Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2403
“My meditation of Him shall be sweet.” Psalm 104:34.
THOSE OF YOU who were present this morning know that, with all my heart, and mind, and soul, and strength, I pleaded with men that they would come to Christ. [Sermon # 1951, Volume 33—The Pleading of the Last Messenger] If ever in my life I felt that I had spent every particle of my strength, I felt it when I had finished that discourse. I could have wished to die and end my ministry, with the testimony that I bore this morning. I know not in what way I could have more completely poured out my whole being in earnest desire for the conversion of my fellow men. I thought that it would not be possible for me to handle another subject in anything like the same fashion, tonight—I did not feel that I could do so. I said to myself, therefore, “Instead of preaching, instead of having anything to do that will cost much effort and cause much mental strain, I will just be one among the people and enjoy myself as a member of the congregation.
I will have a subject upon which we can all calmly think—I mean, all of us who know the Lord”—and it seemed to me as if nothing could be more fitting than to think of Him who is the joy of our heart, to meditate upon Him who is the strength of our spirit, even our blessed Lord, of whom the text says, “My meditation of Him shall be sweet.” So, then, I am not going to preach at this time—I am just going to lead your meditations a little, myself meditating while you meditate, being a sort of a leader to pitch the tune in which, I trust, all who love the Lord will heartily join. May God the Holy Spirit help us all sweetly to meditate upon Him of whom the Psalmist here speaks!
This 104th Psalm is a very wonderful one. Humboldt wrote a book which he called, Cosmos, that is, the world, and this Psalm is a Cosmos—it is a world set on fire with praise! It is all creation, from the mountain’s summit down to the brooks that sparkle through the valleys praising God! I have frequently read this Psalm through in the woods and on the mountainside and, when we have come home from an excursion in the Italian mountains, I have said to my companions, “Now we will read the 104th Psalm.” It is the naturalist’s Psalm! It is the Psalm of nature viewed by the eye of faith and he that learns to look aright on seas and mountains, on beasts and birds, on sun and moon and stars, sees God in all things and says with the Psalmist, “My meditation of Him shall be sweet.”
But, Beloved, redemption is a choicer theme for meditation than creation is, for its wonders are far greater! I can understand that God should make the worlds, but that He should redeem men from eternal ruin, I cannot understand. The Creator fashioning all things by the Word of His power is nothing like so remarkable an object of meditation as that same Creator, veiled in human flesh, yielding His hands to the nails of the Cross and bowing His head beneath the stroke of death! If creation is marvelous, redemption is a more sublime miracle, a wonder in the very center of all wonders!
Nor is the theme of redemption less vast than that of creation. Truly, nature is a very wide theme, from the almost infinite greatness which is discovered through the telescope to the wonderful minuteness which is perceived through the microscope. Nature seems to have no boundaries, yet it is a mere fragment compared with redemption, where everything is infinite, where you have to deal with sin and love, life and death, eternity and Heaven and Hell, God and man—and the Son of God made flesh for man’s sake! Now you are among the sublimities, indeed, meditating upon redemption— your theme is vast beyond conception!
And let me add that the theme of redemption is quite as fresh as that of nature. Nature, it is true, never grows stale—from the first day of the year till the last, it is always young! Did you ever see the ocean look twice the same? Did you ever gaze upon the face of nature without always perceiving some fresh beauty? And it is just the same with redemption. The Cross never grows old! The doctrine of Christ Crucified is a spring that wells up forever with a sparkling freshness! Not even the eternal ages shall exhaust it—when untold myriads of years have passed away, this old, old story of the Cross will still be new!
There is this much more to say about a meditation upon redemption, that it comes closely home to us. I like to think of the stars, but, after all, I can be happy if the stars are quenched. I delight to think of the rolling ocean, but still, I could rejoice if there were no more sea. But in redemption we have a vital and personal interest—we could not live as we now live, in the sight of God we could not truly live at all—if we had not been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. The seas and the starry worlds are not ours as blessedly as Christ is ours and none of them can bring medicine to the heart and joy to the spirit as does Jesus, who loved us and gave Himself for us. So I think I may say, however excellent the naturalist’s meditations are, and the more of right meditation upon nature the better—and I wish that we were all learned after the order of true science, which deals with nature itself, and not with theories—yet, if you know little about these things in which some take so deep an interest, your meditations of God may be exceedingly sweet! If you stay within the boundaries of redemption through Jesus Christ, which are by no means narrow, you may say, “My meditation of Him shall be sweet.”