654
Patriarchs and Prophets
to those who in humility have sought to learn the lesson that God
designed to teach. From generation to generation thousands have thus
been led to realize their own danger from the tempter’s power. The
fall of David, one so greatly honored by the Lord, has awakened in
them distrust of self. They have felt that God alone could keep them
by His power through faith. Knowing that in Him was their strength
and safety, they have feared to take the first step on Satan’s ground.
Even before the divine sentence was pronounced against David he
had begun to reap the fruit of transgression. His conscience was not at
rest. The agony of spirit which he then endured is brought to view in
the thirty-second psalm. He says:
“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose
sin is
covered.
Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not
iniquity,
And in whose spirit there is no guile.
When I kept silence, my bones waxed old
Through my roaring all the day long.
For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me:
My moisture was changed as with the drought of
summer.”
Psalm 32:1-4
, R.V.
And the fifty-first psalm is an expression of David’s repentance,
when the message of reproof came to him from God:
“Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy loving-
kindness:
According unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot
out
my transgressions.
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