3281. The Broad Wall

A Sermon Published On Thursday, December 21, 1911.

The broad wall. {Ne 3:8}

1. It seems that, around Jerusalem of old, in the time of her splendour, there was a broad wall, which was her defence and her glory. Jerusalem is a type of the Church of God. It is always good when we can see clearly, distinctly, and plainly, that around the Church to which we belong there runs a broad wall.

2. This idea of a broad wall around the Church suggests three things, separation, security, and enjoyment. Let us examine each of these in its turn.

3. I. First, the SEPARATION of the people of God from the world is like that broad wall surrounding the holy city of Jerusalem.

4. When a man becomes a Christian, he is still in the world, but he is no longer to be part of it. He was an heir of wrath, but he has now become a child of grace. Being of a distinct nature, he is required to separate himself from the rest of mankind, as the Lord Jesus Christ did, who was “holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.” The Lord’s Church was separated in his eternal purpose. It was separated in his covenant and decree. It was separated in the atonement, for even there we find that our Lord is called “the Saviour of all men, especially of those who believed.” An actual separation is made by grace, is carried on in the work of sanctification, and will be completed in that day when the heavens shall be on fire, and the saints shall be caught up together with the Lord in the air; and in that last tremendous day, he shall divide the nations as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats, and then there shall be a great gulf fixed, across which the ungodly cannot go to the righteous, neither shall the righteous approach the wicked.

5. Practically, my business is to say to those of you who profess to be the Lord’s people, take care that you maintain a broad wall of separation between yourselves and the world. I do not say that you are to adopt any peculiarity of clothing, or to take up some unusual style of speech. Such affectation engenders, sooner or later, hypocrisy. A man may be as thoroughly worldly in one coat as in another; he may be quite as vain and conceited with one style of speech as with another; indeed, he may be even more of the world when he pretends to be separate than if he had left the pretence of separation alone. The separation which we plead for is moral and spiritual. Its foundation is laid deep in the heart, and its substantial reality is very palpable in the life.

6. Every Christian, it seems to me, should be more scrupulous than other men in his dealings. He must never swerve from the path of integrity. He should never say, “It is the custom: it is perfectly understood in the trade.” Let the Christian remember that custom cannot sanction wrong, and that its being “understood” is no apology for misrepresentation. A lie “understood” is not therefore true. While the golden rule is more admired than practised by ordinary men, the Christian should always do to others as he wished that they should do to him. He should be one whose word is his bond, and who, having once pledged his word, swears to his own harm, but does not change. There ought to be an essential difference between the Christian and the best moralist, by reason of the higher standard which the gospel inculcates, and the Saviour has exemplified. Certainly, the highest point to which the best unconverted man can go might well be looked at as a level below which the converted man will never venture to descend.

7. Moreover, the Christian should especially be distinguished by his pleasures, for it is here, usually, that the man comes out in his true colours. We are not quite ourselves, perhaps, in our daily toil, where our pursuits are rather dictated by necessity than by choice. We are not alone; the company we are thrown into imposes restraints on us; we have to put the bit and the bridle on ourselves. The true man does not then show himself; but when the day’s work is done, then the “birds of a feather flock together.” It is with the multitude of traders and commercial men as it was with those saints of old, of whom, when they were liberated from prison, it was said, “Being let go, they went to their own company.” So your pleasures and pastimes will give evidence of what your heart is, and where it is. If you can find pleasure in sin, then in sin you choose to live; and, unless grace prevents it, in sin you will not fail to perish. But if your pleasures are of a nobler kind, and your companions of a more devout character; if you seek spiritual enjoyments, if you find your happiest moments in worship, in communion, in silent prayer, or in the public assembling of yourselves with the people of God, then your higher instincts become proof of your purer character, and you will be distinguished in your pleasures by a broad wall which effectively separates you from the world.

8. Such separation should be carried, I think, into everything which affects the Christian. “What have they seen in your house?” was the question Isaiah asked of Hezekiah. When a stranger comes into our house, it should be so ordered that he can clearly perceive that the Lord is there. A man ought scarcely to spend a night beneath our roof without gathering that we have a respect for him who is invisible, and that we desire to live and move in the light of God’s countenance. I have already said that I would not have you cultivate eccentricities for eccentricity’s sake; yet, since most men are satisfied if they do as other people do, you must never be satisfied until you do more and better than other people, having found out a mode and course of life as far transcending the ordinary worldling’s life as the path of the eagle in the air is above that of the mole which burrows under the soil.

9. This broad wall between the godly and the ungodly should be most conspicuous in the spirit of our mind. The ungodly man has only this world to live for; do not wonder if he lives very earnestly for it. He has no other treasure; why should he not get as much as he can of this? But you, Christian, profess to have immortal life, therefore your treasure is not to be amassed in this brief span of existence. Your treasure is laid up in heaven, and available for eternity. Your best hopes transcend the narrow bounds of time, and fly beyond the grave; your spirit must not, therefore, be earth-bound and grovelling, but soaring and heavenly. There should be about you always the air of one who has his shoes on his feet, his waist girded, and his staff in his hand, — the air of a pilgrim ready to be off and away to a better land. You are not to live here as if this were your home. You are not to talk about this world as though it were to last for ever. You are not to hoard it, and treasure it up, as though you had set your heart on it; but you are to be on the wing as though you did not have a nest here, and never could have, but expected to find your resting-place among the cedars of God, in the hill-tops of glory.

10. Depend on it, the more unworldly a Christian is, the better it is for him. I think I could mention several reasons why this wall should be very broad. If you are sincere in your profession, there is a very broad distinction between you and unconverted people. No one can tell how far life is removed from death. Can you measure the difference? They are as opposite as the poles. Now, according to your profession, you are a living child of God, you have received a new life, whereas the children of this world are dead in trespasses and sins. How palpable the difference between light and darkness! Yet you profess to have been “once darkness,” but now you are made “light in the Lord.” There is, therefore, a great distinction between you and the world if you are what you profess to be. You say, when you put on the name of Christ, that you are going to the Celestial City, to the New Jerusalem; but the world turns its back on the heavenly country, and goes downward to that other city of which you know that destruction is its doom; your path is different from theirs. If you are what you say you are, the road you take must be diametrically opposite to that of the ungodly man. You know the difference between their ends. The end of the righteous shall be everlasting glory, but the end of the wicked is destruction. Unless then you are a hypocrite, there is such a distinction between you and others as only God himself could make, — a distinction which originates here, and is to be perpetuated throughout eternity. When the social diversities occasioned by rank and dependency, riches and poverty, ignorance and learning, shall all have passed away, the distinctions between the children of God and the children of men, between saints and scoffers, between the chosen and the castaway, will still exist. Please, then, maintain a broad wall in your conduct, since God has made a broad wall in your state and in your destiny.

11. Remember again, that our Lord Jesus Christ had a broad wall between him and the ungodly. Look at him, and see how different he is from the men of his time. All his lifelong you observe him to be a stranger and a foreigner in the land. Truly, he drew near to sinners, as near as he could draw, and he received them when they were willing to draw near to him; but he did not draw near to their sins. He was “holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.” When he went to his own city of Nazareth, he only preached a single sermon, and they would have cast him headlong down the hill if they could. When he passed through the street, he became the song of the drunkard, the butt of the foolish, the mark at what the proud shot out the arrows of their scorn. At last, having come to his own, and his own having not received him, they determined to thrust him altogether out of the camp, so they took him to Golgotha, and nailed him to the tree as a malefactor, a promoter of sedition. He was the great Dissenter, the great Nonconformist of his age. The National Church first excommunicated, and then executed him. He did not seek difference in trivial things; but the purity of his life and the truthfulness of his testimony roused the spleen of the rulers and the chief men of their synagogues. He was ready in all things to serve them and to bless them, but he never would blend with them. They would have made him a king. Ah! if he would only have joined the world, the world would have given him the chief place, as the world’s prince said on the mountain, “I will give you all these things if you will fall down and worship me.” But he drives away the fiend, and stands immaculate and separate even to the close of his life. If you are a Christian, be a Christian. If you follow Christ, go outside the camp. But if there is no difference between you and your fellow man, what will you say to the King in the day when he comes and finds that you have on no wedding garment by which you can be distinguished from the rest of mankind?

12. Moreover, dear friends, you will find that a broad wall of separation is abundantly good for yourselves. I do not think any Christian in the world will tell you that, when he has given way to the world’s customs, he has ever been profited by it. If you can go and find an evening’s amusement in a suspicious place, and feel profited by it, I am sure you are not a Christian; for, if you were a Christian indeed, it would pain your conscience, and disqualify you for more devout exercises of the heart. Ask a fish to spend an hour on dry land, and I think, if it complied, the fish would find that it was not much to its benefit, for it would be out of its element; and it will be so with you in communion with sinners. When you are compelled to associate with worldly people in the ordinary course of business, you find much that grates on the ear, that troubles the heart, and annoys the soul. You will be often like righteous Lot, vexed with the conduct of the wicked, and you will say with David, — 

   Woe’s me that I in Mesech am

      A sojourner so long;

   That I in tabernacles dwell

      To Kedar that belong.

Your soul will pine and sigh to come away and wash your hands of everything that is impure and unclean. Since you find no comfort there, you will long to get away to the chaste, the holy, the devout, the edifying fellowship of the saints. Make a broad wall, dear friends, in your daily life. If you begin to give way a little to the world, you will soon give way a great deal. Give sin an inch, and it will take a mile. “Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves,” is an apt motto of economy. So, too, guard against little sins, if you would be clear of “the great transgression.” Look after the little approaches to worldliness, the little givings-in towards the things of ungodliness, and then you will not make provision for the flesh to fulfil its lusts.

13. Another good reason for keeping up the broad wall of separation is, that you will do most good to the world by it. I know Satan will tell you that, if you bend a little; and come near to the ungodly, then they also will come a little way to meet you. Indeed, but it is not so. You lose your strength, Christian, the moment you depart from your integrity. What do you think ungodly people say behind your back, if they see you inconsistent to please them? “Oh!” they say, “there is nothing in his religion but vain pretence; the man is not sincere.” Although the world may openly denounce the rigid Puritan, it secretly admires him. When the big heart of the world speaks out, it has respect for the man who is sternly honest, and will not yield his principles, — no, not a hair’s breadth. In such an age as this, when there is so little sound conviction, when principle is cast to the winds, and when a general latitudinarianism, both of thought and of practice, seems to rule the day, it is still the fact that a man who is decided in his belief, speaks his mind boldly, and acts according to his profession, is sure to command the respect of mankind. Depend on it, woman, your husband and your children will respect you none the more because you say, “I will give up some of my Christian privileges,” or, “I will go sometimes with you into what is sinful.” You cannot help them out of the mire if you go and plunge into the mud yourself. You cannot help to make them clean if you go and blacken your own hands. How can you wash their faces then? You young man in the shop, and you young woman in the work-room, if you keep yourselves to yourselves in Christ’s name, chaste and pure for Jesus, not laughing at jests which should make you blush, not involved with pastimes that are suspicious; but, on the other hand, tenderly jealous of your conscience as one who shrinks from a doubtful thing as a sinful thing, holding sound faith, and being scrupulous for the truth, — if you will keep yourselves like that, your company in the midst of others shall be as though an angel shook his wings, and they will say to each other, “Refrain from this or that just now, for So-and-so is here.” They will fear you, in a certain sense; they will admire you, in secret; and who can tell but that, at last, they may come to imitate you?

14. Would you tempt God? Would you challenge the desolating flood? Whenever the church comes down to mix with the world it behoves the faithful few to flee to the ark, and seek shelter from the avenging storm. When the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair to look at, it was then that God said he relented that he had made men on the face of the earth, and he sent the deluge to sweep them away. God’s people must be a separate people, and they shall be. It is his own declaration, “The people shall dwell alone; they shall not be numbered among the nations.” The Christian is, in some respects, like the Jew. The Jew is the type of the Christian. You may give the Jew political privileges, as he ought to have; he may be adopted into the State, as he ought to be; but a Jew he is, and a Jew he must be still. He is not a Gentile, even though he calls himself English, or Portuguese, or Spanish, or Polish. He remains one of the people of Israel, a child of Abraham, a Jew still; and you can mark him as such, — his speech betrays him in every land. So should it be with the Christian; mixing up with other men, as he must in his daily calling; going in and out among them, like a man among men; trading in the market; dealing in the shop; mixing in the joys of the social circle; taking his part in politics, like a citizen, as he is; but, at the same time, always having a higher and a nobler life, a secret into which the world cannot enter, and showing the world, by his superior holiness, his zeal for God, his sterling integrity, and his unselfish truthfulness, that he is not of the world, even as Christ was not of the world. You cannot tell how concerned I am for some of you, that this broad wall should be kept up; for I detect in some of you, at times, a desire to make it very narrow, and perhaps, to pull it down altogether. Brethren, beloved in the Lord, you may depend on it that nothing worse can happen to a church than to be conformed to this world. Write “Ichabod” on her walls then, for the sentence of destruction has gone out against her. But, if you can keep yourselves as — 

         A garden walled around,

   Chosen and made peculiar ground, — 

you shall have your Master’s company; your graces shall grow, you shall be happy in your own souls; and Christ shall be honoured in your lives.

15. II. Secondly, the broad wall all around Jerusalem INDICATED SAFETY.

16. In the same way, a broad wall around Christ’s Church indicates her safety too. Consider who they are who belong to the Church of God. A man does not become a member of Christ’s Church by baptism, nor by birthright, nor by profession, nor by morality. Christ is the door into the sheepfold; everyone who believes in Jesus Christ is a member of the true Church. Being a member of Christ, he is a member, subsequently, of the body of Christ, which is the Church. Now, around the Church of God, — the election of grace, the redeemed by blood, the special people, the adopted, the justified, the sanctified, — around the Church there are bulwarks of stupendous strength, munitions which guard them safely. When the foe came to attack Jerusalem, he counted the towers and bulwarks, and noted them well; but after he had seen the strength of the holy city, he fled away. How could he hope ever to scale such ramparts as those? Brethren, Satan often counts the towers and bulwarks of the New Jerusalem. Anxiously does he desire the destruction of the saints, but it shall never be. He who rests in Christ is saved. He who has passed through the gate of faith to rest in Jesus Christ may sing, with joyful confidence, — 

   The soul that on Jesus hath lean’d for repose,

      I will not, I will not desert to his foes;

   That soul, though all hell should endeavour to shake,

      I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.

17. The Christian is surrounded by the broad wall of God’s power. Since God is omnipotent, Satan cannot defeat him. If God’s power is on my side, who then shall harm me? “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

18. The Christian is surrounded by the broad wall of God’s love. Who shall prevail against those whom God loves? I know that it is vain to curse those whom God has not cursed, or to defy those whom the Lord has not defied; for whomever he blesses is blessed indeed. Balak, the son of Zippor, sought to curse the beloved people, and he went first to one hill-top and then to another, and looked down on the chosen camp. But, aha! Balaam, you could not curse them, though Balak sought it! You could only say, “They are blessed, yes, and they shall be blessed!”

19. God’s law is a broad wall around us, and so is his justice. These once threatened our destruction, but now the justice of God demands the salvation of every believer. If Christ has died instead of me, it would not be justice if I also had to die for my sin. If God has received the full payment of the debt from the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ, then how can he demand the debt again? He is satisfied, and we are secure.

20. The immutability of God, also, surrounds his people like a broad wall. “I am God, I do not change; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed.” As long as God is the same, the rock of our salvation will be our secure hiding-place.

21. On this delightful truth, we might linger long, for there is much to cheer us in the strong security which God has given in covenant to his people. They are surrounded by the broad wall of electing love. Does God choose them, and will he lose them? Did he ordain them to eternal life, and shall they perish? Did he inscribe their names on his heart, and shall those names be blotted out? Did he give them to his Son to be his inheritance, and shall his Son lose his portion? Did he say, “‘They shall be mine,’ says the Lord, ‘in the day when I make up my jewels,’” and shall he part with them? Has he who makes all things to obey him no power to keep the people whom he has formed for himself to be his own special inheritance? God forbid that we should doubt it! Electing love, like a broad wall, surrounds every heir of grace.

22. And oh, how broad is the wall of redeeming love! Will Jesus fail to claim the people he bought with so great a price? Did he shed his blood in vain? How can he revive enmity against those whom he has once reconciled to God, not imputing their transgression to them? Having obtained eternal redemption for them, will he condemn them to everlasting perdition? Has he purged their sins by sacrifice, and will he then leave them to be the victims of Satanic craft? By the blood of the everlasting covenant, every Christian may be assured that he cannot perish, neither can anyone pluck him out of Christ’s hand. Unless the cross was a gamble, unless the atonement were a mere speculation, those for whom Jesus died are saved through his death. Therefore “he shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.”

23. The work of the Holy Spirit is like a broad wall which surrounds the saints of God. Does the Spirit begin and then not finish the operations of his grace? Ah, no! Does he give life which afterwards dies out? That is impossible; has he not told us that the Word of God is the incorruptible seed, which lives and endures for ever. And shall the powers of hell or the evil of our own flesh destroy what God has pronounced immortal, or cause dissolution to what God says is incorruptible? Is not the Spirit of God given to us to remain with us for ever, and shall he be expelled from that heart in which he has taken up his everlasting dwelling-place? Brethren, we are not of their mind who are led by fear or fallacy to indulge in such conjectures. We rejoice to say with Paul, “Being confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” We delight to sing — 

   Grace will complete what grace begins,

      To save from sorrows or from sins;

   The work that wisdom undertakes

      Eternal mercy ne’er forsakes.

Almost every doctrine of grace affords us a broad wall, a strong bastion, a mighty bulwark, a grand munition of defence. Take, for example, Christ’s suretyship engagements. He is Surety to his Father for his people. When he brings home the flock, do you think that he will have to report that some of them are lost? Not so!

24. “Here I am,” he will say, “and the children whom you have given to me. Of all whom you have given me I have lost none.” He will keep all the saints even to the end. The honour of Christ is involved in this matter. If Christ loses one soul that leans on him, the integrity of his crown is gone; for if there should be one believing soul in hell, the prince of darkness would hold up that soul, and say, “Aha! You could not save them all! Aha! You Captain of Salvation, you were defeated here! Here is one poor little Benjamin, one Ready-to-Halt, who you could not bring to glory, and I have him to be my prey for ever!” But it shall not be. Every gem shall be in Jesus’ crown. Every sheep shall be in Jesus’ flock. He shall not be defeated in any way, or in any measure; but he shall divide the spoil with the strong, he shall establish the cause he undertakes, he shall eternally conquer; glory be to his great and good name!

25. III. The idea of a broad wall — and with this I close, — SUGGESTS ENJOYMENT.

26. The walls of Nineveh and Babylon were broad, so broad that there was found room for several chariots to pass each other. Here men walked at sunset, and talked and promoted good fellowship. If you have ever been in the city of York, you will know how interesting it is to walk around the broad walls there. But our figure is drawn from the Orientals. They were accustomed to come out of their houses, and walk on the broad walls. They used them for rest from toil, and for the various pleasures of recreation. It was very delightful, when the sun was going down, and all was cool, to walk on those broad walls. And so, when a believer comes to know the deep things of God, and to see the defences of God’s people, he walks along them, and he rests in confidence. “Now,” he says, “I am at rest and peace; the destroyer cannot molest me; I am delivered from the noise of archers in the place of the drawing of water, and here I can exercise myself in prayer and meditation. Now that salvation is appointed for walls and bulwarks, I will sing a song to him who has done these great things for me; I will take my rest and be quiet, for he who believes has entered into rest. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Broad walls, then, are for rest, and so are our broad walls of salvation.

27. Those broad walls were also for communion. Men came there and talked with each other. They leaned over the wall, and whispered their loving words, conversed about their business, comforted each other, related their troubles and their joys. So, when believers come to Christ Jesus, they commune with each other, with the angels, with the spirits of just men made perfect, and with Jesus Christ their Lord, who is best of all. Oh! on those broad walls, when the banner of love waves over them, they sometimes rejoice with an unspeakable joy, in fellowship with him who loved them, and gave himself for them. It is a blessed thing, in the Church of Christ, when you get such a knowledge of the doctrines of the gospel that you can have the sweetest communion with the whole Church of the living God.

28. And then the broad walls were also intended for prospects and outlooks. The citizen came up on the broad wall, and looked away from the smoke and dirt of the city within, right across to the green fields, and the gleaming river, and the far-off mountains, delighted to watch the mowing of hay, or the reaping of grain, or the setting sun beyond the distant hills. It was one of the common enjoyments of the citizen of any walled city to come to the top of the wall in order to take far-off views. So, when a man once gets into the altitudes of gospel doctrine, and has learned to understand the love of God in Christ Jesus, what wide views he can take! How he looks down on the sorrows of life! How he looks beyond that narrow little stream of death! How, sometimes, when the weather is bright, and his eye is clear enough to let him use the telescope, he can see within the gates of pearl, and behold the joys which no mortal eye has seen, and hear the songs which no mortal ear has heard, for these are things, not for eyes and ears, but for hearts and spirits! Blessed is the man who dwells in the Church of God, for he can find on her broad walls places from which he can see the King in his beauty, and the land which is very far off!

29. Ah! dear friends, I wish that these things had to do with you all, but I am afraid they do not; for many of you are outside the wall, and when the destroyer comes, no one will be safe but those who are inside the wall of Christ’s love and mercy. I wish that you would escape to the gate at once, for it is open. It will be shut, — it will be shut one day, but it is open now. When night comes, the night of death, the gate will be shut; and you will come then, and say, “Lord, Lord, open to us!” But the answer will be, — 

   Too late, too late!

   Ye cannot enter now.

But it is not too late yet. Still Christ says, “Behold, I have set before you an open door, and no man can shut it.” Oh, that you had the will to come and put your trust in Jesus; for if you do so, you shall be saved. I cannot speak to some of you about security, for there are no broad walls to defend you. You have run away from the security. Perhaps you have been patching up with some untempered mortar a righteousness of your own, which will all be thrown down as a leaning wall and as a tottering fence. Oh, that you would trust in Jesus! Then you would have a broad wall which all the battering-rams of hell shall never be able to shake. When the storms of eternity shall beat against that wall, it shall stand firm for ever.

30. I cannot speak to some of you about rest, and enjoyment, and communion, for you have sought rest where there is none, you have gotten a peace which is no peace, you have found a comfort which will be your destruction. May God make you to be distressed, and constrain you by severe stress to flee to the Lord Jesus and so to get true peace, the only peace for “he is our peace.” Oh, that you would close in with Christ, and trust him! Then you would rejoice in the present happiness which faith would give you; but the sweetest thing of all would be the prospect which should then unfold for you of the eternal happiness which Christ has prepared for all those who put their trust in him.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ps 71}

1-8. In you, oh LORD, I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion. Deliver me in your righteous, and cause me to escape: incline your ear to me, and save me. Be my strong habitation, into which I may continually resort: you have given commandment to save me; for you are my rock and my fortress. Deliver me, oh my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. For you are my hope, oh Lord GOD: you are my trust from my youth. By you I have been upheld from the womb: you are he who took me out of my mother’s body: my praise shall be continually of you.

David had enjoyed the mercy of God from his very birth. We are apt to forget the tender care of God over our infancy, but we ought to remember it: and it will be a great comfort to us, if we come to a second childhood, to remember how kindly God took care of us in the first.

7-11. I am as a wonder to many; but you are my strong refuge. Let my mouth be filled with your praise and with your honour all the day. Do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength fails. For my enemies speak against me; and those who lay in wait for my soul take counsel together, saying, “God has forsaken him: persecute and take him; for there is no one to deliver him.”

Surely that ought to have been the reason for leaving him alone. With right-minded people it would have been so, but the devil and his children are arrant cowards, and their argument is, “Persecute and take him; for there is no one to deliver him.” You might as well expect tenderness in a wolf as anything like bravery and chivalry in a persecutor.

12-14. Oh God do not be far from me: oh my God, hurry to me. Let them be confounded and consumed who are adversaries to my soul; let them be covered with reproach and dishonour who seek my harm. But I will hope continually, and will yet praise you more and more. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 998, “More and More” 989}

How was he going to do it? Already his mouth was filled with God’s praise; so, surely, he would fill his whole life with it; and his actions, which would speak more loudly than his words, should bear daily testimony to the goodness of God.

15, 16. My mouth shall proclaim your righteousness and your salvation all the day; for I do not know their numbers. I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD: — 

“This shall be my praise; my very movements, my goings, my progress shall be in the ‘strength of the Lord GOD’”: — 

16, 17. I will make mention of your righteousness, even of yours only. Oh God, you have taught me from my youth. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2318, “God’s Pupil, God’s Preacher: An Autobiography” 2319} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3271, “God, the Children’s Teacher” 3273}

Here is the same kind of argument again: “Oh Lord, I went to school to you, so I must teach others what you have taught me.”

17. And so far I have declared your wonderful works.

“You made me a preacher, and I have stuck to my work, ‘So far I have declared your wonderful works.’”

18-20. Now also when I am old and grey-headed, oh God, do not forsake me until I have shown your strength to this generation, and your power to everyone who is to come. Your righteousness also, oh God, is very high, who has done great things: oh God, who is like you! You, who have shown me great and severe troubles, shall quicken me again,

“You shall not merely deliver me from my great and severe troubles, but you shall give me more life, you ‘shall quicken me again.’” Divine quickening is the best remedy for a troubled heart.

20. And shall bring me up again from the depths of the earth.

“Though I seem to be like a man buried in the depths of the earth, you will bring me up again.”

21, 22. You shall increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side. I will also praise you — 

God blessing us, and we in return blessing him, — so it ought to be. The more God does for us, the more we ought to do for him, is it not so, brother? Is this not a good argument? Are you carrying it out? Let your conscience answer.

22, 23. With the psaltery, even your truth, oh my God: to you I will sing with the harp, oh you Holy One of Israel. My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing to you.

Singing to God ought to be the most glad of exercises; when it is done in a doleful, dolorous way, it is not singing, but groaning.

23. And my soul, which you have redeemed.

“The sprinkled blood is on my soul, and therefore it shall leap for joy. Rescued from captivity, bought back from slavery, ‘my soul, which you have redeemed’; shall greatly rejoice when I sing to you.”

24. My tongue also shall talk about your righteousness all the day long: for they are confounded, for they are brought to shame, who seek my harm.