Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2540
“I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.” Psalm 118:17.
I could not deal with all the text on the last occasion, so I return to it. May the Holy Spirit bedew the Word afresh, and make it a joy to meditate thereon!
I. MANY ARE THE WORKS OF THE LORD. Are not all things His workmanship, from the heights of Heaven down to the deep places of the earth? From the remotest star blazing in magnificence of light, down to the gnat which dances in the beams of the evening’s sun, the Lord’s hand is seen everywhere! The Lord has made all things—Creation is the work of His fingers. He continues to work all things according to the good pleasure of His will. Some of these works are plain and manifest to all. If men have eyes to see, they have only to open them and they may behold God working all around them—above, beneath and everywhere! Others of His works are secret and not discerned by the organs of the body. These things are only to be fully perceived by faith as to their inner meaning, even when in their historical outcome they are seen of men. The great work of accomplished Redemption was seen by those who lived in our Lord’s day, in the offering of the great Sacrifice—yet they saw it not in truth. It is clearly seen by the eye of faith though centuries have rolled away, but the eye of sense saw it not, even when openly transacted. That other gracious work of God which is carried on within the soul is only to be known to the man who, himself, experiences it, though its results are manifest enough to others. So that there are works of God which will never be known to the mass of mankind except as His children testify concerning them. It should be with us a great objective of our existence to bear witness to these mysterious deeds of Grace! We ought to say, in the language of our Master, “To this end were we born, and for this cause came we into the world, that we should bear witness unto the Truth of God.” We are to live to declare these works of the Lord!
Let me very briefly recount certain of those works of God which we can declare. I think that this term may apply in a certain sense to all God’s works. For instance, I have said that Creation is open to every man’s observation and that he, if he will, may see that God is there. Yet very many men do not perceive God to be the Author of Nature. They do not will to perceive Him and it is for you and for me, therefore, whenever we talk about the wisdom which is to be seen in Creation, most distinctly to refer the things which exist to the hand of the Lord. A scientific man does great service when he sanctifies his science by pointing out the traces of the Divine handiwork. While others see only the Creation, he goes further and sees the Creator. You and I may not rank with the scientific, but that need not hinder us from bearing our testimony to the Lord’s working, for the naked eye suffices to cause wonder and adoration. When we gaze upon majestic scenery of mountain and sea, while others are entirely taken up with the beauty of the prospect, it is for us to say with Milton—
“These are Your glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty! Yours this universal frame,
Thus wondrous fair; Yourself how wondrous then!
Unspeakable, who sits above these heavens
To us invisible, or dimly seen
In these Your lowest works; yet these declare
Your goodness beyond thought and power Divine.”
Thus we can preach the sermon of which the beautiful in Nature is the text! If men will not go “from Nature up to Nature’s God”—as they never will till they first come down from God to nature—we, at least, can point the way. We can say to them, “We cannot suffer you to look on all these majestic works without telling you Who it is that in wisdom has made them all.” Thus we shall, like the Psalmist, “declare the works of the Lord.”
Think, next, of the work of God in Providence. If men would but observe it, the hand of God is clearly to be seen in human history, both in the great records of nations and in the little stories of private lives. He who will watch for Providences need not be long without spying them out. We can see evidences of design as clearly in the deeds of human life as we can in the works of Nature, but, often, men will not see them. Consequently, if you do see them, my Brother, declare them! Make the ungodly man see the hand of God, or, if you cannot make him see it, at least let him know that you see it and that surely the hand of God is in all the workings of Providence. Have you not some personal story to tell of how the Lord has interposed for your help? I will not insult you with the question, for, if you have led a Christian life for years, you must have many, many such records concerning the loving kindness of the Lord laid up in store in your memory! Bring these out, let them not lie, as on a moldy shelf, but bring them out and tell to others what God has done for you in the ordering of the ordinary or extraordinary events of your life. “Declare the works of the Lord.”