Psalms 71:16

I will go in the strength of the Lord God: I will make mention of Thy righteousness, even of Thine only.

God the source of the minister’s strength

I. What is the help the minister requires?--“the strength of the Lord God.”

1. Not human strength, that is but weakness. What was Isaiah’s comfort but this, “Surely shall we say, In the Lord have I righteousness and strength”? And so with Paul. And he bids Timothy, “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”

2. What is this strength? Not mere physical ability, nor mental might. For many who have no splendour of intellect are greatly used of God. When some one complained to his bishop of good and holy Mr. Rogers of Frome that his style of preaching was so at random, the bishop replied, “Ah, complain not about his style; Mr. Rogers charms more souls to Christ with his wild notes, than we do with all our set music.” No; the strength which ministers require is that of the Spirit of God (John 15:26). And though we may not have His miraculous influence, yet we may and must have His instructing, His Christ-glorifying, His witnessing, His comforting, His holy, influence. This is the minister’s strength, and none can withstand it.

3. But how do ministers go in this strength? By realizing it as secured to them by the covenant of grace, the blood of Christ and His intercession. And by depending upon it. The minister must not depend upon any one else, whether upon great men or small, and least of all upon himself.

4. Where will he go? In the path of communion with God. In the fields of conflict with spiritual wickedness. In the privacy of domestic life. “I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.” In the path of active duty.

II. The subject of the minister’s boasting. “I will make mention of,” etc. It is the righteousness of Christ that he is to make mention of--

1. To God as the ground of his confidence.

2. To himself as the spring of his comforts. This supplies all his needs. As guilty, lost, empty, condemned, weak, dying.

3. To others as the hope of salvation. “I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”

4. With the multitude of the redeemed, as the matter of his joy.

Conclusion.

1. Aim to adopt this resolution as your own.

2. Assist your minister in his endeavour to carry it out. Come and pray unitedly and help me in all works of mercy. Lot there be no drones here, but all at work for Christ. (James Sherman.)

Faith’s firm resolve

I. His resolve. “I will go.”

1. He will not sit still.

2. He will go to warfare.

3. He will go forward and make progress in Divine things.

4. He will go to suffering with holy resignation.

II. His reliance. “In the strength of the Lord God.”--

1. He will go glorying in strength already received.

2. Relying upon a strength which did not alter.

3. In a power which sanctified his going.

4. He is confident as to the sufficiency and adaptation of God’s strength to every trial or work to which he may be called; for the Hebrew, being plural, hints at this.

“I will go in the strengths of the Lord God.” If I shall require mental vigour, God can give it me. If I shall want physical strength, He can give it me. If I shall need spiritual power, He can give it me. If the particular demand is a clear sight, that I may detect and baffle the cunning of the enemy, He can give it me. If I require courage and quick resolve, He can give them me. If my special need be firmness of mind in the day of temptation, He can give it me. If it be a patient temper, He can give it me. Nothing is wanted by a believer, but that which the strength of God supplies when it is needed. As our days our strength shall be. We shall find the supply always equal to the demand.

III. His message. “I will make mention,” etc. Bear your testimony to the righteousness of God in providence. Stand to it that the Lord never does wrong. He is never mistaken; but whatever He ordains is, and must be, unquestionably right. Bear witness, next, to His righteousness in salvation; that He does not save without an atonement; that He does not put away sin without being strictly just; that He does by no means spare the guilty, but has laid on Christ that which was due to human sin, that He might be “just and the justifier of him that believeth.” Declare the righteousness of God as to a future state. Declare that whatever Scripture speaks of the ungodly is true, and that God is righteous in it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Christian’s duty and dependence

I. His purpose of holy walking, of going forward, and persevering in the way of his duty.

1. A serious and deliberate choice of the ways of God.

2. A constant jealousy over his heart.

3. “I will go,” though a cloud should hang over my head the whole way.

4. “I will go,” let the duties I am called to perform be ever so arduous, or the difficulties ever so discouraging that lie in my way; I must look for them from without and from within, that will put all my resolution to the trial.

5. “I will go,” if I should go singly and alone. There is no co-partnership here; every man must trade upon his own bottom.

6. “I will go,” therefore, directed in every step by the infallible standard--“The scriptures of the inspiration of God.”

7. “I will go”--I will go instantly, without admit-ring one excuse, were it but for a moment, for postponing my present purpose to a “more convenient season.”

8. “I will go”--endeavouring to make daily progress. “Counting not myself to have attained,” etc.

II. His ground and dependence.

1. Almighty strength was the psalmist’s sole reliance; and it must be mine, or in vain are all my best efforts. Amidst all my attainments, no less than all my weaknesses, and all my fears, I will eye a superior power. In the one ease, I will review and acknowledge the Divine bounty with the warmest sentiments of gratitude and dependence; in the other, I will pour forth my plaint, and offer my humble but fervent suit, expecting no relief nor aid from any other quarter.

2. I will make mention of Thy righteousness, as including in it the holiness and purity of Thy nature, It is the invariable measure of Thy moral administration; it is the centre of union, and gives, as it were, stability to all Thy other perfections. (Thomas Gordon.)