Reading Reflection:

Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol. 3, Sermon VIII, The Dumb Singing

Goldsmiths make exquisite forms from precious metals; they fashion the bracelet and the ring from gold:--God maketh his precious things out of base material; and from the black pebbles of the defiling brooks he hath taken up stones, which he hath set in the golden ring of his immutable love, to make them gems to sparkle on his finger forever.  He hath not selected the best, but apparently the worst of men, to be the monuments of his grace; and when he would have a choir in heaven that should with tongues harmonious sing his praises—a chorus that should forever chant hallelujahs louder than the noise of many waters, and like great thunders, he did not send Mercy down to seek earth’s songsters, and cull from those who have the sweetest voices: he said, “Go, Mercy, and find out the dumb, and touch their lips, and make them sing.  The virgin tongues that never sang my praise before, that have been silent till now, shall break forth in rhapsodies sublime, and they shall lead the song; even angels shall but attend behind, and catch the notes from the lips of those who once were dumb.” (122)

First of all, I no longer feel bad about my run-on sentences.  Maybe I have picked up the habit from reading from a bunch of dead guys. Secondly, I am once again in awe of my Grace-Giving Creator.  We have fallen so far from grace, since the Fall of man, as to be dead in our trespasses and sins.  Dead!  There was no glimmer of shine that God saw in me—nothing that I could offer him.  I had nothing salvageable within myself.  I needed a new heart—new eyes that could see, new ears that could hear.  I needed to be made alive.  And now I, who once walked according to the course of this world, have been made accepted in the Beloved (Eph.1:3-6, 2:1-3).  Me, the dumb, will be singing his praises before the angels. Spurgee’s Scripture: Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.  Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb sing.  For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert. (Isaiah 35:5-6)