Psalm 90
Lamentation (community)
You Afflict Me to Remind Me
12 So teach us to number our days,
That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.
· It is not wicked to feel our trials, to groan under them, and to cry for deliverance from them. We may not be impatient, nor charge God foolishly, nor use sinful measures to be rid of our distresses. But we may without any offence against God humbly ask to be rescued.
· It is not comely for us to form the habit of sighing and groaning when nothing is the matter. But those are foolish people, who go about chiding the sad and suffering for giving natural expression to their anguish of mind or body.
· If we see dark times ourselves, yet let us in prayer commit our ways to the Lord. “Blessed are all they that hope in his mercy.” If we can do nothing else, we can pray. Perhaps God has cut us off from doing anything else, that we may the more attend to that slighted duty.
· However afflicted, then, our lot may be, let us hold fast the covenant, and plead with God. To break with God is to give up all as lost.
Psalm 89
Royal (earthly king)
You Afflict Me Because of Your Covenant
33 “But I will not break off My lovingkindness from him,
Nor deal falsely in My faithfulness.
· Many a sorrowing child of God has had his gloom, like the evil spirit of Saul, quite removed by the harp of David.
· Mercy’s work, though to us sometimes apparently slow, is very sure and glorious. God’s plans reach from an eternity past to an eternity to come. Let him take his own time.
· God loves his people too well and too wisely not to make them smart for their sins.
· Nor is it wicked to tell God our perplexities, and plead for speedy relief. . . . Let us plead for a better insight into the nature of the covenant, and the ends of the discipline we are made to undergo. Let us plead the unchangeableness of divine grace and of the divine faithfulness.
· [The darkness of providence] greatly tempts our faith, which would utterly fail, if it were not for the intercessions of Christ (Luke 22:31-32).
· That is a blessed anguish, and those are good crosses, which make us the more fervent in our prayers.
Psalm 88
Lamentation (individual-sick) / (Korah)
You Afflict Me to Refine Me
13 But I, O Lord, have cried out to You for help,
And in the morning my prayer comes before You.
· Let no man despise his afflicted brother. Let no man count it imbecility to tremble under a sense of the divine wrath.
· But no trials can come that will justify us in failing to make God the depository of our sad tale.
· No mortal can explain why the loving and gentle God should permit the best of men to be so pressed and afflicted as thus to crush them.
· [I]n some respects it overwhelms the soul to find God himself smiting it and sending his wrath and terrors upon it. It says, God can do no wrong, yet he afflicts me thus. Is it because he sees me to be his enemy and is determined to make me a monument of his wrath? Or is it because he sees so much dross in me that he keeps me in the fire so long?
· [T]here is hardly any cup of more bitterness than that which we drink on finding that many whom we cherished as friends stand aloof from our sore, and are not grieved for our affliction.
· If God by his providence shuts us up so that we cannot come forth, then let his will be done; but let us not voluntarily shut ourselves out from commerce with men, simply because God has greatly afflicted us.
· “[We must learn] to cast the anchor of our faith and prayers direct into heaven in all the perils of shipwreck to which we may be exposed.” (Calvin)
· For nearly three thousand years the pious author of this ode has been singing a very different song before the throne of the Eternal; and his eternity is but just begun.
Psalm 87
Praise / (Korah)
The City of Your Presence is Glorious
3 Glorious things are spoken of you,
O city of God.
· Seeing what great things God has done and what great things he has engaged to do for his church, embracing all who love him, it is unbelief to cry out, We are ruined; our enemies will swallow us up.
Psalm 86
Lamentation (individual) / Wisdom
Teach Me Your Way
11 Teach me Your way, O LORD;
I will walk in Your truth;
Unite my heart to fear Your name.
· How blessed is the thought that in condescension no less than in majesty God is infinite.
· Our poverty and misery furnish a fit occasion for the display of God’s rich mercy.
· Let nothing, however sad or dark, hinder us from crying mightily to God. “That despair may not overwhelm our minds under our greatest afflictions, let us support ourselves from the consideration that the Holy Spirit has dictated this prayer for the poor and afflicted.” (Calvin)
· But what shall they do who are conscious of ill desert both from God and man? Let them plead for grace, let them cry for mercy. There is forgiveness with the Lord. Jesus died for the chief of sinners.
· Earnest, importunate prayer will be heard. For a while God may seem to disregard our cries. But in his own good time he will show himself gracious.
· When all goes wrong outwardly and inwardly, when foes beset and fears betide, we must be sad, we cannot rejoice till God appears. He is our light.
· All our hope and all our confidence must ultimately rest on the known nature of God revealed in holy Scripture.
· Surely the spirit of missions is the spirit of the gospel.
· God may take the will for the deed, where the deed was impossible, but he will never take the deed for the will.
Psalm 85
Lamentation (community) / (Korah)
Do Not Be Angry With Me
6 Will You not Yourself revive us again,
That Your people may rejoice in You?
7 Show us Your lovingkindness, O LORD,
And grant us Your salvation.
· God only and God alone can save; and the sooner we learn that truth, the better for us.
· If we had a due sense of the evil of sin, and of the obstinacy with which it holds its power over us, we should not so soon grow weary under divine rebukes, and faint under divine corrections.
· Nothing more effectually destroys all ‘comfort of the Scriptures,’ than unbelief respecting their inspiration.
· No conversion, no richness of religious experience, no height of discoveries in the things of God can ever render it safe for us to parley with sin, to dally with temptation, to lead a careless life, or to cease our vigilance.
Psalm 84
Praise / Wisdom / (Korah)
I Am Blessed by Dwelling in You
11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield:
The LORD gives grace and glory;
No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.
· If our way is through the valley of Baca, by God’s grace we may make it a well and find refreshment. From the tone of Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, or the spirit of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, who would suspect that either of these works was written from a prison? It is much more important for us to learn wisdom by our trials than to escape from them.
· Prayer should not be counted a mere form. Its end is not secured till we get the answer.
· We cannot make too constant use of Christ’s mediation.
· One reason why many doubt their piety is because it is doubtful.
· When the prophet says that God will withhold no good thing from his people, he includes not only such things as they may esteem good, but all things that are really such.
Psalm 82
God and the Nations (Asaph)
Practice Righteous Judgment
2 How long will you judge unjustly
And show partiality to the wicked?
· “Some talk of charity, nor can it be denied that there is much scope for its exercise. But no charity can make a character virtuous, or a community happy, if Justice is wanting.
· There is hope for the future. God shall yet inherit all nations.
Psalm 81
God and the Nations (Asaph)
You Are Good – I Am Wayward
10 “I, the LORD, am your God,
Who brought you up from the land of Egypt;
Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.”
· All Israel was taught to say, “A syrian ready to perish was my father.”
· Everything is a test of character. God proves us by prosperity and by adversity, by joy and by sorrow, by hunger and by thirst, by sickness and by health, by all his word and by all his providences.
· No form of profession or of worship is in any measure pleasing to God where the will and affections are not engaged. It is sad indeed when we suppose that decency of appearance will be accepted by Jehovah for heartiness of soul.
Psalm 80
Lamentation (community) / God and the Nations (Asaph)
Restore Me
3 O God, restore us,
And cause Your face to shine upon us, and we will be saved.
7 O God of hosts, restore us,
And cause Your face to shine upon us, and we will be saved.
19 O Lord God of hosts, restore us,
Cause Your face to shine upon us, and we will be saved.
· If we fall into any decay of nature or of grace, God alone can recover and deliver us.
· “As the apostasy of God’s people from God is the fountain of all their calamity; so their repentance and returning unto God is the first step unto their relief from procured misery of captivity, or any other calamity.” (Dickson)
· Delay is not denial. God’s time and way of answering our prayers are the best. Let us trust him. Let us not misinterpret him. This would give the adversary the very advantage he seeks.
· Yet if our prayers are not answered, we ought to inquire the cause, and be concerned, till we have a token for good. Prayer is but a means to the divine blessing. Great and long-continued trials call for deep heart-searchings, as well as for earnest appeal to God.
· “The tears of repentance are very rare, and soon dried up, but the tears of sorrow for affliction easily flow.” It is well when worldly grief is followed by godly sorrow.
· Seldom if ever do troubles come alone. Where there has been much sinning we may expect much suffering. If Israel apostatizes from God, and practices ingratitude, idolatry, pride, unbelief, covetousness, that people may expect evil in many a form.
· It is impossible for us to be too careful to avoid backsliding. It is the bane of piety, the misery of Christians. If we are kept from declension, it must be by the power of God through Jesus Christ. Let us by solemn covenant engagements, by prayer, by ceaseless vigilance, by self-exhortation guard against so great a sin and misery as will overtake us if we go back from God.
Psalm 79
Lamentation (community) / Imprecatory / God and the Nations (Asaph)
Have Mercy on My Sinful Self
8 Do not remember the iniquities of our forefathers against us;
Let Your compassion come quickly to meet us,
For we are brought very low.
9 Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name;
And deliver us and forgive our sins, for Your name’s sake.
· It is well when men are punished for their sins in time and not eternity; so that we may properly confess, and bewail, and forsake, and obtain pardon for them all.
· When we are in any trouble, our best resort is to proper acts of devotion, as we learn from this Psalm. If we can bring our woes before God in prayer, we have done the best possible thing.
· It is an unspeakable blessing, seldom duly prized, to live in times free from bloody persecutions.
· Whoso learns to sin without remorse will soon learn to sin without measure.
· God’s delays in sending relief often seem long and even tedious. But let us remember that such delays are doubtless needful, that God’s honor is of more importance than our ease, that God always sees in us just cause for every stroke he inflicts . . .
· We have great need to ask forgiveness for our old sins. Those enlightened from above do habitually trace their sufferings to some particular sin or sins or to their sinfulness in general. Nor can solid peace ever be secured without an interest in the precious bloodand infinite righteousness of Jesus Christ.
· Nor will a little mercy answer our purpose. We need mercies, yea, tender mercies, yea, a multitude of his tender mercies.
· If God shall help us, he must find cause of mercy in himself, and not in us. We are vile. He is perfect and infinite.
Psalm 78
Wisdom / God and the Nations (Asaph)
In God’s Way is Wisdom
1 Listen, O my people, to my instruction;
Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
· “It is awful to think how many parents, by their negligence and wickedness, become the murderers of the souls of their children.” (Scott)
· Sin must be a horrible thing.
· Men’s persistency in sin is inscrutable. We read the history of the Israelites and we marvel. We honestly look at our own history and we see the same record of ingratitude and perverseness, and we are confounded.
· In all ages the parent sin of men has been unbelief. . . . Doubting any perfection of God is tantamount to robbing him of his glory.
· The greater the gift, the greater is the sin of lightly esteeming it.
· Every dispensation of God’s providence, whether prosperous or adverse, is suited more or less to show what is in us.
· “Thus it is with us in spirituals. We should be better pleased, perhaps, to be set up with a stock or sufficiency at once, such an inherent portion of wisdom and power, as we might depend upon, at least for common occasions, without being constrained, but a sense of indigence, to have continual recourse to the Lord for everything we want. But his way is best.” (Newton, commenting on the humbling effect of day to day dependence on manna)
· Our desires for particular forms of temporal good things should be very moderate. We know not that they will prove blessings. They may turn out to be curses. . . . With God’s blessing an affliction is a mercy. Without his blessing any good thing is a curse.
· The history of every people shows the absolute necessity of divine grace to change the heart and purify the life. For help and strength from God there is no substitute. If mercies and wonders without number are sent on men, without the grace of God’s Spirit, the record will ever be, for all this they sinned still.
· How careful then ought all to be not to quench, resist, grieve or vex that blessed agent, the author of all piety in men.
· It is for an unspeakable joy that God employs his infinite knowledge in tenderly considering our frailty, our liability to err, our natural weakness, and the shortness and uncertainty of our lives. He pities us, not because we deserve pity, but because he loves to show mercy to such as need and seek it.
· The human heart is very deceitful. It promises well, and performs ill. It is deceitful above all things. If God were not omniscient, it would deceive him. It often deceives our neighbor. It more frequently deceives ourselves.
· In all ages God has set but little store by the externals of religion compared with the estimate in which he has held vital piety.
· A very precious vessel was the ark of the covenant! . . . Yet when his chosen people rebelled against God, and forgot the true source of their safety, he gave up the ark to their bitterest foes.
Psalm 77
Lamentation (community) / God and the Nations (Asaph)
My Voice Rises to God
1 My voice rises to God, and I will cry aloud;
My voice rises to God, and He will hear me.
· “Days of trouble must be days of prayer.” (Henry; cf. Mark 9:24)
· “They are real men of prayer with whom, when answers fail to be forthcoming, the thirst for prayer gets not weakened, but inflamed with great ardor.” (Tholuck)
· It is dreadful when a remembrance of God troubles a believer. It shows how sad his state is, and how feeble his faith must be.
· “Spiritual trouble is, of all others, most grievous to a gracious soul. Nothing wounds and pierces it like the apprehensions of God’s being angry, the suspending of his favor, and the superseding of his promise.” (Henry)
· In our meditations on divine things let us not venture on thoughts too deep for us. The old enemy delights in drawing us into things too painful for us. He is a wise man, who knows the limits of his own mind.
· It is better to be dumb than to speak foolishness . . . . Often silence is the sum of our duties.
· “You will find that the works and doings of God from the beginning have been these—to be merciful to and to save and help the sorrowful, the distressed, the destitute, and the afflicted . . . (Luther)
· “How necessary it is for those who would come to any right understanding why God contendeth with them, to commune with their own heart and make diligent search. It is only in this way that the cause of the divine chastisements can be discerned, and that the rebellious heart of man can be brought to acquiesce in the inflictions of God’s paternal discipline.” (Morison)
· True piety will reject the conclusions of unbelief, however they may seem supported by appearances. “Good men are sometimes greatly depressed. Faith is not always in lively exercise. The harp is often hung upon the willows. This is not owing to the possession of religion, but to a deficiency of it. It is the good man’s infirmity.” (Cobbin) Unbelief says, There is no hope, there is no help even in God. Faith says, When I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me. “Despondency of spirit, and distrust of God, under affliction, are too often the infirmities of good people, and, as such, are to be reflected upon by us with sorrow and shame.” (Henry)
· Good resolutions are good things. If we ever rise to communion with God, or attain to the wisdom of the just, it will be in consequence of a solemn, deliberate purpose, made in reliance on divine grace.
· If we would know and experience more of divine things, we must meditate more upon them, and upon God’s methods of graciously dealing with his people.
· “The Lord draweth deep in working out the delivery and salvation of his own people, bringing them at first into extremity of danger, and then making a plain and clear escape from all their straits.” (Dickson)
· “The Lord of hosts has a way of his own, on which none can follow him.” (Tholuck) Our great business is to hear, obey, acquiesce, not to judge, comprehend, nor explain God’s ways.
Psalm 76
God and the Nations (Asaph)
Even the Wrath of Men Praises God
10 For the wrath of man shall praise You;
With a remnant of wrath You shall gird Yourself.
· The privileges of God’s people under the Sinaic covenant were great; but they are much greater under the Gospel. The harmony of God’s attributes was visible even then, but now it is illustrious in the cross of Christ.
· Let us be more concerned that God be glorified than that we be free from distress and suffering.
Psalm 75
God and the Nations (Asaph)
God Exalts and Debases
6 For not from the east, nor from the west,
Nor from the desert comes exaltation;
7 But God is the Judge;
He puts down one and exalts another.
· The righteous shall never cease to give thanks. Their mercies shall never cease to flow; and their hearts shall never be unmoved by the divine kindness.
· All we have we have received; and all we have received is from God. This is as true of temporal as of spiritual blessings. All come from God.
Psalm 74
Lamentation (community) / God and the Nations (Asaph)
God is My Deliverance
12 Yet God is my king from of old,
Who works deeds of deliverance in the midst of the earth.
· It is not sinful, but oftentimes a part of our religious duty to inquire why the Lord deals thus and so with us. How else should we discover the end of the Lord in the chastisements he sends upon us? God did not condemn Job for so doing.
· If we are compelled to close our most solemn and urgent devotions, and our most earnest supplications, without seeing one ray of light beaming upon our path, it may comfort us to remember that so the pious Psalmist closed this complaint.
· To hope against hope is the most blessed kind of hope.
Psalm 73
Wisdom / Trust (individual) / God and the Nations (Asaph)
I Have Nothing But God
25 Whom have I in heaven but You?
And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.
· When one’s heart is not right in the sight of God, any seeming rectitude of life is delusive; and when outward behavior is wicked, it is idle to plead that the heart is right.
· Even good men, though gifted and inspired, are in danger of sad lapses into sin and sinful errors. Nothing but divine grace can preserve them.
· “The faith of even strong believers may sometimes be sorely shaken, and ready to fail them. There are storms that will try the firmest anchors. Those that shall never be quite undone, are sometimes very near it.” (Henry)
· Let the believer wait and all will come right, although now all is dark and disheartening. Let him not yield to the seducer.
· The chief design of some trials doubtless is to shut our mouths.
· We often gain our greatest victories by sinking into utter self-disesteem, and confessing our own nothingness and folly.
Psalm 72
Royal (earthly king)
God is the Blessed King
19 And blessed be His glorious name forever;
And may the whole earth be filled with His glory,
Amen, and Amen.
· The best thing we can ask for children or rulers is that they may be governed by God’s decisions, and controlled by his word.
· Benediction shall forever and ever be heaped upon him, who has brought salvation to men. Are we now doing our part in this work?
Psalm 71
Lamentation
In Sorrow, God Is My Refuge
1 In You, O LORD, I have taken refuge;
Let me never be ashamed.
· God is the best, the only safe refuge in the day of trial.
· [T]here is a particular sweetness attending pious old age.
· A sense of our ignorance and insufficiency, and of the inadequacy of our services should not deter us from honestly and heartily endeavoring to do our whole duty. Let us know what we can, and do what we know.