3276. Christ’s Glory Turned to Shame

A Sermon Published On Thursday, November 16, 1911.

Oh you sons of men, how long will you turn my glory into shame? {Ps 4:2}

1. David had many times been the subject of cruel mockery; and, therefore, while writing this Psalm probably in the first place about himself, he also described in it one of the bitterest of our Saviour’s sufferings. What an illustration this is of the union which exists between Christ and his people in the matter of experience! He had a cross to bear, and so have they. He was “despised and rejected by men,” and so are they. The Church of God is not like the image that Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream, which had a head of gold and feet of iron and clay; but, as is the Head, such are also the members. Since the Head had to endure cruel mockings, the members must not expect to be exempted from similar treatment. This is why so many of the Psalms of David are equally applicable to David and to his Lord; and I believe that we have, in this verse, a reference not only to David himself, but also to “great David’s greater Son.” In the case of both of them, the sons of men turned their glory into shame, but I want especially to have you remember the sufferings of our Saviour in this respect.

2. I. So, in the first place, notice that EVERYTHING ABOUT OUR SAVIOUR THAT WAS GLORIOUS WAS MADE THE SUBJECT OF SCORN.

3. Begin with his glorious Person, and think how shamefully that was treated by the sons of men in the time of his humiliation. He was betrayed, but the betrayer was one who had been his disciple, and who, in the very act of betrayal called him “Master.” This was shameful cruelty on the part of Judas, not only to betray him to his enemies, but to hail him as “Master” in mockery and to kiss him in scorn. There was shame even in the way in which they went to Gethsemane to arrest the Saviour, with swords and staves, and lanterns and torches, as though he had been some desperate malefactor who would resist to the utmost the officers of the law. No lanterns or torches were needed to show the way to the light of the world, and their swords and staves would have availed them nothing if he had chosen to exert his omnipotent energy. When he was dragged before Annas and Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod, his precious person was the constant subject of scorn, so that he could truly say, “I gave my back to the strikers, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the hair: I did not hide my face from shame and spitting.” “The soldiers twisted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe, and said, Hail, ‘King of the Jews!’ and they struck him with their hands.” And when Pilate brought him out to the people, and cried, “Behold the man!” instead of pitying him in his distress, they shouted, “Crucify him, crucify him.” His agonies on the cross provided further subjects for their contempt and scorn; he could truthfully employ the language of the twenty-second Psalm: “All those who see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, ‘He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, since he delighted in him.’” They looked at his person as being so utterly contemptible that they desired that he should suffer death in its most ignominious form, “even the death of the cross.”

4. And while they treated so shamefully the human person of our Lord, we cannot forget the jeers and taunts with which they assailed his Deity. When he said, “Hereafter you shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven,” the high priest tore his clothes, and charged him with being a blasphemer, while the whole assembly declared that he was guilty of death; and, to show their contempt for him, “then they spat in his face, and buffeted him; and others struck him with the palms of their hands.” Even when he was enduring all the agony of the crucifixion, we read that “those who passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, and saying, ‘If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.’” Was it not sufficient to degrade his spotless humanity? No, the glory of his Deity must also be turned into shame, in both his natures, as Son of God and Son of man, he must be “despised and rejected by men.” Alas! that for so long the prophet’s words were true concerning us, “we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we did not esteem him.”

5. Not only was Christ’s blessed person despised like this, but all his offices were the subject of scorn. I only tell you what you all very well know, I only point you to the picture on which you have often gazed. Remember how they mocked him as a Prophet. “When they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, and asked him, saying, ‘Prophesy, who is it who struck you?’” They treated his prophetic office as though it had only been worthy of a jest and a jeer. He claimed to be the King of the Jews, so with ribald shouts they cried, “A king! bring his throne here, and seat him on it; bring his royal robes, and let him be fitly adorned.” Their idea of fitness was some soldier’s discarded mantle cast over his shoulders in mockery of the royal purple. They put a reed into his hand as a mock sceptre, and the only crown they thought worthy for him to wear was made of thorns. To show their contempt for his royalty, they mockingly bowed the knee before him, and rendered him only the semblance of homage. The only gifts they brought to him were cruel blows and coarse insults which must have been particularly trying for his gentle, gracious spirit. I cannot take more time to tell how they turned the glory of his office as our great High Priest into shame, but all his offices were treated with the utmost contempt and scorn.

6. They even laughed contemptuously at his deeds of love. “The chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself.’” It seems to me that they meant by this to cast contempt on his miracles of mercy. “He saved others.” Indeed, that he did; he saved the famishing by multiplying the loaves and fishes, and feeding the people by thousands; he saved the sick by touching them or by speaking the word which made them perfectly well; he saved even the dead by calling them back from the unseen world to live again in the abodes where they had previously lived; yet all these miracles of mercy are now to have contempt poured on them because he does not choose to come down from the cross at the mocking call of the scoffing priests and scribes and elders. “Oh you sons of men, how long will you turn his glory into shame?” It was his glory that he had saved others, and it was also his glory that he could not save himself, yet both of these were turned into subjects for shame by those who had no pity for him even when they had hounded him to his death.

7. Perhaps it was worst of all when these wicked men scoffed at Christ’s pangs and prayers. If you have harmed yourself, and someone laughs at the accident, you feel indignant. If you are tossing to and fro on a bed of sickness, and someone sneers at your pains, you know how such unkindness cuts you to the quick. If you were dying, and in your agony you cried aloud to God, and someone ridiculed your prayer, it would be a terrible trial for you; so it must have been to Christ when he was dying on the cross, forsaken by his friends, forsaken even by his Father, because he was then occupying the place that we ought to have occupied. Then, when he uttered that heart-melting cry, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” — ”My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” — the heartless spectators made a kind of pun on his words, and mockingly said that he was calling Elijah, though many of then must have recognised the quotation from the beginning of the twenty-second Psalm. To mock a man’s prayers when he is dying seems to me the very lowest depth of cruel contempt, and I do not remember ever reading of any other mob but this one that was so brutal as to turn into mockery the last cries of one who was in his death-agony. Yet, at Calvary, the last expiring groans of our blessed Saviour were the subject of the mocking mirth of the rabble around the cross. How all this must have pained his sensitive spirit, and made him cry out with David, “Oh you sons of men, how long will you turn my glory into shame?”

8. II. Now, secondly, THE GLORY WHICH CHRIST OUGHT TO HAVE RECEIVED AMONG MEN WAS RENDERED TO HIM ONLY IN SHAME.

9. A German writer has given us an outline of the way in which worldlings mockingly honoured Christ. First of all, he says, they gave him a procession of honour. When a victorious general returns from the wars, he rides through the streets amid the plaudits of the crowds that gather to welcome him; and when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was to be honoured by the world, he also had a procession, but what a procession it was! “He bearing his cross went out”; … ”and there followed him a great company of people, and of women, who also bewailed and lamented him.” That weeping and wailing company of the daughters of Jerusalem was the only element of real honour in the whole procession, all the rest was mockery and shame; and what a shameful thing it was! Oh man of the world, if you had known that he was the King of kings and Lord of lords, would you have crucified the Lord of glory? Instead of a band of children and a fickle mob scattering palm branches in his way, and crying “Hosanna to the Son of David,” kings and princes, judges and senators, ought to have felt honoured by being allowed to cast their royal robes and costly garments in his road, that he might ride in state over them amid the welcoming shouts of the whole race of mankind. Instead of that, see the poor weary Man of sorrows painfully toiling on and presently sinking beneath the burden of the cross on which he was about to die in ignominy and shame, while all around him the clamorous multitude is hoarsely crying, “Away with him! Crucify him!” That was the kind of procession of honour that men gave to the Lord Jesus Christ.

10. Next, they gave him a cup of honour. When a great man comes as a visitor from a foreign country, it is the custom to honour him with a grand banquet and other tokens of hospitality; but when Christ came to this earth on an embassy of mercy, what did they give him? First, a stupefying draught, which he would not drink, for he would not have any of his powers deadened by any soporific; {a} and then, when he was so parched that he cried, “I thirst,” “they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it on hyssop, and put it to his mouth,” and Luke expressly says that this was done in mockery by the soldiers, who at the same time tauntingly said to the Saviour, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself.” So again men turned his glory into shame.

11. Then, they gave him a guard of honour. Men who have performed deeds of renown often have a body-guard allotted to them to attend them wherever they go, and to ensure their safety when they stay; but what a body-guard did the world allot to the Saviour, — a guard of gamblers. The soldiers parted his other garments among them, and then cast lots — probably throwing the dice — to see which of them should have his seamless coat, little thinking that they were fulfilling the prophecy that had been written hundreds of years before. But what a guard was this for him who was King of kings, and Lord of lords, — rough, cruel men whose hearts had been shrivelled and in whose breasts no sign of tenderness remained! So his glory was also turned into shame.

12. Then, they gave him a seat of honour. We are accustomed to conduct our noble visitors to the platform at the end of the hall, and to lead them to the chair of state or the most honourable position we can find; and the world conducted its honoured Guest down the Via Dolorosa with a body-guard of gamblers around him up to the seat of honour. There it is, the accursed tree! He will have little rest there, for the great nails will be roughly thrust through the tenderest parts of his hands and feet, making every nerve in his body quiver with pain; and then, as they brutally jerk the cross down into the hole prepared for it, his whole body will be so jarred and shaken that he will cry out, in the language of the psalmist, “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.” So they turned his glory into shame.

13. Then, once more, they gave him a title of honour. When the Queen wishes to put special honour on any of her subjects, she makes them knights, or baronets, or peers of the realm; but the world only thought Christ worthy of the title of “King of thieves.” You will perhaps tell me that they called him “the King of the Jews.” It was Pilate who did that, and he would not alter it even when the chief priest asked him to do so; but the Jewish and Gentile world practically called him “King of thieves” by crucifying him between two thieves as though he had been the worst of the three. He was no thief; he had never injured anyone, but had scattered blessings broadcast with both his hands; he had given himself and all that he had to save the lost, yet they called him “King of thieves” by their actions if not by their words. So again they turned his glory into shame.

14. Oh beloved, I wish I could speak on this theme in appropriate language! Yet I feel that there is no tongue that can adequately describe the Saviour’s griefs, and no pen or pencil that can worthily depict him in his agonies. You yourselves must sit down at the foot of the cross, and look, and look, and look again at your blessed Lord and Master as he hung there for your sakes. It used to be more common than it is now for godly men and women to spend hour after hour in solemn meditation on the agonies of Christ on the cross. I tried, one day when I was alone, to get a vivid realization of that awful tragedy; and I succeeded, to the breaking of my own heart, but I cannot describe the scene to you. That is a matter for private meditation rather than for public speech; so, when many of us gather presently around the table of our Lord in obedience to one of his last commands, let us try to realize what it meant to him when wicked men turned his glory into shame even when he was in the very throes of his death-agony.

15. When the Saviour was nailed to the accursed tree, there was a great crowd before him composed of all kinds of people from the chief priests and scribes and Pharisees down to the lowest rabble of Jerusalem. The Roman was there, and the Jew from the far west who had almost forgotten his Judaism; and there were doubtless, as on the day of Pentecost, “Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya around Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians.” How did this great mixed multitude treat the august Sufferer on the cross? I have already quoted to you our Lord’s own words, “All those who see me laugh me to scorn”; and Mark further says, “Those who passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, ‘Ah, you who destroy the temple, and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross.’” With the exception of a little band of timid disciples, all that vast crowd exerted itself to the utmost, by hideous gestures and grimaces and by cruel taunts and jeers, to show its contempt and scorn for the Christ of God, his only-begotten and well-beloved Son. I suppose this great congregation now gathered in the Tabernacle is only a mere handful in comparison with the enormous throngs that assembled to see that great sight; but if I had to be the unhappy victim of the malice and scorn of all of you, if you were all seeking, by some word of contempt or expression of loathing and hatred, to set me at naught and mock me, what a dreadful position mine would be! But this was not the treatment accorded to a man in full vigour of health and strength, as I am just now, who might be able to defy his foes to do their worst, or who might stand unmoved amid the hail of calumny and obloquy; but Christ’s was the case of One who was dying in indescribable agony, forsaken even by his God, — and you can hardly conceive how such an experience as that takes all one’s strength away. Yet, do you know? As I meditated on this sad scene, while my eyes were streaming with tears on the Saviour’s account, it seemed to me that, after all, the ribald crowd was unconsciously honouring him, because contempt from such people was true honour for Jesus. If they had lauded him, he might have blushed at the disgrace of being praised by such miscreants; but when they despised and rejected him, it brought him true honour. So virtue received the homage of vice, and the beauty of holiness was all the more plainly revealed in contrast with the ugliness of sin. They must have felt that, although they seemed to be victorious over him, Christ was really the Conqueror, or they would not have been so anxious to show how much they despised him; they must have had some kind of consciousness of the true dignity of his character or they would not have vented their malice so ferociously in mocking him.

16. While I have been trying to bring before your minds this picture of the suffering Saviour, as it has been all vividly present to my own mental vision, I wonder if anyone here has been saying, “Oh, sir! I also have to endure the cruel mockings of the ungodly; they call me this name and that, and I feel that I cannot endure it.” What! Are you — 

         A soldier of the cross,

   A follower of the Lamb; — 

and do you want to turn coward when they mete out to you something of the treatment that they gave to him? Look at your Master in the hour of his agony on the cross, and never be afraid again. Remember how he forewarned his followers concerning this very matter: “The disciple, is not above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that he is as his Master, and the servant as his Lord. If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call those of his household?” Cheerfully accept all the contempt and scorn that the world pleases to pour on you, take it as a tribute to the likeness to Christ that even worldlings can see in you, and praise the Lord that you are counted worthy to suffer for Christ’s name’s sake.

17. Perhaps some self-righteous person says, “I wish I had been there; I would have taught those miserable wretches not to treat the Saviour in such a shameful way.” Ah! that is the way one of our English kings once talked. “I wish,” he said, “that I had been there with my soldiers, I would have cut them in pieces”; but someone who stood by said, “Ah! that speech shows that you have not yet learned how to be like him.” He could have cut them all in pieces in a moment; he could have asked for more than twelve legions of angels to come to his rescue; but how then could he have accomplished the purpose for which he came to this earth, and how would the Scriptures have been fulfilled? It was written concerning him, seven centuries before his birth, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he does not open his mouth”; and that prophecy was literally fulfilled when he stood silent before Caiaphas and before Pilate, and when he endured without a murmur all the insults of the mocking crowd at Calvary.

18. I think I hear someone say, “If I had been there I would not have mocked the Saviour as they did.” Ah, my friend, I am not so sure that you would not! Do you love him now? Do you love his people? Do you love his ways? Do you love his Word? Do you love his house? Do you love him? If you do not, I do not see why you should imagine that you would have behaved better than most of the men at that time did. You would not have known the Lord of life and glory any more than they did, and you would probably have joined them in heaping scorn and contempt on him; his stern rebukes of your sin would have made you as angry as they were. “He who is not with me is against me,” is still one of the infallible tests by which he tests the sons of men; and if you are not with him, you are against him; if you are not out-and-out for him, you are mocking him in your own way even as the Jews did in theirs.

19. Possibly someone asks, “Why did the Saviour endure all that mockery and scorn?” Ah, some of us can tell! We once mocked at religion, and perhaps even poured contempt on the name of Jesus, so he was mocked at even while he was making atonement for our sin of mockery. Besides, sin is always so contemptible a thing that it ought to be held up to derision by all sane men; and since Christ took upon himself the sins of all his people, it was necessary that he should be despised even when he was only by imputation bearing the sins of others.

   For sins not his own

   He came to atone; — 

and, therefore, as the Sin Bearer, the Substitute for his people, he had to bear all the scorn that their sins deserved.

20. Now, in closing, I say to you, brothers and sisters in Christ, your Master has been despised for your sake, take care to greatly honour him. He was made nothing of as far as that was possible for men; see that you make much of him. For every thorn that pierced his blessed temples give him some precious pearl that you highly prize. For every hiss of scorn that greeted his holy ears give him a song of grateful praise. Oh, how I wish that we could continually lift him up higher and higher before the sons and daughters of men! If he would only make us as the dust beneath his feet, so that he might be exalted so much more in the eyes of sinners, we would consider it our highest glory to be trampled beneath his feet. Oh, for more crowns to put on his blessed head!

   Crown him with many crowns,

      The Lamb upon his throne.

It shall be the heaven of heaven for us when he gives us the crown of life, the crown of righteousness, and the crown of glory, and we cast them all at his feet crying, “Not to us, oh Lord, be the glory,” but “to him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and has made us kings and priests to God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.” But why not begin to honour him here? I hope many of us are doing so already, but let us do it more and more. Oh Lamb of God, bleeding, languishing, despised, rejected, what can I do to honour you more than I have ever done before? Is that not the language of your heart, my brother, my sister? Come to his table, and honour him by obeying this as well as all his other commandments, “Do this in remembrance of me”; and then go tomorrow into the world wherever your business and your duty call you, and say, — 

   Now for the love I bear his name

   What was my gain I count my loss;

   My former pride I call my shame,

   And nail my glory to his cross.

   Yea, and I must and will esteem

   All things but loss for Jesus’ sake;

   Oh, may my soul be found in him,

   And of his righteousness partake.

21. Is there anyone here who has despised and rejected the Lord Jesus Christ? Alas! I fear that many even in this assembly have done so. Have you set him at naught? Have you thought nothing of him? Have you mocked him? Have you put a crown of thorns on his head? Oh, if you have so far been numbered among his enemies, desert their ranks this very hour, bend your knees before him in true homage and submission, give him your hearts to be his royal throne, give him yourselves to be his loyal subjects and servants for ever. Look to him as he was on the cross, and as he is on the throne; trust him with your whole heart, for whoever believes in him has everlasting life. May God bless you all, for Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.

{a} Soporific: Inducing or tending to induce sleep; causing a person to sleep or slumber. OED.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ps 4; 5}

4:1. Hear me when I call, oh God of my righteousness: you have enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy on me, and hear my prayer.

Good men want to be heard when they pray; they are not satisfied with merely praying, they must have God’s answers to their supplications. See how David pleads the past mercy received from God: “You have enlarged me when I was in distress.” Cannot my own heart look back to God’s lovingkindness to me in days gone by. Oh, yes! Then, since he is the same God, what he has done in the past is an argument for what he will do in the future. There are some of us here who can adopt the psalmist’s language, and say, “You have enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy on me, and hear my prayer.”

2. Oh you sons of men, how long will you turn my glory into shame?

How long will you slander me, how long will you slander God, how long will you turn the gospel into ridicule, how long will you resist the Spirit of God?

2. How long will you love vanity, and seek after leasing?

That is, after falsehood, after lying? Why do men seek after falsehood? What attraction can it have for them? Why, only this attraction, that it suits a fool’s heart to feed on falsehood.

3. But know that the LORD has set apart him who is godly for himself: {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2530, “A Particular People” 2531}

You cannot harm him, for God has hedged him around. You may say what you please against him, but God loves him, and will take care of him.

3. The LORD will hear when I call to him.

What a sweet assurance! Oh brethren, the mercy seat is always open to us! It will be a blessed thing if every one of us can say, with David, “The Lord will hear when I call to him.”

4. Stand in awe, and do not sin:

This is good advice for ungodly men; let them feel properly the awe of God’s presence, and they must turn from sin. Holy reverence is a great preservative from sin.

4. Commune with your own heart on your bed, and be still.

Hold private communion with yourself, in a private place, at a private hour.

“Be still.” We are far too noisy, most of us talk too much. It would often make men wiser if they were quieter. If a still tongue does not make a wise head, yet it tends that way.

5. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the LORD. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2033, “Plain Directions to Those who Would Be Saved From Sin” 2034}

This is a capital rule for all of life. Serve God, and trust in him; do what is right, and rest in the God of right.

6. There are many who say, “Who will show us any good?”

We all want to see anything that is really good, we do not care who shows it to us, even if it is the devil himself. “Who will show us any good?” That question may have another meaning, for there are some who have no desire for spiritual good, for such good as God calls good.

6. LORD, lift up the light of your countenance on us.

David began the psalm with a personal petition, “Hear me when call,” but now he begins to glow in spirit, and as his prayer burns more vehemently he prays for others also: “Lord, lift up the light of your countenance on us.” This is our highest joy, this is our greatest good, to walk in the light or God’s countenance. If we have the favour of God, and know that we have it, we need ask for nothing else, for every other blessing is assured to those who have the favour of God.

7. You have put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their grain and their wine increased.

The harvest and the vintage were the two seasons of greatest joy in the East; they shouted “Harvest Home” with gladness that the fruits of the earth had again been gathered in, and they drank the new wine, and danced for joy; but David says to the Lord, “You have put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their grain and their wine increased.” When God puts gladness in the heart, it is real gladness, for God is not the Giver of a sham joy; and it is lasting gladness, for God does not give temporary gifts.

David says, “You have put gladness in my heart,” and then he compares it with the gladness of the sons of men, and he says that his joy was greater than theirs when their earthly crops were increased. Boaz went to sleep on the threshing-floor, but he who sleeps on the bosom of God has a far softer bed than that.

8. I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for you, LORD, only make me dwell in safety.

He who has Jehovah as his God is at home even when he is abroad, he is well guarded even when he has no one on earth to protect him, and he can go to sleep in calm confidence when others would be disturbed in mind and too timid to close their eyes.

5:1. Give ear to my words, oh LORD, consider my meditation.

Sometimes we pray right off, as David did when he cried to the Lord, “Hear me when I call.” At other times, we sit down to meditate, and think over what we want to say to the Lord in prayer, as David did when he said, “‘Oh Lord, consider my meditation.’ What I have considered you consider.” A well-considered prayer is very likely to succeed with God.

2. Listen to the voice of my cry, — 

“When I do not have confidence or comfort enough to present a well-ordered prayer to you; but, like a child in pain, cry to you, ‘Listen to the voice of my cry,’” — 

2. My King, and my God:

What! will a king listen to a cry? Men generally prepare elaborate petitions when they come into the presence of royalty; but, although the Lord is far greater than all earthly sovereigns, he is far more condescending than they are.

2. For I will pray to you.

I trust that we all pray; I am sure that all believers do; but let us pray more, let us pray much more than we have done, and let each one of us truly say to the Lord, “I will pray to you.” He is a King, so serve him with your prayers. He is God, so adore him with your prayers, and if you can put both your hands on him, and say, as David did, “My King, and my God,” what abundant motives you have for abounding in prayer to him

3. You shall hear my voice in the morning, oh LORD;

“When the dew is on all nature, and on my spirit too, then you shall hear my voice in prayer. Before I go out into the world, my first thoughts shall be of you.” Never see the face of man, beloved, until you have seen the face of God.

3. In the morning I will direct my prayer to you, and will look up.

Adjust your prayer as the archer fits his arrow on the bow, look up as you shoot it, and keep on looking up and looking out for an answer to your supplication. You cannot expect God to open the windows of heaven to pour you out a blessing if you do not open the windows of your expectation to look for it. If you look up in asking, God will look down in answering. It is always best to take good aim in prayer; some prayers are like random shots, they cannot be expected to hit the target; but David’s prayer was well aimed, and he expected it to prevail with God: “In the morning I will direct my prayer to you, and will look up.”

4. For you are not a God who has pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with you.

In both of these Psalms there is a clear line drawn between the righteous and the wicked; this is a line which still needs to be kept very clear, and we must all seek to know on which side of that line we are.

5, 6. The foolish shall not stand in your sight: you hate all workers of iniquity. You shall destroy those who speak lies: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.

These are strong words, but not too strong; God is not tolerant of evil, and those who are most like him in other respects will be like him in this matter also.

7. But as for me, I will come into your house in the multitude of your mercy:

“I will be like a child who goes in and out of his father’s door as often as he pleases because he is at home. I will not go there on my own merits, but ‘in the multitude of your mercy.’”

7. And in your fear I will worship towards your holy temple.

There was no temple on earth when David wrote this Psalm, but God was his temple; and just as the pious Jew opened the window, and looked towards Jerusalem, so we look towards God on the throne of grace in heaven, and seek to worship him in the beauty of holiness.

8. Lead me, oh LORD, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before my face.

David does not say, “Make my way straight”; he does not want to have his own way, but he wants to walk in God’s way. So sweet submission blends with a desire for perfect obedience: “Make your way straight before my face.”

9. For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; — 

You cannot expect ungodly men to speak what is right: “there is no faithfulness in their mouth”; — 

9. Their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre;

Pouring out foul, putrid gas. They cannot speak without using filthy or blasphemous expressions; or if they do, there is falsehood lurking behind their words, for deceit and evil of all kinds are in their hearts.

9. They flatter with their tongue.

Always beware of people who flatter you, and especially when they tell you that they do not flatter you, and that they know you cannot endure flattery, for you are then being most fully flattered, so be on your guard against the tongue of the flatterer.

10. Destroy them, oh God; let them fall by their own counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against you.

“It does not matter what they do against me; but, oh Lord, ‘they have rebelled against you.’” David speaks here like a judge pronouncing sentence on the guilty, — not out of malice, but out of loyalty and devotion to God, — 

11, 12. But let all those who put their trust in you rejoice: let them always shout for joy, because you defend them: also let those who love your name be joyful in you. For you, LORD, will bless the righteous; with favour you will surround him as with a shield.

Just Published.

Spurgeon’s Illustrated Almanac for 1912

and

John Ploughman’s Almanac for 1912

Price one penny each; to be obtained from Messrs. Marshall Brothers Limited, Keswick House, 47, Paternoster Row, London, E. C., or from all booksellers.