Psalm 89:38 But you have cast off and abhorred, you have been wroth with your anointed. But thou hast cast off, and abhorred, thou hast been wroth with thine anointed. The psalmist may have been reminded of the first king, Saul, from whom the favour of God was wholly removed, and he may have feared that the same sad fate was reserved for David's grandson, Rehoboam, in spite of the very remarkable and apparently ever-enduring promises made to David. Certainly, when he composed this psalm, everything did look very black. Rehoboam was acting very foolishly and very wilfully, and bringing himself and the nation into what seemed overwhelming judgments. The king was humiliated, the kingdom was prostrated, the people were perplexed; all the world seemed out of joint. All depended on the point of view from which the psalmist regarded these "present appearances." He might stand beside his fellow countrymen, and see them as they saw them, in a strictly human light. Or he might try to rise up to a place beside God, and see them as God saw them - see them in the Divine light. Then he would know that "things are not what they seem." I. PERPLEXITIES OF PRESENT APPEARANCES PARTLY ARISE FROM MAN'S IMPERFECT VISION. He never sees more than parts of a thing at a time; even as, with his bodily vision, he can only see a front, a little of two sides, and nothing at all of the back. What man cannot see often holds the key to the meaning of what he sees. Man's mistakes are imperfect apprehensions. Concerning God, man may search all ways, and yet be compelled at last to look on all the product of his toil, and say, "These are parts of his ways." We never really know a thing until we know it all round, and all through; and we mistake when we attempt to judge appearances. If it seems that God has forsaken David, and forgotten his covenant, we may confidently say," Since God is what he is, that cannot be which seems." Appearances here are deceitful. II. PERPLEXITIES OF PRESENT APPEARANCES ARE RELIEVED AS WE CAN ENTER INTO GOD'S PURPOSES. Once apprehend that God is the Lord of discipline; the eternal Father who chastises and corrects and trains his children, and then strangest appearances begin to gain their meanings. They are seen to be as temporary as a boy's flogging, and as truly the sign of a Father's anxious love. They are proofs that God has not "forgotten to be gracious." "How did Ethan, in this psalm, find ground for faith, for trust and hope? Simply in the conviction that God had sent these calamities in mercy, for correction, for discipline, and not for destruction." We can never read appearances aright until we read them in the light of what we do know, or may know, of God. - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: But thou hast cast off and abhorred, thou hast been wroth with thine anointed.WEB: But you have rejected and spurned. You have been angry with your anointed. |
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