Psalms 31:22

For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Thine eyes: nevertheless Thou heartiest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto Thee.

Consolation for the despairing

I am as a watcher on the sea beach, telescope in hand, keeping guard for an appointed time. The watcher looks through his glass again and again, but a glance contents him so far as most of yonder gallant vessels are concerned, which are now in the offing; but by and by, his glass remains steadily ate his eye; his gaze is fixed, and in a few moments he gives a signal to his fellows, and they launch their boat. The explanation is, that he has noted signals of distress in one of the craft and, therefore, he has bestirred himself for her help. And so, too, the preacher is on the look-out for distress signals, and would render help where souls bound for eternity are foundering in doubt, ready to despair.

I. deep inward sorrow. The man who wrote it was pained at his heart, and there are many in like ease now. How came they so? Some are constitutionally depressed and desponding. Others are so, through great trial. Some, through secret sin unconfessed, which has festered into misery. Hurtful teaching, unwise ministry, often adds sorrow to the heart. And when the spirit sinks, the depression of men takes its own form according to what they are. In religious men it will take a religious form. It did so in the author of this psalm. What more dreadful apprehension could there be than this--“I am cut off from before Thine eyes.” Many good men have felt like that. But God brings good out of it for the man himself and for others through him.

II. the rash expression of this sorrow. “I said in my haste.” David, more than once, spoke hastily. He had better have bitten his tongue. Better count a dozen before we speak when our minds are agitated. But such speech rests on altogether insufficient grounds.

1. Sad and distressful circumstances. But these do not prove that God has cast you away. If so, then God cast away His own Son. “The foxes had holes and,” etc.

2. Feelings. But what more fluctuating and unstable than they? The wind does not veer more fitfully than does the current of our emotions. And yet despairing people are obstinate in their convictions. You cannot persuade them. For the declaration that God has forsaken us, or any man who seeks Him, is diametrically opposed to Scripture. There is not one text which advises any man to despair of the mercy of God. It is dishonouring God to think so. Jesus says, “I can save.” The sinner says, “You cannot,” and thus makes Christ a liar.

III. A pleading cry. When David feared that he was cut off from God, he was wise enough to take to crying. It is a significant word. It tells of pain. Red eyes often relieve breaking hearts, and to cry unto God is a real relief. Prayer is the surest and most blessed vent for the soul. And then there came--

IV. A cheerful result. “Thou heartiest,” etc. This blessing went beyond the promise. The promise is to believing prayer. But even when He meets with unbelieving ones, He gives faith, and so saves them. We are like lost children and cry, and God will not leave us to die in the dark. God heard David, then He will hear you and me. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

A hasty expression penitently retracted

“I said in my haste,” etc. That is a bit of genuine experience honestly told. How glad we ought to be that David never fell into the hand of an ordinary biographer, for then we had never been told what here we read. But it is comforting to find that even great men act at times as we often do. The experience of such a man as David cannot but be very instructive. Now in this text listen--

I. To an utterance of unbelief. “I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Thine eyes.” Note here--

1. That unbelief is generally talkative.

“I said.” He had better not even have thought it, but if he did think of it he had far best not say it. I have heard it said, “If it is in the mind it may as well come out,” but this is not true. If I had a rattlesnake in a box on this platform, I think you would none of you vote for the creature being let loose. Poison in a phial is deadly, but it will hurt no one until the cork is drawn, and then we cannot tell how far the mischief will go. If thou hast an ill thought, repent of it, but do not repeat it. Do as David did in another case, when he had a very ugly thought; he said, “If I should speak thus I shall offend against the generation of thy children.” So he would not put his thought into words lest he should do harm. Alas, unbelief does not understand holding its tongue. It will prattle.

2. Its utterances are generally hasty. There was no reason for saying such a thing at all, and certainly not for being in a hurry to say it; for he said unto God, “I am cut off from before Thine eyes.” But was it true? See if it be founded on fact; see whether after all you have not made a mistake. John Bunyan says of the pilgrim that he was much tumbled up and down in his thoughts. It means that he was in much confusion of mind. But why in such haste to write your blunders down. What a man says in his haste he generally has to repent at his leisure. Hasty deeds and hasty words make up the most horrible parts of human history.

3. They are often the result of quick temper. I fear we professing Christians are often out of temper with God. Too often such blasphemy enters into the human heart.

4. And are frequently exaggerated. See what David says here, “I am cut off,” etc. No, David, no. It is not so. You are cut off from much you love, but not from God. Some people always talk big about everything. There must be a very narrow line, fine as a razor’s edge, between a lie and the unguarded expressions of exaggeration. Some people talk about their trials on a scale of a mile to the inch. Their afflictions are awful, they are dreadful, they are without parallel. They are altogether quite equal to Job and Jeremiah rolled into one. If you try to comfort them they will tell you at once that you do not know anything about the great deeps whereon they are doing business; you are only knee deep in the waters of trouble. Such is the way of unbelief. Let us leave it off.

5. They dishonour God. David does, as it were, blame God. “Before Thy very eyes I have suffered this.” There never was a godly man cut off from God yet, and there never will be. If any of us have uttered words of unbelief let us call them back and drown them in our tears. But we have here also--

II. an effort of struggling faith.

1. He prayed to God. He says, “Thou heardest the voice of my supplications,” etc. Oh, child of God, cry to a smiting God. Cry to God even when He seems to cast thee off. Sink or swim, live or die, do not doubt thy God, but still pray.

2. He prayed in downright earnest. His was a crying prayer. That is the prayer which is neither said nor sung, but cried; it drops from the eyes in tears. The words of a child the mother may not listen to, but let it cry and see if she will act come. And--

3. God heard his prayer. God dealt with David not according to his unbelief, but his faith. His faith was small, but it was true. Thou who art in trouble, whoever thou mayest be, listen not to the voice of Satan who tempts thee to cease prayer. Do not say, “God will not hear me”; remember the words, “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.”

III. A testimony of gratitude. “Nevertheless Thou heardest the voice of my supplications.” God acted in the reverse way to David.

1. He spoke, but God did not speak. He was a listener. “Thou heartiest.” Not a word came from God: there had been too many words in the business already.

2. And there was no haste in God. God was quietly hearing while His petulant servant was fiercely complaining. It is a great thing for a minister who visits his people to be a good listener. The afflicted value this quality above gold. Such hearing has tender and precious sympathy in it. Hence the Scriptures say of God, “O Thou that hearest prayer.” David does not cease to wonder that in his unhappy condition he had yet been regarded of the Lord: “Thou heartiest the voice of my supplication.” How beautiful that is! Further--

3. There was no exaggeration with God. Unbelief exaggerates, but God does not. On the contrary, He diminishes the evil of His servants, till it comes to nothing.

4. And He did not dishonour His servant’s prayer. He might have done so, but did not. He might have said, “If he thinks I have forsaken him, let it be so.” But God did not do so. Look at the word “never-the-less,” what it tells of the graciousness of God.

Conclusion.

1. Repent heartily of every hard thought we have had of God.

2. Earnestly pray that if we think so wrongly we may keep our mouth as with a bridle.

3. Pray without ceasing, always pray let come what will.

4. Let us always speak well of the Lord’s mercy. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Faith shaken

1. The faith of the godly may be shaken, and the strongest faith may sometimes show its infirmity.

2. Though faith be shaken, yet it is fixed in the root, as a tree beaten by the wind, keeping strong grips of good ground; though faith seem to yield, yet it faileth not, and even when it is at the weakest, it is uttering itself in some act, as a wrestler; for here the expression of David’s infirmity in faith is directed to God, and his earnest prayer joined with it.

3. Praying faith, how weak soever, shall not be misregarded of God.

4. There may be in a soul at one time both grief oppressing, and hope upholding: both darkness of trouble, and the light of faith; both desperately doubting, and strong gripping of God’s truth and goodness; both a fainting and a fighting; a seeming yielding in the fight, and yet a striving of faith against all opposition; both a foolish haste, and a settled staidness of faith; as here, “I said in my haste,” etc. (D. Dickson.)

The eloquence of a cry

If you were walking the streets and heard or saw a poor child crying, you would be far more affected by it than by the oration of the pretended mechanic who is eloquently stating his wants to the dwellers on both sides of the way. A poor child crying in the dark, under your window, in mid-winter, in the snow, would move your pity and obtain your help. Even if it were a foreigner, and knew not a single word of English, you would fully feel its pleading. The eloquence of a cry is overwhelming, pity owns its power, and lends her aid. There is a chord in human nature which responds to a child’s cry, and there is something in the Divine nature which is equally touched by prayer. The Lord will not suffer a young raven to cry in vain, and much less will He suffer men who are made in His own image to cry to Him in the bitterness of their hearts, and find Him deaf to their entreaties. (C. H. Spurgeon.)