This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him.
Supernatural factor in prayer
The most dangerous doctrine concerning prayer is that current philosophy of the matter which presents a half-truth only; allowing the subjective value, but denying all objective efficacy to prayer--i.e. admitting a benefit, as attached to a devout habit, but limiting the benefit to the working of natural results entirely within the suppliant. The text affirms a positive advantage in prayer. Jehovah is represented as hearing prayer and interposing to save the suppliant. And the idea is further expanded by a reference to the deliverances wrought by the “Lord’s angel.” To a Jew, the angel of the Lord was a historic reality, working supernatural signs and wonders all through that wonderful career of the chosen people of God. When such events as these can be explained by natural Causes, by self-scrutiny, self-conquest and self-culture, then prayer may be brought down to the level of natural philosophy and moral philosophy. But, until then, there must remain in this mystery a supernatural factor. The Waldenses are the Israel of the Alps, who, in their mountain fastnesses, for centuries guarded the ark of primitive faith and worship, while the terrors of the Vatican confronted them--that summit of terror which was “an Olympus for its false gods, a Sinai for its thunders, and a Calvary for its blood.” Read the story of the siege of La Balsille, their mountain fortress. Hemmed in by the French and Sardinian army through the summer, gaunt famine stared them in the face; the foe guarded every outlet of the valley, and their ungathered crops lay in the fields. In midwinter, driven by gnawings of hunger to visit the abandoned harvest fields, beneath the deep snows they found God had kept the grain unhurt, and part of it was gathered in good condition, a year and a half after it was sown! In the following spring a merciless cannonade broke down the breastworks behind which they hid, and the helpless band cried to the Lord. At once He who holds the winds in His fist, and rides in the clouds as a chariot, rolled over them a cloak of fog so dense that in the midst of their foes they escaped unseen! The power of prayer is the perpetual sign of the supernatural. Jonathan Edwards may be taken as an example of thousands. From the age of ten years, his prayers were astonishing both for the faith they exhibited and the results they secured. With the intellect of a cherub and the heart of a seraph, we can neither distrust his self-knowledge nor his absolute candour. His communion with God was so rapturous, that the extraordinary view of the glory of the Son of God, His pure, sweet love and grace, would overcome him so that for an hour he would be flooded with tears, weeping aloud. Prayer brought him such power as Peter at Pentecost scarcely illustrates more wonderfully. For instance, his sermon at Enfield, on “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” which, delivered without a gesture, nevertheless produced such effect that the audience leaped to their feet and clasped the pillars of the meeting-house lest they should slide into perdition. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Put Him to the test of experimental prayer and you shall need no testimony from another to establish your faith in the supernatural answers to prayer. His providence will guide your doubting steps like that glorious pillar of cloud and fire, and in that last great crisis when heart and flesh fail, and the valley and shadow of death is before you, the everlasting Arms shall be beneath you, and your refuge the Eternal God! (A. T. Pierson, D. D.)
The poor man’s poverty, prayer, and preservation
I. the poor man’s poverty. “This poor man.”
1. It was not the poverty of social dependence. David, the writer of this Psalm, was a king; governed a great nation; ruled a people of noble history; had vast resources; had numerous friends--therefore the designation of the text cannot refer to his temporal position. The fact is that our social position is no index to our real wealth or poverty. A man financially rich, may be morally poor. A man morally rich, may be financially poor.
2. It was not the poverty of intellectual weakness. David was not poor in mind. Not merely was he a king in position, but also in the empire of thought. His mind contained great ideas of God, of the soul, of life as a probation, of the future as a destiny. The lack of mental thought and energy is no aid to prayer. Converse with God requires great ideas. The language of want is simple; but it is full of meaning. Hence David was not poor in this respect.
3. It was not the poverty of spiritual indolence. David was not a moral pauper. He had not only a great soul, but it was well peopled with all that was noble and true. Faith in God was the governing influence of his soul. He loved the house of God. He delighted in the works of God. He was attached to the people of God. His religious experience was rich. His devotion was poetic. His soul was ever occupied with eternal realities. He was not poor in this respect.
4. It was the poverty of deep and true humility. He says, “My soul shall make her boast in the Lord” (Psalms 34:2). The humble soul is always poor in faith, in spiritual aspiration, in moral service, in benevolent dispositions, in its own estimation. Herein consists His benediction--“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of God.” The poverty of humility is not assumed, it is not canting, it is not self-depreciative; but it is silent, it is reverent.
II. the poor man’s prayer. “This poor man cried.” Humiliation is a good preparation for prayer. It most feels the need of devotion. It is the most easily taught the meaning of worship. It is the most persevering in its exercise.
1. The poor man’s prayer was emphatic. It was a cry. David knew what he wanted. He was decided and vigorous in the articulation of his soul-wants. God allows in prayer the required emphasis of a needy but penitent spirit. It is not presumption.
2. The poor man’s prayer was earnest. It was a cry. Not a cold request. Not a calm inquiry. The more a man feels his need, the more deeply does He express it.
3. The poor man’s prayer was continuous. It was the habit of his soul rather than a transient act. Prayer should not be a momentary effort of the Christian life, but the natural communion of the soul with God, as speech is the easy and constant medium of communication with men.
4. The poor man’s prayer was thoughtful and reasonable. It was presented to the rightful object of devotion, in a thoughtful spirit. David did not doubt the fitness of prayer to save from trouble--
(1) Personal.
(2) Domestic.
(3) Commercial.
(4) National. Are the sceptics of our day wiser, better, happier than he?
5. The poor man’s prayer was successful.
III. the poor man’s preservation. “And the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his trouble.”
1. His preservation was associated with prayer. “And the Lord heard him.”
2. His preservation was secured by Divine agency.
3. His preservation was comprehensive and effectual. “And saved him out of all his trouble.”
Learn:
1. Humility is the best qualification for prayer, and the most likely guarantee of favourable response.
2. That God is the helper of troubled souls.
3. That men in the highest stations of life need prayer. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
A poor man’s cry, and what came of it
I. the nature and the excellence of prayer.
1. It is a dealing with the Lord. The best prayer is that which comes to closest grips with the God of mercy.
2. Prayer takes various shapes.
(1) Seeking is prayer (Psalms 34:4).
(2) Looking unto God is prayer (Psalms 34:5). If you cannot find words, it is often a very blessed thing to sit still, and look towards the hills whence cometh our help.
(3) Tasting is a high kind of prayer (Psalms 34:8), for it ventures to take what it asks for.
(4) Frequently, according to our text, prayer is best described as a cry.
3. Prayer is heard in heaven.
4. It wins answers from God. More than forty years I have tried my Master’s promise at the mercy-seat, and I have never yet met with a repulse from Him. In the name of Jesus I have asked and received; save only when I have asked amiss. It is true I have had to wait, because my time was ill-judged, and God’s time was far better; but delays are not denials. Never has the Lord said to me, or to any of the seed of Jacob, “Seek ye My face” in vain.
II. the richness and freeness of divine grace.
1. You will see the richness and the freeness of grace, when you consider the character of the man who prayed: “this poor man cried.” Who was he?
(1) He was a poor man; how terribly poor I cannot tell you. There are plenty of poor men about. If you advertised for a poor man in London, you might soon find more than you could count in twelve months: the supply is unlimited, although the distinction is by no means highly coveted. No man chooses to be poor.
(2) He was also a troubled man, for the text speaks of “all his troubles”--a great “all” I warrant you.
(3) He was a mournful man; altogether broken down.
(4) He was a changed man.
(5) He was a hopeful man. Despair is dumb; where there is a cry of prayer, there is a crumb of comfort.
2. If you desire further to see the richness and freeness of grace, I beg you to remember the character of the God to whom this poor man cried. He who prayed was poor, and his prayer was poor; but he did not pray to a poor God. This poor man was powerless; but he did not cry to a feeble God. This poor man was empty; but he went to God’s fulness. He was unworthy; but he appealed to God’s mercy. Our God delighteth in mercy; He waiteth to be gracious; He takes pleasure in blessing the weary sons of men.
3. While we are thinking of the freeness and richness of this grace in the text, I would have you notice the character of the blessing. “The Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.” His sins were his great troubles; the Lord saved him out of them all through the atoning sacrifice. The effects of sin were another set of grievous troubles to him; the Lord saved him out of them all by the renewal of the Holy Ghost. He had troubles without and within, troubles in the family and in the world, and he felt ready to perish because of them; but the Lord delivered him out of them all.
III. the need and the usefulness of personal testimony. Testimony is a weighty thing for the persuasion and winning of men; but it must be of the right kind. It should be personal, concerning things which you yourself know: “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him.” Never mind if you should be charged with being egotistical. That is a blessed egoism which dares to stand out and bear bold witness for God in its own person. “This poor man cried”; not somebody over the water--“and the Lord heard him,” not a man down the next street. The more definite and specific your testimony, the better and the more convincing. I do not say that we can all tell the date of our conversion: many of us cannot. But if we can throw in such details, let us do so; for they help to make our testimony striking. Our witness should be an assured one. We must believe, and therefore speak. Do not say, “I hope that I prayed; and I--I--trust that the Lord heard me.” Say, “I prayed, and the Lord heard me.” Give your testimony cheerfully. “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him.” Do not say it as if it were a line from “the agony column”; but write it as a verse of a psalm. Your testimony must have for its sole aim the glory of God. Do not wish to show yourself off as an interesting person, a man of vast experience. We cannot allow the grace of God to be buried in ungrateful silence. When He made the world the angels sang for joy, and when He saves a soul we will not be indifferent. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The language of a cry
This poor man did not make a grand oration; he took to crying.
1. He was short: it was only a cry. In great pain a man will cry out; he cannot help it, even if he would. A cry is short, but it is not sweet. It is intense, and painful, and it cannot be silenced. We cry because we must cry. This poor man cried, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” That is not a long collect, but it collects a great deal of meaning into a few words. That was a short cry, “Lord save, or I perish”; and that other, “Lord, help me.” “Save, Lord,” is a notable cry, and so is “Lord, remember me.” Many prevailing prayers are like cries because they are brief, sharp, and uncontrollable.
2. A cry is not only brief, but bitter. A cry is a sorrowful thing; it is the language of pain. It would be hard for me to stand here and imitate a cry. No; a cry is not artificial, but a natural production: it is not from the lips, but from the soul, that a man cries. A cry, attended with a flood of tears, a bitter wail, a deep-fetched sigh--these are prayers that enter into the ears of the Most High. O penitent, the more thou sorrowest in thy prayer, the more wings thy prayer has towards God! A cry is a brief thing, and a bitter thing.
3. A cry has in it much meaning, and no music. You cannot set a cry to music. The sound grates on the ear, it rasps the heart, it startles, and it grieves the minds of those who hear it. Cries are not for musicians, but for mourners. Can you expound a child’s cry? It is pain felt, a desire for relief naturally expressed, a longing forcing itself into sound; it is a plea, a prayer, a complaint, a demand. It cannot wait, it brooks no delay, it never puts off its request till to-morrow. A cry seems to say, “Help me now I I cannot bear it any longer. Come, O come, to my relief!” When a man cries, he never thinks of the pitch of his voice; but he cries out as he can, out of the depths of his soul. Oh, for more of such praying!
4. A cry is a simple thing. The first thing a new-born child does is to cry; and he usually does plenty of it for years after. You do not need to teach children to cry: it is the cry of Nature in distress. All children can cry; even those who are without their reasoning faculties can cry. Yea, even the beast and the bird can cry. If prayer be a cry, it is clear that it is one of the simplest acts of the mind. God loves natural expressions when we come before Him. Not that which is fine, but that which is on fire, He loves. Not that Which is dressed up, but that which leaps out of the soul just as it is born in the heart, He delights to receive. This poor man did not do anything grand, but from his soul he cried.
5. A cry is as sincere as it is simple. Prayer is not the mimicry of a cry, but the real thing. You need not ask a man or woman, when crying, “Do you mean it?” Could they cry else? A true cry is the product of a real pain, and the expression of a real want; and therefore it is a real thing. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Testimony to the power of prayer
One person says, “I cried to the Lord, and He heard me.” “But,” says an objector, “that is a special ease.” Up rises a second witness, and says, “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him.” “Well, that is only two; and two instances may not prove a rule.” Then, up rises a third, a fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and in each ease it is the same story--“This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him.” Surely he must be hardened in unbelief who refuses to believe so many witnesses. I remember the story of a lawyer, a sceptic, who attended a class-meeting where the subject was similar to our theme of this morning. He heard about a dozen tell what the Lord had done for them; and he said, as he sat there, “If I had a case in court, I should like to have these good people for witnesses. I know them all, they are my neighbours, they are simple-minded people, straightforward and honest, and I know I could carry any ease if I had them on my side.” Then he very candidly argued that what they all agreed upon was true. He believed them in other matters, and he could not doubt them in this, which was to them the most important of all. He tried religion for himself, and the Lord heard him; and very soon he was at the class-meeting, adding his witness to theirs. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The angel Of the Lord encampeth. .. and delivereth.--
Portrait of a good Man -
I. As Divinely affected. “They that fear him.” The good man is one that fears God.
II. As Divinely guarded.
1. Individually. God regards individuals, as well as nations, worlds, and systems.
2. Completely Guards the whole man, body, soul, and spirit.
3. Eternally. Through time, in death, for ever, “He encampeth round about him.”
III. As Divinely delivered. “And delivereth them.”
1. From physical evils. Infirmities, diseases, death.
2. From intellectual evils. Errors, prejudices, ignorance.
3. From social evils. The bereavements of death, the disappointments of hypo-critic friendships.
4. From spiritual evils. Impurity of heart, remorse of conscience, conflict of soul. (Homilist.)
The encamping angel
If we accept the statement in, the superscription of this psalm, it dates from one of the darkest hours in David’s life. His fortunes were never lower than when he fled from Gath, the city of Goliath, to Adullam. He never appears in a less noble light than when he feigned madness to avert the dangers which he might well dread there. How unlike the terror and self-degradation of the man who “scrabbled on the doors,” and let “the spittle run down his beard,” is the heroic and saintly constancy of this noble psalm! The “Angel of the Lord” here is to be taken collectively, and the meaning is that “the bright harnessed hosts” of these Divine messengers are, as an army of protectors, around them that fear God. But Scripture speaks also of One, who is in an eminent sense “the Angel of the Lord,” in whom, as in none other, God sets His “Name.” He is the leader of the heavenly hosts. He appeared when Abraham “took the knife to slay his son,” and restrained him. He speaks to Jacob at Bethel, and says, “I am the God of Bethel”; and many other instances there are. It is this lofty and mysterious messenger that David sees standing ready to help, as He once stood, sword-bearing by the side of Joshua. To the warrior leader, to the warrior psalmist, He appears, as their needs required, armoured and militant. The vision of the Divine presence ever takes the form which our circumstances most require. David’s then need was safety and protection. Therefore he saw the Encamping Angel; even as to Joshua the leader He appeared as the Captain of the Lord’s host; and as to Isaiah, in the year that the throne of Judah was emptied by the death of the earthly king, was given the vision of the Lord sitting on a throne, the King Eternal and Immortal. So to us all His grace shapes its expression according to our wants, and the same gift is Protean in its power of transformation; being to one man wisdom, to another strength, to the solitary companionship, to the sorrowful consolation, to the glad sobering, to the thinker truth, to the worker practical force,--to each his heart’s desire. Learn, too, from this image, in which the psalmist appropriates to himself the experience of a past generation, how we ought to feed our confidence and enlarge our hopes by all God’s past dealings with men. David looks back to Jacob, and believes that the old fact is repeated in his own day. So every old story is true for us; though outward form may alter, inward substance remains the same. Mahanaim is still the name of every place where a man who loves God pitches his tent. Our feeble encampment may lie open to assault, and we be all unfit to guard it, but the other camp is there too, and our enemies must force their way through it before they get at us. “The Lord of Hosts is with us.” Only, remember, that the eye of faith alone can see that guard, and that therefore we must labour to keep our consciousness of its reality fresh and vivid. Notice, too, that final word of deliverance. This psalm is continually recurring to that idea. The word occurs four times in it, and the thought still oftener. He is quite sure that such deliverance must follow if the Angel presence be there. But he knows, too, that the encampment of the Angel of the Lord will not keep away sorrows, and trial, and sharp need. So his highest hope is not of immunity from these, but of rescue out of them. And his ground of hope is that his heavenly ally cannot let him be overcome. That He will not let him be troubled and put in peril he has found; that He will not let him be crushed he believes. Shaded and modest hopes are the brightest we can venture to cherish. But it is the least we are entitled to expect. And so the apostle, when within sight of the headsman’s axe, broke into the rapture of his last words, “The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me to His everlasting kingdom.” (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The ministry of angels
Such ministry taught throughout the Bible. We know not the nature and constitution of worlds and beings unseen. We are taught (Daniel 12:1) that there are guardian angels, and that there are evil angels (Ephesians 6:12). Their name derived from the circumstance of their being sent on various errands. The Lord frequently appeared in the form of an angel. To-day the angels take deep interest in the welfare of God’s people. Their form of ministry is changed, but not its reality (Luke 15:1-32.; Matthew 18:10; Hebrews 1:14). And why should we not believe that God aids and defends us by means of angels, as our text declares? But it is only they who fear the Lord that enjoy this guardianship. The holy angels can have no fellowship with unholy minds. Let us not question the truth of this ministry, but gratefully accept it. (J. Slade, M. A.)