Those That Seek the Lord Lack No Good Thing

[This coming Sunday we will consider, “Where is Your Security?” Among other texts, during the service we will read Psalm 34, including verse 10: “The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.” The following is excerpted from Charles Spurgeon’s 1870 sermon on this text. If we are ever to have a biblical attitude towards money and security, we must understand the key points Spurgeon brings out here – Coty]

“They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.” That is, not one of them. . . .  Everyone that seeks the Lord has this promise—the least, as well as the greatest. . . . They that seek the Lord, whether they are chimney-sweeps or princes, whether they are tender children, or seasoned veterans in the Master’s great army—they shall want no good thing.

“Well, but” somebody says, “there are some of them that are in want.” They are in want? Yes, that may be, but they are not in want of any good thing. They cannot be. . . . “Well, at any rate, they want what appears to be a good thing.” That is very likely; the text does not say they shall not be. “Well, but they want what they once found to be a good thing; they want health—is not that a good thing? It was a good thing to them when they had it before, yet they want health; does not that go against the text?” No, it does not in any way whatever. The text means this, that anything which is absolutely good for him, all circumstances being considered, no child of God shall ever want. . . . That good old Puritan, Mr. Clarkson, . . . [once said], “If it were a good thing for God’s people for sin, Satan, sorrow, and affliction to be abolished, Christ would blot them out within five minutes, and if it were a good thing for the seeker of the Lord to have all the kingdoms of this world put at his feet and for him to be made a prince, Jesus would make him a prince before the sun rose again.” If it were absolutely to him, all things being considered, a good thing, he must have it, for Christ would be sure to keep his word. He has said he shall not want it, and he would not let his child want it, whatever it might be, if it were really, absolutely, and in itself, all things considered, a good thing.

Now, taking God’s Word and walking by faith towards it, what a light it sheds on your history and mine! There are many things for which I wish, and which I sincerely think to be good, but I say at once, “If I have not got them, they are not good, for if they were good, good for me, and I am truly seeking God, I should have them. . . .” I think sometimes it would be a good thing for me if I had more talents, but if it were a good thing I should have more, I should have them. You think it were a good thing, if you were to have more money. Well, if he saw it to be good, you would have it. “Oh!” say you, “but it would have been a good thing if my poor mother had been spared to me: if she had been alive now, it would have been a good thing, and it would be a good thing certainly for us to be in the position I was five years ago before these terrible panic times came.” Well, if it had been a good thing for you to have been there, you would have been there. “I don’t see it.” says one. Well, do not expect to see it, but believe it. We walk by faith, not by sight. But the text says so. . . .

“Well, I doubt it,” says one. Very well; I do not wonder that you do, for your father Adam doubted it, and that is how the whole race fell. Adam and Eve were In the garden, and they might have felt quite sure that their heavenly Father would not deny them any good thing, but the devil came and whispered, and said to them, “God doth know that in the day you eat of the fruit of that tree you will be as gods; that fruit is very good for you, a wonderfully good thing; never anything like it, and that one good thing God has kept away from you.” “Oh!” said Eve, “then I will get it,” and down we all fell. The race was ruined through their doubting the promise. If they had continued to seek the Lord, they would not have wanted any good thing. That fruit was not a good thing to them; it might have been good in itself, but it was not good to them, or else God would have given it to them, and their doubting it brought all this terrible sorrow on us. . . .

How do you know what is a good thing for you? “Oh! I know,” says one. That is just what your child said last Christmas. He was sure it was a good thing for him to have all those sweets: he thought you very hard that you denied them to him, and yet you knew better. You had seen him before so made ill through those very things he now longed for. And your heavenly Father knows, perhaps, that you could not bear to be strong in body; you would never be holy if you had too robust health. He knows you could not endure to be wealthy: you would be proud, vain, perhaps wicked: you do not know how bad you might be if you had this, perhaps. He has put you in the best place for you. He has given you not only some of the things that are good for you, but all that is good for you, and there is nothing in the world that is really, solidly, abidingly good for you, but you either have it now, or you shall have it ere long. God your Father is dealing with you in perfect wisdom and perfect love, and though your reason may begin to cavil and question, yet, your faith should sit still at his feet, and say “I believe it; I believe it, even though my heart is wrung with sorrow; I am a seeker of God; I do seek his glory, and I shall not want any good thing.”

Methinks someone in the congregation might say to me, “Look at the martyrs; did not they seek the Lord above all men?” Truly so, but what were you about to object? “Why, that they wanted many good things; they were in prison, sometimes in cold, and nakedness, and hunger; they were on the rack tormented, many of them went to heaven from the fiery stake.” Yes, but they never wanted any good thing. It would not have been a good thing to them as God’s martyrs to have suffered less, for now read their history. The more they suffered, the brighter they shine. Rob them of their sufferings, and you strip their crowns of their gems. Who are the brightest before the eternal throne? Those who suffered most below. lf they could speak to you now, they would tell you that that noisome dungeon was, because it enabled them to glorify God, a good thing to them. They would tell you that the rack whereon they did sing sweet hymns of praise was a good thing for them, because it enabled them to show forth the patience of the saints, and to have their names written in the book of the peerage of the skies. They would tell you that the fiery stake was a good thing, because from that pulpit they preached Christ after such a fashion as men could never have heard it from cold lips and stammering tongues. Did not the world perceive that the suffering of the saints were good things, for they were the seed of the Church? They helped to spread the truth, and because God would not deny them any good thing he gave them their dungeons, he gave them their racks, he gave them their stakes, and these were the best things they could have had, and with enlarged reason, and with their mental faculties purged, those blessed spirits would now choose again, could they live over again, to have suffered those things. They would choose, were it possible, to have lived the very life, and to have endured all they braved, to have received so glorious a reward as they now enjoy.

“Ah! well, then,” says one, “I see I really have not understood a great deal that has happened to me: I have been in obscurity, lost my friends, been despised, felt quite broken down; do you mean to tell me that that has been a good thing?” I do. God has blessed it to you. He will enable you to say, “Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept thy law.” And if you get more grace, you will say it is a good thing, for is it not a good thing for you to be conformed to the likeness of Christ? How can you be if you have no suffering? If you never suffer with him, how can you expect to reign with him? How are you to be made like him in his humiliation, if you never are humbled? Why, methinks every pain that shoots through the frame and thrills the sensitive soul helps us to understand what Christ suffered, and being sanctified, gives us the power to pass through the rent veil, and to be baptized with his baptism, and in our measure to drink of his cup, and, therefore, it becomes a good thing, and our Father gives it us, because his promise is that he will not deny or withhold any good thing from those that walk uprightly. . . .

There is the text. It seems to me to speak as plainly as the English tongue can speak. Give yourselves up to God wholly and live for him, and you shall never want anything that is really good for you; your life shall be the best life for you, all things considered in the light of eternity, that a life could have been. Only mind you keep to this—the seeking of the Lord. . . . Keep to that and seek the Lord, and your life shall be, even if it be a poverty-stricken one, such a life that if you could have the infinite intelligence of your heavenly Father, you would ordain it to be precisely as it now is. “They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.”

Why, how rich this makes the poor! How content this makes the suffering! How grateful this makes the afflicted! How does it make our present state to glow with an unearthly glory! But, brethren, we shall never understand this text fully this side of heaven. There we shall see it in splendour. They that seek the Lord here shall have up yonder all that imagination can picture, all that fancy could conceive, all that desire could create. You shall have more than eye hath seen, or ear hath ever heard. You shall have capacities to receive of the divine fulness, and the fulness of the pleasures that are with God for evermore shall be yours.

But again I come back to that, are you seeking the Lord? That is a question I have asked my own heart many and many a time—Do I seek the Lord’s glory in all things? . . .  I do not stand here to promise you ease and comfort, for in the world you shall have tribulation, but I do say in God’s name that he will not withhold one good thing from you, and that when you come to be with him forever and ever you will bless him that he did for you the best that could be done even by infinite wisdom and infinite love. You shall have the best life that could be lived, the best mercies that could be given, and the best of all good things shall be yours here and hereafter.

Good Cheer For Christmas

[From Charles Spurgeon’s sermon of December 20, 1868 on Isaiah 25:6: “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.”]

We have nearly arrived at the great merry-making season of the year. On Christmas-day we shall find all . . . enjoying themselves with all the good cheer which they can afford. Servants of God, you who have the largest share in the person of him who was born at Bethlehem, I invite you to the best of all Christmas fare. . . . Behold, how rich and how abundant are the provisions which God has made for the high festival which he would have his servants keep, not now and then, but all the days of their lives!

God, in the verse before us, has been pleased to describe the provisions of the gospel of Jesus Christ. . . . When we behold the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose flesh is meat indeed, and whose blood is drink indeed—when we see him offered up upon the chosen mountain, we then discover a fulness of meaning in these gracious words of sacred hospitality. . . .

I. First, then, we have to consider THE FEAST.

It is described as consisting of . . . the best of the best. . . . Let us attentively survey the blessings of the gospel. . . .

One of the first gospel blessings is that of complete justification. A sinner, though guilty in himself, no sooner believes in Jesus than all his sins are pardoned. The righteousness of Christ becomes his righteousness, and he is accepted in the Beloved. Now, this is a delicious dish indeed. Here is something for the soul to feed upon. To think that I, though a deeply guilty one, am absolved of God, and set free from the bondage of the law! To think that I, though once an heir of wrath, am now as accepted before God as Adam was when he walked in the Garden without a sin; nay, more accepted still, for the divine righteousness of Christ belongs to me, and I stand complete in him, beloved in the Beloved, and accepted in him too! Beloved, this is such a precious truth, that when the soul feeds on it, it experiences a quiet peace, a deep and heavenly calm, to be found nowhere on earth besides. . . . Here is marrow indeed when we perceive the truth and reality of the substitution of Jesus, and grasp with heart and soul the fact of our great Surety standing in our stead at the bar of justice, that we might stand in his stead in the place of honour and love. . . .

Meditate upon a second blessing of the covenant of grace, namely, that of adoption. It is plainly revealed to us, that as many as have believed in Christ Jesus unto the salvation of their souls, are the sons of God. . . . Shall a worm of the dust become a child of God? A rebel be adopted into the heavenly family? A condemned criminal not only forgiven, but actually made a child of God? Wonder of wonders! “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God!” To which of the kings and princes of this earth did he ever say, “Thou art my son”? He has not spoken thus to the great ones and to the mighty, but God hath chosen the base things of this world and things that are despised, yea, and things that are not, and made these to be of the seed royal. . . .

Passing on from the blessing of adoption, let us remember that every child of God is the object of eternal love without beginning and without end. . . . Long before the Lord began to create the world, he had thought of me. Long ere Adam fell or Christ was born, and the angels sung their first choral over Bethlehem’s miracle, the eye and the heart of God were towards his elect people. . . .

[Furthermore,] this love which had no beginning shall have no end. He is a God that changeth not. . . . Where he has once set his heart of love upon a man, he never turns away from doing him good. . . . Remember that not merely has the Lord thought of you from everlasting, but loved you. Oh! the depth of that word “love,” as it applies to the infinite Jehovah, whose name, whose essence, whose nature is love! He has loved you with all the immutable intensity of his heart, never more and never less; loved you so much that he gave his only begotten Son for you; loved you so well that nothing could content him but making you to be conformed into the image of his dear Son, and causing you to partake of his glory that you may be with him where he is! Come, feed on this, ye heirs of eternal life! . . .

[Now feed on] union to Christ. We are plainly taught in the word of God that as many as have believed are one with Christ. . . . They are in him as the branches are in the vine; they are members of the body of which he is the head. They are one with Jesus in such a true and real sense that with him they died, with him they have been buried, with him they are risen, with him they are raised up together and made to sit together in heavenly places. . . . They are dead and their life is hid with Christ in God. . . . . [If] we are one with Christ, then because he lives we must live also; because he was justified by his resurrection, we also are justified in him; because he is rewarded and for ever sits down at his Father’s right hand, we also have obtained the inheritance in him. . . . Oh, can it be that this aching head already has a right to a celestial crown! . . . That these weary feet have a title to tread the sacred halls of the New Jerusalem! It is so, for if we are one with Christ, then all he has belongs to us, and it is but a matter of time, and of gracious arrangement when we shall come into the full enjoyment thereof. . . .
I cannot bring forth all the courses of my Lord’s banquet; . . . but I would remind you of one more, and that is the doctrine of resurrection and everlasting life. This poor world dimly guessed at the immortality of the soul, but it knew nothing of the resurrection of the body: the gospel of Jesus has brought life and immortality to light, and he himself has declared to us of Jesus, that he that believeth in him shall never die. . . . Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Not the soul only, but the body also shall partake of immortality, for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. . . . To us the coming of Christ will be a day of joy and of rejoicing: we shall be caught up together with him; his reign shall be our reign, his glory our glory. Wherefore comfort one another with these words, and as ye see your brethren and your sisters departing one by one from among you, sorrow not as those that are without hope. . . . Our expected immortality is not that of mere existence, it is not the barren privilege of life without bliss, existence without happiness—it is full of glory; for “we shall be like him when we shall see him as he is;” we shall be with God, at whose right hand there is fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore. He shall make us to drink of the river of his pleasures; songs and everlasting joy shall be upon our heads, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. . . .

Changing the run of the thought, . . . let me now bring before you the goblets of wine. . . . These we shall consider as symbolising the joys of the gospel. What are these? . . . One of the dearest joys of the Christian life is a sense of perfect peace with God. . . . A quiet heart, resting in the love of God, dwelling in perfect peace, hath a royalty about it which cannot for a moment be matched by the fleeting joys of this world. . . .
This joy of ours will sometimes rise to an elevation yet more sublime when it is caused by communion with God. Believers, while engaged in prayer and praise, in service and in suffering, are enabled by the Holy Spirit to hold high converse with their Lord. . . . We tell to God our griefs; discoursing upon our sorrows not in fiction, but declaring them in real conversation, as when a man speaketh with his neighbour: meanwhile the Lord’s Spirit whispers to us with the still small voice of the promise, such words as calm our minds and guide our feet. Yes, and when our Beloved takes us into the banqueting-house of real conscious fellowship with himself, and waves the love-banner over us, our holy joy is as much superior to all merely human mirth, as the heavens are above the earth. Then do we speak and sing with sacred zest, and feel as if we could weep for very joy of heart, for our Beloved is ours and we are his. . . .

We will place on the table one goblet more. . . . We have provided for us the pleasures of hope, a hope most sure and steadfast, most bright and glorious—the hope that what we know to-day shall be outdone by what we shall know to-morrow; the hope that by-and-by what we now see, as in a glass darkly, shall be seen face to face. . . . We are looking forward to a speedy day when we shall be unburdened of this creaking tabernacle, and being absent from the body shall be present with the Lord. Our hope of future bliss is elevated and confident. Oh, the vision of his face! Oh, the sight of Jesus in his exaltation! Oh, . . . the word, “Well done, good and faithful servant” from that dear mouth! and then for ever to lie in his bosom. . . .

II. Notice the Banqueting Hall . . .

III. Thirdly, let us think of THE HOST of the feast.

“In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things.” Mark well the truth that in the gospel banquet there is not a single dish brought by man. The Lord makes it, and he makes it all. . . . The Lord makes the feast; and, observe, he does it, too, as the Lord of hosts, as a sovereign, as a ruler, doing as he wills amongst the sons of men, preparing what he wills for the good of his creatures, and constraining whom he wills to come to the marriage-feast. . . .  If God spread the feast it is not to be despised; if the Lord has put forth all the omnipotence of his eternal power and Godhead in preparing the banquet for the multitude of the sons of men, then depend upon it, it is a banquet worthy of him, one to which they may come with confidence, for it must be such a banquet as their souls require, and such as the world never saw before. O my soul, rejoice thou in thy God and King.

IV. Lastly, a word or two upon THE GUESTS.

The Lord has made this banquet “for all people”. What a precious word this is! “For all people.” Then this includes not merely the chosen people, the Jews, . . . but it encompasses the poor uncircumcised Gentiles, who by Jesus are brought nigh. . . . Blessed be God for that word, “unto all people,” for it permits missionary enterprise in every land. . . . Dwell on that word, “all people,” and you will see it includes the rich, for there is a feast of fat things for them, such as their gold could never buy; and it includes the poor, for they being rich in faith shall have fellowship with God. “All people.” This takes in the man of enlarged intelligence and extensive knowledge; but it equally encompasses the illiterate man who cannot read. The Lord makes this feast “for all people;” for you old people, if you come to Jesus you shall find that he is suitable to you; for you young men and maidens, and you little children, if you put your trust in God’s appointed Saviour, there shall be much joy and happiness for you. . . . None have ever been rejected of all who have ever come to Christ and asked for mercy. Still is it true, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Some very odd people have come to him, some very wicked people, some very hardened people, but the door was never closed in any one’s face. Why should Jesus begin hard dealings with you? He cannot, because he cannot change. If he says, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,” make one of the “hims” that come, and he cannot cast you out. . . . Between the covers of the Bible there is no mention made of one person who may not come. There is no description given of a person who is forbidden to trust Christ. . . . Do not limit what the Lord does not limit. I know he has an elect people; . . . but still this does not at all conflict with the other precious truth that whosoever believeth in the Son of God hath everlasting life. If you believe in Jesus Christ, all these things are yours. Come, poor trembler, the silver trumpet soundeth, and this is the note it rings, . . . “Come and welcome, come and welcome, sinner, come! Come as you are, sinful as you are, hardened as you are, careless as you think you are, and having no good thing whatsoever, come to your God in Christ!” O may you come to him who gave his Son to bleed in the sinner’s stead, and casting yourself on what Christ has done, may you resolve, “If I perish, I will trust in him. . . .” You shall not perish, but for you there shall be the feast of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.

Can You Know God?

Do you know all about God?

Even the question sounds presumptuous, doesn’t it? How can any man fully comprehend the God of the universe?

David makes this point in Psalm 139. He first contemplates God’s comprehensive knowledge of all the intimate details of his life:

You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. . . . Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. (Psalm 139:2, 4)

He then responds:

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. (Psalm 139:6)

Charles Spurgeon elaborates on what David says here:

I cannot grasp it. I can hardly endure to think of it. The theme overwhelms me. I am amazed and astounded at it. Such knowledge not only surpasses my comprehension, but even my imagination. It is high, I cannot attain unto it. Mount as I may, this truth is too lofty for my mind. It seems to be always above me, even when I soar into the loftiest regions of spiritual thought. Is it not so with every attribute of God? Can we attain to any idea of his power, his wisdom, his holiness? Our mind has no line with which to measure the Infinite (The Treasury of David).

He is infinite; we are finite. We cannot even begin to figure God out. We have nothing in our experience to compare Him to – indeed, He is incomparable. We can never know all about God.

Some, rightly seeing that we can have no hope of fully understanding such a being, wrongly conclude that we cannot know Him at all. While that may initially sound humble and God-honoring, actually the statement is arrogant and demeaning to God. For an infinitely wise, all-knowing God must be able to communicate aspects of Who He is to those of His creatures who have the capacity to reflect on His character.

This, indeed, is the claim of Scripture: That God reveals Himself to us to some extent in creation itself (Romans 1:19-20; Psalm 19:1-4); He reveals Himself yet more fully through His working with the people of Israel, through prophets, through laws, through ceremonies, and through acts in history (Hebrews 1:1); and He reveals Himself most fully in the person of His Son, God Himself (John 1:1), the “exact imprint of His nature” (Hebrews 1:3). As John Calvin writes (echoing the second century church father Irenaeus),

The Father, who is infinite in himself, becomes finite in the Son because he has accommodated himself to our capacity, that he may not overwhelm our minds with the infinity of his glory (Institutes 2.6.4).

Or as Charles Wesley writes, “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see! Hail the incarnate Deity!”

In trying to understand God, we are similar to a two-year-old trying to understand his parents. The two-year-old cannot possibly comprehend their character and abilities through his reasoning and investigations. Indeed, there is much about his parents that he is completely incapable of grasping. But through the parents’ loving and caring acts, and through their simple, carefully chosen words, they can communicate to him much about themselves – all, in fact, that he needs to know at this point in his life.

Just so with God and us. We surely cannot know all about God; throughout eternity we will rejoice to learn more and more of His infinite goodness. But He acted in history to teach us about Himself (1 Corinthians 10:11); He breathed out the Scriptures so that we might know Him and love Him (2 Timothy 3:16; Matthew 22:36-40); He became incarnate in Jesus, fully God and fully man, so that we might see God’s attributes in the flesh; He died on the cross so that we might be reconciled to Him by grace through faith.

Remember this image: You are the two-year-old. God is above you. You can’t comprehend Him. But you can trust what He tells you. You can see Jesus, revealed in Scripture. You can love Him.

So humble yourself. Adore Him. Bow before Him. Submit to His perfect Word. And rejoice that He has invited you to come into His presence as His adopted two-year-old.