PREACHED BY THE REV. EWEN MACQUEEN.
“And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight no living man shall be justified” (Ps. cxlii. 2).
IN drawing your attention to the words of our text, where the more you consider it, the more wonderful will the words appear, let us consider—I. The character that the Psalmist claims for himself. He claims to be a servant of the God of whom he speaks here.
II. We shall consider his knowledge of the God of whom he speaks as Law-giver and Judge.
III. His knowledge of himself as a rational, moral creature before the Judge of Eternity. And as He shows his knowledge of himself he shows his knowledge of others; (1) He knows men to be guilty; (2) He knows men to be depraved; (3) He knows that it is utterly impossible to give any other place even for God himself to men than a condemned criminal but the place that he deserves as far as the law of God is concerned.
IV. David’s prayer on this account: “Enter not into judgment with thy servant.”
V. The valid reason that he gives for such a prayer: “For in thy sight shall no living man be justified.”
I. The character that David in the Spirit gives to himself. He claims this as his own character that he is the servant of the Lord, and I shall have four things to notice about a servant—(1) It is true about a servant in nature, and especially in grace, that some are born servants. The children of the servants that were bondmen in the house of their master were the servants of the master in whose house they were born. Now, my friends, it may be said that the children of God are born to serve God, and if you are of the children of God you were born to do service, and you are not ashamed to do it to the God in whose house you were born. They are not ashamed to know God as their Master. Take, for instance, Saul of Tarsus, Peter and John. There are no happier people in the world than servants of great men. (2) There are servants again who are not only born in the house but that were redeemed or bought with a price. Some servants cost a great deal. Every one of God’s servants was bought with a price—not with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ without blemish and without spot. The more
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God’s people know the price that was paid for them the more will they serve the Master who paid such a price for them. (3) There are also servants who were made servants by conquest, and if you read your Bibles you will find that some such servants were very useful even to their master, who conquered them in the world. See, for instance, that little maid who was taken from the land of Israel by Naaman, the Syrian. The little maid waited on the wife of Naaman, and we may say she was the best servant that ever entered the house of Naaman, for she brought to the family of Naaman the news of how Naaman could be healed of his leprosy. Look, for instance, Saul of Tarsus, who was one of the best servants that ever the devil had. Never had the devil a stronger or better servant than Saul of Tarsus. But Christ, who is strong, entered the house of the devil in the soul of Saul of Tarsus, and there he conquered the slave of the devil, and took him and made him His own servant. And was there ever a better servant than Saul of Tarsus? Some of us have served the devil with all our strength as young boys and men, and we would have been in the service of the devil to this day, but Christ has conquered the like of you before, and grant that He may come to my congregation and conquer you. (4) As there are servants who become such by conquest and good service they rendered when conquered. You see it is entirely different in grace to that which it may be in nature. You may conquer a nation, but if you don’t change the nature of that nation they will never be obedient to you. That is not the way in grace. When grace conquers a man it conquers his nature, and when conquered, I assure you, they will join heartily in praising their Master. There are servants who engage in the service of masters in a voluntary way, with all their heart and soul and spirit, and I hope there are some here to-night who can say from the bottom of their souls, I willingly entered into the service of my Lord and Saviour. It is not a burden to me; it is not against my will at all. For when the knowledge of Christ enters in they would give the world to enter His service. I believe there are some, and this is how they are: “I wish this Sabbath night would not pass without the Lord accepting me as His own servant, unworthy though I be.”
“I am thy servant,” says the Psalmist. You will not hear him say, “perhaps I am thy servant,” or “I hope I am thy servant.” There are seasons with the Lord’s true people when they have no doubt about this. They
are whole-hearted in that they are giving themselves up to the Lord to be His for time and an endless eternity. Have you anything against the Lord? Have you anything against the service of the Lord? You don’t wish to pass an hour or a moment without being in the service of the Lord. The child of God will say: “I don’t wish to pass a moment without being in His service.” If that is the case with you, you are in His service already. The natural man and woman, like Felix, say: “Go thy way this once and when I have a convenient season I will send for thee.” The majority here tonight are like Felix. That is the devil’s way. The Lord’s way is: “Now is the time.”
II. The second thing to be noticed is the knowledge the Psalmist possesses of God as the just Judge of eternity. You see that he is viewing Him here in His faithfulness and righteousness. He must be faithful to His own glory. He must be righteous to Himself. He must be righteous to His own glory and attributes. If we view the Most High as the Faithful Judge of eternity and as the righteous Judge of eternity, and passing on from that knowledge to a knowledge of ourselves you will see that David possesses a four-fold knowledge of himself even although he claims to be the servant of the Lord. And every one of the Lord’s children have this four-fold knowledge of themselves, even although they are the Lord’s servants in the world. They know themselves to be guilty sinners by state and practice.
Let us notice David’s knowledge of his own heart and nature. David knew his own heart to be morally and spiritually unclean, and, my friends, look at his confession. I was born in sin and shapen in iniquity. The prophet Isaiah said of himself: “Ah! woe is me for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips and dwell among a people of unclean lips.” “Wretched man that I am,” said the Apostle. The Holy Ghost’s teaching gave them that knowledge. Do you think we are to get off scot free without knowing that, if we are to get into Heaven. No, we must know ourselves as morally and spiritually unclean.
IV. His prayer on this account: “Enter not into judgment with thy servant.” Our thoughts, our words, our actions before God are sinful. Is there anything we ever did that would make a just ground for God to justify us? Is there anything in us to justify us on that ground? When we think of God as a just Judge we should be afraid that He would enter into judgment ac-
cording to the tenor of the moral law. If so, we would be sent to the lowest hell with the devil and his angels for ever and ever. That is the only place that justice can give us. And the just Judge of Eternity must do justice.
Can God justify us on the score of our own service? Never. I have been a servant of the Lord for over thirty years, and I admit in 1927 in the town of Inverness that I am as much afraid of God trying me on the ground of my service rendered to Him for the last thirty-two years as I am of God entering into judgment with me on the grounds of my sins in ignorance against Him. As much afraid of the one as the other. Have we not all reason to say: “Enter not into judgment with thy servant.” Let me appeal to you young men and women. If this was the entreaty of David, who was such a faithful servant of the Lord, what ought to be the case with you here tonight that never rendered any service to the Lord? Oh, boys and girls, who never thought of rendering any service to the Lord, have you not reason to say: “Enter not into judgment with me, wicked sinner that I am.”
V. The reason he gives here for praying so earnestly, viz.:—”For in thy sight shall no man living be justified.” Take the best that ever lived. Could they be justified on the ground of any service they ever rendered themselves? Never. What is the only ground whereon the servants of the Lord and the enemies of the Lord can be justified by the God of Heaven? There is only one ground on which God can justify any sinner, i.e., on the ground of the finished work of His own Son, the atoning death of Christ on Calvary. As it is written, He was delivered for our offences and He was raised again for our justification. There is no other ground upon which the just Judge of Eternity can justify any sinner but that ground. I know this, that what troubles some of us most is what was the ground on which God could justify us. For many a month we went about almost in absolute despair thinking that the asylum would be our home as long as we would be in time, and this was the thing that troubled us that we could not see the ground whereon God could justify a sinner like unto us but, friend, this is the only ground, and when a soul taught of God will get a sight of it that is the thing that will take the load off his back.
Now, dear friends, as you and I part on another Sabbath evening, let me plead with you to take this prayer with you: “Enter not into judgment on the ground of anything that I have done, on the ground of
anything that I ever did, or on the ground of anything that I can ever do. But, in mercy, deal with me on the ground of the finished work of thine own Son for free forgiveness through faith in His blood, and for my justification through faith in His finished work. And if you get an answer to that prayer you will be happy in time, death, and throughout endless ages.