A Good Man in An Evil Case
(No. 2830)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MAY 10, 1903.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST
19, 1886.
"Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you: He shall
never allow the righteous to be moved." Psalm 55:22.
Those of you who were here last Thursday evening will recollect that
the sermon was concerning those sons of Ger-shon who were
burden-bearers in connection with the tabernacle in the wilderness.
[Sermon #2829, Volume 49–lowly service] They were not appointed to
preach. They were not ordained to
fight–their service consisted in bearing burdens. There were some
here, on that occasion, whom I had never known before who had been, by
the space of 30 years, great sufferers. They were carried into this
place last Thursday evening–I did not know of their presence until
afterwards, when they told me that the sermon seemed to have been made
for them and that it had given them great comfort.
I thought I would follow up that sermon about burden-bearers by a
discourse upon another text which shows us that there are some burdens
which we need notcarry. Burdens of service, or burdens of which come
through our consecration to the Lord Jesus Christ–these we will never
lay down so long as we live. It shall be our joy to daily take up our
cross and follow Jesus, but there are certain burdens of care and
sorrow, of which the text speaks–especially the burdens which come
from the slander, reproach and oppression of ungodly men–which we need
not carry. David says, "Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall
sustain you: He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved."
Beloved Friends, the very best men in the world may be slandered! And
if you should hear them evilly spoken of, be you not among those who
straightway condemn them. There are some who say, "Where there is
smoke, there is sure to be fire." And although it is well known that
"common fame is a common liar," yet there are some who are so fond of
hearing or telling lies that they are sure to believe such a lie as
this, especially if it is spoken concerning a servant of God. Be you
not, therefore, ready to believe all the reports that you hear against
any Christian people. The best of men, as I have already reminded you,
have been worst spoken of and there are some who turn upon them
directly, like lions scenting their prey.
I may be just now addressing some who are the victims of the malice of
ungodly men or women. I am sorry, dear Friends, that this should be
your lot, for it is among the most bitter of human afflictions. But at
the same time I would remind you that nothing unusual has happened to
you. You remember the three brave men who were cast alive into
Nebuchadnezzar's burning fiery furnace when it was heated seven times
more than it was known to be heated? You are scarcely enduring such a
fiery trial as that and, certainly, you are not suffering as did your
Master, the Lord of all pilgrims who have made their way to Heaven! But
if, in any degree, it should happen that you are bearing a burden of
this kind, the text will have a special message for you.
In speaking upon this passage, I want to keep it in context with the
whole Psalm. I do not think it is dealing properly with the Bible to
pick out one verse here, and another there, without looking to see what
the context of the passage is. If men's books were treated as God's
Book is often treated, we should make many a grand and noble literary
work to appear to be an insane production! It is true that God's Book
can endure even such treatment as that. It is such a wonderful Book
that even a sentence torn out of it will convey a most precious Truth
of God, but it is not fair to the Book, and it is
not fair to yourself, to treat the Bible so. A text of Scripture should
always be viewed in the setting in which God has placed it, for there
is often as much that is admirable in the gold which forms the setting
of the jewel as there is in the jewel itself.
I. So, looking at our text in that light, I shall begin by saying that
WHEN WE ARE MUCH TRIED AND BURDENED, THERE IS SOMETHING THAT WE ARE
TEMPTED TO DO. The text does not mention it, but the Psalm does. And
the text is an antidote to the malady which the Psalm describes or
implies. "Cast your burden upon the Lord," is an injunction concerning
that which we are to put in the place of something else which more
naturally suggests itself to our poor foolish minds.
And, first, when we are in very severe trouble, we are tempted to
complain. The Psalmist says, in the second verse, "I mourn in my
complaint, and make a noise." I am not sure that our version is quite
fair to David in this instance, but it suits my present purpose
admirably. As the children of God, we ought to avoid even the semblance
of a complaint against our Heavenly Father. But when our faith is
sorely tried, when some sharp reproach is stinging our spirit, we are
all too apt to begin thinking and saying that God is dealing harshly
with us. You know Job, that most patient of men, became very impatient
when his so-called "friends" poured vinegar instead of oil into his
wounds. Smarting under their cruel treatment, he said some things which
he had far better have left unsaid. O Brothers and Sisters, pray that
whenever the Lord lays His rod heavily upon you, your tears may have no
rebellion in them! Whatever His providential dealings with you may be,
may you be enabled to say, with the Patriarch, "The Lord gave, and the
Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." May you even
join Job in his triumphant declaration, "Through He slays me, yet will
I trust in Him." It is grand faith that enables a Believer to say,
"Though I should die at God's altar, I will die like the lamb that is
brought to the slaughter, or be like the sheep that is dumb before her
shearers and makes no complaint."
The next natural temptation is that of giving up altogether and lying
down in despair. You get that in the fourth and fifth verses–"My heart
is sorely pained within me: and the terrors of death are fallen upon
me. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror has
overwhelmed me." Have not some of you been sometimes tempted to say,
"There, I can do more. I must give up–that last cruel blow has utterly
broken me in pieces and I feel that I can only lay down and die in the
bitterness of my spirit"? Brothers and Sisters, this is a temptation
against which you must strive most earnestly! As no living man should
complain, so no living man should despair–and especially no child of
God! Up with you, poor Heart! You have not yet come to the end of God's
delivering mercy, even though you have come to the end of your poor
puny strength. The Lord shall light your candle, now that your night is
so dark. You shall yet sing for very joy of heart, though now you can
only, like David, mourn in your mourning. He will bring you again from
Bashan, and from the depths of the sea if you have sunk as low as that.
Therefore, talk not of dying before your time. Yet, if you do so, you
will not be the first who has talked like that, for there was one who
never died, who said, "O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better
than my fathers." That was Elijah, the Prophet of Fire! Yet, just then
he seemed as if he were only cold ashes rather than a vehement
flame–another proof that the best of men are but men at the best!
The next very common temptation is to want to flee from our present
trials. You get that in verses six to eight–"I said, Oh that I had
wings like a dove! For then would I fly away and be at rest. Lo, then
would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my
escape from the windy storm and tempest." Possibly you are the pastor
of a church and things do not prosper as you could wish. I wonder where
they do? But, in your case, you think there is such little prosperity
that you must give up your position and run away. Young gunners, before
they have become accustomed to the smell of gunpowder and the noise of
cannons, have often been known to desert their guns. And even old
soldiers have sometimes felt what the "trembles" are! But, my Brother,
if this is your case, I beseech you not to run away. If you did flee,
where would you go? You think you will run away, as Jonah did, do you?
I guarantee you that Jonah was very sorry that he had run away when he
found himself in the whale's belly at the very bottom of the mountains
in the depths of the sea! And you and I will be sure to get into
greater trouble in we run away from the path of duty.
Fight it out, Man! Stand your ground in the name of God and in the
strength of God! It may be that there are better days just now coming
and that Satan is seeking to drive you away just as you are on the
brink of success! Dr. Watts has a good paraphrase of this Psalm and
also writes wisely concerning the temptation to flee the post of duty.
He says–
"Oh, were I like a feathered dove, And innocence had wrings!
I'd fly, and make a long remove
From all these restless things.
Let me to some wild desert go,
And find a peaceful home;
Where storms of malice never blow,
Temptations never come.
Vain hopes and vain inventions all,
To escape the rage of Hell!
The mighty God, on whom I call,
Can save me here as well.
God shall preserve my soul from fear,
Or shield me when afraid;
Ten thousand angels must appear,
If HE commands their aid."
Possibly the special case in point is not that of a minister. It is
some Mary, weeping at home because her brother Lazarus is dead. Martha
is not a very congenial sister to her, so she does not even go with her
when she goes to meet the Lord. Yet, strangely enough, each of the
sisters says the same words to Jesus, "Lord, if You had been here, my
brother had not died." In due time the Master sends for Mary and soon
she has the joy of welcoming Lazarus back from the grave. Some of us
get strange ideas into our head at times–we resolve that we will go,
we know not where, and do, we know not what! Ah, my dear Friends, he
whose great trouble lies in his own heart cannot run away from it, for
he bears it about with him wherever he goes! The old man of the
mountain who sits upon your shoulder and clings so tightly to you, if
he is yourself, is not to be shaken off by your running away! Far wiser
will it be for you to do as the text says, "Cast your burden upon the
Lord." Then you will need no wings like a dove, nor will you wish to
fly away to the wilderness, but you will be willing to stay in the very
midst of the battle and even there you will be in perfect peace–
"Calm 'mid the bewildering cry,
Confident of victory."
I have often enjoyed the greatest solitude amid the crowds in Cheapside
and I believe that there is many a Christian who has experienced the
deepest peace in the midst of the wildest turmoil. Some of us know what
Madame Guyon meant when she wrote–
" While place we seek or place we shun, The soul finds happiness in
none! But with a God to guide our way, 'Tis equal joy to go or stay."
Trust in Him! Cast your burden on Him, for so you will escape from this
temptation of wanting to flee away from the place where He would have
you be!
There is one other temptation that this Psalm suggests to me, and that
is the temptation to wish ill to those who are causing us ill Perhaps
mistaking the meaning of the passage, we are apt to pray the prayer in
the ninth verse, "'Destroy, O Lord!' Our foes have slandered us, they
have spoken evil of us and we wish that they were dead, or that some
great judgment might overtake them." It will never do, dear Friends, to
indulge such a feeling as that! We shall be injured if we desire that
others should be injured. Slander has, indeed, stung you when you
harbor the wish to sting another! Someone said, in my hearing,
attempting to justify revenge or retaliation, "But if you tread on a
worm, it will turn," and I answered, "Is a poor worm that only turns
because of its agony through man's cruelty, the pattern for a Christian
man to follow? Will you look down to the dust of the earth to find the
example that you are to imitate?" Wicked men trod upon Christ–who even
compared Himself to a worm–yet He did not turn upon them, except to
cry, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."
Let that be the only kind of turning that you ever practice towards
your enemies! Do not be driven, by their evil speaking or their cruel
deeds, into harshness of speech or even harshness of thought! I have
known some persons, under sore trouble, who have at last become quite
soured and bitter of spirit–that is all wrong and very sad–and no
good can ever come of such a state of heart as that. The bruising of
the sycamore fig results in its growing sweeter–let your bruising
produce a similar effect upon you. Remember the words of the Lord Jesus
in His wondrous Sermon on the
Mount, "I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you,
do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use
you and persecute you; that you may be the children of your Father
which is in Heaven." If you do not act thus–which is the right thing
for you to do–you will almost certainly do the wrong thing in some
shape or other. Therefore, God help you to do what is right! Child, is
your father rough on you? Then, love him until he becomes tender and
gentle. Wife, is your husband unkind to you? Then, win him back by your
sweet smiles. Servant, is your mistress harsh to you? Even good women
have sometimes dealt as harshly with their servants as Sarah dealt with
Hagar. Well, if that is your case, be not like Hagar who despised her
mistress. Submit to her, for so shall you yet win her, as many a
Christian slave of old, far worse treated than you have been, won his
master or his mistress to Christ in those earliest and happiest days of
Christianity. What is there for a Christian to do but love his enemies?
This is the most powerful weapon that we have in our armory! We shall
be wise as serpents if God teaches us wisdom. And we shall also be
harmless as doves if the Holy Spirit, like a dove, rests upon us and
makes us, also, to abound in gentleness. By this sign we shall conquer,
for it is love that always wins the day!
Thus I have shown you what we are tempted to do when we are like this
good man who was in such an evil case.
II. Now I am going to show you, from the text, as the Holy Spirit shall
help me, WHAT WE ARE COMMANDED
TO DO. That is, "Cast your burden upon the Lord." You have a burden
upon your back. It is too heavy for you to bear? Cast it upon the Lord!
"How shall I do that?" someone asks. Well, if you are a child of God, I
invite you, first of all, to trace your burden back to God.''But it
comes from the treachery of Ahithophel, or from the rebellion of
Absalom!" I grant you that it does, but those are only the second
causes, or the agents–trace the matter back to the Great First Cause.
If you do that, you will come, by a mystery which I will not attempt to
explain, to the hand of Divine Providence and you will say of every
burden, "This, also, comes from the Lord." You have probably seen a
dog, when he has been struck with a stick, turn round and bite the
staff that struck him. If he were a wise dog, he would bite the man who
held the stick that dealt the blow. When God uses His rod upon one of
His children, even a godly man will sometimes snap at the rod. "But,
Sir, surely you would not have me turn upon my God?" Oh, no! I know you
will not do that, for you are His child. And when you see that God is
holding the rod in His hand, you will cease to be rebellious and you
will say, with the Psalmist, "' I was dumb with silence.' I was going
to speak, but I opened not my mouth because I saw that it was in Your
hand that the rod of chastisement was held." It is always well to trace
our trials directly to God and say, "It may be Judas Iscariot who has
betrayed me, but, still, it was planned in God's eternal purpose that I
should be betrayed, so I will forget the second cause, except to pray
God to forgive the malice of the betrayer–and, by His Grace, I will
look to the Lord who permitted the trial to come upon me for His own
Glory and for my good."
The next thing you have to do is this. Seeing that the burden is from
God, patiently wait His time for its removal There are some people,
who, if they had a task set to them by some great one whom they
respected and revered, would cheerfully perform it. If, in the middle
of the night, you were called up by a Queen's messenger and bid to do
something for Her Majesty, you would be glad to rise and dress, even
though it might be a cold night and you might have far to go to fulfill
your commission. And if you feel that your burden is from the Lord–if
the King's arms are stamped upon the affliction or trial that comes to
you–straightway you will say, "As the Lord wills it, I will bear it
without complaining. When it is His time to deliver me, I shall be
delivered. And as long as it is His time for me to suffer, I will, by
His Grace, suffer patiently."
I wish that all Christians could be like that good old woman who was
asked whether, as she was so very ill, she would prefer to live or to
die. She said that she had no preference whatever, she only wished that
the will of the Lord might be done. "But, still, if the Lord said to
you, 'which will you have?' which would you choose?" She said, "I would
not even then choose, but I would ask the Lord to choose for me." You
see, whenever anything comes to us from God, we have not the
responsibility of it–but if it came through our own choice, then we
might say to ourselves, "What fools we were to choose this particular
trial!" You say that you do not like the cross God has sent you. Well
but, at any rate, it is not by your own choice that you have to carry
that particular cross. It is God who chose it for you, whereas if
youhad selected it, you might well say, "Oh, dear me, what a mistake I
made when I chose this burden!" Now you cannot say that and I pray that
you may have Divine Grace to see that "the whole disposing" of your lot
is, as Solomon says, "Of the Lord."
The Hebrew of our text would bear such a rendering as this, "Cast on
the Lord what the Lord gives you. Cast on Him what He casts on you. See
the marks of His hands on your burden and you will be reconciled to
your load. Know that God sends it to you and patiently wait till He
takes it away." F. W. Faber very sweetly writes–
"I have no cares, O blessed Lord,
For all my cares are Yours.
I live in triumph, too, for You
Have made Your triumphs mine.
And when it seems no chance nor change
From grief can set me free–
Hope find its strength in helplessness,
And patiently waits on Thee.
Lead on, lead on, triumphantly,
O blessed Lord, lead on!
Faith's pilgrim-sons behind You seek
The road that You have gone." One blessed way of casting our burden
upon the Lord is to tell the Lord all about it. It is a high privilege
to get away, alone, and talk to God as a man talks with his friend. But
I know what you often do, my Brothers and Sisters, when you get into a
predicament and cannot tell what to do–then you begin to pray. Why do
you not, every morning, tell the Lord about all your difficulties
beforethey come? What? Will you only run to Him when you get into
trouble? No, go to Him beforeyou get into trouble. Half our burdens
come from what we have not prayed over! If a man would take the
ordinary concerns of life distinctly to God, one by one, it is
marvelous how easily the chariot of life would roll along! Things over
which we have not prayed are like undigested food that breeds mischief
in the body–they breed mischief in the soul. Digest your daily bread
by first praying, "God give it to me and then God bless me in the use
of it. And then God bless me afterwards in the spending of the strength
derived from it to Your praise and Glory." Salt all your life with
prayer, lest corruption should come to that part of your life which you
have not thus salted. Tell the Lord, then, your griefs, just as, when a
child, you told your troubles to your mother!
"I cannot find words," says one. Oh, they will come! They come fast
enough when you complain to man and they will sweetly come if you get
into the blessed habit of talking to God about everything. A friend
said to me, not long ago, "I was on the Exchange and I saw that I had
made a mistake in a certain transaction. I had lost money by it and if
I had gone on dealing in the same fashion, I would have been ruined. I
just stepped aside for a minute or two into a quiet corner of my
office. I stood still and breathed a prayer to God for guidance. Then I
went back, and felt, 'Now I am ready for anyone of you.'" "So I was,"
he said, "I was not confused and worried, as I would otherwise have
been, and so liable to make mistakes, but I had waited upon God and I
was therefore calm and collected." There is much wisdom in thus praying
about everything, although, possibly, some of you may think it trivial.
I believe that the very soul of Christianity lies in the sanctifying of
what is called secular–the bringing of all things under the cognizance
of our God by intense, constant, importunate, believing prayer.
When you have told the Lord everything, the next thing for you to do,
in order to cast your burden upon Him, is to believe that all will work
together for your good. Swallow the bitter as readily as you do the
sweet and believe that, somehow, the strange mixture will do you great
good. Do not look out your window, judging this, and that, and the
other, in detail, but, if God sent it to you, open the door and take it
all in, for all that has come from Him will be to His Glory and to your
profit. Believe that if you shall lose certain things, you will really
be a gainer by your losses. Even if your dearest one is taken from you,
all shall be well if you have but faith to trust God in it all. If you
are stricken with mortal sickness, it will still be well with you and
if you do steadfastly trust in the Lord, you shall know that it is so.
"We know," says the Apostle Paul–he does not say, "We think, we
suppose, we judge," but–"We know that all things work together for
good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His
purpose." If you know this, my Brother, or my Sister, it shall help you
to "cast your burden upon the Lord."
When you have done this, then leave your burden with the Lord. In the
process of trusting God with your burden, get to the point that you
have done with it. If I cast my burden upon the Lord, what business
have I to carry it myself? How can I truthfully say that I have cast it
upon Him if I am still burdened with it? Throughout my life, which has
not
been free from many grave cares, there have been many things which I
have been able to see my own way through and, using my best judgment,
they have passed off well. But in so large a church as this, there
sometimes occur things that altogether stagger me. I do not know what
to do in such a case as that and I have been in the habit, after doing
all I can, of putting such things up on the shelf and saying, "There, I
will never take them down again, come what may. I have done with them,
for I have left them wholly with God." And I wish to bear my testimony
that somehow or other the thing which I could not unravel, has
unraveled itself! When Peter and the angel "came unto the iron gate,"
it "opened to them of its own accord." And the same thing has happened
to me many a time. "Who shall roll away the stone for us from the door
of the sepulcher?" asked the holy women when they came to the tomb of
their Lord? "And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled
away." Learn to say, "My God has made this difficulty and there is some
good result to come of it. I have done the little I can do, so now I
will leave it all with Him."
Ah, but I know what some of you do–you say that you have left it all
with God and then you lie awake all night fretting about it! Is that
casting your burden upon the Lord? Oh, for a blessed literalism about
the promises of God and our faith in them, so that we take them to mean
just what they say and act upon them accordingly! Now, if some poor
woman here were sadly in debt for her rent and she met with a Christian
Brother who said to her, "Do not fret, my good Sister, I will see it
all paid tomorrow," do you think she would go running about, and
saying, "O dear, I shall lose my things, my rent will not be paid"? No,
she would say, "Mr. So-and-So, whom I know and trust, said that he
would pay it for me, and I feel perfectly at peace about it." Now, do
you so with your God if you know Him! David said, "They that know Your
name will put their trust in You." If you truly love the Lord, it will
be a proof of your love to repose your care upon Him without
questioning. And when you have cast your burden upon Him, it will prove
the truth of your having done so if you are unburdened and your heart
is at rest. If He bears my burden, why should I also bear it? If He
cares for me, what have I to do to vex myself with fretful, anxious
cares?
I have thus done my best to show you what we are commanded to do–"Cast
your burden upon the Lord." III. And now thirdly, and very briefly,
WHAT WE SHOULD ENDEAVOR TO DO.
If I read the text aright, we here have David talking to himself. And
what we are to endeavor to do is to talk to ourselves, just as David
talked to himself. He says of his enemy, "The words of his mouth were
smoother than butter, but war was in his heart" and so on. And then he
seems to say, "Come, David, do not fret yourself like this, but cast
your burden upon the Lord." Have you not noticed how often David seems
as if he were two Davids–and one David talks to the other David? It
was so when he said to himself, "Why are you cast down, O my Soul; and
why are you disquieted within me?" And I want you, dear Friend, to
chide yourself and say, "Come, fretful Heart, what are you doing? Cast
your burden upon the Lord. What are you doing? Has God forsaken you?
Has God refused to help you? Be gone, Unbelief! Come, Faith, and dwell
in my soul and reign over my spirit, swaying your gracious scepter of
peace."
And when you have thus been chiding yourself, argue with yourself about
the matter Say to yourself, "See how the text puts it–'Cast your
burden upon the Lord.' Well, if it is your burden and God meant it for
you, then do not quarrel with it. And as it is your burden, so is God
your God, the covenant-keeping God, your Father and your Friend. Come,
my Soul, cast your burden upon your God! Where else should you put your
burden when He bids you cast it upon Him? You cannot sustain yourself
under such a load, but God will sustain you and your burden, too."
Think of the righteousness of God and say, "It is impossible that the
righteous God should leave the righteous to perish. If they are
slandered, that is a further reason why God should take up their cause.
He is their Advocate and their Defender. Come, my Heart, it shall never
be truly said of the Judge of all the earth that He leaves His people
to perish, especially when their good name is assailed because of their
fidelity to Him!"
I want you, dear Friends, to talk thus with yourselves, especially
those of you who are rather apt to give way to despondency. There are
some such here, I know. You come to me, sometimes, with your griefs,
and I do the best I can to cheer you. But I have often said to myself,
"That dear Sister had a father who was a member with us. He used to
come to me in just the same way as she does. This despondency seems to
run in their2 blood." Some of you must have been born in December and
you never seem to get out of that month–it is always winter with you.
But now I want you just to take the language of the text and say to
yourself, "Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you: He
shall never suffer the righteous to be moved." And, possibly, God will
bless your own sermon to yourself more than He would bless my sermon to
you! At any rate, try it.
IV. Lastly–and here I need the time for a whole sermon, let us think
of WHAT WE MAY EXPECT IF WE FULFILL THE COMMAND OF THE TEXT–"Cast your
burden upon the Lord."
There are two grand things in the text–sustenance and sufferance. The
old Puritans would have made a book about those two words and we might
preach a dozen sermons upon them and still not exhaust their meaning!
What does the Lord do with His people when they cast their burdens upon
Him? He gives them sustenance. "He shall sustain you." The word,
"sustain," is the same that is used when God told Elijah to go to
Zarephath, saying, "Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to
sustain you," that is, "to feed you," "to nourish you." Perhaps that
would have been a better rendering of the original. "Cast your burden
upon the Lord," and what will He do? Deliver you out of your trouble?
No, but He will feed you till you can carry it, and that will be an
even better thing than relieving you of the burden.
Here is a dear child that has but a little load to carry, yet he
staggers under it. It would be a kind thing for his father to pick up
the child and his load, too, and carry both him and his burden. But the
wise father says, "I will so provide for that child that he shall grow
in strength and, at last, shall be able to carry his load." "Cast your
burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you." That is, "He shall
feed you. He shall nourish you." I believe that when Paul was attacked
by that viper that came out of the sticks, it was a very ugly thing,
indeed, but Paul just shook it off into the fire. Why do you think that
snake came? Why, it came to feed them all! "No," you say, "that serpent
did not do that!" It did, for the islanders said that this man was a
god and straightway they began to gather around him and his companions
and to provide for their needs with all the greater alacrity because of
the reverence that they felt for the Apostle! So you shall often find
that what looks like a horrible thing will be the best way in which God
could bless you.
"Cast your burden upon the Lord." "It will crush me." No, it will
not–you shall grow under it and then grow out of it! And you shall
prove the truth of those precious lines–
"From all their afflictions My Glory shall spring, And the deeper their
sorrows, the louder they'll sing." Only by faith leave your trouble
with your God and He will nurture you. Even out of the very rock of
trouble will He feed you and give you oil out of the flinty rock of
your afflictions.
Then, the other point is sufferance. I am obliged to hurry over these
Truths of God and leave you to meditate upon them afterwards. "He shall
never suffer the righteous to be moved." Learn, from this declaration,
that nothing will happen to you but what God permits. There are some
things which are very grievous, which God does allow to happen to His
people. But there are other things which He will not allow. He will
never allow them to be moved. "No," He says, "My child who has walked
uprightly before Me, My righteous one, the man who spoke the Truth, the
man who did the right thing, I will not suffer that man to be moved. He
may be moved as the boughs of a tree sway to and fro in the breeze, but
not as the roots of a tree are torn up by a storm. He may be moved a
little, like a ship riding at anchor, which just swings with the tide,
but he shall not be driven out to sea, or drift onto the rocks to his
destruction."
"He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved." Do you catch the
Psalmist's idea? It is as if God interposed and said, "No, I will not
permit that." A father may see his child somewhat put upon, yet at
first he may not interfere. But, at last, a cruel blow is struck and he
says, "No, I will not stand that! While I have an arm to defend my
child, he shall not be treated in that fashion." Well, then, leave
everything with your Heavenly Father, for He will not allow you to be
moved! If you are really righteous, trusting in the Righteous One,
justified by the blood and righteousness of Christ, and are doing what
is right in His sight, He will not allow you to be moved. The next time
you are sorely vexed by the tongue of slander, go and tell your Father,
just as the little boys tell their big brothers. Go and tell your
Father all about it and do not fret over it. If somebody has done you a
great wrong, you may say to him, "I shall be obliged to refer you to my
solicitor." But after you have done that, I hope you do not go writing
letters to him on your own. Refer everything to God and leave all with
Him, for, so, a blessed peace will bedew your spirit, making your life
on earth like the beginning of life in Heaven!
In closing my discourse, I must say that I do feel, in my inmost soul,
the deepest pity for those of you who have no God to go to when you are
in trouble. You have a burden to bear, but you cannot cast it on the
Lord. He willallow you to be moved, for you do not cry unto Him to help
you. I feel that I would rather be a dog than be a man without a God. I
think I could make myself happy if I were only a mouse in its hole, but
if I were a prince in a palace, without God, I should be utterly
miserable! O poor Hearts, if you really want Him, He is to be had! If
you are longing for Him, His door
is open to receive you. If you will come to Him, He will come and meet
you much more than half way! Yes, all the way will He come to everyone
who wills to come to Him. As soon as you say, "I will arise," He has
already arisen and is on His way to meet you! Practically, there is no
distance for you to go, for He is there, waiting to welcome you.
Believe in His dear Son and live! First cast your great burden of sin
upon the Lord and then cast upon Him all other burdens that He is
willing to take from you and, soon, He will put a new song into your
mouth and establish your going. The Lord grant it, for His dear Son's
sake! Amen!