Exposition: PSALM 103.
Let us read, dear Friends, the 103rd Psalm, not because we do not know it, but because I trust that we know it by heart, and feel that it is a fit expression for our heart's thankfulness on this last Sabbath evening of another year.
Verse 1. Bless the LORD, O my soul. He has been blessing you; now begin you to bless Him. If, during the week, you have been busy about the things of the world, now leave these unimportant matters and come to the grandest exercise in which an intelligent spirit can be engaged. "Bless the Lord, O my soul." Let there be no sleeping, now, no coldness, no indifference. Let it be real soul-work. His blessings have been real, let your praises be real, too.
1. And all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the whole of His name, and especially the holiness of it. Be glad that you have a holy God. There was a time when this was a terror to you, for you were unholy and unable to delight in God's holiness, but He has cleansed and washed you, and now you can rejoice in the whole of His Character, in the wholeness, or the holiness, of His blessed name.
2. Bless the LORD, O my soul. Do it again. If you have praised Him, now, in your heart, lift up your heart yet higher. Let the praise come up from a greater depth, from the very bottom of your heart, and let it rise to a loftier height, even to the highest Heaven. "Bless the Lord, O my soul."
2. And forget not all His benefits. You have a bad memory for good things, but now try to make your memory awake, forget not any of God's benefits. If you can not remember all, yet do not willfully forget any of them—"Forget not all His benefits." Here is a list to help your memory.
3. Who forgives all your iniquities. Can you not praise the Lord for this? One of those iniquities, like a millstone about your neck, would be sufficient to sink you into Hell, but God forgives them all! He does it, now, as much as ever He did. He still forgives, for the forgiveness of God to His people is a continuous act. Do you, then, continually praise Him and rejoice in Him.
3. Who heals all your diseases. None can set the human frame in order but He who made it. Medicines and physicians are of little service unless God blesses the doctor's skill. Especially does the Lord heal soul sicknesses—and they are very many and very terrible. Bless His name that He continues to heal. As fresh complaints break out in your poor flesh or spirit, and your soul mourns over them, He comes and gives the healing balm.
4. Who redeems your life from destruction. Keeping you from the gates of the grave and, better still, delivering you from the jaws of Hell.
4. Who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies. The Lord has made a king of you, and what an empire is yours! And what a crown is this, which you wear! Other crowns make the head lie uneasy, but this is the softest, the best, the richest coronet that ever crowned head did wear! You may be content to keep it though all the Caesars should offer all their pomp to you in exchange for your crown—"He crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies."
5. Who satisfies your mouth with good things; so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. The mouth of man is very hard to fill. There are some men's mouths that never will be filled until the sexton gives them a shovelful of earth, for they are covetous and greedy, and always hungry after more. But God has filled your mouth, not with earth, nor with earth's treasure, but "with good things," the very best things! The best of the best He has given you! All that your heart desires, in giving you Himself, so that your youth, when you grow old and feeble in your spirit, returns to you once more. Bless the Lord, then, for all these mercies.
6. The LORD executes righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. He lets the oppressor go on for a while, but, sooner or later, there comes a terrible retribution. There is nothing of oppression in this world that can live long, for God is abroad and oftentimes even the horrors of war make an end to the equal horrors of oppression. God interposes in dreadful judgments to execute vengeance on those that oppress the poor.
7. He made known His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel. Bless Him for this! Bless Him for the Old Testament Scriptures! Bless Him that He did not hide Himself of old, but did speak to His people, and reveal Himself by His Prophets, and by the types and symbols of the Law. Bless His name and study much the Revelation of His ways and acts, and get all the good out of it that you can.
8. The LORD is merciful and gracious. Bless Him, O my soul! Bless Him for this, for where would you have been if He had not been merciful? Where would you be if He were not gracious, giving Grace to keep you what you are, and to make you better?
8. Slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. Blessed words! Any who are under a sense of sin will suck honey out of these choice expressions. "Slow to anger." God does get angry, finally, when Grace has had her day, but He is "plenteous in mercy.
9. He will not always chide. He will chide sometimes. He would not be a kind Father if He did not. That is a cruel father to His children who never chides them. This was Eli's sin and you know how it brought destruction upon him and his house. Our Father takes care to chide us when we need it—but, "He will not always chide."
9, 10. Neither will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. Brothers and sisters, bless His name for this! Let every verse, as we read it, awaken fresh gratitude—and let us keep up the music of our souls in harmony with the language of the Psalm.
11, 12. For as the Heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. They are gone. There is a chasm between us and our sins which will never be bridged. To an infinite distance has the great Scapegoat carried away all the sins of His people—they shall never return to us.
13. Like as a father pities his children, so the LORD pities them that fear Him. The best of them need pity. There is something to pity in them and, because the Lord pities them, He will not lay too heavy a burden upon them. He will not demand too much of them. He will not give them over to their enemies. He deals tenderly with them because they are so weak.
14. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust. Sometimes we do not remember that, ourselves—we think that we are iron—and we fancy that we shall last forever. But the Lord "remembers that we are dust."
15. 16. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. Before even the mower's scythe comes, the hot eastern wind has dried up the grass and it is gone. How little a thing carries us away! It seems as if it did not need death to come with a sharp scythe to cut down such frail creatures as we are. He does but breathe upon the field and all the flowers are withered at once. Oh, that we might all be prepared for such a speedy end of our lives and not look upon this world as a place for a long stay, but only as the meadow in which we, in common with other feeble flowers, are blooming out our little hour!
17. But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him. Blessed be His name that mercy had no beginning and shall never have an end! You and I are of yesterday and, therefore, we pass away tomorrow. But God is always the same, and of His years there is no end, because He is without beginning—and such is His love to His people—eternal and unchangeable. Bless His name for this, dear Friends. Do not forget what is to be the accompaniment to the reading of the Psalm, but constantly bless the Lord, praise Him, and magnify His holy name.
17, 18. And His righteousness unto children's children; to such as keep His Covenant, and to those that remember His Commandments to do them. Bless Him for His goodness to our children. Some of us have seen the Covenant of the Lord kept to our children as well as to ourselves. May we all have that blessing in the case of all that spring of us!
19. The LORD has prepared His Throne in the heavens; and His Kingdom rules over all. Bless Him for His sovereignty! A God who did not reign would be no God to us! But "the Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice," and let His people be glad because He "has prepared His Throne in the heavens," beyond the reach of all man's attacks or assaults. Beyond all time and change, the Lord reigns on forever and ever, "and His Kingdom rules over all." It extends over all things that are on the earth, and above it, and beneath it—angels and men and devils are all subject to His sway.
20-22. Bless the LORD, you His angels, that excel in strength, that do His Commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His Word. Bless you the LORD, all you His hosts; you ministers of His, that do His pleasure. Bless the LORD, all His works in all places of His dominion: bless the LORD, O my soul. I think, before we pray, we must bless and magnify the Lord by singing Milton's version of Psalm 136—
"Let us with a gladsome mind, Praise the Lord, for He is kind: For His mercies shall endure, Ever faithful, ever sure."