Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3213
“All my springs are in You.” Psalm 87:7.
It does one good to think that there are such things in the world as springs bubbling up in the shady nooks. Places of sweet refreshment in this dusty earth. The mouth waters at the very thought of the palms of Elim and the wells there. If even to us fresh springs are a blessing, much more must they have been so to the Psalmist who lived in a dry and thirsty land which owed almost all its fertility to irrigation. Nothing is more precious to the Oriental than a well. And he who finds a spring of water counts himself a much happier man than he who has found a vein of precious metal. We must, therefore, transfer the thought of precious water springing up copiously, bubbling up with living force, to our spiritual condition—and then say with David, “All my springs are in You.” That is to say, we trace all the mercies we receive to their fountainhead! The Psalmist was grateful for the blessings that were conferred upon him. He did not receive them with selfish inattention but, considering them well, he found that every good gift and every perfect gift came from his God. He had learned that not only everything good around him, but everything that was within him that was good came from the same source! And discovering within himself a living power, a living well of water within his own nature, he traced that, also, to the Grace of God—and said, “All my springs are in You.”
Did he not mean, first, “all the springs I drink of are in You” Secondly, did he not mean, “All the springs within myself come from You” I do not know that those two heads comprise even one-tenth of the thoughts that might arise out of our text, but then we have not time to take such a great text as this and consider it in full. We shall, therefore, just take the two series of thoughts that will spring up under those heads.
I. The first thought is, ALL THE SPRINGS I DRINK OF ARE IN YOU.
To begin, he may have remembered the deep which lies under In the benediction upon Joseph, Moses said that he was to have the blessing of the deep which couches beneath. Deep down in the earth are vast reservoirs of water and when these are tapped, they spring up and we are refreshed by them. These are symbolical of the mighty fountains of Eternal Love, the electing Grace of God, the Infinite fullness of the heart of God in His own Nature, for, “His nature and His name are Love.” When we get to the great fountains of the Infinite, Eternal, Immutable Love of the Father towards His chosen people, then, indeed, we come to the fountainhead of all the streams which make the people of God glad! There is not a blessing we receive but it may be traced to the eternal purpose of God! We may see, on every single benediction of the Covenant, the stamp of the eternal purpose and decree—
“The streams of love I trace
Up to the Fountain, God.
And in His mighty breast I see
Eternal thoughts of love to me.” Every Christian who is rightly taught, who understands the Word of God and is not afraid of the fullness of the Truth of God, will ascribe all the springs of Grace that he ever drinks of, to the eternal Fountain. God said to Job, “Have you entered into the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in the search of the depth?” This is a mysterious subject and we cannot find these secret springs, but yet we know that they are there. We rejoice in them and bless the Lord for them!
But, using only illustrations from Scripture, when the Psalmist said, “All my fresh springs are in You”—for that is the force of the expression he uses—may he not have thought of that Rock from which the living water leaped in the wil-derness,so that all the multitude that were in the desert drank of the stream? Those who had true knowledge of God also drank of that spiritual Rock which followed them and we know that, “that Rock was Christ.” That Rock, too, was
struck and, straightway it became a spring of water for all the tribes, even as our smitten Savior has now become the Spring from which all of us drink. So I may say—
“Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
You my sacred Fount shall be.” We find, leaping from the cleft in His side, the cleansing blood and the refreshing water, too. As I said at first, that we may trace all our blessings to electinglove, I may now say with equal truthfulness, that we may trace them all to redeem-inglove. There is a crimson mark on every blessing of the Covenant!—
“There’s never a gift His hand bestows
But cost His heart a groan.”
That is a most sure and precious Truth of God! As we look to our dear Lord upon the Cross and see Him also exalted in His Glory, remembering that “it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell,” and that of His fullness have all we received, and Grace for Grace,” we can truly say to Him, “Emmanuel, all my springs are in You.”