Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vols. 13–63

PSALM 66:1, 2. Make a joyful noise unto God all you lands: sing forth the honor of His name! Make His praise glorious. In a company of advanced saints, silence may be sometimes profitable. The first verse of the previous Psalm should read, according to the Hebrew, "Praise is silent for You, O God, in Zion." Full-grown saints may have their times of waiting in silence before the Lord, but when the heathen are to be brought in—and when new hearts are to be taught new songs—then there must be a noise! And not merely a noise, but a noise that is full of joy—"Make a joyful noise unto God all you lands." This should be the chief point about it, that it should be a joyful noise. Many of the newly invented tunes which have put the good old tunes out of favor appear to have been made to rattle through the hymn as quickly as possible, as though the composer had written, "Let us praise God at express speed and get it done. And the quicker, the better." But I prefer those tunes in which we can sometimes repeat the words and roll them under the tongue until our heart gets thoroughly saturated with the spirit of them.

"Make a joyful noise unto God all you lands," but let that joyful noise be orderly, not like the shouts of those who cry around the car of Juggernaut. Let it be joyful singing unto the Lord! "Sing forth the honor of His name." God is worthy of the highest honor, so let our praise of Him be given in such a way that it shall really honor Him. "Make His praise glorious." It is only giving back to God what rightly belongs to Him when we give Him glory, and it is our highest earthly glory to be giving glory to God. We are never so near to the condition of the glorified saints above as when we are, with heart, and soul, and voice, glorifying God!

3. Say unto God, How terrible are You in Your works!Our praises should be directed to God—"Say unto God." Our hymns should be a form of speaking unto the Most High, and an ascription unto Him of His own Glory. The first attribute of God that influences men is the attribute of power—which fills them with terror of His awful majesty and might. Afterwards, they perceive more of His love, goodness, wisdom and other attributes. But, at first—yes, and perhaps at last—there is a time in which there is much solemn stately music in this utterance, "How terrible are You in Your works!"

3, 4. Through the greatness of Your power shall Your enemies submit themselves unto You. All the earth shall worship You and shall sing unto You; they shall sing to Your name. From the marginal reading of the 3rd verse, it appears that God's enemies will only "yield feigned obedience" to Him. But whether the submission is feigned or real, it shall not be possible for any man or any power to finally resist His Omnipotence—and the day shall come when all the earth shall worship Him and sing unto Him!

4, Selah. Here is a little pause for the lifting up of the heart and of the strain, and well there may be, for what a joyful thing it is to think of all the earth worshipping God and singing unto Him! I know of no topic that is more calculated to excite the admiring gratitude of God's servants than the prospect of the universal supremacy of our God and of His Christ!

5, 6. Come and see the works of God: He is terrible in His doing toward the children of men. He turned the sea into dry land. You must often have noticed that the sweet singers of Israel are never singing very long unto God without mentioning that wonderful deliverance that He worked at the Red Sea. What God did when He brought His people out of Egypt will be the subject of joyous and grateful song unto God forever, for even in Heaven "they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb." The Red Sea as the grand type of redemption and the Lamb as the great Worker of redemption are joined together in that triumphant song of "them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name." Here the Psalmist sings of what God did for His people at the Red Sea—"He turned the sea into dry land."

6. They went through the flood on foot; there did we rejoice in Him. Perhaps some of you say, "But we were not there." No, we were not personally there, but do you not remember what the Prophet Hosea says about God meeting with Jacob at Bethel? It is written, "There He spoke with us." We were not personally there, yet Believers have been everywhere in the Bible where other representative Believers have been before them! "No prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation." What God spoke to any one of His people, He has spoken to all of whom that one was typical. Paul tells us that the Lord has said, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you," yet it was to Joshua that He said that. But, as He said it to Joshua, He virtually said it to me, for I am a Believer even as he was. All the promises belong to us who are in Christ Jesus, for the heavenly inheritance is left to all the spiritual seed. And if we are in the Lord's family, we shall share alike with all the rest of the children.

"There did we rejoice in Him." Then if we rejoiced in the Lord there, let us rejoice in Him here! Brothers and Sisters in Christ, let us rest assured that when our turn to go through the sea shall come, we shall find that the Lord has "turned the sea into dry land" for us, whether it is a sea of troubles or the sea of death. "They went through the flood on foot" and so shall we! The God who made a way for them through the sea, virtually made a way for us, also, for the army of God is one and when the first ranks of the innumerable host passed through the flood, the army itself began to pass through, and that army can never be divided. So we are passing through the flood at this moment and rejoicing in the God who cleaves the sea in two to make a highway for His people.

7. He rules by His power forever What He did in the past, He is still doing in the present and He will do in the future.

7. His eyes behold the nations: let not the rebellious exalt themselves. The rebellious may, for a while, exalt themselves, but they will, sooner or later be pulled down. These eagles may fly as high as they will, but God's arrow can always reach them. The Lord pulled down the haughty Pharaoh from his throne, but He lifted up the people whom the proud monarch had trodden down and oppressed. The Lord overthrew the hosts of Egypt, but as for His people, He led them forth like sheep and guided them through the wilderness, even as He is doing at this very moment.

7. Selah.That is, pause again and lift up the heart and the sacred strain, too. And when all the strings of your heart and of your harp are tightened, then go on with your music again.

8, 9. O bless our God, you people, and make the voice of His praise to be heard: which holds our soul in life, and suffers not our feet to be moved. I bless God for this verse and as many of you as have found it true should also praise and bless Him. Observe the two things that are mentioned here—living and standing. "Which holds our soul in life, and suffers not our feet to be moved." There are some who have a certain standing in the Church and who keep up their reputation among their fellow members, yet they are not spiritually alive. It is a dreadful thing to be standing and yet not living—like those in Sardis who were only living in name. Then there are those who are living, but not standing—at least not standing fast. They are often caught tripping, falling and wounding themselves. They go with broken bones on their way towards Heaven by reason of their many falls. But what a blessing it is to be kept both living and standing, and what reason there is to bless God for this great mercy—not congratulating ourselves on our steadfastness and being exalted and proud, but magnifying the Lord for His Grace in granting to us this double blessing—living and standing!

10. For You, O God, have proved us: You have tried us, as silver is tried. That is, with fierce furnaces, and with carefully graduated heat, for silver needs delicate refining. Christ still sits as the Refiner of silver, patiently watching until the process is complete.

11. You brought us into the net.Did not our enemies entangle us? Oh, yes, but God often uses our enemies to carry out His Divine purposes! He rules over allthings. So, when you are caught in the net, do not sit down and say that such-and-such a person did it, or that the devil did it. No, but look to the Great First Cause. If You strike a dog with a stick, he tries to bite the stick because he does not know any better. But you are not a dog, so do not look at the second cause of your troubles, but learn to sing, as the Psalmist does here, "You brought us into the net."

11. You laid affliction upon our loins. Not merely upon our backs, where we might be better able to bear it, but right on our loins, so that we were pressed and squeezed almost out of our very life.

12. You have caused men to ride over our heads.And when they mount their high horse, they vow and exalt themselves over God's afflicted servants.

12. We went through fire and through water.They were subjected to a double test, for what fire does not burn, water will drown, yet God's people "went through fire and through water." There is no fire that can burn them. Nebuchadnezzar tried it and failed. And there is no water that can drown them. Even though their bodies may be burned or drowned, their real selves shall still survive and stand upon the sea of glass mingled with fire, triumphant over both fire and water!

12. But You brought us out into a wealthy place. That is to say, the Lord brought the Israelites out from all manner of oppression under Pharaoh and brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey. Nothing that Pharaoh could do could destroy the chosen nation. He tried to kill all the male children that were born, yet the Israelites still increased and multiplied, and they came at last to Canaan! It will be just so with God's people in all times and all climes, they shall not die, but live and shall ultimately come into that most wealthy of all places, even the heavenly and better Canaan! We cannot fully tell what joy awaits us there. We cannot measure the height of our joy by the depth of our sorrows, for, after all, our sorrows are shallow, but the Glory of God, which the saints are to share, is a depth unfathomable, a height that no man can measure. O Lord, bring us into that wealthy place right speedily if it is Your holy will!

13. I will go into Your house with burnt offerings. Here is one worshipper breaking away from the rest—a child of God who is not satisfied by merely joining in the general praise of the whole assembly, so he brings his own personal thanksgiving and thank-offering to God. Dear Brother, dear Sister, try to do this! Break away from all the rest of us, and say to the Lord, "I will go into Your house with burnt offerings."

13-15. I will pay You my vows, which my lips have uttered, and my mouth has spoken, when I was in trouble. I will offer unto You burnt sacrifices of fatlings. "I will give You the best that I have."

15. With the incense of rams. Not only one of the best, but the best of two kinds of offerings.

15. I will offer bullocks with goats. "I will present to You great services and smaller sacrifices. I will obey You in the great ordinances and in the lesser ordinances, also. I will bring both bullocks and goats. I will make an all-round offering. I will try to do all that I can for You, my God, since You have done so much for me."

15. Selah. Here the Psalmist pauses again while the smoke of the sacrifice ascends. Let us also pause and meditate upon the better Sacrifice which Christ offered for the sins of all who put their trust in Him.

16, 17. Come and hear, all you that fear God, and I will declare what He has done for my soul I cried unto Him with my mouth, and He was extolled with my tongue. "I mixed crying and singing together. I cried when I was in trouble, and I extolled the Lord as soon as He delivered me from it. No, by faith expecting to be delivered, I began to extol Him even while I was yet crying unto Him!"

18, 19. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me: but verily God has heard me. It is a blessed thing to be able to say that. And if you can truthfully say it, I pray you to say it—"Verily God has heard me." Some people tell us that there is no such thing as an answer to prayer. They say that it is a piece of superstition on our part. Well, I believe that I am as honest a man as anyone who denies the power of prayer, and I can truthfully say, "God has heard me." There are scores of us—there are hundreds of us—there are thousands of us who can stand in the witness box and each one of us can say, "Verily God has heard me." If our testimony is not accepted by unbelieving men, we cannot help that. We know what we know, and we know that God has heard and answered our prayers again and again!

19, 20. He has attended to the voice of my prayer Blessed be God, which has not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me.

ROMANS 8:1. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit My Hearers, we are, each of us, by nature, under the condemnation of God. We are not only subject to condemnation, but we are condemned already! And, on account of sin, there is judgment recorded in God's book against everyone of us, considered in our fallen state. But if we "are in Christ Jesus," if we are made partakers of

Jesus, if we have hidden ourselves in the cleft of the Rock, Christ, and if our trust is solely in Him, oh, precious thought, "there is therefore now no condemnation" for us! It is blotted out. The old judgment that was recorded against us is now erased and in God's book of remembrance there is not to be found a single condemnatory syllable, nor one word of anger written against any Believer in Christ Jesus! Glorious freedom from condemnation! How may I know whether I have been thus set free? This is the question that should enter into each of our hearts. The answer is, "Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." My Hearers, after which of these are you and I walking? Are we following the flesh? Are we seeking to please ourselves—to indulge our bodies, to gratify our lusts, to satisfy our own inclinations? If so, we are not in Christ Jesus, for those who are in Christ Jesus "walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit," and everyone of you who is fleshly and carnal is not in Christ, but is still under condemnation!

2, 3. For the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the Law of sin and death. For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. He did accomplish it. The Law could not condemn sin so truly and so thoroughly as God did when He condemned sin in the Person of Christ. O Believer, let not your sins grieve you—however great or however tremendous they may have been, weep over them, but do not be distressed about them, for they have been condemned in Christ Jesus! They may have been enormous, but if you are in Him, Christ was punished for you and God's justice asks not for a second punishment for one offense. Christ offered once a complete Atonement for all Believers, and if I am a Believer in Him, there is no possible fear of my ever being condemned. There cannot be, for Christ was condemned for me—my sins were laid upon His head—and in the awful moment when He sustained the stroke of His Father's vengeance, those sins ceased to be and, "there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."

4. That the righteousness ofthe Lawmight be fulflledin us, who walknot after the flesh, but after the Spirit Mark, again, how Paul brings us to this as the great evidence of our being in Christ Jesus—the not walking after the flesh. Now, every man, as he is born into the world, left to himself, is sure to "walk after the flesh." It is only the man who has the Spirit of God put into his soul—who has the heavenly gift from on high—who will "walk after the Spirit." It is not talkingafter the flesh, but it is walkingafter it, that condemns us, and it is not talking after the Spirit that will save us, it is walking after the Spirit that is the evidence of salvation—not talking, but walking! How many of you are there who are talkative, who can talk religion and give us as much as we like of it, but whose life and conversation are not such as become godliness? "Be not deceived! God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap." If you sow to the flesh, you "shall of the flesh reap corruption," but if you sow to the Spirit, you "shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."

5-7. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things ofthe flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God. That mind with which we are all born is enmity against God! And however much refined or polished a man may be, however amiable or polite, however he may shine among his fellow creatures—if he has not had a new heart and a right spirit—he is at "enmity against God" and he cannot enter Heaven until there has been a Divine change worked in him. Some of you suppose because you have never been guilty of any vice, because you have not indulged in any great transgression, that therefore you do not require the work of regeneration in your hearts. You will be mightily mistaken if you continue under that delusion until the Last Great Day. "For to be carnally minded," even though that carnal mind is in a body that is dressed in silks and satins, "To be carnally minded is death," even though it is whitewashed till it looks like a spiritual one. "To be carnally minded," even though you sow the carnal mind with a few good garden seeds of the flowers of morality, will still be nothing but damnation to you at the last. "To be carnally minded is death"—only "to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God."

7. For it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be. The opponents of the Free Grace Gospel, which it is our delight to preach, assert that men can be saved, if they will—that men most certainly can repent, can believe, can come to God of their own free will and that it is not through any defect in any powers that they have if they are not saved. Now, we are not over prone to controvert that point, but at the same time, we do not understand the meaning of this verse if what they say is correct. It says here, "The carnal mind is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be." Some say that men could repent if it were their inclination. Exactly so, but that is what we assert—that it never will be and never can be their inclination, except they are constrained to do so by the Grace of God.

Rowland Hill uses a very singular and odd metaphor in his " Village Dialogues." Two parties are speaking together on this subject and one of them, pointing to the cat sitting on the hearth says, "Do you see that cat? She sits there and licks her paws and washes herself clean." "I see that," said the other. "Well," said the first speaker, "did you ever hear of one of the hogs taken out of the sty that did so?" "No," he said. "But he could if he liked," said the other. Ah, verily, he could if he liked, but it is not according to his nature and you never saw such a thing done! And until you have changed the swine's nature, he cannot perform such a good action—and God's Word says the same of man. We do not care about fifty thousand aphorisms, or syllogisms, or anything else—God's Word against man's any day! Jesus said, "No man can come to Me, except the Father which has sent Me draw him." "The carnal mind is enmity against God." Men cannot come to Jesus unless the Father draws them to Him. We assert that from first to last, the work of salvation is all of Grace and we are not afraid of any licentious tendency of that Doctrine, or anything of the kind. God's Word, in all its simplicity, must be preached and we leave Him to take care of His own Truth. Blessed be God, this humbling Truth of God is of far more use than the other doctrine which puffs men up with pride, telling them that they can perform what most assuredly they cannot do! "It is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be."

8. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. No man "in the flesh" can please God. Oh, what a sword this is—a sharp two-edged sword against many of you, my Friends! Some of you who regularly attend this House of Prayer, and others of you who stray in here in the evening, you, "are in the flesh" and you "cannot please God." Perhaps you have been attempting to do it. You have said, "I will attend the House of Prayer regularly." You cannot please God by doing that, as long as you are "in the flesh." You may be as moral as you please and we beseech you to be so, but unless you have the Spirit of God—unless you are really changed in heart and made new creatures in Christ Jesus—all that you can do, as long as you are "in the flesh, cannot please God." Virtues in unregenerate men are nothing but whitewashed sins! The best performance of an unchanged character is worthless in God's sight! It lacks the stamp of Grace upon it and that which has not the stamp of Grace is false coin. Be it ever so beautiful in model and finish, it is not what it should be. "So then they that are in the flesh cannot praise God."

9. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you. Nowif any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. O Beloved, we have need, each of us, to put ourselves in this scale! Come, Preacher, be not too sure of your own salvation. Come, Church Member, do not be too certain of your own regeneration. Come, Christian, put yourself in this scale—"If any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." If he has not the Holy Spirit really dwelling in him, guiding him, directing him, teaching him, comforting him, supporting him—he is none of Christ's! And if we do not exhibit the Spirit of Christ in our character—if we have not gentleness, meekness, purity, holiness, benevolence— we are none of Christ's! Ah, this will take some of your flimsy Christians to pieces! Half of your professors, we fear, will at the last be found not to have had "the Spirit of Christ."

It is one thing to profess religion, Beloved—it is quite another thing to possess vital godliness. We may sit down at the Communion Table, but oh, if we never had the Spirit of Christ, we "are none of His." We may plead our own goodness before the Throne of God at the last, but Jesus Christ will say, "You have not My Spirit. You are none of Mine." And then, however much we may have striven to serve God, unless we have the Spirit of Christ, there shall be nothing for us but the fearful curse, "Depart! Depart! Depart!" "O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our Maker." Let us ask Him for His Spirit! Let us plead with Him for His Grace and though some of you have never had it, yet if you now ask for it, our God is a gracious God, full of mercy and pity—whoever calls upon His name shall be saved! And though the chief of sinners, if you sincerely ask for pardon and for Grace, you shall receive it at His hands. The Lord help you so to pray, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.