“Do not sweep my soul away with sinners.” Psalm 26:9
Fear made David pray like this, for something whispered, “Perhaps, after all, you might be gathered up with the wicked.”
That fear, although marred by unbelief, springs mainly from holy anxiety, arising from the recollection of past sin. Even the pardoned man will enquire, “What if in the end my sins should be remembered, and I should be left out of the catalogue of the saved?” He recollects his present unfruitfulness—so little grace, so little love, so little holiness—and looking forward to the future, he considers his weakness and the many temptations which beset him, and he fears that he may fall, and become a prey to the enemy. A sense of sin and present evil, and his prevailing corruptions, compel him to pray, in fear and trembling, “Do not sweep my soul away with sinners.”
Reader, if you have prayed this prayer, and if your character is rightly described in the Psalm from which it is taken, you need not be afraid that you shall be swept away with sinners. Do you have the two virtues David had: the outward walking in integrity, and the inward trusting in the Lord? Are you resting upon Christ’s sacrifice, and can you encircle the altar of God with humble hope? If so, rest assured, with the wicked you never shall be gathered, for that calamity is impossible. The gathering at the judgment is like to like. “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”
If, then, you are like God’s people, you will be with God’s people. You cannot be gathered with the wicked, for you are too dearly bought. Redeemed by the blood of Christ, you are his forever, and where he is, there must his people be. You are loved too much to be cast away with reprobates. Shall one dear to Christ perish? Impossible! Hell cannot hold you! Heaven claims you! Trust in your Surety and fear not!
Adapted from Morning and Evening.
