The Biblical Illustrator
Psalms 40:17
I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me.
God thinks upon His people
I. A humble condition. “I am poor and needy.” Now, a man may be thus--
1. Spiritually--sin has brought them thus low.
2. Experimentally-for they feel it.
3. Comparatively--that is, with the treasures of grace he denies and wants, and which are for him in Christ.
4. Temporally--by reason of earthly affliction and loss. When this comes, remember your Elder Brother, Christ, who had “not where to lay His head.”
II. Examine the glorious assurance.
“Yet the Lord thinketh upon me.” This is--
1. The language of confidence, and that it is well ground is proved by the relations which God holds towards us. He calls Himself deliverer, friend, husband, Father: by His promises and by His works. See how much he has done to justify your hope. Had he a mind to kill you he would not have shown you such mercies as are yours. And how many things there are worthy of particular review in your own history. Think of them.
2. It is the language of wonder. For think of the conduct of men; the greatness of God; our unworthiness.
3. And of consolation, “Yet the Lord,” etc. This is enough, and will more than counterbalance all my distresses. This is how it is the believer stands while others sink. Can we say this of ourselves? Is this your portion? How anxious are men to gain the notice of their fellow-creatures, especially if they are a little raised above themselves in condition! “Many will entreat the favour of the prince, and every one is a friend to him that giveth gifts.” But in this case you are never sure you shall succeed; and you have gained nothing if you do. Whereas here the success is sure, and the success is everything. Pray, therefore, with Nehemiah, “Think upon me, O my God, for good. Seek the Lord, and ye shall live.” O believer! If God thinks upon you, ought you not to think upon Him? David did. If He minds your affairs, be not you forgetful of His. Ever ask, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” Ever cry, “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.” (W. Jay.)
God’s thoughts of us
I. A description of human nature under ordinary conditions.
1. Some are poor and needy through ignorance. We cannot understand--
(1)Ourselves.
(2) Others.
(3) God. His providences are an unceasing mystery.
2. Some are poor and needy through guilt. Human sinfulness is like a cheque on the bank; it may go far and remain in circulation long; but it will come eventually and be presented for immediate payment. Duke Albert of Polanda, so runs the old story, bore on his armour the emblem of entire trust: just the hull of a ship, having only the main-mast and its top-piece, without any tackling or canvas whatever. But there was this motto underneath: Deus dabit vela: “God will furnish the sails.” Thus he claimed that heavenly forces would be supplied with Divine instrumentality when need should arrive.
II. The comforting assurance of divine aid.
1. God thinks about us. Simpler minds than ours are often more truly devotional: the Savoyards have the beautiful name for one of their finest mountain flowers, “pain du bon Dieu,” the bread of the good God; for they say that by its white and delicate blossoms it reminds them of the manna, feeding Israel in the wilderness.
2. God thinks a great deal about us. His thoughts are so many, that they “cannot be reckoned up in order” (Psalms 139:17).
3. God thinks about us always very kindly. Promises are just God’s thoughts stored up for men.
III. A legitimate ground for full assurance of aid.
1. Some say that God is too far away to think of us here. Once, when a sailor had come in, saved from shipwreck, he said to those, who asked him about his days and nights out on the waters of the lonely ocean, that his greatest alarm was that God could not be made to hear up so high in the sky, beyond even the stars. Now, it is of no use to reason about this. We must just let the Lord tell us the truth in the matter; He knows, and He says that “the Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him,” etc.
2. Some say that God is too great to think of us here on His footstool. It might do, perhaps, in the case of a kingdom going to pieces, or a ship driving on the rocks, or a dynasty breaking; but not in our vexations and daily disquiets. This is no way to argue. God is great; indeed, He is so great that He can look placidly down upon each one of us, as we keep coming to Him, ever kindly bidding us a morning or evening welcome; no more forgetful, no more impatient, no more worried than we are when our own boys approach us with their difficulties.
3. Some say that God is too holy to think of us here. When we think of Him as residing in the shadowless purity of heaven itself, we are hardly willing to believe He cherishes any thought for rebels like men. But then we certainly know that He hates sin; that is one point gained, at all events; for if we are sinners, God cannot possibly be indifferent to us. He cannot bear to have one speck of moral defilement anywhere within the borders of His realm. So He is gently and tenderly on the side of every man who wishes to be pure.
4. Some say that God is too happy to think of us here. He does not need us. Why should He bestir Himself or disturb Himself in any way in our behalf? Such a question shows how poorly we reason. It is true that God is happy; but something makes Him happy. His enjoyment has an intelligent basis; it has a society of companions to share it, and contribute to it. And because He desires it to continue and to increase, He is always beneficent and active, making Himself happy, everywhere sowing sunlight that He may harvest gladness from each field of the wide universe.
IV. A prayer for a faith of appropriation in ourselves. If God really wishes to help us, and we wish to be helped, why should there be any delay on either side?
1. Why should God tarry in taking away our daily harassments? He has told us that we are to have “no thought for the morrow,” because He has all the “thoughts” that belong to it in our behalf. We have only to ask Him, and then trust Him.
2. Why should God tarry in banishing our unnecessary apprehensions? What has rendered the world more unhappy than anything else has always been some great worry anticipated, which never happened after all.
3. Why should God tarry in relieving our doubts? It is said that Shakespeare once thought himself no poet, and Paphael’s heart grew silent and discouraged, so that he was overheard to say he should never be a successful painter. He who has an all-powerful helper needs only to look to Him to keep His promises.
4. Why should God tarry in removing our disciplines? One day, when the young lad Goethe came from church, where he had listened to a sermon in which an attempt was made to justify the Divine goodness, his father asked him what he thought of the explanation. “Why,” said this extraordinary youth, “the matter may be much simpler than the clergyman thinks; God knows very well that an immortal soul can never receive any injury from a mortal accident.” Why not trust Him with our whole souls, then? (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
The uncommon faith
The two parts of the text form an antithesis of the most divergent contrast. The order in which they stand invests them with considerable attractiveness; at least the interest with which we may now take them up is not a little enhanced on this account.
I. The humble confessions.
1. It is a very becoming confession. From a moral or spiritual point of view, we are, indeed, as poor as poverty itself.
2. This confession should therefore be unaffectedly veracious and sincere. Can it be either desirable or reasonable that we should do anything by way of making ourselves out to be poor and needy, except as we really are so?
3. It is only as the effect of a gracious operation of the Spirit that the confession of the text is ever candidly or cordially made. Hence it is easy to understand how this humble confession should be accompanied, as here it is, by so confident a persuasion. If the Spirit is at work within you, showing you what you really are, discovering your exigencies to the discernment of your individual consciousness, He at the same time discovers the means of supplying these exigencies, and the absolute infinitude of resource to provide the whole of that supply.
II. The confident persuasion.
1. That it is a warrantable persuasion may be easily enough proved. For, if the Lord makes any poor and needy, He is certainly thinking of them, the dispensation itself shows that He is doing so. Besides, is it nothing to the shepherd of a flock that one of his sheep has wandered, though it be even the least and the weakest of a hundred in a fold, will he not leave the ninety and nine, and search after it alone?
2. It must also be very readily admitted that this persuasion is one which is fraught with unspeakable comfort and consolation. “Yet the Lord thinketh upon me.” It takes us back to the Divine constitution of the covenant of the rainbow (Genesis 9:16). Oh, the sweetness, the perfect deliciousness, to taste of faith in this, “And I will look upon it.” “Yet the Lord thinketh upon me.”
3. Hence, in every way this is also a most satisfying persuasion. To say, “Yet the Lord thinketh upon me,” may not appear to be saying much. In a sense it may be saying very little. The utterance occurs in another psalm--“I hate vain thoughts,” that is, thoughts which do not go beyond themselves, which dissipate themselves in waste, never embodying themselves in living form, in substantial action--thoughts which are inoperative, unprofitable. But the Lord’s thoughts are never “vain,” unproductive, empty; they are invariably sovereign, invincible, almighty. (E. A Thomson.)
The greatness and frailty of human nature
Human life, in its frailty, exposure, brevity, could not be more aptly described than it is here--“poor and needy.” And yet, if man occupies a place in the Divine Mind, if God, who made him, thinks of and cares for him, he is great, and he may be rich and strong.
I. Man’s feeling of poverty and need. Had we been less rich, we had not been so poor; less richly endowed, we had been more at ease. It is because man has reason, conscience and affections that he feels thus. The brute may groan; the man weeps.
II. The particular providence of god.
1. There is much in the events of life which makes it hard for a man to believe in this assurance. We read of explosions, cyclones, hurricanes, and our faith staggers. One man makes a mistake in his calculations, and hundreds of brave, unoffending men sink like a stone in the depths of the sea. Where is the evidence, we are tempted to ask, of the Divine regard for individuals? But when we express the conviction that God thinks of us, we are not therefore bound to vindicate His ways, or fathom the designs of His inscrutable providence. The declaration of the text is a flashing avowal of faith in the midst of much that is mysterious.
2. I think it is harder to grasp this great truth because of the massing together of great multitudes of people in our modern towns and cities. Every person in that enormous crowd has his own little world of interests, duties, affections, associations. Is it possible, can it be, that He from His throne “beholds all these dwellers upon earth”? Truly the Lord has much to see to, and there are many beds in the wards of the world. And yet to reason so is to attach the ignorance and the limitations of the finite mind to a mind which is infinite.
3. The deeper insight which man has to-day into the vastness of the universe makes it harder for us to realize the great truth of the text. In view of the wonders of astronomy what a pigmy is man! And yet, if myriads of ages have been required in which to make this earth a suitable residence for man, it may be that God has some regard for him. True, he is a reed, but, as Pascal said, he is a thinking reed, and the God who made him to think may think of him,
4. Besides, the wonderfulness of the infinitely little is even greater than that of the infinitely great. God, who elaborates the planet, polishes the atom. If “He telleth the number of the stars, and calleth them by their names,” why may not He think of man?
5. But does God think of man? We will go at once to the highest, the all-conclusive evidence. It is in Jesus Christ that we are sure of God. He is the embodied thought of God--the Word made flesh. He cared for individuals. Look at the teaching of Jesus Christ. “Ye are of more value than many sparrows.” “The very hairs of your head are all numbered.” “The Father Himself loveth you.” Look at the Cross of Jesus Christ. If a man does that, if he yields to the love that has its eternal sign there, the last vestige of doubt will vanish, and he will cry, “He loved me, and gave Himself for me.” (J. Lewis.)
Contrast
I. A true estimate.
1. Our general condition--“poor.”
2. A pressing want--“needy.” The one thing needful with David was the smile of Heaven. Christ in the heart is our pressing need. Distressingly poor is that life which has no God in it.
II. A marvellous fact. “The Lord thinketh upon me.”
1. Grasp the greatness of the fact. To make man, to support man, to save man, and to commune with man are the collateral thoughts.
2. Grasp the directness of the fact. In moments of loneliness remember that though some are dead that were wont to have you in remembrance, and others have forgotten you, God is thinking of you now, and we know what He thinks, for we have the mind of Christ.
III. A blessed assurance--“Thou art my help and my deliverer.”
1. God is our “help” for work.
2. God is our “deliverer” from trouble.
IV. An earnest longing--“Make no tarrying, O my God.” This is almost the language of impatience, at least it is the language of a burning desire. (T. Davies, D. D.)
The good man’s refuge in affliction
I. Afflictions befall god’s dearest children.
1. If Christ had not suffered, who had been saved? If He had not been pierced through with many sorrows, not one of the sons of Adam had possessed any true comfort or sound solace.
2. And His members must be like the bush in the fire, for several reasons.
(1) Are they not the Lord’s garden-plots? Will He not plant and sow them with the sweetest seeds and most fragrant flowers? Shall He not then dig them up and break every little clod to pieces?
(2) The faithful are likened to trees, and must not they be pruned and lopped?
(3) God’s children are compared to good corn, not cockle; we must expect then to be shaken with the windy and blustering storms of the wicked. The rooks of our times will be pecking out the ripest grain; and every ravening fowl fly over us and defile us; go through us and bruise us; or fall upon us and rob us; yea, our God Himself will cut us down, thresh us and grind us; for it’s corn that must be put on the mill, not chaff: wheat that must be winnowed, when cockle is to be abandoned, burned.
(4) How often are the godly compared to a temple I and may not every particular person resemble a stone in divers things? We must be cut out of the rock of our natural estate; and it’s no easy matter to be endured, afterwards squared and hewn, that we may be fitted to lie close and comely in the building; and this will be felt a painful polishing; yet this must be done, or we are undone. Rough stones are cast into the foundation, but they that be appointed for the pinnacles and principal places must have the more picks, the greater polishing, else they should not be of (or at the best but deface) this holy temple, this stately building.
II. The Lord doth not separate his affection from his children in affliction.
1. The Lord is not subject to forgetfulness. He knoweth who are His; and His eye is always over them.
2. Nor is He subject to change. Whom He loveth once He loveth ever.
3. Let us examine and see what is the cause of separating affection; and shall we not find it either in the agent or object? In the lover, God, we see no cause can be found: surely, nor in the thing beloved. It is plain that no trouble destroyeth the image of God or maketh his the more prone to sin; but rather it hath been a means to move them to leave it and amend. For in trouble they will pray more fervently; pity others more compassionately; make vows, and resolve to serve God the more strictly than ever in the days of prosperity. Why, then, should the Lord withdraw His affection from them? for love leaves hold but when the object grows worse and worse.
4. This reason may also confirm the doctrine. He should be more unnatural than mere natural men (who take the most pity of their own being in the greatest distress), if He should forsake His children in their affliction. Nature itself, in these straits, will not be wanting; and shall the Author of all graces be found failing?
III. THE favour of God in affliction only giveth the faithful satisfaction.
1. The Lord is the only object of their love, and He in whom their soul principally delighteth: wherefore, enjoying Him, they have all they would.
2. Because they believe and know that all shall work together for good at their latter end.
IV. The Lord will deliver the faithful from all dangers; free them in a convenient season from all afflictions.
1. He hath so promised and purposed; and shall not His counsel stand, and His word abide for ever?
2. And this He will do for love of His children. This, then, being thus, be of good comfort for the present, fear not any future dangers; but pluck up your hearts, and gird up the loins of your minds; go on through good report and evil report; be resolute soldiers of Jesus Christ; march on valiantly, and fear not their fear. For manger their malice, David shall serve his days; Paul finish his work, and John’s life be prolonged until his task be ended. And every upright and honest heart shall have all tears wiped from his eyes, fetters from his feet, manacles from his fingers; run to and fro in the new Jerusalem that is above. (John Barlow.)
The gardener’s care extends to all
“Oh!” you say, “I am such a little plant; I do not grow well; I do not put forth as much leafage, nor are there so many flowers on me as many round about me.” It is quite right that you should think little of yourself; perhaps to drop your head is part of your beauty. Many flowers had not been half so lovely if they had not practised the art of hanging their heads. But “supposing Him to be the gardener,” then He is as much a gardener to you as He is to the most lordly palm in the whole domain. In the Mentone garden grow the orange and the aloe, and others of the finer and more noticeable plants, but on the wall to my left grow common wall flowers and saxifrages and tiny herbs such as we find on our own rocky places. Now, the gardener has cared for all of them, little as well as great. In fact, there were hundreds of specimens of the most insignificant growths all duly labelled and described. The smallest saxifrage will say: “He is my gardener just as surely as he is the gardener of the Gloire de Dijon or the Marechal Niel.”
The Divine regard for the needy
When the shepherd comes in the early morning to his flock, does not his eye single out the sick, and does he need forgiveness if for a while he devotes all his skill and his care to those sheep which need it? He does not reason with himself that the largeness of the flock, and his anxious care that all should be fed renders it impossible for him to bind up that which is broken, and heal that which is diseased, but, on the contrary, his attention to all is proved by his special interest in the particular cases which most require his tenderness. Or take another parable; the watcher on the sea beach, with his telescope in his hand, paces to and fro, and keeps guard for his appointed time. He looks through the glass again and again, but a glance contents him so far as most of yonder gallant vessels are concerned, which are now in the offing; but by and by his glass remains steadily at his eye; his gaze is fixed, and in a few moments he gives a signal to his fellows, and they haul the boat to the sea and launch her. What has there been so peculiar about this craft that it has gained the watcher’s attention and stirred him to action? He saw signals of distress, or by some other token he knew the ship’s need, and therefore he bestirred himself, and engaged every willing hand to lead her help. (C. H. Spurgeon.)