The Happy Beggar
(No. 3040)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1907.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinks upon me." Psalm 40:17.
THERE is no crime and there is no credit in being poor. Everything
depends upon the occasion of the poverty. Some men are poor and are
greatly to be pitied, for their poverty has come upon them without any
fault of their own. God has been pleased to lay this burden upon them
and, therefore, they may expect to experience Divine help and ought to
be tenderly considered by their Brothers and Sisters in Christ.
Occasionally poverty has been the result of integrity or religion–and
here the poor man is to be admired and honored. At the same time, it
will be observed by all who watch with an impartial eye that very much
of the poverty about us is the direct result of idleness, intemperance,
improvidence and sin. There would probably not be one-tenth of the
poverty there now is upon the face of the earth if the drinking shops
were less frequented, if debauchery were less common, if idleness were
banished and extravagance abandoned. Lovers of pleasure, (alas, that
such a word should be so degraded), are great impoverishers of
themselves. It is clear that there is not, of necessity, either vice or
virtue in being poor and a man's poverty cannot be judged of by
itself–its causes and circumstances must be taken into consideration.
The poverty, however, to which the text relates is a poverty which I
desire to cultivate in my own heart! And it is one upon which our
Divine Lord has pronounced a blessing. When He sat down upon the
mountain and poured forth His famous series of beatitudes, He said,
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."
The poor in pocket may be blessed, or may not be blessed, as the case
may be, but the poor in spiritare always blessed and we have Christ's
authority for so saying! Theirs is a poverty which is better than
wealth! In fact, it is a poverty which indicates the possession of the
truest of all riches.
It was mainly in this sense that David said, "I am poor and needy; yet
the Lord thinks upon me." Certainly, in any other sense, there are vast
multitudes who are "poor and needy," but who neither think upon God,
nor rejoice that God thinks upon them. Those who are spiritually "poor
and needy"–the sacred beggars at Mercy's gate, the elect mendicants of
Heaven–these are the people who may say, with humble confidence, as
David did, "Yet the Lord thinks upon me."
Two things are noteworthy in the text. First, here, is a frank
acknowledgment–"I am poor and needy." But, secondly, here is a
comfortable confidence–"yet the Lord thinks upon me."
I. First, here is A FRANK ACKNOWLEDGMENT.
Some men do not object to confess that they are poor in worldly goods.
In fact, they are rather fond of pleading poverty when there is a
collection coming, or a subscription list in dangerous proximity. Men
have even gloried in history in the name of, "The Beggars." And,
"silver and gold have I none," has been exalted into a boast! But
spiritually, it is little less than a miracle to bring men to feel,
first, and then to confess their poverty, for naked, and poor, and
miserable as we are by nature, we are all apt enough to say, "I am rich
and increased with goods." We cannot dig and to beg we are ashamed. If
we did not inherit a penny of virtue from father Adam, we certainly
inherited plenty of pride! Poor and proud we all are. We will not, if
we can help it, take our seat in the lowest room, though that is our
proper place. Grace alone can bring us to see ourselves in the glass of
truth. To have nothing is natural to us, but to confessthat we have
nothing is more than we will come to until the Holy Spirit has worked
self-abasement in us. The emptiers must come up upon us for, though
naturally as empty as Hagar's bottle, yet we boast ourselves to be as
full as a fountain! The Spirit of God must take from us our goodly
Babylonian garment, or we shall never consent to be dressed in the fair
white
linen of the righteousness of saints. What Paul flung away as dross and
dung, we poor rag-collectors prize and hoard up as long as ever we can!
"I am poor and needy," is a confession which only He who is the Truth
of God can teach us to offer. If you are saying it, my Brother, you
need not be afraid that you are under a desponding delusion. But, true
as it is, and plain to every Grace-taught child of God, yet only Grace
will make a man confess the obnoxious fact. It is not in public that we
can or should confess our soul-poverty as we do in the chamber when we
bow our knees secretly before God. But many of us, in secret, have been
compelled, with many tears and sighs, to feel as well as to say, "I am
poor and needy." We have searched through and through, looked from the
top to the bottom of our humanity and we could not find a single piece
of good money in the house, so greatly reduced were we. We had not a
shekel of merit, nor a penny of hope in ourselves! And we were
constrained to fall flat on our face before God and confess our
inability to meet His claims. And we found no comfort till, by faith,
we learned to present our Lord Jesus as the Surety for His servants for
good. We could not pay even the poorest composition and, therefore,
cast ourselves upon the forbearance of God.
The Psalmist is doubly humble, for first he says he is poor, and then
adds that he is needy–and there is a difference between these two
things.
He acknowledges that he is poor, and you and I, if taught of God, will
say the same. We may well be poor, for we came of a poor father Our
father Adam had at first a great estate, but he soon lost it. He
violated the trust on which he held his property and he was cast out of
the inheritance and turned adrift into the world to earn his bread as a
day-laborer by tilling the ground from which he was taken. His eldest
son was a vagabond. The first-born of our race was a convict on parole.
If any suppose that we have inherited some good thing by natural
descent, they go very contrary to what David tells us when he declares,
"Behold, I was shaped in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive
me." Our first parents were utter bankrupts. They left us nothing but a
heritage of old debts and a propensity to accumulate yet more personal
obligations. Well may we be poor who come into this world heirs of
wrath with a decayed estate and tainted
blood!
Moreover, since the time when we came into the world, we have followed
a very miserable trade. I recollect when I was a spinner and weaver of
the poorest sort. I dreamed that I would be able, by my own spinning,
to make a garment to cover myself with. This was the trade of father
Adam and mother Eve when they first lost their innocence–they sewed
fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. It is a very laborious
business and has worn out the lives of many with bitter bondage. But
its worst feature is that the Lord has declared concerning all who
followed this self-righteous craft, "their webs shall not become
garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works." Even
those who have best attired themselves and have, for awhile gloried in
their fair apparel, have had to feel the Truth of the Lord's words by
Isaiah, "I will take away the changeable suits of apparel, and the
mantles.. .and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the veils… and
instead of a girdle there shall be a rent; and instead of a stomacher a
girding of sackcloth." Vain is it to spend our labor on that which
profits not, yet to this business are we early put apprentice and we
work at it with mighty pains!
We are miserably poor, for we have become bankrupt even in our wretched
trade. Some of us had, once, a comfortable competence laid by in the
Bank of Self-Righteousness, and we meant to draw it out when we came to
die– and thought we should even have a little spending money for our
old age out of the interest which was paid us in the coin of
Self-Conceit. But the Bank failed long ago and now we have not so much
as a farthing of our own merits left us, no, nor a chance of ever
having any! And, what is worse, we are deeply in debt and we have
"nothing to pay." Instead of having anything like a balance on our
account, we are insolvent debtors to the Justice of God, without a
single farthing of assets! And unless we are freely forgiven, we must
be cast into prison and lie there forever. Job described us well when
he said, "for want and famine they are solitary; fleeing into the
wilderness in former time desolate and waste. They have no covering in
the cold.and embrace the rock for want of a shelter."
See, then, what poverty-stricken creatures we are–of a poor stock,
following a starving trade and made bankrupts even in that!
What is still worse, poor human nature has no power left to retrieve
itself As long as a man has a stout pair of arms, he is not without a
hope of rising from the dunghill. We once thought that we were equal to
any task, but now Paul's description suits us well–"without strength."
Our Lord's words, too, are deeply true, "Without Me you can do
nothing." Unable so much as to thinka good thought, or to lift our
hearts heavenward of ourselves–this is poverty,
indeed! We are wrecked and the whole vessel has gone to pieces. We have
destroyed ourselves. Ah, my fellow man, may God make you feel this!
Many know nothing about it and would be very angry if we were to say
that this is their condition–and yet this is the condition of every
man born into the world until the Spirit of God brings him into
communion with Christ and endows him with the riches of the Covenant of
Grace!
"I am poor," this is my confession! Is it yours? Is it a confession
extorted from you by a clear perception that it is really so? I will
recommend you, if it is so, to take to a trade which is the best trade
in the world to live by–not for the body, but for the soul–and that
is the profession of a beggar, certainly a suitable one for you and me!
I took to it long ago and began to beg for mercy from God. I have been
constrained to continue begging every day of the same kind Benefactor
and I hope to die begging! Many of the saints have grown rich upon this
holy mendicancy–they have indeed spoken of being daily loaded with
benefits! The noblest of the peers of Heaven were here below daily
pensioners upon God's love–they were fed, and clothed, and housed by
the charity of the Lord–and they delighted to have it so. How clear is
it from all this that none of us can have anything of which to glory!
Boasting is excluded, for, let the beggar get what he may, he is but a
beggar still–and the child of God, notwithstanding the bounty of his
Heavenly Father, is still in himself a penniless vagrant!
The Psalmist also said, "I am needy." There are poor people who are not
needy. Diogenes was very poor, but he was not needy. He had made up his
mind that he would not need anything, so he lived in a tub. He had but
one drinking vessel and when he saw a boy drinking out of his hand, he
broke his vessel, for he said he would not possess anything
superfluous. He was poor enough, but he was not needy, for when
Alexander said, "What can I do for you?" he answered, "Stand out of my
sunshine." So it is clear that a man may be very poor and yet he may
not be burdened with need. But David was conscious of extreme need–and
in this many of us can join him.
Brothers and Sisters, we confess that we need ten thousand things, in
fact, we need everything. By nature, the sinner needs healing, for he
is sick unto death. He needs washing, for he is foul with sin. He needs
clothing, for he is naked before God. He needs preserving after he is
saved, he needs the Bread of Heaven, he needs the water out of the
Rock. He is all needs and nothing but needs. Not one thing that his
soul needs can he, of himself, supply. He needs to be kept from even
the most common sins. He needs to be instructed as to even the first
elements of the faith. He needs to be taught to walk in the ways of
God's most plain commandments. Our needs are so great that they
comprise the whole range of Covenant supplies and all the fullness
treasured up in Christ Jesus.
We are needy in every condition. We are soldiers and we need that Grace
should find us both shield and sword. We are pilgrims and we need that
love should give us both a staff and a Guide. We are sailing over the
sea of life and we need that the wind of the Spirit shall fill our
sails and that Christ shall be our Pilot. There is no figure under
which the Christian life can be represented in which our need is not a
very conspicuous part of the image! In all aspects we are poor and
needy.
We are needy in every exercise. If we are called to preach, we have to
cry, "Lord, open You my lips." If we pray, we are needy at the Mercy
Seat, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought. If we go out
into the world to wrestle with temptation, we need supernatural help
lest we fall before the enemy! If we are alone in meditation, we need
the Holy Spirit to quicken our devotion. We are needy in suffering and
laboring, in watching and in fighting. Every spiritual engagement does
but discover another phase of our need!
And, Brothers and Sisters, we are needy at all times. We never wake up
in the morning but we need strength for the day–and we never go to bed
at night without needing Grace to cover the sins of the past. We are
needy at all periods of life. When we begin with Christ, in our young
days, we need to be kept from the follies and passions which are so
strong in giddy youth. In middle age our needs are still greater, lest
the cares of this world should eat as does a canker. And in old age we
are still needy and need Preserving Grace to bear us onward to the end.
So needy are we that even in lying down to die, we need our last bed to
be made for us by Mercy and our last hour to be cheered by Grace. So
needy are we that if Jesus had not prepared a mansion for us in
eternity, we would have no place to dwell! We are as full of needs as
the sea is full of water! We cannot stay at home and say, "I have much
goods laid up for many years," for the wolf is at the door and we must
go out a-begging again! Our clamorous necessities follow us every
moment and dog our heels in every place. We must take the two
adjectives and keep them close together in our confession–"I am poor
and needy."
II. The second part of the subject is much more cheering. It is A
COMFORTABLE CONFIDENCE–"yet the Lord thinks upon me."
A poor man is always pleased to remember that he has a rich relative,
especially if that rich relative is very thoughtful towards him, finds
out his distress and cheerfully and abundantly relieves his needs!
Observe that the Christian does not find comfort in himself ' 'I am
poor and needy." That is the top and bottom of my case. I have searched
myself through and through and have found in my flesh no good thing.
Notwithstanding the Grace which the Believer possesses and the hope
which he cherishes, he still sees a sentence of death written upon the
creature and he cries, "I am poor and needy." His joy is found in
Another! He looks away from self to the consolations which the eternal
purpose has prepared for him.
Note well who it is that gives the comfort–"The Lord thinks upon me."
By the term, "the Lord," we are accustomed to understand the glorious
Trinity. "The Lord thinks upon me," i.e., Jehovah, the Father, the Son
and the Holy Spirit. O beloved Believer in Christ, if you have rested
in Jesus, then the Father thinks upon you! Your person was in His
thoughts–
"Long before the sun's refulgent ray Primeval shades of darkness
drove."
He regarded you with thoughts of boundless love before He had fashioned
the world, or wrapped it up in swaddling bands of ocean and of clouds.
Eternal thoughts of love went forth of old towards all the chosen–and
these have never changed. Not for a single instant has the Father ever
ceased to love His people! As our Lord said to His disciples, "The
Father Himself loves you." Never has He grown cold in His affections
towards you, O poor and needy one! He has seen you in His Son. He has
loved you in the Beloved. He has seen you–
"Not as you stood in Adam's fall, When sin and ruin covered all, But as
you'll stand another day, Brighter than sun's meridian ray." He saw you
in the glass of His eternal purpose, saw you as united to His dear Son
and, therefore, looked upon you with eyes of complacency. He thought
upon you and He still thinks upon you. When the Father thinks of His
children, He thinks of you. When the great Judge of All thinks of the
justified ones, He thinks of you. O Christian, can you grasp the
thought? The Eternal Father thinks of you! You are so inconsiderable
that if the mind of God were not Infinite, it would not be possible
that He should remember your existence! Yet He thinks upon you! How
precious ought His thoughts be to you! The sum of them is great, let
your gratitude for them be great, too!
Forget not that the great Son of God, to whom you owe your hope, also
thinks of you. It was for you that He entered into suretyship
engagements before the earth was. It was for you, O heir of Heaven,
that He took upon Himself a mortal body and was born of the virgin! It
was for you that He lived those 30 years of immaculate purity that He
might weave for you a robe of spotless righteousness! For you poured
down His bloody sweat in the garden! He thought of you, He prayed for
you in Gethsemane. For you were the flagellations in Pilate's Hall, the
mockeries before Herod and the blasphemous accusations at the judgment
seat of Caiaphas! For you the nails, the spear, the vinegar and the,
"Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabachthani?"'Jesus thought of you and died for you
with as direct an aim for your salvation as though there had not been
another soul to be redeemed by His blood! And now, though He reigns
exalted high, and you are "poor and needy," yet He still thinks upon
you! The Glory of His present condition does not distract His thoughts
from His Beloved. He is lovingly thoughtful of you. When He stands up
to intercede, your name glitters on His priestly breastplate with the
names of the rest of the chosen. He thinks of you when He prepares
mansions for those whom His Father has blessed. He looks forward to the
time when He shall gather together in one all things in Heaven and in
earth that are in Him–and He counts you among them. Christian, will
not this Truth of God comfort you–that the Son of God is constantly
thinking upon you?
We must not forgot the love of the Spirit, t o whom we are so
wondrously indebted. He cannot do otherwise than think upon us, for He
dwells in us and shall be with us. As He dwells in us, He cannot be
unmindful of us. It is His office to be the Comforter, to help our
infirmities, to make intercession for us according to the will of God.
So let us take the three thoughts and bind them together. "I am poor
and needy, but I have a part in the thoughts of the Father, of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit." What fuller cause for comfort could we
conceive?
We have answered the question "who?"Let us now turn to "what?""The Lord
thinks upon me." He does not say, "The Lord will uphold me, provide for
me, defend me." The declaration that He "thinks upon me" is quite
enough. "Your Heavenly Father knows that you have need of these
things," says our Lord, as if it was quite clear that for our Heavenly
Father to know, is for Him to act. We poor short-sighted and
short-armed creatures often know the needs of others and would help if
we could, but we are quite unable–it is never so with God–His
thoughts always ripen into deeds. Perhaps, O tried Believer, you have
been thinking a great deal about yourself of late–about your many
trials– so that you lie awake nights, mourning over your heavy cares!
"Alas," you think, "I have no one to advise me and sympathize with me."
Let this text come to you as a whisper and you paraphrase it into a
soliloquy, "I am poor and needy, this is true, and I cannot plan a
method for supplying my needs, but a mightier mind than mine is
thinking of me–the Infinite Jehovah thinks of me! He sees my
circumstances, He knows the bitterness of my heart, He knows me
altogether and His consideration of me is wise, tender and gracious.
His thoughts are wisdom itself! When I think, it is a poor, little,
weak, empty head that is thinking! But when Godthinks, the gigantic
mind which framed the universe is thinking of me!"
Have you ever attained to the idea of what the thoughts of God must be?
That pure Spirit who cannot make mistakes, who is too wise to err, too
good to be unkind, thinks upon us! He does not act without
deliberation, does not come to our help in inconsiderate haste, does
not do as we do with a poor man when we throw him a penny to be rid of
him, but He thoughtfully deals with us. "Blessed is he that considers
the poor," says the Psalmist. Those who take up the case of the poor,
weigh it and remember it, are blessed! That is what the Lord does for
us–"yet the Lord thinks upon me." He considers my case, judges when,
and how, and after what sort it will be most fitting to grant me
relief. "The Lord thinks upon me." Beloved, the shadow of this thought
seems to me like the wells of Elim, full of refreshment, with the
seventy palm trees yielding their ripe fruit! You may sit down here and
drink to your full–and then go on your way rejoicing! However poor and
needy you may be, the Lord thinks at the present moment upon you.
We have spoken upon who and what–now we will answer the inquiry, How
do we know that the Lord thinks upon us? "Oh," say the ungodly, "how do
you know?" They are very apt to put posing questions to us. We talk of
what we know experimentally and again they cry, "How do you know?" I
will tell you how we know that God thinks upon us. We knew it, first of
all, when we had a view of the Redeemer by faith, when we saw the Lord
Jesus Christ hanging upon a tree for us, and made a curse for us. We
saw that He so exactly suited and fitted our case that we were clear
that the Lord must have thought and well considered it. If a man were
to send you a sum of money tomorrow, exactly the amount you owe, you
would be sure that someone had been thinking of you. And when we see
the Savior, we are compelled to cry out, "O Lord, You have given me the
very Savior I needed! This is the hope which my despairing soul
required and this the anchorage which my tempest-tossed boat was
seeking!" The Lord must have thought upon us, or He would not have
provided so suitable a salvation for us.
We learn anew that the Lord thinks upon us when we go up to the House
of God. I have heard many of you say, "We listen to the preacher and he
seems to know what we have been saying on the road. The Word comes so
home to our case that surely God has been hearing our very thoughts and
putting into the mind of the preacher a word in season for us." Does
not this show how the preacher's Master has been thinking of you? Then
sit down and open the Bible, and you will frequently feel the words to
be as much adapted to your case as if the Lord had written them for you
alone! If, instead of the Bible having been penned many hundreds of
years ago, it were actually written piecemeal to suit the circumstances
of the Lord's people as they occur, it could not have been written more
to the point! Our eyes have filled with tears when we have read such
words as these, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you."–"Fear not,
you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel; I will help you, says the
Lord."–"He shall deliver you in six troubles; yes, in seven there
shall no evil touch you."–"Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shall
you dwell in the land, and verily you shall be fed." And such like
which we could quote by the hundreds! We feel that the Lord must have
thought about us, or He would not have sent us such promises.
Best of all, when we sit quietly at the feet of Jesus, in the power of
the Spirit of God, in solemn silence of the mind, then we know that the
Lord thinks upon us, for thoughts come bubbling up, one after another,
delightful thoughts, such as only the Holy Spirit could inspire. Then
the things of Christ are sweetly taken by the Spirit and laid home to
our hearts. We become calm and still, though before we were distracted.
A sweet savor fills our heart like ointment poured
forth–it diffuses its fragrance through every secret corner of our
spirit. Sometimes our soul has seemed as though it were a peal of bells
and every power and passion has been set a-ringing with holy joy
because the Lord was there! Our whole nature has been as a harp
well-tuned, and the Spirit has laid His fingers among the strings and
filled our entire manhood with music. When we have been the subjects of
these marvelous influences and gracious operations, if any had said to
us that the Lord did not think of us, we would have told them that they
lied, even to their face, for the Lord had not only thought of us, but
spoken to us and enabled us, by His Grace, to receive His thoughts and
to speak again to
Him!
The Lord not think of us? Why, we have proof upon proof that He does!
He has very remarkably thought upon us in Providence. Should some of us
relate the memorable interpositions of Providence on our behalf, they
would not be believed–but they are facts for all that. William
Huntington wrote a book called, "The Bank of Faith," which contains in
it a great many very strange things, no doubt. But I believe hundreds
and thousands of God's tried people could write "Banks of Faith" too,
if it came to that, for God has often appeared for His saints in such a
way that if the mercy sent had been stamped with the seal of God,
visible to their eyes, they could not have been more sure of its coming
from Him than they were when they received it! Yes, answered prayers,
applied promises, sweet communing and blessed deliverances in
Providence all go to make us feel safe in saying, "yet the Lord thinks
upon me."
We will close our meditation upon this text when we have remarked that
those who are not poor and needy may well envy in their hearts those
who are. You who have abounding riches, who feel yourselves to be
wealthy in goodness. You who feel as if you could afford to look down
upon most people in the world. You who are so respectable, decorous and
deserving, I beseech you to note well that the text does not say a word
about you! You are not poor, and you are not needy, and you do not
think upon the Lord–and the Lord does not think upon you. Why should
He? "The whole have no need of a physician." Christ did not come to
call you. He said He came to call not the righteous, but sinners to
repentance. Shall I tell you that it is your worst calamity that you
have such an elevated idea of your own goodness? Whereas you say, "We
see," you are blindest of all! And whereas you boast that you are
righteous, there is in that self-righteousness of yours the very worst
form of sin, for there is no sin that can be greater than that of
setting up your own works in competition with the righteousness of
Christ! I bear you witness that you have a zeal for God, but not
according to knowledge, for you, being ignorant of the righteousness of
Christ, go about to establish your own righteousness– and your efforts
will end in terrible disappointment!
I pray you to cast away all reliance upon your own works. Tear up, once
and for all, all that you have been spinning for these many years–your
tears, your prayers, your church attendance, your chapel attendance,
your confirmation, your baptism, your sacraments–have done with the
whole rotten mass as a ground of confidence! It is all quicksand which
will swallow you up if you rest upon it. The only rock upon which you
must build, whoever you may be, is the rock of the finished work of
Jesus! Come, now, and rest upon God's appointed Savior, the Son of God,
even though you may not have felt your own poverty and need. If you
mourn that you do not mourn as you should, you are one of the poor and
needy, and are bidden to turn your eyes to the Lamb of God and live!
I would to God that all of us were poor and needy in ourselves and that
we were rich in faith in Christ Jesus! Oh, that we had done both with
sin and with self-righteousness, that we had laid both those traitors
with their heads on the block for execution! Come, you penniless
sinners, come and receive the bounty of Heaven! Come, you who mourn
your need of penitence, come and receive repentance and every other
heavenly gift from Him who is the sinner's Friend, exalted on high to
give repentance and remission of sins! But you must come empty-handed
and sue, as the lawyers say, in forma pauperis, for in no other form
will the Lord give ear to you! "He has put down the mighty from their
seats, and exalted them of low degree. He has filled the hungry with
good things; and the rich He has sent away empty."–
"'Tis perfect poverty alone
That sets the soul at large!
While we can call one mite our own,
We have no full discharge.
But let our debts be what they may,
However great or small–
As soon as we have nothing to pay,
Our Lord forgives us all!"
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM40.
If our hearts are in trouble, as his was who wrote this Psalm, may we
be able to act as wisely and as well as he did, and so obtain a like
deliverance!
Verses 1, 2. I waited patiently for the LORD; and He inclined unto me,
and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of
the miry clay, andset my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
God does nothing by halves. If He brings people up out of their sorrow,
or their sin, He takes care that their feet shall not slip back again
into the mire. David says, "He set my feet upon a rock, and established
my goings." What a blessing that last little sentence contains! God
does not set our feet upon a rock, that we may afterwards slip off and
finally fall, but He establishes our goings, He makes our footing firm,
so that we do not ever perish!
3. And He has put a new song in my mouth.Such a song as I never sang
before, for I had never been in such trouble before and, therefore, had
never experienced such a deliverance as the Lord has now granted to me.
"He has put a new song in my mouth." With that sweet songstress, Ann
Letitia Waring, I can say–
"My heart is resting, O my God,
I will give thanks and sing.
My heart is at the secret source
Of every precious thing.
And 'a new song' is in my mouth,
To long-loved music set–
Glory to You for all the Grace
I have not tasted yet."
3, 4. Even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall
trust in the LORD. Blessed is that man that makes the LORD his trust,
and respects not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. You know
that this Book of Psalms has many benedictions in it. It begins with a
blessing upon "the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the
scornful." But here it has a blessing for the Believer–"Blessed is
that man that makes Jehovah his trust." As for the proud and the false,
may God preserve us from ever paying any regard to them for, if not,
they will lead us into some such mischief as that into which they have
themselves fallen.
5. Many, O LORD my God, are Your wonderful works which You have done.
"Your works in creation, in Providence and in Redemption."
5. And Your thoughts which are to us-ward. God is always thinking of
His people, and His thoughts are wise, and kind, and practical, for
when He thinks of doing anything for us, He speedily performs it.
5. They cannot be reckoned up in order unto You: if I would declare and
speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.Think of that! You
cannot count God's thoughts of you. If He were only to think of us
once, in tender mercy, that one thought would run on throughout
eternity, for He does not retract either a thought that He thinks or a
word that He utters! Instead thereof, one gracious thought is followed
by another, swiftly as the beams of light flash from the sun, so that
it is impossible for us to number them. Thus thinking and writing
concerning God's work, the Psalmist is carried away, as it were, into a
vision in which he sees Christ and speaks in the name of Christ.
6. Sacrifice and offering You did not desire. The blood of all the
bullocks, and rams, and lambs offered in sacrifice had possessed no
real efficacy in putting away sin. They had no virtue except as types,
symbols and prophecies of the one great Sacrifice that was to come!
6. My ears have You opened. Probably alluding to the ceremony of boring
to the doorpost the ears of those who determined to remain as slaves to
their masters when they might have gone free. So Christ was ready to be
the Servant of His Father, and the Savior of sinners. He voluntarily
undertook to bear all that this would involve.
6-8. Burnt offering and sin offering have You not required. Then said
I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the Book it is written of Me, I delight
to do Your will, O My God: yes, Your Law is within My heart. He was the
Perfect One, coming
to do God's will for us and offering Himself as the truest Sacrifice
that could ever be presented to God. So we may rightly picture our
great Lord and Master uttering these words when He came to die.
9, 10. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I
have not refrained My lips. O LORD, You know. I have not hid Your
righteousness within My heart; I have declared Your faithfulness and
Your salvation: I have not concealed Your loving kindness and Your
truth from the great congregation. With what indefatigable earnestness,
with what indomitable courage, with what sacred faithfulness, with what
holy tears did Christ preach the Truth of God while He was upon earth!
He was always the Prince of Preachers, so, when He was dying, He could
plead this fact with His Father.
11, 12. Withhold not You Your tender mercies from Me, O LORD: let Your
loving kindness and Your truth continually preserve Me. For innumerable
evils have compassed Me about Was it not so with Christ? The evils of
sinners seemed to compass Him about and, like wild beasts, to hunt Him
to the death! And the saints of God, in their measure, may often use
similar language to that which the Psalmist here prophetically used
concerning Christ.
12. My iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to
look up; they are more than the hairs of my head: therefore my heart
fails me.We could not apply this language to the Savior except as we
spoke of the sins of ourselves and others which were laid upon Him, but
we may apply this language, and ought to apply it to ourselves when we
are sorely beset by sin. Have not even you, who are the dear children
of God, sometimes felt as if you could not look up and dared not look
up? You were so desponding, so downcast that there seemed no help for
you, even in God. Your sins, your cruel sins, your fierce tormentors
were and, therefore, your heart failed you.
13-15. Bepleased, O LORD, to deliver me: O LORD, make haste to help me.
Let them be ashamedand confounded together that seek after my soul to
destroy it; let them be driven backward and put to shame that wish me
evil Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto me,
Aha, aha. So will it surely be, for the enemies of God's people are
God's enemies–and Satan and all his host who seek to destroy the souls
of the Lord's chosen shall be driven backward and covered with eternal
shame!
16. Let all those that seek You rejoice and be glad in You: let such as
love Your salvation say continually, The LORD be magnified. Are you
content to bear your present trial, dear Friend, so that God may be
magnified? Are you willing to be reduced by infirmities and weaknesses
to a condition of absolute nothingness, so long as God is exalted? If
you are, then you will be saying continually, "Let God be magnified in
my weakness, let His majestic love be seen amid all my sorrows."
17. But I am poor and needy. A double expression for a poverty that is
doubly felt–perhaps poor in temporals– certainly poor in spirituals!
Poor and full of needs, yet with nothing to supply those needs. "I am
poor and needy."
17. Yet. That is a blessed, "yet."
17. The Lord thinks upon me. That is enough for me! If He thinks of me,
His thoughts are so kind, generous, wise and practical that He will
help me!
17. You are my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God