The Lord's Thoughts 2
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1. I have been endeavoring to show, if we have been taught our spiritual poverty, we have been completely stripped of all creature righteousness. Does not this open up a way for the manifestation of a righteousness which is suitable to us? Being stripped of our own, and brought in guilty before God, how suitable, how blessedly suitable is the righteousness, the glorious RIGHTEOUSNESS of the Son of God, when displayed before our eyes, and brought with some divine power into our conscience! But it is the preceding poverty, the having no righteousness of our own, that instrumentally makes us long after, and deeply prize the righteousness of Christ imputed unto us, and made known to us by the power of the Spirit. Thus, the "needy" seek and long after, and when revealed, cleave unto, the spotless obedience of Immanuel, as an all-justifying robe, shielding and sheltering them from the justice of an offended God.
2. But we need STRENGTH also, when we are brought into real poverty of spirit—so that we can feelingly take up the language on our lips, that we are "poor and needy," when stripped of all creature strength. Yet there is a desire in our souls to believe. 'O, could I but believe!' the soul will sometimes cry. And is there not a desire raised up in the heart to know and to hope in the Lord, to feel him precious, to enjoy the sweet manifestation of his mercy and love, and experience the blessed application of his atoning blood to the conscience? Yet poverty, heart-felt poverty, has brought us into that state before God—that we have no strength to know, to believe, to love, to hope in God's mercy, to enjoy his presence, to delight in his manifestations, and realize a sense of his eternal favor to our souls.
Thus, poverty, by leading us into a knowledge of our utter weakness, leads us also into a feeling necessity for the strength of Christ to be made perfect in our weakness. And when the Lord is pleased to raise up faith in our souls whereby we look unto Jesus, to give us a good hope through grace, "an anchor within the veil," to shed abroad the love of Christ which passes knowledge, and to communicate some testimony of our interest in his atoning blood, how suitable, how blessedly suitable are all these heavenly blessings to our poverty and necessity!
3. Again. I observed that in real poverty we have no WISDOM. It is all dried up. We might once have slaked our thirst at human pools, and thought to make ourselves wise in the letter of the word. How many are running after human attainments, as though these could profit them in the things of God! But sooner or later, we are brought to this spot, that nothing short of divine teaching can make us wise unto salvation; that nothing but that wisdom which comes from above can really profit us; and that everything short of divine illumination, divine manifestation, and divine application, leaves our soul empty, ignorant, naked and bare.
Thus, through poverty of spirit, as regards a feeling sense of our ignorance in divine things, we come to be "needy." And this need manifests itself in leading us from time to time to sigh and cry for that special teaching which makes the soul wise unto salvation.
This experience will be the experience of every child of God. It is not a particular standard erected of so many feet high, and all that comes short of this must have their heads cut off. But it is the experience of every child of God "in proportion to the Spirit's work upon the heart". All cannot perhaps go into the same depths; all are not equally exercised; all have not their heart ploughed up with the same measure of conviction; all are not brought down into the same sense of their ruin and wretchedness; and yet all, so far as they are under divine teaching, are "poor and needy;" all are stripped of creature righteousness, creature strength, and creature wisdom; and all are made to need, deeply need, atoning blood, justifying righteousness, and the manifestations of divine mercy and love, so that nothing can satisfy them but God's manifested favor to their souls.
This evening I look around me, and see many assembled here, and, doubtless, many who profess to know the truth in Jesus—let me ask you, in all affection and tenderness—can you, can you from the bottom of your heart, say, "I am poor and needy? Lord, when I look up unto you, I feel myself nothing in your sight; all my strength, all my wisdom, all my righteousness, all my once boasted attainments, all my creature religion, all my fleshly holiness, everything I once leaned upon and highly prized, I see it all wretchedness and ruin. Before you I stand, the heart-searching God, having nothing and being nothing, and yet at times breathing forth the desires of my soul that you would teach me, guide me, lead me, bless me, and manifest yourself to my soul!"
II. Now, if you can go thus far with me, we will go a step further, which leads me on to our second division—"Yet the Lord thinks upon me." Great words, great words! How do I come to know them? What evidence, what testimony had David that the Lord thought upon him? Had he been taken up to the third heaven, and looked into God's thoughts? or had an angel let down the book of life, and shown to his bodily eyes that his name was there, and therefore God thought upon him for good? O no! it was an internal testimony in the court of conscience; an evidence not visible to the outward eye, nor audible to the outward ear, but dropped into his soul from the very court of heaven itself!
But this it will be desirable further to illustrate. There is some deep truth couched here—may God enable us to look at it in the light of the Spirit. God's thoughts were always upon his church from all eternity; and his thoughts were upon her for good.
A. It was in consequence of Jehovah's thinking upon her that ever she had a being. And how did Jehovah manifest that he thought upon his Zion? By making an eternal covenant on her behalf; by choosing her in Christ before all worlds; and by designing and planning a wondrous way by which she should be eternally and savingly interested in this eternal covenant, "ordered in all things and sure." God thought eternally upon his Zion; and everything brought forth in time is the result of those eternal thoughts that were ever in his bosom. When he spoke this world into being, his thoughts were still set on his Zion. It was for her that this world was created. This earth in which we live is but a scaffolding, by which the temple of mercy is built up. All the arrangements around us were entered into prospectively for the benefit of the church of Christ.
B. He thought upon her when he sent his dear Son for her benefit and on her behalf; when, in the appointed time, the only begotten Son came forth from the bosom of the Father, and took in the womb of the Virgin Mary our human nature into union with his divine Person.
C. God thought upon his Zion while the Lord Jesus Christ was journeying here below, in this valley of tears. Jesus thought upon his Zion continually, for he was then working out a glorious righteousness whereby she would be eternally saved. When groveling in the garden of Gethsemane, his thoughts of Zion forced the sweat, the bloody sweat, from his agonizing brow. When he was stretched a bleeding victim upon the cross, between heaven and earth, deserted by man and forsaken of God, then he thought upon his Zion. He thought of her as her sins passed in solemn array before his eyes, and he underwent the penalty due to each sin; and thus, while thinking of his Zion, he bought her with his own blood. When he ascended up into glory, and took his exalted station at God's right hand, he thought upon his bride. And still he thinks upon his Zion. Her name is cut deeply upon his heart, and worn upon his breast. His thoughts towards her are thoughts of love, thoughts of peace and not of evil. She is continually in his thoughts, perpetually in his heart's affections.
D. But let us bring this down more closely into personal experience, because it is of personal experience the Psalmist here speaks—"The Lord thinks upon me." When the Lord brought you into being, he thought upon you; the parent from whom you sprung, the situation of life in which you were born, and all the circumstances which have accompanied you up to the present hour, were all the subject of his thoughts, were but the results of what had passed through his infinite and eternal mind. He thought upon you during the careless hours of childhood, and the reckless years of manhood. He thought upon you when you were sporting with your souls, and trifling with eternity. He thought upon you in sickness, when he raised you up from the brink of the grave. He thought upon you when surrounded by dangers on the right hand and on the left, and kept you from being hurried by them into eternity! His eye was upon you for good during every hour and every moment of your unregenerate life.
And when the time came for him to visit you with his grace, and bring you to a sense of your lost and undone state before him, he thought upon you. And because his thoughts were upon you, the arrow of conviction flew from his bow, and lodged in your conscience. He thought upon you during all the time you were suffering under guilt and trouble; and so thought upon you, that conviction brought not down your soul into absolute despair. He thought upon you when a word from time to time came to relieve your mind, when some gleam of hope shone upon your soul, when some sweet invitation came into your heart with life, feeling, and power. He thought upon you when he brought you under the preached word. He thought upon you when he sent some testimony of his mercy and love into your soul. And he so thinks upon you, if you are a vessel of mercy, as if there were no one else to think of; as though you engrossed all the thoughts of the Godhead; for such is the infinite nature of the Godhead that he can think upon all his elect at the same moment, and yet think of each, as if each occupied the whole of his eternal mind.
'But,' say you, and say I, 'we want to have some in eternal testimony that the Lord thinks upon us. We want to say, with a feeling heart, as the Psalmist said, "The Lord thinks uponme," and to know that he does.' Let us trace this out.
1. Have you never been in straits in PROVIDENCE? Have you never been exercised about your daily bread, how doors would be opened to provide you with an honorable maintenance? You have—we all have, in a measure. Now when the Lord was pleased to open this door and open that door, or raise up this friend and raise up that friend, at the very time you needed it—sent you just that sum of money to pay that bill you were so anxious about—or, by the hand of an enemy, as Elijah was fed by the ravens, fed your poor perishing body—was not this some evidence that the Lord thinks upon you? If he had not thought upon you for good, would that friend have come, or that letter have arrived, just at the very nick of time? would that door have been opened, or that relief have appeared, which was so suitable to your case? Surely, if you can trace out one or two, or more such marked instances, if you can thus see the finger of God, you may say, "The Lord thinks upon me."
2. Again. If you have been tried with any peculiar temptation, or anything has been laid very powerfully upon your conscience, so that you were compelled, absolutely compelled, to make it a matter of PRAYER—you did not come to the Lord in a cold and formal manner, or say, 'I will pray about this thing, as it is my duty to do; but prayer was pressed out of you by the force of circumstances—by a weight and burden which compelled you to cry to the Lord, because there was no other quarter whence relief could come; if your prayer was then heard and answered—if it was clearly manifested that the Lord heard the cry and sigh of your soul—can you not write upon that answer to prayer, "The Lord thinks upon me? "If the Lord had not thought upon you, he would never have heard that prayer. It is a testimony in your soul that the Lord thinks upon you, if he ever heard and answered any petition that went up out of your laboring bosom.
3. But again. You may have been in some peculiar trial of mind, such as you never were in before; and therefore you needed SPECIAL RELIEF. This is the way, I believe, the Lord deals with his people. He does not deal with them in 'generals'. He brings them into 'particulars'—into special spots, where none but himself can appear, relieve, and bless. Now if you have been brought into a special trial of soul, have labored under a special temptation, or have been entangled in a special snare, and then the Lord was pleased to apply a promise to your heart, or drop a word into your soul exactly suitable to your state and case, so exactly suitable that if you had taken the Bible to pieces and selected a text, you could not have found one so appropriate—if the Lord dropped such a word into your soul, and it brought with it sweet relief—can you not say, "The Lord thinks upon me?" If he did not think upon you, if your concerns were not near to his eternal mind, if your case did not lie upon his heart—would he, could he, have dropped that precise promise into your soul, that very word into your heart, which was made so sweet and precious?
4. Or, again, you may have turned aside from the right path. And who is not guilty here? Who does not inwardly backslide, if kept from open backslidings? But the Lord sees our backslidings, and sends us reproofs for them. If we are CHASTENED, it is an evidence that we are God's children, for all are partakers of chastisement who are sons. Now, if the Lord sees that you are going out of the path, become proud and lifted up, slipped into carnal security, satisfied with a name to live, got into that miserable state of self-sufficiency and wretched dead assurance in which so many are wrapped up—if the Lord, seeing this, begins to work upon your conscience, to rebuke you, and even to lay on his chastening hand, by bringing affliction on your body, and trouble into your soul, you can say, "The Lord thinks upon me;" for if the Lord did not think upon you, he would not thus use his chastening hand to bring you out of these ways of evil.
5. Again. If your soul, from time to time, has been REVIVED in the things of God; if when you have been dark, cold, carnal, hard-hearted, and unfeeling, and have come under the ministry of some of God's sent servants, the word has been blessed to break you down, to melt you, to refresh you, to encourage you, to bring you once more to the feet of Jesus with godly sorrow for your backslidings, and earnest desires to live to his glory—there is a testimony that God thinks upon you.
6. Again. If the Lord has ever given to you a TESTIMONY of your saving interest in the love and blood of the Lamb; if he has ever sealed the pardon of your sins upon your soul, shed abroad his love in your heart, and whispered into your conscience that peace which passes understanding—there is another evidence, another convincing testimony, that the Lord thinks upon you; for if he had not thought upon you, he never would have shed abroad his love in your soul, he never would have applied the precious blood of sprinkling to your conscience.
But there doubtless are those among us who can scarcely rise up to the language of the text. I would observe that we have in it the strongest language of assurance; and yet, remark how it is blended with the deepest self-abasement! I believe in my conscience that the two always go together. We never can have assurance, except so far as it stands in a broken heart and a contrite spirit; for God does not throw away his favors. He does not give the sweet assurance of his love to harden the heart, to make us carnal and worldly-minded, to let us think lightly of sin and the wretched evils that accompany sin. But where the Lord breaks a soul down into contrition and penitence, into self-loathing and godly sorrow, by giving him a sight and sense of pardoned sin—in that soil alone does the tree of assurance grow. There can be no real assurance, springing from the testimony of God, unless it stands in a broken heart and a contrite spirit.
If, then, you hear ministers always preaching about assurance, and see them proud, covetous, worldly-minded, and their conversation one web of levity, jocoseness, and frivolity—you may be well assured that their assurance does not come from the mouth of God to their soul. On the other hand, when you see a poor, needy, broken-hearted child of God lie low at the footstool of mercy, and the Lord is pleased to raise up in his heart some sweet testimony of his saving interest in the love and blood of the Lamb, enabling him to rejoice in the Lord, and to feel how precious Jesus is to his soul—that assurance springs from the testimony of God, for it stands in a broken heart and a contrite spirit.
But, I say, there may be children of God here who cannot rise up to this language. They may hope that the Lord thinks upon them, but they cannot speak it with that feeling of confidence which the Psalmist does. They can say "I am poor and needy;" but to carry it out with full assurance, "yet the Lord thinks upon me"—they cannot—they dare not. And yet they have testimonies, could they but view them in the light of the Spirit, that the Lord thinks upon them.
Why did the Lord, in the first instance, awaken you to a sense of your lost and ruined state? Why did he shoot his arrows of conviction into your conscience? Why did he bring you with weeping and supplication to the footstool of mercy? Why did he make Jesus precious to your soul? Why did he ever give you a heart to seek his face, to cleave to him for mercy and salvation, and to take a delight in his name? Why did he ever visit your soul with his promises and sweet invitations, and raise up in your heart that spiritual-mindedness which is life and peace? Why did he show you the glory of Christ and illuminate the eyes of your understanding to see his suitability to every need of your soul? Why has the Lord appeared for you in providence, heard your prayers, delivered your soul, and brought you out of temptation? Why has he, from time to time, laid upon you his afflictive hand, his chastening rod? Because he thinks upon you!
No, I may add one word more—do you think upon him? If you think upon him, there is evidence that he thinks upon you. There is a promise to those who think upon his name; "a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name." (Mal. 3:16.) And thus the church confesses, "The desire of our soul is to your name, and to the remembrance of you." (Isa. 26:8.) Are there not solemn seasons in your soul, when you think upon the Lord? When you lie awake, perhaps at midnight, thinking upon God, upon his truth, his love, his word, his dealings with your soul, and your desires, prayers, and breathings all flow forth to his sacred Majesty—is not this some evidence that you are thinking upon his name? And be assured that if you think upon him, he has thought upon you.
Look at the giddy multitude. Do they think upon God? Is he in all their thoughts? Are their minds ever fixed upon the solemn things of eternity? Is Jesus ever felt to be precious to their souls? Do they pant after him as the deer after the waterbrooks? No! their language is, "There is no God." It is not their spoken language, but it is their inward language. But through mercy you can say, that you think upon God; and thus there is some evidence, though you cannot rise up to the assurance of it, that he thinks upon you. And if he thinks upon you, his thoughts are thoughts of good, thoughts of peace, and not of evil. Does he not read your heart? Does he not know your trials? Does not his holy eye look into the very secret recesses of your soul?
And if he thinks upon you, will he leave you, give you up, abandon you in the hour when you need him most? No! he who thought upon you in eternity, will think on you in time, in every hour of trial, every scene of temptation, every season of sickness, and in the solemn hour when soul and body part. Through life and in death, he will still be thinking of you; and will bring you at last to that heavenly abode where these two things will be blessedly combined—the Lord's ever thinking upon his Zion, and his Zion ever thinking upon him!
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