There are regions to which so many tourists go, and the notable places in which they usually visit in an almost fixed order, that the way they take has come to be known as and called "the regular round." This psalm and this verse seem to set forth another regular round which sin-hardened souls do perpetually take. We will -
I. NOTE ITS STAGES.
1. They start with sin, and on and on they go, with occasional misgivings, which, however, soon grow less along the broad, attractive, much-frequented road.
2. But next they come to where the punishment of God has to be met and endured. This is a dreary place, and they cry out in their pain. But they cannot avoid this stage. However slowly they may seem to travel, they reach it one day, and a dark day that is. They had no business along the road at all, and God will have them know that; and hence this punishment stage is placed right across it, that men may either be deterred from going by the road at all, or else turn speedily back. But if they will still go on in it, they are certain to come to this terrible place.
3. They are in a great hurry to get away, and so they alter their course. They seem to repent of their previous journey altogether. "When he slew them, then they sought him." "The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be." How often Pharaoh, when he had got to this miserable stage, made as if he would amend his way! And it very often seems as if such as he really had done so. The sham repentance is, to our poor bleared eyes, so much like the real, that we are quite deceived, and we help the sinner to deceive himself.
4. Then next is the stage of the hardened heart. The will unsubdued, the mind determined on its own way. Hidden away, deep down underneath the decorous disguise of a temporarily altered conduct, there is the stone-like heart, the will resolute in its own way. It is not going to change, though it may be prudent to seem for a time as if it were. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked."
5. Then there is reached, not long after, the first stage whence the wretched round began. The soul is back at its sin again.
II. THE POINT WHERE THE SOUL MAY BREAK AWAY. It is at the repentance stage. Some one has said that what we call the ten plagues might rather be called Pharaoh's ten opportunities of turning from his sin to God. And undoubtedly they were such. The pang of repentance which he felt might have led right away from God's judgments.
"There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune." And in the affairs of the soul that tide at flood is the hour when God shows us the wretchedness of our sin, and bids us turn to him. III. HOW TO DO THIS.
1. It is evidently possible, The road branches where you are: one way leads to God - the way along which God's voice is surely calling you; the other leads to the hardened heart, - it is the way along which you have come.
2. Now call upon God for help to answer his call.
3. Break away in actual conduct. Books, companions, amusements, all that is to you occasion of and temptation to sin; break away resolutely and at once from them; have done with them altogether.
4. All the while keep calling upon God. He has promised to save you. Put in the cheque of his promise, and claim payment of it. Trust him, expect him to make good his word - and he will. Credo experto. - S.C.
When He slew them, then they sought Him: and they returned and inquired early after God.
I. THE ACTS OF REPENTANCE WHICH THEY PERFORMED.1. Seeking God.
2. Returning.
3. Inquiring.
4. Remembering (ver. 35).
5. Renewing their covenant with God (ver. 37).
II. THE DEFECTS OF THEIR REPENTANCE.
1. It was untimely; a fore-slowed, and delayed repentance: that is implied in this word, "when"; not till such a time; then, not till then.
2. It was enforced repentance, not ingenuous and voluntarily undertaken; it was extorted by plagues. They repented when they were under the rod; nay, under the sword.
3. It was an unsound repentance; not true and sincere, but feigned and acted only: it was a flattering and lying repentance.
4. It was a momentary, transitory, unsettled, unconstant repentance, not firm and lasting. And these four are usually linked together, one draws on the other. These four twists make up Esay's cart-rope of sin. What, then, is wanting? The main of all is, that the heart must be changed. A true convert, hath an inward principle of repentance planted into him; grace is a second nature, and works constantly, as Nature doth; but an hypocrite in his actions of reformation and repentance is moved not by an inward principle of God, but by some outward motive. When that ceases his conversion fails. The motions of piety in a good Christian are like natural motions; the motions of an hypocrite are as artificial motions. The motions of the sun and the motions of a clock keep time alike; and for a time, we will say, the clock goes as true as the sun. Aye, but here's the difference, the one moves out of an inward principle naturally; the other, the clock, is moved by an outward principle; the weight and plummet makes it go; and when that is down the clock stands still. Or, as in waters, a natural stream flows always, it is fed with a spring; but a sudden land-flood, though it runs strongly for a while, yet it will dry up; it hath no spring or fountain to feed it.
(:)
People
Asaph,
David,
Ham,
Jacob,
Joseph,
PsalmistPlaces
JerusalemTopics
Care, Death, Diligently, Eagerly, Early, Earnestly, Enquired, Inquire, Inquired, Killed, Repented, Returned, Search, Searched, Seek, Slew, Sought, Turn, TurningOutline
1. An exhortation both to learn and to preach, the law of God9. The story of God's wrath against the incredulous and disobedient67. The Israelites being rejected, God chose Judah, Zion, and David.Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 78:9-41 8705 apostasy, in OT
Psalm 78:34-37
5840 eagerness
6733 repentance, nature of
Library
Memory, Hope, and Effort
'That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments.'--PSALM lxxviii. 7. In its original application this verse is simply a statement of God's purpose in giving to Israel the Law, and such a history of deliverance. The intention was that all future generations might remember what He had done, and be encouraged by the remembrance to hope in Him for the future; and by both memory and hope, be impelled to the discharge of present duty. So, then, the words …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureTurning Back in the Day of Battle
I. We will first consider for a little while WHAT THESE MEN DID. They turned their backs. When the time for fighting came they ought to have shown their fronts. Like bold men they should have kept their face to the foe and their breast against the adversary, but they dishonorably turned their backs and fled. This, I am sorry to say, is not an unusual thing amongst professing Christians. They turn back; they turn back in the day of battle. Some do this at the first appearance of difficulty. "There …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 12: 1866
Limiting God
Among such sins of the first table is that described in our text. It is consequently one of the masterpieces of iniquity, and we shall do well to purge ourselves of it. It is full of evil to ourselves, and is calculated to dishonor both God and man, therefore let us be in earnest to cut it up both root and branch. I think we have all been guilty of this in our measure; and we are not free from it even to this day. Whether we be saints or sinners, we may stand here and make our humble confession that …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 5: 1859
Fifteenth Day for Schools and Colleges
WHAT TO PRAY.--For Schools and Colleges "As for Me, this is My covenant with them, saith the Lord: My Spirit that is upon thee, and My words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LoThe future of the Church and the world depends, to an extent we little conceive, on the education of the day. The Church may be seeking to evangelise the heathen, and be giving up her own children to secular …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession
Fourteenth Day for the Church of the Future
WHAT TO PRAY.--For the Church of the Future "That the children might not be as their fathers, a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God."--PS. lxxviii. 8. "I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thy offspring."--ISA. xliv. 3. Pray for the rising generation, who are to come after us. Think of the young men and young women and children of this age, and pray for all the agencies at work among them; that in association and societies …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession
Centenary Commemoration
OF THE RETURN OF BISHOP SEABURY. 1885 THE RT. REV. SAMUEL SEABURY, D.D. FIRST BISHOP OF CONNECTICUT, HELD HIS FIRST ORDINATION AT MIDDLETOWN, AUGUST 3, 1785. On the ninth day of June, 1885, the Diocesan Convention met in Hartford. Morning Prayer was read in Christ Church at 9 o'clock by the Rev. W. E. Vibbert, D.D., Rector of St. James's Church, Fair Haven, and the Rev. J. E. Heald, Rector of Trinity Church, Tariffville. The Holy Communion was celebrated in St. John's Church, the service beginning …
Various—The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary
"Thou Shalt Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother. "
From this Commandment we learn that after the excellent works of the first three Commandments there are no better works than to obey and serve all those who are set over us as superiors. For this reason also disobedience is a greater sin than murder, unchastity, theft and dishonesty, and all that these may include. For we can in no better way learn how to distinguish between greater and lesser sins than by noting the order of the Commandments of God, although there are distinctions also within the …
Dr. Martin Luther—A Treatise on Good Works
Indiscreet Importunity.
"I gave thee a king in mine anger." HOSEA xiii. 11. "Ye know not what ye ask." MATTHEW xx. 22. PSALM lxxviii. 27-31. That God sometimes suffers men to destroy themselves, giving them their own way, although He knows it is ruinous, and even putting into their hands the scorpion they have mistaken for a fish, is an indubitable and alarming fact. Perhaps no form of ruin covers a man with such shame or sinks him to such hopelessness as when he finds that what he has persistently clamoured for and refused …
Marcus Dods—How to become like Christ
The Mystery
Of the Woman dwelling in the Wilderness. The woman delivered of a child, when the dragon was overcome, from thenceforth dwelt in the wilderness, by which is figured the state of the Church, liberated from Pagan tyranny, to the time of the seventh trumpet, and the second Advent of Christ, by the type, not of a latent, invisible, but, as it were, an intermediate condition, like that of the lsraelitish Church journeying in the wilderness, from its departure from Egypt, to its entrance into the land …
Joseph Mede—A Key to the Apocalypse
The Second Continental Journey.
1827-28. PART I.--GERMANY. After John and Martha Yeardley had visited their friends at home, their minds were directed to the work which they had left uncompleted on the continent of Europe; and, on their return from the Yearly Meeting, they opened this prospect of service before the assembled church to which they belonged. (Diary) 6 mo. 18.--Were at the Monthly Meeting at Highflatts, where we laid our concern before our friends to revisit some parts of Germany and Switzerland, and to visit …
John Yeardley—Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel
The World's Bread
'And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told Him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. 31. And He said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. 32. And they departed into a desert place by ship privately. 33. And the people saw them departing, and many knew Him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture
Out of the Deep of Loneliness, Failure, and Disappointment.
My heart is smitten down, and withered like grass. I am even as a sparrow that sitteth alone on the housetop--Ps. cii. 4, 6. My lovers and friends hast Thou put away from me, and hid mine acquaintance out of my sight--Ps. lxxviii. 18. I looked on my right hand, and saw there was no man that would know me. I had no place to flee unto, and no man cared for my soul. I cried unto Thee, O Lord, and said, Thou art my Hope. When my spirit was in heaviness, then Thou knewest my path.--Ps. cxlii. 4, 5. …
Charles Kingsley—Out of the Deep
The Good Shepherd: a Farewell Sermon
John 10:27-28 -- "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand." It is a common, and I believe, generally speaking, my dear hearers, a true saying, that bad manners beget good laws. Whether this will hold good in every particular, in respect to the affairs of this world, I am persuaded the observation is very pertinent in respect to the things of another: I mean bad manners, …
George Whitefield—Selected Sermons of George Whitefield
Adam and Zaretan, Joshua 3
I suspect a double error in some maps, while they place these two towns in Perea; much more, while they place them at so little a distance. We do not deny, indeed, that the city Adam was in Perea; but Zaretan was not so. Of Adam is mention, Joshua 3:16; where discourse is had of the cutting-off, or cutting in two, the waters of Jordan, that they might afford a passage to Israel; The waters rose up upon a heap afar off in Adam. For the textual reading "In Adam," the marginal hath "From Adam." You …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica
The Eighth Commandment
Thou shalt not steal.' Exod 20: 15. AS the holiness of God sets him against uncleanness, in the command Thou shalt not commit adultery;' so the justice of God sets him against rapine and robbery, in the command, Thou shalt not steal.' The thing forbidden in this commandment, is meddling with another man's property. The civil lawyers define furtum, stealth or theft to be the laying hands unjustly on that which is another's;' the invading another's right. I. The causes of theft. [1] The internal causes …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments
"The Sun of Righteousness"
WE SHOULD FEEL QUITE JUSTIFIED in applying the language of the 19th Psalm to our Lord Jesus Christ from the simple fact that he is so frequently compared to the sun; and especially in the passage which we have given you as our second text, wherein he is called "the Sun of Righteousness." But we have a higher justification for such a reading of the passage, for it will be in your memories that, in the 10th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, the Apostle Paul, slightly altering the words of this …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871
A Jealous God
I. Reverently, let us remember that THE LORD IS EXCEEDINGLY JEALOUS OF HIS DEITY. Our text is coupled with the command--"Thou shalt worship no other God." When the law was thundered from Sinai, the second commandment received force from the divine jealousy--"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 9: 1863
Mosaic Cosmogony.
ON the revival of science in the 16th century, some of the earliest conclusions at which philosophers arrived were found to be at variance with popular and long-established belief. The Ptolemaic system of astronomy, which had then full possession of the minds of men, contemplated the whole visible universe from the earth as the immovable centre of things. Copernicus changed the point of view, and placing the beholder in the sun, at once reduced the earth to an inconspicuous globule, a merely subordinate …
Frederick Temple—Essays and Reviews: The Education of the World
Privilege and Experience
"And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." --Luke 15:31. The words of the text are familiar to us all. The elder son had complained and said, that though his father had made a feast, and had killed the fatted calf for the prodigal son, he had never given him even a kid that he might make merry with his friends. The answer of the father was: "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." One cannot have a more wonderful revelation of the heart of …
Andrew Murray—The Deeper Christian Life
Stones Crying Out
'For the priests which bare the ark stood in the midst of Jordan, until every thing was finished that the Lord commanded Joshua to speak unto the people, according to all that Moses commanded Joshua: and the people hasted and passed over. 11. And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over, that the ark of the Lord passed over, and the priests, in the presence of the people. 12. And the children of Reuben, and the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh, passed over armed …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture
The Deaf Stammerer Healed and Four Thousand Fed.
^A Matt. XV. 30-39; ^B Mark VII. 32-VIII. 9. ^b 32 And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech [The man had evidently learned to speak before he lost his hearing. Some think that defective hearing had caused the impediment in his speech, but verse 35 suggests that he was tongue-tied]; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. 33 And he took him aside from the multitude privately, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat, and touched his tongue [He separated …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel
Purity and Peace in the Present Lord
PHILIPPIANS iv. 1-9 Euodia and Syntyche--Conditions to unanimity--Great uses of small occasions--Connexion to the paragraphs--The fortress and the sentinel--A golden chain of truths--Joy in the Lord--Yieldingness--Prayer in everything--Activities of a heart at rest Ver. 1. +So, my brethren beloved and longed for+, missed indeed, at this long distance from you, +my joy and crown+ of victory (stephanos), +thus+, as having such certainties and such aims, with such a Saviour, and looking for such …
Handley C. G. Moule—Philippian Studies
The Baptismal Covenant Can be Kept Unbroken. Aim and Responsibility of Parents.
We have gone "to the Law and to the Testimony" to find out what the nature and benefits of Baptism are. We have gathered out of the Word all the principal passages bearing on this subject. We have grouped them together, and studied them side by side. We have noticed that their sense is uniform, clear, and strong. Unless we are willing to throw aside all sound principles of interpretation, we can extract from the words of inspiration only one meaning, and that is that the baptized child is, by virtue …
G. H. Gerberding—The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church
An Exhortation to Love God
1. An exhortation. Let me earnestly persuade all who bear the name of Christians to become lovers of God. "O love the Lord, all ye his saints" (Psalm xxxi. 23). There are but few that love God: many give Him hypocritical kisses, but few love Him. It is not so easy to love God as most imagine. The affection of love is natural, but the grace is not. Men are by nature haters of God (Rom. i. 30). The wicked would flee from God; they would neither be under His rules, nor within His reach. They fear God, …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial
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