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(with Deuteronomy 32:9): — The love of God changes us into its own image, so that what the Lord saith concerning us, we also can declare concerning Him. God is love essentially, and when this essential love shines forth freely upon us, we reflect it back upon Him. The Lord loveth His people, and we love Him because He first loved us; He hath chosen His saints, and they also have made Him their chosen heritage.

I. "THE LORD'S PORTION IS HIS PEOPLE."

1. The Church of God is the Lord's own peculiar and special property. The whole world is God's by common right, He is Lord of the manor of the universe; but His Church is HIS garden, His cultivated and fenced field, and if He should give up His rights to all the rest of the wide earth, yet He never could relinquish His rights to HIS separated inheritance. "The Lord's portion is His people." How are they His?

(1) By His own sovereign choice. As our text says, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance, or as the Hebrew has it, "the cord" of His inheritance, in allusion to the old custom of measuring out lots by a line of cord; so by line and by lot the Lord has marked off His own chosen people, "and they shall be Mine, saith the Lord, in the day when I make up My jewels."(2) By purchase. He has bought and paid for them to the utmost farthing, hence about His title there can be no dispute.

(3) By conquest.

(a) Upon your necks, Oh, ye tyrants of the Church, hath the Anointed put His feet; He hath dashed you in pieces with His own right hand!

(b) We are Christ's this day by conquest in us. What a battle He had in us before we would be won!

2. The saints are the objects of the Lord's especial care. "The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole world," — with what object? — "to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him." The wheels of Providence are full of eyes; but in what direction are they gazing? Why, that all things may "work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." It is sweet to reflect how careful God is of His Church. We are jealous of our eyes, but the Lord keeps His people as the apple of His eye. What a wonderful affection birds have for their young; they will sooner die than let their little ones be destroyed! But like as an eagle fluttereth over her nest, so doth the Lord cover His people, and as birds flying so doth the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem. What love a true husband has for his spouse! How much rather would he suffer than that she should grieve! And just such love hath God towards His Church. Oh, how He careth for her; how He provideth for her as a king should provide for his own queen! How He watcheth all her footsteps; guardeth all her motions; and hath her at all times beneath His eye, and protected by His hand.

3. The Church is the object of the Lord's special joy, for a man's portion is that in which he takes delight. See what terms He uses; He calls them His dwelling place. "In Jewry is God known, His name is great in Israel, in Salem also is tabernacle, and His dwelling place is Zion." "For the Lord hath chosen Zion; He hath desired it for HIS habitation." Where is man most at ease? why, at home. Beloved, the Church is God's home; and as at home a man unbends himself, takes his pleasure, manifests himself to his children as he does not unto strangers, so in the Church the Lord unbendeth Himself, condescendingly manifesting Himself to them as He doth not unto the world. We are expressly told that the Church is the Lord's rest. "This is My rest forever; here will I dwell, for I have desired it." As if all the world beside were His workshop, and His Church His rest. Yet further, there is an unrivalled picture in the Word where the Lord is even represented as singing with joy over His people. who could have conceived of the Eternal One as bursting forth into a song? Once more, remember that the Lord represents Himself as married to His Church. The joy and love of the young honeymoon of married life is but a faint picture of the complacency and delight God always has in His people.

4. God's people are His everlasting possession. There is an allusion here to the division of the portions among the different tribes. There was a law made, that if any man should lose his inheritance by debt, or should be driven to the necessity of selling it, yet at the year of jubilee it always came back again to him; so that you see no Israelite ever lost his portion. Now, God maps out for Himself His people. He says, "These are My portion"; and think you God will lose His portion? They are His, and they shall be His while time lasts; and when time ends, and eternity rolls on, He never can, He never will, cast away His chosen people.

II. "THE LORD IS MY PORTION, SAITH MY SOUL."

1. This implies that true believers have the Lord as their sole portion. It is not, "The Lord is partly my portion," not "The Lord is in my portion"; but He Himself makes up the sum total of my soul's inheritance. When Martin Luther had a large sum of money sent to him, he gave it all away directly to the poor, for he said, "O Lord, Thou shalt never put me off with my portion in this life." Now, when God's children receive anything in the way of gift from Providence, they thank God for it, and endeavour to use it for His honour and glory, but they still insist upon it that this is not their portion. St. was wont very often to pray, "Lord, give me Thyself." A less portion than this would be unsatisfactory. Not God's grace merely, nor His love; all these come into the portion, but "the Lord is my portion, saith my soul."

2. As God is our only portion, so He is our own portion: "The Lord is my portion, saith my soul." Come, brethren, have you got a personal grip of this portion? Are you sure it is yours? We have heard of a great man who once took a poor believer and said, "Do you look over there to those hills." "Yes, sir." "Well, all that is mine; that farm yonder, and that yonder, and beyond that river over there — it is all mine." "Ah," said the other — "look at yonder little cottage, that is where I live, and even that is not mine, for I have to hire it, and yet I am richer than you, for I can point up yonder and say — there lies my inheritance, in heaven's unmeasured space, and let you look as far as ever you can you cannot see the limit of my heritage, nor find out where it ends nor where it begins." Oh, what a blessing it is if you and I can say, "He is my heritage!"

3. The Lord is to His people an inherited portion. "If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ;" but if not children, then not heirs, and the heritage cannot be yours.

4. This heritage is also ours by choice. We have chosen God to be our heritage. Better to have Christ and a fiery faggot, than to lose Him and wear a royal robe. Better Christ and the old Mamertine dungeon of the Apostle Paul, than to be without Christ and live in the palace of Caesar.

5. God is His people's settled portion. Heaven and earth may pass away, but the covenant grace shall not be removed. The covenant of day and night may be broken; the waters may again cover the earth, sooner than the decree of grace be frustrated.

6. The Lord is my all-sufficient portion. God fills Himself; and as Manton says, "If God is all-sufficient in Himself, He must be all-sufficient for us;" and then he uses this figure — "That which fills an ocean will fill a bucket; that which will fill a gallon will fill a pint; those revenues that will defray an emperor's expenses are enough for a beggar or a poor man; so, when the Lord Himself is satisfied with Himself, and it is His happiness to enjoy Himself, there needs no more, there is enough in God to satisfy."

7. I think I may add — and the experience of every believer will bear me out — we have today a portion in which we take intense delight. I tried in a poor way to show that God had a delight in His people. Beloved, do not His people, when they are in a right state of heart, have an intense delight in Him? Here we can bathe our souls: here we riot and revel in inexhaustible luxuriance of delight; here our spirit stretches her wings and mounts like an eagle; here she expands herself, and only wishes she were more capacious, and therefore she cries, "Lord, expand me, enlarge my heart, that I may hold more of Thee." Often have we felt in the spirit with Rutherford, when he cried, "Lord, make me a heart as large as heaven, that I may hold Thee in it! But since the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee, Lord, make my soul as wide as seven heavens, that I may contain Thy fulness."

8. This is to the saints of God an eternal portion. Indeed, it is in the world to come that believers shall have their portion. Here they have none except trials and troubles; "in the world ye shall have tribulation." But as God cannot be seen, and as He is the believer's portion, so their portion cannot be seen. It is a good remark of an excellent commentator upon that passage, "For which cause He is not ashamed to be called their God." He writes to this effect: "If it were only for this world, God would be ashamed to be called His people's God, for HIS adversaries would say, 'Look at those people, how tried they are, what troubles they have, who is their God? and,' saith he, 'the Lord speaks as if He might be ashamed to be called their God, if this life were all'; but the Scripture says, 'Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city:'" Thus may the Lord turn upon His enemies, and say, "I am their God, and although I do chasten them sore, and lead them through the deep waters, yet see what I am preparing for them — see them as they shall be when I shall wipe all tears from their eyes, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters." Hence it is in the prospect of bliss so ecstatic, joy so boundless, glory so eternal, that He is not ashamed to be called their God.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

WEB: Yahweh is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in him.