Psalm 115:2














Where is now their God? (comp. Psalm 42:3). The expression is to be understood by the help of the associations of the psalm. It is always trying to be despised; always hard to work on faithfully under jeers and taunts. The neighbors of the restored exiles did not dare actually to interfere with them, because they were under the protection of the Persian authority; but they could taunt them and laugh at them. And it must be admitted that there was apparent occasion. The exiles were poor and few. They had been stopped in building their temple, and there were nothing but foundations to be seen. It might be said - If your God can do anything, he surely can get his own temple built. They dare not attempt to raise the walls and fix new gates and enclose the city; for every attempt would be checked. It might be said - If your God really cared for you, he would help you to defend yourselves. The pious souls were deeply hurt by this reproach cast on their God, and could only find rest in assuring themselves that if his will was a sovereign will, it was influenced by covenant promises. We can always turn from our doubtings as to what God does, and find our satisfaction in what God is.

I. THE STRAIN INVOLVED IN INCOMPLETENESS. We start out with a distinct life aim and purpose; but the years pass by, and all we have, as the result of labor and waiting, is an unfinished building, like some of the cathedrals. Then we are apt to lose hope, and to say - Not done now, it will never be done. So the years had passed for the exiles, and the new nation was still in a most incomplete state. No walls, no temple, no real freedom, no independent native government. It was a big strain on faith to see the nation's hope ever realized.

II. THE INTENSIFYING OF THE STRAIN THROUGH MISCONCEPTIONS, It was hard to see and to feel the incompleteness; but it was harder still to be told about it, to have it pointed out, and to be taunted with it. Those enthusiastic Jews who came out from Babylon expecting at once to accomplish great things, could see well enough the mere foundations of the temple, and the heaps of the ruined walls; but it was bitter ness indeed to have some one come up as they were looking, and whisper in their ear, "Where is now thy God?"

III. THE RELIEF OF THE STRAIN BY CHERISHING TRUSTFUL THOUGHTS OF GOD. (Ver. 3.) The check on our work God puts. Incompleteness is his permission. Failure is his discipline. If God is in them, and their state pleases him, then our incomplete things are blessings in disguise. - R.T.

The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence. But we will bless the Lord.
The living God should be adored by a living people. A blessing God should be blessed by a blessing people. When we bless Him we should not rest till others do the same: we should cry to them, "Praise the Lord." Our example and our persuasion should rouse them to praise.

I. A MOURNFUL MEMORY. "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence." This reminds us —

1. Of silenced voices in the choirs of Zion. Good men and true who neither sing nor speak among us any longer.

2. Of our own speedy silence: so far as this world is concerned we shall soon be among the dead and silent ones.

3. Of the ungodly around us, who are already spiritually dead, and can no more praise the Lord than if they were dumb.

4. Of lost souls in hell. Never will these bless the Lord.

II. A HAPPY RESOLUTION. " But we will bless the Lord." In heart, song, testimony, action, we are resolved to give the Lord our loving praise; because —

1. We live. Shall we not bless Him who keeps us in being?

2. We live spiritually, and this demands perpetual thanksgiving.

3. We are blessed of the Lord: shall we not bless Him?

4. He will bless us. More and more will He reveal His love to us: let us praise Him more and more. Be this our steadfast vow, that we will bless the Lord, come what may.

III. AN APPROPRIATE COMMENCEMENT. "We will bless the Lord from this time forth."

1. When the heathen ask, "Where is now their God?" (ver. 2), let us reply courageously to all atheistic questions, and meet infidelity with joyous adoration.

2. When under a sense of mercy, we are led to sing — "The Lord hath been mindful of us" (ver. 12), let us then bless Him.

3. When spiritually renewed and comforted. When the four times repeated words, "He will bless," have come true in our experience, and the Lord has increased us with every personal and family blessing (vers. 12-14), then let all that is within us bless the holy name of the Lord.

4. When led to confess Christ. Then should we begin the never-ending life-psalm. Service and song should go together.

5. When years end and begin — new-years' days, birthdays, etc., let us bless God for —

(1)Sin of the year forgiven.

(2)Need of the year supplied.

(3)Mercy of the year enjoyed.

(4)Fears of the year removed.

(5)Hopes of the year fulfilled.

IV. AN EVERLASTING CONTINUANCE: "from this time forth and for evermore."

1. Weariness shall not suspend it. We will renew our strength as we bless the Lord.

2. Final falling shall not end it: the Lord will keep our soul in His way, and make us praise Him all our days.

3. Nor shall death so much as interrupt our songs, but raise them to a purer and fuller strain.

4. Nor shall any supposable calamity deprive the Lord of our gratitude (Job 1:21).

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

Pulpit Treasury.
On Thursday evening, March 29, 1883, for above an hour all who had occasion to use the telephone in Chicago found it vibrating to musical tones. Private and public telephones, and even the police and fire-alarm instruments, were alike affected. The source of the music was a mystery until the following day, when it was learned that a telegraph wire, which passes near most of the telephone wires, was connected with the harmonic system, that tunes were being played over it, and that the telephone wires took up the sounds by induction. If one wire carrying sweet sounds from place to place could so affect another wire by simply being near to it, how ought Christians, in communication with their Father in heaven, to affect all with whom they come in contact in the world! The Divine music of love and praise in their lives should be a blessing to society.

(Pulpit Treasury.).

I love the Lord, because He hath heard my voice and my supplications.
I. The psalm opens with a general declaration of GRATITUDE TO GOD, AS THE HEARER OF PRAYER (ver. 1).

I. The true believer is a man of prayer.

2. Another feature of the child of God is conviction of sin (ver. 3).

3. He is one who can testify that the Lord has answered his prayers: one who has tasted the sweetness of Divine mercy (vers. 5, 6, 8).

4. He seeks his happiness from God, and looks to the bosom of God as the only resting-place for his soul (ver. 7).

II. THE RESULTS OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE.

1. A deep sense of gratitude, and a desire of manifesting the same (ver. 12).

2. A special resolve to manifest his gratitude, by a devout attendance on ordinances, appointed of God as the public and solemn expression of thanksgiving and self-dedication (vers. 13, 14).

(W. Hancock, B. D.)

Homilist.
We trace this religious gratitude —

I. In a PROFOUND IMPRESSION of God's relative kindness. His relative kindness is shown in two ways.

1. In delivering from distress. The distress seemed to have consisted(1) In bodily suffering.(2) In mental sorrow.

2. In delivering from great distress in answer to prayer.

II. In an EARNEST CONFESSION of God's relative kindness.

1. His general kindness (ver. 5).

2. His personal kindness (ver. 6).

III. In a DETERMINATION TO LIVE A BETTER LIFE IN CONSEQUENCE of God's relative kindness. Here is a determination —

1. To rest in God (ver. 7).(1) The soul wants rest. Like Noah's dove it has forsaken its home, and is fluttering in the storms of external circumstances.(2) Its only rest is God. It is so constituted that it can only rest where it can find unbounded faith for its intellect, and supreme love for its heart. And who but God, the supremely good and supremely true, can supply these conditions?(3) To this rest it must return by its own effort. "Return unto thy rest, O my soul." The soul cannot be carried to this rest. As you steer the sea-tossed bark into harbour, so it must go itself into the spheres of serenity and peace.(4) A sense of God's relative kindness tends to stimulate this effort. "The Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee." "The goodness of God shall lead to repentance."

2. To walk before God. "I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living." "I will set the Lord always before me." Whoever else I may lose sight of, ignore, or forget, His presence shall always be before my eye.

IV. In a PUBLIC ACKNOWLEDGMENT of God's relative kindness.

(Homilist.)

The particular objects which you are now to look back upon are the manifold and manifest answers to prayer, which God has given you.

I. The first thing I would have you recollect is, YOUR OWN PRAYERS. If you look at them with an honest eye, you will be struck with wonder that ever God should have heard them. Look back now, Christian, upon thy prayers, and remember what cold things they have been. Thy desires have been but faint, and they have been expressed in such sorry language, that the desire itself seemed to freeze upon the lips that uttered it. And yet, strange to say, God has heard those cold prayers, and has answered them too, though they have been such that we have come out of our closets and have wept over them. Then, again, believer, how unfrequent and few are your prayers, and yet how numerous and how great have God's blessings been. Ye have prayed in times of difficulty very earnestly, but when God has delivered you, where was your former fervency? Look at your prayers, again, in another aspect. How unbelieving have they often been! You and I have gone to the mercy-seat, and we have asked God to bless us, but we have not believed that He would do so. How small, too, the faith of our most faithful prayers! When we believe the most, how little do we trust; how full of doubting is our heart, even when our faith has grown to its greatest extent! I am sure we shall find much reason to love God, if we only think of those pitiful abortions of prayer, those unripe figs, those stringless bows, those headless arrows, which we call prayers, and which He has borne with in His long-suffering. The fact is, that sincere prayer may often be very feeble to us, but it is always acceptable to God. It is like some of those one-pound notes, which they use in Scotland — dirty, ragged bits of paper; one would hardly look at them, one seems always glad to get rid of them for something that looks a little more like money. But still, when they are taken to the bank, they are always acknowledged and accepted as being genuine, however rotten and old they may be. So with our prayers: they are foul with unbelief, decayed with imbecility, and worm-eaten with wandering thoughts; but, nevertheless, God accepts them at heaven's own bank, and gives us rich and ready blessings, in return for our supplications.

II. Again: I hope we shall be led to love God for having heard our prayers, if we consider THE GREAT VARIETY OF MERCIES WHICH WE HAVE ASKED IN PRAYER, AND THE LONG LIST OF ANSWERS WHICH WE HAVE RECEIVED. It is impossible for me to depict thine experience as well as thou canst read it thyself. What multitudes of prayers have you and I put up from the first moment when we learnt to pray! You have asked for blessings in your going out and your coming in; blessings of the day and of the night, and of the sun and of the moon; and all these have been vouchsafed to you. Your prayers were innumerable; you asked for countless mercies, and they have all been given. Only look at yourself: are not you adorned and bejewelled with mercies as thickly as the sky with stars?

III. Let us note again THE FREQUENCY OF HIS ANSWERS TO OUR FREQUENT PRAYERS. If a beggar comes to your house, and you give him alms, you will be greatly annoyed if within a month he shall come again; and if you then discover that he has made it a rule to wait upon you monthly for a contribution, you will say to him, "I gave you something once, but I did not mean to establish it as a rule." Suppose, however, that the beggar should be so impudent and impertinent that he should say, "But I intend, sir, to wait upon you every morning and every evening:" then you would say, "I intend to keep my gate locked that you shall not trouble me." And suppose he should then look you in the face and add still more, "Sir, I intend waiting upon you every hour, nor can I promise that I won't come to you sixty times in an hour; but I just vow and declare that as often as I want anything so often will I come to you: if I only have a wish I will come and tell it to you; the least thing and the greatest thing shall drive me to you; I will always be at the post of your door." You would soon be tired of such importunity as that, and wish the beggar anywhere, rather than that he should come and tease you so. Yet recollect, this is just what you have done to God, and He has never complained of you for doing it; but rather He has complained of you the other way. He has said, "Thou hast not called upon Me, O Jacob." He has never murmured at the frequency of your prayers, but has complained that you have not come to Him enough.

IV. Think of THE GREATNESS OF THE MERCY FOR WHICH YOU HAVE OFTEN ASKED HIM, We never know the greatness of our mercies till we get into trouble and want them. God's mercies are so great that they cannot be magnified; they are so numerous they cannot be multiplied, so precious they cannot be over-estimated. I say, look back to-day upon these great mercies with which the Lord has favoured thee in answer to thy great desires, and wilt thou not say, "I love the Lord because He has heard my voice and my supplications"?

V. HOW TRIVIAL HAVE BEEN THE THINGS WHICH WE HAVE OFTEN TAKEN BEFORE GOD, AND YET HOW KINDLY HAS HE CONDESCENDED TO HEAR OUR PRAYERS. In looking back, my unbelief compels me to wonder at myself, that I should have prayed for such little things. My gratitude compels me to say, "I love the Lord, because He has heard those little prayers, and answered my little supplications, and made me blessed, even in little things which, after all, make up the life of man."

VI. Let me remind you of THE TIMELY ANSWERS WHICH GOD HAS GIVEN YOU TO YOUR PRAYERS, and this should compel you to love Him. God's answers have never come too soon nor yet too late. If the Lord had given you His blessing one day before it did come, it might have been a curse, and there have been times when if He had withheld it an hour longer it would have been quite useless, because it would have come too late.

VII. WILL YOU NOT LOVE THE LORD, WHEN YOU RECOLLECT THE SPECIAL AND GREAT INSTANCES OF HIS MERCY TO YOU? You have had seasons of special prayer and of special answer. What shall I say then? God has heard my voice in my prayer. The first lesson, then, is this — He shall hear my voice in my praise. If He heard me pray, He shall hear me sing; if He listened to me when the tear was in mine eye, He shall listen to me when my eye is sparkling with delight. My piety shall not be that of the dungeon and sick-bed; it shall be that also of deliverance and of health. Another lesson. Has God heard my voice? Then I will hear His voice. If He heard me, I will hear Him. Tell me, Lord, what wouldst Thou have Thy servant do, and I will do it. The last lesson is, Lord, hast Thou heard my voice? then I will tell others that Thou wilt hear their voice too.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

A prayer is an appeal from helplessness to power. No wonder that prayer in its prompting and incentiveness is always attributed to the Holy Spirit. David says, "He has heard my cry and my supplications." All the language is not on one side. I sent a letter to a certain city across the Atlantic, believing that the mail would carry my missive, that the British flag under which the mail ship sailed would protect her in safety across the Atlantic, and that thus my epistle would reach its destination. In due course a reply comes, showing that my expectations were fulfilled. You could not reason me out of my belief; you might go into discussion about the mighty leagues of ocean that separate Glasgow from Chicago, but you could not reason me out of my belief when I had that reply in my hand. There are men who as literally and as definitely have had a reply from God to their cry. They can say with David, "God has heard my voice and my supplication;" they have got the proof; they have received the reply.

(J. Robertson.)

"I love the Lord." Can you say that? There is a bell in Moscow that never was hung and never was rung. It is one of the largest bells in the world, but its clapper has never swung against its great echoing sides. There is many a human heart that was placed where it is to beat with love to God; but, like the bell, it has never been hung and never been rung. Dead, lost soul, your heart was made to love God. Will you let it lie there, as they let the Moscow bell lie in the courtyard amid the dust and rubbish and daily defilement of the palace? Would you not rather pray, and strive, and agonize that your heart should be hung, and that it should be rung in a melody of love to God?

(J. Robertson.)

People
Aaron, Psalmist
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Heathen, Nations, Wherefore
Outline
1. Because God is truly glorious
4. And idols are vanity
9. He exhorts to confidence in God
12. God is to be blessed for his blessing

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 115:2

     8702   agnosticism

Psalm 115:2-7

     1080   God, living

Psalm 115:2-8

     8780   materialism, and sin

Psalm 115:2-11

     8023   faith, necessity

Library
The Warning
"And when they had sung a hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives. And Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be offended: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered abroad. Howbeit, after I am raised up, I will go before you into Galilee. But Peter said unto Him, Although all shall be offended, yet will not I. And Jesus saith unto him, Verily I say unto thee, that thou today, even this night, before the cock crow twice, shalt deny me thrice. But he spake exceeding
G. A. Chadwick—The Gospel of St. Mark

Letter xxxiv. To Marcella.
In reply to a request from Marcella for information concerning two phrases in Ps. cxxvii. ("bread of sorrow," v. 2, and "children of the shaken off," A.V. "of the youth," v. 4). Jerome, after lamenting that Origen's notes on the psalm are no longer extant, gives the following explanations: The Hebrew phrase "bread of sorrow" is rendered by the LXX. "bread of idols"; by Aquila, "bread of troubles"; by Symmachus, "bread of misery." Theodotion follows the LXX. So does Origen's Fifth Version. The Sixth
St. Jerome—The Principal Works of St. Jerome

Christian Graces.
FAITH. FAITH! Peter saith, faith, in the very trial of it, is much more precious than gold that perisheth. If so, what is the worth or value that is in the grace itself? Faith is so great an artist in arguing and reasoning with the soul, that it will bring over the hardest heart that it hath to deal with. It will bring to my remembrance at once, both my vileness against God, and his goodness towards me; it will show me, that though I deserve not to breathe in the air, yet God will have me an heir
John Bunyan—The Riches of Bunyan

Impiety of Attributing a visible Form to God. --The Setting up of Idols a Defection from the True God.
1. God is opposed to idols, that all may know he is the only fit witness to himself. He expressly forbids any attempt to represent him by a bodily shape. 2. Reasons for this prohibition from Moses, Isaiah, and Paul. The complaint of a heathen. It should put the worshipers of idols to shame. 3. Consideration of an objection taken from various passages in Moses. The Cherubim and Seraphim show that images are not fit to represent divine mysteries. The Cherubim belonged to the tutelage of the Law. 4.
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Stedfastness in the Old Paths.
"Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls."--Jer. vi. 16. Reverence for the old paths is a chief Christian duty. We look to the future indeed with hope; yet this need not stand in the way of our dwelling on the past days of the Church with affection and deference. This is the feeling of our own Church, as continually expressed in the Prayer Book;--not to slight what has gone before,
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII

Messiah Derided Upon the Cross
All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head saying, He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. F allen man, though alienated from the life of God, and degraded with respect to many of his propensities and pursuits, to a level with the beasts that perish, is not wholly destitute of kind and compassionate feelings towards his fellow-creatures. While self-interest does not interfere, and the bitter passions
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

Triumph Over Death and the Grave
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin: and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. T he Christian soldier may with the greatest propriety, be said to war a good warfare (I Timothy 1:18) . He is engaged in a good cause. He fights under the eye of the Captain of his salvation. Though he be weak in himself, and though his enemies are many and mighty, he may do that which in other soldiers
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

Divine Support and Protection
[What shall we say then to these things?] If God be for us, who can be against us? T he passions of joy or grief, of admiration or gratitude, are moderate when we are able to find words which fully describe their emotions. When they rise very high, language is too faint to express them; and the person is either lost in silence, or feels something which, after his most laboured efforts, is too big for utterance. We may often observe the Apostle Paul under this difficulty, when attempting to excite
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

The Last Supper
189. On Thursday Jesus and his disciples returned to Jerusalem for the last time. Knowing the temper of the leaders, and the danger of arrest at any time, Jesus was particularly eager to eat the Passover with his disciples (Luke xxii. 15), and he sent two of them--Luke names them as Peter and John--to prepare for the supper. In a way which would give no information to such a one as Judas, he directed them carefully how to find the house where a friend would provide them the upper room that was needed
Rush Rhees—The Life of Jesus of Nazareth

Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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