Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/spurgeon/ps14.5

Text File | 1993-03-24 | 6KB | 111 lines

                           EXPOSITION.

        Oppressors have it not all their own way, they have their
fits of trembling and their appointed seasons of overthrow.
_There_--where they denied God and hectored against his people;
_there_--where they thought of peace and safety, they were made
to quail. "_There were they_"--these very loud-mouthed,
iron-handed, proud-hearted Nimrods and Herods, these heady,
high-minded sinners--"_there were they in great fear_." A panic
terror seized them: "they feared a fear," as the Hebrew puts it;
an undefinable, horrible, mysterious dread crept over them. The
most hardened of men have their periods when conscience casts
them into a cold sweat of alarm. As cowards are cruel, so all
cruel men are at heart cowards. The ghost of past sin is a
terrible spectre to haunt any man, and though unbelievers may
boast as loudly as they will, a sound is in their ears which
makes them ill at ease.

        "_For God is in the generation of the righteous_." This
makes the company of godly men so irksome to the wicked because
they perceive that God is with them. Shut their eyes as they may,
they cannot but perceive the image of God in the character of his
truly gracious people, nor can they fail to see that he works for
their deliverance Like Haman, they instinctively feel a trembling
when they see God's Mordecais. Even though the saint may be in a
mean position, mourning at the gate where the persecutor rejoices
in state, the sinner feels the influence of the believer's true
nobility and quails before it, for God is there. Let scoffers
beware, for they persecute the Lord Jesus when they molest his
people; the union is very close between God and his people, it
amounts to a mysterious indwelling, for God is in the generation
of the righteous.

              EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

        Verse 5.---"_There were they in great fear_." That we may
not mistake the meaning of the point, we must understand that
this faintheartedness and cowardliness doth not always come upon
presumptuous sinners when they behold imminent dangers, for
though none of them have true courage and fortitude, yet many of
them have a kind of desperate stoutness and resolution when they
do, as it were, see death present before their faces; which
proceedeth from a kind of deadness that is upon their hearts, and
a brawniness that hath overgrown their conscience to their
greater condemnation. But when it pleaseth the Lord to waken them
out of the dead slumber, and to set the worm of conscience awork
within them, then this doctrine holdeth true without any
exception, that the boldest sinners prove at length the basest
cowards: and they that have been most audacious in adventuring
upon the most mischievous evils, do become of all others most
timorous when God's revenging hand seizeth upon them for the
same.--^John Dod, 1547-1645.

        Verse 5.--"_God is in the generation of the righteous_;"
that is, he favours that generation or sort of men; God is in all
generations, but such he delights in most: the wicked have cause
enough to fear those in whom God delights.--^Joseph Caryl.

        Verse 5.--The King of Glory cannot come into the heart
(as he is said to come into the hearts of his people as such;
#Ps 24:9,10|), but some glory of himself will appear; and as God
doth accompany the word with majesty because it is his word, so
he doth accompany his own children, and their ways, with majesty,
yea, even in their greatest debasements. As when Stephen was
brought before the council as a prisoner at the bar for his life,
then God manifested his presence to him, for it is said, "his
face shone as the face of an angel of God." (#Ac 6:15|); in a
proportionable manner it is ordinarily true what Solomon says of
all righteous men, "A man's wisdom makes his face to shine." #Ec
8:1|. Thus Peter also speaks (#1Pe 4:14|): "If you be reproached
for the name of Christ, happy are you, for the Spirit," not only
of God, or of grace, but "of glory, resteth upon you." And so in
the martyrs; their innocency and carriage, and godly behaviour,
what majesty had it with it! What an amiableness in the sight of
the people, which daunted, dashed and confounded their most
wretched oppressors; so that although the wicked persecutors
"_did eat up God's people as bread_" (verse #4|), yet it is added
that they were in great fear upon this very account, that "God is
in the generation of the just." Verse #5|. God stands, as it
were, astonished at their dealings: "_Have the workers of
iniquity no knowledge_," (so in the words afore) "_that eat up my
people as bread_," and make no more ado of it than a man doth
that heartily eats of his meat? They seem to do thus, they would
carry it and bear it out; but for all that they are in great fear
whilst they do thus, and God strikes their hearts with terror
then when they most insult. Why? For, "_God is in the generation
of, or dwelleth in the just_," and God gives often some
glimmerings, hints, and warnings to the wicked (such as Pilate
had concerning Christ), that his people are righteous. And this
you may see in #Php 1:28|: "And in nothing terrified by your
adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition, but
to you of salvation, and that of God." In that latter passage, I
observe that an assurance of salvation, and a spirit of terror,
and that of God, is given to either. In the Old Testament it is
recorded of David (#1Sa 18:12|), that although Saul hated him
(verse #1Sa 18:9|), and sought to destroy him (verses #1Sa
18:10,11|), "yet Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was
with him, and was departed from Saul;" which is the reason in
hand. God manifested his presence in David, and struck Saul's
conscience with his godly and wise carriage, and that made him
afraid.--^Thomas Goodwin.

                       HINTS TO PREACHERS.

        Verse 5.--The foolish fears of those who have no fear of
God.

        Verse 5.--The Lord's nearness to the righteous, its
consequences to the persecutor, and its encouragement to saints.