Freely I will sacrifice to You; I will praise Your name, O LORD, for it is good. Sermons
I. PERIL MOVING TO PRAYER. (Vers. 1-3.) Danger may arise from various causes. Soul-danger is the worst. Then when sore pressed and in trouble, the instinct of the heart is to cry to God, "Save me!" Prayer is "the mighty utterance of a mighty need" (Trench). II. PRAYER INSPIRING CONFIDENCE. (Ver. 4.) Prayer brings the soul into the very presence of God. The thought of what he is (" thy Name") and of what he has done ("God is mine Helper"), furnish ample pleas for entreaty, and sure ground for hope. Experience gives us courage to cleave to the word of promise. "If God be with us, who can be against us?" III. CONFIDENCE ANTICIPATING DELIVERANCE. (Ver. 5.) The nearer we get to God, the more truly we are in sympathy with him, so as to make his will our will, the more certain do we become of deliverance. We rise to the vision of victory. God is ever on the side of right. There may still be clouds, but we see the bright light shining above the clouds. There may still be struggles and pains, but we press on with renewed ardour and assurance, for we know whom we have believed, and that he is able to keep that which we have committed to him, and to bring forth judgment unto victory. IV. DELIVERANCE. AWAKING PRAISE. (Ver. 6.) Some forget their obligations to God when the danger is past; but it will not be so with the righteous. Like the Samaritan leper, they return to give glory to God - with sacrifices of thanksgiving and songs of praise. - W.F.
I will freely sacrifice unto Thee: I will praise Thy name, O Lord, for it is good The closing verses of this simple little psalm touch very familiar notes. The faith which has prayed has grown so sure of answer that is already begins to think of the thank-offerings. This is not like the superstitious vow, "I will give so-and-so if Jupiter" — or the Virgin — "will hear me." This praying man knows that he is heard, and is not so much vowing as joyfully anticipating his glad sacrifice. The same incipient personification of the name as in verse 1 is very prominent in the closing strains. Thank-offerings — not merely statutory and obligatory, but brought by free, uncommanded impulse — are to be offered to "Thy name," because that name is good. Verse 7 probably should be taken as going even further in the same direction of personification, for "Thy name" is probably to be taken as the subject of "hath delivered." The Senses of the verbs in verse 7 are perfects. They contemplate the deliverance as already accomplished. Faith sees the future as present. This psalmist, surrounded by strangers seeking his life, can quietly stretch out a hand of faith, and bring near to himself the to-morrow when he will look back on scattered enemies and present, glad sacrifices! That power of drawing a brighter future into a dark present belongs not to those who build anticipations on wishes, but to those who found their forecasts on God's known purposes and character. The name is a firm foundation for hope. There is no other.(A. Maclaren, D. D.). Give ear to my prayer, O God; and hide not Thyself from my supplication. Homilist. I. THE COMPASSIONABLE. David appears here an object for pity and compassion, as the victim of —1. Malignant oppression. 2. Overwhelming terror. 3. Foul treachery. II. THE COMMENDABLE. 1. He lays all his troubles before Him who alone could help him. The fact that men in great trouble and danger, whatever be their theoretical beliefs, instinctively appeal to God for help, argues man's intuitive belief —(1) In the existence of a personal God;(2) In the accessibility of a personal God;(3) In the compassion of a personal God. 2. Under all his troubles he strives to maintain his confidence in God.(1) Men have burdens. What anxieties press upon the human soul, making the very frame to stoop, and the heart to break.(2) Men's burdens may be transferred to God. "Cast thy burden upon the Lord." How? By an unbounded confidence in His character and procedure.(3) Those who transfer their burdens on the Lord will be sustained. "He shall sustain thee." God gives men power to bear their burden, and will ultimately remove their burden from them. III. THE CENSURABLE — HIS IMPRECATIONS. Revenge is a moral wrong; and what is morally wrong in the individual can never be right in any relationship or office that the individual may assume, or in any combination into which he may enter. (Homilist.) II. THE TREACHEROUS FRIEND (vers. 12-15). The slanders of an avowed antagonist are seldom so mean and cutting as those of a false friend, and the absence of the elements of ingratitude and treachery renders them less hard to bear. "We can bear from Shimei what we cannot endure from Ahithophel." So, too, we can escape from open foes, but where can one find a hiding-place from treachery? Hence the faithlessness of a professed friend is a form of sin for which there is not even the pretence of excuse. No one defends it or apologizes for it. Yet it occurs, and sometimes, like the case in the psalm, under the sanctions of a religious profession, so that the very altar of God is defiled with hypocrisy. It is right, therefore, that such atrocious wickedness should receive its appropriate recompense. III. THE ANTICIPATED RESULT (vers. 16-23). By a fine antithesis the speaker turns to describe his own course in opposition to that of others. They pursue wickedness and reach its fearful end. He, on the contrary, calls upon God, who is his one refuge in times of distress and anxiety. He lives in an atmosphere of prayer, which is expressed by his mention of the three principal divisions of the natural day. "Complain" and "moan" are the same words that occur in verse 2; only here they are accompanies by the assurance of being heard. God will assuredly redeem him from the heat of the conflict; and the interposition of His arm will be needed, for his adversaries are not few but many, too many for him to deal with alone. God therefore will hear and answer them just as He does to His own servant, but with a serious difference. His own He regards in mercy, others in judgment. God Himself so orders His providence that they are overtaken in their evil ways and plunged into the abyss. On the other hand, the sacred poet closes his lyric with a renewed asseveration of the only ground of his hope. As for me, whatever others may say or think, as for me, I trust in Thee. (T. W. Chambers, D. D.) People David, Psalmist, Saul, ZiphitesPlaces JerusalemTopics Free, Freely, Freewill, Freewill-offering, O, Offering, Offerings, Praise, Sacrifice, Thank, Thanks, Willingly, Will-offeringOutline 1. David, complaining of the Ziphims, prays for salvation4. Upon his confidence in God's help he promises sacrifice Dictionary of Bible Themes Psalm 54:6 7435 sacrifice, in OT Library How those are to be Admonished who Praise the Unlawful Things of which they are Conscious, and those who While Condemning Them, in no Wise Guard(Admonition 32.) Differently to be admonished are they who even praise the unlawful things which they do, and those who censure what is wrong, and yet avoid it not. For they who even praise the unlawful things which they do are to be admonished to consider how for the most part they offend more by the mouth than by deeds. For by deeds they perpetrate wrong things in their own persons only; but with the mouth they bring out wickedness in the persons of as many as there are souls of hearers, to … Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great Epistle vii. To Peter, Domitian, and Elpidius. The Difference Between Union and Rapture. What Rapture Is. The Blessing it is to the Soul. The Effects of It. Epistle ii. To Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch. Psalms Links Psalm 54:6 NIVPsalm 54:6 NLT Psalm 54:6 ESV Psalm 54:6 NASB Psalm 54:6 KJV Psalm 54:6 Bible Apps Psalm 54:6 Parallel Psalm 54:6 Biblia Paralela Psalm 54:6 Chinese Bible Psalm 54:6 French Bible Psalm 54:6 German Bible Psalm 54:6 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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