Nobody can do as much damage to the church of God as the man who is within its walls, but not within its life.
C.H. Spurgeon

Spurgeon PS0608

Spurgeon PS0608

EXPOSITION. “Your harps, ye trembling saints, Down from the willows take.” Ye must have your times of weeping, but let them be

short. Get ye up, get ye up, from your dunghills! Cast aside your sackcloth and ashes! Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

David has found peace, and rising from his knees he begins to sweep his house of the wicked. “_Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity_.” The best remedy for us against an evil man is a long space between us both. “Get ye gone; I can have no fellowship with you.” Repentance is a practical thing. It is not enough to bemoan the desecration of the temple of the heart, we must scourge out the buyers and sellers, and overturn the tables of the money changers. A pardoned sinner _will hate the sins_ which cost the Saviour his blood. Grace and sin are quarrelsome neighbours, and one or the other must go to the wall.

“_For the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping_.” What a fine Hebraism, and what grand poetry it is in English! “He hath heard the voice of my weeping.” Is there a voice in weeping? Does weeping speak? In what language doth it utter its meaning? Why, in that universal tongue which is known and understood in all the earth, and even in heaven above. When a man weeps, whether he be a Jew or Gentile, Barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, it has the same meaning in it. Weeping is the eloquence of sorrow. It is an unstammering orator, needing no interpreter, but understood of all. Is it not sweet to believe that our tears are understood even when words fail! Let us learn to think of tears as liquid prayers, and of weeping as a constant dropping of importunate intercession which will wear its way right surely into the very heart of mercy, despite the stony difficulties which obstruct the way. My God, I will “weep” when I cannot plead, for thou hearest the voice of my weeping.

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

Verse 8.–“_Depart from me_,” etc., i.e., you may now go your way; for that which you look for, namely, my death, you shall not have at this present; _for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping_, i.e., has graciously granted me that which with tears I asked of him.–^Thomas Wilcocks.

Verse 8.–“_Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity_.” May not too much familiarity with profane wretches be justly charged upon church members? I know man is a sociable creature, but that will not excuse saints as to their carelessness of the choice of their company. The very fowls of the air, and beasts of the field, love not heterogeneous company. “Birds of a feather flock together.” I have been afraid that many who would be thought eminent, of a high stature in grace and godliness, yet see not the vast difference there is between nature and regeneration, sin and grace, the old and the new man, seeing all company is alike unto them.–^Lewis Stuckley’s “Gospel Glass,” 1667.

Verse 8.–“_The voice of my weeping_.” Weeping hath a voice, and as music upon the water sounds farther and more harmoniously than upon the land, so prayers, joined with tears, cry louder in God’s ears, and make sweeter music than when tears are absent. When Antipater had written a large letter against Alexander’s mother unto Alexander, the king answered him, “One tear from my mother will wash away all her faults.” So it is with God. A penitent tear is an undeniable ambassador, and never returns from the throne of grace unsatisfied. ^Spencer’s Things New and Old.

Verse 8.–The wicked are called “_workers of iniquity_, because they are free and ready to sin, they have a strong tide and bent of spirit to do evil, and they do it not to halves but throughly: they do not only begin or nibble at the bait a little (as a good man often doth), but greedily swallow it down, hook and all; they are fully in it, and do it fully; they make a work of it, and so are “_workers of iniquity_.”–^Joseph Caryl.

Verse 8.–Some may say, “My constitution is such that I cannot weep; I may as well go to squeeze a rock, as think to get a tear.” But if thou canst not weep for sin, canst thou grieve? Intellectual mourning is best; there may be sorrow where there are no tears, the vessel may be full though it wants vent; it is not so much the weeping eye God respects as the broken heart; yet I would be loath to stop their tears who can weep. God stood looking on Hezekiah’s tears (#Isa 38:5|), “I have seen thy tears.” David’s tears made music in God’s ears, “_The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping_.” It is a sight fit for angels to behold, tears as pearls dropping from a penitent eye.–^T. Watson.

Verse 8.–“_The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping_.” God hears the voice of our looks, God hears the voice of our tears sometimes better than the voice of our words; for it is the Spirit itself that makes intercession for us. #Ro 8:26|. _Gemitibus inenarrabilibus_, in those _groans_, and so in those _tears_, which we _cannot utter_; _ineloquacibus_, as Tertullian reads that place, devout, and simple tears, which cannot speak, speak aloud in the ears of God; nay, tears which we cannot utter; not only not utter the force of the tears, but not utter the very tears themselves. As God sees the water in the spring in the veins of the earth before it bubble upon the face of the earth, so God sees tears in the heart of a man before they blubber his face; God hears the tears of that sorrowful soul, which for sorrow cannot shed tears. From this casting up of the eyes, and pouring out the sorrow of the heart at the eyes, at least opening God a window through which he may see a wet heart through a dry eye; from these overtures of repentance, which are as those imperfect sounds of words, which parents delight in, in their children, before they speak plain, a penitent sinner comes to a verbal and a more express prayer. To these prayers, these vocal and verbal prayers from David, God had given ear, and from this hearing of those prayers was David come to this thankful confidence, “_The Lord hath heard, the Lord will hear_.”–^John Donne.

Verse 8.–What a strange change is here all on a sudden! Well might Luther say, “Prayer is the leech of the soul, that sucks out the venom and swelling thereof.” “Prayer,” said another, “is an exorcist with God, and an exorcist against sin and misery.” Bernard saith, “How oft hath prayer found me despairing almost, but left me triumphing, and well assured of pardon!” The same in effect saith David here, “Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping.” What a word is that to his insulting enemies! Avaunt! come out! vanish! These he words used to devils and dogs, but good enough for a Doeg or a Shimei. And the Son of David shall say the same to his enemies when he comes to judgment.–^John Trapp.

HINTS TO PREACHERS.

Verse 8.–The pardoned sinner forsaking his bad companions.