Faintness and Refreshing

Faintness and Refreshing

(No. 3110)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1908.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that
meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God." 1 Kings
19:8.

[An Exposition of the greater part of the chapter from which the text
is taken is given with Sermon #2828, Volume 49.]

I. My first observation upon this passage is that THE GREATEST
BELIEVERS ARE SOMETIMES SUBJECT TO FAINTING FITS.

The Apostle James tells us that "Elijah was a man subject to like
passions as we are." And this fact was very clearly manifest on the
occasion to which our text refers. Otherwise he seemed, in most things,
to be superior to the ordinary run of men, a sort of iron Prophet–what
if I call him THE PROPHET OF FIRE–the man whose whole life seemed to
be a flash of flame–a mighty, burning, ecstatic love and zeal towards
the cause of God? But Elijah had his flaws, even as the sun has its
spots. Strong man though he was, he was sometimes obliged to faint,
even as the sun sometimes suffers an eclipse. His fainting, too, took a
form which is very common among the saints of God. He cried, "O Lord,
take away my

life; for I am not better than my fathers." [See Sermon #2725, Volume
46–ELIJAH FAINTING] A desire to depart, when it arises from wisdom and
knowledge, and from a general survey of things below, is very proper.
But when a wish to die is merely the result of passion, a sort of
quarreling with God as a child sometimes quarrels with its parents, it
has more of folly in it than of wisdom and much more of petulance than
of piety! It was a remarkable thing that the man who was never to die,
for whom God had ordained an infinitely better lot, the man who was to
be carried to Heaven by a whirlwind in a chariot of fire drawn by
horses of fire–the man who, like Enoch, was "translated that he should
not see death"–should thus pray to die!

We have here a memorable proof that God does not always literally
answer prayer, though He always does in effect. He gave Elijah
something better than that for which he asked, so He really did hear
and answer his prayer. But it was strange that Elijah should have asked
to die–and blessedly kind was it on the part of our Heavenly Father
that He did not take His servant at his word and snatch him away at
once, but spared him, that he might escape the sharpness of death.
There is, Beloved, a limit to the Doctrine of the Prayer of Faith. We
are not to expect that God will give us everything for which we choose
to ask. We know that we sometimes ask and do not receive because we
"ask amiss." If we ask contrary to the promises of God–if we run
counter to the spirit which the Lord would have us cultivate–if we ask
anything contrary to His will, or to the decrees of His Providence–if
we ask merely for the gratification of our own ease and without an eye
to His Glory, we must not expect that we shall receive. Yet, when we
ask in faith, nothing doubting–if we receive not the precise thing
asked for, we shall receive an equivalent and more than an equivalent
for it! As one remarks, "If the Lord does not pay in silver, He will in
gold. And if He does not pay in gold, He will in diamonds. If He does
not give you precisely what you ask for, He will give you that which is
more than tantamount to it and that which you will greatly rejoice to
receive in lieu thereof."

However, Elijah's faintness took this particular form of a desire to
die–nor is this very uncommon, especially among the hard-worked and
most eminent servants of God.

This fainting fit is easily to be accounted for. It was the most
rational thing in the worldior Elijah to be sick at heart and to desire
to die. Can you not see him standing alone upon Mount Carmel? There are
the priests of Baal surrounding the altar. They wax warm with
excitement. They cut themselves with knives and lancets, but all in
vain. Then, with

laughter and irony, the Prophet bids them cry aloud to their absent or
sleeping god, Baal, and by-and-by the solemn testing-time comes. He
bids them pour water on his altar and into the trench around it–and
over the bullock and the wood on which it was laid. There he stands, a
lonely man believing in the invisible God–and believing that the
invisible God can do what the visible Baal cannot do! He puts the whole
matter to this one test, "The god that answers by fire, let Him be
God." Great must have been the excitement of his flaming soul. If one
could have felt his mighty heart beating just then, one might have
wondered that his ribs could hold so marvelous an enigma! When "the
fire of the Lord fell," conceive, if you can, his holy rapture, his
delirious joy! And think of him in the fury of the moment, when he
cried, "Take

the Prophets of Baal! Let not one of them escape." [See Sermon #1058,
Volume 18–NO QUARTER] And think of him as he took them down to the
Brook Kishon and, with his own hands, began the slaughter of the men
condemned by the Mosaic Law to die because they had perverted the
people of Israel from the worship of the Most High God!

And now do you see him as he goes to the top of Carmel and engages in
prayer? He has conquered God once by bringing down fire from Heaven. He
has overcome Baal and his prophets–and left their dead bodies, heaps
upon heaps, by the brook's side. Now he goes up to conquer Heaven once
more, by asking not for fire, but for water! He prays and seven times
he bids his servant go and look for the answer. At last, a little cloud
is discerned–the heavens begin to blacken. Elijah sends his servant to
tell Ahab the king that the rain is coming. And then he girds up his
loins and runs before the king's chariot as though he were as young of
heart and as active of limb as ever! With such a hard day's work, such
stern mental toil, such marvelous spiritual exercises, is it a wonder
that the man's reason did not reel? But instead thereof, there came on
that reaction which, as long as we are mortal men, must follow strong
excitement–he now feels depressed and heavy–and a woman's threat cows
him who could not once have been cowed by armed hosts! He who looked to
Heaven and was not afraid of all its fires, is now afraid of Jezebel
because she swears that she will put him to death! It is not marvelous
that it should have been so, for it is just like human nature. Peter is
so bold that he cuts off the ear of Malchus and yet when a little maid
comes in and accuses him of being a friend of Jesus, he denies it with
oaths and curses! The boldest sometimes tremble–and it may easily be
accounted for on natural principles.

Do you notice how very opportunely these fainting fits come? Elijah did
not faint when God's honor was at stake at the top of the mountain.
There he stands as if nothing could move him! He did not faint when it
was the time to slay the priests of Baal. With quick eyes and strong
limbs he dashes at them and accomplishes his mighty victory. He did not
faint when it was time to pray–who faints on his knees? But he does
faint when it is all over! And when it does not much matter whether he
faints or not. There is no particular reason why he should not–he may
well learn more of God's strength and of his own weakness. He may well
be laid aside now that his work is done. Have you never noticed, dear
Friends, that God wisely times the seasons when He allows you to fall
into depression of spirits? He does not touch the sinew of your thigh
while you are wrestling with the angel–He makes you limp when the
victory is over, but not till then! "I thank God," many a Christian may
say, "that when I have been cast down and dispirited, it was at a time
when it did not work such fatal mischief to me and to the cause of God
as it would have done if it had occurred at another season." Is not the
promise, "As your days, so shall your strength be," a very suggestive
one? When you have a heavy day's work to do, you will have the needed
strength. But when you have a day of rest, you will have no strength to
waste. There shall be no vigor given to spend upon our own pride, or to
sacrifice to our own glory. The battle is fought and then the strength
to fight it is taken away! The victory is won and, therefore, the power
to win it is removed and God's servant is made to go and lie down and
sleep under a juniper tree, which was, perhaps, the best thing he could
do.

And these fainting fits, to which God's children are subject, though
evil in themselves, prevent greater evils. Elijah would have been
something more than a man if he had not felt conceited and proud, or,
at least, if there had not been in him a tendency to elation of spirit
when he thought of the greatness and the splendor of the deeds he had
worked. Who among us, at any rate, could have borne so much honor as
God put upon him without lifting our heads to the very stars? So he is
made to faint. He is constrained now to admit what I am sure he always
knew and felt in his heart–that all the Glory must be given to God and
not to the poor frail instrument which He was pleased to use.
Graciously did God send this fainting fit to check him in what would
have involved him in a far more serious fall!

This depression of spirits, doubtless, taught Elijah a great lesson. It
needed strong teaching to instruct him. Elijah was not a man to be
taught by ordinary teachers. If he could have walked into a place where
others of God's servants

were ministering, I think they would all have sat down and said, "Let
Elijah speak! Who among us can teach him?" The mightiest of God's
servants might be silent before him and, therefore, God Himself teaches
him. Some servants of the Lord are taught by God in a way which is
quite unknown to others. There is a path which the eagle's eyes have
not seen and which the lion's whelp has not traveled–a path of secret
chastisement as well as of secret Revelation. Those whom God honors in
public, He often chastens in private. Those men who shine most as
candles of the Lord's own right-hand lighting are sometimes made to
feel that they would be but a snuff if the Grace of God should depart
from them. God has ways of teaching all of us in our bones and in our
flesh, but He specially knows how to do this with those upon whom He
puts any honor in His service. You must not marvel if God should be
pleased to bless you to the conversion of souls, that He should also
make you sometimes smart. Remember that Paul, with all his Grace, could
not be without "a thorn in the flesh." There must also be "a messenger
of Satan to buffet you," lest you should be exalted above measure! So
may you learn to submit cheerfully to a discipline which, though
painful to you, your Heavenly Father knows to be wise!

Moreover, these fainting fits to which God's servants are subject, are
not only profitable to those who have them, but to others. To compare
small things with great, a foolish idea sometimes gets into the minds
of our hearer that surely the minister can never be much cast down.
Young converts sometimes think that old saints can never know such
contentions within, such doubting, such humbling of spirit as they
feel. Ah, but whether they are dwarfs or giants, the experience of
Christian men is amazingly alike! There are lines of weakness in the
creature which even Divine Grace does not efface. "When the peacock
looks at his fair feathers," says old Master Dyer, "he may afterwards
look at his black feet." And so, whenever the brightest Christian
begins to be proud of his graces, there will be sure to be something
about him which will remind others as well as himself that he is yet in
the body! I forget how many times it is that Ezekiel is called, in the
book of his prophecy, "the son of man." I counted them the other day
and I do not find the same title applied to any other Prophet so often
as it is to him. Why is this? Why, there was never another Prophet who
had such eagle wings as Ezekiel had! It was given to him to soar more
loftily than any other! And therefore he is always called, "the son of
man," to show that he is but a man after all. Your highest people, your
most elevated saints are but sons of fallen Adam, touched with the same
infirmities and weaknesses as their fellow creatures and liable, unless
Grace prevents, to fall into the same sins as others fall into!

I think these are good and sufficient reasons why the strongest
Believers often experience the most oppressive weakness.

II. Now let us turn to a second thought, which is this–WHEN BELIEVERS
DO HAVE FAINTING FITS, THEY WILL RECEIVE EXTRAORDINARY REFRESHMENTS.

Elijah had often been fed in a remarkable manner. Ravens had ministered
to his necessities at one time and at another time an impoverished
widow had boarded him. But on this occasion he is to be fed by an
angel. The best refreshments are to be provided for him at the worst
season! He might well have said, "You have kept the best wine until
now, when I needed it the most." The food that he ate at Cherith had to
be brought to him every morning and every evening, but the food which
was now given to him lasted him for 40 days and 40 nights–and though
the widow's cruse did not fail, yet he needed to apply to it
constantly. But in this case, one meal, or rather a double meal, was
sufficient to last him during six weeks of journeying! He was
supernaturally awakened. He found food convenient for him–a cake and a
cruse of water all ready at his hand–he had only to rise and take it!

Now, my dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ–for I now speak only to
you–have you never found that in times when heart and flesh have both
failed, you have been privileged to receive some special help from
Heaven? Sometimes it has come to you in the form of a full assurance of
your interest in Christ Your heart was very heavy. The work you had
before you seemed to be much too arduous for you. Your spirit quailed
before your enemies. The weight of your trouble was too much for you,
but just then Jesus whispered softly into your ear that you were His!
You had doubted before whether you really were Christ's, but you could
not doubt it any longer–the Spirit bore witness with your spirit that
you were born of God and you could–

"Read your title clear, To mansions in the skies!"

It is amazing how this assurance acts in two ways. It is the great cure
for us when we are soaring too high. When Christ's disciples had cast
out devils, He said to them, "Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that
the spirits are subject unto you,

but rather rejoice because your names are written in Heaven." And this,
too, is the cure for us when we fall too low. Mourn not over this, but
still "rejoice because your names are written in Heaven." Many an old
saint, sitting in a chimney corner under an accumulation of aches,
pains, weaknesses and sorrows, has sung–

"When I can read my title clear

To mansions in the skies,

I bid farewell to every fear

And wipe my weeping eyes!

Should earth against my soul engage,

And hellish darts be hurled–

Then I can smile at Satan's rage,

And face a frowning world."

Bless God for the full assurance of faith, for it will yield you food
in the strength of which you may go on for 40 days and 40 nights. May
God give us to feed on it constantly! But sometimes He gives us the
richest meal of it just when we are in our weakest state and are ready
to give up in despair.

We have known the Lord feed His people, sometimes, with another Truth
of God, namely, the Doctrine of His own greatness and grandeur. A sight
of the greatness of God is a very blessed stay to us under a sense of
our littleness. There you lie, broken and bruised, like an insect that
has been crushed. You look up and the light flashes through the dark
cloud and you behold something of the greatness and the Glory of God
and you think, "What are my troubles? He can bear them! What are all my
griefs? They are only as the small dust of the balance to Him. Why
should I faint or grow weary when He upon whom I lean faints not,
neither is weary? Underneath me are His everlasting arms. He is mighty,
though I am a thing of naught. He is wise, though I am lost, bewildered
and foolish. He is faithful, though I am doubting and trembling."–

"The more His glories strike our eyes"–

the less apt shall we be to die of despair! We shall feed upon this
food as Elijah did upon his cake baked upon the coals and, like he, we
shall go in the strength of it for forty days!

Sometimes, too, we have known the blessedness of feeding upon the
assurance that the cause of God will be ultimately triumphant. I
remember when, like a broken, bruised and worthless thing, I seemed set
aside from Christian service and from my work for God which I loved. It
seemed to me as though I should never return again to preach the Word.
I marveled how the work of my hands under God would fare and my spirit
was overwhelmed within me. I made diligent search after comfort, but
found none. My soul took counsel within herself and so increased her
woes, but no light came. I shall never forget the moment when, all of a
sudden, these words came to me, "Therefore God also has highly exalted
Him and given Him a name which is above every name; that at the name of
Jesus every knee should bow, of things in Heaven, and things in earth,
and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ

is Lord, to the Glory of God the Father." [See Sermon #101, Volume
2–THE EXALTATION OF CHRIST] This was Mr. Spurgeon's first Sermon after
the Surrey Gardens catastrophe. The full story of that memorable period
is told in C. H.

Spurgeon's Autobiography, Vol. II, Chapter 1, "The Great Catastrophe at
the Surrey Gardens Music Hall." At once I thought, "What matters it if
I, the

soldier, fall upon the battlefield, if my great Captain is safe?
Jehovah reigns! Christ is exalted!" Then I seemed to look upon my own
being set aside–my shame, my reproach, my death, or anything else that
might befall me–as not being worth a moment's thought because the King
stood yonder and the blood-red flag waved in triumph! O God, Your Truth
must conquer in the end! Your foes must flee! What if they gain some
petty advantage here and there along the line? What if they do make a
breach here and there in the bulwarks of our Zion? They shall fly like
chaff before the wind in the day when You appear! The battle is Yours,
O Lord, and You will deliver them into our hands before long! Let the
ultimate triumph of the Truth of God solace you when you are
discouraged because you have seemed to labor in vain and spend your
strength for naught. Be of good cheer–the Conqueror who comes with
dyed garments from Bozrah, is still in the midst of His Church! This
cake baked on the coals has often given food to poor fainting Elijahs.

A conviction, too, of the sympathy of Jesus Christ with them has often
been very dainty food and a precious cordial to mourning spirits. This
is, perhaps, the very first Doctrine we teach the bereaved and sick
saints. We tell them that "in all their afflictions He was afflicted."
And probably there is no verse that is sung more often and with greater
sweetness than this one–

"How bitter that cup no heart can conceive, Which He drank quite up,
that sinners might live! His way was much rougher and darker than
mine– Did Christ, my Lord, suffer and shall I repine?"

It makes pain so glorious when you think that the very same pain shoots
through Him as through you, that there is not so much pain truly in the
finger as there is in the head, that the head is indeed the true seat
of all the sensitiveness. It is not so much Christ's people who suffer,
as it is Christ, Himself, suffering in them. Does it not make the Cross
glorious when you bear it with the thought that it is Christ's Cross
you are carrying? To suffer poverty for Christ's sake is a very
different thing from suffering poverty in the abstract. To be despised
for the Gospel's sake is a different thing from being despised for any
other reason for, to be reproached for Christ is honor–and to suffer
for Christ is pleasure! A mother will sit up night after night to nurse
her darling child. She would not do it for anyone else for any money
you could offer her–and though she grows very weary, she goes to her
work and does for her child what she would not and probably could not
do for any other child. So some of us would do for love what we would
not think of doing for gain. And when we know that we are doing and
suffering for Christ–and feel that Christ is with us in it all, it
becomes a very blessed cordial and we–

"Rejoicein deep distress"–

since Jesus Christ is with us!

And how often has God given much comfort to His people when they were
ready to give all up, by a vision of Heaven? Did you ever have such a
vision? Softly will it sometimes steal over your spirit, especially in
severe sickness, when heaviness and uneasiness seem to bring you to the
very gates of the grave. You do not hear the bells of Heaven with your
ears, nor do stray notes of angels' harps salute you, nor do you see
the white-robed hosts with your natural eyes, but your soul sees and
hears it all! God sometimes brings His people into "the land of Beulah"
before they fairly reach it in the order in which John Bunyan puts it
in his allegory. Some of us have been to the very gates of Heaven. We
have had such foretastes of Heaven that we feel that we can now fight
the fight and cheerfully wait–

"Our threescore years and ten"– if the Lord pleases to spare us so
long, because the crown at the end is so glorious! And that we can
journey through the wilderness because the Canaan is so worthy of all
that we can do or suffer that we may enter it. Beloved, a vision of
Jesus Christ and a vision of Heaven will be enough to solace the most
downcast among you! And where you gladly would hang your harp upon the
willows, if Jesus Christ shall appear to you and His Father shall smile
upon you, and His Spirit shall actively work upon your hearts, and
Heaven's gate shall be opened to you–then will you snatch up your harp
and wake it to the sweetest melodies in praise of Sovereign Grace! You
Elijahs who are now saying, "Let me die," change your note, for there
is a cake baked on the coals provided for you–so arise and eat it!

III. Let us observe, in the third place, that WHENEVER GOD THUS GIVES
TO HIS CHILDREN VERY

REMARKABLE ENJOYMENTS, IT IS IN ORDER THAT THEY MAY GO ON IN THE
STRENGTH OF THOSE

ENJOYMENTS FOR A LONG TIME.

Elijah was not fed that he might get strong and then waste his
strength. There are no sinecures in God's service! All His true
servants are real workmen and when they have strength given to them by
Him, it is not that they may show what fine fellows they are, but that
they may toil on in their Master's cause. The soldier is a
smart-looking fellow on parade in days of peace–and long may it be
before he shall have cause to do anything more than show himself at
such times–but God's soldiers are always on active service and as sure
as ever the Master gives them a double round of ammunition, He means
them to fire it all! If ever He gives them a new sword, it is because
they will soon need it! And whenever He is pleased to furnish them with
fresh armor, it is because He knows that they will require the sacred
panoply. There are no superfluities in the provisions of God's Grace!

What had Elijah to do? Having fed upon this angels' food, he had to go
a long solitary journey I wonder whether you can imagine it–a journey
of 40 days and 40 nights! It does not seem to me, from what I gather
from the story, that he ever stopped. Certainly he did not stop to take
refreshments, but went right away into the wilderness, having probably
left his servant at Beersheba the whole time. He never saw the face of
man all the while. He fasted more wonderfully than Moses did, who
fasted on the mountain in peace and quietness! This mysterious Prophet
fasted and at

the same time he was taking giant strides in the lonely wilderness,
startling the beasts of prey, treading the unfrequented tracts of the
wild goats and the gazelles with ever-onward feet! On through the day's
burning heat and the night's black shade, never pausing for 40 days and
40 nights! A strange march was that, but sometimes God calls His people
to something very much like it. Strange, weird-like and solitary is
your soul–and nobody can walk with you where you have to go–you have
to take strides that will suit no one else. You have to go a way that
has not been trodden before by any others. The Master has called you to
special suffering, if not to special service. You have no pioneer and
no companion. I suppose every person who is called to serve God in a
remarkable manner, or to suffer for Him in a particular way, must have
noticed the solitariness of his own life. Do not tell me about solitude
being only in the wilderness–a man may have plenty of company
there–the worst solitude is that which a man may have among millions
of his fellow creatures. Look at that solitude of Moses. When Moses had
his heaviest cares upon him, with whom could he hold any real
communion? With the 70 elders? As well might an eagle have stooped to
have communion with so many sparrows! They were far beneath him–they
had not hearts large enough to commune with the great-souled Moses. You
will say, perhaps, that Aaron might have done so. Yes, truly, a
brother's heart is a very cheering one when it beats to the same tune
as your own, but Aaron was a man of altogether different spirit from
Moses and nobody would think of comparing the two men! Moses is like
some of those colossal figures that are cut in the Egyptian rocks, or
that stand amidst the ruins of Karnak–he seems to have been one of
those great spirits of the grand olden time before the stature of men
had declined–and he is all alone. He bears the people on his bosom and
throughout his life is a solitary man.

Such, too, was Elijah. Now, perhaps you will have special feasting upon
Christ because in your trial or in your labor you will have to learn
that there is a secret you cannot tell to any but your God–that there
is a bitterness with which no other heart can intermeddle–that there
are heights and depths through which you will have to pass and will
have to pass alone. Do not wonder, dear Friends, if these words should
come true to you in days to come. Do not marvel if that verse we
sometimes sing should happen to be suitable to you on this quiet,
peaceful evening–

"We should suspect some danger near, When we perceive too much
delight." If God feeds us with angels' food, He means us to do more
than man's work.

But I meant you to notice, in the next place, that while Elijah was
thus fed that he might go a long and lonely journey, that he was sent
on that journey that he might be brought into more sympathy with God
than before. Why did he have to journey "forty days and forty nights
into Horeb the mount of God"? It is said that it was not more than 80
miles and certainly does not appear to have been a hundred. Such a long
time was not necessary for the distance–why, therefore, did Elijah
take it? Do you not see that it is a day for a year? "Forty years
long," says Jehovah, "was I grieved with this generation" in the
wilderness. Forty days and nights, therefore, must the Lord's servant
walk over the very tracks where Israel had pitched their tents. And God
seemed to say to him, "O Elijah, do you lose your temper and turn away
from Israel, and ask to die, when I had to bear with My people forty
years and yet, notwithstanding that, they now inherit the goodly land
and have come to Lebanon?" Beloved, the servants of God must frequently
meet with ingratitude, unkind treatment, harsh words and cruel speeches
from those whom they try to serve! And sometimes God's own people are a
greater plague to God's ministers than are all the rest of the world
besides. Well, what of that? Does not the Lord seem to say, "Now I will
teach you what My compassions are. I will teach you what My patience
must be. You shall have forty days' walking in the wilderness to make
you understand something of what I felt when, for forty years, I bore
with the ill manners, rebellions and idolatries of this crooked and
perverse people"? Is it not a grand thing, my Brothers and Sisters, to
be made to have sympathy with God? I do not think the most of
Christians understand this– to be made to feel as God felt so that you
are enabled, as it were, to see things from God's standpoint and to
begin to understand why He is angry with the wicked–and to magnify
that matchless Grace which bears so long with the sons of men! It may
possibly happen, my Brothers, that the Master has been feeding you upon
some special and dainty food at His table, or under the ministry, or in
earnest prayer, or in communion, or in meditation in order that, in the
future, you may have greater sympathy with Himself by treading, in your
measure, the same path that He trod in years long gone by!

There is always a special reason when there comes a special mercy, and
so, to conclude, I ask you to note that the Lord gave His servant this
special benefit because He intended to give him a very special rebuke.
' 'What are you doing here, Elijah?" was not the sort of language that
Elijah had been accustomed to hear from his God! He could use such

language, himself, to his fellow men, as he did when he spoke to Ahab,
but he was not accustomed to hear such words spoken to him by God!
Softer sentences had greeted his ears, but now God is about to rebuke
him for running away from his work, for playing the coward and for
setting an example of unbelief! But before He rebukes him, He supplies
all his needs and gives him 40 days' strength. The Lord does not
chasten His children when they are weak and sickly, "without," as one
says, "sustaining them with one hand while He smites them with the
other." He will give you comforting Grace as well as the privilege of
chastisement. You cannot do without the rod, but you shall be enabled,
on the strength of the food which He will give you, to bear up under it
without your spirit utterly fainting.

Possibly God may have in store for some of us a special rebuke. He may
intend to make some thundering passage in His Word come with terrific
power to our souls. He may mean to lay us upon a bed of sickness and,
therefore, now, by giving us strengthening food, He is preparing us for
it, that even when in the furnace we may be enabled to sing His praise!

I leave these thoughts with those of you who know the way of the
wilderness. Those of you who do not will not care much about them, but
I may pray God that the sinner who knows nothing of these faintings,
may be made to faint utterly till his soul dies within him with
spiritual despair! And when he so dies, then the Lord who kills will
make him alive! When you have no power left, if you can throw yourself
beneath the shadow of the Cross, though your flesh may make you sleep
there as Elijah did under the juniper tree, yet you shall hear a voice
which shall bid you arise–and in the great Atonement of the Savior you
shall find a cake baked on what hot coals I will not now undertake to
say. You shall find it such food to the weary spirit that when you have
partaken of it, poor Sinner, you shall dare to go to the mount of God,
even to Horeb, and face the terrible Law of God and ask, "Who shall lay
anything to my charge?" Feeding on Jesus, mysteriously sustained by
trusting in the efficacy of His precious blood, you shall go on till
you shall see God face to face in His holy mount in Glory, in the
strength of Him who said, "For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is
drink indeed."

God bless every one of us, for Jesus' sake! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM143.

Verses 1-3. Hear my prayer, O LORD, give ear to my supplications: in
Your faithfulness answer me, and in Your righteousness. And enter not
into judgment with Your servant for in Your sight shall no man living
be justified. For the enemy has persecuted my soul; he has smitten my
life down to the ground; he has made me to dwell in darkness, as those
that have been long dead. This is a very graphic description of David's
sorrow. And those who have ever come under the power of Satan so as to
be crushed in spirit and see all their hopes blighted and withered know
what David meant when he penned these words. Only think of a soul
dwelling in darkness like a body that has been long dead and shut up in
the grave.

4. Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me; my heart within me is
desolate. What a sad expression that is! It would be difficult to bring
out all its meaning. "My heart within me is desolate"–lonely,
deserted, desponding, despairing, almost destroyed.

5. I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Your works; I muse on
the work of Your hands. This is a gracious exercise which tends greatly
to the comfort of mourners, yet it does not always succeed, for God's
works cannot satisfy us if God hides Himself from us.

6. I stretch forth my hands unto You: my soul thirsts after You, as a
thirsty land. Selah. "My soul seems scarcely such a living thing as a
thirsty stag panting for the cooling stream, but as the parched earth
that cannot call to You, and yet does gape with open mouth as if she
silently implored the rain, so is it with me." God sends the dew to the
grass which cannot call to Him for it! Then how much more will He send
the dew of His Grace to us who do cry to Him for it and with anguish
thirst after it!

7. 8. Hear me speedily, O LORD: my spirit fails. Hide not Your face
from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit. Cause me
to hear Your loving kindness in the morning; for in You do I trust
cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul
unto You. What a dead "lift" it is sometimes! Yet we must not let our
soul lie

in the gutter. By God's help, we must lift it up and the nearer the
soul is lifted up to God, the more it comes into the light–and the
more sure it is yet to obtain its liberty.

Volume 26–AT SCHOOL] for You are my God: Your spirit is good.

"Make my spirit good!"

10, 11. Lead me into the land of uprightness. Quicken me, O LORD, for
Your name's sake. Do not these prayers fit you, my Brothers and
Sisters? Do you not feel as if you were being taught how to pray by the
reading of this Psalm? I think it must be so at least with some of you.

11, 12. For Your righteousness' sake bring my soul out of trouble. And
of Your mercy cut offmy enemies, and destroy all them that afflict my
soul: for I am Your servant. We cannot join in the prayers in this
verse just as it stands, for we live in another dispensation in which
we are taught to pray for our enemies, not against them, but as far as
this verse relates to our spiritual enemies–our sins, temptations and
Satanic foes–we do pray that they may be utterly cut off and that the
very name of them may be blotted out from under Heaven! May God hear
that prayer and answer it, for His dear son's sake! Amen.