“O fear the Lord, ye his saints, for there is no want to them that fear him.  The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger; but they that seek the Lord”—­that fear him—­“shall want no good thing.”  Psalm 34:9, 10.

Not any thing that God sees good for them, shall those men want that fear the Lord.  If health will do them good, if sickness will do them good, if riches will do them good, if poverty will do them good, if life will do them good, if death will do them good, then they shall not want them; neither shall any of these come nigh them, if they will not do them good.

Sinner, hast thou deferred to fear the Lord?  Is thy heart still so stubborn as not to say yet, Let us fear the Lord?  O, the Lord hath taken notice of this thy rebellion, and is preparing some dreadful judgments for thee.  “Shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord; shall not my soul be avenged of such a nation as this?”

Sinner, why shouldst thou pull vengeance down upon thee? why shouldst thou pull vengeance down from heaven upon thee?  Look up; perhaps thou hast already been pulling this great while, to pull it down upon thee.  Oh, pull no longer; why shouldst thou be thine own executioner?  Fall down upon thy knees, man, and up with thy heart and thy hands to the God that dwells in the heavens; cry, yea, cry aloud, “Lord, unite my heart to fear thy name, and do not harden mine heart from thy fear.”  Thus holy men have cried before thee, and by crying have prevented judgment.

Humility.

I take the pinnacles on the top of the temple to be types of those lofty, airy notions, with which some delight themselves, while they hover like birds above the solid and godly truths of Christ.  Satan attempted to entertain Christ Jesus with this type and antitype at once, when he set him on one of the pinnacles of the temple, and offered to thrust him upon a false confidence in God, by a false and unsound interpretation of a text.  Matt. 4:5,6; Luke 4:9-11.

You have some men who cannot be content to worship in the temple, but must be aloft; no place will serve them but pinnacles—­pinnacles, that they may be speaking in and to the air, that they may be promoting their heady notions, instead of solid truth—­not considering that now they are where the devil would have them be.  They strut upon their points, their pinnacles; but let them look to it:  there is difficult standing upon pinnacles; their neck, their soul, is in danger.  We read, God is in his temple, not upon these pinnacles.  Psalm 4; Hab. 2:20.

It is true, Christ was once upon one of these; but the devil set him there, with intent to dash him in pieces by a fall; and yet even then told him, if he would venture to tumble down, he should be kept from dashing his foot against a stone.  To be there, therefore, was one of Christ’s temptations; consequently one of Satan’s stratagems:  nor went he thither of his own accord, for he knew that there was danger; he loved not to clamber pinnacles.