Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vols. 13–63

In the first part of this Psalm, God has solemnly expostulated with His people as to the utter worthlessness of sacrifice and ceremony apart from living faith in Him, and holy life as its fruit. And He sums it all up in the searching question of the 13th verse, "Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Have you such a groveling opinion of Me, your God, as to conceive that I am satisfied with these things?" See what contempt the Lord pours upon sacrifices—even those that were of His own ordaining—when men rested in them and made them their confidence and their end!

Verse 14. Offer unto God thanksgiving. This is what He wants—heart-work.

14. And pay your vows unto the Most High. This is what He demands—obedience.

15. And call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me. Thus you see God has spoken to His professing people—to those who were moral, decent and observant of outward ritual. He now turns to some others—some others, perhaps, quite as outwardly religious, but their lives were immoral—their conduct was a breach of His Law. At first He speaks of their neglect of the First Table, which says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart," and shows that it is not bullocks and rams which can make amends for forgetfulness of God. Now He turns to the Second Table and shows that no amount of sacrifice can make up for breaches of the Law of God as it touches our fellow men.

16. But unto the wicked, Godsays, What have you to do to declare My statutes, or that you should take My Covenant in your mouth? Your unholiness, even though you were of the tribe of Levi, would disqualify you from declaring My statutes. Your mouth is full of slander, how could you dare to use it to speak of My Covenant with it?

17. Seeing you hate instruction, and cast My Words behind you. As if they were worthless things to be thrown away—as if they were obnoxious things to be thrown behind your back where you could not see them. "Do you talk about worshipping Me, while you are neglecting My Words?" Now it is a very solemn thing when a man boasts about the Covenant, or about the Doctrines of Grace, or about outward ceremonies, and yet there are parts of God's Word that he neglects—there are portions of God's will that he dares not look in the face. If ever I meet a text that I am afraid of, I begin to be afraid of myself! And if I feel any tendency to take away from a text any of its swooping charges or its strong demands, I feel that surely I must have quarreled with this text because it has quarreled with me. How can we think we are offering to God acceptable sacrifice when any of His Words are cast behind our backs?

18. When you saw a thief, then you consented with him, and have been partaker with adulterers. "When you saw a thief you consented with him," and some professors do this. If they do not themselves, rob, there are some who will employ their clerks to tell lies in writing. They consent in the bad trade of others. They become accomplices, helping to make excuses for others. "And have been partaker with adulterers." Can a man profess to be religious and yet do this? Well, I have known such, and such will still creep into the Church of God—unclean, unchaste men, who nevertheless will come and sit as God's people sit, and sing as God's people sing! And, indeed, anyone who listens to lascivious talk, or who smiles at an unchaste jest, is himself a partaker with adulterers more or less.

19. You give your mouth to evil, and your tongue frames deceit How many do this, and yet think they are the children of God? They ruin other characters most remorselessly—they will spread false reports, if not actually invent them— and yet think themselves the people of God!

20. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son. When a tongue has once learned the habit of calumny, it will spare none. The nearest relative and the dearest will become victims to the habit—first of gossip and afterwards of actual detraction and lying! Oh, the misery, the pain that is caused in the world by this habit which is so rife! And can we imagine ourselves to be the people of God when we delight in repeating false stories about others? Have we forgotten the Truth of that word, "All liars shall have their portion in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone"? As surely as God is true and loves truth, if we love lies, where God is we can never come. It matters not how much we may pretend to have reverence for God, and to have an experience of His Truth—we are not of the Truth of God, neither are we of God.

21. These things have you done, and I kept silent God, in His long-suffering, bears with these sinners. "You thought that I was altogether such an one as yourself." These men came at last to say, "Pooh! The Prophets make too much fuss about holiness! You can serve God, and yet, after all, live as we do. So long as we give God a tithe, it matters net how we get our property. If we offer Him the bulls, He will be quite content." Ah, to what do men degrade their God! Some made Him of old to be like a bull that has horns and hoofs, but many men nowadays think God to be like themselves—and that is worse!

21. You thought that I was altogether such an one as yourself: but I will reprove you, and set them in order before your eyes. "I will lay your sins out before you—parcel them out, 'Item this'—Item that.' I will classify them: I will set them like a dreadful army in array before you. I will let you see that though I had patience with you, I was neither blind nor deaf, but heard and saw all that you have done and noted it all." Oh, what a vista this opens up for unholy professors—for ungodly members of Christian churches!

22. Now consider this, you that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver What solemn words! What dreadful words! God never plays at threats and His ministers, when they speak of wrath to come, are not to speak with velvet mouths and soft words, for "Oh, the wrath to come," as George Whitefield used to say with uplifted hands and streaming eyes, "The wrath to come! The wrath to come—how dreadful will it be!" God Himself proves it. "Beware, you that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver." And then the Psalm finishes up with this kind word of gracious address which drops like raindrops out of the bosom of the tempest that went before—

23. Whoever offerspraise glorifies Me. More than he that offers bullocks.

23. And to Him that orders his conversation aright—The man that strives in the sight of God to walk a holy life— this is the man to whom—

23. Will I show the salvation of God. If he needs saving, let him order his conversation as he may, he will owe all to Sovereign Grace! He will have no merit of his own, "but where I by Grace," says the Lord, "lead a man to order his conversation aright, there will I show more and more fully, and at last perfectly in him, the salvation of God."

EZEKEEL 36:21-38.

The Prophet had been bringing many heavy charges against God's people. He had been thundering out the most tremendous threats against them. God was angry with them on account of sin. The Chapter is full of dreadful utterances, enough to make one tremble as he reads them. But all of a sudden the note altogether changes and the Prophet of Thunder becomes the Prophet of Consolation! Free Grace follows like a clear shining after the rain.

Verses 21-28. But I had pity for My holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the heathen, where they went Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus says the LORD GOD—I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for My holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the heathen, where you went AndI will sanctify My great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which you have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Here, indeed, is matchless Divine Grace, that these very people who for their sins were banished from their land, and who in their exile added to their sin by the way in which they blasphemed God—those very people are to be brought back and the mercy of God is so to be displayed in them that, in the very people who blasphemed God's name, God shall be had in honor!

25, 26. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean: from all your flthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. Now notice that all this was spoken to persons who had no desire for these blessings! If they had had a desire for them, their hearts could not be considered to be stony, but they were set against God—they were His enemies—and yet He makes this solemn declaration in the Sovereignty of His Grace that He will give them a new heart and a right spirit! There may be some in this house, tonight, and I pray there may, who are strangers to the God of Israel, who, if they know anything concerning His Son, only know enough to oppose Him. May God's eternal Omnipotence work in them mightily that a new heart and a right spirit may be given them tonight according to that ancient Word of God, "am found of them that sought Me not." He can come and make them a people that were not a people. Oh, that His Grace would do so now!

27. And I will put My Spirit within you. Not only a new spirit, but My Spirit. God Himself shall come and dwell in those hearts which once were a receptacle for the devil!

27, 28. And cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall keep My judgments and do them. And you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers: and you shall be My people, and I will be your God. He who talks in this Sovereign way is God Himself! He first made the world as He pleased, and in the second New Creation, He does as He will, having power over us as the potter has over his clay. This is promised to the Jewish people, but it is also fulfilled in multitudes of others where God, in the same Sovereign way, works out the purposes of His love.

29. I will also save you from allyour uncleanness andI will call for the corn, and willincrease it, andlay no famine upon you. Temporal mercies shall follow where spiritual mercies are given.

30-36. AndI will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that you shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen. Then shall you remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations. Not for your sakes do I this, says the Lord GOD, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel. Thus says the Lord GOD, In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities, I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be built up and the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the Garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited. Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the LORD built up the ruined places, and planted that which was desolate: I the LORD have spoken it, and I will do it. Prayer will always go with the Divine working. Where God means to save, He sets men praying. Those who are saved intercede for others, and others who as yet are unsaved feel the need of the blessing and begin to cry for it—and the blessing comes! As the black cloud forebodes the shower, so does the gathering spirit of prayer always foretoken the coming blessing! Heaven and earth may pass away, but the memorial of Jehovah always is "The God who hears prayer." He is the God whose arm is always moved by the prayer of man. Did not Moses stand between them and vengeance, so that God said, "Let Me alone," as if He had said, "I cannot destroy them while you pray"? Did not Elijah open and shut the windows of Heaven by his prayer? Nothing is impossible to those who know how believingly to enquire of God.

37. Thus says the Lord GOD; I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them: I will increase them with men like a flock. Take up this promise, members of this Church, and urge it before God that He would give us not few additions, but many, very many! "I will increase them with men like a flock."

38. As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts. When a great number of lambs would be brought up to Jerusalem for them to keep the Passover with, a great and countless company. Oh, that such additions may be given to the Church!

38. So shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men; and they shall know that I am the LORD.