Charles Spurgeon
The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. —Job 1:21
Learn to bless the Lord’s name in everything: learn to ring the bells of His praise all day long and, for the matter of that, all night long too.
First, bless the name of the Lord when He reveals His hand in giving. “Ah!” you say, “that is an easy thing to do.” So it ought to be, my brethren and sisters in Christ, and it is a neglect of our duty where we do not do it. We come down to our breakfast in the morning, rejoicing in health and strength, and we go out to our day’s engagements; but I hope not without thankfulness that we are in health, and that we have food to eat and raiment to put on. We are out all day and things prosper with us, but I trust that we do not accept all this as a matter of course, but that we praise the Lord for it all the day long. And then, when we go home again at night and God is still with us, I hope we do not fall asleep before we again praise Him. John Bunyan used to say that the very chickens shame us if we are ungrateful, for they do not take a drink of water without lifting up their heads, as if in thankfulness for the refreshing draught. If we, who are the Lord’s children, do not bless Him for the mercies which so constantly come to us from Him, we are of all people the most ungrateful. Oh, for a grateful frame of mind, for I am sure that is a happy frame of mind. [Those] who are determined to murmur and to complain of God’s dealings with them are sure to find plenty of things to complain of; while those who are of a thankful spirit will see reasons and occasions for gratitude in everything that happens. Do you remember a touching story, told some years ago of a poor mother with her two little fatherless children? On a cold winter’s night, they discovered an empty house, into which they went for shelter. There was an old door standing by itself, and the mother took it, placed it across a corner of the room, and told the children to creep behind it so as to get a little protection from the cold wind. One of the children said, “Oh Mother, what will those poor children do, that haven’t got any door to set up to keep out the wind?” That child was grateful even for such a poor shelter as that. Yet there are some, who have thousands of greater blessings than that, and yet do not see God’s hand in them and do not praise Him for them. If that has been the case with any of us, let us turn over a new leaf and ask God to rule it with music lines. And then let us put on them notes of thanksgiving and say to the Lord with David, “Every day will I bless thee; and I will praise thy name for ever and ever” (Psa 145:2).
Praising God is one of the best ways of keeping away murmuring. Praising God is like paying a peppercorn rent[1] for our occupation of our earthly tenement. When the rent is not paid, the owners generally turn the tenants out, and God might well do so with us if He were like earthly landlords. If we are not grateful to Him for all the bounties which we constantly receive from Him, He may make the stream to stop; and then what should we do? Ungrateful mind, beware of this great danger! Thankfulness is one of the easiest virtues for anyone to practice, and certainly it is one of the cheapest; so let all Christians especially comply with the apostolic injunction, “Be ye thankful.” It is a soul-enriching taking to be thankful. I am sure, that a Christian man with gratitude for a small income is really richer than the man who lives a graceless life and is plentifully endowed with worldly wealth. David spoke truly when he said, “A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked” (Psa 37:16). So, let others do as they will, we say, “Give us, Lord, whatever thou wilt, whether it be little or much, so long as thou dost give with it the light of thy countenance, our souls shall be abundantly content.” Thus are we to bless the name of the Lord for all that He gives us.
But, it is a much more difficult thing to bless the name of the Lord for what He takes away from us. Yet, difficult as it is, I venture to say that many believers, who have forgotten to praise God while He was giving to them, have not forgotten to praise Him when He was taking away from them. I do not know how thankful Job had been before this trying period in his history, but I do know that his trials brought out this expression of his thankfulness. It is his first recorded praise to God. Some of us need to lie a little while upon a sick-bed in order to make us thankful for having had good health for so long; and we need to be brought low and to have our spirits depressed, in order to make us grateful that we have had such cheerful spirits and been blessed with so many comforts. It is not natural or easy for flesh and blood to praise God for what He takes away; yet this painful experience often wakes up the gratitude of the Christian, and he who forgot to praise the Lord before makes up for it now.
Brethren, praise is God’s due when He takes as well as when He gives, for there is as much love in His taking as in His giving. The kindness of God is quite as great when He smites us with His rod as when He kisses us with the kisses of His mouth. If we could see everything as He sees it, we should often perceive that the kindest possible thing He can do to us is that which appears to us to be unkind. A child came home from the common[2] with her lap full of brightly shining berries. She seemed very pleased with what she had found, but her father looked frightened when he saw what she had got
and anxiously asked her, “Have you eaten any of those berries?” “No, Father,” replied the child to his great relief. And then he said to her, “Come with me into the garden”; and there he dug a hole, put the berries in, stamped on them and crushed them, and then covered them with earth. All this while, the little one thought, “How unkind Father is to take away these things which pleased me so much!” But she understood the reason for it, when he told her that the berries were so poisonous that if she had eaten even one of them, she would in all probability have died in consequence. In like manner sometimes, our comforts turn to poison, especially when we begin to make idols of them. And it is kind on the part of God to stamp on them and put them right away from us, so that no mischief may come to our souls. Surely that child said, “Thank you, Father, for what you have done; it was love that made you do it.” And you also, believer, can say, “Thank God for my sickness, for my poverty, for that dead child of mine, for my widowhood, for my orphanhood—thank God for it all. It would have been ruinous to me to have left me unchastened. “Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word” (Psa 119:67). Blessed be His name for all that He has done, both in giving and in taking away.
It is a grand thing when we do not judge God’s dealings with us simply by the rules of reason. From the first moment when the love of God is revealed to us, right on to the hour when we shall be in the presence of the Father in glory, we may depend upon it that there is infinite love in every act of God in taking from us, just as much as in giving to us. Jesus said to His disciples, “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.” The Father always loved Jesus with infinite love—He loved Him as much when He was on the cross as He did when He was on His throne. And in like manner, Jesus always loves us with an unchanging love—a love which can never fail us. He loves us as much in the furnace of affliction as He will love us when we shall be with Him in glory. So let us bless His name, whether He gives or takes away. I invite every mourning soul here to bless God’s name at this moment.
“Ah!” says one, “I wish I could get a little more happiness to sustain me under my many trials.” Well, let me just remind you of the poor widow woman who went out to gather a few sticks to make a fire, that she might bake some cakes for herself and her son. When the prophet Elijah met her, what did he say to her? He told her to make him a little cake first, and afterwards he added, “Make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the LORD God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the LORD sendeth rain upon the earth. And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by Elijah” (1Ki 17:13b-16). Notice that he said to the woman, “Make me a little cake first.” And God seems to say to you, “Praise Me first, and then I will bless you.” Say, as Job did a little later in his history, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15). I believe it marks the turn of the tide, with a saint, when he can say to the Lord, with good old John Ryland,[3] “Thee, at all times, will I bless; Having thee, I all possess.” The sky soon begins to clear when the Christian begins to say, “The Lord’s will be done—not as I will, but as thou wilt.” This is a sign that the chastisement has had its due effect: the rod will probably be put away now. Ye mourning souls, take down your harps from the willows and sound forth at least a note or two to the praise of the Lord your God. Praise Him with such notes as these: “Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart . . . [I will not fret myself] because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass (Psa 73:1; 37:7) . . .O my God, I believe that all things are working together for my good, and that thou art my gracious Heavenly Father, full of compassion and overflowing with love.” If you talk like this, Christian, and mean what you say, it will be a blessing to yourself, a comfort to others, and an honor to your God.
As I speak thus, I am reminded that these comforting truths belong only to true believers. And as I send you away, I dare not put the words of my text into all your mouths, for, alas! Some of you cannot see our Father’s hand in anything that happens to you. You are without a parent, except that wicked one of whom Christ said to the Jews, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do” (Joh 8:44). Yet remember, you who cannot claim God as your Father, that the door of His grace is not yet shut. He is still willing to receive you; if you will come to Him, confessing your sins, and seeking mercy through the precious blood of Jesus, He is both able and willing to give you a new heart and a right spirit, to save you here and now, and to adopt you at once into His family. Then will you also be able to see His hand both in giving and in taking away, and you also will learn to bless His name at all times. If God the Lord shall deal thus graciously with you, His shall be thy praise for ever and ever. Amen.
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Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892): Influential Baptist Charles H. Spurgeon minister in England. The collected sermons of Spurgeon during his ministry fill 63 volumes. The sermons’ 20–25 million words are equivalent to the 27 volumes of the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica and stand as the largest set of books by a single author in the history of Christianity. Born at Kelvedon, Essex.
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1 peppercorn rent – peppercorn is the dried berry of black pepper. Formerly used as a nominal rent; therefore, something of
extremely small, insignificant value.
2 common – undivided land belonging to the members of a local community, often a patch of unenclosed or “waste” land.
3 John Ryland (1753-1825) – the most eminent Baptist preacher for nearly 30 years in the west of England and president of the
Baptist college in Bristol.
From sermon #3025, delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, on Thursday evening, February 11, 1869
Published with permission by Chapel Library