Psalms 4:2. O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn My glory into shame?
You find in the Book of Psalms how sure David was that God was the hearer of prayer, for he had so many proofs that God heard his prayers. You will notice that, after he declared that the Lord would hear him when he would cry, he confesses that God had enlarged his heart.
He here addresses himself to the sons of men: “How long will ye turn My glory into shame?” We shall notice, first of all, who these sons of men are. The Word of God begins by showing us how man came into existence at first – how God created man and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. So, in one sense, there is no creature like man in existence. He has a body formed out of the dust of the earth, and a soul which God breathed into him; and these two parts, soul and body, make up the person of man. There are people in our day who declare that man came from the ape, and indeed they are more brutish than the apes themselves. Apes have no souls, but man has a soul and a body. The body shall return to the dust from whence it came, and the soul shall return to God who gave it. It is to the sons of Adam that David in the Spirit speaks here, and we know no gospel for people who do not descend from this man.
David addresses himself to the sons of Adam, and anyone who is taught in the least knows very well that there would be no sense in going to preach to the sons of apes, for they have no souls. David had common sense; he was going to preach to the sons of men.
We shall notice a few things concerning what he was going to teach them. He asks first how long they were going to continue to turn the glory of God into shame. They had been doing so long enough, and that was certainly not the proper work of a creature who was created after the image of God and must exist as long as eternity will last.
David was going to teach them about the glory of God. This is what man was created for, as you have it in the answer to the first Question in The Shorter Catechism: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever”. That was the very reason why God created man and caused him to have sons in this world. I have pointed out more than once that, not only is it the chief end of man to glorify God, but that God has given us rules how this is to be done, for man is ruined in his nature. Some thought, when they were persecuting the Church in the world, that they were glorifying God.
1A prayer meeting address delivered on 14 April 1930 in Glasgow.
But God did not leave man to make his own rules; He has given us an infallible rule, as you see in the second answer of the Catechism: “The Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him”. This is the only rule – not our own imaginations nor the imaginations of others, learned or unlearned. The rule is God’s Word, and we cannot glorify God if we take any rule but the infallible Word of God.
David declared that he was taking God’s Word as a lamp to his feet and a light to his path. Someone going through a dangerous place in the dark requires a lamp and will take good care to take it with him to keep him on the proper path. That is really what the Word of God is in the world – a lamp to show men where to walk and how to walk through the world.
God is the Creator of all things
God is the Creator of all things: the heavens – the sun, moon and stars – the earth, the sea, and all that they contain. This is God’s work, and He ought to have the glory of doing such an extraordinary work. If we were not so brutish, we would be amazed at His wonderful works. He gave the sons of men this work to do – to glorify God as the Creator. You find this in the pray-ers of the Church right through the Scriptures. When they approached the adorable God, they spoke to Him as the One who created the heavens, the earth and the sea; they were giving Him this glory.
The glory of His providence
Second, there is the glory of His providence – how He upholds all these things in the heavens that He created. They stand today according to the order God gave them. They are kept there by the power of God’s commands, for He commands all their movements from day to day, and year to year, and men ought to give God the glory and not to be like fools, like most men and women today, who look upon these things as if they were things that nature created.
That reminds me of what I once read of a man in England, who wrote a book trying to prove that God never created the heavens and the earth. He was an able scholar and scientist. However, after the book was finished and ready for the press, he one day took a walk out in his garden with his little granddaughter, and the little girl, as children do, was asking questions about everything: Who made this, and who made that? The answer to each question was, Nature made it. At last the little girl asked, “But who made nature, Grandpa?” “Lassie, be quiet,” was all he could say, and he was three days before they saw him after that. By then he had destroyed the book. The little girl made him see that it was idiotic to give the glory to nature.
All that God created hangs upon the word of God, and He has only to withdraw that word, and everything will return to nothing; they will not be found anywhere. The Church was giving this glory to God right through the ages – the glory of sustaining them and of providing and caring for them in the world. The Church was not giving that glory to her own wisdom, but looking to God for all the goodness that is in the world.
The glory of His mercy
There is another glory besides His glory as Creator, although that is great, and exceedingly great – so great that no man can comprehend it. That is the glory of His mercy in saving guilty men from sinking into hell. This is the glory that excels all other glories. the Son of God Himself came into this world and took our nature – the nature of man – as otherwise man could not be saved. Christ obeyed the law that man transgressed, and died the death that was due to the sinner; He now offers this finished work to guilty men, as a righteousness by which they stand acquitted at the bar of God. This is the glory that excels every other glory – the glory of salvation and redemption. We believe David had this glory in view here, the glory of God in saving the lost out of the hands of His own justice, for God must be just. And when He saves a sinner, He does not do it at the expense of justice.
The glory of His justice
I desire to notice one other glory, and that is the glory of His justice. In our day you would think that God has ceased to be just. Men boldly trample upon every commandment of the Decalogue and have no conscience at all in transgressing God’s holy law, whereas they will take good care that they will not break the laws of this country. God has glory as a Judge, and that glory is great, and He gives the assurance that every knee shall bow to Him – your knees and my knees – at the great white throne, and make confession there, if not before.
He is the Judge of all the earth, and no one can escape appearing at His bar, and no one will be acquitted there but those who in the world looked to Christ for mercy through His precious blood. He is just when He acquits them, and He is also just when He condemns all the rest to eternal weeping and gnashing of teeth. God is glorified in all that. He will be glorified, on the last day, in them that believe and in them that perish. “Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name.”
This glory was turned to shame
David says here that this glory was turned to shame.
First, it means that men were trying to turn this glory of God into a thing that men would be ashamed of.
They look upon the doctrines of the Bible as old doctrines, as antiquated, and instead they follow lies – science so called. Men are ashamed to acknowledge His Word and to preach it; they must be modern, up to date. Consequently they are ashamed of the glory of God revealed in the ways we mentioned, and many other ways which we did not mention.
Another way is men turning it to actual shame.
Creatures created in the image of God have fallen so low that they have such fearful ideas of God and His truth, and consequently turn His glory to shame. David asks here, How long were men going to do this? How long? I cannot say, but we are not, as a generation, showing any signs at all of turning our hearts to the Lord; we are only going further and further away. How long? Only God knows. But I will give you two answers to that question. You will not turn one moment after your death. But you may turn here, however long or short God may leave you in the world. It may be true of you now that you are turning the glory of God to shame, but you will never do such a thing after you draw your last breath in the world. Never any more.
Another answer
I am going to give another answer, and I hope and pray that it will be true in the case of many, long before they ever reach eternity: that they will be convinced of sin, and this will put an end to their turning the glory of God to shame; for whenever a sinner is awakened and convinced of sin, righteousness and judgement – and whenever he will see how he was turning the glory of God to shame – an end will come to it. He will say then with David: “Too long we have been the workers of iniquity”.
How long will you turn God’s glory to shame? If God will have pity on you and show you mercy in the world, your turning of God’s glory to shame will cease the day that God turns you to Himself. You will see then the glory of God’s law, the glory of His justice, and the glory of His gospel, by which He is glorified in saving the guilty sinner from eternal death, which is the wages of sin.