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SUNLIGHT FOR CLOUDY DAYS

A sermon preached at Menton by C H Spurgeon

FROM SWORD & TROWEL 2003 No 4

Adapted by Peter Masters from The Sword and the Trowel, May 1885

Not all people will apply to themselves the first part of this text. Most churchgoers will accept it because it happens to be scriptural language, and yet we might not spontaneously say about ourselves, ‘I am poor and needy.’ Some even believe the opposite; for they have enough of this world’s goods, and as for spiritual matters, they are strong and self-reliant. This is vainglory, and in the long run will end in vanity, and vexation of spirit, for if a person can do without God, it is certain that God can do without him, and the day will come when God will do without him, according to His word, ‘I will ease me of mine adversaries.’ Whoever has tried throughout life to do without God will inherit remorse for ever.

Yet there are some who cry, ‘I am certainly poor and needy, but the Lord does not think of me. I have looked up to Heaven, but no eye of pity looks down upon me in my misery.’ Many an afflicted mind, many a bereaved spirit, and many a downcast heart, has cried, ‘The Lord counts the number of the stars, and calls them by their names; but, as for me, I cannot believe that He thinks upon me.’ Dear friend, I hope you will be converted from this unbelief. I pray that you may not only be able to join in one half of this text by saying, ‘I am poor and needy,’ but that you may also unite in the second declaration, ‘Yet the Lord thinketh upon me.’ Whatever your insignificance and unworthiness, you may yet learn that the Lord has thoughts of love towards you, and is causing all things to work together for your external, internal, and eternal good.

Do not be surprised that David, the psalmist, should say, ‘I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me,’ for God’s thoughts have often been with poor and needy persons. Look at Joseph when he was in prison, and the iron entered into his soul. His character was destroyed, and he was reproached, and punished unjustly. Yet we read that the Lord was with him, and in due time brought him out, and set him on the throne of Egypt.

So Ruth, the Moabitess, came penniless to Israel’s land, and she went to glean among the sheaves as a poor, needy peasant woman. But the Lord was thinking upon her, and provided for her so greatly that she rose to honourable estate, and her name is written among the progenitors of our Lord Jesus. To give you a later example, the apostles were poor fishermen, with their little boats, and well-worn nets, upon the lake of Galilee; yet the Lord looked upon them, making uneducated and uncultured men the pioneers of His kingdom. Never mind how poor and needy you are, you may yet be heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.

‘Yes,’ you may say, ‘but my trouble is that I am poor as to anything like goodness in the sight of God. I feel so guilty, and so far from being what I ought to be.’ Yet the Lord has thought often of such people as this. Look at the blessed Master sitting on the well at Sychar, talking with that wanton woman who had had five husbands. She was a woman whom none would honour, but the Saviour thought upon her.

Remember, too, the thief dying upon the cross, hanging next to the Redeemer, with all his sins upon him, for he had been a thief, and probably a murderer also. His prayer, ‘Lord, remember me,’ touched the heart of Jesus, and ‘To day shalt thou be with me in paradise’ was the gracious response. The Lord thought on him; and yet there was never one more poor and needy of morality and righteousness than he.

Also, there was Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the church of God, but the Merciful One in Heaven, Who saw his sin, thought on him with love, and said, ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?’ Poverty of all merit, and need of all grace, do not prevent the Lord from thinking upon men and women. This fact is as clear as the sun in the heavens. However spiritually poor you may be, you may yet partake of the riches of His grace, and so become rich in faith. Indeed, none but consciously needy ones ever obtain the privilege of saying, ‘yet the Lord thinketh upon me.’

I was troubled when I was seeking the Lord with the notion that I was so utterly insignificant that the Lord would never notice me. There is no reason for such a fear, since the Lord has thought upon very obscure people. Think of the Syro- Phoenician woman’s daughter. What was her name? Do you know what sort of a girl she was? Can you speak of her subsequent history? She is quite unknown to fame, yet the Lord thought upon her and healed her.

That little daughter of Jairus, a child of twelve years of age - what could she do? Did she become a distinguished woman? What life-work did she perform? She makes no impression upon the biblical record, yet the Lord thought upon her, and even restored her from the dead. The widow’s son, who was being carried out of the city of Nain, what did he achieve? What post of honour did he occupy? What lofty path did he pursue? We know nothing of him except that the Lord thought upon him. Most of the people whom the Lord Jesus thought upon in the days of His flesh were unknown to fame; and, for my part, I judge that the happiest are those who pass through life unknown of men, but known of God.

During the French Revolution a man of great influence escaped the guillotine, and when asked how it happened, he replied, ‘I made myself of no reputation, and kept silence.’ Do not, therefore, think that your being in the background is any hindrance to the Lord’s thinking upon you. He cares nothing about the blare of trumpets, or the blaze of fame; but looks upon the meek and lowly, and finds out those that are of a broken spirit and of a contrite heart, and that tremble at His word, and with these He deigns to dwell. May we be found among them!

My desire is to do four things, upon each of which I will comment very briefly. From the words of the text I desire, first, to help your faith to remember that if you are poor and needy, the Lord thinks upon you. Then I long to enlarge your hope; thirdly, to inflame your love; and fourthly, to direct your life.

First, let me help your faith. You say to yourself, ‘I cannot understand why God should think of me.’ Why not? ‘Because I am so insignificant.’ Let me ask you if there is anything in the world which is not little to God. You say, ‘There is the world itself;’ and I answer, that the earth which we think so large, is no more to God than a single grain of dust. The solar system, and all the other systems that make up the creation of God, are as nothing to the infinite Jehovah.

So great is the universe that the most elevated conception of the greatest mind has never compassed more than a fragment of it, yet God is infinitely beyond the whole of created existence! A human being must always be really greater than his own works, and certainly God must be infinitely greater than all that He has ever made.

You reply that you expect Him to think of the great ones of the earth. However, most of them think very little of Him. The Lord gets the least worthy treatment from those who are ranked as rich and honourable. When we reach Heaven, we shall find few kings and princes, few of the learned and applauded, for God hath ‘chosen the poor of this world rich in faith.’

Again, if it should seem to you difficult for God to think upon the poor and needy, I invite you to answer the question, ‘Who needs God’s thoughts most?’ On the field of battle, after the combat, if a surgeon should be there to attend to the wounded, where will he go first? Of course, he will go to those whose gaping wounds have almost opened for them the gates of death. The slightly wounded he will leave until he has time. The Lord looks upon us according to our needs.

Our urgent needs move His mercy, and He will go first to those who require Him most. Do you need His grace more than anyone else? Then He will hasten at once to you. If I see a physician’s carriage hurrying down the street, I feel certain that he is not driving to my door, for I am not dangerously ill. But if I know of one who has fallen very ill, or has been badly injured by an accident, I conclude that he is going to him. When the angel of mercy is made to fly very swiftly, be you sure that he is speeding to one who is in urgent need of grace.

Remember, too, that God has always dealt with men from that point of view. When God made His roll of election, before the earth was, He chose them as fallen and undeserving, that He might lift them up, to the praise of the glory of His grace. His choice of men was never guided by anything good that He saw in them; as Paul says, ‘For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth.’

The decree still stands, ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.’ The Lord of grace asks in His sovereignty, ‘Shall I not do as I will with My own?’ God views all people as guilty, and yet He chooses to Himself a people in whom His grace shall be resplendent. Therefore do not conclude that He will pass you by because you are poor and needy in terms of righteousness.

Did He lay down His life to redeem those who were not captives? Did He pour out His blood to cleanse those who were already clean? If we had not needed a great salvation, would the Beloved One of Heaven have stooped to the death of the cross that we might be saved?

‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save’ - the righteous? - oh no, but ‘to save sinners; of whom I am chief’. Stagger not at the grace of God to your own hurt, but say, ‘Though I be spiritually poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me.’

Furthermore, the gift of God the Holy Spirit proves that God deals with the poor and needy. If we were strong and full of all spiritual forces we would not have needed the Spirit of God to quicken and regenerate us, and we should not have needed Him to abide in us as our Teacher and Helper. Why, brethren, you cannot even pray without the Spirit of God. The Spirit is given to help your infirmity in prayer, because that infirmity most surely exists. The gift of the Spirit of God to men is a proof that God looks upon them as being poor and needy in spiritual things. Now, if you feel that you cannot pray, you cannot repent, you cannot believe, you cannot do anything good in your own strength, do not fret about that, but fly to God for strength. Say, ‘I am poor and needy; but the gift of the Holy Spirit is an evidence that the Lord thinks upon me.’

Let me further say, to help your faith, that though you say you are very poor and needy spiritually, you are not alone in this, for so are all God’s saints, and the better believers are, the more they feel their poverty and need. Boasters talk ‘exceeding proudly’ about their spiritual attainments; but the more they glory, the more vain is their glory. True saints are humble.

In a company where certain people were displaying their spiritual attainments, it was noticed that one devout person remained silent. Eventually, a talkative man turned to him, and asked, ‘Have you no sanctification?’ He replied, ‘I never had any to boast of, and I hope I never shall have.’

The more high in grace, the more low in self-esteem. Ask the man who has the most holiness what he thinks of himself, and he will be the first to lament that he has not yet reached the point which he desires. We are like those old-fashioned wine glasses which had no foot to them, so that they could not stand upon the table, but had to be held in the hand. When Jesus has us in His hand, we can be filled with the water of life; but out of His hand we cannot hold a drop, nor even stand. We are nothing at all without our All-in-all. ‘I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me,’ said one. ‘Without me ye can do nothing,’ is the true word of Christ to every branch of the living Vine.

Now, if all God’s saints say that they are nobodies, do not despair because you are a nobody. If all confess that they can do nothing without Christ, do not despond because you also can do nothing without Him.

Let me here relate a story, which may cheer those who feel themselves to be so lacking that the Lord will not think upon them. The Lord looks upon those who feel their guilt, and a Saviour is on the lookout for sinners quite as much as sinners are on the lookout for a Saviour. I heard that a great English prince once went to visit a king of Spain. The prince was taken down to the galleys to see the men who were chained to the oars, doomed to be slaves for life. In honour of the prince’s visit, the king of Spain promised that he would set free one of those men at the selection of the prince.

The prince went to one prisoner and said, ‘My poor fellow, I am sorry to see you in this plight, how came you here?’ ‘Ah! sir,’ he answered, ‘false witnesses gave evidence against me; I am suffering wrongfully.’ ‘Indeed!’ said the prince, and passed on to the next man. ‘My poor fellow, I am sorry to see you here, how did it happen?’ ‘Sir, I certainly did wrong, but not to any great extent. I ought not to be here.’ ‘Indeed!’ said the prince, and he went on to others who told him similar tales.

At last he came to one prisoner, who said, ‘Sir, I am often thankful that I am here; for I am sorry to acknowledge that if I had received my due I should have been executed. I am certainly guilty of all that was laid to my charge, and my severest punishment is just.’ The prince replied ingeniously to him, ‘It is a pity that such a guilty wretch as you are should be chained among these innocent men, and therefore I will set you free.’ You smile, but how you will smile if Christ Jesus does the same for you. Assuredly this is His manner. He passes by those who think highly of themselves and looks upon those who are self-condemned, and plead guilty before Him. He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He thinks upon the poor and needy.

I ask you to look at the text again, by way of enlargement of your hope. Let us listen again to the silver note of the text, ‘The Lord thinketh upon me.’ The Lord thinks as much of one of His people as if there were nobody else for Him to think upon. Poor needy one, the Lord thinks upon you as intensely as if you were the only being now existing.

The Lord is able to concentrate His whole mind upon any one point without dividing that mind. He has such an infinite capacity that each one of us may be the centre of God’s thoughts, and yet He will not be forgetting any other beloved one. God is a being Whose centre is everywhere, but His circumference is nowhere.

Is it not beautiful to notice how God thought of the first man whom He placed on this earth? He did not make man till He had prepared everything for his happiness. The Lord would not rest until He had finished His work, until He had illuminated the heavens, and created all manner of comforts and conveniences for His child. Not till He had even prepared the birds to sing to him, and the flowers to breathe their perfume upon him, did God create man.

Why did God rest on the seventh day? Because He had thought of all that man wanted, and had made all things good for him. Our Lord Jesus never rested till He had finished the work that His Father gave Him to do, which work was all for us: and the great providence of God will never rest till all the chosen of God are brought safely home to Heaven. Thus you see how God thinks upon us.

Remember also that God’s thoughts are not dumb thoughts, they break out into words, and this precious Bible contains the expression of those thoughts of love. This priceless Book is a love-letter from our Father Who is in Heaven. Read each line as if it were freshly written, and it will make you say, ‘I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me, and here are His thoughts.’

God’s thoughts are practical, and produce deeds of kindness; He thinks to give and forgive; to save and succour; to cheer and cherish. The Lord is thinking what He will give you, what He will make of you, and what mansion in Heaven He will appoint for you. And if He has thought upon you, He always will think upon you, for the Lord never changes. Our God, in Whom we trust, is not fickle; He is not thoughtful of us today and forgetful of us tomorrow. If you should live to be as old as Methuselah, the promises of God will never wear out; and if all the troubles that ever fell upon humanity should pounce upon you, God’s strength will be put forth to sustain you, and to bear you to a triumphant close.

Oh, the great joy of knowing that God thinketh upon us! It is better to have God thinking upon us than to have all the kings of earth and all the angels of Heaven thinking upon us.

Thirdly, and very briefly, let this inflame your love. ‘I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me.’ Dear friends, think much of God, since He, by amazing grace, thinks much of you. Let your hearts go out towards Him on Whose heart your name is written. It ought to be impossible for a Christian to wander among these Menton olive groves without saying, ‘Beneath such trees as these my Saviour sweated great drops of blood.’ We ought not to sit near the beach without thinking, ‘The Lord has cast my sins into the depths of the sea.’

As the palm tree lifts itself to heaven, without an earthward branch, so send all your thoughts upward. As the vine, though sharply pruned, yields its cluster, so bear fruit unto your Lord. Upon the distant sea the apostle of the Gentiles was tossed and wrecked for love of Jesus: yield to that same Lord your whole hearts as you think upon His thoughts of you.

Everything about Menton should make us think of our Lord, for in many respects it is the counterpart of ‘thy land, O Immanuel!’ This day God is thinking upon you, this day think upon God. Christ in Heaven is preparing Heaven for us, let us be preparing a place on earth for Him.

I have often wondered what is meant by our Lord’s preparing a place for us, since Heaven is prepared for us from before the foundation of the world. I suppose Heaven was not fully fit for us till Jesus our Lord went there; and His very going has prepared Heaven for redeemed men and women to live in His own wonderful society. Our Saviour is watching in Heaven for the time when we shall come home, and He is praying for that home coming - ‘Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.’

Do you not receive frequent tokens that the Lord Jesus is thinking upon you? Special mercies in answer to prayer, sweet visits of love; do not these cheer your heart? Our sacred joys, which come from Jesus, are like those boxes of flowers that we send to our friends who are freezing in the cold at this time in England. They know that we remember them as they look upon every rose bud, and violet, and anemone, that comes to them through the post. Our heavenly Father sends us many such tokens of His loving remembrance while we are hearing the Gospel, or enjoying the Lord’s Supper, or occupied in our private prayers and meditations. ‘How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!’

To close, let me use this text to direct your conduct. ‘I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me.’ The whole of what I say shall go into this one thought - if God thinks upon you, leave off all anxious and carking care about yourself. I do not suppose there is any place in the world that has more care and anxiety in it than this little town which nestles beneath the mountains, and suns itself by the sea.

Many of you come here with dear ones who are pining away before your eyes, or you are alarmed about your own health. Do not trouble yourself unduly; for if you do so, you cannot remove sickness thereby, but you may even increase it. If I could do any good by worrying, I would worry away to my heart’s content; but as it is useless, I find it best to let it alone.

They tell me that if a man were to fall into the sea he would float if he remained calm, but because he struggles he sinks. I am sure it is so when we are in affliction. Fretfulness results in weakening us, in hiding from us wise methods of relief, and, in general, in doubling our pains. It is folly to kick against the pricks: it is wisdom to kiss the rod. Trust more, and fear less.

If you have trusted your soul with Christ, can you not trust Him with everything else? Can you not trust Him with your sick child, or your sick husband, with your wealth, with your business, with your life? ‘Oh,’ says one, ‘I hardly like to do that. It is almost presumption to take our minor cares to the great Lord.’ But in so doing you will prove the truthfulness of your faith!

I heard of a man who was walking along the high road, with a pack on his back: he was growing weary, and was, therefore, glad when a gentleman came along in a chaise, and asked him to take a seat with him. The gentleman noticed that he kept his pack strapped to his shoulders, and so he said, ‘Why do you not put your pack down?’ ‘Why, sir,’ said the traveller, ‘I did not venture to intrude. It was very kind of you to take me up, and I could not expect you to carry my pack as well.’

‘Why,’ said his friend, ‘do you not see that, whether your pack is on your back or off your back, I have to carry it?’ My hearer, it is so with your trouble: whether you care, or do not care, it is the Lord Who must care for you.

‘But my daily trouble seems too mean a thing to bring before the Lord in prayer.’ Then I fear you forget my text, or fail to see the Spirit which dictated it: God thinks upon the poor and needy, and all the concerns of the poor and needy are, like themselves, poor affairs. Why do you weary yourself with care when God cares for you? If I were afraid of burglars, and kept a watchman to guard my house at night, I certainly should not sit up all night myself. The Lord is your keeper, why are you fearful? It is infinitely better that you should be able to say, ‘The Lord thinketh upon me,’ than that you should have all power, and wisdom, and wealth, in your own hands. I charge you, then, to rest in the Lord, and fret no longer.

Trust your Lord with your soul, and then trust Him with everything else. Surrender yourself to His love, to be saved by His infinite compassion, and then bring all your burdens, and cares, and troubles, and lay them down at His dear feet, and go and live a happy, joyful life, saying, as I will say, and close -