We commenced our special services with a sermon of encouragement, by which we were reminded of the rapid answer which Daniel received to his prayer, and were led to hope that the Lord intended, at the very commencement of our supplications, to send forth a commandment of mercy. Since then, God has done great things for us, whereof we are glad. Few of you, probably, are aware of the numerous conversions which God has wrought in this place during the past fortnight. We are not fond of publishing numbers, nor of making estimates, but it suffices you to know, and us to say, that the Lord has made bare his arm and led forth captive souls from the bondage of sin. Many fathers and mothers here have had to weep for joy, because their children have declared themselves to be on the Lord’s side. Satan’s kingdom has been weakened, and the armies of the Lord have been increased. There has been joy among the angels this week, and joy in the heart of the great Father; for many lost ones have been found. Let us give unto the Lord the glory which is due unto his name; let us rejoice and be glad in the Lord. And now, halting in the midst of our career, like an army with uplifted banners, resting on the wing like a lark when mounting towards heaven, let us give a tongue to our gratitude, and sing aloud unto God our strength. We cheerfully confess that neither our own arm nor our own strength can give us the victory. Unto Jehovah be all glory. Let us hear the voice which saith, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord;” and let each believer here prostrate himself in reverence before the throne of the great King, and thank him with heart and soul for all the mercy and goodness which he has made to pass before us. With one united heart let us ascribe unto the Lord, honour and glory, and dominion and power. This grateful waiting upon the Lord will renew our strength in such a manner, that though we run we shall not be weary, and though we walk, and the walk be long and the road be rough, we shall not faint. Waiting upon the Lord does not give us a merely spasmodic energy, with which we may begin and continue for a little season, and then grow cold; but waiting upon the Lord gives a constant flow of vigour, so that we go from strength to strength until in Zion we appear before God.

This topic seemed to thrust itself upon me as most suitable for our consideration during our present special efforts. My intention is, as God shall help me, to magnify the name of the Lord our God by directing your devout attention to the fact that without the Lord there is nothing good, nothing strong, nothing effectual; but that where He worketh nothing can stand against Him-no powers of evil can impede the workings of his royal hand.

Our entire dependence upon God, who is our all in all-that is the thought of the morning, and that thought the text illustrates in two ways. We are made to see the all sufficiency of God to us, and our dependence upon Him: first, in his effectual working, “When He giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?” secondly, in his sovereign withdrawals, “When he hideth his face, who then can behold him?” and, thirdly, we are reminded that this is true not only upon the small scale of the individual, but upon the great scale of nations, “Whether it be done against a nation or against a man only.”

First, then, the eye of faith beholds the all-sufficiency of Jehovah, and our entire dependence upon Him, as she marks his effectual working. “When he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?”

This unanswerable question may be illustrated by the Lord’s works in nature. The world was once a tumultuous chaos: fire and wind and vapour strove with one another; contention and confusion ruled the day. Who was there that could bring that heaving, foaming, boiling, raging mass into quietude and order? Who could transform that sea of molten lava into rock solid as granite fit to become the foundations, of a habitable globe? Who could cool that boiling surface into an Eden wherein God might walk with man at the cool of the day? Who could calm that ocean of fire, lashed into terrific tempest by whirlwind and tornado, and make into a terra firma, fixed and stable? The Holy Spirit brooded upon it, and by his mysterious energy ere long He brought order out of confusion; and now this fair round world of ours, with all its matchless beauty of landscape and rolling flood, fixed and firm, has become a standing proof that when God giveth quietness, none can disturb it. Only let the great Preserver of men relax the command of quiet, and there are fierce forces in the interior of the earth sufficient to bring it back to its primeval chaos in an hour; but while his fiat is for peace, we fear no crash of matter and no wreck of worlds. Seed time and harvest, summer and winter, cold and heat, do not cease; the economy of man’s era remains beneath the calm radiance of sun and moon unmolested by the fear of returning chaos or the rebellion of terrific elements. Passing on to the age of man, we see the Lord in the day of his wrath pulling up the sluices of the great deep, and at the same moment bidding the clouds of heaven discharge themselves, so that the whole world became once again a colossal ruin; the proud waters went over the abodes of men, and even the tops of the mountains were covered by the imperious billows. The Lord had but to will it, and the waters were assuaged from off the face of the earth, and once again the dry land appeared, while the world bloomed with joyous springs, blushed with fairest summers, and with glad ripening autumns, while over all, the covenant bow was seen in the cloud, the token that the Lord had given quietness to the earth, and that none again should be able to disturb her. Have the proud waters prevailed since that day? Hath the sea dared to leave its appointed channel? Do not the waves in their greatest fury pause when they reach the bound appointed by the Most High? Tempest and storm obey the voice of the Lord who sitteth upon the flood, the Lord who sitteth King for ever.

Further down in history the Red Sea asks of us the same question, “When he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?” He led his people forth from Egypt’s bondage, but Pharoah said, “I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil.” He had, however, reckoned without the Lord of Hosts; and when the pillar came between the two armies, turning its black dark side to Pharaoh’s horsemen, and its side of brightness and of comfort to Israel’s ranks, then there might have been heard a voice, “When he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?” When down into the depths of the sea the ransomed flock descended, the floods stood upright as a heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea, the rattling chariot was heard and the horse hoof sounded on the pebbly bed of the affrighted sea. Will not Pharaoh break the peace of the chosen flock, and drive them back to slavery? Hark to the cracking of whips and the shouts of the horsemen! How is it now with Israel? Wait, O unbelief, and see the salvation of God! When the mighty waters cover all the hosts of Egypt there cometh up from the depths where sleep the proud warriors with the waves as their winding-sheets, “When he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?”

Glancing far on in history, and passing by a thousand cases which are all to the point, we only mention one more, namely, that of Sennacherib and his host. The marbles which are preserved to us, and have been excavated from the heaps of Nineveh, are more than sufficient proofs of the power and of the ferocity of the Assyrian monarch. He came even to Lachish, destroying the nations with fire and sword, and then he sent his Lieutenant, Rab-shakeh, to Jerusalem, to overthrow it. Rab-shakeh scarcely thought that little city to be worth the toils of battle: he thought to conquer it with his blasphemous tongue, and leave the sword in its scabbard; he thought to swallow it as a dog swallows his meat; to devour it as an ox eateth grass. How scornfully, he asked: “Who is Jehovah?” How he boasted of the easy overthrow of the gods of the heathen. “Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? And have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? Who are they among all the gods of these lands, that have delivered their land out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?” But the Lord had heard his blasphemies, and answered the prayers of Hezekiah, and all the force of Assyria could not cast a single mound against Jerusalem, nor shoot an arrow there, but in the stillness of the night God put a hook into the enemy’s nose, and thrust a bridle between his jaws, and sent him back with shame to the place from whence he came. “When he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?”

“There is a stream whose gentle flow

Supplies the city of our God,

Life, love, and joy, still gliding through,

And watering our secure abode.”

“Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken. But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us. Thy tacklings are loosed; they could not well strengthen their must, they could not spread the sail: then is the prey of a great spoil divided; the lame take the prey.” They that hoped to spoil Jerusalem are spoiled themselves, and the robbers who thought to destroy the peace of the Church of God, have their own peace and their own lives taken from them.

All history declares the truth that when God determines to set a hedge around any people, it is not possible for any power, human or infernal, to break through that hedge. “I will be a wall of fire round about thee, and a glory in thy midst,” is a blessed promise which ensures quietness to those who dwell within its glorious protection.

1. We shall reflect upon this truth as it applies, first, to God’s people. My beloved, if your gracious Lord shall give you quietness of mind, who then can cause you trouble? Some of us know what it is to walk in the light of Jehovah’s countenance. Let us now bear our experimental witness to this fact. You have had, my dearly beloved in the Lord, stern tribulations; you have seen wave after wave rolling up and threatening to go over you; and all these billows have gone over your head; you have been deserted by friends-they have been unfaithful; you have lost kindred-you have wept over their tombs; you have lost property-your gold and silver have taken to themselves wings and fled away; you have been broken in health, and you have been broken in spirit too; but yet, when the Lord has lifted up the light of his countenance upon you, were you not of the same mind as Habakkuk, that-“Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls;” yet still you could rejoice in God? Beloved, a glimpse of our heavenly Father’s face even sweetens affliction-

“The bitterest tears,

If He smile but on them,

Like dew in the sunshine,

Grow diamond and gem.”

We have found it sweet to be afflicted when we have enjoyed the presence of God in it, so that we have counted it all joy when we have fallen into divers temptations; because, in our hour of extremity and peril, the Saviour has been unspeakably the more precious: in the absence of all other joys, the joy of the Lord has filled the soul to the brim. You know very well, dear friends, that if the Lord be withdrawn, no comforts can make up for his absence; but if all earthly comforts be taken, you will not utter so much as a single murmuring word if the Lord will but fill the vacuum with himself, you will say, “Lord, I thank thee that there was the more room for thee-the more room for thy fulness-when the creature failed me.”

Added to this, when the Lord giveth quietness, slander cannot give us trouble. It has ever been the lot of God’s people, the more they have served God, the more falsely to be accused of men. And I doubt not, that when the dog is barking, he imagines that the good man who rides by is sorely troubled by the noise; and yet, if the Lord doth but smile, it little matters though every tongue in the world should be set a-lying against us, and every mouth should be black with curses, we may then say as David did-he says, “They return at evening: they make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city,” and then he adds, “Let them return, and let them make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city.” So would the Christian give a license to those who slander him. If it were not for the sin of it on the part of his enemies, he could even rejoice to be evil-spoken of for Christ’s sake, and count it all joy when he was shamefully intreated for his Master’s cause. The face of God sheds such a holy light into the soul that the clouds of slander cannot hide it. Ay, and at such times you may add to outward troubles and to the slanders of the wicked man, all the temptations of the devil; but if the Lord giveth quietness, though there were as many devils to attack us as there are stones in the pavement of the streets of London, we would walk over all their heads in unabated confidence. Let Satanic temptations come; let them fly about as thick as hailstones, if God but lifts up the shield, they shall be but as hailstones that rattle on the roof while the man is safe beneath. Perhaps you think Luther’s expressions, when he speaks about the temptations of Satan, to be too highly drawn; and so they may be in your experience, but they were not in his, and he stands as a monument, in his biography, of the power of the comforts of God to keep a man calm when all earth and all hell are against him. There was that man. It did not matter that the enraged Pope issued a thousand bulls; that every priest gnashed his teeth at Luther; that most of men cried, “Away with him! It is not fit that he should live.” What cared Luther any more for all they said than for the chirping of so many grasshoppers in the field, or the croaking of so many frogs in the pond? Let them say what they will, “if God giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?”

I know that I am now touching the experience of many of God’s people, but I will go a little further. Even inbred sin, which is the worst of ills, will cause the Christian no trouble when the light of Jehovah’s countenance is clearly seen. “Oh,” saith the soul, “I cried but yesterday, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ and there I stopped. But now, my God has whispered in my ear, ‘Thou art mine,’ and I will not stop at that verse any longer, but I will go on to the next. ‘I thank God, through Jesus Christ my Lord,’ ‘Thanks be unto God that giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ,’ I will no longer look upon my enemies and say, ‘They are many and strong,’ but I will look to my strong helper, ‘and in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.’ ” “I am as a wonder unto many; but thou art my strong refuge,” said David; and so will the Christian say. Beset with all sorts of temptations from within, yet he overcomes through the blood of the Lamb. And God gives such a quietness in resting in the finished work of Jesus, and in the sanctifying power of the Holy Ghost that, imperfect as we are, we yet have power by his might to seize the crown of righteousness, and to be raised up tosit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, even before the day of glory shall dawn, and the shadows of mortality flee away.

2. Beloved friends, I thank God that my text is equally true of the seeking sinner. If the Lord shall be pleased to give thee, poor troubled heart, quietness this day in Christ, none can make trouble in thy soul. What a mercy it is for you that God can give you peace and quietness! Some of you have been, during the last fortnight, much troubled. The arrows of God are sticking fast in you; your very flesh faints as though it could not much longer bear the strain of your spiritual griefs. Now the Lord can bind you up. He will bind up the broken in heart, and heal their wounds. He can do it effectually, so effectually that no wound ever bleeds afresh after he has bound it up. “Ah,” say you, “but there is his law, that dreadful law of ten commands: I have broken that a thousand times.” But if the Saviour lead thee to the cross he will show thee that he fulfilled the law on thy behalf; that thou art not thyself under the law any longer, but under grace. The law is a taskmaster; but the taskmaster can only rule his own slaves; and when thou believest in Jesus, thou art no more a slave, but a child, and the taskmaster has no further power over thee henceforth and for ever. To see the law by Christ fulfilled, what a sight is that! It is a vision which gives such joy and grace that you could stand where the seer of Horeb stood, and need not say as he did, “I do exceedingly fear and quake;” but rather say, with our hymn-writer-

“Bold shall I stand in that great day,

For who aught to my charge can lay?