As for God, His way is perfect.
God’s ministries
Many mythologies have told how the gods arm their champions, but the Psalmist reaches a loftier height than these. He ventures to think of God as doing the humble office of bracing on his girdle, but the girdle is itself strength. God, whose own “way is perfect,” makes His servant’s way in some measure like His own; and though, no doubt, the figure must be interpreted in a manner congruous with the context, as chiefly implying “perfection” in regard to the purpose in hand - namely, warfare - we need not miss the deeper truth, that God’s soldiers are fitted for conflict by their “ways” being conformed to God’s. This man’s “strength was as the strength of ten, because his heart was pure.” Strength and swiftness are the two characteristics of antique heroes, and God’s gift bestowed both on the Psalmist. Light of foot as a deer, and able to climb to the robber forts perched on crags as a chamois would, his hands deft, and his muscular arms strong to bend the bow which others could not use, he is the ideal of the warrior of old; and all these natural powers he again ascribes to God’s gift. A goddess gave Achilles his wondrous shield, but what was it to that which God binds on this warrior’s arm? As his girdle was strength, and not merely a means of strength, his shield is salvation, and not merely a means of safety. The fact that God purposes to save, and does act for saving, is the defence against all dangers and enemies. It is the same deep truth as the prophet expresses by making “salvation” the walls and bulwarks of the strong city where the righteous nation dwells in peace. God does not thus arm His servant and then send him out alone to fight as he can, but “Thy right hand holds me up.” What assailant can beat him down if that Hand is under his armpit to support him? The beautiful rendering of the Authorised Version, “Thy gentleness,” scarcely conveys the meaning, and weakens the antithesis of the Psalmist’s “greatness,” which is brought out by translating “Thy lowliness,” or even more boldly, “Thy humility.” There is that in God which answers to the peculiarly human virtue of lowliness; and unless there were, man would remain small, and unclothed with God-given strength. The devout soul thrills with wonder at God’s stooping love, which it discerns to be the foundation of all His gifts, and therefore of its blessedness. The Singer saw deep into the heart of God, and anticipated the great word of the one Revealer, “I am meek and lowly in heart.” (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The perfection of providential dispensations
David had by this time followed the Lord through many a dark step, and he had endured various troubles. Now he is looking back and giving his verdict as to them all. There is--
1. A magnificent preface--“As for God.” He is standing up for God.
2. What of God he commends--“His way,” whether it be that in which men walk with God, personal holiness, or the way wherein God walks with men--the way of His providence, His dispensations.
3. The commendation is perfect. Now, in illustration of text--
I. To our corrupt eyes God’s way is not always perfect. Because--
1. We cannot always see the reason of it (Psalms 77:19). The Lord leads man he knows not where. We have to wait to know (Acts 10:17; John 13:6-7).
2. It sometimes seems to forget the promises. We are ready to cry, as in Jeremiah 15:18, “Wilt Thou be altogether unto me as a liar?” Abraham went in to Hagar for this reason.
3. It sometimes goes cross to the promises, as when Abraham was commanded to offer up Isaac. See also Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:1). The way in the wilderness is often crooked.
4. It runs at times seemingly quite contrary to the design of Providence. The Lord designs good, but disappointment after disappointment cross it more and more. Thus it was with Joseph when cast into the dungeon. Oftentimes Providence reads best backwards (Deuteronomy 32:36). Sometimes--
5. It lays aside the most likely means (1 Corinthians 1:23-24; 2 Kings 5:11; John 16:6-7). Sometimes--
6. It falls on means quite contrary to its design. As when clay was used to cure the blind. When the Lord heals by wounding (Romans 8:28). Then--
7. Providence smiles though wicked men get the sunny side of the brae and walk contrary to God. This made Asaph stammer (Psalms 73:12-14, and Jeremiah 12:1-2). But there is no fault in this (Psalms 92:7). See the end of all these things.
8. The good troubled (Ecclesiastes 8:14). Job. But 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. And--
9. Great afflictions meeting the Lord’s people in the way of duty. This often Jacob’s case.
II. But God’s way is perfect. It is according to the pattern shown in the Word. Is suited to our need (Deuteronomy 32:4). Is ever suited to the time. Is stable. (T. Boston. D. D.)
The Word of the Lord is tried.--
The Bible tested and triumphant
Look at some of the severe tests to which the Bible has been subjected, and by successfully meeting which it has vindicated its claims to a Divine origin, and to universal human acceptance.
I. The bible has stood the test of time. Since the Sacred Canon closed, how many and how vast are the changes which have gone on among men. Hardly one of the ancient powers is today extant. How great have been the strides of human progress! Yet the science of salvation, as taught in the Bible, has needed no remodeling. The race does not outgrow the religion of the Bible. Compare the case of the Bible with the poems of Homer. The two works are, in a certain sense, contemporaneous; critics have denied to the Bible any higher inspiration than that of human genius; and Greek poetry held among that ancient people very much the same place as did the sacred Scriptures among the Jews. Three thousand years ago the two works stood before the world on a comparative equality. How stands the case today? Homer is read as a model of epic verse and specimen of old Ionic Greek. The Bible is read everywhere as a transcript of the Eternal.
II. The test of criticism. Criticism, the most searching and severe to which any work has ever been subjected. A criticism often hostile. But the old Book has come out of it only purified.
III. The test of practical trial. In the patent office are models of many beautiful machines that could not be worked. The Book will stand every practical test. It gives the solution of the great enigmas of the human soul, and provides the consolation for life’s dark hours, those hours of disappointment, adversity, sorrow, and bereavement which come so surely to us all. (B. B. Loomis, Ph. D.)
The Word of the Lord commended to our faith by its being a tried Word
A thing that has been tried is deemed all the more valuable on that account. A medicine which has been found on trial to be a sure remedy for certain kinds of disease is held in high estimation. It is thus that the Word of the Lord is commended to our high esteem. It is a tried Word.
I. Science has tried it. For though at first it denied, now it does homage to the Word of God. For example--
1. Geology. In its early development many facts were brought forward that seemed to bear hard on Scripture statements. Several years since the discovery was made, or was thought to be made, by perforating the successive lavas formed by the volcanic overflowings of Mount AEtna, that the earth must have existed, in its present form, at least fourteen thousand years. The discovery was published by Brydone, an English traveller in Sicily, and flew like light through Europe, and was seized upon by multitudes as furnishing complete evidence that the chronology of the Bible is false and the Bible itself untrue. But subsequent investigation has proved that the supposed discovery was based on an entirely false view of facts. At a later period the astronomical tables of India were supposed to furnish incontestable proof of a much higher antiquity belonging to our globe than is assigned it according to the writings of Moses. But these same astronomical tables were afterwards examined by the great French philosopher Laplace, and were demonstrated to be of comparatively modern date, and furnish not the slightest evidence against the Mosaic chronology. In like manner the variety of languages, and the diversity of colour and form which distinguish the different races of men, have often been urged with great confidence as disproving the account given in Genesis of the common origin of mankind. But the study of ethnography, or the classification of nations by a comparison of their languages, together with a better acquaintance with the natural history of man, has removed this objection, and shown to the satisfaction of the most competent judges that the human race sprang from a common pair. It is with science as it is with the human mind in youth, it is apt to be self-conceited and sceptical; but in its maturity it becomes humble, modest, and reverent of God’s Word. Hence, as Professor Hitchcock of Amherst College says in his Religion of Geology, “Every part of science which has been supposed, by the fears of friends or the malice of foes, to conflict with religion, has been found at length, when fully understood, to be in perfect harmony with its “principles,” “and even to illustrate them.
II. Time has tried it. It is with the Bible as it is with its Divine Author: “One day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
III. Friends have tried it. For they have been all made such by the transforming and subduing power of the Word itself. Consider their numbers, and what it has done for them, and the circumstances under which they have made trial of it and never found it fail.
IV. Enemies have tried it: by persecution; by laws directed against it; by ridicule; by philosophy, and by every means left at their command. Still the object of all these attacks remains uninjured, while one army of its enemies after another has passed away in defeat and dishonour. Though it has been ridiculed more bitterly, misrepresented more grossly, opposed more rancorously, and burnt more frequently than any other book, or perhaps than all other books united, it is so far from sinking under the efforts of its enemies that it is plainly gathering fresh strength from age to age, and the probability of its surviving until the consummation of all things is now far greater than ever.
V. It has been tried in its influence on individual character, upon society, and all the best interests of man. See what institutions it has founded for human good, and maintains them still. Hence learn--
1. There is no fear for the future. As nature’s answers are ever uniform and constant and true, so are those of the Word of the Lord.
2. It is a serious matter for anyone to set himself “against” it. Voltaire said, “It has been the boast of ages that twelve men established Christianity in the world. I will show the world that one man can destroy it.” But where is Voltaire, or what did he accomplish of his impious boast? He lived long, and he worked hard and went down to the grave, cursing the horrid work in which he had spent his days.
3. Let us all prepare to meet the scenes which it tells us are yet before us: death, judgment, eternity. Prepare to meet your God, prepare, through His mercy in Christi to meet Him in peace. For the time is at hand when all that He has said in His Word of the righteous and the wicked, and of heaven and hell, will be matter of experience, of personal unchanging experience to us all. (Joel Hawes, D. D.)
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