Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2558
“But none says, Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night?” Job 35:10.
ELIHU was a wise man, exceedingly wise, though not as wise as the All-Wise Jehovah, who sees light in the clouds and finds order in confusion. Hence Elihu, being much puzzled at beholding Job so afflicted, cast about him to find the cause of it and he very wisely hit upon one of the most likely reasons, although it did not happen to be the right one in Job’s case. He said within himself, “Surely, if men are sorely tried and troubled, it is because while they think about their troubles and distress themselves about their fears, they do not say, ‘Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night?’” Elihu’s reason is right in the majority of cases. The great cause of a Christian’s distress, the reason of the depths of sorrow into which many Believers are plunged is simply this—that while they are looking about, on the right hand and on the left, to see how they may escape their troubles, they forget to look to the hills from where all real help comes—they do not say, “Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night?”
We shall, however, leave that enquiry and dwell upon those sweet words, “God my Maker, who gives songs in the night.” The world has its night. It seems necessary that it should have one. The sun shines by day and men go forth to their labors. But they grow weary and nightfall comes on, like a sweet gift from Heaven. The darkness draws the curtains and shuts out the light which might prevent our eyes from slumber. The sweet, calm stillness of the night permits us to rest upon the bed of ease and forget, awhile, our cares, until the morning sun appears and an angel puts his hand upon the curtain, opens it once again, touches our eyelids, and bids us rise and proceed to the labors of the day. Night is one of the greatest blessings men enjoy—we have many reasons to thank God for it. Yet night is to many a gloomy season. There is “the pestilence that walks in darkness.” There is “the terror by night.” There is the dread of robbers and of fell disease with all those fears that the timorous know when they have no light wherewith they can discern different objects. It is then they fancy that spiritual creatures walk the earth, though, if they knew rightly, they would find it to be true that—
“Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep,”
and that at all times they are round about us, not more by night than by day.
Night is the season of terror and alarm to most men, yet even night has its songs. Have you ever stood by the seaside at night and heard the pebbles sing, and the waves chant God’s praises? Or have you ever risen from your bed and thrown up the window of your chamber and listened? Listened to what? Silence—save now and then a murmuring sound which seems sweet music. And have you not fancied that you have heard the harps of gold playing in Heaven? Did you not conceive that yon stars—those eyes of God looking down on you—were also mouths of song and that every star was singing God’s glory, singing as it shone its mighty Maker’s well-deserved praise? Night has its songs! We need not much poetry in our spirit to catch the song of night and hear the spheres as they chant praises which are loud to the heart, though they are silent to the ear—the praises of the mighty God who bears up the unpillared arch of Heaven and moves the stars in their courses.
Man, too, like the great world in which he lives, must have his night. For it is true that man is like the world around him—he is himself a little world—he resembles the world in almost everything and if the world has its night, so has man. And many a night do we have—nights of sorrow, nights of persecution, nights of doubt, nights of bewilderment, nights of affliction, nights of anxiety, nights of ignorance, nights of all kinds which press upon our spirits and terrify our souls! But blessed be God, the Christian can say, “My God gives me songs in the night.”
It is not necessary, I take it, to prove to you that Christians have nights, for if you are Christians, you will find that you have them and you will not need any proof, for nights will come quite often enough. I will, therefore, proceed at once to the subject and notice, with regard to songs in the night, first, their source—God gives them. Secondly, their matter—what do we sing about in the night? Thirdly, their excellence—they are hearty songs and they are sweet ones. And fourthly, their uses—their benefits to ourselves and others.
I. First, songs in the night—WHO IS THE AUTHOR OF THEM? “God,” says the text. Our “Maker, who gives songs in the night.”
Any man can sing in the day. When the cup is full, man draws inspiration from it. When wealth rolls in abundance around him, any man can sing to the praise of a God who gives a plenteous harvest, or sends home a loaded argosy. It is easy enough for an Aeolian harp to whisper music when the winds blow—the difficulty is for music to come when no wind blows. It is easy to sing when we can read the notes by daylight, but he is the skillful singer who can sing when there is not a ray of light by which to read. He sings from his heart and not from a book that he can see, because he has no means of reading, save from that inward book of his own living spirit from where notes of gratitude pour forth in songs of praise. No man can make a song in the night, himself. He may attempt it, but he will find how difficult it is. It is not natural to sing in trouble. “Bless the Lord, O my Soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name,” is a daylight song. But it was a Divine song which Habakkuk sang when, in the night, he said, “Although the fig tree shall not blossom,” and so on, “yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” I think on the banks of the Red Sea, any man could have made a song like that of Moses, “The horse and his rider has He thrown into the sea.” The difficulty would have been to compose a song before the Red Sea had been divided, and to sing it before Pharaoh’s hosts had been drowned, while yet the darkness of doubt and fear was resting on Israel’s hosts! Songs in the night come only from God—they are not in the power of man!