If I were to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand; and when I awake, I am still with You. Sermons
I fall asleep, exhausted with the effort of counting thy thoughts or desires; and when I awake I find myself still engaged in the same spiritual arithmetic, which is my dearest delight. I. IT IS THE SUGGESTION OF DELIGHTFUL THOUGHTS. The psalmist exclaims, "How precious are thy thoughts unto me!" This may mean, "my cherished thoughts of thee," or, "thy loving thoughts of me, of which I have the most comfortable assurance." Probably the psalmist meant the former. "Thy presence wakens in me such loving, tender, trustful thoughts concerning thee." "We cannot conceive how many of God's kind counsels have been concerning us, how many good turns he has done us, and what variety of mercies we have received from him." The sense of God's presence excites meditation; and what is lacking in modern Christian life is that which meditation can supply. II. IT IS THE ASSURANCE OF DIVINE SECURITY. Compare the absolute confidence of the psalmist when he sings his refrain, "The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our Refuge." Compare apostolic assurances: "If God be for us, who can be against us?" "For he hath said, I will not leave thee, nor forsake thee." If God is with us, we can always have this confidence - whosoever would deal adversely with us must take account of God, and deal with him; and "He is safe, and must succeed,
For whom the Lord vouchsafes to plead." III. IT IS THE INSPIRATION OF NOBLE ENDEAVOR. It is not just a cold doing of actual duty, "as ever in the great Taskmaster's eye." The loving child-soul never talks about the "great Taskmaster." It is a parental presence that wakens everything noble and beautiful in the child. And God's presence is peculiar in this, that it brings to us the sense of power. It makes us feel that we can do whatever he inspires us to do. "I can do all things in him who strengtheneth me." IV. IT IS THE COMFORT OF EVERY TROUBLE. The hardest thing in trouble is to have to bear it alone. It is eased if another sympathetically shares it with us. We are never alone in trouble-bearing if we cherish the sense of God's presence. - R.T. When I awake, I am still with Thee. : —I. HIS DISPOSITION. 1. It is the care and endeavour of a good man when he awakes to be still with God.(1) The time.(a) When not asleep, and so hindered by the necessities of nature. A godly man is careful to be with God in every performance and in every condition, both in regard to —(i.) Habitual inclination. He is always with God in disposition and affection; and —(ii.) Actual application. He is careful still to repair to God, and to draw near to Him, whensoever he can.(b) As soon as I awake. 2. In what respects a Christian, when he is awake, may be said to be with God.(1) By meditation.(a) Our thoughts are precious things, being the immediate issue of our souls, and are not to be lightly bestowed by us, especially our first, thoughts. And on whom can we better bestow them than on Him that helps us to them, and without whom we are not sufficient of ourselves so much as to think (2 Corinthians 3:5)?(b) This is to be understood especially of such thoughts as are settled and deliberate and composed — such thoughts as a man sets himself to with intention, and suffers to abide in him; these are for the most part suitable and agreeable to the frame of his heart. Now, because a godly man has his heart full of heaven, and God, and goodness, and the graces of the Spirit, therefore are such things as these very often and early in his thoughts.(2) By communion. Look at friends when they meet in a morning, they have their mutual greeting between them — a loving and friendly salute one of another: even so is it with its due proportions betwixt God and the soul, the soul speaking to Him, and He returning upon it by way of reciprocation. (a)Confession of sin.(b)Petition and supplication.(c)Praise and acknowledgment.(3) By action and the businesses which are done by us; when we "awake to righteousness and sin net."3. The ground and equity of it.(1) Our waking thoughts are our first thoughts, and the first of everything is of right God's.(2) Our waking thoughts are freshest thoughts; that is, the nimblest and quickest, and most active, and fullest of life. As God deserves the first, so He deserves the best.(3) Our waking thoughts are our quietest, and freest from commotion: that is the fittest time and season for converse with God, wherein we have least distraction and perplexities and troubles from the world.(4) Our waking thoughts are our purest and freest from pollution: these things are the fittest for God, which are most like to Himself. II. HIS PRIVILEGE. 1. It secures from dangers (Psalm 26:1; Psalm 3:5; Psalm 4:8; Psalm 91:5; Psalm 23:4). 2. It quickens to duty; keeps the heart in a holy frame and temper all the day after. 3. It prevents from sin and temptation — at least the prevalencies of it. III. HOW WE MAY ATTAIN TO THIS BLESSED CONDITION. 1. Walk with God in the day. The duties of religion are linked together, and come off more easily in the conjunctive performance of each other. Thus reading and hearing, and meditation and communion of saints, conscionably and religiously performed, do so much the better dispose to more immediate communion with God; and the actions of the day have their impressions and reflections upon the night. 2. Lie down with God in the evening. That which we think of last we shall be ready to think of first; and as we conclude the foregoing day, so we are likely to begin the following. Therefore it should be our care, as much as may be, to have God and the things of God in our thoughts when we set ourselves to rest. This is the happiness of a Christian that is careful to lie down with God, that he finds his work still as he left it, and is in the same disposition when he rises as he was at night when he laid to rest. As a man that winds up his watch over night, he finds it going the next morning; so is it also as I may say with a Christian that winds up his heart. This is a good observation to be remembered, especially in the evening before the Sabbath. 3. Observe God in the morning. A man that would be with God when he wakes must observe how God is with him. We shall find sometimes that God Himself doth awaken us, and does desire communion with us (Isaiah 50:4). () : — To an earnestly devout mind there is no hour in She day to compare with the morning hour. "Evening calms the mind" when the heat and the tumult of the day are past. Not without good reason did that ancient figure meditate "in the fields at eventide." But the morning hour largely determines what he shall meditate upon as he walks those grassy slopes. Let me show you how, by a godly man, that morning hour may be used to do at least something towards flinging into the day a light sweeter and pleasanter than its own. I. IT MAY BE SO USED AS TO IMPART, IN SOME SORT AT LEAST, A SPIRITUAL TONE TO THE ENTIRE DAY. Busy men are wont to complain, "In crowded street and busy mart the mind cannot get itself fixed on higher things." Much, however, can be done, and in this way. When that light — so sweet, so pleasant for the eyes to behold — looks in upon us, and the tasks and duties of the day begin to marshal themselves before us, let the mind be imbued with the Christian temper — let it be pitched, so to speak, in a Christian key; and though God through the day may not be "in all our thoughts," He will not be far from every one of them. II. A DAY BEGUN IN THIS FASHION ACQUIRES A CERTAIN PRACTICAL STEADINESS. You have noticed, I am sure, how a day entered upon without thought, without prayer, has invariably turned out a very confused and unsatisfactory thing. There are more battles to fight than those which are won and lost on fields of blood; and the bravest, steadiest soldiers are not the men who have leaped from their beds and rushed into action. They are the men whose heads have been cleared and cooled, and whose mental and spiritual nerves have been braced by meditation and prayer. III. THIS KIND OF PRAYERFUL FORETHOUGHT GIVES A CERTAIN DESIRABLE SPECIALITY TO THE DAY. We cannot, it is true, make every day a feast-day, but we can redeem our days from a spiritless sameness. Is my work monotonous? (and whose work is always teeming with freshness of interest?) let me redeem it from being anything like drudgery by baking it up every day as a new trust. Is it uncongenial? (and whose work is always to his taste?) let me place it day by day on the highest grounds. Oh, how often would many of us turn from the incumbent disagreeable, if we did not carry it to a loftier tribunal than any our personal feelings can furnish. () ()
People David, PsalmistPlaces JerusalemTopics Awake, Count, Grains, Outnumber, Recount, Sand, Wake, WakedOutline 1. David praises God for his all-seeing providence
17. And for this infinite mercies
19. He defies the wicked
23. He prays for sincerity
Dictionary of Bible Themes Psalm 139:17-18 4360 sand Library August 31. "Lead Me in the Way Everlasting" (Ps. cxxxix. 24).
"Lead me in the way everlasting" (Ps. cxxxix. 24). There is often apparently but little difference in two distinct lives between constant victory and frequent victory. But that one little difference constitutes a world of success or failure. The one is the Divine, the other is the human; the one is the everlasting way, the other the transient and the imperfect. God wants to lead us to the way everlasting, and to establish us and make us immovable as He. We little know the seriousness of the slightest …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth God's Scrutiny Longed For
'Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; 24. And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.'--PSALM cxxxix. 23, 24. This psalm begins with perhaps the grandest contemplation of the divine Omniscience that was ever put into words. It is easy to pour out platitudes upon such a subject, but the Psalmist does not content himself with generalities. He gathers all the rays, as it were, into one burning point, and focusses them upon himself: 'Oh, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture September the Eighteenth the All-Round Defence
"Thou hast beset me behind." --PSALM cxxxix. 1-12. And that is a defence against the enemies which would attack me in the rear. There is yesterday's sin, and the guilt which is the companion of yesterday's sin. They pursue my soul like fierce hounds, but my gracious Lord will come between my pursuers and me. His mighty grace intervenes, and my security is complete. "Thou hast beset me ... before." And that is a defence against the enemies which would impede my advance and frighten me out of …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year The Kingdom Divided
THE PROPHETICAL BOOKS: Jonah Page Amos Page Isaiah Page OUTLINE FOR STUDY OF PROPHETICAL BOOKS 1. Class. 2. Commission of Prophet. 3. Biographical Description of Prophet. 4. Title of Prophet. 5. Historical Place. (a) Name of Kingdom. (b) Names of Kings. 6. Outline of Contents. 7. Prophecies of Earthly Kings or Kingdoms. 8. Prophecies of Christ. 9. Prophecies of Christ's Kingdom. 10. Leading Phrases. 11. Leading Chapters. 12. Leading Teachings. 13. Questions. 14. Items of Special Interest. …
Frank Nelson Palmer—A Bird's-Eye View of the Bible The Tests of Love to God
LET us test ourselves impartially whether we are in the number of those that love God. For the deciding of this, as our love will be best seen by the fruits of it, I shall lay down fourteen signs, or fruits, of love to God, and it concerns us to search carefully whether any of these fruits grow in our garden. 1. The first fruit of love is the musing of the mind upon God. He who is in love, his thoughts are ever upon the object. He who loves God is ravished and transported with the contemplation of …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial God Omnipresent and Omniscient --Ps. cxxxix.
God Omnipresent and Omniscient--Ps. cxxxix. Searcher of hearts! to Thee are known The inmost secrets of my breast At home, abroad, in crowds, alone, Thou mark'st my rising and my rest, My thoughts far off, through every maze, Source, stream, and issue,--all my ways. How from Thy presence should I go, Or whither from Thy Spirit flee, Since all above, around, below, Exist in Thine immensity? If up to heaven I take my way, I meet Thee in eternal day. If in the grave I make my bed With worms and dust, …
James Montgomery—Sacred Poems and Hymns Ps. cxxxix. 23, 24
Ps. cxxxix. 23, 24. All hearts to Thee are open here; All our desires are known; And we are that which we appear To Thee, good Lord, alone. No eye of man can penetrate, Another's secret mind, Nor well discern his own estate, Naked, and poor, and blind. The entrance of Thy word gives light: Let it so shine within, That each may tremble at the sight Of his unbosom'd sin. With godly sorrow make him grieve, Till hope spring out of grief, And,cry with tears, "Lord, I believe, Help Thou mine unbelief." …
James Montgomery—Sacred Poems and Hymns Excursus on the Present Teaching of the Latin and Greek Churches on the Subject.
To set forth the present teaching of the Latin Church upon the subject of images and the cultus which is due them, I cite the decree of the Council of Trent and a passage from the Catechism set forth by the authority of the same synod. (Conc. Trid., Sess. xxv. December 3d and 4th, 1563. [Buckley's Trans.]) The holy synod enjoins on all bishops, and others sustaining the office and charge of teaching that, according to the usage of the Catholic and Apostolic Church received from the primitive times …
Philip Schaff—The Seven Ecumenical Councils An Unanswered Question
'What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way?'--Mark ix. 33. Was it not a strange time to squabble when they had just been told of His death? Note-- I. The variations of feeling common to the disciples and to us all: one moment 'exceeding sorrowful,' the next fighting for precedence. II. Christ's divine insight into His servants' faults. This question was put because He knew what the wrangle had been about. The disputants did not answer, but He knew without an answer, as His immediately …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Out of the Deep of Doubt, Darkness, and Hell.
O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night unto Thee. Oh! let my prayer enter into Thy presence. For my soul is full of trouble and my life draweth nigh unto Hell. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in a place of darkness, and in the deep.--Ps. lxxxviii. 1, 2. If I go down to Hell, Thou art there also. Yea, the darkness is no darkness with Thee; but the night is as clear as the day.--Ps. cxxxix. 7, 11. I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined unto me, and heard my calling. …
Charles Kingsley—Out of the Deep The Deity of the Holy Spirit.
In the preceding chapter we have seen clearly that the Holy Spirit is a Person. But what sort of a Person is He? Is He a finite person or an infinite person? Is He God? This question also is plainly answered in the Bible. There are in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments five distinct and decisive lines of proof of the Deity of the Holy Spirit. I. Each of the four distinctively Divine attributes is ascribed to the Holy Spirit. What are the distinctively Divine attributes? Eternity, omnipresence, …
R. A. Torrey—The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit The Suffering of Love.
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend."--John xv. 13. Love suffers because the spirit of the world antagonizes the Spirit of God. The former is unholy, the Latter is holy, not in the sense of mere opposition to the world's spirit, but because He is the absolute Author of all holiness, being God Himself. Hence the conflict. There is no point along the whole line of the world's life which does not antagonize the Holy Spirit whenever He touches it. Whenever …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit The Hardening Operation of Love.
"Being grieved for the hardness of their heart."--Mark iii. 5. Love may also be reversed. Failing to cherish, to uplift, and to enrich, it consumes and destroys. This is a mystery which man can not fathom. It belongs to the unsearchable depths of the divine Being, of which we do not wish to know more than has been revealed. But this does not alter the fact. No creature can exclude itself from the divine control. No man can say that he has nothing to do with God; that he or any other creature exists …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit Inconsideration Deplored. Rev. Joshua Priestley.
"And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness."--HOSEA vii. 2. Is it possible for any man to conceive of truths more fitted to arrest the attention and impress the heart than are those contained in this volume? It has been said that if a blank book had been put into our hands, and every one of us had been asked to put into it the promises we should like to find there, we could not have employed language so explicit, so expressive, and so suited to all our varied wants, …
Knowles King—The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern Annunciation to Joseph of the Birth of Jesus.
(at Nazareth, b.c. 5.) ^A Matt. I. 18-25. ^a 18 Now the birth [The birth of Jesus is to handled with reverential awe. We are not to probe into its mysteries with presumptuous curiosity. The birth of common persons is mysterious enough (Eccl. ix. 5; Ps. cxxxix. 13-16), and we do not well, therefore, if we seek to be wise above what is written as to the birth of the Son of God] of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When his mother Mary had been betrothed [The Jews were usually betrothed ten or twelve months …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel The Love of Christ.
THE Patience of Christ was recently the object of our meditation in these pages. Blessed and inexhaustible it is. And now a still greater theme is before our hearts. The Love of Christ. The heart almost shrinks from attempting to write on the matchless, unfathomable love of our blessed and adorable Lord. All the Saints of God who have spoken and written on the Love of Christ have never told out its fulness and vastness, its heights and its depths. "The Love of Christ which passeth knowledge" (Ephesians …
Arno Gaebelein—The Lord of Glory The Kingdom Undivided
THE POETICAL BOOKS: Psalms Page Song of Solomon Page Proverbs Page THE PSALMS I. The Collection and Divisions: In all probability the book of one hundred and fifty psalms, as it now stands, was compiled by Ezra about 450 B.C. They are divided into five books, each closing with a benediction, evidently added to mark the end of the book. Note the number of psalms in Books 1 and 2. II. The Purposes: 1. They were originally used as songs in the Jewish Temple Worship. …
Frank Nelson Palmer—A Bird's-Eye View of the Bible The Knowledge of God
'The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.' I Sam 2:2. Glorious things are spoken of God; he transcends our thoughts, and the praises of angels. God's glory lies chiefly in his attributes, which are the several beams by which the divine nature shines forth. Among other of his orient excellencies, this is not the least, The Lord is a God of knowledge; or as the Hebrew word is, A God of knowledges.' Through the bright mirror of his own essence, he has a full idea and cognisance …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity How the Simple and the Crafty are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 12.) Differently to be admonished are the simple and the insincere. The simple are to be praised for studying never to say what is false, but to be admonished to know how sometimes to be silent about what is true. For, as falsehood has always harmed him that speaks it, so sometimes the hearing of truth has done harm to some. Wherefore the Lord before His disciples, tempering His speech with silence, says, I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now (Joh. xvi. 12). …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great Christ Teaching by Miracles
We have seen how many valuable lessons our Saviour taught while on earth by the parables which he used. But we teach by our lives, as well as by our lips. It has passed into a proverb, and we all admit the truth of it, that "Actions speak louder than words." If our words and our actions contradict each other, people will believe our actions sooner than our words. But when both agree together, then the effect is very great. This was true with our blessed Lord. There was an entire agreement between …
Richard Newton—The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young The Disciple, -- Master, it is Clear to Almost Everyone that to Disobey God And...
The Disciple,--Master, it is clear to almost everyone that to disobey God and to cease to worship Him is sin, and the deadly result is seen in the present state of the world. But what sin really is is not absolutely clear. In the very presence of Almighty God, and in opposition to His will, and in His own world, how did sin come to be? The Master,--1. Sin is to cast aside the will of God and to live according to one's own will, deserting that which is true and lawful in order to satisfy one's own …
Sadhu Sundar Singh—At The Master's Feet Appendix xvii. The Ordinances and Law of the Sabbath as Laid Down in the Mishnah and the Jerusalem Talmud.
The terribly exaggerated views of the Rabbis, and their endless, burdensome rules about the Sabbath may best be learned from a brief analysis of the Mishnah, as further explained and enlarged in the Jerusalem Talmud. [6476] For this purpose a brief analysis of what is, confessedly, one of the most difficult tractates may here be given. The Mishnic tractate Sabbath stands at the head of twelve tractates which together from the second of the six sections into which the Mishnah is divided, and which …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah The Being of God
Q-III: WHAT DO THE SCRIPTURES PRINCIPALLY TEACH? A: The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man. Q-IV: WHAT IS GOD? A: God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Here is, 1: Something implied. That there is a God. 2: Expressed. That he is a Spirit. 3: What kind of Spirit? I. Implied. That there is a God. The question, What is God? takes for granted that there …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity Out of the Deep of Suffering and Sorrow.
Save me, O God, for the waters are come in even unto my soul: I am come into deep waters; so that the floods run over me.--Ps. lxix. 1, 2. I am brought into so great trouble and misery: that I go mourning all the day long.--Ps. xxxviii. 6. The sorrows of my heart are enlarged: Oh! bring Thou me out of my distress.--Ps. xxv. 17. The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping: the Lord will receive my prayer.--Ps. vi. 8. In the multitude of the sorrows which I had in my heart, Thy comforts have refreshed …
Charles Kingsley—Out of the Deep Links Psalm 139:18 NIV
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