I. THAT SUCH PRAYER MAY BE AN IMPROPER ONE. Our Lord said to the people of his day, "Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe." And how many today are like these people! Now, such request for tokens is wrong:

1. When we presume to select tokens for ourselves. God may allow this, as he did to Gideon in connection with the fleece of wool; but it is very improper for us to be stipulating for specific signs. With how many their religion is one dependent on their feelings, and varies as they do! Naaman "turned, and went away in a rage" (2 Kings 5.), because God's prophet did not fulfil his idea as to the way in which be should be healed.

2. When we trust to a token more than we do to the Word of testimony. St. Peter, though he had seen the glorious vision on the Transfiguration mount - a token for good, if ever there was one - is yet careful to add, "But we have the more sure word of prophecy." And of all our tokens, as well as all our opinions, we are bound to bring them "to the Law, and to the testimony," and there test them; for "if they be not according to this word, it is because there is no truth in them." And not a few of men's fancied tokens have turned out to have no truth in them.

3. When we withhold faith till we have some token which we think will justify it. (See Luke 1:18.) And when the Jews demanded a sign from heaven, as they were perpetually doing, it was refused them, as such requests ever will be (cf. Luke 1:18).

II. SUCH PRAYER IS NEVER ONE WHOSE ANSWER IS ESSENTIAL. For without any such special tokens as we might wish for, there is no child of God but has tokens for good in abundance.

1. There is the Lord Jesus Christ. Is he not God's great and eternal token for good to us?

2. And the fact that God has created us, brought us into being. Would he have done that had he meant evil to us? "Known unto God are all his works."

3. And the further fact that we have come to Christ, are trusting him now, and the Holy Spirit is doing his blessed work in us still.

4. All the promises of God, so exceeding great and precious, - are not all these tokens for good? Assuredly they are.

III. BUT IT IS, AT TIMES, A PERMISSIBLE ONE. It was so in the case of the psalmist. For in spite of all difficulties he looked to God; his troubles drove him to God, and to God only, and not to the help of men. Such a man was not one who would arbitrarily select some given token, or who would trust it more than the Word of God, or who would withhold his belief until it was given. But he desired it for the convincement and discomfiture of his enemies, as well as for the confirmation of his own faith.

IV. AND GOD HAS OFTEN GIVEN SUCH TOKENS. Moses and the rod; Gideon with the fleece; Hezekiah with his dial. And he gives the like still, in answers to prayer, in providential help, in support under trial, in unlooked for events.

V. THE RESULTS WHICH HAVE FOLLOWED. God's enemies have been ashamed. See in, Israel's history when. God gave them such tokens, how we read of their enemies having "no more spirit in them." And still, when God visibly sustains his people, unbelievers look on and are silent, in fear, because conscious of the presence of God. But let us remember that we are never without tokens for good. - S.C.

1. How this man in the hour of conflict looks to his Divine protector. Not to men but to God does he cry, And observe —

2. That his troubles drove him to God. Too often they drive men away from God.

3. We look to God along. We may not set up a rival with God in the temple of our trust. What is it that thou wouldst yoke with God? Oh to be cut clear of all visible supports, and props, and holdfasts! You have seen a balloon well filled struggling to rise: what kept it downy What hindered it? The ropes which bound it to earth. Cut clear the ropes, and then see how it mounts! With a spring it leaps upward while we are gazing into the open sky. Oh for such a clearance and such a mounting for our spirits! Alas, we are hindered and hampered, and those bonds which detain us are our visible supports and reliances. "My soul, wait thou only upon God." The Lord bring us into this high state of spiritual emancipation. Now, let us notice the request David puts up. If we are in his state of mind when we put up a like prayer, this asking for a token will do us no harm: otherwise such desire may be very hurtful to us.

I. THIS REQUEST FOR A TOKEN. It was to be from God and according to God's will, and asked in faith, not in unbelief. For we have no right to say we will not believe unless God give us a token. We are bound to believe Him whether He gives us a token or not. And tokens that men have had, or thought they had, they have come to question about after a while. Peter, though he had seen our Lord's transfiguration, declares that he had the "more sure word of prophecy." Yet may we ask for tokens in a subordinate sense, when we are willing to believe God without them: we may ask for them as confirmatory signs and seals. Several such are named in this psalm.

1. We may long for answer to prayer (Cf. 5:1, 6). If we have received such answers (and have we not?), we may take them as tokens for good.

2. Then, preservation of character is another token (ver. 2). If amid much trial and temptation we have been able to maintain an unblemished reputation, then you need not envy any among the sons of men.

3. Deliverance in trouble is another such (ver. 2). And there is another form of token which must never be overlooked, and that is —

4. A sense of pardoned sin (vers. 3, 5). Before this all ills disappear. And —

5. Support under trial. If God gives you this, if you are able to say to all God sends you, "Thy will be done," take comfort from that.

6. Cheering visits from Christ, and fresh anointings of the Holy Spirit are also most sure tokens for good. They are implied in vers. 4, 11, 16; and in our text.

II. THE RESULT OF SUCH TOKENS. Our enemies are abashed before them, The most malicious adversaries of God's people have stood in awe of them.

III. CONCLUSION. What an unhappy state must those be in who have troubles, but have no God to go to: enemies, but no defender; darkness, but no star of hole. Your friends, and, still less, yourself, are to be trusted in such times. What can they do? Oh, seek the Saviour's face.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)