3213. Blessings Traced To Their Source

A Sermon Published On Thursday, September 1, 1910.

All my springs are in you. {Ps 87:7}

1. It does one good to think that there are such things in the world as springs bubbling up in the shady nooks, places of sweet refreshment in this dusty earth. The mouth waters at the very thought of the palms of Elim and its wells. If even to us fresh springs are a blessing, how much more must they have been so to the psalmist, who lived in a dry and thirsty land, which owes almost all its fertility to irrigation. Nothing is more precious to the Oriental than a well, and he who finds a spring of water considers himself a much happier man than he who has found a vein of precious metal. We must, therefore, transfer the thought of precious water springing up copiously, bubbling up with living force, to our spiritual condition, and then say with David, “All my springs are in you.” That is to say, we trace all the mercies we receive to their fountain-head. The psalmist was grateful for the blessings that were conferred on him; he did not receive them with selfish inattention; but, considering them well, he found that every good gift and every perfect gift came from his God. He had learned that not only everything good around him, but everything that was within him that was good, came from the same source; and discovering within himself a living power, a living well of water within his own nature, he traced that also to the grace of God, and said, “All my springs are in you.”

2. Did he not mean, first, “all the springs I drink from are in you?” secondly, did he not mean, “All the springs within myself come from you?” I do not know that those two points comprise even one tenth of the thoughts that might arise out of our text, but then we do not have time to take such a great text as this, and consider it in full. We shall therefore just take the two series of thoughts that will spring up under those points.

3. I. The first thought is, ALL THE SPRINGS I DRINK FROM ARE IN YOU.

4. To begin, he may have remembered the deep which lies under. In the blessing on Joseph. Moses said that he was to have the blessing of the deep which couches beneath. Deep down in the earth are vast reservoirs of water; and when these are tapped, they spring up, and we are refreshed by them. These are symbolic of the mighty fountains of eternal love, the electing grace of God, the infinite fulness of the heart of God in his own nature, for “his nature and his name are love.” When we get to the great fountains of the infinite, eternal, immutable love of the Father towards his chosen people, then indeed we come to the fountain-head of all the streams which make glad the people of God. Every blessing we receive may be traced to the eternal purpose of God. We may see, on every single blessing of the covenant, the stamp of the eternal purpose and decree.

   The streams of love I trace

   Up to the fountain, God,

   And in his mighty breast I see

   Eternal thoughts of love to me.

Every Christian who is properly taught, who understands the Word of God, and is not afraid of the fulness of the truth, will ascribe all the springs of grace that he ever drinks from, to the eternal fount. God said to Job, “Have you entered into the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in the search of the depths?” This is a mysterious subject, and we cannot find these secret springs, but yet we know that they are there; we rejoice in them, and bless the Lord for them.

5. But, using illustrations from Scripture only, when the psalmist said, “All my fresh springs are in you,”—for that is the force of the expression he uses,—may he not have thought of that rock from which the living water leaped in the wilderness, so that all the multitude that were in the desert drank from the stream? Those who had true knowledge of God also drank from that spiritual rock which followed them, and we know that “that rock was Christ.” That rock, too, was struck, and immediately it became a spring of water for all the tribes, even as our stricken Saviour has now become the spring from which all of us drink. So I may say,—

   Rock of ages, cleft for me,

   Thou my sacred fount shalt be.

We find, leaping from the cleft in his side, the cleansing blood and the refreshing water, too. As I said, at first, that we may trace all our blessings to electing love, I may now say, with equal truthfulness, that we may trace them all to redeeming love. There is a crimson mark on every blessing of the covenant.

   There’s ne’er a gift his hand bestows

      But cost his heart a groan.

That is a most certain and precious truth: as we look at our dear Lord on the cross, and see him also exalted in his glory, remembering that “it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell,” and that “we have all received from his fulness, and grace for grace,” we can truly say to him, “Emmanuel, all my springs are in you.”

6. We find in Holy Scripture another illustration. In the times of Abraham there were certain wells which he dug, the possession of which was disputed by the Philistines; and when Isaac afterwards had to go into Philistia, he found that the wells which Abraham had dug had been filled up by the Philistines. He therefore dug others, and when the Philistines began to strive with his herdsmen, he moved on farther, and dug another well, and the Philistines strove again for that. He moved again, for he was a peaceful man, and found they strove for that, and it seemed as if he could have no water without having to contend for it.

7. Sometimes, the wells of which we drink are springs concerning which there is grave contention. There are some who deny the most precious doctrines of the gospel. There is a sound of the shooting of archers at the place of the drawing of water; and when a poor, simple child of God would come and let down his bucket, and take a draught, he finds the bowman’s shaft flying past his ear. Someone has discovered that one doctrine is not scriptural, and that another doctrine, is not rational, so the thirsty soul becomes afraid to drink from that well. What is worse, if there should not be any controversy about the truth itself, he will find a controversy in his own soul concerning his right to appropriate it. Satan, the accuser of the brethren, will remind him of his faults, will tell him he can have no part or lot in the matter, or else he would not be what he is. Those who are delivered from the noise of the archers in the places of drawing water shall bless the name of the Lord as they drink.

8. And truly, brethren, if we always remembered that it must be true that all our mercies come from God; that, whatever logic may insist on, it must be true that salvation is from the Lord; that whichever ism may be right, whichever side of controversy may have made an accurate statement, it must be correct that every good gift comes from “the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning”; then we should find that, let the enemy contest as he wishes, we have access to the refreshing stream. Since all the springs worth drinking from are in God our Father and Christ our Redeemer, we can come to these, and drink without fear, for God is ours, and Christ is ours, and therefore every covenant blessing is ours, too. Therefore, laying aside all disputing and contention, we come and drink from these wells because they are in God, and in Christ our Saviour.

9. We read, in the Book of Judges, of two springs of water; you often mention them yourself in prayer; indeed, they are a kind of proverb in the Christian church. There were the upper springs and the nether springs. Now every child of God who judges correctly knows that the nether springs are in his God; I mean his lower comforts, his temporal mercies. What should we have of earthly good worth enjoying if God did not give it to us? If you get wealth, who gives you power to get it? And if you have health who is it who preserves for you your strength of limb and the blood that still flows through your veins? He only has to will it, and you would be a paralytic, or a consumptive like so many more. Your children are spared to you; bless God for each of them, for it is he who spares them. Your husband or your wife, your brother or your friend, the joys that cluster around the hearth,—all these come to you through him. They are common mercies, we say; but we should not think them so common if we had to miss them for a while. Let us bless God, and see his hand in them all, and say, “Great Father, even my nether springs are in you.”

10. But when we come to the thought of the upper springs, we have no question concerning them. If we possess eternal life, God gave it to us. If we believe in Jesus, faith is a flower that never springs from the natural soil of man’s heart. If we have repentance to life, it is the work of the Spirit of God. If we have been kept until now faithful to our profession, we have nothing of what we can boast; we should have recanted if God had not preserved us. From the first day until now, we have derived every single thing from the Lord’s infinite mercy. All our upper springs are in him; shall we not bless his name? And while we say, “Spring up, oh well,” shall we not also add, “Sing to it,” and bless and magnify that perennial fount of mercy which perpetually flows to us? The old classical poets went to Helicon for their inspiration; they drank from that spring on Mount Parnassus; {a} but, as for us, we will say, with that poetess of the sanctuary,—

   Come, thou fount of every blessing,

      Tune my heart to sing thy grace,

   Streams of mercy, never ceasing

      Call for songs of loudest praise.

11. We have no Parnassus, but we have a better mount:—

   Teach me some melodious sonnet,

      Sung by flaming tongues above:

   Praise the mount,—oh, fix me on it,

      Mount of God’s unchanging love!

12. From this source we will derive the inspiration of our muse; here we shall find the burden of our song. The upper and the nether springs equally come from God,—yes, “all my springs are in you.”

13. You may read, if you turn to the 104th Psalm, of the springs that flow into the valleys. They are the places for springs, where the wild beasts come to drink, and each of them quenches his thirst; and where the birds sing among the branches. You and I have had our valley mercies. We have been humiliated, perhaps, and we have sung, with the shepherd’s boy in the Valley of Humiliation,—

   He that is down needs fear no fall;

      He that is low, no pride;

   He that is humble, ever shall

      Have God to be his Guide.

We have been in the valley of Baca, and made it a well, and the rain has filled the pools. We have been in the valley of fellowship with Christ, walking along the cool vale of communion with our Father who is in heaven; and behold, it has been to us the place of springs,—of springs full of water. Every single joy in our best and happiest time comes from God. In our choicest moments, when we are most like our Lord, and most free from the encumbrances of the earth, never, even then, have we anything good that is to be ascribed to ourselves. If it is good, it all comes from God.

14. Then, we read in Isaiah, and in some other passages which I need not quote, of the streams in the desert. “In the wilderness waters shall break out, and streams in the desert.…I will open rivers in high places.” That is an odd place for rivers. “Rivers in high places, and springs in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.” Do you, beloved, remember your dry land springs? Can you not remember now when you ate treasures hidden in the sand: when it was dark, and yet never was so light; when you were in the land of barrenness, and yet never were so filled with plenty; when you had abounding troubles, and yet never had such superabounding comforts? Oh, let us bless the Lord that our desert springs were in him! They were in him, or we should not have had them. Had not the Lord been with us, we should have fallen and died in the wilderness, like those who came out of Egypt, whose carcasses strewed the plain.

15. If you turn to De 4:49, you will read about springs that some of God’s saints drink from, that are not often mentioned, the springs of Pisgah. Moses there speaks of the springs that came from the foot of Pisgah; and believe me, they are cool streams indeed, and supply water that goes down sweetly, and makes the lips of those who sleep to speak. He who knows what heaven is, and has by faith looked it over, who has seen its security, its purity, its nearness to God, its revelation of the face of Christ, its communion of saints, its joy of the Lord, such a one has found the Pisgah springs to be very precious and very soul-reviving. Oh, for a draught of them now! I think some of us had such a draught at our last prayer meeting, when we talked together, and sang the hymn that ends—

   A scrip on my back, and a staff in my hand,

   I march on in haste through an enemy’s land;

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

   And I’ll smooth it with hope, and cheer it with song.

The prospect of the coming glory makes the Pisgah springs well up, and all of them are in our God, for there is no true hope of heaven without him. There would be banishment into eternal woe if it were not for his infinite grace.

16. So I might continue to use the similes of Scripture, and show that, whatever kind of springs there may be, they all come from the great depths of the infinite love of God, and that all our springs are in him.

17. II. But now we come to our second point, namely, that ALL THE SPRINGS THAT ARE WITHIN US COME FROM THE SAME SOURCE.

18. You know that our Saviour says, concerning the man who drinks from the water that he gives, that it “shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” A Christian is not a cistern that is filled and emptied, but, by God’s grace, he becomes a living well. He is not a puppet moved with strings; he is not a machine that is wound up, and goes by wheels worked mechanically; there is a living power in him. He is a new creature in Christ Jesus, instinct with the highest form of life, and that life possessed in the highest degree of freedom; for, while a man is a free agent naturally, yet he is in a far superior sense a free agent when he becomes a converted soul. “If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.”

19. Our text then may mean this, that all the springs of our inner life lie in God. “For you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” “And he has quickened you who were dead in trespasses and sins.” Christ is your life. All the springs of life are in him.

20. And hence, next, all the springs of our secret thought and of our devotion are in him. You cannot always think of God and worship God at the same time. At least, if you can, and it is real devotion, I greatly envy you. I find that, in my soul, there are times when I have the wings of an eagle, and can mount up, and, with unflinching eye, look into the infinite glory, when I can soar on and on in strange ecstasy and delight. At another time, I cannot rise from the ground. The chariot wheels are taken off, as in Pharaoh’s case, so that we drag heavily, and Dr. Watts’s words seem appropriate,—

   Our souls can neither fly nor go,

      To reach eternal joys.

The preacher, too, is sometimes fertile enough, and at another time barren. Truly, the Christian’s experience is not unlike Pharaoh’s dreams; he has lean and fat cattle; withered ears, and ears full and good, come up. This is doubtless to show him that, when he has sacred thought and devotion, they come from God; in order that he may see that, he is sometimes left to prove his own emptiness. To show that the strength of Samson does not lie in muscle and sinew and bone alone, his hair is shorn, and when he goes out as previously, he performs no feat of strength, he is as weak as any other man. Yes, beloved, if we have any power of thought, or sweetness of devotion in drawing near to God, all the springs lie in him.

21. So it is, most certainly, with the springs of our emotions. Do you not find yourselves sometimes sweetly melted down by the power of God’s Word? Could you not, at such times, sit and weep under the thought of the death of Jesus and his unspeakable love for you? Sometimes, do you not feel stirred with sacred joy, so that you could burst out with an impromptu hallelujah, or begin to sing a new song to the praise of his great love with which he has loved you? At other times, you think about the same theme, but your heart does not feel its power; the very same song is sung, but though your lips join in it, your heart does not go with the melody. You know it is so.

22. You cannot command your own spirit; the Lord must help you. The springs of your emotions lie in his hand. If he leaves you, you are like the Arctic Sea, frost-bound; but when he comes and smiles on you, all the icebergs melt in a moment, and your heart feels the warm gulf stream of eternal love flowing right through it. Then there comes the time of the blossoming of Spring, and the singing of the birds; the whole heart is alive to the Most High. The springs of your emotions as well as of your sacred thought and devotion all lie in him.

23. And I am sure it is so with regard to the springs of all true actions. Christians are not all thought and all emotion; they are practical men, and seek to work for God. But did any of us ever do a good work in our own strength? We have done many works in our own strength, but were they good for anything? The Saviour shall decide that question. “Without me you can do nothing,” he says. You can produce fruit without him, but your fruits are like the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah. Only that is right which comes from him. When he blesses us, our actions done for him are accepted through him.

24. Well, beloved, it will always be so, that our springs of holy zeal, our springs of joy, our springs of fellowship, our springs of every kind that are worth the having, all lie in him; and it will be good if the whole church recognises that fact. We cannot get up a revival, it is a great pity that we should ever try to do so; for such a revival, if we seem to get it, will be very mischievous; but the Lord can send us a true revival. All our springs are in him. We must not depend on ministers, and pray, “If So-and-so shall preach, good results will follow.” Our springs are not in these poor cisterns, they are in our God. When will the church try to look completely away from the creature to the Creator? When will she purge herself of that hereditary fault of hewing out for herself broken cisterns, and forgetting the fountain of living waters? I am persuaded, from my own experience, that the more I live on God alone, the more I truly live, and the less I know of anything like power, or wisdom, or grace, or anything of the kind pertaining to myself, the better. The more I decrease and he increases, the more I grow up in the Lord in all things. Then may each one of us adopt this sweet motto, and always say, “All my springs which are within me, as well as those of which I drink, are in my God.”

25. I shall only keep you long enough to say three more things:—

26. The first of which is, let us look for these springs. If you do not feel up to the mark, if you are dull and heavy, and have no springs in yourself, remember that they never were there. “All my springs are in you.” Do you feel empty? Well, you only feel just as you are. You feel as though there was death written on you. Quite so, there is. But your life is in Christ; your fulness is in Christ; your strength is in Christ. Has it been reported to you that Christ has lost his power, that his life has declined? If it were so, you would have a good reason indeed for weeping; but while he is the same, the well of water is the same. I know tonight that you are like Hagar; the water is spent in the bottle. Well, it never was much of a bottle, and it leaks; now you think, “What shall I do? All my little supply is gone.” “What ails you, Hagar?” There is a well near you. Open your eyes, for God sees you, and God provides for you. Christ is always the same.

27. “Oh, but I think I have forgotten him,” you say. Then remember him. “But I fear I am not one of his people.” Well, if you are not a saint, you are a sinner, and he came to save sinners. I always find the short cut to Christ to be the best one. “Oh,” says Satan, “you are no child of God.” “No,” I say to him, “neither are you.” “Ah!” he says, “but you have no true experience.” “No,” I reply, “I have not, neither have you; but one thing I know, I am sinful, and Christ has said that, washing in his blood by faith, I shall be made clean. If I cannot go to him as a saint, I will go even now as a sinner. Suppose I have been mistaken in the past, I will begin again.” Child of God, that is the only way to end the controversy. Go, and stand at the foot of the cross again. Begin again, for all your springs are still there. Though you cannot find any springs in yourself, they are still in God.

28. The next thought is this. If all my springs are in God, then let all my streams flow to God. All the rivers run into the sea, because they all came from the sea. It was from the sea that the sun drew up the clouds which fed the thousand rills which fall into the rivers, and so the rivers run back to the sea. Let us do the same. What we have had from God must go to God. Even in temporals we ought to do this. I remember a story of Martin Luther’s. When certain monks complained that the income of the monastery had become very slack, “Yes,” he said, “and no wonder, because once they used to entertain two strangers at the monastery, the one named Date, the other named Dabitur.” Give was the name of one. It shall be given was the name of the other. “Now,” said Martin Luther, “you turned out Give, and very soon God took away It shall be given, for they are the brothers, and they live together. If you would have Dabitur back, you must also have Date. If you would have back It shall be given, you must also have back Give.”

29. When we are not serving God acceptably, consecrating everything to God, we lose supplies from God. In temporals, I have known men to give to God by the shovelfuls, and God sent them wagon-loads by the backdoor; they could not send back their substance as fast as he sent it in. Jesus said, “Give, and it shall be given to you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, men shall give into your bosom”; and many have found it so. Your mean skinflints have gone on flint-skinning until they died, and have left hardly enough to be buried with respectability, while others have scattered and yet increased. If our springs are in him even in temporal things, let the streams run back to him; let us not rob God. And, as for spiritual things, let us give back to God the love he gives us, the faith he gives us, the spiritual strength he gives us. Let us use for him the experience he has given us, the instruction he has given us. Let us instruct and encourage others for his glory with what we ourselves have received. Let us lay out every talent, and keep nothing buried in the earth. May the Lord grant to each of us grace to always say to him, “Just as all my springs are in you, so all my streams shall be to you.”

30. And, lastly, let us have a great deal of hope about other people, because, if all the streams are in God, I do not have to consider, when I go out to do good for my fellow man, what is in them, I have to consider what is in God. When I address a sinner, and say, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,” I do it because God tells me to do it, just as I would have said to the dry bones, “Live,” and if I do it as a prophet, in God’s name, being perfectly sure they cannot believe by themselves, then I am doing right, for I am exercising my own faith. It is an act of faith on the preacher’s part, and God will bless that act of faith, and many of the dry bones will live; sinners will repent, and will believe the gospel.

31. We must not think that our hope lies in what is in the sinner. I heard a man preach about the adaptation of the sinner to the gospel, and I thought he was very foolish, for what is there in the sinner except everything that is opposed to the gospel, everything hostile, everything that would put the gospel to death if it could?

32. All the power of the gospel lies in itself, not in the sinner; salvation comes from God, and God alone. Therefore there is no reason why I should not preach the gospel with a hope of success in Wandsworth prison, or in the lowest slums in London. You may distribute tracts, and give warnings to the prostitute and the thief with good hope of success. In fact, there are often ridges in the poorest soils, like the clearings of the backwoods in the West, which are not ploughed and tilled until the goodness has gone out as it were; to them the gospel comes as a strange novelty. It was so in the Saviour’s day. The Pharisees, who knew so much, rejected his word, but the tax collectors and prostitutes entered into the kingdom of heaven before them.

33. Therefore, there is nothing about the sinner to make us hesitate to preach to him, because, if he is dead, God can lift him up; yes, if he is like Lazarus, dead and buried, the voice of God can call him out from the tomb. Yes, if he were as nothing, God makes the things that are not to be mightier than the things that are. He can bless where everything was cursed. Out of the stones of the brook he can raise up children to Abraham. Let us have great comfort, next Lord’s day, in going to preach, or to teach in the Sunday School, or to engage in other forms of usefulness. All the springs lie in God, and if we are going to work in a dry and thirsty land where no water is, never mind. Our springs are in God; our faith is in him; and according to our faith, so shall it be done to us. Amen.

{a} Parnassus: Name of a mountain in central Greece, anciently sacred to Apollo and the Muses; hence used allusively in reference to literature, esp. poetry. OED.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ps 34}

1. I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

What a sweet resolve! Oh, that every one of us who knows the Lord would make that resolve, and keep it all our days: “I will bless the Lord at all times”; in dark times and bright times, as long as I ever live. “His praise shall continually be in my mouth”; that is the most delightful mouthful that a man can possibly have.

2. My soul shall make her boast in the LORD:

We do not like boasters, but we would encourage every child of God to boast in the Lord as much as he pleases.

2. The humble shall hear about it, and be glad.

There is nothing that humble people dislike more than to hear others boasting: yet there is nothing that they like more than to hear anyone boast in the Lord.

3. Oh magnify the LORD with me,—

There is a sweet contagion about the praise of God; we want others to help us to spread it everywhere, so we say, with David, “Oh magnify the Lord with me,”—

3-4. And let us exalt his name together. I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.

There is nothing that is so effective as personal testimony to the Lord’s saving power. How often is the skill of a physician commended by the grateful testimony of the patients who have been healed by him! So, shall not the prayer-hearing God be commended by those of us who have had our prayers answered by him? Let us not be slow to say, “I sought the Lord and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.”

5. They looked to him and were radiant: and their faces were not ashamed. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 195, “Looking To Jesus” 188}

“They looked to him,”—a whole army of them, an innumerable company,—“They looked to him and were radiant: and their faces were not ashamed.” There never was a face that was ashamed of being turned towards Christ and God.

6. This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2193, “A Poor Man’s Cry, and What Came of It” 2194}

Here David speaks of himself again, but he refers to himself in the third person: “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.”

7. The angel of the LORD encamps all around those who fear him, and delivers them.

The great Angel of the covenant, the Lord Jesus Christ, surrounds with his army the dwellings of the saints, and takes care to have them in safe keeping.

8-10. Oh taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man who trusts in him. Oh fear the LORD, you his saints. For there is no lack for those who fear him. The young lions lack, and suffer hunger: but those who seek the LORD shall not lack any good thing. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 65, “Lions Lacking—But the Children Satisfied” 62}

We are often in need because we are not seeking the Lord, but are seeking what we think we need, whereas, if we sought him, and left the supply of our needs to him, he would supply all our needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Christ’s command is, “Seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.” Men think that they will not get what they need unless they seek it, but if they seek God, he will give them what they really need even if he does not give them all that they want.

11. Come, you children, listen to me:—

This man of God has made his confession to the saints, and now he relates it to the children. There is nothing like working on material that will last, and most of those who are now children will be alive when those who are now old men are dead and gone. So David says, “Come, you children, listen to me”:—

11-13. I will teach you the fear of the LORD. Who is man who desires life, and loves many days, so that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking guile.

There is life or death in the human tongue; there is life in the tongue that is under subjection to the will of God; there is death, there is mischief of all kinds, in a wild ungoverned tongue.

14. Depart from evil, and do good;

Get away from evil as far as you can; that is the negative side. Do good; that is the positive side of piety. He who obeys these two commands shall find happiness and blessing.

14. Seek peace, and pursue it.

Do not be of an angry, irritable, quarrelsome frame of mind. If you do not at once find peace, seek it; and if it runs away from you, pursue it until you overtake it. Remember that it is the meek who shall inherit the earth, and that it is the peaceful spirit that is the happiest spirit.

15. The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry.

He gives them his eyes and his ears, and this means that he gives them himself, and that he is always ready to perceive their needs, and to hear their cries.

16. The face of the LORD is against those who do evil,

He sets his face against them, and this means that he himself is eternally opposed to all their wicked ways.

16, 17. To cut off the memory of them from the earth. The righteous cry, and the LORD hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles.

Not only out of some of them, but out of all of them. It is often a very long “all.” The list of their troubles is often difficult to read through, but in due time there comes a “finis” to it written by the hand of divine mercy: “The Lord delivers them out of all their troubles.”

18. The LORD is near to those who are of a broken heart; and saves such as are of a contrite spirit.

Not your proud spirits, not your hectoring ones; but your lowly, penitent souls are the ones who are dear to the heart of God, he is near to them, and saves them.

19, 20. Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the LORD delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones: not one of them is broken.

He will have many a flesh-wound, but there shall be no permanent injury to him; and even though his body were diseased, his soul would be saved.

21, 22. Evil shall kill the wicked: and those who hate the righteous shall be desolate. The LORD redeems the soul of his servants:

Great as the price is, he pays it; they are so precious to him that he does not mind what price he pays so that he may redeem the souls of his servants.

22. And none of those who trust in him shall be desolate.

Blessed be his holy name!

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