Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1017
Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, October 22nd, 1871 by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“When thou awakest, it shall talk with thee”—Proverbs 6:22.
IT IS A VERY HAPPY CIRCUMSTANCE when the commandment of our father and the law of our mother are also the commandment of God and the law of the Lord. Happy are they who have a double force to draw them to the right—the bonds of nature, and the cords of grace. They sin with a vengeance who sin both against a father on earth and the great Father in heaven, and they exhibit a virulence and a violence of sin who do despite to the tender obligations of childhood, as well as to the demands of conscience and God. Solomon, in the passage before us, evidently speaks of those who find in the parents’ law and in God’s law the same thing, and he admonishes such to bind the law of God about their heart, and to tie it about their neck; by which he intends inward affection and open avowal. The law of God should be so dear to us, that is should be bound about the most vital organ of our being, braided about our heart. That which a man carries in his hand he may forget and lose, that which he wears upon his person may be torn from him, but that which is bound about his heart will remain there as long as life remains. We are to love the Word of God with all our heart, and mind, and soul, and strength; with the full force of our nature we are to embrace it; all our warmest affections are to be bound up with it. When the wise man tells us, also, to wear it about our necks, he means that we are never to be ashamed of it. No blush is to mantle our cheek when we are called Christians; we are never to speak with bated breath in any company concerning the things of God. Manfully must we take up the cross of Christ; cheerfully must we avow ourselves to belong to those who have respect unto the divine testimonies. Let us count true religion to be our highest ornament; and, as magistrates put upon them their gold chains, and think themselves adorned thereby, so let us tie about our neck the commands and the gospel of the Lord our God.
In order that we may be persuaded so to do, Solomon gives us three telling reasons. He says that God’s law, by which I understand the whole run of Scripture, and, especially the gospel of Jesus Christ, will be a guide to us:—“When thou goest, it shall lead thee.” It will be a guardian to us: “When thou sleepest”—when thou art defenceless and off thy guard—“it shall keep thee.” And it shall also be a dear companion to us: “When thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.” Any one of these three arguments might surely suffice to make us seek a nearer acquaintance with the sacred word. We all need a guide, for “it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” Left to our own way, we soon excel in folly. There are dilemmas in all lives where a guide is more precious than a wedge of gold. The Word of God, as an infallible director for human life, should be sought unto by us, and it will lead us in the highway of safety. Equally powerful is the second reason: the Word of God will become the guardian of our days; whoso hearkeneth unto it shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. Unguarded moments there may be; times, inevitable to our imperfection, there will be, when, unless some other power protect us, we shall fall into the hands of the foe. Blessed is he who has God’s law so written on his heart, and wears it about his neck as armour of proof, that at all times he is invulnerable, kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.
But I prefer, this morning, to keep to the third reason for loving God’s word. It is this, that is becomes our sweet companion: “When thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.” The inspired law of God, which David in the hundred and nineteenth Psalm calls God’s testimonies, precepts, statutes, and the like, is the friend of the righteous. Its essence and marrow is the gospel of Jesus, the law-fulfiller, and this also is the special solace of believers. Of the whole sacred volume it may be said, “When thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.” I gather four or five thoughts from this expression, and upon these we will speak.
I. We perceive here that THE WORD IS LIVING. How else could it be said: “It shall talk with thee”? A dead book cannot talk, nor can a dumb book speak. It is clearly a living book, then, and a speaking book: “The word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” How many of us have found this to be most certainly true! A large proportion of human books are long ago dead, and even shrivelled like Egyptian mummies; the mere course of years has rendered them worthless, their teaching is disproved, and they have no life for us. Entomb them in your public libraries if you will, but, henceforth, they will stir no man’s pulse and warm no man’s heart. But this thrice blessed book of God, though it has been extant among us these many hundreds of years, is immortal in its life, unwithering in its strength: the dew of its youth is still upon it; its speech still drops as the rain fresh from heaven; its truths are overflowing founts of ever fresh consolation. Never book spake like this book; its voice, like the voice of God, is powerful and full of majesty.