Psalms 39:12

Hold not Thy peace at my tears.

Earthly tears and heavenly songs

This is a beautiful world, but there are tears in it. All eyes have them, and they fall fast and often. Their causes are varied.

1. God’s rebukes for sins. Therefore repent.

2. The reign of temptation. Seek God’s strength.

3. The difficulties in our work for Christ.

4. The condition of society.:But the worst may be reclaimed Blessed is it to make the endeavour.

5. Bereavement. In the Royal Academy there was a small but pathetic picture. It is a coastguardsman’s cottage. His beloved wife is dead. There is the table spread for his meal; the young daughter in a black dress is cutting a loaf of bread; his little boy--boy like--is eating away at his dinner; the heart-broken man eats not, but stretches out his hand to touch a little child in a cradle beside him. Here is sorrow, hers is sadness. And there are thousands of such homes. But there are no tears in heaven. (G. W. McCree.)

I am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.--

The Christian a stranger and sojourner

I. The psalmist’s experience includes a deep and habitual sense of the transitory and unsatisfying nature of all earthly things.

II. To be a stranger with god, and a sojourner, includes realizing anticipations of another and enduring world.

III. The psalmist’s experience comprehends an earnest and assiduous cultivation of all christian graces and virtues. The character of a stranger and a sojourner is made up of many bright lineaments of excellence, harmoniously blended as are rays of different hues in the solar orb. Certain features of his experience may, at first view, appear to be hardly consistent with others; as, for example, undaunted firmness with a meek and lowly spirit; the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove; inflexible opposition to all sin, with profound compassion towards all sinners.

IV. To be a stranger with God, and a sojourner, includes a faithful improvement of the ordinances of grace and the dispensations of providence. (J, Smyth, D. D.)

Believers considered as strangers and sojourners

I. Whence is it that good men consider themselves as strangers and sojourners on earth?

1. Every man is a stranger who is not a native of the place where he resides; but a sojourner is one who makes only a passing visit to the place, with a resolution to leave it again and proceed on his journey. This last is a distinguishing character of the saints (2 Corinthians 5:1). They are strangers in affection as well as condition; their hearts are elsewhere.

2. The saints justly count themselves strangers because they are regenerated, born from above, distant from their native country.

II. What manner of behaviour is most expressive of this temper, and best suited to the condition of strangers?

1. If we look on this earth as a strange country, through which we are only passing to our native home, it certainly ought to be our care that we receive as little hurt as possible in our passage. The greatest hurt the world can do us is to make us forget the place of our destination, and loiter in the way. Its smiles more to be dreaded than its frowns.

2. It is not enough that we receive no hurt; be careful to make all the provision we can for our better country (1 John 3:3; 2 Peter 1:11).

3. It becomes strangers to endure with patience and fortitude any hardships and inconveniences (2 Corinthians 4:8.)

4. If we view heaven as our everlasting abode, we ought to be solicitous to be thoroughly acquainted with the way (Psalms 119:19; Psalms 119:54; Psalms 19:7).

5. If we consider ourselves as strangers, we ought to behave like those who belong to a better country. They who love their country will be jealous of its credit.

6. If we have turned our back on the world, let us help one another on in our way, and take as many as possible with us; do all we can to strengthen the weak, advise the doubtful, animate the discouraged. (R. Walker.)