To you, LORD, I call; you are my Rock, do not turn a deaf ear to me.
For if you remain silent, I will be like those who go down to the pit. Psalms 28:1
Charles Spurgeon has an interesting view of this Psalm. From his sermon in 1869 he writes, "I have no doubt that the first and most natural meaning of these words is this, that David passed through such mental distress, such accumulated grief, that unless his prayer should bring him consolation from Heaven, he felt that he must despair and so become like those who sink into everlasting despair, going down into the pit of Hell. I think it is a cry against his misery which vexed him — an earnest petition that he might not have to suffer so long as to drive him into that same despair which is the eternal inheritance of lost souls.
But in reading the other day Masillon’s Reflections of the Psalms, I noticed that that eminent French preacher gives quite another turn to the passage, and he seems to regard this as being the prayer of David when he was exposed to the association of the ungodly, fearful lest he should become in character like those that go down into the pit, and even if that should not be the first meaning of the text, it seems to me to be a natural inference from it, and if not, still the thought, itself, is one which contains so much of holy caution about it that I desire to commend it to all my Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus tonight, and especially to such as are usually exposed to danger from evil society."
This challenged me to reflect on my associations and what I surround myself. Join me in reading Psalm 28 and be encouraged!
