3246. God’s Thoughts And Ours

A Sermon Published On Thursday, April 20, 1911.

How precious also are your thoughts to me, oh God! How great is the sum of them! {Ps 139:17}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2609, “Our Thoughts About God’s Thoughts” 2610}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3246, “God’s Thoughts and Ours” 3248}

   Exposition on Ps 139:1-18 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2345, “Moses’ Dying Charge to Israel” 2346 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Ps 139 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2551, “God’s Knowledge of Sin” 2552 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Ps 139 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2609, “Our Thoughts About God’s Thoughts” 2610 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Ps 139 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3034, “Reasons for Seeking God” 3035 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Ps 139 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3390, “Hoping in God’s Mercy” 3392 @@ "Exposition"}

1. It is very comforting for us to believe in a personal God, and to be able to confide in One who condescends to think lovingly of us, and to consider our needs, and to supply them. It would not be very comforting for us to believe in a mere abstract Deity, or in what some people call “the laws of nature” acting by themselves apart from God, or in a fixed fate that would crush us like some colossal cart of Juggernaut. {a} Yet some people seem to be always struggling to get away from the thought of one true personal God,—Creator, Preserver, Redeemer, and All in all to his people. Those who deny the inspired record of the creation would have us believe that we are descended from monkeys, or from something with even less intelligence than an ape possesses; but I could gather no comfort from such a belief as that if it were true. It fills me rather with pity or contempt for those who can be so foolish as to cherish such a delusion. But when I come back to the revelation of the Bible concerning a personal God, a revelation which has been confirmed by my own spiritual experience, and when I realize that this personal God takes a special interest in me, and thinks of me with tender, loving, gracious consideration, then I lift up my hands in adoring wonder, and say, as David did, “How precious also are your thoughts to me, oh God! How great is the sum of them!” Yes, there is great comfort in being able truthfully to say, “Our Father, who is in heaven”; and those who are really the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty find it to be their chief delight that he thinks about them, and plans all that is for their present and eternal good.

2. I. Coming to our text, I ask you to consider, first, HOW PRECIOUS ARE GOD’S THOUGHTS OF US, AND HOW PRECIOUS IT IS FOR US TO THINK ABOUT THESE THOUGHTS.

3. First of all, let me say that the very fact that God thinks of us is in itself precious. Perhaps someone here says, “It is not so in my case; I am quite alarmed at the thought that God thinks about me. It is no comfort for me to say, ‘You God see me’; such a thought as that only fills me with terror.” I can quite understand, dear friend, how you feel; of course, if you only think of God as if he were a police officer with a warrant for your arrest, it must be a dreadful thing for you to realize that he is thinking of you; but suppose you were his child, would it not then be a continual joy for you to reflect that your heavenly Father was constantly thinking of you? If you were completely reconciled to him by the death of his Son, if no consciousness of guilt remained on your conscience, if you knew that all God’s thoughts concerning you were thoughts of love, then you would bless his name that he was so gracious and kind as to think of you.

4. Further, those who are serving the Lord delight to remember that he is thinking of them. After we have been reconciled to God, it becomes our great privilege to spend such strength as we have in promoting his glory. Well, no one is ashamed of being sent on a good errand. The eye of God, instead of being dreadful to the man whose heart is right with him, is one of his greatest encouragements. He feels that, though his fellow men may never say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” it will be enough for him to know that God has seen him, that God keeps a book of remembrances, and that, at the last, a full reward, not of debt, but of grace, shall be given to him who is faithful. I do not know how it is with you idle professors who profess to be saved, but who do little or nothing for Christ; I do not see how the fact that God is observing you can give you any comfort. If it is true that you are not your own, but that you are bought with a price, even with the precious blood of Jesus, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, can you calmly think of God watching your idle hours, listening to your many words that have no weight, no value in them, and noting how you neglect your many opportunities for serving your day and generation? But, on the other hand, in proportion as you are constrained by the love of Christ to be instant in season and out of season, in the same proportion it will be sweet to you to remember that the Lord is observing you, and that he is always at your right hand to help you in your service for him.

5. We also learn the preciousness of God’s thoughts for us as we depend implicitly on him as the great Lord of providence. It is of little use to you to have anyone thinking of you if his thoughts never bring you any practical help; but if you have a rich friend who has promised, as soon as possible, to find you employment in which you will be provided for as long as you live, I should not be surprised to hear that, even while you have been at this service, you have been gratefully thinking of him. “Yes,” you have been saying, “I could not make my way on my own account, but I have a friend behind me who says that he will see that I shall never be in poverty, and it comforts me to think that he is thinking of me.” Well then, if the promise of an earthly friend affords so much consolation as that, how much more should this be the case with you who have a heavenly Friend who is both able and willing to fulfil all his promises! He is always thinking of what is best for you, what you require today, and what you will require tomorrow; he is always anticipating your needs, providing Elims with wells and palm trees while you are travelling through the desert; and as you meditate on the way in which he is thinking of how he shall bless, and perfect, and glorify you, his thoughts must indeed be precious to you.

6. One reason why God’s thoughts concerning us are particularly precious is that gracious men long to get near to God. They are not satisfied with what they are. The wanderings of their thoughts towards inferior objects are a burden to them, and they are continually longing to get nearer to God. If there is one cry that rises more frequently to our lips than any other, it is this,—

   Nearer, my God, to thee,

      Nearer to thee!

But, alas! our thoughts of God are a very poor help to us in drawing us nearer to him, they flag, and tire, and soon die; but the thoughts of God towards us are strong, like God himself is, and these, like so many unbreakable cords firmly fastened to us, are drawing us ever nearer to him. Thought leads to action, and God’s thinking of us leads to the practical action of drawing us nearer to him. So the fact that he is continually thinking of us encourages us to believe that we shall one day be close to him, and be prepared to be close to him, being perfectly conformed to the image of Christ, and drawn into the closest possible fellowship with God.

7. And the nearer we get to God, the more precious will his thoughts of us become to us. If we were not such babes in Christ, and so carnal, we should prize every crumb from our Father’s table, and much more every thought from our Father’s mind. We should prize, far above gold, and rubies, what I may call the ordinary outgoings of the divine mind in his providential arrangements for us; but how much more should we value those deep, eternal, infinite thoughts which have already secured our salvation, and which shall, before long, complete our sanctification and our glorification too.

8. II. Now, secondly, there are SOME POINTS IN CONNECTION WITH GOD’S THOUGHTS OF US WHICH RENDER THEM ALL THE MORE PRECIOUS TO US.

9. And, first, let us remember that God’s thoughts of us are everlasting. When we begin to think of Jehovah’s thoughts of love concerning his people, we have to go back beyond the region of time, and to go where all dates are lost in the shoreless sea of eternity. Beloved, you were loved by your God long before he created the world; yes, from everlasting he had thoughts of love towards you, then must not those thoughts be indeed precious to you? Besides, just as they were from eternity, so they will be to eternity; God will still be thinking lovingly of you when sun, and moon, and stars have fulfilled their mission, and been forgotten, and when all things which men now consider solid and lasting shall have dissolved like the bubble on the billow’s crest, and passed away for ever. God has so linked you with his Son that he has made you also to have a life which is eternal, and which can never die. Let all other things perish, and the pillars of the universe crumble and decay, and the whole visible creation falls with a thunderous crash, yet you, the beloved of the Lord, shall dwell safety with him,—

   Far from a world of grief and sin

      With God eternally shut in.

His thoughts will always be directed towards you, he will never forget you. There has never been a moment in the past when he did not think of you; even in your years of sin, he looked at you with an eye of pity; in your deepest depression his heart was full of sympathy for you; never has there been an hour, in the silent watches of the night, or amid the cares and business of the day, in which he has not always been thinking of you just as much as if you were the only being he had ever created. The Lord has from the first been looking on you and thinking of you as though you were the sole centre of his undivided attention, and so he will continue to think of you incessantly.

10. The Lord’s thoughts of you are especially precious because they have always been thoughts of love. Even when you were dead in trespasses and sins, and he hated your sins, he did not hate you, for he had loved you with an everlasting love.

   He saw you ruined in the fall,

   Yet loved you, notwithstanding all;

   He saved you from your lost estate,

   His lovingkindness, oh, how great!

This is the love of which Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in sins.” And ever since your conversion God’s thoughts concerning you have been thoughts of love. He has struck you severely until you have felt that surely he must be your enemy, but it was not so, never has there been anything but love for you in the great eternal heart of God. If—

   With afflictions he may scourge us,

   Send a cross for every day;—

this is not a proof of his anger towards us; on the contrary, it is a sign of his affection,—

         All to make us

   Sick of self, and fond of him.

11. Besides this, God’s thoughts of us have always been wise thoughts. They have not been such casual thoughts as pass through men’s minds while journeying quickly by road or rail, and merely noticing this object here and that other object over there; but God’s thoughts have infinitely more in them than the deepest thoughts of men can ever have. You know that there are many ways of thinking of a certain thing; you may think of it in such a way as just to keep it in memory, or you may think of it so intently as to lie awake at night, thinking it over in your mind, looking at it from all points of view, so that you may understand it in all its bearings. You may think of it with the careful consideration that a barrister gives to an important case for which he is about to plead, or that an inventor gives to the intricate details of a machine that he is seeking to perfect. Such consideration as that, only of an infinitely higher order, God gives to every one of his people. He is continually arranging what is most for the good in his providential dealings with them, and constantly thinking and working on their behalf with the ultimate view of bringing many sons to glory. God’s thoughts are always wise, but they are so high above our thoughts that we cannot attain to them; yet, the more we are able to comprehend them, the more wisdom and prudence we shall perceive in them.

12. Once more, these thoughts of God towards us are pre-eminently practical. God so thought of you, brothers and sisters in Christ, as to ordain you to eternal life. Concerning the whole Church of the living God this decree was pronounced, “‘They shall be mine,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘in that day when I make up my jewels.’” Not only was there a divine decree concerning them, but there was an eternal covenant made between the Father and the Son, by which the everlasting salvation of all the chosen is infallibly secured. More than that, in the fulness of time, those eternal thoughts of love were demonstrated practically in the gift of God’s only-begotten and well-beloved Son to die for his people, “the Just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God.” God further accomplished these thoughts by the coming into our hearts of the Holy Spirit, so that now, through his divine power and energy, we have been converted, renewed in the spirit of our minds, helped towards heaven, and comforted with the full assurance that we shall, in due time, be brought into our heavenly Father’s immediate presence, unblemished and complete. So you see, beloved, that the thoughts of God towards us should be very precious to us because they are of such a practical character that they bring to us all the blessings, temporal and spiritual, which we daily enjoy.

13. III. Now, thirdly, let us briefly notice SOME OF THE TIMES WHEN GOD’S THOUGHTS ARE PARTICULARLY PRECIOUS TO US.

14. It is so when we have been betrayed and deserted by some in whom we have confided. When he who ate bread with us has lifted up his heel against us, then we turn to our ever-faithful Friend, and we rejoice to know that his thoughts concerning us are never false and treacherous. He is the Friend who sticks closer than a brother; he is always true even though everyone else should prove to be a liar. Ahithophel may forsake his king, Judas may betray his Lord, and we in our measure may know what it is to be forsaken and betrayed; but, God’s thoughts towards us shall, all the while, be thoughts of love and faithfulness. Vain was the trust we reposed in some who went out from us because they were not of us; but God has never forsaken us, he has always been thinking of us for good, and therefore his thoughts are particularly precious to us.

15. So are they also when we are neglected by our fellow Christians and by others who ought to esteem us. It must be very hard to continue toiling on in some obscure sphere without having a kind word or a cheering smile from anyone; to be living, perhaps, as a servant in a family, and striving to do your duty faithfully, yet never receiving the slightest encouragement from those at the head of the household; or to be earnestly working as a Bible woman or a city missionary in some back district, and having so little success that your superintendent looks at you as if you were doing nothing. I can imagine how painful this must be for your sensitive spirit, and how comforting it is for you to think, “Well Jesus knows all about it, and his thoughts are worth far more than the thoughts of men, for he can read my heart, and he can see that it is love for him that constrains me to do what I can in his service. Men may call me a fool, but if my Master knows that I only desire to be a fool for his sake, if he considers that I am faithfully serving him to the best of my ability, how precious will his thoughts be to me!”

16. This is also especially the case when our words and actions are misconstrued and misrepresented. Some of us know what this trial means. When we have tried to be selfless, and have really been so, men have said that we have acted from some sinister motive. When we have spoken with the utmost plainness and simplicity, we have often been misunderstood, and worse than that, we have been wilfully misrepresented; well, what then? Our heavenly Father knows the sincerity of our motives and the meaning of our words, so we take the whole case away from this lower court where human tongues jangle and cause strife, and we appeal to the supreme Court of King’s Bench in heaven. Our petition is, “Oh Lord, give the verdict in this case! You know who has desired to serve you faithfully, and to speak your truth with courage; give a righteous decision which no one can challenge!” At such times as these, the fact that God thinks of us is particularly precious to us.

17. So it is in times of perplexity, when we are, as Bunyan said, “all tumbled up and down in our thoughts.” I suppose, dear friends, you sometimes get into such a condition that, although you have all the forces of omnipotence at your disposal, you are so distracted that you do not know how to make use of them. You are in a place where two seas meet, wave after wave rolls over you, and you fear that you will be overwhelmed. You do not know what to do, you cannot think of any way of escape out of your perplexity. Well then, do not try to do it, cease from even thinking about the matter, and refer it to the great Thinker whose master-mind can bring good out of evil, light out of darkness, and order out of confusion.

18. God’s thoughts are also precious to us when our own thoughts are bright and cheerful. The genuine Christian does not run to his God merely in his times of trouble, but he delights himself in the Lord at all times, and under all circumstances. He thinks of him when he is in the land of drought, but he does not forget him in the land of peace and plenty, for he sings then,—

   If peace and plenty crown my days,

   They help me, Lord, to speak thy praise.

Let your brightest thoughts, beloved, always be those that concern your Lord; and above all the joys of earth let this joy rise to the very zenith, that your heavenly Father thinks of you. This is a better fortune for you than thousands of pounds of gold and silver; this is a better protection for you than the friendship of ten thousand times ten thousand earthly friends; this a greater consolation than all the comforts of time can ever afford you. In your brightest hours, believer, I hope that you will still say, with the psalmist, “How precious also are your thoughts to me, oh God! How great is the sum of them!”

19. IV. My time has gone, but I want to give you just A FEW PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS ARISING OUT OF THIS SUBJECT.

20. The first is this,—if God’s thoughts are so precious to us, how very precious his words ought to be! Here, in this inspired volume, you have the thoughts of the Divine Thinker incarnated, if I may use the word in that sense, and therefore I would have you prize very highly every word in this blessed Book. There are many now-a-days who refuse to believe in the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, but I fail to see how the sense of Scripture can be inspired if the words in which that sense is expressed are not also inspired. I believe that the very words, in the original Hebrew and Greek, were revealed from heaven; and notwithstanding every objection that can be brought from any quarter, I have never been able to get away from the firm belief that, if I give up my Master’s words, I give up his thoughts also. I cannot well love a man’s soul without having an affection for his body also; and I cannot love God’s thoughts, which are the soul of his revelation, without loving the words which are the body in which it comes to us. Do not tamper with the words of Scripture, nor even with a single letter of it; but say, “How precious also are your words to me, oh God!” Have we not known times when the blessing which we have derived from a text has come to our hearts, not so much from the main thought contained in it, as from the use of one special word? Some of us, on turning to our Greek Testaments, have been perfectly astounded to find that a particular word has been used which has exactly met the predicament in which we have been placed; and if the Holy Spirit had moved the writer to use any other word, it would not have been so suitable to the circumstances in which we then were. We praise him for selecting that very word, and not any one of its synonyms, which would not have suited our case so precisely. Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, prize the words of God above everything else that you possess.

21. Oh, for more Bible-reading! I fear that this is an age when almost everything else is read except what is most worth reading. I believe that many professedly Christian people positively poison their minds, and clog up all the avenues of sense with the masses of sawdust, chaff, and draff that they get out of their light reading, which a man might read to all eternity without ever being the better for it. Yet, all the while, there are solid, sober, interesting books, full of valuable information and instruction, that are left unread; and, worst of all, God’s Book, the Bible itself is lying neglected on the shelf. True Bible-readers and Bible-searchers never find it wearisome. They like it least who know it least, and they love it most who read it most. They find it newest who have known it longest, and they find the pasture to be the richest whose souls have been the longest fed on it. When one of our missionaries had to read a certain Book of the Old Testament through a hundred times while he was translating it, he said that he certainly enjoyed the hundredth time of reading it more than he did the first, for he understood it better, and it seemed to him to be fuller and fresher the more familiar he became with it.

22. In the next place, since God’s thoughts are so precious to us, God’s actions, which spring from his thoughts, ought also to be precious to his people. They ought to be so, but are they? Perhaps one of God’s actions has been to lay low in sickness one who is very dear to you; can you say to God, “How precious is that action?” No; you shake your head, for you cannot say that. Possibly you have had a great loss today, and that loss came by the direct act of God. Now, God first thought, then he acted, and took away something that you greatly prized. You say that you cannot see any preciousness in that; but if you judged according to faith, and not according to sense, you would say, “Yes, Lord, this trial is precious to me because I believe it comes from you, and I will not only submit to it, but I will thank you for it, and even fall in love with the cross which you lay on me.” As we look back over our past experience, we see how precious our trials have been to us. Someone said, “Give me back my bed of languishing, give me back the aches and pains that I suffered in that long trying illness, if I may only have such enjoyment of my Master’s presence as I had then.”

23. Now, in closing, let me just say that, since God’s thoughts are so precious to us, we should make the best return we can by thinking much of him. You, believer, are married to Christ, and since your Husband is always thinking of you, can you be content to live without thinking often of him? Have you lived through this day in forgetfulness of him? Have you been so occupied with the toils and cares of this life that you have forgotten him who has given you a higher, nobler, and better life than this? If that has been the case with you, then blush for very shame, and ask for forgiveness from your Lord, and let this be your sincere prayer now, “Lord Jesus, you are always thoughtful of me; from now on by your gracious Spirit’s blessed working, make me always thoughtful of you.”

24. I fear that I am addressing a great many who do not often think of God, and that there are some of you to whom it would be a comfort if there were no God at all. Or, if you do think of him at all, he is only an all-powerful Being of whom you stand in dread because you fear that he will punish you for your sins. Then take warning by your own thoughts of God, and seek to be reconciled to him so that you may no longer have any reason to fear his righteous anger. That reconciliation may be obtained by simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one Mediator between God and men; so, if you put your case into his hands, and ask him to act as your Advocate, he will, by his Spirit, reveal to you the glorious truth that the reconciliation was accomplished, long ago, when he laid down his life for you on the cross of Calvary. Then, when you have received this blessed assurance, it shall be your continual delight to think of God, and your constant bliss to know that he is thinking of you; and you will say, in the words of our text, “How precious also are your thoughts to me, oh God! How great is the sum of them!”

{a} Juggernaut: Hindu Myth. A title of Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu; spec., the uncouth idol of this deity in Orissa, annually dragged in procession on an enormous cart, under the wheels of which many devotees are said to have formerly thrown themselves to be crushed. OED.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ps 119:105-120}

We will read tonight two of the stanzas which make up the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm, beginning at the one hundred and fifth verse.

105. Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path.

God’s Word is full of brilliance; it is always giving out its blessed light. It casts a light on all our daily life. It is a light for the house, and a light for the way, and happy is the man who never walks outside without this lantern to light up his pathway. There are many pitfalls on the road, and many places where the traveller’s clothes may soon be besmeared, so he has great need of this light to guide him.

106. I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep your righteous judgments.

I scarcely remember ever hearing of a man swearing, and then approving of it; but this kind of swearing is right enough: “I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep your righteous judgments.” We are to determine, with the most vehement resolution, that, God helping us, we will keep his righteous judgments; for, if we have only a weak resolution, we usually fall short even of our own determination. What shall we do then if that determination is itself weak? Some of us have lifted our hands to heaven, and pledged ourselves to the living God that we will be his faithful people.

   High heaven, that heard the solemn vow,

   That vow renewed shall daily hear.

107. I am afflicted very much:—

Here is a good man, a better man than most of us, a man who is determined to do right, yet he gets into trouble because he is determined to do right. God’s wheat will be threshed; his gold will be put into the furnace. If you were worth nothing to him, God might not take the trouble to afflict you; but when you are resolved to do right, you may expect that resolution to be tried and tested; and if it is worth anything, it will stand the trial.

“I am afflicted very much”:—what will be the next words, “Lord, deliver me?” No; no. “Lord, bring me out of the furnace?” Nothing of the kind. “I am afflicted very much”:—

107. Quicken me, oh LORD, according to your word.

“Give me more spiritual life; give me more spiritual strength; that is what I most need.” Often, that prayer is answered by the affliction itself. We are afflicted very much, and by that very affliction the Lord quickens our graces, strengthens our souls, drives away many of our wandering thoughts, and brings us nearer to himself.

108. Accept, I beseech you, the free-will offerings of my mouth, oh LORD,—

“My prayers, my praises, my testimonies, my ministries,—accept them all, oh Lord,”—

108. And teach me your judgments.

He who teaches others needs teaching himself. He who hopes that what he says will be accepted by those who hear it opens his ear to hear what God says to him. There will be no acceptance of what you say to others unless you accept what God says to you.

109. My soul is continually in my hand:

David’s life was often in jeopardy. Saul hunted him as a partridge on the mountains, and he afterwards fled from Absalom. He was sometimes very sick, and ready to die. Perhaps also, at times, he was in such great sorrow that he felt as if his soul was a thing that he held in his hand. We do not know exactly where our soul is, but we usually think of it as being somewhere in the very centre of our being. David says that he had his soul in his hand, where he might at any time lose it; but what else does he say?

109. Yet I do not forget your law.

“If I even have to die for it, I am willing to die for it. If I have to lay down my life because I will do right, I will do right even while I lay down my life.”

110. The wicked have laid a snare for me: yet I did not err from your precepts.

“If I had done so, I should have been caught in their snare; but since I kept straight on in the way of your precepts, it mattered little how many snares they laid for me.”

111. I have taken your testimonies as an inheritance for ever:—

Some take their own thoughts for their inheritance, but it is a poor portion for anyone to have. Some take other men’s philosophies for their inheritance, but such an inheritance as that is soon gone. But some of us can say, with regard to the eternal and immutable truth of God, that we have such a grip on it that we cannot give it up. There may come a thousand other changes; but, by God’s grace, there will be no change in this matter: “I have taken your testimonies as an inheritance for ever”:—

111. For they are the rejoicing of my heart. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2415, “The Believer’s Inheritance of Joy” 2416}

Well may a man love what rightly makes him glad. Shall we ever forsake what is the source of our greatest comfort? If some men had greater gladness in the gospel, they would be more true to it. If they had ever eaten the sweet, and enjoyed the fat things full of marrow, they would never go away from the old old gospel which has made their hearts so glad.

112, 113. I have always inclined my heart to perform your statues, even to the end. I hate vain thoughts: but I love your law.

Notice that the word “vain” is not in the original, the psalmist wrote, “I hate thoughts,” yet the word for thoughts includes the idea of mere thoughts. So, if any teaching in the world is the result of human thought alone, you may not rely on it for a moment, for “the Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are vanity,” and they never will be anything better than that. The thoughts even of the most profound and the best instructed of men will not bear the weight and pressure of an immortal soul’s eternal interests. Revelation is the one reliable thing that we can rest on. What God has spoken is all true; but as for what men have thought, I have been so often disappointed and deceived that I can say, with the psalmist, “I hate mere thoughts: but I love your law.” In the law of the Lord there are verities, certainties, immutabilities; here may we abide, and rest securely.

114. You are my hiding-place and my shield: I hope in your word.

For you will be sure to do as you have said. Your promises are not like men’s, they cannot be broken; and when I get one of your promises, oh my God, I hide behind it, I am protected by it, and I am comforted through it.

115. Depart from me, you evildoers: for I will keep the commandments of my God.

Holy men often find that, in order to be holy, they have to be solitary. It sometimes happens that the force of evil companionship is too much for the gracious heart to bear, and the Christian man has to say to the ungodly, “Depart from me.” Now, if even godly David had to say to evildoers, “Depart from me,” you need not wonder that the Lord Jesus Christ will one day say to all impenitent men, “Depart from me, you evildoers.”

If we keep the commandments of our God, we shall often have to walk in a separate path from the ungodly; and even if we do not keep ourselves to ourselves, we shall keep ourselves to our God.

116. Uphold me—

I thought we should soon come to that petition. We have been reading about David’s resolutions, and we might have thought that he was too bold in speaking so positively; but now he shows us the modesty of his mind: “Uphold me”—

116. According to your word, so that I may live:

The Lord upholds us as a mother holds up her little child, and teaches him to walk. “‘Uphold me,’ oh Lord, for I cannot stand by myself. My good resolutions will soon evaporate unless you sustain me.” There is a gracious promise which just answers this petition, “I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness.”

116. And do not let me be ashamed of my hope.

“Oh my God, never let me have to say that I have hoped in you in vain! I know I never shall, but I trust in you not to disappoint me. Do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength fails me!”

117. Hold me up,— {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1657, “My Hourly Prayer” 1658}

One is fond of that short, simple prayer; first it is, “Uphold me,” and then, “Hold me up”; either way it is equally good: “Hold me up,”—

117. And I shall be safe: and I will have respect for your statutes continually.

When God holds us up, there is no fear of our falling down; we have respect for his statutes when he has respect for us.

118, 119. You have trodden down all those who err from your statutes: for their deceit is falsehood. You put away all the wicked of the earth like dross:—

Perhaps some of you have seen the great heaps of slag lying outside the furnace; that is a picture of the ungodly: “You put away all the wicked of the earth like dross”:—

119. Therefore I love your testimonies.

What! does love for the truth, and for the God of truth spring out of this putting away of the wicked? Yes, even the stern justice of God makes his people love him, and love his truth. I am of the same mind as the children of Israel were when Pharaoh and his army were swallowed up in the Red Sea, and the emancipated slaves sang to the Lord who had triumphed so gloriously. Some cannot do that because their sympathy is so entirely with the wicked, but the destruction of all that is evil creates a flow of joy in the heart of the true believer. Still, it is a fearsome joy, full of holy awe and trembling.

120. My flesh trembles for fear of you; and I am afraid of your judgments.

Well may we also tremble when we see how terrible God is out of his holy places. There is a fear which is akin to love. Just as there is a fear which perfect love casts out, so there is another fear which love dandles on her knee, and such is the fear which David felt. May we too always have that holy awe of God in our hearts! Amen.

C. H. Spurgeon’s Useful Books at Reduced Prices.

“Good Tidings of Great Joy.” Christ’s Incarnation the Foundation of Christianity. “Central Truth Series.” Vol. 1. Cloth Boards. Published at 1s. 6d., offered at 1s.