He goes to the fountain-head, to the fount of deliverance, and of forgiveness.  For he feels that he needs, not only deliverance, but forgiveness likewise.  His sorrow may not be altogether his own fault.  What we call in our folly “accident” and “chance,” and “fortune,”—­but which is really the wise providence and loving will of God—­may have brought him low into the deep.  Or the injustice, cruelty, and oppression of men may have brought him low; or many another evil hap.  But be that as it may, he dares not justify himself.  He cannot lift up altogether clean hands.  He cannot say that his sorrow is none of his own fault, and his mishap altogether undeserved.  If Thou, Lord, wert extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who could abide it?  “Not I,” says the Psalmist.  “Not I,” says every human being who knows himself; and knows too well that—­“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

But the Psalmist says likewise, “There is forgiveness with Thee, therefore shall Thou be feared.”

My friends, consider this; the key of the whole psalm; the gospel and good news, for the sake of which the psalm has been preserved in Holy Scripture, and handed down to us.

God is to be feared, because He is merciful.  It is worth while to fear Him, because He is merciful, and of great kindness, and hateth nothing that He hath made; and willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live.

Superstitious people, in all ages, heathens always, and sometimes, I am sorry to say, Christians likewise, have had a very different reason, an opposite reason, for fearing God.

They have said:  Not—­there is mercy:  but there is anger with God:  therefore shall He be feared.  They have said—­We must fear God, because He is wrathful, and terrible, and ready to punish; and is extreme to mark what is done amiss, and willeth the death of a sinner:  and therefore they have not believed, when Holy Scripture told them, that God was love, and that God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, and sent Him to visit the world in great humility, that the world through Him might be saved.

God has seemed to them only a proud, stern, and formidable being; a condemning judge, and not a merciful Father; and therefore, when they have found themselves in the deep of misery, they have cried out of it to saints, angels, the Virgin Mary; or even to sun, moon, and stars, and all the powers of nature; or even, again—­what is more foolish still,—­to astrologers, wizards, mediums, and quacks of every shape and hue; to any one and any thing, rather than to God.