"Marvelous Loving Kindness"
(No. 2702)
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1900.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER
20, 1881.
"Show Your marvelous loving kindness." Psalm 17:7.
THE Lord's people, in the time of their trouble, know where to go for
comfort and relief. Being taught of God, they do not hew out for
themselves broken cisterns which can hold no water, but they turn to
the ever-flowing Fountain, they go to the Wellhead–even to God
Himself–and there they cast themselves down and drink to the full.
David, when he wrote this Psalm, was evidently in very great distress
and, therefore, he says, "I have called upon You, for You will hear me,
O God: incline Your ear unto me, and hear my speech." What he needed
was his God, as Dr. Watts expresses it–
"In darkest shades if He appears,
My dawning is begun.
He is my soul's sweet morning star,
And He my rising sun."
Believers draw comfort both from God's ordinary and extraordinary
dealings with them, for they regard God's loving kindness as being both
an ordinary and an extraordinary thing. I have heard of a good Sister
who, when a friend narrated to her some very gracious dealing of God,
was asked the question, "Is it not very wonderful?" and she replied,
"No, it is not wonderful, for it is just like Him." Begging her pardon
and admitting the great Truth of God that she meant to convey, I think
it is still more wonderful that it should be "just like Him." The
wonder of extraordinary love is that God should make it such an
ordinary thing, that He should give to us "marvelous loving kindness,"
and yet should give it so often that it becomes a daily blessing, and
still remains marvelous! The marvels of men, after you have seen them a
few times, cease to excite any wonder. I suppose there is scarcely a
building, however costly its materials, and however rare its
architecture, as to which, sooner or later, you will not feel that you
have seen enough of it. But God's wonderful works never pall upon you.
You could gaze upon Mont Blanc, or you could stand and watch Niagara
Falls, yet never feel that you had exhausted all its marvels. And
everyone knows how the ocean is never twice alike. They who live close
to it and look upon it every hour of the day, still see God's wonders
in the deep!
That God should bless us every day is a theme for our comfort. God's
ordinary ways charm us. The verse before our text says, "'I have called
upon You, for You will hear me, O God.' I know You will, for the
blessing that I am about to ask from You is a thing that I have been
accustomed to receive from You. I know You will hear me, for You have
heard me in the past; it is a habit of Yours to listen to my
supplications, and to grant my requests." I hope we can argue in a
similar fashion, yet, at the same time, God's people draw equal comfort
from the extraordinary character of the mercies He bestows upon them.
They appeal to Him to show them His "marvelous loving kindness," to let
them see the wonderful side of it as well as the common side of it. To
let them behold His miracles of mercy, His extravagances of love, His
superfluities of kindness–I scarcely know what words to use when
talking of what the Apostle Paul calls "the riches of His Grace,
wherein He has abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence," "the
exceeding riches of His Grace in His kindness toward us through Christ
Jesus."
I want, on this occasion, to dwell upon the extraordinary side of God's
loving kindness and, using our text as a prayer, to say to the Lord in
the language of David, "Show Your marvelous loving kindness." Sometimes
a man is
brought into such a condition that he feels that if God does not do
something quite out of the common order of things, he will assuredly
perish. He has now come to such a pass, that if some extraordinary
Grace is not displayed towards him, all is over with him. Well, now,
such a Brother may think that God will not give this extraordinary
Grace to him. He may be troubled at the idea that some marvelous thing
is needed. It is to meet that suggestion of unbelief that I am going to
address you now.
I. And my first remark is that ALL THE LOVING KINDNESS OF GOD IS
MARVELOUS.
The least mercy from God is a miracle. That God does not crush our
sinful race is a surprising mercy. That you and I should have been
spared to live–even though it were only to exist in direst poverty, or
in sorest sickness–that we should have been spared at all, after what
we have been and after what we have done, is a very marvelous thing.
The explanation of the marvel is given in the Book of Malachi–"I am
the Lord, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed."
If God had possessed such a short temper as men often have, He would
have made short work with us all. But He is gracious and long-suffering
and, therefore, he is very patient with us. The very least mercy that
we ever receive from God is a very wonderful thing, but when we think
of all that is meant by this blessed word, "loving kindness"– which is
a compound of all sorts of sweetness, a mixture of fragrances to make
up one absolutely perfect perfume–when we take that word, "loving
kindness," and think over its meaning, we shall see that it is a
marvelous thing, indeed, that it describes!
For, first, it is marvelous for its antiquity. To think that God should
have had loving kindness towards men before the earth was, that there
should have been a Covenant of Election–a plan of Redemption–a scheme
of Atonement– that there should have been eternal thoughts of love in
the mind of God towards such a strange being as man, is, indeed,
marvelous! "What is man, that you are mindful of him? And the son of
man, that you visit him?" Read these words with tears in your eyes–"I
have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness
have I drawn you." And when you know that this passage refers to you,
tell me if it is not "marvelous loving kindness." God's mind is
occupied with thoughts concerning things that are infinitely greater
than the destiny of anyone of us, or of all of us put together! Yet He
was pleased to think of us in love from all eternity and to write our
names upon His hands and upon His heart, and to keep the remembrance of
us perpetually before Him, for His "delights were with the sons of
men." This antiquity makes it to be, indeed, "marvelous loving
kindness."
Next, think of its discriminating character, that God's loving kindness
should have come to the poorest, to the most illiterate, the most
obscure and often to the most guilty of our race. Remember what Paul
wrote about this matter– "not many wise men after the flesh, not many
mighty, not manly noble, are called: but God has chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak
things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base
things of the world, and things which are despised, has God chosen,
yes, and things which are not, to bring to nothing things that are,
that no flesh should glory in His Presence." Dr. Watts expresses the
same thought in his verses–
"When the Eternal bows the skies To visit earthly things, With scorn
Divine He turns His eyes From towers of haughty kings. He bids His
awful chariot roll Far downward from the skies, To visit every humble
soul, With pleasure in His eyes."
God's choice is marvelous! I know of no better word to apply to His
loving kindness to His chosen than that which is applied in the
text–"Your marvelous loving kindness"–
"What was there in you that could merit esteem,
Or give the Creator delight?
"Twas even so, Father, 'you ever must sing,
'Because it seemed good in Your sight. There is no other explanation of
this wondrous mercy, this "marvelous loving kindness," than the poet
gives–
"His love, from eternity fixed upon you,
Broke forth and discovered its flame,
When each with the cords of His kindness He drew,
And brought you to love His great name."
So, Beloved, think over the antiquity of God's loving kindness and then
of the discriminating character of it–and surely you will be full of
adoring wonder!
After that, think also of the self-sacrificing nature of His loving
kindness–that, when God had set His heart on man, and had chosen His
people before the foundation of the world, then He should give–what?
Himself. Yes, nothing short of that–that He should not only give us
this world, His Providence, all its blessings, the world to come and
all its glories, but that, in order to our possession of these things,
He should give His own Son to die for us! Well might the Apostle John
write, "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us,
and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." It was not that
Christ died for us when we were righteous, "for scarcely for a
righteous man will one die," "but God commends His love toward us, in
that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." "When we were yet
without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." Isaiah had
long before explained the mystery–"It pleased the Lord to bruise Him:
He has put Him to grief." You who love your children, to lose one of
whom would be worse than to die–you can realize a little of what must
have been the Father's love to you in giving up His only-begotten Son
that you might live through Him. Dwell on this great Truth of God, dear
Friends. Meditate on it and ask the Holy Spirit to lead you into its
heights, depths, length, and breadths, for these lips cannot fully
speak of its wonders! As you think over the Lord's ancient loving
kindnesses which has always been, His distinguishing love towards His
redeemed and His self-sacrificing love in giving up His Only-Begotten,
you will be obliged to say, "It is marvelous loving kindness! It is
marvelous loving kindness, indeed!"
Then go on to think of the marvelous constancy of it That one should
begin to love another is not so very wonderful–but that love, after it
has been despised and ill-requited, should still continue–that the
sweet love of Christ should not long ago have curdled into jealousy,
and from jealousy have soured into indignation, is an extraordinary
thing! He loved us, Brothers and Sisters, when we did not even know Him
and yet hated the Unknown–when we did not even dimly understand His
love to us and, perhaps, even ridiculed it, or at least neglected it!
Yet He kept on loving us until He loved us into loving Him! But even
since then, what has been our character? Are you satisfied with what
you have been towards the Well-Beloved? Are you content with your
conduct towards the Bridegroom of your souls? I know that you are not,
and yet, notwithstanding your lukewarmness, your backsliding, your
dishonoring of His name, your unbelief, your pride, your love of
others, He still loves you, and even now, if you are not enjoying
fellowship with Him, He has not gone away from you, for His Word still
is, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock."
He loves, He loves on and He still loves. Many waters cannot quench His
love, neither can the floods drown it. It is, indeed, "marvelous loving
kindness." Can you think of a better adjective than that? I cannot, yet
I am conscious that even it does not fully express the miraculous
character of this all-enduring love which will not take our, "No," for
an answer, but still says, "Yes–'yes, I will betroth you unto Me in
righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving kindness, and in mercies.
I will even betroth you unto me in faithfulness, and you shall know the
Lord.'" Oh, this wonderful, this matchless, this unparalleled, this
inconceivable, this infinite love! No human language can adequately
describe it, so let us sit still and marvel at that which we cannot
even understand.
There is much in God's loving kindness to be marveled at in its strange
ingenuity. I might keep on with this topic forever, applying one word
and another to it, yet I should never have shown you even a tenth of
its wonders, for it is an altogether inexhaustible theme! But it is
wonderful how God deals with us with such a sacred ingenuity of
tenderness. He seems to be always thinking of something for our good,
while we, on our part, appear to be always testing His love in one way
or another. Some fresh need is discovered only to receive a new supply
of Grace. Some fresh sin breaks out only to be blotted out with the
ever-pardoning blood of Jesus. We get into fresh difficulties only to
receive fresh aid. The further I go on my way to Heaven, the more I
admire the road as well as wonder at the goal to which that road shall
bring me. "O world of wonders!" said John Bunyan, "I can say no less."
They tell us, nowadays, that the world is worn-out and that there is no
joy in life, and nothing fresh to afford delight. Ah, me, they talk of
the attractions of fiction and of the playwright's art, and I know not
what besides. They must travel all round the world to get a new
sensation and many a man, today, is like the Emperor Tiberius who
offered large
sums of money to anyone who could invent a new pleasure, meaning, alas,
too often, a new vice, or a new way of practicing it. But staying at
home with Christ has more wonders in it than gadding abroad with all
the wisest of the world! There is more to marvel at in half an inch of
the way to Heaven than there is in a thousand leagues of the ordinary
pathway of unbelieving men. They call their joys by the name of,
"life," and say that they must "see life." But the Apostle John tells
us that "he that has the Son has life; and he that has not the Son of
God has not life." That is to say, he is dead. Death has its varieties
of worms and rottenness. There are charnel-houses and charnel-houses,
various processes and methods of corruption and, no doubt, there is a
science that men may learn in the cemetery and call it life, if they
like. But, oh, if they did but once see Christ upon the Cross, they
would learn that they had been blind till then! If they did but know
His loving kindness, they would rejoice in it in the sick-chamber, in
the long weary night watches when every bone prevented sleep. They
would even recognize it in the arrows of death that smote wife, and
child, and brother. They would see it, not only in the table loaded for
the supply of hunger, and in the garments furnished against the cold,
and in every common blessing of Providence, but they would also see it
in every despondency, in every deficiency, in every cross and every
loss–and, seeing it, they would keep on saying, "It is all for the
best. It is far better than the best could have been if it had been
left to me. It is marvelous! It is marvelous loving kindness."
I believe that when we get to Heaven, one of the wonders of the
Glory-land will be to look back upon the road over which we have
traveled. It will be marvelous to note the way in which God has led us
and we shall, as our hymn puts it–
"Sing with rapture and surprise, His loving kindness in the skies!" I
must now leave this part of my subject with you, only again urging you
to think over the Truth of which I have been speaking, that all God's
loving kindness to His people is marvelous.
II. Now, secondly, WE SHOULD DESIRE TO SEE THIS LOVING KINDNESS. The
Psalmist says, "Show Your marvelous loving kindness." And we ought to
ask God to let us see it–and that, I think, in four ways.
First, let me see it with my intellect, that I may adore. Help me, O
blessed Spirit, to see and understand what is the loving kindness of
God to my soul! I know that it is written of some that "they shall
understand the loving kindness of the Lord." Let me be among the number
of those truly wise ones. O Lord, make me wise to see the end and
design of Your Providence as well as the Providence itself! Make me
wise to perceive how You have prepared Your Grace to meet my depravity,
how You adapt Your holding me up to the slipperiness of the way and to
the feebleness of my feet. Often shed a ray of light upon some passage
in my life which otherwise I could not comprehend–and let the light
stay there till I begin to see and to know why You did this and why You
did that. "Show Your marvelous loving kindness."
I am sure, dear Friends, that the lessons of a man's own life are too
often neglected, but there is in the life of any ordinary child of
God–let me pick you out wherever you may be–John, Mary,
Thomas–enough to fill you with wonder and admiration of the loving
kindness of the Lord if your mind is but sufficiently illuminated to
perceive the hand of God in it, and to see what God purposed by it. He
sometimes uses strange means for producing blessed results. With His
sharp axe, He will cut down all our choice trees. As by a whirlwind or
a tornado, He will devastate our gardens and make our fields a
desolation. And He will do it all in order that He may drive us away
from the City of Destruction and make us go on pilgrimage to the
Celestial City, where the axe can never come, and the leaves will never
fade. In His mysterious dealings with us, the Lord often seems to push
us backward that we may go forward, and to deluge us with sorrow that
He may immerse us in blessings! That is His way of wondrously working
and if we did but understand it, according to the prayer of the text,
"Show Your marvelous loving kindness," we would be full of adoring
wonder.
The next meaning I would give to this prayer would be, Lord, show Your
loving kindness to my heart, that I may give You thanks. Lord, I know
that You have been very good to me, but I pray You to show my heart how
good You have been, by letting me see how unworthy I have been of this,
Your kindness. It is very profitable, sometimes, to sit down and
rehearse the loving kindness of God, mingling with it penitential
reflections upon your own shortcoming. If you do this, you will at last
break out with some such cry as this, "Why is all this mercy shown to
me?" I know a dear Brother in Christ, a clergyman, whose name is
Curme–he divides it into two syllables, "Curme, "so as to make it
mean, "Why me? Why is all this goodness given to me, Lord?" And that is
a question which I, too, would ask, "Why me,
Lord?"–
"Why was I made to hear Your voice, And enter while there's room,
When thousands make a wretched choice, And rather starve than come?"
Is this kindness, and this, and this, all meant for me? Can it really
be intended for me? Such reflections as these will make me realize more
than ever, how "marvelous" is God's "loving kindness" to me, and will
fill my soul with adoring gratitude and thanksgiving.
Then, next, we ought to pray the Lord to show His "marvelous loving
kindness" to our faith, that we may again confide in Him. If He will
cause the eyes of our faith to see that He has this "marvelous loving
kindness" toward us, we shall be the more ready to rely upon Him in all
the straits into which we may yet be brought. Do you believe it, my
dear Friend? Brother in Christ, do you believe that God loves you? You
know how sweet it is to be sure that your child loves you. Though it
may well do so, because of its many obligations to you, yet is it sweet
for its warm cheek to touch yours and to hear it say, "Father, I love
you." But, oh, it is far sweeter for God to say, "I love you." Read the
Song of Solomon through and be not afraid to appropriate the message of
that sweet and matchless Canticle! Hear in it the voice of Jesus saying
to you, "You are all fair, My love; there is no spot in you." "You have
ravished My heart, My sister, My spouse; you have ravished My heart
with one of your eyes, with one chain of your neck." Such words as
those may be sensuous to those who are sensuous, but they are deeply
spiritual to those who are spiritual and, oh, the bliss of having such
words as those to come from the Christ of God to us! Why, sometimes,
when our Lord thus speaks to us, we hardly know how to bear our excess
ofjoy! I would not ask for a better holiday than to have one hour alone
with Jesus–to be undisturbed by any earthly care and to think of
nothing else but the love of God–the love of God to me! Oh, that it
were now shed abroad, in all its fullness, in this poor heart of mine!
O Divine Love, what is there that can ever match Your inexpressible
sweetness? Truly it is "marvelous loving kindness." Again I ask you–Do
you believe this? Are you sure you do? Pray God to show it to your
faith, distinctly and clearly, so that you shall be absolutely sure of
it and practically depend upon it whenever you need it.
One other meaning of the text may be show Your "marvelous loving
kindness" to me, now, in my experience, that I may rest in You. Let me,
now, at this present moment, O my God, experience something of that
loving kindness in my soul, in whatever condition I may happen to be,
that I may be so flooded with the consciousness of it that I may do
nothing else but sit in solemn silence before You and adore You while
beholding the blazing splendor of Your love! I cannot say anymore about
this part of my theme, but must leave you to fill up the gaps in the
sermon. This is not a topic upon which one should venture to speak if
he wants to say all that should or could be said upon it.
III. So, thirdly, dear Friends, I remark that IT SHOULD BE OUR
DESIRE–and there are times when it should especiallybe our desire–TO
SEE THIS "MARVELOUS LOVING KINDNESS" OF GOD DISPLAYED TO US IN ITS
MARVELOUSNESS.
I will make plain to you what I mean directly and, first, we would see
it as pardoning great sin. I expect we have here, in this assembly, at
least one whose sin lies very heavy on his conscience. We do not find
many such people come out to week-evening services, but yet I thank God
that they do come. Your sin is very great, dear Friend. I cannot
exaggerate it because your own sense of its greatness far surpasses any
descriptions I could give. You feel that if God were to pardon you, it
would be a marvelous thing. If He were, in one moment, to take all your
guilt away and to send you home completely forgiven, it would be a
marvelous thing! Yes, it would. And I beg you to pray this prayer,
"Lord, show forth Your marvelous loving kindness in me." God is
constantly doing wonders. Then, glorify His name by believing that He
can work this miracle of mercy for you. Do not be afraid to sing–
"Great God of wonders! All Your ways
Are matchless, God-like, and Divine.
But the fair glories of Your Grace
More God-like and unrivalled shine!
Who is a pardoning God like Thee?
Or who has Grace so rich and free?" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and you shall be saved, and saved immediately! Trust Him, now, and
marvelous though it will be to you–I have shown you that God's loving
kindness is all marvelous, that the extraordinary is ordinary with Him,
and that the marvelous is but an everyday thing with Him–pray for this
"marvelous loving kindness" to be manifested to you and you shall have
it! One said, "If God ever saves me, He shall never hear the end of
it." You may
say the same and resolve that, henceforth, having had much forgiven,
you will love much–having been saved from great sin, you will tell it
on earth, and tell it in Heaven and, if you could, you would even wish
to make Hell itself resound with the wondrous story–
"'Tell it unto sinners tell, I am, I am out of Hell'–
"and what is more, I am on the road to Heaven, for God's 'marvelous
loving kindness' has been shown to me!"
So God's loving kindness may be seen as pardoning great sin. And next,
it may be seen as delivering from deep trouble. I may be addressing
some poor child of God who is sorely perplexed. These are very trying
times and we constantly meet with godly people who have a sincere
desire to provide things honest in the sight of all men, but who do not
find it easy to do. Some very gracious people have got into serious
straits and how they will get out, they cannot imagine. If this is your
case, dear Friend, I expect you feel very much as John Fawcett's hymn
puts it–
"My soul, with various tempests tested,
Her hopes overturned, her projects crossed,
Sees every day new straits attend,
And wonders where the scene will end." Well, now, if you are ever
brought through all your troubles, it will be "marvelous loving
kindness" to you, will it not? Then go to God with the prayer, "Show me
Your marvelous loving kindness," and He will do it. He will bring you
up, and out, and through–not, perhaps, in the way you would like to
come–but He will bring you out in the best way. "Trust in the Lord,
and do good; so shall you dwell in the land, and verily you shall be
fed. Delight yourself also in the Lord; and He shall give you the
desires of your heart. Commit your ways unto the Lord; trust also in
Him; and He shall bring it to pass." Always expect the unexpected when
you are dealing with God! Look to see, in God, and from God, what you
never saw before, for the very things which will seem to unbelief–to
be utterly impossible–will be those which are most likely to happen
when you are dealing with Him whose arm is Omnipotent, and whose heart
is faithful and true. God grant you Grace, dear Friend, thus to use the
prayer of our text as the means of delivering you from deep trouble!
Here is another way to use it. I think you may pray it thus–at any
event, I mean to do so, whether you will or not– "Lord, reveal Your
marvelous loving kindness to me, so as to give me high joys and
ecstasies of delight" I sometimes envy those good people who never go
up and never go down, always keeping at one level–theirs must be a
very pleasant experience, indeed. Still, if ever I do get on the high
horse, then I go up far beyond anything I can describe. If ever I do
ride upon the clouds, then I do not envy the people who stay along the
smooth road. Oh, what deep depressions some of us have had! We have
gone down to the very bottoms of the mountains and the earth, and her
bars have seemed to be about us forever. But, after just one glimpse of
God's everlasting love, we have been up there where the young lightning
flashes, resting and trusting among the tempests, near to God's right
hand! I think, no, I am sure we may pray for this experience! Should
not the preacher of the Word wish to know the fullness of Divine Love?
Should not the teacher of the young long to learn all that he can
concerning God's Infinite Love? Though this is the love that passes
knowledge, should not every Christian wish to know all that is knowable
of this great love of God? Then let us pray, "Show Your marvelous
loving kindness."
It was truly said, "You cannot see God's face and live." But I have
been inclined to say, "Then let me see God's face, and die." John Welsh
said, when God was flooding his soul with a sense of His wondrous love,
"Stop, Lord, stop! I am but an earthen vessel and You will break me."
If I had been there and I could have borne no more, I would have said,
"Do not stop, Lord! Break the poor earthen vessel–smash it to
pieces–but let Your love be revealed in me!" Oh, that I might even die
of this pleasurable pain of knowing too much of God, too much of the
ineffable delight of fellowship with Him! Let us be very venturesome,
Beloved, and pray, "Show Your marvelous loving kindness."
And, when we have done that, I think we may put up this prayer for
ourselves, as to our own usefulness. You want to do good, dear
Brother–dear sister. Well, then, pray to God, "Show me Your marvelous
loving kindness, O Lord! Use even such a feeble creature as I am. Let
Heaven, and earth, and Hell, itself, see that You can save souls by
poor ignorant men as well as by inspired Apostles and learned doctors!
Lord, in my Chapel, show Your marvelous loving kindness. Crowd it with
people and bring many of them to Christ. In my class, Lord, show Your
marvelous loving kindness. If there never was a Sunday school class in
which all were saved, Lord, let it be done in mine. Make it a marvelous
thing." A
dear Brother, who prayed at the Prayer Meeting before this service,
kept on pleading that God would bless me again as He had done before. I
liked that prayer–it was as if my friend meant to say to the Lord,"
Whatever You did in years gone by, do the same over again. If ever it
was a marvelous thing to see how the people thronged to hear the Word,
Lord, make it still more marvelous."
I remember when some people called our early success "a nine days'
wonder." Well, well, well–it has been a good long nine days! But, oh,
that we might have another nine days like it–just such another nine
days! May God be pleased to send us as many conversions as we had at
the first–yes, and I shall add, and ten times as many! And if ever
there have been revivals in the Church of God that have been really
marvelous, Brothers and Sisters, let us take up the cry, "Lord, show
Your marvelous loving kindness again! Send us another Whitefield, and
another Wesley, if such will be the kind of men that will bless the
world. Send us another Luther, another Calvin, another Zwingli, if such
are the men that will bless the world. Lord, send us another Augustine,
or another Jerome, if such are the men by whom You will bless the
world. But, in some way or other, Lord, show us Your marvelous loving
kindness."
"Oh, but," some would say, "we do not need any excitement. That is an
awful thing, you know–anything like excitement." And, then, perhaps,
they add, "We have heard so much of what has been done in previous
revivals. It has all ended in smoke and, therefore, we really dread the
repetition of such an experience." Well, then, Brother, you go home and
pray, "Lord, show me Your moderateloving kindness." When you are on
your knees, tonight, pray, "Lord, save half-a-dozen souls here, and
there–
"'We are a garden walled around,
Chosen and made peculiar ground.
A little spot, enclosed by Grace,
Out of the world's wide wilderness.'– "Lord, make it yet smaller,
screw us up still tighter, to the glory of Your blessed name!"
I don't think any of you can pray that prayer! You shall, if you like,
but for my part, I mean to pray, and I hope many of you will join me in
it, and may God hear us–"Show us Your marvelous loving kindness!" Oh,
for some new miracle of mercy to be worked in the earth! Oh, for some
great thing to be done, such as was done of old! Shall it be so, or
not? On this promise it shall depend–"Open your mouth wide, and I will
fill it." But if our mouths are not open, we cannot expect to get the
blessing. "According to your faith be it unto you." The Lord grant that
our faith may expect to see His "marvelous loving kindness" displayed
yet more and more! Amen and Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM17.
Verse 1. Hear the right, O LORD, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my
prayer, that goes not out of deceitful lips. Good men are often
slandered and misunderstood and, at such times, the first verse of this
Psalm will well fit their lips. "Hear the right, O Lord." And, at all
times, it is a great blessing when a supplicant can say to God, "Give
ear unto my prayer, that goes not out of deceitful lips." It must be a
dreadful thing to pray with lips that do not speak the truth! When
men's thoughts are far away from their prayers, and they are muttering
pious words but their heart is absent, what a mockery it must be in the
sight of God! A dead prayer–who will claim it? Beware of dead prayers.
You may dress them up as finely as you like, but, if there is no life
in them, what good are they?
2. Let my sentence come forth from Your Presence; let Your eyes behold
the things that are equal. It is the appeal of a slandered man to the
highest court. He takes his case into the Court of King's Bench, and
asks God, Himself, to give the verdict concerning what he had done. It
is a good case that will bear to be so investigated.
3. You have proved my heart; You have visited me in the night; You have
tried me, and shall find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not
transgress. Happy is the man who is not afraid for God to come to him
suddenly in the night, or to pounce upon him, as it were, at any hour
of the day, for, whenever He comes, He will find His servant so acting
that he will not mind who examines his conduct. He is keeping his lips,
purposing that they shall not transgress God's Law, and he is ruling
his whole body in like manner. Only the Grace of God can enable us to
do this.
4. Concerning the works of men, by the word of Your lips I have kept
from the paths of the destroyer Notice that verse, young man! There is
much-needed teaching there for you. There are many "paths of the
destroyer" in this wicked
city of London, and all over the world–and it is only by taking heed
to our ways, according to God's Word, that we can hope to escape from
them. How pleasant those "paths of the destroyer" often appear to be!
How smooth and how alluring they are! All sorts of supposed delicacies
and beauties will tempt you to go that way, and the foolish heart
readily inclines to these indulgences, but happy is the man whose
judgment is enlightened by God's Word so that he avoids it, and passes
by "the paths of the destroyer."
5. Hold up my goings in Your paths, that my footsteps slip not "I know
that I am in Your way, but, O Lord, hold me up! I am like a horse that
needs a careful driver, else I shall trip and fall, in rough places or
in smooth, 'Hold up my goings in Your paths,' for I may fall even
there. There are the sins of my holy things, so 'hold up my goings in
Your paths, that my footsteps slip not.'"
6-12. I have called upon You, for You wiil hear me, O God: incline Your
ear unto me, and hear my speech. Show Your marvelous loving kindness, O
You that saves by Your right hand them who put their trust in You from
those that rise up against them. Keep me as the apple of Your eye, hide
me under the shadow of Your wings, from the wicked that oppress me,
from my deadly enemies who compass me about They are enclosed in their
own fat–with their mouth they speak proudly. They have now compassed
us in our steps–they have set their eyes bowing down to the earth like
as a lion that is greedy of his prey, and as it were a young lion
lurking in secret places. Many godly men have such cruel enemies as
David had, so they will do well to pray as he did!
13-15. Arise, O LORD, disappoint him, cast him down: deliver my soul
from the wicked, which is Your sword: from men which are Your hand, O
LORD, from men of the world, which have their portion in this life, and
whose belly You fill with Your hidden treasure: they are full of
children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes. As for
me– "What do I possess? What is my portion? Am I full of substance,
like the men of the world, or have I little of this world's wealth? It
is of small consequence, for, 'as for me'"–
15. I will behold Your face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied,
when I awake, with Your likeness. That is our portion! God grant that
we may prize it more and more! Amen.