Psalms 88

Now his poisoned arrow sticks fast in the heart. (Psalm 88:15-16.) While I suffer your terrors I am distracted, your fierce wrath goes over me. Luther in desertion was in such horror of mind, that Nec calor, nec Sanguis super-esset, he had no blood seen in his face, but he lay a…

Therefore, secondly, it is principally to be understood of the want of inward comfort in their spirits, from something that is between God and them, and so meant of that darkness and terrors which accompany the want and the sense of God's favor. And so darkness is elsewhere take…

This may seem to be the reason for God's dealing with Heman. Heman was brought up in this school of temptation and kept in this condition of desertion from his youth (Psalm 88:15). He was put to it early, and so deep were the lessons set him that he was nearly out of his mind, a…

First, to show his power and faithfulness in upholding, raising up, and healing again a spirit that has been long and deadly wounded with inward terrors — which is as great an evidence of his power as any other. Therefore Heman says in Psalm 88:10-11: 'Will you show wonders to t…

So Christ in Luke 22:44, being in agony, 'prayed more earnestly'; and being in fears he offered up 'strong cries' (Hebrews 5:7). So Heman by reason of his terrors was a man much in prayer: 'I have cried day and night before you' (Psalm 88:1). Christians who do not enjoy communio…

Even so long as David puts God in remembrance and pleads how short a time in all he had to live, and complains how in much of that time his face had been hid from him (verse 47). And the like was Heman's case, and this also long, even from his youth up (Psalm 88:14-15). So from…

But when the spirit itself is laid bare and naked and wounded immediately by God's wrath (which only can reach it and wound it), who can bear this? Thus toward Heman: God did not only hide his face from him (Psalm 88:14), but 'his fierce wrath went over him, and your terrors,' s…

Misinterpreting and perverting all these his righteous proceedings — as interpreting that withdrawing his light and presence and hiding himself to be a casting them off. Thus Heman (Psalm 88:14). So likewise misconstruing that temporary wrath, chastising and wounding their spiri…

Darkness covers not the face of this deep only, but it is darkness to the bottom, throughout darkness. No wonder then if, when the Spirit ceases to move upon this deep with beams of light, it casts us into such deeps and darkness as Heman (complaining) speaks of (Psalm 88:6), an…

He thought, 'If God had loved me, he would presently have heard me'; he thought his soul would not have been worse after praying. This was false reasoning, for sometimes God shuts out his people's prayers (Psalm 88:14). A father may sometimes seem so angry that he throws away hi…

Fear and hate sin still. Pray day and night as Heman did when he thought himself cut off: 'I have cried day and night, though I be as one you remember no more' (Psalm 88:1, 4-5). And so at verse 9: 'I have called daily' — though in verses 10-12 he thought himself as it were in h…

Plead that this is the way at present to disable you for service — for while you suffer his terrors you are as one among the dead, listless not to his business only but to all things else. Distracted with terrors (as Heman pleads in Psalm 88:15), the powers and forces of your so…

If to them for neglecting opportunities of drawing nearer to God, what to you for neglecting the offer of grace and trampling under foot the blood of Christ? All you who think there is no hell, or if there is, that it is not so dark as it is usually painted — look upon Heman, re…

But you will say: It is not only that he hides his face, but I suffer terrors; he is angry; he is turned enemy; he fights against me; and therefore I am a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction. So it was with Job (chapter 13:24), and so with Isaiah 63:10 and Psalm 88:16. But all…

Thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth. And the like has been the state of many of Gods children: Psalm 88:3, 7, My soul is filled with evils: thou hast vexed me with all thy waves, etc. Question. How can this stand with the tr…

No such complaints read you, so bitter, so pathetic, and coming from deeper sense, than the want of the sense of Christ's love. It's broken bones, and a dried up body to David; it's bitter weeping and crying, like the chattering of a Crane to Hezekiah; it's more than strangling,…

Why does David complain that he was as a bottle in the smoke, and pray so often that God would quicken him, if under a dead disposition we were not to pray? 4. If often the saints beginning to pray do speak words of unbelief and from a principle of nature, and if words flowing f…

Therefore it concerns us to seek to God that we may have a godly wise man, with whom we may be free in all cases of mind or conscience, and to whom we may freely open ourselves, and be strengthened in the service of God; it is a great part of our contentment and happiness theref…

In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord, my sore ran in the night and ceased not, my soul refused to be comforted. So Heman (Psalm 88:3), my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws nigh to the grave, and verse 15, I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up, while I…

And again: Your seed shall possess the gates of his enemies, and in your seed shall all nations on earth be blessed (Genesis 22). And of David is written in Psalm 88: I have sworn once by my holiness, that I will not fail David. His seed shall endure forever, and his seat also l…

And a man may have grace acting in him, and yet not know, not be sensible that he has acting grace. We see persons frequently under great temptations of apprehension that they have no grace at all, and yet at the same time to the clear conviction of all who are able to discern s…

If I shall finde favor in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me back again, but if he thus say, I have no delight in you; behold, here I am, let him do to me as seemeth good to him. We reade of Heman, a man of admirable wisdom, one of the wisest upon earth in his time, as appea…

I cannot bear this wrath; Angels could not bear it; it has sunk them into the depths of misery. Those that feel but a few sparks of it in their Consciences here, are even distracted by it, Psalm 88:15. Christ himself had never born up under it, had he not been subported by the i…

The vigor and comfort of our spiritual life depend on our mortification. In what sense — not absolutely and necessarily (Psalm 88; Heman's condition). Not as the next and immediate cause.

1. Their inward condition; and so through grief and terrors of conscience they are ready to drop into the grave. That trouble of mind is a usual exercise of God's people, see Heman's complaint, Psalm 88, from verse 3 to the end of verse 7. My soul is full of troubles, and my lif…

My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me. So does Heman (Psalm 88:8): You have put away my acquaintance far from me: you have made me an abomination to them. Partly to humble us, and try us, for our depending too much upon man, and making us ourselves a…

And indeed these inward troubles are far more grievous than any outward can be. We hear Heman crying out, that because of these terrors of the Lord, he was ready to die from his youth up (Psalm 88:15). And while [illegible] suffered this wrath of God, he was [illegible] distract…

2. It is a more Gospel way to bear in the threat of everlasting wrath than of temporal rods. 3. Desertions and trials under the Law were more legal and sharp and sad upon David, Hezekiah, Job, Jeremiah, Heman (Psalm 6; Psalm 38; Psalm 77; Psalm 102; Psalm 88; Isaiah 38; Jeremiah…

By transmitting our experiences to our Children, God's name is eternized, and his mercies will bring forth a plentiful crop of praise when we are gone. Heman puts the question, Psalm 88. 10. Shall the dead praise thee? Yes, in this sense, when we are dead, we praise God, because…

Alstead calls desertion an agony of conscience; this made the Prophet Jonah call the whale's belly the belly of hell, because he was deserted there; Jonah 2. 2, 4. Out of the belly of hell cried I, then I said I am cast out of Thy sight. Heman grew distracted upon the suspension…

This is an abyss indeed. Psalm 88.6. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit. Desertion is a short Hell.

The giant, therefore, drove them before him, and put them into his castle, into a very dark dungeon, nasty and stinking to the spirits of these two men. Here, then, they lay from Wednesday morning till Saturday night, without one bit of bread, or drop of drink, or light, or any…

Mr. Great-Heart: Yes, yes, I never had doubt about him. He was a man of a choice spirit, only he was always kept very low, and that made his life so burdensome to himself, and so troublesome to others (Psalm 88). He was, above many, tender of sin: he was so afraid of doing injur…

She gets a worse answer than no answer, yet she comes and prays; we know the holy willfulness of Jacob (Genesis 32:26): I will not let you go till you bless me. Rain calms the stormy wind; to vent out words in a sad time, is the way of God's children (Psalm 88:7): Your wrath lie…

For God cannot change grace to natural debt, it remaining grace, for so it should be grace and no grace, which is a contradiction. 2. The Lord has reserved liberty to himself in this promise, that in this or this particular act (the omission of which may consist with perseveranc…

Job doubted (Job 13:14) when he said, 'Why do you hide your face, and hold me for your enemy?' And Asaph (Psalm 73:13), Heman (Psalm 88:13-15), and the Church (Psalm 77). Yet all these were sealed by the spirit to the day of redemption.

The reasons for crying are: 1. Want cannot blush; the pinching necessity of the saints is not tied to the law of modesty: hunger cannot be ashamed (Psalm 55:2). I mourn in my complaint, and make a noise, says David, and Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:14): Like a crane, or a swallow, so did…

Consider that to a solemn duty of humiliation, there were sundry gifts required, which were very rare to meet with in one family: for you have some Christians, that have excellent gifts, for the acknowledging of their own sins; and bewailing their wants, who yet are not so large…