Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2784
“Not unto us, O LORRD, not unto us, but unto Your name give glory, for Your mercy, and for Your truth’s sake.” Psalm 115:1.
EVERY careful reader can see the connection between this 115th Psalm and the one which precedes it. In the 114th Psalm we see the gracious and grateful Jews sitting around the Passover table, having eaten of the lamb and singing of the miracles of Jehovah at the Red Sea and the Jordan. It must have been a very jubilant song that they sang! I think I can hear them singing, “What ailed you, O you sea, that you fled? You Jordan, that you were driven back?” When that joyful hymn was finished and the cup of wine was passed around the table, they struck another note. They remembered their sad condition, as they heard the heathen say, “Where is now their God?” They remembered that perhaps for many a year there had been no miracle, no Prophet, no open vision—and then they began to chant a prayer that God would appear—not for their sakes, but for His own name’s sake, that the ancient Glory which He won for Himself at the Red Sea and the Jordan might not be lost—and that the heathen might no longer be able to tauntingly say, “Where is now their God?” because the wonders worked by God would cause them to tremble before Him.
Remember that when the Israelites came up out of Egypt and were marching through the wilderness, the Lord put “the dread of them and the fear of them” upon all the nations in their track, so that they were half defeated through the terror that had made them almost like dead men in the Presence of the mighty God of Israel! So, the Psalmist’s prayer here is, practically, “Lord, do the same again—not for our sakes, but for Your own name’s sake—that once again the heathen all around may know that there is a God in the midst of Israel—and that they may be caused again to tremble as they did before—and no longer blaspheme or defy the God of Jacob.” These observations will, I hope, show you how suitably this Psalm would be chanted while still the Paschal Supper was proceeding.
Now let us take the words of our text by themselves and examine them under the gracious guidance of the Holy Spirit. They are, I think, instructive to us in five ways.”
I. First, they furnish us with A POWERFUL PLEA IN PRAYER—“Not unto us, O Jehovah, not unto us, but unto
Your name give glory, for Your mercy, and for Your truth’s sake.”
There are time when this is the only plea that God’s people can use. There are other occasions when we can plead with God to bless us for this reason or for that, but, sometimes, there come dark experiences when there seems to be no reason that can suggest itself to us why God should give us deliverance, or vouchsafe us a blessing except this one—that He would be pleased to do it in order to glorify His own name. Moses is an example of how this plea prevails with the Lord. When he was on the mount with God and Jehovah threatened to destroy the idolatrous Israelites, Moses pleaded, “Why should the Egyptians speak and say, For mischief did He bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own Self, and said unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of Heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it forever. And the Lord repented of the evil which He thought to do unto His people.”
Joshua also used the same plea when he said to the Lord, after Israel’s defeat at Ai, “What will You do unto Your great name?” He could not say, “Lord, hear me for Israel’s sake,” for they were utterly unworthy. He did not dare to say,
“Deliver us for my sake”—he had not conceit or self-righteousness enough to present such a plea as that! He could not even say, “Hear us for Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob’s sake,” for the people had broken the Covenant which God had made with their fathers. So he pleaded with the Lord, “Think of Your own honor. Think of Your great name. Think of Your repute among the heathen.” And thus he prevailed. It is noteworthy that that awful attribute of holy jealousy, which, under some aspects, is like a terrible flame, is the very one which helps us when everything else fails. Jehovah is very jealous of His own honor and therefore it is that when the heathens say, “Where is now their God?” He answers their taunt by ceasing to chasten His people—not for their sakes, but for His own mercy and truth’s sake, that the heathen may not think Him unmerciful to His people, nor be able to accuse Him of being unfaithful to His Covenant.
Brothers and Sisters, in all your times of distress, you will do well to urge this plea with the Lord. Possibly you are pleading for a certain class of men or women who have grossly sinned. It may be that you have on your heart the case of one person who has gone to great lengths of iniquity. You can always plead, “Lord, save that sinful soul to make Your Grace the more illustrious. Do it that others who have witnessed his sin may admire Your wonderful compassion—that his relatives and friends who have heard his blasphemies and been horrified by them, may see what You can do when You bare Your almighty arm and magnify Your deeds of Grace.”