On sinners of a mortal race,

To call them sons of God!

“’Tis no surprising thing

That we should be unknown:

The Jewish world knew not their King,

God’s everlasting Son.”

Methinks I see my gracious Lord and Master wandering through this world as a stranger, “despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;”-spit upon, scourged, hounded out from among men, and at last crucified “without the gate.” Then, when we “go forth unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach,” we are strangers with him, and what higher honour than that can any of us ever desire? “The disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his Master, and the servant as his Lord.”

There is another thought that I must not leave out; it is this. Though we are strangers in the world, we are with Christ all the while. Where is the true Christian’s life? Paul answers the question in writing to the Colossians: “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” Christ is the Christian’s All-in-all, so what can there be belonging to the Christian that is left here on earth? Why, nothing at all that need trouble us for a moment, for “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Representatively, we are in heaven even now; and where our Head is, there will all the members of his mystical body be gathered in due time.

First, it is clear that we must have a home somewhere. “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests,” and shall the immortal spirit of man have no home? God forbid! We could not be called strangers and sojourners unless we had a native land somewhere; a man who is an alien in one country is a citizen of another; so we, who are strangers and sojourners here, are citizens of a better country, even a heavenly.

“There is a happy land,

Far, far away,”-

which is my true home, and there, in God’s good time, I know that I shall be-

“No more a stranger or a guest,

But like a child at home.”

Do you think God would make us so dissatisfied with this world if he did not mean to satisfy us with another and a better one? Surely not; the very fact that we are strangers and sojourners upon the earth proves that we have a country of our own that is very different from this wilderness-world through which we are passing.

This being the case, it is not surprising that we sometimes long to get home. We ought not to long for heaven from any lazy motives. A good workman may be so tired with heavy toil that he eagerly looks forward to Saturday night so that he may enjoy his Sabbath rest, and renew his strength for fresh service on the morrow; and you and I, beloved, though we are not tired of our Master’s work, are often tired in it, and we shall be glad when our rest day comes. Thank God, it is not to be six days’ work, and then one day’s rest, but it is to be a rest that shall know no end, a rest in untiring service. “There remaineth therefore a rest (a Sabbatismos, an eternal keeping of Sabbath,) to the people of God.” I said that it is not surprising that we sometimes long to get home. You would not think that a boy loved his home if he never longed for the holidays to come. I recollect that, when I was at boarding-school, I made an Almanack with a square for every day, and I blotted out each one as it went by; and, sometimes, I blotted it out the night before so that I might seem to have fewer days at school; and, Christian, you also may rejoice as the days of your school-training here pass, for, as each one flits by, you are “a day’s march nearer home.”

“Though in a foreign land,

We are not far from home;

And nearer to our home above

We every moment come.”

Do you not also think, dear friends, that the fact that we are strangers here should make us treat one another well? And, surely, if the worldling knew Christians better, he would treat them better. They are strangers to you, man, but they are God’s strangers; they are royal personages incognito, princes of the blood imperial travelling through this world to their wondrous palaces above. But let us who are fellow-pilgrims and strangers help one another all we can. If you are in Switzerland, or up the Rhine, and have got into some difficulty or trouble, if you see an Englishman coming, you feel pretty sure that your fellow-countryman will do what he can to help you. It should be so with Christians. We are strangers in this world, so let us aid one another all we can. We are soldiers in an enemy’s country, so back to back and shoulder to shoulder let us face the foes that are all around us. Though we are strangers to the world, we are not strangers to God, so let us not be strangers to one another, but let us be of one heart and mind, walking in love, even as Christ loved us, and gave himself for us.

Then, next, surely we ought never to envy the lot of sinners. I never grudge the horses their corn or the swine their husks and hog-wash, then why should I envy sinners? I remember David’s words, “Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.” When a friend once gave Martin Luther a large sum of money, he stood at the church-door, and gave it all away to the poor, because he said that he had made up his mind to have his portion in the next world, and not in this. There is nothing in the sinner’s lot, either here or hereafter, that you and I have any cause to envy.

And let us never murmur at our own lot.

“The road may be rough, but it cannot be long;

So let’s smooth it with hope, and cheer it with song.”

There are you, my poor brother or sister, fretting about what you will do in six months’ time, worrying about the rent, the fire, the food, the clothing, and I know not what; yet, it may be that, before even this year ends, your head may be wearing the crown, and your fingers sweeping the golden harp-strings, and you yourself,-

“Far from this world of grief and sin,

With God eternally shut in.”

And if you are still here for a while, the Lord will provide for you, so cast all your care upon him who careth for you.

So, lastly, what an easy thing it should be for a Christian to die! He is a stranger with God even here, but he will be with God, and not as a stranger, up there. He has been with God in life, and God will be with him in death.

“Strangers into life we come,

And dying is but going home.”

But going home is not hard work, going home is not a thing to be dreaded; rather should we sing in joyous anticipation of it, as so many of our dear brethren and sisters have done when they have actually reached the hour of their home-going.

Yet, alas! there are some here who may well dread their home-going, for they are strangers to God, “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.” O soul, if that is thy condition, do not remain a stranger td God a moment longer! Repent of thy sin, and trust God to forgive it, for Jesus’ sake. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;” and then, though thou wilt be a stranger here, thou wilt not be a stranger up there where he is. God bless you, for Christ’s sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

PSALM 39

This Psalm gives a description of David’s experience and conduct when stretched upon a sick-bed. He appears to have felt impatience working within him, which I am sorry to say is a very common disease with most of us when God’s hand is heavy upon us. Yet David struggled against his impatience; though he felt it, he would not show it, lest he should thereby open the mouths of his enemies, and cause them to speak evil of his God. Let us imitate his restraint if we resemble him in the temptation to impatience.

Verse 1. I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue:-

This government of the tongue is a most important part of our ways; it is a very essential part of holy discipline; yet we have heard of one saint who said that he had lived for seventy years, and had tried to control his tongue, but that he had only begun to understand the art when he died. David said, “I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue;”-

1. I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me.

They have such quick ears, and they are so ready to misinterpret and misrepresent our words, and if they can find one word awry, they will straightway preach a long sermon over it, so let us muzzle our mouths while they are near. The ill words of Christians often make texts for sinners, and thus God is blasphemed out of the mouths of his own beloved children. Let it not be so with any of you, beloved.

2. I was dumb with silence, I held my peace, even from good; and my sorrow was stirred.

We all know that, unless our grief can find expression, it swells and grows till our heart is ready to break. We have heard of a wise physician who bade a man in great trouble weep as much as ever he could. “Do not restrain your grief,” he said, “but let it all out.” He felt that only in that way would the poor sufferer’s heart be kept from breaking. David determined that, before the wicked, he would have nothing at all to say; and though his griefs were surging within him, yet for a time he kept them from bursting out.

3. My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue.

He could not hold his peace any longer; it would have been well if he had done so, for he uttered an unwise prayer when he spake with his tongue.

4. Lord, make me to know mine end,

That is what you and I are apt to say when we get into a little trouble; we want to die, and get away from it all. We say that we long to be with Christ, but I am afraid that it is often only a lazy wish to share the spoils of victory without fighting the battle, to receive the saints’ wages without doing the saints’ work, and to enter into heaven without the toils and dangers of the pilgrims’ way. Perhaps this has been the case with us sometimes when we have thought that our aspirations were of the best and holiest kind. When David prayed, “Lord, make me to know mine end,” his prayer was not a very wise one, but the next sentences were not quite so foolish:-

4. And the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am.

Oh, that we could all know how frail we are! But we reckon upon living for years when we have scarcely any more minutes left; we think our life’s hour-glass is full when the sands have almost run out; and although the hand of God’s great clock may be upon the striking-point, we think our brief hour has but just begun.

5. Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth;

This is a very common measure, the breadth of the human hand; and David says that this span is the measure of his life. Some here must surely have spent a great part of that handbreadth; let them and all of us be prepared to meet our God when that short span’s limit is reached.

5. And mine age is as nothing before thee:

It is an incalculably tiny speck when compared with the immeasurable ages of the Eternal: “Mine age is as nothing before thee.” When Alcibiades boasted of his great estates, the philosopher brought him a map of the world, and said to him, “Can you find your estates on this map?” Even Athens itself was but as a pin’s point; where, then, were the estates of Alcibiades? Nowhere to be seen. So, when we see the great map of eternity spread out before us, where is the whole of this world’s history? It is but a speck; and where, then, are your life and mine? They are as nothing before God.

5. Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity.

Then what must he be at his worst state?

6. Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain.*

They fret, and fume, and flurry, and worry, and all about what? About nothing. We sometimes say, “It will be all the same a hundred years hence.” Ah! but it will be all the same much sooner than that, when the six feet of earth shall be all our heritage.

6. He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.

“Bethink thee,” says an old writer, “every time thou dost lock up thy money in a box, how soon death shall lock thee up in thy coffin.” Some men seem to be like our children’s money-boxes, into which money is put, but they must be broken before any can come out. To some men, how sad must be the thought that they have been accumulating wealth all their days, and they know not for whom they have been gathering it! A stranger may, perhaps, inherit it; or if their own kith and kin shall get it, they may squander it just as thoroughly as the misers hoarded it.

7. And now, Lord,-

If all earthly things are nothing but emptiness,-

7. What wait I for?

“I wait for nothing here, for there is nothing here to wait for.”

7. My hope is in thee.

Ah! this hope makes life worth living. Now that we hope in God; now that we know that there remaineth another and a better world than this world of shadows, life is invested with true solemnity.

8, 9. Deliver me from all my transgressions: make me not the reproach of the foolish. I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.

It is always a blessed reason for resignation when we can say of any bereavement or affliction, “The Lord has done it.” Shall he not do as he wills with his own? Then let us say, with Job, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

10-12. Remove thy stroke away from me: I am consumed by the blow of thine hand. When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. Selah. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears:

Tears have ever had great prevalence with God. Christ used these sacred weapons when, “with strong crying and tears,” he prayed to his Father in Gethsemane, “and was heard in that he feared.” Sinner, there is such potency in a penitent’s tears that thou mayest prevail with God if thou wilt come to him weeping over thy sin, and pleading the precious blood of Christ. Thy tears cannot merit heaven, or wash away thy sins; but if thou dost penitently grieve over them, and trust in the great atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, thy tearful prayers shall have a gracious answer of peace. Mr. Bunyan describes the City of Mansoul as sending Mr. Wet-eyes as one of her ambassadors to the Prince Emmanuel, and he is still a most acceptable ambassador to the King of kings. He who knows how to weep his heart out at the foot of the cross shall not be long without finding mercy. Tears are diamonds that God loves to behold.

12. For I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.

“I am not a stranger to thee, O my God! Blessed be thy holy name, I know thee well; but ‘I am a stranger with thee.’ Thou art a stranger in thine own world, and so am I. The world knows thee not, and the world knows me not; and when I act as thou actest, the world hateth me even as it hateth thee.”

13. O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more.