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It is not perfectly clear what is here meant by "the sanctuary of God"; literally it means "the holies of God." A few would under. stand it in the first sense as designating "the righteous plans of God's government," or "the secret grounds of his dealings with men"; while others would take it, in the second sense, as denoting "the eternity where God dwells as in a holy place." But to me it seems self-evident that by "going into the sanctuary of God," in this seventeenth verse, the primary reference of the term must be to the temple, which was the earthly residence of God and the place where He communed with His people. Asaph had been greatly disturbed by the anomalies which were continually occurring in the world around him. But by the revelation made in the sanctuary, through sacrifice and symbol, he was enabled so to grasp anew the truth that God is righteous, and so to appropriate the God of the mercy-seat as his own God as to find there the compensation for all his privations and the solvent for all his perplexities. But under the New Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ is the true antitype of the temple, and therefore, when by faith we enter into Him, we have the true corrective influence, by which we are able to rectify the false judgments of the world, and to preserve our faith amid all the doubts and difficulties that the course of things suggests. See this in —

I. CHRIST'S ESTIMATE OF WEALTH. Men think it the supreme good. But Christ bids us care only to be rich toward God.

II. OF GREATNESS. He makes it to consist in service.

III. SUCCESS. In a Christian's daily business he is thrown continually among those who consider that the laws of his Lord are fanatical, or impracticable, and who tell him that if he is determined to act upon them, he may as well make up his mind to be defeated in the race of competition. More than that, his observation convinces him that as things now are their assertion is largely true; and so, as the days go on, he is in danger of being lowered to their level. But the Sabbath comes, and he enters into the sanctuary, where he is confronted with God, and then and thereby all the webs of sophistry that his fellow-men have spun are swept away as easily as one brushes from his path the gossamer of the morning. During the week the consciences even of the best among us have been more or less affected by things immediately around us, so that we are in danger of making serious mistakes in our life voyage. But here Christ comes to us and gives us our "true bearings," as they are in the standard of His Word, undisturbed by any earthly or metallic influences, and so the needful rectifications may be made by us and we may start out afresh.

(W. M. Taylor, D. D.)

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KJV: When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me;

WEB: When I tried to understand this, it was too painful for me;