Psalm 144:1

I am far from thinking that this sentence applies exclusively to what we designate spiritual conflicts. I should suppose that David, or whoever the writer of the Psalm was, gave thanks that he had been able to fight with the Philistines and the Ammonites. No one who had learned Jewish history by heart would attempt an artificial division between national wars and spiritual wars. The first supposed the last; the visible enemy was permitted to put forth his strength that the spiritual strength which was dormant might be called forth to withstand him. Man is made for battle. His inclination is to take his ease; it is God who will not let him sink into the slumber which he counts so pleasant, and which is so sure to end in a freezing death.

I. I have spoken of this thanksgiving as of universal application; there are some cases in which we shrink from using it, and yet in which we are taught by experience how much better we should be if we dared to use it in all its force and breadth. There are those who feel much more than others the power of that first enemy of which I have spoken. To withstand the lusts of the flesh, not to be completely overpowered by them, is with them, through constitution, or education, or indulgence, such an effort as their nearest friends may know nothing of. What help then may be drawn from the words, "Blessed be the Lord God, who has taught my hands to war, and my fingers to fight"!

II. Violent desires or passions remind us of their presence. The fashion of the world is hemming us in and holding us down without our knowing it. A web composed of invisible threads is enclosing us. It is not by some distinct influence that we are pressed, but by an atmosphere full of influences of the most mixed quality, hard to separate from each other. "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who stirs the hands to war, and the fingers to fight," for the Divine order which He has established, and not man. Blessed be that Lord God for not allowing His creature, His child, to lie buried under the weight of opinions, maxims, traditions, which is crushing him; for giving him visions of a city which has foundations, of which He is the Builder and Maker; for giving him the assurance that he may, and that he must, beat down all obstacles that hinder him from possessing its glorious privileges.

III. Least of all is there any natural energy in us to contend against that enemy who is described in Scripture as going about seeking whom he may devour. Is it not true that the time which boasts to have outlived the evil spirit is the one which is most directly exposed to his assaults? May it not be that our progress has brought us into a closer conflict with the spiritual wickedness in high places than our forefathers were ever engaged in? Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who teacheth our hands to war, and our fingers to fight. Blessed be He for bringing us into immediate encounter with His own immediate enemies, that so we may know more than others did of His own immediate presence.

F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. i., p. 317.

References: Psalm 144:4.—R. W. Evans, Parochial Sermons, vol. i., p. 162, and vol. ill., p. 133. Psalm 144:5.—S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. ii., p. 88.

Psalm 144:12I. These two figures express, in different ways, the notions of fixity and substance. Both plant and column are fixed and steady. The plant is fixed by its roots into the earth, the column fixed into the building. Life must be rooted in fixed belief in God and the way of reconciliation and fellowship with Him. This belief alone gives meaning, and purpose, and substance to life. It is great truths believed that nourish the soul.

II. Growth and permanence are both set forth in the text. Growth belongs just as necessarily to the conception of a plant as permanence does to that of a column. Growth of soul and spirit is the result of holding firmly to great central truths and drawing the very pith of them into the being. While man represents progress and woman permanence, the true ideal life includes both equally.

III. In the plant and the column we have represented individualism, separateness, independence, and, on the other hand, combination, unity, and mutual help and support.

IV. The text speaks of two different kinds of beauty: that of the plant, the beauty of nature; that of the sculptured column, the beauty of culture. We are reminded that all beauty of soul must be the result both of nature and cultivation. (1) That the soul may be beautiful, it must be a living soul, living by contact with the infinite, in fellowship with God. This is truly the beauty of nature, the deepest nature. (2) Think of the sculpturing of that stone. If the substance had had feeling, at what cost that beautiful form would have been obtained! Human souls are shaped into beauty often through great suffering and trial. Let us not forget that. But let us specially consider that we must wield the chisel and mallet on ourselves, strike off the evil, and seek that the ideal of our nature should come out.

J. Leckie, Sermons Preached at Ibrox, p. 178.

Psalm 144:12David is not praying that the youth of the land should have any abnormal precociousness, or should be in any way ahead of their years; but the picture before his mind is that of vigorous, healthful, upright, manly, and ingenuous youth: and he feels that this, if realised, would be the highest glory of the land. For the young men of his country he desired:—

I. A healthful frame; a strong, robust, vigorous physique. It has been said that as righteousness is the health of the soul, so health is the righteousness of the body.

II. A solid character. A quaint writer says, "If a man is to grow, he must grow like a tree; there must be nothing between him and heaven." It is an old adage that knowledge is power, but it is still more true to say that character is power.

III. A hidden life. Each of you needs that which no human power can communicate, and without which the fairest religious profession is only a painted corpse. Personal and saving religion is no development from within, no product of moral evolution; it is something whose germ must be imparted to you by the Holy Spirit, and without which germ you are in the sight of God absolutely dead.

J. Thain Davidson, The City Youth, p. 239.

References: Psalm 144:12.—W. Walters, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 338. Psalm 144:15.—F. W. Farrar, Ibid., vol. xix., p. 33; W. M. Arthur, Ibid., vol. xxvii., p. 200. Psalm 145:1.—Preacher's Monthly, vol. ii., p. 295. Psalm 145:1, Psalm 145:2.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxii., No. 1902.