Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord.
The tender heart
I. The circumstances in which such a character may be placed and tried.
1. It may often have to contend with great difficulties. Observe the illustration of this in the history before us.
2. It may sometimes be surrounded by external difficulties.
3. A tender heart may sometimes misunderstand, and therefore misinterpret, the follies and frailties of other Christians. There must be the knowledge of evil as well as of good in the Christian as in the common life. Stumbling-blocks will be found, though deeply to be deplored, in every section of the Christian Church.
II. Some of the indications of a tender heart. All life reveals itself. The tiniest herb or flower that drinks the morning dew reveals itself. Life cannot be hid, and that because it is life. Not always in the same manner, but always in some manner; for as external life is full of variety, from the “cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that groweth on the wall,” so inward religious life has its manifold phases, full of variety, full of beauty, and all significant of their Divine origin. Let us notice some--
1. There will be thoughtful interest in religious truth. We cannot conceive of the commencement, much less of the continuation, of a religious life in connection with thoughtlessness.
2. There will be practical co-operation in works of religious activity. Religious life has ever holy work to do, as holy words to say. The commencement of this new life starts with the question, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”
3. There will be devout interest in religious assemblies. The object of Christian assemblies is one--the worship of God and the edification of the Church. In proportion as our heart is penetrated with the ideas proper to, and regulated by the principles of, the Christian life, there will not only be the desire but the determination to avail ourselves of seasons of religious worship for purposes of spiritual improvement.
4. There will be also personal determination to secure religious progress. First the blade, but afterwards, if the blade is healthy, there will be the ear: lovely is the blade in all its tenderness and vigour, so in its season is the maturing ear, that gives promise of the fully ripened and perfectly developed corn in the ear.
III. The blessedness of having a tender heart. Because,
1. It is the disposition produced by the influences of God’s Spirit. It is God” who worketh in us both to will and to do.” “Every good and perfect gift cometh down from above”
2. Because it will prevent great irregularity if not sinfulness of life. Religion subtracts nothing from the real enjoyment of life. The happiest transaction of life is the hour of consecration to God.
3. Because a tender heart is the sure sign of a regenerate one. “And whom He did,” etc. (Rom_8:29.) (W. G. Barrett.)
Humility the grace of graces
“I was always exceedingly pleased with that saying of Chrysostom,” says Calvin, “‘The foundation of our philosophy is humility.’ And yet more pleased with that of Augustine. ‘As,’ says he, ‘the rhetorican being asked was what the first thing in the rules of eloquence, he answered, Pronunciation. What was the second, Pronunciation. What was the third, still he answered, Pronunciation So if you ask me concerning the graces of the Christian character, I would answer, firstly, secondly, and thirdly, and for ever, humility.’” And thus it is that God sets open His school for teaching us humility every day. Humility is the grace of graces for us sinners to learn. There is nothing again like it, and we must have a continual training and exercise in it. You learn to pronounce by your clients complaining that they cannot hear you, and that they must carry their cases to another advocate unless you learn to speak better. And, as you must either please your patrons or die of starvation, you put pebbles in your month and you go out to recite by yourself by the riverside till your rhetoric is fit for a Greek judge and jury to sit and hear. And so with humility, which is harder to learn than the best Greek accent. You must go to all the schools, and put yourself under all the disciplines that the great experts practise, if you would put on this humility. And the schools of God to which He puts His great saints are such as these. You will be set second to other men every day. Other men will be put over your head everyday. Rude men will ride roughshod over your head every day. God will set His rudest men, of whom He has whole armies, upon you every day to judge you, and to find fault with you, and to correct you, and to blame you, and to take their business away from you to a better--to a better than you can ever be with all the pebbles that ever river rolled. Ay, He will take you in hand Himself, and He will set you and will keep you in a low place. (Alex. Whyte,D. D.)
Humbleness the work of true Christian
John Newton wrote a book about grace in the blade, and grace in the ear, and grace in the full corn in the ear. A very talkative body said to him, “I have been reading your valuable book, Mr. Newton; it is a splendid work; and when I came to that part, ‘the full corn in the ear’ I thought how wonderfully you had described me.” “Oh,” replied Mr. Newton, “but you could not have read the book rightly, for it is one of the marks of the full corn in the ear, that it hangs its head very low.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)
