Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion. It cannot be moved; it abides forever. Sermons
"He bade the ocean round thee flow; I. CONSIDER THE BLESSING HERE PROMISED. To "be as Mount Zion, which cannot," etc. From the days of Melchizedek, in the early patriarchal ages, right on and down to our own, Jerusalem has been an historic place. It has never been moved. Other great cities, like that of Nineveh, Babylon, and the cities of Asia, we can now but taintly trace where they stood. But Jerusalem has not only preceded, but has long survived them all. But in what sense can God's people be said to be as Mount Zion! 1. Of the Church of God it is historically true. If by violent persecution or other calamity she has been driven from one region - as from all North Africa - it has only been to settle more immovably in other and wider lands. There is no more reassuring argument to the mind anxious for the welfare of the Church of God than her history in the past. This psalm is truer of her than it was of Israel. 2. Of the individual believer it is also true; for he cannot be moved. His feelings may be. He may, as did the psalmists oftentimes, imagine that "the Lord has cast him off for ever, and hath in anger shut up his tender mercies." But it is not so really. Read the triumphant challenge of St. Paul at the close of Romans 8. That tells the real truth, as doth this psalm here. For the city of Divine grace lieth foursquare, like the city of God told of in the Apocalypse, and is defended with all those within it - as God's people are - by the mighty walls of God's omnipotence, righteousness, love, and grace - even the grace of the Holy Spirit working within us. Therefore is this psalm true. II. THOSE FOR WHOM THIS BLESSING IS DESIGNED. "They that trust in the Lord." Now, this trust is: 1. A very simple thing. Anybody can trust - old and young, rich and poor. It requires no long study, no store of learning. 2. And it may be a very imperfect thing. Not mature, not strong and mighty at all; but yet it is trust, like him who cried, "Lord I believe: help thou mine unbelief." 3. It does not matter how or where we may have been brought to it. Blessed be God! III. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THIS TRUST AND SO GREAT BLESSING. 1. Because God so delights in our trust. 2. It is the transforming grace. 3. It identifies us with Christ in his life. 4. It devitalizes our connection with the first Adam, and grafts us into Christ. - S.C. II. HE HAS EVERYTHING WE WANT READY AT COMMAND. Is it money, grace, friends, comfort, guidance, strength? He has of these things more than we can possibly need. III. HE IS A VERY WILLING HELPER. He invites us to call upon Him in the day of trouble (Psalm 50:15). IV. HE IS A LOVING AND TENDER HELPER. His kindness is often called "lovingkindness" (Deuteronomy 33:27). V. HE NEVER FAILS TO HELP HIS PEOPLE. VI. HE IS AN EVERLASTING HELPER (Psalm 90:12). (R. Brewin.) I. PAST DELIVERANCE. "Our help is in the name of the Lord." When placed in perilous circumstances, one's faith is much increased by thinking upon the times of old, and musing upon the years of the right hand of the Most High. We learn there that affliction is no strange thing, and that God can afford us all requisite aid. He has done so before, and He can do so again. As to Himself, He is "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." As to His agents, there is no diminution in their number, or decrease in their power. II. THE DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE. He who defends the Church is the Creator of the universe. Yes! He who hung those stars in heaven, and filled their lamps with everlasting oil: He who made the earth, with its golden corn, and its purple grapes, and its dark olives. My Father made them all; and a single look at the green earth, and the swelling ocean, and the burning stars, is enough to rebuke our distrust, and to infuse a serene gladness into our troubled spirits. Would that we had more of this holy confidence; and how much of the peace and joy of heaven would be ours, even when travelling through the wilderness to the land that is afar off. (N. McMichael.). They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion. I. TRUSTFULNESS IN ITS SUPREME OBJECT: "The Lord" (Jeremiah 17:5-8).II. TRUSTFULNESS SECURING INESTIMABLE BLESSINGS. 1. Stability (ver. 1). 2. Divine nearness (ver. 2). 3. Protection from the power and oppression of wickedness (ver. 3). III. TRUSTFULNESS SEEKING THE GOOD OF OTHERS (ver. 4). Its nature to do so, being unselfish, generous, and jealous for the glory of God. Others kept good for goodness' sake. IV. TRUSTFULNESS PRONOUNCING THE FATE OF APOSTATES, AND THE TRANQUIL EXPERIENCE OF ITSELF AND COMPANIONS (ver. 5). (J. O. Keen, D. D.) Homilist. I. THE SECURITY OF THE GOOD ENSURED (vers. 1-3). The good are "they that trust in the Lord." Such are —1. Firmly established (ver. 1). 2. Safely guarded (ver. 2). (Isaiah 54:10; Zechariah 2:4-15). 3. Ultimately delivered (ver. 3).Rod here means sceptre, and the "lot of the righteous" the land of promise. The generic idea is that the power of the wicked shall not always extend to the good; one day the community of the good shall be out of the dominion of wickedness for ever and ever. "He shall bruise Satan under our feet." II. THE PROSPERITY OF THE GOOD INVOKED (vers. 4, 5). 1. The invocation specifies the character of the good (ver. 4). "To be good" is to be "upright in heart," and to be "upright in heart" is to be right in our loves, our aims, and activities. The "goody" are common, the good are rare. 2. The invocation pictures the character, and foretells the doom of the wicked (ver. 5). (Judges 5:6; Psalm 58:8; Psalm 109:23; Matthew 7:22; Matthew 24:51.) (Homilist.) I. THE SECURITY OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD.1. Between them and all evil is — (1) (2) (3) 2. This Divine surrounding affects — (1) (2) (3) (4) II. THEIR STABILITY. Mount Zion cannot be removed, but abideth for ever; even so, they that trust. Having a hold of God, they cannot be permanently injured in their highest and eternal relations. Moved they may be, but never removed; "perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed." "The Lord is round about them even for ever." (J. M. Jarvie.) I. THE SIMPLE ACT OF TRUST IN GOD BRINGS INWARD STABILITY. The word here translated "trust" literally means to "hang upon" something. And so, beautifully, it tells us what faith is — just hanging upon God. Whoever has laid his tremulous hand on a fixed something, partakes, in the measure in which he does grasp it, of the fixity of that on which he lays hold; so "they that trust in the Lord" "shall be as Mount Zion," that stands there summer and winter, day and night, year out and year in, with its strong buttresses and its immovable mass, the very emblem of solidity and stability. II. THIS SAME ATTITUDE OF REALIZING THE DIVINE PRESENCE, WILL, AND HELP, WILL BRING AROUND US THE ENCIRCLING DEFENCES. "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people" — a very real defence, but a defence that it takes an instructed eye to see; no obvious protection, palpable to the vulgar touch, and manifest to the sensuous eye, but something a great deal better than that — a real protection, through which we may be sure that nothing which is evil can ever pass. Whatsoever does get over the encircling mountains, and down to us, we may be sure is not an evil but a very real good. Only we have to interpret the protection on the principles of faith, and not on those of sense. When, then, there come down upon us — as there do upon us all, thank God! — dark days, and sad days, and solitary days, and losses and bitternesses of a thousand kinds, do not let us falter in the belief that if we have our hearts set on God, nothing has come to us but what He has let through. III. SIMPLE TRUST IN GOD, IN SOME MEASURE, ASSIMILATES THE PROTECTED TO THE PROTECTOR. Mountains girdle a mountain, and so my trust opens my heart to the entrance into my heart of something akin to God. It makes us "partakers of a Divine nature." The immovableness of the trustful man is not all unlike the calmness of the trusted God; and the steadfastness of the one is a reflex of the unchangeableness of the other. "As the mountains are round about Mount Zion," God is round about the people that are becoming Godlike. Mark further the significant repetition of the same expression in reference to the stability of the man protected, and the continuance of the protection. Both are "for ever." That is to say, if it is true that God is round about me, and that, in some humble measure, my heart has been opening to be calmed and steadied by the influx of His own life, then His "for ever" is my "for ever." And it cannot be that He should live and I should die. The guarantee of the eternal being of the trustful soul is the experience to-day of the reality of the Divine protection. And thus we may face everything — life, death, whatsoever may come, assured that nothing touches the continuity and the perpetuity of the union between the trusting soul and the trusted God. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) 1. Love. 2. Faith. 3. Purpose. II. TRUST IN THE LORD IS THE CONDITION OF DIVINE SECURITY. How often mountains protected nations! The free winds that sweep the summits, and thunder at the sides, seem to inspire the people with an invincible love of freedom. And mountains, too, have often proved the asylums of freedom. But no mountains have guarded a people as God guards those who trust in Him. The Eternal God is a refuge, and underneath are the "everlasting arms." He "is a fire round about" them, and their "glory in the midst" of them. (Homilist.) 1. Of God's defence (Psalm 62:2, 6; Psalm 18:2; Psalm 71:3). 2. Of God's strength. Those who have stood at some great height amid the sloping snow-field, bristling barriers of ice, and peaks of untrodden rock in the higher Alps, far from organic life, even of the smallest kind of vegetation, have felt some thrill of perhaps inexpressible awe. The grandeur of the vastness and power of the scene proves our own utter helplessness and littleness. Looking from ourselves and our little finite limits of thought and act out into the large unrealized infinity of God's great power, written in earth and sea and sky, and in the mind of man, the soul feels lost. But remember that all this expression of power is but the symbol of the strength of a Father's love. 3. Of God's everlastingness. II. TRUST IN GOD GIVES — 1. An inspiration of success. 2. A happy heart, in spite of everything. 3. Submissive decision of character.There is something supremely exhilarating and sublime in the spectacle of the good man who, in the strength of what he believes to be Heaven-sent guidance, goes intrepidly forward, noting little of what opposes and may attack, though death itself hang its sword above his head, though the world seem to shake in ruins around him. Though, as it were, the very earth be moved and the mountains be carried into the heart of the seas, the regular, constant, unwavering pursuit of his ideal is the one motive of life. So Daniel braved in quiet reverence the decree which opened the den of lions; the three witnesses to God argued not a moment, though the flames and heat of the fiery furnace were in front of them. (C. E. Harris.) I. A LOWLY PEOPLE. They "trust in the Lord." A very simple thing to do. It needs no effort of intellect to trust, and it needs no laborious education to learn the way; trusting in the Lord is simply depending where there is unquestionable reason for reliance, believing what is assuredly true, and acting upon it. Trusting in the Lord is taking at His word One who cannot lie, or change, or fail; and certainly this is no great feat if we look at it from the carnal man's own point of view. At the same time, it is very right. Should not a man trust in his own Creator? Does He not deserve to be trusted? Has He not always been faithful? Moreover, is it not wise? What can be wiser? Those of us who have tried trusting in God have never found it fail, whereas when we have trusted in men we have been disappointed. II. THE SECURITY OF BELIEVERS. God's children undergo a variety of experiences. To-day their hearts are a place of sacrifice, and to-morrow a battle-field; by turns their soul is a temple and a threshing-floor; but whatever their ups and downs may be, they shall never be removed from their ordained and appointed place: by the grace of God they are where they are, and where they shall be. They shall never be effectually removed from that place before the Lord in which infinite love has fixed them. III. THE EVIDENT REASON FOR ALL THIS. Why is it that they that trust in the Lord shall not be moved? 1. Because they are trusting in the truth. They have not believed a lie, and therefore they shall not be swept from their foundation. They are trusting in One who will not deceive them and cannot fail them. They have laid their foundation on a rock, have they not? 2. They are trusting where their reliance is observed and welcomed. God loveth to have many dependants about Him. It is His way of revealing Himself and manifesting His glory. If this is what He desireth, if He seeketh such to worship Him, who believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, why should He reject their suit? 3. It is not the nature of God to cast away any who rely upon Him; on the contrary, He is very careful that faith should never have less than she has expected. He respects the courage of faith: He never confounds it. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) ( C. H. Spurgeon.) 5058 rest, spiritual 5292 defence, divine The Security of the Church Letter ii (A. D. 1126) to the Monk Adam Calvin -- Enduring Persecution for Christ The Unchangeableness of God Psalms |
    |