Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2690
“My meditation of Him shall be sweet.” Psalm 104:34.
DAVID, certainly, was not a melancholy man. Eminent as he was for his piety and for his religion, he was equally eminent for his joyfulness and gladness of heart. Read the verse that precedes my text, “I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. My meditation of Him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord.” It has often been insinuated, if it has not been openly said, that the contemplation of Divine things has a tendency to depress the spirits. Religion, many thoughtful persons have supposed, does not become the young—it checks the ardor of their youthful blood. It may be very well for men with gray heads who need something to comfort and solace them as they descend the hill of life into the grave. It may be well enough for those who are in poverty and deep trial, but that it is at all congruous with the condition of a healthy, able-bodied, successful and happy man, is generally said to be out of the question.
Now, there is no greater lie than this! No man is so happy but he would be happier still if he had true religion. The man with a fullness of earthly pleasures, whose barns are full of corn and whose presses burst with new wine would not lose any part of his happiness, had he the Grace of God in his heart! Rather, that joy would add sweetness to all his prosperity. It would strain off many of the bitter dregs from his cup. It would purify his heart and freshen his tastes for delights and show him how to extract more honey from the honeycomb. Religion is a thing that can make the most melancholy joyful and, at the same time, it can make the joyous ones still more joyful! It can make the gloomy bright, as it gives the oil ofjoy in the place of mourning and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Moreover, it can light up the face that is joyous with a heavenly gladness. It can make the eyes sparkle with tenfold more brilliance and, happy as the man may be, he shall find that there is sweeter nectar than he has ever drunk before if he comes to the Fountain of Atoning Mercy and knows that his name is registered in the Book of Everlasting Life!
Temporal mercies will then have the charm of Redemption to enhance them. They will be no longer to him as shadowy phantoms which dance for a transient hour in the sunbeam. He will account them more precious because they are given to him, as it were, in some codicils of the Divine Testament which has promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come. While goodness and mercy follow him all the days of his life, he will stretch forth his grateful anticipations to the future when he shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever! He will be able to say, as the Psalmist does here, “I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. My meditation of Him shall be sweet.”
Taking those last few words as the theme of our discourse, I shall speak, first, concerning a very profitable exercise— “meditation.” Secondly, concerning a very precious subject—“My meditation of Him. And, thirdly, concerning a very blessed result—“My meditation of Him shall be sweet.”
I. First, here is A VERY PROFITABLE EXERCISE—“meditation.”
Meditation is a word that more than half of you, I fear, do not know how to spell. You know how to repeat the letters of the word, but I mean to say, you cannot spell it in the reality of life. You do not occupy yourselves with any meditation at all. What do many of you who are merchants know concerning this matter? You rise up in the morning just in
time to take your accustomed seat in the omnibus. You hasten to your counting house for your letters and there you continue all day long, for business when you are busy, or for gossip when business is dull. And at night you go home too tired for the wholesome recreation of your minds. Week by week, month by month and year by year it is still with you one everlasting grind, grind, grind! You have no time for meditation and you reckon, perhaps, that if you were to set apart half an hour in the day to ponder the weighty matters of eternity, it would be to you a clear loss of time. It is very wise of you to economize your minutes, but I suppose that if half an hour in a day could earn you a hundred pounds, you would not say that you could not afford it, because you know how to estimate pecuniary profit! Now, if you equally knew how to count the great profit of meditation, you would deem it a positive gain to yourselves to spend some time therein, for meditation is most profitable to the spirit—it is an extremely healthful and excellent occupation. Far from being wasted time, it is a judicious employment of time.
Do not imagine that the meditative man is necessarily lazy—contrariwise, he lays the best foundation for useful works. He is not the best student who reads the most books, but he who meditates the most upon them. He shall not learn most of divinity who hears the greatest number of sermons, but he who meditates the most devoutly upon what he does hear. Nor shall he be so profound a scholar who takes down ponderous volumes, one after the other as he who, reading little by little, precept upon precept, and line upon line, digests what he reads and assimilates each sentiment to his heart by meditation—receiving the Word of God first into his understanding—and afterwards receiving the spirit of it into his own soul. Meditation is thus a very excellent employment. Let me for a few minutes tell you some of its uses.