The Biblical Illustrator
Psalms 102:28
The children of Thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before Thee.
God’s care for the posterity of His servants
I. How far a blessing cometh on the posterity of God’s servants.
1. Good men do convey many temporal mercies to their relations; that is the least. God cannot satisfy Himself with doing good to the persons of His children, but He must do good to their relations; all about them fare the better for their sakes. A land fareth the better for them (2 Kings 2:12).
2. Where the parent is in visible covenant, the children also are in visible covenant with him as soon as born.
3. If they die in infancy, we need not trouble ourselves about their salvation. God is their God (Genesis 17:1); and that is all the best of us has to show for his right to heaven.
4. If they live, and betray the corruption of their natures, there is more hope of them than of others. The grace of the covenant runneth most kindly in the channel of the covenant (Romans 11:24).
5. Among them salvation is most ordinary, though God leaveth himself a liberty to take men of an evil stock. A rose may grow upon a thorn; a slip of an ill stock may be grafted into the tree of life.
6. They are not cast off till they do even wrest themselves out of the arms of mercy. Cain excommunicated himself (Genesis 4:16).
II. The reasons.
1. That He may show the riches of His grace, which reacheth not only to the persons, but to the families of those that love Him and serve Him. Grace, like a mighty river, will be pent within no banks, but overfloweth all that a man hath, all his relations.
2. Out of an indulgence to natural affection. God hath a son of His own, and He knoweth how He loveth Him, and is acquainted with the heart of a father, and he hath planted an affection in parents to their children. Love, like a river, is descensive.
III. How can we reconcile the promise with experience, since the children of the servants of the Lord are reduced to great extremities, and are as naught and bad as others? I answer, The blessing is invisible for a great measure, and we want faith to interpret this privilege, as well as any other mentioned in the covenant. Sometimes their outward portion may be small, but, however, they are a holy seed unto God. We see the providence of God by pieces; for the present they may be in their natural condition, and the blessing doth not as yet break out in effects of grace, as it doth afterwards. We must leave the Lord to His own seasons.
IV. To whom the promise will re most eminently fulfilled. There are some qualifications mentioned. All God’s servants have their blessings, but these especially; as, namely--
1. The strict, and such as dare not offend Him (Psalms 103:17).
2. The just and upright. They abridge themselves of many advantages of gain which others hunt after. It is not lost (Psalms 112:2).
3. The merciful and charitable (Psalms 37:26). When we are urged to giving, you may object, What shall wife and children do? l answer, Give the rather; do something the more for every child, that the blessing may be entailed upon them; it is lent to the Lord, and it will be paid to your posterity: your children will not have a whit the less.
4. Those that are tender of God’s institutions: the second commandment, that provideth for God’s instituted worship, the sanction of it speaketh of blessings and punishments in the posterity, and deservedly. (T. Manton, D.D.)
The perpetuity and establishment of God’s servants
How blessed the assurance contained in this text; and if it might be understood literally, what encouragement would it afford to godly parents. But, alas! it is a lamentable fact that not a few of God’s servants have to mourn, as Abraham once did, “Oh! that Ishmael might live before God.” Those who are children of God by a second birth, and consequently the posterity of Zion, shall continue for ever, and their seed be established before God.
I. The births in succession. There is no real religion in existence but that which commences with the new birth. These births, which are in constant succession, conduct to grace privileges and to a glorious inheritance.
II. The establishment of which the text speaks. The first thing which I would press upon your attention here is, that the true Church of God must continue on earth, “despite all the rage.” We pass on just to remark of this establishment and perpetuity that the holy seed cannot die. Observe, further, that the experience of these established ones, and their establishment too, is supernatural. “Shall be established before Thee.” Now, I wish to bring my own establishment,--for I claim to be an established Christian--to this test. Will it bear being brought before God? (J. Irons.).