Love at Leisure
(No. 2927)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1905.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON SUNDAY EVENING, DECEMBER
3, 1876.
"Mary, who also sat at Jesus'feet, and heard His Word." Luke 10:39.
MARY was full of a love to Christ which could be very active and
self-sacrificing. I have read to you of her pouring the precious box of
spikenard upon our Lord for His anointing. She was, therefore, one who
not only waited and listened, but she served the Lord after her sort
and fashion. If she had been simply contemplative and nothing more, we
might, perhaps, have considered her somewhat of a one-sided
character–and while pointing to that which was good in her as an
example, we might have had to comment on her deficiencies. But she did
more than sit at the Master's feet. Beloved, if we ever serve the Lord
as Mary did, we shall do well.
Now, since she was able thus to serve, she becomes a safe example for
us in this other matter of restful faith. The portion of her life
occupied in sitting at her Master's feet may instruct and help us. I
feel I can safely hold her up to you as an example in all respects and
the more so because of the particular incident just now before us where
she received the Master's express commendation. He also praised her for
bringing the box of ointment but, on this occasion, He praised her,
too, saying that she had chosen the good part which should not be taken
from her. He could not have more conspicuously set His seal of approval
on her conduct than He did. I am not going to say much about her, but I
want to speak to those of you who love the Lord as Mary did, to try if
I cannot entice you for your own rest and for your own encouragement
into following her example in this particular incident, namely, that of
sitting at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have already said you
can see that the example is only part of her life–one side of it. At
another time I may take the other side and exhort you to also follow
her in that, but for this next hour or so, I want you to leave out the
other side of her character and stick only to this. Consider it well,
for I am persuaded that this is the true preparation for the
other–that contemplation and rest at the Savior's feet will give you
strength which will enable you afterwards to anoint His feet according
as your heart's love shall dictate.
On this occasion, then, we have only to do with Mary sitting at our
Savior's feet. There shall be four heads which you will not
forget–love at leisure sitting down. Love in lowliness, sitting at
Jesus' feet. Love listening–she heard His Words. Love learning–she
heard His Words to a most blessed purpose. All the while she chose the
good part.
I. First, then, LOVE AT LEISURE. That is a point which I want you
especially to notice. You that have families to feed and clothe know
how, all day long, you are busy–very busy, perhaps. The husband is
away from early morning till the evening comes. The children have gone
to school and the wife is occupied in a hundred household things. But
now the evening meal is over and there is a warm fire burning in the
hearth. Is it not one of the most pleasant sights of English interiors
to see the family gathered around the fire to just sit still for a
little while to talk and to indulge in those domestic loves which are
the charm of that sweet English word, "home"? May an Englishman never
ceases to think of the word, "home," as the most musical word that ever
dropped from mortal lips! Now love is quiet and still and, I was about
to say, careless. Outside it has to watch its words, but inside it is
playful, it is at ease, it disports itself, fearless of all
adversaries. It takes its rest. The armor is put off and the soldier
feels the day's battle is done. He stands not on his guard any longer.
He is among those that love him and he feels that he is free. I do not
know what life would be if there were not some of those sweet leisure
moments when love has nothing else to do except to love–those
intervals, these oases in the desert of life wherein to love is to be
happy and to be loved is to be doubly blest!
Now, Christian people ought to have such times. Let us put aside our
service for awhile. I am afraid that even those who are busy in the
Master's work and are not occupied much with lower things, yet overlook
the necessity for love to be at leisure. Now tonight, at any rate, you
that work longest and toil most and have to think the hardest can ask
the Lord to make this a leisure time between you and Jesus. You are not
called upon to help Martha to prepare the banquet. Just sit still–sit
still and rest at Jesus' feet and let nothing else occupy the next hour
but sitting still and loving and being loved by Him.
Can we not get rid of worldly cares?We have had enough of them during
the six days–let us cast the whole burden of them upon our Lord. Let
us roll them up and leave them all at the Throne of Grace. They will
keep till tomorrow and there is no doubt whatever that they will plague
us enough, then, unless we have faith enough to master them. But now
put them on the shelf. Say, "I have nothing to do with you now–any one
of you. You may just be quiet. My soul has gone away from you up to the
Savior's bosom, there to rest and to delight herself in Him."
And then let us try to banish all church cares also. Holy cares should
not always trouble us. As I came here just now, I said to myself, "I
will try tonight not to think about how I shall preach, or how this
part of the sermon may suit one class of my Hearers or that part
another. I will just be like Lazarus was, of whom it is written that,
'Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with Him.'" You know
that the preacher to such a congregation as this may often find himself
like Martha, combined with much serving if he forgets that he is but a
servant of the Master and has only to do His bidding. You may well
excuse us. But it must not be so tonight. Whether you are deacon or
elder, or preacher, or hearer, you must have nothing to do tonight with
anything outside of our blessed Lord and our own hearts! Our love shall
claim this time for her own rest. No, Martha, even though you are
getting ready to feast Christ, we will not hear the clatter of dishes
or the preparation of the festival. We must now just sit there at His
feet and look up, and have no eyes except for Him, no ears except for
Him, no heart except for Him. It shall be love's leisure night tonight!
And, in truth, Beloved, we have plenty of reason for resting. Let us
sit at Jesus' feet because our salvation is complete. He said, "it is
finished," and He knew that He had worked it all. The ransom price is
paid for you, O my Soul! Not one drop has been withheld of the blood
that is your purchase. The robe of righteousness is woven from top to
bottom–there is not one thread for you to add. It is written, "You are
complete in Him" and however frail we are, yet we are "perfect in
Christ Jesus," and in spite of all our sin, we are "accepted in the
Beloved." If it is so, O Love, have you not room for leisure? Is not
this thought a sofa upon which you may stretch yourself and find that
there is space enough for you to take your fullest ease? Your rest is
not like the peace of the ungodly of whom it is said, "The bed is
shorter than that a man may stretch himself upon it." Here is perfect
rest for you–a couch long enough and broad enough for all your need!
And if, perhaps, you should remember, O my Heart, that you have sin yet
to overcome and corruption within you yet to combat, remember this
night that Christ has put away all your sin, for He is "the end of the
Law for righteousness to everyone that believes" and that He has
overcome the world on your behalf and said to you, "Be of good cheer."
You have to fight, but your foe is a routed foe! It is a broken-headed
dragon that you have to go to battle with and the victory is sure, for
your Savior has pledged Himself to it! You may well take your leisure,
for the past is blotted out and the future is secure! You are a member
of Christ's body and as such you cannot die! You are a sheep of His
pasture and as such He will never lose you! You are a jewel of His
crown and as such He will never take His eyes or His heart off of you!
Surely, then, you may take your leisure.
Let us also rest because we have received so much from our Master. Be
sure to remember, O heart that would have leisure for love, that though
you have many mercies to receive, there are not as many to come as you
have already had! You have great things yet to learn, but not such
great things as you have already been taught. He that has found Christ
Jesus to be his Savior has found more than he will ever again find,
even though he finds a Heaven, since even Heaven itself is in the loins
of Christ and he that gets Jesus has got an eternity of bliss in him!
If God gave you Christ, all else is small compared with the gift you
already have. Take your leisure, then, and rejoice in your Lord,
Himself, and in His Infinite perfections.
As to the Lord's work, we may well take leisure for love, because it is
His work It will go on rightly enough. It is His work, the saving of
those souls. It is well that we are so eager–it were better if we were
more eager. But just now we may lay even our eagerness aside, for it is
not ours to save–it is His–and He will do it. He will soon give you
to see of
the travail of His soul. Christ will not die in vain. Election's decree
shall not be frustrated and Redemption's purpose shall not be turned
aside. Therefore rest.
Besides, my Heart, what can you do, after all? You are so little and so
altogether insignificant. If you worry yourself into your grave what
can you accomplish? God did well enough before you were born and He
will do well enough when you are gone Home. Therefore fret not
yourself. I have sometimes heard of ministers that have been quite
exhausted by the preparation of a single Sunday sermon. I am told,
indeed, that one sermon on a Sunday is as much as any man can possibly
prepare! It is such laborious work to elaborate a sermon! And then I
say to myself, "Did my Lord and Master require His servants to preach
such sermons as that? Is it not probable that they would do a great
deal more good if they never tried to do any such fine things, but just
talked out of their hearts of the simplest Truths of His blessed
Gospel!"
I turn to the Old Testament and I find that He told His priests to wear
white linen, but He also told them never to wear anything that caused
sweat, from which I gather that He did not want His priests in the
Temple to be puffing and blowing and sweating and boiling like a set of
Negro slaves. He meant that His service, although they threw their
strength into it, should never be wearisome to them! He is not a
taskmaster, like Pharaoh, exacting his tale of bricks and then again a
double tale, giving his servants no straw wherewith to make them. No,
but He says, "Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and
lowly in heart and you shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is
easy and My burden is light." Therefore it seems to me that with all
the work His people do–and they ought to do it so as to pour their
whole life on His head like a box of precious spikenard, yet He did not
mean them to go up and down about His service, stewing and worrying and
killing their very lives out of them about this and that and the other!
They will do His service a great deal better if they will very often
come and sit down at His feet and say, "Now I have nothing to do but to
love Him–nothing to do but to receive His love into my soul." Oh, if
you will seek after such quiet communion you will be sure to work with
a holy might that shall consume you! First take in the strength by
having these blessed times of leisure at the Savior's feet. "He that
believes shall not make haste." He shall have such peace and
restfulness, such quiet and calm, that he shall be in no hurry of fear
or fright, but he shall be like the great Eternal who, with all that He
does–and He works up to now and guides the whole universe which is
full of stupendous wonders–yet never breaks the eternal leisure in
which His supreme mind forever dwells!
Well, if we cannot keep up such leisure as that, at least let us have
it tonight. I invite you, persuade you and entreat you, Beloved Mary
and others like you, to do nothing but just enjoy the leisure of love
and sit at Jesus' feet.
II. The second thing is LOVE IN ITS LOWLINESS. Love needs to spend her
time with Christ. She picks her place and her place is down at His
feet. She does not come to sit at the table with Him, like Lazarus, but
she sits down on the ground at His feet.
Observe that love in this case does not take the position of honor She
is not a busy housewife, managing affairs, but a lowly worshipper who
can only love. Some of us have to be managers for Christ–managing this
and managing that– but perhaps love is most at home when she forgets
that she has anything to manage. She leaves it to manage itself, or
better still, she trusts the Lord to manage it all and just subsides
from a manager into a disciple, from a worker into a penitent, from a
giver into a receiver, from a somebody, which Grace has made her, to a
nobody, glad to be nothing, content to be at His feet, to let Him be
everything, while self sinks and sinks away. Do not let me only talk
about this, Beloved, but let it be done! Love your Lord now. Let your
hearts remember Him. Behold His robes of love, all crimsoned with His
heart's blood. You shall take your choice whether you look up to Him on
the Cross, or on the Throne. Let it be as suits your mind best tonight,
but in any case say unto Him, "Lord, what am I, and what is my father's
house, that You have loved me so?"
Sit near your Lord, but sit at His feet. Let such words as these be
upon your lips, "Lord, I am not worthy to be called by Your Grace. I am
not worthy to be written in Your Book of Life. I am not worthy that You
should waste a thought on me, much less that You should shed Your blood
for me. I remember now what I was when You did first deal with me. I
was cold, careless and hard towards You, but very wanton and eager
towards the world, giving my heart away to a thousand lovers and
seeking comfort everywhere except in You. And when You did come to me,
I did not receive You. When You did knock at my door, I did not open to
You, though Your head was wet with dew and Your locks with the drops of
the night. And, oh, since through Your Grace I have admitted You and
You and I have been joined together in bonds of blessed union, yet how
ill have I treated You! O my Lord! How little have I done for You! How
little have I loved You! I could faint in Your Presence to think that
if You did examine me and question me, I could not answer You one of a
thousand questions You might ask me. Your book accuses me of negligence
in reading it. Your Throne of Grace accuses me of slackness in prayer.
The assemblies of Your people accuse me that I have not been hearty in
worshipping. There is nothing, either in Providence or in Nature, or in
Grace, but what might bring some accusation against me! The world
itself might blame me that my example so little rebukes it and my very
family might charge that I do not bless my household as I should." That
is right, dear Brother, dear Sister. Sink! Go on sinking. Be little. Be
less. Be less still. Be still less. Be least of all. Be nothing!
Lift up your eyes from your lowly place to Him who merits all your
praise. Say to Him, "But what are You, Beloved, that You should have
thought of me before the earth was? That You should take me to Yourself
to be Yours and then for me, should leave the royalties of Heaven for
the poverties of earth and should even go down to the grave, that You
might lift me up and make me to sit with You at Your right hand? Oh,
what wonders You have worked in me and I am not worthy of the least of
Your mercies! And yet You have given me great and unspeakable
blessings. If You had only let me be a doorkeeper in Your house, I had
been happy, but You have set me among princes! If You had given me the
crumbs from Your table, as dogs are fed, I had been satisfied, but You
have put me among the children! If You had said that I might just stand
outside the gates of Heaven now and then, on gala days, to hear Your
voice, it would have been bliss for me! But now You have promised me
that I shall be with You where You are, to behold Your Glory and to be
a partake of it, world without end." Do not such thoughts as these make
you sink? I do not know how it is with you, but the more I think of the
Lord's mercies, the more I grow downward. I could weep to think that He
should lavish so much on one that gives Him no return at all, for so it
seems to my heart that it is with me. What do you think of yourself?
What is your faith, your love, your liberality, your prayers, your
works? Dare you call them anything? Do you imagine that the Lord is
pleased with your past? Would He not rather say to you, "You have
bought Me no sweet cane with money, neither have you filled me with the
fat of your sacrifices; but you have made Me to serve with your sins
and wearied Me with your iniquities." So we sit down again at His feet
and from that place we would not wish to rise. Love's leisure shall be
spent in acts of humiliation. We will bow at the feet that were pierced
for our redemption!
III. But now, in the third place, here is LOVE LISTENING. She is down
there in the place of humility, but she is where she can catch each
word as it falls, and she is there with one purpose. She wishes to hear
all that Christ has to say and she wishes to hear it close at hand. She
wants to hear the very tones in which He speaks and the accents with
which He delivers each precept. She loves to look up and see those eyes
which have such meaning in them and that blessed Countenance which
speaks as much as the lips themselves. And so she sits there and she
looks with her eyes toward Him as a handmaid's eyes are to her
mistress. And then, with her ears and her eyes, she drinks in what He
has to say.
Now, Beloved, I want you to do that. Say in prayer now, "Speak, Lord,
for Your servant hears." And then with your ears open, hear what He
says by His Word. Perhaps there is some text that has come home to your
soul today. Hear it. Hear it well. It would not be much use for anyone
to try to preach a sermon in the center of the city in the middle of
the day. If you stood near St. Paul's Cathedral with all that traffic
going by and all that rumbling, roaring and shouting, why, the big
bell, itself, might speak and you would hardly hear it! But when it is
night and all is still, then you can hear the city clocks strike and
you might hear a man's voice even though it was not a very strong one,
if he went through the streets and delivered a message with which he
had been entrusted. Well, our blessed Lord often takes advantage of
those quiet times when the man has a broken leg and cannot get to work,
but must be still in the hospital. Or when the woman is unable to get
about the house to attend to her ordinary duties, but is so helpless
that she cannot do anything else but think. Then comes the Lord and He
begins to bring to our remembrance what we have done in days past–and
to talk with us as He never has the opportunity of doing at any other
time. But it is far more blessed to find time ourselves, so that the
Lord will not need to afflict us in order to get us quickly at His
feet! Oftentimes the Good Shepherd, in caring for the sheep, "makes us
lie down," but He is glad when we come of our own accord that we may
rest and listen to His Word.
Listen to what He is saying to you by Providence. Perhaps a dear child
is sick at home, or you have losses and crosses in business. It may not
seem to you as if these things come from your loving Lord, but they are
perhaps the pressure of His hand to draw you to His side that He may
tell you His secret. Perhaps it has been mercy that has come to you in
another way. You have been prospered, you have been converted, you have
had much joy in your family. Well, the Lord
has a voice in all that He does to His people, so listen tonight. If
you listen you will be obliged to say, "What shall I render to the Lord
for His benefits to me?"
Listen also to what the Spirit says in your soul. Listen, for it is not
till you get your soul quiet that you can hear what the Spirit of God
is saying. I have known such a clatter of worldliness or pride, or some
other noise in the soul of man, that the still small voice of the Holy
Spirit has been drowned to the serious detriment of the disciple. Now,
I hope you have really done with all your cares and left them outside
the Tabernacle tonight, that even the cares about your class in the
Sunday school and about your preaching engagement tomorrow, and
everything else, have been put aside and that now you are just sitting
down at Jesus' feet and listening. While you listen in that fashion, in
lowly spirit at His feet, you are likely to hear Him say some words to
you which, perhaps, may change the whole tenor of your life! I do not
know what God the Lord will speak, but, "He will speak peace to His
people." Sometimes He speaks in such a way that a turbid life has
become clear. A life of perplexity has become decided and distinctly
happy. And a life of weakness has become a career of strengths. And a
life that seemed wasted for a while has suddenly sprung up into eminent
usefulness! Keep your ears open, Mary! Keep your ears open, Brother,
and you will hear what Jesus Christ has to say!
But now let me say, while you are sitting and listening, you will do
well to listen as much to Him as to what He has to say, for Christ
Himself is the Word and His whole life is a voice! Oh, sit down, sit
down and listen! I wish I had not to talk tonight and could sit down
and do it for myself and just look up at Him, God over all, blessed
forever, and yet Brother to my soul, a partaker of flesh and blood!
This very fact, that He is Incarnate, speaks to me! That God is in
human flesh speaks comfort to my soul, such as no words could ever
convey! God in my nature! God become my Brother, my Helper, my Head, my
All! Could not my soul leap out of the body for joy at the Incarnation
if there were nothing else but that revealed to us?
Now let me look up again and see my Lord with His wounds, as Mary did
not see Him, but as we now may–with hands and feet pierced, with
scarred side and marred visage–tokens of the ransom price paid in His
pangs and griefs and death. Is it not amazing to see your sin forever
blotted out and blotted out so fully, and blotted out by such means as
this? Why, if there were not an audible word, those wounds are mouths
which speak His love! The most eloquent mouths that ever spoke are the
wounds of Christ. Listen! Listen! Every drop of blood says, "Peace."
Every wound says, "Pardon.
Life. Eternal life."
And now see your Beloved once again. He is risen from the dead and His
wounds bleed no more! Yes, He has gone into Glory and He sits at the
right hand of God, even of the Father! It is well for you, dear Brother
or Sister, that you cannot literally sit at His feet in that guise, for
if you could only see Him as He is, I know what would happen to you–
even that which happened to John when he saw Him with His head and His
hair white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes as a flame of
fire, and His feet as if they burned in a furnace. You would swoon
away! John says, "When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead."
You cannot sit at those feet of Glory till you have left this mortal
clay, or until it has been made like unto His glorious body! But you
may in faith do so–and what will His Glory say to you? It will say,
"This is what you shall receive. This is what you shall share. This is
what you shall see forever and ever." He will say to you–even to you
who mourn your insignificance and in lowliness sit at His
feet–"Beloved, you shall partake of the Glory which the Father gave
Me, even that which I had with Him before the world was. Soon, when a
few more moons have waxed and waned, soon you shall be with Me where I
am."
Oh, what bliss is this! Never mind Martha's frowns! Forget her for the
moment and keep on sitting at Jesus' feet! She may come in and grumble
and say that something is neglected–tell her she should not neglect it
then, but now your business is not with plates or pots, but to do as
your Master has permitted you to do, namely, to sit at His feet and
listen to Him!
IV. So I close by saying, in the fourth place, that here is LOVE
LEARNING. While she listened she was being taught, because she sat at
Jesus' feet with her heart all warm–sitting in the posture of
lowliness she was, as few could hear them–hearing words so as to spy
out their secret meaning. You know the difference between a man's voice
at a distance, saying something, and his being very near you. You know
how much the face can say, the eyes can say and the lips can say–and
there is many a deaf man that has heard another speak though he has
never heard a sound–he has known the meaning by the very movement of
the lips and the gleams of the countenance. Ah, and if you get into
such near fellowship with Christ as to sit at His feet, you will get
His meaning! When the letter kills others, you will see the secret
meaning that is hidden within and you will rejoice.
She got at His meaning and then she was hearing the words so as to
drink in the meaning. "They sit down at Your feet," says the old
Scripture, "everyone shall receive of Your words." Beloved, that is a
great promise–to receive of His Words. Some people hear the words but
do not receive them–but there sat Mary where, as the words fell, they
dropped upon her as snowflakes drop into the sea and are absorbed! So
each word of Jesus dropped into her soul and became part and parcel of
her nature–they fired and filled her very being!
What she learned she remembered. We see love learning what she will
treasure up. Mary never forgot what she heard that day. It remained
with her forever. It seasoned her whole life. The words of her Master
were with her all the days she was watching. All the days she was
waiting, she was waiting after they had been spoken. They kept her
watching and waiting till, at last, love's instinct told her that the
time was come and then she went upstairs where she had put away the
choice ointment for which she spent her money. She had laid it up and
kept it till the time should come–and just before the Savior's death
and burial she fetched it down, the gift which she had hoarded up for
Him–and she poured it out in adoration.
As she sat at His feet, she resolved to love Him more and more. Love
was learning to love better As she had listened and learned, the
learning had crystallized itself into resolves to be, among women, the
most devoted to Him. Perhaps, little by little, she had laid aside this
great price which she had paid for the spikenard. Be it as it may, it
was dear to her, and she brought it down when the time was come and put
it all on Him with a joyous liberality and love. Well, now, I want you
to learn of Jesus after that fashion and, by-and-by, when the time
comes, you, too, may do some deed for Christ that shall fill the house
in which you dwell with sweet perfume. Yes, shall fill the earth with
it, so that if man scents it not, yet God Himself shall be delighted
with the fragrance you pour, out of love, upon His Son!
We are going to have Communion. Here are the emblems of His blessed
body and blood and I hope they will help us to have nothing to do but
to think of Him–nothing to do but to be lowly in His Presence–nothing
to do but to listen to His words and to drink in His teaching.
But there are some here that do not love Him. It may be that God will
lay you low by affliction in order to bring you to the feet of Jesus.
Perhaps He will allow disaster and disappointment to overtake you in
the world, to win you to Himself. If any of you have had this
experience, or are passing through it just now, do not trifle with it,
I pray you, for, while we are in this life, if the Lord comes to us to
remind us of our sin, He does it in the greatness of His mercy and in
order that He may bring salvation to us! It will be quite another
thing, in the next life, if you die unrepentant and unforgiven. Then
you may, indeed, dread the coming of God to bring your sin to
remembrance! But while you are here, if the Lord is so speaking to you,
incline your ears and listen to His voice, however harshly it may seem
to sound in your ears. Even if He should strip you, be glad to be
stripped by Him. If He should wound you, and bruise you, willingly give
yourself up to be wounded and bruised by Him. Yes, even if He should
slay you, rejoice to be slain by Him, for remember that He clothes
those whom He strips, He heals those whom He wounds and He makes alive
those whom He kills! So it is a blessed thing to undergo all those
terrible operations of Law-work at the hands of the Most High, for it
is in that way that He comes to those whom He means to bless.
I cannot preach to you, for the time has gone, but do you know, I think
one of the most dreadful things that can ever be said of man is that he
does not love Christ> I should be sorry to enter on my list of
friends the man that did not love his mother–no, I could not call him
a man. Dead is that heart to every noble sentiment that loves not her
that bore him! And yet there might be some justifiable cause to excuse
even that. But not to love the Christ, the God that stooped to bleed
for man–this is inexcusable! I dare not tonight utter, as my own, what
Paul said, but, very pointedly and solemnly, I would remind you who
love not Christ of it. Paul says, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus
Christ, let him be anathema Maranatha"–cursed at the coming. Sometimes
when I think of my Lord and my heart grows hot with admiration of His
self-denying love, I think I could almost invoke the imprecation on the
head of him that does not, would not, could not love the Christ of God!
But better than that I will ask His blessing for you and so I say,
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!"
Here our sermon closes. And may God's blessing rest on it.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 63; LUKE10:38-42; JOHN 12:1-8.
I will read the 63rd Psalm first, as somewhat representing the state of
heart into which I would we could all come tonight.
Psalm 63:1. O God, You are my God. Read that sentence how you will, it
is unspeakably precious. If we say, "O God, You are my God," it brings
out the possession which the Believer has in God. If we say, "O God,
You are myGod," it shows the greatness of the possession which we thus
have in having this God to be our God forever and ever. And if we say
"O God, Youare my God," it leads us to think of God and not of His
gifts as our chief good.
I, 2. Early willI seek You: my soul thirsts for You, my flesh longs for
You in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see Your power and
Your glory, so as I have seen You in the sanctuary. Long after the old
times over again–for those times of Heaven upon earth–those special
seasons when the Lord made the veil between us and Heaven to be very
thin, indeed, and allowed us almost to see His face. "To see Your power
and Your glory, so as I have seen You in the sanctuary." Well, then,
let us go to the sanctuary again, or make the place where we are a
sanctuary. Even the stony pillar may mark the site of Bethel and every
spot may be hallowed ground.
3-5. Because Your loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall
praise You. Thus will I bless You while I live: I will lift up my hands
in Your name. My soulshall be satisfedas with marrow and fatness; andmy
mouth shallpraise You with joyful lips. Satisfaction, absolute
satisfaction! Satiety of every desire, full to the brim to the running
over only because God is our God! We need nothing beyond that to make
our mouth praise with joyful lips.
6, 7. When I remember You upon my bed, and meditate on You in the night
watches. Because You had been my help, therefore in the shadow of Your
wings will I rejoice. If I cannot see Your face, the shadow of Your
wing shall be enough for me, for they shall shelter me from all harm
and I will, yes, I will rejoice. Under the wings we are near the heart
of God and he who know God's heart of love must be glad.
8-10. My soul follows hard after You: Your right hand upholds me. But
those that seek my soul, to destroy it, shall go into the lower parts
of the earth. They shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for
foes. All our sins and all other things or beings that are the enemies
of our soul! Christ has overcome and He will leave them upon the field.
II. But the king shall rejoice in God; everyone that swears by Him
shall glory: but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.
Now a short passage in the New Testament about Mary, the sister of
Martha.
Luke 10:38-40. Now it came to pass, as they went, that He entered into
a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received Him into
her house. And she had a sister called Mary which also sat at Jesus'
feet, and heard His word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving,
and came to Him and said, Lord, do You not care that my sister has left
me to serve alone? Bid her, therefore, that she help me. Agitated,
distressed Martha was afraid that something would go wrong with the
dinner. She had too much on her hands–too much on her brain. That led
her to blame her sister, Mary, and to try to get the Lord to blame her,
too. There is a strong tincture of self-righteousness in Martha's
speech.
41, 42. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, You are
careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is necessary and
Mary has chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
I shall not tell her to leave My instruction, said our Lord, or to get
up from the position which she occupies. No, you may go about your
work, she is honoring Me as much as you are, if not more. This did not
mean that Mary was perfect, or that Martha was wholly to be condemned.
Both needed to learn much from Jesus and Mary was more in the way of
it. Still Martha was doing good service. But you will see that Mary
could do something for Christ, too, when the time came.
John 12:1, 2. Then Jesus, six days before the Passover came to Bethany,
where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom He raised from the dead.
There theymade Him a supper, andMartha served: andLazarus was one
ofthem that sat at the table with Him. Martha served–she had not given
that up. She was a wondrous housewife and she did well to keep to her
occupation. Lazarus had been dead and had been raised again. But he was
not the center of interest–"He that raised him up was there."
3-7. Then took Mary apound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and
anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair: and the
house was filled with the odor of the ointment. Then said one of His
disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which would betray Him, Why was
not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?
This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a
thief and had the money box; and he used to take what wasput in it.
Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day ofMy burying has she
kept this. Somebody or other always seemed to object to Mary! If Martha
does not do it, Judas will. To be found guilty of excess of love to
Christ is such a blessed criminality that I wish we might be executed
for it! It were sweet to be put to death for such a crime! It was that
that Christ died of–He was found guilty of excess of love.
8. For the poor you always have with you; but Me you have not always.
It is not every day that you can do something personally and distinctly
for Christ, Himself, and therefore, whenever the occasion serves you,
be sure to be there to avail yourself of it! True, you can serve Him
indirectly by aiding His poor saints. Still, something for Him–for
Him, Himself–should often be devised as Mary devised this service that
day.