Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1565
“I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever: with my mouth will I make known Your faithfulness to all generations. ForIhave said, Mercy shall be built up forever: Your faithfulness shall You establish in the very heavens.” Psalm 89:1,2.
THIS Psalm is one of the very choicest songs in the night. Midst a stream of troubled thoughts there stands a fair island of rescue and redemption which supplies standing room for wonder and worship while the music of the words, like the murmuring of a river, sounds sweetly in our ears! Read the Psalm carefully and it will awaken your sympathy, for he who wrote it was bearing bitter reproach and was almost broken-hearted by the grievous calamities of his nation. Yet his faith was strong in the faithfulness of God and so he sang of the stability of the Divine Covenant when the outlook of circumstances was dark and cheerless. Nor did he ever sing more sweetly than he sang in that night of his sorrow. Greatly does it glorify God for us to sing His high praises in storms of adversity and on beds of affliction. It magnifies His mercy if we can bless and adore Him when He takes, as well as when He gives.
It is good that out of the very mouth of the burning furnace there should come a yet more burning note of grateful praise! I am told that there is a great deal of relief to sorrow in complaining—that the utterance of our murmurs may, sometimes, tend to relieve our pain or sorrow. I suppose it is so. Certainly it is a good thing to weep, for I have heard it from the mouth of many witnesses. Most of us have felt that there are griefs too deep for tears and that a flood of tears proves that the sorrow has begun to abate. But, I think, the best relief for sorrow is to sing—this man tried it, at any rate. When mercy seems to have departed, it is well to sing of departed mercy! When no present blessing appears, it is a present blessing to remember the blessing of the years gone by and to rehearse the praises of God for all His former mercies towards us. Two sorts of songs we ought to keep up even if the present appears to yield us no theme for sonnets—the song of the past for what God has done and the song of the future for the Grace we have not yet tasted—the Covenant blessings held in the pierced hand, safe and sure against the time to come!
Brothers and Sisters, I want you, at this time, to feel the spirit of gratitude within your hearts. Though your mind should be heavy, your countenance sad and your circumstances gloomy—still let the generous impulse kindle and glow. Oh, come, let us sing unto the Lord! It does not seem to me to be much for us to sing God’s praises in fair weather. The shouts of, “Harvest home,” over the loaded wagons are proper, but they are only natural. Who would not sing, then? What bird in all the country is silent when the sun is rising and the dews of spring are sparkling? But the choicest choir charms the stars of night and no note is sweeter, even to the human ear, than that which comes from the bare bough amidst the abundant snows of dark winter!
sons of sorrow, your hearts are tuned to notes which the joyful cannot reach! Yours is the full compass and swell. You are harps upon which the Chief Player on stringed instruments can display His matchless skill to a larger degree than upon the less afflicted. I pray He may do so now, by leading you to be first in the song. We must, all of us, follow, but some of us will not readily yield to be outstripped in this holy exercise. Like Elijah, we will try to run before the king’s chariot in this matter of praise! Accounting ourselves the greatest debtors of all to the Grace and mercy of God, we must and will sing loudest of the crowd and make even—
“Hea ven’s resounding arches ring With shouts of Sovereign Grace.”
1 invite your attention to two things. First, we shall look at the work of the Eternal Builder—“Mercy shall be built up forever.” Then, secondly, we shall listen to the resolve of an everlasting singer—“I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever.” I take the second verse first—it is necessary for the handling of our subject. You know, in the book of Common Prayer, the rubric prescribes concerning a certain form of words that it is, “to be said or sung.” We will do both. The first
part we will have is the verse which begins, “I have said.” And then the second part shall be the verse which begins, “I will sing.” It shall be said and sung, too! God grant we may say it in the depth of our heart and afterwards that our mouth may sing it and make it known unto all generations! May the Spirit of all Grace fill us with His own power!
I. First, then, let us contemplate THE ETERNAL BUILDER AND HIS WONDERFUL WORK. “I have said, Mercy shall be built up forever: Your faithfulness shall You establish in the very heavens.” I can see a vast mass of ruins. Heaps upon heaps they lie around me. A stately edifice has tottered to the ground! Some terrible disaster has occurred. There it lies—cornice, pillar, pinnacle—everything of ornament and of utility broken, scattered, dislocated. The world is strewn with the debris. Journey where you will, the desolation is before your eyes. Who has done this? Who has cast down this temple? What hand has ruined this magnificent structure? Manhood! Manhood it is which has been destroyed and Sin was the agent that effected the Fall. It is man broken by his sin—iniquity has done it!