Songs in the night
Songs in the Night
Spurgeon takes half a sentence buried in Elihu's speech and builds a whole argument on it: anyone can sing in daylight; the song that counts is sung in the dark, and that one is not manufactured but given.
“But none saith, Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night.”
This passage also appears in bible verses about comfort in grief.
- Passage
- Job 35:10
- Preached
- Preached at New Park Street; published 27 February 1898
- Place
- New Park Street Chapel, London
- Reference
- Sermon 2558
The verse is not even a promise: it is a complaint. Elihu is protesting that nobody asks after God in the night. Spurgeon turns it over and keeps what the complaint takes for granted: that there is a God who gives songs exactly when there is no reason to sing.
He preached it at New Park Street as a very young man, and it was published as sermon 2558 years after his death. It is aimed at people in a real night: he names the poor of Spitalfields, one of the hardest districts of the London of his day.
Who gives them
The first division answers where they come from: God gives them. Nobody manufactures a song in the night, and Spurgeon is openly wary of preachers who try to force one out of a grieving heart.
His reason is almost mechanical. By day you sing of many things, of your evidences, your duties, whatever is going well. By night there is no subject left. When the wells run dry there is only one thing left to drink from, which is why the night song is about God or it does not exist.
What they are about
The second division sorts them by tense. You sing of yesterday: what he has already done, your own conversion, past deliverances. And when your own memory falls short, Spurgeon says to borrow someone else's, like the sailor who cannot reach the mooring post on shore and takes hold of another ship's line.
You sing of the night itself: there is always one star left, and thanking God for that one is how it becomes two. I am poor, he says, but I might have been poorer.
And you sing of tomorrow. Here he tells of a dying sister who refused every comfort drawn from the past; she only wanted to hear about what was coming. There are nights when the only possible song looks forward.
Why they are worth more
The third division compares. The night song is more sincere, because it is sung under the pain and not thanks to its absence; and it lasts longer, because it does not depend on things continuing to go well. His image is the nightingale, which sings most sweetly because she sings in the night.
And it proves what daylight cannot: faith that trusts without seeing, courage that sings while everyone else keeps quiet out of fear, and a love that does not need Christ to wear a crown in order to walk with him.
What they are for
The last division is practical. The song strengthens the singer, and he quotes Luther: the devil cannot stand singing. It pleases God more than any other, because praise offered while he hides his face is the only praise that cannot be mistaken for convenience.
And it strengthens others without knowing it. He recalls Bunyan's pilgrim in the valley of the shadow of death, who heard someone singing up ahead and knew he was not alone. The singer never learned whom he had held up.
The close is the most quoted part of the sermon: arguing about religion convinces few; singing in the night convinces more than any argument.
In his own words
“It is easy to sing when we can read the notes by daylight; but the skillful singer is the one who can sing when there is not a ray of light to read by.”
“The nightingale sings most sweetly because she sings in the night.”
This is our summary. The full sermon by Charles Spurgeon is available at The Spurgeon Library. It is in the public domain: you can read all of it for free.
Start Building Your Habit Today
Choose your platform
