Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 836
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, October 11, 1868, by C. H. SPURGEON, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington..
“Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.” Psalm 97:11.
THIS appears to be the doctrine of the entire Psalm, and the verse which follows, “Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous,” is intended to be the practical inference drawn from the whole of it. God would have His people believe that better times are in store for them, and, in the faith of the coming good, He would have them, even now, rejoice and be exceedingly glad. If you will read the Psalm you will notice that every verse may give us some strengthening of our faith as to the future blessedness of those that fear the Lord.
The first verse declares that “the Lord reigns.” Shall so righteous a One sit upon the Throne of God and shall not those that fear Him have their reward? If He is King, will He suffer His loyal subjects to endure damage? Will He not ultimately come to their rescue? The second verse tells us that “clouds and darkness are round about Him,” and this explains why, for the present, the upright in heart may seem to be forgotten. God’s dispensations are not always clear. It is His to conceal a thing. He wraps Himself about in mystery, for the brightness of His Glory is dark with excessive light. If His way is unsearchable and His design deep beyond human understanding, we need not be surprised if we find it so in the dispensations of His Providence towards His people.
But still, as the second verse continues, “righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His Throne,” we may be certain, therefore, that He will not be unrighteous to forget our work of faith and labor of love—and that in dealing out judgment, both to His saints and to the ungodly—He will neither forget to reward the first nor to condemn the second. The third verse, which describes the Glory of the Divine power as displayed in deeds of vengeance, when the enemies of God are burnt up by fire, goes to prove that He will, with equal certainty, reward His people, for He who is stern to punish, surely will not be unrighteous to forget the gracious service of His saints!
If He has promised, He will be as certain to keep His promises as He has been to fulfill His threats. He will not be true on the black side towards the undeserving, and then be false on the bright side towards those who are made meritorious through the righteousness of His dear Son. He who keeps the thunder, and by-and-by will launch it from His hands, also reserves mercy for His chosen and favor for His people. Indeed, the sixth verse declares that the very constitution of the universe proves this—that every star twinkling in its sphere proclaims the righteousness and wisdom of God and therefore, since for Him to be righteous is for His people ultimately to be blessed, we conclude that “light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.”
With no other preface than this I shall take you at once to this very singular text, dwelling first upon the remarkable metaphor here used—sown light. And then, enlarging upon that metaphor, taking you to see the sowing, and thirdly, to survey and measure the field. Fourthly we will take an outlook upon the harvest in the future.
I. First, then, the metaphor is a rather singular one, and yet full of poetry—LIGHT IS SOWN. We can very soon catch the idea if we follow Milton in his speaking of the morning—
“Now morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime
Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl.”
The sun, like a sower, scatters broadcast his beams of light upon the once dark earth. Look up at night upon the sky bespangled with stars, and it seems as though God scattered them like gold dust upon the floor of Heaven in picturesque irregularity, thereby sowing light!
Or if you need a fact which comes nearer to the sowing of light, more literally than anything which our poets have written, think of our vast beds of coal which are literally so much sown light. The sun shone upon primeval forests and the monstrous ferns grew and expanded under the quickening influence. They fell, as fall the leaves of chestnut and of oak in these autumns of our latter days—and there they lie stored deep down in the great cellars of nature for man’s use—so much sown light, I say, which springs up beneath the hand of man in harvests of flame—which flood our streets with light, and cheer our hearths with heat!
Sown light, then, is neither unpoetical nor yet altogether unliteral. There is such a thing as a matter-of-fact, and we may use the expression rightly enough, without grotesqueness of metaphor. Understand, then, that happiness, joy, gladness—symbolized by light—have been sown by God in fields that will surely yield their harvest for all those whom, by His Grace, He has made upright in heart.