Psalms 26:2

Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.

Our need of Divine scrutiny

I. It is possible that we may try ourselves by false principles. Self-examination is an all-important duty, but when we have searched most diligently we need that God should examine us. Now, we are prone to err in regard to our repentance, our faith, and our obedience--these which are the grand requisites for salvation.

II. We are prone to be partial to ourselves,--to make allowances where we should not.

III. And our motives in our conduct are so difficult to ascertain by any but God.

IV. And when we discover imperfections we cannot correct them, even by that Divine grace which He is willing to bestow.

V. The Divine judgment will determine the decisions of the last day. What we think, or our fellow men believe, will not avail then.

VI. What is needed to prepare for heaven. (S. Morell.)

Examinations

(A talk with children):--As a rule, children are not very anxious for examinations. They do not see what possible good can come out of them. If most of them had their wishes, they never would have one at all. Yet in days to come these children will see that of all things that they did in their school days perhaps the most important were these very examinations. Now, David here asked God to examine him; he asked a very keen examiner to take the task in hand. He knew what that meant: he knew that no weakness, no ignorance, no sin would remain hidden; but that everything would be known, not only to God, but also largely to David himself. And that was one of the reasons why he wanted to he examined.

I. Now, observe that the word “examine” here is a very forcible word. It means “to examine by fire,” and, therefore, by that which shall burn up all the dross, and only leave behind that which can pass through fire. Again, the word “try” is further expressive. The Hebrew word means “melting by fire”; in other words, it means “examine by fire to the point of melting.” Thus the examination the Psalmist asked for was an examination by fire--an examination that should burn away everything that was impure.

II. The result of an examination to a large extent is to make one know oneself. If it were not for the examinations which children get, some of them would get, very conceited, and would think that they knew everything. When anyone begins a study he is convinced in a week or so that he knows all about it. If you see him again in a twelvemonth he begins to doubt it; but if you see him in two years be is quite convinced he knows very little. Now, examinations are very helpful in that way. The condition of learning is just to learn, first of all, that we know next to nothing, and thus to be dissatisfied with ourselves. Then, and then only, we shall make an effort.

III. Failure in examination has very often led to determination on the part of a boy or girl never to fail again; thus failure has been one of the greatest blessings they have had in life. David felt sure that if God examined him he would know very much more of his own poor miserable self than he did before, and some path of sin which had escaped his notice would be revealed to him. Indeed, he was anxious that the Lord should not conceal from him anything that was evil in him. To be conscious of one’s error is the first step necessary to avoid repeating it.

IV. Again, there was another feeling on the part of David, namely, that thorough as God was as an examiner, and thorough as the exposure would be by such an examination, God was nevertheless very kind; for David says in the following verse, “For Thy loving kindnesses are before mine eyes.” Our best loved teachers have been those who, though they saw all our failings, all our mistakes, very clearly, yet did not hold us up to ridicule, but sympathised with our difficulties and put the best construction on all our actions. So it is with our Lord. He knows our hearts, and reads every thought before we express it in words. Hidden desires are all known to Him. But then, He is so kind, so loving, so forgiving, we can leave ourselves in His hands. (D. Davies.)

Self-examination examined

Self-examination is to many disciples a kind of first point in practical religion. It is heard and read on all sides. But there are only two Scripture passages which can be at all cited for it, one of which (2 Corinthians 13:5) certainly has no such meaning; and the other (1 Corinthians 11:28) carries no sufficient authority for the practice. Scripture sends us to God: “Examine me, O Lord”; “Search me, O God”; “The Lord trieth the heart.”

I. God certainly can examine us, and we cannot in any but the most superficial and incomplete sense examine ourselves. For--

1. Our memory is too short and scant to recall or restore the conception of one in a hundred million of the acts that make up our lives.

2. Even if we could recall them, everyone, we could never go over the survey of such vast materials, so as to form any judgment of them or of ourselves.

3. And since the understanding of our present state is impossible without understanding all the causes in our action that have fashioned the character and shaped its figure, our faculty is even shorter here than before. Omniscience only is equal to the task.

II. In what is frequently understood by self-examination there is something mistaken or deceitful which needs to be carefully resisted.

1. It is a kind of artificial state, in which the soul is drawn off from its objects and works, and its calls of love and sacrifice, to engage itself in acts of self-inspection.

2. He may even be so engrossed in self-examination as to become morbidly selfish in it; for nothing is more selfish than to be always boring into one’s self.

III. How much is implied in a hearty willingness or desire to have God examine us and prove us. A mind seeking after truth, ready to receive it; more, a soul already found to be in God’s friendship, sealed with the witness of His acceptance.

IV. There is a way of coming at the verdict of God whatever it may be. God designs always to give us the benefit of His own knowledge of our state. He never intended us for, and never puts us to, the task of testing ourselves. He expects to do this for us. We are complete only in Him. He is, and is ever to be, our Light, and we only know ourselves in Him. God is manifested in the consciousness of them that love Him and are right towards Him. They will know God by an immediate knowledge or revelation. They will have His Spirit witnessing with theirs. God has planned our life so as to bring us into a perception of the many defects and errors lurking in us, and to set us in the same judgment of them that He has Himself, proving us at every turn, trying even the reins and heart, that our most secret things may be revealed. If there should be any legitimate place for self-examination it is in the field where we go to discover our faults and the sins that require to be forsaken or put away. (Horace Bushnell, D. D.)

Morbid self-inspection kills love

Many years ago I knew an excellent much esteemed Christian mother, who had become morbidly introverted, and could not find her love to God. Seeing at once that she was stifling it by her own self-inspecting engrossment, which would not allow her to so much as think of God’s loveliness, I said to her, “But you love your son, you have no doubt of that.” “Of course I love him, why should I not?” To show her, then, how she was killing her love to God, I said, “But take one week now for the trial, and make thorough examination of your love to your son, and it will be strange if, at the end of the week, you do not tell me that you have serious doubt of it.” I returned at the time, to be dreadfully shocked by my too cruel experiment. “No,” she said, “I do not love him;” I abhor him. She was fallen off the edge, and her self-examination was become her insanity! (Horace Bushnell, D. D.)

God trying the reins and the heart

It is wonderful to see with what skill God has adjusted all our experiences, in this mortal life, so as to make us sensible of our errors and defects. As the invisible ink is brought out in a distinct colour by holding what is written to the fire, so God brings out all our faults and our sins by the scorches of experience through which we are ever passing in the fiery trials of life. If we are proud, He has a way to make us see it, and to break down our pride. If we cherish any subtle grudge or animosity, He will somehow call it out and make us see it. If we are selfish, or covetous, or jealous, or frivolous, or captious, or self-indulgent, or sensual, or self-confident, or fanatical, or self-righteous, or partial, or obstinate, or prejudiced, or uncharitable, or censorious,--whatever fault we have in us, whether it be in the mind, or the head, or the body, or I might almost say the bones, no matter how subtle, or how ingeniously covered it may be, He has us in the furnace of trial and correction, where He is turning us round and round, lifting us in prosperity, crushing us in adversity, subduing us with affliction, tempting out our faults and then chastising them humbling us, correcting us, softening, tempering, soothing, fortifying, refining, healing, and so managing us, as to detect all our drossy and bad qualities, and separate them from us. He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver, and allows nothing to escape either His discovery or our correction. No self-examination we could make would discover, at all, what He is continually bringing to the light, and exposing to our detection. (Horace Bushnell, D. D.)