Homilist Psalm 90:17 And let the beauty of the LORD our God be on us: and establish you the work of our hands on us; yes… I. MAN'S CHARACTER WHEN DIVINELY BEAUTIFIED. The prayer is that the beauty of God should "be upon us." Then we shall remain. Our circumstances will change, our condition alter, our bodily powers decay, but upon us, that is upon something that is the actual, veritable indestructible we, a Divine something may ever rest. The "beauty of God" is that something. "All colours, lines, beauties of visible creation and of the invisible heavens are but dim hints of the ineffable beauty of God," the beauty not of His creation, which is only a partial manifestation of Him, but of His character, which is Himself. This beauty of holiness is the beauty of God. When it clothes, covers, possesses, in a word is "upon" the human character, man is Divinely beautified. I. What is the nature of this beauty? (1) Manifold. Exquisite variety. (2) Complete. No blemish or defect. (3) Lasting. True character endures. Fever cannot burn out truth, consumption cannot waste away conscience, the axe or the guillotine cannot smite love. When we pray for the beauty of God, then we pray for a character that nothing can consume, or wither, or even enfeeble. 2. What is the method of its attainment? (1) Right relationship with God. God must be our home, the sphere of our thoughts, labours, loves. Reconciled to God; at one with God. (2) The discipline of the past. It was upon Moses, when he was old, that the "beauty of the Lord our God" was to rest. Just as it was upon "Paul the aged" that there gathered the glories of contentment, and peace, and heroism, that lit up his brow as with a diadem from heaven. II. MAN'S WORK WHEN DIVINELY BLESSED. "Establish Thou the work of our hands," etc. Men's works outlive them. This is true in every sphere. The common mason's labour has helped to build houses that will stand long after he has become dust. And in the realms of mind and morals it is still more emphatically so. But man's great triumph, as Moses felt his would be, is in work that God so establishes that generations to come shall be blessed by it. It may have been quiet work. It may have been unseen work, as the hidden under waves of the tide that leave their deep ripples congealed on the sand long after the tossing, breaking surface breakers have been absorbed again in the great sea. Yes, in its results, work done for God and done in God's Spirit is permanent. The results of the work of a reformer, like Luther, or statesman like Hampden, or philanthropist like Howard, are henceforward part and parcel of the moral universe, as truly as the planets are part and parcel of the material. But yet more permanent. They will last throughout eternity. (Homilist.) Parallel Verses KJV: And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it. |
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