Psalm 45:5 Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies; whereby the people fall under you. I. WHO ARE THE ENEMIES WITH WHOM THE SAVIOUR CARRIES ON A STRIFE OF MERCY in seeking to subdue them unto Himself? They are mankind at large, all men by nature. And every believer was once His enemy and the bond-servant of sin. To this point our view can never be too stedfastly or too intensely directed. For until we see the guilt, the shame, the destitution, the ingratitude, the misery, and (if God interfere not to save), the hopelessness of every natural man's rebellion against his Maker, and the suicidal hand with which, in this dreadful treason, he is striking at every interest of his own soul as the soldier of Satan, and the slave of sin, he can have no saving view of a Redeemer; he cannot know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge; he cannot be filled with all the fulness of God. II. AGAINST THESE ENEMIES WHAT ARE THE WEAPONS EMPLOYED, AND WITH WHAT SUCCESS? They are the arrows of God in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, sharp in the heart of the King's enemies, whereby the people fall under Him. They are so called from the suddenness, the secrecy and the swiftness of their motion. And every one of the arrows of Christ, piercing and penetrating as they all are, is taken from the same exhaustless quiver, brought by the victorious Lamb from heaven, wherewith to subdue His enemies. And whereof are they made? Feather, shaft and point, they are wholly and entirely love, pure, unimaginable, undeserved, unconditional, everlasting love. These arrows probe the wound that hath been slightly healed by the deceitfulness of sin, and probe it to the quick. They force the humbled transgressor toffee from himself and take refuge in the righteousness of Christ. Oh, it is a wonderful process, and as sure as it is wonderful, whereby that arrow of the Word, when it reaches a sinner, alters the whole mass of the mind's affections, that he can no more stay himself up in the chariot of his guilty battle against God, but is carried forth that he may be "dead indeed unto sin." If I should strike a rock of marble or adamant with an arrow, and see it cleft, and gushing out with water, I must needs imagine some wonderful and secret virtue to have wrought an effect so strange. Now, our hearts are of themselves harder than the nether millstone. When, therefore, the arrows of the love of Christ strike them so mightily, yet so tenderly, and transforms the soul into His nature, who can question whence it comes and where the glory ought to be? But, while there are these arrows of love, there are also arrows of wrath in a quiver of judgment for obdurate sinners. What these are may we never know. (J. P. Buddieom, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies; whereby the people fall under thee.WEB: Your arrows are sharp. The nations fall under you, with arrows in the heart of the king's enemies. |
    |