The Overflowing Cup

Psalm 23:5

April 13, 2025

Who of us is not familiar with the 23^rd Psalm?

Pulpit Commentary

“The Lord is my Shepherd.” The few verses which compose this psalm

would leave but a small blank on the page, if blotted out; but suppose all

translations which have been made of them into all languages, all references

to them in literature, all remembrance of them in human hearts, could be

effaced, who can measure the blank, the void, the loss? To have written

this short psalm is one of the highest honors ever put upon man. What

libraries have these few lines survived? Yet they arc as fresh as if written

yesterday. They make themselves at home in every language. They touch,

inspire, comfort us. not as an echo from three thousand years ago, but as

the voice of a living friend. The child, repeats them at his mother’s knee;

the scholar expends on them his choicest learning; the plain Christian loves

them for their simplicity as much as for their beauty; the Church lifts them

to heaven in the many-voiced chorus; they fall like music on the sick man’s

ear and heart; the dying Christian says, “That is my psalm” and cheers

himself with its words of faith and courage as he enters the dark valley.

(witness the myriads of funeral home cards on which the family chooses to place

Psalm 23 - it has to be not only of temporary, but eternal benifit - CY - 2025)

Mere poetic beauty could not confer or explain this marvelous power. The

secret of it is twofold. These words are the language

Ø of human experience, and

Ø of Divine inspiration.

I. HUMAN EXPERIENCE. This is the utterance of weakness and of trust.

In the Bible, as in the Person of our Saviour, the human and the Divine are

found, not apart, but in closest union. God spake not merely by the lips or

pens of the prophets, but by the men themselves (II Peter 1:21). Were

an angel to say, “The Lord is my Shepherd,” this would bring no assurance

to a frail, sinful human heart. A voice from heaven might declare, “The

Lord is a Shepherd,” or as promise, “The Lord is your Shepherd;” but only

the voice of a brother man, weak and needy as ourselves, can speak this

word, the key-note of the whole psalm, “my Shepherd.” God could have

given us a Bible written, like the tables of the Law, “with the finger of

God;” but He has spoken through the minds and hearts and personal

experience of men of like passions with ourselves, making their faith,

penitence, sorrow, joy, prayer, thanksgiving, the mirror and pattern of our

own. This is the voice of personal experience. David is better known to us

than any Bible hero except St. Paul. This psalm leads back our thoughts to

his youth; but it is no youthful composition — it bears the stamp of deep

experience. The young shepherd might have sung of the famous past, or of

the glorious future; but the veteran king, looking back to his youth, sees in

it a meaning he could not have seen then, and a light shining all along his

path.

II. INSPIRED WORDS. Sweet and deep as are these echoes from the

depth of the past, they would never have reached us had they been no more

than the words of a man, though a hero, a poet, a king; they arc the voice

of God’s Spirit in him..

CONCLUSION. Can you say, “The Lord is my Shepherd”? If not, the

gospel has not yet fulfilled its mission in your heart and life. If you can say

this, then you may fearlessly cast all your care on Him, and finish the verse,

“I shall not want.” (1 Peter 5:7, Matthew 6:25-26).

The Overflowing Cup

by

Charles Spurgeon

I. SOME MEN’S CUPS NEVER RUN OVER. Many even fail to be filled

because taken to the wrong source. Such are the cups which are held

beneath the drippings of the world’s leaky cistern. Men try to find full

satisfaction in wealth, but they never do. Pactolus* fill no man’s cup, that

power belongs exclusively to the river whose streams make glad the city of

God. (Psalm 46:4-5) As to money, every man will have enough when he has a

little more, but contentment with his gains comes to no man. Wealth is not

true riches (Bro. Christian’s comment and background), neither are men’s

hearts the fuller because their purses are heavy. Men have thought to fill

their cups out of the foul pools of what they call “pleasure,” but all in vain, for

appetite grows, passion becomes voracious, and lust, like a horse-leech,

crieth, “Give, give.” The horse leech hath two daughters, crying, Give, give.

There are three things that are never satisfied, yea four things say not, It is

enough: The grave; and the barren womb, the earth that is not filled with water;

and the fire that saith not, it is enough.” (Proverbs 30:15-16) Like the jaws

of death and the maw (mouth or gullet of a greedy person) of the sepulcher,

the depraved heart can never be satisfied. At the polluted pool of pleasure no cup

was ever yet filled though thousands have been broken; it is a corrosive liquor which

eats into the pitcher, and devours the vessel into which it flows. Some have tried to fill

their souls with fame: they have aspired to be great among their fellow-men, and to

wear honorable titles earned in war, or gained in study. But satisfaction is

not created by the highest renown; you shall turn to the biographies of the

great, and perceive that in their secret hearts they never gained contentment from the

grandest successes they achieved. Perhaps, if you had to look out the truly miserable,

you would do better to go to the Houses of Parliament and to the palaces of those

who govern nations, than to the purlieus of poverty, for awful misery is full often

clothed in scarlet, and agony feasts at the table of kings. From the sparkling founts

of fame no cups are filled. Young man, you are just starting in life, you have the

cup in your hand, and you want to fill it, let us warn you (those of us who have

tried the world) that it, cannot fill your soul, not even with such poor sickly

liquor as it offers you. It will pretend to fill, but fill it never can. There is a

craving of the soul which can never be satisfied, EXCEPT BY ITS CREATOR.

In God only is the fullness of the heart, which He has made for Himself.

Some cups are never filled, for the excellent reason that the bearers of

them suffer from the grievous disease of natural discontent. All

unconverted men are not equally discontented, but some are intensely so.

You can no more fill the heart of a discontented man than you can fill a cup

which has the bottom knocked out. A contented man may have enough,

but a discontented man never can; his heart is like the Slough of Despond,

into which thousands of wagon loads of the best material were cast, and

yet the slough did swallow up all, and was none the better. Discontent is a

bottomless bog into which if one world were cast it would quiver and

heave for another. A discontented man dooms himself to the direst form of

poverty, yea, he makes himself so great a pauper that the revenues of

empires could not enrich him. Are you the victims of discontent? Young

men, do you feel that you never can be contented while you are

apprentices? Are you impatient in your present position? Believe me that,

as George Herbert said of incomes in times gone by, “He that cannot live

on twenty pounds a year cannot live on forty,” so may I say: he who is not

contented in his present position will not be contented in another though it

brought him double possessions. If you were to accumulate property,

young man, until you became enormously rich, yet, with that same hungry

heart in your bosom you would still pine for more. When the vulture of

dissatisfaction has once fixed its talons in the breast it will not cease to tear

at your vitals. Perhaps you are no longer under tutors and governors, but

have launched into life on your own account, and yet you are displeased

with providence. You dreamed that if you were married, and had your little

ones about you, and a house, all your own, then you would be satisfied:

and it had come to pass, but now scarcely anything contents you. The meal

provided today was not good enough for you, the bed you will lie upon

tonight will not be soft enough for you, the weather is too hot or too cold,

too dry or too damp. (Comment on Deuteronomy28 and read vs. 63-67)

You scarcely ever meet with one of your fellow-men

who is quite to your mind: he is too sharp and rough-tempered, or else he

is too easy, and has “no spirit;” your type of a good man you never see: the

great men are all dead and the true men fail from this generation. Some of

you cannot be made happy, you are never right till everything is wrong, nor

bearable until you have had your morning’s growl. There is no pleasing

you. I know men who if they were in Paradise would find fault with the

glades of Eden, and would propose to turn the channels of its rivers, and

shift the position of its trees. If the serpent were excluded, they would

demand liberty for him to enter, and would grow indignant at his exclusion.

They would criticize the music of the angels, find fault with the cherubim,

and how weary of white robes and harps of gold: or as a last resource they

would become angry with a place so completely blessed as not to afford

them a corner for the indulgence of their spiteful censures. For such

unrestful minds the cup which runneth over is not prepared.

Some, too, we know whose cup never will run over, because they are

envious. They would be very well satisfied with what they have, but some

one else has more, and they cannot bear it. If they see another in a better

position in society they long to bring him down to their level.

Pliers are vices peculiar to the rich, but this is one of the ready faults of poverty.

Now, surely, friend, if you find your own lot hard to bear you cannot wish

another man to suffer it too: if your case be a hard one, you should be glad

that others are not equally afflicted. It is a happy thing when a man gets rid

of envy, for then he rejoices in the joy of others; and with a secret

appropriation which is far removed from anything like theft, he calls

everything that belongs to other men his own, for he is rich in their riches,

glad in their gladness, and above all happy that they are saved. Some of us

have known what it is to doubt our own salvation, and yet feel that we

must always love Jesus Christ for saving other people. I charge you cast

out envy! The green dragon is a very dangerous guest in any man’s home.

Remember, it may lurk in the hearts of very good men. A preacher may not

be able to appreciate the gifts of another preacher, because they seem to be

more attractive than his own. Good people when they see another useful

are too much in the habit of saying, “Yes, but he does not do this,” or,

“She does not do that,” and the remark is made, “He is very useful but very

crotchety (ill tempered; peevish);” as if there ever was a man who did anything

in this world that was not crotchety. Their very crotchets (a highly individual

and usually eccentric opinion or preference/which are uncomfortable things)

God often overrules to be the power of the men and women whom He

means to employ in striking out new paths of usefulness. What you call

imprudence may be faith, and what you condemn as obstinacy may only be

strength of mind needful for persevering under difficulties. Bless God for

gracious men as you find them, and do not want them to be other than they

are. When divine grace has renewed them, help them all you can and make

the best use you can of them, and if their bell does not ring out the same

note as yours, and you cannot change its tone, and yet you feel that your

note would be discordant to theirs, pray God to tune your bell to harmony

with theirs, that from the sacred steeple there may ring out a holy,

hallowed, harmonious chime, through the union of all the bells and all their

tones, IN THE SOLE PRAISE OF GOD! Envy prevents many cups from

running over.

So, once more, in the best of men unbelief is sure to prevent the cup

running over. You cannot get into the condition of the psalmist while you

doubt your God. Note well how he puts it. “The Lord is my shepherd, I

shall not want.” He has no fears, or forebodings, or doubts; he has given a

writing of divorce between his soul and anxiety, and how he says, “My cup

runneth over.” What are you fretting about, my sister? What is the last new

subject for worry? If you have fretted all your life, your husband, your

children, and your servants have had a sad time of it. Your husband feels

with regard to you, “Good woman, I know nothing in which I could find

fault with her, except that she finds fault with others, and that she grieves

when there is no cause for grieving.” May the Lord be pleased to string

your harp so that it may not give forth such jarring notes as it now does,

but may yield the joyful music of praise. Your great need is a more

childlike faith in God. Take God’s word and trust it, and, good sister, your

cup will run over too. What is your trouble, brother? You were smiling just

now at the thought of how some women are troubled, for you thought,

“All, they do not have the cares men have in business!” Little do you

know. There is a burden for women to carry which is as heavy as that of

their husbands and brothers. But what is your distress? Is it one that you

dare not tell to God? Then what business have you with it? Is it one which

you cannot tell to God? What is there in your heart that forbids your

unburdening it? Is it one which you refuse to tell to God? Then it will be a

trouble and a curse to you, and it will grow heavier and heavier till it will

crush you to the earth. But, oh, come and tell your great Helper! You

believe in God for your sons, believe in Him about your property, believe

in God about your sick wife or your dying child, believe in God about your

losses and bad debts and declining business. A bosom bare before the Lord

is needful to perfect satisfaction. I have proved God, and I speak what I do

know: I have had a care that has troubled me, which I could scarcely

communicate to another without, perhaps, making it worse: I have done

my best, and I have prayed over it but have not seen a way of escape, and

at last I have left it with God, feeling that if He did not solve it, it must go

unsolved. I have resolved that I would have nothing more to do with it,

and when I have done that the difficulty has disappeared, and in its

disappearance I have found an additional reason for confidence in God, and

have been able again to say, “My cup runneth over.”

We must walk by faith with both feet. Some try to walk by faith with the

left foot, but their right foot they will not lift from the earth, and therefore

they make no progress at all. Wholly by faith, wholly by faith must we live.

He who learns to do that will soon say, “My cup runneth over.”

I have not time to enlarge, although much more might be said, for there are

cups which never have run over, and never will.