Thread: The remembrance of the Lord's judgments of old, while it brings comfort to His people as regards themselves, stirs up a poignancy of compassionate feeling for the ungodly.
The remembrance of the Lord's judgments of old, while it brings comfort to His people as regards themselves, stirs up a poignancy of compassionate feeling for the ungodly.
Posted : 6 Apr, 2013 02:20 AM
Psalm 119:53 Horror has taken hold upon me, because of the
wicked that forsake Your law.
The remembrance of the Lord's judgments of old, while it
brings comfort to His people as regards themselves, stirs up a
poignancy of compassionate feeling for the ungodly. And
indeed to a feeling and reflecting mind, the condition of the
world must excite commiseration and concern! A "whole world
lying in wickedness!" lying therefore in ruins! the image of God
effaced! the presence of God departed! Horror has taken hold
of me! to see the law of Him, who gave being to the world, so
utterly forsaken! so much light and love shining from heaven
in vain! The earthly heart cannot endure that any restraint
should be imposed; much less that any constraint, even of
love, should be employed to change its bias, and turn it back
to its God. Are you then a believer? then you will be most
tender of the honor of the law of God. Every stroke at His law
you will feel as a stroke at your own heart. Are you a believer?
then will you consider every man as your brother; and weep to
see so many of them around you, crowding the broad road to destruction, and perishing as the miserable victims of their
own deceivings. The prospect on every side is, as if God were
cast down from His throne, and the creatures of His hand
were murdering their own souls.
But how invariably does a languor respecting our own eternal
interest affect the tenderness of our regard for the honor of
our God; so that we can look at the wicked that forsake God's
law, with comparative indifference! Awful indeed is the
thought, that it ever can be with us a small matter, that
multitudes are sinking! going down into perdition! with the
name of Christ- under the seal of baptism-partakers of the
means of gospel grace-yet perishing! Not, indeed, that we are
to yield to such a feeling of horror, as would paralyze all
exertion on their behalf. For do we owe them no duty-no
prayer-no labor? Shall we look upon souls hurrying on with
such dreadful haste to unutterable, everlasting torments; and
permit them to rush on blinded, unawakened, unalarmed! If
there is a horror to see a brand apparently fitting for the fire,
will there not be a wrestling endeavor to pluck that brand out
of the fire? Have we quite forgotten in our own case the fearful
terrors of an unconverted state-the Almighty power of wrath
and justice armed against us-the thunder of that voice-
"Vengeance belongs to Me, I will recompense, says the
Lord?" Oh! if the love of the Savior and the love of souls were
reigning with more mighty influence in our hearts, how much
more devoted should we be in our little spheres of labor! how
much more enlarged in our supplications, until all the kingdom
of Satan were subject to the obedience of the Son of God,
and conquered by the force of His omnipotent love!
But if the spirit of David, renewed but in part, was thus filled
with horror in the contemplation of the wicked, what must
have been the affliction-what the intensity of His sufferings,
"who was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners"-
yes, "of purer eyes than to behold iniquity"-during thirty-three years of continued contact with a world of sin! What shall we
say of the condescension of His love, in wearing "the likeness
of sinful flesh"-dwelling among sinners-yes, "receiving sinners,
and eating with them!"
Blessed Spirit! impart to us more of "the mind that was in
Christ Jesus," that the law of God may be increasingly
precious in our eyes, and that we may be "exceedingly jealous
for the Lord God of Hosts!" Help us by Your gracious influence
to plead with sinners for God, and to plead for sinners with
