Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1090
“Your wrath lies hard upon me, and You have afflicted me with all Your waves.” Psalm 88:7.
IT is the business of a shepherd not only to look after the happy ones among the sheep, but to seek after the sick of the flock and to lay himself out right earnestly for their comfort and succor. I feel, therefore, that I do rightly when I, this morning, make it my special business to speak to such as are in trouble. Those of you who are happy and rejoicing in God, full of faith and assurance, can very well spare a discourse for your weaker Brothers and Sisters—you can be even glad and thankful to go without your portion that those who are depressed in spirit may receive a double measure of the wine of consolation.
Moreover, I am not sure that even the most joyous Christian is any the worse for remembering the days of darkness which are stealing on apace, “for they are many.” Just as the memories of our dying friends come over us like a cloud and “dampen our brainless ardors,” so will the recollection that there are tribulations and afflictions in the world dampen our rejoicing and prevent its degenerating into an idolatry of the things of time and sense. It is better, for many reasons, to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting—the quassia cup has virtues in it which the wine cup never knew—wet your lips with it, young man, it will work you no ill. It may be, O you who are today brimming with happiness, that a little store of sacred cautions and consolations may prove no sore to you, but may, by-and-by, stand you in good stead.
This morning’s discourse upon sorrow may suggest a few thoughts to you which, being treasured up, shall ripen like summer fruit and mellow by the time your winter shall come round. But to our work. It is clear to all those who read the narratives of Scripture, or are acquainted with good men, that the best of God’s servants may be brought into the very lowest estate. There is no promise of present prosperity appointed to true religion so as to exclude adversity from Believer’s lives. As men, the people of God share the common lot of men and what is that but trouble? Yes, there are some sorrows which are peculiar to Christians—some extra griefs of which they partake because they are Believers. But these are more than balanced by those peculiar and bitter troubles which belong to the ungodly and are engendered by their transgressions, from which the Christian is delivered.
From the passage which is open before us we learn that sons of God may be brought so low as to write and sing Psalms which are sorrowful throughout and have no fitting accompaniment but sighs and groans. They do not often do so—their songs are generally like those of David which, if they begin in the dust, mount into the clear heavens before long. But sometimes, I say, saints are forced to sing such dolorous ditties that from beginning to end there is not one note of joy. Yet even in their dreariest winter night the saints have an aurora in their sky and in this 88th Psalm, the dreariest of all Psalms, there is a faint gleam in the first verse, like a star-ray falling upon its threshold—“O Jehovah, God of my salvation.”
Heman retained his hold upon his God. It is not all darkness in a heart which can cry, “My God,” and the child of God, however low he may sink, still keeps hold upon his God. “Though He slays me, yet will I trust in Him,” is the resolution of his soul. Jehovah smites me, but He is my God. He frowns upon me, but He is my God. He tramples me into the very dust and lays me in the lowest pit, as among the dead, yet still He is my God and such will I call Him till I die. Even when He leaves me I will cry, “my God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” Moreover, the Believer, in his worst time, still continues to pray, and prays, perhaps, the more vigorously because of his sorrows. God’s red flags drive His children not from Him, but to Him. Our griefs are waves which wash us to the Rock.
This Psalm is full of prayer. It is as much sweetened with supplication as it is salted with sorrow. It weeps like Niobe, but it is on bended knees and from uplifted eyes. Now, while a man can pray he is never far from light—he is at the window, though, perhaps, as yet the curtains are not drawn aside. The man who can pray has the clue in his hand by which to escape from the labyrinth of affliction. Like the trees in winter, we may say of the praying man, when his heart is greatly troubled, “his substance is in him, though he has lost his leaves.” Prayer is the soul’s breath and if it breathes it lives and, living it will gather strength again. A man must have true and eternal life within him while he can continue, still, to pray, and while there is such life there is assured hope.
Still, the best child of God may be the greatest sufferer and his sufferings may appear to be crushing, killing and overwhelming. They may also be so very protracted as to attend him all his days and their bitterness may be intense—all of which and much more this mournful Psalm teaches us. Let us, in pursuit of our subject, first give an exposition of the text. And then a brief exposition of the benefits of trouble.