GLADNESS FOR SADNESS – Charles Spurgeon

GLADNESS FOR SADNESS

Introduction
“Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us, and the years in which we have seen evil. Let Your work appear to Your servants, and Your glory to their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands.” Psalm 90:15-17.

To understand this psalm, you must observe its black border. Remember the sorrows of Moses, the man of God, who saw a whole generation die in the wilderness and was himself denied admission to the promised land. The man Moses was greatly afflicted. I might almost call him, as far as his life in the wilderness was concerned, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” He dug the desert till it became a cemetery, for he lived amid 40 years of funerals. This 90th Psalm is saturated with the griefs of a sentenced generation, by whom it could be truly said, “We are consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath are we troubled.” We have, in our own case, as a church and people, a double black border to surround our text this morning, for death has despoiled us a second time. We were last Wednesday, burying our honored deacon, William Higgs, and at the moment of our meeting for that solemn purpose, another greatly esteemed deacon, William Mills, was suddenly stricken down with paralysis, to linger for a few hours and then breathe out his soul unto God. I shall not trust myself to speak about him, for this double loss has to a great extent unnerved me. But this I must say, that he was an experienced and mature Christian and above all, a quiet, diligent, loving, gracious servant of our common Master, whose care was the poor of the church, to whom he distributed our alms with discretion and tenderness. It was pleasant to hear from him the story of his Christian experience. His was a calm and lowly walk. Of late, being weakly, he was much at home, and there the Psalms of David and the Morning and Evening Portions were his comfort. He was always a source of strength to his pastor and his brethren, always of great service to the church, far more so than the mass of our people will ever know, but of late he ripened and mellowed into an unusual sweetness and spirituality. My last interview with him gave me a high idea of his thorough composure, and his perfect preparedness to commune with the glorified host above. He is gone—gone happily and safely home. He had no pain or struggle, but gradually melted into eternal life. To us who remain, one sorrow has succeeded another, to keep our wound bleeding and smarting. How well did Moses pray, “Return, O Lord, how long? And let it repent You concerning Your servants.” Oh, that our God would no more put His hand into the bitter box, as Herbert calls it, but now change His dispensation and revive the spirit of His contrite ones.

I. Proportionate Gladness
On our part, as we are made to sympathize with the man of God in this psalm, so let us imitate his example. Like him in multiplied bereavements, let us be like him in grace and faith. Observe that the first word of this painful psalm is, “Lord, You have been our dwelling place,” as if, touched by the rod, the sufferer remembered his Father. Will the hypocrite always call upon God? No, but when God deals roughly with him, he will kick against the pricks. But the child of God, when he is smitten, turns to the hand that smote him and cries, “Show me why You contend with me?” If foxes and wolves are prowling about, and the shepherd’s dog appears, they fly here and there as far away as they can. But when the dog is sent after the sheep, he fetches them back to the shepherd. Trouble drives away the carnal man from his pretended religion, but it gathers the true sheep together and being awakened and alarmed, they seek the Good Shepherd. The more of grief we feel, the more of grace we need, and the nearer to our Comforter we come. Closer to God is the cry of the troubled saint! — “Nearer, my God, to Thee! Nearer to Thee! Even though it be a cross that raises me; Still all my cry shall be, Nearer, my God, to Thee! Nearer to Thee!”

Observe also that this psalm is “a prayer of Moses.” The comfort of a child of God in the darkness is prayer. Adversity, blessed of the Holy Spirit, calls our attention to the promise. The promise quickens our faith. Faith betakes itself to prayer. God hears and answers our cry. This is the chain of a tried soul’s experience. Brethren, as we suffer tribulation, as we know the promise, let us immediately exercise faith and turn in prayer to God, for surely never did a man turn to God but the Lord also turned to him. If we are set a-praying, we may depend upon it, the Lord is set on blessing. Blessings are on the way from heaven—their shadow falls upon us even now. I desire at this time to stir you up to a joyful expectancy. These clouds mean rich, refreshing showers. These sharp frosts foretell heavy sheaves. The Lord by the divine Spirit, make the words of our text to be our prayer this morning! May the Lord Jesus present our supplication to the Father. The petition seems to me to be, first, for proportionate gladness, “Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us, and the years in which we have seen evil.”

II. Peculiar Gladness
And secondly, our prayer is for peculiar gladness, a gladness which is described in the 16th and 17th verses, “Let Your work appear unto Your servants, and Your glory unto their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands.” First, then, beloved friends, our prayer this morning as a church and people should be for proportionate gladness, that our God, who has filled one scale with grief, would fill the other scale with grace till they balance each other. Inasmuch as He has poured out of His vial certain drops of wormwood, we pray Him to measure out the same quantity of the consolation of love, whereby our hearts shall be comforted. May our covenant God, who has chastened us heavily, now revive us graciously.

We begin here by noticing that evidently the prayer desires a gladness of the same origin as the sadness. The psalm plainly ascribes the sadness to the Lord, “You turn man to destruction; and say, Return, you children of men.” “We are consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath are we troubled.” God is seen in bereavements, death comes distinctly at His command, and second causes are left behind. Since we have a distinct idea that the sadness comes from God, our text expresses an equally distinct desire that the gladness may come from God. We beg for divine comfort under divine chastening. The words of the prayer are eminently simple and childlike—“Make us glad.” They seem to say, “Father! You have made us sad; now make us glad! You have saddened us grievously; now therefore, O Lord, most heartily rejoice us.” The prayer as good as cries, “Lord, no one but Yourself can make us glad under such affliction, but You can bring us up from the lowest deep. The wound goes too near the heart for any human physician to heal us; but You can heal us even to the making of us glad!” The prayer is full of buoyant hope, for it does not merely say, “Comfort us; bear us up; keep our heads above water; prevent us from sinking in despair,” no, but “Make us glad.” Reverse our state: lift us up from the depths to the heights. “Make us glad!” I hear the music of hope drowning the discord of fear; the songs of a joyous faith rising above the mournful dirges of grief.

The appeal is to only the Lord. Moses entreats Jehovah Himself, to kindle the lamps of joy within the tabernacles of Israel. It is healthy sadness which the Lord sends, and it is equally safe gladness which God gives. If we make ourselves merry, we may be mere mimics of mirth. If outward goods make us merry, we may be no better than the rich fool in the parable. But if our God makes us glad, we may take our fill of delight and fear no ill consequences. The wine of the Kingdom cheers, but never intoxicates. The bread of God strengthens, but never surfeits. Neither pride, nor worldliness, nor carelessness comes of feasting at the table of our God. Come, then, let us together breathe this prayer, “Make us glad!” Let us paraphrase the expression, thus—“Lord, You are the maker of all things, make us glad! By Your word You did make the light; make light for us! You will make new these worn-out skies and much-polluted earth; come, then, and make us new and restore unto us the joy of Your salvation!”

III. The Source of Our Gladness
The parallel lies much in the source to which both sadness and gladness are ascribed. Lord, make both, our summers and our winters, our calms and our storms, for everything is good which comes from You, and it is our joy that our times are in Your hands. But now notice that a proportion is insisted upon, “Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us, and the years in which we have seen evil.” This is an original prayer, full of thought and hope. Truly also it is a philosophical prayer, one which is in accordance with the harmonies of nature and consonant with all the ways of God. I have been told that on the Scot lakes, the depth of the lake is almost always the same as the height of the surrounding hills. And I think I have heard that the same is true of the great ocean, so that the greatest depth is probably the same as the greatest height. Doubtless, the law of equilibrium is manifest in a thousand ways. Take an instance in the adjustment of days and nights. A long night reigns over the north of Norway, in these wintry months they do not even see the sun. But mark and admire their summers. Then the day banishes the night altogether and you may read your Bible by the light of the midnight sun. Long wintry nights find compensation in a perpetual summer day. There is a balance about the conditions of the peoples of differing lands. Each country has its drawbacks and its advantages. I believe it is so with the life of God’s people, the Lord also maintains a balance in them. “As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds by Christ.” The great Father permits some to be little in Israel. They are none the less dear to Him for that. Such are like the minnow which swims a pool proportioned to its size, no great tempest sweeps over the tiny stream, its ruffles and its calms suit its little inhabitants. Another of God’s children is made for wide service. He may be compared to leviathan, for whom the ocean is prepared, with billows, tempests and hurricanes in due proportion. The great Architect draws everything to scale. While some lives are wisely arranged upon a small scale, others are fashioned for wider spheres and made to do business on the great waters. These have greater tribulations, but they also have greater consolations. God knows how to manage us all and we have each one a place in His thoughts. Wisdom allots each one his talent and his work, his strength and his trial. What would a sparrow do with an eagle’s wings? Given the eagle’s wings and the eagle’s eyes, there must be a soaring up above the Alps, a companionship with winds and lightnings. To the tiny hummingbird God appoints no flight into the upper air, but allots it flowers and sunshine nearer the ground. He knows the way of His people and His love is over all. The good Lord measures out the dark and the light in due proportions and the result is life sad enough to be safe, and glad enough to be desirable.

Conclusion
I do not believe that our mortal life is fitly set forth by the Thane’s parable, when he said to the Saxon king, “Have you marked, O king, when you are sitting in your hall and the fires are lit, and the lamps are burning, how the sparrow comes flying out of the thick darkness, passes through the window, glides into the bright and cheerful light, and then flits out again into the darkness? Such is our life—an interval of light amidst a long darkness.” It is not so. If a believer flits out of the light, he glides into the light again. If we traverse a stretch of darkness, we may expect an equal breadth of brightness. If today we sail a stormy main, we may hope tomorrow, that the sea will be as glass. We have our changes, but the preponderance of life is not to misery. Rainy days are many, and yet in the long run, they are outnumbered by the seasons of fair weather. God makes us glad according to the days in which He has afflicted us, and the years in which we have seen evil. It may not be said of God’s children that we are a wretched company. Though truly, if only in this life we had hope, we should be of all men most miserable. Yet since that hope is sure we are of all men, the most happy! We shall not say when life is ended here below, that it was an evil thing to have lived. We have the promise of the life that now is as well as of that which is to come. “Happy are you, O Israel,” is for the present as well as for the future. God has blessed us and we are blessed, and it is not for us to speak as if the blessing were in vain. Now, if it is so, that our gladness and our sadness are balanced, let us accept them by turns with gratitude. Let us notice, further, that sorrow is the herald of joy. Did I not tell you but a few Sundays ago how I sat in health and strength and joy in the olive gardens, and said to my friend— “Should we expect some danger near When we perceive too much delight?” The apprehension was soon justified, as it has often been. But let us not forget the other side of this truth—we may expect some mercy near when we are bowed with heaviest grief. Among the ashes of sorrow we shall find live coals of joy. Grief is God’s usher of the black rod, sent to intimate that in the majesty of His grace, the Lord is drawing near to us. There will be first to us, even as there was to Israel, the sound of Egypt’s chariots and the cry of her horsemen and a descent into the depths of the sea, and then shall come the far-resounding, never-forgotten shout of victory. The rage of Pharaoh, the darkness of the night, and the march through the Red Sea must prepare the way for Miriam’s timbrel and the loud refrain, “Sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider has He thrown into the sea.”

Therefore comfort one another with these words, and breathe the prayer each one today, “Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us, and the years in which we have seen evil.” In each case, may divine love weigh out the ingredients of a sanctified life according to the art of the apothecary, each one in due proportion. Amen.

Charles Spurgeon