Possible exhaustion of God's mercies.
So fully was the thought of God woven into the whole life and relations of a pious Jew, that to him the unbearable distress was the lost sense of God's presence and interest. We have two striking instances of this. The supreme point of David's distress, when fleeing from his son Absalom, lay in this—his enemies taunted him with the lost favour of God, saying, "Where is now thy God?" And Isaiah closes his magnificent fortieth chapter with this sublime appeal, "Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?" Imagined change in God's relation, and the failure of God's mercy, are the supreme woes to all Godfearing men still.
I. THE CHRISTIAN'S GREAT TROUBLES ARE DOUBTS ABOUT GOD, NOT AFFLICTIONS SENT BY GOD. The distinction between these two is this—doubts are inward, afflictions are outward. It is not a very great thing for the soul to master mere circumstances—especially since God never permits them to be overwhelming. The great thing is for the soul to master itself. When our circumstances start doubts, then we get humbled and broken. It is doubt, suspicion, fear, that really crushes our spirits, and forces tears. Our doubtings usually concern:
1. God's Personality. Like David, we cry for assurance that God is a "living God;" not a vain idol; not an abstraction of science; not the vague "eternal that makes for righteousness."
2. God's relationship. He may be God, but is he my God?
3. God's faithfulness. For God ever sets out promises for faith to grasp; and what can faith do if God does not keep his promises?
4. God's actual present nearness. "Where is now thy God?" "Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer might not pass through."
II. THE STING OF DOUBTING TIMES IS THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN. Illustrate from the case of David, who lost the sense of God, lost his hope in God, filled his soul with questionings and fears, when he had stepped aside from the ways of righteousness and good self-restraint. Sin clouds the mind with doubts.
III. NEITHER AFFLICTIONS, NOR DOUBTS, NOR CONSCIOUS SIN DO MAKE GOD'S MERCIES FAIL. Precisely in those scenes Divine mercies most abound. Things, and conditions of mind and feeling, may affect our vision of him; they cannot affect him. We may project our shadows over him, and then find we can only see the shadows. God is not moved to change by our change. "He abideth faithful."
"His mercies aye endure,
Ever faithful, ever sure."
Ask, "Is his mercy clean gone forever?" and you cannot want any answer. To state the question is to be ashamed of the doubting that suggested it.—R.T.