(Job 42:5, 6), "Now mine eye seeth thee: wherefore I abhor
myself, and repent in dust and ashes." This is as great a
requisite to prayer as any other act; I may say of it alone, as
the apostle (James 1:7), that without it we shall receive nothing
at the hands of God! God loves to fill empty vessels, he looks to
broken hearts. In the Psalms how often do we read that God hears
the prayers of the humble; which always involves and includes
faith in it. Psalm 9:12, "He forgetteth not the cry of the
humble," and Psalm 10:17, "Lord, thou hast heard the desire of
the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine
ear to hear." To be deeply humbled is to have the heart
prepared and fitted for God to hear the prayer; and therefore you
find the psalmist pleading sub forma pauperis , often
repeating, "I am poor and needy." And this prevents our thinking
much if God do not grant the particular thing we do desire. Thus
also Christ himself in his great distress (Psalm 22), doth treat
God (verse 2), "O my God, I cry in the day-time, but thou hearest
not; and in the night season am not silent. Our fathers trusted
in thee. They cried unto thee, and were delivered. But I am a
worm, and no man; reproached of men, and despised of the people;
(verse 6)" and he was "heard" in the end "in what he feared." And
these deep humblings of ourselves, being joined with vehement
implorations upon the mercy of God to obtain, is reckoned into
the account of praying by faith, both by God and Christ. Matthew
8. Thomas Goodwin.
Verse 17. "Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the
humble." A spiritual prayer is a humble prayer. Prayer
is the asking of an alms, which requires humility. "The publican,
standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto
heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me
a sinner." Luke 18:13. God's incomprehensible glory may even
amaze us and strike a holy consternation into us when we approach
nigh unto him: "O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my
face to thee." Ezra 9:6. It is comely to see a poor nothing lie
prostrate at the feet of its Maker. "Behold now, I have taken
upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes."
Genesis 18:27. The lower the heart descends, the higher the
prayer ascends. Thomas Watson.
Verse 17. "Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the
humble," etc. How pleasant is it, that these benefits, which
are of so great a value both on their own account, and that of
the divine benignity from whence they come, should be delivered
into our hands, marked, as it were, with this grateful
inscription, that they have been obtained by prayer!
Robert Leighton.
Verse 17. "The desire of the humble." Prayer is the
offering up of our desires to God in the name of Christ, for such
things as are agreeable to his will. It is an offering of our
desires. Desires are the soul and life of prayer; words
are but the body; now as the body without the soul is dead, so
are prayers unless they are animated with our desires: "Lord,
thou hast heard the desire of the humble." God heareth not
words, but desires. Thomas Watson.
Verse 17. God's choice acquaintances are humble men.
Robert Leighton.
Verse 17. He that sits nearest the dust, sits nearest
heaven. Andrew Gray, of Glasgow, 1616.
Verse 17. There is a kind of omnipotency in prayer, as
having an interest and prevalency with God's omnipotency. It hath
loosed iron chains (Acts 16:25, 26); it hath opened iron gates
(Acts 12:5-10); it hath unlocked the windows of heaven (1 Kings
18:41); it hath broken the bars of death (John 11:40, 43). Satan
hath three titles given in the Scriptures, setting forth his
malignity against the church of God: a dragon, to note his
malice; a serpent, to note his subtlety; and a lion, to note his
strength. But none of all these can stand before prayer. The
greatest malice of Haman sinks under the prayer of Esther; the
deepest policy, the counsel of Ahithophel, withers before the
prayer of David; the largest army, a host of a thousand
Ethiopians, run away like cowards before the prayer of Asa.
Edward Reynolds, 1599-1676.
Verse 18. "To judge the fatherless and the
oppressed," etc. The tears of the poor fall down upon their
cheeks, et ascendunt ad coelum, and go up to heaven and
cry for vengeance before God, the judge of widows, the father of
widows and orphans. Poor people be oppressed even by laws. Woe
worth to them that make evil laws against the poor, what shall be
to them that hinder and mar good laws? What will ye do in the day
of great vengeance when God shall visit you? he saith he will
hear the tears of the poor women, when he goeth on visitation.
For their sake he will hurt the judge, be he never so high, he
will for widows' sakes change realms, bring them into temptation,
pluck the judges' skins over their heads. Cambyses was a great
emperor, such another as our master is, he had many lord
deputies, lord presidents, and lieutenants under him. It is a
great while ago since I read the history. It chanced he had under
him in one of his dominions a briber, a gift-taker, a gratifier
of rich men; he followed gifts as fast as he that followed the
pudding; a handmaker in his office, to make his son a great man,
as the old saying is, "Happy is the child whose father goeth to
the devil." The cry of the poor widow came to the emperor's ear,
and caused him to slay the judge quick, and laid his skin in his
chair of judgment, that all judges that should give judgment
afterward, should sit in the same skin. Surely it was a goodly
sign, a goodly monument, the sign of the judges skin. I pray God
we may once see the sign of the skin in England. Ye will say,
peradventure, that this is cruelly and uncharitably spoken. No,
no; I do it charitably, for a love I bear to my country. God
saith, "I will visit." God hath two visitations; the first is
when he revealeth his word by preachers; and where the first is
accepted, the second cometh not. The second visitation is
vengeance. He went to visitation when he brought the judges skin
over his ears. If this word be despised, he cometh with the
second visitation with vengeance. Hugh Latimer, 1480 -
1555.
Verse 18. "Man of the earth," etc. In the eighth
Psalm (which is a circular Psalm, ending as it did begin, "O Lord
our God, how excellent is thy name in all the world!" That
whithersoever we turn our eyes, upwards or downwards, we may see
ourselves beset with his glory round about), how doth the prophet
base and discountenance the nature and whole race of man; as may
appear by his disdainful and derogatory interrogation, "What is
man that thou art mindful of him; and the Son of Man, that thou
regardest him?" In the ninth Psalm, "Rise, Lord; let not man have
the upper hand; let the nations be judged in thy sight. Put them
in fear, O Lord, that the heathen may know themselves to be but
men." Further, in the tenth Psalm, "Thou judgest the fatherless
and the poor, that the man of the earth do no more violence."
The Psalms, as they go in order, so,
methinks they grow in strength, and each hath a weightier force
to throw down our presumption. 1. We are "men," and the "sons of
men," to show our descent and propagation. 2. "Men in our own
knowledge," to show that conscience and experience of infirmity
doth convict us. 3. "Men of the earth," to show our original
matter whereof we are framed. In the twenty-second Psalm, he
addeth more disgrace; for either in his own name, regarding the
misery and contempt wherein he was held, or in the person of
Christ, whose figure he was, as if it were robbery for him to
take upon him the nature of man, he falleth to a lower style,
at ego sum vermis et non vir; but I am a worm, and no man.
For as corruption is the father of all flesh, so are the worms
his brethren and sisters according to the old verse—
"First man, next worms, then stench and
loathsomeness,
Thus man to no man alters by changes."
Abraham, the father of the faithful (Genesis 18), sifteth himself
into the coarsest man that can be, and resolveth his nature into
the elements whereof it first rose: "Behold I have begun to speak
to my Lord, being dust and ashes." And if any of the children of
Abraham, who succeed him in the faith, or any of the children of
Adam, who succeed him in the flesh, thinketh otherwise, let him
know that there is a threefold cord twisted by the finger of God,
that shall tie him to his first original, though he contend till
his heart break. "O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the
Lord" (Jeremiah 22); that is, earth by creation, earth by
continuance, earth by resolution. Thou camest earth, thou
remainest earth, and to earth thou must return. John
King.
Verse 18. "The man of the earth." Man dwelling in
the earth, and made of earth. Thomas Wilcocks.
HINTS TO THE VILLAGE PREACHER
Verse 1. The answer to these questions furnishes a noble
topic for an experimental sermon. Let me suggest that the
question is not to be answered in the same manner in all cases.
Past sin, trials of graces, strengthening of faith, discovery of
depravity, instruction, etc., etc., are varied reasons for the
hiding of our Father's face.
Verse 2. Religious persecution in all its phases based on
pride.
Verse 3. God's hatred of covetousness: show its
justice.
Verse 4. Pride the barrier in the way of conversion.
Verse 4 ( last clause ). Thoughts in which God is
not, weighed and condemned.
Verse 5. "Thy judgments are far above out of his
sight." Moral inability of men to appreciate the character
and acts of God.
Verse 6. The vain confidence of sinners.
Verse 8. Dangers of godly men, or the snares in the way of
believers.
Verse 9. The ferocity, craftiness, strength, and activity
of Satan.
Verse 9 ( last clause ). The Satanic fisherman, his
art, diligence, success, etc.
Verse 10. Designing humility unmasked.
Verse 11. Divine omniscience and the astounding
presumption of sinners.
Verse 12. "Arise, O Lord." A prayer needful,
allowable, seasonable, etc.
Verse 13 ( first clause ). An astounding fact, and a