Consolation for Poor Petitioners
(No. 3468)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 22, 1915.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
NOVEMBER 10, 1870.
"Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: my
eyes fail with looking upward. O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for
me." Isaiah 38:14.
HEZEKIAH finds fault with his prayers, but he did pray. God's children
cannot at all times speak distinctly, but they all cry. There is no
true child of God that is possessed of a dumb spirit. "Behold he prays"
may be said of each of the Divine family–and place them in what
circumstances you will, you might sooner call a man, living, and
prevent his breathing, than call a man, Christian, and prevent his
praying! If he is living, he must breathe–if he is a Christian, he
must pray! And observe further as Hezekiah, with all the faults that he
finds with his prayers, did pray, so equally certain is it that he did
prevail with those imperfect prayers! He may call those prayers
chattering–I have no doubt he felt them to be so–but, after all, he
has an answer to his prayers–he had 15 years added to his life and,
therefore, his chatter were marvelously successful. From which I gather
that those prayers we think the worst, may turn out to be the best. And
those prayers which, judged by human judgments, might be considered
unworthy of the name of prayer, may, nevertheless, be so acceptable to
the Most High that they shall throughout life become the fountain of
our praise!
I purpose this evening to speak to you, believing that many of you have
passed through the same experience as Hezekiah with regard to your
prayers. I shall speak to you about his estimation, his own estimation
of his prayers. Then we shall turn to consider the real value of those
prayers. And then, thirdly, we shall notice what there is that may
afford us plentiful consolation if we find the same fault with our
petitions as Hezekiah did with his. First, then, let us look at–
I. HEZEKIAH'S ESTIMATE OF HIS PRAYERS, for our estimate of our
petitions has often been the same. He compares his prayers to the
chattering of a swallow. If we had time to spare, we might go into the
question of the exact meaning, but I am content with believing that
this translation will do. You know the crane makes a harsh,
unmelodious, discordant sound, and when cranes are flying by night in
great companies in the air, the rustic cannot see them–does not know
there are any birds there and he often hears the most extraordinary
sounds which he cannot account for–and he goes home and fills the
whole parish with a story of ghosts which he has seen and strange,
unearthly sounds which he has heard! The crane makes a very unmusical,
harsh, discordant, grating kind of noise, and the swallow makes a kind
of chattering. You know the shrill, sharp shriek, piercing like sharp
needles, which the swallows make when they are going over your head
towards the end of summer–not a tune, nothing very musical, but just a
sharp, shrill, piercing note. Now such, Hezekiah says, his prayers
were, but, in addition, they were as mournful as the constant cooing of
the dove. Turtledoves sometimes, if they are listened to long, are
enough to make a man feel wretched to hear them–their sound is the
very embodiment of the utterance of sorrow! "I did mourn," he said,
"like a dove," and then he declares that his prayers were long, that he
grew weary, that his prayers and his eyes failed with looking upwards
for an answer.
Now let us put all these things together, and I gather from them that
Hezekiah, first of all, in his sickness prayed often and much, but his
prayers seemed to himself to be quite meaningless–as if they had no
meaning to him and no meaning to God. You who have suffered from
certain kinds of disorders will know how you tried to pray again and
again, and again, but you cannot tell, yourself, what it is you were
asking for, and when you look back in the evening at a day in which you
have prayed a thousand times, perhaps, it seems to you as if you had
not prayed at all! The thoughts are so tossed up and down, the mind is
so incapable of its proper action, that although the prayer is genuine
enough, yet to you, when you look back upon it, it seems to have no
meaning in it whatever! Better to be compared to the involuntary cry of
a wounded beast or bird than to anything like a reasonable, intelligent
utterance of a soul that is pleading with God! I do know–I speak from
my inmost heart–what it is, day after day, to pray no better prayers
than just that–not because I would not, but because I couldnot! When
the head has been aching, when the bones seemed to be crushed with
pain, then the soul turns to God in her bitterness and she feels as if
she did not pray at all–the utterances seem to have no meaning to
herself, and she fears they have no meaning to God. Meaningless, then,
Hezekiah thought his prayers to be.
Next, he knew them to be disconnected. The cry of the crane is no
continuous song. You cannot make anything of it–chatter, chatter,
chatter, chatter, and that is all. In the song of some birds there is a
regular cadence, the note rises or falls, and you can almost commit it
to paper. In fact, bird music can be committed to paper and
imitated–but with the mere chattering of cranes and swallows there is
no connection between one note and another, none whatever! And oh, how
many of God's people's prayers are to themselves and, perhaps, really
are, very disconnected, indeed! They need one mercy, but before they
have definitely asked for that, their needs rush in so upon them that
they ask not only for that, but another, and another, and hardly know
what it is that they ask for! They seem to have so much distress, so
much sorrow, so much need that their troubles come in troops. "Gad,"
they say, "a troop comes," and they know not how to order their prayer
before the Lord, and set it out, item by item, and plead for this and
that, and the next, and the next mercy as they did, perhaps, in
brighter days when their mind was more at home and their thoughts more
under their control. Hezekiah means his prayers were disconnected as
well as meaningless.
And further, does not he mean that those were very inharmonious and
discordant, just like the crane's chattering or the swallow's screams?
Now sometimes when you hear a Brother pray who has a great gift and at
the same time has an unction of Divine Grace, how delightful prayer is
to the Christian ear! I think I have enjoyed the prayers of some of
God's people–I can say even intellectually, more than I have some of
the best effusions of poetry–and spiritually they have been intensely
musical to my soul's ears! I believe that the harps of Heaven will be
sweeter than the prayers of God's people on earth, but then they must
be very, very sweet, indeed, for a prayer that comes to the living soul
in the power of the Holy Spirit has an element of Divinity about it!
The human is there, but there is something of the Divine, also, and
very, very delightful is it to the Christian to hear his Brother pray.
But ah, there are times with us when our prayers seem to have no
sweetness whatever. There is all the human–and that is jarring. There
is all the mortal–and that sets our teeth on edge. Every single
thought we have seems to be out of order, and every word seems to be
unfitted! And all that we can do is to pour out our heart, like water
as in a tumult bubbling forth without order, shape, or form, without
anything beautiful in it that could attract the eyes of God! This is
what Hezekiah thought of his prayer–it was disconnected and
discordant.
But further, I think that he meant that his supplications were
clamorous, for the crane's voice is heard afar and the shrill scream of
the swallow must pierce the ears–and such were his prayers. If not
sweet, yet they were cutting. If not delightful to the ears, yet they
must be heard. He would be heard of God–he cried so out of his inmost
soul with such fervor, such intensity, that it was clamorous before the
Throne of God. He seems to look upon it, however, not as having the
orderly force that should be of importunity, but rather the clamorous
power which forgets order and decorum and only remembers the impulse of
the sorrow within! Well, though we may find fault with prayer when we
feel as if we clamored to God, as if we had been rough and rude before
the august Majesty and had forgotten to take off our shoes, it may
sometimes happen that where we think we have been irreverent, we have
been most reverent of all! And where we can come back from our prayers
and feel, "I have expressed myself as I ought not to have done in the
bitterness and anguish of my spirit," it may be said that the Lord has
most accepted the honest outpouring of our soul! However, to Hezekiah,
his prayer seemed inharmonious and clamorous.
Again, I think I see in this description an idea of its being
repetitious–like the crane that goes on, chatter, chatter, chatter,
chatter. Like the swallow that uses the same note. It is one of the
marks of deep anguish in prayer that you use the same word. Our Lord
Himself did it when three times He prayed using the same words.
Repetition in prayer is to be avoided–it doubtless wearies those whom
we expect to unite with us–but in our private supplications, when the
heart feels she has a wish–one wish, but very, very few words–she may
even repeat herself again and again in the very same words and tone,
and yet not come under the condemnation of using vain repetitions, like
the heathen do, for it is not vain repetition that makes the soul cry
out before the Lord with the same note when her mind is too distracted
to find a variety of notes! Now, you have made your prayers often, no
doubt, just like that. You have said, "Oh, I have prayed over and
over and over again the same thing. I wish I could pray like Brother
So-and-So at the Prayer Meeting, with such choice expressions and such
a wonderful variety! But I, alas, when I come before the Lord, I am so
bowed down that just a few words and many tears, and that is all I can
get out, and it is a broken prayer–there does not seem to be anything
at all in it. When God Himself looks upon it, only His Omniscience can
spy out some little meaning, but I, alas, seem as if I had no meaning
at all in what I had said before the Throne of God."
If you look at the text again, you will see that in Hezekiah's mind
there was also the idea that his prayer was quite unworthy of anybody's
attention, for when a crane chatters, or when a swallow makes its
twittering, nobody is expected to stand still and listen. Nobody who is
going to his business would have thought of standing to enquire what
the swallow means. It matters not what these birds mean by their cry,
and so he seems to say, "My God, my God, You are governing the world!
You are reigning in Heaven! You are listening to the praise of angels!
You have within Your mind grand, incomprehensible designs. You are
fulfilling Your marvelous decrees. What can it be to You that a poor
man, a worm like myself, should lie on the bed and toss to and fro, and
pour out such utter chattering as my prayers are? That You should have
heard Elijah upon Carmel I can understand, for his was mighty prayer.
That You should have heard David when he cried to You in such language
as he had written in the Psalms, I can understand, for these were
prayers that had Divine Inspiration in them. That you should listen to
our fathers and hear their groans–that I believe, and I think I can
see a reason for it. But that You should listen to me—-Lord, I might
as well stand and listen to a chattering crane as expect You to stop
and listen to me. Have you ever thought that about your prayers?
Perhaps tonight there is some poor sinner here who thinks that of his
prayers. Ah, Soul, God does listen to the chattering of cranes! I know
He does, for I have read in His Word what is tantamount to that in the
text, "He hears the young ravens when they cry." And surely if He hears
a raven's cry, if not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father,
your prayer, though it may be very indistinct and the language, itself,
may be very unworthy of the Divine ear, yet it shall command an
audience and will bring down a blessing from above!
If I do not weary you in looking at this prayer, I think I am holding
up a mirror for your own memory. I would note that Hezekiah meant in
the next sentence that his prayer was very dolorous and very mournful.
"I mourned. I did mourn as a dove. My God! My prayer once was cheerful.
I dropped a tear, but then I lifted a note of praise. I confessed my
sin but then I thanked You for Your forgiving love. But now it is all
sorrow! I harp on one string, and that string is all out of tune. I can
do nothing but sob, and sigh, and confess my broken-heartedness, my
misery, my hopelessness."
And then he closes the description of his prayer by saying that he was
getting weary of it He looked up in prayer till his eyes had grown weak
and failing, and he could hardly look up again. His voice was failing
so that he chattered like a crane, instead of speaking like a man. His
heart was failing and so, instead of hoping with the eagle's eye that
looks up and sees into the heart of God's love, he had got the dove's
heart that was failing–and now he was led almost to give it up! It
seemed to be of little use to pray. The heavens were as brass–no
answer came from God. He waited–he had waited long and was still
waiting–but as yet no blessing seemed to come. Do not some of us know
what this lesson means? We remember it, when we were seeking our own
salvation, how we seemed to seek in vain and now, today, we are seeking
some special gift from God. It may be He has delayed to answer us and
we are beginning to think He will not answer us, forgetting that that
sentence, God never is before His time, but He never is behindis most
true. Thus I give you Hezekiah's estimate of his own prayer. Now,
secondly, let us dwell for a minute upon–
II. THE REAL VALUE OF OUR PRAYERS IN THE SIGHT OF GOD.
I think we can spy a little of that out for ourselves. First of all, it
is quite certain that Hezekiah's prayers were unaffected, for when the
crane chatters, it is never hypocritical. It chatters thus because that
is the way the cranes talk. And so with the swallow–it does not try to
imitate the tones of the nightingale or catch the sound of the
eagle–no, it is a swallow and it makes the sound of a swallow! And so
with Hezekiah. It was a strange prayer, but it was his own prayer. It
might be to anybody else very wild and mystical, but to himself it was
the natural effusion of his own soul–it was the truthful exposition of
the state of his own heart–and that is always a mark in prayer. Oh,
one loathes to hear people get up and pray–pray on stilts. I have
heard such prayer. If a man is a plowman, let him pray like a plowman,
and he will pray well. If a man is a scholar, let him pray like a
scholar. If a man is unlettered, let him pray what he knows and not
copy somebody else's prayer. It must be the soul running out in its own
language! God abhors, I believe, artificialities in prayer! They are
sickly to us who hear them from our fellow mortals–but what must they
be to God when men trick, and toy, and adorn themselves with tinsel,
gewgaws and a sort of spiritual rhetoric in the Presence of the eternal
God– what must that be? I can scarcely tell. Certainly there was
nothing of that in Hezekiah's prayer. Whatever there was in it was
real. It might be very strangely shaped, but it was of the right
sort–it was Hezekiah's own, whatever it was–not a borrowed prayer, or
anything fetched out from borrowed experience. There was something good
about it.
In the next place, it might have had many imperfections, but it
certainly was intense, for though he chatters like a crane or a
swallow, yet his whole heart was in it. The sound might have no charm,
but the prayer had a deep sense in it and though, to himself, there was
no connected meaning, yet his heart was in the little brief parentheses
of meaning! The little scraps and flashes of meaning that were there
were sincere meanings and not false. And so here was another virtue in
it–it was an intense prayer, a burning, fervent prayer that pierced
its way even to the ears of God!
Certainly, again, as we look at it, it was a persevering prayer, for
when he said his eyes failed, he was incidentally saying that he had
looked until they failed, and that he had not left off looking, though
he feared he almost would leave off looking, and he considered it would
be a calamity to leave off looking up. I think there was a stern
resolution in the good man's soul. He did not leave off prayer–there
was this golden, this diamond element in him that he continued in
prayer–that he was importunate in prayer.
And further, if we take the last sentence of the verse as a specimen of
the prayer, as the condensed essence of the prayer, as I think it is,
what a grand kind of praying it was, after all I wish our grand prayers
were half as good as Hezekiah's chattering if this was the style of it,
"I am oppressed; undertake for me." Why is that prayer so admirable? It
is as full as it needs to be, it is brief–and that is often a virtue,
but it is very full. He states his case. He pleads with God. O Jehovah,
I am oppressed! Undertake for me! You alone can deliver me. Look at my
sin and undertake to bring me out of it. Hezekiah is so reliant–he
seems to feel that if God does but undertake it, it is all he needs. He
needs nothing–no one–only his God. "Undertake for me," and the word
is, "Be Surety for me–give me a promise, enter into suretyship
engagement with me." Do but say it shall be so, and I will be content,
even though I wait the fulfillment for a while. It is a reliant prayer.
And observe further, it is an acquiescent prayer. He does not put
stipulations before God, but he says, "Lord, undertake for me. That is
my case, only carry it through. There let it end as You will. I will
give it up to You. I, a poor oppressed soul, oppressed by sickness, put
my double plight of misery into Your hands and say, 'Do with me as You
will, and I will be content.'"
Moreover, if I may say so, this prayer is such an undiluted prayer So
many people's prayers are mixed up with dependence upon something else,
or with secondary seeking. There are some back reckonings with God, but
this is all clear and straightforward. Lord, I ask no one else for
help. I would not look within for help, but to You I come. I am afraid,
but You, O You undertake for me! There is my hope, and there alone.
From You comes my salvation. "Undertake for
me."
And once again, the prayer might well be prevalent, as it was. With all
the faults Hezekiah had to find with his prayers–though he chattered
like a crane, he won 15 years of life by his chattering! His prayers
were disconnected and they were discordant, and they were all the
various things I have said, but for all that, in answer to these
prayers, he was delivered from the gates of the grave and he went up to
the home of God with joyful songs because the Lord had heard his
prayers! Oh, it is wonderful what weak prayers can do–what imperfect
prayers can do! What prayers that need to be prayed over again can do
when they are washed with the precious blood of Jesus and come up with
a sweet perfume of Him that is a Surety for the oppressed and
undertakes for us! Oh, what prevalence there is in Heaven in the prayer
that comes up from a sincere soul burdened here below!
Thus I have very briefly hinted at the value of the prayer which
Hezekiah thought so little of. And now supposing you and I are in this
state that our prayers seem to be a very poor sort of thing, I am sure
they are very good.
And now let us turn to another line of teaching that is here, and ask–
III. WHAT IS THERE TO COMFORT US?
Why, there are several considerations which I will give you briefly.
And, first, you find it is nowhere said that prayer will not be heard
unless it is perfect And it is nowhere said that prayer, when it is
imperfect, will be rejected. Suppose my prayer is disconnected, did the
Lord ever say that it must be connected, or else He would not hear it?
Suppose my prayer is discordant, does He ever look for music in His
people's cries? I dare say He finds it, for a father hears music in his
ba-
by's cries, and so may God hear music in His children's cries! But it
is not there–it is only in His ears that the music is– the love of
God puts it there. What is my crime, if my prayer is clamorous? Did the
Lord ever say He would not hear a clamorous prayer? Has not He rather
told us a parable in which the woman gained by clamor from the unjust
judge the vindication of her rights? What if my prayer is repetitious?
Did He ever say He would not hear me because I had no variety of
expression? Oh, I must not condemn what God has not condemned! What He
calls clean, let me not call common. If my prayer is sincere, then if
He does not say I shall not succeed, let me hold on! And if my
imperfections do not shut out my prayer according to His Word, why
should I raise up a fancied reason why they should? Remember, Brothers
and Sisters, when we cannot pray in our hearts as we would, there are
still some promises on record that we may still plead before God–such
as this, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." My Lord has not
said, "I will never leave you while your prayers are connected and full
of harmony and power." If He had, then my soul might have despaired,
but He has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you–never." Then
let not the imperfections of my prayer drive me away! And if I do
chatter, You will not say, "I cannot bear that chattering." No, but You
will still stop and listen, for You have said, I will never leave you."
Oh, Your promises, then, shall comfort and sustain me!
Moreover, Brothers and Sisters, there are many instances in Scripture
of prayers which are said to be prevalent with Godthat do not appear to
have any of the excellencies about them that we think there ought to be
in our prayers to God. Take Moses' prayer to God at the Red Sea–I do
not find that he said a word, and yet the Lord said, "Why do you cry
unto Me?" I dare say he was much disturbed in spirit–he had not time
and opportunity in such a plight as that to pour out many sentences.
But God heard it! And there was poor Hannah when she went up to the
Temple. You know her prayer was such–she only moved her lips–and I am
sure she must have been in a very disturbed state of mind, for Eli
thought that she was drunk! He rebuked her for being drunk and she
said, "O my lord, I am a woman of sorrowful spirit," and God heard
Hannah's prayer. David often in the Psalms speaks of himself as
roaring. He declares he could not look up and he pictures himself as
very far gone in sorrow. But the Lord heard him! O Brothers and
Sisters, you have cases upon cases in the Word of God and many all down
the ages in the history of the Church showing that the Lord hears His
children's broken prayers! Perhaps you have sometimes experienced it.
Oh, I have, and I bear witness–prayers that I would have flung on a
dunghill–He has answered them! I know the reason–it was not became
the prayers had anything in them, but He has answered me as if they had
been prayers of the greatest of the saints. Has not it been so with
you–your groans have come back to you in songs, and your tears drop
back on you in showers of mercy, and your biggest bursts of agony have
yet been returned to you in gracious words of promise from the Holy
Spirit, the Comforter,
Himself?
Now these things may help to cheer and comfort you. And I want to
mention these points, and one or two others, and I have done.
The next is this–we never need be discouraged about the brokenness of
our prayers when we recollect this, "The Spirit makes intercession for
us with groans that cannot be uttered." It seems, then, that when I
have got right out of words and cannot pray in words–when I have such
great meaning that I do not find language can help me–such awful
meanings that I have come to the deeps and, "Deep called unto deep at
the noise of God's waterspout," and if I speak, I speak in language
which seems to be the language of the waves and billows, the deep,
hollow, solemn, sounding foam, for I can say nothing else–then I am
getting near the Spirit's praying–my soul is getting tuned to its
matchless intercession! The groans we cannot utter–He can utter–and
when we scarcely know our own meaning, He can translate for us. He
makes intercession for us according to the will of God!
The next sweet reflection is that our prayers have to deal with the
heart of a Father. Now a little child–let us alter the illustration
but in one small particular–a little child needs something and I am in
the room and have no idea of what the child wants. I am rather vexed to
hear its cry and, perhaps, it disturbs me. But there is one in the room
that knows exactly what the child means as well as if it had put it
into speech, though it cannot talk a note! It is the mother who loves
so much, and her love translates the indistinct language of the cry.
Now, like as a father pities his child, so the Lord pities them that
fear Him. "As one whom his mother comforts," so He comforts us! And
when He hears us cry, His love is more intense to us than that of the
mother to her babe, and He reads our meaning. Oh, He needs not words!
He is a Spirit. He needs not sounds, as though He heard with ears–He
hears the Spirit's sounds and the deep groan is often the very thunder
of the Spirit when the soul's best word may be nothing better than the
Spirit's whisper! Lastly, and this, perhaps, is the most full of
comfort, Christ pleads for us. He is at the Father's side–the Man of
Love, the Crucified. We have not only the Spirit that searches–the
Spirit that knows our mind and God's mind, and the Father's love that
reads our heart so that He knows the things we have need of before we
ask Him, but we have the Man, Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who in His
measure feels afresh what every member bears–like ourselves, a Man
and, therefore, moved with every feeling of human sympathy! He has gone
through this brokenness of prayer, Himself! He prayed like that,
Himself, when He said, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful unto death,"
and He sweat, as it were, great drops of blood. His cries on the Cross,
also–what are they but broken prayers, fragmentary prayers? He knows
what sore temptation means, for He has felt the same, and He knows what
these griefs and inward anguishes of prayer mean, for He has passed
through them all! Come, come, then, disconsolate to the Mercy Seat,
though your eyes still fail, yet keep them upwards! Though you have no
comfortable answer just yet, tarry at the posts of your Master's door!
Wait, for the day dawns. When the night grows darkest, the day draws
near. Wait still, and cry on, still, for He hears you! To Him there is
music in a sigh and beauty in a tear! The humble suppliant cannot fail.
"He that asks receives; he that seeks finds; to him that knocks, it
shall be opened."
Now do you not perceive that while very much of this discourse must
belong to the child of God, yet there is a sidelight in it for the poor
sinner whose prayer is of this sort? You hardly dare come even into
this Tabernacle–and when you have got a seat, and the hymn is being
sung, you feel you dare not sing–you cannot sing it. And if there is a
promise being read out of the Bible, you say, "I cannot take it, it is
not mine. I am not worthy." Yes, but I know what you did when nobody
looked on–you said, "God be merciful unto me a sinner." Your Father
heard you! Your Father will answer you! He sets before you, tonight,
the atoning Sacrifice of His dear Son. Jesus loves sinners! He died for
sinners! He pleads for sinners! Trust Him and your sins, which are
many, are forgiven you, and though you chatter like a crane or a
swallow, yet shall you go your way in peace, justified far rather than
the man whose long prayer is a pretence, and whose speech is but the
coverlet for a hypocritical heart. God bless you, for Christ's sake.
Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 77; REVELATION 1:15-20.
PSALM 77.
Verse 1.1 cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice;
and He gave ear unto me. The writer was in very deep trouble. The
trouble forced from him a loud and bitter cry. His heart was wrung with
anguish, but the cry which was the weakness of the flesh was, by Divine
Grace, turned upward, and so became the strength of his Grace. He
cried, but it was to God, not to men, as many of us do. "Unto God," he
says twice over, "did I cry." But God hears when others hear not and,
blessed be His name, He answers when others cannot! There are so many
instances in which God has heard the prayer of persons in deep trouble,
that the most troubled of all men ought to be encouraged to pray! Did
not Jonah pray, even out of the belly of the whale, and God delivered
him? Did not Manasseh pray out of the low dungeon? Great sinner as he
was, God delivered him–oh, let us believe that there is power in
prayer, for God listens to the request of those that seek His face!
2. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the
night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted. He would not
take the common comfort which friendly words would have yielded
him–his case was so desperate that he must have Divine Comfort, and
nothing else. I will not be comforted till Jesus comfort me, and this
is a very good and holy resolution. I wish that some who snatch at
comfort–unhealthy comfort–too soon, would resolve upon this, "My cry
shall go to God, and God only, and I will take no comfort till God the
Holy Spirit brings it to me."
3. I remembered God, and was troubledYet it was the right thing to do
to remember God–the most comfortable thing in the world! And though it
failed at first, it did not fail in the long run.
3. I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. It is no new thing,
then, for the best of God's people to be in the deepest trouble. The
path which you are traveling, O Mourner, is well marked with
footprints!
3-5. Selah. You hold my eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot
speak I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times.
Turned over the experience of Your people written in Your Word to see
if You ever did forsake one of them.
6. I call to remembrance my song in the night. To see whether You did
forsake me in days gone by–marked my past experience of Your
faithfulness.
6-9. Icommune with my own heart: andmy spirit made diligent search.
Will the Lord cast off forever? And willHe be favorable no more? Is His
mercy clean gone forever? Does His promise fail forevermore? Has God
forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender
mercies?Will He be favorable no more? Very proper questions to put.
They answer themselves when we put then plainly, but while they lie
festering in our spirits–misshapen things like ghosts that haunt our
hearts–then they alarm us. It is well to come to plain dealings with
our soul and to say, "Why are you cast down, O my Soul; why are you
disquieted within me?"
9, 10. Selah. And I said. When I came to reckon all up, and make a
righteous judgment. When I bid my fears lie still awhile and let me
listen to reason, I said–
10. This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right
hand of the Most High. I will remember God's faithfulness in the past,
in years when I lived at His right hand and basked in the sunlight of
His love–I will snatch firebrands from the altars of the past to light
up the fires of today!
11-13. I will remember the works of the LORD: surely I will remember
your wonders of old. I will meditate also on all Your work, and talk of
Your doings. Your way, O God, is in the sanctuary. Or better, "Your way
is in holiness." What You do is right, my God. I feared and trembled,
but now I know it is so.
13, 14. Who is so great a God as our God? You are the God who does
wonders: You have declared Your strength among the people. Oh, if we
could all proclaim what God has done for us, we could prove it true
that God has declared His strength among us! The might of His Grace has
He displayed in our case.
15. You have with Your arm redeemed Your people, the sons of Jacob and
Joseph. Saints in the olden times were very fond of falling back upon
the redemption of Israel out of Egypt. It was a favorite subject of
their contemplation–it yielded them great comfort, and very, very
frequently they turned it into sacred song. Now in Heaven we shall do
the same, for we shall sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. Let not the
Church in modern times forget to draw consolation out of that well!
Here the Psalmist gives us a description, as I think it is, of the
passage of the Red Sea–giving it as a sort of type of the way in which
God will always deliver His people to the world's end.
16-20. The waters saw You, O God, the waters saw You; they were afraid:
the depths also were troubled. The clouds poured out water: the skies
sent out a sound: Your arrows also went abroad. The voice of Your
thunder was in the Heaven: the lightning lighted the world: the earth
trembled and shook Your way is in the sea, and Your path in the great
waters, and Your footsteps are not known. You lead Your people like a
flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.For one moment just look at this
picture. You will be delivered and God will be glorified in your
deliverance just as He was in the coming out of Egypt, but it will be
by a mysterious way, perhaps a way little guessed at by you. God's path
will be in the great waters. You will see the power, but before you see
it, you will little guess how it will be displayed. Only follow where
He leads, for as amidst the thunder and the lightning, He led His
people as calmly on as a shepherd leads his flock. So shall you,
whatever happens, with Jehovah for Your Shepherd, be led safely on till
you come to the Celestial City! Let us sing the song of the Red Sea.
REVELATION 1:15-20.
In the first 14 verses we have given to us part of the glowing
description of the Glories of the ascended Christ, and here it is
completed.
15. And His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace;
and His voice as the sound of many waters. Seas lashed to tempests,
cataracts leaping from their stupendous heights–such was the voice of
Christ!
16. And He had in His right hand seven stars. And out of His mouth went
a sharp two-edged sword.For His Word is a killing thing.
16. And His countenance was as the sun shines in its strength.What
magnificent figures put together! We are well prepared to find that
John could not long endure this majestic representation of the Lord.
17. And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. He was not only
brought to the posture of reverence, but he was so overawed that he
became unconscious! It is the same Person upon whose breast John had
laid his head, yet now He is
represented as John had never seen Him before! He was not so at the
Last Supper. He was not so upon the Cross. He was not so on the Mount
of Transfiguration. He was not so even when He had risen from the dead,
and, perhaps, He will not be so when we see Him in His Glory. This was
a specially instructive representation of Christ, and it was too much
even for the trained and educated spirit of John the Divine.
17, 18. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I
am the First and the Last: I am He that lives, and was dead; and
behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen. And I have the keys of Hell and
of death. This is the great consolation of the people of God when they
are brought very low–that Jesus lives, that Jesus reigns, that Jesus
still comforts us and draws near to us in all the majesty of His power!
19, 20. Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are,
and the things which shall be hereafter. The mystery of the seven stars
which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The
seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven
candlesticks which you saw are the seven churches.