Gleanings in the Psalms

Verses 30-32. “If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgements; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.” How astonished many would be, if they knew what the real case was of those perhaps whom they admire, and think highly advanced and exalted in the divine life. If they were to know the falls, the wretched falls; falls in heart, in word and practice. If they were to know the deep distress that the children of God, who are far advanced in the divine life, are continually suffering from the effect of their transgression! That is exactly what God says; He comes and contemplates such a case, and He says, “If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments, then …” – then what? What will God do? Some people say, “Then God will leave them.” But let us be instructed by God. He does not say He will leave them and forsake them. Mark what He will do! He says, “I will visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.” That is the provision which God has made in His covenant; and it is comforting to see how God has contemplated our case to the uttermost. There is nothing in our history that God has not met in the covenant with Christ. Nothing can befall you which is not contemplated – nothing which God has not provided for. Even if you fall, God has provided for it. But take heed; the provision involves much that will be terrible and desperately painful to your mind. There is nothing about it to encourage sin; there is nothing to give us license; nothing to lead a man to boast, “I am safe at last.” He is so; but how is he so? How does God secure the safety? “I will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.”

The longer I live, the more I am brought to this – to know that there is not a sin that ever was committed, but I need the grace of God to keep me from it.

When our heavenly father is, as it were, forced to put forth His anger, He then makes use of a father’s rod, not an executioner’s axe. He will neither break his children’s bones, nor His own covenant.

Verse 33. “Nevertheless my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.” The shift from the plural to the singular with this thirty-third verse is not to go unnoticed. It is the “children” who forsake God’s law, in verse 30; it is “they” who break His statutes, in verse 31; it is “their” transgression, and “their” iniquity that God promises to visit with His rod and stripes, in verse 32; but it is “Him” that God promises not to take His lovingkindness away from in this present verse. The concept is really a very simple one, if we can receive it: - we receive God’s “smacks” on account of our sin, and God’s “smiles” on account of His grace mediated to us through Jesus Christ His Son. We sin and God deals with our sins, each and every one of us. But we are not utterly forsaken nor left without God’s lovingkindness to us, for that He can never remove from “Him” and, therefore, will never remove from us.

Verse 35. “Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David.” It is as though God had said, since I have not a more excellent perfection to swear by than my holiness, I lay this to pawn for your security, and bind myself by that which I will never part with, were it possible to be stripped of all the rest. It is a tacit imprecation of himself, if I lie unto David, let me never be counted holy, or thought righteous enough to be trusted by angels or men.

Verse 36. “His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me.” His “seed” and “throne” are coupled together, as if his throne could not stand if his seed should fail. If his subjects should perish, what would he be king of? If his members should be consumed, what would he be head of? Therefore, his seed shall never fail, for, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever,” Hebrews chapter 1 verse 8.

(To be continued.)