"Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, thou art very great: thou
art clothed with honour and majesty. Who coverest thyself with light
as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: who
layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds
his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind."--Ps. civ. 1-3.
At this delicious season of the year, when spring time is fast ripening
into summer, and every hedge, and field, and garden is full of life and
growth, full of beauty and fruitfulness; and we look back on the long
winter, and the boughs which stood bare so drearily for six months, as if
in a dream; the blessed spring with its green leaves, and gay flowers,
and bright suns has put the winter's frosts out of our thoughts, and we
seem to take instinctively to the warmth, as if it were our natural
element--as if we were intended, like the bees and butterflies, to live
and work only in the summer days, and not to pass, as we do in this
climate, one-third of the year, one-third of our whole lives, in mist,
cold, and gloom. Now, there is a meaning in all this--in our love of
bright, warm weather, a very deep and blessed meaning in it. It is a
sign to us where we come from--where God would have us go. A sign that
we came from God's heaven of light and beauty, that God's heaven of light
and beauty is meant for us hereafter. That love which we have for
spring, is a sign, that we are children of the everlasting Spring,
children of the light and of the day, in body and in soul; if we would
but claim our birthright!
For you must remember that mankind came from a warm country--a country
all of sunshine and joy. Adam in the garden of Eden was in no cold or
severe climate, he had no need of clothes, not even of the trouble of
tilling the ground. The bountiful earth gave him all he wanted. The
trees over his head stretched out the luscious fruits to him--the shady
glades were his only house, the mossy banks his only bed. He was bred up
the child of sunshine and joy. But he was not meant to stay there. God
who brings good out of evil, gave man a real blessing when He drove him
out of the garden of Eden. Men were meant to fill the earth and to
conquer it, as they are doing at this day. They were meant to become
hardy and industrious--to be forced to use their hands and their heads to
the utmost stretch, to call out into practice all the powers which lay
ready in them. They were meant, in short, according to the great law of
God's world, to be made perfect through sufferings, and therefore it was
God's kindness, and not cruelty, to our forefathers, when He sent them
out into the world; and that He did not send them into any exceedingly
hot country, where they would have become utterly lazy and profligate,
like the negroes and the South Sea islanders, who have no need to work,
because the perpetual summer gives them their bread ready-made to their
hands. And it was a kindness, too, that God did not send our forefathers
out into any exceedingly cold country, like the Greenlanders and the
Esquimaux, where the perpetual winter would have made them greedy, and
stunted, and stupid; but that He sent us into this temperate climate,
where there is a continual change and variety of seasons. Here first,
stern and wholesome winter, then bright, cheerful summer, each bringing a
message and a lesson from our loving Father in heaven. First comes
winter, to make us hardy and daring, and industrious, and strips the
trees, and bares the fields, and takes away all food from the earth, and
cries to us with the voice of its storms, "He that will _not work_,
neither shall he eat." "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways,
and be wise: who layeth up her meat in the summer, and provideth her food
against the time of frosts." And then comes summer, with her flowers and
her fruits, and brings us her message from God, and says to us poor,
slaving, hard-worn children of men, "You are not meant to freeze, and
toil, and ache for ever. God loves to see you happy; God is willing to
feed your eyes with fair sights, your bodies with pleasant food, to cheer
your hearts with warmth and sunshine as much as is good for you. He does
not grieve willingly, nor afflict the children of men. See the very bees
and gnats, how they dance and bask in the sunbeams! See the very
sparrows, how they choose their mates and build their nests, and enjoy
themselves as if they were children of the spring! And are not ye of
more value than many sparrows? you who can understand and enjoy the
spring, you men and women who can understand and enjoy God's fair earth
ten thousand times more than those dumb creatures can. It is for _you_
God has made the spring. It is for _your_ sakes that Christ, the ruler
of the earth, sends light and fruitfulness, and beauty over the world
year by year. And why? Not merely to warm and feed your bodies, but to
stir up your hearts with grateful love to Him, the Blessed One, and to
teach you what you are to expect from Him hereafter."
Ay, my friends, this is the message the spring and summer bring with
them--they are signs and sacraments from God, earnests of the everlasting
spring--the world of unfading beauty and perpetual happiness which is the
proper home of man, which God has prepared for those that love Him--the
world wherein there shall be no more curse, neither sorrow nor sighing,
but the Lord God and the Lamb shall be the light thereof; and the rivers
of that world shall be waters of life, and the trees of that world shall
be for the healing of the nations; and the children of the Lord God shall
see Him face to face, and be kings and priests to Him for ever and ever.
Therefore, I say, rejoice in spring time, and in the sights, and sounds,
and scents which spring time, as a rule, brings; and remember, once for
all, never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful. Beauty is
God's hand-writing--God's image. It is a wayside sacrament, a cup of
blessing; welcome it in every fair landscape, every fair face, every fair
flower, and drink it in with all your eyes, and thank Christ for it, who
is Himself the well-spring of all beauty, who giveth all things richly to
enjoy.
I think, this 104th Psalm is a fit and proper psalm to preach on in this
sweet spring time; for it speaks, from beginning to end, of God's earth,
and of His glory, and love, and wisdom which shines forth on this earth.
And though, at first sight, it may not seem to have much to do with
Christianity, and with the great mystery of our redemption, yet, I
believe and know that it has at bottom all and everything to do with it;
that this 104th Psalm is as full of comfort and instruction for Christian
men as any other Psalm in the whole Bible. I believe that without
feeling rightly and healthily about this Psalm, we shall not feel rightly
or healthily about any other part of the Bible, either Old or New
Testament. At all events God's inspired psalmist was not ashamed to
write this psalm. God's Spirit thought it worth while to teach him to
write this psalm. God's providence thought it worth while to preserve
this psalm for us in His holy Bible, and therefore I think it must be
worth while for _us_ to understand this psalm, unless we pretend to be
wiser than God. I have no fancy for picking and choosing out of the holy
Bible; _all_ Scripture is given by inspiration of God--all Scripture is
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness, and therefore this 104th Psalm is profitable as well as
the rest; and especially profitable to be explained in a few sermons as I
said before, at _this_ season when, if we have any eyes to see with, or
hearts to feel with, we ought to be wondering at and admiring God's
glorious earth, and saying, with the old prophet in my text, "Praise the
Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed
with honour and majesty. Who coverest thyself with light as with a
garment: who stretchest out the heavens as with a curtain: who layeth the
beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot:
who walketh upon the wings of the wind . . . O Lord, how manifold are thy
works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy
riches" (Ps. civ. 1, 2, 3, 24).
First, then, consider those wonderful words of the text, how God covers
Himself with light as it were with a garment. Truly there is something
most divine in light; it seems an especial pattern and likeness of God.
The Bible uses it so continually. Light is a pattern of God's wisdom;
for light sees into everything, searches through everything, and light is
a pattern of God's revelation, for light shows us everything; without
light our eyes would be useless--and so without God our soul's eyes would
be useless. It is God who teaches us all we know. It is God who makes
us understand all we understand. He opens the meaning of everything to
us, just as the light shews everything to us; and as in the sunlight only
we see the brightness and beauty of the earth, so it is written, "In thy
light, O God, we shall see light." Thus light is God's garment. It
shows Him to us, and yet it hides Him from us. Who could dare or bear to
look on God if we saw Him as He is face to face? Our souls would be
dazzled blind, as our eyes are by the sun at noonday. But now, light is
a pattern to us of God's glory; and therefore it is written, that light
_is_ God's garment, that God dwells in the light which no man can
approach unto. As a wise old heathen nobly said, "Light is the shadow of
God;" and so, as the text says, He stretches out those glorious blue
heavens above us as a curtain and shield, to hide our eyes from His
unutterable splendour, and yet to lift our souls up to Him. The vastness
and the beauty of those heavens, with all their countless stars, each one
a sun or a world in itself, should teach us how small we are, how great
is our Father who made all these.
When we see a curtain, and know that it bides something beautiful behind
it, our curiosity and wonder is awakened, and we long all the more to see
what is behind that curtain. So the glory of those skies ought to make
us wonder and long all the more to see the God who made the skies.
But again, the Psalmist says that God lays the beams of His chambers in
the waters, and makes the clouds His chariot, and walks upon the wings of
the wind! that He makes His angels the storms, and His ministers a
flaming fire. You must not suppose that the psalmist had such a poor
notion of the great infinite God, as to fancy that He could be in any one
_place_. God wants no chambers--even though they were built of the
clouds, arched with rainbows, as wide as the whole vault of heaven. He
wants no wind to carry Him--He carries all things and moves all things.
In Him they live, and move, and have their being. Yet Him--the heaven,
and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him! He is everywhere and no
_where_--for He is a Spirit; He is in all things, and yet He is no
_thing_--for He was before all things, and in Him all things consist. He
is the Absolute, the Uncreated, the Infinite, the One and the All. And
the old Psalmist knew that as well as we do, perhaps better. What, then,
did he mean by these two last verses? He meant, that in all those things
God was present--that the world was not like a machine, a watch, which
God had wound up at the creation, and started off to go of itself; but
that His Spirit, His providence, were guiding everything, even as at the
first. That those mists and rain came from Him, and went where He sent
them; that those clouds carried _His_ blessings to mankind; that when the
thunder shower bursts on one parish, and leaves the next one dry, it is
because God will have it so; that He brings the blessed purifying winds
out of His treasures, to sweeten and fatten the earth with the fresh
breath of life, which they have drunk up from the great Atlantic seas,
and from the rich forests of America--that they blow whither He thinks
best; that clouds and rain, wind and lightning, are His fruitful
messengers and His wholesome ministers, fulfilling His word, each
according to their own laws, but also each according to His especial
providence, who has given the whole earth to the children of men. This
is the meaning of the Psalmist, that the weather is not a dead machine,
but a living, wonderful work of the Spirit of God, the Lord and giver of
life. Therefore we may dare to pray for fair and seasonable weather; we
may dare to pray against blight and tempest--humbly, because we know not
what is altogether good for us,--but boldly and freely, because we know
that there is a living, loving God, governing the weather, who does know
what is good for us; who has given us His only begotten Son, and will
with Him also give us all things.
And so ends my first sermon on the 104th Psalm.