According to the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions

1 According to the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions, — Ver. lb.

this second half of the verse David gives a more precise explanation of what he meant in the first in the prayer, ‘Have mercy upon me.’ He knew that there was something that mercy could and would do for the sinner. It was his desire to experience this precious work; therefore he prayed, 6 Blot out my transgressions.5

It is of the utmost importance that I should understand this. The general prayer for mercy is not enough. The Lord desires that we should know and say what we would have mercy to do for us. Was it not thus, for example, with the blind man who cried to Jesus, 6 Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy upon me 5? Jesus called him to Himself and asked him, ‘What wilt thou that I should do to thee % ‘He had already prayed for compassion, for mercy, but this was not enough. The Lord desired still further to obtain from him the specific statement of what it particularly was that His compassion was to do for him. Thus it is still. It is not enough for us to remain content with a general petition for mercy. The Lord will test the earnestness and the reality of our desire for mercy by finding whether we also know what we would fain have, and whether we have also taken pains to know what mercy has promised and can give.

And it is just at this point that many souls err. Here, indeed, lies the reason that they pray for mercy so long and yet receive no answer. They have either very undefined or entirely wrong thoughts about that which mercy can do. Some think that the first work of mercy is to comfort and enlighten the heart. It is not so. Later on in this Psalm David prays for comfort and peace; but at the outset he prays for something entirely different. Others imagine that the work of mercy consists in the reformation of the heart and the life. This also is not the first element of blessing. Later on David asks for this also, but it does not stand in the first place. Others, again, suppose that they must ask for mercy, and trust in it that it will bring them into heaven when they die; but that in this life we cannot know if we have mercy. David teaches us that, as with the previous idea, this is not what he desired. “What he wished to have, what the Spirit of God desires that we should be taught to desire by His prayer as the first manifestation of mercy, was this: ‘According to the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.’

Our transgressions must be Hotted out by God

HAVE MEECY UPON ME.

Himself. This is the conviction in which David drew near to God. He feels that transgression must be blotted out; that he himself is not equal to this work; that mercy must do it for him. An expression in Ex. xxxii. will make this clear to us. There Moses says to God: ‘Now, then, if Thou wilt forgive their sin — ; but if not, Hot me out of Thy hook which Thou hast written? Our sins also are written in God’s book. The law of God takes reckoning of every transgression that we commit. In the great account-book of heaven they stand against us a record of our guilt. David knew that there could be no intercourse with the holy and righteous God so long as this old guilt was not abolished, was not blotted out. He knew that mercy could not convert or change the sinner, or bring him to heaven, unless his guilt was first blotted out. The wrath of God must first be appeased. The old guilt of the past must first be taken out of the way. The sinner must have acquittal and the forgiveness of his sins. This is the first work of divine grace. Without this, God the Holy Judge cannot receive the sinner into His friendship; and therefore he prays: ‘Have mercy upon me. Blot out my transgressions.5

There are many who suffer incalculable loss because they do not understand this. Perhaps you also, my reader, are amongst the number. I shall tell you whence this misunderstanding arises. It is because men remain unacquainted alike with the holiness of God and with the dreadful character of sin. This is why many suppose that if they but have repentance, and seek to live a better life, and pray to God, that God will on account of this great change receive them. It is not so, my friend. That you become changed is so far good. That you pray to be changed by the Spirit of God is still better. But this is not enough, simply because it does not clear off the old guilt. That you should wish to get quit of your guilt does not cancel it either with God or with man. ^Vhat you must know before all else is this: how it stands with the guilt of your former life. Does it remain in God’s book against your name? Yes or no? Is it blotted out? Tes or no? Until the soul knows that it is blotted out it can have no true peace.

Here then is manifest what we must entreat in the prayer: ‘Have mercy upon me.’ The blotting out of guilt is indispensable. We cannot work this out by our repentance. God has promised to bestow it. His promise is: ‘I, even I, am He that blotteth out your transgressions for My name’s sake, and will no more remember your sins’ (Isa. xliii. 25).

This is what in the New Testament is called being ’ justified ‘; as, for example, in the Parable of the Publican. He prayed to God, ‘Be merciful unto me,’ and he went down to his house justified. This was what grace did for him. This was the answer to his prayer. He went down to his house with the forgiveness of his sins. Like David, he could sing when he obtained this answer to his prayer: ‘Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

HAVE MERCY UP01ST ME.

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord iniputeth not iniquity’ (Ps. xxxii. 1, 2).

Beader, does this appear to you too great and too wonderful? Remember that the tender mercies of God also are great. It is on God that David calls. He prays: ‘According to the multitude of Thy tender mercies.’ Do you come also and experience that this is indeed the great, the wonderful, the divine element in the grace of God; that it will blot out all your guilt freely and at once, and will remove it entirely out of God’s book. O come and experience that this is the blessing and the power of mercy, to bestow the forgiveness of sins for Jesus’ sake.