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SUBJECT: 083 PSA 118:17-18 Gratitude for Deliverance
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Gratitude for Deliverance from the Grave
January 3rd, 1892
by
C. H. SPURGEON
1834-1892
"I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord. The Lord
hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over unto death."--
Psa_118:17-18.
How very differently we view things at different times and in differing
states of mind! Faith takes a bright and cheerful view of matters, and
speaks very confidently, "I shall not die, but live." When we are slack as
to our trust in God, and give way to misgivings and doubts and fears, we
sing in the minor key, and say, "I shall die. I shall never live through
this trouble. I shall one day fall by the hand of the enemy; and that day is
hastening on. Hope is failing me. Bad times are at the door. I shall not
live through this crisis." Thus our tongues show the condition of our
inner man. We talk according to our frames and feelings, and would
make others think that things are as we see them with our jaundiced
eyes. Is it not a pity that we give a tongue to our unbelief? Would it not
be better to be dumb when we are doubtful? Muzzle that dog of unbelief!
Dog did I call him? He is a wolf; or should I call him hound of hell? His
voice is that of Apollyon: it is full of blasphemy against God.
Unbelieving utterances will do no good to yourself, and will do harm to
those who listen to your babblings. It would be wise to say, "If I should
speak thus, I should offend against the generation of thy children. When
I thought to know this, it was too painful for me." Let us be dumb with
silence when we cannot speak to the Glory of God. But, oh, it is a blessed
thing, when faith is in our spirit reigning and powerful, to let it have
ample opportunity to proclaim the honours of his name! To give his
heart a tongue, is wise in man when his heart itself is wise. The more
talk we get from the mouth of faith, the better: her lips drop sweet-
smelling myrrh. A silent faith, if there be such a thing, robs others of
benedictions; and at the same time it does worse, for it robs God of his
glory. When we have a joyous faith in full operation, let us
communicative, and let us openly and boldly say, "I shall not die, but
live, and declare the works of the Lord." I would follow my own advice,
and crave a patient hearing of you.
You know, perhaps, that this text was inscribed by Martin Luther upon
his study wall, where he could always see it when at home. Many
Reformers had been done to death--Huss, and others who preceded him,
had been burnt at the stake; Luther was cheered by the firm conviction
that he was perfectly safe until his work was done. In this full assurance
he went bravely to meet his enemies at the Diet of Worms, and indeed,
went courageously whenever duty called him. He felt that god had raised
him up to declare the glorious doctrine of justification by faith, and all
the other truths of what he believed to be the gospel of God; and
therefore no faggots could burn him, and no sword could kill him till
that work was done. Thus he bravely wrote out his belief, and set it
where many eyes would see it, "I shall not die, but live, and declare the
works of the Lord." It was no idle boast; but a calm and true conclusion
from his faith in God and fellowship with him. May you and I, when we
are tried, be able, through faith in God, to meet trouble with the like
brave thoughts and speeches! We cannot show our courage unless we
have difficulties and troubles. A man cannot become a veteran soldier if
he never goes to battle. No man can get his sea legs if he lives always on
land. Rejoice, therefore, in your tribulations, because they give you
opportunities of exhibiting a believing confidence, and thereby glorifying
the name of the Most High. But take heed that you have faith, true faith
in God; and do not become a puppet of impressions, much less a slave of
the judgments of others. To have David's faith, you must be as David. No
man may take up a confidence of his own making: it must be a real work
of the Spirit, and growth of grace within, grasping with living tendrils
the promise of the living God.
I will read the passage from the Psalms over again, and we will consider
it by God's help. "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the
Lord. The Lord hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over to
death."
First, here is the believer's view of his afflictions. "The Lord hath
chastened me sore." Secondly, here is the believer's comfort under those
afflictions. "He hath given me over to death. I shall not die, but live."
And, thirdly, here is the believer's conduct after his afflictions and after
his deliverance from them-- "I shall not die, but live, and declare the
works of the Lord."
I. At the outset, here is THE BELIEVER'S VIEW OF HIS AFFLICTIONS. "The Lord
hath chastened me sore."
On the surface of the works we see the good man's clear observation that
his afflictions come from God. It is true he perceived the secondary hand,
for he says, "Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall." There was
one at work who aimed to make him fall. His afflictions were the work of
a cruel enemy. Yes; but that enemy's assaults were being overruled by
the Lord, and were made to work for his good; so David, in the present
verse, corrects himself by saying, "The Lord hath chastened me sore. My
enemy struck at me and he might make me fall; but in very truth my
gracious God was using him to chasten me that I might not fall. The
enemy was moved by malice, but God was working by him in love to my
soul. The second agent sought my ruin, but the Great First Cause
wrought my education and establishment."
It is well to have grace enough to see that tribulation comes from god: he
fills the bitter cup as well as the sweet goblet. Troubles do not spring out
of the dust, neither doth affliction grow up from the ground, like
hemlock from the furrows of the field; but the Lord himself kindles the
fiery furnace, and sits as a refiner at the door. Let us not dwell too much
upon the part played by the devil, as though he were a power co-ordinate
with God. He is a fallen creature, and his very existence depends upon
the will and permission of the Most High. His power is borrowed, and
can only be used as the infinite omnipotence of God permits. His
wickedness is his own, but his existence is not self-derived. Blame the
devil, and blame all of his servants as much as you will; but still believe
in the mysterious and consoling truth that, in the truest sense, the Lord
sends trials upon his saints. "Explain this statement," say you. Oh, no; I
am not called upon to explain it, but to believe it. A great many things,
when they are said to be explained by modern thinkers, are merely
explained away, and I have not yet begun to learn that wretched art.
Remember how Peter told the Jews that he, whom God by his
determinate counsel and foreknowledge decreed to die, even his son
Jesus Christ, nevertheless taken by them with wicked hands, when they
had crucified and slain him. The death of Christ was pre-determined in
the counsel of God, and yet it was none the less an atrocious crime on the
part of ungodly men. The omnipotence and providence of God are to be
believed; but man's responsibility is not therefore to be questioned. Our
afflictions may come distinctly from man, as the result of persecution or
malice; and yet they may come with even greater certainty from the
Lord, and may be the needful outcome of his special love to us.
For this reason we may wisely moderate our anger against second causes.
If you strike a dog with a stick, he will bite the stick; if he were more
intelligent, he would snap at the person using the stick; and, if that
intelligence were governed by the spirit of obedience, he would yield to
the blow, and learn a lesson from it. Thus, when Shimei reviled David,
and Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, said unto king, "Why should this dead
dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his
head;" David meekly replied, "So let him curse, because the Lord hath
said unto him, Curse David. Who shall then say, Wherefore hath thou
done so?" A sight of God's hand in a trial is the end of rebellion against
it in the case of every good man. He says, "It is the Lord: let him do what
seemeth him good." We may lie at his feet, and cry, "Shew me wherefore
thou contendest with me;" but, if the reason does not appear, we must
bow in reverent submission, and say with one of old, "I was dumb, I
opened not my mouth; because thou didst it." Job saw the Lord in his
many tribulations, and therefore praised him, saying, "The Lord gave,
and the Lord that taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Surely
there is nothing better for a man of God than to perceive that his smarts
and sorrows come from his Father's hand, for then he will say, "The will
of the Lord be done." This is the great point in the believer's view of his
afflictions: "He maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his
hands make whole."
Next, the believer perceives that his trials come on as a chastening. "The
Lord hath chastened me sore." When a child is chastised, two things are
clear: first, that there is something wrong in him, or that there is
something deficient in him, so that he needs to be corrected or
instructed; and, secondly, it shows that his father has a tender care for
his benefit, and acts in loving wisdom towards him. This is certainly true
if the father is an eminently kind and yet prudent parent. Children do not
think that there can be any need for chastening them; but when years
have matured their judgment, they will know better. "No chastening for
the present seemeth to be joyous;" if it did seem joyous, it would not be
chastening. The "need be" is not only that we have manifold trials, but
that we be in heaviness through them. In the smart of the sorrow lies the
blessing of the chastisement. God chastens us in the purest love, because
he sees that there is an absolute necessity for it: "for he doth not afflict
willingly nor grieve the children of men." Our fathers, according to the
flesh, too often corrected us according to their own pleasure, and yet we
gave them reverence; but the Father of our spirits corrects us only of
necessity--a necessity to which he is too wise to close his eye. Shall we
not, therefore, pay greater reverence to him, and bow before him, and
live? When Hezekiah was recovered of his sickness, he wrote, "O Lord,
by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit." I
find not that men live by carnal pleasure, nor that the life of the spirit is
ever found in the wine-vat or in the oil-press; but I do find that life and
health often come to saints through the briny tears, through the bruising
of the flesh, and the oppression of the spirit. So have I found it, and I
bear my willing witness that sickness has brought me health, loss has
conferred gain, and I doubt not that one day death will bring me fuller
life.
Be wise then, dear child of God, and look upon your present affliction as
a chastening. "What son is he whom the father chasteneth not?" "As
many as I love, I rebuke and chasten." There is not a more profitable
instrument in all God's house than the rod. No honey was sweeter than
that which dropped from the end of Jonathan's rod; but that is nothing to
the sweetness of the consolation which comes through Jehovah's rod.
Our brightest joys are the birth of our bitterest griefs. When the woman
has her travail pangs, joy comes to the house because the man-child is
born; and sorrow is to us also, full often, the moment of the birth of our
graces. A chastened spirit is a gracious spirit; and how shall we obtain it
except we are chastened? Like our Lord Jesus, we learn obedience by the
things which we suffer. God had one Son without sin, but he never had a
son without sorrow, and he never will have while the world stands. Let
us, therefore, bless God for all his dealings, and in a filial spirit confess,
"Thou, Lord, hast chastened me."
Consider the psalmist's view of his affliction a little more carefully. He
noted that his trials were sore: he says, "The Lord hath chastened me
sore." Perhaps we are willing to own in general that our trouble is of the
Lord; but there is a soreness in it which we do not ascribe to him, but to
the malice of the enemy, or some other second cause. The false tongue is
so ingenious in slander that it has touched the tenderest part of our
character, and has cur us to the quick. Are we to believe that this also is,
in some sense, of the Lord? Assuredly we are. If it be not of the Lord,
then it is a matter for despair. If this evil comes apart from divine
permission, where are we? How can a trial be met which is independent
of divine rule, and outside of the sacred zone of providential
government? It is hopeful when we find that all our ills lie within the
ring-fence of omnipotent overruling. It is one comfort that we see a wall
of fire round about us, a circle so complete that even the devil, malicious
as he is, cannot break through it, to do more than the Lord allows. The
camels are gone, the sheep, the oxen, the servants, all are destroyed: all
this is most trying; but it is still true--"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath
taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." But, see, another
messenger comes, and cries, "There came a great wind from the
wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the
young men, and they are dead." Might not Job, then, have said, "This is
a blow which I cannot bear; for it is evidently from the prince of the
power of the air"? No, but even after that, he said, "Blessed be the name
of the Lord." When his wife said, "Curse God, and die," he still blessed
God, and held his integrity. He told her that she spoke as one of the
foolish speaketh, and then he wisely added, "Shall we receive good at the
hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" "In all this Job sinned not,
nor charged God foolishly." May we stand fast in patience as he did,
even when our troubles overflow!
It is folly to imagine, as we have sometimes done, the we could bear
anything except that which we are called upon to endure. We are like the
young man who says he wants a situation. What can you do? He can do
anything. That man you never engage, because you know that he can do
nothing. So it is with us. If we say, "I could bear anything but this," we
prove our universal impatience. If we had the choice of our crosses, the
one we should choose would turn out to be more inconvenient than that
which God appoints for us; and yet we will have it that our present cross
is unsuitable and specially galling. I would say to any who are of that
mind, "If your burden does not fit your shoulder, bear it till it does."
Time will reconcile you to the yoke if grace abides with you. It is not for
us to choose our affliction; that remains with him who chooses our
inheritance for us. Read well this word, "The Lord hath hastened me
sore," and see the Lord's hand in the soreness of your trial. Even while
the wound is raw, and the smart is fresh; be conscious that the Lord is
near.
Yet there is in the verse a "but", for the psalmist perceives that his trial
is limited; "but he hath not given me over to death." Certain of the buts
in Scripture are among the choicest jewels we have. Before us is a "but"
which shows that, however deep affliction may be, there is a bottom to
the abyss. There is a limit to the force, the sharpness, the duration and
the number of our trials.
"If God appoints the number ten,
They ne'er can be eleven."
Whenever the Lord mixes a potion for his people, he weighs each
ingredient, measures the bitters, grain by grain, and allows not even a
particle in excess to mingle in the draught. Like a careful dispenser, he
will not pour out a drop too little or too much.
"To his church, his joy, and treasure,
Every trial works for good:
They are dealt in weight and measure,
Yet how little understood;
Not in anger,
But from his dear covenant love."
Our Father's anger at our sin will never blaze into wrath against us,
though in mercy he will smite our sins. Remember, then, this gracious
boundary. "The Lord hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me
over unto death." We have never yet experienced a trouble which might
not have been worse. One affliction kills another: the wind never blows
east and west at the same time. When the Lord smites you abound, so do
consolations abound through Christ Jesus. The whole band of troubles
never comes forth at once. Everything painful is graded and
proportioned to the man and his strength, and the object for which it is
sent. With the trial the Lord makes the way of escape that we may be
able to bear it. Faith can see an end and limit where natures dim eye sees
endless confusion. Where the carnal sense--
"Sees every day new straits attend,
And wonders where the scene will end,"
faith looks over the intervening space, and comforts herself with that
which is yet to come. Faith sings pleasant songs when she foots it over
weary roads.
"The road may be rough, but it cannot be long,
So let's smooth it with hope, and cheer it with song."
The Lord keep your faith alive, my brethren and sisters, and then
whatever trials surge around you, you will sit on the Rock of ages, above
the waves, and joyfully sing praises unto your divine Deliverer! Oh, how
sweet to say, as I now do, "The Lord hath chastened me sore: but he hath
not given me over unto death"!
II. This brings me secondly, to consider THE BELIEVER'S COMFORT UNDER HIS
AFFLICTIONS. The believer's comfort under his afflictions is this--"I shall
not die, but live."
Occasionally this comes in the form of a presentiment. I do not think
that I am superstitious: I fancy that I am pretty clear of that vice; yet I
have had presentiments concerning things to come or not to come; and,
moreover, I have not met with so many Christian men who, in the time
of trouble have received singular warnings, or sweet assurances of
coming deliverance, that I am bound to believe that the Lord does
sometimes whisper to the heart of his children, and assure them in trial
that they shall not be crushed, and in sickness that they shall not die.
How do you understand the story of John Wycliffe, at Lutterworth, in any
other way than this? He had been speaking against the monks, and
various abuses of the church. He was the first man known to history that
preached the gospel in England during the Popish ages--we know him as
the Morning Star of the Reformation. He was a man so great that, if he
had possessed a printing-press, we might never have needed a Luther;
for he had an even clearer light than that great Reformer. He lacked the
means of spreading his doctrine, which the art of printing supplied. He
did much: he prepared everything to Luther's hand: and Luther was but
the proclaimer of Wycliffe's doctrine. Wycliffe was ill--very ill, and the
friars came round him, like crows round a dying sheep. They professed
to be full of tender pity; but they were right glad that their enemy was
going to die. So they said to him, "Do you not repent? Before we can
give you viaticum--the last oiling before you die--would it not be well to
retract the hard things which you have said against the zealous friars,
and his Holiness of Rome? We are eager to forget the past, and give you
the last sacrament in peace." Wycliffe begged an attendant to help him
sit up; and then he cried with all his strength, "I shall not die, but
live, to declare the works of the Lord, and to expose the wickedness of the
friars." He did not die, either: death himself could not have killed him
then; for he had work to do, and the Lord made him immortal until it
was done. How could Wycliffe know that he spoke truly? Certainly he
was free from all foolhardy brag; but there was upon his mind a
foreshadowing of future work that he had to do, and he felt that he could
not die until it was accomplished. Now, do not be making up
presentiments about all sorts of things because I have said that
sometimes the Lord grants them to his saints. This would be a
mischievous piece of absurdity. I remember a young woman, who lived
not far from here, who had a presentiment that she would die. I do not
think that there was really much the matter with her; but she refused to
eat, and was likely to be starved. I went to see her, and she told me that
she had a presentiment that she should die, and therefore she should not
waste food by eating it. She spoke to me very solemnly about this
presentiment, and I replied, "I believe there may be such things." Yes:
she was sure I was on her side! Then I went on to say, I once had a
presentiment that I was a donkey, and it turned out true in my case; and
now I had much the same presentiment about her. This surprised her,
and I asked her friends to bring her food. She said she would not eat it;
and then I told her that if she was resolved on suicide, I would mention it
at church-meeting that evening, and put her out of the church, since
would could not have suicides in our membership. She could not bear to
be put out of the church, and began to eat, and it turned out that my
presentiment about her was correct; she had been foolish, and she had
the good sense to see that it was so. I felt bound to tell you this story,
lest you should fancy that I would support you in sentimental nonsense.
While there are so many stupid people in the world, we have no need to
give cautions where the wise do not need them. Forecasts of good from
the Lord may come to those who are sore sick; and when they do, they
help them to recover. We are of good courage when an inward
confidence enables us to say, "I shall not die, but live, and declare the
works of the Lord."
This, however, I only mention by the way. When a believer is in trouble
he derives great comfort from his reliance upon the compassion of God.
The Lord scourges his sons, but he does not slay them. The believer says,
"My Father may make me smart with the blow of a cruel one; but he will
do me no real harm, nor allow anyone else to injure me. He will not lay
upon me more than is right, nor above what I am able to bear. He will
stay his hand when he sees that I have no strength left. Moreover, I know
that even when he brings me very low, still underneath me are the
everlasting arms. If the Lord kill, it is only to make alive: if he wound, it
is that he may heal. I am sure of that." O believer, never let anything
drive you away from this confidence, for it has sure truth for its
foundation! The Lord is good, and his mercy endureth forever. It is not
killing, but curing, that God means when he takes the sharp lancet in his
hand. The nauseous medicine, which makes the heart sick, works for the
cure of a worse sickness. "His compassions fail not." He may often put
his hand into the bitter box, but he has sweet cordials ready to take the
taste away. For a small moment has he forsaken us, but with great
mercies will he return to us. You have an effectual comfort if your faith
can keep its hold upon the blessed fact of the Lord's fatherly compassion.
Next, faith comforts the tried child of God by assuring him of the
forgiveness of his sin, and his security from punishment. Please to notice
the very distant difference between chastisement and punishment. I do
not say between the meaning of the words, but between the two things
which I just now would indicate by those terms. Here is a boy who has
committed a theft. He is brought before the magistrate that he may be
punished. Punitive justice will be executed upon him by imprisonment or
by a birch rod. Another boy has also stolen--stolen from his father, and
he is brought before his father, not to be punished as a law-breaker, but
to be chastised. There is a great difference between the punishment
awarded by justice and the chastisement appointed by love. They may be
alike in painfulness, but how different in meaning! The father does not
give to the child what he would deserve if it were a punishment
according to the law, but what he thinks will cure him of the wrong-
doing by making him feel that his sin brings sorrow. The magistrate,
although he desires the good of the offender, has mainly to consider the
law in its bearings upon the whole mass of the population, and he
punishes as a matter of justice that which wrongs the commonwealth;
but the parent acts on other principles. "The Lord hath chastened me
sore," and in that he has added a fatherly part; "but he hath not given me
over unto death" which would have been my lot if he had dealt with me
as a judge. My heart trembles at his sword, and cries, "Enter not into
judgment with thy servant, O Lord: for in thy sight shall no man living
be justified." The sentence of justice has been fulfilled upon our Lord,
and our comfort is that now there is nothing punitive in all our troubles.
"He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to
our iniquities;" nor will he do so, for he has already laid our sins upon
Christ, and Christ has vindicated the law by bearing its penalty, so that
nothing more in the way of penalty is demanded by the moral
government of God. That which we receive from the rod of the Lord
bears the blessed aspect of chastening from a father's hand; and this is a
gladsome fact, which makes even the sharpest smart to be profitable.
"Surely the bitterness of death is past," when, in the case of the believer,
even death has ceased to be the penalty of sin, and is changed into a
sweet falling asleep upon the bosom of the Well-Beloved, to wake up in
his likeness. Every other affliction is changed in the same fashion. Our
wasps have become bees: their sting is not the prominent thought, but
the honey which they lay up in store. "All things work together for good
to them that love God," and chastisement is chief among those "all
things." What a well of comforting thought is here!
Furthermore, it is a great blessing to a child of God to feel a full
assurance that he has eternal life in Christ Jesus. "The Lord hath
chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over unto death." Notice the
words, "Given me over." It is the most awful thing out of hell to be given
over by God. I fear that there are some such persons. Does not the
psalmist refer to such when he says, "They are not in trouble as other
men; neither are they plagued like other men. Their eyes stand out with
fatness: they have more than heart could wish"? While God's own people
are chastened every morning, and plagued all day long, the ungodly
prosper in the world, and increase in riches. Of his chosen the Lord says,
"You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will
punish you for all your iniquities." But those who are not the Lord's are
left unchastened, because the Lord hath said of them, "Let them alone,
they are given unto idols." They are allowed their transient mirth; let
them make the most they can of it, for their end will be desolation.
Unbroken prosperity and undisturbed health may be signs of being
"given over unto death"; and they are in such cases where sin is
committed without pangs of conscience, or apprehensions of judgment.
Such freedom from fear may be maintained even in death: "There are no
bands in their death: but their strength is firm." All goes quietly with
them; "Like sheep they are laid in the grave." But "in hell they lift up
their eyes, being in torments." To be given over unto death is often
followed by callousness, presumption, and bravado; but it is a dreadful
doom, the direst sentence from the throne of judgment as to this life. But
you, dear child of God, have this comfort, he has not given you over, he
is thinking upon you. Men do not prune the vine they mean to uproot;
nor thresh out the weeds which they mean to burn. He who is chastened
is not given over to destruction. Years ago, I was taken very ill, in
Marseilles, while attempting to come home to England. As I lay in bed,
it seemed as if the cruel mistral wind was driving through my bones, and
breaking them with agony. I ordered a fire to be kindled; but when I saw
the man begin to light it with a bundle of little branches, I cried out to
him, "Pray let me look at that." I found that he was using the dry
prunings of the vine, and my tears were in my eyes as I remembered the
words--"Men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are
burned." Comfort followed, for I thought, "I am not feeling, like those
dried-up shoots; but I am the bleeding vine, which is sharply cut with the
pruning-knife; I feel the keen blade in every part of me." Then I could
say, "The Lord hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over."
What joy lies in this, "He hath not given me over"! As long as the father
chastens his boy, he has hope of him; if he ceased to do so altogether, we
might fear that he thought him too bad to be reclaimed. Be glad, then,
dear child of God, that since the Lord chastens you sore, he has not
erased your name from his heart, and his hands, nor yielded you up to
your enemy's power.
Another meaning may be found in this text, "I shall not die, but live, and
declare the works of the Lord. The Lord hath chastened me sore: but he
hath not given me over unto death." We are comforted by reliance upon
God's power for success in our life-work. The critics said--and I must
quote this because this sermon is very much a personal one--the critics
said, when the lad commenced his preaching, that it was a nine days'
wonder, and would soon come to an end. When the people joined the
church in great numbers, they were "a parcel of boys and girls." Many of
those "boys and girls" are here to-night, faithful to God unto this hour.
Then there came upon me a heavy, heavy stroke--a sore chastening,
which those of us who were present would never forget if we live for a
century; and we seemed to be made the reproach of all men, through an
accident which we could not have foreseen or prevented. But still the
testimony for God in this place, by the same voice, has not ceased , nor
lost its power. Still the people throng to hear the gospel after these thirty
years and more, and still the doctrines of grace are to the front, not-
withstanding the opposition. In the darkest hour of my ministry I might
have declared, "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the
Lord." If you have been set on fire by a divine truth, the world cannot put
an extinguisher upon you. That candle which God has lighted, the devils
of hell cannot blow out. If you are commissioned of God to do a good
work, give your whole heart to it, trust in the Lord, and you will not fail.
I bear my joyful witness to the power of God to work mightily by the
most insignificant of instruments.
"The feeblest saint shall win the day,
Though death and hell obstruct the way."
Once more, though we may die, we are sustained by the expectation of
immortality. When we gather up our feet in the last bed, we may utter
this text in a full and sweet sense, "I shall not die, but live." When
Wycliffe died as to his body, the real Wycliffe did not die. Some of his
books were carried to Bohemia, and John Huss learned the gospel from
them, and began to preach. They burnt John Huss, and Jerome of Prague;
but Huss foretold, as he died, that another would arise after him, whom
they should not be able to put down; and in due time he more than lived
again in Luther. Is Luther dead? Is Calvin dead to-day? That last man
the moderns have tried to bury in a dunghill of misrepresentation; but he
lives, and will live, and the truths that he taught will survive all the
calumniators that have sought to poison it. Die! Often the death of a man
is a kind of new birth to him; when he himself is gone physically, he
spiritually survives, and from the grave there shoots up a tree of life
whose leaves heal nations. O worker for God, death cannot touch thy
sacred mission! Be thou content to die if the truth shall live better
because thou diest. Be thou content to die, because death may be to thee
enlargement of thine influence. Good men die as dies seed-corn which
thereby abideth not alone. When saints are apparently laid in the earth,
they quit the earth, and rise and mount to heaven-gate, and enter into
immortality. No, when the sepulchre receives this mortal frame, we shall
not die, but live. Then shall we come to our true stature and beauty, and
put on our royal robes, our glorious Sabbath-dress.
III. So I finish with just two or three words on THE BELIVER'S CONDUCT
AFTER TROUBLE AND DELIVERANCE. "I shall not die, but live, and declare the
works of the Lord."
Here is declaration. If we had no troubles, we should all have the less to
declare. A person who has no experience of tribulation, what great
deliverance has he to speak of? Such persons despise the afflicted, and
suspect the character of the choicest of men, for lack of power to
understand them. What does the man know about the sea who has only
walked on the beach? Get with an old sailor, who has been a dozen times
around the world, and often wrecked, and he will interest you. So the
much-tried Christian has great wonders to declare, and these are chiefly
the works of the Lord; for "they that go down to the sea in ships, that do
business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his
wonders in the deep." Tried Christians see how God sustains in trouble,
and how he delivers out of it, and they declare his works openly: they
cannot help doing so. They are so interested themselves in what God has
done that they grow enthusiastic over it; and if they held their peace, the
stones would cry out.
If you read the chapter further down, you will find that they not only give
forth a declaration, but they offer adoration. They are so charmed with
what God has done for them, that they laud and magnify the name of the
Lord, saying, "I will praise thee: for thou hast heard me, and art become
my salvation." The saints of God, when they are rescued from their
sorrows, are sure to sing, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit
hath rejoiced in God my saviour."
This done, they make a further dedication of themselves to their
delivering God. As the psalm puts it, "God is the Lord, which hath
shewed us light." It was very dark! It was very, very dark! We could not
see our hand, much less the hand of God! We were frozen with fear. We
thought we were as dead men, laid out for burial; when suddenly the
Lord's face shown in upon us, and all darkness was gone, and we leaped
into joyful security, crying "God is the Lord, which hath shewed us
light." We were convinced that it was none other than the true God who
had removed the midnight gloom. Doubts, infidelities, agnosticisms--
they were impossible. We said, "God is the Lord, which hath shewed us
light." In the fourth watch of the night, in the prison where the cold
stone shut us in, where the darkness had never known a candle, there a
light shone round about us, and an angel smote us on the side, and bade
us put on our sandals, and gird ourselves, and follow him. We obeyed the
word, and our chains fell off; and when we came to the iron gate which
had always been our horror, it opened of its own accord, and we went out
into the streets of the city, and we scarcely felt that it could be true, but
thought we saw a vision. But when we had considered the thing, and
found it was even ourselves, and ourselves set in a large place at perfect
liberty, then we said, " Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns
of the altar." God hath showed us light, and we will live to him for ever
and for ever. Oh, you, tried believers, who have, nevertheless, not been
given over unto death, who can say to-night, "I shall not die, but live,"
present yourselves anew unto your delivering Lord as living sacrifices
through Jesus Christ your Lord! Amen.
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