(DATED APRIL 1736)
Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. (Psalms 73:25)
SUBJECT: It is the spirit of a truly godly man to prefer to God before all other things either in heaven or earth.
IN THIS PSALM, THE PSALMIST (ASAPH) RELATES THE GREAT DIFFICULTY that existed in his own mind from the consideration of the wicked. He observe in verse 2 and 3, “As for me, my feet were almost goen; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” In the 4th and following verses, he tells us of a wicked person’s sins were his temptations.
In the first place, he observed that they were prosperous and all things went well with them. He then observed their behavior in their prosperity. Then he notes what they did with it. To his dismay, God, in spite of the abuse, continued their prosperity!
In verses 16 and 17, he then tells us how he was helped out of this difficulty, viz. “by going into the sanctuary.” He proceeds to tell us the thought process that helped him. This is his thinking:
(1) He considered the miserable end of wicked men. However they prosper for the present, yet they will come to a woeful end at last, verses 18-20.
(2) He considered the blessed end of the saints. Although the saints, while they live, may be afflicted, they will come to a happy end at last, verses 21-24.
And
(3) He considered that the godly have a much better portion than the wicked, even though they have no other portion but God; as in the text and following verse. Though the wicked are in prosperity, they are not in trouble as othe rmen. Yet the godly, though in affliction, are in a state infinitely better, because they have God for their portion. They really do not need anything else. He that has God, has everything!
Thus Asaph has the same sense of things: Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee.
In the verse immediately preceding, Asaph takes notice how the saints are happy in God. They are happy both in this world, and also when they are taken to another. They are blessed in God in this world, i that He guides them by His counsel. And when He takes them out of it, they are still happy! Then ultimate joy will be theirs when He receives them to glory.
This probably led him, in the text, to declare that he desired no other portion, either in this world, or in that to come, either in heaven or upon earth. So we learn that it is the spirit of a truly godly man, to prefer God before all things, either in heaven or on earth.
- A godly man prefers God before anything else in heaven. First, the godly prefer God before anything else that is actually in heaven. Every godly man has his heart set on heaven. His affections are mainly set on what it will be like there. Heaven is his “true” country and inheritance. He has the same respect of heaven as a traveler in a distant land has to his home country. The traveler can be content to be in a strange land for a while, but he knows his own native land is his true home and he misses it. Hebrews 1:13, etc. “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things, declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly.”
The respect that a godly person has to heaven can be compared to the respect that a child, when he is abroad, has to his father’s house. He can be contented abroad for a short time; but ultimately he wants to go “home.” Heaven is the true saint’s Father’s house: John 14:2, “In my Father’s house are many mansions,” John 20:17, “I will ascend to my Father and your Father.”
Now, the main reason that the godly man has his heart set on heaven is that God is there. It is the dwelling place of his Lord. It is the place where God is gloriously present, where His love is gloriously manifested, where the godly will ultimately be with Him.
He will ultimately get to see God as He really is. He will get to love, serve, praise, and enjoy Him perfectly and forever. If God and Jesus Christ were not in heaven, he would not earnestly long for it. Nor would he take so much trouble in a laborious travel through this wilderness. Can the mere consideration that he is going to heaven when he dies, comfort a man under intense toil and affliction? The martyrs would never have undergone cruel sufferings from their persecutors with a cheerful prospect of going to heaven. They did it because of the expectation of being with Christ. They would not have forsaken all their earthly possessions, their earthly friends, as many thousands of them have done wandering about in poverty and banishment, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, in hopes of exchanging their earthly for a heavenly inheritance, were it not that they hope to be with their glorious Redeemer and heavenly Father.
The believer’s heart is in heaven, because his treasure is there. Christ is the believer’s treasure.
Second, a godly man prefers God above all else, including anything that might be in heaven. Not only is there nothing actually in heaven which is to be worshipped and longed for, but neither is there anything that can be a possiblity to be there which can be desired equally to God.
Some men dream of enjoyments to be in heaven quite diffferent from those actually taught in Scriptures. The Muslims, for example, suppose that the delights in heaven will be all kinds of sensual and sexual pleasures. Mohammed has deceived them to think that the lusts and carnal appetites of men are the most to be desired. He flattered his followers with this notion.
But the true saint could not dream of anything more agreeable to his desires than what is revealed in the Word of God. Heaven is enjoying the glorious God and the Lord Jesus Christ!
There he shall have all sin taken away, and be perfectly conformed to the image of Christ. He shall spend an eternity in exalted expressions of love to Him, and in the enjoyment of His love. If God was not to be enjoyed in heaven, but only vast wealth, immense treasures of silver, and gold, then heaven could be obtained on earth! A man could have all of these things plus an abundance of the greatest sensual delights and pleasures. These will never make up for the need of God and Christ, and the enjoyment of Them in heaven.
If heaven were void of God, it would indeed be an empty melancholy place.
The godly have been made sensible to the fact that creature-enjoyments cannot satisfy the soul. Nothing can truly content them but God Himself. Offer a true saint anything you want, but if you deny him God, he will be miserable. God is the center of his desires; and as long as you keep his soul from its proper center, it will not rest. - It is the temper of a godly man to prefer God before all other things on the earth. First, the saint prefers that enjoyment of God for which he hopes to anything in this world. He looks at the things which are seen and temporal differently from the way he regards those things which are unseen and eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18. It is only a taste of God that the saint enjoys in this world. He has put a limited knowledge and relationship with Him. But God has promised to give him Himself hereafter in full enjoyment. These promises are more precious to the saint than the most precious earthly jewels. The gospel contains greater treasures to the believer than the cabinets of princes, or the mines of the Indies.
Second, the saints prefer what can be obtained of God in this life before all things in the world. There is a great difference in the present spiritual attainments of the saints. Some attain to much greater communion with God, and conformity to Him, than others. But the highest attainments here are very small in comparison with what is to come. The saints are capable of making progress in spiritual attainments, and they earnestly desire to grow more. Not contented with those degrees to which they have already attained, they hunger and thirst after righteousness.
As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that they may grow thereby, it is their desire to know more of God, to have more of His image, and grow closer to Him daily. Psalms 27:4, “One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple.” Psalms 42:1-2, “As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?” Psalms 63:1-2, “O God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.” See also Psalms 84:1-3 and Psalms 130:6, “My soul waiteth for the LORD, more than they that watch for the morning, I say, more than they that watch for the morning.”
Although not every saint has the same desire after God that Asaph had, yet they all are of the same spirit.
They earnestly desire to have more of His presence in their hearts. This is the temperment of the godly in general, and not any particular saint, but the Church in general speaks thus: “Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. With my soul have I desired thee in the night, and with my spirit within me will I seek thee early.” See also Song of Solomon 3:1-2,6,8.
The saints are not always fullly exercising God’s graces, but they would like to. They sometimes have the sensible exercise of it. They desire God and divine attachments more than all earthly things They seek to be rich in grace more than they do to get earthly riches. They desire the honor which is of God more than that of men (John 5:44) and communion with Him more than any earthly pleasures. They are of the same spirit which the apostle expresses, Philemon 3:8, “Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ.”
Third, the saint prefers what he has already of God before anything in this world.
That which has infused into his heart at his conversion is more precious to him than anything which the world can afford. The views which are sometimes experienced of the beauty and excellency of God are more precious to him than all the treasures of the wicked. The relation of a child in which he stands to God, the union which there is between his soul and Jesus Christ, he values more than the greatest earthly dignity.
That image of God which is engraved on his soul, he values more than any earthly ornaments. It is, in his esteem, better to be adorned with the graces of God’s Holy Spirit than to be made to shine in jewels of gold and the most costly pearls, or to be admired for the greatest external beauty. He values the robe of Christ’s righteousness that he has on his soul more than the robes of princes. The spiritual pleasures and delights that he sometimes has in God, he prefers far before all the pleasures of sin. Pslams 84:10, “A day in thy courts is better than a thousand: I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.” (Emphasis added WP4Y)
A saint thus prefers God before all other things in this world.
(To be continued …)
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