Life Proved by Love
(No. 2556)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1898.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY
18, 1883.
"We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the
brethren." 1 John 3:14.
I HAVE heard it said, by those who would be thought philosophers, that
in religion we must believe, but cannot know. I am not very clear about
the distinction they draw between knowledge and faith, nor do I care to
enquire because I assert that, in matters relating to religion, we do
know! In the things of God, we both believe and know. If you will read
this Epistle through and, with a pencil draw a line under the word,
"know," wherever it occurs, you will be astonished to see how John
continually asserts about the great Truths of our faith, "We know, we
know, we know, we know." He does not admit that any one of these things
is the subject of conjecture, but he asserts it to be a matter of
positive knowledge. These philosophical gentlemen call themselves
Agnostics–that is a word derived from the Greek and has the same
meaning as the word, "ignoramus," which comes from the Latin–and is
the English equivalent for a "know-nothing." Well, if they like to be
called ignoramuses, I have not the slightest objection to their keeping
the title, but they should never presume to argue with Christian men!
They put themselves out of court, directly, for we say, " We know."
They cannot deny anything we choose to affirm, after that, because
confessedly they do not know. If we do know and they cannot allege
against us that we are deceivers–if, in any court of law they will
admit that our testimony would be taken quite as quickly as theirs, and
that our general repute is that we are as upright and as honest as they
are–then they ought, in modesty, never to contradict us in anything,
but to believe what we declare to be true.
As they do not know anything, themselves, let them be guided by those
who doknow. At any rate, whether they choose to agree with us or not,
we shall always affirm that we know what we know! And there are some
things about God, and about the future, and about prayer and about the
work of the Spirit of God in our own souls which we do not fancy, or
imagine, or even make to be merely matters of faith. We know them, we
are sure of them, for we have felt them, tasted them, handled them–and
we know them as surely as we know the fact of our own existence. My
text seems to me to speak of four things about which Believers in
Christ are and ought to be positive and certain.
I. First, WE KNOW THAT ONCE WE WERE DEAD IN TRESPASSES AND SINS. That
is implied in the text– "We know that we have passed from death unto
life." We could not have passed from death if we were not in death.
Neither would there have been a change in bringing us into life if we
were in life before. Herein, I believe, lies the Doctrine of the
Natural Ruin of Man–his original sin, the depravity of his heart. I
have heard it said that the children of some Christians are so very
good–I suppose on account of their having such wonderfully good
fathers and mothers–that they may be considered to have been born in
the Church. They, I am assured, have no need of any conversion, and
they never ought to need it. There are such principles within the dear
little souls that you have only to nourish those blessed principles and
they will turn into veritable angels! I have seen some of these
children and I regret to say that I have not found them different in
nature from other people's boys and girls, neither have they grown up
to be better than the children of the most ungodly. I believe,
concerning everybody's child, that it must be born again, that the
Spirit of God must change its natural heart if it is to become a child
of God. At any rate, whatever may be the theory as regards other
people, we know that wewere once dead in sin–we have no question about
that!
We who have been converted and become the subjects of the work of the
Spirit of God know that we were once fast bound in spiritual death–at
one time we were utterly insensible. We heard the Word of God and were
pleased, perhaps, with the oratory of the speaker, or moved by his
earnestness. But we were never led, by all his pleadings, to hate sin
and to believe in Christ. We were shaken, but we were not awakened. We
were insensible, spiritually, to the power of the Law of God. We heard
it preached and we might be, for a moment, disquieted, but we never
felt the terror of the condemnation which God pronounces upon the
sinner who breaks His Law. If we did feel anything of it, we strived to
get away from its influence–and drowned in pleasure and in sin all
thoughts of the wrath of God. We could also hear the Gospel, as well as
the Law, and the sweetest note in it had no music for our ears. What
cared we for Jesus and His bleeding wounds? What respect had we for
Infinite Love and the invitations of the precious Word? We came and we
went, yet continued just as we were. We saw our face in the glass, but
we did not wash it–and the spots of sin still remained.
Some of you, dear Friends, remember that you had grown so insensible to
spiritual things that you did not even care to hear the Gospel. The
Sabbath was to some of you just like any other day in the week, except
that, sometimes, you took most of your pleasure that day–which meant
that you went further in sin than you ordinarily did–for your daily
labor kept you pretty steady through the week. You know how often
Sunday brought "St. Monday" after it, with all sorts of mischief in its
train–the Sabbath became to you rather a door of sin than a gate of
mercy. Some of you had godly parents, yet you took no notice of your
father's God and your mother's Savior. You saw others go to the House
of Prayer, but you were in your shirt-sleeves all the morning. And in
the evening you "did not care to go," you said, "to be stirred up with
a crowd to listen to dry talk." Just so–all this was because you were
quite insensible to Divine things. Charm he ever so wisely, the charmer
cannot allure the deaf adder and, for a time, the Gospel's charming
music could not reach your ears. That was one proof of your being
dead–that you were spiritually insensible.
More than that, we had not the appetites of living men and women. You
know that if a man is alive, he will be hungry, in due time. There is a
bell that is sure to ring inside to tell him that it is time to coal up
and set the fires going again. He will be thirsty, too. The body will
need moisture and there will be a summons for him to drink if he is
alive. He may be just on the borders of life, perhaps almost gone, and
then hunger and thirst may be forgotten, but the healthy man has these
tokens of life about him at fit seasons–that he must eat and drink.
There was a time when you and I had no hunger for the Bread of Life.
"Pshaw," we said, "what cant! What nonsense!" We did not desire to
drink of "the river of the Water of Life." We did not believe in its
existence and, though now every drop of the Gospel is sweet to us as
honey, we cared not an atom about it once! We despised the Doctrines of
Grace and we did not wish for the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
Himself! He who is the Bread of Heaven was without any attraction for
us–we did not feel any need of Him. We thought that we were strong and
could find our own way into Heaven. We did not know our own weakness
nor His strength. We believed that we were fat and flourishing and,
therefore, we did not need to feed upon Him. It is perfectly true that
with regard to Grace and all spiritual things, we were dead! "Blessed
are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall
be filled." But dead are they unto whom no spiritual hunger or thirst
ever comes! This was the second proof of our spiritual death.
There was this further evidence that we were without power of movement
of a spiritual kind. You remember the philosopher who was asked to
prove that he lived and he did it by simply walking? Movement is a
proof of life. Certainly, spiritualmovement proves spiritual life. To
draw near to You, my God, proves that I am alive. To approach You–
though it is with faltering steps, like a tottering infant who any
moment may fall–yet, to draw near to You, though I do but crawl like a
baby of a few months old, proves that I am alive! The movement of godly
desire, the movement of a humble hope, the movement of a holy wish, the
movement of a penitential sigh or cry–if there are any of these in the
soul–they are proofs of life. It is not so very long ago since some of
you had none of them. I had the great delight, yesterday, of seeing
many who have just lately been quickened by Divine Grace. Many of them,
as they looked me in the face with holy shame, told how dead they had
been towards God–they were alive, indeed, unto transgression and
unrighteousness–but stone dead as to any movement of the Spirit of God
who now has made them alive in Christ Jesus!
There is another sign which proves death, namely, the lack of breath
That is one of the last tokens of expiring life. You have heard of
friends holding a mirror to the man's mouth and, as long as there is a
little dimness to be seen upon the glass, they say, "He still lives."
But when the breath is all gone, then the life has gone. The poet truly
said–
"Prayer is the Christian's vital breath,"
but there was a time with us when we did not pray. Perhaps some of you,
from your childhood, always said a form of prayer and if you ever went
to bed without saying it, you dared not go to sleep. Yet how much of
that formality was but a mockery of God! I will not speak too harshly
about the child's form of prayer, for sometimes that form has been made
use of by God to lead on to true spiritual supplication. Still, it
would be idle for us to imagine that the mere repetition of certain
words was prayer–we know, now, that it was notprayer. We did not
really ask anything of God, we did not truly speak to God at all–we
might just as well have said our prayers backward, as forward, for any
good there was in them! I have heard of some people who, even at 30 and
40 years of age, have repeated the same form of prayer that they used
when they were children. I have even read of one who, at 60 or 70, used
to pray God to bless his father and mother who had been dead 30 years!
When men once get into the way of using a form of prayer, they are apt
to keep to that form when there is positively no meaning whatever in
it. That is the state in which some of us were–we used dead prayers,
for there was no life in us.
Ah, but it is not so now, Beloved! Now, we pray. I think that some of
us could more easily tell when we pray than when we do not pray. As we
walk the crowded streets, we cry to God in secret, "Oh, that You would
be with me!" We cannot read a book without praying that we may have
help from God to spy out the meaning. We do not even go to look at a
baby without pleading with God to save the soul of that dear child. We
feel habitually in the spirit of prayer. If it is not so with any of
us, we ought to pray that it may be so! Mark you, the spiritof prayer
is better than any mere act of prayer. The act of prayer is good, the
habit of prayer is good, but to have the spiritof prayer always with us
so that we as naturally pray as we breathe–this is the highest
blessing of all–and one of the surest signs of spiritual life!
I grieve to add, but it is true of some of us in a very special degree,
that we know we were dead in sin because we had begun to corrupt. If a
man has lost his life for only a certain number of hours, he may still
look very much as he did and, if the eyes were the only guide, we might
scarcely know whether he was a living man or not. But that appearance
will not last many days–you soon perceive the signs of an inward
dissolution. Corruption is beginning to take possession of the place
which death has conquered and, very soon, you will have to say, "Bury
my dead out of my sight." It happened to some of us to be, in our
salvation, like the little girl to whom Christ went soon after the
breath was out of her body. He took her by the hand and said, "Talitha,
cumi"–"Maid, arise"–and she lived again before corruption had worked
any great change within her. Happy are they who are saved in their
youth, before the inward death has begun to show itself in outward
corruption! Yet, some of us who were converted while we were yet boys,
remember enough of our wanderings to make us fear what we might have
been if Grace had not interposed.
I have often told the story of Rowland Hill and the good Scotchman who
sat for some time looking at the preacher's face and at the strange,
comic twinkling about his eyes. "What are you doing?" he asked. "I am
looking at the lines of your face," said the Scotchman. "And what do
you make of them?" "Oh, I was thinking what a bad fellow you would have
become if it had not been for the Grace of God." And some of us, as we
look back at the lines of our young character before it was allowed to
develop, cannot help saying to ourselves, "What great sinners we would
have been but for the Grace of God!" There were already tokens of
commenced corruption.
But there are others in whom the corruption has become more apparent.
They have gone into actual transgression and have become familiar with
what are called the pleasures of this world–its vanities, gaieties and
pollutions. They have not been worse than others. Indeed, even while
dead in sin, they compliment themselves that they are not so bad as
others! Yet they would not like to have their secret deeds proclaimed
before the face of all men, as they will be at the Judgment Day! They
would be ashamed to have them known. You, my Friend, are like that
young man who was carried out at the gate of Nain, whom Christ met on
the way to the sepulcher and raised from the dead. You are dead, surely
enough, but there are some others who are dead, like Lazarus, who had
lain four days in the grave–and of whom his sister said, "Lord, by
this time he stinks." God's Grace has come to some who will easily
recognize my description of them–when they were as far gone in evil as
they could be. There was not any other sin left for them to commit!
They had sinned up to their neck–they had plunged into it and done as
much evil as they could. Rottenness was in their very soul, corruption
was in everything they said, for it was full of obscenity and
blasphemy. It was in all they did, for the more nauseous the sin was in
the nostrils of God, the more pleasing it was to them! There are some
here who will always say, "I know that I was dead, for I was corrupt.
Death had set his seal upon me with a stamp that could not be mistaken.
I was, indeed, dead before God, for I had begun to be offensive even in
the nostrils of good men."
That will suffice for this part of our subject. Let us look back with
shame on our original. Let us remember the hole of the pit from where
we were dug and then stand fast in this one certainty–we know that we
were dead.
II. Secondly, we know another thing and a brighter thing–WE KNOW THAT
WE HAVE UNDERGONE A
VERY AMAZING CHANGE–"We know that we have passed from death unto
life."
That passage, "from death unto life," is the reverse of the natural
one. We all expect to pass from life unto death. The heathen talks of a
Charon to ferry men across the river into the unseen world. Long ago
the poet said, "Easy is the descent to Avernus. But to retrace your
steps–that is the work, that is the difficulty." Yet that is just what
God has done for us who believe! We have not gone from life to death,
but He has brought us up from death unto life! There has been such a
change in us as is altogether supernatural, such a change as never
would have occurred had we been left to ourselves. We now are sure that
it is so. I speak to some in whom the change is so evident to
themselves that they often wonder at it. One of the surest proofs to
any man of the existence of a God consists in His dealings with that
man in turning him front darkness to light, and from the power of sin
and Satan, unto God. All the arguments that ever were written by
Butler, or Paley, or any of the defenders of religion, will never
convince a man like coming into personal dealings with God. And when
those dealings assume this form–that we have passed from death unto
life–they become indisputable proofs of the Godhead and of the power
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
I do not think that it is easy to describe the passage from life to
death. I could not describe it, though I have seen many pass away. And
it is almost impossible to describe the passage from death unto life. I
know what it is, as you do, Brothers and Sisters, many of you. It has
happened in your own case, yet you could not explain it. What a
wonderful process it is! It is not dying–it is quite the reverse–it
is being quickened. Can you tell another person how it happened? You
can speak of the outward means and the external circumstances, but you
cannot picture to anyone the secret way of the Spirit. His methods of
quickening are deep mysteries and even he who has felt them cannot
translate them into human language. Yet believe us, O Unbelievers, we
are before you, men and women as different from what we used to be as
though we had died and risen from the dead! We are, some of us here, so
changed and altered that if we met our old selves, we would not know
them! We are no longer ourselves, though now most truly we are
ourselves by the effectual working of the almighty Grace of God!
We can tell you, however, that this passing from death unto life
usually begins with pain. I have heard that when men have been nearly
drowned and animation has been restored by rubbing and other processes,
their first sensation was that of intense anguish. When the blood began
to move, again, and the lungs began gently to heave, the first feeling
was one of great pain. You know how, if your foot, "goes to sleep," as
we say, when it begins to get right, again, what pain there often is!
That is, on a very small scale, what happens to a man who is being
resuscitated–it is just a faint picture of the pain that is usually
felt by those who pass from death to life. Yet let me lay down no hard
and fast rule! I am not giving a description that is to be stereotyped,
but I only say what usually happens. I do not know that the little
girl, to whom the Lord Jesus said, "Talitha, cumi," had any pain at
all. I expect that she just opened her eyes and sat up, and as soon as
she saw that it was Jesus, she wanted to wait upon Him, but He
commanded that something should be given her to eat. And there are some
dear children and some persons of older age who are brought to Jesus
very gently. There are not so many pangs in their birth as there are in
the births of others–yet they are as truly regenerated and born into
the family of God. Still, I think that the new life usually begins with
pain.
One of the first signs of it is that it is accompanied with great
self-depreciation. The man who is passing from death to life grows very
little in his own esteem. He gets to despise what he once thought to be
his beauty and his comeliness. As to his supposed excellence, he is not
half the man he thought he was! He would never have been able to go
through the needle's eye while he was such a size as that, so he had to
be reduced and then still further reduced till he became less than
nothing in his own eyes.
At the same time, when that life really does begin in a soul, it begin
very quickly. There may be, at first, only enough light to make the
darkness visible, only enough life to incarnate itself in a sigh. The
prayer, "God be merciful to me a sinner," is rather a large-sized form
of the heavenly life. Sometimes the poor, trembling soul cannot get as
far as that. Yet, not a single spark of the Divine Life ever dies out,
or ever can. The living and incorruptible seed of the Word of God lives
and abides forever! If it is but as a grain of mustard seed and it
falls into the ground which God has prepared for it, it must live and
it must grow! But, often, it is at first exceedingly weak. The test of
its reality is that the man trusts in
Jesus, for "he that believes on the Son has everlasting life." That is
a sure Word of God, for He has, Himself, spoken it: "Whoever lives and
believes in Me shall never die." The renewed man, however feeble his
life may be, does believe in Jesus and, therefore, he is saved!
When that life comes to the birth, it is usually attended with great
joy. When at last the man has believed in Jesus, and rested in Him,
then he passes from darkness to light in the sense of passing from
sorrow into overflowing joy! It is not always so, but that is the
general way–there is a joy unspeakable and full of glory which attends
this passing from death unto life–it is a period to which a man may
always look back with gratitude to God. I am always glad when our
friends get a very decided conversion because, though I am not going to
say a word about those who come to Christ very gradually, yet their
experience is rather cloudy. No doubt they are just as safe as others,
but they lack a good deal of comfort afterwards and, sometimes, persons
who are very readily converted and who have no very deep sense of sin,
are more apt to play with evil than others are who have had a clearer
sight of its enormity. So, we know–however it came to pass–we
knowthat we have undergone a very amazing change!
III. Thirdly, we know something else. WE KNOW THAT WE LIVE–"We know
that we have passed from death unto life."
In that life, first of all, is included non-condemnation. A man who is
condemned to die can hardly be said to live, but he who has believed in
Jesus Christ knows that there is, for him, no condemnation! Nothing
shall ever be laid to his charge, for all his sins were punished on
Christ–a full atonement was made for them–and they were forever put
away. This we know, and we rejoice to know it–it is the very glory and
bliss of our life!
We live now, dear Friends, in this way–we have entered into a new
state of being. We have made the acquaintance of a great many things
that we did not know anything of before. "All things have become new."
"Ah, Sir," said one to me once, "either all the world has altered, or
else I have, for people I once delighted in I am now afraid of. The
things that once made me glad, now make me unhappy, and those that I
thought melancholy are now the very things in which I find my highest
joy." Yes, we have not merely to talk about God, now, but to knowHim!
Not simply to speak about Christ, but to live in Him! Not now to dream
or read about the Spirit of God, but to felHim working in us! We have
come now to know the blood of Jesus as applied to our souls to make us
clean–the promises are now our riches and prayer is a reality to us!
We never need anybody to tell us that there is a power in prayer, for
we have tokens from day to day that the Lord hears our petitions. We
are living in a new world altogether, we know we are! These things were
unknown and unperceived by us once, but they are perceived by us now.
Beside that, we are now introduced into spiritual society. I hardly
know how to explain the great change to some here, but suppose you had
been a pig all your life and that you were suddenly made into a man.
Well, now you are a man, you look through a telescope–swine cannot do
that. You look through a microscope–I never knew a pig do that in my
life. Swine do not talk, but you speak, you sing, you pray, you are
quite a different creature from what you were before. It is just so
with some of us–we have another life than we ever possessed before, we
live in a different world to what we used to live in, we know things
that were unknowable to us once, we enjoy what we never had enjoyed and
we have griefs that never occurred to us before we passed from death
unto life. By all these things we know that we do really live.
Further, this new life necessitates new food. We feel, now, an appetite
which nothing but Christ can satisfy! We love the House of God, we
delight in God's Word, and when the Holy Spirit blesses us, then are we
filled as with marrow and fatness! We believe, too, that this life
guarantees to us eternal life–that, in fact, it is eternal life–life
that can never die, or be taken away from us. Let me tell you, my
un-converted Friend, that we are very happy! "But," you say, "you said
that you had sorrows which we do not have." Exactly so. Men, you know,
have sorrows which swine do not have. Do I compare you to swine? Well,
if you do not like that image, I cannot help it. I will take any other
that is true, but there is as great a difference between a living
Christian and a mere man as there is between a living man and a dog. He
has another life, a higher life and he has entered another realm. I
would not try to teach a dog astronomy and it is impossible for an
unrenewed man to know the things of God. I should not think of putting
my dog into a chair and beginning to explain theology to him–and until
you are born again, you will never understand the meaning of God's
Grace. You must get a new life, pass from death unto life, or you
cannot know these things. But we who believe in Jesus know that we have
this life.
IV. Now, fourthly, WE KNOW THAT WE LIVE BECAUSE WE LOVE.
The enquiry as to whether we are alive or not is a very curious thing.
This morning I received a letter informing me that the High Court of
Chancery has ordered investigation, with affidavit, as to whether "the
said Charles Haddon Spurgeon" is still alive. I replied to the lawyer
that I would not make an affidavit to that effect, for I would not take
an oath for any purpose, but that I was willing most solemnly to affirm
that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, I am still alive. And I
expect to have to do that before long. I did not say to myself, "Am I
really alive or not?" But I have known some Christian people, who have
so often sung–
"'Tis a point I long to know"– which all of us have to sing some time
or other–that they are not sure whether they are alive or not! Making
themselves sad, miserable and melancholy, they think is a proof of
life. Perhaps it is, but there are other proofs of life beside that,
and I like the one that is given in the text–"We know that we have
passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren."
So, Brothers and Sisters, if we can say that we love God's people, as
God's people, because they are God's people, that is a mark that we
have passed from death unto life! Do you love them for Christ's sake?Do
you say to yourself, "That is one of Christ's people. That is one who
bears Christ's Cross. That is one of the children of God and,
therefore, I love him and take delight in his company"? Then that is an
evidence that you are not of the world. If you were, you would love the
world, but, belonging to Christ, you love those who are Christ's and
you love them for Christ's sake.
Another is you love them for the Truth of God's sake. We are but
earthen vessels, yet there is the excellency of the treasure of God put
within us, so, when you can say, "I love that man because of the Truth
of God he preaches. I do not care about his talents, but I do care
about his Gospel"–when you can say, "I love that woman, I delight to
hear her speak of Jesus, her experience comforts me because it is full
of Christ." Or, "I love to read the writings of such a Brother because
there is a savor of Christ about every letter that he writes"–that is
a mark that you have passed from death unto life. If you love the
children, you love the Father, I am pretty sure of that. And if you
love Him, it is because He first loved you!
It is another mark of our passing from death unto life when we love
God's people for their own sake, when we wish that we were like they
are, when we say to ourselves, "I would gladly be the least among them,
washing their feet and filling the humblest place, so that I might
share the love which is their joy." It is a sure token that you are a
child of God when you love God's people even when the world hates them,
taking their part, being willing to be reproached with them. When you
say, "You scoff at such a saint, do you? I am one of the same family,
so give me some of your scorn! If you have any rotten stuff to fling
and you set this Christian man in the pillory, I will stand by his side
and count it a great honor to share the contempt that comes upon a
child of God." If you thus love the saints, you need not be afraid
whether you have passed from death unto life.
It is also a sure mark of Grace when we love the company of God's
people as a people, when we are willing to go to the little Prayer
Meeting to hear them pray, when we hear them groaning and yet feel,
"That is just the kind of sorrow that I would like to feel." When we
hear them joyful and say, "That is the kind ofjoy I want to feel." When
we hear them tell about what the Lord has done for them, and though we
have not felt quite the same joy, ourselves, yet say, "I love them
because the Lord has loved them. If He has not yet worked all this in
me, I love them because He has worked it in them. I rejoice to see my
Father's finger anywhere, on anyone, whoever he may be." Well, if that
is your case, go your way in peace! It seems but a very small token of
the inward life that we love the Brothers and Sisters, yet it is one of
the surest in the world, and it is one of which even you high and
mighty saints may be glad to avail yourselves in the cloudy and dark
day which, sooner or later, may come upon you.
God grant us all to have a share in this precious knowledge, for
Christ's sake! Amen and Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM32.
A Psalm of David, giving instruction. The 32nd Psalm is a Gospel
benediction. It belongs not to the law–it is a word which can only
come of Sovereign Grace to the guilty. The very first sentence tells us
that.
Verse 1. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is
covered. Blessed would have been the man who never transgressed, who
never sinned, but, be encouraged, O Sinner, there is blessedness even
for the likes of you! Blessed is he who, though he has transgressed,
has had his transgression forgiven–who, though he has sinned, and
sinned often, and sinned foully, yet, nevertheless, has had his sin
covered. There is such blessedness in this forgiveness that scarcely
can the bliss of an unfallen spirit excel it! There is a tenderness, a
delicacy, a fragrance, a love about the dealings of God with pardoned
sinners that even angels can scarcely tell the excessive sweetness of
it! They have never known the joy of redeeming Grace and dying love
and, although they are blessed, yet peculiarly and especially is he
blessed "whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered."
2. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputes not iniquity, and in
whose spirit there is no guile. He is blessed twice over. God
multiplies the blessing. He blesses him effectually, He blesses him
emphatically, He blesses him in body, He blesses him in soul. He is
blessed! He has iniquities, but God does not impute them to him. They
have been of old imputed to Another who stood in the sinner's place,
bore the sinner's guilt and put it all away by His own expiatory
sufferings! Therefore, as these deeds were put to Christ's account,
they are not laid to the account of the Lord's people! "Blessed is the
man unto whom Jehovah imputes not iniquity." But even pardon and
deliverance from guilt would not be sufficient to make a man blessed if
they stood alone, for, as long as our heart is full of sin and deceit
and follows crooked ways, there can be no true rest to us. Therefore
the blessedness comes to the man "in whose spirit there is no
guile"–no falsehood. The guile and the guilt have gone together and
the gall is gone, too. Now the man is truthful, so he confesses his
sin. He is also trustful, so he lays hold on the sinner's Substitute
and thus he finds peace. Dear Friends, do you all know this
blessedness? If you do not, I pray that you may, for it is Heaven begun
below–the Heaven of a poor sinner whose sin is covered and whose heart
is purified from guile. Now see the way by which we come to this
blessedness–
3. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the
day long. Sin was in his heart but he would not confess it. He was
silent before God in hardness of heart and then his sorrow grew worse
and worse, till not only his flesh began to fail, but his bones–the
most solid part of his frame began to grow old, too. He felt like a man
prematurely aged, melting away into the grave.
4. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned
into the drought of summer Selah. When a man gets God's hand on him, I
guarantee you that he will want no other burden! This hand of God goes
with him wherever he goes, it is like his own shadow. Whenever you meet
with persons who are self-righteous, you may pray God to lay his hand
on them–that will drive the pride and unbelief out of them. David says
that he was so pressed under God's hand that the very essence of his
soul was squeezed out of him.
5. I acknowledged my sin unto You, and my iniquity have I not hid. I
said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and You forgave
the iniquity of my sins. Selah. "And You forgave"–blessed, "and!" How
very simple it was! The floods of Divine Wrath were swelling. David
just pulled up the sluices of confession, the floods ran away, and all
was quiet! Oh, what a simple plan this is! But pride cannot stand
it–to humble oneself and confess before God that one is utterly undone
and ruined and sinful–our proud spirit will not bring itself to do if
it can help it. Yet that is the way of peace. Down, down, down, flat on
your face! "He that is down need fear no fall." But we do not like that
going down, that acknowledgment of transgression. Still, we must come
to it and the sooner, the better. The Lord bring every proud soul here
to a full acknowledgment and confession of sin–and then forgiveness
will surely follow.
6. For this shall everyone who is godly pray unto You in a time when
You may be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not
come near unto him. The fact that God hears us at the first and gives
us a great deliverance when we are under a sense of sin, makes us pray
to Him as long as we live. We shall never forget how God heard us
then–and something whispers into our heart, "He heard you then. He
will hear you now." One thing I know, if you do not–I can never come
to God again in such a plight as I came to Him at the first. Whatever
happens to me–if I am bereaved a thousand times–if I am covered from
head to foot with sores and sit like Job on a dunghill–I can never be
brought so low as I was when, in my despair, I was ready to lay violent
hands on myself rather than live any longer under a sense of sin! I
looked unto Him and I was lightened–and that first grand deliverance
ensures that, in every other time of trial, in every other flood of
great waters, when I cry unto God, He will deliver me!
7. You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You
shall compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah. Here is a
threefold declaration. "You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me
from trouble; You shall compass me about with songs of deliverance."
"Yes," says God, "I will." And now He speaks to His servant. When we
speak to God, we may expect that God will speak to us. And what a happy
dialog it is when a soul can pray, and praise, and magnify the
Lord–and then the Lord condescends to speak to His poor servant after
this fashion!
8. I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go. "I
have led you so far. I have brought you up out of the horrible pit and
out of the miry clay. I will not let you perish, now. I will not leave
you to your own folly."
8. I will guide you with My eyes. It is a very gentle way of guidance
when a mistress just turns her eyes towards her servant, who
understands her without a word. So God is quite willing to guide His
people with His eyes if they are willing to be so guided.
9. Be you not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no
understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest
they come near unto you. Alas, there are some hard-mouthed Christians!
They will not take a hint from God. They do not watch God's eyes and so
do not learn by that gentle means and, therefore, they require to have
a bit and a bridle–and such things are not at all nice in one's mouth.
Some Christians must always be in trouble, or else they would be in
sin. It seems as if some could never be allowed a furlough from sorrow,
or else they would spend it in the tents of wickedness–"Be you not as
the horse, or as the mule." Be tender-mouthed. Be willing to be guided.
Yield to the gentle admonitions of the Divine Spirit that you may have
a truly happy life.
10. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked. It is all merriment with them
now–they "count it one of the wisest things, to drive dull care away."
But hark to this knell of all their joys, "Many sorrows shall be to the
wicked." If not today, or tomorrow, yet by-and-by, and in that day it
shall be so. All the future is dark to the wicked. The further they go,
the worse they will grow.
10. But he that trusts in the LORD, mercy shall compass him about ' 'He
that trusts in the Lord"–he is the very opposite of the wicked. Do you
trust in the Lord, my Friend? If not, you will have to be put among the
wicked, for there are only two sorts of people in the world–the wicked
and those that trust in the Lord! If you are not a believer in Christ,
you must go with the other company. "He that trusts in the Lord, mercy
shall compass him about." Mercy shall go all round him, before him,
behind him, above him, beneath him, within him and around him
everywhere! As you see the moon, sometimes, with a halo around it, so
shall you be–you shall have brightness within and round about you,
mercy shall compass you about.
11. Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, you righteous: and shout for joy,
all you that are upright in heart If anybody has a right to be glad,
you have! So indulge the gladness and magnify the name of the Lord.