The Weaned Child

DELIVERED BY

C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"My soul is even as a weaned child." Psalm 131:2.

I was once conversing with a very excellent aged minister and while we
were talking about our attitude and feelings, he made the following
confession–he said, "When I read that passage in the Psalm, 'My soul
is even as a weaned child,' I wish it were true of me, but I think I
should have to make an alteration of one syllable and then it would
exactly describe me at times–'My soul is even as a weaning rather than
a weaned child,' for," said he, "with the infirmities of old age, I
fear I get fretful and peevish and anxious. And when the day is over I
do not feel that I have been in so calm, resigned and trustful a frame
of mind as I could desire."

I suppose, dear Brothers and Sisters, that frequently we have to make
the same confession. We wish we were like a weaned child, but we find
ourselves neglecting to walk by faith and getting into the way of
walking by the sight of our eyes. And then we get like the weaning
child which is fretting and worrying, and unrestful and who causes
trouble to those round about it and, most of all, trouble to itself.
Weaning was one of the first real troubles that we met with after we
came into this world and it was, at the time, a very terrible one to
our little hearts. We got over it somehow or other. We do not remember,
now, what a trial it was to us, but we may take it as a type of all
troubles, for if we have faith in Him who was our God from our mother's
breasts, as we got over the weaning and do not even remember it, so we
shall get over all the troubles that are to come and shall scarcely
remember them for the joy that will follow.

If, indeed, Dr. Watts is correct in saying that when we get to Heaven
we shall, "recount the labors of our feet," then, I am quite sure that
we shall only do it, as he says, "with transporting joy." There, at
least, we shall be, each one of us, as a weaned child. It is a very
happy condition of heart which is here indicated–and I shall speak
about it with a desire to promote the increase of such a state of heart
among Believers–and with the hope that many of us may reach it and all
of us who have reached it may continue to say, "My soul is even as a
weaned child."

I. First, let us think WHAT THE PSALMIST INTENDED BY THIS DESCRIPTION.
We will begin by noticing the context, in order to understand him, and
then we will consider the metaphor in order, still further, to see what
he literally meant. First, look at the context and you will see that he
intended that pride had been subdued in him and driven out of him, for
he commences the Psalm with this, "Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor
my eyes lofty." We are all proud by nature, though there is not one
among us that has anything to be proud of! It makes no difference what
our condition is–we universally dream that we have something to glory
about.

The Lord Mayor is not a bit prouder in his gold chain than the beggar
in his rags. Indeed, pride is a kind of weed that will grow on very
poor soil quite as freely as in the best cultivated garden. Every man
thinks more of himself than God thinks of him, for when a man is in his
highest estate and at his best, he is nothing but dust and the Lord
knows his constitution and remembers that he is just that and nothing
better. Some poor creatures, however, indulge their pride and let it
run away with them as a wild horse with its rider. They cannot be
trusted with a little money but straightway they hold their heads so
high that one might think the stars in danger! They cannot be trusted
with a little talent but straightway their genius is Omnipotent, in
their own opinion, and they, themselves, are to be treated like
demi-gods.

And if they are God's servants, they cannot have a little success in
the ministry or in the Sunday school without becoming quite unpleasant
to those round about them through their boastful ways and eagerness to
talk of self. Scarcely can they have enjoyment, even of the Presence of
God, but what they begin to make an idol of their attainments and
Graces, and begin to say, "My mountain, my mountain, stands firm. I, I
shall never be moved." Great I grows without any watering, for the soil
of nature is muddy and the rush of pride takes to it mightily!. You
need never be troubled about a man's keeping up his opinion of
himself–he will be pretty sure to do that–the force of nature usually
runs in the direction of self-conceit.

This pride very often leads to haughtiness, domineering ways towards
others and contempt of them–as if they were not as good as we are. And
if we see any errors and mistakes in them, we conclude that they are
very foolish and that we would act much better if we were in their
position. If they act nobly and well, this same pride of ours leads us
to pick holes in them and to detract from their excellence. And if we
cannot get up as high as they are, we try to pull them down to our own
level. This is a base thing to do, but the proud man is always mean.
Loftiness of looks and meanness of heart run, with him, like a couple
of hounds in a leash.

The humble man is the truly great man! Because God's gentleness has
made him great, he is sure to be kept lowly before the Lord by the Holy
Spirit. The proud man is really little–no, more–he is really nothing
even in the things in which he boasts. David could say, "My heart is
not haughty." His brother, Eliab, said that David was proud when he
went down to carry his father's present to his soldier brothers, but it
was not so. His heart was content to be with the sheep–he was quite
willing to follow the "ewes great with young." When he was in Saul's
court, they thought him ambitious, but he was not so–he was quite
satisfied to be a servant there, to fight the battles of Israel. The
place of captain over a wandering band was forced upon him, but he
would sooner have dwelt at home. And when he was king he did not exalt
himself.

Absalom, when he was aspiring to the kingdom, was a far greater man to
look at than his father David, for David walked in lowliness of spirit
before the Lord. Whatever faults he had, he certainly had not the fault
of vanity, or of being intoxicated in spirit with what God had done for
him. Now, it is a great blessing when the Spirit of God keeps us from
being haughty and our looks from being lofty. We shall never be as a
weaned child till it gets to that, for a weaned child thinks nothing of
itself. It is but a little babe! Whatever consciousness it has at all
about the matter, it is not conscious of any strength or any wisdom! It
is entirely dependent upon its mother's care.

And blessed is that man who is brought to lie very low in his own
spirit before the Lord, resting on the bosom of Infinite Love. After
all, Brothers and Sisters, we are nobodies and we have come from a line
of nobodies! The proudest peer of the realm may trace his pedigree as
far as ever he likes, but he ought to remember that if his blood is
blue, it must be very unhealthy to have such blood in one's veins! The
common ruddy blood of the peasant is, after all, far healthier! Big as
men may account themselves to be on account of their ancestors, we all
trace our line up to a gardener who lost his place through stealing his
Master's fruit–and that is the farthest we can possibly go. Adam
covers us all with disgrace and under that disgrace we should all
humbly sit.

Look into your own heart and if you dare to be proud, you have never
seen your heart at all! It is a mass of pollution! It is a den of
filthiness! Apart from Divine Grace your heart is a seething mass of
putrefaction and if God's eternal Spirit were not to hold it in check,
but to let your nature have its way–envy, lust, murder and every foul
thing would come flying forth in your daily life! A sinner and yet
proud? It is monstrous! As for children of God, how can they be proud?
I fear we are all too much so. But what have we to be proud of? What
have we that we have not received? How, then, can we boast? Are we
dressed in the robe of Christ's Righteousness? We did not put a thread
into it–it was all given us by the charity of Jesus!

Are our garments white? We have washed them in the blood of the Lamb.
Are we new creatures? We have been created anew by Omnipotent power or
we should still be as we were. Are we holding on our way? It is God
that enables us to persevere, or we should long ago have gone back.
Have we been kept from the great transgression? Who has kept us? We
certainly have not kept ourselves! There is nothing that we have of
which we can say, "I did this and it is all my own"–except our faults
and our sins–and over these we ought to blush.

Yet, Brothers and Sisters, when the Lord favors us, especially in early
life–though I do not know but what it is almost as much so with us who
have got a little farther on–if you get a full sail and a favoring
breeze, and the vessel scuds along before the wind, there is need of a
great deal of ballast or else there will soon be a tale to tell of a
vessel that was upset and a sailor who was too venturesome and was
never heard of again! We have need continually to be kept lowly before
God, for pride is the besetting sin of mankind. O, that God would give
us to be as David was–not haughty, neither our eyes lofty. This is the
first help towards being as a weaned child.

And next he tells us that he was not ambitious–"Neither do I exercise
myself in great matters." He was a shepherd. He did not need to go and
fight Goliath, but when he did do it, it was because his nation needed
him. He said, "Is there not a cause?" Otherwise he had stayed in the
background. When he went into the cave of Adullam, he never lifted a
hand

to become king. He might have struck his enemy several times–and with
one stroke have ended the warfare and seized the throne–but he would
not lift a hand against the Lord's Anointed, for, like a weaned child,
he was not ambitious. He was willing to go where God would put him, but
he was not seeking after great things.

Now, dear Brethren, we shall never be as a weaned child if we have high
notions of what we ought to be and large desires for self. If we are
great men in our own esteem, of course we ought to have great things
for ourselves. But if we know ourselves and are brought into a true
condition of mind, we shall avoid those "vaulting ambitions which leap
over themselves." For instance, we shall not be hankering after great
possessions. "Having food and raiment" we shall be "therewith content."
If God adds to our store of the comforts of life, we shall be grateful.
We shall be diligent in business, but we shall not be greedy and
miserly. "While others stretch their arms, like seas, to grasp in all
the shore," we shall be content with far less things, for we know that
greed after earthly riches brings with it slackness of desire as to
true riches. The more hungry a man is after this world, the less he
pines after the treasures of the world to come.

We shall not be covetous if we are like a weaned child. Neither shall
we sigh for position and influence–whoever heard of a weaned child
doing that? Let it lie in its parent's bosom and it is content–and so
shall we be in the bosom of our God. Yet some Christian men seem as if
they could not pull unless they are the fore horse of the team. They
cannot work with others, but must have the chief place, contrary to the
word of the Apostle who says, "My Brethren, be you not many masters,
lest you receive the greater condemnation." Blessed is that servant who
is quite content with that position which his master appoints him–glad
to unloose the laces of his Lord's shoes–glad to wash the saints'
feet–glad to engage in sweeping a crossing for the king's servants.

Let us do anything for Jesus, counting it the highest honor, even, to
be a doormat inside the Church of God, if we might be such a thing as
that for the saints to remove the filthiness from themselves upon
us–so long as we may but be of some use to them and bring some glory
to God. You remember the word of Jeremiah to Baruch? Baruch had been
writing the roll for the Prophet and straightway Baruch thought he was
somebody. He had been writing the Word of the Lord, had he not? But the
Prophet said to him, "Seek you great things for yourself? Seek them
not." And so says the mind of the Spirit to us all. Do not desire to
occupy positions of eminence and prominence, but let your soul be as a
weaned child–not exercising itself in great matters.

Very often we seek after great approbation. We want to do great deeds
that people will talk about and especially some famous work which
everybody will admire. This is human nature, for the love of
approbation is rooted in us. As the old rhyme puts it–

"The proud to gain it, toils on toils endures. The modest shun it but
to make it sure." But that man has arrived at the right position who
has become, "careless, himself a dying man, of dying man's esteem." It
is he who judges what is right before God and does it caring neither
for public nor private opinion in the matter–to whom it is no more
concern what people may say of an action which his conscience commends
than what tune the north wind whistles as it blows over the Alps! He
who is the slave of man's opinions is a slave, indeed. I would sooner
go to some barbarous climate where yet the slave whip would fall upon
my shoulders and the cruel fetter would chain me to the floor, than
live in dread of such a thing as I myself, and tremble with fear of
offending this man and the other by doing what I believe to be right.
He who fears God needs fear no one else! But he who reaches that point
has undergone a painful weaning and had it not been for that he would
not be able to say, "My soul is even as a weaned child."

Frequently, too, we exercise ourselves in great matters by having a
high ambition to do something very wonderful in the Church. This is why
so very little is done! The great destroyer of good works is the
ambition to do great works! A little thing can be done by a Christian
Brother very well. But if it strikes him, "I will organize a society to
do it and a committee, a secretary, a president, and a vice-president,"
(it being well known that nothing can be done till you get a committee,
a president and all that kind of thing), the Brother soon hampers
himself and his work ends in resolutions and reports–and nothing more.

But the Brother who says, "Here is a district which nobody visits. I
will do what I can in it"–he is probably the man who will get another
to help him and another, and the work will be done! The young man who
is quite content to begin with preaching in a little room in a village
to a dozen, is the man who will win souls! The other Brother, who does
not begin preaching till he can preach to 5,000 will never do
anything–he never can. I read of a king who always

wanted to take the second step first, but he was not a Solomon! There
are many such about, not kings but common people, who do not want to do
the first thing, the thing they can do, the thing which God calls them
to do, the thing they ought to do! No, they must do something great.

O, dear Brother, if your soul ever gets to be as it ought, you will
feel, "The least thing that I can do, I shall be glad to do. The very
poorest and meanest form of Christian service, as men think it, is
better than I deserve." It is a great honor to be allowed to unloose
the laces of my Lord's shoes! A young man who once had a small charge
and only about 200 hearers, complained to an old minister that he
wished he could move somewhere else. But the old one said, "Do not be
in a hurry, Brother. The responsibility of 200 souls is quite a heavy
load enough for most of us to carry." And so it is. We need not be so
eager to load ourselves with more.

He is the best draftsman, not who draws the largest, but the most
perfect circle. If the circle is perfect, nobody finds fault with it
because it is not large. Fill your sphere, Brother, and be content with
it. If God shall move you to another, be glad to be moved. If He moves
you to a smaller, be as willing to go to a less prominent place as to
one that is more so. Have no will about it. Be a weaned child that has
given up fretting, crying, worrying and leaves its mother to do just
what seems good in her sight. When we are thoroughly weaned it is well
with us–pride is gone and ambition is gone, too. We shall need much
nursing by One who is wiser and gentler than the best mother before we
shall be quite weaned of these two dearly beloved sins.

Next, David tells us he was not intrusive–"Neither do I exercise
myself in great matters, or in things too high for me." I have seen
many men always vexed and troubled because they would exercise
themselves in things too high for them. These things too high for them
have been many but I will mention only a few. They have expected to
comprehend everything and have never been satisfied because many Truths
of God are far above and out of their reach. They have expected,
especially, to know all the deep things of God–the Doctrine of
Election and how predestination coincides with the free agency of man,
and how God orders everything and yet man is responsible–just as
responsible as if there had been no foreknowledge and no
foreordination.

It is folly to hope to know these "things too high for us." Here is a
little child that has just come off its mother's knee and it expects to
understand a book on trigonometry and cries because it cannot? And here
is another little child that has been down to the sea and is fretting
and kicking in its nurse's arms because it cannot get the Atlantic into
the hollow of its hand? Well, it will have to kick, that will be the
end of it. But it is fretting itself for nothing, without any real use
or need for its crying, because a little child's palm cannot hold an
ocean. Yet a child might sooner hold the Atlantic and Pacific in its
two hands, without spilling a drop, than you and I will ever be able to
hold all the revealed Truth of God within the compass of our narrow
minds!

We cannot know everything and we cannot understand even half what we
know! I have given up wanting to understand. As far as I can, I am
content with believing all that I see in God's Word. People say, "But
you contradict yourself." I dare say I do, but I never contradict God
to my knowledge, or the Bible. If I do, may my Lord forgive me. Do not
believe me for a minute if I speak contrary to God's Word in order to
appear consistent. The sin of being inconsistent with my poor fallible
self does not trouble me a tenth as much as the dread of being
inconsistent with what I find in God's

Word!

Some want to shape the Scriptures to their creed or denomination and
they get a very nice square creed, too, and trim the Bible most
dexterously–it is wonderful how they do it! But I would rather have a
crooked creed and a straight Bible, than I would try to twist the Bible
round to suit what I believe. "Neither do I exercise myself," says the
Psalmist, "with things too high for me," and I think we do well to keep
very much in that line. "Oh, but really, one ought to be acquainted
with all the phrases of modern thought." Yes, and how many hours in a
day ought a man give to that kind of thing? Twenty-five out of the 24
would hardly be sufficient, for the phrases of modern thought are
innumerable–and every fool who sets himself up as a philosopher sets
up a new scheme! Am I to spend my time in going about to knock his
card-houses over?

Not I! I have something else to do! And so has every Christian
minister. He has real doubts to deal with which vex true hearts! He has
anxieties to relieve in converted souls and in minds that are pining
after the Truth of God! He has these to meet without everlastingly
tilting at windmills and running all over the country to put down every
scarecrow which learned simpletons may set up! We shall soon defile
ourselves if we work day after day in the common sewers of

skepticism! Brothers and Sisters, there is a certain highway of Truth
in which you and I, like wayfaring men and women, feel ourselves
safe–let us travel on it!

There are some things that we do know because we have experienced
them–some doctrines which nobody can beat out of us because we have
tasted them and handled them. Well, if we can go further, well and
good. But to my mind, we are foolish to go further and fare worse. If a
man has reached the Land's End and some great genius should tell him to
walk on farther than Old England reaches. And if he ridicules him
because he will not go a step further into the fog which conceals an
awful plunge–I think, upon the whole–he may be content to put up with
the ridicule! Put your foot down, Brothers and Sisters, and see whether
there is anything under it! Check whether there is a good text or two
underneath– whether there is a little personal experience underneath
and, if you do not find it, let the advanced thinkers go alone– you
had better keep to the Rock.

"Prove all things"–do not run after their novelties till you have
proved them. But what you have proved hold fast. Be conservative in
God's Truth, and radical too, by keeping to the root of the matter.
Hold fast what you know and live mainly upon the simplicities of the
Gospel, for, after all, the food of the soul does not lie in
controversial points–it lies in points which we will never have
controverted, for "without controversy, great is the mystery of
godliness, God manifest in the flesh." There is the food of the soul
where there is no controversy in any devout Christian spirit! Exercise
yourself, then, in the plainer matters, and do not imbibe the notion
that you must read all the quarterlies and master, "The Contemporary
Review" and the like, or else you will be a nobody. Be content to be
just such a nobody as a weaned child is, and say, "I exercise not
myself in great matters or in things too high for me."

The same evil comes up in another form when we want to know all the
reasons of Divine Providence–why this affliction was sent and why
that? Why Father died–why those two children that we loved so well
were taken from us? Why we do not prosper in our various enterprises?
Why? Why? Why? Ah, when we begin asking, "Why? Why? Why?" what an
endless task we have before us! If we become like a weaned child we
shall not ask, "why?" but just believe that in our heavenly Father's
dispensations there is a wisdom too deep for us to fathom, a goodness
veiled but certain!

We exercise ourselves in things too high for us, too, when we begin
considering the results of duty and hesitate to do it. A man's course
is quite clear in the Word of God, but he says, "If I do that, how am I
to provide for my family? If I do that, shall I not be throwing out a
sphere of usefulness? I know it would be right to do it. My conscience
tells me that I ought–but other people manage, somehow, to make
notches in their conscience and they are evidently very useful where
they are."

Ah, my dear Brother, pray God to lead you in a plain path, and
remember, you have nothing to do with results except to receive them as
tests of your faithfulness! Results must always be left with God! If
the result of doing right would be that you lost your life, your Master
tells you that you must hate even your own life, also, or else you
cannot be His disciple. You will get helped if you can trust, but if,
for the sake of this or that, you do wrong–I do not mind how you put
it–you are doing evil that good may come–and you are grieving the
Spirit of God! Your mind will never get to be like a weaned child. It
is not the childlike spirit to try to excuse yourself for maintaining a
false position. The childlike spirit is to do what our heavenly Father
tells us, because He tells us, and leave the consequences with Him.

Thus I have said enough, perhaps too much, about the connection. Now,
from the simile itself we gather that the condition of heart of which
David spoke was this–that he was like one who was able to give up his
natural food, which seemed to him absolutely necessary, and which he
greatly enjoyed. The weaned babe has given up what it loved. By nature
we hang on the breasts of this world and only Sovereign Grace can wean
us from it. But when we give up self-righteousness, self-confidence,
the love of the world, the desire of self-aggrandizement–when we give
up trusting in man, trusting in ceremonies, trusting in anything but
God–then and only then has our soul become like a weaned child! Then
it has given up what Nature feeds upon that it may feed upon the Bread
of Heaven!

It means, next, that he had at last conquered his desires, his
longings. The weaning child has his desires strong upon him and he
frets. But the weaned child is content, his desires lie still. And the
child of God, when sufficient Grace has come, feels no desires for that
which once delighted him. He submits himself so completely to his
Father's will that if he is to do without, he does without. Paul said
he had learned in whatever state he was to be content. To be content to
be without as well as to be with is a high attainment. Not to have and
to be as happy in not having as if one had all he

desired is well. O, blessed state to be in! Not merely taken away from
the breasts of earth, but taught no longer to wish for them!

Now, a weaned child is entirely dependent upon its mother. It knows
nothing about how it is to be fed. It could not feed itself and it must
die if deprived of the care of another. But it rests quietly, free from
even a trace of anxiety. I find that the Hebrew gives the idea of a
child lying in its mother's bosom, perfectly satisfied. And David puts
it something like this, O my Lord, "my soul lies in Your bosom like a
child that has done with crying and fretting, and is weaned
altogether." Oh, happy man who so depends upon God that he leaves all
his concerns with the God of Love and sings sweetly in confidence in
God!

Thus I have tried to describe the state which the Psalmist intended by
being "as a weaned child."

II. And now, secondly, WHAT IS THE EXCELLENCE OF THIS CONDITION? Why is
it desirable to be even as a weaned child? It is excellent in every
way. You will know it best by attaining to it, for when you are weaned,
your desires will no longer worry you. Curb desire and you have struck
at the root of half your sorrow! He smarts not under poverty who has
learned to be content. He frets not under affliction who is submissive
to the Father's will and lays aside his own. When your desires are held
within bounds, your temptations to rebel are ended.

You wanted this and you wanted that, and so you quarreled with God and
your Lord and you were seldom on good terms. He did not choose to
pamper you and you wanted Him to and so you fretted like a weaning
child. Now you leave it to His will and you have peace. The strife is
over. Your soul is quieted and behaves itself becomingly. Now, also,
your resentments against those who injured you are gone. You were angry
with a certain person, but your pettishness has ended with your
weaning–you see that God sent him to do this which has troubled you
and you accept his hard words and cruel actions as from God–and by His
Grace, you are angry no more.

You do not kick and struggle, now, against your condition and position.
And you no longer murmur and complain from day to day as if you were
harshly dealt with. No, if God chooses to better your circumstances you
will be glad. If He does not, you just take it as you find it, for you
could not blame His Providence. You give your thoughts to something
better than the things of earth, for you now resolve as David did in
the 132nd Psalm, which is very remarkable as following the Psalm which
contains our text, because there he goes on to declare that he will
build for the Lord of Hosts. When your own business is all right and
you are weaned from all fretting, worrying and self-seeking, then you
are free to undertake the Lord's business.

He has done for you what you want and now you want to do something for
Him. You have sought the kingdom of God and His Righteousness and all
other things have been added to you, so that you are as happy as the
days are long in June! Look at the birds in the winter. When there is
not a leaf on the trees they sit and sing! And in the early spring,
when still the winter's cold is lingering, they pour out their very
choicest songs–and yet there is not a lark or thrush among them that
has an hour's provision in store! Not one among them has house or barn,
or gathers anything and yet, according to Martin Luther's
interpretation of their song, they sing–

"Mortal, cease from toilandsorrow, God provides for the morrow." Happy
is the man who comes to that condition! God, bring us there!

When we are weaned we have got rid of the ground of future troubles and
disappointments. We do not get weaned all at once from everything. One
person, here, has been weaned from confidence in riches, but perhaps
his heart, his affectionate heart, is clinging to some human love, some
mortal joy. Well, Brother, well, Sister, remember that where your
treasure is your heart will go–and if that treasure is taken away,
your heart must ache. If we trust in an arm of flesh, we make a rod for
our own backs. You never lean upon a man, or woman, either, and steal
away from simple trust in God, but what you are preparing for yourself
a trial! It may be in the treachery of the one you trusted. It
certainly will be, if you live long enough, in the death of that
beloved one.

"Dust to dust" and, "ashes to ashes," will be the end of all earthly
joy. If a building leans upon a buttress, if that buttress is taken
away it must be weakened. But if it can stand alone, upon its own
foundation, then it stands firmly. The man who depends alone upon his
God and whose expectation is from Him, has not half the occasions for
trouble that he has who is leaning here and leaning there, and leaning
in 50 places! For each earthly prop will be the cause or occasion of
distress at some time or other.

III. I have very much to say on this point, but my time is gone. I will
only close with the last inquiry, which is this– IS THIS STATE
ATTAINABLE? Certainly. David said, "My soul is even as a weaned child."
He did not say that he hoped it would be. We can surely get where David
got, for he was a man of like passions with ourselves. No attainment in
Grace is to be viewed as the monopoly of one man or one age! In fact,
we have more advantages than the Psalmist, for he lived under a much
more poverty-stricken dispensation than we do.

Now the gates of Heaven are set wide open and the treasure houses and
the granaries of our heavenly Joseph are free to all Israel! And, if we
are at all straitened, it certainly cannot be in the Lord! He does not
stint us. Did David say, "My soul is even as a weaned child"? Then no
Believer here ought to be content till he can say, "By the Grace of God
I am brought into that same condition." This sacred weanedness of heart
is possible under any circumstances. The poor have often attained it.

I saw, this week, a poor women entirely dependent upon what was given
to her by others. She is confined to her chamber, needing to be lifted
from her bed. She is racked with rheumatic pain and yet as happy as an
angel! She was joying and rejoicing in the Lord and one of her greatest
pleasures was to sit on the side of the bed for an hour, when her pain
was not so bad but what she could sit up, and get through a chapter or
two of her Bible. Then her heart took to itself wings and soared up to
Heaven! Her soul was as a weaned child. She had no anxieties and no
fretfulness. Those who attended her said that such a thing as a murmur
never escaped her. Hear this, you poor ones!

And you who are better off may get there in the midst of riches, for
David was a king and yet he did not suffer his worldly wealth to canker
his spirit. He was as a weaned child though dwelling in a palace! He
could get at the breast of worldly pleasures and yet he was weaned from
it! A man may be in this condition when he is tossed to and fro and
troubled. Business men are apt to say, "It is all very well for you
ministers to talk about calm and peace of mind. But if you had to sell
flour and bread, or measure out drapery, or look after a lot of clerks,
or go into a large factory and see after a pack of work girls, you
would find it very difficult."

My dear Friends, look at David's life. How tossed about he was! What
cares, what trials, what changes, what singular alternations of
condition–and yet for all that his soul was even as a weaned child! Do
you think the religion of Jesus Christ was meant to be kept under a
glass case and that it would make good people of us if we were locked
up in a cloister? No, it is a practical everyday religion meant for you
that have factories and you that have bakeries and you that have shops!
The religion which cannot stand the wear and tear of everyday life is
not worth two pence–and the sooner you are rid of such rubbish, the
better! We need a religion which we may take with us wherever we go,
that will keep us calm and quiet and self-possessed, because we are
possessed of the Spirit of God. May we reach this happy state and never
leave it!

What is the way to get it? The Psalm tells us, "Let Israel hope in the
Lord, from now on and forever." Faith blossoming into hope is the way
of sanctification–the road to a calm and quiet spirit. You cannot say
to yourself, "I will fret no longer," and then expect never to fret.
No, Brothers and Sisters, you must expel one affection by another– one
propensity must be vanquished by another. You are too ready to trust in
man–trust in God will push out carnal confidence. You are expecting
great things of the world, that is foolish! Expect great things of God
and you will cease from carnal hopes. You are seeking, from day to day,
for this world's good. You feel an ambition to rise–seek after the
eternal good and feel an ambition to get nearer to God–and the other
ambition will die. You are worried by fears and anxieties– come and
rest your soul upon the faithful promise and, resting there, your
anxieties will cease.

I fear that many Christian people think that faith has nothing to do
with everyday life. They do not expect to find that it relieves them of
anxieties as to bread and cheese for themselves, or shoes and socks for
the children–and all those little troubles and worries which concern a
housewife and a father. But, oh, Beloved, it is not so! The heathen had
their household gods and, blessed be God, He is our household God, the
God of all the families of Israel! The Lord hears the young ravens when
they cry–will He not hear His people? The ravens only cry for meat–a
dead rabbit or a pigeon is all they need–yet the Lord sees that their
needs are supplied! And I find that, "not a sparrow falls to the ground
without your Father, and the very hairs of your head are all numbered."

These poor hairs? These little things! These trifling things! You will
never be as a weaned child till you leave these little things with God,
for the child has no great things. A child's matters are all
little–though they are great to the babe they are little to us. Leave
your little things with God! Leave everything with God! Live in God!
Dwell in God!

Have no secrets between yourself and God! The troubles of life which
fret us most are the little things. If a man goes on a long walk it is
not the climbing and it is not the slipping down the steep hillside–it
is that nasty little stone which has got into his shoe which troubles
him! He can hardly see it, but there it is, and it blisters his foot
and lames him.

Ah, dear Brothers and Sisters, take the little stone to God! Ask Him to
remove that little vexation from you, for as with God there is nothing
great, so is there nothing little. The greatest philosopher in the
world, or the greatest king, if his little child had a thorn in his
finger, would not think himself disgraced if he stooped to take it out
with a needle. The Lord who makes all things and calls the stars by
their names does not dishonor Himself when He binds up our broken
hearts. Go, then, to your God and let your soul leave everything with
Him by faith, being made as a weaned child. "Easier said than done,"
says somebody. Yes, Brethren, except by faith–but to faith it is easy
enough.

And I boldly say here that I have sometimes found it easier to exercise
faith than to talk about it. When I trust God–and I hope I do that
habitually–I do not find that to give up anxiety and to trust in God
is difficult, now, though it used to be. Blessed be my Lord, I cannot
help believing Him, for He loads me down with evidences of His Truth
and fidelity! Once get really into the swim of faith and you do not
need to struggle–the sacred current of Grace will carry you along.
Give yourself completely up to the Lord Jesus Christ and the mighty
energy of the blessed Spirit–and you will find it sweet to lie passive
in His hands and know no will but His!

God bring you there! If there is any unconverted person here who cannot
understand all this, I pray the Lord to make him a child, first, and
then make him a weaned child! Regeneration must come first, but
sanctification will follow. Believe in Jesus for pardon and then you
will have Grace given to resign yourself to the Divine will. May the
Lord wean you from earth and wed you to Heaven. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Psalm 130,131. HYMNS FROM "OUR
OWN HYMN BOOK" – 708, 778.