"His Great Love"
(No. 2968)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 29, 1905.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
AUGUST 15, 1875.
"His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in
sins." Ephesians 2:4,5.
You notice, in this chapter, the remarkable change of subject which
commences at the 4th verse. Paul had been giving a very sad description
of what even the saints are by nature and of their conduct before
conversion. And then, as if he was quite weary of writing upon that
painful topic, he says, "But God"–and goes on to tell what God has
done. What a relief it is to turn from ourselves and from our fellow
men, to God! And I do not know when God, in His rich mercy, ever seems
so lovely in our eyes as when we have just gazed upon our own abundant
sins. The diamond shines all the more brilliantly when it has a
suitable foil to set off its brightness–and man seems to act as a foil
for the goodness and the mercy of God! Perhaps you remember that the
Psalmist, when he had said in his haste, "All men are liars," turned
abruptly from that theme and said, "What shall I render unto the Lord
for all His benefits toward me?" It is as if he had said, "I will not
have anything more to do with man. I find him to be only like a broken
cistern that can hold no water– but as for my God, He has never failed
me and He never will–so, 'I will take the cup of salvation and call
upon the name of the Lord.'"
I want, at this time, to intertwine these two subjects–ourselves in
our fall and God in His Grace–ourselves in our sin and God in His
love–"His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in
sins." I shall not need so much to preach as just to refresh your
memories–to revive your recollections of the great tidings which the
Lord, in His Grace, has done for you. I want you who know the Lord to
remember what you were–and what God has done for you. Those two themes
will bring out the greatness of His love, so they shall be our two
objects for meditation. First, what we were. And secondly, what God did
for us.
I. First, then, WHAT WE WERE. The text says that "we were dead in
sins."
O Believer, whatever life of a spiritual kind you have in you, today,
was given to you by God! It was not yours by nature. Before God looked
upon you in love and pity and said unto you, "Live," you were dead!
That is to say, as far as spiritual things are concerned, you were
insensible–insensible alike to the bearers of Divine Wrath and to the
melodies of Divine Love. You could even lie at the foot of Sinai and
not shake with fright, although Moses did exceedingly fear and quake.
And you could lie at the foot of the Cross and yet not be melted by the
death-cries of Immanuel, although the earth did quake and the rocks
were rent and the graves were opened at that doleful sound! Do you not
remember, Beloved, when you passed through such a time as that? I
do–when utter callousness and coldness of heart reigned supreme within
us, when the world–painted harlot as she is–could attract us, but we
were insensible to the inexpressible beauties of Him who is altogether
lovely, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior!
And as we were insensible to spiritual things, being dead, so we were,
at that time, without power to do anything. We were preached to, called
and bid to come, but, as far as all goodness was concerned, we were
like a corpse–unable to hear the sweetest music, or the crack of doom
resounding overhead! Do you not remember, dear Friends, when it was so
with you? You thought then that you could do something good in your own
strength, but it was a dreadful failure when you attempted it! Your
resolutions, when you got as far as resolving, all fell to the ground,
for you were, in the emphatic words of Paul, "without strength." Yes,
you were insensible and powerless.
And, what is worse still, we were then without will or desire to come
to God. We had no disposition to move towards the Lord, no aspirations
after holiness, no longing after communion with our Creator. We loved
the world and
were content to fill our treasury with its paltry pelf. This seemed to
be the only portion for which we cared. If we could have become rich
and increased with goods, we would have said, "Soul, take your
ease–there is nothing more for you to desire."
That was our state by nature. We were dead. And did the Lord love us
then, when there was nothing whatever in us to commend us to
Him–nothing by which we could possibly rise into a condition that
would be estimable in His sight? Did He love us then? Yes, He did–and
there must have been surprising Grace in that "great love with which He
loved us, even when we were dead in sins."
While we were dead as to spiritual things, there was, alas, a life in
us of another kind. If you read the chapter from which our text is
taken, you will find that the dead people are described as walking.
They were walking corpses–a strange commingling of metaphors, and yet
most certainly true with regard to all ungodly men. They are dead to
goodness, but, as for the evil within them, how full of life it is! The
devil within them and the flesh within them were active and, as the
corpse gives forth corruption and fills the tomb with putridity, so did
our sin continually give forth evil emanations which must have been
most nauseous to God! Yet, notwithstanding all this, "He loved us, even
when we were dead in sins."
Let me just mention some of the unlovely and unlovable things which God
saw in us while we were in that dead state. One of the first was
this–we were ungrateful. It is very difficult to continue to love
ungrateful persons. If you seek to do them good and yet you receive no
thanks from them–if you persevere in doing them good and yet, for all
that, they are unkind to you–it is not in flesh and blood to continue
to love them. Yet, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, what ingratitude
to God was once in our hearts! What favors the Lord bestowed upon
us–not merely daily bread and temporal blessings, but there were real
spiritual gifts of His Grace presented to us–yet we turned our backs
upon them all and, still worse, we turned our backs upon Him who gave
them to us! How sad it is that many people live year after year without
ever recognizing the God who gives them so many mercies and blessings!
Perhaps, now and then, there is a "thank God" uttered in idleness or as
a compliment–but there is no heart in it. The ingratitude of some of
us was greater even than that of others, for we were born of godly
parents, we were nurtured in the home of piety, we heard scarcely a
sound in our infancy that was not mingled with the name of Jesus and
yet, as we grew up, these very things we regarded as restraints! And
sometimes we wished that we could do as other people's children did and
half regretted that we had godly friends who watched so carefully over
our conduct. The Lord might have said to us, "I have done so much for
you, yet you exhibit no gratitude. I will, therefore, leave you and
give these favors to others." But, in His great mercy, although we were
so ungrateful, He did not act like that.
What is even worse, we were complaining and murmuring. Do you not
remember, in your unconverted state, my Friend, how scarcely anything
seemed to please you? This thing happened quite contrary to your wishes
and that was not at all to your liking–and the other was not according
to your notion of what should be. The Prophet Jeremiah asked, "Why does
a living man complain?" But we seemed to ask, "Why should we leave off
complaining?" We murmured against the Lord notwithstanding the great
mercies that He gave us. We rebelled against Him and waxed worse and
worse. It is a difficult thing for us to love a murmurer. When you try
to do a man good and he only grumbles at what you do for him, you are
very apt to say, "Very well, I will take my favors where they will be
better appreciated." But God did not act like that towards us–"His
great love with which He loved us" was not to be turned away from us
even by our murmuring and complaining!
And all that while, dear Friends, we were trifling with spiritual
things. Like those people mentioned in the parable who, when they were
invited to the marriage feast, "made light of it," so did we. We were
warned to escape from Hell, but it seemed too like an idle tale! We
were bid to seek after Heaven, but we loved the things of this world
too well to barter them for joys unseen and eternal. We were told that
"Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," and it seemed to be
a story that we had heard so often that we called it "a platitude." We
were earnestly entreated to lay hold on Christ and to find eternal life
in Him, but we said, "Perhaps we will tomorrow," proving that we did
not care about it, but would make God wait at our beck and call when it
should be convenient for us! You know that if a man is in an ill state
of health and you, as a doctor, go to help him, but he merely laughs at
his illness and says that he does not care about it, you are very apt
to say, "Then, why should I care? You are sick and I am anxious to heal
you, but you say that you do not care to be healed. Very well, then, I
will go to some other patient who will entreat me to use my best skills
on
his behalf and who will be grateful to me when I have used them." But
the Lord did not act like that with us. Notwithstanding our trifling,
He was in earnest. He meant to heal our soul-sickness and He did heal
it! Determined to save us, He would not heed the rebuff of our
carelessness and callousness, but still persevered in manifesting
toward us that "great love with which He loved us, even when we were
dead in sins."
To make the deformity of our character still worse–we were all the
while proud–as proud as Lucifer! We had not any righteousness of our
own, yet we thought we had. We were far off from God by wicked works,
yet we stood before Him like the Pharisee in the Temple and thanked Him
that we were not as other men! We were quite content though we had
nothing to be content with. We were "wretched, and miserable, and poor,
and blind, and naked," yet we said that we were "rich, and increased
with goods, and had need of nothing." As for shedding penitential
tears, we left that work to those who had sinned more deeply than we
had, for we imagined that we had kept all the Commandments from our
youth up! Thus we despised the Savior because we exalted ourselves. We
thought little of Christ because we thought much of ourselves. And so,
in our pride, we dared to strut before the eternal Throne of God as if
we were some great ones, though we were but worms of the dust! I think
that it is one of the most difficult things in the world to love a
proud man. You can love a man even though he has a thousand faults if
he is not proud and boastful–but when he is very proud, human nature
seems to start back from him. Yet God, in His "great love with which He
loved us, even when we were dead in sins," loved us although we were
proud and loved us out of that sinful state.
If worse could be, there was something even worse than pride in us, for
we were deceptive as well as proud. "No," says one, "surely you cannot
truthfully lay that to our charge." Well, I have to confess that it was
so with myself. I remember that when I was ill, I said that if God
would only spare my life, I would live differently in the future. But
my promise was not kept, though God did spare my life. Often, after
hearing a stirring sermon, I sought a place where I could weep in
secret and I said, "Now I will be decided for the Lord." But it was not
so. Oh, how many times have we broken the promises and vows we made to
the Lord! Child of God, before your conversion, how many vows and
covenants you made–yet your goodness was like the morning cloud or the
early dew which soon passes away. Who can love one who is not to be
trusted? Yet, God, in "His great love with which He loved us, even when
we were dead in sins," loved us while we so many times deceived Him!
These things which I have mentioned have appertained to all the
children of God, but there are some of them whose sins have been even
greater than these. I ask every converted man here to look through his
own biography. Some of you were, perhaps, converted while you were
young and so were kept from the grosser sins into which others fall.
But there were some who were allowed to go into drunkenness, or into
uncleanness and all manner of iniquity. God has forgiven you, my
Brothers and Sisters, and has washed all that evil away in the precious
blood of Jesus, but you feel that you can never forgive yourself. I
know that I am bringing some very unhappy memories before you, of which
you say, "Would God that night had never been, or that day had never
passed over my head!" The Lord grant that as you look back upon those
sins of yours, you may feel deeply humbled and, at the same time, may
be devoutly grateful to God for "His great love" with which He has
loved you!
There have been some who seem as if they had gone to the utmost
extremity of sin–as if they dared and defied the Most High. And yet,
notwithstanding their atrocious sins, Free Grace has won the day! There
has seemed, in some cases, to be a stern struggle between sin and
Grace, as if sin said, "I will provoke God till Grace shall leave Him,"
but Grace has said, "Provoked as the Lord is, yet still will He stand
to His purpose of mercy–He will not turn away from the decree of His
love." Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I ask you to think this
subject over in your own private meditations. There are some things
that it would not be right to mention in any ear but the ear of God,
for it certainly was a horrible pit out of which He took us, and miry
clay, indeed, out of which He drew us–so we may well praise "His great
love with which He loved us even when we were dead in sins."
II. The second subject for our meditation is WHAT GOD DID FOR US "even
when we were dead in sins."
Well, first of all, He remained faithful to His choice of us. He had
chosen His people before the earth was and He did not choose them in
the dark. He knew right well what their nature would be and also the
practice which would grow out of their nature–so that nothing that has
happened has ever surprised the Lord concerning any one of His people.
He was well aware beforehand of all their corruption and filthiness.
So, when He saw them acting as I have described, He did
not turn from His purpose to save them. Blessed be His name for this!
It is one of the wonders of His Grace that God proves the greatness of
His love.
Then, next, as He did not repent of His choice, so neither did He
repent of His redemption of His people. You will find it recorded in
Scripture that "it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth,
and it grieved Him at His heart," but you never read that He repented
of Redemption! Nowhere in Scripture is there such a passage as this,
"It grieved the Lord at His heart that He had given His Son to die for
such unworthy ones." No, my Friends, He had bought us with a price
beyond all calculation, even the heart's blood of His only-begotten
Son, so that, although we went from sin to sin and, for a time resisted
all the calls of the Gospel, He did not turn from His purpose of love
and mercy, nor make His Atonement for us null and void.
Then, further, in His great love for us, God would not let us die till
He had brought us to Christ. We possibly passed through many perils and
had many escapes. John Bunyan, you will remember, was to have stood as
sentinel one night, but another soldier took his place, and was shot.
John Bunyan did not know, at the time, why the exchange was made, but
God had ordained that he should not die till he had been brought to
Christ. So fool-hardy was he that on one occasion he plucked the sting
out of a viper with his bare hand, yet he was unhurt, for God would not
let him die while he was such a desperado! And what amazing escapes
from shipwreck, from murder, from fever, from "accidents" in a thousand
forms some men have had simply because God will not let them perish,
for He means that they shall yet be brought as sheep into His fold! I
told you, some time ago, that I once talked with a gentleman who was in
the famous charge at Balaclava–and I felt moved to say to him, "Surely
God had some designs of love toward you, or He would not have spared
you when so many were being taken away." Well, in whatever way our
lives have been spared, we ascribe it to the great love with which God
loved us even when we were dead in sins.
We see that great love also manifested in the way in which God
restrained us from many sins. There have been times in our history
when, if it had not been for a mysterious check that was put upon us,
we would have sinned much worse than we ever did. Something of that
kind happened in the case of the well-known Colonel Gardiner. He had
made an appointment for the commission of a very gross sin, but the
Lord had chosen him unto eternal life–so that night, which he intended
to spend in sin–became the time of his conversion to God! And you know
what a devout and earnest Christian he became. The Lord knows the right
time to say to anyone, "Thus far shall you go, but no farther." He
makes men's minds and hearts, like the sea, to know His will and to
move or be still at His Divine command. Cannot some of you, my Brothers
and Sisters, recollect the way in which God thus restrained you from
going to an excess of riot?
And, then, His great love was seen by the way in which He kept on
calling us by His Grace. Some of us can scarcely tell when we were
first bid to come to the Savior. A mother's tears and a father's
prayers are, however, among the fondly-cherished memories of that early
call. Do not some of you remember that loving Sunday school teacher and
the earnestness with which she pleaded with you? And that godly
minister and how he seemed to throw his whole soul into the work of
entreating you to yield yourself to the Savior? Others of you cannot
forget how with good books, letters, entreaties and persuasions from
Christian friends, you have been followed as if the Lord had hunted you
out of your sins by all the agencies that could possibly be used–yet
you dodged, twisted and doubled this way and that way, trying to escape
from your gracious Pursuer! You were like a bird that the fowler cannot
take for a long while, or like a wandering sheep that the shepherd
cannot find for many a day!
But the Good Shepherd never gave up the search–He meant to find you
and He did. He had determined to save you–and from that determination
He would not be turned aside, do whatever you might! And, at last,
there came the blessed day when He subdued you unto Himself! The
weapons of your rebellion fell from your hands, for Christ had
conquered you! And how did He do it? By "His great love"–His
Omnipotent Grace. You were dead in sins when His Spirit came to work
them upon you, but the Spirit came, in the name of the risen Savior,
with such almighty force of Irresistible Love that you were carried
captive–a willing captive–at the chariot wheels of your Divine
Conqueror! Shall we ever forget that blessed time? We sing "Happy day!
Happy day!" and well we may, for that conquest is the chief and
foremost token of "His great love with which He loved us, even when we
were dead in sins."
I will not say more about this precious Truth of God, but I will use
the few minutes still at my disposal in making a practical application
of my subject.
If, dear Friends, the Lord loved us with such great love even when we
were dead in sins, do you think that He will ever leave us to perish?
Have you indulged the notion that under your present trial, whatever it
may be, you will be deserted by your God? My dear widowed Sister, do
you fear that the Lord will forsake you now that your husband is dead?
My friend over there–you who have had heavy losses in business–do you
not believe that the Lord will help you through? Did He love you when
you were dead in sins and is He going to desert you now? Do you think
you will ever have to ask, with the Psalmist, "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?" If you do talk
like that, then ask yourself why the Lord ever began His work of love
upon you if He did not mean to finish it, or if He meant, after all, to
cast you off? Do you think, if that was His intention, He would ever
have begun with you? He knew all that would happen to you and all that
you would do, so that nothing comes unexpectedly to Him! Known unto the
Lord from the beginning, were all your trials and all your sins so
that, as He still loved you, in the foresight of all that was to happen
to you, do you think that He will now, or ever, cast you away from Him?
You know that He will not!
Again, if He so loved you even when you were dead in sins, will He deny
you anything that is for His own Glory and for your own and other's
good You have been praying, but you have feared that the mercy you
asked would never come. Think for a moment–He that spared not His own
Son, but delivered Him up for you centuries before you were born– will
He not freely give to you all that you ought to ask of Him now that you
are alive unto Him? George Herbert speaks of the dew that falls upon
the grass, although the grass cannot call for the dew–but you do call
upon God to give you His Grace–so shall not His Grace come copiously
to you as the dew falling when God sends it? Does He water the earth
when its dumb mouth opens? Does He provide food for the "dumb driven
cattle?" Then will He not attend to your cries and prayers when you
call upon Him in the name of His well-beloved Son? If He loved you when
you were a man of corruption, will He not answer your supplications,
now that He has made you to be an heir of Heaven and formed you in the
likeness of His Son? O, Beloved, be of good comfort and let no thought
of despondency, or of unbelief ever cross your mind!
Further, if the Lord loved you thus even when you were dead in sins,
ought you not now love Him very much? Oh, the love of God! The Apostle
does not say that God pitied us, though that is true. He does not say
that the Lord had compassion upon us, though that is also true. But
Paul speaks of "His great love." I can perfectly understand God's
pitying me. I can perfectly understand God's having compassion on me.
But I cannot comprehend God's lovingme–nor can you. Think what it
means–He loves you! Sweet above all other things is love–a mother's
love, a father's love, a husband's love, a wife's love–but all these
are only faint images of the love of God! You know how greatly you are
cheered by the earthly love of one who is dear to you–but Paul says
that God loves you! He that made the heavens and the earth, before whom
you are as an ant, has set His heart's affection upon you! He loves you
so much that He has made great sacrifices for you. He is daily blessing
you and He will not be in Heaven without you! So dear, so strong is His
love to you–and it was so even when you were dead in sins! Oh, then,
will you not love Him much in return for His "great love" to you? Is
anything too hard for you to bear for His dear sake, or anything too
difficult for you to do for Him who loved you so? Dear Lord, we give
ourselvesto You–'tis all that we can do!
Another reflection for you, my Christian Friend, is this. If God so
loved you even when you were dead in sins, ought not you to love those
who treat you badly?. There are many people in this world who seem as
if they could not do anything but ugly things. They have not a generous
spot in their nature. They are cross-grained, always quarrelling and he
who would gladly live peaceably with them sometimes finds it very hard
work. I know some gentle spirits that are deeply wounded by the hard
and cruel things that are said or done to them by their relatives or
companions. Well, dear Friends, if any of us are treated thus, let us
love these cruel people! Let us cover their unkindness over with our
love, for, if God loved us even when we were dead in sins–when He
could not see anything in us to love–we also ought to love others for
His sake! Even when we see a thousand faults in them, we must, say, "As
God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven us, so do we forgive you." It is a
grand thing to be able to bury in eternal forgetfulness every unkind
word or act that has ever caused us pain. If any of you have any
thought of anger in your heart against anyone–if you have any feeling
of resentment–if you have any recollection of injuries. If there is
anythingthat vexes and grieves you, come and bury it all in the grave
of Jesus–for if He loved you when you were dead in sins–it cannot be
half so wonderful for you to love your poor fellow sinner whatever ill
treatment you may have received at his hands!
My last word is to the unconverted and it is a very sweet and precious
word. Do you see, unconverted man, that you need never say, "I dare not
come to God through Jesus Christ because then is nothing good in me"?
You need never say that, for Paul speaks of "His great love with which
He loved us, even when we were dead in sins." Now, if all His people
were loved by Him when they were dead in sins, how can you think that
God requires anything good in man as the cause or reason for His love?
Of all the saints in Heaven it may be said that God loved them because
He would do it, for, by nature, there was nothing more in them for God
to love than there was in the very devils in Hell! And as to His saints
on earth, if God loves them–and He does–it is simply because He will
do it, for there was no goodness whatever in them by nature! God loves
them in the Infinite Sovereignty of His great loving Nature. Well,
then, poor Soul, why should not God love you? And since He bids you
come to Him, however empty you may be of everything that is good, come
to Him, and welcome! Let the text knock on the head, once and for all,
all ideas of doinganything to win the love of God! And if you feel
yourself to be the very worst, lowest and meanest of the human race, I
rejoice that you feel that, for the Lord loves to look upon those who
are self-emptied and who have nothing good of their own to plead before
Him! These are the people who will value His love and upon such people
as these it is that He bestows His love. "The whole have no need of a
physician, but they that are sick." The hospital is for the man who is
diseased, not for the one who is in health. And the Lord Jesus Christ
has opened a Hospital for incurables–for those who cannot be cured by
all the medicines of human morality and outward religion! Christ bids
them come to Him that He may make them whole!
I wish I had the power to speak of the love of God to the sinner in
such a way that he would come to the Lord Jesus Christ, but I will try
to put the brush very plainly and simply–and then I will close my
discourse. My Hearer, whatever you may have been up to, to this
moment–if you have been a despiser of God, an infidel, a
blasphemer–if you have added sin to sin, if you have made yourself
black as Hell with enormous transgressions–yet all this is no reason
why God should not have chosen you and loved you! And all this is no
reason why He should not now forgive you and accept you! No, He puts it
thus in His Word–"Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though
they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool."
Come then, you blackest of sinners–you who feel yourselves unfit to be
found in a House of Prayer–you who, like the publican in the Temple,
scarcely dare to lift up your eyes to Heaven–you condemned ones who
fear that there is no hope for you–let me assure you that in you there
is space for God's mercy to be displayed! There is elbowroom for His
Grace to work! Come to Jesus just as you are! Accept the Atonement made
by His own blood and be saved here and now, for He waits to be gracious
and He has said, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out."
I recollect the time, many years ago, when I would have given both my
eyes to hear such Truth as I have preached tonight! It would not have
mattered to me who had told it to me. If it had been a man of
stammering tongue and faulty grammar, if he had but said to me,
"Salvation is of God's Grace, not of your merit. It is of God's
goodness, not of your holiness–you have nothing to do but to rest on
what Christ has done, for God loves even you who are dead in sins"–if
I had known that, I think I would have found peace with God long before
I did. Does anyone say, "But I need to feeland I need to do, and I need
to find out this, and that, and the other?" You need nothing of the
kind, Sinner! Christ has done it all! To take any merit of your own to
Christ would be worse than carrying coals to Newcastle! Come just as
you are– an empty-handed sinner, a bankrupt sinner, a starving sinner,
you who are at the very gates of Hell, for–
"There is life for a look at the Crucified One! There is life at this
moment for thee! Then look, Sinner–look unto Him and be saved– Unto
Him who was nailed to the tree."
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM30.
May the Holy Spirit who inspired the writer of this Psalm now lead us
into its inner meaning! It is entitled, "A Psalm and Song at the
dedication of the house of David." Or, rather, "A Psalm; a song of
dedication for the House. By David." It was a song of faith, since
David did not live to witness the dedication of the Temple for which he
had planned in his heart and for which he had laid by in store. Though
he knew that he would not be permitted by God to build it, he took
delight in writing a Psalm which might be sung at the opening of the
Temple. Thus it begins–
Verse 1. I will extol You, O LORD; for You have liftedme up, andhave
not made my foe to rejoice over me. "I will exalt You, for You have
exalted me! I will lift up Your praise because You have lifted up my
spirits. I will bless You, for You have blessed me." Our song of praise
should be the echo of God's voice of love. "You have not made my foes
to rejoice over me." You remember that this was one of the three things
put to David as a chastisement for his great sin in numbering the
people–"Will You flee three months before your enemies, while they
pursue you?" He here praises the Lord that such calamity as that did
not come upon him. "You have not made my foes to rejoice over me."
Sorrows averted should be the occasion of grateful songs of
thanksgiving!
2. O LORD my God, I cried unto You, and You have healed me. The king
and the people had been sorely smitten with sickness on account of his
sin, but the Lord, in mercy, bade the destroying angel sheathe his
sword when he "was by the threshing-place of Araunah the Jebusite"–the
very place which afterwards became the site on which the Temple was
built! It was well, therefore, at its opening, to praise the God who
heals His people. We ought to praise the Lord more than we do for our
recovery from sickness. Employ the physician if you will, but, when
healing comes to you, magnify the Lord for it and ascribe the glory of
it to His holy name!
3. O LORD, You have brought up my soul from the grave: You have kept me
alive, that Ishould not go down to the Pit. Here is a double mercy to
sing of–not dead and not damned! Life spared is something for which to
praise the Lord, but to have the soul saved from going down to the Pit
is a cause of still greater thanksgiving! Oh praise the name of the
Lord, you who love Him and trust in Him, for He has delivered you from
going down into the Pit!
4. Sing unto the LORD, Oyou saints of His, and give thanks at the
remembrance of His holiness. David seems to say to the saints, "Do not
let me sing alone, but all of you join in the chorus." He does not
invite reprobates to praise the Lord, but He says, "Sing unto Jehovah.
O you saintsof His." I think it is very wrong to have the praises of
God sung in public by ungodly men and women, as they sometimes are. The
singing should not be left to a godless choir. Oh, no– "sing unto the
Lord, all you saintsof His," for you, only, can sing sincerely unto
Him.
"Give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness"–at the very memory of
Him–at the remembrance of the whole of Him, for that is His holiness,
His wholeness, the entire, perfect Character of God. O saints below,
sing as they do in Heaven, for their song is "Holy, holy, holy, Lord
God Almighty."
5. For His anger endures but a moment Notice that the words, "endures
but," are inserted by the translators and very properly so. But see how
the passages reads if you leave them out–"For His anger a moment."
That is long enough for Him to display it, for it is His strange
work–and long enough for us to endure it–for it might crush us if it
lasted longer!
5. In His favor is life. Life came to Jerusalem, in David's day, as
soon as God smiled upon it. And life comes to us as soon as we taste of
His favor, even though we have been ready to die of despair.
5. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. As the
dews are appropriate to the night, so is weeping seemly for us when
Jesus hides His face from us. The children of the bride-chamber may
well mourn when the heavenly Bridegroom is taken from them, but it is
only for a night. Morning will end our mourning. Our night-sorrow is
for the night, but our joys are for a day that will know no evening.
6. And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved. It is a pity to
say too much. Very few people fall into the opposite fault of saying
too little. It is always a pity to be counting with certainty upon the
future and presuming, because of the hopefulness of the present, that
this state of things will last forever. David was not wise when he
said, in his prosperity, "I shall never be moved."
7. LORD, by Your favor You have made my mountain to stand strong: You
did hide Your face, and I was troubled. When God is at cross purposes
with His people, they are troubled at once. There is no need for blows,
no need for angry words–"You did hide Your face, and I was troubled."
That is enough for a child of God–let him but miss the light of God's
Countenance and it breaks him down at once.
8. I cried to You, O LORD; and unto the LORD I made supplication. What
should the child of God do when he is in trouble, but cry? And to whom
should he cry but to his Father?
9. What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the Pit? Shall
the dust praise You? Shall it declare Your truth? So his prayer was an
argument, and that is the very bone and sinew of prayer–to reason and
argue with God. He seems to put it thus–"Lord, if I lose my soul, You
will be a loser, too, for You will lose a singer out of Your choir, one
who would be glad enough to praise You and whose very life it is to
magnify You. Oh, do not cut me down! When I am dead, when I am lost,
there can be no praise to You from me, so spare me, my gracious God!"
10. Hear, O LORD, and have mercy upon me: LORD, be You my helper. What
a handy prayer this is, a prayer to carry about with you wherever you
go! "Lord, be You my Helper." That is a minister's prayer when he is
going to preach. That is a Sunday school teacher's prayer when going to
the class. Is not that a prayer for the sufferer when the pain upon him
is very severe? "Lord, be You my Helper." Are you working for Him? Are
you cast down in soul? This prayer will suit you–"Lord, be You my
Helper."
11. You have turned for me my mourning into dancing: You have put off
my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness. What a transformation scene
in answer to prayer! Notice that David does not say, "I hope that you
have," but he puts it thus, "You have–You have." He is quite sure
about it and, being sure of this great mercy, he gives God all the
glory of it. What a wonderful change it is! Not merely from mourning
into peace, but into delight–delight expressed by dancing! Not merely
from sackcloth into ordinary dress, but from the sackcloth of sorrow to
the satin of gladness! God does nothing by halves. He not only chases
away the night and gives us twilight, but He goes on to gladden us with
the full glory of noontide–and all this He does with a definite end
and purpose!
12. To the end that my glory. Or, "my tongue"–
12. May sing praise to You, and not be silent. God ought to have praise
from us. It is the quit-rent which we pay as tenants to the great Lord
of All–let us not rob Him of His revenue. 12. O LORD my God, I will
give thanks unto You forever.