THE inspired writer of this Psalm begins his song in a manner that is common and appropriate to many of the Psalms—with a call to praise the Lord and to give Him thanks for His goodness and for His mercy which endureth for ever. He then casts His eye backward upon the many “mighty acts” of kindness which the Lord had shown to His chosen people in times past, and feeling overwhelmed by the survey, he cries out in the language of adoration, “Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? Who can show forth all his praise?” He realises with all his soul that the wondrous works of Jehovah are great beyond created expression—that neither man nor angel can adequately show forth His praise. He next proceeds to take a view of the character of the sons of men, and with a manifest eye to the prevailing sinfulness, which he afterwards records with sorrow, he declares those only to be truly blessed that keep judgment and do righteousness at all times. His appreciation of the Lord’s mercy to sinful, ungrateful men does not make him take an Antinomian view of their condition, as if it mattered not whether they lived according to the divine law or not. He evidently recognises that the end of mercy is to save from sin, and that it is they only in whom this end is realised—they who keep judgment and do righteousness—that are the people truly blessed.
The succeeding part of the Psalm is largely a review of the sins of the children of Israel during the leading stages of their history, from the period of bondage in Egypt to, in all probability, the time of the carrying away into Babylon. Their sins in the wilderness are particularly enumerated. The record is a very dark one, and the Psalmist lays special emphasis in his closing reflections on the fact that the transgressions of Israel were greatly aggravated with the black crime of ingratitude; they sinned after much experience of the Lord’s goodness. “Many times did he deliver them; but they provoked him with their counsel, and were brought low for their iniquity.” Still there is a “nevertheless” of the Lord’s super-abounding mercy, that concludes the plaintive reflection with a note of joy. “Nevertheless, he regarded their affliction when he heard their cry; and he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies.” At the same time, so far as the present experience of the Psalmist and of the people is concerned, the joyful note is largely absent—it has special relation to the past. Almost the last words of the Psalm are, “Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the heathen.”
It is our present purpose to call attention to one brief but comprehensive petition which forms part of a personal prayer which the Psalmist offers in the fourth and fifth verses—a prayer that has been much in the hearts and on the lips of God’s children all down the ages since it was first given to the Church: “Remember me, O Lord, with the favour that thou bearest to thy people: O visit me with thy salvation: that I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance.” The special petition on which our thoughts are to be fixed is, “O visit me with thy salvation.”
1. Let us, first, observe the salvation for which the Psalmist prays.
It is “thy,” that is, God’s salvation. No other would satisfy his desire or meet his need. Vain is the help of man to meet the case of a soul that feels himself ready to perish under divine displeasure on account of sin. The arm of flesh is utterly helpless to command deliverance. But the wonderful thing is that the very God against whom men have sinned, and who might have justly allowed them to die in their sins, has graciously provided a salvation more than sufficient to meet their direst necessities. This is the great salvation set before us in the Scriptures, the proclamation of which is the “good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people” (Luke ii. 10).
This salvation is divine from first to last. Divine in its origin: God the Father, as the representative of the Godhead in the covenant of grace, was the original author of it. The Apostle Paul thus writes to Timothy: “God . . . hath saved us according to his own purpose and grace, which were given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.” Divine in its purchase: God the Son, as the Mediator of the new covenant, is the meritorious procurer of it. It was lost sinners under a broken covenant for whom it was provided, and He, in the riches of His love, assumed their nature in a holy condition, and redeemed them from the penalty of the law by shedding His precious blood in their room and stead. Deliverance is in virtue of His infinite ransom. Divine is this salvation also in its application. God the Holy Ghost is the powerful applier of it. Application is His part of the great work. It is His office to convince the soul of sin and guilt and ruin, and to unfold the need of salvation, and it is His also to take of the things of Christ and show them unto the soul thus convinced, and so to put it in possession of salvation. It is the Gospel which comes “not in word only but in power and in the Holy Ghost,” that effectually conveys salvation to the sinner that is on the brink of perdition. It is the Spirit’s gracious province also to carry on the good work that is begun in that day of conversion to its ultimate perfection in “the day of Jesus Christ.”
Let us now observe some of the blessings of this divine salvation, which make it desirable in the eyes of all those who believe. First, there is deliverance from the great root-evil of sin. God gave His only-begotten Son that He might be a Saviour from sin. His name was called Jesus because He should save His people from their sins. There is deliverance provided from sin in its guilt, in its power, in its pollution, in its love, and ultimately in its very being. Every saved soul shall be at last without spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Ephes. v. 27). Secondly, there is deliverance from Satan in his dominion and in his temptations. Christ destroyed the power of him that had the power of death, and every soul that is truly saved is freed from the thraldom of the devil. The enemy still tempts, no doubt, and succeeds to a certain extent with his temptations, but he shall not finally triumph. The Captain of salvation shall lead forth judgment unto victory. Thirdly, there is deliverance out of many present miseries that flow from sin as their original cause. Christ did not hide from His disciples the divinely-ordained pathway of tribulation that lay before them in this present, evil world, but He added: “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” Troubles temporal and troubles spiritual are the lot of “the third part” that must pass through the fire, but yet at length the Lord delivers them out of them all. They experience partial deliverances in time, but the complete and perfect deliverance is reserved for the hour in which death, the last enemy, is destroyed. Fourthly, this divine salvation secures deliverance from the everlasting miseries of the world to come. Who can grasp all that is implied in this wonderful blessing? Who can estimate the awfulness of the never-ending sufferings of the finally lost? Blessed are those souls who have heard in a day of mercy the joyful sound of the Father’s voice, saying, “Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom” (Job xxxiii. 24). These are the negative blessings which are wrapped up in this great salvation. Time and space meantime fail us to enlarge upon the grand positive benefits which are included in its embrace, such as justification, adoption, assurance of God’s love, conformity to the divine image, fellowship with a Triune Jehovah, and preservation unto eternal glory.
2. The second thing to be observed in the words of our text is the petition which the Psalmist offers relative to God’s salvation: “O visit me with thy salvation.”
The inspired writer was evidently a highly favoured man of God, and yet we here find him in a very low case. He earnestly entreats the Lord to remember him with the favour which He bears to His people, and to visit him with His salvation, as if he felt himself at the time entirely outside these great privileges. Such was certainly his conviction, otherwise he would not have thus prayed. And we are not to affirm but that his conviction, so far as sensible experience was concerned, was according to truth. The Lord had hid His face from him for a season, and had exposed him to the attacks of his spiritual foes. He was as a man without God and without salvation, and so his cry goes up for speedy deliverance. He cannot bear to be always forgotten, and he earnestly longs to see the good of God’s chosen and to rejoice in the gladness of His nation.
This brief but pointed petition is very suggestive. It gives us to see, for one thing, the personal nature of true godliness. “O visit me,” cries the Psalmist. Every one that is brought into a right and proper state of mind in regard to his own relation to God feels his need of a direct personal experience of the divine salvation. Sinners, who have only some loose superficial thoughts about this all-important matter, oftentimes imagine that they will be saved in the mass. If they mix among God’s people in the means of grace, they are ready to think that somehow or other they will reach heaven along with them at last. But this is a delusion and a snare. All, saved by grace, are “gathered one by one.” Each one must be brought to a sense of personal need as a lost sinner before God, and the cry must go up from the agonizing depths of the soul, as if there were none other in the wide world, “O visit me with thy salvation;” “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Apart from such intensely real and personal entreaties at a “throne of grace,” sinners only delude themselves as to their hopes of salvation.
Again, this petition shows us that a child of God may fall very low as to a sense of a personal interest in the divine salvation.
He may feel himself as if entirely without it in all its branches and benefits. And yet he is still a child, and is here encouraged to come again and again for a complete salvation to God’s throne of mercy. He is also warranted to come for any particular blessing that is comprehended within the bounds of the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. Small things as well as great are among “the sure mercies of David”—daily bread, relief from the common crosses and trials of life, succour against besetting sins and such like. The exhortations are elsewhere found in the Psalms, “Cast thy burden on the Lord, and he shall sustain thee”; “Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.” And Christ and His apostles also constantly urge souls to prayer with a view to obtain all or any of the blessings that are embraced in the salvation held forth in the gospel. The true children are not rich and increased in goods, having need of nothing, but are poor in spirit, needy souls, who constantly require salvation in some aspect or other to be applied to them on the authority of the Father, through the merits of the Son, and by the power of the Holy Ghost.
Still further, this petition appears to imply that the Psalmist was seeking not merely the benefits of salvation but the Divine Benefactor Himself.
He asks for a “visit” from the Lord. And such is the desire of every truly gracious soul, not the benefits apart from the wonderful Benefactor, but both together. Both are in reality inseparable, though they may be separated in the thought and desire of creatures. “Seek the Lord and His strength; seek his face evermore” (Ps. cv. 4). And such a blessing is undoubtedly promised as the Lord’s manifesting His gracious presence to the souls of His children. Jesus said to one of His apostles, “If a man love me he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (John xiv. 23). How unspeakably precious it is when a soul enjoys a conscious experience of the Lord’s loving presence, and walks even for a short season in the light of His favourable countenance!
Finally, we observe that this petition has been put on record for the benefit of sinners in all ages.
The Lord is putting the very words into our mouths, that we may present suitable and acceptable petitions at His throne. “Take with you words and turn unto the Lord.” This is a petition that He will answer when presented before Him in genuine soul sincerity. The Psalmist was never led to put up such a petition in vain, though we may not have the explicit record of its answer. Will you who are still at ease about your soul’s salvation not begin to consider? Here is a petition most suitable for you, “O visit me with thy salvation,” and it will be at your eternal peril that you neglect the earnest, importunate, and persevering use of it on your knees before God. Time is short; eternity is near; soon we must appear before the immediate eye of a holy and heart-searching Jehovah. In that solemn moment, the sinner who has despised the day of mercy and has never, with real sincerity, sought the great salvation, shall be cast into darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. But the soul that has wrestled daily against sin and Satan throughout the wilderness, with this and similar petitions going up from heart and lips to Him that sitteth on the throne and is mighty to save, shall receive an eternal welcome to the inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, and fadeth not away.
The Scholar’s Comfort.—”I have taken much pains to know everything that was esteemed worth knowing amongst men; but with all my disquisitions and reading, nothing now remains with me to comfort me, at the close of life, but this passage of St. Paul, ‘It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.'”—SELDEN.
Offending a Nobleman.—Mr. Dod, one of the Puritans, having preached against the profanation of the Sabbath, which much prevailed in his parish, and especially among the more wealthy inhabitants, the servant of a nobleman, who was one of them, came to him and said, “Sir, you have offended my lord to-day.” Mr. Dod replied, “I should not have offended your lord, except he had been conscious to himself that he had first offended my Lord; and if your lord will offend my Lord, let him be offended.”