Expositions of Holy Scripture: Psalms Part 19

If it be true that there are, as part of the universal human experience, however overlaid and stifled, these necessities of which I have been speaking, the very existence of the necessities affords a presumption, before all evidence, that, somehow and somewhere, they shall be supplied. There can be no deeper truth--none, I think, that ought to have more power in shaping some parts of our Christian creed, than this, that G.o.d is a faithful Creator; and where He makes men with longings, it is a prophecy that those longings are going to be supplied. The same ground which avails to defend doctrines that cannot be so well defended by any other argument--the same ground on which we say that there is an immortality, because men long for it and believe in it; that there is a G.o.d because men cannot get rid of the instinctive conviction that there is; that there is a retribution, because men's consciences do ask for it, and cry out for it--the very same process which may be applied to the b.u.t.tressing and defending of all the grandest truths of the Gospel, applies also in this practical matter. If I, made by G.o.d who knew what He was doing when He made me, am formed with these deep necessities, with these pa.s.sionate longings--then it cannot but be that it is intended that they should be to me a means of leading me to Him, and that there they should be satisfied. For He is 'the faithful Creator,'

and He remembers the conditions under which His making of us has placed us. 'He knoweth our frame,' and He remembereth what He has implanted within us. And the presumption is, of course, turned into an actual certainty when we let in the light of the Gospel upon the thing. Then we can say to every man that thus is yearning after a goodness dimly perceived, and does not know what it is that he wants, and we say to you now, Brother! betake yourself to the cross of Christ go with those wants of yours to 'the Lamb of G.o.d that taketh away the sin of the world': He will interpret them to you. He will explain to you, as you do not now know, what they mean; and, better than that, He will supply them all.

Your souls are thirsting; and you look about, here and there, and everywhere, for springs of water. _There_ is the fountain--go to Christ.

Your souls are thirsting for G.o.d. The unfathomed ocean of the G.o.dhead lies far beyond my lip; but here is the channel through which there flows that river of water of life. Here is the manifested G.o.d, here is the granted G.o.d, here is the G.o.dhead coming into connection and union with man, his wants and his sins--the 'living G.o.d' and His living Son, His everlasting Word. 'He that believeth upon Him shall never hunger, and he that cometh unto Him shall never thirst.' G.o.d is the divine and unfathomable ocean; Christ the Son is the stream that brings salvation to every man's lips. All wants are supplied there. Take it as a piece of the simplest prose, with no rhetorical exaggeration about it, that Christ is _everything_, everything that a man can want. We are made to require, and to be restless until we possess, perfect truth--there it is! We are made to want, and to be restless until we get, perfect, infinite unchangeable love--there it is! We must have, or the burden of our own self-will will be a misery to us, a hand laid upon the springs of our conduct, authoritative and purifying, and have the blessedness of some voice to say to us, 'I bid thee, and that is enough'--there it is!

We must have rest, purity, hope, gladness, life in our souls--there they all are! Whatever form of human nature and character be yours, my brother!--whatever exigencies of life you may be lying under the pressure of--man or woman, adult or child, father or son, man of business or man of thought, struggling with difficulties or bright with joy--Oh! believe us, the perfecting of your character may be got in the Lamb of G.o.d, and without Him it never can be possessed. Christ is everything, and 'out of His fulness all we receive grace for grace.'

Not only in Christ is there the perfect supply of all these necessities, but also that fulness _becomes ours_ on the simple condition of desiring it. The thirst for the living G.o.d in a man who has faith in Christ Jesus, is not a thirst which amounts to pain, or arises from a sense of non-possession. But in this divine region the principle of the giving is this--to desire is to have; to long for is to possess. There is no wide interval between the sense of thirst and the trickling of the stream over the parched lip; but ever it is flowing, flowing past us, and the desire is but the opening of the lips to receive the limpid and life-giving waters. No one ever desired the grace of G.o.d, really and truly desired it; but just in proportion as he desired it, he got it--just in proportion as he thirsted, he was satisfied. Therefore we have to preach that grand gospel that faith, simple, conscious longing, turned to Christ, avails to bring down the full and perfect supply.

But some Christian people here may reply, 'Ah! I wish it were so: what was that you were saying at the beginning of your sermon, about men having religious depression, about Christians longing and not possessing?' Well, I have only this to say about that matter. Wherever in a heart that really believes on G.o.d in Christ, there is a thirst that amounts to pain, and that has with it a sense of non-possession, that is not because Christ's fulness has become shrunken; that is not because there is a change in G.o.d's law, that the measure of the desire is the measure of the reception; but it is only because, for some reason or other that belongs to the man alone, the desire is not deep, genuine, simple, but is troubled and darkened. What we ask, we get. If I am a Christian, however feeble I may be, the feebleness of my faith and the feebleness of my desire may make my supplies of grace feeble; but if I am a Christian, there is no such thing as an earnest longing unsatisfied, no such thing as a thirst accompanied with a pain and sense of want, except in consequence of my own transgression.

And thus there _is_ a longing imperfect in this life, but fully supplied according to the measure of its intensity, a longing after 'the living G.o.d'; and that is the state of a Christian man. And O my friend! that is a widely different desire from the other that I have been speaking about. It is blessed thus to say, 'My soul thirsteth for G.o.d.' It is blessed to feel the pa.s.sionate wish for more light, more grace, more peace, more wisdom, more of G.o.d. That _is_ joy, that _is_ peace! Is that _your_ experience in this present life?

III. Lastly, there is a perfect longing perfectly satisfied; and that is heaven.

We shall not there be independent, of course, of constant supplies from the great central Fulness, any more than we are here. One may see in one aspect, that just as the Christian life here on earth is in a very true sense a state of never thirsting any more, because we have Christ, and yet in another sense is a state of continual longing and desire--so the Christian and glorified life in heaven, in one view of it, is the removal of all that thirst which marked the condition of man upon earth, and in another is the perfecting of all those aspirations and desires.

Thirst, as longing, is eternal; thirst, as aspiration after G.o.d, is the glory of heaven; thirst, as desire for more of Him, is the very condition of the celestial world, and the element of all its blessedness.

That future life gives us two elements, an infinite G.o.d, and an indefinitely expansible human spirit: an infinite G.o.d to fill, and a soul to be filled, the measure and the capacity of which has no limit set to it that we can see. What will be the consequence of the contact of these two? Why this, for the first thing, that always, at every moment of that blessed life, there shall be a perpetual fruition, a perpetual satisfaction, a deep and full fountain filling the whole soul with the refreshment of its waves and the music of its flow. And yet, and yet--though at every moment in heaven we shall be satisfied, filled full of G.o.d, full to overflowing in all our powers--yet the very fact that the G.o.d who dwells in us, and fills our whole natures with unsullied and perfect blessedness, is an infinite G.o.d; and that we in whom the infinite Father dwells, are men with souls that can grow, and can grow for ever--will result in this, that at every moment our capacities will expand; that at every moment, therefore, the desire will grow and spring afresh; that at every moment G.o.d will be seen unveiling undreamed-of beauties, and revealing hitherto unknown heights of blessedness before us; and that the sight of that transcendent, unapproached, unapproachable, and yet attracting and transforming glory, will draw us onward as by an impulse from above, and the possession of some portion of it will bear us upward as by a power from within; and so, nearer, nearer, ever nearer to the throne of light, the centre of blessedness, the growing, and glorifying, and greatening souls of the perfectly and increasingly blessed shall 'mount up with wings as eagles.' Heaven _is_ endless longing, accompanied with an endless fruition--a longing which is blessedness, a longing which is life!

My brother! let me put two sayings of Scripture side by side, 'My soul thirsteth for G.o.d, for the living G.o.d,'--'Father Abraham! send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue.'

There be two thirsts, one, the longing for G.o.d, which, satisfied, is heaven; one, the longing for quenching of self-lit fires, and for one drop of the lost delights of earth to cool the thirsty throat, which, unsatisfied, is h.e.l.l. Then hearken to the final vision on the page of Scripture, 'He showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of G.o.d and of the Lamb.' To us it is showed, and to us the whole revelation of G.o.d converges to that last mighty call, 'Let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely!'

THE PSALMIST'S REMONSTRANCE WITH HIS SOUL

'Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope in G.o.d: for I shall yet praise Him, the health of my countenance, and my G.o.d.'--PSALM xliii. 5.

This verse, which closes this psalm, occurs twice in the previous one.

It is a kind of refrain. Obviously this little psalm, of which my text is a part, was originally united with the preceding one. That the two made one is clear to anybody that will read them, by reason of structure, and tone, and similarity of the singer's situation, and the recurrence of many phrases, and especially of these significant words of my text.

The Psalmist is in circ.u.mstances of trouble and sorrow. We need not enter upon them particularly, but the thing that I desire to point out is that three times does the Psalmist take himself to task and question himself as to the reasonableness of the emotions that are surging in his soul, and checks these by higher considerations. Thrice he does it; twice in vain, for the trouble and anxiety come rolling back upon him in spite of the moment's respite, but the third time he triumphs.

I. We note, then, first, that moods and emotions should be examined and governed by a higher self.

In the Psalmist's case, his gloom and despondency, which could plead good reasons for their existence, had everything their own way at first, and swept over his soul like the first rush of waters which have burst their bounds. But, presently, the ruling part of his nature wakes, and brings the feebler lower soul to its tribunal, and says, in effect, 'Now! now that I am here, what hast thou to say about these sorrows that thou hast been complaining about? _Why_ art thou cast down, O my soul?

Why art thou disquieted? ... Hope in G.o.d!'

I shall have a word or two to say presently about the details of this remonstrance, but the main point that I make, to begin with, is just this, that however strong and reasonably occasioned by circ.u.mstances a man's emotions and feelings, either of the bright or the dark kind, may be, they are not to be indulged, unless they have pa.s.sed muster and examination by that higher and better self. It is necessary to keep a very tight hand upon _all_ our feelings, whether they be the natural desires of the sensuous part of our nature, or whether they be the sentiments of sadness, or doubt, or anxiety, or perplexity, which are the natural results of outward circ.u.mstances of trial; or whether, on the contrary, they be the bright and buoyant ones which come, like angels, along with prosperous hours. But that necessity, commonplace as it is of all morals and all religion, is yet a thing which, day by day, we so forget that we need to be ever and anon reminded of it.

There are hosts of people who, making profession of being Christians, do not habitually put the brake on their moods and tempers, and who seem to think that it is a sufficient vindication of gloom and sadness to say that things are going badly with them in the outer world, and who act as if they supposed that no joy can be too exuberant and no elation too lofty if, on the other hand, things are going rightly. It is a miserable travesty of the Christian faith to suppose that its prime purpose is anything else than to put into our hands the power of ruling ourselves because we let Christ rule us.

And so, dear brethren! though it be the A B C of Christian teaching, suffer this word of exhortation. It is only 'milk for babes,' but it is milk that the babes are very unwilling to take. Learn from this verse before us the solemn duty of rigid control, by the higher self, of the tremulous, emotional lower self which responds so completely to every change of temperature or circ.u.mstances in the world without. And remember that there should be a central heat which keeps the temperature substantially the same, whatever be the weather outside. As the wheel-house, and the steering gear, and the rudder of the ship proclaim their purpose of guidance and direction, so eloquently and unmistakably does the make of our inward selves tell us that emotions and moods and tempers are meant to be governed, often to be crushed, always to be moderated, by sovereign will and reason. In the Psalmist's language, 'My soul' has to give account of its tremors and flutterings to 'Me,' the ruling Self, who should be Lord of temperament, and control the fluctuations of feeling.

II. Note that there are two ways of looking at causes of dejection and disquiet.

The whole preceding parts of both the psalms, before this refrain, are an answer to the question which my text puts. 'Why art thou cast down, O my soul?' 'My soul' has been talking two whole psalms, to explain why it is cast down. And after all the eloquent torrent of words to vindicate and explain its reasons for sadness--separation from the sanctuary, bitter remembrances of bright days, which the poet tells us are 'a sorrow's crown of sorrow,' taunts of enemies and the like--after all these have been said over and over again, the Psalmist says to himself: 'Come now, let us hear it all once more. _Why_ art thou cast down? Why art thou disquieted within me? Thou hast been telling the reasons abundantly. Speak them once again, and let us have a look at them.'

There is a court of appeal in each man, which tests and tries his reasons for his moods; and these, which look very sufficient to the flesh, turn out to be very insufficient when investigated and tested by the higher spirit or self. We should 'appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober.' And if a man will be honest with himself, and tell himself why he is in such a pucker of terror, or why he is in such a rapture of joy, nine times out of ten the attempt to tell the reasons will be the condemnation of the mood which they are supposed to justify. If men would only bring the causes or occasions of the tempers and feelings which they allow to direct them, to the bar of common sense, to say nothing of religious faith, half the furious boilings in their hearts would stop their ebullition. It would be like pouring cold water into a kettle on the fire. It would end its bubbling. Everything has two handles. The aspect of any event depends largely on the beholder's point of view. 'There's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.'

'Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?' The answer is often very hard to give; the question is always very salutary to ask.

III. Note that no reasons for being cast down are so strong as those for elation and calm hope.

'Hope thou in G.o.d, for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance and my G.o.d.' I need not deal here with the fact that the first of the three occurrences of this refrain is, in our Bible, a little different from the other two. That is probably a mistake in the text. In all three cases the words ought to stand the same.

Try to realise what G.o.d is to yourselves--'My G.o.d' and 'the health of my countenance.' That will stimulate sluggish feeling; that will calm disturbed emotion. He that can say 'My G.o.d!' and in that possession can repose, will not be easily moved, by the trivialities and transitorinesses of this life, to excessive disquiet, whether of the exuberant or of the woful sort. There is a wonderful calming power in realising our possession of G.o.d as our portion--not stagnating, but quieting. I am quite sure that the troubles of our lives, and the gladnesses of our lives, which often distract, would be far less operative in disturbing, if we felt more that G.o.d was ours and that we were G.o.d's.

Brethren! 'there is no joy but calm.' To be at rest is better than rapture. And there is no way of getting and keeping a fixed temper of still tranquillity unless we go into that deep and hidden chamber, in the secret place of the Most High, where we cannot 'hear the loud winds when they call,' but dwell in security, whatever storms hara.s.s the land.

'Why art thou cast down,' or lifted 'up,' and, in either case, 'disquieted'? 'Hope in G.o.d,' and be at rest.

IV. Note that the effort to lay hold on the truth which calms is to be repeated in spite of failures.

The words of our text are thrice repeated in these two psalms. In the two former instances they are followed by a fresh burst of pained feeling. A moment of tranquillity interrupts the agitation of the Psalmist's soul, but is soon followed by the recurrence of 'the horrible storm' that 'begins afresh.' A tiny island of blue appears in his sky, and then the pale, ugly, grey rack drives across it once more. But the guiding self keeps the hand firm on the tiller, notwithstanding the wash of the water and the rolling of the ship, and the dominant will conquers at last, and at the third time the yielding soul obeys and is quiet, because the Psalmist's will resolved that it should be quiet, and it hopes in G.o.d because He, by a dead lift of effort, lifts it up to hope.

No effort at tranquillising our hearts is wholly lost; and no attempt to lay hold upon G.o.d is wholly in vain. Men build a dam to keep out the sea, and the winter storms make a breach in it, but it is not washed away altogether, and next season they will not need to begin to build from quite so low down; but there will be a bit of the former left, to put the new structure upon, and so by degrees it will rise above the tide, and at last will keep it out.

Did you ever see a child upon a swing, or a gymnast upon a trapeze? Each oscillation goes a little higher; each starts from the same lowest point, but the elevation on either side increases with each renewed effort, until at last the destined height is reached and the daring athlete leaps on to a solid platform. So we may, if I might say so, by degrees, by reiterated efforts, swing ourselves up to that steadfast floor on which we may stand high above all that breeds agitation and gloom. It is possible, in the midst of change and circ.u.mstances that excite sad emotions, anxieties, and fears--it is possible to have this calmness of hope in G.o.d. The rainbow that spans the cataract rises steadfast above the white, tortured water beneath, and persists whilst all is hurrying change below, and there are flowers on the grim black rocks by the side of the fall, whose verdure is made greener and whose brightness is made brighter, by the freshening of the spray of the waterfall. So we may be 'as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing,' and may bid dejected and disquieted souls to hope in G.o.d and be still.

THE KING IN HIS BEAUTY

'Thou art fairer than the children of men; grace is poured into Thy lips: therefore G.o.d hath blessed Thee forever. 3. Gird Thy sword upon Thy thigh, O mighty one, Thy glory and Thy majesty. 4. And in Thy majesty ride on prosperously, because of truth and meekness and righteousness: and Thy right hand shall teach Thee terrible things.

5. Thine arrows are sharp; the peoples fall under Thee; they are in the heart of the King's enemies. 6. Thy throne, O G.o.d, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of equity is the sceptre of Thy kingdom. 7. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated wickedness: therefore G.o.d, Thy G.o.d, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.'

--PSALM xlv. 2-7 (R.V.).

There is no doubt that this psalm was originally the marriage hymn of some Jewish king. All attempts to settle who that was have failed, for the very obvious reason that neither the history nor the character of any of them correspond to the psalm. Its language is a world too wide for the diminutive stature and stained virtues of the greatest and best of them, and it is almost ludicrous to attempt to fit its glowing sentences even to a Solomon. They all look like little David in Saul's armour. So, then, we must admit one of two things. Either we have here a piece of poetical exaggeration far beyond the limits of poetic license, or 'a greater than Solomon is here.' Every Jewish king, by virtue of his descent and of his office, was a living prophecy of the greatest of the sons of David, the future King of Israel. And the Psalmist sees the ideal Person who, as he knew, was one day to be real, shining through the shadowy form of the earthly king, whose very limitations and defects, no less than his excellences and his glories, forced the devout Israelite to think of the coming King in whom 'the sure mercies'

promised to David should be facts at last. In plainer words, the psalm celebrates Christ, not only although, but because, it had its origin and partial application in a forgotten festival at the marriage of some unknown king. It sees Him in the light of the Messianic hope, and so it prophesies of Christ. My object is to study the features of this portrait of the King, partly in order that we may better understand the psalm, and partly in order that we may with the more reverence crown Him as Lord of all.

I. The Person of the King.

The old-world ideal of a monarch put special emphasis upon two things--personal beauty and courtesy of address and speech. The psalm ascribes both of these to the King of Israel, and from both of them draws the conclusion that one so richly endowed with the most eminent of royal graces is the object of the special favour of G.o.d. 'Thou art fairer than the children of men, grace is poured into Thy lips: therefore G.o.d hath blessed Thee for ever.'

Here, at the very outset, we have the keynote struck of superhuman excellence; and though the reference is, on the surface, only to physical perfection, yet beneath that there lies the deeper reference to a character which spoke through the eloquent frame, and in which all possible beauties and sovereign graces were united in fullest development, in most harmonious co-operation and unstained purity.

'Thou art fairer than the children of men.' Put side by side with that, words which possibly refer to, and seem to contradict it. A later prophet, speaking of the same Person, said: 'His visage was so marred, more than any man, and His form than the sons of men.... There is no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him.' We have to think, not of the outward form, howsoever lovely with the loveliness of meekness and transfigured with the refining patience of suffering it may have been, but of the beauty of a soul that was all radiant with a l.u.s.tre of loveliness that shames the fragmentary and marred virtues of the best of us, and stands before the world for ever as the supreme type and high-water mark of the grace that is possible to a human spirit. G.o.d has lodged in men's nature the apprehension of Himself, and of all that flows from Him, as true, as good, as beautiful; and to these three there correspond wisdom, morality, and art. The latter, divorced from the other two, becomes earthly and devilish. This generation needs the lesson that beauty wrenched from truth and goodness, and pursued for its own sake, by artist or by poet or by _dilettante_, leads by a straight descent to ugliness and to evil, and that the only true satisfying of the deep longing for 'whatsoever things are lovely' is to be found when we turn to Christ and find in Him, not only wisdom that enlightens the understanding, and righteousness that fills the conscience, but beauty that satisfies the heart. He is 'altogether lovely.' Nor let us forget that once on earth 'the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment did shine as the light,' as indicative of the possibilities that lay slumbering in His lowly Manhood, and as prophetic of that to which we believe that the ascended Christ hath now attained--viz. the body of His glory, wherein He reigns, filled with light and undecaying loveliness on the Throne of the Heaven. Thus He is fairer in external reality now, as He is, by the confession of an admiring, though not always believing, world, fairer in inward character than the children of men.

Another personal characteristic is 'Grace is poured into Thy lips.'

Kingly courtesy, and kingly graciousness of word, must be the characteristic of the Sovereign of men. The abundance of that bestowment is expressed by that word, 'poured.' We need only remember, 'All wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth,' or how even the rough instruments of authority were touched and diverted from their appointed purpose, and came back and said, 'Never man spake like this Man.' To the music of Christ's words all other eloquence is harsh, poor, shallow--like the piping of a shepherd boy upon some wretched oaten straw as compared with the full thunder of the organ. Words of unmingled graciousness came from His lips. That fountain never sent forth 'sweet waters and bitter.' He satisfies the canon of St. James: 'If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man.' Words of wisdom, of love, of pity, of gentleness, of pardon, of bestowment, and only such, came from Him. 'Daughter! be of good cheer.' 'Son! thy sins be forgiven thee.' 'Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy-laden.'

'Grace is poured into Thy lips'; and, withal, it is the grace of a King.

For His language is authoritative even when it is most tender, and regal when it is most gentle. His lips, sweet as honey and the honeycomb, are the lips of an Autocrat. 'He speaks, and it is done: He commands, and it stands fast.' He says to the tempest, 'Be still!' and it is quiet; and to the demons, 'Come out of him!' and they disappear; and to the dead, 'Come forth!' and he stumbles from the tomb.

Another personal characteristic is--'G.o.d hath blessed Thee for ever.' By which we are to understand, not that the two preceding graces are the reasons for the divine benediction, but that the divine benediction is the cause of them; and therefore they are the signs of it. It is not that because He is lovely and gracious therefore G.o.d hath blessed Him; but it is that we may know that G.o.d has blessed Him, since He is lovely and gracious. These endowments are the results, not the causes; the signs or the proofs, not the reasons of the divine benediction. That is to say, the humanity so fair and unique shows by its beauty that it is the result of the continual and unique operation and benediction of a present G.o.d. We understand Him when we say, 'On Him rests the Spirit of G.o.d without measure or interruption.' The explanation of the perfect humanity is the abiding Divinity.