Latest / Reformed Thinking / If My People Would Only Listen (Psalm 81) | Charles Spurgeon

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If My People Would Only Listen (Psalm 81) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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I'm your host and I'm so glad you're here with us.
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We're about to do what we well, what we love to do.
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We take a serious text, usually an older one, and just give it
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the time and the attention it deserves.
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We're not here to just skim the surface.
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We really want to get into the arguments, the theology and you
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know, the heart behind the words.
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And I'm joined as always by my Co host.
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It's good to see you. It's good to be here.
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I am ready for this one. You know, we often find
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ourselves wrestling with these really heavy doctrinal
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treatises, but today, today's a little different.
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We're looking at something that kind of bridges that gap
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between, let's say, high theology and the practical
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emotional life of a believer. That's a great way to put it,
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just so everyone's on the same page.
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We're both coming at this from the Protestant tradition,
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specifically we hold to the Westminster Confession.
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So that's the lens we're using as we read.
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And today we are opening up the Treasury of David Charles
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Bergen. Classic.
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An absolute classic. It really is.
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Yeah. Now for anyone who might not
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know, calling Spurgeon the Prince of Preachers, that almost
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sells him short, At least when you're talking about this
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specific work. The Treasury isn't just his own
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commentary, it's this huge multi volume collection where he's
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almost more of a curator. He pulls in Augustine, Luther,
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all the Puritans, even some obscure medieval writers.
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It's like he walked into the greatest library in church
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history, grabbed every book he could find on the songs, and
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then distilled it all into one place.
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That's a fantastic description. Spurgeon had this incredible
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gift, this ability to read so widely, but then to synthesize
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all that reading into something that genuinely feeds the soul.
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He wasn't just an academic. He was a pastor first and
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foremost. Yeah.
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He wanted these insights to actually change how people live
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their lives, how they worshipped.
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And today we're really zeroing in on his treatment of Psalm 81.
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Psalm 81. I have to be honest, I spent a
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lot of time with this one over the last week, and it threw me
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for a loop. It really did.
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Structurally, it's jarring. You start with this incredible,
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this incredible noise. You've got timbrels, harps,
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trumpets, people shouting for joy.
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It just feels like a party. Yeah, a festival.
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Exactly. But then halfway through, it's
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like the music just stops, It cuts out, and you get this very
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dark, very solemn warning about judgment.
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It almost feels like 2 completely different songs just
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mashed together. It does feel that way, doesn't
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it? Yeah.
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But that tension, that's actually the whole point of the
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Psalm. The mission for us today is to
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try and understand how those two halves fit together.
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OK? We need to look at the
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relationship between divine grace, which is what causes all
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the singing and human obedience, or in this case the lack of it.
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The Psalm literally moves from the height of a festival to the
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absolute depth of a people being abandoned by God.
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That's the part that gets me, the idea of abandonment.
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It's unsettling. It should be.
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The scary part isn't, you know, fire and brimstone in this
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Psalm. It's the silence.
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It's the silence of God just saying, fine, have it your way.
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We're going to see how a people can go from the winepress of joy
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to the dry, barren desert of their own stubbornness.
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Well, let's start with the joy then.
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The first section of our deep dive covers verses 1 to 3, and
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right away Spurgeon stops us at the title to the Chief Musician
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upon Giddeth. Now I'll be honest, I usually
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skip right over the titles. Most people do.
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Yeah, I just figured there are technical notes for a choir
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director from, you know, 3000 years ago.
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But Spurgeon insists this word Giddeth really matters.
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He does, and he's not alone in that.
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Now, there's some debate, of course.
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There always is. But Spurgeon leans very heavily
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into the idea that giddeth comes from the Hebrew word GAT.
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GAT. Which means, which means a wine
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press. A wine press.
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So the implication is that this is a specific type of song, a
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whole genre. That's it.
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It's a vintage song, A song that was meant to be sung during the
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grape harvest. OK, let's just paint that
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picture for a second because I think we lose the visceral
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reality of this in our modern world.
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We buy grapes in a plastic bag from the supermarket, but the
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vintage, I mean, this is heavy, heavy labor.
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Oh, absolutely. You're out in the heat, you're
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gathering thousands of pounds of fruit, you're throwing them into
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this massive press, you're stomping on them.
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It is sticky. It's exhausting work and the
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whole place just smells like fermentation and sugar.
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It's incredibly physical work, and usually in almost every
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culture, that kind of physical labor generates music, right?
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You have sea shanties for sailors, field haulers for
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picking cotton or corn. It helps with the rhythm of the
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work. But Spursen points out something
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fascinating here. In most of those other cultures,
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the songs are secular, they're about the work, or they're about
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romance, or maybe just complaining about the boss.
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Right. I've been working on the
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railroad, that kind of thing. Exactly that.
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But here the song of the winepress is a Psalm.
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It's a holy hymn. Spurgeon notes that this shows
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us a society, or at least the ideal for Israel, where the
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sacred and the secular just weren't divided.
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Even the act of crush and grapes was accompanied by theology.
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That is a conviction right there.
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Spurgeon actually laments this, doesn't He sort of sighs and
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says you rarely hear holy hymns at the winepress in so-called
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Christian countries today. He does.
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He notes that separation. He says we've compartmentalized
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our joy. We've got church songs for
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Sunday morning, and then we have work songs or radio songs for
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the rest of the week, Right? But for the Israelite, the
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harvest was a direct, tangible gift from Jehovah.
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When that red juice gushed out of the grape, that was God's
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provision in front of their eyes.
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So the only natural response was to sing to God, not just to
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whistle some random tune. It suggests a life where God is
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just completely integrated into the mundane.
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You're sweating, your feet are stained purple, your back aches,
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and you're singing about the God of Jacob.
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That is, the ideal worship isn't just for the sanctuaries, for
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the vineyard. But the song doesn't stay at the
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winepress, it moves pretty quickly into a command in verse
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one. Sing aloud unto God our
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strength. And Spurgeon, well, he has a bit
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of a bone to pick here with the way people sing in church.
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He certainly does. Spurgeon was a man of the people
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through and through, and he had very little patience for any
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kind of pretension. He really critiques what he
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calls gentility in worship. Gentility.
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OK, let's unpack that. Because when I hear gentility, I
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think of being polite. I think of not disturbing the
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person sitting next to me. Isn't that a good thing in
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church? I mean, we don't want chaos.
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Spurgeon would argue there's a huge difference between order
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and apathy. When he talks, it's about
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gentility. He's talking about what he calls
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well bred whispers. All bred whispers.
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He's describing A congregation that is so concerned with
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propriety, or maybe so embarrassed by raw emotion that
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they barely open their mouths. They just kind of lisp the tune.
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They just let the choir do all the work.
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That was his biggest pet peeve. The whole idea of proxy worship,
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letting a professional stand up at the front and sing God's
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praises for you while you just sit back and watch.
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To Spurgeon, that's a mockery of worship.
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He has this incredible line where he says he would rather
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have ruggedness and by that he means off key singing, loud
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voices, bad timing, then miss the hardiness of the people's
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song. He draws a comparison to the
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Pagan gods, right? I remember mentioning Greece and
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Rome. Yes, he says something like the
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gods of Greece and Rome may be worshipped well enough with
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classical music, but Jehovah requires the heart.
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That's a really sharp distinction.
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It is classic music, and he's not saying the genre is bad, but
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in this context it represents form and precision and aesthetic
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beauty. You listen to it.
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But Jehovah isn't an art critic. He's a father and a king.
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He wants the shout of loyalty and love from his children.
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Sing aloud, you debtors to sovereign grace.
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That's the phrase that stuck with me.
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The idea is, if you truly realize how much you owe, you
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can't possibly whisper. You can't.
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If you were drowning and someone just pulled you out of the
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ocean, you wouldn't lean over and whisper thank you, you would
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shout it. Spurgeon is saying that the
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volume of our singing is often a pretty good diagnostic of the
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state of our gratitude. And the text itself seems to
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support this loudness theory. It lists a whole orchestra.
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We have the timbrel, the harp, the psaltery.
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It's a full spectrum of sound. The timbrel is basically a
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tambourine. That's your percussion.
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It's rhythmic. It's associated with Miriam at
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the Red Sea. It's an instrument of victory,
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really. Then you have the harp and the
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psaltery, which add the melody in the sweetness.
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But the dominant sound, the one that really cuts through, comes
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in verse 3, the trumpet. The trumpet Blow up the trumpet
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in the new moon. I went down a bit of a rabbit
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hole on this one because the Spurgeon's notes.
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This isn't just, you know, checking a calendar and deciding
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it's time to play. The new moon was a massive
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event. It was crucial.
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This Psalm is likely talking about the 7th month Tishri,
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which was the beginning of the civil year.
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It kicked off this whole season that included the Day of
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Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles.
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But you have to remember they didn't have calculated almanacs
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in their pockets. They were completely reliant on
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observation. Right, And that's where Spurgeon
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talks about the Watchers. Yes, because the start of the
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holy month depended on physically seeing the first
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sliver of the new moon. The Jews would send watchers up
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to the mountaintops. Can you just imagine the
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tension? The whole religious calendar for
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the entire nation is paused, waiting for one person's visual
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confirmation. And when they finally saw it,
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they didn't just light a beacon. They had to run, right?
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Run to the Sanhedrin. Correct.
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The Witness would run to the religious court in Jerusalem,
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and the Sanhedrin wouldn't just take their word for it, they
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would grill them. What did it look like?
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How was it curved? Which direction was it pointing?
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How high was it in the sky? They had to be absolutely
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certain it wasn't a mistake. And only once the president of
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the Sanhedrin was satisfied. He would stand up and shout for
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everyone to hear. It is consecrated.
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And then the word would go out and the trumpets would just
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blast across the city. It was this explosion of relief
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and joy. The time has come.
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The feast is here. It is consecrated.
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Wow, that gives me chills. It's like the sanctification of
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time itself. But then in verses four and
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five, the tone shifts just a little.
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It moves from the event itself to the authority behind the
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event. This was a statue for Israel.
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And here's where we get into some classic Reformed theology.
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Spurgeon immediately brings up the regulative principle.
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He does. And this is so essential for
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understanding how Spurgeon and many in our tradition view
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worship the regulative principle, but simply says that
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in corporate worship we are only authorized to do what God has
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explicitly commanded in His Word.
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So if God commands it, we have to do it.
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And if he doesn't command it, we shouldn't do it.
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So worship isn't choose your own adventure kind of deal.
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Not at all, Spurgeon says. Obedience is what directs
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worship, not our whim or sentiment.
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Just because something feels nice to us, or looks pretty, or
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seems culturally relevant doesn't mean it belongs in the
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worship of a holy God. And he takes a pretty direct
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swing at some traditions here. He calls out Christmas, Wits and
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Tide and other Popish festivals. He is very blunt and we need to
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understand the context. As a Puritan minded Baptist,
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Spurgeon looked at the traditional church calendar
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which is full of Saints days and feast days that were invented by
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the church centuries after Christ and he just asked a
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simple question. Is this a statute of the God of
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Jacob? And if the answer is no.
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Then he says it has no authority over the conscience of the
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believer. He's arguing for Christian
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liberty. Now, that sounds contradictory,
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but the idea is we are freed from the traditions of men so
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that we can be joyfully bound only to the ordinances of God.
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He isn't trying to be a Scrooge. He's trying to be a protective
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pastor, right? He doesn't want his people
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burdened by a whole list of obligations that God never
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actually put on them. It's a good check for us even
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today. We do so many things in church
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just because we've always done them that way.
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Spurgeon forces us to ask. But did God ever ask for this in
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the first place? Exactly.
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Is this from the King, or is this just a tradition we made-up
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along the way? So, moving into section two of
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our outline, the Psalm shifts gears pretty dramatically.
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We go from the present noise of the festival all the way back in
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time to the history of the Exodus.
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Spurgeon notes that the Psalm is a testimony of Joseph, which he
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says is a shorthand for all of Israel going out through the
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land of Egypt. And he highlights the imagery of
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that March. The text says Israel went
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through the land of Egypt. It's a picture of victors.
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They aren't sneaking out the back door in the middle of the
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night. They are marching right through
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the Main Street while their oppressors are paralyzed with
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fear. But then in verse 5, we hit a
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phrase that just stopped me cold, where I heard a language
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that I understood not now. We have to be really careful
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here. Who is the I that's speaking?
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Is it the psalmist? Is it Israel as a nation saying
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I was in Egypt and I heard their language, which I didn't speak?
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That's the most common surface reading, and it's plausible.
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But Spurgeon argues, and I think he's absolutely right, that the
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context demands that this is God who's speaking.
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The I in the very next verses is clearly God.
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I removed his shoulder, so the I here must be God too, OK?
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But that creates a massive theological problem, doesn't it?
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We believe God is omniscient. He knows everything.
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I mean, he invented language. How could God possibly say I
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heard a language I did not understand?
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Is there a gap in God's knowledge?
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It's not a gap in his knowledge, it's a gap in relation.
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Spurgeon explains that this is a figure of speech, but a very,
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very powerful one. It refers to the unknown nature
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of idolatry to God. Think about it.
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For centuries, the land of Egypt had been filled with prayers to
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RA and Osiris and to crocodiles and to the Nile River itself.
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All these false gods. Right to the one true God.
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Those prayers were outlandish. They were foreign.
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He had never been adored in that tongue with those concepts.
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It's not that he couldn't translate the words, it's that
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the entire system of thought was alien to his character and his
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covenant. So it's more like a father
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hearing his own child speak in a way that is just totally
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contrary to everything he was ever taught.
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That's a great analogy. Imagine a loving father hearing
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his child stand up and recite the Pledge of Allegiance to a
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brutal enemy nation. The father understands the
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individual words, but he looks at his child and says, I don't
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know this language. This isn't our family's
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language. Spurgeon directly connects this
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to Jesus saying I never knew you in Matthew Chapter 7.
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Which is one of the most terrifying phrases in the Bible.
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Yeah, Jesus obviously knew who they were.
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He knew their names, what they did.
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But he didn't know them relationally.
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He didn't recognize them as his own.
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So when God says the language of Egypt was 1, he understood not.
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He is effectively saying this is the language of rebellion.
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It has no standing in my court. It is just noise to me.
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That is heavy. It really makes you wonder if
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God listens to my internal monologue for a day, to the
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things I worry about and the things that put my trust in,
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would he say I don't recognize this language?
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That is the question, isn't it? Are we speaking the dialect of
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Zion or the dialect of Babylon day-to-day?
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But God doesn't leave them in that foreign land, He acts.
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Verse 6 I removed his shoulder from the burden.
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His hands were delivered from the pots.
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And Spurgeon gets into the archaeology here, which I love.
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He does. He references an Egyptologist
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named Rosalini who would document these detailed drawings
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in the tombs at Thebes and these ancient illustrations.
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They show laborers, and he knows they look distinctly Hebrew in
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their features, carrying these massive baskets or pots of clay.
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So the pots we're talking about aren't cooking pots.
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No, not at all. They're earth baskets.
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You'd have to go down to the riverbank, fill them with this
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wet, heavy clay for making bricks, and then hang them on a
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yoke that went across your shoulders.
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Just grueling back breaking work.
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And degrading work. It's slavery and Spurgeon
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immediately makes the spiritual connection, he says.
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This is a perfect picture of the legal bondage of of self
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righteousness. Legal bondage?
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Can you explain that term for us?
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It's the attempt to earn your standing before God through your
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own works. Spurgeon likens that to carrying
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these heavy baskets of wet clay under a hot sun.
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It's heavy, it's dirty, and you never actually finish the job.
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You just have to get up and make more bricks tomorrow.
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It's a treadmill. An endless treadmill.
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It is absolute slavery, and Spurgeon says when salvation
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comes, the burden glides into the Savior's sepulchre.
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I just love that image. The yoke snaps.
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You don't just stop working. You stink, carrying the crushing
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weight of having to justify your own existence before God.
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That's the gospel right there. Hands delivered from the pots.
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But the deliverance wasn't just a quiet exit.
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Verse 7 says I answered thee in the secret place of Thunder.
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This is a reference to the pillar of cloud and fire that
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led Israel through the wilderness.
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Spurgeon calls it God's Secret Pavilion.
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He paints this dramatic image of God hanging up his weapons of
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war inside that cloud, his javelins of lightning, his
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trumpets of Thunder. He is speaking to his people
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from the very center of his protective power.
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It's intimate, but it's also terrifying at the same time.
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It's. Awe inspiring, he is a warrior
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God protecting his beloved children.
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But then, almost in the same breath, immediately after this
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thunderous protection, we get Meribah.
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I proved thee at the waters of Meribah.
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Meribah, which means strife. And Spurgeon points out the deep
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irony here. The people proved God, which is
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a way of saying they put him to the test.
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They demanded. Is the Lord among us or not
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simply because they were thirsty for a few hours?
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They just seen the Red Sea part. They had just seen the pillar of
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cloud. They were eating manna from
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heaven. And yet, the moment they felt a
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physical lack, they turned on him.
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They questioned his goodness. So Gan says OK, you want to test
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me, I will test you. And they failed miserably.
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Spurgeon says this is the listeners own history.
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That line, it hit me pretty hard.
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It's an indictment of all of us. We are all Israelites in this
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story. We get the deliverance.
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We sing the song at the wine press.
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We see the clear hand of God move in our lives.
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And then Tuesday happens. The car breaks down, We get a
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bad medical report, a project at work fails.
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And immediately we grumble, we murmur, we act as if God has
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suddenly resigned from his position as Lord of the
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universe. Virgin calls it a wretched
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return. For God's incredible mercy, we
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pay him back with suspicion. Exactly.
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We treat the God who delivered us from the pots of Egypt as if
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he is somehow incompetent to handle a flat tire.
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So that's the setup God delivers and the people grumble and in
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Section 3 we see God actually pleading with them.
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Verse 8 here O my people. There is so much pathos in this
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section. You can feel the emotion.
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God is begging for an audience with his own people.
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And then you get that tragic little word.
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If, if thou wilt hearken unto me.
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Spurgeon compares the person who won't listen to God to a deaf
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adder. A snake?
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Yes, a venomous snake that cannot be charmed.
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He uses the word groveling. Think about that for a second.
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To refuse to listen to the God who made you and redeemed you is
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to reduce yourself to a reptile. You are choosing to crawl in the
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dust when you could be conversing with heaven.
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And what he's asking for is simple.
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It's exclusivity. Verse 9 There shall no strange
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God be in thee. And Sprinton's logic here is
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just so practical, it's almost common sense.
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He says no other God did anything for the Jews, therefore
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they owe no other God any homage.
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It's just straightforward transactional logic.
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Why would you even think about serving the gods of Egypt?
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They enslaved you. Why would you serve the gods of
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the Canaanites? They are the losers in this
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story. God defeated them and their
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armies. Only Jehovah brought you out.
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And he applies this to us. Directly.
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He asks, What has the world ever really done for you?
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What has the flesh ever done for you?
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What has the devil ever done for you?
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He calls them aliens. They are aliens.
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They are strangers. The world promises you happiness
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and it gives you anxiety. The flesh promises you pleasure
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and it gives you addiction and shame.
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Why on earth are we loyal to masters that abuse us?
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That brings us to verse 10, and I think this is one of the most
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famous verses in the entire Psalm, maybe in the whole book.
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Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it.
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This is the grand invitation. It is, and Spurgeon absolutely
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loves this verse. He just revels in it.
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To help explain it, he digs up this fantastic historical
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anecdote from a writer named John Gatsby about an ancient
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Persian custom. I love this story.
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Tell us about the Persian king. OK, so apparently in ancient
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Persia, when the king wanted to show a massive public honor to a
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visitor or a favorite servant, he, he wouldn't just give them a
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medal or a bag of gold. He would command them to open
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their mouth. Just open up, open your mouth as
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wide as you can. And then the king himself would
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personally stuff their mouth full of sweet meats, expensive
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candies, and sometimes, if he was really, really happy with
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them, pearls and jewels. Can you just imagine that scene?
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You're standing there in court, your jaw unhinged, and the King
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of Persia is shoving diamonds in your face.
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It is a bizarre but incredibly vivid picture of royal
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generosity. And the point was, the only
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limit to the gift was the capacity of the receiver.
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If you only open your mouth a little bit, you got a little
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bit. If you opened it wide, you got a
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treasure. And Spurgeon's point is that God
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is the better king. A much better king, because the
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Persian king is giving you physical things, baubles that
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will one day turn to dust. But God says, open your mouth
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and I will fill it with myself, with truth, with grace, with
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joy. Spurgeon also uses that nature
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analogy of the baby bird. Yes, anyone who has ever seen a
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nature documentary knows this one.
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You look into the nest and the little chicks are basically just
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giant gaping mouths on skinny X. They are all appetite.
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They don't have manners. They don't say please mother,
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may I have a small portion of a worm.
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They just stretch their necks and they scream for more.
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And the parent bird fills the mouth.
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But Spurgeon notes a critical limitation.
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The parent verd is limited. It might not find a worm.
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It might get eaten by a predator.
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But God, his resources are inexhaustible.
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He cannot fail to fill the mouth that is opened wide in faith.
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So what does this mean for our prayer life?
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Because I think a lot of us, if we're honest, we pray very
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polite prayers, we pray Gentile prayers, to use Spurgeon's word.
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Spurgeon quotes 2 Puritans, Benjamin Bedham and Thomas Case
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to really push us on this. The main take away is this.
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You can over expect the creature.
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You can expect too much from your spouse, your job, your
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government, but you cannot over expect God.
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Widen and dilate the desires. That's the phrase that just
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leaks off the page. Dilate the desires.
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It means to consciously stretch your capacity for wanting God
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and His gifts. Stop asking for such small
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things. Stop asking for just enough
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grace to get by until bedtime. Kay says that when the heart is
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full of faith, the tongue should have a holy fluency.
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And then there's that sting in the tail.
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Spurgeon compares the Worldling to the Christian.
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He says the worldling, the person who is living only for
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this life, drinks his pleasure with the mouth of an insect.
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An insect just sipping little drops of dew.
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Exactly satisfied with these tiny temporary pleasures.
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But, the Christian, Spurgeon says, should imbibe bliss with
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the mouth of an Angel. We should be taking in vast
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drafts of God's goodness. We have an infinite ocean in
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front of us and we're standing there with a teaspoon.
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Aspersion is shouting from the pages.
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Throw away the spoon. Jump in.
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It's so convicting. I just realized how small my
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prayers are most of the time, you know I'm asking God for a
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good parking spot and He's offering me the keys to the
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Kingdom. Precisely open wide.
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And here is the tragedy of the whole Psalm.
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The text turns. We hit Section 4 verse 11.
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But my people would not hearken and the phrasing is so peculiar.
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Israel would none of me. Would none of me.
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It's a devastating phrase. It's not just they disobeyed my
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commands. It's they didn't want me.
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They found me undesirable, Spurgeon sites the Pearson
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Thomas Shepard, who says it means they were not content
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alone with God. God by himself wasn't enough for
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them. They wanted God plus something
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else. And Venema adds a linguistic
24:06
note there too, doesn't he, about the original Hebrew?
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Yes, Venema suggests the Hebrew word implies a ship that isn't
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being carried along by a favorable wind.
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It means the people had no natural bent toward God.
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Their sails were set to catch a different wind to go somewhere
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else. They were drifting away from him
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on purpose. And this rejection, this
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drifting, it leads directly to the punishment.
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Verse 12 So I gave. Them up.
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So I gave them up. Two of the most chilling words
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in Scripture. We really need to slow down
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here. This is the core Reformed
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theological point of this whole deep dive.
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What does it mean for God to give them up?
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This sounds like a parent just abandoning a child on the side
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of the road. This is the doctrine of judicial
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hardening, and Spurgeon defines it as the most severe punishment
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possible on this side of eternity, He says it is worse
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than plague, it is worse than famine, it is worse than war.
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Why? How could it be worse than those
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things? Because plague and famine might
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actually drive you back to God in desperation.
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But being given up means God withdraws his restraining grace.
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He uses the metaphor of a divorce.
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He says essentially, you want to leave.
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You want to be the master of your own destiny?
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Fine, I will let you. Spurgeon says it would be better
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to be given up to lions than to be given up to 1's own heart's
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lusts. That's a bold statement.
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I mean, lions eat people. Yes, but a lion can only kill
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the body. Your own art, when it's left
25:25
completely unchecked will destroy your soul eternally.
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The human heart is a factory of idols, and if God takes off the
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brakes, we will drive ourselves right off a Cliff every single
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time. Now we need to be incredibly
25:37
precise here because when people hear God gave them up or God
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heart in Pharaoh's heart, they often jump to the conclusion, oh
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so God made them sin. God is the author of evil and
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that is a major, major error. Reformed theology and more
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importantly scripture itself is crystal clear.
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God is not the author of sin, He cannot be tempted with evil, and
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he himself tempts no one. So how does Steven Charnock
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explain this? Because Spurgeon quotes him at
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length to try and solve this very problem.
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Charnock uses a brilliant mechanical analogy.
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He asks us to imagine an old fashioned mechanical watch.
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You know, with all the gears and springs inside.
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OK, and picturing it. Now imagine that watch has a
26:19
flaw. Maybe one of the gears is
26:20
slightly bent or a tooth is broken.
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When you wind the watch, you provide the energy, you are the
26:26
cause of the motion. The hands start to move because
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you wound the spring right of with you.
26:30
But the irregularity of the motion, the fact that it ticks
26:33
too fast or it skips a second, that error doesn't come from
26:35
you, the one who wound it. It comes from the pre-existing
26:38
flaw inside the watch you provide the the power, the watch
26:42
his own flaw provides the error. That's very helpful.
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So God provides us with life, with breath, with the power to
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make choices, but the sinfulness of the choice, the error that
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comes from our own internal full in nature.
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Exactly. Charnock uses another one, the
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bowler. Imagine a game of lawn bowls.
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You throw the ball, you provide the force in the initial
27:04
direction, but if the ball itself has a bad bias, if it's
27:09
waiting incorrectly from the start, it's going to curve off
27:12
course no matter how straight you throw it.
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You didn't make it curve. The bias inside the ball made it
27:18
curve. Correct.
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You made it move. The bias made it move wrongly.
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So when God gives a people up, he's isn't pushing them into
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sin, He is simply withdrawing the common grace that was
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correcting their natural bias. He lets the bull roll exactly
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where its own corrupt weight wants to take it.
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And where does it go? The text says they walked in
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their own councils. Walking in their own councils,
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Spurgeon points out that this implies deliberation.
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This is not an impulsive sin. This isn't just losing your
27:45
temper and traffic. This is calling a meeting with
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yourself and your desires. Board meeting of the Soul.
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Yes, malice aforethought, as they say in law, in Cool Blood,
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is how Spurgeon puts it. They sit down, they debate the
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options, they plan their strategy, and they make a
28:01
calculated decision to disobey God.
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They vote to trust themselves instead of Him.
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And the result of that self counsel.
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Is always ruin. Thomas Jacombe calls it a ship
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without a pilot or a blind man without a guide.
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When the restraining spirit of God leaves, the person is left
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to shift for himself, and man is a terrible pilot for his own
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soul. We steer directly into the rocks
28:24
every single time. It's the ultimate judgement,
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isn't it? Getting exactly what you wanted.
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You wanted to be the captain of your own ship.
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OK, You are the captain. Good luck.
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That is the horror of hell, really.
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It is the final eternal culmination of thy will be done.
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Speaking of the rebellious human will, not God's gracious will.
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But thankfully, the Psalm doesn't end in that total
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darkness. Section 5 brings us to this
28:46
incredible lament and a final promise.
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Verse 13. Oh, that my people had hearkened
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unto me. This is such a tender, touching
28:54
verse. It expresses God's regret.
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Now we have to tread carefully here because Spurgeon notes that
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the doctrinalists, and by that he means the hyper Calvinists of
29:03
his day, they really stumble over a verse like this.
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Right, because if God sovereignly decrees everything
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that happens, how can he regret that they didn't obey?
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Doesn't that make him sound weak or like his plans were
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frustrated? That's the objection.
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They try to explain away the emotion.
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They say, oh, God is just speaking anthropomorphically.
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He's accommodating our limited understanding.
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But Spurgeon pushes back against that heart.
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He says we have to affirm the genuine compassion of God
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expressed in his own words. He compares it directly to Jesus
29:32
weeping over Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how
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often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen
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gathers her brood under her wings?
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And you were not willing. That wasn't fake tears.
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That was the genuine heart of God breaking over the
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stubbornness of his people, Spurgeon says.
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God does not delight in the death of the wicked.
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He does not wish to see men heaping sorrow on themselves.
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He is a father watching his beloved children choose pain,
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and he grieves over it. And he lists exactly what they
30:03
lost. He talks about the lost
30:04
potential. Verse 14 says he would have soon
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subdued their enemies. Soon it wouldn't have been a
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long, drawn out campaign. Spurgeon highlights the phrase
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the turn of the hand. The text says God would have
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simply turned his hand against their adversaries.
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It implies it was effortless for him.
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Just a flick in the wrist and their problems would be gone.
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So because they chose to walk in their own counsels, they were
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forced to fight their own battles.
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Exactly. And they lost over and over
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again, Spurgeon says. Sin strips a man of his armor.
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When we choose to disobey, we are literally handing weapons to
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our enemies, our doubts, our fears, our temptations.
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They find all the ammunition they we need in our own
30:43
transgressions. If Israel had just walked with
30:45
God, Jericho would have fallen and the rest would have been
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easy. But they chose the hard way.
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If they had just obeyed, they would have had victory, and not
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just victory, but abundance. The very final verse, verse 16.
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He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat.
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The fats of wheat. It means luxury.
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Not just survival rations, not just daily bread, but the best
31:05
of the best. And then we get this beautiful
31:07
paradoxical phrase, And with honey out of the rock, should I
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have satisfied thee? Honey out of the rock.
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Let's look at this naturally first.
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Spurgeon quotes a naturalist who had actually observed this
31:18
happening in Palestine. Yes, apparently it's a real
31:21
biological phenomenon in that region.
31:24
Wild bees will build their hives in the hollows and the crevices
31:27
of the limestone rocks. In the intense heat of the
31:30
summer, the wax in the honeycomb melts and the pure honey can
31:34
actually trickle down the face of the stone.
31:36
So you could be walking through a desolate, rocky desert, a
31:39
place of death and barrenness really, and you find this
31:43
incredible sweetness flowing right out of the stone itself.
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It's a stunningly vivid image, but the theological symbol is
31:50
even better. Well, the rock is Christ.
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Obviously Paul makes that connection.
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Yes, First Corinthians chapter 10 makes that explicit.
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But there's also a general principle here for the life of
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the believer, God can bring sweetness out of hardness.
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Sweetness from hardness. Unpack that a little more.
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God promises that for the obedient believer, He can
32:07
extract the best things from the worst possible circumstances.
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If we walk with Him, even the rocks of affliction in our lives
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will yield honey. The hard times, the trials, the
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suffering. They produce a sweetness of
32:20
character and a closeness to God that you simply can't get
32:23
anywhere else. And Spurgeon contrasts to this
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directly with how the world operates, doesn't he?
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He does. He says the world makes stones
32:31
out of fountains of pleasure. You go to the world looking for
32:35
a refreshing drink and you end up with a mouthful of gravel.
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But God makes honey out of stones.
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That's the choice, isn't it? Gravel or honey?
32:43
Precisely. And the great tragedy of Psalm
32:45
81 is that Israel chose the gravel because they refused to
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open their mouth wide enough for the honey.
32:50
They just wouldn't listen. And that brings us to the end of
32:54
the Psalm and the end of our deep dive.
32:56
We've traced this whole trajectory from the loud command
32:59
to shout for joy, to sing at the wine press, all the way to the
33:03
tragedy of God's silence and a people's stubbornness.
33:06
It's a really sobering journey. It starts with the regulative
33:08
principle, worshiping God only as he desires, and it ends with
33:12
the terrifying reality of God letting us worship ourselves,
33:15
which only ever leads to ruin. The warning is just so clear.
33:18
The greatest danger of one in your own way is a God might
33:21
finally granted to you. And that is a punishment we
33:24
should pray every single day to be delivered from.
33:26
We do not want to walk in our own councils, we want the pilot
33:30
on board the ship. So here's the final provocative
33:33
thought for you to chew on as you go about your week.
33:36
We talked about that unknown language, the idea that the
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language of idolatry in Egypt was outlandish and foreign to
33:42
God. I want to flip that around.
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Is the language of total surrender to God outlandish to
33:48
you? When you hear a command like
33:50
open your mouth wide and let God fill it, when you hear about
33:53
trusting Him completely with your finances, your future, your
33:57
health, your pain, does that sound like a foreign tongue to
34:00
you? Does it sound crazy unrealistic?
34:02
Or have the language of the world, the language of stress
34:05
and striving and calculating and self counsel, Has that become
34:09
your native language? Because if the language of faith
34:12
feels foreign, you might be drifting toward that terrible
34:15
silence. That's the question which
34:17
citizenship defines your everyday speech?
34:20
And finally, leave with that image of the honey and the rock.
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Whatever hard circumstance you're facing right now,
34:25
whatever rock is standing in your path, what sweetness is God
34:28
hiding in there just waiting for the open mouth of faith?
34:31
Don't just complain about the geology of your life.
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Start looking for the honey. Amen.
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Open wide. Thanks for listening to Reformed
34:39
Thinking. We will catch you on the next
34:41
deep dive. Grace and peace.