Psalms 42:1 I. The Christian must often share feelings such as these. The iron fetters of his oppressors namely, the sins which are ever besetting him are sore and heavy. These fearful foes which he bears within his own bosom sins of unrestrained appetite, sins that spring of past habits, sins of cr... [ Continue Reading ]
Psalms 42 This Psalm contains a prescription for a downcast soul, consisting of three ingredients. I. The first is inquiry: " _Why_art thou cast down?" Religious despondency must have a cause; and if we can discover it in any case, the old proverb holds good that a knowledge of the disease is half... [ Continue Reading ]
Psalms 42:2 I. When the Psalmist says, "My soul is athirst," he certainly describes no rare or peculiar state of feeling. The thirst of the soul is as generic as the thirst of the body. II. The Psalmist said, "My soul is athirst for God." He knew that all men in the nations round him were pursuing... [ Continue Reading ]
Psalms 42:4 I. The literal reference is to the place at which the Jews were accustomed statedly to worship God, which had been selected by Divine appointment, and by whose institutions were mainly preserved the objects of the Jewish economy. II. Notice the advantages of the sanctuary. It is the sc... [ Continue Reading ]
Psalms 42:6 I. Man's natural instinct, when his soul is cast down within him, is to forget God, and not to remember Him, to let God and the higher world slip out of his relaxing hand. Despair is reckless, and deep misery tends strongly to despair. II. Consider the reason, nature, and fruit of David... [ Continue Reading ]
Psalms 42:7 I. Notice the force of the image which is here employed. Resistless power, impassive fixedness of purpose, and a certain solemn sadness make the ocean waves the grandest image of the calamities of life. II. Let us try to estimate the experience which the image portrays. (1) There are t... [ Continue Reading ]
Psalms 42:8 I. The first thought we would draw from this verse is that there must be changes in every true life. (1) These changes give to life the most opposed conditions light and darkness. There is day and there is night. These represent the shiftings of colour that pass across our history, from... [ Continue Reading ]
Psalms 42:10 An atheistic suggestion. One of the greatest strains upon human faith when any disaster overtakes us is the thought, How can it be that God is omnipotent and infinitely tender, as we believe He is, and yet can allow such things to happen? It is the old question of the origin and allow... [ Continue Reading ]
Psalms 42:11 There were two things under which at this time probably the time of Absalom's short-lived and wicked triumph David's soul was suffering. It was "cast down," and it was "disquieted." To be "cast down" is depression of spirit; to be "disquieted" is agitation restlessness of mind. I. When... [ Continue Reading ]