Goodness Going Before
(No. 3329)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1912.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST
9, 1866.
"You prevent Him with the blessings of goodness." Psalm 21:3.
OUR text is one of many instances of the way in which words change
their meanings. The word, "prevent," as we now use it, has a very
different meaning from that which it had when our translators used it.
It now signifies to get before one, to stop up his path, to prevent his
going a certain way, just as the angel "prevented" Balaam, standing
with his sword drawn in his hand that he might not pass that way. This
is only the modern use of the word, but the real and ancient use of it
was simply, "to go before." "You go before Him with the blessings of
goodness." That is the real meaning of the word–and when we speak of,
"preventing Grace," we do not intend to describe the Grace that keeps
us from sin, but the Grace which goes before our actually believing in
Christ–"prevenient Grace," as we are accustomed to call it
theologically–Grace which comes to us while as yet we are not
conscious of its power, or have no desire towards it.
The meaning of the text, then, is not that Christ was prevented, or
hindered from doing anything that He wished to do, by God's goodness,
but that God's goodness went before, preceded, heralded Him. That word,
"preceded," has taken in our language in the present age the force and
meaning which the word, "prevent," had at the time of the translation
of our authorized version of the Bible, so that now we should say,
instead, "You precede Him, got before Him with the blessings of Your
goodness."
I shall take the text on this occasion, then, in two ways. First,
noticing its application to our Lord Jesus Christ, personally, and then
its application to Him mystically–that is to say, to every believing
soul that is truly in Him. First, then–
I. ITS APPLICATION TO OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST PERSONALLY. It is quite
certain that God did precede Him with the blessings of goodness. That
is to say, before our Lord Jesus Christ actually came into the world
and bowed His head in death, multitudes of spirits were given to Him as
His reward–that tens of thousands entered into God's Redemption by
virtue of an Atonement that was not as yet offered–and washed away
their sins in a fountain filled with blood which had not been literally
opened, but which was opened in the purpose of God and in its Divine
Operation from before the foundation of the world, for is He not
called, "the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world"?
Brothers and Sisters, see the wondrous power of the death of our
Savior! His blood not only cries from the ground when it is spilt, but
it cried all down the ages which preceded the actual blood-shedding! It
opened the gates of Heaven to sinners, it was sprinkled on the
consciences of Believers and made sinful men to be "accepted in the
Beloved" even before it had dropped in bloody sweat in Gethsemane, or
had been made to flow in streams under the lash in Gabbatha, or had
been poured forth from the five sacred wounds upon the Cross of
Calvary! "You precede Him with the blessings of goodness."
Just as some mighty conquerors, when they entered in triumph into Rome
not only had behind them the trophies of their victory, but before them
the streets were strewn with flowers and made sweet with the perfumes
rained upon them before they came, so was it with the Savior. Before He
came, the world was blessed by His coming! Before He, Himself,
appeared, I may say that death and Hell were defeated in anticipation.
Just as in our own land there is a brightness that covers the sky
before the sun has actually risen above the horizon, so was it with the
world–there was the Light of God in it before Christ came. It was
Light, however, which came from Him, for He is the Light of the World,
the Light that
lights every man that comes into the world–but it came before He,
Himself, appeared! In this verse, then, it must be said of King Jesus,
"You precede Him with the blessings of goodness."
And to ponder another phase of this same thought, our Lord Jesus Christ
was honored among the sons of men before He had performed His great
work.
We honor our Lord because He has redeemed us, and it is this that makes
them sing before the eternal Throne of God, "He has loved us, and
redeemed us unto God by His blood." But long before the Redemption
price had been paid, I doubt not that Christ was honored by the saints
in Heaven, for they knew that their coming there was on the same ground
and footing as the saints do now! I believe, therefore, that long
before He lived and died on earth, they cast their crowns at His feet
and said, "You are worthy." I have frequently heard it said that there
was no faith in Heaven, but I have never been able to receive that
idea. At any rate, there must have been faith in Heaven before Christ
died! The celestial spirits must have had a firm conviction that Christ
would come upon the earth and must have felt that their security
depended upon the Infallible oath and promise that in the fullness of
time He would offer Himself as a Sacrifice. Indeed, it seems to me that
there is still faith in Heaven as to that matter, for they have to
believe as we do in the Second Advent, in the resurrection of the dead
and in many wondrous promises which as yet have not been fulfilled.
Certainly, Beloved, we may say of the Master that His head was crowned
with the Glory of the crown of thorns before it was crowned with the
shame! And in this sense He was preceded with the blessings of
goodness. Abraham saw His day. He saw it and was glad–and in that
gladness of Abraham, Jesus Christ rejoiced! David sang of Him and
rested upon Him with such faith that in that faith the Savior found a
solace. All those who were able to look through that smoke of the types
and ceremonies–and to see the substance of the true Redemption–all
gave honor and Glory to Him, and this I say was before He had actually
won that Glory by His death–"You precede Him with the blessings of
goodness."
It seems to me, however, that the text need not be read literally, or
interpreted exactly according to its words, but the spirit of it is
more to be observed. That spirit appears to be this–that Christ does
not tardily obtain from His father the blessings of goodness, but they
come from God with freeness and Divine liberality, so that it may truly
be said, "You precede Him with the blessings of goodness." Take an
instance. Our Savior says, "I will not pray the Father for you, for the
Father Himself loves you, for you have loved Me." It was as if He put
it in these words and had said, "I should not have to wait pleading at
the Throne, for the Father, Himself, is so willing to give, that He
will precede me with the blessings of goodness." Ah, my dear Friends,
if it is a promise which belongs to us poor pleaders that before we
call, He will answer, and while we are speaking He will hear, do you
not think that this blessing emphatically belongs to the Great
Intercessor–the Lord Jesus–so that the Father precedes Him with "the
blessings of goodness"? We are accustomed to sing to Him as pleading
before the Eternal Throne, but we must forever banish from our minds
all idea of His needing to plead because God is unwilling to hear! No,
what the Son desires, the Father desires–that which He seeks at the
Divine Throne is flowing from that Throne–but His intercession it not
the causeof it, but the channelthrough which it comes to us! We know
that God's goodness was not caused by the death of Christ–
"'Twas not to make the Father's love Towards His people known That
Jesus, from the realms above, On His kind errand came! 'Twas not the
pangs that He endured, Nor all the woes He bore That God's eternal love
procured, For God was Love before!"
God loved His people with a love that surpassed all thought before the
Savior came. And now that that Savior pleads for us, His plea is not
the cause of the blessing, but the channel'through which the blessing
comes down to us "You precede Him with the blessings of goodness."
But then, Beloved, what a sweet thought this is, that wherever the
Savior comes, God's blessings come with Him, come behind Him, no, even
come before Him! Sometimes when a man walks, his shadow goes before
him. The shadow of Peter healed the sick, and so the shadow of the
Savior, when He is coming to a soul, begins to heal it. Why, I have
known some who have been blessed by the very shadow of Christ–I mean
that before they were actually converted, before the new heart and the
right spirit were given to them, the very shadow of Christ, at least
more or less, made them desire to
change their ways. The very shadow of Christ, I say, falling before
them had somewhat of a healing effect upon their souls even before they
had put their fingers into the print of the nails or thrust their hands
into His side! You, Brothers and Sisters, who have had communion with
Christ, will know that before you are actually conscious of the love of
Christ being shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy Spirit, you will
often have some notion of it, for a calm suddenly comes upon you before
He, Himself, comes.
He makes all things ready just as He did at the Passover, when He sent
His disciples to prepare the upper room. His Holy Spirit often comes to
make ready your heart to receive Him so that when He comes you may be
ready to open the door because He has been preceded by the "blessings
of goodness." Even before He comes, comes a blessing from Him! Beloved,
what must be the treasures that are in Him? What the troops of angelic
mercies that surround Him? What the heavenly blessings, what the waves
upon waves of celestial benedictions that must be in Himself, in His
own Person! If His garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia,
where did they get the sweet odor from but from Himself? They smell of
the cassia, but He is the cassia! "A bundle of myrrh is my Well-Beloved
unto me." As a cluster of camphor in the vineyards of Engedi, is He to
those who know His fragrance and delight in His sweetness! We may say
of Him, "You precede Him with the blessings of goodness," but as for
Himself, He is goodness itself! Do you not think that Bernard of
Clairvaux had the right idea when he penned that ancient hymn which has
been so sweetly translated–
"Jesus, the very thought of Thee With sweetness fills my breast! But
sweeter far Your face to see, And in Your Presence rest."
Then he goes on–
"To those who fall how kind You are! How good to those that seek! But
what to those who find? Ah, this, Nor tongue, nor pen can show! The
love of Jesus–what it is, None but His loved ones know." So, then, we
leave this point as it refers to our Lord, personally, reminding
ourselves that all the blessings of God's goodness are, "Yes, and Amen,
in Christ Jesus to the Glory of God," to us, and they all come to us
through Him. We now turn to our second point–
II. ITS APPLICATION TO OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST MYSTICALLY, that is, TO
EVERY BELIEVING SOUL IN HIM. We too, can say to God, "You have preceded
us with the blessings of goodness."
I want you to go back a little in your own histories. Just take out
your diaries and turn back to the book of His mercies. I want you to
think of prevenientProvidences. You may open your children's hymnbook
if you like, and you may sing–
"I thank the goodness and the Grace, Which on my birth have smiled That
in this land I passed my days, A happy English child. I was not born a
little slave, To labor in the sun, Wishing I were put in my grave, And
all my labor done. I was not born as thousands are, Where God was never
known And taught to pray a senseless prayer To blocks of wood and
stone. My God, I thank You who have planned, A better lot for me! And
placed me in this happy land, Where I can hear of Thee."
I remember hearing it once said that this was a hymn for little
Pharisees, but the man who said that did not know any better and was,
therefore, to be pitied. It is a hymn which a child may very gratefully
sing and which we may all join in when we thank God for the Providence
which caused us to be born where the Gospel is preached!
Let us be thankful, too, many of us, that we were born in households
where the name of Jesus was among the earliest sounds that caught our
ears! We were rocked in our cradles to the hymns of Zion and the name
of the Savior mingled with the very hush of the lullaby. With some
here, alas, it was oaths and curses and the first sounds they heard
were drunken brawls and profanity and blasphemy! If, dear Friends–as
many of you have been–you were born into Christian families, I want
you to think of it and then say, "You precede me with the blessings of
goodness." Then after your birth, but long before your conversion, what
wonderful Providences fell to our lot! Our conversion may even have
been brought about by the most trifling circumstances. When you were a
bound apprentice, young man, perhaps you were from an ungodly family
and it was a remarkable Providence which put you under a Christian
master! And you, my young Friend, when you first went out to service,
or as nursery-governess, it was a great mercy that you had a Christian
fellow servant, or met with someone to speak with you concerning the
things of God! How many chances, as we say, there were that you would
notgo to such a place and make them into strong helpers to your highest
good! And since then, just think over the preserving Providences that
you had even before you were converted. If you had died before
conversion, where would you have been? Think, too, of the Providences
which tended to bring you to the place where you live and where you
first heard the Word of God, and the Providences which prepared your
soul to be saved.
I have no doubt that sometimes a man who has been afflicted is more
likely to be blessed by a sermon than he would be if he had not been so
afflicted. And so, the loss of a child, or having a sick wife, or a
serious injury to property are all plows which God uses in Providence
to make a man ready to receive the Gospel. "I would never have seen,"
said one man, "if I had not lost my eyes." "Ah," said another, "I would
never have been able to run if I had not broken my legs." Our so-called
misfortunes are sometimes our greatest benedictions and are often
overruled by the Lord to be the means by which we are brought into the
way of being blessed–and where He may afterwards meet with us with the
blessings of goodness! You have been praying for prosperity, my Friend,
but God has not heard you. And you now say that God does not hear
prayer. You have asked for a certain position and He has not given it
to you, for it is a position, perhaps, in which you would be ruined.
Perhaps you are of such a spirit that if you were not afflicted in
Providence you would be running into all manner of mischief, but God
loves you well and, therefore, He will not let you rush blindly down to
destruction, but puts a clog upon you to keep you back! Let us think,
then, Brothers and Sisters, of the Providence which came to us before
our quickening.
But a wider field opens up to us when we come to think not merely of
preventing Providence, but of preventing Grace, the Grace that came to
us before we knew Christ at all. First, Brothers and Sisters, there was
the Grace of restraint which kept some of us back from committing sins
which might have placed us out of the world, out of society, or out of
the reach of the ordinary means of Grace. It is something to have been
kept from drunkenness–it will be a theme for perpetual gratitude if we
have been kept from the grosser vices by which the body, as well as the
soul, may become defiled and polluted! It is no small blessing to have
preserved in social life an untarnished reputation among men. Had such
a woman fallen, she might never have dared to go where the Gospel was
preached and was blessed to her. Had such a young man really put his
hand into the till when he was severely tempted to do it, he might have
lost his standing and never have been at Sunday school or in the Bible
class where God met with him. Perhaps you have been strongly tempted to
do a certain thing, but something came upon you–you did not know what
it was–which told you, you must not do it. Preventing Grace has come
and prevented you from knowing the depths of your carnal nature,
because Providence has put you into a position where you cannot do as
you would!
I do not doubt, Brothers and Sisters, that there is a Grace which
precedes quickening, a Grace for which theology has no name, which
prepares the soul for the reception of the Divine Word, which makes the
soul ready before the Living Seed comes. It is a kind of Grace, at any
rate, which educates the man, which makes him candid, casts out his
prejudice, makes him live honestly and keeps him from falling into
conceit. We know some who are unconverted whom we are very thankful to
know, for we have great hopes for them. If they have not received the
Truth of God in the love of it, yet they have a great love for the
Truth and do not, by their outward actions, lead others into sin. I
trust, in some cases at least,
that these are not mere Pharisees, but that of many of them we may
truly say, "You precede him with the blessings of goodness."
Now I shall leave this point and go on to remark that the text is true
of us who are Believers in the following senses–God has preceded us in
the order of merit If He had stopped until we deservedHis Grace, He
would never have come! We had never known salvation if He had waited
until we were worthy to receive it, for we are not worthy now! For
years some of us have been serving Him, either by preaching the Gospel
or in some other way, but we have no merit even now! Our poor merits
have broken their legs and cannot travel. No, our merit has been
waterlogged. It has gone down and foundered at sea. We have done with
all thought of our own merit! And yet let us recollect that when we
come to God, if we are never so guilty, He precedes us with the
blessings of goodness! Though our vileness would seem to be upon our
forehead, like the leprosy of old, yet we have access with boldness
unto this Grace whereby we stand and rejoice in hope of the Glory to be
revealed. Truly, "His ways are not as our ways, neither are His
thoughts as our thoughts, for so high as the heavens are above the
earth even so are His ways above our ways, and His thoughts above our
thoughts." I have not run an inch in the road of merit! But He has run
ten thousand leagues, for in the road of merit, He precedes us with the
blessings of His goodness!
And it is not only true in the sense of merit, but it is equally true
in the sense of desire. God did not wait to save us until we desired to
be saved. Let me not be misunderstood, however, in the assertion. Did
not Christ die to save us before we were born? Was not the Gospel sent
to us before we desired to hear it? Although we sat in the House of God
indifferent and did not care about it, yet it was ringing in our ears
all the while! And even if we had desires, yet where did those desires
come from? Were they our own desires, or were they given to us by
Christ?
Those of my Brothers who choose to take the alternative, may do so, but
as far as I am concerned, I must say–
"'Twas not that I did choose You, For, Lord, that could not be! This
heart would still refuse You, But You have chosen me!"
I cannot take any credit to myself for coming to Christ! I did come,
but I am persuaded it was a secret whisper of His love that attracted
my soul. And because of that text which Jeremiah gives us so blessedly,
"I have loved you with an everlasting love, and therefore with loving
kindness have I drawn you." Or as the poet sings–
"He drew me, and I followed on,
Charmed to obey the voice Divine." God, in this, preceded us with the
blessings of goodness! He taught us to desire when we neither willed
nor ran, and so fulfilled the text, "it is not of him that wills, nor
of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy."
Then, besides this, God also precedes us in endeavor. Brothers and
Sisters, you and I have been endeavoring to grow in Grace and,
notwithstanding the little progress we have made, yet, on the whole,
God has given us a great deal more than our exertions might have led us
to expect. When I look on the little zeal which some of us exhibit in
private prayer and upon the little diligence which some of us have in
studying the Word of God, it is amazing that we should have been
enabled to have so much joy and to have so much knowledge of Divine
things as we have! We have sown but little and reaped but little
compared with what we might have done, but our harvest has been of
infinitely greater value than the sowing might have led us to expect.
Christian, you are now more advanced in the Divine Life than you might
have been, or would have been on the mere ground of your own exertions!
You have not advanced far because you have strived with but little
earnestness, but you have had a far greater result than you might have
expected. Sometimes I have found in my own soul that I have longed to
have communion with Christ. I have thought that if I could but get a
whisper from Him, I would be content–and before I was aware, my soul
made me like the chariots of Amminadib! I heard no whisper fall on my
outward ears, but His voice to my soul was clear and sweet! I had no
vision of Christ granted to my bodily eyes, but before my faith, there
stood my Beloved near to me and my heart was charmed by His Presence
long before I thought I could ever reach such a state! Christ came and
seconded my endeavors, no, carried me far beyond all my endeavors!
When, on the other hand, I lay like a dull, dead log, and my spirit
seemed unable to move, suddenly the wheels of my soul began to whirl
until the axles grew hot with speed!
Certainly, too, the Lord has preceded us in the order of our experience
as to time. Mark tells us that when Christ fed the multitudes, they sat
down on the green grass and that there was much grass in that place.
God knew that Christ would need a banqueting hall and, therefore, He
made a carpet for Him long before He came there! The pasture must come
before the sheep, or else while the grass grows the flock will starve.
Always notice the forestalling of God's Providence and the forestalling
of God's Grace! He prepares before our actual necessity comes. Have you
not observed this in your trials? You had a great trouble a little
while ago. You had a death in the house–but a month or two before the
death came, you had an unusual season of joy and you did not know why.
Now you know it was sent to prepare you for your unexpected trouble! Or
perhaps it was another way–this last trouble of yours did not oppress
you as you thought it would because you had had another trouble before,
and another before that–so that you had, as it were, grown used to
troubles. You had been in the fire till you had become like a sword
blade that gets annealed in the heat! I am told that before army horses
are taken into battle, they are trained to bear the noise of guns
firing. Certainly God trains His own chargers and makes them bear all
the din and tumult of battle. He prepares us by small trials to bear
larger ones! He goes before us and leaves, thus, the blessings of
goodness to our souls. He is our great sympathetic Pioneer, going
before us through the thick forest and jungle of trial and trouble,
clearing a way for us through the brambles and thorns, and making
straight in the wilderness a highway for His people, being to us as He
was to Israel a cloudy fiery pillar and so, preceding us with the
blessings of goodness!
Yet again He sometimes precedes us in our labors. Before our
missionaries went to the South Seas, there was a peculiar preparation
of the minds of the people. They had a tradition or legend that white
men would come in ships and tell them of the true God. Their minds were
ready! They were looking for the vessels, and when they arrived, the
people were not only waiting, but willing to receive them! You, too,
will perhaps find–some of you who may be going to sail to Australia,
or change your position in life–that the people among whom you are
going are prepared for you and you are especially prepared as God's
witness for them! Believe that wherever you are going, that God who
knows all about you and who orders your footsteps, will prepare your
way before you! He will not let you go an unknown path, but one that
should be trodden by the foot of His love before it shall be trodden by
you. He will precede you with the blessings of goodness.
And, lastly, my text has a very sweet meaning when we think that God
will precede even our expectations. Some of us never expected the
Christian life to be as happy as it has been. We have had–oh, how
often!–some expectations about Heaven. I do not care to read many
books about Heaven. If most of the books that have ever been written
about Heaven were destroyed, I think we should know nearly as much as
we do now, with them! We know more about Heaven, I believe, from our
hymns than we do from our books. The hymn–
"Jerusalem, my happy home,
Name ever dear to me!
When shall my labors have an end
In joy, and peace, and thee!" has more of Heaven in it than half the
books that have been written upon the subject, or that other hymn–
"Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest,
Beneath your contemplation sink heart and voice oppressed!
We know not, oh we know not, what joys await us there–
What radiance of Glory, what bliss beyond compare." Now these hymns
take us up even into the pearly-gated city itself, and sometimes when
we have been singing–
"On Jordan's stormy bank I stand,
And cast a wistful eye
To Canaan's fair and happy land,
Where my possessions lie."
We have almost seen the–
"Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood, Arrayed in living green,"
and we have been ready to ask to go to be with our Savior, with whom we
shall dwell forever! We expect to meet a blessed company of the saints
there. We expect to have wondrous nearness to the Lord Jesus Christ. We
are expecting, everyone
of us, to have a bright crown. We are expecting to have perfect freedom
from every ill, from pain, from sin and from sorrow! And to have what
the Apostle calls "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."
We are expecting to see such a place as imagination never pictured! To
hear such music as has never ravished mortal ear! We are expecting to
drink from such pure streams as never flowed from Lebanon's untrodden
snows! We expect something beyond what eye, or ear, or heart can teach
us! Well, Brothers and Sisters, when we get there we shall find, any of
us who have had great thoughts about Heaven, that our minds were too
narrow and our thoughts too contracted! We shall be like the Queen of
Sheba when she said, "I heard a good report in my own land, but the
half has not been told me." We shall not be able to turn to the old
Book and say, "Ah, God, You have not fulfilled Your promise! I do not
find this state of Glory so wondrous as I had been led to think it
was." No, Beloved, but we shall have to say even there, "You precede my
imagination, my expectancy with the blessings of goodness," and we
shall have to add–
"Imagination's utmost stretch
In wonder dies away!" I like that verse which our Friends sometimes
sing which says that we shall–
"Sing with rapture and surprise
His loving kindness in the skies," for so I doubt not, for a long time,
at any rate, in Heaven, surprise will be one of the most blessed of our
emotions– surprise to think that Heaven should be such as it is, that
Christ should be so glorious and that we should be permitted to partake
of His Glory! We shall feel that God has exceeded His own word and
outrun His own promise, and that it was not in human speech, even with
God, Himself, using it, to convey to the human mind any adequate idea
of this which surpasses all comprehension and imagination–the joys
which God has for those who love Him!
My only regret in thinking on such a text as this is that some of you
have no part in it. Oh, Friends, may God give you Grace to look to Him!
How can you live on the brink of a stream and never think of the
fountain? How can you receive daily mercies and yet so cruelly treat
your God who gives you everything? Worse than the ox treats its owner,
for the ox knows his owner and the donkey its master's crib, but you do
not know, you do not consider!
Ah, He has indeed preceded you with the blessings of His goodness in
keeping you alive, in permitting you to hear the Gospel and, above all,
in this one respect, that this very night He invites you to turn to
Him! The Father's heart beats towards you and He says to you, "My
erring one, come to Me, come to Me! He that comes to Me I will in no
wise cast out. Turn you, turn you, why will you die?"–
"Return, O wanderer, to your home!
Your Father calls for you.
No longer now an exile roam
In guilt and misery.
Return, return!"
If you come to Him, there shall be no rejection, but a warm reception,
and you shall be blessed forever in Jesus Christ!
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 138:1-6.
A Psalm of David.
Verse 1.1 will praise You with my whole heart before the gods will I
sing praise unto You. Before the heathen gods, however highly
exalted–I will sing Your praises as in their very teeth! And the
magistrates and princes and kings who think themselves gods on earth–I
will not fear them or be silenced by them!
2. I will worship toward YourHoly Temple, andpraise Yourname for Your
loving kindness and for Your truth: for You have magnified Your Word
above all Your name. For You were far more glorious in Revelation than
in Creation– Your promise did greatly transcend every other display of
Yourself above all we have ever known or conceived of You! You have
magnified Yourself by Your Covenant of Grace and Your works of Grace
toward Your people. For this worship and praise are forever due!
3. In the day when I cried, You answered me, and strengthened me with
strength in my soul. That is a thing to make a man sing–when in the
day of trouble God comes to him, hears his prayer and works his
deliverance when none else can help! God's rescues demand our grateful
songs–His deliverances our new anthems of exultant praise!
4. All the kings of the earth shall praise You, O LORD, when they hear
the words of Your mouth. When Your Gospel is preached and they know it,
they shall count it their honor to honor You. It is ignorance of its
Glory and Grace that makes silence possible, but to hear it as God's
Word of caring love is to be compelled to extol!
5. Yes, they shall sing in the ways of the Lord: for great is the Glory
of the LORD. David was a king and he danced before the Ark. And he
anticipated the time when other kings should not be ashamed of
exuberant rejoicing in the King of kings. Oh, that it were come! May
the Lord hasten it in His own time, and the choral hosts of Heaven be
swelled by the presence of the crowned monarchs of earth!
6. Though the LORD is high, yet has He respect unto the lowly. That is
a sweet text! One who was a scoffer met a humble child of God one
morning and he said to him, "Tell me, is Your God a great God or a
little God," and the poor man said, "Sir, He is both, for, though He is
so great that the Heaven of heavens cannot contain Him, yet He makes
Himself so little that He condescends to dwell in my poor heart." Ah,
it was sweetly said. He who fills the heavens, no, fills all things,
will be our abiding Guest and Friend if we will but welcome Him.
6. But the proud He knows afar off. He has enough of them. He does not
want them to come near Him. When they are miles away He knows all about
them. They make a fair show, but He sees that it is all a fable and
pretence. He knows them–afar off!