God's Hand at Evening
(No. 3290)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1912.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
FEBRUARY 15, 1866.
"Now the hand of the Lord was upon me in the evening." Ezekiel 33:22.
PERHAPS in the special senses in which Ezekiel uses this expression, we
shall not expect to feel "the hand of the Lord" upon us. God may not
call us to prophesy as Ezekiel did, although in the Scriptural use of
the word, "prophesy," the preacher of the Word is still called to
deliver the message which he has received from his Lord's lips. The
days of special visions and voices and prophesying have passed away,
but we can still say with Peter, "We have a more sure word of prophecy,
whereunto you do well that you take heed, as unto a light that shines
in a dark place, until the day dawns and the day star arise in your
hearts."
I think, however, that we may use our text with some profit in other
senses–"The hand of the Lord was upon me in the evening." So we will
enquire, first, what hand was this?Secondly, what time was this? And
then, thirdly, what teaching is there for us in this incident?
I. So first, let us ask, WHAT HAND WAS THIS? The answer is very clearly
stated in the text, "the hand of the Lord." We will examine this
expression, first, in its connection with the Lord's people, and then
in its relation to sinners in whom a gracious work is beginning.
First, then, looking at this expression in its connection with the
Lord's people, I remark that sometimes, "the hand of the Lord" is laid
very heavily upon them in chastisement. It is no unusual thing for a
child of God to say, "The hand of the Lord was upon me"–and often he
has not merely to add, "in the evening"–but he can truthfully say,
"All day long His hand has been heavily laid upon me." There are some
of God's children who are very frequently the subjects of His
chastening, and if any of you have come here smarting under the blows
of His rod, you must not murmur, for this is the treatment that is
meted out to all the rest of the Lord's family. It is through much
tribulation that they enter the Kingdom, so let not any one of us take
up the lamentation of Jeremiah, "I am the man that has seen affliction
by the rod of His wrath"–but let us all expect to follow in the
footsteps of the flock, well knowing that–
"The path of sorrow, and that path, alone, Leads to the land where
sorrow is unknown." Be not astonished, therefore, if "the hand of the
Lord" is laid upon you, thus, for, "if you endure chastening, God deals
with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chastens
not?" Yet while you feel the weight of God's hand upon you, never
forget that it is your Father'shand. Whatever form your trial may
take–whether it is the loss of a child or of a parent, or the
withdrawal of temporal prosperity, or the smiting of the body with
aches and pains–the rod is never in any hand but the paternal one and
even while the Father smites, He loves. Let this be your comfort, that
it is not the hand of an enemy that is upon you–you are not suffering
from a crushing blow from the foeman's mailed hand, but the stroke,
whether it is heavy or light, is wholly caused by your loving Father's
hand!
"The hand of the Lord" is also a humbling hand. When God lays His
afflicting hand upon us, He takes away much of our fancied beauty and
lets us see the ugliness of our natural deformity. We thought we were
very patient until we had need of patience–and then we found what a
murmuring, discontented spirit we had within us! Perhaps you, my
Brother, thought you were a strong Believer until your present trial
came. But now you have proved how feeble your faith really is. You
imagined that you were better than the rest of God's saints because you
could sing when they could only groan. But now you have hard work to
keep from groaning yourself! It is a blessed thing when the blows of
God's rod lay us low at our Father's feet. The safest option for all
children of God is to lie flat upon the Rock of Ages. With all the joy
and confidence that I trust we feel when we reflect upon our Lord's
promises and His solemn oath and Covenant, yet
when we think of our own imperfections and unfaithfulness, we are
compelled to bow very humbly before the Throne of Grace.
Turning to another side of the subject, let me say that there is no
reason why the hand of the Lord should not be upon us without our
having any particular trouble. When we have come up to God's House to
worship Him, I trust that we have often felt "the hand of the Lord"
upon us, pressing us down very low in a sense of our own weakness and
unwor-thiness. There are other things beside affliction that can humble
us beneath the mighty hand of God! When Peter's boat began to sink
because it was full of fish, Peter, too, went down and he cried to
Jesus, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." When we think
of all the Lord's goodness to us, we cry out, somewhat as David did,
"Who are we, O Lord, and what is our house, that You have done such
great things for us?" If we have "the hand of the Lord" upon us in this
sense, it will not crush us, nor drive us to despondency or death–it
will make us realize our own nothingness while it will also give us a
grateful sense of our Lord's loving kindness and condescension in
dealing so graciously with us!
Yet this humbling "hand of the Lord" is also at the same time an
uplifting hand. The Christian is often a riddle to himself–he cannot
understand how it is that the lower he sinks, the higher he rises! Then
he sings, with Dr. Watts–
"The more Your glories strike my eyes,
The humbler I shall lie.
Thus, while I sink, my joys shall rise
Immeasurably high!"
The truest joy is the joy of the creature in being made nothing that
God may be All-in-All–the joy of emptiness in receiving of the Divine
fullness–the joy of utter weakness laying hold upon the Divine
strength! Have you never, dear Friends, in the worship of God, felt His
hand gloriously bearing you aloft that not merely were worldly cares
forgotten, with all the things that concern time and sense, but you
seemed to forget that you were still in the body and that the body was
upon the earth? There have been times with some of us when "the hand of
the Lord" has been so blessedly upon us that He has seemed to open the
pearly gates and bid us enter! We have stood awe-stricken and yet full
of joy in the Presence of the Eternal, and we have worshipped Him with
cherubim and seraphim–and have anticipated the day when we shall join
the heavenly throng to go no more out forever! "The hand of the Lord"
when it is upon us thus is so uplifting that we feel as though the joys
of our spirit are more than our bodily frame can bear–and we cry with
the spouse– "Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am
love-sick." May we often feel this downcasting and yet uplifting power
of "the hand of the Lord" upon us!
Further, "the hand of the Lord" is a healing hand as well as a smiting
and wounding one. Whenever it is laid upon a poor troubled conscience,
it brings peace at once. There is no furrow in the brow which God's
finger cannot smooth away. There is no burden upon the shoulders which
God's hand cannot remove. Perhaps your heart was so heavy that you
thought you would never be able to rejoice again–yet the Lord did but
touch you and your depression was gone in a moment! There is an old
fiction about the touch of a royal hand curing disease, but the royal
hand of the King of kings really does what the other was only fabled to
do! Let Him but touch the suffering soul and healing comes at once. It
is useless for us to go to war with our besetting sins at our own
charge–but when the Lord stretches forth His hand against them, it is
another matter! Beloved friends may sometimes seek to set us right, yet
through their lack of wisdom they may only aggravate the evil. But when
God lays His hand upon the sin, drags it to the light, tries and
convicts it– and hangs it up to die–then are we most blessedly
delivered from it. If our besetting sin is a fiery temper, or a
slothful nature, or a strange temptation to some other evil, may "the
hand of the Lord" be so graciously upon us this evening that it shall
heal us even before we go to our homes!
The Lord's hand is also a strengthening hand to all His children. Let
Him but lay His hand upon you and then, as your days, so shall your
strength be. Isaiah trembled when he saw "the King, the Lord of Hosts,"
but one of the seraphim touched his lips with a live coal from the
Altar, and then, in answer to the Lord's question, "Whom, shall I send,
and who will go for Us?" he said, "Here am I; send me." So surely, when
God touches the lips with His finger, power goes into the messenger
whom He sends forth on His mission of mercy! Moses was very hesitant to
go as God's ambassador to Pharaoh–and among his many excuses he urged
that he was slow of speech, and of a slow tongue–but the Lord said to
him, "Who has made man's mouth?"–as much as to say, "He who made your
mouth knew what He was doing and He did not make a mistake when He gave
you a slow tongue! Go you in Hisstrength and you shall be mighty enough
to deliver His people out of the land of Egypt." God worked through the
weakness of Moses and so glorified Himself over the mighty Pharaoh. And
so shall it be with us, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, ministers,
Sunday school teachers, tract-distributor, or whatever you may be–if
"the hand of the Lord" shall be upon us, God shall be glorified in our
weakness
and we shall be mighty through Him, to the pulling down of strongholds.
Tarry in the Jerusalem of your prayer closet until you are endued with
power from on High, for, "they that wait upon the Lord shall remember
their strength"– and then in Hsname and in Hsmight go forth to the
service to which He has called you.
I may also add that, to many of you, "the hand of the Lord" is a
well-known hand. You have been receiving from it all your days. You
have gone to it thousands of times so that it has become very familiar
to you. And there is one mark in that hand which has made it especially
dear to you, for, "the hand of the Lord" from which you receive
everything is a nail-pierced hand, for it is the hand of the Man,
Christ Jesus, as well as the hand of the Almighty God! And hard by the
print of the nail is your own name, for He has said to you, "I have
engraved you upon the palms of My hands." When that Divine-Human hand,
once outstretched upon the Cross for our redemption, is laid upon us,
then do we rejoice with exceedingly great joy!
Now for a little while let us look at this expression in its relation
to sinners in whom a gracious work is beginning. And here I must remind
you that if "the hand of the Lord" is ever laid upon you, then it will
come, first, as a creating hand. It is the hand of God and that hand,
alone, which can create in you a clean heart and renew a right spirit
within you! Nothing but the Divine touch can ever make "a new creature
in Christ Jesus." If all the angels had united all their powers, they
could never have created a world and if all the ministers in the world
were to combine their efforts, they could never create a new creature
in Christ! Creation is the work of God, alone, so may He graciously lay
His hand upon you tonight! Though there is nothing in you for Him to
begin with, remember that He made the world out of nothing and He can
make a new man of you out of nothing. It is true that your whole being,
spiritually, is without form and void–and darkness is upon the face of
the deep–but He who brought order out of chaos and said, "Let there be
light," and there was light, can do the same for you! May you become a
new proof His creating power, so that the angels may sing over you as
they once did over a newly made world!
Yet let me tell you that wherever "the hand of the Lord" comes, it
always comes at first as a breaking hand! As soon as God's hand is laid
upon us, down go the images of our pride as Dagon fell upon his face
before the Ark of God! And our self-righteousness, our self-conceit,
our carnal confidence and everything else that is displeasing to the
Most High are dashed in pieces by the blows from His almighty hand! It
is a blessed thing to be put into God's mortar that He may pound us
with the pestle that He holds in His hand until He has crushed and
bruised us so as to bring us to self-despair– for then it will not be
long before that same blessed hand of His shall bind up what He has
broken and heal what he has wounded! It is His prerogative to say, "I
kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal: neither is there any that
can deliver out of My hand." If you could go to some eminent surgeon,
it would be a strong argument if you could say to him, "O Sir, I pray
you to heal me, for you did, yourself, cause this gaping wound! It was
by your sharp knife that this gash was made, so will you not bind it
up?" So go to God, Sinner, with that poor broken heart of yours, and
say to Him, "Lord, You did break it, will You not bind it up? You are
Jehovah-Rophi, will You not heal me?" You know how David prayed, " Make
me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which You have broken may
rejoice." God is a bone-breaker and He is also a bone-mender! He is
also a heartbreaker, yet He delights to bind up the hearts that He has
broken! So go to Him, Sinner, and ask Him to lay His hand upon you,
first breaking, and then binding up–first killing, and then making
alive!
Further, to sum up briefly, "the hand the Lord" is a receiving hand.
And if you go to Him, Sinner, He will receive you graciously and love
you freely! It is also an upholding hand, and it will hold you up so
that your feet shall not slip. It is an enriching hand, with which the
Lord will give generously to you both in Providence and in Grace. It is
a guiding hand with which the Lord shall direct your steps. And at last
it shall be an opening hand, with which the Lord shall open the gates
of Glory, that you may enter them to go no more out forever!
II. Our second question was to be WHAT TIME WAS THIS? "The hand of the
Lord was upon me in the evening." There is a congruity in meditating
upon this text in the evening, so let us think upon it for a while in
connection with our own inward experience.
And first, Beloved, when you and I have felt "the hand of the Lord"
upon us in the evening, I think it has come very seasonably to remind
us of the day's sin. Evening is a good time for casting up the sum of
the day–there ought to be set seasons for balancing our accounts. I am
afraid that most us are so busy that we neglect this important duty.
But it is well to devote a few minutes at night to review the day that
has gone by. Recall your actions, your words, your thoughts. Look at
your sins that you may repent of them. Look at your follies that you
may avoid them in the future. Look at your mistakes that you may not
fall into them again. As you turn over all these things in your evening
mediation, what a
blessed thing it is to feel "the hand of the Lord" upon you making your
conscience tender, not allowing you to play with sin as though it were
a trifle, but assuring you, by a gentle pressure, that all your sin is
put away through the great Atoning Sacrifice of Christ Jesus your Lord
and Savior!
It seems to me that evening is also a very blessed time for feelings of
gratitude. How many are God's thoughts concerning us during a single
day? When we rose this morning, I suppose that most, if not all of us,
found that our food and raiment had been provided for us. We have been
busy all day and have had just enough strength to get through our work.
We have been preserved, perhaps, in the midst of temptations to which
others have yielded. Where they have stumbled and fallen, we have been
graciously upheld! And now at evening we are thinking of the many
mercies which "the hand of the Lord" has bestowed upon us during the
day. If we are delivered from some accident, we say what a merciful
Providence it was that we escaped–yet we are apt to forget the
merciful Providence when there is no accident! I have heard of a father
who, in the days when there were no railways, needed to see his son who
lived a long way off. They agreed to meet at a place half-way between
their two houses. Each had to ride about 50 miles. And when they met,
the son said to his father, "I have had a very special Providence, for
my horse stumbled three times yet it did not fall." "Well," said the
father, "I also have had a very special Providence, for my horse did
not stumble once, all the way." This was quite as notable a Providence
as the son had experienced, but it is one that is often left unnoticed.
Our mercies which pass unobserved are probably ten times as numerous as
those which we perceive! It is well, therefore, at least at the close
of every day, to look back upon all the mercy that has been given to us
during the day–and to realize that "the hand of the Lord" is still
upon us in the evening, shielding us from all harm, guiding us in His
own good way and providing most generously for all our needs!
Evening is also a special reminder of the evening of life. We sometimes
say that we–
"Long for evening to undress, That we may rest with God"–
and to a Christian, dying is very much like going to bed. Being buried
is just having our clothes put away while we are asleep in Jesus.
Therefore, as evening is a reminder and type of dying, it is especially
appropriate for us, then, to feel "the hand of the Lord" upon us and to
realize that He has brought us there, to the margin of the river, and
that He says to us, "You will have to cross that river some day, so dip
your foot in it, now, and try to get used to dying." Paul wrote to the
Corinthians, "I die daily." He was rehearsing his part every day, so
that when the time came for him to actually die, he was fully prepared
and was not taken unawares. It would be well if we could hear one say,
"As I stood by my bedside, and took off my clothes, I felt that if I
were now called to put off my body, which is the clothing of my soul, I
couldn't do it with as much complacency as I removed my garments. And
when I laid my head upon my pillow and closed my eyes, I felt as easy
in the thought of that being my last sleep as I have felt when simply
going to my bed." If this is how we are able to talk, we may
confidently say, "The hand of the Lord lay upon me in the evening."
I like, too, the thought of this manifestation of God in the evening
because the evening is usually the quiet time that is specially suited
to meditation. The morning is the time for action. The day is the time
for work. But the evening is the time for mediation. It is well if we
then have the inclination as well as the opportunity for communing with
God, though I am afraid that our hearts are not always ready for this
high privilege even when the season is peculiarly favorable for it. May
you, dear Friends, feel "the hand of the Lord" upon you every
evening–and may you feel it very specially this evening! We are in the
midst of a most gracious work in this congregation. We began with
earnest prayer and we are now receiving the blessing that we have asked
at the Lord's hands. During the past week we have had a most blessed
fulfillment of that promise, "While they are yet speaking, I will
hear." While we have been asking the Lord to bless, He has been
blessing! And tonight we want again to feel "the hand of the Lord" upon
us. When the preacher feels the Lord's hand on him, there is no lack of
power or energy in his sermons! When the Deacons and Elders feel it,
there is no lack of attention to the duties of their important offices!
When the members feel it, there are no dull, lifeless Prayer Meetings!
And when any individual Christians feels it, his heart is made to burn
within him while his Master talks with him by the way. May it be so
with everyone of us!
III. Our third question was to be, WHAT TEACHING IS THERE FOR US IN
THIS INCIDENT?
The text seems to me to teach us, first, to look above man. Ezekiel
says, "The hand of the Lord was upon me"–not the hand of the king, nor
the hand of the priest–but the hand of the Lord! The first question
with many persons, when the service is over, very often is, "Well, how
did you like the minister." But really, dear Friends, that is a very
unimportant question–the vital matter is–Did you see Jesus as the
preacher sought to lift Him up before you? Was "the hand of the Lord"
upon you, pressing you down to the ground under the weight your many
sins and then setting you glorious-
ly at liberty by casting all your sins behind His back into the depths
of the sea to be remembered against you no more forever? That is the
chief business of our coming together in these great assemblies–that
we may be brought into real, close, personal contact with God and see
His power and His Glory in the sanctuary! As for the Preacher, he is of
no more account than the lad with the five barley loaves and two small
fishes! But if the Master will add His blessing, the multitudes shall
be fed spiritually even as the thousands were then fed literally–and
He shall have all the Glory! I pray you, dear Friends, never to be
content with a sermon unless it brings you into yet closer fellowship
with the Lord Jesus Christ and lifts your eyes above man unto Him to
whom you are bid to look!
Then, as you are to look above other men, much more are you to look
above yourselves. In one sense, it is hard work to keep a Christian's
eyes looking up. But in another sense, it is equally difficult to keep
them looking down. You may rake over the dunghills of your own
corruption to try to find something good, but you will only find what
Paul calls dung! But if you look up to the Most High, you will not
search in vain for treasures that will endure forever! If you will
persist in looking within, look there till you are tired and then do
not look any longer. One look at Jesus Christ will remunerate you far
better than 20 looks at yourself! No doubt there are certain marks and
evidences of the Christian life for which it is quite right to talk,
yet it is better to look at the marks of the Savior's wounds and to see
the evidences of God's Love manifested in the Person and work of His
well-beloved Son. It is much more profitable to look at the Creator
than at the creature. If you must bring self in at all, let it only be
as Ezekiel did when he said, "The hand of the Lord was upon me in the
evening."
This text should also encourage us to remember previous Divine
visitations. I suppose Ezekiel had often felt the hand of the Lord upon
him, but this time he recorded it. David called to remembrance former
manifestations of God's mercy when he wrote, "O my God, my soul is cast
down within me: therefore will I remember You from the land of Jordan,
and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar." Sailors keep a logbook in
which they enter the principal incidents of the voyage. And Christian,
you ought to keep a log of your voyage to Heaven! And you should
especially record the visitations of God to your soul. There may come
times when you will not have these visits and then, if you turn to your
diary, you will be able to call to remembrance the joyous seasons of
the past–and it will be a great comfort to you to recollect the
experiences you passed through on Mizar's hill and Hermon's mount.
There are certain occasions that some of us can never forget–and in
our dark hours we think of them and say, "Lord, by all that we have
felt in the past, we are assured that You will not let us go, but that
You will hold us fast to the end."
And to close, I think that this should encourage us in our darkening
hours to expect the Light of God's Presence. It was the evening, the
sun was going down, but the Sun of Righteousness was still shining upon
Ezekiel! The stars began to sparkle in the heavens, but the promises of
God were brighter still! The night was coming on, but the Prophet did
not dread it, for although he could not see his Lord's face, he could
feel his Lord's hand upon him! It is one of the enjoyments of faith to
walk with God in the dark. It is not the enjoyment of sight because it
comes in the evening when strength is declining, and life, itself, is
dying out. Ah, that evening will soon come to everyone of us when we
shall have to bid farewell to the fond pursuits of the day–that
"night" of which our Savior said that then, "no man can work." And when
that night comes on and we begin to feel its chilly dews settling upon
our dying brow. When the hoar-frost of death shall be upon every limb,
how blessed it shall be to have a bright and glowing lamp within our
soul which will owe none of its brilliance to sun or moon, but to the
Lord God who gives us the Light that shall last forever!
"At evening time it shall be light." In some parts of the world there
is no twilight–as soon as the sun sets, night follows immediately. But
here in England our long evenings are a great delight, and certainly so
is the long evening of a well spent life, when you have, to a great
extent, finished with the toil and turmoil of earthly service and your
soul has a blessed season of resting, as Bunyan's pilgrims had in the
land Beulah until the summons came for them to cross the river and go
into the Presence of the King. It will be a blessed thing to feel the
hand of the lord upon us in that evening! And whether it is long or
short, all will be well with all who are trusting in the Lord Jesus
Christ! Even though we have to pass through the Valley of the Shadow of
Death, we will fear no evil, for He will be with us. His rod and His
staff shall comfort us! And when we get to Heaven, we will tell the
angels that "the hand of the Lord" was upon us in the morning of our
days when we gave our young hearts to the Lord! That His hand was upon
us in the noontide of middle life while we were toiling for Him with
all our might! That His hand was upon us in the afternoon helping us
still to gather the precious grain into His garner, and that His hand
was upon us, as it was upon Ezekiel, in the evening! As the Lord God
walked in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day, so will He be with
us in the evening of our lives! And though we must go to bed and sleep
in the tomb, we shall awake in His likeness and then shall we be
satisfied–and His hand shall
still be upon us in the morning–that morning which will be to us
without mourning, that day which shall never have a night–that
blessedness which shall last forever! God grant that this may be the
portion of each one of us, for His dear Son's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM92.
Verse 1. It is a good thing to give thanks to the LORD, and to sing
praises to Your name, O Most High. It is good in itself. It is good for
those who hear it, but it is especially good for our own hearts to give
thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto the name of the Most
High. Sometimes when we are very heavy in spirit, if we would take care
not to defraud the Lord of the revenue of praise that is due Him, we
should find that the readiest way to bring comfort to ourselves is to
sing praises unto His holy name. Brother and Sisters in Christ, it is
not very notable work to praise God when all things go well with us–it
is far grander work to praise Him when everything seems to be against
us! It is because the nightingale sings by night that he has such
excellence among the birds. And if you and I can praise God in the
dark, then we shall find that it is a good thing for ourselves to give
thanks to the Lord and to sing praises unto the name of the Most High.
2. To show forth Your loving kindness in the morning, and Your
faithfulness every night [See Sermon #1138, Volume 19–
MORNING AND EVENING SONGS.] Begin the day by setting forth the
Lord's loving kindness. It was His loving kindness that watched over
you when you lay unconscious and defenseless and could not, therefore,
protect yourself. It was His loving kindness that drew wide the curtain
of the night, that touched your eyelids and awakened you out of that
sleep which was the image of death and bade you look out upon the
rising sun. Therefore take the key of the morning to open the day, and
let it be the golden key of praise! Show forth the Lord's loving
kindness in the morning.
And when night comes again, let us then sing of God's faithfulness. We
have experienced it through another day, let us praise Him for it. Now
we see how He has borne with us, pardoned us, preserved us, supplied
our needs and continued to educate us throughout another day. Let us,
therefore, praise and bless His holy name and so close the day and
commit ourselves to sleep again under His Divine protection.
3. Upon an instrument often strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the
harp with a solemn sound. Under the old dispensation, instrumental
music seemed more congruous than it does now with the spiritual worship
into which we have been introduced. If we must ever have instrumental
music in our worship, let it be the same–the very same as David had.
And then I, for one, though I should still think it we going back to
the old dispensation long since superseded, would put up with it! I
could never get much further than that, I think, for what instrument is
there that is equal to the human voice? What music can be compared with
it? All other sound is but the poor attempt of man to rival the
creation of his God–but the human voice is full of charming melodies
and harmonies! And if it is controlled by a true heart, there is
nothing like it even to our ears, while it seems to me that it must be
far more acceptable to God than the product of mere mechanism.
4. For You, LORD, have made me glad through Your work: I will triumph
in the works of Your hands. There is a blessed verse to come from the
heart and mind of a happy man who is praising God and who looks on all
the works of the Lord in Creation, Providence, and Redemption–and
makes them all the subject of his joyous song!
5. O LORD, how great are Your works! And Your thoughts are very deep.
There is little that we know of the thoughts of God except as we gather
them from His works or learn them from His Word, "for what man knows
the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so
the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God." It is by Divine
Revelation that we must know the thoughts of God–and the more we know
of them, the more shall we realize that they are very deep.
6. A brutish man knows not; neither does a fool understand this. He
looks at Nature and as he sees its varied operations. He observes
certain eternal laws, as he calls them, but he does not see the power
at the back of those laws which makes the laws potent for the
government of the world! No, he lives and walks where God has displayed
His power to the fullest, yet he fails to see Him! It would be a
strange proceeding for anyone to go into an artist's house and look at
his pictures and his sculptures and yet never to think of him–but this
is what the brutish man does with regard to the works of God, and with
regard to God Himself!
7. When the wicked spring as the grass–Numerous, fresh, vigorous–
7. And when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they
shall be destroyed forever That is the end to which they will surely
come, no matter how much they boast, nor how they grow and flourish
till they seem like the grass in the meadow, to cover everything so
that you can go nowhere without seeing them! Yet "they shall be
destroyed forever."
8. But You, LORD, are Most High forevermore. The Psalmist began by
calling the Lord, Most High, and now he says that He is "Most High
forevermore." Yes, this is our joy that God never passes away–He
abides forever. Myriads of the ungodly have come and gone. Empires of
wickedness have risen to great power and in due time have passed away
like dreams–but we can still say, with the Psalmist, "You, Lord, are
Most High forevermore."
9. 10. For, lo, Your enemies, O LORD, for, lo, Your enemies shall
perish as the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. But my horn have
You exalted like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh
oil [See Sermon #1649, Volume
28–FRESHNESS.] The Believer, though he is very weak in his own
consciousness, and utterly insignificant in his own esteem, shall
receive fresh power from God! And when the wicked melt away, he shall
grow stronger and stronger.
11. My eyes shall also see my desire on my enemies, and my ears shall
hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me. The translators
put in the words, my desire. In both cases they are printed in italics
to show that they are not in the original. No doubt the Psalmist means
that his eyes should see the end of his enemies and his ears should
hear of their total overthrow.
12. The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like
a cedar in Lebanon. The palm tree flourishes amidst the desert
sunshine, growing straight upright towards Heaven without a branch that
deviates to the right or the left and bearing its great masses of fruit
as near Heaven as ever it can! It is a fine type of Christian life and
growth and fruitfulness! A Christian should also be "like a cedar in
Lebanon," firmly rooted in his appointed place and defying the winter's
snows which threaten to bury him out of sight.
13. Those that are planted in the House of the LORD shall flourish in
the courts of our Lord. Like trees planted in the courtyard, screened
and protected, such are true Believers! God is their defense and they
are screened within the court of the Lord's House.
14. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat
and flourishing. When Christians decay, they shall still be fruitful.
They shall not feel as so many others do, that their age is a cure–it
shall be to them a blessing, ripening them for eternity, and it shall
be a blessing to all by whom they are surrounded.
15. To show that the LORD is upright: He is my rock. Can each one of
you say that concerning the Lord, "He is my rock, my foundation, my
refuge, my shelter"?
15. And there is no unrighteousness in Him. Say that when you have lost
the dearest one you ever knew! Say that when your property has melted
like the hoar frost in the morning. Say that when every bone in your
body is aching and some fell disease is hastening you to an early
grave! "There is no unrighteousness in Him." How long have you known
Him? If it is 70 years, or more than that, He has never been unfaithful
to you, nor allowed a single promise of His to fail! Write this down as
the testimony of the experience of all God's people, "There is no
unrighteousness in Him."