Psalms 22:11

Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.

Help in trouble

In this Psalm “a greater than David is here,” even Christ. You cannot pay a visit to Calvary, while reading this Psalm, without being struck wire the record as giving a history of what subsequently took place in the sufferings and agony of our Lord.

I. First of all, let us look at the principle laid down--a mountains; yet when we approach them we find them to be mole hills, which we can easily step over with a little exercise of faith. But our precious Lord foreboded nothing but what He knew was near and would come to pass, and therefore when He cried out, “Father, save Me from this hour, He immediately adds, “For this cause came I to this hour”; as if He withdrew the petition and would not escape the sorrow. But mark the most prominent feature of His distress was distress of soul. When we look at the fact that Divine wrath lay heavily upon His soul we wonder not that He cried out, “Now am I troubled.” And so there is distress of soul of which His disciples are the subjects.

1. In their first awakenings.

2. In their after conflicts.

3. But it is never, to the believer, judicial punishment as it was with Jesus. It was Divine wrath that lay upon Him.

4. And there were external assaults. The powers of darkness were let loose. His Church must expect the like. The world and the Church cannot agree, unless the Church will compromise her dignity, her purity, her spirituality, and cringe to the world’s carnal pursuits and carnal religion; then they may go on pretty well, hand in hand; but the curse of God will rest upon them both. A Christianity that brings you out from the world will be sure to bring upon you Satan’s rage and fiery darts and the world’s scorn. May you be able to make Moses choice, and choose “rather to suffer affliction with,” etc. Jesus told you it would be thus. “Marvel not if the world hate you.”

5. And the Church has yet another trouble near.

II. The appalling fact. “There is none to help.” Now this, so far as Christ is concerned, is a peculiar mercy. For if any had been with Him they would have shared the honour. And for us, too, it is often well that there should be none to help, for if there were we would turn to them and not to God.

III. The concentration of our expectations. For when all help is gone elsewhere there comes the cry, “Be not Thou far from me.” Oh! we live too low, we cleave to earth too much; but when we can soar, and mount as on eagles’ wings, gaze on the sun, and enjoy the smiling countenance of our covenant God, our troubles then are mere mole hills; if we look down on them at all we can hardly see them. (Joseph Irons.)