Therefore the LORD heard and was filled with wrath; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and His anger flared against Israel, Sermons
This psalm is emphatically a judgment psalm. It teaches that - I. NATIONS ARE JUDGED AS WELL AS INDIVIDUALS. History is almost entirely occupied with the judgments of God upon nations. Hence it is that we say, "Happy is that nation which has no history!" for if it has, we know the nature of the record for the most part. II. THEIR JUDGMENT IS JUST. Study the causes of the decline of empires, nations, and peoples, and it will generally be found that, as with the Canaanitish nations, their vice and wickedness had become so rampant and foul that, for the sake of humanity at large, it was necessary that the besom of God's destruction should sweep them away. Gibbon's great work on the 'Decline and Fall of the Empire of Rome' is really - though Gibbon was far enough from intending it to be so - a theodice, a vindication of God and of his righteousness. III. BUT SUCH JUDGMENTS DO NOT COME UNTIL ALL OTHER MEANS HAVE BEEN FIRST TRIED. It was so with Israel. They had witnessed the plagues upon Egypt. They had experienced the unstinted mercy and long suffering of God. They had seen the glorious miracles which God wrought on their behalf. They had been taught his holy Law. So that the question of Isaiah 5:4 was altogether just. And so in the history of all nations. If God's vengeance cometh surely, it cometh very slowly; so that, perchance, it may not need to come at all. IV. THEY ARE EXECUTED IN THE PRESENT LIFE. There is no future judgement for nations. When Christ came, as he did at the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. , the judgment he predicted should then take place was fulfilled. V. IN THEM THE INNOCENT SUFFER WITH THE GUILTY. This is inevitable. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. Hence - VI. THEY PREDICT THE FUTURE FINAL JUDGMENT. God shall then judge every man according to his works, as is not possible in the judgments of the nations now. VII. ARE EFFECTUAL BUT FOR A TIME. They do not put an end to sin, but only stay it for a season (ver. 34). VIII. ARE ACCORDING TO RIGHTEOUSNESS. The leaders in sin shall suffer deepest condemnation. See the doom of Ephraim, Israel's ringleader in iniquity (vers. 9, 57, 67). IX. THE SINS WHICH PROVOKE THEM DO NOT HINDER THE PURPOSES OF GOD. (Ver. 70.) David was raised up to carry on what should have been Ephraim's work. X. TRUE PATRIOTISM IS TO HELP FORWARD, BY ALL MEANS IN OUR POWER, THAT RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH ALONE EXALTETH A NATION. - S.C. Therefore the Lord heard this, and was wroth... Because they believed not in God, and trusted not in His salvation. There are morbid growths in the human frame which our doctors divide into two groups — benign and malignant; and the distinction often comes to mean the distinction between life and death. In dealing with the unbelief which crosses our pathway and even creeps into our homes, it is most important that we should observe the same principle of minute and discriminating classification, and beware of confusing things that entirely differ. Some phases of scepticism are chiefly intellectual; morbid, weakening, and hurtful all the same: phases which begin to assume a moral complexion when a man parades them as a beggar parades his sores, and it may be frets and keeps them open when they tend to heal. And on the other hand there are scepticisms which are moral in their beginnings and which tend to destroy the most vital fibres of conscience and character. 1. Unbelief is malignant when it is a product of the flesh and its tyrannous appetites. Of that we have an instructive example in the text. Our fleshly passions always tend to make us distrustful of the spiritual and the unseen, and this drift in the passions sometimes warps the reason and deflects the moral sense, and has done so for generations, so that we inherit a maimed aptitude for faith. It is only by the subjugation of the flesh that we become susceptible of the faith that God seeks from us. Men may be mistrustful malcontents because they do not find themselves in the kind of world upon which they have set their foolish desire. The atheist is occasionally a person who cannot get all the beer he wants. Now and again men gnash their teeth upon religious belief because Divine law puts restraint upon their lusts and upholds the strict sanctities of marriage and the home. The ideal world that would convince them of the Maker's benevolence would be a world fluttering with hosts of unclaimed hours. 2. Another sign of malignant unbelief is that it thwarts men in working out the appointed problems of life and salvation. We find the scientific mind smouldering with resentment because unscientific definitions of the supernatural have been current in religious circles, just as if such accidents were of the essence of faith. The mind trained to methods of historical research is exasperated to contempt by the uncritical methods of pietists who do not grasp the human part in revelation, and the Bible is despised because of the narrowness and illiteracy of some good Christians who honour it. The man needs our richest pity over whom, for any of these reasons, the Bible has lost its authority. But the obligations of faith are first of all those which present themselves in the pathway of our common duty, and when those obligations are met, we shall probably find the further claim the Bible makes upon our faith easier of fulfilment 3. That unbelief is malignant which impeaches a God who is in the very act of proving His covenant and friendship with us and leading us forth into freedom, privilege, blessedness. Our vaunted doubt is an affront to a living Benefactor, a stab at the warm love that is ever brooding over us, a gross filial impiety; for the signs that our lives are under covenant guidance are as indisputable as those vouchsafed to Israel of old, however much they may differ in form. If you flatter yourself that it is only the God of an empty tradition you disparage in your modes of unbelief, you eliminate the most noteworthy facts from your experience of life, and judge with disastrous prejudice. God is nearer to us than all others, directing our steps to right ends, moulding our characters by wise chastisement, and clinging tenaciously to the faint promise of better things that may yet be in us; and it is all this which puts the culminating blackness upon our unbelief. 4. Unbelief is malignant when the most memorable experiences of our history furnish sufficient warrant for the faith we are required to exercise. Such was the case with Israel in the wilderness. Such unbelief as they avowed might have been less unseemly before the first plague alighted upon Egypt, and the first wonder had been wrought for their salvation. God never asks from men an arbitrary and impossible faith, and it will always be found that He has prepared us by the lessons of our previous history for the next heroic act of trust that is required. In God's order for our education in this cardinal virtue, the intricate, the complex, the formidable do not come first, although misguided men do not always respect God's order. The duties of faith are graded just as carefully as a child's scales in music or his first exercises in reading. The infant who can scarcely climb up-stairs is not set to scale Mount Ararat. God's providence puts the demands of faith in a rational series, and we must rise in harmony with our personal experience of His grace and power. High destinies are in store for you, and you must needs believe in God's continuous salvation through every step of your pilgrimage, and let Him shape the plan of it in His own way. Why should your whims and weaknesses and insistences forsooth be sacred in His sight? Be content to have them set aside. When you believe in God's salvation as it persists through your life and breaks out into floods of ever-growing illumination, you will find it easier to believe in the history of salvation preserved for us in the sacred book; and mounting those ascents of faith, made ready for your steps, you shall find that nothing is impossible to him that believeth. () The Evangslist. I. THE SIN CHARGED. 1. They believed not in Jehovah as contrasted with idol gods, or as the only living and true God. 2. They believed not in His great salvation to be achieved by the promised seed. II. THE CONSEQUENCES. 1. Because men believe not in God, they are left to become the dupes of delusion and error. 2. Because they trust not God, they remain slaves of sin. 3. Because they believe not in God, they taste not joy, peace, and true felicity. 4. Because they believe not in God, they are subject to fear of death, and despair of eternal happiness. 5. They wilt be subject to the wrath of God, and will be outcasts from Him for ever. III. THE REASONS WHICH SHOULD INDUCE US TO BELIEVE IN GOD. 1. The essential immutability of His nature. 2. The infallible certainty of His Word, and the preparation He has made for our salvation. 3. The impossibility of finding salvation in any other way. IV. THE MEANS TO BE EMPLOYED. 1. Contemplation of our own weakness and inefficiency. 2. Study of His character and faithfulness, His Word and grace, His gospel, etc. 3. Diligent attendance upon hearing, for "faith cometh by hearing." 4. Fervent prayer for His Divine assistance. () People Asaph, David, Ham, Jacob, Joseph, PsalmistPlaces JerusalemTopics Anger, Angry, Broke, Ears, Fire, Full, Jacob, Kindled, Lighted, Lord's, Mounted, Rose, Sheweth, Wrath, WrothOutline 1. An exhortation both to learn and to preach, the law of God
9. The story of God's wrath against the incredulous and disobedient
67. The Israelites being rejected, God chose Judah, Zion, and David.
Dictionary of Bible Themes Psalm 78:9-41 8705 apostasy, in OT Psalm 78:11-22 1418 miracles, responses Psalm 78:17-31 4478 meat Psalm 78:18-22 5473 proof, through testing Psalm 78:21-22 5790 anger, divine
8032 trust, lack of Psalm 78:21-33 8741 failure Library Memory, Hope, and Effort
'That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments.'--PSALM lxxviii. 7. In its original application this verse is simply a statement of God's purpose in giving to Israel the Law, and such a history of deliverance. The intention was that all future generations might remember what He had done, and be encouraged by the remembrance to hope in Him for the future; and by both memory and hope, be impelled to the discharge of present duty. So, then, the words …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureTurning Back in the Day of Battle
I. We will first consider for a little while WHAT THESE MEN DID. They turned their backs. When the time for fighting came they ought to have shown their fronts. Like bold men they should have kept their face to the foe and their breast against the adversary, but they dishonorably turned their backs and fled. This, I am sorry to say, is not an unusual thing amongst professing Christians. They turn back; they turn back in the day of battle. Some do this at the first appearance of difficulty. "There …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 12: 1866 Limiting God
Among such sins of the first table is that described in our text. It is consequently one of the masterpieces of iniquity, and we shall do well to purge ourselves of it. It is full of evil to ourselves, and is calculated to dishonor both God and man, therefore let us be in earnest to cut it up both root and branch. I think we have all been guilty of this in our measure; and we are not free from it even to this day. Whether we be saints or sinners, we may stand here and make our humble confession that …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 5: 1859 Fifteenth Day for Schools and Colleges
WHAT TO PRAY.--For Schools and Colleges "As for Me, this is My covenant with them, saith the Lord: My Spirit that is upon thee, and My words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LoThe future of the Church and the world depends, to an extent we little conceive, on the education of the day. The Church may be seeking to evangelise the heathen, and be giving up her own children to secular …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession Fourteenth Day for the Church of the Future
WHAT TO PRAY.--For the Church of the Future "That the children might not be as their fathers, a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God."--PS. lxxviii. 8. "I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thy offspring."--ISA. xliv. 3. Pray for the rising generation, who are to come after us. Think of the young men and young women and children of this age, and pray for all the agencies at work among them; that in association and societies …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession Centenary Commemoration
OF THE RETURN OF BISHOP SEABURY. 1885 THE RT. REV. SAMUEL SEABURY, D.D. FIRST BISHOP OF CONNECTICUT, HELD HIS FIRST ORDINATION AT MIDDLETOWN, AUGUST 3, 1785. On the ninth day of June, 1885, the Diocesan Convention met in Hartford. Morning Prayer was read in Christ Church at 9 o'clock by the Rev. W. E. Vibbert, D.D., Rector of St. James's Church, Fair Haven, and the Rev. J. E. Heald, Rector of Trinity Church, Tariffville. The Holy Communion was celebrated in St. John's Church, the service beginning …
Various—The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary "Thou Shalt Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother. "
From this Commandment we learn that after the excellent works of the first three Commandments there are no better works than to obey and serve all those who are set over us as superiors. For this reason also disobedience is a greater sin than murder, unchastity, theft and dishonesty, and all that these may include. For we can in no better way learn how to distinguish between greater and lesser sins than by noting the order of the Commandments of God, although there are distinctions also within the …
Dr. Martin Luther—A Treatise on Good Works Indiscreet Importunity.
"I gave thee a king in mine anger." HOSEA xiii. 11. "Ye know not what ye ask." MATTHEW xx. 22. PSALM lxxviii. 27-31. That God sometimes suffers men to destroy themselves, giving them their own way, although He knows it is ruinous, and even putting into their hands the scorpion they have mistaken for a fish, is an indubitable and alarming fact. Perhaps no form of ruin covers a man with such shame or sinks him to such hopelessness as when he finds that what he has persistently clamoured for and refused …
Marcus Dods—How to become like Christ The Mystery
Of the Woman dwelling in the Wilderness. The woman delivered of a child, when the dragon was overcome, from thenceforth dwelt in the wilderness, by which is figured the state of the Church, liberated from Pagan tyranny, to the time of the seventh trumpet, and the second Advent of Christ, by the type, not of a latent, invisible, but, as it were, an intermediate condition, like that of the lsraelitish Church journeying in the wilderness, from its departure from Egypt, to its entrance into the land …
Joseph Mede—A Key to the Apocalypse The Second Continental Journey.
1827-28. PART I.--GERMANY. After John and Martha Yeardley had visited their friends at home, their minds were directed to the work which they had left uncompleted on the continent of Europe; and, on their return from the Yearly Meeting, they opened this prospect of service before the assembled church to which they belonged. (Diary) 6 mo. 18.--Were at the Monthly Meeting at Highflatts, where we laid our concern before our friends to revisit some parts of Germany and Switzerland, and to visit …
John Yeardley—Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel The World's Bread
'And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told Him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. 31. And He said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. 32. And they departed into a desert place by ship privately. 33. And the people saw them departing, and many knew Him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Out of the Deep of Loneliness, Failure, and Disappointment.
My heart is smitten down, and withered like grass. I am even as a sparrow that sitteth alone on the housetop--Ps. cii. 4, 6. My lovers and friends hast Thou put away from me, and hid mine acquaintance out of my sight--Ps. lxxviii. 18. I looked on my right hand, and saw there was no man that would know me. I had no place to flee unto, and no man cared for my soul. I cried unto Thee, O Lord, and said, Thou art my Hope. When my spirit was in heaviness, then Thou knewest my path.--Ps. cxlii. 4, 5. …
Charles Kingsley—Out of the Deep The Good Shepherd: a Farewell Sermon
John 10:27-28 -- "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand." It is a common, and I believe, generally speaking, my dear hearers, a true saying, that bad manners beget good laws. Whether this will hold good in every particular, in respect to the affairs of this world, I am persuaded the observation is very pertinent in respect to the things of another: I mean bad manners, …
George Whitefield—Selected Sermons of George Whitefield Adam and Zaretan, Joshua 3
I suspect a double error in some maps, while they place these two towns in Perea; much more, while they place them at so little a distance. We do not deny, indeed, that the city Adam was in Perea; but Zaretan was not so. Of Adam is mention, Joshua 3:16; where discourse is had of the cutting-off, or cutting in two, the waters of Jordan, that they might afford a passage to Israel; The waters rose up upon a heap afar off in Adam. For the textual reading "In Adam," the marginal hath "From Adam." You …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica The Eighth Commandment
Thou shalt not steal.' Exod 20: 15. AS the holiness of God sets him against uncleanness, in the command Thou shalt not commit adultery;' so the justice of God sets him against rapine and robbery, in the command, Thou shalt not steal.' The thing forbidden in this commandment, is meddling with another man's property. The civil lawyers define furtum, stealth or theft to be the laying hands unjustly on that which is another's;' the invading another's right. I. The causes of theft. [1] The internal causes …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments "The Sun of Righteousness"
WE SHOULD FEEL QUITE JUSTIFIED in applying the language of the 19th Psalm to our Lord Jesus Christ from the simple fact that he is so frequently compared to the sun; and especially in the passage which we have given you as our second text, wherein he is called "the Sun of Righteousness." But we have a higher justification for such a reading of the passage, for it will be in your memories that, in the 10th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, the Apostle Paul, slightly altering the words of this …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871 A Jealous God
I. Reverently, let us remember that THE LORD IS EXCEEDINGLY JEALOUS OF HIS DEITY. Our text is coupled with the command--"Thou shalt worship no other God." When the law was thundered from Sinai, the second commandment received force from the divine jealousy--"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 9: 1863 Mosaic Cosmogony.
ON the revival of science in the 16th century, some of the earliest conclusions at which philosophers arrived were found to be at variance with popular and long-established belief. The Ptolemaic system of astronomy, which had then full possession of the minds of men, contemplated the whole visible universe from the earth as the immovable centre of things. Copernicus changed the point of view, and placing the beholder in the sun, at once reduced the earth to an inconspicuous globule, a merely subordinate …
Frederick Temple—Essays and Reviews: The Education of the World Privilege and Experience
"And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." --Luke 15:31. The words of the text are familiar to us all. The elder son had complained and said, that though his father had made a feast, and had killed the fatted calf for the prodigal son, he had never given him even a kid that he might make merry with his friends. The answer of the father was: "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." One cannot have a more wonderful revelation of the heart of …
Andrew Murray—The Deeper Christian Life Stones Crying Out
'For the priests which bare the ark stood in the midst of Jordan, until every thing was finished that the Lord commanded Joshua to speak unto the people, according to all that Moses commanded Joshua: and the people hasted and passed over. 11. And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over, that the ark of the Lord passed over, and the priests, in the presence of the people. 12. And the children of Reuben, and the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh, passed over armed …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture The Deaf Stammerer Healed and Four Thousand Fed.
^A Matt. XV. 30-39; ^B Mark VII. 32-VIII. 9. ^b 32 And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech [The man had evidently learned to speak before he lost his hearing. Some think that defective hearing had caused the impediment in his speech, but verse 35 suggests that he was tongue-tied]; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. 33 And he took him aside from the multitude privately, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat, and touched his tongue [He separated …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel Purity and Peace in the Present Lord
PHILIPPIANS iv. 1-9 Euodia and Syntyche--Conditions to unanimity--Great uses of small occasions--Connexion to the paragraphs--The fortress and the sentinel--A golden chain of truths--Joy in the Lord--Yieldingness--Prayer in everything--Activities of a heart at rest Ver. 1. +So, my brethren beloved and longed for+, missed indeed, at this long distance from you, +my joy and crown+ of victory (stephanos), +thus+, as having such certainties and such aims, with such a Saviour, and looking for such …
Handley C. G. Moule—Philippian Studies The Baptismal Covenant Can be Kept Unbroken. Aim and Responsibility of Parents.
We have gone "to the Law and to the Testimony" to find out what the nature and benefits of Baptism are. We have gathered out of the Word all the principal passages bearing on this subject. We have grouped them together, and studied them side by side. We have noticed that their sense is uniform, clear, and strong. Unless we are willing to throw aside all sound principles of interpretation, we can extract from the words of inspiration only one meaning, and that is that the baptized child is, by virtue …
G. H. Gerberding—The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church An Exhortation to Love God
1. An exhortation. Let me earnestly persuade all who bear the name of Christians to become lovers of God. "O love the Lord, all ye his saints" (Psalm xxxi. 23). There are but few that love God: many give Him hypocritical kisses, but few love Him. It is not so easy to love God as most imagine. The affection of love is natural, but the grace is not. Men are by nature haters of God (Rom. i. 30). The wicked would flee from God; they would neither be under His rules, nor within His reach. They fear God, …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial Links Psalm 78:21 NIV
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