Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vols. 13–63

Verse 1. I will praise You with my whole heart; before the gods will I sing praise unto You. We cannot be too much occupied in the praises of God. He rightly deserves all the thanksgivings we can bring to Him. It is the great engagement of Heaven. Let us begin the music here. If we would be heavenly-minded on earth, we must be filled with the praises of God! Notice how David resolves that in praising God it shall be done heartily. "I will praise You with my whole heart." If there is ever a thing that ought to be done enthusiastically, it is the praising of God! I cannot bear to hear God's praises chirped out elegantly by polite people—as if they were ashamed of what they were doing. Nor can I bear to see a mass of pipes and bellows left by itself to blow the praises of God by machinery—instead of men and women praising Him with their heart! Oh, how acceptable it must be to God to hear the heart speak! As for the tongue and voice, however sweet their sound, there is little in it. It is the heart! Soul music is the soul of music. "I will praise You with my whole heart." See how bold the Psalmist is about this. "Before the gods," he says," will I do it. Before the angels, before the kings and great ones that think themselves little gods. I will speak to the honor of Jehovah's name. Yes, and in the idol temples, where their worshippers will be greatly angry about it. I will praise You with my whole heart. Before the gods will I present praise unto You."

2. I will worship toward Your holy Temple. That was God's way of worship. In the old times there was the shrine of God—there was the one altar which world render praise acceptable. David takes care to render praise to God in God's way. And that is a great principle in worship—to avoid will-worship and to endeavor to present sacrifices such as God prescribes. "I will worship toward the holy Temple." What blessed reasons are here given for praising. "I will praise You for Your loving kindness." Is not that the grandest word in any language—loving kindness? It is a compound of perfect sweets to make up yet more perfect sweetness—kindness and love mixed together. A marvelous blend! Loving kindness gave the promise, but truth takes care to see it fulfilled. "So will I praise Your name."

2. Andpraise Your name for Your loving kindness and for Your truth, for You have magnified Your Word. That is, "Your Word of promise—Your Gospel which You have applied with power to my soul. You have made it to seem lustrous beyond anything else I have ever seen of You, O my God! Therefore will I magnify You, because You have magnified Your Word."

2, 3. Above all Your name. In the day when I cried, You answered me, and strengthened me with strength in my soul Ah, this is what ties a man to praise. Answered prayer is sure to lead us to adoring gratitude. Notice that he says that God answered him not by taking away his trouble, but by strengthening him! With strength in his soul. You see it does not matter whether He takes away the load, or strengthens the back to bear it. And that is often the method by which He answers His servants' cries. Not strength of body—perhaps he would have liked that—but strength of soul. And oh, when the soul in strong, bodily weakness is but a very small drawback. No, the weakness of the body may sometimes tend to illustrate the more the greatness of the power of God. Let us read that verse again, for some of us can set our seal to it. "In the day when I cried, You answered me, and strengthened me with strength in my soul."

4, 5. All the kings of the earth shall praise You, O LORD, when they hear the words of Your mouth. Yes, they shall sing in the ways of the LORD: for great is the glory of the LORD. David was a king, and kings would learn from him. You and I are not kings, but we may exercise a very beneficial influence in our own circle of acquaintances if we make bold to praise God when others can hear us. Let us speak well of His name. Wherever we go, let us have a good word for our Master. When others want to know what sort of God we serve, may they gather it from our holy joy and exultant confidence at all times!

6. Though the LORD is high, yet has He respect unto the lowly; but the proud He knows afar off A glance of them is quite enough for Him. He has no wish to know any more about them, He so hates them! Nothing can separate God from a soul so much as pride. It is that which causes the rejection of the Gospel. Men will not have the humbling Gospel—the sinners' Gospel. They are too fine, too good, too lofty—and so they do not want God, neither does His soul desire them. "For the proud He knows afar off."

7. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me. He was a king but he had his trouble. A throne is not a place wherein we can shelter ourselves from trial. "Though I walk in the midst of trouble"—like a man that is to rush through a fire—"yet I shall be safe," he says, "for You will revive me—give me new life. When it seems as if my life would be destroyed, You will quicken me again."

7, 8. You shall stretch forth Your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and Your right hand shall save me. The LORD will perfect that which concerns me: Your mercy, O LORD, endures forever: forsake not the works of Your own hands. Note the confident spirit that runs through all this. There is a childlike trust in God and there is a gladsome praise of God for what has been already received at his hands. Oh for more of this spirit—the spirit that makes music to the Lord for the past and trusts Him for the present and the future. Some more blessed words of comfort from—

Verse 1. Ho, everyone that thirsts, come you to the waters, and he that has no money; come you, buy, and eat: yes, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Remark the wonderful condescension of God, that though the gifts of His Grace are so precious that all the world could not buy them, yet He condescends to ask His creature to have those gifts. He stands, as it were, like One who has goods to sell, and He cries, "Ho! Such-and-such a passerby, turnhere: give ear in this way. Ho! Everyone that thirsts." If, then, there is any soul that wants God, O Soul, God desires you infinitely more than you desire Him! And He invites you to come to Him. Do not delay!

2. Why do you spend money for that which is not bread? And your labor for that which satisfies not?Seeking happiness in a thousand ways with much toil and trouble, but with bitter disappointment.

2. Hearken diligently unto Me, and eat you that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. God invites His creature to listen to Him. "Do," He says "but lend Me your ear a little. Do but hearken diligently to what I have to tell you." Oh, should not God's message of love command the attention of all mankind?

3. Incline your ear and come unto Me! Hear, and your soul shall live.Salvation does not come to men through the eye, but through the ear. Not what you see in the finery of the priest or the altar. That can do you no good. But listen to the Gospel. It is by ear-gate that God's mercy comes triumphant into the soul of man. "Incline your ear and come unto Me. Hear and your soul shad live."

3. And I will make an Everlasting Covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Here God will strike hands with the sinner and enter into a compact with him—a Covenant of Mercy and of Grace through Jesus Christ, the Savior!

4. Behold I have given Him for a witness to the people. To bear witness to men of what God is.

4. A leader and commander to the people.For Christ loves the people and He leads them rightly. He will lead them to Glory!

5. Behold, You shall calla nation that You knnownot, andnations that knownot You shallrun unto You because of the LORD, Your God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for He has glorified You. The promise is to Christ! Today are these words fulfilled in our ears, for in calling these British Isles to know Christ, God has given to the Lord Jesus a people that knew Him not. What did our forefathers know of Jesus when He was here below? And yet in this land He has multitudes of hearts that love His name! Oh, that God would give this whole house full of souls to Christ tonight! What a box it would make full ofjewels! Oh, that the gracious Father would bestow it on His Son!

6-11. Seek you the LORD while He may be found, call you upon Him while He is near Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him: and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so the rain comes down, and the snow from Heaven, and returns not there, but waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater So shall My Word be that goes forth out of My mouth—it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. Therefore, we are not at all afraid about the success of the preaching of the Gospel. Some will be saved tonight wherever Jesus Christ is preached! My dear unsaved Hearer, will it be you? I pray it may be. May the Lord grant that this may be the last night of your unregeneracy, and be your spiritual birth night! Some willbe saved! Will yoube of the number?

Verses 28-30. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified. No breaks between the links of this chain! Foreknowledge is welded to the predestination—the predestination is infallibly linked with the calling! The calling with the justification and the justification with the glorification. There is no hint given that there may be a flaw or break in the series. Get a hold of any one and you possess the whole! The called man is the predestinated man. Let him be sure of that. And the justified man shall be a glorified man. Let him have no doubt whatever about that.

31. What shall we say, then, to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? A great many, but they are all nothing. If God is for us, all they that are against us are not worth mentioning! They are ciphers. If He were on their side, then the One would swell the ciphers to the fullest, but if He is not there, we may put them all into the scale and reckon them as less than nothing!

32, 33. He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?Who, indeed?

33, 34. It is God that justifies. Who is he that condemns?No one can, for—

34. It is Christ that died. And so put our sins to death. 34. Yes, rather, that is risen again. And so has justified us.

34. Who is even at the right hand of God. And so has carried us into Heaven by His representing us there.

34. Who also makes intercession for us. Whose everlasting pleas, therefore, silences all the accusations of the devil!

35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, orsword?They have all been tried. In different ages of the world, the saints have undergone all these, and yet has never one of them been taken away from the love of Christ! They have not left off loving Him, nor has He left off loving them. They have been tried, I say.

36. As it is written. For Your sake we are killed all the daylong; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. What is the result of it?

37-39. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Halleluiah! Blessed be His name!