Bible Commentaries

Psalms 77:3

There are two points of view under which we wish to present this subject: the strangeness of such an experience and some of the reasons that may account for it.

I. The strangeness of such an experience—that a man should remember God and yet be troubled. For consider: (1) that such an experience is against all that is made known to us of the nature of God. From the very first, revelation has had one purpose, and could have only one: to present God in such a light that His sinful creatures should come and find rest in Him. (2) It becomes strange when we reflect not only on the nature of God, but on His promises. They are so universal, so free, so full, that they seem fitted to meet every want and satisfy every yearning of the human soul. That the heart of a man who hears these words and believes that they come from the lips of God should be troubled at remembering Him must seem very strange. (3) It must appear strange further when we consider that trouble at the thought of God is declared to be against the experience of all sincere seekers. There is a history of cases reaching all through the Bible, and the burden of them is, "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles." The appeal of all ages has been, "O Thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come." (4) Such an experience is against all that we can reasonably believe of the nature of the soul of man. If one theory be true about man's soul, it is this: that out of God no full, satisfying end can be found for it. The soul is greater than the whole world, and the greater cannot be blessed of the less.

II. Consider some of the reasons that may be given for such an experience as this. (1) The first reason is that many men do not make God the object of sufficient thought. (2) Another reason why many are troubled at the thought of God is that they are seeking Him with a wrong view of the way of access. (3) A third reason is that they are seeking Him with some reserved thought of sin. (4) A fourth reason is that they have a mistaken view of God's manner of dealing with us in this world.

It is in the experience of the Divine life that doubts melt away or can be held in quiet expectancy of a solution, and that we approach gradually to the calm of those that rest beneath the altar. The thought of God that for a while brings trouble shall be made the source of hope, the pledge that all with you and with His universe shall be ordered to a happy end; and even here amid the trouble and struggle of earth, He can put into the mouth some notes of the praise of heaven.

J. Ker, Sermons, 2nd series, p. 305.

References: Psalms 77:2.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xv., No. 853; J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. xv., p. 237; R. D. B. Rawnsley, Sermons in Country Churches, 1st series, p. 228. Psalms 77:3.—Preacher's Monthly, vol. iii., p. 25; Parker, Old Testament Outlines, p. 122, and Christian Chronicle, Sept. 20th, 1883. Psalms 77:5.—C. C. Bartholomew, Sermons chiefly Practical, p. 353.

Psalms 77:7-10

The moral to be drawn from this Psalm is that in all troubles and adversities it is our own fault if we have not a light to guide and cheer us, and that the true remedy against despondency is to look back upon the love of God pledged to us and His mercy shown to us in former days.

I. As soon as David looks his desponding thoughts in the face, he sees their absurdity; and he sees, too, that all his painful feelings have arisen, not from the absence of God's protecting care, but from his own weakness and foolishness. "I said, It is mine own infirmity."

II. If the Psalmist allowed his mind a range wider than his own personal experience, and considered the past evidences of the presence of God with His Church, the conclusion would be the same. If God were with His Church, and David a member of it, he had sufficient to make distrust a fault and despondency a sin.

III. Each one of us in the ordinary progress both of his temporal and spiritual life may find much that is worthy of his imitation in the conduct of David as expressed in the text. In all the roughnesses of the road which we have to pass over, we may, after first acknowledging our own infirmity, repose our minds on the thought of God's mercies to us in days gone by.

Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 2nd series, p. 66.

Reference: Psalms 77:9.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi., No. 1843.

Psalms 77:10

There are three kinds of speaking in this Psalm: speaking to God, speaking to our fellows, and speaking to one's self.

I. To how many of our thoughts, and feelings, and spiritual utterances may we apply these words: "This is my infirmity"! Of hard thoughts of God, of dark views of His providence, of distrustful feelings towards God, and often of corresponding thoughts, and views, and feelings towards men, we may say, "This is my infirmity." And the weakness of the body, faults in the spirit, and Satanic influence are the fountains and the causes of these utterances. The Psalmist resolves, as an antidote to despondency and fear, to bring the past and the present, recollections and existing consciousness, the day of his trouble and years of joyousness, the right hand of the Most High and his enemies and troubles—he resolves to bring them into comparison, to bring them together. "I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High."

II. These words, "the right hand of the Most High," represent the power of God as manifested in all sovereignty and sufficiency on behalf of those who trust in Him. (1) God works. Power is continually going out of Him. (2) God works perfectly. His work is right-hand work. (3) He works as the Most High. He fills the above as well as the beneath. There is One higher than the Law: the Lawgiver.

III. Notice two or three brief exhortations springing from this subject. (1) Commune with your own heart; talk to yourself. (2) Give memory its full share of work in your religious life. (3) Avoid contracted views. Look at today, but look at the years. Look at second causes, and agents, and means; but ever consider the right hand of the Most High.

S. Martin, Penny Pulpit, No. 878.

References: Psalms 77:10.—S. Cox, Expositions, 3rd series, p. 152. Psalms 77:11, Psalms 77:14-15, Psalms 77:19, Psalms 77:20.—G. Forbes, The Voice of God in the Psalms, p. 251. Psalms 77:13.—H. Melvill, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 297.

Psalms 77:19

There must be mystery in religion—a religion which lies between the finite and the Infinite. Take away mystery, and we should tear out a page of evidence. But there is more hiddenness about the providence of God than there is about the grace of God. He has revealed much more clearly what He does and what He wills about our souls than about our bodies. This is the reason, perhaps, why faith finds it so much harder work to trust for time than it does for eternity, and why there are so many who have no fear for their salvation, and yet who are hourly anxious about their daily wants.

I. The distinction between the degree of the mystery of providence and grace underlies the text. There is a climax and an anticlimax. (1) Observe "way," "path," "footsteps." The way is greater than the path; the way is broad: the path is necessarily narrow, as in the familiar verse, "In all thy ways"—i.e., in all thy great things—"acknowledge Him, and He will direct thy little things," thy "paths;" while "footsteps" are smaller still than paths—little isolated marks lying here and there along the path. So it runs down—way, path, footsteps. (2) Now see the ascending scale. "Thy way is in the sea"—the sea classically is always shallow water—"Thy path in the great waters," which lie far out, more unfathomable than the shallows of the shore; while the "footsteps" are altogether out of sight, something beyond the sea and beyond the great waters, utterly out of reach: they "are not known."

II. As respects God's hidden ways, there are one or two things which we ought to consider. (1) God never meant you to understand them. We are to seek the solution of hard problems, and the quelling of our fears, and the answer to our doubts, not in the events themselves, but in the character of God, not in the book of present history, but in the volume of the Scriptures. (2) Faith has its helps. As we live on, many things which were once fearful, involved, and hard come out kind, simple, and plain; we see, if not all, yet some, of the reasons: and we are satisfied where we were once most dissatisfied. The past stands sponsor for the future.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 7th series, p. 124.

In the history of Israel we find not merely an impressive symbol, but a great practical truth, the truth, namely, that those who follow God follow a Leader whose footsteps are not known; that, in other words, he who accepts the service of God accepts with it much which he cannot understand. Mystery is bound up with God's revelation and dealing with the human race.

I. We are not to conclude that because there is a mystery in God's dealings they are therefore without a plan. We are to remember that the confusion is in us, and not in God's work; that God's counsel is not darkened because we are blind.

II. We are not to conclude that this mystery of providence is the outgrowth of unkindness.

III. The Psalmist has evidently reached very satisfactory conclusions on this subject. The secret of his confidence is revealed in the thirteenth verse, in the words, "Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary," or "Thy way is in holiness." No matter how strange the way if it be a way of holiness!

IV. "Thou leddest Thy people." The true philosophy of life is summed up here, in simply following God.

M. R. Vincent, Gates into the Psalm Country, p. 181.

References: Psalms 77:19.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. x., p. 132. Psalms 77:19, Psalms 77:20.—A. P. Stanley, Sermons on Special Occasions, p. 340; C. J. Vaughan, Memorials of Harrow Sundays, p. 116. Psalms 78:3, Psalms 78:4.—J. T. Stannard, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii.,p. 136. Psalms 78:5-7.—H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons, 2nd series, p. 238. Psalms 78:9.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xii., No. 696; S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, 1st series, p. 9. Psalms 78:10.—J. N. Norton, Every Sunday, p. 305; J. Baines, Sermons, p. 113.