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TOPIC: MacDuff, John - The Deer and the Water-Brooks (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 14 Faith and Prayer
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FAITH AND PRAYER
"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!"
"The soul of man serves the purpose, as it were, of a workshop to Satan, in which to forge a thousand methods of despair. And therefore it is not without reason that David, after a severe conflict with himself, has recourse to prayer, and calls upon God as the witness of his sorrow."—Calvin on the Psalms.
I say to God my Rock, "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?" My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, "Where is your God?" Psalm 42:9-10
Touching was that scene which occurred three thousand years ago on the borders of Palestine: aged Naomi, in returning to the land of her own kindred from her sojourn in Moab, pausing to take a last farewell of her two loving daughters-in-law! One of these refuses to part from her. Strong may be the inducement to Ruth to return to the home of her childhood, and, above all, to the spot where hallowed dust reposes (the buried treasure of her young affections). But ties stronger than death link her soul to the one who had shared for ten years her joys and sorrows. With impassioned tears, she announces her determination! Her resolve may entail upon her manifold sacrifices. She may be going to an alien people—to a home of poverty—to bleak and barren wilds, compared with her own fertile valleys. But she is ready for any toil, any self-denial, if only permitted to retain the companionship of that living, loving heart, which had been to her all that earthly tenderness could be.
Such, if we may compare an earthly with a heavenly affection, were the feelings of the banished King of Judah, at this time, towards his God. All the temptations that have been assailing him, have not repressed the ardor of his faith, or diminished the fervor of his love. Unbelief had done its best to sever the holy bond which linked him to his Heavenly Friend; but, like the tender-hearted Moabitess from whom he sprung, he will submit to any privation rather than be parted from Him whose favor is life. "Entreat me not to leave You," is the spirit at least of his fervid aspiration; "nor to return from following after You. Where You go I will go, and where You dwell I will dwell; and death itself shall not separate between You and me." As Peter, in a future age, rushed to the feet of that Savior he had again and again wounded, so these many waters (the "deep calling to deep") cannot quench the Psalmist's love, nor many floods drown it. The voice of malignant taunt and scorn, "Where is now your God?" might have driven others to despair; but it only rouses him up, in the midnight of his struggle, to the exercise of new spiritual graces. "I shall not," he seems to say, "surrender my holy trust; I know the graciousness of the God with whom I have to deal. Nothing will tempt me to abandon my interest in the covenant. I shall take a new weapon from the Divine armory; with it I shall seek to decide the conflict. No jibes of the scoffer, no rebellious son, no crafty Ahithophel, can rob me of the privilege of PRAYER." I say to God my Rock, "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?"
It is, then, a combined exercise of faith and prayer, on the part of David, we are now called to consider. Out of weakness he is made strong, waxes valiant in fight, and turns to flight the armies of the aliens. Let us advert to each in their order. FAITH regards God here under a twofold aspect.
1. It looks to Him as an IMMUTABLE GOD. Amid the fitfulness of his own feelings, this was the Psalmist's consolation—"God my ROCK!"
What a source of comfort is there here in the immutability of Jehovah. All else around us is unstable. External nature bears on every page of its volume the traces of mutation. Earth has the folds already on its vesture—the wrinkles of age on its brow. The ocean murmurs of change, as its billows chafe on altered landmarks. Human friendships and human associations are all fluctuating. So are our habits, and tastes, and employments. The old man, looking back from some hoary pinnacle on the past, almost questions his personal identity. And these emptied chairs!—these faces, once glowing at our firesides, now greeting our gaze only in mute and silent portraits on the wall! "Here we have no continuing city," is the oracle of all time.
"But YOU are the same, and Your years shall have no end." (Psalm 102:27.) "Heaven and earth may pass away," but there is no change, and can be none, in an all-perfect God! "The wheel turns round, but the axle is immutable." The clouds which obscure the sun do not descend from heaven—they are exhaled from earth. It is the soul's own darkening vapors, generated by unbelief and sin, which at times taint and obscure the moral atmosphere. Behind every such murky haze He shines brightly as ever. "Have you not known? have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary?" (Isa. 40:28.) "Young sailors," says Rutherford, "imagine the shore and land moving, while it is they themselves all the while. So we often think that God is changing, when the change is all with ourselves!"
2. Faith regards this immutable God as a God in COVENANT.
"MY Rock!" Believer! you have the same immoveable ground of confidence! Look to YOUR God in Christ, who has made with you "an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure!" He, "willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us." (Heb. 6:17, 18.) The torch may flicker in your hand, the flame may be the sport of every passing gust of temptation and trial, but He who lighted it will not allow it to be quenched. "Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not." (Luke 22:31.) The Great Adversary may attempt to rob you of your peace, but that peace is imperishably secured. He must first destroy THE ROCK, before he can touch one trembling soul that has fled there for refuge! He must first uncrown Christ, before he can touch one jewel in the purchased diadems of His people! Your life is "hidden with Christ in God;" because He lives, "you shall live also!" God himself must become mutable, and cease to be God, before your eternal safety can be imperilled or impaired. "If we perish," says Luther, "Christ perishes with us."
Let us turn now to the Psalmist's PRAYER.
If Faith be called the eye, Prayer may be called the wings of the soul. No sooner does Faith observe God his "Rock," than forthwith Prayer spreads out her pinions for flight. In the close of the preceding verse, (when in the extremity of his agony,) David had announced his determination to betake himself to supplication—"In the night His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life." He follows up his resolution now with material for petition. He puts on record a solemn and beautiful liturgy—I say to God my Rock, "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?" My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, "Where is your God?"
How wonderfully does God thus overrule His darkest dispensations for the exercise and discipline of His people's spiritual graces! In their overflowing prosperity they are apt to forget Him. He sends them afflictions. Trial elicits faith—faith drives to prayer—prayer obtains the spiritual blessing! It was the sense of neediness and wretchedness which drove the prodigal to cry, "Father, I have sinned!" It was the "buffeting" thorn which sent Paul thrice to his knees in the agony of supplication, and brought down on his soul a rich heritage of spiritual blessing. It was these surging waves—the "deep calling to deep"—which elicited the cry from this sinking castaway, "My heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the Rock that is higher than I!" "BEHOLD HE PRAYS!" That announcement seems in a moment to turn the tide of battle, and change the storm into a calm. Well has a Christian poet written—
"Frail are you, O man, as a bubble on the breaker;
Weak, and governed by externals, like a poor bird caught in the storm:
Yet your momentary breath can still the raging waters;
Your hand can touch a lever that may move the world."
The struggle until now may have seemed doubtful; "but those who WAIT upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles." (Isa. 40:31.) It is said, the beautiful plumage of the Bird of Paradise not only impedes its flight when flying against the wind, but often in the ineffectual effort it is brought helpless and exhausted to the ground—its golden hues soiled and ruffled. When, however, a gentle breeze springs up, it spreads out its feathers in a fan-like shape, and is borne joyously along! So with the believer. When he is called to do battle with unbelief, the wings of faith are often soiled, and mutilated, and broken; he falls a helpless thing to the earth. But when God's own south wind blows, he spreads out his glorious plumage, and, rising on the pinions of prayer, is borne onwards and upwards to the region of heavenly peace and joy!
There are one or two characteristics in David's prayer worthy of note, with which we shall sum up this chapter.
1. Observe his INSTANT resort to the "God of his life!"
No sooner does the thought of prayer suggest itself, than he proceeds to the sacred exercise. Like the prodigal, not only does he say, "I will arise and go," but the next record in his history is, "And he arose, and came to his father." (Luke 15:20.) Oh, how much spiritual benefit we miss by procrastination! The cloud of blessing floats over our heads, but we fail to stretch forth the electric rod of prayer to fetch it down! We determine on embarking, but, by guilty delay, we allow the vessel to weigh anchor, and we are left behind. Many an afflictive dispensation thus loses its sanctifying design. When the heart is crushed and broken, the heavenly voice sounds startling and solemn! What a season, if timely improved, for enrichment at the mercy-seat! When "things present" are disenchanted of their spell—when time is brought to hold its relative insignificance to eternity, what a season for the self-emptied one, to go to the all-fullness of Jesus, and receive from Him every needful supply! But, alas! we often know not "the day of our merciful visitation."
The heart, when the hammer might be falling on it, and welding it to the Divine will, is too often allowed to cool. Solemn impressions are allowed to wear away—the blessing is lost by guilty postponement. David might now have been so absorbed in his trials, as to have lost the opportunity of prayer. He might have invented some vain excuses for procrastination, and missed the blessing; just as the disciples, by their sluggish indifference and guilty slumber, drew down the thrice-repeated rebuke from injured Goodness, "Could you not watch with me one hour?" But the golden moment is not allowed by him thus to pass. No sooner does he get a glimpse of the path of prayer, than he proceeds to tread it. The very fact of the fire being so low, is the most powerful reason for stirring it. Her Lord being lost, is the strongest argument for the Spouse seeking Him without delay—"I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek Him whom my soul loves." (Song 3:2.)
2. Observe David's importunity. He waxes into a holy boldness. He seeks to know from "the God of his life" the reasons of this apparent desertion—"Why have You forgotten me? I cannot see or understand, as Your covenant servant, the reason of all this depression—why, with all those promises of Yours, these hands should be hanging down, and these knees be so feeble."
The mother does not cast off her sick or feeble child. Its very weakness and weariness is an additional argument for her care and love, and draws her heart closer than ever to the bed of the tiny sufferer! David knew well that God, who had ever dealt with him "as one whom his mother comforts," would not (unless for some wise reason) leave him to despondency. Looking to this immutable Covenant-Jehovah, and lifting his voice high above the water-floods, he thus, in impassioned prayer, pleads "the causes of his soul"—"O Lord, I have come to you for protection; don't let me be put to shame. Rescue me, for you always do what is right. Bend down and listen to me; rescue me quickly. Be for me a great rock of safety, a fortress where my enemies cannot reach me. You are my rock and my fortress. For the honor of your name, lead me out of this peril. Pull me from the trap my enemies set for me, for I find protection in you alone. I entrust my spirit into your hand. You have redeemed me, O Lord God of truth." (Psalm 31:1-5.)
3. The Psalmist takes his SPECIAL TROUBLE to God, and makes it the subject of prayer. He names in the Divine presence the cause of his deepest perplexity. My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, "Where is your God?" (Verse 10.)
"Generalities," says a good man, "are the death of prayer." The loftiest privilege the believer can enjoy is the confidential unburdening of his needs into the ear of a Father. Just as a child can freely unbosom to a parent what he can do to no one else, so are we permitted to tell into the ear of our Father in heaven whatever may be the heart-sorrow with which a stranger (often a friend) dare not intermeddle. See the speciality in the Psalmist's confession of his sin. It is not the general acknowledgment of a sinner. It is rather a humbled penitent carrying one deep crimson-stain to the mercy-seat; bringing it, and it alone, as if for the moment he had to deal respecting it only with the great Heart-searcher. "My sin is ever before me." "I have done this evil in Your sight." "Wash me from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." "I said, I will confess my transgressions, and You forgave the iniquity of my sin." (Psalms 51 and 32.)
Let us not think that we can ever have comfort in merging individual sins in a general confession. This is the great and pre-eminent advantage of secret closet-prayer. Social prayer and public prayer are eminently means of securing the Divine blessing; but it is in the quiet of the chamber, when no eye and ear are on us but that of "our Father who sees in secret," that we can bring our secret burdens to His altar—crucify our secret sins, acknowledge the peculiar sources of our weakness and temptation, and get special grace to help us in our times of need.
But we may here ask, Have we any assurance that the prayers of David, at this critical emergency, were indeed answered? Or, (as we are often tempted in seasons of guilty unbelief to argue regarding our prayers still,) did they ascend unheard and unresponded to?—did the cries of the supplicant die away in empty echoes amid these glens of Gilead? We have his own testimony, in a magnificent ode of his old age (Psalm 18), one of the last, and one of the noblest his lips ever sung, that Jehovah had heard him in the day of his trouble. It is a Psalm, as we are told in the title, written by him on his return to his capital, when victory had crowned his arms, and his kingdom was once more in peace. The aged Minstrel takes in it a retrospective survey of his eventful pilgrimage. Many a Mizar-hill in the long vista rises conspicuously into view. He climbs in thought their steeps, and erects his Ebenezer! As his flight and sojourn beyond Jordan formed the last occurrence in that chequered life, we may well believe that in uttering these inspired numbers, the remembrance of his memorable soul-struggle there must have been especially present to his mind. Let us listen to his own words: "The sorrows of death compassed me, and THE FLOODS OF UNGODLY MEN made me afraid. In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto MY GOD: HE HEARD my voice out of His temple, and MY CRY CAME BEFORE HIM, EVEN INTO HIS EARS."
In the most sublime poetical figures of all his Psalms, Jehovah is further represented in this hymn of thanksgiving as hastening with rapid flight, in magnificent symbols of majesty, to the relief and support of His servant—"bowing the heavens"—"the darkness under His feet"—"riding upon a cherub"—"flying upon the wings of the wind"—"sending out His arrows, and scattering His foes"—"shooting out lightnings "—and "overthrowing them." And with the writer's mind still resting on the same emblems which he uses in his Exile-Psalm—the "deep calling to deep"—the "noise of the waterfalls"—the "waves and billows,"—he interweaves other references and experiences with this unequivocal testimony to God his "Rock," as the HEARER OF PRAYER—"He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters. Who is God save the Lord? or who is a ROCK but our God? The Lord lives; and blessed be my ROCK; and let the God of my salvation be exalted!" (Psalm 18:16, 31, 46.)
Reader! let me ask, in conclusion, do you know in your experience the combined triumphs of faith and prayer—these two heavenly spies that fetch back Eschol-clusters of blessing to the true Israel of God? Do you know what it is, in the hour of adversity, to repair to "the Rock of your strength?" Do you believe in His willingness to hear, and in His power to save? How sad the case of those who, in their seasons of trial, have no refuge to which they can betake themselves, but some fluctuating, perishing, earthly one—who, when they lose the world, lose their all! The miser plundered of his gold, cleaving to the empty coffers—the pleasure-hunter seeking to drain the empty chalice, or to extract honey out of the empty comb—the bereaved grasping with broken hearts their withered gourd, and refusing to be comforted! The worldling is like the bird building its nest on the topmost bough of the tree. There it weaves its wicker dwelling, and feels as if nothing can invade its security and peace. By and by the woodman comes—lays down his axe by the root. The chips fly off swiftly. The pine tree rocks and shivers; in a few moments it lies prone on the forest-sward. The tiny bird hovers over its dismantled home—the scene of desolation and havoc—and then goes screaming through the wood with the tale of her woes!
The Christian, again, is like the sea-bird, building its nest in the niches of the ocean cliff, which bids defiance at once to the axe and the hand of the plunderer. Far below, the waves are lifting their crested tops, and eddying pools are boiling in fury. The tempest may be sighing overhead, and the wild shriek of danger and death rising from some helpless bark that is borne like a weed on the maddened waters. But the spent spray can only touch these rocky heights—no more; and the eagle, sitting with folded wings on her young, can look calm and undismayed on the elemental war. "What is the best grounds of a philosopher's constancy," says Bishop Hall, "but as moving sands, in comparison of the Rock that we may build upon!"
Yes! build in the clefts of that immoveable Rock, and you are safe. Safe in Christ, you can contemplate undismayed all the tossings and heavings of life's fretful sea! So long as the Psalmist looked to God, he was all secure. When he looked to himself he was all despondency. Peter, when his eye was on his Lord, walked boldly on the limpid waves of Gennesaret; when he diverted it on himself, and thought on the dangers around him, and the unstable element beneath him, "he began to sink!"
Believer! is your heart overwhelmed? Are you undergoing a similar experience with the Psalmist? Your friends (perhaps your nearest and best) misunderstanding your trial, unable to probe the severity of your wound, mocking your tears with unsympathizing reflections and cruel jests—"a sword in your bones!" Turn your season of sorrow into a season of prayer. Look up to the God-man Mediator, the tender Kinsman within the veil! He knows your frame. When He sees your frail bark struggling in the storm, and hears the cry of prayer rising from your lips, He will say, as He said of old, "I KNOW their sorrows, and I will go down to deliver them! O wounded Deer! panting after the water-brooks, I was once wounded for you. O smitten soul! scorched and scarred with the lightning and tempest, see how I myself, the Rock of Ages, was smitten and afflicted!" Yes, and you can say, too, "God MY Rock!" You can individually repose in that sheltering Refuge, as if it were intended for you alone. The loving eye of that Savior is upon you, as if you were the solitary object of His gaze—as if no other struggling castaway breasted the billows but yourself!
Blessed security, who would not prize it! Blessed shelter, who would not repair to it! Oh that the Psalmist's creed and resolution might be ours—"I will say of the Lord, He is MY ROCK and MY Fortress, and MY Deliverer."—"O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the ROCK OF OUR SALVATION!"