(Psa. 143-145)
I pass over here the desires of judgment as dispensational, as we have often seen. In this we have the soul bowed down under the trouble, but in principle set right with God as one chastened for sin, only in the midst of those hostile, but brought to uprightness. It looks for mercy that it may not be under judgment from God, but that God may be a deliverer, and looks for it as in heart belonging to God and His servant. It is broken by the affliction, and trusts God, and seeks His way. It transfers the evils, so to speak, from God to the adversary, associating itself in heart with God, and looking that God should own it and take up its cause as against the power of evil which He had used as a rod. We have this experience when we have suffered from malicious enemies, but through our own fault. The heart true with God when thoroughly subdued and set right, accepting the punishment of its iniquity instead of excusing itself; can then look to God to take up its cause against the malice, but not till it has set God's glory above itself. The soul then clings to the enjoyment of God's lovingkindness in a subdued and softened spirit, and its motives are purified, which is the very object of the discipline, not merely its ways, but its motives, and so power of communion, which is directly in relation with our motives and state of heart. There is a strengthening of the bond of the heart with God, and His will is sought because it is so. “Thy Spirit,” he says, “is good.” The heart lives in the sense of what the Spirit works in us; His influences in the heart are good. The soul has found where good is. There is accordance between the heart and the things of the Spirit, and it is felt, and true delight is in the soul in it. So we say praise good; it is right pleasant, felt to be pleasant, and pleasant because it is right. There is the sense, kip of divine favor with it. But withal the soul seek: to enjoy it, where all is in harmony with it; where its exercises and fruits will be natural (for he was in the midst of unholy enemies). For us this will only be in heaven. The heart is separated by trial to God through grace, and in uprightness owns it cannot stand in the judgment, and looks for divine favor and deliverance.
Psa. 144. I have only a remark to make here. All these exercises make us learn what man is, and the whole bearings of good and evil. When man is seen, known, judged, and is delivered, there is an acquaintance with the whole scene which makes God's patience, goodness, and ways known and perfect in our eyes. “Man is like to vanity,” but we sing a new song; happy are the people that are in such a case. We, indeed, have a far more radical acquaintance with this. It is settled at once by one act in the cross, and we reckon ourselves dead and alive unto God through Him that is risen. It is a new creation, and we are children with the Father. Still every one does not learn it like Paul, and in every case it must be learned experimentally. Only a simple mind laid hold of by Christ, which, therefore does not confer with flesh and blood, learns it easier and walks in the power of it, Only, alas! how many like to be Jews, and live only to die at the end, and so learning it, instead of dying and then living as alive to God, and so pass into Christ according to the power of that life, whether they wake or sleep.
Psa. 145 looks back and shows the soul (for I do not speak of dispensation here as such: it is the Spirit of Christ showing what passes in the millennium; but it shows the soul) recounting with praise and thanksgiving, the works and ways of God, where it can look back—the greatness of God. But then in these ways the character of God has been fully displayed, and the soul has learned that blessed lesson, knows what He is. See verses 8, 9, 14-20. This is a great blessing. All that we have passed through exercises us, breaks our will, makes us know ourselves. We have learned by it, and, in the preparation of the heart, it gives what God is. Israel learned themselves in the wilderness, but here they learn God, if they had hearts to understand it. First, what He is, and then in what He shows Himself such to others. Not only His greatness that indeed has been shown in bringing all to His own ends; but He is gracious, good, thinking of others in love, and full of compassion. He is slow to anger—perhaps the heart has complained of that sometimes in trial, yet we need it—and of great mercy. Yes, we are often Jonases, though we need or have needed as much mercy as Nineveh. But what should we have lost to say nothing of losing ourselves, if our God had not been all this? But this is the God we have to say to, and when we are delivered, we delight in Him, such as He is. No doubt by faith we delight in His being such, but we have to get our wills broken, our heart set right in its desires, tempers, and whole state, to delight fully in God who so long suffers evil which we hate, and the evil doers who thwart our desire of good, but with which our will mixes itself, and taking, perhaps, its most subtle form. “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of; for the Son of man came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them.” He was the manifestation of God in forbearing love; and we have to walk in love as He showed it, offering Himself up to God, in nothing seeking His own will, committing Himself to Him who judgeth righteously. Finally, in peace we shall heartily rejoice in God as such. And it is His nature and character; He is good to all, His mercy is over all His works. Compare Peter, the apostle of God's government and judgments. (2 Peter 3:9, the epistle that applies judgment to the wicked. He is, too, the faithful Creator. 1 Peter 4:9. One sees in this passage, as elsewhere, how the Epistles of Peter take up the government of God as the Psalms, only introducing redemption.) First, then, we find mercy. The Lord occupied with the need of men, all that fall (that is weakness); those that be bowed down (that is oppression). Then even, as he says in Jonah, “and very much cattle,” He it is that takes care of and provides for man and beast. But then, further, there are moral character and relationships in which He has to do with men. He is righteous in His ways, takes account of all that is due to others, and also to Himself. He Himself thinks of others, for this also is righteousness in Him, and there is gracious consideration in His works, no evil. His ear, too, is open to the cry of those who seek Him—fulfills the desire of those who fear Him. He preserves those that love Him. He is thus interested in every want, and takes notice of all our ways. Thus the exercises of our hearts will have caused us to know Him.