PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Psalms
Alexander Maclaren, 1826-1910 · 244,462 words · 343 reading sections
A Stranger In The Earth
We may wrongly hide our religion so that it evaporates. Too many professing Christians put away their religion as careless housewives might do some precious perfume, and when they go to take it out, they find nothing but a rotten cork, a faint odour, and an empty flask. Take care of burying your religion so deep, as do…
746 wordsSECTION 302A Stranger In The Earth
The earth is full to brimming of Thy mercy. It takes faith to see that; it takes a deeper and a firmer hold of the thought of a present God than most men have, to feel that. For the most of us, the world has got to be very empty of God now. We hear rather the creaking of the wheels of a great machine, or see the workin…
653 wordsSECTION 303A Stranger In The Earth
And when He has not hidden His commandments from us, but we have them in our hearts, for the joy and the strength of our lives, then, then it does not matter, though we have to say, 'foxes have holes, and birds of the air have their roosting-places,' and I only, in creation, have 'not where to lay my head.' If we have …
664 wordsSECTION 304'Time For Thee To Work'
And so, 'Say not, Who shall ascend up into the heavens? say not, Who shall pass over the sea to bring Thy law near, that we may hear and do it? Behold! the word is very nigh thee.' The law, the will of God, and the power to perform it are braided together, in inextricable union, in Jesus Christ Himself; and the prayer …
772 wordsSECTION 305'Time For Thee To Work'
But my object in referring to these forms of opinion was merely to prepare the way for my subsequent observations; I have no intention of dealing with any of them by way of criticism or refutation. This is not the place nor the audience, nor am I the person, for that task. But I have thought that it might not be inappr…
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So I venture to think that, speaking to Christian men and women, I have a right to speak on the basis of our common belief, and to encourage them to cherish it notwithstanding gainsayers. I am not counselling stolid indifference to the course of modern thought, nor desertion of the duty of defence. We are not to say, '…
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This confidence is confirmed by the history of all the past assaults on Scripture. The whole history of the origin, collection, preservation, transmission, diffusion, and present influence of the Bible involves so much that is surprising and unique, as to amount to at least a strong presumption of a divine care. Among…
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Brethren! we, at all events, should learn the lesson of historical experience. The Gospel and the Book which is its record, have met with eager, eloquent, learned antagonists before to-day, and they have passed. Little more than a generation has sufficed to sweep them to oblivion. So it will be again. The forms of opin…
689 wordsSECTION 309'Time For Thee To Work'
The tenor of these remarks presupposes a point on which I wish to make one or two observations now, viz. that the manner of the divine working which we should most earnestly desire in a time of diffused unbelief is the elevation of Christian souls to a higher spiritual life. I do not wish to exclude other things, but …
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What then? Why this--that to change the opinions you must change the atmosphere; or, in other words, the true antagonist of a diffused scepticism is a quickened Christian life. Brethren! if we had been what we ought, would such an environment have ever been possible as that which produces this modern unbelief? Even now…
689 wordsSECTION 311'Time For Thee To Work'
But surely the emotions have a place and an office, if not indeed in the search for, and the submission to, the truth of God, yet in the defence and adherence to that truth when found. The heart may not be the organ for the investigation and apprehension of truth, though it has a part to play even there; but the tenaci…
762 wordsSECTION 312'Time For Thee To Work'
Such strength of affection in the presence of diffused doubt is not to be won without an effort. All our churches afford us but too many examples of men and women who have lost the warmth of their first love, if not their love itself, for no better reason than because so many others have lost it. The effect of popular …
800 wordsSECTION 313'Time For Thee To Work'
I pray you, and if I may venture so far, I would especially pray my younger hearers, to take note, that however fair this way of looking at varying forms of Christian opinion may be, it really reposes on a basis which they will surely think twice before accepting, the denial that there is such a thing as intellectual c…
808 wordsSECTION 314Submission And Peace
'Great peace have they which love Thy law; and nothing shall offend them.' PSALM cxix. 165. The marginal note says 'they shall have no stumbling block.' We do great injustice to this psalm--so exuberant in its praises of 'the law of the Lord'--if we suppose that that expression means nothing more than the Mosaic or…
677 wordsSECTION 315Submission And Peace
II. Then again, such love brings the calm of a submitted will. Brethren! it is not sorrow that troubles us so much as resistance to sorrow. It is not pain that lacerates; it cuts, and cuts clean when we keep ourselves still and let it do its merciful ministry upon us. But it is the plunging and struggling under the kn…
651 wordsSECTION 316Submission And Peace
An obedient life not only delivers us from the distractions of miscellaneous desires, and from the anxiety of unforeseen results, but it contributes to tranquillity in another way. The thing that makes us most uneasy is either sin done or duty neglected. Either of these, however small it may appear, is like a horse-hai…
418 wordsSECTION 317Looking To The Hills
'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. 2. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.' --PSALM cxxi. 1, 2. The so-called 'Songs of Degrees,' of which this psalm is one, are usually, and with great probability, attributed to the times of the Exile. If that be so, we get a…
995 wordsSECTION 318Looking To The Hills
Further, do we know anything of that longing that the Psalmist had? He was perfectly comfortable in Babylon. There was abundance of everything that he wanted for his life. The Jews there were materially quite as well off, and many of them a great deal better off, than ever they had been in their narrow little strip of …
704 wordsSECTION 319Looking To The Hills
Brethren! if, on the one hand, we have to cultivate, for a healthy, vital Christianity, a vision of the mountains of God, on the other hand we have to try to deepen in ourselves the wholesome sense of our own impotence, and the conviction that the dangers on the road are far too great for us to deal with. 'Blessed is t…
627 wordsSECTION 320Mountains Round Mount Zion
'They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever. 2. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people from henceforth, even for ever.'--PSALM cxxv. 1, 2. The so-called 'Songs of Degrees,' of which this psalm is one, are probably a pi…
770 wordsSECTION 321Mountains Round Mount Zion
In like manner, the only way by which not only the inward storms can be quieted, but the outward assaults of perturbing circumstances, disasters, changes, difficult duties, and the like, can ever be received with tranquillity is, that they should be received in quiet faith. And, in like manner, the only way by which me…
664 wordsSECTION 322Mountains Round Mount Zion
III. And then, remember the other thing that I said. My text suggests that-- Simple trust in God, in some measure, assimilates the protected to the Protector. The mountains girdle a mountain, and so my trust opens my heart to the entrance into my heart of something akin to God. As the Apostle Peter, in his brave way,…
464 wordsSECTION 323The Charge Of The Watchers In The Temple
'Behold, bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the House of the Lord. 2. Lift up your hands in the Sanctuary, and bless the Lord. 3. The Lord that made Heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion.'--PSALM cxxxiv. This psalm, the shortest but one in the whole Psalter, will be more intel…
655 wordsSECTION 324The Charge Of The Watchers In The Temple
Figure then, to yourselves, the band of white-robed priests gathered in the court of the Temple, their flashing torches touching pillar and angle with strange light, the city sunk in silence and sleep, and ere they part to their posts the chant rung in their ears:--'Bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord which …
813 wordsSECTION 325The Charge Of The Watchers In The Temple
It is not enough to patrol the Temple courts unless we 'lift up our hands to the sanctuary,' and with our hearts 'bless the Lord.' And all we who in any degree and any department are officially or semi-officially connected with the work of the Christian Church have very earnestly and especially to lay this to heart. We…
658 wordsSECTION 326The Charge Of The Watchers In The Temple
May we venture to draw from this interchange of counsel and benediction a simple lesson as to the best form in which mutual goodwill and friendship may express itself? It is by the interchange of stimulus to God's service and praise, and of grateful prayer. He is my best friend who stirs me up to make my whole life a s…
783 wordsSECTION 327The Charge Of The Watchers In The Temple
Observe, too, the channel through which God's blessings come--'out of Zion.' For the Jew, the fulness of divine glory dwelt between the Cherubim, and the richest of the divine blessings were bestowed on the waiting worshippers there, and no doubt it is still true that God dwells in Zion, and blesses men from thence. Th…
568 wordsSECTION 328God'S Scrutiny Longed For
'Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; 24. And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.'--PSALM cxxxix. 23, 24. This psalm begins with perhaps the grandest contemplation of the divine Omniscience that was ever put into words. It is easy to pour out platit…
782 wordsSECTION 329God'S Scrutiny Longed For
If, then, we have rightly conceived of our relation to Him, that infinite Lover of all our hearts, who looks, 'with other eyes than ours, and makes allowance for us all,' there will be a certain blessedness, almost like joy, in turning ourselves inside out before Him; and in feeling that every corner of our hearts lies…
712 wordsSECTION 330God'S Scrutiny Longed For
II. Next, there follows the longing for the divine testing of our thoughts. Now you will have observed, I suppose, that in the second clause of my text, 'try me, and know my thoughts' the result of the investigation is somewhat different from that of the previous clause. The 'searching' issued in a divine knowledge of…
695 wordsSECTION 331God'S Scrutiny Longed For
I have only time to observe here, in a word or two, what would well deserve more expanded treatment, and that is, the very striking and significant expression here employed for this evil way that the Psalmist desires to be detected, that it may be cast out. The word rendered 'wicked'--or more properly, wickedness--is l…
662 wordsSECTION 332The Incense Of Prayer
'Let my prayer be set forth before Thee as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.'--PSALM cxli. 2. The place which this psalm occupies in the Psalter, very near its end, makes it probable that it is considerably later in date than the prior portions of the collection. But the Psalmist, who …
699 wordsSECTION 333The Incense Of Prayer
Now, if we take these things with us, we can understand a little more of the depth and beauty of this prayer, and see how much it tells us of what we, as the priests of the most High God--which we are, if we are Christian people at all--ought to have in our censers. I need not dwell upon the careful and sedulous prepa…
857 wordsSECTION 334The Incense Of Prayer
You hear people talk of not caring about times and seasons of prayer, and of the beauty of making all life a prayer. Amen! I say so too. But depend upon it that there will never be devotion diffused through life unless there is devotion concentrated at points in the life. There must be reservoirs as well as pipes in or…
698 wordsSECTION 335The Prayer Of Prayers
Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy Cross I cling. 'Let the lifting of my hands be as the evening sacrifice'; as the Psalmist has it in another place, 'What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits?'--it is not a question of rendering, but 'I will _take_ the cup of salvation.' Taking is our truest worshi…
707 wordsSECTION 336The Prayer Of Prayers
Christianity is a revelation of truth, but to accept it as such is not enough. Christianity brings to me exemption from punishment, escape from hell, deliverance from condemnation and guilt, and by some of us, that is apt to be regarded as the whole Gospel; but pardon is only a means to an end. Christianity brings to u…
899 wordsSECTION 337The Prayer Of Prayers
That practical conformity to the will of God requires divine teaching, but yet that teaching must be no outward thing. It is not enough that we should have communicated to us, as from without, the clearest knowledge of what we ought to be. There must be more than that. Our Psalmist's prayer was a prophecy. He said, 'Te…
826 wordsSECTION 338The Prayer Of Prayers
And on the other hand, if we have taken Him for ours, and have the bond knit from our side as well as from His, then the fact of our faith gives us a claim on Him which He is sure to honour. The soul that can say, 'I have taken Thee for mine,' has a hold on God which God is only too glad to recognise and to vindicate. …
534 wordsSECTION 339The Satisfier Of All Desires
'Thou openest Thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing ... 19. He will fulfil the desire of them that fear Him: He also will hear their cry, and will save them.'--PSALM cxlv. 16, 19. You observe the recurrence, in these two verses, of the one emphatic word 'desire.' Its repetition evidently shows …
652 wordsSECTION 340The Satisfier Of All Desires
Now that is a very wide principle, and I do not believe that it is trusted enough by many. It comes to this--wherever you find in people a confidence which grows with their love of God, be sure that there is, somewhere or other in the universe of things, that which answers it. Take a case. If there was not a word in t…
807 wordsSECTION 341The Satisfier Of All Desires
Oh! then, is it not a foolish thing for us to worry and torture and sweat, in order to win for ourselves for a little while the uncertain possession of incomplete bliss? Would it not be wiser, instead of letting the current of our desires dribble itself away through a thousand channels in the sand and get lost, to gath…
744 wordsSECTION 342The Satisfier Of All Desires
Not only has He to give us Himself, and to discipline us in order to receive Him, but He has to put all His gifts which meet our deepest desires into a great storehouse. He does not open His hand and give us peace and righteousness, and growing knowledge of Himself, and closer union, and the other blessings of the Chri…
262 wordsSECTION 343*** End Of The Project Gutenberg Ebook Expositions Of Holy Scripture: Psalms ***
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144 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.