Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2241
“He brought them forth, also, with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes.” Psalm 105:37.
THIS verse has been making music in my heart for several days and, at times, it has even claimed utterance from my tongue. I have caught myself singing a solo, with myself as the only hearer, and this has been the theme, “He brought them forth, also, with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes.” I love texts which sing to me and make me join in! If this verse should get into your hearts and set you singing in a similar way, you will be entertaining a very pleasant visitor—and it will brighten a dark day for you!
Egypt may very fairly represent those states of sorrow and sadness, depression and oppression, into which God’s people come far too frequently. Specially is the house of bondage a true picture of our condition when we are convicted of sin, but are ignorant of the way to escape from its guilt and power! Then, sin, which was once our Goshen of pleasure, becomes our iron furnace of fear. Though we yield to sin when under conviction, yet we are no longer its willing subjects—we feel that we are slaves and we sigh by reason of sore bondage. Glory be to God, He has now brought us out from that state of slavery, and we can sing of freedom given by His own right hand!
Since then we have been permitted, in the order of God’s Providence, to live among evil persons who have had power over us and have used it maliciously. They have hated our God and, therefore, they have hated us, and shown their dislike of us in many harsh and exacting ways. We find no rest with them, but our soul is among lions. They seem as though they would devour us, or else frighten us from following the road to Heaven.
Full often has our gracious God delivered His persecuted people from such a sorrowful condition and brought them into a large room wherein He has made them happy with Christian fellowship and enabled them to go about holy work without let or hindrance. At such times, when God’s people have come out from under the yoke of their oppressors, the Lord has “brought them forth, also, with silver and gold: and there has not been one feeble person among their tribes.”
It is possible to go down into Egypt by reason of our own depression of spirit, inward conflict and despondency. If you are like the preacher, you are by no means a stranger to inward sinking. Though you do not give up your faith, but are, still, like father Jacob, keeping your hold while the sinew is shrinking, yet you are, “sorely broken in the place of dragons.” You feel that you are like that bush in the desert which burned with fire and, only through a miracle, was not consumed. When under temptations of the flesh and memories of old sins, Satan, himself, comes in with his fiery darts, and you have a hard time of it. He will insinuate dark and dreadful thoughts—and you will be haunted by them, day after day—till you feel like the poor Israelites under the lash of the Egyptian taskmaster. Your covenant with God will bring you out of that state of anguish and distress—and when He does so, you will sing—“He brought them forth, also, with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes.”
God forbid we should repeat that senseless and wicked trust in man which once made us do down into Egypt for help! We will not go there for pleasure—what have we to do with drinking the waters of the muddy river? We drink of a better river than the Nile, even of the river of the Water of Life! But we shall go to the region of weakness and pain to die. Unless the Lord should suddenly come in His Glory, we shall close our eyes in death as Jacob and Joseph did. Then when we go into the tomb, which will be a kind of Egypt for our body, we shall only tarry there for a season. We shall slumber for a while, each one in his bed of dust, but the trumpet of the archangel shall awaken us and our bodies shall rise again! We shall not, however, come from the grave so poor and feeble as we went in! No, we shall be great gainers by
our sojourn in the dark abode. Those who see the saints in the day of Resurrection, ascending to their thrones from the Egypt of death, may fitly say, “He brought them forth, also, with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes.”
I am going to try to handle my very delightful subject in the following way—First, the deliverances of God’s people are always worked by Divine Power. Lay the stress on the first word—“HE brought them forth.” Secondly, their deliverances are attended with enrichment. “He brought them forth, also, with silver and gold.” And, thirdly, their deliverances are accompanied by a remarkable degree of strength. “There was not one feeble person among their tribes.” May the Holy Spirit make rare music for you upon this harp of three strings!