Psalm 92:13














Five subjects fall to be considered here.

I. THE PLANTED ONES. The similitude is taken from the fact of trees being commonly planted in the quadrangles of Eastern houses; there were trees in the temple courts. Now, from this emblem we learn much about those persons whom it represents.

1. They must have had life in them. People do not plant dead things. So ere ever any soul is planted in the house of the Lord, the Divine life must have begun. It may have been very feeble, but it was there. Many come to church, and regularly, who have never been planted in the house of the Lord, because they are not "born again."

2. They are where they once were not. The tree had been transplanted, moved from one place to another. So the soul of the man spoken of here. He has been "translated out of the kingdom of darkness into," etc.; he has passed "from death into life;" he has undergone a great and wonderful change. The process may have been very painful; the roots of our life seemed so to cling to our old state. But by one means and another we have been transplanted. "If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature; old things have," etc.

3. And it was done for us, not by ourselves. We were "born, not of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of the will of God." Unless Christ saves us, we shall never be saved. We owe our all to the grace of God.

4. The roots have taken hold of the soil. (C.H. Spurgeon.) We often make use of the expression that a man has taken root in a place, meaning that he has settled down there, and has found pleasure and good in his surroundings, and is at home there. So these people, these planted ones, find their home in the house of God.

5. And they stay there. They are no mere birds of passage, but they dwell in the secret place of the Most High, love the habitation of God's house, their soul's home is there. In body they must often be absent, but in spirit never.

II. THE PROSPERITY PROMISED THEM. They "shall flourish in the courts of our God."

1. As a fact they do. What great saint ever set light store by the sanctuary of God?

2. And it is certain they will. There is the promise of God. There is the soul nurture which the sacred services of the sanctuary supply. There is the shelter, and retreat from the hostile forces of the world outside. There is the ever-watchful eye of the husbandman. God cares for the trees planted there. He watches over them night and day.

III. THE PERMANENCE OF ALL THIS. "They bring forth fruit in old age" (see homily on this clause).

IV. THE PROOF HEREBY GIVEN OF THE CHARACTER OF GOD.

1. They shout "that the Lord is upright. They do this, for they, being righteous themselves, prove that he who made them so is righteous. We judge by deeds. Righteous souls are God's deeds.

2. And they show his love also; for he does not cast them off in the time of their old age, as most men do their servants; but he puts yet more honour on them.

V. THE PERSONAL TESTIMONY OF THE PSALMIST. He is my Rock," etc. It is as if he would say, "I know all this is true, for he is my Rock, and there is," etc. It is good to proclaim the truth of God, but he does it the more powerfully who can bear testimony from his own experience. Then, are we willing to be planted in the house of our God? Go and tell him so, and it shall be done unto you. - S.C.

Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.
I. THE PLANTING. It sounds odd to hear of planting a tree in a house, and of its flourishing in courts; but remember an oriental house is a sort of quadrangle. It is a four-square building, with the middle open to the sky, and generally there is a small garden, in which a palm-tree, or an olive, or some other evergreen tree will be found planted: so that what seems strange to us — a tree planted in a house — was not at all strange to David or to anybody else who lived in the city of Jerusalem. And it is a very beautiful figure — this being planted within the four courts of God's house, that we might grow right in the middle of the place where God with His family deigns to dwell. Well, we are planted in God's house in two respects. First, in regeneration, when we are born into the house; and secondly, at our profession of faith, which should be by baptism, when we are publicly brought into the house and planted in the likeness of Christ's death by being buried, after His commandment, in the water.

1. Planting implies, first, that there has been something done for us that we could not do for ourselves. A tree cannot plant itself. And you know, there is a necessity that there should be a work of grace upon our souls, which shall come, not from ourselves, but distinctly from God.

2. It implies, too, that there must be a great change in our position, for a tree that is planted has been growing somewhere else. Do we know ourselves to be "new creatures in Christ Jesus"?

3. It implies also that there is life in us. God does not intend to have dead stumps standing in His court. If we do not know the life of God, we know not God at all.

4. And it implies that we ourselves have taken hold of the soil wherein we have been planted. Are you seeking for vital truth to sustain your soul's vitality? Do you in the ordinances send out the rootlets of your desire, to seek after what God has prepared for you? Is there in you a living sap flowing, which sap is being fed by what you draw in from the soil in which God has placed you?

II. THE PROMISE. "Those that be planted shall flourish."

1. Because God has said that they shall. His promises are sure to be fulfilled. If He plants a tree He will cause it to flourish. Therefore, be very hopeful. As your needs arise, they shall be supplied.

2. Because of the goodness of the soil. They are planted where the means of grace abound, and where the Holy Spirit has promised to abide.

3. Because they are planted in a sheltered position. are you not like a vineyard on a very fruitful hill, which He has hedged about and walled, and in which He has put a wine-press, and which He has watered every morning, and, lest any should hurt it, has kept night and day?

4. Because they are so near the husbandman (John 15:1). Now, if any of you are not flourishing, though you are planted in the house of the Lord, I am sure it is not through any faultiness on God's part. Let such ask Him, and ask themselves, the reason why, and go to Him in prayer, and say — "Good Lord, I am planted in Thy house; make me to flourish according to Thy word."

III. THE CONTINUANCE OF THIS FLOURISHING. "They shall bring forth fruit," etc. There are some that begin with a spurt, and it is soon over; and there are some trees that promise exceedingly well for fruit, but the blossoms did not knit, hence they fail to yield fruit in due season. But those whom God plants, and whom He makes to flourish, bring forth fruit, and continue to bring it forth till old age.

1. What fruit, then, you will ask, do they bring forth?(1) There is the fruit of testimony. I distinctly recollect hearing a blind old minister talk of the lovingkindness of the Lord when I was sixteen or seventeen, and the encouragement that he gave me has never departed from me. A young man could not have done that, because he had not attained so much experience; but the weight of years, and even of infirmities, made that venerable blind man's testimony very, very weighty to my soul.(2) Saints bring forth fruit in the way of savour when they grow old. Many young ministers can rattle out some of the truths of the Gospel very readily; but if you want to taste the sweetness, to feel the unction, to enjoy the savour, you must hear one that has had long and deep experience. It must be so. There is an inimitable mellowness about the Christian who has grown old in his Master's service.(3) The aged Christian ought to have the fruit of patience. You remember Dr. Hamilton's story of poor old Betty, who could not do anything but lie in bed and cough, but she said, "Well, bless the Lord, whatever the Lord has told me to do I have tried to do it; and when He said, 'Betty, bring up your family,' I tried to bring them up in the fear of God. When He said, 'Betty, go to the house of God and sing My praises,' I was delighted to do it. And when He said, 'Betty, go upstairs and lie in bed and cough;' well, I will do it," she said, "and bless the name of the Lord for letting me do it, so long as there is anything to be done for Him."(4) One of the most delicious fruits that Christians produce in their old age is calm, quiet confidence in God.

2. The text does not speak of old age merely bringing forth fruit, but it says — "They shall be fat and flourishing," which means that Christians, in their advanced years, shall have a fulness of savour and life in them.

IV. THE MANIFESTATION THAT AFFORDS CONCLUSIVE PROOF OF THE DIVINE FAITHFULNESS. "To show that the Lord is upright." These good folks are to bring forth fruit, and to be fat and flourishing, on purpose to manifest before the eyes of all men." That the Lord is upright: He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him." "That the Lord is upright." Well, how does the fruit-bearing of an aged Christian show that? Why, it shows that God has kept His promise. He has promised that He will never leave them nor forsake them. There you see it. He has promised that when they are weak they shall be strong. There you see it. He has promised that if they seek Him they shall not lack any good thing. There you see it. He has promised them, "Thy bread shall be given thee; thy water shall be sure." Hear what they have to say, and you will see it. He has said, "Even to hoar hairs I am He. I have made and I will bear, and I will carry you as in the days of old." There you have it. Ask them. There you see it. We put "Q. E. D." at the end of a proposition when it is proved. So you may put that down at the end of the problem of life. God is good to His people.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

I. THE FRUITFULNESS OF PIETY. Its abundance. It is like the palm-tree. The righteous surpass the wicked, as the palm-tree the grass that is cast into the fire. "Much fruit" glorifies God. The palm, the noblest tree of the plain, and the cedar, the noblest tree of the mountain, both stand as symbols of the righteous. Both are superior to the caprices of seasons. The palm looks from a lofty eminence down on the desert, and the cedar defies the storm. Both are enduring. Fruits are better than seeds. Deeds than profession.

II. THE IMMEDIATE AND ULTIMATE SOURCE OF THIS PIETY. They are planted in the courts of the Lord. Piety must find its nutrition in holy exercises. Worship, meditation with the lights of Christian truth should lead on to far higher spirituality than the broken lights of the Old Temple services. There is never a doctrine in the Word or nature that is not intended for enrichment and elevation of the true and temper of life.

III. THE FRUITFULNESS OF PIETY GIVES DIRECT AND HONOURABLE TESTIMONY TO GOD. "The Lord is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him." Dependence on God essential to fruitfulness.

(G. B. Johnson.)

I. THE PLACE WHERE THESE RIGHTEOUS PEOPLE SHALL DEVELOP is said to be the house of Jehovah. This is the temple of God's ancient people.

1. The psalmist uses this figure to describe the character of the righteous. "The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree." This is the kind of plant that grow in the house of Jehovah, quite in contrast with the wicked described as springing as the grass. The grass springs up quickly and withers as quickly. The palm-tree grows tall and straight. So with the righteous. The palm-tree also is strong. The righteous, those who have been made righteous with God's own righteousness, can stand against the fiercest tempests of sin and temptation.

2. The palm-tree is the most graceful and beautiful of trees. In the Song of Solomon, the most beautiful of women is likened to it. We learn to esteem a most beautiful one whose features were at first repulsive, because of the character of righteousness that has enveloped his person.

3. The palm-tree, too, is endogenous. While many trees grow by additions of rings to the outsider this tree grows by adding cell within cell, thus developing from within outward. The man you have known as a boy, now developed into a truly righteous character, has done it by no change that you can detect without. You recognize his features distinctly enough as those of the boy. Character makes the difference. It is an expansion that has come from within.

4. The palm-tree is useful for its food products.

II. GOD IS IN HIS HOUSE. God dwells in His church to-day, in the assemblages of His people, as nowhere else, to make central power-stations for the production of righteous lives. The area for the growth of the date palm is limited. There is no fruit at an altitude of more than one thousand feet above the sea-level. So God has given us a place where He can successfully grow the righteous. It is His Church.

III. THEY SHALL FLOURISH. No one cares to start a business that is going to fail, or to live a life that is not going to be life indeed. A sixteenth-century man who owned a lot in London instructed his architect that the lot was small, but he would have him remember that he owned all the way up. That is the advantage the righteous man has. The possibilities of his development are limited only by infinite space upward. The immeasurable altitudes belong to him.

(D. T. Wyman.)

Homilist.
I. The soil WHICH IT REQUIRES. "The house of the Lord." "The courts of our God." This means the redemptive religion of God; or, in other words, the Gospel. Nothing but the Gospel has the power to quicken, nurture, and fully develop the human soul as it is found in its corrupt state. Science, philosophy, poetry, social ethics, and all the arts and influences of civilization have tried and failed. You may as well expect that an acorn would grow to a perfect oak planted in the sand, as to expect that the soul will grow to its proper proportions if planted in any soil but the Gospel.

II. THE PROSPERITY WHICH IT WILL REALIZE. "Shall flourish."

1. Flourish in size, multiplying their branches of power, and towering higher and higher.

2. Flourish in strength. Ever receiving more vitality and vigour.

3. Flourish in beauty. More majestic in figure, more exquisite in hue, more charming in flower.

4. Flourish in fruitfulness. Clusters increasing with every age. "They shall flourish." How glorious the soul may become!

(Homilist.)

People
Psalmist
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Courts, Flourish, Gardens, God's, Planted, Strong, Tall
Outline
1. The prophet exhorts to praise God
4. For his great works
6. For his judgments on the wicked
10. And for his goodness to the godly.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 92:12-13

     5270   court

Psalm 92:12-15

     4424   cedar
     7150   righteous, the

Library
December 3. Thy Thoughts are Very Deep (Ps. Xcii. 5).
Thy thoughts are very deep (Ps. xcii. 5). When a Roman soldier was told by his guide that if he insisted on taking a certain journey it would probably be fatal he answered, "It is necessary for me to go, it is not necessary for me to live." That was depth. When we are convicted like that we shall come to something. The shallow nature lives in its impulses, its impressions, its intuitions, its instincts, and very largely in its surroundings. The profound character looks beyond all these and moves
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

God Alone the Salvation of his People
Look on yon rocks and wonder at their antiquity, for from their summits a thousand ages look down upon us. When this gigantic city was as yet unfounded they were grey with age; when our humanity had not yet breathed the air, tis said that these were ancient things; they are the children of departed ages. With awe we look upon these aged rocks, for they are among nature's first-born. You discover, embedded in their bowels, the remnants of unknown worlds, of which, the wise may guess, but which, nevertheless,
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 2: 1856

The Majesty of God. --Ps. Xcii.
The Majesty of God.--Ps. xcii. The Lord is King:--upon His throne, He sits in garments glorious: Or girds for war His armour on, In every field victorious: The world came forth at his command; Built on His word its pillars stand; They never can be shaken. The Lord was King ere time began, His reign is everlasting: When high the floods in tumult ran, Their foam to heaven up-casting, He made the raging waves His path; The sea is mighty in its wrath, But God on high is mightier. Thy testimonies,
James Montgomery—Sacred Poems and Hymns

Dialogue i. --The Immutable.
Orthodoxos and Eranistes. Orth.--Better were it for us to agree and abide by the apostolic doctrine in its purity. But since, I know not how, you have broken the harmony, and are now offering us new doctrines, let us, if you please, with no kind of quarrel, investigate the truth. Eran.--We need no investigation, for we exactly hold the truth. Orth.--This is what every heretic supposes. Aye, even Jews and Pagans reckon that they are defending the doctrines of the truth; and so also do not only the
Theodoret—The Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret

Sweet is the Work, My God, My King
[167]Canonbury: Robert Schumann, 1839 Arr. Psalm 92 Isaac Watts, 1719 Sweet is the work, my God, my King, To praise thy Name, give thanks and sing; To show thy love by morning light, And talk of all thy truth at night. Sweet is the day of sacred rest; No mortal cares shall seize my breast; O may my heart in tune be found, Like David's harp of solemn sound. My heart shall triumph in my Lord, And bless his works, and bless his word; Thy works of grace, how bright they shine! How deep thy counsels,
Various—The Hymnal of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA

Reprobation.
In discussing this subject I shall endeavor to show, I. What the true doctrine of reprobation is not. 1. It is not that the ultimate end of God in the creation of any was their damnation. Neither reason nor revelation confirms, but both contradict the assumption, that God has created or can create any being for the purpose of rendering him miserable as an ultimate end. God is love, or he is benevolent, and cannot therefore will the misery of any being as an ultimate end, or for its own sake. It is
Charles Grandison Finney—Systematic Theology

Period ii. The Church from the Permanent Division of the Empire Until the Collapse of the Western Empire and the First Schism Between the East and the West, or Until About A. D. 500
In the second period of the history of the Church under the Christian Empire, the Church, although existing in two divisions of the Empire and experiencing very different political fortunes, may still be regarded as forming a whole. The theological controversies distracting the Church, although different in the two halves of the Graeco-Roman world, were felt to some extent in both divisions of the Empire and not merely in the one in which they were principally fought out; and in the condemnation
Joseph Cullen Ayer Jr., Ph.D.—A Source Book for Ancient Church History

Man's Chief End
Q-I: WHAT IS THE CHIEF END OF MAN? A: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever. Here are two ends of life specified. 1: The glorifying of God. 2: The enjoying of God. I. The glorifying of God, I Pet 4:4: That God in all things may be glorified.' The glory of God is a silver thread which must run through all our actions. I Cor 10:01. Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.' Everything works to some end in things natural and artificial;
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

The Knowledge of God Conspicuous in the Creation, and Continual Government of the World.
1. The invisible and incomprehensible essence of God, to a certain extent, made visible in his works. 2. This declared by the first class of works--viz. the admirable motions of the heavens and the earth, the symmetry of the human body, and the connection of its parts; in short, the various objects which are presented to every eye. 3. This more especially manifested in the structure of the human body. 4. The shameful ingratitude of disregarding God, who, in such a variety of ways, is manifested within
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

The Resemblance Between the Old Testament and the New.
1. Introduction, showing the necessity of proving the similarity of both dispensations in opposition to Servetus and the Anabaptists. 2. This similarity in general. Both covenants truly one, though differently administered. Three things in which they entirely agree. 3. First general similarity, or agreement--viz. that the Old Testament, equally with the New, extended its promises beyond the present life, and held out a sure hope of immortality. Reason for this resemblance. Objection answered. 4.
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

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

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