Established Work

Established Work

(No. 3142)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1909.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
FEBRUARY 20, 1873.

"Establish the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our
hands." Psalm 90:17.

SOME of us have been to the grave this afternoon and the most forcible
impression upon our minds at this time is that of our mortality. We
cannot, in burying others, say, "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust
to dust," without thinking of the time when we, too, shall be laid in
the silent grave. The thought that we are, yet are not, that we are but
as shadows that flit across the path of life–coming, going, scarcely
come before we are gone–the thought of our mortality has led us to ask
concerning our work–Is that mortal, too? Will that die like ourselves?
Some of us have darling objectives, high designs, great enterprises on
our hearts–are all those shadows? We are as the grass of the
field–are they also grass? Will the scythe that cuts us down cut them
down, too? Truly, if we thought it would be so, it would give double
bitterness to the remembrance of our own mortality to think that our
work was mortal as well as ourselves!

Perhaps it was that feeling which led Moses, the great Prophet-poet of
the wilderness, to cry, "If we die, if we pass away, yet 'establish the
work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands.'" Every
good man who is doing a good work has a sincere desire that his work
should continue. This is not a wrong desire–it is in the highest
degree right. We wish not to build with wood, hay and stubble–which we
know will be consumed–and if our work is of that kind, we must not
pray for its continuance. But if we believe that we are building with
gold, silver and precious stones, we may pray, for the prayer is a most
proper one, and the thought that suggests the prayer is a right one,
"Establish the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our
hands."

At the same time, let me here remark that it is the work of God which
is the ground of our confidence and peace, but our own work–even that
which we dare ask God to establish–can never be such a comfort and
stay to us, for it is always a cause of anxiety. It is a very strange
thing that unconverted men should ever look to their own works for
peace and comfort, since even to Christians their own works are rather
a source of anxiety than of consolation. I feel sure that every true
worker for God knows that it is so. The more you do for God, the more
care you have pressing upon you. And though Grace enables you to cast
that care upon Him whose work it really is, yet still does care
naturally arise out of all work for God to those who are truly
concerned in it. Hence our works never can become the source of our
truest consolation. They may become evidences to us of God's Presence
with us and may yield to our conscience a measure of peace, but still,
the anxiety which will always spring out of good works will
counterbalance any sort of comfort that can come from them! It is to
God's work, not our own, that we have to look–"'Let Your work appear
unto Your servants.' We are willing to work for You, Lord, but let us
always have our eyes on Your work. We shall never serve You acceptably
unless our eyes are directed towards what You have done for us rather
than towards what we do for You. There is no glory in our work, but
'let Your work appear unto Your servants, and Your Glory,' which always
goes with it, 'unto their children.' Let us see Your glorious work,
Your finished work–let us see it always, let us see it living, let us
see it dying, and so we, Your servants, will praise You even when our
hearts are anxious, believing that You will remove our anxiety– 'Let
Your work appear unto Your servants, and establish the work of our
hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands.'"

I am going to try to answer three questions concerning our work for
God. First, what part of our work can we ask God to establish Secondly,
in what way is He likely to establish it? And, thirdly, if we are
praying as Moses did, what ought to be our mode of action to correspond
with such a prayer?

I. First, then, WHAT KIND OF WORK CAN WE ASK GOD TO ESTABLISH? The
ungodly must not pray, "Establish the work of our hands for us"–it
would be blasphemy for them to do so! If the work is evil, God cannot
establish it. Jesus Christ has been revealed to destroy all the works
of the devil–and when He is destroying the works of the devil, He will
destroy all the works that have been worked by men possessed by the
spirit of evil. Nothing that has been worked unrighteously will be
allowed to stand! Neither can we ask God to make it stand without
supposing God to be such an one as ourselves, which He is not, and can
never be. God will not help you in that which is wrong, ungodly one,
however much you may try to interweave His holy name with your
unrighteous actions!

And remember, too, that God will never establish our works if they are
intended to rival the works of His Son. Some people work very hard in
trying to make a righteousness of their own, but if they could achieve
their purpose, they would then be independent of a Savior. Their
attempted obedience to the Law of God is intended to be a substitute
for the perfect righteousness of Christ–and their tears and
repentances are intended to be a substitute for the atoning Sacrifice
of Christ. But do you suppose that God will ever take the side of those
who desire to rival His Son and make the work of His Son needless? That
can never be! Self-righteousness is the direst of insults to the Son of
God! If I conceive myself to be righteous and meritorious in God's
sight, I do, as far as in me lies, cast a reflection upon the wisdom of
God, for I tell Him that although He provided a Savior, one was not
needed–at any rate, not for me! I also insult the blood of Jesus, for
I tell Him that it was shed unnecessarily–at least as far as I am
concerned–for I have no sin needing to be washed away! I insult the
Holy Spirit, too, for I tell Him that I do not need a new birth, for I
am already as good as I need to be! Self-righteousness insults the
Triune Jehovah and, therefore, we cannot ask God to establish it. If we
were sensible, we should pray God to pull it down, every stick and
stone of it! And rest assured, Sinners, that if God ever does save you,
He will do that as one of the first things–for every stone that our
fancied nobility has ever put upon its fellow with a view to building a
refuge for ourselves, God will take down! Not one stone shall be left
upon another if God is ever to save us. One of the most deplorable
things that could ever happen to a man would be for him to be allowed
to dwell comfortably in a refuge of lies until the storm of Divine
Judgment should sweep both himself and his refuge away forever! Dear
Hearer, may I ask whether your work is a self-righteous one, whether
you are trying to save yourself? For if so, this prayer of Moses cannot
properly be used by you, neither can God hear it with acceptance. No
wicked works and no self-righteous works may we ask God to establish!

But may we ask God to establish the ordinary works and engagements of
our daily life? Yes, assuredly we may! If you are a servant of God, you
have learned to eat and drink to His Glory and your most common actions
are a part of the holy priesthood to which all Believers are called.
You are yourself a priest and all that you do is a part of your service
for God in His holy Temple, for God's Temple is not this Tabernacle,
nor any other building. Wherever there is a true heart, there is a
Temple for God–and wherever there is a renewed heart, there is a
priest for God–and that is the only Temple and the only priest that
God wants, with the exception of the Great High Priest, who stands for
us before the Throne of the Most High. Well then, whatever you are
doing, if you are doing it thus before God, you may ask Him to prosper
and establish it. Why not? When Abraham's servant went down to
Padanaram to find a wife for Isaac, he did not say, This matrimonial
arrangement is secular business, so I must not pray about it." He did
pray about it and God guided him and prospered his errand! And David,
when he needed to know whether he should go to certain places to fight
his enemies, enquired of the Lord, "Shall I go up?" And the Lord gave
the answers to his petitions!

We should do well to always make little things as well as great things
the objects of prayer. I am afraid that many people fail for lack of
due attention to little things. It is not always the great things in
which a man slips, but it is often the little things which trip him up.
Great matters he naturally takes to God, being diffident of his own
judgment, but little matters he decides according to what he considers
his own wisdom–and his own wisdom is generally nothing but the most
arrant folly! The Israelites were never so grossly deceived as when the
case seemed perfectly clear to them. There were the Gibeonites with old
patched shoes upon their feet, so it was evident that they must have
come from a distant land. They had dry and moldy bread, so no doubt
what they said was true, that they had taken it hot out of the oven
when they set out on their journey and it had become moldy from the
long distance that they had carried it. There was no need for the
people to call the priest and seek advice from God–the case was so
clear that nobody could be deceived! Their own common sense was quite
sufficient to guide them–so they thought! Had it been puzzling case,
they would

have asked the Lord to guide them, but being so very plain, they were
deceived and made a great mistake. Take care to always consult God
about those very plain things as you consider them!

Still, Beloved, I would be very sorry to see this prayer limited to
such matters as these. It should be used concerning them, but it must
also be used to higher ends, or else it will be, to a large extent,
wasted. True Christians live for God and work for God–and everyone of
us who claims to be a Christian is either working for God or else an
impostor. I repeat my declaration that the man who calls himself a
Christian and yet does nothing for Christ is an impostor! He professes
to be a fruit-bearing tree, yet he bears no fruit. He declares himself
to be salt, yet he has no savor. He says that he is a light to the
world, yet he never helps to remove its darkness by scattering his
beams. But every genuine Christian is a worker for Christ, and work
done for God is the kind of work which we may ask God to establish! And
it is that work which will, in the highest sense, be established!

What great works men have performed and yet how little has been the
length of their endurance! When the great city of Babylon was built, we
can scarcely conceive how vast it was, but where is it now? Its site
may be known, but its power is gone. Its kings have long since passed
away and its glory has departed. Then there was that mighty city of
Nineveh, with all the power which was connected with the Assyrians.
Then there was the Persian empire! And the Persian kings with great
diligence built up very powerful states–yet they were not established
by God and all the might of Persia melted away. The Romans also built
up a vast empire. What a great metropolis they made Rome to be! As we
walk amidst its massive walls, so stupendous that they look as if they
must have been the work of giants, we see how the greatest works of men
without God are not established! Let them build as solidly as they may,
their mightiest works pass away like the child's sandcastles built on
the beach that are washed away by the next tide! Nothing that man makes
for man will endure! Build on, you despots, but Time, a mightier king
than you, will pull down all that you put up! And the very revolutions
of society, as men change from one phase of thought to another,
overturn each other–and that which it seemed right to establish
yesterday, it seems necessary to overthrow tomorrow! It is not merely
empires that are thus cast down, but systems of religion and works that
have apparently been done for God have gone, too! And schools of
thought that ruled human minds have passed away–and now they are
not–all this teaches us that only that which is really done for
God–and that which is of God–will be established by God!

This leads me to say that I think the work we may pray God to establish
is, first, the work of soul-winning, the work of bringing sinners to
the Savior. And, next, the work of building up of a Church. And then
the work of testifying to the Truth as it is in Jesus–a work which is
sadly neglected in these degenerate times. The work of
soul-saving–when we have earnestly labored to bring sinners to faith
in Jesus and have cried to the eternal God for the quickening power of
His Holy Spirit to regenerate them–we may certainly pray God that that
work may be established. And then, when we have gathered Christians
together and God has given us Grace to put them in their places in His
Church–and the Holy Spirit has rested upon us so that the work under
our hands has been God's work as well as ours–we may certainly pray
that God would build up His own Church and establish it. And when we
have borne testimony to the Truth of God we may and we must very
earnestly pray that that Truth may be spread still more widely, that it
may not be forgotten by those who hear it, but may abide in their
hearts–and that it may come to the front and influence men and women
more than it has done up to now. Thus we may pray that our
witness-bearing for Jesus may be established.

I do not know what particular form of service may have fallen to the
lot of my dear Brothers and Sisters here, but in any case, we may pray
that what we have done for God may be established–only let us remember
that God will only establish work that is really and truly done for
Him. We can only pray to God, in the language of this prayer, to
establish " the work of our hands." There must be real work and it must
be two-handed work–we must throw our whole strength into it. I cannot
expect God to establish that work over which I have trifled. If I have
served God in such a way that it is palpable that I did not think the
work very important, I cannot ask Him to establish it. We have a great
deal of talking about the Gospel nowadays–we would have the Truth of
God spread everywhere if talking would do it–but it is "the work of
our hands" that is needed–real service, the putting out of our
strength, the using of all our vigor, wit, wisdom and the skill of the
craftsman who has been trained to some special form of handiwork. When
a man throws his whole soul into what he has done for the Lord, so that
he can claim that the work of his hands is real work done as unto the
Lord, then he may ask God to establish it! But it must be work that is
truly done, for I am afraid that there is a great deal talked about
that is never done. I am not quite sure about those 30 persons who were
said to have been converted the other night at a certain meeting. I
cannot always rely upon the information received from a certain Brother
who goes here and there and who is quite sure that so many were
converted one night, and so many another night. I shall be glad if it
is true, but I am not quite clear about it–there is a good deal of
"flash in the pan" about his work. I read, in certain newspapers, of
the work done by an earnest Brother well known to some of you–and I
tried to find some trace of it, but I could not find any sign of it a
few months afterwards. I am sorry to say that I have seen many churches
"revived" until there has been nothing left of them. I am very dubious
of a great deal that I have heard that seems to me like unholy
boasting. If the work was exactly as it was said to be, there ought to
have been a very great difference in certain towns from what there is
now! My dear Brother, if God has done a great work by you, don't you go
and brag about it! If it is necessary for you to sometimes tell what
the Lord has done in saving souls through your instrumentality, tell it
very discreetly, giving God all the Glory–not by blowing the trumpet
and shouting, "Come and see our zeal for the Lord of Hosts" which, I
believe, brings a blight and a blast upon everything that is done. God
the Holy Spirit is displeased if we make a boast of any work that is
done by us–and He will not establish any work of that sort. The real
bona fide "work of our hands" God will establish, but He will not
establish that which we try to puff into something important by pretty
paragraphs in the newspapers about what wonderful things have been
performed by us! The bare truth–plain transparent facts, we may
give–but anything like exaggeration should be loathed by the Christian
because it is untruthful! And it should be shunned by every wise man
because it leads to bitter disappointment. God will only establish work
that is really and truly done for Him.

And I believe, further, that no work is ever really established by God
unless it is founded upon the downright Truth of God. No doubt there is
a great deal of work which God acknowledges although all in it is not
His Truth. God prospered the work of Whitefield and the work of Wesley,
but did that prove the truth of all that Whitefield or Wesley preached?
No, but it proved that both of them had a measure of the Truth of God
in their preaching–and that measure of Truth God blessed–but God
would not establish anything that they taught in error. It may last for
a while and some of it has lasted, I am afraid, much longer than is
good for us, but sooner or later it will have to go. There was also
Luther–he taught a great deal of the Truth of God and that Truth will
last. But he also taught some error and the consequence is that there
is a great deal today in Lutheranism which is doing much mischief! That
will not last–it will have to go the way of all errors. That very
point which God will destroy because it is erroneous may be that for
which we contend with the greatest vigor! God will not establish any of
His servants' work which is not the Truth–and I am sure that every
faithful servant of His is glad of that. What a mercy it is, if I do
some mischief when I am trying to do my Master's work, that the good
work I do will last, but the bad I do, forgiven by His infinite mercy,
shall by His great wisdom be swept away before long! Error shall not
always remain to do mischief–it is the Truth of God that will abide.
Therefore I think that we ought never to seek to do good by stating
what is not true. There is a great deal of preaching of that which is
not the Truth of God in the hope that it will be the means of
converting people, but it is of no use. God will establish the
Truth–but if we keep back any Scriptural Doctrines, or if we cut the
corners off them in order to make them more acceptable to our
hearers–God will not establish our work! He is the God of Truth and He
will not set His seal to lies.

Hence, Beloved, it is so important that every man who works for God
should always seek to work in harmony with the Spirit of Truth. We have
known some whose guiding star has been "policy." One of these has said,
"Suppose I were to leave such-and-such a church which is, in part,
erroneous–what would become of my work?" Dear Brother, are you going
to do a wrong thing in the hope of saving your work? Have you
subscribed to that wicked maxim, "Let us do evil that good my come"?
After all, what have I to do with the consequences of right actions? Is
it not my business, if I have learned any Truth of God, to follow it
wherever it will lead me? It will not lead me into a morass, for it is
God's Light and it will only lead me into God's way! If Heaven could
only stand by a Christian telling a lie, in God's name let it fall, for
the ruin of it would be a less calamity than for a true man to turn
aside to falsehood! Stand upright and then shall you be as God would
have you to be. But the double-minded, the wavering, those that lean
first this way and then that, with craft trimming their sails to this
wind and then adjusting them to that, where will they go? And how can
we expect the God of Truth ever to establish such "policy" as that? Let
our work be true work done in the Truth of God and with truthful maxims
to guide us, for then we may bring it before God and say, "Establish
the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands."

Do not try to build too fast, as so many do, using untempered mortar
which will not hold their buildings together. Do not try to build
beyond or short of the foundation lines which Christ has laid down for
you. You would not employ a bricklayer who said to you, "I can get a
house up much more quickly than by ordinary methods. I don't need to
use the plumb line to see whether the walls are straight or not–I do
not trouble about how I put the bricks in the interior of the building.
I can leave a blank here and a gap there–nobody will know it. There is
no particular need why I should make the bricks fit, the one to the
other–as long as I put a good facing on the front, that will do." Such
a man as that may think that he has done well, but when the master
comes, he says, "All this has to be cleared away before I can do
anything. You have just been doing mischief and you have wasted all the
day in which you ought to have worked." So, young man, if you go to a
Church and want to see it quickly built up and begin to take
unconverted people into membership, or get up a great excitement and
receive a large number of persons without any careful examination, or
preach what is not sound Doctrine so that big worldly people in the
neighborhood come to hear you, and say, "See how fast he is building"–
when the Master comes, He will point out what mischief you have been
doing and He will send a better man to do the work! And that better
man's chief trouble will be to get rid of what this fast builder has
put up! Let none of us build like that, but may God give us the Grace
to build what He can establish, for it is not everything that He can
establish consistently with His own Character of Truth and uprightness.

II. I must not devote more time to that point, but must notice,
secondly, and briefly, THE MANNER IN WHICH GOD MAY ANSWER THE PRAYER,
"Establish the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our
hands."

Possibly, for the establishment of our work, it may be necessary for us
to die. Many a man is, perhaps unconsciously, hindering his own work.
And if the work is to be established, it needs somebody else to come
and do it. I may again use the very homely simile of a bricklayer. If
he were to say to his master, "Let me finish the house that I have
built," the answer would be, "I do not need you any longer, you have
done your part of the work–other workmen must finish the building."
So, sometimes, one good man is like the bricklayer and another good man
roofs in what he has built, or does all the work in the interior of the
house. There is a time for all of us to die for the good of our own
work and, often, the removal of an eminent Christian is not the loss to
the Church of Christ that we think it must be. Perhaps you have seen a
great oak tree which has covered quite a large area with its
widely-spreading branches–and when it has been cut down, you have all
regretted it–it seemed as if there would be a huge gap. But there were
a dozen little oaks that never would have come to anything because they
could not get sunshine or rain while they were overshadowed by that
great oak! And when that was cut down, all those others began to grow,
so that, instead of one tree, you had a dozen. And the removal of one
eminent Christian has often been the means of letting sunlight in to
somebody who was obscured before, but who now, in the Providence of
God, is made strong and useful. So it may be beneficial for some men to
die in order that their own work may be established. If it is so with
us, we may well be content to go to Heaven so that our prayers may be
answered!

But, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, there are some very sweet
thoughts connected with working for God. When a soul is saved by our
means, our work is established, for Satan himself cannot undo that
work! Death may take that Believer away, but that will be the
completion of the work. Now the wheat is in the heavenly garner and the
precious grain is laid up where no mildew can injure it. When the work
done by good men and women is the means of bringing sinners to Christ,
it is sure work. That is gold taken out of the mine which never can
rust. Soul-saving work is lasting work and there is this further
comfort–that every soul that is truly converted by God's Grace
propagates itself. Let one sinner be brought to Jesus and he will bring
another sinner. Light one candle and you may light 50 candles from it.
One person may be converted to God through your kind, faithful words
and earnest believing prayers–and that one person may bring another,
and that one another, and that one another, and that one another, and
so on in an endless chain of blessing to God's Glory!

Remember too, that if we work for God as God wishes us to do, it is
really God's work that we are doing. He who works truthfully, according
to the principles laid down in the Scriptures, has God working in him,
with him and by him–and all that is God's work will endure–you may
rest assured of that! What he has done shall not be undone. Divine
designs shall not be frustrated so that we may be sure that the work of
our hands, in so far as it is God's work, will be established. Besides,
God is alive to take care of the work that we do for Him. We die, but
He does not. We leave the work in His hands–we could not leave it in
better hands! He could have done the work without us if He had pleased,
but although He has been pleased to use us, for a while, He can carry
on the work without us when He takes us Home. If you have sought to
teach the Truth of God for Christ, who is the Truth, to bring souls to
Christ and to build up a Church for Christ, God will establish your
work. It is true that there are many enemies to the Truth–devils and
men of devilish spirit who would, if they could, tear down every stone
that you have built up–but God shall make the wrath of even these
enemies to praise Him and they shall become, perhaps unconsciously to
themselves, the means of establishing your work!

Meanwhile the wheels of Providence, [See Sermon #3114, Volume 54–GOD'S
PROVIDENCE.] which are full of eyes, are grinding on in their majestic
course on behalf of the work of God in which you are engaged! And all
those eyes are looking onward towards the prosperity of that great
cause which is so dear to your heart! Do not have any fear of failure,
Beloved–if you have really worked for God, you have worked for a cause
that cannot know defeat! It may not win tomorrow, or the next day, but
God can wait. Age comes upon us, but nothing shall ever make Him
decrepit. And through the course of ages, God can wait. I always feel,
with regard to the causes in which we are engaged, when people tell us
that we are in the minority, "Very well, we can be content to be in the
minority at present, for the majority will be with us one day. We
cannot doubt that when God is with us! Yes, and if we are alone with
God, God makes majority enough for all true hearts. But even counting
human heads, the Truth shall yet have the majority! God can wait–He
knows how to convince gainsayers and bring them round to His side. Our
little plans come to a end in a few years–we cannot afford to bring
them out unless they do–but God can let His capital lie idle for
thousands of years if it is necessary. He is so rich that it does not
impoverish Him and He will get His interest by-and-by!

God can wait and we must learn to wait, too. That work which produces
no visible results at present is none the less a true work and an
accepted work. If you teach the Truth and die–and that Truth appears
to be forgotten, you have not lived in vain, for that Truth will spring
up again in God's good time! They burnt Jerome of Prague. They took
John Huss and when they fastened him to the fatal stake, he said, "You
may burn the goose, today, but there shall come a swan that you cannot
burn"–and that prophecy was fulfilled in Luther, whose crest was a
swan. One good man dies and another comes. If there were not brave men
of Truth to go down sapping and mining, there would not be other men to
come afterwards to be acclaimed victors. In any great movement that
succeeds, it is not the last man who deserves the credit–it is the men
who went before at whom, perhaps, everybody howled. To be able to heed
the Truth when everybody tries to hiss you down and not to care for
their opposition, but to feel, "I have God's Truth and if all the
devils in Hell were against me, God is with me and I am in the majority
against them all," that is the spirit to have! And when we have that
spirit, we may pray, "Establish the work of our hands for us; yes,
establish the work of our hands," and it will be done!

It is now some hundreds of years ago that certain believers in Christ
were burnt to death upon the very spot on which this Tabernacle now
stands. Nearly everybody agreed that they ought to be burnt to death,
for they were called Anabaptists, though their belief was as nearly as
possible the same as ours. Catholics and Protestants alike said, "Burn
them, by all means, for this pestilent sect of Baptists is always
testifying against everybody else!" And burnt they were at the Butts at
Newington. Suppose they had said, out of the midst of the fire, "There
will one day stand, on this very spot, a great House of Prayer wherein
about six thousand Baptists shall meet at one time to hear the Gospel
preached for which we are being burnt to death"? Men would have laughed
them to scorn! But it has come true and if I were to say that the last
trace of infant sprinkling will be swept from off the earth and that
the last relic of Romanism, Episcopalianism, Mohammedanism, Buddhism
and heathenism will be swept away and only be remembered by men to be
loathed, I would no doubt be laughed at and disbelieved! But I would be
speaking only the Truth of God. All errors will die in due time. They
may live for a while and they may seem to conquer, but God will
assuredly pierce them to the heart with His two-edged sword! His
despised Truth must come to the front for as surely as God lives, so
must His Truth live, for it is part of Himself! Be on God's side, I
pray you, for that is the winning side! Be on God's side, old men, and
also young men, I charge you, as you shall appear before the Judgment
Seat of Christ–follow the Truth. Away with everything but the simple
Truth revealed in the Scriptures! Put everything else aside and God
will establish your work in the ages yet to come. Who knows how long
those ages may be? Christ may not come tomorrow–He may wait a while
but He will come one day. We

are to live expecting Him to return. Yet perhaps He may tarry longer
than we think–true work for Him will last until the trumpet of the
Resurrection shall sound! If the work is of God, it will certainly
endure.

I have no time to speak on our third point, WHAT WE OUGHT TO DO IF THIS
PRAYER OF MOSES IS OUR

PRAYER, but I will say just this. If we want God to establish our work,
we must take care not to pull it down ourselves by inconsistent living.
We must not imagine that we can establish it by any wrong methods. We
must leave God to establish it in His own way–and God often
establishes His Truth by that which seems likely to throw it down. If
we want God to establish our work, we must pray much about it and we
must do it as His work and do it for His Glory and do it according to
the rules which I have tried to lay down. If I leave only this one
thought with you, that the Christian is to follow the Lamb wherever He
goes and to be true to the light which God has given us in this sacred
Book, I shall feel that this evening has been well spent.

The Lord grant that all of us may be looking to His work for salvation
and then be doing His work with both our hands and all our heart and
praying God to establish it.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM142.

[See Sermon #2282, Volume 38–DAVID'S PRAYER IN THE CAVE.]

Verse 1. I cried unto the LORD with my voice; with my voice unto the
LORD did I make my supplication. Silent prayers are often true prayers,
but there are times when, in extremity of suffering, it is very helpful
to give expression to the soul's agony. I know some friends who can
never pray to their own comfort except they can hear their own voices,
and I believe that it is a good thing for the most of us to retire to
some private place where we cannot be heard by men and where we can
therefore freely use our voices in prayer. Very often the use of the
voice helps to keep the thoughts from wandering and also gives
intensity to the desires. You notice that David particularly mentions
here that he cried unto the Lord with his voice. No doubt many of his
prayers ascended to God from his heart without the medium of his voice,
but here the cry with his voice went with the desires of his heart.

2. I poured out my complaint before Him. That is a beautiful
expression, "I poured out my complaint"–just as you turn a pitcher
upside down and let all the contents run out! "I poured out my
complaint." We are generally ready enough to do that, only we usually
go to some friend, or to some enemy and pour out our complaint into his
ear. But what is the good of doing that? David took a far wiser course!
"I poured out my complaint before Hm."

2. I showed before Him my trouble. Uncovered it and set it all out in
order before Him. God could see it, yet David knew that it was his
place and his privilege to spread it all out before Him.

3. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then You knew my path.
Many of the Lord's saints know the meaning of that sentence, "My spirit
was overwhelmed within me." They are like a vessel that has sunk in the
sea and is completely covered by the waves. David was in such a plight
as that–he did not know his own whereabouts, but here was the
mercy–"Then You knew my path." It is much better that God should know
our path than that we should know it ourselves, for we may know it and
be driven to despair by our knowledge. But God's knowledge of it moves
Him to uphold us in it, or to deliver us out of it.

3, 4. In the way wherein I walked have they privately laid a snare
forme. I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that
would know m. "They were afraid to link themselves with me, lest, when
I went down like a drowning man, they should be dragged down with me."

4. Refuge failed me. "I could not run away–there was no place where I
could find shelter."

4. No man cared for my soul. "They were all hard, cold, ungrateful,
treacherous."

5. I cried unto You, O LORD. What a mercy that David was driven to do
that! If there had been any earthly refuge, he would have fled to it.
If there had been some human being at his right hand to help him,
probably he would have trusted him. If any man had cared for his soul,
perhaps he would have trusted in that person. But now that every
earthly door was shut, he was obliged to turn to his God.

5. I said, You are my refuge. "I can flee to You."

5. And my portion in the land of the living. With both hands he lays
hold of God and cries, "You are my refuge and my portion"–two glorious
"mys"! Well did Luther say that the very pith of the Gospel lies in the
little words, and it is the same with the Psalms.

6. 7. Attend unto my cry; for I am brought very low: deliver me from my
persecutors; for they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prisoi.
This is a suitable prayer for those who have troubled consciences, for
those who are shut up in Doubting Castle and cannot get out without
Divine assistance. "Bring my soul out of prison."

7. That I may praise Your name. As soon as you are set at liberty, you
ought at once to let your glad heart magnify the God who has broken
your bonds and brought you out of prison!

7. The righteous shall compass me about This is a beautiful idea. It
seems to imply that they would be so astonished to find him at liberty
that they would all come round him to hear his story! They would be so
glad to see the mourner rejoicing that they would all begin to enquire
what God had done for his soul.

7. For you shall deal bountifully with me. In the 13th Psalm, David
said, "I will sing unto the Lord because He has dealt bountifully with
me." But here he looks into the future and sings, "You shalldeal
bountifully with me."