Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 996
Delivered by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“I myself will awake early.”—Psalms 42:8.
The proper subject to treat upon with such a text would be the propriety and excellence of early rising, especially when we are desirous of praising or serving God. The dew of dawn should be consecrated to devotion. The text is a very remarkable expression, and might fitly be made the early riser’s motto. It is, in the original, a highly poetical phrase, and milton and others have borrowed or imitated it. “I will awaken in the morning.” So early would the psalmist arise for the praise of God that he would call up the day, and bid the sun arise from the chambers of the east, and proceed upon his journey. “I will awaken the morning.” Early rising has the example of Old Testament saints to recommend it, and many modern saints having conscientiously practiced it, have been loud in its praise. It is an economy of time and an assistance to health, and thus it doubly lengthens life. Late rising is the token of indolence, and the cause of disorder throughout the whole day. Be assured that the best hours are the first. Our City habits are to be deplored, because by late hours of retirement at night we find early rising difficult if not impossible. If we are able to escape the shackles of custom, and secure for devotion and contemplation the hour when the dew is on the grass, we may count ourselves thrice happy. If we cannot do all we would in this matter, at least let us do all we can.
That is not, however, the topic upon which I now desire to speak to you. I come at this time, not so much to plead for the early as for the awakening. The hour we may speak of at another time—the fact is our subject now. It is bad to awake late, but what shall be said of those who never awake at all? Better late than never: but with many it is to be feared it will be never. I would take down the trumpet and give a blast, or ring the alarm-bell till all the faculties of the sluggard’s manhood are made to bestir themselves, and he cries with new born determination, “I myself will awake.”
“Will awake.” This is a world in which most men nowadays are alive to their temporal interests. If in these pushing times any man goes about his business in a sleepy, listless fashion, he very soon finds himself on an ebb-tide, and all his affairs aground. The wideawake man seizes opportunities or makes them, and thus those who are widest awake usually come to the front. Years ago affairs moved like the broad-wheel wagon, very sleepily, with sober pause and leisurely progression, and then the son of the snail had a chancel but now, when we almost fly, if a man would succeed in trade he must be all alive, and all awake. If it be so in temporals, it is equally so in spirituals, for the world, the flesh, and the devil are all awake to compete with us; and there is no resolution that I would more earnestly commend to each one of the people of God than this one: “I will awake; I will awake at once; I will awake early, and I will pray to God that I may be kept awake, that my Christian existence may not be dreamy, but that I may be to the fullest degree useful in my Master’s service.” If this were the resolve of each, what a change would come over the Christian church! I long to see the diligence of the shop exceeded by the closet, and the zeal of the market excelled by the church. Each Christian is alive: but is he also awake? He has eyes, but are they open? He has lofty possibilities of blessing his fellow men, but does he exercise them? My heart’s desire is that none of us may feel the dreamy influence of this age, which is comparable to the enchanted ground; but that each of us may be watchful, wakeful, vigorous, intense, fervent. Trusting that the Holy Spirit may bless or meditations to our spiritual quickening, we shall briefly turn our thoughts to the consideration of two or three things.
I. Our text is connected with the duty of praise, and therefore our first point shall be—IT IS MOST NECESSARY THAT OUR MINDS SHOULD BE IN A STATE OF WAKEFULNESS WHEN WE ARE PRAISING GOD. Therefore, as we ought to be always praising him, our mind ought always to be wakeful. It is a shame to pray with the mind half asleep: it is an equal shame to attempt to praise God till all the powers of the mind are thoroughly aroused. David is herein a most fit example, for he sings, “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise. Awake up, my glory; awake, psalter and harp: I myself will awake early.”
We should be fully awake when engaged in private thanksgiving; the song of our solitude should be full of living joy. I am afraid there is very little private singing nowadays. We often hear discourse concerning private prayer, but very seldom of private praise: and yet ought there not to b as much private praise as private prayer? I fear from the seldomness of its being mentioned, that private thanksgiving has grown to be a sleepy affair. Then as to public worship, how earnest ought it to be! Yet how seldom is it hearty and real! How often do we hear half-awake singing. Sometimes a sort of musical box, consisting of pipes, keys, and bellows, is set to do all the adoration. The heathens of Tibet turn the wind to account religiously, by making it turn their windmills and pray for them; and our brethren in England, by an ingenious adjustment of pipes, make the same motive power perform their praise. Where this machinery is not adopted, still the Lord is robbed of his praise by other methods, Sometimes half a dozen skilled voices of persons who would be equally as much at home at the opera or the theater as in the house of God, are formed into a choir to perform the psalmody; and it is supposed that God accepts their formal notes as the praise of the entire assembly. How far different is the genuine song of gracious men who lift up their voices to the Lord because their hearts adore him! Oh, I love to hear every voice pouring out its note, especially if I can but hope that with every voice there is going forth a fervent heart. This warm hearted, joyful singing—why, it makes the congregation on earth to be like the assembly of the skies; and causes the meeting-place of the saints to be a faint type of the gathering of the angels and glorified spirits before the throne of God. To drone or to whisper in such a delightful exercise is criminal. If ever we should exhibit the angels’ wakefulness, it should be when we are emulating their employment.