Psalms 41–42
Psalm xli. The 40th psalm presented to us the blessed Lord coming to take the place of obedience in the body prepared for Him, to be the poor and needy one on the earth, and waiting patiently for the Lord. The 41st speaks of the blessedness of those who could discern this place of the poor. The Lord was in it above all, and understood it above all; but we know in the beatitudes how He pronounces blessed those who through grace are like Him poor in spirit. For in truth these beatitudes are nearly the whole of them just a description of what Christ was, though given as a character to which blessing belonged, poor in spirit, meek, pure in heart, who was such like the Croat Peacemaker. In Lake we have more directly to His disciples: Blessed are ye pour. But lie entered into the sorrows and place of Ilis disciples, and when lie put forth His own sheep went before them.
Although a psalm taking’ up a general character, it is specially fulfilled in Christ, who used the 9th verse as specially fulfilled in Himself. It is indeed this identification with the remnant which gives such a, deep interest to the psalms. This poor man cried. What is looked for in the psalm is the understanding of this place. With this we have the sure confidence that Jehovah would uphold him in his integrity, and set him before His face for ever. Blessed is he who enters into, and who has spiritual intelligence of, and interest in, this place of the poor man who waits, though in sorrow and lowliness, on Jehovah. If malice pursue him, he looks to Jehovah and His mercy in integrity of heart.
In the early part of this second book of the Psalms there is an element which gives a very distinct character to its spiritual as well as its prophetical import — the absence of the covenant-name of God (the transition to Jehovah, is in psalm xlvi). Whatever the distresses and sorrows of the first forty-one psalms, the heart of the psalmist always looked freely to Jehovah in them, was in fuller relationship with Him and the enjoyment of public services, in which His name was celebrated. Here he is cast out. He remembers these things. He is an outcast and can only, in the secret of his soul and in wilderness circumstances, look to the nature and essence of what God is. We have still to remember the difference of the nature of relationship of Jehovah and the Father, and the looking for outward deliverance and. judgment in order to have that deliverance. Still this change will furnish deep religious instruction. Psalm xxii. furnishes us with the expression of this difference in the strongest way. There Christ Himself was out of the enjoyment of His own relationship with the Father, having- been made sin for us. In human sorrows He for once does not find divine comfort. Now as to present wrath, no godly soul, of course, ever goes through this; but as to sorrow, God’s face is hid from Israel, and when they are awakened they feel that it is because of sin, and though faith is at work, which is just what these psalms describe. It is faith looking at God when all circumstances are against him who exercises it and they are driven out from the present enjoyment of revealed communion and covenant relationship; it is the position God sets His people in when covenant relationship is broken — as it will be, and is — with Israel, or not known: and faith, acknowledging the justice of this, looks through all to God’s own faithfulness as such. It is, so to speak, naked faith, without anything to sustain it, of what God gives to His people, as the witness of conferred favours. The result is, a full trial of the soul. The question for the soul here is not how far it is enjoying His gifts, but, how far its state can link itself with what God is in Himself, and count on that. This probes it to the bottom, because all llesh is completely judged; for it can have no connexion with God at all. It is true thai this is never understood but by a new nature — that nature which can understand what God is, ami, through -race and the working of the Holy Spirit, cleave to promises; but the llesh is thereby fully judged, and the difference of that and the new
K man known and discerned, but redemption is not known. Because of this new nature there is the consciousness of the desire to do good, and of God’s favour, hut no peace. It is a searching process that we may he cast, in naked dependence on grace. It is practically as to principle Rom. vii.
In speaking of Psalm xlii., we can only take the great principle, unless in a very special case of Christian experience; because the psalm supposes the person’s enjoyment of common blessings, he remembered them. The special case is this: when a soul has believed in forgiveness, owning, no doubt, its sinfulness, but not really searched out, or the entirely sinful nature of the flesh discovered, the first joy may be lost, and the soul only know enough of God to feel the dreadfulness of not having the light of His countenance; but this gives the earnest desire to enjoy it. It may also happen when a soul has supposed itself christian, but finds out, through the operation of God’s Spirit, that it is not. In either case, the true blessed effect of the position in which we are placed by redemption is not known. The psalm goes no further than hope, but it is a hope much deepened and made more true by the trial. It expresses more the result of the trial than the process; and hence it is we have so blessed an expression of the state of the soul, however forlorn it is. It thirsts after God Himself — the difference of the christian state is that, as in Rom. v., he joys in God. Still, this state of thirsting is, in certain respects, deeper than the first joy, because the joy is partial in its realisation: the want is complete, and God Him-THE PSALMS. — rSALM XLH. 139
self, in Himself, the thing desired. No doubt the psalm refers to the circumstances, and it is the souls’ loss of God in happy circumstances which supported the soul, more or less, which obliges it to lean on and look for God Himself more absolutely: and, as we shall sec. draws its joy thence. And it is this the spiritual soul has to look to in this psalm. His soul is athirst for God.. He had lost the joy of the multitude, but he now panted after God Himself, where there was none of this. The change was sensible; but what he felt the loss of for his heart was God Himself. That was what he panted after. People and happy circumstances disappear from the mind as from the scene, though they were enjoyed with God. The individual heart wants God for itself. The divine nature in us craves after its delight in God, ilic objective fulness that satisfies it, because it is the divine nature. Its thirst is perfect after that — that one great, blessed object, which tills all the desires and excludes every other. Previously the soul had enjoyed the blessings from God and God Himself in tin in. Now God Himself becomes consciously and necessarily the whole blessing itself. The trial has judged all flesh as to the subjective state of the soul, all mediate enjoyment of God in circumstances; and the divine life, in order to its full blessing and consciousness of whal that blessing is, has its perfect delight in God only and God Himself. This is a wonderfully ing process. It is not that the
soul will not have joyj but that the source of joy, pure, moral blessing, has a much fuller place in the heart, and, as we shall see, henceforth characterizes it.
Hence it is that we see persons who have been deeply tried by the loss of blessings, which in their place were given of God, far more calm, possessed of a deeper consciousness of God being their portion; and hence more withdrawn from the influence of circumstances to that blessed centre of rest.
The enemy, though in a painful way — and so is it even in God’s discipline — contributes to the furtherance of the soul in this path. They said, Where is thy God? They have driven them out from the public enjoyment of conferred — and in Israel covenant — blessing. (So Job.) And where was the sign of their having blessings from Him? But as they had ascribed it to God and proclaimed His faithfulness and power to secure, they taunt them with it now and say, What can you say now,? — where is thy God? This, really, the unhappy Jews did to Christ. But this only casts the soul on Him. There was nothing for it, but what God was Himself. The enemy had driven them away from all else- — from mercies which by abuse tended to shut God out. These the enemy succeeded in depriving the soul of, and left it only God. And the soul hoped in Him; but what was the consequence? Crying out for the blessing? No. Often the soul, by seeking joy, cannot get it, this would not purify and bless it: and to bless God must purify. “When emptied of self and seeking God, Ave find joy. So here, while remembering the past joy, he says, I shall yet praise Him for the help of his countenance. But some other traits must be noticed here. Pride and stoical resistance to sorrow will not do. That does not draw the soul to God, but effectually ami specially keeps it from Him — teaches it, or pretends to teach it, to do without ILim, as the stoics held in fact that the virtuous man was God’s equal. Here the soul had felt the sorrow and was dependent, and now can he open with God, because of His goodness and faithfulness. Sorrow, when it is
c plete and helpless, gives intimacy with him who
IS willing and able to help, and this is now with God. He tells his sorrow to God. (Ver. 5.) lie reasoned with himself. Now he says, “Oh my God, my soul is cast down within me, therefore will I remember thee.” But this leads to another point. The troubles themselves come from God. Inward self-judgment and Looking to God bring Him and Him alone into everything-. Enemies have disappeared with blessings. Thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. God began the matter with Job and told neither Satan nor Job what He was about, and uses Satan’s blind malice to break Job’s unsubdued, and of himself unsuspected, nature, and bring about a blessing. Deep called to deep, but it was at the voice of God’s waterspouts. But this seeing God’s hand in purpose leads to the consciousness of covenant relationship; to us of Father, here of Jehovah; and he is reckoned upon according to thai for the future. Jehovah will command His lovingkimlness in the day-time, and in the night shall 11 is song be with me and my prayer unto the (hid of my life. Confidence is thus acquired — boldness with a faithful God. kp 1 will say unto God my rock. Why hast thou forgotten me?” He does not say. forsaken here. That Christ alone was. and faith knows it never can be. But because of this confidence in the unfailing love of God, he asks Him who is his rock — why He has left him in the power of the enemy. Note how when once we see the hand of God in our sorrows we can look for deliverance, because it is God, and His hand is on us in love. And now the reproach of the enemies becomes a plea with God; for when they say, Where is thy God? the only answer is, God’s manifesting’ Himself. Meanwhile the soul has been deepened in its desires after God Himself. All carelessness of heart removed, so that manifestation has infinitely more value. Here the assurances of blessing are enlarged, before the distressed soul has said that he was assured of the help of His countenance as the theme of his praises; but we have seen that his heart, purified and exercised, had been drawn up into confiding in the sure faithfulness of God in known relationship. The heart, though not yet outwardly freed, is fixed on God in desire and in confidence. Hence he says now, “Who is the health of my countenance — his countenance reflects in joy the outshining of God’s in love — and my God. Distress and. the deprivation of all given, even religious blessings, had cast the heart upon God and drawn it to look to Him as the alone source of joy, and with the confidence which must spring up when the soul is near God, known in His own relationship by faith. It cannot be otherwise. There may be delay as to full peace of heart and enjoyment, if the Lord sees purifying and sifting still necessary; but there will be a confiding leaning on Him, and the soul then is brought to thirst evidently for Himself. My soul is athirst for God. It addresses itself to God,
THE PSALM. — PSALM XLIII. 14.”
but it is the soul panting- after Him. We do not get the answer here, but the state of the soul looking- purely for God Himself, brought to do it, and assured of the shining of the lighl of His countenance and of the joy and health it would give. Remark as to the detail that it is -when the soul has been broken down and its force of pride has given way, that it then remembers God. (Ver. G.) So when God’s hand is seen in his trials, (ver. 7.) he sees that Jehovah, God as known in relationship, will command His loving-kindness, and God is the God of his life and God. his rock.