Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/spurgeon/ps10.4

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                           EXPOSITION.

        The proud boastings and lewd blessing of the wicked have
been received in evidence against him, and now his own face
confirms the accusation, and his empty closet cries aloud against
him. "_The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not
seek after God_." Proud hearts breed proud looks and stiff knees.
It is an admirable arrangement that the heart is often written on
the countenance, just as the motion of the wheels of a clock find
their record on its face. A brazen face and a broken heart never
go together. We are not quite sure that the Athenians were wise
when they ordained that men should be tried in the dark lest
their countenances should weigh with the judges; for there is
much more to be learned from the motions of the muscles of the
face than from the words of the lips. Honesty shines in the face,
but villainy peeps out at the eyes.

        See the effect of pride; it kept the man from seeking
God. It is hard to pray with a stiff neck and an unbending knee.
"_God is not in all his thoughts_:" he thought much, but he had
no thoughts for God. Amid heaps of chaff there was not a grain of
wheat. The only place where God is not is in the thoughts of the
wicked. This is a damning accusation; for where the God of heaven
is not, the Lord of hell is reigning and raging; and if God be
not in our thoughts, our thoughts will bring us to perdition.

              EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

        Verse 4.--"_The wicked, through the pride of his
countenance, will not seek after God_." He is judged a proud man
(without a jury sitting on him), who when condemned will not
submit, will not stoop so low as to accept of a pardon. I must
indeed correct myself, men are willing to be justified, but they
would have their duties to purchase their peace and the favour of
God. Thousands will die and be damned rather than they will have
a pardon upon the sole account of Christ's merits and obedience.
Oh, the cursed pride of the heart! When will men cease to be
wiser than God? to limit God? When will men be contented with
God's way of saving them by the blood of the everlasting
covenant? How dare men thus to prescribe to the infinitely wise
God? Is it not enough for thee that thy destruction is of
thyself? But must thy salvation be of thyself too? Is it not
enough that thou hast wounded thyself, but wilt thou die for
ever, rather than be beholden to a plaister of free grace? Wilt
be damned unless thou mayest be thine own Saviour? God is willing
("God so loved the world that he gave his only son "), art thou
so proud as that thou wilt not be beholden to God? Thou wilt
deserve, or have nothing. What shall I say? Poor thou art, and
yet proud; thou hast nothing but wretchedness and misery, and yet
thou art talking of a purchase. This is a provocation. "God
resisteth the proud," especially the spiritually proud. He that
is proud of his clothes and parentage, is not so contemptible in
God's eyes as he that is proud of his abilities, and so scorns to
submit to God's methods for his salvation by Christ, and by his
righteousness alone.--^Lewis Stuckley.

        Verse 4.--"_The wicked, through the pride of his
countenance, will not seek after God_." The pride of the wicked
is the principal reason why they will not seek after the
knowledge of God. This knowledge it prevents them from seeking in
various ways. In the first place, it renders God a disagreeable
object of contemplation to the wicked, and a knowledge of him as
undesirable. Pride consists in an unduly exalted opinion of one's
self. It is, therefore, impatient of a rival, hates a superior,
and cannot endure a master. In proportion as it prevails in the
heart, it makes us wish to see nothing above us, to acknowledge
no law but our own wills, to follow no rule but our own
inclinations. Thus it led Satan to rebel against his Creator, and
our first parents to desire to be as gods. Since such are the
effects of pride, it is evident that nothing call be more painful
to a proud heart than the thoughts of such a being as God; one
who is infinitely powerful, just and holy; who can neither be
resisted, deceived, nor deluded; who disposes, according to his
own sovereign pleasure, of all creatures and events; and who, in
an especial manner, hates pride, and is determined to abase and
punish it. Such a being pride can contemplate only with feelings
of dread, aversion, and abhorrence. It must look upon him as its
natural enemy, the great enemy, whom it has to fear. But the
knowledge of God directly tends to bring this infinite,
irrestible, irreconcilable enemy full to the view of the proud
man. It teaches him that he has a superior, a master, from whose
authority he cannot escape, whose power he cannot resist, and
whose will he must obey, or be crushed before him, and be
rendered miserable for ever. It shows him what he hates to see,
that, in despite of his opposition, God's counsel shall stand,
that he will do all his pleasure, and that in all things wherein
men deal proudly, God is above them. These truths torture the
proud un-humbled hearts of the wicked, and hence they hate that
knowledge of God which teaches these truths, and will not seek
it. On the contrary, they wish to remain ignorant of such a
being, and to banish all thoughts of him from their minds. With
this view, they neglect, pervert, or explain away those passages
of revelation which describe God's true character, and endeavour
to believe that he is altogether such a one as themselves.

        How foolish, how absurd, how ruinous, how blindly
destructive of its own object, does pride appear! By attempting
to soar, it only plunges itself in the mire; and while
endeavouring to erect for itself a throne, it undermines the
ground on which it stands, and digs its own grave. It plunged
Satan from heaven into hell; it banished our first parents from
paradise; and it will, in a similar manner, ruin all who indulge
in it. It keeps us in ignorance of God, shuts us out from his
favour, prevents us from resembling him, deprives us in this
world of all the honour and happiness which communion with him
would confer; and in the next, unless previously hated, repented
of, and renounced, will bar for ever against us the door of
heaven, and close upon us the gates of hell. O then, my friends,
beware, above all things, beware of pride! Beware, lest you
indulge it imperceptibly, for it is perhaps, of all sins, the
most secret, subtle, and insinuating.--^Edward Payson, D.D.,
1783-1827.

        Verse 4.--David speaks in Psalm 10 of great and potent
oppressors and politicians, who see none on earth greater than
themselves, none higher than they, and think therefore that they
may _impune_ prey upon the smaller, as beasts use to do; and in
the fourth verse this is made the root and ground of all, that
God is not in all his thoughts. "_The wicked, through the pride
of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all
his thoughts_." The words are diversely read, and all make for
this sense. Some read it, "No God in all his crafty presumptuous
purposes;" others, "All his thoughts are, there is no God." The
meaning whereof is not only that among the swarm and crowd of
thoughts that fill his mind, the thought of God is seldom to be
found, and comes not in among the rest, which yet is enough for
the purpose in hand; but further, that in all his projects and
plots, and consultations of his heart (the first reading of the
words intends), whereby he contrives and lays the plot, form, and
draught of all his actions, he never takes God or his will into
consideration or consultation, to square and frame all
accordingly, but proceeds and goes on in all, and carries on all
as if there were no God to be consulted with. He takes not him
along with him, no more than if he were no God; the thoughts of
him and his will sway him not. As you use to say, when a
combination of men leave out some one they should advise with,
that such a one is not of their counsel, is not in the plot; so
nor is God in their purposes and advisings, they do all without
him. But this is not all the meaning, but farther, all their
thought is, that there is no God. This is there made the bottom,
the foundation, the groundwork and reason of all their wicked
plots and injurious projects, and deceitful carriages and
proceedings, that seeing there is no God or power above them to
take notice of it, to regard or requite them, therefore they may
be bold to go on.--^Thomas Goodwin.

        Verse 4.--"_Of his countenance_." Which pride he carrieth
engraven in his very countenance and forehead, and makes it known
in all his carriages and gestures. "_Will not seek_," namely, he
contemneth all divine and human laws, he feareth not, respecteth
not God's judgments; he careth for nothing, so he may fulfil his
desires; enquires after, nor examines nothing; all things are
indifferent to him.--^John Diodati.

        Verse 4.--"_All his thoughts are, there is no God_;" thus
some read the passage. Seneca says, there are no atheists, though
there would be some; if any say there is no God, they lie; though
they say it in the day time, yet in the night when they are alone
they deny it; howsoever some desperately harden themselves, yet
if God doth but show himself terrible to them, they confess him.
Many of the heathens and others, have denied that there is a God,
yet when they were in distress, they did fall down and confess
him, as Diagoras, that grand atheist, when he was troubled with
the strangullion, acknowledged a deity which he had denied. These
kind of atheists I leave to the tender mercies of God, of which I
doubt it whether there be any for them.--^Richard Stock.

        Verse 4.--"_God is not in all his thoughts_." It is the
black work of an ungodly man or an atheist, that God is not in
all his thoughts. What comfort can be had in the being of God
without thinking of him with reverence and delight? A God
forgotten is as good as no God to us.--^Stephen Charnock.

        Verse 4.--Trifles possess us, but "_God is not in all our
thoughts_," seldom the sole object of them. We have durable
thoughts of transitory things, and flitting thoughts of a durable
and eternal good. The covenant of grace engageth the whole heart
to God, and bars anything else from engrossing it; but what
strangers are God and the souls of most men! Though we have the
knowledge of him by creation, yet he is for the most part an
unknown God in the relations wherein he stands to us, because a
God undelighted in. Hence it is, as one observes, that because we
observe not the ways of God's wisdom, conceive not of him in his
vast perfections, nor are stricken with an admiration of his
goodness, that we have fewer good sacred poems than of any other
kind. The wits of men hang the wing when they come to exercise
their reasons and fancies about God. Parts and strength are given
us, as well as corn and wine to the Israelites, for the service
of God, but those are consecrated to some cursed Baal, #Hos 2:8|.
Like Venus in the poet, we forsake heaven to follow some
Adonis.--^Stephen Charnock.

        Verses 4,5.--The world hath a spiritual fascination and
witchcraft, by which, where it hath once prevailed, men are
enchanted to an utter forgetfulness of themselves and God, and
being drunk with pleasures, they are easily engaged to a madness
and height of folly. Some, like foolish children, are made to
keep a great stir in the world for very trifles, for a vain show;
they think themselves great, honourable, excellent, and for this
make a great bustle, when the world hath not added one cubit to
their stature of real worth. Others are by this Circe transformed
into savage creatures, and act the part of lions and tigers.
Others, like swine, wallow in the lusts of uncleanness. Others
are unmanned, putting off all natural affections, care not who
they ride over, so they may rule over or be made great. Others
are taken with ridiculous frenzies, so that a man that stands in
the cool shade of a sedate composure would judge them out of
their wits. It would make a man admire to read of the frisks of
Caius Caligula, Xerxes, Alexander, and many others, who because
they were above many men, thought themselves above human nature.
They forgot they were born and must die, and did such things as
would have made them, but that their greatness overawed it, a
laughing-stock and common scorn to children. Neither must we
think that these were but some few or rare instances of worldly
intoxication, when the Scripture notes it as a general distemper
of all that bow down to worship this idol. They live "without God
in the world," saith the apostle, that is, they so carry it as if
there were no God to take notice of them to check them for their
madness. "_God is not in all his thoughts_." Verse #4|. "_The
judgments of God are far above out of his sight_;" he puffs at
his enemies (ver. #5|), and saith in his heart, he "_shall never
be moved_." Verse #6|. The whole Psalm describes the worldling as
a man that hath lost all his understanding, and is acting the
part of a frantic bedlam. What then can be a more fit engine for
the devil to work with than the pleasures of the world?--^Richard
Gilpin.

                       HINTS TO PREACHERS.

        Verse 4.--Pride the barrier in the way of conversion.

        Verse 4 (last clause).--Thoughts in which God is not,
weighed and condemned.