Sermon 3246. God's Thoughts and Ours

(No. 3246)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 1911.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 19, 1868.

"How precious also are Your thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!" Psalm 139:17.

[Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon upon verses 17 and 18 is #2609, Volume 45-OUR THOUGHTS ABOUT GOD'S THOUGHTS.]

IT is very comforting to us to believe in a personal God and to be able to confide in One who condescends to think lovinglyof us, considers our needs and supplies them. It would not be very comforting to us to believe in a mere abstract Deity, orin what some people call, "the laws of Nature" acting by themselves apart from God, or in a fixed fate that would crush uslike some colossal car of Juggernaut. Yet some people seem to be always struggling to get away from the thought of one truepersonal God-Creator, Preserver, Redeemer and All-in-All to His people. Those who deny the Inspired record of the Creationwould have us believe that we are descended from monkeys, or from something with even less intelligence than an ape possesses!But I could gather no comfort from such a belief as that if it were true. It fills me rather with pity or contempt for thosewho can be so foolish as to cherish such a delusion. But when I come back to the Revelation of the Bible concerning a personalGod-a Revelation which has been confirmed by my own spiritual experience-and when I realize that this personal God takes aspecial interest in me and thinks of me with tender, loving, gracious consideration, then I lift up my hands in adoring wonderand say, as David did, "How precious also are Your thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!" Yes, there is greatcomfort in being able truthfully to say, "Our Father, who are in Heaven"-and those who are really the sons and daughters ofthe Lord Almighty find it to be their chief delight that He thinks about them and plans all that is for their present andeternal good!

I. Coming to our text, I ask you to consider, first, HOW PRECIOUS ARE GOD'S THOUGHTS OF US AND HOW PRECIOUS IT IS TO US TOTHINK ABOUT THESE THOUGHTS.

First of all, let me say that the very fact that God thinks of us is, in itself precious. Perhaps someone here says, "It isnot so in my case! I am quite alarmed at the thought that God thinks about me. It is no comfort to me to say, 'You, God, seeme.' Such a thought as that only fills me with terror." I can quite understand, dear Friend, how you feel. Of course, if youonly think of God as if He were an officer of justice with a warrant for your apprehension, it would be a dreadful thing foryou to realize that He is thinking of you. But suppose you were His child-would it not then be a continual joy to you to reflectthat your heavenly Father was constantly thinking of you? If you were completely reconciled to Him by the death of His Son.If no consciousness of guilt remained upon your conscience. If you knew that all God's thoughts concerning you were thoughtsof love-then you would bless His name that He was so gracious and kind as to think of you!

Further, those who are serving the Lord delight to remember that He is thinking of them. After we have been reconciled toGod, it becomes our great privilege to spend such strength as we have in promoting His Glory. Well, no one is ashamed of beingsent on a good errand! The eyes of God, instead of being dreadful to the man whose heart is right with Him, is one of Hisgreatest encouragements! He feels that though his fellow men may never say, "Well done, good and faithful servant," it willbe enough for him to know that God has seen him, that God keeps a Book of Remembrances, and that, at the last, a full reward,not of debt, but of Grace, shall be given to him who is faithful. I do not know how it is with you idle professors who professto be saved, but who do little or nothing for Christ-I do not see how the fact that God is observing you can give you anycomfort. If it is true that you are not your own, but that you are bought with

a price, even with the precious blood of Jesus, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, can you calmly think of Godwatching your idle hours, listening to your many words that have no weight, no value in them and noting how you neglect yourmany opportunities of serving your day and generation? But, on the other hand, in proportion as you are constrained by thelove of Christ to be instant in season and out of season, in the same proportion will it be sweet to you to remember thatthe Lord is observing you and that He is always at your right hand to help you in your service for Him!

We also learn the preciousness of God's thoughts to us as we depend implicitly upon Him as the great Lord of Providence. Itis of little use to you to have anyone thinking of you if his thoughts never bring you any practical help. But if you havea rich friend who has promised, as soon as possible, to find you a position in which you will be provided for as long as youlive, I would not be surprised to hear that even while you have been at this service, you have been gratefully thinking ofhim. "Yes," you have been saying, "I could not make my way on my own account, but I have a friend at my back who says thathe will see that I shall never be in need-and it comforts me to think that he is thinking of me." Well then, if the promiseof an earthly friend'affords so much consolation as that, how much more should this be the case with you who have a heavenlyFriendwho is both able and willing to fulfill all His promises? He is always thinking of what is best for you-what you requiretoday and what you will require tomorrow-He is always anticipating your needs, providing Elims, with wells and palm treeswhile you are travelling through the desert. And as you meditate upon the way in which He is thinking of how He shall bless,perfect and glorify you, His thoughts must, indeed, be precious to you!

One reason why God's thoughts concerning us are peculiarly precious is that gracious men long to get near to God. They arenot satisfied with what they are. The wanderings of their thoughts towards inferior objects are a burden to them and theyare continually longing to get nearer to God. If there is one cry that rises more frequently to our lips than any other, itis this-

"Nearer, my God, to You, Nearer to You!"

But, alas, our thoughts of God are a very poor help to us in drawing us nearer to Him! They flag, tire and soon die-but thethoughts of God toward us are strong, like God, Himself, is-and these, like so many unbreakable cords firmly fastened to us,are drawing us always nearer to Him! Thought leads to action and God's thinking of us leads to the practical action of drawingus nearer to Himself. So the fact that He is continually thinking of us encourages us to believe that we shall one day beclose to Him and be qualified to be close to Him-being perfectly conformed to the image of Christ- and drawn into the closestpossible fellowship with God.

And the nearer we get to God, the more precious will His thoughts of us become to us. If we were not such babes in Christand so carnal, we would prize every crumb from our Father's table-and much more-every thought from our Father's mind! We wouldprize, far above gold and rubies, what I may call the ordinary outgoings of the Divine mind in His Providential arrangementsfor us. But much more should we value those deep, eternal, infinite thoughts which have already secured our salvation andwhich shall, before long, complete our sanctification and our glorification, too!

II. Now, secondly, there are SOME POINTS IN CONNECTION WITH GOD'S THOUGHTS OF US WHICH RENDER THEM ALL THE MORE PRECIOUS TOUS.

And, first, let us remember that God's thoughts of us are everlasting. When we begin to think of Jehovah's thoughts of loveconcerning His people, we have to go back beyond the region of time and get where all dates are lost in the shoreless seaof eternity! Beloved, you were loved of your God long before He created the world! Yes, from everlasting He had thoughts oflove toward you-then must not those thoughts be, indeed, precious to you? Besides, as they were from eternity, so they willbe toeternity-God will still be thinking lovingly of you when sun, moon and stars have fulfilled their mission and been forgotten-andwhen all things which men now count solid and lasting shall have dissolved like the bubble upon the billow's crest and passedaway forever! God has so linked you with His Son that He has made you also to have a life which is eternal and which can neverdie. Let all things perish and the pillars of the universe crumble and decay, and the whole visible creation fall with thunderouscrash, yet you, the Beloved of the Lord, shall dwell safely with Him!-

"Far from a world of grief and sin With God eternally shut in."

His thoughts will always be directed towards you, He will never forget you! There has never been a moment in the past whenHe did not think of you. Even in your years of sin, He looked upon you with an eye of pity. In your deepest depres-

sion His heart was full of sympathy for you. Never has there been an hour, in the silent watches of the night, or amid thecares and businesses of the day, in which He has not always been thinking of you just as much as if you were the only beingHe had ever created! The Lord has from the first been looking upon you and thinking of you as though you were the sole centerof His undivided attention-and so will He continue to think of you incessantly!

The Lord's thoughts of you are especially precious because they have always been thoughts of love. Even when you were deadin trespasses and sins and He hated your sins, He did not hate you, for He had loved you with an everlasting love-

"He saw you ruined in the Fall, Yet loved you, notwithstanding all. He saved you from your lost estate, His loving kindnessoh, how great!"

This is the love of which Paul wrote to the Ephesians, "His great love wherewith He loved us even when we were dead in sins."Andever since your conversion, God's thoughts concerning you have been thoughts of love. He has smitten you sorely until youhave felt that surely He must be your enemy, but it was not so-never has there been anything but love for you in the greateternal heart of God. If-

"With afflictions He may scourge us, Send a cross for every day"- this is not a proof of His anger toward us-on the contrary,it is a token of His affection-

"All to make us

Sick of self, and fond of Him."

Besides this, God's thoughts of us have always been wise thoughts. They have not been such casual thoughts as pass throughmen's minds while journeying quickly by road or rail and merely noticing this object here and that other object over yonder.But God's thoughts have infinitely more in them than the deepest thoughts of men can ever have. You know that there are manyways of thinking of a certain thing-you may think of it in such a way as just to keep it in remembrance, or you may thinkof it so intently as to lie awake at night, turning it over in your mind, looking at it from all points of view so that youmay understand it in all its bearings. You may think of it with the careful consideration that a barrister gives to an importantcase for which he is about to plead, or that an inventor gives to the intricate details of a machine that he is seeking toperfect. Such consideration as that, only of an infinitely higher order, God gives to every one of His people! He is continuallyarranging that which is most for the good in His Providential dealings with them and constantly thinking and working on theirbehalf with the ultimate view of bringing many sons unto Glory. God's thoughts are always wise, but they are so high aboveour thoughts that we cannot attain to them! Yet the more we are able to comprehend them, the more wisdom and prudence shallwe perceive in them.

Once more, these thoughts of God towards us are pre-eminently practical. God so thought of you, Brothers and Sisters in Christ,as to ordain you unto eternal life! Concerning the whole Church of the living God this decree was pronounced, "They shallbe Mine, says the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels." Not only was there a Divine Decree concerning them,but there was an Eternal Covenant made between the Father and the Son by which the everlasting salvation of all the chosenis Infallibly secured! More than that, in the fullness of time, those eternal thoughts of love took practical effect in thegift of God's only-begotten and well-beloved Son to die for His people, "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us toGod." These thoughts of God further took effect by the coming into our hearts of the Holy Spirit so that now, through HisDivine power and energy, we have been converted, renewed in the spirit of our minds, helped thus far towards Heaven and comfortedwith the full assurance that we shall, in due time, be brought into our heavenly Father's immediate Presence, unblemishedand complete! So you see, Beloved, that the thoughts of God toward us should be exceedingly precious to us because they areof such a practical character that they bring to us all the blessings-temporal and spiritual-which we daily enjoy.

III. Now, thirdly, let us briefly notice SOME TIMES WHEN GOD'S THOUGHTS ARE PECULIARLY PRECIOUS TO US.

It is so when we have been betrayed and deserted by some in whom we have confided. When he that ate bread with us has liftedup his heel against us, then we turn to our ever-faithful Friend and we rejoice to know that His thoughts con-

cerning us are never false and treacherous! He is the Friend who sticks closer than a brother. He is always true even thougheveryone else should prove to be a liar. Ahithopel may forsake his king, Judas may betray his Lord and we, in our measure,may know what it is to be forsaken and betrayed-but God's thoughts towards us shall, all the while, be thoughts of love andfaithfulness! Vain was the trust we reposed in some who went out from us because they were not of us! But God has never forsakenus, He has always been thinking of us for good and, therefore, His thoughts are peculiarly precious to us.

So are they also when we are neglected by our fellow Christians and by others who ought to esteem us. It must be very hardto continue toiling on in some obscure sphere without having a kind word or a cheering smile from anyone- to be living, perhaps,as a servant in a family and striving to do your duty faithfully-yet never meeting with the slightest encouragement from thoseat the head of the household. Or to be earnestly working as a Bible-woman or a city missionary in some back district and havingso little success that your superintendent looks upon you as if you were doing nothing! I can imagine how painful this mustbe to your sensitive spirit and how comforting it is to you to think, "Well Jesus knows all about it and Hsthoughts are worthfar more than the thoughts of men, for He can read my heart and He can see that it is love to Him that constrains me to dowhat I can in His service. Men may call me a fool, but if my Master knows that I only desire to be a fool for His sake-ifHe considers that I am faithfully serving Him to the best of my ability-how precious will His thoughts be to me!"

This is also especially the case when our words and actions are misconstrued and misrepresented. Some of us know what thistrial means. When we have tried to be disinterested and have really been so, men have said that we have acted from some sinistermotive. When we have spoken with the utmost plainness and simplicity, we have often been misunderstood and, worse than that,we have been willfully misrepresented! Well, what then? Our heavenly Father knows the sincerity of our motives and the meaningof our words, so we take the whole case away from this lower court where human tongues jangle and cause strife, and we appealto the Supreme Court of King's Bench in Heaven! Our petition is, "O Lord, You give the verdict in this case! You know whohas desired to serve You faithfully and to speak Your Truth with courage! You give a righteous decision which none can deny!"Atsuch times as these, the fact that God thinks upon us is peculiarly precious to us.

So is it in times of perplexity when we are, as Bunyan said, "all tumbled up and down in our thoughts." I suppose, dear Friend,you sometimes get into such a condition that although you have all the forces of Omnipotence at your disposal, you are sodistracted that you do not know how to make use of them. You are in a place where two seas meet- wave upon wave rolls overyou and you fear that you will be overwhelmed. You do not know what to do! You cannot think of any way of escape out of yourperplexity. Well then, do not try to do it-cease from even thinking about the matter and refer it to the Great Thinker whocan bring good out of evil, light out of darkness and order out of confusion!

God's thoughts are also precious to us when our own thoughts are bright and cheerful. The genuine Christian does not run tohis God merely in his times of trouble, but he delights himself in the Lord at all times, and under all circumstances! Hethinks of Him when he is in the land of drought, but he does not forget Him in the land of peace and plenty, for he singsthen-

"If peace and plenty crown my days They help me, Lord, to speak Your praise."

Let your brightest thoughts, Beloved, always be those that concern your Lord! And above all the joys of earth let this joyrise to the very zenith-that your heavenly Father thinks of you! This is a better fortune for you than thousands of gold andsilver! This is a better protection for you than the friendship of ten thousand times ten thousand earthly friends! This agreater consolation than all the comforts of time can ever afford you! In your brightest hours, Believer, I hope that youwill still say with the Psalmist, "How precious also are Your thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!"

IV. My time has gone, but I want to give you just A FEW PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS ARISING OUT OF THIS SUBJECT.

The first is this-if God's thoughts are so precious to us, how very precious His Words ought to be! Here, in this InspiredVolume, you have the thoughts of the Divine Thinker, Incarnated, if I may use the word in that sense and, therefore, I wouldhave you prize very highly every Word in this blessed Book. There are many, nowadays, who refuse to be-

lieve in the verbal Inspiration of the Scriptures, but I fail to see how the sense of Scripture can be Inspired if the Wordsin which that sense is expressed are not also Inspired! I believe that the very Words, in the original Hebrew and Greek, wererevealed from Heaven! And notwithstanding every objection that can be brought from any quarter, I have never been able toget away from the firm belief that if I give up my Master's Words, I give up His thoughts, also. I cannot well love a man'ssoul without having an affection for his body, also. And I cannot love God's thoughts, which are the soul of His Revelation,without loving the Words which are the body in which it comes to us. Do not tamper with the Words of Scripture, nor even witha single letter of it, but say, "How precious also are Your Words unto me, O God!" Have we not known times when the blessingwhich we have derived from a text has come to our hearts, not so much from the main thought contained in it, as from the useof one special Word? Some of us, on turning to our Greek Testaments, have been perfectly astounded to find that a particularWord has been used which has exactly met the predicament in which we have been placed-and if the Holy Spirit had moved thewriter to use any other word, it would not have been so suitable to the circumstances in which we then were! We praise Himfor selecting that very word and not any one of its synonyms which would not so precisely have met our case. Therefore, Brothersand Sisters in Christ, prize the Words of God above everything else that you possess!

Oh, for more Bible reading! I fear that this is an age when almost everything else is read except that which is most worthreading! I believe that many professedly Christian people positively poison their minds and stop up all the avenues of sensewith the masses of sawdust, chaff and smut that they get out of their light reading-which a man might read to all eternitywithout ever being the better for it! Yet, all the while, there are solid, sober, interesting books full of valuable informationand instruction that are left unread and, worst of all, God's Book, the Bible, itself, is lying neglected upon the shelf!True Bible readers and Bible searchers never find it wearisome. They like it least who know it least and they love it mostwho read it most. They find it newest who have known it longest, and they find the pasture to be the richest whose souls havebeen the longest fed upon it. When one of our missionaries had to read a certain Book of the Old Testament through a hundredtimes while he was translating it, he said that he certainly enjoyed the 100th time of reading it more than he did the first,for he understood it better and it seemed to him to be fuller and fresher, the more familiar he became with it.

In the next place, as God's thoughts are so precious to us, God's actions, which spring from His thoughts, ought also to beprecious to His people. They ought to be so, but are they? Perhaps one of God's actions has been to lay low in sickness onewho is very dear to you-can you say to God, "How precious is that action"? No. You shake your head, for you cannot say that.Possibly you have had a great loss, today, and that loss came by the direction of God. Now, God first thought. Then He actedand took away something that you greatly prized. You say that you cannot see any preciousness in that-but if you judged accordingto faith, and not according to sense, you would say-"Yes, Lord, this trial is precious to me because I believe it comes fromYou. And I will not only submit to it, but I will thank You for it, and even fall in love with the cross which You have laidon me." As we look back over our past experience, we see how precious our trials have been to us. Someone said, "Give me backmy bed of languishing. Give me back the aches and pains that I suffered in that long, trying illness if I may but have suchenjoyment of my Master's Presence as I had then."

Now, in closing, let me just say that as God's thoughts are so precious to us, we should make the best return we can by thinkingmuch of Him. You, Believer, are married to Christ. And as your Husband is always thinking of you, can you be content to livewithout thinking often of Him? Have you lived through this day in forgetfulness of Him? Have you been so occupied with thetoils and cares of this life that you have forgotten Him who has given you a higher, nobler and better life than this? Ifthat has been the case with you, then blush for very shame and ask forgiveness of your Lord-and let this be your sincere prayer-"LordJesus, You are always thoughtful of me. From now on, by Your gracious Spirit's blessed working, make me always thinking ofYou."

I fear that I am addressing a great many who do not often think of God and that there are some of you to who it would be acomfort if there were no God at all. Or, if you do think of Him at all, He is only an all-powerful Being of whom you standin dread because you fear that He will punish you for your sins. Then take warning, by your own thoughts of God and seek tobe reconciled to Him so that you may no longer have cause to fear His righteous anger! That reconciliation may be obtainedby simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one Mediator between God and men! So if you put your case into His handsand ask Him to act as your Advocate, He will, by His Spirit, reveal to you the glorious Truth of God that the reconciliationwas effected long ago, when He laid down His life for you upon the Cross of Calvary! Then, when you have received this blessedassurance, it shall be your continual delight to think of God, and your constant bliss to know that He is thinking of you.And you will say, in the words of our text, "How precious also are Your thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!"

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM119:105-120.

We will read tonight two of the stanzas which make up the 119th Psalm, beginning at the 105th verse. Verse 105. Your Wordis a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. God's Word is full of brilliance. It is always giving out its blessed light.It casts a light upon all our daily life. It is a light for the house and a light for the way, and happy is the man who neverwalks abroad without this lantern to light up his pathway! There are many pitfalls on the road and many places where the traveler'sgarments may soon be smeared, so he has great need of this light to guide him.

106. I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep Your righteous judgments. I scarcely remember ever hearing of aman swearing and then approving of it, but this kind of swearing is right enough-"I have sworn, and I will perform it, thatI will keep Your righteous judgments." We are to determine with the most vehement resolution that, God helping us, we willkeep His righteous judgments, for if we have only a weak resolution, we usually fall short even of our own determination.What shall we do, then, if that determination is itself weak? Some of us have lifted our hands to Heaven and pledged ourselvesto the living God that we will be His faithful people-

"High Heaven, that heard the solemn vow, That vow renewed shall daily hear."

107. I am afflicted very much.Here is a good man, a better man than most of us, a man who is determined to do right, yet hegets into trouble because he is determined to do right. God's wheat will be threshed. His gold will be put into the furnace.If you were worth nothing to Him, God might not take the trouble to afflict you, but when you are resolved to do right, youmay expect that resolution to be tried and tested! And if it is worth anything, it will stand the trial. "I am afflicted verymuch"-what will be the next words, "Lord, deliver me"? No, no! "Lord, bring me out of the furnace"? Nothing of the sort! "Iam afflicted very much"-

107. Quicken me, O LORD, according unto Your Word. "Give me more spiritual life! Give me more spiritual strength! That iswhat I most need." Oftentimes that prayer is answered by the affliction, itself-we are afflicted very much and by that veryaffliction the Lord quickens our Divine Graces, strengthens our souls, drives away many of our wandering thoughts and bringsus nearer to Himself!

108. Accept, I beseech You, the freewill offerings of my mouth, O LORD. "My prayers, my praises, my testimonies, my ministries-acceptthem all, O Lord"-

108. And teach me Your judgment. He who teaches others needs teaching himself. He who hopes that what he says will be acceptedby those who hear it, opens his ears to hear what God says to him. There will be no acceptance of what you say to others unlessyou accept what God says to you!

109. My soul is continually in my hand. David's life was often in jeopardy. Saul hunted him as a partridge upon the mountainsand he afterwards fled from Absalom. He was sometimes very sick and ready to die. Perhaps also, at times, he was in such greatsorrow that he felt as if his soul was a thing that he held in his hand. We do not know exactly where our soul is, but weusually think of it as being somewhere in the very center of our being. David says that he had his soul in his hand-wherehe might at any time lose it. But what else does he say?

109. Yet do I not forget Your Law."If I have even to die for it, I am willing to die for it. If I have to lay down my lifebecause I will do right, I will do right even while I lay down my life."

110. The wicked have laid a snare for me: yet I erred not from Your precepts. "If I had done so, I should have been caughtin their snare, but as I kept straight on in the way of Your precepts, it little mattered how many snares they laid for me."

111. Your testimonies have I taken as an heritage forever Some take their own thoughts for their heritage, but it is a poorportion for anyone to have. Some take other men's philosophies for their heritage, but such a heritage as that is soon gone.But some of us can say, with regard to the Eternal and Immutable Truth of God, that we have got such a grip of it that wecannot give it up! There may come a thousand other changes but, by God's Grace, there will be no change in this matter! "Yourtestimonies have I taken as an heritage forever."

111. For they are the rejoicing of my heart [See Sermon #2415, Volume 41-THE BELIEVER'S HERITAGE OF JOY.] Well may a man lovethat which rightly makes him glad. Shall we ever forsake that which is the source of our greatest comfort? If some men hadgreater gladness in the Gospel, they would be more true to it. If they had ever eaten the sweet, and enjoyed the fat thingsfull of marrow, they would never go away from the old old Gospel which has made their hearts so glad!

112, 113. I have inclined my heart to perform Your statues always, even unto the end. I hate vain thoughts: but Your Law doI love.Notice that the word, "vain," is not in the original. The Psalmist wrote, "I hate thoughts," yet the word for thoughtsincludesthe idea of mere thoughts. So, if any teaching in the world is the result of human thought, alone, you may not rely upon itfor a moment, for the Lord knows the thoughts of man, that "they are vanity," and they never will be anything better thanthat. The thoughts even of the most profound and the best instructed of men will not bear the weight and pressure of an immortalsoul's eternal interests! Revelation is the one reliable thing that we can rest upon. What God has spoken is all true, butas for what men have thought, I have been so often disappointed and deceived that I can say with the Psalmist, "I hate merethoughts, but Your Law do I love." In the Law of the Lord there are verities, certainties, immutabilities-here may we abideand rest securely!

114. You are my hiding place and my shield: I hope in Your Word. For You will be sure to do as You have said. Your promisesare not like men's-they cannot be broken-and when I get one of Your promises, O my God, I hide behind it, I am protected byit and I am comforted through it.

115. Depart from me, you evildoers: for I will keep the commandments of my God. Holy men often find that in order to be holy,they have to be solitary. It sometimes happens that the force of evil companionship is too much for the gracious heart tobear-and the Christian has to say to the ungodly, "Depart from me." Now, if even godly David had to say to evildoers, "Departfrom me," you need not wonder that the Lord Jesus Christ will one day say to all impenitent men, "Depart from Me, you evildoers."If we keep the commandments of our God, we shall often have to walk in a separate path from the ungodly. And even if we donot keep ourselves to ourselves, we shall keep ourselves to our God.

116. Uphold me I thought we should soon come to that petition. We have been reading about David's resolutions and we mighthave thought that he was too bold in speaking so positively, but now he shows us the modesty of his mind-"Uphold me"-

116. According unto Your Word, that I may live. The Lord upholds us as a nurse holds up a little child and teaches him towalk. 'Uphold me,' O Lord, for I cannot stand by myself. My good resolutions will soon evaporate unless You sustain me." Thereis a gracious promise which just answers this petition, "I will uphold you with the right hand of My righteousness."

116. And let me not be ashamed of my hope."O my God, never let me have to say that I have hoped in You in vain! I know I nevershall, but I trust to You not to disappoint me. Cast me not off in the time of old age! Forsake me not when my strength failsme!"

117. Hold You me up [See Sermon #1657, Volume 28-MY HOURLY PRAYER.] One is fond of that short, simple prayer. First it is,"Uphold me," and then, "Hold me up." Either way it is equally good-"Hold You me up"-

117. And I shall be safe: and I will have respect unto Your statutes continually. When God holds us up, there is no fear ofour falling down! We have respect unto His statutes when He has respect unto us.

118. 119. You have trodden down all them that err from Your statutes: for their deceit is falsehood. You put away all thewicked of the earth like dross. Perhaps some of you have seen the great heaps of slag lying outside the furnace. That is apicture of the ungodly-"You put away all the wicked of the earth like dross."

119. Therefore I love Your testimonies.What? Does love to the Truth of God and to the God of Truth spring out of this puttingaway of the wicked? Yes, even the stern justice of God makes His people love Him and love His Truth! I am of the same mindas the children of Israel were when Pharaoh and his army were swallowed up in the Red Sea, and the emancipated slaves sangunto the Lord who had triumphed so gloriously. Some cannot do that because their sympathy is so entirely with the wicked,but the destruction of all that is evil creates a flow of joy in the heart of the true Believer! Still, it is a fearsome joy,full of holy awe and trembling!

120. My flesh trembles for fear of You; and I am afraid of Your judgments. Well may we also tremble when we see how terribleGod is out of His holy places! There is a fear which is akin to love. As there is a fear which perfect love casts out, sois there another fear which love dandles on her knee-and such is the fear which David felt. May we, too, always have thatholy awe of God in our hearts! Amen.