Bible Commentaries

Troubled By Thoughts of God

Psalm 77:3

All great doctrines seem to be proved by consciousness and by experience, rather than by mere texts, and certainly rather than by mental expertness and enterprise. If called upon to prove the immortality of the soul we should not think of referring to any book for a proof of it. Whatever belongs to man is best proved by man himself; man on all such subjects is himself the book. If there are external declarations of man's immortality, they must find an answer in the man himself, or they will be but so many starting-points of wordy and angry controversy. When, therefore, challenged to produce a text which asserts the immortality of the soul, we produce the soul itself. Why this discontent with time? Why this restlessness in the face, and even in the possession, of all the treasures which earth can afford? Why this thirst which rivers cannot slake? Why this hunger that eats up all the fatlings of the earth and all the banquets of time, and then is as keen and unappeased as if nothing had been devoured? It is in that dissatisfaction with time, sense, earth, space, and all that is comprehended under the word "finiteness," that I find my proof, because my "consciousness" of immortality. You can argue down a text, but you have to argue down yourself before you can dismiss, as the supreme thought of your mind, your spiritual dignity and your kinship with God. This much illustratively. The immediate subject is not the immortality, but the apostacy of man. Why should there be any theological warfare about a Fall? We do not need a text to prove it; a text may confirm it, but the proof, in the deeper sense of that term, is at the very core of the heart. We know, we feel, we cannot argue, we need not inquire—in ourselves is the tragical and sublime demonstration. It is just here that the whole Church has been in danger of getting wrong. It has been referring to a book outside Psalm 77:15; Psalm 81:5; Psalm 80:1) on "Joseph" and Israel, as distinct from Judah, and in the last case on "Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasses," the tribes of the western camp in the wilderness, close to which the Gershonite Levites pitched (see Numbers 2:18-24; Numbers 3:23); and in Psalm 78:67-68 on the transference of the supremacy from Ephraim to Judah. They seem to have a meditative and thoughtful cast; as in Psalm 73 , putting before us the great problem of God's moral government, which forms the subject of the Book of Job; and in the grand Psalm 50 , urging the true spirituality of sacrifice and of covenant with God. They have frequently a national character, of lamentation in Psalm 74 , Psalm 79 , Psalm 80 , of triumph in Psalm 75 , Psalm 76 , Psalm 81. One is the first great historical psalm ( Psalm 78), surveying the story of Israel from the Exodus to the choice of David. Similarly Psalm 83 , in prayer against a confederacy of enemies, chronicles God's deliverance from Sisera and from Midian in the ancient days of Gideon. Another is a grave didactic admonition ( Psalm 82) to the judges of Israel. If they have not the depth and vigour of the Psalm of David, they suit well the grave authoritative character of the chief of the Levites and "the seer."—Bishop Barry.

Prayer

Almighty God, thou hast led the blind by a way that they know not, but thou hast led them to peace and security and joy. All men are blind with regard to the future; it is as if we had no vision at all; we may not boast of to-morrow, because we know not what one day may bring forth. We know the history of the day that is gone, but what is coming in the morning not the wisest man can tell. Thou keepest to-morrow in thine own hand; but this we know, that we shall be led and upheld and comforted; our perplexity shall be relieved, the crooked places shall be made straight, the rough places plain, and even the valleys shall be exalted; a new song will be in our mouth at the close of the day; if we have to sing of judgment we shall also have to sing of mercy, for thy way towards us is one of judgment and of love. If thou dost criticise us, it is that we may be amended; if thou dost smite us and wound us, it is that we may be healed with an immortal healing. Help us to believe this; deliver us from the folly of thinking that life is chance, a game of fortune, a conjuror's trick; give us to feel that life is a divine philosophy, a wondrous plan, having relation in the individual to all other individuals, so that we are a commonwealth, a brotherhood, one great family, part of us in heaven, part on earth, but still claiming the same Father, walking by the same law, and looking forward to the same glorious destiny. Wherein we have been frivolous and foolish, the Lord pity us, for we are often the sport of the wind, and are driven before it like dry leaves; wherein we have said, This shall be as we wish it, the Lord pardon us, for our conceit is often profane. Enable us henceforward to have no will but thine, never to consult ourselves except in the spirit of the sanctuary; then shall wisdom be given to us, the eternal lamp, the glory from on high, and at nighttime we shall walk in splendour, and the light of the noontide shall be sevenfold. We have taken our life into our own hand, and we are ashamed of the issue; whenever we have given ourselves to thee for government, inspiration, direction, comfort, healing, behold at eventime we have been filled with a new and rapturous gladness. Pity us wherein our lives are hard; the gates are many, and the keys are lost; the roads are steep, and the wind is bleak, and the clouds are lull of threatening, and there is no voice of music in the air,—the Lord help us in that day of sevenfold gloom; when the house is bare, empty, silent, the loved ones all out, or gone, or dead, when we hear nothing but the awful stillness, the Lord cause us to hear his own going in that wilderness; and wherein the future is troubled, without certainty of sign or token, so that we know not whether to go to the right hand or to the left, help us to stand still like men who are expecting a voice from heaven. This we are enabled to say, because we have been with Jesus and learned of him. Until we knew him we knew nothing of this prayer; we were always seeking for solutions of the enigma of life, and always thinking we had found them; sometimes we cast ourselves into the darkness of despair, and said, Let come what will come, it can bring with, it nothing but death and annihilation; but now we have seen the Cross, we have communed with the Son of God, we have known somewhat of the mystery of his priesthood; we see the Father above all things, ruling, reigning, governing, shaping, and directing all life; so we are happy, yea, glad, we are strong, and our security is so complete that we have perfect peace. Praised be the Triune God for this ineffable joy! Amen.