The High Rock

“From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” — Psalm lxi. 2.

It is supposed by many that David wrote this psalm at the time when he fled from his son Absalom. That trial was one of the most grievous of all the afllictions of David’s greatlychequered life. It was but a little thing to be hunted like a partridge upon the mountain-top by Saul; it was but a little thing to be entrapped by Achish, and to sojourn among the Philistines an alien from his mother’s children; nay,’ all the afflictions of his preceding life are but little things compared with this. This was his favorite son, one in whom his soul delighted, for he was an excellent and comely personage in his outward appearance, and had a lordly and kingly carriage about him; he was David’s darlhig, although, in his moral character, utterly unworthy of this distinction. This child of his, who was the nearest to his heart, had the greatest opportunity to cut him to the quick; those things we allow to take the chief place in our bosoms have the greatest power to give us grief Absalom, first of all, kills his brother, and then, by dint of courtesy and such seeming and pretended generosity, which demagogues always know how to use, won the affections of David’s people from their rightful monarch, and then blew the trumpet and made himself king against his flither. Nay, more than this, he sought his father’s life; it was not sufficient to take the crown, but he longed to smite the head that should have worn it. His father was driven from his house, was made to cross, with a few attendants, over the brook Kedron, on a dark and doleful night, far away from the sanctuary of God and from the house of the Lord; he had to dwell in the midst of a wood and sleep among his armed men, and, at other times, upon the open plain. Who can tell the griefs of this monarch? Wave after wave rolled over him. He had often said he desired only to be like the sparrow to build his nest, and like the swallow, always to dwell beneath the eaves of God’s sanctuary; and now his great trouble is that he is driven far away from God’s house to what he calls “the ends of the earth.” Then, if he thought of the cause of this his exile, how must he have been grieved! For his son, his darling son, the son of his heart, the son whom he had pardoned, the son whom he had honored, the son whom he had recalled from a banishment lie richly deserved — this son had smitten him. And we know that old quotation which is repeated many and many a time, and is always true —

“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child.”

And here was one who was not only unthankful but who drove his father into exile and sought his life, added to this the fact that David always clung to this child even in the time of his greatest iniquity. When at last he was compelled to send out his armies against the rebel, you remember he charged all his soldiers to “take care of the young man Absalom; slay his followers if you please, but take him alive if you must take him, and bring him gently; bring him not to me as he deserves to be brought, in an iron cage, like something wilder than the wildest beast; bring not his head to me, thrust him not through with spears, dig not a pit and cast in his body and cover it up with stones: but bring him back to me, I will again press him to my bosom, for I love him still — he is still Absalom my son, my son!” Now, from the very fact that he loved this young man his sorrows must have been peculiarly poignant. If a man can bring his mind to thrust out from his bosom one that has proved ungrateful, then half the battle is over. If love can cut the link — can say, I have done with thee, I will reckon thee now no more my friend or my child — then the heart steels itself against its deepest sorrow, and the arrow rattleth against the harness.

But not so. David still opened wide his breast to his unworthy son. Ah, let us remember, we who stand in the relation of children to our parents, that it is in our power to give our parents the greatest possible grief; and yet would we not, each of us, sooner die than that those who brought us forth should have to sorrow on account of us 1 Yet haply there are some of you who are bringing your parents’ gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. O, ye that are cursing your father’s God — that are breaking the day that your father reckons to be holy — ye who would despise the Gospel which your fathers would maintain — if ye care not to grieve God, at least pause ere you grieve your parents. Push them not into the tomb before their time, lest their ashes testify against you, and lest in the hour of your trouble, when yoin’ children treat you in like manner, you should have to learn the bitterness of rearing in your own bosom the serpent that shall sting you with the deadliest venom. Let each of us take heed that we deal gently and tenderly with the age of our parents, and always seek to foster those who have tenderly fostered us.

With this preface we now turn at once to our text, and I think we shall understand it all the better from this little sketch of history. “From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead, me to the rock that is higher than I.”

There are three truths here. The first truth is, that prayer is always available: “From the ends of the earth, when my spirit is overwhelmed, I will cry.” The second truth is, that sometimes even the believer cannot get to Christ as he could wish, but that then there is something provided to lead him to Christ: “Lead me to the rock that is higher than L” Then, in the third place, we shall consider Christ under the aspect of a rock that is higher than we are.

I. In the first place let us recollect that prayer is always AVAILABLE — in cvcry place and in every condition of our spirit: “From the ends of the earth will I cry unto thee.” Suppose it possible for us to be banished to the uttermost verge of the green earth, to “rivers unknown to song;” suppose us to be hastened far away, where dwindling daylight dieth out, and where the sun’s bleak ray scarce scattereth light on the world — where vegetation, dwarfing and declining, at last dies out; suppose us banished into exile without a friend and without a helper — even there, from the ends of the earth, we should find that prayer was available. It would still appear a delightful privilege to cry unto God. In fact, if there be a place nearer than another to God’s throne, it is just the end of the earth, for the end of the earth is the beginning of heaven. Where our strength ends there God’s omnipotence begins. Nature’s extremity is God’s opportunity. Again we repeat it, the end of the earth is the beginning of heaven. If the day should come when monarchs should banish God’s people, their banishment would be an object of contempt, for can they banish the men that are strangers wherever they may be 1 Is not my Father’s house a large one 1 Yon dome, the blue sky, its roof; the rolling seas, the swelling floods, the green meads, the huge mountains — are not these the floors of his house? And where can I be driven from the dominions of my God, and away from the voice of his love 1 Banishment to the Christian may seem a trouble, but if he looketh up and seeth his Father’s house and beholdeth the smile of his God, he will know that banishment is to him an impossibility. But supposing us to be banished from every thing good and dear to us, even then we should not be banished from God’s throne. “From the ends of the earth will I cry unto thee.”

I think David meant by “the ends of the earth,” in this case, a place where he should be far away from his friends, far away from human help, and far away from God’s sanctuary.

God’s people are sometimes brought into such a condition that they are far aiuay from friends. They walk the streets of London, and they think, “Oh, if I could tell my sorrow to a friend, then I might find relief; but amidst all the myriad faces that hurry like a stream along the road, I see not one that tempts me to tell my tale. I look and find myself, a stranger amidst multitudes of countrymen. If you know what it is to have a trouble which you are compelled to bear yourself, which you could not tell even to those of your own house, though your friends would have been ready to help you if they had known, yet it was such, that with all their readiness they would not have had ability to assist you in, and such that the biggest words could not have told, and the bitterest tears could not have spelled out. You were far away from friends in reality, though they were near and scattered round about you. Now this is what David meant by “the ends of the earth” — far away from friends — yet even then, when friend, and helper, and lover failed, even then did he cry unto his God.

Again, he meant by the ends of the earth, far away from human help. There are difficulties into which the true believer is brought that no human hand can possibly touch. His spiritual affairs are weights too heavy for human strength to lift; though all the giants of earth should come and strain their backs until their shoulders should give way, and their limbs should totter beneath the enormous load, yet the spiritual necessities of the Christian could not be carried — they are a burden intolerable for human shoulder; none but God can sustain the necessities of the Christian. There are times when we are sighing after spiritual mercies, when we are groaning under the desertion of God’s countenance, when our sins are hunting us like packs of wolves, when afflictions are rolling over us — spiritual afflictions, when faith is little and fear is great, when hope is dim and doubt becomes terrible and dark — then we are far away from human help; but, blessed be God, even then we may cry unto him. Nay, more, even in temporal affairs there are times when the Christian gets into such a place that no one can help him. He has made some mistake, perhaps; in the ardency of his zeal to do right he has done wrong; in the attempt to run in the ways of God, he overshot the road and got into another place, and finds himself in evil when he hoped to be in the way of right. Such things have happened; business men, with all their calculations, have made mistakes, and have found themselves plunged into difficulties from which they see no way of escape. In van? do others offer help; wealth would not avail; character is at stake: even then they have cried from the ends of the earth, when human help failed them, and they have cried unto God., and if they have cried in faith, they have never found that God has ceased to hear as long as they have continued to cry.

By “the ends of the earth,” I think, too, David means at q distance from the means of grace. Sometimes by sickness, eithei personal or the sickness of our relatives, we are detained from

the house of God; at other times, in journeying or travelling,

or upon the sea, we are unable to obtain the use of God’s sanctuary

and the use of the means of grace. It is a great deprivation to

God’s people. You will fnid that a true Christian had rather go

without a meal than go without a sermon. He would sooner that

he should miss a meal than that he should lose his daily portion

of Scripture, or his daily resort to the house of prayer. That

man is no child of God who does not value the means of grace.

I tremble for that man’s piety who professes himself able to

maintain the vital spark of grace within him when the means of

grace are at hand, and he lives in neglect of them. Some people,

if they go to a watering-place, or a little way out of town, say,

“Well, there is nobody here that preaches my sentiments, I

shall not go anywhere.” So they get the sermon of some particular pope of a certain denomination and gloat over that, and

that is their Sabbath meal. To such as these I would just give

that passage of the Apostle Paul,” Not forsaking the assembling

of yourselves together, as the manner of some is.” If there be

no place of worship specially dedicated to God, we bless him

that —

“Where’er we seek him he is fovnid,
And every place is hallowed ground.”

But if there be a place that is open for the worship of God, if even I could not enjoy the preaching of the minister, I would go there to enjoy the singing of Christ’s praises, I would go there to offer my prayer with the multitude that keep holy-day. But still there must be in our lives different times when we are away from the sanctuary of God, and to the Christian that will be like being at the ends of the earth; but then, thanks be to God, we may still cry unto him when no Sabbath bell shall ring us to the house of prayer, when no servant of the Lord shall proclaim with happy voice the promise of pardoning mercy, when there shall not be seen the multitude on bended knee, and when the shouting of praise is unheard and we are far away from the sacred gatherings of God’s house — yet we are not far away from him; we may still continue to pray — -” from the ends of the earth will I cry unto thee.”

It seems, however, that the Psalmist was in a worse plight than this, for a man might be at the end of the earth and still be happy; for it is not the place that makes the man, but the man that makes the place. A man might be in paradise, in hell iiself, if his heart were right. Let a man have his heart full of peace and joy and happiness, and it is impossible to make that man miserable. I have often thought that when people find fault with their station they are making a great mistake; they should find fault with themselves. Many a man is miserable whose head wears a crown, and many are happy whose heads have no place of repose. Some who are clothed in rags have rich hearts, and many that are clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day, have starving spirits; for, after all, it is the mind that is the standard of the man, and if the mind be happy the place does not signify at all. But, alas, for poor David! he had been wrong without and wrong within too. “When my heart is overwhelmed.” I was turning to Calvin’s notes upon this text lately, and I found that the translation which Calvin uses puts it thus, “When my spirit is tumbled.” A most extraordinary translation, and, as he says, a very rough one. I can only interpret it by a saying of like character in John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” where he says he was exceedingly tumbled up and down in his mind. And I have thought of that, too, as being a very extraordinary but expressive idea — tumbled up and do^l. And so it does seem that one meaning of this text may be, “When my sj)irit is tumbled” — when it is out of order, when it is brought into a kind of chaos and confusion, when, to use another word which expresses closely the idea of the Hebrew, “When my spirit is wrapped over and over” — when my spirit is covered just as a man covers his face in the day of grief, because his sorrow is so great that he shuns the sun, and would not have his fellow-creature’s eye behold the anguish of his soul. Then, even then, says he, when my spirit is overwhelmed, even then will I cry unto thee. Turn the heart upside down, and then you will get the idea of its being overwhelmed. Even then what saith the Psalmist? “Ye people, pour out your heart before him.” If your heart is turned over, let it be turned over before him. David tells us in one of his psalms, “I poured out my heart within me.” How foolish that was! It did him no good. It was just the wrong place for his heart to be poured out. Afterwards he says, “I have poured out my heart before him.” Oh, it is a happy way to pray, when the heart is turned upside down, and out of order, to spill all the contents at the foot of the throne. Perhaps sometimes the overwhelming of our heart is only meant to draw all its dregs out of it, that the very least particle of self-righteousness and self-trust and self-confidence may be drained out at the foot of the mercy-seat, that there may be more room for an overflowing abundance of divine grace.

Imagine again a vessel at sea, and you get an idea of the text once more. It has been laboring in the storm. Sometimes lifted up to heaven, as though its masts would sweep the stars; then again descending until its keel seemed dragging on the ocean’s bottom; then shaking this way, and then that way, reeling to and fro and staggering; now starting back — now rushing forwards like a drunken man, or like a madman who has lost his way. At last a huge sea comes rolling on, its white wave of foam can be seen in the distance, and the sailors give up all for lost. Here comes a sea that will overwhelm this cockle-shell of a boat. And on comes the wave, gathering its strength till it dashes against the ship, and — down it goes. It is overwhelmed. The decks are swept, the masts are gone, the timbers are cracking, the ship descends, and is sucked as in a whirlpool. All is lost. “Now,” says David, “that is the case with my heart: it is overwhelmed, sucked into a whirlpool of trouble, borne down by a tremendous sea of difficulty, crushed and broken; the ribs of my soul seem to have given way; every timber is cracked and gone out of its place. My heart is overwhelmed within me.” Can ye now get an idea of the extreme sorrow of the Psalmist’s spirit 1 “Yet,” says he, “even then will I cry unto thee.” Oh, noble faith, that can cry amidst the shrieking of the tempest, and the howling of the storm! Oh, glorious faith, that from the bottom of the sea can send its arrows to the heights of heaven! Oh, masterpiece of faith, that from a broken spirit can send up a sound prayer! Oh, glorious triumph, that from the ends of the earth can send the arrow of prayer all the way to heaven! “From the ends of the earth will I cry unto thee.”

And now, Christian man, may God help thee to make up thy mind to this, that where’er thou art thou wilt never leave off prayer, whatever the devil says to thee. If he urge thee to forsake the mercy-seat, say, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” If he says you have sinned too much to pray, tell him his argument proves the reverse: the more you have sinned the more you should pray. If he tells you that your difficulties are tremendous, tell him that the very greatness of the difficulties in which you are involved, should bear you nearer to God. Never cease to cry whilst thou hast breath; and when thou hast no breath, still cry. Long as thou canst speak, cry unto him; and when thou canst not speak, let groanings that cannot be uttered still go up before God’s throne. Cease not to pray in every difficulty, and in every strait betake thyself to thy closet, for there thou shalt find God, if thou canst not find him any where else. And let me also say this word to any one who has begun to pray, but who has not yet found peace with God, although he is overwhelmed by a sense of his guilt. My dear friend, if God has overwhelmed you with a sense of sin, and if you feel as if you were far away from mercy — at the very ends of the earth — yet I beseech you cry unto him. Mark, our text says, “Cry.” Oh, what power there is in that simple act of crying! As I rode here this evening, I saw a boy sitting down upon the pavement, crying with all his might about something or other he had broken; and I observed some lady, who was going by, stop in a moment, for the poor fellow’s face was so much awry, and the tears were flowing so plentifully that she seemed as if she must stop and give him something. And, indeed, I felt inclined, if I had not been in a hurry to come here, to stop and ask him what he was crying for; for one cannot bear to see a fellow-creature crying. All beggars that want to take you in, take to crying, for they know that has an effect upon susceptible ladies who are passing by. And there is a power in tears, and these people know it. The best style of prayer is that which cannot be called any thing else but a cry. Now, if you cannot pray as many do — if you cannot stand up in a prayer-meeting, and pray fluently and eloquently lilce others — so long as the Lord enables you to cry, I beseech you do not leave off crying. Cry “Lord, have mercy on me;” “Lord, save or I perish;” “Lord, appear unto me;” “I the chief of sinners am;” “Lord, manifest thyself to me.” Cry, cry, cry, poor sinner, and he that heareth the young ravens when they cry will hear thee. Do not think that the voice of thy crying shall be lost. The voice of boasting dies away unheard, but the voice of crying penetrates the ear of God, reaches his heart, and moves his hand to give a plenitude of blessings. Above all things, sinner, if thou feelest thy need of a Saviour, keep on crying; Satan can never harm thee while God helps thee to cry. So long as thou hast got a word of prayer on thy lip, the law has not a word of condemnation against thee. If thou canst cry at God’s mercy-seat, then Christ is crying on thy behalf at his Father’s glory-seat. Be thou instant in prayer, and thou shalt be successful in it. When thy heart is overwhelmed, from the ends of the earth cry unto God. Thus we have disposed of the first point.

II. Now the second very briefly. There are times when THE soul cannot GET TO Christ AS IT DESIRES. Thcii thank God there is the text — “Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” Some people make out faith to be a marvellously easy thing, and so it is in theory, but it is the hardest thing in the world in practice. If men are to be saved on the condition of their repenting and believing, they can be no more saved than on the condition of their being perfect, unless there is added to this condition the promise that the God who requires faith will give faith, and work repentance in them, I have been astonished to find in this age that there are great preachers, and men who, I have no doubt, gather many around them, who tell the people that the condition and the ground of the sinner’s justification are his faith, his repentance, and his obedience. Why, the ground of our justification is the righteousness of Christ; and as to the condition there is no condition at all, for God gives justification freely, and he gives faith, and he gives repentance too; it is all his gift. There never was a man saved by faith or repentance which he performed as a matter of duty. Albeit that the Word of God demands of every man that he submit himself to God by repentance, and lay hold of Christ by faith, yet no man ever will do this, or ever can do it; it is only the sovereign will of God, and the sovereign grace of God that give repentance and faith. Sometimes God, in his sovereignty, is pleased to show a man his sin, and not to show him his Saviour, for a season; he strips the sinner, perhaps he leaves him to shiver in the cold before he clothes him, just to let him know what a boon a garment is. He kills him, pierces him through and through with the law, and there lets him lie to know his own inability for a season before he quickens him again, and makes him alive unto God. The flict is, God acts as he chooses with those whom he saves. He sometimes gives repentance and faith at the same time, just as the thunder sometimes follows the lightning speedily; at other times he gives repentance, and then he makes us tarry for many a day before he gives us full assurance of our interest in Christ; but they are sure to follow one another, they must come. God never gave conviction without giving faith at last, he never led a man out of himself, without at last leading him to Christ; if he led him to despair, he afterwards led him to hope; but still tkere may be a gap between the two, and during such a period it is our business to use this blessed prayer, “Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Oh! help me to believe. Lord, increase my faith, enable me to see the need of thy Son, give me eyes to look to him who was pierced, and, as thou hast given me eyes to weep, so give me eyes to look on him, and to rejoice,” So you see if we cannot believe, if doubts so overwhelm us that we cannot get to Christ to our own satisfaction, remember it is fehe Holy Spirit’s business to draw us to Christ, and we may therefore pray, “Lead me to the Rock that is higher than L”

111. We are now coming to that part of the text which most of all delights my soul, the thought of Jesus Christ, who is the Rock that is higher than we are. We have all got various standards for measuring things; afEer all, men must measure by themselves. If you hear a man praising another, you will generally find that the reason he praises that other is, because he sees in that other something very much like what he possesses himself. “There,” says he, “I love a man that is honest and outspoken.” The man means all the while that he thinks himself a remarkably honest and outspoken man, therefore he loves to see himself in another. After all, we generally measure with our own measuring-rods, we take ourselves to be the test of other people. A few nights ago I proved that in my own case: going along Bermondsey, I looked in at the windows to see what time it was; one clock said ten minutes to seven, another said seven o’clock, and another said ten minutes past. Then I began to think what a pity it was I had not my own watch with me — what was that but a belief that my own watch was inflillible, and that all the other clocks might be wrong 1 Rest assured there is a great deal of trying ourselves on the touchstones of our own infallible selves. And even the Christian is not altogether quite quit of this, and does not leave it behind him till he gets to heaven. So the Lord graciously adapts his Word to our poor littleness, and speaks of Jesus as the rock higher than we are.

Come hither and let us measure the Rock Christ Jesus. Here is a man who is a great sinner. “Ah,” he says, “I am a great sinner, indeed; my iniquities reach so high that they smite the very stars; they have gone before me to the judgment-seat of God, and they are clamoring for my destruction.” Well, sinner, come thou here and measure this rock. Thou art very high, it is true, but this is a rock that is higher than thou art; a great sinner thou may est be, and estimate thyself at the greatest thou possibly canst; there, set thy sins down at some inconceivable height; if thou hast thought thyself to be a very Goliath in sin; if thou sayest, “I am as big a sinner as Saul of Tarsus,” put thy sin pile on pile, tief on tier, nay, borrow thy neighbor’s sins; take them all, and recollect that —

“If all the sins that men have done

In will, in word, in thought, and deed,
Since worlds were made, and time began.
Were laid on one poor sinner’s head;” —

“The blood of Jesus Christ alone
Could for this mass of sin atone,
And sweep it all away.”

However high thy sin may be, there is the covert of a rock in a weary land higher than thou art, and under this thou mayest shelter thyself.

Here comes another forward; he is not a man full of doubts and fears, but he is a man of hopeful spirit. “Oh!” says he, “I have many sins, but I hope that the Lord Jesus Christ will take them all away. I have many wants, but I hope that he will supply them. I shall have many temptations, but I hope that he will ward them off. I shall have many difficulties, but I hope he will carry me through them.” Ah! man, I like to see thee have a good measuring-rod, a long one, when it is made of hope. Hope is a tall companion; he wades right through the sea and is not drowned; you cannot kill him, do what you may. Hope is one of the last blessings God gives us, and one that abides last with us. If a man is foodless, and without covering, still he hopes to see better days by and bye. Now, sinner, thy hopes, I would have thee to see, are very tall, and very high; but remember, this rock is higher than thou art. Hope whatever thou pleasest; let thy hope expand itself; let it climb the highest mountain, and stand on it; let it make itself higher and higher, but this rock is higher than thou art. Christ is a better Christ than thou canst hope; he has more mercy than thou hopest for; he has more power to save than thou hopest to receive, more love than thou canst hope to have; he has a better heaven for thee than thou could St hope to enjoy. He is higher than thou art.

But Ifere comes another, and he says, “Ah! my hope has grown strong, I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is a precious Christ. I can speak well of him, he has been my sure defence in every time of war, and my rock and refuge in every time of distress, my granary in every hour of famine, my light in every night of darkness. I can speak well of him, and in consequence of what I know of him I can believe that he is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by him. I believe him to be all that he says he is, I believe in his Word, I rejoice in him, my faith scarce knows a bound when I begin to think what he is, and what he has done for me.” Ay, but he is a rock higher than thy faith. I love to see thy faith mounting up very high, but remember Christ is better than thy faith, and higher than thy faith. Why, man, if thy faith were twice as big as it is Christ would be a warrant for it all. Nay, if thy faith could be multiplied a thousandfold, so that thou couldst believe more of him, and better things of him, and higher things of him, still he would be higher than thy faith could ever climb. I do hope to grow in faith, and get higher and higher in that celestial virtue. I think I believe my Master better now than I did once, though sometimes I think my fliith faileth me. Yet sure I am I do enjoy a sweeter conscience than 1 did, and a more quiet peaceful calm than at one time I experienced; and I hope to believe him more surely still; I pray that my faith may continually grow, that, being rooted and grounded in faith, I may grow up a strong man in Christ Jesus; but this I know, though you or I should grow till our faith should be greater than that of Paul, till it should be such a faith that it could remove mountains, while it should say to the fig-tree, “Be plucked up by the roots,” or to the mountain, “Be cast into the sea,” and it should be done, still even then Christ would be higher than our faith. Oh, we might believe a great deal about him, but would faith grasp all then 1 It has long arms, but not long enough to encompass Christ; he is greater than faith itself could conceive him to be.

HerS comes another: he says, “Ah! blessed be God, I have a golden measuring~rod here — not that of hope, or fear, or faith, but, better still, the measuring-rod of enjoyment.” “Ah! “says one,” how high have I been in enjoyment! He hath taken me to Calvary, and there I have seen the flowing of his own precious blood —

“‘With divine assurance knowing
He hath made my peace with God.’

Not content with that, he has taken me to Tabor; there I have seen my Lord transfigured, and have beheld his glories, as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Nay, more, he has taken me to the top of Pisgah, and he has bidden me ’ view the landscape o’er.’ I have seen the joys which he has reserved for them that love him.” “But,” says the believer, “Christ has said to me, ‘Friend, come up higher.’ When I first went to the feast, I sat in the lower room of repentance: he came in, and said, ‘Friend, come up higher;’ and he took me into another chamber called faith. And then he came in again and said, ‘Friend, come up higher;’ and he took me to the upper room of assurance. Then he saw me again and he said, ‘Friend, come up higher;’ and he took me to the upper room of communion. And sometimes he seemed to me to say, ‘Friend, come up higher, into the ecstatic bliss which the highest degrees of constant fellowship can give;’ and I am now waiting only till he should say, ‘Come up higher,’ and take me to his own bosom, to tarry with him for ever.”

Ah, well, I am glad to hear thee talk thus; I would I had many of those whose pastures are in these high places, many who could say that they had grown tall in these delightful things; but remember this rock is higher than thou art. All thou hast ever enjoyed of him is but as the first beginning of a topless mountain. When I have been in Scotland, I have gone up some mountain there; I have thought, this is a very high place indeed, and what a fine view there is, what a height I have reached! “Ah,” some one has said, “but if you were to see the Alps, why this would only seem like the beginning, you would only have got to the foot, when you had got as high as this;” and so it is with you: by your experience, your sweet enjoyment, you think you get to the top of the mountain, but Christ comes and whispers to you, “Look yonder far above those clouds; you have only begun to go up high; this hill of communion is only one step yet; as yet you have only advanced a babe’s leap; you have farther to go, far higher than you could imagine or conceive.” Ah! this is a rock that is higher than thou art, the highest in communion, and the next to the throne of God.

“Well,” cries another, “from what I have heard and what I have read in God’s Word, I am expecting very great things of Christ when I shall see him as he is. Oh, sir, if he be better than the communion of his saints can make him, if he be sweeter than all his most eloquent preachers can speak of him, if he be so delightful that those who know him best cannot tell his beauties, what a precious — what a glorious — what an inconceivable Christ he must be!” Ah, friend, I am glad thou art measuring Christ by thine expectation. But let me tell thee, high as thy expectations are, he is higher than thou art. Expect what thou mayest, but when thou seest him thou wilt say with the Queen of Sheba, “The half has not been told me;” and then you will add, “Nor did I expect the half of tkis.” You may sit down and think of Christ’s glories and splendors, of the happiness that he has provided for his people, till you lose yourself in a very sea of thought. The promise dropped into the sea of your heart may go on widening in circles till you have grasped a whole universe of pleasure and delight in contemplating the name of Christ; but remember, when thou hast conceived the most, the rock is still higher than thou art, still above thee, still far above thine head when thou hast conceived and imagined the most.

Ah! let us pause here and think, then what shall we do with a hill that is higher than we are — shall we lie for ever at the base thereof, or not attempt to climb it ‘? God forbid. Shall we pretend we have climbed it? That were presumption. God forbid. Let us press forward, evermore ascending it, ever crying when we get at the greatest height, “Lord, still lead me up, still lead me to the rock that is higher than I am; lead me on, O Lord, till I come to heaven, and even then lead me; lead me beside the living fountains of water, still lead me to the rock that is higher than I am; ever help me to be climbing, pressing forward, looking not on that which is behind but on that which is before, pressing forward to the mark of the prize of our high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Thus have we tried to open the view of the Psalmist, when he said, “Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”

Now, as some of you will be exercised with troubles, remember that the rock is higher than you are. And when your troubles reach you, if you are not high enough to escape them, climb up to the rock of Christ, and there is no arrow of trouble that can reach you when you get there. Satan will be howling at you, and perhaps he will be nibbling at your heel, barking and biting at you — climb into the rock of Christ, and he will not be able to reach you, and you will scarce hear his howling; he will be low down in the valley when you are in the rock higher than you are. Fears will arise and doubts will come in like a flood — there is no place so safe in the time of a flood as a high rock, — climb to the rock Christ, and then though the waves of the sea roar and the mountains shake with the swelling thereof, you will be secure if you are on a rock higher than you are. And, oh!

for ever be seeking, while the world is dragging you down, to be climbing up. If the devil says, “Come down again, come down, and be worldly; come down, and be selfish,” always cry, “Lord, lead me up, lead me to the rock that is higher than I am. My country is in the skies, help me to be climbing upwards, never permit me to descend, lead me to the rock that is higher than I am.”

And as for you who are still under a sense of sin, who have not yet found the Saviour, let this be your prayer, “Lead me to the rock that is higher than I am.” Do not get measuring Christ by yourselves. “As high as heaven is above the earth, so high are his thoughts above your thoughts, and his ways above your ways.” Oh, beloved, ye should measure God’s grace by the immeasurable; not by your nothingness, but by his infinity. Remember, God’s mercy is beyond all bounds, for it swelleth above the flood of our sins. If our sins be as mountains, Christ’s mercy, like stars, shines as much above the mountains as above the valleys. Cry out, sinner, cry out when Satan is dragging thee down to the pit; cry out, “Lord, save me from the devouring flames, and lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” And then, thank God, it is a rock; it is not a mound that is raised, it is a rock that shall stand, and if I get high on it there is no fear that the rock will shake; I may shake on it, but it will never shake under me. It is a rock, and if my enemies attack me I can hide myself in the clefts of it, and they cannot reach me, for it is a rock; and though ten thousand ages roll away, and many a stone is moved from its place, this shall abide

“When rolling years shall cease to move.”