Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1226
“I shall yet praise Him who is the health of my countenance and my God.” Psalm 42:11.
ANOTHER verse in this Psalm so attracts me that, though it is not my text, I cannot pass it by without a moment’s notice. In the 5th verse the Psalmist says, “I shall yet praise Him for the help of His Countenance,” and then follows the expression of the text, “who is the health of my countenance and my God.” God’s Countenance is our help and He, Himself is the health of our countenance! The best help a man can have in time of trouble is the Countenance of God! If he feels that he enjoys the Divine Love and that he is acceptable with the Lord, he becomes, at once, strong to bear, or dare, or do. Ask the Presence of God to be with you, child of God, and you may then descend into a lion’s den, traverse a fiery furnace, or pass through the iron gates of death! A look from the Lord is life and strength to His people!
So much for the 5th verse. Now let us weave our text with it. This help of God’s Countenance usually comes to Believers by their obtaining health for their countenances. It may not please God to lessen the burden, but it comes to the same thing if He strengthens the back. He may not recall the soldier from the battle, but if He gives him a greater stomach for the fight, and increased strength for its toils, it may be better, still, for him. “The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear?” Give a man health in his countenance and he laughs at that which would have crushed him had he been in another mood.
There are times when the grasshopper becomes a burden and there are other seasons, when, with undaunted spirit we can say, “Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain.” Everything depends upon the man’s personal condition. For the diseased eyes, beauty does not exist. For the disordered palate, sweetness is no longer to be found. And to a deaf ear, harmony is silent. Our happiness depends more upon our own personal condition than upon our surroundings. The great thing to be desired by all of us is that we may, in spirit, soul and body, be whole, that is, to be holy, for holiness is, in very truth, wholeness of our entire manhood!
Sin is disease. Righteousness is health. We all need to be healed, that being healed, we may be healthy—that receiving the Divine restoration, our nature may arrive at perfect soundness. Through the Fall and our own sins we have become the prey of manifold maladies and need the exercise of Divine power to bring us back into that sacred sanity of nature in which God first created man—when He made him in His own image and saw, concerning him and the world in which He had placed him—that it was very good.
Of our complete manhood’s health I shall speak this morning. And while I speak of it may the Lord be pleased to make all of us see that He is the health of our countenance and our God.
I. Our first remark is one which naturally grows out of the text, though it may seem a very trite one, namely, that PERFECT HEALTH IS A GREAT BLESSING. Do not misunderstand me by narrowing my words in their application. I am not speaking of the health of the body, alone, for to say that bodily health is a blessing were but to assert what no one disputes. Man, however, is something more than a body. He is also a living soul. Yes, more—there is in the regenerate man, a triple nature, consisting of body, soul and spirit.
Even in you, who are unregenerate, there is a double nature of body and soul. I would hope you have been born again and have reached the triple nature, and possessed that higher principle which is born of God, but even you are not all comprised in mere flesh. And when I speak of your health, I mean the health of your entire being. Perfect health lies in the right condition of spirit, soul and body. Complete health in Heaven will be ours when our body has been raised from the dead, incorruptible—our soul has been cleansed from all defilement, our new-born spirit has come to its full develop-ment—our entire manhood shall be glorified!
This universal health of our manhood is invaluable, for it was that which made our first Paradise. Man was not happy in Eden merely because the fruits were luscious and delicious as were the odors of the flowers which grew in the garden of delights, but because no disease of sin had tainted any part of his nature. His bodily appetites had not gained predominance over his mental faculties, neither had he suffered any of his mental powers to override the rest, or permitted the pride of knowledge to stay the childlike spirit which adored the great Father. His being was well balanced and all its powers were in a perfect condition.
Adam was in all respects such as God would have man to be, for he was such as God had actually made him. As in a perfect machine which comes fresh from the maker’s hand, every wheel acts upon its fellow and the whole is obedient to the central mainspring—and so was Adam’s nature in complete order. Alas for us that it ever became otherwise! As perfect health was our first happiness, so it will be our last and eternal happiness, for Heaven is not merely streets of gold and harps of melodious music and winged creatures strangely bright—it is perfection realized! The slough of depravity cast off, the soul shall be herself again, and of manhood it shall be said, “his flesh is fresher than a child’s, and he has returned to the days of his youth.”