Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/spurgeon/ps5.4

Text File | 1993-03-16 | 10KB | 181 lines

                           EXPOSITION.

        And now the Psalmist having thus expressed his resolution
to pray, you hear him putting up his prayer. He is pleading
against his cruel and wicked enemies. He uses a most mighty
argument. He begs of God to put them away from him, because they
were displeasing to God himself. "_For thou art not a God that
hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with
thee_." "When I pray against my tempters," says David, "I pray
against the very things which thou thyself abhorrest." _Thou_
hatest evil: Lord, I beseech thee, deliver _me_ from it!

        Let us learn here the solemn truth of the hatred which a
righteous God must bear towards sin. _He has no pleasure in
wickedness_, however wittily, grandly, and proudly it may array
itself. Its glitter has no charm for him. Men may bow before the
successful villainy, and forget the wickedness of the battle in
the gaudiness of the triumph, but the Lord of Holiness is not
such-an-one as we are. "_Neither shall evil dwell with thee_." He
will not afford it the meanest shelter. Neither on earth nor in
heaven shall evil share the mansion of God. Oh, how foolish are
we if we attempt to entertain two guests so hostile to one
another as Christ Jesus and the devil! Rest assured, Christ will
not live in the parlour of our hearts if we entertain the devil
in the cellar of our thoughts. "_The foolish shall not stand in
thy sight_." sinners are fools written large. A little sin is a
great folly, and the greatest of all folly is great sin. Such
sinful fools as these must be banished from the court of heaven.
Earthly kings were wont to have fools in their trains, but the
only wise God will have no fools in his palace above. "_Thou
hatest all workers of iniquity_." It is not a little dislike, but
a thorough hatred which God bears to workers of iniquity. To be
hated of God is an awful thing. O let us be very faithful in
warning the wicked around us, for it will be a terrible thing for
them to fall into the hands of an angry God! Observe, that evil
speakers must be punished as well as evil workers, for "_thou
shalt destroy them that speak leasing." All liars shall have
their portion in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.
A man may lie without danger of the law of man, but he will not
escape the law of God. Liars have short wings, their flight shall
soon be over, and they shall fall into the fiery floods of
destruction. "_The Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful
man_." Bloody men shall be made drunk with their own blood, and
they who began by deceiving others shall end with being deceived
themselves. Our old proverb saith, "Bloody and deceitful men dig
their own graves." The voice of the people is in this instance
the voice of God. How forcible is the word _abhor_! Does it not
show us how powerful and deep-seated is the hatred of the Lord
against the workers of iniquity?

              EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

        Verse 4.--"_Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in
wickedness_." As a man that cutteth with a dull knife is the
cause of cutting, but not, of the ill-cutting and hacking of the
knife--the knife is the cause of that; or if a man strike upon an
instrument that is out of tune, he is the cause of the sound, but
not of the jarring sound--that is the fault of the untuned
strings; or, as a man riding upon a lame horse, stirs him--the
man is the cause of the motion, but the horse himself of the
halting motion: thus God is the author of every action, but not
of the evil of that action--that is from man. He that makes
instruments and tools of iron or other metal, he maketh not the
rust and canker which corrupteth them, that is from another
cause; nor doth that heavenly workman, God Almighty, bring in sin
and iniquity; nor can he be justly blamed if his creatures do
soil and besmear themselves with the foulness of sin, for he made
them good.--^Spencer's Things New and Old.

        Verses 4-6.--Here the Lord's alienation from the wicked
is set forth gradually, and seems to rise by six steps. First,
_he hath no pleasure in them_; secondly, _they shall not dwell
with them_; thirdly, he casteth them forth, _they shall not stand
in his sight_; fourthly, his heart turns from them, _thou hatest
all the workers of iniquity_; fifthly, his hand is turned upon
them, _thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing_; sixthly, his
spirit riseth against them, and is alienated from them, _the Lord
will abhor the bloody man_. This estrangement is indeed a
_strange_ (yet a certain) _punishment to "the workers of
iniquity_." These words, "_the workers of iniquity_," may be
considered two ways. First, as intending (not all degrees of
sinners, or sinners of every degree, but) the highest degree of
sinners, great, and gross sinners, resolved and wilful sinners.
Such as sin industriously, and, as it were, artificially, with
skill and care to get themselves a name, as if they had an
ambition to be accounted _workmen_ that need not be ashamed in
doing that whereof all ought to be ashamed; these, in strictness
of Scripture sense, are "_workers of iniquity_." Hence note,
_notorious sinners made sin their business, or their trade_.
Though every sin be work of iniquity, yet only some sinners are
"_workers of iniquity_;" and they who are called so, make it
their calling to sin. We read of some _who love and make a lie_.
#Re 22:15|. A lie may be told by those who neither love nor make
it; but there are lie-makers, and they, sure enough, are lovers
of a lie. Such craftsmen in sinning are also described in #Ps
58:2|.--"Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence
of your hands in the earth." The psalmist doth not say, they had
wickedness in their heart, but they did work it there; _the heart
is a shop within, an underground shop_; there they did closely
contrive, forge, and hammer out their wicked purposes, and fit
them into actions.--^Joseph Caryl.

        Verse 5.--What an astonishing thing is sin, which maketh
the God of love and Father of mercies an enemy to his creatures,
and which could only be purged by the blood of the Son of God!
Though all must believe this who believe the Bible, yet the
exceeding sinfulness of sin is but weakly apprehended by those
who have the deepest sense of it, and will never be fully known
in this world.--^Thomas Adam's Private Thoughts, 1701-1784.

        Verse 5 (last clause).--"_Thou hatest all workers of
iniquity_." For what God thinks of sin, see #De 7:22; Pr 6:16; Re
2:6,15|; where he expresseth his detestation and hatred of it,
from which hatred proceeds all those direful plagues and
judgments thundered from the fiery mouth of his most holy law
against it; nay, not only the work, but worker also of iniquity
becomes the object of his hatred. ^William Gurnall.

        Verse 5 (last clause).--"Thou hatest all workers of
iniquity." If God's hatred be against the workers of iniquity,
how great is it against iniquity itself! If a man hate a
poisonous creature, he hates poison much more. The strength of
God's hatred is against sin, and so should we hate sin, and hate
it with strength; it is an abomination unto God, let it be so
unto us. #Pr 6:16-19|, "These six things doth the Lord hate; yea,
seven are an abomination unto him; a proud look, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked
imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false
witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among
brethren."--^William Greenhill.

        Verse 5 (last clause).--Those whom the Lord hates must
perish. But he hates impenitent sinners, "_Thou hatest all
workers of iniquity_." Now, who are so properly workers of
iniquity as those who are so eager at it that they will not leave
this work, though they be in danger to perish for it? Christ puts
it out of doubt. The workers of iniquity must perish. #Lu 13:27|.
Those whom the Lord will tear in his wrath must perish with a
witness; but those whom he hates, he tears, &c. #Job 16:8|. What
more due to such impenitent sinners than hatred! what more proper
than wrath, since they treasure up wrath? #Ro 2|. Will he
entertain those in the bosom of love whom his soul hates? No;
destruction is their portion. #Pr 21:15|. If all the curses of
the law, all the threatenings of the gospel, all judgments in
earth or in hell, will be the ruin of him, he must perish. If the
Lord's arm be strong enough to wound him dead, he must die. #Ps
68:21|. ... Avoid all that Christ hates. If you love, approve,
entertain that which is hateful to Christ, how can he love you?
What is that which Christ hates? the Psalmist (#Ps 45:7|) tells
us, making it one of Christ's attributes, to hate wickedness. ...
As Christ hates iniquity, so the "_workers of iniquity_." you
must not love them, so as to be intimate with them, delight in
the company of evil doers, openly profane, scorners of godliness,
obstructors of the power of it. #2Co 6:14-18|. If you love so
near relations to wicked men, Christ will have no relation to
you. If you would have communion with Christ in sweet acts of
love, you must have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of
darkness, nor those that act them.--^David Clarkson, B.D.,
1621-1686.

        Verse 6.--"_Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing_,"
whether in jest or earnest. Those that lie in jest will (without
repentance) go to hell in earnest.--^John Trapp.

        Verse 6.--"_Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing_,"
etc. In the same field wherein Absalom raised battle against his
father, stood the oak that was his gibbet. The mule whereon he
rode was his hangman, for the mule carried him to the tree, and
the hair wherein he gloried served for a rope to hang. Little
know the wicked how everything which now they have, shall be a
snare to trap them when God begins to punish them.--^William
Cowper, 1612.

                       HINTS TO PREACHERS.

        Verse 4.--God's hatred of sin an example to his people.

        Verse 5.--"_The foolish_." Show why sinners are justly
called fools.