For ever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven.
My solace in affliction
I. Here we have strong consolation in certain facts which he remembered. Fly ye to the mountains when the enemy invades the land. Hide in the strongholds of your God.
1. The eternal existence of God, which is implied in the continuance of His faithfulness and power. “The Lord liveth” is the plea of souls harassed and haunted by foes without and fears within. Nothing happens to the Lord at haphazard. What can threaten His existence, thwart His purpose, weaken His power, diminish the tenderness of His heart, or distract the wisdom of His judgment?
2. The immutability of His Word. “Thy Word is settled in heaven.” “Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is My throne,” etc. His Word is settled in heaven and issued from heaven, the seat of His government, and it cannot be altered on earth, this distant colony of His empire. We refer to God’s Word, therefore, in grievous difficulties with great confidence, because we know that every statement it contains is reliable.
3. The faithfulness of the fulfilment of that Word. “Thy faithfulness is unto all generations.” Those men who have trusted God’s Word in any generation have always found it true.
4. The perpetuity of the Word in nature. “Thou hast established the earth,” etc.
5. The perpetuity of the Word in experience (verse 92).
II. The delights which he experienced in the time of his trouble. It is in such seasons of acute distress, when this world has no palliative to offer, that God’s Word can minister infinite delights to soothe the distractions and heal the sorrows of the heart. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The eternal order
I. The source of the Divine order. “Heaven.” The heavens of creation declare the eternal order of the spiritual heavens. Be our views of the methods of creation what they may, it runs in the channels of the eternal order. Reflect upon it thus, as manifested in creation, moral government, redemption--in the infinitely great and the infinitely little.
II. Its stability. Thy Word is “settled” in heaven. It is not established upon the floods, by and by there shall be “no sea”; it is not founded upon the hills, by and by “the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed”; it is not dependent upon the astronomical heavens, for by and by heaven and earth shall itself pass away; it is settled in Heaven, whose light, strength, and stability is God. Much should be said of the breadth and universality of the eternal order.
III. Its permanence (verses 90, 91). The eternal order implies infinite prevision, conscious purpose, consistency of aim, absoluteness of authority, harmony of design, beyond the possibility of chance or change to affect; it is inclusive of all operations, interests, duties, and possibilities; a grand plan, of which Jesus Christ is the Administrator, the Bible, for us men, the completed Revelation and Clue; the Blood the Seal; the Holy Spirit the Agent; and Glory the Consummation.
1. Sin is violation of, and opposition to, the eternal Order. It is the way to certain destruction.
2. Salvation is the voluntary falling in, by faith in Christ and a life of holiness, with the eternal Order. “Thy statutes are my songs.”
3. The practical effect of the contemplation of the eternal Order should be a faith which fears no foe. (Joseph Morris.)
God’s Word fixed in Heaven
The great problem in the construction of large lighthouses upon high and necessarily exposed points is, how best to prevent oscillation or swaying of the structure in times of prevailing wind or storm. It may be readily perceived that any variation, however slight, in the direction of the rays of light from the lamps when the lighthouse is in use, as at night, would make very material difference to the mariner far out at sea. Ships guiding their course in the path of the lighthouse beams would he very liable to be thrust from the line of safety altogether, and thus there would be created the danger of serious disaster, if indeed not actually causing loss to life and property. But no such danger confronts the Christian mariner out upon life’s sea, for God’s guiding light, the lighthouse of the Scriptures, is “fixed in heaven.” (G. V. Reichell.)