Established on God
A. E. Hooper. Psalm 112:7 He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the LORD. Here is a most remarkable type of man — quite out of the line of our every-day experience. One is impelled to look back at the earlier verses of the psalm to see who "he" may be! Not afraid of evil tidings! quite a unique person, then — calm as he scans the startling telegram, serene and composed while he reads the black-edged sheet! There is a moral dignity in a character which is not easily shaken and swayed to and fro by every wind of circumstance; we would all like to be possessed of a character firmly rooted, established; therefore the text ought to have an interest for us all. In writing "evil tidings" the psalmist was thinking of what we commonly call bad news, and to enter into his meaning it is necessary to realize the world's bad news. How much there is! The world seems full of it; so full, indeed, that the glad news of God — the good news of the kingdom of heaven — is often unheeded for this cause alone. The world's bad news reaches us in many ways. We read it on placards and newspaper headlines. A "Stella" goes down, an express train is wrecked, a mine is flooded, or the first shot is fired and a bloody war begins! These are the common "evil tidings" of the world. We can all most fervently join in that petition of the Litany — "From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle and murder, and from sudden death, good Lord, deliver us!" Now, I want rather to direct your thoughts to the man who is not afraid of the world's bad news even at its worst. "He shall not be afraid of any evil tidings." Who is he? In the Biblical examples and teachings about the righteous man, there is a moral grandeur and dignity unsurpassed in the literatures of the world. Where else in the realm of literature should we go — even if we were not Christians — to find a more exalted and dignified description of man at his best? In the far Eastern literatures of China and India we can easily find sages, dreamers, and adepts of occult philosophy. In Greek literature we meet with heroes, poets, and philosophers in abundance. In Roman literature there is no lack of soldiers, statesmen, and lawgivers; and there are stories among them all of men who knew how to endure the extremity of suffering without making any sign of despair. But the Hebrew literature of the Old Testament flowers in the portraiture of the righteous man. For the moment we may omit any reference to the New Testament as outside the region of mere literary comparison. In reviewing these facts the question naturally arises, Why is the righteous man the flower of Hebrew literature? And the answer is inevitable: Because the Hebrew Bible is the product of men who had a sense of God, the holy and just One, the eternally righteous One! The righteous man is rooted on the rock; that is, the roots of his faith are closely entwined round the central rock of the universe — "the Rock of Ages." "His heart is fixed, standeth fast, trusting in the Lord." The most modern of the world's mystics, Maurice Maeterlinck, seems to have entered deeply into the meaning of our text. In his latest book he asks the question, "Is the sage never to suffer?" And when Maeterlinck writes "sage" he means the good, the truly wise man. "Is the sago never to suffer?" he asks. "Shall no storm ever break on the roof of his dwelling, no traps be laid to ensnare him? Shall wife and friends never fail him? Must his father not die, and his mother, his brothers, his sons — must all these not die like the rest?" And to his own questions Maeterlinck answers, " Needs must the sage (or good man) like his neighbour be startled from sleep by blows at the door that cause the whole house to tremble. He, too, must go down and parley. But yet, as he listens, his eyes are not fixed on the bringer of evil tidings; his glance will at times be lifted over the messenger's shoulder, will scan the dust on the horizon in search of the mighty Idea that perhaps may be near at hand." Could we find a better commentary on our text? In this spirit — old as Abraham, yet new-born to-day — we can face all the events of the coming time, andGreet the Unseen with a cheer!No doubt the Messenger of Sorrow will knock at all our doors, for it is not his custom to pass any by; but while we listen to his message we can lift our glance over his shoulder, and seeing Jesus, who has overcome the world, we call "be of good cheer" and say, "Whatever thy news may be, there shall no evil befall us, for our heart standeth fast and trusteth in the Lord." (A. E. Hooper.) Parallel Verses KJV: He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the LORD. WEB: He will not be afraid of evil news. His heart is steadfast, trusting in Yahweh.