By the help of God the Holy Spirit, I want to use this incident, which forms a kind of episode in the rehearsal of the history of Israel’s forty years’ wanderings in the wilderness, for a twofold purpose. First, let me indicate its general teaching; and, secondly, let me take it as a ground of appeal to certain special classes.

First, I will try to indicate its general teaching.

I would ask your attention, and exhibit for your imitation, the faith which these five young women, the daughters of Zelophehad, possessed with regard to the promised inheritance. You must remember that the children of Israel were still in the wilderness. They had not seen the promised land, but God had made a covenant with them that they should possess it. He had declared that he would bring them into a land which floweth with milk and honey, and there plant them; and that that land should belong to them and to their descendants by a covenant of salt for ever. Now, these women believed in this heritage. They were not like Esau, who thought so little of the inheritance which was his birthright that he sold it to his brother Jacob for a mess of pottage; but they believed it to be really worth having. They regarded it, though they had never beheld it, as being something exceedingly substantial, and so looking upon it, they were afraid lest they should be left out when the land was divided; and though they had never seen it, yet, being persuaded that it was somewhere, and that the children of Israel would have it in due time, their anxiety was lest they, having no brothers, should be forgotten in the distribution, and so should lose their rights. They were anxious about an inheritance which they had never seen with their eyes, and therein I hold them up to the imitation of this present assembly. There is an inheritance that is far better than the land of Canaan. Oh, that we all believed in it, and longed for it! It is an inheritance, however, which mortal eye hath not seen, and the sounds whereof mortal ear hath not heard. It is a city whose streets are gold, but none of us have ever trodden them. Never hath traveller to that country come back to tell us of its glories. There the music never ceases; no discord ever mingles in it; it is sublime, but no member of the heavenly choir has ever come to write out for us the celestial score, or to-

“Teach us some melodious sonnet

Sung by flaming tongues above.”

It is not a matter of sight; it must be to each one of us a matter of faith. By faith we know that there is another and a better land. By faith we understand that our disembodied souls shall mount to be with Christ, and that, after a while, our bodies also shall rise to join our spirits, that body and soul may together be glorified for ever in the presence of our gracious Redeemer. We have never seen this land, however; but there are some of us who as firmly believe in it as if we had seen it, and are as certain of it and as fully persuaded as though these ears of ours had listened to its songs of joy, and these feet of ours had trodden its streets of gold.

There was this feature, too, about the faith of these five women, they knew that the inheritance was only to be won by encountering great difficulties. The spies who came back from the land had said that the men who dwelt in it were giants. They said, “We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” There was many a man, in the camp of Israel, I have no doubt, who said, “Well, I would sell my share cheaply enough; for though the land be there, we can never win it; they have cities walled up to heaven, and they have chariots of iron; we can never win the land.” But these women believed that, although they could not fight, God could; and though they had never put their fingers to a more terrible instrument than a needle, yet did they believe that the same right arm which got to itself the victory when they went with Miriam, dancing to the timbrel’s jubilant sound, would get the victory again, and bring God’s people in, and drive the Canaanites out, even though they had walled cities and chariots of iron.

So these women had strong faith. I would to God that you had the same, all of you, dear friends; but I know that some of you, who do believe that there is a land which floweth with milk and honey, are half afraid that you shall never reach it. You are vexed with many doubts because of your own weakness, which, indeed, should not merely make you doubt, but should make you utterly despair if the gaining of the goodly land depended upon your own fighting for it, and winning it; but, inasmuch as “the gift of God is eternal life,” and God himself will give it to us, and inasmuch as Jesus has gone up on high to prepare a place for us, and has promised that he will come again, and receive us unto himself that where he is there we may be also, I would to God that our doubts and fears were banished, and that we said within ourselves, “We are well able to go up and attack the land, for the Lord, even the Lord of hosts, is with us; Jehovah-nissi is our banner; the Lord our righteousness is our Helper, and we shall surely enter into the place of the beloved people of God, and shall join the general assembly and church of the firstborn which are written in heaven.”

I commend the faith of these women to you because, believing in the land, and believing that it would be won, they were not to be put about by the ill report of some who said that it was not a good land. There were ten out of the twelve who spied out the land who said, “It is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof.” They brought back an evil report. But, whoever may have been perverted by these falsehoods, these five women were not. Others said, “Why, the land is full of pestilence and hornets, and those who live in it now are dying,” forgetting that God was making them die in order to bring in the children of Israel in their stead; and so they said, “who cares to have a portion there? Give us the leeks, and the garlic, and the onions of Egypt, and let us sit again by the flesh-pots that we had at Rameses; but as for going on to this Canaan, we will never do it.” But these five women, who knew that, if there were troubles in the household, they would be sure to have their share of them; that if the bread ran short, they would be the most likely to feel the straitness of it; and that if it were a land of sickness, they would have to be the nurses, yet coveted to have their share in it, for they did not believe the ill report. They said, “No; God hath said it is a good land, a land of hills and valleys, a land of brooks and rivers, a land of oil olive and honey, a land out of whose hills we may dig iron, and brass; and we will not believe what these spies say; it is a good land, and we will go in and ask for our share of it.” So I commend their faith in this respect.

I know that some of you are occasionally met by sneering sceptics, and they say to you, “There is no such place as heaven; we have never seen it; are you such fools as to believe in it? Are you going on a pilgrimage over hedge and ditch, helter-skelter, to a country that you know nothing of? Are you going to trust that old-fashioned Book, and take God’s Word, and nothing but his Word, and believe it?” Oh, I hope there are many of us-would that all of us were in that happy position!-who can say, “It is even so.” Stand back, Mr. Atheist, and stop us not, for we are well persuaded that ours is no wild-goose chase. Stand back, Sir Ironical Sceptic; laugh if thou wilt. Thou wilt laugh on the other side of thy face one of these days, and we shall have the laugh of thee at that time. At any rate, if there be no heaven, we shall be as well off as thou wilt be; but if there be a hell, where, O where, wilt thou be, and what will thy portion be? So we go on our own way confident and sure, nothing doubting; believing, as surely as we believe in our own existence, that-

“Jesus, the Judge, will come

To take his people up

To their eternal home;”-

and believing that one hour with him will be worth all the trials of the road; worth enduring ten thousand deaths, if we could endure them, in order to win it; and that, moreover, by God’s grace we shall win it.

“We shall behold his face,

We shall his name adore,

And sing the wonders of his grace

Henceforth for evermore.”

So I hold up these daughters of Zelophehad to your commendation and imitation on account of their faith.

But there was another point. Feeling certain concerning the land, we must next commend them for their anxiety to possess a portion in it. Why did they think so much about it? I heard someone say, the other day, speaking of certain young people, “I do not like to see young women religious; they ought to be full of fun and mirth, and not have their minds filled with such profound thoughts.” Now, I will be bound to say that this kind of philosophy was accredited in the camp of Israel, and that there were a great many young women there who said, “Oh, there is time enough to think about the good land when we get there! Let us be polishing up our mirrors; let us be seeing to our dresses; let us understand how to put our fingers upon the timbrel when the time comes for it; but as for prosing about a portion among those Hivites and Hittites, what is the good of it? We will not bother ourselves about that.” But such was the strength of the faith of these five women that it led them to feel a deep anxiety for a share in the inheritance. They were not such simpletons as to live only for the present. They had outgrown their babyhood; they were not satisfied to live merely for the day. They knew that, in due time, the tribes would cross the Jordan, and would be in the promised land, so they began, as it were, like good housewives, to think about where their portion would be, and to reflect that, were they left out when the muster-roll was read, and should no portion be appointed for Tirzah, and no portion for Milcah, and no place for any of the five sisters, they would be like beggars and outcasts in the midst of the land. The thought of all others having their plot of ground, and their family having none, made them anxious about it. O dear friends, how anxious you and I ought to be to make our calling and election sure, and how solemnly should that question of the Countess of Huntingdon come home to our hearts,-

“But can I bear the piercing thought-

What if my name should be left out,

When thou for them shalt call?”

Suppose I should have no portion in the skies! O ye foundations of chrysolyte and all manner of precious stones, ye gates of pearl, ye walls of jasper, must I never own you? O troops of angels, and armies of the blood-bought, must I never wave the palm or wear the crown in your midst? Must the word that salutes me be that awful sentence, “Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire?” Is there no place for me, no room for me, in the inheritance of the saints? I do beseech you, never be satisfied till you can answer this question in the affirmative, and say, “Yes, I have a place in Jesu’s heart; I have been washed in Jesu’s blood; and therefore I shall be with Jesus where he is in his glory when the fitting time cometh.” Oh, I would have you who are not sure about this, be as anxious as these women were! Let it press upon your hearts, let it even take the colour from your cheek, sooner than that you should have an empty and frivolous gaiety and mirth, which will entice you down to the pit. Oh, do make sure work for eternity! Whatever else you trifle with, do seek to have an anchor that will hold you fast in the last great storm. Do seek to be affianced unto Christ. Be sure that you are founded upon the Rock of ages, where alone we can safely build for eternity.

These women were taken up with prudent anxious thoughts about their own part in the land of promise, and they were right in desiring to have a portion there when they recollected that the land had been given by covenant to their fathers. They might well wish to have a part in a thing good enough to be a covenant blessing. The land had been promised over and over again by divine authority; they might well wish to have a share in that which God’s own lips had promised. It was a land to bring them into which God had smitten the firstborn of Egypt, and saved his people by the sprinkling of blood; they might well desire a land which cost so great a price to bring them to it. Besides, it was a goodly land; it was the most princely of all lands, peerless amongst all the territories of earth. Its products were most rich. The grapes of Eshcol, what could equal them? Its pomegranates, its olives, its rivers, the land that flowed with milk and honey, there was nothing like it in all the world besides. These women might well say, “Let us have a portion there!”

And, my dear hearers, the heaven of which we have to tell you is a land so good that it was spoken of in the covenant before the world was. It has been promised to the people of God ten thousand times. Jesus Christ has shed his precious blood that he might open the gates of it, and bring us in. And it is such a land that, if you had but seen it, if you could but know what it is, you would pine away in stopping here; for its very dust is gold, its meanest joys are richer than the transports of earth, and the poorest in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he who is the mightiest prince in the kingdoms of this world. Oh, that your mouths were set a-longing after the feasts of paradise! Oh, that ye pined to be where Jesus is; and then, surely, you would be anxious to know whether you had a portion there.

I hold these women up as an example, because they believed in the unseen inheritance, and they were anxious to get their portion in it.

But I must commend them yet again for the way in which they set about the business. I do not find that they went complaining from tent to tent that they were afraid that they had no portion. Many doubters do that; they tell their doubts and fears to others, and they get no further. But these five women went straight away to Moses. He was at their head, he was their mediator; and then it is said that “Moses brought their cause before the Lord.” You see, these women did not try to get what they wanted by force. They did not say, “We will take care to get our share of the land when we get there.” They did not suppose that they had any merit which they might plead, and so get it; but they went straight away to Moses, and Moses took their cause, and laid it before the Lord. Dost thou want a portion in heaven, sinner? Go straight away to Jesus, and Jesus will take thy cause, and lay it before the Lord. It is a very sorry one as it stands by itself; but he has such a sweet way of so mixing himself up with thee, and thyself with him, that his cause and thy cause will be one cause, and the Father will give him good success, and give thee good success too. Oh, that someone here would breathe the prayer, if he has never prayed before, “Saviour, wilt thou see that I have a portion in the skies? Precious Saviour, take my poor heart, and wash it in thy precious blood, and change it by thy Holy Spirit, and make me ready to dwell where perfect saints are! Oh, do thou undertake my cause for me, thou blessed Advocate, and plead it before thy Father’s face!” That is the way to have the business of salvation effectually done. Put it out of your own hands into the hands of the Prophet like unto Moses, and you will surely speed.

Now, observe the success of these women. The Lord accepted their plea, for he said unto Moses, “The daughters of Zelophehad speak right.” Yes; and when thou criest to him, and when his dear Son takes thy prayer to him, God will say, “That sinner speaks right.” Beat on thy breast, and cry, “God be merciful to me a sinner;” and he will say, “That soul speaks right.” Young woman, imitate these five sisters now. May God the Holy Spirit bring you to imitate them by humbly offering your plea through the Mediator, Jesus Christ, and God will say, “Ah, she speaks right; I have heard her; I have accepted her.” And then God said that these sisters should have their portion just the same as the men had, that they should have their share of land just as if they had inherited it as sons; and so will God say to every seeking sinner. Whatever may be the disability under which you labour, whatever bar there may have seemed to be to your claim, you shall inherit amongst the children, you shall take your part and your lot amongst the chosen people of God. Christ has set your cause before his Father, and it shall be unto you, poor sinner, according to your desire, and you shall have a part amongst the Lord’s people.

I wish I had power to press this matter more immediately home upon you. Many of us who are now present are saved. It is a great satisfaction to remember how large a proportion of my congregation has come to Christ; but, oh, there are many, many here who are-well, what are they? They do not know that they have any inheritance. They cannot read their title clear to mansions in the skies; and, what is worse, they are unconcerned about it. If they were troubled about it, we should have hope concerning them; but no, they go their way, and, like Pliable, having got out of the Slough of Despond, they turn round, and say to Christians, “You may have the brave country all to yourselves for all we care.” They are so fond of present pleasures, so easily enticed by the wily whispers of the arch-enemy, so soon overcome by their own passions, that they find it too hard to be Christians; to love Christ is a thing too difficult for them. Ah! may God meet with you, and make you wiser! Poor souls, you will perish, some of you will perish while you are looking on at this world’s bubbles and baubles! You will perish; you will go down to hell with this earth’s joys in your mouths, and they will not sweeten those mouths when the pangs of hell get hold upon you! Your life is short; your candle flickers in its socket. You must soon go the way of all flesh. We never meet one week after another without some death occurring between. Out of this vast number, surely it is all but impossible that we should ever all meet here again. Perhaps, before this day week, some of us will have passed the curtain, have learned the great secret, and have entered the invisible world. Whose portion will it be? If it be thine, dear hearer, wilt thou mount to worlds of joy, or shall-

“Devils plunge thee down to hell

In infinite despair”?

God make that a matter of concern with us first, and then may we come to Jesus, and receive the sprinkling of his precious blood; and thus may he make it a matter of confidence with us that we are saved through him, and shall be partakers with them that are sanctified!

Secondly, I am going to use the whole incident as a ground of appeal to certain special classes.

Does it not strike you that there is here a special lesson for our unconverted sisters? Here are five daughters, I suppose young women, certainly unmarried women, and these five were unanimous in seeking to have a portion where God had promised it to his people. Have I any young women here who have not acted like that? I am afraid I have! Blessed be God for the many who come in among us who become solemnly impressed, and give their young days to Jesus; but there are some, there may be some here, of another mind. The temptations of this wicked Metropolis, the pleasures of this perilous city, lead them away from the right path, and prevent them from giving a fair hearing to God’s Word. Well, but you are here, my sister, and may I, as a brother, put this question to you? Do you not desire a portion in the skies? Have you no wish for glory? Have you no longing for the everlasting crown? Can you sell Christ for a few hours of mirth? Will you give him up for a giddy song or an idle companion? Those are not your friends who would lead you from the paths of righteousness. Count them not dear, but loathe them, if they would entice you from Christ. But, as you will certainly die, and will as certainly live for ever in endless woe or in boundless bliss, do see to your souls. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” and all other needful things shall be added to you. You have come fresh from the country, young woman, and, leaving your mother’s care, it is very likely that you have begun to absent yourself from the means of grace, but I charge you not to do so. On the contrary, let this bind you to your mother’s God, and may you feel that, whereas you may have hitherto neglected God’s house, and profaned God’s day, yet henceforth, like the daughters of Zelophehad, you will seek to have a portion in the promised land.

The subject bears another way. Has it not a voice, and a loud voice too, to the children of godly parents? I like these young women saying that their father did not die with Korah, but that he only died the ordinary death which fell upon others because of the sin of the wilderness; and also their saying, “Why should the name of our father be done away from among his family, because he hath no son?” It is a good thing to see this respect to parents, this desire to keep up the honour of the family. I was thinking whether there may not be some here, some children of godly parents, who would feel it a sad thing if they should bring disgrace upon the family name. Is it so, that though your father has been for many years a Christian, he has not one to succeed him? O young man, have you no ambition to stand in his place, no wish to let his name be perpetuated in the Church of God? Well, if the sons have no such ambition, or if there be none, let the daughters say to one another, “Our father never disgraced his profession, he did not die in the company of them that gathered themselves together against the Lord, but he served the Lord faithfully, and we will not let his name be blotted out from Israel; we will join ourselves to the people of God, and the family shall be represented still.” But, oh, how I desire that the brothers and sisters would come together, and what a delightful thing it would be to see the whole family! In that household there were only five girls, but they all had their heritage. O father, would you not be happy if it should be so with your children? Mother, would you not be ready to say, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy Word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation,” if you could see all your children brought in? And why not, my brethren, why not? We will give God no rest until it is so; we will plead with him until they are all saved. And, young people, why not? The Lord’s mercy is not straitened. The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, and your father’s God, we trust, will be your God. Oh, that you would follow in the footsteps of your parents so far as they followed Christ! These daughters of Zelophehad seem to me to turn preachers, and I stand here to speak for them, and all five of them say to you, “We gained our inheritance by seeking for it through a mediator. Young women, brothers and sisters, you shall gain it, too, by seeking it through a Saviour.”

And does not this text also speak to another class-to orphans? These good girls had lost their parents, or otherwise the question would not have arisen. Father and mother had passed away, and therefore they had to go to Moses for themselves. When the parents could not come to Moses for them, they came for themselves. Think of the skies a moment, some of you. Perhaps you were this morning in a very different place, but think of the skies a minute. No, I do not mean the meteoric stones; I do not mean the stars, nor yon bright moon; but I want you to think of your mother, who is yonder. Do you remember when she gave you the last kiss, and bade you farewell, and said, “Follow me, my children, follow me to the skies”? Think of a father who is there, his voice, doubtless, helping to swell the everlasting hallelujah. Does he not beckon you from the battlements of heaven, and cry, “Children of my loins, follow me as I followed Christ”? Some of us have an honoured grandsire there, an honoured grandmother there. Many of you have little infants there, young angels whom God lent you for a little time, and then took them to heaven to show you the way, to lure you to go upwards too. You have all some dear friends there with whom you walked to God’s house in company. They have gone, but I charge you, by the living God, to follow them. Break not your households in twain. Let no solemn rifts and rents come into the family; but, as they have gone to their rest, God grant unto you by the same road to come and rest eternally too. Jesus Christ is ready to receive sinners; he is ready to receive you, and if you trust him, the joy and bliss which now your friends partake of shall be yours also. Daughters of godly parents, children of those who have gone before to eternal glory, I entreat you look to Jesus; go and present your suit to him now. It shall surely prosper. If the question was once doubtful, it has now become “a statute of judgment.” The Lord has commanded it. May God bless these counsels and exhortations to you, for Christ’s sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

GENESIS 1

Chapter 1 Verse 1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

When that “beginning” was, we cannot tell. It may have been long ages before God fitted up this world for the abode of man, but it was not self-existent; it was created by God, it sprang from the will and the word of the all-wise Creator.

2. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

When God began to arrange this world in order, it was shrouded in darkness, and it had been reduced to what we call, for want of a better name, “chaos.” This is just the condition of every soul of man when God begins to deal with him in his grace; it is formless, and empty of all good things. “There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way.”

2. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

This was the first act of God in preparing this planet to be the abode of man, and the first act of grace in the soul is for the Spirit of God to move within it. How that Spirit of God comes there, we know not; we cannot tell how he acts, even as we cannot tell how the wind bloweth where it listeth; but until the Spirit of God moves upon the soul nothing is done towards its new creation in Christ Jesus.

3, 4. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

“Light be.” “Light was.” God had but to speak the word, and the great wonder was accomplished. How there was light before there was any sun,-for the sun was not created until the fourth day of the week,-it is not for us to say. But God is not dependent upon his own creation. He can make light without a sun, he can spread the gospel without the aid of ministers, he can convert souls without any human or angelic agency, for he does as he wills in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.

5. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

It is a good thing to have the right names for things. An error is often half killed when you know the real name of it; its power lies in its being indescribable; but as soon as you can call it “darkness,” you know how to act towards it. It is a good thing also to know the names of truths, and the names of other things that are right. God is very particular in the Scripture about giving people their right names. The Holy Spirit says, “Judas, not Iscariot,” so that there should be no mistake about the person intended. Let us also always call persons and things by their right names: “God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.”

“And the evening and the morning were the first day.” Darkness first, and light afterwards. It is so with us spiritually; first darkness, then light. I suppose that, until we get to heaven, there will be both darkness and light in us; and as to God’s providential dealings, we must expect darkness as well as light. They will make up our first day and our last day, till we get where there are no days but the Ancient of Days.

6-8. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

“The firmament”-an expanse of air in which floated the waters which afterwards condensed, and fell upon the earth in refreshing showers. These waters above were divided from the waters below. Perhaps they were all one steamy conglomeration before, but now they are separated.

Note those four words, “and it was so.” Whatever God ordains always comes. You will find that it is true of all his promises that, whatever he has said, shall be fulfilled to you, and you shall one day say of it all, “And it was so.” It is equally certain concerning all his threatenings that what he has spoken shall certainly be fulfilled, and the ungodly will have to say, “And it was so.” These words are often repeated in this chapter. They convey to us the great lesson that the word of God is sure to be followed by the deed of God. He speaks, and it is done.

9-13. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.

Having attended to the air, God further exercised his power by setting the earth in order. Observe the remarkable fact that, no sooner had God made the dry land appear, than it seemed as if he could not bear the sight of it in its nakedness. What a strange place this world must have looked, with its plains and hills and rocks and vales without one single blade of grass, or a tree, or a shrub; so at once, before that day was over, God threw the mantle of verdure over the earth, and clad its mountains and valleys with forests and plants and flowers, as if to show us that the fruitless is uncomely in God’s sight, that the man who bears no fruit unto God is unendurable to him. There would be no beauty whatever in a Christian without any good works, and with no graces. As soon as ever the earth appeared, then came the herb, and the tree, and the grass. So, dear brethren, in like manner, let us bring forth fruit unto God, and bring it forth abundantly, for herein is our heavenly Father glorified, that we bear much fruit.

14-19. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Whether the sun and moon are here said to be absolutely created, or whether they were only created so far as our planet was concerned by the dense vapours being cleared away so that the sun and moon and stars could be seen, is a matter of no consequence at all to us. Let us rather learn a lesson from them. These lights are to rule, but they are to rule by giving light. And, brethren, this is the true rule in the Church of God. He who gives most light is the truest ruler; and the man who aspires to leadership in the Church of God, if he knows what he is at, aspires to be the servant of all by laying himself out for the good of all, even as our Saviour said to his disciples, “Whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.” The sun and moon are the servants of all mankind, and therefore do they rule by day and by night. Stoop, my brothers, if you wish to lead others. The way up is downward. To be great, you must be little. He is the greatest who is nothing at all unto himself, but all for others.

20-23. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

There was no life in the sea or on the land until all was ready for it. God would not make a creature to be unhappy. There must be suitable food to feed upon, and the sun and moon to cheer and comfort, ere a single bird shall chirp in the thicket or a solitary trout shall leap in the stream. So, after God has given men light, and blessed them in various ways, their spiritual life begins to develop to the glory of God. We have the thoughts that soar like fowl in the open firmament of heaven, and other thoughts that dive into the mysteries of God, as the fish dive in the sea; and these are after-developments, after-growths of that same power which at the first said, “Let there be light.”

24, 25. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

There is as much wisdom and care displayed in the creation of the tiniest creeping insect as in the creation of leviathan himself. Those who use the microscope are as much amazed at the greatness and the goodness of God as those are who use the telescope. He is as great in the little as he is in the great.

After each day’s work, God looks upon it; and it is well for us every night to review our day’s work. Some men’s work will not bear looking at, and to-morrow becomes all the worse to them because to-day was not considered and its sin repented of by them. But if the errors of to-day are marked by us, a repetition of them may be avoided on the morrow. It is only God who can look upon any one day’s work, and say of it, as a whole, and in every part, that it is “good.” As for us, our best things need sprinkling with the blood of Christ, which we need not only on the lintels and side posts of our house, but even on the altar and the mercy-seat at which we worship God.

26-28. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

God evidently meant the two persons, male and female, to complete the man, and the entireness of the manhood lies in them both. The earth is completed now that man has come upon it, and man is completed when the image of God is upon him, when Christ is formed in him the hope of glory, but not till then. When we have received the power of God, and have dominion over ourselves, and over all earthly things, in the power of God’s eternal Spirit, then are we where and what God intends us to be.

29, 30. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

Now you see God’s commissariat. He has not made all these creatures in order to starve them, but he has supplied them with great variety and abundance of food, that their wants may be satisfied. Does God care for the cattle, and will he not feed his own children? Does he provide for ravens and sparrows, and will he suffer you to lack anything, O ye of little faith? Observe that God did not create man until he had provided for him; neither will he ever put one work of his providence or of his grace out of its proper place, but that which goes before shall be preparatory to that which follows after.

31. And God saw every thing that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

Taken in its completeness, and all put together, God saw that it was very good. We must never judge anything before it is complete.

ESTABLISHED WORK

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, April 29th, 1909,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Thursday Evening, February 20th, 1873.

“Establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.”-Psalm 90:17.

Some of us have been to the grave this afternoon, and the most forcible impression upon our minds at this time is that of our mortality. We cannot, in burying others, say, “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” without thinking of the time when we too shall be laid in the silent grave. The thought that we are, yet are not, that we are but as shadows that flit across the path of life,-coming, going, scarcely come ere we are gone,-the thought of our mortality has led us to ask concerning our work,-Is that mortal too? Will that die like ourselves? Some of us have darling objects, high designs, great enterprises on our hearts; are all those shadows? We are as the grass of the field; are they also grass? Will the scythe that cuts us down cut them down too? Truly, if we thought it would be so, it would give double bitterness to the remembrance of our own mortality to think that our work was mortal as well as ourselves.

Perhaps it was that feeling which led Moses, the great prophet-poet of the wilderness, to cry, “If we die, if we pass away, yet ‘establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.’ ” Every good man, who is doing a good work, has a sincere desire that his work should continue. This is not a wrong desire; it is in the highest degree right. We wish not to build with wood, hay, and stubble, which we know will be consumed,-and if our work be of that kind, we must not pray for its continuance; but if we believe that we are building with gold, silver, and precious stones, we may pray, for the prayer is a most proper one, and the thought that suggests the prayer is a right one, “Establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.”

At the same time, let me here remark that it is the work of God which is the ground of our confidence and peace; but our own work-even that which we dare ask God to establish,-can never be such a comfort and stay to us, for it is always a cause of anxiety to us. It is a very strange thing that unconverted men should ever look to their own works for peace and comfort, since even to Christians their own works are rather a source of anxiety than of consolation. I feel sure that every true worker for God knows that it is so. The more you do for God, the more care you have pressing upon you; and though grace enables you to cast that care upon him whose work it really is, yet still care does naturally arise out of all work for God to those who are truly concerned in it. Hence our works never can become the source of our truest consolation. They may become evidences to us of God’s presence with us, and may yield to our conscience a measure of peace; but, still, the anxiety which will always spring out of good works will counterbalance any sort of comfort that can come from them. It is to God’s work, not our own, that we have to look: “ ‘Let thy work appear unto thy servants.’ We are willing to work for thee, Lord; but let us always have our eye on thy work. We shall never serve thee acceptably unless our eye is directed towards what thou hast done for us rather than towards what we do for thee. There is no glory in our work, but ‘let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory,’ which always goes with it, ‘unto their children.’ Let us see thy glorious work, thy finished work; let us see it always, let us see it living, let us see it dying, and so we, thy servants, will praise thee even when our hearts are anxious, believing that thou wilt remove our anxiety: ‘Let thy work appear unto thy servants, … and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it?’ ”

I am going to try to answer three questions concerning our work for God. Firstly, what part of our work can we ask God to establish? Secondly, in what way is he likely to establish it? And, thirdly, if we are praying as Moses did, what ought to be our mode of action to correspond with such a prayer?

First, then, what kind of work can we ask god to establish? The ungodly must not pray, “Establish thou the work of our hands upon us;” it would be blasphemy for them to do so. If the work be evil, God cannot establish it. Jesus Christ has been revealed to destroy all the works of the devil; and when he is destroying the works of the devil, he will destroy all the works that have been wrought by men possessed by the spirit of evil. Nothing that has been wrought unrighteously will be allowed to stand, neither can we ask God to make it stand without supposing God to be such an one as ourselves, which he is not, and can never be. God will not help thee in that which is wrong, ungodly man, however much thou mayest try to interweave his holy name with thy unrighteous actions.

And remember, too, that God will never establish our works if they are intended to rival the works of his Son. Some people work very hard in trying to make a righteousness of their own; but if they could achieve their purpose, they would then be independent of a Saviour. Their attempted obedience to the law of God is intended to be a substitute for the perfect righteousness of Christ, and their tears and repentances are intended to be a substitute for the atoning sacrifice of Christ; but do you suppose that God will ever take the side of those who would fain rival his Son, and make the work of his Son needless? That can never be! Self-righteousness is the direst of insults to the Son of God. If I conceive myself to be righteous and meritorious in God’s sight, I do, as far as in me lies, cast a reflection upon the wisdom of God, for I tell him that, although he provided a Saviour, one was not needed, at any rate for me. I also insult the blood of Jesus, for I tell him that it was shed unnecessarily, at least as far as I am concerned, for I have no sin needing to be washed away. I insult the Holy Ghost too, for I tell him that I do not need a new birth, for I am already as good as I need to be. Self-righteousness insults the Triune Jehovah, and therefore we cannot ask God to establish it. If we were sensible, we should pray God to pull it down, every stick and stone of it. And rest assured, sinners, that if God ever does save you, he will do that as one of the first things; for every stone that our fancied nobility has ever put upon its fellow with a view to building a refuge for ourselves, God will take down; not one stone shall be left upon another if God is ever to save us. One of the most deplorable things that could ever happen to a man would be for him to be allowed to dwell comfortably in a refuge of lies until the storm of divine judgment should sweep both himself and his refuge away for ever. Dear hearer, may I ask whether thy work is a self-righteous one, whether thou art trying to save thyself? For if so, this prayer of Moses cannot properly be used by thee, neither can God hear it with acceptance. No wicked works, and no self-righteous works may we ask God to establish.

But may we ask God to establish the ordinary works and engagements of our daily life? Yes, assuredly we may. If thou art a servant of God, thou hast learnt to eat and drink to his glory, and thy commonest actions are a part of the holy priesthood to which all believers are called. Thou art thyself a priest, and all that thou doest is a part of thy service for God in his holy temple, for God’s temple is not this Tabernacle nor any other building. Wherever there is a true heart, there is a temple for God; and wherever there is a renewed heart, there is a priest for God; and that is the only temple and the only priest that God wants with the exception of the Great High Priest who stands for us before the throne of the Most High. Well then, whatever thou art doing, if thou art doing it thus before God, thou mayest ask him to prosper and establish it. Why not? When Abraham’s servant went down to Padan-aram to find a wife for Isaac, he did not say, This matrimonial arrangement is secular business, so I must not pray about it;” but he did pray about it, and God guided him, and prospered his errand. And David, when he wanted to know whether he should go to certain places to fight his enemies, enquired of the Lord, “Shall I go up?” and the Lord gave the answers to his petitions.

We should do well always to make little things as well as great things the objects of prayer. I am afraid that many people fail for want of due attention to little things. It is not always the great things in which a man slips, but it is often the little things which trip him up. Great matters he naturally takes to God, being diffident of his own judgment; but little matters he decides according to what he considers his own wisdom, and his own wisdom is generally nothing but the most arrant folly. The Israelites were never so grossly deceived as when the case seemed perfectly clear to them. There were the Gibeonites with old shoes and clouted upon their feet, so it was evident that they must have come from a distant land. They had dry and mouldy bread, so no doubt what they said was true, that they had taken it hot out of the oven when they set out on their journey, and it had become mouldy from the long distance that they had carried it. There was no need for the people to call the priest, and seek advice from God, the case was so clear that nobody could be deceived; their own common sense was quite sufficient to guide them,-so they said. Had it been a puzzling case, they would have asked the Lord to guide them; but being so very plain, they were deceived, and made a great mistake. Take care always to consult God about those very plain things as you consider them.

Still, beloved, I should be very sorry to see this prayer limited to such matters as these. It should be used concerning them, but it must also be used to higher ends, or else it will be to a large extent wasted. True Christians live for God, and work for God, and every one of us who claims to be a Christian is either working for God or else an impostor. I repeat my declaration that the man who calls himself a Christian, and yet does nothing for Christ, is an impostor. He professes to be a fruit-bearing tree, yet he bears no fruit; he declares himself to be salt, yet he has no savour; he says that he is a light to the world, yet he never helps to remove its darkness by scattering his beams. But every genuine Christian is a worker for Christ, and work done for God is the kind of work which we may ask God to establish, and it is that work which will in the highest sense be established.

What great works men have performed, and yet how little has been the length of their endurance! When the great city of Babylon was built, we can scarcely conceive how vast it was; but where is it now? Its site may be known, but its power is gone; its kings have long since passed away, and its glory has departed. Then there was that mighty city of Nineveh, with all the power which was connected with the Assyrians. Then there was the Persian empire, and the Persian kings with great diligence built up very powerful states; yet they were not established by God, and all the might of Persia melted away. The Romans also built up a vast empire. What a great metropolis they made Rome to be! As we walk amidst its massive walls, so stupendous that they look as if they must have been the work of giants, we see how the greatest works of men without God are not established. Let them build as solidly as they may, their mightiest works pass away like the child’s sand castles built on the beach that are washed away by the next tide. Nothing that man makes for man will endure. Build on, ye despots; but Time, a mightier king than you, will pull down all that you put up. And the very revolutions of society, as men change from one phase of thought to another, overturn each other, and that which it seemed right to establish yesterday, it seems needful to overthrow to-morrow. It is not merely empires that are thus cast down, but systems of religion and works that have apparently been done for God have gone too; and schools of thought, that ruled human minds, have passed away, and now they are not, all teaching us that only that which is really done for God, and that which is of God, will be established by God.

This leads me to say that I think the work we may pray God to establish is, first, the work of soul-winning, the work of bringing sinners to the Saviour; and, next, the work of upbuilding of a church; and, then, the work of testifying to the truth as it is in Jesus, a work which, is sadly neglected in these degenerate times. The work of soul-saving-when we have earnestly laboured to bring sinners to faith in Jesus, and have cried to the eternal God for the quickening power of his Holy Spirit to regenerate them,-we may certainly pray God that that work may be established. And then, when we have gathered Christians together, and God has given us grace to put them in their places in his Church, and the Holy Spirit has rested upon us so that the work under our hands has been God’s work as well as ours, we may certainly pray that God would build up his own Church, and establish it. And when we have borne testimony to the truth, we may and we must very earnestly pray that that truth may be spread still more widely, that it may not be forgotten by those who hear it, but may abide in their hearts, and that it may come to the front, and may influence men and women more than it has done hitherto. Thus we may pray that our witness-bearing for Jesus may be established.

I do not know what particular form of service may have fallen to the lot of my dear brethren and sisters here; but, in any case, we may pray that what we have done for God may be established; only let us remember that God will only establish work that is really and truly done for him. We can only pray to God, in the language of this prayer, to establish “the work of our hands.” There must be real work, and it must be two-handed work, we must throw our whole strength into it. I cannot expect God to establish that work over which I have trifled. If I have served God in such a way that it is palpable that I did not think the work very important, I cannot ask him to establish it. We have a great deal of talking about the gospel nowadays; we should have the truth spread everywhere if talking would do it; but it is “the work of our hands” that is wanted, real service, the putting out of our strength, the using of all our vigour, and wit, and wisdom, and the skill of the craftsman who has been trained to some special form of handiwork. When a man throws his whole soul into what he has done for the Lord, so that he can claim that the work of his hands is real work done as unto the Lord, then he may ask God to establish it. But it must be work that is truly done, for I am afraid that there is a great deal talked about that never is done. I am not quite sure about those thirty persons that were said to have been converted the other night at a certain meeting. I cannot always rely upon the information received from a certain brother who goes here and there, and who is quite sure that so many were converted one night, and so many another night. I shall be glad if it is true, but I am not quite clear about it; there is a good deal of “flash in the pan” about his work. I read, in certain newspapers, of the work done by an earnest brother well known to some of you; and I tried to find any trace of it, but I could not find any sign of it a few months afterwards. I am sorry to say that I have seen many churches “revived” until there has been nothing left of them. I am very dubious of a great deal that I have heard that seems to me like unholy boasting. If the work was exactly as it was said to be, there ought to have been a very great difference in certain towns from what there is now. My dear brother, if God has done a great work by you, don’t you go and brag about it. If it is needful for you sometimes to tell what the Lord has done in saving souls through your instrumentality, tell it very discreetly, giving God all the glory; but blowing the trumpet, and shouting, “Come and see our zeal for the Lord of hosts,” I believe brings a blight and a blast upon everything that is done. God, the Holy Ghost, must be displeased if we make a boast of any work that is done by us, and he will not establish any work of that sort. The real bona fide “work of our hands” God will establish, but he will not establish that which we try to puff into something like importance by pretty paragraphs in the newspapers about what wonderful things have been performed by us. The bare truth, plain transparent facts, we may give; but anything like exaggeration should be loathed by the Christian because it is untruthful, and it should be shunned by every wise man because it leads to bitter disappointment. God will only establish work that is really and truly done for him.

And I believe, further, that no work is ever really established by God unless it is founded upon downright truth. No doubt there is a great deal of work which God owns although all in it is not truth. God prospered the work of Whitefield and the work of Wesley; but did that prove the truth of all that Whitefield or Wesley preached? No; but it proved that both of them had a measure of truth in their preaching, and that measure of truth God blessed; but God would not establish anything that they taught in error. It may last for a while, and some of it has lasted, I am afraid, much longer than is good for us; but it will have to go sooner or later. There was Luther also; he taught a great deal of truth, and that truth will last; but he also taught some error, and the consequence is that there is a great deal to-day in Lutheranism which is doing much mischief. That will not last; it will have to go the way of all errors. That very point which God will destroy because it is erroneous may be that for which we contend with the greatest vigour. God will not establish any of his servants’ work which is not the truth, and I am sure that every faithful servant of his is glad of that. What a mercy it is, if I do some mischief when I am trying to do my Master’s work, that the good work I do will last, but the bad I do, forgiven by his infinite mercy, shall by his great wisdom be swept away ere long! Error shall not always remain to do mischief; it is the truth that will abide. Hence, I think that we ought never to seek to do good by stating what is not true. There is a great deal of preaching of that which is not truth in the hope that it will be the means of converting people, but it is of no use. God will establish the truth; but if we keep back any Scriptural doctrines, or if we cut the corners off them in order to make them more acceptable to our hearers, God will not establish our work. He is the God of truth, and he will not set his seal to lies.

Hence, beloved, it is so important that every man, who works for God, should seek always to work in harmony with the Spirit of truth. We have known some whose guiding star has been “policy.” One of these has said, “Suppose I were to leave such-and-such a church, which is in part erroneous, what would become of my work?” Dear brother, are you going to do a wrong thing in the hope of saving your work? Have you subscribed to that wicked maxim, “Let us do evil that good may come?” After all, what have I to do with the consequences of right actions? Is it not my business, if I have learned any truth, to follow it wherever it will lead me? It will not lead me into a morass, for it is God’s light, and it will only lead me into God’s way. If heaven could only stand by a Christian telling a lie, in God’s name let it fall, for the ruin of it would be a less calamity than for a true man to turn aside to falsehood. Stand upright, and then shall you be as God would have you to be; but the double-minded, the wavering, those that lean first this way and then that, with craft trimming their sails to this wind, and then adjusting them to that, whither will they go? And how can we expect the God of truth ever to establish such “policy” as that? Let our work be true work, done in truth, and with truthful maxims to guide us; for then we may bring it before God, and say, “Establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.”

Do not try to build fast, as so many do, using untempered mortar which will not hold their buildings together. Do not try to build beyond or short of the foundation lines which Christ has laid down for you. You would not employ a bricklayer who said to you, “I can get a house up much more quickly than by ordinary methods; I don’t need to use the plumbline to see whether the walls are straight or not; I do not trouble about how I put the bricks in the interior of the building; I can leave a blank here, and a gap there; nobody will know it. There is no particular need why I should make the bricks fit the one to the other, as long as I put a good facing on the front, that will do.” Such a man as that may think that he has done well, but when the master comes, he says, “All this has to be cleared away before I can do anything. You have just been doing mischief, and you have wasted all the day in which you ought to have worked.” So, young man, if you go to a church, and want to see it quickly built up, and begin to take unconverted people into membership, or get up a great excitement, and receive a large number of persons without any careful examination, or preach what is not sound doctrine, so that big worldly people in the neighbourhood come to hear you, and say, “See how fast he is building,” when the Master comes, he will point out what mischief you have been doing, and he will send a better man to do the work; and that better man’s chief trouble will be to get rid of what this fast builder has put up. Let none of us build like that, but may God give us the grace to build what he can establish, for it is not everything that he can establish consistently with his own character for truth and uprightness.

I must not devote more time to that point, but must notice, secondly, and briefly, the manner in which God may answer this prayer: “Establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.”

Possibly, for the establishment of our work, it may be necessary for us to die. Many a man is, perhaps unconsciously, hindering his own work; and if the work is to be established, it needs somebody else to come and do it. I may again use the very homely simile of a bricklayer; if he were to say to his master, “Let me finish the house that I have built,” the answer would be, “I do not need you any longer, you have done your part of the work; other workmen must finish the building.” So, sometimes, one good man is like the bricklayer, and another good man roofs in what he has built, or does all the work in the interior of the house. There is a time for all of us to die for the good of our own work; and, often, the removal of an eminent Christian man is not the loss to the Church of Christ that we think it must be. Perhaps you have seen a great oak tree which has covered quite a large area with its widely-spreading branches; and when it has been cut down, you have all regretted it, it seemed as if there would be a huge gap; but there were a dozen little oaks that never would have come to anything because they could not get sunshine or rain while they were overshadowed by that great oak; but when that was cut down, all those others began to grow, so that, instead of one tree, you had a dozen. And the removal of one eminent Christian has often been the means of letting sunlight in to somebody who was obscured before, but who now, in the providence of God, is made strong and useful. So it may be needful for some men to die in order that their own work may be established. If it is so with us, we may well be content to go to heaven sol that our prayers may be answered.

But, dear brethren and sisters in Christ, there are some very sweet thoughts connected with working for God. When a soul is saved by our means, our work is established, for Satan himself cannot undo that work. Death may take that believer away, but that will be the completion of the work. Now the wheat is in the heavenly garner, and the precious grain is laid up where no mildew can injure it. When the work done by good men and women is the means of bringing sinners to Christ, it is sure work. That is gold taken out of the mine which never can rust. Soul-saving work is lasting work; and there is this further comfort, that every soul that is truly converted by God’s grace propagates itself. Let one sinner be brought to Jesus, and he will bring another sinner. Light one candle, and you may light fifty candles from it. One person may be converted to God through your kind, faithful words and earnest believing prayers, and that one person may bring another, and that one another, and that one another, and that one another, and so on in an endless chain of blessing to God’s glory.

Remember too, that if we work for God as God wishes us to do, it is really God’s work that we are doing. He who works truthfully, according to the principles laid down in the Scriptures, has God working in him, and with him, and by him; and all that is God’s work will endure, you may rest assured of that. What he has done shall not be undone. Divine designs shall not be frustrated; so that we may be sure that the work of our hands, in so far as it is God’s work, will be established. Besides, God is alive to take care of the work that we do for him. We die, but he does not. We leave the work in his hands; we could not leave it in better hands. He could have done the work without us, if he had pleased; but, although he has been pleased to use us for a while, he can carry on the work without us when he takes us home. If you have sought to teach truth for Christ, who is the Truth, to bring souls to Christ, and to build up a church for Christ, God will establish your work. It is true that there are many enemies to the truth, devils and men of devilish spirit who would, if they could, tear down every stone that you have built up; but God shall make the wrath of even these enemies to praise him, and they shall become, perhaps unconsciously to themselves, the means of establishing your work.

Meanwhile the wheels of providence,* which are full of eyes, are grinding on in their majestic course on behalf of the work of God in which you are engaged; and all those eyes are looking onward towards the prosperity of that great cause which is so dear to your heart. Do not have any fear of failure, beloved; if you have really worked for God, you have worked for a cause that cannot know defeat. It may not win to-morrow, or the next day, but God can wait. Age comes upon us, but nothing shall ever make him decrepit; and through the course of ages, God can wait. I always feel, with regard to the causes in which we are engaged, when people tell us that we are in the minority, “Very well, we can be content to be in the minority at present, for the majority will be with us one day. We cannot doubt that when God is with us. Ay, and if we are alone with God, God makes majority enough for all true hearts. But even counting human heads, the truth shall yet have the majority. God can wait; he knows how to convince gainsayers, and bring them round to his side. Our little plans come to an end in a few years; we cannot afford to bring them out unless they do; but God can let his capital lie idle for thousands of years if it is necessary. He is so rich that it does not impoverish him, and he will get his interest by-and-by.

God can wait, and we must learn to wait too. That work which produces no visible results at present is none the less a true work and an accepted work. If you teach the truth, and die, and that truth appears to be forgotten, you have not lived in vain, for that truth will spring up again in God’s good time. They burnt Jerome of Prague; they took John Huss, and when they fastened him to the fatal stake, he said, “You may burn the goose to-day, but there shall come a swan that you cannot burn;” and that prophecy was fulfilled in Luther, whose crest was a swan. One good man dies, and another comes. If there were not brave men of truth to go down sapping and mining, there would not be other men to come afterwards to be acclaimed victors. In any great movement that succeeds, it is not the last man who deserves the credit, it is the men who went before, at whom perhaps everybody howled. To be able to hold the truth when everybody tries to hiss you down, and not to care for their opposition, but to feel, “I have God’s truth, and if all the devils in hell were against me, God is with me, and I am in the majority against them all,” that is the spirit to have, and when we have that spirit, we may pray, “Establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it;” and it will be done.

It is now some hundreds of years ago that certain believers in Christ were burnt to death upon the very spot on which this Tabernacle now stands. Nearly everybody agreed that they ought to be burnt to death, for they were called Anabaptists, though their belief was as nearly as possible the same as ours. Catholics and Protestants alike said, “Burn them, by all manner of means, for this pestilent sect of Baptists is always testifying against everybody else;” and burnt they were at the Butts at Newington. Suppose they had said, out of the midst of the fire, “There will one day stand, on this very spot, a great house of prayer wherein about six thousand Baptists shall meet at one time to hear the gospel preached for which we are being burnt to death,” men would have laughed them to scorn; but it has come true, and if I were to say that the last trace of infant sprinkling will be swept from off the earth, and that the last relic of Romanism, Episcopalianism, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, and heathenism will be swept away, and only be recollected by men to be loathed, I should no doubt be laughed at and disbelieved, but I should be speaking only the truth. All errors will die in due time. They may live for a while, and they may seem to conquer, but God will assuredly pierce them to the heart with his two-edged sword. His despised truth must come to the front; for, as surely as God lives, so must his truth live, for it is part of himself. Be on God’s side, I pray you, for that is the winning side. Be on God’s side, old men, and young men also; I charge you, as you shall appear before the judgment seat of Christ, follow the truth. Away with everything but the simple truth revealed in the Scriptures; put everything else aside, and God will establish your work in the ages yet to come. Who knows how long those ages may be? Christ may not come to-morrow; he may wait a while, but he will come one day. We are to live expecting him to return; yet, peradventure, he may tarry longer than we think; but true work for him will last until the trumpet of the resurrection shall sound. If the work is of God, it will certainly endure.

I have no time to speak of our third point, what we ought to do if this prayer of Moses is our prayer; but I will say just this. If we want God to establish our work, we must take care not to pull it down ourselves by inconsistent living. We must not imagine that we can establish it by any wrong methods. We must leave God to establish it in his own way, and God often establishes his truth by that which seems likely to throw it down. If we want God to establish our work, we must pray much about it, and we must do it as his work, and do it for his glory, and do it according to the rules which I have tried to lay down. If I leave only this one thought with you, that the Christian is to follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, and to be true to the light which God has given us in this sacred Book, I shall feel that this evening has been well spent. The Lord grant that all of us may be looking to his work for salvation, and then be doing his work with both our hands and all our heart, and praying God to establish it.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

PSALM 142*

Verse 1. I cried unto the Lord with my voice; with my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication.

Silent prayers are often true prayers, but there are times when, in extremity of suffering, it is very helpful to give expression to the soul’s agony. I know some friends who can never pray to their own comfort except they can hear their own voices; and I believe that it is a good thing for the most of us to retire to some private place where we cannot be heard by men, and where we can therefore freely use our voices in prayer. Very often, the use of the voice helps to keep the thoughts from wandering, and also gives intensity to the desires. You notice that David particularly mentions here that he cried unto the Lord with his voice. No doubt many of his prayers ascended to God from his heart without the medium of his voice; but here, the cry with his voice went with the desires of his heart.

2. I poured out my complaint before him;-

That is a beautiful expression, “I poured out my complaint,”-just as you turn a pitcher upside down, and let all the contents run out: “I poured out my complaint.” We are generally ready enough to do that; only that, usually, we go to some friend, or to some enemy, and pour out our complaint into his ear. But what is the good of doing that? David took a far wiser course: “I poured out my complaint before him.”

2. I shewed before him my trouble.

Uncovered it, and set it all out in order before him. God could see it, yet David knew that it was his place and his privilege to spread it all out before him.

3. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path.

Many of the Lord’s saints know the meaning of that sentence: “My spirit was overwhelmed within me.” They are like a vessel that has sunk in the sea, and is completely covered by the waves. David was in such a plight as that, he did not know his own whereabouts; but here was the mercy, “Then thou knewest my path.” It is much better that God should know our path than that we should know it ourselves, for we may know it, and be driven to despair by our knowledge; but God’s knowledge of it moves him to uphold us in it, or to deliver us out of it.

3, 4. In the way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me. I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me:

“They were afraid to link themselves with me, lest, when I went down, like a drowning man, they should be dragged down with me.”

4. Refuge failed me;

“I could not run away; there was no place where I could find shelter.”

4. No man cared for my soul.

“They were all hard, cold, ungrateful, treacherous.”

5. I cried unto thee, O Lord:

What a mercy that David was driven to do that! If there had been any earthly refuge, he would have fled to it. If there had been some human being at his right hand to help him, probably he would have trusted to him. If any man had cared for his soul, peradventure he would have trusted in that person; but now that every earthly door was shut, he was obliged to turn to his God.

5. I said, thou art my refuge-

“I can flee to thee.”

5. And my portion in the land of the living.

With both hands he lays hold of God, and cries, “Thou art my refuge and my portion,”-two glorious “mys.” Well did Luther say that the very pith of the gospel lies in the little words, and it is the same with the Psalms.

6, 7. Attend unto my cry; for I am brought very low: deliver me from my persecutors; for they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prison,-

This is a suitable prayer for those who have troubled consciences, for those who are shut up in Doubting Castle, and cannot get out without divine assistance. “Bring my soul out of prison,”-

7. That I may praise thy name:

As soon as you are set at liberty, you ought at once to let your glad heart magnify the God who has broken your bonds, and brought you out of prison.

7. The righteous shall compass me about;

This is a beautiful idea; it seems to imply that they would be so astonished to find him at liberty that they would all come round him to hear his story, they would be so glad to see the mourner rejoicing that they would all begin to enquire what God had done for his soul.

7. For thou shalt deal bountifully with me.

In the 13th Psalm, David said, “I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me;” but here he looks into the future, and sings, “Thou shalt deal bountifully with me.”