The Best Christmas Fare

The Best Christmas Fare

(No. 2340)

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, DECEMBER 24, 1893.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THE EVENING OF CHRISTMAS
DAY, 1881.

"How sweet are Your Words unto my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my
mouth!" Psalm 119:103.

THIS is a time of feasting and we may as well have our feast as other
people have theirs. Let us see whether there is not something for our
spiritual palate, something to satisfy our spiritual appetite, that we
may eat, and be content, and rejoice before the Lord. Do you not think
that two of the words in our text are very strange? If you had written
them, would you not have said, "How sweet are Your Words unto my ears"?
The Psalmist says, "How sweet are Your Words unto my palate!" for that
is the word in the margin. He did not write, "Yes, sweeter than honey
to my hearing!" but, "sweeter than honey to my mouth!" Are words, then,
things that we can taste and eat? No, not if they are the words of
man–it would take many of our words to fill a hungry belly. "Be you
warmed and filled." It would take many tons of that sort of fodder to
feed "a Brother or Sister destitute of daily food," for man's words are
air and airy, light and frothy. They often deceive, they mock, they
awaken hopes which are never realized. But God's Words are full of
sub-stance–they are spirit, they are life, they are to be fed upon by
the spiritually hungry!

Marvel not that I say this to you! It was God's Word that made us–is
it any wonder that His Word should sustain us? If His Word gives life,
do you wonder that His Word should also give food for that life? Marvel
not, for it is written–"Man shall not live by bread, alone, but by
every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." God's Words are
meat, drink and food–and if bodies live not upon words–souls and
spirits feed upon the Words of God, and so are satisfied and full of
delight! This is the language of an eater as well as of a hearer–of
one who heard the words and then ate the words. The expression is
oriental, but we are not quite strangers to it, even in our western
talk, for we say, "They seem to eat the man's words," that is, when the
hearers are very attentive to them, when they enjoy them, when the
preacher's words seem to comfort them and to minister sustenance to
their mind and to their spirit.

I like this way of describing the reception of God's Word as a matter
of eating, for a man cannot eat God's Word without living! He that
takes it into himself must live thereby. There is a reality about the
faith which eats. There is a something there most sure which contains
the elements of salvation, for tasting is a spiritual sense which
implies nearness. You can hear at a great distance by means of the
telephone, but, somehow, I do not think that anyone will invent an
electrical taster. Nobody knows what may be done, but I fancy that I
shall never be able to eat anything in New York. I think that we shall
hardly ever reach such a triumph of science as that! There will always
have to be a measure of nearness if we are to taste anything and so it
is with God's Word. If we hear it, it is music in the ears, but still
it may seem to be at a distance from us. We may not get a grip and
grasp of it–but if we taste it–that means that we really have it here
within ourselves! Then has it come very near to us and we enter into
fellowship with the God who gave it.

This idea of tasting God's Word contains the thought of receptiveness.
A man may hear a thing and, as we say, it goes in one ear and out the
other, and so it often does, but that which a man gets into his mouth
till he tastes it, and it is sweet to his palate, well, he has truly
received that. If it is sweet to him, he will not do as they who have
something lukewarm, which is objectionable, which they cast away out of
their mouth. But when he finds it palatable, the sweetness will make
him keep it where it is till he swallows it down into his inward parts.
So I love this thought of tasting God's Word because it implies
nearness, an actual reception and a veritable holding-fast of that
which is so appreciated by the taste.

Tasting is also a personal matter. "Friends, Romans, countrymen," said
Mark Anthony, in his oration over the body of Caesar, "lend me your
ears!" And they go to be lent and numbers of people hear for others.
But tasting, surely, is a

personal business–there is no possibility of my eating for you! If you
choose to starve yourself by a long fast of 50 days, so you must. If I
were to sit down and industriously attempt to eat your portion of food,
and my own, too, it would not help you in the least! You must eat for
yourselves and there is no knowing the value of God's Word till you eat
it for yourself. You must personally believe it, personally trust to
it, personally receive it into your innermost spirit, or else you
cannot know anything about its power to bless and to sustain! I do
pray, dear Friends, that we may, every one of us, tonight, understand
what the Psalmist meant when he spoke of tasting God's Words and of
finding them sweeter than honey to his mouth.

I. First, tonight, I call your attention to AN EXCLAMATION. The text
contains two notes of exclamation or admiration–"How sweet are Your
Words unto my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" I cannot
throw the notes of admiration and exclamation into my speech, as I
would like to do, but this verse is evidently the utterance of one who
is somewhat surprised and amazed, one who has a thought which he cannot
adequately express. The thought is also one that gives much delight to
the writer, for he exclaims, "How sweet are Your Words unto my taste!
Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!"

Now, I believe that it is a matter of wonder to many to find the Gospel
so sweet when the soul first tastes it. Until I believed in Christ, I
could not have imagined that a man was capable of so much delight as I
then experienced. When I first looked to Christ and was lightened, the
ease I felt when my burden rolled from off my shoulders quite
astonished me. It seemed to me as if a man could never know such rest
as I then enjoyed! When I beheld my sin all put away through Christ's
atoning blood and knew myself to be "accepted in the Beloved," I could
have said, with the queen of Sheba, "Behold, the half was not told me."
I had heard my father and other Christian men say that blessed are the
people who trust in the Lord, but I never thought there really was such
blessedness as I found. I fancied that they would decoy me with some
sweet declarations of what, after all, might be very commonplace, but I
did not find it to be so. And I am here to bear my witness that when I
believed God's promise, I was so amazed and overpowered with joy that,
even now, I cannot tell you the delight I felt, yes, and I, in the Word
of a faithful God to all who trust in Jesus Christ, His Son!

This, then, may be the exclamation of a soul tasting the Gospel for the
first time, but it may also be the exclamation of a soul cheered by
still tasting the Gospel–"How sweet are Your Words unto my taste!" "I
have known the Lord," says one, "these 40 years." Another says, "I have
known Christ these 30 years, but He is as precious to me as ever He
was, His Word is as fresh and novel as if I had never heard it, before,
and His promise comes to my soul with as much of life and power as if
He had only spoken it yesterday and I had never heard it till this
moment."

Are you not surprised, sometimes, you who are getting into middle life,
or even verging on old age, to find how sweet God's Word still is to
you? And if, perhaps, you have been away from the House of God
traveling in foreign lands, or you have been laid aside by sickness,
or, if, perhaps, you are a preacher and do not often hear a sermon, is
it not a very delightful thing to sit in your pew and, when you are
hearing the Gospel, to say, "Oh, it is sweet! It is coming home to me
now"? I heard a sermon some years ago–I do not often get the
opportunity of hearing–and when my tears began to flow under a simple
statement of the Gospel, I said to myself, "Yes, I am not a mere dealer
in it, who hands it out to others, for I relish the flavor of it
myself." Why, I have had to stand here, sometimes, like the butchers at
Christmas time, cutting and chopping off joints of meat for you all,
and I have not had even a snack, myself, all the while! But when I get
the opportunity of sitting down at the table and listening, it may be,
to a poor, humble preacher talking about Christ, I seem to set my knife
and fork to work and I say, "Yes, that is just the very food for me,
give me some more of it! My soul can feed upon such fare as that." And
I have felt glad, with an inward and unspeakable delight, to find how
sweet it was to my taste–"Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!"
Rejoice, dear Friends, if you find it so.

I reckon that this language of exclamation and admiration will also
come from the most advanced saint, increasing in knowledge of the
Gospel–the Believer who has studied the Word of God most earnestly and
who has had the deepest experience in it. Other books are soon done
with, but the Bible is never fully understood. I think that most
readers will tell you that the more they read, the fewer books they
treasure, whereas, to the young, there is a whole library to go
through! The man who has been a diligent and careful reader all his
life finds only some few books that he now cares to read. He knows the
rest–he could write the most of them–perhaps could write them better
than they are written! Now he keeps on striking out this one from the
list and that other, for he has gone beyond them–and the book which
charmed him

when he was young ceases to have any value to him when he gets beyond
it in his riper years. He has seen through its mistakes and now he
yearns for something more accurate.

But it is never so with the Words of God. It is never so with the Word
of God, the Incarnate Word, the Christ. The more you know of Him, the
more you wish to know. And the more you taste of Him, the sweeter He
becomes till in Heaven the sweetness will be far more intense than it
is now–and Christ will be more precious and more delightful to us
through the eternal ages than He is at this present moment! I believe
that in Glory the saints will often lift up their hands and say, "How
sweet are Your Words unto my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my
mouth!" When those words shall have been completely fulfilled, the very
retrospect of the promise will charm our immortal spirits till Heaven
shall become as a forest, like that of Jonathan, which dripped with
honey–and every Word that God spoke to us, when we were here below,
shall come back to us with matchless sweetness as we remember it in the
world to come.

II. But now, secondly, take the text not only with its two notes of
admiration, but as A STATEMENT, a cool statement of matters of fact.
David is one who, when his heart boils with holy fervor, and his hand
wields the pen of a ready writer, still writes accurately. He never
speaks more than the Truth even when he is most emphatic, so that I am
sure that David means to tell us, here, that God's Words were truly
sweet to him.

First, they were unutterably sweet. "How sweet!" But he does not tell
us how sweet they were. He says, "How sweet are Your Words unto my
taste!" as if he could not tell us what delightfulness he found in the
teachings of God's Word– it was unutterable! We can tell you, dear
Hearers, that God's Words of promise are very, very sweet, but we can
convey to you no sort of idea of how great that sweetness is! Oh, taste
for yourselves and see that the Lord is good! There is no describing
the flavors of a royal banquet! There is no picturing to a man who has
not the sense of smell, the fragrance of a delicious perfume. And you
must personally know the sweetness of the Word of God, for to us it is
positively unutterable!

This much, however, the Psalmist does utter. He tells us that God's
Words are surpassingly sweet, for he said, "They are sweeter than
honey." Honey is supposed to be the sweetest of all known substances.
So David means that if there is anything that can delight the heart of
man, God's Word could charm his heart better than that! David means
that if there is anything that could cheer a man, God's Word could
comfort him better than any other consolation. If there is joy, if
there is peace, if there is rest, if there is bliss to be found in
anything else–all that, and more than that–can be found in a higher
degree in the teachings of God's Word and in the blessings of the
Covenant of Grace! Sweeter than sweetness, itself. Sweeter than the
sweetest thing that God, Himself, has made, is God's Word which He has
spoken! Oh, that we did but know how to taste it!

The Psalmist also makes this statement, that all God's Words are thus
unutterably sweet to him. He does not say that they are so to all men,
but he says, "How sweet are Your Words unto my taste! Yes, sweeter than
honey to my mouth!" He speaks thus of all God's Words. We know some
people who love God's promises, but they do not care much about His
Laws. If God speaks a Word of Grace, they like that. But if it is a
word of command, they do not care about that. Oh, Brothers and Sisters,
I hope we have a taste for every Word that God has spoken! A man ought
not to say, "I do not like a sermon from the Old Testament as much as I
do a sermon from the New Testament." There must be no picking and
choosing with God's Word! It is virtually atheism when men begin to set
one Word of God over against another, for the man who dares to
criticize God's Revelation makes himself greater than God–and therein
he has undeified the Deity, and there is no God to him!

My God is such to me that if I know a Word to be Inspired by His
Spirit, I value it beyond all conception! It is not for me to say,
"This Word of my Master is nothing compared with another Word." All
these Words came from the same mouth and, coming from the same mouth,
they are all equally true to me. And, if not all alike rich in comfort,
yet "all Scripture is given by Inspiration of God and is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness." From one end of it to the other, it answers some Divine
purpose–who am I that I should sit in judgment upon it? I pray you,
Brothers and Sisters, value every Word of God, and let no man lend you
into the error of setting this one above the other, for, if they are
God's Words, they are all precious–and you ought to count them so.

David seems to imply that God's Words were precious to him at all
times. They were sweet to him when he wrote the text–I cannot tell in
what condition of body and mind he was at that time–but this I do
know, lying upon the bed of sickness, racked with pain, many of God's
saints have said, "How sweet are Your Words to my taste!" And this I
also know that, lifted up with gratitude for the blessings of
Providence–health, wealth, friends–yet God's saints have

found greater sweetness in His Word than in all temporal things and
they have still said, "How sweet are Your Words unto my taste!" This is
an abiding mark of a child of God, that God's Words are sweet to him,
yes, sometimes very sweet even when he is half afraid to partake of
them! "Oh," he says "would God they were mine! I need nothing sweeter
than God's Word and, even if I am a little fearful of appropriating it
to myself, yet still it is very, very dear to me." If the name of Jesus
is sweeter than honey to your taste, then be glad, for this is a mark
of a child of God that never failed yet–and never will fail while the
world stands!

III. Now, thirdly, look at the text, again, and you will see that it
contains A REPETITION–"How sweet are Your Words unto my taste!" Well,
that is all right, David–we understand you. "Yes, sweeter than honey
to my mouth!" Why do you need to say that? Is not that saying the same
thing twice? Yes, and intentionally so, because God's Word is sweet to
His people in many ways and many times over!

As I have already said to you, it is very sweet in its reception. When
we first take it into our heart and feed upon it, it is very precious,
but, spiritually, men are something like ruminating animals–they have
the power of feeding again, and again, and again–on that which they
have once received. Look how the cattle lie down and chew the cud. And
it is when they chew the cud, I suppose, that they get the sweetness
out of that which they have eaten. And so, spiritually, when men have
once received Christ, they get increasing sweetness out of Him by
meditation. Having taken Him into their souls, they afterwards inwardly
digest the precious Word of God and get the secret juice and latent
sweetnesses out of the promises of God's most holy Revelation and out
of Jesus Christ, Himself! It is thus that the Psalmist first says, "How
sweet are Your Words unto my taste!" And then he rolls them around,
again, in his mouth by meditation, and so he repeats himself as he
says, "Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!"

But do you not think that the repetition in the text means something
else, namely, that while, first of all, Christ's Word is very sweet to
our taste, there is another sweetness when we get it into our
mouth–not so much for our own eating as speaking of it to others?
There is great sweetness about the declaration of God's Words! Some of
you who love the Lord have never yet told anybody. You are secret
Christians–you hide away behind pillar and post. Oh, but God's Word is
very sweet to you, you say, as you eat your morsel of bread in the
corner! So it is, but you would have another and a greater sweetness if
you would come out and avow that you love the Lord! I am sure you
would. In fact, there is many a child of God who never enjoys the full
sweetness of religion because he has not had the courage to confess
Christ before men. I wish that some of you halting ones, you who are
much afraid and fearing, would obey the whole of the Gospel. You know
the Gospel–"He who believes and is baptized shall be saved." "With the
heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is
made unto salvation."

Now, obey the whole of the Gospel and then you shall get the whole of
its sweetness. But, perhaps, there is some peculiar flavor in the Word
which you have never known as yet because you have been disobedient
children. Did you ever notice that saying of our Lord, "Come unto Me,
all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"? Yes,
you know all about that, you say. Christ says to you, "Come unto Me and
I will give you rest." Now go a little farther– what is the next
verse? "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; and you shall find
rest." Why, that is another rest! I thought you had rest–did not Jesus
say that He would give you rest? Yet in the next verse He says, "You
shall find rest." Yes, that is another rest, a still deeper one which
you find when you willingly take Christ's yoke upon you and become His
disciples, learning of Him. So I believe my text means just that. God's
Word is very sweet to the taste when you receive it by faith, but it
has another and a special and deeper sweetness when you bring it into
your mouth and confess Christ before men.

And let me add to this that there is a very special sweetness about
preaching Christ–in the public proclamation of His Word. It may be
that some Brother, here, has the gift of speech, but has never used it
for his Master. Let me put in my witness here. God's Word has been
unutterably sweet to my own heart, as I have believed it–it has been
remarkably precious to me as I have confessed it as a Christian
man–but still there is a something, I cannot tell you what, of
singular delight about the preaching of this Word. Oh, sometimes, when
I have prepared my sermon, it has been bitter in my belly, but it has
been as honey in my mouth when I have preached it to the great
congregation gathered here! If I might choose my destiny and if I had,
even, to stay out of Heaven for the purpose, it would be Heaven to me
to be permitted to always be preaching Christ and the glories of His
salvation! And I do not know that I should have any choice between that
and Heaven–if I might be privileged to be, without ceasing, lauding
and praising and extolling that dear Word of

God–the Christ who was born at Bethlehem. If I might proclaim to
sinners everywhere that God is in him making reconciliation, no, that
He has made reconciliation for all who believe in Him, this might be
Heaven enough, at least for one poor heart, world without end.

"How sweet are Your Words unto my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my
mouth!" Try, Brother, whether it will not sweeten your mouth if you
begin to preach Christ! Perhaps you have been too quiet and too silent.
Get up and speak for Jesus and see whether the honey does not come into
your mouth at once! In the olden times they pictured the orator with
bees buzzing round his lips, storing up the honey that dropped from his
sweet utterances. This may be but a fable concerning the human talker,
but certainly it is true of the man who preaches Christ–that his lips
drop honey, and the more he speaks of his dear Lord and Master, and the
less he tries, with human eloquence, to magnify himself–the more of
sacred sweetness shall there be in every word that he utters!

So I think I have accounted for the repetition, have I not? It is no
repetition after all. At least it is no tautology–it is only a right
and necessary repetition.

IV. And now I am going to wind up, in the fourth place, with AN
EXAMINATION–the examination of everybody here present, tonight. It is
the close of the year and one may not object to a few personal
enquiries at such a time.

The first and chief enquiry is this–Are God's Words sweet to me? Is
Christ, Himself, the Master-Word of God, the Logos? Is He sweet to me?
For, if not, what is the reason?

First, may it be that I have no taste? Have I spiritual taste? It would
be a sad thing to be wholly without natural taste. I do know one such
person, who has no taste at all. The poet Wordsworth was for years
without the power of smell. His was a very remarkable case, with a mind
so dainty, so delicate, so beautiful. Once upon a time, for a very
short season, the power of smell came to him among the heather and you
know how every primrose by the river's brim had words for Wordsworth
and talked with him–and when the sweet perfume came from the dear May
flowers, the poet was quite enraptured, as if he had, for a little
while, entered into Heaven! But the power of smell soon went away and
he was, again, unhappily bereft of it. The richest flower, the sweetest
shrub could be nothing to the man whose nostril was not sensitive to
its perfume.

And what if that should be so with me spiritually? Perhaps, my dear
Hearer, you have heard all we have been saying about Christ and you
have heard many rich and rare hymns about Him. But you never felt that
there was any sweetness in Him. Then I beg you to enquire whether you
may not be lacking in a sense which others have. If a person were to
say to me, "How lovely is that Italian sky! What a deep blue it has!"
and if I turned my face that way and said, "I see nothing at all." If,
when he pointed to the sea, or to the green fields, I looked in that
direction, and saw nothing, what should I infer? Why, that he possessed
a power called sight, which I did not possess! Of course I might be
foolish enough to say, "There is no blue sky. There is no such thing.
There are no green fields. There is no ocean. There is no sun. I am
sure there is not, for I never saw them."

One day I saw a man sitting at a table with his napkin under his chin,
enjoying his dinner, and he overheard an observation that I made about
a sinner, and he said, "I never had a spiritual sensation in my life
and I do not believe that there is anything spiritual in this world."
Now, if I had been standing near a sty and a pig had made that
observation, I should not have contradicted him–and I did not
contradict this man–for I thought that he spoke the truth! I believed
that he had never experienced a spiritual sensation in his life! And
when some men say, "I perceive no sweetness in Christ and, therefore,
there is none," I wish that they would draw another
inference–"Therefore I have not that taste which would enable me to
perceive His sweetness"–for that is the truth. A man who has never
been born again is dead as to all spiritual things and he cannot hear,
or see, or taste anything that is spiritual. He is not alive unto God
as yet. I put this solemn enquiry to everyone who says, "I see no
beauty in Christ"–may it not be that you have no eyes? If you say, "I
hear no music in His voice. In fact, I do not hear that voice," may it
not be that your ears are sealed? And if you say, "I taste no sweetness
in the Word of God, or the Christ of God," may it not be that you are
still dead in trespasses and sins? If so, may God quicken you in His
infinite mercy!

Still, there is another answer to the question which I beg to put by
way of examination. If the Word of God is not very sweet to me, have I
an appetite? Solomon says, "The full soul loathes honeycomb, but to the
hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet." Ah, when a soul is full of
itself, of the world and of the pleasures of sin, I do not wonder that
it sees no sweetness in Christ, for it has no appetite! Oh, but when a
soul is emptied. When a soul hungers and thirsts after God.

When it is conscious of its needs and miseries, as I hope some here
present are, then is Christ sweet, indeed! O hungry ones, take Him into
your souls, suck down His precious Word! Christ has come on purpose to
feed hungry spirits. If you need Him, you may have Him–and the more
you need Him, the more free He is to you–and the more freely may you
partake of Him! He is just such a Christ as you need. May God make you
ravenous after Him–so ravenous that you may never rest till you have
received Him as altogether your own!

Yet there is another answer. If I do not taste sweetness in Christ, am
I in health? When a man is ill, his soul "abhors all manner of meat."
Nothing tastes nice to a man whose palate is out of order through
sickness. Now, does it happen, tonight, that some of you do not feel
any joy in Christ? Then you are ill! Brothers and Sisters, put out your
tongue, let us look at it. Ah, it has got furred up with the world, I
am sure! Something ails you if Christ is not sweet. Sometimes you have
sat in these pews, some of you, and you have heard Christ preached till
you hardly knew how to keep your seats. You have been ready to stand up
and clap your hands to the praise of His dear name–but now you do not
feel anything at all. You can almost go to sleep, if you do not
actually slumber. The preacher is quite willing to share the blame with
you, for he is not all he ought to be. But he does not mean to take all
the blame of it, for, as far as he knows how, he preaches the same
Savior, now, as always, and tries to preach Him with as much
earnestness as ever. May it not be possible, Brother or Sister, that
you are not quite right spiritually, that you are getting ill, that
your heart is growing feeble? Go home and pray the Lord to set you
right. Oh, that He would cleanse you, purify you, make you yet to be
strong and vigorous–and then this would be one of the first tokens of
it–that Christ would once more become inexpressibly sweet to you!

I must also get you to ask yourself this question–Have I savored the
world or sin? People sometimes lose their appetite for sweetness by
eating something sour. You may have had one flavor in your mouth, but
when you have eaten something with a different flavor, you cannot taste
the first. If a man gets fond of the leeks, the garlic and the onions
of Egypt–strong things, those–if he once gets the savor of them into
his mouth, he is not likely to have any very dainty tooth for the
precious things of God. Spiritual flavors have need of great
spirituality to enjoy them, I know not what other word to use. They
need that the palate be kept clean, for otherwise, if the world is
sweet to us, if sin has any hold upon us–to that extent and degree
shall we be incapable of appreciating the sweet things of God.

This is my last question–Have I habituated myself to this food? All
earthly sweetness spoils–he who eats honey for a long while will care
no more for honey. But it is very different with the Christ of God. The
sweetness of Christ is not fully known except to those who have known
Him long, who by reason of constant use have had their senses fully
exercised. There is none so greedy after Christ as the man who has had
most of Him. Paul had been a Believer at least 15 years and yet he said
this was his ambition, "That I may know Him." Had he not known Christ
before? Yes, but the more he knew Him, the more he longed to know Him.
Come, Brother, if you do not taste the sweetness of Christ, tonight, in
the preaching of the Word of God, surely it must be because you have
not of late been feeding upon Him. Make haste and come along–and let
your soul be filled with Him, even from this glad hour.

I have done when I have reminded those here present who see no
sweetness in the Words of God, that there is a time coming when they
will be compelled to hear the Word of God in a very different way from
that in which they hear it tonight. One of the first works of the
Resurrection will be the creation of the ear. I do not know by what
process we shall be raised from the dead, except that the Lord Jesus
said this, "The hour is coming in which all that are in the graves
shall hear His voice and shall come forth; they that have done good,
unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the
resurrection of damnation." When the voice of the Son of God shall
strike upon that ear of yours, what a sensation it will cause! God has
spoken to you, now, by the voice of one like yourself, and He has
spoken according to the printed page–and you have chosen not to hear
it.

But when, in that Last Day, He shall speak by the angel's trumpet and
by the voice of His Son! You will be obliged to hear and, rising from
your grave, bursting your cerements, you must obey and you must
stand–willing or unwill-ing–before that last dread tribunal, to
answer for every deed done in the body, for every idle word that you
have spoken, yes, and for every thought that you have imagined against
the Most High God! It may be a thousand years before that will happen,
it may be ten thousand years, I cannot tell, but it will happen in
God's time–and that space between will be but as the twinkling of an
eye–and there will you be before the face of the great Judge and you
will not be able to say with David, "How sweet are Your Words unto my
taste!" But, you will cry out, in the agony of your spirit, "Oh, the
gall and wormwood!" Oh, the fire that shall burn into your very soul
when God shall say, "Because I have called, and

you refused; I have stretched out My hand, and no man regarded; but you
have set at nothing all My counsel, and would none of My reproof: I,
also, will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear comes."
"Depart from Me you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the
devil and his angels."

God grant that you may not be told so to depart! And, that you may not,
I pray you to now listen to the voice of God which bids you trust Jesus
and live! I can only speak with these poor feeble lips and there is no
power in anything that I can say–but God the Holy Spirit can speak
with irresistible might to your hearts and constrain you to taste of
Christ, tonight, by hearing the Word of God, in your very soul! I pray
that He may do it, for His dear name's sake! Amen and Amen

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 119:89-112.

Verse 89. Forever, O LORD, Your Word is settled in Heaven. Other things
come and go, and change. Moons wax and wane, tides ebb and flow,
everything earthly is changeable. But, "Your Word is settled–settled
in Heaven," with the eternal settlements. No truth of it can fail, no
promise of it can be broken. What a joy this is to our hearts tonight!
There is something sure, after all–"Forever, O Lord, Your Word is
settled in Heaven."

90. Your faithfulness is unto all generations: You have established the
earth, and it abides. That is, God has spoken to Nature and that Word
has established the earth, and made it to stand securely.

91. They continue this day according to Your ordinances: for all are
Your servants. It was God's Word that made the sun, and the moon, and
the stars. And it is God's Word that bids creation still exist. And
that is the almighty Word upon which you and I are resting if we are
truly trusting in the living God–

"His very Word of Grace is strong As that which built the skies!

The voice that rolls the stars along Speaks all the promises."

92. Unless Your Law had been my delights, I should then have perished
in my affliction. Let us remember how God's Word has kept some of us
alive when we had nothing else to live upon. Hope would have quite
failed and we should have been driven to despair if it had not been for
the precious, priceless Word of God.

93. I will never forget Your precepts: for with them You have quickened
me. Nothing sharpens the memory like having been quickened. If we have
been at death's door and the Word of God has brought us renewed life,
we shall never forget it.

94-96. I am Yours, save me; for I have sought Your precepts. The wicked
have waited for me to destroy me: but I will consider Your testimonies.
I have seen an end of all perfection. No matter who it is that boasts
of being perfect, "I have seen an end of all perfection."

96. But your Commandment–There lies the perfection–

96. Is exceedingly broad. Covering the whole life–covering the
thoughts, the intents, the desires of the inner and secret nature.

97, 98. O how I love Your Law! It is my meditation all the day. You,
through Your Commandments, have made me wiser than my enemies for they
are always with me. If we have God's Law always with us, we shall be
wiser than the most crafty of our enemies, for, after all, there is
nothing that puzzles and baffles cunning men like simple honesty. Do
that which is right and you will cut through the nets in which men
would entangle you. They cannot trip you up if your feet are settled in
God's ways.

99, 100. I have more understanding than all my teachers: for Your
testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients
because I keep Your precepts. There is more wisdom in obeying God than
in all the ethics of heathen philosophers. It matters not from where
they take their precepts and maxims–there is no wisdom like yielding
one's heart to God.

101-104. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might
keep Your Word. I have not departed from Your judgments: for You have
taught me. How sweet are Your Words unto my taste! Yes, sweeter than
honey to my mouth! Through Your precepts I get understanding: therefore
I hate every false way. The man who cannot hate does not love. But he
who

loves that which is right is, by no means, indifferent to the wrong and
to the false–he hates it and the more intensely he loves God, and
loves right–the more intensely does he hate every false way.
Especially does he hate it in himself. Oh, to be delivered altogether
from every trace of falsehood!

105. Your Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. It
shows me the way. It cheers me in the way. It reveals to me the
difficulties of the way.

106, 107. I have sworn and I will perform it, that I will keep Your
righteous judgments. I am afflicted very much: quicken me, O LORD,
according unto Your Word. Are any of you afflicted tonight? I commend
this prayer to your use. One would have expected that David would have
prayed, "I am afflicted very much: comfort me, O Lord." Or, "Relieve
me, O Lord." Instead of praying so, he cries, "Quicken me, O Lord," and
he did well. Let us imitate him, for if we get more spiritual light and
life, we shall, by that means, get more comfort, and the trouble from
which we are suffering will soon cease to vex our spirit.

108-112. Accept, I beseech You, the freewill offerings of my mouth, O
LORD, and teach me Your judgments. My soul is continually in my hand:
yet do I not forget Your Law. The wicked have laid a snare for me: yet
I erred not from Your precepts. Your testimonies have I taken as an
heritage forever: for they are the rejoicing of my heart. I have
inclined my heart to perform Your statutes always, even unto the end.
Oh, that everyone of us might be able to make this declaration of the
Psalmist our own! God grant it, for Christ's sake! Amen.