them in Christ Jesus; he will feed them with the finest of the wheat, and with honey out of the rock will he satisfy them. He is able to do exceeding above all we can ask or think; he is waiting to be gracious. His language is to all and each of his children, " Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it." Open it in prayer, open it for food, I will fill it with substance, the bread of God. You shall know more of me as your Father; you shall know more of Jesus Christ; you shall know more of my Spirit's influence; you shall be fat and flourishing in my courts; you shall live for ever in my presence, where there is fulness of joy, and at my right hand, where there are pleasures for evermore." Now, let me ask myself, and each of you ask yourselves, Am I a child of God? Do I look upon myself as a babe in Christ; as dependent and waiting to be fed; content to be fed as an infant, with just such means as God may choose? Or am I looking too much to means, and not enough to Christ? O, remember, the best of means without the grace of the means, are poor barren things; a dry breast is of no use to an infant; no, nor yet an empty spoon to a child. O, for grace to look at things in their right light; means as only means. Ministers and ordinances are nothing of themselves, but Christ is all; he is all in all. Then let us look to Christ as the fountain-head of all supplies; let us come to his fulness just as we are, empty, hungry, and dependent. He invites us to come; he knows that without him we are starving. Let us, then, come to him just as we are, and open all our case before him, and say, "Just as I am, without one plea, Save that thy blood was shed for me, [This was the Author's second sermon in public; it was printed in the "Penny Pulpit" at the suggestion of a ministerial friend and the proprietor of that work, who were both present when it was preached. The Author has been credibly informed that this sermon and five others, preached at New Broad Street Chapel, and which appeared in the same publication, have been translated into the Welsh language, and have been read to congregations in the Principality.] THE BELIEVER'S MOUTH BY BY FALLING INTO SIN. A SERMON, CHARLES GORDELIER, PREACHED AT NEW BROAD STREET CHAPEL, LONDON, On Lord's Day Afternoon, November 11th, 1860. "O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise."-PSALM li. 15. to SOME of you may, perhaps, remember that on this day month I addressed you from the words of the 81st Psalm, 10th verse: Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it." I then endeavoured to explain that in calling upon his children open their mouth wide, God called upon them to exercise and fully expand their faith in him, and receive thereby those blessings he was ready to bestow. This afternoon we have, on the other hand, the believer calling upon God to unfasten his lips, so that with an open mouth he might show forth the praises of God. To praise God is certainly the duty, the privilege, and the happiness of the believer. Praising God is the blissful employment of all the inhabitants of heaven. Archangels, cherubim, and seraphim are for ever sounding his lofty praise; before him these mysterious, created beings are perpetually veiling their faces and saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty; heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy glory." The spirits of just men made perfect by the righteousness of Christ, now before the throne, are for ever singing the high praises of him who hath redeemed them by his blood. Praise, too, is the business of the saints on earth; the people whom God hath formed for himself, they shall show forth his praise; "Praise waiteth for thee, Ŏ God, in Zion." To praise God is both the desire and the aim of all who have been called out of darkness into his marvellous light. No. 2.-Fourth Edition, Revised. But what is praise? This is important to know. We read, "All thy works praise thee." This is said by David himself, when speaking of the works of God. Again he says, "It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High.' "Both young men and maidens, old men and children, let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is excellent." And again: "Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me." (Psalms I., xcii., and exlviii.) Praise is a confession and acknowledgment of the wonderful excellences of God; it is a feeling of admiration in the heart, and gratefully expressing it by the tongue. Praising God is expressing admiration of his works in creation, in providence, and in the manifold operations of his grace in the hearts of his people. The contemplation of God's works, his truth, and his loving-kindness leads the devout soul to find his only happiness in singing to the honour of his name, and in making his praise glorious. The psalmist, David, king of Israel, was one who well understood the subject of which we have been speaking; his psalms abound with expressions of praise in every conceivable form, and he is well called the sweet psalmist of Israel. How much he enjoyed and valued praise, may easily be known by reading the psalms in which he speaks of being deprived from attending the house of God, either by affliction, distance, or persecution. We know his heart; it was he who said, "I will praise the Lord at all times, his praise shall continually be in my mouth." But ah, poor David, it was not always so; he could not always praise. When his soul was in prison, a spiritual prison, his prayer was: Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name;" and, if we are rightly informed as to the occasion of the psalm whence we have taken the text, we can easily perceive why it is, how it is, and when it is that a Christian man cannot praise God. David appears in the psalm before us as an humble suppliant for that mercy which he had so disregarded and abused; he whose province it was to administer justice, and protect the innocent, forfeited all claim to his character as a man of honour and as a king over that nation who were chosen to be a holy nation, a peculiar people, the people which God had chosen for himself, of whom he said: "They shall show forth my praise," and in which David, their king, was to take the lead. By the sad occasion, which is but too well known, David not only brought dishonour on himself and dishonour on the nation, but dishonour on the cause of God; not only so, he deeply wounded his own conscience; he lost the light of God's countenance; he wofully felt what an evil and bitter thing it was to depart from the living God; and now, "robed with sackcloth, and crowned with ashes," he entreats for mercy, laments the corruption of his nature, prays for pardoning and cleansing grace, and to be restored to former favour. In the text before us we have a prayer that the lips may be opened, so that the mouth may be set at liberty; implying, of course, that the lips are closed. Sin, in the regenerate heart, is ever followed by guilt, sorrow, and shame; and if by penitence, with grief. Grief, especially when accompanied by remorse, shuts up the soul in the blackness of its own prison, and deprives it of the power of looking for divine aid. This the quickened soul feels to be a loss more than it can sustain; not to praise God! not able to look up! to feel itself weak, and yet not able to look to the strong for strength. Oh, sin! what hast thou done? Thou hast taken away my hope; my hope, my honour are laid low in the dust. I now no longer can speak the praises of him whose mercies and goodness have followed me all the days of my life. But, as if the soul had all at once come to itself, it resolves and says: "I will yet pray for pardon; I will pray to God as when I first sought his forgiving love; I will pray that he may remove his stroke from me, for, like Cain, I feel my pu nishment is greater than I can bear. In the text there is to be observed what is called a metonomy of speech, i.e., the effect is spoken of for the cause; the lips are asked to be opened, meaning the heart, the affections; the fact being, if the heart is open-free-the lips are so too; on the contrary, if the heart-the feelings -are shut up, so are the lips. David, in thus asking for the effect to be produced, and with the best aim, asks also for the cause-namely, his heart to be set at liberty; he has sinned, he wants pardon, peace, joy; and till he has this realised, there can be no song of praise from him. To praise God is his main object in asking for his lips to be unclosed; it has always been his delight; but now his mouth is closed, he feels a guilty man, and like a guilty man he has nothing to say. If ever his mouth is opened again, he feels God must do it; hence his prayer: "O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. My impression is, from the peculiar language employed, that it is a figure of speech involving an allusion to a mode of punishment which was common in some countries, and most probably in Palestine, (see Ps. xxxix. 1, in the margin;) certainly it was well known in this country, though many years since. The instrument of punishment was called a "brank," literally a bridle or muzzle, made of iron, and employed for keeping closed the mouths of offenders against good morals, especially those who with their tongue had disgraced themselves and annoyed others. At all events, if the "brank" is not here alluded to, the effect in a spiritual point is the same, and I shall look at it in this light. God puts a "brank" upon all who offend against him, and until God removes it, the mouth is not at liberty. God means to punish, but he means to do the offender good notwithstanding; and when he is truly humbled, penitent, and returns with all his heart in earnest prayer, God will then remove the "brank." Observe, then, I.-That guilt is a "brank" on the mouth of God's people. This I am sure you will not deny; indeed, I am sure you will at once admit it. You know, and I know too, that when we have sinned, we have found it to take away the use of the tongue. Who can praise God with guilt on his conscience? Guilt empties out the heart of all good emotions and feelings. He can't love as he did before, he can't sing as he did before, he can't even pray. O, when a child of God sins, he makes himself a miserable being; he has shut himself out from enjoying the communications of God's favour, his loving-kindness! There is no communion now. Like as when one friend wrongs an other, what a shutting up there is of intercourse with each other; there is no freedom of speech, no interchange of kind looks, no hearty greeting of the hand; so it is with the soul and God. It was so with the first man, Adam; before he sinned he was holy, happy, and enjoyed intercourse with God; he loved to hear his voice; and, at God's call, his willing feet ran to meet him in swift obedience; but when he transgressed, O how reversed the scene! God calls, but no answer: "Adam, where art thou?" No |
