The tenderness of God towards His afflicted people


W. Jay.
I. AN ASSURANCE. "Thou tellest my wanderings." They Were numerous and various. But what do these wanderings take in?

1. Moral infirmities, or deviations from duty, What is the whole course of a state of nature but a series of wanderings? It is well if God sees that you feel them to be your afflictions and that you repent of them.

2. These wanderings take in local changes. See Abraham, Israel, David — what wanderings were theirs? Some of the most eminent servants of God were wanderers (Hebrews 11.). "They wandered about," etc. And it is so still. For conscience' sake many have had to wander about seeking how to live. But they are not purposeless; God has taken count of them all. "Thou tellest my wanderings." Therefore we are not to think that God disregards all individualities.

II. THE PRAYER. "Put Thou my tears into Thy bottle." There are some persons who despise tears as weak and womanly. Do they remember who He was who wept at the grave of Lazarus? Do they remember who He was, who, "when He came nigh unto Jerusalem, wept over it," etc.? "True greatness," says Lavater, "is always simple"; and true courage, I am persuaded, is always combined with tenderness. Homer — that matchless painter of men and manners — makes no scruple to represent his bravest of men, Ajax, and his wisest of men, Ulysses, as weeping; and the latter as weeping no less than three times in the course of a few lines. The Easterns wept more readily, and were less ashamed of indulging their tears, than we. David was a man of tears. Of these tears, let us now, if we can, trace out the sources. One source of these tears was affliction. He had many trials and troubles, which his greatness could not prevent, or even alleviate; yea, which his greatness rather increased. Another source of his tears was sin; and a much more plentiful one than his sufferings. "My sin," says he, "is ever before me." Not only his great sin in his fall, but his daily and hourly failures. "Who," says he, "can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults." And David wept for the sins of others, as well as his own. "I beheld the transgressors," says he, "and was grieved, Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because men keep not Thy law."

III. THE QUESTION. "Are they not in Thy book?" — that is, Are they nob written and recorded there? What book? The book of His providence? Yes, they are all there; their number is there; their quality is there; their degree is there; their duration is there and all their sad memorial is there. The book of His remembrance (Malachi 3:16). Now, let us conclude —

1. By admiring the condescension of God.

2. Let us, as Young says, "not stop at wonder," but "imitate and live."

3. Ye wanderers, ye weepers, repair here. God is able to comfort in all our tribulation.

(W. Jay.)

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