Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 768
Delivered by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“Save Your people, and bless Your inheritance: feed them also, and lift them up forever.”- Psalm 28:9.
LET me direct your attention to the verse before the text, and then let us read the text in connection with it, “The Lord is their strength, and He is the saving strength of His anointed. Save Your people, and bless Your inheritance: feed them also, and lift them up forever.” You have in the eighth verse the Church militant reviewed, and in the ninth verse the Church militant prayed for. With regard to the Psalmist’s review of the militant Church, it is summed up in two sentences: “Jehovah is their strength,” and “Jehovah is the saving strength of His anointed.” The people of God are strong, then, for their strength is spoken of. They are weak in themselves, yes—they confess themselves to be weakness itself— yet by faith, when they grasp the power of the Almighty, they are no longer feeble but they venture to say with the Apostle, ” I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.”
The power of the army of the Lord does not lie in connection with any one of His soldiers, in the man himself—the Lord is their strength. They may differ in many respects but this is true of every single warrior in the host of the Lord, that the Lord is his strength. He has no strength in the flesh. He cannot find anything there which can assist him. All his springs are in his God and he draws all his supplies for power in spiritual conflicts from God and from God alone. If you were to review the Prussian army, you might very properly say that the needle-gun is their strength—and years ago we used to feel quite sure that the Armstrong gun was our strength.
But if you examine the ranks of the Lord’s people, you will perceive that they rest in no chariots, nor horses, nor weapons of war—whether carnal or spiritual—the Lord Jehovah is the strength of the whole company! Can you not picture David reviewing his troops, looking along the ranks of the king’s mighties who had been with him in the cave of Adullam and had done good service in his attacks upon the Philistines, and in various skirmishes and battles in their youth, and their riper years? Can you not hear him say, “The Lord is their strength”? Can you not hear him, as he relates the heroics of his heroes, declaring that in every case they were made mighty by the God of Jacob?
David adds that the Lord is his strength, too. The confidence of the soldiers was also the confidence of the captain. “He is the saving strength of His anointed.” The margin has it, “He is the strength of salvation to His anointed,” for David had many salvation’s, many remarkable escapes and deliverances—and these he does not attribute to his own agility, foresight, wit, or wisdom, much less to the valor of his brave right hand—but he confesses that the Lord who was the strength of the soldiers was also the savior of their anointed monarch.
Put in David’s place tonight, before the eyes of your faith, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and He will say the same! He, in His day of feeble flesh, fought and overcame by the power of the Spirit with which He was anointed. He fought the battle for us in the strength of the Most High. And now, looking all along the ranks of those whom He leads to battle and to ultimate victory, He testifies tonight, “The Lord is their strength. He is the strength of salvation to His Anointed.”
I do not intend, however, to dwell upon that verse but shall take you at once to the text which is a prayer for the Church militant, a prayer divided into four parts. We ought to pray constantly for the people of God—they always need it and it is always our duty to remember their necessities. It is always our privilege to pray for one another. Prayer is always useful to the Church and therefore we should delight to exercise it. The fire upon the altar of intercession should never go out, neither by night nor by day! Our prayer for the Lord’s people should be comprehensive. The Church of God needs many things and we must not be content to ask for one thing when the Church needs many.
We must be thoughtful about our prayers, so that, like David, we may say much in little. Some people’s prayers have very little in them. They much abound with the chaff of utterance but have but one grain of the wheat of meaning. We must not rush into God’s Presence and there offer any words that may come to mind, but we should direct our prayer
unto God and meditate upon it, so that when we utter it there may be something in it, some meaning—not asking for a shadowy something, but pleading wisely for what we intelligently desire.
I make that remark because this prayer of David’s is peculiarly rich, eminently suggestive and full of meaning: “Save Your people, and bless Your inheritance: feed them also, and lift them up forever.” Here are four choice blessings—let us take them one by one.