◄ Psalm 93:2 ►














Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
The Distinction Between God And God's Handiwork
Psalm 93:2
R. Tuck
Thou art from everlasting. Thou wast before the world was. He was. He made the earth, and all that therein is. "In the beginning God." His name is the "I am." "The first and foundation stone of the great temple of revealed truth is a declaration which grasps all space, all being, all time, and bids us see before them, above them, and altogether independent of them - One lonely, infinite Being, having life in himself. When there was no heaven and no earth, in the silent dark eternities, in the beginning, there was God." The first chapter of Genesis is evidently "designed to impress on us that the world was not created by chance, by self-generation, by impersonal powers of nature, or by many agents acting either in harmony or in antagonism. God is distinct from all that he has made." Bishop Wordsworth says, on Genesis 1:1, "The declaration of this verse opposes the Pantheist, who says, 'The world is God;' the Peripatetics, who say, 'The world exists from eternity;' the Stoics, who say, 'The world was made by Fate and Necessity;' the Epicureans, who say, 'It arose from a fortuitous concourse of atoms;' the Persians and Manichaeans, who say, 'It arose from the antagonism of two rival powers;' the Gnostics, who say, 'It was made by angels, or emanations of aeons;' Hermogenes, who says, 'It was made out of matter coeternal with God;' and the modern notion, that it arose out of the spontaneous agency and evolution of self developing powers." The distinction between a man and the machine he makes is clear enough; but the complication of thought, in relation to God, arises from the fact that he makes the material of which he makes the machine of creation. Illustrate the distinction along the following lines.

I. CREATION HAD A BEGINNING; THE CREATOR HAD NONE.

II. CREATION IS A MATERIAL THING; THE CREATOR IS A SPIRITUAL BEING.

III. CREATION, AS WE KNOW IT, MAY BE ONE OF MANY CREATIONS; THE CREATOR; AS WE KNOW HIM, IS THE ORIGINATOR OF THEM ALL.

IV. CREATION IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE; THE CREATOR IS UNCHANGEABLE.

V. CREATION HAS BUT A TEMPORARY EXISTENCE; THE CREATOR IS ETERNAL. "From everlasting to everlasting thou art God;" "Of thy years there is no ending" (2 Peter 3:10). - R.T.

Biblical Illustrator
Thy throne is established of old: Thou art from everlasting.
Psalm 93:2
The eternity of God
E. H. Chapin.
I. THE VASTNESS AND MAJESTY OF THIS TRUTH. Apart from wonder and curiosity, there appears no substantial object in ascertaining how far the sun is from the earth, or Sirius from the sun, or one world from another, or in computing the waves in that sea of time which has been rolling from the creation of the globe until now. But when we take these vast measurements as counters by which, though in the faintest degree, to approximate the idea of God's eternity; when we use them as steps by which to rise towards that height, as lines by which we try to fathom something of that depth; when we think of the universe in its present relations as only a single season in His endless years; when in those rocky joints and scars we trace the tide-marks of His ceaseless action, the footprints of His forth-going from eternity — then do we find a special use in these computations. At least, in our attempt to form some conception of God, they serve to steady us. In their degree, they lift us to a higher point of contemplation. As the fine spider's web stretched across the telescopic lens enables us to appreciate the movement of the stars, so, in their turn, do these objects, stretched across the area of our thought, help us to recognize the boundlessness of the Almighty.

II. Regard the truth set forth in the text as A NECESSITY OF REASON. The words of the psalmist here are not a mere metaphor: they proclaim a reality. This orderly movement of the universe must have proceeded from design, which implies pre-existent mind. Indeed, the human mind itself, which thus conceives an eternal Mind, testifies to the existence of such a Mind. It is more conceivable that the substantial Root of these transient phenomena should be intelligent than that it should be non-intelligent. Our thoughts, perplexed at the best, are compelled to lodge somewhere; and they lodge far more satisfactorily upon the proposition of eternal mind than upon the proposition of eternal matter.

III. This truth of God's eternity, vast as it is, and transcending all finite thought, is, in some sense, A STANDARD FOR HUMAN MEASUREMENT.

1. It presents a standard of human littleness. Here stretches before us the limitless horizon on which the drama of human life stands out in full relief. Across this disc of absolute being glide all our plans, our pursuits, and the lines of our mortal years. And, compared with this, what are they all? That which we call "a long life" — what is it as it thus flits into nothingness? What are our schemes in which we plunge our hearts and our hopes? What are our achievements, our monuments of brass or granite, when all the ages of the world upon this fathomless deep are but a ripple, a scud of foam?

2. The eternity of God is also a standard for human hope and confidence. For, fleeting as is the measure of our days, to this immutable Being we are bound by imperishable relations. "God is patient because He is eternal;" and we may learn to be patient in proportion as we realize our share in that eternity — patient with this swift-flying time, that will not let us rest, but hurries us through the precious years; patient with this transient suffering and loss; patient with any special affliction, considering that it is only a part of a transcendent scheme.

3. The text presents a standard of personal responsibility. Among all the interests of life, among all that claims our love or tempts our desire, this throne that is established of old demands our supreme homage. The criterion of all our conduct is the will of Him who is from everlasting.

(E. H. Chapin.)

People
Psalmist
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Age, Ago, Established, Eternal, Eternity, Everlasting, Past, Power, Seat, Throne
Outline
1. The majesty, stability, power, and holiness of Christ's kingdom.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 93:2

     4903   time
     5581   throne
     5953   stability

Psalm 93:1-2

     1130   God, sovereignty
     2376   kingdom of God, coming

Library
February 15 Evening
The floods lift up their waves.--PSA. 93:3. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.--O Lord God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto thee? or to thy faithfulness round about thee? thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them. Fear ye not me? saith the Lord: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it? When thou …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

The Need of Scripture, as a Guide and Teacher, in Coming to God as a Creator.
1. God gives his elect a better help to the knowledge of himself--viz. the Holy Scriptures. This he did from the very first. 2. First, By oracles and visions, and the ministry of the Patriarchs. Secondly, By the promulgation of the Law, and the preaching of the Prophets. Why the doctrines of religion are committed to writing. 3. This view confirmed, 1. By the depravity of our nature making it necessary in every one who would know God to have recourse to the word; 2. From those passages of the Psalms …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

A Holy Life the Beauty of Christianity: Or, an Exhortation to Christians to be Holy. By John Bunyan.
Holiness becometh thine house, O Lord, for ever.'--[Psalm 93:5] London, by B. W., for Benj. Alsop, at the Angel and Bible, in the Poultrey. 1684. THE EDITOR'S ADVERTISEMENT. This is the most searching treatise that has ever fallen under our notice. It is an invaluable guide to those sincere Christians, who, under a sense of the infinite importance of the salvation of an immortal soul, and of the deceitfulness of their hearts, sigh and cry, "O Lord of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

The Foundation of the House of St. Joseph. The Observation of Holy Poverty Therein. How the Saint Left Toledo.
1. When I was staying with this lady, [1] already spoken of, in whose house I remained more than six months, our Lord ordained that a holy woman [2] of our Order should hear of me, who was more than seventy leagues away from the place. She happened to travel this way, and went some leagues out of her road that she might see me. Our Lord had moved her in the same year, and in the same month of the year, that He had moved me, to found another monastery of the Order; and as He had given her this desire, …
Teresa of Avila—The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus

A Canticle of Love
It is not only when He is about to send me some trial that Our Lord gives me warning and awakens my desire for it. For years I had cherished a longing which seemed impossible of realisation--to have a brother a Priest. I often used to think that if my little brothers had not gone to Heaven, I should have had the happiness of seeing them at the Altar. I greatly regretted being deprived of this joy. Yet God went beyond my dream; I only asked for one brother who would remember me each day at the Holy …
Therese Martin (of Lisieux)—The Story of a Soul

The Chorus of Angels
Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour and glory, and blessing! I t was a good report which the queen of Sheba heard, in her own land, of the wisdom and glory of Solomon. It lessened her attachment to home, and prompted her to undertake a long journey to visit this greater King, of whom she had heard so much. She went, and she was not disappointed. Great as the expectations were, which she had formed from the relation made her by others, …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

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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