Psalm 25:6-7
“Remember, O LORD, Your tender mercies and Your lovingkindnesses, for they are from of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions. According to Your mercy remember me, for Your goodness’ sake, O LORD.”
At what precise period this Psalm was written, is not certainly known; but probably about the time of Absalom’s rebellion. It is evident that David’s sorrows were very great, verses 16, 17; but those which appear to have pressed with the greatest weight upon his mind arose from a view of his past transgressions, and probably from that flagrant iniquity committed by him in the matter of Uriah, verses 11, 18.
His mode of pleading with God is that to which I propose, in a more especial manner, to draw your attention, because it affords an excellent pattern for us, in all our approaches to the throne of grace.
Let us notice,
I. What David desires.
He desires God to “remember the tender mercies and loving-kindnesses” with which he had favored him in times past. Now this is almost the last petition which we should have expected from a person mourning under a sense of sin, because the kindness of God to us forms one of the greatest aggravations of our sins. God himself made this the ground of his complaint against his people of old, “What could I have done more for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? And when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, it brought it forth wild grapes?” But David had a just view of God’s tender mercies; he regarded them as pledges of yet richer blessings in reserve for him; and in this view his request deserves particular attention.
God’s mercies are the fruits of his electing love.
God dispenses his blessings to whoever he will. He has a right to do so; for there is no creature in the universe that has any claim upon him. As well might the devils complain of him, for not giving a Savior to them—as any of us complain of him for not bestowing on us the grace which he imparts to others. In what he does, he consults his own glory alone; and, however rebellious man may arraign his counsels—he will be eternally glorified in all that he has done; it will all be found “to his praise and honor and glory” in “the day which he has appointed for the revelation of his righteous judgments.”
David was sensible of his obligations to God in this respect. He traced all his mercies to their proper source: the eternal counsels of God; who had given them to him, not for any righteousness of his, either seen or foreseen, but “according to his own purpose and grace, which had been given to him in Christ Jesus before the world began, 2 Timothy 1:9.” He saw that “God had loved him with an everlasting love,” and therefore with loving-kindness had God drawn him to the actual enjoyment of his favor.
In this view, God’s past mercies may be regarded as pledges of future blessings.
God is unchangeable, no less in his counsels than in his perfections, Malachi 3:6. In no respect is there with him “any variableness, or shadow of turning, James 1:17.” “His gifts and calling are without repentance, Romans 11:29.” Hence, if he remembers his former mercies, he will continue them. “He will not forsake his people for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased him to make them his people, 1 Samuel 12:22.” He has said, “I will never, never leave you; never, never forsake you, Hebrews 13:5;” so that, if we have indeed experienced his loving-kindness in our souls, we may “confidently hope that he will carry on and perfect his work within us, Philippians 1:6;” for “whom he loves, he loves to the end! John 13:1.”
Here, then, we see what was in the mind of David when he urged this petition. He had found consolation from this thought in the midst of the deepest distresses. When tempted, on one occasion, to think that “God had cast him off, and would be favorable to him no more, but had in anger shut up his tender mercies, so that his promise would fail for evermore,” he “called to mind God’s wonders of old time,” and thus composed his mind, and assured himself that his fears were groundless, the result only of “his own infirmity, Psalm 42:6; Psalm 77:6-11.”
In any troubles, therefore, which we may experience, we shall do well to look back upon God’s mercies of old, and to take encouragement from them to cast ourselves upon him, for the continuance of them.
Let us next observe,
II. What David deprecates.
Sin, in whoever it is found, is most offensive to God.
God “cannot look upon iniquity without the utmost abhorrence, Habakkuk 1:13,” both of the act itself, and of the person who has committed it. Hence, when he forgives sin, he “blots it out, even as a morning cloud, which passes away, and is no more seen, Isaiah 44:22.” God has put it altogether out of his own sight; he has “cast it behind his back, Isaiah 38:17,” “into the very depths of the sea, Micah 7:19,” from whence it shall never be brought up again.
If sin were remembered by him, he must punish it; and therefore, to those who turn unto him, and lay hold on his covenant, he promises, that “their sins and iniquities he will remember no more, Hebrews 8:12.”
On this account David deprecates the remembrance of his sins.
He specifies, in particular, “the sins of his youth,” which, though committed through levity and thoughtlessness, were displeasing to God, and must entail his judgments on the soul. Little do young people think what their views of their present conduct will be, when God shall open their eyes—whether it is in the present or the future life. They now imagine that they have, as it were, a licence to indulge in sin, and to neglect their God. They conceive, that serious piety at their age would be premature and preposterous; and that, if they only abstain from gross immoralities, they may well be excused for deferring to a later period the habits that are distasteful to a youthful mind.
But these are vain and delusive imaginations. God views their conduct with other eyes. He does not accept those frivolous excuses with which men satisfy their own minds. God sees no reason why the earlier part of life should be consecrated to Satan, and the dregs of it alone be reserved for him. He demands the first-fruits as his peculiar portion; and if the first-fruits of the field, much more the first-fruits of the immortal soul.
O! my young friends, I entreat you to reflect how different God’s estimate of your conduct is, from that which you and your thoughtless companions form; and how bitterly you will one day deprecate his remembrance of those sins, which now you pass over as unworthy of any serious consideration.
But David adverts also to the transgressions which, through weakness or inadvertence, he yet daily committed. And who among us is not conscious of manifold transgressions in his daily walk and conduct? Who is not constrained to say, “Enter not into judgment with your servant, O Lord;” “if you should be extreme to mark iniquity, O Lord, who shall stand?”
Thus, then, let us also implore God to blot out our sins from the book of his remembrance, that they may never appear against us in the day of judgment, and, “if sought for” with ever so much diligence, may never, “never be found! Jeremiah 50:20.”
Let us mark yet farther,
III. What David proposes as the rule and measure of God’s dealings with him.
David founds all his hope on the mercy of God.
Mercy is the favorite attribute of God. Mercy delights to spare the offending, and to save the penitent. It is ready to fly at the call of guilt and misery; and hastens to execute the dictates of God’s sovereign grace. Mercy demands no merit as the price of its blessings; it accounts itself richly recompensed in bringing glory to God, and happiness to man. Hence David prayed, “According to your mercy, remember me!”
When speaking of God’s interposition between him and his persecutors, he could say, “The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands has he recompensed me, Psalm 18:20.” But he would not presume to make his own righteousness the ground of his hope towards God. For acceptance with him, he would rely on nothing but mercy, even the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. Herein he has set us an example which we shall do well to follow; in all our addresses to the Most High God, we should adopt his prayer, and say, “Deal with your servant according to your mercy! Psalm 119:124.” There is solid ground. There the most holy of the saints must come; and there the vilest sinner upon earth may find a rock whereon to stand with confidence before God. With such a ground of hope, David could approach his God, and say, “Be merciful unto my sin; for it is great!”
From “the goodness of God, too,” David derives his only plea.
David well knew that God is most glorified in those exercises of mercy which most display his sovereignty and his grace. Hence he desired that God would have respect to his own honor, and show mercy to him for his goodness’ sake. Thus must we, also, take our arguments from the perfections of our God; and have all our hope, and plea, and confidence in him alone.
To this I will only add,
1. Let us follow the example of David.
We all have need to come to God precisely in the manner that David did. We have no more worthiness in ourselves than he. If judged by anything of our own, we can have no hope whatever. We must stand precisely on the same ground as he, and urge the very same pleas as he. Our first, and last, and only cry must be,
“Mercy, good Lord, mercy I ask;
This is the total sum;
For mercy, Lord, is all my plea:
O let your mercy come!
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions! Psalm 51:1.”
2. Let us take encouragement from the acceptance with God which David found.
His sins, as great as they were, were all forgiven. And when did God ever reject the prayer of faith? To whom did he ever say, “Seek my face in vain?” Read the whole of the fifty-first Psalm, and let it be a model for your supplications, day and night. Then shall your prayer come up with acceptance before God, and your seed-time of tears, issue in a harvest of eternal joy!
Charles Simeon