Psalms 4
RileyPsalms 4:1-8
HOUNDED; YET HAPPY! Psalms 3-5 IN continuing our studies today upon the Book of Psalms, we invite your attention to Psalms 3-5 inclusive; and after a careful perusal of them, you will be ready to accept as a title for this exposition, “Hounded; yet Happy.” There is little debate that the third Psalm at least, was written at the time of Absalom’s rebellion, and voiced at once the distress and disgust, and yet the divinely inspired faith of the Psalmist. Whether the Psalms 4, 5 have an immediate historical relation to Psalms 3 is a question not easy of settlement; but that there is a spiritual and even a logical order here, no one, who carefully peruses them, will dispute.I take them up then, in their order and choose to discuss them under, The King’s Opponents, The King’s Protection, and The King’s Praises.THE KING’S They are a multitude in number. “Lord, how are they increased that trouble me! Many are they that rise up against me”. This exclamation is best interpreted in the light of 2 Samuel 15:12, “And the conspiracy was strong; for the people increased continually with Absalom”. The multitude of a man’s enemies tell us much about his character. It may mean that he is a Herod, and hated by the thousands of mothers whose innocent ones he has slain; it may be that he is a Nero, despised by the tens of thousands who have suffered from his tyranny; it may be that he is a Lenine, whose selfish, ruthless hand has turned well nigh a whole nation against him; and, it may mean exactly the opposite.It is often a man of such character and accomplishment as to become the envy of his equals, the fear of his inferiors, and the abhorrence of the fickle rabble. In fact, “a multitude of enemies” is commonly a compliment.
The conduct of the meanest man collides with the interest of the comparative few; his evil temper may exasperate a dozen of his intimates, and his utter selfishness may try the patience of his comparatively few friends and acquaintances, while his sins may disgust or even injure a considerable company; but, after all, selfishness tends to isolate, and sin to circumscribe, and the meanest of living men create, comparatively speaking, few opponents.Not so with the truly great man of God! From the days of David, past those of David’s greater Son, till now, the multitudes have risen against such men.
Take a William Jennings Bryan as an illustration! Hosts of Republicans hated him, because, as a Democrat, he was compelled to be their political opponent; tens of thousands of Democrats hated him because, as a righteous man, he would not tolerate dirty political tactics, or approve unrighteous Democratic politicians. His loyalty to God’s Word arrayed against him all nationalists and skeptics. His Prohibition views arrayed against him every liquor-seller and liquor-lover of all the earth; while such institutions as the gambling hell, the bagnio, the low pool room, the places of prize fights, the godless dance halls, the conscienceless doctor and the professional, but putrid druggist, all institutions and individuals that profit through the unholy liquor traffic—(and their name is legion,) they hated him, and they rose against him, and their number and influence was sufficient to keep him from the White House. But, with the possible exception of the honest difference of political opinion, the whole putrid crowd paid compliment to the man by rising against him, and their very opposition was a testimony to his character, and the positive proof of the greatness of his influence.Little men are never hated by a multitude; large men rarely escape the enmity of the many! Little men go through the world and pick individual quarrels, but it takes men of might, men of power, men of profound convictions and of equal ability to stir society against themselves and to array armies in opposition.
Christ once said, “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you”. That is a woe from which the truly great soul is sure to be exempt.
We have articles written on “The War in the Churches” and multiplied discussions on the controversy between Fundamentalists and Modernists.In the truest sense the “War in the Churches” is the rise of the multitude against one Man, and that is the Man Christ. As David must have been astonished to learn that his own son Absalom had turned rebel, and as the King’s amazement increases upon hearing that Ahithophel had forsaken him and become the consort of his rebellious son, and as his soul must have been filled with loathing when later he had to look on the face of Shimei, and hear his name defamed by the unholy lips of that apostate, so great David’s greater Son—Jesus, the Christ, must feel today as one friend after another deserts Him, and joining the rebel ranks of Rationalism and Unitarianism, discredits His claims to Kingship, deny His inheritance, deride His promises, as “mistaken pretentions” and seek to tear down the very throne to which He is heir; some of them even mocking Him to the extent of saying, “There is no help for him in God”, that “the day of His pretentions” is past and that all His claims to “Deity” are in “collapse” and that God never could regard Him, and never will, and never can exalt Him to the world’s supremacy, seeing that He sleeps in Judah’s dust, a perished pretender. How often the Psalmist, in voicing himself, by anticipation voices God’s Son at the same time. It was the Psalmist who cried “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me”? And yet, he was voicing the language of the Son, when on Calvary’s tree, darkness clothed Him, and despair possessed Him.As a result of the opposition of his multitude of enemies, scoffers said, “There is no help for him in God”; but, take a step further in study.The enemies are as impotent as plenteous. “Thou, O Lord, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head. I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and He heard me out of His holy hill.
Selah. I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me.
I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about” (Psalms 3:3-6). That is the declaration of faith. That is the defiant answer to every rebel against God’s Son, the King of His appointment, the Son of His love. What matters it if a multitude do rise against one? “If God be for us, who can be against us” The enemy may be a multitude, but what are they against the “legions of angels” subject to the call of His Son, and equally ready for the defense of His saints?Turning back a single page, we recall the prophetic words, “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against His anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.
Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure”. Who shall stand against the King?
Who, or what, shall hurt the subject of God’s grace? Listen to the exultant boast of Paul,“Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us, “For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, “Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. True faith in God knows no fear. When the Broadcloth mob were thundering before William Lloyd Garrison’s office in Boston, crying, “Hang him’!” some godly women, gathered in an adjoining room for the purpose of praying for abolition of the slave traffic, turned their petitions to God for Mr. Garrison and for themselves, and among them one said, “Oh, Lord, there be many to molest, but none can make us afraid.” That was the voice of faith!Listen to the Psalmist, “O Lord, Thou art a shield for me?’—who then shall hurt him? “My glory”— who then can shame him? “The lifter up of mine head”—who then can dethrone him? “I cried unto the Lord with my voice, He heard me out of His Holy hill”—who then can stand against him? “I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me”. Who then can disturb him? and “I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about”—who then can cower or conquer him?Enemies drive the believer to the Divine protection. “Arise, O Lord; save me, O my God, for Thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; Thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly. Salvation belongeth unto the Lord; Thy blessing is upon Thy people. Selah”—“Rest”—that is the meaning of the word, as if he wound up this confident assertion with “This is my hope, and I am not disturbed.”Marvelous are the works of faith.
Turn now, if you will, to the Book of Jonah; read that story again, and all rationalistic critics to the contrary notwithstanding, believe it; and you will find that there are no conditions under which God’s power fails, or God’s protection is foolishly trusted. The prophet of God is in the belly of a fish at the bottom of the deep.
If ever circumstances were such as to destroy the last vestige of hope, even from on High, Jonah was so situated. But, instead of despairing, he reminded himself of this passage of Scripture, and believed it, and wound up his eloquent prayer with the exact quotation from the Psalmist, “Salvation is of the Lord”; and the Scriptures had the same effect upon that fish that they have upon the “suckers of skepticism” to this day; they made him sick and he “vomited out Jonah upon the dry land”. The shark of Modern Skepticism would swallow up every true prophet in the land, if it could, but let it be understood always and forever, that the man who knows the Scriptures and in the language of faith, pleads them before God, will never be kept down by that shark of skepticism, nor perish in the belly of the same. God will lift up the heads of all such men; God will leave their souls undisturbed; God will smite the cheek-bone of their enemies; and prove again and again that “salvation belongeth unto Him”, and that “His blessing is upon His own”.Turn then to the next chapter, the fourth, and studyTHE KING’S He is the One that heareth prayer. Listen to David, “Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness”! Learn from David how to repair your own spiritual losses by reminding yourself of past favors, “Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.
Have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer”. Learn from David how to face present difficulties, buoyed by past victories, “O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? how long will ye love vanity, and seek after leasing?
Selah. But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself, and the Lord will hear when I call unto Him” (Psalms 3:2-3). And learn also from David how a personal holy life makes the prayer of faith more easily possible. I “stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah” (Psalms 3:4)— rest. Yea, “rest in the Lord”! That is the result of prayer, if it be voiced in faith, believing.It is a great thing to come to the point where you can rest in the Lord; no matter what the circumstances, how imminent the dangers, how dreadful the threatened evil, there is a faith that can conquer them all. Let me give you an illustration of it.
The great Dr. Guthrie, the famous preacher, became conscious one morning that he ought to visit an aged and helpless woman of his flock, whose daughter, a bread-winner, was away from home all day, working in a flax-mill, leaving the paralytic mother entirely alone. He could not understand the impulse, but it was sufficiently strong so that he started on his long journey. On the way there he met a friend with whom he had important business, but as they stopped to talk it over, Guthrie suddenly broke off, saying, “I do not know why I do it, but I must hasten to see this old woman”, and by fairly running, he felt he had regained all the time he lost in the conversation. Reaching the house, he knocked but once, and knowing her utter helplessness, opened the door. Walking in, he found that the fire had toppled along the hearth and rolling across the same, had set the room aflame, and the helpless paralytic mother lay within a few feet of the red-tongued destroyer.
Her face was calm and her eyes were lifted to Heaven, and when Dr. Guthrie had extinguished the fire and turned to her, she said, with a smile, “I asked the Lord to send some one; and I knew He would do it.” That is prayer making its appeal to a competent Protector.
The God of David was the God of the Scotch mother.He is also the One that drives away darkness. “Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord. There be many that say, Who will shew us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us” (Psalms 4:6). What a petition! “Lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us”. Darkness is one of the gruesome enemies of this life. I speak not of the blackness of night in which men fall into pits, or under the cover of which murderers do their work; in fact, I speak not of physical darkness at all, and that wasn’t the Psalmist’s thought; but darkness, mental, and darkness, spiritual! What protection can we have against these? They are the great enemies of human existence!
The mental anguish of Minneapolis, who will measure this morning? Oh, the multitude of minds, well known to God today, that are clouded, befogged, troubled, despairing; and the multitude of souls that have no hope, wrapped in a starless night! Whence shall these look for help?David tells us, “There will be many who will say, Who will shew us any good? Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us”. It is like the cry of the man, lost in the depths of the wilderness, and enclosed by night, with hissing serpents, crawling at his feet, and howling wolves and hyenas snapping at his heels, and yet knowing full well that the very moment the sun rises in the East these serpents will crawl away, and hide themselves from before his face, and every howling hyena and man-eater of every sort, will skulk to holes where darkness reigns,—their natural habitat. It is as if the soul cried, even more terribly beset, “Let the day break; Let the light of Thy countenance fall on us” and instantly our enemies are abashed, and we are safe! Margaret Sangster writes: “Sometimes we are almost discouraged, The way is so cumbered and steep; Sometimes, though we’re spent with the sowing, There cometh no harvest to reap, And we faint on the road and we falter, As our faith and our courage are gone, Till a voice, as we kneel at the altar, Commands us: Take heart and go on.’” It is the sound of His voice; it is the shining of His face—these are the end of darkness, and the triumph even against death itself.Edward Payson, one of the most eminent and devout of the New England ministers of more than a century ago, said, as he neared the other world, “It has often been remarked that people who have been into the other world cannot come back to tell us what they have seen; but I am so near the eternal world that I can see almost as clearly as if I were there; and I see enough to satisfy myself at least of the truth of the doctrines which I have preached. I do not know that I should feel at all surer had I been really there. Hitherto I have perceived God as a fixed star, bright indeed, but often intercepted by clouds; but now He is coming nearer and nearer, and spreads into a sun so vast and glorious that the sight is too dazzling for flesh and blood to sustain!”It was a kindred thought that the old pilot expressed, who after he had plowed the seas for many years, was dying. Suddenly he lifted himself upon his arms and cried, “I see a light!” They thought he was in delirium, and by imagination saw the harbor approaching. “Is it the light of Montauk?”“No; I see a light!” “Is it the Hatteras light?”“No; I see a light!” “Is it the Brighton light?”“No; it is the light of Heaven! It is His shining face! “Let the anchor slip. I am in the harbor!I am at Home!” Oh, the light of God’s countenance, that is safety! God’s presence is perfect safety. The Psalmist cries, “Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep; for Thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety” (Psalms 4:7-8).Finally,THE KING’S PRAISE Psalms 5 They open the gates of the day, Godward. “Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation. Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God; for unto Thee will I pray. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up” (Psalms 5:1-3). The custom then, of morning prayers is ancient indeed, and its passing is one of the pathetic things of the twentieth century. Bishop Burnett, writing many, many years ago, said of a much earlier time, “When a person came early to the door of his neighbor and desired to speak with the master of the house, it was as common a thing then for the servant to tell him, “My master is at prayer,” as it is now for the servant to say, “My master is not up yet!” The morning watch has gone, save in exceptional instances, and with it, the deep spiritual life that made our stalwart fathers and our holy mothers.It is my candid conviction that modern rationalism would have been made a thousandfold more difficult had the family altar been retained. The boy who goes out of a house where the Scriptures have seldom been read in his presence, to college, is not likely to be so informed concerning them that he can withstand the criticism of them; and the boy who goes out of his house, where the father and mother are church-members, but where the day is never begun at the family altar and devout prayers are seldom spoken in the child’s presence, is not likely to believe that the faith of parents is a precious possession, a valuable mental, spiritual and moral asset.I do not know when this custom of beginning the day with prayer began.
Alas, that I should have lived to see the time when it is so nearly ended. Alas, that so few of you, my people, are able to say, “In the morning O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up”.
And possibly one reason why we pray less is in the sentence that follows. We know, as David said, that He is “not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness; neither shall evil dwell” with Him. We know that the foolish shall not stand in His sight; that He hates all workers of iniquity; that He shall “destroy them that speak leasing”; that He abhors “the bloody and deceitful man”. When a man comes to the point where he cannot pray, and where he does not want to pray, the explanation is at hand. Sin hath intervened and the soul is suffering; and God is gone. If any of us be in that state this morning, why not join the Psalmist in determining,“I will come into Thy house in the multitude of Thy mercy; and in Thy fear will 1 worship toward Thy holy temple. Lead me, O Lord, in Thy righteousness, because of mine enemies; make Thy way straight before my face. “For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue. “Destroy Thou them, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against Thee” (Psalms 5:7-10). In other words,Turn the private closet and the temple of God into trysting places of prayer. Go back to that bedside place on which you once bent the knee and bend it again; and come with God’s people into the sanctuary and speak with them, and if you cannot speak, in the hushed silence of that same house, follow, and in your own soul, second the Amen meaningly, to what the leader shall say. Pray, even though the words of prayer burn your tongue, and bring your spirit under condemnation, and compel strong groaning and tears. The man who smote his breast and cried, “God be merciful to me, a sinner”, was not repudiated because such he was; but, in the very conviction, he was cleansing himself, and coming into Divine favor.Do not imagine you can dispense with the closet prayer without sustaining a great spiritual loss; and do not imagine that you can quit the House of God and the assembly of the saints, without coming into spiritual bankruptcy. No man ever lived who knew temptations greater than David endured, and whose sins were more difficult of cleansing, and whose losses more hard to recover, and yet his victories are recorded, and by the pen of inspiration, he is forever set up as “a man after God’s own heart”, made such, beyond question, by penitent prayer, by the fixed place of private devotion, and by the established custom of worship in the house of God.This Psalm terminates in songs of praise and joy. David becomes a sort of choir director.
Listen to his orders, “Let all those that put their trust in Thee, rejoice. Let them ever shout for joy, because Thou defendest them.
Let them also that love Thy Name be joyful in Thee. For Thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt Thou compass him as with a shield” (Psalms 5:11-12).There are young people ignorant of the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and inexperienced in soul-emotions, who imagine the Christian life a joyless one. Not so; the happiest man who walks this earth is the man whose heart is in the house of the Lord, and whose feet are in the path that shineth more and more unto the perfect day; he is the happy man. Joy and rejoicing are his daily portion. Yea, God giveth to him “songs in the night”; and those songs do not depend upon whether the moon and the stars are out, and the zephers of summer move among the leaves, and all nature seems glad. Not at all; such men can scarcely be so situated that joy and rejoicing are not their portion.
Turn up to the sixteenth chapter of the Book of the Acts, and look upon two men, Paul and Silas, arrested last evening,-dragged before rulers, charged with being trouble-breeders, teachers of unlawful customs, and at the word of magistrates, their clothes are torn from them and they are commanded to be beaten and many stripes have been laid upon the uncovered flesh, and blood has trickled to their heels; held now by stocks, and they by additional iron bars, for they are fastened in the inner prison.Listen! What is that we hear?
It is midnight, and down in that dank cell no light shines, and yet Paul and Silas are singing praises unto God, and so sweet and eloquent are their voices, and so radiant and happy their souls, that other prisoners stir in their wretched cots and listen. How strange for the suffering to sing! Not strange! Their souls were free. Sin had no clammy hold upon their spirits, and Satan no charges that he could successfully push against them, and they knew it. They knew that God was their God, and Christ was their heritage by prospect and promise, and that Heaven with all its glories, was their eventual home, and they were happy. The saved man is the joyful man, the singing man!