Psalm 43:5 Why are you cast down, O my soul? and why are you disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him… I. WHY THE SOUL IS BOWED DOWN AND DISQUIETED. 1. The soul may be bowed down for lack of the old help and strength got from the means of grace. As our hearts are framed we need help from habit, from outward expression, from worship, from voice and ear, from sympathy and exhortation, from words and sacraments. 2. The soul may he cast down from thoughts and doubts springing at once out of the man's own mind, growing at once out of the evil of his very spiritual nature. 3. The soul may be bowed down by the burden of wilful sin, neglected duty, or worldly indulgence. No amount of religious fervour, or doctrinal knowledge will keep the heart glad in which is the consciousness of wrong. 4. But all this sore trouble is deepened, if it happens to come upon us in times of worldly woe, when we can least afford to miss God's peace, when we are in greatest need of comfort. "Why, was it not just this we had counted on, that when all earthly fountains would be dried up, then the river of God would still flow on? II. WHY THE SOUL NEED NOT BE BOWED DOWN. 1. God would have us to learn and know that He Himself is an all-sufficient comforter, apart from any outward helps or earthly sympathy. Thus we enter further into the secret of God's covenant. 2. All progress in religion seems to be from dark to dark. The plant at first strikes its roots in the dark; and it would appear as if the spirit needed fresh times of sorrow before it will be moved to larger growth. 3. We must learn the insufficiency of present attainments before we will seek more. How vague and dim are the hopes and expectations of many! In worldly prosperity such meagre experience does well enough; but, oh! it is not well for the soul to rest there. "Come unto Me," He cries, now loudly, now whisperingly; and it is to move and bend us He has to send darkness and trouble. How natural it is we should be disquieted; and is it not the case that so soon as we see this good wise reason for our dejection, immediately we are delivered? And though it was good for us to be dejected, yet we say, why should we be so? "Why art thou cast down," why dost thou still continue to be cast down, O my soul? (R. MacEllar.) Parallel Verses KJV: Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God. |
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