A Man of God Alone With God
(No. 2796)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1902.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
SEPTEMBER 26, 1878.
"I have declared my ways, and You heard me: teach me Your statutes."
Psalm 119:26.
WORLDLY men think very little of God. They live at a distance from Him.
They have no communion with Him. Like the fool, they have said in their
heart, "No God," and they try to realize in their lives their heart's
desire. Very different is it with the true Believer. He recognizes God
everywhere! He sees God in all the good or ill that checkers life–he
believes that God has created every worm that crawls upon the face of
the earth and that He has painted every flower that blooms. The whole
world is full of God to him who believes in God and he has communion
with God wherever he goes. He cannot live without Him–He is his joy
and delight. He is a child of God–how can he live happily in his
Father's house unless he often sees his Father's face, speaks with Him
and hears His voice in return? The Christian makes much of God and God
makes much of him, for they have a mutual delight in one another!
Hence, in such a text as this, you perceive how the Psalmist talked
with God and God heard him–and he knew that God heard him! And then he
spoke again to God and said, "Teach me Your statutes."
This is, perhaps, one of the main differences between the Believer and
the unbeliever–between him that fears God and him that fears Him not.
The first lesson for man is to know his God. The second is to know
himself and, as the unbeliever fails in the first, he fails in the
second, also. He does not know himself. He does not think much about
himself– about his real self, the most important part of his being.
For his body, he caters freely–he can scarcely spend enough upon it.
But he starves his soul–he scarcely recognizes its existence and he
has but little thought or care about the immortality to which it is
ordained! But a true Believer knows himself. We are sure, from our
text, that he does, for he would not declare his ways if he did not
know them. He has practiced introspection and looked within himself. He
has practiced self-examination and studied his own inner life. He does
not profess to understand himself altogether–for man is the next
greatest mystery to God. God is the first mystery and man is the
second. He does not understand his own ways. He cannot always
comprehend his own thoughts, or follow the devious wanderings of his
own mind, but he does know a good deal about himself, and when he goes
before his God, he can truthfully say, "I have declared my ways, and
You heard me." Among other things, he has discovered his own ignorance
and, therefore, he presents the prayer with which the text concludes,
"Teach me." He is even ignorant of God's revealed will, so he prays,
"'Teach me Your statutes, O Lord! I know the Book in which they are
recorded and I can learn them in the letter, but You teach them to me,
in my spirit, by Your Spirit, that I may know them aright."
This, then, is to be the subject of our meditation. Let us come to it
looking up to the Lord and asking Him to bless the meditation to each
one of us. I shall take the text in two senses. The primary one is, I
think, a man of God alone with God–"I have declared my ways," ("to
God"), "and You heard me: teach me Your statutes." But I judge that it
is lawful, especially in the light of the following verse, to believe
that the Psalmist may have alluded to his speaking with men, so, in the
second part of my discourse, I shall speak of a man of God considering
his own public testimony and saying, when he had done so, "I have
declared my ways, and You heard me: teach me Your statutes. Make me to
understand the way of Your precepts: so shall I talk"–which must mean
his speaking to others–"so shall I talk of Your wondrous works."
I. So, first, we see here A MAN OF GOD ALONE WITH GOD. And we notice
three things about him. He is making his case known–"I have declared
my ways." He is rejoicing in an audience which he has obtained–"You
heard me." And he is seeking a further blessing–"Teach me Your
statutes."
First, he is making his case known. I understand this to be, first, the
language of a sinner confessing his sin–"I have declared my ways. He
is a sensible sinner and, therefore, he is not in a confessional box
with the human ear of a fellow sinner to listen to him. He is a
rational being who has not degraded himself so low as that. But he is
confessing his sin to the great High Priest who can be "touched with
the feeling of our infirmities"–to Him who cannot be defiled by
listening to our tale of sin. To Him to whom, alone, will it avail to
confess our sins, for, "He is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins," if we confess them to Him.
Can each one of us now say, in this sense, "I have declared my ways" to
the Lord? For this should be done, not only at our first coming to Him,
but continually throughout the whole of our life. We should look over
each day and sum up the errors of the day, and say, "'I have declared
my ways'–my evil ways, my wicked ways, my wandering ways, my
backsliding ways, my cold, indifferent ways, my proud ways. I have
declared the way of my words, the way of my thoughts, the way of my
imagination, the way of my memory, for it has a treacherous way of
remembering evil and forgetting good. I have declared the way of my
actions towards You, my God, and there is much to regret. I have
declared the way of my actions in my family, in the world and in the
church." What a sorrowful stock-taking each day would be to many
professors if they were honest to themselves and to their God! Even
those who "walk in the light, as God is in the light," and have the
closest fellowship with Him, yet know that it is a very sweet and
blessed thing even for them that "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son
cleanses us from all sin," for even they still sin and it is necessary
for each one of them to say continually, "I have declared my ways."
Do you try to hide your sins, dear Friend? It is useless for you to
attempt to do so, for God always sees them. Why do you seek to conceal
what is always before His eyes? Better far to confess them to Him, that
He may then cast it behind His back and remember them against you no
more forever! I believe that often, as sinners confessing to God, we
miss much true comfort for lack of making a clean breast of our
transgressions. Yet the Lord knows what is in our heart even though we
do not acknowledge it. It has been well observed that when Moses tried
to excuse himself to God for not wanting to go to deliver Israel, he
said that he was slow of speech. And God met that objection by giving
him Aaron, his brother, to speak for him–but the Lord, in His reply to
Moses, also said, "All the men are dead who sought your life." Moses
had not said anything about that matter, but God knew that there was
that fear in his heart, so He at once put His finger on the sore place.
It is well when we can do that for ourselves. When, in our spirit,
there is no guile–when we come, as David did in the 51st Psalm and
confess the very sin which we have committed. David said, "Deliver me
from blood-guiltiness, O God," calling it by its right name–then is it
that the soul begins to get peace with God.
"But," someone asks, "are we, then, to confess to God every sin in
detail?" No, that would be impossible and probably it would not even be
useful. But there must be no wish to conceal any sin from God. Such a
desire would be a vain one, for, "all things are naked and opened unto
the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." There must be an
acknowledgment of the sins which we have not yet seen in their full
heinousness. Each of us will do well to offer David's prayer, "Cleanse
You me from secret faults." If we have committed faults which are
hidden even from ourselves, we desire to be delivered from them so that
they should not remain to our condemnation.
I do not suppose that any unregenerate sinner will act thus towards his
God until the Holy Spirit has begun to work graciously within him.
While the prodigal was wasting his substance with riotous living, he
thought himself a fine gentleman! And even when he was feeding the
swine, he only said, "I have had very bad luck." But it was "when he
came to himself that he said, "I will arise and go to my father." And
it was when he felt his father's warm kiss upon his cheek that he made
the confession, "Father, I have sinned." There is no contrition so deep
as that of the man who can say concerning his sins–
"I know they are forgiven– But, still, their pain to me Is all the
grief and anguish They laid, my Lord, on Thee."
So, then, our text is, first, the language of a sinner confessing his
guilt to his God, but it is more than that. It is, next, the private
talks of a patient with his doctor–"I have declared my ways."
See, there is the little room upstairs and there lies the patient whom
the physician has come to try to cure. The doctor's first work is to
find out all he can about the patient's disease, so he begins by asking
concerning the various symptoms that have been noticed. He is sure to
look at the sick man's tongue and you may learn a great deal,
spiritually, of the condition of a man's heart from the state of his
tongue. The doctor will also sound the patient's lungs, test his heart,
take his temperature and ask him a great many questions, not merely
about what appears on the surface, but about his inmost self. And when,
at last, the patient can say, "There, doctor, I have told you all, now
will you prescribe for me?" he is in the condition of the Psalmist when
he said to the Lord, "I have declared my ways, and You heard me: teach
me Your statutes."
The text very accurately describes such a state of things as that which
exists when a patient relates his symptoms to the physician and then
the physician prescribes for him, for, in addition to sin being a great
evil in the sight of God, it is also a disease to which we are all
prone and from which only the great Physician can cure us. We cry out
against it and our better self fights against it, yet the old man
within us, "the body of this death," as Paul calls it, fights against
the new nature and we would be overcome were it not for Divine Grace.
So it is well for us to declare our ways. Suppose I put it for myself
or for you thus, "Lord, I find that even when I am engaged in prayer,
my thoughts wander. When I am in trouble, I get fretful and rebellious.
When a little difficulty meets me in my business, I do not trust You as
I ought. I sometimes find that when I try to be humble, I become
desponding, and when I am joyful, I become presumptuous. I seem to be
like a pendulum swinging too far this way and then too far that way. I
know not how to steer the ship of my life between the Scylla of this
sin and the Charybdis of that. O my Master, I am but dust and ashes! I
am less than nothing and vanity! If You ask me what ails me, I seem to
have all manner of diseases upon me at once! Sometimes I am hot with
fever and full of wrath and, at other times, I shiver with chills as
though I did not know what I believed and could not lay hold of Your
Truth with a firm grip. Sometimes I fear that I have a fatal disease
and, certainly, were it not for Your unfailing medicine–the great
catholicon–my soul would pine away and die! Yet, with all these evil
symptoms, there is one sign that, I trust, is for good. I know where my
help lies and I look alone to You for healing. I know that Your
precious blood has cleansed me and on that blood, alone, I do rely."
Thus the patient tells the Good Physician, as far as he can, what he
feels and what is the disease from which he is suffering.
I think, too, that we might use another figure to illustrate the
meaning of our text. It is like a client telling his advocate all about
his affairs. It is a difficult case in law. There is an accuser who has
come forward with very serious charges and he brings witnesses to
substantiate what he affirms–the case is a very complicated one. The
client says that he does not know how to plead for himself. He says
that he is at his wits' end and he asks the advocate whether he has any
argument that can avail for him. The advocate replies, "I must first
know all about your case before I can advise you, so tell me
everything." Now, the Lord Jesus, your great Advocate, already knows
all about you yet He likes you to tell it all to Him. It is always a
good thing to–
"Tell it all to Jesus, Comfort or complaint"
Mind that you tell it all to Him–do not keep anything back. Tell Him
the complex part of your life and tell Him the black part of it–be
sure to bring that out. Tell Him that the accuser has good ground for
his charges against you and that he can bring abundant witnesses
against you–yes, that your own conscience will witness against you and
that you do not know of any plea, on earth or in Heaven, that can avail
for you unless He will be your Advocate. Then, how dear that Advocate
will be to you when He tells you that He can plead His righteousness,
His life, His blood and His death, for "if any man sins, we have an
Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."
I do not think, however, that we have reached the very marrow of our
text until we regard it as describing the intimate communion of friend
with friend–"I have declared my ways." When two men become linked
together in close friendship, they are in the habit of telling one
another all that happens in their lives. And if one of them is in a
difficulty, he goes off to his friend and tells him about it. They
agree with Solomon that "two are better than one; for if they fall, the
one will lift up his fellow" and, by mutual counsel, wisdom will be
found. The one who is in trouble tells his friend about it and his
friend, perhaps, puts to him a number of questions, not out of prying
curiosity, but in order that he may become acquainted with the whole
case and so be qualified to advise or to help. And we, Beloved, if we
really know the Lord in spirit and in truth, are exalted to the
position of friends of Jesus. "Henceforth," said He to His disciples,
"I call
you not servants, for the servant knows not what his lord does: but I
have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of My Father
I have made known unto you." "The secret of the Lord is with them that
fear Him; and He will show them His Covenant."
The Lord said, "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?" when
he was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. And we must hide nothing
from our God. It ought to be the daily habit of the Believer to commune
with his God–we ought to make Him our Confidant in all things. You
will go amiss, depend upon it, if you do not wait upon the Lord for
guidance. "Bring here the ephod," was David's command to the priests
when he was in perplexity and knew not what he ought to do. Israel made
a great mistake with regard to the Gibeonites because the case seemed
so simple to them that they felt they did not need to consult the Lord
concerning it. Here were men with dry and moldy bread and with old
shoes and socks upon their feet. They said they had come from a far
country and the matter appeared so plain that the Israelites asked not
counsel at the mouth of the Lord, but took of their provisions and made
a treaty with them, as they would not have done if they had consulted
the Lord. I do not think that God's people often go astray in the most
difficult cases, for they do take them to the Lord in prayer. It is in
simple matters that we make our greatest blunders, because we think we
know what to do and, therefore, we do not wait upon the Lord for
guidance. Yet he who leans to his own understanding is trusting to a
broken reed which will be sure to fail him just when he most needs it.
So let us, each one, say to the Lord, in the language of the text, "I
have declared my ways."
Thus far, we have been thinking of the Believer making his case known.
Now, secondly, we are to see him rejoicing that he has obtained an
audience with God–"You heard me." I cannot tell you how my heart is
touched with the sweetness of that short sentence. Did You hear me, O
Lord? What condescension on Your part! You have the whole universe to
rule and govern–the sweetest songsters are in Your choirs sounding
forth Your praises day without night, yet You heard me? And I was not
singing Your praises, but confessing my sins! I was not telling the
story of all Your wondrous works–I was telling of my own wicked works
and of my sorrows and cares–and You might well have said, "These
things are too small, too insignificant to be brought before My
notice." Yet You did not speak so, for You heard me.
But there is something even more wonderful than His condescension, I
think, and that is His patience. It is an amazing thing that He should
listen to us and then, when the sad story is told, that He should not
turn away in the greatness of His wrath and utterly destroy us. I think
that if you were to tell out all that is in your own heart to any one
of your most intimate friends, he would never speak to you again. We
read many very charming biographies of men and women, but if the whole
of their lives could be written–which we may be thankful cannotbe
done–the book would not be fit to be read! But the Lord listens to us
in some things that we have to confess to Him, that we would not
confess, and could not confess and ought not to confess in any human
ear, yet He does not turn away from us in disgust. His pure and holy
eyes cannot look upon iniquity except with the utmost abhorrence. He
loathes sin in such a way as we can hardly imagine, yet, when a
penitent sinner comes to confess to Him, He patiently listens to the
whole sorrowful story and feels nothing but pity and love for the
guilty narrator of it. This is truly wonderful and is very different
from the manner of men. A man would probably say, "You have told me,
now, Sir, what I wish I had never heard, for I can never trust you
again. I did not think you were so mean. I could not have believed it
of you. You have told me something that has let me know that I have
been cherishing a viper in my bosom! Never come to my house again–you
are a person with whom I do not wish to be in any way associated." That
is how man talks. But when we have told the Lord everything, He does
not spurn us from Him, but He says, "Though your sins are as scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they
shall be as wool." He puts away our sins by blotting them out like a
cloud and our transgressions as a thick cloud, blessed be His holy
name!
When the Psalmist says, "You heard me," he means, "You heard me with
sympathy." There are several different ways of hearing a story. When I
have to deal with a case of very deep grief–I do not know whether you
have all learned this lesson, but I will tell you how I act and you may
be wise if you do the same, especially if you are a young pastor. If
you get a case of very deep grief, hold your tongue and let the
sorrowful one talk and tell out all the painful details. Those various
items may not be very interesting to you, but if you cease to listen to
any of them, you will be stopping the process of cure for that poor
bleeding heart. Let the sufferer tell it all out and do not grudge the
time it takes. Interject a word or two of sympathy now and then, and be
really sympathetic all the while, but let the troubled soul tell it all
out, just as here the Psalmist says to the Lord, "I have declared my
ways, and You heard me." If you do so, the tried one will
go away and say, "I was so comforted by my interview with the pastor,
or with that friend. It did me so much good." Yet you are conscious
that you did nothing but listen to the story of sorrow–and that is the
best thing you could possibly have done. "Mother," said a little girl,
"I can't think why our neighbor is so glad for me to go in and see her.
She has lost her little baby and she sits and cries–and she says I am
such a comfort to her! But, Mother, I never say anything! I only just
put my arms round her neck and I cry, too." Ah, but that is the best
way to comfort the sorrowing! And that is what Jesus does for you when
you get near to Him. He is touched with the feeling of our infirmity
and it is His being touched that enables us to bear the blow which has
so grievously wounded our heart.
"You heard me." Even if the Lord did not seem to answer us, yet there
would be much comfort to us from His hearing us, letting us tell all
our grief to Him in the full belief that we are not merely telling it
out to the air, or speaking to emptiness, but that into His ear and
into His heart the story of our grief is falling. There is no comfort
like this. Try it, mourning ones, you who love His blessed name!
But I think that the Psalmist meant even more than this when he said to
God, "You heard me." Surely he meant, "You did graciously come to my
help, 'I declared my ways'–the sinfulness of them–'and You heard me'
and did blot out my transgressions. 'I declared my ways'–the disease
of sin that was in my soul–and by Your stripes You did heal me. By
Your Spirit You did sanctify me. 'I declared my ways'–my legal
difficulties, my accusers' words–and You did hear me by answering them
and sending such joy and peace into my soul that I dared even to cry,
'Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that
justifies. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yes rather,
that is risen again.' I told You all my ways and, like a true and
faithful friend, You did not spare anything that You might help me. As
You did give Your Son to redeem me and Your Spirit to sanctify me, so
did You give Your Providence to succor me and Your Presence to comfort
me. 'You heard me.' I did not cry to You in vain." Are not these words
wondrously rich, dear Brothers and Sisters? I seem, in talking to you,
as if I only skimmed the surface–as a swallow touches the brook with
his wing and is up and away again in a moment–but you may dive into
their depths in your happy, heartfelt experience!
Now I come, in the third place, to this man of God alone with God
seeking a further blessing–"Teach me Your statutes." I think the
Psalmist means this, "My Lord, I have told You all. Now, will You tell
me all? I have declared to You my ways. Now, will You teach me Your
ways? I have confessed to You how I have broken Your statutes–will You
not give me Your statutes back again? I have acknowledged my weakness.
Now, will You not strengthen me, that I may run in the way of Your
commandments?"
We will take this request, "Teach me Your statutes," in the same way as
we took our first division. "I, a sinner, have confessed to You, O
Lord, my wicked ways. Will You not teach me Your statutes, that I may
sin against You no more? Teach me how to be holy. Teach me to repent,
for repentance is one of Your statutes. Teach me to believe, for faith
in Your dear Son is one of Your great Gospel statutes. Teach me to
pray, for this shall help to keep me pure, and prayer is a statute of
Yours. Teach me to watch against temptation. Teach me to search the
Scriptures. Teach me to yield myself up to You as a living sacrifice,
which is my reasonable service. So teach me that I shall–
"No more from You depart No more Your Spirit grieve."
Then, next, our text means, "I am a patient, and You, O Lord, are my
Physician. I have told You the symptoms of my case. Now will You teach
me Your statutes that I may be healed? I know that Your Word has a
healing power, for it is written, 'He sent His Word and healed them.'
Now, Lord, heal the bleeding wounds of my conscience by Jesus Christ,
the Incarnate Word! Heal my darkened understanding by your Spirit's
illumination of it through Your Word. You see what my disease is–Your
Word is the great Pharmacopoeia which contains remedies for all
spiritual maladies–and You know which will best suit my case.
Prescribe for me! 'Teach me Your statutes.'"
Then, in the case of a client consulting his advocate, the text means,
"I have declared my ways to You, my great Advocate. Now 'teach me Your
statutes,' I pray You that I may be wise to meet my future accusers.
'Teach me Your way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path because of my
enemies.' 'Teach me Your statutes' that I may not give occasion to the
enemy to accuse me. Make me wise since I have to deal with the craft of
the devil and the malice of the world. Teach me when to be silent and
when to speak. Give me my Master's wisdom, who baffled all His
adversaries though they constantly sought to catch Him in His speech.
Teach me how to live so blameless and guileless a life that I may be
both wise as a
serpent and harmless as a dove. I have told You the difficulty of my
ways and how my adversaries seek to entrap me– 'teach me Your
statutes, that I may escape like a bird from the snare of the fowler.'"
Then, as a friend speaking to his friend, this passage means, "'I have
declared my ways,' now 'teach me Your statutes,' O Lord, that I may
never lose Your friendship! O my great Friend, I have told You how
remiss and how unthankful and unkind I have been to You, but do not be
angry with me! Undertake to mend me, I pray You. Make Your poor friend
better. Some of my sin springs from ignorance, so 'teach me Your
statutes.' Much of it springs from my corrupt heart, so, O Lord,
sanctify it by the power of Your cleansing Word! O Jesus, I cannot bear
the thought of losing Your friendship! You have taught me the sweetness
of it, so do not take it away from me, for if now I were to lose You, I
would be, of all men, most miserable! The unregenerate sinner knows not
the sweetness of Your love, but, like the swine, he is content with his
husks. But I have eaten Heaven's bread and if I am to lose it now, woe
is me, for I shall be doubly undone!"
A poor man who has always been poor knows not the smart of poverty like
the emperor or the prince who comes down to be a beggar. It must have
been a sad sight to see Belisarius, the valiant general, brought down
so low as to beg in the streets of Rome and, oh, if a Believer could
lose the friendship of his Lord, he would be doubly damned! There would
be two Hells for him who had peeped into Heaven and tasted angels'
food–and then had lost it and been cast away forever! Blessed be the
name of the Lord–that shall never be the case with any true Believer!
And that it may not be the case with you, pray this prayer, "O Lord,
'teach me Your statutes.' I am a poor ignorant fool, but. O my blessed
Friend to whom I have confessed my ignorance, teach me! I shall be but
a dull scholar, yet do not put me out of Your class. It will show what
a wonderful Teacher You are if You will teach me! It will make even the
angels marvel if You will make a good scholar out of such a dullard as
I am! Here I am, Lord, 'teach me Your statutes.'"
II. Now for a few minutes let us turn to the second way of considering
our text which is, THE MAN OF GOD STATING HIS TESTIMONY IN PUBLIC.
First, then, according to this way of understanding the text, we have
here a man of God who has borne his testimony. He has spoken to man
experimentally. He has not spoken about something he has read of, but
he says, "'I have declared my ways'–the ways which I myself have
trodden. I have told them of my evil ways and warned them against the
evils that lurk in the paths of sin. I have told them of the wounds I
received in the house of sin, and I have warned others against going
there. I have also told them of the ways of penitence, for You have
graciously led me in them. I have told them of that bitter sweet or
sweet bitter, the pleasing pain of weeping over sin. I have told them
of the ways of faith– how I was led by the Law, as schoolmaster, to
Christ–how I was shut up from every other confidence and then came and
trusted in the Lord. 'I have declared my ways' and I have also told my
fellow sinners what the Lord has done for me and in what ways I have
been led since I have believed in Jesus. I have told them of the ways
of answered prayer which I have trodden, of the ways of gracious help
which have been vouchsafed to me. I have told them of my Ebenezers, of
the ways of God's Providence and related how I have been succored,
again and again, in the hour of my distress. 'I have declared my ways'
and said of them all, 'Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all
the days of my life.'"
We are bound, dear Friends, not only to preach Christ's Gospel, but to
also preach our experience of it. You remember that remarkable
expression of our Lord in one of His last prayers to the Father,
"Neither pray I for these alone, but for them, also, which shall
believe on Me through"–what? "through their word." Then, is it their
word? No, it is the Lord's, yet it is also theirs, for they have made
it theirs by personal appropriation and experience of it! The Truth of
God never seems to have such vividness about it as when a man tells it
out of his own soul. You read it in this blessed Book and you know it
is true, for God has revealed it, but when you hear a godly man say, "I
have tasted and handled this and have proved its truth," then, somehow,
there is a still greater force in it which brings the Truth of God home
to you. That is what this servant of God could say, "I have declared my
ways."
And he had not declared them with any view to vain-glory, but only that
he might glorify God. Neither had he spoken of himself except with the
object of persuading others to walk in the ways of the Lord in which he
had, himself, been so graciously led. We must always be cautious as to
how we speak of ourselves–we shall do well if we can say with the
Apostle Paul, "We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord and
ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake." If we ever do speak about
ourselves, it must be only as a foil or setting to that priceless jewel
of the loving kindness of the Lord. "I have declared my ways."
The next sentence, "You heard me," teaches us that God had heard this
man. What solemn work it is to preach if we have God for a hearer! You
know how Richard Baxter felt about this matter–
"I preached as never sure to preach again, And as a dying man to dying
men."
We should so preach as though we knew that every word was being written
down by the recording angel and that God Himself was listening to all
that we said. This would make it a very solemn thing to open our mouth
for the Lord and to bear testimony for Him, yet what a cheering thing
it is that the Lord hears our testimony and can confirm its
truthfulness! For, as surely as any of you ever speak for the Lord, you
will be misunderstood–and that is not the worst of it–you will also
be willfully misrepresented by some of your hearers. The very things
you say, they will declare that you ought to have said–and the things
that you did not say, they will pretend that you did say. They will
turn your words upside down and inside out! I am judging by my own
experience, for I have long proved that it is utterly impossible for me
to utter a single sentence which someone or other cannot twist into
mischief. This is a grievous evil under the sun–that he that speaks is
not judged according to his own words, but according to whatever men
choose to put into those words and to make them mean–so that the thing
that was farthest from our thoughts and which our soul abhorred, has
often been set down to us when we neither said nor thought anything of
the kind! Now, if any of you are called to pass through that
trouble–and I daresay you will if you try earnestly to serve your
Master–fall back upon this declaration, "'I have declared my ways,'
honestly, simply, plainly, with a pure desire to glorify God and bless
my fellow men 'and You heard me.' I appeal to You, O Lord, for You know
what was spoken! You are the Supreme Judge and to You I bring my case."
When, with weeping eyes and with broken words, my dear Sister, you talk
to some poor soul about the Savior, let it be a comfort to you that the
Lord hearkens and hears, and that a Book of Remembrance is kept before
Him in which are recorded all such holy acts as you are doing for Him.
My dear Brother, perhaps you have not any special gift or talent, but
yet you try to talk about Jesus whenever you can and somebody has heard
what you said. It was very ungrammatical, and some people made a joke
of it–and that grieves you very much, for you know that you were
speaking in the sincerity of your heart. Now, do not say one word the
less because they jest about you–rather say morebecause you have the
double advantage of affording some people a little amusement and, at
the same time, of doing good to others! Do not fret, or trouble, but
just go straight on with your work for the Lord! And if you really did
make a mistake and used the wrong word, you can say, "Ah, but the Lord
knew what I meant! You did know, O Lord, with what simplicity of soul
and earnestness of heart I spoke that word and if it was not the right
word, and if some even see occasion for mirth in it, yet You heard me."
The last word of all is this–and it fits in well with this view of the
text–this man needed more teaching, so he prayed, "Lord, 'teach me
Your statutes.' Now that I have become a teacher of others, You teach
me." No man can teach if he is unwilling to be taught. Any gentleman
who has "finished his education" will never be an educator of others.
We must be continually making progress if we would lead others onward.
I am sure that every Brother here who is engaged in the Lord's work
will find that he needs to get fresh food for his mind every day. He
must eat a double portion because he has to feed others as well as to
be fed. He has not only to fill his basket with bread for the eater,
but also with seed for the sower, so he needs a double–no, a
sevenfoldportion–that he may have enough for others as well as for
himself.
"Teach me Your statutes," is a good prayer to be presented by you dear
young friends who have lately come into the Church. I am always
delighted to hear of your trying to do good. I am glad for you to get
into the Sunday school, or into the Evangelists' Society, that you may
try to speak for Jesus. But do remember that you need much teaching if
you are to teach others. This remark applies especially to some of you.
I would not keep you back, even for a minute, from trying to teach
others what you already know, but I beg you to try to learn a little
more. The other night a dear Brother told some of you a good story of
the Negro who heard his pastor say that they all ought to teach
something to somebody. Poor old Sambo called out from the gallery that
he could teach something. The minister said, "I do not mean you, Sambo,
for you only know your A B C." "Ah," said Sambo, "but there are some
brethren and little children that don't know their A B C, so Sambo can
teach them that."
Well, there is something in that view of the case–if you only know the
elements of the Gospel, teach them to those who do not know them. At
the same time, dear Brother, if you can learn more, you can then teach
more–so do not give
up the good habit, on Sabbath days, of going to hear at least one
sermon. I would like to turn a lot of the people out half a day on
Sundays–I mean you experienced Christian people–that you might go out
and teach others, but I would like to bring in some of the young people
who are always out at work and do not come in to feed as they ought.
They must feed, as well as work! They must get taught, or else their
teaching will soon become very vapid and powerless. In all honesty and
sincerity, let each one pray, "Lord, teach me more, so that when You
hear me next time, there may be more of that which You have taught me
and that, when men hear it, they may be more impressed by it, because
they learn more from it." May we all first go to Him and learn of
Him–then talk to Him and learn more of Him–and then go to others and
talk with them about Him!