How many are the days of Your servant?

Posted : 27 May, 2013 04:29 AM

Psalm 119:85 The proud have dug pits for me, which are not after Your law.





Though a steady confidence in severe and protracted

exercise may enable us, not to forget the statutes; yet we

shall hasten to carry our complaint before Him. How many are

the days of Your servant?-my days of affliction under the "fury

of the oppressor." To complain of God is dishonorable

unbelief. To complain to God is the mark of His "elect, which

cry day and night unto Him, though He bears long with them."

Christians! study this instructive pattern; and, when exposed

to the lawless devices of the proud, do not forget your hiding place. God in Christ is your stronghold, "where unto you may

continually resort. He has given commandment to save you."

Your trial has done its appointed work, when it has brought

you to Him; and inclined you, after your blessed Master's

example, instead of taking the vengeance into your own

hands, to commit yourself and your cause "to Him that judges

righteously." 'And this,' as Archbishop Leighton excellently

observes, 'is the true method of Christian patience-that which

quiets the mind, and keeps it from the boiling tumultuous

thoughts of revenge; to turn the whole matter into God's

hands; to resign it over to Him, to prosecute when and as He

thinks good. Not as the most, who had rather, if they had

power, do for themselves, and be their own avengers: and,

because they have not power, do offer up such bitter curses

and prayers for revenge unto God, as are most hateful to Him,

and differ wholly from this calm and holy way of committing

matters to His judgments. The common way of referring things

to God is indeed impious and dishonorable to Him, being

really no other than calling Him to be a servant and

executioner of our passion. We ordinarily mistake His justice,

and judge of it according to our own precipitate and

distempered minds. If wicked men be not crossed in their designs, and their wickedness evidently crushed, just when

we would have it, we are ready to give up the matter as

desperate; or at least to abate of those confident and reverent

thoughts of Divine justice which we owe Him. However things

go, this ought to be fixed in our hearts, that He who sits in

heaven judges righteously, and executes that His righteous

judgment in the fittest season.'

Usually the Psalmist is expressing his love for the law. Here

he is complaining against his enemies; yet still implying the

same spirit, that the pits, which the proud dug for him, were

not after God's law. The martyr's cry under the altar shows the

acceptance of this complaint; "seeing it is a righteous thing

with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble" His

people, "and to them that are troubled rest." Some of us

indeed have known but little of "cruel mockings" and bitter

persecutions. Let such be thankful for the merciful exemption

from this "hardness:" but let them gird on their armor for the

conflict. Let none of us, in the determination to "live godly in

Christ Jesus," expect to escape "persecution." Let us "count

the cost" of suffering for Christ, whether we shall be able to

abide it. For the mere spiritless notions, or for the unenlivened

forms of religion, of which we have never felt the power, nor

tasted the sweetness, it would be little worth our while to

expose ourselves to inconvenience. But if we understand the

grand substantials of the gospel- if we are clearly assured of

their reality, practically acknowledge their influence, and

experimentally realize their enjoyment, we shall dare the

persecuting malice of the proud in defense of a treasure

dearer to us than life itself. Should we, however, be too rich to

part with all for Christ, or too high in the estimation of the

world to confess His despised followers, it will be no marvel,

or rather a marvel of mercy, if He should sweep away our

riches, and suffer the proud to dig pits for us. To make this

world "a wilderness or a land of darkness" to us, may be His

wisely-ordained means to turn us back to Himself as our portion, to His word as our support, to His people as our

choice companions, and to heaven as our eternal rest.



by

Charles Bridges

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