The Biblical Illustrator
Psalms 3:8
Selah.
Stop and think
That seems to sum up the several meanings of the word “Selah.” Some say it is a direction to the musicians to play an interlude while the singers ceased; some regard it as a direction to the players to stop and tune their instruments. Others see an injunction to raise heart and voice, harp and organ, to their fullest capacity. Others see a reference to eternity, as if one interposed, “World without end, Amen!” Many regard the word as equivalent to certain well-known signs in music, bidding you turn back and repeat. In any case, it is as if a solemn rock (“sela”) stood right across our path, bidding us “stop and think.” On the ground of this injunction meet all meanings, however divergent they seem. “No help for him in God.” Stop and think. Selah looks forward as well as back. God has been a shield for David; He can also lift up his head once more, and invest him with glory, the sunshine of the Divine countenance. For us who conduct the services of God’s house, “Selah” has a message. It bids the preacher rightly divide the word of truth. It bids him compare truth with truth, bringing out things new and old, and fixing each in its most telling place. It says--tune your hearts, voices, instruments. Seek inspiration, do justice to the Divine message and the gospel song, so that with holy passion, and sacred emphasis, and heart-felt pathos you shall lead our hearts to God, and incite our minds to things eternal. (Michael Eastwood.)
Salvation belongeth unto the Lord.
Thanksgiving after peace
I. The meaning of this sentiment. The words carry a general confession of the influence of Divine Providence upon every event, and in particular with respect to salvation, or deliverance from impending danger. The words imply three things.
1. All confidence in man stands opposed to the sentiment. It is not opposed to the use of means, but to an excessive reliance on second causes of any kind. Success in any attempt is to be ultimately attributed to God.
2. The Psalmist had in view the omnipotence of Providence. God has not only the direction and government of means and second causes, but is Himself superior to all means. Salvation signifies a great and distinguished deliverance.
3. The sentiment has respect to the mercy and goodness of God, or His readiness to hear the cry of the oppressed and send deliverance to His people. Power and wisdom alone give an imperfect display of the Divine character.
II. Divine providence in dealing with the united states of america. In conclusion, some practical improvement of the subject.
1. It is our duty to give praise to God for the present happy and promising state of public affairs.
2. We should testify our gratitude to God by living in His fear, and by a conversation such as becometh the gospel.
3. And by usefulness in our several stations. Let us guard against using our liberty as a cloak for licentiousness, and thus poisoning the blessing after we have attained it. (T. Witherspoon, D. D.)
God the Author of salvation
This will be seen if we consider--
I. The work of the Father in devising it.
1. Adam fell by his own sin, and so involved all posterity.
2. Thus all needed salvation; and.
3. God’s flee grace devised it.
II. The incarnation and atonement of Christ, the Son of God, which executed it.
III. The work of the Holy Ghost in applying it. For of ourselves we cannot repent and believe. And yet unless we do we are lost. It is the Holy Spirit that brings us into a state of grace. (T. Myers, A. M.)
Thy blessing is upon Thy people.--
Blessings
At the Mint a piece of gold is put under the stamp, and in the twinkling of an eye the machine descends and the gold becomes a sovereign. So when we see that God is our Father, and that He in Christ died for us, then in a moment, like the stamp on the gold, we receive the witness of the Holy Spirit. The gold bears the stamp of the a the image and blessing of God.
I. What is a blessing? Not merely when we have what we wish, but far more when we do not wish what we have not.
II. The greatest blessing is to know that we have the Lord for our Father.
III. It is a great blessing when we can live temperately. What a curse is drunkenness.
IV. Is not the Bible a blessing? An infidel said one day, “There is only one thing that troubles me: I am afraid the Bible is true.” But what a blessing that it is so. When Sir Walter Scott lay dying he requested a friend to help him into his library, so that he could look out from the window on the river Tweed. Then he asked for something to be read to him. His friend said, “What book shall I select?” Sir Walter replied, “Can you ask? There is but one--the Bible.” Is this book a blessing to you?
V. The Lord gives His people the blessing of being able to trust Him. In the darkness of night you may strike a match and try to light the candle, but you must first take off the extinguisher. And so you cannot feel happy while you keep on the extinguisher of doubt over your heart. How blessed it is to trust in God.
VI. What a blessing to know that Jesus died for us. (William Birch.)
God’s blessing, and the way to gain it
I. What is God’s blessing? Given an occasion upon which we are called upon to write on paper our idea of the Divine blessing: hand me the papers and I will examine them: shall I find in a thousand instances upwards of nine hundred that will run after this fashion?--God’s blessing is sunshine, music, prosperity, deliverance from all affliction, distress, fear; God’s blessing is on the house where there is no vacant chair, upon the fold where there is no dead lamb, upon the estate where there is no covered grave. So your papers would read, and so would they be wrong. God’s blessing may be upon a man without any sense of external sunshine. The clouds do not alter the month. There may be dark clouds upon a June noonday, but it is still June, the sun is still warm, summer is still on the eve of coming upon us, with all its countless flowers and all its ineffable music. God’s blessing does not mean exemption from pain; nor does God’s discipline mean mere penalty. God’s blessing is not a sleeping draught but an inspiration. If you are asleep when you ought to be awake do not say, This is the blessing of God. God’s blessing, I repeat, is not an opiate; it is an inspiration, an excitement, a voice in the soul that says, Onward!
II. How are we to know that the blessing is on us? Easily; there need be no difficulty about that. When you feel that you must do more work, God’s blessing is upon you. Be sure of that confidence. When you want to be idle, God has withdrawn from you because you have withdrawn from Him. When are we to know that God’s blessing is upon us? I will tell you: when you feel that you must help other people more liberally than you have ever done; not when you tie your purse strings, but when you open them is God’s blessing on you. You have done nothing yet; I have done nothing yet. It is the crime of the Church that it has played with its responsibilities. We are always compounding with God, we are always filing our bill in the chancery court of heaven, and asking God to accept a penny in the pound. Do not close your eyes under such circumstances and say, This is the comfort of grace. When you feel that you must go four-and-twenty hours in the day in doing good, God’s blessing is upon you. Of course, nature will say, Lie down, poor child, and rest awhile, because time spent in sleep is time spent in true labour; thou shalt in sleep recover thine energy, and do ten fold more because of a good night’s rest. But when the first thought is work, and the middle thought is work, and the last thought is work, then say, Thy blessing is upon Thy people; this is no longer an inspiration but a fact accomplished.
III. We cannot arrange for the Divine blessing. Do not accept the sophism that the Divine blessing can be used as an element in speculation or investment. The Divine blessing comes as the wheat comes: it comes after ripping up the earth, sowing it, preparing it, and after a long process, it may be, of waiting; so it comes not by itself but as the final mark in a series, as the blessing upon a process. When the golden wheat swings in the autumnal wind and throws back the autumnal sunlight, all the seasons of the year seem to culminate in that one motion. Winter is there, because winter gave the earth its hospitality of sleep; spring is there, and summer is there, and autumn is there: in that golden wheat the four seasons of the year hold harmonious festival. Some have not begun yet to do anything. When the lists are made out our names will not be upon them. The first shall be last and the last shall lie first. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
The blessing of God
I. God’s special relation in the world. “Thy people.” The king of a nation and the father of a family hold peculiar relations
II. From God’s special relation spring special benefits. “Thy blessing.” The ruler of a people, from his position and power, holds in his hands benefits which are for his nation alone. A loving father has a peculiar regard for the welfare of his own family. Israel enjoyed benefits that were not extended to other nations.
III. The benefits springing from the special relation must be sought by prayer. Spiritual blessings are obtained only by prayer. The Apostles had a definite promise given to them of the Holy Ghost, yet they were commanded to pray for His descent (Acts 1:4). So in the individual life (Luke 11:18). (William Harris.)
The best inheritance
This was the confidence and comfort of the Psalmist when deprived of earthly friends and earthly comforts. The more we know of the power of sin, the more we shall prize the sovereignty of God.
I. The nature of this blessing which is upon the people of God. All the blessedness they have is by Christ Jesus the Lord; and to understand the blessing we must look to the Lord Jesus Christ. As there was a fourfold curse pronounced upon the serpent, you will find the very reverse relative to the Lord Jesus Christ and His people.
1. The serpent was to “go upon his belly.” While the enemy is condemned in all that he does, the Lord Jesus Christ is justified in all that He does. The Lord Jesus felt that all He thought, and all He did, and all He said was right. He felt that He had no sin of His own. He enjoys the consciousness that all He has done and does is right, and we in Him get rid of all our sins, guilt, and fears, and rest not in a consciousness of our fleshly, personal, legal right, but in a consciousness of the righteousness of Christ, the efficacy of His great salvation, the eternity of His glory. Draw a line of distinction between a moral reality and a spiritual reality. Moral reality is good, and a good principle to act upon among men; but if I go to eternal things I must go beyond this--I must come to the reality of atoning blood, I must come to the reality of saving grace.
2. The enemy was “to eat dust.” This is to be understood figuratively. As for the enemy, and all that are with him, their attainments shall be all perishable--shall be but dust. Was the Lord Jesus to feed upon perishable things? No. His meat His attainments are imperishable, His honours incorruptible, His glories inimitable, His grandeur indescribable. While He lived in this world He lived upon immortal things. He is with us in these infinite provisions, in opposition to that destitution, that famine, that state of misery which we deserve. The “blessing” overcomes a great curse. While dust shall be the serpent’s meat, our bread shall be royal dainties.
3. The serpent was to be cast out. There was to be enmity between him and the woman, and between his seed and her seed. They should come together, and one or the other must prevail. “The prince of this world is cast out.”
4. The serpent’s head should be bruised. Here is the confusion, the defeat, of all his plans. But can confusion ever reach the infinite mind of Jehovah-Jesus?
II. The progression of this blessing. It has been progressive from age to age; and nothing has met with so much opposition. Look at some typical circumstances and watch the progression. Cases of Joseph, David, Mordecai, the Redeemer Himself. See the progress in two individual cases, that of Jeremiah and that of Paul. There is this difference between providence, and grace. Grace is progressive, but providence is retrogressive. The fruit we had last year is gone, but the grace we had when the world was created we have now. None of it passes away.
III. The continuation of the blessing. This originates chiefly in the manner of it. There is no way in which anything contrary to it can enter into the vitals of this blessing, or into the union which the people have with Christ, to affect that union. If you look behind them there is mercy behind them from everlasting. If you look at what is before them, it is eternal life, eternal salvation, eternal glory. So that from the very manner of this blessing no curse can come in. (James Wells.)
The people of God
I. The people. The children of Israel were, in a national sense, the people of God. But were they so individually? It is not the name of Christian that can stamp us the people of God. It is in a personal, and not merely in a national or ecclesiastical sense, that God’s people are an elect people.
II. This people are a purchased people. What shall be the price paid down for that spiritual people, the Church of the firstborn? We are redeemed, not with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, but with the blood of Christ.
III. The people are a voluntary people. They do not follow God reluctantly, as did the literal Israel. Everyone can say with David, I have “chosen” the way of truth.
IV. A holy people (Deuteronomy 14:2). The sanctity of Israel was only external and relative; only a type of the purity of the invisible Church. The whole body of the people of whom we speak are holy in an internal and personal sense (John 1:13; 1 John 3:24).
V. A people valued and beloved. We value the objects of our choice because we have chosen them. God’s blessing is on the people themselves, and on their allotments, enjoyments, and even their afflictions, and their labours and connections. (T. Kennion, M. A.)
Trust in God’s overrule
Dr. Stewart of Moulin said, “I remember an old pious very recluse minister whom I used to meet once a year. He scarcely ever looked at a newspaper. When others were talking about the French Revolution he showed no concern or curiosity about it. He said he knew from the Bible how it would all end, better than the most sagacious politician: that the Lord reigns; that the earth shall be filled with His glory; that the gospel should be preached to all nations; that all subordinate events are working out these great ends. This was enough for him, and he gave himself no concern about the news or events of the day, only saying, “It will be well with the righteous.”.