Psalm 77:11














But I will celebrate the deeds of Jah. With ver. 11 the change in the prophet's feeling actually begins. "Hitherto he has looked too much within, has sought too much to read the mystery of God's dealings by the light of his own experience merely. Hence the despondency when he contrasts the gloomy present with the far brighter and happier past. He cannot believe that God has indeed forgotten to be gracious, that he has indeed changed his very nature; but that he may be reassured and satisfied on this point, his eye must take a wider range than that of his own narrow experience." The remedy for troubled hearts so often is this - get out of your limited, narrow spheres; take larger, wider, more comprehensive views. Begin to consider the "God of the whole earth;" cease to keep God in the small sphere of your own personal interests. See the unchanging purpose that through the ages runs. For our help towards gaining the larger views of God, the records are left us of his dealings with men in the early ages of the world, and from them this comes out clearly and strongly - God is, everywhere and always, the Redeemer, Deliverer, Restorer, Saviour; always "putting things right again;" always working towards the highest ends of blessing for the creatures he has made. If we can get the conviction of this large truth into our souls, we are easily lifted up above the perplexities of our particular lot. If our "puzzle piece" does seem to be oddly shaped, it fits into the great scheme, which, when completed, will plainly be seen to have accomplished the highest possible benediction for humanity.

I. IT COMFORTS US TO REMEMBER GOD'S DEEDS AS A WHOLE. Take any biography given in the Old Testament. We could find in it single perplexing things; e.g. Joseph cast into the pit; David hunted over the mountains. But read the lives as a whole, and God's purpose of grace comes fully to view. So read incidents of history, and you will be perplexed; read the history, and all becomes clear. Read the struggles of an age, and you may find no meaning; read the dealings of God with the race, and much is made plain.

II. IT COMFORTS US TO SET GOD'S DEALINGS ONE OVER AGAINST ANOTHER. Nothing stands alone. Everything is prepared for, related to something else, and having its characteristic influences and results. Things match, and the matching often provides the explanation.

III. IT COMFORTS US TO SET GOD'S DEEDS IN RELATION TO OUR HIGHER NECESSITIES. Not comfortableness, but our higher moral welfare, is the end God has in view. It is often a new view of our circumstances to read them in this light. - R.T.

I will remember the works of the Lord.
(with Psalm 39:4). We are so made that we live between an unalterable past and an uncertain future, with no time in our possession except that changing line which we call the present. Every present, as we live on, becomes a past; and so we are drawing continually on the future; we are carrying it over to the past in the great account-book of our existence, until the future of this world all becomes a past; and we enter the future of eternity. In this respect though made in God's image we are unlike Him. For to Him all is one eternal Now. He "inhabiteth eternity." But to us time in its three stages clings to our very nature and colours all our conceptions. We cannot conceive of God as eternally Now, it is too much for us. Time seems to us to be a power, a something that has life and force in it, though it is nothing apart from the events that make up our lives; nothing but a condition of our thought. It is nothing to the forgetful animal, or to the vacant mind, which looks not forward nor backward. But to a finite soul, born yesterday to die to-morrow, time is everything; and you may say that in proportion to the nobleness of a soul will be the value it sets on time. Compare time with space. Space is nothing but a receptacle to hold material objects, and a room for their activity. It is wholly outside of souls. A man shut up in a chamber ten feet square may fill the world with good thoughts and great plans. But a bird flies across a continent and no trace is left. What has space to do with character? What has time not to do with character?

I. MEMORY EXTENDS OUR EXISTENCE BACKWARDS. This is the closest analogy in man's nature to God's. He can go back far into the past — his own, and that of the world. He can listen, as it were, to the tumultuous waves of chaos. Memory has far more materials to work upon than belong to anticipation or foresight of the future. It is the treasure-house of our experience, and of the experience of mankind. Prediction, indeed, is possible by the help of what the past has afforded us, although the time that the present order of things shall last cannot be predicted. How many great events have happened which a few years before we had no apprehension of. If we had lived ages of agony we should remember them, but we cannot foretaste a distant joy. Memory causes the entire past to bear on our present lives and future destiny, for —

1. It can carry forward the knowledge of past misdeeds through the boundless future. Good deeds, also, it can remember, but the most pressing thought for us as sinners is, that it surely takes with it all our misdeeds. It drops nothing like a careless messenger, but saves all as a trustful steward of God. It can compress our past lives into a moment like the photograph of an immense landscape brought within the compass of an inch. The fact is, we have in us the materials for the judgment day. They lie now piled up in dark chambers; they will be brought from their chests, and their forgotten testimony will shine like fire. The day of judgment is no appointed, instituted thing; it is the necessary sequel of a life of the thinking man under the righteous reign of God. You, then, who sin and forget it, who appear to yourselves far from danger, because you have hid your sin from your own eyes as men hide live coals under the ashes, what will you do when you find these coals to be still alive ages hence, and when they are freed from the rubbish that covered them? Can you make God forget? That would be something to the purpose, were it possible. Can you expect that feelings, such as the sense of ill-desert, which are immutable records of your own against yourself, will be blotted out by time? Even sin, then, has, in a sense, an eternal life. It can never grow old and vanish away.

II. I remark again, however, that there is a wise provision by which, according to the ordinary laws of this life, THE EVENTS OF THE PAST DO NOT STAY WITH US, GENERALLY, IN ALL THEIR FIRST VIVIDNESS, In other words, the actual weaknesses of memory are in part calculated for our moral as well as mental benefit. If we remembered everything as it was when it occurred, such vividness might render impossible a better life. All common sights, sounds, and actions — all such things as make up the mass of events, it is a blessing to have forgotten. This is of vast importance in reference to our spiritual and moral nature. A sincere penitent cannot well forget the great sins he may have fallen into. Yet such a penitent, by keeping in mind past sins with their aggravation, may be prevented from using his active powers. Remorse might reign in our souls to the exclusion of the purpose of amendment. Now, there must be hope and vigour in every mind that successfully strives to amend. Ever brooding on the past brings nothing but despair. The difficulty of a new life is almost hopeless if we remember nothing but past ill success, broken resolutions, and resisted motives to good. It is manifest also that this weakening of the hold of the past on us — owing to the defects of memory, within certain limits — helps on all improvement. Minds of finite capacities, if every past thing was continually fresh, would be full of details without the power of making principles prominent. But when we remember principles, and general strains, and life-currents of action, we can, without the burden of too great details, purpose in view of our past and live for our future. To this it should be added that there is a compromise effected in our nature — so to speak — between the present and the past by the power of recollection. We hunt up stray thoughts by using the laws which associate them with one another. And they also come back without our search. Thus sin becomes its own punishment. We try, but fail, to drown such thoughts.

III. WE OUGHT TO LIVE FOR THE PRESENT AS WELL AS FOR THE FUTURE. Moralists talk of the present as a point in an endless path, and they represent the future of that path as being alone of importance. But this is not altogether true. To live merely for the present is doubtless ruinous, but to live only for the future is no virtue. What is the future but a run of moments which are to be present, and what worth can there be in any of these, if they are worth nothing while they are with us? It would be as if a man passing through grand scenery should not look on the beauties before his eyes because finer points of view were coming, and he should so act until the journey's end. If the future always remained future, it would be valueless. But let us test these remarks by scriptural truth. What can trust do — that is worth anything to us — if it cannot lay our interests for the future in the hand of God, and thus prevent the crowd of cares from coming to lodge with us before their time? And does not Christ say, "Take no thought for the morrow, for," etc.? How unlike is this peace of souls to our feverish haste, our inability to enjoy life until it settles on its dregs; our insurances and provisions against evil; as if each of us were a castle besieged by enemies. Of course our Lord's meaning is, "be not solicitous for the morrow." It is anxiety that He condemns, which is the foe of a quiet trust in God. He would have us plan great plans, embracing all the future, as He did Himself; but He wants us also to possess profound peace within our Souls. A life of faith will furnish the only true reconciliation. All progress depends on acting at the right time. You may have known persons who put off work until to-morrow, for the sake of amusement, and when the weight of the past, besides that of the present, came on their backs, it crushed them. Or you may have known those who were too provident, who sought to rob the future of its office, that it might furnish them rest, or better opportunities. But this overtasked them, and wore them out. Neither of these courses is wise; every moment has its rights. This is true in things spiritual as in things temporal.

IV. And thus WE DISCOVER THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FUTURE TIME. Who would desire a never-ending existence such as is one's now? Who could endure it, except by an act of religious resignation like that of a monk in his cell? And if this be so, why is it so? It is so because it is an essential part of the plan of our earthly condition that it should end. It is not too bold to say that superior being, who knew nothing of our destiny as it respects life and death, would conclude that death ought to be man's lot, and that he was made to finish his existence in some other sphere. This he would find out as soon as he perceived what man could do, and what his earthly limitations prevented him from doing. Death seems to be the most suitable event for an immortal placed on earth, more suitable for him than for the beast which may have no hereafter. This, then, is the true significance of future time, that, as it unrolls, a great change is to come over us — a change unlike anything in the past. For this futurity, life and death are preparations; it is this that makes life a great something, full of praise or full of shame. It is this that makes the world a theatre for an immortal. For every living man, then, the future has one thing in it wholly unlike in kind all the events of the past. Birth, or man's entrance into a world of time, was strange; that is the unique event of time gone by. Death, which is called for and made suitable by the whole meaning of life, is the unique event of time to come. And this unique event ought to throw a new power and energy into all our passing moments. I ought to feel that, because I am going to die, I am a privileged person. To what may I not rise? But for this I must be trained in time, and the future, by its one great event, ought to sober me, and train me as much as I could be trained by all the experience of the past. But do I ask, how can the unknown act in me except through my fears? The hope of that future will, and does, influence men. To souls who take in the whole of existence, the great contrast is that of this present time and the eternal life on high. And so habits, characters, choices of action, estimates of pleasure, as well as hopes, are all chastened, ennobled, beautified; they are clothing themselves for the presence of the King eternal, immortal, invisible. And when they hear the death trump calling them to come away, its clang, fearful to so many, turns for them into the voice of celestial music.

(T. D. Woolsey.)

I. RECOLLECTION. "I will remember," etc. Memory may be regarded in several aspects —

1. As a source of pain. Tennyson has beautifully and truthfully said: —A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.And Goldsmith: —

"Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,

Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain."

2. As a source of pleasure. "A memory without blot or contamination," said Charlotte Bronte, "must be an exquisite treasure, — an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment."

3. As an aid to faith. So the psalmist uses it on this occasion.(1) God's works are wonders. What marvellous things He is ever accomplishing in the material world! What wonders He wrought on behalf of His ancient people! How wonderful are His doings now in the experience of His people — sanctification and glorification! Truly, "the bright glories of His grace, beyond His other wonders shine."(2) God's wondrous works should be remembered. He who does not remember them overlooks the most glorious of records; and cannot be held guiltless of ingratitude.(3) God's wondrous works remembered are calculated to inspire confidence. They reveal a Being who is supremely trustworthy.

II. REFLECTION. "I will meditate," etc. By means of reflection we are enabled to realize the facts recalled by memory, to perceive their significance and applications. And the emotions which naturally spring from the facts remembered are excited by reflection. Recollection is of little worth comparatively, unless accompanied and followed by meditation. It was by the exercise of both these faculties that the troubled heart of the poet grew calm and victorious.

III. DECLARATION. "I will talk of Thy doings." A good man, having passed through experiences similar to those of the psalmist, should talk of God's doings. After his trouble, recollection, and meditation, his talk would be —

1. Intelligent. He would not utter crude or rash statements concerning God and His providence.

2. Trust-inspiring. His own faith would grow stronger as he recounted to others, etc. The faith of those who heard him would also grow as they thought of his conflict, and how he won the victory.

(W. Jones.)

I will remember Thy wonders of old
When the Christian takes a retrospect of his spiritual life, there is much that he remembers with gladness, and much that he remembers with sorrow. The lovingkindness of the Lord which has been manifested towards him — upon this memory can dwell with unalloyed delight. But the coldness of his own love, the frequency of his backslidings, the tardiness of his progress — when memory presents these, he is no true believer in Christ if he do not mourn at the recollection.

I. In the first place, we shall speak OF THE THINGS TO BE REMEMBERED. Now, it would appear, upon an attentive examination of this passage, that the psalmist does not mean to draw a distinction between the works and the wonders of God; but, rather, to state that all God's works are wonders. "I will remember the works; surely I will remember the wonders." The latter clause is only an emphatic repetition of the former. The works of the Lord are all wonders. Such is the assertion — an assertion which is to hold good, not merely when the spectacle is presented of some unusual setting forth of the energies of Omnipotence; but when the attention is turned towards those displays of glory and wisdom, which are furnished by the ordinary routine of God's providence. What we call natural and what we call supernatural — there is full as much of the miraculous in the one as in the other. If we moved on a wider sphere of being and were not shut up within the material framework, we should probably discern that the finger of God is equally active in every occurrence, and that the very name of miracle would hardly find place in our vocabulary. But we wish to speak on spiritual rather than on natural miracle, more especially as the expression, "Thy wonders of old," seems to point to those purposes of mercy which God from everlasting entertained toward His Church. We need not tie ourselves down to a survey of works which caused the wonder of the psalmist. We enter best into the spirit of the passage by supposing the writer to occupy the same position as is occupied by ourselves, and then reviewing those works which on this supposition would have crowded his retrospect. If we take the individual experience of the Christian, of what is that experience made up: Of wonders. The work of his conversion, wonderful! — arrested in a course of thoughtlessness and impiety; graciously sought, and gently compelled to be at peace with God, whose wrath he had provoked. The communication of knowledge, wonderful! — Deity and eternity gradually piled up; the Bible taken page by page, and each page made a volume which no searching can exhaust. The assistance in warfare, wonderful! — himself a child of corruption, yet enabled to grapple with the world, the flesh, and the devil, and often to trample them under foot. The solaces in affliction, wonderful! — sorrow sanctified so as to minister to joy. The foretastes of heaven, wonderful! — Angels bringing down the clusters of the Lamb, and the spirit walking with lightsome tread the crystal river and the streets of gold. Wonderful that the Spirit should strive with man; wonderful that God should bear with his backslidings; wonderful that God should love him notwithstanding his pollution; wonderful that God should persist in saving him, in spite, as it were, of himself.

II. THE ADVANTAGE WHICH MAY BE GATHERED FROM REMEMBERING THE WORKS OF THE LORD. Such advantage is obvious. It is by musing on God's works that we learn God's character and attributes; it is by remembering what God has already done that we are encouraged to hope for future interferences in our behalf; it is by calling to mind that "God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all," that we are sustained by the animating belief that "He will with Him also freely give us all things." It is by bringing forth the catalogue of wonders which the Lord hath wrought, the deliverance which His right hand hath achieved for His people, and the desolation which He has dealt out to their foes, that we are made confident that there are more with us than there are against us — that greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. And it is, moreover, by strenuous and deliberate acts of memory that the importance of Gospel truth is kept vividly before us, and the mind prevented from dwelling on one part to the exclusion of any other.

(H. Melvill, B. D.)

People
Aaron, Asaph, Jacob, Jeduthun, Joseph, Psalmist
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Ago, Deeds, Doings, Jah, Memory, Mention, Mind, Miracles, Past, Remember, Surely, Wonders, Works, Yah's, Yea, Yes
Outline
1. The psalmist shows what fierce combat he had with distrust
10. The victory which he had by consideration of God's great and gracious works.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 77:7-12

     6233   rejection, experience

Psalm 77:10-20

     8724   doubt, dealing with

Psalm 77:11-12

     5831   depression
     8662   meditation

Psalm 77:11-15

     4945   history

Library
June the Eleventh the Path Across the Sea
"Thy way is in the sea." --PSALM lxxvii. 11-20. And the sea appears to be the most trackless of worlds! The sea is the very symbol of mystery, the grim dwelling-house of innumerable things that have been lost. But God's way moves here and there across this trackless wild. God is never lost among our mysteries. He knows his way about. When we are bewildered He sees the road, and He sees the end even from the beginning. Even the sea, in every part of it, is the Lord's highway. When His way is in
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

A Question for a Questioner
The question which makes our text is meant to end other questions. You may carry truth as far as ever you like, and it will always be truth. Truth is like those crystals which, when split up into the smallest possible fragments, still retain their natural form. You may break truth in pieces, you may do what you like with it, and it is truth throughout; but error is diverse within itself, and evermore bears its own death within itself. You can see its falsehood even in its own light. Bring it forward,
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 31: 1885

Ere Another Step I Take
"I commune with mine own heart." -- Psalm 77:6. Ere another step I take In my wilful wandering way, Still I have a choice to make -- Shall I alter while I may? Patient love is waiting still In my Savior's heart for me; Love to bend my froward will, Love to make me really free. Far from Him, what can I gain? Want and shame, and bondage vile -- Better far to bear the pain Of His yoke a little while. Soon I might its comfort find; Soon my thankful heart might cry, "In Thy meek obedient mind, As
Miss A. L. Waring—Hymns and Meditations

Despondency Self-Corrected. --Ps. Lxxvii.
Despondency Self-Corrected.--Ps. lxxvii. In time of tribulation, Hear, Lord, my feeble cries, With humble supplication To Thee my spirit flies: My heart with grief is breaking, Scarce can my voice complain; Mine eyes, with tears kept waking, Still watch and weep in vain. The days of old, in vision, Bring vanish'd bliss to view; The years of lost fruition Their joys in pangs renew; Remember'd songs of gladness, Through night's lone silence brought, Strike notes of deeper sadness, And stir desponding
James Montgomery—Sacred Poems and Hymns

A Path in the Sea
'And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them: 20. And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night. 21. And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night,
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

How the Whole and the Sick are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 13.) Differently to be admonished are the whole and the sick. For the whole are to be admonished that they employ the health of the body to the health of the soul: lest, if they turn the grace of granted soundness to the use of iniquity, they be made worse by the gift, and afterwards merit the severer punishments, in that they fear not now to use amiss the more bountiful gifts of God. The whole are to be admonished that they despise not the opportunity of winning health for ever.
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Letter iii (A. D. 1131) to Bruno, Archbishop Elect of Cologne
To Bruno, [8] Archbishop Elect of Cologne Bernard having been consulted by Bruno as to whether he ought to accept the See of Cologne, so replies as to hold him in suspense, and render him in awe of the burden of so great a charge. He advises him to seek counsel of God in prayer. 1. You seek counsel from me, most illustrious Bruno, as to whether you ought to accept the Episcopate, to which it is desired to advance you. What mortal can presume to decide this for you? If God calls you, who can dare
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

Letter Xlii to the Illustrious Youth, Geoffrey De Perrone, and his Comrades.
To the Illustrious Youth, Geoffrey de Perrone, and His Comrades. He pronounces the youths noble because they purpose to lead the religious life, and exhorts them to perseverance. To his beloved sons, Geoffrey and his companions, Bernard, called Abbot of Clairvaux, wishes the spirit of counsel and strength. 1. The news of your conversion that has got abroad is edifying many, nay, is making glad the whole Church of God, so that The heavens rejoice and the earth is glad (Ps. xcvi. 11), and every tongue
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

Joy
'The fruit of the Spirit is joy.' Gal 5:52. The third fruit of justification, adoption, and sanctification, is joy in the Holy Ghost. Joy is setting the soul upon the top of a pinnacle - it is the cream of the sincere milk of the word. Spiritual joy is a sweet and delightful passion, arising from the apprehension and feeling of some good, whereby the soul is supported under present troubles, and fenced against future fear. I. It is a delightful passion. It is contrary to sorrow, which is a perturbation
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Prayer
But I give myself unto prayer.' Psa 109: 4. I shall not here expatiate upon prayer, as it will be considered more fully in the Lord's prayer. It is one thing to pray, and another thing to be given to prayer: he who prays frequently, is said to be given to prayer; as he who often distributes alms, is said to be given to charity. Prayer is a glorious ordinance, it is the soul's trading with heaven. God comes down to us by his Spirit, and we go up to him by prayer. What is prayer? It is an offering
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

Covenant Duties.
It is here proposed to show, that every incumbent duty ought, in suitable circumstances, to be engaged to in the exercise of Covenanting. The law and covenant of God are co-extensive; and what is enjoined in the one is confirmed in the other. The proposals of that Covenant include its promises and its duties. The former are made and fulfilled by its glorious Originator; the latter are enjoined and obligatory on man. The duties of that Covenant are God's law; and the demands of the law are all made
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

The Early Life of Malachy. Having Been Admitted to Holy Orders He Associates with Malchus
[Sidenote: 1095.] 1. Our Malachy, born in Ireland,[134] of a barbarous people, was brought up there, and there received his education. But from the barbarism of his birth he contracted no taint, any more than the fishes of the sea from their native salt. But how delightful to reflect, that uncultured barbarism should have produced for us so worthy[135] a fellow-citizen with the saints and member of the household of God.[136] He who brings honey out of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock[137]
H. J. Lawlor—St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh

Of Faith. The Definition of It. Its Peculiar Properties.
1. A brief recapitulation of the leading points of the whole discussion. The scope of this chapter. The necessity of the doctrine of faith. This doctrine obscured by the Schoolmen, who make God the object of faith, without referring to Christ. The Schoolmen refuted by various passages. 2. The dogma of implicit faith refuted. It destroys faith, which consists in a knowledge of the divine will. What this will is, and how necessary the knowledge of it. 3. Many things are and will continue to be implicitly
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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