It is a beautiful view of the character of the eternal Parent of all His creatures that He fills all the parental relations. "A Father of the fatherless." And His beloved Son well caught in this, as in everything, His Father's mind: "I will not leave you orphans."
I. There are fatherless ones much worse than the fatherless, and there are widows of a far deeper sorrow than the bereaved. There is the man that walks this earth and yet has no relationship with heaven. There are women who are widows in their own inner life.
II. God gathers up the fatherless and the widows and many other unhappy ones in one sad class: the "solitary." "God setteth the solitary in families." (1) He does so by an act of His own sovereign power. He can, if He will, through the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, entirely take away all the solitude of life. The circumstances shall remain just the same, but you shall not feel them. (2) Or you may have such a vivid realisation of the communion of saints, that with both worlds you shall feel quite one. You are "set" in the family of God. (3) It may please God much sooner than you think or expect to take you to your Father's house and set you at once in the very midst of them, at the side of one who is gone. (4) God may do it by some providential arrangement. He may, in a way you little thought of, put it into hearts to love you, and to draw towards you, and to unite themselves with you. "He will set the solitary in families."
J. Vaughan, Sermons,6th series, p. 77.
References: Psalms 68:6. H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 2070; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 58; T. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 357. Psalms 68:9. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iii., p. 136, and vol. xi., p. 135; E. W. Shalders, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xii., p. 54.Psalms 68:10. H. Melvill, Sermons,vol. i., p. 175; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 345.Psalms 68:12. Bishop Woodford, Occasional Sermons,vol. i., p. 210. Psalms 68:13. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. xxii., p. 336; Preacher's Monthly,vol. vi., p. 317; E. Monro, Practical Sermons,vol. i., p. 361.Psalms 68:15. J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 121.Psalms 68:17. J. C. Hare, Sermons in Herstmonceux Church,p. 481.Psalms 68:17; Psalms 68:18. A. Watson, Sermons for Sundays, Festivals, and Fasts,1st series, p. 1.