NO. 3399
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 26TH, 1914.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
“Talk ye of all his wondrous works.” — 1 Chronicles 16:9.
This sentence stands in connection with exhortations to offer thanksgiving unto the Lord, and to make known his deeds among the people. Thus it runs, “Sing unto him; sing Psalms unto him; talk ye of all his wondrous works.”
The old typical religion of the Jews, and the perverse superstition of the heathen, made some places sacred and some places unclean some actions holy, and other actions, performed however well they might be, common, and not to be connected in any degree with holiness. But the religion of Jesus Christ has once for all swept away all holy places, and every place is hallowed wherever man is holy. Jesus Christ has consecrated the world by his presence, and wherever man chooses to worship, there is a house for God. The religion of Jesus Christ has also swept away those distinctions which men make as to actions being necessarily religious or irreligious. Some will have it that to sing a psalm is to worship God — a sacred thing; but to feed the sparrows is, according to them, a secular matter. To come up to a place that shall be set apart for worship, and there to bow the knee in prayer, is adoration of the Most High, but, according to them, to perform acts of mercy and righteousness is not a tribute of homage to God. Now, the very essence of the Christian religion is just this — that it is not a thing confined to hours and times, and places, but it is a thing of spirit. It lieth not in outward garbs or in mere words, but pervades the whole spirit of man, and makes him turn his entire life into worship, then every action he performs in its spirit and under its influence is holiness unto the Lord. God is worshipped by servants who fulfill the duties of their station, by judges who decree righteousness, by merchants who deal justly, by children who obey their parents, and by parents who train up their children in the fear of the Lord. There is not a line to be drawn anywhere, so that you can say, “Outside of that you go beyond the sanctuary of religion, and get into the outer courts frequented by the multitude.” Here has been the great mistake which some Christians have made with regard to politics. They have supposed that a man could not be a Christian and a politician too. Hence much injustice has been done. The fact is, when a man feels “There is nothing belongs to man but what may be consecrated to God,” and when he says, “I, being God’s servant, may take all that belongs to man, and devote it as holiness unto the Lord,” he reaches the highest order of manhood, and illustrates the highest style of Christianity. We cannot fully exhibit the spirit of Jesus Christ till we have learned that we must carry out in every place, and in every sphere, the spirit of his religion.
I make these remarks because, while we are first bidden to sing unto God’s praise, we are next told to talk about his wondrous works. There is a praising for the assembly; there is a talking for the fireside; and both are to be holy. The praise is to be hearty, sincere, unanimous, full of animation; the talk is to be equally sincere, equally earnest, equally sacred. You are not to say, “I have done with praising God,” when the hymn is over, and you begin to open your mouths upon ordinary topics; but in your ordinary conversation, in the fields, by the way-side, in the streets, and in your chambers, you are still to go on praising God, and talking of all his wondrous works.
Shall there be a connection established between such a common word as “talk” and such grand swelling words as “the wondrous works of God”? We wonder to find the little monosyllable in such a place. “Preach ye of all his wondrous works,” would seem well enough; “Show them,” would seem sound theology; but talk ye, talk ye; in your ordinary, common, every-day conversation; make the wondrous works of God to be your trite converse, your familiar talk. We must talk; we seem born to talk; we were wretched indeed if we were forbidden to speak to our fellow-creatures. Why, the world seems to be enlivened by continuous, not to say incessant, talking, from the first blush of morning, on still through all the bustling day, and far into the shades of drowsy night. How our tongues are occupied! They run more quickly than our feet, and carry less, though much mischief sometimes comes from their babble. They are sharper than razors, some of them, and cut deeper than swords, and kindle fire enough to set the world in a blaze. Now, this talking to which women are proverbially disposed, and in which men indulge as freely as inclination prompts them; to be heard in every street, in every house, and in every workshop; this it is which is to be consecrated unto God. The streams of conversation are everywhere to be drawn off from the gutters and channels in which they gather defilement; to be strained, cleansed, and purified, till they become fresh, clear, and sparkling. Then the speech of human intercourse, man with man, saint with saint, redeemed from the beggarly elements of common slander and envy, foolishness and vanity, shall be lifted up as on eagles’ wings till it is like the fellowship of the angels realising the prediction of the psalmist, to the praise of the Lord, “They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom and talk of thy power.” Now, first: —
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I. The Subject Here Suggested For Our Common-Place Talk — His Wondrous Works — invites notice.
Brethren, we ought to talk more about God’s wondrous works as we find them in Holy Scripture. Do you read them? Alas! in how many a case the Bible is the least read book in the house! I am inclined to think that, although there may be more Bibles in England than any other book, there is less of Bible-reading than anything else in literature. The sacred volume seems to be scarcely known to many, except from chapters read in the public services, and the quotations of the minister, while alas, alas, for us! our conversation hath very little in it of the records of the mighty acts of the Lord. But the old saints were wont to speak to one another about the historical parts of Scripture. They dwelt full often, and never seemed happier than when they were dwelling, upon it, on that story of the Red Sea, when the Lord smote Rahab, and brake the head of the dragon. How they would stand together and speak of the books of the wars of the lord, of what he did by the brook Arnon, and how he led his servants through Jordan, and brought them into the promised land, cast out the Canaanites, and slew their kings. They talked of these things, not merely as historical events, but as seeing the Lord in them all, and they so spoke and so read of them as to see in them subjects worthy of their study. I do not know how it is, but we do not get at the history of our own country in anything like the way in which one might desire, for really the wondrous works of God which he has done here in this land are such as we ought to speak of at our firesides. We should look upon the events of history and the chronicles of each day in this light, and if, as we scanned the ample page of history, rich with the spoils of time, we saw God’s hand fashioning its contingencies and moulding them into destiny, and the impress of his footsteps upon all its stupendous revolutions, we should not lack for topics of conversation, but our memories would be stored, our interest excited, our minds elevated with noble passions, and our social intercourse ennobled by the inexhaustible resources of wisdom, as we talked of all the wondrous works of the Lord.
But, brethren, our own history will enable us to relate such a multitude of tender mercies as may well become incentives to gratitude and praise. How much might we tell of what the Lord has done for us personally! Here is a subject that shall never be exhausted. Talk to one another — especially to those who can understand you because they have felt the same — of the long-suffering of God when you were in your ungodly estate; the wonders of that love which tracked you with its many warnings while you were still strangers to yourselves and to God. Talk of that Almighty power which, when the predestinated hour had come, laid hold upon you and made you yield. Speak of what the Lord did for you when you were in the low dungeon of your own self-abhorrence; how he met with you when you were brought to death’s door; how Jesus appeared for you, and clothed you with his righteousness, and your spirit revived, and your heart was glad. Shall the slave ever forget the music of his chains when they dropped from his wrists, and will you ever case to speak of that happy day, the happiest of all days, when all the chains of your transgression were for ever broken off at the love touch of your Redeemer? Oh, no! talk ye still of the wondrous works of God as connected with your conversion. And, since that time, however quiet your life may have been, I am sure there has been much in it that has tenderly illustrated the Lord’s providence, the Lord’s guidance, the Lord’s deliverance, the Lord’s upholding and sustaining you. You have been, perhaps, in poverty, and just when the barrel of meal was empty, then you were supplied. Talk ye of his wondrous works. You have been in great temptation, and when you were reeling under it, or when you were slandered and no name was thought bad enough for you, his sweet love hath appeared to you, and helped you to rejoice in this also for Christ’s name sake. Talk ye of this. You have gone, perhaps, Christian, through fire and through water; yours has been a very chequered life; you have fought with lions, or have stood in the valley of the shadow of death, but in it all God’s aid has been very wonderful. There have been miracles heaped upon miracles along your pathway. Perhaps you are like the Welsh woman who said that the Ebenezers which she had set up at the places where God had helped her were so thick that they made a wall from the very spot she began with Christ to that she had then reached. Is it so with you? Then talk ye, talk ye of all his wondrous works. I am sure you would find such talk most interesting, most impressive, and most instructive, for the things we have seen and experienced ourselves generally wear a novelty, and abound in interest, beyond any narrative we get from books, or any unauthenticated story we pick up at secondhand. Tell them how God has led you, fed you, and brought you to this day, and would not let you go.
There is a topic for you, and you never shall know how large it is.
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II. The Excellency Of This Subject Is Both Negative And Postive.
Were we to talk more of God’s wondrous works, there would be this negative good, that we should talk less about our own works. A man never lowers himself more than when he tries to lift himself up. There are some whose propensity is to use vain swelling words about their own doings, and they seem to be never better pleased than when they are bragging and saying, “I did this; I did that; I did the other.” “Talk ye of all his wondrous works.” As for your puny actions, if you judge and estimate them properly, you will find more to mourn over than to boast of. Give to the Lord the glory that is due unto his name, and your discretion shall not be perilled.
If we talked more of God’s wondrous works, we should be free from talking of other people’s works. It is easy to criticise those we could not rival, and carp at those we could not emulate. He who could not carve a statue, or make a single stroke of the chisel correctly, affects to point out where the handicraft of the greatest sculptor might have been improved. It is a poor, pitiful occupation, that of picking holes in other people’s coats, and yet some people seem so pleased when they can perceive a fault, that they roll it under their tongue as a sweet morsel. Why should this be? Why should you find fault with God’s servants in this way? They are not your servants, but his servants; he will call them to account himself. He does not ask you to be thus officious. Talk ye of his wondrous works, and you will not speak so unkindly of his servants.
Did we talk more of God’s wondrous works, it would keep us from the ordinary frivolities of conversation. In the olden times they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. Suppose for a moment that our ordinary conversation were taken down by an eaves-dropper, as in the case mentioned by Malachi. I do not know what your conversation was about at tea-time this evening but supposing that somebody had been hearkening and hearing, and that you knew for certain that it was going to be put into a book and printed, would you feel quite easy? Supposing we could have put down in a book the talk of all our people during the day, and could have it all read out, I am afraid we should find that our talk is not always such as edifieth, and not always seasoned with salt. In fact, some Christian people never talk thoroughly good gospel talk unless somebody is present in whose esteem it is likely to raise them, or until they get into such company as they suppose will relish it, and then they feel compelled to accommodate themselves to the occasion. The habit of thoroughly good godly talk is not common among professors. I wish it were. I wish that not only sometimes our talk were what God would have it to be, but that it were always so, that our common conversation were like salt ministering grace unto the hearers.
As there is a negative excellence about this subject of conversation, so there is also a positive excellence. Supposing we were to talk more of God’s wondrous works; when the habit was acquired, it would necessitate stricter habits of observation, and of discrimination in watching the providence of God. Memory, the treasure-house of the mind, must have its goods assorted and its records indexed, so that the things of which we hear and read might not only be well retained, but easily referred to. As Cowper says: —
“But conversation, choose what theme we may,
And chiefly when religion leads the way,
Should flow, like waters after summer showers,
Not as if raised by mere mechanic powers.”
Alas! the mercies of God flow by us like a river; we forget to count its multitudinous waves. We receive the mercies fresh every day, and take but slight account of them; too often they are: —
“Forgotten in unthankfulness,
And without mention die.”
The spirit of observing God in all things was prevalent amongst our Puritan ancestors. They saw God in every single drop of rain, and in every ray of sunlight. They were wont to talk about the commonest changes of the atmosphere as coming from the hand of God, to speak of incidents which we might account trivial as connected with the decrees of him who ordereth all things after the counsel of his own will. Oh! that we, too, amidst the various maze of life, could thus learn to track the course “of boundless wisdom and of boundless love”! Such conversation, brethren would be very ennobling. Why, it would liken us to the ancient saints and the spirits before the throne. What is their conversation there? How they talk of God’s wondrous works, God’s works in creation, God’s works in providence, God’s works in grace. They are too taken up with the splendor of the divine presence to suffer their pure intercourse to degenerate into any meaner theme. Yes, and living as we do in the presence of God, professing to have the Holy Ghost dwelling in us, and to have been lifted up from the world into communion with Jesus Christ, it ought to be our holy ambition to let our conversation be of things that are like our standing, things that are worthy of our high calling and profession, things that have to do with our election, and will help us onward to our eternal portion. We should not be so grovelling as we are, did we talk more of the wondrous things of God.
And beloved, while holding this lofty fellowship of heart and tongue, how would our gratitude glow and what an impulse would be given to our entire life! I do not know how you find it, but with me it is no easy matter to maintain spiritual life in the fullness of its vigor. To go week after week, month after month, and year after year, plodding on in the pilgrimage, is hard work; it needs no small degree of strength, resolve and skill. If it were one tremendous leap, we could soon perform it; if it were but a spurt in the race, we might soon win the prize; but to go on, on, on, and still to keep up our zeal, still to be awake, still to be earnest, here it is one feels the need of the mercies of God to be means of grace to us, to refresh our gratitude, and put fresh fuel upon the altar. Oh! brethren, we have not lived yet. We do not seem to recognize what the Christian life really means. When I instanced our conversation just now as being poor, and mean, and barren, I did but cull one mildewed leaf out of the whole field, for our whole life is much alike, I fear. The Lord revive us. What means is he so likely to use, except he employ the rod of chastisement, as the renewal of our memory of his great loving-kindness, that we may be constrained to dedicate ourselves more fully unto him? But times flies; let me proceed, therefore: —
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III. To Urge This Talking, Ordinarily And Commonly, About God’s Wondrous Works.
I have already said that it would prevent much evil and do us much good. May I not safely add that it would be the means of doing much good to others? If we spake often of God’s wondrous works, we might impress the sinner, we might enlighten the ignorant, we might comfort the desponding. You say, “But how are we to do it?” I reply, “How is it you have not done it before?” If we began early in our Christian course to make Jesus Christ our companion in the family and everywhere wherever we went, and to take him always with us, we should never leave off; it would become the business of our life. I have noticed that many Christian people delay in this matter for years. They cultivate habits of retirement and reticence more upon this subject than upon any other. Perhaps it is a long time after they have believed that they come forward to obey the second great command of baptism, and the same shyness happens with regard to their talking about Christ in all companies. They do love him; at least, in the judgment of charity, we trust they do; we acknowledge them, but having never began at the first to acknowledge him openly, they cannot break the ice now. If they had then had the courage to say, “I have given Christ my tongue, and mean to use it for him; I am his servant, and I mean to serve him wherever I go,” they would have continued the profession and the practice still. Brethren, is it diffidence that restrains you? Take care it is diffidence, and not cowardice; say to yourselves, each one of you: —
“Am I a soldier of the Cross,
A follower of the Lamb?
And shall I fear to own his cause,
Or blush to speak his name?”
What, in the presence of the noble army of martyrs who feared not to die, do you fear to speak? What, if they stood on the burning faggots for Christ, cannot you bear, if so it must be, a jeer or a sarcasm? Must you be wickedly dumb when you might do so much for Christ in the circle where his providence has cast you? Oh! be ashamed of having been ashamed. Do ask the Master that, whatever fear you have, you may be delivered from the fear of man, which bringeth a snare. “Talk ye of all his wondrous works.”
But some will object, “I have not gifts or ability.” Nay, my brother; my sister; it does not want any ability to talk, or else there would not be so much loquacity in the world as there is. Talk in the ordinary strain, the common-place prattle, which breaks the silence of the world. It is what everybody is at. There is no gifted tongue requisite, there are no powers of eloquence invoked; neither laws of rhetoric nor rules of grammar are pronounced indispensable in the simple talk that my text inculcates, “Talk ye of all his wondrous works.” I beg your pardon when you say you cannot do this. You cannot because you will not. If you would, you could speak well of his name. Because there is no want of ability in any one of us to say something for Jesus after an ordinary sort, I press it upon you.
Are you a nursemaid? Talk of his name to the little prattlers with whom you are entrusted. Or are you a crossing-sweeper? Friend, there are some you can get at that I could not. I will be bound to say the crossing-sweeper has a friend who would be frightened if I were to speak to him. “But I am so poor,” you reply; “I work in the midst of such a ribald, blaspheming set.” Ah! friend, but you can talk; I know you can; there are times when you can talk even to these blasphemers. It is little use talking to a drunken man: it is like casting pearls before swine. But he is not always drunk; there is a time of sobriety, and then it is that you are to go to work. You are not so to talk of Christ as to stop the mill, or to interpose your religion in the way of business. That were indiscreet; but there are leisure times, there are hours for dinner, there, are times when they talk to you, and then is your time to talk to them. As the profane take the liberty to force their irreligion upon you, so you take the liberty to force your religion upon them. Use your wits, find out the proper times, and then turn them to the best account. “In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand, for thou knowest not which shall prosper, this or that.”
I have only one aim to-night; if I can succeed in it, I shall be very thankful — that Christian people shall talk more of the love of God at the table, at the breakfast table, at the tea table, at the dinner table; that domestic companionship and social hospitalities may be hallowed, and this without depriving them of their genial conviviality; rather infusing into them a higher entertainment; that we who are masters shall talk of the things of God, so that our servants shall hear of them, and that servants shall so speak of Christ that their fellows shall hear about him. The great weapon of the Christian religion has been the public preaching of the Word, nor would I disparage it, but it will never evangelise the nations unless there be attendant with it a constant reiteration of the truth preached, till it flow through innumerable little conduits into every circle of society. Wycliffe was but one man, but he taught others to read. One page of Matthew’s gospel and the Epistle to the Romans was given to each. They went out and read it in the streets. So was the truth spread until it was said that you could not meet two men on the roadside, but one of them would be a Lollard. In Luther’s day it was not merely the preaching of Luther, it was the singing of the hymns and the psalms at the spinning-wheel; it was the occupation of the solitary colporteur; it was the general chit-chatting with everybody, at the smithy fire, in the farmyard, on the Exchange; curiosity was excited, enquiry was prompted, the popular conversation was inoculated; the clever of that healthful sickness — repentance toward God was spread abroad, and communicated from one to another. Have you heard the news? Have you heard that Luther has proclaimed that men are justified by faith, and not by works?” It was this that shook Rome; it is this which will shake her yet again. The waking up of Christian life throughout the entire body of the Church of God, and the enlisting of the entire life of the Christian Church in the cause of Christ is an enterprise to be consummated by the individual agency of each, and the general action of all who seek the glory of God and the welfare of man. Talk ye, therefore, of all his wondrous works.
Oh! that there should be any here who never thought of God, much less talked of his wondrous works. Wondrous, indeed, is God’s patience that has kept you alive! Marvellous his long-suffering that, after having neglected him all these years, he has not cut you down! The ox knoweth its owner, and the ass its master’s crib, but you have not known God. You would not keep a dog that would not follow you. You would soon dispose of an ox that was of no service to you. Oh! why has God kept you? It is a wonder. Here is another wonder: he bids us entreat you allure you, encourage you with a saving promise, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” Take heed to this gospel. May the Holy Ghost make you yield to it. Trust Christ; obey him by avowing your faith in him, and you shall be saved.
The Lord grant it, for Jesus, sake. Amen.
EXPOSITIONS BY C. H. SPURGEON.
PSALM 142. AND 143.
“Maschil of David,”
An instructive psalm of David, for we speak to one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, and they are a means of instruction, as well as a means of utterance of praise. “A prayer when he was in the cave”; and, therefore, likely to suit any of you who are in trouble — a prayer when he hid away from Saul, and was hunted like a partridge upon the mountains — “A prayer when he was in the cave.”
Verse 1. I cried unto the LORD with my voice; with my voice unto the LORD did I make my supplication.
Of course, the essence of his prayer was in his heart, but it often helps the heart to use the voice. It is much better to pray in silence if you will be heard by others, for we are not to pray to be heard of men, but if you have opportunity to pray aloud, I am sure you will feel it very helpful to devotion to do so. “I cried unto the Lord with my voice: with my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication.”
2. I poured out my complaint before him:
As if it were in a vessel, and I turned the vessel upside down, and poured it all out. That is true prayer. It is the pouring out of what is really in; not an utterance of words which may, perhaps, go no farther than the mere lips, but the pouring out of whatever is within, whether it is praise or complaint. “I poured out my complaint before him” — realised his presence, and then told him my complaint.
2. I shewed before him my trouble.
We must believe that God is, and that he is the hearer of, prayer. We must be conscious that we are not only using proper words, and feeling proper thoughts, but that we are doing it before him. “I showed before him my trouble.”
3. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path.
I did not know it. I was so puzzled — so in a maze, like a man at his wits’ end. My spirit seemed turned bottom upward, like a thing that is overwhelmed.
3 In the way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me.
I could not find out where the snare was, but “thou knewest my path.” I knew the trap was cunningly laid, but I could not see it. “Thou knewest my path.” We are not ignorant of Satan’s devices, but sometimes we are completely ignorant as to what devices he is using just now, but “then thou knewest my path.”
4. I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.
It is a bad time always when friendship seems to have died out when those that we rely upon turn their backs upon us and refuse to sympathise with us in any degree. It is a sad case to be in. “No man cared for my soul.”
5. I cried unto thee, O LORD:
Ah! that is the thing to do. When no man will know you, God will know you. When no man cares for you, God will care for you. Prayer is an unfailing resort. “I cried unto thee, O Lord.”
5. I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.
See how he clings to his God now. We never do cling to God so well as when everything else fails us. To a greater or less extent, all those who yield us comfort do, in some little measure, take our heart off our God; but when it comes to be lonely, friendless, helpless, forgotten, despised, rejected, and outcast, oh! then it is a blessed thing, with a two-handed faith, to lay hold on God and say, “Thou art my refuge, and my portion in the land of the living.”
6. Attend unto my cry; for I am brought very low:
What a blessed argument! Nothing can move God’s pity like it. “I am brought very low.” It is not your height that God will respect: it is your lowliness. O soul, it is not thy excellence that God regards: it is thy need — not thy goodness, but thy want of his goodness that he looks at; not thy fullness, but thy emptiness; not thy strength, but thy weakness. Nothing that thou hast. It is thy lack of everything that moves his heart. “Attend unto my cry, for I am brought very low.”
6, 7. Deliver me from my persecutors: for they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name:
He asks for deliverance, and it is that he may praise God in it. So ought we always to desire mercies with this in view — that we may praise God the better for them.
7. The righteous shall compass me about; for thou shalt deal bountifully with me.
Lord, if thou art kind to me, all thy people will hear of it. When I get out of prison, they will say one to another, “Such-and-such a brother has got cheered and comforted. His face has changed. He is no more sad”; and they will come round me. They will begin to ask me how it came about. Thus I shall tell out thy praises — encourage others and get to thee a great and glorious name, if thou shalt deal bountifully, with me.
Now, the next psalm, much after the same fashion.
PSALM 143.
“A psalm of David.”
Verse 1. Hear my prayer, O LORD, give ear to my supplications: in thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness.
It is a theory held by some persons of sceptical minds that the only benefit of prayer is the good it does to us. That was not David’s theory. Here, three times, he begs to be heard, and to be answered. Oh! do they think us such idiots that we would go on speaking in a keyhole with nobody to hear us? Do they think us brought so low — so destitute of wit — that we think it worth our while to speak out what is in our heart if God does not hear and does not answer? I reckon prayer to be the most idiotic of all occupations unless there be really a God to hear, and a God to answer. And the benefit of prayer is not in itself so much as in the full confidence that it is a real thing, and an effective thing — that God does hear and does interpose on our behalf.
2. And enter not into judgment with thy servant:
“Thy servant I am I am not one of the ungodly, whom thou wilt judge and cast away, but still even thy servant though I am, enter not into judgment with me. I know thou wilt not judge me now as a rebel, and condemn me, for thou hast put away my sin, but even as thy servant I fear thy chastising rod, if thou enter into judgment with me.”
2. For in thy sight shall no man living be justified.
I have heard some living that think they would. They have said that the very root and branch of sin have been cut up in them, and that they walk in the fear of God perfectly well, but times must have changed very wonderfully. Ah! but I think they have not, but that these are mistaken, for still it is very true concerning the very best of men that they have need to pray, “Enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.”
3, 4 For the enemy hath persecuted my soul: he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead. Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me; my heart within me is desolate.
Children of God, do not expect to be always happy, or else you will be disappointed. You will have more troubles, if nobody else does. Depend upon it, that adversity is one of the covenant promises. “In the world ye shall have tribulation,” is your Master’s own word to you, and you must not expect to find it untrue. You will find it true to the letter. And sometimes the troubles of life will penetrate even to your heart, and make you feel desolate. When you are so, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial as though yours were a new path in which nobody ever walked before you. Ah! no; David was there. Many others have been there.
5, 6. I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands. I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. Selah.
As a child puts out its hand to its mother, so did he stretch out his hands to his God. As a thirsty land chaps — becomes dry — turns to dust in its longing after rain, so did his whole being thirst for his God.
7. Hear me speedily, O LORD: my spirit faileth: hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into a pit.
“Lest I swoon away — lest I die — lest my hope should utterly expire. Come, Lord: come, Lord, and rescue me.”
8. Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee.
Very heavy, but I lift it up. With all my might, as though it were a dead lift, I seek to raise it out of its doubt, and out of its sorrow.
9, 10. Deliver me, O Lord from mine enemies: I flee unto thee to hide me. Teach me to do thy will; for thy art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.
Or “lead me in a straight path.” So it is rendered by the best scholars.
11. Quicken me, O LORD, for thy name’s sake:
Felt as if he should die, and, therefore, he says, “Quicken me: put new life into me.” To whom should we go for life, but to the living God, and who can communicate with us but the same God who first made us live in his name.
11, 12. For thy righteousness; sake bring my soul out of trouble. And of thy mercy cut off mine enemies, and destroy all them that afflict my soul: for I am thy servant.