Quotes > Spurgeon Quote by William Dawson from "Treasury of David" by Spurgeon (Personalized by S.C.) (You) speak and act like a tender-hearted mother towards a sickly child. When the child is in perfect health she can leave it in the hands of a nurse; but when it is sick she will attend it herself; she will say to the nurse, 'You may attend awhile to some other business, I will watch over the child myself.' She hears the slightest moan; she flies to the cradle; she takes it in her arms; she kisses its lips, and drops a tear upon its face, and asks, 'What can I do for thee, my child? How can I relieve thy pain and soften thy sufferings? Don't weep and break my heart; it is thy mother's arms that are around thee; it is thy mother's lap on which thou art laid; it is thy mother's voice that speaks to thee; it is thy mother that is with thee; fear not.' So (You) speak to Your afflicted children, I will be with (you) in trouble.' No mother can equally symathize with her suffering child; as (You do) with (Your) suffering people. No! Could all the love that ever dwelt in all the mothers' hearts that ever existed, be united in one mother's heart, and fixed on her only child, it would no more bear a comarison with (Your) love...to (Your) people than the summer midnight glow-worm is to be compared to the summer mid-day sun. O that delightful sentence 'I will be with him in trouble.' At other times (You) will leave (Your children) in the hands of angels: '(You) will give them charge over (us) in all (our) ways; they bear (us) up lest at any time (we) dash (our) feet against a stone.' But when (we) are in trouble (You) will say to the angels, 'Stand aside, I will take care of them myself. I will be with them in trouble.' So (you) speak to (Your) people: 'When thou passest throught the waters, I will be with thee ane through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upn thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour.' When languishing in sickness, (You) will make (my) bed, and (my) pillow; when traveling through the valley of the shadow of death, (You) will be with (me), and enable (me) to sing, 'I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.' Thus (You) are with (me) and as my physician and nurse, in pain and sickness; as (my) guide in difficulty; (my) ease in pain; and as (my) life in death." Spurgeon's Story on Psalm 91:9-10 Spurgeon says, "In the year 1854....the neighborhood in which I laboured was visited by Asiatic cholera...and almost every day I was called to visit the grave. My friends seemed falling one by one, and I felt or fancied that I was sickening like those around me...As God would have it, I was returning mournfully home from a funeral, when my curiosity led me to read a paper which was wafered up in a shoemaker's window...it bore in a good bold handwriting these words: 'BECAUSE THOU HAST MADE THE LORD, WHICH IS MY REFUGE, EVEN THE MOST HIGH, THY HABITATION;THERE SHALL NO EVIL BEFALL THEE, NEITHER SHALL ANY PLAGUE COME NIGH THY DWELLING.' The effect of my heart was immediate. Faith approriated the passage as her own. I went on with my visitation of the dying in a calm and peaceful spirit; I felt no fear, and I suffered no harm..." Spurgeon's comments on Psalm 91 from "Treasury of David" Not to be afraid is...an unspeakable blessing, since for every suffering which we endure from real injury we are tormented by a thousand griefs which arise from fear only. Night is the congenial hour of horrors, when alarms walk abroad like beasts of prey, or ghouls from among the tombs; our fears turn the sweet season of repose into one of dread...Blessed is that communion with God which renders us impervious to midnight frights, and horrors born of darkness... When Satan's quiver shall be empty we will remain uninjured by his craft and cruelty, yea, his broken darts shall be to us as trophies of the truth and power of the Lord our God. Famines may starve, or bloody war devour, earthquake may overturn and tempest may smite, but amid all, the man who has sought the mercy seat and is sheltered beneath the wings which overshadow it, shall abide in PERFECT PEACE. Days of horror and nights of terror are for other men, his days and nights are alike spent with God and therefore pass away in sacred QUIET ...Remember that the voice which saith "thou shalt not fear" is that of God himself, whereby he pledges his word for the safety of those who abide under his shadow, nay, not for their safety only, but for their SERENITY... It is imossible that any ill should happen to the man who is beloved of the Lord; the most crushing calamities can only shorten his journey and hasten him to his reward. Ill to him is not ill, but only good in a mysterious form. Losses enrich him, sickness is his medicine, reproach is his honour, death is his gain. No evil in the strict sense of the word can happen to him for everything is overruled for good. Happy is he who is in such a case. He is secure where others are in peril, he lives where others die. "...sweetened with submission....What a reason for hushing every murmuring thought is the reflection, "because thou didst it"! It is his right to do as he wills, and he always wills to do that which is wisest and kindest: why should I then arraign his dealings? Nay, if it be indeed the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good." "Silence from all repining did not prevent the voice of prayer, which must never cease. In all probability the Lord would grant the psalmist's petition, for he ususally removes affliction when we are resigned to it; if we kiss the rod, our Father always burns it. When we are still, the rod is soon still..." "Good pleas may be found in our weakness and distress. It is well to show our Father the bruises which his scourge has made, for peradventrue his fatherly pity will bind his hands, and move him to comfort us in his bosom. It is not to consume us, but to consume our sins, that the Lord aims at in him chastisements." "It is not outward prosperity which the Christian most desires and values; it is soul prosperity which he longs for...it is often for the soul's health that we should be poor, bereaved, and persecuted..there is a blessing in the righteous man's crosses, losses, and sorrows." -C.H. Spurgeon