FAITH TRIED AND TRIUMPHING.

NO. 3265

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 31ST, 1911,

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

“Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.”-Job 13:15.

There are some speeches which could not be made by ordinary men. As soon as you hear them, you feel that there is a ring about them which is by no means common. Certain expressions which have been heard and remembered could have been uttered only by great warriors, or by men who have navigated the vast ocean. Certain other still nobler expressions, because spiritual ones, could have been uttered only by those who have had to fight with spiritual foes, or have done business on the great waters of soul trouble. When you hear the expression, “ If there are as many devils at Worms as there were tiles on the housetops, I will go there in God’s name,” you are quite certain the speaker is Martin Luther. No other than he could have said it. And just as certainly, I think, I should have felt, if I had read the text to-night for the first time, that it was Job who said it, and nobody else.

Job was a master sufferer. No man went deeper into grief than he: his children all dead, his wealth all swept away, his whole body covered with sore boils and blains, and the friends who pretended to comfort him, only accusing him of being a hypocrite; while his own wife bids him, “ curse God, and die.” He was brought lower than any; and, therefore, being a man of faith, having overcome and triumphed by faith, it was like him to utter such a noble speech as that which our text brings before us. “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him,” is not the utterance of any ordinary commonplace believer. It is a sort of word which, we are quite sure, could only come from a triumphant Job,-triumphant by victorious faith. However, I trust there are some here who could use this expression, now that another has fitted it for their lips, and I hope that all of us who have any faith at all, may have that faith so increased, that yet, without boasting, we may be able still more to say, “ Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.”

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I. In speaking upon this text I would note, first, That Faith Is The Habitual Grace Of The Christian. To trust in God is his usual mode of life. He does not sometimes trust and sometimes cease to trust; but “the just shall live by faith.” Faith is not a grace of luxury but a grace of necessity. We must have it, and if we had it not, we should not be the people of God at all. The common habit of the Christian then, is a habit of trusting. The Christian’s walk is faith, and his life is faith.

Faith is to the Christian all the spiritual senses, not one, but all. The natural man has his eyes, but by faith we see Him who is invisible. The natural man has his hand and his feeling. We live not by feeling, but our faith is the hand by which we take fast hold upon eternal realities. The natural man has his ear, and it is delighted with sweet sounds, or through it the language of friendship enters his heart. Our faith is the ear through which we hear the voice of God, and sometimes, even catch stray notes from the harps of the angels. The natural man hath the nostril with which he becomes aware of sweet perfumes; and to our faith the name of Jesus is as choicest ointment poured forth. If we receive Christ as our heart’s Lord, all the inlets by which we receive him and his grace are made of the agate of faith. Gates of carbuncle, windows of agate, are true faith. The light of God and the love of God come into our consciousness by our faith.

Faith, too, is with the Christian his first and his last. Faith looking to Christ is the very beginning of spiritual life’. We began to live at the cross-foot, when we looked up, and saw the flowing of those founts of forgiveness the five wounds of Christ. And as faith was the first, so it will be the last. We expect, to die looking for our Lord’s appearing, and resting still upon his finished work. And all between the alpha and the omega-all the other letters we read them all by faith. There is no period of our life in which it is safe for us to live by feeling, not even when our enjoyments run highest. On the mount, where Christ is; transformed, and where; in the midst of the glory we shall fall asleep in amazement, we cannot live by sense. Even there, we can only enjoy the glory as faith shall continue, to be in exercise. We must all the way through, from the first to the last, look out of ourselves, and look above the things which are seen, to grasp the things which are not seen, to be touched with the eternal hand, and realize that which does not seem real to sense. This is the life of the Christian from the first to the last.

And I would add, as it is his, first and last, so faith is the Christian’s highest and his lowest. If ever we get upon the mountain summit and bask our foreheads in the sunlight of fellowship with God, we stand there only by faith. It is because our faith is strong and in active exercise: that we realize the things not seen as yet, and behold the God whom mortal eyes cannot gaze upon. Our very noblest, happiest, and mot heavenly frames are those which are the results of faith. And so in our lowest. We can only live there by faith. Have you never lain shattered and broken, crushed and destroyed, expecting something yet more terrible; and have you not felt that now in your faintness you could fall back into the Savior’s arms; that now in your brokenness you could drop into his hand; that now in your abject nothingness he, must be all in all to you, or else there will be an utter end to you! Oh! the faith that is as wings to us when we fly, becomes a lifebuoy to us when we sink. The faith which bears us up to the gates of heaven, also uplifting us from the very gates of hell. ’Tis our first and our last; ’tis our highest and our lowest. It is all the senses of our spiritual nature. We must have it, and always have it. We must trust in the Lord.

The matters about which the true Christian is to trust are very many, but they are chiefly these.

We trust for the pardon of our sins to our God in Christ Jesus. The only hope that any Christian has for the forgiveness of his iniquity, lies in the sacrifice presented on Calvary by the Lamb of God whom God has given for the sins of the world. If any shall ask us, whether we trust that our sins are forgiven us because of our repentance, or because of a long life of active Christian service, we shall reply that we are thankful if God has given us these things, but our sole reliance is in our dear Lord and Master who was once fastened to the cross, but now sitteth in power in the highest heavens. Our trust far the pardon of sin in every degree and every respect, lies in Christ the Son of God and there only. In this matter we can use the language of Job and say, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him,” for the fact is, the more fully we are slain the more truly we do trust. When we see ourselves to be utterly dead, slain by the two edged sword of the Lord, and all hope of our own self-salvation to be a corpse, then more easy than ever it is before to come and cast ourselves upon the Christ of God, and rest there, for all our salvation from the guilt of sin.

But in God we trust also for the purification of our spirits from all the indwelling power of sin. Some Christians do not appear to make this a matter of faith, and therefore they do not succeed therein. You can no more conquer sin in yourself-really conquer it, by your own strength, than you can remove the guilt of it by your own merits. The same Christ who is made unto us “ justification “ and “redemption,” is also made unto us “sanctification,” and we must never forgot, that while we wash our robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb as to pardon, we also overcome our sins through the blood of the Lamb. The same Savior who takes away the guilt, takes away the power, and the defiling power, of sin. Well has Toplady put it:

“ Let the water and the blood
From thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,-
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.”

Now, the true Christian can say that he trusts in God for his effectual purification and his final perfection. He does not hope to drive out one of these Canaanites by his own arm. He does not think that he shall slay one of his corruptions in his own strength. But his eyes are unto the hills whence cometh his help, and he believes that the eternal Spirit will, like refining fire go through and through his soul, till everything in him shall be burnt up except that which is of God, that which will endure the fire and be well-pleasing in Jehovah’s sight.

The matters upon which we rely upon God, then, are, as far as I have yet gone, the finished work of Jesus Christ, and the power that there is in Christ and in the blessed Spirit to sanctify us, spirit, soul, and body.

But, our trust is in God in another sense, namely: first, we trust him, believing that he always must be just. It does not occur to us now that God could be unjust. In the days of our flesh we used to think, if we suffered some extreme pain, or if we passed suddenly from wealth to poverty, that God had dealt very hardly with us; but now we feel that his strokes are fewer than our crimes and lighter than our guilt; and it does not occur to us in any way to impeach the justice of God let him do what he will. We feel that if he not only should slay us, but if he should cast us into hell for ever, remembering what we are in ourselves and standing on our own footing, we could not complain against him. This is our firm confidence, that whatever our position, is, God has always dealt justly with us, that he never will deal unjustly with us, and we shall never have to say of any one transaction that we have with him, “This is not according to the rule of right.”

But, we go a great deal further. Having believed in Christ Jesus, and having become his children, we trust, believing that God will never do anything to us, but that which is full of love. We have assured that his eternal love does not only come forth now and then, that it does not only permeate and infuse itself into a few of his actions; but that all his conduct towards his children actuated by the motive power of love. He is always love towards those who put their trust in him. We are sure that he never gives us a pain more than is needful that he never lets us suffer a loss more than is necessary. “Though for a season, if need be, we are in heaviness through manifold temptations,” we know and are convinced that there is a needs be for it. We trust his justice, and we trust his goodness.

And, more, we trust his wisdom mingled with all this. He has said that “all things work together for good to them that love God,” and we believe it; we have had some bitters in our cup, but we still believe it: we may yet have a great many more, but we are assured that through the help of God’s Spirit we shall still believe this,-that come what may, expected or unexpected, in the ways of grief and sorrow, still that ultimate good shall come out of the whole. God’s purpose of love shall not be thwarted, but rather shall be answered by every circumstance of our history. Therefore do we trust in God that he is just and cannot do us an unrighteous action; that he is loving and cannot do an untender thing to us; that he is wise and loving and just, and will make all things work together for good.

In fine, we trust him as a child trusts its parent, that is, for everything. There are many things about him that we cannot understand, as there were about our parents in our childhood, but we trust him and know that there is none like him. “There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun.” We trust him in all that he doeth. We cannot understand him, for his way is in the sea, and his footsteps are not known; but we are sure that they are footsteps of holiness, and they are ways of righteousness. We trust him for all the past and all the present, aye, and for all the future, too; that future which sometimes looms before us in the mist, and half alarms us, till we are ready to shrink back from it. We gather up the skirts of our robe again, and though we fear as we enter into the cloud, yet are we comforted with the full conviction, that he who, has done so well in the past, will be with us even to life’s close.

Thus have I tried to show you, that the whole tenor of the Christian man’s life is trust,-that, as in the text, “ Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.”

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II. Now the second point shall be, that those of us who have learned to trust in God expect that Our Faith Shall Be Tried. The text holds the plain supposition that it shall be tried extremely. He does not say, “Though I die”; that would be a great trial. Death is not a pleasant thing, it is no child’s play even to the strongest believer. Job does not say, “ Though I die,” but “ Though he slay me.” That is more. He does not say, “Though he permit me to be slain,” but, “Though he slay me; though he should seem to be so much my enemy as to turn round and kill me, though I may not believe his action, I will believe himself; I will believe his infallible word. Even though he slay me.” It is not, “ Though he make me hunger, or, though he put me in prison, though he suffer me to be mocked at, though he suffer me to be banned from all my friends, and to live a solitary and wretched life.” No, it is more than that: “Though he slay me.” And, mark, it is not, “Though he slay my children; though he take away my wife; though he remove all my dear kindred.” It is more than that. “ Though he slay me; though it come right home to my own self.”

Ah! Job know what he meant, for all other things had been done except the slaying of him. His children were dead, and the house in which they had met was a ruin. All he had was gone, health had gone, and he could not rest by reason, of the disease which was all over him, most painful and most acute. He had nothing left on earth that was worth having. He was even friendless, and he was worse than wifeless, for his wife had turned against him. Yet, he says, there is but one thing more that can be done, and God has kept Satan back from that. He said, “Only thou shalt not take his life.” But if the Lord choose to let loose the dog without even the link of a chain upon him,-though he suffer me now to lose my life itself,-

“Though he slay me, I will trust,
Praise Him even from the dust,-
Prove, and sing it as I prove,
His eternal gracious love.”

Now, the text evidently implies that faith will be tried, and tried severely. Let us think a moment about this. Has it not been always the case, that if any man has had a faith beyond his fellow men, it has met with trial. If you go a step beyond the ordinary rank and file, you will be shot at for that very reason. Columbus believes that there is another part of the world undiscovered; what ridicule is heaped upon him! Galileo says the world moves; he must be put into the inquisition, the poor old man must be forged to deny what he was quite sure was the truth. It was dangerous in those days to know too much, and to believe a little more than other people. And in spiritual things it is just the same. The world is against the true faith. The faith of God’s elect is not a flower that men delight to admire and praise. It is a thing which, wherever they see it, they count as a speckled bird, and they are sure to be against it. If thou hast faith in God, remember, that this is not the world of faith, but the world of unbelief, and the darkness that is in the world will try to quench thy light.

But remember that true faith scorns trial and outlives it. It is not worth having if it does not. If I believe in the friendship of my friend, and yet it cannot bear a little trial, it is not real friendship. Perhaps in your youth, as with most of us, there was some one exceeding dear to you. In your boyish or girlish days you would walk with some companion, and you swore inseparable friendship. Ah, how many of those friendships did you make, and they were broken! Since then, perhaps, we have thought that someone with whom we took sweet counsel never by any possibility could betray us; but there came a test of our friendship. We were not worth so much as once we were, or we were not so much esteemed as we used to be, or there happened to be a misunderstanding; and in a little tiff, the friendship was marred. But that faith which a man has in his fellow men that is worth having, will not yield so easily. No, saith the man, “If you say anything to me against my friend I do not believe you, I think there is some other way of reading it. If you do speak the truth you do not know all about it; there is something else that would change the complexion of it. And even if you were to convict him of a fault I would still love him, for there are many virtues in him and if he did this thing, he must have made a mistake. I will defend him.”

Now, transfer this from common life to faith in God. If a man says, “I trust in God,” and it is all smooth sailing, and his children are about him and he has plenty upon the table, his body in full health, and he has all that heart could wish-well, we will see what sort of faith that is. It is not proved yet; but will the man believe his God when God begins to take away all he loves? Will he believe him, when the wife pines away with a long and painful sickness? Will he believe him when child after child is taken to the tomb? Will he believe him when he sees his property taken away before his eyes? Will he believe his God when he himself can scarcely move hand or foot upon the bed off sickness? Will he still be able to bless the name of the Lord when he is stripped of everything? If he can, then this is faith worth having, but if he cannot, then it is not the faith that is worthy of God, and it is well it does give way, for it may drive the man then to seek the true faith, which would bear the tests.

You see, then brethren, if we have faith we must expect to have it tried, by reason of faith being an unusual thing in the world, and because if it would not bear trial it would not he worth having. History tells us that the best servants of God have had their trials, and why should we expect to escape. We turn over the historical pages of this Book, which are so full of instruction to us, and we find that all the Lord’s children lave had to do battle for the preservation of their faith. There is no smooth road to heaven. Steam rollers can be used for the earth, for our common roads, but you shall find the flint stones on the road to glory. They have never been rolled smooth yet, and they never will be.

“The path of sorrow, and that path alone
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.”

Faith must and shall be tried, as surely as it is the faith of God’s people; and if the best of saints have been obliged to say that through much tribulation they have inherited the Kingdom, we must not expect that God will change his rule in his treatment of us. I would not, however, encourage one thing which I have sometimes noticed, namely, the fear which comes into some Christians, that they are not God’s people because they have not been much tried. All the saints met with trial. I know a dear friend who is suffering just now, who says that he was occasionally afflicted with a fear that he could not be a child of God because he was so long without a sickness or without a trial. Ah, you will have that case met quite soon enough. Do not run after trouble, remember troubles of our own seeking would not be genuine strokes of the rod. You may leave that in God’s hand. Do not fret yourself there. Only, when the trials do come to you, let this console you, that

“Bastards may escape the rod,
Plunged in sensual vain delight,
But the true-born child of God
Must not,-would not, if he might.”

In our peace of soul, if God has given it to us by lot and by inheritance, some thorns and thistles must and will spring up in this present world.

Moreover, dear brethren, the trial is greatly for our good, and greatly for God’s glory. Our faith could never grow, neither could we be sure of it, if it had not been tested. They do not send steam vessels out to sea at once. Often you see on the Clyde vessels being tried-tried on the Gairloch-before they go out to sea. And God tries us here, before we take the great ocean of judgment-ere we come to the time of death. We have our trials here, and we grow by our trials. Among the best mercies we have ever received, are those mercies that have come to us dressed in the sombre garb of mourning, which have carried treasures in both their hands. God be thanked for the fire! God be thanked for the refiner’s furnace and the crucible! They have been among the best things we have inherited from his mercy.

Thus I have brought out two ideas of the text. The Christian lives by faith, and he expects that faith to be tried.

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III. But now the next point is the main point of the text,-that A True Faith, Put On Trial, Will Certainly Bear It. Though he slay me.” It is an extreme expression. “Though he do his worst, though he give the last and uttermost stroke that can be taken, yet will I not disbelieve him. Though he slay me.”

Faith will be justified to the uttermost. It is very easy to believe the creature too much. It is a common fault. It is impossible to trust the Creator too much. To trust him too little is one of the most usual of sins. Faith in the creature is hardly ever warranted. Faith in the Creator can be warranted, push it as far as ever you like. You know that there is a point where faith in the creature must stop. Our dearest friends can go with us only to the Jordan’s brink, and then they can help us no longer. But though we go through the valley of the shadow of death, God is with us, and we need fear no evil. Though it comes actually to the slaying and to the death, still we may trust in him, for he cannot he will not fall us.

Why is it that the believer is warranted in trusting in God to the very last extremity? The answer is, because he is always the same God. If he is worth trusting one day he is worth trusting another. He cannot change. His character is such, that if it is infinitely worthy of my confidence to-day, it will be just the same in the rough weather that may come to-morrow. Could he change, then my faith in him ought to change; but if he be ever the same true, faithful, loving and tender God, ruling all things by his power, there can be no reason why my faith should make a change. I ought to trust him, who at all times is the same.

I ought to trust him also to the last, because outward providences prove nothing to us about God. We cannot read outward events correctly; they are written in hieroglyphics. The book of God is readable; it is written in human language; but the works of God are often unreadable.

“ Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his worn in vain.
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.”

We begin spelling God’s works and making mischief out of them, because we do not know the letters or understand the alphabet, and cannot readily know what he means. If the Lord saith he loves us, do we believe it though he smites us? Do we believe that-

“Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face?”

Be wise, then, and believe in the God thou canst not see, and not in the outward providence which thou canst see; for if thou couldest see that outward providence aright as God sees it, thou wouldest see it to be as full of love as assuredly God’s heart is to thee, if thou art a believer in him. Therefore, since the outward is no sign to us, let us, when it gathers all the black it can, still believe in him. When it shall seem most severe, and deep calleth unto deep at the noise of God’s waterspouts, let us still hope in hm, for he is the health of our countenance and our God.

Moreover, brethren, there is another cause why we should always trust in him. To whom else can we go? We are shut up to this. When it comes to slaying, to cutting, to striking, and to killing work, what can the soul do, but fall into the Creator’s arms? When it comes to dying, what words shall fit these lips so well as those, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.” The course of the Christian’s life is such, that he feels it more necessary to trust every day he lives. He does not get off the line of faith, he gets more into the middle of it, as he feels his weakness more, and at the last, when his weakness will be more apparent, he will want faith more than ever, and he will have it, too. He shall be able to say, “My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.” Ah! I say again, to whom should we go in our trouble but unto God? All other sources are then dried up. The world mocks us, it seems to be a howling wilderness. ’Tis only from heaven the manna can come; only from the rock Christ Jesus, the living water can gush forth.

And there is one other word I will say before I leave this point; we may depend upon it, God will always justify our faith if we do trust him. There was never one who in the long run had to say, “I was a fool to trust in God.” Many have said to us, in time of trouble, “he trusted in God that he would deliver him, let him deliver him,” and they have hissed between their teeth that hideous taunt, “ Where is now their God?” But God has not left the righteous to be ashamed and to be offended for ever. They have had perhaps a blush on the cheek for a moment for the flesh is weak, but they have not been confounded far long. Faith has come to the rescue, and God has fulfilled their faith. Many a man has trusted in himself and been deceived, many have trusted in their wealth and been disappointed; thousands have relied on friends, and have been betrayed; but blessed is the man, O Lord of hosts, who stayeth himself on Thee. You can go beyond your friend’s line and measure; you may readily expect too much of him; you can try the temper of the dearest one you have on earth, and at last feel that you have tried it too much; but you can never go beyond the line of God. Your sin will rather be in limiting the Holy One of Israel. You will never open your mouth too wide for him; you will never ask too much at his hands, you will never expect too much; you will never believe too much. Has he not, himself said, “I am the Lord Thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.” The wider you open it the better; the larger your expectations the better, for, according to thy faith so shall it be done unto you.

Now, in closing, I would observe, that if we say the text, it will take a good deal of saying, and if it is true, it will want the power of God himself to make it true. You can stand up to-night and say, “ Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” But how would it be if he took you at your word? Did you ever question yourself thus, Christian brethren? You have said, “Well, I hope I have a faith that will bear me safely into the presence of God.” Did you ever put yourself in the posture of a dying man, and think whether you could look death in the face? You have said, “I hope when I am weighed in the balances I shall not be found wanting.” Did you ever get in the scales and try? Have you made a self-examination, an earnest praying, testing, trying of yourself? They do not send out a gun from the foundry without putting it into the proof-house to see whether it will bear the discharge of the powder. Have you ever put yourself into the proof-house?

But beware, above all things, of religious boasting. Recollect that God does not care for our words; it is the heart, it is the reality and truth of what we say, not the verbiage, that commends us to him. Many a man says very boldly, “ Though God should slay me, I will trust him,” and yet when God stops him a week’s work he does not trust him. If he had a child sick his faith would begin to waver. A little puff of wind will alter some people’s faith, for heaviest the heart is in the heavy air. O for a faith that can stand the test! Seek such faith, look to the strong for strength in this matter, and cry loudly unto him who is the author and the finisher of faith, that he would strengthen it in you. Say, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief, and bring me to this, that I can look anything in the face.” And say: “Let all the floods of earth, and all the outflowings from hell, and even the drenching trials that come from heaven itself, come upon me, yet will I stay myself on the Lord, for he will not fail me, neither will he leave mot His mercy cannot depart from his chosen. He will keep to the end those that have rested in him.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON.

PSALM 26.

No doubt this Psalm was written by David when his cruel persecutor Saul, the more effectually to stab at him, spread false reports concerning his character. When the wicked can use no other weapons, they always have their quivers full of slanderous reports. Let us learn here that the best of men must expect to be misrepresented, and to have the worst of crimes laid to their charge. Let us learn, also, from the example of David, to carry our case to the highest court at once, not to meddle with the lower courts of earth, but to go at once to the Court of King’s Bench in heaven, and there plead cur cause before the eternal throne.

Verse 1. Judge me, O LORD;-

As if he turned away from all other judges, bribed and false as they had proved themselves to be in his ease, and put himself on trial before God: “Judge me, O Lord; “-

1. For I have walked in mine integrity: I have trusted also in the LORD; therefore I shall not slide.

He pleads two things: first, the outward life and second, the inward faith, which, as it is the main-spring and source of the outer life of integrity, is also the more important of the two. Remark, that as the case is between himself and his accusers he pleads his life, for though we are justified before God by faith and not by works, yet before men we must be justified by our works, rather than by our faith. It is in vain for me to plead my faith when I am slandered. The only answer that can effectually shut the mouth of the adversary, is to point to a blameless life. Hence in this case he not only brings his faith before his God, but he also brings the fruit of his faith. Note, the inference which he draws from God’s mercy to him in enabling him to walk uprightly and to trust him-” therefore I shall not slide.” He rests for the future upon his God. His position was slippery, his enemies were always busy trying to trip up his heels, but saith he-” I shall not slide.”

2. Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.

This is a wonderful verse. One would hardly dare to pray it. Here are three kinds of trial. According to the etymology of the Hebrew the first is the trial by touch-” Examine me “; the next is the trial by smell- “ Prove me “; and the next is the trial by fire-” Assay my reins and my heart.” You see how anxious he is really to have the matter decided by God. “Lord, search me through and through; thou knowest I am not a hypocrite.” Now who dares to say this but that true man of God whose soul is wholly fixed upon the Lord? The reins and the heart are mentioned because those were believed to be the seat of the affections, and when the affections are right the whole man is right. The heart is the fountain from which issue streams of life, and if the fountain be pure, the streams cannot be impure; hence he asks chiefly that the examination may be directed to his reins and to his heart.

3. For thy lovingkindness is before mine eyes:-

Right straight before his eyes, he had God’s lovingkindness. Some people appear to have their miseries, their sorrows, their sins, before their eyes but happy is that believer who always has God’s lovingkindness before him!

Come, my brother, forget for a little while the burden of your business cares; now for a little season let the sickness that is in your house be left in the hand of your God, and let his lovingkindness be before your eyes. Lovingkindness-pull the word to pieces. Remember the ancientness of it, the constancy of it, the variety of ways in which it shows itself, and the lavish bounties which it bestows upon you. Do not turn your back to God’s goodness, but now, right straight before you set the lovingkindness of your God.

3. And I have walked in thy truth.

By which he may mean two things, first that he endeavored to hold fast to truth both in doctrine and in practice; or, secondly, that by God’s truthfulness in giving him the promised grace, he had been enabled to walk uprightly.

4. I have not sat with vain persons,-

I never took counsel with them; they never were my choice companions.

4. Neither will I go in with dissemblers.

He makes a vow for the future that all crafty, lying, and foolish men shall never have his companionship.

5. I have hated the congregation of evil doers, and will not sit with the wicked.

By which he does not mean that he does not associate with them in any way for we must needs go out of the world if we will not have communion with sinners; but he means that he did not seek their company, found no pleasure in it, and never went in it to abet them in their evil deeds.

6. I will wash mine hands in innocency:

Pilate did this, hut alas! the water was very dirty in which he washed his hands. This was an old Jewish rite when a man was found murdered; if the people in the valley in which he was found would be free from the crime of murder they took a heifer, slew it, and then washed their hands in water over the head of the victim. They were then clear. So here he says- “ I will wash mine hands in innocency: “

6. So will I compass shine altar, O LORD:

He is innocent far as men are concerned, but he still confesses that he is a sinner, for he goes to God’s altar. Perfect men need no altars. It is the sinner that needs a sacrifice. So let the saint ever know that though he can plead innocency against the charges of men yet before God, his hope lies in the blood-besprinkled altar of which Jesus Christ is the great High Priest.

7, 8. That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all thy wondrous works. LORD, I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where shine honor dwelleth.

I am sure many of us can say this, that when the Sabbath comes round, it is the best day of all the week, and that hour in the week-night when we can get to the house of God-what an inexpressible relief is that! It is to us like a green oasis in the midst of the sandy desert. There are no beauties in nature and no changes to be perceived in travelling that I think can ever compensate for the loss of the constant means of grace, after all God’s house is the fairest spot of earth. Zion, I will prefer thee above my chief joy! If I forget thee let my right hand forget her cunning. “I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where shine honor dwelleth.”

9, 10. Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men: in whose hands is mischief, and their right hand is full of bribes.

See, he so loves God’s house that he cannot bear the thought of being shut in with sinners; and this is our comfort, that if we have loved God’s house on earth we shall dwell in his house for ever.

11. But as for me, I will walk in mine integrity: redeem me, and be merciful unto me.

Bee again, my beloved, how in the Christian’s practice good works and faith are seen happily blended. He declares that he will walk in his integrity, but still, still note, he prays as one that is conscious of a thousand imperfections-”Redeem me and be merciful unto me.” We do rest on Christ alone, but still we desire to walk in holiness with as much exactness as though our salvation depended upon our good works.

12. My foot standeth in an even place: in the congregations will I bless the LORD.