Like the twenty-second, twenty-third, and twenty-fourth Psalms, more effective in their grouping than even in their individuality, the ninetieth and ninety-first Psalms are fitted into each other with singular effect.

The first was undoubtedly written by Moses, and the second, most probably, by the same author. We know it has been attributed to a much later time by many, but the internal evidences and the imagery employed point strongly to the wilderness.

The ninetieth Psalm was the cry of his lonely heart, as for forty years Israel wandered in the trackless wilderness without a habitation or a home, until from that scene of desolation and death his heart turns to find rest in God, as he cries: “Lord, You have been our dwelling place [home] in all generations.”

But even this bright and blessed comfort seems almost lost in the dirge-like strains of the closing verses of the Psalm, as all his thoughts become absorbed in the scenes of depression and mortality that gather around him, so that the song becomes one long, sad wail. “You turn man to destruction.” “All our days are passed away in Your wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.”

But in the ninety-first Psalm, his lonely heart has found its home “in the secret place of the most High . . . under the shadow of the Almighty,” and beneath the covert of His shadowing wings. There is no doubt that all through this Psalm there is a reference to the Tabernacle in the wilderness. Its holy shrine within the veil and beneath the outspread wings of the cherubim is the secret place of the most High and the shadow of the Almighty where His Spirit dwells in holy fellowship and eternal security and rest.

Whoever was the author of this Psalm, we know who is its great end. We know where the secret place of the Most High and the shadow of the Almighty for us are found, even in the bosom of Jesus our abiding home. And we know also for whom it is intended, even for all who are in Him and longing to abide in Him. There are few of us who cannot claim it as our own Psalm, and record it as our testimony. May the Holy Spirit enlarge it to our thought once more, and make it as never before our living experience!

Let us look first at the names of God here given; secondly, His promises; and thirdly, their conditions.

I. THE NAMES OF GOD

There are four glorious names given to Him in this Psalm.

1. The Most High. This tells of His supremacy as sovereign Lord, above all authority and dominion and every name that is named. High as may be our difficulties, He is higher. Our enemies may be lofty, but He is above them. The place to which He bids us rise may be beyond our reach, but He is able to raise us to the loftiest heights of faith and hope. What can be too hard or too high for the Most High?

2. The Almighty. This is the glorious name He gave to Abraham and repeated to Moses, the Hebrew Shaddai. It tells of the God of infinite power and resources for which nothing is too hard. It is He who formed the worlds out of nothing. It is He who holds those mighty suns in their places, and whirls those countless systems on their orbits, and keeps in motion this mighty universe without disturbance. It is He who has shown His mighty power in the miracles of the Bible, in the destruction of Pharaoh’s host and Sennacherib’s army, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and in the conversion of the myriads who have passed from sin, white-robed and glorified, into the presence of His glory. It is He who is our Protector and our God.

3. Jehovah. This is the dearest of all names because it links them all with us. It means the covenant God. It means the God who is related to us, the God who is revealed in Jesus as the God of grace and mercy.

4. God. This, His absolute name, denotes His eternal Deity and infinite perfection. But the best of it is, He is my God. He is not an abstract God, far away, but He gives Himself to me, and permits me to call Him my very own, to possess Him, to use Him, to say He is mine. Oh, have we known His mighty name? He condescends to give to us these glorious names. He might have hidden Himself away in inscrutable, inaccessible majesty, but He has deigned to come down to meet us, to tell us about Himself, to reveal Himself by names that we can understand. Let us meet Him; let us respond to His love; let us “say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.”

II. HIS PROMISES

1. Protection from the wiles of temptation. “Surely he shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler.” We need first to be guarded from spiritual evil, and this is promised here even in its most subtle forms. The fowler is our great enemy, the devil, seeking to catch us like unwary little birds by his deceptive snares. But from these, the man who meets the conditions of this Psalm shall be guarded.

God will not allow us to be deceived. He is able to keep us from stumbling and to present us faultless. “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able.” Blessed promise! How much we need it! How insidious are the deceptions of the foe! How weak and foolish all our wisdom! But how secure are those whose life is hid with Christ!

2. Protection from physical ills. “From the noisome pestilence.” This undoubtedly denotes disease of every kind, for here the severest of all forms is mentioned — “the noisome pestilence.” And if we are promised exemption from this, it must include all lesser forms. This must, of course, be preceded by the other promise. We must be saved first from spiritual evil. But if we are, we shall be kept from physical evil. Both these promises are preceded by the most emphatic word in the Psalm, “surely.” It is God’s great Amen. It must have a very marked meaning. God foresaw all the professors, editors, and theologians who were going to write against the literal meaning of this blessed promise, and so He put this down and underscored it for all the ages, that no trembling soul need ever doubt or fear to take the Lord as a Sanctifier and Healer, and to expect to be kept in perfect peace and safety while humbly trusting in Him. Let us put our amen to God’s yes, and trust Him with all our heart for all our need.

3. His overshadowing presence. “He shall cover you with his feathers, and under his wings shall you trust.” Undoubtedly this refers in some sense to the mother bird as she broods over her little ones, covering them with her strong pinions and nestling them under her soft feathers. What a beautiful figure it is of God’s tenderness! Not only the strong wings, but the soft, downy feathers. Oh, that we may claim all that the figure means; and while He stretches out His mighty wings, let us nestle close to His bosom. There is a double sense here: “He shall cover,” but you shall trust. We are to meet His love as it comes to us. There is something in human hearts that needs caressing and comforting, and God is full of it. We need to nestle on His bosom, to be cherished and fondled. God loves to do it. “He will rejoice over you with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over you with singing.”

But there is another meaning in the figure, It refers undoubtedly to the cherubim in the holy of holies, those beautiful wings of gold that were spread out above the ark, between which shone the Shekinah glory representing the face of God, the smile of heaven. This is “the secret place of the most High.” These are the wings that cover us. The figure is even more complete when we include all that it contained, for still lower down beneath those wings was the covering lid of the ark, the mercy seat sprinkled with the blood which covered the sins of the people, and hid them from the eye that looked down from above. So that we are covered first by the blood, and then by the wings of God, while His countenance, full of light and love, beams down upon us from between the cherub wings.

4. He promises us victorious faith. “His truth shall be your shield and buckler.” The shield is the uniform type of faith in the Scriptures. The shield was made very large in ancient times and covered all the person, warding off the darts that came in front. So it represents that perfect trust that covers all our person from every attack of the enemy. This is God’s glorious gift. Christ is our shield, Christ is our faith.

But what about the buckler? Why, this shield might be lost; the hand that held it might let go; the blow of the enemy might strike it down; or the hand of the foe might wrest it from the bravest soldier and leave him unprotected. But the buckler could not be torn away. It was fastened on the arm, buckled to the wrist; it was part of the soldier. The buckler tells us of a faith we cannot lose. It is the faith of God, the Spirit of Christ within us, the Author and Finisher of our faith, establishing us immovably and making us “more than conquerors through him that loved us.” This is the promise. This is our privilege. Let us claim it.

5. Deliverance from fear. “You shall not be afraid of the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flies by day; nor for the pestilence that walks in darkness; nor for the destruction that wastes at noon day.” Fear is the worst of our calamities, and it brings many a calamity. But God can save us from fear and keep us from all alarm. “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.” “Whoso hearkens unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.” In God’s hands our future is safe, and He will let no evil harm us. Knowing that, we can be calm and free from care.

Fear also includes care, worry, and anxiety of every kind. To be saved from this is indeed a haven of rest. No one is truly saved from these cares until he enters into and abides in “the secret place of the most High.” This is the difference between the consecrated and the ordinary Christian; the latter is oppressed with a thousand cares and fears; the former can “be careful for nothing,” and have the peace of God which passes understanding to garrison his heart and mind in Christ Jesus.

The things mentioned here are very serious and terrible evils. The calamities in whose face the saint can look in the light of the Psalm without an alarm are no imaginary things: the terror, the pestilence, the arrow, the destruction. It is a time of awful pestilence and widespread desolation, but he is calm and trustful and can sing: “Therefore will not we fear though the earth be removed, though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.” Beloved, are you there? Is your future horizon without a cloud because it is covered by the light of His promise and His presence?

6. Safety amid all danger. “A thousand shall fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you. Only with your eyes shall you behold and see the reward of the wicked.” Not only are we free from fear, but we are saved from harm. The man or woman who is in the Master’s will cannot perish until his work is accomplished. How often God has carried His chosen ones through battles and oceans, tempests and wild beasts!

Look at the story of Jeremiah amid the last day of Jerusalem; of Arnot and Livingstone among the savages of Africa; of Paton among the murderous heathen of the New Hebrides ; of the Covenanters in their conventicles in Scotland; and of many another whom God has guarded amid a thousand deaths. Let us believe in our almighty God and fear not to step wherever He bids us, for we are far safer in the midst of dangers in His will than surrounded by every human precaution, but disobedient to Him.

7. Security from all real evil. “There shall no evil befall you, neither shall any plague come near your dwelling.” Literally in the Hebrew this means “any stroke.” It denotes the judgment of God’s displeasure; or a calamity such as often overtakes the wicked. The meaning is, that nothing shall overtake the trusting and abiding child of God which has real evil in it, or any element of the divine displeasure, or of actual harm. Troubles undoubtedly will come to him, but the evil will be taken out of them. The devil’s sting will not reach him. “That wicked one touches him not,” and God’s displeasure will never visit him, for He has sworn “I would not be wroth with you, nor rebuke you.”

Sorrow, indeed, is hard to bear when it comes with God’s anger and with Satan’s hate unguarded by heavenly love. But when we are conscious that the Master comes between us and everything that touches us, and that every trial that meets us is brought to us by our blessed Redeemer, and shorn of its evil by His love, then nothing can injure us or even discourage us; but up through every cloud we can look into His face and say: “Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,” and “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly,” and “Who is he that will harm you, if you be followers of that which is good?”

8. Angelic guardianship. “He shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. They shall bear you up in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone.”

The ministry of angels is too plainly revealed in the Old and New Testaments to need any demonstration, but it has not ceased. The vision of Jacob represents the angels as ascending and descending upon the son of man, and all through the Christian age they are busy still for God’s redeemed. “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” Were we to visit heaven today, we should find it, perhaps, emptied of angels, and all their myriads busy on this earth with God’s redeemed ones.

The annals of Christian biography have some very wonderful instances of angelic appearances, and we can scarcely doubt that they sometimes have become visible even since the apostolic age.

Not a single angel, but a camp of angels is represented as round about those who fear the Lord. Could we see the spiritual realm, we should behold armies of mighty beings all around us, and in the loneliest and most perilous places we should never fear. Sometimes we can almost hear the flutter of their wings and feel the touch of their interposing hands. They are never absent from us.

The devil forgot to quote this rightly when he repeated it to Christ in the wilderness. He left out this clause, “In all your ways.” His idea was that the angels would appear on some great occasion when Christ fell from the pinnacle of the temple, but the truth was the angels were just as near in the wilderness as they could have been in Jerusalem, and their presence even at that moment was between Christ and the arch-fiend.

“Always are they with us, and upon their hands shall they bear you up.” This is much more beautiful than the ordinary translation. Not “in their hands” as if they were carrying us; but “upon their hands” as if we were walking upon a pavement of angelic wings, or, rather, soaring in the heavenly places, up-borne by their mighty pinions. Oh, let us realize our heavenly escort, and go forth without fear to do our Master’s work and will.

9. Victory over Satan. “You shall tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shall you trample under feet.” These are figures of Satanic powers in their strength and malignity; but to the one who abides in Christ, they are all conquered foes, and it is our privilege to tread them beneath our feet and treat them as vanquished enemies.

Our Savior has given us the same promise in the New Testament. “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” We shall not be exempt from temptation, but we may keep temptation beneath our feet and not allow it to come even within touch of our heart. “He that is begotten of God keeps himself, and that wicked one touches him not.” This is our privilege in Christ, Let us fully claim it.

There is a suggestive thought in connection with “the young lion.” The right time to tread upon the lion is while he is young; meet the evil before it grows to importance; claim victory over the first assaults of temptation. Do not let the devil get headway even for a moment, and then shall we have no old lions to contend with. This is the secret of victory in the great conflicts, to be always on guard in the little skirmishes, and immediately triumph over the breath of temptation.

Beloved, shall we take our victory over the enemy? It is our privilege. Our Lord has triumphed, and in Him we are already raised up “far above all principality and power.” Let us keep them beneath our feet. Let us stand in Him triumphant, waving evermore the banner of victory as we cry, “Thanks be to God, which gives us the victory [always causes us to triumph in] through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

10. “I will set him on high.” This may mean earthly honor; certainly it means spiritual exaltation. It is the same promise which Isaiah so eloquently expresses: “He shall dwell on high: his place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks.” It is to dwell in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; it is to have the lofty and heavenly life. And by and by it shall reach the still higher sense of everlasting glory.

11. Answered prayer. “He shall call upon me, and I will answer him.” This is the privilege of those who dwell in the secret place. “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you.” God wants us to have our prayers answered. It is as much for His glory as it is for our blessing. He tells us that He has chosen and ordained us for this, that whatsoever we ask in the name of Jesus, we may receive. We may abide so near Him that we shall only ask what He wants to give, and therefore we shall never ask in vain if we catch His thought before we offer our petition.

This is a strange term to give this Psalm, but it is an appropriate and impressive one. The first verse of this Psalm is said to be the very center of the Old Testament. In their jealousy for the integrity of the sacred Scriptures, the Jews counted the chapters and verses so that they could tell how many chapters and verses there were in the whole Bible, and know at once if there had been any addition to, or subtraction from, the original Scriptures.

In the very center of these chapters and verses we find this sublime note of praise. Surely, this is not an accident. Surely, it fittingly expresses the great truth that praise is the true center of Christianity and the Christian life, the true pivot on which to hang our faith and hope and happiness and holiness. Surely, we shall have looked at this Psalm in vain if we learn from it nothing more than this, the high and fixed purpose that from this moment we shall make praise the very heart and center of our whole life.

What is faith but just such confidence in God that we can praise Him for what we desire? What is prayer but an ineffectual cry, until it reaches the spirit of praise and claims the answer which God cannot refuse to thanksgiving? It was when Paul and Silas ceased their praying and sang praises to God that the answer came from the rending earth and the responding heavens. This will turn every sorrow into joy, every cloud into sunshine, every hour into gladness, to say, no matter what meets us in the circumstances of life, “I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” This is the praise Psalm of the Bible. Let it be the pivot of our life and the keynote of our songs. Many reasons are given here why we should praise the Lord.

I. THE LORD HIMSELF

The first reason is found in the Lord Himself. Before any of His benefits are mentioned, or any causes for our thanksgiving are found in the circumstances of our life, he cries, “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.”

It is the Lord and His holy name that constitute our first, and last, and highest cause for praise. I sometimes have tried to realize the thought: What if there had been no God, no universe, no creature, no man, no time, no eternity, no being to call anything into being, forever and forever, forever and forever — nothing, nothing, and no possibility of anything. It is too terrible, and the brain sinks crushed beneath its awful weight. We are so glad to arouse ourselves from the hideous dream and realize that God is, as we cry, “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.”

But, again, how different God might have been! He might have been a God of stern justice, of awful majesty, without mercy, grace, or love. Suppose He had been such a being as some of earth’s cruel conquerors — a Nebuchadnezzar or a Nero — the embodiment of selfishness and power. We could not have resisted His will. But He could only have been to us a terror and an adversary. How we thank Him for what He is; that His nature and His name are love; that He delights in mercy; that He is slow to anger; that He is all that is lovely as well as all that is mighty, and again we cry, “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name.”

Again, He might have been all this and yet we never might have known Him. The millions of China know Him not. The savages of Africa know Him not. The devotees of Mohammedanism know Him not. Millions among us in Christian lands have never known Him. Why is it that we know Him? Only by His infinite grace that He has given us the light.

Oh, how much cause we have to praise Him! That He has revealed Himself to us; that He has given us the Bible; that He has given to us His Son; that He has given to us His Spirit; that He has cast our lot in Christian lands; that He has called us by His grace; that He has opened our eyes; that He is our God; that we know He loves us, cares for us; again we lift our hearts in the joyful song, “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.”

II. HIS BENEFITS

The next cause for praise is His benefits; His kind acts toward us; His gracious dealings with us even before our spiritual mercies are mentioned, and our salvation is referred to. The goodness of God, even apart from salvation, is wonderful. How much God has done for us in our natural life and in His works of creation and providence! How kind the hand that formed us! How differently He might have made us!

Oh, the manifold wisdom and love displayed even in the human body and mind, and the constitution of our social and domestic life! How easy it would have been for God to have made us without these exquisite senses, tastes, and capacities! Suppose He had made the heavens yellow and the earth red. Our eyes would have been strained with agony and bewildered with the harsh, strong colors. Instead, He has made the curtain above us a delicate blue, and the carpet beneath us a soft green, resting our organs of vision, and affording the most exquisite delight by their beauty.

Suppose He had made us without the sense of taste. We might have been nourished by our food, but we would not have enjoyed it. But He has given us these sensitive palates that recognize the delicious flavor of things, and then He has provided the objects that gratify them. He might have made all the food alike, but He has spread our table with a hundred bounties, each contributing some new pleasure to our physical senses, and He has made the sense of smell, with all the delicious odors of the garden and the air. And so He has adjusted us to the world around us and adjusted the world to us.

More exquisite still are the affections that He has placed within our breasts, and the objects of love, the ties of nature, the home bonds that meet them with such blessed objects of regard and link us one to another by the cords of love! Oh, as we think of all the thousand ways in which He has studied the happiness of His creatures, our hearts respond with the glad song, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.”

III. SALVATION

The third ground for praising God is salvation. “Who forgives all your iniquities.” This is the greatest blessing of all. Deeply as we realize it now, we never shall fully know what it means until that hour when we stand with Him amid the dissolving universe; and as we see the past from which we have been rescued, we shall send forth one shout of praise that shall reecho around the universe, “Salvation to our God which sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.”

“Who forgives all your iniquities.” It is in the present tense, and the most universal sense. It is not some of our iniquities, but all. It is not merely once that He forgave, but He still forgives, and He will forever. He is forgiving now, and He is waiting today to be gracious. His blood keeps cleansing us from all sin. “He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come [keep coming] unto God by him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them.” We never get beyond that blood. Even as of old they carried the blood of the sacrifice into the holiest of all and touched every article in the Tabernacle with it, so, still, the blood of Jesus Christ goes with us all the way, and in our deepest and highest experiences it is more and more precious to our souls. We never get beyond the cross.

It is not necessary that we should sin willfully, but the holiest saint has ten thousand shortcomings of which he is ever conscious, and needs and loves to bathe afresh in the precious blood, and wash his feet in the basin which the blessed Master still holds for the feet of all His travel-stained disciples. Never need we remain a moment under the power or dominion of sin. Ever may we freely come to the precious fountain and sing the glad refrain,

“They’re all taken away, away,
My sins are all taken away.”

Later in the Psalm, a very beautiful figure is added to express the completeness of our salvation. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” This is a more beautiful figure than even David understood.

We know in the light of modern science that the East is infinitely distant from the West. We may go north a while, but we shall soon come to the end of North; or if we begin to go south, we soon reach the end of the southern limit and begin to go north. But go eastward, and there is no transition line that you can cross and begin to move westward. It is east forever, and though you encircle the world a thousand times, you still are going east. And so it is with your journey westward, so that there is no place where East and West can meet. “So far has he removed our transgressions from us.” They are traveling eternally apart from us, and the longer we live, the farther apart will they go. So perfect, so eternal is His forgiveness.

IV. PHYSICAL BLESSING AND HEALING

The next ground of his thanksgiving is God’s physical blessing and healing of our diseases through His mercy and love. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, . . . who heals all your diseases.” This is expressed in the very same terms as salvation. It is as absolute. It is as present. It is as universal and complete. It is as divine. He heals. They who try to contradict it are foolishly taking the bread of life from their own lips, and making of none effect the grace and mercy of God which they might enjoy.

In the next clause the source of this healing is represented. It is through Christ’s redemption. “Who redeems your life from destruction.” It is through the blood of Calvary and the redeeming purchase of Christ’s atoning blood that this also comes to us. On the cross He bore our physical liabilities, and those who trust in Him are thus set free from the physical penalties of disease on account of sin.

There is still a higher phase of this precious truth brought out in this passage: “Your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” This is the quickening life of Christ in our mortal flesh, giving vitality and spring to the body; taking away the effects of age and infirmity; keeping us in youthful vigor when nature has become exhausted; and imparting to our frame the life and energy of our risen Lord as the source of our health and strength.

This is more than being healed of disease and redeemed from death. It is being quickened in the higher life and filled with the vigor and energy of our Lord. Oh, how we should bless the Lord for it! Those of us who have experienced it can never tell how much it means. Oh, the weariness and pains it has taken away; the dreadful nights and wearing days that it has changed to times of sweet repose and hours of joyful service! Oh, the spring and gladness that it has put into our existence! Oh, the power it has given us for service! Oh, how much it has added to the years of time, multiplying each hour and making it manifoldly more by the enriching of His strength and love! How precious it has made Him! How real He has become, so that every nerve cord understands Him, every organ enjoys Him, and every fibre of our flesh seems to sing: “Bless the Lord, O my soul; . . . who heals all your diseases; who redeems your life from destruction; who crowns you with loving-kindness and tender mercies; . . . so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”

V. DEEPER SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS

The next ground of gratitude to God is our deeper spiritual blessings and joys. “Who crowns you with loving-kindness and tender mercies; who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” This latter clause is unhappily translated. It is not “your mouth” but “your being.” It means the inmost being. It is not “good things” but, literally, “the good.” “Who satisfies your being with the good.” It is not possible to satisfy our deeper being with earthly things, with any thing.

It was a fool who said in his heart to his soul, “Soul, you have much goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” He tried to feed his soul on corn and wine, and barns, farms, and gain. But he was a fool. God told him so. The only thing that can meet the hunger of the heart is God Himself. It is He who is the good and who meets the need of the inmost being, satisfies it to the core. They that touch Him are conscious that they touch the center of our life; that He fills the inmost core of their being.

There is something in Christ that does meet our spirit’s utmost need. Put that flower away in the cellar, and it will get white and withered; bring it into the sun, and its whole organism will open up and absorb the light and life of that which is its god. So our being is made for Him, and He alone can fill it. There is not an instinct in your spirits, there is not a feeling in your heart, there is not a capacity in your mind, there is nothing in the little child, the maiden, the youth, the man, the woman, the sage, the poet, the artist, the loftiest or the lowliest intellect, but Christ can utterly satisfy. There is not a moment of our existence but may be spent in perfect rest and utter delight in His communion and blessing, and every fiber of our nature throb with the song of gladness: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, . . . who satisfies your being with the good” and who “crowns you with loving-kindness and tender mercies.”

VI. COVENANT RELATIONS TO ISRAEL

Next the Psalmist praises God for His covenant relations to Israel and His people. Amid all their changes, frailties, and failures, He has been their faithful God, and, like a father, has carried them, remembering their frailty, forgiving their sin, and keeping covenant with them that serve Him.

VII. HIS COMING

He finally praises God because of His kingdom and His coming. “The Lord has prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom rules over all.” Oh, how much cause we have to praise God for this! How glad I am that I am not king, but that God is on the throne, and that He is coming soon to reign over this revolted, disordered world. Things may look very strange and confused at times; someone else may seem to hold the reins, but bless the Lord, “The Lord sits king forever.” “The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice.”

And soon He will come again. Not forever shall wrong be triumphant and right be trampled upon. Not forever shall we weep and wait. He is coming soon with His kingdom and righteousness and peace, and with our robes and crowns. Let us rejoice because “The Lord has prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom [dominion] rules over all,” and “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Then the Psalm closes with the majestic peroration in which he calls upon the heavenly hosts, the universe, creation, and all the works of God to praise and magnify His glorious name.

What does this mean? Why, beloved, that you and I, His ransomed ones, are to lead the chorus of earth and heaven, and to sing a louder, sweeter song than angels in glory can ever know, or warbling bird or sweet songster of earth can ever sing. Could you and I enter heaven today, we would be astonished at its music. But, O beloved, there is something higher and nobler for you and me than even the songs of angels. God calls upon us here, not to listen to them, but to lead them, to rise above them, and to awake their harps to melodies they never knew before. The day is coming when, higher and nearer the throne than they, we shall give the keynote to the choruses of heaven, and they shall be glad to follow in the loud refrain.

Think, we can have a song they never can sing, of that redemption they have not needed and they have never shared.

And then it means still further, that as we go out among the works of God, which are full of praise and gladness, we shall be gladder than they. As we look in the sunshine, we are to shine with a radiance that the sun can never know. As we gaze upon the beauty and bloom of nature, we are to glorify God with a loveliness and with a radiance that earth can never wear. As we hear the hum of ten thousand insects, and the songs that warble from the branches of the summer woods, from the bursting throats of the little birds, and the thrilling melodies of nature, we are to praise Him whom they can never know as we know Him. He is our Father and our Friend.

Oh, is it ever so? Is it not often sadly, shamefully different? Have you gone out in this bright, glad world many a time with a shadowed face and a mournful spirit, with a dirge in every tone, and a groan in every breath? Why, the little birds upon the trees and the insects at your feet were reproving you to your face, and seeming to say, Praise the Lord. God forbid that they should have to awaken our songs! Rather does this glorious Psalm mean that we are to lead them in a chorus of praise; and, taking our place in the center of this universe, to strike the keynote of every strain, until, through heaven and earth, His redemption song shall ring, and roll away to the boundaries of immensity, a Hallelujah Chorus to Him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb.

This is the glorious picture that inspiration has given us in the Apocalypse of John. In the closing verses of the fifth chapter of Revelation, we find the redeemed in the very center of the throne. Around them, farther and farther out, are the circles of creation. First, the angels, and then the whole creation of God, to the utmost confines of the universe; and, as they strike the song that angels cannot sing: “You were slain, and have redeemed us to God, . . . and have made us unto our God kings and priests,” angels take up the chorus, the only chorus they can sing, and repeat the fourfold doxology: “Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.”

And then, further, our song is caught up by the whole creation, out and out, and on and on, from world to world, and then away

“Where worlds beyond the farthest star
That ever met the human eye
Catch the loud anthem from afar,
That rolls along immensity.”

until at last the outermost boundary of creation is reached, and then the tide rolls back to the throne. The waves of melody, like the reflux billows of the ocean, return; and as they reach the center once again, lo! the elders fall upon their faces before the throne, and the song is lost in silence; and the deepest, highest of all praise, and all worship, and all speech, and all thought, and all feeling, completes the great doxology — the silence that falls upon its face, and in the wordless praise of the Spirit’s deepest joy, worships God.

Beloved, this is to be our eternal employ, to lead the songs of heaven. Oh, let us learn it now.

This has been called by Luther the most beautiful of the Psalms. It is the picture of Christ upon His mediatorial throne. We have seen Him as the suffering Savior in the twenty-second Psalm; as the Shepherd in the twenty-third; as the risen and ascended Lord in the twenty-fourth and sixty-eighth Psalms. Now we see Him seated upon His throne in the one hundred and tenth Psalm, reigning over His mediatorial kingdom and exercising His holy priesthood as our Advocate with God.

I. THE PRIEST-KING

1. He is a divine King. “The Lord said unto my Lord.” He Himself is called Lord, not only by David, but by the eternal Father. We see two divine personalities here: “the Lord” and “my Lord.” This is not uncommon in the Old Testament, and a very dull eye can find in many places the evidence of the divine Trinity, even in the Hebrew Scriptures. How glad we are to know that our King is the Lord of heaven and earth, and nothing can be too hard for Him!

2. Back of Him there is another person as mighty and divine — the Father. There is a power behind the throne, even all the Godhead.

We read in Daniel of these two personalities: “The Ancient of Days” who came in the clouds of heaven, and “The Son of man” who came with Him, and to whom He gave the kingdom and a dominion which should never pass away. He can say, “All things that the Father has are mine” ; “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth”; and above all the rage of the heathen and the wrath of His enemies, “He that sits in the heavens” said, “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.” “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish from the way.”

3. He is ruling over a rebellious empire. He is not acknowledged. He is not as yet a millennial king as we see Him in other Psalms, seated upon a peaceful throne, but He is in the midst of a conflict, and waging the holy war of gospel dispensation against sin and Satan. But amid all opposition and conflict, he is calmly seated upon His throne, not dismayed or distracted by the violence of His foes, but “expecting until his enemies be made his footstool.” He is confident of victory. He sees ever before Him the issue; and while amid the smoke of the battle we may be often perplexed and discouraged, yet He is smiling calmly at our fears and waiting for the consummation of all His plans and all our hopes.

4. He is the King of Righteousness. The name of His glorious type, Melchizedek, suggests this. The two roots of the word signify “king” and “righteousness.” This does not merely mean that He is the righteous King, but it means especially that He is a King who dispenses righteousness to His followers and subjects. Other kings require righteousness from them, but His business is to give them righteousness, to make them holy, and just, and good. He takes them as a race of sinners, justifies them freely through His grace, and then imparts to them His own spirit and nature, and makes them partakers of His righteousness. It is His royal gift to us. Let us take it freely. He came “that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.”

5. He is the King of Peace. For Melchizedek was the King of Salem, which means peace. This is His next royal gift — peace. It is His great legacy. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.”

It is His royal benison to all His subjects. He is the Prince of Peace. They that follow Him find rest unto their souls and know the peace of God that passes all understanding. Has He given us His righteousness and His peace? Do we dwell with Him in the land of rest where “the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever”?

6. He is our Great High Priest. Not only does He rule over us, and for us, but stands between us and all our sins and their present and eternal consequences. He settles for us every question that can rise between us and God. He represents us in heaven in all our interests. He keeps our relations with God ever right. He secures for us the grace we need from moment to moment and day to day. He presents our petitions to the Father, taking out of them their faults and imperfections, correcting and directing them, and adding to them His own intercessions, mingling with them the incense of His perfect offering, and claiming acceptance for them through the merits of His own all-prevailing name.

Like the priests of old, He bears our names upon His shoulders in the place of strength, carrying all our burdens and bearing all our sorrows. Like Aaron, He bears our names upon His breast as well as on His shoulders, carrying us in the place of sympathy and love. “Seeing then that we have a great high priest” who is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities”; “who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way”; “let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Such is the picture of our great Priest-King.

His ancient type of Melchizedek stands in the record of the past like the great sphinx of the desert, a strange enigma.

The Apostle speaks of him almost as if he had no origin and no descent, but this may simply mean that we have no record of these, and that he is the same as though he came out of the darkness and went into the dimness of obscurity. Some have supposed that he was a divine person, the Son of God anticipating His incarnation, but we see no reason for this or proof of it. He was, doubtless, simply a human type of the divine Son of God.

He was the only one in the Old Testament who held both the office of a priest and a king. The Judges in some measure anticipated this: Eli ministering at the altar and also judging Israel; and Samuel, for a time, exercising both functions. But none of them could be called a king. Jesus holds both offices. He who rules us with His mighty scepter and holds our destinies in His hand, is the same who died for our sins, who intercedes for us at the Father’s side, and who ever lives to save us to the uttermost. Blessed King, faithful Priest, precious Savior — blessed be His glorious name forever!

II. HIS FOLLOWERS

“Your people shall be willing [a free-will offering] in the day of Your power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: You have the dew of Your youth.” This is the beautiful picture of the subjects of the glorious King.

1. They are freewill offerings. They are a consecrated people; they are not bound to Him by fetters of iron or forces of compulsion, but by a free, glad surrender of their hearts and sacrifice of their lives. They love Him, they delight to do His will, they have been conquered by His love. Their watchword is “Whose I am and whom I serve.” They are not their own, but are bought with a price. They have presented their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, their reasonable service. This is the condition of all full blessing in the kingdom of Christ. God gives all, and we give all.

Only as we freely give do we freely receive. A heart half consecrated can never be fully saved, or perfectly victorious and happy; but he who yields himself fully to God finds God as fully yielded to him. This is the true condition of all effective service. God does not ask our work first, but ourselves first, and then our service follows. He does not use hired servants or borrowed vessels. He owns His servants and puts His coat-of-arms on all the vessels of His house, and will use nothing fully until it becomes His and His alone.

I know a wealthy friend who desired at one time to adopt a child. The mother was unwilling to part with it permanently, but very glad to have it taken to the rich man’s home and educated and befriended. When it came to the point of surrendering it utterly, her heart naturally shrank and almost refused; but she was told that in no other way would he accept the child. The reason was that he wished to make it his heir and bestow upon it his great wealth. Then she saw the advantage of complete surrender, and in the highest love to the little one, she gave up her personal claims that it might receive a greater blessing than she in her poverty could ever give it. So God asks us to give ourselves utterly to Him, only because He wants to give us His all in return and make us the heirs of all His riches and joint-heirs with His own dear Son.

2. They are clothed in the beauty of holiness. They are not only a consecrated people but a holy people. Here we see the true spiritual order of our higher experiences and blessings. Consecration must come first and then sanctification. We can consecrate ourselves as freewill offerings. Then God sanctifies us and clothes us with the beauties of His holiness. The consecration is ours; the sanctification is His. It is with Christ’s robes that He covers us; with Christ’s virtues that He adorns us. Our holiness is as much His gift as our pardon. “To her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white; for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.” The bride receives her robe as the free gift of her Lord. She does not weave it and stitch it with her own weak hands, but she receives the seamless robe of her Lord in all its completeness, and puts on the Lord Jesus Himself as her sanctification and glory.

But here we read not only of holiness, but of the beauties of holiness. It is not merely a right character and life, but a lovely bearing, adorning the doctrine of God our Savior, and shedding luster upon our Christian profession and the name of our Lord.

We read not only of the garments that were clean, but of the garments that were bright or lustrous. Every housewife knows the difference between her clothes as she takes them from her clothesline and as she takes them from the laundry. They are clean when they leave the clothesline, but they are bright when they leave the laundry.

There is a stern and blameless righteousness which a man may live before the world and before the Lord, in which no fault can be found, and yet it may be as cold as the granite cliffs of some lone mountain peak. There is a sweet, soft, mellow, and beautiful holiness which is as different from the other as the lovely mountainside all covered with moss and flowers and fountains is different from the mountain peak. The life of Jesus was not stern virtue but sweet love. It was full of the beauty of holiness. How gentle, how tender, how thoughtful, how courteous, how unselfish, how refined, how delicate in its sensitiveness, how lofty, majestic, devoted, how transparent and sincere, how sweet and affectionate, how it attracted the little child, how it drew the poor sinner, how it fascinated the loftiest minds, how it satisfied the warmest hearts! Who can ever paint the beauties of Christ’s character, the little touches of loveliness that filled up His life, the thousand trifles that others neglect, and that constitute the fullness of His perfection?

Look at Him as a little child. What a perfect child, and yet how far beyond other children. Look at Him as He bows His head to receive the baptism of John that He may fulfill all righteousness. Look at Him as He takes the little child in His arms. Look at Him as He refuses to meet the gaze of the poor woman whom they brought to Him in her sin, lest He should hurt her sensitive feelings by looking into her eyes in the presence of those pitiless men. Look at Him as He anticipates Peter’s perplexity about the taxes at Capernaum, and sends him to find the gold in the mouth of the fish, even before he has time to speak of it. Look at Him as, with the towel around His waist, He bows at the disciples’ feet, the lowliest, yet the loftiest of them all.

Listen to Him as, with heart already anticipating the burden of the cross, He forgets His sorrow and tenderly says: “Let not your heart be troubled.” Listen as He speaks of His peace and joy even in that dark hour. See how perfectly human He is in His tears at Lazarus’ tomb, and in His sorrow in Gethsemane, and yet how perfectly yielded to the will of God. Look at Him in the bright morning of the resurrection with His glad “All hail!” and His shining joy. Look at that exquisite scene in the garden as He calls Mary by name. Look at Him as He gently suggests her sin to the woman of Samaria without telling it; and again, by one look breaks Peter’s heart without an upbraiding word, and then by that wonderful three-fold question by the Sea of Tiberias restores him again and suggests many things which He did not utter, but which the disciple could perfectly understand.

See the affectionateness that took Mary to His heart and John to His bosom, and on the cross of Calvary remembered the mother who bore Him, and consigned her to the care of the one whom He loved best. O incomparable Christ! How the faintest touches of the picture put our coarseness and incompleteness to shame, and make us long to hide beneath the folds of His vesture, and be covered with His perfect righteousness! And so He would have us like Himself, clothed with all the beauties of a holy life and character.

How minute are the little directions of the Holy Ghost about our spirit and conduct! How many little things are described in the Christian’s investiture! Not only the things that are honest and just and pure, but the things that are lovely and of good report. Here are some of them: courtesy, considerateness of others, sensitiveness to the feelings of one another, thinking no evil, rejoicing with them that rejoice, weeping with them that weep, condescending to men of low estate, in honor preferring one another, believing all things, hoping all things of the worst of men, rejoicing evermore, submitting one to another, and many more which the Holy Ghost has interwoven with almost every fiber of the Holy Scriptures, in little threads which make up the warp of holy living.

A great sculptor was once asked by his friend how he could linger so long over the marble statute which months before seemed complete to him, as he looked upon it. “Why,” said the sculptor, “I have touched every part of this figure in these months and changed the whole expression by a thousand little touches. Here an eye has received a deeper fullness, a lip a more sensitive expression, a nostril is more dilated, an eye-brow is more expressive. These may be trifles, but trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.”

Oh, that the old story might be translated into the holier art of Christian living, and that we might go forth robed in the beauties of holiness, not only wearing the linen of the saint but the wedding garment of the bride.

3. They are bright with the light of the morning, born “from the womb of the morning.” The truly consecrated and sanctified Christian is bright, joyous, radiant, and hopeful. Our light should shine before men. Our countenance should be radiant with the glory of God, and our whole bearing tell that we are the children of the light. The morning is the type of gladness, brightness, hopefulness. How different we feel after a night of rest and with the opening dawn! We lay down weary, jaded, perhaps exhausted, but we awake with such new strength and hopefulness that the tasks which yesterday depressed us today seem lighter than a feather, and we go out into life with zest and spring.

The Christian’s life may be an everlasting morning. We may ever have the privilege of beginning afresh and, “forgetting those things which are behind,” step out each moment into a new and eternal future of sunshine and blessing. Let our lives be more joyous, our spirits more like the morning. “Arise, shine; for your light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon you.” “Your sun shall no more go down; neither shall your moon withdraw itself: for the LORD shall be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended.”

4. They are fresh with the dew of His youth. The consecrated Christian knows what this means. It is a spirit of perpetual youth. It is a continual zest. It is a delightful freshness that keeps us watered and spontaneous in our spirit every moment. How soon the world ages, but the heart that is filled with Jesus is ever young. Holiness is the best preservative of youthfulness, freshness, sweetness, and joy.

It is possible to go through everything we touch with this spirit of springing freshness. It is not only for the hour of prayer and praise, and the mountain tops of holy ecstasy, but we can carry it through the drudgery of life, through the hum-drum, monotonous steps of toil, through the commonplace occupations of long days and hours, in the kitchen, the nursery, the crowded street, the noisy factory, at the office desk. We can keep the sweet fragrance of this heavenly blossom, not only amid the smoke and grime of earthly toil, but even amid the fumes of the pit itself. When the dragon breathes upon us with his fiery breath, and ten thousand shafts of temptation whirl around us, this sweet atmosphere will purify the air and fortify us against even the touch of the foe, and the very smell of the pit will be dispelled by the heavenly fragrance that we carry in our breast.

Not only will this exhilarate our hearts and freshen our spirits, but even our bodies will be kept in health and buoyancy and our physical strength renewed at the fountain of His immortal youth.

We must not forget the source of this. It is not in ourselves but in Him. It is not our youth, but His youth that refreshes and bedews us. It is only as we have the heart of Christ within us that we have the fountain of perpetual freshness. Christ is ever young. How beautiful the thought that Jesus ever remains the young man of thirty-three! He never grew old, and He never will. That glorious face that beamed upon Mary and Peter and John on the morning of the resurrection with His glad “All Hail!” remains forever the same, and He is willing to touch us with His freshness, and fill us with His immortal youth.

One of Wellington’s generals, it is said, came back to him for a moment just before setting out on a very difficult commission, to which his commander had appointed him. Reaching out his hand, he said: “General, let me grasp your hand before I go.” He took the hand of the chief. His face brightened; and as he dashed away, he said: “Now I feel able for my work since I have touched that conquering hand.” So each moment we can touch that conquering Hand that never lost a battle, that never relinquished a trust, that never grows weak or weary; and, strong in the strength of Christ, we can do all things hand in hand with Him.

Fresh from the dew of His youth. The figure of the dew is very suggestive. It comes at night. So out of our nights of darkness, sorrow, and waiting, come our mornings of refreshing and our days of victory. Again, it comes on quiet nights, never on stormy nights. And so, as we get before the Lord and hush our fretting and tumults, our thoughts and cares, and fears and plans, He fills us with His fullness and waters us with His refreshing. Again, the dew is always in the air; and we may always absorb it if we have the right temperature and spiritual condition to create it. The dew does not fall from heaven, but it gathers from the air around us. The old familiar illustration will stand repeating. The ice pitcher, on the warmest and sultriest day, in a moment is covered with crystal dew-drops. And so our Lord is ever around us in the very air we breathe. His freshness is ever within our reach if we will adjust ourselves to that presence. If we will grow cool and quiet and open our being to receive His life, He is ever ready to bedew us with His blessing, to fill us with His joy and peace and love, to send us forth the children of the morning, fresh with the dew of His youth.

The palm tree is the most glorious of all trees, with its waving branches and the precious clusters of fruit hanging from its laden boughs. But where does the palm tree grow? In the burning desert where the ground beneath is like consuming fire, and the air above as a heated oven. Whence does it draw its life? Just because of its situation the palm tree is provided with immense leaves, through all of whose pores the vapor of the air is absorbed, while its sensitive roots reach down to the hidden fountains and absorb from beneath the sand every particle of moisture that it can find. And so from the depths and heights it draws the life that sustains its glorious verdure and rich fruitfulness and makes it the queen of the vegetable creation. It is like unto him of whom the Oriental prophet has said with such truth and beauty: “He shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.”

Such is the blessed heritage of the children of the heavenly King. Such is the glorious recompense of entire consecration. Such is the reversion that comes to those who are willing to be a free-will offerings in the day of His power. Oh, let that day begin with some of us! Oh, let us make the full surrender now, and begin to follow Him in the glorious procession of the children of the morning, who, robed in the beauties of holiness and the bridal garments of the advent glory, already throbbing with the pulse-beats of immortal youth, are waiting for that glad day that shall bring us in fullness to that of which we are now permitted to enjoy the blessed foretaste and anticipation.

Chapter 14 — THE HALLEL — PSALM 118

This was Luther’s favorite Psalm. He says respecting it: “This is my Psalm which I love. Although the whole of the Psalms and the Scripture, which is my only consolation in life, are also dear to me, I have chosen this Psalm particularly to be called and to be mine; for it has often deserved my love, and helped me out of many deep distresses, when neither emperors, nor kings, nor the wise and prudent, nor the saints could have helped me.” Indeed, no better panorama of the great Reformer’s conflicts and victories can be found than these graphic verses. They “compassed me about: but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them. They compassed me about like bees; . . . for in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.” “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.”

But the Psalm has higher claims than those that associate it with the great Reformer.

It was the last Psalm of the Hebrew Hallel, the closing refrain of that great sacred oratorio which the Hebrews chanted at their great festivals, and it is most probable that it was the very hymn which Jesus sang as He went from the upper chamber to the Mount of Olives. It contains a summary of the whole work of redemption and the conflict and victory of Christ. Its Messianic character is established by the frequent references to it in the New Testament by Christ Himself and His apostles, and it is indeed a picture of His own inner life in the sufferings and conflicts of Calvary. Let us briefly glance at some of these expressions.

I. A PRELUDE OF PRAISE

The whole house of Israel is summoned to praise the Lord; then the house of Aaron; then the whole company of them that fear the Lord. They are called to praise Him because He is good, and because He is merciful, and His mercy endures forever. His goodness is the outflow of His love, and His mercy is the special direction of that love to the unworthy and sinful. But for His mercy His goodness never could reach us, an unworthy and fallen race. But His mercy endures forever, and even sinful men may rejoice in its fullness and claim its richest blessings.

II. A CONFESSION OF FAITH

It is the utterance of a trust that looks from man to God, from the highest princes and the mightiest human names to the Almighty Himself. God usually calls His people to the spirit of praise and of faith first, and then He lets the pressure of conflict fall upon us to prove the sincerity of our confession and the reality of our trust. And so, after these bold claims of faith and notes of praise, we have

III. THE PICTURE OF CONFLICT

It is a desperate conflict. It is the conflict of a soul with innumerable spiritual forces and malignant foes that seem like clouds of bees filling the air, and fiery thorns scorching him with their consuming breath. It is the conflict of Christ in the dark hour of His sorrow and suffering. It is the conflict of the great suffering hearts of brave, true men in all ages, during which the soldiers of faith have followed the great Captain of their salvation, and, like Him, been made perfect through suffering.

IV. THE SHOUT OF VICTORY

It is also the shout of victory. “The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous. . . . I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD.” It is the triumph of Jesus over death and the grave. It is the victorious shout of His Church militant as she follows in His triumph.

V. THE OPEN GATES

Next, we have the open gates of righteousness and salvation. “Open to me the gates of righteousness: I will go into them, and I will praise the LORD: This gate of the LORD into which the righteous shall enter.” This is a picture of an opened salvation through the Savior’s cross. This is the shout of accomplished redemption and full salvation. This is the cry of Stephen amid the pains of martyrdom: “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” This is the far-off echo of the sacred litany: “When You by the sharpness of death had borne our sins, You opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.”

VI. THE RESURRECTION DAY

The glorious resurrection day, and the day of grace. “This is the day which the LORD has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” This may well describe any day of glorious victory, but it especially refers to the resurrection day; to the day when Jesus burst the fetters of the tomb, and made for us the Lord’s Day forever the day of days, because it commemorates the greatest of all the facts of Christianity, the resurrection of the Lord. This is the cornerstone of our precious hopes. This is the foundation of the Church. This is the greatest principle of Christianity. The Lord is risen, and we are risen with Him.

VII. THE PENITENT’S PRAYER

“Save now, I beseech You, O LORD: O LORD, I beseech You, send now prosperity.” Literally this means Hosanna! This was the cry which became so familiar in the streets of Jerusalem, that the very children took it up and rang it out on the air as their little prayer to Jesus, in defiance of the hate of scribes and Pharisees.

In its place in the Psalm it describes the salvation of the Gospel as it follows in its natural order the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Oh, how often has this cry gone up during the Christian ages, and how often has it been answered by the love and mercy of God until Hosanna has been changed to Hallelujah!

VIII. THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH

“The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner.” This is a proverbial expression, but Christ Himself has applied it to His own rejection by man and His election by God as the cornerstone of the Church.

It is just as true of Christ’s people. “God has chosen the weak things of the world . . . and things which are despised.” The most beautiful window in Europe was made by a little apprentice boy with the thrown-away fragments of his master’s workshop. One day that master saw the wonderful mosaic of light and color which the little hands had wrought together; and when he learned who had made it, he took him in his arms and said, “You have surpassed your master and made for yourself an imperishable monument of genius out of worthless fragments.” So God is taking the world’s rejected ones, and, by and by, the universe will gaze upon the New Jerusalem with rapturous wonder as it shall shine above the glory of the sapphire and the ruby, the tints of the rainbow, and the light of a thousand suns.

IX. THE COMING OF THE LORD

The climax of all will be the coming of the Lord. “Blessed be he that comes in the name of the LORD.” Our Savior has given us the true application of this verse in His own solemn parting words to Jerusalem, after His sorrowful appeal to them for whom He so often had longed and labored. He said as He left the temple: “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, You shall not see me henceforth, until you shall say, Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord.”

We know when that day shall be, the day of His personal coming, and the return of His ancient people to their true Messiah. And so the verse is a promise of His advent. This is our blessed hope. This is the pole star of redemption. This is the future of Christian hope and aspiration. And this is the imminent, overshadowing reality for which hushed hearts are waiting today in all the Church of God.

X. THE ABIDING PLACE AND CONSECRATED SERVICE

The Psalm does not close without a picture of the deeper inner life of the saint. “We have blessed you out of the house of the LORD. God is the LORD, which has shown us light: bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.” Surely, this is the picture of consecration and union with God. This is the life into which redemption leads us. The language here is borrowed from the tabernacle. The house of the Lord is the inner abiding place. The light which God has shown us is the Shekinah glory that shines above the mercy seat. The sacrifice is that living consecration which we make as we enter in, and which, as we enter more closely in, we make more perfectly. Have we come into this sacred place? Do we know this abiding life? Are we dwelling under the shining of the Shekinah? Are we bound to the horns of the altar by the cords of love and self-surrender? Can we sing

“I have come with my guilt to the altar of God;
In the laver of cleansing I’m washed from my sin,
And now, to the innermost presence of God,
To the holy of holies I am entering in.

“In my blood-sprinkled robes I can stand without dread
Where the lamps of the Lord o’er the cherubim shine.
I am feasting my soul on the heavenly bread;
I am breathing the odors of incense divine.

“I have passed through the veil to that sacred abode
Where His glory the Savior reveals to His own,
And now, in the innermost presence of God,
I am dwelling forever with Jesus alone.”

Oh, it is not until we enter in that we know the fullness and blessedness of salvation. Looking at yonder tabernacle from the outside, it appeared a very common thing — an old tent covered with badger skins. But looking at it from within, it was resplendent with the dazzling glory of light and gold and gems of rarest beauty.

You cannot know Christ until you come into the bosom of His love. You cannot truly serve Him or bless others until you reach the center and can say, “We have blessed you out of the house of the LORD.” Then no sacrifice seems hard. Then you can say, “Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.” Then the life becomes a chorus of joy and praise, a glad, eternal Hallel, echoing evermore: “You are my God, and I will praise You: You are my God, I will exalt You. O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endures forever.”

We have called this the Pearl Psalm because it is the picture of the Church of Christ in unity, and this picture Christ has given to us in the New Testament in one of His most beautiful parables, under the image of the Pearl of Great Price. (Mat. 13: 45, 46.)

At first sight this may not seem to be a Messianic Psalm, for it tells of the Church rather than Christ. But what is the Church but the Body of Christ? He is only a Head without her; she constitutes His completeness; nor can we ever think of her unity apart from her living Head.

I. THE EXCELLENCY OF CHRISTIAN UNITY

“How good . . . it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” It is good. It is God’s great plan, not only for His Church, but for the universe. It is the end for which He has been working from the beginning. Far back in the past eternity He dwelt alone, the inaccessible and infinite Jehovah. Then from His hand there came this wondrous universe, these worlds of space that roll afar and cover yonder vast immensity.

But there was a void impassable between the Creator and the creature. The highest angel could not look across that mighty abyss. The distance was infinite.

But there was One who from the beginning was designed to be the Reconciler. It was the Son of God, and into this created universe He descended to gather together into one all things in Himself.

The Creator became the creature; the Invisible became incarnate. He took upon Himself the form of man, and then He came still nearer to dwell in the very hearts of men Himself. And now there is one Being who is the link that binds this mighty universe to its Creator, and upon yonder throne shall forever sit a Man who in His own person combines the infinite and transcendent glory of God with the form and face and spirit of one of Adam’s race. He and His glorious Church are the uniting links of the whole universe, and in Him all things are already being made one.

He has designed His glorious Church, therefore, to be the special expression of all the diversity in this universe combined in perfect unity. She is the microcosm of the universe and the reflection of God Himself. It is, therefore, His purpose for her that she might be made perfect in oneness, both with Him her glorious Head, and in all her parts and members.

This was His last command respecting her as He went away, that her members should love one another as He had loved them. This was the burden of His parting prayer as He stood at the entrance of the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of His agony, and prayed: “That they all may be one; as You, Father, are in me, and I in You, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that You have sent me.”

II. THE PLEASANTNESS OF CHRISTIAN UNITY

It is not only “good,” but it is “pleasant.” Nothing is sweeter than the joy of love; nothing is more bitter than the sting of hate; nothing is more keen than the anguish of separation. God’s own nature is love, and therefore it is blessedness; and if we would know His joy, we must rise to His love and live out of ourselves and for others. How happy the heart where love reigns supreme! How delightful the church where all the members love one another! How blessed the people that dwell in peace! How miserable the hearts that are ever indulging their bitterness, strife, jealousy, envy, and malignity! You may hurt others by the stings of passion, but you hurt yourselves much more. “How pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”

III. THE BLESSING THAT FOLLOWS

The blessing that follows Christian unity is described in the words, “For there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore.”

God’s special blessing attends His people when they dwell in love and walk in unity. He has promised to be with them as they walk in love.

1. He promises a blessing upon the soul that walks in love. You will be blessed yourself if you walk in unity, but

2. It will promote the blessing of others. It will create an atmosphere that will create spiritual growth. It is when the members are fitly framed together that they grow into an holy temple in the Lord. It is like the warm sunshine of May which brings out the fruits and flowers of the earth. The church which is bathed in the atmosphere of love will always be fragrant with the blossoms of Christian loveliness and usefulness.

3. It brings answers to our prayers. The prayer of unity has a peculiar promise. “If two of you shall agree [symphonize] on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.”

4. It will impress the unbelieving world. It is given by an infidel historian as the chief ground for the rapid progress of Christianity in the early centuries, that the Christians loved one another so tenderly and faithfully.

5. It will bring down the special gifts of the Holy Ghost. The heavenly Dove will only dwell in an atmosphere of love and peace. If the Church would only return to her primitive unity, she would soon be restored to her ancient power, and all the gifts of the Holy Ghost would crown the grace of love and bring the world to the feet of Jesus.

6. It will bring the blessing of salvation to sinners. The world is drawn to such an atmosphere, and lost men find it an attractive and congenial home. We must love them to Christ by the love we bear to one another and which overflows to them. Show me a church full of love, and I will show you a church which enjoys a perpetual revival.

IV. THE SOURCE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY

“It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments; as the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion.”

These two beautiful figures represent very distinctly:

1. The person of Jesus Christ, our Great High Priest, under the image of Aaron, and,

2. The Holy Ghost under the double image of the ointment and the dew. The oil falls on Aaron’s head and descends to the skirts of his garments. And so, the spirit of unity and love comes to us from Jesus Christ. He is the Head and the High Priest, and we, lying at His feet, receive the anointing and the Spirit that fell on Him. It is only as we are united to Christ and drink in His very own spirit that we can be filled with love. Our love is a poor, worthless thing. We must have His, and He is willing to give us the same anointing that fell on Him, and which reaches and rests on us.

We may have the very love that He had and the very Holy Ghost that baptized and filled Him.

It is our relation to Christ that fixes our relation to each other. It is when we are in Him that we can be one with others. It is a vain attempt to try to get into unity with men by touching them directly, and trying to arrange our creeds, plans, and human mechanisms. The true spirit is to be right with Him and near to Him, and then we shall touch all that are in Him as they touch Him.

But the figure also tells us of the Holy Ghost Himself. The sacred anointing that fell on Aaron’s head reached to the fringes of his robe. He is the Spirit of unity and love. The same Spirit that dwelt in Christ makes us all one in Him. Oh, if we were all baptized with the Holy Ghost, we should all be one. It is easy to get on with men and women who are filled with the Spirit. People half-filled with the Holy Ghost are very difficult to get on with. They have just enough to make them spiritually conceited, willful, sensitive, and critical, but the heart filled with the Holy Ghost is always simple, adjustable, free from self-will and angularities of every kind. You cannot hurt such a man because he is not there to hurt. The cloud has come in, and Moses has moved out. We may have this blessed Holy Ghost in all His fullness, as fully as He fell on the head of Jesus. All that is necessary is that we get down to the skirts of His garment; keep low enough, empty enough, open enough, and we shall be filled.

The figure of the dew is still more beautiful. The same dew that fell on lofty Hermon descended also on the little mountains of Zion. It tells us that the lowliest child of God can have the same grace that was given to the loftiest; that the humblest Christian may have the same spirit that made John the beloved and enabled Mary to pour the fragrant anointing on the Master’s head. This love is not our virtue, or the result of our struggles and endeavors, but it is the grace of Jesus and the very spirit of our Lord Himself shed abroad in us and enabling us to live in this world even as He.

V. SOME CONSIDERATIONS TO ENABLE US TO WALK IN UNITY

1. Let us determine and endeavor to walk in unity. Every victory must be won and every grace attained and established through a fixed purpose and a definite committal of ourselves to this. You can have from Christ whatever you will determine to have. The very strongest terms are used in the New Testament to express the importance of this purpose. We are to “follow after charity.” We are to endeavor “to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” As much as lies in us we are to “live peaceably with all men.” These terms express the most intense determination and the most eager pursuit of an object. The same eagerness with which the hunter pursues his prey, and the worldling his fortune, we are to show in the pursuit of love.

Some earnest Christians have found it most helpful to pledge that they will stand in the spirit of love, and let nothing offend them or break their unity. It would be a good thing if all who read these lines would, on their knees before God and in His strength, solemnly determine and pledge their word that they will never again willingly allow themselves to sin against love, or to break their unity of spirit toward any of God’s children.

2. It will help us to remember that we are always responsible for any breach of unity. Do not think of your brother’s fault, or say what he has done, but think of your place, and remember that if you keep right, it is impossible for others to strive with you. There are some men with whom you cannot quarrel. They are so gentle and loving they will not take offense. The next time some one tries you or wrongs you, do not begin to think what he has done, but rather what you are going to do. Keep your eyes off their fault, and think only of your duty and responsibility to keep in sweetness and victory.

3. Remember that God permits every test to come into your life, and that He is watching to see what you will do. He is glorified and pleased if you triumph with all longsuffering, gentleness and love; grieved and shamed if you lose your victory and give way to passion and temptation. Your Heavenly Father is using all these situations in life which come to you, to educate you for something higher; and the way in which you meet them is determining your own future position in His glorious kingdom. He wants a race of men and women who can walk in perfect love and triumph under all circumstances.

After all, the test of everything is love. The characters that will stand prominent in the ages to come are those who have overcome in this arena. Those who are offended with every trifling trouble now are not going to stand in the places of high honor and service in the ages of glory.

O beloved, remember, the next time some little trial meets you, that your heavenly Father is waiting to see what you will do, and whether you will be worthy of the crown and the place of glorious trust when He comes to reign with His saints. The Scotch housekeepers in the old times used to leave a broomstick across the hall when a new girl came to apply for a place in the family. They wished to see if she would pick it up or stumble over it, and her fate was decided by the way she met it. Beloved, do not be so foolish as to fall over a broomstick and miss a kingdom.

4. Remember also that the devil is waiting to see you slip and fall. These spaces above us are not empty. Myriads of eyes are gazing down; myriads are thronging yonder galleries, and many of them laugh with a fiendish joy when you are provoked to some thought or act of unkindness or bitterness. And if you could see the faces of yonder heavenly beings, you might behold a blush of shame as they hang their heads; and the Master turns away that He may not see the dishonor of His child. Yes, we are made a gazing stock to angels and principalities. Let us not please our foes by yielding to their wiles, but let us keep our victory and triumph in our love.

5. Think of others, not in the light of their faults and failures, but in the light of God’s promises for them, and as they will be some day when the grace of Christ has completed their sanctification, and they shine in all the glory of the ransomed. Anticipate their future as you do your own. Think of them with a love that “believes all things,” that “hopes all things,” and that clothes them with the qualities which they shall some day possess even if they do not now. To God this is everything. Time is nothing in His eye, which sweeps eternity, and sees you each moment as you will be when you shine like the sun in the kingdom of your Father. See your brother in the same light, and you will be able to walk in love.

6. Look at people as Christ looks at them; see them in the light of His love. They are dear to Him. He does not condemn them for every failure and reject them even for their most glaring faults; and if you have His heart toward them, you will be patient and gentle. Think how He looked on Peter; forgave the woman taken in her sin; spoke to Judas even in tenderness and love; and for His enemies prayed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

Think how long He overlooked your faults before you were even saved; always loving you for what you should be. Treat your brother with the heart of Christ and look upon him with the eyes of Jesus.

7. Ask God to sanctify your natural affections. Most of them are full of selfishness and constant provocations of envy, jealousy, and strife. You have inordinate and passionate loves that are purely earthly even if not immoral; and if you walk in heavenly love, you must have them crucified and purified, and exchanged for holy affections which are raised above all bitterness and strife, and characterized by peace, unselfishness, gentleness, forbearance, and all the fruits of the Spirit.

8. Above all else, if you would walk in unity, ask Christ to crucify you. The greatest enemy to love is self. Learn to look not on your own things, but on the things of others, and consider every moment not how this is going to affect you, but how it is going to affect your brother, and you will be kept in love and sweetness.

9. Keep the joy and sweetness of the Lord. A happy heart, full of Christ’s gladness, wants to make everybody else happy. It is when you are morose and gloomy that you feel like scowling at others and getting offended at everybody you meet. Ask God to give you His joy and to keep it full, and you will find it easy to love.

10. Take Christ’s love. He will put His own heart in you; He will enable you to love even as He loves. He who commanded it will make the command possible and enable you to realize it.

The torch of Christian love must be lighted at the flame of Christ’s own love. They tell us that on Easter morning, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, it is very beautiful, in the deep gloom, to see, suddenly, one flash of light appear in the tomb of Jesus. Instantly the song rings through the aisles and galleries, “The Lord is risen indeed!” And then that flash of light touches the torches in the hands of the priests, and, suddenly, all along the line of hundreds of white-robed men, the light shines in a great circle of glory, while the song echoes again and again, “The Lord is risen indeed!”

That single light from the open grave of Jesus lights all the torches. So from His heart must come the flame that will kindle our hearts to love Him. And so the oil that fell on His blessed head shall flow down to us as we lie at His feet covered by the skirts of His garments.

“Spirit of Love, upon us shed
The oil that fell on Aaron’s head
And bathed his holy feet.
Oh, let our hearts like censers glow!
Oh, let our love like incense flow
In fragrant odors sweet!”