These are the closing words of the most beautiful of sacred elegies. It is the pathetic utterance of a heart not yet subdued to perfect resignation, yet jealous with a holy jealousy lest it should bring dishonour upon its God. The thought which haunted the Psalmist with such cruel persistence and suggested doubt of the reality of a loving Providence was the thought which from time immemorial has tried the faith of thousands of true hearts the thought of the frailty and insignificance of human life. "Surely every man walketh in a vain show," he cries; "he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them."
I. Across the dividing ages we are drawn to the very heart of that nameless wrestler whose conflicts we identify with our own. For if we have a refuge to flee into which was unknown to the authors of these old-world laments, if we can look up, as they could not, with almost open vision, to a Divine Protector, Who has Himself come among us and given us in Christ our Lord the sure pledge of His loving foresight and the earnest of a perfect redress, on the other hand, how the very advance which the world makes brings out the mocking incompleteness of the part we have to play in it.
II. In the text we have a witness to that deep, universal conviction that life and strength are good things. When we thank God for our creation and preservation, we are true to an instinct which is rarely overpowered. That which makes recovery of strength so welcome a thing if once we know what issues depend upon our use of it is the prospect of a new probation, a new chance of employing aright God's wondrous endowment of life. The Christian prays to be spared above all that he may do more for God, for his fellow-men. He knows that lengthened days, unless they serve these ends, can be no boon at all.
R. Duckworth, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xx., p. 200.
References: Psalms 39:13. J. Keble, Sundays after Trinity,Part II., p. 485.Psalms 39 A. Maclaren, Life of David,p. 236. Psalms 40:1. S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Pulpit,4th series, No. 15; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. xx., p. 21.Psalms 40:1-3. J. West, Penny Pulpit,Nos. 3886 and 3887; Spurgeon, vol. xxviii., No. 1674; R. M. McCheyne, Additional Remains,p. 25; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 135.Psalms 40:2; Psalms 40:3. G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount,p. 216.