Homilist Psalm 6:1-10 O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, neither chasten me in your hot displeasure.… There are two knowledges of God; the one is the absolute, the other is the relative. The former comprehends God as He is, embraces the Infinite; the other comprehends only glances of Him, as He appears to the mind of the observer. There is but one being in the universe who has the former knowledge, and that is Christ. "No man hath seen God at any time; the Only Begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared Him." David's idea of God here was relative. He represents the Eternal as He appeared to him in the particular state of mind which he experienced. We make two remarks on his idea of God's "hot displeasure." I. IT WAS GENERATED IN A GUILTY CONSCIENCE BY GREAT SUFFERING. The writer of this Psalm was involved in the greatest distress both in body and in mind. 1. That he was conscious of having wronged his Maker. His conscience robes infinite love with vengeance. 2. He was conscious of having deserved God's displeasure. He felt that the sufferings he was enduring were penal inflictions, and he justly deserved them. Had his conscience been appeased by atoning love, the very sufferings he was enduring would have led him to regard the great God as a loving Father disciplining him for a higher life, and not as a wrathful God visiting him in His hot displeasure. God is to you according to your moral state. II. IT WAS REMOVED FROM HIS GUILTY CONSCIENCE BY EARNEST PRAYER. His prayer for mercy is intensely importunate. "O Lord, rebuke me not in Thine anger," etc. "Have mercy upon me, O Lord." "O Lord, heal me." "O Lord, deliver soul," etc. What is the result of his prayer? "Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity, for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping," etc. True prayer does two things. 1. Modifies for the better the mind of the suppliant. It tends to quicken, to calm, to elevate the soul. 2. Secures the necessary assistance of the God of love. One great truth that comes up from the whole of these remarks is that man's destiny depends upon his moral state, and that no system can effectually help him, that does not bring his heart into a right relation with God. So long as God appears to him burning with hot displeasure he must be in an agony like that which the Psalmist here describes. The mission of Christianity is to bring men into this happy relation. (Homilist.) Parallel Verses KJV: {To the chief Musician on Neginoth upon Sheminith, A Psalm of David.} O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.WEB: Yahweh, don't rebuke me in your anger, neither discipline me in your wrath. |
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