Springtime in Nature and Grace

Springtime in Nature and Grace

(No. 2410)

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, APRIL 23, 1895.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MAY
1, 1887.

"For as the rain comes down and the snow from Heaven, andreturns not
there, but waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and bud, that it
may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall My Word be
that goes forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but
it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the
thing for which I sent it. For you shall go out with joy, and be led
forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before
you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their
hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of
the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the LORD
for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." Isaiah
55:10-13.

THIS is a text for the springtime! If you read it through tomorrow
morning, before the smoke has clouded the heavens, while yet the
earliest birds are calling up their mates to sing, you will understand
its meaning better than I can make you comprehend it by any words of
mine. The whole four verses seem to describe a scene in nature which is
only to be witnessed about this time of the year, yet I am not going to
look into the poetical meaning of the text so much as to use it as a
description of personal experience. I think, no–I am sure that there
are many of us who have passed through our spiritual winter. We have
also had our spring–we are even coming to our summer–and there are
some whose ripe and mellow experience has the peacefulness of autumn
about it. Our lives are, in miniature, like the years that so quickly
follow one another and every year does but repeat the changes in our
lives! I want, at this time, to speak about springtime in our spiritual
experience–touching, however, upon a more advanced period, as it will
be necessary to do–but my first word is to be concerning our
springtime experience.

Brothers and Sisters, by nature we lie in the cold and death of
winter–everything is frost-bound, withered, dead. We are nothing. We
yield nothing. We can do nothing. The Word of God comes to us as the
beams of the sun pour down their warmth from the heavens and, by a
mighty and mysterious influence, that Word begins to work upon us and
we soon feel that we have entered upon quite another season of life. We
are no longer in the cold winter–we have come to a blessed springtime!
That is the theme upon which I am going to now speak.

I. First, notice in the text the descent of the Word, THE
DOWNCOMING–"As the rain comes down, and the snow from Heaven."

Our spring begins with April showers alternating with rough winds.
There is sure to be, at this period of the year, a rainy season to
prepare the earth for bringing forth fruit, to swell the buds on the
trees and to work with sunshine to produce the spring. So is it
spiritually–the coming down of the Word of God is, to our hearts, like
the falling of the rain from Heaven.

Concerning this coming down, I may say, first, that it is usually
unpleasant. We are accustomed to speak of rainy weather and especially
of snowy weather, as, "bad" weather. We are the wisest people in the
world in matters relating to the weather. Having, as some say, no
"climate"–only "weather"–we talk a great deal about it and inform
each other what kind of weather it is when one can see just as well as
the other what it is! Now, when we spiritually begin to live, it is
usually rough weather and we are apt to think it is bad weather. Drip,
drip, drip, fall showers of repentance. Snow-flake after snowflake
falls and buries all our hopes. Our joys are covered as with a
winding-sheet. It is bad weather with us and we are not slow to
complain of it. Oh, dear Friends, if we did but know how God is
blessing us–if we could but realize that these experiences are working
out our lasting good–we would thank God that His Word comes down upon
us as the rain and the snow fall from Heaven!

The work of Grace in our hearts, however, is like a spring shower in
another respect. It differs very much in its method, for rain and snow
do not always come down in the same way. Sometimes the rain fails very
gently–we can hardly tell whether it is rain or not. Our Scotch
friends would call it "a mist." At another time, the rain, like Jehu
the son of Nimshi, drives furiously. Big drops come pouring down and
before we can reach a shelter we are wet through and through. So is it
with the snow–it falls at times as gently as the dropping of tiny
feathers, but it may descend thick and fast–a blizzard blowing it into
our faces and almost blinding us. So, there are some to whom God's Word
comes very softly. It does come, but it comes without tempest or storm.
There are others to whom it comes very terribly–the Word of the Lord
is full of dread to them–it is a tempest, a whirlwind. The rain or the
snow comes down to them and there is no mistaking it–they are shivered
through and through with its cold, they are wet to the skin with its
moisture! Therefore, learn this, you who have been comparing yourselves
with others, that as the rain at one time differs from the rain at
another time, and as the snow in one place varies from the snow in
another place, and yet the rain is always rain, and the snow is always
snow, so the entrance of Divine Grace into one heart differs from the
way it enters into another, yet it is always the same Grace!

In like manner, Brothers and Sisters, the coming down of the snow and
of the rain differs, also, in time and in quantity. One shower is
quickly over and another lasts all day and all night. The snow may in
one season fall heavily for a few hours only. At another time, a week
of snow may be experienced. So, the work of Divine Grace, when it
begins in the soul, is not very manifestly the same in different
persons. Some of us were, for years, subject to the operations of God's
Spirit, and endured much pain and sorrow before we found peace in
believing. Others find Christ in a few minutes and leap out of darkness
into light by a single spring! I have known some whose convictions have
been so brief and have been so completely swallowed up by their almost
immediate faith, that it has been a trouble to them to know whether
they were ever truly convinced of sin at all! On the other hand, I have
known many who have been so long shut up in Giant Despair's dungeons
that they have thought that they were the men in the iron cage–that
they were given over to destruction and could never find salvation!
Judge nothing, I pray you, after this fashion, but remember that God's
Word, as it comes down like the rain and the snow from Heaven, yet has
varied methods of reaching different hearts.

One thing more I may say about this coming down of the Word of God and
that is, it is always a blessing, and never a curse. If the rain should
pour down very heavily and continue to fall until we might be led to
think that the very heavens would weep themselves away, yet, Brothers
and Sisters, it can never produce a flood that would drown the world,
for yonder in the heavens is the rainbow of the Covenant! These rains
must mean blessing, they cannot mean destruction. And if the snow
should fall ever so deep, yet not even by snow will God destroy the
earth any more than by a flood. So, when God's Grace comes streaming
into the heart, it may produce deep conviction, it may sweep away the
refuges of lies, it may cover up and bury beneath its fall every carnal
hope–but it cannot be a flood to destroy you! There shall yet come a
change of weather for you and your soul shall live. Let the Grace of
God but come and let that Grace come how it may–it is always a
benediction to the man who receives it.

Thus have I described to you the first part of our spiritual
springtime, when, at last, our long winter begins to yield beneath the
sunlight of Divine Grace. The Word of the Lord comes down upon us like
the snow and the rain that fall upon the earth.

II. The second thing to notice in our text is, THE ABIDING. We have had
the coming down–now follows the abiding of the rain or the snow that
comes down from Heaven–"it returns not there, but waters the earth."
So is it spiritu-ally–when God's Grace falls from Heaven, it comes to
stay!

My dear Hearers, this morning [Sermon #1961, Volume 33–S.S.–Or, the
Sinner Saved] I had to complain of some that they were like the rock
upon which the rain falls, but which it never enters. It drops upon the
granite and runs down the side of it, but produces no result. But when
God sends His Grace from Heaven, you may know it by this sign–soaks
into your soul! Oh, how much of my preaching there is, and how much of
other people's preaching there is, that reaches the ears and that is
the end of it! Oh, for hearers who drink in the Word of the Lord! O
rain from Heaven, would God that you did always find us like plowed
fields ready to drink you in! This is how Grace works–it enters the
soul, penetrates the heart, saturates the conscience, abides in the
memory, affects the affections, gives understanding to the
understanding and imparts real life to the heart–which is the seat of
life! I wish that we always heard the Gospel in that fashion, but
hearing is often mere child's play. If it were true hearing, it would
be the most serious work under Heaven and it would be done in a
reverential manner as a true part of Divine worship! Then we should
find the Word of God soaking into men's hearts as the snow and the rain
from Heaven enter the earth.

It appears from our text that this downpour, instead of returning to
Heaven, does this, also, for the soul into which it soaks–it
fertilizes it, it makes the soul bring forth and bud. Yes, but the
metaphor of my text cannot set forth the whole Truth, for this Word of
God, which is the rain, is also the Seed. This Word of God, which is
the snow, is the living Seed, itself. What would we think of clouds
that rained down seeds? That would be a new thing beneath the heavens,
yet it is the old thing, after all! The Word of God is the living and
incorruptible Seed which lives and abides forever and whenever that
Seed is sown, God's Word comes soaking into the soul, making the soul
live, and causing the heart to yield its life up to the living Seed. I
cannot distinguish between the Seed and the soil in my metaphor, for it
seems as if the very soil did breed the Seed and take it up into
itself, and cause it to grow, causing it to bring forth and bud. O
Beloved, if the Word of God has been to you like an uncomfortable
shower, may it afterwards prove its living power, making you feel a new
life that you never felt before, a something within, struggling,
striving, a something which, of itself, was not previously there, but
which comes with the heavenly Word and is, indeed, the sure evidence of
the beginning of the new life within your soul!

And, again, the Word of God, when it comes into the soul and abides
there, works in the man whatever God pleases– all His Divine
purposes–"it shall accomplish that which I please and prosper in the
thing for which I sent it." It is a very wonderful thing to get the
Word of God thoroughly into your soul, to get soaked and saturated with
it. We have, none of us, any idea what that Word may yet do for us. Who
among us knows the Infinite reaches of the Divine purpose? Who shall
cast the lead and fathom all the Divine intentions concerning man?
Verily, "it does not yet appear what we shall be," but when the Word of
God is truly in us, it will work whatever the Divine purpose is and
carry it out to the fullest without fail, for the Word of God is living
and powerful to effect the designs and purposes of the Most High!

My beloved Hearers, open your hearts to this Word–drink it in–do not
stay its course, do not try to hinder its Divine operations. Pray to be
completely under its influence, for you do not know how holy, how
strong, how happy, how heavenly you may yet be! This, then, is how our
spiritual springtime comes to us–first, showers under which we tremble
and are troubled, but, afterwards, a Divine abiding which produces
marvelous effects in our hearts and lives!

III. So, in the third place, I will briefly speak to you about THE
RESULTS of the coming down and the abiding. The rain has come and the
rain remains. Now what happens?

First, we are told, it makes the earth to bring forth and bud. I love
the time of buds. There is nothing more beautiful than the rosebud–it
is more charming, by far, than the full-blown rose! And the buds of all
manner of flowers have a singular charm about them. But when the Grace
of God has come into a young man's heart, we very soon see his buds–
he has gracious purposes, he has holy resolves, he has the beginnings
of prayer, he has the makings of a man of God about him! Childhood in
Grace is a sweet budding time with many rare beauties and delights.
Some of you, perhaps, are complaining of yourselves that you have not
yet come to the perfection of flowering. Do not murmur on that account,
but be thankful if you have only a bud. A little prayer, a faint desire
after holiness, a hungering and thirsting after righteous-ness–these
are buds–be grateful for them! There are some birds that like to eat
the buds of trees and they do much mischief to the garden. And there
are some old Christians who, I think, are rather too fond of nipping
buds, and so doing damage to young beginners. May God keep these
destructive birds away from you who, as yet, are but feeble.

Beloved, if you are what the Lord would have you to be, you will not
long be content with buds. If you serve the Lord and the Lord continues
to visit you with showers of blessing, you will soon bring forth seed
for the sower. You, yourself, will become useful to others. Your
experience, your knowledge, your service will become the seed of good
for other people. The devil can never destroy the Church of God, or
banish it altogether from the face of the earth, because, if there were
only one Christian left in the world, he would be seed for other
Christians, and I cannot tell you how many might spring from him! If
all of us should die and there were only one of the dear children left
who have lately joined this Church, yet the Church of God would spring
up and flourish, again, from that one child! That Grace which first
comes to you and fills you with conviction of sin, afterwards comes to
you to make you to be the seed-corn for others!

Grace also makes us produce bread for the eater. I was thinking, today,
that next Tuesday (May 3rd, 1887,) it will be just 37 years since I was
baptized into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit! Up to that day, I had never opened my mouth for Christ. I had
not even engaged in prayer at a Prayer Meeting, for I was very
diffident and I was afraid to speak of spiritual things! I was not very
old, so perhaps my timidity might be excused, but, 37 years ago, when I
gave myself to Christ, I could not have imagined that I should stand
here, tonight, to preach the Word to these thousands of people. The
"bud" of that day has been "seed to the sower" and, blessed be God, it
is still "bread to the eater." Oh, young men, you do not know what God
can make of you! Young women, if you consecrate yourselves to Christ
and come under the saturating influence of the Divine Word, you do not
know how many your lips may feed, nor how many your word may even
convert to Christ! You, too, shall furnish seed to the sower and bread
to the eater. You may, perhaps, at first pass through a painful
experience in which you will be made to see your own worthlessness, but
you will, in due time, come out into a joyful experience in which God
shall bless you, increase your usefulness and make you to be a blessing
to those who are round about you!

There is one other thing that must be noticed under this head. The
result of Divine Grace upon the heart is very amazing, so that I can
hardly bring it under the metaphor of rain and snow, for it works a
transformation. When rain falls on a plot of ground, if it is covered
with weeds, it makes the weeds grow. But in the spiritual realm, the
rain that comes down from Heaven, itself, sows the ground with good
seed. What is more amazing, where it falls, it transforms the ground
and the plants that come under its influence change their nature!
"Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree." If you were in
Australia, you might see leagues of land covered with huge thistles and
thorns. Down comes this shower of Grace upon man's nature, thus covered
with thorns and, instead of thorns, come up fir trees–useful,
delightful objects in the landscape–not gnarled and twisted thorns,
but fair and comely fir trees!

"And instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree." When the
Grace of God begins to work, a change is made in those who are like
briers and they become like myrtles! Out at Mentone there are large
tracts of land covered with myrtles, rosemary and other odoriferous
plants. Often have I thrown myself down upon them as upon a spring bed,
for they grow close together, and, as you rest upon them, a delightful
perfume is round about you everywhere. Now, when the Grace of God comes
into the soul, it takes the obnoxious things in us and transmutes them
into blessings. Here is a man who is naturally of an obstinate
disposition. You know him. When the Grace of God comes into his heart,
he becomes firm in his attachment to the Truth of God. A fine character
can be made out of an obstinate man–he is the one of whom you can make
a martyr if necessary–he would be willing to burn for Christ's sake!
You would never find him flinching.

Here is another person who is full of levity and trifling. The Grace of
God comes and transforms that lightness into cheerfulness and
amiability. He is the light of the house, you are glad to know such a
person. "Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead
of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree." This is wonderful Grace,
is it not? I hope that some of us are now undergoing its transforming
power in our hearts! This springtime of Grace is charming, far beyond
that of nature, for nature, in her developments, still continues to
bring forth the primeval thorns and thistles which our father, Adam, by
his disobedience, brought to us. But the Grace of God changes these
evil things and makes the soul to bring forth that which is good,
pleasing, sweet and profitable–both to God and man!

IV. Now I have come to my last point. We have considered the coming
down, the abiding and the result of the rain. Now let us notice THE
REJOICING.

This is a time ofjoy–the music of the year is full in springtime.
Birds get silent towards the end of autumn. That is the Sabbath of the
year. God's bounty, then, has become so manifold that nature seems to
feel that she cannot express her gratitude and even the birds, as a
rule, are silent, then, but now they are bursting into song as trees
are bursting into leaves and plants are bursting into flowers! I want
that to be your experience in this springtime. I saw, the other day,
outside a certain place of worship (!), the notice of "a free and
easy." I wonder what kind of worship that is? However, though I do not
know and cannot imagine, yet I should like you who are the Lord's to
feel wonderfully "free and easy" in the highest sense! Now that the
winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the
earth and the time of the singing of birds is come, let every child of
God enjoy himself, for our text says, "You shall go out with joy, and
be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth
before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap
their hands." Why should we be so happy? Why should everything about us
be so happy? Let us run the parallel between springtime in nature and
in Grace.

In springtime, one cause of happiness is new life. Things have been
dead, but they are now springing into life. The blood runs more quickly
within our veins–our whole being now seems warm with the new life that
courses through our nature! It is so spiritually. We have come into a
new life, the Holy Spirit has breathed upon us and we live and, blessed
be God, that life never gets old! After knowing the Lord these 37
years, as I have told you, I feel His love to be as sure as ever, and
the power of His Grace as powerful as ever. There is a constant novelty
about the life of faith. The mercies of God are new every morning and
fresh every evening. Well, then, since you have a life of which you
knew nothing before, since you can see all around you the tokens of a
life which you never perceived before, be glad! Sing, tonight, you
songsters of the Lord! Break out into sweet music because of the new
life within you–that new life which can never die, but which shall, in
due season, be enlarged and perfected into life forever before the
Throne of God above!

Another source of joy in springtime is to be found in our happy
surroundings. It is beginning to be warm. We hope, soon, to be able to
sit out of doors in the sunshine. We trust that the dull and heavy
clouds will not return and that the winds which pierced us to our very
marrow will now be withheld from us. So we feel happy in the advent of
spring and is it not so with us spiritually? We are no longer in
bondage and no longer in fear! "Being justified by faith, we have peace
with God." Reconciled through the blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord, we
joy in God. Let us be happy together and, coming to this table, whereon
are spread the memorials of our Lord's great love to us, let us not
come with dull and heavy hearts, as though we were assembled at a
funeral, but let us meet in joyful anticipation of the day when we
shall sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb in Glory! New life
and happy surroundings should make us clap our hands and rejoice before
the Lord!

Springtime, I think, is peculiarly pleasant because of its large
promise. We are thinking of the hay harvest and of the fruit of the
fields. We are reckoning upon luscious grapes and upon the various
fruits which faith sees to be hidden within the blossoms. Yes, but may
not our hopes be disappointed if we reckon upon earthly fruits? But you
and I have come, by Grace, into a land of hope most sure and steadfast!
We have hopes grounded on God's Word and they shall never be
disappointed! Let us be happy, then, since we shall certainly one day
be in Heaven! Let us begin the music of Heaven down here. Since our
Lord is on His way back to us and may arrive before this assembly
breaks up, let us anticipate the joy of His glorious appearing. May God
the Holy Spirit help us to think of all these choice mercies, that we
may be glad in the

Lord!

In springtime, once more, there always seems to me to be a peculiar
sense of Divine Power and Divine Presence throughout all nature. It is
as if nature had swooned, awhile, and lay in her cold fit through the
winter, but now she has been awakened. Her Lord has looked her in the
face and charmed her back to life! I trust that you and I feel this
peculiar Presence of God in the highest sense. Some say that there is
no God. Ah, me! Ah, me! Blind men say that there is no sun, perhaps,
but they must be very blind if they think so. We know that there is a
God, not only by the argument from design, which is a very strong one,
but by better evidence than that. We have had dealings with God,
personal dealings with Him, as when the sun, though it is ninety-five
millions of miles away, has commerce with the earth, and the bulbs that
sleep beneath the black mold begin to swell and grow and, by-and-by,
the yellow cup is held up to be filled with the light of the sun! There
must be a sun, we know, because of all its warmth and genial glow, and
the life force with which it charms the earth into the revival of
spring! And though we have not seen God at any time, neither can
conceive of Him in all His Glory, for He is essentially inconceivable,
yet have we felt His Power charming into life our hope, our faith, our
love! Sometimes, as the sun may be, for a while, hidden from us, a
cloud obscures our God. Ah, me! What darkness then returns to us–how
do all the young shoots seem to droop in the blackness! But when that
cloud is gone and the light comes streaming out, again, O Lord, how we
rejoice, how strong, how bright, how happy we are! If we have not
wings, yet do we learn to fly without wings–we soon mount aloft when
God, Himself, draws us towards Himself.

If you do not know God, my dear Hearer, conclude that there is a life
which you have not yet discovered. As Columbus found a new world when
his ships steered across the Atlantic, so may you yet discover a new
world which you have not seen as yet. May God, Himself, steer your ship
and bring you there! But do not tell us that there is no God, and no
such new world–you cannot prove a negative, but we can prove a
positive–namely, that we have entered into a new life, we have been in
the new world! Suppose that I were to try to teach astronomy to a
horse. I could not make him understand me, but if I possessed the power
to put an immortal soul into that horse, how easily would his eyes look
through the telescope and how speedily would he begin to rejoice in sun
and moon and stars!

You, my dear Hearers, who are without God, are nothing but a soulish
man at present, almost a brute man in some respects. There is a higher
spirit that you need–oh, that you had it! God the Holy Spirit can
breathe it into you. That is what we mean by regeneration. When He
imparts a new and higher nature and when you have received that nature,
then you will be able to say, "There is a God, for I perceive Him. I
also have entered a new world. Things are the same as they used to be
and yet they are wonderfully different! I see nothing as I used to see
it. Before, I saw it as a brutish man, but now I see it as a man
twice-born, who has become so exalted as to be near akin to God,
Himself."

Then, dear Friends, when you reach that state, "You shall go out with
joy and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall
break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field
shall clap their hands." God give you saving faith and this new life of
which I have been speaking, through Jesus Christ His Son! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ISAIAH55; PSALM 136.

Hear these Inspired words, dear Friends, as though they came fresh from
Heaven, as though God Himself spoke them at this moment out of the
excellent Glory, for, indeed, He does so. The Word of God never grows
old–these messages are just as new as if the ink on the pens of the
Prophet and the Psalmist were not yet dry.

Isaiah 55:1. Ho! Everyone that thirsts, come you to the waters. This
invitation is not given to you who are full, to you who can satisfy
your own needs out of the buckets of your own righteousness. No, the
Prophet speaks to you thirsty ones who feel an awful necessity which
will not let you rest. Hunger you may appease, but thirst is
terrible–none can long bear its pangs. "Ho, everyone that thirsts."
Whatever your age, sex, character, rank, or position in life, if you do
but thirst, then the Gospel stands with uplifted finger, and cries to
you, "Ho!" as do merchants and traders who want to dispose of their
wares.

1. And he that has no money; come you, buy, and eat; yes, come, buy
wine and milk without money and without price. In the Lord Jesus Christ
there is all you need and more than you know that you need! As yet you
only thirst, but here is bread for your hunger as well as drink for
your thirst. Whereas "waters" might seem to satisfy your thirst, here
is a superfluity of Grace, an exceeding abundance of mercy–"Come, buy
wine and milk without money and without price." Christ is as free as
the air! As you have only to take in the air by breathing, in order to
live by it, so have you only to receive Christ into your soul and you
live by Him! As flows old Father Thames through the green meadows, and
every dog may come and lap, and every ox may stand knee-deep in the
stream, for there is none to keep even an animal away, so is it with
Christ–"Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price."

2. Why do you spend money for that which is not bread? Why are you so
busy about your ceremonies, your works, your feelings–none of which
can yield food for your soul? Come to Christ and buy without money the
Bread of Life which came down from Heaven!

2. And your wages for that which satisfies not? Listen diligently to
me, and eat you that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in
fatness. If we will but hear the Gospel, and attentively hear it,
"faith comes by hearing," and that faith leads us to Jesus Christ! And
in Him we find that which is substantial, solid–the very thing we
need. We find in Christ all that is super-excellent, so that our soul
delights itself in fatness. I have no lean Christ to preach to you! No
half-starved salvation that will drag you into Heaven and save you, "so
as by fire." But in coming to Christ, you are invited to "let your soul
delight itself in fatness." A Christian cannot be too happy–"the joy
of the Lord" is beyond all description! You must taste it to prove its
sweetness. As honey among the sweets, such is the joy of the Lord among
joys! Yes, as the sun and the lesser lights in the sky, such is the joy
of Christ compared with all other delights that men can ever know! "Let
your soul delight itself in fatness."

3. Incline your ear. You know what that means–bend forward to catch
the faintest utterance of the voice that is speaking.

3. And come unto Me; hear, and your soul shall live. We do not live by
sight. All the pretty things that you can see in a Roman Catholic place
of worship will not save a single soul! The preaching of the Gospel is
God's way of salvation– "Hear, and your soul shall live." Christ rides
into the City of Mansoul through Ear-Gate. Take heed what you hear and
take heed how you hear!

3. And I will make an Everlasting Covenant with you, even the sure
mercies of David. Think of God making a Covenant with you! This is a
very wonderful thing. You may almost leap for joy at the thought that
God should ever enter into Covenant with you. You think very little of
yourself and reckon yourself to be among the most obscure of mankind.
"Yet," says the Lord God, "I will strike hands with you and be your
Friend, and pledge My Word to you. Yes, and make a Covenant with
you–and an Everlasting Covenant it shall be, too. Surely, blessing, I
will bless you." Oh, what a wonder of Divine Grace it is that God
should enter into Covenant with sinful man! "Even the sure mercies of
David." You know what David this is–this is the Son of David, the
inheritor of great David's name, "great David's greater Son."

4. Beheld, I have given Him for a witness to the people, a leader and
commander to the people. Jesus Christ is a witness to you of His
Father's love. I do not know how God could show His love more fully
than He does in the life and death of His Son, Jesus Christ. Christ is
the great Witness of the Father's love! Behold how He loves His people
in that He gives His Son to die for them! Will you not clasp hands with
God across this great Sacrifice of His only-begotten Son? Let us do so,
now, again, as we have often done before. "I have given Him for a
witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people." If He
leads, let us follow. If He commands, let us obey. His command is that
we are to believe in His name and to be baptized in His name–let us
not be disobedient to any part of His holy will. Now comes a promise
made to our great Leader, our Covenant Head–

5. Behold, You shall call a nation that You know not, and nations that
knew not You shall run unto You because of the LORD Your God, and for
the Holy One of Israel; for He has glorified You. That is, Jehovah has
glorified Christ. It is promised that multitudes shall come to Him.
"You shall call a nation that You know not." He never saw you in His
House before. He never knew you to fall on your knees in prayer, but He
is calling even you, by His Grace and by His Gospel! You are here,
tonight, and He is calling you, even you! Therefore, come to Him at
once! There are some, here, who do not know Christ Jesus our Lord. They
are strangers to His love and to His power to save, but the promise is
that, "nations that knew not You shall run unto You." That implies
speed–it is a double quick march. Oh, that many sinners would at once
run to Christ! Some who often hear the Gospel are very slow in coming
to Christ, but I pray that some of you who do not know as much of it as
they do, may run to Christ at once and be saved by Him. It is a blessed
thing to take Christ at the first time of asking. Love to Christ at
first sight is the wisest kind of love that can be! May it be largely
bestowed on many of you! Listen to these next words

6. 7. Seek you the LORD while He may be found, call you upon Him while
He is near: let the wicked forsake His ways, and the unrighteous man
his thoughts and let him return unto the LORD, and He will have mercy
upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. Hear the music
of the glorious message, "He will have mercy!" "He will abundantly
pardon!" Return unto the Lord and He will have mercy upon you! He will
abundantly pardon you!

8, 9. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My
ways says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so
are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.
Perhaps you are thinking that He cannot forgive you, that He cannot
possibly mean that He will blot out your sins? But He does mean it,
yes, and He is willing to do it now! Oh, that you would come to your
pardoning God through Jesus Christ His dear Son!

10-13. For as the rain comes down, and the snow from Heaven, and
returns not there, but waters the earth and makes it bring forth and
bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so
shall My Word be that goes forth out of My mouth: it shall not return
unto Me void but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall
prosper in the thing for which I sent it. For you shall go out with
joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall
break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field
shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir
tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it
shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not
be cut off. Now let us read the 136th Psalm.

Psalm 136:1-3. O give thanks unto the LORD; for He is good: for His
mercy endures forever. O give thanks unto the God of gods: for His
mercy endures forever. O give thanks to the Lord of lords for His mercy
endures forever. In this Psalm we have the same refrain repeated 26
times! The words–"for His mercy endures forever," were probably
intended to be taken up as a chorus by all the people in and round
about the Temple at their solemn festivals. But though there is
repetition, there is no tautology, for the saints of God are so fond of
God's praise that they can never have too much of it. I am sure that if
you have ever tasted the faithful mercy of God in Covenant with His
people, you will never hear this sentence once too often! "For His
mercy endures forever" will be a sound that shall be most welcome to
your ears. You will observe that, first of all, the praise is to the
Lord's Person–"O give thanks unto Jehovah.. .the God of gods…the
Lord of lords: for His mercy endures forever." Next, the praise turns
upon His works.

4-9. To Him who alone does great wonders: for His mercy endures
forever. To Him that by wisdom made the heavens: for His mercy endures
forever. To Him that stretched out the earth above the waters: His
mercy endures forever. To Him that made great lights, for His mercy
endures forever: the sun to rule by day: for His mercy endures forever:
the moon and stars to rule by night: for His mercy endures forever. In
the works of Creation and in the dispensations of Providence, we have
abundant proofs of the perpetuity of God's lovingkindness. No sooner
have we experienced the blessings of the day than the mercies of the
night follow quickly upon their heels! If we look up to the heavens, we
have instances of God's mercy, there, in kindling the stars and
lighting the sun and moon. And if we look upon the waters, and the land
that stands above them, we still see God's lovingkindness. That man is
intensely blind who can see nothing of love and kindness in Creation!
You have but to open your eyes anywhere to see that the whole earth is
full of the mercy of God! Still, the loudest song belongs to God's
dealings with His Church and, therefore, in the 10th verse, we come to
God's deliverance of His peculiar people, His chosen Israel, in which
we also have our share, for in Abraham's seed all the nations of the
earth are blessed this day.

10-15. To Him that smote Egypt in their first-born: for His mercy
endures forever: and brought out Israel from among them: for His mercy
endures forever: with a strong hand, and with a stretched out arm: for
His mercy endures forever. To Him which divided the Red Sea into parts:
for His mercy endures forever: and made Israel to pass through the
midst of it: for His mercy endures forever: but overthrew Pharaoh and
his host in the Red Sea: for His mercy endures forever. And you and I
have experienced deliverances of the same kind! Our troubles have been
overcome; our sins have been forgiven; we have been preserved by God's
goodness and guided by His Wisdom. Let us, therefore, sing of that
Covenant faithfulness and of that Immutable Truth of God which have
never left us!

16-18. To Him which led His people through the wilderness, for His
mercy endures forever. To Him which smote great kings: for His mercy
endures forever: and slew famous kings, for His mercy endures forever.
We are far too slow to recall the special mercies of God. We have,
here, a bright example given us, not only to remember God's goodness in
the lump, but in detail. We are, as it were, to take His mercies to
pieces, that we may see fresh grounds for thanksgiving in every
separate section!

19-23. Sihon king of the Amorites: for His mercy endures forever: and
Og the king of Bashan: for His mercy endures forever: and gave their
land for an heritage: for His mercy endures forever: even an heritage
unto Israel, His servant: for His mercy endures forever. Who remembered
us in our low estate: for His mercy endures forever. Here is a song for
us–"Who remembered us in our low estate." We were brought low by sin,
by conviction, by ignorance, by our own powerless-ness–but, low as we
were, "He remembered us in our low estate: for His mercy endures
forever."–

"He sent His Son with power to save From guilt, and darkness, and the
grave! Wonders of Grace to God belong, Repeat His mercies in your
song." 24-26. And has redeemed us from our enemies: for His mercy
endures forever. Who gives food to all flesh: for His mercy endures
forever. O give thanks unto the God of Heaven for His mercy endures
forever. Thus the Psalm finishes upon its keynote–"for His mercy
endures forever." May that be the keynote both of our daily song and of
our eternal hymn of praise unto the Lord! Amen.