Marrow and Fatness

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 29, 1874,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Then went King David in, and sat before the lord, and he said, Who am
I, O Lord God? and what is my house, that You have brought me up to
now? And this was yet a small thingin Your sight, O Lord God, but You
have spoken also of Your servant's house for a great while to come. And
is this the manner of man, O Lord God? And what can David say more unto
You? for You, Lord God, know Your servant. For Your word's sake, and
according to Your own heart, have You done all these great things, to
make Your servant know them. Therefore You are great, O Lord God: for
there is none like You, neither is there any God beside You, according
to all that we have heard with our ears." 2 Samuel 7:18-22.

DAVID was overwhelmed with the mercy of God! Nathan's message was too
much for him. He felt emotions in his bosom which he could not express.
Like a wise man, he went at once, while under the impulse of gratitude,
into the place of nearness to God. It was not everyone who might go in
and sit before the Lord as he did, but he felt he had a special call to
draw near unto the Most High–and there he sat down in the posture of
waiting to receive the fulfillment of what was promised, in the posture
of rest–as one who had, now, all that he could desire and was pressed
down under the weight of blessing. Yet the Psalmist's sitting was also
a posture of worship and surely of all passages of Scripture none can
be said to contain more true adoration than that which is now before
us.

The king sat, however, before the Lord. The mercy had all come from God
and therefore to God all his praise was offered. His soul waited only
upon the Lord, because his expectation was alone from Him. He was
conscious of being in the sacred Presence and he sat there, feeling
that by the Covenant Blessing he had been brought very near, and his
spirit exulted in that nearness! Brothers and Sisters in Christ, the
mercies which God has shown to us are as great as those which He
manifested to His servant David! And if the Spirit of God has opened
our eyes to see and understand them, we may, this morning, ardently
wish to do precisely what David did.

Let us have boldness to enter into the nearest possible fellowship with
God–yes, let us go where David could not go–within the veil, and
there, where Christ has opened up the way through His torn body, let us
sit down in a restful, waiting, happy spirit, and give full play to all
those Divine emotions which ought to be awakened by reflecting upon the
lovingkindness of the Lord!

I have selected this subject because there are many among us who have
lately found the Savior and it is well to let them see the happiness
which belongs to them–the pleasures and the treasures which are theirs
in Christ Jesus–that they may render unto the God of Grace the glory
which is due unto His name. David did not understand the words of
Nathan to relate merely to his dynasty and to his dominion over the
house of Israel. He looked far beyond temporal things–and therefore,
in the words before us, there is a spiritual depth which will not
strike the eye of the casual reader. The New Testament must be the
expositor of the Old, and Peter, in his famous sermon gives us the key
to this passage!

Turn to Acts 2:29 and you will find that Peter accounts for a memorable
utterance of David in the Psalms by declaring that he was a Prophet,
and knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of
his loins, according to the flesh, He would raise up Christ to sit on
his throne. The joy which filled David's bosom was a spiritual one
because he knew that Jesus would come of his race–and that an
everlasting kingdom would be set up in His Person–and in Him should
the Gentiles trust.

Now, then, we also, being blest with all spiritual blessings in
heavenly places in Christ Jesus, are bound to feel as David felt, and
therefore we shall pass in review, David's expressions, with the desire
that we may drop into the same mood. May God the Holy Spirit, who alone
can enable us to do so, bless our meditation at this time.

I. First I shall need you to notice THE HUMILITY apparent in David's
words. "Then went King David in, and sat before the Lord, and he said,
Who am I, O Lord God? and what is my house, that You have brought me up
to now?''" First, he acknowledged the lowliness of his origin–"What is
my house?" He came not of royal blood. Nathan spoke the Truth of God
when he said in the Lord's name, "I took you from the sheepcote, from
following the sheep." David was but a humble shepherd lad when he was
first anointed–and after that anointing he continued in that humble
office. From this he rose to become the leader of a motley band of
free-lances exiled from their country. Yet the Lord was pleased to call
him from his low estate to make him king over the chosen people!

Beloved, what is our origin? What is there about our descent that could
claim for us the high privilege of being sons of God? Trace our origin
to its most ancient source and behold, SIN is there, staining the
escutcheon of our house! All down the line there is a taint of high
treason against the Divine Majesty. We come of a race of rebels and our
own personal birth was marred with sin. Heraldry lends no pomp to
us–and the genealogy for the most of us reveals no hereditary
glories–and even if it did, it would be mere fancies and fictions not
worthy to be mentioned before the Presence of the Lord. "Who am I, O
Lord God? and what is my house?"

David laid the most stress upon his own personal unworthiness. He said,
"Who am I? What was there in me that You should make me a king and a
progenitor of the Christ?" And will not each Believer here say the
same? Who am I? What is there in me? God might have chosen the great
and the mighty of the world, but He has passed them by. He might have
chosen the learned and famous, but not many of them are called. He has
chosen the poor of this world and things that are despised. Yes, the
base things has God chosen, and the things that are not, to bring to
nothing the things that are, that no flesh might glory in His Presence.
Look at yourself from head to foot–examine every crevice of your
heart, and every single feature of your character–can you see anything
there that might command Jehovah's esteem? Do you see any
qualifications for being bought with redeeming blood? Are there any
reasons, that you can find, why you should be made sons of God, and
heirs of Glory?

The Lord had reasons for choosing you, for He acts according to the
counsel of His will, but those reasons are not in you–they lie in His
own bosom and you must exclaim–"Who am I that You have brought me up
to now?" I have no doubt that David looked upon his own
deservings–what if I correct myself and say his own undeservings?–and
marveled that the Lord had chosen him and rejected Saul! He was a man
after God's own heart, but his conduct was that of a bold, rough
soldier–and he could not look upon it without observing its
imperfections. He prayed, in the 25th Psalm, "Remember not the sins of
my youth, nor my transgressions: according to Your mercy remember You
me for Your goodness' sake, O Lord." These sins are not recorded in the
chronicles of his life, but they were written in his own penitent
memory. And being humbled concerning them he cried, "Who am I?"

There must have been many an action in his exile and wanderings which
he did not rejoice to remember. For instance, his mimicry of madness
before the king of Gath. His great anger against Nabal. His affinity
with the Philistines. And besides such prominent errors as these, he
could see many failings and transgressions all along–and these both
made the Grace of God the more illustrious and led him to cry from his
very heart–"Who am I, O Lord God?" Now, Brothers and Sisters, look
back upon your own lives before conversion. What were they? Let them be
blotted out with tears! Consider your lives since conversion and
confess that whenever you have been left to yourselves and the Grace of
God has withdrawn for a while, you have always stumbled into some form
or other of deplorable folly. Who am I? What have I done? What have I
been? How is it that I am made Your child, purchased with the blood of
Jesus, and made an heir of Heaven? We may sum it all up in that
exclamation, "Why me, Lord?"–

"Why was I made to hear Your voice, And enter where there's room, While
thousands make a wretched choice, And rather starve than come?"

There is something very interesting in the expression, "Who am I, O
Lord God?" David's sense of his own nothingness is strikingly set forth
by putting the, "I," side by side with, "O Lord God." "I David, Jesse's
son, the shepherd's boy, who am I, O You infinite, all-commanding
Jehovah, Creator, Preserver, Lord over all? How can I stand

in Your Presence? I shrink to nothing there! Did I not come of You? Do
I not owe all to You? Are You not the very breath of my nostrils? I am
a nothing, a very dream, a thing of nothing and yet You look upon me!
And You shower down Your mercies upon me! With a flood of blessedness
do You carry me away. Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house?" Thus
you see David's humility under a sense of mercy.

And let us remark, here, that nothing humbles a man like the mercy of
God! Unkind, ungenerous remarks do not humble the soul–they rather
gender pride. Under the criticisms of unkindness a man who is a man
finds all that is strong within him coming to the front, and, as in
Job's case, self-assertion straightway leads the van. Reproach and
rebuke tend, rather, to make men proud than humble. Love is the melting
power. Nothing weighs a man down like a load of blessing. When you see
God blotting out your sin, accounting you righteous in His sight, for
Jesus' sake, and saying to you, "I have loved you with an everlasting
love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn you," where is
boasting, then? It is excluded! Love shows boasting to the door and
bars its return.

Peter was ready enough to speak of what he had done, but in the
Presence of his loving Lord, when he saw his ship sinking through the
plenteous catch of fishes, he knelt down and cried in deep humiliation,
"Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord."–

"The more Your glories strike my eyes The humbler I shall lie."

A sight of the Glory and mercy of God is sure to produce in us a sense
of shame for our ill-desert–combined with wonder that God should have
so much as a single kind look for us! Sit down, then, children of God,
and review His mercy and be humbled! Do not deny yourselves the joyful
review because of a jealous fear of being exalted by it. Never endorse
the great lie of the self-righteous, that full assurance of faith leads
men to presumption! It does no such thing! By God's Grace it humbles a
man, makes him feel his own unworthiness, and so leads him to walk more
carefully and prayerfully before his God. It is in this point that
faith makes us strong, for while it exalts our joys, it slays our pride
and makes us shrink to nothing before the great ALL IN ALL.

II. Now observe, secondly, David's WONDERING GRATITUDE. He wondered,
first, at what God had done for him–"What is my house, that You have
brought me up to now?–to a house of cedar, and to be able to talk
about building a house for You. To be Your chosen king and to have my
seed established on my throne, and to become the ancestor of the
Christ! Come, Brothers and Sisters, you do not need me to preach to you
here! I should like to sit down and leave you to muse upon what the
Lord has done in bringing you up to now–up from the pit of
destruction, up from the miry clay of your depravity, out of the
horrible prison of your dread of Divine wrath–away from the Egypt of
darkness and bondage into light and liberty!

What an almighty work it was that brought you from darkness into light,
from death into life! Bless the Lord for this. Praise Him for your
calling when effectually He drew you and you ran unto Him weeping and
singing! Praise Him for your pardon when He washed you in the blood and
you were clean–and you knew you were! Wonder of wonders is this!
Praise Him for your justification, when He took the robe the Savior
wore and dressed you with it–never was a bride arrayed by the most
loving bridegroom! Praise Him for your regeneration, when you were born
into a new world! Praise Him for your being set apart for holy uses,
admitted to new company, filled with holy joys, instructed in heavenly
truths and dedicated to sacred duties!

Praise Him for sanctification which has made you worthy to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saints in light! Praise Him for the
preservation from sin which you have, up to now, received–and the
education for eternity which has so happily commenced! Praise Him for
the provision so bounteous with which He has furnished a table in the
wilderness, both temporally and spiritually! And praise Him for the
protection with which He has warded off the arrow that flies by day,
and the pestilence that walks in darkness. O Lord, I bless You that You
have brought me up to now! Sometimes, when I take a view of what God
has done for me, I feel like Christian when he went through the Valley
of the Shadow of Death by night.

Remember how Bunyan pictures the scene? A narrow pathway with a pit on
this side and a deep morass on that–on all sides hobgoblins, dragons,
and spirits of the deep seeking to destroy him. His sword is useless
and therefore put away in its sheath. No weapon in his hand but that of
All-Prayer, which he found to be equal to the emergency. And when he
had gone through it, and the sun rose on him, and he looked back, he
could not believe his eyes that he passed through it!

And truly, at this moment, looking back on life with its innumerable
temptations, and remembering the tendency to yield that is within every
one of us, we can each one sing as Christian did–

"Oh, world of wonders (I can say no less),

That I should be preserved in that distress

That I have met with here!

Oh, blessed be

That hand which from it has delivered me!

Dangers in darkness, devils, Hell, and sin,

Did compass me, while I this vale was in:

Yes, snares, and pits, and traps, and nets did lie

My path about, that worthless, silly I

Might have been caught, entangled, and cast down,

But, since I live, let Jesus wear the crown." David did not end his
wonder there, but went on to another and greater theme–the blessings
which the Lord had promised him. He praised the Lord for what He had
laid up as well as for what He had laid out. He said, and mark the
words, "And this was yet a small thing in Your sight, O Lord God, but
You have spoken also of Your servant's house for a great while to
come." What a wonderful expression! "And this was yet a small thing in
Your sight." It sometimes appears as if every mercy the Lord brings us
is meant to eclipse those which have gone before! For instance, He
gives a sinner pardon, and the soul is, for a time, perfectly content
with cleansing and expects nothing more. But soon it learns that there
is such a thing as justification–when it comes to be just with God,
complete in Christ and accepted in the Beloved–then it rejoices anew
as if pardon were but a small thing compared with justification!

And lo, before our eyes have fully drunk in the beauty of
justification, we hear the Word which says, "A new heart also will I
give you, and a right spirit will I put within you: I will write My Law
in your hearts, and you shall not depart from Me," and our hearts are
carried away with the splendors of sanctification! Scarcely, however,
have we been fully made aware of the extent of this blessing before
another portion of the royal regalia is uncovered, and we hear it said,
"They shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord God Almighty," and
now we understand that we are adopted–we are children of God!

But before we fully understand this great privilege we begin to hear
the song whose swell is like that of many waters, "He has made us kings
and priests unto God, and we shall reign forever and ever." And then we
see the royal prerogative, the priestly dignity which God has put upon
us–yes, and long before even these mercies are perfectly understood we
are called away to see the heavenly joys, compared with which all else
will seem to be yet a small thing! I beg you, my Brothers and Sisters,
to remember, today, that your God has spoken of you for a great while
to come! He has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." Is not
that for a great while to come? He has bid you say, "Surely goodness
and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in
the house of the Lord forever." Is not that for a great while to come?
He has promised to give you all you ever shall require. "No good thing
will I withhold from them that walk uprightly." Note well that text
ever to be remembered, "Because I live you shall live also," and that
petition of our Lord, "Father, I will that they, also, whom You have
given Me be with Me where I am, that they may behold My Glory." These,
and a hundred more gracious Words all concern a great while to come!

Oh, my Brothers and Sisters, you have not obtained transient
blessings–blessings which will be gone tomorrow– gifts which will
decay as the year grows old and the autumn leaves flutter to the
ground! You have not obtained a mercy which will leave you when you
tremble in decrepitude! No, rather, when your are old and gray-headed
your God will not forsake you! You shall still bring forth fruit in old
age to show that the Lord is upright. "When you pass through the rivers
I will be with you; the floods shall not overflow you." Therefore may
you boldly say, "Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death I will fear no evil, for You are with me."

When you die you shall rise again! In your flesh you shall see God and
shall rejoice before Him. Yes, forever shall you be satisfied when you
wake up in His likeness. You shall go into everlasting joy and so shall
be forever with the Lord. He has spoken to you for a great while to
come. Sit down and wonder–wonder and adore for evermore!–

"Firm as the lasting hills, This co venant shall endure,

Whose potent shalls and wills Make every blessing sure: When ruin
shakes all Nature's frame, Its jots and tittles stand the same." David
had yet another theme for wonder, which was this–the manner of the
giving of all this. There is often as much in the manner of a gift as
in a gift itself. I have known some who could refuse a favor and give
greater pleasure by their kindly-worded denial than others by their
rude consent. Now here is a mercy of which the way of giving it is, if
possible, more astounding than the mercy itself, though that is amazing
beyond measure, for David says, "And is this the manner of man, O Lord
God?" The word in the Hebrew is, "law." It is never translated, except
in this case, by the word, "manner," and we may keep to the word,
"law," if we like–"Is this the law of man, O Lord God?" We will render
the passage first according to the authorized version–"Is this the
manner of man?" Does man act like this? Does man pitch his love upon
the unworthy? Does man exalt the lowest to the highest place?

Does man forgive transgressions and continue to do so? Does man bear
provocation and return love for offenses? Is man so faithful? Is man so
bounteous? Oh, man can never be Divine, and therefore man can never
come up to the infinity of Your Grace, O Lord God. This is not after
the manner of man, neither is it after the law of man, for the law of
Adam is, "In the day you eat thereof you shall surely die." Punishment
follows quick on the heels of sin. Free Grace is not the law of the
first man–it is the law of another man, the Second Adam–and so some
render the passage, "This is the law of the Man," the Man Christ Jesus,
the true Adam. We will not contend for that rendering, but it contains
a Truth of God which we will now utter in our own words.

It is not the law of man, it is the law of Grace, the law of infinite
mercy, the law of infallible faithfulness, the law of immutable love.
Beloved, if it had not been revealed to you, you could never have
imagined or dreamed of such a fullness of Grace as the Lord has
actually made to pass before you. It is more marvelous than romance! It
may well make your heart exult, for it is astonishing beyond all
measure. Jonathan Edwards, when defending the great Calvinistic theory,
made use of language somewhat to this effect–"You tell one that the
Doctrines of Grace are a dream. Then, if it is so, you ought to join
with me in perpetual regret that it is so." I venture to say, let the
earth be hung in sackcloth if there is no Covenant of Grace, no way of
salvation by redemption–for it is the most charming of
conceptions–and brings to mankind the most extraordinary of blessings.

If this is dreaming, let me dream on, my God, forever! Eternal love
welling up in infinite blessing to the chosen race–pouring forth,
forever, inexhaustible rivers of mercy–is far above all that man could
of himself have imagined! Poetry has never soared within a myriad
leagues of such an imagination! I am more than content with the
Covenant Love of my God. I ask for nothing else. This fills my soul and
satisfies my spirit, and I would sit down before You, my Father, and
say, "Is this the manner of man, O Lord God?" Infinite love granting
infinite blessings! The Gospel must be true! It bears its own witness
upon its very brow, for who could have made it up? Where is the
imagination that could have conceived such majestic mercy as God
reveals unto His people?

III. Now, changing the note and yet continuing in the same strain, we
have to speak of David's emotion of love. I almost regret that I have
to speak to you. I wish I could sit still and yet make you feel what I
feel. If there could be some electric action by which thought could be
communicated without words, it would suit my mood exactly at this
moment. David found but a scant outlet for his love. What precious
words are these–"What can David say more?" It is Love struck dumb by
receiving an unspeakable gift. The king was exactly in the same case as
Paul when he said, "What shall we then say to these things?" To that
question no answer was ever given by Love. Love sat silent after she
had asked it, speechless in adoration–but Faith pushed himself forward
and cried, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" But Love was
silent, dumfounded with the mass of mercy.

So David says, "What can David say more?" Certainly no eloquence can
match the silence of human love abashed by Divine Love. Sit down, O you
saints, and cry, "What can Your servants say?" Notice the childlikeness
of this love. "What can David say more?" Your little child, if she is
ill, will not say, "Mother, nurse me," but, "Mother, nurse poor little
Mary." And when she feels very sick she will say, "Mary's head aches."
Your little John, when he wants you to play with him will say, "Please,
Father, take little John on your knee," or, "Please, Father, take John
for a walk." It is the way children talk, and this is David's
child-talk to God. "What shall David say more?" He might have said,
"What shall I say more?" But Love taught him a simple and sweet speech
which he delighted to use.

Observe, it is a love which longs for communion and enjoys it. He says,
"What can David say more unto You?" He can talk to other people, but he
does not quite know how to speak to God. And then he adds, "For You,
Lord God, know Your servant," which is a parallel passage to that of
Peter, "Lord, You know all things, You know that I love you," as if he
could not speak his heart, but his Master could read it–and he
besought the Lord to act as his interpreter. Such thoughts as those
which were in David's mind break the backs of words and stagger speech!
Tongues are an afterthought, hearts come first–and oftentimes hearts
wish they could fly away from tongues. Language is but a feeble wing,
we want to ride the lightning–

"Teach me some melodious sonnet Sung by flaming tongues above,"

has often been our cry. We are right enough in thinking that we can
never express ourselves till we get to Heaven. How does John Berridge
put it in that singular hymn? I do not know if I can recall it on the
spur of the moment. Yes, here it is–

"Then my tongue would fain express

All His love and loveliness.

But I lisp and falter forth

Broken words not half His worth.

Vex'd I try and try again,

Still my efforts all are vain:

Living tongues are dumb at best,

We must die to speak of Christ." Death must unloose these stammering
tongues or they will never be able to speak all that we feel when
Divine Love casts us into joyous raptures! Strip us of this camber and
we will be seraphs in their burning hymns, and even the heavenly harps
shall learn from us how to magnify the Lord! Till then we must be
content to cry with David, "What can we say more? You, Lord, know Your
servants." But do you see it is obedient love as well? It is not mere
sentiment, there is a practicalness about it, for he says, "Lord, you
know your servant"–he subscribes himself as henceforth bound to God's
service. With delight he puts on his Master's livery and sits like a
servitor in the hall of the King of kings, waiting to hear what shall
be spoken to him. As the eyes of the handmaidens are to their mistress,
so his eyes are up to his God.

Therefore it is that David was known in later times to sing, "O Lord I
am Your servant; I am Your servant, and the son of Your handmaid: You
have loosed my bonds." He had caught the spirit of the Christian
proverb, "To serve God is to reign." He loved to do homage at the feet
of his Sovereign Lord and yield himself and all that he had as a
reasonable service to him who had crowned him with lovingkindness and
tender mercies. Warm love always urges the soul to service. None are so
ready to wear the yoke of Christ as those who have leaned on His bosom.
The nearer we come to our Father's heart the more submissive we are to
His commands. Free Grace is the best atmosphere in which to grow strong
in obedience. The more often we consider what we owe to Eternal Love
the more ready we shall be to pay our vows unto the Lord.

How he dwells upon those words, "You, Lord God." What pleasure he finds
in the very name of his Benefactor and Master. All through Scripture we
ought to notice the titles by which God is called in each distinct
place. We are so poverty-stricken in thought that we generally use but
one name for God–not so the rich soul of David! Throughout the Psalms
you will find him appropriately ringing the changes upon Adonai, El,
Elohim, Jehovah, and all the varied combinations of names which loving
hearts were known to give to the glorious Lord of Hosts! And here he
says, "You, Lord God." He delights in God and finds music in His name!
He is affluent in ascriptions and titles because his soul is rich in
affection. His love was reverent love, adoring love, meditative love,
intelligent love, whole-hearted love. It expresses itself by reverence
when it fails to compass infinite mercy by descriptions.

I want every Believer here to be sweetly stirred with this love this
morning! I would have you go home and spend an hour this afternoon in
contemplating the ever-blessed God who has done so much for you that
you may well say, "What can David say more unto You?" My time is
flying, but I must have space for another point. David's language is so
rich that truly, as I take up these words one by one, I feel as if I
could say with the Psalmist, "My soul shall be satisfied with marrow
and fatness." Have we not marrow and fatness here?

IV. David's heart was full of PRAISE, and the praise was first for the
freeness of the Grace which brought him such blessedness. "For Your
word's sake, and according to Your own heart have You done all these
great things." Whenever the Believer asks why God gave him Grace in
Christ Jesus he can only resort to one answer–the Lord's own heart has
devised and ordained our salvation. Why did the Lord love you, my
Brothers and Sisters? Because He would love you is the only possible
reply. In the book of Deuteronomy, seventh chapter and seventh and
eighth verses, we have this self-contained love set forth. The Lord did
not love the people because they were numerous, but because He loved
them. His love was its own reason. He loved us because He would love
us, "according to His own heart."

Now, this is one of the things which always must astound us and make us
love God, that everything comes from Him spontaneously, without
anything in us that could produce it or call it forth. "I will have
mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I
will have compassion," rolls like thunder over the rebel's head–but to
a child of God it is full of music–so that voice of the Lord is full
of majesty to him! Oh, wonder of wonders, that He who passed the fallen
angels by, nevertheless stooped to save unworthy men, for so it seemed
good in His sight! David praised also the faithfulness of God. He says,
"For Your word's sake." Is not that the ground upon which all mercy is
received by the child of God? God has promised it and will keep His
word. He never did run back from His Covenant yet–

"As well might He His being quit As break His promise or forget."
Jehovah must be true. Oh, what a faithful God has He been to many of
us! We can recount the scores and hundreds of times when, if the
promise had failed, the disaster would have been irretrievable–but it
never has failed. Not one good thing has failed of all that the Lord
God has promised.

You men of 70, you can say that! We who are but lads in the army are,
nevertheless, bold to avow the same! He has helped in every need and
never yet has He been backward in coming to our rescue or supplying our
necessities. Glory be to His name! Let us sit down and adore His
faithfulness. Here we may, also, see David discerning the connection
between Divine mercy and the Lord Jesus Christ. What if I read it
so–"For YOUR WORD'S sake"–for the sake of the Eternal Logos, the Word
that was God, and was with God–for HIS sake all these mercies have
come to us! It is very sweet to see the mark of the pierced hands on
every Covenant Blessing, to receive every blessing from the hand that
was nailed to the tree for us, and to feel–

"There's ne'er a gift His hand bestows, But cost His heart a groan."

This will lead us to praise God for the freeness of the mercy, for the
faithfulness of the mercy and for the mediatorial Grace by which every
mercy comes to us.

Then the king's heart was taken up with the greatness of the Covenant
Blessings. "According to Your own heart, have You done all these great
things." They were all great. There was not a little mercy among them.
All the mercies which we great sinners receive from our great God are
inconceivably great and therefore demand from us the greatest
thankfulness. Dwell on the great deliverances, the great promises, the
great comforts, the great expectations of the children of God till your
souls are enlarged with gratitude! Once more, David praised God for His
condescending familiarity. "According to Your own heart, have You done
all these great things, to make Your servant know them." They were
revealed to David by a Prophet, just as Jesus communed with His
disciples, and said, "I have told you before it came to pass, that when
it is come to pass you may believe."

And yet again, "If it were not so I would have told you." God's mercies
are instructions to us. We never know them till God brings them to us
and makes us know them–they are their own interpreters. Like letters
written in cipher they have the clue within themselves. As the
prophecies are never understood till they are fulfilled, so the mercies
of God are never understood till they are received. Experience teaches.
Experience is the master doctor in the University of Christ. When you
know Him by testing and handling Him, then is Jesus sweet! When you
know His power by testing it in weakness, then you understand its
exceeding greatness! When you know His faithfulness in deep affliction
and great need, then you see it! And when you taste His mercy under a
sense of great sin, then you weep with joy as you perceive it!

God alone can make His servants know His gifts. Blessed be God, who
alone teaches us to profit, and makes His own dear children to sit at
His feet. Has He not said it, "They shall all be taught of the Lord."
No school like this! May I forever be a scholar in it–on the lowest
form in that school I would be content to sit and learn eternally! Now
give your souls to the sacred lesson. Praise and magnify your God, O
you that love His name!

V. To conclude, not for lack of matter, however, but for lack of
time–David's soul was wound up to HIGH THOUGHTS OF GOD, for our text
concludes with these words–"Therefore you are great, O Lord God: for
there is none like You, neither is there any God beside You, according
to all that we have heard with our ears." God is great! He is the
greatest because He is the best! The old Romans used to say, optimus
maximus–the best, the greatest. You, God, are good, and therefore You
are great. As we drink in the sense of His goodness we cannot help
saying, "Therefore You are great, O Lord God"–great positively! Then
great comparatively–"there is none like You." Yes, greatest of all,
superlatively–"neither is there any God beside You."

I have heard of a preacher upon whom a good man's criticism was that he
made God great whenever he preached. God forbid we should ever preach
otherwise! And may you, dear Hearers, always feel how great God is! I
pray you go away with this on your minds–He is too great for me to
dare offend Him! He is too greatly good for me to grieve Him! He is too
greatly good for me to doubt Him! He is so great that nothing can be
great that I can do for Him! He is so great that nothing is too great
for me to give to Him! He is so great that when I give myself away, it
is a poor offering compared with His blessings! He is so great that
when all earth and Heaven ring with His praises, they still fall short
of

His Glory!

He is so goodly great and greatly good that I would be all His, and
yield myself entirely up to His will, to be like an atom in a current,
borne along by His unresisted will. I would be what He would have me
be, do what He would have me do, give what He would have me give,
suffer what He would have me suffer! I would be absorbed into Him! I
would find a Heaven in a blessed union with Himself which should
prevent forever any self-assertion, or the setting up of so much as a
wish or a thought which would be contrary to His mind! God is great,
therefore would I wish others to know Him and love Him, too. All hearts
are cold in every place–would God they were melted in this fire! Would
God they flowed down at His touch in constant worship!

Therefore, since He is so great, I will speak great things of Him! I
will tell it out among the heathen that the Lord reigns! I would ask
for talent, if I may be trusted with it, with which to proclaim Him.
And if I have small ability, yet with such as I have, Grace being given
me, I would, to the utmost of my ability, proclaim the greatness which
has already overpowered my spirit! Let Him be crowned with majesty! Let
Him be King of kings and Lord of lords, because of all that He has
done! Go forth, you daughters of Jerusalem, and crown your King!
Throughout the whole of your lives weave chaplets for the Redeemer's
brow! Let your lives be Psalms, let your garments be vestments, let
every meal be a sacrament, let your whole being be transformed into an
immortal Hallelujah unto the Lord Most High, for He is greatly to be
extolled!!

O come, let us worship and bow down! Let us kneel before the Lord our
Maker, and ascribe unto the Lord the Glory due unto His name! Blessed
God, blessed God, what more can Your servant say? He has not the voice
of David, nor David's harp, nor David's poetic fire, nor David's
inspiration–and where even David failed, what more can he say? Lord,
You know all things, you know that I love you, and thousands of your
servants here can join in the same declaration! Accept what we speak
and what we feel, but cannot utter! Bless Your saints forever! Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–2 Samuel 7. HYMNS FROM "OUR
OWN HYMN BOOK"–230, 231, 775.
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