'Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; and Thy faithfulness reacheth
unto the clouds. 6. Thy righteousness is like the great mountains;
Thy judgments are a great deep: O Lord, Thou preservest man and
beast. 7. How excellent is Thy loving-kindness, O God! therefore the
children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings.'
--PSALM xxxvi. 5-7.
This wonderful description of the manifold brightness of the divine
nature is introduced in this psalm with singular abruptness. It is set
side by side with a vivid picture of an evildoer, a man who mutters in
his own heart his godlessness, and with obstinate determination plans
and plots in forgetfulness of God. Without a word to break the violence
of the transition, side by side with that picture, the Psalmist sets
before us these thoughts of the character of God. He seems to feel that
that character was the only relief in the contemplation of the miserable
sights of which the earth is only too full. We should go mad when we
think of man's wickedness unless we could look up and see, with one
quick turn of the eye, the heaven opened and the throned Love that sits
up there gazing on all the chaos, and working to soothe sorrow, and to
purify evil.
Perhaps there is another reason for this dramatic and striking swiftness
of contrast between the godless man and the revealed God. The true test
of a life is its power to bear the light of God being suddenly let in
upon it. How would yours look, my friend! if all at once a window in
heaven was opened, and God glared in upon you? Set your lives side by
side with Him. They always are side by side with Him whether you know it
or not; but you had better bring your 'deeds to the light that they may
be made manifest' now, than to have to do it as suddenly, and a great
deal more sorrowfully, when you are dragged out of the shows and
illusions of time, and He meets you on the threshold of another world.
Would a beam of light from God, coming in upon your life, be like a
light falling upon a gang of conspirators, that would make them huddle
all their implements under their cloaks, and scuttle out of the way as
fast as possible? Or would it be like a gleam of sunshine upon the
flowers, opening out their petals and wooing from them fragrance? Which?
But I turn from such considerations as these to the more immediate
subject of my contemplations in this discourse. I have ventured to take
so great words for my text, though each clause would be more than enough
for many a sermon, because my aim now is a very modest one. I desire
simply to give, in the briefest way, the connection and mutual relation
of these wonderful words; not to attempt any adequate treatment of the
great thoughts which they contain, but only to set forth the meaning and
interdependence of these manifold names for the beams of the divine
light, which are presented here. The chief part of our text sets before
us God in the variety and boundlessness of His loving nature, and the
close of it shows us man sheltering beneath God's wings. These are the
two main themes for our present consideration.