Observe the way in which the apostles were accustomed to incite believers in Christ to the performance of their duties. They did not tell them, “You must do this or that, or you will be punished; you must do this, and then you shall obtain a reward for it.” They never cracked the whip of the law in the ears of the child of God. They knew the difference between the man who was actuated by sordid motives and the fear of punishment, and the new-born man who is moved by sublimer motives, namely, motives that touch his heart, that move his regenerated nature, and that constrain him, out of affection, to do the will of him that sent him. Hence the address here is not, “Be content, or else God will take away what you have,” but “Be content, and have naught to do with covetousness, for he hath said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

The promise is made the argument for the precept. Obedience is enforced by a covenant blessing. He hath said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee”; what then? Shall I be discontented and covetous? Nay! but for the very reason that he has made, by his promise, my very safety absolute and unconditional, assuring me, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” for that reason I will keep out of my conversation covetousness and every other evil thing, and will seek to walk contentedly and happy in the presence of my God. See, brethren, this gospel motive. It is a free grace argument. It is not a weapon taken from the arsenal of Mount Sinai, but taken from the region of the cross, and from the council-chamber of the covenant of love.

Another thing in the text, to which I would call your notice is this: that an inspired apostle, who might very well have used his own original words, nevertheless in this case, as indeed in many others, quotes the Old Testament. “He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Behold, then, the value of Holy Scripture. If an inspired man quotes the text, as of divine authority, much more should we so regard it, who are without such inspiration. We should be much in searching the Scriptures, and when we want to clench an argument, or answer an opponent, it would always be well for us to take our weapon from the grand old Book, and come down with “He hath said.” Oh! there is nothing like this for force and power. We may think a thing, but what of that? Our thinkings are but of little worth. General authority and universal opinion may sustain it, but what of that? The world has been more frequently wrong than right, and public opinion is a fickle thing. But “He hath said,” that is to say, God hath said-immutable truth and eternal fidelity have said; God that made heaven and earth, and that changeth not, though nations melt like the hoar frost of the morning; God who ever liveth when hills, and mountains, and this round world, and everything upon it shall have passed away-“He hath said.” Oh! the power there is in this, “He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” So, then, let us be much in searching the Scriptures, much in feeding upon them, much in diving into their innermost depths, and then afterwards much in the habit of quoting them, using them as arguments for the defence of truth, as weapons against error, and as reasons to call us to the path of duty, and to pursue it.

But now to come to the promise itself, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” I shall call your attention, first of all, to:-

Is it not a wonderful and arrestive fact that, whilst others do leave us and forsake us, that God never does? It is to each one of his own redeemed people that he says, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” How often do men play false, and forsake those whom they call their friends when those friends fall into poverty! Ah! the tragedies of some of these cruel forsakings! May you never know them! These so-called friends knew their friends when that suit of black was new, but how sadly their eyesight fails them now it is turned to a rusty brown! They knew them extremely well when once a week they sat with their legs under their table and shared their generous hospitality, but they know them not now that they knock at their door and crave help in a time of need.

Matters have changed altogether, and friends that once were cherished are now forgotten. In fact, the man almost pities himself to think that he should have been so unfortunate to have a friend who has so come down, and he has no pity for his friend, because he is so much occupied in pitying himself. In hundreds, and thousands, and tens of thousands of cases, as soon as the gold has gone, the pretended love has gone, and when the dwelling has been changed from the mansion to the cottage, the friendship which once promised to last for ever, has suddenly disappeared.

But, brethren, God will never leave us on account of poverty: however low we may be brought, there it always stands, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Scant may be your board; you may have hard work to provide things honest in the sight of all men; you may sometimes have to look, and look again, and wonder by what straits you will be enabled to escape out of your present difficulty. But when all friends have turned their backs, and when acquaintances have fallen from you like leaves in autumn, he hath said, “I will never leave, nor forsake thee.” Then beneath his bounty you shall find a shelter, and when these other hands are shut his hands shall be out-stretched still in loving-kindness and tender mercy, to help and deliver the soul of the needy.

Sometimes, and very often, too, men lose all their friends if they fall into any temporary disgrace. They may really have done no wrong; they may even have done right, but public opinion may condemn the course they took, or slander may be propagated, which casts them into the shade, and then men suddenly grow forgetful. They do not know the man; how should they? He is not the same man, to them at any rate, and as the world gives him the cold shoulder, his friends serve him the same. The old proverb, “The devil take the hindmost,” seems to be generally the custom with our friends when we get into seeming disgrace. They are all off, seeing who can run away first, for they fear that they shall be left to share in our dishonour. But it is never so with our God. “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Thou mayest be put into the dungeon, like Paul and Silas, but God will make thee sing there, even at midnight. Thou mayest be set in the stocks, but even there God will cause thee to rejoice greatly. Thou mayest be cast into the fiery furnace, but he will tread the flames with thee there. Thou mayest be so dishonoured that men shall treat thee as they did God’s only Son, and lift thee up upon the cross of shame, and put thee to death; but thou shalt never say, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” Thy Lord said it when he bore thy guilt, but thou shalt never need to say it, for thy guilt is put away for ever, and Jehovah will stand by thee in all thy dishonour. And let me here say, that there is never a child in the family that is dearer to the great Father than the child that is suffering shame and contempt from others. He loves them dearest when they suffer reproach for his sake. These are nearer to his heart than any other, and he bids them rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great shall be their reward in heaven if thus they bear and endure for his name. “I will never leave thee, my persecuted one: I will pour such joy into thy heart that thou shalt forget all the dishonour. I will send an angel to minister to thee: yea, I will myself be with thee, and thou shalt rejoice in my salvation, while thy heart is glad and calm in the midst of the tumult and the strife around.”

Blessed be God, all the shame and spitting that men can put upon us can never put our God away, for “He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Alas! sad is it for human nature that we must say it-how many have been forsaken when they have been no longer able to minister to the pleasure and comfort of those who admired them while they profitted by them! Some are thus thrown aside, just as men throw away household stuff that is worn out, and is of no further use. Depend upon it, men will not forsake us while they can get anything out of us; but when there is no longer anything to profit by, when the poor woman becomes so decrepit that she can scarcely move from her bed to her chair, when the man becomes so laid aside by accident, or is so weak that he cannot take his place in the great march of life, then he is like the soldiers in Napoleon’s march, he drops out of the line to die, and thousands either march over him, or if they are a little more merciful, march by and round him, but few are those who will stop to care for such, and attend to them. How often are the incurable forsaken and left! But he has said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” If we should get so old that we cannot serve the church of God, even by a single word; if we should become so sick that we are only a burden to those of our house who have to nurse us; if we should grow so feeble that we could not lift our hand to our lip, yet the eternal love of Jehovah would not have diminished, no, not so much as by a single jot, towards the souls whom he had loved from before the foundation of the world. However low your condition, you shall find God’s love is ever underneath for your uplifting. However weak you are, his strength shall be revealed in the everlasting arms that will not permit you to sink into disaster, and your soul into perdition. This, then, is a very precious text. Others may forsake us, for different reasons, too many to be mentioned now, but he hath said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Well, then, let the rest go. If the Lord Jehovah standeth at our right hand, we can well afford to see the backs of all our friends, for we shall find friends enough in the Triune God, whom we delight to serve.

Again, this is a very remarkable promise, if we think of our own conduct towards God. “He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” And have not we often said the same to him? We were like Peter: we felt we did love our Saviour: we were sure we did, and we did not, could not believe that we could ever be so false, so faithless, as to forsake him. We almost longed for some temptation to prove how true we should be. We felt very vexed with other professors that they should prove so untrue. We felt in our heart that we could not do like that, and that we should stand firm under any imaginable pressure. But what became of us, my brethren? Charge your memories a moment. Did the cock that accused Peter never accuse you? Did you never deny your Lord and Master, and at last, hearing the warning voice, go out and weep bitterly because you had forgotten him, him whom you had declared so solemnly you never would forsake? Oh! yes, I fear we, many and many a time, we have said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” and yet under some sarcasm, some ridicule, or some pressing trial, we have been like the children of Ephraim, and, though armed and carrying bows, we have turned our back in the day of battle. If the voice has never denied Christ, has the heart never done so? If the tongue has remained silent, has not the soul sometimes gone back to the old flesh-pots of Egypt, and said, “I would fain find comfort once again where I did find it, with my old companions and in the old ways”? Ah! well, as you think of this, how unkindly and ungenerously you have treated your Lord, let this text stand out in bold relief, “He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Although you have often forgotten him, yet his loving-kindness changes not. Though you have been fickle, he has been firm; though you have sometimes believed him not, yet he has remained faithful, glory be to his name.

Again, this promise is a very remarkable one, if we notice how it overrides all the suggestions that might arise from a mere view of strict and severe justice. It might be said, “Surely a child of God might justly be forsaken: he might so sin against God that it would only be just to leave him utterly to himself.” Now, I am free to grant that a child of God might do so, nay, that all the children of God do so, and that God would be just if he acted upon the stern principle of law, to forsake his children as soon as ever they were converted, for it is not long after their conversion that they sin, and that sin is a special kind of treason against God. He would be just even if he cast them away. But what I desire to enforce is this, that the promise is remarkable because it makes no kind of provision for this in any sort or degree, and under no imaginable circumstances. It does not say, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee, if-” as certain brethren are prone to put it-“if-thou dost not forsake me.” Nor does it say, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee, if thou doest so-and-so and so-and-so.” It is an absolute promise without any peradventures, ifs, buts, conditions, or promises. “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

He that believeth in Jesus shall never be so left of God as to fall finally from grace. He shall never be so deserted as to give up his God, for his God will never give him up so far as to let him give up his confidence, or his hope, or his love, or his trust. The Lord, even our God, holds us with his strong right hand, and we shall not be moved, and even if we sin-sweet thought!-“If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” Over the heads of all our sins and iniquities, this promise sounds like a sweet silver bell, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

Now, there are some that would make licentiousness out of this, and go into sin, but in doing so they prove themselves not to be the children of God. They show at once that they know nothing of the matter, for the genuine child of God, when he has a promise which is unconditional, finds holiness in it. Being moved by gratitude, he wants no buts, and ifs, and conditions, and racks, and scourges, in order to do right. He is ruled by love, and not by fear, governed by a holy gratitude which becomes a stronger bond to sacred obedience than any other bond that could be invented. Hence to the child of God, the knowledge that God will not leave nor forsake him, never suggests the thought of plunging into sin; he were an awful monster, indeed, if he did any such thing, but he hates it, and he says:-

“Loved of my God, for him again

With love intense I burn;

Chosen of him ere time began,

I choose him in return.”

Observe, then, how remarkable is the promise-so contrary to the manner of men, so contrary to our own conduct, and so absolute and unconditional, that it is, indeed, marvellous that such a word should be on record. “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

I cannot leave this part of the subject without remarking that such a promise as this seems to me that it makes a clean sweep of every suggestion to the child of God to be depressed in mind. You tell me you do not feel just now as you did some time ago: you are not anything like so earnest and lively in the divine ways.

When a believer is in this state, it is sometimes suggested to him that doubtless he is not a Christian at all, and that he must go back altogether to Egypt, in order to get gospel liberty, which is foolishness. But this promise comes in, and says to him, “God has not left thee, nor forsaken thee”; whatever may be your present state of thought and feeling, however low you may have fallen, the Eternal God is still faithful: he has not forgotten you. Go to him now: ask for revivings and refreshings, for he will surely give them to you. Conscience will, perhaps, say to some child of God to-night, indeed I hope it will, “There has been much to-day in business that has not been what it should have been, and as you look back upon the day you will see much to mourn over,” and then, perhaps, conscience will add, “Therefore, God will leave you.” Now, if you come to believe that, you will live worse to-morrow than to-day, and the next day worse still. But if you can answer, “No, he has said, ‘I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,’ and can go with child-like confidence to your God, and confess the sin of the day, and begin again, washing once more in the precious fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel’s veins, to-morrow there will be a better day. The joy of the Lord will be your strength against the sin, and your confidence in your Father’s immutable affection will inspire you with zeal to trample down your temptations. Perhaps the devil may be injecting into your soul to-night all sorts of strange things, that God has forsaken you quite, and that he will be gracious no more to you and other lies of that kind. But he has said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” and if you can get hold of this, it will be a sufficient refutation of all the suggestions of your own fear; and of the infernal power. No, Satan! I will cast myself upon the precious blood of Jesus, and if God should take all my property away, yet he has not left me, nor forsaken me. I am sure of that, and if my spirit sinks so low that I dare not look up, yet still he has said he has not left me, and he never will. If my sins should roll over me, like a big billow, and my conscience should cry out against me, and I should feel no rest and no peace, yet still I will hold on to Jesus, sink or swim, for he hath said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” and let God be true, and every man, and every devil, and even my own conscience, prove a liar, sooner than God’s Word should for a moment be placed in doubt. We now pass on to ponder upon:-

See how it abounds! I note, first, its constancy. “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” That is, not for a day, not for an hour, not for a minute. There are no breaks in the divine love. God does not depart from his people to return to them by-and-by, but he assures, “I will never, no never, leave thee.” Perhaps that dear child of yours that is sickening is soon to die: well, God will not leave you in the moment when she is taken from you. Possibly that dear one who is now your comfort and delight, your husband, may sicken, and it will be a terrible stroke for you to be visited with, but “I will never leave thee, not even for an instant, then: in that trying time thou shalt prove the power and solace of my presence.”

Perhaps, business man, that great commercial project, that great transaction, of yours may prove to be a losing one; that bill may be dishonoured; you may come to bankruptcy without any fault on your part, but “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Yes, you may have to go to Australia, and you may greatly dread the leaving your native land, but even then “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” It may be you may be so misrepresented as to become suspected by those whom you love best, and you may be even put out of the church of God, without any fault, but entirely through error. Well, but then, even then, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” not even for a minute. Oh! brethren, what would be the consequences if the Lord left us for one-quarter of an hour? I solemnly believe that, if God were to leave his people even on their knees for one twenty minutes, they would be brought to the deepest hell; but he will not leave them even there. And if it were dangerous to leave them on their knees alone, how much more so in the market, or in business, amidst enemies-seeking to catch them in their speech and deed! But he will never for a moment leave his people, nor forsake them. He will be at all times, at all hours, at all seasons, in all days of emergency, at their right hand, and they shall not be moved.

I notice in the promise, next to constancy, endurance. As there shall be no breaks in God’s love for his own, so there shall be no end to it. “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Yes, it may not be desirable to live to extreme old age, when infirmities may abound, and all strength may decay, but if you should reach it, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” It certainly is a painful thing, that last stroke, to pass to the throne of God, but “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” There shall never be a time when the Lord will cast away one of his people. He shall never grow weary of them. He has espoused them unto himself, married them, taken them into eternal union with himself, and never, let the ages revolve as they may, and time change as it will, never will God leave or forsake his people. Comfort yourselves, therefore, with the confidence of the endurance, as well as the constancy of this love.

We are most pleased, however, with the fulness of the promise. The text means, manifestly means from its connection, a great deal more than it says. We are told not to be covetous. Why? Why should we be covetous? God has said he will never leave us, and if we have him we possess all things. Who has need to be covetous when all things are his, and God is his? We are told to be contented, not to seek to hoard up so much for the future, because God has provided for the future in the very promise, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” God guarantees to his servants that they shall have enough; well, let that guarantee prevent both covetousness and discontent. How shall this promise apply to temporal things? “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” does not look at first sight as if it had anything to do with our ordinary expenses, but, according to the text, it has, for we are told not to be covetous, but to be content with such things as we have. So, then, the text applies to the ordinary working-man, to the merchant, to every Christian, even in his money matters, as well as in his soul matters. “I will not leave thee, even in these.” He that doth not let a sparrow fall to the ground without his permission will not let his children want. If they should for a little time be in need, that shall work their lasting good, but they shall dwell in the land, and verily they shall be fed. The fulness that lies in the promise is perfectly unbounded. When God says he will be with his servants, he means this, “My wisdom shall be with them to guide them; my love shall be with them to cheer them; my Spirit shall be with them to sanctify them; my power shall be with them to defend them; my everlasting might shall be put forth on their behalf so that they may not fail nor be discouraged.” To have God with you were better than to have an army of ten thousand men, and a host of friends were not equal to that one name, the name of Jehovah, for he is a host in himself. When God is with a man, he is not there asleep, negligent, indifferent, regardless in his time of suffering, but he is there intensely sympathizing, bearing the trouble, helping and sustaining the sufferer, and in due time-his own good time-delivering him in triumph. Oh! precious word of heartening promise! Plunge ye into it, for it is a sea without a bottom, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

Better still, perhaps, in the promise is the certain truth of it. “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” has been proved by God’s saints in all the ages that are past. Turn to the pages of your Bibles, and see if ever a man was ashamed that put his trust in Christ: see if he that wrestled with the invisible God was ever confounded. Hath not the Lord kept with his people at all hazards-broken the necks of kings, and scattered empires like chaff before the wind, sooner than that one of his faithful ones should come to ruin?

It has been so, even in your own experience. You, too, have found the text to be true. You have gone through fire and through water, but he has never left you nor forsaken you. Your vessel scarcely had enough draught of water to keep off the bottom, but though she has almost grated on the gravel, yet she has kept afloat, and though, perhaps, you have been wrecked, yet you have come safe to shore. You have lost much, you say, but you have been a gainer by your loss, and where you are to-day you are by eternal mercy and covenant grace, and you could not well be in a better position than God has put you in. Goodness and mercy have followed you all the days of your life up till now, and you are obliged to confess it, and to say:-

“Streams of mercy never ceasing,

Call for songs of loudest praise.”

So fear not now that at this particular season God is about to alter his previous dispensation. Out with them, poor Little-Faith; away with thy doubts; put away those black suspicions. He is a God that changeth not, and, having helped you until now, he will help you even to the end. Why, how true this must be! “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” How can God forsake that which has cost him so much already? He has given his Son’s blood to redeem us, and his Spirit’s power to renew us, and if he were to leave undone the work which he has begun, why, a tower has been commenced, and he has not been able to finish it! A man who has spent much money upon one enterprise will spend yet more to finish it, because of what he has already spent. Now, God will not lose the work of Christ, and the precious blood of his Son, but, having begun, he will certainly carry on, even to the end. Besides this, also: God cannot leave his people, because he calls them his children, and how could he leave his child? “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, she may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” Even when the son has dishonoured his father’s name, and lost his own character, that father’s love still holds on, and follows that child still with tears of sorrow, but still with faithfulness and truth. And God will not cast away his own begotten sons, whom he has begotten again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Beloved, Christ is married to his people, and therefore how can he leave them? He says, “As a young man rejoiceth over his bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee,” and will he leave them to whom he is knit by so near and dear, so tender and affectionate a union? It cannot be. “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Now, see, if he did leave his people, what would it be? It would be giving up the whole quarrel between himself and Satan. It is in his people’s hearts that the great battle is being fought out between good and evil. To give them up would be to give up the battle-ground to his great enemy, and what laughter there would be in the vaults of hell, what mockery in the halls of Pandemonium, if it could be said, “God has forsaken his people, given up his elect, suffered his redeemed to perish, cast away his regenerate, and forsaken the souls that trusted him”! The very thought of it is blasphemy. Far, far from us let us put it away. “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

I cannot enlarge further upon the promise, and need not do so, because it opens up itself, or rather God the Holy Ghost will open it up to you if you sit awhile in your chamber and meditate upon it. I do not know of a richer text, or one more full of consolation. It is a long skein of truth; unwind it. It is a precious granary, full as Joseph crammed the granaries of Egypt; open you the door, and feed to the full; there will be no fear of your ever exhausting it. “For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

Now, the third thing to be noticed concerning this promise is:-

The remarkable effects that such a promise should produce.

Surely the first blessed fruit of such a glorious promise should be perfect contentment. It is said to be hard to be contented. I have the pleasure of knowing some brethren who I am sure are perfectly content. They even say, and I think without the slightest mental reservation, that they have not an unfulfilled wish or desire so far as this world goes. They have all that heart could wish. And yet these are not the richest people in the world, and they are not persons who are much to be envied for their mere external circumstances: yet they are perfectly contented. The fact is that the grace of God makes the people of God to sing sweetly, where other people would murmur. They are satisfied where others would find easy ground for discontent. But how easy it is, how easy it must be, for a man to be contented when he knows that God has promised to be with him in all circumstances and at all times! Surely, if anything could be a kind of conservatory, a hot-house, in which to grow the delicate plant of contentment to perfection, it must be this full belief that high or low, rich or poor, well or sick, God hath said, “I will never leave, nor forsake thee.” Surely it was this that made Bunyan’s Pilgrim sing in the Valley of Humiliation:-

“He that is down need fear no fall,

He that is low no pride;

He that is humble ever shall

Have God to be his guide.”

Christian did thereby say that he was content, whether he had little or much, and that he left everything in his lot to his God. Oh! get then, my friends, my text fully into your souls, and keep it there, as marrow and fatness, and you will be content.

Well, then, in the next place, it will cure your covetousness. A man does not need to go on scraping, and to use that muck-rake for ever, when he knows “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” It was not a bad argument which one used with Alexander when he said to him, “When are you going to enjoy yourself fully?” Alexander did not answer the question, but the philosopher said, “What are you going to do next?” “First we shall conquer Greece.” “Yes, and then will you rest?” “No; we shall then attack Asia Minor.” “And when you have conquered that, I suppose you will rest?” “No; we shall then take Persia.” “And when you have overcome Persia, what then?” “We shall march to India.” “And when you have taken India, what then?” “Why, then we shall sit down and make ourselves merry.” “Well,” said the philosopher, “I think we had better begin before we go to Greece, or Persia, or Asia Minor, or any of them.” And truly so, it were as well for us to be content with that moderate income which God gives us. Let us enjoy what God bestows upon us now, in gratitude to him, and give ourselves up to his service; lest, perhaps, in seeking more, we become spiritually poorer while literally richer, and become less content with the great load on our back than we are to-day, when we have enough and no more. It is a sweet quietus to covetousness when God saith, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

And, beloved, what a promise this is to make a man confident in his God. In his works, in his sufferings, in his enterprises, what a stay of soul is here!

I know what it is to fall back upon this promise sometimes to keep from depression of spirit, and to find reviving in it. Perhaps you may suppose that those of us who are always before the public, and are speaking concerning the blessed promises of God, never have any moments of downcasting, and never any times of heart-breaking; but you are quite mistaken. We may have passed through all this, perhaps, that we may know how to say a word in season to any who are now passing through similar experiences. With many enterprises upon my hands, far too great for my own unaided strength, I am often driven to fall flat upon the promise of my God, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” If I feel that any scheme has been of my own devising, and that I seek my own honour in it, I know it must come to the ground, and rightly so. But when I can prove that God has thrust it upon me, and that I am moved by a divine impulse, and not by my own monitions and wishings, then how can my God forsake me? How can he lie, however weak I may be? How is it possible for him to send his servant out to battle, and not succour him with reinforcements in the day when the battle goes hard? God is not David when he put Uriah in the front, and then left him that he might die. He will never put any of his servants forward and then desert them. Dear brethren and sisters, if the Lord shall call some of you even to things you cannot do, he will give you strength enough to do them; and if he should push you still forwarder till your difficulties increase and your burdens become heavy, still, as your days, your strength shall be, and you shall go on with the tramp of soldiers, with the indomitable spirit of men who have tried and trusted the naked arm of the Eternal God. “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Then what matters it? Though all the world were against you, you could shake all the world as Samson shook the lion, and rent him as a kid. If God be for you, who can be against you? Though earth, and hell, and all their crew, come against you, and should combine together, yet if the God of Jacob stood at your back, you would thresh them as though they were but wheat, and winnow them as though they were but chaff, and the wind should carry them away. Oh! roll this promise under your tongue as a sweet morsel!

How I wish that it belonged to you all! Oh! that everyone of you had a share in it! But some of you, alas! have never fled to Jesus. Oh! that you would do so! Whoever trusts him to pardon by his atoning sacrifice, is saved. To look to the great Substitute, and depend upon him for salvation, this gives salvation, and then come the promises that belong to the saved.

The Lord of his infinite mercy bless you, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

SOUL-THRESHING

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, January 8th, 1914.

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen.”-Isaiah 28:27, 28.

The art of husbandry was taught to man by God. He would have starved while he was discovering it, and so the Lord, when he sent him out of the Garden of Eden, gave him a measure of elementary instruction in agriculture, even as the prophet puts it, “His God doth instruct him to discretion and doth teach him.” God has taught man to plough, to break the clods, to sow the different kinds of grain, and to thresh out the different orders of seeds.

The Eastern husbandman could not thresh by machinery as we do; but still he was ingenious and discreet in that operation. Sometimes a heavy instrument was dragged over the corn to tear out the grain. This is what is intended in the first clause by the “threshing instrument,” as also in that passage, “I have made thee a sharp threshing instrument having teeth.” When the corn-drag was not used, they often turned the heavy solid wheel of a country cart over the straw. This is alluded to in the next sentence:-“Neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin.” They had also flails not very unlike our own, and then for still smaller seeds, such as dill and cummin, they used a simple staff or a slender switch. “The fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod.”

This is not the time or place to give a dissertation upon threshing. We find every information upon that subject in proper books; but the meaning of the illustration is this-that as God has taught husbandmen to distinguish between different kinds of grain in the threshing, so does he in his infinite wisdom deal discreetly with different sorts of men. He does not try us all alike, seeing we are differently constituted. He does not pass us all through the same agony of conviction, we are not all to the same extent threshed with terrors. He does not give us all to endure the same family or bodily affliction; one escapes with only being beaten with a rod, while another feels, as it were, the feet of horses in his heavy tribulations.

Our subject is just this. Threshing: all kinds of seeds need it, all sorts of men need it. Secondly, the threshing is done with discretion; and thirdly, the threshing will not last for ever; for so the second verse of the text says, “Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen.” First, then:-

We all need threshing.

Some have a foolish conceit of themselves that they have no sin; but they deceive themselves, and the truth is not in them. The best of men are men at the best; and being men, they are not perfect but are still compassed about with infirmity. What is the object of threshing the grain? Is it not to separate it from the straw and the chaff?

About the best of men there is still a measure of chaff. All is not grain that lies upon the threshing-floor. All is not grain even in those golden sheaves which have been brought into our garner so joyfully. Even the wheat is joined to the straw, which was necessary to it at one time. About the kernel of the wheat the husk is wrapped, and this still clings to it, even when it lies upon the threshing-floor. About the holiest of men there is something superfluous, something which must be removed. We either sin by omission or by trespass. Either in spirit, or motive, or lack of zeal, or want of discretion, we are faulty. If we escape one error, we usually glide into its opposite. If before an action we are right, we err in the doing of it, or, if not, we become proud after it is over. If sin be shut out at the front door, it tries the back gate, or climbs in at the window, or comes down the chimney. Those who cannot perceive it in themselves are frequently blinded by its smoke. They are so thoroughly in the water that they do not know that it rains. So far as my own observation goes, I have found out no man whom the old divines would have called perfectly perfect; the absolutely all-round man is a being whom I expect to see in heaven, but not in this poor fallen world. We all need such cleansing and purging as the threshing-floor is intended to work for us.

Now, threshing is useful in loosening the connection between the good corn and the husk. Of course, if it would slip out easily from its husk, the corn would only need to be shaken. There would be no necessity for a staff or a rod, much less for the feet of horses, or the wheel of a cart to separate it. But there’s the rub: our soul not only lieth in the dust, but “cleaveth” to it. There is a fearful intimacy between fallen human nature and the evil which is in the world; and this compact is not soon broken. In our hearts we hate every false way, and yet we sorrowfully confess, “When I would do good, evil is present with me.” Sometimes when our spirit cries out most ardently after God, a holy will is present with us, but how to perform that which is good we find not. Flesh and blood have tendencies and weaknesses which, if not sinful in themselves, yet tend in that direction. Appetites need but slight excitement to germinate into lusts. It is not easy for us to forget our own kindred and our father’s house, even when the king doth most greatly desire our beauty. Our alien nature remembers Egypt and the flesh-pots while yet the manna is in our mouths. We were all born in the house of evil, and some of us were nursed upon the lap of iniquity, so that our first companionships were among the heirs of wrath. That which was bred in the bone is hard to get out of the flesh. Threshing is used to loosen our hold of earthly things and break us away from evil. This needs a divine hand, and nothing but the grace of God can make the threshing effectual. Something is done by threshing when the soul ceases to be bound up with its sin, and sin is no longer pleasurable or satisfactory. Still, as the work of threshing is never done till the corn is separated altogether from the husk, so chastening and discipline have never accomplished their design till God’s people give up every form of evil, and abhor all iniquity. When we shake right out of the straw, and have nothing further to do with sin, then the flail will lie quiet. It has taken a good deal of threshing to bring some of us anywhere near that mark, and I am afraid many more heavy blows will be struck before we shall reach the total separation. From a certain sort of sins we are very easily separated by the grace of God early in our spiritual life; but when those are gone, another layer of evils comes into sight, and the work has to be repeated. The complete removal of our connection with sin is a work demanding the divine skill and power of the Holy Ghost, and by him only will it be accomplished.

Threshing becomes needful for the sake of our usefulness; for the wheat must come out of the husk to be of service. We can only honour God and bless men by being holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. O corn of the Lord’s threshing-floor, thou must be beaten and bruised, or perish as a worthless heap! Eminent usefulness usually necessitates eminent affliction.

Unless thus severed from sin, we cannot be gathered into the garner. God’s pure wheat must not be defiled by an admixture of chaff. There shall in no wise enter into heaven anything that defileth; therefore, every sort of imperfection must come away from us by some means or other, ere we can enter into the state of eternal blessedness and perfection. Yea, even here we cannot have true fellowship with the Father unless we are daily delivered from sin.

Peradventure, some of us to-day are lying up on the threshing-floor, suffering from the blows of chastisement. What then? Why, let us rejoice therein; for this testifies to our value in the sight of God. If the wheat were to cry out and say, “The great drag has gone over me, therefore the husbandman has no care for me,” we should instantly reply, The husbandman does not pass the corn-drag over the darnel or the nettles; it is only over the precious wheat that he turns the wheel of his cart, or the feet of his oxen. Because he esteems the wheat, therefore he deals sternly with it and spares it not. Judge not, O believer, that God hates you because he afflicts you; but interpret truly, and see that he honours you by every stroke which he lays upon you. Thus saith the Lord, “You only have I known of all the nations of the earth; therefore, I will punish you for all your iniquities.” Because a full atonement has been made by the Lord Jesus for all his people’s sins; therefore, he will not punish us as a judge; but because we are his dear children, therefore he will chastise us as a father. In love he corrects his own children that he may perfect them in his own image, and make them partakers of his holiness. Is it not written, “I will bring them under the rod of the covenant”? Has he not said, “I have refined thee, but not with silver, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction”? Therefore, do not judge according to the sight of the eyes or the feeling of the flesh, but judge according to faith, and understand that, as threshing is a testimony to the value of the wheat, so affliction is a token of God’s delight in his people.

Remember, however, that as threshing is a sign of the impurity of the wheat, so is affliction an indication of the present imperfection of the Christian. If you were no more connected with evil, you would be no more corrected with sorrow. The sound of a flail is never heard in heaven, for it is not the threshing-floor of the imperfect, but the garner of the completely sanctified. The threshing instrument is, therefore, a humbling token, and so long as we feel it we should humble ourselves under the hand of God, for it is clear that we are not yet free from the straw and the chaff of fallen nature.

On the other hand, the threshing instrument is a prophecy of our future perfection. We are undergoing from the hand of God a discipline which will not fail: we shall by his prudence and wisdom be clean delivered from the husk of sin. We are feeling the blows of the staff, but we are being effectually separated from the evil which has so long surrounded us, and for certain we shall one day be pure and perfect. Every tendency to sin shall be beaten off. “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.” If we, being evil, yet succeed with our children by our poor, imperfect chastening, how much more shall the Father of spirits cause us to live unto himself by his holy discipline? If the corn could know the necessary uses of the flail, it would invite the thresher to his work; and since we know whereunto tribulation tendeth, let us glory in it, and yield ourselves with cheerfulness to its processes. We need threshing, the threshing proves our value in God’s sight, and while it marks our imperfection, it secures our ultimate cleansing. In the next place, I would remark that:-

God’s threshing is done with great discretion; “for the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument.” The poor little fitches, a kind of small seed used for flavouring cakes, were not crushed out with a heavy drag, for by such rough usage they would have been broken up and spoiled. “Neither is a cart-wheel turned about upon the cummin”; this little seed, perhaps the carraway, would have been ground by so great a weight: it would have been preposterous to treat it in that rough manner. The fitches were soon removed from the stalks by being “beaten out with a staff,” and the cummin needed nothing but a touch of a rod. For tender seeds the farmer uses gentle means, and for the hardier grains he reserves the sterner processes. Let us think of this, as it conveys a valuable spiritual lesson.

Reflect, my brother, that your threshing and mine are in God’s hands. Our chastening is not left to servants, much less to enemies; “we are chastened of the Lord!” The Great Husbandman himself personally bids the labourers do this and that, for they know not the time or the way, except as divine wisdom shall direct: they would turn the wheel upon the cummin, or attempt to thresh wheat with a staff. I have seen God’s servants trying both these follies; they have crushed the weak and tender, and they have dealt with partiality and softness with those who needed to be sternly rebuked. How roughly some ministers, some elders, some good men and women will go to work with timid, tender souls; yet we need not fear that they will destroy the true-hearted, for, however much they may vex them, the Lord will not leave his chosen in their hands, but will overrule their mistaken severity, and preserve his own from being destroyed thereby. How glad I am of this; for there are many nowadays who would grind the tender ones to powder if they could!

As the Lord has not left us in the power of man, so also he has not left us in the power of the devil. Satan may sift us as wheat, but he shall not thresh us as fitches. He may blow away the chaff from us even with his foul breath, but he shall not have the management of the Lord’s corn: “the Lord preserveth the righteous.” Not a stroke in providence is left to chance; the Lord ordains it, and arranges the time, the force, and the place of it. The divine decree leaves nothing uncertain; the jurisdiction of supreme love occupies itself with the smallest events of our daily lives. Whether we bear the teeth of the corn-drag, or men do ride over our heads, or we endure the gentler touches of the divine hand, everything is by appointment, and the appointment is fixed by infallible wisdom. Let this be a mine of comfort to the afflicted.

Next, remark that the instruments used for our threshing are chosen also by the Great Husbandman. The Eastern farmer, according to the text, has several instruments, and so has our God. No form of threshing is pleasant to the seed which bears it; indeed, each one seems to the sufferer to be peculiarly objectionable. We say, “I think I could bear anything but this sad trouble.” We cry, “It was not an enemy, then I could have borne it,” and so on. Perhaps the tender cummin foolishly fancies that the horse-hoofs would be a less terrible ordeal than the rod, and the fitches might even prefer the wheel to the staff; but happily the matter is left to the choice of One who judges unerringly. What dost thou know about it, poor sufferer? How canst thou judge of what is good for thee? “Ah!” cries a mother, “I would not mind poverty; but to lose my darling child is too terrible!” Another laments, “I could have parted with all my wealth, but to be slandered cuts me to the quick.” There is no pleasing us in the matter of chastisement. When I was at school, with my uncle for master, it often happened that he would send me out to find a cane for him. It was not a very pleasant task, and I noticed that I never once succeeded in selecting a stick which was liked by the boy who had to feel it. Either it was too thin, or too stout; and in consequence I was threatened by the suffers with condign punishment if I did not do better next time. I learned from that experience never to expect God’s children to like the particular rod with which they are chastened. You smile at my simile, but you may smile also at yourself when you find yourself crying, “Any trouble but this, Lord. Any affliction but this.” How idle it is to expect a pleasant trial; for it would then be no trial at all. Almost every really useful medicine is unpleasant: almost all effectual surgery is painful: no trial for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous, yet it is the right trial, and none the less right because it is bitter.

Notice, too, that God not only selects the instruments, but he chooses the place. Farmers in the East have large threshing-floors, upon which they throw the sheaves of corn or barley, and upon these they turn horses and drags; but near the house door I have often noticed in Italy a much smaller circle of hardened clay or cement, and here I have seen the peasants beating out their garden seeds in a more careful manner than would naturally be used towards the greater heaps upon the larger area. Some saints are not afflicted in the common affairs of life, but they have peculiar sorrow in their innermost spirits: they are beaten on the smaller and more private threshing-floor, but the process is none the less effectual. How foolish are we when we rebel against our Lord’s appointment, and speak as if we had a right to choose our own afflictions! “Should it be according to thy mind?” Should a child select the rod? Should the grain appoint its own thresher? Are not these things to be left to a higher wisdom? Some complain of the time of their trial; it is hard to be crippled in youth, or to be poor in age, or to be widowed when your children are young. Yet in all this there is wisdom. A part of the skill of the physician may lie not only in writing a prescription, but in arranging the hours at which the medicine shall be taken. One draught may be most useful in the morning, and another may be more beneficial in the evening; and so the Lord knows when it is best for us to drink of the cup which he has prepared for us. I know a dear child of God who is enduring a severe trial in his old age, and I would fain screen him from it because of his feebleness, but our heavenly Father knows best, and there we must leave it. The instrument of the threshing, the place, the measure, the time, the end, are all appointed by infallible love.

It is interesting to notice in the text the limit of this threshing. The husbandman is zealous to beat out the seed, but he is careful not to break it in pieces by too severe a process. His wheel is not to grind, but to thresh; the horses’ feet are not to break, but to separate. He intends to get the cummin out of its husk, but he will not turn a heavy drag upon it utterly to smash it up and destroy it. In the same way the Lord has a measure in all his chastening. Courage, tried friend, you shall be afflicted as you need, but not as you deserve: tribulation shall come as you are able to bear it. As is the strength such shall the affliction be: the wheat may feel the wheel, but the fitches shall bear nothing heavier than a staff. No saint shall be tempted beyond the proper measure, and the limit is fixed by a tenderness which never deals a needless stroke.

It is very easy to talk like this in cool blood, and quite another thing to remember it when the flail is hammering you; yet have I personally realised this truth upon the bed of pain, and in the furnace of mental distress. I thank God at every remembrance of my afflictions; I did not doubt his wisdom, then, nor have I had any reason to question it since. Our Great Husbandman understands how to divide us from the husk, and he goes about his work in a way for which he deserves to be adored for ever.

It is a pleasant thought that God’s limit is one beyond which trials never go:-

“If trials six be fix’d for men

They shall not suffer seven.

If God appoint afflictions ten,

They ne’er can be eleven.”

The old law ordained forty stripes save one, and in all our scourgings there always comes in that “save one.” When the Lord multiplies our sorrows up to a hundred, it is because ninety-and-nine failed to effect his purpose; but all the powers of earth and hell cannot give us one blow above the settled number. We shall never endure a superfluity of threshing. The Lord never sports with the feelings of his saints. “He does not afflict willingly,” and so we may be sure he never gives an unnecessary blow.

The wisdom of the husbandman in limiting his threshing is far exceeded in the wisdom of God by which he sets a limit to our griefs. Some escape with little trouble, and perhaps it is because they are frail and sensitive. The little garden seeds must not be beaten too heavily lest they be injured; those saints who bear about with them a delicate body must not be roughly handled, nor shall they be. Possibly they have a feeble mind also, and that which others would laugh at would be death to them; they shall be kept as the apple of the eye.

If you are free from tribulation, never ask for it; that would be a great folly. I did meet with a brother a little while ago who said that he was much perplexed because he had no trouble. I said, “Do not worry about that; but be happy while you may.” Only a queer child would beg to be flogged. Certain sweet and shining saints are of such a gentle spirit that the Lord does not expose them to the same treatment as he metes out to others: they do not need it, and they could not bear it; why should they wish for it?

Others, again, are very heavily pressed; but what of that, if they are a superior grain, a seed of larger usefulness, intended for higher purposes? Let not such regret that they have to endure a heavier threshing since their use is greater. It is the bread corn that must go under the feet of the horseman and must feel the wheel of the cart; and so the most useful have to pass through the sternest processes. There is not one amongst us but what would say, “I could wish that I were Martin Luther, or that I could play as noble a part as he did.” Yes; but, in addition to the outward perils of his life, the inward experiences of that remarkable man were such as none of us would wish to feel. He was frequently tormented with Satanic temptations, and driven to the verge of despair. At one hour he rode the whirlwind and the storm, master of all the world, and then after days of fighting with the pope and the devil, he would go home to his bed and lie there broken-down and trembling. You see God’s heroes only in the pulpit, or in other public places, you know not what they are before God in secret. You do not know their inner life: else you might discover that the bread corn is bruised, and that those who are most useful in comforting others have to endure frequent sorrow themselves. Envy no man; for you do not know how he may have to be threshed to make him right and keep him so.

Brethren, we see that our God uses discretion in the chastisement of his people; let us use a loving prudence when we have to deal with others in that way. Be gentle as well as firm with your children; and if you have to rebuke your brother, do it very tenderly. Do not drive your horses over the tender seed. Recollect that the cummin is beaten out with a staff, and not crushed out with a wheel. Take a very light rod. Perhaps it would be as well if you had no rod at all, but left that work to wiser hands. Go you and sow, and leave your elders to thresh.

Next, let us firmly believe in God’s discretion, and be sure that he is doing the right thing by us. Let us not be anxious to be screened from affliction. When we ask that the cup may pass from us, let it be with a “nevertheless not as I will.” Best of all, let us freely part with our chaff. The likeliest way to escape the flail is to separate from the husk as quickly as possible. “Come ye out from among them.” Separate yourselves from sin and sinners, from the world and worldliness, and the process of threshing will all the sooner be completed. God make us wise in this matter! A word or two is all we can afford upon the third head, which is that:-

The threshing will not last for ever.

The threshing will not last all our days even here: “Bread corn is bruised, but he will not always be threshing it.” Oh! no. “For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee.” “He will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger for ever.” “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Rejoice, ye daughters of sorrow! Be comforted, ye sons of grief! Have hope in God, for you shall yet praise him who is the health of your countenance. The rain does not always fall, nor will the clouds always return. Sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Threshing is not an operation which the corn requires all the year round; for the most part the flail is idle. Bless the Lord, O my soul! The Lord will yet bring home his banished ones.

Above all, tribulation will not last for ever, for we shall soon be gone to another and better world. We shall soon be carried to the land where there are neither threshing-floors nor corn-drags. I sometimes think I hear the herald calling me. His trumpet sounds: “Up and away! Boot and saddle! Up and away! Leave the camp and the battle, and return in triumph.” The night is far spent with some of you, but the morning cometh. The daylight breaks above yon hills. The day is coming-the day that shall go no more down for ever. Come, eat your bread with joy, and march onward with a merry heart; for the land which floweth with milk and honey is but a little way before you. Until the day break and the shadows flee away, abide the Great Husbandman’s will, and may the Lord glorify himself in you. Amen.

Expositions by C. H. Spurgeon

PSALM 90; 119:21-32

“The prayer of Moses, the man of God.”

I think this Psalm has been very much misunderstood, because the title has been forgotten. It is not a Psalm for us in its entirety: it cannot be read by the Christian man and taken as it stands. It is a Psalm of Moses, as far as Moses can get. It goes a long way, but there was a Joshua that lead the people into the promised land, and there is a Jesus who has “brought life and immortality to light by the gospel.” That light shines through the gloomy haze of this dark Psalm. Please remember that Moses was a man peculiarly tried. We have never duly given weight to the afflictions of Moses. All the people that he brought out of Egypt, with two exceptions, died, and he saw most of them die: he himself having the sentence of death in himself, that he, like the rest, must not cross into the Land of Promise; so that with two millions or more of people round about him, that forty years he stood in the valley of the shadow of death, and with all the mercies that surrounded him; yet, still, he must have had continual sorrow of heart, all his old friends and companions passing away one by one. It is a brave Psalm, if you read it in that light; it is a grand specimen of heroic faith.

Verse 1. Lord, thou has been our dwelling place in all generations.

All thy saints abide in thee. Thy fiery, cloudy pillar covers and protects us.

2. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God.

Oh! that is grand to feel that there is something stable: there is a rock that never crumbles-God from everlasting to everlasting the same. As for us, what are we?

3. Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.

A breath gave them life: a word makes them die.

4-6. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down and withereth.

We have seen this over and over again, as we shall see it yet again this year in the flourishing and the cutting down of the grass; but we forget it for ourselves. Too often we forget it for our companions: we think that they are immortal where all are mortal. Let us correct our estimate that we may somewhat correct our sorrows.

7. For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.

Which was true of that generation. They died because of God’s anger; but we bless God: as many of us as have believed in Christ Jesus are not under the divine anger: it is taken away. When it does fall upon us, it is as a father is angry with his children; it troubles and consumes us; but, blessed be God, we usually walk in the light of his countenance, and joy, and rejoice therein. Let us value his mercy as we see the misery of his wrath.

8. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.

That is true of you that know not God. Your sins are always before his face; but it is not true of believers. Thou hast cast all their sins behind thy back. God has forgotten the sins of his chosen, according to his own promise, “Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more for ever.” O blessed gospel, Moses cannot reach to that.

9. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.

“For all our days are passed away in thy wrath.” So it was with those that were round about Moses; but our days are passed in God’s goodness: they shall pass away in infinite love, “We spend our years as a tale that is told.”

10. The days of our years are three-score years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

Speaking of the mass of men, this is all that can be said of them; but as for the godly, where do they fly? They fly into his bosom who has loved them with an everlasting love. What is death but an open cage to bid us fly and build our happy nests on high? Blessed be God that we do fly away. Have not we often wished for it, and said, “O that I had the wings of a dove that I might fly away and be at rest”-that will come bye-and-bye.

11. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.

As he is greatly to be reverenced, so is he greatly to be feared. But the Lord has said of his people, “As I have sworn that the waters of Noah shall no more cover the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wrath with thee, nor rebuke thee.” Blessed be his name.

12-14. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants. O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

Poor Israel was greatly afflicted. These deaths in the wilderness made her a perpetual mourner; but Moses asks that God will return to his people, cheer and encourage them, and let the few days they have to live be bright with his presence.

15-17. Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil. Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

PSALM 119:21-32

21. Thou hast rebuked the proud that are cursed, which do err from thy commandments.

Wherever there is pride in the heart, there is sure to be error in the life. A proud man is wrong, to begin with; and as long as he continues proud, he must be wrong. It is not possible for him to be right. God has rebuked him, and God has cursed him. How wise it would be of him to be humble. Remember, we shall have either to be humble or to be humbled; and it is much better to be humble than to have to come under the humbling dispensations of God’s hand.

22. Remove from me reproach and contempt: for I have kept thy testimonies.

O Lord, do not suffer men to believe lies and slanders against me; or if they do, let my conscience sustain my courage by the consciousness that I have kept thy testimonies.

23. Princes also did sit and speak against me:

Had they nothing else to do, but talk against God’s servants? No; they sat down to do it with deliberation. “Princes also did sit and speak against me.”

23. But thy servant did

“Go to law with them?” No; not so here. “But thy servant got red in the face and defended himself?” No, no. Look, you will not read those words. But “Thy servant was broken-hearted about it, to have the great men of the earth speaking against him?” No; it is not so either. “But thy servant did.”

23. Meditate in thy statutes,

Is not that a very blessed and admirable way of enduring slander-simply to take your Bible and read a little more than usual? You will cure it so.

24. Thy testimonies also are my delight and my counsellors.

Because I love them and delight in them. I submit my life to their guidance. I go to thy Book to ask what I shall do. I consult it as the oracle of God. I take my doubts, and difficulties, and dilemmas there, and I find that they are all met. “Thy testimonies are my delight and my counsellors.”

25. My soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word.

Ah! there is a note of sadness here. The Psalmist complains of himself. He found himself very sorrowful, and he could not get out of the sorrow; or he found himself very full of business cares, and he could not get rid of them. “My soul cleaveth to the dust”-as though it was stuck to the dust, and the dust to it, and could not rise. Then how sweet the prayer, “Quicken thou me.” “Didst thou not first make me of dust; and wilt thou not at the last quicken my mortal body out of the dust? Then, now, my Lord, quicken thou me according to thy Word.” See, here is an evil complained of. He finds himself cleaving to the dust. Here is a remedy sought, “Quicken thou me.” And here is an argument pleaded with God-“according to thy Word.” There is a promise for it. Lord, fulfil thy Word.

26. I have declared my ways, and thou heardest me: teach me thy statutes.

A confession had been made: “I have declared my ways.” That confession had been accepted: “Thou heardest me.” Then a petition is offered: “Teach me thy statutes.” “Thou seest that I confess how wrong I was. Now give me grace that I may not go wrong again.” May that be our spirit always.

27, 28. Make me to understand the way of thy precepts: so shall I talk of thy wondrous works. My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word.

“I am poured out like water,” says the Saviour. “My heart is like wax. It is melted in the midst of my bowels.” It is the greatness of pain, the greatness of fear, the greatness of sorrow, till he seems to melt away in the fire like wax. “For heaviness,” says he, “my soul melts. Then strengthen thou me.” Oh! it is so sweet to turn to God when your soul is burdened-to look to him, and say-not “deliver me.” Observe that. The child of God is not so anxious to get rid of trouble, as he is to know how to behave worthily under it. “Strengthen thou me, according to thy Word.” How he harps on that “according to thy Word.” The child of God does not expect God to do otherwise than he has promised to do, and he is quite content if the Lord will act according to his Word, for well does our poet put it:-

“What more can he say than to you he hath said,-

You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?”

In this book, dear brother, whatever your trouble, there is a promise to meet it. If you lose a key and you send for the whitesmith, as a general rule, somewhere in that bunch of keys he has a key that will fit your lock. And so here is a bunch of keys, and there is a key here that will exactly fit the lock of your trouble, whatever it may be, for God foresaw the circumstances of all his people, and prepared a promise for every circumstance.

29. Remove from me the way of lying: and grant me thy law graciously.

“Take away the evil: give me the good.” “The way of lying.” Oh! it is a dreadful thing to get into that. There are some that have a way of doing it-some that do it jocosely-some that do it by implication. Some think it shrewd to deceive. “Remove from me the way of lying.” If truth should be banished from all the world besides, it ought to find a shelter in the breasts of Christians. The Christian man is forbidden to take an oath, because there should never be any necessity for it. His word-his, “Yea, yea”-his “Nay, nay” should always be sufficient. Thank God it is, where the grace of God is.

30, 31. I have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments have I laid before me. I have stuck into thy testimonies: O Lord, put me not to shame.

Here is, first, choice: “I have chosen the way of truth.” Here is his practically carrying it out: “Thy judgments have I laid before me.” Here is his perseverance in it: “I have stuck unto thy testimonies.” And then there is his prayer about it: “O Lord, put me not to shame.” And it is a prayer which is sure to be answered. “Truth may be blamed, but it cannot be shamed.” Truth is God’s daughter, and he will take care of her. If you have chosen the way of truth, it is a way in which, though some may censure and slander, your righteousness shall come forth, in due time, as the noonday.

32. I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart.

“When I get liberty of heart, then will I take as my choice, thy ways.” The Christian is never so much at liberty as when he is under law to Christ. He knows the difference between licence and liberty. He has a liberty to do as he wills, because he wills to do as God wills him to do; and herein lies the only freedom which we desire.