C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Thursday Evening, October 29th, 1874.

“For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; from heaven did the Lord behold the earth; to hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death; to declare the name of the Lord in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem; when the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve the Lord.”-Psalm 102:19-22.

I suppose the first sense of this passage would be just this. Israel had been carried away captive, and only the poorest of the people had been left in the land. Jerusalem was a heap, Zion had been ploughed with the plough of desolation; the whole country was, compared with its former state, like a desert. But in due time, God, who had peculiar favour towards his people, though he had sorely smitten them, would look down upon them. From the height of his sanctuary in heaven, he would look down upon the ruins of his sanctuary on earth; from his heavenly city above, he would look down upon his earthly city below; and as he looked and listened he would be attracted by the moans of his people, and especially of some who were appointed to death, or, as the margin renders it, “the children of death.” Upon these he would look with tender pity; and, in due time, he would so come to the deliverance of his scattered people, Israel, and bring them back to their own land, and work for them such wonderful mercy that, ever afterwards, that deliverance would be spoken of with praise and thanksgiving. Even in the last days when all nations shall serve the Lord, the memory of this deliverance shall not be forgotten. Still shall it be the theme of joyous song and the subject of holy contemplation, just as, when Israel was in Egypt, the Lord heard their groaning, and with a high hand and a stretched-out arm brought them up out of the land of bondage; and ever afterwards, amongst the sweetest patriotic songs of the nation was the one which Moses and Miriam sang on the further shore of the Red sea, “Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.” And all along Jewish history, whatever other songs there may have been, that one has never gone into oblivion; and even in heaven itself “they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb.” So that the deliverance promised here to Israel was to be as noteworthy as that which was given at the Red sea, and it was to be for ever kept in memory by the Lord’s chosen people.

Now I am going to leave the more immediate sense of our text, yet still to give you its meaning. It has been said that if a great crystal be broken into the smallest fragments, each piece will still be crystallized in the same form; and, in like manner, the dealings of God with his Church, as a whole, will be found to be of the same kind as his dealings with the various parts of his Church, and also with individuals; and in dealing with individuals, each separate act of God will have about it the same attributes, and be of the same character, as his dealings on a large scale with the whole of his people. So, if we break down the great truth of the text, which is like a mass of bread, into small crumbs, so that each one of the Lord’s children may have a portion, it will still be bread. The truth will be the same as we try to bring it home to individual experience, and that we shall now try to do. May the eternal Spirit, the Comforter, help us in the doing of it!

And first, dear friends, our text speaks of misery at its extreme.

You observe that it speaks of prisoners who are groaning, and of those who are appointed unto death, who are evidently in chains, because they are spoken of as being loosed. It has been well said that one half of the people in the world does not know how the other half lives, and it is certainly true that there are sorrows in this world of which some of us have no conception or imagination. Complaint was made, some time ago, by a hearer in a certain place of worship, that most of the sermons that he heard there were composed upon the principle that everybody was happy; and it did not appear to him that the preacher had much if any sympathy with those who were of a sorrowful spirit, like Hannah,* or those who were in an afflicted and depressed condition, who could not rejoice as he could. I do not think that charge could be truthfully brought against me; if it could, I should be sorry; for where the Spirit of God rests upon any man at all after the manner in which it rested upon Christ, that man will repeat, in his measure, what his Lord could say in the fullest possible sense, “He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted,† to preach deliverance to the captives,‡ and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” The ministry that God sends, though it will be a ministry of warning and threatening to the ungodly, will be a ministry of consolation to those who are sorrowing over their sins, and seeking divine deliverance from them. So you, who are the sons and daughters of joy, will pardon me if there should seem to be less than usual for you in my present discourse. When someone is sick, nobody blames the physician for giving his main attention to the invalid of the house, nor finds fault with the nurse for her assiduous attentions to the poor suffering one. There are many sorrows, brethren and sisters, in this world, and there are many sorrows even in the Church of God; and yet, for my part, I see much for which I can thank God, especially when I look upon the people of God. Then I say, with Moses, “Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord?” Yet there are still many sons and daughters of affliction, and there are many trials and tribulations for each of us to pass through ere we reach that land where sorrow is unknown.

There are some sad souls who are comparable to prisoners, prisoners that groan most mournfully; some who are convinced of sin, but who have not yet found the Saviour; and some who, having found that Saviour, have fallen into doubts and fears, or who have backslidden from him, and so lost their comforting assurance, and are now crying, “Oh that I knew where I might find him!” There are, also, some who have experienced heavy losses, and are bearing heavy crosses, some who have seen the desire of their eyes taken away with a stroke, some to whom the shafts of death have flown once, twice, thrice, each time smiting down a beloved one. There are some very dear children of God who do not always see the light of his countenance,-precious sons of God who are like fruit brought forth by the moon,-those who are like the bruised spices of the sanctuary all the sweeter for being bruised; and just now is the time of their sorrow, when they are prisoners that cry and sigh and groan by reason of their hard bondage.

A prisoner is often a solitary man. Very much of the sorrow of imprisonment lies in separation from friends, and in utter loneliness. Perhaps I am addressing some whose condition is that of extreme solitude. You are alone in the streets of this great wilderness of a city, and there is no such loneliness as that; or you live in a house where you wish that you could be alone in one sense, for you are sadly alone in another sense, for nobody seems to understand your case, or to enter into your experience. You wear a fetter which never fretted human wrists before; at least, so you think. You are in solitary confinement, and in that confinement you are in the dark. The light in which you once rejoiced has gone from you. The joyous flow of spirits and the cheery countenance which you used to possess have departed from you. Your heart is troubled, and you are vexed with inward doubts and fears. It is a sorrowful case when a man is in that condition, and is alone in it.

It may be, also, that you feel as if you were chained. The power to act, which you once had, has gone from you. Your former energy has departed; you are like a man spellbound. Just as sometimes, in troubled dreams, a man tries to run, but cannot even lift a foot, or seeks to grasp something, but his hand seems turned to stone, so is it with you; or so, at any rate, has it been with some of us; we were chained, and in the dark, and solitary; and we have tried hard to convince ourselves of the truth of what people said to us,-that it was only a matter of nerves, and that we must be energetic, and make up our minds to get out of that state,-which is what only fools say, for wise men know that such talk as this is like pouring vinegar into open wounds, making them smart still more, and never producing any healing effects. You have, perhaps, been like a prisoner who has well-nigh escaped, but who has been detected by the ever-watchful guards, and so had to go back again to his cell, and to wear double chains through trying to escape. And, possibly, your imprisonment has lasted long. Some of you, young people, may feel frightened while you hear me talk like this. Do not be alarmed, yet lay up in your memories what I am saying, because, if these dark days never come to you, you will be all the more thankful that they do not; and if they do, you will remember that I told you about them. You will then say, “This is no strange thing that has happened to us, for the preacher said it might be so, and the preacher was a man of a cheery spirit, yet he said it might be so with us. As it now is so, we need not be surprised, and we may know that we may be the children of God, and that God may be looking down from heaven in pity upon us, and resolving to set us free, and yet for the present we are fettered, and unable to escape from our prison-house.”

Now observe that, according to the text, there are some who are in a worse plight even than prisoners, for they are “appointed to death,”-some who feel in their bodies that they will soon die, but who have not yet learned to exult in that fact. They have not looked at the heavenward side of it, and said, “Ah! we shall soon be where we shall shake off every infirmity and sickness, and see our Saviour face to face, and praise him without sinning for ever;” but they have said, “We are appointed to death; we have sharp pains to undergo, and the dying strife to endure, when the clammy sweat will thicken upon our brow;” and, as yet, that is all that they have thought of, or, at least, they think most of that. If there are any such people here, I pray God now to give them the comfort which they so sorely need, that they may even rejoice in the prospect of departing, to be with that dear Lord whom they have so long loved and served. And, alas! there are some who are “appointed to death” in a far worse sense than that; for “to die is gain” to us who are believers in Christ, but the ungodly feel that they are “appointed to death” in a much more terrible meaning of the word “death.” Their sins are standing out before them, and crying out against them. They feel like a murderer who is standing under the gallows; they are afraid that the floor will fall from beneath their feet, and that they will sink down to destruction. They have not yet learned the power of the precious blood of Jesus, and they have not yet heard the voice of God saying to them, “Your sins, which are many, are all forgiven you for Christ’s sake.” They are under conviction of sin; and under that conviction, they feel that they are “appointed to death” eternal; their own conscience affirms that the divine sentence is a just one, and they dare not cavil at it. Such is their own sense of their condition in the sight of God that, if they had to judge themselves, they would have to condemn themselves. And, perhaps, meanwhile, Satan is reminding them of the wrath to come, and making them feel how certain it is that it will be their portion. They also believe themselves to be “appointed to death” because even their fellows seem to shun them. Christian people appear to have given them up as hopeless, their old companions look upon them as though they were too far gone for the mercy of God to reach them. If there should be one such sinner in this building, I am right glad of it, for it is to him, and to those like him, that this text is especially sent. The Lord is at this moment looking down from heaven with those piercing eyes of his which can discern the exact condition of all hearts here, and those eyes of his are gazing with infinite pity upon the groaning prisoners who are “appointed to death.”

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, there are some of us who are neither prisoners nor “appointed to death.” Let us bless the Lord who has set us free, and given us eternal life in his Son, Jesus Christ; but let us not forget what we used to be, nor forget those who are still in bonds, and under sentence of death. Let us pray the Lord to bless them, and to bring them out into liberty and joy this very hour. Whenever I meet with a poor bondaged, sin-sick soul, I say, “Ah, my friend! I can pity you, I still have the scars upon my soul where the iron fetters used to hold me fast; and the bitterness of heart that I then experienced makes me ever feel a tender, loving sympathy with the weak ones among God’s people, and the tried ones among his saints.” Those who are pushed about by many as though they were not fit to live are the very ones for whom I would fain make a way, and bring them to the softest place, and say, “Be of good comfort, for it is for you and such as you that God has sent his Son and his Spirit into the world.”

Now, secondly, in our text we notice misery observed.

I want you carefully to note these words, “For the Lord hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; from heaven did the Lord behold the earth; to hear the groaning of the prisoner.” This expression is, of course, not strictly applicable to God, for he seeth all things; but, speaking after the manner of men, it describes him as going up to the highest part of heaven, as a watchman goes up to the top of the tower, where the widest range of vision can be obtained, and looks over sea and land with keen and searching eye. The original appears to mean, “The Lord leans from the height of his sanctuary,” as if he bent down over the battlements of heaven in order to get nearer to the object of his search, and to gaze the more intently at it; and as he looks and listens, his eye and ear are riveted upon a prison, through whose dreary, grated window he sees what others cannot,-a pining prisoner, and he hears a moan which others cannot bear to hear; and far off, yonder, in the place of shame and death, he sees poor wretches taken out to die; and all his heart goes out in pity towards them. We naturally look for some pleasing sight, we like to let our eye rest upon that beautiful lake in the distance, or that forest browning with the tints of autumn, or that green hill, or that skyscape chequered with a thousand hues as the sun is setting. But here is the great God looking out for miserable objects, keenly observing those who are the most miserable of men and women. We like to have our ears charmed by the sweet sounds of melody and harmony; but God opens his ear to catch the sound of a moan or a groan, and turns his eye, not to search for a diamond, but to look for a tear. O wondrous mercy of God! How strange that the King of kings should go to the top of his castle to look for a poor wretched soul!

And yet, dear friends, after this manner do the benevolent of the earth, who are most like their God, act. See the man whose duty it is to watch the coast, observe him going up and down the sea-shore and the cliff, walking to and fro with his telescope under his arm. There is a pleasure yacht yonder, but he does not specially notice that. There is a steamer ploughing the deep, but he does not notice that. Here are little rowing or sailing boats flitting about, but he does not notice them. Now it is night, and presently a rocket flies up into the air. Ah! he is all attention now. There is another rocket, he calls his fellows, and soon they will be off with the life-boat in answer to the signals of distress at sea. Just so is it with God; he is looking for signals of distress. Some of you are bent on pleasure, but he does not take special note of you; some of you are full of pride, you are rich and increased in goods, you have all your canvas spread, and all your flags flying; but the Lord does not notice you, except in sorrow and anger; but if there is a signal of distress anywhere about, or a poor anxious soul is crying, “O God, have mercy upon me,” or one that cannot get as far as that, but whose moan is too suffocating to become an articulate prayer, (for that is what is implied in the word groaning here,) God is sure to notice that, and to hear the groaning, and mark the falling tear of the penitent.

To my mind it is very wonderful that, while God is omniscient, and so sees everything, there should be some special objects of his omniscient regard. Think for a moment what concentrated omniscience must be, each individual as closely looked upon by God as if there were not another person for him to look upon, as if he were as much the sole object of the thought of the Most High as if he had forgotten the whole universe besides. That is really the purport of what we are here taught. God is reading you through and through, poor soul;-watching you as if he had nobody else to watch, understanding you as fully as if there were nobody else to be understood;-leaning over you that he may get the better view of you, bringing all his infinite faculties to bear upon your case, searching it from top to bottom,-the origin of your sorrow, the ramifications of your grief, planning the outcome of the whole matter, what balms and what catholicons you need to heal your wounds and charm away your distresses. Why, it is really worth while to be a prisoner to have God looking upon one like this; it is worth while to feel the sentence of death in one’s soul in order to know, by the testimony of inspiration, that God is looking upon one out of heaven in this special and peculiar sense. He never can forget his children anywhere; but if there is one place where he remembers them more specially than anywhere else, it is in the place of their sorrow.

I wonder whether you, good mother, have been specially thinking of anyone at home while I have been preaching. I should not wonder if it is so, and I can guess which member of your family you have thought of more than of all the rest; of course you have been thinking of the little one whom you left so ill. You were scarcely sure whether you might venture to steal out this evening, but you said, “I think I must go, and bow before the Lord in his house;” and while you have been here, you have been wondering whether the nurse has been properly caring for your sick child. Why have you not been concerned about your big boy John, who is away at school, or about your daughter Mary, who is well and strong? Ah, no! you have been able to keep your thoughts away from them, but you could not keep your thoughts away from the little sick one. Now, like as a father and a mother of a family pity their children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him, and he specially pities his poor tried and troubled ones.

Thirdly, keeping to the same strain, we see misery relieved.

God looks down from heaven to hear the groaning of the prisoner, and to loose those that are appointed to death. God’s thoughts do not end in thoughts, nor do his words end in words. David wrote truly, “How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God!” So they are, but how precious also must his actions be! Our text is one of many proofs that God does really hear prayer. My dear brethren and sisters in Christ, I should be greatly grieved if any of you were moved in the slightest degree by the assertion that is made, in these evil days, that our prayers are really not heard by God. The persons who make that assertion do not know anything at all about the matter, for they do not themselves pray to God, so what can they know about it? If I were to contradict one of these philosophers concerning certain natural phenomena which I have never observed, he would at once say that I was out of court; if I said that I did not believe in the result which he said he had attained, he would say, “But I have proved it, and therefore, I am able to speak so positively concerning it.” If I were to say, “I have not tried it, and so do not believe it,” he would say to me, “Negative evidence is of no use in such a case as this.” I cannot help using this simple illustration, which I have used before, concerning a man who was charged with theft. They brought five persons to prove that he stole the goods, and they all saw him do it; “but,” said he, “that is nothing, I can bring fifty people who did not see me steal the goods.” Just so; but the magistrate knew that there was not anything in the evidence of the fifty people who did not see the theft, the evidence of the five people who did see it was much stronger. So, if there is but a very small number of us who have really proved the power of prayer, and who know that we have obtained answers to our petitions, the evidence of the small number who have tested the matter is worth far more than the evidence of any number who have not tried it, and who, therefore, cannot say anything about it. Some of us have been to God about great things and little things, temporal things and spiritual things; we are in the habit of going to him all day long, there is scarcely an hour in the day in which we do not ask him for something or other; and for us to receive answers to our prayers is as common a thing for us as breathing the air, or seeing the sun shine by day or the stars by night. It has become such an ordinary, common occurrence with us that we cannot doubt it.

Our text also reminds us that God hears the very poorest prayers, those which are the poorest in the judgment of men,-the groanings of the prisoners. I do not think them the poorest prayers, I consider that they are really the most powerful prayers. The prayers of the heart are often the most prevalent with God when they cannot be expressed in words, for the weight of meaning would break the backs of the words, and human language would stagger beneath the crushing load. Then it is that we often pray best of all. If a man gets up from his knees, and groans, and says, “I cannot pray,” he need not fret about not finding suitable words, for he has prayed. But our wordy prayers, whether in our private devotions or in public prayer-meetings, are often so much chaff, and nothing more. God does not need our words, yet we sometimes string them together as if we were displaying our oratory before the Eternal; this must not be. God loves the heart of the suppliant to be poured out before him. The best prayer is when a man can take his heart, and turn it bottom, upwards, and let all that is in it run out; that is the style of praying that has most influence with God.

He does “hear the groaning of the prisoner;” and, with God, to hear means to answer. We need not say, as many do, that “he is a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God,” for prayer-hearing involves prayer-answering. O mourners, still mourn before your God, but mourn with this mixture of hope, that God will not suffer the groanings that arise from your heart, in the name of Jesus, to be like the mere whisperings of the wind. He will hear them ere long.

It is also said, in our text, that the Lord will “loose those that are appointed to death.” Is it not wonderful that God should deliver men just when it seems as if all is over with them? I remember lying in the condemned cell,-I mean, spiritually. I thought I heard the bell tolling out my doom, and I expected soon to be taken away to execution; but it was just then that God came and loosed my bonds. I had tugged hard at them, trying to untie the knots that Moses had tied, and seeing if I could break the iron fetters of conviction and condemnation which were riveted upon me; but I could not. But the sight of Jesus Christ, and him crucified, and the omnipotent might of his atoning sacrifice, broke every bond from off my soul in a single moment, and I leaped into ecstatic liberty; and this is how God will deal with every soul that will but turn to Jesus on the cross, and leave itself in the hands of infinite love. Sinner, even if thou art on the very verge of hell, if thou believest on the Lord Jesus Christ, he will loose thy bonds, and set thee at liberty. Even though thy death-warrant seems to be signed and sealed, the prey shall be taken from the mighty, and the lawful captive shall be delivered, for the Lord, thy Redeemer, is almighty, and none can withstand him when he resolves to bring up his children even from their prison-houses. Only trust in Jesus, rest your soul upon him, and God will yet come to your deliverance.

The last thing in our text is gratitude eloquent: “To declare the name of the Lord in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem; when the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve the Lord.”

One of the most powerful preachers who ever lived was the prophet Jonah, and I believe that Jonah learned to preach by going, in the whale’s belly, to the bottom of the Mediterranean. That voyage was better than a university education for him, and he became a good sound Calvinist before he was cast up again upon the land. He said, “Salvation is of the Lord,” before the Lord told the fish to give him up, and I have no doubt that he often preached that doctrine afterwards; and if some preachers whom I know, instead of having lessons in elocution, were sent for a little while down into the depths of soul-despair, if they were tried, and plagued, and vexed, and chastened every morning, they would learn a way of speaking which would reach the people’s hearts far better than any that can be learned by human teaching.

We need, dear brethren, if we are to speak aright for God, to know something of our soul’s need, and the depths of it, and then something of the grace of God, and the height of it in bringing us out of our distresses. Hence, according to our text, those who are set free declare or publish the name of the Lord. You cannot keep a man quiet if he has been, spiritually, in prison, and has been brought out by God. If he has been condemned to die, and has had his sentence cancelled at the last moment, you cannot make him hold his tongue. You may tell him that he must keep his religion to himself, but it is impossible. He is so overjoyed about it, it has so charmed him that he must begin to tell somebody about it. You know that John Bunyan said that he wanted to tell the crows on the ploughed land all about his conversion; it was quite natural that he should feel like that, and he did tell a great many besides the crows about it. There is something in a man who gets joy and peace in believing, that will not be quiet. Perhaps some of you have been very ill, and a certain medicine has been recommended to you, and it has restored you; now, do you not always feel, when you meet anybody who is ill as you were that you must tell him about the remedy that cured you? You say, “You should try so-and-so; see what it has done for me.” Why do you want to tell him? You do not know why; you do not claim any very great measure of benevolence for doing it, for you cannot help communicating the good news to others. So is it with the man who is really saved by the grace of God. He wants to communicate it, and he is the fit man to communicate it, because he who speaks from the heart speaks to the heart, and he who speaks experimentally is the man by whom the Holy Spirit is most likely to speak to those who are in a similar experience. Perhaps, my dear friends, some of you are now suffering on purpose that God may afterwards fit you the better to speak to others in a similar case; I believe it is often so, and trust that it may turn out to be so in your case.

These people declared the goodness of God among the saints. So ought we to do. Some Christians cannot tell their experience very readily, but I think they should try to do so. Tell your brethren and sisters in Christ what the Lord has done for you. If there were more commerce among Christians with their experience, they would be mutually the more enriched. But these people also declared the name of the Lord among the nations when they were gathered together; and soul, if God has suffered you to go down into the deeps of the prison-house, and to lie in the condemned cell, and has brought you out to life and liberty, you will surely not blush to tell to all what great things God hath done for you. I think you must sometimes feel in your heart as if you wished you had a whole universe for an audience,-the devils in hell, and the angels in heaven, the saints above and the saints below, and the sinners too, and you would like to say to them, “I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.” You cannot have quite so large an audience as that just yet; so, meanwhile, make use of the audience you can have, and-

“Tell to sinners round

What a dear Saviour you have found.”

It is in part for this purpose that this great blessing has been given to you that you might tell all you can about it to others. I pray you not to rob God of the revenue of glory which his grace deserves at your hands.

Brethren and sisters, the gist of what I have said to you is just this,-Are we rejoicing in the Lord? Then, let us turn our joy into praise of him! Are we very much cast down? Then, let us look up to him who looks down upon us, and let us rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him, for he will yet bring us out of our prison-house. Are we as yet unsaved? Then, let us catch at those words in the text that tell us that God looks down from heaven “to hear the groaning of the prisoner.” Will you not groan, poor prisoner? The devil tempted you never to do so any more. You yourself said, “It is no use; I have been to the Tabernacle so long, and I have been to other places of worship, but I cannot get any comfort; I will give up trying.” Oh, do not so, I pray you. Have you come to the end of yourself? Well, then, now you have come to the beginning of God. It is when the last farthing of creature-merit is gone that God comes to us with the boundless treasures of his grace. If you have one mouldy crust of your own home-made bread left, you shall not have the bread of heaven; but when you are starved, when you have no goodness in you, nor any hope of goodness, no merit, nor hope of merit, no reliance, nor shadow of reliance upon anything that you are, or ever can be, then is the time to cast yourself upon the all-sufficient mercy of God in Christ Jesus. Everything that you can spin God will unravel. Everything that you can do for yourself he will throw down. Your spider’s webs he will break. You think to spin them into silken robes, but he will strip you, and he will slay you, for it is written, “I wound, and I heal, I kill, and I make alive.” Blessed is the man who is wounded by God, for he will afterwards heal him. Blessed is the man who is slain by God in this sense, for he will make him alive. Blessed is the man who is empty, for God will fill him; that was the theme of the Virgin’s song, and let it be ours as I close my discourse, “He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.” So may he do now, for his dear Son’s sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

Psalm 102

Verses 1, 2. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto thee. Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily.

Sincere supplicants are not content with praying for praying’s sake, they desire really to reach the ear and heart of Jehovah: “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto thee.” When prayer is intensified into a cry, then the heart is even more urgent to have audience of the Lord.

3-7. For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth. My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread. By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin. I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert. I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.

The psalmist gives us here a very graphic description of his sorrowful condition at that time. He was moved to grief by a view of the national calamities of the chosen people, and these so wrought upon his patriotic soul that he was wasted with anxiety, his spirits were dried up, and his very life was ready to expire.

8. Mine enemies reproach me all the day; and they that are mad against me are sworn against me.

Their rage was unrelenting and unceasing, and vented itself in taunts and insults. With his inward sorrows and outward persecutions, the psalmist was in as ill a plight as may well be conceived.

9-11. For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping, because of thine indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down. My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass.

This is a telling description of all-saturating, all-embittering sadness; and this was the portion of one of the best of men, and that for no fault of his own, but because of his love to the Lord’s people.

12. But thou, O Lord, shalt endure for ever; and thy remembrance unto all generations.

All things else are vanishing like smoke, and withering like grass; but, over all, the one eternal, immutable light shines on, and will shine on when all these shadows have declined into nothingness.

13, 14. Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea, the set time, is come. For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof.*

They delight in her so greatly that even her rubbish is dear to them. It was a good omen for Jerusalem when the captives began to feel a homesickness, and began to sigh after her.

15-17. So the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth thy glory. When the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory. He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.†

He will not treat their pleas with contempt; he will incline his ear to hear, his heart to consider, and his hand to help.

18. This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord.

A note shall be made of it, for there will be destitute ones in future generations,-“the poor shall never cease out of the land,”-and it will make glad their eyes to read the story of the Lord’s mercy to the needy in former times.

19-23. For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; from heaven did the Lord behold the earth; to hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death; to declare the name of the Lord in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem; when the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve the Lord. He weakened my strength in the way; he shortened my days.

Here the psalmist comes down again to the mournful string, and pours forth his personal complaint.

24-27. I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are throughout all generations. Of old hast thou laid the foundations of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.

God ever lives on; no decay can happen to him, nor destruction overtake him. O my soul, rejoice thou in the Lord always, since he is always the same!

28. The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee.

GOD’S PROVIDENCE

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, October 15th, 1908,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at new park street chapel, southwark.

“Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel. When they went, they went upon their four sides: and they turned not when they went. As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.”-Ezekiel 1:15-19.

In my preaching, I am constantly talking about Providence, so I thought it would be well to devote a whole sermon to explaining what I believe are God’s great wonder-working processes which we call “Providence.” In looking for a suitable text, I found this one. These “wheels” signify Divine Providence; and I trust, while explaining them, I may be so assisted by God’s Spirit that I may say many things to you concerning God’s government which may rejoice any who are desponding, and lift up the souls of many who are distressed.

Going at once to my divisions, my first remark will be, that Providence is here compared to a “wheel.”

When the prophet had “beheld the living creatures,” which I take it were angels, he opened his eyes again, and he saw a wonderful illustration of Divine Providence, and this exhibition was in the figure of a wheel. You must know that this is not the only place where this comparison is to be found; for the Romans and Greeks were accustomed to compare the wondrous working of God in Providence to the revolutions of a wheel. The story goes, that a certain king, being taken prisoner, was bound in chains, and dragged along at the chariot-wheels of his conqueror. As he went along, he kept looking at the wheel, and shedding tears, and then looking at the wheel again, and lifting up his eyes and smiling. The conqueror turned, and said, “Wherefore art thou looking at that wheel?” He said, “I was thinking, such is the lot of man; just now I was here; now I am there; but soon I may be here again at the top of the wheel, and thou mayest be grinding the dust.” This was well for a heathen. The prophet had the very same idea; he was permitted by God to see that the wheel is a very beautiful figure of Divine Providence. Let me show you that it is so.

I have just hinted at one reason why Providence is like a wheel; because sometimes one part of the wheel is at the top, and then it is at the bottom. Sometimes this part is exalted, and anon it sinks down to the dust. Then it is lifted into the air, and then again, by a single revolution, it is brought down again to the earth. So is it with our life. Sometimes we are in humble poverty, and hardly know what we shall do for bread; anon the wheel revolves, and we are brought into the comfort of wealth; our feet stand in a spacious room, we are fed with corn and wine, we drink of a cup overflowing its brim. Again we are brought low through affliction and famine. A little while, and another page is turned, and we are exalted to the heavens, and can sing and rejoice in the Lord our God. I have no doubt many of you here have experienced a far more chequered life than I have, and therefore you can feel that your life has been as a “wheel.” Ah, man! thou art strong, and great, and rich; thou mayest stand now as the uppermost part of it; but it is a wheel, and thou mayest yet be brought low. And ye poor, who are depressed and downcast, who are weeping because you know not where you shall lay your heads,-that wheel may revolve, and you may be lifted up. Our own experience is never a stable thing; it is always changing, always turning round. The fly that sits now on the edge of the wheel may be crushed by its next revolution. The world may cry “Hosannah” to its minister to-day, and the next day may say, “Crucify him, crucify him.” Such is the state of man. Providence is like a wheel.

You know that, in a wheel, there is one portion that never turns round, and that is the axle. So, in God’s providence, there is an axle which never moves. Christian, here is a sweet thought for thee! Thy state is ever changing; sometimes thou art exalted, and sometimes depressed; yet there is an unmoving point in thy state. What is that axle? What is the pivot upon which all the machinery revolves? It is the axle of God’s everlasting love towards his covenant people. The exterior of the wheel is changing, but the centre stands for ever fixed. Other things may move, but God’s love never moves; it is the axle of the wheel; and this is another reason why Providence should be compared to a wheel.

Yet further. You observe, when the wheel moves very rapidly, you can discern nothing but the exterior circle. So, if you look back to history, and read the story of a thousand years, you just set the wheel of Providence revolving rapidly, you lose sight of all the little things that are within the circle; you see only one great thing, and that is, that God is working out in the world his everlasting purposes. You sit down and take a book of history,-say the History of England,-and you will say of one event, “Now that seems to be out of place;” of another, “That seems to be out of time;” of another, “That seems to be adverse to the cause of liberty;” but look through a thousand years, and those things which seemed as if they would crush liberty in her germ,-those things which seemed as if they would destroy this our commonwealth in our very rising, have been those which have caused the sturdy oak of liberty to take deeper root. Take the whole together, instead of taking the events one by one; look at a thousand years, and you will see nothing but one round ring of symmetry, teaching you that God is wise, and God is just. So let it be with you in your lives. Here you are fretting about troubles to-day. Think also of the past; put all your troubles together, and they are no troubles at all. You will see that one counteracts the other. If you take your life,-not to-day, alone, but look back on forty years of it,-you will be obliged, instead of lamenting and mourning, to bless God for his mercies towards you. Let the wheel go round, and you will see nothing but a ring of everlasting wisdom revolving.

I trust I have made the first part of my subject intelligible,-that the providence of God is here compared to a wheel.

My second thought is, that the Providence of God is in some mysterious way connected with angels.

Look at verse 15: “Now as I beheld the living creatures.” Then turn to the 19th verse: “And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.” These living creatures I believe to be angels; and the text teaches us that there is a connection between Providence and angelic agency. I do not know how to explain it, I cannot tell how it is; but I believe angels have a great deal to do with the affairs of this world. An angel cut off the hosts of Sennacherib, and it is still my firm belief that angels are sent forth, somehow or other, to accomplish the everlasting purposes of God. The great wheel of Providence is still turned by an angel. When there is some trouble which seems to stop that wheel, some mighty cherub puts his shoulder to it, and hurls it round, and makes the chariot of God’s providence still go on. Angels have much more to do with us than we imagine. I do not know but that spirits sometimes come down, and whisper thoughts into our ears. I have strange thoughts, sometimes, that seem to come from a land of dreams, and fiery visions that make my soul hot within me. Sometimes I have thoughts which I know come from God’s Spirit,-some which are glorious, and some that are not so good, but still holy thoughts; and I often attribute them to angels. I have sometimes a thought which cheers me in distress; and was not an angel sent to strengthen Christ in the garden of Gethsemane? How do you think the angel strengthened him? Why, by putting thoughts into Christ’s mind. He could not do it in any other way; he could not strengthen him by a plaster, or by any physical means, but by injecting holy thoughts. So is it with us. There was a temptation which might have led you astray; but God said, “Gabriel, fly! there is one of my people in peril; go and put such a thought into his soul, that, when the danger comes, he will say, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan, I will have nothing to do with sin.’ ”

We have each of us a guardian angel to attend us. The meaning of the passage, “In heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven,” surely is that every Christian has a guardian angel, who flies about him, and holds the shield of God over his brow, keeps his foot lest he should dash it against a stone, guard’s him, controls him, manages him, injects thoughts into his mind, restrains his evil desires, and is the minister and servant of the Holy Ghost to keep him from sin, and lead him to righteousness. Whether I am right or wrong, I leave you to judge; but perhaps I have more angelology in me than most people have. I know my imagination has sometimes been so powerful that, when I have been alone at night, I could almost fancy that I saw an angel fly by me, when I have been out preaching the Word. However, I take it that the text teaches us that angels have very much to do with God’s Providence, for it says, “And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.” Let us bless God that he has made angels ministering spirits to minister unto them that are heirs of salvation.

My third remark shall be, that Providence is universal.

That you will see by the text: “Behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces.” The wheel had “four faces.” I think that means one face to the North, another to the South, another to the East, and another to the West; there is a face to every quarter, teaching us that Providence is universal, looking to every quarter of the globe. Have you ever been in a house where there was an old picture hanging? I have sometimes stood in a picture gallery, and there has been a painting of some old warrior; and he has looked straight at me. If I have gone to the other end of the room, he has still looked at me. Whereever you are in the room, a well-painted portrait will be looking at you. Such is the Providence of God; wherever you are, the eye of God will be upon you,-as much upon you as if there were not another person in the whole world. If there were only one, you may imagine how much God would look upon that one; but he looks on each one of us as if there were no other created being, and nothing else in the whole world. His eye is fixed upon us at every hour and at every moment. Wherever we may be, we shall have one face of the wheel turned upon us.

You cannot banish me from my Lord. Send me to the snows of Siberia or Lapland, I shall have the eyes of God there; send me to Australia, and let me toil at the gold diggings, there will he visit me. If you send me to the utmost verge of the round globe, I shall still have the eye of God upon me. Put me in the desert where there is not one single blade of grass growing, and his presence shall cheer me. Or let me go to sea, amidst the howlings of the tempest and the shrieking of the wind, where the mad waves lift up their hands to the skies as if they would pluck the stars from their cloudy thrones, and I shall have the eye of God upon me there. Let me sink, and let my gurgling voice be heard amongst the waves,-let my body lie down in the caverns of the sea, and the eye of God shall be on every bone, and in the day of the resurrection shall my every atom be tracked in its wanderings. Yes, the eye of God is everywhere; Providence is universal.

There may be some persons here who have friends far away, let me comfort them. The eye of God is looking on them. There may be some here who are about to part with beloved ones who are going to distant countries. Wherever they are, they will be as much in the keeping of God as though they were here. If one part of the world is not as near to the sun’s light as another, yet they are all equally near the eye of our God. Transport me where you please,-wherever the cloudy pillar of Providence shall guide me,-and I shall have God with me. That thought comforted the great traveller, Mungo Park, when he was in the desert of Sahara. He had been robbed and stripped of everything, and was left naked. He suddenly saw a little piece of moss; and taking it up, he saw how beautiful it was. He said, “Then the hand of God is here, for here is one of his works; though I call loudly, no man can hear me, for there is nothing but the prowling lion and the howling jackal; yet God is here.” That thought comforted him; and wherever you may be, whatever may be your case, God will be with you. Whatever period of your life you may now be in, God is with you. His eye is at the bridal and at the funeral, at the cradle and at the grave. In the battle, God’s eye is looking through the smoke; in the revolution, there is God’s hand managing the masses of men who have broken loose from their rulers. In the earthquake, there is Jehovah manifest; in the tempest, there is God’s hand, tossing the bark, dashing it against the rocks, or saving it from the boisterous waves. In all seasons, at all times, in all dangers, and in all climes, there is the hand of God.

My next remark is, that Providence is uniform.

It is only one Providence, and ever one. “Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl: and they four had one likeness.” There were four wheels and four faces, yet one likeness. There was but one piece of machinery; and thus we are taught that Providence is all one. Sometimes, providences seem to cross each other. One thing that God does seems to contradict another thing that he does; but it never really does so.

It is a great truth, though hard for us to grasp, that Providence is one. Just look at the case of Joseph. God has it in his mind that Joseph shall be governor over all the land of Egypt: how is that to be accomplished? The first thing to be done is that Joseph’s brethren must hate him. “Oh!” say you, “that is a step backward.” Next, Joseph’s brethren must put him in the pit. “That is another step backward,” say you. No, it is not; wait a little while. Joseph’s brethren must sell him; that is another step backward, is it not? Oh, no! Providence is one, and you must not look at its separate parts. He is sold; he becomes a favourite: so far, so good. That is a step onward. Anon, he is put in a dungeon. Wait and see the end; all the different parts of the machinery are one. They appear to clash, but they never do. Put them all together. If Joseph had not been put in the pit, he never would have been the servant of Potiphar; if he had never been put in the round-house, he would never have interpreted his fellow-prisoners’ dreams; and if the king had never dreamed, he would not have been called to go to the palace. There were a thousand chances, as the world has it, working together to produce the exaltation of Joseph. Providence is one: it never clashes.

“Oh!” says one, “I cannot understand that; Providence seems to be very adverse to me.” I think it is Mrs. Hannah More who says that she went into a place where they were manufacturing a carpet. She said, “There is no beauty there.” The man said, “It is one of the most beautiful carpets you ever saw.” “Why, here is a piece hanging out, and it is all in disorder.” “Do you know why, ma’am? You are looking at the wrong side of the carpet.” So it is very often with us. You and I think Providence is adverse to us, because we are looking at the wrong side. We do look at the wrong side while we are here; but when we get to heaven, we shall see the right side of God’s dealings, and when we do, we shall say, “O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all.” You have been puzzled sometimes to think why that friend was brought into the grave, or you have said, “Why was I made sick at such-and-such a time? Why did that trouble and that calamity fall upon me?” That is no business of yours; you are to believe that all things work together for one great purpose, and that one thing never crosses another. But you must not expect to see it so just yet. Here, on earth, the machine appears broken to pieces, and we can only see it in confusion; but, in heaven, we shall see it all put together. Suppose I go into a place where some great engineer is manufacturing a machine, and say to him, “Do you mean to tell me that this is a machine?” “Yes, and an exquisite one it will be.” “It does not look like it; I could not put it together.” “Oh, no, sir, you could not, but I can. Come and see it when I have put it together, and you shall see that each part fits into its proper place, that each cog on the wheel will work on the cog of another wheel, and all the parts will move together when I adjust them. Do not find fault with it, and say, ‘One is too small, and another too large,’ because you know nothing at all about it.” So, dear friends, you and I can never see more than parts of God’s ways. We only see here a wheel and there a wheel; but we must wait till we get to heaven, then we shall see the right side of the carpet; and then we shall see that it was one piece of machinery, with one end, one aim, and one object.

My next thought is, that, in this text, Providence is compared to the sea.

Look at the 16th verse: “The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl.” The word “beryl” is commonly used in Scripture to denote the ocean, because the beryl bears the greatest likeness to that deep green you sometimes see in the ocean, and at other times the blue appearance of the sea. Let us transport ourselves for a moment to the top of some high cliff, and look down on the noisy ocean. It has been the theme of a thousand songs; it has borne myriads of fleets on its mighty breast; yet there it is still rolling on. If you begin to think about the ocean, though it is one of the minor parts of God’s works compared with the constellations in the heavens, and the globes which he has hung on high, you begin to be lost in the vastness of your conceptions concerning the greatness of God’s works. And so it is with Providence.

It is like the ocean for another reason. The sea is never still; both day and night it is always moving. In the day, when the sun shines upon it, its waves march up in marshalled order as if about to capture the whole land, and drown all the solid earth. Then again they march back as if each one is reluctant to yield up its prey. It is always moving; the moon shines upon it, and the stars light it up, still it moves. Or darkness falls so that nothing can be seen; still it moves. By night and day the restless billows chant a boisterous hymn of glory, or murmur the solemn dirge of mariners wrecked far out in the depths. Such is Providence; by night and by day Providence is always going on. The farmer sleeps, but his wheat is growing. The mariner on the sea sleeps, but the wind and the waves are carrying on his bark. Providence, thou never stoppest; thy mighty wheels never stay their everlasting circles! As the blue ocean has rolled on impetuously for ages, so shall Providence roll on until he, who first set it in motion, shall bid it stop; and then its wheel shall cease, for ever fixed by the eternal decree of the almighty God.

Again, you will see another reason why the sea is like Providence. Man cannot manage it. Who can rule or govern the sea? Men cannot. Xerxes made chains for the Hellespont, and lashed the sea with whips because it washed away his boats; but what cared the sea about that? It laughed at him; and if he had not been too great a coward to put himself on its bosom, it might have swallowed him. Canute put his chair on the beach, and bade the waves retire. What cared they for him? They came, and would have washed him and his chair away if he had not moved backward. The sea is not to be governed by man. A whole fleet sails over it, and it is only like a feather blown by the wind across the surface of a brook. All we ever put on the sea is as nothing. It can never be restrained, nor chained, nor managed by man. Greedy man hath carved the land, but the sea has no landmark. It is impetuous; it follows its own will. So does Providence; it will not be managed by man. Napoleon once heard it said that man proposes and God disposes. “Ah!” said Napoleon, “but I propose and dispose too.” How do you think he proposed and disposed? He proposed to go and take Russia; he proposed to destroy that power; but how did he come back again? He came back solitary and alone, his mighty army perished and wasted, having well-nigh eaten and devoured one another through hunger. Man proposes and God disposes. Providence, like the sea, cannot be directed by man; it can only be controlled by God. Let man try to stand against God’s Providence; and Providence will grind and crush him.

That you will also find in the text: “The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.” I have just said that Providence is intricate. When Joseph brought his two sons up to Jacob’s deathbed side, and Jacob was about to bless them, he guided his hands wittingly; and he put his right hand on the head of the younger son, and his left hand on the head of the elder one. Joseph said, “Not so, my father; for this is the firstborn;” and Jacob said, “I know it, my son, I know it;” and he would not give the blessing in any other way but with his hands crossed; and God usually blesses his children by crossing his hands. We say, “Do not deal so with me;” but God says, “It must be even so, my child; there is a blessing on thy head. Do not say, ‘Uncross thy hands;’ for that is the way to bless thee most of all. I wish to put the greatest blessing upon thee; and therefore I have crossed my hands.” Providence is wonderfully intricate. You want always to see through Providence, do you not? You never will, I can assure you; you have not eyes good enough. You want to see what good that affliction was to you; you must believe it. You want to see how it can bring good to the soul; you may be enabled to do so in a little time; but you cannot see it now; you must believe it. Honour God by trusting him. God has many Gordian knots which wicked men may cut, and which righteous men may try to unravel, but which God alone can untie. We see the wicked prosper; they flourish, and great is their power, while the righteous are cast down. We say, “Why is this?” There are wheels within wheels. Do not fret yourselves because evil-doers are more prosperous than the godly. There may be a nation that seems to have right on its side; that nation may be crushed, and another nation, which is tyrannical, may get the victory. Do not ask, “Why is this?” You shall know the reason when you get up yonder. Do not attempt to do what Gabriel never dares to do,-to ask the reason why, for God will never give it.

I shall not detain you long over this point. The prophet saw the wheels, and he well says, “they turned not when they went,” they always went straightforward, they never turned to the right or to the left. Such is God’s Providence. Man marks out plans: he says, “I shall build this tower;” he gets it half up, and he finds he has not enough to finish it with; he has to pull it down, lay a smaller foundation, and build again. God never does so; he has a plan when he begins, and he carries that plan out; he lays the foundation, and he also lays the topstone. There are some persons who talk about God changing his purpose; such people do not know what God is at all. How could God change? God must either change from a better to a worse, or from a worse to a better. If he could change from a worse to a better, he is not perfect now; and if he could change from what he is to something worse, he would not be perfect then, and he would not be God. He cannot change, it is not possible that God should ever change or shift in any of his purposes. Can he change because he has not power? Why, sirs, he could girdle this globe with mountains, or move the hills into the sea. Can he change because he has not patience enough? What, he who from his purpose never swerves? Shall he change because he has made a mistake? Shall the Most High Jehovah ever harbour an error in his almighty mind? “To err is human.” With the Divine Being, the whole plan goes on to completion, and what he has ordained shall be. On the iron rock of destiny it is written, and it cannot be altered. God moves the wheel, and the wheel goes on; and though a thousand armies stand in the way to stop it, it still goes on. “They turned not when they went.”

I cannot make out what some of you do with your comfortless gospel,-believing that God loves you to-day, and hates you to-morrow, that you are a child of God one day, and a child of the devil the next. I could not believe a gospel like that. If I were a heathen, I could believe it at once, because I could manufacture a god of mud, that I could alter with my fingers, and change to any fashion. But if I once believe in the God who “was, and is, and is to come,” I know that he cannot change; and I feel a constancy of faith, and a firmness of hope, which the cares and trials of this mortal life cannot destroy. He will not cast off his people whom he hath chosen.

I shall not dwell on this point, but just remind you that the text says it is so: “As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four.” Even the man who knows that every wave that dashes against the ship is washing him nearer home,-that every breath of wind that rises comes to his sail, and fills it, and sends it to the white cliffs of his native Albion,-even the man who feels that everything is working for him,-even he must say that Providence is amazing. Oh, that thought, it staggers thought! It is an idea that overwhelms me,-that God is working in all that happens! The sins of man, the wickedness of our race, the crimes of nations, the iniquities of kings, the cruelties of wars, the terrific scourge of pestilence,-all these things are, in some mysterious way, working the will of God! I cannot explain this. I cannot tell you where human will and free agency unite with God’s sovereignty and with his unfailing decrees. This has been the place where intellectual gladiators have fought with each other since the time of Adam. Some have said, “Man does as he likes;” and others have said, “God does as he pleases.” In one sense they are both true; but there is no man who has brains or understanding enough to show where they meet. We cannot tell how it is that I do just as I please as to which street I shall go home by; and yet I cannot go home except through a certain road. John Newton used to say that there were two streets by which he could go to St. Mary Woolnoth; but Providence directed him as to which he should use. Last Sabbath-day, I came down a certain street,-I do not know why,-and there was a young man who wished to speak to me. I say that was God’s Providence,-that I might meet that young man. Here was Providence, and yet there was my choice; how, I cannot tell. I cannot comprehend it. I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes,-that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit as well as the sun in the heavens,-that the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as surely as the stars in their courses,-that the creeping of an aphis over a rosebud is as much fixed as the march of the devastating pestilence, and the fall of sere leaves from the poplar is as fully ordained as the tumbling of an avalanche. He who believes in God must believe this truth. There is no standing point between this and atheism. There is no half way between an almighty God who worketh all things according to the good pleasure of his own will and no god at all. A god who cannot do as he pleases,-a god whose will is frustrated, is not a God, and cannot be a God; I could not believe in such a god as that.

My closing idea is, that Providence is full of wisdom.

You will see this by the last part of the 18th verse: “and their rings were full of eyes round about them four.” You will say, this morning, “Our minister is a fatalist.” Your minister is no such thing. Some will say, “Ah! he believes in fate.” He does not believe in fate at all. What is fate? Fate is this, Whatever is, must be. But there is a difference between that and Providence. Providence says, Whatever God ordains, must be; but the wisdom of God never ordains anything without a purpose. Everything in this world is working for some one great end. Fate does not say that. Fate simply says that the thing must be; Providence says that God moves the wheels along, and there they are. If anything would go wrong, God puts it right; and if there is anything that would move awry, he puts forth his hand, and alters it. It comes to the same thing; but there is a difference as to the object. There is all the difference between fate and Providence that there is between a man with good eyes and a blind man. Fate is a blind thing; it is the avalanche crushing the villages down below the mountain and destroying thousands of lives. Providence is not an avalanche; it is a rolling river, rippling at the first like a rill down the sides of the mountain, followed by minor streams, till it rolls in the broad ocean of everlasting love, working for the good of the human race. The doctrine of Providence is not that what is, must be; but that, what is, works together for the good of our race, and especially for the good of the chosen people of God. The wheels were full of eyes; they were not blind wheels.

Let us close with the thought that there is the greatest wisdom in the workings of Providence. You were recently in great distress, and you could not see why it was so with you. The next time you are in distress, you must say, “The wheels of Providence are full of eyes: I have but two eyes; but God’s wheels are full of eyes. God can see everything; I can only see one thing at a time. I see it looks good for me now; I do not know what it will be to-morrow. I see what the plant is now; I do not know what it will be to-morrow. I know not what kind of flower that herb will yield. This affliction is a cassava root, full of poison, and would soon destroy me; but God can put that in the oven, so that all the poison shall evaporate, and it shall become food for me to live upon. This trouble of mine seems to me to be destructive; but God can take all the destroying power out of it, and so it shall be made into food for my soul.” Now, thou tried one, groaning down in the valley, up with thine heart; away with thy tears; put thy hand on thy breast; and make thy heart stop its hard beating. Thou poor soul, dash the cup of misery from thine hand; thou art not condemned; thou art a pardoned Christian. Remember that God hath said, “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose.” Oh, how I would like to make your hearts like flint and steel against trouble! We cannot bear the winds of trouble; we are soon cast down and broken-hearted. When we are in prosperity, we are giants; we think we can do like Samson did, that we can take hold of the two pillars of trouble and distress, and pull them down. But once tell us that the Philistines are upon us, and we have no power.

He who has faith is better than the stoic. The stoical philosopher bore trial because he believed it must be; the Christian bears it because he believes it is working for his good. The next time that trouble comes, or disease comes, or pestilence comes, smile at it, and say,-

“He that hath made his refuge God

Shall find a most secure abode,

Shall walk all day beneath his shade,

And there at night shall rest his head.”

Let this be thy shield to keep off the thrusts of distress; let this be thy high rock against all the winds of sorrow. Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

PSALM 103

Verse 1. Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.*

Come, my heart, be down in the dumps no longer, take thy harp from the willows, tune its strings, and begin to pour forth its music to the praise of love divine.

2-4. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;

This is a better crown than any emperor ever wore, unless he also was a child of God. Priceless gems and jewels rare adorn this wondrous coronet; “who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies.”

5-9. Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s. The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide:*-

Art thou suffering his chidings just now? They are good for thee, but they will not last for ever: “He will not always chide:”-

9, 10. Neither will he keep his anger for ever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins;-

It is all of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed: “He hath not dealt with us after our sins;”-

10-12. Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.†

Then, surely, he will also remove our troubles from us; but if not, as he has removed our transgressions so far away that they can never be brought back again, we have real cause for joy whatever happens to us here.

13. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.‡

The very best of them are only objects of pity. Though they are the best, they need that he should look down upon them with infinite compassion.

14-19. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children; to such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them. The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all.

What a comfort this is for us! Over the great as well as over the little, over all parts of the earth, as well where war rageth as where peace reigneth, “his kingdom ruleth over all.” Nothing happeneth without his permission, even the little things of life are ordered by him; the foreknown station of a rush by the riverside is as fixed as the place of a king, and the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as surely as the stars in their courses; for, to God, nothing is little and nothing is great.

20, 21. Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts;-

Let all the armies of heaven break forth into one song: “Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts;”-

21, 22. Ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure. Bless the Lord, all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the Lord, O my soul.