Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 741
Delivered by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“Look upon my affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins.” Psalm 25:18.
IF this Psalm were, indeed, written by David at the time when his son Absalom had raised the rebellion against him, we can readily understand the distinction which he draws between his “affliction,” and his “pain.” It is a great “affliction” to have a son become a rebel and that subjects who owed so much to their monarch should become traitors against his gentle government. “Pain” was the acute sensation which David’s own heart experienced as the result of such calamity. He knew—
“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is To have a thankless child.”
None of us can guess the “pain” which David must have felt from the “affliction” of having such a son as Absalom, and the “pain” of mind, again, which he felt in being betrayed by his familiar counselor, Ahithophel, and in being forsaken by his subjects who in former days had honored him and rejoiced in him. He asked the Lord, therefore, to look not only upon the trouble, but also upon the misery which the trouble caused him. “If needs be,” says the Apostle, “we are in heaviness through manifold temptations”—as if not only the temptations were to be observed, but also the heaviness consequent thereof. So here we may bring before God’s notice not only our trial, but the inward anguish which the trial occasions us.
I can understand, also, why David should add, “And forgive all my sins,” because he knew that the revolt of Absalom was mysteriously connected with the Divine purpose as a chastisement for his sin with Bathsheba. He recollected how Nathan had told him that he should have war all the days of his life—and now he remembered it all—the bitterness of gall sickened his soul as he remembered that sin which had once been so sweet to his taste. He went back to the fatal day and the tears stood in his eyes as he thought of all the filth and guilt of his conduct—what a traitor he had been to Uriah—how he had dishonored the name of God in the midst of the whole land!
Well might he have said, “Lord, when You look upon this well-deserved affliction, and when You see the pain with which it brings my soul, then, though it will bring my sin to Your mind as it does to mine, yet let forgiveness blot it out. Yes, not for that sin only, but for all others that have preceded or followed it grant me a gracious pardon—forgive, I pray You, all my sins.”
1. It is well for us, dear Friends, WHEN OUR PRAYERS ABOUT OUR SORROWS ARE LINKED WITH PRAYERS ABOUT OUR SINS—WHEN, BEING UNDER GOD’S HAND, OUR SOUL IS NOT WHOLLY TAKEN UP WITH OUR PAIN, BUT WE ALSO REMEMBER OUR OFFENSES AGAINST GOD. I do not think it would have been worth one’s while to have preached from the text if it had only said, “Remember my affliction and my pain.” But when it is, “Look upon my affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins,” the two things put together are very instructive.
Let us seek to get some edifying counsel from them. Our sorrows are profitable when they bring our sins to our minds. Some sorrows may do this by giving us lime for thought. A sickbed has often been a place of repentance. While the man was occupied with his daily work and the active labor of his hands, or could be from morning till night at business, sin escaped his notice. He was too busy to care about his soul. He had too much to do with earth to remember Heaven. But now he cannot think of business, or if he does he can get no profit or satisfaction from all his thoughts—now he cannot go to his work but must lie upon his bed until his health is recovered.
And oftentimes the quiet of the night, or the stillness of the day which once was given up to toil and drudgery has been blessed of God to work a solemn stillness in the soul in which the voice of God has been heard, saying, “Turn unto Me! Turn unto Me! Why will you die?” Some of you do not often hear God’s voice. You are in the midst of the clitter-
clatter of this great city and the roar and din of it are so perpetually ringing in your ears that the still small voice of your heavenly Father you do not hear. And it may, perhaps, be a great mercy to you if, in your own house, or in the ward of an hospital, you may be compelled to hear Him say, “Turn unto Me! Turn unto Me! For I will have mercy upon you!”
Other afflictions remind us of our sins because they are the direct result of transgression. The profligate man, if God should bless those scourges of the body which have even sprung from his own vices, may find the disease to be a cure for the misdemeanors which produced it. We ought to thank God that He will not let us sin without chastisement. If any of you are sinning and find pleasure without penalty in the self-indulgence, do not congratulate yourself upon the apparent immunity with which you violate the laws of virtue—for that is the badge of the reprobate.