“IF Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who 1Shall stand? But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared” (Psa. 130:3, 43If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? 4But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. (Psalm 130:3‑4)).
This is not a slavish fear. It is not a fear of losing His love, but of grieving it. It is a fear which has its very spring in the knowledge of a love that can never be either checked or changed; a love that spent itself upon me when I was utterly degraded, irrecoverably lost; that shares its all with me now that I am eternally saved.
Who would not fear to grieve such love as this? “Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and, glorify Thy name?”
Nothing can move the soul to holy, jealous care like the forgiving love of God in Christ. Let us suppose a case by way of illustration. A farmer is in financial difficulties, and spring rent nearly due. He has nothing to meet his landlord with but the pitiable tale of misfortune and poverty. A little before rent day, however, he receives a short note from his landlord, saying, “My son, who occupies the farm next to yours, has been moved with pity by your adverse circumstances, and undertakes to pay the whole of the rent now due. Come with the other tenants to the rent-day dinner. Your half year’s receipt shall be ready.”
When the rent day comes, and the promised receipt is actually put into his hand, what a debt of LOVE and gratitude he feels he owes them?
But, for the sake of illustration, let us carry our supposed case a step farther. A few months later, in the same year, in passing through one of his meadows he sees something which greatly distresses him. A number of cattle have strayed into a field belonging to his landlord’s son, and have made shocking havoc of a standing crop of great value. He knows well that his kind neighbor had bestowed great pains, and spent many pounds upon this very crop. But what touches him most of all is, that on going to drive them out he finds that these destructive oxen are his own! How came they there? Alas! he soon discovers how. They have strayed through one of his own badly-kept fences! What words can describe his mortified feelings? “It is almost more than I can hear,” he says. “How can I look him in the face again? What will he think of me for such a shameful return for all his kindness? for it is entirely through my own carelessness.”
On reaching home he finds an invitation from the landlord and his son to go and spend the evening with them. “Ah! they don’t know what damage my cattle have done,” is his first thought.
However, upon reaching them, he soon finds that they do know—know all about it. They patiently listen to his tale of self-condemnation for the careless way he had kept his fences, and though he cannot help noticing how grieved they look, yet they seem more generously kind, more touchingly tender that ever, and ere he returns home they assure hint of forgiveness.
Now watch that man the next day. He is up with the skylark, and is as busy as the bee. He can scarcely find time to take his meals. “No more ill-kept fences,” he says; “not a single gap shall be left if I can discover it.” How jealously he seems to examine every weak or doubtful place, and with what energy he goes about to fortify them! Stop that farmer, and inquire the cause of all this busy activity, and he will tell you that love, forgiving love, is the secret.
We feel that we may leave the application of our figure to the reader himself, and simply quote once more what Scripture says: “There is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be FEARED” (Psa. 130:44But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. (Psalm 130:4)). The heart-felt sense of divine forgiveness will not make men careless about their conduct, but the very opposite: “To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little” (Luke 7:4747Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. (Luke 7:47)).
The Christian made happy in the knowledge of the forgiving love of God in Christ will, fear to grieve a love so true and tender. His constant prayer will be―
“Arm me with jealous care,
As in Thy sight to live.”