Psalms 89

Or [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩], our fellowship is with the Father. Thus we may take a turn with him every day by faith: [It is a slighting of God not to walk with him; if a king be in presence, it is a slighting him to neglect him and walk with the page] there's no walk in the w…

God counts none else of the blood royal; it ennobles a man's spirit; he aspires after the favor of God, and looks no lower than a crown. The new creature raises one to honor; he excels the princes of the earth (Psalm 89:27), and is fellow-commoner with angels. 2. The immortality.

Sometimes we hear David say, Your loving kindness is before my eyes (Psalm 26:3). But at another time he was at a loss (Psalm 89:49): Lord where are your former loving kindnesses? And there may fall out an eclipse in a Christian's assurance, to put him upon longing after Heaven:…

(Job 37:23) Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out, he is excellent in plenty of Justice. God is said to dwell in Justice, (Psalm 89:14) Justice and Judgment are the habitation of your Throne. In God power and justice meet.

The Lord is a man of war (Exodus 15:3). He has a mighty arm (Psalm 89:13). God's power is a glorious power (Colossians 1:11).

6. If God be our God, he will bear with many infirmities: God may respite sinners a while, but long forbearance is no acquittance; he will throw them to hell for their sins. But if God be our God, he will not for every failing destroy us: He bears with his spouse, as with the we…

Deity is a jewel belongs only to his crown: Yet further, we acknowledge that there is no God like him (1 Kings 8:23). And Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord, and he said, Lord God of Israel, there is no God like you (Psalm 89:6). For who in the heaven can be compared to…

Observ. 1. That sin makes God visit: Visiting iniquity. Sin is the cause why God visits with sickness, poverty (Psalm 89:31-32). If they break my commandments: Then will I visit their transgression with the rod. Sin twists the cords which pinch us: Sin creates all our troubles:…

If he does not increase the basket and the store, he gives increase of faith, and inward peace; here he changes his promise, but he does not break it, he gives that which is better. If a man promises to pay me in farthings, and he pays me in a better coin, in gold, he does not b…

He has girded himself with strength. His own power is his life-guard (Psalm 89:6). Who in the heaven can be compared to the Lord, who among the sons of the mighty can be likened to the Lord?

I will work, and who shall hinder it. Nothing can hinder action but some superior power; but there is no power above God; all power that is, is by him, therefore all power is under him: he has a mighty arm (Psalm 89:13). He sees the designs men drive on against him, and plucks o…

Object. But God is angry with his pardoned ones? Answ. Though a child of God after pardon, may incur God's fatherly displeasure, yet God's judicial wrath is removed, though God may lay on the rod, yet he has taken away the curse: correction may befall the saints, but not destruc…

'Lord, lift up the light of your countenance' (Psalm 4:6): in which, more or less, in some glimpses of it, some of God's people have the privilege to walk with joy from day to day. Psalm 89:15: 'They shall walk in the light of your countenance, in your name shall they rejoice al…

Simply two attributes of his — mercy and power. 'God has spoken once' — that is, irrevocably, as in Psalm 89:35, 'Once I have sworn' — 'and twice I have heard this' — that is, often met with it in the word and thought upon it — 'that with God is power' (verse 11), so as he is ab…

Shall your wrath burn like fire? Remember how short my time is' (Psalm 89:46-47, compared with Psalm 39:12). Tell him that for the little time you have to live, the more joy you have the more service you will be able to do him and the more lively and strongly you will go about h…

A wicked nation is often reprieved for the righteous sake: the tares are spared for the wheat's sake. 11. The death of a righteous man is more excellent: death comes with a habeas corpus (Psalm 89:48). What man is he that lives and shall not see death?

Again, works are to be done in regard of men: that our neighbor may be helped in worldly things — Luke 6:38; that he may be won by our example to godliness — 1 Peter 3:14; that we may prevent in ourselves the giving of any offense — 1 Corinthians 10:32; that by doing good we may…

If you were petitioning the king for your life, would it not provoke him to see you playing with your gloves, or catching every fly that alights on your clothes while you are speaking to him about such serious matters? O think solemnly upon that Scripture (Psalm 89:7): 'God is g…

More particularly, let me first consider the title that Christ gets in these words: He is called the Lord's servant, and His righteous servant. As for servant, it looks to him as Mediator, as this whole chapter with Chapter 42:1 and 52:13 do abundantly clear; Christ Jesus then a…

3. The conditions on the Mediator's side, on which the performance of the promises depends, He condescends to die, and to die willingly, to be numbered with transgressors, to bear their sins; and to make intercession for them; this Jehovah condescends to accept of, and upon this…

It's true, we find some of the saints, and these, stars of the first magnitude, as Moses, Job, Elias, David, and Jonas, in their distempered malcontent or fainting fits, passionately, preposterously, and precipitantly praying, or rather wishing for death (for which they were not…

But the coals of the furnace cast upon reprobates are dipped in the curse of God; so that in a small affliction, even in the miscarrying of a basket of bread, and the loss of one poor ox, there is a great law-curse, and intolerable vengeance (Deuteronomy 27:26; Deuteronomy 28:17…

It is true, Christ takes not from David, Abraham, prophet, apostle, or from any men or angels that are to be saved the natural created power of nilling and willing, purum [illegible] posse nolle, Christo trahente, but he takes away the moral wicked, and godless power hic & nunc,…

(3) That Christ should taste death for all, it being as good, as if all in person had not only sipped, but drunk death out to the bottom, and yet that the greatest part must drink death to the bottom again, is no gospel truth. (4) Nor is the Apostle's argument of weight, to exal…

The worship, and honor that we owe to Christ, is to have him in high esteem (Song of Solomon 5:10). She, the Spouse there may well call him her beloved, Christ is my Christ, when he is to me the chiefest of ten thousand (Psalm 89:6). Who among the sons of the mighty can be liken…

Whether we pray, or whether we praise God, still the heart must be deeply possessed with a sense of his excellency, and we must admire him, above all created or imaginable greatness whatever, and so mingle reverence, with our most delightful addresses to him. Again, (Psalm 89:17…

The Guide is the word, the horses that draw it, are three, Truth, meekness, justice. And thus the throne of God is described by like allegory (Psalm 89:14), the foundation of the throne, are righteousness, and equity: the main bearers to go before the throne, are mercy and truth…

The stretching forth of the hands, signifies the domination which the Church shall obtain over her enemies: for ordinarily the hand, signifies power, and the Hebrews use the phrase, To stretch out the hand, to subdue this or that. So as it is said in the Psalm, I will set his ha…

Thus he being in a manner half dead by reason of this message, 'You shall die,' the Prophet to encourage him puts him in mind of that promise which was then familiarly known of all. I have sworn once by my holiness, that I will not fail David; His seed shall endure forever; and…

He sets forth the cause of their ruin then, in regard that both fathers and children were to drink of one cup, who ceased not to sin, but would from day to day kindle God's wrath against them without ceasing; not giving ever their bad courses till God severely scourged them. Now…

I grant we see not this come always thus to pass, and therefore our minds must be framed to be upheld by hope, that so we may stand firm and invincible against all sorts of temptations. In a word, the Church of God shall stand as long as the foundations of the earth remain, for…

Can he annul or break his covenant? No truly: but it is said he forsakes and profanes his heritage: as in Psalm 89, Ezekiel 24, because we can judge no otherwise of it by outward appearance. For in that he bore not that affection towards them he was accustomed to, it was a kind…

Now this renewal has this end; namely, that the church might continue always in her happy and flourishing estate: for that which is old, tends to ruin; but things which are new made and renewed, are to last long. God had promised that as long as the Sun and Moon should remain in…

That its royal dignity had crumbled down long before, and that by slow degrees its supremacy had nearly given way, does not imply such a discontinuance as to be at variance with Jacob's prophecy. For God had promised two things seemingly opposite; that the throne of David would…

It is with reference to the promise, that Christ is called the son of David, the son of Abraham: for God had promised to Abraham that he would give him a seed, "in whom all the families of the earth should be blessed," (Genesis 12:3.) David received a still clearer promise, that…

"Thou shalt put the holy crown," את נזר הקדש, (Exodus 29:6.) "Thou hast profaned his crown," נזרו, (Psalm 89:39.) It is satisfactory to have the support of so eminent a critic as Doctor Tholuck, who, in his very correct edition of Calvin's Commentary on the New Testament, after…

Praise ye the Lord, for it is good to sing Praises unto our God, for it is pleasant, and Praise is comely. It also causes them to delight to hear the Word of God preached: It makes the Gospel a joyful Sound to them; Psalms 89. 15. And makes the Feet of those who publish these go…

The saints do know what course Providence usually holds, and accordingly with great probability collect what they may expect from what in like cases they have formerly observed. Christian, examine yours own heart, and its former observations, and you wilt find, as Psalm 89. 30,…

Set the faithfulness of the Lord before you under the saddest Providences. So did David, Psalm 119:75 This is according to his Covenant faithfulness, Psalm 89:32 Hence it is, that the Lord will not withhold a rod when need requires it, 1. Pet. 1:6 Nor will he forsake his people…

3. That he would not do with him, as he did with Saul, whom he rejected; he would not take away his mercy from Solomon, as he had done from him: and if no more were in these promises, but what is temporal, there would be no great consolation in them to David (whose consolation i…

And this word of visiting may be taken either in a good, or in an evil part; in a good part, when God bestows great mercies and salvation upon his people, he is said to visit them; and thus it is frequently used in the Scripture. In an evil part, God is said to visit when he rew…

Does not such communion presuppose a union? Either these experiences are false and counterfeit, or I am yours, for whom you love once, you love to the end: though I be fickle and inconstant yet you are the same, and unchangeable in your love; now I dare not say that all these sw…

David being the ancestor and great type of Christ, his being solemnly anointed by God to be king over his people, that the kingdom of his church might be continued in his family for ever, may in some respects be looked on as an anointing of Christ himself. Christ was as it were…

There is a delight in the life of friendship, because one friend communicates himself to another, but in marriage greater, because that communication is greater; and according to the degrees of communication, the degrees of delight are; then the delight in the ways of God must b…

Fifthly, a gracious heart has an evidence to it self, that God will spare him when others shall suffer from his wrath. Certainly, the more any one is called to suffer in the cause of God, and when he findes his heart ready and willing to yield to God in suffering, the more evide…

The terms of this covenant are at large set forth in Isaiah 53, summed up in Psalm 40:7-8, and Hebrews 10:8-10. Hence the Father became his God — which is a covenant expression, Psalm 89:26, Hebrews 1:5, Psalm 22:1, Psalm 40:8, Psalm 45:7. So was he by his Father designed to thi…

Take heed, this is that your lust is working towards; the hardening of the heart, searing of conscience, blinding of the mind, stupefying of the affections, and deceiving of the whole soul. 2. The danger of some great temporal correction, which the scripture calls vengeance, jud…

God has still reserved this liberty in the covenant. That he will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes; nevertheless, my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him; nor suffer my faithfulness to fail (Psalm 89:32-33). And (Proverbs 11:31)…

We ought to know our distance from God, and to think of his superiority over us; therefore we must be serious. Remember, God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints: and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him (Psalm 89:7). 3. With confidence; Ephesia…

1. The state of the Gospel, or evangelical state, is God's kingdom, in regard of the monarch whom God has set up, that is, Jesus Christ, the great Lord of all things. There is no king like him: God has made him higher than the kings of the earth (Psalm 89:27). How does he exceed…