» N. D. Hillis, The Contagion of Character, 228. " W. G. Berry, Bishop Hcmnington, 180.
What shall I Render?
383
Literature.
Burrows (H. W.), Parochial Sermons^ iii. 154.
Ketcham (W. E.), Thanksgiving Sermons, 245,
Kirkpatrick (A. F.), The Book of Psalms (Cambridge Bible), 690.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Psalms li.-cxlv., 273.
„ „ The Book of Psalms (Expositor's Bible), iii. 226.
Martin (S.), Rain upon the Mourn Grass, 273. Price (A, C), Fifty Sermons, vii. 73, Rowlands (D.), in Jesus in the Cornfield, 173.
Spurgeon (C. H,), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xvi. (1870), No. 910. Stevens (H.), Sermon Outlines, 307, Tyndall (C. H.), Object Sermons in Outline, 162. Waterston (R.), Thoughts on the Lord's Supper, 129. Watkinson (W, L.), The Education of the Heart, 253. Wilkinson (J. B.), Mission Sermons, i. 222. Christian World Pulpit, xxxii, 394 (R. H, HadJen) ; xxxvi. 396 (P.
Mearns) ; Ivi. 229 (J. Percival). Church of England Pulpit, xlviii. 195 (J, Percival), Examiner, Oct, 5, 1905 (J. H. Jowett). Homildic Review, New Ser., xxxix. 29 (T. H. Stockton), Literary Churchman, xxxviii. (1892) 334 (F. St. J. Corbett),
384
What shall I Render?
What shall I render unto the Lord For all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, And call upon the name of the Lord.. ^_X-wiii pay my vows imto the Lord,
-¥ea, 4a the presence of all his people.— Ps. cxvi. 12-14.
1. The psalm from which this text is taken is a psalm of thanks- giving. It is one of six called the Great Hallel, extending from the 113th to the 118th, which were sung by the Jews at their great festivals, especially at the Passover. It was probably one of these psalms that was sung by our Saviour and His eleven disciples when He instituted His own supper, at the close of His last Passover with them ; as we are told in the evangelic story, " When they had sung a hymn, they went out unto the mount of Olives."
2. It appears that the Psalmist, when he wrote this psalm, had been delivered by God out of some mighty trouble. How great that trouble was may be gathered from the telling language in which he describes it. " The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me : I found trouble and sorrow." But while in this terrible situation he directed his thoughts heavenward, and looked for help where he had often found help before. Nor did he look in vain ; for he says, " Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling." And in the text he communes with his own soul, and considers how he may most effectually prove his gratitude for this timely deliverance. " What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me ? "
PS. xxv.-cxix. — 25
386 WHAT SHALL I RENDER?
I.
A Bountiful Giver.
1. The Psalmist was not one of those thoughtless and in- different men who pass through life receiving all, enjoying all, expecting all, without ever bestowing a thought on the bountiful Giver. On the contrary, he seems to have been so overwhelmed by the magnitude and multiplicity of God's benefits that he scarcely knew how to express his gratitude. The language he employs is that of a man perplexed, bewildered, overcome, hardly knowing what to say or how to act. " For all his benefits toward me" — benefits great, benefits small, benefits temporal, benefits spiritual ; but all benefits unmerited and free. " For all his benefits;" as they rose before his view, a vast, countless host, they laid him under a debt of obligation which he could never hope to discharge.
^ My father's gift of appreciation was of a most charming type. The constant repetitions of a blessing never dulled the fine edge of his gratitude. He had a sunlit bedroom, and every morning, so my mother tells me, he said, '* What a beautiful bedroom ! We must thank God ! " ^
2. Few of us are adequately thankful for the commonplace blessings which surround us ; we take them as a matter of course. We do not know what it is to be without them ; we see no prospect of being deprived of them. If the world has not gone very well with us, it has not gone very badly ; because we might have more to complain of, we forget for how much we ought to be grateful. Let us contemplate, as in the presence of God, all the proofs that we have experienced of His mercy ; the pure affection that He has inspired, the sins that have been forgiven us, the snares which we have escaped, the protection we have received. Let our hearts be touched with the remembrance of all the precious proofs of His goodness. Add to this the sorrows that He has sent to sanctify our hearts ; for we should look upon these also as proofs of His love for us. Let pralif.ude for yie past inspire us with confidence in the future! Tet us never
»X<we and /J/c7'Tnr.^6iy o/ J^l flenhclm'Srash (1913), 166.
PSALM cxvi. 12-14 ^9
a day, and the happy united family rudely broken up. And yet as soon as I opened the door, and met the sorrowing widow, these were the first words that leapt to her lips : " How good God has been ' " Even in the night-tmie she had been counting the stars, and in the awful pangs of bereavement she had felt the amazing consolations of Christ. What an eye she had for the benefits of the Lord ! ^