Charles Spurgeon » Study Prayer Sanctification

Isaiah 38:17—“Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back.”

Here is the case of a man who, as far as mortal help was concerned, was a dead man, and yet prayer prevailed for his recovery, and the lengthening of his life.

He records his experience for the glory of God, for his own refreshment, and for our encouragement.

In our deep depressions we have the same God to help us

Hezekiah sets before us in this verse:

1. Healthful Bitterness. 
   • He had been in peace. Probably this had brought with it a dangerous state, in which the mind became carnally secure, self-contented, stagnant, slumbering, careless, worldly.
   • He underwent a change. It was sudden and surprising: "Behold." It broke up all his peace, and took the place of it.
   • His new state was one of emphatic sorrow—"Bitterness." "Great bitterness." In bodily condition and in mental emotion he tasted the wormwood and the gall. Read previous verses, and see how he mourned.
   • It wrought his health. "Oh restore me to health and make me live!" (verse 16).
   • It led him to repentance for the past. He speaks of "my sins." 
   • It brought him to his knees in prayer. 
   • It revealed his inward decline, and weakness of grace. 
   • It made him put away his defilements. 
   • It deepened his faith in God. "The Lord was ready to save me" (verse 20). 
   • Peace came back again, and with it songs of joy.

   If any are now drinking the bitter cup, let them be of good cheer, for there is a cup of salvation in God's hand.

2. Delivering Love. "In love you have delivered my life." 
   In its first meaning we see recovery from sickness, but it intends much more: upon the surface lies benefit to his soul. 

   Let us observe:

   1. The deed of love. "You have loved my soul from the pit". The Lord delivers the soul from the pit of hell, of sin, of despair, of temptation, of death. He alone can do this.

   2. The love which performed the deed.

   • Love suggested and ordained it.
   • Love actually performed it by its own hands. "In love to my soul you have loved it from the pit."
   • Love breaks the heart, and binds it up.
   • Love sets us free, and then holds us captive.
   • We are by love loved out of sorrow, rebellion, despondency, coldness, and weakness. Acknowledge this heartily.
   • Measure this love by your demerit, your danger, your present complete safety, and by the greatness of the Deliverer, and what the delivery cost him.
   • Treasure this love, and sing of it all the days of your life.
3.  Absolute Pardon. "For you have cast all my sins behind your back."
   • This was the cause of his restored peace. He was burdened while sin remained, but when that was gone, peace returned.
   • This removed the whole burden. "Sins"; "my sins"; "all my sins."
   • This involved effort on God's part. "You have cast." We remember the more than herculean labors of Jesus, who has hurled our load into the bottomless deep.
   • This is wonderfully described. "Behind your back". This is:
     1. The place of desertion. God has gone from our sin never to return to it. He has left it forever, and it will never cross his path again, for he never moves backward.
     2. The place of forgetfulness: he will not remember it any more.
     3. The place of nonentity: nothing is behind the back of God.

If any are now drinking the bitter cup, let them be of good cheer, for there is a cup of salvation in God's hand.

Therefore we will tell others our story, as Hezekiah has told us his. Let us seek out one or more who will hear us with attention.

"And we will play my music on stringed instruments" (verse 20). At this hour let us lift up the voice of gratitude.

Scripture's comforts

Thomas Bilney, the martyr, after his submission to the Papacy, being brought again to repentance, was, as Latimer reports, for a time inconsolable. "His friends dared not suffer him to be alone day or night. They comforted him as they could, but no comforts would serve; and as for the comfortable places of Scripture, to bring them to him was as though a man should run him through the heart with a sword."

Now friend, give me your answer: Is it best to see sin and guilt now, while you may see a Savior also; or to see sin and a judge hereafter, but no Savior? Sin you shall see, as we say, in spite of your teeth, will you, nil you. Oh, then, let me see sin and guilt now; Oh, now, with a sweet Savior, that I may have this woeful sight past when I come to die.

—Giles Firmin

A gracious soul has his sins before his face

"You have cast" etc. These last words are a borrowed speech, taken from the manner of men, who are wont to cast behind their backs such things as they have no mind to see, regard, or remember. A gracious soul has always his sins before his face: "For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me"; and therefore no wonder if the Lord cast them behind his back. A father soon forgets and casts behind his back those faults that the child remembers and has always before his eyes, so does the Father of spirits.

—Thomas Brooks

I have read somewhere of a great divine (I think it was Acolampadius), who being recovered from a great sickness, said, "I have learned under this sickness to know sin and God." Did he not know these before? Doubtless he could preach good sermons concerning God and sin; but the Spirit, it seems, in that sickness, taught him these otherwise than he knew them before.

—Giles Firmin

Pits of prison and corruption

Some of the pits referred to in the Bible were prisons; one such I saw at Athens, and another at Rome. To these there were no openings, except a hole at the top, which served for both door and window. The bottoms of these pits were necessarily in a filthy and revolting state, and sometimes deep in mud. Isaiah speaks of "the pit of corruption," or putrefaction and filth.

—John Gadsby

Dr. Watts, from his early infancy to his dying day, scarcely ever knew what health was; but however surprising it may appear, he looked on the affliction as the greatest blessing of his life. The reason he assigned for it was, that, being naturally of a warm temper, and an ambitious disposition, these visitations of divine providence weaned his affections from the world, and brought every passion into subjection to Christ. This he often mentioned to his dear friend, Sir Thomas Abney, in whose house he lived many years.

—John Whitecross

 

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