ADDRESS I.

GOD OUR PORTION.

"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."-PSALM lxiii. 1, 2.

THE passage, beloved friends, brings us immediately to God. "O God," says the Psalmist, "thou art my God." And what I want at the very outset this morning is, that we should know and feel that God is everything to us; that unless we have God we have nothing; but having God, we have everything; we have an unchanging portion. And what I want further is, that the sinner be led to say, with this word, "O God, thou art my God." For you know God is the God of the sinner; and the sinner believing, believes God, and hath God for his salvation, hath God for his portion. So that if you have never been enabled to say before this morning, "O God, thou art my God," God, by His Holy Spirit, may give you, in the calm spirit of faith and of assurance, this very day to say, "My God;" and that you may add, "early will I seek thee" when I awake I am still with God-God in me-God with me-God saying unto me, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."

A

And the word farther goes on to say, "My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee, in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is." That is to say, beloved hearers, God does not in any wise preclude the glorious fact that the more we have of Him, the more we may have; for having tasted what God is, having stood by the shining shore, we want the inexhaustible fulness, we thirst for the ocean, we long for Himself:-"My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is."

is

"To see

And the word still farther goes on to say, thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary." Oh! beloved, the very thing we want to see here to-day-His power and His glory; and, believe me, God will give us to see it! And the measure of what we want is this-the Psalmist gives it, but it very low-" "As we have seen it ;" "To see thy power and thy glory so as we have seen thee." But it will be higher some of these days. We are about to see it in a way the heart can never conceive, for it is incomprehensible-it is infinite and eternal; but meanwhile we say, "O God! we shall be satisfied if Thou givest us to see it even as we have seen it." One is reminded here of dear old Jacob, where he speaks of "the God of Bethel"—the God who appeared to him at Bethel, and who comforted him in his lone pilgrimage at Bethel. Oh! I delight to think of it, that I—that we can look to God here, and say, O God of these times now passing over us, let us again see the glory we have seen in our Bethel! O thou God of '57 in the transatlantic world, and of '59 through the five Counties of Ulster! O God of Leamington, of Freemasons' Hall, and of Brighton! God of Metropolitan Hall, of Northumberland Avenue, and the Kingstown Waters! We do want to see Thee as we HAVE seen Thee. want to see thy power and thy glory," as

66

We

we

"have seen thee in the sanctuary." We do not want to see the sanctuary itself, but the POWER and the GLORY in the sanctuary. No; no earthly sanctuary will satisfy us, not even heaven. No earthly palace, even if made by God; not even the creation, fair as it was when all its seas rolled out in molten gold, when every mountain sent up, as it were, its smoke of incense to heaven. Ah! no, not even heaven itself. For

"Were I in heaven without my God,

It were no heaven to me. 19

А

O beloved, it is not the place, but it is the presence! It is not the ocean-bed, but that which makes the sea -its greatness, its glory! So we say this morning, "O God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee." A glorious beginning, if you can say that! Early in your life-early in the day-early in this SCENE. "My flesh longeth for thee," just as a river longs for the ocean; "my soul thirsteth for thee in a dry and thirsty land; ... to see thy power and thy glory, as I have seen thee in the sanctuary."

And now, beloved, having opened up our way to these words, ere I proceed, give me your prayers; for God only knows what associations and memories crowd on your preacher's mind this morning. I can solemnly say-I have said it to God, almost in the spirit of Moses, which was wrong, "Send by any one but by me." Moses forgot that God would not put on him that which He would not give him strength to do. God was his salvation-God was his strength.

First of all, we have here a present portion—“ O God, thou art MY GOD."

Secondly, we have a divine longing "My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee, in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is."

Thirdly, we have blessed memories-"To see thy power and thy glory, as we have seen thee in the sanctuary;" for we have asked, and we are asking, for what we have already tasted in measure, for blessings we know something about-"As we have seen thee in the sanctuary."

And, fourthly, we have a divine hope. We are not to be without it. God, who gives the river, gives the ocean to receive it; God, who made the stream, gave the bed into which it is to roll and rest. And if we do not see the power and the glory here in Merrion Memorial Hall in these our own days, the time is coming when with all His saints we shall stand amid the power and the glory, "and be for ever with the Lord."

In the first place, we have here a divine portion— "O God, thou art my God."

One hardly knows, beloved people, how to speak of this portion, it is so vast a thought that God is ours, God Himself!

The Psalmist prays, "O God, thou art my God," as if he had said, "Thou, the eternal and the infinite art mine -thou, the eternal and the infinite source and centre of all blessedness-O God, thou art my God." It is beloved people, utterly impossible to describe the heights and depths, the lengths and breadths of that wondrous, glorious possession which the soul hath who can say, "O God, THOU art MY GOD." I feel like one standing by some vast expanse of ocean, and can only, as it were, pick up a pebble or two on its glorious, shining shore; I can only cast a glance athwart the wilderness of waters; I can only point you to God. Oh, that blessed God! Oh, that all-blessed God! whose existence was before star or angel was created, and who will live when thousands of thousands upon thousands of ages have rolled away! Ah, dear saint, thou mayest be poor as to this world's goods, but

poor

thou never canst be if thou hast God as thy portion-if thou canst say, "O God, thou art MY GOD!"

I cannot tell you what that portion is. God is love, God is light-ineffable light, ineffable love - love diffusing itself in beams of light. Oh, that God would put it into my mouth, into my heart, to say something worthy of Himself! "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." God is love. God's power is such, that He had only to speak, and the vast creation rolled into existence. God was such, that He had only to will, and-marvel of marvels, a thousand times more marvellous-the Son of His love became incarnateJesus Christ died on the cross, and the glorious new creation sprang into being.

I cannot tell you what God is. I am like a fingerpost, that, when the celestial mariner wants to go out on the bright seas of His perfectness, I can only point from the shores to the sea, and say, "This is the sea of His perfectness; this is an ocean without a bound, a depth that has never been fathomed."

Is there a poor sinner here this morning, a patient child of want, who had no breakfast in his cupboard? Like the bird, which never knows where its breakfast will come from, but sings all the same-is there one such? God will meet with thee. Let no man despise thee; for thou art rich with all the resources of God, if thou canst say, "O God, THOU art MINE;-mine by creation, which Thou art; mine by providence, which Thou art;-causing all things to work for my good; mine IN CHRIST, mine IN REDEMPTION and SALVATION."

Yet, as I often say to you, a God in nature is a God above me; a God in providence is a God beyond me; a God in law is a God against me; but a God in CHRIST is a God IN me, and a God WITH me, and a God FOR me; and He is my God-my God. Oh, that little monosyllable, "my!" Can you not all use it this morning?