Holy Longings

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 27, 1881,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"My soul breaks with longing for Your Judgments at all times." Psalm
119:20.

ONE of the best tests of a man's character will be found in his deepest
and heartiest longings. You cannot always judge a man by what he is
doing at any one time, for he may be under constraints which compel him
to act contrary to his true self, or he may be under an impulse from
which he will soon be free. He may, for a while, back off from that
which is evil and yet he may be radically bad. Or he may be constrained
by force of temptation to that which is wrong, yet his real self may
rejoice in righteousness. A man may not be pronounced to be good
because, for the moment, what he is doing may be condemned as evil
because, under certain constraints, he may be committing sin. A man's
longings are more inward and more near to his real self than his
outward acts–they are more natural, in that they are entirely free and
beyond compulsion or restraint.

As a man longs in his heart, so is he. I mean not every idle wish, as I
now speak, but strong desires of the heart– these are the true life of
a man's nature. You shall know whether you, yourself, are evil by
answering this question. To which have you the greatest desire? Do you
continually long after selfish pleasures? Then you are evil beyond all
question! Do you sigh to be and feel and do that which is good? Is this
the great aim of your life? Then in the core of your being there is
some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel. So then, dear Hearers,
your heart-longings may furnish you with helps for self-examination and
I beg you to apply them, as things of the heart touch the root of the
matter. Unbelievers are "a people that do err in their heart" and men
truly find the Lord when they "seek Him with their whole heart"–so
that the heart is all-important and its longings are among the surest
marks of its condition.

Moreover, heart-longings are prophecies of what a man will be. It is
not always capacity, if we could ascertain it, which will certify us as
to what a man will do, for many men of large abilities achieve nothing
for lack of inclination– their talents lie hidden in the earth and,
albeit they might have succeeded marvelously well in certain
pursuits–they do nothing at all remarkable because they have no
tendencies in that direction. An individual may have the means to
relieve the poor and yet never perform a charitable act from lack of
generosity. Or he may have great mental powers and yet never produce a
line of useful literature because he is eaten up with idleness. But
other things being equal, the longings of a man are a pretty sure index
of what he will be–they cannot create capacity, but they develop
it–they lead to the use of means for its increase and they make the
mind keen to seize opportunities.

By some means or other a man usually becomes what he intensely longs to
be, especially if those desires are formed in early youth while yet the
world is all before him where to choose. Hence our proverb–"The child
is father to the man." Even in little children tastes and pursuits have
been prophetic–the young artist sketches his sister in the cradle–the
youthful engineer is busy with his boyish inventions. If his longings
deepen, strengthen and become vehement with the increase of his years,
the young man's character is being molded from within and this is often
a greater force than that of circumstances acting from without.

Thus it is in spiritual things–we may form forecasts as to what we
shall be from our burning and pressing desires. Desires are the buds
out of which words and deeds will ultimately be developed. Spiritual
desires are the shadows of coming blessings. What God intends to give
us, He first sets us longing for. Therefore the wonderful efficacy of
prayer, because prayer is the embodiment of a longing inspired of God
because He intends to bestow the blessing! What are your longings,
then, my Hearer? Do you long to be holy? The Lord will make you holy!
Do you long to conquer sin? You shall overcome it by faith in Jesus!.
Are you pining after fellowship with Christ? He will come and make His
abode with you! Does your soul thirst, yes, even pant after God as the
hart for the water brooks? Then you shall be filled with all His

fullness, for all these longings are prophetic of that which is to be,
even as the snowdrop and crocus and anemone foretell the approach of
Spring.

I say not that it is so with all human wishes, for "the sluggard
desires and has nothing" and many a man has such evil cravings within
his heart that it were contrary to the purity of God for Him to grant
them. But where there are intense, heart-breaking yearnings of a holy
order, depend upon it, they are tokens of good things to come! Where
the Grace of God reigns in the soul, it makes a man become a stranger
among his fellows and it breeds in him peculiar affections and novel
desires. The verse which precedes my text runs thus–"I am a stranger
in the earth"–he was a king surrounded by courtiers and friends and
yet he was not at home, but like one banished from his native land. And
being thus a stranger in the earth, he had a remarkable desire which
worldlings could not understand and that singular craving he here
ex-presses–"My soul breaks with longing for Your Judgments at all
times."

Worldly men care nothing for the Judgments of God. No, they care
nothing for God, Himself! But when a man becomes new born, a citizen of
Heaven, there grows up within his spirit a spiritual appetite of which
he had felt nothing before–and he longs after God and His holy Word.
See to it, Brothers and Sisters, whether your souls cry out for God,
for the living God, for again I say, by your longings you may test
yourselves–by your heart's desires you may forecast your future–and
by your hungering and thirsting you may judge whether you are men of
this world or citizens of the world to come. With such aids to
self-judgment, no man ought to remain in doubt as to his spiritual
condition and eternal prospects.

In order that we may be helped to the right use of this text, we shall
handle it thus–first, we shall notice the saint's absorbing
object–"Your Judgments." Secondly, we shall reflect upon the saint's
ardent longing–"My soul breaks with longing for Your Judgments." And,
thirdly, we shall mention the saint's cheering reflections which he may
readily draw from the fact that he does experience such inward
heart-break. Of these we will speak as the Divine Spirit shall enable
us, for without Him we know nothing.

I. First, then, let us think OF THE SAINTS' ABSORBING OBJECTIVE. They
long after God's Judgments. The word, "Judgments," is here used as
synonymous with the, "Word of God." It does not mean those Judgments of
God with which He smites sinners and executes the sentence of His Law,
but it refers to the revealed will or declared Judgments of God. All
through this long Psalm the writer is speaking of the Word of God, the
Law of God, the testimonies, the precepts, the statutes of God–and
here the word, "Judgments," is used in the same sense. Perhaps I shall
give you the meaning pretty readily if I remind you that the
Commandments and doctrines of the Word are God's Judgments about moral
and spiritual things–His decisions as to what is right and what is
wrong–and His solutions of the great problems of the universe.

God's revealed plan of salvation is God's decision upon man's
destiny–God's judgment of condemnation against human sin–and yet His
judgment of justification on behalf of believing sinners whom He
regards as righteous through faith in Jesus Christ. The Bible may be
rightly regarded as the book of Divine Judgments, the recorded
sentences of the High Court of Heaven, the Infallible decision of
perfect holiness upon questions which concern our souls–

"This is the Judge that ends the strife

Where wit and reason fail

Our guide through devious paths of life,

Our shield when doubts assail." You may come to the Scriptures as men
came to the throne of Solomon, where hard cases were at once met. But a
greater than Solomon is here! Search God's Word and you will have
before your eyes the ultimate judgment of unerring Truth, the last
decree from the supreme Authority from which there is no appeal! The
Bible contains the verdicts of the Judge of all the earth, the
Judgments of God who cannot lie and cannot err.

Thus God's Word is rightly called His "Judgments." It is a book not to
be judged by us, but to be our judge–not a word of it may be altered
or questioned–but to it we may constantly refer as to a court of
appeal whose sentence is decisive. David in our text tells us how he
desired the Lord's Judgments, or His Word by which we understand,
first, that he greatly reverenced the Word of God. He was not among
those who regard the Bible as only a very important portion of human
literature, but as being no more Inspired than the works of Shakespeare
or Bacon. Little as David had of the Scriptures, he had a solemn
reverence for what he had and stood in awe of it. I have no objection
to honest criticism of

the keenest kind, but I am shocked at certain Divines who cut and carve
the blessed Word of God as if it were some vile carcass given over to
their butchery.

When learned men handle the words of this Book, let them not forget
whose Book it is and whose words they are that they are examining!
There is a near approach to blasphemy against God Himself in
irreverence to His Word. There is no book like this for authority and
majesty–it is hedged about with solemn sanctions so that it has both a
wall of fire round about it and a glory in its midst to make it
distinct from all other writings. All other books might be heaped
together in one pile and burned–as the Muslims burned the Alexandrian
Library–with less loss to the world than would be occasioned by the
total obliteration of a single page of the sacred volume! All other
books are at the best but as gold leaf, whereof it takes acres to make
an ounce of the precious metal. But this Book is solid gold! It
contains ingots, masses, mines, yes, whole worlds of priceless
treasure, nor could its contents be exchanged for pearls, rubies, or
the "terrible crystal" itself.

Even in the mental wealth of the wisest men there are no jewels like
the Truths of Revelation. Oh, Sirs, the thoughts of men are vanity, the
conceptions of men are low and groveling at their best–and He who has
given us this Book has said, "My thoughts are not your thoughts; for as
the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My thoughts higher than
your thoughts." Let it be to you and to me a settled matter that the
Word of the Lord shall be honored in our minds and enshrined in our
hearts! Let others speak as they may, "our soul breaks with longing for
the Lord's Judgments." We could sooner part with all that is sublime
and beautiful, cheering or profitable in human literature than lose a
single syllable from the mouth of God.

But more–inasmuch as the Psalmist greatly reverenced God's Word, he
intensely desired to know its contents. He had not much of it–probably
only the five books of Moses–but the Pentateuch was enough to fill his
whole soul with delight. Never depreciate, I pray you, the Old
Testament! Remember that the great things that are said in the Psalms
about the Word of God were not spoken concerning the New Testament,
which was not then written–although they may most fitly be applied by
us to the entire series of Inspired Books, yet they were originally
spoken only concerning the first five of them–so that the first part
of the Bible, according to the Holy Spirit's own testimony, is to be
valued beyond all price.

Indeed, the substance of the New Testament is in the books of Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy–there shut up like Noah in
the ark or hidden like Moses in his mother's house. The lovely form of
queenly Truth is there, only her veil conceals her countenance. The
clearer shining of the New Testament is not a different light, nor
perhaps is it, in itself, brighter–it shines through a thinner medium
and, therefore, more fully enlightens us. If I might venture to compare
one part of God's Word with another, I have even thought that the first
books are the deepest and that if we had but skill to find it out, we
should discover within them a more condensed mass of Revelation than
even in the New Testament! I will not defend the opinion, but usually
the lower strata, though most hidden, are the most dense and certainly
that which is most easy to be understood is not, therefore, of
necessity the fullest of meaning, but the reverse.

The various books of Scripture do not increase in real value, they only
advance in their adaptation to us. The Light is the same, but the
lantern is clearer and we see more. The treasure of the Gospel is
contained in the mines of the Books of Moses and I do not wonder,
therefore, that David, instinctively knowing it to be there, but not
being able to reach it, felt a great longing after it. He was not so
well able to get at the Truths of God as we are since he had not the
life of Christ to explain the types, nor Apostolic explanations to open
up the symbols of the Law and, therefore, he sighed inwardly and felt a
killing heartbreak of desire to reach that which he knew was laid up in
store for him. He saw the jewelry box, but could not find the key!

If he had not been sure that the treasure was there, he would not have
cried, "Open You my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Your
Law." But he was like a voyager on the verge of a discovery who,
nevertheless, cannot quite reach it. He was like Columbus out at sea
with the fruits of an unknown continent floating beneath his keel but
the wind did not favor his reaching the shore. He was like a miner
whose pick has struck upon a lump of metal and he is sure that gold is
there, but he cannot get it away from the quartz in which it is
embedded. The more certain he is that it is there and the harder it is
to reach, the more insatiable does his desire become to possess the
treasure! Hence I see the reasonableness of the Psalmist's vehement
passion and I marvel not that he cried, "My soul breaks with longing
for Your Judgments at all times."

But I am sure that David did not merely want to know as a matter of
intellectual pleasure, but wished to feed upon God's Word and what a
very different thing that is, that feeding upon the Word of God, from
the bare knowledge of it! You can teach a child many chapters out of
the Bible and yet it may not have fed on a word of it. I have known
persons to be so foolish as to set it as a punishment for a child to
learn a portion of Scripture. I call this foolish and surely it is also
wicked to make the Word of God into a punishment–as well turn the
Temple into a prison! Undoubtedly many know the history, the doctrine
and the letter of God's Word as well as others know their Homer or
their Virgil and, so far, so good. But oh, to feed upon the Word of God
is quite another thing!

An oven full of bread is well enough, but for nourishment, a loaf on
the table is better and a morsel in the mouth is better, still! And if
the mouthfuls are well digested and taken up into the system they are,
then, best of all! In like manner, Truths of God in a sermon are to be
valued, but the Truths of God attentively heard comes nearer to
practical benefit and Truth of God believed is better, still! And
Truths of God absorbed into the spiritual system are best of all! Alas,
I fear we are not so absorbent as we ought to be. I like to see men who
can be spiritual sponges of God's Truth–suck it right up and take it
into themselves! It would be well, however, that they would not be so
far like sponges as to part with the Truth when the hands of the world
attempt to wring it out of them!

I say we are not receptive enough, Brothers and Sisters, and that
because our hearts are not in tune with God. Do we not feel, at times,
that certain doctrines of the Word are hardly to our mind? We do not
quite agree with the Divine Judgments on this or that–we dare not
question their rightness–but we rather wish they were different.
Friends, this must not be so any longer! All that kind of feeling must
be gone! We must agree with God in all that He has spoken and let our
belief run side by side with the teaching of the Lord. It is high time
that we were altogether agreed with God. "Do you not know that the
saints shall judge the world?" "Know you not that we shall judge
angels?" We shall sit, at the Last Great Day, as assessors with Christ
in the great assize to judge the fallen spirits! Does it not become us
to be of the same mind with our Lord? Should we not delight in His Word
even now that we may the more heartily say, "Amen," to His verdict from
the Great White Throne?

Our judgment must be daily more and more conformed to the Judgments of
God which are laid down in Scripture and there must, at any rate, be in
our spirit a longing after holiness until we delight in the Law of the
Lord and meditate therein both day and night. We shall grow to the
likeness of that which we feed upon–heavenly food will make us
heavenly-minded! The Word of God received into the heart changes us
into its own nature and, by rejoicing in the decisions of the Lord, we
learn to judge after His Judgment and to delight ourselves in that
which pleases Him. This sense, I think, comes nearer to the explanation
of David's intense longing. Doubtless, he longed to obey God's Word–he
wished in everything to do the will of God without fault either of
omission or of commission. He prays in another place, "Teach me Your
Law perfectly."

Do you, my Hearer, long after perfection in that same fashion? All that
truly know God must have a mighty yearning to run in the way of the
Lord's Commandments. He does not live before God who does not crave to
live like God. There is no regeneration where there are no aspirations
after holiness. The actual practice of obedience is necessary as a
proof of the possession of true Grace, for the rule is invariable, "By
their fruits you shall know them." No man knows the Word of God till he
obeys it–"If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine."

The Psalmist also longed to feel the power of God's Judgments in his
own heart. You know something about this, my Friend, if the Spirit of
God has had dealings with you. Have you not felt the Lord judging you
in the chamber of your conscience? The Spirit comes by the Word of God
and sets our iniquities before us, our secret sins in the light of His
Countenance. You had forgotten the wrong, or at least you hardly
remembered it as a sin–but suddenly you saw it all. As I have looked
upon a landscape under a cloudy sky, a gleam of sunlight has suddenly
fallen upon one portion of it and made it stand out brilliantly from
the midst of the surrounding gloom–so has the Holy Spirit poured a
clear light upon some one act or set of acts of my life and I have seen
it as I never saw it before.

That inner Light has judged us and led us to seek fresh cleansing–the
Judgments of God have come into our souls and led us anew to cry for
mercy. I have found it so, have you? The sins of our youth and our
former transgressions have been judged of the Lord within us. I do not
think that David fully recognized all the sins of his youth till he had
become an old man and, alas, many who have sinned in ways in which he
never erred have failed to know the evil of their transgressions till
in their bones and in their flesh they have felt its terrible effects
years afterwards! The Lord will judge His

people and make sin bitter to them! Ought we to wish for this? I say,
Yes! Every true man should feel a longing in his soul to have every sin
within him exposed, condemned and executed. He should wish to hide
nothing, but that it would be revealed and he be humbled by the sight.

There are two judgments, one of which we must undergo–either judgment
in the forum of the conscience, or else judgment before the Great White
Throne at last. You must either condemn yourself or be condemned! A
court of arraigns must be held in your heart and you must be tried,
cast and condemned in your own soul or else you will not fully know the
Judgments of the Lord, or truly seek pardon at His hands. God justifies
the men who condemn themselves and none but these shall ever obtain the
righteousness which is of God by faith. Therefore we may long for
stripping judgments that we may obtain the robe of Righteousness! We
may cry to be emptied that Grace may fill us! David desires that God's
Word would come right into him and hold its court and judge and try
him–and he came to feel this process to be so necessary and so
salutary that his soul broke with the longing which he had to be dealt
with by God after this fashion.

This is wisdom and prudence when a man so desires sanctification that
he is straitened till painful processes are being carried on by which
his purity is to be produced. It is a wise child that will, for the
sake of health, even long to take the appointed medicine! God's
children are not far from being well when they have reached such a
point of sacred judgment! This is the wish of all true Believers–to be
perfectly conformed to the Word of God. Some of us can honestly say
that we would not have a second wish for ourselves if our heavenly
Father would grant us this one–that we might be perfect even as He is.
We would leave all other matters with Him as to wealth or poverty,
health or sickness, honor or shame, life or death if He would but give
us complete conformity to His will. This is the objective of the
craving, yearning and sighing of our souls. We hunger to be holy!

Here I must correct myself as to our one desire, for surely, if the
Lord would make us holy we should then desire that all other men would
be the same! Oh that the world were converted to God! Oh that the Truth
of God would go forth like the brightness of the morning! Would God
that every error and superstition might be chased away like bats and
owls before the rising of the sun! O God, Your servants long for this!
We ask for nothing except these two things–first reign, O Lord, in the
triple kingdom of our nature–and then reign over ALL nature! Let the
whole earth be filled with Your Glory and our prayers are ended! I hope
that in this sense our soul breaks for the longing which it has towards
God's Judgments.

II. And now, secondly, let us think of THE SAINT'S ARDENT LONGINGS.
First, let me say of these longings that they constitute a living
experience, for dead things have no aspirations or cravings. You shall
visit the graveyard and exhume all the bodies you please, but you shall
find neither desire nor craving! Longing lingers not within a lifeless
corpse. Where the heart is breaking with desire, there is life. This
may comfort some of you–you have not attained, as yet, to the holiness
you desire, but you long for it–ah, then you are a living soul, the
life of God is in you! You have not yet come to be conformed to the
precept, but oh how you wish you were–that wish proves that a spark of
the Divine Life is in your soul.

The stronger that longing becomes, the stronger is the life from which
it springs–a feeble life has feeble desires–a vigorous life has
vehement desires, burning like coals of juniper! Are you earnestly
longing this morning? Can you say that your heart pines for God as the
watcher through the midnight sighs for the dawn, or as the traveler
over burning sand longs for the shadow of a great rock? Oh, then,
though I would not have you rest in longings–and indeed, I know you
never can–yet they are a proof that you are spiritually alive!
Heart-longings are far better tests than attendance at sacraments, for
men who are dead in sin have dared to come both to Baptism and the
Lord's Supper. Eager desires prove spiritual life much better than
supposed attainments, for these supposed attainments may all be
imaginary–but a heart breaking for the longing which it has to God's
Word is no fancy–it is a fact too painful to be denied!

Next, remember the expression used in our text represents a humble
sense of imperfection. David had not yet come to be completely
conformed to God's Words, nor yet to know them perfectly, or else he
would not have said that he longed for them. So it is with us. We have
not reached perfection, but do not let us, therefore, be discouraged,
for the Apostle of the Gentiles said, "Not as though I had already
attained, either were already perfect." And the man after God's own
heart, even David, when he was at his best, and I think he was so when
he was writing this blessed Psalm, says not so much that he had
obtained anything as that he longed after it, not so much that he had
yet grasped it, but sighed for it– "my soul breaks for the longing
that it has."

I do not envy those who have no more longings, who have reached so
divine a height that they can climb no higher. I heard of one who said
his will was so perfectly resigned to the will of God that in fact he
had no will and so he had given up prayer, having nothing to seek! This
is stupid talk! When a man gets so full of life that he no longer
breathes, I should say that he is dead! Prayer is the breath of the
soul and he that can do without it is dead in sin. When a man thinks
himself so good that he cannot be better, he is probably so bad that he
could not be worse. That is the judgment which caution will pronounce
upon him, for all good men long to be better–and better men desire to
be best of all that they may dwell in Heaven! The more Grace the saints
have, the more they desire–sacred greed is begotten by the possession
of the love of God–"My soul breaks with longing for Your Judgments."

Furthermore, the expression of the text indicates an advanced
experience. Augustine dwells upon this idea, for he rightly says that
at first there is an aversion in the heart to God's Word and desire
after it is a matter of growth. After aversion is removed, there often
comes an indifference in the heart–it is no longer opposed to
godliness, but it does not care to possess it. Then, through Divine
Grace, there springs up in the soul a sense of the beauty of God's Word
and will and an admiration of holiness. This leads on to a measure of
desire after the good thing and a degree of appetite for it. But it
shows a considerable growth in Grace when we ardently long after it and
a still larger growth when the soul breaks because of these longings!
It is a blessed thing when the soul is so stretched with desire that it
is ready to snap, or when, like a vessel full of fermenting liquor, the
working within threatens to break up the vessel altogether.

The text represents the agonizing of an earnest soul. Such a state of
things shows a considerable advancement in the Divine Life, but when a
Believer has those desires at all times, then is he not far from being
a full-grown Christian. "Oh," you say, "He thinks so little of what he
has that he is crushed under the burden of desire for more." Yes, and
he is the very man who has most of spiritual wealth! Those desires are
mysterious entries in the account book of his heart and rightly read
they prove his wealth, for in the Divine Life, the more a man desires,
the more he has already obtained! You may make tallies of your desires
and as you reckon by those tallies, they shall tell you to a penny what
your spiritual wealth is. The more full a man is of Grace, the more he
hungers for Grace! Strange it is to say so, but the paradox is
true–the more he drinks and the more he is satisfied and ceases to
thirst in one sense, the more is he devoured with thirst after the
living

God!

It is an advanced experience, then, and it is an experience which I
cannot quite describe to you except by saying that it is a bitter sweet
or, rather, a sweet bitter, if the adjective is to be stronger than the
noun! There is a bitterness about being crushed with desire. It is
inevitable that there should be, but the aroma of this bitter herb is
inexpressibly sweet– no perfume can excel it! After all, a bruised
heart knows more peace and rest than a heart filled with the world's
delights. How safe such a soul is. "Oh," said one, "I cannot go to
Hell, it is impossible, because I love Jesus Christ and long after Him.
It is not possible for Him to forbid me the privilege of loving Him and
to love Him and long for Him is happiness!" Better to feel a heavenly
hunger than a worldly fullness! Heartbreak for God is a sweeter thing
than content in sinful pleasures! There is an inexpressible sweetness,
a dawning of Heaven, in longing after God and yet, because you feel you
have not yet attained what you desire, there is a bitter mixed with it.

I think the only thing that honey needs to improve it is just a touch
of bitter or acid in it. When you eat much honey it begins to taste bad
because it is all sweet, but just a taste of lemon or a dash of quassia
might strengthen the taste and enable it to take in a fresh freight of
sweetness. It is surely so with true religious experience. Pangs of
strong desire increase our overflowing pleasures and the longings and
hungering make attaining and enjoying to be all the more delightful.
May the Lord send us more of this lamb with bitter herbs, this mingled
experience in which we are "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing!"

Still, those longings after God's Word may become very wearing to a
man's soul. The sense of our text in the Hebrew is that of attrition or
wearing down. Keble reads it–

"My soul is worn and wasted quite, Your Laws desiring day and night."
They wear out the man when they become so fervent as those confessed in
the text. I believe that some of the Lord's holy ones have been worn
down to sickness and depression by the passion of their hearts after
God–their souls have become like sharp swords which cut through their
scabbards, for they have destroyed the body by intense inner desires.
At times holy men draw so near to God and pine so greatly after His
Glory that for half a word they would pass the frontier and

enter into Heaven! They are so fully in accord with God that the shell
which shuts in their soul is almost broken and the newborn spirit is
ready for its fullest life and liberty. How blessed to shake off the
last fragment of that which holds us back from the freedom of an
immortal life in perfect agreement with God! Oh to attain to this!

One saint cried, "Let me see the face of God," and another answered,
"You cannot see God's face and live!" To which he replied, "Then let me
see my God and die." So do we feel that our soul comes near to dying
with her longings after her God. Little would we tremble, even if we
knew that the joy of realization would be killing and would pass us
over the border into Immanuel's land where we shall see the King in His
beauty! But I must not linger though there is much to tempt me to speak
on. Are you searching yourselves, Brothers and Sisters, to see whether
you have such longings? If so, do you have them, "at all times"? We are
not to long for God's Word and will by fits and starts–we are not to
have desires awakened by novelty or by excitement. Nor are we to long
for Divine things because for a while temporal things fail us and we
are sick and sorry and weary of the world–and so, in disgust, turn to
God.

Brethren, I trust you long after God when all is bright in Providence
and that you love His Word when all is pleasant in family affairs. It
is well to desire the Lord's will when He is permitting you to have
your own will as well as when He is thwarting you. God is to always be
our delight. He is our defense in war, but He is also our joy in peace.
Do not use Him as sailors use those harbors of refuge for which they
are not bound, into which they only run into in time of storm, but if
it is fair they stand far out to sea! The Lord's will is to be the path
of our feet and the element of our life. This it is to be a true child
of God–to always have a yearning soul towards God's Word–to be eager
after His Commandments "at all times." May the Holy Spirit keep us ever
hungering and thirsting after God and His Truth.

III. And now I am going to close with a few cheering reflections. I
think this morning some heart has been saying, "There are comforting
thoughts for me in all this. I am a poor thing. I have not grown much.
I have not done much. I wish I had, but I do have strong longings. I am
very dissatisfied and I am almost ready to die with desire for Christ."
My dear Soul, listen–let this encourage you! First, God is at work in
your soul. Never did a longing after God's Word grow up in the soul of
itself. Weeds come up of themselves, but the rarer kind of plants, I
guarantee you, will never be found where there has been no sowing! And
this flower, called Love-Lies-Bleeding–this plant of intense eagerness
after God–never sprang up in the human breast of itself! God has
placed it there!

Friend, there was a time when you had no such longings. Ah, and if you
were left to yourself, you would never have such longings again! You
would decline till you became as content with the world as others are.
You know you would! Come, then, Beloved, God is at work in your
soul–let this comfort you. The great Potter has you upon the wheel–He
has not cast you away as worthless–His work may pain you, but it is
honorable and glorious. Your heart may swell with unutterable longings
and it may be torn by throes of desire, but life thus proves its
presence and reaches forth to something yet beyond. These pains of
desire are the Lord's doings and they should be perceived with
gratitude.

The result of God's work is very precious. Come, though it is only a
gracious desire, thank God for it. Though you can get no further than
holy longing, be grateful for that longing. I would have you strive for
the highest gifts, but I would not have you despise what God has
already given you! I have known times when I thought myself in a very
strange case and I judged ill of myself. Yet a month or two afterwards
I have looked back upon that condition which I condemned and I have
wished that I could return to it! Has it not been so with you? You have
been racked with sighs, groans, cravings and other forms of unrest and
you have said, "O God, deliver me from this sore travail!" But when,
within a week, you have had to lament insensibility and lukewarmness,
you have cried, "Lord, put me back into my state of desire! Lord, set
me hungering and thirsting again, a fierce appetite is better than this
deadness."

Oh, you that are longing, be thankful that you are, for you have a rich
promise to cheer you, since it is written, "He will fulfill the desire
of them that fear Him." The more wretched and unhappy you are under a
sense of sin, the more grateful you ought to be for tenderness of
heart. And the more you are longing to lay on Christ and to become like
Christ, the more you should thank God that He has worked this longing
in you. How sweet is that Word of God, "Lord, You have heard the desire
of the humble: You will prepare their heart, You will cause Your ear to
hear." Listen, once again–not only is the desire precious, but it is
leading on to something more precious! Hear that which is written–
"The desire of the righteous shall be granted."

What do you say to such words as these? "He will regard the prayer of
the destitute and not despise their prayer." "When the poor and needy
seek water and there is none, and their tongue fails for thirst, I the
Lord will hear them, I the

God of Israel will not forsake them." Do you think that God prompts us
to desire a thing which He does not mean to bestow upon us? Is that the
way you treat your children? I know you will play with the little ones,
sometimes, and hold a nut or a penny in your closed hand and bid them
open your fingers for themselves. But you give them their treat before
long. You would not hold a sweetmeat before a poor child and promise it
to him and excite his desires for it and then refuse him a taste of
it–that were a cruel pastime! God is not unkind–if He makes you
hunger, for that hunger He has made ready the Bread of Heaven! If He
makes you thirst–for that thirst He has already filled the river of
the Water of Life! If the desire comes from God, the supply of that
desire will as certainly come from God! Rest you sure of that and cry
mightily to Him with strong faith in His goodness.

Meanwhile, the desire, itself, is doing you good. It is driving you out
of yourself. It is making you feel what a poor creature you are, for
you can dig no well in your own nature and find no supplies within your
own spirit. It is compelling you to look only to God. Do not need much
compelling–come readily to your Lord! Be one of those vessels which
can sail with a capful of wind! Come by faith to Jesus, even though you
fear that your desires are by no means so vivid and intense as those of
my text. Believe and you shall be established! Rest assured of this,
that there is in God whatever your soul needs! In Christ Jesus dwells
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and in that Divine fullness
there must of necessity be more than a creature can require! In Christ
Jesus there is exactly what your soul is panting for.

Yes, I mean you weakest ones of the flock! You feeblest of the saints!
You who dare not put your names down among God's people at all! If
there is a sacred longing in your spirit, there is that in Christ which
is adapted to you in spite of your feebleness and unworthiness. God is
ready to give you whatever you are ready to receive. Only come and
trust Him for it and look to His dear Son, for in Jesus you have all
things. Oh, this is the blessedness of this longing after God's
Judgments, that it makes Christ precious! And, with that remark, I have
done.

We see all God's Word in Christ. We see all God's decisions against sin
and for righteousness embodied in our Savior. We see that if we can get
Christ we have then found the Wisdom of God and the power of God and,
in fact, the All-Sufficiency of God! If we can become like Christ we
shall be like God Himself. This, I say, makes Christ so precious and
makes us long to more fully know Him and call Him ours! Come, you
longing ones, come to my Lord Jesus even now! Come, you that are
bursting with wishes and desires, come and trust the Savior and rest in
Him now! And may this be the hour in which you shall find how true it
is, "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for
they shall be filled." May you yet sing the Virgin's song, "He has
filled the hungry with good things. My soul does magnify the Lord."
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Jesus At A Standstill