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Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good? Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.’
Lam_3:38-40
‘Is God the Father of my poor sisters in Whitechapel?’ a woman once asked, whose heart had been torn by the daily sight of her sisters’ anguish. Certainly He is, we must believe, or the world would go to pieces for our ‘poor sisters in Whitechapel,’ aye, and for all of us. But if we have taken a light, skimming view of life, if we have lived where it is ‘always afternoon,’ it become us to be silent, or to speak only in the name of those who have faced the sternest realities, and have yet believed. The Hebrew singer is one with the great prophets in this, that he is in no confusion about the source and meaning of Israel’s trouble. He does not find the good hand of God in His deliverances alone. There is mercy even in the exile; in the sweeping disasters which have overtaken the nation. He Who has been with His people in the calm is with them in the storm. Nay, He creates the storm, causes the grief, and the living man has no ground of complaint though he be punished for his sins, for ‘the wages of sin is death,’ and it is ‘of the Lord’s mercies’ that he is not consumed.
I. And here is the key to the man’s faith.—These are not songs of sorrow alone; they are songs of confession and repentance, and therefore of hope. Here are the Jews in Babylon, far away from the city they love. Their hearts are broken and their eyes are dimmed with tears; but they are tears of remorse leading to a searching of heart and a trying of their ways. The author would have them believe that exile is the outcome of their sin. It is not faithfulness that has compassed their downfall. The Lord has afflicted Zion not ‘willingly,’ but ‘for the multitude of her transgressions.’
There is some suffering, it does not need to be said, that is not for punishment. The sharpest pang of the singer as he thinks of the miseries of Israel comes from the cry of suffering children. Some of the noblest and saintliest lives have been shaped in affliction. It is the accent of self-righteousness that finds in all your suffering the punishment of sin. A man whose heart has never been broken should have little to say to another man of his sins. And yet, surely, no man need ask why he suffers. If you have sinned, your own heart will tell you plainly what is the sin for which you suffer. If you have not sinned, you will have something still to do with your sorrow. There were some devout Jews who were not the cause of Israel’s exile, and they too had lessons to learn which have enriched all posterity. But the lesson for all of us is this: that transgression leads to exile; that the broad way narrows; that to the man who persists in sin there must come a day when he will be confronted by fearful threatenings and apprehensions, and when the judgments of the Most High will breathe within him their Divine protest against his sin. Oh, listen! there is suffering which is for sin. This man is speaking of facts; addressing living men, conscious of grievous wrongdoing, bidding them take all the punishment honestly and humbly, and count it a mercy ‘new every morning’ that a throbbing heart and beating pulse are God’s assurance that He will have compassion, if they will return to the Lord.
II. The one hope of our coming to this faith in His compassions is in confession and repentance.—The Gospel of forgiveness and peace will never find the man who does not know the bitterness and guilt of sin. The experiences we have with conscience are to produce in us that ‘godly sorrow’ which ‘worketh repentance unto salvation.’ This, indeed, is the Gospel for all of us. Whatever be our trouble, repentance is our first need. You may not be able to trace your sorrow to any particular sin. It may not be due to any sin of yours at all; but I tell you, the one spirit to which God’s reason for causing any grief is never revealed, is the spirit that has not known, and will not know repentance. Who are we, the best of us, to say that this or that trial of life has nothing to do with our sin?
I would not dare to pass judgment upon you. No man has a right to cast the stone of condemnation unless he be ‘without sin’; but for myself, when the iron has entered my soul, and it shall come my turn to stand in the darkness, may I have the humility to search and test my ways and turn to the Lord! It is only to the penitent soul that the secret of the Lord’s compassions can be revealed.
Illustration
‘When Jeremiah says, Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord; let us lift up our hearts with our hands unto God in the heavens, he reminds us of the proper method to be observed in prayer, namely, sincere confession of sin and repentance must precede our petitions. For we know that God does not hear impenitent sinners (St. Joh_9:31). This method God Himself also has taught us to observe, since He says in Isa_1:15, If ye make many prayers, I will not hear you. Why! For your hands are full of blood. But He immediately adds good counsel: Wash and make yourselves clean, put away your evil doings from before Mine eyes, then come, and let us reason together.’