Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 883
Delivered on Sunday Morning, AUGUST 1, 1869, by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“In the multitude of my thoughts within me, Your comforts delight my soul.”- Psalm 94:19.
IF man were a mere animal, his joy and sorrow would depend entirely upon outward things. Let but the trough be full and the swine are happy. Let the pasture be abundant and the sheep are content. In the sunshine every sparrow will be twittering on the trees. Let the heavens weep and every wing is drooping. In long drought, or severe frost, or pinching famine the animal creation languishes and pines. You cannot, however, be sure of making a man happy by surrounding him with abundance, nor can you plunge a Christian man into wretchedness by any deprivations which you may cause him. Man’s greatest joy or sorrow must arise from inner springs.
The mind itself is the lair of misery or the nest of happiness. Thoughts are the flowers from which we must distil the essential flavorings of life. Paul and Silas sing in the stocks because their minds are at ease, while Herod frets on his throne because conscience makes him a coward. The soul of Linmeus exults within him at the sight of a common all golden with blooming shrubs, while many a millionaire has roamed amid his gardens and conservatories and found no joy amid them. A crust of bread from one heart brings a song, from another a thousand acres of ripening grain can produce no thanksgiving.
Alexander, according to the old classic tale, sits down to weep over a conquered world, while many a peasant who has not a foot of ground to call his own rejoices in tribulation and glories in reproach. Our weal or woe is the outgrowth of seeds germinating within, not of branches which from without run over the wall. Happiness lies not in the outward, but in the inward. The fairest garden is that whose walks and arbors are in the secret of the soul—the richest and most mellow fruits are not plucked from the trees of the orchard, but are ripened within the spirit. Hence the importance of our guarding well our thoughts.
But this is the labor and difficulty, for thoughts are unstable things, unruly as the wild horses of the plains, fickle as the waves of the sea, swift as the swallow’s wings, impetuous as the hurricane, changeable as the clouds of Heaven. How are we to rule them? Sometimes they descend in clouds like the locusts, each one eager to devour our peace. They roar as the evening wolves—they howl like hungry dogs. Alas, poor boat, tossed to and fro by forces so subtle, variable and ungovernable—what shall be done for you? Hearken, for the text softly tells us that for the tempest-tossed mind there is a haven of rest, an anchorage where the weakest may find shelter from the storm!
Even when multitudes of thoughts are let loose and the soul is seething and raging like a tempestuous sea, there is rest to be had—peace and quiet are yet reserved for the chosen of the Lord. The verse before us is most instructive, indicating as it does, an oasis for desert travelers, a sunny island for weary voyagers. “In the multitude of my thoughts within me, Your comforts delight my soul.”
Our first meditation, this morning, will be concerning multitudinous thoughts and sacred comforts. We shall afterwards pass on, more briefly, to take a nearer view of these Divine consolations. And we shall conclude by making a contrast from the text concerning those men who neither experience the multitudes of thoughts nor the comforts from on
high.
I. MULTITUDINOUS THOUGHTS AND SACRED COMFORTS. This passage may be interpreted several ways. The most natural would be, I think, to refer it to thoughts tumultuous in the night of trial. There are occasions when we are grievously tried with troubles of an unusual order—and then it often happens that the floodgates of our judgment are drawn up and our liberated thoughts, in a raging torrent, without order, rush upon us foaming and threatening.
These thoughts will follow each other like gusts of an angry tempest. They may be such as these—the trouble itself, how severe it is, how it cuts one to the quick! Ten thousand other trials might have happened, any of which we fancy we
could have borne more patiently, but this affliction is the direst of all, the fiercest lion of the woods. Will it be possible to escape from such a terrible calamity? Close upon the heels of this consideration will come the thought that the trial will be too much for you—that you will never be able to bear it—that your patience will give way and your faith will cast away her confidence and give place to despair.
Immediately in the rear of this another suggestion will lift its black head—this trouble is the consequence of past sin—you have walked contrary to God and He is now walking contrary to you. You would never have been made to smart thus if there had not been some gross disobedience of which you have not thoroughly repented—which God has still upon His mind—and therefore does He make you the target for His arrows. Then, like a serpent of the pit, there will dart upward the hissing and devilish suggestion—God is now giving you up! He has been merciful up to this moment, but this peculiar trial, so severe, so long continued, so piercing and penetrating, touching you in your most tender part—this is the turning point in your history.