Rescue me, O LORD, from evil men. Protect me from men of violence, Sermons
I. OUR GREAT ADVERSARY. 1. Is he not evil? Do not the manifold manifestations of evil around us and within us prove the existence of a prince of evil, as do the like manifestations of goodness prove the existence of One whom we call God our Father? 2. And violent. With what cruel might does he often assault our souls! 3. And even aiming at our hurt. "Going about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." Are not the declarations of vers. 2-5 absolutely true - so incessant, so subtle, so malignant, so venomous, so hidden and unexpected, are his snares? Let those who have been his victims tell, and the many who still are perpetually oppressed by him. II. OUR ONLY BUT SURE DEFENSE. It is God the Lord. No power of our own, or of our fellow-man, or of any religious rite, but all and only in God. So do his delivered ones with unanimous voice declare. III. THIS DEFENSE MADE OUR OWN. HOW may we avail ourselves of the deliverance which God assures us of? Well: 1. Our peril must be clearly seen. See how in this whole psalm, especially vers. 1-5, the writer, whoever he was, is vividly conscious of the formidableness of his foe. And so must we be, as, unhappily, too many are not. Many see no peril, feel no anxiety, are wrapped in profound indifference. Such fall an easy prey to the tempter's power. True, the world is not the devil's world - it was one of his lies when he told our Lord that all the kingdoms of the earth and their glory were given to him; it is not so; but still he is here in the world, and we ever need to be on our guard. 2. We must betake ourselves to prayer. Prayer brings the unseen and the eternal near to us, so that they become visible and tangible to our spirits, and as living realities exercise their mighty influence upon us. As the earth gets out of the darkness by swinging itself round to the light, so by prayer we turn to where God and all the power of his blessed Spirit are, and so deliverance comes. 3. Evil must be intensely hated. (Vers. 9-11.) No matter whether it be that embodiment of evil external to us, which is called the devil, or whether it be that inward corruption and wicked disposition which we find still lurking in our souls. We cannot curse it too bitterly or hate it too intensely. "Ye that fear the Lord hate evil" - so are we commanded, and any less intense feeling towards it is incompatible with the true love of God. 4. Personal appropriation of God. We must be able to say unto the Lord, "Thou art my God." A mere abstract creed will not help us; we must each one know God as "the Strength of my salvation." 5. Remembrance of former mercies will greatly help us. "Thou hast covered," etc. (ver. 7). 6. Let there be confident faith. (Vers. 12, 13.) The faith of Israel was shown by their believing shout as they compassed the city of Jericho. The walls had not yet fallen, but they knew they would, and so they shouted. So the psalmist says, "I know" (ver. 12), and "surely" (ver. 13). We must come to God, expecting that he will answer our prayers (James 1:6). Such are some of the suggestions of this psalm as to God's way of deliverance. May we be able to avail ourselves of them! - S.C.
Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? I. CONSCIENCE INFORMED. It is quite true that the workers of iniquity seem like brute beasts, as if they had no common sense, no conscience; but they had these gifts, and it is this fact which renders their conscience so dark.1. We sin against our understanding. Our reason protests against sill. 2. We sin against conscience. Our moral sense echoes the words and thunders of Sinai, and protests against transgression. 3. We sin against experience. Our history shows how all that is desirable and honourable lies in the path of obedience, and how paths of transgression are paths of misery and shame. Sin is not a mistake or a misfortune, but a crime. II. CONSCIENCE ASLEEP. 1. Asleep as to men (ver. 4). 2. Asleep as to God. "Call not upon the Lord." Thus men stifle their moral sense, and live neither fearing God nor regarding man. III. CONSCIENCE AROUSED (ver. 5). Men awake to find that "God is in the generation of the righteous." All is true that the righteous held, and the angry God is ready to avenge Himself on the proud sinner. (W. L. Watkinson.). Lord, who shall abide in Thy tabernacle? The ideal worshipper of Jehovah is painted in this Psalm in a few broad outlines. The tone of the Psalm accords with the circumstances of the time when David brought the ark to Jerusalem. The two main points are: the conception of the guests of Jehovah, and the statement of the ethical qualifications of these. The Psalmist consults the Master of the House as to the terms on which He extends hospitality, which terms it is His right to prescribe. The character of the God determines the character of the worshipper. The roots of ethics are in religion. The Old Testament ideal of the righteous man flows from its revelation of the righteous God. Not men's own fancies, but insight gained by communion with God, and docile inquiry of Him will reliably tell what manner of men they are who can abide in His light. Ver. 2 sums up the qualifications of Jehovah's guest in one comprehensive demand, that he should walk uprightly, and then analyses that requirement into the two of righteous deeds and truthful speech. True, the ideal here is not the full Christian one. It is too merely negative for that, and too entirely concerned with acts. Therein it reproduces the limitation of the earliest revelation.... Usury and bribery were common sins, as they still are in communities on the same industrial and judicial level as that mirrored in the Psalm. The Psalmist, in the last verse, clearly recognises that such a character as he has outlined not only dwells in Jehovah's tent, but will stand unmoved though all the world should rook. Righteousness is the one stable thing in the universe.(A. Maclaren, D. D.) (F. D. Maurice, M. A.) ? — Religious people are concerned to know, for their own comfort, whom God will receive at last into His own tabernacle above.I. ABIDING IN GOD'S TABERNACLE. Or, dwelling upon His holy hill. We understand these expressions as meaning God's residence in heaven. Who, then, shall dwell with God in glory everlasting? Let us take heed to our ways, and walk with care and endeavour, by God's grace, to make our calling and selection sure, that so an entrance may be ministered unto us abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. II. IN ANSWER TO THIS EARNEST INQUIRY. Those who walk uprightly, and work righteousness, and speak the truth in their hearts. An heir of heaven walks with God as reconciled to Him, and walks uprightly, i.e. sincerely and honestly. If we work righteousness we must have a principle of righteousness implanted in us by the saving grace of God. The expression, "speaking the truth in the heart," is strikingly singular. It shows that people may speak the truth, and yet the heart not love it; but all Christian believers are inwardly what they appear outwardly. (R. Horsfall.) This is a question by David propounded. Consider —1. Who demandeth, David, the man of God, seeing the wonderful hypocrisy of men in frequenting the holy assemblies, and making a pretence of religion, being stirred up with singular love to true religion, inflamed with a fervent zeal to God's glory, burning with earnest desire to know the true saints from dissembling hypocrites, and demanded this question — "Lord, who shall dwell in Thy tabernacle, who shall rest in Thy holy hill? 2. Of whom he demandeth. He flieth unto God, because it passeth the knowledge of men, who only look into the things apparent and outward. The Lord alone can sunder the wheat from the chaff, the tares from the wheat, the grain from the cockle and darnel. It is the Lord who is Father of all the whole family, which is named either on heaven or on earth, which is His Church; it is the Lord that is the chief Governor and Ruler of His house, which are His subjects; it is God alone who keepeth the Book of Life in the closet of His own heart, wherein He hath registered all His saints. It is the Lord, and not men, which pitched the tabernacle and testimony of His presence. It is the Lord whose property and prerogative it is by right to know the heart. It is the Lord whose eyes are upon all His creatures. 3. What is demanded. By "tabernacle" here some understand the Church militant. By the "hill of God" they understand the Church triumphant. The question then is," Who shall I make some reckoning of, to be Thy Church visible and militant?"The Church of God militant here on earth is compared to the tabernacle, and to the holy hill of God. 1. To the tabernacle. This Moses reared. As the tabernacle was pitched here and there, and removed from place to place, so the Church militant hath no certain rest in any appointed place, but is now in this place, now in that, at the appointment of the Lord. As in the time of the ark and tabernacle, God there showeth Himself and His glory unto the people, so doth the Lord reveal Himself in the Church and Assembly of His saints, there declaring His glory. As the Lord promised by Moses to dwell in the tabernacle, and there to walk and be conversant with Israel His people, so does Almighty God the Father and Jesus Christ His Son, our Saviour, dwell in the Church which is His immaterial tabernacle. The Church and Assembly of God's saints is called the House of God, because He dwelleth therein. The Church militant is also compared unto a hill or mountain. 1. For the allusion that it hath unto Mount Zion, in Jerusalem, being Mount Moriah, where Abraham would have sacrificed his son Isaac. This hill was a type of the true Church, among whom God dwelleth forever. 2. The Church may be called a hill or mountain, for the height, altitude, and lifting up thereof. 3. And for the open sight thereof. 4. In regard of the strength and stayedness, the Church may be called a mountain, for the hilly and high places are most strong and most impregnable. The Church is called a "holy hill," because God hath sanctified it and made it holy for Himself, because in the Church the Lord giveth manifold testimonies and signs of His holiness, and because the Lord taketh the defence of His Church into His own hands.Doctrines . — 1. See how great the hypocrisy of man oftentimes is in the pretence of godliness. 2. The prophet flieth unto God in the discerning of the true saints from hypocrites. However apparent things may be known unto men, hidden things belong only unto the Lord. 3. Learn not to play the hypocrite. 4. When we lack wisdom we should flee unto God for instruction. 5. Learn the state and condition of the militant Church. It is but as a tabernacle. 6. In this world the saints must not look for any rest, continuance, or certain abode. 7. We must not forsake the Church of God because of afflictions and troubles. 8. Who shall rest in the holy hill of God? The Church militant rejoices in the hope of happiness to come. 9. There is no true and sound rest save in the holy hill of God. (R. Turnbull.) Unto this mountain, if we should ascend but in thought, as Scipio once did in his dream, and from thence should behold the earth, we should easily contemn this inferior world with the desires thereof. For the whole globe of the earth, together with the water, which seemeth now so great unto us, if we could see it from the highest heavens, would appear unto us like a mote in the sun. But if withal we felt the unspeakable joys of heaven, and from thence should cast down our eyes unto this valley of tears, there to behold the vanity of vanities, as Solomon saith, it cannot be expressed with how fervent a desire we should be inflamed to have our habitation in heaven. Peter, when as he was present in the transfiguration of Christ in the Mount Tabor, and had a taste of the heavenly glory, he was straightway ravished therewith, and desired greatly to remain there. "Lord," saith he, "it is good being here, let us make three tabernacles," etc.(G. Downame.) Our abode in the mountain of God is expressed in the word "dwelling," whereby two things are signified, perpetuity and rest. Perpetuity, for there the children of God remain not as pilgrims for a time, but as citizens and heirs forever. Whereupon the kingdom of heaven is also called an heavenly inheritance, wherein are everlasting habitations, and an inheritance immortal and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us. Again, the word "dwelling" importeth rest. For there the children of God do not wander as pilgrims, neither are subject to any molestations, but do wholly rest from their labours. And for that cause the kingdom of heaven is called the rest of God, and as it were an eternal Sabbath. In respect whereof the land of Canaan was a type of our heavenly country.(G. Downame.) Man is a mirror, and it is an all-important matter which way the mirror is turned. If downwards, it can reflect only earthly things, — the mire, the dirt, the filth of the earth; if turned upward, it may reflect the heavens, with all its glory of sun, moon, and stars. The mirror turned downward is the carnal mind, the mirror turned upward is the spiritual mind. Sometimes in an instant of time the inversion is accomplished, and he who before was of the earth earthy, comes to discern and reflect the things of God and heaven.(A. T. Pierson, D. D.) Question: Who is the man who would be able to ascend unto that hill of God where the highest visions of the Almighty may be perceived? The answer is: The man whose life is blameless. All that follows is a description of the moral qualifications of such a man. What is striking in the Psalm is the moral principle which seems to underlie it. There are laws in the spiritual kingdom, and the Psalmist gets a glimpse of these spiritual laws, and he makes them the subject of his poem. The law here is this, that the condition of power in life, and the condition of the vision of the Almighty, is to be found in the ethical or moral considerations. It is the man whose life is blameless, the man whose character will bear investigation, the man whose whole being and nature are animated by a strict regard of what is morally right and true, that comes by degrees to this possession of strong invincible character, and that capacity for seeing the highest things of God. There is no idea here that the Psalmist can purchase the vision of God by the payment of so much good done. To do that would have been to vitiate the whole moral basis of the idea; for if a man seeks heaven for profit he is not, of course, a heavenly-minded person. Morality and spirituality must be genuine and sincere if they are to be moral or spiritual things at all. What the Psalmist does set forth is this, that the conditions of this insight and power of life lie, not so much in the possession of intellectual force as in the possession of moral capacities. There is a constant tendency to confuse religion with theology. Theology is only the scientific expression of the ideas which are incorporated in religion. Religion itself is quite different. A man may be religious who has very small theological opinions. Our power of seeing Divine things does not depend so much upon our moral integrity as upon our spiritual devotion. Religion is a moral sympathy between the soul of the creature and the spirit of the Creator. It is the moral sympathy between you and me in this world and the great God who put us into this world. That is what is said in the Gospel of St. John, "If any man will do His will," — if a man has a moral desire to follow out the Divine ideal in his life, if his soul is in sympathy with the Divine moral earnestness, then he shall be able to understand; he will gain a perception of the meaning of God's action, and the vision of God which would otherwise be denied him. Observe the wonderful way in which the same thought underlies the great creation of the Italian poet. This Psalm is a sort of "Divine Comedy" in miniature, for it exactly expresses the thought which Dante had in his mind. What are the conditions, according to Dante, in which a man can enter into the vision of the great paradise over his head? He must have understood evil, and seen it in all its hideousness, and must have overcome and climbed that steep of purgatory, disciplining by degrees the moral defects in him, until at last, when he climbs to the summit of the mount of purgatory, he is the immovable man, the man who is crowned with crown and mitre, as god over himself. And only when that is achieved, when that moral sincerity is at last made a real thing in him, is he capable of ascending under the guidance of Divine truth into the lofty regions of paradise. This is exactly the same thought. What an enormous source of joy that ought to be to the human heart. Let us remember that we have within us a Divine Spirit that is constantly prompting us to higher things.(W. Boyd Carpenter, D. D.) Religion is not a far-off, but a pressing and everyday affair. The very humblest of mankind may be the greatest saint of God. It is only small and ignorant natures which shrink from lowly tasks. Nothing can be ignoble which a noble purpose glorifies. In this Psalm you have the things necessary for the man who may claim the high blessing of God. What are they. Strange to say, they are precisely those things that we should demand of the ordinary English gentleman, of the ordinary English tradesman, of the ordinary English working man. Mere morality, you may say, and for the most part, negative morality. David does not say he was to be brave, magnanimous, self-sacrificing. He only says that he must not be a liar or a slanderer, or one who wrongs others, or takes rewards against the innocent. You may be tempted to say, surely David puts the scale too low! Had, then, David a less overwhelming sense than we have of the High and Holy One who inhabiteth eternity? If you think in that way to get over the difficulty you are mistaken. But is it really so small a thing to keep innocency and do the thing which is right? The New Testament speaks, over and over again, identically the same language. David's truth, and the truth of Christ Himself, is, that those who desire to be one with God, everyone who nameth the name of Christ, must, as the first essential, depart from iniquity. You cannot escape these conclusions by saying, "Yes, Christ spake these things before, and not after, His great work was finished, and would have preached otherwise if He had preached after His resurrection." If you make that answer you subject yourselves to the overwhelming refutation of Scripture. See the Epistle of James, the Lord's brother. See also the loftiest and most spiritual of St. Paul's Epistles, that to the Ephesians. If you would rest in God's holy hill this is quite certain, you must keep innocency, and do the things that are right.(Dean Farrar.) The Psalm consists of a question and an answer. David asks the question. He was a good mall, concerned for his own soul. He asks it of the Lord, for He is the infallible Teacher and Law-giver. He asks it in Old Testament terms, speaking of the tabernacle and the holy hill of Mount Zion. The doctrine arising from the words is this — It challengeth everyone's most serious consideration what sort of persons, sojourning with God here, shall be inhabitants of heaven hereafter. Therefore let us —I. SHOW WHAT IS IMPLIED IN THIS CONSIDERATION. 1. That all shall not be inhabitants of heaven; some will perish. For all the sons of men will not be saints in heaven. There will be a great company on Christ's left hand at the great day, doomed to everlasting fire (Matthew 25:41). And many of those who are now about the tabernacle will be a-missing in heaven (Matthew 7:21-23). To see those who had not the tabernacle of God among them fall short of heaven is not strange; but many who in external privileges have been exalted to heaven will be brought down to hell (Psalm 125, ult.). 2. They are persons of a distinguished character now who shall be inhabitants of heaven hereafter. Not of the common gang of the world, nor of professors either. Many professors are foolish virgins, that will get heaven's door cast in their face (Matthew 25:2-4). 3. In this world they sojourn with God in His tabernacle who shall be the inhabitants of heaven hereafter. The world is no more their home. They are in a peculiar manner consecrated to God and His service (Romans 12:1). All Israel had access to the outer courts of the tabernacle, but the priests only to the tabernacle itself. They are admitted to communion with God in ordinances. And they will enter heaven because they are born from above. II. THE REASONS WHEREFORE WE SHOULD THUS SERIOUSLY CONSIDER WHO SHALL BE THE INHABITANTS OF HEAVEN. 1. Because there is a heaven and a hell, and all must land in one or the other. 2. And the laws of heaven admit only such as are qualified for it. 3. None who are capable of such considerations will ever see heaven without it. The work of grace begins here (Lamentations 3:40). 4. If we miss heaven we are ruined eternally. III. APPLICATION OF THE SUBJECT. 1. Consider of it fixedly and solemnly. 2. With application to yourselves. 3. And practically that you may set yourselves to strive for heaven. 4. Divinely, as in the sight of heaven. For remember, heaven is not plenished but with chosen people (2 Corinthians 6:17, 18). Hell receives all comers, but not so heaven. None can come there but sealed ones, such as God has marked for Himself (2 Timothy 2:19). And separated ones from the sinful world (1 Corinthians 6:11; Matthew 25:32). As your life is here, so will it be there. (T. Boston, D. D.) People David, PsalmistPlaces JerusalemTopics Chief, 140, Choirmaster, David, Deliver, Evil, Free, Gt, Keepest, Leader, Lt, Music, Musician, Music-maker, O, Overseer, Power, Preserve, Protect, Psalm, Rescue, Safe, Violence, ViolentOutline 1. David prays to be delivered from Saul and Doeg8. He prays against them 12. He comforts himself by confidence in God Dictionary of Bible Themes Psalm 140:1 5480 protection 5606 warfare, nature of Library Question Lxxxiii of PrayerI. Is Prayer an Act of the Appetitive Powers? Cardinal Cajetan, On Prayer based on Friendship II. Is it Fitting to Pray? Cardinal Cajetan, On Prayer as a True Cause S. Augustine, On the Sermon on the Mount, II. iii. 14 " On the Gift of Perseverance, vii. 15 III. Is Prayer an Act of the Virtue of Religion? Cardinal Cajetan, On the Humility of Prayer S. Augustine, On Psalm cii. 10 " Of the Gift of Perseverance, xvi. 39 IV. Ought We to Pray to God Alone? S. Augustine, Sermon, cxxvii. 2 V. … St. Thomas Aquinas—On Prayer and The Contemplative Life Letter xxvi. (Circa A. D. 1127) to the Same Epistle xviii. To John, Bishop. How the Silent and the Talkative are to be Admonished. A Discourse of Mercifulness Covenanting a Privilege of Believers. Psalms Links Psalm 140:1 NIVPsalm 140:1 NLT Psalm 140:1 ESV Psalm 140:1 NASB Psalm 140:1 KJV Psalm 140:1 Bible Apps Psalm 140:1 Parallel Psalm 140:1 Biblia Paralela Psalm 140:1 Chinese Bible Psalm 140:1 French Bible Psalm 140:1 German Bible Psalm 140:1 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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