'They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house;
and Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures. 9. For
with Thee is the fountain of life: in Thy light shall we see light.'
--PSALM xxxvi. 8, 9.
In the preceding verses we saw a wonderful picture of the boundless
perfections of God; His lovingkindness, faithfulness, righteousness, and
of His twofold act, the depths of His judgments and the plainness of His
merciful preservation of man and beast. In these verses we have an
equally wonderful picture of the blessedness of the godly, the elements
of which consist in four things: satisfaction, represented under the
emblem of a feast; joy, represented under the imagery of full draughts
from a flowing river of delight; life, pouring from God as a fountain;
light, streaming from Him as source.
And this picture is connected with the previous one by a very simple
link. Who are they who 'shall be abundantly satisfied'? The men 'who put
their trust beneath the shadow of Thy wings.' That is to say, the simple
exercise of confidence in God is the channel through which all the
fulness of divinity passes into and fills our emptiness.
Observe, too, that the whole of the blessings here promised are to be
regarded as present and not future. 'They shall be abundantly satisfied'
would be far more truly rendered in consonance with the Hebrew: 'They
_are_ satisfied'; and so also we should read 'Thou _dost_ make them
drink of the river of Thy pleasures; in Thy light _do_ we see light.'
The Psalmist is not speaking of any future blessedness, to be realised
in some far-off, indefinite day to come, but of what is possible even in
this cloudy and sorrowful life. My text was true on the hills of
Palestine, on the day when it was spoken; it may be true amongst the
alleys of Manchester to-day. My purpose at this time is simply to deal
with the four elements in which this blessedness consists--satisfaction,
joy, life, light.
I. Satisfaction: 'They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of
Thy house.'
Now, I suppose, there is a double metaphor in that. There is an
allusion, no doubt, to the festal meal of priests and worshippers in the
Temple, on occasion of the peace-offering, and there is also the simpler
metaphor of God as the Host at His table, at which we are guests. 'Thy
house' may either be, in the narrower sense, the Temple; and then all
life is represented as being a glad sacrificial meal in His presence, of
which 'the meek shall eat and be satisfied,' or Thy 'house' may be taken
in a more general sense; and then all life is represented as the
gathering of children round the abundant board which their Father's
providence spreads for them, and as glad feasting in the 'mansions' of
the Father's house.
In either case the plain teaching of the text is, that by the might of a
calm trust in God the whole mass of a man's desires are filled and
satisfied. What do we want to satisfy us? It is something almost awful
to think of the multiplicity, and the variety, and the imperativeness of
the raging desires which every human soul carries about within it. The
heart is like a nest of callow fledglings, every one of them a great,
wide open, gaping beak, that ever needs to have food put into it. Heart,
mind, will, appetites, tastes, inclinations, weaknesses, bodily
wants--the whole crowd of these are crying for their meat. The Book of
Proverbs says there are three things that are never satisfied: the
grave, the earth that is not filled with water, and the fire that never
says, 'It is enough.' And we may add a fourth, the human heart,
insatiable as the grave; thirsty as the sands, on which you may pour
Niagara, and it will drink it all up and be ready for more; fierce as
the fire that licks up everything within reach and still hungers.
So, though we be poor and weak creatures, we want much to make us
restful. We want no less than that every appetite, desire, need,
inclination shall be filled to the full; that all shall be filled to the
full at once, and that by one thing; that all shall be filled to the
full at once, by one thing that shall last for ever. Else we shall be
like men whose store of provision gives out before they are half-way
across the desert. And we need that all our desires shall be filled at
once by one thing that is so much greater than ourselves that we shall
grow up towards it, and towards it, and towards it, and yet never be
able to exhaust or surpass it.
Where are you going to get that? There is only one answer, dear
brethren! to the question, and that is--God, and God alone is the food
of the heart; God, and God alone, will satisfy your need. Let us bring
the full Christian truth to bear upon the illustration of these words.
Who was it that said, 'I am the Bread of Life. He that cometh unto Me
shall never hunger'? Christ will feed my mind with truth if I will
accept His revelation of Himself, of God, and of all things. Christ will
feed my heart with love if I will open my heart for the entrance of His
love. Christ will feed my will with blessed commands if I will submit
myself to His sweet and gentle, and yet imperative, authority. Christ
will satisfy all my longings and desires with His own great fulness.
Other food palls upon man's appetite, and we wish for change; and
physiologists tell us that a less wholesome and nutritious diet, if
varied, is better for a man's health than a more nutritious one if
uniform and monotonous. But in Christ there are all constituents that
are needed for the building up of the human spirit, and so we never
weary of Him if we only know His sweetness. After a world of hungry men
have fed upon Him, He remains inexhaustible as at the beginning; like
the bread in His own miracles, of which the pieces that were broken and
ready to be given to the eaters were more than the original stock, as it
appeared when the meal began, or like the fabled feast in the Norse
Walhalla, to which the gods sit down to-day, and to-morrow it is all
there on the board, as abundant and full as ever. So if we have Christ
to live upon, we shall know no hunger; and 'in the days of famine we
shall be satisfied.'
O brethren! have you ever known what it is to feel that your hungry
heart is at rest? Did you ever know what it is to say, 'It is enough'?
Have you anything that satisfies your appetite and makes you blessed?
Surely, men's eager haste to get more of the world's dainties shows that
there is no satisfaction at its table. Why will you 'spend your money
for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth
not,' as Indians in famine eat clay which fills their stomachs, but
neither stays hunger, nor ministers strength? Eat and your soul shall
live.
II. Now, turn to the next of the elements of blessedness here--Joy.
'Thou makest them drink of the river of Thy pleasures.'
There may be a possible reference here, couched in the word 'pleasures,'
to the Garden of Eden, with the river that watered it parting into four
heads; for 'Eden' is the singular of the word which is here translated
'pleasures' or 'delight.' If we take that reference, which is very
questionable, there would be suggested the thought that amidst all the
pain and weariness of this desert life of ours, though the gates of
Paradise are shut against us, they who dwell beneath the shadow of the
divine wing really have a paradise blooming around them; and have
flowing ever by their side, with tinkling music, the paradisaical river
of delights, in which they may bathe and swim, and of which they may
drink. Certainly the joys of communion with God surpass any which
unfallen Eden could have boasted.
But, at all events, the plain teaching of the text is that the simple
act of trusting beneath the shadow of God's wings brings to us an ever
fresh and flowing river of gladness, of which we may drink. The whole
conception of religion in the Bible is gladsome. There is no puritanical
gloom about it. True, a Christian man has sources of sadness which other
men have not. There is the consciousness of his own sin, and the contest
that he has daily to wage; and all things take a soberer colouring to
the eye that has been accustomed to look, however dimly, upon God. Many
of the sources of earthly felicity are dammed up and shut off from us if
we are living beneath the shadow of God's wings. Life will seem to be
sterner, and graver, and sadder than the lives 'that ring with idiot
laughter solely,' and have no music because they have no melancholy in
them. That cannot be helped. But what does it matter though two or three
surface streams, which are little better than drains for sewage, be
stopped up, if the 'pure river of the water of life' is turned into your
hearts? Surely it will be a gain if the sadness which has joy for its
very foundation is yours, instead of the laughter which is only a
mocking mask for a death's head, and of which it is true that even 'in
laughter the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is
heaviness.' Better to be 'sorrowful, yet always rejoicing,' than to be
glad on the surface, with a perpetual sorrow and unrest gnawing at the
root of your life.
And if it be true that the whole Biblical conception of religion is of a
glad thing, then, my brother! it is your duty, if you are a Christian
man, to be glad, whatever temptations there may be in your way to be
sorrowful. It is a hard lesson, and one which is not always insisted
upon. We hear a great deal about other Christian duties. We do not hear
so much as we ought about the Christian duty of gladness. It takes a
very robust faith to say, 'Though the fig-tree shall not blossom,
neither shall fruit be in the vine, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I
will joy in the God of my salvation,' but unless we can say it, there is
an attainment of Christian life yet unreached, to which we have to
aspire.
But be that as it may, my point is simply this--that all real and
profound possession of, and communion with, God in Christ will make us
glad; glad with a gladness altogether unlike that of the world round
about us, far deeper, far quieter, far nobler, the sister and the ally
of all great things, of all pure life, of all generous and lofty
thought. And where is it to be found? Only in fellowship with Him. 'The
river of Thy pleasures' may mean something yet more solemn and wonderful
than pleasures of which He is the Author. It may mean pleasures _which
He shares_, the very delights of the divine nature itself. The more we
come into fellowship with Him, the more shall we share in the very joy
of God Himself. And what is His joy? He delights in mercy; He delights
in self-communication: He is the blessed, the happy God, because He is
the giving God. He delights in His love. He 'rejoices over' His penitent
child 'with singing,'
In that blessedness we may share; or if that be too high and mystical a
thought, may we not remember who it was that said: 'These things speak I
unto you that My joy may remain in you'; and who it is that will one day
say to the faithful servant: 'Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord'?
Christ makes us drink of the river of His pleasures. The Shepherd and
the sheep drink from the same stream, and the gladness which filled the
heart of the Man of Sorrows, and lay deeper than all His sorrows, He
imparts to all them that put their trust in Him.
So, dear brethren! what a blessing it is for us to have, as we may have,
a source of joy, frozen by no winter, dried up by no summer, muddied and
corrupted by no iridescent scum of putrefaction which ever mantles over
the stagnant ponds of earthly joys! Like some citadel that has an
unfailing well in its courtyard, we may have a fountain of gladness
within ourselves which nothing that touches the outside can cut off. We
have but to lap a hasty mouthful of earthly joys as we run, but we
cannot drink too full draughts of this pure river of water which makes
glad the city of God.
III. We have the third element of the blessedness of the godly
represented under the metaphor of Life, pouring from the fountain, which
is God. 'With Thee is the fountain of life.'
The words are true in regard to the lowest meaning of 'life'--physical
existence--and they give a wonderful idea of the connection between God
and all living creatures. The fountain rises, the spray on the summit
catches the sunlight for a moment, and then falls into the basin, jet
after jet springing up into the light, and in its turn recoiling into
the darkness. The water in the fountain, the water in the spray, the
water in the basin, are all one. Wherever there is life there is God.
The creature is bound to the Creator by a mystic bond and tie of
kinship, by the fact of life. The mystery of life knits all living
things with God. It is a spark, wherever it burns, from the central
flame. It is a drop, wherever it is found, from the great fountain. It
is in man the breath of God's nostrils. It is not a gift given by a
Creator who dwells apart, having made living things, as a watchmaker
might a watch, and then 'seeing them go.' But there is a deep mystic
union between the God who has life in Himself and all the living
creatures who draw their life from Him, which we cannot express better
than by that image of our text, 'With Thee is the fountain of life.'
But my text speaks about a blessing belonging to the men who put their
trust under the shadow of God's wing, and therefore it does not refer
merely to physical existence, but to something higher than that, namely,
to that life of the spirit in communion with God, which is the true and
the proper sense of 'life'; the one, namely, in which the word is almost
always used in the Bible.
There is such a thing as death in life; living men may be 'dead in
trespasses and sins,' 'dead in pleasure,' dead in selfishness. The awful
vision of Coleridge in the _Ancient Mariner_, of dead men standing up
and pulling at the ropes, is only a picture of the realities of life;
where, as on some Witches' Sabbath, corpses move about and take part in
the activities of this dead world. There are people full of energy in
regard of worldly things, who yet are all dead to that higher region,
the realities of which they have never seen, the actions of which they
have never done, the emotions of which they have never felt. Am I
speaking to such living corpses now? There are some of my audience alive
to the world, alive to animalism, alive to lust, alive to passion, alive
to earth, alive perhaps to thought, alive to duty, alive to conduct of a
high and noble kind, but yet dead to God, and, therefore, dead to the
highest and noblest of all realities. Answer for yourselves the
question--do you belong to this class?
There is life for you in Jesus Christ, who '_is_ the Life.' Like the
great aqueducts that stretch from the hills across the Roman Campagna,
His Incarnation brings the waters of the fountain from the mountains of
God into the lower levels of our nature, and the fetid alleys of our
sins. The cool, sparkling treasure is carried near to every lip. If we
drink, we live. If we will not, we die in our sins, and are dead whilst
we live. Stop the fountain, and what becomes of the stream? It fades
there between its banks, and is no more. You cannot even live the animal
life except that life were joined to Him. If it could be broken away
from God it would disappear as the clouds melt in the sky, and there
would be nobody, and you would be nowhere. You cannot break yourself
away from God _physically_ so completely as to annihilate yourself. You
can do so _spiritually_, and some of you do it, and the consequence is
that you are dead, _dead_, DEAD! You can be made 'alive from the dead,'
if you will lay hold on Jesus Christ, and get His life-giving Spirit
into your hearts.