Noah knew that God would in due time let him out of the ark. He was quite sure that the Lord had not put him into the ark to make a great coffin of it, that he and all those living creatures that went in with him should perish there; and, because he believed in God, therefore he removed the covering of the ark, and looked abroad, expecting by-and-by to see not only the tops of the mountains, but also a dry and green earth once more. True faith often goes to the window. If your faith turns her face to the wall, and expects nothing, I do not think it is genuine faith. Faith has eyes, and therefore she looks afar off, and she often watches as the watchman of the night looks for the grey dawn of the morning. You remember the story of the child who went to a prayer-meeting, which was called together to pray for rain. She expected that God would send the rain, so she took her umbrella with her because she wanted to get home in the dry. I wish that you and I had learned the same simple art of faith. Having prayed, and having believed, let us expect; let us open the window, and look out. God never failed an expectant people yet; but a great many of his people fail to expect; and if you do not expect, you are not likely to receive. David said, “My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him;” and when your expectation is from him, it will not be disappointed. It is a great pity when we keep the shutters up, so that we cannot look out of the window to see the dry land.

Next, because Noah expected the earth to be dry, he sent out the raven; and when the raven did not answer his purpose, he sent out the dove. After the dove came back with no tidings, he waited seven days, and then sent her out again; and when she returned with only an olive leaf in her mouth, he waited seven days more, and then sent her out again. Oh, dear friends, often send out your doves! Be looking out for blessings; you have asked for them, God has promised to give them, send out your doves to see whether the blessings are not there; and if you do so constantly, and perseveringly, verily, I say unto you, you shall have your reward.

Still, notice that Noah, when he had the best evidence that he could get that the earth was dry, did not dare to go out of the ark till God opened the door. So, gather all the information you possibly can about your position, and act according to the rules of common sense; but, after you have done that, still wait upon God. When you know from your ravens and your doves that the earth is getting dry, do not come out till he that shut the door opens it for you. Dear people of God, I wish that we had more of that old habit of looking to Providence. We have become so wise, nowadays, that we do not require the fiery-cloudy pillar. We run without divine guidance; but, mark you, we often have to run back again. We are guests at the table of Providence, and if we will let God carve for us, our plate will always have a sufficiency on it; but if we get carving for ourselves, we shall cut our fingers, and not cut much else, and we shall have great cause to be ashamed that, instead of trusting God, we took to trusting ourselves. Do not trust your raven, do not trust your dove, trust your God; and if you go where he guides you, you will go the right way, even if it should be a rough way, and you will have to say, “Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”

Now to come a little closer to the text, and to what we are about to say upon it. I do not know where the raven rested, whether he did, as some suppose, alight on the corpses floating on the flood, which I hardly think is likely, for God was preparing the earth for Noah to come back upon it, and he would not leave it strewn with carcases, as some have imagined. Whether the raven returned to the ark, but refused to come in; or whether it found a resting-place on the slimy boughs of trees, or on the tops of the mountains, which we are told began to be visible, I cannot tell. This I do know, that, wherever the raven rested, the dove could not do so; there was no clean place fit for the dove’s clean nature. So it had to return to the ark; and when, weak and weary, it could hardly reach the ark, being heavy with the damp, perhaps mired with the filthy water into which it may have fallen in its weariness, while just able to get as far as the ark, it might have perished in the waters had not Noah perceived his little bird coming to the window. I suppose he was there already looking out for her, and he stretched forth his hand, and caught her, and pulled her in, and she was safe in the ark again.

There are three lessons which I am going to try to teach you from this simple little incident.

The first is, that thus God receives his servants. He receives them unto himself, just as Noah received this dove into the ark.

Upon this I remark, first, that sometimes God’s servants wander. How I wish that they never did! Oh, that we so loved our Noah that we never left him, and never went away from him who is our rest! We are tempted, and the flesh is frail. Oh, how sadly have some good men wandered! We speak this to our shame, we make no excuse for ourselves, we have wandered like silly doves, we have left the place of peace and safety and joy, and we have gone abroad, flying we know not where. Perhaps I speak to some such at this time.

Now, if you are one of Christ’s doves, you will never rest till you go back to him. Time was when you could have found pleasure in the ways of sin; but you cannot do so now. You may try to find it, but you cannot. When you were a raven, you might have done so; but now that the Holy Spirit has made a dove of you, you are spoilt for the raven’s ways. When a true child of God wanders into sin at any time, and goes back to the old haunts, he thinks to himself, “I used to enjoy myself in this place of amusement; I used to make merry with such and such company; the pipe and the bowl were once like heaven on earth to me; but now,” he says, “I do not know how it is, but these things seem so vapid, so empty, there is not the life, there is not the vivacity about them that I knew in my younger days. It seems to be all a mere hollow sham now.” Ah, my friend, it is not those things that have altered; it is you that the grace of God has changed! If God means you to live in heaven, you shall never find your heaven in this world. If he has chosen you to be his, and means you to be his, and has put his Spirit within you, you must be always restless till you come back, and find rest in him.

“May I come back?” says one. May you come back? Your Noah is at the window waiting for you. Speed towards him with both your wings; rest not till he puts forth his hand to you, and grasps you, and draws you in to himself. “But will he have me? Will he have me again?” O bird of the weary wing, he is not weary of you! O bird of the wet wing, that has been soiled in the filthy flood, he will not reject you! He washed you once; he will wash you yet again. He waiteth to be gracious. Jesus loves to receive backsliders. It is the joy of his heart not only to make a sheep out of a goat, but to find one of his sheep that has gone astray; not only to adopt a stranger into his family, but to restore the prodigal son. That is the meaning of that parable; it is the backslider’s parable. Oh, that you would understand it, and know that the infinite mercy of God is as ready to receive a returning backslider as Noah was to receive his wandering dove!

Now I will turn to another point. The dove in this narrative was not to blame, for it had not gone astray, but Noah sent it out; and, every now and then the Lord Jesus sends a dove of his to go and spy out the world. It is a business upon which we must go if he sends us. Now, what is our report of the world? Our report is, that there is nothing in the world upon which we can rest the sole of our foot. The world is said to be progressing, advancing, improving; but we cannot discover it. The same sin, the same filthiness, the same universally abounding unbelief, that our fathers complained of, we are obliged to complain of still; and we are weary with the world, weary with the nineteenth century, and all its boasted civilization. There is nothing upon which the sole of our foot can rest.

“What of the church?” asks one. Well, look at the church, too; there is nothing to rest on there. There is much for which to be thankful; but there is nothing that can content a spirit that seeks after truth and holiness. I speak what I do know; for with weary wings have I fled across the waters, and with anxious eye have I scanned the horizon, but there is no place of rest for the sole of my foot. What then? What then? Is the servant of God weary with his flight? See what Noah did to the dove, for this is what the Lord will do to his servant, “he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.” O dear child of God, if thou canst not rest in the church, thou canst rest in Christ; if thou canst not rest in the world, thou canst rest in the Lord! “He pulled her in unto him.” It is a delicious sensation to get away from all men and all things to Christ himself. He never seems so sweet as when all else is bitter; he never appears so substantial as when all else melts before you. “He pulled her in unto him.” She had done her work, she had taken her flight, she had made her investigation; now she has come back, and she is in his bosom. “He pulled her in unto him.” May that be the portion of all my dear friends in Christ who at this time feel heavy about the signs of the times! May the Lord draw you into nearer, dearer, sweeter fellowship with himself than you have ever enjoyed before, and this will be your best reward!

Again, to give another case, the Lord’s servants are sometimes sent forth that they may bring something back with them. You Sunday-school teachers go out on the Sabbath hoping to bring some child back with you. You street-preachers (and may your number be multiplied!) are trying to bring something or somebody to Jesus. Workers of different sorts, who are here to-night, you go flying abroad to try to find something for Jesus. It may be that you have not picked up even an olive leaf yet; not one “son of peace” has at present received your benediction. Well, this dove was welcome though she brought nothing back. She came back with nothing in her mouth the first time; but then we read, “Noah put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.” What though no child be saved as yet? What though no hearer in the street has responded to the invitation of love? What though thou hast laboured in vain, and spent thy strength for nought? Thou art accepted of thy God if thou hast done thy best, trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit, and to-night he pulls thee in unto himself. If thou art weary, O Martha, come and sit with Mary! If thou art encumbered with the serving, come and be refreshed with the communing. After all, thou canst perhaps glorify thy Lord more by receiving than by giving. Thou shalt find it more blessed to thyself to receive Christ than if thou couldst bring a soul to him; he can make it to be so if he pleases. At any rate, thy hope of going out again, and bringing in an olive leaf by-and-by, will lie in thy coming in now, and getting in unto thy Noah, and resting on him until he sends thee out again.

Only one more observation will I make on this first point, and it shall be a very brief one. As far as I can see, this dove was sent out in the morning, and she came back in the evening, and Noah pulled her in unto him. Brethren, let that be a picture of every day in your lives. When you wake in the morning, perhaps the factory bell is ringing; at any rate, it is time for you to be off to business. You must think about your business; perhaps yours is a work that is mental. You must give your mind to it; so all day long you feel like the dove flying abroad. Well, take good heed that, when the sun goes down, you make your way back home to your Lord. Lock up your heart every morning before you go out, and give Christ the key to keep till you come home; and then, when he opens it at night, the sweet perfume that you had in the morning will be there in the evening. It is best if we can keep up our thoughts of Christ all day long; but peradventure we cannot, then let the dove, that flew away in the morning, be sure to fly back at night. It is where you go when the day’s toil is done that tells what sort of a man you are. I think I have before now used the simile of the crows. You cannot tell where the crows live early in the morning; they are out on the land following the plough. Farther on in the day they are inspecting a field of turnips, perhaps just watching to see if they can find a fly or a worm. Where do they live? Wait until the evening, when they get together, and then you will see that they make a straight line for those tall trees where their nests are. Where do your thoughts go at night? Where do they go when your day’s toil is done? When you have done with the business of the day, which is like the crows picking up the worms, which way do you go then? That shows where your soul lives; so take care that, in the evening, you make your way back to your Noah. Oh, how sweetly does Christ come to us in our evening prayer, and put out his hand, and pull us in unto himself, and we rest once more-

“As in the embraces of our God,

Or on our Saviour’s breast.”

Thus have I spoken to you upon my first division, showing that God receives his servants as Noah received the dove.

I will now go on to the second part of my subject, which is equally practical, and will be useful to another class of people. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ does to sinners. I have spoken first of his servants; now I want to speak of sinners who are seeking his face.

Note, then, that the Lord Jesus Christ does not despise the condition of the sinner who comes to him. I have imagined that this dove might have fouled its wings; certainly it was not the beauty that it was when Noah sent it out in the morning, but he did not therefore refuse to take it into the ark. It was very weary, and just ready to drop into the waters; yet Noah did not refuse it, but there he stood, at the open window, to meet it when it came. And you feel very foul, very unworthy, very unfit, and very unsafe; nevertheless, Jesus Christ will not refuse you. Whatever your condition may be, he casts out none who come to him. Come as you are; come even though you feel that you cannot come; come any way, for he will not reject you.

The first thing that Noah did with this dove was to display his power: “He put forth his hand.” I have known the Lord display his power very remarkably when poor souls have been coming to him, putting forth his hand, sometimes in providence, doing some extraordinary thing to bring them to decision. Sometimes he has used a sermon, or a stray word from some gracious soul, or he has put forth the power of his hand in the preaching of his Word. Sometimes he has used a religious book, or a little tract, as his agent; it has not mattered what the instrumentality has been, it is the power which God has put forth which has been the means of laying hold upon the coming sinner. Sometimes there has been no book and no sermon, but the Holy Spirit, without any apparent means, has made an impression upon the conscience and upon the heart. There has come over the sinner, when he has begun to seek the Lord, a singular melting power, a feeling of solemnity such as he never had before. He cannot understand it, he seems to be on the borders of a new world, he hears the chimes of bells which he never heard before, ringing out of invisible places, and summoning him to his God. I know what this experience means, and I pray that some of you may know it; that just now, at this very moment, our blessed Noah may put forth his hand to you poor fluttering doves. You cannot do anything, but Jesus can; you cannot save yourselves, but he can save you, even as Noah put forth his hand, and saved the dove from perishing.

Then we read, next, that Noah took the dove, seized her, captured her, held her. That is what my Lord does. Jesus takes hold of sinners. Oh, that he might get a blessed hold of some of you to-night! I have sometimes thought that Noah stood something like this (leaning forward, with hands outstretched), looking out of the window, and when the dove came back, and was ready to drop, he caught her between his hands, as one would tenderly hold a dove, encompassing her, and then he pulled her in unto him. What a blessing it is when the gospel of Christ seems to surround you, and you get a hand beneath you, and a hand above you, and you feel as if Christ had laid hold of you, and was leading you joyfully captive! Some of you recollect when that happened to you, when the hand of Jesus was first held out, and then was put round about you, and you were taken prisoner, and held in gracious bondage to the love and power of Christ.

Then we read that “he pulled her in,” and thus Jesus draws in sinners. There is something of a pull needed. Oh, what blessed pulls the Lord sometimes gives to bring sinners to decision, and put an end to their hesitancy! They want to wait a little longer; but the Lord Jesus will not have it. Providence and grace end their delays. They are very fearful, fluttering like this dove, afraid of her best friend; but the Lord Jesus Christ gives a pull that ends their fears, and kills their despair. They are his, and his powerful love wins the day. Sometimes, it is ignorance that keeps sinners back from Christ; for God’s doves are often very silly creatures. They do not know the way into the ark, they miss the window; but Jesus does with them as Noah did with the dove: “he pulled her in.” I hope I am not talking beyond the experience of many of you; or, if I am, I pray my Master to make this to be your experience even now. May these poor simple words of mine induce some of you to come to Christ at once! Why will you perish? Why will you delay? Why not be pulled in to-night, even as the dove was pulled in by Noah? I cannot pull you in, I would if I could; but Jesus can, and he cannot be less willing to bless you than I am.

Notice where Christ draws sinners. Noah pulled the dove in unto himself, and that is what Christ does with his poor fluttering doves, he draws them to himself. You say that you want a lot of things. No you do not; you only want Jesus. If you have him, you have everything. You want to be pulled in to peace, to joy, to holiness, to rest. Ay, but what you really want is to be pulled in to Jesus, and you will get all the other blessings. Drawn to his wounds, poor doves, you shall find your hiding-place; drawn to his wounds, poor doves, you shall find the truest cleansing. This is what your Master must do for you, even as Noah pulled the dove in unto himself.

And when he had pulled her in to himself, then she was in the ark, and she soon found other doves. Thus, Jesus draws sinners in unto salvation. When he draws a man to himself, then he draws him to the church, and he comes where he shall meet with fit society that shall console him and help him during the rest of his days. I cannot preach as I would, but I know that I am telling you that which, if my Lord will but bless it, will save and comfort your souls. I pray him to put me on one side altogether, and to come, and with his own pierced hand pull you in unto himself.

So I finish with this third point. That which Jesus does to his servants, and to sinners, he would have us do. Now, ye people of God, listen to me, and do what I now entreat of you in my Master’s name.

In the first place, look out for souls. Now, Noah, go to the window; there is that dove, you know, fluttering somewhere; go and look out for it, go to the window, Noah. He does not need to be told to go, for there he is; Noah loves his dove, so he is watching for her at the window. Dear people of God, often go to the window! In your families, look for the salvation of your children. In your workshops, look for the salvation of your servants, and those whom you employ. Perhaps that is a new thought to some of you. If you can get them to work for a little less money, you look out for that; but oh, that you would look out for their salvation! To see your servants saved, is the best profit that you can any of you have. Watch for their souls; and do so, not only at home, but when you come to your place of worship. We have friends in this Tabernacle who are looking all over the place while I am speaking; I do not say that they are not attending to my message, but I do not think they are attending so much to my words as to those to whom I am speaking. I have frequently seen a brother making his way very quietly down to a certain spot where he has noticed some of you sitting very attentively, some new-comers, perhaps, who have never been here before, and it is more than likely that he will speak to some of you before this service is over. I hope somebody will ask you whether you are saved; and, if so, you will begin to find that there are some who desire to bring you into close quarters. I think that it ought to be so; I cannot bear the thought of your coming here without getting a blessing. I have to fire the gospel cannon from this platform, it is loaded with grape shot, and it often does great execution; yet many of you may not be hit that way; but, happily, my friends can come to you with their little pocket pistols, and so reach many whom I miss. Get to close quarters with them, brethren; find out whether they are saved or not. We want a great deal of this kind of work. Now then, Noah, go to the window, and look out; be you an old Christian or a young Christian, be on the look out for sinners.

Noah goes to the window, and sure enough there is his dove. Then Noah stretches out his hand, as I want you to do. Stretch out a hand to sinners. Do it very gently, for doves are not bears, you know; the souls of men are not like the skins of tigers. Stretch out your hand to sinners; but do it in a very loving and gentle way. Try if you can to let them see that there is a friend near, who will be happy to help them to Christ. Stretch out your hand, and if you can, do lay hold of them. I do not know how Noah caught his dove, whether by the wings, or the legs, or the neck; but he did catch her, and pulled her into the ark. Now try if you can to lay hold of a soul for Christ; get a firm grip on it. This is not child’s play; he that can catch doves with his hand is a wise man, and he that would win souls must be wise. Try to catch souls if you can, but do it gently. Remember that they are doves, and therefore be very tender and very gentle with them; but, being doves, they are apt to fly away, therefore hold them fast, and do not let them go.

Perhaps they will not like you to touch them; never mind that, go on as mildly and lovingly as you can, yet do seek to give them a pull, and do not rest until they are with you in the ark, that is to say, till they are in Christ, till they are trusting him, till they are resting in him, till his precious blood has washed them, and they are saved, as you trust you are.

I do not think that we are half earnest enough in dealing with our fellow-men. I remember a young man who, when dying, said to his brother, “I am afraid I am lost, my brother, and I cannot help saying to you, ‘Why were you not more earnest about my salvation?’ ” His elder brother answered, “John, I have spoken to you once or twice about your soul.” “Once or twice!” replied the other, “You ought to have been always at me.” “Well, but I did frequently speak to you about divine things.” “But,” said he, “if you knew that I was perishing, why did you not shake me; why did you not do something unusual with me; why did you not weep over me; why did you not force me to think? My soul is lost, and you have shown but very little care about it.” Perhaps that was a very hard thing to say, and an unkind thing, and a self-excusing thing; but do you not think that some people might say that of you and of me? We have never been earnest enough in seeking the salvation of their souls. Mr. Rowland Hill’s story about this matter is a good one. He said, “I hear them say that poor old Mr. Hill makes a great noise and often shouts when he is preaching, the poor old gentleman gets quite excited.” “Yes,” added Mr. Hill, “and I was one day walking out at Wotton-under-Edge, and I was going by a gravel pit, or a chalk pit, and it fell in, and buried a man; and I went running down into the village as fast as ever my old legs would carry me, crying out that there was a man likely to be buried alive, and the people rushed out to try to save him, and they did not say then as they do now, ‘Poor old Mr. Hill is making a deal of noise.’ ” Oh, that we were as earnest about the souls of men as we can sometimes be about their bodies! Do try, then, you who love the Lord, to pull them in, even as Noah pulled the dove in unto himself into the ark.

I leave the text with you. When I cannot preach, I always wish that all of you may be preaching. If the preacher seems to speak feebly, take up what he has said, and work at it, and go and do better with it; and if you will do so, it will be better than if I alone had done better. The Lord bless you, for Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

GENESIS 8

1. And God remembered Noah,

Noah had been shut up in the ark for many a day, and at the right time God thought of him, practically thought of him, and came to visit him. Dear heart, you have been shut out from the world now for many days, but God has not forgotten you. God remembered Noah, and he remembers you.

1. And every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark:

Does God remember cattle? Then he will certainly remember men made in his own image. He will remember you, though you think yourself the most worthless one on the face of the earth: “God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark.”

1. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;

Winds and waves are wholly under God’s control. I suppose that this was a very drying wind, so the waters began to turn to vapour, and gradually to disappear. It is God who sends the winds; they seem most volatile and irregular, but God sends them to do his bidding. Blow it east, or blow it west, the wind comes from God; and whether the waters increase or are assuaged, it is God’s doing. Are the waters very deep with you, dear friend? God can dry them up, and, singularly enough, he can stop one trouble with another, he can dry up the water with the wind. I have known him act very strangely with his people; and when they thought they were quite forgotten, he has proved that he remembered them, and both the winds of heaven and the waters of the sea have had to work their good. There is not an angel in heaven but God will make him to be a servant to you if you need him; there is not a wind in any quarter of the globe but God will guide it to you if it is necessary; and there are no waves of the sea but shall obey the Lord’s will concerning you.

2. The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;

God works upwards, and stops the windows of heaven. He works downwards, and stays the breaking up of the fountains of the deep.

“He everywhere hath sway,

And all things serve his might.”

Be not afraid; he can open the windows of heaven, and pour down abundant blessings for you, and he can let down the cellar-flaps of the great deep, and stop its flowing fountains.

“When he makes bare his arm,

What shall his work withstand?”

3-5. And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated. And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.

God told Noah when to go into the ark, but he did not tell him when he should come out again. The Lord told Noah when to go in, for it was necessary for him to know that; but he did not tell him when he should come out, for it was unnecessary that he should know that. God always lets his people know what is practically for their good. There are many curious points on which we should like to have information, but God has not revealed it; and when he has not revealed anything, we had better not try to unravel the mystery. No good comes of prying into unrevealed truth. Noah knew that he would come out of the ark one day, for was he not preserved there to be a seed to keep the race alive? Noah was not told when he should be released, and the Lord does not tell you when your trouble will come to an end. It will come to an end; therefore wait, and be patient, and do not want to know the time of your deliverance. We should know too much if we knew all that will happen in the future. It is quite enough for us if we do our duty in the present, and trust God for the rest.

Still, I think that Noah must have been very pleased when he felt the ark grating at last on the mountains of Ararat. He could not build a dock for his big ship; but God had prepared a berth for it on the mountain side. Now, as he looked out, he could see, here and there, a mountain top rising like an island out of the great expanse of water.

6, 7. And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made: and he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro,

Sometimes alighting on the ark; then flying away again.

7-10. Until the waters were dried up from off the earth. Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; but the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark. And he stayed yet other seven days;

I wonder whether Noah sent out these creatures on the Sabbath mornings. The mention of seven days, and the resting in between seems to look like it. Oh, dear friends, sometimes people send out a raven on the Lord’s day morning, and it never brings them anything. Send out a dove rather than a raven; come to the house of God with quiet, gentle, holy expectation, and your dove will come back to you. It may be that it will bring you something worth bringing one of these days, as Noah’s dove brought to him.

10, 11. And again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; and the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.

The waters were abated as far as the fruit trees; not only the tallest forest trees, but some of the fruit trees were uncovered from the water. The dove had plucked off “an olive leaf.” Perhaps you have seen a picture of this dove carrying an olive branch in its mouth, which, in the first place, a dove could not pluck out of the tree, and in the second place, a dove could not carry an olive branch even if she could pluck it off. It was an olive leaf, that is all. Why cannot people keep to the words of Scripture? If the Bible mentions a leaf, they make it a bough; and if the Bible says it is a bough, they make it a leaf.

12. And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more.

Noah could read something from that leaf that the dove brought to him; but he learned more when she did not return to him. He knew that she had found a proper resting-place, and that the earth was clear of the flood.

13. And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth:

That was a happy New Year’s day for Noah. He was glad to find himself at rest once more, though not yet at liberty.

13. And Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.

Why did not Noah come out? Well, you see, he had gone in by the door, and he meant to come out by the door; and he that opened the door for him, and shut him in, must now open the door for him, and let him out. He waits God’s time; and we are always wise in doing that. You lose a great deal of time by being in a hurry. Many people think they have done a great deal when they have really done nothing. Better take time in order to save time. Slow is sometimes faster than fast. So Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked out, but he did not go out till God commanded him to do so.

14. And in the second month,

Nearly two months Noah waited for the complete drying of the earth.

14. On the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.

“The face of the ground was dry” in the first month; “the earth was dried,” the second month. Noah might have thought it was dry enough before; but God did not think so, there was enough mud to breed a pestilence, so Noah must wait until God had made the earth ready for him.

15, 16. And God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of the ark,

Noah must wait till God speaks to him. Oh, that some people would wait for God’s command; but they will not! He shall bless thy going out and thy coming in if thou wilt go forth and come in when he bids thee. “Go forth,” says the Lord, “Go forth of the ark.”

16-19. Thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee. Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth. And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him: every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.

That was a very wonderful procession, it was the new beginning of everything upon the earth. Whatever evolution or any other folly or evil of man may have done, everything had to begin again now. Everybody was drowned save these great fathers of the new age, and all must begin from this stock.

20. And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

Common sense would have said, “Spare them, for you will want every one of them.” But grace said, “Slay them, for they belong to God. Give Jehovah his due.” I have often admired that widow of Sarepta. When she had but a handful of meal, she made a little cake for God’s prophet first, and then God multiplied her meal and her oil. Oh, if we would but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all things should be added unto us! Out of the small stock he had, Noah took of the clean beasts, and of the clean fowls, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

21. And the Lord smelled a sweet savour;

Noah’s faith was pleasing to God. It was Noah’s confidence in a bleeding sacrifice that gave him acceptance with the Lord. God thought upon his Son, and that great Sacrifice to be offered long afterwards on the cross, and he “smelled a sweet savour.”

21. And the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

God always speaks comfortable words to those who bring an acceptable sacrifice. If you would hear the voice of a divine promise, go to the atoning blood of Jesus. If you would know what perfect reconciliation means, hie to the altar where the great Sacrifice was presented.

22. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

They never have ceased. We have this year had a long and dreary winter; it looked as if spring would never come. Only a few days ago, the chestnuts were just beginning to turn green, and then there came the little spikes, and now you can see them in full flower. How faithfully God fulfils his covenant with the earth! How truly will he keep his covenant with every believing sinner! Oh, trust ye in him, for his promise will stand fast for ever!

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-549, 499, 501.

BLESSED DISCIPLINE

A Sermon

Intended for Reading on Lord’s-day, August 19th, 1894, delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Thursday Evening, May 24th, 1888.

“Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law; that thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked. For the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance. But judgment shall return unto righteousness: and all the upright in heart shall follow it.”-Psalm 94:12-15.

There are times when the wicked seem to have things all their own way. This earth is not the realm of final justice; we are not yet standing before the Lord’s great judgment-seat. God permits many things to be for a while in confusion. They who are highest with him are often lowest with men; and those for whom he has no regard seem to heap up the treasures of the world till their eyes stand out with fatness, and they have more than heart can wish. Let no child of God be astonished at this arrangement. It has often been so in the past, and it has been the great enigma that has puzzled the world. The children of God have also sat down, and looked into it; but it has been even to them a great deep which they could not fathom. They have sighed over it, but their sighs have not altered the facts. It is still true that often the wicked triumph, and the servants of iniquity delight themselves in the high places of the earth. The righteous need not wonder that they suffer now, for that has been the lot of God’s people all along, and there have been certain times in human history when God has seemed to be altogether deaf to the cries of his suffering people. Remember the martyr-age, and the days of the Covenanters, who were hunted upon the mountains like the partridge. You must not wonder if the easy places of the earth are not yours, and if the sentinel’s stern duties should fall to your lot. It is so, and so it must be, for God has so ordained it.

To comfort any of the Lord’s children who have begun to worry themselves because things do not go with them as they desire, I have selected this text, and I pray the Lord to bless it to them.

First, I shall ask you to notice that God’s children are under tuition.

Other children may run about, and take holiday; they may wander into the woods, and gather the flowers, and do very much what they like; but God’s own children have to go to school. This is a great privilege for them, although they do not always think so. Children are not often good judges of what is best for themselves. No doubt we should like to play the truant, we should be very glad to put away our school-bags, and quit the school-house, and go out by ourselves, and wander at our own sweet will; but our heavenly Father loves us too well to let it be so with us. Because we are his children, therefore he will have us trained and prepared for that high destiny which awaits us by-and-by.

Note how this tuition is described in our text; the very first word concerning it is, “chastenest.” “Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest,” as if the chastening were the primary part of the teaching, as if it occupied so large a share of it that it was put first: “Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest.” In God’s school-house the rod is still extant; with the Lord, chastening is teaching. He does not spoil his children; but chastens them, ay, even unto scourging, as the apostle puts it. His chastening is the most severe with those whom he loves best: “Whom the Lord tenderly loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” Some of us know what it is to have this teaching by chastening. I have often told you that I am afraid I have never learnt anything of God except by the rod; and, in looking back, I am afraid that I must confirm that statement. I have forgotten some of the gentle lessons; but when they have been whipped into me, I have remembered them. I met with a friend, the other day, who said that it was the very reverse with him. He could not remember any benefit that he had ever gained by chastening, and he thought that all the good he had received from the Lord had come to him by tenderness and prosperity. I did not controvert with him about the matter, for the experiences of God’s people may differ; but this I know, dear friends, that some of us have learnt much from the Lord’s chastening rod.

For instance, we have learnt the evil of sin. “Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.” There are some sorrows that come evidently as the result of our own folly. We have to reap the harvest of the seed that we sow; and by this process we are made to see that it is an exceedingly evil and bitter thing to sin against God. This is an important lesson; I wish that more had thoroughly learnt it. I wish that some Christian professors had anything like a true idea of the exceeding sinfulness of sin; but I believe that instruction upon this point often comes from the chastening hand of God.

Our chastening teaches us the unsatisfactory nature of worldly things. We can easily become attached to the things which we possess. It is a very difficult thing to handle gold without allowing it to adhere to your fingers; and when it gets into your purse, you need much grace to prevent it getting into your heart. Even our children can soon grow into idols, and our health and our comfort may make us forget God. I never knew affliction and trial make us do that; but when the gourds are taken away, then the sun shines on us. How often has God shaken all the leaves off our trees, and then we have seen the heavens which we never saw when all the leaves were green! By losing this, and losing that, we are made to feel that all the things which we possess perish in the using, and are such temporary joys that we cannot hope to fill our hearts with them.

Do we not also learn by affliction our own frailty, and our own impatience? We are wonderfully patient when we have nothing to suffer, as we are all great heroes and very courageous when there is no fighting to be done. We sometimes say to one another, “What a mass of faith that brother has! What a vast mountain of faith that sister possesses!” We are all almost inclined to envy them; but we remember the fable of the stag which had such magnificent antlers that he said to himself, as he looked at his fine figure in the water, “It is most absurd for us stags to be afraid of dogs. The next time I hear a dog bark, I will just toss him on my horns, and there will soon be an end of him.” Yes, so he thought; but just then the baying of a hound was heard in the distance, and the boastful stag took to his heels, and ran as fast as the rest of the herd did. So it is often with those who seem to have great faith when they do not want it; but when they do need it, where is it? Stretch some men upon a bed of sickness for a week or two, and see whether they will be able to hector at the rate they now do. They would sing another song, I warrant you, if once they had such a twist of pain as some of us have had to endure, and the beads of perspiration stood on their brow while they tried to bear it. Ah, yes, we find how great our weakness is when first one thing is taken away, and then another, and the chastening hand of God makes the blows to fall thick and heavy upon us!

Do we not then learn also the value of prayer? I said to this friend to whom I have referred, “Did you not pray much more under your affliction than you did before?” “Oh, yes!” he replied; “I grant you that-

“ ‘Trials give new life to prayer.’ ”

Do we ever pray in such dead earnest as when everything seems to be sinking from under our feet, and our sweetest cups are full of bitterness? Then we turn to God, and say, “Show me wherefore thou contendest with me.” I do not think that we ever pray with such fervour of supplication in our prosperity as we do in our adversity.

And then how precious the promises become! As we only see the stars when the shadows gather at night, so the promises shine out like newly-kindled stars when we get into the night of affliction. I am sure that there are passages of Scripture which are full of consolation, the depths of which we do not even imagine yet, and we never shall know all that is in them till we get into the deeps of soul-trouble which correspond with them. There are points of view from which scenery is to be beheld at its best; and, until we find out those points of view, we may be missing the sight of some of the most beautiful objects in nature. God leads us one way and another by our chastisements to understand and prize his promises.

And, oh, dear friends, how should we ever know the faithfulness of God if it were not for affliction? We might talk about it and theoretically understand it; but to try to prove the greatness of Jehovah’s love, and the absolute certainty of his eternal faithfulness,-this cometh not except by the way of affliction and trial.

I might talk on for ever about the sweet uses of adversity, and not exhaust the subject. You experienced people of God know even more than I do about this matter, for some of you have done business on deeper waters than my barque has yet ploughed; and yet, methinks, my keel has passed over the deep places of the sea of trouble, and there may be deeper depths before me still. I have probably said sufficient to prove to you that chastening is a divine way of instructing us. You will find that, if you want the most Christ-like saints, and the most deeply experimental believers, and the Christians who are best acquainted with the Word of God, you must look for them among those who are the most intimately acquainted with the fiery furnace and its burning heat.

If you read the text through, dear friends, you will notice that the rod is not without the Word. I call your special attention to that: “Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law.” The rod and the Book go together; the rod drives us to the Book, and the Book explains the meaning of the rod; we must have them both if we would be fully instructed in the things of God. The Word of God is our school-book. At first, it is our primer; and when we get furthest advanced in grace, it will be our profoundest classic; and all the way along it will supply us with our choicest poetry and everything else that we desire.

We look to the Bible for comfort when we are chastened; we turn over its pages, and seek to find a passage which fits our case, and ministers relief to our necessity. Have you not often done so? Why, this Book is something like the whitesmith’s bunch of keys! Perhaps you have lost the key of your drawer, and you cannot get at your things. You send for the smith, and he keeps on trying different keys till at last he finds one that exactly fits the wards of your lock. So, if you keep on fingering away at the promises, you will come at last upon one that was made on purpose for your case. Perhaps your lock is one with very peculiar wards; you never could make out why it was shaped just as it is; but now that you have found the key that opens it, you understand that both lock and key were made to fit each other.

The Word of God is not only used at such times for comfort, but also for direction. How frequently you have been unable to see your way! You have wished that there was some prophet of God with the Urim and Thummim, that he might tell you what to do. The great guiding principles of God’s truth, his law and his gospel, faith in him and in his providential care, have furnished you with a direction quite as clear as if some prophet had plainly told you what to do. You have sought the direction of the Word of the Lord when you have gone to enquire in his temple, he has answered you out of the secret place of thunder, and you have known without doubt the way that you should take.

That, then, is the second use of the Word, first for comfort, and next for direction.

At such times, too, we have proved, dear friends, the power of the Word of God. When your vessel is sailing along very smoothly, the Word of God may grow to be a dead letter with you; but when the waves are rolling mountains high, and dashing over you, and you are soaked through and through, and fear that the deep will swallow you up, then you begin to test the promises, and to prove the power of the Word of God. When its inexpressible sweetness reaches your heart, then you can indeed feel that you have been taught out of God’s Word. You see how the two things go together: “Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law.” O Lord, still use the rod if thou seest that it is necessary; but go on teaching us out of thy Word! We are slow to learn, and poor scholars at the best; but thou mayest yet make something of us.

That leads me to say that, according to our text, God himself is our Teacher. He is not satisfied with giving us a Book, and smiting us when we are inattentive to its teachings; but he himself teaches us. Was there ever a teacher so full of wisdom, a teacher who understood his pupils so well, a teacher so altogether master of the whole art of tuition? Was there ever a teacher so patient, so able to apply his lessons to the heart itself, so full of power to give understanding as well as to make the thing clear to the understanding when it is given? Happy people who have God to be their Tutor! Happy pupils, even though, when the school-bell rings, you have half a mind to stay away, and play with yonder children who do not belong to your school, yet happy are you if you are truly God’s scholars. Even if, every now and then, your days are spent in weeping, and your lessons are so badly done that they bring the rod upon you, yet are you happy children. “Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law.”

So much, then, for our first head.

Now upon our second point I will say a little, and only a little. We have had God’s children under tuition; now let us think of God’s children educated. The Lord has chastened and taught his child for this purpose: “That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked.” “What!” you ask, “chastened to give us rest? It is usual for chastening to break our rest.” Yes, I know that it is so with other chastenings; but in very deed this is the way in which God gives rest to his people.

First, we learn to rest in the will of God. Our will is naturally very stubborn; and when we are chastened, at first we kick out, like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke; but by degrees we feel that we must bear the yoke. We then go a little further, and we feel that we ought to bear it, even though God should lay upon us anything he pleases, and we should feel it very galling. By-and-by, the yoke begins to fit our neck, and we come even to love it. I do not suppose that many of us will ever get like Samuel Rutherford, when he said that he began to wonder which he loved best, Christ or his cross, for the cross had brought him so much blessing that he was quite in love with it. No, we have not reached that point yet, so that we love our cross; still, we can say this, that we have learned that it is-

“Sweet to lie passive in his hand,

And know no will but his.”

If we struggle against God’s will, we only increase our sorrow. Our self-will usually lies at the root of our greatest griefs. Give way, and thou hast won; yield to God, and thou hast obtained the blessing thou dost desire. The bitterness is gone out of thy grief when thou consentest to be grieved if God will have it so.

We make advances in our spiritual education when we learn to rest after our afflictions. When any trouble is over, great delights often come to us. It is with us as it was with our Master; he had been with the wild beasts; worse still, he had been tempted of the devil; but angels came, and ministered unto him. There is, to a believer, sometimes, a wonderfully clear shining after the rain. Perhaps there is no happier period of life than the state of convalescence, when the sick man is gradually recovering his former strength after a long illness. So God gives surprising peace to his people when he takes away their troubles, but he also gives them a great measure of peace in their troubles. Thus, for another lesson, we learn to rest in adversity. The Lord chastens us in order that we may learn how to stand fast, and bear up bravely while the trouble is yet upon us.

I have often had to notice the singularity of my Lord’s loving-kindness and tenderness to myself in the time of need. I do not say that it is singularity for him, for he is often doing it; but the singularity lies in the fact that the Lord does it when nobody else could or would do it. He gives us comfort when nobody else is either willing or able to render any comfort to us. This very afternoon, I have had a remarkable instance of how good cheer is sent to me by my gracious God just when I most need it. I was heavy and sad at heart, and there came to my door, to see me, a foreign gentleman, an officer of considerable rank in the Italian army. He spoke to me in very good English, but I cannot tell you all that he said to me, though it was most cheering and kind. I asked him why he should come so far to see me. He spoke of me as though I were a great man, and I assured him that he was quite mistaken, for I was nothing of the kind. As we walked along, and talked, he said, “But you are the greatest man in all the world to me.” “Why is that?” I asked; and he answered, “I was a Catholic, and a bad Catholic, too. I did not rightly know anything about the Lord Jesus Christ, and I was fast becoming an infidel; but I met with a sermon of yours in Italian, by reading it I was brought into the light and liberty of the gospel; I found the Saviour, and I felt that I must come, and tell you about it.” Then he further cheered and encouraged my heart by letting me see how much he knew of our Lord Jesus, and he had learnt it all from nothing but the Bible itself, which he had read after being guided to it by a stray sermon of mine. “Well,” I thought, “my Master sends this man all the way from the south of Italy to come just at this particular time, when I was sorely needing just such a comforting message.” Why should he do so? Only that he likes, when his children have to take bitter medicine, to give them a piece of sugar after it. Therefore, my brother, be you willing to take your medicine, else there may come a sharp chastening with it. Oh, for grace so to suffer, and so to endure, that we may just give ourselves up into the hand of the ever-blessed One, and thus he will perfect in us the tuition of his wonderful Word! Then shall it be true that the Lord has taught us to rest even in the days of our adversity.

Much more might be said upon this part of my subject, especially about learning to look beyond this present life; but I have not the time or the strength to say it.

I must now go on to the third point, which is, that God’s children are still dear to him. We have thought of them at school, chastened and instructed, and we have seen them learning a few lessons. Now let us notice how dear they are to their Lord at all times, for the text says, “The Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance.”

First, then, the Lord will not cast off his people. Sometimes you are cast down; but you are never cast off. Sometimes others cast you off; but the Lord will not cast off his people. Sometimes you are cast into the furnace; yes, it may be so, but in the furnace you are not cast off. Metal put into the furnace is not thrown away; had it been worthless, it might have been left on the heap with the slag; but it is put into the furnace because it is of value. When you are put into the furnace, and into the greatest heat that can be obtained, it is that the Lord may take away your dross, and purify you for his service.

“In the furnace God may prove thee.

Thence to bring thee forth more bright;

But can never cease to love thee:

Thou art precious in his sight:

God is with thee,

God thine everlasting light.”

“The Lord will not cast off his people.” Lay hold of that precious assurance. Even if Satan should come, and whisper to you, “The Lord has cast thee off,” do not believe it; it cannot be. The devil has his cast-offs, but God has no cast-offs. Sometimes he takes the devil’s castaways, and makes them to be the trophies of his mighty grace; and when he has done so, they are his people, concerning whom the psalmist says, “The Lord will not cast off his people.”

Then, further, the Lord will not forsake his people, for it is added, “Neither will he forsake his inheritance.” He chose them to be his inheritance, he has bought them as his inheritance, and he will never forsake them. Still shall you be supported by the Lord, but never forsaken by him; still shall you be owned by him, but never forsaken. Still shall you be kept, defended against all comers, and preserved to be the Lord’s own people, for he will not forsake his inheritance.

I do not feel as if I need say much more upon this theme; but it is enough for me, I think, just to remind you of those precious words of our great and gracious Father, which are many times repeated in his Word, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” and leave them with you, his children. Take them, and feed upon them. God give you to know the full comfort of them!

So I shall close with this fourth point, God’s people will be righted in the end: “Judgment shall return unto righteousness: and all the upright in heart shall follow it.”

Just now, judgment has gone away. It has gone up to its own land; judgment is within the veil, but there are reasons for its absence from us. Judgment has gone away, perhaps, that it may try the faith of God’s people. The Lord does not to-day strike down the profane, nor slay the hypocrite, as he might if he dealt with them in strict justice. Judgment has gone out of the world for a while, though it watcheth and recordeth all things. It is gone partly for our trial and testing, that we may learn to trust an absent God and Saviour. Judgment is also gone away in order that mercy may be extended to the ungodly, that they may live, and that they may turn to God; for he willeth not the death of any, but that they may turn unto him and live. Judgment has gone up to the throne for a while until the wicked shall have completed the full measure of their sin, “until the pit be digged for the wicked.” Not yet is the iniquity of the Amorites full; and judgment has gone away and will stay away until it is.

Do not be in a hurry, child of God; the Lord has timed his absence. Hearken to this next word: “Judgment shall return unto righteousness.” You shall hear the trumpet soon; you shall hear the sound of that blast, “the loudest and the last,” telling you that the day of the great assize has come, and that the Judge has arrived, to right all wrongs, to punish all iniquity, and to reward all virtue, and all true, faithful service. “Judgment shall return.” We cannot tell how long it will linger, but it will return. Christ will come again. As surely as he ascended into heaven, he will so come in like manner as he went up. He shall judge the earth in righteousness, and his people with his truth. Behold, he cometh! And when he comes, judgment shall return unto righteousness.

And what then? Judgment shall be welcomed by the godly. When it comes, “all the upright in heart shall follow it.” The chariot of righteousness shall lead the way, and all the people of God shall follow it in a glorious procession. Then shall they receive their Lord’s commendation, “Well done, good and faithful servants.” They shall follow it, as they wear their golden crowns, nay, as they cast them at the foot of the throne, saying, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power.” Saints will follow the chariot of judgment, coming forth from their concealment, and shining as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. They shall come from the places where slander has banished them, and show themselves again, and God shall be glorified in them. Now you who love the Lord, be not in a hurry to have all this fulfilled. Leave your cases in the dear hand of him who will ere long judge all righteously.

I have done when I have reminded you that he is accursed who has never felt the chastening hand of God, or sat at his feet to learn of him; but he is blessed indeed who yields himself entirely up to be the disciple of the Lord. May it be so with every one of you, for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

Let us read this evening the ninety-fourth Psalm, and may the Spirit of God instruct us while we read it!

Verse 1. O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth; O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thyself.

God is the God of justice; and when iniquity and oppression prevail, it is natural that his people should call upon him to come forth out of his hiding-places. Sometimes, when oppression and iniquity and error prevail, it seems as if God had hidden himself away. Hence the prayer of the psalmist, “O Jehovah, the God of recompences (or revenges, as the margin has it), shew thyself.”

2. Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth: render a reward to the proud.

As one who is about to strike a heavy blow lifts himself up, to increase the force of the stroke, so the psalmist prays to the Lord, “Lift up thyself, thou Judge of the earth. The proud are lifted up; lift up thyself. They boast; they glory; Lord, show them how great a God thou art in the defence of righteousness; lift up thyself, thou Judge of the earth.”

3. Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?

That question, “how long?” uttered twice over, sounds a little like howling; and sometimes God’s saints get so dispirited that they cry unto God, and weep and wail before him until their wailing becomes almost like howling: “Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?”

4, 5. How long shall they utter and speak hard things? and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves? They break in pieces thy people, O Lord, and afflict thine heritage.

Their words are heavier than stones; and when they hurl them at the Lord’s people with cruel intent, they do great mischief: “They utter and speak hard things. All the workers of iniquity boast themselves.” It seems to be the mark of the righteous that they are humble and lowly, and the mark of the wicked that they are boastful and proud. They have nothing of which they ought to boast; yet they do boast very loudly. Pride is ingrained in our evil nature; and the more there is of sin in us, the more there is of boasting by us.

6. They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless.

Do you wonder that the psalmist prayed, “O God of vengeance, shew thyself”? Can you see the fatherless robbed, and the widow and the stranger oppressed, without feeling your indignation burn? He who is never indignant has no virtue in him. He who cannot burn like coals of juniper against evil does not truly love righteousness. The psalmist was not a man of that sort; he was righteously angry with the wicked, who slew the widow and the stranger, and murdered the fatherless.

7. Yet they say, The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.

They were practically atheists; for, if they had a god nominally, they regarded him as a god who did not observe sins, a blind deity, a god who took no note of evil. Do you not think that this is the prevailing religion of to-day? Are there not many who say, “Jehovah shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it”? God is not in all their thoughts; he is to them a nonentity, not the Omniscient Jehovah, and hardly even a person, but a kind of secondary power or a feeble force, an unknown something or other not of much account: “Jehovah shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.”

8. Understand, ye brutish among the people:

When a man turns away from God, he casts off his manhood; he ceases to be a man, and becomes like a brute, a boar, for so this expression might be read, “Ye boars among the people.”

8, 9. And ye fools, when will ye be wise? He that planted the ear, shall he not hear?

Did the Lord make men’s ears, and put them near the brain in the very best place for hearing, and shall he not himself hear? The argument is overwhelming. God gave us ears, and made us hear; is he deaf himself?

9. He that formed the eye, shall he not see?

God makes all eyes; is he without eyes himself? The supposition is an absurdity. It needs only to be mentioned to be held up to ridicule: “He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see?”

“Shall he who, with transcendent skill,

Fashion’d the eye and form’d the ear;

Who modell’d nature to his will,

Shall he not see? Shall he not hear?”

10. He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not he correct?

Whole nations were driven out of Canaan to make room for Israel. Many other nations have been crushed, doubled up, utterly destroyed, on account of their sin. Everybody who reads history knows that this has been the case, so the psalmist argues, “He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not he correct?” He that executeth judgment upon heathen nations, can he not deal with sinful man, and with single individuals? He that broke the power of Persia, and Assyria, and Greece, and Rome, will he not punish guilty men when they dare to set themselves up as oppressors of his people?

10. He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know?

Our translators finish the question by putting “Shall not he know?” but those words are not in the original, and they are not at all necessary to the argument. It is as if the psalmist broke off his utterances abruptly, as much as to say, “It is of no use arguing with you fellows,” or else as if he said, “Finish my sentence yourselves; I put the truth so clearly before you that there is no escaping from it.” “He that teacheth man knowledge:” if God has taught men all that they know, does not he himself know all that is to be known? The psalmist does not say so much as that in words; but he leaves us to draw that as the only inference from what he says.

11. The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man,

God knows not only men’s words and acts, but their thoughts also. God knows thoughtful men, the best sort of men, when they are at their best, when they are thinking; and what does God think of the thoughts of man?

11. That they are vanity.

Yet people talk about the thoughtful men of the age, and want us to bow down and worship their thoughts. This boasting about man’s thoughts is only like the cracking of rotten sticks: “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.”

12. Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law;

Here is the truly blessed man; not the boaster, not the infidel, not the proud thinker, but the divinely-chastened man. He is sore through the chastening of the Lord, his bones are full of pain, his heart is heavy, and his home, perhaps, is a place of torture to him; but still it is true that he is a blessed man: “Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law.”

13. That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked.

Christ has gone to prepare heaven for his people; it is a prepared place for a prepared people. So is it with the ungodly and their eternal inheritance, it is a prepared place, “prepared for the devil and his angels,” and when men make themselves like demons, and so are ripe for hell, then is the pit ready to receive them.

14. For the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance.

If any of you are deeply troubled, I counsel you to get a hold of this promise. Perhaps it seems to you as if two seas of sorrow had met around you, and that you were in a whirlpool of trouble; then I say again, lay hold of this text, and grip it firmly: “Jehovah will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance.”

15, 16. But judgment shall return unto righteousness: and all the upright in heart shall follow it. Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?

Well, David, you may ask the question; but we cannot tell you who among your fellow-men will stand up for you. It sometimes happens that God’s people are left without an earthly friend; their case is so hard, their cause involves so much question, so much shame, perhaps, that nobody will stand up for them. If this be your trying condition just now, listen to the psalmist’s testimony:-

17. Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence.

If it had not been for God, he would not only have had no hand to help him, but not even a voice to speak for him. He might not have suffered quite in silence, because he would have himself spoken; but what he would have said would only have made the matter worse. What would he have said if he had broken the silence?

18. When I said, My foot slippeth;

“It is going, it is gone; my foot is now slipping,”-what then?

18. Thy mercy, O Lord, held me up.

God is grand at holding up his people in slippery places, and not only in slippery places, but when their feet actually do slip. When they think that they are gone, they are not really gone. “Underneath are the everlasting arms.” “Thy mercy, O Lord, held me up.”

19. In the multitude of my thoughts within me-

“I cannot collect my thoughts, they will not be gathered into orderly array, they rush to and fro, there is a multitude, a mob of them.” It is good to have thoughts, but sometimes you may have too many of them; and they may come helter-skelter, blasphemous thoughts, perhaps, despairing, proud, unbelieving, all sorts of thoughts: “In the multitude of my thoughts within me”-

19. Thy comforts delight my soul.

“Comforts which thou dost bring me, comforts which arise from thoughts of thee, the comforts of the Comforter, the comforts of the God of all comfort, ‘thy comforts delight my soul.’ ” You must often have noticed that troubles seldom come alone; if you get one trial, you will probably have a whole covey of them. It very rarely happens, I think, to any one of us to have a lone sorrow. In another place the psalmist says, “Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts; all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.” It is so with some of us at this time; we have a multitude of troubled thoughts within us. But have you also noticed that God’s mercies do not come alone? They come in flocks; the psalmist says, “Thy comforts”-not merely one comfort, but a great host of them,-“Thy comforts delight my soul, they not merely sustain me, and keep me alive, but they delight my soul. God never does anything by halves; when he gives us comfort, he does it thoroughly. The Lord’s flowers bloom double; he gives us not only comfort, but delight: “Thy comforts delight my soul.”

Now the psalmist turns to God in prayer, and says:-

20. Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?

Oh, how strong are the wicked! They think they can have everything all their own way, that they can make what laws they like, and crush out anything that they despise. Yes, there are many thrones of iniquity, but God has no fellowship with them; and if God has no fellowship with a throne, that throne will tumble down, God will not uphold it. The day will come when he will no longer tolerate its iniquity, and then one blow of his mighty right hand shall shiver it to atoms.

21. They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.

Agreed about nothing else, they all agree against Christ and against the holy seed: “the soul of the righteous.” They would blot out the righteous from under heaven if they could.

22. But the Lord is my defence; and my God is the rock of my refuge.

I commend these expressions to all believers; let them treasure them up. “My God.” Ah, you must personally appropriate God to yourself if he is to bless you! Another man’s God is nothing to you unless you can also say, “My God.” When you have said, “My God,” you have uttered the grandest words that human lips can frame. If God be yours, all things are yours, earth and heaven, time and eternity.

“My God is the rock of my refuge.” You are on the rock; you are in the rock; you are behind the rock; you must be safe now.

23. And he shall bring upon them their own iniquity,

That is the punishment of sin. It seems strange that it is so, but sin is the punishment of sin. When a man has once sinned, it is part of his punishment that he is inclined to sin again, and so on ad infinitum. “He shall bring upon them their own iniquity.”

23. And shall cut them off in their own wickedness;

It needs no fire nor worm to torment the ungodly; their own wickedness itself is fire, and worm, and pit without a bottom, and the hell that endeth not.

23. Yea, the Lord our God shall cut them off.

“Surrounded by his saints, the Lord

Shall arm’d with holy vengeance come;

To each his final lot award,

And seal the sinner’s fearful doom.”

God save us from being of that company! May we all be numbered with his people for ever and ever! Amen.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-121, 745, 748.