3326. The Wondrous Covenant

A Sermon Published On Thursday, October 31, 1912.

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says the Lord; “I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.” {Heb 8:10}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2506, “God’s Law in Man’s Heart” 2507}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3326, “Wondrous Covenant, The” 3328}

   Exposition on Jer 31:31-34 Eze 36:25-32 Heb 8:7-13 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2762, “Taking Hold of God’s Covenant” 2763 @@ "Exposition"}

1. The doctrine of the divine covenant lies at the root of all true theology. It has been said that he who well understands the distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace is a master of divinity. I am persuaded that most of the mistakes which men make concerning the doctrines of Scripture are based on fundamental errors with regard to the covenants of law and of grace. May God grant us now the power to instruct, and you the grace to receive instruction on this vital subject.

2. The human race in the order of history, so far as this world is concerned, first stood in subjection to God under the covenant of works. Adam was the representative man. A certain law was given to him. If he kept it, he and all his posterity would be blessed as the result of obedience. If he broke it, he would incur the curse himself, and secure it for all who were represented by him. Our first father broke that covenant. He fell; he failed to fulfil his obligations; in his fall he involved us all, for we were all in his loins, and he represented us before God. Our ruin, then, was complete before we were born; we were ruined by him who stood as our first representative. To be saved by the works of the law is impossible, for under that covenant we are already lost. If saved at all it must be by quite a different plan, not by the plan of doing and being rewarded for it, for that has been tried, and the representative man on whom it was tried has failed for us all. We have all failed in his failure; it is hopeless, therefore, to expect to win divine favour by anything that we can do, or merit divine blessing by way of reward.

3. But divine mercy has intervened, and provided a plan of salvation from the fall. That plan is another covenant, a covenant made with Christ Jesus the Son of God, who is appropriately called by the apostle, “the Second Adam,” because he stood again as the representative of men. Now, the second covenant, so far as Christ was concerned, was a covenant of works quite as much as the other. It went like this. Christ shall come into the world and perfectly obey the divine law. He shall also, inasmuch as the first Adam has broken the law, suffer the penalty of sin. If he shall do both of these, then all whom he represents shall be blessed in his blessedness, and saved because of his merit. You see, then, that until our Lord came into this world it was a covenant of works towards him. He had certain works to perform, on condition that certain blessings should be given to us. Our Lord has kept that covenant. His part in it has been fulfilled to the last letter. There is no commandment which he has not honoured; there is no penalty of the broken law which he has not endured. He became a servant and obedient, yes, obedient to death, even the death of the cross. So he has done what the first Adam could not accomplish, and he has retrieved what the first Adam forfeited by his transgressions. He has established the covenant, and now it ceases to be a covenant of works, for the works are all done.

   Jesus did them, did them all,

   Long, long ago.

And now what remains of the covenant? God on his part has solemnly pledged himself to give undeserved favour to as many as were represented in Christ Jesus. For as many as the Saviour died for, there is stored up a boundless mass of blessing which shall be given to them, not through their works, but as the sovereign gift of the grace of God, according to his covenant promise by which they shall be saved.

4. Behold, my brethren, the hope of the sons of man. The hope of their saving themselves is crushed, for they are already lost. The hope of their being saved by work is a fallacious one, for they cannot keep the law; they have already broken it. But there is a way of salvation opened in the following way. Whoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, receives and partakes of the bliss which Christ has bought. All the blessings which belong to the covenant of grace through the work of Christ shall belong to every soul that believes in Jesus. Whoever does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, to him shall the blessing of the new covenant of grace be undoubtedly given.

5. I hope that this explanation is plain enough. If Adam had kept the law we should have been blessed by his keeping it. He broke it, and we have been cursed through him. Now the second Adam, Christ Jesus, has kept the law, we are, therefore, if believers, represented in Christ and blessed with the results of the obedience of Jesus Christ to his Father’s will. He said of old, “Lo, I come, to do your will, oh God! Your law is my delight.” He has done that will, and the blessings of grace are now freely given to the sons of men.

6. I shall ask your attention then, first, to the privileges of the covenant of grace; and, secondly, to the parties concerned in it. This will be quite enough, I am sure, for consideration this evening during the brief period allotted to our sermon.

7. I. I shall speak on THE PRIVILEGES OF THE COVENANT OF GRACE.

8. The first privilege is, that to as many as are interested in it there shall be given an illumination of their minds. “I will put my law in their minds.” By nature we are dark towards God’s will. Conscience keeps up in us a kind of broken memory of what God’s will was. It is a monument of God’s will, but it is often hardly legible. A man does not care to read it, he is averse to what he reads there. “Their foolish heart was dark,” is the expression of Scripture with regard to the mind of man. But the Holy Spirit is promised to those interested in the covenant. He shall come into their minds and shed light instead of darkness, illuminating them concerning what the will of God is. The ungodly man has some degree of light, but it is merely intellectual. It is a light that he does not love. He loves darkness rather than light, because his deeds are evil. But where the Holy Spirit comes, he floods the soul with a divine lustre, in which the soul delights and desires to participate to the fullest degree. Brethren, the renewed man, the man under the covenant of grace, does not need to constantly resort to his Bible to learn what he ought to do, nor to go to some fellow Christian to ask for instruction. Now he does not have the law of God written on a table of stone, or on parchment, or on paper; he has the law written on his own mind. There is now a divine, infallible Spirit dwelling within him who tells him the right and the wrong, and by this he quickly discerns between the good and the evil. He no longer puts darkness for light, and light for darkness, bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. His mind is enlightened concerning the true holiness and the true purity which God requires.

9. Just notice the men to whom this light comes. By nature some of them are deeply depraved. All of them are depraved, but by practice some of them become even more dark. Is it not marvellous that a poor heathen who scarcely seemed to recognise the distinction between right and wrong, before the Spirit of God entered his mind, has afterwards, without needing to be taught all the precepts individually, received at once the quick light of a tender conscience, which has led him to know the right and love it, and to see the evil and avoid it. If you want to civilize the world it must be by preaching the gospel. If you want to have men well-instructed concerning the right and the wrong, it must be by this divine instruction which only God himself can impart. “I will do it,” and oh! how blessedly he does it, when he takes the man who loved evil and called it good, and so sheds a divine beam into his soul, so that from now on he cannot be perverse, cannot be obstinate, but submits himself to the divine will. That is one of the first blessings of the covenant — the illumination of the understanding.

10. The next blessing is, “And I will write my law in their hearts.” This is more than knowing the law — infinitely more. “I will write the law, not merely on their understandings, where it may guide them, but in their hearts where it shall lead them.” Brethren, the Holy Spirit makes men love the will of God, makes them delight in all in which God delights, and abhor what God abhors. It is well said in the text that God will do this, for certainly it is not what a man can do for himself. The Ethiopian might sooner change his skin or the leopard his spots. It is not what the minister can do, for though he may preach to the ear, he cannot write God’s law on the affections. I have marvelled at the expression used in the text, “I will write my law in their hearts.” To write on a heart must be difficult work, but to write in a heart, in the very centre of the heart, who can do this but God? A man carves his name on a tree in the bark, and there it stands, and the letters grow with the tree; but to carve his name in the heart of the tree — how shall he accomplish this? And yet God does divinely inscribe his will and his law in the very heart and nature of man!

11. I know what the notion is about Christian people, that they do not conform to this and that custom because they are afraid; they would like to revel in the vanities of the world, but they do not care to encounter the penalties. Ah! you sons of men, you do not understand the mysterious work of the Spirit! He does nothing of this kind. He does not make the child of God to be a serf, a slave, in fear of bondage, but he changes the nature of men so that they do not love what they once loved; they turn away with loathing from the things they once delighted in, and can no more indulge in the sins which were once sweet to them than an angel could plunge himself down and wallow in the mire with the swine. Oh! this is a gracious work, and this is a blessed covenant in which it is promised that we shall be taught the right, to know and love the right, and to do the right with a willing mind.

12. Am I addressing some tonight who have been saying, “I wish I could be saved.” What do you mean by that? Do you mean you wish you might escape from hell? Ah! well, I wish you had another wish, namely, “Oh, that I could escape from sin! Oh, that I could be made pure! Oh, that my passions could be bridled! Oh, that my longings and my likings could be changed!” If that is your wish see what a gospel I have to preach to you. I do not have to come and tell you — do this, and do not do that. Moses tells you that, and the preacher of the law speaks to you in that way, but I, the preacher of the gospel, unveiling the covenant of grace tonight, tell you that Jesus Christ has done such a work for sinners that now God for Christ’s sake comes to them, makes them see the right, and by a divine work on them and in them makes them love holiness and follow after righteousness. I protest, I consider this one of the greatest blessings of which a tongue could ever speak. I would sooner be holy than happy if the two things could be divorced. If it were possible for a man to always sorrow and yet to be pure, I would choose the sorrow if I might win the purity; for, beloved, to be free from the power of sin, to be made to love holiness, though I have spoken according to the manner of men to you, is true happiness. A man who is holy is in order with the creation; he is in harmony with God. It is impossible for that man to suffer for long. He may for a while endure for his lasting good, but as sure as God is happy the holy must be happy. This world is not so constituted that in the long run holiness shall go with sorrow, for in eternity God shall show that to be pure is to be blessed, to be obedient to the divine will is to be eternally glorified. In preaching to you, then, these two blessings of the covenant I have virtually preached to you the open kingdom of heaven, open to all such whom God’s grace shall look at with an eye of mercy.

13. The next blessing of the covenant is — “I will be to them a God.” If anyone asks me what this means, I must reply, “Give me a month to consider it.” And when I had considered the text for a month, I should ask for another month; and when I had waited for a year, I should ask for another year; and when I had waited until I grew grey, I would still ask for the postponement of any attempt to fully explain it up until eternity. “I will be to them a God.” Now, notice that, where the Spirit of God has come to teach you the divine will, and make you love the divine will, God becomes to you — what! a father? Indeed, a loving, tender Father. A shepherd? Indeed, a watchful Guardian of his flock. A friend? Indeed, a Friend who sticks closer than a brother. A rock? A refuge? A fortress? A high tower? A castle of defence? A home? A heaven? Indeed, all that, but when he said “I will be their God,” he said more than all these put together, for “I will be to them a God,” includes all gracious titles, all blessed promises, and all divine privileges. It includes — indeed, now I halt, for this is infinite, and the infinite includes all blessings. “I will be to them a God.” Do you want provision? The cattle on a thousand hills are his; it is nothing to him to give; it will not impoverish him; he will give to you like a God. Do you want comfort? He is the God of all consolation; he will comfort you like a God. Do you want guidance? There is infinite wisdom waiting at your beck and call. Do you want support? There is eternal power, the same which guards the everlasting hills waiting to be your support. Do you want grace? He delights in mercy, and all that mercy is yours. Every attribute of God belongs to his people in covenant with him. All that God is or can be — and what is there not in that? — all that you can conceive and more; all the angels have and more; all that heaven is and more; all that is in Christ, even the boundless fulness of the Godhead — all this belongs to you, if you are in covenant with God through Jesus Christ. How rich, how blessed, how august, how noble are those in covenant with God, confederate with heaven! Infinity belongs to you. Lift up your head, oh child of God, and rejoice in a promise that I cannot expound, and you cannot explore. There I must leave it; it is a depth which we strive in vain to fathom.

14. Notice the next blessing, “And they shall be to me a people.” All flesh belongs to God in a certain sense. All men are his by rights of creation, and he has an infinite sovereignty over them. But he looks down on the sons of men, and he selects some, and he says, “These shall be my people, not the rest; these shall be my special people.” When the King of Navarre was fighting for his throne, the writer who hymns the battle, says —

   He looked upon the foemen,

   And his glance was stern and high;

   He looked upon his people,

   And the tear was in his eye.

15. And when he saw some of the French in arms against him —

   Then out spoke gentle Henry,

   No Frenchman is my foe,

   Down, down, with every foreigner,

   But let your brethren go.

16. The king looked for his people even if they were in rebellion against him, and he had a different thought towards them from what he had towards others. “Let them go,” he seemed to say, “they are my people.” So, notice that, in the great battles and strifes of this world, when God lets loose the dread artillery of heaven his glance is stern on his enemies, but the tear is in his eye towards his people. He is always tender towards them. “Spare my people,” he says, and the angels intervene lest these chosen ones should dash their feet against a stone.

17. People have their treasures, their pearls, their jewels, their rubies, their diamonds, and these are their special stones. Now, everything in the covenant of grace is the special supply of God. He values them above all other things besides. In fact, he keeps the world spinning for them. The world is only a scaffold for the Church. He will send creation packing when once it is finished with his saints; yes, sun, and moon, and stars shall pass away like worn-out rags when once he has gathered together his own elect, and enfolded them for ever within the safety of the walls of heaven. For them time moves; for them the world exists. He measures the nation according to their number, and he makes the very stars of heaven to fight against their enemies, and to defend them against their foes. “They shall be to me a people.” The favour which is contained in such love it is not for tongue to express. Perhaps on some of those quiet resting-places prepared for the saints in heaven, it shall be a part of our eternal enjoyment to contemplate the heights and depths of these golden lines.

18. II. And now, brethren, I wish I had time to go over the other parts contained in the eleventh and twelfth verses of the chapter, but I do not, for I have a practical business to do, and it is to enquire — FOR WHOM HAS GOD MADE THIS COVENANT?

19. I said he made it with Christ, but he made it with Christ as the representative of his people. The question tonight for you, and for me, and for each one is, “Have I an interest in Christ? Did Christ Jesus stand for me?” Now, if I were to say that Christ was the representative of the whole world you would not find any substantial advantage in that, because the great proportion of mankind being lost, whatever interest they may have in Christ, it is certainly of no beneficial value to them concerning their eternal salvation. The question I ask is — Do I have such a special interest in Christ that this covenant holds good towards me; so that I shall have, or so that I now have, the enlightened mind, and the sanctified affections, and the possession of God to be my God? Do not be deceived, my brethren; I cannot, and you cannot, look over the pages of the book of destiny. It is impossible for us to force our way into the cabinet chamber of the Eternal. I hope you are not deluded by superstitious ideas that you have had a revelation made to you, or that there has been some special sound or dream which makes any one of you think you are a Christian.

20. Yet on sounder premises I will try to help you a little. Have you already obtained any of these covenant blessings? Do you have the enlightened mind? Do you find now that your spirit tells you which is the right and which is the wrong? Better still, do you have a love for what is good? Do you have a hatred for what is evil? If so, since you have received one covenant blessing all the rest go with it. Now, men and women, have you passed through a great change? Have you come to hate what you once loved, and to love what you one hated? If you have, the covenant lies before you like Canaan before the ravished eyes of Moses on top of the mountain. Look now, for it is yours. It flows with milk and honey, and it belongs to you, and you shall inherit it. But if there has been no such change accomplished in you, I cannot congratulate you, but I thank God I can do what may serve your purpose. I give divine direction, and the direction for obtaining an interest in this covenant, and for determining your interest in it. It is simply contained in few words. Note well those three words — “Believe and live,” for whoever believes in Christ Jesus has everlasting life, which is the blessing of the covenant. The argument is obvious. Having the blessing of the covenant you need to be in the covenant, and being in the covenant Christ evidently must have representatively stood sponsor for you. But one says, “What is it to believe in Christ?” Another word is a synonym to it. It is — trust Christ. “How do I know whether he died for me in particular?” Trust him whether you know that or not. Jesus Christ is lifted up on the cross of Calvary as the atonement for sin; and the proclamation is given out, “Look, look; look and live,” and whoever will cast away his self-righteousness, will cast away everything on which he now depends, and will come and trust in the finished work of our exalted Saviour, has in that very faith the sign that he is one of those who were in Christ when he went up to the cross and worked out eternal redemption for his elect. I do not believe that Christ died on the tree to render men salvable, but to save them; not that some men might be saved “if,” but really to redeem them, and he then and there gave himself a ransom; there he paid their debts, there cast their sins into the Red Sea, and there made a clean sweep of everything that could be laid to the charge of God’s elect. You are one of his elect if you believe. Christ died for you if you believe in him, and your sins are forgiven you. “Well but,” one says, “how about that change of nature?” It always comes with faith. It is next akin to faith. Wherever there is genuine faith in Christ, faith works love. A sense of mercy fosters affection; affection for Christ fosters hatred for sin; hatred for sin purges the soul; the soul being purged the life is changed.

21. You must not begin with mending yourselves externally; you must begin with the new internal life, and it is to be had like this — the gift of God through simply believing in Jesus. A negro who had been for some time attending at a place of worship had imbibed the idea, and a very natural one too, that he was saved because he had been baptized. He had been to one of those places where they teach little children to say in this way, “In my baptism, by which I was made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an heir of the kingdom of heaven.” “Now,” he said, very simply and very plainly, for so the catechism teaches, and a gross delusion it is, “I am saved because I have been baptized; that has made me a child of God.” Now the good man who sought to instruct him better, could find no metaphor to suite his intellect better than taking him into the kitchen and showing him a black ink-bottle. “Now,” he said, “I will wash it,” and he washed the outside of the black ink-bottle, and invited the man to drink out of it because it was clean. “No,” said the man, “it is all black; it is all black; it is not clean just because you have washed the outside.” “Ah!” he said, “and so it is with you; all that these drops of water could do for you, all that baptism could do for you, is to wash the outside, but that does not make you clean, for the filth is all inside.” Now, the work of the covenant of grace is not to wash the outside, not to cleanse the flesh, not to pass you through rites and ceremonies, and episcopal hands, but to wash the inside; to purge the heart, to cleanse the vitals, to renew the soul, and this is the only salvation that will ever bring a man to enter heaven. You may go tonight and renounce all your outward vices — I hope you will; you may go and practise all church ceremonies, and if they are scriptural I wish you would; but they will do nothing for you, nothing whatever as for your entering heaven, if you miss one other thing, that is, getting the covenant blessing of the renewed nature which can only be received as a gift of God through Jesus Christ, and as the result of a simple faith in him who died on the tree.

22. I press the work of self-examination on you all, I press it earnestly on you church members. It is of no avail that you have been baptized; it is of no avail that you take the sacrament. Avail? Indeed it shall bring a greater responsibility and a curse on you unless your hearts have been made anew by the Holy Spirit according to the covenant of promise. If you do not have a new heart, oh! go to your rooms, fall on your knees, and cry to God for it. May the Holy Spirit constrain you to do so, and while you are pleading remember the new heart comes from the bleeding heart, the changed nature comes from the suffering nature. You must look to Jesus, and looking to Jesus, know that —

   There is life in a look at the crucified one,

   There is life at this moment for thee.

23. These blessings I have spoken of seem to me to be a great consolation and inspiration. They are a great consolation to believers. You are in the covenant, my dear brother, but you tell me you are very poor. But God has said, “I will be your God.” Why, you are very rich. A man may not have a penny in the world, but if he has a diamond he is rich. So if a man has neither penny nor diamond, if he has his God he is rich. Ah, but your coat is threadbare, and you do not see where the money is to come from to renew your apparel. “Consider the lilies how they grow; they do not toil neither do they spin, and yet I say to you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” You have the same God whom the lilies have, and shall he so clothe the grass of the field which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, and shall he not much more clothe you, oh you of little faith? I also said it would be an inspiration, and I think it is. It is an inspiration for us all to work for Christ, because we are sure to have some results. I wish, indeed I wish, that the nations were converted to Christ. I wish that all this London belonged to my Lord and Master, and that every street were inhabited by those who loved his name; but when I see sin abounding and the gospel often put to the rout, I fall back on this: “Nevertheless the foundation of God stands sure; the Lord knows those who are his.” He shall have his own. The infernal powers shall not rob Christ, he shall see the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. Calvary does not mean defeat. Gethsemane a defeat? Impossible! The Mighty Man who went up to the cross to bleed and die for us, being also the Son of God, did not achieve a defeat there but a victory. He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands. If some will not be saved others shall be. If, being invited, some consider themselves not worthy to come to the feast others should be brought in, even the blind, and the halt and the lame, and the supper shall be furnished with guests. If they do not come from England they shall come from the east, and from the west, from the north and from the south. If it should come to pass that Israel is not gathered, lo! the heathen shall be gathered to Christ. Ethiopia shall stretch out her arms, China shall yield herself to the Redeemer; the desert ranger shall bow the knee, and the far-off stranger enquire for Christ. Oh, no, beloved, the purposes of God are not frustrated; the eternal will of God is not defeated. Christ has died a glorious death, and he shall have a full reward for all his pain. “Therefore, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ro 5:1-11 Ps 71:1-14}

Reading from Romans chapter five.

1. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

The gospel is full of “therefores”; it is above reason, but it is never against reason; it is the most reasonable thing under heaven. “Therefore” — it is a matter of argument. You will have to read the previous chapters to see how this conclusion flows naturally from what he had taught before by the Holy Spirit.

Let us linger over these sentences while we read them. “Being justified by faith.” Is it so? Are you indeed made just by faith in Jesus Christ your Righteousness? Then you have peace this day and hour; peace within your own conscience, and with your fellow men; but what is much better, you have peace with God. As soon as we are justified by reliance on Jesus, we cease to have any quarrel with God, and he has no quarrel with us; we are allies, we are in happy union, we have peace with God. Not shall have it eventually, but we have it now as our present glad possession, because we are justified by faith; we are now in the enjoyment of perfect peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. “By whom also we have access by faith into this grace by which we stand.” Since we are at peace with God we may enter his house; his door is open to us; we have divine welcome to his grace, and we reside in it, reside in it with certainty, and full assurance.

2. By whom also we have access by faith into this grace by which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Oh, what a comfort this is, to be rejoicing, especially, to be rejoicing in hope. It is better up ahead; there may be clouds and darkness here, but we can see the sunlight breaking over there; “until the day breaks and the shadows flee away,” we will make hope to be our bright candle of the Lord. We “rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, and not only so.” When we once get into God’s house, we rise higher in it, we go up another flight of stairs. “Not only so,” though that seems to be enough, to be rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God, and to have access into his grace, and to have peace with him because we are justified, but it is not only so, but “we glory in tribulations also.” We transform our troubles into gladness and glorying, we get spiritually enriched by tribulation.

3, 4. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation works patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope:

Another hope, or rather the same hope rising up into another form. We begin with rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God by faith; now we get a further hope which is born from experience; the things we have tasted and handled of the love of God create in us a more radiant hope inferred from what we have enjoyed.

5, 6. And hope does not make ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

What is the connection here? Is it not this: that the Holy Spirit makes us feel what a wonderful love the love of God is to us; because when we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly? Wonderful love! When we were godless and Christless, in due time Christ died for us.

7. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet perhaps for a good man some would even dare to die.

No one would feel impelled to die for a man who is only severely and strictly just; he may command our admiration, but not our affection. Aristides the Just {a} is, indeed, at last banished; men cannot bear a man whose whole character is bare justice, for they are themselves usually so unjust. But “a good man,” he commands our love, a man of that character who is gratuitously kind, and gracious, and benevolent, perhaps — and it is a mere perhaps — someone might be found to die for such as he. It is not, however, very probable.

8. But God commends his love towards us, in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

He did the utmost for us when we were the least deserving of it. Oh, what a love is this; let it be shed abroad in our poor stony hearts, and commended by us to others.

9. How much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

This is a resistless argument, and should be the death-blow to all misgiving. If he died for us when we were unjust, will he let us perish now that he has made us just, and completely justified us? Impossible!

10. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, how much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

There are three points which strengthen the argument here, which you will readily see by reading it at your leisure. The Lord our God who justified us when we were enemies by the death of his Son, will save us now that we are friends through the life of his Son. “And not only so.” Here we ascend again, it is ever higher and higher, something even more, so that we are never at the end of this blessed record of mercy and grace.

11. And not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

We are at one with God, we are perfectly reconciled to him, and we have at present, at this very moment, a great joy and delight in God.

Now we shall read together the seventy-first Psalm, just in order that we may see how good men in all ages have been assisted by their experience and their hope: and how their hope has grown out of their tribulation, their patience and their experience.

The old man’s psalm. You can remember it, dear friends, who are aged, by its being seventy-one, it is just past the threescore years and ten.

1. In you, oh LORD, I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion.

There is his trust, and there is his fear; his trust he dares to affirm, his fear he turns into a prayer.

2, 3. Deliver me in your righteousness, and cause me to escape: incline your ear to me, and save me. Be my strong habitation, where I may continually resort: you have given commandment to save me; for you are my rock and my fortress.

“Be my strong habitation where I may continually resort.” Not merely now and then a hiding-place in emergency, but my constant abode, my home, so that from morning to night I may come to you, and feel myself secure. “You have given commandment to save me; for you are my rock and my fortress.” You see he knows that God has commanded nature, and providence, and grace to protect him; he has commanded his angels, indeed, he has commanded all his forces, to protect David for this reason, that David feels an inward rest and peace in God. That calm, that divine repose expressed in the words “You are my rock and my refuge,” are the signs that God has given commandment to save us.

4. Deliver me, oh my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man.

Two iron hands are trying to pull him down, but he cries to God, whose one almighty hand can set him free.

5. For you are my hope, oh Lord GOD: you are my trust from my youth.

Happy is the man who can look back on a youth spent in God’s fear; for if we have trusted God in our youth, depend on it, he will never cast us away.

6. By you I have been upheld from the womb: you are he who took me out of my mother’s womb: my praise shall be continually of you.

When we could not help ourselves, in the very moment of our birth, God took care of us; and he will take care of us even to the end. Men and women who are old should remember how carefully the Lord nursed them when they were infants; and if you come to a second childhood, you shall still have the same God.

7. I am as a wonder to many;

They cannot figure me out, I am a blessed problem and puzzle to them: it seems so strange that being so much afflicted I am still so much upheld.

7. But you are my strong refuge.

Indeed! There is the answer to the riddle. If God is with us, men may well wonder; but he will always help us.

8, 9. 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.

A prayer which both young and old may offer, for if we live long enough, that time of weakness will surely come. There are many men who do cast off their old servants; but God does not. When we are worn out, he will still bless us.

10-14. For my enemies speak against me; and those who lay wait for my soul take counsel together, saying, “God has forsaken him: persecute and take him; for there is no one to deliver him.” Oh God, do not be far from me: oh my God, hurry to help 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.

In the eighth verse he had said, “Let my mouth be filled with your praise.” That is a mouthful, now he says, “I will praise you more and more.” As if he wanted more mouths with which to praise, more room for his heart’s grateful thanksgiving to God, “I will praise you more and more.”

{a} Aristeides; (530 BC-468 BC) was an ancient Athenian statesman. Nicknamed “the Just,” he flourished in the early quarter of Athens’ Classical period and is remembered for his generalship in the Persian War. See Explorer "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristides"