Psalms 28:1

That was a type of Christ, and it is to him that we must lift up our eyes and hands, for through him all good comes from God to us. It was also a figure of heaven ( Heb. ix. 24 ); and from God as our Father in heaven we are taught to expect an answer to our prayers.

Unto thee will I cry,....

Unto thee will I cry, O Lord, my rock. A cry is the natural expression of sorrow, and is a suitable utterance when all other modes of appeal fail us; but the cry must be alone directed to the Lord, for to cry to man is to waste our entreaties upon the air.

Unto thee will I cry, O Lord, my rock. A cry is the natural expression of sorrow, and is a suitable utterance when all other modes of appeal fail us; but the cry must be alone directed to the Lord, for to cry to man is to waste our entreaties upon the air. When we consider the readiness of the Lord to hear, and his ability to aid, we shall see good reason for directing all our appeals at once to the God of our salvation, and shall use language of firm resolve like that in the text, "I will cry." The immutable Jehovah is our rock, the immovable foundation of all our hopes and our refuge in time of trouble: we are fixed in our determination to flee to him as our stronghold in every hour of danger. It will be in vain to call to the rocks in the day of judgment, but our rock attends to our cries. Be not silent to me. Mere formalists may be content without answers to their prayers, but genuine suppliants cannot; they are not satisfied with the results of prayer itself in calming the mind and subduing the will—they must go further and obtain actual replies from heaven, or they cannot rest; and those replies they long to receive at once, if possible; they dread even a little of God's silence. God's voice is often so terrible that it shakes the wilderness; but his silence is equally full of awe to an eager suppliant. When God seems to close his ear, we must not therefore close our mouths, but rather cry with more earnestness; for when our note grows shrill with eagerness and grief, he will not long deny us a hearing. What a dreadful case should we be in if the Lord should become for ever silent to our prayers! This thought suggested itself to David, and he turned it into a plea, thus teaching us to argue and reason with God in our prayers. Lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.

I HAVE no doubt that the first and most natural meaning of these words is this, that David passed through such mental distress, such accumulated grief, that unless his prayer should bring him consolation from Heaven, he felt that he must despair and so become like those who sink into everlasting despair, going down into the pit of Hell. I think it is a cry against his misery which vexed him—an earnest petition that he might not have to suffer so long as to drive him into that same despair which is the eternal inheritance of lost souls. But in reading the other day Masillon's Reflections of the Psalms, I noticed that that eminent French preacher gives quite another turn to the passage, and he seems to regard this as being the prayer of David when he was exposed to the association of the ungodly, fearful lest he should become in character like those that go down into the pit, and even if that should not be the first meaning of the text, it seems to me to be a natural inference from it, and if not, still the thought, itself, is one which contains so much of holy caution about it that I desire to commend it to all my Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus tonight, and especially to such as are usually exposed to danger from evil society. We will begin, then, by remarking that— I. MANY OF THE BEST OF GOD'S SAINTS ARE CALLED IN THE ORDER OF PROVIDENCE TO BE TRIED BY EVIL COMPANIONSHIP. "I pray not that You should take them out of the world," said Christ, "but that You should keep them from the Evil One." Hence we are not shut up in monasteries or nunneries.

I HAVE no doubt that the first and most natural meaning of these words is this, that David passed through such mental distress, such accumulated grief, that unless his prayer should bring him consolation from Heaven, he felt that he must despair and so become like those who sink into everlasting despair, going down into the pit of Hell. I think it is a cry against his misery which vexed him—an earnest petition that he might not have to suffer so long as to drive him into that same despair which is the eternal inheritance of lost souls.

O Lord my rock - צורי tsuri not only means my rock, but my fountain, and the origin of all the good I possess. If thou be silent - If thou do not answer in such a way as to leave no doubt that thou hast heard me, I shall be as a dead man. It is a modern refinement in theology which teaches that no man can know when God hears and answers his prayers, but by an induction of particulars, and by an inference from his promises. And, on this ground, how can any man fairly presume that he is heard or answered at all? May not his inductions be no other than the common occurrences of providence? And may not providence be no more than the necessary occurrence of events? And is it not possible, on this skeptic ground, that there is no God to hear or answer? True religion knows nothing of these abominations; it teaches its votaries to pray to God, to expect an answer from him, and to look for the Holy Spirit to bear witness with their spirits that they are the sons and daughters of God.

Unto thee will I cry - That is, under the consciousness of the danger to which I am exposed - the danger of being drawn away into the society of the wicked. In such circumstances his reliance was not on his own strength; or on his own resolutions; on his own heart; or on his fellowmen. He felt that he was safe only in God, and he appeals to Him, therefore, in this earnest manner, to save him. O Lord my rock - See the notes at Psa 18:2. Be not silent to me - Margin, “from me.” So the Hebrew. The idea is that of one who will not speak to us, or who will not attend to us. We pray, and we look for an “answer” to our prayers, or, as it were, we expect God to “speak” to us; to utter words of kindness; to assure us of His favor; to declare our sins forgiven. Lest, if thou be silent to me - If thou dost not answer my supplications. I become like unto them that go down into the pit - Like those who die; or, lest I be crushed by anxiety and distress, and die. The word “pit” here refers to the grave. So it is used in Psa 30:3; Psa 88:4; Isa 38:18; Isa 14:15, Isa 14:19. The meaning is, that if he did not obtain help from God he despaired of life. His troubles would overwhelm and crush him. He could not bear up under them.