II. A LIFE OF FAITH IS A BLESSED LIFE, BECAUSE IT TALKS WITH GOD (vers. 9-11). The ordinary Christian life of this day is terribly wanting in this experience of frank, free talk with God, and that is one reason why so many of us professing Christians know so little of the blessedness of the man that trusts in God. You have religion enough to keep you from doing certain gross acts of sin; you have religion enough to make you uncomfortable in neglected duty. You have religion enough to impel you to certain acts that you suppose to be obligatory upon you. But do you know anything about the elasticity and spring of spirit in getting near God, and pouring out all your hearts to Him? The life of faith is not blessed unless it is a life of frank talking with God.

III. THE LIFE OF FAITH IS BLESSED, BECAUSE IT HAS FIXED ITS DESIRES ON THE TRUE GOOD. "A day in thy courts," etc. This psalmist, speaking with the voice of all them that trust in the Lord, here declares his clear consciousness that the true good for the human soul is fellowship with God. But the clearest knowledge of that fact is not enough to bring the blessedness. There must be the next step — "I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness" — the definite resolve that I for my part will act according to my conviction, and, believing that the best thing in life is to have God in life, and that that will make life, as it were, an eternity of blessedness even while it is made up of fleeting days, will pub my foot clown and make my choice, and, having made it, will stick to it. It is all very well to say that "a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand": have I chosen to dwell in the courts; and do I, not only in estimate but in feeling and practice, set communion with God high above everything besides?

IV. A LIFE OF FAITH IS A LIFE OF BLESSEDNESS, BECAUSE IT DRAWS FROM GOD ALL NECESSARY GOOD. "The Lord God is a Sun and Shield" — brightness and defence. "The Lord will give grace and glory": "Grace," the loving gifts which will make a man gracious and graceful; "glory," not any future lustre of the transfigured soul and glorified body, but the glory which belongs to the life of faith here on earth; link that thought with the preceding one. "The Lord is a sun... the Lord will give glory"; like a little bit of broken glass lying in the furrows of a ploughed field, when the sun smites down upon it, it flashes, outshining many a diamond. If a man is walking upon a road with the sun behind him, his face is dark. He wheels himself round, and it is suffused with light, as Moses' face shone. If we walk in the sunshine we shall shine too. If we "walk in the light" we shall be "light in the Lord." "No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." Trust is inward, and the outside of trust is an upright walk; and if a man has these two, which, inasmuch as one is the root and the other is the fruit, are but one in reality, nothing that is good will be withheld from him. For how can the sun but pour its rays upon everything that lives?

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

II. THE BELIEVER'S JOY IS THE OBJECT OF HIS TRUST. Trust is sometimes misplaced. There are those who are base enough to take advantage of trust reposed in them. Many tragedies are caused by the discovery of untrustworthiness in the man or woman in whose hands we have placed our lives. The most interesting stories in literature are those of heroes and heroines whose trustworthiness is for long under a cloud, but which is finally vindicated. That which underlies our trust in each other is our love for goodness itself. "We needs must love the highest when we see it." Our real love is for God, who is goodness itself. We love persons in whom we trust that goodness is to be found in large measure. The believer who makes God his trust is happy indeed, nor. is there any danger of shock and disappointment to such a trust. If other trusts bring much joy, this brings supreme joy.

III. THE SUPREME CHARACTER OF THE BELIEVER'S JOY — BLESSEDNESS. There is something heavenly about the word. The kind and degree of joy which God experiences is known by this name. He is "the ever-blessed God," "blessed for evermore." Blessedness is calm and tranquil; it brings a sense of steadiness to the mind, and enables it to do its work without distraction or anxiety.

(R. C. Ford, M. A.).

     5874   happiness
     8157   righteousness, as faith

March 16. "The Lord Will Give Grace and Glory" (Ps. Lxxxiv. 11).
"The Lord will give grace and glory" (Ps. lxxxiv. 11). The Lord will give grace and glory. This word glory is very difficult to translate, define and explain; but there is something in the spiritual consciousness of the quickened Christian that interprets it. It is the overflow of grace; it is the wine of life; it is the foretaste of heaven; it is a flash from the Throne and an inspiration from the heart of God which we may have and in which we may live. "The glory which Thou hast given Me I have …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Blessed Trust
'O Lord of Hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee.' --PSALM lxxxiv. 12. In my last sermon from the central portion of this psalm I pointed out that the Psalmist thrice celebrates the blessedness of certain types of character, and that these threefold benedictions constitute, as it were, the keynotes of the portions of the psalm in which they respectively occur. They are these: 'Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house'; 'Blessed is the man in whose heart are the ways'; and this final one, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Sparrows and Altars
'Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even Thine altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King, and my God.'--PSALM lxxxiv. 3. The well-known saying of the saintly Rutherford, when he was silenced and exiled from his parish, echoes and expounds these words. 'When I think,' said he, 'upon the sparrows and swallows that build their nests in the kirk of Anwoth, and of my dumb Sabbaths, my sorrowful, bleared eyes look asquint upon Christ, and present …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Happy Pilgrims
'Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee; in whose heart are the highways to Zion. 6. Passing through the valley of Weeping they make it a place of springs; yea, the early rain covereth it with blessings. 7. They go from strength to strength, every one of them appeareth before God in Zion.'--PSALM lxxxiv. 5-7. Rightly rendered, the first words of these verses are not a calm, prosaic statement, but an emotional exclamation. The Psalmist's tone would be more truly represented if we read, 'How …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

11TH DAY. After Grace, Glory.
"He is Faithful that Promised." "The Lord will give grace and glory."--PSALM lxxxiv. 11. After Grace, Glory. Oh! happy day, when this toilsome warfare will all be ended, Jordan crossed, Canaan entered, the legion-enemies of the wilderness no longer dreaded; sorrow, sighing, death, and, worst of all, sin, no more either to be felt or feared! Here is the terminating link in the golden chain of the everlasting covenant. It began with predestination; it ends with glorification. It began with sovereign …
John Ross Macduff—The Faithful Promiser

At Last!
Gerhard Ter Steegen Ps. lxxxiv. 4 Draw me to Thee, till far within Thy rest, In stillness of Thy peace, Thy voice I hear-- For ever quieted upon Thy breast, So loved, so near. By mystery of Thy touch my spirit thrilled, O Magnet all Divine; The hunger of my soul for ever stilled, For Thou art mine. For me, O Lord, the world is all too small, For I have seen Thy face, Where Thine eternal love irradiates all Within Thy secret place. And therefore from all others, from all else, Draw Thou my soul to …
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen, Suso, and Others

The Church Militant 467. Pleasant are Thy Courts Above
[1792]Maidstone: Walter Bond Gilbert, 1862 Psalm 84 Henry F. Lyte, 1834 Pleasant are thy courts above, In the land of light and love; Pleasant are thy courts below, In this land of sin and woe. O my spirit longs and faints For the converse of thy saints, For the brightness of thy face, For thy fullness, God of grace! Happy birds that sing and fly Round thy altars, O Most High! Happier souls that find a rest In a heavenly Father's breast! Like the wandering dove, that found No repose on earth around, …
Various—The Hymnal of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA

Reverence in Worship.
"Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child, girded with a linen ephod."--1 Samuel ii. 18. Samuel, viewed in his place in sacred history, that is, in the course of events which connect Moses with Christ, appears as a great ruler and teacher of his people; this is his prominent character. He was the first of the prophets; yet, when we read the sacred narrative itself, in which his life is set before us, I suppose those passages are the more striking and impressive which represent him, in …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

The Minstrel
ELISHA needed that the Holy Spirit should come upon him to inspire him with prophetic utterances. "Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." We need that the hand of the Lord should be laid upon us, for we can never open our mouths in wisdom except we are under the divine touch. Now, the Spirit of God works according to his own will. "The wind bloweth where it listeth," and the Spirit of God operates as he chooseth. Elisha could not prophesy just when he liked; he must wait until …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 27: 1881

The Old Man and the New.
"That we being dead unto sin should live unto righteousness."--1 Peter iv. 24. The Psalmist sings: "They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God." (Psalm lxxxiv. 7) We must maintain this glorious testimony, altho our own experience often seems to contradict it. Not experience, but the Scripture, teaches us divine truth; nor is it as tho the procedure of the divine operation in our own heart could differ from the testimony of the Sacred Scripture, but that our …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

It Remains Then that we Understand as Concerning those Women...
33. It remains then that we understand as concerning those women, whether in Egypt or in Jericho, that for their humanity and mercy they received a reward, in any wise temporal, which indeed itself, while they wist not of it, should by prophetical signification prefigure somewhat eternal. But whether it be ever right, even for the saving of a man's life, to tell a lie, as it is a question in resolving which even the most learned do weary themselves, it did vastly surpass the capacity of those poor …
St. Augustine—Against Lying

A Book for Boys and Girls Or, Temporal Things Spritualized.
by John Bunyan, Licensed and entered according to order. London: Printed for, and sold by, R. Tookey, at his Printing House in St. Christopher's Court, in Threadneedle Street, behind the Royal Exchange, 1701. Advertisement by the Editor. Some degree of mystery hangs over these Divine Emblems for children, and many years' diligent researches have not enabled me completely to solve it. That they were written by Bunyan, there cannot be the slightest doubt. 'Manner and matter, too, are all his own.'[1] …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Various Experiences in Gospel Work
Soon after I discerned the one body, my brother and I visited St. James, Mo. We had labored there but a short time when Brother Warner and his company came to the town to hold a camp-meeting. When I was first introduced to Brother Warner, he made the remark, "And so you are the sister that wanted to stay in Babylon in order to get wolves to take care of Iambs?" and then broke into a hearty laugh. He referred to my remark that I was going to continue to work with the sects, so that whenever a congregation …
Mary Cole—Trials and Triumphs of Faith

The Tests of Love to God
LET us test ourselves impartially whether we are in the number of those that love God. For the deciding of this, as our love will be best seen by the fruits of it, I shall lay down fourteen signs, or fruits, of love to God, and it concerns us to search carefully whether any of these fruits grow in our garden. 1. The first fruit of love is the musing of the mind upon God. He who is in love, his thoughts are ever upon the object. He who loves God is ravished and transported with the contemplation of …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

Letter Xlvi (Circa A. D. 1125) to Guigues, the Prior, and to the Other Monks of the Grand Chartreuse
To Guigues, the Prior, And to the Other Monks of the Grand Chartreuse He discourses much and piously of the law of true and sincere charity, of its signs, its degrees, its effects, and of its perfection which is reserved for Heaven (Patria). Brother Bernard, of Clairvaux, wishes health eternal to the most reverend among fathers, and to the dearest among friends, Guigues, Prior of the Grande Chartreuse, and to the holy Monks who are with him. 1. I have received the letter of your Holiness as joyfully …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

In Judaea
If Galilee could boast of the beauty of its scenery and the fruitfulness of its soil; of being the mart of a busy life, and the highway of intercourse with the great world outside Palestine, Judaea would neither covet nor envy such advantages. Hers was quite another and a peculiar claim. Galilee might be the outer court, but Judaea was like the inner sanctuary of Israel. True, its landscapes were comparatively barren, its hills bare and rocky, its wilderness lonely; but around those grey limestone …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

Growth in Grace
'But grow in grace.' 2 Pet 3:38. True grace is progressive, of a spreading and growing nature. It is with grace as with light; first, there is the crepusculum, or daybreak; then it shines brighter to the full meridian. A good Christian is like the crocodile. Quamdiu vivet crescit; he has never done growing. The saints are not only compared to stars for their light, but to trees for their growth. Isa 61:1, and Hos 14:4. A good Christian is not like Hezekiah's sun that went backwards, nor Joshua's …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

First Attempts on Jerusalem.
Jesus, almost every year, went to Jerusalem for the feast of the passover. The details of these journeys are little known, for the synoptics do not speak of them,[1] and the notes of the fourth Gospel are very confused on this point.[2] It was, it appears, in the year 31, and certainly after the death of John, that the most important of the visits of Jesus to Jerusalem took place. Many of the disciples followed him. Although Jesus attached from that time little value to the pilgrimage, he conformed …
Ernest Renan—The Life of Jesus

The Universal Chorus
And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that stteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. M en have generally agreed to dignify their presumptuous and arrogant ^* disquisitions on the works and ways of God, with the name of wisdom ; though the principles upon which they proceed, and the conclusions which they draw from …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

Under the Shepherd's Care.
A NEW YEAR'S ADDRESS. "For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls."--1 Peter ii. 25. "Ye were as sheep going astray." This is evidently addressed to believers. We were like sheep, blindly, willfully following an unwise leader. Not only were we following ourselves, but we in our turn have led others astray. This is true of all of us: "All we like sheep have gone astray;" all equally foolish, "we have turned every one to his own way." Our first …
J. Hudson Taylor—A Ribband of Blue

I Fear, I Say, Greatly for Thee, Lest...
39. I fear, I say, greatly for thee, lest, when thou boastest that thou wilt follow the Lamb wheresoever He shall have gone, thou be unable by reason of swelling pride to follow Him through strait ways. It is good for thee, O virgin soul, that thus, as thou art a virgin, thus altogether keeping in thy heart that thou hast been born again, keeping in thy flesh that thou hast been born, thou yet conceive of the fear of the Lord, and give birth to the spirit of salvation. [2142] "Fear," indeed, "there …
St. Augustine—Of Holy Virginity.

The History of the Psalter
[Sidenote: Nature of the Psalter] Corresponding to the book of Proverbs, itself a select library containing Israel's best gnomic literature, is the Psalter, the compendium of the nation's lyrical songs and hymns and prayers. It is the record of the soul experiences of the race. Its language is that of the heart, and its thoughts of common interest to worshipful humanity. It reflects almost every phase of religious feeling: penitence, doubt, remorse, confession, fear, faith, hope, adoration, and …
Charles Foster Kent—The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament