Sermon Bible Commentary
Psalms 130:4
Surely it is a time known to most of us when we have, in our self-abasement, felt the mercy of God to be the sole warrant for our return to Him; and with that feeling there have come light and hope. There is the birth of a new love in the heart; and before it all the old loves pale, and finally die out. God has met the returning soul half-way, and has whispered His pardon in its ear. It is one of the very few times in the spiritual life when something of its actual progress is made known to the awakening soul; it has got within the sure mercies of God, and it cannot but feel the touch of the embrace of God. If to us Christ has made known His mercy, and has broken up our hearts with its penetrating sweetness, then it behoves us to think how we may guard this treasure so that none shall ever snatch it from us, so that in life it may be our stay, in death it may be our comfort, and in the judgment it may be our shield.
I. First, let us be careful that we have the reality, and no mere counterfeit, invented by the craft of a juggling Satan. If the psalmist's words are to be truth for us, we must be careful to avoid putting any confidence in mere feeling. This would be to make the soul a sport for the winds, a prey to deceit; no sense of uplifting must be alone trusted to, any more than any mere sense of depression need be feared.
II. The half-repentant soul is in deeper danger almost than the soul which has never yet awakened; half-repentance lulls the soul to sleep even while it sins: it is the devil's way of giving an anodyne whilst he is destroying the soul for ever. The half-repentant soul has never made the one great decision between God and sin; it seeks to know God and yet bow down in the house of Rimmon; it would serve God and mammon.
III. Let us be most especially upon our guard as to any shallow half-heartedness in repentance because of the present feeling of relief that a contemplation of God's mercy brings. Let us never be content till in the will, the actions, the temper, the desires, in short till in the life, the expression of thankfulness for that forgiveness be seen, till we know repentance is growing with our life.
Bishop E. R. Wilberforce, The Awaking Soul,p. 32.
I. There must be something peculiar about God's forgiveness that it leads to fear. How is it that, while the parents who constantly forgive are not feared, God, with whom is forgiveness, is? Why is it that forgiveness does not in His case, as in theirs, breed insolent presumption? What is that strange and potent element in Divine forgiveness which makes the forgiven fear, making me more afraid to sin beside the Cross of Calvary, with its quiet, pale, dead, bleeding burden, than if I stood at the foot of Sinai, amid the thunders, lightnings, and trumpet-peals that made Moses himself exceedingly fear and quake?
II. Let me explain those peculiar characters in the forgiveness of God which breed fear, not presumption, in the forgiven. (1) The manner of the forgiveness sets forth the holiness of God and the evils of sin in the strongest light. It is by an altar and through a victim that there is forgiveness with God; pardon flows to men in a stream of blood. But here the altar is a cross, and its Victim is the Son of the Highest. There is forgiveness, but after a fashion that should teach us to fear, and in life's lightest hours to join trembling with our mirth. If God did not spare His only-begotten and well-beloved Son when He took our sins on Him, how shall He spare those who prefer their sins to their Saviour, neglecting this great salvation? (2) The manner of forgiveness sets forth not only God's hatred of sin, but His love to sinners, in the strongest light. It costs man nothing to forgive, but it cost God His Son. How must He have loved you for whom He gave a Son so loved! and how will the love this breeds in you make you fear to dishonour or displease One who has so loved you, securing your forgiveness on such an immovable foundation and at so great a price!
T. Guthrie, Sneaking to the Heart,p. 20.
(with Psalms 85:8)
I. The particle "but" in these verses indicates the contrast of one truth to another. In Psalms 130:4 the contrast is between Divine holiness, the strictness of Divine justice, and the amplitude and freedom of Divine grace.
II. Psa 85:8. When God speaks peace, Hewill accompany it with solemn warning, not without good cause and need. The fear of apostasy is set before believers, and is one of the means by which God creates and maintains that holy caution, self-distrust, and confiding trust in Him by which His people are kept from apostasy and, short of apostasy, from return to folly. There is forgiveness with Him, but it is that He may be feared.
III. With these two "buts," what is left: (1) for despair; (2) for presumption?
J. Duncan, The Pulpit and Communion Table,p. 276.
References: Psalms 130:4. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. x., p. 80, and vol. xii., p. 84.Psalms 130:5. Ibid.,vol. ii., p. 27.