Psalm 142:5 I cried to you, O LORD: I said, You are my refuge and my portion in the land of the living. Thou art my Refuge, my Portion in the land of the living. This apprehension of God's relations belongs to a man who was placed in distressing circumstances, which were all the more distressing because he looked this way and that for human helpers, and found none. It is not that, disappointed in man, the psalmist turned to God. It is that, having linked together God's help and man's, he has had to learn that there are times in life when a man must turn from the help of brother man, and use for his entire help his soul's rights in God. For the soul has rights in God which God will acknowledge. I. THE SOUL'S RIGHTS IN' GOD ARISING OUT OF ITS VERY BEING. We speak of man as a spark from God, the Eternal Fire; of man, the spiritual being, as made in God's image. The relation is absolute. In God we "live, and move, and have our being." If in a sense, man is a soul put forth from God in some sort of separateness, that they know it or not. II. THE SOUL'S RIGHTS IN GOD ARE RECOGNIZED IN THE DIVINE COVENANT. This psalmist speaks within the covenant, and bases his confidence on covenant pledges. It may seem as if the formal Abrahamic covenant concerned only a particular people, and pledged, on either side, merely material things. But we must always regard the covenant as representative of the spiritual covenant into which God enters with all men. It is picture-teaching of spiritual things. God makes covenant with souls, pledging himself to be, what they feel him to be, their "Refuge" and "Portion." Our rights in God are secured by his covenant. III. THE SOUL'S RIGHTS IN GOD ARE RECOGNIZED IN THE DIVINE REDEMPTION. It should never be lost from view that, however formal and outward was its setting, the redemption wrought by Christ was a spiritual redemption - a redemption of souls. It was really the response of Divine love to the soul's rights in God as its Refuge, when that soul had come into conditions of disaster and distress. Souls never can lose their rights in God. - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: I cried unto thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.WEB: I cried to you, Yahweh. I said, "You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living." |
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