In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for bread to eat--for He gives sleep to His beloved. Sermons
I. NOW, THIS IS TRUE OF OUR LITERAL, NATURAL LIFE. Strong walls and vigilant guards are not enough; the Lord must give one sleep. And he does so. 1. Think of the physical conditions of sleep. They are part of that wonderful organization which God endued us with, and which is so constructed that at due times sweet refreshing sleep shall steal over our senses, and our tired bodies shall have rest. 2. Think of the terrestrial conditions. How this earth of ours swings itself round out of the light into the darkness. "Thou makest darkness, and it is night" (Psalm 104.). The sounds and stir of the day are hushed, and the glare of light is gone for a while, and thus provision for sleep is made. 3. Of the social conditions. Strong governments, wise laws, skilful administration, security for life and property, all that which we call civilization, which God has been teaching men generation after generation, - all this, which gives that sense of security without which we could not rest, is part of God's methods whereby he bestows on us the blessed boon of sleep. II. IT IS YET MORE TRUE OF THAT CALM AND SERENITY OF SOUL WHICH WE ALL WISH TO ENJOY. It is the Lord who giveth that. The psalm is a reminder to many who were seeking this "in vain" ways (see former homily). It is he who giveth, etc. It is not they who gain it for themselves or in any way earn it; nor is it given to all, but only to the beloved of the Lord. To them he giveth sleep, not the partial and unreal rest of soul which some seem to enjoy. To the builders, the watchmen, the toilers, the word is sent that apart from the Lord all is in vain. "Come unto me, all ye," etc. III. AND TRUE, ALSO, OF THE SLEEP OF DEATH. To those who die in the Lord, death is but a sleep prior to a glorious awakening: hence it is so often spoken of as a sleep. But the Lord alone can give this. 1. For it there is needed forgiveness of sin. But this can only come to those who bring the sacrifice of the contrite heart. Even God cannot forgive an impenitent man; for he who will not give up his sin cannot escape the suffering which ever goes along with it. 2. And the new heart. The regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit. "Without holiness shall no man see the Lord." He that is not meet for heaven cannot enter there. 3. And a continual and utter trust in the love of God in Christ. But all these are his gifts. For them "Christ is all and in all." Seek them, and so will rest of soul be ours now, and when life is done we shall sleep in him. - S.C.
To eat the bread of sorrows. Labour is the law of life, and to this law nothing in God's Word is opposed. "Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening" is a description good for all time. "Active in business," if we may believe St. Paul, is a truly Christian habit. But the question is, What form ought this activity to take? Work may be done in two moods or tempers, as is hinted in the text: it may be done in spite of God, or it may be done through Him; it may be done in a spirit that regards Him not, or it may be done in a spirit which leans upon Him. In the first case, the bread of toil is not secured at all, or when secured is verily "the bread of carefulness," anxiety, disappointment. In the other ease the bread of toil is not "the bread of carefulness" or anxiety, but the bread of peace. God gives it to His beloved in their rest.I. THE BEST RESULTS OF ANY THOUGHT OR ANY EFFORT OF OURS ARE REACHED UNCONSCIOUSLY. Sir Isaac Newton, lying on his back in an orchard, and gaining a perception of the great law of gravitation from the sight of a falling apple, is a familiar type of the principle I am describing. Yet it offers no premium to idleness! The watchful calculations have been made; the inevitable reasonings have been faithfully traversed, but at last the result, the reward, the "bread" of all has dropped, as it were, upon the faithful worker out of heaven. You have heard, perhaps, of the great musical composer who always slept with a pencil and paper within reach, that at the very moment of waking be might register the inspirations of harmony that had visited him in his slumbers? And many of us, who are neither musicians nor philosophers, have had experience of the very same thing. We have gone to bed perplexed with tangled reasonings, embarrassed with ill-marshalled cogitations; we have looked away from them all, and committed ourselves and our thoughts to God; and lo! we have risen in the morning to a clear perception or an unquestioning resolution. It was in vain that we delayed taking rest to eat the bread of carefulness. God has given it to His beloved in their sleep! II. IN, THROUGH, AND YET BEYOND THEIR LABOURS, GOD GIVES TO HIS OWN PEOPLE THE ASSURANCE OF PEACE — a peace which, while it may be manifested in the success of their plans, is not overthrown by the failure of them. To those who know of a surety that the "never-failing providence" of a Father "ordereth all things both in heaven and earth," the desire becomes an assurance that things "profitable" shall be all given, and things "hurtful" put away. III. OF ALL GOD'S GIFTS THE HIGHEST AND BEST IS PEACE. If we take the text according to the common reading, we do no violence to the word "sleep" by interpreting it as spiritual restfulness. If we read it as declaring the condition under which God's people have their bread given them, we are near the same truth. If God feeds His own as they sleep or rest in Him, then that sleep or rest, whether as given or as used, may be regarded as hallowed of God, as even appropriated by Him to be the channel or vehicle of His benedictions to the soul. "The fruit of righteousness is peace," and in the fruit have we, as wrought up and comprehended, the gifts of earth and heaven, the fatness of the soil and the warmth of the sunlight, the soft showers of the morning and the dews of the eneningtide. So does this Divine peace, which "passeth all understanding," alike in its source, channels, and influences, carry to the spiritual life of the Christian the highest evidence of the near presence of God. (A. S. Thompson, B. D.) So He giveth His beloved sleep. During sleep the brain becomes inactive, consciousness and volition are in abeyance; in the body the expenditure of energy is curtailed, the constructive forces dominate the destructive. It is a time of building up the system after the tear and wear of a day. God is the great giver of sleep.I. THE SOUND SLEEPER. Exercise of body and mind in the day promote sleep at night. II. THE BAD SLEEPER. 1. There is the ambitious man who sits up late at night planning for to-morrow; by and by he goes to bed, his mind still full of business. You can see this man rolling from side to side of the bed. What is he doing? Is he formulating some great scheme for the benefit of his fellow-men? No, not likely; he is planning how he can make money. He has the "gold fever," and when people have fever of any kind their body is diseased and they cannot sleep. Such an experience is the first step to a lunatic asylum. 2. The man with the evil conscience. Sin, like a terrible worm, is gnawing his inner life; the fire of sin is raging within, and the hot flames drive sleep away. III. THE GOOD SLEEPER. Our text should read — "He giveth His beloved in sleep," as if He imparted a gift to them in the quiet hours of the night. Sleep itself is a precious gift; it helps us to forget the cares and worries of daily life. We could not live amid life's great anxieties unless God came to us night by night, breathed upon us the spirit of peace and rocked us to sleep; as the mother rocks the tired child to rest, so does God stand by the bedside of His beloved and give them sleep. The beloved of the Lord can lie down at night without fear; the day may have been hard and trying, enemies plotting and slandering, but in the arms of God His beloved find peace. (W. K. Bryce.) I. Let us try to realize a little more fully the beautiful significance of the fact that THOSE WHOM WE LOVE AND LIVE FOR ARE, IN DEED AND TRUTH, VERY MUCH MORE "GOD'S BELOVED." One of the deepest roots and sublimest fruits of the Christian religion is this: the conviction that all earthly things at their truest and best are but shadows, types, symbols of the heavenly; that the love of earth is hut the reflection or parable of the fairer, diviner love of heaven. Hence to a pure-minded, noble-hearted man, the love of wife or child is next to the influence of God's unspeakable gift — the Christ, the deepest baptism or sacrament in holy things which Heaven bestows. Statistics furnish many suggestive hints in this direction, telling how wedded life tends to lessen coarseness and crime in the homes of the people. Keen observers of life note these sacred facts, as did she who penned those almost idyllic words: "In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's." I say we trace these helpful conditions of the better life, but only the Searcher of hearts, only the Father of our spirits can fully know what founts of blessing, what angels of mercy, what sacraments of heaven are found amid marital, parental, filial ties, winning men from ways which are selfish, and hard, and low, and uplifting them towards whatsoever things are pure, and just, and true. And what follows, when men are thus sensible to these higher claims, alive to these holier voices? Do men interpret these messengers of good only in the light of their own welfare or gratification? Are they not rather prepared thereby to believe and understand how all these earthly affections are but the disclosure and the promise of those that are heavenly and eternal? II. Let us call to mind TWO OF THE CHIEF INDICATIONS THAT WE ARE "GOD'S BELOVED." 1. There is one which by its very nature stands foremost in all reasoning on this subject. I mean God's estimate of children. Jesus — the only adequate explanation of whose wondrous person seems to me to be this, that He was the very love of the. Father "manifest in the flesh" — Jesus in nothing gave so much God's estimate of our being, our nature, our destiny as in His tribute to the greatness and sacredness of each child. Now, what Jesus thought of the infancy or the childhood, that, by parity of reason, and the very nature of the deep underlying relationships, He thought equally of the youth, the manhood, the womanhood, the old age. 2. Again, we find the strongest assurance that we are "God's beloved" in the general scope and spirit of the Gospel of His Son. Every age that Gospel becomes more literally and explicitly "glad tidings" to the world. They are glad tidings which tell of endless ages upon ages, to which centuries are but as days or moments, in which God has means and room to satisfy the cravings of His good nature in the good of His children. Oh what founts of goodness, of care, of sympathy do these purposes reveal in the Divine nature! What confirmations they afford of the eternal love which shone so brightly in the face and cross of Jesus Christi What assurances they should inspire within our hearts that none among us, however unknown, however forlorn, however despised, will ever be able to reproach his Father with neglect or unkindness, or to charge God With having made him an outcast or an orphan! III. Let us seek to comfort one another with SOME OF THE PRACTICAL HOPES IN THE PRESENT WHICH THIS FACT OF OUR BEING "GOD'S BELOVED" ALLOWS AND DEMANDS. It tells of tokens, of alleviations, of compensations from the heart of the Perfect Father to the hearts of His needy, suffering children, far beyond the measure of our sympathies or the spirit of our prayers. The poor brain may be beclouded, and reason have lost its reign, yet what calm moments, what lucid intervals have been known to come at the hour of prayer, or at the mention of the name of God. The poor sufferer in his prostration may have become unconscious, and seem to be deaf to all around, or have passed beyond our power to comfort or to aid, and yet what endless communications there may be within the Soul, what soothing glances from "the angel of God's presence," what gentle foldings of the protecting wing, what sweet foreshadowings of the meaning and the end! (J. T. Stannard.) I. PROTECTION (Psalm 121:3, 4; Psalm 91:1, 5, 9, 10).II. REFRESHMENT (Ecclesiastes 5:12; Jeremiah 31:26). III. ENLIGHTENMENT (Genesis 46:2; Daniel 7:1; Acts 16:9; Acts 18:9). No one is foolish enough to think that there is a Providence — a voice from God — in all our dreams. Perhaps most of them are self-originated. But unquestionably there are gifts of God — revelations of God to His tried, and sorrowing, and faithful ones in sleep. There are, perhaps, few of His children who have not heard His voice in the night. He not only protects and refreshes us, but enlightens us. Let us not despise those good and perfect gifts which come from above in the hours of gloom and loneliness. Let us thank and bless God for all those precious things which He giveth to His beloved while they sleep. (A. G. Maitland.) The sleep of the body is the gift of God. So said Homer of old, when he described it as descending from the clouds, and resting on the tents of the warriors around old Troy. And so sang Virgil, when he spoke of Palinurus falling asleep upon the prow of the ship. Sleep is the gift of God; and not a man would close his eyes, did not God put His fingers on his eyelids; did not the Almighty send a soft and balmy influence over his frame which lulled his thoughts into quiescence, making him enter into that blissful state of rest which we call sleep. True, there be some drugs and narcotics whereby men can poison themselves well nigh to death, and then call it sleep; but the sleep of the healthy body is the gift of God. He bestows it; He rocks the cradle for us every night; He draws the curtain of darkness; He bids the sun shut up his burning eyes; and then He comes and says, "Sleep, sleep, my child; I give thee sleep."I. There is A MIRACULOUS SLEEP which God has sometimes given to His beloved — which He does not Now vouchsafe. Into that kind of miraculous sleep, or rather trance, fell Adam, when he slept sorrowfully and alone; but when he awoke he was no more so, for God had given him that best gift which He had then bestowed on man. The same sleep Abram had, when it is Said that a deep sleep came on him, and he laid him down, and saw a smoking furnace and a burning lamp, while a voice said to him, "Fear not, Abram; I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward." Such a hallowed sleep also was that of Jacob (Genesis 28:12-15); Joseph (Genesis 37:5-9); Daniel. II. He gives His beloved THE SLEEP OF A QUIET CONSCIENCE. I think most of you saw that splendid picture, in the Exhibition of the Royal Academy — the Sleep of Argyle — where he lay slumbering on the very morning before his execution. You saw some noblemen standing there, looking at him almost with compunction; the jailor is there, with his keys rattling: but positively the man sleeps, though to-morrow morning his head shall be severed from his body, and a man shall hold it up, and say, "This was the head of a traitor." He slept because he had a quiet conscience: for he had done no wrong. Then look at Peter. Did you ever notice that remarkable passage where it is said that Herod intended to bring out Peter on the morrow; but, behold, as Peter was sleeping between two guards, the angel smote him? Sleeping between two guards, when on the morrow he was to be crucified or slain! He cared not, for his heart was clear; he had committed no ill. He could say, "If it be right to serve God or man, judge ye"; and, there. fore, he laid him down and slept. III. There is THE SLEEP OF CONTENTMENT which the Christian enjoys. How few people in this world are satisfied. No man ever need fear offering a reward of a thousand pounds to a contented man; for if any one came to claim the reward, he would, of course, prove his discontent. We are all in a measure, I suspect, dissatisfied with our lot; the great majority of mankind are always on the wing; they never settle; they never light on any tree to build their nest; but they are always fluttering from one to the other. This tree is not green enough, that is not high enough, this is not beautiful enough, that is not picturesque enough; so they are ever on the wing, and never build a peaceful nest at all. How few there are who have that blessed contentment — who can say, "I want nothing else; I want but little here below — yea, I long for nothing more — I am satisfied — I am content." IV. God giveth His beloved THE SLEEP OF QUIETNESS OF SOUL AS TO THE FUTURE. O that dark future! The present may be well; but ah! the next wind may wither all the flowers, and where shall I be? The future! All persons have need to dread the future, except the Christian. God giveth to His beloved a happy sleep with regard to the events of coming time. V. There is THE SLEEP OF SECURITY. Solomon slept with armed men round his bed, and thus slumbered securely; but Solomon's father slept one night on the bare ground — not in a palace — with no moat round his castle wall, — but he slept quite as safely as his son, for he said, "I laid me down and slept, and I awaked, for the Lord sustained me." VI. The last sleep God giveth His beloved is THE SLEEP OF A HAPPY DISMISSION. Dear servants of Jesus! There I see them! What can I say of them, but that "so He giveth His beloved sleep"? Oh! happy sleep! ( C. H. Spurgeon.) (to children): — The beginning of the psalm is plain enough. Many a house has been built beautiful and strong; and perhaps the very night before the family were to go into it a fire burned it all down. The same with a city; the guards kept watch, but the enemy got in and the town was burned and destroyed. When people see things like that they say, "We can't prevent accidents happening; it is God that does it; it is all in God's hands." Then the poet goes on to say something more. "You toil as hard as you can; you rise early and sit up late; and you are doing all that in order that you may get bread to eat; and do you know that in all that work of yours you cannot do without God's help? It, would never get you your food if God didn't give it you. God is not asleep when you are sleeping.,' It is not only our food and our houses God gives us when we are asleep, but the better things He gives us too. When I was not thinking of it many of the sweetest friendships that have made life better and brighter have come to me — they were not sought for. Where men give themselves to be guided by God the best things come to them. I didn't plan them; they were dropped into my life somehow. When people are converted it is constantly most unexpectedly.(W. G. Elmslie, D. D.) People Psalmist, SolomonPlaces JerusalemTopics Anxious, Beloved, Bread, Delay, Early, Eat, Eating, Gives, Giveth, Grants, Griefs, Labors, Late, Lie, Loved, Loves, Ones, Painful, Rest, Retire, Rise, Rising, Sit, Sitting, Sleep, Sorrow, Sorrows, Stay, Toil, Toiling, VainOutline 1. The virtue of God's blessing3. Good children are his gift Dictionary of Bible Themes Psalm 127:2 4438 eating Library The Peculiar Sleep of the BelovedThe Psalmist says there are some men who deny themselves sleep. For purposes of gain, or ambition, they rise up early and sit up late. Some of us who are here present may have been guilty of the same thing. We have risen early in the morning that we might turn over the ponderous volume, in order to acquire knowledge; we have sat at night until our burned-out lamp has chidden us, and told us that the sun was rising; while our eyes have ached, our brain has throbbed, our heart has palpitated. We have … Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 1: 1855 Letter xxxiv. To Marcella. The History of the Psalter Or are we Indeed to Believe that it is for any Other Reason... The Great Shepherd Letter Xliv Concerning the Maccabees but to whom Written is Unknown. Psalms Links Psalm 127:2 NIVPsalm 127:2 NLT Psalm 127:2 ESV Psalm 127:2 NASB Psalm 127:2 KJV Psalm 127:2 Bible Apps Psalm 127:2 Parallel Psalm 127:2 Biblia Paralela Psalm 127:2 Chinese Bible Psalm 127:2 French Bible Psalm 127:2 German Bible Psalm 127:2 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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