Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 773
Delivered on Thursday Evening, SEPTEMBER 19, 1867, by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“Oh how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for them that fear You, which You have worked for them that trust in You before the sons of men.”- Psalm 31:19.
YOU will observe in reading this Psalm that David was in deep distress. These are the words of his lamentation: “My life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones are consumed. I was a reproach among all my enemies, but especially among my neighbors, and a fear to my acquaintances: they that did see me outside fled from me. I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.”
In this forlorn condition he found consolation by turning his contemplations away from his present trouble to the goodness of his God, even as a mariner turns the helm and so escapes the rock. Herein he was wise and instructed us to be wise, also. To ruminate upon our sorrows is but to increase them. To turn them over, and over, and over again is but to squeeze from them the most bitter drops which they contain. The more the turbid pool is stirred, the blacker will it become. Relieve your thoughts, then! Trade in another market! Let your minds exchange the pressing sorrow for sustaining consolation.
And what can be better, what nobler as a theme for inspiring hope, what mightier as a lever for uplifting the mind than reflection upon the amazing goodness of God? It has been said by a great physician that when persons find much difficulty in sleeping they have sometimes been able to win the embrace of “tired nature’s sweet restorer,” by fixing their minds upon a single sublime subject, a grand absorbing topic, a master theme or thought. As soon as the mind has been thoroughly absorbed in contemplation it has been at rest, and the body has rested, too. I know not how that may be, but certainly, when God would give “His beloved sleep” in times of distraction, and would lull their souls into a calm repose, there is no better sleeping pill which His hand can administer to the troubled spirit than a meditation upon the amazing goodness of the Lord our God.
Or, to change the metaphor, we know that when young lads first go to sea, if they have before been unaccustomed to climb to elevated places they are apt to grow dizzy when called to perform their duties on the mast. Then the experienced captain instructs them to “look up,” for if they look down, and measure timidly the height of the mast, and count the waves as they roll against the sides of the vessel, and terrify their minds with thoughts upon the heaving of the ship, and the terrors of falling from their hold, they are most likely to fall! But, looking to the motionless stars, and the calm, blue sky, the brain grows calm and the foot maintains its standing.
We would say, then, to any who are tossed upon the sea of trouble tonight—imitate the example of David and “look up.” Turn away your minds from the slanderer and the persecutor. Forget awhile the fever and the need, and remember the loving kindness of Jehovah. You may find it almost impossible to keep your minds always tending upwards, but at any rate, while you are here, “look up” with eyes uplifted to the hills from where your help comes. Happy will it be for you if, by the good Spirit of God, you can but get your eyes so fixed upon the goodness of God that you shall become so fascinated that your attention cannot be taken off that glorious object! It will be a blessing to you, a great blessing which will bear you through all your trials and make you suck honey from the rock and oil out of the flinty rock.
Now note the text carefully. David thought of the goodness of God till he was lost in wonder, and being quite unable to express his feelings he uttered an exclamation, “Oh, how great is Your goodness!” We will consider, first, the subject of holy wonder mentioned in the text. Secondly we will consider the partakers of this Divine goodness. Then, thirdly, we
shall note some general matters which tend to enhance our admiration of the goodness of God. And fourthly, we will notice sundry teachings which flow from the whole subject.
I. In the first place, observe in the text THE SUBJECT OF HOLY WONDER—“Your goodness.” We here perceive God’s goodness in a twofold aspect, as laid up in store and already displayed in a measure, “Oh how great is Your goodness which You have laid up!” And secondly, “Oh how great is Your goodness which You have worked before the sons of
men!”
1. We shall devoutly take the first of these. David is astonished at the great goodness of God which is laid up—the goodness of God which David had not as yet tasted, had not actually received—but which his faith realized and looked upon as its fixed and settled heritage. The spirit of our text is that of Miss Waring’s delightful hymn in which she exclaims—