Psalm 32:7 You are my hiding place; you shall preserve me from trouble; you shall compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah. Song is the natural language of the feelings. The heart in song seeks relief, as the swollen lake flows over in rills that make music as they flow. Songs of deliverance, therefore, are above all others songs of joy. And joy is far more vivid when it is a recoil from grief or terror, than when it is a continuance or higher degree of the same joy. And such songs strike, also, most powerfully the chords of feeling in other hearts and call forth an echo: for all can sympathize in such joy. And they are peculiar to men. Angels have no dangers, devils no deliverance. They are characteristically human songs: they stamp the singer a native of earth. See the song at the Red Sea (Exodus 15.; and that in Judges 5.). And we, too, have songs of deliverance. Let us speak of some of them. I. THAT SUNG ON OUR DELIVERANCE FROM THE MOST APPALLING DANGER. The Christian's most thankful praise is praise for deliverance. The joy that breathes in his song is the joy of recovered safety. His whole happiness is a treasure rescued from utter wreck; he is a delivered man. In whatever scene, with whatever fellowship he mingles in his eternal career, he shall be marked as one that has been delivered. All the greatness that may yet come to him, all the blessedness that eternity shall put to his lips, all the glory to which his nature may ascend, cry out of deliverance. His is not the joy of the happy child who has never passed beyond the home of love and purity, but the joy of the reformed prodigal, who, despite a wasted heritage, blighted hopes, and a dishonoured name, has, after weary wanderings, again found a home of peace and love. II. THE BELIEVER'S SONG OF DELIVERANCE FROM EARTHLY SORROWS AND TROUBLES. As the Christian has many a sorrow, so he has many a song. He has songs of deliverance when the judgments which threatened to overwhelm him have not been permitted to come nigh; songs of deliverance when they have come, and all God's waves and billows have gone over him, and he has passed through the cloud and the sea unharmed. Even the dread chastisements of God which came upon David in consequence of his sin lost their terribleness and all that should make them dreaded. They were henceforth to work together for good; and therefore he lifts the song of deliverance, though the troubles were still with him. Evil in its outward aspect is not changed, but to the soul its spiritual relation is reversed. In the life of the true penitent the fruits of past wickedness, severed from the tree that nourished them, lose their noxious quality, and fatten the soil for future harvests of good. And therefore the pardoned sinner counts it all joy when he falls into tribulation. Hear again David's song: "Many sorrows shall be to the wicked; but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about." III. THE SONG OF FINAL AND ETERNAL DELIVERANCE. It is not till the Church has reached her heavenly home, and every member of the great body of Christ is finally redeemed from the power of the world, — and death, the last enemy, destroyed, that the glorified Church shall stand on the shores of the glassy sea, and swell high the anthem of triumph that began in the deliverance of Israel under Moses, and is consummated in the triumph of the Lamb, over the world, and sin, and death, and the grave. Then her joy shall be full, in the sense of her own safety assured for ever against all enemies. Nothing shall remain but joy add song. (J. Riddell.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah. |
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