Spurgeon / McGrath Psalms (Vol. 2)

1. Auflage 1993
ISBN: 978-1-4335-3217-7
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 4, 376 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 86

1. Bow down thine ear, O LORD, hear me. When our prayers are lowly by reason of our humility, or feeble by reason of our sickness, or without wing by reason of our despondency, the Lord will bow down to them. Faith, when she has the loftiest name of God on her tongue, and calls him Jehovah, yet dares to ask from him the most tender and condescending acts of love. Great as he is he loves his children to be bold with him. For I am poor and needy. Our distress is a forcible reason for our being heard by the Lord God, merciful, and gracious, for misery is ever the master argument with mercy. Such reasoning as this would never be adopted by a proud man. Of all despicable sinners those are the worst who use the language of spiritual poverty while they think themselves to be rich and increased in goods.

2. Preserve my soul. Let my life be safe from my enemies, and my spiritual nature be secure from their temptations. For I am holy. I am set apart for holy uses; therefore do not let thine enemies commit a sacrilege by injuring or defiling me: I am clear of the crimes laid to my charge, and in that sense innocent; therefore, I beseech thee, do not allow me to suffer from unjust charges; and I am gentle towards others, therefore deal mercifully with me as I have dealt with my fellow-men. Any of these renderings may explain the text; perhaps all together will expound it best. It is not self-righteous in good people to plead their innocence as a reason for escaping from the results of sins wrongfully ascribed to them; penitents do not bedaub themselves with mire for the love of it, or make themselves out to be worse than they are. To plead guilty to offenses we have never committed is as great a lie as the denial of our real faults. O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee. Lest anyone should suppose that David trusted in his own holiness he immediately declared his trust in the Lord, and begged to be saved as one who was not holy in the sense of being perfect, but was even yet in need of the very elements of salvation. How sweet is the title my God when joined to the other, thy servant; and how sweet is the hope that on this ground we shall be saved. Note how David's poor I am (or rather the I repeated without the) appeals to the great I AM with sacred boldness engendered by necessity, aided by the faith which removes mountains.

3. Be merciful to me, O LORD. The best people need mercy, and appeal to mercy. For I cry unto thee daily. Is there not a promise that importunity will prevail? He who prays every day, and all the day, for so the word may mean, may rest assured that the Lord will hear him. If we cried sometimes to man, or other false confidences, we might expect to be referred to them in the hour of our calamity, but if in all former times we have looked to the Lord alone, we may be sure that he will not desert us now.

4. Rejoice the soul of thy servant. Make my heart glad, for I count it my honor to call myself thy servant, and I reckon thy favor to be all the wages I could desire. I look for all my happiness in thee only, and therefore unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. Thou art as the brazen serpent to my sick nature, and I lift up my soul's eye to thee that I may live. I know that the nearer I am to thee the greater is my joy; therefore be pleased to draw me nearer while I am laboring to draw near. It needs a strong shoulder at the wheel when a heart sticks in the miry clay of despondency; but the Lord will take the will for the deed, and come in with a hand of almighty grace to raise his poor servant out of the earth and up to heaven.

5. For thou. Lord, art good, and ready to forgive. Good at giving and forgiving; supplying us with his good, and removing our evil. Some men who would be considered good are so self-exaltingly indignant at the injuries done them by others that they cannot forgive; but the better a being is, the more willing he is to forgive, and the best and highest of all is ever ready to blot out the transgressions of his creatures. And plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee. God does not dispense his mercy from a store so impoverished as to give out altogether, but his goodness flows abundandy. In two places in this psalm David almost quotes word for word the passage in Exodus 34:6.

6. Give ear, O LORD, unto my prayer. Even the glory which his spirit had beheld did not withdraw him from his prayer, but rather urged him to be more fervent in it; hence he implores the Lord to hear his requests. Note the expression the voice of my supplications, as if they were not all voice but were partly inarticulate noise, yet amid much that was superfluous there really was an inner meaning which was the heart's intention. This he would have the Lord sift out from the chaff, and hear amid the mingled din. May our soul's intent always give our prayers a live core of meaning.

7. A pious resolve backed by a judicious reason. It is useless to cry to those who cannot or will not hear. Our experience confirms us in the belief that Jehovah the living God really does aid those who call upon him, and therefore we pray because we really find it to be a practical and effectual means of obtaining help from God in the hour of need. There can be no reason for praying if there be no expectation of the Lord's answering.

8. Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord. There are gods by delegated office, such as kings and magistrates, but they are as nothing in the presence of Jehovah; there are also gods by the nomination of superstition, but these are vanity itself, and cannot be compared with the living and true God. Neither are there any works like unto thy works. What have the false gods ever made or unmade? What miracles have they wrought?

9. All nations whom thou hast made, and these include all mankind, since they all come of the first Adam, thy creature, and their lives are all distinct creations of thine omnipotence. All these shall come with penitent hearts, in thine own way, to thine own self, and worship before thee, O Lord. Because thou art thus above all gods, people will at last discover thy greatness, and will render thee the worship which is thy due. This was David's reason for resorting to the Lord in trouble. It makes us content to be in the minority today, when we are sure that the majority will be with us tomorrow. David was not a believer in the theory that the world will grow worse and worse, and that the dispensation will wind up with general darkness and idolatry. We look for a day when the dwellers in all lands worship thee alone, O God, and shall glorify thy name.

10. For thou art great. It is only in the Divine Being that either greatness or goodness exists absolutely, and essentially. To be great and not good might lead to tyranny in the King, and for him to be good and not great might involve countless calamities. And doest wondrous things. Being good, he is said to be ready to forgive; being great, he works wonders; we may blend the two, for there is no wonder so wonderful as the pardon of our transgressions. Even the commonest daisy is a marvel, and a pebble enshrines wisdom. Only to fools is anything which God has made uninteresting. Note that the verb doest is in the present: the Lord is doing wondrous things, they are transpiring before our eyes. Look upon the bursting buds of spring or the maturing fruits of autumn, gaze on the sky or skim the sea, mark the results of providence and the victories of grace. Thou art God alone. Our God is not to be worshiped as one among many good and true beings, but as God alone; his gospel is not to be preached as one of several saving systems, but as the sole way of salvation.

11. Teach me thy way, O LORD. Instruct me thus at all times, but teach me now especially since I am in trouble and perplexity. Show me the way which thy wisdom and mercy have prepared for my escape. Not my way give me, but thy way teach me; I would follow thee and not be willfull. I will walk in thy truth. When taught I will practice what I know; truth will not be a mere doctrine or sentiment to me, but a matter of daily life.

Unite my heart to fear thy name. Having taught me one way, give me one heart to walk therein, for too often I feel two natures contending. God who created the bands of our nature can draw them together, tighten, strengthen, and fasten them, and so we shall be powerful for good, but not otherwise.

12. I will praise thee, O LORD my God, with all my heart. Praise should never be rendered with less than all our heart, and soul, and strength, or it will be both unreal and unacceptable. This is the second time in the psalm that David calls the Lord my God; the first time he was in an agony of prayer (verse 2), and now he is in an ecstasy of praise. If anything can make a man pray and praise, it is the knowledge that the Lord is his God. And I will glorify thy name for evermore. God has never done blessing us; let us never have done blessing him.

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