Psalms 25:16-18

Turn Thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted.

A sufferer’s prayer

How tender is this language, and how instructive too. David was a sufferer as well as a king. But he is a petitioner also, He prays for--

I. Deliverance.

II. A kind look from God is desirable at any time, but in affliction and pain it is like life from the dead. Therefore he says, “Look upon mine affliction and pain.”

III. Pardon. “Forgive all my sins.” This was his meaning; let it be ours. (W. Jay.)

The cry of the afflicted

Look at Loch Lomond. A hundred feet of water, deep and dark and deadly; the waves that slumber yonder at the foot of the Ben will drown you. Yes, but when God sent out His frost, when from the caves of the north there crept the congealing influence, lo! the waves slumbered and slept, and you walked and skimmed on your ringing steels across the congealed billows. The same lake, but so transformed that you could skim across its surface. Some of you know what it is to be almost overwhelmed with the billows of trouble. They roll over you again and again, and recede but to Come on with redoubled power, until at last you cry out, “Lord, save me, or I perish.” Then there comes a great calm, and you just skim across the billows of your daily toil, because Christ your Saviour has told the troubles and difficulties and monotony to sleep. Oh, what a glorious thing the grace of Christ is! (John Robertson.)

David’s prayer

I wonder if they are able to say of us in the time of sorrow and bereavement and trouble, “Behold, he prayeth.” Those travellers, as they pass, are suddenly arrested by a sound that is strange to them, and they ask what it is. It is David at his prayers. Ah, he is all right! Pray on, David; do not be ashamed of your voice--let it sound out. It is nobler thus to pray, than with loud, uplifted voice to give the command to thine armies to fall in to the front: and David’s voice had done that for many a day. A ringing, clarion peal the warrior had given in his time: “Fall in to the front. They loved to ear it in Israel. When the king spake, it reminded them of the old days when the right arm of the young warrior did valiant things for Jehovah; and they liked to hear his voice rise above the din of battle: but it is nobler, kinglier, and far more grand to hear the old king with his quavering voice lifted up in prayer.

A godly man’s appeal

I. On behalf of self.

1. For deliverance from suffering (Psalms 25:16). “The road to heaven,” says an old writer, “is soaked with the tears and blood of the saints.”

2. For forgiveness (Psalms 25:18). He traced his sufferings to his sins. Sin is the gall in the cup of life; the root of the pestiferous tree of all natural evil. From suffering we infer sin. He believed that his sins had to do with God. Wrong in any form or department of life is sin against Him. “Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned.” He knew that Gods forgiveness was necessary to his deliverance.

3. For preservation of life, of confidence, of character (Psalms 25:21).

II. On behalf of society (Psalms 25:22). There is nothing selfish in genuine piety. The man who prays and struggles only for his own salvation is utterly destitute of genuine religion. His creed may be correct, and all his religious observances, but he has not the root of the matter in him. (D. Thomas, D. D.)