We are constantly oppressed with the mystery of God's permissions. He permits afflictions to visit us, and often times to take very trying forms. We can say, "He hath chastened me sore." But it is a great relief to find that our experience is but the experience of the saints of all ages. It is the old and age-long trouble of all who will live godly in this sinful world. God must put them into discipline, and the forms it takes must, of necessity, sometimes seem strange. Divine dealings would not always do their appointed work if we thoroughly understood them. There is no call to
trust when we have perfect
sight. "What I do thou knowest not now." In the olden days, and still, there appear, to the godly man, most oppressive differences between what God seems, and what God is. We are distressed while we do but look at what God
seems, and we gain rest when we look at what God
is.
I. WHAT GOD SEEMS. Illustrate from the mists of mountain-lands. "Clouds and darkness are round about him" (Psalm 97:2).
1. See what God seems in nature. Take single things, and we may easily get wrong impressions. Look at nature as a whole, and it becomes clear that all things are working together towards issues that are right and good.
2. See what God seems in human lives. Take single incidents - an untimely death; a sweeping pestilence; a crushed enterprise: a wasting sickness; and it seems as if there were nothing but "cloud and darkness," the mystery of a strange and unreasoning sovereignty round God and his ways. But look at life as a whole, and it soon comes into view that this thing is working in with that, and all are working together for good, through the controlling of him who is love and who loves. Only, if we would see things clearly, and apprehend them aright, we must keep two things in mind.
(1) That God's good is not circumstance; it is character, which finds expression in varying circumstance.
(2) For some of us God's idea may be our vicarious suffering for the sake of others. And of this the Lord Jesus affords the sublime example. Affliction is often an insoluble mystery (as was Job's affliction), until it is seen to be Divine agency for working good to others. And God graciously honors some to suffer as his agents.
3. See what God seems in Divine revelations. Here again single things are often most perplexing, because their form and shaping are, in the first instance, precisely fitted to times and seasons, and we find it so difficult to separate the form from the thing, the kernel from the husk. Single things can only be "parts of God's ways." But to us, in these latter days, the revelations of all the ages have been given, duly set m order and relation. We ought to be able to fit so many things of Divine revelation together, as to fully convince ourselves that all do fit.
II. WHAT GOD IS. This we find out through personal experiences. "He hath not given me over unto death," though he seems to be a "sore chastener." Experiences correct appearances. "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee." "We walk by faith" - soul-vision, which reveals what is - "not by sight" - bodily vision, which only reveals what seems. To some the clouds about Sinai were God; just as to some travelers the mists hanging about the mountain are the mountain. We want to know what God is. "This is eternal life, to know thee, the only true God." And it is infinite satisfaction to discover that he is righteousness. And righteousness involves and includes love, as certainly as it does holiness and wisdom. When we find for ourselves what God is, we can describe him thus: "The Being who is always right;" or, as a psalmist expresses it, "Righteousness and judgment are the foundation of his throne." He is right in himself, "just;" and right in his doings, ever doing justice - and justice is not justice unless mercy is at the heart of it. When this is well fixed into our very mind and soul, then we get above and beyond all the evil influence of the things that seem; we begin to get vision of the things that are. Right may still seem stern; but we know it must be kind. Right may still seem strange; but we know it must be wise. We cannot stop with this - "He hath chastened me sore." We must go on; we must say what else - what is the full fact, what is! And then we have to say, "But he hath not given me over unto death." - R.T.
The Lord hath chastened me sore: but He hath not given me over unto death.
I. THE CONDITION.
1. The Author of it. Affliction comes not out of the dust; God is the Inflicter of all evils and crosses upon us.(1) Look up to the Lord in every affliction and labour So see Him in it.(2) Here is matter of comfort to the servants of God: that whosoever, or whatsoever may be the instrument, God Himself is the principal cause of every trouble to them. It is the cup which their Father gives them to drink, and therefore they may be sure that it is well mingled and tempered for them.
2. The nature of it — a chastening, for the better rule and government of His family. (l) To wean us from the world, and an inordinate love of things below.(2) To embitter sin to us, and subdue corruption.(3) For examples to others —
(a)of warning, that they may avoid and take heed of the like provocations;(b)of patience, that they may be strengthened to endure the like afflictions.3. The aggravation.(1) The frequency of these chastenings, not once only, but often, even again and again.(2) The multitude of these chastenings, not one single one only, but many, one in the neck of another.(3) The grievousness and tediousness of them, not some light ones only, but such as were very irksome and hard to be borne.
II. THE QUALIFICATION. "But He hath not given me over unto death." Consider these words —
1. In their connection, add so they are a qualification of those that went before, and they serve to show unto us the manner of God's dealings with His people, which is to mitigate His afflictions of them, and to correct them still in measure; He chastens them but does not undo them. Thus (2 Corinthians 6:9; 2 Corinthians 4:8, 9; 1 Corinthians 10:13; Lamentations 3:82).(1) God's aim and intent is not destruction but reformation, which death doth hinder and prevent the opportunities of, unto us.(2) As God does thus mitigate His corrections in wisdom, so also in mercy, because He is a gracious God, and He continues still so to be without alteration (Lamentations 3:22; Malachi 3:6).
2. Absolutely. "He hath not given me over unto death."(1) Out of His goodness, and mercy, and love to His people.(2) Because He has work and service for them to do.(3) For the good and comfort of their friends.
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People
Aaron,
PsalmistPlaces
JerusalemTopics
Chastened, Death, Disciplined, Jah, Punished, Severely, Sore, Sorely, YahOutline
1. An exhortation to praise God for his mercy5. The psalmist by his experience shows how good it is to trust in God19. Under the type of the psalmist the coming of Christ in his kingdom is expressedDictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 118:18 5484 punishment, by God
Psalm 118:15-21
8665 praise, reasons
Library
June the Thirtieth God My Strength and Song
"The Lord is my strength and my song." --PSALM cxviii. 14-21. Yes, first of all "my strength" and then "my song"! For what song can there be where there is languor and fainting? What brave music can be born in an organ which is short of breath? There must first be strength if we would have fine harmonies. And so the good Lord comes to the songless, and with holy power He brings the gift of "saving health." "And my song"! For when life is healthy it instinctively breaks into song. The happy, contented …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling YearGratitude for Deliverance from the Grave
"I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord. The Lord hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over unto death."--Psalm 118:17, 18. HOW very differently we view things at different times and in differing states of mind! Faith takes a bright and cheerful view of matters, and speaks very confidently, "I shall not die, but live." When we are slack as to our trust in God, and give way to misgivings and doubts and fears, we sing in the minor key, and say, "I shall die. I shall …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 38: 1892
Bound to the Altar
Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.' (Psalm cxviii. 27.) Periodically in our Halls we have had what we call Altar Services. At such times, and more especially during the Self-Denial and Harvest Festival efforts, Soldiers, friends, and others who are interested in God's work are invited to come forward with gifts of money to lay upon the special table which, for that occasion, serves the purpose of an altar. Those who have been present at these Meetings will not need …
T. H. Howard—Standards of Life and Service
The Entry into Jerusalem.
THE fame of Christ's acts had been diffused among the thousands of Jews [652] that had gathered from all quarters for the Passover. The resurrection of Lazarus, in particular, had created a great sensation. As soon as the Sabbath law allowed, [653] they flocked in crowds to Bethany to see Jesus, and especially to convince themselves of the resurrection of Lazarus by ocular evidence and inquiry on the spot. Perhaps on Sunday morning, too, before Christ went to Jerusalem, many had gone out. [654] The …
Augustus Neander—The Life of Jesus Christ in Its Historical Connexion
On the Soul and the Resurrection.
Argument. The mind, in times of bereavement, craves a certainty gained by reasoning as to the existence of the soul after death. First, then: Virtue will be impossible, if deprived of the life of eternity, her only advantage. But this is a moral argument. The case calls for speculative and scientific treatment. How is the objection that the nature of the soul, as of real things, is material, to be met? Thus; the truth of this doctrine would involve the truth of Atheism; whereas Atheism is refuted …
Gregory of Nyssa—Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises, Etc
Sabbath Morning Hymn.
"This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it."--Psalm 118:24 "Hallelujah! Schoener Morgen." Schmolk. [[66]Jonathan Krause] transl., Jane Borthwick, 1858 Hallelujah! Fairest morning, Fairer than my words can say, Down I lay tbe heavy burden Of life's toil and care to-day; While this morn of joy and love Brings fresh vigor from above. Sunday, full of holy glory! Sweetest rest-day of the soul, Light upon a darkened world From thy blessed moments roll. Holy, happy heavenly …
Jane Borthwick—Hymns from the Land of Luther
The Monk Nilus.
Nilus was born at Rossano, in Calabria, in the year 910, of an old Greek family. His pious parents, to whom only one child, a daughter, had been given, besought the Lord that he would give them a son. This prayer was heard, and that son was Nilus. They carried the child to the church, and consecrated him to the service of God. On that account, also, they gave him the name of Nilus, after a venerated monk of the fifth century, distinguished by his spirit of vital Christianity, and to whose example …
Augustus Neander—Light in the Dark Places
Letter X (In the Same Year) the Same, when Bishop
The Same, When Bishop He exhorts him to adorn the dignity which he had obtained without preceding merits, by a holy life. 1. Charity gives me boldness, my very dear friend, to speak to you with great confidence. The episcopal seat which you have lately obtained requires a man of many merits; and I see with grief none of these in you, or at least not sufficient, to have preceded your elevation. For your mode of life and your past occupations seem in nowise to have been befitting the episcopal office. …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux
The Evolution of Early Congregationalism the Stone which the Builders Rejected is Become the Head of the Corner. --Psalm cxviii
CHAPTER I THE EVOLUTION OF EARLY CONGREGATIONALISM The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner.--Psalm cxviii, 22. The colonists of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven were grounded in the system which became known as Congregational, and later as Congregationalism. At the outset they differed not at all in creed, and only in some respects in polity, from the great Puritan body in England, out of which they largely came.[a] For more than forty years before …
M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.—The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut
Epistle vii. To Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch .
To Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch [1310] . Gregory to Anastasius, &c. I have found what your Blessedness has written to be as rest to the weary, as health to the sick, as a fountain to the thirsty, as shade to the oppressed with heat. For those words of yours did not seem even to be expressed by the tongue of the flesh, inasmuch as you so disclosed the spiritual love which you bear me as if your soul itself were speaking. But very hard was that which followed, in that your love enjoined me to …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great
The Effects of this Fourth State of Prayer. Earnest Exhortations to those who have Attained to it not to Go Back, nor to Cease from Prayer,
1. There remains in the soul, when the prayer of union is over, an exceedingly great tenderness; so much so, that it would undo itself--not from pain, but through tears of joy it finds itself bathed therein, without being aware of it, and it knows not how or when it wept them. But to behold the violence of the fire subdued by the water, which yet makes it burn the more, gives it great delight. It seems as if I were speaking an unknown language. So it is, however. 2. It has happened to me occasionally, …
Teresa of Avila—The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus
Letter xx. To Pope Damasus.
Jerome's reply to the foregoing. Exposing the error of Hilary of Poitiers, who supposed the expression to signify "redemption of the house of David," he goes on to show that in the gospels it is a quotation from Psa. cxviii. 25 and that its true meaning is "save now" (so A.V.). "Let us," he writes, "leave the streamlets of conjecture and return to the fountain-head. It is from the Hebrew writings that the truth is to be drawn." Written at Rome a.d. 383. …
St. Jerome—The Principal Works of St. Jerome
Of the Conformity of Our Will to that Will of God's which is Signified to us by his Commandments.
The desire which God has to make us observe his commandments is extreme, as the whole Scripture witnesses. And how could he better express it, than by the great rewards which he proposes to the observers of his law, and the awful punishments with which he threatens those who shall violate the same! This made David cry out: O Lord, thou hast commanded thy Commandments to be kept most diligently. [360] Now the love of complacency, beholding this divine desire, wills to please God by observing it; the …
St. Francis de Sales—Treatise on the Love of God
'My Strength and Song'
'The Lord is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation....' EXODUS xv. 2. These words occur three times in the Bible: here, in Isaiah xii. 2, and in Psalm cxviii. 14. I. The lessons from the various instances of their occurrence. The first and second teach that the Mosaic deliverance is a picture- prophecy of the redemption in Christ. The third (Psalm cxviii. 14), long after, and the utterance of some private person, teaches that each age and each soul has the same mighty Hand working for …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture
A New Kind of King
'On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm-trees, and went forth to meet Him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord. And Jesus, when He had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass's colt. These things understood not His disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture
The Lively Stones. Rev. W. Morley Punshon.
"Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ."--1 PETER ii. 5. There is a manifest reference in the fourth verse to the personage alluded to in Psalm cxviii. 22, 23: "The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes." And this passage is applied by Christ to himself in Matthew xxi. 42: "Jesus saith unto them, Did …
Knowles King—The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern
To Pastors and Teachers
To Pastors and Teachers If all who laboured for the conversion of others were to introduce them immediately into Prayer and the Interior Life, and make it their main design to gain and win over the heart, numberless as well as permanent conversions would certainly ensue. On the contrary, few and transient fruits must attend that labour which is confined to outward matters; such as burdening the disciple with a thousand precepts for external exercises, instead of leaving the soul to Christ by the …
Madame Guyon—A Short and Easy Method of Prayer
Lydia, the First European Convert
WE MAY LAUDABLY EXERCISE CURIOSITY with regard to the first proclamation of the gospel in our own quarter of the globe. We are happy that history so accurately tells us, by the pen of Luke, when first the gospel was preached in Europe, and by whom, and who was the first convert brought by that preaching to the Savior's feet. I half envy Lydia that she should be the leader of the European band; yet I feel right glad that a woman led the van, and that her household followed so closely in the rear. …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 37: 1891
The Great Privilege of those that are Born of God
"Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin." 1 John 3:9. 1. It has been frequently supposed, that the being born of God was all one with the being justified; that the new birth and justification were only different expressions, denoting the same thing: It being certain, on the one hand, that whoever is justified is also born of God; and, on the other, that whoever is born of God is also justified; yea, that both these gifts of God are given to every believer in one and the same moment. In one …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions
The First Day in Passion-Week - Palm-Sunday - the Royal Entry into Jerusalem
At length the time of the end had come. Jesus was about to make Entry into Jerusalem as King: King of the Jews, as Heir of David's royal line, with all of symbolic, typic, and prophetic import attaching to it. Yet not as Israel after the flesh expected its Messiah was the Son of David to make triumphal entrance, but as deeply and significantly expressive of His Mission and Work, and as of old the rapt seer had beheld afar off the outlined picture of the Messiah-King: not in the proud triumph of war-conquests, …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah
The Fourth Commandment
Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day and hallowed it. Exod 20: 8-11. This …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments
In the Last, the Great Day of the Feast'
IT was the last, the great day of the Feast,' and Jesus was once more in the Temple. We can scarcely doubt that it was the concluding day of the Feast, and not, as most modern writers suppose, its Octave, which, in Rabbinic language, was regarded as a festival by itself.' [3987] [3988] But such solemn interest attaches to the Feast, and this occurrence on its last day, that we must try to realise the scene. We have here the only Old Testament type yet unfilfilled; the only Jewish festival which has …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah
Letter Xlvi (Circa A. D. 1125) to Guigues, the Prior, and to the Other Monks of the Grand Chartreuse
To Guigues, the Prior, And to the Other Monks of the Grand Chartreuse He discourses much and piously of the law of true and sincere charity, of its signs, its degrees, its effects, and of its perfection which is reserved for Heaven (Patria). Brother Bernard, of Clairvaux, wishes health eternal to the most reverend among fathers, and to the dearest among friends, Guigues, Prior of the Grande Chartreuse, and to the holy Monks who are with him. 1. I have received the letter of your Holiness as joyfully …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux
A vision of Judgement and Cleansing
'And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. 2. And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? 3. Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the Angel. 4. And He answered and spake unto those that stood before Him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him He said, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture
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