ashamed to have it known, so he kept it within his garment, until it ate through his flesh, and he fell dead. He allowed the fox to gnaw his heart before he would betray himself. There are those who have a sin, if not a lie in their right hand, yes, a lie in their heart, and it is eating into their very life. They dare not confess it. If they would confess it to their God, and make restitution to those whom they have offended, they would soon come to peace; but they vainly hope that they can cover the sin, and hide it from the eyes of God and man. He who covers his sin in this way shall not prosper.

10. Again, very many times sinners have tried to cover their sin with falsehood. Indeed, this is the usual habit — to lie — to cloak their guilt by denying it. Was this not the way with Gehazi? When the prophet said, “Where did you come from, Gehazi?” he said, “Your servant went nowhere.” Then the prophet told him that the leprosy of Naaman would cleave to him all the days of his life. The sin of Ananias and Sapphira, in lying in order to hide their sin, how quickly it was discovered, and how terrible was the retribution! I wonder that men and women can lie as they do after reading that story. “Have you sold the land for so much?” said Peter. And Ananias said, “Yes, for so much.” At that instant he fell down and gave up the ghost. Three hours later, when his wife, Sapphira, said the same thing, the feet of the young men who had buried her husband were at the door, ready to carry out her corpse, and bury her by his side. Oh! sirs, you must weave a tangled web, indeed, when once you begin to deceive; and when you have woven it you will have to add lie to lie, and lie to lie, and yet all to no avail, for you will be surely found out. There is something about a lie that always deludes the man who utters it. Liars need to have of good memories. They are sure to leave a little corner uncovered through which the truth escapes. Their story does not hang together. Discrepancies arouse suspicions, and evasions furnish a clue to discoveries, until the naked truth is unveiled. Then the deeper the plot the fouler is the shame. But to lie to the God of truth, of what avail can that be? What advantage is it for you to plead “not guilty,” when he has witnessed your crime? That infallible Eye which never makes a mistake is never closed. He knows everything; no secret is hidden from him. Why, therefore, do you imagine that you can deceive your Maker?

11. There are some who try to cover their sin by deception. With cunning subtlety they strive to evade personal responsibility. Memorable is the example of David. I will not dwell on his flagrant crime; but I must remind you of his sorry subterfuge, when he tried to hide the baseness of his lust by conspiring to cause the death of Uriah. There have been those who have schemed deep and long to throw the blame on others, even to the injury of their reputation, to escape the odium of their own malpractices. Who knows but in this congregation there may be someone who feigns a high social position, supported by a deep mercenary immorality? There have been merchants that have swollen before the public as men of wealth, while they were falsifying their accounts, abstracting money, yet making the books tally, rolling in luxury, and living in jeopardy. Have they prospered? Were they to be envied? The detection that long haunted them at length overtook them; could they look it in the face? We have heard of their blank despair, their insane suicide; at any rate, a miserable exposure has been their melancholy climax. “Be sure your sin will find you out.” You may run the length of your tether. It is short. The hounds of justice, swift of scent and strong of limb, are on your trail. Rest assured, you will be discovered. Could you escape the due reward in this life, yet certainly your guilt is known in heaven, and you shall be judged and condemned in that great day which shall decide your eternal destiny. Do not seek, then, to cover up sin with such transparent cobwebs as these.

12. Some people flatter themselves that their sin has already been hidden away by the lapse of time. “It was so very long ago,” one says, “I had almost forgotten it; I was a lad at the time.” “Indeed,” says another, “I am grey-headed now. It must have been twenty or thirty years ago. Surely you do not think that the sin of my far-off days will be brought out against me? The thing is gone by. Time must have obliterated it.” Not so, my friend. It may be the lapse of time will only make the discovery all the more clear. A boy once went into his father’s orchard, and there in his rough play he broke a little tree which his father valued. But, rapidly putting it together again, he managed to conceal the fact, for the disunited parts of the tree took kindly to each other, and the tree stood as before. It so happened that more than forty years afterwards he went into that garden after a storm had blown across it in the night, and he found that the tree had been riven in two, and it had snapped precisely in the place where he had broken it when it was only a sapling. So there may come a crash to your character precisely in that place where you sinned when yet a lad. Ah! how often the transgressions of our youth remain within our hearts! There lie the eggs of our young sin, and they hatch when men come into more mature years. Do not be so sure that the lapse of time will consign your faults and follies to oblivion. You sowed your wild oats, sir; you have got to reap them. The time that has intervened has only operated to make that evil seed spring up, and you are so much the nearer to the harvest. Time does not change the hue of sin in the sight of God. If a man could live a thousand years, the sins of his first year would be as fresh in the memory of the Almighty as those of the last. Eternity itself will never wash out a sin. Flow on, you ages; but the scarlet spot is on the sand. Flow on still in mighty streams, but the damning spot is still there. Neither time nor eternity can cleanse it. Only one thing can remove sin. The lapse of time cannot. Do not let any of you be so foolish as to hope it will.

13. When the trumpet of the resurrection sounds, there will be a resurrection of characters, as well as of men. The man who has been foully slandered will rejoice in the light that reflects his purity. But the man whose latent vices have been skilfully veneered will be brought to the light too. His acts and motives will be equally exposed. As he himself looks and sees the resurrection of his crimes, with what horror will he face that day of judgment! “Ah! ah!” he says, “Where am I? I had forgotten these. These are the sins of my childhood, the sins of my youth, the sins of my manhood, and the sins of my old age. I thought they were dead and buried, but they rise from their tombs. My memory has been quickened. How my brain reels as I think of them all! But there they are, and, like so many wolves around me, they seem all thirsting for my destruction.” Beware, oh! men. You have buried your sins, but they will rise up from their graves and accuse you before God. Time cannot cover them.

14. Or do any of you imagine that your tears can blot out transgressions? That is a gross mistake. Could your tears for ever flow; could you be transformed into a Niobe, {c} and do nothing else but weep for ever, the whole flood could not wash out a single sin. Some have supposed that there may be efficacy in baptismal water, or in sacramental emblems, or in priestly incantations, or in confession to a priest — one who asks them to disclose their secret wickedness to him, and betrays an avid morbidity to make his heart the sewer into which all kinds of uncleanness would be emptied. Do not be deceived. There is nothing in these ordinances of man, or these tricks of Roman Catholic priestcraft (I had almost said of witchcraft, the two are so much alike) to excuse the folly of those who are beguiled by them. You need not grasp at straws when the rope is thrown out to you. There is pardon to be had; remission is to be found; forgiveness can be procured. Turn your back on those shavelings; {d} do not lend your ear to them, neither be the victims of their snares. On the street each day it makes one’s soul sad to see them. Like the Pharisees of old, they wear their long garments to deceive. You cannot miss them. Their silly conceit proclaims their naked shame. Do not confide in them for a moment. Christ can forgive you. God can blot out your sin. But they cannot ease your conscience by their penances, or remove your transgressions by their ceremonies.

15. So I have gone through a rough, not very accurate, list of the ways by which men hope to cover their sin, but they “shall not prosper.” None of these shall succeed.

16. II. A more joyful task rests on me now, while I draw your attention to my second text, “You have covered all their sin” — GOD’S COVERING.

17. This fact is affirmed concerning the people of God. All who have trusted in the atoning sacrifice which was presented by the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary may accept this welcome assurance, “God has covered all their sin.” How this has come to pass I will tell you. Before God ever covers a man’s sins he unveils them. Did you ever see your sins unveiled? Did it ever seem as if the Lord put his hand on you, and said, “Look, look at them”? Have you been led to see your sins as you never saw them before? Have you felt their aggravations fit to drive you to despair? As you have looked at them, has the finger of detection seemed to point out your blackness? Have you discovered in them a depth of guilt, and iniquity, and hell-desert which never struck your mind before? I remember a time when that was a spectacle always before the eyes of my conscience. My sin was always before me. If God makes you see your sin like this in the light of his countenance, depend on it he has his purposes of mercy toward you. When you see and confess it, he will blot it out. As soon as God, in infinite lovingkindness, makes the sinner know in truth that he is a sinner, and strips him of the rags of his self-righteousness, he grants him pardon and clothes his nakedness. While he stands shivering before the gaze of the Almighty, condemned, the guilt is purged from his conscience. I do not know of a more terrible position in one’s experience than to stand with an angry God gazing on you, and to know that wherever God’s eye falls on you it sees nothing but sin; sees nothing in you but what he must hate and must abhor. Yet this is the experience through which God puts those to whom he grants forgiveness. He makes them know that he sees how sinful they are, and he makes them feel how vile and leprous they are. His justice withers their pride; his judgment appals their heart. They are humbled in the very dust, and made to cry out — each man trembling for his own soul — “God be merciful to me, a sinner!”

18. Not until this gracious work of conviction is fully accomplished does the Lord appear with the glorious proclamation that whoever believes in the Lord Jesus shall have his sins covered. I now have that proclamation openly to proclaim and personally to deliver to you. With your outward ears you may have heard it hundreds of times. It is old, yet always new. Whoever among you, knowing himself to be guilty, will come and put his trust in Jesus Christ, shall have his sins covered. “Can God do that?” Yes, he can.

19. Only he can cover sin: Against him the sin was committed. It is the offended person who must pardon the offender. No one else can. He is the King. He has the right to pardon. He is the Sovereign Lord, and he can blot out sin. Besides that, he can cover it lawfully, for the Lord Jesus Christ (though you know the story, let me tell it again — the song of redemption always rings out a charming melody), Jesus Christ, the Father’s dear Son, in order that the justice of God might be vindicated, bared his breast to its dreadful hurt, and suffered in our room, and place, and stead, what we ought to have suffered as the penalty of our sin. Now the sacrifice of God covers sin — covers it right over; and he more than covers it, he makes it cease to be. Moreover, the Lord Jesus kept the law of God, and his obedience stands, instead of our obedience; and God accepts him and his righteousness on our behalf, imputing his merits to our souls.

20. Oh! the virtue of that atoning blood! Oh! the blessedness of that perfect righteousness of the Son of God, by which he covers our sins!

21. There are two features of covering I should like to recall to your memory. The one was the mercy seat or propitiatory, over the golden ark, in which were the tables of stone. Those tables of stone seemed, as it were, to reflect the sins of Israel. As in a mirror they reflected the transgression of God’s people. God was above, as it were, looking down between the cherubim’s wings. Was he to look down on the law defied and defiled by Israel? Ah! no; there was put over the top of the ark, as a lid which covered it all, a golden lid called the mercy seat, and when the Lord looked down he looked on that lid which covered sin. Beloved, such is Jesus Christ, the covering for all our sins. God sees no sin in those who are hidden beneath Jesus Christ.

22. There was another covering at the Red Sea. On that joyful day when the Egyptians went down into the midst of the sea pursuing the Israelites, at the motion of Moses’ rod the waters that stood upright like a wall leaped back into their natural bed and swallowed up the Egyptians. Great was the victory when Miriam sang, “The depths have covered them. There is not one of them left.” It is even so that Jesus Christ’s atonement has covered up our sins. They are sunk in his sepulchre; they are buried in his tomb. His blood, like the Red Sea, has drowned them. “The depths have covered them. There is not one of them left.” Against the believer there is not a sin in God’s Book recorded. He who believes in him is perfectly absolved. “You have covered all their sin.” I shall not have time to dwell on the sweetness of this fact, but I invite you who believe to consider its preciousness; and I hope you who have not believed will feel your mouth watering after it; to know that every sin one has ever committed, known and unknown, is gone — covered by Christ. To be assured that when Jesus died he did not die for some of our sins, but for all the sins of his people; not for their sins up until now, but for all the sins they ever will commit! Well does Kent put it: — 

   Here’s pardon for transgressions past,

   It matters not how black they’re cast;

   And oh, my soul, with wonder view,

   For sins to come here’s pardon too.

23. The atonement was made before the sin was committed. The righteousness was presented even before we had lived. “You have covered all their sin.” It seems to me as if the Lamb of God, slain from before the foundation of the world, had in the purpose of God, from the foundation of the world, covered all his people’s sins. Therefore, we are accepted in the Beloved, and dear to the Father’s heart. Oh! what a joy it is to get a hold of something like this truth, especially when the truth gets a hold of you — when you can feel by the inwrought power and witness of the Holy Spirit that your sins are covered — that you dare stand up before a rein-trying, heart-searching God, and give thanks that every transgression you ever committed is hidden from the view of those piercing eyes through Jesus Christ your Lord.

24. Some people think we ought not to talk like this, that it is presumptuous. But really there is more presumption in doubting than there is in believing. For a child to believe his father’s word is never presumption. I like to credit my Father’s word. “He who believes in him is not condemned.” I am not condemned, for I know I do believe in him. “Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes, rather, who is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.”

25. Beloved, the covering is as broad as the sin. The covering completely covers, and covers for ever; for just as God sees today no sin in those who are washed in Jesus’ blood, so he will never see any. You are accepted with an acceptance that nothing can change. Whom once he loves he never leaves, but loves them to the end. The reason for his love for them does not lie in their merits nor their charms; the reason for that love is in himself. The basis of his acceptance of them is in the person and work of Christ. Whatever they may be, whatever their condition of heart may be, they are accepted, because Christ lived and died. It is not a precarious or a conditional, but an eternal acceptance.

26. Would you enjoy the blessedness of this complete covering? Cowering down beneath the tempest of Jehovah’s wrath, which you feel in your conscience, would you obtain this full remission? Behold the gates of the City of Refuge which stand wide open. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is proclaimed to the thirsty, needy, labouring, weary soul. Not merely are the gates open, but the invitation to enter is given. “Come to me all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” You are asked to lay hold on eternal life. The way of doing so is simple. No works of yours, no merits, no tears, no preparations are required, but trust — trust — that is all. Believe in Jesus. Rely on him; depend on him; depend on him. I have heard of Homer’s Iliad being enclosed in a nutshell, {e} it was written so small; but here is the Plain Man’s Guide to Heaven in a nutshell. Here is the essence of the whole gospel in one short sentence. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” Trust him; trust him. That is the meaning of that word believe. Depend on him, and as surely as you do it, nor death, nor hell, nor sin shall ever separate you from the love of him whom you have embraced, from the protection of him in whose power you have taken shelter. May the Lord lead you to cower beneath his covering wings, and grant you to be found in Christ, accepted in the Beloved. So your present peace shall be the foretaste of your eternal felicity. Amen.

{a} Arrest of Judgment: A stay of proceedings, after a verdict for the plaintiff or the Crown, on the ground of manifest error in it. OED.
{b} The account of Spartan boy is found in Plutarch’s Moralia III, Saying of the Spartans — Various Sayings Of Spartans to Fame Unknown; Plutarch. 1931. Moralia III, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., Section 35, Subsection No. 234, Page 405, Loeb #245.
{c} Niobe: According to the Greek myth, Niobe boasted of her superiority to Leto because the goddess only had two children, the twins Apollo and Artemis, while Niobe had fourteen children (the Niobids), seven male and seven female. By using poisoned arrows, Artemis killed Niobe’s daughters and Apollo killed Niobe’s sons, while they practised athletics, with the last begging their lives. A devastated Niobe fled to Mount Sipylus and was turned into stone and, as she wept unceasingly, waters started to pour from her petrified complexion. Mount Sipylus indeed has a natural rock formation which resembles a female face, and it has been associated with Niobe since ancient times. See Explorer "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niobe"
{d} Shaveling: A contemptuous epithet for a monk or priest whose head is shaved. OED.
{e} Cicero records that a parchment copy of Homer’s poem The Iliad was enclosed in a nutshell. Livy. 1942. Natural History — Book 7, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. Chapter 21, Subsection No. 85, page 561, Loeb 352.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ps 55:1-17}

To the chief Musician on Neginoth, Maschil, A Psalm of David.

It needed the chief musician to sing such a Psalm as this; it is so full of sorrow, and yet so full of confidence in God. It is a Psalm on the stringed instruments, and it sings not only of man, but of that Son of man — that greatest of men, who was also greatest in grief as greatest in faith. Maschil: that is, “instructive,” “full of teaching.” The experience of one child of God is instructive to another, and especially the experience of the great Firstborn among many brethren.

A Psalm of David — David, that many-sided man, who seemed not one, but “all mankind’s epitome.” Who has not found his own experience when he has read the Psalms of David? It is a mirror — this Book of Psalms — which reflects us all. See how he begins.

1. Give ear to my prayer, oh God;

All the saints pray. There is no exception to this rule. And in their times of trouble they pray with greater vehemence than ever. They delight in prayer. But observe how eager they are that God should hear them. It is not praying for praying’s sake — for the use of good words only. “Give ear to my prayer, oh God.”

1. And do not hide yourself from my supplication.

When a man passes by his fellow in his distress, he is said to hide himself. Oh God, do not pass me by. When you hear my plaintive voice, do not hurry on and leave me to my woes. Do not forget, beloved, that our Lord Jesus Christ suffered the hidings of God’s face. You and I may trust that in our hour of prayer we shall not have to do so. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But even if we should have to drink of that cup, better lips than ours have tasted its bitterness long ago.

2. Attend to me, and hear me:

That is three times he implores God to give him a hearing. It reminds me of that Gethsemane pleading of our Lord when thrice he prayed using the same words. Here David begins — makes his introduction in prayer with a threefold cry to God. “Give ear to me; do not hide yourself from me; attend to my prayer, and hear me.”

2. I mourn in my complaint, and make a noise;

Sometimes prayer is scarcely articulate. “I make a noise.” He was very free with God. He spoke out his heart as best his heart would speak, and he seemed to ramble. I believe that some of our sweetly-composed prayers have no prayer in them, and some of our broken petitions are those that reach the heart of God. “Groanings that cannot be uttered” are prayers that cannot be refused. There may be most strength in the passion of the soul when there is least order in the expression of the soul. “I mourn in my complaints, and make a noise.”

3. Because of the voice of the enemy,

He can speak, and speak clearly too. Malice is never short of language, “because of the voice of the enemy.”

3. Because of the oppression of the wicked:

The best men have often been the most oppressed of men. Men have often spoken worst of those who have deserved the best. David is in that plight, and so was our Lord. He, too, knew the voice of the enemy and the oppression of the wicked.

3. For they cast iniquity on me,

They bespatter me with their mire; they slander me. They speak evil of my good.

3. And in wrath they hate me.

It is the old story. The seed of the serpent naturally hates the seed of the woman. Even our Lord had a bruised heel. Do you not know that Ishmael persecutes Isaac, the child of the promise? All down through history there runs this line — the mark of blood and suffering. It must be so, “for they cast iniquity on me, and in wrath they hate me.”

4. My heart is severely pained within me: and the terrors of death are fallen on me.

I suppose that David may have written this after he had been driven out of Jerusalem by the party under the leadership of his son Absalom and Ahithophel. When it is all over he sings his song of dolour, and yet of confidence before his God. You know that our Lord Jesus Christ could use this language with very great emphasis. “My heart is severely pained within me, and the terrors of death have fallen on me” — as if midnight came down on his soul — came down from God. “Are fallen on me.” Descended therefore; and those are the heaviest of griefs which seem to come down just when we expected that showers of mercy would come down. Our Saviour knew what this meant.

5, 6. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror has overwhelmed me. And I said, “Oh that I had wings like a dove! For then I would fly away, and be at rest.

If he could not have the wings of an eagle to fight out the conflict, he begged for the wings of a dove to fly from it. But what would you and I do if we had wings? Where could we go if we had wings, but, like the dove of Noah, fly to the Lord? And we can get there without wings, brethren. We can get there by faith in him. It is a vain wish, then, and yet how many have sighed: — 

   Oh! for a lodge in some vast wilderness,

   Some boundless contiguity {continuity} of shade,

   Where rumour of oppression and deceit

   Might never reach me more.

Ah! we sigh for solitude, and when we get solitude we sigh to get out of it.

7. Lo, then I would wander far off, and remain in the wilderness. Selah.

Why, David had been in the wilderness, and then he sighed to get back to the tabernacle of God; but such foolish creatures are we at our very wisest that we do not know what we sigh for. It was good for David that he did not have wings, and it is good for you that you cannot run away. God has made no armour for your back because you must go forward. Long ago he burned our boats. We cannot return. We must “forward” now to the eternal victories in his strength.

8. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.”

But he who would fly away from slander must fly very fast. How can we escape it? That cruel tongue, that wicked tongue walks through the earth and strikes with its sword the best of God’s people. Now, like a soldier, David prays as his Master would never pray.

9. Destroy, oh Lord, and divide their tongues: for I have seen violence and strife in the city.

That was not a bad prayer, for God heard it. He did divide their tongues. The counsels of the wicked were frustrated, and so they made a mistake, and David escaped through their divisions. I do not see how a king driven from his throne and hunted by rebels, can pray differently from this. If he is a warrior and fights at all, he must wish for victory. Yet let me remind you that these verses need not be read in the imperative, neither may they necessarily be understood to be prayers. They can be read as prophecies. “God will destroy and divide the tongues of the wicked.” The divisions of error are the hope of truth. God divides the tongues of those who use their tongues against his Word, and so his truth conquers.

10. Day and night they go around on its walls: mischief also and sorrow are in the midst of it.

Remember, Jerusalem was in the hands of a band of wicked men. Everywhere sin prevailed when David had abandoned it.

11, 12. Wickedness is in its midst: deceit and guile do not depart from her streets. For it was not an enemy who reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he who hated me who magnified himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him:

Here you get to the centre of David’s grief. Ahithophel had betrayed him, and here you begin to see the portrait of Christ coming out on the canvas. David seems to be painted first, and then there is painted an image of our Lord, who is seen here and there. “It was not an enemy; then I could have borne it.”

13. But it was you,

In the original it runs like this: “But you.” The ardour of poetry is on the psalmist. He sees him: “You.” And he looks at him with indignation: “You.”

13, 14. A man my equal, my guide, and my acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked to the house of God in company.

It is Ahithophel; it is Judas Iscariot; it is either; it is both. Oh! what a grief it is to be betrayed by one whom we have trusted, one whom we treated as our equal, one whom we followed as a trusted guide, one to whom we told our secret and linked our heart. “My acquaintance.” One whose friendship was sanctified by the sanctions of religion. “We took sweet counsel together, and walked to the house of God in company.” Have any of you had to suffer from this serpent’s tongue? Do not be surprised. Your Master endured it before you. And now David bursts out in words of prayer, “Let death seize them. Let them go down alive into hell.”

15. Let death seize them, and let them go down alive into hell: for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them.

And this prayer also was heard, for Ahithophel was hung with a rope, and Absalom without one; and their followers perished by thousands in the forest of Ephraim; and so God swept away the good man’s slanderers.

16. As for me,

What would I do? Plot against their plots, and set cunning against their cunning? No, not I.

16, 17. I will call on God; and the LORD shall save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, I will pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.

He would pray often, but not too often. Where time sets her boundaries, we are to set up our altars there: evening and morning, and at noon. It seems natural that our undertakings should be begun, continued, and ended in God, and that each day. Oh! pray much when your enemies plot much. If, morning, noon, and evening, they are seeking your ruin, then just as often seek good from God. How beautifully he puts it. “He shall hear my voice.” He does not pray haphazardly. He is certain that prayer will come up to God. Yes, more than that, he anticipates a blessing; he foresees, no, he sees the blessing.