O Israel, trust in the LORD! He is their help and shield. Sermons
I. BY GOD'S UNFULFILLED PROMISES. Some of God's promises really belong to our future, and we have no right to look for their present fulfillment; but such is the restlessness of man, that he persists in thinking he ought to have everything now. And as he cannot, he readily regards some of God's promises as unfulfilled. So through long ages men expected the promised Messiah, and often lost their faith and dimmed their hope because he did not come. But God's promises never are unfulfilled. It is only this - he has our whole lives to work in, he has all the ages to work in. Compare our Lord's saying, "My time is not yet come, but your time is always ready." Trust should make a treasure of the promises. II. BY GOD'S INCOMPLETELY FULFILLED PROMISES. It is harder to keep trust when a promise has begun to be fulfilled, and has been checked in the fulfillment, than when it is altogether delayed. It was harder for the exiles to look on the new foundations of the temple than on the old ruins. There is no feature of Divine discipline that so severely tries our power to keep on trusting, as this checking of blessings that have begun to be bestowed; this asking us to accept of incomplete fulfillments. III. BY GOD'S MISUNDERSTOOD PROMISES. So often we take God to promise what we wish him to promise, rather than what he does promise. Then we raise unreason able expectations, and get unreasonably depressed when they are not fulfilled. God may test and try our trust, but he never puts it in peril; we do that when we cannot wait, and persist in misunderstanding. - R.T.
They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them A false religion has all the outward signs of importance. A false religion could not live if it showed only its lying side. Even a lie could not live but for the one grain of truth that may be in it: it may be a grain of probability only, or even of possibility, but the lie owes its life, however brief, to the element of at least seeming truth, or possible truth, that may be in it. So with false religions: enumerate them, set them all out in a line, and one looks very much like another as to outward appearance. How long would a piece of lead be in the market-place if offered as a coin? Not one moment. But if treated, if smelted, minted, stamped, drilled, and made to look like a coin, it might deceive somebody, it might live a little while. To what would it owe its life? Not to its intrinsic quality, but to its appearance. So when you cite the religions of the world, and set them all in a line, you are perfectly right in saying, Behold them, and see how very strikingly they resemble one another. The counterfeit coin lives in its resemblance: take away this resemblance, and you take away its whole value; its similitude is its life. What wonder, then, that we find men deceived by religions that are superficial, and merely human inventions, that have nothing to live upon that is of an eternal and Divine nature? It is quite possible that the counterfeit coin may be more brilliant than the real coin. How did the five-pound note pass? Because it was like a five-pound note: the paper was the same, the mill mark was the same, the writing was the same; the resemblance was the reason of the successful deception. Much is mistaken for faith that is not faith, that is mere intellectual assent, or mere intellectual indifference. A man does not believe things which he simply names with his mouth. He only believes those things for which he would die. What havoc this makes in the professed beliefs of the Church! Yet everything must be judged by the degree in which it realizes its own pretensions. To pretend to have hands means power of handling, or it is a lie: to profess to have feet and yet to be unable to walk is to contradict your own statement: to have ears carved by an Angelo which yet cannot hear a thunderburst is to have ears that are visible falsehoods. Where we find hands we have a right to expect handling: where we find faith we have a right to expect morality, or service, or action: and if we with all Christian profession of an intellectual kind are not balancing that profession by actual, living, useful service, then let all the mockers of the universe taunt us, saying, They have hands, but they handle not. The taunt is not a mere taunt; it is a sneer justified by reason. If there were no hands we should pity the sufferer. Who expects to refresh himself from the branches of an oak tree? Yet if the hungry soul should come to a fig tree in the time of figs, and should find upon the tree nothing but leaves, hunger has priestly rights of cursing, hunger may excommunicate that tree from the trees of the garden, because it pretended to be a fruit tree and yet it grew nothing but leaves.(J. Parker, D.D.) People Aaron, PsalmistPlaces JerusalemTopics Breastplate, Confide, Faith, O, Shield, TrustOutline 1. Because God is truly glorious4. And idols are vanity 9. He exhorts to confidence in God 12. God is to be blessed for his blessing Dictionary of Bible Themes Psalm 115:9 5292 defence, divine Library The Warning"And when they had sung a hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives. And Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be offended: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered abroad. Howbeit, after I am raised up, I will go before you into Galilee. But Peter said unto Him, Although all shall be offended, yet will not I. And Jesus saith unto him, Verily I say unto thee, that thou today, even this night, before the cock crow twice, shalt deny me thrice. But he spake exceeding … G. A. Chadwick—The Gospel of St. Mark Letter xxxiv. To Marcella. Christian Graces. Impiety of Attributing a visible Form to God. --The Setting up of Idols a Defection from the True God. Stedfastness in the Old Paths. Messiah Derided Upon the Cross Triumph Over Death and the Grave Divine Support and Protection The Last Supper Psalms Links Psalm 115:9 NIVPsalm 115:9 NLT Psalm 115:9 ESV Psalm 115:9 NASB Psalm 115:9 KJV Psalm 115:9 Bible Apps Psalm 115:9 Parallel Psalm 115:9 Biblia Paralela Psalm 115:9 Chinese Bible Psalm 115:9 French Bible Psalm 115:9 German Bible Psalm 115:9 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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