They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion.
Trustfulness
I. Trustfulness in its supreme object: “The Lord” (Jeremiah 17:5-8).
II. Trustfulness securing inestimable blessings.
1. Stability (verse 1).
2. Divine nearness (verse 2).
3. Protection from the power and oppression of wickedness (verse 3).
III. Trustfulness seeking the good of others (verse 4). Its nature to do so, being unselfish, generous, and jealous for the glory of God. Others kept good for goodness’ sake.
IV. Trustfulness pronouncing the fate of apostates, and the tranquil experience of itself and companions (verse 5). (J. O. Keen, D. D.)
The community of the good
I. The security of the good ensured (Psalms 125:1-3). The good are “they that trust in the Lord.” Such are--
1. Firmly established (verse 1).
2. Safely guarded (verse 2). (Isaiah 54:10; Zechariah 2:4-13).
3. Ultimately delivered (verse 3).
“Rod” here means sceptre, and the “lot of the righteous” the land of promise. The generic idea is that the power of the wicked shall not always extend to the good; one day the community of the good shall be out of the dominion of wickedness for ever and ever. “He shall bruise Satan under our feet.”
II. The prosperity of the good invoked (verses 4, 5).
1. The invocation specifies the character of the good (verse 4). “To be good” is to be “upright in heart,” and to be “upright in heart” is to be right in our loves, our aims, and activities. The “goody” are common, the good are rare.
2. The invocation pictures the character, and foretells the doom of the wicked (verse 5). (Judges 5:6; Psalms 58:8; Psalms 109:23; Matthew 7:22; Matthew 24:51.) (Homilist.)
Divine surroundings
I. The security of the people of God.
1. Between them and all evil is--
(1) The almightiness of God.
(2) His unerring wisdom.
(3) His unchanging love.
2. This Divine surrounding affects--
(1) The spiritual interests of His people.
(2) Their temporal necessities.
(3) All providential experiences.
(4) Their sorrows.
II. Their stability. Mount Zion cannot be removed, but abideth for ever; even so, they that trust. Having a hold of God, they cannot be permanently injured in their highest and eternal relations. Moved they may be, but never removed; “perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.” “The Lord is round about them even for ever.” (J. M. Jarvie.)
The mountain-girdled mountain
This little psalm looks very much like a record of the impression that was made on the pilgrim as he first topped the crest of the hill from which he looked on Jerusalem. Two peculiarities of its topographical position are both taken here as symbols of spiritual realities, for the singularity of the situation of the city is that it stands on a mountain and is girdled by mountains. There is a tongue of land or peninsula cut off from the surrounding country by deep ravines, on which are perched the buildings of the city, while across the valley on the eastern side is Olivet, and, on the south, another hill, the so-called “Hill of Evil Counsel”; but upon the west and north sides there are Do conspicuous summits, though the ground rises. Thus, really, though not apparently, there lie all round the city encircling defences of mountains. Similarly, says the psalmist, set and steadfast as on a mountain, and compassed about by a protection, like the bastions of the everlasting hills, are they whose trust is in the Lord.
I. The simple act of trust in God brings inward stability. The word here translated “trust” literally means to “hang upon” something. And so, beautifully, it tells us what faith is--just hanging upon God. Whoever has laid his tremulous hand on a fixed something, partakes, in the measure in which he does grasp it, of the fixity of that on which he lays hold; so “they that trust in the Lord” “shall be as Mount Zion,” that stands there summer and winter, day and night, year out and year in, with its strong buttresses and its immovable mass, the very emblem of solidity and stability.
II. This same attitude of realizing the Divine presence, will, and help, will bring around us the encircling defences. “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people”--a very real defence, but a defence that it takes an instructed eye to see; no obvious protection, palpable to the vulgar touch, and manifest to the sensuous eye, but something a great deal better than that--a real protection, through which we may be sure that nothing which is evil can ever pass. Whatsoever does get over the encircling mountains, and down to us, we may be sure is not an evil but a very real good. Only we have to interpret the protection on the principles of faith, and not on those of sense. When, then, there come down upon us--as there do upon us all, thank God!--dark days, and sad days, and solitary days, and losses and bitternesses of a thousand kinds, do not let us falter in the belief that if we have our hearts set on God, nothing has come to us but what He has let through.
III. Simple trust in God, in some measure, assimilates the protected to the Protector. Mountains girdle a mountain, and so my trust opens my heart to the entrance into my heart of something akin to God. It makes us “partakers of a Divine nature.” The immovableness of the trustful man is not all unlike the calmness of the trusted God; and the steadfastness of the one is a reflex of the unchangeableness of the other. “As the mountains are round about Mount Zion,” God is round about the people that are becoming Godlike. Mark further the significant repetition of the same expression in reference to the stability of the man protected, and the continuance of the protection. Both are “for ever.” That is to say, if it is true that God is round about me, and that, in some humble measure, my heart has been opening to be calmed and steadied by the influx of His own life, then His “for ever” is my “for ever.” And it cannot be that He should live and I should die. The guarantee of the eternal being of the trustful soul is the experience to-day of the reality of the Divine protection. And thus we may face everything--life, death, whatsoever may come, assured that nothing touches the continuity and the perpetuity of the union between the trusting soul and the trusted God. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Trust in the Lord, the condition of stability and safety
I. Trust in the Lord is the condition of moral stability. Such a soul is firm in its--
1. Love.
2. Faith.
3. Purpose.
II. Trust in the Lord is the condition of Divine security. How often mountains protected nations! The free winds that sweep the summits, and thunder at the sides, seem to inspire the people with an invincible love of freedom. And mountains, too, have often proved the asylums of freedom. But no mountains have guarded a people as God guards those who trust in Him. The Eternal God is a refuge, and underneath are the “everlasting arms.” He “is a fire round about” them, and their “glory in the midst” of them. (Homilist.)
Mountains trust in God
I. The mountain as an emblem--
1. Of God’s defence (Psalms 62:2; Psalms 62:6; Psalms 18:2; Psalms 71:3).
2. Of God’s strength. Those who have stood at some great height amid the sloping snow-field, bristling barriers of ice, and peaks of untrodden rock in the higher Alps, far from organic life, even of the smallest kind of vegetation, have felt some thrill of perhaps inexpressible awe. The grandeur of the vastness and power of the scene proves our own utter helplessness and littleness. Looking from ourselves and our little finite limits of thought and act out into the large unrealized infinity of God’s great power, written in earth and sea and sky, and in the mind of man, the soul feels lost. But remember that all this expression of power is but the symbol of the strength of a Father’s love.
3. Of God’s everlastingness.
II. Trust in God gives--
1. An inspiration of success.
2. A happy heart, in spite of everything.
3. Submissive decision of character.
There is something supremely exhilarating and sublime in the spectacle of the good man who, in the strength of what he believes to be Heaven-sent guidance, goes intrepidly forward, noting little of what opposes and may attack, though death itself hang its sword above his head, though the world seem to shake in ruins around him. Though, as it were, the very earth be moved and the mountains be carried into the heart of the seas, the regular, constant, unwavering pursuit of his ideal is the one motive of life. So Daniel braved in quiet reverence the decree which opened the den of lions; the three witnesses to God argued not a moment, though the flames and heat of the fiery furnace were in front of them. (C. E. Harris.)
The immovability of the believer
The metaphor in the text was drawn by the pilgrims from the hill before them; or, if the psalm does not belong to pilgrims, but to all Israel, they took the comparison from that mountain with which they were best acquainted. If they might not all see Lebanon, which lay at the northern extremity of the land, if they might not all behold the excellency of Carmel, or gaze upon the heights of Hermon, yet once in the year they must all look upon Zion, “whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel.” The emblem was therefore a familiar one, and I wish sometimes that we were more apt at sanctifying to holy uses the common objects which are round about us: these streets and houses, our own country, and our own home. I am afraid our eyes are open when we seek emblems of sadness and we find them on every hedge and in any garden-plot; but we should also look at home when we want metaphors of thanksgiving with which to set forth our security and our comfort in the Lord.
I. A lowly people. They “trust in the Lord.” A very simple thing to do. It needs no effort of intellect to trust, and it needs no laborious education to learn the way; trusting in the Lord is simply depending where there is unquestionable reason for reliance, believing what is assuredly true, and acting upon it. Trusting in the Lord is taking at His word One who cannot lie, or change, or fail; and certainly this is no great feat if we look at it from the carnal man’s own point of view. At the same time, it is very right. Should not a man trust in his own Creator? Does He not deserve to be trusted? Has He not always been faithful? Moreover, is it not wise? What can be wiser? Those of us who have tried trusting in God have never found it fail, whereas when we have trusted in men we have been disappointed.
II. The security of believers. God’s children undergo a variety of experiences. To-day their hearts are a place of sacrifice, and to-morrow a battle-field; by turns their soul is a temple and a threshing-floor; but whatever their ups and downs may be, they shall never be removed from their ordained and appointed place: by the grace of God they are where they are, and where they shall be. They shall never be effectually removed from that place before the Lord in which infinite love has fixed them.
III. The evident reason for all this. Why is it that they that trust in the Lord shall not be moved?
1. Because they are trusting in the truth. They have not believed a lie, and therefore they shall not be swept from their foundation. They are trusting in One who will not deceive them and cannot fail them. They have laid their foundation on a rock, have they not?
2. They are trusting where their reliance is observed and welcomed. God loveth to have many dependants about Him. It is His way of revealing Himself and manifesting His glory. If this is what He desireth, if He seeketh such to worship Him, who believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, why should He reject their suit?
3. It is not the nature of God to cast away any who rely upon Him; on the contrary, He is very careful that faith should never have less than she has expected. He respects the courage of faith: He never confounds it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Steadfast trust
Believers are too often tossed about in their minds, and suffer great shakings and movings of heart because they do not trust in the Lord as they should. These things ought not to be, for we ought to be steadfast and immovable; but by reason of infirmity and immaturity many are tossed to and fro as with a tempest. Still, even in these, deep in their soul their faith is earnestly keeping its hold, and does not permit them altogether to drift. At the back of a great deal of grievous unbelief, when we are in a depressed condition, there lives a faith which is not moved, but in secret takes hold as for dear life, biding its time till better days shall come. It is only by realizing the everlasting, abiding love of God that they that trust in the Lord shall come to feel steadfast as Mount Zion which shall never be removed. The man of God may know that he is safe, and yet there may be such a rush and tumult in his experience that he may not be able to understand himself or realize his true position. This may happen even to more advanced believers; but as we grow in grace the tendency is to reach a more even and equable condition. Experienced believers are not to be put about by every puff of wind; nay, they come at last to hold on their way in the teeth of all ill weathers, and, like hardy mariners, make small account of the lesser storms of life. (C. H. Spurgeon.)