Bible Commentaries

The Subject of Meditation (A Communion Sermon)

Psalm 48:9

This Psalm is a song of triumph, when Jerusalem was saved from some impending danger. The theme is that God is the safety of Zion, the impregnable city, made such by the loving care of God.

I. Into the temple the joyful people surge to give vent to their feelings of gratitude and triumph. Where else can they go with such fitness but to the sanctuary which stands to them as the very heart of their religion? And what is more fitting than that they should before all else give thanks to God? Such deliverance drives the pious heart to God, to think sweetly of His lovingkindness. They go up to the temple to think of it, lovingly, gratefully, humbly, prayerfully. Shallow souls let even great events pass without real thought, without notice, without making them an occasion for going deeper into life, deeper into the mystery and wonder of God's providence, and deeper into their own hearts. They do not consider the true inward significance of what yet strikes them as marvellous.

II. Here in this Psalm 48:12

This is a Psalm full of the most joyful spirit and expressed in the very best way. We do not know what great deliverance was thus splendidly celebrated; it may have been the deliverance in the days of Jehoshaphat, which was very signal and very marked; it may have been that in the days of Hezekiah, which was more signal and more marked still. The two points are that God is a sure refuge to His people when they seek His grace and power; and that it is more distinctly connected with Jerusalem, the central city of the kingdom and the people.

"Let Mount Zion rejoice," sings the Psalmist, "let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of Thy judgments". And so, he continues, "let us walk about Zion, let us go round about her, let us tell the towers thereof".

But to come to our own times. What are the towers of our own Zion, of our own Church? What are the bulwarks of our religion? There is a great deal, of course, that is common to the whole Church of God throughout the world.

I. There is the Presence of God Himself.—The Lord is there. It is His presence which makes it His Church; it is His presence which makes it His holy Church.

II. There is the Faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, clearly understood and fully grasped and held. A very important matter. It may not always be expressed in exactly the same words, but it has the same life, the same power, and the same salvation.

III. There are the Holy Scriptures.—Whatever may be said now of the form and manner in which they were delivered and have come down to us, they are the fount of knowledge of God. It is from these words, blessed and illumined by the Holy Spirit, that we gain the further knowledge of salvation and grace and hope. There are parts of the Holy Scriptures of which we may read verse after verse which seem to convey very little to us, and then suddenly there is one illuminated with the grace and power of God. which seems to strike the very inward conscience and experience of the heart.

IV. There are the Means of Grace.—How very important it is to us that we should really use them not merely as Christian duties to be performed, but that we should use them as an approach unto the very presence of God, from which we are to learn and by which we are to be strengthened.

V. There are the Examples of Christian People.—How very delightful they are. We see what men and women may be who are of like passions with ourselves; we see their self-denial, their devotion, their unworldliness, their unselfishness; we see their readiness to think and plan what shall be for the best advantage of others, and what shall most conduce to the glory of God. How delightful it is that we have this long stream of saints and Christians behind us, not merely painted in windows or standing before us as statues, as memorials of the past, but those whom we ourselves know, perhaps in the ordinary and humble walks of life. There is no walk of life in which the grace of God is more clearly seen than when persons of little education and little position are truly inspired with the love and the grace of our Blessed Lord; it makes them often shame those who have more privileges and who perhaps have a clearer understanding of the theories and the facts of redemption.