◄ Psalm 103:22 ►














Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
The Peril Of The Spiritual Guide
Psalm 103:22
S. Conway
Such is the title which a great preacher has given to a sermon on this text. The subject is suggested by its closing words. The psalmist had been summoning angels and all the works of the Lord to bless the Lord, and, as if he remembered that he might be -

I. CALLING OTHERS TO PRAISE THE LORD, AND YET NEGLECTING IT HIMSELF, he adds,

"Bless the Lord, O my soul!"

1. And this is a real possibility and a terrible peril. Like as a guide to the loveliest scenes of nature may lead a traveller to different points of view, which will show the glorious landscape at its best, and may expatiate on the beauties that are to be seen, yet may himself be not in the slightest degree stirred or moved by what he calls on the traveller to admire. He has come to be so familiar with it all; he has said the same thing so many times, it is part of his professional talk; he has seen all these glorious things so often, that they have lost their power to affect him. At first it was otherwise; he had become a guide to these scenes because he so delighted in them. But that was a long time ago. He had thought that he could not spend his life more happily than in conducting others to these same beautiful places, and showing them their glories. But all that enthusiasm has long passed, and he is now a mere professional guide.

2. And so, the great preacher to whom I have referred points out, it may be with the spiritual guide - the minister of Christ, the teacher of others in holy things. He may have begun with enthusiasm for the blessed truths and the bright prospects to which he was to lead others; he had such joy in them himself, that to show to others these things seemed an employment to which he might, as in fact he did, give his whole life and soul. But alas! he has got so familiar with it all; the work has become such a routine, that all the old zest and glow and enthusiasm are gone, and he too has become a mere professional guide. God help him and all such! This is the peril.

II. THE SAFEGUARD is, by continual meditation, prayer, and obedience to the Lord, to maintain the freshness, the force, and the "first love." And this safeguard is sure. - S.C.

Biblical Illustrator
Bless the Lord, all His works in all places of His dominion.
Psalm 103:22
The illimitable vastness of the universe
Dean Farrar.
How does our conception of the universe differ from that of David? It differs, among other things, mainly because we know, and he did not know, of infinite time, peopled with innumerable existences, on infinite space, crowded with unnumbered worlds. To David the earth probably seemed comparatively a thing of yesterday. We know of ages when the earth may have been a nebulous mass; of ages more when it was certainly one tangled growth of gigantic vegetation; of ages more when it was trodden by huge and fearful lizards — dragons of the prime, tearing each other with lethal armour of incomparable deadliness. We look at a piece of chalk, and we know that to form it took the spoils of millions of living organisms; and the man sinks powerless before the effort to conceive the years which it must have taken, by ordinary processes, to build up the white ramparts of our coasts. Yes, the knowledge of the deeps which geology reveals, so far from rendering too dim for us, tends only to brighten for us the image of a Father's love. We know that that Father is caring for us now, and geology has simply proved to us that He was caring for our race, it may be, a billion of years before it appeared upon our globe. But if science has thus widened for us the horizons of time, still more illimitably has it widened for us the horizons of space; still more completely has it annihilated man's self-importance about his race, and about the globe on which he lives. To the ancients, for instance, the world was a very centre of all things, and a very image of immovable stability. To us it is an insignificant speck in the heavens of no material importance, and with no centrality about it; and, so far from being fixed, we know that it is rolling, with incessant revolution, on its own axis, whirling, at immense velocity, round the sun, "spinning," as one has said, "like an angry midge, in the abyss of its own small system, of which it is but one out of one hundred planets and asteroids, and of which the farthest of these planets rolls three hundred thousand millions of miles round the sun upon its sullen and solitary round." Again, to the ancients, and to David, the moon was but an ornament of the night, a silver cresset hung by God's hand in heaven, to illumine the darkened earth. To us it is, indeed, this, and we thank God for it, and also for its services, unknown to our forefathers, of attracting the waters, and so causing to roll, from hemisphere to hemisphere, that great tidal wave which purifies the world. But we have also learnt with amazement what the moon is. We know that it is a small world, in structure like our own; but without atmosphere, without clouds, without seas, without rivers, rent with enormous fissures, scathed and scorched with eruptive violences, a burnt-up cinder, a volcanic waste, the wreck, for all we know, of some past home of existence, a corpse in night's highway, naked, fire-scathed, accursed; and if, in the complications of her silent revolutions,

"She nightly, to the listening earth,

Repeats the story of her birth,"yet that story presents us with so blank a mystery, that it forces our acknowledgment that it may seem as if its one blank hemisphere was only turned to this earth and its science in mocking irony, as though to convince us, against our will, that what we know is little — what we are ignorant of immense. Then, once more, turn to the sun. The ancients saw its splendour; they felt its warmth; they thanked God for its glory. To David it was, as you know, "as a bridegroom cometh forth out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course." It was thought a monstrous extravagance when one of the Greek philosophers said that it was a fiery mass, and another that it was about the size of Attica. But what is it to us? Look at the bas-relief of the tomb of Newton in Westminster Abbey, and there you will see the little genius weighing the sun, and the earth, and the planets on a steelyard. Yes, we know its weight; we know its distance; we know its revolution. We know even, of late years, by spectrum analysis, of what metals and gases it is composed. No human language can express its awfulness. That great orb, as we have discovered, bursts and boils with a horrible impetuosity, such as no human imagination can conceive; and yet this vast, portentous globe of fire is made to subserve the humblest purposes of man. Once more, for a moment, turn to the stars. Turn to the millions of stars in the Milky Way. Our sun is neither more nor less than just one, and one unimportant, star in that Milky Way. To David, when he said that the heavens declared the glory of God, only were known two or three thousand stars visible to the naked eye. To us are known somewhere about fifty millions. And, yet, I say again that the Christian is not in the least appalled by all this vastness. Space is nothing to that God who extends through all extent, and in the hollow of whose hand all those worlds lie as though they were but a single water-drop. But, by the telescope, better without it —

"Man may see

Stretched awful in the hushed midnight,

The ghost of his eternity."But yet, happily, perhaps, for us, simultaneously with this abyss of non-existence beyond man, God has revealed to us an infinitude of life below Him. Take an animalcula, and Pascal will tell you that, however small its body, it is yet smaller in its limbs, and there are joints in those limbs, veins in those joints, blood in those veins, drops in that blood, humour in those drops, vapour in that humour, and an abyss even below this — an immensity of invisible life; so that man, we say, is suspended between two infinities — an abyss of infinity below, and of nothingness above, him. He is a mean between the nothing and the all — nothing compared to the infinite, infinite compared to the nothing. Is not this, at least, a lesson of humility? Should it not compel man rather to contemplate in silence than to inquire with presumption? "Such knowledge is too deep and wonderful for me; I cannot attain to it." "What is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that Thou so regardest him?" Here, for the Christian, at any rate, lies the solution of the dark enigma, the removal of the painful perplexity, the removal of the intolerable weight. Man is nothing in himself. He is as small, as mean, as abject as you please. He is but a fragment of the dust to which he shall soon return. Yes, but in himself nothing, in God man is every-thing — sacred, holy, sublime, immortal, a child of God, a joint-heir with Christ. What is vastness, then, to the Christian that it should appal him? It is nothing; it is less than nothing. It does not oppress or crush him. He is greater than those worlds. He is more immortal than all those clustered suns. They are, after all, but gas and flame; but he lives, and he is immortal, and he is created in the image of God.

(Dean Farrar.)

Bless the Lord, O my soul
The perils of the spiritual guide
H. Melvill, B.D.
In the two preceding verses the psalmist had similarly demanded that the Lord's works should praise Him — "Bless the Lord, ye His angels," etc. In our text, as though he would no longer invoke separately any order of being, or any department of creation, he summons the whole universe to join in the glorious work — "Bless the Lord, all His works in all places of His dominion"; and after this most comprehensive demand, is there anything else from which he can ask praise? Yes, he subjoins, "bless the Lord, O my soul." It seems as if a sudden fear had seized the psalmist, the fear of by any possibility omitting himself; or, if not a fear, yet a consciousness that his very activity in summoning others to praise, might make him forgetful that he was bound to praise God himself. Alas! how possible, how easy, to take pains for others, and to be neglectful of oneself: nay, to make the pains we take for others the reason by which we persuade ourselves that we cannot be neglecting ourselves. Religion of all matters is that which will least bear to be handled professionally: in the mere way of business or occupation. If we once come to handle spiritual things as though they were objects of merchandise or topics for essays, if we come to speak of them with the language of barren speculation, so that the description of the tongue outruns the experience of the heart; alas for the condition of the minister! But it may be well that we consider a little more in detail how that danger may be guarded against, which it has been our endeavour to expose. How shall the guide who feels his mind deadening to the influence of the natural landscape, through the frequency of inspection and the routine of describing it to strangers, — how shall he prevail in keeping his mind alive to the beauties of the scene, the wonders and splendours which crowd the panorama? Let him not be satisfied with showing that panorama to others; let him not look upon it merely in his professional capacity, but let him take frequent opportunities of going by himself to various points of view that he may study it under all possible aspects, now when the shadows of evening rest darkly on the water, now when the sunshine sleeps lovingly on the valley, now when the storm is abroad in its strength, now when the spring mantles hill and plain with its loveliness, and now when winter reigns in coldness and desolateness. Let him not be content with expounding the Bible, or with studying it with a view to his professional duties; let him be careful that he have his season of private meditation, when, like the guide, he may stand on Pisgah by himself, and for himself, not considering the scene with the eye of one who has to delineate the magnificent landscape, but rather with that of one who has to find in it a spot which he may call his own, and where he may fix his everlasting habitation. The more we engage in teaching others, in setting before others the blessings procured by the interference of Christ, the more tenacious should we be of seasons of private meditation and self-examination. For such seasons become then increasingly needful, lest we fancy our acquaintance with truth perfect, or our appreciation of it adequate, and thus shall we not only keep our own lamp well trimmed, but be more than ever fitted, by the blessing of God, to shed light on those who may be walking in darkness and the shadow of death. It is he who is daily schooling himself who is most likely to be instrumental in guiding others to God; the note struck within will produce the greatest vibration around; if I would waken an anthem of praise, I must first attune to thanks the chords of my own soul.

(H. Melvill, B.D.).

O Lord my God, Thou art very great.
Psalm 104
A hymn of praise to God in Nature
Homilist.
I. The UNIVERSALITY of God's workings in Nature.

1. In the domain of dead matter. He is operating in the waters as they sail in the clouds, come down in the showers, etc. He is operating on the crusted earth, laying its "foundations," touching its soil into verdure, and shaking it by volcanic fires. "He looketh on the earth and it trembleth," etc.

2. In the domain of living matter,(1) He works in all vegetable life — in the smallest blade as well as in the mightiest monarchs of the forest.(2) He works in all sentient life — feeds every beast of the field, etc.

3. In the domain of rational existence. God works in all moral minds, from the highest angel to the humblest soul on earth.

II. The PERSONALITY of God's workings in Nature.

1. He works sublimely. If we take the telescope, we are struck with mute amazement at the vastness and splendour of the stellar systems; if we take the microscope and look at the wing of the smallest insect, or even at an atom of metallic dust, what brilliancy and perfection we discover. He paints His beauty on an insect's wing, and wheels His throne upon the rolling worlds.

2. He works incessantly. There is no pause in His exertions; He neither slumbers nor sleeps, always at work, and at work everywhere and in everything. "It takes as much life," says Emerson, "to conserve as to create the universe."

3. He works benevolently. His desire to communicate His blessedness to other beings is the philosophy of the universe.

4. He works wisely. The Great Author never revises His books, the Great Architect never alters His plans.

5. He works in nature morally.(1) The inspiring of the human soul with rapturous worship (ver. 34). There is no true happiness without true worship; and God so appears in Nature as to awaken all souls into an anthem of praise.(2) To clear from the soul all moral wrong (ver. 35). God's purpose, in all His operations on the earth as well as in the truths of His Gospel, is to make this world morally better and happier.

(Homilist.)

A psalm of Providence
J. H. Cooke.
This and the psalm immediately foregoing are closely connected. The one sings of God in salvation, the other of God in creation. The first is a hymn; the second, a poem. The first is the peculiar song of the Church; the second, of all His manifold works. The opening of the psalm conveys a sense of being bowed down with the greatness of the Divine Majesty. No description of God is attempted. Only His robe is seen. Light is the robe of God, with which He has covered Himself. And water is the robe of earth, with which God has covered it. This thought governs the chief part of the poem. It might be called the water psalm. For physical life, as we know it, water is essential. God may have creatures formed of fire and living in the fierce stars. God has, we believe, beings of a spiritual nature. But in the natural universe it is only in that small region where water can exist that vegetable, animal, and human life are found. We can but live in earth's water robe. And grandly the psalmist describes it. In clouds the waters gather above the mountains, and await the Divine bidding. Then they hasten to their appointed work. Some roll up the hill sides in mists, some stream down in rivulets; all go to the place God has appointed them. In the deep seas they dance in waves, and roar on the beach, but keep their bounds. With splendid vivacity the poet then describes the water at work in sustaining life. The wild ass drinks, and his strength is renewed. The cedars of Lebanon have their draughts. The great trees, water sustained, provide homes for the singing birds. In them the stork has her house. Grass for cattle, bread and wine and oil for men, supplying varied needs, are produced. In the far-stretching sea there is vigorous life in many and varied forms. And as thus the waters are seen to obey their first command, to bring forth abundantly, there comes the beautiful remark, "These all wait upon Thee, O God," etc. The 104th psalm is very evidently a paraphrase of the 1st chapter of the Book of Genesis. There is this great difference, the psalm before us is rather a song of Providence than of creation. It does not speak of God as completing the machinery of earth and then setting it in motion and retiring for rest. It is God ever living, ever watching, ever at work. This psalm is the necessary supplement to Genesis. In the panorama at the opening of Holy Scripture there is calm and restfulness, but in the picture here all is movement. In the one God looks, and again and again pronounces all to be good. But here there are signs of the entrance of some element of restlessness and disorder. The mountain streams suffer rebuke — they are chased by thunder to their appointed place. When night comes the young lions are heard roaring after their prey. When the sun leads in the dawn man has to go to his toil and labour until the evening. There is something wrong. Signs of manifold wisdom are apparent, but there are darkness, want, toil, trouble, and death. A discord has evidently entered, and the perfect harmony is gone. Here then is a great mystery. Looking abroad upon nature, the prospect is that of a glorious creation, but with something wrong. It has been compared to a perfect chronometer into the works of which a pin has fallen. Science cannot but see much that is mysterious, and at times seem baffled. Creation tells of marvellous wisdom, but all is not right. It shows vast arrangements for happiness which something has marred. This world is a vase of exceeding loveliness, but it has fallen and lies shattered with jagged edges and points. The study of nature ever leads to the conclusion that it is the work of infinite wisdom, but spoiled in some mysterious manner. Everywhere are there signs of the handiwork of One who wrought for purity and peace and love, and everywhere is foulness and disorder and war. Fact or poem, Genesis gives the only solution. Sin has entered, and the splendid work is shattered. With a truer science than many of those who profess to study nature, the psalmist recognizes this and breathes the prayer, "May sinners pass away from the earth and evil-doers be no more. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Hallelujah." St. of Hippo, in his very remarkable series of sermons on this psalm, comes to the conclusion that a spiritual meaning must be sought. He will have water here to allude to "the love of God which is shed abroad on our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given us." By the world which He hath so founded "that it shall not be moved for ever and ever," he says "I understand the Church." As light is the garment of God, and water the garment of earth, so is love the garment of the Church. It is only as she is robed in this that she is attired with beauty. It is her wedding garment, for he that loveth not is not in Christ. It is in love that God lays the beams of the chambers of His home where there are many mansions. It is love that flows up over the lofty mountains and down in cascades to the humble valleys, sometimes in rushing torrents, and sometimes in hidden springs. It is love that gives verdure and refreshment, and through which souls find a home. Love which is like a mighty sea wherein live creatures innumerable. In God's works in nature are seen His glory and majesty. In the Church is manifest His love. And it is as we consider this, that with sweetest notes we sing, "My meditations of Him shall be sweet, I will be glad in the Lord."

(J. H. Cooke.)

The greatness of God
D. Baker, D.D.
I. IN COMPARISON WITH THE KINGS OF THE EARTH. We read of Alexander the Great, of Constantine the Great, and Frederick the Great, but, verily, in comparison with the God of heaven, their greatness dwindles into insignificance — dwindles into nothing! Have they thrones? Their thrones are upon the earth; God's throne is in the heavens, "high above all height." Have they robes? God's robes are robes of light and majesty. Have they pavilions? He stretcheth forth the heavens as His pavilion, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. Have they chariots? He maketh the clouds His chariot — He walketh upon the wings of the wind. Have they kingdoms? The whole universe is God's kingdom, and literally He ruleth over all.

II. IN CERTAIN PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE WHICH SPEAK SUBLIMELY OF HIM (Habakkuk 3:3-6; Psalm 18:6-15; Isaiah 40:12, 15-17; Revelation 20:11, 12).

III. IN CERTAIN ATTRIBUTES ASCRIBED TO HIM.

1. He is uncreated and eternal.

2. Omniscient.

3. Omnipotent.

4. Omnipresent.

IV. IN THE MIGHTY WORK OF CREATION. We have spoken of His omnipotence as an attribute; here we have its sublime demonstration. How vast is this creation, and how wonderful in all its parts!

V. IN THE WORLD OF REDEMPTION. This exhibits His moral grandeur; and it is this which makes Him emphatically and supremely great indeed. Infinitely great in goodness as He is infinitely great in power; infinitely great in all His moral as in all His natural perfections; so that, in the sublimest sense, it may be said of Him that "He is a God, all o'er consummate, absolute, full orbed, in His whole round of rays complete." INFERENCES.

1. How reasonable it is that we should worship and serve this only living and true God.

2. How dreadful a thing it must be to have this great God for an enemy.

3. How blessed it is to have God upon our side.

(D. Baker, D.D.)

Nature
J. B. Mozley, D.D.
Nature has two great revelations, — that of use and that of beauty; and the first thing we observe about these two characteristics of her is, that they are bound together, and tied to each other. The beauty of nature is not, as it were, a fortunate accident, which can be separated from her use; there is no difference in the tenure upon which these two characteristics stand; the beauty is just as much a part of nature as the use; they are only different aspects of the self-same facts. It is worth observing, in the history of the mind of this country, the formation of a kind of passion for scenery and natural beauty. Though it might sometimes appear that there is nothing particularly serious in the current fashion, still the general sentiment shows a serious passion existing in the poetry and thought of the age, which it follows and copies. What is the religious bearing, then, of this modern passion for nature in its pictorial aspect? First, then, with respect to the place which the beauty of nature has in the argument of Design from nature. When the materialist has exhausted himself in efforts to explain utility in nature, it would appear to be the peculiar office of beauty to rise up suddenly as a confounding and baffling extra, which was not even formally provided for in his scheme. Nature goes off at a tangent which carries her farther than ever from the head under which he places her, and shows the utter inadequacy of that head to include all that has to be included in it. The secret of nature is farther off than ever from what he thinks of it. Physical science goes back and back into nature, but it is the aspect and front of nature which gives the challenge; and it is a challenge which no backward train of physical causes can meet. But again, nature is partly a curtain and partly a disclosure, partly a veil and partly a revelation; and here we come to her faculty of symbolism, which is so strong an aid to, and has so immensely affected, the principles of worship. It is natural for us to regard the beauty and grandeur of nature as not stopping with itself, but bearing a relation to something moral, of which it is the similitude and type. Certainly no person has a right to fasten his own fancies upon the visible creation, and say that its various features mean this and that, resemble this or that in the moral world; but if the association is universal, if we cannot even describe nature without the help of moral terms — solemn, tender, awful, and the like — it is evidence of a natural and real similitude of physical things to moral. Nature is sometimes spoken of in a pantheistic corporeal manner; as if it were a kind of bodily manifestation of the Divine Being, analogous to that garment of the flesh which encircles the human soul, and is the instrument of expression to it. But the manifestation of the Deity which takes place in the beauty of nature rests upon the ground and the principle of language. It is the revelation of the character of God in the way a material type or similitude can be. But a type is a kind of distinct language — the language of oblique and indirect expression, as contrasted with direct. While we do not worship the material created sign, for that would be idolatry, we still repose on it as the true language of the Deity. In this peculiar view of nature there are two points in striking concurrence with the vision-language of Scripture. First, Scripture has specially consecrated the faculty of sight, and has partly put forth, and has promised in a still more complete form, a manifestation of the Deity to mankind, through the medium of a great sight. This view only breaks out in fragments in the Old Testament. It emerges into light when nature is spoken of as the garment and robe of the Deity, when the glory of the Lord covers the tabernacle; when Moses is permitted to behold from the cleft in the rock the skirts of the Divine glory. Especially does the idea of a visible manifestation come out in the prophetic visions, where the splendid gleams and colours of nature, sapphire and amber, rainbow and flame, are collected together, and combined in an emblematic figure and shape, in order to make "the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord." "And when I saw," says the Prophet, "I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one that spake." But the scattered rays of pictorial representation which only occasionally pierce through the clouds of the Old Testament, are gathered into one focus in the New, they converge and are absorbed into an ineffable, eternal appearance, in which God will ever be seen as He is, and they issue in the doctrine of the Visio Dei. Secondly, it must be remarked, as another principle in the Scriptural representation, that the act of seeing a perfectly glorious sight or object is what constitutes the spectator's and beholder's own glory. The future life is called a state of glory in Scripture, and it is called such not only in reference to the world in which it will be enjoyed, which is a glorious world, but also with regard to those who enjoy it; who attain to glory as a personal state. This personal state is enjoyed by them on this principle, that they are glorified as spectators of glory, that beholding Majesty is their own exaltation, and adoration their own ascent. But this latter is certainly the principle of nature and it is inculcated by all who vindicate the place and office of nature as a spectacle. No one was ever struck with wonder and admiration in beholding the works of God, no one was ever impressed strongly by the beauty and majesty of the visible creation, without at the same time feeling an accession of rank and elevation to himself from the act.

(J. B. Mozley, D.D.)

Nature's teaching
Canon Barker.
Nothing is more obvious than that the writers of the Psalms were attracted by the beauty, influence, and fecundity of the earth. Now beauty, apart from all else, is something which must for ever attract us. Beauty is something so subtle, so incomprehensible, that there is no language we can employ or discover which can in any way enable us to understand what is the common root and ground out of which all the beauty springs. And this particular view of nature is very highly important in this materialistic age, when men are so disposed to teach that there is nothing beyond what we see; and so lead our minds to the contemplation of what is material, to give an explanation of all the wonders of nature, the causes of their wonderful operations, and the secret of their power. Wherever you travel with a man of science, and you draw his attention to something in the universe, he will have ready to hand an explanation of what you have pointed out, and a ready answer to the difficulties in your mind. If you are travelling, for instance, in Switzerland, and you point out the grandeur and glory of the mountain range, he will at once begin to explain to you how they arose and got their present configuration, and be extremely learned with regard to the properties of which they consist. After he has dilated at great length, with all learning and profundity, on these aspects of nature, you suddenly turn to him and say, "All you tell me may be very true; your explanation may be very profound, and your science may be very subtle, but I would like to ask you one question. Can you tell me what the beauty of the mountains is? Is it the height, or the depth; is it the light or the shade? Is it the cloud above, or the earth beneath, which constitutes its beauty?" He looks at you and says, "That is beyond me." For what is beauty? No man can describe it, or tell us what it is. It has no real existence apart from intelligence; for you must recollect that the beauty of nature is as much open and exposed to the brute as it is to you and to me. I am, therefore, left to draw a single inference, and that is this — The beauty of nature is not a mere accident; the beauty of nature is not something painted on the surface of nature. The beauty of nature is some integral part of its whole working; and while it is working as a machine it is sleeping as a picture. In the Bible you always find the writer draws the attention of the reader to the soul. The psalmist, after contemplating the glory of God, and that spectacle of light, felt there was a mystery beyond all explanation; and he called on his higher nature to rejoice.

(Canon Barker.)

People
David, Psalmist
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Bless, Dominion, Everywhere, O, Places, Praise, Rule, Soul, Works
Outline
1. An exhortation to bless God for his mercy
5. And for the constancy thereof

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 103:19-22

     8660   magnifying God

Psalm 103:20-22

     8632   adoration

Library
November 6. "Bless the Lord, O, My Soul" (Ps. Ciii. 1).
"Bless the Lord, O, my soul" (Ps. ciii. 1). Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me be stirred up to magnify His holy name. "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's." Who so well can sing this thanksgiving song as …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Plenteous Redemption
This evening I shall consider the subject of redemption, and then notice the adjective appended to the word: "plenteous redemption." I. First, then, we shall consider the subject of REDEMPTION. I shall commence in this way, by asking, What has Christ redeemed? And in order to let you know what my views are upon this subject, I would announce at once what I conceive to be an authoritative doctrine, consistent with common sense, and declared to us by Scripture, namely, that whatever Christ has redeemed, …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 7: 1861

What the Flowers Say.
(Children's Flower Service.) PSALM ciii. 15. "As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth." Children, have you ever heard of the language of flowers? Now, of course, we know that flowers cannot speak as we can. I wish they could. I think they would say such sweet things. But in one way flowers do talk to us. When you give them some water, or when God sends a shower of rain upon them, they give forth a sweet smell; I think that the flowers are speaking then, I think that they are saying, "thank …
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton—The Life of Duty, a Year's Plain Sermons, v. 2

Matt. 8:11 Many
"Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven."--Matt. 8:11. THE words of Scripture which head this page were spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ. You may take them either as a prophecy or as a promise. In either point of view they are deeply interesting, and contain much food for thought. Take the words as a prophecy, and remember that they are sure to be fulfilled The Bible contains many predictions of things most unlikely and improbable, …
John Charles Ryle—The Upper Room: Being a Few Truths for the Times

Thanksgiving Versus Complaining
"In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." Thanksgiving or complaining--these words express two contrastive attitudes of the souls of God's children in regard to His dealings with them; and they are more powerful than we are inclined to believe in furthering or frustrating His purposes of comfort and peace toward us. The soul that gives thanks can find comfort in everything; the soul that complains can find comfort in nothing. God's command is "In everything …
Hannah Whitall Smith—The God of All Comfort

The Three Facts of Sin
"Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; Who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction."--Ps. ciii. 3, 4. THERE is one theological word which has found its way lately into nearly all the newer and finer literature of our country. It is not only one of the words of the literary world at present, it is perhaps the word. Its reality, its certain influence, its universality, have at last been recognised, and in spite of its theological name have forced it into a place which nothing …
Henry Drummond—The Ideal Life

The Three Facts of Salvation
"Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; Who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction."--Ps. ciii. 3, 4. SUPPLEMENT TO "THE THREE FACTS OF SIN" LAST Sabbath we were engaged with the three facts of Sin. To-day we come to the three facts of Salvation. The three facts of Sin were:-- 1. The Guilt of Sin--"Who forgiveth all thine iniquities." 2. The Stain of Sin--"Who healeth all thy diseases." 3. The Power of Sin--"Who redeemeth thy life from destruction." And now we come to the …
Henry Drummond—The Ideal Life

The Long-Suffering, Loving-Kindness, and Tender-Mercies of God. --Ps. Ciii.
The Long-suffering, Loving-kindness, and Tender-mercies of God.--Ps. ciii. O my soul! with all thy powers, Bless the Lord's most holy name; O my soul! till life's last hours, Bless the Lord, His praise proclaim; Thine infirmities He heal'd, He thy peace and pardon seal'd. He with loving-kindness crown'd thee, Satisfied thy mouth with good, From the snares of death unbound thee, Eagle-like thy youth renew'd: Rich in tender mercy He, Slow to wrath, to favour free. He will not retain displeasure, …
James Montgomery—Sacred Poems and Hymns

Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven
[984]Lauda Anima: John Goss, 1869 Psalm 103 Henry F. Lyte, 1834; Alt. Praise, my soul, the King of heaven; To his feet thy tribute bring; Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven, Evermore his praises sing: Alleluia! Alleluia! Praise the everlasting King. Praise him for his grace and favour To our fathers in distress; Praise him still the same as ever, Slow to chide, and swift to bless: Alleluia! Alleluia! Glorious in his faithfulness. Father-like he tends and spares us; Well our feeble frame he knows; …
Various—The Hymnal of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA

Bless the Lord, My Soul
[1202]St. Thomas (Williams): Aaron Williams, 1763 Psalm 103 James Montgomery, 1819 DOXOLOGY Bless the Lord, my soul! His grace to thee proclaim! And all that is within me join To bless his holy Name! O bless the Lord, my soul! His mercies bear in mind! Forget not all his benefits! The Lord to thee is kind. He will not always chide; He will with patience wait; His wrath is ever slow to rise, And ready to abate. He pardons all thy sins; Prolongs thy feeble breath; He healeth thine infirmities, …
Various—The Hymnal of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA

All we Therefore, who Believe in the Living and True God...
18. All we therefore, who believe in the Living and True God, Whose Nature, being in the highest sense good and incapable of change, neither doth any evil, nor suffers any evil, from Whom is every good, even that which admits of decrease, and Who admits not at all of decrease in His own Good, Which is Himself, when we hear the Apostle saying, "Walk in the Spirit, and perform ye not the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: For these are opposed …
St. Augustine—On Continence

The Providence of God
Q-11: WHAT ARE GOD'S WORKS OF PROVIDENCE? A: God's works of providence are the acts of his most holy, wise, and powerful government of his creatures, and of their actions. Of the work of God's providence Christ says, My Father worketh hitherto and I work.' John 5:17. God has rested from the works of creation, he does not create any new species of things. He rested from all his works;' Gen 2:2; and therefore it must needs be meant of his works of providence: My Father worketh and I work.' His kingdom …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Messiah Worshipped by Angels
Let all the angels of God worship Him. M any of the Lord's true servants, have been in a situation so nearly similar to that of Elijah, that like him they have been tempted to think they were left to serve the Lord alone (I Kings 19:10) . But God had then a faithful people, and He has so in every age. The preaching of the Gospel may be compared to a standard erected, to which they repair, and thereby become known to each other, and more exposed to the notice and observation of the world. But we hope …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

Under the Shepherd's Care.
A NEW YEAR'S ADDRESS. "For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls."--1 Peter ii. 25. "Ye were as sheep going astray." This is evidently addressed to believers. We were like sheep, blindly, willfully following an unwise leader. Not only were we following ourselves, but we in our turn have led others astray. This is true of all of us: "All we like sheep have gone astray;" all equally foolish, "we have turned every one to his own way." Our first …
J. Hudson Taylor—A Ribband of Blue

"For what the Law could not Do, in that it was Weak Though the Flesh, God Sending his Own Son,"
Rom. viii. 3.--"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak though the flesh, God sending his own Son," &c. Of all the works of God towards man, certainly there is none hath so much wonder in it, as the sending of his Son to become man; and so it requires the exactest attention in us. Let us gather our spirits to consider of this mystery,--not to pry into the secrets of it curiously, as if we had no more to do but to satisfy our understandings; but rather that we may see what this concerns …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Why all Things Work for Good
1. The grand reason why all things work for good, is the near and dear interest which God has in His people. The Lord has made a covenant with them. "They shall be my people, and I will be their God" (Jer. xxxii. 38). By virtue of this compact, all things do, and must work, for good to them. "I am God, even thy God" (Psalm l. 7). This word, Thy God,' is the sweetest word in the Bible, it implies the best relations; and it is impossible there should be these relations between God and His people, and …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

The Hindrances to Mourning
What shall we do to get our heart into this mourning frame? Do two things. Take heed of those things which will stop these channels of mourning; put yourselves upon the use of all means that will help forward holy mourning. Take heed of those things which will stop the current of tears. There are nine hindrances of mourning. 1 The love of sin. The love of sin is like a stone in the pipe which hinders the current of water. The love of sin makes sin taste sweet and this sweetness in sin bewitches the …
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

The Prophet Joel.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. The position which has been assigned to Joel in the collection of the Minor Prophets, furnishes an external argument for the determination of the time at which Joel wrote. There cannot be any doubt that the Collectors were guided by a consideration of the chronology. The circumstance, that they placed the prophecies of Joel just between the two prophets who, according to the inscriptions and contents of their prophecies, belonged to the time of Jeroboam and Uzziah, is …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

The First Day in Passion-Week - Palm-Sunday - the Royal Entry into Jerusalem
At length the time of the end had come. Jesus was about to make Entry into Jerusalem as King: King of the Jews, as Heir of David's royal line, with all of symbolic, typic, and prophetic import attaching to it. Yet not as Israel after the flesh expected its Messiah was the Son of David to make triumphal entrance, but as deeply and significantly expressive of His Mission and Work, and as of old the rapt seer had beheld afar off the outlined picture of the Messiah-King: not in the proud triumph of war-conquests, …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

But, Say They, How is the Flesh by a Certain Likeness Compared unto The...
25. But, say they, how is the flesh by a certain likeness compared unto the Church? What! doth the Church lust against Christ? whereas the same Apostle said, "The Church is subject unto Christ." [1898] Clearly the Church is subject unto Christ; because the spirit therefore lusteth against the flesh, that on every side the Church may be made subject to Christ; but the flesh lusteth against the spirit, because not as yet hath the Church received that peace which was promised perfect. And for this reason …
St. Augustine—On Continence

a survey of the third and closing discourse of the prophet
We shall now, in conclusion, give a survey of the third and closing discourse of the prophet. After an introduction in vi. 1, 2, where the mountains serve only to give greater solemnity to the scene (in the fundamental passages Deut. xxxii. 1, and in Is. 1, 2, "heaven and earth" are mentioned for the same purposes, inasmuch as they are the most venerable parts of creation; "contend with the mountains" by taking them in and applying to [Pg 522] them as hearers), the prophet reminds the people of …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

The Birth of Jesus Proclaimed by Angels to the Shepherds.
(Near Bethlehem, b.c. 5.) ^C Luke II. 8-20. ^c 8 And there were shepherds in the same country [they were in the same fields from which David had been called to tend God's Israel, or flock] abiding in the field, and keeping watch by night over their flock. [When the flock is too far from the village to lead it to the fold at night, these shepherds still so abide with it in the field, even in the dead of winter.] 9 And an angel of the Lord stood by them [He stood upon the earth at their side, and did …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The Best Things Work for Good to the Godly
WE shall consider, first, what things work for good to the godly; and here we shall show that both the best things and the worst things work for their good. We begin with the best things. 1. God's attributes work for good to the godly. (1). God's power works for good. It is a glorious power (Col. i. 11), and it is engaged for the good of the elect. God's power works for good, in supporting us in trouble. "Underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut. xxxiii. 27). What upheld Daniel in the lion's den? …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

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