"Where is now thy God?" And Isaiah clrises his magnificent fortieth chapter with this sublime o.ppeo.l, "Why aayest thou, 0 Jacob, and speakest, 0 Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?" Imagined change in God's relation, o.nd the failure of God's mercy, are the supreme woes to all God- feo.ring men still. J. 'l'mi: CHRISTIAN'S GREAT TROU11LE8 ARE DOUBTS AJIOUT GoD, NOT AFFLICTIONS BENT BY GOD. 'l'he distinction between these two is this-doubts are inward., afflictions are outward. It is not a very great thing for the soul to master mere circumstances- especially since God never permits them to be overwhelming. The great thing is for the soul to master itself. When our circumstances start doubts, then we get humbled o.nd broken. It is doubt, suspicion, fear, that really crushes our spirits, and forces tears. Our doubtings usually concern: 1. God's Personality. Like David, we cry for assurance that God is a" living God;" not a vain idol; not an abstraction of science; not the vague "eternal that makes for righteousness." 2. God's relationship. He may be God, but is he my God P 3. God's faithfulness. For God ever sets out promises for faith to grasp ; and what can faith do if God does not keep his promises? 4. God's actual present nearness. "Where is now thy God?" "Thou bast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer might not pass'through." II. THE STING OF DOUBTING-TIMES IS THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF BIN. Illustrate from the case of David, who lost the sense of God, lost his hope in God, filled his soul with questionings and fears, when he had stepped aside from the ways of righteousness and good self-restraint. Sin clouds the mind with doubts. Ill. NEITHER AFFLICTIONS, NOR DOUBTS, NOR CONSCIOUS BIN DO MAKE GoD's MERCIES FAIL. Precisely in those scenes Divine mercies most abound. 'l'hings, and conditions of mind and feeling, may affect our vision of him ; they cannot affect him. We may project our shadows over him, and then find we can only see the shadows. God is not moved to change by our change. "He abideth faithful." "His mercies aye endure, Ever fe.ithful, ever sure." Ask," Is his mercy clean gone for ever?" and you cannot want any answer. To state the question is to be ashamed of the doubting that suggested it.-R. T. Ver. 10.-.A supreme mental distress. "That the right band of the Highest bath changed." It is as if the psalmist were saying, "All this that I have been asking myself, and saddening myself with asking, seems impossible, and yet it is this very possibility of change in God toward me which so sorely perplexes and distresses me." "This is my sorrow, the changing of the right hand of the Most High." Do we not all feel that, if God be changed, then indeed the "whole foundation rocks"? We build our hopes on this-" He a.bideth the same, and his years are throughout all genem- tions." As the psalmist gradually comes to a better mind, he feels that his sorrow was really his infirmity, and in some sense his shame. No man can expect to be free from experience of mental distress; the question is-Shall we give way to it, or shall -we resist it ? Here, in this psalm, we may find two things. I. A MAN-A GOOD MAN-DISPOSED TO TAKE DESPONDENT VIEWS. And there is always a self-strand in the spirit of the despondent. They keep too much in the self- sphere, looking within rather than "off unto Jesus." This man took despondent views: 1. Of life genlYT'ally. We call those who put this tone on their reading of life pessimists-men who can always see the" dark sides," and make" dark sides" when there are none to see. It is partly a nervous, anxious disposition, and may often be wisely dealt with as disease, whose cure may be found in abundance of God's sweet sunshine, and the good cheer of pleasant human friendship. 2. Of their present circumstances. Some people always wear "smoked spectacles," and so nothing is bright to their view. 3. Of God's dealings with them. They think so much more of the things, than of the love aud wisdom that devise, arrange, and adapt them. Things a.re al ways variable; the love and the wisdom are al ways the same. 'l'he sea down below is always heaving and tossing; the heavens up above aro always steadfast. There is variety in God's W(j'f'king, but no variety in him. ll. A MAN-A GOOD MAN-WHO SF.TS lllMot:U' 'l'O Fl~D A IlEMED-Y FOR HI8 DESPON- 120 THE BOOK OF PSALMS, [l'f!, tnvn. 1-20.
DENCT. He resists the disposition to doubt, and will not let it get the mastery over him. He sets himself upon thinking well over two things. 1. His own frailty. He suspects that what be seems to see may be in himself. It may be like the tiny insect in the astronomer's telescope, that seemed to show a huge creature eating up the moon. It is well always to suspect imperfection in our vision when doubts distress. 2. God's power and purpose. If he cannot see these in his own small sphere, he can see them in the large spheres of the history of God's Ohurch. Thie is absolutely certain-God works for ends of blessing, and God is able to accomplish that which be purposes. -R.T.