For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was drained as in the summer heat. Selah Sermons I. FORGIVENESS NEEDED. Here, indeed, the expositor must be clear, firm, direct, swift, pointed. We have: 1. Sin committed. The Hebrew language, poor as is its vocabulary in many directions, is abundant in the terms used in connection with sin. It is and ever will remain the differential feature of the education of the Hebrew people, that they were taught so emphatically and constantly the evil of sin. For this purpose the Law was their child-guide with a view to Christ (Galatians 3:24). Of the several terms used to express sin, three are employed here. One, which denotes "missing the mark;" a second, which denotes "overstepping the mark;" a third, which denotes "crookedness or unevenness." Over and above corresponding terms in the New Testament, we have two definitions of sin. One in 1 John 3:4, "Sin is the transgression of law;" another in 1 John 5:1, "All injustice is sin." We can never show men the value of the gospel until they see the evil of sin. Some minds are most effectively reached by one aspect of truth, and others by another; but surely from one or other of these Scripture terms or phrases the preacher may prepare a set of arrows that by God's blessing will pierce some through the joints of their armour. Nor can the reality or evil of sin be fairly evaded by any plea drawn from the modern doctrine of evolution; since, even if that theory be valid, the emergence of consciousness and of moral responsibility at a certain stage of evolution is as certain a phenomenon as any other. Men know they have done wrong, and it behoves the preacher not to quit his hold of them till he has driven conviction of the evil of sin against God deeply into the soul! 2. Sin concealed. (Ver. 2.) "I kept silence," i.e. towards God. In the specific case referred to here, sin had disclosed its fearful reality by breaking out openly; it was known, yet unacknowledged. Hence: 3. Sin rankled within (ver. 2, "my bones," etc.). Remorse and self-reproach succeeded to the numbness which was the first effect of the sin. There was a reaction - restlessness seized on the guilty one. The action of a guilty conscience brings within a man the most terribly consuming of all agitation. He cannot flee from himself, and his guilt and dread pursue him everywhere (Job 15:20-25; Job 18:11; Job 20:11-29; Proverbs 28:1). Hence it is a great relief to note the next stage. 4. Sin confessed. (Ver. 5.) What a mercy that our God is one to whom we can unburden our guilt, telling him all, knowing that in the storehouse of infinite grace and love there is exhaustless mercy that wilt "multiply pardons" (Isaiah 55:7, Hebrew)! 5. Sinput away. (Ver. 2.) "In whose spirit there is no guile;" i.e. no deceit, no reserve, no concealment, no continuing in the sin which is thus bemoaned, but, at the moment it is confessed towards God, honestly and entirely putting it away. And when once the sin and guilt are thus put away before God, it will not be long ere the penitent has to recount the experience of - II. FORGIVENESS OBTAINED AND ENJOYED. He who guilelessly puts away sin by repentance will surely find that God lovingly' puts it away by pardon (ver. 5). And as the Hebrew is ample in its terms for sin, so also is it in the varied words and phrases to express Divine forgiveness. Three of these are used here; but in the Hebrew there are, at least, ten others, 1. "Forgiven." (Ver. 1.) The Hebrew word means "lifted off;" in this case the LXX. render "remitted," but sometimes they translate the Hebrew term literally, by a word which also means "to lift off," "to lift up," "to bear," and "to bear away." (cf. John 1:29; 1 John 3:5; Matthew 9:5, 6). In Divine forgiveness, the burden of sin is lifted off from us and borne away by the Son of God; the penitent is also "let go." His indictment is cancelled, and from sin's penalty he is set free. 2. Covered; as with a lid, or a veil: put out of sight. God looks on it no more (Micah 7:18). 3. "Iniquity not imputed. It is no more reckoned to the penitent. With absolution there is complete and entire acquittal, and with the non-imputation of sin there is the imputation of righteousness (Romans 3., 4., 5.), or the full and free reception of the pardoned one into the Divine favour, in which a standing of privilege, that in his own right he could not claim, is freely accorded to him through the aboundings of Divine grace. III. FORGIVENESS BEARING FRUIT. This psalm is itself the product of a forgiven man's pen. It would be a psychological impossibility for an unregenerate and unpardoned man ever to have written it. The psalmist's experience of forgiving love bears fruit: 1. In grateful song. (Ver. 7.) Songs of deliverance" will now take the place of consuming remorse and penitential groans. 2. In new thoughts of God. (Ver. 7.) "Thou art my Hiding-place" etc. In the God whose pardoning love he has known, he will now find a perpetual Protector and Friend. 3. In joyous declaration to others. (Vers. 1, 2.) "Blessed... blessed," etc. The emphasis is doubly intense. (1) There is a blessedness in forgiveness itself. To have the burden of guilt lifted off, and the sentence of condemnation cancelled, what blessedness is here! (2) There is blessedness which follows on forgiveness. New freedom. New joy in God. New ties of love. New citizenship. New heirship. New prospects. Oh! the blessedness! 4. In exhortation. (Vers. 8, 9.) We regard these as the psalmist's words, in which he uses his own experience to counsel others. Broken-hearted penitents make the best evangelists. The exhortation is threefold. (1) He bids us not to be perverse and obstinate, i.e. in attempting to conceal our guilt; but rather to show the reason of reasonable men in confessing and abandoning it (ver. 9). (2) He reminds us that, while resistance to God will only surround us with woes, trust in God will ensure our being encompassed with mercies (ver. 10). (3) He bids truly sincere, upright, penitent souls - men without guile - to rejoice in God, yea, even to shout for joy, because of that forgiving love which buries all the past guilt of the penitent in the ocean of redeeming grace, and enriches the pardoned one with the heirship of everlasting life. - C.
Day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me. "Premes gravissima. Sublevans suavissima et potentissima." So wrote one of our shrewdest commentators about the hand of which the psalmist speaks, in words which may be freely translated, "The hand of God, whilst pressing very hard, supports with utmost tenderness and almighty power."I. CREATION. How beautifully are the two sides illustrated here. Tim schoolboy can tell us how the atmosphere is weighing upon the slenderest object on the earth's surface with a constant pressure of many pounds to each square inch. The hand seen as "premeds gravissima." Yet the dewdrop is not shattered, nor the harebell bruised, since the same hand is also "sublevans suavissima et potentissima." Again, whilst with irresistible force all things are being dragged towards the earth's centre, the insect with its gauzy wings poises itself in the liquid air, and the tiny child is unhindered in his play. II. PROVIDENCE. Whatever page of history we study the same facts meet us, — on the one hand discipline and chastisement, disappointment, sorrow, pain, loss — the hand in ten thousand ways "premens gravissima"; on the other, the reaping of a compensating harvest of happy results, the hand "sublevans susvissima et potentissima." Hers tribulation and anguish, there prosperity and peace; nations and individuals groaning beneath the weight of calamity, then led out into a wealthy place. III. REDEMPTION. By redemption we mean the great process in all its parts by which the Father of Spirits is recovering man from spiritual ruin. Go back to the Fall. In the stern sentence passed on the first sinners, what do we see but the hand "premens"? in the primal promise what but the same hand "sublevans"? And in all that wonderful training, covering so many centuries and conducted in ways so surprising, by which the conscience of man was made alive to the guilt of sin — in all the work done by law — are we not looking at the hand of God as it descends upon the sinner, and makes him groan beneath the intolerable burden, as the psalmist did when "his bones waxed old through his roaring all the day long," and "his moisture was turned into the drought of summer"? And does not that hand become more and more visible as "sublevans suavissima et poten-tissima," as mercy streams across the midnight sky in an ever-brightening track of blessed light, prophetic of the full glory of the dawn? (T. G. Rose.) 1. They are from God's hand purposing and ordaining them (Romans 8:29; 1 Thessalonians 3:3). 2. They are from God's hand executing them (Isaiah 45:7; Genesis 45:8; Job 1:21; 2 Samuel 16:11; Hosea 6:1). 3. They are from God's hand ordering and disposing them.(1) In their causes, circumstances, kinds, manner, measure, and time of their beginning and ending.(2) In their ends and issues, His own glory, in manifesting His mercy, justice, wisdom, power, etc. The everlasting salvation of His children. He stops them in their course of sin, as with a hedge of thorns (Hosea 2:6), that they should not break over into the pleasant pastures of sin, therein to be fatted to the slaughter. He brings them to a true hatred of sin, when they taste the bitter fruit of it. To the exercise of mortification, and desire of heaven and heavenly things: and thus they are judged of the Lord, that they may not be condemned with the world. II. GOD LAYS HIS HAND HEAVILY OFTEN UPON HIS OWN DEAR CHILDREN. 1. There is deep corruption lurking in the best, who not seldom are cast upon so deep a sleep of security that they cannot be wakened with a little shaking, till by most grievous afflictions the Lord break their bones, consume their strength, and bring them into such grief and pain as sets them roaring. 2. Smaller troubles have often a smaller work. Small things cannot make great hearts stoop; a small fire will not purge away dross from gold, but it must be quick and piercing; a small wind doth not fan away the chaff of vanity, a small correction or smart makes the child more froward, till sounder correction subdue him; small trials do not so exercise faith, nor send men out of themselves to God: for as none for the scratch of a pin, or a little headache, will seek to the physician or surgeon; so a sinner in smaller grievances of the soul will scarce think he needs go to God (Job 33:14). 3. The greater the affliction is, the more odious doth sin appear to be unto God; a strong poison must have a strong antidote: the more the godly are stricken down for sin, the more are they stirred up to godly sorrow, to hatred of it, to zeal against it, the better and more watchful do they prevent sin to come, and look better to themselves: as a good physician oftentimes letteth blood, not to make a man sick, but to prevent sickness. 4. The greater the trial is, the better experience have they of themselves. 5. God's children have great afflictions, and are pressed with an heavy hand, that God Himself may be clearly seen to be their deliverer, when in the eyes of all flesh they are lost. 6. As great afflictions make way for abundant mercy from God to us, so also for abundant thanks from us to God. If one cure a trifling matter, it neither so binds the patient, nor yet commends the physician: but if any be cured of some deadly, and almost incurable disease, then we profess we could never have met with such a physician in all the world again, and we are accordingly thankful. 7. Were it not for great afflictions, we could never know the power of God's Word in quickening us, cheering and comforting us in them, that it is the Word of Life, is most evidently seen in Death itself. III. GOD LAYS HIS HEAVY HAND UPON HIS CHILDREN A LONG TIME, AND WITH MUCH CONTINUANCE. 1. Sometimes God's children in their falls harden their hearts, and grow stiff in their sin, which was David's case here, and then the Lord hardeneth Himself to grow stiff in displeasure. Oftentimes God's children would sit silent, if the Lord would be as silent as they: but whom He loves, He will bring back the way that they are gone, and great hearts will not stoop for a little. 2. Christ hath not taken away the lingering of trials, but the malignity and poison of them; yea, Himself through all His life was a man full of sorrows; and we must not look to be better; He deserved them not, we have. 3. God would have us in the continuance of our trouble, to see the continuance of our sin; were our correction always short, we would not be persuaded of the greatness of our sins: plasters use to continue, and not fall off till the wound be cured.; and if a right use of afflictions were attained once, a joyful issue would soon follow: but some lust is not denied, and that adds a sting unto them. 4. God by the continuance of His hand would hold us in a continual exercise of grace, as of humility, faith, patience, prayer, repentance, etc., it being with a godly man, as one that hath a precious jewel, which he is careful to keep in his hand, so long as he watcheth, none can get it from him; but when he sleeps or slumbers, his hand opens, and it falls out, any man may have it. By continual blowing, the fire is kept in, but it dies by discontinuance. (T. Taylor, D. D.) People David, PsalmistPlaces JerusalemTopics Body, Changed, Drained, Dried, Drought, Droughts, Drouth, Dry, Fever, Heat, Heavy, Moisture, Sap, Sapped, Selah, Strength, Summer, Vitality, WeightOutline 1. Blessedness consists in remission of sins3. Confession of sins gives ease to the conscience 8. God's promises bring joy Dictionary of Bible Themes Psalm 32:4 4970 seasons, of year 5398 loss 4817 drought, spiritual Library A Threefold Thought of Sin and Forgiveness'Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.' --PSALM xxxii. 1, 2. This psalm, which has given healing to many a wounded conscience, comes from the depths of a conscience which itself has been wounded and healed. One must be very dull of hearing not to feel how it throbs with emotion, and is, in fact, a gush of rapture from a heart experiencing in its freshness the new joy … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture December the Thirtieth the Blessedness of Forgiveness Self-Scrutiny in God's Presence. Confession of Sin Illustrated by the Cases of Dr. Pritchard and Constance Kent Bit and Bridle: How to Escape Them Heroes and Heroines (Whitsunday. ) Pardon and Peace The Faults Committed in this Degree --Distractions, Temptations --The Course to be Pursued Respecting Them. Of Confession of Our Infirmity and of the Miseries of this Life Letter iii (A. D. 1131) to Bruno, Archbishop Elect of Cologne The Tears of the Penitent. The First Disciples: iv. Nathanael David's Sin in the Matter of Uriah. Out of the Deep of Sin. Grace and Holiness. Question Lxxxiii of Prayer Epistle Xlvi. To Isacius, Bishop of Jerusalem . A Description of Heart-Purity Of the True Church. Duty of Cultivating Unity with Her, as the Mother of all the Godly. The Best Things Work for Good to the Godly The Godly are in Some Sense Already Blessed The Consolation Man's Inability to Keep the Moral Law Links Psalm 32:4 NIVPsalm 32:4 NLT Psalm 32:4 ESV Psalm 32:4 NASB Psalm 32:4 KJV Psalm 32:4 Bible Apps Psalm 32:4 Parallel Psalm 32:4 Biblia Paralela Psalm 32:4 Chinese Bible Psalm 32:4 French Bible Psalm 32:4 German Bible Psalm 32:4 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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