Christ’s Hospital

Christ's Hospital

(No. 2260)

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JUNE 12, 1892.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MARCH
9, 1890.

"He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds." Psalm 147:3.

OFTEN as we have read this Psalm, we can never fail to be struck with
the connection in which this verse stands, especially its connection
with the verse that follows. Read the two together–"He heals the
broken in heart, and binds up their wounds. He counts the number of the
stars; He calls them all by their names." What condescension and
grandeur! What pity and Omnipotence! He who leads out yonder ponderous
orbs in almost immeasurable orbits, nevertheless, is the Surgeon of
men's souls and stoops over broken hearts! And with His own tender
fingers closes up the gaping wound and binds it with the liniment of
love. Think of it and if I should not speak as well as I could desire
upon the wonderful theme of His condescension, yet help me by your own
thoughts to do reverence to the Maker of the stars, who is, at the same
time, the Physician for broken hearts and wounded spirits!

I am equally interested in the connection of my text with the verse
that goes before it–"The Lord does build up Jerusalem: He gathers
together the outcasts of Israel." The Church of God is never so well
built up as when it is built up with men of broken hearts. I have
prayed to God in secret many a time, of late, that He would be pleased
to gather out from among us a people who have a deep experience, who
should know the guilt of sin, who should be broken and ground to powder
under a sense of their own inability and unworthiness, for I am
persuaded that without a deep experience of sin, there is seldom much
belief in the Doctrines of Grace and not much enthusiasm in praising
the Savior's name. The Church needs to be built up with men who have
been pulled down! Unless we know in our hearts our need of a Savior, we
shall never be worth much in preaching Him. That preacher who has never
been converted, what can he say about it? And he who has never been in
the dungeon, who has never been in the abyss, who has never felt as if
he were cast out from the sight of God, how can he comfort many who are
outcasts and who are bound with the fetters of despair? May the Lord
break many hearts and then bind them up, that with them He may build up
the Church and inhabit it!

But now, leaving the connection, I come to the text, itself, and I
desire to speak of it so that everyone here who is troubled may derive
comfort from it, God the Holy Spirit speaking through it. Consider,
first, the patients and their sickness–"He healed the broken in
heart." Then, consider, the Physician and His medicine and, for a
while, turn your eyes to Him who does this healing work. Then, I shall
want you to consider the testimonial to the great Physician which we
have in this verse–"He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their
wounds." Lastly, and most practically, we will consider what we ought
to do towards Him who heals the broken in heart.

I. First, then, consider THE PATIENTS AND THEIR SICKNESS. They are
broken in heart. I have heard of many who have died of a broken heart,
but there are some who live with a broken heart–and who live all the
better for having had their hearts broken–they live another and higher
life than they lived before that blessed stroke broke their hearts in
pieces.

There are many sorts of broken hearts and Christ is good at healing
them all. I am not going to lower and narrow the application of my
text. The patients of the great Physician are those whose hearts are
broken through sorrow. Hearts are broken through disappointment. Hearts
are broken through bereavement. Hearts are broken in 10,000 ways, for
this is a heart-breaking world! But Christ is good at healing all
manner of heartbreaks. I would encourage every person here, even though
his heartbreak may not be of a spiritual kind, to make an application
to Him who heals the broken in heart. The text does not say, "the
spiritually broken in heart," therefore I will not insert an adverb
where there is none in the

passage. Come here, you that are burdened, all you that labor and are
heavy laden! Come here, all you that sorrow, be your sorrow what it
may! Come here, all you whose hearts are broken, be the heartbreak what
it may, for He heals the broken in heart!

Still, there is a special brokenness of heart to which Christ gives the
very earliest and most tender attention. He heals those whose hearts
are broken for sin. Christ heals the heart that is broken because of
its sin so that it grieves, laments, regrets and bemoans itself,
saying, "Woe is me that I have done this exceedingly great evil and
brought ruin upon myself! Woe is me that I have dishonored God, that I
have cast myself away from His Presence, that I have made myself liable
to His everlasting wrath and that even now His wrath abides on me!" If
there is a man here whose heart is broken about his past life, he is
the man to whom my text refers. Are you heartbroken because you have
wasted 40, 50, 60 years? Are you heartbroken at the remembrance that
you have cursed the God who has blessed you, that you have denied the
existence of Him without whom you never would have been in existence,
that you have lived to train your family without godliness, without any
respect to the Most High God at all? Has the Lord brought this home to
you? Has He made you feel what a hideous thing it is to be blind to
Christ, to refuse His love, to reject His blood, to live an enemy to
your best Friend? Have you felt this? O my Friend, I cannot reach
across the gallery to give you my hand, but will you think that I am
doing it, for I wish to do it? If there is a heart here broken on
account of sin, I thank God for it, and praise the Lord that there is
such a text as this–"He heals the broken in heart."

Christ also heals hearts that are broken from sin. When you and sin
have quarreled, never let the quarrel be made up! You and sin were
friends at one time, but now you hate sin and you would be wholly rid
of it if you could. You wish never to sin. You are anxious to be clear
of the most darling sin that you have ever indulged in and you desire
to be made pure as God is pure. Your heart is broken away from its of
moorings. That which you once loved you now hate. That which you once
hated, you now, at least, desire to love! It is well. I am glad that
you are here, for to you is sent the text, "He heals the broken in
heart."

If there is a brokenhearted person anywhere about, many people despise
him. "Oh," they say, "he is melancholy. He is mad, he is out of his
mind through religion!" Yes, men despise the broken in heart, but such,
O God, You will not despise! The Lord looks after such and heals them.

Those who do not despise them, at any rate avoid them. I know some few
friends who have long been of a broken heart and when I feel rather
dull, I must confess that I do not always go their way, for they are
apt to make me feel more depressed. Yet would I not get out of their
way if I felt that I could help them. Still, it is the nature of men to
seek the cheerful and the happy and to avoid the brokenhearted. God
does not do so–He heals the broken in heart. He goes where they are
and He reveals Himself to them as the Comforter and the Healer.

In a great many cases people despair of the brokenhearted ones. "It is
no use," says one, "I have tried to comfort her, but I cannot do it."
"I have wasted a great many words," says another, "on such and such a
friend, and I cannot help him. I despair of his ever getting out of the
dark." It is not so with God! He heals the broken in heart. He despairs
of none. He shows the greatness of His power and the wonders of His
wisdom by fetching men and women out of the lowest dungeon wherein
despair has shut them!

As for the brokenhearted ones, themselves, they do not think that they
can ever be converted. Some of them are sure that they never can–they
wish that they were dead–though I do not see what they would gain by
that. Others of them wish that they had never been born, though that is
a useless wish now. Some are ready to rush after any new thing to try
to find a little comfort, while others, getting worse and worse, are
sitting down in sullen despair. I wish that I knew who these were–I
would like to come round and say to them, "Come, Brother. There must be
no doubting and no despair tonight, for my text is gloriously complete
and is meant for you! 'He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their
wounds.'" Notice that 5th verse, "Great is our Lord, and of great
power; His understanding is infinite." Consequently, He can heal the
broken in heart! God is glorious at a dead lift! When a soul cannot
stir, or help itself, God delights to come in with His Omnipotence and
lift the great load–and set the burdened one free!

It takes great wisdom to comfort a broken heart. If any of you have
ever tried it, I am sure you have not found it an easy task. I have
given much of my life to this work and I always come away from a
desponding one with a consciousness of my own inability to comfort the
heartbroken and cast-down. Only God can do it. Blessed be His name that
He has arranged that one Person of the Sacred Trinity should undertake
this office of Comforter, for no man could ever perform

its duties. We might as well hope to be the Savior as to be the
Comforter of the heartbroken! Efficiently and completely to save or to
comfort must be a Divine work. That is why the Divine Holy Spirit heals
the broken in heart and binds up their wounds with infinite power and
unfailing skill.

II. Now, secondly, we are going to consider THE PHYSICIAN AND HIS
MEDICINE–"He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds."
Who is this that heals the broken in heart?

I answer that Jesus was anointed of God for this work. He said, "The
Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the
Gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted." Was the
Holy Spirit given to Christ in vain? That cannot be! He was given for a
purpose which must be answered and that purpose is the healing of the
brokenhearted. By the very anointing of Christ by the Holy Spirit, you
may be sure that our Physician will heal the broken in heart!

Further, Jesus was sent of God on purpose to do His work–"He has sent
Me to heal the brokenhearted." If Christ does not heal the
brokenhearted, He will not fulfill the mission for which He came from
Heaven. If the brokenhearted are not cheered by His glorious life and
the blessings that flow out of His death, then He will have come to
earth for nothing! This is the very errand on which the Lord of Glory
left the bosom of the Father to be veiled in Human clay, that He might
heal the broken in heart–and He will do it!

Our Lord was also educated for this work. He was not only anointed and
sent, but He was trained for it. "How?" you ask. Why, He had a broken
heart, Himself, and there is no education for the office of Comforter
like being placed where you, yourself, have need of comfort, so that
you may be able to comfort others with the comfort wherewith you have
been comforted of God! Is your heart broken? Christ's heart was broken.
He said, "Reproach has broken My heart; and I am full of heaviness." He
went as low as you have ever been and deeper than you can ever go. "My
God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" was His bitter cry. If that is
your agonized utterance, He can interpret it by His own suffering. He
can measure your grief by His grief. Broken hearts, there is no healing
for you except through Him who had a broken heart Himself! You
disconsolate ones, come to Him! He can make your heart happy and joyous
by the very fact of His own sorrow and the brokenness of His own heart.
"In all our afflictions He was afflicted." He was tempted in all points
like as we are." "A Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief." For a
broken heart, there is no physician like He!

Once more, I can strongly recommend my Lord Jesus Christ as the Healer
of broken hearts because He is so experienced in the work. Some people
are afraid that the doctor will try experiments upon them, but our
Physician will only do for us what He has done many times before. It is
no matter of experiment with Him–it is a matter of experience. If you
knock, tonight, at my great Doctor's door, you will, perhaps, say to
Him, "I am the strangest patient, my Lord, that ever came to You." He
will smile as He looks at you and He will think, "I have saved hundreds
like you." Here comes one who says, "That first man's case was nothing
compared with mine! I am about the worst sinner who ever lived." And
the Lord Jesus Christ will say, "Yes, I saved the worst man that ever
lived long ago–and I keep on saving such as he. I delight to do it."
But here comes one who has a curious odd way of brokenheartedness. He
is an out-of-the-way fretter. Yes, but my Lord is able to "have
compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way." He can
lay hold of this out-of-the-way one, for He has always been saving
out-of-the-way sinners! My Lord has been healing broken hearts well
near 1,900 years! Can you find a brass plate anywhere in London telling
of a physician of that age? He has been at the work longer than that,
for it is not far off 6,000 years since He went into this business! And
He has been healing the broken in heart ever since that time.

I will tell you one thing about Him that I have on good authority, that
is, He never lost a case yet! There never was one who came to Him with
a broken heart but He healed him. He never said to one, "You are too
bad for me to heal." But He did say, "Him that comes to Me, I will in
no wise cast out." My dear Hearer, He will not cast you out! You say,
"You do not know me, Mr. Spurgeon." No, I do not, and you have come
here, tonight, and you hardly know why you are here–only you are very
low and very sad. The Lord Jesus Christ loves such as you are, you
poor, desponding, doubting, desolate, disconsolate one! Daughters of
sorrow, sons of grief, look here! Jesus Christ has gone on healing
broken hearts for thousands of years and He is well up in the business!
He understands it by experience, as well as by education. He is "mighty
to save." Consider Him! Consider Him and the Lord grant you Grace to
come and trust Him even now!

Thus I have talked to you about the Physician for broken hearts. Shall
I tell you what His chief medicine is? It is His own flesh and blood!
There is no cure like it. When a sinner is bleeding with sin, Jesus
pours His own blood into the

wound–and when that wound is slow in healing, He binds His own
Sacrifice about it. Healing for broken hearts comes by the
Atonement–Atonement by Substitution–Christ suffering in our place. He
suffered for everyone who believes in Him and he that believes in Him
is not condemned and never can be condemned, for the condemnation due
to him was laid upon Christ! He is clear before the bar of justice as
well as before the Throne of Mercy! I remember when the Lord put that
precious ointment upon my wounded spirit. Nothing ever healed me until
I understood that He died in my place–died that I might not die! And
now, today, my heart would bleed itself to death were it not that I
believe that He, "His own Self, bore our sins in His own body on the
tree." "With His stripes we are healed," and with no medicine but this
atoning Sacrifice! A wonderful heal-all is this, when the Holy Spirit
applies it with His own Divine power and lets life and love come
streaming into the heart that was ready to bleed to death!

III. My time flies too quickly, so, thirdly, I want you to consider THE
TESTIMONIAL TO THE GREAT PHYSICIAN which is emblazoned in my text. It
is God the Holy Spirit who, by the mouth of His servant, David, bears
testimony to this congregation, tonight, that the Lord Jesus heals the
broken in heart and binds up their wounds! If I said it, you need no
more believe it than I need believe it if you said it! One man's word
is as good as another's if we are truthful, but this statement is found
in an Inspired Psalm. I believe it–I dare not doubt it, for I have
proven its truth.

I understand my text to mean this–He does it effectually. As I said
last Thursday night, if there is a person cast down or desponding
within 20 miles, he is pretty sure to find me out. I laugh, sometimes,
and say, "Birds of a feather flock together," but they come to talk to
me about their despondency and, sometimes, they leave me half
desponding in the attempt to get them out of their sadness! I have had
some very sad cases, lately, and I am afraid that when they went out of
my room, they could not say of me, "He heals the broken in heart." I am
sure that they could say, "He tried his best. He brought out all the
choice arguments he could think of to comfort me." And they have felt
very grateful. They have come back, sometimes, to thank God that they
have been a little bit encouraged, but some of them are frequent
visitors–and I have been trying to cheer them up by the month
together!

But, when my Master undertakes the work, "He heals the broken in
heart," He not only tries to do it, He does it! He touches the secret
sources of the sorrow and takes the spring of the grief away. We try
our best, but we cannot do it. You know it is very hard to deal with
the heart. The human heart needs more than human skill to cure it. When
a person dies and the doctors do not know the reason why he died, they
say, "It was heart disease." They did not understand his mal-ady–that
is what that means. There is only one Physician who can heal the heart,
but, glory be to His blessed name, "He heals the broken in heart." He
does it effectually.

As I read my text, I understand it to mean He does it constantly. "He
heals the broken in heart." Not merely, "He healed them years ago," but
He is doing it now. "He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their
wounds." What? At this minute? Ten minutes to eight? Yes, He is doing
this work now! "He heals the broken in heart." And when the service is
over and the congregation is gone, what will Jesus be doing then? Oh,
He will still be healing the broken in heart! Suppose this year, 1890,
should run out and the Lord does not come to Judgment–what will He be
doing then? He will still be healing the broken in heart! He has not
used up His ointments. He has not exhausted His patience. He has not,
in the least degree, diminished His power! He still heals.

"Oh dear!" one says, "If I had come to Christ a year ago, it would have
been well with me." If you come to Christ tonight, it will be well with
you, for, "He heals the broken in heart." I do not know who was the
inventor of that idea of "sinning away the Day of Grace." If you are
willing to have Christ, you may have Him! If you are as old as
Methuselah– and I do not suppose that you are older than he was–if
you want Christ, you may have Him! As long as you are out of Hell,
Christ is able to save you! He is going on with His old work. Because
you are just past 50, you say the die is cast. Because you are past 80,
you say, "I am now too old to be saved." Nonsense! He heals, He heals,
He is still doing it! "He heals the broken in heart."

I go further than that and say that He does it invariably. I have shown
you that He does it effectually and con-stantly–and He does it
invariably. There never was a broken heart brought to Him that He did
not heal! Do not some brokenhearted patients go out at the back door,
as my Master's failures? No, not one! There never was one yet that He
could not heal! Doctors are sometimes obliged, in our hospitals, to
give up some persons and say that they will never recover. Certain
symptoms have proved that they are incurable. But, despairing one, in
the Divine Hospital, of which Christ is the Physician, there never was
a patient of His who was turned out as incurable! He is able to save to
the utter-

most. Do you know how far that is–"to the uttermost?" There is no
going beyond "the uttermost," because the uttermost goes beyond
everything else, to make it the uttermost! "He is able to save them to
the uttermost that come unto God by Him." Where are you, Friend
"Uttermost"? Are you here tonight? "Ah," you say, "I wonder that I am
not in Hell." Well, so do I, but you are not, and you never will be if
you cast yourself on Christ! Rest in the full Atonement that He has
made, for He always heals without any failure! "He heals the broken in
heart, and binds up their wounds."

As I read these words, it seems to me that He glories in doing it. He
said to the Psalmist, by the Holy Spirit, "Write a Psalm in which you
shall begin with Hallelujah, and finish with Hallelujah. And set in the
middle of the Psalm, as one of the things for which I delight to be
praised, that I heal the broken in heart." None of the gods of the
heathen were ever praised for this! Did you ever read a song to
Jupiter, or to Mercury, or to Venus, or to any of them, in which they
were praised for binding up the broken in heart? Jehovah, the God of
Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob–the God and Father of our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ–is the only God who makes it His boast
that He binds up the broken in heart! Come, you big, black sinner!
Come, you desperado! Come, you that have gone beyond all measurement in
sin! You can all glorify God more than anybody else by believing that
He can save even you! He can save you and put you among the children!
He delights to save those that seemed farthest from Him. IV. This is my
last point–consider WHAT WE OUGHT TO DO.

If there is such a Physician as this and we have broken hearts, it goes
without saying that, first of all, we ought to resort to Him. When
people are told that they have an incurable disease, a malady that will
soon bring them to their grave, they are much distressed. But if,
somewhere or other, they hear that the disease may be cured, after all,
they say, "Where? Where?" Well, perhaps it is thousands of miles
away–but they are willing to go if they can. Or the medicine may be
very unpleasant or very expensive–but if they find that they can be
cured, they say, "I will have it." And if anyone came to their door and
said, "Here it is! It will heal you and you can have it for nothing and
as much as you want of it," there would be no difficulty in getting rid
of any quantity of the medicine so long as we found people sick!

Now, if you have a broken heart tonight, you will be glad to have
Christ. I had a broken heart once and I went to Him and He healed it in
a moment and made me sing for joy! Young men and women, I was about 15
or 16 when He healed me. I wish that you would go to Him, now, while
you are yet young. The age of His patients does not matter. Are you
younger than fifteen? Boys and girls may have broken hearts–and old
men and old women may have broken hearts– but they may come to Jesus
and be healed! Let them come to Him, tonight, and seek to be healed.

When you are about to go to Christ, possibly you ask, "How shall I go
to Him?" Go by prayer. One said to me, the other day, "I wish that you
would write me a prayer, Sir." I said, "No, I cannot do that, go and
tell the Lord what you need." He replied, "Sometimes I feel such a
great need that I do not know what it is I need! And I try to pray, but
I cannot. I wish that somebody would tell me what to say." "Why," I
said, "the Lord has told you what to say! This is what He has
said–'Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto Him, Take
away all iniquity, and receive us graciously.'" Go to Christ in prayer
with such words as those, or any others that you can get. If you cannot
get any words, tears are just as good, and rather better! And groans
and sighs and secret desires will be acceptable with God.

But add faith to them. Trust the Physician. You know that no ointment
will heal you if you do not put it on the wound. Oftentimes when there
is a wound, you want something with which to strap the ointment on.
Faith straps on the heavenly heal-all! Go to the Lord with your broken
heart and believe that He can heal you! Believe that He alone can heal
you and trust Him to do it! Fall at His feet and say, "If I perish, I
will perish here. I believe that the Son of God can save me and I will
be saved by Him! But I will never look anywhere else for salvation.
'Lord, I believe; help You my unbelief!'" If you have come as far as
that, you are very near the Light of God! The great Physician will heal
your broken heart before very long. Trust Him to do it now!

When you have trusted in Him and your heart is healed, and you are
happy, tell others about Him. I do not like my Lord to have any
tongue-tied children. I do not mean that I would want you all to
preach. When a whole Church takes to preaching, it is as if the whole
body were a mouth and that would be a vacuum! I want you to tell
others, in some way or other, what the Lord has done for you, and be
earnest in endeavoring to bring others to the great Physician. You all
remember, therefore I need not tell you again, the story that we had
about the doctor at one of our hospitals, a year or two ago. He healed
a dog's broken leg and the grateful animal brought other dogs to have
their broken legs healed. That was a good dog–some of you are not half
as good as that dog! You believe that Christ is blessing you, yet you
never try to

bring others to Him to be saved! That must not be the case any longer.
We must excel that dog in our love for our species and it must be our
intense desire that if Christ has healed us, He should heal our wife,
our children, our friends, our neighbors–and we should never rest till
others are brought to Him!

Then, when others are brought to Christ, or even if they will not be
brought to Him, be sure to praise Him. If your broken heart has been
healed and you are saved, and your sins forgiven, praise Him! We do not
sing half enough. I do not mean in our congregations, but when we are
at home. We pray every day. Do we sing every day? I think that we
should. Matthew Henry used to say about family prayer, "They that pray
do well; they that read and pray do better; they that read and pray and
sing do best of all." I think that Matthew Henry was right. "Well, I
have no voice," says one. Have you not? Then you never grumble at your
wife. Your never find fault with your food. You are not one of those
who make the household unhappy by your evil speeches. "Oh, I do not
mean that!" No, I thought you did not mean that. Well, praise the Lord
with the same voice that you have used for complaining!

"But I could not carry a tune," says one. Nobody said you were to do
so. You can at least sing as I do. My singing is of a very peculiar
character. I find that I cannot confine myself to one tune. In the
course of a verse I use half-a-dozen tunes–but the Lord, to whom I
sing, never finds any fault with me. He never blames me because I do
not keep this tune or that. I cannot help it. My voice runs away with
me and my heart, too! But I keep on humming something or other by way
of praising God's name. I would like you to do the same. I used to know
an old Methodist and the first thing in the morning, when he got up, he
began singing a bit of a Methodist hymn. And if I met the old man
during the day, he was always singing. I have seen him in his little
workshop, with his lap stone on his knee, and he was always singing and
beating with his hammer. When I said to him, once, "Why do you always
sing, dear Brother?" He replied, "Because I always have something to
sing about."

That is a good reason for singing! If our broken hearts have been
healed, we have something to sing about in time and throughout
eternity! Let us begin to do so to the praise of the glory of His
Grace, who "heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds." God
bless all the broken hearts that are in this congregation tonight, for
Jesus' sake! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON Psalm 147.

This is one of the Hallelujah Psalms. It begins and ends with, "Praise
you the LORD." May our hearts be in tune, that we may praise the Lord
while we read these words of praise!

Verse 1. Praise you the LORD–It is not enough for the Psalmist to do
it, himself. He needs help in it, so he says, "Praise you the LORD."
Wake up, my Brothers! Bestir yourselves, my Sisters! Come, all of you,
and unite in this holy exercise! "Praise you the LORD."

1. For it is good to sing praises unto our God; for it is pleasant; and
praise is comely. When a thing is good, pleasant, and comely, you have
certainly three excellent reasons for attending to it. It is not
everything that is good–but here you have a happy combination of
goodness, pleasantness, and comeliness. It will do you good to praise
God. God counts it good and you will find it a pleasant exercise. That
which is the occupation of Heaven must be happy employment. "It is good
to sing praises unto our God." "It is pleasant" and certainly nothing
is more "comely" and beautiful, and more in accordance with the right
order of things than for creatures to praise their Creator–and the
children of God to praise their Father in Heaven.

2. The LORD does build up Jerusalem. Praise His name for that. You love
His Church–be glad that He builds it up. Praise Him who quarries every
stone and puts it upon the one Foundation that is laid, even Jesus.

2. He gathers together the outcasts of Israel. Praise Him for that. If
you were once an outcast and He has gathered you, give Him your special
personal song of thanksgiving.

3. He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds. Praise Him
for that, you who have had broken hearts! If He has healed you, surely
you should give Him great praise.

4. He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by their names.
He who heals broken hearts counts the stars and calls them by their
names, as men call their servants, and send them on their way. Praise
His name! Can you look up at the starry sky at night without praising
Him who made the stars and leads out their host?

5. Great is our Lord, and of great power: His understanding is
infinite. Praise Him, then. Praise His greatness, His al-mightiness,
His infinite wisdom. Can you do otherwise? Oh, may God reveal Himself
so much to your heart that you shall be constrained to pay Him willing
adoration!

6. The LORD lifts up the meek. What a lifting up it is for them, out of
the very dust where they have been trod down by the proud and the
powerful! The Lord lifts them up. Praise Him for that.

6. He casts the wicked down to the ground. Thus He puts an end to their
tyranny and delivers those who were ground beneath their cruel power.
Praise His name for this, also. Excuse me that I continue to say to
you, "Praise you the Lord," for, often as I say it, you will not praise
Him too much–and we need to have our hearts stirred up to this duty of
praising God which is so much neglected. After all, it is the praise of
God that is the ultimatum of our religion. Prayer does but sow–praise
is the harvest! Praying is the end of preaching and praising is the end
of praying. May we bring to God much of the very essence of true
religion and that will be the inward praise of the heart!

7. Sing unto the LORD with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto
our Go. "Unto our God." How that possessive pronoun puts a world of
endearment into the majestic word, "God!" "This God is our God." Come,
my Hearer, can you call God your God? Is He, indeed, yours? If so,
"Sing unto the LORD with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto
our God."

8. Who covers the Heaven with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth,
who makes grass to grow upon the mountains. They did not talk about the
"law of Nature" in those days. They ascribed everything to God. Let us
do the same! It is a poor science that pushes God farther away from us
instead of bringing Him nearer to us. HE covers the Heaven with clouds!
HE prepares the rain for earth! HE makes the grass to grow upon the
mountains!

9. He gives to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry.
Our God cares for the birds and the beasts. He is as great in little
things as in great things. Praise you His name! The gods of the heathen
could not have these things said of them, but our God takes pleasure in
providing for the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. The
commissariat of the universe is in His hand! "You open Your hands and
satisfy the desire of every living thing."

10. 11. He delights not in the strength of the horse: He takes not
pleasure in the legs of a man. The LORD takes pleasure in them that
fear Him, in those that hope in His mercy. Kings of the olden times
rejoiced in the muscles and sinews of their soldiers and their horses,
but God has no delight in mere physical strength. He takes pleasure in
spiritual things, even in the weakness which makes us fear Him–even
that weakness which has not grown into the strength of faith and yet
hopes in His mercy. "The Lord takes pleasure in them that fear Him, in
those that hope in His mercy."

12. Praise the LORD, O Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion. Let whole
cities join together to praise God! Shall we live to see the day when
all London shall praise Him? Shall we, ever, as we go down these
streets with their multitudes of inhabitants, see the people standing
in the doorways and asking, "What must we do to be saved?" Shall we
ever see every house with anxious enquirers in it, saying, "Tell us,
tell us, how can we be reconciled to God?" Pray that it may be so! In
Cromwell's day, if your went down Cheapside at a certain hour of the
morning, you would find every blind drawn, for the people were all at
family prayer. There is no street like that in London today! In those
glorious Puritan times there was domestic worship everywhere–and the
people seemed brought to Christ's feet. Alas, it was but an appearance
in many cases–and they soon turned back to their own devices!
Imitating the Psalmist, let us say, "Praise the Lord, O London; praise
your God, O England!"

13. For He has strengthened the bars of your gates; He has blessed your
children within you. As a nation, we have been greatly prospered,
defended and supplied. And the Church of God has been made to stand
fast against her enemies and her children have been blessed.

14. 15. He makes peace in your borders, and fills you with the finest
of the wheat. He sends forth His Commandment upon earth: His Word runs
very swiftly. Oriental monarchs were very earnest to have good post
arrangements. They sent their decrees upon swift camels. They can never
be compared with the swiftness of the purpose of God's decree. "His
Word runs very swiftly." Oh, that the day would come when over all the
earth, God's Writ should run, and God's written Word should come to be
reverenced, believed, and obeyed!

16. He gives snow like wool. Men say, "it" snows. But what "it" is it
that snows? The Psalmist rightly says of the Lord, "HE gives snow."
They say that according to the condition of the atmosphere, snow is
produced. But the Believer says, "He gives snow like wool." It is not
only like wool for whiteness, but it is like it for the warmth which it
gives.

16. He scatters the hoarfrost like ashes. The simile is not to be
easily explained, but it will often have suggested itself to you who,
in the early morning, have seen the hoar frost scattered abroad.

17. He casts forth His ice like morsels: who can stand before His cold?
None can stand before His heat, but when He withdraws the fire and
takes away the heat, the cold is equally destructive! It burns up as
fast as fire would. "Who can stand before His cold?" If God is gone, if
the Spirit of God is taken away from His Church, or from any of you,
who can stand before His cold? The deprivation is as terrible as if it
were a positive infliction. "Who can stand before His cold?"

18. He sends out His Word, and melts them; He causes His wind to blow,
and the waters flow. The frozen waters were hard as iron. The south
wind touches them and they flow again. What can God not do? The great
God of Nature is our God. Let us praise Him! Oh, may our hearts be in a
right key tonight to make music before Him!

19. He shows His Word unto Jacob, His statutes unto Israel. This is
something greater than all His wonders in Nature. The God of Nature is
the God of Revelation! He has not hidden His Truth away from men. He
has come out of the eternal secrecies and He has showed His Word,
especially His Incarnate Word, unto His people. Let His name be
praised!

20. He has not dealt so with any nation. Or, with any other nation. He
revealed His statutes and His judgments to Israel, and since their day,
the spiritual Israel has been privileged in like manner–"He has not
dealt so with any nation."

20. And as for His judgments, they have not known them. Even today
there are large tracts of country where God is not known. If we know
Him, let us praise Him.

20. Praise you the LORD. Hallelujah! The Psalm ends upon its
keynote–"Praise you the LORD." So may all our lives end! Amen.