The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and His ears are inclined to their cry. Sermons
I. A GREAT GIFT. Speech is one of our highest endowments. It enables us to utter our thoughts and to converse one with another. Man's advancement in knowledge and virtue has mainly followed from his possessing this faculty. There have been many ingenious speculations as to how speech has been obtained, but it is enough for us to say that it is from God. When we see a dumb man, we may learn the worth from the want, and should bless God for his goodness in having given us this noble gift. II. A GREAT PERIL. The best things may be turned to bad uses. So with the tongue. If rightly used, it is a great blessing; if wrongly used, it is a great curse. "Evil" and "guile" are the common ways in which speech is abused, much to the hurt of the speaker and of the hearers. There is thus not only great waste, but manifold and great evils. "Life and death are in the power of the tongue" (Proverbs 18:21). III. A GREAT ACHIEVEMENT. It is possible to "keep" the tongue. To do this we must go back from the tongue to the heart (Proverbs 4:23). When the heart is right, the tongue will be right also (Matthew 12:33, 34). Such mastery can only be acquired by earnest effort and patience and loving contemplation of Christ. St. James says he who has attained to this rare power is a "perfect man" (James 3:5, 6). - W.F. The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are open unto their prayers. The countenance of. the Lord is against them that do evil. We all know well how much and often the Holy Scriptures speak of the blessed God, attributing to Him, under a figure, various human things, such as bodily members and organs, and mental feelings. It is an obvious caution, to warn people against understanding all these expressions literally; but it is a caution, one would think, not very necessary in these days. The opposite one, however, is needed, for in our excessive fears of corporeal conceptions of God, the thought of Him is becoming altogether vague and unreal. Our simplicity is our best wisdom, and we should think of God as He is vividly and simply and, as far as our powers can conceive of Him, truly set forth to us in Holy Scripture. The eye of God is, then, over the righteous to protect and comfort them, and His ear open to their prayers, to hear and answer them; while His countenance, not less all-seeing, is turned in displeasure and wrath upon those who do evil, so as to punish them with destruction. His eye is turned upon the good in love, and upon the bad in anger. Consider, then, ye who know well what it is to feel and love the sight of a parent's eye turned on you in approving affection, how God desires, by speaking so, to be regarded by you as looking upon you. Think how, when you have been trying to please your earthly parents, how, perhaps, when you have been trying to overcome some unkind or unworthy temper, some angry or sullen feeling, you have felt their eye turned upon you in tender and loving approbation, and have been encouraged to conquer the evil spirit who was assailing you. And God thus represents Himself to you, and bids you remember that His eye is over the righteous. But His countenance is against them that do evil. He seeth not less the sinners. His eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. Let none suppose that he shuns, or can shun, the eye of God by disregarding it. It is the folly of the foolish bird which shuts its own eyes, and then thinks itself unseen. I would I might, by God's grace, waken up in the hearts of some of you the thought of the eye of God; the thought of the ever-present, ever-wakeful, heart-searching, tender, paternal eye of God, which is over you His own redeemed children! () Homilist. I. THAT GOD IS SPECIALLY INTERESTED IN THE EXISTENCE OF MAN ON THIS EARTH (vers. 15, 16). 1. Man is His offspring. 2. Man is His suffering offspring. II. THAT GOD IS MAINLY CONCERNED WITH THE MORAL DISTINCTIONS OF MEN ON THIS EARTH. 1. Two classes of moral character are represented in the verses, and they are spoken of — (1)As "wicked," and "righteous."(2)As those that "trust in Him" and those that "hate the righteous."(3)As those that "do evil," and those that are "His servants." His servants are represented as broken in heart and contrite in spirit.2. He sees all the other distinctions amongst men, physical, intellectual, social, political, religious. But these moral distinctions interest Him most, they are more affecting to His heart, more vital to the happiness of His creatures, more fundamental to the weal of His universe. III. THAT GOD EVERMORE TREATS MEN ACCORDING TO THE MORAL CHARACTER WHICH THEY SUSTAIN ON THIS EARTH. 1. Look at His conduct towards the righteous. (1)He superintends them; His "eyes" and His "ears" are towards them. He keeps a vigilant watch over them.(2)He hears them. No mother's ears are half so quick to catch the cries of a suffering child as His ears to catch the cries of His afflicted people.(3)He is nigh them. Not in a mere local or physical sense, but in the sense of tenderest sympathy and regard.(4)He saves them. Deep, tender, and constant is His interest in them.2. Look at His conduct towards the wicked. (1)He is against them for their ruin (ver. 16).(2)He allows their sin to destroy them (ver. 21).() I. THE LOFTY AND PATIENT METHOD OF GOD IN GUIDING AND RULING MANKIND. The face of the Lord is against them that do evil; not the weight of His hand as yet. God gives to man a large liberty to do evil. In truth, we hardly realize how large and high is His method. We constantly expect that His hand of force will close upon us in some self-willed, sinful course which we are bent on pursuing; and if He fails to meet us, if the path seems open, if the sun shines, if the birds sing, and the fruits of pleasure hang pendent from the boughs, we are tempted to instruct our own consciences, and to say, God cannot be so sternly set against our self-willed course after all. It is truly fearful to realize the rude limits of our power to corrupt, to torment, to madden His children; to make the world a place of wailing, and life a bitter protest against the goodness and righteousness of His reign. How much are you adding daily to the pain and sorrow of the Creation? Do you never wonder that the iron hand of God's power does not close firmly round you, and make you feel that there are limits beyond which you shall not use your fearful prerogative of freedom — beyond which you shall not fill God's seed-field with the seeds of misery and death? But the hand is still open; still dropping, broadcast, blessings on your life. II. LET US STUDY THE FORMS IN WHICH THE FACE OF GOD IS AGAINST MAN'S EVIL, AND HOW IT BEARS UPON HIS LIFE. 1. There is the face of God in the daylight of Creation (Genesis 3:8-13). Shame, fear, and a great rout of base and slavish passions enter with sin, and drive out that child's frank joy and trust with which man was made and meant to look up to God. Nature is, in one sense, impassive. But the evil-doer finds an expression on her countenance, a frown on her brow, which startles and appals him. The flash of the lightning across the murderer's path reveals to him something more than the splendour of electric fire. The splendour departs — a dull, sad shadow settles over the world. The evil-doer loses all sense of a living presence in Nature. Life gets drained of its interest, the world of its beauty, the future of its hope. The face of God ceases to affright. It ceases even to appear behind the veil of the invisible. What does this mean? Is it that all barriers are withdrawn, and that the evil-doer has the universe and eternity before him in which to work out his malignant will? Nay, it means that the sinner has passed out of the light of God's countenance, out of the sphere of his freedom, into the grasp of God's terrible hand. This is what is meant by falling "into the hands of the living God." 2. The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, in the moral instincts, the moral judgments, of their fellows, and in the whole order of the human world. A man, let us say, walks about burdened with a great, guilty secret. What is it which makes him feel as if every man whom he meets was acquainted with it, and was trying to shame him? What but the face of God looking out on him through the face of man, His image? 3. The face of the Lord looks out on men through the various forms of the discipline of life. There is a striking instance of what I mean in 1 Kings 17:9-18. Day by day you are brought into contact with a mind and a will outside you, not only by what you see, but also by what you endure. 4. The face of the Lord looks out against them that do evil, through the gathering glooms of death. A man hardened in sin may walk at ease through nil the pathways of the world, crying, Where is the Lord? in impious defiance or presumptuous scorn. But to every man in death the face reappears — never to vanish again through eternity. Men who have been recovered from apparent death, and have gone through all the experience of dying, tell strange tales of how in one burning moment the buried past reappears. The whole scroll of life unrolled, clear and orderly, before them; every thought, passion, incident, experience, standing out with startling vividness before the mind's eyed and all in the clear daylight. No mist or confusion upon them; all risen again before the face of God. And that vision is for over. The "vain show" vanishes; the illusion is for ever ended. ()
People Abimelech, David, PsalmistPlaces JerusalemTopics Attentive, Cry, Ears, Listen, Open, Righteous, UprightOutline 1. David praises God, and exhorts others thereto by his experience
8. They are blessed who trust in God
11. He exhorts to the fear of God
15. The privileges of the righteous
Dictionary of Bible Themes Psalm 34:15 1210 God, human descriptions
1466 vision
5027 knowledge, God's of humanity
5148 ear
5149 eyes
5159 hearing
5480 protection
8158 righteousness, of believers
8491 watchfulness, divine
8617 prayer, effective Psalm 34:12-16 5705 inheritance, spiritual Psalm 34:15-16 1255 face of God
5150 face
6606 access to God Library Struggling and Seeking
'The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.'--PSALM xxxiv. 10. If we may trust the superscription of this psalm, it was written by David at one of the very darkest days of his wanderings, probably in the Cave of Adullam, where he had gathered around him a band of outlaws, and was living, to all appearance, a life uncommonly like that of a brigand chief, in the hills. One might have pardoned him if, at such a moment, some cloud of doubt or …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureNo Condemnation
'None of them that trust in Him shall be desolate.' --PSALM xxxiv. 22. These words are very inadequately represented in the translation of the Authorised Version. The Psalmist's closing declaration is something very much deeper than that they who trust in God 'shall not be desolate.' If you look at the previous clause, you will see that we must expect something more than such a particular blessing as that:--'The Lord redeemeth the soul of His servants.' It is a great drop from that thought, instead …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture The Encamping Angel
'The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them.'--PSALM xxxiv. 7. If we accept the statement in the superscription of this psalm, it dates from one of the darkest hours in David's life. His fortunes were never lower than when he fled from Gath, the city of Goliath, to Adullam. He never appears in a less noble light than when he feigned madness to avert the dangers which he might well dread there. How unlike the terror and self-degradation of the man who 'scrabbled …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Religion Pleasant to the Religious.
"O taste and see how gracious the Lord is; blessed is the man that trusteth in Him."--Psalm xxxiv. 8. You see by these words what love Almighty God has towards us, and what claims He has upon our love. He is the Most High, and All-Holy. He inhabiteth eternity: we are but worms compared with Him. He would not be less happy though He had never created us; He would not be less happy though we were all blotted out again from creation. But He is the God of love; He brought us all into existence, …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII Lions Lacking --But the Children Satisfied
RIGHT truly did Paul say, "Whereby he hath given unto us exceeding great and precious promises;" for surely this promise is exceeding great indeed. In the entire compass of God's holy word, there is not to be found a precious declaration which can excel this in sweetness; for how could God promise to use more than all things? how could even his infinite benevolence stretch the line of his grace farther than it hath gone in this verse of the psalm?--"They that seek the Lord shall not want any good …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 2: 1856 A Poor Man's Cry, and what came of It
On this occasion I want to speak of what happens to those who do return to God; because many have newly been brought, through mighty grace. Some of them I have seen; and I have rejoiced over them with exceeding great joy. They tell me that they did distinctly lay hold on eternal life last Sabbath day; and they are clear about what it means. They came out of darkness into his marvellous light; they knew it, and could not resist the impulse at once to tell those with whom they sat in the pews, that …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 37: 1891 Looking unto Jesus
"Till God in human flesh I see, My thoughts no comfort find,--" God shrouded and veiled in the manhood,--there we can with steady gaze behold him, for so he cometh down to us, and our poor finite intelligence can understand and lay hold upon him. I shall therefore use my text this morning, and I think very legitimately, in reference to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ--"They looked unto him, and were lightened;" for when we look at God, as revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord, and behold the Godhead …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 4: 1858 Seeking Richly Rewarded
"The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing."--Psalm 34:10. THE young lions are very strong; they are as yet in the freshness of their youth, and yet their strength does not always suffice to keep them supplied. The young lions are very crafty; they understand how to waylay their game and leap upon them with a sudden spring at unawares, and yet, with all their craftiness, they howl for hunger in the wood. The young lions are very bold and …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 60: 1914 Tender Mercies, on My Way
"I will bless the Lord at all times." -- Psalm 34:1. Tender mercies, on my way Falling softly like the dew, Sent me freshly every day, I will bless THE LORD for you. Though I have not all I would, Though to greater bliss I go, Every present gift of good To Eternal Love I owe. Source of all that comforts me, Well of joy for which I long, Let the song I sing to Thee Be an everlasting song. …
Miss A. L. Waring—Hymns and Meditations But God Wanted not Power to Make Man Such as that He Should Not...
16. But God wanted not power to make man such as that he should not be able to sin: but He chose rather to make him such, as that it should lie in his power [1859] to sin, if he would; not to sin, if he would not; forbidding the one, enjoining the other; that it might be to him first a good desert not to sin, and after a just reward not to be able to sin. For such also at the last will He makes His Saints, as to be without all power to sin. Such forsooth even now hath He His angels, whom in Him we …
St. Augustine—On Continence Letter xi (Circa A. D. 1120) the Abbot of Saint Nicasius at Rheims
The Abbot of Saint Nicasius at Rheims He consoles this abbot for the departure of the Monk Drogo and his transfer to another monastery, and exhorts him to patience. 1. How much I sympathize with your trouble only He knows who bore the griefs of all in His own body. How willingly would I advise you if I knew what to say, or help you if I were able, as efficaciously as I would wish that He who knows and can do all things should advise and assist me in all my necessities. If brother Drogo had consulted …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux Draw Me, we Will Run after Thee to the Odor of Thine Ointments.
This young lover prays the Bridegroom to draw her by the centre of her soul, as if she were not satisfied with the sweetness of the balsam poured forth among her powers; for she already comprehends, through the grace of the Bridegroom, who continually draws her with more and more force, that there is an enjoyment of Himself more noble and more intimate than that which she at present shares. This is what gives rise to her present request. Draw me, says she, into the most interior chambers of my soul, …
Madame Guyon—Song of Songs of Solomon Fourth Sunday after Easter Second Sermon.
Text: James 1, 16-21. 16 Be not deceived, my beloved brethren. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning. 18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. 19 Ye know this, my beloved brethren. But let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: 20 for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. II Biographical Preface.
"The Church! Am I asked again, What is the Church? The ploughman at his daily toil--the workman who plies the shuttle--the merchant in his counting-house--the scholar in his study--the lawyer in the courts of justice--the senator in the hall of legislature--the monarch on his throne--these, as well as the clergymen in the works of the material building which is consecrated to the honour of God--these constitute the Church. The Church is the whole congregation of faithful men, in which the pure word …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety The Dead Christ
It was not usual to remove bodies from the cross immediately after their death. They were allowed to hang, exposed to the weather, till they rotted and fell to pieces; or they might be torn by birds or beasts; and at last a fire was perhaps kindled beneath the cross to rid the place of the remains. Such was the Roman custom; but among the Jews there was more scrupulosity. In their law there stood this provision: "If a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and thou hang …
James Stalker—The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ The Abbots Euroul and Loumon.
To the examples already given in the previous biographies, of the power which religion exercised over the rough and savage mind, we may add the following. The abbot Ebrolf (Euroul) had settled with his monks in a thick forest, infested by wild beasts and robbers. One of the robbers came to them, and, struck with reverence at their aspect, said to them: "Ye have chosen no fit dwelling for you here. The inhabitants of this forest live by plunder, and will not tolerate any one amongst them who maintains …
Augustus Neander—Light in the Dark Places Letter Xli to Thomas of St. Omer, after He had Broken his Promise of Adopting a Change of Life.
To Thomas of St. Omer, After He Had Broken His Promise of Adopting a Change of Life. He urges him to leave his studies and enter religion, and sets before him the miserable end of Thomas of Beverley. To his dearly beloved son, Thomas, Brother Bernard, called Abbot of Clairvaux, that he may walk in the fear of the Lord. 1. You do well in acknowledging the debt of your promise, and in not denying your guilt in deferring its performance. But I beg you not to think simply of what you promised, but to …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux Letter Xlix to Romanus, Sub-Deacon of the Roman Curia.
To Romanus, Sub-Deacon of the Roman Curia. He urges upon him the proposal of the religious life, recalling the thought of death. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, to his dear Romanus, as to his friend. MY DEAREST FRIEND, How good you are to me in renewing by a letter the sweet recollection of yourself and in excusing my tiresome delay. It is not possible that any forgetfulness of your affection could ever invade the hearts of those who love you; but, I confess, I thought you had almost forgotten yourself …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux Bunsen's Biblical Researches.
When geologists began to ask whether changes in the earth's structure might be explained by causes still in operation, they did not disprove the possibility of great convulsions, but they lessened necessity for imagining them. So, if a theologian has his eyes opened to the Divine energy as continuous and omnipresent, he lessens the sharp contrast of epochs in Revelation, but need not assume that the stream has never varied in its flow. Devotion raises time present into the sacredness of the past; …
Frederick Temple—Essays and Reviews: The Education of the World Second Sunday after Easter
Text: First Peter 2, 20-25. 20 For what glory is it, if, when ye sin, and are buffeted for it, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye shall take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. 21 For hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow his steps: 22 who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: 23 who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, threatened not; but committed …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. II The Great Privilege of those that are Born of God
"Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin." 1 John 3:9. 1. It has been frequently supposed, that the being born of God was all one with the being justified; that the new birth and justification were only different expressions, denoting the same thing: It being certain, on the one hand, that whoever is justified is also born of God; and, on the other, that whoever is born of God is also justified; yea, that both these gifts of God are given to every believer in one and the same moment. In one …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions Fifth Lesson. Ask, and it Shall be Given You;
Ask, and it shall be given you; Or, The Certainty of the Answer to Prayer. Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened,'--Matt. vii. 7, 8. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss.'--Jas. iv. 3. OUR Lord returns here in the Sermon on the Mount a second time to speak of prayer. The first time He had spoken of the Father who is …
Andrew Murray—With Christ in the School of Prayer Cæsarius of Arles.
He was born in the district of Chalons-sur-Saone, A. D. 470. He seems to have been early awakened, by a pious education, to vital Christianity. When he was between seven and eight years old, it would often happen that he would give a portion of his clothes to the poor whom he met, and would say, when he came home, that he had been, constrained to do so. When yet a youth, he entered the celebrated convent on the island of Lerins, (Lerina,) in Provence, from which a spirit of deep and practical piety …
Augustus Neander—Light in the Dark Places Links Psalm 34:15 NIV
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