Sweet Stimulants for the Fainting Soul
(No. 2798)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1902.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK, ON A LORD'S-DAY EVENING, IN THE
WINTER OF 1860.
"O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember
You from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the Hill
Mizar." Psalm 42:6.
HERE is a common complaint of God's people and here are two remedies
which David, wisely guided of God, administers with discretion. Let us
direct our meditation in this order–first, let us talk of the
complaint And then, secondly, let us look into the Divine medicine
chest and use the remedies provided there.
I. LET US TALK OF THE COMPLAINT "O my God, my soul is cast down within
me."
We do not know what was the precise reason why David's soul was cast
down. Perhaps it was because he had been driven out of the royal city
by his own son–the son whom he had petted and pampered and, thereby,
made a rod for his own back. We are pretty sure that he was now denied
the privilege of going up to the House of God–he could not now join
with the multitude that kept holy day. These two things probably worked
together to cast down his spirit–his absence from the tabernacle and
the cause of that absence.
I am not sure, however, that these two things combined would have been
enough to cast down David's spirit if it had not been for a more bitter
ingredient in his cup of sadness. There have been good men in
circumstances similar to David's at that time who, even then, could
gird up the loins of their mind and hope to the end. When bitten by
that which is sharper than a serpent's tooth–an ungrateful child–and
debarred from the House of God, they have, even then, been able to stay
themselves upon the Lord and to rejoice in the Most High God. The real
reason of the Psalmist's distress was, no doubt, that God had, at least
to some degree, hidden His face from him and, therefore, the flowers of
David's graces all drooped and his joy, which formerly sparkled in the
sunlight of God's Countenance, was now dim and dark. Troubles may
distress the outward man, but they cannot distress the soul of the
child of God while he feels the Lord Jehovah to be his everlasting
strength. Yes, it sometimes happens that the very pressure which weighs
down the scale of his earthly hopes tends to lift up the opposite scale
of his spiritual peace! As long as God is with him, trials are nothing,
for he casts them upon Jehovah. But once let God withdraw from him for
a while and he is troubled–that mountain which seemed to stand fast
begins to rock and shake–and to prove the instability and
insufficiency of all mortal grounds of confidence.
The causes of our being cast down are very numerous. Sometimes it is
pain of body–perhaps a wearing pain which tries the nerves, prevents
sleep, distracts our attention, drives away comfort and hides
contentment from our eyes. Often, too, has it been debility of
body–some secret disease has been sapping and undermining the very
strength of our life and we knew not that it was there while we have
been drawing insensibly near to the gates of death. We have wondered
that we were low in spirits, whereas it would have been a thousand
wonders if we had not been depressed! We have marveled that we have
been cast down, whereas a physician would tell us that this was but one
of many symptoms which proved that we were not right as to our bodily
health.
Not infrequently has some crushing calamity been the cause of
depression of spirit. Trial has succeeded trial. All your hopes have
been blasted, your very means of sustenance have been suddenly snatched
from you. While all your needs have remained, the supplies have been
withdrawn from you. At other times, it has been bereavement that has
brought you
down very low. The axe has been at work in the forest of your domestic
joys. Tree after tree has fallen–those from whom you plucked the
ripest fruits of sweet society and kindred fellowship have been cut
down by the ruthless woodsman–you have seen them taken away from you
forever so far as this world is concerned. Or else it may be that you
have been slandered. Your good has been evilly spoken of, your holiest
motives have been misinterpreted, your most Divine aspirations have
been misrepresented and you have gone about as with a sword in your
bones while the malicious have taunted you, saying, "Where is your God
now?" The cases of depression of spirit are so various that it must be,
indeed, a rare panacea, a marvelous remedy, which would suit them all!
Yet, when we come to speak of the remedies mentioned in our text, we
shall find them suitable to most of these cases, if not to all–and to
all in a degree, if not to the fullest extent.
Let us pass now, from the most obvious, to the more subtle causes of
soul-dejection. This complaint is very common among God's people. When
the young Believer has first to suffer from it, he thinks that he
cannot be a child of God, "For," he says, "if I were a child of God,
would I be like this?" What fine dreams some of us have when we are
just converted! We fancy that we are going to sail straight away to
Heaven and to have a prosperous voyage all the way! The wind is always
to blow fairly for us, there is never to be a rough wave, no
storm-cloud is to hover over the ship all the day long–and if there
are any nights, the stars will be so brilliant that it will be as
bright as day! Or, possibly, we imagine that we have come into a
country where everybody will be kind to us, where all circumstances
will be propitious to us, where everything will tend to nurture our
piety and our own hearts–indeed, will forever get rid of legal terrors
and perilous alarms! Oh, silly creatures that we are if we dream thus
foolishly! We know not what we are born to in our second birth, for, as
a man is born to trouble by his first birth–when he is born a second
time, he is born to a double share of trouble! Then, he was born to
physical and mental trouble, but now that he is born-again, he is born
to spiritual trouble and as he shall have new joys, so shall he also
have a long list of new sorrows.
All that, however, is unknown to us at the first. And when it comes
upon us, it surprises us. Am I now addressing one who is ready to
exclaim, "I give up all hope. I am sure I cannot be a child of God
because I am so cast down"? O you simple soul, the most advanced saints
suffer in just the same way! Men who have been for forty, fifty, 60
years followers of Christ complain that, sometimes, it is a question
with them whether they have ever known Christ at all! There are seasons
with them when they would, if they could, creep into any mouse hole and
hide their heads rather than be seen among God's people because they
fear that they are hypocrites–and that the root of the matter is not
in them. Why, I tell you, young Christians, that the most experienced
Believers, the men who have great doctrinal knowledge and much
experimental wisdom, the men who have lived very near to God and have
had the most rapt and intimate fellowship with their Lord and Savior
are the very men who have their ebbs, their winters and their times
when it is a moot point with them whether they really love the Lord or
not! Even the Apostle Paul was not exempt from doubts and fears, for he
wrote, "We were troubled on every side; without were fights, within
were fears." And, on another occasion, "I keep under my body, and bring
it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to
others, I myself should be a castaway." The man after God's own heart,
even David, a man of experience so deep that none of us can fully
decipher, much less rival it–a man of love so fervent that few of us
can do more than aspire to catch the hallowed flame–nevertheless, had
to cry aloud, and that very often, "O my God, my soul is cast down
within me!"
"But," says one, "this death-like faintness comes upon me so often
that, certainly I cannot be a child of God." Yes, but let me tell you
that, possibly, it will come even more! Or, should it come more seldom,
if you shall have weeks of pleasure, or even months of enjoyment, it is
possible that your doubts will then be doubled in intensity and your
soul will yet have greater trials to experience! So great a Savior is
provided for our deliverance that we must expect to have great castings
down from which we need to be delivered. Why, Believer, what are one
half of the promises worth if we are not the subjects of doubts and
fears? Why has Jehovah given us so many shalls and wilsbut because He
knew that we should have so many accursed ifs and perhapses He would
never have given us such a well-filled storehouse of comfort if He had
not foreseen that we would have a full measure of sorrow. God never
makes greater provision than will be needed, so, as there is an
abundance of consolations, we may rest assured that there will also be
an abundance of tribulations! There will be much fear and casting down
to each of us before we see the face of God in Heaven! This disease of
soul-dejection is common to all the saints–there are none of God's
people who altogether escape it.
Let me go a step further and say that the disease mentioned in our
text, although it is exceedingly painful, is not at all dangerous. When
a man has a toothache, it is often very distressing, but it does not
kill him. There have been some
who have foolishly and peevishly wished to die to escape from the pain,
but nobody does die of it. The bills of mortality are not swelled by
its victims. And, in like manner, God's children are much vexed with
their doubts and fears, but they are never killed by them. They are a
great trouble, but they are not like a mortal disease. They are sorely
vexatious, but they are not destructive. Why, it is possible for you to
have real faith and yet to have the most grievous unbelief! "Oh," you
say, "how can faith and unbelief live together?" They cannot live
together in peace, but they may dwell together in the same heart.
Remember what our Lord Jesus said to Peter "O you of little faith, why
did you doubt?" He did not say, "O you of no faith," but, "of little
faith." Thus there was somefaith, though there was also much doubt. So,
in the Psalmist, there was some faith–there was, indeed, a great deal
of faith–for he said, "O my God," and it takes great faith to truly
say, "my God." Yet is there not also great unbelief here? Otherwise,
would his soul have been cast down at all? But, meanwhile, had he not
the yearnings of lively hope in God? If not, would he have dared to
say, "Therefore will I remember You from the land of Jordan, and of the
Hermonites, from the Hill Mizar?
The fact is, we are the strangest mixture of contradictions that ever
was known. We shall never be able to understand ourselves. God knows us
altogether, but we shall never, at least in this life, completely
comprehend ourselves. You remember that verse about the holy women at
the sepulcher of Christ? After they had heard the angel's message,
"they departed quickly from the sepulcher with fear and great joy."
What a strange mixture! On the one hand, we have the golden fruit of
joy–and on the other hand, the black fruit of fear. So it makes a kind
of checker-work–there are blacks and whites, joys and sorrows, bliss
and mourning mingled together! The highest joy and the deepest sorrow
may be found in the Christian and the truest faith and yet the most
grievous doubts may meet together in the child of God. Of course, they
only meet there to make his heart a battlefield–but there they may
meet–and his faith may be real while his doubts are grievous.
I would remark, yet further, that it is not only possible for a man to
thus be cast down and yet to have true faith all the while, but he may
actually be growing in Grace while he is cast down! Yes, and he may
really be standing higher when he is cast down than he did when he
stood upright. Strange riddle! But we who have passed through this
experience know that it is true. When we are flat on our faces, we are
generally the nearest to Heaven. When we sink the lowest in our own
esteem, we rise the highest in fellowship with Christ and in knowledge
of Him. Someone said, "The way to Heaven is not upward, but downward."
There is some truth in the saying, though it is upward in Christ, it is
downward in self. As Dr. Watts sings–
"The more Your glories strike my eyes, The humbler I shall lie."
The inverse is equally true–
"The humbler I lie at my Savior's feet, The more His glories strike my
eyes."
This very casting down into the dust sometimes enables the Christian to
bear a blessing from God which he could not have carried if he had been
standing upright. There is such a thing as being crushed with a load of
Grace–bowed down with a tremendous weight of benedictions–having such
blessings from God that if our soul were not cast down by them, they
would be the ruin of us. It is a good thing for us, sometimes, when
fears frighten us and prosperity distresses us. Some of you may not
understand what I am saying. You will not until you have this
experience of which I have been speaking, but it does so happen that
bitters often cleanse and sweeten the spiritual palate of God's
children, while there are sweets which make their mouth full of
bitters! I know that I have had songs in the night after I have had
groaning during the day and, often, a salutary blow from God's loving
hand, though it has made me smart, has cured me of some other far more
baneful smart. Where kisses wounded, blows have healed.
The Christian life is a riddle and most surely are God's people
familiar with that riddle in their experience. They must work it out
before they can understand it. So I say again that this casting down is
consistent with the most elevated degree of piety. Depression of spirit
is no index of declining Grace–the very loss ofjoy and the absence of
assurance may be accompanied by the greatest advancement in the
spiritual life. Mark you, if it continues month after month, and even
year after year, then it is a sign of great weakness of faith–but if
it comes only occasionally, as clouds pass over our sky, it is well. We
do not want rain all the days of the week and all the weeks of the
year, but if the rain comes sometimes, it makes the fields fertile and
fills the brooks–and after the shower has fallen and the sun shines
again, it puts a new brightness upon the face of Nature and makes the
birds clear their throats and sing a new song! The earth never looks so
beautiful as when she rises up like one that has washed his face in the
brook and, in the shining water, shows the freshness of her verdure and
tells of the wondrous skill with which God has been pleased to adorn
her. Even so is it with the Christian when he comes forth from great
and sore troubles with his harp returned, his psaltery vocal with
praise and his lips gratefully confessing to his God, "You have
increased my greatness and comforted me on every side."
Painful as is this disease of soul–dejection–it is often very helpful
to our spirit when we are obliged to cry, with David, "O my God, my
soul is cast down within me." To be cast down is often the best thing
that could happen to us. Do you ask, "Why?" Because, when we are cast
down, it checks our pride. We are very apt to grow too big. It is a
good thing for us to be taken down a notch or two. We sometimes rise so
high, in our own estimation, that unless the Lord took away some of our
joy, we would be utterly destroyed by pride. Were it not for this thorn
in the flesh, we would be exalted beyond measure.
Besides, when this downcasting comes, it gets us to work at
self-examination. That religion which has begun to be a matter of form
and ritual to us, becomes a thing to be considered in deeper earnest.
We look at it as a real thing because of our real doubts. Often, I am
sure, when your house has been made to shake, it has caused you to see
whether it was founded upon a rock. While your ship had nothing but
fine weather, you sailed along too presumptuously. But when the storm
threatened, then it was that you reefed your sails and turned to your
chart to find your latitude and longitude, fearing that there might be
danger ahead. So you get good to your soul by being made to examine
yourself. A great loss in business has sometimes helped a man to become
rich, for he has been more careful in his dealings afterwards. He has
begun to change a system of trade which, perhaps, might have brought
him to insolvency–and thus his business has been put upon a firmer
footing than before. Even so, this downcasting of spirit, by leading us
to search ourselves, may help, in the end, to make us all the richer in
Divine Grace. When our soul is cast down within us we begin to have
closer dealings with Christ than we had before. A long continuance of
calm induces listlessness. There is a way of being wanton towards
Christ. We begin to think that we can do without Him–we imagine that
we have such a store of ready money that we can trade on our own
account. But when gloomy doubts arise, we go back to the place where
our spiritual life commenced and we sing again–
"Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Your Cross I cling."
There is such a tendency in all the branches of the living and true
Vine to try to bring forth fruit without deriving nourishment from the
stem, so the Lord, every now and then, takes away the visible flowing
of Divine consolation in order that we may consciously realize our
entire dependence upon Him. When you and I were little and we were out
at eventide walking with our father, we sometimes used to run on a long
way ahead, but, by-and-by, there was a big dog loose on the road and it
is astonishing how closely we then clung to our father! You remember
how John Bunyan depicts that trait in the character of the children who
went on pilgrimage with their mother, Christiana. "When they were come
up to the place where the lions were, the boys that went before were
glad to cringe behind, for they were afraid of the lions and so they
stepped back and went behind. At this their guide smiled and said, 'How
now, my boys, do you love to go before when no danger does approach,
and love to come behind as soon as the lions appear?'" Just so is it
with our doubts and fears. We run so far ahead that we lose sight of
Christ–frightful things alarm us–and then we flee back again to the
shadow of His Cross! This experience is good and healthful for us.
One other benefit that we derive from being cast down is that it
qualifies us to sympathize with others. If we had never been in trouble
we would be very poor comforters of others. It would do most physicians
good if they were required, occasionally, to drink some of their own
medicine. It would be no disadvantage to a surgeon if he once knew what
it was to have a broken bone. You may depend upon it that his touch
would be more tender afterwards! He would not be so rough with his
patients as he might have been if he had never felt such pain himself.
Show me a man who has never had a trial and I will show you a man who
has no heart. Above all things, save me from the man who has never had
any trouble all his life–let me not go into his house, or be near him
anywhere else. If I am sick, let him not even pass by my window lest
his shadow should fall upon me and make me worse, for he must be a
cold-hearted, unsympathetic man if he has never known a trial and has
never had to pass through the furnace of affliction!
I know that whenever God chooses a man for the ministry and means to
make him useful, if that man hopes to have an easy life of it, he will
be the most disappointed mortal in the world! From the day when God
calls him to be one of His captains and says to him, "See, I have made
you to be a leader of the hosts of Israel," he must accept all that his
commission includes–even if that involves a sevenfold measure of
abuse, misrepresentation and slander. We need greater soul-exercise
than any of our flock, or else we shall not keep ahead of them. We
shall not be able to teach others unless God thus teaches us. We must
have fellowship with Christ in suffering as well a fellowship in faith.
Still, with all its drawbacks, it is a blessed service and we would not
retire from it. Did we not accept all this with our commission? Then we
would be cowards and deserters if we were to turn back! These castings
down of the spirit are part of our calling! If you are to be a good
soldier of Jesus Christ, you must endure hardness. You will have to lie
in the trenches, sometimes, with a bullet lodged here or there, with a
saber cut on your forehead, or an arm or a leg shot away–where there
is war, there must be wounds–and there must be war where there is to
be victory!
II. I shall not say more about our being cast down. I have probably
said enough about the disease, so now let us open the great medicine
chest, and examine THE TWO REMEDIES here mentioned. "O my God, my soul
is cast down within me: therefore will I remember You from the land of
Jordan, and of the Hermonites, and from the Hill Mizar."
The first remedy for soul-dejection is, a reference of ourselves to
God, as David says, "O my God, my soul is cast down within me:
therefore will I remember You." If you have a trouble to bear, the best
thing for you to do is not to try to bear it at all, but to cast it
upon the shoulders of the Eternal! If you have anything that perplexes
you, the simplest plan for you will be not to try to solve the
difficulty, but to seek direction from Heaven concerning it. If you
have, at this moment, some doubt that is troubling you, your wisest
plan will be not to combat the doubt, but to come to Christ just as you
are and to refer the doubt to Him. Remember how men act when they are
concerned in a lawsuit–if they are wise, they do not undertake the
case themselves. They know our familiar proverb, "He who is his own
lawyer has a fool for his client." So they take their case to someone
who is able to deal with it and leave it with him. Well, now, if men
have not sufficient skill to deal with matters that come before our
courts of law, do you think that you have skill enough to plead in the
court of Heaven against such a cunning old attorney as the devil who
has earned the name of "the accuser of the brethren," and well deserves
the title? Never try to plead against him, but put your case into the
hands of our great Advocate, for, "if any man sins, we have an Advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." So, refer your case to
Him–He will plead for you and win the day! If you should attempt to
plead for yourself, it will cause you a vast amount of trouble and then
you will lose the day after all.
Often, when I call to see a troubled Christian, do you know what he is
almost sure to say? "Oh, Sir, I do not feel this–and I do fear
that–and I cannot help thinking the other!" That great "I" is the root
of all our sorrows–what I feel, or what I do not feel–that is enough
to make anyone miserable! It is a wise plan to say to such an one, "Oh,
yes! I know that all you say about yourself is only too true, but, now,
let me hear what you have to say about Christ. For the next 24 hours at
least, leave off thinking about yourself and think only of Christ." O
my dear Friends, what a change would come over our spirits if we were
all to act thus! For when we have done with self and cast all our cares
upon Christ, there remains no reason for us to care, or trouble, or
fret! That saying of Jack the Huckster, which I have often repeated–
"I'm a poor sinner, and nothing at all, But Jesus Christ is my
All-in-All"–
describes the highest experience, though it is also the lowest. It is
so simple and yet so safe, to live day by day by faith upon the Son of
God who loved me, and gave Himself for me–to be a little child–not a
strong man, but a little child who cannot fight his own battles, but
who gets Jesus to fight them for him! To be a little weak one who
cannot run alone, but who must be carried in the arms of the Good
Shepherd. We are never so strong as when we are weak, as Paul wrote,
"When I am weak, then am I strong." And we are never so weak as when we
are strong, never so foolish as when we are wise in our own conceit and
never so dark as when we think we are full of the Light of God. We are
generally best when we think we are worst! When we are empty, we are
full–when we are full, we are empty. When we have nothing, we have all
things, but when we fancy that we are "rich and increased with goods,
and have need of nothing," we are like the Laodiceans and know not that
we are "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Oh,
for Grace to solve these riddles and so to live, day by day, out of
self and upon the Lord Jesus Christ!
Let me give you an illustration. It is the easily-imagined case of a
poor old woman who has no money of her own, but who has a rich friend
who says to her, "Come to my house every Saturday and I will give you
so much for a regular allowance. And if there is anything else that you
need, I will pay for it–all your needs shall be supplied." He does not
give her a large sum of money to keep, for she might not know how to
spend it wisely, or she might be robbed of it–he gives it to her week
by week. One Saturday morning the old lady is full of fear and alarm.
If you happen to call upon her just then, you will hear her
complaining, "I have not a farthing in the world! I have just spent my
last sixpence. I have no money in the bank, no houses from which I can
collect rent! I have nothing but these few things that you see
here–how am I to live with only this?" If you did not know anything
more about the woman, you would sit down and pity her, would you not?
As it gets to be nearly twelve o'clock, she says, "I must be going."
You ask, "Where?" She replies, "I am going to my friend who tells me to
go to him every Saturday and he will give me all I need." "Why," you
exclaim, "you silly old soul, you have been telling me all this tale of
need and exciting my pity, when you are really a rich woman! Just
because you do not happen to have it in hand, you have been telling me
this pitiful story which is really not true." In like manner, when I
see an heir of Heaven sitting down and mourning and weeping because he
has not got this, and he has not got that–and when I turn to the
Scriptures, and read, "All things are yours; and you are Christ's, and
Christ is God's." And I find promises like this, "All things, whatever
you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive." Or this, "The
Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give Grace and glory: no
good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." If I do not
say this to the one who is murmuring without cause, I say it to myself,
for I have often been as foolish as the old woman of whom I spoke just
now, "O you foolish self, how slow of heart you are to believe! How
foolish you are to be thus sitting down and bemoaning your own
emptiness when Christ is yours, with all His boundless fullness, when
the Father's love and the Spirit's power and the Savior's Grace are all
engaged to bring you safely through your trials, to rid you of your
troubles and to land you triumphantly in Heaven!"
Be of good cheer, then, tried and depressed Believer, and apply this
sacred remedy to yourself! Remember the Lord! Refer your case to Him
and look to Him for all that you need!
David's other remedy for his soul, when it was cast down within him,
was the grateful remembrance of the past when, by the Lord's tender
mercies, it was lifted up–"therefore will I remember You from the land
of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the Hill Mizar." Look up your
old diary–many of you have gray hair–so your notebooks go back a long
way. Let us read one or two of the entries. Why, here is a bright page!
Though the one preceding it is black and full of sorrow, this page is
bright with joy and jubilant with song! What do I read? I see written
here–
"I will praise You every day! Now Your anger's turned away, Comfortable
thoughts arise From the bleeding Sacrifice."
You wrote that verse in your diary just after you had found the Savior
and your sins had been forgiven you for His sake. Well, then, although
your harp is now unstrung and you are not praising your Lord today, I
pray you to remember that hour when first you knew His love and to say,
"If I had never received more than that one mercy from Him, I must
bless Him for it in time and bless Him for it throughout eternity!"
Here is another page in your diary. I see that you had been enduring
some temporal trouble and that your earthly friends had forsaken you.
But, in the middle of your trouble, just where I might have expected to
find these words, "I am utterly cast down, for God has forsaken me," I
find written here–
"When trouble, like a gloomy cloud Has gathered thick and thundered
loud, He near my soul has always stood, His loving kindness, oh, how
good!"
Do you think that He is not standing by your side now? If there is a
loud thundering and if there is a thick darkness, will He leave you?
Surely these reflections upon what you have experienced in the past
should lead you to trust in Christ for the present! And, as you think
of all His dealings with your soul, You may well say–
"Can He have taught me to trust in His name,
And thus far have brought me to put me to shame?"
God forbid that we should ever think that He was so cruel as to
enlighten, comfort, cheer and help us so long and then leave us, at
last, to sink and perish!
In this diary of yours, I also find one sweet record which is a great
contrast to your present sad and gloomy state. You must have had a
vision of Christ Crucified, for you have written–
"Here I'll sit forever viewing
Mercy's streams, in streams of blood
Precious drops! My soul bedewing,
Plead and claim my peace with God.
Truly blessed is this station,
Low before His Cross to lie–
While I see Divine compassion
Floating in His languid eyes." Yet you, who have been at the foot of
the Cross, are afraid that you will be cast away at the last! You have
known the sweetness of Jesus' love, yet you are cast down! He has
kissed you with the kisses of His lips–His left hand has been under
your head and His right hand has embraced you–yet you think He will
leave you to sink, at last, in your trouble! You have been in His
banqueting house and you have had such food as angels never tasted, yet
you dream that you shall be cast into Hell! Shame on you! Pluck off
those robes of mourning! Lay aside that sackcloth and those ashes!
Snatch your harps down from the willows and let us together sing
praises unto Him whose love, power, faithfulness and goodness shall
always be the same!
If there are any here who are strangers to all these things, I can only
wish that they might even know our sorrows, in order that they might
have an experience of our joys to treasure up in remembrance. Believers
in Jesus are not a miserable crew–they have songs to sing and they
have good reason to sing them! They have enough to make them blessed on
earth and to make them blessed forever and ever!
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 119:17-28.
Verse 17. Deal bountifully with Your servant, that I may live, and keep
Your word. O Lord, I am Your servant, yet, I pray You, do not pay me
wages according to my deserts, but according to the greatness of Your
mercy! "Deal bountifully with Your servant." Little mercy will not be
enough for such great sins and such great needs as mine. Deal very
generously with Your poor servant who is so full of necessities, "that
I may live," for, if You will only let me live, it will be of Your
bounty since I deserve not even that gift. Only to have my life still
spared shall be regarded by me as a great favor from You. I want not to
live to please myself, for that would not be living at all, but "that I
may live, and keep Your word." A holy life is the only true life, the
only life that is really worth having–and he that has it has been
dealt bountifully with by his God. I commend this verse to each servant
of the Lord as a prayer that may be continually presented to Him.
18. Open You my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Your
Law. This is one of the first parts of God's bountiful dealings with
us. There is no mercy that is so great as mercy to one's own person, to
one's own eyes, for instance, which are such essential parts of
ourselves. Lord, when You are dealing bountifully with me, I do not ask
for riches, but I do ask that my eyes may be opened. I do not ask You
to give me more than You have given in Your Word, but I do ask for
opened eyes with which I may perceive what You have put there,
otherwise the beauties of Your Word may be useless to me by reason of
my blindness. This blessed Book teems with marvels–it is a world of
wonders. It records many miracles, but every page of it is itself a
miracle and a mass of miracles–yet we must have them revealed to us or
we shall not discover them. Revelation, itself, must be revealed to
every person individually by the Spirit of God, or else he will never
see it.
19. I am a stranger in the earth: hide not Your commandments from me.
Humane men deal kindly with exiles. God has commanded us to be generous
to strangers and He will certainly be so Himself. Lord, because of Your
love, I find myself like an exile among the sons of men. But be not a
stranger to me. What should I do, in this world, without You, and
without Your Word? "Hide not Your commandments from me."
20, 21. My soul breaks for the longing that it has unto Your judgments
at all times. You have rebuked the proud that are cursed, which do err
from Your commandments. God cannot stand the proud–it is very seldom
that they can stand one another! And if proud men loathe pride as they
see it in others, you may rest assured that the good and great God will
not endure it. How sternly He rebuked it in the angels that kept not
their first estate. How He rebuked it in Pharaoh! All through history
it may be seen how God has been continually abasing the proud and
giving Grace to the humble.
22. Remove from me reproach and contempt; for I have kept Your
testimonies. He had lived honestly and uprightly and yet men slandered
him. Was there ever a man upon earth who was good and true, who was not
slandered? God Himself was slandered in Paradise by the old
serpent–and the Lord Jesus was constantly being slandered by wicked
men–so can any of us hope to escape the envenomed tongue of the
slanderer? Yet it is very painful and we may well pray to be delivered
from it, especially if we can add, with the Psalmist, "for I have kept
Your testimonies."
23. Princes also did sit and speak against me: but Your servant did
meditate on Your statutes. Sometimes men can bear what the commonalty
say, but to have the great ones of the earth speaking against them is
thought by some to be very hard. The Psalmist says, "Princes also did
sit and speak against me." What did he do under such circumstances? Did
he rise up in anger and answer them? Or did he sit down and consider
how he could defend himself against them? Far from it–"Your servant
did meditate on Your statutes." He seems to say, "I did not think it
was worth my while to leave the Scriptures, even for a moment, so as to
speak to them, but I went on studying Your Word and left them to say
what they pleased." We shall be wise if we do likewise.
24. Your testimonies also are my delight and my counselors. While these
princes were taking counsel against the Psalmist, he also went and took
Counsel's advice against them! But that Counsel's advice was the advice
of the Word of God. He stuck to the Scriptures! Little as he had of
them, yet that little he greatly prized. The Pentateuch furnished him
with five Inspired Counselors to whom he resorted in his time of need.
Let us imitate his example, especially as we have the complete Canon of
revelation to advise and counsel us!
25-28. My soul cleaves unto the dust: quicken You me according to Your
word. I have declared my ways, and You heard me: teach me Your
statutes. Make me to understand the way of Your precepts: so shall I
talk of Your wondrous works. My soul melts for heaviness: strengthen
You me according unto Your word. The Word of the Lord is available for
quickening, teaching and strengthening. As Paul wrote to Timothy, "All
Scripture is given by Inspiration of God, and is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished
unto all good works." May that gracious Spirit, who Inspired it, always
teach us its inner meaning!