Hallelujah, for the LORD is good; sing praises to His name, for it is lovely. Sermons
I. THE PLEASANTNESS OF THE DIVINE TAME, BECAUSE OF WHAT IT RECALLS. There is a whole history of Divine dealings embodied in the Name. Illustrate from the way in which some special intervention of God was put into a special form of the Divine Name, such as Jehovah-jireh, Jehovah-nissi, Jehovah-tsidkenu, etc. The whole story of the Divine patience, intervention, and redemption is gathered up into the general name Jehovah, and is recalled by it. So the spiritual redemption is recalled by the name given to God manifest in the flesh - Jehovah-Jesus, Jehovah-Emmanuel. How pleasant the names which recall such gracious things! II. THE PLEASANTNESS OF THE DIVINE NAME BECAUSE OF WHAT IT CONTAINS. It is familiar to point out that a name embodies and expresses the attributes or characteristics of a person. The early Bible names have distinct meanings; they describe persons. The Divine Name is lovely because it describes our ideal of everything true, pure, kind, gracious, wise. It describes him who is the "chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely." The satisfaction and rest of the human heart cannot come only out of what God says, or out of what God does; it comes out of what God is; and what God is is embodied in his Name. III. THE PLEASANTNESS OF THE DIVINE NAME BECAUSE OF WHAT IT SUGGESTS OR ASSURES. When we have absolute confidence in a person, and seal that confidence by fixing our own name for him, all our future relations with that person are guaranteed. So the name Jehovah (Yehweh), "I am that I am," seals our absolute confidence in God, and suggests entire trust in him, and the certainty of Divine help and blessing in all that may unfold before us. He is the "same yesterday, and today, and for ever.' - R.T.
Blessed be the Lord out of Zion. I. THE PSALMIST'S EXPRESSIONS OF THANKFULNESS.1. We are taught by the whole of this psalm that these expressions spring from a grateful memory. Everywhere around him he beholds some memorial of the Divine goodness, some landmark of the ancient inheritance of his fathers, some footprint of the Divine mercy and power, which has lingered on from generation to generation, through calms and storms, judgments and blessings. And surely we also can recall the past, with its evidences of God's love and pity. 2. The expressions of thankfulness, observe, are specially appropriate to the Church in her present state of trial. It is "out of Zion" the voice of blessing is to go up to heaven. It is in our gatherings on the Sabbath that the heart is to give free scope to its grateful memories and feelings. The Church of God is still in the wilderness; but though in the wilderness, battling with wrong, and with the visible and invisible enemies of her path, still she is able to raise the anthem — "Blessed be the Lord out of Zion, which dwelleth at Jerusalem." II. THE REASONABLENESS OF THIS THANKFULNESS. 1. This might be urged from the Divine Presence of "the Lord, which dwelleth at Jerusalem." It was the fact of this recognized Presence, this "Shield," this "Refuge," this "Strength," which gave the deep, full impulse to the thankfulness of the Jewish heart; so should it act with us. There is no comfort so great and so lasting to a right. minded Christian man as the consciousness of the Almighty Presence. 2. The reasonableness of thanksgiving arises, too, not only from a sense of duty, and of manifold blessings bestowed from day to day, but also from the gracious truth that God's dwelling is to be found on earth; that He has not deserted it, nor given it over to destruction. And the fact that this meaning is conveyed to us by the naming of Jerusalem is very certain. Thus we are not directed to look for the Divine Presence out of our own spheres of existence, far away beyond the limits of our comprehension, but to look for it at our very doors, even within our own hearts. Is not this a cause of thankfulness? 3. In the fact of God's dwelling at Jerusalem we find another reason for thankfulness in the form of His dwelling, namely, the symbol of "the Shekinah," the visible glory between "the wings of the cherubim overshadowing the mercy-seat." Thus, in the presence of Christ, our God and Saviour, we have a protection, a shelter, and a security against danger. (W. D. Horwood.). O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good. Homilist. This is a reason for praising Him —I. IN THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE (vers. 1-9). When the grandeur of nature overawes you, when its terrific phenomena, thunders, earthquakes, volcanoes seem to overwhelm you, still praise Him. There is goodness in all. II. IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND (vers. 10-26). 1. In the deliverance of His people (vers. 10-16). 2. In the destruction of despots (vers. 17-22). 3. In His regard for all (vers. 23-26). All men have enemies, foes to their virtues, their interest, their happiness. He delivers them. All men require nourishment. They live by the appropriation of the fruits of the earth. He "giveth food to all flesh." His "mercy endureth for ever," and thus should we praise Him in all. (Homilist.) I. A SONG. 1. For all singers. Let young and old, rich and poor, instructed and ignorant, saved and unsaved, take part in it. Let us bless God for the eyes with which we behold the sun, for the health and strength to walk abroad in the sunlight; let us praise Him for the mercies which are new every morning, for the bread we eat; let us bless Him that we are not deprived of our reason, or stretched upon the bed of languishing; let us praise Him that we are not cast out among the hopeless, or confined amongst the guilty; let us thank Him for liberty, for friends; let us praise Him, in fact, for everything which we receive from His bounteous hand, for we deserve little, and yet are most plenteously endowed. 2. But the sweetest and the loudest note in the chorus must always be reserved for those who sing of redeeming love (vers. 10-12). Even now by faith we wave the palm branch and wrap ourselves about with the fair white linen which is to be our everlasting array, and shall we not this day give thanks to the name of the Lord whose redeeming "mercy endureth for ever"? 3. Further on our poet invites the experienced believer to join in the psalm (vers. 16-22). Just as some among us, whose voices are deep, can take the bass parts of the tune, so the educated saint, who has been for years in the ways of the Lord, can throw a force and a weight into the song which no other can contribute. II. A SOLACE. We have many troubles, and we need comfort; God is willing that we should be comforted. 1. I shall use the text as a solace to the past. The year is all but gone. Have we not found, up till now, that His mercy has endured for ever? 2. Our text is also a very sweet consolation as to the present. Have we at this moment a sense of present sin? Then, "His mercy endureth for ever." 3. As to the future. Ah! we are poor fools when we begin to deal with the future. It is a sea which we are not called upon to navigate. The present is the whole of life, for when we enter into the future, it is the present. When these fingers cannot perform their daily work, when my brow is wrinkled, and I can scarcely totter to my toil, what shall I do?" Ah! "His mercy endureth for ever." III. A SERMON. "His mercy endureth for ever." Then — 1. Let our mercy endure. 2. Let us learn the duty of hoping for everybody. 3. See the duty of hoping for yourself. IV. A SUMMONS. "His mercy endureth for ever." 1. Is not that a most loving and tender summons to the wandering child to return to his Father? to the backsliding professor to approach his God? to the chief of sinners to humble himself before the mercy-seat? There is mercy — seek it. There is mercy in Jesus — believe in Him. 2. Believers, the summons is also meant for you. It says this, "His mercy endureth for ever"; therefore let your love to souls continue; let your labour for conversion abide; let your generosity to God's cause abound; let your endeavours to extend the kingdom of Christ endure evermore. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) I. THE DUTY, It implies —1. A grateful sense of the Divine benefits. Here the duty begins, though it ends not here; in acts of the mind, in attentive meditations on the loving. kindness of God, and lively warm affections produced and cherished by these meditations. 2. A suitable expression of gratitude. The heart will awaken the tongue, and the affections of the inner man direct and influence the actions of the outward. II. THE PERSONS CALLED UPON. 1. The whole world of mankind are by the psalmist invited to pay their common tribute of praise to their supreme and universal Lord; even all the nations of this widespread and many-peopled earth, by whatever name, or language, or religion they are distinguished; seeing how much soever they differ in these and other respects, they all partake of the light of reason, which discovers a God to them, a first and most perfect Being, and directs them to make Him the universal object of their worship, and trust, and obedience. 2. The Church of God is more immediately and expressly spoken to. 3. All those are particularly called upon to give thanks who have received any fresh or remarkable instances of the Divine favour and interposition on their behalf; such as have been prospered in their designs, and perhaps beyond their own expectations; or have been happily disappointed (for frequent experience shows there are such things as happy disappointments), have had light and comfort in a day of trouble; succour in threatening dangers and temptations; have been raised up from beds of sickness, or blessed with extraordinary measures of health; have had considerable turns in their lives, and seen the hand of God guiding and overruling events to their good. III. THE REASON OR FOUNDATION OF IT HERES ASSIGNED. 1. Men should give thanks unto the Lord, because He is good. Other perfections challenge our reverence, and fear, and admiration; this demands our gratitude. 2. Men should give thanks unto the Lord, because His mercy endureth for ever. This may be understood — (1) (2) (3) 1. Does religion invite and oblige us to give thanks unto the Lord, because He is good? and does a great part of religion consist in the duty of thanksgiving rightly performed? then, certainly, religion can neither be an unreasonable nor a tiresome service. 2. Since the mercy of the Lord endureth for ever, let us resolve that we will serve, and praise, and trust in Him for ever. (H. Bonar, D. D.) 1. Goodness is the perfection of things for which they are desirable; perfection imports freedom from all defects, and fulness of all excellences, and is chiefly seen in the being, working, end of things; that which hath the noblest being, and therefore end, and therefore operations, is ever best and most desirable; desire is the reaching of the soul after that that likes us, because it is like us. Now the all-sufficient God is His own Being, His own end, His own act, or rule in action; yea, He is the Author of all good, the end and desire of all things (in natural respects), and therefore the perfection of all, and so all perfection and goodness. 2. God is — (1) (2) (3) (4) 1. God is good, let us put it to good use; first, for humbling, see what we were once, good; for of goodness can come nothing but goodness; secondly, what we are now by nature, bad; for first, we are sunk as far from God as hell is from heaven. 2. See what we should be, good; goodness is ever admirable, and therefore (saith the philosopher) imitable. Now, Psalm 119:68 tells us that God is good, and doth good, and He is our copy and rule. First, therefore, we must be good, and then do good; first the sap must be good, and then the fruit, for as things be, so they work. II. GOD'S MERCY. 1. It is everlasting.(1) His essential mercy is everlastingness itself; for it is Himself, and God hath not, but is, things. He is beginning, end, being, and that which is of Himself, and ever Himself, is eternity itself.(2) His relative mercy (which respects us, and makes impression on us) is everlasting too, in a sense; for the creatures, ever since they had being in Him, or existence in their natural causes, did ever, and ever will, need mercy, either preserving or conserving. 2. Reasons.(1) From God's nature. He is good. Mercy pleaseth Him. First, it is no trouble for Him to exercise mercy. Secondly, it is His delight; we are never weary of receiving, therefore He cannot be of giving; for as it is a more blessed thing to give than to receive, so God takes more content in the one than we in the other.(2) From His unchangeable word and covenant (Isaiah 54:10).(3) From our need; every creature is compounded of perfection and imperfection; the first is the ground, the second is the object of mercy. Uses — 1. Dwell upon the mercy of God. 2. Put it to use. 3. Be ye merciful, as He is — to men's souls, bodies, estates, names. (R. Harris, D. D.) 1050 God, goodness of 7135 Israel, people of God From Kadesh to the Death of Moses. Excursus on the Present Teaching of the Latin and Greek Churches on the Subject. Notes on the First Century: Christ's Kingly Office Introduction. Chapter i. --The Life and Writings of St. Hilary of Poitiers. Psalms |
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