Staggered By Slander – C. H. Spurgeon

Staggered by Slander: How often we meet with people who are staggered by slander!

It is impossible to stop malicious tongues. They wound, and even slay, the characters of the godly.

The tried one cries, “I cannot bear it: I shall give all up.”

Why? Why yield to mere talk? Even these cruel tongues are in God’s hand. Can you not brave their attacks?

They cannot utter a single whisper more than God permits. Go on thy way, O righteous man, and let false tongues pour forth their poison as they will. “Every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn” (Isaiah 54:17).

If my times are in God’s hand, no man can do me harm unless God permit. Though my soul is among lions, yet no lion can bite me while Jehovah’s angel is my guard.

This feeling, that our interests are safe in the highest keeping, breeds an independent spirit. It prevents cringing before the great, and flattering the strong. At the same time, it removes all tendency to envy; so that you do not wish for the prosperity of the wicked, nor fret yourself because of evil-doers. When one knows that his times are in God’s hand, he would not change places with a king; nay, nor with an angel.

Excerpt from sermon My Times Are In Thy Hand delivered by Charles H Spurgeon on May 17, 1891, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

Staggered by Slander - C H Spurgeon

Isaiah 54:17 “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.”

My times are in Thy hand,
I’ll always trust in Thee;
And, after death, at Thy right hand
I shall forever be.

William Freeman Lloyd (1824).