The Sweet and the Sweetener

The Sweet and the Sweetener

(No. 2403)

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY, MARCH 10, 1895.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MARCH
6, 1887.

"My meditation of Him shall be sweet." Psalm 104:34.

THOSE OF YOU who were present this morning know that, with all my
heart, and mind, and soul, and strength, I pleaded with men that they
would come to Christ. [Sermon # 1951, Volume 33–The Pleading of the
Last Messenger] If ever in my life I felt that I had spent every
particle of my strength, I felt it when I had finished that discourse.
I could have wished to die and end my ministry, with the testimony that
I bore this morning. I know not in what way I could have more
completely poured out my whole being in earnest desire for the
conversion of my fellow men. I thought that it would not be possible
for me to handle another subject in anything like the same fashion,
tonight–I did not feel that I could do so. I said to myself,
therefore, "Instead of preaching, instead of having anything to do that
will cost much effort and cause much mental strain, I will just be one
among the people and enjoy myself as a member of the congregation.

I will have a subject upon which we can all calmly think–I mean, all
of us who know the Lord"–and it seemed to me as if nothing could be
more fitting than to think of Him who is the joy of our heart, to
meditate upon Him who is the strength of our spirit, even our blessed
Lord, of whom the text says, "My meditation of Him shall be sweet." So,
then, I am not going to preach at this time–I am just going to lead
your meditations a little, myself meditating while you meditate, being
a sort of a leader to pitch the tune in which, I trust, all who love
the Lord will heartily join. May God the Holy Spirit help us all
sweetly to meditate upon Him of whom the Psalmist here speaks!

This 104th Psalm is a very wonderful one. Humboldt wrote a book which
he called, Cosmos, that is, the world, and this Psalm is a Cosmos–it
is a world set on fire with praise! It is all creation, from the
mountain's summit down to the brooks that sparkle through the valleys
praising God! I have frequently read this Psalm through in the woods
and on the mountainside and, when we have come home from an excursion
in the Italian mountains, I have said to my companions, "Now we will
read the 104th Psalm." It is the naturalist's Psalm! It is the Psalm of
nature viewed by the eye of faith and he that learns to look aright on
seas and mountains, on beasts and birds, on sun and moon and stars,
sees God in all things and says with the Psalmist, "My meditation of
Him shall be sweet."

But, Beloved, redemption is a choicer theme for meditation than
creation is, for its wonders are far greater! I can understand that God
should make the worlds, but that He should redeem men from eternal
ruin, I cannot understand. The Creator fashioning all things by the
Word of His power is nothing like so remarkable an object of meditation
as that same Creator, veiled in human flesh, yielding His hands to the
nails of the Cross and bowing His head beneath the stroke of death! If
creation is marvelous, redemption is a more sublime miracle, a wonder
in the very center of all wonders!

Nor is the theme of redemption less vast than that of creation. Truly,
nature is a very wide theme, from the almost infinite greatness which
is discovered through the telescope to the wonderful minuteness which
is perceived through the microscope. Nature seems to have no
boundaries, yet it is a mere fragment compared with redemption, where
everything is infinite, where you have to deal with sin and love, life
and death, eternity and Heaven and Hell, God and man–and the Son of
God made flesh for man's sake! Now you are among the sublimities,
indeed, meditating upon redemption– your theme is vast beyond
conception!

And let me add that the theme of redemption is quite as fresh as that
of nature. Nature, it is true, never grows stale–from the first day of
the year till the last, it is always young! Did you ever see the ocean
look twice the same? Did you ever gaze upon the face of nature without
always perceiving some fresh beauty? And it is just the same with
redemption. The Cross never grows old! The doctrine of Christ Crucified
is a spring that wells up forever with a sparkling freshness! Not even
the eternal ages shall exhaust it–when untold myriads of years have
passed away, this old, old story of the Cross will still be new!

There is this much more to say about a meditation upon redemption, that
it comes closely home to us. I like to think of the stars, but, after
all, I can be happy if the stars are quenched. I delight to think of
the rolling ocean, but still, I could rejoice if there were no more
sea. But in redemption we have a vital and personal interest–we could
not live as we now live, in the sight of God we could not truly live at
all–if we had not been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. The
seas and the starry worlds are not ours as blessedly as Christ is ours
and none of them can bring medicine to the heart and joy to the spirit
as does Jesus, who loved us and gave Himself for us. So I think I may
say, however excellent the naturalist's meditations are, and the more
of right meditation upon nature the better–and I wish that we were all
learned after the order of true science, which deals with nature
itself, and not with theories–yet, if you know little about these
things in which some take so deep an interest, your meditations of God
may be exceedingly sweet! If you stay within the boundaries of
redemption through Jesus Christ, which are by no means narrow, you may
say, "My meditation of Him shall be sweet."

So, first, I shall talk about the sweet–"My meditation of Him shall be
sweet." Then I shall speak of the sweet as a sweetener, for it is not
only sweet in itself, but it imparts sweetness–such sweetness as we
need amid the many bitters of this mortal life.

I. First, then, let us talk about THE SWEET–"My meditation of Him
shall be sweet." "Of Him"–that is, of the Well-Beloved of the Father,
of the Well-Beloved of the Church, of the Well-Beloved of my own
soul–of Him who loved me, in whose blood I have washed my robes and
made them white. It is meditation "of Him" that is sweet–not merely of
doctrine about Him, but of Him, of Himself–"my meditation of Him." Not
merely of His offices, and His work, and all that concerns Him, but of
His own dear Self! There lies the sweetness and the closer we come to
His blessed Person, the more truly have we approached the very center
of bliss!

Then it is "meditation of Him" that makes the sweetness! Brothers and
Sisters, it is very delightful to hear about our Lord. I am sure that I
have often been charmed when I have heard what others have had to say
about Him. My hearing of Him is very sweet, but it does not say that in
our text. It is, "my meditation of Him." When I hear over and over,
again, in the echoes of my heart, what I have heard with my ears. When,
like the cattle, having cropped the luscious food, I lie down, as they
do, to ruminate and chew the cud, "my meditation of Him shall be
sweet." To think over, again, what I have already thought of. To turn
over and over in my soul Truths of God with which I am happily
familiar, which I have tasted and handled many times–just to taste and
handle them, again–in doing so, "my meditation of Him shall be sweet."
The more we know of Christ, the more we want to know of Him! And the
more sweet Christ is to us, already, the more sweet He will be! We can
never exhaust this gold mine–it gets richer, the deeper we dig into
it. "My meditation of Him shall be sweet." I will not ask for the
glowing periods of the orator. I will not wish for the profundities of
the theologian. I will just sit down, humble as my mind may be, and
think of what I have heard and known, and especially of all I have
experienced of my Lord. And "my meditation of Him shall be sweet."

But let me dwell a minute on that first word–"My meditation of Him
shall be sweet," Not another man's meditation, which is afterwards
related to me, but my own meditation of Him shall be sweet! Let me say,
concerning the wine of communion with Christ, that it is never so sweet
to a man as when he treads the grapes out himself–"My meditation of
Him shall be sweet." You get a text and beat out its meaning, "working
your passage," as we say, into the very soul of it. Then you will
understand it and you will also enjoy it! Make meditation of Christ to
be your own personal act and deed! Grasp Him for yourself and hold Him
by the feet! Put your own finger into the prints of the nails and, out
of your own heart's experience cry, "My Lord and my God!" Then you
shall not need that I tell you how sweet such a meditation is, for you
will be able to say for yourself, "My meditation of Him shall be
sweet."

It does not matter, my dear Friend, who you are, if you do but belong
to Christ, your meditation of Him shall be sweet! You are a very poor
and illiterate person, perhaps, but, if you know Him, it shall be sweet
to you to meditate upon Him. Or, it may be you are a man of large
reading and of wide knowledge. But I am quite sure that there is not in
all the range of your reading, anything for sweetness comparable to
Him! The science of Christ Crucified leads the van of all the sciences!
This is the most excellent of all knowledge–compared with which every
other knowledge is but ignorance dressed in its best! "My meditation of
Him shall be sweet"–even mine as I stand here in the midst of you–and
yours as you sit in those pews. And as you come presently to this Table
of Communion, I hope each one who meditates on Christ will be able to
say, "my meditation of Him shall be sweet."

Now let us meditate on Him for a few minutes and, first, meditate upon
His Person. This Blessed One, who is verily among us tonight, is God
and Man. Meditate upon His Manhood. He is of a Nature like your own.
Sin, alone, excepted, He is a Man as you are. Think of it and rejoice
that He has so intense a sympathy with you and that you can have so
intense a sympathy with Him! He is your Brother, though He is also the
Prince of the kings of the earth! He is your Husband, bone of your bone
and flesh of your flesh, though He is also "over all, God blessed
forever." Do not our hearts begin at once to warm towards the Man,
Christ Jesus–in all our afflictions, afflicted, in all our griefs a
partaker–and shall not our meditation of Him be sweet?

But then He is also God, and, as God, He has all dominion and authority
in Heaven and on earth. Think, then, how near He has brought us to the
Godhead! There is now no division between a believing man and God–the
Christ has bridged the chasm between the Creator and the creature! One
might have thought that this gulf could never have been bridged.
Between an angry God and a sinner, reconciliation may be made, but
between a Creator and His creature, what link of union can there be?
There could have been none if Christ had not become Incarnate! If God
had not taken Manhood into union with Himself, we could never have been
brought so near to God as we now are. Angels, you may stand back! You
can never come so near the Throne of God as man has come, for he was
made a little lower than the angels, but now, in the Person of Christ,
He is set in the place of dominion and honor, and made to be master
over all the works of God's hands! My meditation upon the Divine Person
of my blessed Master shall be sweet, shall it not? I do but indicate a
long vista of delight, as it were. I open the gate, and say, "Go in
there, Friend. You shall find good food for meditation that way."

Now let us meditate upon our Lord's life, for this meditation shall
also be sweet. Suppose I take the four Gospels and read the story of my
blessed Master's existence here among men? Well, it needs meditating
on, for that life is much more than the Evangelists could write. The
life of Christ has a wonderful depth in it! The other day I was reading
aloud the first chapter of Luke's Gospel and trying to expound it. And
when I came to the close of my meditation, I said to myself, "If I were
shut up to that one chapter for a whole lifetime, I could never expound
all its depths." That simple life of Christ, from Nazareth to Golgotha,
is a life of fathomless deeps! And the more you shall meditate upon it,
the more sweetness shall you find in it. Oh, to think of His fellowship
with me if I am poor, for He hungered! His fellowship with me if I am
weary, for He, "being weary, sat thus on the well"! His fellowship with
me if I have to stand foot to foot with the old enemy, to contend,
even, for my life! His fellowship with me if I lie in darkness and in
the valley of the shadow of death, and have to cry, "My God, my God,
why have You forsaken me?"

Read by the eye of faith, the whole story of the life of Christ is full
of sweetness to the meditative mind, for remember that as He contended,
He became a conqueror! And in this, too, we shall be like He, for we
shall overcome through His blood! Faith in Him will give us the
victory–we shall tread Satan under our feet before the battle is
finished, even as He has done! My meditation of His woes, coupled with
my meditation of His ultimate joys shall be exceedingly sweet as a
prophecy that, if I stoop, I, too, shall conquer–and though I am cast
down, yet shall my casting down be but the means of lifting me up!

Now, here is another road for your thoughts to travel. "My meditation
of Him shall be sweet," especially when I meditate on His death. The
death of our Lord and Master should be the habitual theme of the
meditation of God's people. I am afraid, in these days, we do not think
enough of the Cross and passion of our Divine Redeemer. I read, in the
"modern thought" papers and reviews, sneers about our "sensuous" hymns
when we sing about our Lord upon the Cross– they would have us not
talk about His blood! Those expressions are "out of date." It is
"mediaeval," (I think that is the word), to set forth a dying Christ,
they say! Now, mark you, the strength of the Church of Rome over many
minds has, for centuries, lain in the fact that she keeps prominent the
facts of our Lord's passion and death. Perverted as that truth about
His Cross often is, yet it has salvation in it–and I doubt not that
many find their way to eternal life, even in that apostate Church, by
the fact that Christ Crucified is made to be a great reality!

If it ever comes to pass among us who are called Protestants, and those
who are called Protestant Dissenters, that the great fact of the death
of Christ is to be regarded as a kind of myth, out of which certain
obscure doctrines may be fetched, but which is not, itself, to be
spoken of, we shall have cut the Achilles tendon of our strength and
our power to bless the sons of men will have departed! Oh, give me the
story of the Cross, the veritable story! Yes, let my eyes behold the
wounds of Jesus as I stand and bow before the Crucified! His death was
a literal fact–no phantom dream–and so would we hold it! And we would
meditate upon it as the center of all our hopes. "My meditation of Him
shall be sweet," is especially true of Christ on Calvary's Cross. Here
I see Atonement completed, satisfaction rendered, justice honored,
Grace expounded, love struggling, bleeding, contending, conquering! In
the actual death of Christ upon the Cross I see the safety of His elect
whom He has purchased with His precious blood! I see here the ending of
the reign of evil, the bruising of the old serpent's head. I see the
great rock on which the kingdom of God is established upon a sure
foundation sealed with the blood of Christ. Oh, go and live on Calvary,
you saints! No better air is to be found beneath the cope of Heaven
and, as you linger there, your meditation on your Lord shall be sweet!

But what am I saying? For wherever I contemplate the Lord Jesus Christ,
"my meditation of Him shall be sweet." Follow Him in His Resurrection.
Behold Him in His present Glory–meditate much upon His intercession at
the right hand of God. How secure are we because He always lives to
intercede for us! What prophecies of good things to come are hidden
away in the Person of our great High Priest before the Throne of God.

Think, too, of the glory yet to be revealed. "Behold, He comes." Every
hour is bringing Him nearer! We shall see Him in that Day and though we
may fall asleep before He comes, yet at His coming He shall raise our
bodies from the dust and, in our flesh we shall see God! Let us
meditate much upon the glories of Christ's Second Advent, the
transcendent splendors of our Divine Conqueror, the background of His
sufferings only making His triumphs to shine the more brightly!
Meditate upon these things–give your minds wholly to them–then shall
you prove the sweetness which dwells in them all.

If you, who are children of God, do not feel that you could traverse
any of these paths, I want you to seek to get sweetness out of this
thought, "HE loves me." Say to yourself, Believer, "If there is never
another one in Heaven or on earth that loves me, yet Jesus loves me.
Jesus loves me! It is well-nigh inconceivable, yet is it true."

II. Now let us turn to the second part of the subject, THE SWEET AS A
SWEETENER–"My meditation of Him shall be sweet,"

That is to say, first, it shall sweeten all my other sweetnesses. I
commend to you who are happy, to you who are full of joy, this blessed
method of securing to yourselves a continuance of that happiness and in
such a manner as to prevent its spoiling. If you have honey and your
hands are full of it, be cautious how you eat it, for you may eat honey
till you are sick of it! But if you have a great store of honey, put
something sweeter than honey with it, and then it will not harm you. I
mean, if God has given you joy in your youth, if you are prospered in
business, if your house is full of happiness, if your children sing
about you knee, if you have health and wealth, and your spirit dances
with joy–all this, by itself, may curdle and spoil. Add to it a sweet
meditation of your Lord and all will be well, for it is safe to enjoy
temporal things when we enjoy eternal things more! If you will put
Christ upon the throne to rule over these good things of yours, then
all shall be well. But if you dethrone Him to set these things up–then
they become idols–and "the idols He shall utterly abolish." If you are
truly His, you shall have great sorrow in the falling of your Dagons,
but it shall surely come to pass. O cheerful, happy, joyous people, I
wish there were more of you! I am not condemning your joy–I would
partake in it–but let the uppermost joy you have always be "Jesus
Christ, Himself." If the occasion of joy is your marriage, ask Him to
the wedding, for He will turn the water into wine! If it is your
prosperity, ask Him to the harvest festival and He will bless your
storehouse and your barn, and make your mercies to be real blessings to
you!

But, dear Friends, I need not say much about this point, because, at
least to some of us, our very sweet days are not very long or very
many. The comfort is that this sweetness can sweeten all our bitters.
There was never yet a bitter in the cup of life but what a meditation
upon Christ would overcome that bitterness and turn it into sweetness!
I will suppose that you are, at this time, undergoing personal trials
of a temporal kind. There are a great many cures for the cares of this
life which philosophy would suggest, but I suggest none of them to
you–I prescribe meditation upon Christ! I have already given your many
hints how the sorrows, the struggles and the conquests of the life of
Christ may help to sweeten all your conflicts and your struggles. Half
an hour's communion with the Lord Jesus will take away the keenness of
all your anxieties. Enter into your chamber, shut the door and begin to
speak with the Man of Sorrows, and your own sorrows will soon be
relieved. If you are poor, get to Him who had not where to lay His head
and you will even seem to be rich as you come back to your place in the
world! Have you been despised and rejected? Do but look on Him on whom
men spat, whom they cast out, saying that it was not fit that He should
live–and you will feel as if you never had true honor except when you
were, for Christ's sake, despised and dishonored! You will almost feel
as if it was too great an honor for you to have been contemned for His
dear sake, who bore the shame and the spitting and the cruel Cross for
your sake. Yes, the best sweetener of all temporal troubles is a
meditation upon Christ Jesus our Lord!

So is it with all the troubles that come of your Christian work and
service. I do not know how it is with any of my fellow workers, here,
but I can say this, my work has about it a joy that angels might envy,
but, at the same time, it has also a sorrow which I would not wish any
to know if it stood by itself. To preach Christ, oh, what bliss it is!
To tell of my Master's sweet love and of His power to save the guilty,
I would be content to stay out of Heaven for seven ages if I might
always be permitted to do nothing else but preach Christ to perishing
sinners! But there is the heartbreak which comes with it, often, in
preparing to preach, lest haply one should not take the right subject,
or should not have one's heart in a right condition for the handling of
it.

Add to that the anxieties that creep over one occupying such a position
as mine. Standing where I stand tonight and remembering many sorrowful
histories, many disappointed hopes concerning the condition of many now
before me, I go home, sometimes, wishing that I could creep into my bed
and never come out of it again because of my terrible anguish over some
of you who will, I fear, be eternally lost! As surely as you are here,
you will be lost unless you turn to Christ! Nothing seems as if it
could save you–entreaties, invitations, warnings, prayers–all are in
vain! You are still without God and without Christ–and if you remain
so, you will be lost–and we cannot bear the thought of it! We cannot
endure to think that we should preach, and warn, and entreat, and
invite and yet that it should all end in nothing except that we should
look from the right hand of the Great Judge and spy you out among those
to whom He will say, "Depart from Me, you cursed!"

Truly, there is an awful heartbreak that comes to us when we think of
these things! And when we see some, who did run well, turning aside.
Some who held the Truth of God, decrying and denying that Truth. Some
who once preached it, beginning to preach up the fancies of the age
instead of the Gospel of all the ages, then our heart is, indeed,
heavy! But what then? "My meditation of Him shall be sweet!" He is
still the same God over all, blessed forevermore. He is still exalted a
Prince and a Savior. Jesus will surely save His own and He will
overthrow all His adversaries, for, "He shall not fail nor be
discouraged till He has set judgment in the earth." After all is said
and done, there is no dishonor possible to Him! It is true that "He
humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the
Cross," but finish the quotation, "Why God also has highly exalted Him
and given Him a name which is above every name: that at the name" (or,
"in the name") "of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in Heaven,
and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue
should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
Father." So, my meditation of Him, even amid the anxieties of Christian
service, shall be exceedingly sweet!

Yes, Beloved, and it is just the same when you come to the anxieties
concerning your own spiritual condition. I suppose that the very good,
"perfect" people we sometimes meet with, or hear of, never get into the
state I sometimes get into, but I believe that many of you feel, at
times, cast down and troubled about your own spiritual state. Whether
men laugh at it or not, I know that many a child of God beside John
Newton has had to say–

"'Tis a point I long to know,

Oft it causes anxious thought,

Do I love the Lord or no?

Am I His, or am I not?"

I venture to say that as this was the question which the Lord, Himself,
put to Peter, it is, therefore, not a wrong question for us to ask
ourselves. When darkness veils the skies and the spirit sinks, and a
sense of sin is more prevalent than the realization of Divine Grace,
then it is bitterness, indeed! And at such a time, the very best
sweetener of the waters of Marah is to think of Christ–"My meditation
of Him shall be sweet." A sinner's Savior– oh, how sweet He is to such
a sinner as I! A Savior for those that have no strength–what a
precious Savior He is to a weak one like myself! A Savior who, though
we believe not as we ought, still abides faithful–what a dear Savior
He is to a half-believing one who has to cry, "Lord, I believe, help
You my unbelief!"

Let me give you a little piece of advice–do not think of yourself, but
think of your Lord! Or, if you must think of yourself, for every time
you give an eye to self, give twice that time to Christ! Then shall
your meditation of Him be sweet.

Thus, dear Friends, as long as we live, and when we come to die, our
meditation of Him shall be sweet! I would not have you fear the
bitterness of death, any of you, if you are trusting in Jesus. God has
a wonderful power of strengthening our souls when our bodies grow very
weak and feeble. I am quite sure that some of my dear Friends were
never before in such a condition in all their lives as I have seen them
in when they have evidently been marked for death. The messenger has
come, and, as John Bunyan puts it, has brought some timely "token" to
warn the spirit that, in a very short time, it is to appear among the
shining ones at the right hand of God. I have seen, just then, the
spirit of the timid grow strangely brave and the spirit of the
questioning grow singularly assured! The Lord has manifested Himself in
an unusually gracious way to the poor fluttering heart. Just as the
dove was about to take its last long flight, it seemed to have its eyes
strengthened to see the place to which it must fly–and all timidity
was gone forever. "My meditation of Him shall be sweet."

When I lie dying, when heart and flesh are failing me, when I shall
have little else to think of but my Lord and the eternal state, then
shall thoughts of Him pull up the floodgates of the river of bliss and
let the very joy of Heaven into my heart! And, by His Grace, I shall be
eager to be up and away! I shall not dread the pains, and groans, and
dying strife of which some talk so much–but the sweetness of "my
meditation of Him" shall make me forget even the bitterness of death,
itself!

I have done when I have just given you one more thought. Our text might
be read thus, "My meditation shall be sweet to Him." We are going to
uncover the Table of Communion directly. You will have nothing to think
of but the body and the blood of Him by whose death you live. That
meditation will, I trust, be very sweet to you, but this fact ought to
help to make it so–that it will be "sweet to Him." Jesus loves you to
love Him–and He loves you to think of Him! I know what you have said,
sometimes. I remember a Christian woman saying to me, "I have often
wished that I could preach, Sir. I have often wished that I had but
been a man that I might constantly preach the Gospel." I do not wonder,
I should marvel, indeed, if a good many Christian people did not say,
"I wish that I could be a missionary," or, "I wish that I could be a
poetess, like Miss Havergal, and sweetly sing of Christ." Perhaps you
cannot do any of those things, but you can meditate on Christ, can you
not? And your meditation on Him shall be sweet to Him! He will delight
in your delighting in Him!

"Oh, but I am a nobody," says one. "I am nothing." I tell even you that
your meditation of Christ, though it seems not to go very deep, though
you cannot, perhaps, keep your thoughts together, well–yet that heart
meditation of yours, which longs to meditate on your Lord and craves to
know more of Him–is very sweet to Him. Why, you fathers and mothers,
you know how it is with those little ones of yours–and especially that
first little one that just begins to talk! It has said nothing but
nonsense at present, yet you respect the little words, do you not? It
is a wonderful speech that little boy of yours made–but why do you
think so much of your child's little thoughts and expressions? Is it
not because he is your child that you value his words so much?

Well now, you belong to Christ and because you belong to Him, He
accepts your meditations because He accepts you! And He takes a delight
even in those poor broken perplexed thoughts of yours! He knows that if
you could sing like the seraphim, you would do so. If you could serve
Him as the angels do, you would. Well, if you cannot do that, you can
at least meditate on Christ–and your meditation of Him shall be sweet
to Him. Oh, then, give Him much of it, and God bless you, for His dear
Son's sake! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM104.

I trust that we have already felt something of holy enjoyment while our
hearts and voices have been praising the Lord our God. Perhaps this
Psalm may help to keep us in a praising state of mind. First of all,
David sang of the majesty of God in His works. Then it seems as if the
spirit of praise within him became like a strong-winged angel and,
mounting into the sky, he began to soar aloft over the varied
landscapes of the world until the sun went down. And even then, he
continued moving along through the darkness till the sun arose again
and found him still praising his God! We will note, as we read the
Psalm, this strange, mysterious flight of the spirit of praise.

Verse 1. Bless the LORD, O my Soul. There is the keynote. Strike it, my
Brothers and Sisters, each one of you!

1-3. O LORD my God, You are very great; You are clothed with honor and
majesty. Who covers Yourself with light as with a garment: who
stretches out the heavens like a curtain: who lays the beams of His
chambers in the waters. Or, as we may read it from the Hebrew, "who
makes His halls in the waters," those mysterious waters above the
firmament are here pictured as being the cool, retired dwelling place
of the majestic Deity.

3. Who makes the clouds His chariot: who walks upon the wings of the
wind. A masterly picture, as if the Lord stood erect upon the two wings
of the wind and, as if the wind, like a mighty spirit, went flying
round the world with the great Jehovah standing upon its wings, and so
riding along!

4, 5. Who makes His angels spirits; His ministers a flaming fire: who
laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed
forever. Now comes a very graphic description of Noah's flood.

6. You covered it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood
above the mountains. What a splendid act of Divine Energy, when the
waters which, before, like tamed lions, slept in their dens, came
hungry and fierce and swallowed up the whole earth!

7, 8. At Your rebuke they fled; at the voice of Your thunder they
hastened away. They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys
unto the place which You founded for them. At the sound of God's voice,
those mighty deeps went back in a great hurricane. Anyone who has seen
water when it is traveling at a great rate, lashed with tempests, will
have seen it tossed as into mountains and then having huge holes like
vast valleys in it, so, the waters rose up like mountains and fell down
like valleys till they found the channels of the deep which God had
found for them.

9. You have set a boundary that they may not pass over; that they turn
not again to cover the earth. Jehovah puts the bit of sand into the
mouth of the sea and it comes no farther than its appointed boundaries.
Now you must suppose the Psalmist is leaving the crowded streets and
the dingy, dusty, smoky haunts of men and flying, on the wings of his
gratitude and praise, away into the quiet of the fertile country.

10-12. He sends the springs into the valleys which run among the hills.
They give drink to every beast of the field: the wild asses quench
their thirst. By them shall the fowls of the Heaven have their
habitation, which sing among the branches. I know of no place that
seems to bring out one's joy and praise better than when standing by
the side of some rippling brook that tumbles down the fissure among the
rocks and, seeing the animals come to drink, and hearing the birds
blithely sing among the branches, or hang over and dip into the very
stream! Even the reading of this Psalm may be like a cool and
refreshing breeze to you at this time–and your soul may, in
imagination, fly away with David, as you also praise and bless your
God!

13. He waters the hills from His chambers. From those watery halls
above the firmament He pours down the showers.

13-15. The earth is satisfied with the fruit of Your works. He causes
the grass to grow for the cattle, and herbs for the service of man:
that he may bring forth food out of the earth; and wine that makes glad
the heart of man, and oil to make his face shine, and bread which
strengthens man's heart. The spirit of praise is flying over the fields
plowed and tilled by man, over the fruitful vineyards red with clusters
of grapes and over the olive gardens and other places where man's
handiwork has made the earth fertile. Now the Psalmist mounts still
higher and gets into the forests.

16, 17. The trees of the LORD are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon,
which He has planted; where the birds make their nests: as for the
stork, the fir trees are her house. Flying along over the tops of the
trees, he looks down among them and he notices the beasts as well as
the birds

18. The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; and the rocks for
the conies. So that there is not any part of the earth which is not
full of God's goodness! Even the rocks, which yield nothing to the
plow, furnish a refuge for the conies, and the high hills are a home
for the wild goats, while the fertile earth beneath makes man's heart
glad. As the spirit of praise flies over the tops of the mountains, the
sun goes down. The Psalmist witnesses that grand sight, an Eastern
sunset.

19, 20. He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knows his going
down. You make darkness, and it is night. Will he now cease from his
song? No, for God does not cease to work!

20, 21. Wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. The young
lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. So that even
night has its mysterious music and the roaring of the young lions is a
tribute to the Providence of the good God who cares even for the beasts
that perish!

22. The sun arises, they gather themselves together, and lay them down
in their dens. You see, the Psalmist does not cease his praise, but
finds a theme for music even in the rest of the beasts.

23, 24. Man goes forth unto his work and to his labor until the
evening. O LORD, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom have you made
them all: the earth is full of Your riches. The Psalmist has made a
long journey, flying along just where he could see everything upon the
face of the earth, but he thinks to himself that he has not seen the
half of God's works, yet, for yonder is the Mediterranean, glistening
in the morning sunbeams, so he takes another flight.

25. 26. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping
innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships. That is,
above the water–while in it–

26. There is that leviathan, whom You have made to play therein. Some
mighty fish leaps out of the sea. The Psalmist's eye catches a glimpse
of it and he puts even that monster into his hymn of praise!

27. These wait all upon You, that You may give them their meat in due
season. My Brothers and Sisters, what an idea we have, here, of God
thus supplying all the creatures of the earth and the sea! They are all
waiting upon Him–they can go to no other storehouse but His–no other
granary can supply their needs! Surely, we need not be afraid that He
will fail us. It He feeds leviathan, with his great needs, and the many
birds with their little needs, He will not forget His children! He will
never withhold any real good from them that walk uprightly.

28. What You give them they gather: You open Your hand, they are filled
with good. That is all He has to do, you see, just open His hand. If
that hand were once fast closed, they would all die, but, in order to
supply the needs of all the creatures He has made, He has only to open
His hand!

29. You hide Your face. As if He did but put His hand before the
brightness of His Countenance–

29, 30. They are troubled: You take away their breath, they die, and
return to their dust. You send forth Your Spirit, they are created: and
You renew the face of the earth. When God takes away the genial light
of the summer's sun, what multitudes of creatures die! And then, when
the soft breath of spring blows upon the earth, how soon the multitudes
of insects come teeming forth! Christian, here is comfort for you! Has
God withheld His Spirit from you for a little while, and have many of
your joys and comforts fallen dead? He has only to speak and He can, in
a moment, renew all your comforts!

31-35. The glory of the LORD shall endure forever: the LORD shall
rejoice in His works. He looks on the earth and it trembles: He touches
the hills and they smoke. I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live:
I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. My meditation of
Him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the LORD. Let the sinners be
consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. It seems as
if the spirit of praise had bred in the Psalmist a spirit of
indignation against sin. He could no longer have any patience with
those who would not adore so great and so good a God and, therefore, he
utters this imprecation upon their heads which is rather a prophecy of
what will be their doom–"Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth,
and let the wicked be no more."

35. Bless you the LORD, O my Soul. Praise you the LORD. Thus the
Psalmist, like a good musician, ends with the keynote of his song of
praise–

"Bless the Lord, O my Soul."

May each of us say the same!