Psalm 111:2














Sought out of all them that have pleasure therein. "The pleasure in God's works is in germ the best incentive to thoughtful search, and in fuller measure its sufficient reward." In regard to man's search for God, it may be properly said that what he finds depends on what he seeks, and the spirit in which he seeks. This, indeed, is true even of scientific research. A man must know what he is looking for, or he will find nothing intelligent in the revelations of telescope or microscope. A man writes, "I have searched the heavens for God during fifty long years, and have never found him yet." He did not believe there was a God, and so he never would find him. Let a man want to find God, and his search will be fully responded to. God is revealed, God reveals himself, to moral moods, and not to mere intellectual research. Souls find God, not eyes or minds.

I. GOD'S WORKS ARE BEYOND THE REACH OF WISE INTELLECTS. Men by their science can find out things, and account for the forms of things. But they cannot explain the meanings of things, or the relations of things. Nothing in the world is more uncertain and untrustworthy than wise men's theorizings. The most humiliating book could be written on the 'History of Exploded and Worn-out Theories.' Illustrate by referring to "certain cruel and loathsome practices of the animal world - as, for example, those of apes, dogs, frogs, the barbarity of the cat to the mouse, the thefts of the eagle from the fish-hawk, the rapture of nests by stronger birds who turn out their original tenants to die of cold and slow starvation, the enslaving of the black ants by the red, and sundry other habits which shock our sense of justice or of decency." The intellect of man, without guidance from the sense of God, has never found the meaning of such things. The key to them is hid from the wise, who in fact blind themselves by refusing to carry to the consideration of such things those truths concerning God which are "spiritually discerned." Nature in only an open secret to the God-fearing man.

II. GOD'S WORKS ARE WITHIN THE REACH OF LOVING HEARTS. These only are prepared to think kind things, loving things, trustful things. When we have right apprehensions of the infinitely wise and gracious Doer, such apprehensions as enable us to set our love upon him, we simply refuse to accept explanations of nature-mysteries that are dishonorable to him. They cannot be true. We pass them by. There is something better to be "sought out." Our good will toward God will keep us from resting content with anything that is unworthy of him; and we search on, assured that mystery will yield at last to love. - R.T.

The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.
Greatness, when attributed to the works of man, is a relative term, and it is only correct in one direction. Our works can only be great in comparison with the works of other men; they can have no greatness in relation to Gad, or to His operations. Our utmost skill cannot go beyond new combinations, or new discoveries of existing things; we can neither create nor preserve. Our knowledge results from creation; when correct it agrees with its works; but with God, creation results from knowledge — the prototype of it existed in the eternal mind before He began to work (Acts 15:18).

I. THE GREATNESS OF THE WORKS OF GOD.

1. Their immensity. What a wonderful incomprehensible work was it to produce the matter which forms our globe! Yet our planet is but a small part of the solar system: there are spheres many times larger than our world, revolving at immense distances round the same sun. The sun itself is but one among millions of suns, which in boundless space enlighten other worlds, and are the centres of other systems. We are at once lost in the vastness of creation, in the immensity of being God has called into existence; and are oppressed with an overpowering sense of the magnitude of His works.

2. Their variety. The water affects the land, the land affects the water, an endless diversity of influences of different substances on each other are perpetually producing specific and well-ascertained results. Beings possessed of life were created from inanimate substance: by the infinite power of God the sea and land brought forth abundantly, the vegetable and animal kingdoms were called into existence by the Creator's voice, and the tribes of land and ocean proclaim the magnitude of His work.

3. The preservation and government of the world. Cause and effect is not a necessary but an ordained connection; the energy that works is not that of the instrument but that of God; substances operate upon one another in a natural way, by which we mean an habitual, ordinary manner; but it is God who causes them so to operate; whatever is the instrument its efficacy is from God.

4. His moral government over voluntary and accountable beings. What a vast work must it be to educe order out of the chaotic workings of human minds; to maintain a system of operation and government over myriads of beings, who live as they list, preserving their own schemes of aggrandizement and gratification, without any reference to the will of God: and yet the mightiest of men can accomplish nothing but what God permits, and frequently they are working out, though contrary to their own intentions, the purposes of the Eternal Mind.

5. His greatest work is redemption. It unveils the whole character of God. In the natural world we behold manifestations of His power and wisdom; in His providential government we may learn something of His justice and goodness; but neither of these perfections is so gloriously exhibited as in the Gospel of His Son, where His love and mercy shine with unclouded lustre.

II. SUCCESSFUL INQUIRY IS IN PROPORTION TO THE DEEP INTEREST WE TAKE IN THE WORKS OF GOD. We must love truth, and justice, and mercy, before we can in any degree estimate the expression of Divine love and justice in saving sinners by the gift and death of the Son of God.

(S. Summers.)

I. IN NATURE. Every clod of earth teems with animation; every drop of water swarms with animalculae. Surely curiosity might induce us to seek out the works of God even if we had no other motive than mere inquisitiveness and curiosity. But we cannot examine these things as we ought without feelings of lively gratitude, that through the life-giving power of Jehovah everything ministers either to the necessities or to the convenience of man. But there is a still more familiar manifestation of the works of God which we should meditate upon. I wish you to turn your reflections upon yourselves. Contemplate the human body; observe the union of its several parts, and their fitness for the particular purpose for which they are designed; mark the composition and appearance of the whole; what incomparable workmanship is perceptible in the whole frame.

II. IN PRESERVATION.

III. IN GRACE. We look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Since, then, all things are yours if ye are Christ's, whether the world, or life, or death, or things present or things to come, let us call to mind that we have them as the subject matter of privilege; as the subject matter of improvement here, and as the subjects of praise throughout eternity.

(H. F. Fell, M.A.)

1. Consider —(1) The variety and multiplicity of the objects that constitute theearth and the creatures that dwell on it. How varied is the form of its surface! What an alternation of enormous ridges with summits of different heights, of hills and plains, of spacious, open fields, and of impassable, impenetrable forests, of continents and seas, rivers and lakes! What diversity and what riches in various kinds of precious gems, stones, ores, minerals, lie concealed in its bowels! What a world of wonders is enclosed in its fathomless abysses!(2) Their beauty — no less great and admirable than their variety; consider the outline, the form, the hues, the infinitely blending shades of colours, the delicate texture, the artificial structure, the arrangement and composition of the several parts of every herb, every flower, every leaf, every tree, every plant, every greater and smaller, visible, and invisible, animal.(3) The accurate and admirable connection that subsists between the several parts and creatures of the earth, causing them all to promote one grand design, the greatest possible welfare of the living.(4) The gradual progress of all things to higher perfection. See how the plant, the tree expands, grows, flourishes, arrives at maturity, bears fruit, propagates and multiplies, from a seed so small as to be indiscernible to thy naked eye; how the crawling maggot rises into a butterfly; how every animal gradually acquires and communicates to others his agility, his powers, his habitudes; how the infant grows into the stripling, the youth into the man, and the man into the citizen of another world.(5) The magnitude and inexhaustibility of the energies which animate and actuate all nature; those energies which operate so uniformly and silently, and yet so powerfully and irresistibly in all and through all; those energies which are in perpetual exertion through all successive evolutions, renovations, transformations of the whole innumerable host of creatures, and through all their efforts and effects, and in such various methods; those energies which, from what appears to be confusion and strife, produce the fairest harmony — from what we term death and destruction, incessant life and action.

2. Having considered these things, ascend in thought to the original, eternal energy, from whence these powers are derived — to the original, eternal fount of life, from whence these several kinds of life and efficacy flow — to the Supreme Dispenser of all that joy which fills the capacity of thy soul — to that God who predisposed, accomplished, and called them into being, who bears, upholds, connects, enlivens, and rejoices all, who through them all reveals Himself to His intelligent creature — man — speaks to him by a thousand voices, appears to him in a thousand varied forms, and in all and by all as Author, Benefactor, Father.

(G. J. Zollikofer, D.D.)

I THE GRANDEUR AND SIMPLICITY OF THE WORKS OF GOD. How low and contemptible are all the proudest works of men compared to those of God! Could we suppose a person in full maturity of sense and understanding, but who had never seen the light of the sun and the face of nature, presented on a sudden with an ample prospect of the sublime canopy of heaven, the blazing sun, the illumined atmosphere, and the florid earth diversified with its various landscapes; how would the appearance astonish and transport him, stamp at once on his mind the new ideas of grandeur and beauty, and excite his veneration of the wisdom and power of God!

II. THE UNIFORMITY AND VARIETY WHICH APPEAR IN THE WORKS OF CREATION. The heavens above, and the earth beneath, continue the same from age to age; yet afford a diversity of successive spectacles: the clouded, the clear, the parti-coloured sky; the nocturnal darkness, the meridian light. If we examine carefully the minuter productions of nature, the smallest insects, or the leaves, flowers, and fruits of plants, we find a wonderful mixture of the various and the uniform, that strikes the mind with a pleasing idea of order and beauty.

III. THE PERPETUAL CIRCULATIONS DISCERNIBLE IN THE WORLD. The sun, moon, and stars perform their appointed courses with a stated unerring motion. What is it that unholds and directs them? How come they to know their seasons and courses? What enables them to travel incessantly with the same unremitting force? Why they never fall to the earth? Or wander through the pathless desert of the sky? In a word, why they never err? — These questions will necessarily turn our attention to the unerring wisdom of the Creator.

IV. THE REGULAR PROPORTIONS OBSERVABLE IN THE SEVERAL PARTS OF THE WORLD, are a further evidence of creative wisdom in the structure of the whole. For as in the fabric of every plant and animal, the several parts bear a due proportion to each other and to the whole, so it is of the world in general: the parts were all formed by rule and measure, proportionate to each other and to the whole system.

V. THE MULTIPLICITY OF EFFECTS IN NATURE FLOWING FROM THE SAME CAUSE; AND THE COMBINATION OF A MULTITUDE OF CAUSES TO THE SAME EFFECT. The single principle of gravitation, pervading the universe, at the same time gives solidity to the land, stability to the mountains, and fluency to the rivers; binds the ocean to its bed, and the whole earth to its orbit; maintains the due distance of the heavenly bodies; and retains everything through universal nature in its proper situation. Similar to this is the single principle of benevolence in the moral world: which in like manner is diffused through human nature, and produces, according to its different modifications, various beneficial effects: hence parental care; relative union; combination of friends; public spirit; good government of superiors; fidelity of inferiors; and it is this which retains every individual in his proper sphere, cements human society, and contributes to all virtuous actions, honourable pursuits, and innocent delights. How should it excite the inquisitive understanding, and affect the religious temper, of every considerate person, to find the whole world framed and disposed, and all the elemental parts of it contending and co-operating in a perpetual motion, to please and benefit the human race!

(S. Bourn.)

"The works of the Lord are great;" yet, great as they are, they cannot be understood nor perceived by those who are absorbed in earthly ideas and pursuits. The works of the Lord must be "sought out"; that is, they must be mindfully and diligently observed, in order to their being adequately understood: nay, if we would know anything of their vastness or their excellency. We must be in the constant habit of connecting the ordinary operations and occurrences of life with a higher power, with the counsel and government of heaven; a gracious promise is given, that "all things shall work together for good to them that love God"; and we must be always endeavouring to trace this working, and observe the striking manner in which this effect is produced. Nor can any, but the pious and faithful servant of God, find delight in this holy and profitable exercise; and the longer he lives, the more clearly he perceives the hand of the Almighty in everything; in discomforting the evil and blessing the good: he sees and admires the wonders of grace, as well as the wonders of providence, vouchsafed to others as well as himself; to the Church in all ages. In all the good he receives or does, and all the evil he escapes or prevents, he traces the power and mercy of his God: "Not unto me, O Lord, not unto me, but unto Thy name be the glory and the praise." Thus he imitates the conduct of the psalmist, recorded in the text, "I will give thanks unto the Lord with my whole heart": all the power of his understanding and all the affections of his soul are employed in magnifying the majesty and loving-kindness of the "Author and giver of every good gift." And the grateful Christian imitates the psalmist yet farther; he does not hide the sense of God's goodness within his own bosom; but declares it openly as opportunity serves.

(J. Slade, M. A.)

An American poet tells us, in one of his letters, how he once met an aged French priest on the Pacific Railway. The priest told him that he was on a journey round the world, and that he had been put up to that by a dream. He dreamed that he had died, and he met the good God, who asked him how he liked the world he had come from. He was obliged to confess that he had not looked at it very much: for the whole time he was there he had been busy getting himself ready to die, and getting other people ready to die — as if getting ready to die were the chief end of man here below. When he awoke he resolved that, old as he was, if the good God would only let him stay on in this world a little while longer, he would take a good look at it before he was summoned to pass another such examination. So he had furnished himself with some little books in physical geography and the like, and was reading, and looking, and thus preparing for the other world by trying to get all the real and Divine good he could out of this earth.

(John Hunter, D.D.)

People
Psalmist
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Delight, Desiring, Pleasure, Pondered, Searched, Sought, Studied, Therein, Works
Outline
1. The psalmist by his example incites others to praise God for his glorious
5. And gracious works
10. The fear of God breeds true wisdom

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 111:2

     5874   happiness
     5918   pleasure
     8662   meditation
     8674   study

Psalm 111:1-10

     8660   magnifying God

Psalm 111:2-9

     6688   mercy, demonstration of God's

Library
God and the Godly
'His righteousness endureth for ever.'--PSALMS cxi. 3; cxii. 3. These two psalms are obviously intended as a pair. They are identical in number of verses and in structure, both being acrostic, that is to say, the first clause of each commences with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the second clause with the second, and so on. The general idea that runs through them is the likeness of the godly man to God. That resemblance comes very markedly to the surface at several points in the psalms,
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

December the Tenth the Only Wise Beginning
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." --PSALM cxi. If I want to do anything wisely I must begin with God. That is the very alphabet of the matter. Every other beginning is a perverse beginning, and it will end in sure disaster. "I am Alpha." Everything must take its rise in Him, or it will plunge from folly into folly, and culminate in confusion. If I would be wise in my daily business I must begin all my affairs in God. My career itself must be chosen in His presence, and in the
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

Third Commandment
"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain." I was greatly amazed not long ago in talking to a man who thought he was a Christian, to find that once in a while, when he got angry, he would swear. I said: "My friend, I don't see how you can tear down with one hand what you are trying to build up with the other. I don't see how you can profess to be a child of God and let those words come out of your lips." He replied:
Dwight L. Moody—Weighed and Wanting

The Ordinance of Covenanting
THE ORDINANCE OF COVENANTING. BY JOHN CUNNINGHAM, A.M. "HE HATH COMMANDED HIS COVENANT FOR EVER." Ps. cxi. 9. "THOUGH IT BE BUT A MAN'S COVENANT, YET IF IT BE CONFIRMED, NO MAN DISANNULETH, OR ADDETH THERETO." Gal. iii. 15. GLASGOW:--WILLIAM MARSHALL. SOLD ALSO BY JOHN KEITH. EDINBURGH:--THOMAS NELSON AND JOHN JOHNSTONE. LONDON:--HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO. MANCHESTER:-GALT & ANDERSON. BELFAST:--WILLIAM POLLOCK. TO THE REVEREND ANDREW SYMINGTON, D.D., PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

Covenanting a Duty.
The exercise of Covenanting with God is enjoined by Him as the Supreme Moral Governor of all. That his Covenant should be acceded to, by men in every age and condition, is ordained as a law, sanctioned by his high authority,--recorded in his law of perpetual moral obligation on men, as a statute decreed by him, and in virtue of his underived sovereignty, promulgated by his command. "He hath commanded his covenant for ever."[171] The exercise is inculcated according to the will of God, as King and
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

The Holiness of God
The next attribute is God's holiness. Exod 15:51. Glorious in holiness.' Holiness is the most sparkling jewel of his crown; it is the name by which God is known. Psa 111:1. Holy and reverend is his name.' He is the holy One.' Job 6:60. Seraphims cry, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory.' Isa 6:6. His power makes him mighty, his holiness makes him glorious. God's holiness consists in his perfect love of righteousness, and abhorrence of evil. Of purer eyes than
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Covenanting Adapted to the Moral Constitution of Man.
The law of God originates in his nature, but the attributes of his creatures are due to his sovereignty. The former is, accordingly, to be viewed as necessarily obligatory on the moral subjects of his government, and the latter--which are all consistent with the holiness of the Divine nature, are to be considered as called into exercise according to his appointment. Hence, also, the law of God is independent of his creatures, though made known on their account; but the operation of their attributes
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

The Morning Light
Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. O ne strong internal proof that the Bible is a divine revelation, may be drawn from the subject matter; and particularly that it is the book, and the only book, that teaches us to
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

Josiah, a Pattern for the Ignorant.
"Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord, when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and hast rent thy clothes, and wept before Me; I also have heard thee, saith the Lord. Behold therefore, I will gather thee unto thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace; and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place."--2 Kings
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

A Canticle of Love
It is not only when He is about to send me some trial that Our Lord gives me warning and awakens my desire for it. For years I had cherished a longing which seemed impossible of realisation--to have a brother a Priest. I often used to think that if my little brothers had not gone to Heaven, I should have had the happiness of seeing them at the Altar. I greatly regretted being deprived of this joy. Yet God went beyond my dream; I only asked for one brother who would remember me each day at the Holy
Therese Martin (of Lisieux)—The Story of a Soul

Covenanting According to the Purposes of God.
Since every revealed purpose of God, implying that obedience to his law will be given, is a demand of that obedience, the announcement of his Covenant, as in his sovereignty decreed, claims, not less effectively than an explicit law, the fulfilment of its duties. A representation of a system of things pre-determined in order that the obligations of the Covenant might be discharged; various exhibitions of the Covenant as ordained; and a description of the children of the Covenant as predestinated
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

Period ii. The Church from the Permanent Division of the Empire Until the Collapse of the Western Empire and the First Schism Between the East and the West, or Until About A. D. 500
In the second period of the history of the Church under the Christian Empire, the Church, although existing in two divisions of the Empire and experiencing very different political fortunes, may still be regarded as forming a whole. The theological controversies distracting the Church, although different in the two halves of the Graeco-Roman world, were felt to some extent in both divisions of the Empire and not merely in the one in which they were principally fought out; and in the condemnation
Joseph Cullen Ayer Jr., Ph.D.—A Source Book for Ancient Church History

Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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