Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1615
Delivered on Thursday Evening, August 11, 1881
“Yes, they shall sing in the ways of the Lord: for great is the glory of the Lord.” Psalm 138:5.
ACCORDING to the context, this is spoken of kings. “All the kings of the earth shall praise You, O Lord, when they hear the words of Your mouth. Yes, they shall sing in the ways of the Lord.” It will be a novel spectacle to see kings singing in the ways of the Lord! As a rule, they have not much troubled themselves with singing, but they have often troubled those who love the ways of God and opposed them, both by their laws and by their example. There will yet be another order of things in the earth! These days will be shortened for the elect’s sake and the time shall come when kings shall fall down before the King of kings and all people shall call Jesus blessed! Oh that the time may speedily arrive when a choir of kings shall, with loud voices, magnify the name of the Lord!
Well, dear Brothers and Sisters, that time has not come yet and, therefore, let us sing all the more. If the kings have not begun to sing, let us sing! And well we may. We have full permission to do it, for the next verse encourages us— “Though the Lord is high, yet has He respect unto the lowly.” He will be just as pleased with the song of the peasant as with that of the prince—with the Psalm of the workman as with that of the monarch! We, too, may come, though obscure and unknown, and we may bring our two mites which make a farthing—and if they are all the praise our soul can give—the Lord will count that we have not given less than kings themselves!
Let us make up for royal silence. If others cannot praise God and speak well of His name, yet let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has redeemed out of the hands of the enemy! If we do not speak, surely the stones of the street will cry out against us! Therefore I shall take the text and use it in reference to ourselves, believing that for us this promise stands fast, “They shall sing in the ways of the Lord: for great is the glory of the Lord.”
I. We shall discuss the text under four observations, the first of which is the text itself—“THEY SHALL SING IN THE WAYS OF THE LORD.” That is to say, first, gracious persons take pleasure in the things of religion. A man’s religion is worth nothing if it is not his chief delight. That which we do before God as task work is ill done and is not acceptable. God will not have slaves to grace His Throne! Nor would He be served by us in the spirit of bondage. It is His delight to be served by sons and daughters and to be waited upon by those who do His commandments with delight. If your pleasure is not in the ways of the Lord, then, surely, you cannot know much about those ways. You must be a stranger to them and you must be walking in paths which may look like the ways of God, but are not really so.
I do not say that those who know the Lord are always happy, but I say that they are always “the seed that the Lord God has blessed.” I may not say that we are always pleasurable in heart in the ways of wisdom, but I will say of the ways of wisdom, themselves, that they are pleasantness and that all its paths are peace. Yes, Brothers and Sisters, we do not groan out our religion! We do not go to our places of worship as slaves went to the calaboose to be flogged! I do see some each Sunday who look dreadfully solemn and they walk to their places of worship as if they were going to the gallows and never expected to come back alive—but that is not the spirit in which I would have you go up to the House of God! Go with lightly tripping feet, saying—
“I have been there and still will go ‘Tis like a little Heaven below.”
I would not be kept away, or bought out of the House of God by all that could be offered me. I believe that Sunday should be spent in recreation! You are dreadfully shocked and well you may be—but what do I mean by, “recreation”? It means creating us over anew! Oh, that everybody who talks about spending Sunday in recreation would know the meaning of the word, “recreation,” and would come to be re-created, regenerated, renewed, refreshed, invigorated, strengthened, revived and made to rejoice in God! The Lord’s Day is the highest hill of the week! On that day we stand on tiptoe
on Pisgah and look to “the rest which remains for the people of God!” It is the type of that everlasting Sabbath which remains for the people of God.
Now, as it is with Sabbath-keeping and going up to the House of God—that there we sing in God’s ways, so it is with all God’s ways—they are all full of delight to His people! Those who heartily enter into them are happy people. “Blessed are the people in whose heart are Your ways.” Their heart shall be full of joy and overflowing with delight. Hence it follows, next, that they do not go out of God’s ways to get their songs. They shall sing in the ways. Alas! I have heard of some who go here and there, as they say, “to get a little pleasure.” What? What? Do I understand you? You find no pleasure in the ways of God? Then, Friend, you are a hypocrite! That is plain English—for he that is really in God’s ways finds his pleasure there. That is his chief delight and he can sing, as our hymn puts it—