1. The mighty God, even the Lord. El, Elohim, Jehovah, three glorious names for the God of
Israel. To render the address more impressive these august titles are
mentioned, just as in royal decrees the names and dignities of monarchs are
placed in the forefront. Here the true God is described as Almighty, as the
only and perfect object of adoration and as the self-existent One. Hath
spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun until the going down
thereof. The dominion of Jehovah extends over the whole earth, and
therefore to all mankind is his decree directed.
2. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined. The Lord is represented not only as speaking to the earth,
but as coming forth to reveal the glory of his presence to an assembled
universe. The beams of his splendor are described as shining forth upon all
nations. The majesty of God is most conspicuous among his own elect, but it is
not confined to them. Zion is made perfect in beauty by God’s indwelling, and
that beauty is seen by all observers.
Observe how with trumpet voice and flaming ensign the
infinite Jehovah summons the heavens and the earth to hearken to his word.
3. Our God shall come.
The psalmist speaks of himself and his brethren as in immediate anticipation of
the appearing of the Lord. So we should await the long-promised appearing of
the Lord from heaven. And shall not keep silence. He comes to plead with
his people, to accuse and judge the ungodly. He has been silent long in
patience, but soon he will speak with power. What a moment of awe when the
Omnipotent is expected to reveal himself! A fire shall devour before him,
and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. Flame and hurricane are
frequently described as the attendants of the divine appearance (see Psalm
18:12; 2 Thessalonians 1:7–8). Fire is the emblem of justice in action, and
the tempest is a token of his overwhelming power.
4. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the
earth. Angels and men are called to
witness the solemn scene. The whole creation will stand in court to testify to
the solemnity and the truth of the divine pleading. Earth and heaven will unite
in condemning sin; the guilty will have no appeal. Both angels and men have
seen the guilt of mankind and the goodness of the Lord and shall confess the
justice of the divine utterance, and say “Amen” to the supreme Judge. That
he may judge his people. The trial of the visible people of God will be a
most awful ceremonial. He will thoroughly purge his floor. He will discern
between his nominal and his real people, and that in open court, the whole
universe looking on. When this takes place, how will it fare with you?
5. Gather my saints together unto me. Separate the precious from the vile. All are not saints who
seem to be so—a severance must be made. Let all who profess to be saints hear
the word which will search and try the whole, that the false may be convicted
and the true revealed. Those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.
The covenant was ratified by the slaying of victims, the cutting and dividing
of offerings; this the righteous have done by accepting with true faith the
great propitiatory sacrifice, and this the pretenders have done in merely
outward form. Those who have really ratified the covenant by faith in the Lord
Jesus will be attested before all worlds as the objects of distinguishing
grace, while those who have done so in outward form will learn that outward
sacrifices are all in vain.
6. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness. Celestial intelligences and the spirits of just men made
perfect will magnify that infallible judgment of the divine tribunal. Now they
doubtless wonder at the hypocrisy of men; then they will equally marvel at the
exactness of the severance between the true and the false. For God is judge
himself. Priests of old, and churches of later times, were readily
deceived, but not so the all-discerning Lord. Selah. Here we pause in
reverent prostration, in deep searching of heart, in humble prayer, and in
awe-struck expectation.
7–15. The
address which follows is directed to the professed people of God. It is
clearly, in the first place, meant for Israel; but it is equally applicable to
the visible church of God in every age. It declares the futility of external
worship when spiritual faith is absent and mere outward ceremonial is rested
in.
7. Hear, O my people, and I will speak. Because Jehovah speaks, and they are avowedly his own
people, they are bound to give earnest heed. The Lord is about both to testify
and to judge. O Israel, and I will testify against thee. It was a double
evil that the chosen nation should become so carnal, so unspiritual, so false,
so heartless to their God. God himself, who is not misled by rumor, enters as
witness against his favored nation. Alas for us when God testifies to the hypocrisy
of the visible church. I am God, even thy God. He had taken them to be
his special people above all other nations, and they had in the most solemn
manner avowed that he was their God. Jehovah is thy God, O Israel; this
it is that makes thee so amenable to his searching reproofs.
8. Though
they had not failed in maintaining his outward worship, or even if they had, he
was not about to call them to account for this. They thought the daily
sacrifices and the abounding burnt offerings to be everything: he counted them
nothing if the inner sacrifice of heart devotion had been neglected. What was
greatest with them was least with God. It is so today. With the Most High
spiritual worship is the sole matter.
9. I will take no bullock out of thy house. Foolishly they dreamed that bullocks could please the Lord,
when he sought for hearts and minds. What he intended for their instruction,
they made their confidence. Nor he goats out of thy folds. He mentions
these lesser victims as if to rouse their common sense to see that the great
Creator could find no satisfaction in mere animal offerings. The sacrifices of
the law were symbolical of higher and spiritual things, and were not pleasing
to God except under their typical aspect. The believing worshiper looking beyond
the outward was accepted; the unspiritual who had no respect to their meaning
was wasting his substance, and blaspheming the God of heaven.
10. For every beast of the forest is mine. How could they imagine that the Most High God, possessor of
heaven and earth, had need of beasts, when all the countless hordes that find
shelter in a thousand forests and wildernesses belong to him? And the cattle
upon a thousand hills. Not only the wild beasts, but the tamer creatures
are all his own. What a slight is here put even upon sacrifices of divine
appointment when wrongly viewed as in themselves pleasing to God! How much more
is this clear under the Gospel, when it is so much more plainly revealed that
“God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in
truth”?
11. I know all the fowls of the mountains. All the winged creatures are under my inspection. The great
Lord is well acquainted with each one. And the wild beasts of the field are
mine. In me all things live and move; how mad are you to suppose that I
desire your living things! A spiritual God demands other life than that which
is seen in animals; he looks for spiritual sacrifice, for the love, the trust,
the praise, the life of your hearts.
12. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee. If the Lord hungered for meat, he could provide for himself
out of his own possessions. Even under the grossest idea of God, faith in
outward ceremonies is ridiculous. Do men fancy that the Lord needs banners, and
music, and incense, and fine linen? If he did, the stars would emblazon his
standard, the winds and the waves become his orchestra, ten thousand times ten
thousand flowers would breathe forth perfume, the snow should be his alb, the
rainbow his girdle, the clouds of light his mantle. O fools and slow of heart,
you worship you know not what! For the world is mine, and the fulness
thereof. What can he need who is owner of all things and able to create as
he wills?
13. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of
goats? Heathens thought thus of their
idols, but dare you think this of the God who made heaven and earth? Heart
worship only can be acceptable with the true God. It is inconceivable that
outward things can gratify him, except so far as through them our faith and
love express themselves.
14. Offer unto God thanksgiving. No longer look at your sacrifices as in themselves gifts
pleasing to me, but present them as the tributes of your gratitude; it is then
that I will accept them, but not while your souls have no love and no thankfulness
to offer me. Israel was blamed for lack of thankful adoration before the Lord.
Too many in these days are in the same condemnation. And pay thy vows unto
the most High. Let the sacrifice be really presented to the God who sees
the heart, pay to him the love you promised, the service you covenanted to
render, the loyalty of heart you have vowed to maintain. Oh for grace to do
this! Oh that we may be graciously enabled to love God, and live up to our
profession! To be, indeed, the servants of the Lord, the lovers of Jesus, this
is our main concern.
15. And call upon me in the day of trouble. Oh, blessed verse! Is this then true sacrifice? The King
himself so regards it. For herein is faith manifested, herein is love proved,
for in the hour of peril we fly to those we love. It seems a small thing to
pray when we are distressed, yet is it a more acceptable worship than the mere
heartless presentation of bullocks and he goats. This is a voice from the
throne, and how full of mercy it is! Who would not offer such sacrifice?
Troubled one, haste to present it now! Who will say that the Old Testament
saints did not know the Gospel?Its very spirit and essence breathes like
frankincense all around this holy psalm. I will deliver thee. The
reality of thy sacrifice of prayer will be seen in its answer. The promise may
refer both to temporal and eternal deliverances. And thou shalt glorify me.
Thy prayer will honor me, and thy grateful perception of my answering mercy
will also glorify me. Goats and bullocks would prove a failure, but the true
sacrifice never could.
Spiritual worship is the great, the essential matter; all
else without it is rather provoking than pleasing to God.
16–21. Here the
Lord turns to the manifestly wicked among his people. If lack of heart spoiled
the more decent, how much more would violations of the law, committed with a
high hand, corrupt the sacrifices of the wicked?
16. But unto the wicked God saith. To the breakers of the second table he now addresses
himself; he had previously spoken to the neglecters of the first. What hast
thou to do to declare my statutes? You violate openly my moral law, and yet
are great sticklers for my ceremonial commands! Do you dare to teach my law to
others, and profane it yourselves? Even if you claim to be sons of Levi, what
of that? Your wickedness disqualifies you. It should silence you, and would if
my people were as spiritual as I would have them, for they would refuse to hear
you, and to pay you the portion of temporal things which is due to my true servants.
Your hypocrisy is manifest to all. Or that thou shouldest take my covenant
in thy mouth. You talk of being in covenant with me, and yet trample my
holiness. Your mouths are full of lying and slander, yet you mouth my words as
if they were fit morsels for such as you! How horrible an evil it is, that to
this day we see men explaining doctrines who despise precepts! We need the
grace of the doctrines as much as the doctrines of grace, and without it an
apostle is but a Judas.
17. seeing thou hatest instruction. Profane adherents are often too wise to learn, too besotted
with conceit to be taught of God. And castest my words behind thee.
Throwing them away as worthless. There are pickers and choosers of God’s words
who cannot endure the practical part of Scripture; they are disgusted at duty,
they abhor responsibility, they disembowel texts of their plain meanings, they
wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction. It is an ill sign when a man
dares not look a Scripture in the face, and an evidence of brazen impudence
when he tries to make it mean something less condemnatory of his sins, and
endeavors to prove it to be less sweeping in its demands.
18. When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with
him. Moral honesty cannot be absent
where true grace is present. Those who excuse others in trickery are guilty
themselves. If a man be ever so religious, if his own actions do not rebuke
dishonesty, he is an accomplice with thieves. And hast been partaker with
adulterers. One by one the moral precepts are thus broken by the sinner in
Zion. Under the cloak of piety, unclean livers conceal themselves. We may do
this by smiling at unchaste jests, listening to indelicate expressions, and
conniving at licentious behavior in our presence; and if we thus act, how dare
we preach, or lead public prayer, or wear the Christian name? Without holiness
no man shall see the Lord. No amount of ceremonial or theological accuracy can
cover dishonesty and fornication.
19. Thou givest thy mouth to evil. Sins against the ninth commandment are here mentioned. The
man who surrenders himself to the habit of slander is a vile hypocrite if he
assocates himself with the people of God. And thy tongue frameth deceit.
This is a more deliberate sort of slander, where the man dexterously elaborates
false witness, and concocts methods of defamation. Though such bring their
wealth to the altar, and speak eloquently of truth and of salvation, have they
any favor with God? We should blaspheme the holy God if we were to think so.
20. Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother. He sits down to it, makes it his meat, studies it, resolves
upon it, becomes a master of defamation. His nearest friend is not safe; his
dearest relative escapes not. Thou slanderest thine own mother’s son. He
ought to love him best, but he has an ill word for him. The son of one’s own
mother was to the Oriental a very tender relation; but the wretched slanderer
knows no claim of kindred. Such monsters pollute our churches still, and are
roots of bitterness.
21. These things hast thou done, and I kept silence. No swift judgment overthrew the sinner—longsuffering
reigned. Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself.
The inference drawn from the Lord’s patience was infamous: the cuplrit thought
his judge to be one of the same order as himself. He offered sacrifice, and
deemed it accepted; he continued in sin, and remained unpunished. What will not
men imagine of the Lord? But I will reprove thee. At last I will break
silence and let thee know my mind. And set them in order before thine eyes.
I will marshal thy sins in battle array. I will make you see them; I will put
them down item by item, classified and arranged. You will know that I was never
blind or deaf. I will make you perceive what you have tried to deny. I will
leave the seat of mercy for the throne of judgment, and there will I let you
see how great the difference between you and me.
22. Now or oh!
is a word of intreaty, for the Lord is loath even to let the most ungodly run
on to destruction. Consider this. Take these truths to heart, you who
trust in ceremonies and you who live in vice, for both of you sin in that ye
forget God. Think how unaccepted you are, and turn to God. See how you have
mocked the eternal, and repent of your iniquities. Lest I tear you in
pieces, as a lion rends his prey, and there be none to deliver, no Saviour,
no refuge, no hope. You reject the Mediator: beware, for you will sorely need
one in the day of wrath, and none will be near to plead for you.
23. Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me. Praise is the best sacrifice; true, hearty, gracious
thanksgiving from a renewed mind. And to him that ordereth his conversation
aright will I show the salvation of God. Holy living is a choice evidence
of salvation. He who submits his whole way to divine guidance, and is careful
to honor God in his life, brings an offering which the Lord accepts through his
dear Son; and such a one shall be more and more instructed, and made
experimentally to know the Lord’s salvation. He needs salvation, for the best
ordering of the life cannot save us but that salvation he shall have.
Not to ceremonies, not to unpurified lips, is the blessing promised, but to
grateful hearts and holy lives.
Excerpt from:
The Treasury of David
By Charles H Spurgeon
