Psalms 118:17

I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.

The power of recovery

This buoyant and hopeful language is obviously in place on Easter Day. The psalm which contains it was sung for the first time either at laying the foundation-stone of the new temple, or at its dedication: and it breathes, in every line, the spirit of thankfulness, of triumph, of hope. It is the hymn of the deliverance from the captivity, just as Miriam’s song is the hymn of deliverance from Egypt: it is such a Te Deum as was possible when as yet the Gospel had not been revealed.

I. The meaning of the words as used by Christ. Before His Crucifixion the words were a prophecy of the Resurrection. Unlike ourselves, out Lord throughout His earthly life knew what was before Him. From us the future is hidden in mercy: we could not bear the sight, it may be, if the veil were lifted. But our Lord surveyed everything. “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” And yet the foreknowledge which surveyed His coming agony surveyed also the peace and triumph beyond. He was to die, yet He was to rise; it was the prospect of death modified by the prospect of triumph over death; it was Calvary, but already irradiated by the Resurrection morning. “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.” But after the Resurrection the words must have a fuller meaning: they became to Him more literally true. “Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more.”

II. We listen here to an utterance of the heart of the Christian Church, again and again heard during the centuries of her eventful history. In many ways the Passion and Resurrection of Christ have been reflected in the later fortunes of Christianity; and especially the Church’s power of recovery from weakness and disaster is a note and proof of her union with Christ.

1. There has been the distress and suffering produced by outward persecution. At times it seemed as if the faith must be killed out from among men. But all through these dark and dreary years, the secret leaven of the Resurrection power of Jesus was working in the heart of Christendom. Never was the darkness so thick that no ray of light reached the soul of the suffering Church. Never was her cause so desperate but that she could, not boastfully or in scorn, but in the clear, albeit broken accents of faith and hope, utter her unfailing conviction: “The empire will pass, but Jesus Christ remains; ‘I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.’”

2. The Church has been exposed more than once to a more formidable danger,--the decay of vital convictions within her fold. This happened in the early part of the thirteenth century, when the Arabian philosophers of Moorish Spain were so widely read in the Universities of Europe, and caused for some years a secret but profound unsettlement of faith in the leading truths of Christianity. So again, at the revival of letters in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, especially in Italy. So also, and conspicuously in the eighteenth century, we may almost say, throughout Europe. The great anti-Christian campaign was opened in England by Bolingbroke, Tindal, and the English Deists. It was carried on in France by their pupil--for such virtually he was--Voltaire, and the Encyclopaedist writers. It found a powerful patron in Frederick the Great of Prussia. It closed, in Germany, with Lessing, who mistook criticism for faith, and to whom the search for truth seemed better than its possession; and with Nicolai, and other writers of the “enlightenment” period; while on the western bank of the Rhine, the worship of the goddess of Reason was keeping time with the horrors of the Revolutionary Tribunal and of the Reign of Terror.

3. Worst of all, the Church has been exposed to moral corruption. Here surely is an evil more perilous far than any persecutor’s sword, or even than any form of intellectual-rebellion. Good men always feel strongly the evils of their own day; it is their business to recognize and to combat them. But in doing so they are sometimes led to think that no previous age has been so weighted with energetic mischief as their own. Here there is a risk of losing a true sense of proportion; of not merely exaggerating the evils of present as compared with those of past times, but of forgetting the Divine resources upon which the Church of Christ may always fall back, and which are more than equal to her needs. Let us be sure that to believe that Christ has risen is to know that, come what may, His Church will not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.

III. In these words we have the true language of the individual Christian soul, whether in recovery from illness, or face to face with death.

1. This is the language of the convalescent. The legend that the risen Lazarus was never seen to smile expresses the sense of mankind as to what beseems him who has passed the threshold of the other world; and surely a new and peculiar seriousness is due from those who have all but passed it, and have returned to life by little less than a resurrection. Of what remains of life the motto should surely be, “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.” Surely such a life must be consecrated; like the Risen Jesus, and in virtue of His Resurrection power, it must declare the works of the Lord.

2. These words should express the feeling of every Christian soul, in the prospect of death and eternity. (Canon Liddon.)

Gratitude for deliverance from the grave

You know, perhaps, that this text was inscribed by Martin Luther upon his study wall, where he could always see it when at home. Many Reformers had been done to death--Huss, and others who preceded him, had been burnt at the stake; Luther was cheered by the firm conviction that he was perfectly safe until his work was done. May you and I, when we are tried, be able, through faith in God, to meet trouble with the like brave thoughts and speeches!

I. At the outset, here is the believer’s view of his afflictions. “The Lord hath chastened me sore.” On the surface of the words we see the good man’s clear observation that his afflictions came from God. It is true he perceived the secondary hand, for he says, “Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall.” There was one at work who aimed to make him fall. His afflictions were the work of a cruel enemy. Yes; but that enemy’s assaults were being overruled the Lord, and were made to work for his good; so David, in the present verse, corrects himself by saving, “The Lord hath chastened me sore. The enemy was moved by malice, but God was working by him in love to my soul. The second agent sought my ruin, but the Great First Cause wrought my education and establishment.” Next, the believer perceives that his trials come as a chastening. “The Lord hath chastened me sore.” When a child is chastised, two things are clear: first, that there is something wrong in him, or that there is something deficient in him, so that he needs to be corrected or instructed; and, secondly, it shows that his father has a tender care for his benefit, and acts in loving wisdom towards him. “What son is he whom the father chasteneth not?” “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.” There is not a more profitable instrument in all God’s house than the rod. Consider the psalmist’s view of his affliction a little more carefully. He noted that his trials were sore: he says, “The Lord hath chastened me sore.” Perhaps we are willing to own in general that our trouble is of the Lord; but there is a soreness in it which we do not ascribe to Him, but to the malice of the enemy, or some other second cause. The false tongue is so ingenious in slander that it but touched the tenderest part of our character, and has cut us to the quick. Are we to believe that this also is, in some sense, of the Lord? Assuredly we are. If it be not of the Lord, then it is a matter for despair. If this evil comes apart from Divine permission, where are we? Even while the wound is raw, and the smart is fresh, be conscious that the Lord is near. Yet there is in the verse a “but,” for the psalmist perceives that his trial is limited; “but He hath not given me over unto death.” Certain of the “buts” in Scripture are among the choicest jewels we have. Before us is a “but” which shows that, however deep affliction may be, there is a bottom to its abyss. There is a limit to the force, the sharpness, the duration, and the number of our trials.

II. The believer’s comfort under his afflictions. “I shall not die, but live.” Occasionally this comes in the form of a presentiment. How do you understand the story of John Wycliffe, at Lutterworth, in any other way than this? He had been speaking against the monks, and various abuses of the Church. He was the Morning Star of the Reformation. Wycliffe was ill--very ill, and the friars came round him, like crows round a dying sheep. They professed to be full of tender pity; but they were right glad that their enemy was going to die. So they said to him, “Do you not repent? Before we can give you the viaticum--the last oiling before you die--would it not be well to retract the hard things which you have said against the zealous friars, and his Holiness of Rome? We are eager to forget the past, and give you the last sacrament in peace.” Wycliffe begged an attendant to help him to sit up; and then he cried with all his strength, “I shall not die, but live, to declare the works of the Lord, and to expose the wickedness of the friars.” He did not die, either: death himself could not have killed him then; for he had more work to do, and the Lord made him immortal till it was done. How could Wycliffe know that he spoke truly? Certainly he was free from all foolhardy brag; but there was upon his mind a foreshadowing of future work that he had to do, and he felt that he could not die till it was accomplished. Forecasts of good from the Lord may come to those who are sore sick; and when they do, they help them to recover. We are of good courage when an inward confidence enables us to say, “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.” This, however, I only mention by the way. When a believer is in trouble, he derives great comfort from his reliance upon the compassion of God. The Lord scourges his sons, but he does not slay them. He may often put His hand into the bitter box, but He has sweet cordials ready to take the taste away. For a small moment has He forsaken us, but with great mercies will He return to us. You have an effectual comfort if your faith can keep its hold upon the blessed fact of the Lord’s fatherly compassion. Next, faith comforts the tried child of God by assuring him of the forgiveness of his sin, and his security from punishment. Please to notice the very distinct difference between chastisement and punishment. “The Lord hath chastened me sore,” and in that He has acted a fatherly part; “but He hath not given me over unto death,” which would have been my lot if He had dealt with me as a judge.

III. The believer’s conduct after trouble and deliverance. “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.” Here is declaration. If we had no troubles, we should have all the less to declare. A person who has had no experience of tribulation, what great deliverance has he to speak of? Tried Christians see how God sustains in trouble, and how He delivers out of it, and they declare His works openly: they cannot help doing so. They are so interested themselves in what God has done that they grow enthusiastic over it; and if they held their peace, the stones would cry out. If you read further down, you will find that they not only give forth a declaration, but they offer adoration. They are so charmed with what God has done for them, that they laud and magnify the name of the Lord, saying, “I will praise Thee: for Thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation.” This done, they make a further dedication of themselves to their delivering God. “God is the Lord, which hath showed us light.” It was very dark! We could not see our hand, much less the hand of God! We thought that we were as dead men, laid out for burial; when suddenly the Lord’s face shone in upon us, and all darkness was gone, and we leaped into joyful security, crying, “God is the Lord, which hath showed us light.” We were convinced that it was none other than the true God who had removed the midnight gloom. Doubts, infidelities, agnosticisms--they were impossible. We said, “God is the Lord, which hath showed us light.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Life in face of death

These words were inscribed upon the walls of Martin Luther’s study. They were the incarnation of his courage and his faith. Luther lived his strenuous life in the midst of dangers. Hour by hour as the years sped on he looked death in the face. Such a life of conflict and hazard irresistibly drives a godly man nearer to God. It is not under the impulse of some coward terror that he crawls to the feet of the Strong One. It is not the pitiful appeal of fear for deliverance from the ever-during dark. It is a sixth sense which has been developed in the soul of man. It is the sense of the Infinite, which demands its satisfaction in tones so imperious that the cries of all other senses are stilled. In the common experiences of life we need God, oh, need Him so deeply! But in these uncommon experiences we have God. No normal mind deliberately chooses the life of daily and nightly nearness to death; yet all men would choose it if the normal mind could see realities in their true proportion. For in the life which is lived in the presence of death, the man of God knows that he lives and moves and has his being in God. Any man who is called upon to lead a life in which day by day there is but a step between him and death becomes either a better man or a worse under the pressure of it. He becomes a worse man--reckless, dissipated, abandoned--as we see often in the life of miners, sailors, soldiers, and a hundred others whoso disdain of moral restraint appals us. You know how true this is of times of war, epidemic, or plague. Yes; he becomes a worse man, or he becomes a better. For life is never the same again. He has looked upon the heights and depths of things. He has endured as seeing Him who is invisible. That which he thought realest in the universe has crumbled at the breath of a new emotion, and the Unseen has become the one Reality. Henceforth, there is a deeper note in his thinking; in his feeling a fuller tenderness Psalms 118:1, from which I take this text, was written for some great national festival, and was chanted in the Temple thanksgiving service. Its praises and its prayers are alike the expression of national aspiration and gratitude. It is of Israel protected, ransomed, restored, Israel Divinely reinforced, Divinely saved, that the poet sings. It is united Israel which declares that His mercy endureth for ever. Each worshipper may say for himself what he sings for the nation, “I shall not die, but live.” Each devout soul may promise for himself what he desires for his Church and for his country, that in this restored life the first purpose shall be to “declare the works of the Lord.” If I were to read our poet’s feelings by the light of my own, I should be ready to say that all other considerations are lost in the overwhelming solemnity of the experience through which he has passed. He has emerged upon a new and different world. In that world he finds himself at first a stranger. Sky and sea, meadow and mountain, the grass on the hillside, and the flowers beneath his feet, have a new meaning for him. While that strange, unspeakable thing which we call life--life one and indivisible in its myriad manifestations--is so wonderful, so wonderful that he feels that he has never lived before. You never feel the awfulness of life till death has held you. It is through the darkness of death that we walk in the light of life. A baffled wonder is one of the elements of this deep solemnity. The foundations of life have been shaken. Earth’s base is built on stubble. The realization that one is mortal like his neighbours is the strangest revelation which comes to the heart of man. Almost too painful for analysis is the sense of humiliation which such an experience brings, the shrinking from the physical accompaniments of sickness and death. The pride of life has vanished in the twinkling of an eye. And of one other aspect of such an experience I do not trust myself to speak--the parting from those whose love has given us the purest joy which we have known on earth. Then, after all this, comes to our poet, has come, thank God, to millions of the sons of men who have passed through his experience and been the better for it, the exquisite realization of life again, the knowledge that all is yet possessed, the life of the flesh and the life of the soul, the desire of the eyes and the pride of life, the joy of thought, the power of aspiration, the delight of action and of service, the passion of labour, the potency of love! Surely this is the most solemn experience of human life, this in which the new-born man in a new-made world says to himself in amazement, “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord!” You do not marvel that this vague wonder passes into fervour, into exultation, rapture, into consecration? “I shall. .. declare the works of the Lord!” Learn the lesson! There comes a time when all else fails you. The good that you have done alone abides. Learn that lesson well, for immortality is there. On the day when John Wycliffe died, while yet breath remained in the old man’s body, the friars crowded round his bed, and demanded of him that he should make confession of the evil deeds that he had done to them and to their craft. He raised himself upon his pillows, and gathering together the last remnants of his expiring strength, exclaimed, “I shall not die, but live, and declare the evil deeds of the friars.” That day the great reformer died. But the great reformer never dies! Wycliffe lives, like many another son of the Highest, mightier dead than when he lived indeed. (C. F. Aked, D. D.)

And declare the works of the Lord.--

Declaring the words of the Lord

I. Many are the works of the Lord.

1. Creation.

2. Providence.

3. Redemption.

4. Regeneration. Do not be ashamed to declare that work of the Lord; and do it mainly by exhibiting the fruit of it in your life, but also by clearly narrating your own experience whenever you have a fitting opportunity.

II. These works of the Lord ought to be declared.

1. For God’s glory.

2. For the comfort of His people.

3. To guide the anxious.

4. As a warning to the self-righteous.

5. To gladden the Church of God.

III. Who ought to declare the works of the Lord? We who have experienced the working of God’s grace should bear our own personal testimony concerning what He hath done for our soul. Personal witness-bearing is always effective. And if God does not get witnesses among those who have had their sins forgiven, whence are His witnesses to come?

IV. Now I want, with all my heart, to stir up your hearts and my own also to the duty of declaring God’s works.

1. I pray you to declare His works, and to be encouraged to do so because, first, it is a very simple duty. This work of glorifying the grace of God is a mosaic; I can put in my little pieces of stone or marble to form the pattern so far, but there is another part of that mosaic which nobody but yourselves can manufacture. It can be made out of the odds and ends of your spiritual experience, as you think them to be; but, insignificant and unimportant as they seem to be, they help to complete the whole design.

2. Then notice what a very manifest duty it is that you should tell out what God has done for you. Does this need any proof? Do you think that the Lord saved you that you might just be happy, keeping your joy within your own heart, ever feeding and fattening it?

3. Notice also that this is a very profitable duty. I hardly know of anything that is more useful to a Christian than to tell out what the Lord has done for him. You will never know the truth in all its fulness till with all your heart, and mind, and soul, and strength, you have attempted to inculcate it in the hearts of others.

4. Moreover, it is a very pleasant duty to those who practise it.

5. This ought also to be a constant duty with all who love the Lord. When we have once told the story, we ought to feel bound to tell it again and again. “But I cannot,” says one. What can you not do? If you were to be cured of a dreadful disease, I am sure you would be able to tell somebody who the doctor was. And if, to-night, a thief were to break into your house, and a policeman came and seized him, I am sure you would tell somebody tomorrow about what had occurred. Do you ask, “Whom shall I tell?” Well, good man, tell your wife, if you have never yet spoken to her about these things. Christian woman, do you inquire, “Whom shall I tell?” Why, tell your husband, and your children! You cannot have a better congregation than your own family. Are you in a factory? Tell your work-mates about Jesus Christ. (C. H. Spurgeon.)