3427. The Blessed Christ

A Sermon Published On Thursday, October 8, 1914.

Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. {Mt 21:9}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2196, “Hosanna!” 2197}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3427, “Blessed Christ, The” 3429}

1. One feels very thankful that we have a few Hebrew words in common use in our Christian assemblies—a kind of link between Israel after the flesh and Israel after the spirit. “Hallelujah,” they sang of old, and we sing “Hallelujah,” too. “Abba Father,” they said; we also say, “Abba Father.” And this word “Hosanna” is another of the few that remain to us of which we understand the meaning, though we still use them in a translated form—Hosanna—“save Lord,” “bless Lord.” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” I did not mention in the reading of the Psalm—(the one hundred and eighteenth Psalm)—that both the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth verses of that Psalm begin with the word Hosanna. One is translated “Save Lord,” and the other is “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” I shall take this common exclamation then, constantly used among the Jews, and we shall see how we can use it among ourselves.

2. I. And our first point will be to:—CONSIDER OCCASIONS WHEN THIS EXCLAMATION, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” HAS BEEN, OR WILL BE, SUITABLE.

3. And, first, in the olden times, the Israelites were accustomed to use this cry, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” when their heroes returned victorious from the battle-field. When they went up to the temple to give thanks publicly to God for victories over their enemies, they were met by the people, with this exclamation of joy, “Blessed is he who comes in Jehovah’s name.” This was very unlike the cries of other nations! Some nations only extolled the heroes, but the people of God see the hand of God, and they see that the hero only comes in the name of the Lord, and while they give him blessings and wish him every good thing for what he has done, yet the praise is ascribed to the Master in whose name he comes—even Jehovah. While the Philistines would be extolling their god, and Moab and Ammon would be lifting up the song to the idols they worshipped, Israel took care, in the song of triumph with which they greeted the returning victors, to extol and magnify the glory of the Lord—the Lord God of Israel—“Blessed is he who comes in the name of Jehovah.” So, my dear friends, whenever we thank men for kindnesses which they render to us—(and it is our duty to be grateful to them)—yet let us thank even more the Lord our God. Thank God, and thank the secondary means, but do not ascribe the honour to the instrument only, lest you set up an idol in the presence of God. Always take care to see that God, whom you worship, makes all things work through your friends for your help and your deliverance. So to each one who shall bring you good, whether spiritual or temporal good, “Blessed is he who comes to me with this mercy. I recognise him as coming in Jehovah’s name.”

4. This exclamation might again have been most commonly used of the coming of our Lord. The Word became incarnate and stooped from the throne of heaven to the manger of Bethlehem’s stable. I do not know that precisely these words were used, but surely in this spirit the angels sang their midnight carol when the Saviour descended—“Glory to God in the highest. On earth peace, goodwill towards men.” What is the spirit of all that song but this word “Hosanna”? What is the essence of it all, but this sentence, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”? The shepherds could not have used a more significant and suitable expression; and the Easterners, as they gathered around that little cradle and offered their gold, their myrrh, and their incense, together with their grateful homage, might have looked at Mary and Joseph, and the child, and said of him, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” If the nations had only known it, had Israel only known it, had the kings of the earth only recognised it, one universal shout might have gone up to heaven: “At last the promised One is come! The seed of the woman is born! The Messiah has appeared! The Prince of Peace has come with innumerable blessings! Blessed is he who comes in Jehovah’s name!” And I think the very sea and land, even the heavens and the heaven of heavens, might have caught the spirit of that hour, and the sea, with its waves, might have roared out, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” And you forests—every tree within you—might have burst out in the very same note until all the nations should have become one mouth for song, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

5. And this expression was used, according to my text, further on in our Saviour’s life. When he rode in triumph on a colt, the foal of a donkey, up to the temple, when he went to take possession of his Father’s house, and drove out the buyers and sellers, who had made it into a den of thieves—then in that day, when he was proclaimed King of the Jews, and the crowd of men mounted the trees and broke down the palm branches, young voices all along the road shouted “Hosanna.” This was the hour of our Saviour’s gladness, and Jerusalem for once seemed as if she would shake off her stolid coolness and would acknowledge him whom God had sent. It would have been good for her if it had been so, but the truth was hidden from her eyes, and she became desolate, because more heartily and truthfully she had not said, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

6. And shall I be thought to be fanciful if I suppose that this exclamation would have been most appropriate among the band of angels and choirs of the blood-washed, when our Saviour, having finished his life-work, ascended to his throne? When they brought his chariot from on high to bear him to his last place of rest, when he ascended on high, leading captives captive, and the pearly gates were thrown open so that he might enter, did not all those bright celestial spirits throng the streets of gold and cry, “Hosanna: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”? I can scarcely think they could refrain from the expressions of their delight when they saw him come with his garments dyed red, fresh from the slaughter of all his foes, triumphant over all who came against him, the great conqueror, the hero, who had routed, once and for all, all Israel’s enemies, and put them all beneath his feet. Surely they must have said, “Hosanna”; yet again and again, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

7. And surely, to close the list of occasions, I may mention when he who went up from Olivet shall come a second time, in the same way as he went up into heaven, that is to say, in very person as he mounted to the skies, he will be greeted, will he not? by all his waiting people with this grand exclamation, “Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” The coming of the Son of God is no joy for the ungodly world; the day of the Lord for them will be darkness, and not light; the earth shall burn as an oven. “The day comes that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, and yes, and all who do wickedly, shall be stubble.” To the righteous the coming of Christ is their grandest expectation, it is the day of the unveiling of the sons of God, the day for which the whole creation groans and travails, for it will be the day of our resurrection, when our souls that may have been divorced for a long while from our bodies shall be remarried, and the body shall be raised again like his glorious body; “for we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come,” and that same Spirit and Bride shall say, “Welcome, welcome, King of kings!” when he shall come. Those who have watched most, and longed most, and hungered and thirsted most after that glorious advent shall be those who most joyfully shall go out to meet King Solomon with the crown with which his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and this shall be the note of their triumphant greeting, “Hosanna: Blessed is he who comes in Jehovah’s name.” So I have very briefly run through the occasions when this exclamation would seem to be very suitable.

8. II. Now let us for a while consider:—THE SUITABILITY OF THIS CRY FOR CONSTANT USE—not now and then, but always. And it may be viewed in two lights, first, as an exaltation. “Blessed is he who comes”: he is blessed: it is a blessed thing that he has come. It may be viewed, in the next place, as a prayer, let him be blessed, let him prosper, and so on.

9. First, then, as an exaltation, a note of triumph, he is blessed who has come in the name of the Lord, and ought we not to be always saying this, “Blessed is he that he should condescend to tabernacle among men! Blessed is he that it should be true that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, that we might behold his glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth?” He is blessed, for he came to earth fully qualified for all his work, endowed with all the wisdom, the knowledge, the unction, the anointing from on high that he could wish. He was blessed in his coming, blessed while he carried on the work. Though his was the pain and sorrow, yet it was all blessing to us, from the first act he did as a man until he said, “It is finished.” When I think of him coming down as a man, coming down as a servant, coming to take it upon himself to die for our sins, I can indeed say, “Blessed is he who comes to all this in the name of the Lord”—comes as our brother, comes as our priest, comes as our substitute, comes as our scapegoat, comes as our great deliverer and propitiatory sacrifice, so that we might be cleansed from sin. He is blessed—all blessings are in him, all blessings come through him, all blessings belong to him. God has given all blessings to him because of this. He is blessed. And, brethren, if he is blessed in the work and the carrying of it on, is he not, and shall he not, be blessed in our esteem now that he has mounted to the skies and taken the precious blood within the veil and sprinkled it there, and stands there now pleading as a prevalent high priest for us? Blessed is he who came in Jehovah’s name, the great Ambassador of peace between offended Deity and revolted man. He is our peace, and let his name be blessed for ever. He is our prince: let us adore him. He is all our salvation, all our desire. We ask nothing more than to be like him and be with him. Blessings in him. He is blessed. God has blessed him. For ever and for ever shall all generations call him blessed. It is an exaltation then. We shout to his triumph, “Blessed is he who comes.”

10. But it is a prayer. My dear friends, we desire to do all we can for the Lord Jesus Christ; but how very limited are our capacities! If we were to give him all we have, and give our bodies to be burned, it would be very little for us to give to such a Saviour. But what a mercy it is that there is no limit to what we may wish. We can bless him with our wishes, if we cannot with our acts. I was about to say we may bless him infinitely with our desires; at any rate, there is no limit to our capacity to desire. And those desires may take the very acceptable and prevalent form of prayer. What I cannot do for Christ, I can pray God to be done. What if I cannot preach his gospel in every land, yet where I can I will preach it and pray God to raise up many to proclaim it. And if I cannot crown his head with many crowns, yet I would lay at his feet such as I have, and then my desires would crown him over, and over, and over again, and my prayer would clamber up to his lofty throne and put new coronets on his dear head, blessing him that he does not deny me a share of wishing what I cannot do, and of praying for what I cannot give. In this sense, brethren, we can, to a very great extent, bless him who comes in the name of the Lord—bless him with our wishes, our desires, our earnestness, and especially with our prayers.

11. Now, what is the blessing, then, which we would seek for our Lord Jesus Christ? What are the prayers that we would offer for him? It is written, “Prayer also shall be made for him continually.” What shall we ask for him?

12. We will ask, first, that he who comes in the name of the Lord may be blessed in his Church. Oh! that he would bless the Church just now. I am afraid we have fallen on lean times just now. It may be that God is about to chastise his Church, because when we had a revival we did not have enough grace to keep it. Almost universally there is a cloud hanging over Israel—lethargy coming in place of earnestness. God knows we were never very earnest—I mean the Church of God at large was not very earnest—but yet that earnestness which arose seems now to be vanishing. I pray God it may not vanish, but, on the contrary, may all the zeal which ever has been in our days be far exceeded—all the agony for souls, all the labour to proclaim the grace of God to them, all the earnest desires and prayers of God’s people—may all these be renewed with tenfold vigour, and in this way may we have to cry, “The Lord has visited his Church, and let his name be blessed.” We do tonight, I trust, raise the prayer, each one of us who belongs to this Church and people, “Lord prosper your word, be pleased to give power to your minister and increased grace to your servants, holiness of life, separation from the world, power in prayer—give them communion with you. Grant that there may be peace within the borders of your Church, and that the citizens of Zion may be filled with the finest of the wheat.” In this respect we will bless Christ by desiring a blessing on his Church, and seeking to promote its prosperity.

13. Next to this, I say, “Lord save”—“Lord bless”—him who comes (putting it as a prayer for the scattering of the Church’s enemies and his own enemies). Christ still has many enemies in the world. The Pope, the Antichrist of Rome, with all his doctors and counsellors, assemble at this very hour—the incarnate Antichrist—at this present moment. And here in this England of ours there are priests busy up and down, in every court and lane, in every corner of the land, and our clergy of the Established Church, many of them double-dyed Papists, doing the work of Rome and eating the bread of a Protestant Church at the same time. And then there is infidelity, seeking all it can to make its converts, with a zeal which would be commendable if it were used for a right purpose. They encompass sea and land to make proselytes, and shame the coldness of many professed followers of Christ. The enemies of Christ are very many. The Church is very feeble, yes, she is like a reed shaken by the wind. Without her Lord, she is less than nothing—like chaff in the whirlwind. But, oh! let us pray that he may be blessed who comes in the name of the Lord by the scattering of all his enemies, by the putting down of spiritual wickedness in high places, and giving the victory to the truth and to the gospel—what saves—putting to flight what destroys before what purifies—scattering what defiles before what glorifies God, annihilating what blasphemes his holy name. May Christ be blessed as a Conqueror over his foes.

14. We may, further, very earnestly pray that the Lord may be blessed in the conversion of souls. Oh! that he were blessed in that respect in this congregation more and more. Preaching becomes very dead work when there are no converts. Sowing is very good, and one likes it at the sowing season, but if a man had to sow all the year round and never saw the golden sheaves, he might well grow weary. Though, indeed, in sowing for God we ought not to be weary, yet the tendency is to be so. How few conversions there are anywhere just now! The Church does not increase at all in the same rate as the population does. Every year I believe that the sin of London is gaining on the gospel, and all the efforts that are made do not impact the masses. We scarcely hold our ground; certainly we make very little if any, advance. Of course, we congratulate ourselves that there are so many churches built. Does anyone go to them? We sometimes think there are so many chapels. Yes, but how many are there that are half empty, or even less occupied than that? And what if they are full, yet in how many places is the gospel preached very uncertainly and no certain sound is given from the trumpet! It is Christ who is preached in a measure, but preached in a fog—certainly not in the way that is so plain that the wayfaring man need not err in it, but in a way that is so perplexing and involved in hard words and gaudy obscurities of rhetoric, that often many do not know their right hand from their left, and look on, marvelling at the orator who speaks so grandly, but what he says, or of what he affirmed, they utterly do not know. How many there are who have the key of knowledge, but do not open the door! They seem rather to show how delightfully they can lock it, and how skilfully they can shut out the multitude. We want to see conversions. May God send them everywhere throughout this land by tens of thousands! And oh that in other lands there were conversions by millions! The world teems with population, but Jesus Christ has as yet few who find him. Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, and few there are who go in at the gate or tread that road. Oh Lord, how long, how long, how long! Arise and convert sinners to yourself!

15. The same thought comes to us only a little enlarged. Our desire in prayer for Christ is that, he may the blessed in the sense of being glorious to the ends of the earth. We have no doubts about the final outcome of the struggle in which we are engaged—against the powers of darkness. It may be a thousand years before Christianity is prevalent. It may be ten thousand years, it may be fifty thousand years, it may be a hundred thousand years. None of us knows. To God it will be quick—very quick—and in only a short time—behold Christ comes quickly. But that “quickly” may not mean what we think it does, and those who sit down and say it will be the next twenty, or fifty, or hundred years do not know what they are saying, nor of what they affirm. Now, we who are working now are very like, as I believe, those coral insects that are about to build a reef. They begin at the bottom of the sea. They lay, first of all, the foundations, broad and strong. It will be a long, long, long, long while before that reef will rise above the surface of the sea, before it will be seen, before earth and weeds will be attracted to it. It will be even longer before there begins to grow on it certain tiny plants and mosses; even longer before the coconut begins to spring, and before men and animals shall be found there. Now, those first insects that lay the foundation die. They have gone, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the reef is still unseen. That is very like what we are. All we can do is to keep on working, working with all our might. Our prayer ought not to be that we should see all of our success. I like Moses’ prayer, “Let your work appear to your servants, and your glory to their children.” Hence no matter how things are—it may have been that we have hardly stood our ground, and we can hardly say the Lord’s cause has prospered—still we have only seen the beginning. And we may rest assured that when the latter verses of this grand poem shall come, though the book may have opened somewhat dolorously and gloomily, the end will be, “Sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously: he has cast the horse and his rider into the sea.”

16. In any great cause that is undertaken in any country, it is not one generation that succeeds. Many generations have to take part in it. There are a periods of contempt for even common political principles—a period of neglect—afterwards a period of contempt—then perhaps, a period of absolute persecution, and then, perhaps, when we least expect it, there comes the moment of victory. And so it will be with the great cause of Christ. Only let this be our prayer, that the Lord should cut short his work in righteousness so that he would be pleased soon to come out with his sword girt on his thigh and assume for himself his great power and reign. Before another year comes, if the Lord wills, the nations may all give up their idols and turn to Christ. God can do as he pleases. Time is nothing to him. With men, steel and iron must be made gradually, but in the world of spirits God only has to strike a spark, and the fire will run along the ground and illumine the earth with its sacred conflagration. He can affect all minds at once, and turn the heart of the child to the Father, and the hearts of all men to the great Prince of Peace, if he so wills it. And, perhaps, he intends to do that—to save the whole battle for one grand last charge when the King himself shall lead the vanguard, and then the conquering banner shall be seen, and the Lord God omnipotent shall reign. Be it as he wills, we will always say under every discouragement, at all times when we do not see our sign, “Blessed are you Jesus! You shall get the crown and be conqueror yet. May your kingdom come, and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

17. Now, lastly, there are times, dear friends, when this exclamation may be used about ourselves personally. I will only hint at these times. The first is at our conversion. When we had been in sorrow and trouble, under sin, when the law had made sin revive and we died, when every hope was buried in despair, you remember how you and I welcomed Christ. I do remember the very Sabbath morning and the spot of ground. Some of you may not so distinctly remember—that does not matter—but some of you can. Oh! how blessed was he who came to us in the name of the Lord! Sin was forgiven. Doubts fled, despair vanished, joy and peace flowed in our souls—leaped within us, and we were so happy: we scarcely knew how to express our joy and our love. Oh! dear Saviour, on that first day of our spiritual birth, and afterwards while we were still in the love of our espousals, we could only say, “Blessed is he, the dear, precious, and exalted Saviour, who has come to me in the Lord’s name and saved my soul!”

18. Since that day we have every now and then had repetitions of our conversion—renewals of the presence of God. You had become very dull and worldly, and your soul was cleaving to the dust, but, perhaps, it was under a sermon or in private prayer. Or it may have been in the middle of your business the Lord returned to you—he became the health of your countenance and restored your soul. Oh! I know how you sang, when your communion with Christ began to be as sweet as it was before, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” The Lord send such times to any of you who are backsliding! May he come to you now and knock at the door of your heart! Oh! open to him and invite him to come in, for there is no power on earth that can revive a decaying heart like the coming of Christ afresh by renewed communion.

19. So too, dear friends, you and I have said this when we have had some very happy times in the house of the Lord. Have you not sometimes in this very place, when our voice has gone up in song—(the thousands praising God)—when we have been all moved by gracious words of Scripture, as the trees of the forest are moved with the wind—have you not been inclined to burst out with the note, “Hosanna: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”? Why, the very preacher has been to you beloved for his Master’s sake. But the preacher’s Master—oh! what love you felt in your heart for him—what joy at the sound of his name! What delight when it has been like ointment poured out, and the love of God has been shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit who is given to you! Do you not remember when you went up with the multitude that kept the holy day, when you went up to the altar of God with very great joy, with the voice of thanksgiving? Ah! then it was:—

   Blessings for ever on the Lamb,

   Who bore the Cross for wretched men.

20. And once again, to conclude, whenever God visits his Church with a revival, then the cry goes up, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”—a revival of religion, I mean, of this kind—when a deep religious concern is on everyone, when Christians become more earnest and more prayerful, when they become more attentive to the unconverted and more anxious to see them saved, and when the unconverted themselves take a deeper interest in the Word; when they begin to feel their sin, when they cry out for mercy, when they ask the way to Zion with their faces looking towards the city. We have had the Lord with us now these seventeen years with no paroxysms of excitement, but with one continual stream of blessing, and I am so anxious that we should not lose it. I could wish that we might see some sign of even a larger measure of his presence than we have had so far. I would ask some of you who have power in prayer to join with me every morning and every night in a prayer that he would come to us afresh.

21. We are not discouraged—very far from it. We have never been without many enquirers and many being added to the church, but still there are unconverted ones in the congregation. We have found at the Tabernacle what we had at Park Street, that we have many more members than seats. I remember one man coming one night to have a seat who was very honest, and wanted to see me first before he sat down. “Sir,” he said, “someone told me that I should be expected to be converted if I took a seat, and I cannot guarantee that.” I said, “My dear friend, someone has told you the right thing, but he has not put it exactly right. If you take a seat, we expect that you will be converted. It is not that you are expected to convert yourself, but we expect that, if you hear the Word, God will bless you, because,” I said, “I hardly know any who have sat there who have not been converted.” I was very glad to find there was a current expectation among the seat-holders that God would bless them. I believe he will. But still I wish we had more members. We have 4,200, I think, but we can hold more than that. I would like to see 6,000. What a joy it would be! So many that I should be half inclined to say I must go and fish in another pool: they are all caught here. Would it not be a mercy if there were no more fish in the sea to be caught, but everyone who comes into this Tabernacle would be converted. His power is infinite. There is no limit to that, except that our unbelief in the economy of grace is sometimes allowed to limit it. What is said can convert men to God! If you could go out and do good to others, and bring others in, and other churches could be formed, what a blessing might come of it! And why not? If God wills, he can by Christ. “He could not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.” Oh! that this might be taken away from us! May we believe, and we shall see. May we trust and pray, and we shall joyfully behold it. Oh! that some poor sinner would come to Jesus Christ tonight! He would, indeed, have to say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” One prayer will bring you to him if it is sincere. Simply to trust him—that is the thing; to rely on him—that is all. He died for the guilty. His blood was shed for the foul. Come and trust him and yield to him. Amen.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ps 118}

1. Oh give thanks to the Lord: for he is good: because his mercy endures for ever.

Here is a standing reason for thanksgiving. Although we may not always be healthy, nor always prosperous, yet God is always good, and, therefore, there is always a sufficient argument for giving thanks to Jehovah. That he is a good God essentially, that he cannot be otherwise than good, should be a fountain out of which the richest praises should perpetually flow.

2, 3. Let Israel now say, that his mercy endures for ever. Let the house of Aaron now say, that his mercy endures for ever.

These were especially set apart for God’s service, and, therefore, where much is given, much is expected. The house of Aaron, therefore, must have a special note of thanksgiving, and though we who preach the gospel claim no kind of priesthood, yet if any ought to lead the strain of thankfulness, it should be those who minister for God continually.

4. Let those now who fear the Lord say, that his mercy endures for ever.

Let them all say it: let them all say it now: let every one of us say it for himself, “His mercy endures for ever.”

5. I called on the Lord in distress: the Lord answered me, and set me in a broad place.

I think many of us could make just such a statement as that, and not once but many times in our lives, we could say, “I called on the Lord in distress.” We have had many trials, but we always have a mercy seat to flee to, and a God always ready to hear the cries of his distressed ones.

6. The Lord is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do to me?

The past always gives us assurance for the future, for we are dealing with the same unchangeable God, and, therefore, we may expect to have the same dealings from him.

7, 8. The Lord takes my part with those who help me: therefore I shall see my desire on those who hate me. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.

There is one text which I have never seen put up anywhere. You have illuminated texts in your houses and Sunday School rooms, and so on, but I think I have never seen this, “Cursed is he who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm” or this other one, “Cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for of what account is he?” and I am sure there is no teaching of Scripture more necessary than that, whether it refers to great men or to little men, whether it refers to men of eminence, or to those of your own family circle. “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.”

9. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.

It is nobler, it is more agreeable to sound reason, it will lead to better results. God better deserves our confidence than the princes of the earth do—even the best of them.

10. All nations surrounded me: but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.

This may apply to David, but it applied better to Christ, around whom Jews and Gentiles came, but he won the victory over them.

11, 12. They surrounded me: yes, they surrounded me: but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them. They surrounded me like bees, they are quenched as a fire of thorns; for in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.

The thorn makes a good blaze, and crackle, and splutter, but it is soon out altogether. “For in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.”

In this way we may meet our spiritual foes, temptations, trials, the world, sin, death, hell, the name of Jehovah shall be our strength. “In hoc signo vincit,” said one {Constantine} of old—“By this sign you conquer,” and so by this sign we also overcome through the blood of the Lamb.

13. You have thrust severely at me so that I might fall; but the Lord helped me.

This will rebut all the attacks of our fiercest foes—“But the Lord helped me.”

14, 15. The Lord is my strength and song, and is become my salvation. The voice of rejoicing and salvation in the tabernacles of the righteous: the right hand of the Lord does valiantly.

Where God’s people dwell, there is the voice of joy. Their family prayer sanctifies the house with its joyful notes. Even when there is trouble and sorrow in the house, yet resignation makes joy and rejoicing still there; and if rejoicing for a moment should go, yet salvation never does. “Today salvation is come to your house.” If you are now a converted man, it will never go away again. It is an enduring thing: it is in the tabernacles of the righteous.

16, 17. The right hand of the Lord is exalted: the right hand of the Lord does valiantly. I shall not die but live, and declare the works of the Lord.

Some have thought this psalm was composed by Hezekiah after his sickness, and after the destruction of Sennacherib’s host. It may be so. It has been used by many besides Hezekiah, who have not forgotten that these are the words of Wycliffe, used when monks came around his death-bed with prayers, Paternosters, and crucifixes, and urged him to repent, and he said, “I shall not die, but live and declare the works of the Lord.” And so, indeed, he did.

18. The Lord has chastened me severely: but he has not given me over to death.

Many of his best children can say this, for “whom the Lord loves he chastens.” “The Lord has chastened me severely, but he has not given me to death.” You who have recovered from sickness, here is a song for you, who above all were not given over to your sins and to the just punishment of them, here is music for you, “He has not given me over to the second death, which he might have done.”

19, 20. Open to me the gates of righteousness: I will go into them, and I will praise the Lord: This gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter.

I suppose he who uttered these words has passed through the beautiful gates of the temple.

21. I will praise you: for you have heard me, and are become my salvation.

Future, past, present—all full of blessing.

22-24. The stone which the builders rejected is become the headstone of the corner. This is the Lord‘S doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord has made: we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Though this is applicable to the Sabbath, yet it is also applicable to any day, and to every day which God especially makes glorious by delivering many.

25-27. Save now, I beseech you, oh Lord: oh Lord, I beseech you, send now prosperity. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord: we have blessed you out of the house of the Lord. God is the Lord, who has shown us light: bind the sacrifice with cords, even to the horns of the altar.

It is the king returning from victory and recovered from sickness. He brings his sacrifice with thanksgiving, as every child of God should, and there it is ready bound to the horns of the altar.

28, 29. You are my God, and I will praise you: you are my God, I will exalt you. Oh give thanks to the Lord: for he is good; for his mercy endures for ever.

Barbed Arrows, from the Quiver of C. H. Spurgeon. A Collection of Anecdotes, Illustrations and Similes. With Preface by Pastor C. Spurgeon, A companion Volume to “Feathers for Arrows.” Cloth. Published at 2s. 6d., offered at 2s.

Feathers for Arrows; or, Illustrations for Preachers and Teachers, from my Note-Book. By C. H. Spurgeon. Cloth. Published at 2s. 6d., offered at 2s.

Illustrations and Meditations; or, Flowers from a Puritan’s Garden. Distilled and dispensed by C. H. Spurgeon. Cloth. Published at 2s. 6d., offered at 2s.