Bible Commentaries

We will read, this evening, two passages in the Word of God; the first will be Psalms 113.

Psalms 113:1. Praise ye the LORD. Praise, O ye servants of the LORD, praise the name of the LORD.

Three times are you stirred up to this duty of praise. Adore the Sacred Trinity with threefold praise. There is a trinity in you: let spirit, soul, and body praise the Lord. Let the past, the present, and the future make another threefold chord; and for each of these, “Praise ye the Lord. Praise, O ye servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord.”

Psalms 113:2-3. Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and for evermore. From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD’S name is to be praised.

“From the rising of the sun until the going down of the same the Lord’s name is to be praised.” In hours of morning light, when the dew is on the grass, and our soul is full of gladness, and in the hours of the setting sun, when the day is weary, and the night seems coming on, still let the Lord have the praise that is his due, for he is always to be praised. There is never an hour in which it would be unseemly to praise God. For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven; but the praising of God is never out of season. All time and all eternity may be dedicated to this blessed work.

Psalms 113:4-5. The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens. Who is like unto the LORD our God, who dwelleth on high,

The loftiness, the majesty, the sublimity of God are attributes that are terrible in themselves; yet they minister much joy to those who love the Lord. For, you know, we can never make too much of those whom we love; and if we see them exalted, then is our soul glad. Would you wish to have a little God? Would you wish to have a God who had but little honour, or little power? No; you ascribe to him all conceivable and all inconceivable greatness, and you exult as you think what a high and mighty God he is.

“Who is like unto Jehovah our God,

who dwelleth on high?”

Psalms 113:6. Who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth!

It enables us to get some faint idea of the greatness of God when we read that he has to humble himself even to look at the things in heaven, perfect and spotless though they be. Dr. Watts truly sings, —

“The lowest step around thy seat

Rises too high for Gabriel’s feet;

In vain the tall archangel tries

To reach thine height with wond’ring eyes.”

All the faculties of all the angels cannot comprehend the Infinite. When the Lord looks down to us, how much he must humble himself! If he humbleth himself to see the things in heaven which are clear and pure, what humility is required that he may look upon the things on the earth!

Psalms 113:7-8. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill; that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people.

Have you never noticed that, in all these joyous songs to God, there is almost always one of these notes, that God abases the proud, and exalts the humble? This was the basis of Hannah’s song; and it was the pith and marrow of Mary’s Magnificat: “He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.” This wonderful turning of things upside down; this withering of the green tree, and making the dry tree to flourish; this killing that which liveth, and quickening that which is dead; this emptying of the full, and filling of the empty; this casting down the mighty from their thrones, and lifting the poor out of the dust; this is always one of the highest reasons for exulting joy. What a truth there is for you and for me tonight, if we feel ourselves to be spiritually so poor that the dunghill is no offense to us, because we feel ourselves to be even more offensive than the filthy things that are cast away by men! What a mercy it is that the Lord “lifteth the needy out of the dunghill; that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people”!

Psalms 113:9. He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the LORD.

Does your soul feel barren? May the Lord grant unto it an abundant fruitfulness! Looking back upon the past year, perhaps you have had many barren times, or times that you have thought to be barren. If you are a minister of the gospel, I should not wonder if those have been your most fruitful seasons. When you have been most empty, God has been pleased to feed the people through you. O dear brothers and sisters, those very times of spiritual experience which are most humiliating and most painful are often the most soul-enriching to us, and they also bring the greatest glory to God!

Now we will read a New Testament story, in order that we may see how some men did not praise the Lord as they should have done. You will find the narrative in the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel according to Luke, at the eleventh verse.

This exposition consisted of readings from Psalms 113, and Luke 17:11-19.