“Out Of The Depths”

"Out Of The Depths"

(No. 2353)

A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY, MARCH 25, 1894.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY
26, 1888.

"For innumerable evils have compassed me about: my iniquities have
taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more
than the hairs of my head: therefore my heart fails me. Be pleased, O
LORD, to deliver me: O LORD make haste to help me." Psalm 40:12,13.

You remember that these were the words of a man of God, a man after
God's own heart, a man undoubtedly the possessor of the Grace of God.
They were the words, also, of a preacher, one who could say, "I have
preached righteousness in the great congregation…I have declared Your
faithfulness and Your salvation: I have not concealed Your loving
kindness and your Truth from the great congregation."

This teaches us that however eminent for Grace a man of God may be, it
may happen to him, sometimes, that the thought of his sin may be
paramount over his faith. There are times when the Lord seems to give
His servants a new start. It is not a second conversion, but it is
something very like it. They are made to see, once more, the deformity
of their character, the defilement of their nature, the inward
sinfulness of their hearts–that they may prize more than ever that
they have experienced the cleansing Fountain of atoning blood and the
wonderful power of the sanctification of the Holy Spirit. I mention
this fact so that, if any of you are in trouble like that described in
the text, you may be comforted by knowing that there are the footprints
of a fellow Believer in this dark part of the way you have to travel.
Others have been here before you! Others who were undoubtedly the
people of God, others who were saved in the Lord with an everlasting
salvation!

You have had to write bitter things against yourself–so have other
people. Have you ever felt as though you were surrounded by sin so that
you could not look up? You are not the first man who has been in such a
plight and you are not likely to be the last. This part of the road has
been frequented by full many of the pilgrims bound to Zion's city. All
the people of God have not taken this route–there are different ways
of traveling along the road to Heaven. But some of the true saints of
God have gone by this rough path and I mention this fact in order that
no troubled heart may fall into despair because of the painful
experience through which it is passing at the present time.

I. In trying to describe a soul in the condition mentioned in our text,
let me say, first, that we have evidently before us A SOUL BESET–"For
innumerable evils have compassed me about: my iniquities have taken
hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the
hairs of my head."

The text describes a man who is, first, made to see the countless
number of his sins. He did not know so much about them, before. He said
that he was a sinner and he meant it, but then he wrote the words in
very small letters. Now, a further enlightenment has been granted to
him–the Spirit of judgment and of burning has come to deal with
him–and now he writes the sentence, "I AM A SINNER," in capitals so
large that he needs the whole sky and all the sea, as well, to make the
page on which to emblazon the terrible words. With an emphasis of which
he used to know nothing, he now calls himself a sinner, for sins that
he had forgotten come up before his memory. Now he sees that there is a
great number of sins in any one sin, like so many Chinese boxes shut
up, one inside another.

Moreover, things which he formerly did not recognize as sins, he now
perceives to be among the deadliest of transgressions. He realizes that
the imagination of evil is sin, that sin is any lack of conformity to
the perfection of God. Now he seems as if he swarms with sins and yet,
a short while ago he thought himself clean and pure in the sight of
God! It is amazing what a ray of light will do–the sun suddenly shines
into a room and the whole air seems full of innumerable

specks of dust dancing up and down in the sunbeam! The light does not
make the room full of dust–it only shows you what was always
there–but which you did not see until the sun shone in. And if a beam
of God's true Light were to shine into some of your hearts, you would
think very differently of yourselves from what you have ever done. I
question whether any one among us could bear to see himself as God sees
him.

I think it is highly probable that if any man were to see his own heart
as it really is, he would go mad! It would be a sight too dreadful for
an awakened conscience and a sensitive reason to endure. And when the
Lord comes to any of His servants and reveals sin in its true
character, unless there is a corresponding revelation of the cleansing
blood, it puts a man into a very dreadful condition of mind. He says
that his sins are more than the hairs of his head. He feels that that
is a very poor comparison, so he says they are innumerable, they cannot
be counted! In the process of trying to count them, we would have
sinned, again, I know not how many times–sinned in our judgments about
our sins–our thoughts about our sins would only increase the number of
them!

Now, this is no morbid feeling of a perverted brain! It is a true and
strictly accurate statement of a sad fact. It is not possible for any
of us to think too badly of ourselves as we really are in the sight of
God. Comfort does not come by trying to lessen our sense of sin–it
comes in a much better and more effectual way–as I will presently try
to show you.

This man, then, is troubled by the number of his sins. He also seems to
be greatly perplexed by a sort of Omnipresence of sin, for he says,
"Innumerable evils have compassed me about." He looks that way and
says, "Surely there is a gap, there, I have not sinned in that
direction." But no, there are sins in that quarter. He turns sharply
round and he looks this way and says, "Perhaps I shall find a lane,
there, through which I may escape. I hope I have not sinned in that
way." But when he steadily looks, he finds that he has sinned there,
too. These innumerable evils have compassed him about. David said of
his enemies, "They compassed me about like bees." They were all around
him. When a swarm of bees gets about a man, they are above, beneath,
around, everywhere stinging, each one stinging–until he seems to be
stung in every part of his body!

So, when conscience wakes up the whole hive of our sins, we find
ourselves compassed about with innumerable evils–sins at the board and
sins on the bed, sins at the task and sins in the pew, sins in the
street and sins in the shop, sins on land and sins at sea, sins of
body, soul, spirit, sins of the eyes, of the lips, of the hands, of the
feet–sins everywhere, everywhere sins! It is a horrible discovery when
it seems to a man as if sin had become well-near as Omnipresent with
him as God is! It cannot be actually so, for sin cannot be everywhere
as God is, but it is hard to say where sin is not when once conscience
is awake to see it. Our whole life, from our first responsible moment,
even until now, appears defiled. There are sins even in our holy
things! Only half the heart is laid upon God's altar and the
sacramental bread, itself, is defiled as it passes into our mouth. Oh,
it is dreadful when the heart is awakened to see that it is even so!
"Innumerable evils have compassed me about."

But that is not all. This man is so beset with sin that it seems to
hold him in a terrible grip. Read this–"My iniquities have taken hold
upon me," as though they were so many griffins, or other monsters of
the old fables. They come and fix their claws into him–they have taken
hold upon him. Did any of you ever feel the grip of a single sin? I
hope that you have, for you have never been rightly delivered from it
if you have never felt its grasp. I once knew a young man who had not a
true sense of sin. He believed himself to be a sinner, but he never had
a real conviction of sin. He was a working-man, steady and upright, and
he prided himself upon his sobriety and industry. One day, in some
little frolic, he upset an oil can and, when his employer came in, and
asked, "Who did that?" he said that he did not. No one ever found out
who upset that oil can, but he knew that he did it. Knocking over that
can was not, in itself, an act of criminality, but he felt mean and
despicable because he had told a lie–and that lie fixed itself upon
his heart, clawed at it and tore away at it so that he could not get
away from its cruel clutches!

He came to the House of Prayer on the Lord's-Day to try to get rid of
this iniquity that had taken hold upon him, but it kept its hold month
after month, hissing in his ear, "You have been a liar." Nobody knew of
it but himself, yet that one sin was quite enough to take hold upon him
and to fix him with an awful grip. It was in this House of God that he
was delivered from that sin through the precious blood of Christ and I
said within myself, when I heard the whole story, "Well, I am glad that
sin took hold of that young man, for there were many sins beside which
he afterwards thought of and acknowledged with tears before his
God–but they had all passed by unnoticed, they had never laid hold on
him as that one lie had!

Let me tell you, Friend, if you have a number of sins which have once
taken hold on you, you will be something like a stag when the whole
pack of hounds has seized him and his neck and his flanks and every
bone in him seem to feel the hounds' teeth gnawing at them. I speak
what I know–I have felt these dogs upon me–and I have had to cry to
God for deliverance! And perhaps I am speaking to some soul that is in
that condition tonight. It is no child's play when this is the case.
Here we have to deal with stern facts and it is only God, by some great
act of Grace, who can set free a poor soul that is once beset in this
way!

Thus, you see, he realizes the countless number of his sins, he
recognizes the almost Omnipresence of his sins and he feels the
terrible grip of his sins tearing at his conscience–judging him,
condemning him, breathing curses into him! Oh, if you know this
experience, you can follow me when I take you a little further along
this dark, dreary road!

II. Here is, secondly, A SOUL BEWILDERED–"My iniquities have taken
hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up." Do you hear that, "not
able to look up"? That is the only hope that a man has when he is under
a sense of sin–his one way of escape is by looking up! But the
Psalmist says, "I am not able to look up."

Does it not mean, first, that he did not dare to look his sins in the
face? He felt so guilty, so self-condemned, that, as the judge, when he
pronounces the death sentence, covers his head by putting on the black
cap, so this culprit felt that he must hide his own face! He wants to
have a handkerchief tied over his eyes, for he is shocked at the sight
that meets his gaze. He dares not look up–that is, he cannot face his
sin.

It means, also, that he is unable to excuse himself. He used to be as
big a braggart as anybody. At one time, he could talk as glibly as
anyone about there being no God and no Hell. But that kind of speech is
all gone out of him now. The Lord can soon knock such folly as that out
of a man! Just one prick of the conscience and the boaster is brought
to his knees–and he does not try to look up for a single moment to
justify or excuse himself. All he can do is to hang his head and
murmur, "Guilty, guilty, guilty." He knows, then, the meaning of Dr.
Watts' lines–

"Should sudden vengeance seize my breath, I must confess You just in
death. And, if my Soul were sent to Hell, Your righteous Law approves
it well." Now, I may talk to you, thus, and you may not feel the force
of what I am saying. But if God deals with you, it will be a different
matter! You will then be brought into such a state of bewilderment that
you will not be able to face your sin, or excuse yourself, or even dare
to think of it, the mere thought of it will be too horrible for you!

A man in this state of bewilderment dares not look up to read God's
promises. I come to him and I say, "Friend, do you not know that there
is a Bible full of promises for such as you are? 'This is a faithful
saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.'" I put my hand on his
shoulder and I say, "Now, look at that promise." He cannot look up. We
read, in the 107th Psalm, of some who were so ill that when the most
dainty food was brought to them, they shook their heads, for they could
not touch it–"Their soul abhors all manner of meat; and they draw near
unto the gates of death."

Well, that is the condition of this man. "But," you say, "my dear
Fellow, look at this passage, 'All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be
forgiven unto men.' 'Whoever confesses and forsakes his sins shall have
mercy.'" "Ah," he says, "it is too late for me, it does not apply to
me." Now, this is all a mistake, you know–the Lord is willing to
receive you, my dear Hearer, however horrible your offenses may have
been! If you are up to your neck in blasphemy and iniquity, Christ can
make you clean in a moment! He has such sovereign power that, with a
word, He can forgive you. Yes, and with a word, He can change your
nature and make a saint out of a sinner, an angel out of a very human
devil–such power does Christ possess to save the vilest of the vile!
So we say to the poor man, "Dear Friend, look up! Look up at God's
promises."

Perhaps we try what effect the testimony of others will have upon him.
We stand in front of him and we say, "Look at us for a moment." There
was a dear Brother who prayed at the Prayer Meeting before the
service–no doubt he is here somewhere–"Lord, save the big sinners,
for," he said, "Lord, since you have saved me, I believe that you can
save anybody." Now, that was good pleading, and I can say the same.
There are many here who would say to you, "We looked unto Christ and
were lightened. We came with all our sin heavy upon us and we did but
look to Jesus, and we found peace, rest, new hearts and changed lives!
What He has done for us, He can do for you, for He has shown forth in
some of us, as he did in Paul, all long-suffering for a pattern to all
others who will believe in Him unto life everlasting."

Still, the man cannot look up. His sins have so bewildered him, his
sense of guilt has so muddled his poor thoughts that he dares not look
up–and yet he ought to! If I were suffering from a certain disease and
a number of persons came to me and said, "We were afflicted exactly as
you now are, but we went to Dr. So-and-So, and he cured us almost at
once," I think that I would go to that doctor and I would try the
medicine that had healed others! Oh, I wish that some of you would try
my Savior! You young people–would God that you would try Him in your
youth! You older ones, I pray that you may be led to Jesus, now, though
your sin rises like a mountain, for He is able to forgive and to save
unto the uttermost all that come unto God by Him!

But this poor soul cannot yet look up, so we put our hand upon him,
again, and we say, "But, dear Heart, if you will not look to the
promises in the Bible and you will not look to us who are specimens of
what Divine Grace can do, yet do look to Jesus on the Cross. Have you
ever heard the story of how He lived and how He died? Do you not know
the meaning of those blessed wounds of His? He was the Son of God and
He suffered all this for sinful men. He was pure, holy and innocent,
yet He died, 'the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God.' Must there
not be great merit in the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ? Look up! Look to
Him! Look up to Jesus on the Cross."–

"There is life for a look at the Crucified One! There is life at this
moment for thee! Then look, sinner–look unto Him and be sa ved– Unto
Him who was nailed to the tree." But it is no use for us to talk to
him–his sins have taken hold upon him so that he cannot look up.

So we try again and we bid him look up to Jesus on the Throne. We say,
"Do you not know that Jesus has risen from the dead? He has gone up
into Heaven and He is at the right hand of God, making intercession for
the transgressors. The business of Christ in Heaven is to plead for
sinners. Oh, how I wish that you would look up to Him! Do it!" Thus we
plead, but our pleading is not sufficient. Spirit of God, break these
poor creatures away from their infatuation and help them, now, to just
look up to the living Savior who is seated at the right hand of God,
pleading for the guilty, for such as they are! Dear Hearers, look to
Jesus! Only trust Him! A look will do it. Look, look now! In God's
name, I command you to look! In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, I
do not merely advise, but, speaking by His authority, I bid you look
and live! May He set His seal to that command, as He did when Ezekiel
bade the dry bones live and they did! But yet I know that, apart from
the Eternal Spirit, the poor soul will not look up, though looking up
is the only way to safety.

III. Follow me for just a few minutes more while I notice, in the third
place, that here is A SOUL FAINTING–"My iniquities have taken hold
upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs
of my head: therefore my heart fails me."

Why, that is the man who used to come in here as big as anybody, and
now he cries, "My heart fails me." You used to sing above all the rest,
did you not? And you despised those poor weeping ones. But now your
lament is, "My heart fails me." When a man's heart fails him, it is as
when the standard-bearer of an army faints–everything gets in
disarray.

"My heart fails me." You have come to a fainting condition and when the
heart fails, death is approaching. You feel as if you must die, you are
so utterly faint. You dare not hope. You have no energy–what can you
do? "To will," you say, "is present with me, but how to perform that
which is good I find not." You are the man who used to think that you
could believe whenever you liked and jump into Sovereign Grace whenever
you pleased! You do not find it so easy, now, do you?

"My heart fails me." This is the language of one in whom fear is
working. Why, there is poor Mercy! Poor Mercy! You, as a young girl,
said, "I will not come to Jesus yet. I can come to Him whenever I
like." And now you are fainting outside the gate because the big dog
barks at you and your heart fails you! Oh, lie not there to die, dear
swooning one! Jesus Christ will come to you in all your faintness. Is
it not written, "When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ
died for the ungodly"? "When we were yet without strength." Now you see
what there is in yourself, do you not? Nothing at all! Your very heart
fails you and if Sovereign Grace does not interpose, you are lost, you
know you are!

"Yes," you say, "that is quite true, I am lost." I am so glad that you
confess this, for your confession proves that you are the one whom God
has chosen unto eternal life from before the foundation of the world!
You are the sort for whom Jesus died when He poured out His heart's
blood. You are already called, by His Grace, to come to Him, for He
said, "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest." You are the very character whom He describes as being
the objects of His love! Come to Him, just as you are, and cast
yourselves upon Him. Fainting Heart,

do not wait till you are revived, but faint on the bosom of Jesus!
Failing Heart, do not wait till you grow strong again, but come and
confess your failure, your spiritual bankruptcy at Christ's feet!
Remember, there are none who are declared to be clear of all
obligations but those who are bankrupts before the Lord, even as Joseph
Hart sings–

"'Tis perfect po verty alone

That sets the soul at large.

While we can call one mite our own,

We have no full discharge."

"But I have no good feelings," says one. I am glad of it! Come to
Christ for them. "But I cannot repent as I would, or believe as I
would." Then listen to Hart again–

"True belief and true repentance, Every Grace that brings you nigh,
Without money,

Come to Jesus Christ and buy."

He needs nothing from you but that you will agree to let Him be
everything to you! "Free Grace and dying love"–I delight to ring those
charming bells! Oh, that every ear would welcome their blessed music!
Poor fainting Heart, hear the gladsome tidings of Free Grace and dying
love, and catch at the message and rejoice in Christ tonight! The Lord
grant that it may be so!

IV. I finish, as the time has nearly gone, by introducing this man to
you once more. We have had a soul beset, a soul bewildered and a soul
fainting. But here is A SOUL PLEADING–"My iniquities have taken hold
upon me, so that I am not able to look up…My heart fails me. Be
pleased, O Lord, to deliver me: O Lord, make haste to help me."

"Oh!" says one, "I would plead with God, but I do not know how to go to
Him." Do you not? Did you ever teach your girl how to come to you when
she needed anything? She comes and she says, "Father, I need
so-and-so." You do not send her to school, do you, and pay so much a
week to teach her that art? No, she knows it naturally. If there is
anything to be got out of a father, trust a boy or a girl for knowing
how to do it! You smile. Let that smile go a little deeper. Smile
again, if you like, that it may go right down deep. It is in this way
that you should deal with God–just as your children, being evil, know
how to ask good gifts of their father, so you should know how to ask
good gifts ofyour Father who is in Heaven! And the more childlike you
can be in your praying, the better.

If your boy were to come in, tomorrow morning, and take out a prayer
book and proceed to read the collect for the day in the same kind of
tone that you can hear it read in certain churches, and then say in the
same tone, "Father, I know that you are generous and noble-hearted–be
pleased to give me the valuable present of five shillings," you would
cry out, "Boy, hold your tongue, I cannot stand such nonsense!" But if
he says, respectfully but earnestly, "Father, I shall be very grateful
if you will give me five shillings, for there is such and such a thing
that I want to buy," you say at once, "Yes, my boy, certainly. Here is
the money." That is to say, if you have it and consider it wise. I do
not think that God is to be approached in a dignified, stupid way, with
intoned prayers and what Africans call, "palaver."

Come to God in the simplest way possible and tell Him all that is in
your heart. Pour out your desires before Him, expecting that He will
hear you and answer you–and go your way rejoicing that you have such a
God to go to! The easiest thing in the world to a child of God should
be to talk to his Father. He should not feel as if he had to put his
best coat on in order to approach the Lord. Let him stand out in the
yard, in his shirtsleeves, and pray! Why not? Wherever you are, if you
should wake up in the middle of the night, begin to pray! You would not
think of going to see a person in your shirtsleeves, but your boy may
come to you like that whenever he pleases.

A person said to me, some time ago, "Would you mind telling me what to
say when I pray? "I answered, Say what you feel. Ask God for what you
desire." "But," she said, "I am such a poor ignorant woman that I would
like you to tell me the words to say." Then I thought of the passage in
Hosea, "Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto Him, Take
away all iniquity, and receive us graciously." Thus, the very words
were put into the suppliants' mouths and, in our text, David does, as
it were, make a prayer that is suitable for many of you. May the Lord
put it into your mouths and hearts!

I will only briefly call attention to the drift of the prayer and,
first, it is a prayer distinctly to God. This poor bewildered heart
does not look to itself, or to a priest, or to a sacrament–it turns to
God and to God, alone, and says, "Be pleased, O Jehovah, to deliver me!
O Jehovah, make haste to help me." Your only hope is in your God!
Salvation must

come from God alone. You know how I pictured this matter some little
time ago, about the baby picked up in the street. There is somebody who
is going to tell us what that baby needs. He needs some milk and he
needs to be washed. And he needs some clothes. He also needs nursing
and he needs soothing to sleep. He needs–well, we can go on for a week
and hardly tell all that he needs. But I will put in one word what the
baby needs, and that is, his mother. And you, poor Soul, you need–you
need–you need–you need so many, many things that I will not stay to
mention them! I will put them into one word–you need your God! Nobody
but He who made you can ever new-make you! Therefore, as you need
remaking, re-creating, you need your God! Oh, poor Prodigal, I know you
need a new pair of boots and a new pair of trousers, and a good dinner
and a great many other things–but most of all, you need to go home to
your Father! And if you go home to your Father, then you will get all
the other things that you need! Cry unto God, then, you who have never
prayed before! May the Lord, the Holy Spirit, make you cry to your God
in Christ Jesus!

And then, do you notice the style of the prayer in our text? "Be
pleased, O Jehovah, to deliver me." It is an appeal to the good
pleasure of God. There is no arguing of merit, there is no plea but
that of God's good pleasure! He will have mercy on whom He will have
mercy–and He will have compassion on whom He will have compassion!
Divine Sovereignty is not to be denied! No man has any right to God's
Grace–if it is given to anyone, it is by the free favor of God– as He
pleases and to whom He pleases! Shall He not do as He wills with His
own? But you, as a suppliant, must take this lowly ground–"Be pleased,
O Jehovah, to deliver me, for Your mercy's sake, for Your goodness'
sake! Universal Ruler as You are and able to save whom You will, for
the rights of life and death are in the hands of the King of Kings, be
pleased, O Lord, to deliver me!" That is the way to plead with God.

And then you may, if you like, use that last sentence–"Make haste, O
Jehovah, to deliver me!" You may plead urgency–you may say, "Lord, if
You do not help me, soon, I shall die. I am driven to such distress by
my sin that if You do not hear me, soon, it will be too late!
Innumerable evils have compassed me about, so that I am not able to
look up. I am driven to such dire distress that my case is urgent; O
Lord, help me now!" Oh, how I wish that such a prayer as that might go
up from many and many a heart in this audience! You are not truly
awakened to a sense of your lost condition if you want to be saved
tomorrow. If you are really convicted of sin, your prayer will be,
"Make haste, O Lord, to deliver me." I pray that you may be brought to
that point, tonight, so that you may not dare to go to bed till you
have found your God, or, if you must go to bed, may not be able to
sleep till you have found your Savior and put your trust in Him!

Dear Friends, may God save every one of you! Oh, how I would pour out
my very soul in pleading with you if I thought that longer talk would
lead you to Christ! But words are only air and wind. Eternal Spirit,
Master of all hearts, come and deal with men and lead them to Jesus,
now! And unto the Triune Jehovah shall be the glory forever and ever!
Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM40.

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.

If I were to read this Psalm all through as referring to Christ and to
Christ, only, I would be correct in so doing, but still, there is such
a unity between Christ and those who compose His mystical body that
what is true of the Head is true of the members. What is true of the
Vine is true of the branches. What is true of Christ is true of those
who are in Him. Therefore, this Psalm relates to David as well as to
"great David's greater Son," and it also concerns everyone who is of
the royal seed, every true Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus the
Psalm begins–

1. I waited patiently for the LORD; and He inclined unto me, and heard
my cry. "I waited." "Do not beggars wait long at a fellow creature's
door for some pitiful alms, and should not I be content to linger at
Mercy's gate for such great gifts as I am craving? "I waited
patiently." Well may we tarry in patience till Jehovah's time to help
since we know that, "Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord
pities them that fear Him." And if He is full of pity, we can well
afford to be patient. "I waited patiently for Jehovah." Those who have
been most mighty in prayer have sometimes had to wait for the answers
to their supplications. Do not expect the Lord to hear you today or
tomorrow. He may hear you before you speak, according to His promise,
"Before they call, I will answer," but He may, for the trial of your
faith, make you wait. Are you able to wait? Then you are certain to
receive a great blessing! "I waited patiently for the Lord, and He
inclined

unto me," bowed down out of Heaven, inclined unto me, stooped to me,
thought well of me and also of my prayer, "and heard my cry."

2. He brought me up, also, out of an horrible pit, out of the miry
clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. This is a
wonderful song, full of rapturous joy. You know how Orientals were
accustomed to cast their prisoners into pits–and these pits were often
horribly deep, dark and damp–and the mud at the bottom would be such
that a man would sink in it. David sings of the Lord, "He brought me
up, also, out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay." What a
wonderful bringing up was this and, as God never does anything by
halves, He did not let His servant slip back, again, for David added,
"and set my feet upon a rock." "He set my feet." When God sets a man's
feet, those feet are well set! There is no sliding, no slipping! The
Lord set David's feet upon a rock and, more than that, established his
goings– made them firm, so that when he stirred he did not stumble.

3. And He has put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God.
Sing, then, Believer! You groaned often enough in the pit! Sing, now
that you are on the rock! You were desolate enough in the dungeon.
Sound aloud your grateful thanksgivings, now that your goings are
established!

3. Many shall see it and fear, and shall trust in the LORD. There you
have a picture of a sinner's conversion and its effects. The man sees
the Lord's goodness to the child of God in distress. He fears–that is,
he stands in awe of the great God–and then he, also, believes! He
trusts in the Lord. One saint makes many! One child of God brought up
out of the horrible pit leads to the bringing up of a great many others
in the same way.

4. Blessed is that man that makes the LORD his trust and respects not
the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. If you trust in God, you
will have no reverence for the proud, nor for those who turn aside from
God's Word and teach falsehood. If you really fear God, you will have
no fear of men.

5. Many, O LORD my God, are Your wonderful works which You have done,
and Your thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in
order unto You: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more
than can be numbered. The child of God, reviewing the Lord's great
goodness, feels that he can never count the mercies of God to Him and,
as to telling them out, that can never be! It will be, perhaps, a part
of our eternal employment to tell angels, principalities and powers in
the heavenly places, the story of the loving kindness of the Lord which
we have experienced here below. If we had no troubles, we would have
nothing to tell, but now that we are led in a strange way, and into
very difficult places, we can write another page in our diary which
will be worth reading in those days when fictions shall all have been
consumed in the fire, but the great facts in the lives of the Lord's
people shall make God to be admired in His saints forever and ever!

6-8. Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; my ears have You
opened: burnt offering and sin offering have You not required. Then
said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I
delight to do Your will, O my God: yes, Your Law is within my heart.
Spoke I not truly when I said that the Christ of God is here? To whom
is this passage one hundredth part so applicable as to the Lord Jesus,
Himself? Does not Paul dwell upon this passage as teaching the putting
aside of the old Covenant Law and the bringing in of something better,
even the obedience of Christ, our Savior? However, this evening, I wish
to read the Scripture in reference to the saints–the Lord's own
people. I trust that many of us, seeing that God does not delight in
ritualistic performances, or in the externals of religion as much as He
does in the obedience of the heart, can come to Him and declare with
David, "I delight to do Your will, O my God." Beloved Friends, you are
not what you ought to be! You are not what you need to be. You are not
what you shall be, but, tell me, are you ever happier than when you are
consciously doing the will of God? Do you not find misery in sin and
delight in holiness? If you can say that it is so with you, then you
are bound for the Kingdom–you are on the way to complete victory over
sin! Be of good cheer, He who has worked in you this same thing, to
delight to do the will of God, will grant you Grace to do it! He will
shortly bruise Satan under your feet and your inbred corruptions shall
yet be uprooted by the Spirit of His Grace.

9. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have
not refrained my lips, O LORD, You know. This is what Jesus can say. He
was the Prince of open-air preachers–the Great Itinerant, the
President of the College of all preachers of the Gospel–and I trust
that many of us here can also say that, according to our ability and
opportunity, we have tried to tell of Christ to those round about us.

10. I have not hid Your righteousness within my heart; I have declared
Your faithfulness and Your salvation: I have not concealed Your loving
kindness and Your truth from the great congregation. If any of you have
done so. If there has been a sinful reticence about the things of God.
If, called to preach, you have not preached the full Gospel of God's
Grace, the Lord forgive you and bring you out into a clear
manifestation of what He has written within your hearts! We cannot tell
what we do not know and we ought not to try to do so–but what was
engraved in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, we are bound to tell to
others. This gas was lighted that it might shine and you received the
Divine Fire that you might shine to the Glory of God. It may be that,
in some dark hour, it shall afford you at least a little comfort to be
able to say, "I have preached righteousness in the great congregation:
lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, You know. I have not hid Your
righteousness within my heart, I have declared Your faithfulness and
Your salvation." You may be able to use it as an argument in prayer, as
the Psalmist does–"I have not concealed Your loving kindness and Your
truth from the great congregation, therefore,"–

11. Withhold not You Your tender mercies from me, O LORD: let Your
loving kindness and Your truth continually preserve me. Depend upon it,
God will take care of us if we take care of His Truth. If we, from
cowardly reasons, keep back any part of the Gospel, God may leave us to
defend ourselves. But if we conceal nothing that He has revealed to us.
If we are faithful to the Truth committed to our charge–that Truth
will, itself, preserve us–and we shall know more and more of the
loving kindness of the Lord. But what a sad verse is the next one if it
describes the experience of any of you who have known the Lord!

12. For innumerable evils have compassed me about: my iniquities have
taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more
than the hairs of my head: therefore my heart fails me. If that is the
condition of any whom I am addressing, be comforted by the remembrance
that another has been along that dark road where you are now found!
Follow his example in praying to the Lord to deliver You–

13. Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me: O LORD, make haste to help me.
Thus did David cry unto the Lord "out of the depths." Imitate his
example if you are in similar circumstances. Say with good John
Ryland–

"Out of the depths of doubt and fear, Depths of despair and grief, I
cry; my voice, O Jesus, hear, And come to my relief!"

14-16. Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my
soul to destroy it. Let them be driven backward and put to shame that
wish me evil. Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say
unto me, Aha, aha. Let all those that seek You rejoice and be glad in
You. Here is comfort for all poor trembling seekers–they are only
seekers, but let us thank God that they are seekers, and let us say
with the Psalmist, "Let all those that seek You rejoice and be glad in
You." All true Christians, those who have found Christ, are still
seekers, for, after finding Christ, they inflame their souls to seek
Him more and more! So that our prayer, also, is, "Let all those that
seek You rejoice and be glad in You"

16, 17. Let such as love Your salvation say continually, The LORD be
magnified. But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinks upon me: You
are my Help and my Deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God. The Lord
bless to us the reading of this precious portion of His Word, for His
name's sake! Amen.