PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Psalms
Alexander Maclaren, 1826-1910 · 244,462 words · 343 reading sections
Fear And Faith
'What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee. 4. ... In God I have put my trust: I will not fear.'--PSALM lvi. 3, 4. It is not given to many men to add new words to the vocabulary of religious emotion. But so far as an examination of the Old Testament avails, I find that David was the first that ever employed the wor…
1,123 wordsSECTION 182Fear And Faith
Then, still further, these words, or rather one portion of them, give us a bright light and a beautiful thought as to the _essence_ and inmost centre of this faith or trust. Scholars tell us that the word here translated 'trust' has a graphic, pictorial meaning for its root idea. It signifies literally to cling to or h…
663 wordsSECTION 183Fear And Faith
If I am to cling with my hand I must first empty my hand. Fancy a man saying, 'I cannot stand unless you hold me up; but I have to hold my bank book, and this thing, and that thing, and the other thing; I cannot put them down, so I have not a hand free to lay hold with, you must do the holding.' That is what some of us…
747 wordsSECTION 184Fear And Faith
'As far from danger as from fear, While love, Almighty love is near.' This thought of the victory of faith over fear is very forcibly set forth in a verse from the Book of Proverbs, which in our version runs 'The righteous is bold as a lion.' The word rendered 'is bold' is that of our text, and would literally be 'tr…
401 wordsSECTION 185A Song Of Deliverance
'For Thou hast delivered my soul from death: hast Thou not delivered my feet from falling? that I may walk before God in the light of the living.'--PSALM lvi. 13 (R.V.). According to the ancient Jewish tradition preserved in the superscription of this psalm, it was written at the lowest ebb of David's fortunes, 'whe…
711 wordsSECTION 186A Song Of Deliverance
Remember, too, the expansion of the text in the psalm to which I have already referred, one of a much later date, which by quoting these words really comments upon them. The later Psalmist adds a clause. 'Mine eyes from tears,' and we may follow on in the same direction, and note the three spheres in which the later po…
812 wordsSECTION 187A Song Of Deliverance
II. The impulse to service which deliverance brings. 'That I may walk before God in the light of the living'; that is God's purpose in all His deliverances, that we may thereby be impelled to trustful and grateful service. And David makes that purpose into a vow, for the words might almost as well be translated, 'I _w…
893 wordsSECTION 188The Fixed Heart
'My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise.'--PSALM lvii. 7. It is easy to say such things when life goes smoothly with us. But this Psalmist, whether David or another, says this, and means it, when all things are dark and frowning around him. The superscription attributes the words to …
789 wordsSECTION 189The Fixed Heart
II. Notice the manifold hindrances to such a uniformity of our religious life. They are formidable enough, God knows, we all know it, and I do not need to dwell upon them. There is, for example, the tendency to fluctuation which besets all our feelings, and especially our religious emotions. What would happen to a ste…
749 wordsSECTION 190The Fixed Heart
And then, of course, the trials and sorrows which strike us all make this fixed heart hard to keep. It is easy, as I said, to vow, 'I will sing and give praise,' when flesh is comfortable and prosperity is spreading its bright sky over our heads. It is harder to say it when disappointment and bitterness are in the hear…
788 wordsSECTION 191Waiting And Singing
So let us pray the prayer, 'Unite my heart to fear Thy name,' make the resolve, 'My heart is fixed,' and listen obediently to the command, 'He exhorted them all that with purpose of heart they should cleave unto the Lord.' 'Because of his strength will I wait upon Thee: for God is my defence.... 17. Unto Thee, O my s…
667 wordsSECTION 192Waiting And Singing
Now, with regard to the first of these--the waiting on God--I must notice that the expression here, 'I will _wait_,' is a somewhat remarkable one. It means accurately, 'I will watch Thee,' and it is the word that is generally employed, not about our looking up to Him, but about His looking down to us. It would describe…
896 wordsSECTION 193Waiting And Singing
That attitude of watchful expectation is vividly described for us in the graphic words of another psalm, 'My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.' What a picture that is! Think of a wakeful, sick man, tossing restless all the night on his…
713 wordsSECTION 194Waiting And Singing
But waiting on God is not only the recognition of His character as revealed, but it involves, too, the act of laying hold on all the power and blessing of that character for myself. '_My_ strength, _my_ defence,' says the Psalmist. Think of what He is, and believe that He is that for _you_, else there is no true waitin…
690 wordsSECTION 195Waiting And Singing
If we regard this second verse of our text as the expression of the Psalmist's emotion at the moment of its utterance, then we see in it a beautiful illustration of the effect of faithful waiting to turn complaining into praise. If we regard it rather as an expression of his confidence, that 'I shall yet praise Him for…
754 wordsSECTION 196Silence To God
'Truly my soul waiteth upon God.... 5. My soul, wait thou only upon God.' PSALM lxii. 1, 5. We have here two corresponding clauses, each beginning a section of the psalm. They resemble each other even more closely than appears from the English version, for the 'truly' of the first, and the 'only' of the second claus…
775 wordsSECTION 197Silence To God
Such a silent will is a strong will. It is no feeble passiveness, no dead indifference, no impossible abnegation that God requires, when He requires us to put our wills in accord with His. They are not slain, but vivified, by such surrender; and the true secret of strength lies in submission. The secret of blessedness …
786 wordsSECTION 198Silence To God
This man's profession of utter resignation is perhaps too high for us; but we can make his _self-exhortation_ our own. 'My soul! wait thou only upon God.' Perfect as he ventures to declare his silence towards God, he yet feels that he has to stir himself up to the effort which is needed to preserve it in its purity. Ju…
661 wordsSECTION 199Thirst And Satisfaction
The silence of the soul before God is no mere passiveness. It requires the intensest energy of all our being to keep all our being still and waiting upon Him. So put all your strength into the task, and be sure that your soul is never so intensely alive as when in deepest abnegation it waits hushed before God. Trust n…
1,107 wordsSECTION 200Thirst And Satisfaction
That is religion. There is a great deal more in Christianity than longing, but there is no Christianity worth the name without it. There is moral stimulus to activity, a pattern for conduct, and so on, in our religion, and if our religion is only this longing--well then, it is worth very little; and I fancy it is worth…
656 wordsSECTION 201Thirst And Satisfaction
We can have as much of God as we desire. There is a quest which finds its object with absolute certainty, and which finds its object simultaneously with the quest. And these two things, the certainty and the immediateness with which the thirst of the soul after God passes into a satisfied fruition of the soul in God, a…
826 wordsSECTION 202Thirst And Satisfaction
Lastly-- III. The soul that is satisfied with God immediately renews its quest. 'My soul followeth hard after Thee.' The two things come together, longing and fruition, as I have said. Fruition begets longing, and there is swift and blessed alternation, or rather co-existence of the two. Joyful consciousness of posse…
591 wordsSECTION 203Sin Overcoming And Overcome
'Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, Thou shalt purge them away.'--PSALM. lxv. 3. There is an intended contrast in these two clauses more pointed and emphatic in the original than in our Bible, between man's impotence and God's power in the face of the fact of sin. The words of the first clause …
741 wordsSECTION 204Sin Overcoming And Overcome
Did you ever try to cure some trivial bad habit, some trick of your fingers, for instance? You know what infinite pains and patience and time it took you to do that, and do you think that you would find it easier if you once set yourself to cure that lust, say, or that petulance, pride, passion, dishonesty, or whatsoev…
735 wordsSECTION 205Sin Overcoming And Overcome
The judgment of conscience carries with it the solemn looking for of future judgment. It says, 'I am only a herald: _He_ is coming.' No man feels the burden of guilt without an anticipation of judgment. What are you going to do with these two feelings? Do you think that _you_ can deal with them? It is no use saying, 'I…
697 wordsSECTION 206Sin Overcoming And Overcome
Now notice that this great cry of despair in my text is the cry of a single soul. This is the only place in the psalm in which the singular person is used. 'Iniquities are too strong for us,' is not sufficient. Each man must take guilt to himself. The recognition and confession of evil must be an intensely personal and…
687 wordsSECTION 207Sin Overcoming And Overcome
And I tell all of you, especially you young men and women, who presumably have noble aspirations and desires, that the only way to conquer the world, the flesh, and the devil, is to let Christ clothe you with His armour; and let Him lay His hand on your feeble hands whilst you aim the arrows and draw the bow, as the pr…
400 wordsSECTION 208The Burden-Bearing God
'Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits.'--(A.V.). 'Blessed be the Lord, who daily beareth our burden.' --PSALM lxviii. 19 (R.V.). The difference between these two renderings seems to be remarkable, and a person ignorant of any language but our own might find it hard to understand how any one senten…
706 wordsSECTION 209The Burden-Bearing God
And that is the tone of the Old Testament throughout, for you will always find braided together in the closest vital unity the representation of these two aspects of the divine nature; and if ever we hear set forth a more than ordinarily magnificent conception of His power and majesty be sure that, if you look, you wil…
685 wordsSECTION 210The Burden-Bearing God
Notice, too, '_daily_ beareth,' or, as the Hebrew has it yet more emphatically because more simply, 'day by day beareth.' He travels with us, in the greatness of His might and the long-suffering of His unwearied patience, through all our tribulation, and as He has 'borne and carried' His people 'all the days of old,' s…
730 wordsSECTION 211Reasonable Rapture
And the last advice that comes from my text is, to see that your tongues are not silent in that great hymn of praise which ought to go up to 'the Lord that daily beareth our burdens.' He wants only our trust and our thanks, and is best paid by the praise of our love, and of our heaping still more upon His ever strong a…
866 wordsSECTION 212Reasonable Rapture
There is none in the heaven, with all its stars and angels, enough for thee but Him. There is none upon earth, with all its flowers, and treasures, and loves, that will calm and still thy soul but only God. The words of my text spring from a necessity felt by every man, misdirected by a tragical majority of men, and th…
740 wordsSECTION 213Reasonable Rapture
III. Again, we have here the blessed possession, which deadens earthly desires. That clause, 'There is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee,' might, I think, be rendered more accurately 'With Thee'--that is to say, 'possessing Thee,'--I desire none 'upon earth.' If we thus have been longing after God, and fuller…
678 wordsSECTION 214Reasonable Rapture
Next to the resurrection of Jesus Christ the best proof of immortality lies in the present experience of communion with God. Anything is more reasonable than to believe that a soul which can grasp God for its good, which can turn itself to, and be united with, an infinite Being; and itself is capable of indefinite appr…
356 wordsSECTION 215Nearness To God The Key To Life'S Puzzle
'It is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all Thy works.'--PSALM lxxiii. 28. The old perplexity as to how it comes, if God is good and wise and strong, that bad men should prosper and good men should suffer, has been making the Psalmist's faith reel. He does not a…
794 wordsSECTION 216Nearness To God The Key To Life'S Puzzle
I suppose I need scarcely go on pointing out other aspects of this supreme--or more truly, this solitary--good. For instance, nothing is really good to me unless I have it within me, so as that it can never be wrenched away from me. The blessings that we cannot incorporate with the very substance of our being are only …
741 wordsSECTION 217Nearness To God The Key To Life'S Puzzle
Dear brethren! this Psalmist shows us how hard it is for us to keep up that continual attitude of faith, how many difficulties there are in daily life, in the way of our continually being true to our deepest convictions, and seeking after Him amidst all the distracting whirl and perplexities of our daily lives. But he …
564 wordsSECTION 218Memory, Hope, And Effort
'That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments.'--PSALM lxxviii. 7. In its original application this verse is simply a statement of God's purpose in giving to Israel the Law, and such a history of deliverance. The intention was that all future generations might reme…
694 wordsSECTION 219Memory, Hope, And Effort
Not a few of us are old enough to have had a great many mysteries of our early days cleared up. We have seen at least the beginnings of the harvest which the ploughshare of sorrow and the winter winds were preparing for us, and for the rest we can trust. Brethren! remember your mercies; remember your losses; and 'for a…
733 wordsSECTION 220Memory, Hope, And Effort
II. Again, let us live in the future by hope in Him. Our remembrances and our hopes are closely connected; one might almost even say that the power by which we look backwards and that by which we look forwards are one and the same. At all events, Hope owes to Memory the pigments with which it paints, the canvas on whi…
701 wordsSECTION 221Memory, Hope, And Effort
So, dear friends! we are very different in our circumstances and positions. For some of us Hope's basket is nearly empty, and Memory's sack is very full. For us older men the past is long, the earthly future is short. For you younger people the converse is the case. It is Hope whose hands are laden with treasures for y…
411 wordsSECTION 222Sparrows And Altars
'Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even Thine altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King, and my God.'--PSALM lxxxiv. 3. The well-known saying of the saintly Rutherford, when he was silenced and exiled from his parish, echoes and expounds these words. 'When …
692 wordsSECTION 223Sparrows And Altars
Yes! There is only one being in this world that does not fit the world that he is in, and that is man, chief and foremost of all. Other beings perfectly correspond to what we now call their 'environment.' Just as the soft mollusc fits every convolution of its shell, and the hard shell fits every curve of the soft mollu…
758 wordsSECTION 224Sparrows And Altars
And so the glancing swallows around the eaves of the Temple and the twittering sparrows on its pinnacles may proclaim to us, not only a contrast which is bitter, but a confidence which is sweet. We may be sure that we shall not be left uncared for amongst the many pensioners at His table, and that the deeper our wants …
859 wordsSECTION 225Happy Pilgrims
'Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee; in whose heart are the highways to Zion. 6. Passing through the valley of Weeping they make it a place of springs; yea, the early rain covereth it with blessings. 7. They go from strength to strength, every one of them appeareth before God in Zion.'--PSALM lxxxiv. 5-7.…
675 wordsSECTION 226Happy Pilgrims
On any lower level it is perfectly true that the very salt of life is aspiration after an unattained ideal; that there is nothing that so keeps a man young, strong, buoyant, and fits him for nobilities of action, as that there shall be gleaming for ever before him in the beckoning distance a horizon that moves ever as …
705 wordsSECTION 227Happy Pilgrims
But there are other kinds of moisture than tears and fountains. And so he goes on: 'the rain also' from above 'covereth it with blessings'; the blessings being, I suppose, the waving crops which the poet's imagination conceives of as springing up all over the else arid ground. Irrigated thus by the pilgrims' labour, an…
711 wordsSECTION 228Happy Pilgrims
And now I have to put a very plain question. Is that growing strength anything like the general characteristic of us professing Christians? I wonder how many people there are listening to me now that have been members of Christian churches for half a century almost, but are not a bit better than they were away back in …
687 wordsSECTION 229Blessed Trust
'He thinks he was not made to die, And Thou hast made him; Thou art just.' Be sure that 'every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.' So, brethren! let us take the pilgrim scrip and staff; and be sure of this, that the old blessed word will be fulfilled, that we shall not be lost in the wilderness, where there i…
785 wordsSECTION 230Blessed Trust
That has always been the way. This Psalmist is no exception to the devout souls of his time. For though, as I have said, externalisms and ritualisms filled a place then, that it is an anachronism and a retrogression that they should be supposed to fill now, still beneath all these there lay this one ancient, permanent …
662 wordsSECTION 231Blessed Trust
The first thing that they did was to speak to Him who was in the Temple. 'Behold! O God our Shield! and look upon the face of Thine anointed.' They had, as he has just said, 'Every one of them appeared before God in Zion.' As they looked up to Him they asked Him to look down upon them. 'Behold! O God our Shield!' 'Shie…
745 wordsSECTION 232Blessed Trust
But the clearest knowledge of that fact is not enough to bring the blessedness. There must be the next step--'I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness'--the definite resolve that I, for my part, will act according to my conviction, and believing that the best thing in li…
657 wordsSECTION 233'The Bridal Of The Earth And Sky'
We come back to the old word, dear friends! 'Trust in the Lord, and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed.' We come back to the old message that nothing knits a man to God but faith with its child, righteousness. If trusting we love, and loving we obey, then in converse with Him, in fixed desires after Him, in daily an…
719 wordsSECTION 234'The Bridal Of The Earth And Sky'
Let me dwell upon these two couples briefly. 'Mercy and Truth are met together' means this, that these two qualities are found braided and linked inseparably in all that God does with mankind; that these two springs are the double fountains from which the great stream of the 'river of the water of life,' the forthcomin…
730 wordsSECTION 235'The Bridal Of The Earth And Sky'
Or, to put away the metaphor, here are two thoughts, first that in men's experience and life Righteousness and Peace cannot be rent apart. The only secret of tranquillity is to be good. He who is, first of all, 'King of Righteousness' is 'after that also King of Salem, which is King of Peace.' 'The effect of righteousn…
694 wordsSECTION 236'The Bridal Of The Earth And Sky'
God delights when He sees the first faint flush of green which marks the springing of the good seed in the else barren hearts of men. No good, no beauty of character, no meek rapture of faith, no aspiration Godwards is ever wasted and lost, for His eye rests upon it. As heaven, with its myriad stars, bends over the low…
763 wordsSECTION 237'The Bridal Of The Earth And Sky'
IV. And now the last thing which is here, the last phase of the fourfold representation of the ideal relation between earth and heaven is, 'Righteousness shall go before Him and shall set us in the way of His steps.' That is to say, God teaches man to walk in His footsteps. There is some difficulty about the meaning o…
660 wordsSECTION 238A Sheaf Of Prayer Arrows
'Bow down Thine ear, O Lord, hear me; for I am poor and needy. 2. Preserve my soul, for I am holy: O Thou my God, save Thy servant that trusteth in Thee. 3. Be merciful unto me, O Lord: for I cry unto Thee daily. 4. Rejoice the soul of Thy servant: for unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. 5. For Thou, Lord, art…
738 wordsSECTION 239A Sheaf Of Prayer Arrows
Then, further, our psalm invokes '_my_ God.' That names implies in itself, simply, the notion of power to be reverenced. But when we add to it that little word '_my_,' we rise to the wonderful thought that the creature can claim an individual relation to Him, and in some profound sense a possession there. The tiny mica…
719 wordsSECTION 240A Sheaf Of Prayer Arrows
So these are the petitions massed together, and out of them let me take two or three lessons. First, then, let us learn to make all wishes and annoyances material of prayer. This man was harassed by some trouble, the nature of which we do not know; and although the latter portion of his psalm rises into loftier regions…
679 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.