To Souls In Agony

DELIVERED BY

C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of Hell got hold upon
me. I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the
Lord; O Lord, I beseech You, deliver my soul…You have delivered my
soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling." Psalm
116:3,4,8.

THE great trouble which is here described very probably happened to
David long after he had been a Believer. He had been living the life of
faith, perhaps, for years, in a calm, happy and quiet manner. But
by-and-by he met with outward tribulation and not a little of inward
conflict. At some time or other it generally happens to a Believer,
between the setting out at the wicket gate and the crossing of the last
river, that he endures a great fight of afflictions. My observation
leads me to notice that those who begin with rough times frequently
have a smooth path afterwards, while others, whose first experience was
very sunny and peaceful, meet with fierce conflicts farther on.

Those who have enjoyed a long, calm and comparatively easy life, may
meet their stormiest hours at the close of their days, for some of the
best of God's children, to use an old Puritan's expression, "are put to
bed in the dark." Their sun sets in clouds, but doubtless it rises
again in the full splendor of the eternal morning! Somewhere or other,
Brothers and Sisters, you will learn to acknowledge that–

"The path of sorrow, and that path, alone, Leads to the land where
sorrow is unknown." The saints above who sing the new song are, at
least many of them, described by the words, "These are they which came
out of great tribulation." That is the general way to Heaven and
perhaps few travelers reach Paradise by any other road. Let Believers,
therefore, not count upon immunity from trouble, but let them reckon
upon sufficient Grace for it. Let them believe that God's choicest
letters of love are sent to us in black-edged envelopes. We are
frightened at the envelope, but inside, if we know how to break the
seal, we shall find riches for our souls.

Great trials are the clouds out of which God gives great mercies. Very
frequently, when the Lord has an extraordinary mercy to send to us, He
employs His rough and grizzled horses to drag it to the door. The
smooth rivers of ease are usually navigated by little vessels filled
with common commodities, but a huge galleon loaded with treasure
traverses the deep seas. Let the children of God learn from this
passage in David's experience that their best resort in trouble is
prayer. When the sorrows of death compass you, pray! When the pains of
Hell get hold upon you, pray! When you find trouble and sorrow, pray!
Everything else which prudence and wisdom suggest is to be done in a
time of difficulty, but none of these things are to be relied upon by
themselves.

"Salvation is of the Lord," whether it is salvation from troubles or
from sins. You do right to provide the horse for the day of battle, but
still, safety is of the Lord. Use the means, but never supplant faith
by the use of means. When you have done all, trust in God as though you
had done nothing, for, "Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman
watches but in vain." In all things pray! And be well assured that if
at this moment you are in the same plight as David was, prayer will
bring you out of it. Prayer is the catholicon, the universal cure! It
subdues every disease. In spiritual conflicts it has a thousand uses.
You may say of it, "By this will I break through a troop; by this will
I leap over a wall; by this will I put on shield and buckler and by
this will I smite the foe." Prayer can unlock the treasures of God and
shut the gates of Hell! Prayer can quench the violence of flames and
stop the lions' mouths. Prayer can overcome Heaven and bend Omnipotence
to its will. Only pray, Brothers and Sisters, believingly and in the
name of the Well-Beloved, and answers of peace must be given to you.

I intend, this evening, to use the text with another view. I mean to
accommodate it, as I think lawfully, and to use it as a description of
the condition of an awakened sinner. To sinners under conviction I
would address myself, for I know there are such in the congregation. I
was glad to hear their cries the other night, and I hope, with that,
the Lord means to bless them and bring them into liberty. We shall
speak, first, of this poor soul's condition. Then of his course of
action. And then of the deliverance he obtained.

I. First, here is THE WRETCHED CONDITION into which many a poor
awakened soul has been brought. But let me, before I proceed further,
say, that if any of you are believers in Christ and have not felt all
that I speak of, you are not to condemn yourselves because of it. There
are many maladies in the world. If I am describing a sickness and the
way in which the physician cures it, you must not say, "I am surely
wrong, for I never felt that phase of the disease." That does not
matter. No man suffers all maladies. If you are resting only upon
Jesus, do not disturb yourself–that which I am about to utter is not
meant for your disturbance, but for other people's comfort.

From our text I remark that many a troubled conscience feels the
sorrows of death. That is to say he is the subject of griefs similar to
those which beset men on their dying beds. I have passed through this
state, myself, and I shall therefore describe it the more feelingly.
What are the sorrows of death? One of the sorrows of a sinner's death
is the retrospect. The dying sinner looks back and sees nothing in his
life that yields him comfort. He could wish that the day had been
darkness in which it was said that a child was born into the world, for
he feels that his existence has been a blank and, worse than that, an
insult to God and the cause of misery to himself. He cannot see a
bright or hopeful spot in his whole history.

So, too, the man truly awakened weeps over a dreadful past and laments
because all is evil and the very things he once gloried in are
tarnished. He sees that to have been sin, which before he thought to
have been righteousness! And he bemoans himself, saying within his
heart, "Would God I had never been born." Many an awakened man has
said, as John Bunyan did, that he wished he had been a frog or a toad,
or a venomous serpent sooner than have been a man to have lived as he
had lived. Are you feeling, dear Friend, or have you ever felt that
sorrow of death? Some of us have felt it keenly.

Another sorrow of death is grief over the present. The man lies tossing
to and fro upon his deathbed and all his glory and beauty are gone. The
bloom of health has departed from him. He is a very different man from
what he was in the days of his agility and vigor–and he knows it. So
is it with the sinner–he feels the pining sickness of sin consuming
him as the moth consumes a garment. His moisture is turned into the
drought of summer. His glory is as a faded flower and the excellency of
his flesh, in which he boasted and said that he was no worse than
others and, perhaps, was even better, is now passed away. The Spirit,
when He blows upon man, finding all flesh to be grass, withers it all
up–and so He destroys the glory of man's estate and makes his
excellency decay till the man is sick to death of himself.

The dying man also sees all his strength departing. Perhaps he thinks,
like Samson, to shake himself as at other times, but he is mistaken.
The limbs that bore him to his bed fall under him and the hand with
which he labored drops palsied by his side. The very eyelids scarcely
can drop to form a curtain from the light, or lift themselves to admit
the blessed beams of the sun. The golden bowl is breaking and the
silver cord is being snapped. It is just so with an awakened sinner. He
feels death in his soul. He used to be able, as he thought, to do
anything! His notion was that he could repent and believe, amend and
reform and save himself whenever he liked.

But now the cold chill of death has come upon all his powers and he
hears Christ, in mercy, saying, "Without Me you can do nothing. No man
can come to Me unless the Father, which has sent Me, draw him." A man
experiences a dreadful paralysis in his soul when he is really and
thoroughly awakened. The Spirit of God is making sure work of his
conversion! He sees his beauty faded and his strength departed and thus
the sorrows of death get hold upon him. Another present sorrow of death
is the discovery that friends are no longer of any service. The dying
man must leave wife and children. They would gladly accompany him, but
they cannot.

That dear wife would be willing to dare Death, itself, if she might
still continue the companion of the man whom she has loved, but it must
not be. The fondest affection cannot help, now. The awakened sinner
discovers precisely the same thing with regard to spiritual help. He
would have looked to a priest, but he dares not. He would have looked
to his minister, but he knows that if he did, he would be disappointed.
He finds emptiness written upon every creature so far as his soul's
necessities are concerned. His sore is too terrible for any man to find
a plaster, his wound too deep for any human hand to close it up. The
sorrows of death in this respect compass him.

Perhaps the worst sorrow about the death of an ungodly man is the
prospect. The past is black, but blacker, still, the future. The
present is gloomy, but, oh, the darkness, which may be felt, which
environs the hereafter! The dying man shudders at the awful future and
so does the awakened sinner. He dares not go forward! He is afraid and
a dreadful sound is in his ears. I, myself, before I obtained mercy,
was afraid lest every tuft of grass I trod on should open beneath my
feet and swallow me up. So did sin press upon me, that I should not
have been astonished if I had met, in my daily walks, an angel, as
Balaam did, with a drawn sword! And if he had said to me, "You are
doomed forever for your sin," I could only have been dumb before him,
or confessed the justice of the sentence. Thus does many a sinner feel
the sorrows of death compass him. They are all around him–those
sorrows of the past, the present and the future.

The description becomes yet more graphic in the next sentence. Awakened
sinners sometimes feel what they describe as the pains of Hell. Not
that any living man does endure the pains of Hell to the extent which
they are suffered in Hell, but still a dreadful foretaste of those
pains may be experienced and, sometimes is experienced by an awakened
conscience. What are these pains of Hell? First, there is the pain of
remorse. Before the soul believes in Christ, it has no repentance, but
it suffers remorse–a sorrow for sin because of its penalty! It is a
dreadful horror of having lived such a life because it sees that it
must be punished for that life, and that God, the infinitely Just, must
take vengeance upon its transgressions.

Remorse! Is not its tooth as sharp as that of the undying worm? Is not
its burning as the fires of Tophet? When we felt it, we cried, "My soul
chooses strangling rather than life!" If God in mercy did not stay the
soul with some little wavering hope, even before it comes to faith in
Jesus, surely the spirit of man would utterly fail under a remorseful
sense of sin! One of the pains of Hell is a sense of condemnation. The
lost souls are called the "damned"–in other words, the condemned.
Assuredly, before we believed in Jesus, some of us felt that we were
condemned. "Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things that
are written in the Book of the Law to do them."

I remember how that curse howled through my soul like the tempest
shrieking among the shrouds of a sinking ship. "Cursed is everyone that
continues not in all things that are written in the Book of the Law to
do them"–I knew that I had not continued in all things required by the
Law–and I knew that I was cursed! And then came this other text. It
was the Gospel side of the same terrible blast–"He that believes not
is condemned already"–condemned already–"because he has not believed
on the Son of God." When two such winds as those two texts meet each
other, it is enough to sweep the poor frail tenement of manhood to a
ruin like that which overthrew the house in which the sons of Job were
met to feast! Oh, Brothers and Sisters, it is no little thing–let
those who know it assure you–to have felt the pains of Hell!

Perhaps one of the acutest pangs of an awakened conscience is a sense
of hopelessness, a terrible despair, unalleviated by any prospect of
improvement in the future. We were driven to that, too, some of us. All
hope of our being saved was lost. There was, sometimes, a little
twinkling ray of light which seemed to say, "Jesus came to seek and to
save sinners." But we could not even see that lone star at all times,
for we thought that He did not come to seek and to save such sinners as
we were and, moreover, since we had rejected Him before, we feared that
His mercy was clean gone, forever! How despairingly was I known to harp
upon that thought!

I now wish I had not done so, but I know that some others do it and I
would speak to their experience. May God deliver their frail boats from
the whirlpools of despair, that awful whirlpool which has sucked down
so many! There is another pang of Hell which the awakened feel and that
is a crushing sense of misery. Though not in Hell yet–and blessed be
God you will not be–yet some of you feel almost as wretched as if you
were there, for remorse, intensified by a sense of condemnation and
lashed by despair, creates a dreadful storm within your soul, till your
heart cries out–

"At noise of Your dread waterspout Deep unto deep does call! Your
breaking waves go over me, Yes, and Your billows all. I am cast out
from Your sight: I seek You, but I cannot find You: I cry after You,
but You hear me not." Then is the soul smitten, indeed. Read the books
of Job and Jeremiah and you will see what broken hearts can suffer.
Those books were not written for people in olden times only, but they
declare the present experience of many a seeker after Christ–and thus
they oftentimes render comfort to poor souls when no other portion of
God's Word seems to have a single syllable to speak to them.

Thus I have taken two great sentences of the text–"The sorrows of
death compassed me" and, "The pains of Hell got hold upon me." But the
case was worse than this, for the poor soul felt no alleviation and
knew of no escape. These things were, by themselves, unsoftened. They
were left in all their terror–the gall was unmixed, the vinegar
undiluted. Notice the language. "The sorrows of death compassed me." It
is a very strong word. When hunters seek their prey, they form a circle
around the poor animal that is to be destroyed. The poor panting
creature looks to the right, but a man with a spear is there. He looks
to the left and there are the dogs. Before and behind him are more
spearmen, more hounds, more hunters–there is no way of escape.

So does an awakened soul discern no rescue, no loophole by which it may
be delivered. The text says, "The pangs of Hell got hold upon me." "Got
hold." As if the jaws of the lion had really gripped the lamb, or the
paws of the bear were hugging the poor defenseless sheep. "Got hold
upon me." As though God's terrible sergeant from the Court of Justice
had laid his hand upon his shoulder and said, "I arrest you in the name
of God to lie in Hell's prison and perish forever." Many a soul has
felt that and felt, also, that it could not get away from the terrible
grip.

Some who know nothing of contrition and heartbreak enquire, "Why don't
they get out of such bondage?" Ah, but if you were in that condition,
such a question would grieve, if not exasperate you! I have known
persons put a great many questions to troubled hearts which they,
themselves, could not answer if they were in their state. Do you ask a
man who has had both his legs broken, and lies across the rails of the
railway–why do you not walk home? Why does he not walk home? Say,
rather–why do you ask such a foolish question? When a poor soul is
broken to pieces and despairing, tell him what Christ did for him and
say very little about what he ought to do! You will never comfort the
desponding man by telling him his duty. Speak, rather, of Jesus' love!
Poor souls, they are so disturbed and tossed about that they can do
nothing! Tell them what Jesus has done! That is the way to bring light
to their souls.

Once more, the Psalmist felt no comfort from any exertion that he made.
That takes in the last sentence of the text's description. "I found
trouble and sorrow," so that he looked for something, but the only
result of his search was that he found trouble and sorrow. Do you
remember, beloved Believer, in the days when you were under bondage on
account of sin–how you bound yourself apprentice to Moses to work out
your own salvation by your own goodness? What did you get? Surely you
found trouble in the work and sorrow as its wages! You were like a
horse at a mill–the whip was used very freely upon you, but it brought
you nothing except a sense of failure–a conviction that all you had
done was rather a provocation of God by setting up an antichrist of
your own righteousness. There was no help towards an atonement for your
sin.

You found trouble and sorrow. Perhaps you went to Mr. Legality and he,
and his son, Mr. Morality, did what they could for you. But if you were
really awakened, all that you got from them was trouble and sorrow.
That was the whole result of it. It is just possible that you went over
the road to the ceremonial shop–attended one of the ritualistic
jogs-houses and went through the performances there. And then you were
told that a priest could absolve you and an outward form and ceremony
could quiet your mind. Ah, if you were a living soul you found only
trouble and sorrow in all that foolery! And now you have come to look
upon it with intense contempt–as the most intolerable imposture of any
age since man began to seek out many inventions!

Vain is it to harp to a hungry belly, or dance to a broken limb! And
equally a mockery are all the posturing and lies of Romanism to those
whose hearts bleed for sin–

"None but Jesus, none but Jesus, Can do helpless sinners good."

If they look elsewhere, they will find trouble and sorrow, and nothing
more. Assuredly this a pretty pass to be brought to. What is to be
done? What is to be done? Sinner, there is nothing to be done! At
least, nothing which you can do. You are shut up to be saved by Jesus,
or to be lost! I liked the remark of a good Brother from this platform
the other day, when he said that Gospel ministers were fishers and that
we were to fish with nets. It was all a mistake that we were to catch
people with bait–that was angling–and there was nothing about angling
in Christ's commission. We are to fish with nets.

Now, what is a net for? The net is to shut the fish up. It goes under
them, around them, everywhere–and shuts them up so that they cannot
get out. That is exactly what God does with poor sinners whom He means
to save! He shuts them right up. He puts the net round them and they
cannot get out. Only when the net quite encloses his fish can the
Gospel

fisherman get them out of the sea of sin and lift them into the boat
where Jesus sits! We must get the net right round them–shut them up by
the Law that they may be brought to Christ. Every avenue of escape is
closed against you forever, Sinner, except one–and that is Christ, who
says, "I am the door." There is no other door, neither upwards nor
downwards, to the right nor to the left, before nor behind! You are
ruined and destroyed, O Sinner, and you must perish if left to
yourself! There is none in earth, or Heaven, that can help you, save
One! And O, if the Lord will lead you to look to Him, what a blessed
thing it will be!

II. That brings us to the second part of our discourse, which is to
speak about the awakened sinner's COURSE OF ACTION. "Then called I upon
the name of the Lord." What did he do? First, he called–called upon
God's name, invoked Him, spoke to Him, lifted up his heart and lifted
up his voice–called as a man might do who is lost in a fog and calls
to a neighbor, hoping to hear a voice that will guide him. Or as one
who is far away in the bush of Australia and gives a call in the hope
that some human voice may respond to it.

This call is often described as a cry–a natural, simple, authentic,
unpleasant, but most effectual style of expressing our distress. Oh,
Sinner, if God has really been at work with you and you are where I
have been describing, you will call to God now! Your heart will cry to
God at once! Tears will speak for you, sighs will speak for you. Your
heart, in its silence, will speak unto God and call upon His name!
Notice he says, "Then called I upon the name of the Lord." There will
be no more calling upon ministers, or calling upon priests, or calling
upon yourself, but, "then called I upon the name of the Lord."

The sinner had forgotten the Lord till then, and now the Lord came to
his remembrance. "When he came to himself he said, How many hired
servants of my father have bread enough and to spare?" Thus his father
came to the prodigal's remembrance. When we get among the swine and
would gladly fill our bellies with their husks, but cannot, then we
begin to pray to God whom we have forgotten. "Then called I upon the
name of the Lord." Now, what better could he do, for who could help him
if the sorrows of death compassed him? Who but He who overthrew death
and vanquished the grave? Who can help us, when the pains of Hell get
hold upon us, but He who has passed through the pains that were due us
for the death penalty–and who has cast both Death and Hell into the
Lake of Fire?

Who can help the hopeless one so well as the Conqueror of Death and
Hell? Who can sympathize like the Lord? The Lord Jesus, Himself, has
known the sorrows of Death and, therefore, He is touched with
compassion for the sons of men. Is He not the Son of Man, Himself,
tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin? Poor Sinner, I
tried to shut you up, but now I set before you an open door! Call upon
the name of Him who knows your condition, is able to meet it and to
deliver you! When did he call? That is the important point in this
text. "Then called I upon the name of the Lord." Then.

Was that the first time in his life? Perhaps it was. Begin at once, O
Sinner! Notice, he says, "The sorrows of death compassed me, and the
pains of Hell got hold upon me. I found trouble and sorrow. Then called
I upon the name of the Lord." When his condition was at its very worst,
then he called upon God. Why did he not stop till he became better? He
knew that delays are dangerous. "Then called I." Had he tarried till he
was better, he would never have called at all, but he called then and,
though it was the first time, he was not ashamed to break the ice, or
if he was ashamed, he did it anyway and succeeded! Suppose that you
never, till this night, did ever look to your heavenly Father, and now
it is the worst state of life with you that you were ever in. What
then?

Even now is the time for prayer! Now you need your God and now you may
have your God! "Then called I." You see he did not call upon God till
God sent Death and Hell after him. He was a wandering sheep and so set
on going astray that he would not come back till the two fiercest dogs
that the Great Shepherd keeps had come after him! And then he came back
with a passion! I half wish that God would send Death and Hell after
some of you who never will come–that they might worry you and tear
you–and make you return to the Great Shepherd. "Then called I." That
is to say, when I could call on no one else. No sinner ever calls upon
God till he finds that he has nowhere else to go!

And yet the Lord receives these good-for-nothings! Although we only
come because we have nowhere else to go, yet He will receive us! Into
the port of Sovereign Grace no vessel ever runs except through stress
of weather. When the sea is rough and the wind furious. When the
tempest is on and the ship must go down or else–then Lord
Will-Be-Will, who has held the helm before and said, "I will never
enter that harbor"–is suddenly subdued and cries, "Oh for a gust of
heavenly wind to blow us between the two red lights, right into the
safe waters where we may ride at peace." I pray God

to send a tempest after all of you Jonahs, that you may be brought to
the right place, after all, and landed safely on the shore of Sovereign
Mercy. "Then called I upon the name of the Lord."

And now for his prayer. Here it is–"O Lord, I beseech You, deliver my
soul." A very natural prayer, was it not? He just said what he meant,
and meant what he said, and that is the way to pray! It is a very short
prayer. Many a prayer is too long by at least 20 lines. It is smothered
under a bed full of words. There are times when a Christian can pray
from hour to hour–but it is a great mistake when Brethren measure
their supplications by the clock. The great matter is not how long you
pray, but how earnestly you pray. Consider the life of the prayer
rather than the length of the prayer. If your prayer reaches to Heaven
it is long enough! What longer can it need to be? If it does not reach
the Lord, though it occupied you for a week, it would not be long
enough to be of use.

It was a humble prayer–"O Lord, I beseech You." It is the language of
one who is bowed in the dust. It was an intense prayer–"O Lord, I
beseech You, deliver my soul." But I want you most of all to notice
that it was a Scriptural prayer. There are three great little prayers
in Scripture–"O Lord, I beseech You, deliver my soul." "God, be
merciful to me a sinner." And, "Lord, remember me when You come into
Your kingdom." These are all contained in the Lord's Prayer. "O Lord, I
beseech You, deliver my soul," is, "Deliver us from evil." "God be
merciful to me a sinner"–what is that, but, "Forgive us our
trespasses"? And what is the prayer, "Lord, remember me when You come
into Your kingdom," but that grand petition, "Your kingdom come"?

How wonderfully comprehensive is that prayer which our Lord Jesus has
given us for a model! All prayers may be condensed into it, or
distilled from it. Let no person here say, "I am in the distress which
you have described, but I cannot pray." Why not? "I have no words." You
need no words–wordless prayers are frequently the best. "But I can
only groan." Groan away, Brother! "But I feel as if I could only sigh."
Sigh, then! "My heart aches, but I do not know how to express myself."
Do not express yourself–let your heart ache on–only let it ache up to
God! Turn all your desires towards Him and let this be the intense
pleading of your spirit–"O Lord, I beseech You, deliver my soul."

You know we have a law that people must not beg in the streets. There
is a man I know on a certain road who does not beg and yet begs. The
police would not let him beg and, therefore, he never begs at all–not
he! It would be a slander to say of him that he begs! But he wears a
pair of shoes through which you can see his toes and the side of his
heel. You can spy his knees through his trousers. His cheeks are all
sunken and his whole appearance is that of a consumptive man who must
soon die. He has been consuming now for many years and dying daily most
comfortably! I believe that if I were to say to him, "Are you a
beggar?" he would reply, "Beggar? No, Sir, certainly not! I never beg."

Yet he is one of the most successful of beggars! His looks beg! His
rags beg! His flesh begs! His weariness begs! His general air of
sickness begs! Everything about him begs! He begs all over! That is the
way to PRAY! Pour out your heart before the Lord, with or without
words, as you find most easy–but let your inmost heart be really full
of desire! Be resolved about obtaining the blessing! Do as one did the
other night, who said within himself, "I am a lost soul, but I will
never rise from the side of this bed till I find the Savior. I am
determined to get forgiveness or die on my knees." He cried and groaned
and won the day!

We should not have liked to have heard his pitiful cries, for there was
no beauty or elegance in his language, and no music in his groans–but
the Lord heard him and saved his soul! "O Lord, I beseech You, deliver
my soul," is a prayer most congruous to the situation and in every way
suitable to it! Oh, that all prayers were as suitable as this! This,
then, is the wisdom of every poor distressed soul in its time of
trouble. It must, by a simple faith in Jesus, breathe out its desire at
the Cross and say, "Jesus, Savior, save me now, and deliver my soul."

III. Our third point is DELIVERANCE and for this I refer you to the 8th
verse. This poor, pleading, doubting, trembling petitioner received
what he asked for. He said, "O Lord, I beseech You, deliver my soul,"
and before long he sang, "You have delivered my soul." As the echo
answers to the voice, so the Lord replied to his request. If you are
asking for salvation with all your heart–with your eye on Christ's
Cross–you shall have it! If you cast yourself before Jesus and say to
Him, "If I perish, I will perish at Your pierced feet," you shall not
perish! If you sincerely cry for forgiveness, as the publican did, you
shall go down to your house justified!

Note, next, that while he had what he asked for, it came from Him of
whom he asked it–"You have delivered my soul from death." Vile delight
to ascribe salvation wholly to our Triune God! Some Brethren are a
little cloudy in their talk about man's salvation. But when you get to
the inner experience of all true Believers, they will always tell you
that they

did not save themselves and they agree that it was not by their own
will or merit that they were saved, but by the Sovereign Grace of God,
alone. The unrighteous may gain deliverance from themselves, or their
fellow men, but those whom the Holy Spirit convicts of sin must be
delivered by the Lord Himself–nothing short of a Divine salvation will
do for them. "You have delivered my soul from death." Mine was a case
in which none could help me but Yourself, my God. My sorrows demanded
Omnipotent cordials–only the blood of Jesus and the balm of the Holy
Spirit could comfort me!

Note, again, that this blessing came consciously to him. "You have
delivered my soul from death." He does not say, "I hope You have" but,
"You have." "I know it, I am sure of it, I rejoice in it." And it is
not, "I have shared the blessing in common with a great many and I hope
that I have an interest in it." No, but, "You have delivered my soul
from death. If there is not another saved man in the world, I am one."
The faith which looks, alone, to Jesus is an appropriating Grace and
enables the soul to say, "He loved me and gave Himself for me." As a
dear young friend said to me last Monday night, when I was speaking to
her about her soul, "I came to see, Sir, that Christ loved me as much
as though there was not another man or woman in the world, and laid His
life down in my place, as much as if there was not another sinner that
needed His blood to be shed. When I got Christ all to myself then I
rejoiced in Him and now," she said, "I want everybody else to have
Him."

It is just so. We must get Him, ourselves, with a holy greediness that
fences Him about all for ourselves, and then we shall cultivate a
large-hearted love for souls and long that every other person may know
the same precious Christ. So the Psalmist, you see, got what he asked
for–it came from Him of whom he asked it–and it came consciously to
him. But I want you to notice one other thing. He gained a great deal
more than he asked for. He prayed, "O Lord, I beseech You, deliver my
soul," and God delivered his soul from death, his eyes from tears and
his feet from falling. He asked for one thing, and he obtained it–and
two other things besides–for it is our heavenly Father's way to do
exceedingly abundantly above what we ask or even think. Blessed be His
name!

He gained deliverance from death, for souls can die though they cannot
cease to exist. They die when separated from God, as Adam's soul died
in the day when he ate of the forbidden fruit–and as all souls are
dead until by union to God they are quickened into spiritual life.
Through the Grace of God, David was delivered from the spiritual death
which reigns within and the eternal death to which it leads. His eyes
were also cleared from tears. Who is not free from sorrow when he is
free from the fear of the death penalty? Forgiveness has joy at its
heel wherever it comes! And then, having gained salvation and joy, the
Lord gave him stability. Those feet that were so apt to slide were set
fast and the fear of future apostasy was removed by the gracious
securities which God gave to him that He would never leave him. Thus he
had a blessing for his soul, his eyes and his feet–salvation, joy and
stability!

The last word to be said is this–these same blessings can be had by
others. If I address any who are now passing through the terrible
experience of David, or anything like it–or if I address any who are
not passing through any such experience, but, nevertheless, desire life
everlasting–I would say to them, "Remember, the reason David was heard
did not lie in his prayer, or in himself, but it in God !" Read the
verse which follows my first text–the 5th verse: "Gracious is the Lord
and righteous; yes, our God is merciful." That is why the Lord heard
David's prayer–because He is gracious and He loves to show Divine
Grace to sinners!

It was also because He is righteous and therefore keeps His promises.
He has made a promise that He will hear prayer and He has said, "If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." And,
therefore, in mercy and righteousness He will hear us. Remember, too,
that if your distresses are like David's, you may use the same prayer,
because you have the same promises. God's promises are not used up and
spent so that they will not work for you. If a good meal is provided
for half-a-dozen people and they eat it all up, and six more come
afterwards, why, they must go without! But with God's promises it is
not so! They are fed upon by myriads and yet they remain the same! Ten
thousand souls have fed upon a precious Christ and received what they
needed from Him, and yet 10,000 more may come–

"Dear dying Lamb, Your precious blood Shall never lose its power Till
all the ransomed Church of God Is saved to sin no more."

Let us remember, then, that we have the same promises and the same God.
Let the same prayer be offered by each unconverted one here–"O Lord, I
beseech You, deliver my soul." God's answer to that is, "Believe on My
Son, Jesus Christ. Trust Him wholly and your soul is delivered."–

"Allyour sins were laid upon Him, Jesus bore them on the tree. God who
knew them laid them on Him, And believing, you are free!"

Trust Him and you are delivered, for thus says the Lord, "I will
deliver his soul from going down to the pit, for I have found a
ransom." Turn your eyes to what Jesus Christ has done! Rest in His
finished Sacrifice and go your way rejoicing! May God the Eternal
Spirit lead each of you poor sinners to that! And I would entreat you,
when He does so, to come and let us know it.

Do as the Psalmist tells you by his example. Say, "What shall I render
to the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I will take the cup of
salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto
the Lord, now, in the presence of all His people." Do not hide His
love! Confess it to His Glory, for the comfort of His people, for the
encouragement of His minister and for the strengthening of His Church!
The Lord be with you, Brothers and Sisters, for Christ's sake. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Psalm 116. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
HYMN BOOK"–30, 138.