Psalm 17:15 As for me, I will behold your face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with your likeness. This Psalm is called a prayer, and how appropriately. It is such as comes only out of a sufferer's heart. We owe our whole salvation to Christ, but, secondarily, we recoil much through the sufferings of men. The world will never know, till its whole history is reviewed and all its mysteries explained, how much instruction, comfort, incitement have flowed from the trials and sufferings of this one man. In this respect David and Paul have done more for the race than perhaps any two men who ever lived. Their great souls were often and heavily pressed by adversities and afflictions, in order that sweet wine of comfort and strength to others might flow from them. I. THIS VERSE IS THE MOUNT OF VICTORY. The dust of the battle plain is passed over, the perplexities of life left, and here we have a clear prevision of a perfect solution, and some realisation of it also. The verse does not refer exclusively to the awaking from the sleep of death at the resurrection; nor to the perfect moral likeness of God and the beatific vision which we shall then enjoy. This is not the first interpretation that suggests itself, and ought not, however true, to be taken as its exclusive meaning. II. WHAT, THEN, IS THE CASE? The nature of it is sounded out in the very first words of the Psalm. "Hear the right, O Lord!" It is a ease of conflict as between him and other men. It is the great struggle of this life in which many are engaged; in which, if we judge simply by outward appearances, some gain a very considerable and striking advantage over others. They seem to have the best of it. To David the conflict at this time was hot and searching, with a great deal of personality in it. He speaks of "the wicked that oppress", of "deadly enemies compassing him about"; of men who "spoke proudly with their mouth"; of men "enclosed in their own fat" — so well fed, so prosperous, so like prize men were they; — of others "lurking like the young lion in secret places, greedy for the prey" — ready to grasp advantage ready to spring on him with their teeth. Then he describes their character generally, in the fourteenth verse, in language which applies to one age almost as much as to another. He calls them "men of the world, which have their portion in this life: whose belly is filled with hid treasure" — with the things they gather, and hoard, and store away. Men, too, who keep and bequeath to their children what they have gathered. These were the men against whom David felt himself striving; he felt that if they were right and happy, he must be wrong and miserable, and vice versa. But he was quite sure that he was right and not they, and that their misery was coming. Hence he says, "As for me, I shall be satisfied," etc. He would awake day by day, when the present sorrow had passed, as he knew it would, to see God's beautiful likeness and to have it in a measure in himself. With this he would be satisfied. This would be victory even now. To be made and kept righteous, to see God in my life, His face in my prayers, and to watch His image forming in my soul: this is to win the battle. I will complain no more! I am satisfied! Now, this is just — III. THE JUDGMENT WE OUGHT TO FORM IN OUR OWN CASE. It is a question always on trial, and always coming to some settlement — How is the best of life to be found? How shall we taste the sweetness, and gather the flower, and wear the crown, and say with joy, self-respect, and full conviction, "This it is to be a man"? Here, on the one hand, are "the men of the world." David tells us, and we know, what they are in their aims, motives, and ways, and in their successes. They get wealth, position, name, influence, and some of them a considerable measure of low happiness and contentment. See, this is the man, coming out of his chamber in the morning after sound sleep, radiant and healthy. And these are his children, to not one of whom he has ever named seriously the name of God, but to each of whom he will probably leave a good deal of money. And these are his gardens and parks, fair to the eye, and fruitful in their season. And this is his chariot, with the swift horses to bear him to the city. And in the city, when he comes, see how he is received, and what a power he is! How with his pen he can remove ships to the far ocean, and open railways on the land! And he can speak, and "make the worse appear the better reason"; and, as with magician's wand, raise success out of failure itself. Now take a simple Christian man, who just has enough and little over, who has no name in the public, who is known but to a small circle, who can cheer a fellow pilgrim here and there, and offer a prayer at a sick bed. How small he seems in the common estimation beside this great "man of the world." "The simple man is very well in his own place and way, and it is a good thing for him that he has the consolations of religion and the hopes of the future life to cheer him amid the struggles and hardships of his lot. But it cannot he said that his lot, even with these consolations, is at all to be compared with that of the other man in this life. After this life is over his lot will be better, but here it is worse." "No," says the text; "it is better now, and here. He is the great man who is good. He is the happy man who sees the face of God. He is the noble man who strives after righteousness, and who satisfies himself with the Divine likeness in his soul." IV. IT CONCERNS US MUCH TO GET AND KEEP THIS JUDGMENT OF THINGS. It needs an effort. It is an advanced lesson in Christian living. People stop short of it, and many miss it habitually. As when they conjecture that worldly men have a great deal of inward misery which they never tell — fear, guilt, and apprehension of danger haunting them like ghosts. Now, this may be true of some, but certainly not of all, nor most. They are well satisfied, and have no misgivings. But what then? Are they who are thus satisfied better off than the devout, struggling, praying servant of God? How mean of us to think so. In reality there is no comparison between the two. The tried Christian in full view of the prosperous and happy man of the world can say, "As for me, I behold Thy thee in righteousness I am satisfied with Thy likeness." Then, again, we say that "compensation is coming — that the next life will rectify all." That also is true. But that is not "the present truth." The present truth is, that we have the advantage now; that we do not need to wait for the compensation; that godliness is better than ungodliness all the world over; that the face of God shining down upon a man is the supreme felicity and the last ideal; and that to awake morning by morning and realise the growing likeness of God in our spirits is joy like that of heaven. But if a man send his heart hankering after the joys of a life to come because he thinks he has not his due here, and that then and there it will be made up to him, what is this but worldliness after all? But if, on the other hand, any man loves the light of God's face more than every visible creature and thing, and strives after His righteousness by the aids of His grace, and puts on His likeness as dress and beauty, and "awakes in it now and again to his thankful joy and satisfaction, saying, "This it is to live! let this blessed experience grow in me until it blooms and brightens into heaven" — then he may take a text like tiffs and follow its most spiritual suggestions, and lift it to its last and highest applications, make it speak the resurrection from the dead, the appearance in heaven, the immortal life. (Anon.) Parallel Verses KJV: As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. |
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