Seeking Richly Rewarded
(No. 3409)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 1914.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL
8, 1869.
"The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they who seek the Lord
shall not want any good thing." Psalm 34:10.
THE young lions are very strong. They are as yet in the freshness of
their youth and yet their strength does not always suffice to keep them
supplied. The young lions are very crafty–they understand how to
waylay their game and leap upon them with a sudden spring at unawares,
and yet, with all their craftiness, they howl for hunger in the woods.
The young lions are very bold and furious, very unscrupulous. They are
not stayed from any deed of depredation and yet for all that,
freebooters as they are, they sometimes lack and suffer hunger. These
are just the type of many men in the world–they are strong men, they
are cunning men, they are thoroughly up to the times–smart, sharp men.
If anybody could be well supplied, one would think they should be. But
how many of them go to bankruptcy and ruin and, with all their cunning,
they are too cunning! And with all their unscrupulousness, they manage,
at last, full often, to come to an ill end. They do lack and suffer
hunger. But here are the people of God–they are regarded as
simpletons, such simpletons as to seek the Lord instead of adopting the
maxims of universal worldly wisdom, namely, "Seek yourself!" They have
given up what is called the first law of human nature–namely,
self-seeking, self-pleasing, self-serving–and have come to seek the
Lord, to seek to magnify Him. And what comes of their simplicity? "They
shall not want any good thing." Notwithstanding their lack of power,
their want of cunning and the check which conscience often puts upon
them, so that they cannot do what others can to enrich themselves–yet
for all that, they have a fortune ensured to them! They "shall not want
any good thing."
Let us look at this text, now, and together consider it thus–first,
the seeking of the Lord which is here intended. And then following upon
that, the promise that is given upon such seeking.
I. THE SEEKING OF THE LORD HERE INTENDED.
We must be particular and very precise about this. The promise is so
rich that we wish to win it fully, but we do not wish to be dishonest.
We would not take a Word of God that does not belong to us, lest we
should deceive ourselves and be guilty of robbing God. We must go
carefully and jealously, here, and must search ourselves to see if in
very deed and truth we are such as reallyseek the Lord.
Now, the term to "seek the Lord," I may say, is the description of the
life of the Christian. When he lives as he should, his whole life is
seeking the Lord! It is with this he begins. "Behold, he prays," that
is, he seeks the Lord. He has begun to be conscious of his sin. He is
seeking pardon of the Lord. He has begun to be aware of his danger–he
is seeking salvation in the Lord. He is now aware of his powerlessness
and he is looking for strength to the Lord. Those deep convictions,
those cries and tears, that repenting and humbling and, above all,
those acts of simple confidence in which he casts himself upon the
great Atonement made upon Calvary's bloody tree–those are all acts of
seeking the Lord! Now, perhaps some of you have got no farther than
this. Well, you shall have your proportion of blessing, according to
your strength. You shall have your share in it, little as you are. He
will give to His children at the table their portion, as well as to
those who have grown to manhood.
After a man has attained unto eternal life by confiding in the Lord
Jesus, he then goes on to seek the Lord in quite another way. No
wonder! Since he has found the Lord, or rather has been found of Him,
and yet he still presses on to apprehend Him of whom he has been
already apprehended! He still presses forward, seeking the Lord, and he
seeks the Lord thus. He seeks, now, to know the Lord's mind, the Lord's
Law and will. "Show me what You would have me to do," he says. "Lord, I
went by my own wit, once, and I brought myself into a dark forest–I
lost myself–I was at Hell's brink and You did save me. Now, Lord,
guide and direct me. Be pleased to teach me. Open my lips when I speak.
Guide my hands when I act. I wait at Your feet, feeling that–
"For holiness no strength have I, My strength is at Your feet to lie."
The man now seeks the Lord by daily and constant prayer, seeking that
he may be upheld, guided, constrained in paths of righteousness and
restrained from the ways of sin. He becomes a seeker of the Lord after
sanctification, as once he was after justification. And then he becomes
a seeker of the Lord in a further sense. He seeks to enjoy the Lord's
love and His gracious fellowship and communion. He seeks to get near in
reverent friendship to his Lord. He now longs to grow up in the
likeness of Christ, that his conversation with the Father and the Son
may be more close, more sweet, more continuous. He feels that God is
his Father and that he is no longer at a distance from Him in one
sense, for He is made near by the blood of the Cross. Yet sometimes he
is oppressed with a sense of his old evil heart of unbelief and in
departure from the living God–and he cries out, "Draw me nearer to
Yourself!" In fact, his prayer is always–
"Nearer my God to Thee,
Nearer to Thee–
Even though it is a Cross that raises me, Still all my cry shall be,
Nearer to Thee, nearer to Thee."
He seeks the Lord's company. He delights to be in God's house and at
God's Mercy Seat, and at the foot of the Cross, where God reveals
Himself in all His Glory! He is constantly crying for a larger capacity
to receive more of God. And the longing of his soul is, "When shall I
come and appear before God?" He feels that he never shall be satisfied
till he awakes in the Lord's likeness. Now, all this, which may be
private within him and scarcely known to any, operates practically in
an outward seeking of the Lord which makes the man's life to be
sublime. The genuine Christian lives for God. He makes the first
objective of all that he does, the Glory of God, the extension of the
Redeemer's Kingdom, the showing forth of His praise who has brought him
out of darkness into marvelous light. He is a young man, an
apprentice–he has been converted and he says, "Now, what can I do
while I am in this house to make it better, to make it happier and
holier, that men may see what the religion of Jesus is? How can I
recommend my Lord and Master to those among whom I dwell–to my master
and my mistress and my fellow servants?" He becomes a tradesman on his
own account, and when he opens that shop door he says, "I do not mean
to trade for myself. I will make this to be my objective, that this
shall be God's shop. God has got to keep me–He has promised that He
will–therefore, I may take what I need for the daily subsistence of
myself and my children, but I will keep the shop for God, for all that,
and if He prospers me, I will give Him of my substance, but whatever
comes of it, I will so trade across my counter, so keep those books and
manage those bills that I will let the world see what a Christian
trader is! And I will seek thus to recommend my Lord and my God–and my
objective shall be to make Him famous."
He seeks the Lord on Sundays. He desires at the Sunday school, or the
preaching station, or anywhere he may serve, to be glorifying God. But
he equally seeks Him on Mondays and other weekdays, for he believes
there is a way of turning over calicoes, weighing pounds of tea,
plowing acres of land, driving a cart, or whatever else he may be
called to do, by which he can honor God and cause others to honor Him.
Now, I say very solemnly–I hope I am mistaken in what I say, but I
fear I am not–I am afraid there are many professors who would tell a
lie if they said that they sought God always in their business, for
though they are the members of a Church and you would not find them out
in anything seriously inconsistent, yet their whole life is
inconsistent because for a Christian to live for anything but the Lord
Jesus Christ is inconsistent! It is inconsistent to the very root and
core, to the tenor and aim, the supreme objective of life, altogether
inconsistent! A man has a right to live, to bring up his family, to
educate them and see them comfortably settled in life–but that ought
to be only for God's Glory! His acting as a father is expected, for if
a man cares not for his own household, he is worse than a heathen and a
publican–that God may be glorified by his doing is his duty! But when
I see some people putting by their thousands and getting rich for no
sort of reason that I know of, except that people may say, "How much
did he leave behind him?" how can I believe that those professors, as
they take the sacramental cup, are doing anything but drinking
condemnation unto themselves? When I see some Christians who profess to
be living for nothing but to be respectable and to be known, and
honored and noticed, but never seem to care about the souls of men, nor
about Christ's Glory–never shedding a tear over a dying sinner nor
heaving a sigh over this huge and wicked city, which is like a
millstone upon the neck of some of us, like a nightmare perpetually
upon our hearts–when I see these men so cold, so indifferent, so
wrapped up in themselves, what can I think but that their religion is
but a cloak, a painted pageantry for them to go to Hell in, which shall
be discovered at the last and be a theme for the laughter of the
fiends? Oh, may God grant that we may all be able truly to say, "I seek
the Lord. I am sure, I am certain that I seek Him," for if we can feel
that that is true, then we can take the promise of thetext. If not, we
may not touch it. If we, as professing Christians, are not at top and
bottom in heart, and soul, and spi-rit–and in all that we do–really
seeking the Glory of God, the promise does not belong to us! But if we
can, from our very souls, declare, "Notwithstanding a thousand
infirmities, yet, Lord, You know all things: You know that I love You
and that I seek Your honor," then this is true of us, and no one of us
shall need any good thing!
Just a word or two more about this, for we must discriminate thoroughly
well before we come to the promise. It is too rich and precious to be
bestowed upon the wrong persons and there are some who hope to get this
promise, who feel that they must not take it. We must be among those
who seek the Lord heartily, not merely saying that we do, or wishing
that we did but, filled with the Holy Spirit, and in the power of His
blessed residence in our souls, we must be heartily panting after God's
Glory! Otherwise I do not see that we can put our hands on the promise
without presumption. We must be seeking it honestly, too, for there is
a way of seeking God's good and your own at the same time–I mean
having a sinister and selfish motive. We may preach and not be
preaching only for God at all. A man may live in the Sanctuary, in holy
engagements from morning until night and yet may never ardently,
intensely, seek the Lord. A man may be a great giver to charities, a
great attendee at Prayer Meetings, a great doer of all kinds of
Christian work and yet he may never seek the Lord, but may yet be
seeking to have his name known, to be noted as a generous man, or be
merely seeking to get merit to himself, or self-complacency to his own
conscience. It is a downright honest desire to serve and glorify God
while we are here that is meant in the text. If we have got it and I
think we may readily see whether we have or not– then is the word of
the Psalmist true to us.
We must seek God's Glory heartily, honestly, and we must seek it most
obediently. A man cannot say, "I am seeking God's Glory," when he knows
he is disobeying God's command in what he is doing. How can I say that
I am desiring to glorify God by following a pursuit which is sinful, by
giving loose to my anger and speaking rashly? By giving rein to my
passions, by indulging my own desires, by being proud and domineering
over my fellow Christians, or by being pliant, fearful, timid after an
unholy sort and not being bold for God and for His Truth? No, we must
watch ourselves very narrowly and cautiously. We must be very careful
of our own spirits. We soon get off the line. Even when we are keeping
correct outwardly, we may be getting very inconsistent inwardly by
forgetting that the first, last, midst and sole objective of a
blood-bought spirit is to live for Christ–and that if saints on earth
were what they should be, they would be as constantly God's servants as
the angels are in Heaven–they would be as much messengers of God in
their daily calling as the seraphs are before the eternal Throne of
God! Oh, when will the Spirit of God lift us up to anything like this?
The most of us are still hunting after things that will melt beneath
the sun, or rot beneath the moon! We are gathering up shadows to
ourselves, things which have no abiding substance–we are seeking self,
seeking anything rather than the blessed God! Lord, forgive us this sin
wherein we have fallen into it, and make us truly such as truly seek
the Lord! Now, let us be prepared to behold–
II. THE PROMISE OF THE REWARD OF SUCH SEEKING.
"They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing." That is, not
one of them. They that first stepped into Be-thesda's pool were
healed–but no others. But here everybody that steps into this pool is
healed! That is to say, everyone that seeks the Lord has this
promise–the least as well as the greatest–the Little-Faiths and the
Much-Afraids as much as the Great-Hearts and the Standfasts. They that
seek the Lord, whether they are chimneysweeps or princes, whether they
are tender children or seasoned veterans in the Master's great
army–they shall want no good thing. "Well, but," somebody says, "there
are some of them that are in need." They are in need? Yes, that may be,
but they are not in need of any good thing. They cannot be. God's Word
against anything you say, or I say. If they seek the Lord, they shall
not, they cannot, they will not need any good thing! "Well, at any
rate, they need what appears to be a good thing." That is very
likely–the text does not say they shall not be. "Well, but they need
what they once found to be a good thing! They need health–is not that
a good thing? It was a good thing to them when they had it before, yet
they need health. Does not that go against the text?" No, it does not
in any way whatever! The text means this–that anything which is
absolutely good for him, all circumstances being considered, no child
of God shall ever need. I met with this statement in a work by that
good old Puritan, Mr. Clarkson, which stuck by me when I read it some
time ago. I think the words were these, "If it were a good thing for
God's people for sin, Satan, sorrow and affliction to be abolished,
Christ would blot them out within five minutes! And if it were a good
thing for the seeker of the Lord to have all the kingdoms of this world
put at his feet, and for him to be made a prince, Jesus would make him
a prince before the sun rose again!" If it were absolutely to him, all
things being considered, a good thing, he would have it, for Christ
would be sure to keep His Word. He has said he shall not want it, and
He would not let His child want it, whatever it might be, if it were
really, absolutely, and in itself, all things considered, a good thing!
Now, taking God's Word and walking by faith towards it, what a light it
sheds on your history and mine! There are many things for which I wish,
and which I sincerely think to be good, but I say at once, "If I have
not got them, they are not good, for if they were good, good for me,
and I am truly seeking God, I would have them–if they were good
things, my heavenly Father would not deny them to me–He has said He
would not, and I believe His pledged Word." I think sometimes it would
be a good thing for me if I had more talents, but if it were a good
thing I would have more, I would have them. You think it were a good
thing if you were to have more money. Well, if He saw it to be good,
you would have it. "Oh," you say " but it wouldhave been a good thing
if my poor mother had been spared to me–if she were alive, now, it
would have been a good thing and it would certainly be a good thing for
us to be in the position I was five years ago before these terrible
panic times came." Well, if it had been a good thing for you to have
been there, you would have been there. "I don't see it," says one.
Well, do not expect to see it, but believeit! We walk by faith, not by
sight. But the text says so. It says not that every man shall have
every good thing, but it does say that every man that seeks the Lord
shall have every good thing. He shall not want any good thing, be it
what it may. "Well, I doubt it," says one. Very well. I do not wonder
that you do, for your father, Adam, doubted it, and that is how the
whole race fell! Adam and Eve were in the Garden, and they might have
felt quite sure that their heavenly Father would not deny them any good
thing, but the devil came and whispered and said to them, "God knows
that in the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will be as gods!
That fruit is very good for you–a wonderfully good thing–never
anything like it–and that one good thing God has kept away from you."
"Oh," said Eve, "then I will get it," and down we all fell! The race
was ruined through their doubting the promise! If they had continued to
seek the Lord, they would not have needed any good thing. That fruit
was not a good thing to them–it might have been good in itself, but it
was not good for them or else God would have given it to them–and
their doubting it brought all this terrible sorrow on us. So it will
upon you, for let me show you–you say, perhaps, "It would be a very
good thing for me to be rich." God has stopped you up many times. You
have never prospered when you thought you were going to. You will put
out your hand, perhaps, to do a wrong thing to be rich, but if you say,
"No, I will work, and toil, and do what I can, but if I am not
prospered, it is not a good thing for me to be prospered, and I would
not do a wrong thing if it would bring me all the prosperity that heart
could desire." Then you will walk uprightly and God will bless you. But
if you begin to doubt it and say, "That is a good thing and my heavenly
Father does not give it to me," you will, first of all, get hard and
bitter thoughts against your heavenly Father. And then you will get
wicked thoughts and wrong desires–and these will lead you to do wrong
things, and God's name will be greatly dishonored thereby. How do you
know what is a good thing for you? "Oh, I know," says one. That is just
what your child said last Christmas. He was sure it was a good thing
for him to have all those sweets! He thought you very hard that you
denied them to him, and yet you knew better. You had seen him before
made so ill through those very things he now longed for. And your
heavenly Father knows, perhaps, that you could not bear to be strong in
body–you would never be holy if you had too robust health. He knows
you could not endure to be wealthy–you would be proud, vain, perhaps
wicked–you do not know how bad you might be if you had this! He has
put you in the best place for you. He has given you not only some of
the things that are good for you, but all that is good for you! And
there is nothing in the world that is really, solidly, abidingly good
for you, but you either have it now, or you shall have it before long.
God your Father is dealing with you in perfect wisdom and perfect love,
and though your reason may begin to cavil and question, yet your faith
should sit still at His feet and say, "I believe it. I believe it, even
though my heart is wrung with sorrow. I am a seeker of God. I seek His
Glory and I shall not need any good thing."
I think someone in the congregation might say to me, "Look at the
martyrs. Did not they seek the Lord above all men?" Truly so, but what
were you about to object? "Why, that they needed many good things. They
were in prison, sometimes in cold, and nakedness, and hunger. They were
tormented on the rack. Many of them went to Heaven from the fiery
stake." Yes, but they never needed any good thing. It would not have
been a good thing to them, as God's martyrs, to have suffered less, for
now read their history. The more they suffered, the brighter they
shine. Rob them of their sufferings and you strip their crowns of their
gems! Who are the brightest before the eternal Throne of God? Those who
suffered most below! If they could speak to you now, they would tell
you that that noisome dungeon was, because it enabled them to glorify
God, a good thing to them! They would tell you that the rack whereon
they did sing sweet hymns of praise was a good thing for them because
it enabled them to show forth the patience of the saints and to have
their names written in the book of the peerage of the skies! They would
tell you that the fiery stake was a good thing because from that pulpit
they preached Christ after such a fashion as men could never have heard
it from cold lips and stammering tongues! Did not the world perceive
that the suffering of the saints were good things, for they were the
seed of the Church? They helped to spread the Truth of God and, because
God would not deny them any good thing, He gave them theirdungeons, He
gave them their racks, He gave them their stakes–and these were the
best things they could have had, and with enlarged reason, and with
their mental faculties purged, those blessed spirits would now choose
again, could they live over again, to have suffered those things! They
would choose, were it possible, to have lived the very life and to have
endured all they braved to have received so glorious a reward as they
now enjoy!
"Ah, well, then," says one, "I see I really have not understood a great
deal that has happened to me. I have been in obscurity, lost my
friends, been despised, felt quite broken down–do you mean to tell me
that that has been a good thing?" I do. God has blessed it to you. He
will enable you to say, "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now
have I kept Your Law." And if you get more Grace, you will say it is a
good thing, for is it not a good thing for you to be conformed to the
likeness of Christ? How can you be, if you have no suffering? If you
never suffered with Him, how can you expect to reign with Him? How are
you to be made like Him in His humiliation, if you are never humbled?
Why, I think every pain that shoots through the frame and thrills the
sensitive soul helps us to understand what Christ suffered. And being
sanctified, gives us the power to pass through the torn veil, and to be
baptized with His baptism, and in our measure to drink of His cup and,
therefore, it becomes a good thing! And our Father gives it to us
because His promise is that He will not deny or withhold any good thing
from those that walk uprightly.
I feel, Brothers and Sisters, as though my text were too full for me to
go on with it! There is such a mass in it, and if you will take it home
and turn it over at your leisure, you may do with it better than I can,
if I attempt wire-drawing and word-spinning. There is the text. It
seems to me to speak as plainly as the English tongue can speak. Give
yourselves wholly up to God and live for Him, and you shall never want
anything that is really good for you! Your life shall be the best life
for you, all things considered in the light of eternity, that a life
could have been! Only mind you keep to this– the seeking of the Lord.
There is the point of it! Get out of that, and there may be some
promise for you, but certainly not this one! You have got out of the
line of the promise–but keep to that and seek the Lord–and your life
shall be, even if it is a poverty-stricken one, such a life that if you
could have the Infinite intelligence of your heavenly Father, you would
ordain it to be precisely as it now is! "They that seek the Lord shall
not want any good thing."
Why, how rich this makes the poor! How content this makes the
suffering! How grateful this makes the afflicted! How does it make our
present state to glow with an unearthly glory! But, Brothers and
Sisters, we shall never understand this text fully, this side of
Heaven. There we shall see it in splendor. They that seek the Lord here
shall have up yonder all that imagination can picture, all that fancy
could conceive, all that desire could create. You shall have more than
eye has seen, or ear has ever heard! You shall have capacities to
receive of the Divine fullness, and the fullness of the pleasures that
are with God shall be yours forevermore!
But, again I come back to that, are you seeking the Lord? That is a
question I have asked my own heart many and many a time–Do I seek the
Lord's Glory in all things? I ask it of you, you young men who are
starting in business. Now, you know you can, if you like, go into
business for yourselves. I mean you can make your trade tell for
yourselves, and live to yourselves, and the end will be miserable and
the way to it will not be happy. But if God's Spirit shall help you
young men and women early in life to give your hearts to Jesus, and to
say, "Now, God has made us so we will serve Him that made us. Christ
has bought us, so we will serve Him that bought us. The Spirit of God
has given us a new life, so we will live for this new and quickening
Spirit"–then I do not stand here to promise you ease and comfort, for
in the world you shall have tribulation, but I do say, in God's name,
that He will not withhold one good thing from you, and that when you
come to be with Him forever and ever, you will bless Him that He did
for you the best that could be done even by Infinite Wisdom and
Infinite Love. You shall have the best life that could be lived, the
best mercies that could be given and the best of all good things shall
be yours here and hereafter.
There may be some here, however, who have long passed the days of youth
and up till now have never had a thought of their Maker. The ox knows
his owner and the ass his master's crib, but they have not known God.
If you keep a dog, he fawns on you and follows at your heels. There is
scarcely any creature so ignorant but what it knows its keeper. Go to
the Zoological Gardens and see if those animals that are most deficient
in brains are not still obedient to those that feed them! Yet here is
God, good and kind to a man like you, and you have lived to be 40 and
have never had an idea of loving and serving Him! Have you sunk lower
than the brutes? Think of that! But Jesus Christ came into the world to
save sinners such as you. Repent! May God's Eternal Spirit lead you to
repentance of this great sin of having lived in neglect of God, and
from henceforth, seeking pardon for the past through the Atoning
Sacrifice, and strength for the future through the Divine Spirit, seek
the Lord and you shall find that you shall not need any good thing. The
Lord bring you there and save and bless you eternally! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM34.
"A Psalm ofDavid when he changedhis behavior before Abimelech, who
drove him away, andhe departed."
It was a very painful exhibition and one in which David does not shine,
but in which, nevertheless, the Providence and Grace of God are very
conspicuous. And it is very pleasant to find a man of God penning such
words as these after his escape.
Verse 1. I wiil bless the LORD at all times: His praise shall
continually be in my mouth. After any very great deliverance, we feel
prompted to special gratitude. And it appears to us as if we never
should leave off praising God. I wish that perpetuity were real, but,
alas, it often happens that the next cloud that sweeps the skies brings
back our doubt and our fears–and our song is over. It ought not to be.
Our heart's resolve should be, "I will bless the Lord at all times. His
praise shall continually be in my mouth."
2. My soul shall make her boast in the LORD. What else is there to
boast about? But what a proper subject for boasting, the Lord is,
because it is legitimate boasting! We can never exaggerate–we can
never speak too well or think too well of God! He is high above our
thoughts when they are at the best, so that we may make them as big as
we may and we shall never be guilty of extravagance!
2. The humble shall hear thereof and be glad. Humble souls cannot,
generally, endure boasting, but boasting in God is very sweet to them.
He that will make God great will always be a choice favorite with a
broken spirit. Those that are little in themselves delight to hear of
the Glory of God.
3. O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together It is
too grand a theme for one! One little heart can scarcely feel it all!
One feeble tongue cannot tell it out. Come, then, you saints that know
His name–magnify the Lord with me!
4. I sought the LORD and He heard me, and delivered me from all my
fears. Blessed be His name for this. Are there not many of you, dear
Friends, who can bear the same testimony–personal proof of a
prayer-hearing God? You tried Him, for you sought Him. You tried Him
and you found Him true, for He delivered you from all your fears.
5. They looked unto Him and were lightened: and their faces were not
ashamed. Only a look–and their burden was gone. Only a look! What
great things hang on little things! Faith is but a look, yet it brings
life, pardon, salvation! Heaven comes that way. Only a look!
6. 7. Thispoor man cried, and the LORD heardhim, andsavedhim out
ofallhis troubles. The angel ofthe LORD encamps round about them who
fear Him, and delivers them. The angel of the Lord does not merely come
to help His people, but he stays with them. He encamps. He has pitched
his tent, for he means to tarry. The guardians of God forsake not their
charge. They encamp about them who fear Him, for their deliverance.
8. O taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man that
trusts in Him. It is the grandest of benedictions! It is the sum and
substance of the Gospel! "Blessed is the man that trusts in Him." By
the way of works we are cursed, but by the way of believing we are
blessed. Are you trusting? Dear Heart, are you trusting? Is it a feeble
trust? Are you often much tried and distressed? Yet if you are
trusting, you are blessed! God pronounces you so–do not let your faith
waver about it, or suffer the devil to tell you that you are accursed,
for you cannot be! You are blessed.
9. O fear the LORD, you His saints: for there is no need to them that
fear Him. Sometimes their wishes are not granted, but there is no real
need. They shall have all necessaries, if they do not have all
luxuries.
10. The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger. Strong as they are, and
crafty as they are, they sometimes howl because of their hunger.
10. But they who seek the LORD–Though they have no craft, no courage,
no strength and no foresight.
10. Shall not need any good thing. Plead that, tried child of God!
Plead it! Plead it if you are in need tonight–if you are in any form
of need–plead this gracious Word of God!
11. Come, you children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear
ofthe LORD.
A Sunday School teacher's text! Gather the children close to you. Say,
"Come near me. I would be familiar with you." It was a king who spoke
these words, and yet he delighted to say, "Come, you children." Win
their attention. "Hearken unto me." If they do not hear, how shall they
understand? "And I will teach you the fear of the Lord." That is your
subject–pure religion–heart religion–spiritual religion! I will
teach you the fear of the Lord."
12. What man is he that desires life?What man is he that does notdesire
life? Love of it is innate in us all.
12, 13. Andloves many days, that he maysee good?Keep your tongue from
evilandyour lips from speaking guile. He begins with one of the hardest
practical duties of the fear of God, for he that bridles his tongue is
also able to bridle the whole body! The tongue is such an unruly member
that if that is kept–and only through Divine Grace can it be so–then
we may be quite certain that all the other organs and faculties will be
kept, too.
14. Depart from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it A great deal
packed away into a small compass there. There is the negative, "Depart
from evil," and the positive which must go with it, "Do good." And if
you do not do good, you will soon do evil. And then there is that
blessed precept–"Seek peace." Hunt after it if you cannot find it. And
if it runs away from you, follow it–pursue it–hunt after it till you
gain it! A peaceable life is a happy life.
15. The eyes ofthe LORD are upon the righteous. He watches them. He
loves them too well to let them ever be out of His sight. He views them
with complacency. He regards them with affection. The eyes of the Lord
are upon the righteous.
15. And His ears are open unto their cry. Ready to hear their feeblest
prayer–the cry of their pain–their distress. His ears are always
open.
16. The face ofthe LORD is against them that do evil Sets His face
against them.
16-17. To cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The righteous
cry and the LORD hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles.
Here is an explanation of the experience of the Believer–first,
prayer–then God's hearing and then deliverance. Who would not pray who
has found prayer to be so effectual with God?
18, 19. The LORD is near unto them that are of a broken heart; andsaves
such as are ofa contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions ofthe
righteous: but the LORD delivers him out of them all. The first line
seemed to have something terrible in it–"Many are the afflictions of
the righteous." But there is a blessed, "but," that comes in–thrown
like the tree into Marah's bitter stream to sweeten it all!
20, 21. He keeps all his bones: not one of them is broken. Evil shall
slay the wicked. Their own evil shall be their destruction! They need
nothing more than to be allowed to go on in sin! Sin is Hell. The fire
of corruption is the fire of perdition. Evil shall slay the wicked!
21, 23. And they that hate the righteous shall be desolate. The LORD
redeems the soul of His servants: and none of them who trust in Him
shall be desolate. How grandly does David preach the Gospel! We need
not look to Paul to learn salvation by faith! The Psalms are full of
it. We have had it just before. "Blessed is the man that trusts in
Him." And now, again, "None of them who trust in Him shall be
desolate." They are sinful, but they shall not be desolate. They often
feel as if they were utterly unworthy, but they shall not be desolate.
They are, sometimes downcast, but they shall not be desolate. They may
be hunted by trials, afflictions and temptations of the Devil, but they
shall not be desolate! They may come to the bed of pain and to the
chamber of death, but they shall not be desolate! They shall stand
before the Judgment Seat of Christ, but they shall not be desolate–not
one of them–for it is written, "None of them that trust in Him shall
be desolate."