A Visit to Christ’s Hospital

A Visit to Christ's Hospital

(No. 3070)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER I2, 1907.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Fools because of their transgression and because of their iniquities,
are afflicted. Their soul abhors all manner of meat; and they draw near
unto the gates ofdeath. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble,
and He saves them out of their distresses. He sent His Word and healed
them, and delivered them from their destructions. Oh that men would
praise the LORD for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the
children of men! And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving,
and declare His works with rejoicing." Psalm 107:17-22.

[Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon on verses 17-20 is #1824, Volume
31–THE HISTORY OF SUNDRY FOOLS.]

IT is a very profitable thing to visit a hospital. The sight of others'
sickness tends to make us grateful for our own health. And it is a
great thing to be kept in a thankful frame of mind, for ingratitude is
a spiritual disease, injurious to every power of the soul. A hospital
inspection will also teach us compassion and that is of great service.
Anything that softens the heart is valuable. Above all things, in these
days we should strive against the petrifying influences which surround
us. It is not easy for a man who has constantly enjoyed good health and
prosperity, to sympathize with the poor and the suffering. Even our
Great High Priest, who is full of compassion, learned it by carrying
our sorrows in His own Person. To see the sufferings of the afflicted,
in many cases, would be enough to move a stone. And if we visit a
hospital and come back with a more tender heart, we shall have found it
a sanatorium to ourselves.

I purpose, at this time, to take you to a hospital. It shall not be one
of those noble institutions so pleasingly plentiful around the
Tabernacle, but we will take you to Christ's Hospital, or, as the
French would call it, the HotelDieu. And we shall conduct you through
the wards for a few minutes, trusting that while you view them, if you
are yourself healed, you may feel gratitude that you have been
delivered from spiritual sicknesses and an intense compassion for those
who still pine and languish. May we become like our Savior who wept
over Jerusalem with eyes which were no strangers to compassion's
floods. May we view the most guilty and impenitent with yearning hearts
and grieve with mingled hope and anxiety over those who are under the
sound of the Gospel and so are more especially patients in the Hospital
of God.

We will go at once with the Psalmist to the wards of spiritual
sickness.

I. And first we have set out before us THE NAMES AND CHARACTERS OF THE
PATIENTS.

You see in this hospital, written up over the head of every bed, the
name of the patient and his disease. And you are amazed to find that
all the patients belong to one family and, singularly enough, are all
called by one name–and that name is very far from being a reputable
one. It is a title that nobody covets and that many persons would be
very indignant to have applied to them–"Fool." All who are sick in
God's Hospital are fools, without exception, for this reason–that all
sinners are fools. Often in Scripture, when David means the wicked, he
says, "the foolish." And in saying this, he makes no mistake, for sin
is folly.

Sin is foolish, clearly, because it is a setting up of our weakness in
opposition to Omnipotence! Every wise man, if he must fight, will
choose a combatant against whom he may have a chance of success. But he
who wars with the Most High commits as gross a folly as when the moth
contends with the flame, or the dry grass of the prairie challenges the
fire! There is no hope for you, O sinful Man, of becoming a victor in
the struggle! How unwise you are to take up the weapons of rebellion!
And the folly is aggravated, because the One who is opposed is so
infinitely good that opposition to Him is

violence to everything that is just, beneficial and commendable! God is
Love–shall I resist the Infinitely Loving One? He scatters
blessings–should I therefore be His foe? If His Commandments were
grievous, if His ways were ways of misery and His paths were paths of
woe, I might have some pretense of an excuse for resisting His will.
But O my God, so good, so kind, so boundless in Grace, 'tis folly, as
well as wickedness, to be Your enemy!–

"To all that's good, averse and blind,

But prone to all that's ill.

What dreadful darkness veils our mind!

How obstinate our will!"

Besides this, the Laws of God are so supremely beneficial to us that we
are our own enemies when we rebel. God's Laws are danger signals. As
sometimes, on the ice, those who care for human life put up the warning
sign, "Danger, " here and there, and leave the part that is safe for
all who choose to traverse it, so God has left us free to enjoy
everything that is safe for us–and has only forbidden us that which is
to our own hurt. If there is a law which forbids me to put my hand into
the fire, it is a pity that I should need such a law, but a thousand
pities more if I think that law a hardship! The commands of God do but
forbid us to injure ourselves. To keep them is to keep ourselves in
holy happiness–to break them is to bring evil of all kinds upon
ourselves in soul and body. Why should I violate a law, which, if I
were perfect, I would myself have made, or myself have kept finding it
in force? Why need I rebel against that which is never exacting, never
oppressive, but always conducive to my own highest welfare? The sinner
is a fool because he is told, in God's Word, that the path of evil will
lead to destruction–and yet he pursues it with the secret hope that in
his case the damage will not be very great. He has been warned that sin
is like a cup frothing with a foam of sweetness, but concealing death
and Hell in its dregs–yet each sinner, as he takes the cup, fascinated
by the first drop, believes that to him the poisonous draught will not
be fatal! How many have fondly hoped that God would lie unto men and
would not fulfill His threats? Yet be assured, every sin shall have its
recompense of reward! God is Just and will by no means spare the
guilty. Even in this life many are feeling in their bones the
consequences of their youthful lusts–they will carry to their graves
the scars of their transgressions. In Hell, alas, there are millions
who will forever prove that sin is an awful and an undying evil, an
infinite curse which has destroyed them forever and ever!

The sinner is a fool because while he doubts the truthfulness of God as
to the punishment of sin, he has the conceit to imagine that
transgression will even yield him pleasure! God says it shall be
bitterness–the sinner denies the bitterness and affirms that it shall
be sweetness. O Fool, to seek pleasure in sin! Go rake the morgue to
find an immortal soul! Go walk into the secret springs of the sea to
find the source of flame! It is not there and you can never find bliss
in rebellion! Hundreds of thousands before you have gone upon this
search and have all been disappointed. He is indeed a fool who must
rush headlong in this useless chase and perish as the result! The
sinner is a fool–a great fool–to remain as he is in danger of the
wrath of God! To abide at ease in imminent peril and scorn the way of
escape. To love the world and loathe the Savior. To set the present
fleeting life above the eternal future. To choose the sand of the
desert and forego the jewels of Heaven–all this is folly in the
highest conceivable degree!

Though all sinners are fools, yet there are fools of all sorts. Some
are learned fools. Unconverted men, whatever they know, are only
educated fools. Between the ignorant man who cannot read a letter and
the learned man who is apt in all knowledge, there is small difference
if they are both ignorant of Christ! Indeed, the scholar's folly is, in
this case, the greater of the two! The learned fool generally proves
himself the worst of fools, for he invents theories which would be
ridiculed if they could be understood–and he brings forth speculations
which, ifjudged by common sense and men were not turned into idiotic
worshippers of imaginary authority, would be scouted from the universe
with a hiss of derision! There are fools in colleges and fools in
cottages.

There are also reckless fools and reckoning fools. Some sin greedily
with both hands. "A short life and a merry one," is their motto–while
the so-called "prudent" fools live more slowly, but still live not for
God. These last, with hungry greed for wealth, will often heard up gold
as if it were true treasure and as if anything worth the retaining were
to be found beneath the moon. Your "prudent respectable "sinner will
find himselfjust as much lost as your reckless prodigal. They must all
alike seek and find the Savior, or be guilty of gross folly. So, alas,
there are old fools as well as young ones! There are those who, after
an experience of sin, still burn their fingers in it. The burnt child
dreads the fire, but the burnt sinner lovingly plays with his sin
again! Gray hair ought to be a crown of glory, but too often they are
fool's caps. There are young sinners who waste the prime of life when
the dew is on their spirit and neglect to give their strength to God–

and so miss the early joy of religion, which is the sweetest and makes
all the rest of life sweeter–these are fools. But what is he who has
one foot hanging over the mouth of Hell and yet continues without God
and without Christ, a trifler with eternity?

I have spoken thus upon the name of those who enter God's Hospital.
Permit me to add that all who go there and are cured, agree that this
name is correct. Saved souls are made to feel that they are naturally
fools and, indeed, it is one stage in the cure when men are able to
spell their own name and when they are willing to write it in capital
letters and say, "That is my name! If there is no other man in this
world who is a fool, I am. I have played the fool before the living
God." This confession is true, for what madness it is to play the fool
before the Eternal One with your own soul as the subject of the
foolery! When men make sport, they generally do it with trifling
things. A man who plays the fool and puts on a cap and bells is wise in
comparison with him who sports with his God, his soul, Heaven and
eternity! This is folly beyond all folly! Yet the sinner, when he is
taken into God's Hospital, will be made to feel that he has been such a
fool and that his folly is folly with emphasis. He will confers that
Christ must be made unto him wisdom for he by nature was born a fool,
has lived a fool and will die a fool unless the Infinite Mercy of God
interposes!

II. Now, for a minute or two, let us notice THE CAUSE OF THEIR PAINS
AND AFFLICTIONS. "Fools because of their transgression and because of
their iniquities, are afflicted."

The physician usually tries to find out the root and cause of the
disease he has to deal with. Now those souls that are brought into
grief for sin, those who are smarting through the Providential dealings
of God, through the striking of conscience, or the smiting of the Holy
Spirit, are here taught that the source of their sorrow is their sin.
These sins are mentioned in the text in the plural–"Fools because of
their transgression and because of their iniquities." How many have our
sins been? Who shall count them? Let him count the hairs of his head
first. Sins are various and are, therefore, called "transgressions and
iniquities." We do not all sin alike, nor does any one man sin alike at
all times. We commit sins of word, thought, deed–against God, against
men, against our bodies, against our souls, against the Gospel, against
the Law, against the week-day duties, against the Sabbath
privileges–of all sorts and these all lie at the root of our sorrows.
Our sins also are aggravated. Not content with transgression, we have
added iniquities to it. No one is more greedy than a sinner, but he is
greedy after his own destruction! He is never content with
revolting–he must rebel yet more and more. As when a stone is rolled
downhill, its pace is accelerated the further it goes, so is it with
the sinner–he goes from bad to worse.

Perhaps I speak to some who have lately come into God's Hospital. I
will suppose a case. You are poor, very poor. But your poverty is the
fruit of your profligate habits. Poverty is often directly traceable to
drunkenness, laziness, or dishonesty. All poverty does not come from
these sources. Blessed be God, there are thousands of the poor who are
the excellent of the earth–and a great many of them are serving God
right nobly! But I am now speaking of certain cases and probably you
know of such yourselves where, because of their transgression and
iniquities, men are brought to need. There will come to me, sometimes,
a person who was in good circumstances a few years ago, who is now
without anything but the clothes he tries to stand upright in. And his
wretchedness is entirely owing to his playing the prodigal. He is one
of those whom I trust God may yet take into His Hospital.

At times the disease breaks out in another sort of misery. Some sins
bring into the flesh itself pains which are anticipatory of Hell–yet
even these persons may be taken into the Hospital of God, though they
are afflicted to their shame through gross transgression. Oh, how many
there are in this great city of London, of men and women who dare not
tell their condition, but whose story is a terrible one, indeed, as God
reads it! Oh, that He may have pity upon them and take them into His
hospital and heal them through His abundant Grace!

In more numerous cases, the misery brought by sin is mental. Many are
brought very low by sin–even to despair. Conscience pricks them. Fears
of death and Hell haunt them. I remember well when I was in this way
myself. When I, poor fool, because of my transgression and my
iniquities, was sorely bowed in spirit. By day I thought of the
punishment of my sin. By night I dreamed of it. I woke in the morning
with a burden on my heart–a burden which I could neither carry nor
shake off–and sin was at the bottom of my sorrow. My sin, my sin, my
sin–this was my constant plague! I was in my youth and in the heyday
of my spirit. I had all earthly comforts and I had friends to cheer me,
but they were all as nothing. I would seek solitary places to search
the Scriptures and to read such books as Baxter's Call to the
Unconverted and Alleine's Alarm, feeling my soul plowed more and more,
as though the Law, with its ten great black horses, was dragging the
plow up and down my soul breaking, crushing, furrowing my heart–and
all for sin. Let me tell you, though we read of the cruelties of the
Inquisition and the sufferings which the martyrs have borne from cruel
men–no racks, nor fire pans, nor other instruments of torture can make
a man so wretched as his own conscience when he is stretched upon its
rack!

Here then, we see both the fools and the cause of their disease.

III. Now let us notice THE PROGRESS OF THE DISEASE. It is said that
"their soul abhors all manner of meat," like persons who have lost
their appetite and can eat nothing–"and they draw near unto the gates
of death"–they are given over and nearly dead.

These words may reach some whose disease of sin has developed itself
into fearful sorrow so that they are near unable to find comfort in
anything. You used to enjoy the theater–you went lately but you were
wretched there. You used to be a wit in society and set the table on a
roar with your jokes–but you cannot joke now. They say you are
melancholy, but you know what they do not know, for a secret arrow
rankles in your bosom. You go to a place of worship, but you find no
comfort even there. The manner of meat that is served to God's saints
is not suitable to you. You cry, "Alas, I am not worthy of it!"
Whenever you hear a sermon thundering against the ungodly, you feel,
"Ah, that is for me!" But when it comes to, "Comfort you, comfort you
My people," you conclude, "Ah, that is notfor me!" Even if it is an
invitation to the sinner, you say, "But I do not feel myself a sinner.
I am not such an one as may come to Christ. Surely I am a castaway."
Your soul abhors all manner of meat, even that out of God's kitchen.
Not only are you dissatisfied with the world's dainties, but the marrow
and fatness of Christ, Himself, you cannot relish. Many of us have been
in this way before you.

The text adds, "They draw near unto the gates of death." The soul is
exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death, and feels that it cannot bear
up much longer. I remember once, in the bitterness of my spirit, using
those words of Job, "My soul chooses strangling and death rather than
my life," for the wretchedness of a sin-burdened soul is intolerable.
All do not suffer like strong convictions but in some it bows the
spirit almost to the grave! Perhaps, my Friend, you see no hope
whatever. You are ready to say, "There cannot be any hope for me. I
have made a covenant with death and a league with Hell. I am past hope.
There were, years ago, opportunities for me, and I was near the Kingdom
of God, but like the man who put his hand to the plow and then looked
back, I have proven myself unworthy of eternal life." Troubled Heart, I
am sent with a message for you–"Thus says the Lord, your covenant with
death shall be disannulled and your league with Hell shall not stand.
The prey shall be taken from the mighty and the lawful captive shall be
delivered." You may abhor the very meat that would restore you to
strength, but He who understands the human heart knows how to give you
better tastes and cure these evil whims! He knows how to bring you up
from the gates of death to the gates of Heaven! Thus we see how
terribly the mischief progresses–

"Our beauty and our strength are fled,

And we draw near to death,

But Christ the Lord recalls the dead

With His almighty breath."

IV. And now the disease takes a turn. Our fourth point is THE
INTERPOSITION OF THE PHYSICIAN. "Then they cry unto the Lord in their
trouble, and He saves them out of their distresses. He sent His Word
and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions."

The Good Physician is the true Healer. Observe when the Physician comes
in–when "they cry unto the Lord in their trouble." When they cry, the
Physician has come! I will not say that He has come because they cry,
though that would be true–but there is deeper truth still–they cried
because He came! For whenever a soul truly cries unto God, God has
already blessed it by enabling it to cry. You would never have begun to
pray if the Lord had not taught you. God is visiting a soul and healing
it when it has enough faith in God to cast itself, with a cry, upon His
mercy! I cannot hope that there is a work of Grace in you until I know
that you pray. Ananias would not have believed that Paul was converted
had it not been said, "Behold he prays!"

Note the kind of prayer here. It was not taken out of a book and it was
not a fine prayer in language, whether extempore or composed–it was a
cry. You do not need to teach your children how to cry–it is the first
thing a newborn child does. It needs no schoolmaster to teach it that
art! Our School Boards have a great deal to teach the children of
London, but they need never have a department for instruction in
crying. A spiritual cry is the call of the new-born

nature expressing conscious need. "How shall I pray?" says one. Pour
your heart out, Brother. Turn the vessel upside down and let the
contents run out to the last dreg as best they can. "But I cannot
pray," says one. Tell the Lord you cannot pray and ask Him to help you
pray and you have already prayed! "Oh, but I don't feel as I should!"
Then confess to the Lord your sinful insensibility and ask Him to make
your heart tender and you are already in a measure softened! Those who
say, "We don't feel as we should," are very often those who feel the
most. Whether it is so or not, cry. If you are a sin-sick soul, you can
do nothing towards your own healing but this–you can cry. He who hears
your cries will know what they mean. When the surgeon goes to the
battlefield after a conflict, he is guided to his compassionate work by
the groans of the wounded. When he hears a soldier's cry, he does not
inquire, "Was that a Frenchman or a German, and what does he mean?" A
cry is good French and excellent German, too! It is part of the
universal tongue. The surgeon understands it and looks for the sick
man. And whatever language you use, O Sinner, uncouth or refined, if it
is the language of your heart, God understands you without an
interpreter!

Note well that as we have seen when the Physician interposed, we shall
see next what He did. He saved them out of their distresses, healed
them and delivered them from their destructions! Oh, the Infinite Mercy
of God! He reveals to the heart pardon for all sin and, by His Holy
Spirit's power, removes all our weaknesses. I tell you, Soul, though
you are at death's door this moment, God can even now gloriously
deliver you! It would be a wonder if your poor burdened spirit should,
within this hour, leap for joy and yet, if the Lord shall visit you in
mercy, you will do so! I fall back upon my own recollection. My escape
from despondency was instantaneous. I did but believe Jesus Christ's
word and rest upon His Sacrifice and the night of my heart was
over–the darkness had passed and the true light had shone! In some
parts of the world there are not long twilights before the break of
day–the sun leaps up in a moment. The darkness flies and the light
reigns–so it is with many of the Lord's redeemed. As in a moment,
their ashes are exchanged for beauty and their spirit of heaviness for
the garment of praise! Faith is the great transformer! Will you cast
yourself, now, whether you shall live or die, upon the precious blood
and merits of Jesus Christ the Savior? Will you come and rest your soul
upon the Son of God? As you do so, you are saved! Your sins, which are
many, are now forgiven you! As of old the Egyptians were drowned in a
moment in the Red Sea, and the depths had covered them so that there
was not one of them left, so the moment you believe, you have lifted a
mightier rod than that of Moses! And the sea of the atoning blood, in
the fullness of its strength, has gone over the heads of all your
enemies–your sins are drowned in Jesus' blood! Oh, what joy is this
when, in answer to a cry, God delivers us from our present distresses
and our threatened future destructions!

But how is this effected?The Psalmist says, "He sent His Word and
healed them." "His Word."How God enables language when He uses it!That
word, "Word,"is lifted up in Scripture into the foremost place and put
on a level with the Godhead. "THE WORD." It indicates a God-like
Personage for, "in the beginning was the Word." No, it denotes God
Himself, for, "the Word was God." Our hope is the Word–the Incarnate
Logos, the Eternal Word. In some respects, our salvation comes to us
entirely through the sending of that Word to be made flesh and to dwell
among us. He is our saving health–by His stripes we are healed. But
here the expression is best understood of the Gospel, which is the Word
of God. Often the reading of the Scriptures proves the means of healing
troubled souls or else that same Word is made effectual when spoken
from a loving heart with living lips. What might there is in the plain
preaching of the Gospel! No power in all the world can match it. They
tell us, nowadays, that the nation will go over to Rome and the Gospel
candle will be blown out. I am not a believer in these alarming
prophecies. I neither believe in the battle of Dorking, nor in the
victory of Pius the Ninth. Leave us our Bibles, our pulpits and our
God, and we shall win the victory! Oh, if all ministers preached the
Gospel plainly, without aiming at rhetoric and high flights of oratory,
what great triumphs would follow! How sharp would the Gospel sword
prove itself to be if men would but pull it out of those fine
ornamental, but useless scabbards! When the Lord enables His servants
to put plain Gospel truth into language that will strike and stick, be
understood and retained, it heals sick souls that otherwise might have
lain fainting a long time!

Still, the Word of God in the Bible and the Word of God preached cannot
heal the soul unless God shall send it in the most emphatic sense. "He
sent His Word." When the eternal Spirit brings home the Word with
power, what a Word it is! Then the miracles of Grace worked within us
are such as to astonish friends and confound foes! May the Lord, even
now, send His Word to each sinner and it will be his salvation! "Hear,
and your soul shall live." "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the
Word of God." And faith brings with it all that the soul requires. When
we have faith, we are linked with Christ and so our salvation is
ensured.

V. That brings us to the last point–THE CONSEQUENT CONDUCT OF THOSE
WHO WERE HEALED.

First, they praised God for His goodness. What rare praise a soul
offers where it is brought out of prison! The sweetest music ever heard
on earth is found in those new songs which celebrate our recent
deliverance from the horrible pit and the miry clay. Did you ever keep
a sparrow in a cage and then think that it was cruel to rob it of its
liberty? Did you take it out into the garden and open the cage door?
Oh, but if you could have heard it sing when it had escaped from the
cage where it had been so long, you would have heard the best sparrow
music in all the woods! When a poor soul breaks forth from the dungeon
of despair, set free by God, what songs it pours forth! God loves to
hear such music. Remember that ancient Word of His, "I remember you,
the kindness of your youth, the love of your espousals, when you went
after Me in the wilderness." God loves the warm-hearted praises of
newly-emancipated souls and He will get some out of you, dear Friend,
if you are set free at this hour!

Notice that these healed ones praised God especially for His goodness.
It was great goodness that such as they were should be saved. So near
death's door and yet saved! They wondered at His mercy and sang of "His
wonderful works to the children of men." It is wonderful that such as
we were should be redeemed from our iniquities, but our Redeemer's name
is called Wonderful, and He delights in showing forth the riches of His
Grace.

Observe that in their praises they ascribe all to God–they praise Him
for His wonderful work Salvation is God's work, from beginning to end.
Their song is, moreover, comprehensive, and they adore the Lord for His
love to others as well as to themselves–they praise Him "for His
wonderful works to the children of men."

Forget not that they added to this praise, sacrifice. "Let them
sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving." What shall be the sacrifices
of a sinner delivered from going down into the Pit? Shall he bring a
bull that has horns and hoofs? No, let him bring his heart! Let him
offer himself, his time, his talents, his body, his soul, his
substance. Let him exclaim, "Let my Lord take all, seeing that He has
saved my soul." Will you not lay yourselves out for Him who laid
Himself out for you? If He has bought you with such a price, confess
that you are altogether His! Of your substance give to His cause. As He
prospers you, prove that you are really His by your generosity towards
His Church and His poor!

In addition to sacrifice, the healed ones began to offer songs, for it
was to be a "sacrifice of thanksgiving."May those of you who are
pardoned sing more than is customary nowadays. May we, each one of us,
who have been delivered from going down to the Pit, enter into the
choir of God's praising ones–vocally singing as often as we can–and
in our hearts always chanting His praise!

Once more, the grateful ones were to add to their gifts and Psalms, a
declaration of joy at what God had done for them. "Let them declare His
works with rejoicing." You who are pardoned should tell the Church of
the Lord's mercy to you. Let His people know that God is discovering
His hidden ones. Come and tell the minister. Nothing gladdens him so
much as to know that souls are brought to Jesus by his means. This is
our reward. You are our crown of rejoicing, you saved ones! I can truly
say that I never have such joy as when I receive letters from persons,
or hear from them personally the good news, "I heard you on
such-and-such a night and found peace." Or, "I read your sermon and God
blessed it to my soul." There is not a true minister of Christ but
would willingly lay himself down to die if he could thereby see
multitudes saved from eternal wrath! We live for this. If we miss this,
our life is a failure. What is the use of a minister unless he brings
souls to God? For this we would yearn over you and draw near unto God
in secret, that He would be pleased in mercy to deliver you!

But, surely, if you are converted, you should not conceal the fact! It
is an unkind action for any person who has received life from the dead
through any instrumentality to deny the worker the consolation of
hearing that he has been made useful–for the servant of God has many
discouragements and he is, himself, readily cast down. And the
gratitude of those who are saved is one of the appointed cordials for
his heavy heart. There is no refreshment like it! May God grant you
Grace to declare His love, for our sake, for the Church's sake and,
indeed, for the world's sake! Let the sinner know that you have found
mercy–perhaps it will induce him, also, to seek salvation. Many a
physician has gained his practice by one patient telling others of his
cure. Tell your neighbors that you have been to the Hospital of Jesus
and been restored, though you hated all manner of meat and drew near to
the gates of death! And maybe a poor soul in the same condition as
yourself will say, "This is a message from God to me."

Above all, publish abroad the Lord's goodness for Jesus' sake. He
deserves your honor. Will you receive His blessing and then, like the
nine lepers, give Him no praise? Will you be like the woman in the
crowd who was healed by touching

the hem of His garment and then would gladly have slipped away? If so,
I pray that the Master may say, "Somebody has touched Me," and may you
be compelled to tell us all the truth and say, "I was sorely sick in
soul, but I touched You, O my blessed Lord, and I am saved! And to the
praise of the glory of Your Grace I will tell it! I will tell it though
devils should hear me! I will tell it and make the world ring with it
according to my ability, to the praise and Glory of Your saving Grace!"

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM107:1-22.

Verse 1. O give thanks unto the LORD, for He is good: for His mercy
endures forever In the heading of this Psalm we are reminded that the
Psalmist here exhorts the redeemed, in praising God, to observe His
manifold Providence over travelers, prisoners, sick men, seamen "and in
divers varieties of life." But, inasmuch as the exhortation is
especially addressed to the redeemed of the Lord, I shall endeavor to
cast the red ray of redemption over it and to explain these various
circumstances as relating to the spiritual experience of God's people
and to their deliverance out of divers perils to which their souls are
exposed.

"O give thanks unto the Lord." This seems to imply that we are so slow
to praise God that we have to be stirred up to this sacred duty! This
exhortation looks as if we needed to be entreated to give thanks unto
the Lord. Yet this ought not to be an uncongenial or disagreeable task.
It ought to be our pleasure to praise the Lord. We should be eager to
do it and yet it is to be feared that we are often silent when we ought
to be giving thanks unto His holy name. "O give thanks unto the Lord,
for He is good." Whether you give Him your praises, or–

"Let His mercies lie Forgotten in unthankfulness, And without praises
die"– He deserves them, "for He is good: for His mercy endures
forever."

2, 3. Let the redeemed ofthe LORD sayso, whom He has redeemed from the
hand ofthe enemy; andgathered them out of the lands from the east, and
from the west, from the north, and from the south. Whenever God's
people are redeemed from the hand of the enemy, and gathered unto
Himself, it is always by His Grace and power. They are not only
gathered to Him, but they are gathered byHim and, therefore, let them
all praise His holy name!

4. They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no
city to dwell in. This is the experience of all God's redeemed and
gathered ones–they were, at one time, all lost and wandering to and
fro in the wilderness–as God's ancient people did.

5, 6. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried
unto the LORD in their trouble, and He delivered them out of their
distresses. This is the point to which a true spiritual experience
sooner or later brings all God's elect ones! They cry unto the Lord in
their trouble. The end, the design of their trouble is that they may
cry unto Him! And when they do so, it is absolutely certain that they
shall be delivered out of their distresses.

7-11. AndHe led them forth by the right way, that they mightgo to a
city ofhabitation. Oh that men wouldpraise the LORD for His goodness,
and for His wonderful works to the children of men! For He satisfies
the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with goodness. Such as sit
in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and
iron; because they rebelled against the words of God, and despised the
counsel ofthe Most High. All God's people, all His redeemed have been
made to feel, in a greater or lesser degree, the agony of their
spiritual bondage. They have been like captives sitting in darkness,
dreading death, realizing that they are utterly unable to deliver
themselves. They have been rebellious against the words of God, and
have despised His counsel, so that it is absolutely necessary that they
should be brought to their right position and be made to kneel before
the Lord in true humility of heart.

12-16. Therefore He brought down their heart with labor; they fell
down, and there was none to help. Then they cried unto the LORD in
their trouble. and He saved them out of their distresses. He brought
them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and broke their bonds in
sunder Oh that men wouldpraise the Lord for His goodness, and for His
wonderful works to the children of men! For He has broken the gates of
brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder Is any child of God thus shut
up in the dark? Those of you who have ever been lost in a London fog
know what a depression of

spirit it brings upon you while you are in the impenetrable darkness
out of which you cannot see any way of escape. All that you can do is
to stand still and cry out for help. Well, try what crying to God will
do for you in your spiritual depression! Your spirit is cast down into
the very deeps–then, out of the depths cry unto the Lord as Jonah did!
Rest in Him! Trust in Him, and see whether He will not bring you up
into the light of His Countenance!

17, 18. Fools because of their transgression, and because of their
iniquities, are afflicted. Their soul abhors all manner of meat; and
they draw near unto the gates of death. All God's redeemed people have
suffered from soul-sickness and some of them have suffered from it so
acutely that they have lost all appetite for spiritual comfort. "Their
soul abhors all manner of meat." They cannot bear the sight or the
thought of it. A man in this condition says, "Do not bring me any food.
I loathe it." The very nourishment that might have restored him, he
rejects because of the nausea which soul-sickness brings.

19, 20. Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, andHe saves them
out of their distresses. He sent His Word, and healed them, and
delivered them from their destructions. He healed them with His Word.
And there is a remedy, in God's Word, for every form of spiritual
malady. What we need to know is where the particular remedy for our
special form of soul-sickness is to be found–and this, the Holy Spirit
will teach us if we will but ask Him!

21, 22. Oh that men would praise the LORD for His goodness, and for His
wonderful works to the children of men!

were published with Sermons #3061–THE RULE OF GRACE and 3064–"AD IT
WAS SO" both Volume 53]