HOMILETICS. Vers. 1-8.-God with us. This psalm, which is so full of fine poetry, is also charged with spiritual suggestiveness, In the few verses of which it is composed, it brings before us the nearness of God to us, and the power he is exerting on us. '\Ve have- I. HIS DWELLING-PLACE IN us. "Judah was his sanctuary" (ver. 2). God dwelt in Judah in a sense in which he dwelt nowhere else. There was his manifested presence, and thither the tribes came up when they wanted to offer sacrifice, to make suppli- cation, to hold high and happy fellowship. It was the place of bis abode. Now God dwells not merely with, but in, his people. We are" the habitation of God through the Spirit." Our human hearts are his earthly home. To the pure, obedient, believing heart that seeks his presence (see Luke xi.13) God will come, and in that heart he will abide. "If any man love me ••• we will come unto him, and make our abode with him" (John xiv. 23). II. His INHERITANCE m us. "Israel was his dominion" (ver. 2). The kingdom of Israel, i.e. the people who dwelt within it, were God's inheritance (see Ps. xciv. 5; Jer. ii. 7). If God "rejoices in his works," in those things which be mnde and "pronounced good," much more does be rejoice in bis own children-in those who know, who worship, who trust, who love, who serve, him. More preciollS than all fruitful fields, than "all the cedars of Lebanon," is one human heart that, redeemed by his Son and renewed by his Spirit, reciprocates his Fatherly affection, is gladly subject . to his will, and labours heartily in bis cause. How great, then, is his inheritance in all bis people, in all those of every age and beneath every sky who ho.ve returned to him, and who aro rejoicing in him I Are we such, in spirit, in conversation, in life, that our God can find a part of his Divine heritage in m 1 Ill. His ENERGIZING PRESENCE. (Vers. 3-7.) What was it that moved the mountains, that rolled back the river, that made the waters of the sc,i to stand up like a wall? It was the operative presence of God himself; it wns tho working of the unseen bnnd. What is it now that makes the tides of the ocean to keep their time, the streo.ms and the rivers to fertilize the soil through which thev flow, the seed to gcr- minnte in the soil, the corn and the fruit to ripen in tbo sun? When we have reached tbe ultimate physical cause, we have not obtained the explanation that we seek. '\Vo come finally to the great fact of God's presence, of the energizing power which he supplies, without which there could be no life, no growth, no motion, no result. What the psalmist Fays in fine poetic language, our intelligent piety confirms; tbo answer to our questions How? and Whence? is this-The presence of the Lord," without whom nothing can be made that is made." "The Lord of hosts is with us;" "My Father worketh." IV. HIS CONVERTING POWER. (Ver. 8.) The "turnin~ of the rock into standing water" was a Divine, a wonderful action. But the spiritual and the supernatural are as Divine as the rnirncuro'us. Equally wonderful as, o.nd more gracious aud more benignant than, such physical transformation is the changing of the flinty heart into the water of penitence, intCI the fountain of piety and purity. God is doing d11ily, 53 THE BOOK OF PSALMS. tPB, OX.IV, 1-8,
through liis people, in his Chmches, that which "calls for lourlest son as of praise.'1 13ut this, his greatest work, is not on rock, or soil, or sea, or river; it i; on the hard tablet of the human heart, and on the sinful habits of the human life.