For this is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob. Sermons
I. AUTHORITY IN RELIGION MUST SATISFY MAN CONCERNING THE TRUTH. So many men always nave been, and some always must be, incompetent to decide perplexing doctrinal or ethical questions for themselves. Some are unduly biassed by education; some have neither mental powers nor leisure time for carrying on the necessary studies. In every department of truth, most men take their opinions on the authority of others; and it is even more necessary, in regard to the higher truths of religion, that men should have their standards and their guides. True, we have the Bible; but men like Anselm, Augustine, Calvin, and Wesley, with the great teachers of later days, have been authorities in religious truth to thousands. II. AUTHORITY IN RELIGION MUST LIMIT MAN'S VAGARIES. The speculative faculty leads men, in these times, to wander in all sorts of unknown regions; and produces a restlessness and uncertainty which are seriously imperilling faith. Perhaps we read men's books too much, and God's book too little. Happy they who can rest in the "truths most surely believed among us," because they are declared with an authority which they can recognize. III. AUTHORITY IN RELIGION MUST ENFORCE MAN'S DUTIES. Social life has changed the conception of what is becoming to a Christian. We want guidance in the modern endeavour to live The Christian life. Self-indulgence weakens our will, and we want the help of distinct requirements in ordering our religious habits. But yielding to authority must be kept within healthy limitations, and preserve personal independence and responsibility. - R.T.
With honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee. You know it was said of the Holy Land, long before God led His people into it, that it was "a land flowing with milk and honey." Such it was and still is. That bees swarmed abundantly in the East many years ago, we may infer from the honey found in the dried remains of the lion which was killed by Samson. And in these modern days the wandering Arabs who live in tents, especially those who dwell in the wilderness of Judea, are said to support themselves by bee-hunting, bringing into Jerusalem jars of wild honey like that on which John the Baptist fed in the wilderness. The visitor to the Holy Land, when he sees the busy multitude of bees about its cliffs, cannot but recall to mind the promise, "With honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee." But then these words of Asaph mean far more than that those who love and serve the Lord shall be thus fed. They mean that God will surely supply all the wants of His people; that He offers all His infinite resources as a security that they shall not be left to "want any good thing"; and that, as honey in abundance is gathered out of the hard and flinty rock, so He will provide for those who love Him, even though they are brought into the hardest trials, where it might seem as if they were beyond the reach of help. But a promise so large and rich as this we cannot expect to have made good unto us, no matter what we are, or do. No! this is a promise with a condition. That is, there are some things which we must do, if we would claim the fulfilment of this promise for ourselves. The bee which stores up honey that is gathered out of the rock may so teach us that we shall be truly wise, and be able to secure all the earthly blessings and all the spiritual riches which are promised by the text.I. OBEDIENCE. Do you know that in every hive of bees there is one which is called the Queen Bee? Those who have studied most carefully the habits of bees tell us that the Queen Bee is beloved and obeyed by all the others, who show in all ways that bees have a desire to please her. And if bees are thus obedient and devoted to their queen, how much more ought children to "obey their parents in the Lord!" II. CHEERFUL AND HAPPY INDUSTRY. How diligent and industrious the bees are in building the cells of the honey-comb, in storing them with honey, and in taking care of their young. They are not satisfied to work an hour a week, or an hour a day, and then dance away all the rest of the time in the warm and bright sunshine. They are not like some children that I have seen, who are hardly satisfied unless they can give themselves up to "all play and no work," which, as the rhyme says, "makes Jack a mere toy." But the bee works all the day long, day after day, bringing home full loads of honey. It finds pleasure in its work, singing continually as it goes about it. What a fine example for boys and girls! Our blessed Lord Himself, when still a little child, felt that He "must be about His Father's business." Every community of bees is apt to be afflicted for a time with what are called drones — that is, with bees that won't work. But the working bees very soon get rid of them, either by putting them to death, or by driving them out of the hive. And is not something like this the law of the Bible? Paul declared that, "if any would not work, neither should he eat," and Solomon says that "an idle soul shall suffer hunger." Idleness, then, brings a blight and a curse both upon the body and upon the soul. III. WE SHOULD GUARD WATCHFULLY AND WELL WHAT TREASURES WE HAVE. The bee uses all possible care and skill to protect from its enemies its stores of honey, and the wonderful cells in which that honey is laid up. It has many enemies, such as wasps, hornets, spiders, dragonflies, lizards, toads, and a kind of winged moth. This last is a very dangerous enemy, for at night, when the bees are asleep, it creeps in at the door of the hive, and lays its eggs, from which little worm-like caterpillars are soon hatched, and these crawling things soon make such havoc with the waxen cells that the bees are obliged to desert. They do the best they can to defend their treasures from enemies wit, hour, but sometimes they are overpowered. My children, learn a lesson from them to guard and keep such treasures as you have; for you, unlike the bees, may effectually do this, with such help as God will give you, if you seek help of Him. IV. From the bee, again, we may learn the lesson THAT WE CAN SERVE BUT ONE RULER AND SOVEREIGN AT A TIME. I have spoken of the Queen Bee. It is the supreme ruler of the hive, whom all the bees delight to obey. Not till one queen dies do they transfer their allegiance to another. You know that there is only One who has a right to demand, as He does demand, that you shall serve and love Him "with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." Jesus Christ Himself has said, "No man can serve two masters," etc. V. Another lesson, and a most important one, for us to learn from the bee, is, NOT TO TRUST TOO MUCH TO APPEARANCES. Many a bright and most attractive-looking flower does the bee pass by, to alight perhaps upon some plain and humble one that we would have thought altogether unworthy of notice. "All is not gold that glitters," and not even the marvellous skill of the bee can extract honey from flowers which, though they may appear very beautiful, have no sweetness, and perhaps only deadly poison in them. There are many things which, to young eyes, and sometimes to eyes not so young, appear very beautiful indeed. Not having them, we greatly covet, and having, we greatly prize them. VI. WE SHOULD MAKE WISE AND TIMELY PROVISION FOR THE FUTURE. The bees do not eat their honey as fast as they make it, but they lay by a store for winter. In this, they are unlike some young people, who are inclined to spend everything as fast as they make it, and sometimes faster. They lay up nothing at all to fall back upon in a time of need. This is more especially and sadly true with respect to religion. How many are there among the young who spend the best part of their lives in worldly pleasure. They think not of a future day, and are making no provision for needs of which they will soon, and may be suddenly, be made aware, when it will be too late to provide for them. (G. C. Noyes, D. D.). God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; He judgeth among the gods. Homilist. I. AS REBUKING UNJUST RULERS. "How long will ye judge unjustly?" Here is a common crime. Human rulers, alas! through all times and the world over, have been prone to judge unjustly and to "accept the persons of the wicked." In proportion to the moral corruption of a man is at once his indisposition and incapability to deal out justice to others.II. AS ENJOYING PITY FOR THE AFFLICTED. "Defend the poor and fatherless." See that they have justice done them, deal tenderly with them. "Deliver the poor and needy." It argues bad for that ruler the poor and suffering of whose people are found in the heartless grip of wicked men. III. AS CHARACTERIZING THE COURSE OF WICKED RULERS. "They know not, neither will they understand," etc. These magistrates pursue their course of moral ignorance, they are blind to the eternal principles of right, to the transcendent claims of justice; only alive to their own ambition, aggrandizement, pleasures, and gratifications. What is the consequence? 1. Society is endangered. "All the foundations of the earth are out of course." All institutions are tottering. 2. Its rulers are doomed. "I have said, Ye are gods," etc. "But ye shall die like men." This language may mean —(1) I have regarded you as divinities; in consequence of your office, as far superior to all ordinary men.(2) I looked upon your appointment as Divine. "All of you are children of the Most High." Magistracy is a Divine appointment, into that magistracy you have been permitted to enter; notwithstanding this, in consequence of your unrighteous conduct, ye "shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes." IV. As the GRAND OBJECT OF THE WORLD'S HOPE. "Arise, O God," etc. There is no hope for a corrupt world but in God. (Homilist.) 1. For our natural good, for our lives. 2. Civil good, for our estate. 3. Moral, for defence of us in goodness. 4. Spiritual, to protect the Gospel; and this good is reduced by the apostle to three heads (1 Timothy 2:2), peace, piety, and honesty.They are a means under God to preserve the lives of us and ours; our goods, sabbaths, ordinances, and all that is near and dear to us; so that when government fails — 1. Order fails; 2. Religion fails; 3. Justice fails; 4. Strength fails; 5. Wealth fails; 6. Honour fails; 7. Peace fails.As where there is no ministry, the people perish; so where there is no magistracy, the people come to ruin (Proverbs 2:14). These are shields to defend us, fathers to tender us, yea, nursing fathers to carry us in their bosoms, pillars that under God uphold the world, that it fall not into confusion, and the very life of the State (Lamentations 4:20). (T. Hall, B. D.) Civil authority is a Divine institution. The man who holds municipal or political office is a "minister of God." One man may, therefore, have just as real a Divine vocation to become a town-councillor or a member of parliament, as another to become a missionary to the heathen, In either case it is at a man's peril that he is disobedient to the heavenly vision. The Divine right of kings was a base corruption of a most noble truth; so was the fanatical dream about the reign of the saints. We shall never approach the Christian ideal of civil society until all who hold municipal, judicial, and political offices recognize the social and political order of the nation as a Divine institution, and discharge their official duties as ministers of God.(R. W. Dale, D. D.) People Asaph, Jacob, Joseph, PsalmistPlaces JerusalemTopics Jacob, Law, Ordinance, Rule, StatuteOutline 1. An exhortation to a solemn praising of God4. God challenges that duty by reason of his benefits 8. God, exhorting to obedience, complains of their disobedience, which proves their own hurt. Dictionary of Bible Themes Psalm 81:48609 prayer, as praise and thanksgiving Library Chapter I Beginning and Early Days of the Orphan Work. BEGINNING AND EARLY DAYS OF THE ORPHAN WORK. "That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."--1 Peter, i. 7. Mr. George Mueller, the founder of the New Orphan-Houses, Ashley Down, Bristol (institutions that have been for many years the greatest monuments of modern times to a prayer-answering God), gives in that most valuable and instructive book, "A … George Müller—Answers to Prayer Ask what I Shall Give Thee. 1Ki 3:05 How Christ is the Way in General, "I am the Way. " Religion Pleasant to the Religious. The Heart's Desire Given to Help Mission Work in China. The Fifth Day in Passion-Week - Make Ready the Passover!' Spiritual Hunger Shall be Satisfied The Second Coming of Christ. Covenanting Adapted to the Moral Constitution of Man. Man's Inability to Keep the Moral Law How Does it Come? The Nature of Spiritual Hunger Justifying or Sanctifying Grace Psalms Links Psalm 81:4 NIVPsalm 81:4 NLT Psalm 81:4 ESV Psalm 81:4 NASB Psalm 81:4 KJV Psalm 81:4 Bible Apps Psalm 81:4 Parallel Psalm 81:4 Biblia Paralela Psalm 81:4 Chinese Bible Psalm 81:4 French Bible Psalm 81:4 German Bible Psalm 81:4 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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