3368. Fathomless

A Sermon Published On Thursday, August 21, 1913.

Your judgments are a great deep. {Ps 36:6}

1. Consider the word “judgment” in whatever light you please, this sentence is true. There is much of mystery connected with the terrible calamities which afflict the earth, devastate nations, destroy cities, and sweep away the relics of the past. There is much of mystery about the judgments of God on the wicked in this life — how they prosper for a while and are suddenly cut down; how they grow fat like oxen, and then are taken away to the slaughter-house. The judgments of God regarding the wicked in the world to come are also “a great deep,” not to be spoken of with levity. A solemn subject is that of the future punishment of the ungodly — “a great deep,” a deep where some, I am afraid, speculate so wildly that the risk they run is imminent — they may drown themselves in perdition.

2. But I prefer tonight to take the text as it may refer to God’s dealings with his own people. He deals with them in judgment, not, I think, penally, vindicating the inflexible justice of the law by the terrible vengeance he inflicts on the transgressor, as he will deal with the wicked at the last dread assize. I do not mean that. I rather interpret it of the healthy discipline and painful chastisements of God’s hand, which are called “judgments,” in Scripture. They do not come by chance, nor on us at all as a matter of sovereignty merely, but they are sent in wisdom, because God judges them to be necessary. They are weighed out to us with discretion; given to us by prudence. It is a sweet name, I think, for affliction — not that I look at affliction as a judgment on me for sin, which I cannot do now that I have seen sin punished in Christ; but I look at my afflictions as being sent to me according to the all-wise judgment of a kind Father, not at all without consideration, but always according to his infinite wisdom and prudence, dealt out in measure and at proper times, according to the infinite judgment and wisdom of God. In a word, they are called “judgments,” not because they are judicial, but because they are judicious.

3. Now, these dealings of God with his servants, always wise and prudent, are frequently like great depths. I shall simply this evening work out three or four thoughts which arise out of that metaphor.

4. I. God’s judgments are a great deep: — THEN THE DEALINGS OF GOD WITH HIS PEOPLE ARE OFTEN UNFATHOMABLE.

5. We cannot discover the foundation or cause, and source of them. Some of God’s servants who are earnestly desirous to provide things honest in the sight of all men, though they are industrious and energetic, and use proper prudence, do not find themselves able to prosper in business. They are thwarted in all their purposes. There seems to be a kind of fatality connected with all their enterprises. If they only touch a business or a bargain which will turn into gold when managed by others, it melts under their hand into dross. Now, it is not always that this can be explained. “Your judgments are a great deep” — a matter to be perceived as a fact, but not to be explained by reasoning.

6. Sometimes in a family a dear child is born and is a great comfort to his parents. He seems, indeed, to be sent in love, to heal some old wound, and to make the house happy, and then just as suddenly as he came, he is removed. Why? Ah! here, again, is another deep, which a mother’s anxious heart would like to fathom, but which it is not for her to explore. It is a great deep.

7. Children will be spared to us, and just when they are maturing into manhood and womanhood, and we hope to see them settled and established in life, it happens — as it happened to one of our beloved friends in this church this afternoon — that we have to stand at the open grave, and say, “Earth to earth, dust to dust.” Why God takes away the holy and the good, the amiable and the lovely, when they appeared to be most useful, we cannot understand. It is a great deep.

8. Often, too, it happens that when a man is surrounded by his family, and all his household are dependent on his exertions with a business just beginning to prosper, while he looks as if he could live for many years, he is cut down as in a moment; his wife is left a widow; his children are orphans. He seems to be taken away at the very worst time, just when he could least be spared. The anxious wife may say to herself, “Why is this?” but she can only say in return, “I cannot comprehend it; it is a great deep.”

9. I might go on like this recounting examples, but they have transpired before us of all in our lifetime, and if they have not occurred to us yet, they certainly will. Trials and troubles will happen to us quite beyond our measuring line. We shall have to do business in deep waters where no plummet can by possibility find a bottom. “Your judgments are a great deep.”

10. But why does the Lord send us an affliction which we cannot understand? I answer, Because he is the Lord. Your child must not expect to understand all his father does, because his father is a man of mature intellect and understanding, and the child is only a child. You, dear brother, however experienced you may be, are only a child, and, compared with the divine mind, what intelligence do you have? How can you expect, therefore, that God shall always act on a rule which you shall be able to understand? He is God, and therefore it becomes us often to be dumb, to sit in silence, and feel and know it must be right, though we equally know we cannot see how it is so.

11. God sends us trials of this kind for the exercise of our graces. Now, there is room for faith. When you can trace him, you cannot trust him. If you can understand all that he does, there is room then for your judgment rather than for your faith and for your reliance on his judgment. But when you cannot understand it, submit yourself to him; say, “I know that God is good; though he kills me, yet I will trust in him; though I walk in darkness and see no light, yet an unbelieving word shall not cross these lips, for he is good, and must be good, no matter what happens to me.” Oh! it is then that faith is faith indeed, the faith that brings glory to God and strength to your soul. Here is room, too, for humility. Knowledge puffs up, but the feeling that everything is beyond our knowledge, that we are nonplussed, and cannot understand, the sense of ignorance and incapacity to understand the dealings of God, brings to us humility, and we sit down at the foot of Jehovah’s throne. Beloved, I think there is hardly a grace which the Christian has which is not much helped by the depths of God’s judgments. Certainly love has frequently been developed to a high degree in this way, for the soul at last comes to say, “No, I will not ask for the reason; I will not desire the reason; I love him so much; let his will stand for a reason; that shall be enough for me; it is the Lord; let him do what seems to good him.” We do not love those whom we are always bringing to task and questioning about everything they do, but when love comes to perfection it admires everything, it believes everything to be right and to be perfect. And so, when love comes to perfection with reference to the most perfect God, then it is that everything that is done is endorsed without examination; everything, even though it is shrouded in darkness, is believed in without a question. It must be right, for you, Lord, have done it.

12. Many other reasons occur to me why God calls his people to feel his judgments like this; I may give one, then I will leave this point. We have sins which we cannot fathom, dear brethren, and, it is little marvel, therefore, if we also have chastisements which we cannot fathom. There are depths of depravity within our heart that call for other depths, as deep calls to deep, and there are consequences of sin within us which we are not able yet to reach, consequences that are following us in secret, and damaging us in very vital points. It is required that the medicine should be of a searching kind to follow the disease into the recesses of our soul, where understanding cannot pry. Some of those deep judgments are like secret, potent, subtle medicines, searching out certain secret demons that have found their way into the caverns of our spirit, and hidden themselves there. Perhaps an affliction which I can understand is meant to direct my attention to some known sin; but it may be that the trial which I cannot understand, is dealing deadly blows against a mortal evil, which, if not destroyed, might have been solemnly prejudicial to my own spirit.

13. I leave that thought with you — expect that God’s judgments will sometimes be unfathomable.

14. II. In the next place — God’s judgments are a great deep: — THEN THEY ARE SAFE SAILING.

15. Ships never strike rocks out in the great deeps. Children, perhaps, may imagine that a shallow sea is the safest, but an old sailor knows better. While they are off the Irish coast the captain has to keep a good look out, but while he is crossing the Atlantic he is in far less danger. There he has plenty of sea-room, and there is no fear of quicksands or of shoals. When the sailor begins to come up the Thames, it is then that there is first one sandbank and then another, and he is in danger, but out in the deep water, where he finds no bottom, he is very little afraid. So, notice that, in the judgments of God. When he is dealing out affliction to us, it is the safest possible sailing that a Christian can have. “What,” one says, “trial safe?” Yes, very safe. The safest part of a Christian’s life is the time of his trial. “What, when a man is down, do you say he is safe?” Yes, for then he needs fear no fall; when he is low, he needs fear no pride; when he is humbled under God’s hand, then he is less likely to be carried away with every wind of temptation. Smooth water on the way to heaven is always a sign that the soul should keep wide awake, for danger is near. One comes at last to feel a solemn dread creeping over one in times of prosperity. “You shall fear and tremble because of all the good that God shall make to pass before you,” fearing not so much lest the good should depart as lest we should spoil it, and should have a canker of sloth, or self-confidence, or worldliness growing up in our spirits. We have seen many professed Christians who have made shipwreck, in a few cases it has been attributable to overwhelming sorrow, but in ten cases to the one it has been attributable to prosperity. Men grow rich, and, of course, they do not attend the little chapel they once went to; they must go somewhere where a fashionable world will worship. Men grow rich, and immediately they cannot stay on that road of self-denial which once they so gladly trod. The world has gotten into their hearts, and they want to get more. They have gotten so much, and they must get more. An insatiable ambition has come over them, and they fall, and great is the sorrow which their fall brings to the church; great is the mischief which it does to the people of God. But a man in troubled — did you ever notice a real child of God in trial? How he prays! He cannot live now without prayer; he has a burden to carry to his God, and he goes to the mercy seat again and again. Notice him under depression of spirits. How he reads his Bible now. He does not care now for that lighter literature which beguiled many an hour before. He wants the solid promise, the solid food of the kingdom of God. Do you notice now how he hears? That man does not care at all for your flowers and your fine bits of rhetoric; he wants the Word; he wants the naked doctrine; he wants Christ; he cannot be fed on whims and fancies now. He cares a great deal less about theological speculation and ecclesiastical authority; he wants to know something about eternal love, everlasting faithfulness, and the dealings of the Lord of hosts with the souls of his people, of the covenant, and of the suretyship engagements of Christ. Ah! this is the man who, if you notice him, walks tenderly in the world. He walks holding the world with a very loose hand. He expects to be often in the way, and hopes to be up out of the way, for the world has lost its attraction for him. I say, again, God’s judgments are a great deep, but they are safe sailing, and, under the guidance and presence of the Holy Spirit, they are not only safe but they are advantageous. I greatly question whether we ever do grow in grace much, except when we are in the furnace. We ought to do so. The joys of this life with which God blesses us ought to make us increase in grace and gratitude, ought to be a sufficient motive for the very highest form of consecration, but, as a rule, we are only driven to Christ by a storm — most of us, I mean. There are blessed and favoured exceptions, but most of us need the rod, must have it, and do not seem to learn obedience, except through chastening, the chastening of the Lord. Here I leave that second thought.

16. III. Thirdly, God’s judgments are a great deep: — BUT THEY CONCEAL GREAT TREASURE.

17. Down in those great depths, who knows what they may be! Pearls lie deep there — masses of precious things that would make the miser’s eye gleam like a star. There are the wrecks of old Spanish galleons lost those centuries ago, and there they lie huge mines of wealth, and far-down deep. And so with the deep judgments of God. What wisdom is concealed there, and what treasures of love and faithfulness, and what David calls “very tenderness,” “for in very tenderness,” he says, “you have afflicted me.” There is as much wisdom to be seen in some of the deep afflictions of God — if we could only understand them, we should see as much wisdom in them as in the creation of the world. God strikes his people surgically. There is never a random blow. There is a marvellous degree of skill in the chastening of the Lord. Hence we are told not to despise it, which, in the strongest meaning of it, means that we are to honour it. We honour the chastisements of our parents, but infinitely more the chastisements of God. “For they truly chastened us for a few days as seemed best to them, but he for our profit,” and there is a way of chastening us for profit.

18. Now, brethren, I said there were treasures concealed in the great depths which we cannot yet reach, and so in the great depths in which God makes us to do business there are great treasures that we cannot acquire at present. We do not, perhaps, as yet, receive, or even perceive, the present and immediate benefit of some of our afflictions. There may be no immediate benefit; the benefit may be for the future. The chastening of our youth may be intended for the maturing of our age. “It is good for a man that he bears the yoke in his youth.” The affliction of today may have no reference to the circumstances of today, but to the circumstances of fifty years ahead. I do not know that that blade required the rain on such a day, but God was looking not to February as such, but to February in its relationship to July, when the harvest should be reaped. He considered the blade not merely as a blade, and in its present necessity, but as it would be in the full kernel in the ear. There are certain marks that an artist makes on the block that you cannot see the reason for as yet, and they spoil the apparent likeness of the block and marble to the image which you know he wishes to produce, but then those lines are to be worked out eventually. They are scratches now, but they will be lines of beauty soon, when he comes to finish them. So, a present trial may even lame us for present service, damage us — I will even go the length of saying — for years to come, and make us go groaning and broken-hearted, so as to be of comparatively little use to the church, and of very little joy to ourselves. But then afterwards — afterwards as Paul puts it — it produces the peaceable fruits of righteousness, in those who are exercised by it. Why will you not let the Lord have time? Why will you be in a hurry? Why will you stand at his elbow and perpetually say, “Explain this today, and show me the motive and reason for this in this present hour”? A thousand years in his sight are only as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. The mighty God takes mighty time in which to work out his grand results; therefore, be content to let the treasures lie at the bottom of the deep for a while. But then faith may see them. Faith can make the deep translucent until it sees the treasure lying there, and it is yours, and though you may not at this hour be able to get it, yet you shall have it, “for all things are yours.” Everything that is stored up in the great deep of the eternal purpose, or in the deep of the revealed judgment, everything there belongs to you. Oh, believer; therefore rejoice in it, and let it lie there until such a time as God may choose to raise it for your spiritual enrichment.

19. IV. God’s judgments are a great deep: — THEN THEY WORK MUCH GOOD.

20. The great deep, though ignorance thinks it to be all waste, a salt and barren wilderness, is one of the greatest blessings to this round world. If, tomorrow, there should be “no more sea,” although that may one day be a blessing, it would not be so today, but the greatest of all curses. It is from the sea that there arises the perpetual mist which, floating eventually in mid air, at last descends in plentiful showers on hill and vale to fertilize the land. The sea is the great heart of the world — I might say the circulating blood of the world. We must have it; it must be in motion; its tides, like a great pulse, must be felt, or the world’s vitality would cease. There is no waste in the sea; it is all needed. It must be there; there is not a drop of it too much. So it is with our afflictions which are your judgments, oh God! They are necessary for our life, for our soul’s health, for our spiritual vigour. “By all these,” said one of old, “men live, and in all these is the life of my spirit.” Rising up from my trouble is the constant mist which is afterwards transformed into sacred dew, which moistens my life. “It is good for me that I have been afflicted,” said David. “Amen!” say all the afflicted ones. A thousand sick-beds shall bear witness to the blessedness of the trial. A thousand losses and crosses that have been borne by the faithful, now help the sweetness of the harmony of everlasting hymns in the land of the blessed. “Oh! blessed cross,” one said; “I fear lest I should come to love you too much; it is so good to be afflicted!” May God grant to us that at all times, instead of trying to fathom the deep, we may understand that it is useful for us, and be content.

21. V. Lastly, if God’s judgments are a great deep: — THEN THEY BECOME A HIGHWAY OF COMMUNION WITH HIM.

22. We thought at one time that the deep separated different peoples; that nations were kept apart by the sea; but lo! the sea is today the great highway of the world. The rapid ships cross it with their white sails, or with their palpitating engines they soon flash across the waves. The sea is the world’s great canal — a mighty channel of communication. And so, brethren, our afflictions — which we thought in our ignorance would separate us from our God — are the highway by which we may come nearer to God than we otherwise could. Those who go down to the sea in ships, who do business on the great waters, these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. You who keep close to shore and have only small trials, you are not likely to know much about his wonders in the deep; but if you are made to put out far to sea, where deep calls to deep and the noise of God’s waterspouts astounds the spiritual mariner, it is then that you shall see God’s wonders — wonders of faithfulness, wonders of power, wonders of wisdom, wonders of love. You shall see them, and you shall rejoice to see them. These troubles shall be as fiery chariots to bear you up to God. Your afflictions, wave after wave, shall wash your soul, like a tempest-tossed bark, nearer to the haven. Oh! but this is a blessed thing when God’s judgments bring us nearer to him! Old Quarles has a quaint idea when he represents God as swinging a flail in judgment, and he says if you would get away from it, you must get close to his hands, and then you are out of the reach of the swing of the blow. Get close up to God, and he will not strike; get near to God, and the trial ceases.

23. You know, trials are sometimes weights to keep men down, but you have seen many a machine in which one weight going down lifts another weight up, and there is a way by faith of adjusting the consecrated pullies so that the very weights of your affliction may lift you up nearer to God. The bird with a string and a stone on its feet cannot fly, and yet there is a way that God has of making his birds fly even when they are tied to the ground. They never mounted until they had something to pull them down; never ascended until they were compelled to descend. They found the gates of heaven not up there, but down there. The lower they sank in self-estimation, the nearer they came to the everlasting God who is the foundation of all things.

24. So, brethren, I have brought you to the last thought; may the Holy Spirit bring you to make it your own. May God’s deep judgments lead you to deeper communion.

25. Dear child of God, you who are in trouble tonight, the voice of that trouble is to you — get nearer to God; get nearer to God. God has favoured you, favoured you with an extraordinary means of growth in grace. To use Rutherford’s simile, he has put you down in the wine cellar in the dark. Now begin to try the wines on the lees well-refined. Now get at the choice treasures of darkness. He has brought you into a sandy desert; now begin to seek the treasures that are hidden in the sand. Believe that the deepest afflictions are always neighbours to the highest joys, and that the greatest possible privileges lie close to the darkest trials. If the bitterer your sorrow, the louder your song is at the last, there is a reason for that, and that reason faith may discover, and experience live on.

26. May God bless the tried ones here. But there are some here, perhaps, who are in trial and have no God to go to. Poor souls! Poor souls! Poverty, and no God! Sickness, and no God! A life of toil, and no heaven! A slavery of penury on earth, and then driven for ever away from God’s presence! Oh! how pitiable! how pitiable! Pity yourselves, and remember that it need not always be so. You may have a heaven; you may have present bliss. Here is the Gospel — “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.” Oh! if you can only trust him who bled on the cross, you shall have comfort for your present trouble; you shall have pardon for your past, present, and future sin. May the Lord bless each one of you, for Christ’s sake. Amen.

Expositions By C. H. Spurgeon {Ps 73; 37:1-10}

Psalm 73

Title, “A Psalm Of Asaph.” He was a great singer, but he could not always sing. In the first part of the psalm he felt rather like groaning than singing; and you shall find that those who sing the sweetest the praises of God sometimes have to hang their harps on the willows, and are silent. The strong temptation through which Asaph passed is one which is very common. You find another account of it in the thirty-seventh Psalm. It may help your memory to notice that it is the thirty-seventh and the seventy-third Psalm (transpose the numbers) which are both on the same subject — the temptation caused to the people of God by the prosperity of the wicked.

1. Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.

It must be so. Whatever argument my soul may hold about it, I will write that down, to begin with, as a certainty — “Truly, God is good to Israel.” He cannot be unkind or unfaithful to his own people. It cannot be possible, after all — however things may look — that God is a bad God and a bad Master to his own servants.

2. But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had nearly slipped.

Am I, then, one of his people or not? I know he is good to them; but how about myself? Perhaps some here will never question themselves in that way, and if they were led to do so, they would think it was of the devil. I do not think so. I think it is rather of the devil to keep us from questioning ourselves. I remember what Cowper said: — 

   He that hath never doubted of his state,

   He may — perhaps he may too late.

Let us delight in full assurance, but let us keep very clear of presumption; and that assurance which cannot bear self-examination is presumption, depend on it. When a man declines to search himself and test himself, there is something doubtful, if not rotten in his state; and it is time he did begin to say, “As for me, my feet were almost gone: my steps had nearly slipped.” This is how it came about: — 

3. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

I know that wicked men are fools. Asaph and David had often said that before. Yet he says, “I was an even greater fool that I was envious of these fools — when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.”

4, 5. For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men.

Many of them keep up a hypocritical profession through a long life, and die in a stupefaction, so that conscience never awakens, and they pass out of the world loaded with guilt, and yet talk about being accepted before God. How can this be? Where is the justice of it?

6. Therefore pride surrounds them like a chain;

Just as kings wear chains of gold, so is their pride to them.

6. Violence covers them like a garment,

They are not ashamed of it. They get to be so bold in sin that they wear it as an outer cloak.

7. Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish for.

Superfluities. They never have to ask where a meal will come from. They have more than they can want.

8. They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression: they speak loftily. They set their mouth against the heavens,

They have such big mouths — such blasphemous words — that they attack God himself. There is nothing too high for them to drag it down — nothing too pure for them to slander. “They set their mouth against the heavens.”

9. And their tongue walks through the earth.

Like the lion seeking its prey, they take long walks in their slander. No one is safe from them.

10, 11. Therefore his people return here: and waters of a full cup are wrung out to them. And they say, “How does God know?” and “Is there knowledge in the Most High?”

God’s sorrowing children have to drink from the bitter cup, while these proud ones are eating the fat of the land.

12-14. Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches. Truly I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. For all the day long I have been plagued, and chastened every morning.

When Asaph got into this unbelieving state of mind, it looked as if all his care of his character and all his desire to serve God was wasted, for the wicked prospered, while he was chastened. It is a strong description which he gives of his state. “All the day long I have been plagued.” Not by the half-hour, but by the whole day, plagued, and weeping as soon as he was out of bed — chastened every morning. He seemed almost to be sorry that he was a child of God, to be handled so roughly. He almost, but not quite, wished that he could take the portion of the wicked, so that he might enjoy himself as they did, and might prosper in the world as they did.

15. If I say, “I will speak like this”; behold, I should offend against the generation of your children.

That was very wise of Asaph. He thought but he did not speak. Some people say, “You may as well say it.” You may as well keep it in; indeed, a great deal better. If you have it in your own heart, it will grieve yourself, but if you speak it out, you will grieve others. If you wear sackcloth, brethren, wear it around your own loins, but do not wear it as your outside garment. There is enough sackcloth in the world without your flaunting it before everyone else’s face. If you must fast, remember your Master’s words, “You, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to fast.” He gave us that precept in order to avoid pharisaic ostentation; but we may also follow it from another motive, namely, that we may not spread sorrow in the world. There is enough of depression of spirit, enough of despondency, enough of heart-break, without our saying a word to increase it among the sons of men.

   Bear and forbear, and silent be:

   Tell no man thy misery.

Lest you bring another into it, unless, indeed, you meet a strong man who can help you. Then you may tell your sorrow to get relief. But do not tell it to the children.

16. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me.

“Too painful” to keep it: “too painful” to speak it out and grieve other people.

17. Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I understood their end.

Asaph went to his God. He went to Christ, whom he foresaw, for the person of Jesus Christ is the sanctuary of God. Some people call these buildings sanctuaries. They have no authority for doing so. “God does not dwell in temples made with hands.” He may have done so under the old covenant, but not now. Christ is the sanctuary of God, and when we go to him and come into fellowship with God in him, then we begin to learn something. “Then I understood their end.”

18. Surely you set them in slippery places:

There they are — on a mountain of ice, bright and glittering: up aloft, where others can see, admire, and wonder at them. But oh! how dangerous is their pathway!

18. You cast them down into destruction.

They are not left to slip, but a hand overthrows them — flings them down from the heights of their prosperity to the depths of unutterable woe.

19, 20. How they are brought into desolation, as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors. Just as a dream when one awakens; so, oh Lord, when you awaken, you shall despise their image.

As if God slept today, and let these images of prosperity exist as in a dream; but eventually he awakens. His time of judgment comes, and where are these prosperous men? They have gone. The “baseless fabric of a vision” has melted into thin air, and “has not left a relic behind.” It is not. It is gone.

21. So my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my inwards parts.

I felt a heart-pain. I felt my whole nature go amiss, as if there had been calculi {a} causing the deepest possible misery in my inward parts.

22. I was so foolish and ignorant: I was like a beast before you.

I saw no farther than a goose. Like a beast that cannot look into the future, I judged these men by today — by the pastures in which they fed, and the abundance which they gathered there. “I was like a beast before you.” Now notice the splendid connection of these two verses. I will read them again — the twenty-second and the twenty-third. “I was so foolish and ignorant: I was like a beast before you.”

23. Nevertheless I am continually with you: you have held me by my right hand.

What a strange mixture a man is! And a godly man is the strangest conglomerate of all. He is a beast, and yet continually with God. View him from one side, he is ignorant: view him from the other, and he has an unction from the Holy One, and he knows all things. View him from one point of the compass, and he is naked, and poor, and miserable: view him from another quarter, and behold he is complete in Christ and “accepted in the Beloved.” They do not know about man who do not know that every true man is two men.

24. You shall guide me with your counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory.

I, the fool who envied fools, yet “you shall guide me with your counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory.”

25. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is no one on earth whom I desire besides you.

Now he has gotten out of the temptation. He is not going to seek for prosperity so that he may rival the wicked in their wealth. No! He sees that, in having God, he has all that he could want. Even though he should continually be plagued all the day long, and chastened every morning, his portion in God is quite enough for him. He will not murmur any more.

26. My flesh and my heart fail:

I see what a poor thing I am. I allowed my flesh and my heart to get the mastery over me, and I got caught in this trap.

26, 27. But God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. For, lo, those who are far from you shall perish: you have destroyed all those who go a whoring from you.

A strong word, but none too forcible; for every heart that seeks delight away from God is an unchaste heart. It has gotten away from true purity even for a moment in pouring out its love on the creature.

28. But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, so that I may declare all your works.

Psalm 37

1. Do not fret because of evildoers, neither be envious against the workers of iniquity.

It is a common temptation. Many of God’s saints have suffered from it. Learn from their experience. Avoid this danger. There really is no power in it, when once the heart has come to rest in God. But it is a sad affliction until the heart gets its rest. “Do not fret because of evildoers.”

2-4. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. Trust in the LORD, and do good; so you shall dwell in the land, and truly you shall be fed. Delight yourself also in the LORD;

Make him your delight, and take care that you do really delight. Feel a fulness of joy in him.

4. And he shall give you the desires of your heart.

Because when the heart delights in God, then its desires are all such as God can safely grant. He does not say to every man, or even to every praying man, “I will give you the desires of your heart,” but “Delight yourself in the Lord,” and then he will.

5. Commit your way to the LORD;

Give it up to him to rule it, and to guide you and lead you in every step. “Commit your way to the Lord.”

5, 6. Trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring out your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the noonday.

It is better to trust our character with God than with the ablest counsellor. Scandal may pass over a fair name for a while and cloud it, but God is the avenger of all the righteous. There will be a resurrection of reputations, as well as of people at the last great day. Only we must commit it to God.

7, 8. Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked devices to pass. Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: do not fret in any way to do evil.

A fretful spirit soon comes to be an angry spirit, and when we begin to be jealous of evildoers, we are very apt to become evildoers ourselves. Many an honest man has snatched at hasty gain, because he was envious of the prosperity of the unrighteous; and then he has pierced himself through with many sorrows as a result. But “do not fret in any way to do evil.” There is an old proverb that it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright. Therefore, when you are in temporal trouble, ask the Lord to fill you with his grace, for then you will stand upright, and eventually you shall be delivered.

9. For evildoers shall be cut off: but those who wait on the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.

If there is anything good to be had here, men who wait on God shall have it. If there is any grain of wheat amid these heaps of chaff, believers who are trusting the Lord shall find them.

10. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be:

How transient are their joys! Their wealth which they accumulate, the beauty which they think is on their estate, all this is only as the painted colours of the bubble, which is scarcely seen before it vanishes. Will you envy this? Will you envy a little child his play toys, which will be broken in an hour? Will you envy a madman the straw crown which he plaits and puts on his head when he thinks himself a king? Oh! do not be so foolish. Your inheritance is eternal, and you are immortal. Why should you envy the creature of an hour? “For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be.”

10. Yes, you shall diligently consider his place,

His mansion, his house, the grand figure that he cut in society.

{a} Calculi: Med. “A stone. A generic term for concretions occurring accidentally in the animal body” (Syd. Soc. Lex.). Calculi are of many kinds, and receive names from the various parts of the body in which they occur. OED.