Psalms 104:3

Who maketh the clouds His chariot.

The cloudy equipage

To understand the psalmist’s meaning, you must know that the chariot of old was sometimes a sculptured brilliancy, made out of ivory, sometimes of solid’ silver, and rolled on two wheels, which were fastened to the axle by stout pins, and the defeat of OEnomaus by Pelops was caused by the fact that a traitorous charioteer had inserted a linch-pin of wax instead of a linch-pin of iron. All of the six hundred chariots of Pharaoh lost their linch-pins in the Red Sea: “The Lord took off their wheels.” Look at the long flash of Solomon’s fourteen hundred chariots, and the thirty thousand chariots of the Philistines. But my text puts all such occasions into insignificance, as it represents the King of the Universe coming to the door of His palace, and the gilded vapours of heaven rolling up to His feet, and He, stepping in and taking the reins of the galloping winds in His hand, starts in triumphal ride under the arches of sapphire, and over the atmospheric highways of opal and chrysolite, “the clouds His chariot.” He has His morning-cloud chariot and His evening-cloud chariot--the cloud chariot in which He rode down to Sinai to open the law, and the cloud chariot in which He rode down to Tabor to honour the Gospel, and the cloud chariot in which He will come to judgment. When He rides out in His morning chariot at this season, He puts golden coronets on the dome of cities, and silvers the rivers, and out of the dew makes a diamond ring for the fingers of every grass blade, and bids good cheer to invalids who in the night said, “Would God it were morning!” From this morning-cloud chariot He distributes light--light for the earth and light for the heavens, light for the land and light for the sea, great bars of it, great wreaths of it, great columns of it, a world full of it. What a mighty thing the King throws from His chariot when He throws us the morning! Yea; He has also His evening-cloud chariot. It is made out of the saffron and the gold and the purple and the orange and the vermilion and upshot flame of the sunset. That is the place where the splendours that have marched through the day, having ended the procession, throw down their torches and set the heavens on fire. Oh, what a rich God we have that He can put on one evening sky pictures that excel Michael Angelo’s “Last Judgment,” and Ghirlandajo’s “Adoration of the Magi,” and whole galleries of Madonnas, and for only an hour, and throw them away, and the next evening put on the same sky something that excels all that the Raphaels and Titians and Rembrandts ever executed, and then draw a curtain of mist over them never again to be exhibited! How rich God must be to have a new chariot of clouds every evening! But the Bible tells us that our King also has His black chariot, for we are told that “Clouds and darkness are round about Him.” That chariot is cloven out of night, and that night is trouble. When He rides forth in that black chariot, pesitilence and earthquake and famine and hurricane and woe attend Him. Then let the earth tremble. Then let nations pray. Mark you, the ancient chariot which David uses as a symbol in my text, had only two wheels, and that was that they might turn quickly, two wheels taking less than half the time to turn than four wheels would have taken. And our Lord’s chariot has only two wheels, and that means instant reversal, and instant help, and instant deliverance. While the combined forces of the universe in battle array could not stop His black chariot a second, or diverge it an inch, the driver of that chariot says, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee.” “While they are yet speaking I will hear.” His two-wheeled chariot, one wheel justice, and the other wheel mercy. Aye, they are swift wheels. A cloud, whether it belongs to the cirrhus, the clouds that float the highest; or belongs to the stratus, the central ranges; or to the cumulus, the lowest ranges--seems to move slowly along the sky if it moves at all. But many of the clouds go at such a speed that even a limited lightning express train would seem lethargic, so swift is the chariot of our God; yea, swifter than the storm, swifter than the light. Yet a child ten years old has been known to reach up, and with the hand of prayer take the courser of that chariot by the bit and slow it up, or stop it, or turn it aside, or turn it back. Notice that these old-time chariots, which nay text uses for symbol, had what we would call a high dashboard at the front, but were open behind. And the king would stand at the dashboard and drive with his own hands. And I am glad that He whose chariot the clouds are, drives Himself. He does not let natural law drive, for natural law is deaf. He does not let fate drive, for fate is merciless. But our Father King Himself drives, and He puts His loving hand on the reins of the flying coursers, and He has a loving ear open to the cry of all who want to catch His attention. But there are clouds that touch the earth and discharge their rain; and, though the clouds out of which God’s chariot is made may sometimes be far away, often they are close by, and they touch our shoulders, and our homes, and they touch us all over. I have read of two rides that the Lord took in two different chariots of clouds, and of another that He will take. One day, in a chariot of clouds that were a mingling of fog and smoke and fire, God drove down to the top of a terrible crag fifteen hundred feet high, now called Jebel-Musa, then called Mount Sinai, and He stepped out of His chariot among the split shelvings of rock. The mountain shook as with an ague, and there were ten volleys of thunder, each of the ten emphasizing a tremendous “Thou shalt” or “Thou shalt not.” Then the Lord resumed His chariot of cloud, and drove up the hills of heaven. They were dark and portentous clouds that made that chariot at the giving of the law. But one day He took another ride, and this time down to Mount Tabor; the clouds out of which His chariot was made, bright clouds, roseate clouds, illumined clouds, and music rained from all of them, and the music was a mingling of carol and chant and triumphal march: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Transfiguration chariot! “Oh,” say you, “I wish I could have seen those chariots--the black one that brought the Lord to Jebel-Musa, at the giving of the law, and the white one that brought Him down to Tabor!” Never mind, you will see something grander than that, and it will be a mightier mingling of the sombre and the radiant, and the pomp of it will be such that the chariots in which Trajan and Diocletian and Zenobia and Caesar and Alexander and all the conquerors of all the ages rode will be unworthy of mention; and what stirs me most is, that when He comes in that chariot of cloud and goes back, He will ask you and me to ride with Him both ways. How do I know that the judgment chariot will be made out of clouds? Read Revelation 1:7. (T. De Witt Talmage.)

Who maketh His angels spirits.--

The powers of Nature

1. What a number of beautiful and wonderful objects does Nature present on every side of us! and how little we know concerning them! In some indeed we see symptoms of intelligence, and we get to form some idea of what they are. For instance, about brute animals we know little, but still we see they have sense, and we understand that their bodily form which meets the eye is but the index, the outside token of something we do not see. Much more in the case of men: we see them move, speak, and act, and we know that all we see takes place in consequence of their will, because they have a spirit within them, though we do not see it. But why do rivers flow? Why does rain fall? Why does the sun warm us? And the wind, why does it blow? Here our natural reason is at fault; we know, I say, that it is the spirit in man and in beast that makes man and beast move, but reason tells us of no spirit abiding in what is commonly called the natural world, to make it perform its ordinary duties. Of course, it is God’s will which sustains it all; so does God’s will enable us to move also, yet this does not hinder, but, in one sense, we may be truly said to move ourselves: but how do the wind and water, earth and fire, move? Now, here Scripture interposes, and seems to tell us that all this wonderful harmony is the work of angels. Those events which we ascribe to chance as the weather, or to nature as the seasons, are duties done to that God who maketh His angels to be winds, and His ministers a flame of fire (John 5:4; Exodus 19:16; Galatians 3:19; Acts 7:53; Revelation 7:1; Genesis 19:13; 2 Kings 19:35; 2 Samuel 24:15; Matthew 28:2; Revelation 8:1; Revelation 9:1; Revelation 16:1). Thus, whenever we look abroad, we are reminded of those most gracious and holy beings, the servants of the Holiest, who deign to minister to the heirs of salvation. Every breath of air and ray of light and heat, every beautiful prospect, is, as it were, the skirts of their garments, the waving of the robes of those whose faces see God in heaven. And I put it to any one, whether it is not as philosophical, and as full of intellectual enjoyment, to refer the movements of the natural world to them, as to attempt to explain them by certain theories of science, useful as these theories certainly are for particular purposes, and capable (in subordination to that higher view) of a religious application.

2. Vain man would be wise, and he curiously examines the works of Nature, as if they were lifeless and senseless; as if he alone had intelligence, and they were base inert matter, however curiously contrived at the first. So he goes on, tracing the order of things, seeking for causes in that order, giving names to the wonders he meets with, and thinking he understands what he has given a name to. At length he forms a theory, and recommends it in writing, and calls himself a philosopher. Now, all these theories of science, which I speak of, are useful, as classifying, and so assisting us to recollect, the works and ways of God and of His ministering angels. And again, they are ever most useful, in enabling us to apply the course of His providence, and the ordinances of His will, to the benefit of man. Thus we are enabled to enjoy God’s gifts; and let us thank Him for the knowledge which enables us to do so, and honour those who are His instruments in communicating it. When then we walk abroad, and “meditate in the field at the eventide,” how much has every herb and flower in it to surprise and overwhelm us! For, even did we know as much about them as the wisest of men, yet there are those around us, though unseen, to whom our greatest knowledge is as ignorance; and, when we converse on subjects of nature scientifically, repeating the names of plants and earths, and describing their properties, we should do so religiously, as in the hearing of the great servants of God, with the sort of diffidence which we always feel when speaking before the learned and wise of our own mortal race, as poor beginners in intellectual knowledge, as well as in moral attainments.

3. Lastly, it is a motive to our exertions in doing the will of God, to think that, if we attain to heaven, we shall become the fellows of the blessed angels. Indeed, what do we know of the courts of heaven, but as peopled by them? and therefore doubtless they are revealed to us, that we may have something to fix our thoughts on, when we look heavenwards. (J. H. Newman, B.D.)

Spiritual ministries

The author of this psalm is deeply impressed with the manifestation of God’s presence in nature. Everything reminds him of God. And the wonderful fact about his language is, that it not only conceives of material things in spiritual phraseology, but that it ascends higher than this, and describes spiritual things in the wording of material symbols.

I. The truest ministries in God’s service are the spiritual ones. We, in our earthliness and sense-satisfied lives, wrapped about continually with the demands of the flesh, crave creaturely ministries; we want prosperity, success, and pleasure; we want material food, and physical delights, and social honour; we run after the trumpet-blare of fame, and bite at the dangling hook of influence and power. And who can wonder, when nerves and brain, and soul itself, are all enwrapped in matter, so that the touch of the senses is over all that we do? Yet right in the face of all this material and creaturely drift of our natures, we need to hear these far-off words of inspiration and command, “He maketh His angels spirits.” Who does not know and feel the power and the truthfulness of this thought?

II. God’s truest servants are those whose characters are an inspiration to others. This it is which gives to history its interest and its highest meaning; it is the charm which always comes from bringing forward new men and new issues to take the place of worn-out men and times. This touch of God’s inspiration is like a new incarnation of Divine power in every strong, brave, true life. Then we feel that we can conquer, because others have conquered; then we feel that we, too, can rise above self and those miserable infirmities of our existence which seem, at times, to hedge our lives into a land-locked inland sea of mediocrity of living, simply because others have threaded their way through similar narrow places, and have escaped from their moral captivity altogether. This is what makes a good piece of honest biography such attractive reading: we get bird’s-eye views of this common life of ours; we get an insight into the secret working of causes which have their home in the souls of us all. (W. W. Newton.)

Ardency required of ministers

It is true that a man may hold out a light to others who himself does not see it. It is true that, as a concave speculum cut from a block of ice, by its power of concentrating the rays of the sun, may kindle touchwood or explode gunpowder, so a preacher may set others on fire, when his own heart is cold as frost. It is true that he may stand like a lifeless finger-post, pointing the way along the road where he neither leads nor follows. It is true that God in His sovereign mercy may thus bless others by one who is himself unblessed. Yet commonly it happens, that it is that which proceeds from the heart of preachers that penetrates and affects the hearts of hearers, like a ball red-hot from the cannon’s mouth, he must burn himself who would set others on fire. (T. Guthrie, D.D.)