PRAYER.
‘I am Thine, save me; for I have sought Thy precepts.’—Psalm cxix. 94.
We studied last Sunday the subject of consecration as taught us in the words of the Apostle Paul, in which he exhorted us to ‘present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God.’ I trust the result has been that many amongst us have so realised the multitude of God’s mercies that, under the deep sense of profound thanksgiving, we have knelt down before Him, afresh to yield ourselves to His service. If so, the question arises, What next? If the sacrifice of ourselves has been offered by us and accepted by God, into what position have we been brought, and what are we to expect in our future life? Are we to expect to be so set free from the impediments of sin, and so filled with holy love and joy that we shall be gently wafted heavenward, without either a conflict or a difficulty? or, are we to expect a stiff, hard warfare to the end, with a certain hope of victory through the perfection of our Leader’s power, but with all the accompaniments of a deadly struggle until the victory is won and Satan bruised under our feet for ever? I regard this question as one of the utmost importance, for if we look for that which God has not promised, our very faith will lead to disappointment; whereas if we do not look for that which He has really promised, we shall clearly never rise to the high standard of His Word. To this question then I purpose to turn your thoughts this morning, and I pray God that the Holy Spirit may teach us all, and lead us rightly to understand, and truly to act on, His Word.
This text appears to throw great light on the subject, for in the first clause the Psalmist actually pleads before God the recognised fact of a past and present consecration. He does not say, ‘I wish to be Thine,’ or ‘I hope to be Thine,’ or ‘I pray Thee to make me Thine,’ but he says, ‘Lord, I am Thine,’ and no one could say that unless he had already yielded himself to God. But it is not consecration only that is expressed when the believer says, ‘Lord, I am Thine;’ for the consecration of which I was speaking last Sunday is a human act,—it is our own surrender of our own powers to God; and when we look closely at anything we do we may well remember the words of the prophet, ‘How weak is thine heart!’ If we can truly say in faith, ‘Lord, I am Thine,’ we must rely on something a great deal better than our own consecration of ourselves. We belong to the Lord Jesus by virtue of the eternal covenant to which He referred when He said, ‘My Father which gave them Me is greater than all;’ we belong to Him because we have been made His own by redemption, so as to be parts of the ‘Church which He has purchased with His own blood;’ we belong to Him because we have been separated unto Him by the mighty power of the Holy Ghost, and so been ‘sanctified unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ;’ we belong to Him, for we have been made His own children by adoption, so that He speaks of us, saying, ‘I and the children whom Thou hast given Me;’ and we belong to Him, for we have been solemnly signed and sealed unto Him in our baptism, and in our own persons have deliberately ratified the covenant. So that when we say, ‘Lord, I am Thine,’ we do not merely refer to some one particular transaction of our own at some one particular time, but we look at the whole counsel and covenant of God,—at the great and perfect work of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost,—before which any feeble effort of our own minds is absolutely nothing; and, reviewing it all, we kneel down, with our hearts full of praise, and wonder, and say with the deepest thanksgiving, ‘Lord, I am Thine.’
It is clear, therefore, that these words, while they include personal consecration on our own part, express that which is infinitely greater: namely, the great grace of God Himself in redeeming us by the precious blood of the Lamb, and separating us as a holy people unto Himself. And now follows the question: When in this highest sense we can kneel down and really say with truth, ‘Lord, I am Thine,’ what is to follow? The words of the text supply us with a most important answer; for they teach that one of the great results will be believing prayer, and they show that when we are really His, and when we know that we are His, we are not to rest content with that sacred and unspeakable privilege, but to kneel down afresh and say, ‘Lord, I am Thine: save me.’
It is clear from this passage that there was something which David still wanted, although he was the Lord’s. He was safe, but he still prayed to be saved; he had been made the Lord’s own dear child, but he still prayed, ‘Save me.’ Let us consider, then, what he wanted, and what he did; and may God the Holy Ghost so apply the passage to our souls, that we may know the double blessing of being His and being saved through His grace!
I. What he wanted; or, in other words, what he prayed for when he prayed that he might be saved. There appears to be no reference in the psalm to temporal deliverance, so we need not consider the prayer as referring to it. It was for spiritual gifts that he prayed, and from spiritual difficulties that he desired to be saved. And when we consider these spiritual gifts it is very clear that it was not acceptance, or reconciliation, for which he prayed, for his mind must have been quite at rest upon that point when he said, ‘Lord, I am Thine.’ What he was longing for was personal holiness,—that is, a complete conformity to the perfect will of that holy God to whom he belonged and whom he loved. You see this throughout the psalm. He does not pray, ‘Pardon me,’ ‘Receive me,’ or ‘Blot out my transgressions,’ as he does in some other psalms; but he does pray again and again that God’s statutes might be written on his heart: ‘Oh, that my ways were directed to keep Thy statutes:’ ‘Teach me Thy statutes;’ ‘Deal bountifully with Thy servant, that I may live and keep Thy word;’ ‘Quicken me after Thy loving-kindness; so shall I keep the testimony of Thy mouth.’ The whole psalm is full of such prayers, and they show us perfectly clearly that the salvation for which he prayed was the power for holiness from God. So the psalm also teaches us what was the difficulty in the attainment of his wish. There are some allusions to enemies, from which we may infer that there were persons about him who hindered his progress. But the psalm shows clearly that the real difficulty lay in himself, and in the deadness of his own heart. No less than nine times does he pray, ‘Quicken me.’ And what did that prayer imply? Was it not that he was conscious of a dead, cold state of heart, and was longing for life and warmth? Had there been no element of deadness in his soul, he would not have required to be quickened; but there was that element of deadness, and he himself urged it as a reason for his prayer, when he said (verse 25), ‘My soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken Thou me according to Thy word.’ It was the deep corruption of his human nature which continued to cling to him, even when he was the Lord’s, against which he prayed when he said, ‘Lord, I am Thine: save me.’
And now arises the most deeply important practical question: Are we, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, at the very time that we can truly say ‘Lord, I am Thine,’ to be prepared to meet the same difficulty? In answer to that question, I have not one moment’s hesitation in replying that we are. I have read and heard that original sin in certain persons is ‘destroyed,’ is ‘dead, though capable of revival;’ is ‘rendered inert,’ and is ‘in suspense;’ but I do not believe one word of it. It is far too large a subject for me to attempt to discuss fully in one short sermon: I have not time to give you more than two passages, but I hope they will be sufficient. In Romans viii.,—that grand chapter, so full of the grand tidings of safety, beginning with no condemnation and ending with no separation,—the chapter which some claim as descriptive of what they term ‘the higher life,’—in the middle of that chapter we find a description of the sons of God who are led by the Spirit. Now observe carefully the effect of that leading of God’s children by the Holy Ghost. We find it in verse 13: ‘If ye do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live: for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.’ The word rendered ‘do mortify’ means ‘are habitually putting to death’ (θανατοῦτε). But if original sin were dead already, or inert, why should the children of God, by the power of the Holy Ghost, be habitually putting to death its deeds? The fact that its deeds are to be habitually put to death is a perfectly clear proof that the root of the evil is not dead already.
One passage more, and I have chosen it because I think it of peculiar importance in its bearing on what is called the ‘higher life.’ You remember that wonderful insight into heaven which St. Paul describes in 2 Cor. xii., and you remember how it was followed up by the thorn in the flesh,—‘the messenger of Satan,’ given ‘to buffet him.’ Now why was it thus followed? Why was this messenger of Satan let loose upon God’s chosen servant immediately after this wonderful blessing? He himself tells us the reason: ‘Lest I should be exalted beyond measure.’ In other words, he was in danger of pride of heart. He was caught up into the third heaven, but he carried with him even there so much of the old evil of his fallen nature that when he came down he was in such danger of being puffed up with pride that it was an act of mercy in God even to permit him to be buffeted by Satan’s messenger, in order to keep him in a humble spirit, depending upon grace. Surely we learn the lesson that, whatever be our spiritual attainments, and whatever God has taught us of His mercy, we have still to strive as David did against the active working of indwelling sin, and to pray as he did, ‘Lord, I am Thine: save me.’
II. We see then what the Psalmist wanted; let us consider next what he did.