Suppose you are as little thought of as a spider, yet copy the spider in the two things which Agur mentions. Take hold with your hands. Always be taking hold upon the promise of the great King by the hand of faith. Let your faith come out of your own heart as the spider spins her web out of her own bowels. Be always hanging on to one promise or another, and constantly add to your holding. Have also a holy courage like the spider who is in king’s palaces. She is not satisfied with being hidden away in a barn or a cottage; she pays a visit to Solomon and makes her abode in his painted halls. If you can go anywhere for Christ, go and spin your web of gospel from your inmost soul. Make up your mind that whatever company you are in, you will begin to spin about Christ, and spin a web in which to catch a soul for your Lord. In this way, though you fear you are more foolish than any man, God will make as much use of you as if you were the wisest of men. I pray thee, O feeble one, render to thy Lord such service as thou canst.
IV. Lastly: a sense of inferiority must not hinder our faith in the Lord. Suppose you have to say this morning, very groaningly, “I am more brutish than any man, I have not the understanding of a man.” What then? Are you going to fret and worry about it? Will you therefore refuse to believe in your God? I do not see, if it be true to the fullest extent, that there is any reasonable cause for being cast down in reference to the Lord your God. Would you expect to be saved because you were not brutish? Would you look for heaven because you had a fine understanding and could place a third of the letters of the alphabet at the end of your name? If everybody said “What a highly-cultured man this is!” do you think heaven’s gate would open any the more readily to you? You are on the wrong tack, my friend, if you think so. Capacities and attainments put plumes into the hat but they do not protect the head from error.
Answer me this. Are not the little things in creation full of joy? Do not the dewdrops sparkle on the hedges? When the summer comes walk down your garden and see the thousands of gnats. What are they doing? They are dancing up and down in the sunbeams. The very midges are full of delight. Will you be shamed by a gnat or a midge? No! take you to dancing too; but let it be like that of David when he danced before the ark of God. Rejoice in the Lord always. God gives small creatures great delight. Why should not you be as happy, after your measure, as the angels are? Little stars twinkle for very brightness. If you need humbler examples, look at the little birds and hear how they sing. Great birds seldom have the gift of song. You may listen long before you will hear an ostrich or an emu singing. In our own farmyards neither the turkey nor the peacock charm us with their melody. Little birds awake the sun with their harmonies and make the morning sacred with their psalmody. Tell me, you that feel as if you were less than the least, is there any reason why you should not rejoice in the Lord?
Who had most joy out of the Lord Jesus when he was here? Or rather, who expressed their delight most exultingly? It was not great Peter, nor active James, nor holy John, but it was the children in the temple.
“Children of Jerusalem
Sang the praise of Jesus’ name.”
They shouted “Hosanna!” “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings he hath perfected praise,” if nothing else. The little ones can praise for they are happy in the sweet simplicity of their faith and in the warmth of their hearts. My dear friend, do the same. Delight thyself also in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord, and express your gladness.
“Ah, sir! I am foolish and ignorant.” Yes, but did you notice in the seventy-third Psalm, which we read just now, that I called your attention to the singular language used by Asaph? He says, “So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee. Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my hand.” God takes care of the foolish and guards the feeble, wherefore, let them rest in his love, and be glad in his care.
Remember that if by reason of our inferiority you and I have to take a back seat, the back seats are still in the house. Our littleness does not alter God’s promise. It is the same promise to the small as to the great; to the weak as to the strong. Our deficiency does not alter our God. He is as full of grace and truth as ever. He does not increase because we are enlarged, neither is he diminished because we have declined. My God, as a babe in grace, is the same God as those rejoice in who have attained to fullness of stature in Christ Jesus. What a blessed God we have! Only to think of him is hope; to know him is fruition. “Yea, mine own God is he,” said David; and he could never have uttered a grander word. “This God is our God for ever and ever,” is a sentence which might as fairly have been spoken in heaven as upon this lower earth. It has a glory tone about it. Come ye little ones, ye backward ones, ye foolish ones, dwell upon the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, with your hearts’ delight. The triune God is yours, your Father, your Redeemer, your Comforter: a triple blessing is thus secured to you; let your triple nature of body, soul, and spirit rejoice therein.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
