Psalms 116:1-19

I love the Lord, because He hath heard my voice and my supplications.

Christian experience and its results

I. The psalm opens with a general declaration of gratitude to God, as the hearer of prayer (verse 1).

I. The true believer is a man of prayer.

2. Another feature of the child of God is conviction of sin (verse 3).

3. He is one who can testify that the Lord has answered his prayers: one who has tasted the sweetness of Divine mercy (verses 5, 6, 8).

4. He seeks his happiness from God, and looks to the bosom of God as the only resting-place for his soul (verse 7).

II. The results of Christian experience.

1. A deep sense of gratitude, and a desire of manifesting the same (verse 12).

2. A special resolve to manifest his gratitude, by a devout attendance on ordinances, appointed of God as the public and solemn expression of thanksgiving and self-dedication (verses 13, 14). (W. Hancock, B. D.)

The religion of gratitude

We trace this religious gratitude--

I. In a profound impression of God’s relative kindness. His relative kindness is shown in two ways.

1. In delivering from distress. The distress seemed to have consisted

(1) In bodily suffering.

(2) In mental sorrow.

2. In delivering from great distress in answer to prayer.

II. In an earnest confession of God’s relative kindness.

1. His general kindness (verse 5).

2. His personal kindness (verse 6).

III. In a determination to live a better life in consequence of God’s relative kindness. Here is a determination--

1. To rest in God (verse 7).

(1) The soul wants rest. Like Noah’s dove it has forsaken its home, and is fluttering in the storms of external circumstances.

(2) Its only rest is God. It is so constituted that it can only rest where it can find unbounded faith for its intellect, and supreme love for its heart. And who but God, the supremely good and supremely true, can supply these conditions?

(3) To this rest it must return by its own effort. “Return unto thy rest, O my soul.” The soul cannot be carried to this rest. As you steer the sea-tossed bark into harbour, so it must go itself into the spheres of serenity and peace.

(4) A sense of God’s relative kindness tends to stimulate this effort. “The Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.” “The goodness of God shall lead to repentance.”

2. To walk before God. “I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.” “I will set the Lord always before me.” Whoever else I may lose sight of, ignore, or forget, His presence shall always be before my eye.

IV. In a public acknowledgment of God’s relative kindness. (Homilist.)

Prayer answered, love nourished

The particular objects which you are now to look back upon are the manifold and manifest answers to prayer, which God has given you.

I. The first thing I would have you recollect is, your own prayers. If you look at them with an honest eye, you will be struck with wonder that ever God should have heard them. Look back now, Christian, upon thy prayers, and remember what cold things they have been. Thy desires have been but faint, and they have been expressed in such sorry language, that the desire itself seemed to freeze upon the lips that uttered it. And yet, strange to say, God has heard those cold prayers, and has answered them too, though they have been such that we have come out of our closets and have wept over them. Then, again, believer, how unfrequent and few are your prayers, and yet how numerous and how great have God’s blessings been. Ye have prayed in times of difficulty very earnestly, but when God has delivered you, where was your former fervency? Look at your prayers, again, in another aspect. How unbelieving have they often been! You and I have gone to the mercy-seat, and we have asked God to bless us, but we have not believed that He would do so. How small, too, the faith of our most faithful prayers! When we believe the most, how little do we trust; how full of doubting is our heart, even when our faith has grown to its greatest extent! I am sure we shall find much reason to love God, if we only think of those pitiful abortions of prayer, those unripe figs, those stringless bows, those headless arrows, which we call prayers, and which He has borne with in His long-suffering. The fact is, that sincere prayer may often be very feeble to us, but it is always acceptable to God. It is like some of those one-pound notes, which they use in Scotland--dirty, ragged bits of paper; one would hardly look at them, one seems always glad to get rid of them for something that looks a little more like money. But still, when they are taken to the bank, they are always acknowledged and accepted as being genuine, however rotten and old they may be. So with our prayers: they are foul with unbelief, decayed with imbecility, and worm-eaten with wandering thoughts; but, nevertheless, God accepts them at heaven’s own bank, and gives us rich and ready blessings, in return for our supplications.

II. Again: I hope we shall be led to love God for having heard our prayers, if we consider the great variety of mercies which we have asked in prayer, and the long list of answers which we have received. It is impossible for me to depict thine experience as well as thou canst read it thyself. What multitudes of prayers have you and I put up from the first moment when we learnt to pray! You have asked for blessings in your going out and your coming in; blessings of the day and of the night, and of the sun and of the moon; and all these have been vouchsafed to you. Your prayers were innumerable; you asked for countless mercies, and they have all been given. Only look at yourself: are not you adorned and bejewelled with mercies as thickly as the sky with stars?

III. Let us note again the frequency of His answers to our frequent prayers. If a beggar comes to your house, and you give him alms, you will be greatly annoyed if within a month he shall come again; and if you then discover that he has made it a rule to wait upon you monthly for a contribution, you will say to him, “I gave you something once, but I did not mean to establish it as a rule.” Suppose, however, that the beggar should be so impudent and impertinent that he should say, “But I intend, sir, to wait upon you every morning and every evening:” then you would say, “I intend to keep my gate locked that you shall not trouble me.” And suppose he should then look you in the face and add still more, “Sir, I intend waiting upon you every hour, nor can I promise that I won’t come to you sixty times in an hour; but I just vow and declare that as often as I want anything so often will I come to you: if I only have a wish I will come and tell it to you; the least thing and the greatest thing shall drive me to you; I will always be at the post of your door.” You would soon be tired of such importunity as that, and wish the beggar anywhere, rather than that he should come and tease you so. Yet recollect, this is just what you have done to God, and He has never complained of you for doing it; but rather He has complained of you the other way. He has said, “Thou hast not called upon Me, O Jacob.” He has never murmured at the frequency of your prayers, but has complained that you have not come to Him enough.

IV. Think of the greatness of the mercy for which you have often asked him, We never know the greatness of our mercies till we get into trouble and want them. God’s mercies are so great that they cannot be magnified; they are so numerous they cannot be multiplied, so precious they cannot be over-estimated. I say, look back to-day upon these great mercies with which the Lord has favoured thee in answer to thy great desires, and wilt thou not say, “I love the Lord because He has heard my voice and my supplications”?

V. How trivial have been the things which we have often taken before God, and yet how kindly has He condescended to hear our prayers. In looking back, my unbelief compels me to wonder at myself, that I should have prayed for such little things. My gratitude compels me to say, “I love the Lord, because He has heard those little prayers, and answered my little supplications, and made me blessed, even in little things which, after all, make up the life of man.”

VI. Let me remind you of the timely answers which God has given you to your prayers, and this should compel you to love Him. God’s answers have never come too soon nor yet too late. If the Lord had given you His blessing one day before it did come, it might have been a curse, and there have been times when if He had withheld it an hour longer it would have been quite useless, because it would have come too late.

VII. Will you not love the Lord, when you recollect the special and great instances of His mercy to you? You have had seasons of special prayer and of special answer. What shall I say then? God has heard my voice in my prayer. The first lesson, then, is this--He shall hear my voice in my praise. If He heard me pray, He shall hear me sing; if He listened to me when the tear was in mine eye, He shall listen to me when my eye is sparkling with delight. My piety shall not be that of the dungeon and sick-bed; it shall be that also of deliverance and of health. Another lesson. Has God heard my voice? Then I will hear His voice. If He heard me, I will hear Him. Tell me, Lord, what wouldst Thou have Thy servant do, and I will do it. The last lesson is, Lord, hast Thou heard my voice? then I will tell others that Thou wilt hear their voice too. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Reality of answer to prayer

A prayer is an appeal from helplessness to power. No wonder that prayer in its prompting and incentiveness is always attributed to the Holy Spirit. David says, “He has heard my cry and my supplications.” All the language is not on one side. I sent a letter to a certain city across the Atlantic, believing that the mail would carry my missive, that the British flag under which the mail ship sailed would protect her in safety across the Atlantic, and that thus my epistle would reach its destination. In due course a reply comes, showing that my expectations were fulfilled. You could not reason me out of my belief; you might go into discussion about the mighty leagues of ocean that separate Glasgow from Chicago, but you could not reason me out of my belief when I had that reply in my hand. There are men who as literally and as definitely have had a reply from God to their cry. They can say with David, “God has heard my voice and my supplication;” they have got the proof; they have received the reply. (J. Robertson.)

Love of God in the heart

“I love the Lord.” Can you say that? There is a bell in Moscow that never was hung and never was rung. It is one of the largest bells in the world, but its clapper has never swung against its great echoing sides. There is many a human heart that was placed where it is to beat with love to God; but, like the bell, it has never been hung and never been rung. Dead, lost soul, your heart was made to love God. Will you let it lie there, as they let the Moscow bell lie in the courtyard amid the dust and rubbish and daily defilement of the palace? Would you not rather pray, and strive, and agonize that your heart should be hung, and that it should be rung in a melody of love to God? (J. Robertson.)