Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/online/mhcc21/v22150

Text File | 1994-03-02 | 11KB | 189 lines

22150
 * Thanksgiving for victory. (1-6) Confidence of further success.
 (7-13)

 #1-6 Happy the people whose king makes God's strength his
 confidence, and God's salvation his joy; who is pleased with all
 the advancements of God kingdom, and trusts God to support him
 in all he does for the service of it. All our blessings are
 blessings of goodness, and are owing, not to any merit of ours,
 but only to God's goodness. But when God's blessings come
 sooner, and prove richer than we imagine; when they are given
 before we prayed for them, before we were ready for them, nay,
 when we feared the contrary; then it may be truly said that he
 prevented, or went before us, with them. Nothing indeed
 prevented, or went before Christ, but to mankind never was any
 favour more preventing than our redemption by Christ. Thou hast
 made him to be a universal, everlasting blessing to the world,
 in whom the families of the earth are, and shall be blessed; and
 so thou hast made him exceeding glad with the countenance thou
 hast given to his undertaking, and to him in the prosecution of
 it. The Spirit of prophecy rises from what related to the king,
 to that which is peculiar to Christ; none other is blessed for
 ever, much less a blessing for ever.

22156
 #7-13 The psalmist teaches to look forward with faith, and hope,
 and prayer upon what God would further do. The success with
 which God blessed David, was a type of the total overthrow of
 all Christ's enemies. Those who might have had Christ to rule
 and save them, but rejected him and fought against him, shall
 find the remembrance of it a worm that dies not. God makes
 sinners willing by his grace, receives them to his favour, and
 delivers them from the wrath to come. May he exalt himself, by
 his all-powerful grace, in our hearts, destroying all the
 strong-holds of sin and Satan. How great should be our joy and
 praise to behold our Brother and Friend upon the throne, and for
 all the blessings we may expect from him! yet he delights in his
 exalted state, as enabling him to confer happiness and glory on
 poor sinners, who are taught to love and trust in him.
22163
 * Complaints of discouragement. (1-10) With prayer for
 deliverance. (11-21) Praises for mercies and redemption. (22-31)

 #1-10 The Spirit of Christ, which was in the prophets, testifies
 in this psalm, clearly and fully, the sufferings of Christ, and
 the glory that should follow. We have a sorrowful complaint of
 God's withdrawings. This may be applied to any child of God,
 pressed down, overwhelmed with grief and terror. Spiritual
 desertions are the saints' sorest afflictions; but even their
 complaint of these burdens is a sign of spiritual life, and
 spiritual senses exercised. To cry out, My God, why am I sick?
 why am I poor? savours of discontent and worldliness. But, "Why
 hast thou forsaken me?" is the language of a heart binding up
 its happiness in God's favour. This must be applied to Christ.
 In the first words of this complaint, he poured out his soul
 before God when he was upon the cross, #Mt 27:46|. Being truly
 man, Christ felt a natural unwillingness to pass through such
 great sorrows, yet his zeal and love prevailed. Christ declared
 the holiness of God, his heavenly Father, in his sharpest
 sufferings; nay, declared them to be a proof of it, for which he
 would be continually praised by his Israel, more than for all
 other deliverances they received. Never any that hoped in thee,
 were made ashamed of their hope; never any that sought thee,
 sought thee in vain. Here is a complaint of the contempt and
 reproach of men. The Saviour here spoke of the abject state to
 which he was reduced. The history of Christ's sufferings, and of
 his birth, explains this prophecy.
22173
 #11-21 In these verses we have Christ suffering, and Christ
 praying; by which we are directed to look for crosses, and to
 look up to God under them. The very manner of Christ's death is
 described, though not in use among the Jews. They pierced his
 hands and his feet, which were nailed to the accursed tree, and
 his whole body was left so to hang as to suffer the most severe
 pain and torture. His natural force failed, being wasted by the
 fire of Divine wrath preying upon his spirits. Who then can
 stand before God's anger? or who knows the power of it? The life
 of the sinner was forfeited, and the life of the Sacrifice must
 be the ransom for it. Our Lord Jesus was stripped, when he was
 crucified, that he might clothe us with the robe of his
 righteousness. Thus it was written, therefore thus it behoved
 Christ to suffer. Let all this confirm our faith in him as the
 true Messiah, and excite our love to him as the best of friends,
 who loved us, and suffered all this for us. Christ in his agony
 prayed, prayed earnestly, prayed that the cup might pass from
 him. When we cannot rejoice in God as our song, yet let us stay
 ourselves upon him as our strength; and take the comfort of
 spiritual supports, when we cannot have spiritual delights. He
 prays to be delivered from the Divine wrath. He that has
 delivered, doth deliver, and will do so. We should think upon
 the sufferings and resurrection of Christ, till we feel in our
 souls the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his
 sufferings.

22184
 #22-31 The Saviour now speaks as risen from the dead. The first
 words of the complaint were used by Christ himself upon the
 cross; the first words of the triumph are expressly applied to
 him, #Heb 2:12|. All our praises must refer to the work of
 redemption. The suffering of the Redeemer was graciously
 accepted as a full satisfaction for sin. Though it was offered
 for sinful men, the Father did not despise or abhor it for our
 sakes. This ought to be the matter of our thanksgiving. All
 humble, gracious souls should have a full satisfaction and
 happiness in him. Those that hunger and thirst after
 righteousness in Christ, shall not labour for that which
 satisfies not. Those that are much in praying, will be much in
 thanksgiving. Those that turn to God, will make conscience of
 worshipping before him. Let every tongue confess that he is
 Lord. High and low, rich and poor, bond and free, meet in
 Christ. Seeing we cannot keep alive our own souls, it is our
 wisdom, by obedient faith, to commit our souls to Christ, who is
 able to save and keep them alive for ever. A seed shall serve
 him. God will have a church in the world to the end of time.
 They shall be accounted to him for a generation; he will be the
 same to them that he was to those who went before them. His
 righteousness, and not any of their own, they shall declare to
 be the foundation of all their hopes, and the fountain of all
 their joys. Redemption by Christ is the Lord's own doing. Here
 we see the free love and compassion of God the Father, and of
 our Lord Jesus Christ, for us wretched sinners, as the source of
 all grace and consolation; the example we are to follow, the
 treatment as Christians we are to expect, and the conduct under
 it we are to adopt. Every lesson may here be learned that can
 profit the humbled soul. Let those who go about to establish
 their own righteousness inquire, why the beloved Son of God
 should thus suffer, if their own doings could atone for sin? Let
 the ungodly professor consider whether the Saviour thus honoured
 the Divine law, to purchase him the privilege of despising it.
 Let the careless take warning to flee from the wrath to come,
 and the trembling rest their hopes upon this merciful Redeemer.
 Let the tempted and distressed believer cheerfully expect a
 happy end of every trial.
22194
 * Confidence in God's grace and care.

 - "The Lord is my shepherd." In these words, the believer is
 taught to express his satisfaction in the care of the great
 Pastor of the universe, the Redeemer and Preserver of men. With
 joy he reflects that he has a shepherd, and that shepherd is
 Jehovah. A flock of sheep, gentle and harmless, feeding in
 verdant pastures, under the care of a skilful, watchful, and
 tender shepherd, forms an emblem of believers brought back to
 the Shepherd of their souls. The greatest abundance is but a dry
 pasture to a wicked man, who relishes in it only what pleases
 the senses; but to a godly man, who by faith tastes the goodness
 of God in all his enjoyments, though he has but little of the
 world, it is a green pasture. The Lord gives quiet and
 contentment in the mind, whatever the lot is. Are we blessed
 with the green pastures of the ordinances, let us not think it
 enough to pass through them, but let us abide in them. The
 consolations of the Holy Spirit are the still waters by which
 the saints are led; the streams which flow from the Fountain of
 living waters. Those only are led by the still waters of
 comfort, who walk in the paths of righteousness. The way of duty
 is the truly pleasant way. The work of righteousness in peace.
 In these paths we cannot walk, unless God lead us into them,
 and lead us on in them. Discontent and distrust proceed from
 unbelief; an unsteady walk is the consequence: let us then
 simply trust our Shepherd's care, and hearken to his voice. The
 valley of the shadow of death may denote the most severe and
 terrible affliction, or dark dispensation of providence, that
 the psalmist ever could come under. Between the part of the
 flock on earth and that which is gone to heaven, death lies like
 a dark valley that must be passed in going from one to the
 other. But even in this there are words which lessen the terror.
 It is but the shadow of death: the shadow of a serpent will not
 sting, nor the shadow of a sword kill. It is a valley, deep
 indeed, and dark, and miry; but valleys are often fruitful, and
 so is death itself fruitful of comforts to God's people. It is a
 walk through it: they shall not be lost in this valley, but get
 safe to the mountain on the other side. Death is a king of
 terrors, but not to the sheep of Christ. When they come to die,
 God will rebuke the enemy; he will guide them with his rod, and
 sustain them with his staff. There is enough in the gospel to
 comfort the saints when dying, and underneath them are the
 everlasting arms. The Lord's people feast at his table, upon the
 provisions of his love. Satan and wicked men are not able to
 destroy their comforts, while they are anointed with the Holy
 Spirit, and drink of the cup of salvation which is ever full.
 Past experience teaches believers to trust that the goodness and
 mercy of God will follow them all the days of their lives, and
 it is their desire and determination, to seek their happiness in
 the service of God here, and they hope to enjoy his love for
 ever in heaven. While here, the Lord can make any situation
 pleasant, by the anointing of his Spirit and the joys of his
 salvation. But those that would be satisfied with the blessings
 of his house, must keep close to the duties of it.