Thread: The natural disposition to wander from the fold is constant ground for prayer for the help of the Lord's judgments, to give us clearer light and preserving principles.
The natural disposition to wander from the fold is constant ground for prayer for the help of the Lord's judgments, to give us clearer light and preserving principles.
Posted : 30 Sep, 2013 06:10 AM
Psalm 119:176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep: seek Your servant; for I do not forget Your commandments.
The natural disposition to wander from the fold is constant
ground for prayer for the help of the Lord's judgments, to give
us clearer light and preserving principles. Yet our need of this
safeguard opens to us a most humbling truth. Who can
gainsay the testimony from the mouth of God-that "all we like
sheep have gone astray?" But how afflicting is the thought,
that this should not only be the description of a world living
without God, but the confession even of God's own people!
And yet where is the child of God that does not set his own
seal with shame to the confession-I have gone astray like a
lost sheep? "Who can understand his errors?" If he be not
found, like Peter, in the open path of wandering; yet has he
not need to cry-"Cleanse me from secret faults?" Is he never
led away by sense, fancy, appetite? If the will be sincere, how
far is it from being perfect! And only a little yielding, a little
bending to the flesh, giving way to evil-who knows what may
be the end of this crooked path? Who knows what pride,
waywardness, earthliness, may be working within, even while
the gracious Lord is strengthening, guiding, comforting His
poor straying sheep? That they should ever wander from
privileges so great, from a God so good, from a Shepherd so
kind! What can induce them to turn their backs upon their best
Friend, and sin against the most precious love that was ever
known, but something that must, upon reflection, fill them with
shame! The blame is readily cast upon the temptations of
Satan, the seductive witcheries of the world, or some
untoward circumstances. But whoever deals with himself must
trace the backsliding to his own heart-"This is my infirmity."
And have we replaced what we have wilfully yielded up, with
anything of equal or superior value? May it not be asked of us-"What fruit had you in those things, whereof you are now
ashamed; for the end of those things is death."
But there is no enjoyment while distant from the beloved fold.
It is as impossible for the child of God to be happy, when
separated from his God, as if he were in the regions of eternal
despair. He has not lost-he cannot wholly lose-his recollection
of the forsaken blessing. In struggling, weeping faith, he cries Seek Your servant. 'I cannot find my way back: the good
Shepherd must seek me. Once I knew the path: but now that I
have wandered into bye-paths, I am no more able to return,
than I was to come at first. I have no guide but the Shepherd
whom I have left.' How cheering, then, is His office character!-
"Behold I, even I, will both search My sheep, and seek them
out: as a shepherd seeks out his flock in the day that he is
among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out My
sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have
been scattered in the cloudy and dark day" Cannot I set my
seal to His faithful discharge of His office-"He restores my
soul?"
If I want further encouragement to guide my steps homeward,
let me think of His own description of tender faithfulness, and
compassionate yearnings over His lost sheep; not showing it
the way back to the fold, and leaving it to come after Him: but
"laying it upon His own shoulders, and bringing it home:" all
upbraidings forgotten; all recollection of His own pains
swallowed up in the joy, that He has "found the sheep which
was lost." Let me remember the express commission, that
brought the Shepherd from heaven to earth, from the throne
of God to the manger, and thence to the garden and cross, "to
seek and to save that which was lost." Let me see upon Him
the especial mark of "the Good Shepherd, giving His life for
the sheep." Let me observe this sacrifice, as covering the guilt
of my wanderings, and opening my way to return-yes, drawing
me into the way. Surely then, I may add to my contrite confession the prayer of confidence-seek Your servant. I
cannot forbear to plead, that though a rebellious prodigal, I am
still Your servant, Your child: I still bear the child's mark of an
interest in Your covenant. Though a wanderer from the fold, I
do not forget Your commandments. Nothing can erase Your
law, which was "written in my mind and inward parts" by the
finger and Spirit of God, as an earnest of my adoption, as the
pledge of my restoration. What man writes is easily blotted
out; what God writes is indelible. Let me then lie humbled and
self-abased. But let me not forget my claim-what has been
done for me. Thus, again, I hope to be received as a "dear"
and "pleasant child;" again to be clothed with "the best robe,"
to be welcomed with fresh tokens of my Father's everlasting
love, and to be assured with the precious promise-"My sheep
shall never perish, and none shall pluck them out of My hand."
Such, Christian reader, would be the application we should
make of this verse to ourselves; and such a penitent
confession of our backslidings, united with a believing
dependence on the long-tried grace and faithfulness of our
God, would form a suitable conclusion to our meditations on
this most interesting Psalm. We would unite the tax-collector's
prayer with the great Apostle's confidence; and, while in holy
brokenness of heart we would wish to live and die, smiting
upon our bosom, and saying, "God be merciful to me a
sinner:" the remembrance of our adoption warrants the
expression of assurance-"I know whom I have believed, and
am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have
committed to Him against that day." Yet, as it regards the
experience of David, is there not something striking, and we
had almost said, unexpected, in the conclusion of this Psalm?
To hear one, who has throughout been expressing such holy
and joyful aspirations for the salvation of his God, such fervent
praises of His love, that we seem to shrink back from the
comparison with him, as if considering him almost on the
verge of heaven-to hear this "man after God's own heart," sinking himself to the lowest dust, under the sense of the evil
of his heart, and his perpetual tendency to wander from his
God, is indeed a most instructive lesson. It marks the
believer's conflict sustained to the end:-the humility, and yet
the strength, of his confidence; the highest notes of praise
combining with the deepest expressions of abasement forming that harmony of acceptable service, which ascends
"like pillars of smoke" before God. And thus will our Christian
progress be chequered, until we reach the regions of unmixed
praise, where we shall no longer mourn over our wanderings,
no longer feel any inclination to err from Him, or the difficulty
of returning to Him-where we shall be eternally safe in the
heavenly fold, to "go no more out." For "HE WHO SITS ON
