Expositions of Holy Scripture | Page 4

plain deduction from the very conception of an
infinite Being. But it may be held in such connections, and spoken with such erroneous
application, and so divorced from other truths, that instead of being what it is in the Bible,
good news, it shall become a curse and a lie. It may be so understood as to describe not
our Father in heaven, but an almighty devil! But, when the thought that God's purpose in
all His acts is His own glory, is firmly united with that other, that His purpose in all His
acts is our blessing, then we begin to understand how full of joy it may be for us. His
glory is sought by Him in the manifestation of His loving heart, mirrored in our
illuminated and gladdened hearts. Such a glory is not unworthy of infinite love. It has
nothing in common with the ambitious and hungry greed of men for reputation or
self-display. That desire is altogether ignoble and selfish when it is found in human hearts;
and it would be none the less ignoble and selfish if it were magnified into infinitude, and
transferred to the divine. But to say that God's glory is His great end, is surely but another
way of saying that He is love. The love that seeks to bless us desires, as all love does, that
it should be known for what it is, that it should be recognised in our glad hearts, and

smiled back again from our brightened faces. God desires that we should know Him, and
so have Eternal Life; He desires that knowing Him, we should love Him, and loving
should praise, and so should glorify Him. He desires that there should be an interchange
of love bestowing and love receiving, of gifts showered down and of praise ascending, of
fire falling from the heavens and sweet incense, from grateful hearts, going up in fragrant
clouds acceptable unto God. It is a sign of a Fatherly heart that He 'seeketh such to
worship Him'. He desires to be glorified by our praise, because He loves us so much. He
commences with an offer, He advances to a command. He gives first, and then (not till
then) He comes seeking fruit from the 'trees' which are 'the planting of the Lord, that He
might be glorified.' His plea is not 'the vineyard belongs to Me, and I have a right to its
fruits,' but 'what could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in
it?--judge between Me and My vineyard.' First, He showers down blessings; then, He
looks for the revenue of praise!
II. We may also take these passages as giving us a twofold expression of the actual
effects of God's revelation, especially in the Gospel, even here upon earth.
The one text is the joyful exclamation built upon experience and observation. The other is
a call which is answered in some measure even by voices that are often dumb in
unthankfulness, often broken by sobs, often murmuring in penitence.
God does actually, though not completely, make men blessed here. Our text sums up the
experience of all the devout hearts and lives whose emotions are expressed in the Psalms.
He who wrote this psalm would preface the whole book by words into which the spirit of
the book is distilled. It will have much to say of sorrow and pain. It will touch many a
low note of wailing and of grief. There will be complaints and penitence, and sighs
almost of despair before it closes. But this which he puts first is the note of the whole. So
it is in our histories. They will run through many a dark and desert place. We shall have
bitterness and trials in abundance, there will be many an hour of sadness caused by my
own evil, and many a hard struggle with it. But high above all these mists and clouds will
rise the hope that seeks the skies, and deep beneath all the surface agitations of storms
and currents there will be the unmoved stillness of the central ocean of peace in our
hearts. In the 'valley of weeping' we may still be 'blessed' if 'the ways' are in our hearts,
and if we make of the very tears 'a well,' drawing refreshment from the very trials. With
all its sorrows and pains, its fightings and fears, its tribulations in the world, and its
chastenings from a Father's hand, the life of a Christian is a happy life, and 'the joy of the
Lord' remains with His servants.
More than twenty centuries have passed since that psalm was written. As many stretched
dim behind the Psalmist as he sang. He was gathering up in one sentence the spirit of the