But my eyes are fixed on You, O GOD the Lord. In You I seek refuge; do not leave my soul defenseless. Sermons
We have born so harrowed and torn that we are brought to the brink of the grave. "To be destitute in circumstances is bad, but to be destitute in soul is far worse; to be left of friends is a calamity, but to be left of God would be destruction. Destitute of God is destitution with a vengeance. The comfort is that God hath said, 'I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.'" The margin is, "Make not my soul bare;" strip me not of every hope; leave me not completely naked; abandon me not to nature's beggary and misery; let me not go down to the pit with all my sins upon my head; leave not my soul destitute of pardon and peace. The mood is well indicated in David's sense of being left alone of God for long months after his sin in the matter of Uriah. A comparison may be made between this prayer, "Leave not my soul destitute," and the confident assurance, "None of them that trust in him shall be desolate." I. THE SOUL IN RIGHTEOUSNESS FEELS BEFRIENDED. That is, the soul that is in right relations, and has right desires inspiring right endeavors. That man can always say, "The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our Refuge." And that befriending makes him superior to all surroundings of distress, and all consciousness of frailty. II. THE SOUL IN SIN FEELS DESTITUTE. He is conscious that he has put himself out of the atmosphere in which alone the God of love and righteousness can reveal himself. The prodigal son felt destitute as soon as "he came to himself," and realized that no love wrapped him round. When a man sins, and persists in his sins, it is his soul that feels destitute. His surroundings may not immediately change, but his soul does. That loses what is its supreme treasure, the sense of God. "Man was made for God, and can find no rest till it gets rest in him." When man sins, and keeps his sin, he must lose his treasure. But soul-destitution may set man seeking after God's return with a passionate intensity. - R.T. Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth. : — The text presents in a very vivid way an aspect of death most familiar, but most striking, and it also expresses the thoughts and the earnest prayer that rise in a soul at such a sight. You have walked in an old graveyard and seen the bones scattered at the grave's mouth. There are few whom this sight does not make to think. You remember Hamlet in the graveyard with the skull of Yorick, the king's jester. What a pathos and tenderness are there. With that text in his hand, how touchingly he discourses on our poor fleeting human life. "The flashes of merriment that set the table in a roar" — "the infinite jest" — all come to this. The bones that were so carefully nurtured, that cost so much, are knocked and tossed about and thrown into a heap. Every man who contemplates such a spectacle — bones strewn about as if they were but chips and sticks where men had been chopping wood, must either go away with a dangerous sense of the vanity and worthlessness of human life, or with a spirit made intense, and raised in prayer to the infinite God. I. OUR UNION WITS PAST GENERATIONS AND THE INTENSE REALITY OF OUR PRESENT LIFE. Observe the use of the word "our." He looks at the bones and speaks as if they were partly his own, as if they belonged partly to living men. He identifies himself with those past generations. This human life that we are living now is not a new thing. It is old, very old. I understand all the struggles and wide experience of the past, for it is all in me. That history is mine. It seems as if I had lived then and been a part of all this. It is good for us go look back over the past and feel our identity with our race. It makes us humble. It makes us tender and kindly. It fills us with compassion for the human family. We are ashamed at times and vexed and grieved; but we are also elevated and enlarged as we look back over the generations that are gone. They are gone, and how fleeting they have all been. It is like a dream to think of all these past generations of men. Their existence seems a shadow. But let us not think our present life shadowy. No; that is not the lesson which the writer of the psalm learnt from the scattered bones. He learnt intensity. "But mine eyes are toward Thee, O God the Lord. In Thee is my trust. Leave not my soul destitute." Life is new and momentous to us. It is as momentous as if it had never been lived before and would never be lived again. When you think steadily of God, it seems as if there were none but God and you standing over against each other. The man who keeps his eyes directed toward God feels life new and fresh, although the bones of many generations are scattered around him. II. IN THE TEXT WE SEE THE LITTLENESS AND THE GREATNESS OF MAN. 1. The scattered bones proclaim the littleness of man. These are the remains of thinkers, poets, kings, lovers of men, great inventors, famous disputers. 2. Yet, when I think of man in his weakness turning his eyes to the infinite God; when I reflect that man can think of a boundless and perfect One, that man looks to Him, that he has an eye that sees the invisible God: that he claims the society of the Maker of all worlds, and is restless till he finds it; when I reflect on man as putting his trust in the living God amidst all the mysteries of time; when I think of man standing over the grave where his dearest ones lie, where the ruins of his hopes are, and saying there, "I believe in God; I trust in God; He will not leave my soul destitute"; then I see the greatness of man. III. A MELANCHOLY PROSPECT AND A RISING ABOVE IT. 1. The prospect before us all is this: by and by our bones will be scattered about the grave's mouth. By and by you are forgotten, and the white relics that are thrown up by the shovel of the grave-digger are quite unknown. They have no name. Does it not seem like a horrid dream that we should be all coming to this? Surely it cannot be true. We all know too well that it is true and no dream. 2. There is just one remedy, one antidote, one means of conquering all thoughts of this kind; and the text presents it. "Mine eyes are unto Thee, O God the Lord." I see a glorious Being, infinite, eternal, everywhere present, absolute love and truth and holiness. The fact that I can think of this Being of itself inspires hope and courage. It cannot be that the eyes that look to Him can moulder into dust. Eyes that cannot but look to Him are not doomed to grow dim. He Himself has invited me to look to Him, and the sight of His face gives me joy. () Mine eyes are unto Thee, O God. : — The determination to do a certain thing involves the possibility and sometimes the probability of not doing it. The regal faculty of will controls the use of other faculties, which may be exercised in different ways and in different degrees according to its resolve. The desires and aspirations of the soul, like the organs of the body, may be employed in this direction or in that, and of all created beings on earth man has most freedom. Some creatures have eyes adapted for a use which is special and limited. The beast or bird of prey, for example, has for the pupil of its eye a vertical slit, in order that it may look up and down for its victims. The ruminants — oxen, horses, and the like — have a horizontal slit, in order that without special effort they may look for the succulent grass which spreads on each side of them in a fertile meadow. But we have circular pupils — in other words, we have no bias in one direction more than in another, and thus even in these lower capacities God gives us a hint of our responsibility for choice and of our power of will which makes our life a moral probation. Hence you may resolve as the psalmist did, "I will look up," or you may not so resolve. (). I cried unto the Lord with my voice. Homilist. I. THE TRIALS HERE REPRESENTED. He speaks of himself as —1. Overwhelmed (ver. 3). 2. Walking in snares (ver. 3). 3. Destitute of friends (ver. 4). 4. Greatly reduced (ver. 6). 5. Greatly persecuted (ver. 6). 6. Imprisoned (ver. 7). Ignorance, poverty, affliction, all these imprison. II. THE RELIGION HERE DISPLAYED. 1. Religion manifesting itself in prayer to God. A practical realization of our dependence on our Maker is true prayer, and this is the essence of religion. Prayer is not language, but life: it is the soul turned ever to the Almighty, as the flower to the sun, as the river to the sea. 2. Religion manifesting itself in practical confidence in God. (1)Confidence in His personal superintendence. "Thou knowest;" not merely the path of material universes and spiritual hierarchies, but "my path."(2)Confidence in His protection (ver. 5).(1)"My refuge." What a refuge, vaster than the universe, strong as Omnipotence.(2)"My portion." Everything without Him is nothing worth, nothing with Him is everything, satisfying, glorious.3. Religion manifesting itself in unbounded trust in His goodness (ver. 7). () "A prayer when he was in the cave." The caves have heard the best prayers. Some birds sing best in cages. I have heard that some of God's people shine brightest in the dark. There is many an heir of heaven who never prays so well as when he is driven by necessity to pray.I. THE CONDITION OF A SOUL UNDER A DEEP SENSE OF SIN. A little while ago you were out in the open field of the world, sinning with a high hand, plucking the flowers which grow in those poisoned vales, and enjoying their deadly perfume. To-night you feel like one who has come out of the bright sunshine and balmy air into a dark, noisome cavern, where you can see but little, where there is no comfort, and where there appears to you to be no hope of escape. 1. Well, now, your first business should be to appeal unto God. Get to your knees, you who feel yourselves guilty; get to your knees, if your hearts are sighing on account of sin. 2. Make a full confession unto the Lord. 3. Acknowledge to God that there is no hope for you but in His mercy. In the cave of your doubts and fears, with the clinging damp of your despair about you, chilled and numbed by the dread of the wrath to come, yet venture to make God in Christ your sole confidence, and you shall yet have perfect peace. 4. Then, further, if you are still in the cave of doubt and sin, venture to plead with God to set you free. You cannot present a better prayer than this one of David's (ver. 7). My old friend, Dr. Alexander Fletcher, seems to rise before me now, for I remember hearing him say to the children that, when men came out of prison, they did praise him who had set them free. He said that he was going down the Old Bailey one day, and he saw a boy standing on his head, turning Catherine wheels, dancing hornpipes, and jumping about in all manner of ways, and he said to him, "What are you at? You seem to be tremendously happy"; and the boy replied, "Ah, old gentlemen, if you had been locked up six months, and had just got out, you would be happy, tool" I have no doubt that is very true. When a soul gets out of a far worse prison than there ever was at Newgate, then he must praise "free grace and dying love," and "ring those charming bells" again, and again, and again, and make his whole life musical with the praise of the emancipating Christ. II. THE CONDITION OF A PERSECUTED BELIEVER. Here is a godly man who works in a factory, or a Christian girl who is occupied in book-folding, or-some other work where there is a large number employed; such persons will have a sad tale to tell of now they have been hunted about, ridiculed, and scoffed at by ungodly companions. Now you are in the cave. 1. It may be that you are in the condition described here; you hardly know what to do. You are as David was when he wrote ver. 3. You are like a lamb in the midst of wolves; you know not which way to turn. Well, then, say to the Lord, as David did, "When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then Thou knewest my path." Have confidence that, when you know not what to do, He can and will direct your way if you trust Him. 2. In addition to that, it may be that you are greatly tempted. David said, "They privily laid a snare for me." It is often so with young men in a warehouse, or with a number of clerks in an establishment. Young Christian soldiers often have a very rough time of it in the barracks; but I hope that they will prove themselves true soldiers, and not yield an inch to those who would lead them astray. 3. It will be very painful if, in addition to that, your friends turn against you. David said, "There was no man that would know me." Is it so with you? Are your father and mother against you? Cultivate great love to those who, having come into the army of Christ, are much beset by adversaries. They are in the cave. Do not disown them; they are trying to do their best; stand side by Side with them. 4. It may be that the worst point about you is that you feel very feeble. You say, "I should not mind the persecution if I felt strong; but I am so feeble." Well, now, always distinguish between feeling strong and being strong. The man who feels strong is weak; the man who feels weak is the man who is strong. III. THE CONDITION OF A BELIEVER WHO IS BEING PREPARED FOR GREATER HONOUR AND WIDER SERVICE. Is it not a curious thing that, whenever God means to make a man great, He always breaks him in pieces first? David was to be king over all Israel. What was the way to Jerusalem for David? What was the way to the throne? Well, it was round by the cave of Adullam, He must go there and be an outlaw and an outcast, for that was the way by which he would be made king. Have none of you ever noticed, in your own lives, that whenever God is going to give you an enlargement, and bring you out to a larger sphere of service, or a higher platform of spiritual life, you always get thrown down? Why is that? 1. If God would make you greatly useful, He must teach you how to pray. 2. The man whom God would greatly honour must always believe in God when he is at his wit's end (ver. 3). Oh, it is easy to trust when you can trust yourself; but when you cannot trust yourself, when you are dead beat, when your spirit sinks below zero in the chili of utter despair, then is the time to trust in God. If that is your case, you have the marks of a man who can lead God's people, and be a comforter of others. 3. In order to greater usefulness many a man of God must be taught to stand quite alone (ver. 4). 4. The man whom God will bless must be the man who delights in God alone (ver. 5). Oh, to have God as our refuge, and to make God our portion! 5. He whom God would use must be taught sympathy with God's poor people (ver. 6). If the Lord means to bless you, and to make you very useful in His Church, depend upon it He will try you. 6. If God means to use you, you must get to be full of praise (ver. 7). If thou art of a cheerful spirit, glad in the Lord, and joyous after all thy trials and afflictions, and if thou dost but rejoice the more because thou hast been brought so low, then God is making something of thee, and He will yet use thee to lead His people to greater works of grace. () : — Life and liberty are sweet; but we may pay too dear a price even for the sweetest things. David is now at liberty; he has escaped out of the prison-house of Gath; but he has made his escape and obtained his liberty at much too great a price. For years past the name of Gath had been the proudest name that David's flatterers could speak in his willing ears. But after his disgraceful escape from that city to David's old age, it brought a cloud to his brow and a blush to his cheek to hear the name of Gath. We all have our Gaths. There are people and there are places in our own past life the very name of which, the very neighbourhood of which, throws a bolt into conscience and brings a blush upon the cheek. If we purchase a name, or a place, or an office, or wealth, or even a home, if we purchase any of them at the cost of truth or of justice, or of honour, or self-respect, or fair play to our competitor, we will find, when it is too late, that we have sold ourselves for naught, and have poisoned the very wells of life. So David discovered it to be when, for his liberty, he degraded himself in Gath, deceived Achish, and was hurried out of the land and escaped — a free, indeed, but a dishonoured man — to the Cave of Adullam. But then, it is out of such degradation and shame that weak and evil men rise on stepping-stones of their own transgressions to true honour and wisdom, to stable godliness and exercised virtue. "I will take sentry myself to-night," said David to his captains one Sabbath evening. Wrapping around him the cloak that Michal had worked for him in happier days, and taking in his hand Goliath's sword, David paced the rocky shelves, and poured out his full heart to God all that Sabbath night. All in the great cave did not sleep, or all at once; and it was nights like these — when their captain shared their dangers and assured their fears, as they heard his step and listened to his deep sweet voice — it was nights like these that did more to turn the rough and ill-used men into heroes and saints than all their sufferings and all their other discipline. David says: "I cried that night unto the Lord with my voice; with my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication." I went out alone, and "I poured out my complaint before Him," and "I showed Him" that night all "my trouble." We are never content. What would we have given for a full report of all that David said about himself and his cause to God that night? We are thankful for this dramatic 142nd psalm; but it would have been a grand piece of devotional literature, aye, of national history, had we had all that David said to God that sentinel night; but what he did say was not fitted or intended for any human ear. We know that from ourselves, from our own sentinel Sabbaths. We too have troubles and complaints that our ministers do not touch upon in all their most searching Sabbath Day exercises, any more than God touched upon David's here in the cave. But David seems only to have one "complaint," and yet it was so blessed to him that it compelled him to spend the hours of the night alone with God, Keep your complaints for God, my afflicted brethren; keep your complaints for God, and for the silence of the night. No one will listen to your trouble but God; no one has time, no one has attention to give to your sorrow but God. You will only expose yourself, and weaken yourself, and humble yourself, if you take your complaints to preoccupied men. Like David, some of you may to-night be labouring and anxious under some complaint against your master, or against some of your relatives; or some of you may have received an insulting, threatening, blackmailing letter, like Hezekiah. I do not say you are not to show that letter to a lawyer; but you must show it first to God, and then, if possible, to a lawyer who knows God. Send all your house to bed to-night before you answer that letter, and again show it to God in the morning before you post it. "I poured out my complaint before God; I showed Him all my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then Thou knewest my path." "The Lord," says Newton, "is not withdrawn to a great distance from you, His eye is upon you all the time, He sees your case, and does not behold it with indifference, but observes it with attention. He knows and considers your path, and not only so, but He appointed it and all the outs and ins of it. Your trouble began at the hour He appointed; it could not begin before, and He has marked the degree of it to a hair's breadth, and its duration to a moment. He knows, likewise, just how your spirit is affected to-night under the trouble, and He will supply you, if you will take it — He will supply grace and strength in due season, and as He sees they are needful. Therefore, hope in God; for you, like David, shall yet praise Him." To be imprisoned by God was better to David than to be set free by man. In David's best moments, as sometimes when sentinel in Adullam, David felt that God's prison-house was a very hermitage, sanctuary, a grand pavilion, as he signifies elsewhere, into which God takes the soul to show it His "marvellous lovingkindness." David had broken out of God's prison in Gath before the time, but he has never ceased to repent of that insane act. And if at any time he felt the banishment of Adullam — and he had a thousand thoughts during these lonely hours — he soon recollected who held the keys; and, though the door had been opened, he would not have escaped. God Himself conspicuously delivered David henceforth. God is David's jailor, and whatever time David feels his close detention, he betakes himself anew, in all his guilt, and lies, and playing the madman and the fool to earnest, believing, and waiting prayer: "Bring my soul out of prison that I may praise Thy name"; and then, as the new day broke in the east, and the shades of the night fled away, the day-star of hope arose in David's heart, and the present prayer seems almost to be prophetic. He foresaw the Lord not only as his refuge in every future time of trouble, but also as his alone "portion in the land of the living"; he saw himself set free from every prison and from every persecutor, with his "righteousness brought forth as the light, and his judgment as the noonday." "Bring my soul out of prison" was his last word to God, as the day broke in the east, "that I may praise Thy name: the righteous shall compass me about; for Thou shalt deal bountifully with me." And how well was that hope fulfilled to David, how bountifully did God deal with David, and how hath the righteous compassed David about, as rapt listeners compass round the sweetest music, as rejoicing fellow-worshippers compass round a miracle of Divine grace. "There was no man that would know me," complained David in the day of his deep dejection. But all men whose knowledge is worth the having know David now. All righteous men compass him about now, and rejoice over him that his God, and their God, brought "his soul out of prison," and dealt so bountifully with him.()
People David, Psalmist, SaulPlaces JerusalemTopics Bare, Death, Defenseless, Destitute, Hope, Leave, O, Pour, Refuge, Seek, Soul, Sovereign, Trust, TrustedOutline 1. David prays that his suit may be acceptable
3. His conscience sincere
7. And his life free from snares
Dictionary of Bible Themes Psalm 141:8-10 5511 safety Library The Incense of Prayer
'Let my prayer be set forth before Thee as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.'--PSALM cxli. 2. The place which this psalm occupies in the Psalter, very near its end, makes it probable that it is considerably later in date than the prior portions of the collection. But the Psalmist, who here penetrates to the inmost meaning of the symbolic sacrificial worship of the Old Testament, was not helped to his clear-sightedness by his date, but by his devotion. For throughout …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureEvening Hymns
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Catherine Winkworth—Lyra Germanica: The Christian Year And Lest it Should Seem that Necessary Continence was to be Hoped for From...
2. And lest it should seem that necessary Continence was to be hoped for from the Lord only in respect of the lust of the lower parts of the flesh, it is also sung in the Psalm; "Set, O Lord, a watch to my mouth, and a door of Continence around my lips." [1810] But in this witness of the divine speech, if we understand "mouth" as we ought to understand it, we perceive how great a gift of God Continence there set is. Forsooth it is little to contain the mouth of the body, lest any thing burst forth …
St. Augustine—On Continence For Acceptance in Prayer, and Daily Guidance. --Ps. cxli.
For Acceptance in Prayer, and daily Guidance.--Ps. cxli. Lord, let my prayer like incense rise, And when I lift my hands to Thee, As on the evening sacrifice Look down from heaven well-pleased on me. Set Thou a watch to keep my tongue, Let not my heart to sin incline; Save me from men who practise wrong, Let me not share their mirth and wine. But let the righteous, when I stray, Smite me in love,--his strokes are kind; His mild reproofs, like oil, allay The wounds they make, and heal the mind. …
James Montgomery—Sacred Poems and Hymns Epistle xxxv. To Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria.
To Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria. Gregory to Eulogius, &c. In the past year I received the letters of your most sweet Holiness; but on account of the extreme severity of my sickness have been unable to reply to them until now. For lo, it is now almost full two years that I have been confined to my bed, afflicted with such pains of gout that I have hardly been able to rise on feast-days for as much as three hours space to solemnize mass. And I am soon compelled by severe pain to lie down, that …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great How Some of the Heavenly Lovers Died Also of Love.
All the elect then, Theotimus, died in the habit of holy love; but further, some died even in the exercise of it, others for this love, and others by this same love. But what belongs to the sovereign degree of love is, that some die of love; and then it is that love not only wounds the soul, so as to make her languish, but even pierces her through, delivering its blow right in the middle of the heart, and so fatally, that it drives the soul out of the body;--which happens thus. The soul, powerfully …
St. Francis de Sales—Treatise on the Love of God That all Hope and Trust is to be Fixed in God Alone
O Lord, what is my trust which I have in this life, or what is my greatest comfort of all the things which are seen under Heaven? Is it not Thou, O Lord my God, whose mercies are without number? Where hath it been well with me without Thee? Or when could it be evil whilst Thou wert near? I had rather be poor for Thy sake, than rich without Thee. I choose rather to be a pilgrim upon the earth with Thee than without Thee to possess heaven. Where Thou art, there is heaven; and where Thou are not, …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ In this So Great Conflict, Wherein Man under Grace Lives...
13. In this so great conflict, wherein man under Grace lives, and when, being aided, he fights well, rejoices in the Lord with trembling, there yet are not wanting even to valiant warriors, and mortifiers however unconquered of the works of the flesh, some wounds of sins, for the healing of which they may say daily, "Forgive us our debts:" [1855] against the same vices, and against the devil the prince and king of vices, striving with much greater watchfulness and keenness by the very prayer, that …
St. Augustine—On Continence The Theology of St. Hilary of Poitiers.
This Chapter offers no more than a tentative and imperfect outline of the theology of St. Hilary; it is an essay, not a monograph. Little attempt will be made to estimate the value of his opinions from the point of view of modern thought; little will be said about his relation to earlier and contemporary thought, a subject on which he is habitually silent, and nothing about the after fate of his speculations. Yet the task, thus narrowed, is not without its difficulties. Much more attention, it is …
St. Hilary of Poitiers—The Life and Writings of St. Hilary of Poitiers Wherefore Let this be the First Thought for the Putting on of Humility...
42. Wherefore let this be the first thought for the putting on of humility, that God's virgin think not that it is of herself that she is such, and not rather that this best "gift cometh down from above from the Father of Lights, with Whom is no change nor shadow of motion." [2172] For thus she will not think that little hath been forgiven her, so as for her to love little, and, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and wishing to establish her own, not to be made subject to the righteousness …
St. Augustine—Of Holy Virginity. Annunciation to Zacharias of the Birth of John the Baptist.
(at Jerusalem. Probably b.c. 6.) ^C Luke I. 5-25. ^c 5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judæa [a Jewish proselyte, an Idumæan or Edomite by birth, founder of the Herodian family, king of Judæa from b.c. 40 to a.d. 4, made such by the Roman Senate on the recommendation of Mark Antony and Octavius Cæsar], a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course [David divided the priests into twenty-four bodies or courses, each course serving in rotation one week in the temple …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel The Daily Walk with Others (I. ).
When the watcher in the dark Turns his lenses to the skies, Suddenly the starry spark Grows a world upon his eyes: Be my life a lens, that I So my Lord may magnify We come from the secrecies of the young Clergyman's life, from his walk alone with God in prayer and over His Word, to the subject of his common daily intercourse. Let us think together of some of the duties, opportunities, risks, and safeguards of the ordinary day's experience. A WALK WITH GOD ALL DAY. A word presents itself to be …
Handley C. G. Moule—To My Younger Brethren An Analysis of Augustin's Writings against the Donatists.
The object of this chapter is to present a rudimentary outline and summary of all that Augustin penned or spoke against those traditional North African Christians whom he was pleased to regard as schismatics. It will be arranged, so far as may be, in chronological order, following the dates suggested by the Benedictine edition. The necessary brevity precludes anything but a very meagre treatment of so considerable a theme. The writer takes no responsibility for the ecclesiological tenets of the …
St. Augustine—writings in connection with the donatist controversy. Letter xix (A. D. 1127) to Suger, Abbot of S. Denis
To Suger, Abbot of S. Denis He praises Suger, who had unexpectedly renounced the pride and luxury of the world to give himself to the modest habits of the religious life. He blames severely the clerk who devotes himself rather to the service of princes than that of God. 1. A piece of good news has reached our district; it cannot fail to do great good to whomsoever it shall have come. For who that fear God, hearing what great things He has done for your soul, do not rejoice and wonder at the great …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux Prayer
But I give myself unto prayer.' Psa 109: 4. I shall not here expatiate upon prayer, as it will be considered more fully in the Lord's prayer. It is one thing to pray, and another thing to be given to prayer: he who prays frequently, is said to be given to prayer; as he who often distributes alms, is said to be given to charity. Prayer is a glorious ordinance, it is the soul's trading with heaven. God comes down to us by his Spirit, and we go up to him by prayer. What is prayer? It is an offering …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments 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 Links Psalm 141:8 NIV
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