Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 822
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, July 20, 1868, by C. H. SPURGEON, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington..
“As the deerpants after the water brooks, so pants my soul after You, O God.” Psalm 42:1.
THERE is something to be lamented in this state of mind, for if the Psalmist had maintained unbroken communion with his God, he would not have been so much panting after Him as enjoying Him. It is deeply to be deplored that we, who sometimes bask in the sunshine of God’s Countenance, cannot live so as always to enjoy it. Why do we wander? Why do we grieve His Holy Spirit? Why do we turn aside from God, our exceeding joy? Why do we provoke Him to jealousy and cause Him to make us grope in darkness, and sigh out of a lonely and desolate heart? There is much of an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.
If, therefore, we can join in the language of the text, we must not too much congratulate ourselves, for though it is a sign of Divine Grace to pant after God as the deer pants for the water brooks, yet it is an equally certain sign of a need of more Grace, and the loss of a privilege which we should strive always to possess. We are yet but poor in spiritual things when we might be rich. We are thirsting when we might put flagons to our lips. At the same time there is very much which is commendable in the desire expressed in the text—the insatiable desire which burned in the Psalmist’s heart is a heavenly flame enkindled from above.
If I have not my Lord in near and dear communion, it is at least the next best thing to be unutterably wretched until I find Him. If I do not sit at His banquets, yet blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness. If my Beloved is not in my embrace, yet so long as I am not contented without Him—so long as I sigh, and cry, and follow hard after Him—I may be assured that I am in the possession of His love and that before long I shall find Him to the joy of my soul. Our text, then, has a warp and a woof of differing colors—sin and Grace are mingled—the wine is mixed with water, yet it is wine. There is some alloy in the silver, yet silver it assuredly is.
David sighs as none but a Believer can do, and yet if he had not been a sinner, too, such sighs had not been necessary. Brothers and Sisters, such good and such evil are in you—search and look—and pray the great Spirit to remove the ill and nourish the good.
I. Coming straight to the text, we shall notice, in the first place, THE OBJECT OF THE DESIRE which the Psalmist here describes. The deer pants after the water brooks and David pants after his God, the living God. I do not find him expressing a single word of regret as to his absence from his throne. Probably he wrote this Psalm when he had been expelled from his country by his ungrateful son, Absalom. But he does not say, “My soul pants after my royalties and the splendor of the kingdom of Judah.” No, not a word of it. He lets the baubles go. He gives up these uneasy pomps, content to let all go forever if he may but find his God.
Well may we let the chaff go if we retain the wheat. I do not find him even mentioning his home, and yet he was a man of a loving spirit who delighted to bless his household. But here I read not a word concerning his palace, his gardens, or his treasuries—not even for his children can he spare a sigh! Let him be banished from his own house and it will not displease him if he is not banished from the House of God, also. To him his dwelling place was the Lord, and dwelling in the secret place of the Most High, his joys were all complete.
Nor is there even a word about his much loved country. David was a very prince of patriots, yet he sighs not for Jerusalem. He pines not for the well of Bethlehem—neither the roses of Sharon nor the lilies of the valley command his lamentations—for the excellency of Carmel or the glory of Lebanon he utters no cry of desire. His one sigh is for his God, the God of his life, his exceeding joy! When shall he come and appear before God? When shall he join in the assembly and keep the Sabbath?
This one grief, like a huge torrent, swept away all minor streams, absorbing themselves into its own rush and volume. Like an avalanche which binds the snow masses to itself as it descends, so his one desire concentrated all the vehemence and force of his nature. His God, his God—he cannot live without his God! He cries for Him as a lost child for its father. As a bleating lamb he will not be content till he finds his parent. David pined for permission to enjoy, again, the means of Divine Grace. He longed to go up to the Tabernacle once again. He desired to see the priests offering the sacrifices, and himself go unto the altar of God.
But observe, Beloved, that he does not dwell upon the outward worship, nor dilate upon its symbolic pomp and sacred splendor—he passes right through them all, as the priest of old passed through the outer court! Only the innermost court will satisfy him. He penetrates within the shell and desires the inward kernel. The carnal ordinance cannot content him—he must have the spiritual life and substance. He does not so much pine for the sacrifices as for his God—neither for the priest, nor for the altar, nor for the tabernacle does he cry—but for his God! He had learned what modern professors have not learned—that the outward is nothing, and the inward is everything!