God's King Magnified
(No. 3333)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1912.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST
2, 1866.
"His enemies will I clothe with shame: but upon Himself shall His crown
flourish." Psalm 132:18.
THE Lord Jesus Christ communicates much to men with whom He comes in
contact and has a mighty influence upon them. He is blessed and He is
made a blessing. To those who love Him, Jesus Christ becomes a savor of
life unto life. To those who are rebellious and continue to despise
Him, He becomes a savor of death unto death. Our Savior, then, has an
influence upon all those with whom He comes in contact and association.
If I compare His Human Nature with clay, I must compare it with the
scented clay which yields a perfume on all sides. You cannot hear of
Jesus Christ without either getting a blessing or involving the
responsibility of rejecting a blessing. I repeat it–He becomes a
blessing to all those who are round about Him, or else, if that
blessing is not received, it brings guilt upon the souls of those who
reject Him. He is either the stone on which we build our hope and our
trust, or else He becomes a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to
those who stumble at His Word, being disobedient.
You see the text teaches very definitely this Truth of God, for it not
only speaks of Christ, Himself, but of what will become of those who
are His enemies. No doubt we may also very properly draw from the text
what shall become of His friends, for that same hand which is sure to
clothe His enemies with confusion, will be certain yet to clothe His
friends with honor and with glory. He who uses the left hand so
powerfully to smite His foes, uses His right hand with equal force to
bless His friends.
The text, therefore, divides itself very easily and naturally into the
two great declarations. We see the clothing of the enemies of the Lord
Jesus Christ with shame, but then, again, the crowning of the Lord with
a flourishing diadem of eternal Glory. Let us look, then, at–
I. THE ENEMIES OF CHRIST WHOM GOD SAYS HE WILL CLOTHE WITH SHAME.
Who are these enemies of Christ? In the days of His flesh, you could
very easily have discovered them. Some slandered Him, calling Him
friend of sinners, gluttonous and a wine-bibber, having a devil and
even being a blasphemer. Some took up stones to kill Him. Some cried,
"Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" And others bribed the multitude that they
might thus hound Him to His shameful and cruel death. Enemies He had on
all sides! But there are many who think today that had they lived in
that age they would have been numbered with His friends. If it is so,
is it not strange that they are not among His friends now? If they
would have behaved so well 1800 years ago, it is amazing they should
behave so badly now. Our belief is–and the common actions of mankind
justify it–that had the sinners of this present day who pretend to
have so much affection for the Person of Christ, lived in that age,
they, too, alas, would have helped to crucify the Lord of Life and
Glory, for they do, in effect, crucify Him now!
Who are His enemies, then, today? We will not think about those Scribes
and Pharisees, and so on, who are all dead and gone, but let us ask who
are His enemies NOW? Of course, everybody says that open sinners are
the enemies of Christ Do they not, by their actions, say, "we will not
have this Man to reign over us?" His Book they will not read. His day
of rest they do not care to keep. To the messages of His ministers they
will not listen. His word, "Believe and live," they cast behind their
backs–and having done this, they destroy their own souls and do
everything that must grieve His Holy Spirit. Are there any such here,
now–lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God–some who would even
use the word of blasphemy and indulge in the sins of the flesh? We are
not harsh if we put you down among the enemies of Christ! You are
evidently not with Him and He, Himself, has said, "He that is not with
Me is against Me." You are not on the Lord's side–there can be no
"betweenites"–you are on the side of His enemies! He Himself declares
that it must be so. "If God is God," said Elijah, "serve Him, but if
Baal is God, serve him." You do in effect say, "The world is my
god–myself, my
own soul, my own pleasures, my own opinions–these are my gods! As for
Jehovah and His Christ, I know nothing concerning Them." Well, you must
be put among His enemies and I would ask you, then, just to take this
text and taste the bitterness of it. And I pray that may save you from
knowing its bitterness in another world! "His enemies will I clothe
with shame."
But Christ has other enemies, namely, those who are outwardly moral and
excellent in conversation and conduct, but who deny the Lord Jesus
Christ. There are some very excellent people in all other respects who
doubt His Deity, or say they do–who will even say hard things of Him
as the Son of God. They say they much revere His Character as a Man,
and conceive Him to be, in fact, a very model of what manhood should
be, but they will not accept Him in His true Character as the anointed
Son of God and the Savior of the world! Now, the Lord Jesus Christ will
most certainly consider such to be His enemies. It is no use for a man
to say concerning a monarch, "I have a great respect for the monarch in
his private character. I would not do anything to injure him–I would
even hold him up to respect in his private character–but as a king I
will never yield him loyal homage, I will never obey him. Indeed, I
will do all I can to pluck the crown from off his head." Could the king
do otherwise than reckon such a person to be his enemy? It would be in
vain for the man to say, "I am privately your friend." The king would
say, "Oh, but I esteem my crown to be as precious as my life." So the
Lord Jesus Christ cannot have the crown-rights of His true Deity
touched. He "counts it not robbery to be equal with God," and He is
called, "God Over All, Blessed Forevermore." He who trod the waves of
Galilee's Lake, whose voice Death heard and gave up its prey–He who
opened the gates of Paradise to the dying robber–claims to be none
other than equal with the Eternal Father, and like He, "God Over All."
And it is in vain for you to say you respect His Character as a Man, if
you do not accept Him in His Deity and accept Him in His official
Character as the Savior of sinners! You cannot be otherwise than
numbered among His enemies! Well, now, if this should seem to be
uncharitable, let me say that I cannot help telling you what I solemnly
believe to be the truth and I must, therefore, my Friend, leave with
you this text, "His enemies will I clothe with shame."
But again, there are other persons who are sound enough in their
doctrinal views concerning Christ and who are excellent in their moral
character, too, but who are trusting in themselves that they are
righteous. You will, perhaps, be startled when I class you among the
enemies of Christ! My dear Friend, Christ is the King of Grace. He is
in this world to vindicate the plan of salvation by Grace. You, you
see, instead of accepting this plan of salvation by Grace, set up the
opposite principle of salvation by merit. Merit is anti-Christ! The
very essence of Popery, that which is so hateful in it to us and, we
believe, so obnoxious to the Lord, is not so much its outward rites and
ceremonies as its inward spirit of setting up human merit! There are
two merits–your own merit and the merit of Christ. If you trust your
own merit, you do in fact proclaim that you are opposed to Christ's way
of saving by His merits! Christ claims to be the Author and Finisher of
our faith, the Alpha and the Omega, but if you come in and say, "No, I
will do this myself–my moral character, my private devotions, my
outward attendance at the House of God will serve me in good place as a
righteousness," you touch Christ in His most tender point, for He
claims among all His Glories this first and chief, that He is the
Savior of sinners–and if you say that you can do without Him and if
you profess to be your own savior–you shall most certainly, however
excellent your life may be, be numbered with His enemies! Oh, it will
be a sad case for you respectable people, you good, excellent people,
when this text shall be fulfilled in you, "His enemies will I clothe
with shame."
There is one other class I would gladly speak to–and I think they are
the worst of all–those who acknowledge that salvation is by Grace and
profess to be saved by the blood and righteousness of Christ, who unite
themselves with Christ's Church, but whose lives are so unhallowed as
to dishonor Him. You know how the Apostle, half-choked with his sobs as
he speaks, says as he gazes upon such, "There are some of whom I have
told you often, and now tell you even with weeping, that they are the
enemies of the Cross of Christ." What a terribly sad reflection! A
member of a Christian Church and yet an enemy of the Cross of Christ? I
can suggest no better question for each and all of us than this, "Lord
is it, I? Lord, is it I?" Why may it not be you? The preacher may ask
himself why may it not be he? But whoever it may be among us, this is
certain–our Church standing will, so far from excusing us, only
increase our guilt–and so it shall be tragically and sadly true, "His
enemies will I clothe with shame." They may clothe themselves with the
garments of an outward profession and make broad their phylacteries,
but they shall one day be stripped and their hypocrisy shall be
discovered! "His enemies will I clothe with shame."
Having thus given you, then, a brief list of who are Christ's enemies
and being anxious that you should ask yourselves, my dear Hearers,
whether you are among them, I want now to call your attention to the
particular phraseology of the text in order to make out what is meant
by this being clothed with shame. Do you see it? Shame! Nothing makes a
man feel so cowardly and so mean as shame. There have been persons who
would sooner die than be put to shame. Many a man would have been able
to burn at the stake who has not been able to face public shame. It is
a thing which cuts man's nature to the very quick! Now, if you and I
have done anything that makes us ashamed, do you know what we do? Why,
we put our shame into the hollow of our hand and we keep it there. We
do not tell our wife, our children, our neighbors–and if we can, we go
and hide our shame and put it away! Now God seems to say to you and to
me, "You have been hiding that shame of yours. You have been wearing
the garb of an outward righteousness. Come here! You must put this
shame on." "No, Lord," you say, "but I want to hide it." "No," He says,
"you shall put it where it must be seen– where nobody shall be able to
see you without seeing it! I will clothe you with it–it shall be all
over you. You shall put it on as your outward array. You shall be
wrapped in it–you shall sleep in it, awake in it and walk abroad in
it–you shall be clothed with shame!" And it strikes me that the text
may also bear this meaning–that when God comes to fulfill this threat,
shame will be the sinner's only garment. He had the garment of a
profession once–that is to be torn sharply from him and he is to be
arrayed only with his scarlet, blushing shame! Once his filthy rags,
bad as they were in the sight of God, gave him a sort of covering, but
now they shall all be stripped from him and he will have nothing
remaining but his shame. Shame shall be his garb from head to foot,
nothing but shame in which to wrap himself! When shame only comes into
the cheek, it turns it crimson, but here the man or woman shall be
shame all over and this shame shall be conspicuous to all onlookers,
for he or she shall be clothed with it as with a robe, from head to
foot! This seems to be the unmistakable meaning of the text. Now, when
does this come true? And how is it true that God's enemies are clothed
with shame?
Well, in the first place, this threat is sometimes very graciously
turned into a promise. I cannot wish for some of you a better wish than
that you may, in the first sense in which I am going to explain it, be
clothed with shame, for when the Lord comes to a soul and says to it
with a voice of love, "You have been My enemy, but I have loved you
with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn
you," then the soul is covered with shame. It cries out, "How could I
be an enemy to so dear and true a Friend?" I recollect one being
converted to God by reading the hymn–
"Jesus, lover of my soul."
"Oh," said the man, "is He the lover of mysoul? Then how is it that I
have been an enemy to Him? Did He love mewhen on the tree of shame and
death? Did He love me so as to pour out His heart's blood to redeem me?
How can I have lived without honoring Him?" And the man was clothed
with shame! Some of us have felt what it is to be thus clothed, so that
when we went into the House of God we felt almost ashamed to sit with
God's people. They did not know anything about what we were feeling,
but we thought they did. And when we went to pray, we felt ashamed to
pray, as though our sins would hide God from us and we could not expect
to obtain a blessing. We were so clothed with shame that we could not
get it away from our eyes! Our whole soul seemed covered with it. No
pride, no self-righteousness was left. We could not say, "Lord, I thank
You I am not as other men," but we began to cry, "God be merciful to
me, a sinner!" Oh, it is a mercy when, in a gracious sense, the soul is
thus covered with shame–a hallowed shame on account of its many sins!
I would pray that this terrible text may be fulfilled in the sweetest
possible manner by your being covered with shame for sin!
But alas, dear Friends, it bears on its front a very much more terrible
meaning than this. There aresomepersons who are clothed with shame in
this world through disappointment. There are some who think they should
put an end to Christianity. They get a notion into their heads, for
instance, that if the wife is converted, they will break her of it, or
if a child shows some signs of Divine Grace, the man says, "I will
laugh it out of him." Or perhaps they do it on a large scale. Like
Voltaire, they boast that within another 20 years there will not be a
Christian to be found anywhere. They say that the thing is absurd and
is dying out. It is very strange that the very press with which
Voltaire printed his works is now used in Geneva to print the
Bible–and that while Voltaire, himself, is only remembered to be
despised, Christianity seems never to have been so strong as it is at
the present day! If all those men who have risen up, one after the
other, to injure Christ's Kingdom, could just now be called back to
life and see what has happened, they would look at their predictions
and be clothed with shame to see how mistaken they have all been! Their
theories have been exploded. They had their little day and have died
out and are generally utterly forgotten. And so will all theories that
oppose Christ today die out–and their systems of denial will be all
clothed with shame!
In the case of those persecutors who have tried to drive religion out
of individuals, they have always been disappointed. They have not
succeeded, for the poor, trampled down one has borne it all with
supernatural patience and triumphed by endurance–for the Grace of God
is not to be expelled from the heart! You know what stout old Martin
Luther said. He declared that Grace was like leaven–you put it into
the meal and then you may boil it or bake it, fry it
or freeze it–but you can never get out the leaven! Once the meal is
leavened, nothing can unleaven it. And so is it with the Grace of God!
You may do what you will with the man who possesses it. Put him into a
mortar and pound him with a pestle until there are not two atoms of him
left together–and yet the immortal spirit leaving the anatomy and all
its weaknesses behind it, would but the more clearly lay hold on Christ
and more fully rejoice in Him! And so, when the disappointment which
this brings, comes upon them, then Christ's enemies are clothed with
shame!
Sometimes, again, in this world the enemies of Christ are clothed with
the shame of remorse. Look at Judas Iscariot when he took the pieces of
money and threw them down in the treasury and went out and hanged
himself. There was the covering of shame. And there have been such men
since, who, in life and in death, have been clothed with shame because
they have apostatized from the faith and, after making a profession,
have, Demas-like, turned back again to the world! It is a blessed thing
if that shame leads them to true repentance, but in many cases it is
only a repentance that comes from a fear of punishment and is not the
work of the Grace of God! Oh, how many have gone down to Hell with its
fire burning in their hearts before they got there, feeling the guilt
of sin upon them even before God began to handle them, having a
foretaste of the flames, a foretaste of that eternal flame-shower which
must descend upon their heads! God grant, dear Hearers, that not one of
you may know what it is to be clothed with the shame of remorse!
But the most terrible fulfillment of my text is left for another world.
Then shall Christ's enemies be clothed with shame! Servants of Satan,
here is your livery! Do you say you will not put it on? Listen–"His
enemies will I clothe with shame." Godwill put it on you! You would not
wear the robe of righteousness–you shall not be able to decline to
wear the robe of shame! God, Himself, stands here, as it were, and
declares that He will dress His creature in the proper garment for him
to wear. You must put it on, there is no escape! You must wear it. Here
is your eternal convict's dress and, convicted of being an enemy of
God, you must wear it–of all dresses the most terrible! To be clothed
with pain would be far less dreadful than to be clothed with shame. I
would sooner at any time feel the acute pain that is possible in the
body than feel shame, for a prick of the conscience is worse than the
thrust of the surgeon's knife! To go crawling about God's world not
able to look one's fellow creatures in the face? Why, I would sooner
die! And then, in the next world, to be so ashamed that you will not be
able to look even the devil in the face, because he never had a day of
grace as you have had–never a Savior preached to him, never made any
pretence of being converted to God and, therefore, though an enemy of
Christ, has no such cause of shame as you will have! Clothed with
shame! Why, they shall cry to the rocks to hide them and to the hills
to cover them, for when a man is ashamed, he wants to get out of
everybody's way and, most of all, out of his own! And you will be so
ashamed that you, yourselves, will be ashamed of yourselves! You will
be like the man of whom we read that when the king said to him, "How
came you in here, not having a wedding garment?" He was speechless. Why
speechless? Shame made his tongue refuse to do its office–and so will
shame do with you. You will be ashamed.
Shall I tell you why, when you hear of the Cross of Christ and yet
reject it, you will be ashamed? You will be ashamed then of your sins.
You are not able, perhaps, to boast of them, now, but you will be
ashamed to think, then, that they shall be published. Men are afraid,
now, to have some things put in the newspaper, but what will it be when
God will gazette your private sins, when He shall publish to the whole
assembled world of every age, to Heaven, earth and Hell, the sins which
you have committed–when they shall be read out so that all shall hear
and all your filth be discovered? What shame will this revelation of
secret things produce! And what will be your shame when the
hypocritical profession which you have made shall also be laid bare?
Then shall those who were open sinners laugh you to scorn and say of
you, as the Prophet pictures the kings saying of the great monarch of
Babylon, "Have you become like one of us? Have you also become weak as
we, and covered with shame?" Most of all, perhaps, will you be ashamed
when you see the very people you despised reigning in triumph–when you
see the saints whom you laughed at sitting at the right hand of the
Judge–those fools who disdain this world's pleasures now entering into
everlasting pleasure! And you, the wise man, who took the bird in the
hand and would not wait for the bird in the bush–now rewarded for it
all by receiving the very worst things, inasmuch as you had your best
things, first, and must now have your worst things, last!
It is a sad, sad text I have to preach upon. I would to God it would go
into your souls that you may turn to the King and be no more His
enemies! God, Himself, has said it–it is no word of mine, "His enemies
will I clothe with shame." He Himself, who can do it, who can make you
ashamed, however proud you are–who knows how to put His hand inside
your heart and touch the strings, thereof, and loosen them, so that
your pride can no longer help you to bronze it out with Him–He has
said it, "His enemies will I cloth with shame." I pray you, "Kiss the
Son lest He be angry, and you perish from the way, when His wrath is
kindled but a little: blessed are all they that put their trust in
Him."
Now, we shall need a little time to take the second part of our
subject–"Upon Himself shall His crown flourish." We are here very
clearly taught that–
II. THE SAVIOR WILL WEAR A CROWN, THAT THE CROWN WILL FLOURISH, THAT IT
WILL FLOURISH UPON HIM!
Brothers and Sisters, I need not detain you long by mentioning to you
the crowns which Jesus wears. He has the royal crown of the kingdoms of
Heaven, earth and Hell, for "the government is upon His shoulder, and
His name shall be called Wonderful, The Counselor, The Mighty God, The
Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."
He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords! But He has a crown which
He especially now wears as Head of the Church and in this He takes
great delight–the crown which is called in the matchless song, "The
crown wherewith His mother crowned Him in the day of His espousals."
That is the crown which the Church has put upon Him and which she still
delights to put upon His head! Do you not all delight to crown the
Savior, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ? What song wakes up your
heart more completely than the one–
"All hail the power of Jesus' name! Let angels prostrate fall! Bring
forth the royal diadem, And crown Him Lord of All!" Have we not
sometimes seemed to make these walls echo again and again as we sang–
"Crown Him, crown Him Crowns become the Victor's brow"? I hope He has a
crown from each of our hearts and we wait for the day when we shall be
taken up to cast our crowns at His feet, and to ascribe unto Him honor
and Glory, and dominion and power forever and ever! Crowned once with
thorns for us, He ought now to be crowned with the royal diadem!
Everyone of us must seek to spend and to be spent that we may add to
the luster of that tiara, that He may be exalted above all
principalities and powers in the estimation of men–and that He may
have a Kingdom in all men's hearts!
Christ is thus said to have a crown and it is added that His crown
shall flourish. There are some crowns that are gradually diminishing in
luster. The monarchy is growing weaker and weaker and still more
effeteand, by-and-by, shall be extinct, "but upon Himself shall His
crown flourish." When does a crown flourish? You understand that the
very term is metaphorical. Some think that to speak of a crown
flourishing is to liken the king to an antlered stag whose horns
flourish. Others suppose it to be an allusion to the primitive form of
crowns, as Doddridge sings–
"Fair garments of immortal joy Shall bloom on every head."
It is a metaphor expressive ofjoy, comfort, tranquility in a kingdom.
Now, when does a crown flourish? Does it not flourish when the
sovereign is beloved by his subjects?The foundations of a throne are
always to be found in the love of the people. Christ's crown, then,
indeed, flourishes, for the upright love Him! His name is as ointment
poured forth! Therefore the virgins love Him. We can truly sing–
"Jesus, the very thought of You With sweetness fills my breast." We are
not slaves who scarcely even talk of ourselves as being His subjects,
for He has called us friends and not servants, seeing that His secret
is with us. He is dear to our souls and His crown thus flourishes.
A crown flourishes when the power of the monarch is victorious in war
and acknowledged in peace. It is so with Christ. Oh, that it were more
publicly so! We are praying for revivals and may God send them! May
this time of God's visitation of London in judgment be attended with a
visitation in mercy! And oh, that Jesus Christ's crown may flourish in
the conquest of innumerable hearts who shall add fresh territories to
the dominion of the Savior–for a crown flourishes when a king's
subjects increase and His numbers are multiplied.
It shall be so with Christ. Until the sun has gone down with age and
the moon has quenched her nightly lamp and every star has, like a
withered fig leaf, fallen from the sky, Christ's Kingdom shall go on
and on! First as a brook, it seemed to leap down Calvary's side. It has
swollen to a river now. Still it deepens and widens. It becomes an
ocean which shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea! Christ
rose and it was twilight. Now He begins to climb the steep. And the day
is coming and the full noontide draws near when He shall flood the
whole earth with the splendor of His Light and His Glory–and when it
shall be found that its going forth is from one end of the heavens to
the other! May the
long-expected day fully come! May the realms of woe, of sin and death
be filled with this great Light of God! His crown shall flourish!
It is remarkable that while all sorts of dynasties have come and gone,
the dynasty of Christ still exists! How many mighty monarchs have
climbed, with great slaughter, to their thrones–but where are they
now? Rome has gone, but the Man of Nazareth is still King! And, besides
Rome, how many empires have arisen? Earth has been shaken with the
tramping of their legions, but where are their thrones and the men who
filled them? They are gone, gone to the dust from which they came! But
the name of Jesus shall endure forever–men shall always be blessed in
Him and all generations shall call Him blessed! The day shall come,
unless the Lord, Himself, appears, when the moss shall grow in the
halls of the greatest kings, when the markets of commerce shall have
shifted from their places. Perhaps the day may come when this modern
Babylon, this emporium of all the riches of the earth, shall cease from
her glory. Perhaps to western climes–for everything moves
westward–the greatness may yet go. We do not know. We must not expect
that our island shall abide forever Mistress of the Sea any more than
any other. Venice wedded the Adriatic in her golden days, but now her
canals have heard for many a day the clanking of the prisoner's chains
and long must it be before her glory can ever return. It may be so with
England in days to come. But Zion shall never cease to be the city of
the great King! "Those eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation."
There is a river that shall not cease to flow, whereon shall go no
galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby, but there
the glorious Lord shall be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams.
Your Throne, O God, is forever and ever! A scepter of righteousness is
Your scepter. You love righteousness and hate wickedness and,
therefore, God, even Your God, has anointed You with the oil of
gladness above Your fellows." This, then, is the crown that flourishes!
But do notice, once more, and then we have done, it is said, "But upon
Hmselfshall His crown flourish." Does it mean that the crown shall
always be seen to have reference to Himself? Does it also mean that it
shall be by His own power and His own Person that He shall sustain the
dignity of His crown? Sometimes the crowns of monarchs seem to flourish
upon the heads of their prime ministers or privy councilors. It seems
as if the empire flourishes because of some admirable person at its
back. But it is not so with Christ. " Upon Himself,shall His crown
flourish." He won it! He wears it. He sustains it. He throws down the
gauntlet to every foe who would rob Him of it! Now, this seems to say
to us when we preach His Gospel, we must preach Christ, because it is
upon Truths of God concerning Him that His crown shall flourish! If we
do not, therefore, preach up Christ, Himself. If He is not the great
Subject of our discourse. If He is not held up manifestly crucified
among the people, we have kept back the mightiest theme! It is upon
Himself that His crown must flourish! Brothers, suppose we give
ourselves up to the preaching of Doctrine, only? What comes of it?
Well, those persons who always delight in Doctrines may be, and some of
them are, the very best of people, but, as a rule, there is bitterness
of spirit engendered by it from which may the Lord deliver us. Even the
constant preaching up of experience is pretty sure to bring such people
into spiritual bondage and to make them rather care to grovel in the
dust than to mount up towards the sun. But preach Christ! Make Him
first and make Him last and there will be souls won and saints
comforted, for, "upon Himself shall His crown flourish."
What is needed in the midst of His Church, then, is that the King
Himself should appear in His Glory! That He should once again make bare
His arm and use that mighty sword of His which cuts through coats of
mail and pierces to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, joints and
marrow! And when He comes, oh, when He comes, His crown, indeed,
flourishes! We must pray for Him to be constantly with us by His
Spirit. We must watch, also, for His personal Advent, for He whom the
disciples saw go up to Heaven shall in like manner appear again. Then
the Glory! Then the manifestation of the hidden ones! Then the
declaration of the love of God towards those who have been under
reproach and under adversity! Be of good courage, Brothers and Sisters,
for He comes, He comes and then, "upon Himself shall His crown
flourish!"
I have thus tried to preach both to saint and sinner. Oh, that He would
bring the sinner to Himself tonight! Oh, dear Hearer, I cannot bear the
thought that you should have to wear shame as your everlasting
covering! Tomorrow morning, when you are putting on your clothes, just
consider how you would like to be clothed with shame. Ah, fine lady,
when you are decking yourself out in all your pretty things, remember
that you shall have no waiting maid to dress you in that day, but
another–even God, Himself, shall come into your robing room and clothe
you with a dress you would gladly never wear!
"His enemies will I clothe with shame." See what your livery is to be
forever and ever? See what your everlasting garment is to be? God grant
that you may, instead of being clothed with shame, breathe the prayer,
"Lord, clothe me
with Your righteousness. Wash me in Your precious blood. Make me Your
friend and allow me no longer to be among those of whom it is written,
'Shame shall be the promotion of fools.'" God bless you for Jesus'
sake, Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM95.
Verses 1, 2. O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful
noise to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His Presence
with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto Him with Psalms. There
must be, there should be joy in our worship–it is the very juice, the
wine that flows from the trodden grape. It is the cream of the soul
when the heart takes delight in God and joys in Him. To worship as if
it were mere duty would be but the reverence of slaves before one who
is dreaded, but to worship with delight–this is the adoration of
children who come to One whom they love! God grant us that joy while we
adore the Lord. Let us, however, mingle great reverence with joy.
3. For the LORD is a great God, anda great King above allgods. "For the
Lord is a great God." Jehovah is a great God, "and a great King above
all gods," above all that are ever called gods, whether they are kings
or magistrates, or whatever they may be.
4. In His hands are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the
hills is His also. Low and high, mysterious, sublime, the dominion of
God encompasses all Nature!
5. The sea is His, for He made it: and His hands formed the dry land.
Creation is the best ground for possession– what He made is His own,
the great Freeholder, the Sovereign Lord of all!
6. 7. O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD
our Maker For He is our God. "For He is our God." Oh, that is the
sweetest of it all–"He is our God." Let lords and lands have what
masters they will–let us obey and worship our own God!
7. And we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. He
is the Shepherd leading, feeding, protecting, guarding us every day.
7-10. Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart, as in
the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
when your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My work. Forty years
long was I grieved with this generation. Was not that enough? Is there
any need to grieve Him again? Think with sympathy of what God endured
from one generation and let not another generation follow in their evil
footsteps!
10. And said, It is a people that do err in their heart Not merely
through ignorance, but "in their heart." They were not alone with their
feet and their tongue, but in their hearts.
10. And they have not known My way. They have seen them but not
understood them. He says, "They saw My work," but you may see and yet
not know, for what is merely seen with the eyes but not understood by
the heart is not known–they were a willful, erring people–and an
ignorant people.
11. Unto whom Iswore in My wrath that they should not enterinto Myrest.
Ah me!