FROM THE DUNGHILL TO THE THRONE – Charles Spurgeon
From the Dunghill to the Throne
“He raises up the poor out of the dust, and lifts the needy out of the dunghill; that He may set him with princes, even with the princes of His people.” – Psalm 113:7, 8.
The Majesty of God
The greatness and majesty of the Most High God are utterly inconceivable. The most masterly minds, when in the most spiritual state, have felt it impossible for the utmost stretch of their imagination to grasp the grandeur of God. Our loftiest conceptions of the universe probably fall very far short of what it truly is. Although the studies of astronomy have revealed facts surpassing the powers of the human mind in the attempt to understand them, thought, reason, understanding, and even imagination are bewildered in the vast and limitless fields of space amidst the marvels of God’s handiwork. Yet, all the wonders which the human eye has seen or the mortal spirit has guessed at are but parts of His ways. We have heard no more than one stanza of creation’s never-ending psalm. We have viewed but one stone in the vast mosaic of the Maker’s works.
A microscopic atom of life in a drop of water may know as much of the great sea as we do of the universe as a whole. An ant creeping over a sand heap by the seaside must not boast of having counted the grains which bound the ocean—nor should the most learned mortal dream that he has a full understanding of the vast creation of God. Above all this, however, is the fact that all these wondrous works bear no more proportion to the unseen, all-powerful God, than one line written by the pen of Milton would bear to his masterly mind.
The Infinite Nature of God
When God has made all that He ordains to create, and when we have seen all that He has made, yet there remain in Him infinite possibilities of creation. The potter is far greater than the vessel which he fashions, and the Lord is infinitely greater than all His works. He fills all things, but all things cannot fill Him. He contains immensity; He grasps eternity; but neither immensity nor eternity can encompass Him— “Great God, how infinite You are! What worthless worms are we!”
Very fittingly, the psalmist sings of Him as God humbling Himself to behold the things which are in heaven. Those majestic beings, cherubim and seraphim, who flash with wings of fire to obey the behests of the Eternal, are not to be observed of Him unless, speaking after the manner of men, in condescension He stoops Himself to view them. We sing of heaven, even the heaven of heavens, as the Lord’s, and speak of those glorious places as being His peculiar abode, and so they are; and yet the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him, and celestial spirits are as nothing, when compared with Him.
The Condescension of the Lord
Consider, then, the condescension of the Lord in visiting the sons of men! What a stoop is here, my brethren! From the throne of the infinite, to the clay tenements of man! Surely in a moment you will perceive that all gradations of rank among our race of worms must be less than nothing, and even contemptible with Him! He does not consort with kings when He descends to earth, for what is their mimic pomp to Him? He does not seek out regal society as being more worthy of His dignity than association with poverty, for what is the child’s play of courtly grandeur to Him? A king! What is he but a crowned worm? A king! What is he but dust and ashes, raised a very little higher on the ash heap than the rest of the dust?
The Lord’s Regard for the Lowly
The Lord, therefore, makes but small account of the honor which comes from man, whose breath is in His nostrils— “With scorn divine, He turns His eyes from towers of haughty kings.” When His awful chariot rolls downward from the skies, He makes men mark the fact of His condescension by visiting men of low estate. He would have to stoop to a palace; it is no more if He stoops to a dunghill. When He is engaged on mercy’s errands, having bowed so low as to enter a cabinet-council chamber, it is scarcely a step further to the haunt of poverty and the den of vice.
Courage, you most humble of the sons of men; He who reigns in heaven despises none. “He raises up the poor out of the dust, and lifts the needy out of the dunghill.” This has frequently occurred in providence. God in His arrangements singularly alters the position of men. History is not without many instances where the uppermost have become the lowest, and the lowest have been highest. Verily, “There are first who shall be last, and there are last who shall be first.”
The Sovereignty of God’s Grace
Solomon said, “I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking in the dust.” And the same thing has been seen even in these modern times, when kings have fled their thrones, and men who were once poor have ascended to imperial power. God in providence often laughs at pedigree and ancestry, and stains the honor and dignity of everything in which human nature boasts itself. From the kennel to the palace is an easy ascent when heaven favors. It is not upon providence that I intend to dwell this morning. My text has a special bearing upon God’s acts of grace.
Here it is above all others that we see the condescending sovereignty of His dealings. He takes the base things of the world, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are. He selects for Himself those whom men would have repudiated with scorn—He covers His tabernacle of witness with badgers’ skins, chooses unhewn stones to be the materials for His altar, a bush for a place of blazing manifestation, and a shepherd boy to be the man after His own heart.
Objects of God’s Choice
In considering the text this morning, let us notice the objects of God’s choice. First, where some of them are; secondly, how He takes them from their degraded state; thirdly, how He lifts them up; and fourthly, where He puts them. It will be the history of a child of God, from the dunghill to the throne. Novelists are plastering our walls with sensational titles; here is one which might even satisfy them in their ambition to delight the morbid cravings of this age. “From the dunghill to the throne,” is a subject which ought to win your attention. In it there will always be a blessed novelty of interest, and yet, we thank God that it is a correct description of the upward experience of all the Lord’s people.
He finds tens of thousands in the dunghill-state and bears them up by the arms of His mercy until He makes them sit among the princes of His people.
I. Where God’s Chosen Ones Are When He Meets With Them
The expression used in the text implies, in the first place, that many of them are in the lowest social scale. Sovereign grace has a people everywhere, in all ranks and conditions of men. Were we taken up to heaven, and did the heavenly spirits wear any token of their rank on earth, we would, on returning, say, “Here and there I saw a king; I marked a few princes of the blood, and a handful of peers of the realm; I observed a little company of the prudent, and a slender band of the rich and famous; but I saw a great company of the poor and the unknown, who were rich in faith and known unto the Lord.” The Lord excludes no man from His election on account of his rank or condition.
We shall not err if we say— “While grace is given to the prince, The poor receive their share. No mortal has a just pretense To perish in despair.”
Yet how true it is that many of those whom God has chosen are found not simply among the workers, but among the poorest ranks of the sons of toil! There are some whose daily toil can scarcely find them bread enough to keep body and soul together, and yet, they have fed daintily upon the bread of heaven. Many are clad in garments of the meanest kind, patched and mended everywhere, and yet they are as gloriously arrayed in the sight of God and the holy angels, as the brightest of the saints; “Yet, I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
II. How the Lord Lifts Them from the Dunghill
He lifts the needy out of the dunghill. It is a dead lift, and none but an eternal arm could do it. It is a feat of omnipotence to lift a sinner out of his natural degradation; it is all done by the power of the Holy Spirit through the word, filled with the energy of God.
When the Lord begins to deal with the needy sinner, the first lift He gives him raises his desires. The man is not satisfied to be where he was, and what he was. That dunghill he had not perceived to be as foul as it really is; and the first sign of spiritual life is horror at his lost condition, and an anxious desire to escape from it.
III. The Sign of Spiritual Life
Dear hearer, have you advanced as far as this? Do you feel that all is wrong with you? And do you desire to be saved from your present state? So long as you can say, “It is well with me,” and boast that you are no worse than others, I have no hope for you. God does not lift those up who are lifted up already! But when you begin to feel that your present state is one of degradation and ruin, and that you desire to escape from it, then the Lord has put the lever under you!
IV. Trusting in Christ
When a soul gets to the point where they can fully trust in Christ, then it is off the dunghill. The moment a sinner trusts Jesus Christ, his sins cease to be! God has drawn His pen through them all; they are gone. He is not guilty in the sight of God any longer; he stands acquitted through the atonement, and justified through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. He is a saved man. He may rise from his sackcloth and ashes, and walking at large, may sing of the blood-bought mercy which has set him completely free.
The Blessed Elevation of the Believer
Thus, by the gift of the onlybegotten Son, brought personally to the heart, the Lord raises His elect ones from their ruined state. He makes them see it to be a dunghill, makes them feel that they cannot get off of it themselves, points them to Christ, and leads them to trust His precious blood. And so, they are delivered.
III. How He Raises Them Up
It is a blessed thing to be saved from degradation, but praise be to Jehovah, He does not stop there. The Lord does nothing by halves. Oh, the lengths and breadths of love! When He has come right down to where we are, it is only half His journey—it remains for Him to bear us right up to where He is. Oh, it is a blessed thing to be taken off the dunghill, even if our lot were that of hired servants in our father’s house. But this does not satisfy the infinite heart of Jehovah—He will lift His people up above all commonplace joys. He will take them right up, up, up as on eagles’ wings, till He sets them in the place of princes and makes them to reign with Him!
Now, let us have a few minutes’ consideration of how our blessed Lord lifts His people up from the common level of humanity to make them rank with princes.
Complete Justification
In the first place, they are lifted up by complete justification. Every Christian here this morning, whatever may have been his past life, is at this instant perfect in the sight of God through Jesus Christ. The spotless righteousness of Christ is imputed to that sinner believing in Him, so that he stands, this morning, “accepted in the Beloved.”
Now beloved, weigh this, turn it over, and meditate upon it. Poor, needy, but believing sinner, you are as accepted before God at this present time through Christ Jesus, as if you had never sinned, as if you had done and performed every work of His most righteous law, without the slightest failure. Is not this sitting among princes?
Complete justification furnishes the believer with a throne as safe as it is lofty, as happy as it is glorious. Ah, you descendants of imperial houses, some of you know nothing of this. This is a note which many an emperor could never sing: “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns?”
Speak of sitting in pavilions of pleasure, or on couches of state with nobles, princes, kings, Caesars—why, the figure falls short, for the state of the soul completely justified outshines all this as the sun outshines yon glimmering candle.
Full Assurance of Faith
Take the next step. The children of God who have been taken from the dunghill, many of them, enjoy full assurance of faith. They are certain that they are saved; they can say with Job, “I know that my Redeemer lives.” As to whether they are children of God or not, they have no question; the infallible witness of the Holy Spirit bears witness with their spirit that they are born of God. Christ is their elder Brother, God is their Father, and they breathe the filial spirit by which they cry, “Abba, Father!” They know their own security; they are convinced that neither “things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate them from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus their Lord.”
I ask every one of understanding heart, whether this is not sitting among princes? Beloved, I would not give a farthing for a prince’s throne, but I would give all I had a thousand times told, if I might always enjoy full assurance of faith! The full assurance of faith is a better joy than Shushan’s palace of lilies, or Solomon’s house of the forest of Lebanon could ever yield. A sense of divine loving-kindness is better than life itself—it is a young heaven maturing below to be fully developed above.
To know that my Beloved is mine, and that I am His, and that He loved me and gave Himself for me, this is far better than to be heir-apparent to a number of empires!
Communion with Christ
We go further. The children of God, favored by divine grace, are permitted to have interviews with Jesus Christ. Like Enoch, we walk with God. Just as a child walks with his father, putting his hand into his father’s hand, looking up with loving eyes, so the chosen people walk with their Father God most lovingly, confidingly, familiarly, talking to Him, telling Him their griefs, and hearing from His gracious mouth the secrets of His love.
They are a happy people, for they have communion with Jesus of a more intimate and tender sort than even angels know. We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones; we are married unto Him; He has betrothed us unto Himself in faithfulness and in righteousness; we are dearer to Himself than His own flesh and blood—that He gave to die—and none of us shall ever perish, neither shall any take us out of His hand.
Now, is not this sitting among princes? Princes? Princes? We look down upon your pomp from the eminence on which grace has placed us! Wear your crowns! Put on your purple! Deck yourselves in all your regal pomp, but when our souls can sit with Jesus, and reign as kings and priests with Him, your splendors are not worth a thought. Communion with Jesus is a richer gem than ever glittered in any imperial diadem. Union with the Lord is a coronet of beauty outshining all the crowns of earth.
The Sanctification of the Holy Spirit
Nor is this all—the elect of God, in addition to receiving complete justification, full assurance, and communion with Christ, are favored with the Holy Spirit’s sanctification. God the Holy Spirit dwells in every Christian; however humble he may be, he is a walking temple in which resides Deity. God the Holy Spirit dwells in us, and we in Him; and that Spirit sanctifies the daily actions of the Christian, so that he does everything as unto God; if he lives, it is to Christ, and if he dies, it is gain.
O beloved, it is indeed to sit among princes when you feel the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit. O, my God, if I might always feel Your Spirit, overcoming my corruption and compelling my soul to holiness, I would not so much as think of a prince in comparison with my own joy.
O my dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, I am sure you can bear witness that when you fall into sin at any time, it brings you very low. You smell that vile dunghill once again, and are ready to die under its fearful stench. But when the Holy Spirit enables you to overcome sin and to live as Christ lived, you feel that you have a royal standing, and a more than imperial privilege in being sanctified in Christ Jesus!
The Blessing of Usefulness
Moreover, many saints receive, in addition to sanctification, the blessing of usefulness. And, mark the word, every useful man is of princely rank. I am not exaggerating now, but speaking the sober truth. He is the true prince among men who blesses his fellows. To be able to drop pearls from your lips might make you a prince in a fairy tale, but when those lips bless the souls of men by leading them to Jesus—this is to be a prince in very deed!
To feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to reclaim the fallen, to teach the ignorant, to cheer the desponding, to inspire the wavering, and to conduct saints up to God’s right hand, my brethren, this is to wear a luster which stars and ribbons, orders, and distinctions could never confer. This is the privilege of each one of you, according to the measure of faith that the Spirit of God has given you.
You, who once did mischief, now subserve the interest of virtue; you, who rendered up your members servants unto unrighteousness, now make those same members servants of righteousness, to the praise and glory of God. No courts of sovereigns can bestow such true honors as dwell in holiness, charity, and zeal.
The Joy of the Believer
And once more, God lifts His people up in another sense—while He gives them sanctification and usefulness, He also anoints them with joy. Oh, the joy of being a Christian! I know the world’s idea is that we are a miserable people. If you read the pages of history, the writers speak of the gay cavaliers as being men of high spirit and overflowing joy; but the poor Puritans, what a wretched set they were, blaspheming Christmas Day, abhorring games and sports, and going about the world looking so terribly miserable, that it were a pity they should go to hell, for they had enough of torment here!
Now this talk is all untrue, or at best is a gross caricature! Hypocrites, then as now, did wear a long face and a rueful countenance, but there were to be found among the Puritans hosts of men whose holy mirth and joy were not to be equaled, no, not to be dreamed of, or understood by those poor grinning fools who fluttered around the heartless rogue whose hypocrisies had lifted him to the English throne. The cavaliers’ mirth was the crackling of thorns under a pot, but a deep and unquenchable joy dwelt in the breasts of those men— “Who trampled on the throng of the haughty and the strong, Who sat in the high places, and slew the saints of God.”
Oh, far above the laughter of the gallants of the court, was the mighty and deep joy of those who rode from the victorious field, singing unto the Lord who had made them triumph gloriously! They called them “Ironsides,” and such they were, but they had hearts of steel, which while they flinched not in the day of danger, forgot not to flash with joy, even as steel glitters in the shining of the sun.
Believe me, however, whatever they were, we who trust in Jesus are the happiest of people—not constitutionally, for some of us have great depression of spirits; not always circumstantially, for some of us are much tried and are brought to the utter depths of poverty, but inwardly, truly, really, our heart’s joy, believe us, is not to be excelled.
I would not stand here to lie for twice the Indies, but I will speak the truth—if I had to die like a dog tomorrow, I would not change places with any man beneath the courts of heaven for joy and peace of mind. For to be a Christian, and know it, to drink deep of that cup, to know your election, to understand your calling—I assure you yields more peace and bliss in ten minutes, than will be found in 100 years in all the courts of sin, though wantonness should run riot, and pleasure should know no license.
“Solid joy and lasting pleasure, None but Zion’s children know.”
IV. Where the Lord Sets His People
To conclude, we have to notice in the last place, WHERE IT IS THAT OUR LORD SETS HIS PEOPLE. “Among princes,” we are told. We have already dwelt upon the same thought, but we will examine another side of it.
“Among princes,” is the place of select society. They do not admit everybody into that charmed circle. Among an aristocracy, the poor plebeian must not venture. The blue blood runs in rather a narrow channel, and it cannot be expected that the common crimson should be allowed to invigorate the flagging current. The true Christian lives in very select society. Listen! “Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” Speak of select society, there is none like this! We are a chosen generation, a peculiar people, a royal priesthood. “We are not come unto Mount Sinai, but we are come unto the blood of sprinkling, and unto the general assembly and Church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven.” This is select society.
Next, they have courtly audience—the prince may be expected to have admittance to royalty, when common people like ourselves must stand afar off. Now, the child of God has free access to the royalty of heaven. Our courtly privileges are of the highest order. Listen! “For through Him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father.” “Let us come boldly,” says the Apostle, “to the throne of the heavenly grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” We have courtly audience and peculiarly select society.
Next to this, it is supposed that among princes there is abundant wealth, but what is the wealth of princes compared with the riches of believers? For “all things are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” “He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”
Among princes, again, there dwells peculiar power. A prince has influence; he wields a scepter in his own domain—and, “He has made us kings and priests unto God, and we shall reign forever and ever.” We are not kings of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and yet we have a triple dominion; we reign over spirit, soul, and body. We reign over the united kingdom of time and eternity; we reign in this world, and we shall reign in the world that is yet to come—for we shall reign forever and ever.
Princes, again, have special honor. Everyone in the crowd desires to gaze upon a prince, and would be delighted to do him service. Let him have the first position in the empire; he is a prince of the blood, and is to be had in esteem and respect. Beloved, hear His Word—“He has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” so that we share the honor of Christ as we share His cross.
Paul was taken from the dunghill of persecution, but he is not second to any in glory; and you, though you may have been the chief of sinners, shall fare none the worse when He comes in His kingdom; but as He acknowledged you on earth, and redeemed you with His precious blood, so will He acknowledge you in the future state, and make you sit with Him and reign among princes, world without end. May the Lord bless these words for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON
1 Samuel 2:1-10; Psalm 113
—Charles Spurgeon