A Good Man in an Evil Case
“Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” — Psalm lv. 22.
THOSE of you who were here, last Thursday evening, will recollect that the sermon was concerning those sons of Gershon who were burden-bearers in connection with the tabernacle in the wilderness. They were not appointed to preach; they were not ordained to fight; but their service consisted in bearing burdens. There were some here, on that occasion, whom I had never known before, who had been, by the space of thirty years, great sufferers; they were carried into this place, last Thursday evening, I did not know of their presence until afterwards, when they told me that the sermon seemed to have been made for them, and that it had given them great comfort.
I thought I would follow up that sermon about burden-bearers by a discourse upon another text, which shows us that there are some burdens which we need not carry. Burdens of service, or burdens which come through our consecration to the Lord Jesus Christ, — these we will never lay down so long as we live. It shall be our joy to take up our cross daily, and follow Jesus; but there are certain burdens of care and sorrow, of which the text speaks, especially the burdens which come from the slander, and reproach, and oppression of ungodly men, which we need not carry. David says, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.”
Beloved friends, the very best men in the world may be slandered; and if you should hear them evil spoken of, be you not among those who straightway condemn them. There are some who say, “Where there is smoke, there is sure to be fire;” and, although it is well known that “common fame is a common liar,” yet there are some, who are so fond of hearing or telling lies, that they are sure to believe such a lie as this, especially if it be spoken concerning a servant of God. Be you not, therefore, ready to believe all the reports that you hear against any Christian people. The best of men, as I have already reminded you, have been worst spoken of, and there are some who turn upon them directly, like lions scenting their prey.
I may be just now addressing some, who are the victims of the malice of ungodly men or women. I am sorry, dear friends, that this should be your lot, for it is among the bitterest of human afflictions; but, at the same time, I would remind you that nothing unusual has happened to you. You remember the three brave men who were cast alive into Nebuchadnezzar’s burning fiery furnace when it was heated seven times more than it was wont to be heated. You are scarcely enduring such a fiery trial as that; and, certainly, you are not suffering as did your Master, the Lord of all pilgrims who have made their way to heaven. But if, in any degree, it should happen that you are bearing a burden of this kind, the text will have a special message for you.
In speaking upon this passage, I want to keep it in connection with the whole Psalm. I do not think it is dealing properly with the Bible to pick out one verse here, and another there, without looking to see what the connection of the passage is. If men’s books were treated as God’s Book is often treated, we should make many a grand and noble literary work to appear to be an insane production. It is true that God’s Book can endure even such treatment as that. It is such a wonderful Book that, even a sentence torn out of it will convey most precious truth; but it is not fair to the Book, and it is not fair to yourself, to treat the Bible so. A text of Scripture should always be viewed in the setting in which God has placed it, for there is often as much that is admirable in the gold which forms the setting of the jewel as there is in the jewel itself.
I. So, looking at our text in that light, I shall begin by saying that, WHEN WE ARE MUCH TRIED AND BURDENED, THERE IS SOMETHING THAT WE ARE TEMPTED TO DO. The text does not mention it, but the Psalm does; and the text is an antidote to the malady which the Psalm describes or implies. “Cast thy burden upon the Lord,” is an injunction concerning that which we are to put in the place of something else which more naturally suggests itself to our poor foolish minds.
And, first, when we are in very severe trouble, we are tempted to complain. The psalmist says, in the second verse, “I mourn in my complaint, and make a noise.” I am not sure that our version is quite fair to David in this instance, but it suits my present purpose admirably. As the children of God, we ought to avoid even the semblance of a complaint against our Heavenly Father; but when our faith is sorely tried, when some sharp reproach is stinging our spirit, we are all too apt to begin thinking and saying that God is dealing hardly with us. You know how Job, that most patient of men, became very impatient when his so-called “friends” poured vinegar instead of oil into his wounds. Smarting under their cruel treatment, he said some things which he had far better have left unsaid. O brethren, pray that, whenever the Lord lays his rod heavily upon you, your tears may have no rebellion in them! Whatever his providential dealings with you may be, may you be enabled to say, with Job, “Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” Let the worst come from his hand that can come, still say, with the patriarch, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” May you even join Job in his triumphant declaration, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” It is grand faith that enables a believer to say, “Though I should die at God’s altar, I will die like the lamb that is brought to the slaughter, or be like the sheep that is dumb before her shearers, and makes no complaint.”
The next natural temptation is that of. giving up altogether, and lying down in despair. You get that in the fourth and fifth verses: “My heart is sore pained within me: and the terrors of death are fallen upon me. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me.” Have not some of you been sometimes tempted to say, “There, I can do no more; I must give all up; that last cruel blow has utterly broken me in pieces, and I feel that I can only lay me down, and die in the bitterness of my spirit”? Brothers and sisters, this is a temptation against which you must strive most earnestly. As no living man should complain, so no living man should despair, and especially no child of God. Up with thee, poor heart; thou hast not yet come to the end of God’s delivering mercy, even though thou hast come to the end of thy poor puny strength. The Lord shall light thy candle now that thy night is so dark. Thou shalt yet sing for very joy of heart though now thou canst only, like David, mourn in thy complaint, and make a noise. God will understand thy moaning, and thy mourning, and he will bring thee again from Bashan, and from the depths of the sea if thou hast sunk as low as that. Wherefore, talk not of dying before your time. Yet, if you do so, you will not be the first who has talked like that, for there was one, who never died, who said, “O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.” That was Elijah, the prophet of fire; yet, just then, he seemed as if he were only cold ashes rather than a vehement flame, — another proof that the best of men are but men at the best.
The next very common temptation is, to want to flee from our present trials. You get that in verses six to eight: “I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest. Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.” Possibly, you are the pastor of a church, and things do not prosper as you could wish; I wonder where they do. But, in your case, you think there is such a little prosperity that you must give up your position, and run away. Young gunners, before they have become accustomed to the smell of gunpowder, and the noise of cannons, have often been known to desert their guns, and even old soldiers have sometimes felt what the “trembles” are. But, my brother, if this is your case, I beseech you not to run away. If you did flee, where would you go? You think you will run away, as Jonah did, do you? I warrant you that Jonah was very sorry that he had run away when he found himself, in the whale’s belly, at the very bottom of the mountains, in the depths of the sea; and you and I will be sure to get into greater trouble if we run away from the path of duty. Fight it out, man; stand your ground in the name of God, and in the strength of God. It may be that there are better days just now coming, and that Satan is seeking to drive you away just as you are on the brink of success. Dr. Watts has a good paraphrase of this Psalm, and also writes wisely concerning the temptation to flee from the post of duty. He says, —
“Oh, were I like a feathered dove,
And innocence had wings!
I’d fly, and make a long remove
From all these restless things.
Let me to some wild desert go,
And find a peaceful home;
Where storms of malice never blow,
Temptations never come.
“Vain hopes, and vain inventions all,
To ’scape the rage of hell!
The mighty God, on whom I call,
Can save me here as well.
“God shall preserve my soul from fear,
Or shield me when afraid;
Ten thousand angels must appear,
If HE command their aid.”
Possibly, the special case in point is not that of a minister. It is some Mary, weeping at home because her brother Lazarus is dead. Martha is not a very congenial sister to her, so she does not even go with her when she goes to meet the Lord; yet, strangely enough, each of the sisters says the same words to Jesus, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” In due time, the Master sends for Mary, and soon she has the joy of welcoming Lazarus back from the grave. Some of us get queer ideas into our heads at times; we resolve that we will go we know not where, and do we know not what. Ah, my dear friends, he, whose great trouble lies in his own heart, cannot run away from it, for he bears it about with him wherever he goes. The old man of the mountain, who sits upon your shoulder, and clings so tightly to you, if he be your own self, is not to be shaken off by your running away. Far wiser will it be for you to do as the text says, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord.” Then thou wilt want no wings like a dove, nor wilt thou wish to fly away to the wilderness; but thou wilt be willing to stay in the very midst of the battle, and even there thou wilt be in perfect peace, —
“Calm ’mid the bewildering cry,
Confident of victory.”
I have often enjoyed the greatest solitude amid the crowds in Cheapside, and I believe that there is many a Christian, who has experienced the deepest peace in the midst of the wildest turmoil. Some of us know what Madame Guyon meant when she wrote, —
“While place we seek or place we shun,
The soul finds happiness in none;
But with a God to guide our way,’
Tis equal joy to go or stay.”
Trust thou in him, cast thou thy burden on him, for so thou wilt escape from this temptation of wanting to flee away from the place where he would have thee to be.
There is one other temptation that this Psalm suggests to me, and that is, the temptation to wish ill to those who are causing us ill. Perhaps mistaking the meaning of the passage, we are apt to pray the prayer in the ninth verse, “‘Destroy, O Lord!’ Our foes have slandered us, they have spoken ill of us, and we wish that they were dead, or that some great judgment might overtake them.” It will never do, dear friends, to indulge such a feeling as that. We shall be ourselves injured if we desire that others should be injured. Slander has indeed stung thee when thou harbourest the wish to sting another. Someone said, in my hearing, attempting to justify revenge or retaliation, “But if you tread on a worm, it will turn;” and I answered, “Is a poor worm, that only turns because of its agony through man’s cruelty, the pattern for a Christian man to follow? Will you look down to the dust of the earth to find the example that you are to imitate?” Wicked men trod upon Christ, — who even compared himself to a worm, — yet he did not turn upon them, except to cry, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Let that be the only kind of turning that you ever practise towards your enemies. Do not be driven, by their evil speaking or their cruel deeds, into harshness of speech or even harshness of thought. I have known some persons, under sore trouble, who have at last become quite soured and bitter of spirit; that is all wrong, and very sad, and no good can ever come of such a state of heart as that. The bruising of the sycamore fig results in its growing sweeter, let thy bruising produce a similar effect upon thee. Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, in his wondrous Sermon on the Mount, “I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.” If you do not act thus, which is the right thing for you to do, you will almost certainly do the wrong thing in some shape or other. Therefore, God help you to do what is right! Child, is thy father rough to thee? Then, love him until he becomes tender and gentle. Wife, is thy husband unkind to thee? Then, win him back by thy sweet smiles. Servant, is thy mistress harsh to thee? Even good women have sometimes dealt as hardly with their servants as Sarah dealt with Hagar. Well, if that is thy case, be not thou like Hagar, who despised her mistress. Submit thyself to her, for so shalt thou yet win her, as many a Christian slave of old, far worse treated than thou hast been, won his master or his mistress to Christ in those earliest and happiest days of Christianity. What is there for a Christian man to do but love his enemies? This is the most powerful weapon that we have in our armoury. We shall be wise as serpents if God teacheth us wisdom, and we shall also be harmless as doves if the Holy Spirit, like a dove, rests upon us, and makes us also to abound in gentleness. By this sign we shall conquer, for it is love that always wins the day.
Thus I have shown you what we are tempted to do when we are like this good man who was in such an evil case.
II. Now I am going to show you, from the text, as the Holy Spirit shall help me, WHAT WE ARE COMMANDED TO DO. That is, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord.” Thou hast a burden upon thy back, it is too heavy for thee to bear, so cast it upon the Lord.
“How shall I do that?” someone asks. Well, if you are a child of God, I invite you, first of all, to trace your burden back to God. “But it comes from the treachery of Ahithophel, or from the rebellion of Absalom.” I grant you that it does; but those are only the second causes, or the agents, trace the matter back to the Great First Cause. If you do that, you will come, by a mystery which I will not attempt to explain, to the hand of divine providence, and you will say of every burden, “This also cometh from the Lord.” You have probably seen a dog, when he has been struck with, a stick, turn round, and bite the staff that smote him. If he were a wise dog, he would bite the man who held the stick that dealt the blow. When God uses his rod upon one of his children, even a godly man will sometimes snap at the rod. “But, sir, surely you would not have me turn upon my God?” Oh, no! I know you will not do that, for you are his child; and when you see that God is holding the rod in his hand, you will cease to be rebellious, and you will say, with the psalmist, “‘I was dumb with silence.’ I was going to speak, but I opened not my mouth, because I saw that it was in thine hand that the rod of chastisement was held.” It is well always to trace our trials direct to God, and say, “It may be Judas Iscariot who has betrayed me; but, still, it was planned in God’s eternal purpose that I should be betrayed; so I will forget the second cause, except it be to pray God to forgive the malice of the betrayer, and I will look to the Lord who permitted the trial to come upon me for his own glory and for my good.”
The next thing thou hast to do is this. Seeing that the burden is from. God, patiently wait his time for its removal. There are some people, who, if they had a task set them by some great one whom they respected and revered, would cheerfully perform it. If, in the middle of the night, you were called up by a Queen’s messenger, and bidden to do something for Her Majesty, you would be glad to rise and dress, even though it might be a cold night, and you might have far to go to fulfil your commission; and if you feel that your burden is from the Lord, — if the King’s arms are stamped upon the affliction or trial that comes to you, straightway you will say, “As the Lord wills it, I will bear it without complaining. When it is his time to deliver me, I shall be delivered; and so long as it is his time for me to suffer, I will suffer patiently.” I wish that all Christians could be like that good old woman who was asked whether, as she was so very ill, she would prefer to live or to die, said that she had no preference whatever, she only wished that the will of the Lord might be done. “But, still, if the Lord said to you, ‘Which will you have?’ which would you choose?” She said, “I would not even then choose, but I would ask the Lord to choose for me.” You see, whenever anything comes to us from God, we have not the responsibility of it; but if it came through our own choice, then we might say to ourselves, “What fools we were to choose this particular trial!” You say that you do not like the cross God has sent you. Well but, at any rate, it is not by your own choice that you have to carry that particular cross. It is God who chose it for you; whereas, if you had selected it, you might well say, “Oh, dear me, what a mistake I made when I chose this burden!” Now, you cannot say that; and I pray that you may have grace to see that “the whole disposing” of your lot is, as Solomon says, “of the Lord.” The Hebrew of our text would bear such a rendering as this, “Cast on the Lord what the Lord gives thee. Cast on him what he casts on thee. See the marks of his hand on thy burden, and thou wilt be reconciled to thy load. Know that God sends it to thee, and patiently wait till he takes it away.” F. W. Faber very sweetly writes, —
“I have no cares, O blessed Lord,
For all my cares are thine;
I live in triumph, too, for thou
Hast made thy triumphs mine.
“And when it seems no chance nor change
From grief can set me free;
Hope finds its strength in helplessness,
And patient, waits on thee.
“Lead on, lead on, triumphantly,
O blessed Lord, lead on!
Faith’s pilgrim-sons behind thee seek
The road that thou hast gone.”
One blessed way of casting our burden upon the Lord is to tell the Lord all about it. It is a high privilege to get away alone, and talk to God as a man talketh with his friend. But I know what you often do, my brothers and sisters. When you get into a cleft stick, and cannot tell what to do, then you begin to pray. Why do you not, every morning, tell the Lord about all your difficulties before they come? What! will you only run to him when you get into trouble? Nay, go to him before you get into trouble. Half our burdens come from what we have not prayed over. If a man would take the ordinary concerns of life distinctly to God, one by one, it is marvellous bow easily the chariot of life would roll along. Things over which we have not prayed are like undigested food that breeds mischief in the body; they breed mischief in the soul. Do thou digest thy daily bread by praying first, “God give it to me, and then God bless me in the use of it, and then God bless me afterwards in the spending of the strength derived from it to his praise and glory.” Salt all your life with prayer, lest corruption should come to that part of thy life which thou hast not thus salted. Tell the Lord, then, thy griefs, just as, when a child, you told your troubles to your mother.
“I cannot find words,” says one. Oh, they will cornel They come fast enough when you complain to man, and they will sweetly come if you get into the blessed habit of talking to God about everything. A friend said to me, not long ago, “I was on the Exchange, and I saw that I had made a mistake in a certain transaction. I had lost money by it; and if I had gone on dealing in the same fashion, I should have been ruined. I just stepped aside for a minute or two into a quiet corner of my office. I stood still, and breathed a prayer to God for guidance. Then I went back, and felt, ‘Now I am ready for any one of you.’” “So I was,” he said, “I was not confused and worried, as I should otherwise have been, and so liable to make mistakes, but I had waited upon God, and I was therefore calm and collected.” There is much wisdom in thus praying about everything; although, possibly, some of you may think it trivial. I believe that the very soul of Christianity lies in the sanctifying of what is called secular, — the bringing of all things under the cognizance of our God by intense, constant, importunate, believing prayer.
When you have told the Lord everything, the next thing for you to do, in order to cast your burden upon him, is to believe that all will work together for your good. Swallow the bitter as readily as you do the sweet; and believe that, somehow, the strange mixture will do you great good. Do not look out at thy window, judging this, and that, and the other, in detail; but, if God sent it to thee, open the door, and take it all in, for all that has come from him will be to his glory and to thy profit. Believe thou that, if thou shalt lose certain things, thou wilt really be a gainer by thy losses. Even if thy dearest one is taken from thee, all shall be well if thou hast but faith to trust God in it all. If thou thyself art stricken with mortal sickness, it will still be well with thee; and if thou dost still steadfastly trust in the Lord, thou shalt know that it is so. “We know,” says the apostle Paul; he does not say, “We think, we suppose, we judge,” but, “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” If thou dost know this, my brother or my sister, it shall help thee to “cast thy burden upon the Lord.”
When thou hast done this, then leave thy burden with the Lord. In the process of trusting God with thy burden, get to this point, that thou hast done with it. If I cast my burden upon the Lord, what business have I to carry it myself? How can I truthfully say that I have cast it upon him if still I am burdened with it? Throughout my life, which has not been free from many grave cares, there have been many things which I have been able to see my own way through; and, using my best judgment, they have passed off well. But, in so large a church as this, there sometimes occur things that altogether stagger me. I do not know what to do in such a case as that; and I have been in the habit, after doing all I can, of putting such things up on the shelf, and saying, “There, I will never take them down again, come what may. I have done with them, for I have left them wholly with God;” and I wish to bear my testimony that, somehow or other, the thing which I could not unravel, has unravelled itself. When Peter and the angel “came unto the iron gate,” it “opened to them of his own accord;” and the same thing has happened to me many a time. “Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?” asked the holy women when they came to the tomb of their Lord; “and when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away.” Learn to say, “My God has made this difficulty, and there is some good result to come of it; I have done the little I can do, so now I will leave it all with him.” Ah, but I know what some of you do; you say that you have left it all with God, and then you lie awake all night fretting about it. Is that casting your burden upon the Lord? Oh, for a blessed literalism about the promises of God, and our faith in them, so that we take them to mean just what they say, and act upon them, accordingly! Now, if some poor woman here were sadly in debt for her rent, and she met with a Christian brother who said to her, “Do not fret, my good sister, I will see it all paid to-morrow;” do you think she would go running about, and saying, “O dear, I shall lose my things, my rent will not be paid”? No; she would say, “Mr. So-and-so,, whom I know and trust, said that he would pay it for me, and I feel perfectly quiet about it.” Now, do thou so with thy God if thou knowest him. David said, “They that know thy name will put their trust in thee.” If thou truly lovest the Lord, it will be a proof of thy love to repose thy care upon him without questioning; and when thou hast cast thy burden upon him, it will prove the truth of thy having done so if thou art unburdened, and thy heart is at rest. If he beareth my burden, why should I also bear it? If he careth for me, what have I to do to vex myself with fretful, anxious cares?
I have thus done my best to show you what we are commanded to do: “Cast thy burden upon the Lord.”
III. And now thirdly, and very briefly, WHAT WE SHOULD ENDEAVOUR TO DO.
If I read the text aright, we here have David talking to himself; and what we are to endeavour to do is, to talk to ourselves, just as David talked to himself. He says of his enemy, “The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart;” and so on, and then he seems to say, “Come, David, do not fret yourself like this; but cast your burden upon the Lord.” Have you not noticed how often David seems as if he were two Davids, and one David talks to the other David? It was so when he said to himself, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul; and why art thou disquieted within me?” And I want thee, dear friend, to chide thyself, and say, “Come, fretful heart, what art thou at? Cast, thy burden upon the Lord. What art thou doing? Has God forsaken thee? Has God refused to help thee? Begone unbelief, take thyself off. Come, faith, and dwell in my soul, and reign over my spirit, swaying thy gracious sceptre of peace.”
And when you have thus been chiding yourself, argue with yourself about the matter. Say to yourself, “See how the text puts it: ‘Cast thy burden upon the Lord.’” Well, if it is thy burden, and God meant it for thee, then do not thou quarrel with it. And as it is thy burden, so is God thy God, the covenant-keeping God, thy Father and thy Friend. Come, my soul, cast thy burden upon thy God; where else shouldst thou put thy burden when he bids thee cast it upon him? Thou canst not sustain thyself under such a load, but God will sustain thee and thy burden, too. Think of the righteousness of God, and say, “It is impossible that the righteous God should leave the righteous to perish. If they are slandered, that is a further reason why God should take up their cause. He is their Advocate and their Defender. Come, my heart, it shall never be truly said of the Judge of all the earth that he leaves his people to perish, especially when their good name is assailed because of their fidelity to him.”
I want you, dear friends, to talk thus with yourselves, especially those of you who are rather apt to give way to despondency. There are some such here, I know. You come to me, sometimes, with your griefs, and I do the best I can to cheer you; but I have often said to myself, “That dear sister had a father who was a member with us; he used to come to me in just the same way as she does. This despondency seems to run in the blood.” Some of you must have been born in December, and you never seem to get out of that month; it is always winter with you. But now I want you just to take the language of the text, and say to yourself, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved;” and, possibly, God will bless thine own sermon to thyself more than he would bless my sermon to thee. At any rate, try it.
IV. Lastly, — and here I want the time for a whole sermon, — let us think of WHAT WE MAY EXPECT IF WE FULFIL THE COMMAND OF THE TEXT: “Cast thy burden upon the Lord.”
There are two grand things in the text, — sustenance and sufferance. The old Puritans would have made a book about those two words, and we might preach a dozen sermons upon them, and still not exhaust their meaning. What does the Lord do with his people when they cast their burdens upon him? He gives them sustenance. “He shall sustain thee.” The word “sustain” is the same that is used when God told Elijah to go to Zarephath, saying, “Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee,” — that is, “to feed thee,” “to nourish thee.” Perhaps that would have been a better rendering of the original: “Cast thy burden upon the Lord,” and what will he do? Deliver thee out of thy trouble? No; but he will feed thee up till thou canst carry it; and that will be an even better thing than relieving thee of the burden. Here is a dear child that has but a little load to carry, yet he staggers under it. it would be a kind thing for his father to pick up the child, and his load, too, and carry both him and his burden. But the wise father says, “I will so provide for that child that he shall grow in strength, and at last shall be able to carry his load.” “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee;” that is, “He shall feed thee; he shall nourish thee.” I believe that, when Paul was attacked by that viper that came out of the sticks, it looked a very ugly thing indeed, but Paul just shook it off into the fire. Why do you think that snake came? Why, it came to feed them all! “No,” say you, “that serpent did not do it.” It did, for the islanders said that this man was a god, and straightway they began to gather around him and his companions, and to provide for their wants with all the greater alacrity because of the reverence that they felt for the apostle. So you shall often find that what looks like a horrible thing will be the best way in which God could bless you.
“Cast thy burden upon the Lord.” “It will crush me.” No, it will not; you shall grow under it, and then grow out of it; and you shall prove the truth of those precious lines, —
“From all their afflictions my glory shall spring,
And the deeper their sorrows, the louder they’ll sing.”
Only by faith leave thy trouble with thy God, and he will nurture thee. Even out of the very rock of trouble will he feed thee, and give thee oil out of the flinty rock of thine afflictions.
Then, the other point is sufferance. I am obliged to hurry over these truths, and leave you to meditate upon them afterwards. “He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” Learn, from this declaration, that nothing will happen to you but what God permits. There are some things which are very grievous, which God does suffer to happen to his people; but there are other things which he will not suffer; he will never allow them to come. “No,” says he, “my child, who has walked uprightly before me, my righteous one, the man who spoke the truth, the man who did the right thing, I will not suffer that man to be moved. He may be moved as the boughs of a tree sway to and fro in the breeze, but not as the roots of a tree are torn up by a storm. He may be moved a little, like a ship riding at anchor, which just swings with the tide; but he shall not be driven out to sea, or drift on to the rocks to his destruction.”
“He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” Do you catch the psalmist’s idea? It is as if God interposed, and said, “No, I will not permit that.” A father may see his child somewhat put upon, yet at first he may not interfere; but, at last, a cruel blow is struck, and he says, “No, I will not stand that. While I have an arm to defend my child, he shall not be treated in that fashion.” Well, then, leave everything with your Heavenly Father, for he will not suffer you to be moved. If you are really righteous, trusting in the Righteous One, justified by the blood and righteousness of Christ, and are doing what is right in his sight, he will not suffer you to be moved. The next time you are sorely vexed by the tongue of slander, go and tell your Father, just as the little boys tell their big brothers. Go and tell your Father all about it, and do not fret over it. If somebody has done you a great wrong, you may say to him, “I shall be obliged to refer you to my solicitor.” But after you have done that, I hope you do not go writing letters to him on your own responsibility. Refer everything to God, and leave all with him; for, so, a blessed peace will bedew your spirit, making your life on earth like the beginning of life in heaven.
In closing my discourse, I must just say that I do feel, in my inmost soul, the deepest pity for those of you who have no God to go to when you are in trouble, You have a burden to bear, but you cannot cast it on the Lord. He will suffer you to be moved, for you do not cry unto him to help you. I feel that I would rather be a dog than be a man without a God. I think I could make myself happy if I were only a mouse in its hole; but if I were a prince in a palace, without God, I should be utterly miserable. O poor hearts, if you really want him, he is to be had! If you are longing for him, his door is open to receive you. If you will come to him, he will come and meet you much more than half way; yes, all the way will he come to everyone who wills to come to him. As soon as you say, “I will arise,” he has already arisen, and is on his way to meet you. Practically, there is no distance for you to go, for he is there, waiting to welcome you. Believe in his dear Son, and live. First cast your great burden of sin upon the Lord, and then cast upon him all other burdens that he is willing to take from you; and, soon, he will put a new song into your mouth, and establish your goings. The Lord grant it, for his dear Son’s sake! Amen!