This is the point where all genuine Christians meet. They can all say, without exception, “We love him.” They do not agree in doctrine; it is a pity, but what they did; but I suppose that, so long as we are in this body, we shall none of us see all the truths at once, and each man, seeing only a portion of the truth is most likely to think that what he does not see is not true, whereas it may be just as important as that which he is able to perceive. Well, well, amidst a thousand controversies between Calvinism and Arminianism, and all the forms that various systems have taken with regard to this, and that, and the other, still, all the elect of God, being quickened by divine grace, unite in this one declaration, “Whatever we do not believe, we do love him.” There are great diversities of experience, as well as of doctrine. Some are down in the gloom, and some never seem to leave the cellars of the Lord’s house: they have deep spiritual exercises: they doubt, they fear, they tremble, and are afraid. Others climb up to the very roof of the Palace Beautiful, and look abroad upon the fair scene around. Their feet are used to dancing with spiritual delight, and their hearts sing sweetly before the Lord. Theirs is an experience of communion rather than of corruption. They have been with Jesus, and their faces are made to shine with his company. Perhaps if I told my experience, it might differ from yours from an experimental point of view: in that we might stand wide as the poles asunder; but if we are in Christ, we can each of us say with equal truth and intensity, “We love him.” There we join hands. Whatever we have not felt, and tasted, and known, we do love him.

And you will notice, too, in this short expression that there is a force, a power, in it, principally derived from the fact of the personality of this love. “We love him.” You know, to love an “it” is hard work. It seems contrary to the nature and all the instincts of love. Love ever seeks a living person to grasp. But when it is put “we love him,” it reads so naturally that we feel that we can love, through the force of the divine nature within us, with all the vitality and intensity of our godliness.

We can love him-that blessed Son of God, that condescending One, that sacrificing, dying Lamb: that ascended, reigning, coming Saviour, towards whom our hearts are drawn out. “We love him.” Depend upon it we must have more preaching about the person of Christ, and our hearts must assume more and more a trustfulness and affection towards him. A merely doctrinal religion is pretty sure to degenerate into bigotry; an experimental religion will sooner or later sink into gloom. Understand what I mean. I am not speaking either against doctrine or experience. On the contrary, I would say all I could in favour of both, and they do enter into all men’s lives who live near to Christ, but, still make either the one or the other the great master-thought, brood over either of them, contend for them, live for them, throw your whole force into them, and you may degenerate. But when you live as unto him, when he is the truth that you believe in, when he is the way that you tread, when he is the life that you experience, and when the doctrine, and practice, and experience all meet in him as lines in a centre, then you shall not be degraded, you shall not degenerate, but you shall rise, you shall go from glory to glory, being changed by the presence of the Lord. “We love him,” then.

But I must make one observation before I plunge into the text, namely, that, in order to love this blessed person, being a person, it is clear to everyone who thinks, that there must, first of all, have been some acquaintance with him, and then some deep convincement concerning his excellency. We cannot love whom we do not know or esteem. If we know nothing about Christ, have no understanding of him, have not in any degree occupied our minds with him, we may talk about love to him, but it will be mere talk. And after we have known Christ, by the reading or hearing of the Word, blessed to us by his Holy Spirit, it will be needful for us to be brought into an admiring confidence in him, believing that he is the altogether lovely, the chief among ten thousand, worthy of all our reliance, worthy of all our adoration and service. Then it is, when knowledge has produced faith, that faith gives birth to love.

I make this remark because I have sometimes noticed that, in addressing Sunday-school children, it is not uncommon to tell them that the way to be saved is to love Jesus, which is not true. The way to be saved for man, woman, or child is to trust Jesus for the pardon of sin, and then, trusting Jesus, love comes as a fruit. Love is by no means the root. Faith alone occupies that place. And I think I have heard young persons, too, talking always about the question, “Do I love the Lord or no?”-a very proper question, but it is not the first, but the second. The question that should always come first is, “Do I trust the Lord or no? Do I rest entirely in what he has done for me? Am I depending upon him for eternal life and salvation?” If that first question be answered, the second will not long remain a matter of doubt; but if you begin with the second, and neglect the first, you may involve yourselves in very serious consequences. The great gospel precept is not “Love Christ,” but “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved”-not that love is less than faith, but that love, though, perhaps, first in point of excellence in some respects, comes second in point of order, and that faith is first to be looked to in the soul, and then love will inevitably and necessarily follow.

But now to come to the text. I shall treat the first sentence as the great general confession of the whole church-“We love him”; and the second sentence as the most glorious reason for that love-“because he first loved us.” I am not going to preach this evening, but only to stir you up about these points.

Now, if you are a child of God, you will say, or if you do not say it, it will be true, “We love him.” As sure as ever you have passed from darkness to light, whether you are an Episcopalian, or a Presbyterian, or a Baptist, or whatever you may be, you will agree with this utterance of the one mouth of the one Church. We all, without exception, who have believed in him, love him.

But how do we love him? We love him, first, not at all as we ought to love him. We confess that much with shame-and not at all as we wish to love him. Our conception of what is due to Christ is, no doubt, very short of what is due to him, but we fall short even of our own conception. I am afraid that many of us are like the children at school, who have a good, fair copy set them at the top of the page, and the next line is written to imitate the copy, and the next imitates the imitation of the copy, and as it gets to the bottom of the page-alas! poor writing-how unlike it is to the perfect copy at the top! So what is due to Christ stands at the top: what I believe about Christ in my best moments stands next: what I actually give to Christ comes next to that: and then far down the page how badly do I write, and how far do I fall short of what my love knows I ought to give to him!

“Yes, I love thee and adore,

Oh! for grace to love thee more!”

Now, remember, we never make ourselves love Christ more by flogging ourselves for not loving him more. We come to love those better whom we love by knowing them better, not by talking to ourselves about the duty of loving them, for love and duty, somehow or other, do not work well together. I mean that to talk of love being squeezed and pressed out by duty is not at all congruous. Love is like the generous first drops of the honeycomb-the virgin honey which drips spontaneously, because the comb is full to bursting. Such is true, genuine love. If you want to love Christ more, think more of him, think more of what you have received from him. Study his character more in the Word; draw oftener near to him in prayer; live more in holy fellowship with him. These are the faggots that shall make that oven blaze. This is the secret fuel that shall make our soul on fire with love to Jesus. We do not love him as we ought, nor as we wish.

But for all that, in the next place, we do really love him. The devil tells us we do not, but when it comes to close quarters we can turn to one who knows better than the devil, and we can say, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.” What a mercy it is that Jesus Christ does not believe our actions, for they very often say, “Jesus, we do not love thee.” But he reads our hearts, and our hearts still beat with this, “Oh! my God! in my very soul I do love Christ, and if it were possible I would never sin against him: oh! wretched man that I am, that I should live so contrary to my true life, and that the thing that I would I do not, and what I would not that I do; for I find this law in my members, bringing me into captivity. For I have tasted of freedom, and am indeed, free, and will not be the servant of any, but will be the espoused one, the free espoused one of Christ Jesus my Lord.” Yes, we do really love him.

And we also, if we be saints at all, love him practically. We delight-and that is the true standard and gauge of the man-in that in which he delights. We delight in his service, in his company, in his friends. There is nothing-I feel sure some of us can say this without egotism-there is nothing that makes our soul feel so full of bliss as when we have opportunities of glorifying the name of Jesus Christ, and if we had the offer of all the kingdoms of the world, and but a grain of glory put into our hand that we might give to Christ-we would sooner have it than all the wealth of the Indies, and all the royalties of all the empires. To glorify Christ is a lasting treasure which shall abide with us when the world is on a-blaze. To teach one little child the name of Jesus, to bring the tear into its little eye about the dying Lord, is better and sweeter work to us than statesmanship itself could be if it were dissociated from him.

“Is there a lamb amongst thy flock

I would disdain to feed?

Is there a foe before whose face

I’d fear thy cause to plead?”

Some of you are very busy preaching for my Lord, and I know that when you are preaching your main desire is that he may be extolled in your hearers’ hearts. Do you not pine and sigh after this? Would you not give up all the graces of oratory, and talk in the most vulgar style, if need be, if you could win a soul for him thereby? I know you would, my brethren, for this is all the true minister’s desire. And you, too, who have been standing in the streets to-day, preaching at the corners, I hope-nay, I feel it must be so with you if you are his at all-that you spoke out of love to his dear name, and when you would have preferred to have been silent, it was love that unloosened that tongue of yours. Do you not wish you could speak better? Do you not wish you could command attention better? And it is all for him, for his dear sake, that you might paint him better before the eyes of men. And you, dear teachers, in the classes, you who have been engaged in the Sunday School, if you are right at all, and I trust you are, you have been teaching because you wanted to make him famous, and to let him see of the travail of his soul. And you who cannot come to the school, but have been praying for your children, and talking with them, you who have been dropping your pence into the box, and have each been trying to do your share of something for the Master-well, if his life be in your hearts, and his blood be sprinkled on you, you can say that you desire to do all this as a practical evidence that you so love him. All the works that you have done to-day, done in his Spirit, have been a repetition of this verse, “We love him.”

Now, will you do the same in your ordinary lives, for in this I fear we sometimes fail? As a servant, live as one who loves Jesus. As a master, as a workman, as a merchant, as a man of retirement and property, still let this be the guide of your steps, the order of your life, the model by which you shape your conversation, “We love him.” Let every breath prove it; let every heaving of the lungs, every motion of the tongue and of the hand prove the great and blessed reality of the fact that we love him.

Brethren and sisters, we can go a step further; I trust we love Jesus Christ, not only really and practically, but we love him supremely. That point has often vexed good hearts. They have said, “I cannot say that I love Jesus Christ better than father, or mother, or husband, or wife, or child.” No; you cannot say it, and there are a great many things we cannot say, which it were better not for us to say, which would be immodest for us to say, but yet they may be true for all that. They who are beautiful talk not of their beauty, and those who love most are usually the most diffident about their love. Now, you cannot contrast loves the one to another, as you can contrast five to eight, and say which may be the greater. It is not an arithmetical problem, but I will put it to the proof with you in this way-if you had to lose that dear husband, or else lose Jesus Christ, which would you do? Why, it does not take two minutes to consider. You would not put them in the scale together for a single second. He stands, out of sight, above all husbands and dearest wives. We cannot consider him in such a relation as that. Or, put it thus: if you had to give up your hope of heaven and your interest in Christ to-night, or to lose all that you have-which would you do? Why, I think you would not need to go into that little chamber to calculate. “No,” say you, “all that I have, why it is so little; it is a thing of care to me, and if it were not, if I had more, as I should be very glad to have that I might give up more, I would put it all away and say, ‘Lord, I have left all that I might follow thee; but in leaving it, I did but gain a greater consciousness of thy love to me, and a far greater and deeper enjoyment of that love.’ ”

Sometimes, however, some of you young people get an opportunity of showing which you love best-whether you do love Jesus better than all things else, or not. In the case of marriage, that test often comes. And ah! how lamentable is the fact that many a young sister, and many a brother, too, will break through Christ’s law, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” I know this is a perplexing and solemn point, mark you. You do, in fact, give Christ up when you take that ungodly man, and you, young man, when you seek after that Christless woman; you deny your Lord and Master; as far as you can do it, you deny him, and give him up for the sake of earthly pleasures. For such an act as that, your conscience may well prick you, and if you be, indeed, the Lord’s servant, the rod will follow you, and in your household the Lord’s hand will go out against you as long as you live. You there came to the test, and could not stand it. But I hope there are many, many here who could say, “Yes, with everything that beauty could present to attract my heart, and all that wealth could lay at my feet to win my regard, with all that honour could put before me to dazzle my desires, I feel that I must obey my Lord and Master; I must be a chaste virgin unto him, and give myself to Christ, and to him alone.” We love Christ, brethren-I trust we do-supremely.

“We love him,” also, always. The love of a believer to Christ is not a thing of Sundays, nor of public meetings and prayer meetings. “We love him”-it is the utterance of the man sitting at the writing-desk penning a letter, or standing in the market selling his corn, or on the Exchange, dealing in his shares and stocks. “We love him.” Our love is not a spasm: it is not a mere emotion, a thing of excitement. It does not, like the Salamander, live in the fire, but then die when the fire dies out. “We love him,” soberly, steadily, constantly, persistently, after a real, and serious, and business-like spirit. “We love him”-it is intertwisted with our daily life; it is part of our inmost being; it flows in the blood, it breathes in the lungs, it is everywhere about us, and we could as soon cease to exist as to cease to be lovers of Christ. I mean, of course, if we be, indeed, the saved sons of God. We love him, then, constantly.

And yet another thing, dearly beloved; we love him increasingly. We do not always think so, but it is true, if we are right with God. We love him more than ever. When we are first converted we think we shall love Jesus Christ a great deal more than we really prove to do, and much of that love afterwards departs, but it is only the superficial and half-fictitious love that vanishes.

See! Mary is lighting the fire: and as the straw or paper takes light at the bottom, what a great blaze there is! No sooner is the match put to it than the flames rush up the chimney. But come again in half an hour; why, there is not half the blaze, nor any cracking, nor noise! But is there less heat? Why, see, the coals have caught, and the whole grate has become one glowing mass of fire. There is not half the blaze and the crackling, but there is more real, solid heat. And so is it with the growing believer. At the first there is much of excitement, much of novelty, but afterwards there is the steady, calm warmth of a glowing soul. I can only say, brethren, that if we do not love Christ growingly we ought to do so. He is one that grows upon believers. The more they know him, the better they must love him. The longer is their experience of his faithfulness, and his fulness, and freeness, and goodness, and greatness, the deeper, and firmer, and broader, and higher ought to be their love of him, and I trust that it is so.

And another thing-we love him, and we are not ashamed to love him, and we are not ashamed to confess it, and we do not blush to bear the shame which may come to us after the avoual. Ah! perhaps I am addressing some here-I do not know where they are-who love my Lord, but they have never said so. Oh! thou that art on the rock, in the secret places of the stair, come forth, and let him hear thy voice, for that voice is sweet to him, and thy face is comely in his eye. Oh! be not ashamed to confess that thou lovest him. There is nothing in it of which to be ashamed. It might make an angel proud to be permitted to love Christ, and to declare his love. Ashamed of saying that I love him? No! let the earth hear it, and let it rage; let hell hear it, and let it boil over with fury: yet is he such an one that as I cry, “I love him,” I feel it to be the grandest, greatest statement that grace can enable us to make. Yes: never in any circumstances make this a thing to be shy about, but avow it in your actions, and declare it by your public profession, “We love him.”

Brethren, we bless God that the day is coming when we shall love him best of all. This tenement of our body is falling away by degrees: these fetters of the flesh are rusting off: we shall soon be free, and when the emancipated spirit shall see him without a veil to hide him, then shall our love to him be perfected. Or if he comes ere our death arrives, we shall see him as he is, and shall be like him, and then, too, shall our love rise to its transcendent maturity. It is a mercy that, while other loves die like lilies broken at the stalk, or fall like rose-buds when they burst and are full-blown, our love to Christ shall go on for ever and for ever increasing, and when heaven and earth shall pass away, immortal love, eternal love, shall still abide. As long as God exists, the love of God shall be shed abroad in us, and our hearts shall continually love him in return.

I might pause here to say-if it be true that you love him, dear brethren and sisters-love his people better, love his poor better, love his cause better, love his truth better, love poor blood-bought sinners better, love the assemblies of his saints better, love his Word better; keep his commandments better; draw nearer to him; aim to be more like him. May these practical truths, though unspoken by me, yet be lived out in your conversation. But now for the second head. We can only afford a few minutes upon it, but it is a subject which might well occupy eternity in our meditation:-

“We love him-because he first loved us.” It is personal again, you see, personal again. “We”-“him”-two persons-and here is the reason for it-“because he first loved us”-persons again. We do not love Christ because the minister preached, or we received his doctrines, or because we can understand that such-and-such things are in our Lord’s teachings, but the reason for the love springs from himself, as it goes out after himself. It is because of something that he did, and something that he said, prior to anything that he did. “We love him, because he first loved us.” Love is the cause of love. He loves-we love. We love second and after him, because he loves first and before us. He first. Now, that is an experimental truth. We know that he loved us before we loved him. Just look back on your life before conversion. He loved you then. What made you love him at all? It was because you were told that he loved you, and you believed it. Law and terrors never made you love him: they hardened you. It was a sense of blood-bought pardon that dissolved you, and you saw the love of Christ in that pardon, and so you could not help loving him in return. This is no novelty: this is no mere theory: it is a great truth. I pray you turn it over. Jesus loved you when you lived carelessly, when you neglected his Word, when the knee was unbent in prayer. Ah! he loved some of you when you were in the dancing saloon, when you were in the playhouse, ay, even when you were in the brothel. He loved you when you stood at hell’s gate, and drank damnation at every draught. He loved you when you could not have been worse or further from him than you were. Marvellous, O Christ, is thy strange love! What love is this that shone on us when we were the serfs and slaves of Satan, the scullions in the kitchen of iniquity; when nothing was too hard for some of us to do if we might but sin, and yet he loved us! And others there were of us who were as bad as this-proud, hypocritical, rotten-hearted professors, who were boasting of our own self-righteousness, as proud as Lucifer, when there was not even a good thing in us, and yet we were loved with his great love, wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in trespasses and in sins, blessed be his name!

Now, that is a matter of experience, and it is also a matter of our firm belief and joyous confidence that Jesus loved us before that-in that tremendous day, the centre of the two eternities, the end of one dispensation, and the beginning of the next-that day in which the sun was darkened, and yet for the first time began to shine: that day in which earth did shake, and heaven was established: that day in which the dead arose, and the thoughts of men were discovered: in that day, when he, the appointed Substitute, went up to Calvary with all the sins of all his people upon him, piled like a tremendous world; when, like another Atlas, he bore that overwhelming load upon his shoulders, and afterwards heaved the whole infinite weight into forgetfulness. In that day he gave the supreme proof of his love to us. Look at those eyes red with weeping: see how he loves! Look to those cheeks defiled with the filthy spittle, and bruised where the fists of the scoffers smote him! See how he loved! Look to that dear head, still scarred with the jagged wounds of the thorn-crown: look to that matchless mouth, and that tongue so parched: look to the whole face so marred as to be sorrow’s dwelling-place: look to the whole body so utterly agonised, and tortured, and languishing: look to the tender, gracious hands-those crimson fountains tell the tale: look to the feet-those scarlet rivulets declare how deep is his love. Ay, look to his side, set abroach by the soldier’s spear-that precious stream of blood and water declares with double and indisputable force that Jesus loves, and we were not born then; we were not here-he loved us first.

But this grand old Book bids us go farther back than that day. He loved us when, in the garden, our first parents spoiled us all, and a promise was given that he should come to bruise the serpent’s head. Ay, when yonder mountains were infants, when the grey old world and its ruins that speak of ages were as yet but newly formed, ay, and before that-ere the sun’s great flame was lit by the divine torch, ere stars began to whirl in their all but boundless revolutions; when time was not; when there was no day but the Ancient of Days, and he dwelt alone, the infinite Jehovah-even then Jesus loved his people. His prescient eye had seen them; his sovereign choice had separated them; his distinguishing grace had discriminated them, and his eternal purpose had decreed them to be his for ever and ever. He loved us first.

Well, if this is not a good reason for loving him, where could such a reason be found? He first loved us. Oh! cold hearts! Oh! slabs of marble! Oh! blocks of granite! Oh! icebergs! if we melt not now, when will we melt? He loved us first! That glorious thought like fire rushes through and through, and through our very deepest nature, and refines it, and sets us all on a glow. We must love him, because he first loved us.

Words fail me to speak about that love of his. It was a love so condescending that he stooped from heaven to reach us, laid aside the royalties of glory, and took upon himself the infirmities of earth. It was a love so lasting that the ages have never dimmed it, nor lessened it by so much as a single atom. It was a love so enduring that the ten thousand provocations of our unbelief and of our sin have never quenched it. Many waters could not quench it, neither could the floods drown it. It was a love so generous that Jesus gave us all: he gave us even his Father and his God, for did he not say, “My Father and your Father, my God and your God”? He gave us, and he gives us this day, himself. He gives us communion with himself; he gives us his blood to wash us; he gives us his righteousness to clothe us; he gives us his life for our example, his throne for our rest at the last. Oh! generous love, nothing dost thou withhold! Thou reservest nothing for thyself; thou givest all to the beloved object. It was a love that was quite disinterested. Jesus had nought to gain. The gain was ours. It was a love most self-sacrificing. His sufferings, how intense! His griefs, how terrible! And all for his sweet love of us who were his enemies!

I would I had a seraph’s tongue but for one moment; a tongue of flame with which to speak of my Master! As I cannot have this, I must be content to say that this ocean of Christ’s love is one that is not to be measured. Plunge into it. Ask that you may be swallowed up in it. Pray that it may baptize you, that you may be lost in its overwhelming floods, and that henceforth for you to live may be Christ and to die may be gain. Brethren, the Lord’s love be over you, and in you, and in the power of his quickening Spirit may you live through another week, and when we come together again may our hearts retain some of the glow of the affection which I trust we have felt burning within our hearts to-night. To his name be praise! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

ROMANS 8:26-39

Verse 26. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities:

Our weaknesses, our insufficiencies, our inabilities: the Spirit of God comes in to be a helper to the children of God.

26. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought:

We do not know our own infirmities. Perhaps we think that we are strong, where we are exceedingly weak. The Spirit of God spies out the infirmities, and puts the help where the strength is required. “We know not what we should pray for as we ought.”

26. But the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Those great things in prayer that we cannot ask for, which can never be expressed in human language, the Holy Ghost translates into groans, and so we are made to groan when we cannot speak; and those groanings bring us blessings which words cannot compass. Have you been into your prayer-chamber lately, pleading with God, and have you felt as if you could not pray? We often pray best when we think that we are praying worst. When there is the most anguish, and sighing, and crying in prayer, there is most of the very essence of prayer.

27. And he that searched the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

The Spirit knows what we want. God knows what the Spirit is asking for; and so our prayer makes the complete round, and God sends us the blessing.

28. And we know

We know: we are sure of it.

28. That all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

We know this, for we have proved it in our own experience. “All things work.” There is nothing inactive in the providence of God. “All things work together.” There is a unity in providence. God sets one thing over against another. Blessed be the name of God, all things work together for good. The purpose of God to his people is good, and only good; and though this or that might be injurious, yet, all put together, they work for good to them that love God. Come, my soul, dost thou love God? Canst thou say to-night, “Thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love thee”? All things work together for thy good. Not only shall they work, but they are working, they work now, for thy good. And learn another sweet lesson. Thou art one of those whom God calls, according to the sweet purpose of his electing love, for so it stands: they that love God are the same as those who are called according to his purpose. If thou lovest God, God loves thee. Thy love to God, poor and faint though it be, is the assured token that he loves thee with an everlasting love, and, therefore, with bands of loving-kindness has he drawn thee.

29. For whom he did foreknow,

That is, look upon with pleasure and delight from before all worlds. Whom he did love and call to be his own.

Christ is the man, the architype. He is not to be a lone man. It is not good for man to be alone, not even for the man; and there are to be other men called by God’s grace who are to be made like him, who are to be his brethren. These, whom God foreknew, with fore-love he has ordained, determined, predestinated to be made like his Son.

29-30. He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called:

Not with the common call with which he calls other men, but with the special call. The hen, when she is about in the yard, keeps on calling; but when she wants her own little ones to come and run beneath her wings, then she has a special cluck for them, and they know it, and they come, and run and hide beneath her.

30. And whom he called, them he also justified:

He regarded them as just. He made them just through the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ.

30. And whom he justified, them he also glorified.

There is no break in this chain. The foreknown are predestinated, the predestinated are called, the called are justified, the justified are glorified. It is a wondrous chain. He that getteth a hold of it anywhere hath a hold of the whole of it, for this Scripture cannot be broken. If thou art called by grace into the fellowship of eternal life, thou shalt be justified and glorified.

31. What shall we then say to these things?

I do not know what we can say. Wonders of grace, mountains of mercy, mercy without limit-what shall be say to these things? This, at least, we can say:-

31. If God be for us, who can be against us?

A great many can be against us, but we reckon them as nothing at all, if God be for us.

32. He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

There can be no end to the bounty of God after he has given his Son. He that has given the jewel of the universe, the very eye of heaven-what! will he not give to us all else really needed, and give freely, too?

33-35. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Dear children of God, feed on these words. They are like wafers made with honey, like cold waters from the rock. Eat drink, and be filled. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”

35. Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Well, these things have been tried. As it is written, “For thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” In Paul’s day they were being hunted to the death, by thousands, and tens of thousands. Were they separated from Christ’s love?

The enemy grew tired of persecution before the saints were wearied by it. You remember how, in the days of the Roman Empire, the Christians came to the judgment-seat and confessed Christ, even when they were not sought after; as if tempting their enemies to throw them to the lions, or put them to death. They were destitute of all fear; and though Emperors were worse than brutes, these Christians defied them, outbraved them, vanquished them. They could not put down the Christians.

36-39. As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come. Nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

GOOD TALK

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, March 26th, 1914.

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“Talk ye of all his wondrous works.”-1 Chronicles 16:9.

This sentence stands in connection with exhortations to offer thanksgiving unto the Lord, and to make known his deeds among the people. Thus it runs, “Sing unto him; sing Psalms unto him; talk ye of all his wondrous works.”

The old typical religion of the Jews, and the perverse superstition of the heathen, made some places sacred and some places unclean; some actions holy, and other actions, performed however well they might be, common, and not to be connected in any degree with holiness. But the religion of Jesus Christ has once for all swept away all holy places, and every place is hallowed wherever man is holy. Jesus Christ has consecrated the world by his presence, and wherever man chooses to worship, there is a house for God. The religion of Jesus Christ has also swept away those distinctions which men make as to actions being necessarily religious or irreligious. Some will have it that to sing a psalm is to worship God-a sacred thing; but to feed the sparrows is, according to them, a secular matter. To come up to a place that shall be set apart for worship, and there to bow the knee in prayer, is adoration of the Most High, but, according to them, to perform acts of mercy and righteousness is not a tribute of homage to God. Now, the very essence of the Christian religion is just this-that it is not a thing confined to hours, and times, and places, but it is a thing of spirit. It lieth not in outward garbs or in mere words, but pervades the whole spirit of man, and makes him turn his entire life into worship; then every action he performs in its spirit and under its influence is holiness unto the Lord. God is worshipped by servants who fulfil the duties of their station, by judges who decree righteousness, by merchants who deal justly, by children who obey their parents, and by parents who train up their children in the fear of the Lord. There is not a line to be drawn anywhere, so that you can say, “Outside of that you go beyond the sanctuary of religion, and get into the outer courts frequented by the multitude.” Here has been the great mistake which some Christians have made with regard to politics. They have supposed that a man could not be a Christian and a politician too. Hence much injustice has been done. The fact is, when a man feels “There is nothing belongs to man but what may be consecrated to God,” and when he says, “I, being God’s servant, may take all that belongs to man, and devote it as holiness unto the Lord,” he reaches the highest order of manhood, and illustrates the highest style of Christianity. We cannot fully exhibit the spirit of Jesus Christ till we have learned that we must carry out in every place, and in every sphere, the spirit of his religion.

I make these remarks because, while we are first bidden to sing unto God’s praise, we are next told to talk about his wondrous works. There is a praising for the assembly; there is a talking for the fireside; and both are to be holy. The praise is to be hearty, sincere, unanimous, full of animation; the talk is to be equally sincere, equally earnest, equally sacred. You are not to say, “I have done with praising God,” when the hymn is over, and you begin to open your mouths upon ordinary topics; but in your ordinary conversation, in the fields, by the way-side, in the streets, and in your chambers, you are still to go on praising God, and talking of all his wondrous works.

Shall there be a connection established between such a common word as “talk” and such grand swelling words as “the wondrous works of God”? We wonder to find the little monosyllable in such a place. “Preach ye of all his wondrous works,” would seem well enough; “Show them,” would seem sound theology; but talk ye, talk ye; in your ordinary, common, every-day conversation; make the wondrous works of God to be your trite converse, your familiar talk. We must talk; we seem born to talk; we were wretched indeed if we were forbidden to speak to our fellow-creatures. Why, the world seems to be enlivened by continuous, not to say incessant, talking, from the first blush of morning, on still through all the bustling day, and far into the shades of drowsy night. How our tongues are occupied! They run more quickly than our feet, and carry less, though much mischief sometimes comes from their babble. They are sharper than razors, some of them, and cut deeper than swords, and kindle fire enough to set the world in a blaze. Now, this talking to which women are proverbially disposed, and in which men indulge as freely as inclination prompts them; to be heard in every street, in every house, and in every workshop; this it is which is to be consecrated unto God. The streams of conversation are everywhere to be drawn off from the gutters and channels in which they gather defilement; to be strained, cleansed, and purified, till they become fresh, clear, and sparkling. Then the speech of human intercourse, man with man, saint with saint, redeemed from the beggarly elements of common slander and envy, foolishness and vanity, shall be lifted up as on eagles’ wings till it is like the fellowship of the angels realising the prediction of the psalmist, to the praise of the Lord, “They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom and talk of thy power.” Now, first:-

The subject here suggested for our common-place talk-his wondrous works-invites notice.

Brethren, we ought to talk more about God’s wondrous works as we find them in Holy Scripture. Do you read them? Alas! in how many a case the Bible is the least read book in the house! I am inclined to think that, although there may be more Bibles in England than any other book, there is less of Bible-reading than anything else in literature. The sacred volume seems to be scarcely known to many, except from chapters read in the public services, and the quotations of the minister; while alas, alas, for us! our conversation hath very little in it of the records of the mighty acts of the Lord. But the old saints were wont to speak to one another about the historical parts of Scripture. They dwelt full often, and never seemed happier than when they were dwelling, upon it, on that story of the Red Sea, when the Lord smote Rahab, and brake the head of the dragon. How they would stand together and speak of the books of the wars of the Lord, of what he did by the brook Arnon, and how he led his servants through Jordan, and brought them into the promised land, cast out the Canaanites, and slew their kings. They talked of these things, not merely as historical events, but as seeing the Lord in them all, and they so spoke and so read of them as to see in them subjects worthy of their study. I do not know how it is, but we do not get at the history of our own country in anything like the way in which one might desire, for really the wondrous works of God which he has done here in this land are such as we ought to speak of at our firesides. We should look upon the events of history and the chronicles of each day in this light, and if, as we scanned the ample page of history, rich with the spoils of time, we saw God’s hand fashioning its contingencies and moulding them into destiny, and the impress of his footsteps upon all its stupendous revolutions, we should not lack for topics of conversation, but our memories would be stored, our interest excited, our minds elevated with noble passions, and our social intercourse ennobled by the inexhaustible resources of wisdom, as we talked of all the wondrous works of the Lord.

But, brethren, our own history will enable us to relate such a multitude of tender mercies as may well become incentives to gratitude and praise. How much might we tell of what the Lord has done for us personally! Here is a subject that shall never be exhausted. Talk to one another-especially to those who can understand you because they have felt the same-of the long-suffering of God when you were in your ungodly estate; the wonders of that love which tracked you with its many warnings while you were still strangers to yourselves and to God. Talk of that Almighty power which, when the predestinated hour had come, laid hold upon you and made you yield. Speak of what the Lord did for you when you were in the low dungeon of your own self-abhorrence; how he met with you when you were brought to death’s door; how Jesus appeared for you, and clothed you with his righteousness, and your spirit revived, and your heart was glad. Shall the slave ever forget the music of his chains when they dropped from his wrists, and will you ever case to speak of that happy day, the happiest of all days, when all the chains of your transgression were for ever broken off at the love-touch of your Redeemer? Oh, no! talk ye still of the wondrous works of God as connected with your conversion. And, since that time, however quiet your life may have been, I am sure there has been much in it that has tenderly illustrated the Lord’s providence, the Lord’s guidance, the Lord’s deliverance, the Lord’s upholding and sustaining you. You have been, perhaps, in poverty, and just when the barrel of meal was empty, then you were supplied. Talk ye of his wondrous works. You have been in great temptation, and when you were reeling under it, or when you were slandered and no name was thought bad enough for you, his sweet love hath appeared to you, and helped you to rejoice in this also for Christ’s name sake. Talk ye of this. You have gone, perhaps, Christian, through fire and through water; yours has been a very chequered life; you have fought with lions, or have stood in the valley of the shadow of death, but in it all God’s aid has been very wonderful. There have been miracles heaped upon miracles along your pathway. Perhaps you are like the Welsh woman who said that the Ebenezers which she had set up at the places where God had helped her were so thick that they made a wall from the very spot she began with Christ to that she had then reached. Is it so with you? Then talk ye, talk ye of all his wondrous works. I am sure you would find such talk most interesting, most impressive, and most instructive, for the things we have seen and experienced ourselves generally wear a novelty, and abound in interest, beyond any narrative we get from books, or any unauthenticated story we pick up at secondhand. Tell them how God has led you, fed you, and brought you to this day, and would not let you go.

There is a topic for you, and you never shall know how large it is.

The excellency of this subject is both negative and positive.

Were we to talk more of God’s wondrous works, there would be this negative good, that we should talk less about our own works. A man never lowers himself more than when he tries to lift himself up. There are some whose propensity is to use vain swelling words about their own doings, and they seem to be never better pleased than when they are bragging and saying, “I did this; I did that; I did the other.” “Talk ye of all his wondrous works.” As for your puny actions, if you judge and estimate them properly, you will find more to mourn over than to boast of. Give to the Lord the glory that is due unto his name, and your discretion shall not be perilled.

If we talked more of God’s wondrous works, we should be free from talking of other people’s works. It is easy to criticise those we could not rival, and carp at those we could not emulate. He who could not carve a statue, or make a single stroke of the chisel correctly, affects to point out where the handicraft of the greatest sculptor might have been improved. It is a poor, pitiful occupation, that of picking holes in other people’s coats, and yet some people seem so pleased when they can perceive a fault, that they roll it under their tongue as a sweet morsel. Why should this be? Why should you find fault with God’s servants in this way? They are not your servants, but his servants; he will call them to account himself. He does not ask you to be thus officious. Talk ye of his wondrous works, and you will not speak so unkindly of his servants.

Did we talk more of God’s wondrous works, it would keep us from the ordinary frivolities of conversation. In the olden times they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. Suppose for a moment that our ordinary conversation were taken down by an eaves-dropper, as in the case mentioned by Malachi. I do not know what your conversation was about at tea-time this evening, but supposing that somebody had been hearkening and hearing, and that you knew for certain that it was going to be put into a book and printed, would you feel quite easy? Supposing we could have put down in a book the talk of all our people during the day, and could have it all read out, I am afraid we should find that our talk is not always such as edifieth, and not always seasoned with salt. In fact, some Christian people never talk thoroughly good gospel talk unless somebody is present in whose esteem it is likely to raise them, or until they get into such company as they suppose will relish it, and then they feel compelled to accommodate themselves to the occasion. The habit of thoroughly good godly talk is not common among professors. I wish it were. I wish that not only sometimes our talk were what God would have it to be, but that it were always so, that our common conversation were like salt ministering grace unto the hearers.

As there is a negative excellence about this subject of conversation, so there is also a positive excellence. Supposing we were to talk more of God’s wondrous works; when the habit was acquired, it would necessitate stricter habits of observation, and of discrimination in watching the providence of God. Memory, the treasure-house of the mind, must have its goods assorted and its records indexed, so that the things of which we hear and read might not only be well retained, but easily referred to. As Cowper says:-

“But conversation, choose what theme we may,

And chiefly when religion leads the way,

Should flow, like waters after summer showers,

Not as if raised by mere mechanic powers.”

Alas! the mercies of God flow by us like a river; we forget to count its multitudinous waves. We receive the mercies fresh every day, and take but slight account of them; too often they are:-

“Forgotten in unthankfulness,

And without mention die.”

The spirit of observing God in all things was prevalent amongst our Puritan ancestors. They saw God in every single drop of rain, and in every ray of sunlight. They were wont to talk about the commonest changes of the atmosphere as coming from the hand of God, to speak of incidents which we might account trivial as connected with the decrees of him who ordereth all things after the counsel of his own will. Oh! that we, too, amidst the various maze of life, could thus learn to track the course “of boundless wisdom and of boundless love”! Such conversation, brethren, would be very ennobling. Why, it would liken us to the ancient saints and the spirits before the throne. What is their conversation there? How they talk of God’s wondrous works, God’s works in creation, God’s works in providence, God’s works in grace. They are too taken up with the splendour of the divine presence to suffer their pure intercourse to degenerate into any meaner theme. Yes, and living as we do in the presence of God, professing to have the Holy Ghost dwelling in us, and to have been lifted up from the world into communion with Jesus Christ, it ought to be our holy ambition to let our conversation be of things that are like our standing, things that are worthy of our high calling and profession, things that have to do with our election, and will help us onward to our eternal portion. We should not be so grovelling as we are, did we talk more of the wondrous things of God.

And beloved, while holding this lofty fellowship of heart and tongue, how would our gratitude glow and what an impulse would be given to our entire life! I do not know how you find it, but with me it is no easy matter to maintain spiritual life in the fulness of its vigour. To go week after week, month after month, and year after year, plodding on in the pilgrimage, is hard work; it needs no small degree of strength, resolve and skill. If it were one tremendous leap, we could soon perform it; if it were but a spurt in the race, we might soon win the prize; but to go on, on, on, and still to keep up our zeal, still to be awake, still to be earnest, here it is one feels the need of the mercies of God to be means of grace to us, to refrsh our gratitude, and put fresh fuel upon the altar. Oh! brethren, we have not lived yet. We do not seem to recognise what the Christian life really means. When I instanced our conversation just now as being poor, and mean, and barren, I did but cull one mildewed leaf out of the whole field, for our whole life is much alike, I fear. The Lord revive us. What means is he so likely to use, except he employ the rod of chastisement, as the renewal of our memory of his great loving-kindness, that we may be constrained to dedicate ourselves more fully unto him? But times flies; let me proceed, therefore:-

To urge this talking, ordinarily and commonly, about God’s wondrous works.

I have already said that it would prevent much evil and do us much good. May I not safely add that it would be the means of doing much good to others? If we spake often of God’s wondrous works, we might impress the sinner, we might enlighten the ignorant, we might comfort the desponding. You say, “But how are we to do it?” I reply, “How is it you have not done it before?” If we began early in our Christian course to make Jesus Christ our companion in the family and everywhere wherever we went, and to take him always with us, we should never leave off; it would become the business of our life. I have noticed that many Christian people delay in this matter for years. They cultivate habits of retirement and reticence more upon this subject than upon any other. Perhaps it is a long time after they have believed that they come forward to obey the second great command of baptism, and the same shyness happens with regard to their talking about Christ in all companies. They do love him; at least, in the judgment of charity, we trust they do; we acknowledge them, but having never began at the first to acknowledge him openly, they cannot break the ice now. If they had then had the courage to say, “I have given Christ my tongue, and mean to use it for him; I am his servant, and I mean to serve him wherever I go,” they would have continued the profession and the practice still. Brethren, is it diffidence that restrains you? Take care it is diffidence, and not cowardice; say to yourselves, each one of you:-

“Am I a soldier of the Cross,

A follower of the Lamb?

And shall I fear to own his cause,

Or blush to speak his name?”

What, in the presence of the noble army of martyrs who feared not to die, do you fear to speak? What, if they stood on the burning faggots for Christ, cannot you bear, if so it must be, a jeer or a sarcasm? Must you be wickedly dumb when you might do so much for Christ in the circle where his providence has cast you? Oh! be ashamed of having been ashamed. Do ask the Master that, whatever fear you have, you may be delivered from the fear of man, which bringeth a snare. “Talk ye of all his wondrous works.”

But some will object, “I have not gifts or ability.” Nay, my brother; my sister; it does not want any ability to talk, or else there would not be so much loquacity in the world as there is. Talk in the ordinary strain, the common-place prattle, which breaks the silence of the world. It is what everybody is at. There is no gifted tongue requisite, there are no powers of eloquence invoked; neither laws of rhetoric nor rules of grammar are pronounced indispensable in the simple talk that my text inculcates, “Talk ye of all his wondrous works.” I beg your pardon when you say you cannot do this. You cannot because you will not. If you would, you could speak well of his name. Because there is no want of ability in any one of us to say something for Jesus after an ordinary sort, I press it upon you.

Are you a nursemaid? Talk of his name to the little prattlers with whom you are entrusted. Or are you a crossing-sweeper? Friend, there are some you can get at that I could not. I will be bound to say the crossing-sweeper has a friend who would be frightened if I were to speak to him. “But I am so poor,” you reply; “I work in the midst of such a ribald, blaspheming set.” Ah! friend, but you can talk; I know you can; there are times when you can talk even to these blasphemers. It is little use talking to a drunken man: it is like casting pearls before swine. But he is not always drunk; there is a time of sobriety, and then it is that you are to go to work. You are not so to talk of Christ as to stop the mill, or to interpose your religion in the way of business. That were indiscreet; but there are leisure times, there are hours for dinner, there are times when they talk to you, and then is your time to talk to them. As the profane take the liberty to force their irreligion upon you, so you take the liberty to force your religion upon them. Use your wits, find out the proper times, and then turn them to the best account. “In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand, for thou knowest not which shall prosper, this or that.”

I have only one aim to-night; if I can succeed in it, I shall be very thankful-that Christian people shall talk more of the love of God at the table, at the breakfast table, at the tea table, at the dinner table; that domestic companionship and social hospitalities may be hallowed, and this without depriving them of their genial conviviality; rather infusing into them a higher entertainment; that we who are masters shall talk of the things of God, so that our servants shall hear of them, and that servants shall so speak of Christ that their fellows shall hear about him. The great weapon of the Christian religion has been the public preaching of the Word, nor would I disparage it, but it will never evangelise the nations unless there be attendant with it a constant reiteration of the truth preached, till it flow through innumerable little conduits into every circle of society. Wycliffe was but one man, but he taught others to read. One page of Matthew’s gospel and the Epistle to the Romans was given to each. They went out and read it in the streets. So was the truth spread until it was said that you could not meet two men on the roadside, but one of them would be a Lollard. In Luther’s day it was not merely the preaching of Luther, it was the singing of the hymns and the psalms at the spinning-wheel; it was the occupation of the solitary colporteur; it was the general chit-chatting with everybody, at the smithy fire, in the farmyard, on the Exchange; curiosity was excited, enquiry was prompted, the popular conversation was inoculated; the fever of that healthful sickness-repentance toward God-was spread abroad, and communicated from one to another. “Have you heard the news? Have you heard that Luther has proclaimed that men are justified by faith, and not by works?” It was this that shook Rome; it is this which will shake her yet again. The waking up of Christian life throughout the entire body of the Church of God, and the enlisting of the entire life of the Christian Church in the cause of Christ is an enterprise to be consummated by the individual agency of each, and the general action of all who seek the glory of God and the welfare of man. Talk ye, therefore, of all his wondrous works.

Oh! that there should be any here who never thought of God, much less talked of his wondrous works. Wondrous, indeed, is God’s patience that has kept you alive! Marvellous his long-suffering that, after having neglected him all these years, he has not cut you down! The ox knoweth its owner, and the ass its master’s crib, but you have not known God. You would not keep a dog that would not follow you. You would soon dispose of an ox that was of no service to you. Oh! why has God kept you? It is a wonder. Here is another wonder: he bids us entreat you allure you, encourage you with a saving promise, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” Take heed to this gospel. May the Holy Ghost make you yield to it. Trust Christ; obey him by avowing your faith in him, and you shall be saved.

The Lord grant it, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Expositions by C. H. Spurgeon

PSALM 142 AND 143

“Maschil of David,” an instructive psalm of David, for we speak to one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, and they are a means of instruction, as well as a means of utterance of praise. “A prayer when he was in the cave”; and, therefore, likely to suit any of you who are in trouble-a prayer when he hid away from Saul, and was hunted like a partridge upon the mountains-“A prayer when he was in the cave.”

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

Of course, the essence of his prayer was in his heart, but it often helps the heart to use the voice. It is much better to pray in silence if you will be heard by others, for we are not to pray to be heard of men; but if you have opportunity to pray aloud, I am sure you will feel it very helpful to devotion to do so. “I cried unto the Lord with my voice: with my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication.”

2. I poured out my complaint before him:

As if it were in a vessel, and I turned the vessel upside down, and poured it all out. That is true prayer. It is the pouring out of what is really in; not an utterance of words which may, perhaps, go no farther than the mere lips, but the pouring out of whatever is within, whether it is praise or complaint. “I poured out my complaint before him”-realised his presence, and then told him my complaint.

2. I shewed before him my trouble.

We must believe that God is, and that he is the hearer of, prayer. We must be conscious that we are not only using proper words, and feeling proper thoughts, but that we are doing it before him. “I showed before him my trouble.”

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

I did not know it. I was so puzzled-so in a maze, like a man at his wits’ end. My spirit seemed turned bottom upward, like a thing that is overwhelmed.

3. In the way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me.

I could not find out where the snare was, but “thou knewest my path.” I knew the trap was cunningly laid, but I could not see it. “Thou knewest my path.” We are not ignorant of Satan’s devices, but sometimes we are completely ignorant as to what devices he is using just now, but “then thou knewest my path.”

4. I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.

It is a bad time always when friendship seems to have died out-when those that we rely upon turn their backs upon us and refuse to sympathise with us in any degree. It is a sad case to be in. “No man cared for my soul.”

5. I cried unto thee, O Lord:

Ah! that is the thing to do. When no man will know you, God will know you. When no man cares for you, God will care for you. Prayer is an unfailing resort. “I cried unto thee, O Lord.”

5. I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.

See how he clings to his God now. We never do cling to God so well as when everything else fails us. To a greater or less extent, all those who yield us comfort do, in some little measure. take our heart off our God; but when it comes to be lonely, friendless, helpless, forgotten, despised, rejected, and outcast, oh! then it is a blessed thing, with a two-handed faith, to lay hold on God and say, “Thou art my refuge, and my portion in the land of the living.”

6. Attend unto my cry; for I am brought very low:

What a blessed argument! Nothing can move God’s pity like it. “I am brought very low.” It is not your height that God will respect: it is your lowliness. O soul, it is not thy excellence that God regards: it is thy need-not thy goodness, but thy want of his goodness that he looks at; not thy fulness, but thy emptiness; not thy strength, but thy weakness. Nothing that thou hast. It is thy lack of everything that moves his heart. “Attend unto my cry, for I am brought very low.”

6, 7. Deliver me from my persecutors: for they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name:

He asks for deliverance, and it is that he may praise God in it. So ought we always to desire mercies with this in view-that we may praise God the better for them.

7. The righteous shall compass me about; for thou shalt deal bountifully with me.

Lord, if thou art kind to me, all thy people will hear of it. When I get out of prison, they will say one to another, “Such-and-such a brother has got cheered and comforted. His face has changed. He is no more sad”; and they will come round me. They will begin to ask me how it came about. Thus I shall tell out thy praises-encourage others, and get to thee a great and glorious name, if thou shalt deal bountifully, with me.

Now, the next psalm, much after the same fashion.

PSALM 143

“A psalm of David.”

Verse 1. Hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my supplications: in thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness.

It is a theory held by some persons of sceptical minds that the only benefit of prayer is the good it does to us. That was not David’s theory. Here, three times, he begs to be heard, and to be answered. Oh! do they think us such idiots that we would go on speaking in a keyhole with nobody to hear us? Do they think us brought so low-so destitute of wit-that we think it worth our while to speak out what is in our heart if God does not hear and does not answer? I reckon prayer to be the most idiotic of all occupations unless there be really a God to hear, and a God to answer. And the benefit of prayer is not in itself so much as in the full confidence that it is a real thing, and an effective thing-that God does hear and does interpose on our behalf.

2. And enter not into judgment with thy servant:

“Thy servant I am. I am not one of the ungodly, whom thou wilt judge and cast away, but still even thy servant though I am, enter not into judgment with me. I know thou wilt not judge me now as a rebel, and condemn me, for thou hast put away my sin, but even as thy servant I fear thy chastising rod, if thou enter into judgment with me.”

2. For in thy sight shall no man living be justified.

I have heard some living that think they would. They have said that the very root and branch of sin have been cut up in them, and that they walk in the fear of God perfectly well, but times must have changed very wonderfully. Ah! but I think they have not, but that these are mistaken, for still it is very true concerning the very best of men that they have need to pray, “Enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.”

3, 4. For the enemy hath persecuted my soul: he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead. Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me; my heart within me is desolate.

Children of God, do not expect to be always happy, or else you will be disappointed. You will have more troubles, if nobody else does. Depend upon it, that adversity is one of the covenant promises. “In the world ye shall have tribulation,” is your Master’s own word to you; and you must not expect to find it untrue. You will find it true to the letter. And sometimes the troubles of life will penetrate even to your heart, and make you feel desolate. When you are so, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial as though yours were a new path in which nobody ever walked before you. Ah! no; David was there. Many others have been there.

5, 6. I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands. I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. Selah.

As a child puts out its hand to its mother, so did he stretch out his hands to his God. As a thirsty land chaps-becomes dry-turns to dust-in its longing after rain, so did his whole being thirst for his God.

7. Hear me speedily, O Lord: my spirit faileth: hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into a pit.

“Lest I swoon away-lest I die-lest my hope should utterly expire. Come, Lord: come, Lord, and rescue me.”

8. Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee.

Very heavy, but I lift it up. With all my might, as though it were a dead lift, I seek to raise it out of its doubt, and out of its sorrow.

9, 10. Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies: I flee unto thee to hide me. Teach me to do thy will; for thy art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.

Or “lead me in a straight path.” So it is rendered by the best scholars.

11. Quicken me, O Lord, for thy name’s sake:

Felt as if he should die, and, therefore, he says, “Quicken me: put new life into me.” To whom should we go for life, but to the living God, and who can communicate with us but the same God who first made us live in his name.

11, 12. For thy righteousness’ sake bring my soul out of trouble. And of thy mercy cut off mine enemies, and destroy all them that afflict my soul: for I am thy servant.