3316. Their Desired Haven

A Sermon Published On Thursday, August 22, 1912.

So he brings them to their desired haven. {Ps 107:30}

1. Taken strictly, according to its original context, the passage plainly and powerfully reminds us, that our providential mercies ought never to be forgotten; and more especially those remarkable mercies, which concern the safety of our life in times of great peril.

2. If there are any of you who have been exposed to storms at sea, or who have in any other way been brought near death’s door, and have then been strikingly rescued, should you not devote your life to him who has spared and prolonged it? Do you think it was without a plan that God brought you into the peril, and is it without a purpose that he has lengthened out your span of life? Oh! please, if you have been ungrateful so far, let this tenderness of his in sparing your useless life — (for it has been useless to him, remember) — arouse in you a hundredfold tenderness; a tenderness of repentance for the past, and of holy desire for the future. In such an assembly as this I surely have some who have either been restored from a bed of sickness when they were almost given up, or who have been preserved from accidents on land, or have had hair-breadth escapes at sea. Oh! praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works towards you, and at the foot of the cross of Calvary dedicate your few remaining days to the service of the Preserver of men.

3. But this evening, while remembering these important truths, we intend to use the text with yet another object. This natural voyage on the sea may be a very excellent type and picture of the spiritual voyage which all men undertake in their soul’s life, and we should first interpret the text, as it concerns the seeking sinner on the sea of soul-trouble, brought at length by the gracious Pilot to his desired haven of peace through believing; and then we shall very briefly construe the text with reference to the saint, brought through all the troubles of life to the desired haven of the New Jerusalem, where he shall rest for ever free from all future storms and perils.

4. I. First, then, let us look at THE SEEKING SINNER AS A SOUL-VOYAGER.

5. Our first thought suggested here is, that with regard to the sinner, there is a haven. The soul of the man or woman is far out at sea, liable to be wrecked, and in such a storm he or she must be wrecked, for no craft can live it out, unless it makes all speed for the haven. But there is a haven for storm-tossed, ship-wrecked souls, there is a harbour of refuge for tempest-driven sinners. That haven is Christ Jesus, received by faith into the soul. I compare him to a haven, because of the peace which those enjoy who once shelter in him. It is wild, and black, and fierce out there sinner! where you are: but there is peace, “the peace of God that surpasses all understanding,” where the true believer is. It is not because his ship is different from yours. If he were in the place where you are, as he once was, he would still be in the same peril and suffer the same damage as you. But he is now “in Christ” and you are not; he has exchanged the hurricane for the haven, the danger for the calm confidence of safety. Oh! if you only knew the peace which faith brings, you would not be long before you cried to God in your trouble and he would also bring you to his dear Son and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

6. I call him a haven too, because of the safety that there is for every soul that is in him. Ships are wrecked and broken to pieces out there, on the shoal, on the quicksand, or on the iron-bound coasts, but they escape wreck in the haven. There let the storm-king rage his worst and angriest abroad; they are in perfect peace. Sometimes, not a ripple disturbs the vessel that is in the harbour. My hearer, you are in great danger tonight; you may soon be in hell, and even now the wrath of God rests on you, for you are “without God” and consequently “without hope in the world.” But the Christian is in no such danger. Sin, which is the source of all soul-danger, has been fully forgiven him. He will not need even to fear death, for to him death is only the gate of life. He need have no fears of temporal trouble, for he has left his burdens with the great Burden-Bearer, and may cast all his care on him who cares for him. He has a peace which is founded on immutable truth. It is not a false peace which expects that there will never come a storm, but a true solid peace which knows that though the storm will come, he does not need to dread it because his vessel is safe in the haven.

7. I call Christ a haven, again, because when we get into him, we do very much what ships do in the haven, we begin unloading. Oh! what a cargo of black sins we had! Oh! what a quantity of griefs, and fears, follies, and doubts! But when we come to Jesus Christ we unload them all. We cast overboard even what we once thought precious, considering it only dross and dung so that we may win Christ and be found in him. What a blessed riddance to be free of such foul rubbish as once threatened to founder our souls! The hymn says —

   I lay my sins on Jesus,

     The spotless Lamb of God;

   He bears them all and frees us,

      From the accursed load.

That is what faith is helped to do. It casts all its sins and doubts and fears and cares on Jesus Christ, the great sin bearer, and so is made free.

8. I call him a haven too, because when a ship gets to the haven, it begins to load again. The haven is as frequently the starting place for a new voyage, as the destination is for the previous one. And emphatically that is so in our soul’s experience.

9. What fine cargo does the trustful soul take on board when it comes to Jesus Christ! Of joy, of love, privilege, holiness, delight and fellowship; for we have inexhaustible riches of grace and blessing in him. When we come to him, these unbounded treasures are all ours. God all-sufficient is revealed to us in the person of the man Christ Jesus. Like the haven of Araby, where the ships take on board their gold and their perfume, so the soul receives its most precious and priceless gifts from the all-bountiful Redeemer Lord. Oh! you who are still out on the restless, wild sea of sin and dissatisfaction, of storm and dread, will you not long to reach the haven so that you may be peaceful and safe, happy and secure because you lose your sins, and in their place may receive from his fulness grace for grace?

10. Mariner! I think I hear you say, “I would gladly came to the port, but what about it sir? What are the fees there?” Sinner it is a free port; there is nothing to pay. Of all the keels that ever floated into that haven there was never one that had anything to bring that was worth receiving. There has been much taken out, but nothing has been brought in that was worth anything. Christ will charge you no custom’s dues; so run to this port, for it is freely open to every sinner who desires to cast anchor there. There is room for you, too. There are many vessels; there is a great fleet, a blessedly peaceful fleet, within, but there is room for you. Do you tell me that there was once was a sandbar before the harbour? Yes, but it has been blasted completely away, and is now altogether removed. There is sea-room for the heaviest craft. Though your sins are as scarlet they shall be as wool; though they are red like crimson they shall be whiter than snow. You say that your heavy-laden bark will draw many a foot of mercy’s water. Ah! but there is many a foot here. There is room even though your ship is burdened up to the bulwarks. There is no fear of your touching the bottom of God’s bottomless grace, wisdom, and love. There is always room for you to come. Some ports are only open at certain states of the tide; and so when the tide is out and low, the bark that makes for the haven may run on the rocks, or the Black Middens {a} somewhere, but of this there is no fear for you.

   The blessed gates of gospel grace

      Stand open night and day.

Some souls have run for the haven at the very last, and by his mercy they have gotten in; while others have run for it, blessed be God! while yet quite young. Oh! may it be your happy lot at the very beginning of life’s voyage, young men and women! to run for this blessed haven, and find yourselves strong and secure and serene.

11. At any rate, let me say to you, however despairing you may be, if God gives you the will to run for this harbour you may do so and find without a doubt that it will be found open to receive you. Christ Jesus, then, is a true haven for the soul, and those who trust in him are made perfectly secure.

12. We must not spend any more time on this point however, fair and attractive as it is, but note that the text speaks of “a desired haven.” Now I wonder whether for all of us Christ Jesus is a desired haven. He is a haven, but is he a desired haven to you? Put your hand now on your heart, and see if you can find a deep desire for Christ there. Oh! I should have hope in preaching to such a congregation, even though none of you knew Christ, if you only truly desired him. You would then be like tinder to my spark, and be like prepared ground. I should only have to sow the seed, and you would be that fruitful soil which receives it, and yields a harvest a hundredfold. Christ is not desired by some of you, and why not? But I think I can easily find those who desire the haven. They are just these. The sailor desires the haven when he has an unfavourable breeze. Do you feel as if Providence were blowing in your teeth, and are temptations setting in very strong, and does the memory of your past sin come blowing a hard gale against you? But a little while ago you sailed, and were very comfortable; for it was all smooth water with you; the sea was like a mill-pond; but now the waves roll and break mountains high, and the wind is in your teeth. I hope you will come to desire the Saviour now. Sick of the world and all its turbulence, may you now be anxious for him and his peace. The sailor desires to get into harbour, too, when he finds he is in weather which he is not likely to ride out. “Oh,” says the boatswain, “that we could see the light.” “Oh! that we were in the haven now,” says the captain, “for there are threatening, angry breakers ahead.” Do you not see the breakers ahead, sinner? Are you not afraid of dying, and more afraid of living? Do not the storms and trials of life drive you to desire something better than the vain world can give you? And does not the prospect of the after-life alarm you? Then I hope that to your belaboured soul Christ is the desired haven.

13. But the haven is desired even more, by the sailor whose ship is leaky. “She will soon go down,” he says; “we have kept the pumps going, but the water gains on us.” Do you feel your spirit to be such an unseaworthy craft that you are afraid to go out into, or keep out in, the depths of the sea with her? Do you begin to feel, or fear, she is sinking? If so, then my Lord Jesus Christ will be to you a “desired haven” indeed! Ah! no sinner prizes salvation like the sinner who knows he is lost. May our God make you know that you are!

   The sinner is a sacred thing,

   The Holy Ghost hath made him so.

That is, a really awakened sinner; for he will not take his ship to harbour unless he feels that she must sink unless he does. I pray God that you may get into such a sinking state that you may be compelled to go to him. And when the sailor himself is sick, it is then he wants the haven. When he feels as if he must die, then he says, “I wish I were safe on shore!” Do you feel sick at heart? Does your very soul turn within you until you reel and stagger like a drunken man? Then you will desire the haven, and I bless God you will have it. There is many a sailor who has desired the haven who has yet never reached it but gone down into the depths; but there has never been one on the sea of life who has desired Christ with a really intense longing and a loving and anxious heart, who has not found him before long. Oh! sinner, I have hope for you, for if you desire Christ, Christ desires you even more.

14. We cannot stop, however, even here, for next we have to talk about the Pilot. How do they get into the haven? HE brings them there. The text is speaking of God. “So he brings them to their desired haven.” We know nothing of the navigator of the sea of salvation. To get into the harbour is never accomplished by human skill nor wisdom. “I am a Christian” said a young woman once. The minister said, “When did you become a Christian?” “I am sure I do not know, sir,” was the reply, “but I supposed it was when I was christened.” A great many people have the same notion. Ah! but “so” he does not bring any to the desired haven, but in quite an altogether different way. It is by the personally coming on board of the soul, of the Great Pilot, the Holy Spirit, that the heart is steered into the safe haven. But she will rot or wreck outside, or founder to the bottom, unless God himself shall bring her into the quiet harbour of his glorious redemption. “So he brings them.” Dear hearer, do you say, “There is a haven, and I desire to make for the land; but the wind is contrary. I would tack and tack about, but the more I try the farther off from the haven I seem to be”? Yes, but he who is the haven is also the Pilot to bring you to the haven. You have no repentance, you say. He gives it; ask him for it. You have no faith; he gives it, seek it from him. Oh! that you had grace to trust him as much as to bring you to himself, as to bring you to heaven! You may not get to him, you toiling bark, you cannot reach Christ who is on the land, but he comes walking on the water to meet you. “It is I,” he says, “do not be afraid.”

15. Do not despair, do not doubt, you who desire! Hoist the signals of distress, fire the guns of prayer again and again, and he will come, the Pilot who has weathered and rescued from many a storm before, and will bring you into the harbour. He is the Pilot who knows the sea well.

   He knows what strong temptations mean,

      For he has felt the same.

16. He has steered many a vessel into port that was in quite as bad a condition as you are now. He is well-skilled; he has received a divine certificate from the Trinity House. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me; he has anointed me to do this very work of bringing poor shipwrecked mariners to the port of peace.” Commit yourself to his hand. Let him board your vessel, and he will make your ship tack about, and bring you soon into the still and quiet waters of the desired haven.

17. But I come now to the point I want especially to make, and that is the passage to the haven. They are brought to the haven they desire, and they are brought there by the Pilot, but how are they brought? The text says: “So he brings them to their desired haven.” The way into the haven is not always a smooth one. Some are brought to Christ as if they had never known a storm. Do not, of course, desire and seek a storm; but as long as you get safely into the haven it does not matter how you get there. If you trust Christ, do not trouble yourselves, because you never went through the Slough of Despond. Read the life of John Bunyan, and you will find him much troubled and tumbled up and down for years. You may have felt little of this, perhaps, yet if your trust in Christ is sincere and real it does not matter. If the ship reaches the haven, and is safely sheltered there, whether she had a stormy passage or a smooth one is of little importance. The great thing is to be “Safe home, safe home in port.” Still, it often happens that we come into the port of Christ’s salvation through a storm. Read the passage and you will see how frequently this occurs. “They mount up to heaven, they go down again into the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man. They cry to the Lord in their trouble and he brings them out of their distresses. He makes the storm to be a calm, so that its waves are still. Then they are glad because they are quiet. So he brings them to their desired haven.” They are greatly troubled, but it drives them to prayer, prayer gets its answer, and so they get Christ. I thank God that I was brought into peace by believing. It was many and many a day before I found Christ. It is a strange thing, but as I was talking this afternoon with a dear friend in Christ about spiritual things, we remarked to each other that most men who had been made useful in winning souls had a hard time of it when they first came to Christ. For the most part a deep and painful experience seems to be absolutely necessary to enable a minister to get a hold and a grip on the doctrines of grace. Still, let us never forget that the tossing is not the haven and the storm is not the port. A sense of sin does not save, and terrors of conscience do not justify. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” That is the great message to us all. Trust in Jesus: it is this that brings you into port. May God bring you there! and we will then sing together, and “praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men.”

18. I hope to meet very many of you in that other port above: meanwhile, what a blessing and privilege it is that there are so many of us in the port of Christ here and now, on this sin-afflicted earth! Let us hand out the flags tonight, every one of them as we try to bless and magnify the King who is himself the Pilot, who made the haven, who himself bears the storm on his own bosom, so that we may be saved from it; and be hidden from all the rolling billows, and find a secure resting-place in him.

19. II. And now for only a few minutes let us apply the text to believers and see — THE SINCERE SAINT AS A SOUL-VOYAGER.

20. We are accustomed to speak of heaven as our home, and I think we would not strain the point tonight if we speak of it as our haven. The Church in the olden times was often pictured in symbols by a ship, and perhaps no better type of the Church could be found. The ship is out at sea. We are on our journey home. The prow is towards the Promised Land. We hope to reach the Isles of the Happy in the land of the hereafter, where the waters are still eternally, and the billows roll no more. In that haven of our soul there is a peace transcending even the peace which we have learned on earth, though it surpasses all understanding; a peace that no storm can by any possibility ever break, — no storm within, no tempest without. There shall be no panics there, no losses of money there, no sickening wife, no dying child, no tortured brain, no anguish in the heart, but there we shall be free from all the storms that toss us on the sea of life.

21. That port is one from which the ship shall never make another voyage; she is home for good: not to be broken up, but to be refitted in a better way: no longer mortal, for this mortal shall put on immortality, and this corruption must put on incorruption. She shall make voyages, but still be in the haven, for the eternal haven is wide as infinity, and we may sail on and on for ever, but it shall always be on a sea where not a wave of trouble, a breaker of sin or sorrow shall beat on our serene soul. There shall be no more leakage there, no more complaint that the vessel is out of trim. The sin that has pierced us through and through like some of these sea-worms which eat through the most staunch timbers, shall be for ever done with, yes, for ever and ever.

22. I love to think often and deeply of that haven, dear friends! If not to you, I am sure it is to me a “desired haven.” If you ask me why it is desired, I can only answer that when I see the perils of the way, the storms we have had to face and outride, and how little our poor vessel is able to overcome them, we may well long to be for ever where such trials, and indeed all trials, shall never come. I desire to be in that haven, I think, as much as anything, that I may meet my many comrades there who have gone before.

23. It has been my lot to serve under the great Captain now for a number of years. There are names that are on the roll of my Master in heaven which I venerate, and men whom I long to see. Rowland Hill once took a journey, we are told, from Cambridge, some ten or twelve miles, to see an old dying saint, and he said to her, “Now, you will be in heaven before me, but tell them that poor old Rowland is on the road, and when you get there give my love to the three Johns, — John who leaned on the Saviour’s bosom, John Calvin, and John Bunyan.” Well, we may well wish to see them and the many who shall be there, for we shall have dear and intimate communion with them. Let us drink tonight the cup of fellowship and toast the friends that are ahead. We have been long enough out from shore, I think, almost to forget those behind, and begin to remember those who are ahead. We are homeward bound, and we long to be at home for the sake of the friends that have gone before. Some dear to us in ties of flesh are there, those who were to us as father, mother, wife or child. Your little ones are beckoning some of you to the celestial shore. How much desired a haven it should be to you! I have many spiritual children on the other side of life’s Jordan. Multitudes are now there who learned the Saviour’s name from my stammering words, and came to see his transcendent beauties as he was being presented, lifted up, and exhibited here in the midst of the great congregation. I know they will welcome me, their spiritual father, and I long to be with them.

24. But best of all it is a desired haven, because he is there, who though he was born of a human mother, is yet truly divine, he, whom though, —

   We have not seen his face,

      Unceasing we adore.

   The Man of sorrows at the Father’s side,

      The Man of Love, the Crucified.

Blow, blow you winds let the sails go to ribbons if they must; let the vessel rush and fly before the gale, if she only gets safely into “the desired haven.” We may think even the storm blest that drives her the more quickly there; for it is, indeed, a desired haven.

25. Are you now desiring it, my dear brothers and sisters? It is not always that we do. We get tricked into loitering along the road or merely cruising on the ocean. What a strange thing that anything here should beguile us!

   What is there that I should wait,

      My hope’s alone in thee;

   When wilt thou open glory’s gate,

      And take me up to thee?

Is there anything here that ought to make us stop for a moment if there is that prospect beyond of the Saviour’s face, and the vision of his glory? I think some of us can say that at times —

   Our thirsty spirit faints

      To reach the land we love,

   The bright inheritance of saints,

      Jerusalem above!

26. You see I am running over the same points as we had in the first part, — a haven, a desired haven, and then the Pilot. Shall I ever get to the desired haven? I would despair of it in going through so tortuous a channel so thickly set with difficulties and perils, but my Pilot knows the course. My Pilot found the way to heaven himself, and if I trust him absolutely, giving the vessel entirely into his charge, he will find the way for me too. Besides this, he has this advantage, that he is the Master of the winds and waves, and so I may confidently —

   Leave to his sovereign will

      To choose and to command.

For he will certainly bring me safely home.

27. But the passage to the haven needs your thought too. My Christian brothers and sisters, you are now being tossed on the sea. You came here tonight wondering what God was doing with you. You old sailors ought not to be astonished or alarmed by a storm. Did you imagine the sea had turned to dry land? Did you expect to reach that distant shore without feeling the heave of the waves? Why, the youngsters and novices may expect such things if they wish! But you who are seasoned mariners, and are getting grey, ought to know better. Has it been smooth all the way until now? Why expect it to be sunny and serene now? Master John Bunyan’s ditty has it —

   A Christian man is seldom long at ease,

   When one trouble’s gone, another doth him seize.

Do you not expect it? If you do not, I would alter my reckoning if I were you. Just turn to the logbook of your memory; how many days all together have you generally been in smooth water? Not many, I will warrant you. You ancient mariners who have lived at sea these many years, and have gotten your sea-legs now, and can stand where others fall, I ask you whether you have not been more accustomed to rolling billows than you have been to the ocean smooth as a mill-pond, and do you expect to see it alter for you now? Between you and Canaan there are a few more storms. Between here and the everlasting rest there are turmoils yet to encounter; but “so he brings them to their desired haven.” Perhaps if it were always smooth they would never get there; but the treacherous stream of earthly ease would bear them out to the cataract of everlasting destruction. Perhaps without the wind and without the storm, indeed, and without the clouds, and the tempest, and the thunder, and the lightning, the bark might never reach the haven. The barks on earth’s seas may reach their haven without the aid of storms, but not so with us, for, again to repeat the words of Cowper, here if not in the other case, —

   The path of sorrow, and that path alone,

   Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.

28. And now my last word that I would venture to say is this: “So he brings them to their desired haven.” That does not mean you, young man, for Christ is not on board your heart and life; you do not desire the haven, and you will never be brought there directly against your will. Who are they, then, who are brought there? The text and its context tells us. They are those who “cry to the Lord in their trouble, and he saves them out of their distresses.” Are you a crying soul? Pleading, entreating his rescue, and deliverance? That word “cry” is a very appropriate and suggestive one. That is the true way to pray as God inspires to cry to him. A girl who had been converted was asked what was the difference between her prayers now and before she was converted. She answered, “Sir, first I prayed as my mother taught me, but now I pray as God prompts and teaches me.” That is a blessed and vital difference. You have seen and heard your children cry. Well, how is it done? Some of them seem to cry all over. When they want something very badly they not only cry with their throats, but they cry also with their legs and hands and eyes, and indeed they cry with all their nature. And that, too, is the right way to pray. You cannot get it out, perhaps; well then, feel it within, for God can see the inward feeling. “He hears the desire of the humble.” A man once in great trouble, a poor Hottentot, went to his Dutch master, and said he felt a great weight, and he wanted to pray; would he tell him how. The Dutchman did not know, and could not tell him. But when the Hottentot went to the place at Cape Town where he heard the Bible read, he listened to the story of the Pharisee, and as he heard it he said, “Dat man a good man; I cannot pray like him. Dat prayer not suit me; I cannot pray dat.” Presently the preacher went on reading the Publican’s prayer, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” The man said, “Dat man a bad man; God not hear dat prayer.” But when he came to “That man went down to his house justified rather than the other,” he said, “Den I’ll pray dat bad man’s prayer; God hear him, God hear me,” and not long after he was heard to say, “Rocks, hills, rivers, trees, tell God my soul so happy, for he has heard my prayer, and put my sins away.”

29. Now, you who want to cry to God but do not know how, I recommend to you the Publican’s prayer, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Breathe that out before the throne, and you shall one day be among the company of whom it is said, “So he brings them to their desired haven,” and you shall rest in Jesus,

   “For ever with the Lord.”

{a} The Black Middens is the name given to a reef at the mouth of the River Tyne in North East England, noted for the danger it poses to shipping. See Explorer "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Middens"

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ps 119:81-96}

81. My soul faints for your salvation: but I hope in your word.

The ship rocks, but the anchor holds; the singer is ready to faint, but he is not ready to despair. He knows where his restoring will come.

82. My eyes fail for your word, saying, “When will you comfort me?”

What a mercy it is to have our eyes on God’s word, full as it is of blessing; to be waiting until the blessing comes out of it! My eyes watch your word, that is so full of the rain of comfort; and I say to myself, “When will it descend and refresh me? When will the clouds let fall their silver drops on my thirsty soul?”

83. For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet I do not forget your statues.

I feel dried up, besmeared and besmirched as with soot; my very beauty is gone from me, and my usefulness too. I am not fit to hold anything, but I have become like a skin bottle that is parched up; yet for all that I have a memory of your word: the smoke and the heat have not dried out of me the flavour of that good old “wine on the lees well-refined” that once filled my heart.

84. How many are the days of your servant? When will you execute judgment on those who persecute me?

“How many are the days of your servant”; or rather, how few they are: do not be long in coming to me, lest I die while you are still on the road.

85. The proud have dug pits for me, which are not according to your law.

They might make pits for lions and tigers, but not for sheep. These pits were not according to God’s law. There are still cruel enemies who would, if they could, entrap the people of God; shall this not make us feel what a great mercy it is we have one to be our guardian and defender who knows where the pitfalls are?

86. All your commandments are faithful: they persecute me wrongfully; help me.

That is a fine prayer for us every day in the week: “Help me.” Lord, I am helpless if you do not help me. You are the helper of Israel: he who keeps Israel will not slumber nor sleep. “Help me.”

87. They had almost consumed me on earth; but I did not forsake your precepts.

“They had almost consumed me on earth.” They seemed as if they would swallow me up entirely, “but I did not forsake your precepts,” and therefore they could not consume me; I was invulnerable and invincible because I stuck to rectitude and kept to your precepts.

88, 89. Quicken me according to your lovingkindness; so I shall keep the testimony of your mouth. For ever, oh LORD, your word is settled in heaven.

There is not a new divine word, or a new gospel, or a new law; but it is a settled gospel, a settled law, a settled revelation, “settled in heaven,” stereotyped, fixed, made permanent. If perfect, then unalterable; if alterable, then it would be imperfect.

90. Your faithfulness is to all generations: you have established the earth, and it endures.

“Your faithfulness is to all generations.” You who were true to Abraham will be true to David; you who were true to David will be true to me. You are always faithful to your own nature and Godhead. “You have established the earth, and it endures.” It would rot out of its place, it would rush into space like a truant planet if you did not hold it where it is. You, therefore, will hold your gospel where it is, and your servants where they are.

91. They continue to this day according to your ordinances: for they are all your servants.

The fixed laws of the universe have their analogy in the fixed rules of revelation. Are not all material things your servants, and they are kept; you will therefore keep us.

92, 93. Unless your law had been my delights, I should then have perished in my affliction. I will never forget your precepts: for with them you have quickened me.

We may well keep to what is for our life. If God’s precepts create life in us and then quicken us, and so renew that life, let us stand by them, be obedient to them, and that at all times.

94. I am yours, save me; for I have sought your precepts.

“I am yours, save me.” Oh, what a sweet assertion. “I am yours,” — your creature, your redeemed one, your chosen, your espoused. “I am yours, save me; for I have sought your precepts.”

95. The wicked have waited for me to destroy me:

Let them wait.

95. But I will consider your testimonies.

I will not consider them; they are not worth it, they would only distract or distress me. I will keep my thoughts fixed on your word, and so I shall be at peace and escape from their malice.

96. I have seen an end of all perfection: but your commandment is very broad.

Yes: all perfection in the creature! In very deed it is an attribute of the Creator, and whether it is true or false, whether men have the excellence they boast about, or do not have it, there must be an end to it all, either as for its extent or its duration; but your commandment has no limit, it covers everything; and it has no termination; it endures for ever. “Your commandment is very broad.”