Rivers of water

Another portion from Robert Hawker. Hopefully it will be a blessing to all who read it.

"Rivers of water run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law." -Psalm 119:136

Who is there of whom that may be said? Jesus, and Jesus only. He wept indeed over his beloved Jerusalem, for he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And the love he had to his redeemed, induced a bloody sweat through all the pores of his sacred body. But of every other may it not be said, "All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's."

Did we truly love Zion, would not rivers of tears run down at the present languishing state of Zion? Did we feel the full sense of distinguishing grace, would not every heart mourn over the ruins of our common nature?

Think, my soul, what a mess of sin ascends as a cloud before the view of the Lord every day from a single heart of the desperately wicked transgressor? Think what an accumulation in a town, a province, an empire, the world! Might not rivers of waters run down at the contemplation? And worse, if possible! Think of the higher source of sorrow, in that the only possible remedy for this evil is slighted, and Christ, which is God's gracious ordinance for the recovery of our ruined nature, is so little esteemed among men.

Oh how might the people of God be supposed to have their very souls melted in the contemplation! This, this is indeed the condemnation; this is the soul-destroying sin; "that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil."

Oh for grace to mourn over a Christ-despising generation! Oh for the "Deliverer to arise out of Zion, and turn away ungodliness from Jacob."