It is time for Thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void Thy law.
“Time for Thee to work”
The psalmist was surrounded, as would appear, by widespread defection from God’s law. But instead of trembling as if the sun were about to expire, he turns himself to God, and in fellowship with Him sees in all the antagonism but the premonition that He is about to act for the vindication of His own work.
I. Calm confidence that times of antagonism evoke God’s work for His Word. It is ever His method to send His succour after the evil has been developed, and before it has triumphed. Had it come sooner, the priceless benefits of struggle, the new perceptions won in controversy of the many-sided meaning and value of His truth, the vigour from conflict, the wholesome sense of our weakness, had all been lost. Had it come later, it had come too late. So He times His help, in order that we may derive the greatest possible benefit from both the trial and the aid.
II. Earnest prayer which brings that Divine energy. The confidence that God will work underlies and gives energy to the prayer that God would work. The belief that a given thing is in the line of the Divine purpose is not a reason for saying, “We need not pray; God means to do it,” but is a reason for saying on the contrary, “God means to do it; let us pray for it.” And this prayer, based upon the confidence that it is His will, is the best service that any of us can render to the Gospel in troublous times.
III. Love to God’s Word made more fervid by antagonism.
1. Such increase of affection because of gainsayers is the natural instinct of loyal and chivalrous love. If your mother’s name were defiled, would not your heart bound to her defence?
2. Such increase of affection because of gainsayers is the fitting end and main blessing of the controversy which is being waged. We never fully hold our treasures till we have grasped them hard, lest they should be plucked from us. No truth is established till it has been denied and has survived.
3. Such increase of attachment to the Word of God because of gainsayers is the instinct of self-preservation. The present conditions of opinion remands us all to our foundations, and should teach us that nothing but firm adherence to God revealed in His Word, and to the world which reveals God, will prevent us, too, from drifting away to shoreless, solitary seas of doubt, barren as the foam, and changeful as the crumbling, restless wave.
IV. Healthy opposition to the ways which make void the word of the Lord. Let not the contradiction of many move you from your faith; let it lift your eyes to the hills from whence cometh our help. Let it kindle into fervent enthusiasm, which is calm sobriety, your love for that Word. Let it make decisive your rejection of all that opposes. Driftwood may swim with the stream; the ship that holds to her anchor swings the other way. Send that Word far and wide. It is its own best evidence. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The present times
I. What are those evils existing in our country and time which seem to render the present a season that needs God’s special interposition?
1. The prevalence of infidelity.
2. Consider the taste for pleasure, which at the present day is continually increasing and pervading all ranks of society.
3. Nor must I forget that confederation which is undoubtedly going forward at the present time to rob us of our English Sabbath.
4. Is the Church in that spiritual state that any of us could wish? Has not the spirit of trade, by its intensity, by its rash speculations, by its absorbing power, by its money-loving spirit, eaten into and eaten out the heart of the vital piety of the Church?
II. The influence which the evils that I have mentioned ought to have upon the Church’s mind.
1. Should it not produce a deep and heart-affecting concern over the prevalence of iniquity in the world, and the comparative lukewarmness of the Church?
2. With this must be connected the spirit of earnest, believing, prevailing prayer.
3. All this is to be an individual concern. (J. A. James.)
Time for the Lord to work
The Christian who is wholly satisfied with the outlook on the condition of society either possesses a faith of unusual and heroic fibre, or has but feebly mastered the moral phenomena around him.
I. A melancholy fact. “Men have made void Thy law.”
1. By assailing its authority.
(1) You assail the authority of law when you deny the Personality of its source, and this is the form in which the assault upon the authority of law has been conspicuously made in our days. I refer to that subtle and pathetic theory of the universe which finds in pantheism a sufficient explanation of all its phenomena, whether physical or moral.
(2) But the authority of the law of God can be assailed in other ways, as, for example, by palliating the gravity of its transgressions. The fact of sin must lie at the foundation of any system of religion which has to assume the form and function of a redemption; and where sin is denied, or reduced to a hardly culpable minimum, then the redemptive idea seems disproportionate, exaggerated, and almost preposterous.
(3) Another way in which men make void the law of God by assailing its authority is by restricting the area of its rule. To imagine that there can be a sphere in which the aims and activities of men can be released from the authority and sanction of God, is to suppose that there are spheres in which He ceases to be God, and to claim the homage of His creatures.
2. There is another method of making void the law of God, and that is by disparaging its sufficiency. And it is seen mainly in its relation to that law which is the highest revealed to man--the law of the Gospel, the perfect law of liberty, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
II. The urgent appeal. “It is time for Thee, Lord, to work.” Such challenge is the privilege of earnest men. It is the violence which takes heaven by force. God does not resent it. He hears, invites, answers it. But when He arises to work we know not what will be the form of His operations. He worketh according to the counsel of His own will; and who knows but that when once He awakes, and puts on His strength, it may not he confined in its results to the immediate and exclusive quickening of the spiritual life of the Church, but may be associated with providential upheavals and convulsions, which will fill the heart Of the world with astonishment and dismay. There have been times when God has worked, and the signs of His presence have been seen in terrible shakings of the nations, in the ploughing up from their foundations of hoary injustice, in the smiting of grinding tyrannies, and in the emancipation of peoples whose life had been a long and hopeless mean. There have been times, too, and many, when He has worked through the elements of nature--through blasting and mildew, through floods and famine, etc. But this working of God will also take other shapes. Will it not be seen in the inspiration of the Church with faith in its own creed, so far as that creed has the warrant of the Divine Word? Then we may expect a wondrous effusion of the Holy Spirit both upon His Church and the world which is still estranged from His law and love. Can that be the Gospel in its fulness and efficacy which is unmindful of the personality and the agency of that Spirit whose functions were to be so lofty, so searching, So beneficent, and so enduring?. (E. Meller, D. D.)
The Divine patience exhausted through the making void the law
It is of great importance that men be taught that there are limits even to the forbearance of God, and that it is possible so to presume on it as to exhaust it. “They have made void Thy law.” They have reduced the Divine precepts to a dead letter, and refuse to receive them as a rule of life. But what effect will be produced on a truly righteous man by this extraordinary prevalence of iniquity? Will he be tempted, by the universal scorn which he sees thrown on God’s law, to think slightingly of it himself, and give it less of his reverence and attachment? On the contrary, this law becomes more precious in David’s sight, in proportion as he felt that it was so despised and set aside that the time for God to work had arrived. The verses are connected by the word “therefore.” “They have made void Thy law.” What then? is that law less esteemed and less prized by myself? Quite the reverse; “they have made void Thy law; therefore I love Thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold.” This, then, is the second truth presented by our text-that there is greater reason than ever for our prizing God’s law, if the times should be those in which that law is made void. It is obvious, in the first place, that, in days such as these, there is the very finest opportunity of giving honour to God. To love His commandments above gold, whilst others count them but dross, is to display a noble zeal for His glory, and to appear as the champions of His cause, when that cause is on the point of being universally deserted. The prorated, moreover, runs, “Them that honour Me, I Will honour”; and the season, therefore, in which the greatest honour may be given to God, is that also in which the most of future glory may be secured by the righteous. To adhere boldly to the cause of righteousness, when almost solitary in adherence, is to fight the battle when champions ere most needed, and when, therefore, victory will be most triumphant. Let, then, saith the psalmist, the times be times of universal defection from godliness--I will gather warmth from the coldness of others, courage from their cowardice, loyalty from their treason. Indeed, as I gaze on what is passing around me, I cannot but observe that Thy law, O God, is made void, and that it is therefore time for Thee to work. But I am not on this account shaken in attachment to Thy service. On the contrary, Thy law seems to me more precious than ever, for in now keeping Thy commandments I can give Thee greater glory, and find greater reward. What then? it may be that they have made void Thy law; but from my heart I can say, “therefore, on that very account, I love Thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold.” But we have yet another mode in which to exhibit the connection between the verses. We have hitherto supposed the strengthened attachment which David expresses towards the law, to have been produced by the fact that this law was made void. But we now refer it to the fact that it was time for God to work. We consider, that is, that when the psalmist says, “therefore I love Thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold,” the reason is to be found in the character of the times, in the season being one at which God must bring judgments on the earth. “Since Thy law is made void, it is time for Thee, Lord, to interfere in vengeance; and on this account, because Wrath must be let loose, therefore I love Thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold.” And if this be regarded as the connection between the verses, you will readily admit that there is abundant force in the reason of the psalmist. If there be one season at which, more than at another, the righteous feel the worth of revelation, and the blessedness of obeying its precepts, the season must be that of danger and trouble. Whether the danger and trouble be public or domestic; whether it be his country, or only his own household, over which calamity hangs; the man of piety finds a consolation in religion which makes him more than ever prize the revealed will of God. There is a beauty and energy in the Bible which nothing but affliction can bring out and display; and men know comparatively little of the preciousness of Scriptural promises, and the magnificence of Scriptural hopes, until placed in circumstances of difficulty and distress. “It is time for Thee, Lord, to work.” “They have forsaken Thy covenant”, etc.; and the Judge of men must arise, and vindicate His insulted authority. But I know on whom the mark of deliverance will be set when the men with the slaughter-weapons are commanded to pass through the land. I know that where there is obedience to Thy law, there will be security from Thy wrath. And hence that law is more precious in my sight than it ever was before--“it is time for Thee to work; therefore I love Thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold.” “It is time for Thee, Lord, to work.” There is much in myself which requires the processes of the refiner, much of the corruptible to be removed, much of the dross to be purged away. But if it be needful that I be cast into the furnace of affliction, I have Thy precepts to which to cling, Thy promises on which to rest. I find that Thy Word comforts me in the prospect; I know that it will sustain me in the endurance; and hence, because it is time for Thee to work, therefore is Thy word dearer to me “than the gold, yea, than the fine gold.” (H. Melvill, B. D.)
The worker most wanted
At different periods in the world’s history, in particular places and with respect to particular acts, transgression has been so common and flagrant, that there has been danger of the law of God being cancelled, and the law of sin everywhere written instead. Such times have needed special interpositions, which are tacitly asked for in the text.
I. The complaint. To make void God’s law is to misinterpret it, to encumber it, to ignore it, to defy its penalties, or to deny its obligation.
II. The appeal. They have made void Thy law--“it is time for Thee, Lord, to work.” There are three works possible here. The vindication of the law by punishment, the republication of the law, and the restoration of men to obedience. And which of these is the greatest? Punishment causes the law to be honoured in the punished, but not by them. The promulgation of the law puts it forward in work, but not necessarily in deed. The restoration to obedience honours it in spirit and in life. And while a man of God may live in times rendering the promulgation of law needful, and may see punishment desirable, the main desire of his heart will be that God will honour His law in the restoration of men to true obedience. (S. Martin.)