Bear this in mind, therefore, that the house in which we dwell, in this life, has God for its Landlord, and that we are only tenants. There is this clause in the lease, which I am afraid some have never observed, namely, that the Landlord has at all times the right to enter and leave His own property. Then conscience and God's Word will be your guides as to what is needed. I am afraid that many of your houses need a great deal of setting in order. Some of your houses need sweeping. The dust and filth of sin are lying all over the floors! I desire, in closing, that all of us may offer the key of our house to the Great Landlord and acknowledge that we live on sufferance as His tenants.
But if it is God's Truth that I declare to you, if God, Himself, speaks it through my lips, you will disregard it at your peril. Their thoughts were contrary to God's thoughts, their ways were such as God could not endure, their speech grated in His ears, they followed the devices and imaginations of their own hearts! The blood of Jesus Christ, God's dear Son, cleanses us from all sin! When you have once rightly uttered this blessed sentence, "You are my God," God's Grace will help you to keep on saying it! There is no getting farther than this, "You are my God." That is the end of all good things. What more does a man need? What more can a man desire?
He was chastened, but he was never cast out, he still continued as God's pupil. Surely, we are so foolish that we need to be taught, and we cannot have a better Teacher than the Omniscient God! Let us, therefore, pray that if we are at God's school, we may stay there. Being taken into the School of God, he was made to observe things, he had object lessons put before him and he learned to read God's work. And as he saw it, he wondered. So David made a fine pupil-teacher, because, seeing God's work, he wondered at it and spoke of it as a wondrous thing.
You need not tell men that you love them, make them feel that you love them. You need not say, "I am true", be true. Boast not of integrity, but be upright. So shall your testimony be such that men cannot help seeing it. Let me beg of you to never, for fear of feeble man, hold back your witness. Gird up your loins, and go out from this assembly asking, "Am I God's witness?"
God's mercy is extended very freely to such sinners as these. That brand, taken out of the fire, shall be exhibited in Heaven as a proof of what God's Almighty Grace can do! It must have been God's work, "And can He have taught me to trust in His name, And thus far have brought me, to put me to shame?"
They are God's hidden ones, they belong to Him. They were hidden by God with a view to safety. Once more, however, all God's people are His hidden ones because all the saints are, at present, unrevealed. Speak as you would wish the very least of God's people to hear you and do not use vain and haughty language.
Because they are happy in God's love, they are patient in the ills of this life. There is no wrong done to His people but it is registered in God's archives. God's work that David saw was very much work in himself, work for himself and work in other men's hearts. So David took opportunity to declare God's wondrous work. May this time be attended with a visitation in mercy!