Psalm 41

41       Lamentation (individual-sick)

            God Is My Protection and Deliverance

            1 How blessed is he who considers the helpless;

            The LORD will deliver him in a day of trouble.

            2 The LORD will protect him and keep him alive,

            And he shall be called blessed upon the earth;

            And do not give him over to the desire of his enemies.

·         [I]t is a blessed thing to be able to hold fast a well-grounded confidence of our interest in Christ, and to take cheerful views of our own case, when we are poor, or sick, or afflicted, or forsaken.

·         Prodigality is not beneficence.

·         We may all reasonably calculate on being both sick and sad. We ought to prepare for such trials. They are needful for our sanctification.

·         Sickness of soul is the worst disease. “Nothing is so distressing to the contrite believer, as a sense of the divine displeasure, guilt on his conscience, and the prevalence of sin in his heart: pain and sickness will remind him to pray especially for pardoning mercy, and for the healing of his soul, which is wounded and diseased, because he has sinned against the Lord.” (Scott)

·         Anything is good for us, if it makes us loathe ourselves, and penitently sue for mercy. Let affliction in its worst forms assail us, if it but make our consciences tender, abase us for past follies, and show us the hideous nature of sin and the preciousness of redemption.