O LORD, You pulled me up from Sheol; You spared me from descending into the Pit. Sermons
I. FIRST STAGE: TRANQUILITY. (Ver. 6.) "In men tranquillitate" (Buxtorf and Calvin). There had been a time, prior to the experience of trouble here recorded, in which the writer had enjoyed comparative rest for a while. Some such interval of quiet is named in 2 Samuel 7:1 (see also 2 Samuel 13:14, 15). And while he was calm and prosperous, he began to reckon securely on the future. He said, "I shall never be moved." We have no reason to think this was a sinful self-security, as one expositor intimates; for in the text we are told that David attributed his ease to God's good grace and favour. But, not unnaturally, he took it for granted that such quiet would last. God had made his "mountain" of prosperity to stand so firmly that it did not then seem as if he would again be seriously disturbed. Note: There is not only a sinful self-security into which the saints may fall for a while, but there is also a thoughtless assumption which may fasten on us in times of ease, that things will remain calm and smooth. There is danger in this, however, if not sin. And it is more than likely that God will send us something to disturb our treacherous calm. Hence - II. SECOND STAGE: TROUBLE. (Ver. 7, latter part.) The references in the psalm show us what this trouble was; we can scarcely question that it was some dangerous illness, in which his life was very seriously threatened (cf. vers. 2, 3, 8, 9). And he attributed this illness to, or at least he associated it with, the "hiding of God's face." There is no necessary connection between these two. If, indeed, spiritual pride and a careless walk have sullied our life, there will be a time of mental darkness and serious spiritual depression afterwards. And not only so; but there are some diseases in which equanimity is so perturbed that spiritual distress may attend on bodily weakness through unhingement of the nervous system; and, subjectively, the effect may be as if God's face were hidden. The connection of bodily suffering with mental gloom was not understood in David's time, nor indeed till very recently. In the lives of Brainerd and other saints of their day, it is clear that a morbid introspection led them to associate the depression caused by fluctuating bodily health with corresponding spiritual ill. But we ought now to understand better both the laws of health and the love of God. So far from bodily affliction being a sign of "the hiding of God's face," God himself is never nearer, and his love is never more tender, than in our times of suffering and distress. A dear friend who was seriously ill said to the writer one day, "Oh! I'm so weak, I cannot think, I cannot even pray!" We replied, "Your little Ada was very ill some time ago, was she not?" "Very." "Was she not too ill to speak to you?" "Yes." "Did you love her less because she could not speak to you?" "No! I think I loved her more, if there was any difference. Just so" was God's reply. "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." We must never associate trouble and sickness per se with "the hiding of God's face." But David's trouble, and his views thereof, led to the - III. THIRD STAGE: PRAYER. And the prayer was woeful indeed. He thought he was going down to the grave - to Sheol (Hebrew), to Hades (LXX.), i.e. to the dim and drear underworld of the departed. There are three views of the state immediately after death, which is intended by the terms above named, which carry with them no moral significance, unless such moral significance is conveyed by the connection in which they stand. "Sheol" denotes the realm of departed souls, looked at as the all-demanding world. "Hades" denotes the realm of departed souls, looked at as the unknown region. To the pagan world, Hades was all dark, and no light beyond. To the Hebrews it was a dim, shadowy realm, with light awaiting the righteous in the morning (cf. Psalm 17:15; Psalm 49:14). To the Christian it is neither dark nor dim, but something "very far better" it is being" with Christ" Hence it follows that such a moan as that in ver. 9 would be utterly out of place now; "dying" to a believer is not "going down to the pits" and ought not to be thought of as such. The tenth verse can never be inappropriate. But note: 1. Times of anxiety and trouble often bring out agonizing prayer. 2. We may pour forth all our agonies before God. We speak to One who will never misunderstand, and who will do for us "above all that we ask or think." Hence we are not surprised to see the psalmist at a - IV. FOURTH STAGE: RECOVERY. (Ver. 11; also ver. 1, "Thou hast lifted me up;" ver. 2, "Thou hast healed me.") The psalmist was restored, and permitted again to sing of recovering mercy. Note: Whatever means may be used in sickness, it is only by the blessing of God thereon that they are efficacious. Therefore he should be praised for his goodness and loving-kindness therein. V. FIFTH STAGE: THANKSGIVING AND PRAMS. (Ver. 5.) When the trouble is over, what seemed so prolonged a period before dwindles in the review to" a moment." There is a beautiful antithesis, moreover, in the fifth verse, which our Revisers have too cautiously put in the margin, "His anger is but for a moment; his favour is for a lifetime." Bishop Perowne says, "חַיִּים seems here to be used of duration of life, though it would be difficult to support the usage." But even if the word may not be used of the duration of life, surely it is used of life in reference to its continuousness, as in Psalm 21:5 and Psalms 63:5; and so is in complete antithesis to "a moment." We should render the text, "For a moment in his anger, life in his favour." (Even here, however, we must beware of always associating sickness with the anger of God.) How gloriously true it is, "He will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger for ever" (Psalm 103:9, 10; Isaiah 57:16-18)! We may not only praise God that our joys vastly outnumber our sorrows, but also that ofttimes our sorrows become the greatest mercies of all. Thus we are brought in thought to the - VI. SIXTH STAGE: VOW. (Ver. 12, "O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever.") Many illustrations are to be found in the Word of God, of vows following on the reception of special mercies from him (Genesis 28:20-22; 1 Samuel 1:11; Psalm 116; Psalm 132:2). Note: At each instance of signal mercy in life, there should be as signal a repetition of our consecration vows. - C.
Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing. Here is described a change, complete, and more or less sudden, from sadness to joy. David has escaped a danger which had brought him very near to death; and now he is thankful and exultant. His words are in keeping with what Christians feel, as they pass from the last days of Holy Week into the first hours of Easter. If Easter is associated predominantly with any one emotion, it is with that of joy. And thus, ever since, the Church of Christ has laboured to make the Easter festival, beyond all others, the feast of Christian joy. All that nature and art could furnish has been summoned to express, so far as outward things may, this overmastering emotion of Christian souls worshipping at the tomb of their Risen Lord. All the deliverances of God's ancient people, from Egypt, from Assyria, from Babylon, are but rehearsals of the great deliverance of all on the Resurrection morning; and each prophet and psalmist that heralds any of them, sounds in Christian ears some separate note of the Resurrection hymn. And this, the joy which fills the soul of the believing Church on Easter Day, has some sort of echo in the world outside; so that those who sit loosely to our faith and hope, and who worship rarely, if ever, before our altars, yet feel that good spirits are somehow in order on Easter morning. For their sakes, as for our own, let us try to take the emotion to pieces, as we find it in a Christian soul; let us ask why it is so natural for Christians to say, this day, with David, "Thou hast turned my heaviness into joy: Thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness."I. The first reason, then, for this Easter joy is THE TRIUMPH AND SATISFACTION ENJOYED BY OUR LORD HIMSELF. We follow Him in the stages of His sufferings and death. We sympathize reverently with the awful sorrows of our Adorable Lord and Friend; and thus we enter, in some far-off way, into the sense of triumph, unspeakable and sublime, which follows beyond it. It is His triumph; that is the first consideration; His triumph, who was but now so cruelly insulted and tortured. It is all over now; by a single motion of His Majestic Will, He is risen. And we, as we kneel before Him, think, first of all, of Him. It is His joy which inspires ours; it turns our heaviness into joy, and puts off our sorrow and girds us with gladness. Do I say this is the case? Perhaps it were more prudent to say that it ought to be. For in truth the habit of getting out of and forgetting our miserable selves in the absorbing sense of the beauty and magnificence of God, belongs rather to ancient than to modern Christianity. To those old Christians God was all, man nothing, or well-nigh nothing. Theirs was a disinterested interest in God. With us, we are too prone to value God, not so much for His own sake as for ours. Be it yours to show that my misgiving is unwarranted. You know that pure sympathy with an earthly friend's happiness loaves altogether out of consideration the question whether it contributes anything to your own; and in like manner endeavour to say to-day to your Heavenly Friend: "It is because Thou, Lord Jesus, hast vanquished Thine enemies, hast overcome death, and hast entered into Thy glory, that Thou hast turned my Lenten heaviness into joy, and put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness." II. BECAUSE OF THE SENSE OF CONFIDENCE WITH WHICH CHRIST'S RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD INVIGORATES OUR GRASP OF CHRISTIAN TRUTH. The mind loves to rest truth on a secure basis. This is what the old Roman poet meant by saying that the man was really happy who had attained to know the causes of things. The chemist who has at last explained the known effect of a particular drug, by laying bare, upon analysis, an hitherto undiscovered property in it; the historian who has been enabled to show that the conjecture of years rests on the evidence of a trustworthy document; the mathematician on whom has flashed the formula which solves some problem that has long haunted and eluded him; the anatomist who has been able to refer what he had hitherto regarded as an abnormal occurrence to the operation of a recognized law; — these men know what joy is. Now, akin to the joy of students and workers is the satisfaction of a Christian when he steadily dwells on the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Christian Creed is like a tower which rears towards heaven its windows and pinnacles in successive stages of increasing gracefulness. We lavish our admiration first on this detail of it, and then on that; and, while we thus study and admire, we dwell continuously in its upper stories, till at last perhaps a grave question occurs or is suggested to us. What does it all rest upon? What is the foundation-fact on which this structure has been reared in all its august and fascinating beauty? What fact, if removed, would be fatal to it? And the answer is — our Lord's Resurrection is one such fact. He was declared to be the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the dead. Yes; it is here, beside the empty tomb of the Risen Jesus, that Christian faith feels itself on the hard rock of fact; here we break through the tyranny of matter and sense, and rise with Christ into the immaterial world; here we put a term to the enervating alternation of guesses and doubts which prevails elsewhere, and we reach the frontier of the absolutely certain. And we can but answer, Truly, Lord Jesus, by Thy Resurrection Thou hast turned my heaviness into joy: Thou hast put off my sackcloth, and gilded me with gladness. III. And because of THE ASSURANCE IT GIVES OF OUR OWN RESURRECTION. Paganism could only guess and speculate as to the immortality of the soul. It is the Gospel which gives certainty; it has unveiled the immortality of man in his completeness, in body and in soul. Thus shall we recognize our friends in heaven, for they shall wear there the features and the expression which they wore on earth. "All men shall rise with their bodies." Joyfully, therefore, do we think of the blessed dead. (Canon Liddon.) Girded me with gladness. For the expression and manifestation of the state in which we are, God has made a rich provision of power. The forehead, the eye, the mouth, the whole face, the hands, the arms, the gait, and especially the voice, are so many instruments and agents 'of expression; and we are not true to ourselves, we are false to our condition, we are disloyal to God, when we clothe ourselves with a uniform reticence and unexpressiveness of demeanour. The clouds drop their blackness and appear brilliantly coloured and gorgeously gilded when the sun shines on them. The sea casts off its leaden hue and is covered with crisped smiles when the storm is over. The battle-field absorbs the blood which, in the day of war, is spilt on its bosom, and exhibits lovely flowers, or verdant pasture, or golden corn. The earth casts off her winterly attire and puts on her summerly vestments when "the time of the singing of birds has come." In like manner there is in human life and experience the turning of mourning into dancing; the putting off of sackcloth and the girding with gladness.(S. Martin.) (S. Martin.). People David, PsalmistPlaces JerusalemTopics Alive, Broughtest, Dead, Grave, Hast, Kept, Nether-world, O, Pit, Quickened, Restored, Sheol, Soul, Spared, UnderworldOutline 1. David praises God for his deliverance4. He exhorts others to praise him by example of God's dealings with him Dictionary of Bible Themes Psalm 30:3 4257 pit Library The Two GuestsHis anger endureth but a moment; in His favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.'--PSALM xxx. 5. A word or two of exposition is necessary in order to bring out the force of this verse. There is an obvious antithesis in the first part of it, between 'His anger' and 'His favour.' Probably there is a similar antithesis between a 'moment' and 'life.' For, although the word rendered 'life' does not unusually mean a lifetime it may have that signification, and … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Faith Of the Lack of all Comfort Appendix iv. An Abstract of Jewish History from the Reign of Alexander the Great to the Accession of Herod Strength of the Still Secluded Thought, But Whether Keenly Contending, that we be not Overcome... Thanksgiving for Deliverance from Trouble. --Ps. xxx. Other Incidents of the Passion Minutely Compared with Prophecy Pilate and Herod. Barabbas Preferred to Jesus. Details of the Crucifixion. The Earthquake and the Mid-Day Darkness. Life in Christ One Saying from Three Men How is Christ, as the Life, to be Applied by a Soul that Misseth God's Favour and Countenance. Of Bearing the Cross --One Branch of Self-Denial. How Shall the Soul Make Use of Christ, as the Life, which is under the Prevailing Power of Unbelief and Infidelity. The "Fraternity" of Pharisees Whether Divination by Drawing Lots is Unlawful? Period ii. The Church from the Permanent Division of the Empire Until the Collapse of the Western Empire and the First Schism Between the East and the West, or Until About A. D. 500 Rules to be Observed in Singing of Psalms. The Communion of Saints. The Resemblance Between the Old Testament and the New. Appendix 2 Extracts from the Babylon Talmud Psalms Links Psalm 30:3 NIVPsalm 30:3 NLT Psalm 30:3 ESV Psalm 30:3 NASB Psalm 30:3 KJV Psalm 30:3 Bible Apps Psalm 30:3 Parallel Psalm 30:3 Biblia Paralela Psalm 30:3 Chinese Bible Psalm 30:3 French Bible Psalm 30:3 German Bible Psalm 30:3 Commentaries Bible Hub |
    |