DELIVERED BY
C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Remember me, O Lord, with the favor that You bear unto Your people: O
visit me with Your salvation; that I may see the good of Your chosen,
that I may rejoice in the gladness of Your nation, that I may glory
with Your inheritance." Psalm 106:4,5.
BELOVED, we always reckon it a very hopeful sign when a man begins to
think of personal religion. Merely to come with the crowd and
professedly to worship is but poor work. But when a man gets to feel
the weight of his own sin and to confess it with his heart before
God–when he wants a Savior for himself and begins to pray alone that
he may find that Savior–when he is not content with being the child of
pious parents, or with having been introduced into the Church in his
childhood after the fashion of certain sects. When he pines for real
godliness, personal religion, true conversion–it is a blessed sign,
indeed! When a stag separates itself from the herd, we reckon that the
dart has struck home–the wound is grievous and the creature seeks
solitude–for a bleeding heart cannot bear company. Blessed are God's
woundings, for they lead to a heavenly healing!
We are still more glad when this desire for personal salvation leads a
man to prayer–when he really begins to cry out before God on his own
account–when he has done with the prayers he used to repeat by rote
like a parrot and bursts out with the language of his heart! Though
that language may be very broken, or consist only of sighs and tears
and groans, it is a happy circumstance. "Behold, he prays" was enough
for Ananias–he was sure that Paul must be converted! And when we find
a man praying and praying earnestly for personal salvation, we feel
that this is the finger of God and our heart is glad within us!
The passage before us is one of those earnest personal supplications
which we love to hear from any lips. I will read it again and then
proceed to use it in two or three ways. "Remember me, O Lord, with the
favor that You bear unto Your people: O visit me with Your salvation;
that I may see the good of Your chosen, that I may rejoice in the
gladness of Your nation, that I may glory with Your inheritance." Now,
first, this is a very suitable prayer for the humble Believer–it was a
humble Believer who first uttered it. Next, it would make a very
suitable petition for a penitent backslider. And, thirdly, it would be
a very sweet Gospel prayer for a seeker. May the Spirit of God bless
the Word to each of these characters.
I. First, then, this is an admirable prayer for a poor humble
Christian. I think I can hear him using the very words. Notice with
interest the first fear felt by this poor trembling Christian. He is
afraid that he is such a little one that God will forget him and so he
begins with, "O remember me with the favor which You bear to Your
people." I know this man well. I think very much of him, but he thinks
very little of himself. I admire his humility, but he often complains
that he feels pride in his heart. He is a true Believer, but he is a
sad doubter. Poor man, he often hangs his head, for he has such a sense
of his own unworthiness. I only wish he had an equal sense of Christ's
fullness to balance his humility.
He is on the road to Heaven, but he is often afraid he is not and that
makes him watch every step he takes. I almost wish some confident
professors were altogether as doubtful as he is if they would be half
as cautious. He is afraid to put one foot before another lest he should
go wrong and yet he mourns his lack of watchfulness! He is always
complaining of the hardness of his heart and yet he is tenderness
itself! Dear Soul–you should hear him pray! His prayers are among the
most earnest and blessed you ever listened to, but when he is finished,
he is afraid he never ought to have opened his mouth. He is not fit to
pray before others, he says. He thinks his prayers the poorest that
ever reach the Throne of God. Indeed, he is afraid they do not get
there but spend themselves as wasted breath.
He has his occasional gleams of sunlight and when he feels the love of
God in his soul he is as merry as the cricket on the hearth. There is
not a man out of Heaven more joyous than he when his hope revives. But,
oh, he is so tender about sin that when he finds himself growing a
little cold, or in any measure backsliding, he begins to flog
himself–at which I
am very glad, but he also begins somewhat to doubt his interest in his
Lord, of which I am not glad, but pity him much and blame him, too,
though with much sympathy for him. Now, I am not quite sure about this
good man's name–it may be Little-Faith, or Feeble-Mind. Or is it Mr.
Despondency I am thinking of? Or am I talking of Miss Much-Afraid? Or
is it Mr. Ready-to-Halt? Well, it is someone of that numerous family.
This poor soul thinks, "Surely God will forget me!" No, no, dear Heart,
He will not forget you! It is wonderful how God thinks of little
things. Mungo Park picked up a little bit of moss in the desert and as
he remarked how beautifully it was variegated, he said, "God is here:
He is thinking of the moss and, therefore, He will think of me." Once
upon a time a little plant grew right in the middle of the forest and
the trees stretched for many a mile all around it and it said to
itself, "The sunlight will never get at me. I have a little flower
which I would gladly open, but it cannot come forth till the sunbeam
cherishes me. Alas, it will never reach me! Look at the thick foliage!
Look at the huge trunks of those towering oaks and mighty
beeches–these will effectually hide the sun from my tiny form."
But in due season the sun looked through the trees like a king through
the lattices and smiled on the little flower, for there never was a
flower that God has not thought of and provided for! Say you not right
well that "each blade of grass has its own drop of dew," and do you
think that God will forget you, little as you are? He knows when
swallows fly and when ants awake and gather their food and will He not
think of you? Because you are little you must not suspect the love of
your heavenly Father! Mother, which child is that which you never
forget? If you ever went to bed at night and left one of the children
out of doors, I know which one it was not. It was not the babe which
lies helpless in your bosom. You never forget that. And you helpless
ones, you timid trembling ones, if the Lord must forget any, it would
be the strong, but certainly not you! As you breathe the prayer,
"Remember me with the favor that You bear to Your people," the Lord
answers you, "I do earnestly remember you still."
Observe next, that this poor trembling heart seems to be in great
trouble for fear the Lord should pass it by, but at the same time feels
that every good thing it can possibly receive must come from the Lord
and must be brought to it by the Lord. Note the words–"O visit me with
Your salvation," as if he had said–"Lord, I cannot come to You! I am
too lame to come, I am too weak to come, but visit me. O Lord, I am
like the wounded man between Jericho and Jerusalem– I am half dead,
and cannot stir. Come to me, Lord, for I cannot move to You. Visit me,
for only Your visits can preserve my spirit. I am so wounded and sorely
broken and undone, that if You do not visit me with Your salvation even
as if I never had been saved before, I must be lost."
Now, poor Trembler, let me whisper a half word into your ear and may
God the Holy Spirit make it a comfort to you. You need not say, if you
have a broken heart, "Lord, visit me." Do you not know that He dwells
in you, for is it not written, "To this man will I look and with this
man will I dwell, even with him that is poor and of a contrite spirit,
and that trembles at My Word"? Are you not the very person? I wish you
could rejoice at God's Word, but as you cannot, I am glad you tremble
at it, for you are the man that God has promised to dwell with.
"Trembles at My Word"'–lay hold on that and believe that the Lord
looks towards you and dwells with you!
What a plaintive prayer this is! Carefully consider that this poor,
weak, humble, trembling one longs to partake in the blessings which the
Lord gives to His own people and in the joy which He has in store for
them. This is the way in which he speaks, "I hear many Christians
around me say that they know and are persuaded–O that I had a little
of their certainty! I hear them speak so confidently, with such full
assurance and I see the light leap out of their eyes when they talk
about their sweet Lord and Master and all His love to them–oh, how I
wish I could talk so! Poor me, I am only able to say, 'Lord, I believe:
help You my unbelief.' I see them sitting at a loaded table and they
seem to feast most abundantly, but as for me, I am glad it is written
that the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from the Master's table, for if
I get a crumb now and then, I feel so happy with it!
"But I wish I could sit and feast where others of God's children do. Oh
that I could talk of rapt fellowship and close communion and joy and
overflowing bliss! They tell me, some of them, that they sit down on
the doorstep of Heaven and look within and see the golden streets and
that, sometimes, they hear stray notes from the harps of the blessed
ones in the far-off country. Oh, how I wish I had a sip of these joys!
But, woe is me, I dwell in Mesech and sojourn in the tents of
Kedar–the only music that I hear is the din of a sinful world–the
viols of them that make merry in wantonness. I miss those precious
things which the saints delight in."
Poor sorrowing Heart, let me say to you, and say in God's name–If you
love your Lord, all things are yours. They are yours freely to enjoy
even at this moment! The Lord denies you no Covenant blessing. Make
bold to appropriate the sacred joys, for if you are the least child in
the family, yet the heritage of God's children is the same for
everyone! There is no choice thing that God will keep away from you.
No, if there is one morsel more dainty than another it is reserved for
such as you are! Be bold, then! If you are the Benjamin in the family,
you shall have Benjamin's mess which is 10 times larger than any other!
He will comfort you and bless you.
Only be of good cheer and when you are praying, "Favor me with the
favor which You bear to Your people," let your faith hear Him say, "I
am your portion." Rejoice in the Lord your God! Lift up the hands that
hang down and confirm the feeble knees. Is not my text a sweet prayer
for you? Pray it in faith and be at peace.
II. We will now look another way and say that our TEXT IS A SUITABLE
PETITION FOR A POOR PENITENT BACKSLIDER. I know there are backsliders
here, though, alas, I am not sure that they are penitent. Only the Lord
can read their hearts. But if they are penitent, I can hardly conceive
a more suitable petition for them than that which is before us. It is
clear that this poor, pleading backslider feels that he has forgotten
His God. Have you done that? You have been a Church member and you have
gone sadly astray. Have you quite forgotten His Commandments? You
thought you loved Him. You used to pray, at one time. You had some
enjoyment in reading and in hearing the Word.
But now you find your pleasure somewhere else. You have left your first
love and gone after many lovers. But, oh, if the Lord is gracious to
you, you are lamenting your forgetfulness and though you have not
remembered Him, the prayer leaps to your lips, "Lord, remember me!"
Blessed be His name, He does not so easily forget us as we forget Him.
If you are a truly penitent backslider, your feelings of repentance
prove that God remembers you! It is He that sets you weeping and makes
you sorrow for your sin! If you had been altogether forgotten of God,
you would not have any desire to return to Him! But those inward pangs,
those secret throes, those desires to be restored to the Lord–these
prove that He remembers you with the favor which He has towards His
people.
And, then, I think your next trouble will be this–you feel that you
have lost your fellowship with Christ and you are right in so feeling,
for, "How can two walk together except they are agreed?" How could
Christ have fellowship with you in the ways of folly? Do you think
Christ would come and talk comfortably to you while you are frivolous,
or while you are unclean? How could that be? All joyful communion
between your soul and God is broken and well may you pray, "O visit me
with Your salvation. Come back to me, Lord. Come and dwell in me
again–
'Why should my foolish passions roam? Where can such sweetness be As I
have tasted in Your love, As I have found in Thee?'
Come back, my Lord, and visit me with Your salvation." Is not this a
prayer made on purpose for you?
And, next, you observe in the text that the poor backslider is longing
to get a sight of the good things which for a long time have been hid
from him. He Cries, "That I may see the good of Your chosen." He has
been out among the swine, but he could not fill his belly with the
husks. He has been hungering and thirsting and now he remembers that in
his Father's house there is bread enough and to spare. Backslider, do
you remember that tonight? You know you are not happy and you begin to
perceive that you never will be happy while you are living in the far
country. If you had not been a child of God you might have made a happy
worldling after the sort of happiness that worldlings know, but you are
spoiled for a worldling if you have ever known the love of God! And you
have known that, or else you have been, indeed, a hypocrite! Do you not
sigh to the Lord to give you these good things again?
Well, He will freely give them to you and He will not upbraid you. Come
and try Him! He is ready to press you to His bosom and to forget and
forgive the past and accept you in the Beloved. The poor backslider
praying in the words of my text longs to taste once more the joy he
used to feel and, therefore, he says, "That I may rejoice in the
gladness of Your nation." And, again, he wants to be able to speak as
he once could–"that I may glory with Your inheritance." Poor man, he
is ashamed to speak to sinners. He hangs his head in company, for there
are some that call him a turncoat. He does not like to have it known
that he was once a Christian and, therefore, he comes stealing in to
the assembly of the saints as if he hoped no one would know him.
There he is, but he feels half ashamed to be there–and yet he wishes
that he were once more with the Christian brotherhood and could rejoice
with them. My poor Friend, you used to be bold as a lion for Christ and
now you turn tail
and fly! How can you be bold with all those inconsistencies? There was
a time when you might have made a martyr, but now what a coward you
are! And who wonders that you are so when they know that secret sin has
sapped and undermined your profession and made you weak as water? I beg
you to pray the prayer–"That I may glory with Your inheritance." You
will never again make your boast in the Lord till you are restored,
till you come back as you came at first with the old cry, "Father, I
have sinned before You and am no more worthy to be called Your son."
Come back even now, my Brother, and get another application of the
blood of sprinkling. Look again to Jesus!
Ah, and I may here say, even if you have not backslidden, look again to
Jesus! Those of us who have not fallen had better look to Him with our
Brothers and Sisters who have fallen, for there is the same blessing
needed by us all. We have all wandered to some extent. Come, let us
look at those dear wounds anew! Can you not see Him? I think He hangs
before me now! The crown of thorns is on His head and His eyes are full
of languid pity and tearful grief. I see His face stained with spit and
black and blue with cruel bruises! I see His hands–they are fountains
of gore. I see His feet–they gush with rivulets of crimson blood. I
look upon Him and I cry, "Was ever grief like Yours, O King of
Sorrows?"
And as I look I remember that the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of
all His people–and, looking–my sin departs from me because it was
laid on Him! Looking, my heart yearns to love and then yearns to leap!
Looking, I come back to where I stood before and now, once again,
Christ is my All and I rejoice in Him! Have you gone through that
process, Backslider? If you have done so while I have been speaking,
let us praise God together!
III. The last use I have to make of my text will, I hope, be beneficial
to many here present. It is this–THIS IS A
VERY SWEET PRAYER FOR A POOR SORROWING SEEKER. I beg all who desire
conversion to remember this
prayer. They had better jot it down and carry it home with them, or,
better still, breathe it to Heaven at once. Consider it well. To begin
with, it is a sinner's prayer. "Remember me, O Lord!" A sinner's
prayer, I say, for the dying thief rejoiced to use the words. He could
not have reached down for a prayer-book and said a collect, poor man,
when he was dying–and there was no need he should. This is the best of
prayers–"Lord, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom."
Trembling Sinner, what suited the dying thief may well suit you!
Breathe it now, "Forget my sins, my Father, but remember me! Forget my
delays; forget my rejecting of a Savior; forget the hardness of my
heart, but, oh, remember me! Let everything pass away from Your mind
and be blotted from Your memory but, dear Father, by the love of the
Lord Jesus, remember me!" Sinner, do not go home without presenting
that prayer to God! Note, again, it is the prayer of a lost one. "Visit
me with Your salvation." Nobody wants salvation unless he is lost.
People may talk about salvation who do not feel that they are lost, but
they do not know anything about it and do not really desire it.
Lost Soul, where are you? Are you lost in a thousand ways–lost even to
society? Well here is a fit prayer for you– "Visit me with Your
salvation." Jesus Christ has not come to seek and to save those who do
not need saving, but He has come on purpose to seek and to save those
who are lost. You are the man He came to bless. Look to Him and you
shall find that He is the Savior you require. "Visit me with Your
salvation"–I cannot get this prayer into your hearts, but God can–and
I am praying in my own soul that many of you in the galleries, or down
below there, may now be crying, "Visit me with Your salvation."
Farther, remember that our text is the prayer of one who has a dim
eye–"That I may see the good of Your chosen." We have told the seeker
to look to Jesus, but he complains, "I try to look, but I cannot see."
Beloved Seeker, I do not know that you are bid to see. You are bid to
look and if you could not see when you looked, you would at least have
obeyed the Gospel command. The looking, the looking would bring
salvation to you! But for dim eyes Christ is the great cure. He can
take away the cataract and remove the gutta serena. Pray tonight,
"Lord, open my blind eyes that I may see the good of Your chosen." Then
it is a prayer for a heavy heart. "That I may rejoice in the gladness
of Your nation." The seeking soul moans out, "O that I had a little
joy, or even a trembling hope! If it were ever so small a portion of
light I should be glad." Pray for joy. The Lord waits to give it and if
you believe in Jesus your joy shall be full.
And in the last place–not to detain you till you are weary–our text
is the prayer of a spirit that is humble and laid in the very dust. It
cries to God to enable it to glory with His inheritance because it is
stripped of all other glory, emptied of its own boasts. Practically its
plea is, "Lord, give me to boast in Your mercy and Your goodness, for I
have nothing else to boast of." Now, beloved Hearer, this prayer I
would most earnestly press upon you and I would press it upon you for
these reasons.
Just think for a moment. Supposing you are living now without seeing
the good of God's chosen, without being saved, what a wretched life it
is to live! I cannot understand what men do without God! I cannot
comprehend how they live. Do you have no cares? "Oh," you say, "we have
anxieties in shoals." Well, where do you take them? I find I have
troubles enough, but I have a God to take them to! What do you do with
many troubles and no God? Do your children never distress your mind?
How can you live with bad children and no God? Do you ever lose money
in your business? Do you ever feel distracted? Do you ever say, "What
shall I do? Which way shall I turn?"
I suppose you do. Then what do you do without a helper or a guide? Poor
weak thing as I am, I run under the shelter of my Father's wings and I
feel safe enough. But where do you go? Where do you fly? What is your
comfort? I suppose you are something like the poor creatures condemned
to death in old times to whom they gave a stupefying drink so that they
might die without feeling the horror of death–surely you must be under
a strong delusion that you can believe a lie, for if you were in your
senses you could not do without a God–no, not with your beautiful
gardens and fine parks and wealth and riches and much less–many of
you–with your poverty and hard labor!
Poor man without a God, how do you keep up your spirits? What comfort
is there in your life? No prayer in the morning, no prayer at
night–what days, what nights! Oh, men, I could as soon think of living
without eating, or living without breathing, as living without prayer!
Wretched naked spirits your souls must be without God to cover them!
But if it is bad to live without Christ–and I am sure it is–what will
it be to die without Him? What will it be to look into the future and
find no light–no light and nobody that can bring you any? You have
sent to the minister and he has spoken with you, but he cannot help
you. You have had the prayers of your family who are sobbing at the
thought of losing you, but you are looking out, alone, like one that
gazes upon an angry sea in a cold winter's storm–and you can see
nothing but the palpable dark.
Or, to change the metaphor, you are like a man on yonder wreck. Look,
he is clinging to the mast! He hears the blast go whistling by him and
soon it comes back howling around him, as if hungry for its prey. He
can hear the seabirds screaming in the sky and they seem to prophesy
his doom. The waves break over him, drenching him with their brine till
he is ready to freeze as he hangs between Death's awful jaws. The
lifeboat has been there and carried off all it can and it will never
come back and, though he clings with desperation, he knows it is a
forlorn hope. He will drift out to sea and his corpse will lie where
pearls lie deep, in the caverns where many thousand skeletons have
bleached these many years. His case is terrible to the last degree and
yet it is a feeble picture of a soul leaving the body without an
interest in Christ's salvation!
Before you get into that state, cry to God, "Remember me, O Lord, with
the favor that You bear unto Your people. O visit me with Your
salvation!" But the mist darkens and the tempest lowers in tenfold fury
when we come to think what it must be to rise again from the tomb
without Christ. When that last shrill clarion has sounded and every
grave and cemetery shall have given up their sleepers. When the sea has
yielded up the dead that are there and battlefields are swarming with
the myriad slain that live again! When in the sky shall be seen the
Great White Throne and upon it the Son of Man who bled for sinners, now
come to judge and to condemn His adversaries–what will men then do if
they have no personal religion, no interest in Christ, no portion in
His salvation? Scripture tells us that they will ask the rocks to hide
them and the hills to cover them! But they have no hearts of
compassion–they will yield no shelter. There will be no refuge for the
ungodly and nothing before them except the fiery indignation and wrath
of God. "Turn! Turn! Why will you die?"
This is a common scene to many of you, this great gathering in the
Tabernacle. I must confess I cannot look upon it without emotion,
though I see it twice each Sunday. Here are all of you, and I, a lone
man, standing here to talk to you in God's name. It is as much as my
soul is worth if I am not earnest with you, but ah, I am not half as
earnest as I ought to be. Yet hear me once more! I am a true prophet at
this hour–when I warn you that you shall see this sight again if you
reject the Savior. Across the flames of Hell you will see it and you
will say to yourself, "The preacher warned us. He told us to cry to God
for mercy. He pointed us to the Savior. He bade us pray and pray then
and there."
You will remember my entreaties and then you will renew your agony with
a wail which shall never end! You will cry, "God called, but I refused!
He stretched out His hands, but I regarded Him not and now the day of
Grace is past and the Christ whom I despised laughs at my
calamity–there is no hope–no hope! I knocked too late at Mercy's
door. My
lamp went out. I was a foolish virgin and I am shut out in outer
darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth."
In the name of the everlasting God I pray you submit yourselves to
Christ your Lord at once and you shall live! Amen. Amen.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Psalm 51. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
HYMN BOOK"–51, 584, 556.
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Every Man's Necessity