Spurgeon / McGrath Psalms (Vol. 1)

1. Auflage 1993
ISBN: 978-1-4335-3214-6
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 3, 366 Seiten

Reihe: Crossway Classic Commentaries

For hundreds of years Christendom has been blessed with Bible commentaries written by great men of God highly respected for their godly walk and their insight into spiritual truth. The Crossway Classic Commentaries present the very best work on individual Bible books, carefully adapted for maximum understanding and usefulness for today's believers. This book and its companion volume share the practical encouragement from a favorite Bible book. Charles H. Spurgeon spent twenty years compiling his seven-volume exposition of Psalms, which Crossway has carefully edited for the modern reader. In the words of Spurgeon in his Preface: 'None but the Holy Spirit can give a man the key to the Treasury of David; and even he gives it rather to experience than to study. Happy he who for himself knows the secret of the Psalms.... In these busy days, it would be greatly to the spiritual profit of Christians if they were more familiar with the Book of Psalms, in which they would find a complete armory for life's battles, and a perfect supply for life's needs.'

Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892) was an English Baptist pastor at New Park Street Chapel, London (which later became the Metropolitan Tabernacle) for thirty-eight years. As the nineteenth century's most prolific preacher and writer, his ministry legacy continues today.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Spurgeon, Charles H.

McGrath, Alister

Leseproben

Expositions

Psalm 1

1. Blessed. See how this Book of Psalms opens with a benediction, as did the famous Sermon of our Lord on the Mount! The word translated blessed is plural, and it is a controverted matter whether it is an adjective or a substantive. Hence we may learn the multiplicity of the blessings which will rest on those whom God has justified, and the perfection and greatness of the blessedness they will enjoy. We might read it, "Oh, the blessednesses!" and we may well regard it (as Ainsworth does) as a joyful acclamation of the gracious man's felicity. May the like benediction rest on us!

Here the gracious man is described both negatively (verse 1) and positively (verse 2). He is a man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. He takes wiser counsel, and walks in the commandments of the Lord his God. To him the ways of piety are paths of peace and pleasantness. His footsteps are ordered by the Word of God, and not by the cunning and wicked devices of carnal men. It is a rich sign of inward grace when the outward walk is changed, and when ungodliness is put far from our actions. Note next, he standeth not in the way of sinners. His company is of a choicer sort than it was. Although a sinner himself, he is now a blood-washed sinner, quickened by the Holy Spirit, and renewed in heart. Standing by the rich grace of God in the congregation of the righteous, he dares not herd with the multitude who do evil. Again it is said, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. He finds no rest in the atheist's scoffings. Let others make a mock of sin, of eternity, of hell and heaven, and of the Eternal God; this man has learnt better philosophy than that of the infidel, and has too much sense of God's presence to endure to hear his name blasphemed. The seat of the scorner may be very lofty, but it is very near to the gate of hell; let us flee from it, for it will soon be empty, and destruction will swallow up the man who sits therein. Mark the gradation in the first verse:

      He   walketh not in the co unsel of the ungodly,

      Nor standeth       in the way of          sinners,

      Nor sitteth          in the seat of the   scornful.

When people are living in sin they go from bad to wrose. At first they merely walk in the counsel of the careless and ungodly, who forget God - the evil is rather practical than habitual - but after that they become habituated to evil, and they stand in the way of open sinners who willfully violate God's commandments; and if let alone, they go one step further, and become themselves pestilent teachers and tempters of others, and thus they sit in the seat of the scornful. They have taken their degree in vice, and as true Doctors of Damnation they are installed, and are looked up to by others as Masters in Belial. But the blessed man, the man to whom all the blessings of God belong, can hold no communion with such characters as these. He keeps himself pure from these lepers; he puts away evil things from him as garments spotted by the flesh; he comes out from among the wicked, and goes outside the camp, bearing the reproach of Christ. O for grace to be thus separate from sinners.

2. And now mark his positive character. His delight is the the law of the Lord. He is not under the law as a curse and condemnation, but he is in it, and he delights to be in it as his rule of life; he delights, moreover, to meditate in it, to read it by day and think upon it by night. He takes a text and carries it with him all day long; and in the night-watches, when sleep forsakes his eyelids, he muses upon the Word of God. In the day of his prosperity he sings psalms out of the Word of God, and in the night of his affliction he comforts himself with promises out of the same book. The law of the Lord is the daily bread of the true believer. And yet, in David's day, how small was the volume of inspiration, for they had scarcely anything save the first five books of Moses! How much more, then, should we prize the whole written Word which it is our privilege to have in all our houses! But, alas, what ill-treatment is given to this angel from heaven! We are not all Berean searchers of the Scriptures. How few among us can lay claim to the benediction of the text! Perhaps some of you can claim a sort of negative purity, because you do not walk in the way of the ungodly; but let me ask you - Is your delight in the law of God? Do you study God's Word? Do you make it the man of your right hand - your best companion and hourly guide? If not, this blessing does not belong to you.

3. And he shall be like a tree planted. Not a wild tree, but one planted, chosen, considered as property, cultivated and secured from the last terrible uprooting (see Matthew 15:13). By the rivers of water. Even if one river should fail, he has another. The rivers of pardon and the rivers of grace, the rivers of the promise and the rivers of communion with Christ, are never-failing sources of supply. That bringeth forth his fruit in his season. Not unseasonable graces, like untimely figs, which are never full-flavored. But the man who delights in God's Word, being taught by it, brings forth patience in the time of suffering, faith in the day of trial, and holy joy in the hour of prosperity. Fruit-fulness is an essential quality of a gracious man, and that fruitfulness should be seasonable. His leaf also shall not wither. His faintest word will be everlasting; his little deeds of love will be remembered. Not only will his fruit be preserved, but his leaf also. He will neither lose his beauty nor his fruitfulness, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Blessed is the man who has such a promise as this. But we must not always estimate the fulfillment of a promise by our own eye-sight. How often, my brethren, if we judge by feeble sense, may we come to the mournful conclusion of Jacob, "All these things are against me!" For though we know our interest in the promise, yet are we so tried and troubled that sight sees the very reverse of what that promise foretells. But to the eye of faith this word is sure, and by it we perceive that our works are prospered, even when everything seems to go against us. It is not outward prosperity which the Christian most desires and values; it is soul prosperity which he longs for. We often, like Jehoshaphat, make ships go to Tarshish for gold, but they are broken at Ezion-geber; but even here there is a true prospering, for it is often for the soul's health that we should be poor, bereaved, and persecuted. Our worst things are often our best things. As there is a curse wrapped up in the wicked man's mercies, so there is a blessing concealed in the righteous man's crosses, losses, and sorrows. The trials of the saint are a divine husbandry, by which he grows and brings forth abundant fruit.

4. We have now come to the second head of the psalm. In this verse the contrast of the bad state of the wicked is employed to heighten the coloring of that fair and pleasant picture which precedes it. The more forcible translation of the Latin and Greek versions is, "Not so the ungodly, not so." And we are hereby to understand that whatever good thing is said of the righteous is not true in the case of the ungodly. Oh, how terrible it is to have a double negative put upon the promises! And yet this is just the condition of the ungodly. Mark the use of the term ungodly, for, as we have seen in the opening of the psalm, these are the beginners in evil, and are the least offensive of sinners. Oh, if such is the sad state of those who quietly continue in their morality, and neglect their God, what must be the condition of open sinners and shameless unbelievers? The first sentence is a negative description of the ungodly, and the second is the positive picture. Here is their character- they are like chaff, intrinsically worthless, dead, unserviceable, without substance, and easily carried away. Here, also, mark their doom — the wind driveth away; death will hurry them with its terrible blast into the fire in which they will be utterly consumed.

5. The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. They will stand there to be judged, but not to be acquitted. Fear will lay hold upon them there; they will not stand their ground; they will flee away; they will not stand there in their own defense; for they will bush and be covered with eternal contempt.

Well may the saints long for heaven, for no...