by Rev. Alex. McPherson
(continued from page 84)
PSALM ONE HUNDRED AND ONE
Verse 16. “When the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory.”
Not only will the Church acquire fame and influence when God revives it, but He, Himself, will be glorified, and this is what the Church would desire. No-one can justly claim to be a saved sinner who does not wish that God may be glorified through saving him. The coming of God’s Son to earth was celebrated by angels as not only bringing peace on earth, but, “Glory to God in the highest.” And Jude rejoins: “To the only wise God, our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.”
In this verse, however, it would appear that there is a special reference to the glory of the Lord as the fulfiller of promises. Under the strain of the long wait for deliverance, some would be complaining, “God hath forgotten to be gracious.” But no! “O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me. — Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me” (Isaiah 49, v. 15, 16). God kept his word, and He will keep it. “Hath he said and shall he not do it? hath he spoken and shall he not make it good?” He will keep his promises to individuals and Church alike. He will be glorified in the way He keeps his promises, and at the time when He will fulfil them. Does this warm your heart in this day of blasphemy and rebuke?
Verse 17. “He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.”
It is part of his glory that He manifests Himself as the prayer-hearing God. In Babylon and in Judea the poor Jews were resorting to prayer. In the latter place the literal poor who had been left behind as not worth moving, mourned amidst the ruins of their city and province. Sorrowing captives beside the rivers of Babylon might have been better off materially, but could take no pleasure in their possessions while they were in a strange land. But they were alike destitute spiritually. They had no comfort of soul; they could say, “Thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forget prosperity.” A deep sense of sin put them to their knees. Such will God always hear. Christ heeded such. He despised and despises none who acknowledge their sin and seek grace and mercy.
Verse 18. “This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord.”
This fact of the divine kindness to the destitute is to be recorded for the sake of future generations. “The poor shall never cease out of the land,” so blessed be God’s name for this assurance of the ear of the Lord being ever open to their cry! Then when the time came for Israel to be recreated a nation, they would praise God for it. Ezra 6, v. 2, tells us how they kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy: for the Lord had made them joyful. After ages would also praise Jehovah’s grace, and we should do it also for reviving and preserving his cause again and again. The facts of our own origin as a branch of the visible Church deserves to be often remembered, and the Lord’s mighty and merciful dealings in the past should stimulate hope for the future.
Verses 19, 20. “For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; from heaven did the Lord behold the earth; to hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death.”
Here was a man who knew that God dwells in heaven. At this time the earthly sanctuary was in ruins. God had forsaken the people who had forsaken Him, and Sion was, for the time being, not his seat. His true sanctuary is heaven. “Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool; where is the place that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?”
But what is the high and lofty One looking at as He surveys earth from the height of heaven? It is at the prisoners, those doomed to chains and hardships until their time comes to die. Here we are given another glimpse of the state of some of the Jews at this time. Some were eking out a living in their own desolate land with no future as far as man could see. Others like the psalmist were dying in distant Babylon. Yet to such the Lord was looking. Not upon the princes and nobles, and the rich and great, and all who counted themselves important, but to groaning prisoners who knew that it was for sin that their sorrows lay upon them. How great is God’s grace! It is our nature to pass by the heart-rending sounds of the prison-house lest our feelings should be wounded and our minds depressed, but the Lord has an eye and ear for these sights and sounds that have anything spiritually healthy about them, however doleful they may appear to others. “To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.” When sinners feel their bondage, bemoan their sins and cry to God, the time of their deliverance is near.
Verses 21, 22. “To declare the name of the Lord in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem; when the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve the Lord.”
When the Lord does deliver, then his name is praised and his character is made known by the beneficiaries as glorious. The returned Jews did so. The Church of the New Testament has still more reason to do so seeing that the Redeemer has opened the prison-house of sin’s bondage and sent forth those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death. “Liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound,” is the consequence of the proclamation of the Gospel.
Then in a great outreach of faith, the psalmist beholds the time when all the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and when the whole earth shall be full of his glory. The majority of earth’s inhabitants shall rehearse the goodness, wisdom and power of God in building up the spiritual Jerusalem. They shall talk of all his wondrous works done in mercy and grace. In this and other ways they shall serve Him.