God Has Spoken!– Rejoice!
(No. 2864)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1903.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER
12, 1876.
"God has spoken in His holiness; I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem
and measure out the valley of Succoth." Psalm 108:7.
THERE is an old promise concerning God's people which says, "Before
they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will
hear." This text is one of the instances in which the Lord has dealt
with His saints upon the lines of that promise. Read the preceding
verse. David there prays, "Save with Your right hand and answer me."
And while he is waiting for God to answer him, he remembers that God
has already spoken. In effect, he says to himself, "I am waiting for an
answer, but God has given it to me." Very often the response to a
Believer's petition has been practically received before he presents
his request–he only needs that God should open his eyes for him to see
that before he called, God had answered his supplication! Indeed,
Brothers and Sisters in Christ, in one sense all your prayers–that is,
your prayers that ought to be answered–are already answered, for
whatever there may be that you may rightly ask of God, you really have
it, since in giving us Christ, He has already given us all things! An
important part of the duty of faith is to believe that you have what
you ask in prayer and then you shall have it. This is blessed
philosophy–may we all learn it!
Oftentimes, when we are crying to God and waiting for an answer to our
petition, if we did but look around us– and if we had more acute
powers of observation–if our spiritual faculties were keener and
quicker, we would perceive that we already have the very thing for
which we are asking. Some of you have, perhaps, been saying, "Oh, that
we were, indeed, the Lord' s people who have their prayers answered
even before they offer them! Well, then, turn to the Book and you will
find that the Lord has there told you that you are His if, indeed, you
are believing in His Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. God has
already given you, by that most sure word of testimony, the clearest
possible evidence of your personal interest in Christ! If you are
asking for some further kind assuring word to soothe your fears to
rest, turn to the Bible, for there is in it the very Word of God you
need. So, seek it out, for I may truly say of God's Revelation in this
blessed Book–
"What more can He say than to you He has said, You who unto Jesus for
refuge have fled?'
This leads me to the practical remark that, possibly, the very thing
that you have been praying for so long, you may already have
obtained–and God may not intend you to pray any longer about it, but
may say to you, as He did to Moses, "'Why do you cry unto Me? Speak
unto the children of Israel, that they go forward.' Believe that you
have the blessing for which you are asking and go forward in that
belief! The time for praying about it has passed. This is the time for
grasping the blessing by faith and using it to My praise and glory." So
it seems to me, in our text, that David had prayed, and then suddenly
remembered that he had already received the very thing for which he had
asked. So he shakes himself from the dust and cries, confidently and
jubilantly, "God has spoken in His holiness; I will rejoice, I will
divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth."
I. Three things are clear in the text and the first is that GOD'S WORD
IS THE FOUNDATION OF FAITH–"God has spoken in His holiness." That is
the solid basis on which faith builds.
To me this is a very precious Truth of God, even for the very childhood
of Christian life–"Godhas spoken." He has not merely put before us His
works, which are like hieroglyphs, difficult to read at times, but He
has actually broken what otherwise had been eternal silence and spoken
to us in words that even a child can comprehend! Unbelieving men still
say, as they did of old, "'Since the fathers fell asleep, all things
continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.' If there is
a God at all, there is a great gulf fixed between Him and men; how can
we know anything about Him?" Ah, Sirs, that great gulf will always be
between you and your God if you do not believe in the Revelation that
He has given you in His Inspired Word! Until that terrible day comes,
when He shall speak in thunder-tones of wrath and summon His guilty
creatures to appear at His judgment bar, you will not hear His voice,
except as it speaks to you in His Word.
But "God has spoken in His holiness" and we ought to be thankful that
we have not to serve a God who is dumb. He spoke, in the garden of
Eden, when our first parents sinned against Him. To the serpent He
said, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your
seed and her Seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His
heel." It was a message of hope to the world when God spoke that great
promise concerning His Son. Since then, "at sundry times and in divers
manners," God has spoken unto men by His servants and "by His Son," of
which we have the record in this blessed Book. And, since it is a
message of mercy and love to us, we ought at once to rejoice that "God
has spoken." Sinner, you are pleading with God for mercy and He might
well refuse to answer you even a word, but, "God has spoken" already,
and the answer to your petition is already recorded in His Word! If,
when Adam sinned, He had turned away from our rebellious race and said,
"From now on I will hold no communication with you until that day when,
with fire and sword, I punish you for your many transgressions," we
would have had no cause for complaining against Him. Certainly we could
not have impeached His justice or found fault with His severity! But,
"God has spoken." He has broken the silence which would have been death
to us and, blessed be His name, He has Divinely spoken to us by Him who
is THE WORD OF GOD–by God's great LOGOS–the only voice by which He
could fully speak out His whole soul so that men might be able to
comprehend Him! And it is upon what God has spoken to us, by His Son,
that we have to place our faith, so that, had He not spoken, we would
not have had any foundation for our faith–so this is our joy, that
"God has spoken."
Many of us are, I trust, at least somewhat acquainted with what God has
spoken, though I wish that we were all more perfectly acquainted with
His Word and that our confidence more fully rested upon what the Lord
has therein revealed to us.
Why is it that you are able to confide in God's Word? Surely it is
because you know that for God to speak is for Him to do as He has said.
By His Word He made the heavens and the earth–and it is by His Word
that the heavens and the earth continue as they are to this day! When
He shall "once more" speak, as Paul says in his Epistle to the Hebrews,
then shall He unmake what He made and cast away the worn-out vesture,
for, as the Old Hundredth Psalm reminds us–
"He can create and He can destroy." God's speaking is very different
from man's. Very often man talks about something that he says he will
do, but when he has talked about it, that is the end of the matter as
far as he is concerned. Man has spoken. Oh, yes, but you can never be
sure that with the talking tongue will go the working hand! He who is
quick to promise is not always so prompt to perform. We have many
proverbs which remind us that men set light by one another s promises,
and well they may, but we must never set light by the promises of God.
"He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast." So,
beloved Brothers and Sisters, if there is a promise of God to help you
in a time of trouble, or to preserve you in the hour of temptation, or
to deliver you out of trial, or to give you Divine Grace according to
your day–that promise is as good as if it had been already performed
since God's Word shall certainly be followed by the fulfillment of it
in due season! I beseech you, then, as you read the promise, to say to
yourself, "It is done as God has said." If any man of means, with whom
you do business, gives you his check for the amount he owes you, do you
not say that he has paid you? Yet he has not handed to you even a penny
in cash–no notes or gold and silver coins have passed between you–but
you rightly say that he has paid you because his signature on the check
is as good as money. And is not God's Word as good as man's? Yes, that
it is, and far better! Then, so regard it–oh, for faith to do so at
this very moment!
Further, what God has spoken shall never be reversed. "God is not a
man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should
repent." What He has spoken in public, He does not reverse in private.
His own declaration is, "I have
not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the
seed of Jacob, Seek you Me in vain." Whatever there may be in the
sealed scroll that records God's purposes in predestination, there
cannot be anything there to contradict what is written on the open
scroll of Divine Revelation. As to the Doctrine of Election which often
terrifies seeking souls, it never should do so since there can be
nothing, in the secret counsels of God, contrary to the plain promises
of God recorded in His Word! He has not said, "Yes," in one place, and,
"No," in another. And if He says, "Yes," today, He will not say, "No,"
tomorrow. He Himself said long ago, "I am the Lord, I change not;
therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed." Once let any message go
forth out of His mouth and it shall stand fast forever!
Oh, then, what a firm foundation for faith this is! First, "God has
spoken," and that is as good as if He had already done as He has said!
And, secondly, "God has spoken," and that which He has said can never
be reversed! If there is a promise in the Bible made to a penitent
sinner–and you are a penitent sinner–that promise must be kept to
you! If there is a blessing promised to a believing soul and you are a
believing soul–that blessing is sure to you. If God has promised to
sustain you when you cast your burden upon Him, and to bring you
through the furnace with your hair un-singed, He will do it, for He has
never yet been false to His promise and He never will be! Heaven and
earth shall pass away, but not one jot or tittle of His Word shall ever
fail. It stands, as an immutable decree, that Jehovah's will shall be
done–and this is Jehovah's will–that, of all that He has promised to
the sons and daughters of men, not one syllable shall ever fail! Oh,
how blessedly faith ought to rest on such a foundation as this!
Our text says, "God has spoken in His holiness." Now, it sometimes
happens that our greatest difficulty in believing a promise of God lies
in His holiness. There is, for instance, a promise of pardon to the
soul that believes in Jesus. We think of stern Justice, with her
majestic, yet severe look. In our heart of hearts we reverence her and
we ask, "How can God be just and yet the Justifier of the ungodly?" We
have, at times, had some idea of the perfect purity of God–the purity
of Him in whose sight the heavens are not clean and who charges His
angels with folly. We have trembled, sometimes, as though we were
dissolved into nothingness when we have thought of His spotless
purity–and we have said, "Can this holy God really mean to receive
such sinners as we are whose very clothes, as Job says, abhor us? Can
He purpose to bring us to His own right hand in Glory that we may be
among the courtiers in His heavenly Kingdom?" Yes, He does mean to do
even that! Yet the thought of His purity makes us wonder how it can be
done. Now, the joy of David was that when God spoke concerning that
glorious–
"Stem of Jesse's rod'–
He spoke it "in His holiness," that is, in His whole-ness, with His
whole perfectly pure Nature. He knew all that David then was and all
that David would be, yet He saw it to be consistent with His infinite
perfections to make, even with such a man, "an everlasting covenant,
ordered in all things and sure." And, beloved Brothers and Sisters,
when the Lord entered into Covenant with Christ concerning those whom
He gave to Him to be His portion forever and when, in that Covenant, He
wrote down blessings exceedingly great and precious–and made promises
so vast that we cannot, at present, form any estimate of their full
value–He knew quite well what He was doing and He did it, knowing all
about your doubts and fears concerning your sinfulness and His own
holiness! And now, without in the least marring His perfect purity and
inflexible justice, "God has spoken in His holiness" to poor lost
sinners and said that He will save all of them who trust in Jesus
Christ, His Son! And He has also "spoken in His holiness" to His poor
imperfect children and said that He will bless them, and that He will
not turn away from them to do them good. This is the Covenant that He
has made with His people–"A new heart also will I give you, and a new
spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out
of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My
Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall
keep My judgments and do them. And you shall be My people, and I will
be your God." All this, which "God has spoken in His holiness," He will
do without obscuring that wondrous attribute, or marring the glory of
His adorable perfections!
II. Now, in the second place, let us notice THE JOY OF FAITH–"God has
spoken in His holiness; I will rejoice." Are any of you heavy of heart
just now? If so, I hope you will catch the spirit of David when he
uttered these words. You ought to be glad that "God has spoken in His
holiness," and you will be glad if you feel and know that He has spoken
to you. "God has spoken; I will rejoice."
Observe that this joy, which faith has, is a joy in the very fact that
God has spoken. Though nothing may yet have been done for us, God has
spoken and, therefore, our heart rejoices! Every Divine promise, if it
is rightly viewed by faith,
will make the heart leap for joy. Suppose you do not need that
particular promise just now, rejoice all the same, for you will need it
by-and-by. If the promise is not made especially to you, yet it is made
to somebody–therefore rejoice that "God has spoken" so as to meet the
needs of somebody else's case. What if the blessing is too high for you
to reach at present? Nevertheless, rejoice that there are mercies
stored up for future and more advanced stages of your spiritual growth.
And suppose the mercy is one that you long ago enjoyed? Still be glad
that you enjoyed it in years past and so rejoice that "God has spoken."
Oh, what hymns of praise there are in this blessed Book if this is the
theme of our song– "God has spoken"! Then the very first pages of
Genesis ought to make us rejoice and we will rejoice because we know
how He made the worlds. Pass along through every page and feast your
eyes upon every line of every page–and say all the while, "'God has
spoken in His holiness; I will rejoice.' This shall be the subject of
my joy all day long and, in the night watches, will I rejoice in His
Word."
You perceive, as I have said, that this joy comes to the Believer even
before thepromise is literally fulfilled to him. It is the joy of
faith. You have not yet had the promise fulfilled to your sight, but,
seeing that it is fulfilled to your faith, begin to be glad about it!
Praise the Lord for all the good things He has laid up in store for
you! Take upon your lips the words of that sweet singer who wrote–
"And a 'new song' is in my mouth,
To long-loved music set–
Glory to You for all the Grace
I have not tasted yet"
When you are ill, bless God for the health you will enjoy when you get
well! When you are down-hearted, bless God for the joy that you will
have when He shall again lift up the Light of His Countenance upon you!
When you go to the grave of a Christian friend, bless God because you
will meet that friend again! Though you cannot yet see the joys that
await you inside the gates of pearl, begin to bless the Lord for all
that He has prepared for them that love Him! Borrow from the eternal
future–you may, for there is plenty of it. There is an infinity ofjoy,
therefore, antedate it a little while. Send your messengers across the
Jordan to bring you some of the Eshcol clusters. You may do so, for
they are yours and you may have some of them, even now, as foretastes
of the bliss that is yet to be revealed. "God has spoken" to His
servants of the great things that He will do for them for many years to
come and throughout eternity! He has said, "I will never leave you, nor
forsake you." He has said, "Where I am, there shall also My servant
be." Therefore, as "God has spoken," though as yet my soul abides in
the land of darkness, drought and barrenness, yet, because He will
fulfill His promise, my heart shall rejoice! David says, in the 11th
verse of this Psalm, "O God, who hast cast us off," yet here, though he
is one of the cast-offs, he says, "God has spoken in His holiness; I
will rejoice."
Perhaps I am addressing a minister whose public labors are apparently
unsuccessful. My Brother, you have been exceedingly grieved because
your people have been like the children of Ephraim who "being armed,
and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle." Well now, you
must not give way to discouragement, or fall into a dull and sad state
of mind. You must say, 'God has spoken in His holiness; I will
rejoice.' Though I have not, as yet, seen any success attending my
efforts, He has said, 'They that sow in tears shall reap in joy,' and I
believe I shall do so, for I have often sowed in tears and sowed the
good Seed of the Kingdom with many tears and many prayers. Therefore,
though I seem, at present, like one of the cast-offs, and little good
has come of all that I have done, yet, 'God has spoken in His holiness'
and, therefore, I will rejoice.'"
I may be speaking to a Brother or Sister who is tried in another way.
You, dear Friend, have not enjoyed the means of Grace as you used to
do. You blame yourself for the change and it is right and proper that
you should do so. You have not now those happy experiences that you
once had–neither do you enjoy such blessed visits from your Lord as
you had a year or so ago. You know that the fault lies with you. Still,
remember that faith is never dependent upon feeling and our confidence
is never to rest upon our inward condition. Otherwise it rests on the
shifting sand. But, if this is the case with you, now is the time for
you to exercise faith and to say, "Though I am, as it were, a cast-off
and the Word of the Lord is not just now solacing my heart, yet, 'God
has spoken,' and, sinner as I am, if I am not a saint, I trust to what
God has said to believing sinners and 'I will rejoice,' even though I
seem to be only a cast-off."
Once more, notice that David, at the time he wrote this Psalm, had
discovered the vanity of human confidence. He says, in the 12th verse,
"Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man." "My best
friend has proved to be a traitor;
he that ate bread with me has lifted up his heel against me. Those who
said that they would never leave me and who never did leave me while
there was anything to be gotten out of me, are all gone. I said in my
haste, 'All men are liars,' but 'God has spoken in His holiness; I will
rejoice.'" It is grand faith that can rejoice in God when friends go as
the swallows fly away in the autumn, or drop off as the leaves fade
when the summer comes to an end! That was the kind of faith that
Habakkuk had when he sang, "Although the fig tree shall not blossom,
neither shall fruit be on the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail,
and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the
fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in
the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation."
This is a good crutch for Mr. Ready-to-Halt–no, better than that,
surely this will take Ready-to-Halt's crutches away and enable him to
run without weariness in the ways of the Lord! Why, Brothers and
Sisters, here are the wings of eagles for you, if you only know how to
use them! "God has spoken." What a mighty power your soul will have in
prayer if you go to God and say, "Do as You have said." What a sword
this is to flash in the face of the foe–"God has spoken." "It is
written"is that which makes old Rome tremble and her seven hills to
quake for fear! Get a rejoicing grip of this great Truth of God and the
dwarf shall become a giant, the feeblest among us shall be as David and
the house of David shall be like the angel of the Lord!
III. The latter part of the text shows us THE ACTIVITY OF FAITH–"God
has spoken in His holiness; I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem and
mete out the valley of Succoth."
That is, David says, "As God has given me these places to be parts of
my kingdom, I will go and take possession of them." Some people's
so-called faith is of this order–God has promised a great blessing!
Let us go–and sleep." Their philosophy is–God s promise will be sure
to be fulfilled–therefore, let us eat and drink, and not trouble at
all about the matter. The Lord will have His own people and He will
carry out His own purposes and decrees. They stand fast forever, so the
best thing for us is to do nothing at all! God says that there shall be
a harvest–so there is no need for our sowing and we can stay in bed as
late as we like." That is the kind of fatalism that many carry even
into their Christianity–they make the eternal purposes and blessed
promises of God to become reasons for inaction! But it is not so with
any sane child of God. He girds up his loins and says, "God has spoken
in His holiness; I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem and mete out the
valley of Succoth."
Whenever you look into the Word of God and read what "God has spoken"
to you, see that you appropriate it Suppose that He has promised you
comfort–do not rest satisfied without that comfort. Suppose He has
promised you joy and peace in believing–never rest till you have that
joy and peace. Suppose He has promised you complete sanctifica-tion,
full deliverance from the power of evil–do not be satisfied till you
are delivered from it all. Never say, "Ah, that is a constitutional
sin–that is the result of my temperament." No, Brother, Sister, if the
Lord has promised you the victory over your enemies, be not satisfied
till you have planted your foot on their necks and they are in
subjection to you. Some Christian people are living, spiritually, on a
penny a week, when their income might be ten thousand a day! You might
live like kings, yet you are starving like paupers! Your faith might
lay hold on God s exceedingly great and precious promises and so fill
her mouth with good things, but, instead of doing so, you are quivering
with the palsy of unbelief and so not grasping what God has put within
your reach! There lies Succoth, but you do not mete it out. There lies
Shechem, but you do not divide it. Yet they are both of them yours by
Divine donation! Oh, if our faith did but really grip the promises and
believe in the promise-keeping God, she would never rest till she
possessed all the blessings that are really hers!
I think that every young Christian should say, when he joins the
Church, "Now, I do not want to be merely an average Christian. I am
nothing and less than nothing in myself, but, if there is any blessing
to be had from God I will have it. If I can have a closer walk with God
than others have, I will have it. If there is more of Christ's likeness
to be had than others possess, I will have it. By God's Grace, 'I will
divide Shechem and mete out the valley of Succoth!' If God has given me
permission to take anything, why should I not have it?" If you have
leave given you to go to Windsor Castle, or Buckingham Palace as often
as you like and to take whatever you please that is there, and to be
treated as a prince, I guarantee that you would not need anyone to
remind you that you had not been to either place for weeks! If you had
such privileges accorded to you, you would be sure to avail yourselves
of them. Yet here are the gates of the palace of prayer always open to
you and the doors of communion never shut against you–and Jesus, the
great King of kings, not only inviting you to come to Him, but even
urging you to abide in Him and never to depart from Him–yet, alas, you
do not
have fellowship with Christ by the month together! Be no longer like
the starving professors that, now and then, taste a little of the
heavenly manna, but, generally, live on the leeks, the garlic and the
onions of Egypt.
So, if we have faith in God, we ought to take possession of all that is
ours and, further, we ought to know what we really possess. It is
delightful to see David here mentioning his various possessions–"I
will divide Shechem and mete out the valley of Succoth. Gilead is mine.
Manasseh is mine. Ephraim is also the strength of my head. Judah is my
law-giver, Moab is my washpot. Over Edom will I cast out my shoe. Over
Philistia will I triumph. Who will bring me into the strong city? Who
will lead me into Edom?" Perhaps you say, "That is very
uninteresting–I do not understand it." No, but David did. He had seen
Shechem and he knew that it was a place worth possessing. And Gilead
and Manasseh and all the other places interested him even if they do
not interest you. And when a child of God looks over his spiritual
treasures and mentions them one by one, he takes an interest even in
the very mention of them. The Bible is a dull book to a person who has
no part or lot in it. There is no drier reading, in all the world, than
the reading of a will in which one has no interest–but there is
nothing that would interest you more than listening to the will of your
old uncle in which he had left you a large fortune! You would lean
forward and you would put your hand to your ear lest you should lose
any of it, and you would think that you had never heard a more eloquent
discourse than that! And when a man gets to know what "God has spoken,"
what He has written for him in this blessed Book which contains His
will–every word is music to him and he is ready to pick out some of
the choicest words and say, "Regeneration is mine! Justification is
mine! Adoption is mine! Sanctification is mine! Union to Christ is
mine! Resurrection is mine! Eternal life is mine! Yes, all things are
mine!" And he would dwell upon each one with a holy unction, at least
to his own soul.
Then, if you know what God has given you, mind that you use it all.
What does David say? "Moab is my washpot. Over Edom will I cast out my
shoe." As an Oriental who is weary, throws his sandals to one servant
and then puts his foot out, that another servant may wash it with
flowing water, so David says, "I will use Moab and Edom as my
servitors." Now, Christian, if you have true faith and mean to do real
business with God and for Him, say to yourself, "I have this, and that,
and the other blessing–and I am going to use them all for His Glory. I
have been adopted by God. I am His child, so I will plead with Him and
will get all I can from my Father to use in His service! I am
justified, I have peace with God, so I will go forth and, in the power
of that peace, I will let others see what bliss Christians know! Then I
also have sanctification given me in Christ, so I will use that and
seek to be a true saint, that my life may be a blameless, holy,
gracious, Christ-like life. By God's Grace I will not have even one
unused privilege!
Once more, David, being in the spirit of full faith in God, now
manifests the spirit of enterprise, for he says, "God has given me
Edom–then I will have it. There is that strong city of Petra, the rock
city. It is like an eagle's nest upon a crag–who is the bold man that
can capture it and take the spoil? The fierce sons of Edom, in the
gorge, will be sure to slay the first men who dare to march into that
rocky chasm." "Who will bring me into the strong city?" he asks, "who
will lead me into Edom?" The spirit of enterprise and of conquest is in
his soul! And then he adds, "Will not You, O God, go forth with our
hosts?" "Since You have spoken as You have done, You will surely lead
us to victory." In like manner, every man who has faith in God's Word
ought to be a man of enterprise. I wonder, Brothers and Sisters, how
many of you have any enterprise for God in view just now–storming some
rocky sin, some Petra-like evil in your soul that seems almost
impregnable! You know that your Savior's name is "Jesus, for He shall
save His people from their sins." Then, in the strength of that name,
go up and kill your bosom sin and your constitutional sin–and never
rest till you have driven your dagger through every evil that lurks
within your soul!
Then think what room for enterprise you have among your fellow men.
"The earth is the Lord s, and the fullness thereof," yet vast
multitudes of mankind still sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
Have any of you enterprise enough to go up against the strong cities
that are still in rebellion against the Lord Jesus Christ? Can any of
you go and look after those who walk the streets–and seek to bring
them to Christ? That would be conquering Edom itself. Have any of you
enterprise enough to go down into the slums and dens of London to seek
out the poorest and the vilest of the people? Have you confidence
enough to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ can give you that
Petra-like city, that dark spot where thieves congregate, where
blasphemy is the current language and where profanity seems even to
pollute the very air? Have you "pluck" enough to undertake such an
enterprise as that? Is there manliness enough in any one of you to
attempt it? Then, having asked the question, "Who will lead me into
Edom?" do not forget to pray, "Will not You, O God? You have spoken;
will You not also act, through Your people, so that all flesh may see
the salvation of God?"
Let each child of God say, "O my Father, I believe that weak and feeble
as I am, my weakness and feebleness need be no hindrance to me if I go
to Your service in Your strength! You have spoken in Your holiness; I
will rejoice and, in Your name, I will conquer the foe, and gather the
spoil for You." "Through God," says David, in the 13th verse, "we shall
do valiantly: for He it is that shall tread down our enemies."
Therefore, if you believe in God, hasten to the spoil of His enemies!
Be strong! If you really are linked with Omnipotence, prove it! Do not
talk about it, but let your deeds show that the Lord of Hosts is with
you and that the God of Jacob is your refuge. If, indeed, the Lord's
arm is with you, smite as the Lord would smite! If, indeed, He speaks
through you, speak as He would speak! Be strong, very courageous and
press forward in the name of God! Set up your banners and who knows
whether even this feeble message of mine, in rousing you to action upon
the basis of confidence in the Word of God, may not cast down some
stronghold of the enemy and make the walls of some mighty Jericho to
fall flat to the ground? The Lord grant it for His name's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON:
PSALMS 57:7-11; 108.
Let me say, before we begin our reading, that the 108th Psalm is made
up partly of the 60th and partly of the 57th, yet we are sure that the
Holy Spirit is not short of language so that He needs to repeat
Himself. It is always a pity to think that any portion of Scripture can
be repetitious. It cannot be! There is some good reason for every
repetition and you will see that in the two Psalms which we are about
to read, the latter part of the 57th coincides with the first part of
the 108th. And also that in the 57th Psalm we have prayer and praise
and, in the 108th, we have praise and prayer. It is well that we should
see how these two holy exercises can change places–so that sometimes
we begin with prayer and pray ourselves up into praise and, at other
times we begin with praise and find in it the strength we need to aid
us in prayer.
Psalm 57:7. My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing
and give praise. Let the lions open their cruel mouths and roar, and
let wicked men, "whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a
sharp sword," do their worst against me–let my every footstep be among
the nets and pits that they have set and dug to catch me. Even in the
midst of danger, "my heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I still
sing and give praise."
8. Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake
early.' 'I will awake the dawn"–so the Hebrew has it–"I will wake up
the morning and chide it for being so long in opening its eyes to look
upon God s works!" David did this, notwithstanding all the trials of
his surrounding circumstances. He calls on his "glory"–perhaps he
means his tongue–possibly his poetic faculty–perhaps his musical
skill. It may be that he means his intellect. Whatever his "glory" is,
he calls upon his highest powers to awake to praise his God. Then he
takes his psaltery and harp–strange companions for a man whose soul is
among lions–but saints know how to evoke sweetest music even when
their enemies are fighting fiercely against them. And he sings–
9-11. I willpraise You, Olord, among thepeople: I willsing unto You
among the nations. For Your mercy is great unto the heavens, and Your
Truth unto the clouds. Be You exalted, O God, above the heavens: let
Your Glory be above all the earth. Have not some of you found God s
mercy to be "great unto the heavens"? It even seemed to reach above the
heavens and, as for God's Truth, you followed it till you could follow
it no further, for it had ascended above the clouds! We could scarcely,
I think, ever expect to understand, here, all the Truth which God has
pleased to let us hear or read. It reaches "unto the clouds" and there
we must leave it for the present. When God ceases to reveal anything,
we may cease to enquire concerning it.
I saw, in Florence, a picture of "The Sleeping Savior." He is
represented as sleeping in the manger at Bethlehem and the artist
depicts the angels hovering round Him with their fingers on their lips
as though they would not wake Him from His holy slumbers. So, when God
bids the Truth of God sleep, do not try to wake it! There is enough
revealed for you to know and more that you will know, by-and-by, so pry
not between the folded leaves, but wait your Lord s appointed time to
teach you more of His will.
Psalm 108:1-5. O God, my heart is fixed; I willsing and give praise,
even with my glory. Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake
early. I willpraise You, O LORD, among the people: and I will sing
praises unto You among the nations, for Your mercy is great above the
heavens: and Your Truth reaches unto the clouds. Be You exalted, O God,
above the heavens: and Your Glory above all the earth. Here we begin
with praise–the very praise with which we finished the
other Psalm–praise in a very joyous, confident spirit, for the praise
which precedes prayer has more of the "Jubilate" note in it than
ordinary praise has. The prayer in Psalm 57:1 which preceded the
praise, was earnest, and fervent and confident, yet it did not reach so
high a note as this.
6-9. That Your beloved may be delivered: save with Your right hand, and
answer me. God has spoken in His holiness, I will rejoice, I will
divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth. Gilead is mine;
Manasseh is mine; Ephraim also is the strength of my head; Judah is my
law-giver; Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe; over
Phi-listia will I triumph. David is claiming the kingdom which God
promised to him by the mouth of Samuel the Prophet– looking first upon
the kingdom, itself, and then upon the surrounding territories, and
laying hold upon them all as his own because God had given them to him.
10. Who will bring me into the strong city? Who will lead me into
Edom?n the spirit of a truly courageous leader, he means to fight with
that ancient foe of Israel and, wisely, appeals to God to lead his
army.
11-13. Will not You, O God, who has cast us off? And will not You, O
God, go forth with our hosts? Give us help from trouble: for vain is
the help of man. Through God we shall do valiantly: for He it is that
shall tread down our enemies.