Are there any who feel that the experience of David is their own,—who either by reason of religious inconsistency or religious declension have laid themselves open to the upbraiding question, "Where is thy God?"—Perhaps religious declension is the more common of the two. You are not, as we have surmised in a previous chapter, what once you were. You have not the same love of the Saviour as once you had—the same confidence in His dealings—the same trust in His faithfulness—the same zeal for His glory. Affliction, when it comes, does not lead you, as once it did, to cheerful acquiescence—to the cherishing of a meek, unmurmuring submissive spirit under God's sovereign will and discipline, but rather to a hasty, misgiving frame—fretting and repining when you should be prostrate at the mercy-seat, saying, "The will of the Lord be done!"
Not in scorn, but in sober seriousness, in Christian affection and fidelity, we ask, "Where is now thy God?" "Ye did run well; who hath hindered you?" What is the guilty cause, the lurking evil, that has dragged you imperceptibly down from weakness to weakness, and has left you a poor, baffled thing, with the finger of irreligious scorn pointed at you, and whose truthfulness is echoed back from the lonely voids of your desolate heart? Return, O backsliding children! Remain no longer as you are, at this guilty distance from that God who, amid all the fitfulness of your love to Him, remains unaltered and unalterable in His love to you. Be not absorbed in tears, ringing your hands in moping melancholy—abandoning yourself to unavailing remorse and despair. The past may be bad enough! You may have done foul dishonour to your God. By some sad and fatal inconsistency, you may have given occasion to the ungodly to point at you the finger of scorn. The fair alabaster pillar may be stained with some crimson transgression. Or if there be no special blot to which they can point, there may be a lamentable spiritual deterioration in your daily walk. They may have observed your love to God waxing cold—your love of the world waxing strong. They may have heard you murmur at your Lord's dealings, question His faithfulness, and refuse to hear and to bear the rod—manifesting tempers, or indulging in pursuits sadly and strangely unlike what would be sanctioned by the example of your Divine Redeemer. Up! and with determined energy resolve henceforth to repair the breach,—henceforth to make a new start in the heavenly life. The shrill trumpet sounds—"Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee life!" We cannot say, like the King of Nineveh, "Who can tell if God will turn and repent?" He has never turned! You have turned from Him, not He from you. "Where is now thy God?" He is the same as ever He was;—boundless in His compassion—true to His covenant—faithful to His promises; "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever!"
Reader! if He be afflicting you as He did David;—if with an exile spirit you be roaming some moral wilderness, the flowers of earth faded on your path, and the bleak winds of desolation and calamity sweeping and sighing around, let these times of affliction lead to deep searchings of heart. Let your tears be as the dewdrops of the morning on the tender leaves, causing you to bend in lowly sorrow and self-abasement, only to be raised again, refreshed, to inhale new fragrance in the summer sun. If, like the weeping woman of Galilee, you are saying, through blinding tears, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him," —if, like the Spouse in the Canticles, you are going about the city in search of your Beloved;—seeking Him, He will be found of you. The watchmen may smite you—repel you—tear off your veil—and load you with reproaches;—but "fear not! ye seek Jesus who was crucified!" He will meet you as He did the desponding Magdalene, and, listening like her to His own tones of ineffable love, you will cast yourself at His feet, and exclaim, "Rabboni—Master!"
V.
THE TAUNT.
"He wounds, and hides the hand that gave the blow;
He flies, He reappears, and wounds again;