Psalm 32:3-4 When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.… David here describes a very common experience amongst convinced sinners. He was subjected to extreme terrors and pangs of conscience. The terrors he experienced were indescribable, filling his soul with horror and dismay. We would speak — I. To THE SUBJECTS OF GOD'S REBUKE AND THE TERRORS OF GOD'S LAW. What are the causes of your terror? I shall borrow my divisions from quaint old Thomas Fuller, and, as I cannot say better things than he said, I shall borrow much. 1. Those wounds must be deep which are given by so strong a hand as that of God. Remember it is God that is dealing with you, the almighty God. Do you wonder, then, that when He smites, His blows fell you to the ground. Be not astonished at your terrors. 2. Then think of the place where God has wounded you. Not in hand, head, or foot, but in your heart, your inmost soul. 3. Satan is busy with you. "Now," saith he, "God is driving him to madness, I will drive him to despair." 4. The terrible nature of the weapon with which God has wounded you. The sword of the Spirit, so that it cannot be a little wound. 5. The foolishness of the patient. Some are much more quickly healed than others; serenity of mind and quietude of spirit help much, but fretfulness and anxiety hinder. It is even so with you: you are a foolish patient; you will not do that which would cure you, but you do that which aggravates your woe: you know that if you would cast yourselves upon Jesus you would have peace of conscience at once; but instead of that you are meddling with doctrines too high for you, trying to pry into mysteries which the angels have not known, and so you turn your dizzy brain, and thus help to make your heart yet more singularly sad. You seek to file your fetters, and you rivet them; you seek to unbind them yourself, and you thrust them the deeper into your flesh. 6. Yours is a disease in which nothing can ever help you but that one remedy. All the joys of nature will never give you relief. When Adam had sinned he became suddenly plunged in misery; he had unparadised paradise. And so it will be with you. If you could be put in paradise you would not be happier. There is only one cure for you. 7. Now why does God let you suffer so? He does not deal so with all His people. Why, then, with you? We cannot tell all the reasons, but it may be because you were such a stony-hearted sinner. You were so desperately set on mischief, so stolid, so indifferent, that, if saved, God must save you in such a way, or else not at all. 8. And there is that in your heart which would take you back to your old sins, and so He is making them bitter to you. He is burning you that you may be like the burnt child which dreads the fire. 9. And He would make you the more happy afterwards. The black days of dreary winter make the summer days all the fairer and the sweeter. 10. And, maybe, God means to make great use of you. The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction. These are His highlanders that carry everything before them. They know the rivers of sin, the glens of grief, and, now their sins are washed away, they know the heights of self-consecration, and of pure devotion. They can do all things through and for the Christ who has forgiven them. II. To THOSE WHO HAVE NEVER FELT THESE TERRORS BUT STRANGELY WISH THEY HAD, It is not true that all who are saved suffer these terrors. The most, and they amongst the best, do not. And God has brought you in quieter ways to Himself — then be grateful to Him. You might not have been able to bear other means. And perhaps if you had much experience you would have grown self-righteous. There is a brother who has never known, to the extent some of us have to know, the plague of his own heart, lie has never gone through fire and through water, but, on the contrary, is a loving-hearted spirit: a man who spends and is spent in his Master's service; he knows more of the heights of communion than some of us. Do not, then, desire to be troubled, but trust to Christ. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.WEB: When I kept silence, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. |
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