Psalm 82:6-7 I have said, You are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.… I. THE PICTURE. 1. Earthly greatness at its highest elevation. The persons addressed were the judges, rulers, princes of Israel, and they are entitled gods, sons of the Most High, as being, in the office they held, in the authority which clothed them, and in the powers they wielded, representatives of God among their brethren. The title bespeaks for them nothing of Divinity, or infallibility, or even personal goodness. It simply claims for their position authority and power as of God. 2. Earthly greatness in its vanity and failure. Each setting sun flames out in warning colours, that life's sunset is also at hand. Each autumn's decay, shedding leaves, and flowers, and fruit into a wintry grave, is a type to our saddened eye of the parallel scene, when all our honours shall be gathered into dust. Each night that receives us into its soft slumber, pictures the dreamless sleep that comes after the fatigue of life's battles and burdens. II. THE LESSONS. 1. The insignificance of all earthly distinctions. There is no sounder part of true wisdom than a just sense of the difference between the littleness of time and the magnitude of eternity. The deep, habitual sense of this difference is the necessary ballast of the ship that would safely navigate the perilous sea of life, swept by terrible tempests. 2. To cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils. What multitudes of the greatest have risen and fallen, and God's work has gone on as before. What a blow to the Church when Joseph, Moses, David, Paul, Luther died; yet the Church was blessed not only by their lives but by their deaths, as much by their deaths as by their lives. By the very force of affection with which the Church clung to them while living, was she constrained, when they died, to grasp with a mightier faith the living Redeemer. 3. To lead us to prepare for eternity — not only because we have no other time than the present should this be done, but because the only preparation is life-preparation. (J. Riddell.) Parallel Verses KJV: I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.WEB: I said, "You are gods, all of you are sons of the Most High. |
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