Rest in God alone, O my soul, for my hope comes from Him. Sermons
It includes two things. I. AN EXPRESSION OF PERSONAL CONFIDENCE IN GOD. Some trust in themselves; others in their fellow men; others, in the laws of nature. All this is so far good. It is well to be self-reliant. It is well to take advantage of the wisdom and help of others. It is well to act in the line of law, and in dependence upon the settled order of things with which we are connected. But there is something higher and better. The true way is to trust in God. Trust in God puts things in their right places; inspires courage and fortitude; ennobles and satisfies our whole being (vers. 5-7). II. AN EARNEST EXHORTATION TO ALL MEN TO PUT THEIR TRUST IN GOD. (Vers. 8-12.) All men have their trials. There will come times when they are troubled and perplexed, when they must look out of themselves anxiously for help. They are tempted. They are in danger of putting their trust in objects that are vain and worthless. If disappointed, they are apt to get soured and hardened in sin. The remedy counselled is twofold. 1. Trust. God is the true and only Being worthy of supreme trust. There is everything in him to inspire confidence and hope. "At all times." In the darkness and in the light, in adversity as won as prosperity; when he hides his face as when he makes his countenance to shine upon us. 2. Prayer. We are always free to come to God. We may tell him all that is in our hearts. What a joy in this trust! What a comfort in this unbosoming of ourselves! God will not only hear, but have pity. He will not only answer, but magnify his "power" and his "mercy" in our deliverance. Who so fit to give this counsel - as to trust and prayer - as the man who is speaking from the depths of his own experience, and from the abiding convictions of his own heart (2 Corinthians 4:13; 1 John 1:1-3)! - W.F. My soul, wait thou only upon God. The text applies to every believer. I. CONSIDER WHAT IT IS TO WAIT UPON GOD. It is the act of the soul. Here, the soul means the whole man. II. IT IS A WAITING LIKE THAT OF A SERVANT UPON HIS MASTER. III. IT EXCLUDES ALL OTHER WAITING: "wait thou only upon God." IV. IT IS AN ACT OF SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE. No man waits upon God until he knows God. V. OF CHILDLIKE TRUST. VI. THE MOTIVE OF ALL THIS — "my expectation is from Him." It is a great expectation: of guidance now, of eternal life with Christ hereafter. And it is from God,. derived from, warranted by, established in God. And all on account of the redemption which is in Christ. () "My soul!" Here is a man communing with his own soul! He is deliberately addressing himself, and calling himself to attention. He is of set purpose breaking up his own drowsiness and indifference, and calling himself to a fruitful vigilance. There is nothing like the deliberate exercise of a power for making it spontaneously active. We must challenge our own souls, and rouse them to the contemplation of the things of God. "My soul! look upon this, and look long!" But let us see to it that when we do incite the attention of our spirits we give them something worthy to contemplate. Here the psalmist calls upon his soul to contemplate the manifold glory of God. Let us gaze at one or two aspects of the inspiring vision. "He only is my rock." Here is one of the figures in which the psalmist expresses his conception of the ministry of his God. "My rock!" The figure is literally suggestive of an enclosure of rock, a cave, a hiding-place. Perhaps there is no experience in human life which more perfectly develops the thought of the psalmist than the guardianship offered by a mother to her baby-child when the little one is just learning to walk. The mother literally encircles the child with protection, spreading out her arms into almost a complete ring, so that in whatever way the child may happen to stumble she falls into the waiting ministry of love. Such is the idea of "besetment" which lies in this familiar word "rock." It is a strong enclosure, an invincible ring, a grand besetment within which we move in restful security. "He is my salvation." Then He not only shields me, but strengthens me! Salvation implies more than convalescence, it denotes health. It is vastly more than redemption from sin; it is redemption from infirmity. It offers no mediocrity; its goal is spiritual prosperity and abundance. This promise of health we have in God too. He accepts us in our disease; He pledges His name to absolute health. "Having loved His own, He loved them unto the end." "He is my defence." The psalmist is multiplying his figures that he may the better bring out the riches of his conception. "Defence is suggestive of loftiness, of inaccessibility. It denotes the summit of some stupendous, outjutting, precipitous crag! It signifies such a place as where the eagle makes its nest, far beyond the prowlings of the marauders, away in the dizzy heights which mischief cannot scale. God is my defence! He lifts me away into the security of inaccessible heights. My safety is in my salvation. Purity is found in the altitudes. In these three words the psalmist expresses something of his thought of the all-enveloping anal protecting presence of God. He is "my rock," "my salvation," "my defence." What then shall be the attitude of the soul towards this God? "My soul, wait — be thou silent unto God." The spirit of patience is to be hushed and subdued. Our own clamorous wills are to be checked. The perilous heat is to be cooled. We are to linger before God in composure, in tranquillity. We are to be unruffled. "One evening," says Frances Ridley Havergal, "after a relapse, I longed so much to be able to pray, but found I was too weak for the least effort of thought, and I only looked up and said, 'Lord Jesus, I am so tired,' and then He brought to my mind 'Rest in the Lord,' and its lovely marginal rendering, 'Be silent to the Lord,' and so I was just silent to Him, and He seemed to overflow me with perfect peace in the sense of His own perfect love." "My expectation is from Him." The word translated "expectation" might also be translated "line" or "cord." "The line of scarlet thread." The line of all my hope stretches away to Him, and from Him back to me! The psalmist declares that however circumstances may vary, the cord of his hope binds him to the Lord. Ever and every. where there is the outstretched line! "My line is from Him." Whether he was in trouble or in joy, in prosperity or adversity, on whatever part of the varying shoreline he stood, there was the golden track between him and his God. "Thine expectation shall not be cut off;" the line shall never be broken. "I shall not be moved." Of course not! A man whose conception of God is that of "Rock," "Salvation," and "Defence," and who is "silent unto Him," and is bound to Him by the golden "cord" of hope, cannot be moved. But mark how the psalmist's confidence has grown by the exercise of contemplation. In the outset of the psalm his spirit was a little tremulous and uncertain. "I shall not be greatly moved." But now the qualifying adverb is gone, the tremulousness has vanished, and he speaks in unshaken confidence and trust, "I shall not be moved." () I. THE SOUL IS OUR CHIEF CONCERNMENT. The body of man has a value peculiarly its own, yet the soul is incomparably more precious. The body looks down and searches the ground for its delights; the soul looks up and culls treasures from the realms beyond the stars. Its home is on high; it is destined to soar. 1. The soul has kinship with God. 2. The soul has large capacities. 3. The soul has the possibility of endless life. II. THE SOUL IS FULL OF NEED. 1. This is a patent fact. Can the tree flourish without its root? Can a house stand without a foundation? Can a babe prosper without its mother? Nor can man without God. 2. We need Divine instruction. The first cry of the soul is for light. 3. We need God's life within. Penitence is budding life; prayer is life; pardon is life; righteousness is life; sonship in God's household is life; hope of heaven is life. "He that hath the Son hath life." III. THE SOURCE OF REAL GOOD — GOD. This is a vital discovery; for there is a sad tendency to trust in anything rather than in God. But here we have — 1. Great resources. He who created out of nothing this vast universe can as easily create more. Can we hold the Atlantic in the palm of our hand? Neither can we measure the resources of God. 2. Great promises, God's promises are the forthputtings of Himself. They are God's character transposed into words. What magnificent pledges have we from God! "I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people; My covenant with them will I not break; With that man will I dwell, who is of an humble and a contrite heart;... Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it." 3. Great provisions. Everything is laid under tribute to serve redeemed men, viz. nature, providence, human history, angels, suffering, death, the cross of Jesus Christ. IV. THE CHANNEL OF BLESSING, viz. waiting upon God. 1. This implies faith. In every transaction of daily life we exercise faith. We put our faith in men, though they have often deceived us. We put our faith in the processes of nature — in the revolutions of the seasons, in the stability of this very unstable globe. Shall we not much more put our faith in the everlasting God? 2. Waiting implies submission. "To wait" means that I defer to the good pleasure of God. Though He tarry, I will wait for Him. My range of vision is very narrow. His eye sweeps the universe. My idea of what is best is very imperfect; His idea is perfect. God is my King — my gracious Master; therefore I will "wait." 3. Waiting means prayer. It is not essential that there should be words, though words are helpful to ourselves. The mightiest prayer is silent, — the outgoing of unconquerable desire. () Pulpit Treasury. I. EXHORTATION — "wait." It is easier for some to fret and fume. Waiting is a lesson taught in the school of experience. But we are often like children scratching in their gardens to see if the seeds sown yesterday are coming up.II. DEFINITION — "upon God." To some, waiting is sitting with folded hands. This is not waiting upon God. In this, courage, resolution and other manly qualities are demanded — patient, prayerful use of moans. III. LIMITATION — "only." Only? yes, only! This is a limitation indeed. .Is it not written, "It is better to trust in the Lord than put confidence in princes"? Also, "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no salvation," and again, "Thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man," etc. IV. ILLUMINATION — "Expectation." If the picture has been grey or dark hero is illumination. This may appear mercenary. Mercenary? Listen, was Moses mercenary? "He had respect unto the recompense of reward — he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt." Remember Him also, who for "the joy that was set before Him endured the cross," V. APPLICATION — "my soul," "thou," "my": this application is personal. This is the only fitting application, "My soul, wait thou only upon God," etc. () My expectation is from Him There is nothing that fills life with such joy and rest as expectation! It is the "beyond" of human history, and no landscape is beautiful without perspective. David's light was dim, but there was a "beyond" in his life. So with Isaiah. But it was Christ that most of all kindled this expectation. Now, concerning it, note —I. IT WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED. II. IT WILL NOT BE ALTOGETHER DEFINED. III. IT WILL NOT INJURE DUTY. Secularists say it will and does. But what would the present life become were there no expectation of a future? IV. IT WILL NOT DIE OUT. Man cannot else live. We have in Christ the earnest of it. ()
People David, Jeduthun, PsalmistPlaces JerusalemTopics Alone, Expectation, Faith, Hope, O, Peacefully, Rest, Silence, Silent, Soul, Stillness, Wait, WaitsOutline 1. David, professing his confidence in God, discourages his enemies
5. In the same confidence he encourages the godly
9. No trust is to be put in worldly things
11. Power and mercy belong to God
Dictionary of Bible Themes Psalm 62:5 5562 suffering, innocent
8463 priority, of faith, hope and love
9612 hope, in God Psalm 62:5-8 5058 rest, spiritual
8215 confidence, results Library April 3. "My Expectation is from Him" (Ps. Lxii. 5).
"My expectation is from Him" (Ps. lxii. 5). When we believe for a blessing, we must take the attitude of faith, and begin to act and pray as if we had our blessing. We must treat God as if He had given us our request. We must lean our weight over upon Him for the thing that we have claimed, and just take it for granted that He gives it, and is going to continue to give it. This is the attitude of trust. When the wife is married, she at once falls into a new attitude, and acts in accordance with the …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth Waiting Only Upon God
"He everywhere hath sway, And all things serve his might; His every act pure blessing is, His path unsullied light." Oh! that we had grace to carry out the text in that sense of it! It is a hard matter to be calm in the day of trouble; but it is a high exercise of divine grace when we can stand unmoved in the day of adversity, and feel that "Should the earth's old pillars shake, And all the wheels of nature break, Our stedfast souls should hear no more Than solid rocks when billows roar." That is …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 3: 1857 Justice.
Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy; for thou renderest to every man according to his work.--Psalm lxii. 12. Some of the translators make it kindness and goodness; but I presume there is no real difference among them as to the character of the word which here, in the English Bible, is translated mercy. The religious mind, however, educated upon the theories yet prevailing in the so-called religious world, must here recognize a departure from the presentation to which they have been accustomed: …
George MacDonald—Unspoken Sermons Forgiveness and Retribution.
"Thou renderest to every man according to his work."--Psalms lxii: 12. "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."--II Cor. v: 10. Forgiveness and Retribution. I can imagine some one saying, "I attend church, and have heard that if we confess our sin, God will forgive us; now I hear that I must reap the same kind of seed that I have sown. How can I harmonize the …
Dwight L. Moody—Sowing and Reaping Waiting on God
Psalms 62:5.--My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from Him. The solemn question comes to us, "Is the God I have, a God that is to me above all circumstances, nearer to me than any circumstance can be?" Brother, have you learned to live your life having God so really with you every moment, that in circumstances the most difficult He is always more present and nearer than anything around you? All our knowledge of God's Word will help us very little, unless that comes to be the question …
Andrew Murray—The Master's Indwelling My High Tower
"He only is my rock and my salvation: He is my defence, I shall not be moved."--Ps. lxii. 6. Paul Gerhardt, 1676. tr., Emma Frances Bevan, 1899 Is God for me? I fear not, though all against me rise; I call on Christ my Saviour, the host of evil flies. My friend the Lord Almighty, and He who loves me, God, What enemy shall harm me, though coming as a flood? I know it, I believe it, I say it fearlessly, That God, the Highest, Mightiest, for ever loveth me; At all times, in all places, He standeth …
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen and Others (Second Series) Remembrance and Resolution. --Ps. Lxii.
Remembrance and Resolution.--Ps. lxii. O God! Thou art my God alone; Early to Thee my soul shall cry, A pilgrim in a land unknown, A thirsty land whose Springs are dry. Oh! that it were as it hath been, When, praying in the holy place, Thy power and glory I have seen, And mark'd the footsteps of Thy grace! Yet through this rough and thorny maze, I follow hard on Thee, my God! Thine hand unseen upholds my ways, I safely tread where Thou hast trod. Thee, in the watches of the night, When I remember …
James Montgomery—Sacred Poems and Hymns Thou Shalt not Steal.
This Commandment also has a work, which embraces very many good works, and is opposed to many vices, and is called in German Mildigkeit, "benevolence;" which is a work ready to help and serve every one with one's goods. And it fights not only against theft and robbery, but against all stinting in temporal goods which men may practise toward one another: such as greed, usury, overcharging and plating wares that sell as solid, counterfeit wares, short measures and weights, and who could tell all the …
Dr. Martin Luther—A Treatise on Good Works The Heart of Man and the Heart of God
"Lord, teach us to pray."--Luke xi. 1. "Trust in Him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before Him: God is a refuge for us."--Ps. lxii. 8. EVER since the days of St. Augustine, it has been a proverb that God has made the heart of man for Himself, and that the heart of man finds no true rest till it finds its rest in God. But long before the days of St. Augustine, the Psalmist had said the same thing in the text. The heart of man, the Psalmist had said, is such that it can pour itself out …
Alexander Whyte—Lord Teach Us To Pray The Songs of the Fugitive.
The psalms which probably belong to the period of Absalom's rebellion correspond well with the impression of his spirit gathered from the historical books. Confidence in God, submission to His will, are strongly expressed in them, and we may almost discern a progress in the former respect as the rebellion grows. They flame brighter and brighter in the deepening darkness. From the lowest abyss the stars are seen most clearly. He is far more buoyant when he is an exile once more in the wilderness, …
Alexander Maclaren—The Life of David Nineteenth Day for the Holy Spirit on Christendom
WHAT TO PRAY.--For the Holy Spirit on Christendom "Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof."--2 TIM. iii. 5. "Thou hast a name that thou livest, and thou art dead."--REV. iii. 1. There are five hundred millions of nominal Christians. The state of the majority is unspeakably awful. Formality, worldliness, ungodliness, rejection of Christ's service, ignorance, and indifference--to what an extent does all this prevail. We pray for the heathen--oh! do let us pray for those bearing …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession The Love of the Holy Spirit in Us.
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not."--Matt. xxvii. 37. The Scripture teaches not only that the Holy Spirit dwells in us, and with Him Love, but also that He sheds abroad that Love in our hearts. This shedding abroad does not refer to the coming of the Holy Spirit's Person, for a person can not be shed abroad. He comes, takes possession, and dwells in us; but that which is shed abroad …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit The Daily Walk with Others (ii. ).
If Jesus Christ thou serve, take heed, Whate'er the hour may be; His brethren are obliged indeed By their nobility. In the present chapter I follow the general principles of the last into some further details. And I place before me as a sort of motto those twice-repeated words of the Apostle, TAKE HEED UNTO THYSELF. These words, it will be remembered, are addressed in both places to the Christian Minister. [Acts xx. 28; 1 Tim. iv. 6.] At Miletus St Paul gathers round him the Presbyters of Ephesus, …
Handley C. G. Moule—To My Younger Brethren The Chorus of Angels
Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour and glory, and blessing! I t was a good report which the queen of Sheba heard, in her own land, of the wisdom and glory of Solomon. It lessened her attachment to home, and prompted her to undertake a long journey to visit this greater King, of whom she had heard so much. She went, and she was not disappointed. Great as the expectations were, which she had formed from the relation made her by others, …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2 The Unchangeableness of God
The next attribute is God's unchangeableness. I am Jehovah, I change not.' Mal 3:3. I. God is unchangeable in his nature. II. In his decree. I. Unchangeable in his nature. 1. There is no eclipse of his brightness. 2. No period put to his being. [1] No eclipse of his brightness. His essence shines with a fixed lustre. With whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.' James 1:17. Thou art the same.' Psa 102:27. All created things are full of vicissitudes. Princes and emperors are subject to …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity But Concerning True Patience, Worthy of the Name of this virtue...
12. But concerning true patience, worthy of the name of this virtue, whence it is to be had, must now be inquired. For there are some [2650] who attribute it to the strength of the human will, not which it hath by Divine assistance, but which it hath of free-will. Now this error is a proud one: for it is the error of them which abound, of whom it is said in the Psalm, "A scornful reproof to them which abound, and a despising to the proud." [2651] It is not therefore that "patience of the poor" which …
St. Augustine—On Patience Letter xix (A. D. 1127) to Suger, Abbot of S. Denis
To Suger, Abbot of S. Denis He praises Suger, who had unexpectedly renounced the pride and luxury of the world to give himself to the modest habits of the religious life. He blames severely the clerk who devotes himself rather to the service of princes than that of God. 1. A piece of good news has reached our district; it cannot fail to do great good to whomsoever it shall have come. For who that fear God, hearing what great things He has done for your soul, do not rejoice and wonder at the great …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux In Death and after Death
A sadder picture could scarcely be drawn than that of the dying Rabbi Jochanan ben Saccai, that "light of Israel" immediately before and after the destruction of the Temple, and for two years the president of the Sanhedrim. We read in the Talmud (Ber. 28 b) that, when his disciples came to see him on his death-bed, he burst into tears. To their astonished inquiry why he, "the light of Israel, the right pillar of the Temple, and its mighty hammer," betrayed such signs of fear, he replied: "If I were …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament Links Psalm 62:5 NIV
Psalm 62:5 NLT
Psalm 62:5 ESV
Psalm 62:5 NASB
Psalm 62:5 KJV
Psalm 62:5 Bible Apps
Psalm 62:5 Parallel
Psalm 62:5 Biblia Paralela
Psalm 62:5 Chinese Bible
Psalm 62:5 French Bible
Psalm 62:5 German Bible
Psalm 62:5 Commentaries
Bible Hub
|
