Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3027
“My eyes fail from searching Your Word, saying, When will You comfort me?” Psalm 119:82.
DAVID, in his troubles, knew where to turn for consolation—and that is no small piece of wisdom. When a man is ill, he may not know to which physician he had better send, but if he knows of one who has had much experience with the disease from which he is suffering, he sends for him at once if he is a wise patient. David knew that the best place for a true Believer to find consolation was in God’s Word, so he did not look in a thousand places, but his eyes were turned to God’s Word—and though he did not immediately find the comfort that he sought, yet he continued to look even till his eyes seemed to fail him, till they ached with looking, till they wearied with watching, till his disappointed expectation made his heart sick! Yet the idea never entered into his mind that he had better knock at another door, or seek another friend, or try another fountain! He still continued in the attitude of expectancy and desire, his eyes still searching the Word of God to find the comfort that he so greatly needed.
Christian, learn this piece of heavenly wisdom from the Psalmist’s experience—there is no other comfort for you beneath the skies like that with which the Word of the Lord will furnish you. If God’s promises cannot comfort you, rest assured that no speech from the lips of man can do it. If your God shall not yield you the consolation that you need, you will go in vain to the giddy world and its pleasures and follies in the hope of finding it. If that overflowing well could ever dry up, you would indeed be the subject of despair. Resolve in your mind never to expect any good thing apart from God. Say with Toplady—
“I will not be comforted Till Jesus comforts me.”
Refuse all consolation but that which comes from the Most High, for it will be fictitious, delusive, dangerous, perhaps fatal—but cling to your God whatever happens! Though He smite you, still cling to Him. Though He slay you, still trust Him. If His Word should seem to be like thunder and lightning to you, though every page of it should seem to bristle as with bayonets and not a single thought of consolation should be found in a thousand verses, yet still cling to your father’s Bible, hold fast to the good old Book which made glad your mother’s heart, for, before long, comfort shall shine forth from it upon you like the sun in the fullness of its strength—and the day shall break and the shadows flee away. Go not elsewhere to look for consolation! Seek out no strange doctrines! Weary not yourself in searching for other comfort, but let your eyes, even if they fail, still look to the Word of God for the consolation that your soul needs!
David, however, besides looking to the Book of the Lord, looked to the Lord of the Book, saying, “When will You comfort me?” He did not expect the Word in itself to be a sufficient consolation to him, so he looked to the Word as applied by God, the Holy Spirit, the Word as spoken over again by the mouth of God into the silent soul of the waiting Believer. Paul tells us that “the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.” And the Psalmist so far anticipates that Truth of God as to cry to the Lord, “When will You comfort me?”
Christian, I again exhort you to imitate the Psalmist’s example by going to your God for comfort. You are still far too apt to lean upon an arm of flesh, but have you not yet learned what disappointments are always to be met with there? Will you still go to the broken cisterns that can hold no water when they have already only mocked your thirst? When will you give up running to your neighbors and going to your brother’s house in the day of your adversity? You will do far better if you will go to your Father’s house and to your Elder Brother! Even our common proverb says, “Straightforward makes the best runner,” so, run straight to your God! Do not beat around the bush in the hope of getting at God through second causes, but go to the great Fountainhead of all consolation at once. Depend upon it, that
the more absolutely you hang upon the bare arm of God, the better will it be for you and the more will you learn to live independently of those poor creatures of earth whose breath is in their nostrils! The more you depend upon the great, invisible, Omnipotent, eternal Jehovah, the stronger and happier will you become! Then shall your head be lifted high above your enemies and you shall sing praises unto God for very gladness of heart.
Troubled ones, I urge you to resolve that if you cannot have comfort from God, at any rate you will not have it from the devil—determine that if you cannot do business with Heaven, you will not trade with Hell! And say that you would rather live in a dungeon with God than dwell in tents of ease with Satan. If your life must always be one of sorrow, be content that it shall be so if the Lord so wills it, but be resolved that you never will dally with sin or Satan for the sake of any present consolation. You cannot afford to buy your gold so dearly as that, nor to part with Heaven for the sake of the richest comforts of earth!