Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 119:83

A bottle in the smoke.

1. God's people have their trials.

(a) From the poverty of their condition.

(b) Our trials frequently result from our comforts.

(c) The ministry hath much smoke with it.

(d) The poor bottle in the smoke keeps there for a long time, until it gets black.

2. Christian men feel their troubles; they are like "bottles" in the smoke.

(a) The trial that we do not feel is no trial at all.

(b) Trials which are not felt are unprofitable trials. A bottle in the smoke gets very black, becomes very useless, in an empty bottle.

3. Christians do not, in their troubles, forget God's statutes the statutes of command, the statutes of promise. Why was it that David still held fast by God's statutes?

(a) He was not a bottle in the fire, or he would have forgotten them.

(b) Jesus Christ was in the smoke with him, and the statutes were in the smoke with him, too.

(c) The statutes were in the soul, where the smoke does not enter. From "Spurgeon's Sermons." No. 71.

Psalms 119:84*