This psalm contains many instances of this. It is a painful thing to see even a bird or beast, made for freedom and longing after it, caged or chained or otherwise kept in captivity. Yet more is it distressing to see a man of noble aspiration, of lofty capacity, of patriotic spirit, and intent on doing good, get "cribbed, cabined, and confined" by petty prejudices, mean jealousies, base motives, and vile conduct, on the part of those around him; and often such a sight has been seen. And the cry of a soul awfully limited and bound down is heard in
Romans 7:24, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me," etc.? What barrier in the way of blessing do such limitings set up? But what must it be to limit God? How much more sad and deplorable that must be! Now -
I. MAN CAN LIMIT GOD.
1. But this may be questioned. It should seem impossible when we think of the greatness and power of God, of his universal sway, of his infinite wisdom, of the hurt and harm that must come of such conduct. All such considerations seem to render impossible the limiting of God.
2. But undoubtedly man can do this. For else he would be a mere machine, not a man; he would have no more volition than a tree or a bird. If he is to be able to say "Yes" to God, he must be able also to say "No." And he can and does. Scripture asserts it - see this whole psalm. God stood ready to bless, but Israel would have none of his counsel, and set at nought all his reproof. Reason asserts it, for it steadily affirms that we are free, and can will and choose as we please. Experience asserts it. Concerning nations, Churches, individuals, has not God again and again said, as Jesus did when he wept over Jerusalem, "How often would I have gathered thee... but ye would not!"? We read how in some places Christ could do no mighty works there because of their unbelief.
II. AND MEN DO THIS STILL.
1. Very often in their prayers and desires. They insist too much upon definite blessings being given. They ask some temporal blessing - rain, or health, or the sparing of life, or it may be a spiritual blessing; but they limit God to definite time, manner, and means. And such prayers come to nothing, for they have asked amiss. And then men make a mock at prayer. We need to remember our Lord's words in Gethsemane, "Father, not my will, but," etc.
2. Yet more do we limit God in our thoughts. (See vers. 19, 20.) And all anxious care and foreboding is really a limiting of God. Hence Christ so forbade it (see Matthew 6.). How Jacob limited God when he cried, "All these things are against me"! We shall get help against this by heeding Paul's counsel (Philippians 4.), "Be careful for nothing, but," etc. But if foreboding care is guilty of this, yet more is despair, whether for ourselves or for others.
3. But most of all, and worst, our sins limit God. The Church at Laodicea kept the Lord outside her door. And how often we stand in our children's way, when God would bless them, by our worldliness and unbelief! We will not let God bless us or them. God would, but we would not. May the Lord pardon us every one, and save us from this sin! - S.C.
And smote all the firstborn in Egypt;... but made His own people to go forth like sheep.
I. THE PUNISHMENT OF EGYPT. Egypt, through its kings, had become the determined adversary of God. "Who is Jehovah, that I should obey His voice?" was the challenge flung down by Pharaoh in defiance; and the Lord, who is a man of war, was not slow to accept it. Let us learn from this that, when God comes to try conclusions between Himself and His enemies, He may allow a certain time to elapse before He overthrows them, He may for a while smite gently, and so give opportunities for repentance; but if they be not accepted, we may depend upon it that God is not playing with sinners. In the case of Pharaoh, it was his own chickens that came home to roost; his sins brought their own punishment. He had slain many of the children of Israel, and God had, in effect, said to him, "Israel is my firstborn; let my people go"; and as he would not let God's first-born go God's stroke of judgment came upon his firstborn. This is, perhaps, the most dreadful truth about future retribution that a man will see his own sin in his suffering just as he sees his face in a glass. There is no escape from God's judgment and no recovery from His blows.
II. THE SALVATION OF ISRAEL (ver. 52).
1. God has His people to this day. Their distinguishing mark is faith.
2. God brings these people out from among all others. He brought Israel up out of Egypt; and if you are one of His people, He will fetch you out of the world. God did not drive His people out of Egypt, but He led them; they came willingly and gladly, for Egypt had become a place of misery to them. So does the world become, with all its sinful pleasures; its fine glories turn to emptiness and vanity to the true child of God, and God fetches him out of it all.
3. The Lord not only brings His people away from others, but He brings them to Himself: "He made His own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock," He Himself going before them through the desert way like a shepherd, O poor wandering souls, come to God through Jesus Christ His Son, follow where He leads, and walk ever in His way!
4. Further, in bringing sinners to Himself, God will also bring them to one another. "He made His own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock." He does not say that they should be like a solitary dog that comes at his master's whistle, but like a flock of sheep that move together in one direction. It is one of the marks of God's people that they love each other; He leads them forth like a flock of sheep, He brings them into union with one another: gives them happy fellowship in His Church, and so guides them to heaven.
5. The Lord brings His people out from the world, and brings them to Himself, and to fellowship with one another, and then He guides them to a place of rest, even as He led Israel into Canaan.
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People
Asaph,
David,
Ham,
Jacob,
Joseph,
PsalmistPlaces
JerusalemTopics
Chief, Destruction, Egypt, Firstborn, First-born, First-fruit, Firstfruits, First-fruits, Ham, Issue, Manhood, Smiteth, Smote, Sons, Strength, Strong, Struck, Tabernacles, Tents, Vigour, VirilityOutline
1. An exhortation both to learn and to preach, the law of God9. The story of God's wrath against the incredulous and disobedient67. The Israelites being rejected, God chose Judah, Zion, and David.Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 78:51 4442 firstfruits
5688 firstborn
Psalm 78:41-51
4843 plague
Psalm 78:51-53
7223 exodus, significance
Library
Memory, Hope, and Effort
'That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments.'--PSALM lxxviii. 7. In its original application this verse is simply a statement of God's purpose in giving to Israel the Law, and such a history of deliverance. The intention was that all future generations might remember what He had done, and be encouraged by the remembrance to hope in Him for the future; and by both memory and hope, be impelled to the discharge of present duty. So, then, the words …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureTurning Back in the Day of Battle
I. We will first consider for a little while WHAT THESE MEN DID. They turned their backs. When the time for fighting came they ought to have shown their fronts. Like bold men they should have kept their face to the foe and their breast against the adversary, but they dishonorably turned their backs and fled. This, I am sorry to say, is not an unusual thing amongst professing Christians. They turn back; they turn back in the day of battle. Some do this at the first appearance of difficulty. "There …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 12: 1866
Limiting God
Among such sins of the first table is that described in our text. It is consequently one of the masterpieces of iniquity, and we shall do well to purge ourselves of it. It is full of evil to ourselves, and is calculated to dishonor both God and man, therefore let us be in earnest to cut it up both root and branch. I think we have all been guilty of this in our measure; and we are not free from it even to this day. Whether we be saints or sinners, we may stand here and make our humble confession that …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 5: 1859
Fifteenth Day for Schools and Colleges
WHAT TO PRAY.--For Schools and Colleges "As for Me, this is My covenant with them, saith the Lord: My Spirit that is upon thee, and My words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LoThe future of the Church and the world depends, to an extent we little conceive, on the education of the day. The Church may be seeking to evangelise the heathen, and be giving up her own children to secular …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession
Fourteenth Day for the Church of the Future
WHAT TO PRAY.--For the Church of the Future "That the children might not be as their fathers, a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God."--PS. lxxviii. 8. "I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thy offspring."--ISA. xliv. 3. Pray for the rising generation, who are to come after us. Think of the young men and young women and children of this age, and pray for all the agencies at work among them; that in association and societies …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession
Centenary Commemoration
OF THE RETURN OF BISHOP SEABURY. 1885 THE RT. REV. SAMUEL SEABURY, D.D. FIRST BISHOP OF CONNECTICUT, HELD HIS FIRST ORDINATION AT MIDDLETOWN, AUGUST 3, 1785. On the ninth day of June, 1885, the Diocesan Convention met in Hartford. Morning Prayer was read in Christ Church at 9 o'clock by the Rev. W. E. Vibbert, D.D., Rector of St. James's Church, Fair Haven, and the Rev. J. E. Heald, Rector of Trinity Church, Tariffville. The Holy Communion was celebrated in St. John's Church, the service beginning …
Various—The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary
"Thou Shalt Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother. "
From this Commandment we learn that after the excellent works of the first three Commandments there are no better works than to obey and serve all those who are set over us as superiors. For this reason also disobedience is a greater sin than murder, unchastity, theft and dishonesty, and all that these may include. For we can in no better way learn how to distinguish between greater and lesser sins than by noting the order of the Commandments of God, although there are distinctions also within the …
Dr. Martin Luther—A Treatise on Good Works
Indiscreet Importunity.
"I gave thee a king in mine anger." HOSEA xiii. 11. "Ye know not what ye ask." MATTHEW xx. 22. PSALM lxxviii. 27-31. That God sometimes suffers men to destroy themselves, giving them their own way, although He knows it is ruinous, and even putting into their hands the scorpion they have mistaken for a fish, is an indubitable and alarming fact. Perhaps no form of ruin covers a man with such shame or sinks him to such hopelessness as when he finds that what he has persistently clamoured for and refused …
Marcus Dods—How to become like Christ
The Mystery
Of the Woman dwelling in the Wilderness. The woman delivered of a child, when the dragon was overcome, from thenceforth dwelt in the wilderness, by which is figured the state of the Church, liberated from Pagan tyranny, to the time of the seventh trumpet, and the second Advent of Christ, by the type, not of a latent, invisible, but, as it were, an intermediate condition, like that of the lsraelitish Church journeying in the wilderness, from its departure from Egypt, to its entrance into the land …
Joseph Mede—A Key to the Apocalypse
The Second Continental Journey.
1827-28. PART I.--GERMANY. After John and Martha Yeardley had visited their friends at home, their minds were directed to the work which they had left uncompleted on the continent of Europe; and, on their return from the Yearly Meeting, they opened this prospect of service before the assembled church to which they belonged. (Diary) 6 mo. 18.--Were at the Monthly Meeting at Highflatts, where we laid our concern before our friends to revisit some parts of Germany and Switzerland, and to visit …
John Yeardley—Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel
The World's Bread
'And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told Him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. 31. And He said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. 32. And they departed into a desert place by ship privately. 33. And the people saw them departing, and many knew Him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture
Out of the Deep of Loneliness, Failure, and Disappointment.
My heart is smitten down, and withered like grass. I am even as a sparrow that sitteth alone on the housetop--Ps. cii. 4, 6. My lovers and friends hast Thou put away from me, and hid mine acquaintance out of my sight--Ps. lxxviii. 18. I looked on my right hand, and saw there was no man that would know me. I had no place to flee unto, and no man cared for my soul. I cried unto Thee, O Lord, and said, Thou art my Hope. When my spirit was in heaviness, then Thou knewest my path.--Ps. cxlii. 4, 5. …
Charles Kingsley—Out of the Deep
The Good Shepherd: a Farewell Sermon
John 10:27-28 -- "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand." It is a common, and I believe, generally speaking, my dear hearers, a true saying, that bad manners beget good laws. Whether this will hold good in every particular, in respect to the affairs of this world, I am persuaded the observation is very pertinent in respect to the things of another: I mean bad manners, …
George Whitefield—Selected Sermons of George Whitefield
Adam and Zaretan, Joshua 3
I suspect a double error in some maps, while they place these two towns in Perea; much more, while they place them at so little a distance. We do not deny, indeed, that the city Adam was in Perea; but Zaretan was not so. Of Adam is mention, Joshua 3:16; where discourse is had of the cutting-off, or cutting in two, the waters of Jordan, that they might afford a passage to Israel; The waters rose up upon a heap afar off in Adam. For the textual reading "In Adam," the marginal hath "From Adam." You …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica
The Eighth Commandment
Thou shalt not steal.' Exod 20: 15. AS the holiness of God sets him against uncleanness, in the command Thou shalt not commit adultery;' so the justice of God sets him against rapine and robbery, in the command, Thou shalt not steal.' The thing forbidden in this commandment, is meddling with another man's property. The civil lawyers define furtum, stealth or theft to be the laying hands unjustly on that which is another's;' the invading another's right. I. The causes of theft. [1] The internal causes …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments
"The Sun of Righteousness"
WE SHOULD FEEL QUITE JUSTIFIED in applying the language of the 19th Psalm to our Lord Jesus Christ from the simple fact that he is so frequently compared to the sun; and especially in the passage which we have given you as our second text, wherein he is called "the Sun of Righteousness." But we have a higher justification for such a reading of the passage, for it will be in your memories that, in the 10th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, the Apostle Paul, slightly altering the words of this …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871
A Jealous God
I. Reverently, let us remember that THE LORD IS EXCEEDINGLY JEALOUS OF HIS DEITY. Our text is coupled with the command--"Thou shalt worship no other God." When the law was thundered from Sinai, the second commandment received force from the divine jealousy--"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 9: 1863
Mosaic Cosmogony.
ON the revival of science in the 16th century, some of the earliest conclusions at which philosophers arrived were found to be at variance with popular and long-established belief. The Ptolemaic system of astronomy, which had then full possession of the minds of men, contemplated the whole visible universe from the earth as the immovable centre of things. Copernicus changed the point of view, and placing the beholder in the sun, at once reduced the earth to an inconspicuous globule, a merely subordinate …
Frederick Temple—Essays and Reviews: The Education of the World
Privilege and Experience
"And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." --Luke 15:31. The words of the text are familiar to us all. The elder son had complained and said, that though his father had made a feast, and had killed the fatted calf for the prodigal son, he had never given him even a kid that he might make merry with his friends. The answer of the father was: "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." One cannot have a more wonderful revelation of the heart of …
Andrew Murray—The Deeper Christian Life
Stones Crying Out
'For the priests which bare the ark stood in the midst of Jordan, until every thing was finished that the Lord commanded Joshua to speak unto the people, according to all that Moses commanded Joshua: and the people hasted and passed over. 11. And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over, that the ark of the Lord passed over, and the priests, in the presence of the people. 12. And the children of Reuben, and the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh, passed over armed …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture
The Deaf Stammerer Healed and Four Thousand Fed.
^A Matt. XV. 30-39; ^B Mark VII. 32-VIII. 9. ^b 32 And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech [The man had evidently learned to speak before he lost his hearing. Some think that defective hearing had caused the impediment in his speech, but verse 35 suggests that he was tongue-tied]; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. 33 And he took him aside from the multitude privately, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat, and touched his tongue [He separated …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel
Purity and Peace in the Present Lord
PHILIPPIANS iv. 1-9 Euodia and Syntyche--Conditions to unanimity--Great uses of small occasions--Connexion to the paragraphs--The fortress and the sentinel--A golden chain of truths--Joy in the Lord--Yieldingness--Prayer in everything--Activities of a heart at rest Ver. 1. +So, my brethren beloved and longed for+, missed indeed, at this long distance from you, +my joy and crown+ of victory (stephanos), +thus+, as having such certainties and such aims, with such a Saviour, and looking for such …
Handley C. G. Moule—Philippian Studies
The Baptismal Covenant Can be Kept Unbroken. Aim and Responsibility of Parents.
We have gone "to the Law and to the Testimony" to find out what the nature and benefits of Baptism are. We have gathered out of the Word all the principal passages bearing on this subject. We have grouped them together, and studied them side by side. We have noticed that their sense is uniform, clear, and strong. Unless we are willing to throw aside all sound principles of interpretation, we can extract from the words of inspiration only one meaning, and that is that the baptized child is, by virtue …
G. H. Gerberding—The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church
An Exhortation to Love God
1. An exhortation. Let me earnestly persuade all who bear the name of Christians to become lovers of God. "O love the Lord, all ye his saints" (Psalm xxxi. 23). There are but few that love God: many give Him hypocritical kisses, but few love Him. It is not so easy to love God as most imagine. The affection of love is natural, but the grace is not. Men are by nature haters of God (Rom. i. 30). The wicked would flee from God; they would neither be under His rules, nor within His reach. They fear God, …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial
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