Who Loves Christ More?
(No. 2873)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 3,1904.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
FEBRUARY 3, 1876.
"There was a certain creditor who had two debtors: the one owed five
hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay,
he frankly forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will
love him more? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he
forgave more. And He said unto him, You have rightly judged." Luke
7:41-43.
When we commence the Christian life, it is very natural that we should
say to ourselves, "We do not wish to be second-rate Christians, or
ordinary Christians–much less to prove like the Laodicean professors,
neither cold nor hot, or, like those of whom the Apostle John wrote,
"They went out from us, but they were not of us." I like to see the
holy ambition of the young convert who desires to bring forth much
fruit to the Glory of God–to love Christ much and manifest that love
by every possible act of devotion to Him. Truly, my dear Friends, you
need not be as your fathers have been, for we have often provoked the
Lord and have many times done what we ought not to have done. There is
plenty of room for improvement upon the past generation and we would
earnestly urge those of you who are commencing the heavenly race to run
faster than we have run–to keep your eyes more steadfastly fixed upon
the goal–and to continue more resolutely in the right way than we have
done. We do not desire that you should imitate our mistakes, or that
you should fall into our backslidings. We wish that yours might be the
highest conceivable form of Christian life and we know that if it is to
be so, there must be in you intense love to Christ.
My objective, at this time, is to give some directions which, perhaps,
the Spirit of God will bless, especially to beginners, that they may be
taught to love Christ much and manifest that love as this woman did. It
may be that some of us who have been for years on the right road, may
also get stirred up to greater zeal and devotion to our Lord. Possibly,
we may hear our Master saying to us, as He said to the angel of the
church of Ephesus, "I have somewhat against you, because you have left
your first love." If His Spirit shall make our love to burn more
vehemently, we may be able to start anew and after a better fashion in
the work and service of our Lord. This were "a consummation devoutly to
be wished."
With this end in view, I shall begin by speaking upon the fact that we
must all be saved in the same manner. Whatever our desires may be to
outrun others in the Christian race, we must begin by being saved in
exactly the same manner as others are. Then, secondly, I shall try to
show that it will help to increase our love if we have a deep sense of
our own sinfulness. And then, thirdly, provided we have this deep sense
of sin and, in consequence, possess a burning love to Christ, this will
lead us to show our love very much as this woman did.
I. First, then, whatever our desires may be to serve our Master to the
utmost–to be in the front rank of His servitors–yet we MUST BEGIN
WHERE OTHERS BEGIN.
There is the same door of entrance for us as that which was opened to
the very chief of sinners, for there is no difference between one
sinner and another in the sight of God, as far as the plan of salvation
is concerned. There may be many differences in other matters but, in
the matter of salvation, there is nothing which places one man in a
different position from another, or which allows him to be saved in any
other way than the one way which God has laid down for a sinner's
salvation.
You notice, in the parable before us, that both the parties were in
debt–"the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty"–but they
were both in debt. So, if some men have plunged into the grossest vice
and defiled themselves, and polluted their lives, they are certainly in
debt five hundred pence. But if others have been kept from overt acts
of transgression, yet, since their hearts have gone astray from God and
since, with their desires, and with their lips, and in many respects
even in their actions, they have broken His holy Law, they also are in
debt. Fifty pence, it may be, but still, they are in debt. There is not
one among us who can stand before the Most High and say to Him, "I owe
nothing to Your justice for I have never infringed Your righteous
Laws." Any man who would say that would be a liar, and the truth would
not be in him. If we say that we have no sin, or that we have not
sinned, we lie in the face of the living God and in the teeth of our
own conscience, too! So, we are all in debt, even if the amount differs
in each case.
We also learn from the parable that, although both the parties were in
debt, neither of them had anything with which to meet the
liability–"they had nothing to pay." One only owed fifty pence, but,
then, he had not the fifty pence. No, he had not even one penny out of
the fifty required to meet the amount. The other debtor owed five
hundred pence and his plight was just the same, for he had nothing to
pay. It sometimes happens that the man who owes the most, has the most
to pay, but it is not so here. He has nothingto pay. And sometimes the
man who owes but very little, may be the one who has something with
which to meet his obligations. He has pulled up just at the right time
and though he is insolvent, yet he can almost meet the debt.
But it is not so here. He has nothing to pay. Neither of them could
produce so much as a single penny and that is your case and mine, dear
Brothers and Sisters–we have nothing to pay. All that we have, or ever
shall have, is already due to God. If there were any assets, they would
not belong to us and there is nothing in reserve–nothing that we can
look for, that will drop in, towards the close of life, with which all
our old scores can be wiped out. Under the Law of God, there is nothing
for us but debt, debt, debt! And even if we had the power to pay our
old debts, new ones would soon swallow up all our capital. But we have
nothing with which to meet our old debts. "You shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself," is
still God's daily demand upon us. And if we were able to meet it, it
would not in any way make up for the deficiencies of the years that
have gone by. Here we all stand upon an equality–we are all in debt
and we have, none of us, anything with which to pay that debt.
And here is the glory of God's mercy in dealing with sinners who
believe in Jesus. In the parable of the two debtors, we are told that
the creditor freely forgave them both He did not say to either of them,
"I will set you a certain time and you shall pay me so much a week
until you clear it off." Oh, no, he forgave them both–wiped the score
out altogether! He did not ask anything of them, for he knew that they
had nothing. He forgave them, says the text, frankly, that is, freely.
He did not forgive one of them because his debt was a misfortune which
he could not avoid, but he frankly forgave them both. He did not look
for any worthiness in either of them, or expect anything from either of
them, but, as an act of pure gratuitous favor, because he delighted to
show kindness to his poor debtors, he said, "There, go home, both of
you. I shall never ask you for the amount of your debts again. I have
crossed it off my book though I have received nothing whatever from
you."
Now, this is just what the Lord, in His infinite mercy, does for all
poor sinners who come and trust His Son. He gives them a receipt in
full, for there is One who has paid the debt for them! All glory be to
His name–it has been paid in full! But, as far as we are concerned,
the Lord does not give us pardon because of our tears, or prayers, or
repentances, or even because of any merit in our believing, for our
very believing is marred by unbelief–but He forgives us freely. And He
does not forgive us because He thinks that in the future we shall
improve upon the past. Oh no, we are His workmanship when we do improve
and it is He who must have the credit of our improvement. But He
forgives us freely, "according to the riches of His Grace," passing by
iniquity, transgression, and sin, and remembering not the wickedness of
His people, "because He delights in mercy."
Here, then, we are all on the same level and if any young Christian
thinks that he starts with an advantage over others, he makes a great
mistake–and he had better go back and start where all pilgrims to Zion
must start–at that wicket gate which John Bunyan describes, or, better
still, at that Cross where Christian lost his load and from where he
went on his way rejoicing! You must come down from that high horse,
young man–your birthright is not worth a farthing to you, your church
attendance and your chapel attendance are not worth a single penny to
you–you must trust in Chr-
ist just as a harlot or as a thief must! It is true that you have been
moral and I thank God for it. It is true that you have been preserved
from contamination with an ungodly world and I thank God for it. But,
still, in the matter of the soul's salvation, "other foundation can no
man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Faith in the atoning
Sacrifice of Christ is the way of salvation for the most immoral and
for the most moral, too! You and I, dear Friend, must go together to
the Lord Jesus and see in Him the full Atonement made and the utmost
ransom paid–and then we must accept, as poor bankrupt sinners, the
free gift of a full discharge through the Sovereign Mercy of God whom
we have offended.
It is absolutely essential for us to begin here, for, if we do not
start our Christian life rightly, we shall never make progress in it.
If there is a mistake in the first course of bricks laid, or if the
foundation is not well dug out, or if things are done improperly at the
beginning, there are sure to be all sorts of mischief in the rest of
the building. Therefore, I charge you, begin by coming to Christ as
naked sinners needing to be clothed. Do not come to Him in the filthy
rags of your self-righteousness, seeking to have a piece of His
spotless robe of righteousness tacked on, for that can never be! If you
think of passing your counterfeit coin with Christ's pure gold, you are
making a fatal mistake. I charge you to begin as lost, ruined and
condemned sinners–for that is what you really are. Coming to Christ
like that and trusting in Him, you shall be saved, you shall be adopted
into the Divine family, you shall be sanctified in Christ Jesus and, in
due time, you shall be glorified through Him, and through Him alone!
II. Now, secondly, I want to show you how our lives may become more
intense than the lives of many other professing Christians are through
our love being more fervent than theirs. In order to attain that end,
WE MUST HAVE A DEEP SENSE OF OUR OWN SIN. "Which of them will love him
more?" "I suppose he to whom he forgave most."
I can imagine someone saying, "I was never, in very deed, as great a
sinner as some have been. Must I, therefore, love Christ less than
those who have been greater sinners than I have? Will this morality of
mine–in which I do not trust for a moment and concerning which I do
not speak boastingly–will this put me at a disadvantage in comparison
with others? Shall I never attain to such love as that woman had who
was a sinner?" Listen, my Friend. Suppose that the man who owed 500
pence only thought that he owed fifty. He would not love the creditor,
who forgave him, any better than the one who really did owe the 50
pence, would he? It was not the amount forgiven, as you will readily
see, which was the cause of the greater or lesser love–it was the
consciousness of the amount–the realization of its greatness, which
would be the cause of the greater love! I do not doubt that there are
some very great sinners who have been forgiven, who yet do not love
Christ much and, on the other hand, there are some who, in the judgment
of men and, perhaps, in the judgment of God, are nothing like such
great sinners, who, nevertheless, love Christ more–the reason being
that these greater sinners never had such a deep sense of the enormity
of sin as these, comparatively speaking, lesser sinners have had. The
question turns, you see, not so much upon the actual amount of debt, as
upon the consciousness of the magnitude of that debt–not so much, in
the matter of love, upon the indebtedness, as upon the senseof that
indebtedness, so that you who have been kept in the ways of morality
before you were converted, may rightly place yourselves among the
greatest debtors and, perhaps, may love Christ even more than some
others do who have actually been grosser offenders, but who have never
been awakened to such a full sense of their sinfulness as you have had,
and, consequently, do not think themselves to be the greatest debtors
to God. It is, dear Friends, a deep sense of our sinfulness, coupled
with the perfect consciousness of our forgiveness, that will work in us
intense love to Christ.
Let me further say that anyone who has been forgiven very great open
sin ought, certainly, to have the greatest and strongest motive for
love to Christ. You cannot always tell how love comes into the heart. I
do not deny the duty of love, but love does not come merely as a duty.
You love your mother, or you love your wife and it is your duty to do
so, but you could not be made to love either of them simply by being
told that it was a duty! You do it because of the natural impulse
within your heart which moves you to love. In like manner, love to our
Heavenly Father and love to Christ is, no doubt, a duty, but it is much
more than a mere matter of duty. That is a cold sphere for love to live
in and she soon gets away from the polar regions of duty to the more
tropical climate of the Garden of Gethsemane and the place called
Calvary. She loves because she cannot help loving–because she must
love! The gratitude within her heart is so great that she cannot help
loving the Lord who has done so much for her!
I hope that is the case with any of you who were once drunkards, or who
had lost your character, or who had sinned against God in an open way
and even dared, perhaps, to blaspheme His holy name. As you think that
over, oh, how your heart ought to burn with love to your Lord! You
remember how Paul writes concerning adulterers, drunks and all sorts
of grossly sinful people–and then says, "Such were some of you, but
you are washed." This should bring tears to the eyes of all whom it
concerns–"But you are washed"–you are singing your Savior's praises,
though once a profane or licentious song would have suited you better!
You are now bowing your knees in prayer, though once those knees never
knew what it was to make an obeisance before the Most High! You are
loving Him, now, with all your heart, though once you saw no beauty in
Him that you should desire Him. Brothers and Sisters, I will not say
that you ought to love Christ much–rather will I say that I feel sure
that you do! If you realize what He has done for you, you cannot help
loving Him much! And I trust that in the outpouring and manifestation
of love, yours will be a life as vigorously good as once it was
shamefully bad–a life as full of the fire of Heaven as once it was
full of the fire of Hell–a life as much above the common life of men
as once it was below what the life of men really ought to be. God grant
that it may be so with you!
Now I will address myself to those who thank God–without any of the
Pharisaic spirit–but very humbly thank God that they were not allowed
to run into the same excess of riot as others, but were early brought
to a knowledge of the Savior. I say to you, dear Friends, that you,
also, may be among those who love Christ much if you have a very deep
sense of sin. A venerable servant of God whom most of you know and
respect, has made a remark which I fully endorse. He says that he has
noticed that the deepest convictions of sin do not come, as a rule, to
men of coarse life, but to those who have been of upright moral
character. My own observation has taught me that, very often, drunks
and other persons who have lived openly evil lives, when they are
converted, are brought all of a sudden to Christ and made to rejoice in
Him–while some of us who were kept from such sins as they have
committed, have had a far greater sense of horror and terror indicted
upon us than they have ever experienced! I have many times found that
the deepest sense of sin has been felt where the actual sin has been
the least. There are, no doubt, exceptions to this rule, but I believe
it is the rule–and the explanation is that the ungodly man, by a long
life of sin, has so seared his conscience that even when the Spirit of
God comes to him, he has not that delicate, acute sense of sin which
another man has, who, by God's Grace, has never been permitted to blunt
the edge of his conscience.
I will tell you another thing. I believe that in many Christians, the
sense of sin is much stronger 10 years after they have been saved than
it is at the time of their conversion. There is not any despair mixed
with it and the fear of punishment has gone–but a sense of horror at
the terrible guilt of sin will sometimes come over a Christian who is
far advanced in the Divine life. No, the further he is advanced in the
Divine life, the more will horror take hold of him whenever he sees
sin, even in others, but still more in himself! Some glib professors
talk of having got out of the 7th of Romans– I hope they will grow in
Grace until they get into the 7th of Romans! It seems to me as if they
were in the 1st of Romans, so they have a long way to travel before
they will get into the 7th of Romans. The nearer you get to perfection,
the more horrified you feel because of the sin that still remains in
you! And the more horror you feel at your sin, the more intense will be
your gratitude to the bleeding Savior who has put that sin away. And,
in consequence, the more intense will be your love to Him.
I charge you, Christian people, if you want your piety to be increased,
never to blunt your sensibility of sin. Do not begin to look at sin in
any light which takes away any of it blackness. The devil himself is
not as bad as sin is, for it is sin that made the devil. Satan was a
holy angel until sin came into him, but sin itself was never anything
else but sin–a horrible thing, and it never will be anything else but
sin, look at it in whatever way you may! Some have spoken of sin as
being merely a failure, or a slight slip. God keep you, Beloved, from
ever using such language as that! Sin, in a child of God, is a damnable
thing–as damnable as it is most atrociously wicked–and if it were not
for the Grace of God, which takes it away, the brightest saint would
soon be banished from God's Presence. Sin is always an evil thing, but
in a child of God it is a worse thing than in worldlings, for he sins
against greater light and knowledge than they possess.
Brothers and Sisters in Christ, if you desire to cultivate, as I trust
you do, the feeling that you owe your Lord 500 pence which He has
freely forgiven you, you must often think of the spirituality of the
Law of God. We think, at first, that the Ten Commandments only mean
what we see on the surface. And if we have not broken them, we feel
happy. Or if we have broken them, then we feel some conviction of sin.
But the longer we live and the more the Spirit of God deals with us,
the more we discover that the Law contains the condemnation of every
evil thought, temper and imagination. Think, for instance, when we come
to discover, in connection with the command, "You shall not kill," that
he who is angry with his brother without a cause is a murderer! Who
among us has completely escaped that sin? Do angry thoughts
ever arise in our heart? Ah, then we begin to discover that we have
broken that Commandment and that, in this sense, we are murderers! And
we find that there are more men who have broken that Law than have been
put to death by their fellow men. It is just the same with each of the
Commandments. I need not go into the details of them, but may the
Spirit of God make you often go into the details till you look into
your own life and are horrified and say, "Why, where we fancied we saw
righteousness, we see ourselves altogether condemned before the
all-seeing eyes of God."
If you would have a sense of sin, in the next place, endeavor more and
more to appreciate the excellency of God. O You holy, holy, holy, Lord
God of Hosts, when I think of some of Your creatures and compare myself
with them, self-conceit may set my mind at ease–but when I look up to
You and remember that the heavens are not clean in Your sight, and that
You charge Your angels with folly, I feel afraid to come into Your
Presence! In the visions of the night, when we have thought upon the
purity and spirituality of God, our hair has been ready to stand on end
as we have realized how far we are from such perfection as His–and we
have been ready to cry with Job, "I have heard of You by the hearing of
the ear: but now my eyes see You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent
in dust and ashes." If the Holy Spirit will teach you to feel like
that, then you will love Jesus Christ for having had pity upon you and
provided a way by which all your sinfulness could be taken away!
Another blessed sharpener of our sense of sin is a consciousness of
sin's tendency–knowing what sin really is and what it would do if it
could have its way without those blessed checks which Omnipotence put
upon it. What would sin do if it could? What didit do when God gave it
liberty? It took God Himself and accused Him, brought Him before its
bar and there the sinner dared to sit and judge his God–yes, and to
condemn his God and even to slay his God! This is what sin always does
whenever it can. "The fool"–that is, the ungodly man–has said in his
heart, "There is no God." He means, "No God for me. I do not need any
God. If I could have my own way, there would not be any God." And every
offense against God's Law is a wish, on our part, to be greater than
God–to have our way instead of God having His way–in a word, to push
God off His Throne that we might sit there in His place! O Sin, I
cannot but hate you, now that I see you red with the blood of the Son
of God! I cannot but abhor you, now that I see that you would let Hell
loose into this world if you could do so! A Christian cannot help
hating sin in proportion as He loves God who has forgiven Him all His
trespasses.
One thing which has often made me feel great tenderness of soul is a
sense of the Divine Love. If you ever offend a person and that person,
instead of being in the slightest degree angry, lets fall a tear, but
says nothing. And if you hear afterwards that he has been laying
himself out for your good and that the very thing about which you were
angry was really intended to be a blessing to you, oh, you feel as if
you could never forgive yourself! To do a wrong thing is bad at any
time, but to do a wrong to the One who is so good and so kind as God
is–oh, have you not often said to yourself, "How could I have done
this? I am one of God's chosen people. He loved me before the
foundation of the world, though I did not know it. Christ wrote my name
on His hands and on His heart–and shed His blood to redeem me–yet I
did not know it. I even ridiculed His name and yet, all the while, He
had prepared a place in Heaven for me and He had made up His mind that
He would save me, that His Grace would seek me! I did not know anything
about it and I went on in the frivolity and foolishness of my heart
against Him." This thought makes sin appear exceedingly sinful, as
being committed against a God who is all goodness and altogether love
and mercy–and so we feel ourselves to be indebted 500 pence– not
merely fifty.
Above all, dear Friends, I know of nothing that can make us more
sensitive about our guilt, and conscious of it, than the realization of
what Jesus Christ is to us. I think this poor woman was helped to weep
by the sight of His feet. They had not been pierced, then, but I know
that it helps us to weep in penitence when we can see His dear, His
blessed feet that were pierced for our sins, and look upon His hands
and remember His words, "These are the wounds that I received in the
house of My friends." And then look into His side and see that the gash
goes right to His heart and, all the while, realize that each of our
sins became a nail and unbelief the spear to pierce His hands, and
feet, and side. That wonderful love of Jesus Christ to us has never
changed. It has never been repressed by our ingratitude, or made to
cease even by our forget-fulness of Him. He loved us even to the death
and, after death, He has continued to love us still! He loves us so
that He cannot be content even in Heaven until He gets us there with
Him. Being Himself there as our Head, He is determined to bring all His
members there.
Just look at Jesus Christ a minute, and then look at sin. Oh, what a
loathsome thing, what a monster it then appears! I am sure, dear
Friends, if you are beginning to think little of sin, it must be
because you have been thinking little of Jesus Christ. You cannot have
met your best Friend lately, or else you would never parley with His
enemy. O Beloved, lie in Christ's bosom where all the sweetest perfumes
are! Rest your head upon His breast where the myrrh, and aloes, and
cassia are to be found and you will never crave the leeks and garlic of
Egypt! After having been with Him and eaten of the heavenly manna, you
would not be able to eat the dust and ashes of this foul world! So, in
proportion as you get near to Jesus, you will hate sin and you will
love Him who bore your sin, and carried it all away that you might be
free from it forever!
There are many other topics I might mention so as to sharpen your sense
of sin, but I pray the ever-blessed Spirit to keep your mind and heart
sensitive towards sin, for you can be sure of this–that you can never
exaggerate your own guiltiness in God's sight. When you have the lowest
notion of yourself, you are getting the nearest to the truth. When you
feel your sin to be exceedingly sinful, you do not even yet know how
sinful it is, for–
"God only knows the love of God"– and God only knows the sinfulness of
man! Perhaps, if any man among us could see his sin as it really is, he
would go mad. I am persuaded that, sometimes, God spares men who have
been great sinners, the horrible revelations which He gives to others
because they could not bear them! If they did ever see themselves as
they are, they might be driven to despair. So He sometimes leads them
by easier ways than He does some others and He thus gives to others the
opportunity of putting themselves down among the 500 pence debtors and
to love Him more because, after all, they are conscious of having had
the most forgiven.
III. My time has fled, so I must only say very briefly, in the third
place, that IF WE GET A BURNING LOVE FOR JESUS CHRIST, IT WILL BE WELL
FOR US TO SHOW IT AS THIS WOMAN DID. How shall we do it?
First, by desiring to be near Him. This woman, in her desire to be near
Christ, came right up to His feet. Augustine admires the gracious
audacity of this woman. She had been very bold when she was a
sinner–her shamefacedness was gone when she was a sinner and it was
also gone when she was a saint. May we, too, love Christ so much that
we cannot be content to live at a distance from Him, but may we be
among those who follow the Lamb wherever He goes and abide close beside
Him!
The next point in her for us to imitate is the boldness of her
confession. Some of Christ's disciples came to Him by night, but this
woman came to Him by day. They dared not approach Him when anybody saw
them, but she cared not who saw her. I would that you who love Jesus
much were as bold as she was in the acknowledgment of your faith. Come
out and confess Christ, saying, "I have had much forgiven–therefore I
will tell the whole world of what the Lord has done for me."
Then, next, this woman had deep humility, for, bold as she was, she
rendered the lowliest service that she could to Christ. May you be such
willing slaves to Him that washing His feet will be the work in which
you delight! If I may but wash His feet–help His poor people–look
after a few infants in the Sunday school–do any little thing for
Him–if I can only have some smiles from Him, though they are only such
as come to menials, I will be glad to get them.
Then, imitate this woman's penitence. She bathed His feet with her
tears–so you show Him how deep and true is your repentance. It is well
not to make a show of repentance to men except by your actions. But let
your whole life and your inmost soul make a show of it before Christ.
Wash His feet with your tears. Refresh Him with your contrition.
After washing His feet with her tears, this woman wiped them with the
hairs of her head. Imitate her self-denying service. Show your love to
Jesus in some special way. I do not know what particular form your
service may take, but let it be some loving, tender, self-denying work
for your dear Lord and Savior. Make a perfect consecration of yourself
to Him, as this woman did. May the Holy Spirit help you to do so! But
you will never do it unless you have a deep sense of sin, so, Brothers
and Sisters in Christ, I come back to that point because that is the
chief thought I want to leave in your mind. Do you feel sin to be a
bitter and hideous thing? And do you feel yourself to be a great
sinner? You will never pray so well as when you have a tear in your
eye. You will never serve God so well as when you have been standing in
the publican's place and saying, "God, be merciful to me a sinner."
I am persuaded that we, ministers, do not preach with effect if we
preach as if we were wonderful saints looking down on you, poor
sinners. Oh, no! When we are, ourselves, tender in spirit, God helps us
to be tender to the humble and con-
trite among our hearers! Out of our hearts, by the gracious working of
the Holy Spirit, comes power that helps others to be humble and
contrite before God. We are nothing to boast of, so let us never boast.
Though we are accepted in the Beloved, and perfect in Christ Jesus,
forgiven, saved forever, (blessed be His name!), yet this is no reason
for us to lift ourselves up, but to lift Christ up! It is a cause for
gratitude, but not for conceit. So we will feel that we have had much
forgiven, and will love Him much who has freely forgiven us all our
trespasses. May He help us to do so, and His shall be the praise
forever and ever! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM116.
In this Psalm, David tells us his experience with regard to God and
with regard to men.
Verse 1. Ilove the LORD, because He has heard my voice and my
supplications. Answered prayer is a good reason for loving God. David
was in his right senses and he was, by no means, a fool, yet he
declared that God had answered his prayers and, therefore, he loved
Him. And this is not only David's experience, but there are thousands
of us who can say that God has heard our prayers and, therefore, we
love Him. How can we help doing so?
2. Because He has inclined His ear unto me, therefore will I call upon
Him as long as I live. If a beggar in the street were to say to us,
"Because you have relieved me once, I will beg of you as long as I
live," we would not be pleased to hear him say that–but God loves to
hear us say that to Him! He wishes us to resolve that because we have
been successful in prayer once, we will call upon Him as long as we
live! Now David explains the circumstances which led him to pray.
3. The sorrows of death compassed me. "I seemed to be shut
in–surrounded by a circle of difficulties and terrors! 'The sorrows of
death compassed me.'"
3. And the pains of Hell got hold upon me. They seemed to seize him as
a lion seizes his prey.
3, 4. I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the
LORD; O LORD, I beseech You, deliver my soul His prayer was a very
short one, but very much to the point. Words make not prayer–they
often burden it, and prevent it from flying–
"Prayer is the soul's sincere desire"
and David, in a few earnest words, expressed that desire–"O Lord, I
beseech You, deliver my soul."
5. Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yes, our God is merciful. All
who have ever tried Him have proved Him to be so–merciful to forgive
our sin–merciful to help us in the time of trouble–merciful to
strengthen us in the performance of our duty. "Our God is merciful."
6. The LORD preserves the simple. Those who are of a single mind–who
have no double meanings and concealed motives–those who know their own
ignorance and weakness and who, therefore, dare not trust in
themselves.
6. I was brought low, and He helped me. David could speak for himself
and he did so without the slightest hesitation. Can you, dear Friends,
after making trial of God's love and Grace, say of Him, "I was brought
low, and He helped me"? If you can, then bear this testimony to His
praise and glory!
7. Return unto your rest, O my soul; for the LORD has dealt bountifully
with you. Man's soul is like the dove that Noah sent out from the ark.
It flew over the wide waste of waters, seeking rest, but finding none,
so, at last, with weary wings, it made its way back to the ark. And,
Soul, you will never rest till you come back to your Creator and
Redeemer! You may fly to the pleasures and follies of this world but
they can furnish no real rest for you. If you would rest, you must come
back to your God.
8. 9. For You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears,
and my feet from falling. I will walk before the LORD in the land of
the living. "Let my fellow creatures think what they will of me, I will
not care about their judgments, I will only think of God." This is the
highest, noblest, happiest style of living–to "walk before the Lord."
Why, there are some men who dare not even call their souls their own!
They are afraid of their next-door neighbors, or of some great kinsman
who sets the fashion for them. But the man who walks before the Lord
will think only of the verdict of the Most High and will care nothing
about what men will say.
10, 11. I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted: I
said in my haste, all men are liars. He felt that he could not trust
them. He had come into such trouble that men would be deceivers even
against their own will, for, even
when they would have helped him, he found that they could not. He had
looked to them as worthy of his confidence and had found them fail him.
Therefore he said that as far as reliance upon them was concerned, "All
men are liars." Well, what then?
12. What shall I render unto the LORD for all His benefits toward me?
"Though men have failed me, the Lord has not. If friends all prove to
be false, He is still true. 'What shall I render unto the Lord for all
His benefits toward me?'"
13-15. I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the
LORD. I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all His
people. Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints.
It matters not where they die–in the dungeons of the Inquisition, or
on the sickbed of poverty and obscurity–God is always with them. The
deathbed of a saint is one of the places where God often makes His
Glory to be best seen. From the lips of dying men and women some of us
have heard strange sayings–sweeter than any that ever fell from poet's
tongue or pen! We have heard words which it was almost unlawful for a
man to utter, save only for those who were in the very suburbs of
Heaven– almost in Glory–even while they spoke with us on earth.
"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." Will
yours be a saintly death, dear Friend, or will it, on the other hand,
be a death of gloom and sorrow? God grant that you may die the death of
His people because you have lived the life of His people!
16. O LORD, truly I am Your servant; I am Your servant, and the son of
Your handmaid: You have loosed my bonds. How pleased David was to be
God's servant! Yet he says, "You have loosed my bonds." To serve God is
to be free! We are never truly free until we bow our willing necks to
the yoke of the Most High. Then we break every chain and snap every
fetter. He is the free man whom our God makes free–all the rest are
slaves.
17-19. I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call
upon the name of the LORD. I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the
presence of all His people, in the courts of the LORD'S house, in the
midst of you, O Jerusalem. Praise you the LORD.