Sermon Bible Commentary
Psalms 36:6
(1) Mystery is a necessity. So long as the finite has to do with the infinite, there must be mystery. Every atom in the universe is an ocean into which if you take three steps you are out of your depth. (2) Mystery is more than a necessity. It is a boon. Imagination must have its play, and expectation its scope. And mystery cultivates the two high graces of patience and faith, for you cannot be educated without mystery. (3) Mystery is joy in everything. Half the happiness of life would be gone if we had not always to do with something beyond it.
I. When suffering of mind or body comes, perhaps the first cry of nature is, "Why? Why all this for me? Am I worse than others? Am I made the target of all God's shafts?" Mystery answers mystery. It is mystery, in great part, for this very end, that you may say, "Why?" and have no answer but "Sovereignty, God's own absolute, rightful sovereignty!" All the most afflicted servants of God felt great mystery Abraham when the sun went down, "and lo! an horror of great darkness fell upon him;" and Jacob in that fierce night of supernatural Wrestling; and Moses at the burning bush; and Job in "thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men," etc.
II. Study the Cross. Read all its lessons. Take all its comfortings. In all your suffering, learn to love the mystery which gives you concord with Jesus and all His saints. Do Do not wish to see all. Do not wish to explain all. Stand on the shore of that great sea, and do not try to know all that lies in those depths and all that stretches beyond your little horizon. There are some minds to which mystery is a toil; but as we grow in grace we learn first to bear mystery, then to accept mystery, then to choose mystery.
J. Vaughan, Sermons,13th series, p. 77.
In our text God's righteousness is declared to be like the great mountains. Notice some of the analogies between them.
I. Like them, it is durable. The mountains of the earth have been often employed as emblems of permanence and stability. It is by them that men have sometimes sworn. Sometimes God compares Himself with the mountains, and then we read that "as the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people from henceforth even for ever." Sometimes He contrastsHimself with the mountains, and then we read that "the mountains may depart, and the hills be removed, but that His kindness shall not depart from His people." (1) The permanence of God's righteousness follows of necessity from the inherent unchangeableness of God Himself. (2) His righteousness is exposed to none of the circumstances or accidents which bring peril to the righteousness of man.
II. God's righteousness is like the great mountains in its mysteriousness. Indeed, it is not only His righteousness, it is Himself, in all the essentiality of His being and perfections, that is a mystery. Faith must come to the aid of reason when we contemplate the righteousness of God as it slowly, but surely, accomplishes its purposes in the government of the world.
III. God's righteousness is like the great mountains because, like them, it has heights which it is dangerous to climb. We cannot comprehend the higher mysteries of the Gospel; and if we could, it is more than doubtful whether any corresponding benefit could be derived from them. Men can no more live on the high mountains of theology than they can on the high mountains of the earth.
IV. God's righteousness is like the great mountains because, like them, it is a bulwark and a defence to all who regard it with reverence and faith. While it has heights on which the presumptuous spectator is sure to be lost if he should attempt to climb them, these very heights, if he will remain in the position which God has assigned to him, will be his surest defence and guard. I know of no truth which furnishes a more solid basis for the soul than the righteousness of God as it is revealed in the Scriptures.
E. Mellor, Congregationalist,vol. i., p. 389.
References: Psalms 36:6. Homiletic Magazine,vol. vii., p. 213; E. Mason, A Pastor's Legacy,p. 145; F. O. Morris, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxix., p. 337; J. Jackson Wray, Light from the Old Lamp,p. 320; J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons,vol. i., p. 184.