The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, a sermon delivered on
Sunday morning, June 15th, 1862, by the Reverend
C.
H.
Spurgeon, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
Psalm 37, verse 4.
Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he
shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
There are two teachings in our text which
must be very surprising to those who are
strangers to vital godliness.
To sincere believers these marvels are recognized facts,
but to the outside world they will appear
passing strange.
We have here, first of all, the life
of a believer described as a delight in
God, and thus we are certified of the
great truth that true religion overflows with happiness
and joy.
Ungodly persons and mere professors never look upon
religion as a joyful thing.
To them it is a service, a duty,
or necessity, but never pleasure or delight.
Wherefore go they up to the house of
God?
Is it not because of custom, a custom
which they would fain avoid if they dare?
Wherefore do they attend to the ordinances of
the church?
Is it not either out of Pharisaic hope
of merit, or from a superstitious dread?
How many view the forms of religion as
charms to avert ill, or as lesser evils
by which they escape from dreaded judgment?
What is their service but drudgery, and their
worship but weariness?
Ask ye the worldlings what they think of
religion, and even when they practice its outward
rites they snuff at it as a dull
and dreary thing.
What a weariness it is!
They love it as much as the ass
loves labor, or the horse the whip, or
the prisoner the treadmill.
They cry for short sermons.
Indeed, none at all would suit them better.
How cheerfully would they clip the hours of
Sunday!
Indeed, if Sabbath only came but once in
the month, they would prefer it.
The heavy necessity of pious customs weighs upon
them as tribute upon a conquered province.
They pay to religion an observance of the
character of a tax or toll which custom
demands.
But freewill offerings they know not, and loving
enjoyment of hallowed fellowship they cannot understand.
They serve God as Cain did, who brought
his offering, it is true, but brought it
late, brought it because it was the family
custom, and he would not be outdone by
his brother, brought it of the common fruit
of the ground, and with a sullen, loveless
heart.
The Cainites bring such as they are forced
to bring, and mingle no faith in Jesus'
blood with their offerings.
They come with leaden heels to the house
of God, and they go away as if
they had feathers to their feet.
They serve God, but it is either that
they may gain thereby, or else because they
dare not do otherwise.
The thought of delight in religion is so
strange to most men that no two words
in their language stand farther apart than holiness
and delight.
Ah, but believers who know Christ understand that
delight and faith are so blessedly married the
gates of hell cannot prevail to divorce them.
They who love God with all their hearts
find that His ways are ways of pleasantness,
and all His paths are peace.
Such joy, such brimful delight, such overflowing bliss
do the saints discover in their Lord that
so far from serving Him from custom they
would follow Him should all the world cast
out His name as evil.
We fear not God because of any compulsion.
Our faith is no fetter, our profession is
no prison.
We are not dragged to holiness nor driven
to duty.
No, sirs, our religion is our recreation, our
hope is our happiness, our duty is our
delight.
I know it always will be a calumny
against Christ's religion that it makes men miserable,
but a greater misapprehension or a baser falsehood
never cursed the world because we cannot trifle
so foolishly nor sin so boldly nor brag
so lustily as the servants of sin.
Therefore you think us miserable.
Ah, sirs, it is well written, a stranger
intermedleth not with our joy.
The secret of the Lord is with them
that fear Him, and their joy no man
taketh from them.
Let us remind you, however, that still waters
run the deepest.
The rill which rattles o'er the stones
dries up in the summer, but the deep
-flowing river speeds on come drought or heat,
and yet glideth silently along the meads.
We do not talk so loudly of our
joys as you of your merriments, because we
have no need to do so.
Ours are known as well in silence as
in exciting company.
We need not your society to make us
glad, much less the varied accompaniments which prop
your bliss.
We need neither bowl nor feast nor vial
nor dance to make us glad, nor even
the stalled ox and the bursting wine-fat
to make us rich.
Our happiness lies not on passing creatures, but
in the eternal, immutable Creator.
I know, despite all we shall say, this
slander will survive from generation to generation, that
God's people are a wretched people.
But at least let us clear our conscience
of you, and let us make you without
excuse if you believe it again.
We do have joy.
We do have delights such that we would
not part with one dram of ours for
a ton of yours, not drops of our
joy for rivers, of your delights.
Ours are no tinsel or painted joys, but
solid realities, and are joys that we can
take with us to our bed in the
silent dust, joys that shall sleep with us
in the tomb and that shall awake with
us in eternity, joys that we can look
back upon and so live them o'er
again in retrospect, joys that we can anticipate
and so know both here and hereafter.
Ours are not bubbles which only glitter to
burst.
Ours are not apples of Sodom turning to
ashes in our hand.
Our delights are substantial, real, true, solid, lasting,
and everlasting.
What more shall I say?
Dismiss from your minds this mistake.
Delight and true religion are as allied as
root and flower, as indivisible as truth and
certainty.
They are in fact two precious jewels set
side by side in the same socket of
gold.
But there is another wonder in our text
to worldly men, though it is a wonder
well understood by Christians.
The text says, He shall give thee the
desires of thine heart.
Why, the worldly man says, I thought religion
was all self-denial.
I never imagined that in loving God we
could have our desires.
I thought that godliness consisted in killing, destroying,
and keeping back our desires.
Does not the religion of most men consist
in an open abstinence from sins which they
secretly love?
Negative godliness is very common in this age.
It is supposed by most men that our
religion consists in things which we must not
do, rather than in pleasures which we may
enjoy.
We must not go to a theatre.
We must not sing songs, trade on Sundays,
use ill words, and so on.
We must not do this, and we must
not do that.
And they suppose us to be a crabbed,
miserable race of persons who no doubt make
up by some private allowance for denying ourselves
in public.
Now it is true that religion, true religion,
is self-denial.
It is equally true that it is not
self-denial.
Christian men have two selves.
There is the old self, and therein they
do deny the flesh with its affections and
lusts.
But there is a new self.
There is a newborn spirit, the new man
in Christ Jesus, and brethren, our religion does
not consist in any self-denial of that.
Now let it have the full swing of
its wishes and desires, for all that it
can wish for, all that it can pant
after, all that it can long to enjoy,
it may most safely obtain.
When I hear persons say, well, you know
my religion consists in some things that I
must do, and in some things that I
must not do, I reply, mine consists in
things that I love to do, and in
avoiding things that I hate and would scorn
to do.
I feel no chain in my religion, for
I am free, and never man more free.
He who fears God and his holy God's
servant has no chains about him.
He may live as he lists, for he
lists to live as he ought.
He may have his full desires, for his
desires are holy, heavenly, divine.
He may take the full range of the
utmost capacity of his wishes and desires, and
of all he wants and all he wishes,
for God has given him the promise, and
God will give him the fulfillment of it.
But do not go away with the idea
that we are always afraid to put one
foot before the other, because there is some
must not in our way, and that we
do not go that way to the right
or that way to the left, because we
dare not.
O sirs, we would not if we might.
We would not if the law were altered.
We would not have your pleasures if we
might.
If we could go to heaven and live
as sinners live, we would not choose their
way in conversation.
It would be a hell to us to
be compelled to sin, even if sin could
go unpunished.
If we could have your drunkenness, if we
could have your lusts, O ye ungodly ones,
if we could have your mirth and your
joy, we would not have them.
We do not deny ourselves when we give
these up.
We despise your mirth.
We abominate it and tread it beneath our
feet.
I can't understand, once said a bird to
a fish, how it is that you always
live in the cold element.
I could not live there.
It must be a great self-denial to
you not to fly up to the trees.
See how I can mount a loft.
Ah, said the fish, it is no self
-denial to me to live here.
It is my element.
I never aspire to fly, for it would
not suit me.
If I were taken out of my element,
I should die, unless I was restored to
it very soon.
And the sooner the better.
So the believer feels that God is his
native element.
He does not escape from his God or
from his master's will and service.
And if for a time he were taken
out of it, the sooner he could get
back to it, the better.
If he is thrown into bad company, he
is miserable and wretched until he gets out
of it again.
Does the dove deny itself when it does
not eat carrion?
No, verily, the dove could not delight in
blood.
It would not feed thereon if it could.
When a man sees a company of swine
under the oak delighting themselves in their acorns
and grunting out their satisfaction, does he deny
himself when passes them by without sharing their
feast?
No, verily, he is better bred at home,
whereof he can eat, and swine's meat is
no dainty to him.
So it is with the believer.
His religion is a matter of delight, a
matter of satisfaction.
And that which he avoids and turns from
is very little self-denial to him.
His tastes are changed, his wishes are altered.
He delights himself in his God and joyously
receives the desire of his heart.
This, by way of preface, now to come
to our text itself.
There are two things in the text, very
plainly.
The first is a precept written upon sparkling
jewels.
Delight thyself in the Lord.
The second is a promise priceless beyond rubies.
He shall give thee the desires of thine
heart.
The first is a precept written upon sparkling
jewels.
I have added these last words because the
law of the ten commands was written upon
stone, perhaps hard granite, in which men could
take but little delight.
But this law of one command, delight thyself
in the Lord, is no stony law to
be written upon tables of granite.
But it contains a precept for sparkling brightness,
worthy to be written on amethysts and pearls.
Delight thyself in the Lord.
My brethren, when delight becomes a duty, then
certainly duty is a delight.
When it becomes my duty to be happy,
when I have an express command to be
glad, then indeed I must be a sinner
if I refuse my own joys and turn
aside for my own bliss.
Oh, what a God we have who has
made it our duty to be happy!
What a gracious God, who accounts no obedience
to be so worthy of his acceptance as
a gladsome obedience rendered by a joyous heart!
Delight thyself in the Lord.
Now first, what is this delight?
I have been thinking the word delight over,
and I cannot explain it.
You know it is a word by itself,
a delightful word.
I cannot use anything but its own self
to describe it.
If you look at it, it is flashing
with light.
It sparkles like a star, nay, like a
bright constellation, radiant with sweet influences like cladies.
It is joy, yet it is more.
It is joy running over.
It is rest, but such a rest as
allows of the utmost activity, of every passion
of the soul.
Delight, it is mirth without its froth.
Delight, it is peace, yet it is more
than that.
It is peace celebrated with festivity, with all
the streamers hanging in the streets and all
the music playing in the soul.
Delight, whereunto shall I compare it?
It is a stray word that belongs to
the language of paradise, and when the holy
words of Eden flew away to heaven at
the fall, this one, being entangled in the
silken meshes of the net of the first
promise, was retained on earth to sing in
believers' ears.
Where shall I find metaphors to set it
out?
Man, fails me, let me turn then to
the unsinning creatures of God.
Go to the seaside when the sea is
going down, and in some parts of the
coast you will see a little fringe just
at the edge of the wave.
It looks like a mist, but on closer
examination you will find there are millions of
very small shrimps leaping up in all manner
of postures and forms out of the receding
wave in exuberance of glee and merriment.
Oh, look on a summer eve at the
gnats as they dance untiringly, scarcely knowing how
to enjoy themselves enough, or see the lambs
in the field how they skip and leap.
Hark to the morning song of the birds
of the air, and listen again to their
delicious notes at eventide.
See the fish as they leap from the
stream, and hear the insects as they hum
in the air.
These may give faint glimmerings of the light
of delight.
Wing your flight to heaven if you would
know what delight means.
See the spirits there as their fingers sweep
the golden strings.
Hark to their voices as with peals of
joy are known to human ears.
They sing unto him that hath loved them
and washed them from their sins in his
blood.
Mark them as they keep eternal Sabbath in
the great temple of the living God, and
gaze upon his throne, and gaze, and gaze,
and gaze again, absorbed in glory, beatified in
Jesus, full of heaven, overflowing with exceeding joy.
This is delight.
I fail in the description, I know.
You must take the word and spell it
over letter by letter, and then you must
pray God to put your heart into a
sweet frame of mind, made up of the
following ingredients.
A perfect rest from all earthly care, a
perfect resignation of yourself in God's hands, an
intense confidence in his love to you, a
divine love to him, so that you feel
you would be anything or do anything for
him.
And then there must be added to all
this a joy in him, and when you
have these, they must be all set a
-boiling, and then you have delight in the
Lord your God.
Matthew Henry says, desire is love in action.
Like a bird on the wing, delight is
love in rest, like a bird on its
nest.
Such is the meaning of the word, and
such the duty prescribed.
Delight thyself also in the Lord.
Secondly, whence comes this delight?
The text tells us, delight thyself in the
Lord.
Delight thyself in Jehovah, in his very existence.
That there is a God is enough to
make the most wretched man happy, if he
believeth.
The nations crash, dynasties fall, kingdoms reel, what
mattereth it, for there is a God.
The father has gone to the tomb, the
mother sleeps in the dust, the wife has
fallen from our side, the children are removed,
but there is a God.
This alone is enough to be a wellspring
of joy forever and ever to all true
believers.
Delight also in his dominion.
The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice, Jehovah
is king, come what may of it, he
sits upon the throne and ruleth all things
well.
The Lord hath prepared his throne in the
heavens and his kingdom ruleth over all.
Standing in the chariot of providence he holds
the reins and guides the dashing courses according
to his own will.
God is exalted above the mountains and above
the hills he hath sway in all things
both the magnificent and the minute.
Be glad, O daughter of Zion, for the
Lord is king forever and ever.
Hallelujah!
Every attribute of God should become a fresh
ray in this sunlight of delight.
That he is wise would make us glad
who know our folly.
That he is mighty should cause us to
rejoice who tremble at our own weakness.
That he is everlasting should always be a
theme for our music when we know that
we are grass and wither as the green
herb.
That he is unchanging should always give us
a song since we change every hour and
are never long the same.
That he is full of grace, that he
is overflowing with it, and that this grace
in the covenant he has given to us,
that it is ours, ours to cleanse us,
ours to keep us, ours to sanctify us,
ours to perfect us, ours to bring us
to glory.
All this should tend to make us delight
ourselves in him.
O believers, ye stand today by a deep
river.
Ye perhaps have waded into it up to
your ankles, and you know something of its
clear, sweet heavenly streams, but onward the depth
is greater and the current more delightful still.
Take a plunge therein.
Now plunge into the Godhead's deepest sea.
Lose yourself in his immensity.
Let his attributes cover up all your weakness
and all your folly and everything else that
can make you groaning and desponding.
Rejoice in him, though you cannot rejoice in
yourselves.
Triumph in the God of Israel, though in
yourselves you have caused enough for despair.
The Christian also feels that he may delight
himself in all that God has done in
the past.
Those psalms which end with, His mercy endureth
forever.
Will we find such divisions as these?
O Og, King of Bashan, for his mercy
endureth forever.
Sihon, King of the Amorites, for his mercy
endureth forever.
All these show us that God's people in
olden times were wont to think much of
God's actions, so that they did not throw
them in the lump into one verse, but
divided them to have a song about each
of them.
So let God's people rehearse the deeds of
the Lord.
Let them tell of his mighty acts.
Let them sing.
Thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in
pieces thine enemy.
The Lord is a man of war, the
Lord is his name.
Sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed
gloriously.
Let them continue to rehearse his deeds, till
they come to the deeds of grace in
their own hearts.
And here, let them sing more sweetly than
ever.
Nor let them cease to sing, for his
new mercies flow unto them each day.
Let day unto day utter his praise, and
night unto night testify of his grace.
Delight thyself in the Lord.
If these that I have already mentioned were
not enough, we might delight ourselves in all
that God is to do, in all the
splendid triumphs he has yet to achieve, in
all the glories of the latter days, in
all the splendors of his throne, when all
the hosts of God shall meet at last,
in his triumph over death and hell, and
in his ultimate victory over sin, when he
shall make the whole earth to become filled
with his praise.
O brethren, time would fail us, eternity might
fail us, indeed, to catalogue all the different
points of holy delight which believers, when they
are in a spiritual frame of mind, may
find in the Lord their God.
Ye should delight yourselves in God the Father,
in his eternal love to you, when there
was nothing in you to love, in his
election of your souls, in his justification of
you in Christ, in the giving up of
his only begotten Son to redeem you from
hell.
You should delight yourselves in Jesus.
You should tell what his arm hath done,
what spoils from death he won, sing his
dear name alone, worthy the Lamb.
Ye should delight yourselves in God the Holy
Ghost, in his quickening operations, in his illuminations,
in his consolations, in the strength which he
gives you, in the wisdom which he imparts
to you, in the faithfulness with which he
attends you, and in the certainty that he
will ultimately perfect you, that you may be
meet to be a partaker of the inheritance
of the saints in light.
And here we might branch out into a
thousand themes.
Delight yourselves in God as your Father, as
your Friend, as your Helper.
Delight yourselves in Jesus Christ as your Brother,
as your Bridegroom, as your Shepherd, as your
All in All.
Delight yourselves in Christ in all his offices
as Prophet, Priest, and King.
Triumph in him, in all his garments, for
they all smell of myrrh, and aloes, and
cassia.
Delight yourselves in Christ, in his glory, and
in his humiliation, in his cross, and in
his crown, in his manger, and in his
eternal triumph wherein he led captivity captive.
Delight yourselves in eternal triumph wherein he led
captivity captive.
Delight yourselves in the Holy Spirit, in all
his various dealings with men's minds.
Delight in Pentecost, and in Pentecost that are
yet to come.
And but we close, what more should we
say?
Surely we might talk on forever.
Delight thyself in Jehovah, that great, that boundless,
that joyful theme.
And delight thyself in him forevermore.
Now another question suggests itself, when is this
delight to be practiced?
Delight thyself in the Lord.
Precepts without limiters to time are for perpetual
observance.
My text does not say, delight thyself in
the Lord occasionally, and now and then.
But at all times, there are two occasions
when it is hard to delight in God,
and therefore I will mention these.
It is hard to delight in God when
everything goes well with us.
Oh, I hear you say, I cannot understand
that.
That is the time when I do delight
in God most.
Brother, I am afraid it is the time
when you delight in God least.
Well, but when my comforts around about me,
when providence smiles upon me, then I can
delight in God.
Stop.
Are you sure of that?
Is it not likely that often you are
delighting in his mercies rather than in him?
Delighting in the creature rather than the creator?
I fear, brethren, it is our sunshiny days
that are the greatest times of temptation.
Well, may we pray, in all time of
our wealth, deliver us.
We are somewhat like a foolish wife, who
when her husband giveth her jewels and rings,
groweth apt to love the jewels rather than
her husband.
Many believers we have known who have had
graces and mercies, and have had great privileges,
and they have come to pride themselves more
in the mercies and in the privileges than
in their God.
It is hard when the wine vat is
full to love God more than the vineyard.
It is hard when there is a fine
harvest to think more of God than of
the sheaves.
It is hard when you are growing rich
still to say, this is not my treasure.
The treasures of earth will besmear our garments
unless we see well to our hearts.
Our soul cleaveth to the dust, and dust
is no aid to devotion.
Oh, take heed, rich believer, that thou delight
thyself in God, not in thy parks and
thy lawns and thy gardens and thy houses,
thy lands and thy estates, for if thou
delight in these, thy gold and thy silver
are cankered, and the moth is in thy
garment, and the blight will soon be on
thy heritage.
Say, these are not my portion.
God is my portion, saith my soul.
Another time when it is hard to delight
in God, not so hard as in the
first one, is when everything goes ill with
us.
Then we are apt to say with old
Jacob, all these things are against me.
What a noble opportunity Job lost when servant
after servant came to tell him that everything
was gone, when he sat on the dunghill
and did scrape himself with a potsherd.
If he could have stood upright and have
said, now will I rejoice in the Lord
and triumph in the God of my salvation,
what a triumph of faith would he have
achieved.
If he could have thus played the man
for God, Job would have been the most
splendid character that we have in Holy Scripture.
He did go far when he said, though
he slay me, yet will I trust him.
There spoke a man whom God had made
mighty.
But if he could have delighted still more
in God when the sores were on him
and the blames were bursting, that would have
been all but superhuman.
I think I may say it would have
been as much as even grace itself could
work in a man.
Yet how often have I noticed that believers
do rejoice in God much more readily in
their afflictions than they do in their prosperity.
I have seen the hyssop growing upon Lebanon,
and I have seen the cedar growing on
the wall, and I have seen great saints
where there was little mercy, and I have
seen driveling saints where there were great providential
blessings.
God's birds sing best in cages, and the
praise of God comes better out of the
mouth of the furnace of affliction than even
from the top of the mountain of communion.
We are so constituted, it seems to me,
that unless God screws the strings of our
heart up by pain and affliction, we never
give forth much sweet music to him.
And yet is it hard, very hard, for
a man when every earthly prop gives way
to say the fig tree does not blossom,
the calves perish from the stall, the harvest
has been mildewed, the cacoworm eateth up all
the produce, but still my delight is in
God, and my triumph is in the God
of my salvation.
Yet by grace at all times we are
to delight in God.
But I hear a voice say, but when
is the Christian to be miserable?
Never, brother, never.
But not at times?
No, not if he does his duty.
But ought not a saint sometimes to be
cast down?
Saints are cast down, but they ought not
to be.
Well, but many of God's saints are full
of doubts and fears.
I know they are, and the more is
the pity.
But some of the Lord's children go mourning
all their days.
It is their own fault.
Their Lord has not bidden them to do
so.
The scriptures teach us thus, rejoice in the
Lord always.
And again, saith the apostle, I say rejoice.
But are there not times when we may
indulge the melancholy vein and cultivate sorrow?
Well, if you do, you will soon find
it grow.
God often serves his children as I have
known parents do theirs.
If his children pray for afflictions, they shall
have them, until they shall begin to pray
ten times more earnestly to have them taken
away.
If God's people cry for nothing, they shall
soon have something to cry for.
If they will make themselves miserable, they will
soon have miseries added to their miseries.
But so far as the promise is concerned
and the precept is concerned, it is the
daily, constant, hourly duty and business of the
true believer to delight himself in the Lord
his God.
Before I leave this point, I answer one
more question.
Why is this delighting in God so rare?
Why do we see so many desponding Christians,
so many doubting Christians?
Why do you see so many whose religion
seems to them to be a yoke, a
very heavy yoke, too?
It is, I fear, because there is so
little on the one hand of genuine religion,
and so little, on the other hand, of
deep-toned religion, where the little that there
is is genuine.
Why, the man who has a religion that
is not of his heart, I do not
wonder that he is wretched.
You have seen sometimes a man with a
dog of a breed that does not like
the water, and he throws it in.
How quickly it gets out again!
But there are some of a different breed
that will swim by the hour and delight
in it.
So now, there are some professors who are
known to be hypocrites by the fact that
their religion is against their will.
You have put them into it, and they
soon get out again.
But the true Christian takes to his religion
by grace with ardor and with delight.
He loves it.
He delights therein.
This is one of the best tests to
discern between a hypocrite and a true Christian.
Job says of the hypocrite, Will he delight
himself in good?
No.
The hypocrite will pull a long face.
The hypocrite will look wretched.
The hypocrite will make himself as miserable as
ever man can be when the time has
come for it.
But he never did, and he never can,
and he never will delight himself in God
as a rule.
He may have some joy in the outward
means, for even Herod heard John gladly, but
that is only a spasm.
Only the true believer can have a constant
and abiding satisfaction and delight in the service
and love of God.
This is an evidence so sure and infallible
that if any among you delight in God,
I conclude without hesitation that you are a
saved soul.
But if any of you, on the other
hand, never have any delight in God of
any kind, I question whether you ever knew
God at all.
For if you have known Him, you must
in your degree have found delight in Him.
But what is the good of this delight,
saith one?
Why should Christians be such a happy people?
Why, it is good in all ways.
It is good for our God.
It gives Him honor among the sons of
men when we are glad.
It is good for us.
It makes us strong.
The joy of the Lord is your strength.
It is good for the ungodly, for when
they see Christians glad, they long to be
believers themselves.
It is good for our fellow Christians.
It comforts them and tends to cheer them.
Whereas if we look gloomy, we shall spread
the disease, and others will be wretched and
gloomy too.
For all these reasons and for many more
that can be given, it is a good
and pleasant thing that a believer should delight
himself in God.
I now turn to the second point of
the subject briefly.
He shall give thee the desires of thine
heart.
Here is a promise priceless beyond rubies.
What connection is there between the first part
of the text and the second?
Delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall
give thee the desires of thine heart.
There is this connection.
They who delight in God are qualified to
have the promise fulfilled.
They are qualified in the first place as
to the desires.
It would not be a safe thing for
God to give to every one of you
here the desire of your heart.
It would be your ruin.
One of the best things that the Lord
does for some men is to chuck them
and force them.
There is many a man that has gone
to heaven through not having had his desires
who would have gone to hell if he
had had them.
Ungodly men have desires that would lead them
to the pit.
And when God refuses to give them their
desires, it is as though He had put
chains and posts and barriers in the road
to keep them from going post haste to
their own destruction.
The ungodly man is not qualified to have
the promise because he would desire something that
would neither glorify God nor profit himself.
But when a man's delight is in God,
then his desires are of such a sort
that God may be glorified in the granting
of them and the man himself profited by
the receiving of them.
Again, delighting in God qualifies the believer not
only for desiring a right but for spending
a right.
For some men, if they had their heart's
desire and it were a good desire, would
nevertheless make a wrong use of it.
And so it would happen to them as
it did to Israel of old.
While the meat was yet in their mouths,
the curse of God would come upon them.
But he that delights in God, whatever he
gets, knows how to use it well.
People say use is a second nature.
Brethren, abuse is the first nature.
To abuse mercies is much more the nature
of man than to properly use them.
But when the believer delights in God, whatever
he has from God he spends a right.
He makes it not a sacrifice to himself,
much less a God before whom he will
bow down and worship, but he makes it
a means of serving God better and delighting
himself in the master the more.
The rivers of worldly men run away from
the sea, but the rivers that Christian men
have run into the sea.
If a worldly man sails along the stream
of his mercies, he gets further and further
from God and becomes more and more an
idolater.
But when the Christian gets mercies, he sails
near and nearer to his God.
And so his mercies become highways to the
throne of God himself.
Still, says one, what are those desires which
we are sure to receive?
Now, brethren, we must single out those who
delight themselves in God.
And I believe the range of their desires
will be found in a very short compass.
If I had my desire of my God
this morning, it is not much for me
to say I have no earthly thing that
I would desire, for I have all things
and abound.
But if the apostle Paul were here, who
had nothing, who was often naked and poor
and miserable, I am persuaded if he had
his wish, he would say, I have nothing
to wish for, nothing upon earth, for I
have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith
to be content.
But if I must have a wish, brethren,
I know what I would wish for.
I would wish to be perfect, to be
free from every sin, from every imperfection, from
all self, from all temptation, from all love
of the world, from all care for everything
or anything that is contrary to God's word.
Is not that your wish, you that delight
in God?
Would you not now, if an angel were
to stand before you at the pew door,
would you not say, if I may, let
me be perfectly set free from the very
name and nature and guilt and power of
sin?
You shall have your desire.
The Lord shall give unto you the desire
of your heart.
But I hear another say, if I might
have my desire, it would be that I
might live nearer to Christ, that I might
have constant communion with him till I knew
him and the power of his resurrection being
made conformable unto his death.
Brother, I join you in that desire.
I am sure if you had ten kingdoms
offered in the one hand and this fellowship
with Christ in the other, do not I
speak the desire of your heart when I
say you would choose to have communion with
Christ rather than these kingdoms?
For the Lord shall give you the desire
of your heart.
Only delight thyself in the Lord.
Well, says another, if I might have my
desire, I would have all these things, but
I would desire to be useful always.
Ah, to be useful!
How many men live like Belzoni's toad in
the pyramids of Egypt, which had been there
two thousand years, and what had it been
but sometimes sleep and sometimes wake the whole
time through?
And so some men live and do nothing.
But if I had my desire, I think
here I hear many of you say, I
should like to be useful, to win crowns
for Christ, to save souls for him, to
bring in his lost sheep.
Brother, delight thyself in the Lord.
Thou shall have thy desire.
Perhaps not exactly as you would like to
word it.
You may not be useful in the sphere
you aspire to, but you shall be useful
as God would have you useful in his
own way and in his own measure.
I must say one thing, though.
I have a desire which, if now I
might offer it, knowing that it should be
granted me, it would be this, a desire
to see you all converted.
Mothers and fathers, can you not say, my
heart's desire is that my children might be
saved?
For I have no greater joy than this,
that my children walk in the truth.
And I as a minister say my earnest
desire, the highest desire I know, that which
my soul feels most when it pants the
most and aspires the most after some big
and great thing, that I may present every
man of you perfect before God at the
last.
That I may not only be clear of
your blood, which is a great thing, but
that I may have you with me when
I shall say, here am I, Lord, and
the children thou hast given me for Christ.
O you who are members of this church,
will you pray that your minister may delight
himself in God, that he may have this
desire of his heart?
And will you yourselves also delight in God,
so that when you come to God in
prayer and pray for this congregation, you may
be sure he will give you the desire
of your heart, because you have delighted yourselves
in him?
They said of Martin Luther, as he walked
the streets, there comes a man that can
have anything of God he likes.
You ask the reason of it?
Because Luther delighted himself in his God.
Give us some such men in this congregation
and in this church who love the Lord
and rejoice in him, what an effect their
prayers will have.
These are the men who have the keys
of heaven and of death and of hell.
These are the men that can open heaven
or shut it up, that it rain or
rain not.
The church of Rome pretends that she has
the keys, but the church of Christ has
the keys without pretending to have them.
And these keys swing at the girdles of
the men who delight in God.
You can by your prayers bring down such
showers of the Spirit upon the Christian church
that the desert shall rejoice.
It will blossom as a rose.
And if you cease to delight in God,
you can shut up heaven itself so that
no rain descends and the whole church becomes
barren and unfruitful once again.
Now to wind up, mark this.
This is the only thing that a man
can delight in and get his desires.
There is a man that delights in money,
but he does not get his desire.
He gets his money, but he never gets
the satisfaction he expected.
We read in the papers the other day
of one who had a singular success in
his profession, but who lately attempted suicide under
the notion that he should lose his all
through the American war.
We remember in this great city one of
the largest merchants who died worth more than
three millions of money.
At that moment I think that his property
was sworn, who during the latter part of
his life was accustomed to be paid the
same wages as his gardener and believed that
he should certainly die in a workhouse.
He had got his broad and wide estates
and money that could not be told, but
he did not get the desire of his
heart.
He had delighted in his gold and he
had not the desire of his heart.
So we have known men that have delighted
themselves in fame.
When they have got it, they would have
been only too glad to get rid of
it.
They have been great statesmen or mighty warriors
and they have been greatly renowned.
When they have gained all the fame and
stood on the very top of the pinnacle,
there was not that in it that they
expected.
And they have said, would that I had
lived in obscurity, for then I might have
known some satisfaction.
And look at many of you, when you
were apprentices, the desire of your heart was
to be a journeyman.
Well, when you became a journeyman, what then?
You wanted to be masters and set up
in trade for yourselves.
Well, you have set up in trade, got
on pretty well.
Have you the desire of your heart?
Oh no, that has gone on a little
further.
Now you are waiting till you have brought
up this large family of yours.
Then you will have your children started in
life.
You are looking out for a villa in
the suburbs, where you can retire and spend
the rest of your days.
And some of you have the villa in
the country and have wound up your business
affairs.
Have you the desire of your heart yet?
Well, not quite yet.
There is still something else that you want.
Ah yes, getting the desire of a man's
heart is like chasing a phantom.
It is here, there and everywhere.
Now on the hill, now down in the
valley, you leap down on it and it
is away again on the next hill, and
then on the next, and you find your
chase is fruitless.
Satisfaction in this world is like the diamond
which the fool sees lying at the foot
of the rainbow.
So he runs after it, and as he
runs, the rainbow is ever in the distance,
and he can never find what he expected.
But if you would have the desire of
your heart, delight in your God.
Give Him your love.
Give Him your heart.
Plunge deep into this stream, and you shall
have all that you can wish for.
The desire of your heart to the full
extent shall be granted.
Are there not in this house today those
who cannot delight in God?
Cannot, cannot.
You are right, you cannot.
How can he delight in God whose sins
are unforgiven, upon whom the wrath of God
abideth always?
Can a man delight in a roaring lion,
when a bear robbed of her welts?
Can a man delight in a consuming fire?
Can a man delight in a naked sword
that seeks to reach to his very heart?
Yet God is such to you so long
as you are out of grace.
How then can you delight in God?
There is one step that is necessary.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and then
you shall delight in the Lord.
That is, trust yourself to be saved by
Christ.
Go and put yourself into Christ's hands to
have all your sins put away.
And when you have trusted Christ, you shall
know that your sin is forgiven, that you
are reconciled to God by the death of
His Son.
And you may go your way and delight
yourself in God.
For the promise is this, your desire shall
be granted you.